“Am I a cowboy now?” Charlie asked.

Ash ruffled the kid’s hair, then pushed off the bed. “You’re a novice cowboy. How’s that?”

“That means beginner?”

“Right. Smart boy.”

“Sometimes I’m not.” He ducked his head.

“Well, that’s why you’re seven. You still have a lot of growing to do.”

“Mom says so, too.”

“I’d listen to your mom.”

“And you.” The boy’s smile healed a spot in Ash’s heart.

“On this ranch, that’s a given. Your mom in her room?”

“Uh-uh. She’s right behind you.”

Ash struggled around. Rachel leaned in the doorway, hands tucked under her arms. Defensive and a little wary. He’d done that. Kissing her had not been clever. But he couldn’t stay away. One look from those blue cat eyes, one word from that expressive mouth, and he was as lost as her son was with his boots on the wrong feet….

Dear Reader,

As a child growing up on a large farm, I adored the freedom country life grants—its wonderful clear-lined skies, the big-mooned harvest nights, and winter days cold enough to make your cheeks ache. And in the midst of this pristine beauty were the animals: horses, cows, dogs, cats—creatures with personalities all their own.

We always had a herd of horses running in the pasture and, throughout the summer, cattle grazing on leased land. Each season brought about specific events. February and March meant calving season and watchful nights. Summer meant haying. And fall signified harvest and the time to “bring the cows home” again. Winter, of course, lent to slower and colder days, but certainly not without chores!

Is it any wonder that a story about a cowboy would evolve in my mind?

While Ash and Rachel and the journey they undertake are entirely fictional, the magic of hearing coyotes yap deep in the night and feeling the sting of winter winds against the skin are experiences of the heart.

May you enjoy this tale about a stoic rancher from Montana and the woman who breaks past the fences he’s erected around his life.

Mary J. Forbes

The Man from Montana

Mary J. Forbes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARY J. FORBES

grew up on a farm amidst horses, cattle, crisp hay and broad blue skies. As a child, she drew and wrote of her surroundings, and in sixth grade composed her first story about a little lame pony. Years later, she worked as an accountant, then as a reporter-photographer for a small-town newspaper, before attaining an honors degree in education to become a teacher. She has also written and published short fiction stories.

A romantic by nature, Mary loves walking along the ocean shoreline, sitting by the fire on snowy or rainy evenings and two-stepping around the dance floor to a good country song—all with her own real-life hero, of course. Mary would love to hear from her readers at www.maryjforbes.com.

To my editor, Stacy Boyd—

for believing in me

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

She could smell the story. Feel it in her veins.

A hot, pulsing thing that would procure the career she’d vied for these past ten years.

Will you finally be proud, Daddy? Will you think my journalistic skills are comparable to Mama’s?

God, she hoped so.

At the crossroads Old Joe the baker had described, Rachel Brant stopped her rusty Sunburst and scanned the three desolate directions vanishing into the rolling Montana countryside: ahead toward the south, left going east, right westward-ho. Each road as long and gray as the next. Each banked in dirty plowed snow and flanked by fields covered in icy white quilts.

The Flying Bar T lay west, toward the Rocky Mountains.

Carefully, she picked up the curled, yellowed photograph on the passenger seat. Tom McKee in army green with his Vietnam platoon, a giant man dependent on a wheelchair since 1970. Tom, Purple Heart recipient, had lost his legs and left arm saving the ragtag remainder of his men from Hells Field. A battle that had been swept under the military’s carpet for over three decades. She wanted to beat the dust from that carpet, make her dad proud.

But according to the locals, Tom rarely came into town. His son was the McKee they knew. Midthirties and widowed, Ashford McKee ran the Flying Bar T and guarded his family’s privacy like a jackal on a fresh kill.

Ash. The man she had to get through to get to Tom. They said he resembled his father. Tall as a pine, silent as a forest.

And keeper of the Flying Bar T gates.

Tossing down the photograph, Rachel took a slow breath. We’ll see.

Stepping on the accelerator, she headed for the snowy peaks shimmering with sunlight, for the pine and forest man.

She would get her story, come hell or Ash McKee.

Beyond the fence lines, fields undulated over hill and knoll and into gullies. “I hope you’re worth it, Sergeant Tom,” she muttered. “I hope you’re worth every shivering second Charlie and I have had to endure in this backwater hole.”

Ten days she and her seven-year-old son had been in Sweet Creek, Montana. Ten days in this godforsaken land of snow and bone-freezing temperatures. And in this final week of January, with spring still a couple months away, the warmth of her previous job in Arizona was a frosty memory.

But all would be worthwhile if she got this story. Tom would be the last of seven vets she had interviewed over the years, Sweet Creek the conclusion to the no-name towns she and her little boy would have to pretend was home.

Was it too much to hope Tom McKee would rent out his guesthouse as Old Joe said? Maybe. She had been living on hopes and wishes for years; might as well add one more.

In a fenced pasture, she saw cows huddling around piles of hay on the frozen ground, while long-haired horses munched from bins in lean-to shelters. Evidently, the sunlight belied the eight below temperature.

She turned onto the last stretch of road and saw a dark, writhing mass a quarter mile in the distance. Soon, the mass became a herd of Black Angus flanked by a pair of horses with riders: a man wearing a quilted navy coat and a deep brown Stetson, and a young woman bundled in a red parka and wool hat. Two black-and-white border collies swept back and forth across the road, instinctively herding any animal selecting a different direction.

Rachel pulled behind the riders and tooted her horn; the herd’s stragglers broke into a trot, tails aloft.

The man scowled at her car. The woman—no, teenager—smiled. Rachel recognized the girl from their meet last Monday. Eager to write a weekly high school column for the Rocky Times, Daisy McKee had come to the newspaper during the girl’s forty-minute lunch break. A few words about her proposed column and she was out the door, rushing back to school.

A nice kid and Ashford McKee’s daughter.

Rachel looked back at the man astride a mammoth horse the color of dense fog. Ash McKee. Big and commanding as the far-reaching, pristine landscape on which he lived. Four days after her arrival, she had noticed him at the feed and seed, intent on getting whatever it was he was buying into the bed of his truck.

Darby at the coffee shop had pointed him out. A coup for Rachel, who, as a reporter, needed to know her town, and right now Sweet Creek was that town. Most essentially, she needed to ferret out details about the McKees; they were her reason for securing the position at the Rocky Times, a twenty-page weekly aptly named during the Depression Years, and now reaching conservative ruralists throughout Park County.

The herd trotted toward the ranch’s wide-spanning iron gates, neither McKee nor Daisy making an effort to move the cattle aside. Rachel rolled down the window. “Excuse me,” she called to the man.

He whistled between his teeth at one of the dogs.

“Excuse me,” she called again. “Mr. McKee? Could I get by?”

Cold, dark eyes turned her way. “Can you wait? We’re a hundred yards from the pasture gate.”

Yes, she could wait. If he’d ask nicely.

“I’m looking for Tom McKee,” she said to the broad rump and ground-reaching charcoal tail of his horse. “Would you know if he’s home?”

The man reined the beast around on its hind legs, its tail swinging like a banner on a battle field. Two leaps and the animal danced beside her car.

“Who wants to know?” McKee demanded.

He was cowboy through and through, down to the scuffed, worn brown boots he wore. She shivered. A modern-day Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. All he needed was the six-shooter.

“Rachel Brant. I’d like to talk to him.”

The horse was magnificently male and powerful, crowding her spot on the road. Safety inside her vehicle seemed trivial in lieu of those commanding legs, that mighty chest. And she wasn’t just thinking of the horse.

“What about?” McKee snapped.

“That would be between me and Mr. Tom McKee, sir,” she said, her tone friendly but firm.

“Not when it comes to reporters.”

Surprise struck. “How did—” Had he recognized her in Sweet Creek on a given moment, watched her as she’d watched him?

“Entire town knows,” he said, reading her perplexity.

Of course. She’d experienced enough of small-town America to know how the grapevine worked with six-hundred-and-ninety-two souls. New face arrives, phone lines hum, coffee klatchers drain buckets of dark roast—and tongues waggle.

From her position in the car, she had a clear view under his low-brimmed Stetson. Down a smooth, elegant nose the man’s aloof eyes bored into hers.

Perhaps if she got out of the car.

She looked at the powerhouse horse shifting its lethal hooves. Come on, Rachel. You’ve dealt with difficult situations all your life.

Opening the door, she climbed out. The wind blew her short hair into her eyes, flapped her coat hem around her tall boots. The scent of horse, cow and leather rivered across her nose.

McKee’s willful jaw was dark with overnight stubble. His scowl deepened. “Go report somewhere else, Ms. Brant. You’re not welcome here.”

Beneath its rider the huge stallion pranced, the saddle creaking with the man’s weight, the animal’s energy. Frothy clouds gusted from red nostrils and long white teeth champed the bit. Headgear metal jingled. A knight’s horse. A rogue knight’s horse.

Along with her fanciful imagination a thrill traced Rachel’s skin. “I’ll let Tom make that decision.”

“His decision’s no different than mine.”

She clutched the panels of her coat. “According to you, maybe. But I’d like to hear him say it.”

“Tom doesn’t like reporters.”

No, you don’t like reporters. So she had heard in town. Could she blame him? She knew about his wife dying in a car accident five years ago. A reporter chasing a mad-cow story in the community. A Rocky Times reporter. Driving too hard, too fast, taking a curve like the reckless kid he was. The impact had killed McKee’s wife instantly. The reporter walked away.

McKee’s eyes were tough, remote and held her in a vice.

Hugging herself against the cold, she looked up at him, a man of dominion in an expanse of blue. Somehow, she had to win over this warden of the Flying Bar T.

“Please. I’m looking for a temporary place to live until I can find something in town. I understand your ranch has a guesthouse for rent. I’m willing to pay summer rates.” Anything to get Charlie out of that seedy Dream On Motel.

McKee leaned forward, arm on the saddle horn, and her skin flushed under his stern survey of her body. “The cottage is closed,” he said, then slowly straightened in the saddle. Under him, the big horse spot-danced like a Lipizzan, its mane swaying a foot below its neck while McKee controlled the reins with one large, gloved hand.

Rachel kept her stance, swallowed hard. Instinctively, she knew he would not let the animal step on her. Squinting into the bright Montana sky, she offered, “I’ll pay peak season rates.” For the story, but mostly for Charlie. Two birds with one stone.

McKee studied the herd trotting ahead of them; several cows lowed. The Stetson’s brim shadowed his eyes, and that obscurity sent a tingle across her arms.

“Go back where you came from, Ms. Brant.” His voice was low and without mercy. Spurring his mount forward, he left her staring after the cattle now rushing through the pasture’s gates.

An animal broke free and the black-and-white dogs darted out, piloting it back to the herd in seconds. Daisy jumped from her chocolate-colored horse—half the size of the gray—to close the gate. When her eyes caught Rachel’s across fifty feet of road, she sent a two-fingered wave, then climbed into the saddle before following McKee to the barns.

Go back where you came from.

He hadn’t meant Sweet Creek.

Ash led Northwind, his prize Andalusian stallion, into the big box stall at the rear of the horse stable.

She had nerve, that woman.

Last time newshounds swarmed the ranch was five years ago, chasing that goddamn stupid mad-cow story. A bunch of bull that cost Susie her life.

But this one didn’t want a story, just a roof over her pretty head.

Pretty. No damn way would he think a hack pretty.

Except she was. That bob of hair the color of his mother’s antique cherrywood sideboard, those eyes that tilted slightly at the outer corners. Cat eyes in Siamese-blue.

They always sent the pretty ones on a story hunt.

Did you not hear what she said? She wants to rent a room.

Right. That he would believe in another life.

He yanked the saddle off Northwind hard enough to make the horse sidestep. “Easy, boy. Don’t mean to take it out on you.” Hauling the gear into the tack room across the corridor, Ash clamped his teeth. Yeah, that was all he needed, a word wizard living on his ranch. A word wizard with media broadcasting power. And her power—if she chose to use it—could be a thousand times worse than the taunts and gossip he’d endured in school.

Well, dammit, this ranch was his life, and though he held its paperwork together through the eyes and smarts of his family—they paid the bills, did the ordering, worked e-mail and the Net—those bills and orders came through his direction, his guidance, his knowledge of the land and the animals. Still, the fact he wasn’t college educated sat like chain mail on his shoulders.

And while he couldn’t put the onus of that fact on the head of a woman he had met for three minutes, newsperson or not, neither could he trust her.

His family had seen its share of run-ins with the Rocky Times. The year Ash turned sixteen, Shaw Hanson, Senior, had sent his team to the Flying Bar T after Tom was accused of not feeding his stock properly due to his disability.

Ash snorted. All of it drivel. Still, the newshounds had fed like a wolf pack on the ASPCA’s investigation. Yet, to this day the person or persons who’d pointed the finger at Tom remained a mystery.

And then there was Susie’s death….

The memory twisted a knot in Ash’s gut. Now a Rocky Times reporter wanted to rent the little cottage she’d designed and he’d built? Never.

“Dad?”

He turned from retrieving a currycomb off the tack room wall to his fifteen-year-old daughter standing in the doorway. A sprite like her mother with big green eyes, a mop of long red curls. But strong enough to lift the saddle she carried to a loop hanging from the ceiling rafters.

His heart bumped. “Hey, Daiz. Need some fresh bedding for Areo?”

“Already did that this morning.”

He crossed the room and wove the loop into the hole on the pommel and around the horn.

“Thanks.” She tossed the blanket over a wooden drying rack in a corner. “What did Mi—that woman want?”

“Nothing important.”

Daisy reached for a second currycomb. “You chased her off.”

“She works for the Times.” And that should explain it. He went into Northwind’s stall. “You know how I feel about them.” About Shaw Hanson, Junior, and his crew of sleazy reporters.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I know.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Her expression sent a shaft of pain across his chest. She still missed her mother, missed their girl chats, Susie’s laughter, her hugs. Hell, he missed those hugs. He combed Northwind’s powerful withers. “I won’t let her hurt you, honey. And I won’t let her come near your grandpa.” Or this ranch.

“Oh, Dad.” She sighed and turned into the corridor.

What the hell?

“Daisy?” He peered around the door as she disappeared into Areo’s stall. For a moment, he stood wondering if he’d heard right. Her voice had held resignation, not sorrow. Had he disappointed her by chasing off that journalist? He shook his head. No. She knew how their family felt about the Hansons and their editorial finesse. It had to be something else. Well, she’d tell him in time.

Back in Northwind’s stall, he brushed down the big dapple-gray stallion, then filled his water bucket and manger. As Ash finished, Daisy exited Areo’s stall. “All done, pint?” He strode down the aisle toward his daughter. The dogs, Jinx and Pedro, trotted ahead.

“Yep.”

“All right. Let’s see what Grandpa’s got for lunch.”

They headed from the warmth of the barn into clear cold air. Hoof and boot prints pockmarked last night’s snow. Ash slowed his stride for his daughter. They walked in silence toward the two-story yellow Craftsman house that Tom’s great-grandfather, an immigrant from Ireland, had built in 1912.

Ash set a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Good thing your teachers had that in-service today. Don’t know if I could’ve moved those steers without you.”

“Oh, Dad. You and Ethan do it all the time when I’m at school.”

Ethan Red Wolf, their foreman. A good man. “You know Wednesday is Eth’s day off. Anyway, things go ten times faster with you helping.”

“You always say that.”

“And I mean it.”

A grunt. “What did the reporter want?”

Back to that. His pixie-girl, forever the little dog with an old shoe when she focused on some particular subject. While her tenacity baffled the heck out of him at times, he was damned proud when she brought home her straight-A report card. “She wanted to talk to Grandpa about renting the guest cottage.”

“Are you gonna let her?”

“No.”

“Why not? We could use the money.”

He rubbed Daisy’s shoulder. “We’re not so hard up, honey, that we need to rent to a reporter.” Never mind that the woman in question had him thinking about things he hadn’t thought of in a long time. Like how pretty a female could be and how feminine her voice sounded on the cold morning air—even though she pushed with her words.

“Got any homework that needs doing?” he asked, veering off the thought of Rachel Brant and her attributes.

“Some social studies and English.”

The thought of Shakespeare and essays had him sweating. “Better get at it after lunch.”

“I need Grandpa’s help. We’re doing this project in socials.” A small sigh. “I have to ask him some questions.”

“What kind of project?” They walked up the wheelchair ramp to the mudroom door at the side of the house. Tom was good at English, good at reading and writing. If his blood had run in Ash’s veins maybe—

“We’re supposed to pretend we’re journalists.” Shrugging off her coat, Daisy trudged into the mudroom ahead of Ash. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “And…and we’re supposed to interview a veteran, so I was thinking of asking Grandpa.”

Speak of the devil. First a real reporter and now a make-believe one in the guise of his daughter. No wonder he had hated school. Teachers were always pushing kids into role-playing and projects, pretending they were real life. Just last week, John Reynolds’s eleventh grader brought home an egg and said it was a baby. Ash snorted. What the hell was the world coming to anyway? Eggs as babies? Kids playing war correspondents?

Ash closed the door, hooked the heel of his left boot on a jack. “You know Gramps won’t talk, Daiz.”

Holding back her long, thick hair, Daisy removed her own boots. “Well, dammit, maybe it’s time, y’know?”

Ash glowered down at his child. “Watch your language, girl.”

A tolerant sigh. “Dad, it’s been, like, thirty-six years. Why won’t Grandpa talk about his tours? I mean, jeez. It’s not like they happened yesterday. He even got the Purple Heart.” Frustrated, she kicked her boots onto the mat with a “Get over it already” and flounced into the kitchen.

Ash watched her go. They had been over this subject two dozen times in the past three years, the instant she reached puberty. She wanted to know episodes of her heritage, about her mother, about him, about Tom.

Ash had no intention of talking about Susie or her death. Too damn painful, that topic. What if he accidentally let out the truth, that his wife was as much to blame for the accident as that two-bit journalist?

He shook his head. No, he couldn’t chance it. Hell, thinking about it gave him hives.

Maybe one day he would tell Daisy, but not during her “hormone phase,” as Tom put it.

As for Tom…Vietnam was the old man’s business.

Ash entered the quaint country kitchen. “Hey, Pops.”

His stepfather, bound to a wheelchair for three-and-a-half decades, swung around the island, a loaf of multigrain bread in his lap. “Daisy in a mood?” On the counter lay an array of butter, cheese, tomatoes and ham slices ready for Tom’s specialty: grilled sandwiches.

Ash walked to the sink to wash his hands. “In a mood” was the old man’s reference to Daisy’s monthlies. “She’s upset about a couple things, yeah.”

“What things?”

“Wants us to rent out the cottage to a reporter.”

Tom snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

“New one hired on with the Times. Drove out here this morning while we were moving the yearlings.”

“You tell him we’re not interested?” The chair whined behind Ash. In his mind’s eye, he saw his stepfather pressing a lever, raising the seat so he could maneuver his stump legs into the open slot Ash had constructed under the counter years ago.

“Not him. Her.” A sassy-mouthed woman with big eyes.

“Her?”

Ash leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. The reporter splashing the ASPCA story across the front of the Rocky Times twenty years ago had been a woman and Hanson Senior’s wife.

Tom slapped cheese and ham onto a slice of bread, cut the tomatoes deftly with his right hand.

“What’d you tell this reporter?”

“That she’s not welcome.” He glanced toward the stairs, warned, “Daiz sees it differently. Figures we need the money.”

“Huh.” Right hand and left prosthesis worked in sync over the sandwiches. “What’s her name?”

“Rachel Brant.”

Silence. Then, “Brant, huh?” More slicing and buttering. “Suppose we could use the extra cash.”

Ash straightened. “You crazy?”

Tom shrugged. “Why not? Place is sitting empty. Might as well burn it down if we ain’t gonna use it. Besides, with calving season starting, Inez’ll be feeding extra hands over the next couple months.”

Inez, their housekeeper and Tom’s caretaker, was in Sweet Creek at the moment, buying two weeks’ worth of groceries. “We’ll get by,” Ash grumbled. “We always do.” He did not need the Brant woman here, within walking distance, within sight. She was a journalist and he would bet a nosy one, prying until she got a barrel of tidbits to create a stir with her words. “Stories,” they called those reports. He knew why. More fiction than fact.

And with her working at the Times, talking to publisher–owner Shaw Hanson Jr…. Hell, Hanson probably sent her to the Flying Bar T as a dig on the McKees. After all, Ash had gone after Hanson for sending Marty Philips to sniff out that mad-cow scare. Two days following Susie’s death because of that cocky young kid, Ash walked into the newspaper and kicked ass.

And where did that get you, Ash?

Tossed in the hoosegow for three days.

Tom buttered six additional slices, cut another two tomatoes, assembling enough for a soup kitchen. “You said Daisy was in a snit over a couple things. What’s the other thing?”

“Social studies project.”

Across the counter, his stepfather eyed Ash under a line of bushy gray brows. “You wanted it done yesterday.”

“No. I don’t want her bugging you.”

That narrowed Tom’s eyes. “Me?”

“She’s supposed to interview a vet for war facts.”

“Huh. Don’t they have textbooks for that?”

“They do, but this time the kids are supposed to get it from the horse’s mouth. So to speak.”

“Well, this old horse ain’t talking.” The chair hummed as Tom wheeled around to the range. “Same reason you don’t talk about Susie,” he muttered.

Same reason? Hell, there were things Ash would never share with his family. Like the day he’d buried Susie. How he’d gone back at dusk and sat where he’d put her ashes and cried until he puked. How he pounded his fists against the sun-dried earth, cussing that she’d known better than to drive after drinking, a fact he found out from the coroner four days later.

Alcohol at three in the afternoon.

Alcohol affecting her competence.

No seat belt. Busted windshield. Busted brain.

God help him, but Susie’s disregard was his secret. Not Tom’s, and never, never Daisy’s.

His pain. His business. Like Tom with Nam.

Ash pushed away from the counter. Patting the old man’s shoulder, he said, “I’ll tell Daiz to wash up.”

At her computer in the cramped newsroom of the Rocky Times, Rachel put her face into her hands and took a long, deep breath. Yesterday she had gone about it wrong, driving out to the Flying Bar T, trying to get past Ash McKee and his warhorse.

God, when she thought of the rancher and that animal… They exuded a beauty and authority that kept her enthralled for twenty-four hours. McKee’s pole-erect back, his muscular thighs controlling the animal whose charcoal forelock shrouded its eyes. The man himself blocking the sunlit sky with his mountain-wide shoulders, his Stetson.

She rose and went to the window beside her desk, drew up the dusty blinds, welcoming the sunlight. Shaw had swept the sidewalk clear of snow. On this last day of January, the sky promoted a bank of gray snow clouds to the north, which meant that before midnight February would be whistling its way over the landscape.

Several pickups drove down Cardinal Avenue, their wheels churning the previous night’s snowfall into a crusted brown blend. Across the street, a two-tone green crew-cab angle-parked in front of Toole’s Ranch Supplies.

Ash McKee stepped down into the crystalized mush. As he closed the door of his vehicle, his gaze collided with hers across the street. Rachel drew a sharp breath. Again, she saw him on that sweat-flanked horse, smelled the steamy hide of animal, the leather of the saddle as the rancher leaned down toward her….

He turned and disappeared inside Toole’s.

Ash. Here in town. Tom, alone on the ranch.

Rachel snatched up the phone on her desk. In the face of what she wanted, Ash McKee was a massive problem. Local lore, gleaned at Old Joe’s Bakery and Darby’s coffee shop down the street, said he was not a man to take lightly. And when did that stop you, Rachel? You’ve met men far more daunting than this one. Case in point, your father and Floyd Stephens.

This was her chance. Phone Tom while his son was twenty miles away, talk to the old soldier about the guesthouse first, give him a reason to speak with her. Later, she could bring up the story.

“At all costs, get the story.” Her father’s mantra.

Nerves and guilt lifted the hair on her nape. Don’t think. Do. Her fingers shook, but she punched the number without stumbling. At the other end the phone rang twice, three times, six times.

“Come on, pick up or at least get an answering machine.”

Eight rings… “’Lo.”

“Mr. McKee?”

“Yeah?”

“My name is Rachel Brant.” She glanced toward the window. No Ash. “I was out your way yesterday to see you, but—” she couldn’t stop the edgy chuckle “—your cattle were in the way, so I wasn’t able to—”

“You the reporter?”

“I, uh—yes, that’s right. I work at the Rocky Times.”

Silence.

“I’d like to talk to you, sir, if you have a moment.”

“You’re looking to rent the cottage.”

So Ash had relayed the information. “If possible.”

“Ain’t my deal. It’s Ash’s. Convince him and you’ll have a place to hang your hat.”

“I thought you owned the ranch.”

“I do. But the cottage is his venture.”

“Actually, I’d like to talk to you, too.”

“Like I said the cottage is—”

“I know, Ash’s business. But I’d like to talk to you about something else.”

Pause. “This got to do with some damned story?”

“In a way, yes, it does. I—”

Dial tone. He’d hung up. Damn. Now what? Should she phone back? Go out anyway while Ash was in town? No, she couldn’t trust how long he’d be. The last thing she needed was to get caught out in the boonies with a fire-breathing dragon on her heels.

She should have left it with renting the guesthouse, waited until she was out there to talk to Tom face-to-face.

She sat and fumed at her desk. Almost two weeks of planning gone down the drain. Two weeks of schmoozing with the townsfolk, getting to know them on a first-name basis, cracking smiles she didn’t feel, pushing her little boy into yet another school with strange kids. Living in a moth-eaten motel.

All for what? Fame and glory?

So her father—an editor with the Washington Post—would recognize she was as capable of meritorious reporting as her mother had been? Qualified to make the big leagues, to one day write her way to a possible Pulitzer?

Worth loving just a little?

The thought left a barb. Bill Brant had loved no one but his long-dead wife, Grace. Times like these, Rachel wished, wished her mother still lived. But she had died of cancer twenty-four years ago, on Rachel’s eighth birthday. A day branded in her mind. Not only had she lost her mother forever, but her daddy had set the blame at his daughter’s feet. Stupid, Rachel knew. But still.

She had to try. Had to. For her own sake as well as her father’s.

But, oh, she was tired. Of the lying, the pushing, the shoving. Of living in seven different backwater towns in seven states, soliciting local newspapers for a job—just so she could have the time to gain the trust of their wary resident Hells Field veteran. God, what she wouldn’t give to find her own niche and have Bill Brant be happy for her. Just once.

“You don’t give up, do you?”

She jerked around. Ashford McKee stood five feet away, big and tough as the land he owned. A pine and forest man.

Hands buried in a sheepskin jacket, Stetson pulled low as always, he stared down at her with dark, unfriendly eyes. Slowly he removed a cell phone from his pocket and lifted one smooth black brow. “We McKee’s keep in touch.”

She should have known. A fly speck couldn’t get past him without that speck becoming a mountain.

Rachel rose. At five-ten, she was no slouch, but beside him she felt gnome short. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but as I mentioned yesterday my issue is with your father—who I understand owns the Flying Bar T?”

Annoyance flickered in those dark eyes, then vanished. “Issue? The only issue I see here is you—harassing my family.”

“Making one phone call is hardly harassment, Mr. McKee.”

He studied her a moment with eyes that might have offered warmth because of their clear-tea color. Not today. Today they were frozen as the earth outside. “What do you want with him?”

“To ask about the guesthouse.” She pinched back her guilt at the omission of the story.

“And he told you to talk to me. What else?”

On a sustaining breath, she said, “I’m writing a freelance series about Vietnam’s Hells Field.” She let that settle. His eyes remained steady, unreadable. She pressed on, “I’ve been working on the story for several years. Your father is the last of seven surviving veterans and the key to the series. I’d like—” she swallowed when McKee’s eyes narrowed “—a chance to talk to him. Please.”

“Why? There’ve been three decades and two wars in the interim.”

“Because in an already controversial war, Hells Field was a battle that was undisclosed.”

His pupils pinpricked. He understood. A battle fought, facts swept by the wayside, one soldier the fall guy.

“Leave him alone, Ms. Brant.”

“I can’t. At least not until he tells me no.”

McKee stepped into her space. Crowding her. She smelled his skin and the soap he’d washed with this morning. And hay, a whiff of hay. “We don’t need old war wounds opened. Go back to reporting the weekly news.”

“Look,” she said, desperate. “You can read what I’ve written about the other vets so far. I’m a good reporter.”

His jaw remained inflexible. “Tom doesn’t want you hanging around him any more than I do.”

Except, the heat in those dark eyes when they settled on her mouth indicated differently. A zing shot through her belly.

“I understand,” she said slowly. And she did. Newspeople were too often an unwelcome lot. “You don’t like reporters.”

She turned back to her desk. Dismissing him, dismissing the entire conversation, her entire mission. God, why was she so needy when it came to pleasing her dad—oh, face it—when it came to men in general? Men like foreign correspondent Floyd Stephens, pontificating how a kid—his son!—would dump her career in the toilet. Men, valuing her according to some parameter.

Rats, all of them. Shuffling several pages of notes, she muttered, “If I had somewhere else to go I would.”

Which was, in itself, a paradox. If it hadn’t been for her need to make her father proud, to prove to him—and all men for that matter, maybe even to herself—that she was a capable and creditable career woman, she would not be in these sticks.

She would not be begging Ash McKee to understand.

A movement from behind reeled her around. He still stood by her cubicle.

“I thought you’d left,” she said, vexed. Why didn’t he just go?

Under the hat, his tea eyes were pekoe dark. “Where are you staying?”

A tiny hope-flame. “The Dream On Motel.” She thought of Charlie sleeping in that dingy room, the lumpy bed, inhaling smoke-stagnated air into his young lungs. When it came right down to it, his welfare was more important than any story. God, she should just get out of this town and go back to Arizona. At least there it was warm and Charlie had a little friend.

She pushed a wing of hair behind her ear. “I have a child, Mr. McKee. A boy. That’s why I need a place. Somewhere clean and—and welcoming. I know,” she rushed on, “you said I’m not welcome on the Flying Bar T, but you won’t know I’m there. I won’t come near your house without permission. And if your father doesn’t want the interview, that’s fine. Scout’s honor.”

She hated pleading with him, this man with his invisible iron wall surrounding his people.

“How old is he?”

“My son? Seven.”

Again, those unyielding eyes. “I’ll talk to Tom.”

She couldn’t help sagging against her desk. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You won’t be sorry.”

He didn’t answer. Simply looked at her. Into her. Through her. Then turned and strode from the newsroom, out the squeaky door, into the street.

Chapter Two

Ash jaywalked to his truck. A light snow had begun to fall again, fat flakes that caught on his hat and shoulders.

What the hell happened back there in that newspaper office?

How could he even consider renting the cottage to her? She with the fine-boned cheeks that he damn near touched when she looked up at him with those cat eyes.

He climbed into the pickup, backed from the parking slot and drove out of town.

Of course, the kid had done it. Picturing her boy—with her July-blue eyes and burnt-brown hair, probably minus a front tooth—in that dump of a motel where Ash had sown his oats at eighteen, splintered the stone around his heart.

Why hadn’t she told him about the boy before? Was she using him to get closer to Tom? No, her eyes when she mentioned the boy’s name said different.

She loved her kid. The way he loved Daisy.

Shoving a hand through his hair, Ash sighed. Sucker, that’s what he was. Sucker for kids with sad stories.

He’d been one himself once. He and his sister, Meggie, living in that ramshackle house on the edge of town, their mom trying to put bread on the table and decent clothes on their backs. Until Tom entered their lives. Tom, changing lives with the Flying Bar T.

Ash had to give Rachel credit. She’d woven herself right under his skin in five blasted minutes, persuaded him to let her rent Susie’s cottage. Oh, the bit about talking to Tom was only a formality. He knew it, she knew it.

Hell. Here he was, managing nine hundred head of Black Angus and fifty-five hundred acres of land and he’d been bamboozled by a woman—and a seven-year-old kid he had yet to meet.

She’d been daydreaming about him striding across the street with snow on his big shoulders when her desk phone rang the next morning.

“Rachel?” His voice rumbled in her ear.

Her breath stopped. The way he said her name… “Yes?”

“You want to look at the cottage, it’ll be open Sunday.”

In two days. “Thank you for letting me know, Ash.”

“Welcome. What time?”

A civil conversation. “Can I come in the morning, say, ten?”

“See you then.” The phone clicked.

For the first time in forty-eight hours, she smiled. McKee hang-ups were becoming a tradition.

At nine-thirty on Sunday, she drove out with Charlie strapped into the backseat and hope in her heart. Snow continued to fall in intervals, spit flakes on a brisk, cold wind the wipers scraped up in narrow, inch-high drifts on each side of the windshield.

Ahead, the road lay in stainless splendor while behind, the car left a single pair of tracks. Beyond the barbed wire fences, field and hill faded to a duvet of white.

She’d be seeing him again. Ash McKee. You’re not there for him, Rachel. It’s the guesthouse, remember? And Tom.

Still, her heart quickened. She had to admit Ash was an attractive man—in a cowboy sort of way.

“Are we there yet?” Charlie fisted fog off his window.

“Five minutes, honey bun. After the turn ahead, we’ll be there.”

He sat straighter, trying to peer over the passenger seat, his eyes round blue discs behind his glasses. “I can’t see.”

“Trust me, it isn’t far. Warm enough back there?”

“Uh-huh.” He settled back and began vrooming his red Hot Wheels Corvette across his little thighs. The car had been one of her presents on his sixth birthday and his favorite, it seemed. Rarely did the toy escape his sight. Her little man, no different than most little boys his age and no different than an adult male salivating over the real machine.

You lost out, Floyd. You lost out when you walked away from our baby.

“Are we going to be living on a ranch with horses and cows and stuff?” Charlie asked.

“If Mr. McKee will rent his guesthouse to us.”

“I don’t like living in that motel. It stinks.”

“Can’t agree with you more, champ. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Mr. Ash will say yes.”

More vrooming. “Is he the guy for your soldier story?”

She glanced into the rearview mirror. “His daddy is. Which might cause a problem when it comes to renting from him.”

“Why?”

“Because Mr. Tom might not want me on his property when he finds out I also want to interview him.”

Another quarter mile passed. Charlie vroomed, then said, “Maybe he has nightmares about wars like Grandpa.”

Her jaw fell. “How do you know that?” Bill Brant would die before he admitted any weakness to his daughter.

“Sometimes he sleeps in the chair. Y’know that one that goes back like a bed? And once he started hollering about killing somebody. I think the guy had a gun.”

“That doesn’t mean he was dreaming about war, Charlie. Sometimes people dream about violence.”

“I asked him when he got awake. I asked him what a gook was.”

She cringed at the ancient epithet. “Son, that’s a very unkind word. Did Grandpa explain it to you?” Unbelievable.

“Well, kinda. And then he said I shouldn’t make up stories.”

She squinted into the mirror. “Were you?”

A hard head shake. “Grandpa was snoring, then he started yelling. And making faces like he was hurt or something.”

She kept her hands steady on the wheel. “When was that?”

“Last time we went to visit in the summer.”

Last August. They’d traveled to the coast of Maryland and stayed in the vacation cottage her father purchased fifteen years ago. Rachel loved the ocean—its smells and sounds, how the salt breeze tasted.

“Is that the only time he talked in his sleep?” She slowed for the last turn as the Flying Bar T came into view—and fancied Ash McKee thundering up the road on his Crusader steed.

“Uh-huh. He never slept in the chair again.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not with an alert, intelligent little boy within hearing distance.

The weathered two-story Craftsman home she’d glimpsed over the backs of the cattle last Wednesday now loomed through the snow.

Driving closer, she noticed the house inhabited a timbered horseshoe with the corrals and outbuildings, including three massive barns, scattered several hundred yards westward. Today’s snowfall hid the Rockies from sight, but four days ago their great, hulking, cotton-capped shoulders were cloaked in a mantle of blue sky.

Ash McKee lived amidst poster-inspiring beauty.

Not Ash. Tom. She was here for Tom. And Charlie.

The black-and-white herding dogs rushed out from under the porch as she pulled up beside the green pickup Ash drove to town.

“Will they bite, Mom?” Charlie’s voice trembled.

“I don’t think so. They’re border collies and like to herd sheep and cows. They’re not mean.” She hoped. But who knew how Ash McKee trained his animals? The warhorse had ground at its bridle bit with long, strong teeth.

She shut off the car, grabbed her purse. Today she simply wanted introductions. No note taking. No pushy reporter manners. Just smiles and a possible welcome to rent.

“Come on. Let’s see if Mr. McKee is home.”

Snowflakes speckled her wool coat and Charlie’s blond hair. Cautious of the dogs, Rachel walked with her son up the steps next to a wheelchair ramp. The animals crept back under the wooden deck. So much for guarding the place. Quite possibly Ash, himself, had the watchdog scenario in hand.

The door swung open. The eager high school columnist and Ash’s companion from last Wednesday offered a smile full of braces. “Hey, Ms. Brant.” She winked when she spotted Charlie.

The boy ducked shyly behind Rachel.

“Hello, Daisy.”

Petite and red-haired, the teenager wore low-rise jeans and a bust-fitting knit top that exposed her navel. If Rachel had a daughter her age, such revealing clothes would not enter her closet. Oh, who was she kidding? Fifteen years ago, she wore tight tops and leggings, much to Bill Brant’s irritation. In the succeeding years, her tastes had tempered to conservatism, like the warm black dress slacks and aqua sweater she’d dug from the motel closet this morning. Bill would label the clothes plain classy, pun intended.

“I’m here to see your dad and your grandfather.”

“I know.” Daisy leaned forward and whispered, “Dad doesn’t know about my column, okay?”

Before Rachel could respond, Ash McKee stepped into the entryway. His dark eyes locked on her, then swept over Charlie. “Bringing reinforcements?”

Without the Stetson, she saw he had beautiful hair. Thick and black and linear and scraped back in a style that pronounced his weather-toughened cheekbones, his long, graceful nose.

“Hello again, Ash.” She set a hand on her child for comfort. “This is my son, Charlie. I couldn’t get a babysitter so he’s with me today.” She tried a smile, failed as those eyes riveted on her face.

Daisy saved the moment. “Dad says you’ll be renting the guest cottage.”

“We haven’t decided yet, Daiz,” Ash interjected, shutting the door behind Rachel.

“But I thought you said—”

“Not yet.” While his eyes gentled on his daughter, his tone was resolute.

“What’s to decide?” she argued.

“So. Our company’s arrived.” A gray-haired, craggy-faced cowboy in a pearl-buttoned shirt rode around a corner in a motorized chair.

Tom McKee. The key to Rachel’s series.

A second, a blink, then his pale blue eyes widened, as if he recognized her, his pupils rounding to the outer edges of their irises before his surprise vanished. Puzzled and certain they had never met, Rachel stepped forward, held out her hand. She was here for the guesthouse.

“Rachel Brant, Mr. McKee. Pleased to meet you.”

“You the one phoned the other day?” he asked, giving her hand a light shake.

“Yes.” A knot formed in her throat at the sight of the strong, brave man. In that instant, she vowed to make him proud with her words.

“What story you digging for, Ms. Brant?”

Her cheeks warmed. “Today, we’re just looking for a place to live, sir.”

The old man stared at her with an intensity that had her shifting on her feet. Then he nodded. “Ash will show you around back of the house.” Decision settled, he glanced at his son, though Rachel knew it wasn’t, not entirely. Not from the line of the younger man’s shoulders beneath that denim shirt. She could have skipped pebbles across them.

“Come with me,” Ash ordered, and left the room without checking to see if she followed.

With a smile for Tom McKee, she and Charlie followed Daisy through the house to the kitchen. The girl murmured, “I’m so glad you’ll be staying here.”

Rachel wanted to ask about the whisper at the front door. About Ash not knowing of Daisy’s column.

They entered a deep kitchen sporting a horde of knotty pine cupboards, an ample work island in its center and a Sub-Zero refrigerator. To the right, a rectangular oak table stood gleaming with light flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows that faced snowy evergreens. And everywhere, photographs of a red-haired woman. Upon the antique phone table, upon whatever wall space remained unclaimed by cupboards.

Susie, the wife who left Ash McKee widowed.

Without a coat or hat, he waited by a back door sheltered in a small alcove next to the pantry. On his feet, his work boots remained unlaced.

He held open the door as Rachel and Charlie stepped into the cold morning. The wind stung their faces while they followed Ash down a wooden walkway toward a tiny cottage looming thirty yards ahead amidst a snowy stand of pine and birch.

Opening the guesthouse door, Ash waited for her and Charlie to step inside.

It was a dollhouse. Three miniature rooms with lace curtains pulled back with bows, a tiny state-of-the-art kitchen. Cozy living room with a round rug and cushiony furniture in earthy tones. Santa Fe prints on the walls. Dried hydrangeas in a tall vase on the coffee table. Above the stone fireplace hung a wooden, hand-painted sign: Welcome to Flying Bar T Ranch.

No portraits of red-haired women.

Ash wiped his boots on the welcome mat, then walked toward the kitchen situated in the far right corner. “The stove is gas.” He slanted her a look. “Ever cooked with gas?”

“Yes. The place is lovely, Ash. Thank you.” She meant it.

“Not me you should thank, it’s Tom.”

She understood. It was Tom’s ranch, after all. If Ash had his way, she wouldn’t be here. “I will. And thank you for not mentioning the series I’m writing.”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“Because I doubt he would’ve let us in the door, and he wouldn’t have invited me to see this house.”

“You’re right. He wouldn’t.”

Ruefully, she turned away, surveyed the room again. No matter that the McKees lived solitary lives. They were good people. She did not want to hurt them, if she could help it in any way. Her father was wrong when he’d told her to “do anything to get a story.”

Ash said, “Upstairs are a couple bedrooms and the bathroom. If you want to use the fireplace I’ll haul in a few logs from the main house.”

“Thanks. This is…fine. We won’t need the fireplace.” She didn’t want him doing anything extra, not when his cold eyes and implacable jaw said he would rather she lived someplace else. Like the North Pole. Still, she couldn’t help wondering, “Do you usually rent out the guesthouse in the winter months?”

In town, she’d heard about his wife’s trail riding business—the one he’d packed away after she died.

Suddenly, his eyes changed, gentled, and she wondered how it would feel to see them soften because of her. Then the emotion retreated and the dark, icy stare settled back in place. “This is a working ranch. We don’t have time for tourists and the like during our busy months.”

And the like. City folk, out for a quick joyride on a ranch. Curiosity seekers. People of her ilk.

She tried blunt honesty. “Ash…I know you wish I hadn’t come into your life, but—”

“You know nothing of what I wish, lady.”

“Rachel,” she said quietly. “My name is Rachel. Can we call a truce? At least until I talk to Tom again about the interviews?”

“When do you plan on telling him? Or are you hoping to move in here first?”

In other words, execute a con job.

She lifted her chin. She may be a newswoman but, whether he believed it or not, she had a smidgen of propriety, of decency. She was not entirely her father’s daughter, but her mother’s child. “I’ll explain the minute we return to the main house.”

“It’s cold in here, Mom,” Charlie whispered, swinging her attention away from the man across the room. “Is it gonna be freezing when we live here?”

“No, baby.” She righted his eyewear perched at the end of his pug nose. “There’s a heating system same as in the other places we’ve lived.”

Ash strode to a gauge on the wall beside the coat closet. A flick of his finger and she heard the furnace kick in. A couple more adjustments and he’d set the daily program. Done, he walked back to where she and Charlie stood on the welcome mat.

“Trail riding,” he said, “was my wife’s business.”

In other words, apart from the ranch.

“She decorated this building, did the booking.” He looked around. “No one’s stayed here in fifty-five months.”

Since she died. Rachel would be the first. A woman he didn’t want on his ranch, a woman he certainly didn’t want sleeping in his wife’s dollhouse.

Rachel wanted to say “I’m sorry” but in light of why she was here, the words felt phony. Story be damned, this cottage was exactly what her son needed. “Charlie,” she said, “wait for me at the main house, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because I need to speak with Mr. Ash a moment.”

Her son darted a look at the man, worry in his blue eyes. “You gonna be long?”

“No.” She fiddled with his wool hat, tucked the tiny ’Vette into his pocket. “A minute. Now go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

She waited until her son slipped out the door, then turned to the man with his hands on his hips. “I don’t know what happened in the accident that took your wife’s life and I can only imagine the loss you suffered. But I assure you I won’t change or damage anything in this building or on your ranch. And I will continue looking in town for a more permanent place. As soon as I find one, we’ll be gone.”

“Don’t you mean once you’ve finished interviewing Tom?”

For a moment, silence. “Why didn’t you warn him?”

“That you’re here because of a Vietnam kick?”

“I’m here because my son needs a decent place to live.”

One brow rose slowly. “You going maternal on me, Ms. Brant?”

“It’s the truth.”

He laughed softly. “Now there’s an interesting word coming from a reporter.”

She wouldn’t back down. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Tom handles his own battles.”

In other words, handicaps did not make a man less a man.

She sighed. “I’m unsure why you dislike me so much. Is it because I work for a newspaper, or is it me personally?”

“Who said I dislike you?”

His hot tea eyes speared her heart, ran a current down her thighs. She saw his desire, saw him fight the emotion.

Her nerves smoothed. Whether he liked it or not, his attraction to her was as true as the air they breathed.

Linear brows lowering, he moved closer. “Cat got your tongue?”

She stepped back. “I think I should go.”

Remaining alone with him hadn’t been a good idea. Rough Montana terrain, fifteen-hundred-pound horses and thousand-pound cows had crafted his body.

But she had observed his expression with his daughter, when he thought of his wife.

Something in her eyes had him suddenly turning for the door. “Inez, our housekeeper, will clean the place over the next few days. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

“Ash…”

Head down, back to her, he waited. In that second, she wanted to touch him. Just a touch. A palm to his spine, easing the stress she sensed churning under his skin.

“You’re a kind man. I’m very—Thank you. For everything.”

His shoulders heaved a sigh. “Best get back to your boy.” Opening the door, he strode into a thick, lazy snowfall.

Tom was at the kitchen table with Daisy and Charlie, drinking hot cocoa, when Ash returned from the cottage, Rachel in tow. Seeing his stepfather in that chair, so mangled…and then for her to head back to town without a hint, without honesty…. Ash frowned. It wasn’t right.

He shot Rachel a look. Honesty is best up front.

Clever woman read his thoughts. Directly to Tom, she said, “Mr. McKee, as I mentioned on the phone the other day, renting the guesthouse isn’t the only reason I’m here.”

On her forehead sweat poked from her skin as if she’d sat for an hour in a sauna. “I’m freelancing for a magazine on the East Coast, as well as working at the town paper.”

“A magazine?”

“Yes, American Pie. It’s like The New Yorker. I’m doing a series. It’s about…”

She was nervous, Ash realized. A journalist nervous about a story. Interesting.

“It’s about survivors. From Hells Field.”

Tom scrutinized the woman for a long moment, eyes and face rigid as stone. Deep in the house, the cuckoo clock chimed the half hour. “What for?”

She leveled her shoulders. “Because it was one of the most controversial battles in that war. And you—you were the leader of a platoon of nineteen Marines of which only seven survived.”

A hush fell. Ash imagined angsty commotion in her mind as she waited: Tom would tell her to leave. He’d sic those cattle dogs on her the minute she and Charlie stepped outside. And Ash, family defender, would chase her car on his horse all the way down the road.

Tom’s lips pulled tight. “Old news. Fact is, the more years between, the more people forget. Better that way.”

She glanced at Ash, looking, he suspected, for support. For a split second his heart skipped and he almost stepped beside her. Then he saw Daisy, transfixed at the table, and he moved, instead, within reach of his daughter. Damn straight he was the defender of his family.

His positioning wasn’t lost on Rachel. Her gaze wove from one to the next, finally settling on Tom. “Wouldn’t you like something good to come out of all you’ve lost, Mr. McKee?”

The old man snorted. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Missy. Ain’t got nothing to say about Nam.” The chair hummed backward before he spun around and headed toward the hallway that led to his private rooms.

“Grandpa, wait!” Daisy jumped up from the table. “I want to know about Hells Field.”

Ash moved around Rachel, blocking her view with his back. “Daisy, let it be.”

“No,” she cried. “God. You’d think that war was garbage we should throw out. People died, Dad. Over fifty thousand of them. Grandpa was there and he was wounded, and I don’t even know why or how. This isn’t just our country’s history, it’s our history. Mine!” Her tiny nostrils flared. “Just like Mom is.”

Tom wheeled down the hall. Conversation over.

“Argh,” Daisy muttered. “Stubborn old man.”

“Daisy.” Ash gentled his voice, touched her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. “You’re as bad as him. You don’t want to talk about Mom any more than he does about Vietnam. It’s like every time something bad happens, we put a lid on it. Like that’s gonna make it go away. It’s not. And neither is Mom’s death no matter how many pictures you hang.”

“Daisy Anne—” Dammit to hell.

“It’s the truth.” Tears shone in her eyes and his heart broke. “Thanks for trying, Ms. Brant. At least you got them to admit there was a Hells Field.”

Ash glared at Rachel. You hurt my family. For that, he could not forgive her.

But she surprised him again. “Sometimes—” she turned to his daughter “—it’s better to let history and the past fade. It softens the pain.”

Not an hour here and she was peering into places he’d nailed shut for years. He started for the door. “I think you should take your son and go.”

“Why this war?” Tom spoke from the hallway, surprising Ash. Though his stepfather had returned, severity thinned his lips. “Why Vietnam?”

“Because my dad was in it,” Rachel replied, giving the old man her full attention. Tom’s pupils pinpricked.

“My grampa calls it the black hole,” her son piped up.

“Hush, Charlie.”

Tom zeroed in on the kid. “Why’s that, boy?”

“Cuz a bunch of people went in it and never got out.”

“Charlie,” Rachel whispered. Her gaze scooted from Tom to Ash like a creature trapped by wolves. “We’ll be getting back to town. It’s been a pleasure, Tom. Daisy.” She refused to look at Ash.

Feeling’s mutual, lady. He reached for the door but his nose caught her perfume, a wisp of springtime.

Oh, yeah. He wanted her gone.

“Just a minute,” Tom said, halting them all. “I’ll make you a deal, Ms. Brant.” He looked at Daisy. Under grizzled gray brows, his eyes eased. “My granddaughter wants to know about the war for a school project. You help her write that story and I’ll do your interview.”

Ash gaped. “Pops—”

Tom held up a hand. “However, my son and I will read your work when it’s done, and you’ll fax it from this house so there’s no chance of changes.” His jaw was resolute, his eyes strict. “Ash can decide if he wants to rent the cottage.”

“Thank you.” Relief washed over her face.

Before Ash could interject, Tom spun his chair toward the kitchen, Daisy in tow.

God almighty, Ash thought. Was the old man losing it? Less than a week ago, he’d been resolute about his secrets. Now this?

Determined to dig out his father’s motives later, he waited by the door, watched Rachel help her son with his coat. The scene conjured up Susie with Daisy at seven and Daisy batting her mother’s hands, declaring, “I can put my coat on, Mom. I can do it.” Charlie held out his thin arms for his mother’s help.

At the top of the porch steps, she faced Ash. Her brows were dark and sweeping. A swallow’s wings.

He fisted his hands in the pockets of his jeans when the breeze caught a strand of her hair against that lilting mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “for upsetting your family.”

If he pulled her against him, her head would rest against his collarbone. “Apology accepted.”

“Well.” She pulled on her gloves. “Goodbye, Ash.”

He could tell she didn’t expect to hear from him again.

“See ya.”

She walked through the snowfall to her car where Charlie petted Jinx and Pedro. A minute later, her Sunburst drove from the Flying Bar T and the dogs crept back under the porch.

From the office window, Tom watched Ash stride across the snowy yard. The dogs rushed from their hole to tag his heels. He was a good man, his stepson. A devoted father, a dedicated rancher. A proud man.

And upset with Tom’s decision about the interview.

Why? Ash had asked once Rachel had driven back to Sweet Creek. Why, after all these years, would Tom spill his guts to a journalist? Why not simply write it down—if he wanted Daisy to know?

What Ash didn’t understand, Tom mused, was that Rachel Brant held the key. She would unlock the past. Tom’s, Ash’s and, most of all, her own.

Tom could take it all to the grave. But she’d come, she’d come and—God help him—he could not pass up the opportunity.

Thirty-six years was long enough to live in silence. Hell, the five years following Susie was long enough.

Ash hadn’t liked Tom’s saying they needed to move on. Sure, moving on from Susie was his son’s decision to make, like moving on from Hells Field was Tom’s, but sometimes a man had to give his kid a push. Tom didn’t want Ash boarding up the pain for decades, or having it fester the way it could.

He hoped Ash rented the cottage to Rachel. For Daisy’s sake—and the boy’s—he hoped, even though Rachel’s questions would dredge up heartbreak like sludge out of a Texan oil well.

The snow fell harder. Every day Ash cleaned the walkways so Tom could wheel to the barns, see the new calves. And, dammit, that held a pain all its own.

He remembered a past he wanted to forget.

He dreamed a past he wanted to forget.

They had lived long enough in a house of mourning. Susie’s pictures everywhere collecting dust. The cottage sitting empty and cold. The summer trail riding business lying fallow.

A half decade of walking around in silence, fearing that one word, one name would break a heart again and again.

Silence couldn’t mend anguish. It couldn’t sew shattered legs and arms back onto a body. It couldn’t erase memory.

Tom knew.

Rachel Brant would change their lives and in doing so change her own. Ah, but she had her mother’s height, her eyes. And her father’s mouth and hair.

Yes, Miss Brant would discover the truth with these interviews. They’d all come to understand the truth.

Tom felt it in his gut.

Like when the VC waited in the trees above their trail.

The time had come.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.