Montana Cowgirl Read online

  He removed his hat and leaned over in a mock bow. “I was seventeen and heart broke. Everything looks black and white when you’re young. Funny how age and life puts things in perspective. In hindsight I’d say I overreacted with the whole curse thing,” he added in a way that sounded rehearsed.

  Bailey rubbed the localized pulse of pain between her eyes. “Funny. I was just thinking your curse pretty much came true.”

  “Oh, crap,” he said. “When I heard about the accident. Your husband dying. Losing your stud horse. The thought crossed my mind that Great-grandma Hilda really did a number on you. But, Bailey, you have to know I never meant for anything horrible to happen to you. Not in a million years. I mean that.”

  She wished his flustered apology meant something to her. It didn’t. She knew who was to blame for the disaster her life had become, and it wasn’t Paul Zabrinski.

  “I was kidding, Paul. Shit happens. Just ask OC. You didn’t curse him, too, did you?”

  His look of horror made her smile.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She blew out a breath, exhaustion making her a little light-headed. “I came back for Mom. She’s going to need help once OC gets home, and I figured free rent for a few months would give me the nest egg I need to plan my next move.” Hawaii sounded kinda nice.

  He pointed toward the luggage area. “Which suitcase is...?”

  He did a doubletake. “No. Let me guess. The two leopard print hay bales?”

  Her cheeks heated up. Ross used to give her grief about the amount of junk she lugged around on the road. “One of them is my...um...work.” She needed to get in the habit of calling her jewelry making a business. Maureen had stressed the need to focus on what you can do, not on what you can’t.

  I can’t ride, rope, race barrels. I can make baubles for boots and hats and purses. Big whoop.

  “Your mom said you were designing western jewelry. Don’t tell Chloe. She’ll be bugging you for samples. We went round and round about her getting her ears pierced.”

  Chloe? His daughter, she presumed. “My dad wouldn’t let me get my ears pierced, either. So Marsha Biggins did the deed with a potato and her mother’s needle when we were fifteen. Did you give in?”

  “Her mother did.”

  His flat, resigned tone raised questions she didn’t have any right to ask.

  “My ex is remarried and lives here in Bozeman. We share custody. All very civilized and the kids seem to be okay with the arrangement, but...it’s not exactly what I had in mind, you know?”

  He didn’t wait for her answer, instead walking to the carousel to wait for her bags to complete another revolution.

  Thanks to the concussion she suffered in the accident her short-term memory impeded her ability to recall what she had for breakfast, but a crystal clear memory from one of hers and Paul’s conversations appeared in her head as if it were engraved on her heart. “I want what my parents have, Bailey. They fell in love in the sixth grade. We won’t have that, but I know you’re the one for me. My soul mate.”

  Hearing a seventeen-year-old kid speak with such conviction had scared her. Bailey felt barely formed at the time, open to becoming the person she was meant to be, not ready to settle into someone else’s preconceived idea of who she should be. “We talked about this, Paul. I’ve been honest about my dreams since we first started dating. College. Pro Rodeo. A breeding program and a ranch. Where? I don’t have a clue.”

  The fact that Paul’s vision of marriage was so far removed from her frame of reference proved all the more reason why they had no chance of making a life together. At the time she believed marriage was a prison, with an abusive jailor holding the key. She’d promised herself never to make the same mistakes her mother did.

  Funny thing. Promises were a lot like dreams—only as good as the person making them.

  Somehow, without intending to, when she married Ross she’d returned to her roots: codependency, spousal abuse, passive-aggressive behavior...with the bonus gift: unfaithfulness.

  She’d broken the heart of the cutest, sweetest boy she’d ever known and look what she had to show for it—nothing. Not a damn thing. She was back home in Montana. Broken. Defeated.

  She watched Paul grab both suitcases before they could make another revolution. Her jaw went slack watching his muscles flex beneath his shirt as he lifted them effortlessly. The Paul Zabrinski she’d known in high school had been a skinny little boy compared to this man. Back then, she’d been the athlete. Now, she could barely walk without limping.

  She got up when he started toward her. How did he keep himself in such great shape, she wondered. Maybe, someone in Marietta had opened a gym. She hoped so. Her ankle was getting stronger every day, but her recovery wasn’t a hundred percent yet.

  “Where are you parked?”

  “Just across the street. Your mom gave me her Handicap Parking thingee to hang in the window of my truck. She told me your leg was still jacked up. I half-expected to see you on crutches.”

  Bailey lugged one strap of her backpack across her shoulder and reached around for the other. Paul dropped the bags and hurried to help.

  She hated being dependent on anyone, but sometimes even the simplest things stopped her in her tracks. He guided her hand through the strap and settled the bag on her shoulders.

  His fingers felt warm and capable. And this touch left an impression she swore sank all the way through her skin to the bone.

  “Thank you,” she said, trying not show how flustered he made her. She headed toward the exit. Slow and steady. One foot in front of the other as Maureen always preached.

  The only way she’d survive her brief but necessary return to purgatory.

  Paul opened the passenger door for Bailey before hoisting her oversize bags to the bed of the pickup. The luggage fees must have cost a bundle, he thought. Marietta gossips had Bailey making out like a bandit thanks to a big insurance settlement. The truly unkind had said even worse...that her marriage was over, that her husband had left her for another woman, that Bailey’s professional career was on the skids even before the accident that claimed her husband’s life, along with the life of their prize stud horse. He tried not to listen, but how did one break a habit of a lifetime?

  “I’ll get the air on for you in a minute.”

  Black truck. Gray interior. A late spring day with a cloudless sky and temperatures soaring to the low seventies. “Do you need help getting in?”

  “I think I can do it.” He could tell by the determined set of her shoulders she planned to figure out a way to climb into the lifted cab unassisted—even if she screwed up her ankle doing so.

  “Oh, hell, no.”

  He placed his palms square against her waist, his fingers framing her lower ribs, and lifted. Her weight—or lack of it—shocked him. Is this what California does to people? Shrinks them? Like those horrible dancing raisins?

  He had to lean in to place her on the seat—just has he would have a child. This brought his face close enough to smell the scent he would forever associate with summer nights and kissing under the stars. He didn’t know the name of her perfume—or even if it was a bottled scent—only that it was Bailey Jenkins. His first love. The one he never got over, if Jen were to be believed.

  Although his fingers lingered momentarily, Paul forced himself to step back and walk to the bed of the truck. He kept his mind on what needed to be done—no chitter chatter. A coping mechanism that came in handy when you were the youngest in a family of boisterous, opinionated people.

  He loved his family—and missed them now that everyone had scattered. Austen to Helena, Meg to Missoula, Mia still in Cheyenne. His folks summered here and Mia’s two kids came for a month around fair time, but once Halloween was over, his parents joined other snowbirds in New Mexico.

  Normally, while in Marietta, Dad helped every day at the store, which was not without challenges. But his parents were staying with Mia at the moment. His poor sister was in treatment for breast
cancer and going through a divorce. Talk about bad luck.

  Paul shoved the giant suitcases into the bed of the truck and closed the tailgate. When he got in, the first thing he did was hit the AC, but Bailey reached for the power button in the door. “Could we open the windows instead?”

  Paul was positive he’d never heard those words from his ex-wife’s mouth. Not evva, as Chloe liked to say. “What about your hair?”

  She wiggled a colorful scrunchy adorned with shimmering silver and brass beads—what he’d assumed was a bracelet—from her wrist and whipped the dark brown locks into a messy pony.

  “I’ve missed the air in Montana.”

  Is fresh air the only thing you missed?

  Paul knew he wasn’t on that list. Not given the way they’d ended things.

  But he meant every word of his apology. He’d learned a lot about human nature from managing Big Z’s. He could see why he’d been drawn to her—she was unattainable—an ideal he could never have. And that hadn’t changed. He’d agreed to pick her up as a favor to Louise—and, maybe, to satisfy an old curiosity. That was all.

  As he turned to look over his shoulder to back out of the parking space, his hand accidentally brushed her shoulder. The touch did some kind of crazy loop faster than if he’d stuck a wet finger on a live wire. When he started to apologize, he noticed her color—or lack of it.

  “Are you feeling okay? You don’t look too hot.”

  She turned her chin his way, one perfect light brown brow lifted in a pure Bailey gesture that stopped his heart mid-beat. “Always a smooth talker, weren’t you, Paulie?”

  A nickname he hadn’t heard in fifteen years. Why it should hurt even the tiniest bit baffled him?

  Luckily, she didn’t give him time to dwell on his crazy out-of-line thoughts. Her smile flattened and she dropped her chin to her chest. In a voice that reminded him of Chloe, she said, “I need a pain pill. Can’t take them on an empty stomach. But I can make it home.”

  Or not. He’d been a dad long enough to spot the signs of hunger. A simple fix. Even if it meant spending a few more minutes with her.

  No problem. He dealt with strangers every day. Troublesome, needy, frustrated, hardware-challenged adults who taxed his patience beyond measure. All these years in retail were simply training to prepare me for handling Bailey Jenkins. Who knew?

  He paid the parking fee, ignoring Bailey’s outstretched hand with a ten-dollar bill it. Once they were on the road, he tapped the digital dashboard to turn on the satellite radio. His favorite “station” devoted to Indie Singer/Songwriters filled the cab, easing the need to make polite conversation.

  Jason Isbell’s Traveling Alone, a song Paul had decided was written specifically for this time in his life, came on.

  Paul hummed the melody. He never pictured himself as a divorced, single dad, running a business alone. Never.

  As he headed toward the highway, he glanced at his passenger. Eyes closed. Asleep? Exhausted?

  Depleted. That was how she appeared to him. And he felt absolutely no satisfaction in seeing how far short of her triumph she’d fallen.

  If anything, he felt guilty for wishing her ill in the first place. But a seventeen-year-old boy’s hurt pride knows no boundary. He remembered writing a stack of letters. Hurtful. Bitter. Hateful. Thank God I never mailed them.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the local pizza chain he thought a California girl might like. He parked and used the controls on his door panel to close her window. The noise woke her.

  “Are we home?”

  “I missed lunch,” he lied. “Thought we’d grab a slice of pizza on the way. Unless you think your mom will be waiting for you.”

  Her foggy blink told him she wasn’t quite awake. “She’ll be with Dad. Like usual.”

  A telling admission. Bailey often criticized her mother’s blind devotion back when they were dating. Paul never understood what about the man inspired such loyalty.

  He got out and hurried around to help. Typical Bailey, she was already standing by the time he got there. Swaying just the tiniest bit in the steady Montana breeze.

  He offered his arm.

  She hesitated before accepting the gesture. “Are you sure you’re hungry? I could have waited. I’m trying to cut back on my pain pills. I think sitting without moving my foot was harder on my ankle than I expected. My therapist warned me but I...”

  “You did it Bailey’s way.”

  He expected to see her get her back up, but she surprised him and laughed.

  “More a case of being blocked in by a human obelisk. I lost my powers to levitate a few years back.”

  His laugh seemed to surprise her. It sure as heck did him.

  Her expression softened. Her smile one he remembered far too well and the response it triggered deep inside was nothing short of preposterous. Oh, man.

  When she accepted his proffered arm to maneuver around a poorly placed planter-slash-light pole, her touch confirmed his initial suspicion. Holy cow. Bailey Jenkins was back and so were his feelings for her—or, rather, they’d never died in the first place.

  He’d tried to hate her with every ounce of his being, but hate and love skated so close to the same line. The line he just crossed over. Love.

  He’d loved her with every fiber of his being. And, now, she was back—broken and in pain. Even if he’d wanted to hate her, how could he? She needed help. She needed home. If she stuck around long enough, maybe he could convince her she was meant to be here...with him.

  “You have to eat something, OC. The doctor won’t let you leave until you have a bowel movement.”

  Oscar Jenkins double-fisted the thin, scratchy sheets at his side. He hated everything about this so-called hospital. The thin plastic mattress, the crappy sheets and pilled, nappy cotton blanket. But worst of all, he detested the crappy slop they tried to pass off as food.

  “Honey, please. Bailey’s coming. She’ll be at the house when I bring you home...if you eat and...eliminate.”

  “Shit. Say it, Luly. For once in your life, call it like it is.”

  Louise Billingham Jenkins. His wife of nearly forty years blushed like the innocent she was when they first met. Sweet. Caring. Still was. Even after all this time in constant contact with him—the lowest piece of scat that ever rolled off Copper Mountain.

  “Don’t be coarse.” She advanced on him with a spoon and a palm-sized cup of something beige. “Try the pudding. You said you liked it.”

  He snarled and pressed his head and shoulders into the skinny foam pillow. “Must have been the drugs.”

  She held the shimmery, flesh-tone glob a few inches from his lips. The tiny quake of her hand compromised his resolve. He opened his mouth, clamped down on the spoon and wouldn’t let go. Louise frowned sternly, but he could tell she was fighting back a smile.

  “Baby.”

  He covered her hand with his tenderly, before prying the handle free. The banana-flavored slop lodged in the back of his throat and nearly gagged him, but he forced it down.

  “I can feed myself.”

  She turned away—probably so he couldn’t see her smile of triumph. Louise wasn’t one to gloat. Not that he’d given her many opportunities for jubilation during their years together. When he looked back at his life—and he’d had plenty of time for retrospection since his body started falling apart, he couldn’t say for sure why she’d put up with all his crap for so damn long. He sure as hell wouldn’t have stuck around if the shoe had been on the other foot.

  I’d have lit out just like Bailey did.

  His gaze fell to the flat stretch of covers where his left foot should have rested. His appetite disappeared. His mouth turned dry.

  Life as he knew it was gone. And despite his pissing and moaning about the skyrocketing costs of fishing licenses and gas and idiot clients and the government’s nose in his business, OC loved hunting and fishing and teaching even the dumbest flatlander how to catch a trout or two.

&nbs
p; And, now, thanks to his cussed orneriness—and some poorly timed budget cuts at the library, he and Louise were looking at serious financial problems.

  Louise had tried to keep the worst of it from him. But yesterday, she’d tearfully admitted her fears.

  “We’re in bad shape, Oscar. The County changed insurance companies last year and our co-pay went up. Plus, they’re trying to disallow one of your surgeries. If I miss any more work, I might not even qualify for the library’s policy. And with you not being able to work, our savings are pretty much gone.”

  “The company can’t be bankrupt,” he said. “Jack told me we lost a few bookings, but he’s been out with clients every day—even on Sunday.”

  Jack Sawyer had worked for Jenkins’ Fish and Game off and on for sixteen years. His wife, Marla, handled the company’s payroll, bookings and website.

  “Jack’s good, but he’s not you, Oscar. And even if he were as good as you, people don’t pay big bucks to go fishing with Jack Sawyer. They want the Fish Whisperer.”

  OC took another bite of puke pudding to keep from sneering. The name was a joke, of course. Tossed out in Wolf’s Den one night for some dumb reason. To his chagrin, the name stuck. And bookings picked up.

  Apparently, the Fish Whisperer even had a blog—whatever that was.

  Now, thanks to OC’s ridiculous so-called fame, Jenkins’ Fish and Game, was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. And, to make matters worse, his daughter was coming home.

  As badly as he’d screwed up his health and finances, both were small potatoes compared to the mess he’d made with Bailey. “Who’d you say is picking her up at the airport?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Louise glanced at her watch surreptitiously. Bailey’s plane had landed thirty minutes earlier. Paul would have been there to meet her. A shock her daughter never would have seen coming, but not the worst she had in store.

  “She hasn’t been cleared to drive, has she?” Oscar asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  She took a calming breath—to prepare for the explosion to follow. He’d find out eventually, and certain news was better coming from her. “I asked Paul Zabrinski to pick her up. He had to take Chloe and Mark to their mother’s. He said it was no problem.”