Maggie's Montana (Montana Bound Book 3)

by Linda Bradley

  Chloe could apply her spin to anything and reel you in. Her imagination wildly connected to real life, very much like Bradley when he was her age. Children were different at home than they were at school. Every once in a while I’d get a glimpse of true personalities when we took a break from the rigor.

  Huge branches bent overhead in the breeze. Chloe was right. White dots filtered through the swaying leaves that lined the horizon. Justin snapped the reins, letting Starbuck and Caribou know it was time to giddy up. I tugged at the rim of my cowboy hat as not to lose it. John produced a chum from his front shirt pocket then hooked one end to my Stetson and the other end to the collar of my T-shirt at the base of my neck. His fingers grazed my skin, sending electric tremors down my spine.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t want you to lose your hat.” John peered straight ahead, and then broke his stare to glance at me. “Or anything else.”

  I grinned then gave him a nod. I hadn’t met anyone like him before. John and I had shared some tender moments in the past year like the time he took the stitches out of my head after Chloe and I banged noggins. He’d pitched a tent in my living room so Chloe and I could have a campout without the rain. Once he even brought me lilacs in the middle of the night to apologize, but the times I cherished most were when he was just himself and we sat side-by-side enjoying a beer over trite conversation as nightfall muted daily drama. John squeezed my shoulder as if he were remembering those times, too. Blinking away the daydreams, I yearned for more.

  The mooing grew louder. White cattle with painted ears of black and snouts of coal peered at us. I snapped a few photos. Winston trotted across the pasture to greet us while Trout rode behind him, his hand holding leads to two saddled horses without riders.

  “Hey, Grandpa.” Chloe knelt on the bench beside me. “Did you lose some guys?”

  He laughed. “Nope. Those are for your dad and Maggie. Thought she’d like to get up closer and personal to take some photos.”

  “Really?” My breath caught in my chest. What did I know about riding with cattle?

  “Yup, we’re going to ride with herd today. Just for a little while.”

  Judy’s glanced over her shoulder, the creases at the corner of her mouth filled with mischief. “Did you know I was going to get dumped off in the middle of this place?”

  “Yup. The kids and I are staying for a bit, but then we’re heading back. We’ll see you two later.”

  “Dad says I have to be older to ride with the cattle,” Chloe said.

  “We’re heading over there.” Winston pointed to dark green field in the distance at the base of a mountain lined with pines.

  “I’m not sure, I can ride with the cows,” I said. “I’ve never done that. I’ve been on a horse, but never with other animals.”

  John held out his hand. “Well then, I think it’s about time you rode with the big boys. Come on, neighbor lady.”

  I baulked at the invitation, but then held out my hand.

  John yanked me up from my respective seat.

  “Ride with the big boys. That’s funny,” Walter said.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  Trout grinned. “Get on this horse and just ride.”

  John lowered the step on the back of the wagon. “You can stand here and get yourself mounted.”

  Trout dismounted his horse and led a painted pony toward me. Her chocolate-brown spots dotted her creamy hide. Her mane and eyes reminded me of midnight. “This girl got a name?”

  John hopped off the back of the wagon and patted her neck. “She’s as sweet as they come. I call her Neighbor Lady ’cause her freckles remind me of you.”

  “You’re funny,” I said. “Really, what’s her name?”

  Trout checked my stirrups and girth. “That ought to do it. Her name is Peaches ’cause she’s that sweet, just like John said. We’re gonna put J.P. on Mocha cause she’s got a bite that gets the cattle going.”

  “I don’t know how you keep all these horses’ names straight,” I said.

  John positioned his left foot in the stirrup, swung his right leg over in one swift movement, and then hauled himself up using the horn of black leather. “No different than you learning thirty names in a year and learning their likes and dislikes.” He gave Mocha a jab with the heels of his boots. “Come on now, give Peaches a nudge.”

  I buckled the saddlebag on her right hindquarter. Winston sat slouched in his saddle, his hands on his thighs, watching me get settled. He gave me a nod and steered his horse to the right with a smidge of a kick.

  “Come on, girl.” I followed his lead.

  Peaches craned her neck to see me. She batted her eyelashes and the muscles in her neck twitched as a breeze washed over us. Patting her neck, I leaned forward, holding her stare. I clicked my tongue and she fell in line with Mocha. Winston and Trout galloped ahead. The cattle strolled at a leisurely pace with their horns pointing toward their destination. Glancing at John, my grin grew wider. “I’ve never seen cattle like this.” Their white hides sacred as a white dove.

  “Dad likes them because of the ancestry. Guess he can relate to their Celtic roots.”

  My ears perked up. “Celtic?” I never thought of Montana cattle having roots that distant.

  “Yeah, people think the cattle were imported here from England just before World War II to protect them from the Nazi invasion. They were sent to the zoos, but someone had the right mind to put them on a Texas ranch. Over time, they were sold and eventually made their way up here. This is what it’s all about. Living on the land and raising them organic.”

  Winston’s body moved in time with his horse. They were one. Trout circled behind. John focused on me as I bumped along, trying to move in stride with Peach’s gait.

  “Everything has roots, Maggie.” John’s body bobbed as Mocha sauntered along, the grass ankle high. “Just ’cause you get uprooted, doesn’t mean you can’t adapt.”

  His green stare glowed beneath the shade of his hat. Part of that Celtic charm brimmed within the man beside me. A momma and her babe ran past us like thunder. My gaze followed their path. I gave Peaches a kick and we trotted after them. John rode beside me. My confidence brewed.

  “You sure you’re not a cowgirl?” he asked. “’Cause you kind of ride like one.”

  “Maybe in a former life” I couldn’t help but smile. Something about this Montana living was weaseling its way into my heart.

  Chapter 13

  As we neared the grazing ground, I studied the three wranglers riding alongside me. Pressing my lips together, I tried to hold my smile to a casual grin, but there was nothing casual about the day. I wasn’t just out on a ride with John and his dad to shoot some photos. John’s ulterior motive thrived in-between the trot and the canter across the countryside. With the lush pasture and rich mountain terrain, he knew I didn’t have a chance, but I held steady as Winston sized me up. This was John fighting harder, and I was coming unglued.

  When Winston nudged his hat back from his forehead, I suspected he needed to get a better look at me. He mopped his brow with a bandana and shoved it back in his rear pocket. Then he directed his horse to walk beside mine, their strides at an even pace.

  “How you holding up?” Winston asked.

  “I’m good.” I suspected the glint in his expression reflected my joy. Even with the thought of aches to pains to follow, I didn’t care. I licked my dry lips.

  “You have water in your left saddlebag.”

  I pulled back on the reins. Peaches bobbed her head forward, loosening the reins to rub her nose against the tall grass.

  “Go ahead grab a drink. She’ll wait.” Winston stopped beside me to drink from his own canteen. “There’s a creek up there for the cattle, but you can’t see it from here. A good place to soak your feet if you ask me.”

  “John said these cattle have Celtic roots.” Resting my canteen on the saddle horn, I savored the swig of water.

  “The bes
t kind,” he said. “You ought to know that with a last name like Abernathy.” Winston screwed the canteen top closed and tied it back in place next to his horse’s saddlebag.

  “Guess I would,” I said, feeling my Irish flare. “With a little Scotch mixed in.”

  “Sounds like a drink hearty enough for a cowboy.” Winston’s moustache twitched, the dimple in his left cheek deep as Crater Lake.

  The delivery of his message loud and clear. My cheeks smoldered beneath my hat. “Years ago we went to a dude ranch.” The cattle lollygagged across the land. “But it was nothing like this.”

  Winston leaned forward in his saddle. “Yeah, when I’m not sure about life, all I have to do is mount up and ride off. Sometimes I can feel—”

  Clouds washed over Winston’s expression as a gust of wind pushed at our backs.

  “You what?”

  “I’m just an old man. You’d think I was crazy,” he said, fiddling with his saddle.

  John and Trout rode up ahead in the distance. I couldn’t help but pry. “You feel what?” I asked, leaning forward to let the air hit my sweaty backside.

  “I feel John’s mom in the breeze.”

  I studied Winston’s profile. Another gust of wind brushed over my shoulders. I imagined it was her, beckoning us to move forward. Winston tugged his hat down and settled back into his saddle. The toes of his boots pointed toward the baby blue sky.

  The creases at the corners of his eyes, a road map to his past.

  “What’s your horse’s name?” I asked, trying to make conversation with a man obviously distracted by another place and time.

  Winston clicked his tongue with the curl of his lips. “Forget-Me-Not.” Her golden ears perked up as her muscles twitched with urgency, her gaze a window to her glimmering soul.

  “Ida May loved them as much as I love this horse.”

  I rubbed Peaches’s neck and set my feet in the stirrups. She whinnied at Forget-Me-Not’s movement as she sidestepped to the sound of Winston’s voice. The clouds overhead moved swiftly as the breeze picked up. I swear I heard Winston’s voice clearly as he trotted away, “I’m going, Ida May, I’m going.”

  Chills ran up my arms and down my legs. The unexpected presence kissed my cheek and I wondered if it was Ida May introducing herself, or if it was my dad drifting by to say get on with it girl, don’t just sit there, follow him.

  John dismounted Mocha then led her to the creek. She nibbled at the earth’s offerings as she pressed her nose to the ground. “You gonna be able to get down from there without falling over?” John asked me as Peaches and I joined them.

  “I’m not sure. I think my right knee is asleep.” I dropped my feet from the stirrups and moved my toes in circles.

  John tied Mocha to a fallen tree branch. “I’ll catch you.”

  “Sounds like a fairy tale,” I said, trying to maneuver my right leg over the backside of Peaches. I pressed my belly against the saddle and slid down slowly until my feet met the ground.

  John’s hands rested on my waist. “Could be if you let it.”

  “Nothing is a fairy tale. Besides, they usually involve poison and ugly women who possess magical powers.”

  “Maybe, but there’s always a happy ending.”

  I gaped over my shoulder. His marriage to Brook didn’t have a happy ending. His career choice didn’t have a happy ending. He floundered through life just like the rest of us. There was no guaranteed happy ending. “Not without consequence,” I said.

  “Maggie Abernathy, how on God’s green Earth did you get so jaded?”

  Peaches let out a long sigh as she shook her head.

  “Traitor,” I said. Peaches stared back at me. I thought I saw a glint of hurt in her eyes. “Sorry, you’re a good horse.” I ran my fingers through her tangled mane. “Yeah, my legs feel like rubber bands.”

  John tied Peaches next to Mocha. Her eyes fluttered shut.

  “Looks like she’s napping.” I spied a place to sit at the end of the dead tree.

  John sipped water from his canteen. “Want a drink?” John’s temple twitched when he swallowed.

  “You’re not afraid of cooties?”

  “Nope,” he said, holding the canteen out in my direction.

  I took a swig, wiped the drip at the corner of my mouth, then took another gulp and handed it back to him. “Your dad said he thinks he hears your mom in the breeze.”

  “He’s not the only one.” His cheeks smoldered as he fidgeted with his gloves. “Pretty silly, huh?”

  A dragonfly buzzed my nose. “Not at all.” Studying John’s profile, I took a deep breath in an attempt to ward off emotion. I picked a yellow flower that resembled a daisy and caressed the pedals as I reminisced about the cane they’d found at the cancer center with my dad’s name on it. “I knew I’d be okay. I knew I’d make it through radiation.” I tugged at the rim of my Stetson. “I knew it was my dad and he was with me.” The hair prickled on the back of my neck. “It’s not silly at all.”

  John took the flower from me and tucked it in the leather band on my hat, just like Chloe had done with the feather as Justin drove the wagon. “Yeah, I guess it’s not silly.”

  A clear vision of his mother floated through my mind. Her blonde hair flowed in the wind, her blue eyes filled with pride for her boy, her spirit embracing her son as she’d done in a black-and-white photograph that Chloe shared with me. Even if they weren’t with us, they were with us. I took a deep breath, wondering what the rest of the afternoon entailed. “So, what’s next?”

  “I thought you might want to get that camera out and take some shots. Then—” John pointed to a dirt trail that led into a grove of trees. “Then we can take the scenic route home. We can ride up that trail, across the ridge, and back down.”

  “Is that a challenge?” I asked, feeling my legs come back to life.

  “Or we can ride back the way we came.” John peered over his shoulder across the flat land. “You can see a lot more from up there.”

  “I don’t think you even have to ask. Scenic route.” I patted Peaches’s shoulder then got out my camera. I strolled through the pasture, with one hand on my camera and one eye peering through the viewfinder, careful not to get too closer to the cattle. I didn’t just see another world, I was beginning to understand another way of life.

  John slipped down off the log and sat with his back to the downed tree trunk, his hat covering his resting eyes. I zoomed in and shot a couple of frames before he noticed what I was doing.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’m not sleeping,” he said, “just daydreaming.”

  My head felt like I’d been in a dream since we left Judy and the kids back at the wagon. “Your dad and Trout are heading back to the ranch. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

  After John closed his eyes, I knelt beside the stream to wet my fingertips. The cool rush exhilarated me. Everything seemed simple out here. Big Sky. Mountains. Grass. Cattle. Peaches shifted her weight as I secured my camera in the saddlebag. The snap of the plastic buckle echoed in the still air. John came up behind me, his breath on my neck, his father and Trout off in the distance, his words in my ear. I shut my eyes, pushing John’s message deep down inside, trying my best not to lose control in the Montana breeze when we made our way back home.

  “I know she’s calling to you, Maggie Abernathy.”

  When I opened my eyes, I was still standing beside a horse at the base of a mountain and next to a man with wild green eyes laced with true intention. The rims of our hats touched as he turned me around. We stood toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose.

  “I’m not one of your Ancient White Park Cattle,” I said.

  The epic blue sky tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe not, Maggie, but I know you have to be thinking us.”

  “How do you know?” I whispered, his hands on my hips, his warm touch radiating through my jeans.

  “’Cause I see it in your face. I hear it in your voice.” He n
udged his hat back from his brow.

  His eyes flickered, and I could see how John’s mother, Ida May, would’ve been drawn to follow Winston all those years ago. I covered John’s hands with mine. Thinking about my job back home, I tossed it to the side. I thought about my house, my mother, and the usual day back in Michigan. With a bat of an eye, I pretended it was gone.

  “Maybe we should head out.” I sighed and made no mention of that nagging list of obstacles I felt were obligations.

  John squeezed my hips and drew me closer. My Stetson fell back and hung by the chum against my back. “You can have the fairy tale, neighbor lady.”

  My breath caught in my chest. His lips covered mine and in a matter of seconds, I entertained the thought of purging everything I knew and selling anything that wasn’t a family heirloom at the yearly neighborhood garage sale.

  Chapter 14

  Chloe met us as Mocha and Peaches moseyed out of the trees and onto the trail leading to the barn. “He flew away.” She yelled through cupped hands. “Frankie flew away.”

  John dismounted Mocha, flipped the reins over her head, and tied them to a post. “What’s this all about, short stuff?”

  Chloe followed on her dad’s heels as he led Peaches by the bridle to another hitching post. He patted her sweaty shoulder as I held the leather horn and lowered myself to the ground, his hand on the small of my back.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Chloe flitted around. “Frankie flew away.”

  “Maybe it was all those kittens making eyes at him, got him nervous, and scared him away,” John said, sliding his hand up my back. “How sore are you?”

  I shook out my legs. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” I answered. “I’m not really sore from yesterday’s ride.”

  Chloe tugged at her dad’s hand. “Ashley and I were in the barn. I took the top part of the cage off to give Frankie some bugs and he just started flapping his wings. He hopped out the barn door and off her went. It was like a miracle.” Chloe couldn’t contain her excitement.

  Ashley appeared in the barn doorway. “Was it better than Harry tripping over the shovel and landing in a pile of manure?”