“Monday night is poker night,” Prescott said.
“Sure as God rested on the Sabbath, Monday night is poker night.” Nathan had been dragged along to Prescott’s weekly gathering a few times, but with a guest present, the gossip had stayed mostly harmless and the drinking moderate.
“So I was playing a few hands with the usual gang of idiots, and Parker Mayhew—his boy works for the DNRC and hunts with some of the oil and gas inspectors—had some interesting news to pass along.”
Prescott owned the oldest bank in town, also the largest, in part because Prescott heard all the interesting news. He played poker with the ranchers and golf with the guys who ran the colleges and universities. His missus was on the board of the ski resort’s charitable foundation, and Georgie organized a charity marathon, which meant she rubbed shoulders with hospital directors and insurance company CFOs. Prescott’s sons worked for mining outfits, and Georgie’s younger sister was in state government over in Helena.
“I am always glad to hear interesting news, Prescott.”
“There’s talk of another pipeline.”
Much of Montana’s wealth was in the ground, and pipelines were a fact of life. “My SUV will be glad to hear that.”
“So will your former law partner. Seems the route under discussion runs right across the Logan family’s land.”
Nathan inadvertently clicked on the king of spades and got stuck with the queen as a result. “The Logan boys are a reasonable bunch.” Usually. Patrick was having a hard time of it, but grief could do that to a man.
“They lean green, or their sister does, and that could be a problem.”
A problem Nathan would be expected to solve. Well, shit. “Green is not the smartest direction to lean if a rancher wants to make ends meet in a hard year. Don’t you hold the note on their land?”
The savvy rancher rode a delicate balance, between respecting the environment and exploiting it—or developing its resources, to use the regulatory language. Each property owner tended to support certain environmental causes—preservation of the black-footed ferret or whooping crane, public access to federal land—and also had a healthy appreciation for the checks that oil and gas extraction added to the ranch’s revenue.
Gotta love Montana.
“The bank owns the Logan Bar mortgage,” Prescott said, “but the proposed route doesn’t run across the mortgaged land. It runs across the old MacDeaver property that butts up against the Logan Bar property line.”
“No mortgage at all?”
“Hasn’t ever been a mortgage on that parcel. It’s five thousand acres of mostly wilderness, and one finger lies along the bottom of the ridge, just begging for a pipeline to come through. Their distillery sits on that property. I can’t imagine a distillery and a pipeline wouldn’t be able to find a way to get along.”
Nathan’s hand of cards went to hell, earning him twenty-five points out of a possible twenty-six, the next-to-worst hand possible.
“The family owns the distillery, Prescott, but Bridget runs that business. She doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with her brothers.” Which was normal, given that Bridget was a reasonably intelligent female and only a step-sister to them.
“She might like to earn some income of her own, then, income from a commonsense business decision involving a simple pipeline easement across the back forty of what used to be her granddaddy’s parcel.”
Nathan dealt himself another hand of cards. This one was rife with high hearts, so he dealt again. “I can bring it up with her, but she’s got odd notions where that distillery is concerned.”
“Family traditions are all well and good, but nobody with any sense wants to live in a covered wagon, Nathan. Progress requires change and compromise. If she made it through law school, Bridget MacDeaver isn’t stupid. Talk sense into her, and your contribution to Montana’s thriving and diverse economy will be rewarded. You coming over for supper on Sunday?”
Prescott could have sold snake oil to copperheads. “Wouldn’t miss it, assuming we don’t get another blizzard. Any idea who’s lining up for Judge Sellick’s seat on the bench?”
The conversation wandered to courthouse gossip, for lawyers did love to talk, and then Prescott was off to fetch dog food for his wife, as he put it.
Nathan was losing, two points shy of ending his game of hearts, so he quit and started a new one, the better to protect his stats.
“All the man wants is for me to talk my former law partner into putting a pipeline across her family’s land,” Nathan said, passing three hearts to the right. “She hates me, doesn’t trust me, and had to spend her life savings making sure I couldn’t get her disbarred.”
By the time he’d won the game, he’d figured his way through the discussion he needed to have with Bridget. Her license to practice law was still active—disbarment was still an option, in other words—her distillery had been nearly beggared by Nathan’s last attempt to reason with her, and she was ripe for a reminder of how precarious her finances had grown.
“Easy-peasy,” Nathan said, clicking back onto the websites that helped a guy pass the time when the courthouse was closed to all comers.
“I saw the vet’s estimated bill, Magnus.”
Bridget paced before the woodstove, while outside, melting snow dripped in a sun-drenched chorus. Montana’s weather put Magnus in mind of the Highlands, though no obliging ocean moderated the extremes of temperature here.
“I said I’d pay that bill, and I will.”
She knelt before the stove and fiddled with the dampers. “That is a lot of money for one ornery kitten.”
Nearly two thousand dollars, before the white-coated vet tech had finished rattling off antibiotics, anthelmintics—whatever those were—pain meds, and post-surgical care protocols. The kitten was recovering from the loss of its front leg at the clinic.
Magnus might never recover from Lena’s tears.
“The money is not being exclusively spent on the cat,” he said. “I will see to it that Patrick repays me.”
She rose. “What makes you think he can?”
“I’ll collect in services if I can’t collect in coin, but you should know, Bridget, I might have to cut my visit short.”
Magnus resented the need to return to Scotland. Less than a week ago, he’d been resenting the need to travel thousands of miles to Montana. He’d sort out that contradiction when his arse was once again trapped in economy-plus seating forty thousand feet over the Atlantic.
Such a smile graced Bridget’s features. “You’re not going to steal my distillery?”
“Must you sound so relieved? I’d never steal your distillery, though I might purchase an interest in it, or contract with you to distribute my products along with your own.”
The smile winked out. “I’m hungry. We should have stopped in town for a bite. What do you have on hand here?”
As it happened, Magnus’s omelet was a dim memory, and cold weather apparently put an appetite on him.
“More salad and quiche.”
“I’m not doing salad and quiche again,” Bridget said, opening up the fridge. “Sit down and I’ll put something together.”
Magnus wanted to argue with her, but sensed that asserting control over his kitchen met some need Bridget couldn’t otherwise articulate. He took a chair at the table as his phone buzzed silently in the back pocket of his jeans.
“Tell me about the distillery’s finances, Bridget.”
She slapped a loaf of bread down on a cutting board shaped like a pig. “Why should I hand you the keys to my kingdom?”
“Because your brothers will if you don’t.” They already had, in fact, which should have pleased Magnus rather than annoyed him.
“I am contemplating the pleasure of being brother-less. The only reason Shamus is still above ground and sucking air is that he might have shown you my books to wave you off, while not breaking ranks with Patrick and Luke.”
She studied the loaf of bread as if deciding where to cleav
e a perfect gem.
“You are solvent,” Magnus said. “Barely, and that can be a successful strategy if you’re barely solvent for good reasons.”
She went to work on the loaf, cutting off a half-dozen even slices. The knife was sharp, and she knew to let the blade do the work.
“I’m paying back my law school loans out of the distillery’s revenue,” Bridget said, arranging the bread on a cookie sheet. She buttered each slice, then added cheddar cheese. Crushed spices came next—minced onion, oregano, and tarragon, based on the scents.
“The law school loan repayments come from a dedicated account that’s clearly documented in your general ledger. What is the loan to shareholder?”
That amount—tens of thousands of dollars—hadn’t been on the previous year’s spreadsheets. Bridget had raided her corporate account in a lump sum last spring, and repayments, on top of her law school loan payments, were decimating her cash flow and operating reserves.
Bridget turned the oven on and slid the cheese toast onto the middle rack. “Some of it went for Judith’s final arrangements.”
“Ten percent, perhaps.” Uncle Fergus could wax profane about the funeral industry, but the Logans would not have been extravagant even for one for whom they all still grieved.
“Do you want coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?”
Magnus wanted answers, but he knew well the burden a business owner carried. Confide in the wrong person—even in the wrong spouse—and a dozen people lost their jobs. The damage cascaded from there, to say nothing of injured pride.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
She opened the cabinet beside the fridge, which bore a selection of teas, along with honey, agave nectar, stevia, and sugar. The honey and agave nectar went onto a tray, then Bridget put a kettle on to boil.
“I made a mistake,” she said, staring at the red tea kettle. “I was the managing partner in my law office, and I made a mistake with the books. The money went to correct my error.”
She wasn’t lying, but she sure as hell wasn’t telling the truth. “A loan between businesses isn’t unusual, but you chose a different path.”
A lonely path. She’d taken on rectifying her error as a personal debt, more or less.
“Nothing I did with my distillery books is illegal, Magnus. I went to an experienced business lawyer in Helena to make sure of that, got a legal memo on it, and had my CPA countersign it.”
A lot of bother for a routine business transaction.
Magnus rose as the kettle began to hiss. “You followed proper protocol to a T, but say you made a mistake at the law practice. This mistake was serious enough that you left a profession you’d spent years getting qualified to work in. Your brothers apparently don’t know the details, though they might suspect something, and paying off that loan to shareholder will take more than a decade at the rate you’re going.”
He marched up to her, lest she mistake his point. “If ever a business needed buying, it’s your distillery, Bridget MacDeaver, so tell me why you’ll not sell your operation to me.”
“Step off, Magnus.”
“Is this a bar fight?”
“No, but the toast is about to burn, and I do not forgive a man who causes me to waste good food.”
Magnus backed away, but he had no intention of stepping off. He wanted to buy her distillery—that was still a sound business move, if she’d consent to it—but he also wanted to know who had backed her into a corner and how to make them pay.
Bridget felt as if the spring storm that would coat the valley in white for a few days had left a path of disruption in her life. A year ago, she’d realized that a serious error lurked in the law office’s general ledger, then Judith had died, hail had wrecked much of the barley crop, and nothing had come right since.
Now Magnus was getting ready to ambush her distillery, even as he rescued gosh-bedarned kittens.
“What sort of tea are we having?” Magnus asked.
All the fixings, along with two bright red mugs, sat on the tray, but Bridget had forgotten to get out the tea.
“Irish breakfast.” Good, strong black tea.
“It tastes better in Ireland,” Magnus said, taking the tray to the table. “The Irish are wild for their tea, and if it’s not strong enough, they threaten rebellion, at which they excel. Some tea companies blend a different brew for the Irish market than for anywhere else.”
He was being polite, making small talk, though it was business small talk. “You’ve been to Ireland?”
“Many times. They make great whiskies, and it’s a beautiful country. Shall I get the toast?”
“I’ll get it. I can nuke some soup from the freezer.”
“Perhaps later.”
Her small-talk reprieve was to be brief. Bridget cut each piece of toast in half and arranged the triangles on a plate.
“We should have a salad.”
Magnus took her by the wrist and led her to the table. “This is a friendly chat over a snack, Bridget, not the last meal of the condemned. I have more elderly relations than you have cattle, and you’ll find every vice known to humankind hanging from my family tree.
“Aunt Helga is a rabid teetotaler,” he went on, “because she was a raging alcoholic as a younger woman. Uncle Fergus gambled away a substantial fortune and still can’t think straight in the presence of an attractive woman. Zebedee Brodie wrecks race cars when he’s not funding crackbrained schemes and calling it support for emerging technologies. Cousin Elias—a mere lad in his thirties—has a penchant for breaking engagements at the last minute.”
“You love these people.” He spoke of them with exasperated affection, faults and all.
“They are my family.” Magnus held a chair for her, something Bridget couldn’t recall any of her brothers ever doing.
She sat, and fatigue settled into her bones. “We thank Thee for this food, amen. Pass the teapot, please, before I expire for lack of caffeine.”
“Amen.” Magnus didn’t pass her the pot, but rather, poured her a mug of tea first, then filled his own cup.
“These geezers and duffers are also your board of directors, Magnus.”
He stirred honey into his tea, though Bridget had the satisfaction of noting a slight hitch in his reach for the milk.
“You’ve been researching me. Should I be flattered?”
“Researching your distillery. Your board is composed almost entirely of family members. There’s a real, live, honest-to-Pete earl in the bunch, the one you call Zebedee.”
“I call him many things in addition to Uncle Zeb, when he bothers to show up at the board meetings. Will you have some toast?”
Magnus would not serve himself until Bridget had chosen a slice. That realization brought a stupid lump to her throat, and she put any old three triangles of toast on her plate.
“We thank Thee—I already said that.”
Magnus took three pieces for himself. “Gratitude bears repeating, and I’m grateful for my family. If not for their stubborn distrust of my former wife, I’d have handed her my last groat and my best barrels of single malt.”
He’d had family guarding his treasure, while Bridget had step-brothers trying to sell hers.
“I can’t eat this.” She couldn’t seem to move either. Couldn’t stand, grab her jacket, and flee across the slush and mud of the driveway to a ranch house that had never felt much like home.
Magnus produced a flask from the breast pocket of his vest. “For courage.”
If she accepted his offer… “What sort of enemy offers me moral support when I’m running on fumes?”
He set the flask beside her mug of cooling tea. “One who isn’t in a position to judge you. I might be able to help, Bridget, but you’re so accustomed to thrashing through every difficulty on your own that help looks like meddling.”
She picked up the flask, which was warm from his body heat. “My former law partner used to say the same thing. I was too stubborn to compromise.”
; Magnus sat back. “That’s not what I meant, but tell me about this law partner. I suspect he’s the author of some of your woes.”
Bridget uncapped the flask, closed her eyes, took a whiff, and had to take another.
“That is superb,” she murmured, treating herself to yet another sniff. “Vanilla pods, mint growing outside the back door, a bowl of tree-ripe mangoes sitting on the counter.”
“And the palate?”
She took a cautious taste, all thoughts of Nathan and dubious solvency gone. “The mint shifts to eucalyptus, and the vanilla morphs into high church incense. There’s a trace of stone dust, but that mingles so well with all the mint and a sort of peachy quality that the effect is elegant and polyphonic? Symphonic?”
The next taste confirmed all of her impressions and added yet more layers. Papayas and good old nutmeg. The stone dust drifted outdoors and hinted of pollen and the oak from which so much whisky flavor sprang.
“And the finish?” Magnus asked.
“I’m working on it.” One last sample of heaven. “Quietly glorious, like profoundly intimate lovemaking recalled long afterward. That’s not sensory, but I can’t come at this degree of elegance any other way. This is some of the finest whisky I have ever, or will ever, taste.”
“The distillery went out of business fifteen years ago,” Magnus said. “That batch was thirty-four years old, and only ninety-four bottles of it were sold.”
Bridget passed him back his flask. “Do you expect me to swill tea and gobble cheese toast after an experience like that?”
“No,” Magnus said, “but I was hoping you might trust me enough to realize I want to help. My motives are not pure, and your trust should come with serious reservations, but I have resources you lack, Bridget.”
“What sort of resources?”
He tucked the flask away. “Guile, ruthlessness, and I cut a dash in a kilt.”
Now there was an image to give a lady pause. But then, Bridget had seen him wearing nothing at all. She’d also seen the guile in action up at the resort.
Nathan had been ruthless, the bastard. “Why help me, Magnus? Who or what has your balls in such a vise that you’d go thousands of miles out of your way, deal with Montana weather, my idiot brothers, and an ailing kitten just to help out another whisky operation?”
Big Sky Ever After: a Montana Romance Duet Page 33
