by Lexi Whitlow
I got this!
* * *
I now understand why everyone bitches so much about air travel. I always wanted to travel. I want to see the world, but maybe doing it overland or via a cruise ship is a better plan than flying the not-so-friendly skies. I left home at two in the afternoon, got through security, boarded and found my seat pressed between a kid wearing headphones blaring the worst rap music I’ve ever heard, and a fat man who thought he could claim my armrest. My elbows are sharper than his; I made that fact known double-quick.
After a two-hour layover in Denver watching people talk on their cellphones, I’m back in the air now, this time with a whole different batch of characters than the ones I flew with from Raleigh to Denver. When the plane began to board, I noted that the passengers were mostly men, dressed in boots and heavy coats, some sporting cowboy hats. There are a few tourists among them—people who look somewhat more like me—but generally, I’d wager this airplane is full of Montana natives. They’re a striking bunch of singular appeal. Big, strapping, corn-fed, and confident looking. There’s no one on this flight who resembles my ex-boyfriend Mark, with his skinny jeans, earrings, Viking tattoo, and soul patch. These guys don’t need Viking Tattoos to look tough. They have the market cornered on more than just looking the part. It’s clear to me that I’m not in North Carolina anymore. I think I might be headed to Oz.
The pilot’s voice crackles over a loudspeaker.
“The flight crew will begin preparing for landing. We’ll be on the ground in about twenty minutes. We appreciate you flying with us today and we hope you enjoy you’re your stay in Missoula. The temperature on the ground is twenty-four degrees, with overcast skies.”
Glad I brought my winter coat. I rarely need it in Raleigh.
I’ve been in transit for more than ten hours. I’m sure I smell like stale airplane upholstery and packed-too-tight humanity. My skin feels icky. More than anything I want to wash, but Mr. Davis—Camden—warned me that the drive to Ronan is more than an hour from the airport. I still have a way to go before I can crash and sleep.
The local time say’s eleven fifteen, but my body says it’s the middle of the night. I’m foggy in the head, stiff from being cramped in a too tight space for so long, and just flat tired. The airport is nearly deserted as my fellow passengers and I make our way to baggage claim. I’m no seasoned traveler, so I just follow along. Though I do make sure I’m checking the signs to make sure I’m moving in the right direction. We pass a security check, entering the public part of the airport. A few happy faces rush forward, arms wide, greeting weary passengers from my flight.
And that’s when I see him.
Oh. Good. Lord.
This incredibly striking man stands back from the group of greeters, leaning against a concrete column, looking bored. He’s six-feet tall and then some, wearing faded, tight Levi’s hugging narrow hips, and an open, sheepskin coat. It’s well-worn and weathered from years of exposure to harsh weather. He’s got a square, chiseled jaw, and an athletic build, with broad shoulders. He’s long and tall, and before I even know what’s come over me, I think to myself I’d like to climb up on him and hang on, like playing on the monkey bars.
As if he isn’t perfect enough, he’s also got honey blond hair, buzzed short in the back, and deep blue eyes that catch my gaze and hold it.
He nods at me. Oh shit. It’s him. It’s Camden Davis.
This is awkward.
He closes the space between us in a few long strides, greeting me with his big, strong hand outstretched.
“You must be Grace,” he says. His voice is deep and smoky, his accent more clipped than I’d expected from a guy in cowboy boots, wearing a Stetson.
I try to catch my breath, but my jaw is slack. I think my tongue is paralyzed from the shock of seeing this specimen of male perfection, and knowing that he’s got my hand in his.
“Umm… Yeah…” I mumble while he grips my hand, his calloused fingers and palm wrapping my own, squeezing.
“I’m Cam,” he replies, ignoring my stuttering ineptitude while pulling my backpack off my shoulder, swinging it onto his own. “You have any bags to pick up?”
I shake my head, still incapable of forming cogent speech.
“Truck’s this way.” He turns toward the sliding glass doors at the far end of the room, and leads me towards them.
The bracing dry cold of my first blast of a Montana winter wakes me, shaking my brain free of the fog of travel and the bewildering beauty of my host. I hastily pull my coat on, zipping it up snug to my neck, then dip into my pockets for a scarf, my hat, and knit gloves. Before we make it thirty feet towards the parking lot, I realize that my thin pretense at winter wear is going to be no match for this climate. By the time I climb up into the elevated cab of Camden Davis’ four-wheel-drive pick-up truck, I’m shivering, teeth chattering.
I’m speechless again, but this time for altogether different reasons.
It’s only the second week in October, but it’s snowing—hard. And it’s dark. As soon as we pull away from the airport, we head off into the countryside, speedily bypassing any fleeting indication of civilization. Camden has little to say, except that the snow is just a flurry and won’t amount to much.
“Tomorrow the weather’s supposed to clear.” He glances sideways at me. “Do you know how to ride?”
Ride? I give him a puzzled look before understanding his question. “Horses,” I say—stupidly.
“Yeah. Horses,” he repeats. I notice him trying to suppress a smile.
“Ahm, not really,” I say, trying to think of a recovery. “They’re beautiful creatures, but no, I’ve never had the opportunity. I was raised in the city, mostly lived in apartments. I love to hike and camp. It’s my favorite thing, but I didn’t get to do any of that ‘til I got out on my own.”
He has no response. We drive on another forty minutes through a snowstorm with little traffic on the road around us. He must think I’m an incredible bore.
Miles down the road, Camden finally breaks the silence.
“Home sweet home.”
He slows, then turns right down a wide, unpaved lane that tips gently upward as we proceed along it. I have a sense of something massive and foreboding ahead of us, way out in the distance. In the dark, with limited visibility from the snow, I can’t fathom anything except the rough dirt drive stretching ahead into infinity.
Camden takes an unexpected left, swinging into a drive fenced on both sides with tall, white painted rails, lined with mature evergreens just inside the fence. As the headlights fall on the house, I’m taken by its size and its simple design. There’s little ornamentation to speak of. It’s a practical building, and one obviously constructed in staged additions, decade after decade, growing as the requirements of the family within its walls expanded. It’s painted pale yellow, its clapboard siding neat with black trim around the doors and windows. The structure rests on high stone foundations, buttressed with wide, heavyset chimneys of the same material.
“Emma’s in bed by now,” Camden says, switching the ignition off. His voice is low and quiet in the car. “My mom’s staying over tonight to watch her, so you’ll get to meet her. It’s pretty late and I know you must be bushed.”
That’s an understatement.
Stepping out into the weather, I note there’s not another light visible around us for as far as I can see. The quiet of the landscape is almost oppressive. I can hear the snow as it falls, individual flakes landing, setting down, piling upon themselves in the still, dry air. The air here is thin. Taking it into my lungs, it cuts deep, slicing again with each exhaled, cloudy breath.
I’m too exhausted to be overwhelmed, and for that fact, I’m grateful, as under normal conditions, this entire experience would be a lot to process without freaking out.
I’m a long way from home.
Chapter 2
Camden
She’s not at all what I expected.
This girl—Grace—looks like so
meone out of a movie or television show. She’s sure not like any of the girls here. She’s maybe five-two or three, with curves in all the right places and none of the wrong ones. She’s got a perfect, heart-shaped ass that’ll stop traffic if she ever makes it to town. And she’s got something else that most of the women around here don’t have; it’s either confidence or arrogance, and I’m not sure which.
She’s not a chatty, all about me, sort of nervous little thing like so many girls are. She’s comfortable in her skin, like a champion thoroughbred. She didn’t start batting her eyelashes at me right out of the gate. She’s got manners, and she seems to understand that this deal is strictly business.
Now, if I can only remember that too. At the moment, I’m worried that her cute, short blond hair and those flashing hazel eyes—not to mention her ass—are gonna cause me to forget why she’s here.
She’s here for Emma. She’s here because I need help. She’s here for a job—and that’s it.
I don’t need any more female drama. I’ve had my fill of that. Emma’s the only female drama I can handle in my life; she’s all I want.
Walking Grace in to the house, I try hard to remind myself of all of this, but following her in my eyes wander down to that fine ass, distracted by the curved outline of her thighs wrapped in tight, black jeans. I keep my eyes on her as she walks up the steps to the ranch house.
Good goddamn.
I nearly forget the open the door for her, but I hop ahead of her at the last moment, and my mother greets us.
“You’re Grace!” my mom says, greeting us in the foyer with a big, warm smile. She takes both Grace’s hands in hers. “I’m Beck, Cam’s mother. I’m so pleased to meet you.”
My mother is a lovely person. She’s also Mission Mountains toughest, born and raised at the foot of these peaks, with ice-cold snow cap run-off coursing through her veins and granite-edged wisdom sharpening her discernment. She doesn’t suffer fools well, and she can spot a liar from twenty paces. The first four times I hired a nanny, I did it on my own. This time, I called in the cavalry. Mom gets to decide whether Grace gets the job or not. If mom doesn’t like her, she’s on the next flight back to North Carolina.
“Happy to meet you too,” Grace says, returning the warm smile. “I’m sorry we’re in so late. I hope we haven’t kept you up.”
Mom shakes her head, taking Grace’s coat, hanging it on a spare hook near her own and Emma’s. “Not at all,” she says. “Let’s get you something to eat and drink, then we’ll let you get to bed.”
Grace nods. “That would be great,” she says. She asks if she can freshen up first.
“C’mon,” I say, “I’ll show you your room.”
I lead her upstairs to the last room on the end at the back of the house, right beside Emma’s bedroom.
“It’s sparse,” I say, showing her in. “But it should have everything you need. Mom laid out towels in the bathroom, and there’s an extra blanket in the bottom drawer if you get cold later on.”
I watch her take the room in, a flash of amusement creasing her eyes. I wonder what she sees. Is it so different than where she lives? It must be.
“It’s perfect,” Grace says, taking her backpack from me.
“Come on down whenever you’re ready,” I tell her. “We won’t keep you up much longer, I promise.”
Mom greets me at the bottom of the stairs with arched eyebrows and an optimistic smile turning her lip. “She’s precious.” She slips her fingers around my arm above my elbow, drawing me with her into the kitchen.
“She’s young,” I reply. “Maybe too young.”
“Nonsense,” she quips, shutting me down. “Give her a chance, Cam. See how she does with Emma.”
I walk to the cabinet, retrieving a glass and the bottle of my favorite whiskey, pouring a neat, warm drink.
“She doesn’t like the weather either, and this ain’t even cold yet. Wait ‘til the snow is four feet deep and we can’t get out without a sled. She’s a city girl. She’s not gonna know what to do with this place.”
“Pour me one of those,” Mom instructs, nodding to my glass. “And quit looking for obstacles. If you’d lighten up a bit, you might realize that a little new blood is just what this old shamble needs. You’re too much like your father, Cam. You’re obstinately resistant to change.”
I pour mom a drink. Handing it to her, I consider her wisdom. My father was the best man I ever knew, but he was set in his ways to a faulty degree. When I took over Kicking Horse after he died, I couldn’t believe the mess the books were in. I couldn’t believe he was still running things like it was the 19th century. He was barely making ends meet and behind on property taxes. It took me almost two years to turn things around, catch up on taxes, and break even. It took another two years to turn the first profit the ranch had made in the last twenty.
My dad’s unwillingness to change, to expand his horizons and consider new approaches, is why I left at seventeen and went to work across the valley on Jim Burke’s ranch. I wanted to learn and experiment, to see what was possible. Mr. Burke’s operation was world-class. I learned a lot from him, and everything I learned, I’ve applied here at Kicking Horse, plus adapting a few new approaches along the way. My father taught me horses, but Jim taught me how to run a business. To ranch successfully, you need to do both things well.
My father died when I was twenty-six. I inherited this place with my mother. She stayed on a year, but when I got married, she said that Beverly was the lady of the house and she’d just be in the way. She and Bev never got on very well, so I went along with it.
It was a rocky marriage right from the start. A year in, I was pretty sure that marrying Beverly Beaufort was the worst mistake I ever made, but then she got pregnant and I knew I had to make it work, no matter what. I tried hard to be a good husband, but Bev was never satisfied with anything about me, or our life out here in the valley. She wanted to move to Missoula. She wanted me to get a real job, sell the land, leave the horses.
My fifth great-grandfather, Camden Spencer Davis, came to this precise spot in 1906 with his nineteen-year-old wife in tow, along with his infant son, six well-bread work horses, two cows, and a dozen goats. That first summer he dug blocks from the valley floor and built a sod hut as shelter for his wife and his animals. They all lived together inside it, passing their first bitter, Montana winter. A year later, his brother Dylan Rhys Davis joined him and together they built the main structure of the house I now live in.
Spencer Davis’ brother died in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. My fifth great-grandfather survived, along with a son and two daughters. His wife perished in the spring of 1919 in childbirth, along with the baby. They’re all buried a thousand yards from here in the family plot, along with generations of their descendants.
With all that history? There’s no way in hell I would ever sell this land or give up this life. Too many people before me worked too hard to get here, stake their claim, and make something of it. I don’t feel like I own it. I’m just holding it for the next Davis in line who, like me, will serve as caretaker. I’m hoping that’ll be Emma. I’m trying to teach her to love this place as much as I do. I know I’ll never find anyone else who does.
A few moments pass and Grace appears, joining us in the kitchen. She’s washed up, changed into fresh clothes, but still looks drained from a long day of traveling.
Mom made her a roast beef sandwich, which she regards with suspicion when it’s presented. Like she’s never seen fresh-made bread or meat that looks quite like that. She probably hasn’t.
My mother—ever the wizard—reads her thoughts with deft precision. She smiles wryly.
“The beef is Kicking Horse Ranch, grain fed, hormone and steroid free. We’re not certified organic, but we could be. It’s fine, unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case I have some hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. If you’re vegan, you’ve come to the wrong state.”
I can’t help but laugh, although I try my best to stifle it.
Grace grins sheepishly at my mother. “Thank you. It looks wonderful. I’m not a vegetarian—definitely not a vegan.”
Thank. God.
Mom makes idle chit chat while Grace works on her sandwich. I pay little attention to the conversation, only studying the turn of Grace’s jawline, and the way her muscles flex hard as she chews. Her hands are delicate. They’re not scarred or calloused like mine. She’s probably never done a lick of real work. That’s good though. They’ll be soft to the touch—for Emma.
What is she? Twenty-four or so? Maybe twenty-five. Does she have a boyfriend? Of course, she does. Smart girls who look like her always have boyfriends.
“No,” I hear Grace say, responding to one of my mother’s more invasive questions. “My father died about seven years ago. My mom is remarried, again. She lives in Atlanta. I don’t see her much. We aren’t that close. She kind of went off the rails after my brother passed. I left for college, and that was pretty much that.”
“So, other than your mom, you don’t have any family? At all?” my mother asks. I hear disbelief in her tone.
“Nope, not really.”
We have a big family. Mom has five siblings. My father had four. Between the aunts and uncles, and all their kids and grandkids, this place becomes Ground Zero for holiday functions and family reunions. Hosting those things comes with the territory I inherited. I resigned myself to it years ago. In truth, I enjoy it. It was something Bev never managed to wrap her head around. She hated it when the family descended on Kicking Horse for a reunion or Thanksgiving meal.
I still manage to keep that tradition going strong even though I’m single now. Luckily, I have Mom and lots of aunts to help plan and pull it all together. I just provide the space, and hire the help and the entertainment.
“So, you’ll be going to your mother’s for Thanksgiving and Christmas?” Mom asks Grace.
Grace’s expression shifts to amused denial. “No,” she states flatly. “I think Mother said she and Roger—that’s her husband—were taking a Carnival Cruise. No.” She smiles at my mom, then lifts her bright eyes to me. “I’m hoping on spending Thanksgiving here with you all and Emma. But if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be back in Raleigh. The bookshop is open in the afternoon for Black Friday shoppers. It’s a busy day.”
