Big Sky, Loyal Heart

by M. L. Buchman

  And half a head taller than most, a man in a cowboy hat. Patrick. Close at his side—very, very close—the woman he’d rescued from the river.

  Have fun, Patrick.

  She didn’t doubt that he would. And she had no hold. No claim. She’d be gone back to New York soon enough anyway. It might have been fun to play with a cowboy for a few days, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

  Even as Lauren watched him, he looked down at the woman beside him, and didn’t look back up. Yep! Got your answer, Foster. Not for you.

  Not that she cared.

  “You got problems with Claudia?” Mark asked it softly.

  “What? No! What makes you say that?” Colonel Gibson’s response was as close to shock as she’d ever heard from him.

  Lauren laughed (she actually laughed, even if it was barely a quick bark of it). Would wonders never cease? “You’re clearly sitting on something uncomfortable, Michael,” she accidentally took the liberty of using his first name and wasn’t rebuked for it. She was a civilian now after all, so maybe it was okay. “Something even Emily”—that too felt all right, mostly—“couldn’t pry out of you. You’ve got your wife good and worried.”

  “She could never doubt how much I care about her.”

  “And when was the last time you told her that?”

  Michael looked at the sky, back down at the fire, and over toward the setting sun.

  “Michael?” Even Lauren knew better than that.

  “Aw, man,” Mark groaned. “You don’t reassure them at least once every couple days—women get antsier than horses.”

  “We do not.”

  “Do!” Mark rolled his eyes at her. At least she assumed he did behind his mirrored shades.

  Michael inspected the sky once more, then rose to his feet abruptly and crossed to the helicopter. He pulled his cell phone out of his pack.

  “No signal out here,” Mark whispered to her with a soft laugh while Michael stood glaring at his phone.

  Not to be defeated, Michael dug once more into his pack and pulled out a military satellite phone.

  “Bet he was a heck of a Boy Scout,” she whispered back to Mark.

  “Best soldier I’ve ever met,” no joking in his voice this time. “Even better than Emily.”

  Lauren wondered what it would take to have someone talk about her like that. Well, first it would require her being someone a lot finer than Lauren Foster. Military retired. No dog. No job. No life. Not even a cowboy to play with.

  Michael’s soft voice carried from the helicopter, “It’s me. I just…”

  “I was just thinking of you,” Lauren called out softly.

  He didn’t even turn as he repeated her words.

  “Now I’m a relationship ventriloquist,” she told Mark.

  “Shush, I’m busy listening,” Mark sipped his beer.

  “I…” Michael stumbled to a halt once again.

  “Tell her that you love her,” she called out.

  Mark choked and sputtered as he tried to pass his beer through his nose.

  “I just want you to know…” Michael trailed off again.

  Lauren considered going up to smack him.

  “Yeah. I miss you too… What? … Oh… Yes. I feel just the same.”

  Lauren sighed. It was both sad that he had to be prompted…and impossibly sweet.

  “Uh-huh. We’re camping here…”

  News to her, not that she had anywhere better to be.

  “Right… See you tomorrow.” Michael tucked away the phone, then came back to sit by the fire.

  For a long time they listened to it crackle and pop. He arranged the fish on a couple rocks as the mountain shadows overran their position and the sky shifted from blue to gold.

  “Thanks,” Michael said so long after the phone call that it took Lauren a couple minutes to connect that he was addressing her.

  “You bet.”

  Before the fish was done, Mark had dug some paper plates out of the helo’s baggage compartment, but couldn’t find any utensils.

  Both she and Michael watched Mark as he struggled to eat the fish with the thin curved boning blade. He kept cursing as he burned his fingers on the hot flesh.

  “You really have gone civilian,” Lauren teased him, feeling that just maybe it was okay to do so.

  Michael offered one of his quiet smiles that was apparently his version of laughing aloud. He pulled out a Cold Steel SRK six-inch blade and a Gerber Multi-Plier for dealing with any stray bones—both black anodized so they wouldn’t catch any light.

  “Okay, Foster,” Mark hissed in pain and sucked his fingertips again. “Show us your arsenal.”

  She wished she had something else to show, but she didn’t. So, as casually as she could, she pulled up the leg of her jeans and slid her Extrema Ratio Glauca B1 out of its leg sheath.

  Michael stopped with a speared flake of fish on the tip of his SRK and inspected her carefully.

  Mark just whistled. “I thought only the French GIGN had those.” France’s elite counter-terrorism group—the closest thing they had to Delta.

  Lauren used the folding blade to brush back the crispy skin with a single long sweep. “Their lead dog handler liked me.” Georges Marchand had liked her a great deal. They spent four weeks in a cross-team training program together, and then a week with just them and their dogs at a Tunisian beach resort. His parting gift had been his Glauca.

  “I wish someone liked me enough to give me a five-hundred-dollar knife.”

  “Dream on, Major.”

  “Maybe I’ll just steal yours.”

  “You’re welcome to try.”

  He grunted, “Could get to like you, Foster.” Then he tossed his own knife aside and began picked at his fish again with his bare fingers.

  Fresh-caught, campfire-cooked, eaten among friends… Or at least military friends, which was a different category but still counted for a lot. It was some of the best trout she’d ever eaten.

  She kept a casual eye to the east, but no cowboy came riding over the hill. Even after dusky red had gone to full dark filled with glittering stars, she caught herself glancing to the east though there was nothing to see.

  Patrick had solved his problem of what to do with Clara by sticking close to the thirteen-year-old Mirisa. He still didn’t understand why the girl kept giggling at him rather than sighing, but she was soon entertaining everyone with the Greek myths and stories. She had an unending supply of them, but told them with a sophistication that seemed unlikely for her years. She also pointed out the various star constellations that went with each story she told.

  It kept the entire group well entertained until it was time to bed down. He asked the best of the riders—a seventeen-year-old boy—to help him check the horses over for the night. Partly as a reward and partly so that he didn’t ask Clara, then somehow forget to come back. He also made a point of telling them not to wander off into the night, because there might be a bear out feeding somewhere. He’d patted his rifle to emphasize the point.

  “Don’t keep any snack food with you tonight. Not even sealed in plastic. I think bears can smell right through it.”

  Drake and Devin had ridden off with the chuck wagon and the scant remains of a steak and fire-baked potato dinner a few hours earlier. They’d finished with s’mores made with some gourmet chocolate from a Seattle boutique shop called Chocolaterie Bosco with which his brother had make a special mix for the ranch, including dried black huckleberries and a hint of ginger. No other s’mores anywhere would taste like the ones at Henderson’s Ranch, which Patrick supposed was the point. The breakfast bag—strung up high on a line between two trees well clear of the campsite—was filled with Nathan’s awesome homemade cinnamon rolls.

  “And don’t be wandering off farther than the outhouse,” which was tucked a little way into the grove of Rocky Mountain maple.

  It was only as he said it that he knew he was trapped by his own words. It was his job to stay in the camp and make sure
everyone was okay. Just happening to mosey into Lauren’s camp as if everything was normal—like Mel Gibson in that Old West gambler movie with Jodi Foster, wasn’t going to happen. What was it? He never forgot titles, but he couldn’t bring that one to mind. No leading man getting a feisty blonde Jodi. Instead he kept picturing Lauren’s thoughtful gazes and minimal gestures.

  He sighed as he curled up in his bag close by the fire. A few of the more adventurous were camped out with him. Clara retreated to the tent she shared with her daughter with a sad look on her face.

  Patrick offered her an apologetic shrug to let her think that it would have happened if it had been in his control. It cheered her up some, and she returned the shrug in a friendly enough way as if saying, “Oh well. Too bad.”

  And it wasn’t in his control. His imagination was busy wandering over to the other side of the knoll, still wondering how to turn this into a leading man moment.

  Chapter 3

  “Not ready to face the humiliation?” Lauren folded the blanket she’d slept under, still reeking slightly of horse—which she probably did now as well—and stowed it back in the helicopter.

  “Didn’t bring any breakfast supplies,” Mark’s grumble greeted her tease. One glance at him told Lauren that this was a man who needed his morning coffee. The sky was pink with the pending sunrise. The bright spot of Venus, the morning star, had faded from sight less than ten minutes ago.

  “I’m glad to catch breakfast,” not that she really wanted more fish.

  “Careful, or I’ll make you deliver on that boast rather than flying us back to the ranch.” Mark was doing the preflight inspection of the helicopter.

  Michael was using a Henderson’s Ranch ball cap he’d found under one of the helo’s seats to transport water to douse the fire’s ashes, not that there was a wisp of smoke when he stirred them with a stick. Still, he methodically doused and stirred to make sure the fire had truly died overnight. The horse blankets, apparently kept in the aft hold for emergencies, were all that any of them had needed for bedding. She’d slept in much harder holes than on a cushy grass bed watching the stars turn through the night sky—though that queen-size bed back at the ranch felt awfully inviting when she’d woken up at the crack of dawn, chilled by the heavy dew.

  “We could always go over the hill there and raid that tourist camp,” she nodded toward the low ridge. “Bet they have food. Probably still sleeping so we can catch them by surprise.”

  “What are you talking about, woman?” Mark didn’t look her direction as he wiggled the helo’s tail rotor in a way that probably told him a hundred things about its condition and merely told her that it wiggled.

  She pictured their relative positions last night: Michael tending the fire, Mark busy cleaning the fish. She was the only one who’d been turned to see the line of guests atop the vista point.

  “Just do them a favor, flyboy,” a deep insult to any Army pilot—that’s what the Army called a pilot who could only qualify for the Air Farce. “Don’t pass over the other side of the hill on departure.”

  Mark and Michael at looked each other, then at the grassy hill, then at her. Some look passed between them. As if Michael said, “I told you,” and Mark replied, “Guess so.”

  “What?”

  No response. They were having some stoic, guy-speak moment and it didn’t take a genius to know it was about her. But neither one was volunteering the contents of the first half of their conversation.

  Carrying her blanket, she passed close behind where Michael squatted over the remnants of his fire. She shoved firmly against his hip with a knee.

  Rather than tipping forward into the ashes as she’d planned, Michael snaked out a hand. He caught her behind the knee, swept her other leg with a swing of his own, and rolled so that when she slammed down onto the ground, he was poised atop her to strike with his fist.

  He might have surprised her, but with her left hand she had grabbed his knife from its sheath on his right leg as she went down and landed on her back with the breath knocked out of her. She held his own SRK blade steady to his throat.

  It earned her a small smile before he pinched a nerve on her arm—his hand had been perfectly pre-positioned so all he had to do was squeeze. The blade tumbled from her suddenly limp fingers. It sliced through the grass with a slight swish sound before digging in point first close beside her ear.

  “She is good,” Mark sounded wide awake.

  Michael grunted, then rose to his feet, retrieving and resheathing his blade as he did so.

  Lauren rolled, swept his feet out from under him, and continued the roll to get well clear before he could recover. At the moment Michael hit the ground with a surprised grunt, she rolled over the folded blanket she’d dropped. She clutched it to her chest as she pushed to her feet and began walking over to the helo to stow it as if she hadn’t even broken her stride.

  Mark’s laugh lit up the morning.

  Michael’s grunt sounded more thoughtful this time as he climbed to his feet.

  Why did they need her to be good? What kind of a test was this?

  “No longer in the military, jerkwads.”

  Neither man answered.

  Yesterday had been a fog. Too much had happened. Her final flight home from Afghanistan, mustering out, then standing on the tarmac with her duffle and her DD 214 Honorable Discharge form. Fifteen years in. Army, Rangers, Delta. Three dogs. All done.

  For fifteen years, the US Army had provided everything: housing, food, and plenty of action. She was done with them. Only respect for the rank of the out-processing officer had kept her from chucking the re-up offer in his face. Instead, she’d stood in front of the offered chair she hadn’t taken and shredded the form into confetti, then scattered it over his desk before returning to parade rest.

  She’d been awarded too many medals and commendations for him to change the “Honorable Discharge” to “General” or worse, but she could see his pen hesitate over Box #24 “Character of Service.” He’d finally signed her DD 214 and practically thrown it in her face.

  “You’re belt isn’t regulation.” Got that right… It was refashioned from the tubular nylon dog leash she’d been holding coiled in her hand when she’d let Jupiter scout ahead off-lead. If she’d needed evidence that she was stateside again, that was it. Next he’d be asking where her reflective exercise belt was—the first garbage can she’d found in Kandahar after it had been issued. She’d walked out of his office before she could earn a dishonorable discharge for taking down a superior idiot.

  There she’d stood, out in the early morning light of Pope Field, Fort Bragg—knowing it was her last military flight and she’d never be back—blinking hard against the bright dawn that was making her eyes burn. She didn’t have a single friend outside the military…and the wall of a DD 214 now stood between her and her friends on the inside. Her first step off the plane when it reached New York would be into a world she couldn’t imagine—a world she’d departed straight out of high school and never looked back at.

  Then Colonel Gibson walked up to her with his wife Claudia, each bearing a light pack, and led her toward a different plane. Somehow, she’d ended up in Montana.

  Now she had some sleep—at least enough to be coherent and stop fainting, though not enough to cure crossing a dozen time zones in the last forty-eight hours. She could finally think again. That was some progress.

  Today she was going to get some answers or by nightfall she’d be headed to the Big Apple—even if she had to walk to get there. If she was stuck on the outside, it was time to start learning how to live there.

  Patrick didn’t hear the helo start, but he heard it pass well to the south. No startled horses this time. No runaway Rolo forcing him to gather a snuggly woman into his arms.

  He’d spent a third of last night thinking it had been a bad decision to put Clara off. It wasn’t as if Lauren was just waiting to fall into his arms—again—after he’d plunged into a mud puddle, then been caught cradling anot
her woman. Some movie star hero he was. More in the untrustworthy playboy role. Maybe he was Tom Cruise in Top Gun in that part of the film before he fell in love with Kelly McGillis. That was a little more promising, but as he was most of a foot taller than Tom…

  “That is definitely a wrap,” he muttered to himself. End of any film with himself as the hero.

  He really was in the role of plucky comic-relief sidekick and couldn’t see any way out of it. If Stan or one of the other hands was suddenly cast in the leading hero role, he’d have to shoot himself. And miss, of course, because it was bad form to kill the plucky comic-relief sidekick.

  Then he’d spent at least half the night thinking it had been a good decision to put Clara off and “save” himself for Lauren, just in case. There was something about her beyond merely stunning looks. Maybe it was a Florence Nightin-guy effect. She’d felt fragile in his arms as he’d carried her to the house unconscious. But it had also felt right. For at least that one brief moment, he was the romantic hero in the movie.

  Somewhere near dawn he’d decided that he’d cast himself as the hero in the movie that was his life from now on. He liked the sound of that. Time to take the reins of his own life. A cowboy metaphor. Even better.

  And the few remaining minutes of the night, he might have slept. Or he might have spent it trying to dig out the rocks that insisted on poking through his bedroll despite the camping air mattress.

  Trying to be entertaining and attentive to the ranch guests this morning, while being barely conscious, was proving a challenge. Coffee with extra sugar didn’t help nearly enough.

  Not thinking about Lauren was proving impossible.

  Regrettably, staying in his saddle when Minotaur decided to walk under a low, stout branch on a Douglas fir tree was also out of the question. It swept him backward, over Minotaur’s hindquarters, and left him lying on his back in a pricker bush. He lay there, trying to redraft the scene in some way that wasn’t just plain embarrassing as the horse whickered a laugh at him. Minotaur had known exactly what he was doing.