The Man from Montana

by Julianna Morris

  Besides, how could they get around the past?

  She knew he hadn’t been dating Renee, but he was still intimately connected to her sister’s death. And as if that wasn’t enough of a problem, they weren’t a good combination. She was emotionally engaged, while he struggled with showing his deepest feelings. She lived in Tucson and her career was geared to a hot desert environment. She had parents, grandparents and other family tied to the Southwest. And her face when she talked about the desert was filled with a yearning love, as if her inner being was fused with the place.

  Clay didn’t care for deserts; he preferred rivers and grasslands and wet meadows over dry heat, but he understood being in love with a place. As much as he appreciated his hometown, he still remembered the first time he’d seen the vastness of snowy peaks rising above Lake McDonald, and the thick forests marching up the mountains to meet the descending rivers of glacial ice. He’d envisioned it as a great battle between two imposing forces.

  He shifted restlessly and put another small stick of wood in the fire. This was one of the few areas used by Carson Outdoor Adventures where he was willing to allow a campfire, but he kept it to a minimum.

  They’d roasted marshmallows over the flickering flames, and once it got dark, the kids had wanted to tell scary ghost stories. The parents had shaken their heads, so instead, Tessa had begun telling them about the various animals they’d seen earlier in the day, making up comic tales and mixing in a few Native American legends. In her stories, wolves and bears were friends and heroic figures, rather than being villainous, fearful creatures.

  She had a gift with kids. They listened intently, but so did the adults, who were leaning toward her to be sure they didn’t miss a word.

  “But aren’t wolves bad?” asked the eight-year-old named Penny. “Mom and Dad aren’t scared of them, but I am. Red Riding Hood and her grandma got eaten by a wolf.”

  “That’s just a kiddy fairytale,” her brother scoffed.

  “Fairy tales mean different things to different people,” Tessa said gently. “When I was your age, my dad told me that Red Riding Hood really isn’t about a wolf, it’s about learning to make the right choices, and understanding that if we make bad choices, we hurt ourselves and other people, too.”

  She looked up and Clay caught her gaze for a long second. He couldn’t be sure she was talking about Renee, but it seemed possible. Renee had made choices, one of which Tessa didn’t even know about, and they had affected everyone around her. The impact of those choices was still reverberating, months after her death. The irony was that Renee had been successfully facing her fear and dislike for the wild. She’d just made a terrible mistake the day of the rafting trip.

  Penny made a face. “You mean like leaving the door open when it’s cold outside, so everybody gets cold.”

  “And the power bill goes up,” one of the adults said in an ironic tone. Wry laughter came from the other adults.

  “That’s right. Stories can help us learn,” Tessa told the children. “My favorite stories are about being strong and brave and caring, because that’s the kind of person I want to be.”

  “You ’n’ Clay rescued Skeeter, even when you never saw him before.” Penny yawned widely. “That was brave.”

  “The nice thing about our hearts is that they’re big enough to care about people and animals we’ve never seen,” Tessa said. “You care about Skeeter and you haven’t met him. Isn’t that right?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m awful glad he isn’t lost anymore.”

  Smiles wreathed the parents’ faces and Clay knew he was also wearing a pleased grin. Tessa had a talent for making everything fit. He probably wouldn’t have done nearly as well. Maybe it was his way of putting up barriers, though he wouldn’t have seen it that way if it hadn’t been for Tessa. She was making him take a long, hard look at himself.

  “This has been wonderful, but it’s time for bed,” Penny’s mother declared after another few minutes.

  Though the children made a token protest, soon all of the guests were tucked in their tents, which had been set up a good distance from the fire ring.

  JD, the wrangler who’d brought the pack animals, was already asleep. His morning responsibilities to pack up the gear wouldn’t begin until after the group had departed, but JD was rarely averse to getting extra sack time.

  Tessa remained by the fire, sketching in the small art pad she’d brought in her daypack. Clay moved to sit next to her and watch her work. The faint, flickering light imbued the drawing with a mysterious quality and it would have been easy to believe it was coming alive. That was something else that was special about Tessa—she was stirring his long dormant imagination, making him envision possibilities beyond the moment.

  “You’re very artistic,” he said softly.

  “More determined than artistic,” she murmured. “My favorite professor in college believed that despite the increasing use of computer-aided design programs and 3D technology, landscape architects need to be competent at sketching. Some of the students disagreed, but Professor Watt felt that working solely with a computer limits creativity. I took art classes to get better, because my initial efforts on assignments were pretty sad.”

  “But right now you’re drawing kids and animals, not plants and trees.”

  “The principles are the same. I want to give a picture to each of the children as a souvenir.”

  “We send group photos to everyone by email, but this is something kids might relate to better.”

  * * *

  TESSA NODDED, ADDING several details to her last sketch.

  She hadn’t asked Clay for copies of the group pictures with Renee, and her twin had never forwarded any to the family. Renee’s email account still existed—it was with a free service—but the tricky part was figuring out the password. So far Tessa hadn’t been successful. Her account at the college wasn’t active, but they’d told her Renee had rarely used it.

  “What are you pondering so seriously?” Clay murmured.

  “Just this and that.”

  “Really?” He gave her a long look and she shrugged.

  “All right, I was thinking about how to get into Renee’s personal email account. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough, or I’ve been worried about what I’d see. If feels like prying, but she’s gone, and it would tell me who she’d been communicating with outside of the family, if anyone. She didn’t have a large circle of friends. Practically everybody at the memorial service was there to support the rest of us or because they’d worked with her at the college or taken one of her classes.”

  Clay brushed some of the dust from his jeans. “If it would help, I can forward the emails we sent to her from the company office, and any she sent to us.”

  “That would be nice. I looked at the company pictures because you asked me to sort them, but I didn’t make any copies of the ones with Renee.”

  “Why not?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “It didn’t seem proper since they didn’t belong to me. And I never looked at any of the paperwork on her trips. Nothing like that. Please believe me, I had no intention of prying. We aren’t trying to find someone to blame, we just want to understand.”

  “I believe you.” Clay was silent again for a long moment. “You said some of Renee’s students came to the service. That means they’d liked and respected her as their professor.”

  He was right and it made Tessa feel better. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  The flames in the fire ring brightened for a moment and Tessa saw the light reflect off a pair of wild eyes at the edge of the clearing. Then they abruptly disappeared, as if aware of being observed.

  “About her email account, will the provider help?” Clay asked after another minute.

  “Unlikely. I’m the executrix of her estate, but privacy rules are fairly strict. In any case, I’m afraid to ask for fear the
y’ll lock the account or delete it. I may have gotten too complicated with my guesses. The password could be as simple as our birthday. Sorry for being preoccupied.”

  “Don’t apologize. I can’t imagine how it feels to lose a twin. I told you we could talk about Renee if it would help.”

  Tessa glanced skyward, memories rushing through her. There was no moon, and the stars were like thousands of tiny diamonds strewn against black velvet. Weaving through the middle was the Milky Way, as distinct as she’d ever seen it.

  “Even a night sky can remind me of how different we were,” she murmured slowly. “I remember the first time our youth group visited an observatory. Renee and one of the other kids refused to go back. They said that so much emptiness made them feel small and insignificant and they didn’t like it.”

  “What about you?”

  Tessa gazed upward again, vividly recalling her rush of excitement and awe. “I felt connected to something grand and amazing, as if I was on the same journey with Galileo and the Egyptians and Mayans and everyone else who’s ever looked at a night sky and marveled at the vastness, or ever will look at it. And I was certain that somehow we were all touching across time and space. It wasn’t about being small, it was about being part of something that was immeasurably large and mysterious. The desert is like that for me, too.”

  Clay didn’t say anything for so long, Tessa wondered if he was trying not to laugh, then he released a long sigh. “I’ve never been able to express it, but that’s basically how I feel out here. Especially when I’m alone and can just let the energy of the mountains run through me. It’s as if all the layers in time are overlapping.”

  “Exactly.”

  The last flickering flames died in the fire ring, leaving only a few glowing coals. Tessa closed her sketchpad, unable to see well enough to continue. She wasn’t even startled when Clay put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him; exactly the way she’d longed to have him hold her earlier in the day.

  She rested her head on his shoulder.

  The contact wasn’t provocative with all the layers of clothing she wore. Pleasant days and cold nights seemed to be the norm this time of year, so she’d donned a heavy jacket before the meal. Clay was accustomed to the cooler, moister weather and was only wearing a lined shirt, allowing hints of his warmth to filter through to her cheek...and every part of her body.

  “How often do you go into the wild alone?” she asked after a minute of gazing at the embers in the fire ring.

  “Not as much as I’d prefer. None at all during the summer, but I have more opportunities the rest of the year. I also enjoy going to Yellowstone during the winter. That’s an experience like no other, with the buffalo sweeping their heads back and forth to brush snow aside, searching for food, and the otters romping in the snow. Every now and then I spot a wolf pack, either up here or there. They’re exhilarating to watch.”

  Tessa thought about the storms she’d heard about across the northern states with subzero temperatures, howling wind and snow. She shivered. “So you’re mostly out here by yourself when there’s ice and snow?”

  “More or less. Weather isn’t completely predictable, especially at high altitudes, which is why I require tents for everyone.”

  “The primary reason I use my tent in Arizona is to make sure critters don’t crawl in with me at night.”

  “I remember. Scorpions.”

  “I’m not crazy about waking up with rattlesnakes or large spiders, either,” Tessa said in a dry tone. “Have you ever been in one of the really big storms, the kind that drops several feet of snow in a day or two?”

  “Sure, it’s exciting.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t you stay in your tent until the worst has blown over?”

  “It depends on the wind-chill factor. But I don’t deliberately go into the wild when a bad storm is expected.”

  “I understand why you don’t want to get married. A wife would probably be bothered about that kind of...um, alone time.”

  “I suppose that would depend on the wife.”

  Tessa frowned. It almost sounded as if he was asking a question, which was absurd. He’d been very clear on how he viewed marriage. “I think most people would be concerned when their partners take risks,” she said cautiously. “Would you want a wife that didn’t care? Presuming you wanted one, of course, which I know you don’t.”

  “I suppose not. So, to not so subtly change the subject, what would you be doing back home right now?”

  “Probably deciding which seeds to start for my fall garden,” Tessa said, preferring the more neutral topic. “It’s too hot for tomatoes during the summer unless you use shade cloth, so I grow them as fall and spring crops. But there are other veggies that do well in the heat.”

  “Then on top of everything else, you’re a vegetable gardener.”

  “It’s satisfying to grow your own food.” She was quiet for a minute, enjoying Clay’s closeness, and at the same time wondering if it was fair to draw comfort from him; she wasn’t the only one who’d been affected by Renee’s accident. “I also have a number of fruit trees. My house is relatively small, but the lot is large. I could probably live off what I’m able to grow.”

  “I planted cherry and apple trees in the backyard when I first bought the ranch. They didn’t do anything.”

  Tessa let out a small laugh. “Andrew mentioned he belonged to a family with brown thumbs.”

  “They definitely aren’t green. And neither are the trees I planted. Your parents must be taking care of everything while you’re gone.”

  “They go over and check, but they don’t need to do much aside from picking the fruit. I installed a drip system when I bought the house and the ground around the trees is heavily mulched to limit evaporation. The rest of the yard requires even less maintenance. Mom says the temps have been hotter than normal down there, but our monsoon season should start soon and refill my water storage tanks. I harvest so much rainwater throughout the year, I rarely need to use any from the municipal system.”

  Tessa felt Clay shift and looked up to see him gazing down at her, though it was too dark to read his expression. “Monsoon season? I thought Tucson was in the middle of a desert. How can you have monsoons?”

  “It is a desert, but I’m not talking monsoons like they have in some parts of the world. We get about half our rain during the monsoon season, which usually starts in June and goes into September. It cools down a little and there can be dramatic storms, with lightning and hail and flash flooding down the washes and low areas from sudden downpours. It’s really something to see.”

  “Sounds different from here.”

  Tessa yawned. “Yup. It can frost in the winter, but snow is a rare event. And even when it does snow, it’s usually just a dusting.”

  “So it’s safe to assume you aren’t a fan of major winter weather.”

  “I go skiing several times a year near Flagstaff, but for the most part, I prefer being warm.” She looked up at him again. “You can’t be that curious about my life in Arizona.”

  “Why not? It must be interesting if you enjoy it.”

  “That may be the nicest compliment you’ve paid me.” She pursed her lips. “Or possibly the only compliment. No, I just remembered, you like the grass ‘stuff’ I put in the planters in front of your office.”

  A low chuckle rumbled from Clay. “You’d better go to bed. You’re so sleepy, you’re getting loopy.”

  He was right, but was she loopy enough to give him another kiss? Tessa curled her arm around his neck and pulled his head toward her.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” he whispered.

  “As a rule, I fall asleep like a lamp switching off, so you don’t need to worry that I’m going to take advantage of you. I’ll be lucky to find my tent tonight.”

  “Then maybe I should wa
ke you up enough to both find your tent and get into your sleeping bag.”

  “There’s a thought.”

  A sudden childish giggle from one of the tents was more chilling than a splash of ice water.

  Tessa hastily dropped her arm and stood. With no moonlight and barely any embers left in the fire ring, the most anyone could have seen was two dark figures, sitting close together. With the thick forest as a background, they might not have even been discernable. But their behavior wasn’t something that either of them wanted a guest to speculate about.

  “Shall I make sure the coals are doused properly, or do you want to do it?” she asked.

  “I’ll take care of what’s needed. Good night.”

  “’Night.”

  * * *

  CLAY FOCUSED ON his task, rather than watch Tessa walk to her tent using her small flashlight. She was a terrible influence on his best intentions. “No romance on the trail” was a good personal rule, and had never been an issue before now. Women sometimes tried to flirt, but if they got together with someone, it wasn’t with him.

  Maybe Tessa’s vulnerability was the reason he was having so much trouble drawing the line. Now that the barriers had come down, she was astoundingly open, talking about Renee and her childhood and everything else. In his experience, people like that could be easily hurt, and Tessa had already been hurt enough by her sister’s death. He’d never been that open with anyone, even with his brother.

  But Tessa... She seemed willing to bare her heart, and it implied a trust that he wasn’t sure he deserved.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  OVER THE NEXT few days Tessa tried to forget that evening by the campfire. It had just been the magic of the moment under thousands of stars.