Big Sky Mountain

by Linda Lael Miller

  The forever kind of love.

  Months of legal hassles had followed, but now, at long last, Kendra and Madison were officially mother and daughter, in the eyes of God and government, and Kendra knew she couldn’t have loved her baby girl any more if she’d carried her in her own body for nine months.

  Callie brought Kendra back to the present moment by reaching for the teapot in the center of the table and refilling Kendra’s cup, then her own.

  “Do you think it’s over yet?” Kendra asked, instantly regretting the question but unable to hold back still another. “The wedding, I mean?”

  Callie’s smile was gentle as she glanced at the clock on the stove top and met Kendra’s gaze again. “Probably,” she said quietly. Then, without another word, she reached out to give Kendra’s hand a light squeeze.

  Madison, meanwhile, stirred on the window seat. “Mommy?”

  Kendra turned again. “I’m here, honey,” she said.

  Although Madison was adjusting rapidly, in the resilient way of young children, she still had bad dreams sometimes and she tended to panic if she lost sight of Kendra for more than a moment.

  “Are you hungry, sweetie?” Callie asked the little girl. Slade’s mom would make a wonderful grandmother; she had a way with children, easy and forthright.

  Madison shook her head as she moved toward Kendra and then scrambled up onto her lap.

  “It’s been a while since lunch,” Kendra suggested, kissing the top of Madison’s head and holding her close. “Maybe you’d like a glass of milk and one of Opal’s oatmeal raisin cookies?”

  Again, Madison shook her head, snuggling closer still. “No, thank you,” she said clearly, sounding, as she often did, more like a small adult than a four-year-old.

  They’d arrived by car the night before and spent the night in the Barlows’ guest room, at Joslyn’s insistence.

  The old house, the very heart of Windfall Ranch, was undergoing considerable renovation, which only added to the exuberant chaos of the place—and Madison was wary of everyone but Opal, the family housekeeper.

  Just then, Slade and Joslyn’s dog, Jasper, heretofore snoozing on his bed in front of the newly installed kitchen fireplace, sat bolt upright and gave a questioning little whine. His floppy ears were pitched slightly forward, though he seemed to be listening with his entire body. Joslyn’s cat, Lucy-Maude, remained singularly unconcerned.

  Madison looked at the animal with shy interest, still unsure whether to make friends with him or keep her distance.

  “Well,” Callie remarked, getting to her feet and heading for the nearest window, the one over the steel sink, and peering out as the sound of a car’s engine reached them, “they’re back early. They must have decided to skip the reception.”

  Jasper barked happily and hurried to the door. Joslyn had long since dubbed him the one-dog welcoming committee and at the moment he was spilling over with a wild desire to greet whoever happened to show up.

  With a little chuckle, Callie opened the back door so Jasper could shoot through it like a fur-covered bullet, positively beside himself with joy. There was a little frown nestled between the older woman’s eyebrows, though, as she looked toward Kendra again. “This is odd,” she reiterated. “I hope Joslyn is feeling all right.”

  Shea, Slade’s lovely dark-haired stepdaughter, just turned seventeen, burst into the house first, her violet eyes huge with excitement. “You’re not going to believe this, Grands,” she told Callie breathlessly. “The music was playing. The bridesmaids were all lined up and the preacher had his book open, ready to start. And what do you suppose happened?”

  Kendra’s heart fluttered in her chest, but she didn’t speak.

  A number of drastic scenarios flashed through her mind—a wedding guest toppling over from a heart attack, then a cattle truck crashing through a wall, followed by lightning boring its way right through the roof of the church and striking the bridegroom dead where he stood.

  She shook the images off. Waited with her breath snagged painfully in the back of her throat.

  “What?” Callie prodded good-naturedly, studying her step-granddaughter. She and Shea were close—the girl worked part-time at Callie’s Curly Burly Hair Salon in town, and during the school year, Shea went to Callie’s place after the last bell rang, spending hours tweaking the website she’d built for the shop.

  “Hutch called the whole thing off,” Shea blurted. “He stopped the wedding!”

  “Oh, my,” Callie said. The door was still open, and Kendra heard Joslyn’s voice, then Opal’s, as they came toward the house. Slade must have been with them, but he was keeping quiet, as usual.

  Kendra realized she was squeezing Madison too tightly and relaxed her arms a little. Her mouth had dropped open at some point and she closed it, hoping no one had noticed. Just then, she couldn’t have uttered a word if the place caught fire.

  Opal, tall and dressed to the nines in one of her home-sewn and brightly patterned jersey dresses, crossed the threshold next, shaking her head as she unpinned her old-fashioned hat, with its tiny stuffed bird and inch-wide veiling.

  Slade and Joslyn came in behind her, Joslyn’s huge belly preceding her “by half an hour,” as her adoring husband liked to say.

  By then, the bomb dropped, Shea had shifted her focus to Madison. She’d been trying to win the little girl over from the beginning, and her smile dazzled, like sunlight on still waters. “Hey, kiddo,” she said. “Since we missed out on the wedding cake, I’m up for a major cookie binge. Want to join me?”

  Somewhat to Kendra’s surprise, Madison slid down off her lap, Rupert the kangaroo dangling from one small hand, and approached the older girl, albeit slowly. “Okay,” she said, her voice tentative.

  Joslyn, meanwhile, lumbered over to the table, pulled back a chair and sank into it. She looked incandescent in her summery maternity dress, a blue confection with white polka dots, and she fanned her flushed face with her thin white clutch for a few moments before plunking it down on the tabletop.

  “Do you need to lie down?” Callie asked her daughter-

  in-law worriedly, one hand resting on Joslyn’s shoulder.

  Madison and Shea, meanwhile, were plundering the cookie jar.

  “No,” Joslyn told her. “I’m fine. Really.”

  Opal tied on an apron and instructed firmly, “Now don’t you girls stuff yourselves on those cookies with me fixing to put a meal on the table in a little while.”

  A swift tenderness came over Kendra as she took it all in—including Opal’s bluster. As Kendra was growing up, the woman had been like a mother to her, if not a patron saint.

  Slade, his blue gaze resting softly on Joslyn, hung up his hat and bent to ruffle the dog’s ears.

  “Poor Brylee,” Opal said as she opened the refrigerator door and began rummaging about inside it for the makings of one of her legendary meals.

  “Sounded to me like it was her own fault,” Slade observed, leaving the dog in order to wash his hands at the sink. He was clad in a suit, but Kendra knew he’d be back in his customary jeans, beat-up boots and lightweight shirt at the first opportunity. “Hutch said he told Brylee he didn’t want to get married, more than once, and she wouldn’t listen.”

  For Slade, this was a virtual torrent of words. He was a quiet, deliberate man, and he normally liked to mull things over before he offered an opinion—in contrast to his half brother, Hutch, who tended to go barreling in where angels feared to tread and consider the wisdom of his words and actions later. Or not at all.

  Joslyn, meanwhile, tuned in on Kendra’s face and read her expression, however guarded it was, with perfect accuracy. They’d been friends since they were barely older than Madison was now, and for the past year, they’d been business partners, too—Joslyn taking over the reins at Shepherd Real Estate, in nearby Parable, while Kendra scoured the countryside for Jeffrey’s daughter.

  “Thank heaven he came to his senses,” Joslyn said, with her usual certainty. “Brylee is
a wonderful person, but she’s all wrong for Hutch and he’s all wrong for her. They wouldn’t have lasted a year.”

  The crowd in the kitchen began to thin out a little then—Shea, the dog and Madison headed into the family room with their cookies, and Callie followed, Shea regaling her “Grands” with an account of who did what and who wore what and who said what.

  Slade ascended the back stairway, chuckling, no doubt on his way to the master bedroom to change clothes. Except for bankers and lawyers, few men in rural Montana wore suits on a regular basis—such get-ups were reserved for Sunday services, funerals and...weddings, ill-fated or otherwise.

  Opal, for her part, kept murmuring to herself and shaking her head as she began measuring out flour and lard for a batch of her world-class biscuits. “Land sakes,” she muttered repeatedly, along with, “Well, I never, in all my live-long days—”

  Joslyn laid her hands on her bulging stomach and sighed. “I swear this baby is practicing to be a rodeo star. It feels as though he’s riding a bull in there.”

  Kendra laughed softly, partly at the image her friend had painted and partly as a way to relieve the dizzying tension brought on by Shea’s breathless announcement. Hutch called the whole thing off. He stopped the wedding.

  “The least you could do,” she teased Joslyn, trying to get a grip on her crazy emotions, “is go into labor already and let the little guy get a start on his cowboy career.”

  As serene as a Botticelli Madonna, Joslyn grinned. “He’s taking his time, all right,” she agreed. The briefest frown flickered in her shining eyes as she regarded Kendra more closely than before. “It’s only fair to warn you,” she went on, quietly resolute, “that Slade invited Hutch to come to supper with us tonight—”

  Joslyn continued to talk, saying she expected both Slade and Hutch would saddle up and ride the range for a while, but Kendra barely heard her. She flat-out wasn’t ready to encounter Hutch Carmody, even at her closest friend’s table. Why, the last time she’d seen him, after that stupid, macho horse race of his and Slade’s, she’d kicked him, hard, in the shins.

  Because he’d just kissed her.

  Because he’d risked his life for no good reason.

  Because hers was just one of the many hearts he’d broken along his merry way.

  Plus she was a mess. She’d been on the road for three days, and even after a good night’s sleep in Joslyn’s guest room and two showers, she felt rumpled and grungy.

  She stood up. She’d get Madison and head for town, she decided, hurry to her own place, where she should have gone in the beginning.

  Not that she planned to live there very long.

  The mega-mansion was too big for her and Madison, too full of memories.

  “Kendra,” Joslyn ordered kindly, “sit down.”

  Opal could be heard poking around in the pantry, still talking to herself.

  Slade came down the back stairway, looking like himself in worn jeans, a faded flannel shirt and boots.

  Passing Joslyn, he paused and leaned down to plant a kiss on top of her head. Kendra sank slowly back into her own chair.

  “Don’t start without me,” Slade said, spreading one big hand on Joslyn’s baby-bulge and grinning down into her upturned face.

  It was almost enough to make a person believe in love again, Kendra thought glumly, watching these two.

  “Not a chance, cowboy,” Joslyn replied, almost purring the words. “We made this baby together and we’re having it together.”

  Kendra was really starting to feel like some kind of voyeuristic intruder when Opal came out of the pantry, looked Slade over from behind the thick lenses of her glasses, and demanded, “Just where do you think you’re going, Slade Barlow? Didn’t I just say I’m starting supper?”

  Slade straightened, smiled at Opal. “Now don’t get all riled up,” he cajoled. “I’m just going out to check on the horses, not driving a herd to Texas.”

  “Do I look like I was born yesterday?” Opal challenged, with gruff good humor. “You mean to saddle up and ride. I can tell by looking at you.”

  Slade laughed, shook his head, shoved a hand through his dark hair before crossing the room to take his everyday hat from a peg beside the back door and plop it on his head. “I promise you,” he told Opal, “that the minute that dinner bell rings, I’ll be here.”

  Opal huffed, cheerfully unappeased, then waved Slade off with one hand and went back to making supper.

  “You might as well stay here and face Hutch,” Joslyn told Kendra, as though there had been no interruption in their conversation. “After all, Parable is a small town, and you’re bound to run into him sooner rather than later. Why not get it over with?”

  The twinkle in Joslyn’s eyes might have annoyed Kendra if she hadn’t been so fond of her. Like many happily married people, Joslyn wanted all her friends to see the light and get hitched, pronto.

  An image of Brylee Parrish bloomed in Kendra’s mind and she felt a stab of sorrow for the woman. Loving Hutch Carmody was asking for trouble—she could have told Brylee that.

  Not that Brylee would have listened, any more than she had long ago, when various friends had warned her that she was marrying Jeffrey on the rebound, had urged her to take time to think before leaping feetfirst into a whole different world.

  “I need to get Madison settled,” Kendra fretted. “There are groceries to buy and I’ve been away from the business way too long as it is—”

  “The business is just fine,” Joslyn said reasonably. “And so is Madison.”

  As if on cue, the little girl gave a delighted laugh in the next room.

  It was a sweet sound, all too rare, and it made the backs of Kendra’s eyes scald. “I don’t know if I can handle it,” she confessed, very softly. “Seeing Hutch again right away, I mean. I was counting on having some time to adjust to being back—”

  Joslyn reached out, took her hand. Squeezed. “You can handle it,” she said with quiet certainty. “Trust yourself, Kendra. Nothing is going to happen between you and Hutch unless you want it to.”

  “That’s just the trouble,” Kendra reflected miserably, careful to keep her voice down so Madison wouldn’t overhear. “Wanting a man—wanting Hutch—and knowing better the whole time—well, you know—”

  “I do know,” Joslyn said, smiling.

  “I have a daughter now,” Kendra reminded her friend. “I want Madison to grow up in Parable, go to the same schools from kindergarten through high school. I want to give her security, a real sense of community, the whole works. And getting sucked into Hutch’s orbit would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do.”

  “Would it?” Joslyn asked, raising one delicate eyebrow as she waited for a reply.

  “Of course it would,” Kendra whispered fiercely. “The man broke my heart into a gazillion pieces, remember? And now he’s dumped some poor woman virtually at the altar, which only goes to prove he hasn’t changed!”

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Joslyn inquired, unruffled, “that Hutch might have ‘dumped’ Brylee for the simple reason that she’s not you?”

  “No,” Kendra said firmly, shaken by the mere possibility, “that did not occur to me. He did it because he can’t commit to anything or anyone long-term, because Whisper Creek Ranch is all he really cares about in this world—because he’s a heartless, womanizing bastard.”

  Before Joslyn could offer a response to that, Madison, Shea, Callie and the dog trailed back in the kitchen, making further discussion of Hutch Carmody impossible.

  Kendra was still flustered, though. Her heart pounded and her throat and sinuses felt strangely thick—was she coming down with something? Every instinct urged her to get the heck out of there, now, but the idea seemed cowardly and, besides, Madison was just starting to let herself be part of the group.

  If they rushed off to town, the little girl would be understandably confused.

  So Kendra decided to stay, at least until after supper.

  She was a grow
n woman, a mother. Joslyn had been right—it was time she started trusting herself. Hutch had always held an infuriating attraction for her, but she was older now, and wiser, and she had more self-control.

  The next hour was taken up with getting ready, coming and going, table-setting and a lot of companionable, lighthearted chatter. Slade returned from the barn as he’d promised and, after washing up in a downstairs bathroom, made the whole crew promise not to pester Hutch with questions about the interrupted wedding.

  As if, Kendra thought. She probably wouldn’t say more than a few polite words to the man. If she spoke to him at all.

  She felt strong, confident, ready for anything.

  Until he actually walked into the ranch house kitchen, that is.

  Seeing her, he tightened his jaw and shot an accusatory glance in his half brother’s direction.

  “Didn’t I mention that Kendra’s here?” Slade asked, breaking the brief, pulsing silence. There was a smile in his voice, though his blue eyes conveyed nothing but innocent concern.

  Hutch, his dark blond hair sun-kissed with gold, recovered his normal affable manner within the space of a heartbeat.

  He even smiled, flashing those perfect white teeth and setting Kendra back on her figurative heels.

  “Hello, Kendra,” he said with a nod, after taking off his hat. Like Slade, he was dressed “cowboy” and the look suited him.

  Kendra replied with a nod of her own. “Hutch,” she said, turning from the chopping board, where she’d been preparing a salad, and wished she’d cleared her throat first, because the name came out like a croak.

  His gaze moved straight to Madison, and Kendra read the questions in his eyes even before he hid them behind a smile. Madison, meanwhile, raised Rupert, as if presenting him to this stranger for inspection.

  “Howdy, there,” he said, all charm. “Do my eyes deceive me or is that critter a kangaroo?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WAY HUTCH figured it, a solid week should have been plenty long enough for the fuss over the wedding-

  that-never-was to die down, but when Saturday afternoon rolled around again and he sat down at his computer to get a quick read on the gossip situation, tired from rounding up strays with the ranch hands since just after dawn, he was promptly disabused of the notion.