In Search 0f The Long-Lost Maverick (Montana Mavericks: What Happened To Beatrix? Book 1)

by Christine Rimmer

  * * *

  The ride into Bronco Heights was anything but chatty. To Mel, the summer night, thick with stars, seemed empty and endless beyond the windshield.

  Gabe pulled into one of the guest spaces in front of her building. She thanked him for the evening and tried to say good-night, but he insisted on walking her all the way to her door.

  “’Night, Mel,” he said when they got there. For a moment, she thought she might get a good-night kiss, that he was going to loosen up a little and leave her with hope that things would be all right between them.

  But he only stared at her kind of wistfully for several awkward seconds, brushed her cheek with his warm hand and left her standing there trying to figure out how in the world such a beautiful evening could go so bad so fast.

  Inside, she flipped on the light to find Homer sitting three feet from the door looking up at her through those buggy gray-green eyes of his. “Honey, I’m home,” she said in a lame attempt at humor. Dropping her keys and purse on the table against the wall, she scooped up the little black cat.

  He purred when she nuzzled that sweet space between his pointy ears. “It’s for the best, I guess,” she whispered to the kitten. “I mean, the last thing I need right now is another man in my life. I was getting in too deep with him, anyway.” At the bed, she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on her back, resting Homer on her chest. For once, he didn’t leap up and dart away, but settled in comfortably.

  It was nice, feeling his purr right over her heart. Soothing. “We had a beautiful dinner at Gabe’s private club. And then later, we had sex.” Homer purred at her, his eyes low and lazy. “The sex was fantabulous. Even if it did all go to hell shortly thereafter.” Homer stretched out a paw and batted at her chin. “Oh, really. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Just fine.”

  She stared up at the ceiling, feeling kind of forlorn.

  When Homer suddenly leaped to his feet and took off for his water bowl, she rolled to her stomach, wrapped her arms around her pillow and shut her eyes.

  Gabe had said that Josiah lived in a senior care facility. It was probably right here in town. How hard could it be to track the old man down?

  But no. That wouldn’t be right, to go against Gabe’s wishes and snoop around behind his back that way.

  However, there was no one stopping her from a little Googling of the local Abernathy family and maybe a visit to the Bronco library to have a look through the archives of the Bronco Bulletin. The Abernathys were an important local family. They probably got their names in the paper all the time...

  * * *

  The next morning, she looked around on the internet. Mostly, she just found current stuff about Gabe and his rather large extended family. There were several pictures of Gabe at local events, always with a good-looking woman on his arm. That was kind of depressing, actually. It was way obvious Gabe would have no trouble finding a pretty woman to take to dinner at the Association any time he chose to go.

  She did find the obituary of Josiah’s wife, Cora, from five years before. She’d died peacefully in her sleep at the age of ninety, after being married to Josiah for seventy years.

  Nothing in that obituary made it impossible for Josiah to have been in Rust Creek Falls around the time that the author of the diary fathered a child with a woman named Winona Cobbs.

  At a little past eleven, Mel headed for the library. In the archives of the Bronco Bulletin, she found Cora and Josiah’s wedding announcement, complete with a grainy photo of the groom and his bride. Gabe’s great-grandfather had been a tall, lean man with a serious face. Did she see a certain sadness in Josiah’s eyes—or was that just her overactive imagination? The young Josiah looked a bit like Gabe, she thought, especially around the mouth and in the determined set of the jaw.

  There were other articles that mentioned Josiah—at the baptisms of his four sons, the death of Cora’s mother a few years later and the dedication of a new courthouse building fifty years ago. As a respected member of the Bronco community, Josiah had been asked to do the ribbon cutting.

  Eventually, she ran out of hits on Gabe’s great-grandfather. She started searching for information that might tell her approximately when the Abernathy family had moved to town.

  No luck there. She also couldn’t find a single mention of the Bronco Abernathys in the Bulletin until after the time the Rust Creek Falls Abernathys would have fled her hometown—not that that necessarily proved anything.

  Mel left the library feeling kind of discouraged. A whole morning’s work had brought her no closer to knowing if the Josiah in the diary might be the same man Gabe called Gramps. If she really wanted to find out what had happened to the Josiah of the diary, she should probably hire a PI or someone like Amanda who knew her way into all the nooks and crannies of the internet.

  Mel was getting nowhere in the search for the truth about Beatrix. And she felt awful about the way she’d left things with Gabe. That evening at DJ’s, she felt anxious all through the dinner service. Her gaze kept straying to the bar, where customers came and went. But Gabe never appeared. What if he never contacted her again?

  Just the thought made her heart hurt. Longing burned through her.

  Seriously? What was the matter with her that she went moping around over Gabe? She had not come to Bronco to fall for a man. And if it was over with Gabe after their one spectacular night together, that was a good thing. Bronco was only a stopover on her way to her new life in Austin, after all.

  Still, she kept checking her phone. Not a call. Not a text.

  Wednesday night was the same. No calls, no texts. No Gabe.

  Thursday was her day off. More than once, she got out her phone and punched up Gabe’s number. Somehow, she managed to keep her finger from hitting the call button. She kept herself busy, shopping for groceries, straightening up the apartment. She invited Amanda and Brittany for dinner that evening at her place. When the subject of Gabe came up, she waved a hand and said she really didn’t expect to be seeing him again.

  “What did he do?” Brittany demanded, instantly pissed off for Mel’s sake.

  Mel played it extra cool. “He’s great, but it is what it is, you know? I like him, but I’m not looking for anything serious and I’m guessing he’s not, either.”

  Amanda was watching her much too closely. “Translation—whatever went down, you don’t want to talk about it.”

  Affection washed through Mel as she gave a low laugh. “You guys. How can you possibly know me so well in such a short time?”

  “Seems like we’ve known you forever,” said Brittany with an elegant shrug. “And you’re still not going to tell us what happened with you and the crown prince of Bronco, are you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really want to get into it.”

  Amanda reached across the small table and gave her arm a comforting squeeze. “We’re here and ready to listen if you change your mind.”

  Brittany picked up the bottle of red Mel had opened to go with the pasta. “In the meantime, you need another glass of wine.”

  * * *

  Gabe somehow got through Tuesday without calling Mel. That night, after dinner, he joined Malone on the front porch for a couple of hours. They didn’t talk much. After about half an hour, Malone asked what was eating him. He lied and said nothing. Malone gave him a disbelieving look, but at least the old man let it go.

  Wednesday was harder to get through than Tuesday. Gabe almost convinced himself it would be okay to head over to DJ’s and see Mel.

  Somehow, he kept himself from going there.

  Thursday, he woke up thinking he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to see her.

  By the time he’d had coffee and breakfast, he’d changed his mind. She’d probably want to talk more about that guy with the diary who had the same name as Gramps. Gabe just wasn’t ready to go there.

  Maybe he never w
ould be.

  And really, it was about damn time he paid a visit to Snowy Mountain Senior Care. He should’ve gone days ago. But first he’d been busy and then Mel had blindsided him with that crazy story about the diary and the missing baby and the star-crossed young lovers, one of whom had Gramps’s name.

  None of that justified his staying away. He owed Gramps a visit and he damn well would go. Today. No excuses.

  North of Bronco Heights, Snowy Mountain was a rambling series of brick buildings surrounded by manicured grounds crisscrossed with walkways. The facility offered a full range of services, from independent living to end-of-life care.

  Josiah lived at Snowy Mountain West, a wing of the complex devoted to seniors with varying degrees of dementia or Alzheimer’s. It was a big, open building, easy to get around in, where Gabe’s great-grandfather got round-the-clock care.

  “Hi, Gabe! Right on time,” said the chatty brunette behind the desk in the sky-lit foyer. “Josiah has been for his walk and he’s chillaxing in the lounge.”

  “Thanks, Linda.” He gave her a smile as he went by.

  Gramps was sitting quietly on a big sofa, his watery hazel eyes focused straight ahead. Gabe greeted him and refused to be too disappointed when the old man gave zero indication he knew that Gabe was there.

  “Come on,” Gabe coaxed, taking Josiah’s thin arm. “Let’s go where we can talk.” It only took a gentle tug and Gramps rose. Gabe tucked the wrinkled, heavily veined hand in the crook of his arm and led Gramps to his rooms, which were attractively decorated in blues and grays and included a living room, bedroom and bath. The living room boasted big windows facing a pretty stretch of lawn with a winding path and a lilac tree.

  Gabe led Gramps to the sitting area, guided him down to the big recliner and took the love seat across the low table from him. Gramps rarely spoke anymore, so Gabe filled the room with the sound of his own voice. He talked of everyday stuff, some property he’d just sold for top dollar west of town and the going price of beef this year. He confided that he was still trying to convince his dad to let him try a small bison herd on the Ambling A.

  “So far,” he said wryly, “the old man says no followed by a big hell, no.”

  And then, well, he went ahead and got into the stuff Mel had laid on him Monday night. He said how it had really pissed him off that she could even suggest that Gramps might be the kid from Rust Creek Falls who’d filled a diary full of entries about some woman he called “W,” whose full name turned out to be Winona Cobbs—a woman the young Josiah’s parents did not approve of.

  “This Winona person,” Gabe said gently, “had a baby as a result of her love affair with the kid named Josiah. Then, when Winona thought the baby had died, she couldn’t deal. She had to be hospitalized in a mental health facility in Kalispell.

  “But a letter tucked in the diary said the baby, whose name was Beatrix, had survived. Beatrix is missing to this day—or so the story goes. Mel is very fond of a woman about your age in Rust Creek Falls whose name just happens to be Winona Cobbs. Apparently, the Cobbs woman isn’t well and nobody has been willing to tell her what they’ve found out. They’re afraid it might be too much for her to take.”

  Across the coffee table, a long sigh escaped Josiah. Gabe fell silent. He watched Gramps closely, hoping against hope that maybe today would be one of those rare days when his great-grandfather spoke to him, or even recognized him.

  But the sigh was all he got. Other than that, Josiah didn’t make a peep. He continued to stare in the general direction of a family portrait hanging on the wall across the room, one taken at least fifty years ago. It included Great-Grandma Cora and all four of their boys.

  “I told Mel it couldn’t be you, Gramps. I know Great-Grandma Cora was the only woman for you.”

  About then, Gabe realized he’d jumped right into the bizarre story of the diary without telling Gramps about Mel herself.

  “And I guess you’re kind of wondering who the heck this Mel person is.” A nervous chuckle escaped him. “Her full name is Melanie Driscoll. I met her when she wandered onto the Ambling A not long ago. And since I’ve met her, well, I’m always trying to figure out ways to get close to her, you know? Last Monday night, I thought we were really onto something, Mel and me. Then she laid all this crap on me about the diary and the woman named Winona and the lost baby Beatrix and, well, I haven’t called her since.”

  Gabe braced his elbows on his spread knees, linked his hands between them and stared down at his boots as he confessed, “But I want to call her, Gramps. I want to call her so much it hurts. With her, it’s like you always said. I don’t have to ask the question. When it comes to Mel Driscoll, somehow I already know. I’m in love with her, Gramps. She’s the one for me.” Stunned at his own words, he glanced up.

  Josiah’s eyes were empty. Gabe felt that emptiness echo in the center of his chest. He would have given the world right then to have Gramps look directly at him, to hear him say that he understood exactly how Gabe felt about Mel—or to set him straight if Gramps thought he somehow had it all wrong. Until the past few years, Gramps had always been the one to give Gabe exactly the advice he hadn’t known he needed.

  Now, though? Gramps just sat there, still and staring, making Gabe wish for the impossible—to turn back the clock, have a real conversation with the Gramps he used to know.

  * * *

  Gabe was halfway back to the Ambling A before he let himself admit what he’d just done.

  Whether Gramps had heard him or not, he’d said it out loud.

  He’d told his great-grandfather that he was in love with Mel.

  And that scared the crap out of him. He’d never been in love before, not really. It had always seemed easy for him, to enjoy spending time with a woman, but not to get in too deep. He’d savored his freedom, maybe even felt kind of smug that he wasn’t one of those guys who got his heart all tied in knots over a girl.

  Gramps had always warned him that one day it would happen. That one day, he would finally meet the one for him and after that, well, he’d learn what it was to belong to another.

  So was this it, then? This longing that wouldn’t stop? This feeling of missing some big part of himself when he tried to stay away? This sense that he should be with her and the world wouldn’t be right until he’d broken down all the barriers between them?

  Damn. If this really was love, he wanted nothing to do with it. It had been one thing to pursue her relentlessly when he didn’t comprehend the depth of his own feelings. Until today, the possibility that he would end up with his heart in pieces hadn’t even occurred to him. After all, until now he’d never been with anyone who could leave his heart in shredded bits.

  But now? Everything had changed for him.

  For Mel, though?

  Not so much.

  She constantly insisted she was leaving in January. Even worse, the other night she’d made it crystal clear she considered him no more than a rebound, a diversion, a pleasurable way to thumb her nose at her cheating ex-fiancé.

  She was leaving and she didn’t take him seriously.

  Where did that leave him, but with a broken heart?

  Uh-uh. No way. He needed to stop moping around like a long-gone fool. He wasn’t that far gone. Not yet. He needed to forget her.

  And one way or another, he would.

  Chapter Seven

  Once again, on Friday night, Gabe failed to show up at DJ’s. Mel hadn’t seen him since their night out on Monday, the night they’d made perfect love—and ended up barely speaking.

  He’d never even bothered to call or send her a text.

  She was constantly reminding herself that his radio silence was for the best. But it didn’t feel like the best. Not by a long shot. She missed him, damn it.

  She missed him a lot.

  And then she started thinking that maybe something had happened to hi
m. Maybe he was really sick. Or what if someone in his family had been in an accident or something? And here she was thinking evil thoughts about him when life had thrown him a curve and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He could be suffering. What kind of a friend would she be if she let him suffer without lending her support in any and every way he might need it?

  And yes, she did consider Gabe a friend. They hadn’t known each other long, but she liked him so much.

  And she couldn’t stop thinking about their one amazing night together. Really, they needed to get past her oversharing about the diary. If she’d upset him, she needed to know so that she could make it right between them again.

  By Saturday morning, she’d had enough of not hearing from him.

  She paced the floor as she discussed the situation with Homer.

  “Really, what’s the matter with me?” she asked the bug-eyed cat, who sat in the middle of her bed watching with that special look he had of startled interest as she marched back and forth a few feet away. “I’m not shy. I’m not afraid to call a guy I like. I’m not one of those women who waits by the phone but doesn’t have the guts to take the lead and make the call herself.” She halted, turned and glared at the kitten, who lifted a leg and started cleaning what was left of his man-parts. “So why have I been acting like some shy wallflower?” The cat rolled to his back and began chewing on his skinny black tail.

  “Alrighty then, Homer. It’s clear I’ll get no answers from you.” She marched to her small kitchen counter, grabbed her phone, punched up Gabe’s number and held the screen toward the kitten. “If you don’t stop me, I’m calling the guy now.”

  Homer said nothing. He did roll back over and sit up, though. Low-eyed and lazy-looking, he just sat there and purred at her.

  “So, then, I’ll call him.” She hit the call icon.

  It rang four times.

  And then, just as she was wondering if the damn thing would ever go to voice mail, he answered. “Hello, Mel.”