Man From Montana

by Brenda Mott

Never getting over the loss of the man she’d loved with all her heart and soul.

  SATURDAY BROUGHT some cloud cover, but the rain held off, the temperature hovering in the mid-fifties. Kara opted to do some yard work midmorning, determined to get the soil along the front wall of her house turned, so she could plant some bachelor buttons and Shasta daisies. As she went to work with a shovel, the sound of guitar music floated her way. Pausing, she listened, then smiled. Someone was singing a popular country tune. But it didn’t sound like Derrick. Maybe one of his band?

  Puzzled, Kara leaned the shovel against the wall. The voice sounded young, more like a kid’s. She started across the lawn, then hesitated. What was she doing? She should mind her own business and tend to her flower bed. Kara picked up the shovel again and turned over another section of dirt.

  But the guitar music lifted her spirits—a rare thing these days. She simply couldn’t resist seeing who the player was.

  A few minutes later, Kara paused on Derrick’s front walkway. Near the open door, a porch swing and two chairs stood empty, the orange tabby kitten dozing beneath one of them. The wraparound porch hid the guitar player from view, the music coming from the side of the house.

  What the heck. She was already here.

  Kara climbed the steps and called out as she rounded the corner of the porch. “Hello?”

  For a moment, the boy didn’t see or hear her. And Kara didn’t realize he was sitting in a wheelchair. Her eyes darted to the chair a split second later, then back up just as the kid’s gaze met hers. He blushed, breaking off midtune, his hand resting across the top of the guitar, a pick in his fingers. “Can I help you with something?”

  She felt awkward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.” Kara gestured over her shoulder. “I live across the street. I heard the guitar….”

  “Sorry about that.” The boy’s face reddened deeper beneath his light-brown hair. “Dad thought guitar music wouldn’t bother the neighbors anymore, since he moved out of his apartment.”

  Dad.

  Wow. She’d assumed Derrick was a single man, living alone. Somehow she hadn’t expected a guitar-picking, bartending cowboy to have a half-grown son.

  “You weren’t bothering me at all,” Kara hastened to explain, as the boy fumbled to put the instrument back in its case. “I came over because I liked what I heard. I wanted to see who was playing.”

  He paused, looking skeptically at her. “Really?”

  “You bet. I’m a big country music fan.” She held out her hand. “I’m Kara Tillman.”

  He shook hands briefly. “Connor.”

  “Well, Connor, I can see you’re following in your dad’s footsteps. He must be proud.”

  “Don’t tell him.”

  The boy’s hasty comment took her by surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t tell my dad I was playing his guitar. Please.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “All right.” Was Derrick touchy about his guitar? To the point that he wouldn’t let his own son play it?

  Before she could say anything else, they heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

  “Damn!” Connor hastened to wheel his chair through the sliding doors off the side porch, guitar case in his lap. He bumped the case into the doorjamb, and cursed again.

  Kara wasn’t sure why she moved to help him, but she did. “Here.” She didn’t even know the boy, but the thought of Derrick getting angry at him for something that seemed harmless to her, somehow made her want to protect Connor. She righted the case and, reaching over his shoulders, balanced it on his lap as he wheeled into the house. Her adrenaline surged, and she felt silly.

  Once Connor was safely inside, Kara hurried around to the front porch again. She spotted Derrick gathering a double handful of plastic grocery sacks from the camper shell on his pickup.

  “Hi,” she called.

  He looked up, surprised. “Hi, yourself.” He frowned curiously as he walked toward her. “So, what’s up?”

  Suddenly Kara realized that in helping Connor hide his secret, she no longer had an excuse to be at Derrick’s house. She fumbled for an answer. “Oh—nothing really. I, uh—” Crud! “—was doing a little yard work, and I made too much lemonade, and I wondered if you’d like some.” She smiled, hoping her expression didn’t look as lame as her excuse felt. “But Connor said you weren’t here.”

  “Oh, you met him then?” He smiled, not at all like the sort of dad who would mind his son playing his guitar.

  “Yes. He’s a nice kid.”

  They reached the sliding doors that opened off the kitchen, just as Connor came back outside. He held a glass of water between his knees, and Kara nearly laughed out loud. They’d thought of similar excuses for their odd behavior.

  Derrick didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, buddy, you want to take these and I’ll go back for the rest?” He handed the grocery bags off to the boy.

  “Yeah, sure.” Connor set his water glass on a small, round table near the door, then took the bags, set them in his lap and wheeled back inside.

  “Need another hand?” Kara asked.

  “If you want. One more trip ought to do it.”

  Kara lifted a couple of the bags from the truck. Inside the kitchen, she looked around, appreciating the fact that it was fairly neat. Only a glass and a sandwich plate sat in the sink. A dish drainer on the countertop held a few items, things that looked as though they might not fit in the dishwasher. The entire room was sparsely furnished and decorated, but somehow homey, the walls painted a cheerful yellow. But no woman’s touch, and Kara wondered where Connor’s mother was.

  “So, where’s the lemonade?” Derrick asked.

  “What?”

  “The lemonade you made too much of?” The corner of his mouth quirked. “Isn’t that what Connor had in his glass?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the table on the porch.

  “No, that’s just water,” Connor said. He looked at her, puzzled.

  Crap! “I guess you got thirsty, what with all our yakking.” Kara smiled, then looked at Derrick. “The lemonade’s at my place. I didn’t want to bring it over until I was sure you wanted it, but I’ll go get it now.” Stop babbling. “See you in a bit.” She headed for the door.

  Back across the street, she hurried to her cupboard, glad she’d bought a can of powdered, pink-lemonade mix at the store last week. She felt like an idiot. Derrick probably thought she’d made up some lame story so she could barge over to his house. With his good looks, combined with that sexy cowboy image and the fact that he sang and played the guitar, he probably had women lining up on his doorstep. Probably not bearing pink lemonade, but she could only imagine what the others brought him.

  She’d make sure Derrick knew she wasn’t that type.

  Plastic pitcher in hand, Kara headed back across the street. She’d drop the lemonade off and leave.

  This time it was Derrick who had the guitar out when she reached the porch. He sat in a chair near the table. In his wheelchair, Connor munched on a stick of beef jerky. Derrick laid the guitar down and reached for one of three plastic tumblers he’d set out.

  “It’s mighty nice of you to bring the lemonade. Have a seat.” He gestured to an empty chair, then poured her some of the drink before she could refuse.

  “No problem. Like I said, I made too much.”

  “Well, it was still nice.” He took a sip, his long, strong fingers curled around the tumbler. Connor had poured himself some lemonade, and he took a big gulp, not saying anything. But he cast her a grateful look.

  They sat in silence for a while. Kara began to feel awkward. She should leave.

  “Are you busy tonight?” Derrick asked.

  Kara tensed. “I’m not sure what I’m doing yet.”

  “It’s family night at the Silver Spur. They have it the first and last Saturday of every month. They open up the dining area, and serve soft drinks and appetizers from six until eight, or dinner if you want it. That way the kids can
listen to the band for a while—maybe dance a little—before things get kicking in the bar.”

  During the week, the Spur doubled as the local steakhouse. After dinner hours, a sliding partition closed the dining room off from the bar. She and Evan had eaten there a few times.

  “Why don’t you come?” Derrick suggested. “You can sit with Connor so he won’t feel bored and alone.”

  “I’m not a baby, Dad,” Connor said. “I don’t care if I sit by myself.”

  Didn’t the boy have friends from school?

  “Thanks,” Kara said, “but really, I don’t usually go to bars.” Not anymore.

  “So you said.” He nodded. “But it’s not like it’s a rowdy honky-tonk—well, not from six to eight anyway.” He smiled. “I think the wildest person in the dinner crowd is usually Lily Tate. She loves the all-you-can-eat ribs, and if the cook runs out, she gets hostile.”

  Kara laughed. Lily Tate was a regular customer at the bank, still feisty at seventy-eight. “Well, when you put it that way. I suppose I could come for a little while.”

  “Great.”

  Kara reached to set her lemonade glass on the table and, as she did, Derrick’s gaze fell on her wedding band.

  He looked like someone had knocked the air out of him.

  “That is,” he added, “if your husband won’t mind.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  KARA DIDN’T ANSWER for a long, drawn-out minute. Derrick waited. How could he have missed the ring on her left hand? Maybe because it was just a simple, white-gold band.

  “My husband was killed eight months ago.”

  Her quiet answer almost didn’t register. Shit. “Kara, I’m sorry.” Derrick wished he could wind the clock back five minutes and start over. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the look Connor gave him and felt even worse. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. It’s just that—”

  She held up her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I can imagine you get all sorts of women falling all over you at the bar.”

  That made him sound like a womanizer. “Well, not exactly, but I have had married women ask me out before.”

  “I wasn’t the one doing the asking.”

  She bit her lip, and he could see she was trying not to cry. He felt like the dirt under a worm’s belly.

  “Kara—”

  “Derrick, it’s okay.” She stood. “I’d better get back to my flower bed.”

  “Then you’ll still come?”

  She nodded. “Connor, it was real nice meeting you. I’ll see you later.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Derrick watched her walk away, still feeling awful.

  “Way to go, Dad.”

  “Hey, how did I know?”

  Connor merely shrugged.

  Derrick strummed his guitar, playing but not singing. The image of Kara’s sad expression kept running through his mind. He’d be sure to do his best to make her smile tonight. Music was the best way he knew to ease sorrow.

  “Connor, are you sure you don’t have any friends you want to invite to the Spur tonight?” It worried him that his son was a loner, the majority of his friends e-pals.

  “I’m sure.”

  “What about Kevin?” Connor’s classmate was the only kid he ever hung out with. Most of the others couldn’t see past Connor’s wheelchair.

  “He’s got soccer practice today. His mom takes the team out for pizza afterward, and then he’ll probably spend the night at John Brody’s house.”

  “Oh.” It hurt Derrick more than words could say that his son wasn’t able to take part in sports. It was yet another thing he’d taken from the boy.

  “I’m gonna go check my e-mail,” Connor said.

  “All right.” Derrick watched him wheel away, wishing there was something he could do for him. He’d give anything if Connor could join his school-mates on the soccer team, or the rodeo team next year, or whatever else he cared to do.

  He just wanted his son to be happy.

  The phone rang, and Derrick grabbed it off the hook. “Hello?”

  There was no answer, and he nearly hung up, thinking it was a computerized telemarketer.

  “Hello, son. How are you?”

  “Mom?” His heart raced. His mother never called, even waited to talk to Connor when he was at Shelly’s. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I—” Her voice cracked and she began to cry.

  “What is it? Did something happen to Dad?” He hadn’t spoken two words to his father since the accident, and not much more than that to his mom. Connor spent time with them, but Derrick had lost contact after they’d moved to Miles City—more than two hundred miles away.

  “Mom?”

  “No, it’s not your father. I, uh, just got out of the hospital a few days ago. I had to have some surgery.”

  Fear gripped him. “For what?”

  “The doctor found tumors on my ovaries. And boy, did that scare the hell out of me.” She sniffed. “You don’t know how many times I’ve started to pick up the phone to call you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” But he knew why.

  “Well, you know how your father is.”

  “So, why are you calling now? You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine. I had to have a hysterectomy, but there’s no sign of cancer, thank God.”

  Derrick let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Anyway, all this got me thinking about how life really is too short. Son, I want to make things right between us. I’m so sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I—”

  “Carolyn!” In the background, Derrick heard his father’s booming voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Her reply was muffled.

  “She’s hanging up now, Derrick—” Vernon spoke into the phone, his voice as cold as steel “—and don’t try calling her back. She’s out of her mind on painkillers. That’s all.”

  The line went dead. Derrick stared at the phone for a long moment before hanging it up.

  He’d nearly killed their only grandchild.

  His dad would never forgive him.

  THE SILVER SPUR looked more like a barn than a bar, painted a faded gray-brown to give it a weathered appearance. Three miles outside of town, the honky-tonk stood in the middle of a field near the intersection of two dirt roads.

  Kara had decided to drive to the Spur early, to avoid arriving in the midst of a huge crowd. She needed to ease her way into this evening. She’d nurse a beer while she waited for Connor and Derrick, and hopefully get a grip on her nerves. The only reason she’d accepted Derrick’s invitation was because she’d decided Hannah was right. She needed to get out and do something for herself, before her grief drowned her.

  And she planned to make it clear to Derrick that she hadn’t come here tonight for him. But when Kara pulled into the parking lot, Derrick’s truck was already there. Parked beside a van and another pickup, Derrick was busy unloading band equipment along with three other guys. Connor hovered nearby, watching. He raised his hand in greeting, and Kara took a step backward. Of course Wild Country would arrive early to set up before the crowd.

  Derrick spotted her, too, and she let out a groan. He probably thought she’d arrived early because she couldn’t wait. This, on top of the lemonade fiasco, was too much.

  Not knowing what else to do, Kara got out of the Ford and walked over to say hi.

  “You’re here early,” Derrick said. He looked way too fine in his black cowboy hat, teal-blue western shirt and tight jeans.

  “Yep. I plan to get a good table.”

  “Smart. Just let me haul some of this stuff in and I’ll be right with you.”

  “No worries. Connor can walk me in.” She turned and smiled at the boy, who was dressed in boots, faded jeans and a T-shirt with the picture of country singer Gretchen Wilson. “Is that all right with you, Connor?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.” Deftly, he maneuvered his wheelcha
ir across the dirt-and-gravel parking lot.

  Kara walked beside him, wondering not for the first time what had caused the boy to be confined to the chair. Kara couldn’t imagine being in his situation.

  “So, would you like to sit with me?” she asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and I hate sitting alone.”

  “Sure.”

  Drawing conversation out of the kid was like trying to coax a mule along with a piece of twine.

  Farther on, the parking lot’s hard-packed surface became rutted, making the going somewhat difficult for Connor. He seemed to have a fair amount of upper body strength, his arms thin yet wiry. But it couldn’t be easy to wheel across this. Should she offer to help? Kara fought the urge to take hold of the wheelchair’s handles, sensing her gesture would not be welcomed.

  At that moment, she heard the sound of teenaged laughter. She looked up to see a group of three boys and two girls, somewhere close to Connor’s age, walking through the nearby field. They stared at Connor as they passed. One of the boys said something, and the others laughed.

  Connor shot the boy a look that would’ve stripped varnish off furniture. Kara’s heart ached for him. She remembered adolescence all too well, getting teased for being too skinny and wearing braces.

  Only Evan had seen her in a different light.

  Lost in thought, Kara barely noticed the huge pothole, stepping around it at the last minute. And Connor, wheeling the chair too hard in his anger, wasn’t really watching where he was going. Kara gasped as the wheel on one side of his chair dropped into the hole.

  Before she could call out a warning, the boy tilted at a precarious angle, then tipped sideways. He thrust out his right arm and awkwardly caught himself, barely managing to keep the wheelchair from tipping completely over. But he couldn’t hold that position long and, wiry or not, he wasn’t strong enough to right himself.

  Kara moved to help, but Derrick beat her to it.

  With seemingly little effort, he righted his son’s chair and steadied the boy to keep him from sliding out onto the ground. “You okay, bud?”

  Connor’s face turned red. “I’m fine! Jeez!” The kids were still staring and snickering, and his face turned an even deeper shade. “What are you looking at?”