Nathan's Big Sky

by M. L. Buchman

  The problem with Nathan wasn’t that he didn’t talk. Most men—now she was guilty of the same kind of generalities that Nathan was always making, which made it easy to forgive him—didn’t talk about how they were feeling. Growing up with three older brothers and a passel of field hands, she’d learned to read men. Men not like Nathan anyway.

  Nathan did talk—and about what he was feeling. Sometimes he did it too well.

  Over dinner, and afterwards as he nursed his lone whisky, he’d finally told her about New York. The amazing restaurant scene and all the wonders that the city had to offer. But also the disappointment, the loss, and the confusion he felt were all laid out on the table for her to see. He’d never been anything but a chef.

  “Cooking for you was the first meal I’ve cared about, really cared about in months.”

  If she hadn’t already been soft in the head for Nathan Gallagher, that would have done it.

  Once through Great Falls, where the two-story brick of Old Town gave way to suburbia and strip mall, he followed the signs for Malmstrom Air Force Base. It was only a mile or so before the houses became closer together as they neared the base.

  It was that hint of sadness in him that she’d spotted before, that loss of joy in cooking. It was also her own revelations about her upbringing, about her marginal value in the Larson household and finally realizing, as she told the story, that she’d started J. L. Building as an escape plan that had made them especially gentle with each other last night.

  Afterward, curled up, Nathan had told her about being a young chef. A multi-generation Irishman who cooked fine French food in Paris and New York.

  That had been the problem that she didn’t know how to wrangle. It was so easy to hear his passion for cooking and for the energy of the city. Somewhere in the night she’d finally understood. Someday, perhaps someday soon, Nathan would be gone—back to his beloved city.

  Then Julie Larson would be in the outhouse for real. One choice was to push away now, hit the ground hard and let the bronc finish out its dance alone. The other was to hang on and enjoy the ride as long as it lasted.

  She never knew when to let go, or even how to. Not in rodeo, not in work, not in relationships—even the marginal ones. Without asking, she knew that she’d be holding on to Nathan Gallagher until the last possible moment.

  The trick was figuring out how to make sure the fall didn’t break her at the end.

  Nathan had followed Julie’s directions to Malmstrom AFB. Apparently there was some delivery to pick up for her loft office project with Emily. They had taken turns on the drive down making up bizarre possibilities from a science fiction plasma rifle to a personal-sized ICBM—Minuteman missiles in their silos was the whole purpose of Malmstrom. Getting to know Emily, none of the ideas had sounded quite as implausible as they should have.

  The gate guard looked very serious and very armed when they rolled up in his red Miata.

  “We’re here to pick up a delivery.”

  “Post office is back that way half a mile,” the guard indicated with his rifle, not quite raising it all the way to point but making it clear he didn’t have time for this.

  Julie leaned over, “I was told to ask for Quartermaster Belkin precisely at eleven o’clock.” The clock on the dash read 10:59.

  “Stay here.” The guard retreated to his shack and the phone.

  “I think we’re in a movie,” Nathan teased Julie. He’d hardly gotten a laugh from her all morning, probably because she was tired. He was used to short hours, but that didn’t explain how he was feeling. There was a euphoria that was hard to deny.

  To hold her close all through the short night had been more than a gift. It had been a chance to pretend that there was something in his life that could be normal. That maybe there was a future even if he couldn’t see it. He’d been at the ranch for a week (about five days more than he’d expected to be welcome), barely seen his brother, slept with the most incredible woman, and cooked. By the grace of God, he cooked. He’d enjoyed himself more making breakfasts with Ama than he had in his last six months at Vite.

  And her laugh. Julie Larson had been so serious when he met her, like it had been driven into her soul. Every laugh he’d been able to elicit had been a glimpse of simple, purest joy.

  The guard came back, looking snarly. “Through the gate. Stop there,” he jabbed a finger at the spot next to his Humvee. “Do not get out of the car. Do not tick me off. Someone will be here in five minutes.”

  The thrum of a helicopter sounded low overhead.

  “What’s that?” the guard was looking up at the big aircraft with two sets of rotor blades.

  “What’s wrong?” Nathan wished he hadn’t asked when it drew the guard’s attention back to him. The man’s rifle looked far more real and dangerous than on some movie screen.

  The helo slewed around and began to settle inside the perimeter fence, just beyond the parked Humvee.

  “We don’t have any Chinooks here. Just Hueys. And Air Force birds are gray, not black.”

  “Whose are black?”

  The guard just scowled again, raised the gate, and waved them through.

  Nathan looked at Julie, but she had no more of a clue than he did. He didn’t know about helicopters and apparently neither did she. He eased his Miata forward.

  After it landed, a rear ramp opened and lowered to the ground. A woman in uniform walked down the ramp and waved them forward.

  Nathan checked the rearview. The guard had at least transferred his scowl from them to the big helicopter. There wasn’t a marking on it. No white star. No numbers. Just pure black.

  The woman didn’t just wave him to the ramp, but up onto it.

  Julie shrugged and they rolled forward. The inside of the helicopter was two Miatas long and there was at least a foot to either side of his car. Every surface was covered with a pipe, a cable, a piece of shining equipment, or a warning sign. Just past the nose of his car was a pair of mounted machine guns that looked as long as a person, thankfully not pointed toward them.

  “Howdy y’all,” a tall blond man in a cowboy hat strolled into the cargo bay while the ramp closed behind them. “My name’s Justin and you must be Emily’s contractor. Not quite what I was expectin’. Good choice in hats though.”

  Flummoxed, Nathan just hooked a thumb toward Julie. “She’s your man…so to speak.”

  “Howdy, ma’am. Not a’ tall what I was expectin’. Though not any big surprise with the stories I’ve heard about Emily Beale.”

  “Pop your trunk,” the woman in uniform told him.

  He did, but when he went to get out of the car, she just shook her head.

  Justin and Julie were talking horses at some sort of esoteric level that sounded like a foreign language.

  The woman and another crew member piled several boxes into the back. He could feel the car settle—they might be small, but some of them must be heavy. Another crew member started chatting with him about how he liked his car and how it handled on the open road, making it so that he couldn’t follow what else was going on.

  Less than two minutes later, the ramp was lowering and he was being guided backward down the ramp and into the real world of bright sun and scowling gate guards.

  “Next time y’all are in Austin, you just call the ranch and we’ll show you some real horses,” the big guy doffed his cowboy hat to Julie, then strolled back to the cockpit.

  The rear ramp closed and the big rotors, which had never stopped spinning, hammered the air down on them hard until he backed far enough away. Then they were gone back into the sky.

  “You’ve got to be asking yourself, ‘So, who are we’?” he asked the glowering guard as they rolled out through the gate. He answered his own question before he slipped out of earshot. “We’re just folks.”

  Julie’s laugh cheered him immensely as he headed toward the highway.

  “So,” he asked once they were on their way, “who were those folks?”

  “No idea. B
ut if we’re ever in Texas and want to go to one of the top horse-breeding ranches in the country, Justin just gave us an invitation.”

  Nathan turned to look over his shoulder as if he could see what’s in the trunk, “Any guesses?”

  “Emily told me she had some friends who could help with electronic security for her office. I guess she meant the US military.”

  “This happen to you much? Is Montana really like this?”

  “Oh, sure. All the time. You should stick around, city boy.”

  The warm fun of cuddling together, going into a cowboy outfitter like he’d never seen before, and cruising with Julie beneath the sunshine, ripped away in the chill air that seemed to descend on the car as they reached the highway.

  Stick around. It was the one thing he couldn’t do and they both knew it.

  Chapter 11

  Their escape ended the moment they crossed back onto Henderson land. They’d been gone less than twenty-four hours and Julie felt as if her entire world had shifted.

  A huge load of supplies had arrived, including all of the material for the yurts’ platforms. For the last eleven miles back to the ranch, they’d eaten a cement truck’s dust on its way to pour the pilings for the yurts and the common bathroom.

  When they arrived, Chelsea, Doug, and Patrick were putting the saddle horses through their paces, shaking off the excess energy of a lazy winter so that they’d settle down for the tourist season. She envied them that. The non-twins and Mac were rebuilding one of the truck’s engines. Stan was doing what he did every day, working with his dogs. Ama had updated the website and was taking reservations.

  And she and Nathan had somehow forgotten how to speak to each other. They’d each tried to start conversation on the drive back, but nothing had caught.

  Emily met them at the barn. “Sometimes, the best way to move very valuable equipment is in plain sight.” The two of them helped her carry everything up to her unfinished office—it had walls, windows, and a secure door, it just didn’t have an interior yet.

  When she went to check on Clarence, Nathan followed her into the stall. As he held and kissed her, Clarence didn’t make any comment. Which was good, because she was too busy melting against Nathan’s wonderful body to protect him from her horse. Then, still with no idea what to say to each other, Nathan rubbed Clarence’s nose and left the stall.

  “What’s happening to me?” she asked Clarence as he nuzzled up against her. She hid her face in his mane for a long moment before going to snag a treat from the bin in Chelsea’s office.

  She was thankful for the quiet moment she had with Clarence while he crunched on a couple of sugar cubes and a carrot. It would be her last for a while.

  Julie threw herself into the work. When the first of the summer’s guides and a maid had arrived, Julie sicced them on the cabins. First they painted the doors and trim while she finished out the Ponderosa’s bathroom. Then they cleaned and prepped them for the first guests. One of the guides was a contractor during the winters and along with the twins, once the truck was running again, they tackled the decks.

  Over the next few weeks there were only rare occasions that she saw Nathan. He would smile and wave. On the rarer occasions when they got close, there was a hug and a kiss. In those moments, she could rarely do more than cling to him.

  “It’s just a busy time,” he whispered.

  All she could do was nod before rushing off to whatever crisis called next.

  When the yurts were delivered, they performed exactly as promised. The first one went up in half a day. The others took even less time now that she’d figured out the tricks.

  The first time she saw Nathan up on a horse, it almost killed her. He and Mark were soon trotting around the corral, even a brief canter. She could only watch out the Larch cabin window; watch as her heart ached.

  “He rides well,” she told no one before going back to tackling the busted pipe under the sink. And he did. She could see from up here that he sat the horse solidly. And they’d put him up on Red, rather than an old-timer like Daisy. Red was an intermediate horse, but still Nathan looked comfortable. Then she noticed that he was wearing his Indiana Jones hat and for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself, she started crying.

  “Morning, Julie,” Mac blustered into the cabin.

  She turned away and wiped her face but not fast enough. She couldn’t stop the tears.

  “Easy, girl. Easy.”

  “I’m not some skittery horse, Mac,” but her voice choked and stumbled.

  He fumbled about for a moment, then held out a paper towel at arm’s length as if she was a wounded grizzly. She used it to blow her nose into and wipe her face.

  When she’d cried at the hotel, Nathan had held her. And the memory of that hurt all the more.

  She ran a splash of cold water, then regretted it when she heard it splattering inside the cabinet where she’d removed the busted U-joint.

  “Something you want to be talking about?”

  “Not really.”

  Mac watched her in silence as she sponged up the freshly spilled water under the sink and squeezed it into the bucket she’d prematurely moved aside.

  She slipped on the new joint and tightened up the fittings. Then she wiped everything down with her tear-stained paper towel and turned the water back on full. She let it run for a full minute, checking for drips or water squeezes around the plastic washers. Nothing, all good. She stuffed her tools in her tool belt, dumped the bucket’s contents down the drain, and turned off the water. One last check, the U-joint and her face were both dry now.

  Mac was still there, leaning back against the counter. “Think we need to talk some, girl.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Fine. You’re fired.”

  “What? But I—” she waved a hand helplessly at all of the unfinished tasks.

  “Until you talk to me some, girl, you’re off the clock. Period.” This wasn’t his friendly rancher tone. It was his retired Navy SEAL tone.

  She covered her eyes for a long moment. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Tough.”

  Julie turned to stare out the window.

  Nathan was following Mark out of the corral and into the first pasture. At an easy jog, they soon disappeared over the first rise.

  “That was supposed to be me.”

  Mac was nodding when she turned, “Wondered what was up with you two. Looked like that trip to Great Falls didn’t go so well so I decided to keep my trap shut.”

  “No, Mac. No. It went…” how was she supposed to put words to it? It was the best memory, maybe ever, in her life. “It was perfect.”

  “Then what gives, Julie?” He folded his arms over his big chest.

  “You know his background?”

  “Some fancy-pants chef in New York. Darned good one according to his brother.”

  “I went online and looked up the restaurant he used to work at. Top twenty on almost every website, top ten in some. That’s in New York, Mac. He’s one of the best chefs anywhere. There’s not a chance of him staying in Montana.”

  “And if you went with him—”

  She tried a scoffing laugh to hold back the tears. It worked, barely. “I’d wither and die.”

  He nodded slowly, “Yes. I kind of imagine you would. Even your father isn’t rooted to the land the way you are. That’s the thing about you that so confuses the young men who come sniffing around. None of them understand that about you.”

  “Nathan does. He’s going back to New York and he didn’t even ask me. At least he could have asked.” And she had to turn away because the tears were back and she couldn’t stop them.

  “He is? He never said.”

  “No. Not yet. But it’s obvious. I can’t imagine it will be long now.”

  “Fight for him, girl.”

  “How?”

  Mac was silent long enough for her to wipe her face again and look over at him.

  “Am I supposed t
o go out and become a Navy SEAL?”

  “Now you’re trying to steal my tricks. They’re the sort that will only work for me. We’re just going to have to find you your own.”

  “I won’t trick him,” her protest was sharp. That had been part of what he liked about her. No games. Not even if it broke her heart.

  “Wouldn’t be you to use tricks,” Mac confirmed. “We’ll just have to think on it a bit.”

  “Better hurry,” she waved a hand out the window. Two tiny figures on horses topped the next rise, then disappeared out of sight.

  Nathan alternated between having the feel of the trot and then completely losing it.

  In one moment he understood why Julie talked about Clarence the way she did. Red would be striding along, following the line of a small stream that wandered down out of the far hills, and it would feel as if he could sink right down into the smooth leather of the saddle. The horse’s muscles working in perfect sync with his own.

  Then it would all get messed up and he’d be bouncing so hard that he could barely stay in the saddle. It was a miracle that his tailbone didn’t break as the powerful horse slammed up against him every billionth of a second. It was only after the fifteenth or sixteenth transition that he caught on to what was happening.

  Red was toying with him. Red was shifting his stride on the sly, hoping to abuse the beginner. A couple more changes that Nathan managed to catch onto more and more quickly, then Red settled down. The glance that the horse cast back at him looked very amused.

  “Ha. Ha. Ha.” He told the horse. Just as he’d told Julie when she’d started her lesson with This is a horse. She felt so far away. He knew she was busy, but that wasn’t all of it. He should turn back, track her down, and ask what was going on.

  Ask her to go with him? Go where? New York? She’d shrivel and be bitter the rest of her life. She was the one with a business, with family and a place. Not something he was going to find out here. He’d barely talked to his brother in all of his weeks here. They were friendly, easy enough with each other to joke around, but they weren’t friends. That had been a hard discovery. He and his little brother had so little in common anymore. The decade apart—him in his restaurants and Patrick on Montana ranches—had put so much distance between them.