The Construction of Cheer

by Liz Isaacson

  She took a sip of her coffee, unsurprised when Aunt Jackie said, “It’ll do you no good to worry about it now.”

  Montana opened her mouth to deny she was worried about anything, but she’d protested in the past, and Aunt Jackie hadn’t believed her. She had a gift for knowing how someone felt; it was one of the reasons she was such a good nurse.

  “I can’t help it,” Montana finally said. “Aurora is a good girl, but she needs a lot of attention or she’ll veer down the wrong path.”

  “Oh, she has a heart of gold.” Aunt Jackie smiled and looked down at her journal again. “I don’t worry about her at all.”

  “Who do you worry about?” Montana asked.

  “Tracey,” Aunt Jackie said instantly. “She never sleeps, and I worry about that. Uncle Bob, because his blood pressure is too high, and he works too much at that store. You.” She gave Montana a faint smile.

  “Why me?” Montana said.

  Aunt Jackie kept her pencil moving as she said, “You’re a wonderful person, Montana, and you don’t even know it.”

  “I….” She didn’t know how to finish, because she’d never thought she’d thought of herself all that negatively.

  “I worry that you’ll work yourself to the bone only to prove a point, but really, no one is waiting for you to do anything but what you’re already doing.”

  Montana focused on her coffee, a pinch starting in her chest. “Is it wrong to want a place of my own? For me and Aurora?”

  “Of course not,” Aunt Jackie said. “But who are you going to call when you move in?” She looked up then, her eyes much sharper now. “Your mother? Georgia? Paris?”

  “Okay,” Montana said.

  “Johnny?”

  “Okay,” Montana barked, her mood dark as night now.

  Aunt Jackie didn’t back down, though. She held Montana’s glare for several long moments before she sighed. “I just want you to be happy. Bob and I love having you here. You are not a burden. We love it.”

  “I know.” Montana dropped her gaze too, not wanting to argue with her aunt. No, she would not call either of her sisters to tell them about her new house or apartment. And she hadn’t spoken to her ex-husband in a decade; he wouldn’t care about her getting into her own place other than how much it cost. If he determined he could get anything from Montana—even a simple ten-dollar bill, he’d do it.

  “Aunt Jackie?” she asked.

  “Mm?”

  “If I…I mean, do you…do you ever talk to your sister?”

  Aunt Jackie brought her head up again. “Yes,” she said. “Your mother and I speak often enough.”

  Montana nodded, nothing else to ask, because she hadn’t intended to ask about her mother, but Bishop Glover. She bit back the question as if Aunt Jackie would mind if she started dating for a reason she could not name. She and her aunt had never spoken of men, and Montana figured she probably put off some vibe that said she wasn’t interested in meeting someone new and trying to fall in love again.

  She could admit she’d been beyond sour on men when she’d come to Three Rivers. Not only had her husband broken her heart and her trust, but after Montana had finally gotten back into the game of dating, her own sister had played a cruel, cruel card.

  “What are you thinking, my darling?” Aunt Jackie asked, and Montana looked up from her coffee.

  “Nothing,” she said, putting on the brightest, biggest smile she could. “I have to go up to the ranch this afternoon and meet with the exterminator. Aurora is going to a friend’s house. I don’t know if we’ll be home for dinner.”

  “I’m on the swing tonight,” Aunt Jackie said. “I’ll text Bob and let him know to pick up a burger on his way home.”

  Montana nodded and got up, a groan pulling through her throat as a pain shot up her back. “I’m okay,” she said before Aunt Jackie could ask. “I think that bed up at that ranch was actually too nice for me.” She took a couple of hobbling steps before her gait evened, and she thought everything about Shiloh Ridge Ranch was too nice for her—including Bishop Glover.

  Maybe she should just maintain a professional, working relationship with him and nothing more.

  Nothing more, echoed through her head as she lay in her own inferior bed and prepared to get the sleep she’d missed last night.

  Montana pulled up to the Ranch House, as Bishop called it, complete with capital letters. It looked like a normal house, only bigger, and it overlooked the entirety of Three Rivers. When she got out of her truck, she turned and looked out over the side of the hill, the town below and to the north.

  “This is incredible,” she said. If she lived somewhere like this, she’d sit on the front porch and sip coffee every morning, imagining what the people in town were doing. Who was late for work, and who was impatient to get their coffee so they wouldn’t be late for work.

  Who’d just made it through the green light, and whose car wouldn’t start. She smiled to herself, stories flowing through her mind. The rumble of another truck interrupted her, and she turned her gaze to the road she’d come up to find two more vehicles coming.

  The first was Bishop, in that big, black, sexy truck she’d ridden in last night. Right behind him came the exterminator, with a truck so wide, she felt sure it wouldn’t fit in the driveway.

  She got out of the way so Bishop could park next to her, realizing this place had plenty of space, just like the homestead. If she thought Bishop was handsome and adorable and sexy without his truck, all of those were amplified with him behind the wheel.

  He grinned at her as he pulled in, and she smiled right on back. The man had asked her out to dinner for tomorrow night, and she hadn’t answered him yet. Could she bring it up this afternoon? She wasn’t particularly skilled when it came to men, that was for sure.

  She knew she possessed a look a lot of men liked—the blonde haired, blue-eyed look. Most didn’t mind her muscles or the extra twenty pounds she carried because of that look. In the end, though, there was always something about her that drove the men away.

  Or rather, there was something more alluring about someone else.

  “Hey,” Bishop said. “You found it.”

  “I sure did,” she said. “It’s a whole house on the side of a hill. Wasn’t hard to find.” She grinned at him, glad when he chuckled. He stepped to her side as she turned to look at the house. Three-car garage. Wide front porch that touched the garage and wrapped around the front corner of the house.

  “How many bedrooms?” she asked.

  “Six,” he said.

  “Who lives here?”

  “Three of my brothers,” he said. “Mister, Judge, and Preacher.”

  “Y’all have interesting names,” she said.

  “That we do,” he said. “None of them are real.” He reached up and pushed his hat further down. “I’ll have to tell you about mine sometime.” With that, he turned toward the two guys who’d gotten out of the extermination truck.

  None of them are real? Montana wanted him to turn back around and tell her about his right now. If Bishop wasn’t his real name, what was it? And why did he go by Bishop?

  Intrigued, she followed him and shook hands with Ralph—clearly the one in charge—and Peyton, who looked to be no older than Aurora.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” Ralph said.

  “It’s on the roof,” Bishop said. “Or you might be able to see things from inside. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  “You sounded sure it was termites,” Ralph said.

  “Well, there’s significant damage to the roof,” Bishop said, leading the way along the side of the garage toward the back of the house. “I’m not sure what else it would be.”

  “Peyton,” Ralph said, and Montana turned back to the pair of them. Ralph was looking at the ground, and Peyton bent down to examine something almost against the cement foundation of the house.

  “Mud tubes,” he said, looking up at the older gentleman. Peyton straightened, his eyes serio
us and his mouth straight. He turned toward Bishop. “Sir, you have termites.”

  “On the ground?” Bishop crouched down to look at the mud tubes.

  “It’s a sign,” Ralph said. “That’s how they get from their nest to your house. They’re subterranean termites.” He looked out toward the stand of trees several feet away. “Their nest’ll be out here somewhere. Beneath the earth. They travel back and forth.”

  “And they’ve eaten all the way to the roof?” The level of horror in Bishop’s voice wasn’t lost on Montana. She wished she could step to his side and take his hand in hers. Perhaps a little bit of comfort would go a long way.

  “Let’s go see,” Ralph said.

  Bishop squared his shoulders and his jaw, nodded, and continued to the ladder on the back deck. He went up first, and Montana gestured for Ralph and Peyton to go in front of her. She arrived last to find the roof had been stripped of its shingles. A lot of the wood looked fine to her, but there were some definite patches that needed to be repaired.

  Bishop and the others stood around a particularly bad wound in the roof, and Ralph crouched down and ran his fingers along one of the beams. Montana could see all the way into the attic, and it sure did seem full of dust and sawdust, all of it covering the insulation there.

  “You have drywood termites too,” he said, looking up at Bishop.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Bishop said.

  Ralph stood and showed him the sandy stuff on his fingers. “This is called frass. It’s their excrement.”

  “It looks like sawdust,” Peyton said. “This type of termite lives in a nest inside your house.”

  Bishop took a deep breath, and Montana’s heart pinched at the unrest pouring off of him. “So you’re saying we have subterranean termites that live in nest beneath the ground and travel into the house. And we have drywood termites that nest inside the house. And they all eat wood.”

  “Yes, sir,” Peyton said, glancing at Montana.

  Bishop blew out his breath and looked at her too. “So what next? You guys get rid of them, and we start repairing? Do you think this house is so far gone we should strip it and start over?”

  Montana couldn’t hope for the worst for him, even though it would allow her to work at the ranch longer. She tried to smile, and she simply let herself do what was natural. Her hand slipped into his, which caused a blip of surprise to cross his face. He didn’t let go of her fingers though.

  “We’ll do a full assessment,” Ralph said, nodding to Peyton. “It could take a while. This place is big, and it’s got a basement.”

  Bishop nodded and said, “Let’s get ‘er done. Then we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

  Once they were all down on the deck again, he asked, “Do we need to be here?”

  “No, sir,” Peyton said. “We’ll call you when we’re done to make sure we have your email. We’ll send our treatment plan there, and you can take some time to look over it.”

  “It’s not going to be cheap, Bishop.” Ralph looked concerned, but Bishop just nodded. “Okay, Pey. Let’s call Momma first and let her know we’ll be a couple of hours up here. Then I want you on inspection, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Peyton said, and Montana’s heart warmed at the father-son team. Her blood lit on fire when Bishop took her hand again and leaned closer to her.

  “Want to go look at the cabins for a minute? I can catch you up on that project too, if you have a minute.”

  Montana cleared her throat, praying her voice would work while she held hands with this gorgeous cowboy. “I have a minute,” she said, her faith that God answered prayers absolutely whole as her voice came out full and normal.

  “Great,” Bishop said. “You drive.”

  A week later, Montana woke before the sun. That was a little unusual, as Bishop had said he didn’t want to leave the homestead until seven-thirty in the morning. The sun was well-up by then, and she’d wondered if they’d move their schedule to earlier as summer arrived.

  As it was, they still had a week left in March, and the weather in April was usually the best of the year in Three Rivers.

  Today, though, Montana needed to finish the bid she’d been working on for two straight weeks and get it submitted. The deadline wasn’t until next Wednesday, but she didn’t want to leave it until the last minute.

  Three Rivers was in desperate need of a new library. The town had grown and expanded the last several years to the point where some of the local services needed to be updated as well. The building had slowed, though Montana had enjoyed a couple of years of steady employment in Three Rivers.

  The new library would need a designer and a builder, and Montana wanted to be both. Her horizons had been broadened by being at Shiloh Ridge this week. The ranch up in the hills was enormous, with every structure and every fencepost exactly where it was supposed to be. The men and women there took care of their land and buildings, and the pride Montana felt emanating from them and the very ranch itself had renewed her soul.

  She and Bishop had eaten lunch in the barn where he’d first taken her for dinner. He called it True Blue, she’d learned, and he’d designed it himself. Montana had been embarrassed when he’d finally given her that tour and then fed her a quick lunch of black bean quesadillas and spiced crema.

  Watching him cook was even better than watching him work, and Montana’s crush on the man had multiplied and intensified in the few days she’d been working with him.

  She’d redrawn most of her plans in the evenings this week, after tasting and seeing what truly expensive and expansive spaces could look like. That was a gift Shiloh Ridge had given her already, and gratitude filled her as she read through her bid one final time.

  “Anything else?” she asked, looking up at the ceiling the only room in the house where she could have any privacy. Aurora slept next door, and Montana was glad they each had a place they belonged.

  The Lord didn’t sway her to add anything else, nor take something out of the bid, so Montana saved it and started uploading each piece to the website accepting proposals from contractors and construction crews.

  Twenty minutes later, she’d done it. A strange sense of accomplishment came over her, though she’d not really done anything all that special. Still, putting together a bid with sample schematics to show vision was hard work. Most companies that would take on something like this had dozens of employees, and a whole department that dreamed up concepts, spacious libraries with tons of sunlight pouring in, and luxury spaces for meetings, book nooks, and teen activities.

  Montana had done it all herself. She didn’t like discussing her plans and drawings with anyone, and she hadn’t told anyone that she was even planning to put in a bid on the new library build.

  She sat back from the computer and thought about Bishop. If there was someone she wanted to know about what she’d done, it was him.

  A smile formed on her face, and she reached for her phone. I just submitted a complete concept and build bid for the new library in town.

  She wasn’t sure what time he got up, but a message came in while she mulled over what else to send him. They hadn’t gone to dinner last Friday. He hadn’t asked about it again, and she hadn’t known how to bring it up.

  With his brother and cousin gone, Bishop was running a lot of things on the ranch, taking care of Lincoln, and dealing with two nests of termites from two different species and colonies at the Ranch House.

  A decision regarding that house had not yet been made, and he and Montana had been working on gutting the cabins for the past four days since her contract had started.

  They’re not going to steal you from me, are they?

  Montana grinned at the phone. It takes months for a bid to be accepted, she tapped out. I think we’re good.

  She looked up from her phone. Were they good? She’d reasoned that he was busy, and she was still trying to work out the commute up to Shiloh Ridge with Aurora. There really wasn’t more time to be spent showering, putting on
lipstick, and going to dinner with the man she saw all day long.

  They had not held hands again, and in fact, Montana realized as she sat in her bedroom, he hadn’t flirted with her much that week, nor had he asked her to dinner again.

  “Maybe you blew it already,” she grumbled to herself, especially when Bishop didn’t respond again.

  Chapter Ten

  “All right,” Ranger drawled. “That just leaves Bishop and his, uh, personal item.”

  Bishop felt that uh way down deep in his soul. He shouldn’t have put that on the Friday morning meeting agenda, but at the same time, when he’d been praying to know what to do, that had been the thought inside his head.

  He looked across the table to Bear, who gazed steadily back. Ranger leaned out from behind his computer, his gaze flitting from the monitor there to Bishop and back every few seconds. Cactus sat on Bear’s right, as did Ward.

  He loved watching the four of them converse and come to an agreement about projects on the ranch. Bishop had been specifically invited to this meeting to present on the southern sector cabins, as well as the Ranch House.

  He couldn’t wait to tell Montana how it had gone, despite the fact that she hadn’t asked him to update her after the meeting that morning. He’d told her about it at least a half a dozen times, and—

  “Are you going to say anything?” Bear asked. “We have work to do.”

  Bishop shifted in his seat and looked at Cactus, who nodded. “I met a woman,” he said.

  “Another one?” Ward teased.

  Bishop smiled along with the rest of them. “She’s different,” he said. “She makes me nervous, and while I’ve already asked her out—maybe two or three times—she’s never really said yes.”

  Bear folded his arms but otherwise said nothing. Ranger closed his laptop and gave Bishop his full attention.

  His nerves settled further. This was exactly why he’d put this item on the agenda for this meeting. They weren’t making fun of him. This was important to him, and therefore important to them.