The Construction of Cheer

by Liz Isaacson

  “Why don’t you speak to them?”

  Montana drew in a deep breath and found her well of confidence. “I have two sisters. We’re all named after places—Georgia and Paris. I’m the oldest girl. I have an older brother named Dakota.”

  “Interesting,” Bishop said.

  “I think it’s weird,” Montana said. “But interesting is probably a nice way to say that, and you’re kind, so.”

  He chuckled and made another turn, this one that would lead them to the trailhead. “Go on.”

  Montana cleared her throat. “I dated a man in Dallas, where I used to live with my two sisters. We were getting serious, at least in my head, and the next thing I knew, Mason broke up with me. Literally, four days later, he and Paris started dating.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I wish.” Montana crossed her arms, hoping to hold in the bitterness she didn’t like to let out. “They dated for a while, and Paris honestly couldn’t see the problem with what had happened. Then, when the exact same thing happened to her, she understood.”

  “Georgia went out with him?” The level of incredulity in his voice mirrored the way Montana had felt. She could admit she’d felt fairly vindicated too, but she didn’t like to say so out loud.

  “I tried to be sympathetic, but I’m not very nice. I decided I couldn’t stay in Dallas, and that’s when Aurora and I moved here.”

  “You should not have to be sympathetic to that,” he said, and she appreciated his indignation.

  “My mother has had her problems over the years,” Montana said, not wanting to get into the whole nine yards there. “Let’s just say I text her from time to time. She’s my aunt’s sister, and they talk regularly. I call my father on his birthday and on Father’s Day. Aurora sends him cards and letters. He’s still in Alabama.”

  She looked at Bishop. “It’s just been me and Aurora for a while now. Ten years. We’ve been with Aunt Jackie and Uncle Bob for almost three years. I love it here, and I’m trying to save up enough to get my own place.” The familiar bubble of excitement buzzed through her. “But Aunt Jackie doesn’t want us to move out. She actually likes the teen drama and having someone to fuss over.” She grinned then, because she did love her aunt.

  “Does she have children?” Bishop asked.

  “No, sir. She and Uncle Bob were never able to have any.”

  “Do you want more children?”

  Montana’s voice dried up, and even when she tried to speak, she couldn’t.

  “Cactus is going to love this,” Bishop said, saving her.

  “What do you mean?’

  “I mean, he’s trying to get back into the dating pool too, and he loves it when I make mistakes.”

  “Was that a mistake?”

  “You literally couldn’t answer.” He turned into a dirt parking lot where only two other cars sat. “It’s fine. It’s a question I shouldn’t have asked on the first date.” He parked and smiled at her. “That’s why Cactus will love it when I tell him I stuck my cowboy boot so far down my throat before we even made it to the trailhead.”

  He grinned, still so confident. So handsome. So charming and likable.

  Montana focused on unbuckling her seatbelt as if such a task required extra attention. “Maybe you asked it because it’s important to you to know the answer.”

  Bishop pulled in a breath. “Maybe I did.” He opened his door. “Let me come around and help you.”

  Montana didn’t need his help getting out of the truck, but she let him jog around the hood and open her door. Bishop definitely possessed an energy she craved, and she smiled down at him. He took her hand, and she slipped to the ground, keeping her fingers laced through his after she’d found her balance.

  “Thanks,” she said. He stayed right where he was, and she added, “Can I have a little more time to give you an answer to that particular question?”

  “Sure,” he said, his voice too casual to actually be casual.

  “I suspect you want children,” she said. “Just from being around your family. I have Aurora and she’ll be fifteen in a few months. It’s hard for me to think I’m going to go back to diapers and getting up in the middle of the night and first steps and all of that.”

  “I understand,” he said, but Montana didn’t believe him. There was no way he could possibly understand. Not only did he not have children of his own, but he was the youngest. He’d never had to care for a baby in any capacity.

  “Let me get dinner,” he said, practically jumping away from her and toward the tailgate. He collected a classic picnic basket, complete with the red-and-white checkered cloth peeking out the sides. “I hope you like slightly warm pizza.” He grinned at her, and Montana had a feeling she’d eat cardboard just to spend a little bit of time with him.

  “There’s pizza in there? You didn’t cook?”

  “It’s been a draining day,” he admitted, and she saw his exhaustion for the briefest of moments. “So I ordered and picked up only a few minutes before I stopped by your aunt’s.”

  “Oh, so even you have off days,” she teased.

  “So many,” Bishop said.

  “We don’t have to hike to the falls,” she said. “I don’t even know how far it is.”

  Bishop paused and turned back to her. “What? We just drive here and eat?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You have a tailgate, right? Drop that thing, and we sit in the back of your truck. Legs dangling. The sun’s gonna go down here just like it will up there.” The more Montana spoke, the more she wanted to do what she said. “In fact, I’m kinda tired too.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t think you got tired.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “What? Of course I get tired.”

  “You just seem to go and go,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I really like you. It’s just that…it makes you more human.”

  Montana had no idea what to say. “I’m one-hundred percent human,” she said, and that summed up everything. “But let’s stay here. It’s a great view already.”

  “Deal,” he said, and Bishop led her back to his truck, where Montana ate room-temperature pizza and delicious cinnamon twists, laughed with Bishop, and leaned into his side while the sun said goodbye to Texas for another day.

  “That’s the last of it,” Montana said, hefting another armful of debris into the Dumpster she and Bishop had filled several times over in the past couple of weeks. He currently looked at his phone, a frown between his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said, definitely distracted.

  Montana needed a drink like she needed oxygen, and she made one last trek inside the cabin and retrieved her water bottle from the windowsill. She sucked at the cold liquid inside, her throat thanking her instantly.

  She grabbed Bishop’s bottle too and glanced around this last cabin. The stripping had taken so long, because they had to deal with mold the whole time, and that required constant checks and paperwork with the health department.

  A restoration company was scheduled to come tomorrow to treat whatever remained in the three cabins they’d been working on. A foundation for a fourth had been poured, and she and Bishop had spent days framing and getting it to the stage the others were at.

  That way, as they ordered supplies, they could do it in bulk.

  “You okay?” she asked as she approached Bishop again. She was very comfortable with him, because they spent hours together every day. He took her back to the homestead at lunchtime, where they’d only eaten alone once or twice. Bear was almost always there, usually with Ranger and Ace, and Montana had seen the way the four of them interacted.

  She’d felt like an outsider, though literally no one treated her that way. Quite the opposite, in fact. She hardly saw Arizona at all, and while Sammy had spoken to her at the luncheon after they’d found the love letters, Montana hadn’t seen her again.

  Out of everyone, she saw Ranger and his wife, Oakley, the most. She owned and worked at Mack’s Motor Sports, and she worked a lot of af
ternoons and evenings. Since she lived in the homestead, she was often there when Bishop and Montana showed up for lunch.

  “Bishop?”

  “Yeah,” Bishop said, looking up and tucking his phone in his back pocket. “Things are okay.” He took his water bottle from her. “Thanks. It’s just Agatha. The foal isn’t dropping, and the vet thinks he might have to do a C-section on her.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “He’s trying to get it to turn.” Bishop reached for her hand. “I’m distracted today. Can we just go to the stable?”

  “We’re done here anyway,” she said. “You left me to haul out all the trash while you texted about your horse.” She smiled up at him, her eyes focusing on his mouth. She’d thought about kissing him, which did surprise her slightly.

  “Sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and his eyes on her mouth too.

  They’d been out a couple more times, and Montana needed to have a conversation with her daughter about Bishop. She couldn’t get herself to think of him as her boyfriend, though she probably should.

  “We can go to the stable,” Montana said, but neither of them moved.

  “There’s something I want to do first.” Bishop took her easily into his arms, and she put her hands flat against his chest. “Do you know what it is?”

  “I think I have an idea,” she said, one hand moving up to his collar. She stalled there, her eyes drifting closed as she breathed in the scent of him. Cotton, and dryer sheets, and cologne. Wood, and work, and wonder.

  She curled her fingers around the back of his neck and put pressure there so he’d lower his head. She kept her head tilted back, and as the moment lengthened and Bishop still did not kiss her, Montana’s need for him to do so rose exponentially.

  Finally, his lips touched hers, and Montana felt like lightning crackled through her veins. His kiss lasted only a second, and then his touch was gone.

  “That was terrible,” she whispered, opening her eyes to look at Bishop. He gazed down at her, so much adoration in those golden brown eyes. He ran his fingers up the side of her face and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “I’ve never been told I’m a terrible kisser.”

  “That wasn’t a kiss, Bishop.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head, almost laughing. If her heart wasn’t sprinting so fast, she might be able to do more than breathe in and out.

  “No.” She tipped up and pressed her mouth to his. His hands tightened along her waist, and Montana and Bishop breathed in together, the kiss growing more passionate as it continued.

  Now that’s a kiss, she thought, hoping it would last a lot longer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bishop had been dreaming of kissing Montana since almost the day he’d met her. He’d not waited this long to kiss a woman he liked before, but there was something different about Montana Martin.

  Something very different in a very good way.

  They’d been out three or four times, and they worked together every day, of course. They’d had great conversations, and times when she’d say, “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

  He wouldn’t push her, and he got to say the same thing if she asked him something he didn’t want to talk about. The only topic he’d passed on was his father. She’d told him little about her first marriage, her daughter, and he still didn’t know if she wanted more children or not.

  He suspected she didn’t, and that was something Bishop was going to have to face sooner or later.

  Right now, he didn’t care, because right now, he was kissing Montana.

  Kissing Montana erased all his nerves and worries, and everything in the world felt absolutely right.

  She finally pulled away, and Bishop opened his eyes, the sunlight suddenly too bright. He looked at her, and she met his eye for only a half-moment before she ducked her head, a giggle coming from her head.

  Bishop let the smile coursing through him manifest itself on his face as he held her. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “That was a better kiss than the first one.”

  “Yeah, what was that?” she asked.

  “An experiment,” he said.

  She stepped away from him and searched his face. “What?”

  “I wanted to see if you’d make my blood sizzle.”

  She opened her mouth, but words didn’t come out. Only a scoff.

  “Don’t be all like that,” he said, grinning at her. “You do, by the way. Everything about you makes me come alive in a way I don’t understand.”

  Bishop wanted to shove a boot down his throat. He’d told Cactus about the children question when he and Montana had gone to hike to the falls, and Cactus had simply looked at him.

  He’d given Bishop a gift certificate to The Baker’s Dozen in town, where Bishop could buy any item for the kitchen he wanted. He’d appreciated the gesture, because come Sunday in a week or two, the whole family would gather to the homestead and celebrate his birthday, but no one would bring a gift.

  They simply didn’t do a lot of gifts in the Glover family. A name-draw exchange at Christmas, and that was it.

  But since then, Cactus had been closed off, more like the man he’d been before Thanksgiving last year. He glared more. He spoke less. Bishop hadn’t been able to get anything out of him regarding the change, and even Ace couldn’t get Cactus to leave the ranch anymore.

  “Let’s go to the stables,” he said, turning away from Montana, who hadn’t said anything after his confession. They got in his truck, and Bishop realized he had one more thing he needed to say to her.

  “Listen,” he said, wondering if a person could survive without their vocal cords. “I understand that you’re protective of Aurora. I do.” He cut a glance in her direction, not truly looking at her. “But I’m ready. I’m ready to meet her. Whenever you’re ready to share her with me.”

  He cleared his throat while he waited for Montana to say something. “And it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, and I’d love for the two of you—and your aunt and uncle if they want to come—to come eat with us at the homestead.”

  “What day?” she asked, her voice raw and hardly her own.

  “Sunday,” he said. “First Sunday in May.”

  She nodded, her lips pressed together. Bishop had said something to upset her. He knew; he’d seen her shut down like this before. This time, though, he didn’t press her. He’d learned over the past few weeks of working with her that sometimes Montana just needed a few minutes to think before she continued the conversation.

  This time, though, they rode to the stables in silence, and Bishop let his worry over Agatha’s delivery take over his nerves that he’d said too much and revealed too much to Montana.

  “Talk to me, baby,” he said a week or so later. He and Montana had been texting for a solid fifteen minutes, and Bishop needed to get out to the equipment shed where Bear and Ace were waiting for him.

  Montana sighed, and Bishop simply waited for her. “I just don’t know what to do with her,” she finally said.

  “So you got home,” Bishop said. “And you were a little late, because—” He cut off and cleared his throat. He may have kept her a little longer than he normally did, because he couldn’t stop kissing her. She seemed to enjoy kissing him too, and Bishop grinned as he walked down the path.

  The sun was bright and hot today, and Bishop only had a week until he turned thirty-four. Montana had not confirmed if she would be there. Alone, with her daughter, or with her aunt and uncle. Nothing. Bishop didn’t want to press her again.

  After their kiss last week, when he’d told her he was ready to meet her daughter, she’d gone quiet for a little while. Later, she’d told him she needed to talk to Aurora first, and she was still trying to figure out how to do that.

  Bishop knew she’d dated since her divorce, but he had no idea how to have a conversation with a teenager about dating, so he hadn’t asked again.

  “I was late, cowboy, because you wouldn’t stop kissing
me.” her voice dropped to a whisper, and she giggled quietly.

  “You liked it,” Bishop said, laughing with her.

  “I did like it,” she said. The moment sobered, and Bishop slowed his step. “I really like you, Bishop.”

  “I like you too, Montana.” And he did. Oh, he did.

  “Anyway, I got home, and I knew she was here, because her backpack was right inside the door. Her shoes. Everything. You never have to guess where she’s been. She leaves a trail of stuff.” Montana’s frustration coated every syllable. “Anyway, in the kitchen, I saw an extra can of soda on the counter, and I was like, who else is here?”

  “Mm hm.” Bishop got going again. She’d said all of this in the text. “You went and checked by the front door, and there was another backpack.”

  “Yes,” Montana said. “So I called for her, and she didn’t answer. I called her phone, and she didn’t answer. I was going upstairs to her room, seriously praying out loud.”

  “She’s smart,” Bishop said. “She wouldn’t take a boy up to her room.”

  “Think of yourself at fourteen,” she said. “Girls are just as hormonal as boys.”

  “Okay,” Bishop said. “I’m just repeating what you’ve told me. You said she’s smart.”

  “She is.”

  “Okay, then. Where were they?”

  “Thankfully, they weren’t in her bedroom, but I looked out the window and saw her and Oliver in the hammock together.”

  “Oh, the hammock,” Bishop said. “That’s not bad.”

  “Have you ever laid in a hammock with another person?” Montana demanded. “She was practically on top of him. I swear my heartbeat flew up my throat.”

  “What were they doing?”

  “Reading.”

  “Reading?” Bishop burst out laughing.

  “Bishop, this is serious.”

  “I know,” he said through his chuckles. “I know it is. So you went down there, hopping mad, and….”