Wild Montana Skies Read online

  “The flood has everyone keyed up,” Rumble said.

  A man walked by, wearing a two-day scraggle of whiskers, dressed in a tight black shirt, Gore-Tex pants. Another one of the hikers. “Thanks, Ian,” he said, clamping her not-needed rescuer on the shoulder.

  Ian nodded after him. “Miles.”

  Apparently, this guy knew everyone in the saloon. “Ian? That’s your name?”

  He nodded while reaching for a napkin. He fished ice from his water and folded it into the napkin. “You’ve got a nasty bump there.” He made to hold the makeshift ice pack to her head, then simply handed it to her.

  “Thank you.” Kind. She should have seen that earlier. “Sorry I hit you. It’s a . . . well, a reflex.”

  “What, from your years cage fighting?” He raised an eyebrow, and she couldn’t help a smile.

  “No. Just . . . nothing.”

  He frowned a second, but it vanished.

  She anchored the ice pack in place, too aware of the fact that she should be attracted to this man who seemed so clearly interested in her.

  Or maybe she was simply so out of practice she didn’t know how to flirt, or what flirting even looked like. Maybe he was simply being nice.

  And she looked like a fool. She knew better than to dive into the middle of a barroom brawl—resurrect all her nightmares in broad daylight, or at least under the dim lights of a bar. Her specialty was picking up the pieces, not preventing the disaster in the first place.

  Or at least it had been.

  “I should go,” she said, pulling the ice away, fingering the bruise, testing it. “I still have an hour of driving tonight.”

  Ian raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so. You’re injured, and you’ve been drinking.”

  Huh? “Hardly.” She picked up her glass. “This is root beer. Besides, I’ve been hurt worse than this and still managed to airlift eight marines out of a hot zone. Trust me, I can keep my Ford Escape between the lines from here to Whitefish.”

  “You still can’t go.”

  “Enough with the gallantry. Listen, I’m exhausted, I’ve just driven for two days without sleep, and I have to report for my new job in the morning.” She turned to Gina just emerging from the kitchen with her ribs. “Can I get those to go?”

  Gina nodded, turned back to the kitchen.

  “You don’t understand—” Ian started.

  “No, dude, you don’t understand. I’m simply not interested, and frankly, you don’t want to get messed up with me. Trust me on that one.”

  He frowned then, but then reached out and cupped his hand over her keys.

  And that was just . . . it. So what if he had six inches on her, looked like he worked out regularly, and knew how to handle himself. She only appeared helpless.

  She schooled her voice, kept it even but with enough edge for him to take her seriously. “Ian. I know you don’t know me, and right now, I sort of wish we’d never met, but trust me . . . You let go of my keys or that little altercation on the dance floor will look like a warm-up.”

  And he actually, seriously, smiled?

  “Huh. Okay.” She slid off the stool.

  “Slow down, I’m not trying to start another fight.” He moved his hand. “You can’t go home because . . . you can’t. Highway 2 is washed out just north of Mercy Falls. Unless you want to drive three hours back to Great Falls, then two hundred miles to Missoula, then finally north on 93 for another one hundred or so miles and end up arriving home around dawn, you’re hunkering down here tonight.”

  Here. In Mercy Falls. She sighed and found the fist she’d made loosening.

  “I was just trying to save you hours of driving.”

  Gina came back out, plunked the bag of ribs on the bar. “Okay, here you go. By the way, Dad says hi. And that dinner is on the house for your service to your country. I didn’t know you won a bronze star.”

  Kacey glanced at Ian, who raised an eyebrow. She turned back to Gina. “Tell him thanks.” She didn’t follow up on the medal comment. Because, really, she had her doubts about the validity of giving someone who’d just barely kept it together a medal.

  “Listen,” Ian said. “The hotels from here to Great Falls are full of National Guardsmen and volunteers trying to keep the river from flooding. Why don’t you come home with me? I have a ranch not far from here.”

  She stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What—do I have the word desperate tattooed on my forehead? Or easy, perhaps?” She grabbed the bag, her keys. “This may be a shocker, but no, I won’t come home with you, thanks.” She slid off the table, bumped her way through the crowd.

  “Kacey!”

  She ignored him, skirting past his friend Miles, who turned at his voice. She pushed outside, gulped in the fresh air. Wow, did that go south fast.

  Apparently, it still wasn’t over because Ian emerged through the doors right behind her. “Stop, Kacey.”

  She rounded on him. “And now this is starting to get a little stalkery. What’s your deal?”

  But the way he was looking at her, something like determination in his eyes . . . Now a little concern reached in, tugged at her. Her breath caught. “How do you know my name?”

  “Take a breath. I’m not a stalker.” He held up his hands as if in surrender, his jaw tight. “But I’m right, aren’t I? You’re Kacey Fairing?”

  She found herself stepping back, wishing she had a sidearm. She dropped her takeout bag onto a bench.

  He noticed and softened his voice. “This is my fault. I should have explained myself better. I heard you mention PEAK and then figured it out when Gina mentioned the medal, which is, of course, exactly what Chet said when he told me about you.”

  She took another step back. “Chet King told you . . . about me?”

  Which would only stir up questions, she had no doubt. The last thing she needed was for her reputation to precede her.

  “What did he say?”

  “That you were exactly who we needed to take over flight ops for PEAK. Military hero . . .”

  Oh. That. Still, that meant maybe she was safe from anyone grounding her based on false assumptions. Just because she was a little jumpy didn’t mean she couldn’t still handle a bird.

  Ian lowered his hands but kept them out, away from his body, where she could see them. “You are the new pilot for PEAK Rescue, right? The one Chet hired to replace him and Ty?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s start over. I should have introduced myself earlier.” He stuck out his hand, as if meeting her for the first time. “Ian Shaw. Local rancher and, well, founder of the PEAK Search and Rescue team.”

  Founder.

  She swallowed, wrapping her brain around his words, even while reaching out to take his hand.

  He rubbed the other hand over his jaw, now red, even a smidgen swollen.

  “In other words, I’m your new boss. Welcome home.”

  Of course Ben knew that his father hadn’t really caused the flood.

  Sure, it did seem sometimes as if the Reverend Chet King possessed a direct tin-can-and-shoestring line to the Almighty that could call down divine forces. After all, Ben had seen it happen on more than one occasion—his dad hit his knobby knees and suddenly the sun began to shine, people got healed, and the town of Mercy Falls shouted hallelujah.

  But certainly Chet’s petitions hadn’t caused the warm spell that thawed the snow cap off the Livingston Range, swelling tributaries and flooding the Mercy River. He hadn’t created the three-day thunderstorm that saturated already drenched fields and creeks, turning them to torrents. Hadn’t triggered the river to crest, to take out the Great Northern Bridge, wash out Highway 2, and threaten the existence of the small cowboy town of Mercy Falls.

  Most importantly, he hadn’t purposely trapped Ben in Mercy Falls while his music career fell to shambles around him. Not that his father actually cared, but at least he could acknowledge Ben’s attempt to get himself back on his feet, stop being so stubborn, and most of a
ll, refrain from calling down the wrath of God.

  Thanks, but Ben got it already. He knew exactly what God thought about him.

  Ben turned his F-150 onto the muddy frontage road edging the Shaw ranch.

  Even if his dad could claim responsibility for the divine catastrophe, it wasn’t going to work. Ben wasn’t going to fall for the need to stick around and help his hometown dry off and rebuild. He had his own life—and frankly, his father’s—to piece back together.

  So what if he’d spent the night hunched over, hauling fifty-pound sandbags and trying to save the mobile home of Arlene Butcher. Not just Arlene’s double-wide, of course, but the entire neighborhood of Whitetail Park that bordered the Mercy River. And, beyond that, the Mercy Falls Main Street, the high school, and even the Mercy Falls Community Church.

  Which he supposed he should care about saving instead of wishing the place might be swept away.

  He hit a rut in the muddy ranch driveway, and it sent a spear of pain through Ben’s already aching back. And, wouldn’t you know it, the tire spun in the muck, spitting out grime.

  Ben shoved the F-150 into park and got out, stepping into ankle-deep soup. The sun hovered just above the horizon, bleeding through the gray veil of dawn, and the hint of more rain hung in the misty air, still too warm for June, which had caused this problem in the first place.

  He pulled out a board that he kept in the bed of his truck just for this purpose and shoved it under the tire to give it traction. Then he stood, stretched, and simply breathed in the fragrance of the ranch.

  Billionaire Ian Shaw’s land sprawled through a bowl at the base of the western edge of Glacier National Park, in and over foothills striped with craggy streams and runnels of canyon, bordered by rolling meadows lush with foamy white bear grass, crisp alpine daisies, and pink fireweed. Behind it all, the northern Rockies rose in rugged, glorious backdrop, the Flathead Range to the east, the Swan Range to the southwest, their ragged peaks blue-gray and unyielding in the haze of the morning.

  Ben could stand here forever, caught in the view, the sound of chattering bobolink, the rush of overflowing creek behind the house, the hint of all things summer in the air. Once upon a time, he had craved this life, relished the honesty of it. He could have built a happily-ever-after on the sense of accomplishment gained one day at a time, if he’d wanted it.

  But therein lay the problem. He hadn’t wanted this life. Just Kacey.

  Ben got back into the truck, eased the truck out of the mud, then exited to retrieve his board.

  He noticed the black outlines of Shaw’s cattle, pinpricks on a hill on his northern forty, munching happily on the soggy table of wheat grass.

  Ben ran his hand behind his neck, kneading a stiff muscle as he crawled the truck through the muddy track toward the highway.

  The problem with sandbagging was that, at best, it kept the water from destroying homes, businesses, and yes, maybe even saved the lives of a few household pets. Which, of course, should be enough.

  But it didn’t actually fix anything.

  Didn’t repair the Great Northern Bridge, now eaten away and washed downriver, lodged at the apex of where the Mercy River met Hungry Horse Creek’s south fork.

  It didn’t put the cabins at Moccasin Pass back on their foundations, nor keep the campers at Swiftcurrent Lodge from being stranded, having to be carted out by the army.

  No, when a guy spent the night sandbagging, one backbreaking, fifty-pound bag at a time, he clued in to the raw-edged truth.

  He had to do more than sandbag if he wanted to rebuild his life, his career. Which meant figuring out how to get his groove back, pen his own songs, then get into the studio and resurrect his solo game. Hollie Montgomery had another thing coming if she thought he’d just step aside for her to steal everything he’d sacrificed for.

  He shot a glance at his watch hanging from the rearview mirror. Shoot.

  His dad might be up already, trying to make breakfast, banging his chair into the table, upsetting the juice, refusing to let life sideline him. Ben longed to refit the house to accommodate Chet’s injury, to help his old man just be patient as he healed from his dual broken hips. He kept pushing forward too fast, reinjuring himself, and now risked his long-term mobility.

  But Chet never did well with sit still. Worse, Ben could admit he probably inherited the restlessness from his father and that he might be just as frustrated if he’d lost everything he’d loved.

  Maybe he understood his father better than he’d thought.

  Ben pulled up to the house, got out. Behind the log cabin A-frame, the creek tumbled over boulders, cresting to the edge of the wide bed. The porch swing facing it rocked in the morning breeze, and he half expected his mother to be sitting there, her Bible open or her knitting on her lap.

  Overhead, the gray sky hovered low, thick with clouds. More rain in the forecast.

  Maybe sandbagging was the best they could expect at the moment.

  He came onto the porch, opened the entry room door.

  Jubal met him, barking, upset, the hair on his neck ruffed up. “What is it, pal?”

  Then, the acrid odor of burning metal rushed over him. A light haze clouded the entry, and he heard sizzling. “Dad!”

  “In here!”

  Ben charged inside, found the kitchen engulfed in smoke.

  His father sat on the floor, dressed in his pajamas, his robe open, gripping a spatula like a weapon. “It’s over. I got the fire out.”

  Next to him, on the melting linoleum, lay the overturned cast-iron pan, black oil puddling around the base.

  Across the room and out of reach lay the overturned wheelchair, discarded, or maybe even shoved in disgust.

  Ben picked it up, set it right. Leaned over the table to open the kitchen window. Glanced, one more time, at the stove, just to make sure.

  “Stupid chair. I leaned too far forward and the thing flipped on me.”

  “Dad, that’s one of the best chairs on the market. It doesn’t just—”

  “It flipped, son.” He tossed the spatula in a perfect arc into the sink, began to scoot across the floor to the wheelchair.

  There had been a time when Ben considered his father superhuman—lean, toned, one of the strongest men he knew. At sixty-five, Chet still had the strength of a bear, hands that could rip an apple in half or pull a birthing calf from its mother’s withers. He possessed the stamina to outlast a breaking colt and a look that could stare down a bull. He’d been a hero too, evidenced from his stories of flying rescue choppers in ’Nam.

  But seeing his father grunt as he wrestled himself onto his chair, his legs a nuisance more than a help, Ben just wanted to pick him up by his armpits, set him back into place.

  Stop him from suffering one minute longer.

  His father shouldn’t have to spend the rest of his days shackled to a chair, and the injustice of that could cause Ben to shake a fist heavenward, even if he knew the consequences.

  Frankly, Ben had run out of second chances so long ago, it didn’t matter anyway.

  “I’ll get the pan,” Ben said, reaching for the handle.

  “Careful, it’s—”

  Hot. Ben jerked his hand back, shook it. Reached for a towel.

  “I fell, and before I could get up, the bacon started burning,” Chet said, now wheeling his chair to the table. “I tried to reach the handles on the stove, but I think I turned them the wrong way. I finally decided to move the pan off the heat, but it wouldn’t budge, so I finally just yanked it down—”

  “It could have fallen on you.” Ben took the pan, wiped out the bacon grease, set it back on the stove.

  “Naw. I knew where I wanted it to land.”

  “Then you might have gotten it closer to the carpet, because it burned the linoleum.” Ben took a rag, wiped up the mess. “How about I fix us breakfast?”

  But his father had already started cracking eggs into a bowl. He reached for a fork. “I’m not dead, kid. I’ll whip us up an omelet.
You grab a shower. You’re filthy and I could smell you coming from Great Falls.”

  For the first time, Ben noticed the mud he’d dragged into the house. “Sorry.”

  “Your mother would’ve had your head,” Chet said, and grinned at him. Ben wanted to match it, but how could his father so casually, so easily drop her name? Like she might be in the next room?

  As usual, the old man could read him. “I miss her too, son. But she’s just waiting for us. We’ll see her again.”

  And there was the chaser, his father’s casual, easy faith statement.

  “Right,” Ben said. He walked back out to the entryway, used a jack to yank off his grimy work boots. He returned to the kitchen. “I’ll grab a shower if you promise not to burn the house down.”

  His father threw the towel at him. Ben caught it and threw it back, trying for a smile. I’m trying, Mom. But wow, Dad didn’t make it easy.

  Still, he’d made her promises . . . “Come home once in a while, okay? He needs you.”

  Right.

  He turned toward the bathroom, then stopped, her words lingering. “You know, Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehab Center in Nashville is one of the best rehab centers in the country. And I’ve already lined up a therapist for you—”

  “I’m not leaving Mercy Falls, Ben. I told you that.”

  Ben paused, not able to say the words—that maybe they should consider the fact he might never get out of that chair.

  He hated that thought as much as his father did.

  Besides, he knew how to pick his battles.

  “Then what if I made some changes to the house—put in handicap-accessible appliances, modified the kitchen so you can get around. That’s why I came home—to help you adjust to this life.”

  His father rolled the chair over to the stove. He reached for the cast-iron pan and Ben tried not to lunge for it, to help.

  Chet turned on the flame. “Is that why you came home? Really?” He didn’t look at Ben as he poured the egg mixture into the pan. The omelet began to sizzle.

  Ben frowned. “Of course that’s why. You needed help.”

  Chet just pursed his lips, nodded. “Huh. Because it looks a lot like running to me.”