Big Sky River Read online

  Tara’s smile was as blindingly bright as the ones in those ads for tooth-whitening strips—she’d probably recognized the big extended-cab pickup he was driving as belonging to Hutch and Kendra, and expected to meet up with one or both of them—but the dazzle faded quickly when she realized that this was a case of mistaken identity.

  Her expression said it all. No Hutch, no Kendra. Just the backwoods redneck sheriff who wrecked her view of the countryside with his double-wide trailer and all-around lack of DIY motivation.

  The top was down on the sports car and Boone could see that, like its mistress, the dog was wearing sunglasses, probably expensive ones, a fact that struck Boone as just too damn cute to be endured. Didn’t the woman know this was Montana, not L.A. or New York?

  Getting out of the spiffy roadster, Tara let her shades slip down off the bridge of her perfect little nose and looked him over in one long, dismissive sweep of her gold-flecked blue eyes, moving from his baseball cap to the ratty old boots on his feet.

  “Casual day at the office, Sheriff?” she asked, singsonging the words.

  Boone set his hands on his hips and leveled his gaze at her, pleased to see a pinkish flush blossom under those model-perfect cheekbones of hers. He and Tara had gotten off on the wrong foot when she had moved onto the land adjoining his, and she’d made it plain, right from the get-go, that she considered him a hopeless hick, a prime candidate for a fifteen-minute segment on The Jerry Springer Show. She’d come right out and said his place was an eyesore—in the kindest possible way, of course.

  In his opinion, Tara was not only a city slicker, out of touch with ordinary reality, but a snob to boot. Too bad she had that perfect body and that head of shiny hair. Without those, it would have been easier to dislike her.

  “Hello to you, too, neighbor,” Boone said, in a dry drawl when he was darned good and ready to speak up. “How about this weather?”

  She frowned at him, making a production of ferreting through her shoulder bag and bringing out her wallet. Behind her, in the passenger seat, the dog yawned without displacing its aviator glasses, as though bored. The lenses were mirrored.

  “If you’re finished at the machine—?” Tara said, with a little rolling motion of one manicured hand. For a chicken rancher, she was stylin’.

  Boone stepped aside to let her pass. “You shouldn’t do that, you know,” he heard himself telling her. It wasn’t as if she’d welcome any advice from him, after all, no matter how good it might be.

  “Do what?” She had the faintest sprinkling of freckles across her nose, he noticed, oddly disconcerted by the discovery.

  “Get your wallet out between the car and the ATM,” Boone answered, in sheriff mode even if he was dressed like a homeless person. He was in a hurry to get to Missoula, that was all. Hadn’t wanted to take the time to change clothes. “It’s not safe.”

  Tara paused and, sunglasses jammed up into her bangs now, batted her thick lashes at him in a mockery of naïveté. “Surely nothing bad could happen with the sheriff of all Parable County right here to protect me,” she replied, going all sugary. She had the ATM card out of her wallet by then, and looked ready to muscle past him to get to the electronic wonder set into the bank’s brick wall.

  “Have it your way,” Boone said tersely. Why wasn’t he back in Hutch’s flashy truck by now, headed out of town? He wanted to see his boys, do what he could do for Molly and her three kids, maybe stop by the hospital and find out how Bob was holding up. But it was as if roots had poked right through the bottoms of his boots and the layer of concrete beneath them to break ground, wind down deep, and finally twist themselves into a hell of a tangle, and that pissed him off more than Tara’s snooty attitude ever had.

  “Thank you,” she said, a little less sweetly, brushing by him and shoving her bank card into the slot before jabbing at a sequence of buttons on the number pad. “I will.”

  Boone rolled his eyes. Sighed. “People get robbed at ATMs all the time,” he pointed out, chafing under the self-imposed delay. It would take a couple hours to reach Missoula, who knew how long to sort things out and load up the kids, and then two more hours to make it home again. And that was if they didn’t stop along the way for supper.

  Tara took the card out of the machine, collected a stack of bills from the appropriate opening, and started the process all over again. Who needed that much cash?

  Maybe it was a habit from living in New York.

  Her back—and a fine little back it was, partly bared by that skimpy sundress of hers—was turned to him the whole time, and she smelled like sun-dried laundry and wildflowers. “In Parable?” she retorted. “Who would dare to commit a crime in your town, Boone Taylor?”

  He waited until she’d completed the second transaction and turned around, nearly bumping into him. She was waving all those twenties around like the host on some TV game show, just asking for trouble. “I do my best,” he told her, enjoying the flash of flustered annoyance that lit her eyes and pulsed in her cheeks, “but Parable isn’t immune to crime, and there are some risks nobody but a damn fool will take.”

  She arched her eyebrows, shoved her sunglasses back into place with an eloquent gesture of the middle finger on her right hand. “Are you calling me a damn fool?” she asked, in a tone about as companionable as a room full of pissed-off porcupines.

  “No,” Boone said evenly. I’m calling you a spoiled city girl with a very high opinion of yourself, he thought but didn’t say. “I’m only suggesting that you might want to be a little more careful in the future, that’s all. Like I said before, Parable is a good town, but strangers do pass through here, in broad daylight as well as after dark, and we might even have a few closet outlaws in our midst.”

  Tara blinked up at him. “Are you through?” she asked politely.

  He spread his hands and smirked a little, deliberately. “I tried,” he said. He could have added, “Don’t come crying to me if you get mugged,” but of course she’d have every right to do just that, since he was the law.

  She went around him, sort of stalked back toward her car. It was amusing to watch the slight sway of her hips under that gauzy dress as she moved.

  “Thanks so much,” she said tersely, opening the driver’s side door and plunking down behind the wheel. Only then did she bother to stick the cash in her wallet and drop that back into her bag.

  The dog looked from her to Boone with the casual interest of a spectator at a slow tennis match.

  Boone swept off his baseball cap and bowed deeply. “Anytime, your ladyship,” he said.

  Tara pursed her lips, looked back over one satin-smooth shoulder to make sure no one was behind her, and ground the car’s transmission into Reverse. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear what she said over the roar of the engine, which was probably just as well.

  It would serve her right, though, he thought, if he cited her for reckless driving. He didn’t have the time—or a case, for that matter—but he savored the fantasy as he got back into Hutch’s truck.

  * * *

  BOONE TAYLOR WAS just plain irritating, Tara thought, as she and Lucy drove away from the bank. Unfortunately, he was also a certified hunk with the infuriating ability to wake up all five of her senses and a few she hadn’t discovered yet. How did he do that?

  She stayed on a low simmer all the time she was running errands—buying groceries, taking them home and putting them all away, filling the pantry and the fridge and part of the freezer. Boone had disrupted her whole afternoon, and wasn’t that just perfect, when she should have been enjoying the anticipation of her stepdaughters’ arrival?

  To sustain her momentum, she prepared the guest quarters, scrubbing down the clean but dusty bathroom, opening the windows, vacuuming and fluffing pillows and cushions, swapping out the sheets, even though the first ones hadn’t been slept in. Tara hadn’t had company in a while, and she wanted the linens to be clothesline-fresh for the twins.

  Throughout this flurry of activity, Luc
y stayed right with her, supervising from the threshold, occasionally giving a little yip of encouragement or swishing her tail back and forth.

  “Everything is done,” Tara told the dog when it was, straightening after smoothing each of the white chenille bedspreads one final time and glancing at the little clock on the nightstand between them. “And it isn’t even time to feed the chickens.”

  Lucy uttered a conversational little whine, keeping up her end of the conversation.

  Tara thought about her family-unfriendly car again, and Joslyn’s generous offer to lend her the clunky station wagon her housekeeper, Opal, shared with Shea, Joslyn and her husband Slade’s eighteen-year-old stepdaughter.

  Borrowing the vehicle would be too much of an imposition, she decided, as she and Lucy headed down to the kitchen via the back staircase. It was time to head over to Three Trees, cruise past both auto dealerships, and pick out a big-girl car. Something practical, like a minivan or a four-door sedan, spacious but easy on gas.

  Within minutes, she and Lucy were back on the road, this time with the car’s top up so they wouldn’t arrive all windblown, like a pair of bad credit risks.

  * * *

  MOLLY AND BOB lived in a modest two-story colonial on a shady side street in the best part of Missoula. The grass in the yard was greener than green and neatly trimmed, possibly with fingernail scissors. Flowers grew everywhere, in riotous tumbles of color, and the picket fence was so pristinely white that it looked as if the paint might still be wet.

  Boone stopped the truck in front, and though not usually into comparisons since he wasn’t the materialistic type, he couldn’t help being struck by the contrast between his sister’s place and his own.

  He sighed and shoved open the driver’s side door, keys in hand. He’d been wishing he’d taken the time to shower and put on something besides fishing clothes ever since the run-in with Tara Kendall outside the bank in Parable, if only to prove to the world in general that he did his laundry and even ironed a shirt once in a while. Now, faced with the obvious differences, he felt like a seedy drifter, lacking only a cardboard begging sign to complete the look.

  The screen door opened and Molly stepped out onto the porch, waving and offering up a trembling little smile. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she wore jeans, one of Bob’s shirts and a pair of sneakers that looked a little the worse for wear. Mom-shoes.

  “Bob’s been admitted,” she said right away, coming down the porch steps and meeting him at the front gate, opening the latch before Boone could reach for it. “He’s getting a new knee in the morning.”

  “Maybe I’ll stop by and say hello to him on the way out of town,” Boone offered, feeling clumsy.

  “He’s pretty out of it,” Molly answered. “The pain was bad.”

  Boone put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, leaned in to kiss her forehead lightly. “What happened, anyhow?” he asked. Bob was the athletic type, strong and active.

  Molly winced a little, remembering. “One of the regulars brought his nephew along today—he’s never played before—but he has one heck of a backswing. Caught Bob square in the knee.”

  Now it was Boone who winced. “Owww,” he said.

  “Owww, indeed,” Molly verified. “The nephew feels terrible, of course.”

  “He should,” Boone said.

  That was when Molly made a little sound of frustration and worry, and hugged him close, and Boone hugged her back, his chin propped on top of her head.

  “I’m sorry, sis,” he told her. The phrase sounded so lame.

  Molly sniffled and drew back, smiling up at him. “Come on inside. I just made iced tea, and the kids will be back soon. My crew went to pick up some pizza—late lunch, early dinner whatever—and Griffin and Fletcher went with them.” Her eyes misted over. “I’ve told them about the operation and rehab and how they’ll be going back to Parable with you, but I’m not sure they really understand.”

  Boone nodded and followed his sister up the porch steps and on into the house. While it wasn’t a mansion, the colonial was impressive in size and furnished with a kind of casual elegance that would be impossible to pull off in a thirdhand double-wide.

  “I imagine they’ll have plenty of questions,” he said as they passed beneath the glittering crystal droplets dangling from the chandelier in the entryway. An antique grandfather clock ticked ponderously against one wall, measuring out what time remained to any of them, like a heartbeat. Life was fragile, anything could happen.

  Molly glanced back at him over one shoulder, nodded. “I told them they’d be coming back here in a couple of months,” she replied. “After their uncle Bob has some time to heal.”

  Boone didn’t comment. Despite his trepidation—he definitely considered himself parentally challenged—a part of him, long ignored but intractable, remained stone-certain that Griffin and Fletcher belonged with him, their father, on the little spread beside the river. Home, be it ever so humble.

  This wasn’t the time to discuss that, though. Molly loved her nephews like they were her own, and with so many things to cope with, she didn’t need anything more to worry about.

  And worry she would. With all that roiling in Boone’s mind, he and Molly passed along the wide hallway that opened onto a big dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side overlooking the side yard, where a small stone fountain stood spilling rainbow-colored water and surrounded by thriving rosebushes. The scene resembled a clip from HGTV.

  They’d reached the sunlit kitchen when Molly spoke again, employing her being-brave voice, the one she’d used during the hard days after their parents had died. She’d been just nineteen then, to Boone’s fifteen, but she’d managed to step up and take charge of the household.

  “Griff is excited—already has his bags packed,” she told Boone, as she opened the refrigerator door and reached in for the pitcher of tea. Bright yellow lemon slices floated among the tinkling ice cubes, and there were probably a few sprigs of mint in there, too. Molly believed in small gracious touches like that. “Fletcher, though—” She stopped, shook her head. “He’s less enthusiastic.”

  Boone suppressed a sigh, baseball cap in hand, looking around him. The kitchen was almost as big as his whole double-wide, with granite surfaces everywhere, real wood cabinets with gleaming glass doors, top-of-the-line appliances that, unlike the hodgepodge at his place, actually matched each other. There was even a real brick fireplace, and the table, with its intricately mosaicked top, looked long enough to accommodate a serious crowd.

  Back at the double-wide, more than three people at a meal meant someone had to eat in the yard, or on the back steps, balancing a throwaway plate on their lap.

  Molly smiled somewhat wistfully, as if she’d guessed what he was thinking, and gestured for Boone to sit down. Then she poured two tall glasses of iced tea and joined him, placing the pitcher in the middle of the table. Sure enough, there were little green leaves floating in the brew.

  “Fletcher will adjust,” Molly went on gently. Her perception was nothing new; she’d always been able to read him, even when he put on a poker face. She was the big sister, and she’d been a rock after the motorcycle wreck that killed their mom and dad. Somehow, she’d seen to it that they could stay in the farmhouse they’d grown up in, putting off going to college herself until Boone had finished high school. She’d waitressed at the Butter Biscuit Café and clipped coupons and generally made do, all to prevent the state or the county from stepping in and separating them, shuffling Boone into foster care.

  In the aftermath of the tragedy, the whole community of Parable had helped, the way small towns do, with folks sharing produce from their gardens, eggs from their chicken coops, milk from their cows, clothes from their closets, all without any hint of charity. Boone had done odd jobs after school and on weekends, but the main burden of responsibility had always been Molly’s.

  Oh, there’d been some life insurance money, which she’d hoarded carefully, deter
mined that they would both get an education, and the farm, never a big moneymaker even in the best of times, had at least been paid for. Their mom had been a checker at the supermarket, and their dad had worked at the now-closed sawmill, and somehow, latter-day hippies though they were, they’d whittled down the mortgage over the years.

  The motorcycle had been their only extravagance—they’d both loved the thing.

  When Boone was ready for college, he and Molly had divided the old place down the middle, with the house on Molly’s share, at Boone’s insistence. She’d sold her portion to distant cousins right away and, later on, those cousins had sold the property to Tara Kendall, the lady chicken rancher. Thus freed, Molly had studied business in college and eventually met and married Bob and given birth to three great kids.

  And if all that hadn’t been enough, she’d stepped up when Corrie got sick, too, making regular visits to Parable to help with the kids, just babies then, cook meals, keep the double-wide fit for human habitation, and even drive her sister-in-law back and forth for medical treatments. Boone, young and working long hours as a sheriff’s deputy for next-to-no money, had been among the walking wounded, mostly just putting one foot in front of the other and bargaining with God.

  Take me, not her.

  But God hadn’t listened. It was as if He’d stopped taking Boone’s calls, putting him on hold.

  Now, poignantly mindful of all that had gone before, Boone felt his eyes start to burn. He took a long drink of iced tea, swallowed and said, “Where were we?”

  Molly’s smile was fragile but totally genuine. She looked exhausted. “I was telling you that your younger son isn’t as excited about going home with you as his older brother is.”