Montana Gift

by Debra Salonen

  Bailey paused and looked at Paul. "The sixty-four thousand dollar question, right?"

  The one she'd asked Mom a thousand times as a teenager. Louise never had been able to give a satisfactory answer. Finally, Bailey decided her mother was either crazy or suffering from some kind of dependency issues of her own.

  "OC is Mom's booze," she remembered telling Paul once.

  Paul snuggled a little closer but didn't reply, so she kept reading.

  "The answer is very simple. I wouldn't be the person I am without Oscar Jenkins."

  Bailey paused and looked at her husband. At last, the answer made sense.

  "He helped me find my true calling. He not only believed in me when I told him I wanted to go back to college to get my masters in Library Science, he worked double-time, triple-time, to make it happen. When I told him I'd found my dream job--Children's Librarian for the Marietta Library, he did everything in his power to make sure I was hired."

  Bailey couldn't stop the grin that formed on her lips.

  "He even went so far as to take my future boss fly fishing. I'll never know for sure what happened that day, but Margaret Houghton called the next morning to tell me the job was mine. And, I should add, Margaret continues to fish to this day."

  Paul nodded. "That's true. She was one of the first to sign up for OC's fly-making class. And she's no spring chicken, either."

  The synergy of these connections felt so perfect, so unexpected, Bailey had a hard time speaking, so Paul took the book from her hands and read for her.

  "I knew Oscar had a special gift when it came to fishing. He downplayed his abilities for years, but, finally, I talked him into giving the professional guide business a try.

  Jenkins's Fish and Game was an immediate success. That doesn't mean it was easy. Many of the men who hired Oscar were hard-drinking partiers who viewed their fishing excursions as a way to whoop it up without the wife ever knowing. They drank, and they expected Oscar to drink, too.

  I'm not blaming other people for Oscar's addiction. That probably was something he was born with, and certainly his father's example didn't help. But, for all his business success, the reality of that lifestyle took a toll on me and Bailey."

  Paul looked at her. "Wow. I didn't expect your mom to get into this."

  "Me, either. What else does she say about it?"

  Bailey listened in shock as Mom described the nights Louise would push Bailey's dresser in front of the door to keep OC from coming in, yelling at the top of his lungs, calling Mom names, and looking for a fight. She couldn't believe it when Mom included a passage about Bailey driving into town to haul her father's drunk ass out of the Wolf Den before the owner had him tossed in jail for public intoxication.

  But Mom shared it all. Fearlessly. She described the bad times in a way that made the reader see Oscar fighting a losing battle against demons that had the upper hand.

  "To be fair, we had fun times, too. Oscar's annual Fish Fry became the talk of the town.

  And, of course, the best part of our lives revolved around our amazing, beautiful, talented daughter, Bailey. Both Oscar and I loved being her parents and watching her grow up. Never in a million years did I see myself as a horse mom, but I can't possibly describe the pride I felt watching my girl excel on horseback."

  "Aww," Paul said, making a funny face. "I know exactly what she means. Watching Chloe on Skipper is like seeing you riding Charlie."

  "Dad bought him for me, you know. I wanted a pretty little appaloosa, but OC took one look at Charlie and said, 'This is your horse, Queen Bee.' And as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Go on. Looks like you're almost to the end."

  Paul lifted the book again.

  "We made a lot of mistakes over the years. Oscar became known as The Fish Whisperer, but he had a darker reputation, too.

  Before you judge him, my dear ones, I ask you to consider the weight a man carries when, during his formative years, he was told he had no worth. The loss of his mother was something Oscar couldn't bear to share even with me until very recently."

  Paul looked at her, remembering, no doubt, the gut-wrenching revelation OC had shared with them after his best friend died in the hospital in Reno.

  "But rough patches are part of life. You can't appreciate the view from the peaks if you haven't experienced the lows of the valleys. Even in the worst of times, I still saw a glimmer of that strong, confident, handsome man who flew to Chicago to marry me. A man who, until that day, had never left western Montana, let alone boarded an airplane.

  And, since I'm trying to be completely honest, I must admit that I wasn't perfect, either. There is a certain smugness that comes with being well-read--a sense of superiority, if you will. I don't say this to discourage you from reading--heaven forbid, but in my case, it took years before I fully understood and appreciated the value of "street sense."

  Oscar's mind could think circles around mine. His memory bordered on photographic--because it had to. As a child, he didn't have the luxury of paper and pens--or the ability to write notes. He could always--and still does--think on his feet, while I dither and debate."

  Paul looked at her, a hint of surprise in his expression. "That's true. I've never seen OC use a calculator, and he has everyone's phone number in his head. Even Austen noticed and said something about that the other day. Remember when he broke his phone and couldn't call anybody to pick him up at Serena's?"

  Bailey laughed. "Are you kidding? I give him a hard time about falling into a pile of alpaca poop and coming out smelling like a rose every time I see him."

  She looked at the bedside clock radio. "Do you think Austen and Serena have made it to Portland, yet? I would have loved to be there when Austen meets Peyton and Mack for the first time. Your brother isn't homophobic, is he?"

  Paul shook his head. "No. Just misogynistic."

  They both laughed. Her brother-in-law came across as extremely judgmental and cynical until you got to know him. Falling in love with Serena James had done Austen Zabrinski a world of good. "Do you think he'll give her a diamond for Christmas?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "He bought her a new herd sire from a breeder in California. Epic Alpacas Ragnarok. They won't pick him up until spring, but Austen couldn't stop talking about his excellent lineage and the crimp of his fleece or whatever. Blah, blah, blah. Austen's never done anything half way."

  "Which is why he's going to propose, too. Betcha."

  She held out her hand to shake.

  He closed the book with a solid snap and tossed it over his shoulder. He shook her hand and pulled her close. "To heck with the rest of the family. I have a little present for you. Wanna see?"

  His lecherous look got lost in a laugh as they rolled together.

  Bailey didn't need to read the rest of her mother's book to know it ended happily. After all, she was living her own storybook ending every minute she was with Paul.

  6

  Louise finished brushing her hair then snapped off the bathroom light.

  "I can't believe how late it is. Good thing we don't have to meet Ryker and Mia until eleven. We can sleep late."

  Oscar's low rumble made her snicker, too. "When's the last time that happened, right?"

  He threw back the covers and patted the bed beside him. Thankfully, they'd been able to return the hospital bed months ago so they could share the same room again, as they had for nearly forty years of marriage. She dropped the new fleece robe she'd gotten from Chloe and Mark on the chair and hurried to bed.

  "Brrr.” She slid close to Oscar's warm body.

  His strong arms pulled her tight against him. He'd never gotten into the habit of wearing pajamas. His bare shoulders seemed to handle the chill just fine, while Louise favored flannel and lots of it.

  "Isn't it funny how different we are and, yet, we fit perfectly," she said, remembering a line from her book. "We complement each other."

  "Even when we forget to say the words," Oscar added. "But you do
know how much I love you. You must because you wrote it all down in your book."

  She pulled back enough to see his face. "You're sure you’re okay with everything I put in?”

  "I am. You nailed it."

  She looked at the shadow box he'd made for her--already hanging in a place of honor above her tall dresser. "So did you, my love. Paul was right. What you made was a one-of-a-kind work of art. I can't believe you kept your mother's charm bracelet a secret from me for all these years."

  His sheepish look made her forgive him on the spot. "I didn't mean to. Believe it or not, I found the bracelet, along with a bunch of my dad's stuff, hidden in a coffee can on a shelf in the garage. I ran across it when you asked me to make room for Ryker's boxes. Funny coincidence, huh?"

  A shiver passed through her body. She didn't believe in coincidences. She did believe in Divine intervention. She'd reached out to help a young man who reminded her of the lost soul who changed her life in ways she never could have predicted. "Maybe it's like I wrote in my book."

  She closed her eyes and recited a passage she'd toiled over for days.

  "We love each other, yes. But we also respect one another. Over the years, each of us has given the other gifts beyond price. I taught Oscar to read. He taught me to take risks and live life fully."

  Oscar gathered her into his arms and finished the final paragraph, his keen memory unmatched.

  "If I can leave you with any advice garnered from our life experience, my dear ones, it's this: open your heart to possibilities you can't plan for.

  I never would have met Oscar if not for a patch of ice and his kind heart. He didn't know me, but he didn't want to see me get hurt. From a chance meeting, we went on to become friends, lovers, partners, parents, and, now, grandparents.

  Love makes all things possible."

  She brushed away a tear and kissed him. "You've made our future possible by not giving up, my love."

  "I couldn't have done it without your support, Luly. You never gave up on me. That's the best gift anyone could ever ask for."

  And, as they'd done so many times over the years, they let love be their gift to each other.

  When Louise sat up to rid herself of a layer of flannel, her gaze fell on the center box that very simply framed the title page he'd torn from a long-ago book. The words were simple and he'd crossed out one.

  I love u you.

  While this concludes MONTANA GIFT, please read on to see how the whole Big Sky Mavericks series started with MONTANA COWGIRL.

  MONTANA COWGIRL - Prologue & Chapter 1

  MONTANA COWGIRL

  * * *

  Prologue

  * * *

  The noise from the carnival midway struck Bailey Jenkins as an ironically festive backdrop for the decision being discussed at the top of the Ferris wheel. The garishly bright bulbs made Paul Zabrinski's face appear years older than seventeen. Mature. Serious. Furious.

  "If you do this, Bailey Jenkins, I will hate you forever. And I'll call on my great-grandmother to curse you. She was a Gypsy witch, you know."

  Everyone in Marietta, Montana, knew the story of Hilda Zabrinski's supposed curse that bankrupted an unscrupulous banker who tried to screw her family out of their dry goods store. Some credited fortuitous timing of the collapse of the banks in 1929 for the man's fall from grace, but no one in the Zabrinski family doubted Hilda's powers.

  "I'm doing this for both of us, Paul."

  "Yeah, right. You're killing my baby because you love me so much."

  The bitterness and cynicism in his tone burned. She half-expected the highly flammable white and gold ribbon stretched diagonally across her chest to burst into flames.

  The past four days as Fair Queen should have been the happiest of Bailey's life. Instead, she was late. Her highly regular body failed to produce the cramps, bloating and menses she normally cursed.

  Paul drove her to Bozeman yesterday to buy an over-the-counter test kit. She'd used one of the predictors right after the Fair Queen ceremony last night. The high point of her life cut short by a small blue reality check. One minute little girls were begging for autographs, the next she had to tell her boyfriend of ten months she planned to get an abortion.

  "I do love you, Paul. But you're seventeen. You have your whole senior year ahead of you. I just turned eighteen a few months ago. I'm supposed to leave for Fresno State next week. You know how much this scholarship means to me. How hard I worked for it."

  They'd taken precautions. She'd been on the pill for six months...except when she'd had the flu so bad she couldn't keep water down. The chance she'd get knocked up was like one in a hundred thousand. She didn't need Paul's gypsy great-grandmother to put a curse on her--Bailey already had the worst luck on the planet.

  "My parents will help."

  Paul reached for her hand, but she pushed him away. His touch did things to her that robbed her of the ability to think straight. Hormones were her enemy.

  "You told your folks?" she shrieked, thankful for the high-pitched screams from the teenyboppers in the carts on either side of them.

  The Ferris wheel moved a space or two, jerking and rocking in a way she normally enjoyed. Now, her stomach twisted and heaved. Nerves? Pregnancy? Or a taste of the guilt she knew she'd have to live with if she went through with her plan.

  "Not yet, but I know they'd let us live with them until we saved up enough money to get a place of our own. I've worked after school and on weekends at the store forever. I've got a pretty good nest egg saved up."

  An image of setting up house in the Zabrinski's basement strengthened her resolve.

  "I have to do this, Paul. I'm sorry."

  Her sweet, gentle, easy-going boyfriend leaned across the gap between them, his eyes narrowing. A black coldness that looked every bit as dangerous and scary as her father on a bender matched the intense fury in his tone when he said, "Oh, yeah. You're going to be sorry, Bailey. You're going to be sorry for the rest of your life."

  Bailey slid to the corner of the ride, arms wrapped around her knees. Strangely, Paul's anger made her ambivalence disappear. She'd already endured two days of browbeating from her father who somehow intuitively guessed she was pregnant. The test only confirmed her fear.

  "You will get rid of it. End of story," OC had shouted last night when he staggered home after one too many beers. "Your mother and I worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to let you ruin your life by getting tied down in Marietta with some snot-nosed kid who sells screwdrivers for a living."

  If Paul couldn't even discuss her feelings without resorting to threats, then he was not the right person for her--or the right person to father a child. She'd lived with OC Jenkins' autocratic bullying her whole life. She wouldn't do that to her kid.

  The Ferris wheel began to turn. Their basket rocked like a baby's cradle. Nausea rose in her throat. Bailey felt Paul's fury, his barely contained urge to hurt her. She'd been hit before. Big hands, as fast as a horse's kick.

  Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, her breathing shallow. As they crested another circle, she kept her gaze on the moonlit skyline of the Copper Mountains. On Monday, her mother would drive her to a clinic in Bozeman. Bailey would do what her father demanded, what Mom agreed was "probably for the best."

  In a few weeks, Bailey would start college in California. Ask anybody and they'd tell you, "Marietta Fair Queen Bailey Jenkins has big plans." And a bright future didn't include getting knocked up on the eve of her grand exit.

  She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Life wasn't perfect. She'd known that for a long, long time. She'd have to live with this decision for the rest of her life. But that life--good or bad--wasn't going to happen in Marietta. Paul Zabrinski and his crazy curse could stay the hell in Montana because Bailey Jenkins was never coming back.

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  Bailey Jenkins gazed out the small oval window, squinting through the double panes of airplane Plexiglas, for that trademark Montan
a skyline she hadn't seen in six years. That trip--her first since leaving for college had been a fly-by to give her mother a little support when Dad's diagnosis came back positive for prostate cancer.

  But despite his doctor's grim predictions, Oscar "OC" Jenkins--Marietta, Montana's larger than life outdoor guide and fisherman--managed to beat a probable death sentence to continue to be a burden to Bailey's long-suffering mother, Louise. He carried on hunting, fishing, tromping through all kinds of bacteria-filled water, failing to replace a pair of worn out boots in a timely manner, and--worse--choosing to ignore an ingrown toenail that became infected.

  Until one night six months ago, when Mom crawled into bed and smelled something unpleasant. "Did a mouse die in the wall behind our bed?" she'd asked her husband of nearly forty years.

  "Might be my toe. 'Got a bit of infection."

  More than a bit. The great and powerful OC Jenkins had waited too long. Despite several rounds of antibiotics, the toe had to be amputated.

  Then, rather than following his doctor's orders, OC rushed back to work. And refused to stop drinking and smoking. The infection spread. He lost another toe. And another. His appetite disappeared. He slept twenty hours a day. Depression set in.

  Finally, Mom found the backbone to make an appointment with a specialist in Bozeman. The doctor wound up amputating his leg, mid-calf.

  He was due home from rehab tomorrow, and once again Mom called, pleading. "I'm sorry, honey. I know still doctoring...and grieving, but I have to go back to work. Our bills are mounting and I don't know if...when...Oscar will be back on his feet. Come home, Bailey. Please? For me?"