Big Sky Ever After: a Montana Romance Duet

by M. L. Buchman

  The introduction was in triple meter, the violins in close harmony. Magnus arranged himself and his partner in waltz position, though Bridget kept him at a firm distance.

  “I’m not very good at this,” she said. “I know most of the line dances, but not this couples’ crap.”

  Americans could be blunt. Magnus liked that about them. “We’ll stick to a box step, then,” he said, guiding her through an awkward square. “Or we can sit this one out.”

  “I offered, and sooner begun is sooner done.”

  “Why did you offer?”

  She was looking down, clearly trying to anticipate their movements rather than let Magnus lead. “Ask me when I haven’t grown two extra feet and lost my sense of direction.”

  “We’re dancing in a square. We’ll stay right here, getting acquainted with left, forward, right, and back, until—”

  She tromped on his foot. “Sorry.”

  “No worries.” He pulled her closer when another couple went careening past. “I’ll talk you through it. Left, forward, right, back. Left, forward, right, back.”

  Verbally directing Bridget meant thinking in mirror opposites, but that spared Magnus from focusing too closely on being near a woman for the first time in months. Years, possibly. He was not married to his pot still, but he’d outgrown casual encounters long ago.

  By degrees, Bridget relaxed, and soon, Magnus’s directions were no longer needed. Bridget stopped watching her feet, and for two whole minutes, Magnus simply enjoyed partnering a lady on the dance floor.

  “Thank you,” he said as the violins died away to a smattering of applause.

  “Thank you,” Bridget replied, grinning out of all proportion to the moment. “I haven’t slow danced since twelfth grade, when Jimmy Jack Cavanaugh knocked me on my keister in front of the whole class. I’m back on the horse now.”

  “You mean to pay me a compliment.”

  By waltzing with him, Bridget had obviously cleared some social hurdle. If her smile was any indication, she’d be waltzing again soon.

  “Jimmy Jack went ass over tin cups in front of the whole class too, and then headfirst into the Homecoming queen’s bustle. Ruined her dress, and Joellen Plymouth still sets a lot of store by her wardrobe. So where are you from, My-Name-Is-Magnus?”

  Magnus was tired—he’d driven four hundred miles before finding his hotel—and the room was loud. Deciphering Bridget’s meaning took him a moment.

  “Scotland,” he said. “West of Aberdeen.”

  She resumed her perch on the barstool and patted the empty seat beside her. “And you like whisky.”

  “I enjoy good whisky in moderation. I’m on holiday, so I drove up from Denver and toured a few distilleries.”

  Interesting businesses, and far more varied than the single malt industry in Scotland. Americans didn’t stick to barley. They also made grain into bourbon, rye, corn whisky, blended concoctions, experimental products… The whole market was more complicated than its Scottish counterpart and no less competitive.

  “Everybody who didn’t catch the microbrewery wave has opened up a distillery,” Bridget said. “Are you drinking?”

  He was staying in the hotel two doors up from the Bar None Tavern and Taphouse. Instead of merely sipping from an interesting flight, he could savor a dram on a chilly night.

  “Perhaps you have a recommendation?”

  She looked him up and down, far more carefully than she had before they’d taken to the dance floor. “Preacher, pour us some of the Edradour.”

  Edradour was usually referred to as the smallest legal distillery in Scotland and still made its whisky on the farm where operations had started in 1825. They valued excellent quality over quantity, but Magnus hadn’t tasted their product recently.

  “What are we drinking?” he asked as the bartender poured two pale gold drams into tasting glasses.

  “Fifteen-year-old single malt finished in Madeira casks,” she said, the way some women might have discussed Belgian dark chocolates.

  “You know something about whisky-making.”

  “Enough to know that whisky is aged in oak barrels and those barrels give it most of its flavor. Hush now and let me pay my respects.”

  Bridget was interesting when she focused on whisky. She took a few slow breaths, closed her eyes, and brought the glass under her nose. A whisky’s first impression was called the nose for that reason—the impact was primarily olfactory, which meant the same drink could come across differently to different people.

  “Farmland,” she said. “I love that, with a hint of horses and freshly turned fields.” Her smile was dreamy, as if she could see the farmland, hear the horses munching grass in their pastures, and feel the sun’s reflected warmth rising from the cropland ready for planting. “A barn full of fresh hay, and then there’s peat, of course, but gentle peat. The hint of last night’s fire.”

  She spoke in tasting notes, in the precise sensory descriptions favored by whisky connoisseurs.

  “And the palate?”

  She took a sip and held the glass away. “The peat remains unobtrusive, and the wine comes through after a polite tap on the door. Green tea, cooking apples—Winesap, not those boring Red Delicious—and whole wheat toast, scythed grass, a touch of black pepper. God, to drink this on a picnic blanket with afternoon sun beaming down.”

  Magnus did as Bridget had done, nosing the whisky before sampling it, and Bridget’s description was astonishingly accurate.

  “What would you say about the finish?” he asked.

  She took another taste, her eyes closed again. “Still bucolic, but with a hint of the pungent quality of livestock immediately upwind. I like a contradictory whisky, and this one has both elegance and earthiness.” She opened her eyes and gazed at Magnus directly. “Scrumptious.”

  Elegance and earthiness. Exactly.

  He’d taken another sip of his whisky before he realized that her last comment—scrumptious—might not have been exclusively aimed at the whisky.

  Bridget wasn’t a cowgirl, as Magnus’s cousin had probably meant the term. Her hair was French braided into a tidy bun, her green blouse looked to be silk and showed not a hint of cleavage. Her jeans were comfortable rather than fashionable. She wore some kind of ballet-slippery things on her feet and no makeup that Magnus could detect.

  The only scent he picked up from her in the increasingly crowded confines of the Bar None was a subtle hint of lavender.

  “Was that another compliment, then, Bridget?”

  She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “I’m not sure. Let me finish my whisky, and we’ll find out.”

  Chapter 2

  Bridget rarely drank whisky. She sampled, evaluated, analyzed, and loved it, but didn’t consume it. Tonight was special, in a queasy, upset, uh-oh-feeling way.

  She’d argued with her brothers. Not a squabble, a spat, a dustup, or difference of opinion, this had been an argument. Patrick had slammed doors, Luke had trotted out his best epithets, and Shamus had threatened to spend the summer skiing in New Zealand.

  Bridget had raised her voice. She never raised her voice.

  She also never slow danced, but that had gone better than her attempt to bellow sense into her brothers.

  “You are very serious about your whisky,” Magnus said.

  The Edradour was seriously wonderful, a comfort and an inspiration. “I’m serious about most things. What about you?”

  “Serious to a fault,” he said, holding his glass up to the light and swirling the contents. This Edradour was light-bodied, meaning the whisky didn’t cling to the sides of the glass.

  “Not too serious to take a vacation.” What would that be like? A vacation? To leave not just the Logan Bar, but Montana, or even the United States? Go someplace where walking down the street didn’t mean greeting somebody who’d gone to third grade with you?

  “I’ll tend to a bit of business before I go back to Scotland. Is something troubling you, Bridget?”

&n
bsp; Just the rest of her life. “Had a difference of opinion with my brothers. We’ll get past it.” They’d get past it just as soon as Bridget capitulated to her brothers’ wishes.

  Which was not going to happen.

  “Would it help to talk about it?”

  “Nope.” Talking might lead to more yelling or possibly crying. The brothers had ambushed her at the damned dinner table this time. Ganged up on her and started in with the consider-the-bigger-picture and we’re-thinking-of-your-best-interests bullcrap.

  “Would it help to complain about it?”

  “My brothers are stubborn, and there are three of them and only one of me. They think I should go back to lawyering, but I’m not meant for that.”

  “I studied law. I never intended to go into private practice, but a legal education has been useful. When I do need to rely on outside counsel, I’m not at their mercy.”

  “A legal education is only useful if people listen to you,” Bridget said, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent of fifteen years of nature’s alchemy. “They don’t listen to me.”

  And that hurt bitterly. The men whom she called family, the ones who’d probably die to protect her, couldn’t be bothered to give her a fair hearing. Shamus might try, if his older brothers weren’t pacing and pawing in the same room, but Shamus might also bolt for southern climes.

  He was at that moment sitting nearly in Martina Matlock’s lap. No chance he’d be willing to have a reasonable discussion out of Luke’s and Patrick’s hearing, and the Bar None was no place to air family differences.

  Enough brooding. “Tell me about yourself, Magnus. What are you doing in America, and how do you come to know your whisky?”

  If Bridget hadn’t been watching him, she would have missed his smile—a fleeting, self-deprecating lift of one side of his mouth and a momentary glint in his eyes.

  Blue eyes, not that eye color mattered for doodly-dang-squat.

  “I am an only child,” he said, an interesting place to start his self-disclosure. “I manage a business that my family began generations ago, which isn’t unusual in Scotland. I was overdue for a change of scene, and I’d never seen the American West before.”

  All very prosaic, and yet, he wasn’t a prosaic guy. He’d walked up to Harley Gummo and diffused a fight that could have turned ugly.

  “And?” Bridget prompted.

  “And what I’ve found here is well worth the journey,” he said, turning those Highland-blue eyes on Bridget. “Unexpected and intriguing.”

  Well, now. Bridget fumbled around for a snappy comeback—I’m all yours, Braveheart, struck her as a little undignified, also not quite true.

  Magnus turned on his stool as if to survey the dance floor where scooting, swinging, flirting couples were shuffling back to their tables for drinks between sets.

  “I think this is where you toss your drink at me,” he said, “except I’d ask you not to waste such a fine single malt. Witty banter was never my strong suit, and I’m out of practice.”

  “I’m not much of one for bantering myself so spare yourself the effort. Where did you have your first sip of good whisky?”

  “On my mother’s lap, I suppose. Possibly my father’s.”

  “And your favorite whisky is?”

  The American whisky industry employed a number of Scots, and Bridget loved to hear them talk. The accent was charming, but even more attractive was their passion for the water of life. The most dour and retiring Scot would wax eloquent in the face of a well-finished eighteen-year-old single malt, and bad whisky reduced them to unintelligible tirades.

  Bridget loved those tirades, because without comprehending a single word, she could agree with the whole sentiment.

  Magnus talked about whisky as if it were a member of his family—difficult, dear, and deserving of every loyalty. Scotland had more than two hundred distilleries, and he rattled off names and products like a horse breeder spoke of lineage and track records.

  Listening to him talk, the betrayal Bridget felt from her brothers faded, aided by the Edradour, but also by the magic of hearing a true believer talk about his passion.

  Which also happened to be Bridget’s passion.

  Somewhere between an argument about Islay versus Campbeltown peaty-ness, the thought strayed through Bridget’s head: What would Magnus the Scot be like in bed?

  Bold with notes of soft wool, slow hands, and comfortable silence?

  Frisky, surprisingly playful, with an inventive streak and stamina toward the finish?

  “I’ve bored you,” Magnus said. “My apologies, but many Scotsmen are passionate about whisky. What of you? How did you become enamored of the water of life?”

  The fiddles had re-tuned, and Preacher had turned the lights down again.

  “I like challenges,” Bridget said. “Are you up for another turn on the floor?”

  Shamus was leading Martina from their table, and her walk said she had plans for her partner after the last waltz.

  “I would be honored.” Magnus stood and held out his hand.

  Bridget let him escort her to the same corner they’d started out in last time. “If I fall on my butt, I’m taking you down with me.”

  He arranged them in waltz position. “Promise?” His expression was solemn.

  Magnus spoke plain English, but cultural differences might mean…

  “You’re teasing me,” Bridget said as the introduction started.

  “I would never make sport of a lady.”

  “You just did. I should warn you that thanks to my brothers, I would make sport of a gentleman at the least provocation.”

  The introduction was unaccountably long, which meant Bridget was standing more or less in Magnus’s arms and he in hers. That should have felt awkward, or flirtatious.

  Mostly, it felt nice.

  “I think you’re bluffing,” Magnus said as they moved into a relaxed version of their box step. “I think you would be very considerate of a gentleman’s sensibilities.”

  Innuendo lingered in that observation, and Bridget didn’t bother batting it aside. Talking to Magnus had warmed parts of her the whisky couldn’t reach, and helped her gather the composure the day’s earlier arguments had scattered.

  Her brothers were damned idiots. Shamus and Martina twirled by, and Martina gave her a little wave and a thumbs-up.

  Bridget closed her eyes and tucked closer to Magnus, who accommodated the shift in position as easily as if they’d been dancing together for years. He felt good—warm, solid, and masculine with none of the wandering hands or bumping hips Bridget would have endured from other guys she’d stood up with in recent memory.

  When the music ended, she excused herself to use the ladies’ room and found Martina reapplying eyeliner.

  “I don’t know where you found him,” Martina said, “but if I wasn’t with Shamus tonight, I’d be arm-wrestling you for that guy.”

  Bridget tucked a few stray wisps of hair back into her French braid. “He’s just passing through.”

  Martina snapped her eyeliner closed with a twist. “They’re the best kind. If you’re going to be stupid and talk yourself out of a little harmless fun, I’ll tell your brother you stole his Indian head nickels when we were in fifth grade.”

  “You stole them, and we were in fourth grade.”

  In the mirror, Martina gave her a look. “Go for it, Bridget. Shamus said he owes you an apology, and that means somebody’s temper got out of hand. A little horizontal two-step always improves my mood. You have any protection?”

  “You are a bad influence, Martina Matlock.”

  “Shamus likes that about me,” she said, digging in her purse and passing over a three-pack of condoms. “Be adventurous, not stupid.” She gave Bridget a hug and sashayed out of the ladies’ room on a cloud of Tom Ford fragrance.

  Bridget mentally cataloged scents—citrus, mint, thyme, some close relative of jasmine—and considered the condoms. They were nowhere near their expiration date.

&nbs
p; “Be adventurous, not stupid,” she told her reflection, and that was good advice. Where Magnus was concerned, she could be tempted to be both.

  “But he’s only passing through, so adventurous will do just fine.”

  “The first thing you will do,” Luke Logan said, turning the chair around and straddling it so he faced his brother across the kitchen table, “is apologize to Bridget.”

  Patrick stared straight past him, but then, what had Luke expected? “I already put my quarters into the potty-mouth jar.”

  Luke had put ten bucks in. “You could put your whole soul into the potty-mouth jar, and that’s not the same as apologizing for raising your voice to the only person remaining in this household who qualifies as a civilizing influence.”

  Wrong thing to say. But for nearly a year, everything had been the wrong thing to say to Patrick Logan. Every look was the wrong look, every silence was the wrong silence.

  “Bridget gave as good as she got.” Patrick sounded eight years old and guilty as hell.

  Luke had had more conversations with his brothers than the Montana night sky held stars, most of them trivial or related to running the ranch. This conversation could not be allowed to become trivial.

  “Bridget will always give at least as good as she’s gotten. That’s no excuse for how you acted.”

  “You weren’t exactly the United Nations peacekeeping envoy.”

  “So I will apologize. I’ll do it in front of you, in front of Lena, in front of my damned horse. You were out of line, Patrick.”

  Patrick sat back. “We all were. Shamus would rather be catching the last of the spring skiing, not buried in our bookkeeping. He always gets restless as winter ends.”

  True enough, which had nothing to do with anything.

  “He gets restless because we paid corporate taxes this spring, same as every year.” They’d paid as much as they could. Shamus had until September to figure out how to make that amount be enough to appease the bottomless IRS pit.

  The kitchen door swung open, and Lena stood there in her nightie and bare feet, clutching a book. Her braids were lumpy, meaning she’d done them herself.