Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5

by Lisa Mondello

  “Not the area. Although it’s beautiful country up in the mountain. It’s not me.”

  She nodded as if she understood, although she wasn’t quite sure she did. The perfect match was a hard thing to be sure of.

  Caleb leaned back against the back of the pew, making it rock again. “I’m a guy. You walk into a pretty space and it feels like you can’t put your feet up on the coffee table or drop your jacket over a chair. I remember my sister getting upset when I’d come home from school and do that. She was convinced my mother would get home from work and have an aneurism, which she quite possibly could have done given the fact she liked things super tidy.”

  “You’re not a tidy guy?”

  His smile was slow coming and then it grew until he chuckled. “I’m a guy. I try. That’s pretty much all I can say.”

  “At least you’re honest.” Katie thought back to those earlier days before she’d left Sweet. “I remember your sister well.”

  He drew in a deep breath before speaking. “I hoped you would. I hope somebody does. Someone besides me.”

  “How long is it been since you heard from her?”

  Caleb looked down. “Too long.” He cleared his throat and pulled himself up to a stand. “You really shouldn’t be in here, Katie Dobbs. It’s dangerous. We’ve been discouraging kids from coming here for a long time because we’re not sure the structure is stable.”

  At the formal use of her full name, she replied, “I suppose so, Officer Samuel.”

  Caleb chuckled when she mimicked him. “Don’t start with me, Katie. I know your secrets.”

  “Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing. I have more secrets than you, and you pretty much know all of them, too.”

  “You shouldn’t have hung out with my brother and bragged.”

  Feeling a little better, she stood up. She liked talking with Caleb. That lonely feeling that had enveloped her earlier had disappeared and been replaced with curiosity.

  Sweet was a small town. There were wide borders but most people knew what was going on. At least they knew when someone was hurting. Katie had been so self-absorbed in her own misfortune that she’d forgotten that Caleb had a good dose of his own. Still, he managed to serve in the military and then become a police officer in Sweet. He rose above his heartache.

  Guilt ate at Katie until she felt the cold seep into her bones again. “It’s cold.”

  “It’s Montana. What do you expect? Let’s get out of here. You’ll be warm soon enough in your car.”

  She followed behind him slowly and carefully. “I still think this chapel could be wonderful. Something beautiful out of something broken.”

  Caleb stopped walking and turned to look at her. He stayed silent for a lingering moment. With the beam of light shining down, she could barely see his smile. But it was there. This time, he wasn’t making fun of her.

  “I think you better see it in the daylight before you make that assumption,” he said.

  “Maybe I will.”

  He sputtered, “Did you just tell a police officer that you planned on breaking and entering? Again?”

  She shrugged. “If you do it with me, it’ll just be me checking out the place with a police escort.”

  His jaw shifted to the side as if he were weighing what she’d said. “Is that so? Now I know why you never got in as much trouble as I did when we were kids,” he said. “You’re smooth.”

  Her smile was wide as she followed him outside. “You have no idea.”

  Sweet Home Montana: Chapter Two

  Caleb finished writing a ticket for a driver, a fifty-something-year-old man who was dressed to kill was probably a banker or investor from LA, who’d been speeding on one of the back roads. These days Sweet got a lot of snazzy people from out of town who wanted to scoop up all the land for an investment and build a “little” weekend getaway so they could escape the grind of the big city. It left many locals on edge wondering how their town was going to change.

  A tow truck whizzed past him as he stood by the sports car and ripped the ticket out of his pad. The only investor Caleb knew who didn’t quite fit the same bill was Kasper Dobbs. His roots were dug deep in this Montana county. No amount of New York City living was going to change the local boy who’d done well for himself. He saw that firsthand over the winter when he’d come back to Sweet to invest in rodeo stock, and had fallen in love with the young rodeo barrel racer named Tabby Swanson.

  The man in the Porsche glared up at him as he stared at the fine he’d just been levied. “Is there any way we can make this go away?”

  Fingernails of irritation scraped up Caleb’s spine. The guy’s shoes probably cost more than the amount he’d written out for the ticket. He was in a hurry. They all were. But he’d sped right past him and then slammed on his brakes just as a school bus was stopping to drop off some kids. When Caleb had pulled up behind him, the man had shown his impatience by tapping on his steering wheel and glancing at his watch.

  “Not unless you want to see me in court,” Caleb said. “You can pay the fine or fight it. Your choice. But just so you know, I always show up for court.”

  The man’s plastic smile was slick and nauseating. “Aren’t you a little too busy with law and order to be appearing in court?”

  He glanced over at the farmhouse about a hundred yards away. “You see that house over there?”

  “Yeah?” the guy said without turning.

  “That family has two sets of twins. Two boys and two girls. The girls got off the bus just as you were racing out of town. It would have been a damned shame if one of them had been hit as you were trying to weave around that bus in such a hurry.” He tucked his pad in his shirt pocket. “I take my job seriously. If you fight it, which is your choice, then you’ll see me in court. We’ll let the judge decide. Of course, that means you’re going to have to drive back to Montana to deal with this.”

  The man scowled and shoved the ticket in the console between the seats. Without saying another word, he rolled up his window, and then he sped off down the road. He’d taken off faster than what Caleb knew the speed limit to be. But it was clear this joker didn’t care about a school bus or a speed limit.

  Caleb let the man go. They were close enough to the county line to let him get another ticket from an officer in the next town. He walked back to his cruiser and climbed inside, and then waited for warmth to replace the chill that had settled in standing by the side of the road in the open wind. When it didn’t happen after a minute, he blasted the heat. He’d only do it for a few minutes or he’d end up sweating under his jacket.

  As soon as the blast of heat pumped through the car, Caleb called into the station and let Harper, the dispatcher on duty, know he was done with his call.

  Harper Madison’s voice came over the radio. “We got a call about a car stuck in the snow down at the old chapel on Lookout Ridge. The person calling in copied the license plate number down.”

  Caleb’s shoulder’s sagged. “Let me guess. It came up as Katie Dobbs.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Lucky guess. I’ll head out there now.”

  “Copy that.”

  What the hell was Katie doing? Caleb drove the short distance down Lookout Ridge past the open fields that were now filled with layers of snow that had fallen since Christmas. Snow wouldn’t be gone fully until May, even at this elevation, unlike other places in the country where the roads became bare in March. Sweet wouldn’t see green grass or new wildflowers until June. That’s just the way it was here in Montana.

  The old chapel came into view and there was Katie Dobbs’ car stuck in one of the ruts she’d made trying to get out of the parking lot. The small space where she’d parked the other night when he’d caught her trespassing was covered over with fresh snow from last night’s storm. As soon as he pulled into the chapel parking lot with his four-wheel-drive cruiser, he saw Katie poke her head up from behind the car as if she’d been shoveling and hadn’t
heard him come until just now. Her shoulders sagged as soon as she saw him.

  He took his time getting out of the cruiser, and then walked over to her slowly.

  Using her fingers to shield the sunlight glaring off the snow, she asked, “Do they teach you how to walk like that in the police academy? Just wondering.”

  That hadn’t been what he had expected her to say, and it threw him off guard for a few seconds, making him want to laugh. But he held himself back.

  “Haven’t we been through this already, Katie?”

  “Your schooling or my being here?”

  “My schooling is none of your business.”

  She picked up her cell phone and showed it to him, as if that meant anything or changed the situation.

  “Katie,” he said, suddenly annoyed with her antics. “Don’t make me arrest you.”

  “I got stuck on the side of the road, well, a little in the parking lot, but I was not in the chapel. I’m sure this old fart real estate investor won’t mind if I wait here for a tow.”

  “What old fart…? Are you trying to call the owner of the property?”

  She dialed a number on her phone and then waited for the call to go through.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “If that’s true then it’s the best thing I’ve been called all day. You have no idea how hoity-toity some of these out of town people get when you can’t cash an out of state check for them. You should have seen the guy who’d come into the bank today. His suit probably cost more than my—oh, hello? I’d like to speak with Henry Callahan.”

  Caleb thought about the out-of-towner in the Porsche and knew Katie was talking about the same person. He’d made it a point to know who the residents of Sweet were, especially the new people who’d moved into town. This guy was definitely not from Sweet.

  Katie covered the phone as if shielding her voice from the person on the other end of the line. “It’s the secretary,” she mouthed. “He’s in a meeting.”

  “Let’s go, Katie,” he said, forcing himself to see Katie as a nuisance who was trespassing, not a sweet girl who was his old friend’s baby sister who just happened to be incredibly pretty standing out in the cold with her red nose and cheeks.

  He glanced around. Katie’s car was only ten feet into the parking lot. She could have easily slid off the road ended up there if she’d hit a patch of ice.

  Caleb shook his head as frustration flared through him. He couldn’t believe he was making excuses for Katie being here when he knew damned well this was no accident.

  “When will he be out?” She was silent for a few seconds while she listened. “Well, he has a property over in Sweet, Montana that is abandoned. I’m here with a police officer and we wanted to look at it. Oh, he has many properties? This one is empty. It’s very run down. Do you think he’ll mind if we take a look?”

  “Katie, let’s go,” Caleb mouthed. If it were anyone else, he would have called a tow truck and insisted she call the owner when she got home. He didn’t know why he hadn’t already. But this was Katie Dobbs, a friend of his sister’s from long ago.

  She pressed the button on the cell phone to disconnect the call. “He’s expected to be out in an hour, but the secretary said we could take a look around and call back later seeing as it’s abandoned and I’m—”

  “Crazy?”

  She chuckled as if giddy with excitement. “—with a police officer.”

  He sighed. “Let’s just see if we can get your car out of this rut first.”

  “And not take a quick peek at the chapel before we lose sunlight? I got permission.”

  “From a secretary. Did you come here hoping I’d help you break in again?”

  “News flash. I broke in by myself the other night. You didn’t help me. But since you mentioned it—”

  “No.”

  She looked at him as if she were studying his face for a test. “Well, if we want to be technical about this. I’m a taxpayer and as a taxpayer I—”

  “No! Let’s just cut it out, Katie. I told you not to come back here the other night. This is private property. You know, as in someone else owns it and that someone is not you.”

  “I told you—”

  “You know I can arrest you.”

  She huffed. “Yes, you can. But you won’t.”

  “You seem awfully confident about that.”

  “I am.”

  “What makes you so sure I won’t arrest you for trespassing?”

  She pointed a finger at him. “Because I saw the look on your face the other night when I was talking about what this chapel could be. You were curious.”

  “I was cold.”

  “You pretended that it was a crazy idea. But you were curious. Admit it.”

  She had read him right. But maybe not for the reasons she thought. “I’m curious about a lot of things, Katie. My curiosity doesn’t make me forget my job.”

  She took a few steps and met him at the end of her car. “Fair enough. But weren’t you at all curious about seeing what the chapel looks like during the day? I mean, that stained glass is still intact. Most of it anyway. Aren’t you wondering what it looks like with all this sunshine pouring in? I know you are because why else would you have even told me about the memory of the stained glass window? I mean, that was practically an invitation.”

  He forced himself not to smile but it was still pulling at him. “You know very well that was not an invitation.”

  “Okay, so it wasn’t. But now that we’re here and it’s a sunny day, don’t you want to see it again? You could give me an escort through the building.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He chuckled and shook his head. “You know, there are laws against these things.”

  “Yeah? Well, there should be a law against some rich person from LA coming out to Sweet, Montana and buying up property like this old chapel or old homestead homes just to have as a tax write-off. I looked it up, you know. Callahan has owned this property for ten years and he hasn’t done a thing with it.”

  Caleb thought of the guy he had just given a ticket to. She was probably talking about someone very much like him.

  “That’s not the point,” he said.

  “It should be. I want this chapel. I want to see how I can save it. If it continues to deteriorate like this much longer nothing will be salvageable.”

  “I can’t believe you looked up the records on this property.”

  “It’s not like it was hard. Okay, I was confused, but then I called my brother and he helped me out a little bit. I don’t win points for that. Even though I was very appreciative, Kas will throw that in my face for the next ten years. And don’t you dare tell him how grateful I am the next time you see him.”

  “He’s coming to town?”

  “Yes, he and Tabby are coming back for a few weeks.”

  “Fine. Mums the word.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But we still can’t go in there, Katie. Even as a police officer, I cannot go into the building without permission. We shouldn’t even be in the parking lot.”

  “I told you—”

  “The secretary doesn’t count.”

  She huffed. “But when I was here the other night, you came in.”

  “I thought you were breaking and entering, which you were. Don’t make me regret not arresting you that night.”

  “What if I call him again? I’m not leaving until I get this guy on the phone.”

  “You’re serious.”

  She nodded. “Why would you doubt me? I just called his office. I’m calling back in an hour.”

  “The sun will be gone by then.”

  Her shoulders sagged and she pouted in a way that made his insides stir. Geesh, this was just Katie Dobbs. He could handle her.

  “Can’t we take a quick peek just this once? Don’t you think it’s criminal to let this chapel die a slow and painful death?”

  “Katie, it’s a building, not a bison.”


  “It’s still painful.”

  * * *

  He thought she was crazy. A week after that confrontation with Caleb at the chapel, Katie was still revisiting the conversation. Luckily for her, she’d persisted in calling Henry Callahan while Caleb was still arguing with her and he gave them verbal permission to tour the property. In that same conversation, it was clear he had no idea which property she was talking about.

  His secretary underestimated the statement that he had several properties. The man was a movie mogul, doing most of his work behind the scenes as a producer, and invested in real estate most likely to make it look like he was operating under a loss for some projects. That much she’d gotten from Kas when she’d called him…again.

  But now that her busy week of working at the bank, research, and signing papers was over, she was excited to get to the real work.

  It became quickly apparent she needed to get a truck. Or to become fast friends with someone who had a truck. She had lots of friends in Sweet, but she couldn’t count on them to drop everything they were doing just to come rescue her at the lumberyard.

  For so long Katie balked at the idea of driving something monstrous big, a vehicle that most of the guys she knew in high school had insisted on having. A truck was necessary for many things when working on a ranch. It wasn’t just for show. Sweet was certainly ranch country. Trucks weren’t just cool, they were tools. She knew that now. It’d only taken her twenty-eight plus years to buy into the argument. And only now because she had to haul a piece of plywood and a two by four strapped to the roof of her sedan.

  Katie thought she’d been smart when she bought her car. She’d learned to drive on these winding roads when she was a teen and had taken her driving test for her license during a snowstorm. She’d made sure her sedan had all-wheel-drive so she could navigate safely. But as good of a choice as she’d made, it still wasn’t a truck.

  This ride across town was a test run from the lumber yard to the chapel and she’d failed miserably, especially after she’d hit a pothole halfway there and she feared her sunroof would get smashed and glass fragments would come raining down on her as she to drove. But luckily that hadn’t happened.