Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5

by Lisa Mondello

  Ash Dennison over at the lumberyard had made sure that the one board was tied down well enough that it wouldn’t go flying off her car. Of course, that was after he’d spent fifteen minutes trying to talk her out making the trip at all. He’d even offered to drive the few things she had over to the chapel himself after work, but then relented when she lifted her chin and insisted on doing it herself.

  Okay, she could admit that she was more stubborn than smart sometimes. She should’ve listened to Ash. Lesson learned.

  But going slow, Katie had made it to the chapel. And now that she was here, stubbornness and anxiety faded and were replaced with excitement again.

  Just as she was untying the stubborn bit of rope that wouldn’t come free easily, she heard the sound of an engine growing louder as it came into the parking lot. She glanced over the roof of her car and saw Caleb Samuel’s cruiser.

  Groaning under her breath, she said, “Here we go again.”

  She kept at her task until the rope came free and the board fell to the ground. But not before it bounced off her mirror on the journey down. She held the piece of plywood in place, but all it would take was a good gust of wind and that would go flying like a sail.

  Caleb got out of the cruiser and walked slowly over to her as he did the other day. “Need help again?” he asked.

  “I got it,” she said forcing herself to smile. On the last two occasions Caleb had been pleasant, even a bit nostalgic when they spoke. This time, the scowl on his face showed he was clearly annoyed.

  “I warned you before, Katie. You can’t keep coming here. If you don’t have permission from the owner—”

  “You’re looking at her.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks and frowned with confusion and maybe even a bit of shock.

  “That’s right,” she said. “After we had our little tour last week, I called up that old fart and found out he had no intentions of doing anything with the chapel or the land. At least for now. And since he hadn’t done anything with it in the last ten years, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t planning to do anything. I’m not even a hundred percent sure he knew which piece of property I was talking about. So I took my brother’s advice and made him an offer.” Excitement filled her as she told Caleb the story of her negotiation. “He accepted just like that.”

  “You already signed the papers?”

  “Yes! Just after lunch. I bought the property and now my name is on the deed. I have a nice hefty mortgage that I can barely afford to go with it. If you need me to show you the papers, we’ll have to go back to the house because I locked them in the house safe. But I’ll do it if you insist.”

  A slow smile lifted his lips to a grin that she found irresistible. It made something inside of her burst until her body hummed and her fingers tingled. What the hell?

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, rubbing his chin. “How in the world did you pull this off?”

  Caleb’s grin was wide. Katie wasn’t sure if he was impressed or just teasing. She was going with impressed because she wasn’t going to let any teasing ruin her mood.

  “I am an able-bodied woman.”

  “I could see that,” he said, glancing at the two by four that had fallen to the ground.

  She cocked her head to one side. “I work at a bank. I’m capable of purchasing a piece of real estate.”

  His smile was wider, if that was even possible. He propped his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You called your brother again, didn’t you?”

  With her back straight as a board, she said, “I don’t need to go to my brother for every little thing. He may be successful, but I still have the same genes he has.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve never seen Kasper Dobbs looking so pretty in a dress. And you can tell him that for me too.”

  “I will not. Is that your way of flirting with me, Caleb?”

  “Would it bother you if I were?”

  Caleb Samuel was a damn fine man in so many ways that Katie was surprised some younger girl in town hadn’t snatched him up for marriage yet. There’s been plenty of talk both at the bank and throughout town about that very thing. And maybe if Katie hadn’t taken a wrong turn in her life, she’d be joining in that conversation.

  But not today. She’d made a vow to herself when she signed the papers on the mortgage earlier. She was going to have something for herself even if everyone else, including her brother and Caleb Samuel, thought she was nuts. She was going to make money on this project and then she was going to go back to pursuing her dreams.

  “I’m busy, Caleb.”

  “I can see that. When I first pulled into the parking lot and saw that wood, I thought you had graduated from breaking and entering to vandalism. But as you say, you’re the owner. You can break anything you want.”

  “Thanks for the confidence.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Well don’t just stand there, be some use and help me with this,” she said, tugging the rest of the boards off the roof of her car.

  He walked slowly over to her side of the car and looked down at the board on the ground. Then at the setup she had on her car.

  “Who did this?” he asked.

  “Ash Dennison.”

  “I should give him a ticket just for this.”

  “It wouldn’t be his fault. I talked him out of delivering the boards. Come on. Help me.”

  He lifted his hands. “I thought you said you’re an able-bodied woman.”

  “So much for chivalry. I’m a woman in a dress.”

  “I can see that.”

  His face transformed right before her eyes. She saw mixture of desire and appreciation and she liked it, which surprised her. It had been a long time since a man looked at her with any kind of appreciation. But then Caleb retreated into professionalism as if he were panicked by his own reaction.

  It was an awkward moment to say the least. They hadn’t been exactly friends in high school. He was a few years older than Katie. He was Kasper’s friend. But they did have a history growing up in the same town, knowing the same people, and getting into all the things kids in Sweet got into in their youth.

  “What you plan on doing with one two by four?”

  Embarrassed by her bright idea to handle the situation herself, she decided to forgo giving Caleb the real explanation why she was testing out her sedan. She’d figure out the truck situation later. Instead, she said, “I figured if it was easy enough for me to break in to the chapel dressed the way I was the other night, then it would a breeze for someone else to do it. Now that I own the chapel, I don’t want any more damage done, so I thought I should secure that doorway a little so that the teenage kids won’t come down here.”

  He nodded, seeming satisfied by her explanation.

  “I’m not quite sure what you will be able to do with just a few boards. That’s a pretty big opening. What do you have for power tools?” He glanced into the backseat of her sedan. “Are your tools in your trunk?”

  Her shoulders sagged just a fraction. “I forgot them back at the house. I know my father and Kas had some in the garage. I just…didn’t have time to look through them. And…I wasn’t quite sure what I needed so I figured I’d get the boards here first and then figure it out and come back.”

  He nodded. But he didn’t believe her. That much was evident in the slight twist of his jaw.

  “If I had my toolbox in the cruiser, I could help you a bit. But you need a saw to cut some of these boards. Do you even know how to use a saw?”

  “No. But that’s okay. I’ll learn.”

  “I can show you—”

  “It’s not your job to do that. I’ll figure it out.”

  He seemed taken aback by her sudden stubbornness. The same stubbornness that had her insisting at the lumberyard she could transport this wood herself.

  “I wasn’t offering because it was my job, Katie. I was just…offering to help. There is a dif
ference.”

  Warmth spread through her and mixed with a sense of guilt that was deserved. She’d hurt him. Or at least offended him, and that didn’t feel so very good given the breaks he’d given her over the past week. When had she gotten so suspicious of men and their intentions? She knew the answer to that. She just didn’t like it.

  “Thank you, Caleb.”

  Caleb looked up at the sky and then back at Katie. “It’s going to be dark in about an hour so there really isn’t much time to get tools, and get back here before we lose light. I’m not on duty until noon tomorrow. I can meet you here early and we get that door secure. That is if you want me to help.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “Don’t touch anything.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a devilish smile. “Katie, you’re a storm. I’d like to think this chapel will still be standing when I get back.”

  Sweet Home Montana: Chapter Three

  It had been a long time since Katie had seen Caleb Samuel out of his police uniform. Somehow she hadn’t been paying attention to much this past year since she’d returned to Sweet. But she had to admit he was quite striking wearing dress blues. He wasn’t bad in a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of cowboy boots either.

  Now she understood the talk amongst the women she worked with. But there was something about him today that made Katie’s heart do a little flip. It wasn’t the clothes at all. It’s what they did to the man who was wearing them.

  Give a man a toolbox and he could play all day. That’s what her mother used to say. Of course, in these parts rodeo and ranching went hand-in-hand. People needed to know how to repair things that got broken. There were plenty of women who knew how to hold a hammer and saw a board. They knew how to string fence and untangle barbed wire without cutting themselves up. Katie had done those things on occasion herself. But only as a hand at the Lone Creek Ranch where she used to go riding when she was in high school. That is how she met Bruce. And that’s how things in her life went awry.

  None of that mattered now. Bruce was no longer a part of her life. She had a new course in life. Her job at the bank had been a transition and it would still serve her well for these coming months while she needed to save money in order to continue to renovate this chapel. But it wasn’t her future. It was just a job, a means to an end.

  Her future and her dreams had been in design. This chapel was still in shambles but she could easily envision how beautiful it could be as a home. It was a shame she was going to have to sell it when the project was over. That had been the deal she had made with her brother when he loaned her the money to buy it.

  Caleb had been right about her calling Kas, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing, at least not for a while, that she’d gone to her rich brother for financing.

  Oh, Kas would’ve easily given her the money with no strings attached. He wasn’t like that in business, but as he’d said on the phone, Katie wasn’t business. She was his baby sister. His only sister. And he was happy to help her. But he’d given her a big dose of advice too on how many ways to Sunday she could screw this thing up if she wasn’t careful. He wasn’t going to stop being her big brother. He was just a phone call away. And he’d be coming back home to check on her in a few weeks.

  Katie was sure that before the project was over, Kasper Dobbs would show his face at the chapel many times just to make sure she was on track. And Katie didn’t mind one bit.

  “That should do it,” Caleb said, slipping the handle of the hammer he’d been using into his tool belt. He yanked on the door handle just to see if it would move. “It looks good. I can’t guarantee kids won’t find their way in here somehow. But that lock I put outside will hold them off for a little while.”

  “Maybe I should put a sign out front. SOLD. Under construction. Desperate woman wanting to invest in real estate makes stupid move and buys decrepit old chapel…” She laughed at the absurdity of it as she said the words aloud.

  Caleb smiled. “I don’t see this as you being desperate. Impulsive, yes. But not desperate, Katie.”

  Relief filled her. Not only because she knew she never would have been able to do as good a job getting a temporary door up on the chapel. But because although Caleb said she was crazy, she could see that he hadn’t meant it. At least, not in the way she’d taken it.

  He looked around with interest. There was so much sunlight coming through the stained glass windows. There were many of them. But what few still intact were illuminating the room with brilliant colors that seemed magical to her.

  “I can’t say that I see your vision. Yet. But I think you got something here,” Caleb said.

  Katie’s insides began to sing. “You think?”

  He nodded and she could see the appreciation in his expression. Maybe even envy. It gave her a tremendous amount of satisfaction that she was on the right track.

  “Can I confess something to you?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Confess? Do I look like a priest?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not hardly.”

  “Good. Because there’s nothing righteous about the way I’ve been thinking about you all morning.”

  His admission threw her off guard. He’d been thinking about her? Thinking how? Lately Katie had been thinking of herself as a lunatic. Only a lunatic buys a chapel in the middle of nowhere in Sweet, Montana and decides to renovate it into a house without knowing a thing about how to do it. Which was what she was going to confess to him before he made that admission.

  “I’m a little scared,” she said. That confession surprised her. She thought it over plenty the last week. She hadn’t said the words aloud and she wondered why she chose this moment to admit it to Caleb.

  “That’s okay. Fear is just a state a mind. It’s not a person. I was scared plenty when I was in the army. There was plenty of cause for it, too.”

  “This isn’t the army, Caleb.”

  “You’re right. All I’m saying is that a little healthy dose of fear is okay as long as you get the job done. There’s no reason to run away from it. You’ll do okay.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. And I have a confession of my own.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m real curious about what you have in mind for this place. You don’t have to rush off to work today, do you?”

  Katie had been scheduled to work, but she’d taken the day off when Caleb made his offer to help her this morning.

  “I switched with Rachel the other day because she had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Let me buy you lunch and you can tell me all about your plans.”

  “I thought you had to work?”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how long this was going to take so I switched to a later shift.”

  “You’re not afraid of talk?”

  He frowned. “This is home, Katie. Everybody talks. Everybody. Even when there isn’t anything to talk about.”

  She giggled. Yes, she actually giggled as if she were fourteen. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed with herself or question her sanity further. But when she looked up at Caleb’s expression, she didn’t see teasing or mocking or anything like she did to herself. He was just waiting for an answer to his invitation.

  “I’d love to.”

  * * *

  “This is a far cry from arresting me,” she said, sitting in a booth across from Caleb in the local diner on Main Street.

  “The day’s not over yet,” he said with a teasing grin that warmed her insides like melted butter.

  They ordered their meals. She ordered a salad and a bowl of stew and he had a steak and potatoes. When the server delivered her salad, she smiled.

  “What’s that for?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “When I was living in California they served everything with avocado on it. And I mean everything. It took me a long time to get used to it. I’m not sure I ever became a fan though. A salad wit
hout avocado is a nice change.”

  “I didn’t know you lived in California,” he said. “When was that?”

  “When Bruce was going to school. We had a deal. I’d work full-time and he’d work part-time while he finished school. Then he would work full-time and I would work part-time while I went to design school.”

  “Ah, the picture is coming into view.”

  She stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork as her stomach turned. She didn’t often talk about her life with Bruce. It was too humiliating to think about.

  “What picture?”

  “The reason you want to renovate the chapel. You have a passion for design.”

  She smiled. “I guess.”

  “So what did you focus on in school?”

  She fiddled with her fork. “Nothing. I never went.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head as her cheeks flamed. And then she remembered what Caleb had said earlier. Fear was just a state of mind.

  “It took Bruce a long time to finish. It was expensive living in California, paying for living expenses and tuition.”

  “You put Bruce through school.”

  “Yeah. He didn’t have much growing up. He’d worked as a ranch hand at different ranches before I met him. I met him when I was riding down at the Lone Creek Ranch.”

  “With Julie.”

  She nodded. Caleb smiled when he said his sister’s name, but it was melancholy just the same.

  “Bruce worked there for a while. He had these dreams and I bought into them. He wanted to do something big with his life and get out of ranching. To me, California seemed so grand and wonderful.”

  “Was it?”

  She sputtered but continued to play with a pepper in her salad. “It wasn’t anything special where we were. We couldn’t afford to live anywhere grand and it was a college town. It was mostly kids who were there for school and most of the businesses catered to visiting parents and such. It was quiet. A lot like Sweet.”

  “And then…what happened?”

  “You mean the divorce?”