Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5

by Lisa Mondello

  “You don’t think it will? My grandmother has never been alone like this.”

  “That depends on whether or not the storm stalled over the mountain. Let’s not worry about that or your grandmother just yet. I’m sure a neighbor will come by and check on her. She knows where you are, so someone will come looking for you up here when the storm passes.”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  His expression fell. “You must have told someone you were coming up here.”

  She sighed. “I told my grandmother I was going to run some errands after work. That was it. I figured it would take me no time at all to drop off the linens and then head home. She doesn’t know I came here. No one at work knows either.”

  “If people don't know you’re here, then it might be a while before you get home. Even after the storm ends.”

  Her stomach sank. “My grandmother must be a wreck by now. She must think the worst.”

  “Your grandmother has difficulty walking?”

  “She can get around some. But she's at that age where she's not very steady on her feet. And she doesn't walk well so she spends time with a walker or in a wheelchair which she absolutely hates. Around the house, she likes to use the walker or just hold onto the wall or the counters. I've seen how unsteady she is, but she insists that she doesn't do that while I'm at work.”

  “That must be a worry.”

  “It is. But we do have neighbors that aren’t too far away who check in from time to time. I’m sure she probably called her friend Lucy when I didn’t come home as planned. Oh, and she probably called the police station ten times by now.”

  “Given the situation, do you think anyone would check in on her?”

  “I hope so. I’m sure one of the officers will swing by. They know she has difficulties. And if she called asking about me, maybe one of them will worry enough to go over. People are good that way. Neighborly. But that doesn't keep her from worrying about what happened to me. She already lost her daughter.”

  “Your mother?”

  Harper nodded. “It was a long time ago, but it's not something a parent gets over. And I know she probably won't call my sister until she knows what happened to me so that Gail doesn't worry like we did before. The worry can sometimes be the worst.”

  He frowned. “Like before?”

  Harper hesitated. There were memories enough being here in the cabin without her bringing in the sad memories that seemed to erase away the joy they’d shared as a family.

  “My parents were on weekend getaway up here when they passed away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. It was a stupid accident, one they both knew to watch out for. I know that because they used to get after Gail and I all the time about this very same thing. And yet my mother had fallen right into that trap. Literally.”

  “An animal trap?”

  She shook her head. “There's a pond not far from here. It's beautiful in the spring and summer. We used to take kayaks out there and go swimming. But in the winter, it's deceiving. Most of the ice around here is thick because it's so cold, especially in the higher elevations. The weekend my parents were here, it was a beautiful weekend. Unseasonably warm for March. Gail and I were in high school so they figured they would get away, just the two of them with the dog. We stayed with my grandmother like we always did when my parents went away on a weekend together. They'd been hiking. Apparently, the snow was melting and it made it easier. But then the dog ran off and chased an animal that must have come out of its hole because of the nice weather. Anyway, that's what they think based on the tracks.”

  She hesitated and gulped back a sob. It felt like yesterday. But it had been nearly fifteen years.

  “They didn't come home when they were supposed to. That's how it started. They were supposed to come home Monday night but they never showed up at my grandmother's house. At first, my grandmother thought they went back to our house so that they could spend a little more time together. So I got in the car and drove home. It was my last year of high school and I already had my license. When I got there, the house was dark. No lights were on at all. My grandmother kept calling the house. I could hear the phone ringing while I stood outside. I was afraid to go in the house because it was so dark. I think I was more afraid to find out they really weren’t there and didn’t go to bed like I suspected they might have. Hoped they had. But that was just my mind playing games. They would have called to let us know they were home.”

  He stared at her as if he was really listening.

  She lifted her hands as if deep in the memory of what had happened that night. “I knock on the door. Can you believe it? I knocked on the door of my own house. But the phone kept ringing, then stopping, and then ringing and I knew it was my grandmother. So I finally went in and answered the phone. The house was empty.

  “I should have known right away they weren’t home. The car wasn’t there. But it was if I was in some sort of a trance.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went back to my grandmother’s house and then the worrying started. My grandmother weighed whether or not to jump the gun and call the police station or wait until morning. They were only a few hours later then we'd expected them. So we stayed over my grandmother’s house and went to school the next day.”

  “After school, I came home like any normal day. Gail had something to do after school so she didn’t come home with me. My dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway, but I just figured he’d gone out for an errand or went to work. Since I’d been driving my mother’s car, I assumed she was home. So I walked into the house like I always did. But it was still empty. There was no message on the answering machine and no note on the kitchen table telling me they’d gone out together. And then I knew.”

  “You knew what happened?”

  “I didn’t know the details, but I knew it was bad. The fact that they hadn’t even tried to get into contact us was alarming. So my grandmother called the police and we waited. And waited.”

  She said the last part with a heavy sigh that made her shoulders sag and fall as if she were falling into the sofa and the sofa was falling through the floor. Her whole body felt heavy and the fear that had coursed through her that day was just as strong as it was remembering it. “I wanted to hang on to the tiniest thread of hope as we waited. But it was awful.”

  She looked at the pan on the wood stove and saw that the snow had melted. The water had reduced considerably inside the pot and it was starting to warm.

  “What happened to them?”

  “Hank Lucas was an officer back then. He’s the chief of police, the man you spoke to earlier, now. Anyway, he and a few other officers headed up to the cabin and searched for them. The car was still parked outside, so they knew my parents had to be around somewhere. I wanted to go, but Hank insisted we stay back at the house and wait. It was the worst feeling. Waiting. I wanted to hang onto hope but I couldn't. I knew that if anybody came, it was going to be with bad news. I can't tell you how I knew, but I did.

  “Gail was sitting on the sofa looking out the window when Hank’s cruiser pulled into the driveway. I saw Grover in the backseat of the cruiser, and I knew my parents were gone. My grandmother fell to the floor sobbing uncontrollably. I don't really remember a whole lot of what I did or even what Gail did. I was numb at that point. But apparently Grover had gone off running after something and they think that one of my parents went off after him and ended up on a soft spot on the pond. Either one fell in and the other tried to save them, or they both fell in together. It was hard for them to be sure because the snow had melted quite a bit by the time they'd gotten up there. But they were gone.

  “It took a little while, but they eventually found their bodies and pulled them out of the pond. This is the first time I've been up to the cabin for any length of time since then. I usually just drop off whatever is needed and leave. I thought it would feel strange, but it doesn’t.”

  “That must’ve been horrible for you.�
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  “It was. I sometimes think that it may have been better to get the news all at once. No waiting. But that's ridiculous. Bad news is bad news whether you have to wait for it or whether it comes all at once.”

  He nodded and seemed to drift away somewhere.

  She leaned forward and peeked inside the pots on the wood stove. The water was beginning to boil. “We need more snow.”

  He chuckled and then grabbed his hat that had been drying by the fire. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Sweet Montana Rescue: Chapter Five

  She couldn’t convince Nash to abandon the idea of going back for the blankets. It had been over an hour since he’d left. Now Harper frantically paced the floor and kept looking out of the window to see if she could see the lights of the snowmobile.

  To keep her mind busy, she continued to melt snow, boil water, and pour each bucket full into the tub until a few inches of hot water covered the bottom. When Nash first mentioned a bath to her, she balked at the thought. Nothing was turned on at the cabin so she knew the they didn’t have running water. But as the ache in her shoulder and her thigh began to throb, she came around to the idea. Even a quick bath might ease what she knew were going to be epic bruises on her body by morning.

  She climbed into the bath with a cup from the kitchen and poured the hot water over her body. It would cool quickly so she didn’t have much time. To her surprise, just the running of the water over her bruises pulled out some of the kinks. She carefully scrubbed her head where she’d felt the blood and then drained the tub.

  Nash had left a clean towel out for her just in case he wasn’t back when she was done bathing, so she used that dry off and she put the clothes she’d worn that day back on. When she emerged from the bathroom, Nash was still not back.

  Although she’d kept herself busy, looking through cabinets for provisions he’d brought with him, the worry never stopped, and now Harper was fighting a full-blown panic attack along with hunger pangs. It had taken them about a half hour to get up the mountain in the snowmobile, and then another fifteen minutes to get back to the cabin.

  “The snow is deeper,” she said to herself as she walked around the kitchen, looking for something to nibble on and tamp down the growls her stomach was making. She hadn’t eaten anything since she’d had that banana at lunch and now she was starving. When she didn’t find anything edible, she leaned against the counter. “In the darkness, he’s going to have had a hard time finding my car.”

  But none of her reasons for his delay rang true. She was probably overreacting, but Harper’s overreacting was winning over logic. It had only been two hours, but even she knew the storm was building strength.

  Maybe something had gone wrong. She hated the helpless feeling. If only she hadn’t made a big deal about sharing the sleeping bag. It wasn’t such a bad idea for survival, even though she’d be sharing it with a handsome stranger. If Nash got hurt, she’d never forgive herself.

  She rubbed her thigh to ease the throbbing. It was swollen and she’d seen the nasty bruise while in the bath. At first, she thought that perhaps she'd bumped it trying to get onto the snowmobile. She now realized she was probably in shock at the time and she’d gotten more banged up than she’d initially thought.

  The few hours that had passed continued to roll through her mind just as if she were still rolling down the embankment in the car. She could've died. She wasn't entirely sure that she understood that until just now. And then what would've happened? Just like her parents, Gail and her grandmother would have to wait for word.

  She turned and pulled the curtain away from the window to see if she could see headlights down the road or near the spot where her car had tumbled. From the front porch, Harper knew you could see that cliff on a sunny day. Right now, she couldn’t see anything but snow.

  She chuckled and shook her head. But there was no humor. “He's a survivalist, Harper,” she said quietly to herself. “He not the Abominable Snowman. And even the snowmobile has its limits.”

  * * *

  Even for Nash, repelling down to Harper’s car and then climbing back up with the few items he’d managed to grab from the trunk and find in her car proved daunting. But he’d finally made it back to the road and secured everything to the snowmobile.

  He was going to have to be careful navigating back to the cabin. He had a headlight on the snowmobile, but the snow was much deeper than it had been earlier and he’d have to drive quicker in order to keep it from sinking in the deep snow. He’d have to stay in the path he’d made earlier when he’d rescued Harper.

  What the hell was he doing? He’d come here because he wanted to be alone. He liked being alone. And now a beautiful woman was probably naked in the tub he’d be bathing in all summer. He’d had to get out of there. Getting the linens had been an easy excuse for him to escape all the images he’d had of Harper.

  The woman was beautiful. No, stunning. And he’d bet she didn’t even know it by the way she carried herself. She worked in a world surrounded by crisis, and yet, Nash had seen how vulnerable she was. Something about her drew him to her.

  He didn’t want to think about it, or about her flowing dark hair that had been straight when he’d seen her at the police station but that had sprung up into waves and curls after getting wet and being windblown. He’d found himself longing to touch her hair. The thought of sleeping next to her in the same sleeping bag was maddening. It couldn’t happen. There had been only one time in his life when he’d ever reacted to a woman with such fierceness before and he’d ended up marrying her.

  Nash needed to focus. He was here on the mountain to do work. As soon as the storm ended, he was going to bring her back down the mountain and deliver her to her grandmother.

  He finished securing the last bag to the snowmobile and climbed on. It was going to be a long night.

  * * *

  The wind whistled through the rafters above, wind that always seemed to find its way through the tiny cracks between the boards, even though the roof had been repaired several years ago.

  She had to busy herself. She couldn't just sit there and wait for the door to open. She grabbed a log Nash had spread out to dry, opened the wood stove door, and placed the log on the embers. They probably had just enough wood to get them through the night. There was a stack of wood next to the cabin, which was probably where Nash had gotten this wood. But it would be soaked by morning. As long as they managed to keep embers in the wood stove, they’d be able to keep the stove pumping some heat.

  She walked back into the kitchen and opened the cabinets again. They were empty of food but had dishes and glasses that her grandmother provided to all people who rented the cabin. Not many did, and especially for the length of time that Nash would be here. So all of the dinnerware was virtually brand-new.

  She’d seen a bucket on the counter earlier, so she focused her attention on that. Grabbing the bucket, she turned it to read the label. MRE or Meal, Ready-to-Eat. The bucket was full of dehydrated meals much like the military used out in the field.

  “Did he expect to eat this all summer?” Harper asked out loud, making a disgusting face. She never actually tried a meal like this before. But the idea of pouring hot water and eating freeze-dried food seemed revolting. But at this point, anything would do. She was starving.

  She needed something to do besides looking at the clock and stare out the window. She'd been there before and it was a dangerous place to be.

  When Nash did show up, he’d be cold and hungry. MREs may not be the most appetizing things, but at least she could make him a hot meal and something to drink to warm him up when he returned.

  The canister of MREs were still sealed. Nash hadn't even had a chance to break into his rations yet. So Harper fought with the plastic around the lid until it broke free and she was able to open the canister. She quickly rummaged through a few of the packets.

  “At least there's a variety to choose from.” She read the little packages of freeze-dried f
ood and settled on beef stew. She wouldn’t melt snow for their meal. Instead, she grabbed a few bottles of water from the package he’d brought with him and poured them into a pan using the recommended measurements. There was plenty of water at the cabin given the fact her grandmother had installed a well years ago. But without electricity from the solar system, it wouldn’t run.

  She got herself busy boiling the water and stirring the ingredients until they thickened. To her surprise, she hadn't looked at the clock in over fifteen minutes and after tasting the food, it was actually good.

  She was just setting two bowls on the counter when she heard the snowmobile cut into the quiet. Relief filled her as she wiped her hands on a dishtowel, made her way to the window, and then saw Nash out front. She moved to the door as quickly as she could and reached for the doorknob, opening the door wide and letting in a rush of snow and cold air. Nash glanced up from his position on the snowmobile. He pointed to the front door.

  “You’re letting all the heat out! Dry wood is at a premium right now and we don't know how long this storm is going to last.”

  Stepping onto the porch, she closed the door behind her. She didn't have her jacket on, but she stayed on the porch so she could help Nash with the things he had strapped to the snowmobile. She was still in her stocking feet, so she didn't leave the confines of the front porch which was now starting to fill with snow.

  “Just hand me some things and I'll bring them in,” she said. “That's a lot of stuff you managed to get from my car.”

  “I wasn't sure exactly what you needed so I tried to take as much as I could. I found your bag and your cell phone. It’s smashed. I hope you don’t mind I went through your bag. I thought maybe I’d be able to get a signal down there.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I wouldn’t have minded. I guess we go with plan B and wait to get a signal with the radio.”