Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5

by Lisa Mondello

  But she still hated Brody. It didn’t seem fair, but it was because of him that Tara didn’t have the opportunity to make amends with her brother or help him.

  As she pulled out of her parking space and began her drive back to town, she glanced in the rearview mirror. That was her regret. That was her mistake. She couldn’t blame Brody for that. She could accept that now that Doug’s death had been a stupid accident. It had taken her years to get to this point. Her denial had been born of anger, stupidity, and a destructive lifestyle that her brother had chosen.

  And Brody had paid his debt for his part in it. There was no use making him suffer more because he still had to live with his part for the rest of his life. Anything that she did now to hurt Brody only served to be a cancer inside of her. It would continue to grow until it killed her.

  With tears in her eyes, she pulled onto the main road. She had to let this go. She could’ve messed up Brody’s life because of her bitterness, something he didn’t deserve. It made her look like a fool in her own community. But if there hadn’t been physical evidence and if Trip hadn’t stepped up to vouch for Brody, he would’ve gone to jail for something he didn’t do. They would have believed her over him, a convict. She couldn’t live with that any more than Brody deserved it.

  * * *

  Brody watched the dust fly as Tara drove down the driveway and turned onto the road leading to town. He should still be angry with her. And he had been. But he knew full well how toxic anger could be.

  Yes, what she’d done was wrong and it could have done major damage to his life. But he couldn’t help but think about how fired up she’d been in defending her position. He hadn’t wanted to notice just how pretty those dark eyes were when they were full of fire. Or the way her nose turned up just a bit, punctuated when she lifted her chin in defiance.

  He could still see the way her hips swayed as she’d waltzed out of the barn, not once but twice. Brody didn’t date much at all. He wasn’t any place long enough and when he did manage to stay some place for a few months at a time, there was always an element of fear and mistrust as soon as a woman learned of his past. He still had a lot to work on in life without having to bring the trouble of a woman into it.

  He smiled as he turned back to the barn and walked inside. He had no business in there except to remember. He walked up to the first stall and saw the little foal that was now standing strong on four legs.

  Life ends and then there is rebirth. That’s what he was feeling. And for once, it felt good.

  * * *

  She’d given it a few days of work and dealing with insurance forms and phone calls before Tara couldn’t stand it anymore. Dixie was back at work, but Norma was now calling her on her cell phone to make sure she was at the store before she came with the bakery items. She’d been too shook up by the break in to feel comfortable waiting for her in the back parking lot to deliver the baked goods.

  Tara couldn’t say she blamed her. More than a few times she’d been alone in the store, moving displays to fill in the empty space until new items arrived and she’d been overcome with fear at the thought someone might be there. She’d started locking the back door during the day and had given Dixie a key.

  But things were getting back to normal. There was a rodeo this weekend in the next town which meant there’d be customers in her store again, something she desperately needed not only for money but also for her sanity. She needed normal again.

  “You got some new stuff delivered,” Dixie said as she breezed into the store. “I brought into the stockroom. It’s from that Native American artist you like so much.”

  “Shana was here?” Tara asked.

  “Yeah, she was sitting in her car when I pulled into the back. She said she knocked but no one answered. I don’t know how long she’d been sitting there.”

  Tara’s shoulders sagged. This was too much. How was she going to do business if she lost her vendors? “Guess the next thing I’ll have to do is install a doorbell out back. Thanks for taking care of it, Dixie.”

  “You look like you’re still brooding,” she said, looking inside the pastry case at the goodies.

  “Norma made triple fudge brownies,” Tara said, reading Dixie’s mind.

  Dixie gasped. “Really? Where?”

  “Last case. Take one. They’re good.”

  “You had one?”

  She lifted her hand and showed two fingers.

  Dixie’s mouth dropped open. “That good?”

  “I skipped lunch. And yes. Norma made them so they’re that good.”

  Dixie was doing a happy dance as she searched the bakery case. “You know, you should just get over this thing of falsely accusing that guy.”

  “If only it were that easy.”

  “You said you were sorry. If you still feel bad, make a peace offering. Bring him some of Norma’s pastries. Guys love food. It solves so many things.”

  She chuckled. “Is that right?”

  Dixie shrugged. “It works for me all the time.”

  “Do you mind taking care of things out here while I check what she brought?”

  “No problem, boss,” Dixie said with a smile as she walked and danced behind the counter as if listening to a pop song in her head as she searched the case. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, making her look younger than she already was. When she found the triple fudge brownies, she let out a little squeal of delight.

  Tara smiled as she walked past her into the stockroom. She found the boxes of pottery that Shana had brought, immediately regretting having missed seeing her. As always, the pottery was amazing. She loved Shana’s work. But one particular item caught her attention. Shana loved to write little notes about her work to include with each sale. Customers loved it because it gave more meaning to each piece.

  She pulled out one of the pieces and read the note. It was as if it were meant for her. And then she had an insane idea she couldn’t get out of her mind before she acted on it.

  Sweet Montana Outlaw: Chapter Five

  “Just go there, give him the gift, and leave, Tara,” she muttered to herself as she tapped the steering wheel of her car. “There is no need to do anything but give him the gift. A peace offering. You can do this.”

  She drove down the driveway of the Lone Creek Ranch with knots in her stomach that threatened to make her throw up. That wouldn’t be a good thing to do given she was apologizing for her blunder.

  It had been Dixie’s idea to give a peace offering for almost getting Brody thrown in jail.

  “Everyone deserves a second chance,” she muttered, parroting the words that Dixie had said to her. Sometimes she thought Dixie was a little too much sunshine on a rainy day. But after thinking about it, Tara knew she was right. She’d make this small gesture of kindness and hope that both of them could have a second chance to move on. Alone. Without having to see each other or run into each other again.

  Tara knew the likelihood of that was slim. Sweet was a tight knit community. It was one of the reason she loved living there. The whole town came out for festivals, potlucks, and parades down Main Street. She was bound to run into Brody no matter how much she tried to avoid him.

  He’d changed. Not just because of being in prison, but in physique. Somehow, she remembered him being a little scrawnier. It may have been her faulty memory or the fact that she had never seen Brody as a man. She’d always thought of him as a monster. It amazed her how her opinion of him had changed over the years as she’d matured and learned to live with the truth of who her brother really was.

  Doug had been an addict. And although she hated to dwell on it, there was damning evidence he’d been a dealer as well. It was one of the biggest crises that small towns across America faced today. And her brother had been caught up in it.

  It was hard to accept that Tara was probably never going to know the truth about how he’d gotten started with drugs and where he’d gone wrong in deciding to deal. But if he’d truly been pushing drugs on young kids, then it wa
s wrong. Brody’s sister was about sixteen years old at the time of Doug’s death. Doug had been twenty. There were days Tara wondered what his life would be like today. And then the realization that if he’d never gotten help for his addiction, he may have been dead from his own hand, not Brody’s.

  * * *

  After a quick search around the ranch, asking each of the hands if they’d seen Brody, she finally found him in the barn.

  “You’re a hard man to find,” she said.

  “I don’t know why. I haven’t left the ranch in days with so much work here.” He stopped nailing in the hooks he was nailing to the wall of a small room at the far end of the barn by the tack room.

  Curious, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting this room set up as a bunk room. The bunkhouse isn’t that far from the barn, but animals seem to want to birth during the night and it’s a little inconvenient, especially during the winter weather, to run back and forth from the house to the barn to check on the animals. I’ll bring in a bed and a few supplies so someone can sleep out here if they need to watch one of the stock.”

  “Oh.”

  He finished nailing the hook to the wall and then turned his attention to what she had in her hand.

  “What is that?”

  She looked down at the package in her hand as if she had forgotten. “A gift.”

  “For who?”

  “You.”

  He frowned. “Me? What for?”

  “It’s a peace offering.”

  He slipped his hammer into his tool belt. “Uh, huh. What for?”

  She stood uncomfortably, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She glanced away and then looked back directly at him. “I was wrong about you.”

  “Yeah. So? You aren’t the first.”

  “Probably not the last either,” she said under her breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind.” She drew in a quick breath. “I know what it’s like to be judged before people know you. It’s hard when someone looks at you with preconceived ideas about who you are.”

  He picked up the box of nails he’d set on the bench and sealed it, leaving it on the bench. “It’s what people do.”

  “It’s not what I do. Not normally.”

  Brody was still upset with her. “So you say.”

  “You’re not making this easy.”

  “Why should I? You embarrassed me in front of my employer—”

  “Trip said—”

  “Trip is a great guy. But he has limits, just like everyone else. He told me about your phone call.” Brody shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “I didn’t keep it from you. I told you I’d talked to Trip. I was trying to help.”

  “Stop. Please. Do you have any idea how long it has taken me to get a real job since I left prison?”

  She shrugged.

  “People don’t like labels. Especially when you’re labeled a murderer. Even when there was cause for such a thing.”

  “There’s never cause for murder,” she shot back.

  “You’re right. But an accident is still an accident.”

  She felt the rise and fall of her chest as she tried to hold her composure.

  “It was manslaughter,” she said quietly.

  “Involuntary manslaughter. But people still see a dead man and come to their own conclusions of who I am. They don’t care about what Doug was doing to Marie.”

  “You wanted him dead. I heard you say as much in court.”

  “In the heat of the moment when I saw him shooting up my sister, yes, I wanted him dead. But I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted him to stop hurting my sister. I knew she was on drugs and I’d been trying to get her clean for a while. She’d managed to get off the drugs for a few months, or so I thought until I found him feeding them to her. You know that’s true, even if you won’t admit it.”

  “I know it’s true,” Tara said quietly. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But it’s true. Doug was sick. He was going to end up dead one way or the other. By needle or by force from someone trying to stop him.”

  “I drew the short straw.”

  “I know. Ten years ago, I never would have been able to admit that to myself much less you, Brody. But I can now. And I’m sorry I embarrassed you with Trip. I truly was trying to make up for what I’d done.” She thrust the package wrapped in silver and white paper at him. “Here. Please take it.”

  Brody took the package and frowned. “What is it?”

  “Open it. Unless you want me to leave so you can look at it alone.”

  “No, I’ll open it now.”

  He pulled at the wrapping paper, but didn’t unwrap it completely. He tore just enough to be able to see what the gift was. The sound of paper tearing caught the attention of the one of the horses a few stalls down and made him whinny.

  “It’s a bowl,” Brody said, looking over it.

  “Yes, made by a woman from one of the local tribes. I know you have people who do pottery on the reservation where you lived. But this woman does beautiful work for my shop.”

  He glanced at her and she fought to blink back the tears that had formed in her eyes.

  “It’s nice,” he said. “You really didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t know how to make it up to you after I... You just moved into the bunkhouse. I’m sure it’s pretty bare of color.”

  He smiled. “It’s a guy thing. Besides, it’s not the bunkhouse. It’s the ranch manager’s house.”

  She nodded. “Oh. Congratulations. That makes me feel even worse that I could have made you lose that good of a job.”

  “It’s water under the bridge.”

  He was being much more gracious than she’d been to him. “I have a lot of nice things at the shop. Some that aren’t even broken.”

  Brody laughed and then shook his head. “I hope you had insurance.”

  “Yes, already claimed. Things will be replaced. But things like this piece can’t be. I know Shana worked hard on this bowl. She puts a lot of love into her work. There is always some story that goes with her pieces. Some things can never be replaced when they’re destroyed.”

  * * *

  Brody took in the thoughtful expression on Tara’s pretty face as she talked about the bowl. So many business people thought of fine art and crafts as being simple items that were attached to dollars and cents on the bottom line. To Tara, it was personal.

  “Do you know the story to this one?” he asked.

  “Yes. There should be a slip of paper in the bowl.”

  She looked on the floor as if to make sure it hadn’t dropped out when he’d unwrapped it.

  Brody reached in the bowl and his fingers connected with a slip of card stock paper. He pulled it out and read the handwritten note that was signed by the artist.

  No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.

  “That’s nice. I’ll be sure to thank Shana if I get a chance to meet her.”

  “I thought it was fitting,” Tara said. “If you look at the bowl when you unwrap it completely, you’ll see the river. And when you look at it long enough, you’ll see many rivers.”

  “Many beginnings.”

  She offered him a smile so sweet it nearly leveled him. He’d never seen Tara Mitchell look at him with anything other than hate and annoyance. He liked seeing her smile. Something inside told him it would be like music to hear her laugh. But that was not to be today.

  “Shana comes into the shop to show me her work about once a month. I usually get to choose first from her inventory and then she sells the rest at events on the reservation. But I missed her today when she stopped by. She left me a few pieces to sell though. This was one of them.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  She hesitated as tension and shame filled her eyes. “She knew my brother.”

  He hated that she still felt that way after all these years. He understood it. Shame was
something everyone carried around in some measure for one reason or another. But in her case, she was carrying her brother’s shame.

  He focused on the gift in his hands. “Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet her. Thank you.”

  Tara nodded. Then she turned and started walking away.

  Brody wanted to call to her. But he didn’t know why or what to say to make her stay. Or why he should even try. It was the oddest feeling to have your life so entwined with someone else for tragic reasons. They’d been on opposite sides of a no-win situation. Pursuing this sudden connection with Tara Mitchell was the last thing he needed in his life. It would only serve to complicate something that was already far too complicated.

  He glanced down at the bowl and took in the vibrant colors that seemed to tell a story all by itself. Why had Tara done this? They’d said everything they’d had to say to each other the other day when she’d apologized. Instead of giving them both a clean break, he held a constant reminder of the woman whose eyes lit up like fire when she was excited or angry. It made him wonder how much fire he’d see when she felt desire.

  Sweet Montana Outlaw: Chapter Six

  The man completely unnerved her, and she didn’t know why. Okay, forget the fact that they had a history, and it wasn’t a good one. That alone would be enough for anyone to be on edge whenever Brody Whitebear was around. No one would blame Tara for never talking to the man again.

  As she rearranged items in the store to make it look like the shelves were still stocked, she thought of what she’d seen in him when he’d opened her gift at the ranch. When Tara had dropped the bowl off at the ranch the other day, she foolishly thought it would be the last time she’d see him except in passing. They lived in the same town. He was sure to occasionally go to the hardware store or the diner across the street. The bank was just up the road, for cripes sake. She could hardly ignore him.

  She turned quickly and spotted him outside her newly reinstalled picture window. She hadn’t had time to schedule the Murhall Sign Company to come out and redo the lettering with the shop name and logo on the window yet, which gave her a clear view of Brody standing outside inspecting the pieces she’d put on the display on the sidewalk.