“I thought as much,” Norma said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Just let me know when you need me to start up again, and I’ll be over first thing in the morning with the goodies.”
Guilt stabbed at Tara. This was lost money for Norma. And Tara knew just how much. Her voice quivered as she answered, “Thank you, Norma. It will only be a few days. I want to make sure we cleanup when the police are finished, and I’m going to see about getting a better security system.”
“That sounds like a good plan. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
Tara disconnected the call and then sat down on the sofa. She could get up and start cooking. Or baking. She’d planned to do as much before she’d rushed to call Norma. But what would that do? She’d still be alone.
* * *
“No way,” Brody said, standing in the doorway of the bunkhouse, and watching as the boys set up a table in the middle of the room.
“Ah, come on. Levon used to play poker with us all the time. It’s no big deal. Even Trip joins in sometimes,” Dusty said.
“I heard. He lost his shirt, or so he said.”
Dusty laughed as he put a few frosty beer bottles on the table. “That’s not my fault.”
“Of course not. Call Trip. See if he’s interested. I’m turning in for the night. My back hurts.”
“It’s only eight o’clock!” Buck said, spreading his arms out wide as if he was shocked by the notion.
“I need to get to that fencing on the south side of the ranch tomorrow. You do, too. The sooner that gets repaired, the sooner we stop having to search for stray cattle every night.”
“At least stay for a beer,” Dusty said, reaching for one of the bottles on the table.
“No, thank you. But much appreciated.”
Dusty made a comical face as if he was crazy. Brody would love to grab one of those long necks, sit back on the porch in a comfortable chair and look up at the sky. He’d missed doing that. But the terms of his parole were that he could not be caught drinking alcohol at all or risk being hauled back to prison.
That wasn’t going to happen. He had the date on the calendar when he was finished with his parole. On that day, he’d sit on the porch with a cold beer with some friends and look up at the sky. Until then, he wasn’t risking it.
He left the bunkhouse to the sound of laughter as the boys got themselves settled at the card table. Brody occasionally liked a game of cards, but not tonight. His back was aching. He’d gone to the clinic to make sure they’d gotten all the shards of glass that had cut him out of his skin. He’d gone alone and left Tara back at the store to talk with the police officers. When he called the store after he’d left the clinic, he’d gotten the store’s voice mail. She’d left.
He had to keep himself from getting in his truck and riding over to Sweet Sensations, although he wasn’t exactly sure what help that would be. Tara wasn’t there. She was home. He didn’t have her address and he didn’t have her cell phone number. There was no way for him to check on her except in his mind where he tried to convince himself she was safe and a crazy drug dealer didn’t have a gun pointed at her anymore.
He walked the short path from the bunkhouse to his house, still marveling in the notion that he had a home again. It wasn’t a temporary place in a seedy part of town because it was the only place that would rent to him given his criminal record. This was a home. And Tara had been trying to help him put his own stamp on it.
When Hunter had first approached him about working as a ranch manager at the Lone Creek, he thought Hunter had lost his mind. Now he knew he’d be indebted to Hunter for the rest of his life. So much of the past he’d tried to flake off of his back these last years without success was finally shedding away.
He listened to the sound of the animals in the barn and in the pasture. He loved being here. It had been almost instantaneous the day he’d moved in. With each night he spent sleeping in his bed, listening to the sounds of the ranch, he actually believed he was here to stay.
There was only one thing missing from his life. Tara.
He’d just stepped up on the porch when his cell phone vibrated in his back pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number. He half thought of letting it go to voice mail. But he didn’t know who it was, and if it had anything at all to do with his parole, he could be in trouble by not taking the call. So he answered it.
“Brody?”
The sound of Tara’s voice turned his blood cold.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I…I need…” She started crying and talking fast and he found it hard to understand more than a few words of what she was saying. Dexter? Who was that?
“Where are you, Tara?” he asked, trying to remain calm so she wouldn’t get more upset.
“I’m home.”
“Is someone with you?”
“No!”
The fear he’d felt when hearing her voice deflated like a balloon. “Good. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to be alone. Can you come over?”
Sweet Montana Outlaw: Chapter Eleven
“I shouldn’t have called you. You don’t have to stay,” Tara said the moment she opened her apartment door.
“You obviously had a reason to call me. Why don’t we talk a bit? If you feel okay, I’ll leave.”
She touched her hand to her cheek and stepped aside so Brody could come into the apartment. “I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never done this before.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. What happened this morning would rattle anyone for days, if not weeks. You’re going to be fine.”
Brody walked into the apartment and stood by the door. In the center of the room sat a red sofa opposite a set of palladium windows. A small TV was tucked in the corner. Clearly, whatever Montana view this window afforded was worth making it the focal point of the room.
Like her shop, Tara’s apartment was full of color and had items strategically placed around the room. He doubted each piece was put there by accident.
“Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the sofa with her hand.
He walked into the room and found a black cat shedding all over the sofa.
“Dexter, shoo. Go into my room,” Tara said. The cat didn’t move for a few seconds.
“It’s okay. The sofa is big enough.”
Brody sat down and gently leaned back on the sofa. As soon as he did, Dexter shot off the sofa as if suddenly startled by Brody being there.
“Something smells good.”
“Are you hungry? I baked. Huckleberry muffins and a Huckleberry pie.”
“I thought you said someone else bakes for your shop.”
“Norma does. This isn’t for the shop. This was busy work to keep my mind from running wild. After we saw the wild huckleberries growing on the ranch last week, I went to the grocery store and got a few packages of frozen huckleberries. I can’t wait until I can get some fresh fruit at the end of the summer. The pie still has some time to set, but the muffins are cooling.”
“How can I pass up warm huckleberry muffins?”
She smiled and then raced into the kitchen.
This was bad. He shouldn’t be here. She’d been crying when she’d called him so he’d rushed right over when he managed to get her calmed down enough to get her address.
But Tara was fine. She was just scared. And he was scared for her. He needed to leave before he began to long for the feel of having her in his arms again like this afternoon.
He hadn’t wanted to let her go. The way she’d clung to him as she trembled was all he could think about.
As she breezed out of the kitchen with a muffin placed on a paper towel, she seemed calmer than she had been when she’d opened the door.
“I am out of napkins. Can you believe it? I have a bakery and I have no napkins.”
“It’s a crime,” he teased, taking the muffin she handed him.
She laughed softly
and then sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“How does your back feel?” she asked, giving him a guilty expression as if she’d had something to do with it.
“Hurts a little. The jaw feels a little more tender.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “He was so crazy.”
“He was high as the Montana sky. Strong, too.”
“Have you ever had anyone come at you like that before?” she asked, glancing at him with an expression that told him she was almost afraid to know.
“Just once.”
“Was it in prison?”
They were in dangerous territory. He shook his head.
“It was almost as if Ox had superhuman strength,” she said. “It was unbelievable. I was so afraid for you.”
“Oh, he was human all right. And he was feeling no pain. That’s what drugs will do to you. I’m sure they’ll figure out what kind of cocktail he was on.”
“I didn’t recognize him at first,” she said quietly. “He’s…changed a lot over the years. My brother knew him.”
It was if it pained her to admit it. He understood.
“I know.”
Tara’s eyes widened. “You knew him?”
“Hunter saw him walking towards the back of your shop. Hunter…has a history.”
“I know. I was there in court. I heard his testimony.”
“So you understand why Hunter was so nervous about seeing him.”
She nodded. “What about you?”
“I didn’t know him except that I had seen him on the reservation. You’re right though. All these years of doing drugs have made him unrecognizable. I would’ve been surprised if you had recognized him right away. The drugs have done a lot of damage to him. Quite frankly, I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
She looked down, placed her hands in her lap, and started fiddling with her fingers. “I know my brother wasn’t perfect. I know he had a drug problem.”
Brody held the uneaten muffin in his hand. Somehow taking a bite, no matter how good it smelled, seemed less important than listening to Tara. So he awkwardly held the muffin and just kept his gaze on her.
“I blamed you for long time, Brody,” she said.
“You were right to. I was part to blame. I was the one who was in the fight that caused his death.”
“I saw what happened in the shop. I wasn’t there when Doug died, but I did see how easy it would be to kill someone when drugs are involved. I was afraid he was going to kill you. And then I was afraid…”
“What?”
“That you’d kill him.”
“I didn’t want to. I just wanted him to get away from you. I didn’t want him to hurt you.”
She lifted her gaze to him and he saw the unshed tears in her eyes. “Like you were trying to protect your sister.”
A lump rose up in his throat, nearly choking him. “I didn’t do such a hot job. I ended up in jail, and from what I understand, she’s still using.”
“She’s alive. There’s still hope.”
“I suppose. She has moments when she calls and she seems fine. Then I don’t hear from her for months. And then she calls in the middle of the night and she’s angry and looking for money. On those days, she’s just a shell of the person I knew as my sister. She’s an addict. It’s hard for me to say that, but it’s true. And I can’t save her. I tried. But I learned that the hard way that I can’t.”
“I’ve been thinking about all that testimony I heard in court after my brother died. I was so angry. I wanted to blame somebody. But it was self-defense, wasn’t it?”
He hesitated, but then he nodded. This conversation was a long time coming and one he thought he’d never have with Tara Mitchell.
“Doug made his choices. My sister did too. Only time will tell if one of those phone calls I get will be from someone who tells me she’s dead.”
Tara shook her head. “This all seems a bit surreal to me. I wasn’t there when you fought with my brother. The coroner said it was a freak accident. He hit his head when he fell, but it was during the fight.”
“That’s what made it manslaughter.”
“But if he hadn’t been high, if he hadn’t been like Ox was today…”
“We’d be having a different conversation I think.”
She nodded. “Life is strange. Just when you think you have things figured out, you get thrown off the bull into a pile of dung.”
Brody chuckled. “Did you hear that somewhere?”
“My mother used to say it. Sometimes I wonder if she knew about Doug’s drug addiction. She will never admit it. But I guess it’s because he was her son and she was grieving.”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
“I want you to know that…I don’t want you to carry this burden around with you forever.”
Tears filled his eyes. It was hard for him to hear, but so welcoming.
“Thank you.”
“I never told you this, but when I first moved to Sweet after the trial was over, it was hard.”
He frowned. “How so?”
“People had a pre-conceived idea of who I was. I was Doug Mitchell’s sister. People knew about the trial even though it happened in a different county. It was in the news. So people either treated me with kid gloves or they shunned me.”
“Why would they shun you?”
“Because everyone knew my brother was…a drug dealer. There, I said it. It’s always so hard to say it. People knew. I had a hard time accepting that, but people knew.”
“What does that have to do with you? You weren’t a drug dealer.”
“But people didn’t know that. Every time I started working someplace my boss would give me a warning about drugs not being tolerated and grounds for immediate firing.”
“Really? But you didn’t have a record for drugs, did you?”
“Of course not. But they thought they knew everything about my brother. So they thought I was like that, too.”
“I didn’t realize you had that hard a time.”
“I did. What’s worse is that any time there was a crime where drugs were involved, people would look at me funny as if I knew the people involved. I didn’t. But they didn’t care. They just assumed.”
“I know that feeling. But my history is a little different.”
“I started Sweet Sensations after years of saving my money and watching every single dime. A lot of my money I sent to my parents. They needed it. But what I had left I hoarded like a miser. I didn’t want to work for someone else who would look at me and assume that just because I was Doug Mitchell’s sister I was into drugs and ran with that crowd. Most of my customers at first were tourists who knew nothing about my family or what had happened. Those first years with the shop were lean. I watched every penny and didn’t even have someone working with me until I could afford it without worry about how I was going to pay their wages. And truth be known, even when I hired Dixie, I worried.
“But these last few years have been better. Good even. The local people now come into the shop, not just the tourists.”
She turned away and he could hear her sniffing back tears. He understood her pain. His shame was stamped on his forehead each and every time he’d applied for a job. Hers was thrust on her through no fault of her own.
“I’ve worked hard to build something for myself. In one fell swoop, I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. Ox didn’t even know I was Doug’s sister. He just wanted money. My carelessness at keeping the back door open gave him the perfect opportunity to come in. He told Caleb Samuel that he’d been watching the shop and knew the back door would be open after Norma left. Thank goodness, he didn’t come in when Norma or Dixie were there. I would have hated it if either of them had been hurt.”
She put her hand over her mouth and yawned. Then she glanced at the muffin in his hand. “The muffin is probably cold by now.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure it’s still good. You’re tired,” Brody said. “I can take
the muffin home and eat it for breakfast.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone, Brody.”
“You need to sleep. Even I can see that. You’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow. A lot of clean up.”
“I did most of it today after the police left. I…”
“What?”
“I don’t feel safe there anymore. It’s my store and I don’t feel safe there,” she said, tears now flowing down her cheeks. “I’m not sure I feel safe anywhere.”
“Do you want me to stay? I can sleep on the sofa.”
It was a bad idea. He didn’t want to sleep on the sofa when he knew Tara was a few short feet in the other room sleeping in her bed. He wanted to be in there with her, holding her, loving her.
“Would you stay? You can stay in my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa. This sofa is too small for you.”
“No. You sleep in your bed. You’ll sleep better that way. And when you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be here.”
She got up from the sofa. “Thank you, Brody. You’re a good man.”
“Thank you for that.”
* * *
Tara was still asleep when the alarm on Brody’s cell phone went off at five-thirty the next morning. His back ached from sleeping on her couch and from all the cuts from the glass. When he’d first opened his eyes, Brody had been a little disoriented about where he was. And then he remembered yesterday’s events.
Ox hadn’t been a bad guy growing up. Like all dealers, he got into drugs and found an easy way out, just like Tara’s brother, Doug, had done. Seeing how wild-eyed Ox was yesterday as he pointed the gun at Tara still left Brody cold.
And it had given Tara a revelation he never thought would happen. She probably had no idea how her words had moved him last night. She hadn’t looked at him as a criminal. She’d looked at him as a man. She’d even called him a good man. Those words had filled him with such joy that he’d thought about them all night as he’d thought about her sleeping soundly in her bed.
He couldn’t hear anything in the next room as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head to pull out the kinks sleeping on the couch had left with him. He was getting a late start this morning and he hoped Trip didn’t mind. Trip was a good guy and probably heard about what had happened at Tara’s store. But he was only going to take so much and Brody needed this job. He needed it for himself to prove that he really could start new somewhere and dig in roots. And he needed it because the thought of not seeing Tara made his heart ache.
Sweet Montana Boxed Set 1-5 Page 42