Her Montana Man

by Laurie Paige

  “Look at this border,” Kelly said, holding a roll of wallpaper next to the yellow on the bottom part of a wall. “What do you think? Is it okay in case the baby’s a boy?”

  Chelsea studied the print. It showed a lawn with toys scattered about it—a red wagon, balls of various sizes and colors, a yellow tractor with a rag doll on it—and a picket fence in the distance. “I think it’s perfect.”

  “So do I. Jim wasn’t sure about the doll and the fence, but what do men know?” she demanded with a laugh.

  “Right. Here…I couldn’t resist when I saw this at the store.” She gave the gift to Kelly.

  “Oh, how cute!” Kelly exclaimed when Chelsea urged her to open it. “It goes with the colors in here. Oh, and a mobile, too.”

  The gift was a wall hanging of red, blue, green and yellow balloons, each made of cloth, padded and quilted to make it three-dimensional. The mobile, to hang over the crib, was also balloons. When wound up, the mobile turned around and around and played a circus tune.

  “Thank you.” Kelly gave her a hug, then added, You’d better get busy if our kids are going to grow up together.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Chelsea warned her friend, smiling at Kelly’s meaningful grin.

  Kelly thought she and Pierce were a twosome again. It was easier to let her believe what she wished than to argue about it. Kelly could be as stubborn as her older brother when she made up her mind.

  They discussed the baby’s room a bit longer, then went to join the men. Pierce hooked an arm around her in a casual manner while the other two consulted on the meal. He gave her a smile, his gaze lingering on her lips for an instant before he offered her a drink from his glass of iced tea.

  She shook her head, then changed her mind and took a sip. Kelly gave her a nod of approval and announced dinner was served. They played bridge until eleven, then said their farewells.

  “You were quiet tonight,” Pierce remarked when they arrived at the cabin. “Something bothering you?”

  “Not at all.” Going inside, she put her purse on the counter next to the kitchen phone, then paused as she gazed at the calendar hanging there.

  She flipped the page to the previous month, then frowned as she turned back to July.

  “Counting the days until you go home?” Pierce asked, startling her as he stopped directly behind her.

  She managed a laugh. “Of course not. Who wants a vacation to end?”

  He leaned his head close to hers. “A woman usually has a reason when she studies the calendar so intently,” he said in a deeper tone. “Do you?”

  Fragments of thought flew around in her mind like a field of startled robins as she shook her head. She needed to think, to be alone. She spun around, intending to escape.

  His hands settled on the counter at each side of her. “You have anything you’d like to share, such as worries about the future?”

  “No.” Her voice came out a reedy croak.

  “Would you keep it from me if you were pregnant?” His eyes locked with hers as he waited for an answer.

  She tried to maintain her defenses against his probing gaze, but finally she had to look down. “This is a ridiculous conversation.”

  “Are you late?” he asked quietly.

  Heat flooded her chest, climbed rapidly up her neck and set her face afire. “No. Not really.”

  “If there’s a child, I want to know.”

  She laid her hands against his chest as he moved closer. “There isn’t.”

  His eyes narrowed dangerously, causing her insides to flutter in alarm. However, his touch was gentle as he slid his hands into her hair and lifted her face so he could see her expression clearly.

  “You want a baby. Would it be so bad if it were mine?” he inquired with a hint of humor and more than a bit of sexy intent in his gaze.

  “You said you wouldn’t father a baby out of wedlock,” she reminded him.

  He studied her another moment, his thumbs rubbing soothingly over her hot cheeks. “Is that the only part you don’t like—the thought of marriage?”

  “I wouldn’t force anyone into it,” she said stoically.

  His smile surprised her. “You modern women,” he chided. He kissed her then.

  Before she could recount all the reasons this shouldn’t happen, her arms went around him as he pulled her close. Her lips opened to his, and she kissed him back with all the longing that had been building since the last time they’d touched this way.

  Seconds, minutes, an eternity ticked by as time ceased to have meaning. If only an instant could be forever…

  He lifted his head and studied her when they had to come up for air. “It’s been this way from the first, hasn’t it? From the moment Kelly introduced us, the awareness was there. It still is. Doesn’t that tell us something?”

  She shook her head. “What?” she asked defiantly when he frowned at her as if she were a slow student.

  He laid a hand on her abdomen, his fingers spread wide, creating warmth deep within. “That’s what we need to figure out. Maybe we should consider a trial engagement.”

  Shocked laughter rose and strangled in her throat. Tears burned behind her eyes. “I only have a week.”

  “Billings is barely an hour away,” he countered, making it clear distance wasn’t a problem.

  Turning her back to him, she tried to think. The page on the calendar shifted restlessly as the breeze stirred through the cabin. She crossed her arms at her waist and wondered if she could possibly be with child.

  He laid his arms over hers, his cheek at her temple. “I think we’d better consider marriage, Chelsea.”

  A tremor ran over her. “Why?”

  “Just a hunch, but I think we’ve already made that baby you so desperately want.”

  “That’s…that’s just impossible. My doctor said it was highly unlikely.”

  But something in her countered that it wasn’t.

  He planted kisses along her temple, then turned her around with hands on her shoulders so that she nestled in his arms. “Is it?” he demanded.

  “Fate wouldn’t be so cruel,” she said miserably.

  Every muscle in his arms and along his back contracted into iron bands. Too late she realized the words had been thoughtless and totally rejecting of him in the role of father to her child.

  He let her go. “Maybe not. Then again, maybe it would,” he said with a sardonic half smile and walked out of the cabin, disappearing into the night.

  She suppressed the urge to go after him, to explain she hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. An equal need to weep or to scream assailed her. Why couldn’t things stay simple?

  Staring at the calendar, she wondered what she should do if there was a child. Unlike the reclusive librarian’s lover, Pierce seemed determined to claim his place as the father. This from the man who had once declared he’d never intended a lasting relationship, at least not with her.

  Which seemed less than ideal circumstances to begin a marriage.

  A tremor shook her to her very soul. Marriage? The whole idea was scary. Look at what happened to her parents. She’d never subject a child to the unhappiness of her own youth as her parents grew to hate each other.

  Pierce sat in his home office and stared out the window instead of working. Saturday was usually a productive day when he went over his own business accounts instead of doing the town’s never-ending chores. However, other matters preyed on his mind today.

  Mainly Chelsea.

  Recalling their separation eight years earlier, he wondered if he hadn’t been too quick to call it quits.

  At twenty-eight, he’d been more of a hothead than he was at thirty-six. He’d wanted to cover the emotions that had cut through him when she’d said she’d been accepted in the forensic pathology program and it had hit him that she was talking about leaving. New York had seemed a world away from Montana.

  Maybe they could have worked things out if he’d given them a cha
nce instead of reacting out of hurt pride.

  In truth, it had never occurred to him that she would go. Taken by surprise, he’d said the first thing that came to mind, mainly that he hadn’t considered theirs a long-term relationship. He’d wished her luck and left her tiny apartment without a backward glance.

  He’d had to leave, he admitted ruefully. No one liked to see a grown man cry. Instead of grief, he’d let the anger consume him. She’d chosen her career over him. Okay, he could live with that…and without her.

  It had been damned hard, though.

  At any rate, it would probably have been impossible to maintain the relationship. Her training had been out of state and far away. His business interests were demanding and would have kept him in Montana.

  But maybe they could have worked it out. If they’d both wanted it. She certainly hadn’t argued with him when he’d told her goodbye and walked out, but then, what woman would have? Chelsea had her share of pride, too.

  Bah, he was crazy to be thinking such things. It was all water over the dam.

  However, if she was pregnant, he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing. He had as large a stake in the future of the child as she did, so she could just get used to him being around. Billings wasn’t far away, not far at all.

  Restless, he made his weekly calls to the resort managers, then headed outside. A quick jog around the lake would clear his brain.

  As he bounded along the trail, he spotted Chelsea sitting on the deck, a book in her lap as usual. He wondered how the lust and danger story was coming along.

  Farther along, he spotted a man in a boat, a fishing rod in his hand as he waited for a bite. The man nodded cautiously to him.

  Pierce smiled and waved at the resort guest he’d nearly drowned. A curious tightness entered his chest, as if his heart had enlarged and was squeezing his lungs. Her safety, her future, the possibility of a child, all were causes for concern. No one had ever worried him like this.

  After circling the lake, he stopped at the deck and joined her. She closed the book and laid it aside. He saw it was a different book, a nonfiction one about solving cases using forensic evidence.

  “Looks like interesting reading,” he commented.

  She nodded. “It deals with actual cases and the clues that led the investigators to the culprits. That helps keep my mind alert to the possibilities.”

  “Any ideas on Harriet’s killer?”

  “No, sorry. The trail is growing cold on that one. Unless someone knew who she was involved with.”

  “Let’s go over there.”

  “To her house?”

  “Yes. I’ve never been inside.”

  She cast him a doubtful glance.

  “I need to shower and change. We can stop by her place, then go to lunch. There’s a rooftop café in town. I don’t think you’ve been there, have you?”

  “No. That sounds interesting.” She rose and took her book inside while he went to his house to get ready. When he came outside, she was waiting on his deck.

  The sun picked up the auburn highlights in her hair while the breeze brought him the scent of her cologne. She’d changed to khaki slacks and a blue shirt. In wedge sandals that made her look taller than the five-seven he knew her to be, she was all slender curves and sweet womanhood.

  “Let’s go,” he said, unable to conceal the huskiness of his tone as desire drummed through him.

  At the Martel house, he detected a slight hesitation in Chelsea when they stepped over the police tape, which was broken, and entered the empty cottage.

  “The door isn’t locked,” he observed.

  “It never seems to be.”

  He felt a shiver run through her.

  She paused and wrapped her arms across her middle. “Have you noticed the way closed, empty houses seem to become cold when no one lives in them anymore?”

  He nodded. “It’s as if they need people to breathe warmth into them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what you look for when you first enter a crime scene,” he requested, looking around.

  “If possible, you start at the outermost perimeter and work in toward the place where it happened. That way you aren’t as likely to disturb or contaminate the evidence.” She gestured toward the chair. “I wish I could have been here from the first. Too many people had been in and out by the time I viewed the scene.”

  “Do you think the sheriff and his men missed something? A small-town department probably seems inept compared to what you’re used to.”

  “Not at all. I didn’t mean to imply anything like that. Holt is very conscientious about his job.”

  Pierce frowned as emotion, which he immediately recognized as jealousy, darted through him. “You seem to get on well with the deputy.”

  “Yes—” She stopped and peered at him. “Are you implying something about him and me now?”

  He smiled, knowing no one stood between them. “I know you better than that,” he said softly, as if ghosts might be listening. The silence of the house was spooky. “The passion you shared with me hasn’t been given to anyone else.”

  She opened her mouth as if to deny it, then set her lips together in a thin line.

  He reached over and ran a finger across them. “When you do that, it makes me want to kiss you until your lips are soft again.”

  Her eyes flashed a warning.

  He gestured toward the living room. “From the report, Molly came over from the library Monday morning and found her boss in that chair. How long had Harriet been dead?”

  “I didn’t examine her until Tuesday. She’d been in cold storage at the morgue for over twenty-four hours by then. The doctor there estimated she’d been shot sometime between Saturday midnight and dawn on Sunday.”

  “What do you think?” he asked, more curious about her mind and how it worked than in the actual answer.

  Before answering, she walked over to the chair and stared at it, her manner concentrated and introspective.

  “It’s been unusually hot this summer,” she finally said. “I checked the temperatures in the area that weekend. The thermometer hit nearly a hundred both days. That could make a difference.”

  “How much of a difference?” he asked, frowning at the idea of misinterpretation of the evidence.

  “Maybe twelve hours. She could have been shot Sunday night.”

  “That was the night of the lunar eclipse. The town was full of people. The cottage isn’t that far away from the city park. Why didn’t anyone hear it?”

  “With a celebration going on, a shot from a twenty-two probably wouldn’t have been noticed at all.” She pointed to a throw pillow on another chair. “The perp could have muffled the shot through one of those, then taken it with him when he left. I noticed the matching chair doesn’t have a matching pillow.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “I would have to know the victim to know that. We’d better ask Colby about it. Or his mother. She’d be more likely to know. Could we go out to her house?”

  Pierce saw that her mind was completely occupied with this idea. For a second he resented being closed out, then he realized his mother and sister complained of the very same thing in him when he was tussling with some decision for which there was no clear-cut answer.

  “Sure. Right after lunch. We have reservations.”

  He smiled at the impatience evident in her eyes. Another trait they shared. He, too, liked to get right with it when he had a task to complete.

  Giving in, he said, “Get the cell phone. We’ll call and see if Louise is home.”

  “I can ask her now.”

  She dug the phone he’d given her out of her purse while he checked for a number in a directory they found in the kitchen drawer nearest the wall phone. Harriet had been a very organized woman.

  He leaned against the counter and watched Chelsea do her job, admiring the kindness in her tone and the delicacy of her questions as she talked to Harriet’s sister. He also liked looking at her
.

  “Louise thinks there were matching pillows,” Chelsea said, excitement in her eyes for a second as she punched the off button on the cell phone. Her expression became somber. “Unless we can find it and unless it has evidence strong enough to pinpoint someone, we’re no farther along.”

  “Any little bit might help,” he said.

  “True. I need to see Holt. Is he working today?”

  Pierce saw his plans for a quiet lunch at the rooftop café vanishing. “I don’t know. Call the sheriff’s department.”

  She didn’t have to look up the number. After she asked for Holt, she glanced at Pierce and shook her head, then spoke into the phone again. “No, no message. Thank you.” She hung up. “He’s off today. The dispatcher saw him in town earlier, so he’s probably not at home.”

  “Leave a message on his voice mail and give him the cell phone number. Maybe he can join us for lunch.”

  “Good idea.” She punched the redial button.

  Pierce smiled wryly at the renewed enthusiasm in her voice. Had he not known it was his arms that she couldn’t resist, he might have been tempted to sock the deputy.

  After parking on Main Street, he guided Chelsea through the more formal dining room and up to the rooftop café, where several locals nodded and spoke to them as they were seated. The hostess left menus and cool glasses of water on the table before departing.

  “Gossip central,” he murmured, taking the chair beside Chelsea rather than across the table.

  She looked around, forcing several people to quickly glance elsewhere or be caught staring. Pierce chuckled as she wrinkled her nose, then grinned.

  “Let’s give them something to talk about,” she suggested, her eyes sparkling with impish intent. She raised her water glass as if in a salute to him, then took a drink, her gaze never leaving his face.

  He did the same.

  The humor faded as his eyes locked with hers. He delved into the verdant depths and wondered what she was thinking that made them go darker, as dark as a mossy pool found far away in a hidden forest.

  His heart lurched drunkenly, banging off his rib cage as it beat hard and fast. The moment was interrupted by the arrival of Holt Tanner.

  “Dispatch said you were looking for me,” the deputy said, joining them. He leaned close to Chelsea and gave her a questioning stare. “I hope you’ve solved the case.”