by Jillian Hart
To his surprise, Michelle escorted the older woman toward him and pointed to the wide doors to the desk where Mo was now collecting information from another patient. “Right there, she can help you,” Michelle said.
“Oh, you are a good girl. Thank you so much.” Looking seriously grateful, the older woman made her way to Mo’s counter.
“She was lost. It is confusing around here,” Michelle said easily as she hopped off the sidewalk onto the pavement. “They need more signs.”
Brody was speechless. Michelle really was a sweetheart. She’d stopped to help an elderly woman find her way with the same good spirit as she was helping him tonight. Unbelievable. Yet, true. He didn’t see that often in his line of work.
He recognized the somewhat rusty and slightly dented 1992 Ford Ranger as the same one he’d been passing this afternoon. Dust clung to the blue side panels and someone had written “wash me” on the passenger door.
“That was probably one of my sisters,” Michelle commented as she unlocked the door for him. “When I find out which one, she will regret it.”
Michelle looked about as dangerous as a baby bunny. Still, he recognized and appreciated her sense of humor. “A cruel retribution?”
“At the Monopoly board, of course. We play board games every Sunday night. Fridays, when we can manage it.”
“How many sisters do you have?” Although he already knew the answer.
“I have four older sisters.” She didn’t mention the oldest sister, although she sounded sad as she walked around the back of the truck to the driver’s side. “They are great women, my sisters. I love them dearly. They are so perfect and beautiful and smart. And then there’s me.”
He settled in on the bench seat. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What isn’t?” She rolled her eyes, apparently good-natured about her shortcomings and dropped into place behind the steering wheel. “First of all, I didn’t go to college. Disappointed my parents, but I’ve never liked school. I got good grades, I worked hard, but I didn’t like it. I like working with hair.”
Michelle yanked the door shut with an earsplitting bang. “I like my job at the Snip & Style. I’m fairly new at it, and it takes years to build a clientele, but I’m doing pretty well.”
“You’re a beautician?”
“Yep.” The engine turned over with a tired groan. “What do you do?”
“I used to ride rodeo,” he lied, and his conscience winced.
It was his job, and being dishonest had never bothered him like this before. He’d justified it all knowing it was for the greater good. He was trying to bring justice, right wrongs, catch bad guys.
As he gazed into Michelle’s big blue eyes, where a good brightness shone, he felt dirty and ashamed.
“Rodeo? Oh, cool. I used to barrel race. I was junior state champion two years in a row. I’m not as good as my sister, though. Her old room at home has one whole wall full of her ribbons.”
“You have a horse?”
“Yep. Keno. I ride him every day. I’ve been riding since I was two years old.”
“I was eighteen months.” Brody couldn’t believe it. Not everyone he met had been riding nearly as long as they could talk. “My dad was a cattleman. He’d take me out in the fields with him as early as I could remember. I’d spend all day in the saddle on my pony, Max. I rode better than I could walk.”
“Me, too. All my sisters had horses, and so I had to ride, too. My mom has pictures of me sitting on my sister’s horse, Star, when I was still a baby. I got my own pony for my fifth birthday.”
“I traded in my pony for an American quarter horse. My dad and I would pack up after a day in the fields and head up into the mountains. We’d follow trails up into the wilderness, find a good spot and camp for the night. Just like the mountain men used to do. Those were good times.”
“I know what you mean. Before my oldest sister died, my family used to take trips up into the mountains. We’d ride up into the foothills and we’d spend a few days up there. Catching trout and having the best time. Real family times. We don’t do that anymore.”
Sadness filled her, and Michelle stopped her heart because it hurt too much to think about how the seasons of a person’s life changed. It wasn’t fair. She missed the closeness of her family. It seemed like everything she’d ever known was different. Her sisters had moved out on their own. Karen and Kirby had gotten married. Michelle couldn’t believe it. She was an aunt now.
“That’s what I like about taking off on my motorcycle.”
“Camping?”
“Yep. That’s what I’ve been doing, but not tonight.” Brody’s rumbling baritone dipped self-consciously. As if he were embarrassed he’d wiped out.
No wonder. It took a tough man, one of determination and steel and skill, to survive on the rodeo circuit. One who wouldn’t like to be seen crashing his motorcycle, even if it was practically unavoidable. “You’re probably a little sore from hitting the pavement so hard.”
“That’s an understatement.” His grin was lopsided, and the reflection of the dash lights made him impossibly handsome. “It sounds as if you miss going camping.”
“Not so much. I’m sorta fond of hot water and plumbing.” It was hard to talk past the painful emotion knotted in the center of her chest. “I guess what I miss is the way things used to be. How close we all used to be. The fun we used to have. I know everyone grows up and everything changes, but it just seems sad.”
“Some days I think the best part of my life is behind me. Times spent with my folks on the farm. Those were good memories. I haven’t been that happy again.”
“I hope that I will. One day.”
“Me, too.”
Amazing that this perfect stranger understood. That they had this in common. The knot of emotion swelled until her throat ached and her eyes burned. It was grieving, she knew, for the better times in her life. Pastor Bill had told her that the best was still ahead of her. To have faith.
Is that the way Brody felt? Did he look around at other people who were starting marriages and families or raising their children and see their happiness? Did he long to be part of that warm loving world of family and commitment the way she did? Did he feel so lonely some nights it hurt to turn the lights out and hear the echoes in the room?
Maybe Pastor Bill was right. Maybe life was like a hymn with many verses, but the song’s melody remained a familiar pattern. One that God had written for each person singularly. And maybe she was starting the second verse of hers.
She had faith. She had no patience, but she had faith. And knowing that a perfect stranger, and one as handsome as the man beside her, was walking a similar path helped.
She pulled up to the well-lit ATM at the local bank and put the truck in Park. As Brody ambled up to the machine, rain began to fall. Small, warm drops polka-dotted her windshield and felt like tears.
Chapter Three
The plump woman behind the motel’s front desk cracked her gum and tilted her head to the side, forcing her bleached beehive at an angle that reminded Michelle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Honey, we’re booked up solid. It’s tourist season. There are no vacancies from here to Yellowstone, but I’ll call around for you, if you’d like. See if there was a last-minute cancellation somewhere.”
“I’d sure appreciate that, ma’am.” Brody sounded patient and polite.
Michelle noticed he was looking pasty in the bad overhead lighting. He was in pain, she realized with a cinch in the middle of her chest. Much more than he was letting on. She remembered the prescription he didn’t want to fill.
So, he was a tough guy, was he? She wasn’t surprised.
But she was shocked at the dark patches in the woman’s hair. Someone had done a bad job—a seriously sloppy coloring job. Shameful, that’s what it was.
That was something she could fix. Michelle dug around in her purse and found a business card. This side of Bozeman wasn’t far at all from the pleasant little town she lived and
worked in, and so, why not?
God had given her a talent for hairstyling, and maybe she ought to do good where she could. She dug around for a pen, found one beneath her compact and wrote on the back of her card, “Free cut and coloring. Just give me a call.”
“Maybe you’d better sit down before you fall down.” Michelle eyed Brody warily. He stood militarily straight, but dark bruises underscored his eyes. The muscles along his jaw were rigid, as if it took all his will to remain standing.
“I’m fine.” His terse reply was answer enough.
Yep, definitely a tough guy. Too macho for his own good. Michelle rolled her eyes and capped her pen. He wasn’t her responsibility, not entirely, but what was she going to do? Just leave him? He obviously needed help and he didn’t even know it.
“I’m sorry,” the clerk returned. “I’ve called all the chains and independents around. The closest vacancy I could find was a room in Butte.”
An hour away. Brody groaned. That wasn’t going to work. Maybe he’d call his emergency contact at the local office. See if he couldn’t crash on a fellow agent’s couch for the night. Brody thanked the woman for her trouble.
“If you’re interested,” Michelle said as she handed something to the woman. “On the house. For your trouble tonight.”
“Why, that’s awful nice of you.” She beamed at Michelle. “I’ll sure do that. I’ve been needing to make an appointment, and gosh, just couldn’t fit it into my budget.”
“Then I’ll be seeing you.” Michelle joined him at the door.
Had she just given away a free haircut? Brody pondered that.
“What are we going to do with you, mister?” Rain dripped off the overhead entrance and whispered in the evening around them as she flipped through her key ring.
“Abandon me in the street?” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Let me get my pack out of your truck before you go.”
“I’m not leaving you here.” With a flick of her hair, she marched toward her truck, fearless in the rain. “What are you standing there for? Hurry up. You’re coming with me.”
“As in, going home with you?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
No way. That was too good to be true.
“What are you going to do? Sleep in the rain? My parents have this big house. They won’t mind a guest for the night.”
An invitation to spend the night in the McKaslins’ home. He was speechless at this rare opportunity. “They’d take a stranger into their house, just like that?”
“You can have the bed over the garage. Don’t worry. It’s nice. You can get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning one of us will drive you to town so you can check out the damage to your bike.” With a shrug, Michelle unlocked her truck and climbed behind the wheel.
He swiped rain out of his eyes and took refuge inside the cab. Unbelievable.
As the rain began falling in earnest, tapping like a hundred impatient drummers on the roof, he had this strange, sinking feeling. Just like the time when he’d been diving and his gear hung up on a snag, pulling him down against his will. “You shouldn’t be offering perfect strangers rides in your truck. Or to stay overnight in your parents’ house.”
“I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“You’re a man of faith.” She touched her own dainty cross.
“I don’t suppose you realize some people pretend to be what they’re not. To take advantage of others.” When he did so, he did it for justice. To protect the innocent citizens of this country.
He knew for a fact there were bad people in this world. And those bad people kept him and his colleagues well employed. Didn’t she have a clue? “I could be dangerous.”
“But you’re not. I have a sense about these things.” Michelle’s smile was pure sunlight—gentle and bright and true—as she turned her attention to her driving.
Unaware that she was about to bring a wolf in sheep’s clothes into her family’s home. A protective wolf, but one just the same.
The hard edge of his trusty revolver cut into his side, mocking him, concealed in the slim leather holder beneath his leather jacket.
“Besides, what else are you going to do? Walk all the way to Butte? You’re injured and I told you, I feel responsible.”
The way Michelle saw it, God might have placed her on that road at that exact moment just so that Brody wouldn’t be alone when he crashed to avoid the deer and her fawn.
Maybe she was meant to help him. As a Christian, it was her duty. How could she not help? It would be wrong.
She didn’t know if her mom would see it that way, but she was absolutely sure that her dad would, because he was cool. By now, her parents ought to be used to her habit of bringing home strays, right?
Even if she’d never brought home a stray this big before.
Or one so handsome he made her teeth ache.
The house was dark, except for the lone lamp in the entryway. It wasn’t Mom’s Bible-study night. Or Dad’s grange hall meeting night. Where were they? And didn’t they know she worried?
Maybe they’d gone out to dinner. Could it be? Afraid to hope, afraid to say it out loud, Michelle grabbed fresh linens from the hall closet. If her parents had gone out together, it would be the first time in six years. Ooh, the curiosity was killing her as she stole a pillow off Kendra’s bed along with the plain blue comforter.
Brody. He’d turned down her invitation to come into the house and was checking out the apartment over the garage.
He sure was a courteous guy. Concerned about her safety. Maybe it came from the kind of life he’d lived. Always on the road with the rodeo. He’d probably seen a lot that she couldn’t even dream of.
She liked that about him. That he was worldly. Experienced. But when he smiled, his eyes sparkled with a quiet kindness. She liked that. Which was too bad. Brody didn’t have plans to stay. He was just passing through.
At least it didn’t hurt a girl to dream.
She caught sight of him through the second-story windows. He stood gazing around the small apartment, wandering around to look at this or that. A zip of warmth flooded her heart, and she couldn’t stop the sigh that bubbled up until she felt as if she were floating with it.
What a man. He stood like a soldier, alert, strong and disciplined, and so inherently good, it made her eyes glisten. She knew beyond a doubt that helping him was the right thing to do.
She closed the front door, skipped down the steps and dashed through the remaining splashes of the rainstorm. In no time at all she was bouncing up the steps and into the attic apartment where Brody turned to her.
And made her pulse stop.
“This is a nice place you’ve got here.” Brody gestured around at the shadowed front room that led into the small kitchen.
But Michelle didn’t bother to look around the place and admire it with him. How could she notice anything when he was so near? He’d taken his leather jacket off and folded it on the tabletop, leaving him in the black T-shirt where torn fabric gaped over another thick bandage.
Was her heart ever going to start beating again, she wondered as air rushed into her lungs and she could breathe. Maybe she’d waited too long to eat dinner—they’d grabbed takeout on the way out of Bozeman—and that’s why she felt funny.
“Does someone live here?” Brody strolled to the wide front windows and closed the blinds. “Or do you just keep this place for random strangers in need of a good night’s sleep and patching up?”
“The foreman used to live here until my dad had a cottage built down by the creek. Then my sister Karen lived here for a long time, but then she got married, and my uncle lost both his job and his wife and needed some place to stay but he said it was too small….” Oh my, was she rambling? Yes, she definitely was. Stop it, Michelle.
“As it turns out, we don’t have a foreman anymore, so my uncle took over the cottage last month. So, no one’s staying here right now.” Was she still holding the sheets and stuff
?
Yes. What was with her anyway, staring at handsome Brody as if she’d lost her cerebral cortex? She dropped the pillow, sheets and comforter on the corner of the couch.
She still felt nervous. Why suddenly now? Because she was alone with him, and that didn’t make any sense at all. They’d been all alone in the truck. This felt different. When was the last time she’d been alone with a guy like Brody? Had she ever?
“I appreciate the hospitality.” He favored his injured right ankle as he ambled over to grab the set of floral-printed linens. “I can’t say that I’ve slept on pink and blue flowers before.”
“Flowered sheets are more restful.”
“Is that a scientifically proven fact?”
“Absolutely.”
They should have been teasing, but it was something else. Something that flickered in an odd way in her chest. A warmth of emotion that she didn’t know how to describe because she’d never felt it before.
She turned away. Feeling like this couldn’t be a good thing. Vulnerable, that’s what she was, and she didn’t like it. She retreated to the open entry where a dark slash of the deepening night welcomed her. “The bedroom’s through those doors. If you need anything, let me know.”
“Thanks, Michelle. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.” He looked sincere. Strong. Like everything a good man ought to be.
Michelle fled onto the tiny porch, pulling the door closed behind her. She felt her face flaming and her pulse jackhammering. She was feeling a strange tug of emotion, longing and admiration all rolled into one.
Great. Had he noticed?
Probably. How could he not? At least he was leaving come morning. She could pretend she didn’t think he was the coolest man ever for a few more hours.
It wasn’t like she had a chance with him. He was too worldly, and he had a life. It wasn’t as if he was going to drop everything and move to a tiny town in Montana that was a pinpoint on a detailed state map.