Her Montana Cowboy

by Jeannie Watt

  A small part of herself had died that day.

  Headlights shone through the curtainless front windows, giving her a guilty start. Gus returning from wherever. Lillie Jean snapped off the light and headed out the door just as he pulled the truck to a stop. They met at the gate, and Gus stood back after unlatching it, allowing her through. He carried a bundle of mail in one hand, thus answering the question of where he’d gone just before dark.

  “I thought I’d take a look at the house before committing myself.”

  “And?”

  “I can make it work. But I’ll have to come up with a bed,” she said as they walked to the backdoor.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  And that was it. Discussion over. He opened the screen door and Lillie Jean opened the interior door, stepping into the mudroom. She took off her coat and folded it over her arm.

  “You can hang it on the hooks if you want.”

  “I’ll keep it with me,” she said. She preferred all her stuff together. Who knew, maybe she would have cause to suddenly bolt. But looking up into Gus’s face, she didn’t think so.

  He was ridiculously handsome with that shadow of brownish-blond scruff over his cheeks, ending just below his high cheekbones. He was Kate’s type of guy. She’d always gone for the Nordic types, while Lillie Jean had been more of a tall, dark and handsome girl. But now, as she studied Gus’s face, she had a strong feeling she’d been limiting herself.

  Gus was studying her as intently as she was studying him. They both became aware of the fact at the same moment and Lillie Jean felt color rising from her collar. This awareness between them was not something she’d banked on, and it was something she wanted to tamp down. No...something she needed to tamp down. There was a difference between wants and needs, especially in a business relationship.

  She wondered if Gus was thinking something along the same lines as he shifted his weight and jerked his head toward the hallway.

  “I’ve got some work to do in the office. There’s a TV in the living room.”

  “I’ll make my sandwich, then read in my room.”

  “Fine. We feed at six.”

  The statement drew her up short. Six? It would be dark. Why feed in the dark?

  “In the morning?”

  His expression didn’t change. “Coffee’s on at five.”

  Five? She was so not a morning person. Lillie Jean gave a quick nod. “I’ll be ready at six.”

  * * *

  LILLIE JEAN’S ROOM was dark and quiet when Gus passed it on his way down the hall the next morning. He’d showered the night before, and shaved. The lip prints were starting to fade, but not fast enough for his liking. He owed Mimi some payback.

  The coffeepot was on a timer and the coffee had just finished brewing when he snapped on the kitchen light. He poured a cup and leaned back against the sink as he took his first sip of the nerve-jolting brew. He was a morning person, which had made tending bar a challenge at times, and coffee gave him that extra bit of energy he needed to tackle the day. He loved the stuff.

  He also loved this part of the day. The quiet before the storm. A chance to sit at the table and gather his thoughts while the possibilities of the day stretched out before him. There was no sign of movement in Lillie Jean’s room. He didn’t know what time she’d gone to bed, but when he’d emerged from his office the night before, and stopped by the kitchen for a glass of water before calling it a night, light had shone from under her door.

  The one thing he didn’t need help with was feeding, but he figured that if Lillie Jean experienced life on the ranch, understood what he did and why, saw the connection between the work and the land, that perhaps she’d work with him when it came time for her to sell. It was just a theory, but his gut was telling him to keep her close—but not too close. Sal’s house was perfect. He was glad she’d come up with the idea.

  If none of the pregnant cows looked like they were going to calve that morning, he’d head to town and get his twin bed from the apartment over the pub. He rarely used it, and if, for some reason, he needed to spend the night in town, he’d use the blow-up thing that he’d had in college. It still held air—for most of the night, anyway.

  At quarter to six, the bedroom door opened, and Lillie Jean headed down the hall to the bathroom, Henry’s paws clicking on the floor behind her. The sound of her footsteps made his body tense, but he reminded himself that this was his reality. He had a partner. And when she sold, he’d have a different partner. All he was doing now was buying time, but maybe, with time, he could come up with a way out of this mess.

  Gus set down his coffee and went to the mudroom to shrug into his coat. The air wasn’t quite as cold as it had been the past few mornings, but it still nipped at him. He unplugged the tractor and started it, leaving it to idle as he went back to the house. Lillie Jean was in the kitchen, her loosely braided hair falling over one shoulder as she dressed Henry in his sweater. She looked tired and the butterfly suture covering the bruise over her eyebrow gave him a twinge of guilt.

  “Do I have time for a cup of coffee after I walk Henry?” she asked.

  He pulled a cup out of the cupboard and filled it before handing it to her, handle out. She took it with a grateful expression on her face, which made him wonder if she’d gotten much sleep the night before. She closed her eyes as she sipped her coffee, then drew in a breath, as if steeling herself for what lay ahead.

  “Maybe you could let Henry tour the front yard on his own. I closed the gate when I came in.”

  “Yes. That’s a good idea.” She let the little dog outside. When she came back, Gus topped off both their cups. Lillie Jean finished her second cup of coffee in record time and set down the cup. “I’m ready for...whatever.”

  He jerked his head toward the mudroom. “Let’s go.”

  After she was once again bundled into his jacket, he reached for his wool cap with earflaps.

  “Really?” she asked as she gingerly took the hat from him.

  “You may as well learn to dress like a rancher, since technically you are one.” Or will be one. “Those fleece hats don’t cut it when the wind blows.”

  “I thought ranchers wore cool cowboy hats.”

  “Not on a cold morning when they’re feeding the cows.”

  Lillie Jean gave him a dubious look as he reached for a cowboy hat. “Where’s your Elmer Fudd hat?”

  “In your hand.” He opened the door and Henry dashed in. Lillie Jean took off the dog’s sweater, told him to be a good boy, then followed as Gus led the way out the door and across the driveway to where the tractor idled. This time Lillie Jean knew the drill. She waited for him to climb the stairs into the cab before following. Once inside she shut the door. The cab felt just as claustrophobic as it had the previous morning. Maybe a little more so, because it seemed like he was even more aware of Lillie Jean—which he would have said was utterly impossible the day before.

  “What exactly is my job?”

  “You open gates and watch.”

  He lifted the bucket high enough to allow him a field of vision beneath it and headed for the haystack, wondering how it was, that despite the chilly air that made the diesel fumes hang low, all he could smell was the faint scent of lilacs.

  * * *

  LILLIE JEAN KNEW enough to wait until Gus had put the tractor in neutral before she opened the door and climbed down the steps at the first metal gate, which fastened with a wraparound chain—no levers and loops to confound her. She opened the gate and waited as the big tractor rolled by.

  Kate would be impressed—not by the gate opening, but by the fact that Lillie Jean was up at dawn and out in the cold. She scrambled back up the steps into the warm cab and pulled the door shut. Gus’s arm brushed hers as he put the machine in a forward gear, and she did her best to ignore the fact that they bumped shoulders every time the tractor
lurched. She was out of her element, but that was good for personal growth. Right?

  She closed her eyes as the tractor swayed. She was tired. She hadn’t had enough caffeine. She was riding in a tractor with a guy she hadn’t known existed a few days ago, but who was now a part of her life—until she sold the ranch, anyway.

  Sold the ranch. It was crazy that such an option even existed. It was so far out of what she would have considered the realm of possibility less than a month ago that it still kind of boggled her mind. But here she was. And she was staying for a while.

  After her grandfather passed away, Lillie Jean had lost her last anchor, other than Kate, who had a full-to-the-brim life and didn’t need to add Lillie Jean’s issues to her load. Late last night, as she’d stared at the ceiling, willing herself to sleep, she’d concluded that staying at the ranch was an anchor of sorts. Temporary or not, it provided a base, a place where she could get her footing as she waited for life to smack her with the next unexpected blow. Because at this point, she was fully expecting another bad surprise.

  Was all the stuff happening to her payback for the charmed life she’d led prior to losing her mother? Because until then, everything had gone her way. She’d gotten a design school scholarship, a coveted internship. Andrew proposed. A Thread in Time had taken off almost as soon as they’d hung out the shingle. Isabella, an up-and-coming Austin musician, had essentially become a patron of the business. Lots of good things, one after the other.

  And now one bad thing after another, the latest being the discovery that her grandparents had shared a big secret. They’d been runaway lovers.

  She gave a slightly choked laugh, felt Gus glance her way, but kept her eyes front and center. She didn’t need to see the quizzical expression in his eyes. Didn’t need to feel that jolt of connection she knew would follow. He slowed as they approached a haystack.

  A week or two in Montana and she’d see things more clearly, have an idea of where she wanted to go and what kind of new business she wanted to build. She’d keep her hands busy and her mind would settle. And maybe she’d start to feel some sparks of creativity.

  Maybe she’d get lucky and sell the ranch immediately.

  One could hope.

  Gus edged the tractor to the haystack. The stack swayed as the bucket made contact, then he pulled a lever and the big claw above the bucket came down, impaling the giant bale and tipping it back into the bucket.

  Gus put the tractor in reverse, lowered the bucket and started toward another gate, which Lillie Jean opened. He motioned for her to stay put, then drove into a smaller pasture and set the bale on the ground next to a large metal feeder. He climbed down from the cab, pulled knife from his pocket and cut the strings, expertly folding them into a single coil as he circled the huge bale. A few seconds later, he was back in the cab, lifting sections of hay and setting them in the feeder.

  He made two trips between the haystack and the feeders, Lillie Jean waiting at the gate, watching, shivering despite being wrapped in the big coat.

  Cows and calves were pressing against the gate on the opposite side of the field and after the last feeder was filled, Gus crossed to open it. After the cattle had poured through and were pushing and shoving at the feeders, he got back in the tractor and headed for Lillie Jean, who was all but hopping up and down with cold.

  When she got into the warm cab, she gave an uncontrollable shiver.

  “The cold came up through my feet,” she muttered.

  Gus frowned as he glanced down at her running shoes. “Yeah. It does that. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Maybe I can play a more active role in the future. Then my feet won’t freeze to the ground.”

  “Now that you’ve seen the routine, we’ll keep you moving.”

  “What now?” Lillie Jean asked as they approached the barn.

  “We feed the cats, throw some hay to the horses, check the heavy bunch.” She frowned at him and he clarified. “The pregnant cows.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “If I wasn’t going to town, I’d start working on the fences. They sag in the winter and need to be fixed every spring. And I have to service the tractor.”

  “What else do you do to fill your days?”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “There’s always something. The sheds need repairs,” he said drily.

  That was an understatement, but she’d noticed stacks of siding and roofing beside some of the most decrepit buildings.

  “Later in the spring the fields need to be attended to. Weeds need to be chopped, the roads need to be graded.” He pulled the tractor back into its parking place and turned off the engine before reaching across her to open the door, making her wonder if that was a gentlemanly maneuver, or because she had a hard time with the sticky latch. Or maybe, like her, he wanted to escape close confines. Lillie Jean climbed down the steps, her frozen feet stinging as they hit the hard ground.

  “Does it ever warm up?”

  He smiled a little. “Gets into the nineties in the summer.”

  “That hot?” she asked mildly.

  “Ninety is pretty much sweltering to me.”

  She rolled her eyes, but said, “Yes. Ninety is hot. But you get used to it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’d rather be cold than hot?”

  “Without question.”

  “I can see why Grandpa moved to Texas.” As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. An odd look crossed Gus’s face, and she pushed aside her regret and forged on, facing the truth. “But he didn’t leave because of the cold, did he?”

  “No.”

  “His actions had far-reaching consequences.”

  Gus’s face had gone stony, but his voice was surprisingly gentle as he said, “Probably farther-reaching than he ever imagined.”

  * * *

  LILLIE JEAN WENT quiet after mentioning her grandfather and his reasons for leaving Montana for Texas. Except for a few duty questions about feeding, she remained quiet as they finished the chores, and he couldn’t help but feel for her. In a distant, partnership kind of way, of course. He jammed the hay hooks he’d used to move the smaller bales into the stack and turned to find Lillie Jean staring at the hooks with a thoughtful expression.

  “If I wrote murder mysteries, those would play a role.”

  “They do look kind of lethal,” he admitted.

  “Kind of?”

  He smiled a little as they headed for the door. “When I was a kid, they were part of our pirate gear. We’d jam the handle up our sleeve to make a hook hand.”

  “You were a pirate?”

  “And the barn was the ship.” She gave him a sideways look, which he met with a sideways look of his own. Two cautious people connecting—even though one of them didn’t want to. “It’s not as much fun to play cowboy when you’re living cowboy, but we did that, too.”

  “We?”

  “There were some kids on the adjoining property.” The property Carson Craig now owned.

  “But you grew up in Oregon?”

  “And spent a lot of time here with Thad when I wasn’t in school. I liked being on the ranch because it was...stable.” No parents yelling at one another, and after his mom had left, no sullen father ignoring him. He glanced sideways again. “But we’re keeping things on a business level. Right?”

  Color stained her cheeks as she was caught breaking her own rules. “Yes.”

  “Kind of hard in a closed environment like this.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Nope. I can go to my house. You can go to yours. We’ll live side by side, getting together to discuss business practices, treat each other politely. Coexist.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  He stopped at the door. “Because I thin
k friendship enhances a partnership as long as it’s tempered with respect and a few ground rules.”

  “How many business partnerships have you been in?”

  “One. With Thad. It’s still working.”

  “Your experience is different from mine. I’m doing what I need to do.”

  He gave his head a small shake and stepped out of the barn just as the sun moved from behind a cloud spilling warm light onto the driveway. Lillie Jean closed the door and latched it, while he waited.

  “I’m not your partner, you know,” he said as soon as she joined him near the big rear tractor wheel.

  She frowned at him. “Technicality.”

  “It’s going to get kind of lonesome here if it’s just you and Henry.”

  “I can live with lonesome.”

  “Good thing, because there can be a lot of that.”

  “Why do you want to be friends with me?” The words came blurting out.

  He turned toward her. “I didn’t say I wanted to be friends. I’m saying I don’t believe in building fences where there doesn’t need to be one. I’m not your cheating fiancé. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

  “No offense intended, but I don’t know that,” she said stonily. Her cheeks were even pinker than before. “And my fiancé didn’t cheat. Not in the romantic sense.”

  “I wasn’t talking in a romantic sense. He cheated you out of your business—right?”

  “In a very legal way. Once he decided he didn’t want to marry me, he and Taia, the third partner, joined forces to ease me out.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that happening here. It isn’t like Thad and I can gang up on you.”

  “There are other ways to gang up on a person. I want things kept on a professional level.”

  “Lillie Jean...you’re stubborn.”

  “No, Gus. First I was foolish. Now I’m a survivor.”

  * * *

  SHE WAS A SURVIVOR. Her mother had been a survivor, too. Janice Ann Hardaway might have gotten pregnant young, and her man may have disappeared before her baby was born, but she’d not only made a life for herself, she’d given her daughter a picture-perfect childhood. Lillie Jean had grown up knowing the facts about her dad, but had never been encouraged to be bitter about them. Her father hadn’t been up to being a father, and that was that.