Montana Homecoming

by Jeannie Watt

  “True. I wasn’t trying to make it sound easy. But if you’re going to change jobs, you might take a long hard look at what you want to do for the next decade. Maybe you want to continue in your chosen field, maybe not.”

  “My job is my job. I’m happy working nine to five and starting my real life after the workday is over.” She stirred the ice in her drink with the straw. “But you’re lucky to have found something you love.”

  Something I love that is on the verge of giving me ulcers.

  The thought crept into Cassie’s head, and she ushered it right back out again. All jobs had their ups and down, their pros and cons.

  “I am,” she said simply.

  “Hey, Darby. Knocked anything over lately?” Darby’s hand jerked at the sound of Ray Quentin’s voice from directly behind her, sending her diet coke flying. Ray started laughing as Cassie jumped to her feet while Darby sat staring at the cola-covered table as if in shock.

  “Don’t just stand there laughing like an idiot,” Cassie growled. “Go to the bar and get something to clean this up.”

  “I’m not cleaning up.” Ray gave her an incredulous look.

  Cassie drew herself up to her full administrator height. “Yeah. You are. This is your fault. You need to help take care of it.” From the corner of her eye she saw Darby shake the cola off her hands and then get to her feet.

  “I’ll get a bar rag,” she said.

  “Don’t.” Cassie spoke in a no-nonsense voice. Darby did not need to clean up her ex’s mess, but her friend ignored her and headed across the room. But at least she was out of harm’s way.

  Cassie brought her attention back to Ray. She had to tip her head back to do so, but she’d stared down more than one big blowhard in her career. Most of them crumbled. Eventually.

  Ray puffed out his chest and stepped closer. “How is Darby’s clumsiness my fault?” he asked in a low voice.

  Cassie raised her eyebrows. “You purposely scared her to get laughs from your friends. Kind of low-hanging fruit, wouldn’t you say? Can’t you do better?” All her training had taught her not to draw lines in the sand. Not to set up a situation where a person had to act in order to avoid being humiliated.

  It felt good to ignore her training and go with her gut. This jerk had hurt Darby for the last time.

  “You might be surprised at what I can do.”

  She sensed someone coming up behind her and gave a quick glance over her shoulder before immediately reestablishing eye contact with Ray. “I’ve got this,” she muttered to Travis, who was now standing at her shoulder.

  “You don’t,” he murmured back.

  “Leave this to me,” Cassie said. She meant it.

  “You are in over your head,” Travis whispered as they both stared down Ray. “Gus will take care of this.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Ray had watched their between-the-teeth exchange with a look of growing amusement. “Are you here to help, Travis?” he asked in a loud voice.

  “Travis, please. Let me handle this,” Cassie said without looking at him. She felt him move closer instead of farther away.

  “Travis, please,” Ray said in a mocking voice. “Go back to your bar stool and let the little woman handle this. Or should I say...” His mouth twisted into an ugly smirk before he completed the sentence with a word that few people said in public. Even in a bar.

  Something snapped in Cassie’s brain as the word left his liver lips, and before she was aware of moving, the contents of her glass covered the front of Ray’s plaid cowboy shirt. Ice cubes clattered on the table and fell to the floor at his feet.

  Cassie’s gaze jerked down at her empty glass. Had she really just done that?

  Another ice cube clinked to the floor.

  Oh yes, she had.

  Ray looked down at his shirt, took a moment to flick away the lime wedge caught on his trophy rodeo buckle, then slowly raised his gaze.

  His eyes were like black bits of coal on the edge of igniting. Travis’s hand settled on Cassie’s shoulder as Ray shoved the table out of the way, leaving nothing between the two of them but air and anger. Travis pulled, Cassie dug in, more because her brain had frozen than because she wanted to stand in front of the human equivalent of an angry bull.

  “Move!” Travis pushed her to one side and her shoe hit the spot where the drink had landed, causing her foot to skid sideways. She almost went down, hitting her elbow on the table before she clutched at it and righted herself. As she fought to catch her balance, she got bumped again, then heard the distinctive sound of a fist connecting with flesh. Travis’s flesh.

  Ray reared back to swing again, but Travis launched himself at the man, catching him off-balance. He grabbed ahold of Ray’s arm as the man staggered and wrenched it up between his shoulder blades. Ray let out a roar, but Travis held fast.

  “Back off, Cassie,” Travis said from between clenched teeth.

  For once in her life, she did as Travis said, moving numbly away from the two men. Darby took hold of her arm and pulled her to the edge of the circle of people who were trying to get a closer look at the action.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Gus Hawkins said to Ray’s friends as he came around the bar with his small bat. He needn’t have bothered, as they were in the process of drifting toward the rear exit, abandoning their buddy.

  “If he’ll go peacefully, just let him leave with his friends,” Travis said, the strain of holding the man reflected in his voice.

  “You have to call the authorities,” Cassie said. “You can’t let him get away with this.”

  “Let him leave,” Travis repeated in a deadly voice.

  “There’s a deputy on his way,” Gus said to Ray. “If I were you, I’d be gone before he gets here.”

  “You gonna file charges?”

  “Am I going to see you in here anytime soon?”

  “No.” Ray practically spit the word.

  Gus nodded and Travis slowly released the man.

  Ray rolled his shoulders before turning to Cassie and giving her a look that made her back up a half step. Then the big man abruptly turned and stalked toward the door his friends had slipped out.

  Travis was breathing hard. When the door closed behind Ray, he put his hands on his thighs and dropped his head to catch his breath.

  “Sorry I didn’t get out here sooner,” Gus said. “I was dealing with a faulty tapline in the basement when Darby came barreling down the stairs to get me.” He, too, was breathing hard.

  “No worries,” Travis said.

  No worries if you didn’t count the fact that his face was swelling up at an alarming rate.

  “You should have pressed charges,” Cassie said. “He assaulted you.”

  Travis raised his head to give her a cold look. “And you committed a battery.”

  “What?” She glanced at Gus, who nodded.

  “Throwing a drink is assault,” he said grimly. “You’re an educator and with social media being what it is, and all his friends filming with their phones—”

  Cassie raised her hands. “I get it.” There was nothing the people she’d crossed in her school district would like better than to have some ammo against her. “I...I’m so sorry, Gus.”

  “You didn’t start it,” he said gruffly.

  Travis said nothing. He simply stood with a grim expression on his rapidly swelling face. She couldn’t tell if he was angry at her or Ray or the way things had gone down, but he was definitely fuming. “Do you want to go to the clinic?” she asked in a small voice.

  “I do not.”

  “It’s over, folks,” Gus said to the gawking patrons who hadn’t resumed drinking. “Sorry about the disturbance. The guy’s lucky Thad wasn’t here.”

  The mention of his elderly uncle got a few laughs and people once again settled into their s
eats. Darby and the server busied themselves wiping up the mess that Cassie and Ray had made, leaving Cassie to face Travis.

  Before she could stutter out some of the words swirling through her brain, he met her gaze dead-on. “Don’t say a word.”

  She said a word. “Fine.”

  His mouth flattened as he once again ran a hand over his swelling eye, causing a wave of guilt to wash over her. She’d allowed herself to lose control and Travis had paid the price.

  “I’m so sorry,” Darby said to Travis after the server had taken the wet cleaning towel from her and headed back to the bar. “I didn’t mean—”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Travis interrupted in a gentler tone. He briefly met Cassie’s gaze, shook his head, then turned and walked back to the bar. Gus pushed the table back into place and righted a chair that had been knocked over.

  “We need to leave,” Cassie said to Darby, who still seemed to be shaking off the shock of what had happened.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Gus said. “Just in case.”

  “Thank you,” Cassie and Darby murmured at the same time.

  As they reached the door, Cassie glanced back to see Travis accepting a plastic bag of ice from the pretty sever, which he then pressed to his face. He didn’t look at her, but he must have seen her in the mirror behind the bar, because she swore his shoulders tightened before she finally pulled her gaze away and went out the door Darby was holding open.

  “Not your fault,” her friend said after they were safe in the car. “Things just...happened.”

  “Thanks.”

  But regardless of whose fault it was or wasn’t, she owed Travis McGuire one big apology and that was not a comfortable feeling.

  * * *

  TRAVIS MUTTERED A low curse when he rounded the last corner before the ranch and saw that the lights were still on. Of all the nights for his grandfather, who was usually in bed by nine unless he went to a county commissioner meeting, to stay up, it had to be tonight, when Travis was in no mood to answer questions. His grandfather wasn’t a man who was easily put off when he wanted answers, and Travis was fairly certain that he’d want to know why his grandson was returning from a date with a black eye.

  Maybe Will had fallen asleep watching TV.

  Travis shot a look at the dash clock. It wasn’t that late, but Will was a creature of habit. In bed by nine at the latest. It was ten thirty. A whisper of hope went through him.

  If Will was asleep, then he could slip into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom undetected, and then he could deal with the inevitable black-eye questions in the morning, because they were coming. He’d still have the black eye, but he’d also have time to cool down. The slow drive home had allowed him time to fume and his anger was still simmering.

  He was ticked at himself for not intervening as soon as he saw Ray Quentin leave his friends, his target obviously Darby, his former girlfriend. Maybe he could have headed the man off. And he was angry at Cassie for not backing down from a dangerous situation after Darby had removed herself from harm’s way.

  How hard would it have been to step back when he got there instead of facing off with that mountain? He might have been able to defuse the situation if she had. It wouldn’t have been the first time he and Ray had exchanged pleasantries in the bar, and he’d always been able to bring the man around to his way of thinking. But no.

  But he couldn’t blame Cassie for throwing the drink. It’d been all he could do not to throttle the man when the filthy word left his lips, but instead he focused on getting Cassie out of the line of fire—which put him directly into it.

  Mostly, though, he was angry with Ray Quentin and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. If he’d had Ray charged, then Ray would have retaliated against Cassie, and Travis wasn’t going to have that.

  Better to have Ray banned from the bar.

  Travis eased open the kitchen door, hoping the blare of the television would drown out the sounds of him slipping through the kitchen, but instead he heard the distinctive heavy tread of his grandfather’s socked feet crossing the living room.

  Excellent. Short of switching off the light and making a dash for the stairs under the guise of desperate times calling for desperate measures, he had no choice but to collect himself and calmly answer questions.

  “How’d the date go?” Will asked as he walked into the room.

  “Not exactly as planned.” Travis pulled off his hat and raised his chin, and Will let out a sharp exclamation.

  “Did Cassie Callahan do that?” Will’s shocked expression would have been comical under different circumstances.

  “Not purposely.” He’d give her that.

  His grandfather approached slowly, as if a bruised eye was contagious. He put a finger to Travis’s chin and turned his head slightly.

  “That’s going to be one nice shiner. Who did it?”

  “Ray Quentin. Long story.”

  “I have nothing but time,” Will said, standing back and regarding his grandson with a perplexed frown.

  Travis turned to hang his hat on the hooks by the door, then succinctly outlined the events in the bar. Ray had picked on Darby; Cassie had jumped to her defense. Ray called her a filthy name and Cassie had then assaulted Ray with her drink. Shortly thereafter, Travis was the proud bearer of a swollen eye.

  When he was done, Travis idly rubbed his hand over the sore spot. There really wasn’t much more to say than that he was pretty ticked off with Cassie taking her stubborn stand and Will didn’t need to know that.

  “Want to put a steak on that?”

  “Maybe an ice pack,” Travis allowed, heading to the freezer and pulling out a frozen bag of peas. Close enough.

  “Do I dare ask how dinner went?”

  “Well enough. Cassie didn’t start any fights. There.” Travis sucked in a breath as the cold plastic made contact with his tender flesh.

  “Sounds like there were extenuating circumstances in the bar.”

  “Yeah. And if she’d backed down instead of drawing a line, then maybe... I don’t know.” He wasn’t going to get into it with his grandfather. “It’s done.”

  “Is it?”

  Travis pressed the peas more firmly to the rapidly numbing side of his face. “For now. Yes.”

  “And later?”

  Good question. Excellent question.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll work things out.” He pressed the peas more firmly to his eye as the cold numbed the flesh.

  Will gave a short snort. “I can’t wait to see what that looks like.”

  Travis’s mouth tightened but he refrained from giving a response, because frankly, he was of the same mind.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TRAVIS WOKE BEFORE the first pink streaks of dawn appeared above the mountains to the east, the throbbing on the right side of his face making it impossible to sleep. After a few mighty attempts to talk himself into feeling no pain, he lay staring at the ceiling, doing his best to think about anything but Cassie and Ray and the events of the previous evening.

  Unfortunately, his sore face kept bringing up the subject.

  They were going to talk today. Hash this thing out.

  This muddled thing, because he had no idea what his objective was. To not get himself slugged again?

  He rubbed a hand over the good side of his face. Cassie was driving him nuts, only in a different way this time. He was angry with her for stubbornly putting herself in harm’s way, and the what-ifs had eaten at him during his restless night.

  What if, after shoving that table aside, Ray had taken a swing at Cassie instead of him? The thought chilled him.

  Why had he taken so much time to get Cassie out of the line of fire?

  And again, why had Cassie not just backed down when he’d told her to?

  Because Cassie was never going to do what
he told her to do.

  The room was growing light when he heard his grandfather in the kitchen, clattering around as he made coffee. His head throbbed when he got to his feet, but felt better after a quick shower.

  He inspected the bruise after patting his face dry. Yeah. It was a good one. His eye wasn’t swollen entirely shut, but it would be a while before he had any real depth perception. After dressing in his work clothes, he followed the smell of the dark brew into the kitchen and his grandfather let out a low whistle when he saw Travis’s face.

  “That’s bloomed nicely.”

  Travis gingerly ran his palm over the swelling. “Looks worse that it feels.”

  Will gave a disbelieving snort and poured Travis a cup of coffee. “What are your plans for the day?”

  They started every morning this way. Shared coffee, then an outline of the day before Travis started morning chores. Will rarely ate breakfast, but Travis would grab something during his break between feeding cows and starting whatever was on the top of the to-do list that day.

  “I’m heading out later this morning,” he said.

  “Any place in particular?”

  “I...uh...mentioned to Cassie that I’d give her a hand with the McHenry mare.”

  Will’s iron gray eyebrows drew together. “That’s nice of you, all things considered.”

  Travis gave a careless shrug and sipped his coffee. The less said, the better. Will seemed to understand his tactic. He shot his grandson a few suspicious looks, as if wondering what good could possibly come of the two of them working together, but did not resurrect the matter.

  After finishing his coffee, Travis put on his boots and hat, shrugged into a light denim jacket and headed out the door. The fresh air felt good against his battered face and he breathed deeply. There were times when the sameness of his days brought a sense of serenity and satisfaction, and other times when he needed something, anything, to break the cycle of boredom that stretched on between ranch emergencies.

  Today fell somewhere in the middle. The chores didn’t require a lot of thought, but whatever awaited him on the Callahan ranch would not be boring.