by Liz Isaacson
“She won’t be alone,” Bishop said, whispering right in her ear now. “Tripp said Ollie’s got a job up there too, and he’ll bring him to your place too. Wyatt will take them both.”
Montana shivered with the nearness of Bishop, the tantalizing scent of his cologne and the sweet minty scent of his breath.
She could kiss him in a minute, because there were still plenty of questions to be answered.
“Tripp?” she asked. “Why would Tripp bring Ollie to my place?”
Bishop pulled back and looked at her, clear confusion in his eyes. “Why wouldn’t he? Ollie’s his son.”
Ollie’s his son.
Those three words filled Montana’s bloodstream with ice. Her eyes widened as her mouth dropped open. Horror and betrayal and disbelief snaked through her, filling the spaces the ice left behind with darkness and fear.
“No,” she said. “Ollie’s last name is not Walker.” Unless Aurora had lied about that too. She shook her head, because she couldn’t stand the thought of Aurora lying to her at all. “It’s not. Aurora introduced him as Oliver Osburn.”
“Yeah,” Bishop said. “But his mom remarried after her divorce. She married Tripp Walker. They live out on Quail Creek, down the road from Rhett and his family, and like ten minutes from Seven Sons.” He searched her face, and Montana wondered what he saw there. “You’ve never gone to pick her up there?”
“I have,” Montana said. “I’ve never seen Tripp Walker.” Her emotions had morphed to anger now, and she turned around, surveying how much work they had left to do. She wanted to leave now and get to Aurora. Grab her by the shoulders and demand she tell her the truth.
You already know the truth.
She pressed one hand to her chest, trying to calm her heartbeat, and the other to her mouth, trying to contain the moan. Her eyes drifted closed too, as she suddenly felt sweaty and like she might faint.
She swayed on her feet, and Bishop said, “Okay, I’ve got you.” He took her into his arms, his chest pressing into her back and keeping her on her feet. “Montana, love, I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
She shook her head, but with her eyes closed and her heart still racing, the motion only disoriented her further. Tears pressed behind her eyes, and she hated that stupid Tripp Walker had caused them.
Turning, she pressed her face to Bishop’s chest as her eyelids couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice high-pitched and her next breath wheezing into her lungs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why this has upset me so much.”
“It’s fine,” Bishop murmured, his hands firm and steady against her back. He rubbed in large circles, his heartbeat clear and strong in her ears.
Montana focused on his touch and looked up at him. “How do I carry this burden? I can’t do it anymore. How do you let go of it all?” Tears streamed down her face, and Bishop smiled at her with pain in his eyes. He wiped her face with his tender yet tough hands and shook his head.
“I would take it for you if I could, sweetheart.” His smile wobbled on his face. “The only thing that’s worked for me is to give it to the Lord. He takes it, and He shoulders it somehow—at least for a little while.” He swallowed, his vulnerability matching hers in that moment.
Montana took a deep breath, trying to find her faith. She nodded and rubbed the tears from her eyes, making white sparks shoot through her vision she pressed so hard. “Yes, like Pastor Knowlton said on Sunday. We just have to come unto the Lord, and He will make our burdens light.”
Bishop nodded too, his jaw so, so tight.
“I’ve got to figure out how to do that,” Montana said. “I go to church. I read the Bible. I pray. I try to live a good, Christian life. Why don’t I know how to do this?”
Bishop drew her into his chest again, and Montana gripped him tightly. The storm inside her threatened to rip her apart, the winds so strong she felt sure she’d be swept out onto the prairie and never heard from again.
“I go somewhere quiet,” Bishop said, his voice low and husky. “Usually my dad’s grave. I talk to him for a while, and then I talk to the Lord. I beg Him—literally beg Him—to take the burden from me. He always does. Like the pastor said, it’s His nature to do so. He can’t not care for us. He can’t not take it.”
Montana needed to go right now. She stepped away from Bishop and looked around the barn, her anxiety and need to beg the Lord to take her burdens almost making her frantic.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “If you want. The cemetery is a peaceful place. It could be your place too.”
Montana drew in a deep breath, her thoughts finally quieting. “Let’s finish here first. I know you wanted to rest this afternoon, but maybe you could at least walk me there?” Her insides shook again. “I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go by myself.”
“Baby,” Bishop said, his voice strong and with all the confidence he usually possessed. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
She shook her head, those stupid tears gathering again. “I’m really not.”
“Physically, you are.” He ran his hands down her shoulders and arms to her hands, where he laced his fingers. “Have you seen your muscles?”
“Men don’t like my muscles,” she whispered.
“I love them,” Bishop said, smiling that flirty, coy smile at her. “I think they’re sexy and beautiful.”
“Stop it,” she said, her tears spilling over again. No one had ever told her all the muscles in her arms and back were sexy. They made her thick and manly and she knew it.
“I won’t,” he said, though his smile dropped. “You’ve been raising Aurora alone for a decade. That takes emotional and mental and spiritual strength I don’t understand. But I can feel it.”
Montana shook her head. “I don’t even have my own house.”
“So what?” he asked. “You have done exactly what you needed to do for her and for you. You shouldn’t be embarrassed of that.”
Montana wasn’t embarrassed of that, but she still wanted her own place. “I have so much I carry about my family,” she said. “I need to release all of that. I need to find a way to forgive them all.” She kept crying, but she didn’t care. There was so much to tell Bishop; so much he didn’t know about her.
“My mother took my ex-husband’s side in the divorce. I haven’t spoken to her in a while. She sided with Paris and Georgia when they started dating my ex-boyfriend. She’s told Jackie she shouldn’t support me so much.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure what I did to make her dislike me so much, but I stopped caring a while ago. I just haven’t been able to forgive her.”
“You can,” Bishop said. “I know you can. The Lord can carry all of that for you.”
Montana nodded, the air conditioning in the barn suddenly too cold. She shivered, and Bishop gathered her back into his arms.
“My ex-husband started seeing other people when Aurora was only three years old,” she said. “And not just women. I finally got enough courage to leave and file for divorce when he brought his boyfriend into our house.”
Bishop gasped, his whole body tightening and tensing next to hers. A moment later, he released it all. “I’m so sorry, Montana.”
“He didn’t fight me on full custody. He doesn’t talk to either me or Aurora. I know it hurts her, and I don’t know how to heal it.”
“You don’t have to heal it.”
“I think I might hate him,” Montana said. “I’m not supposed to hate people, right?”
Bishop didn’t answer, and Montana regretted telling him that she might hate Johnny. But she did. So many times, when she really thought about how she felt about what her ex-husband had done, it came down to hatred.
“I can’t answer that, sweetheart. People inflict wounds on us that take a long time to heal.”
“It feels like it will never go away,” Montana said, everything open now and about to gush out. “I don’t like my sisters. I don’t ever want to see them again. I c
ame here, and I fit here with my aunt and uncle, and it’s always been enough. Then all this stuff happened with Micah, and I just feel like I’m not meant to ever have more than what I do now. It doesn’t feel fair. I work hard—I have worked so hard. I have more training than Micah Stupid Walker. I should be the one designing and building million-dollar houses in Three Rivers. Not him.”
“I know.” Bishop rubbed those circles on her back, but they didn’t comfort her the way they had a few minutes ago.
“And now my daughter’s dating a Walker? And I was doing so good with you, and I like you so much, and now you know all these horrible things about me, and—” She cut herself off and shook her head.
She had to leave. Now.
She stepped out of his arms. “I’m sorry, Bishop.” She wiped her face and pressed her palms against her eyes. Horror filled her at all she’d said. “I have to go.” She strode away from him, her breaths coming in great gasps now.
“Montana, you don’t have to go.”
But she did. She ran the last few steps to the barn door and slid it open easily, using those muscles she had. She didn’t bother closing it, which only allowed Bishop to catch up to her faster.
“Please don’t go,” he said, latching onto her arm as she reached his truck. “I’ll drive you to the cemetery right now.”
She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t speak. The strength of his fingers around her arm meant she couldn’t leave either.
“Montana,” he said.
“I can’t,” she said.
“You can.” He gently put his hand on the side of her face and guided her attention to him. “I do not think badly of you for how you feel. Not even a little bit.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said since she’d said everything else she’d been hiding.
Bishop blinked, as if no one had ever spoken to him like that before. “You’ll have to work on that too, then. It’s not your fault the things that have happened to you.” He wore a fierce look in his eyes. “Come on. Let’s go to the cemetery.”
Montana wanted to tell him no, but she didn’t have the energy. She let him lead her around to the passenger side of the truck and help her up. He got behind the wheel and drove to the cemetery. She let him lead her to where his father and his uncle lay side-by-side, with several other graves in the small family cemetery.
He held her hand in his and told a story about his father and how he’d once ran his hand through the table saw.
“I was only fourteen,” Bishop said. “I had no idea what to do. There was blood everywhere, and just me and him in the shop. I panicked, like panicked, and all I remember was rushing over to my dad with the only towel I could find, praying out loud the whole time.”
Montana just listened, her emotions almost numb again. She preferred the numbness, actually, though she knew that was why she hadn’t been able to let go of any of the negative things she’d been carrying for so long.
“My dad looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Son, keep prayin’, but get my fingers, and go get Mother.’” Bishop gave an unhappy chuckle. “He said, ‘You’re going to have to run as fast as you can. Get them on ice, and come get me. Have someone call the hospital. You can do this.’”
He paused in the story then, and Montana just traced the letters of his father’s name on the headstone. Stone. His brother’s name was Bull.
“Are those their real names?” she asked.
“They are,” he said. “My father was like a stone. A big, heavy stone that could not be moved. He was strong in his convictions and his faith. The strongest.”
“Did you save his fingers?”
“I did,” Bishop said. “Both of them. I ran as fast as I could while praying. I got the fingers on ice while Mother radioed out to Bear and everyone else on the emergency channel. Uncle Bull was close to the wood shop, and he got Daddy. Mother and I drove the fingers to the hospital and met them there.” He stared straight down at the stones, and Montana wondered what he was really thinking. His voice was so…dark.
“We saved the fingers, and my dad was back to a limited work schedule within a week. Mother was not happy.” A smile touched his face then. “Bear and Ranger cleaned up the wood shop while we were at the hospital. I have a very, very good family.”
“Yes, you do,” Montana said. It was all Aurora and Aunt Jackie had talked about since Bishop’s birthday party, and they were thrilled to be coming back to Shiloh Ridge tonight.
“At that age, I did not think so,” Bishop said. “I wanted to wrestle. I wanted to play football. I was a fast runner, and I resented that I had to use it to run from the wood shop to the homestead instead of running to score touchdowns.” He finally looked away from the graves and out over the horizon. “I fought with my dad about it several times, until he finally exploded and told me to do whatever I wanted. If I was so smart, I could do whatever I wanted.”
Montana looked at Bishop, because she’d never heard him say anything bad about his father. Ever. He’d never said he didn’t get along with his family. Everything about him was plated in gold, and Montana should’ve known there was something more real underneath.
Everyone had a past, and everyone had things that hadn’t worked out for them. Even Bishop, she was now realizing.
Her perfect Bishop, who she’d started falling in love with.
“What did you do?”
“I wrestled, and I played football,” Bishop said, his voice haunted now. “I missed the time I usually spent with Daddy, and I missed the first signs of his cancer. If I hadn’t….” He left the sentence there.
“There was no way you could’ve known,” Montana said.
“I could’ve if I’d been around,” Bishop said. “Instead, it was Mister who was with Daddy when he doubled-over with abdominal pain and told Mother. It wasn’t the first time. Daddy had been experiencing pain like that for several months, and if I’d been around instead of at practice, we would’ve caught it sooner.”
“Bishop.”
“I quit my senior year and spent it with Daddy as he fought as hard as he could. But even a stone cannot overcome cancer when it’s as advanced and as wide-spread as Daddy’s was.” He hung his head, his regret filling the sky around them. “I didn’t mean to turn this onto me,” he whispered. “I just want you to know, my sweetheart, that things happen sometimes that we cannot control. It took me a decade to come to terms with my behavior and that what you said a few minutes ago is right. There was no way for me to really know. My father’s death is not my fault.”
He looked at her. “Just like your husband’s cheating is not yours. And your mother’s decisions are not your fault. They’re not your burden to carry.”
Montana nodded and released his hand so she could put her arm around his waist. She wanted to be as close to him physically as she was emotionally, and she relished the feeling of his arm around her shoulders, tucking him against her side.
“I’ve never told anyone about Johnny or my mother,” she said. “I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”
“Who am I going to tell?” he asked, his chuckle back to light and airy. “I’ve never told anyone what I just told you, either. Not even Bear, though he probably suspected I blamed myself for Daddy’s death for a while.”
Montana bent down and traced Stone Nelson Glover with her fingers. “I can feel his spirit,” she said. “He is strong.”
She straightened and faced Bishop this time. “I just have to tell you one more thing.”
“Anything, love.” He gazed at her with such an expression of love too, that Montana knew he was falling for her too.
“I am very cautious with my heart,” she said. “I know better than most that sometimes a person can think they’re in love when they’re just in pain.”
Bishop nodded. “I suppose you do.”
“Even when you’re engaged, that doesn’t mean you’re in love. You can even be married and not be in love.” Montana looked at him, hoping he understood. She should
just spell it out. “So I’m falling in love with you, Bishop Benson Daniel Glover, but I’m going to need time to make sure I’m really in love with you and not just feeling so great because our relationship is so much better than my real life.”
Bishop’s eyes couldn’t get any wider, and then he burst out laughing. He took her into his arms and crushed her to him. “I’m falling for you too, Montana,” he said sobering. “And my middle name isn’t Daniel.”
“What is it, then?”
“Flint,” he said, and then he kissed her. Montana matched him stroke for stroke, the intensity in the kiss slowing the longer it lasted. This was a whole new kind of kiss that spoke of their passion for one another, as well as their mutual respect, and all the emotion they’d just shared.
Montana was definitely falling in love with him, but she clung to the edge of the cliff, because she’d spoken true earlier. She knew what it was like to think she was in love when she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to do that again. She was not. She was going to make sure she was one-hundred percent healed and in love with Bishop before they talked about diamond rings or weddings.
Chapter Seventeen
Ace approached the barn, frowning when he saw the door was wide open. “Bishop?” he called, because his cousin was crazy about making sure the barn was kept closed. They weren’t paying to air condition the state of Texas in June, after all.
Bishop didn’t appear, and his truck wasn’t outside the barn either. Inside, only a few tables had been set up, and Ace paused, searching for some evidence of an injury. Something to indicate why Bishop had obviously been here but wasn’t now.
Ace turned and looked back outside. Something had definitely happened, because the plan was that he and Montana would get the barn set up that morning, and Ace would meet Holly Ann to make sure she could get into the kitchen and prepare the food for that evening’s party.
Ace pulled out his phone and called his cousin, hoping he wasn’t interrupting something, good or bad.
Bishop didn’t answer, and Ace pocketed his phone. Something niggled in his mind that Bishop wouldn’t run off and leave the barn unfinished if it wasn’t important. Ace could set up tables and chairs, and he’d arrived early, hoping to catch Bishop and talk to him about Holly Ann for a couple of minutes.