A Montana Homecoming. Allison Leigh

      Shane was the sheriff.

      And it was a sheriff who’d arrested her father one hot summer night for something he hadn’t done. Something she’d never, ever believed he’d done.

      The brake lights of Shane’s truck—the sheriff’s truck—disappeared and Laurel finally drew in a full, cleansing breath.

      It didn’t quite stop the trembling inside her, but it helped.

      She let her gaze drift up and down the road. One way, the way Shane had driven, lay the town proper. The other way, beyond a sharp curve that skirted the stand of tall, centuries-old trees, lay nothing but miles and miles of…nothing.

      She’d come back to bury her father.

      But once she’d done that, once she’d dealt with his belongings, with the house, there was nothing else for her here. As much “nothing” as what lay beyond the curving highway.

      Unfortunately, Laurel knew as she finally turned and went back inside the house, there was nothing for her to return to in Colorado, either. No job. No home. No fiancé.

      Maybe she was just as crazy as Shane probably thought.

      Chapter Two

      “I heard you were here, but I had to see it with my own eyes.” The voice was deep and smooth as molasses and definitely amused.

      Laurel set the heavy bag of weed killer in the cart next to the bucket and cleansers she’d already put there and turned toward the voice, a smile already forming. “Reverend Golightly. I was going to call you later today.” She dashed her hand quickly down her thigh, then extended it. “It’s so good to see you.” The pleasure in her voice was real. In fact, it was the first real pleasure she’d felt in weeks, and definitely since she’d arrived in Lucius the previous day.

      He cocked an eyebrow and his light-blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh, Laurel, honey, we can do better than that.” He swept her up in a great hug, lifting her right to the tips of her toes there in the aisle of Lucius Hardware. “You’re the spitting image of your grandmother, do you know that?”

      She laughed and very nearly cried as she hugged him back. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

      “It was meant as one. In her day, Lucille was the prettiest woman in five counties. Until my Holly came to town, that is.” He grinned and settled her on her feet, keeping hold of her hands and holding them wide as he stepped back to look at her. “I’m as sorry as ditch water that it took something like this to bring you home, Laurel.”

      The knot in her throat grew. “Me, too.” She swallowed harder and peered up into his face. “You haven’t changed a bit, Reverend Golightly. How is your family?”

      His eyes crinkled again. “Beau. And they’re all fine. Stu’s fit as a fiddle,” he told her. “Still single and he’s got a small spread outside of town a bit—Hal Calhoun’s place if you remember it—plus he runs the garage down on Main Street. Evie’s running Tiff’s. She has three kids. They’re all getting on their feet a little since she and her husband divorced.”

      Laurel would be better off if she couldn’t remember Calhoun’s place. Or his barn.

      “Your wife doesn’t run Tiff’s anymore?” For all of Laurel’s childhood, her mother had been employed as a maid at the bed-and-breakfast operated by Beau’s second wife, Holly.

      “She passed away some time ago,” Beau said quietly.

      Laurel pressed her hand to her chest, dismayed. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Her conversation—if one could call it that—with Shane hadn’t gotten to such matters. And she hadn’t talked with anyone else in town since she’d arrived.

      “No reason you would, child,” he assured gently. “But she’d be pleased as punch to see you back in Lucius. Hadley took over running Tiff’s after we lost her mother, but she got married not long ago to Dane Rutherford, and now Evie’s trying her organized little hand at it.”

      Laurel paused at the name. “Dane Rutherford?”

      Beau grinned, his eyes brightening again with amusement. “The Dane Rutherford. Didn’t they have newspapers where you lived? Sure did make the news around these parts.”

      “I’ll bet,” Laurel murmured. The Rutherford name was as familiar as Rockefeller and Kennedy. She shook her head, amazed. Hadley was a few years younger than Laurel and had always had her nose in a book. How on earth had she met someone like Dane Rutherford? “Well…wow.”

      “He puts his pants on one leg at a time, too,” Beau assured mildly. “So far he seems good enough for my Hadley. And then there’s Shane, of course. He’s the sheriff, if you can believe it.”

      Her face felt a little hot. They stepped aside to let a woman bearing a flat of daisies pass. “I know. He told me my father started going to church.”

      “You’ve talked to Shane?” Beau was obviously surprised.

      “He stopped by the house yesterday.” And surprised her greatly by not coming by that morning as threatened.

      “He didn’t mention that when I saw him this morning at the hospital.”

      Her nerves jangled. “Hospital?”

      “Nasty three-car accident on the south side of town. Aside from handling the reports and such, he’s friends with one of the women who got hit. He’s probably still there.”

      Even as relief that Shane was at the hospital in his official capacity doused her nerves, an odd sense she couldn’t quite identify took its place. “I hope she’s all right.” Shane obviously hadn’t been as unsettled by their encounter as she had been, or he’d have mentioned it to his father.

      “Fortunately, no one was seriously injured,” Beau said, mercifully oblivious to Laurel’s undeniable sense of…what? Pique? Disappointment? Relief? “Now, what about you? Your father said once that you’d become a teacher.”

      Laurel nodded. In a way she was as surprised that her father had told anyone anything about her as she was that he’d evidently found religion. “Elementary education. I, um, I’ve been at a school in Denver—Clover Elementary—teaching third grade.”

      “Surprised you’re not teaching music.”

      She shook her head. She hadn’t sung in public since the day her mother died.

      Fortunately, Beau let that topic lie as he surveyed the items in her cart. “Looks like you’re planning on exercising your elbows a bit.”

      “I’m staying at Dad’s place. It needs some work.” He probably knew that.

      “Well, if you decide you prefer staying elsewhere, you just give Evie a call. I know she can come up with a room for you at Tiff’s that would be comfortable.”

      Whether or not she could, Laurel wouldn’t be able to afford it. Not even if Tiff’s room rates hadn’t budged a dime in the past decade. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

      Beau’s smile was ever kind, as if he’d divined her thoughts perfectly. “It’s good to have you back, Laurel. Everything is going to be fine.” He hugged her shoulder. “Now. We’ll need to talk about the service for your father sooner or later, but I can see you’re plenty busy and I’m on my way over to the hospital for my afternoon visitations. You just let me know when you’re ready to talk about it, and I’m at your disposal. In the meantime, though, you can still call me if you need anything at all.”

      Why it was so much easier to take that advice from Beau than it was from his son, Laurel didn’t know. But where she’d bristled at Shane’s command, she was touched now by Beau’s concern, and she gave him a hug back. “I will. Thank you.”

      He gave her a little wink and headed down the wide aisle.

      Laurel