Montana Standoff. Nadia Nichols

feel like pushing.” He lost the power steering when the engine died and had to wrench the wheel hard to guide the Jeep up to the gas pumps. Never again in a million years would he be this lucky. “What did your parents have to say about all that?” he asked as they coasted to a stop.

      Molly smiled. “My mother cried and my father was so mad he called the school and threatened a lawsuit. My brothers made fun of me, like they always did, but in the end, I survived.”

      “You have beautiful hair. Those girls were just jealous.” Steven got out and filled the Jeep’s tank. Then, when they were back on the highway just south of Fort Benton, he said, “Forgive me for asking, but with a weakness like fainting at the sight of your own blood, how did you ever manage to survive growing up in a family with all those brothers?”

      “It wasn’t easy,” she admitted. “I was unconscious throughout most of my early childhood years.”

      He laughed. “You’ll have to tell me where this famous ice-cream place of yours is.”

      “It’s just before we reach Helena.” They sat in silence for a while with just the whine of tires on the highway in the background. Molly shifted in her seat, facing him again. “What does your girlfriend think about what you do?”

      Steven switched on the headlights. “No girlfriend. Makes things a lot easier.”

      “I suppose it would, especially if you’re getting death threats from a radical right-wing militia group.”

      “That was over two years ago. What about you?”

      “My death threats were all in high school.”

      “I mean, your boyfriend.”

      She stretched her legs and sat up a little straighter. “No serious boyfriend. I was too busy going to college and law school and passing the bar exams and trying to impress the law firm that finally hired me on. No time for matters of the heart.”

      “Must get kind of lonely from time to time.”

      “Sometimes,” Molly admitted. “But mostly I’ve been too preoccupied to notice.” She shifted in the seat again and he felt her eyes studying him. “Of course, that could all change in a moment’s notice,” she said. “We never know when we’re going to meet that special someone that tips us right over the edge.”

      “I guess not,” Steven said. She was so young, so naive, so painfully innocent. Still believing in that dream, still waiting for true love to tip her over the edge. But no boyfriend? That surprised him, given her natural beauty and lively personality, though he did understand about the rigors of law school. He’d spent all his time immersed in textbooks, struggling to make passing grades. Dating had been the farthest thing from his mind. He glanced at her briefly before focusing his attention back on the road. Her features were soft in the dusky light, her eyes dark, mysterious hollows in the milky paleness of her face.

      “Whenever I see an old couple strolling along, holding hands, I know that someday I want to have a relationship like that,” she said, looking out the side window. “I want to be holding my husband’s hand when I’m eighty years old, and still thinking of him as my lover and my best friend.” She was quiet for a few moments and then he felt her eyes on him again. “I learned a lot today, Steven,” she said softly. “Thank you for your patience with me.”

      WHEN STEVEN PULLED UP in front of Molly’s apartment building, her heart rate accelerated with anxiety. Their time together was rapidly running out and in spite of her attempts to reach a deeper level of communication with him, he had remained impersonally friendly. She felt vulnerable and foolish for confiding her feelings about true love, yet in spite of Steven’s maddening reticence, she found him very easy to talk to. She only wished he would reveal a little more of himself, and show a lot more interest in her. But unless he suddenly opened up in a big hurry, it seemed their nonexistent relationship was about to come to an abrupt end.

      “Would you like to come in?” she said, a clumsy shyness nearly overwhelming her ability to speak. “I owe you a meal, and I’m a great cook, especially if you like boiled cabbage. You could admire my original Remington print while I prepare you an authentic Irish supper.”

      “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to take a rain check,” Steven responded. “It’s getting late, and tomorrow’s a working day for the both of us.” He climbed out of the Jeep, opened her door, and took her hand to help her out, something no man had ever done before and he’d already done twice. He walked her up the flight of stairs and when she fumbled with the key, fingers trembling with nervousness, he took it from her, opened the door, and handed it back without a word.

      She hesitated in the doorway, desperately trying to think of a way to keep this from being a forever goodbye. Was it possible that love at first sight could happen to one person, while the other remained indifferent? Was it possible that Steven didn’t feel any of that special chemistry that flowed between them at all? “Thank you for the ice-cream cone.”

      “You’re very welcome.”

      Another painful pause. “If I can’t convince you to come inside with promises of boiled cabbage and Remington prints, I guess this is good night, Steven Young Bear.” She hoped on the one hand that she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt, and on the other that he would sweep her into his arms and kiss her breathless.

      “Good night, Molly Ferguson,” he said as he turned away.

      “Wait,” she said, taking an involuntary step after him and damning herself even as she did. “Aren’t you going to ask what my thoughts are about New Millennium Mining after today’s field trip?”

      He paused, glancing back. “I know what they are.”

      “But…” She floundered in another wave of shyness. “Aren’t you going to try to change my mind?”

      His eyes were impossible to read. “No,” he said.

      She clutched her keys tightly, sharp metal biting into her palm. “So, that’s it? You drive me to this open pit mine, show me how ugly it is, tell me that it’s killing a lot of people, and then you bring me back here and say good night. No closing arguments?”

      “No closing arguments.”

      She took a step back, thrown completely off balance by his candor. “Well, okay, then, counselor. Thank you again for everything, and good night.”

      “Good night, Molly.”

      She leaned over the stairwell and watched him walk down the stairs. He was a powerful, graceful man. Completely confident and self-possessed. She yearned for him to stop and look up at her with a parting promise that he’d call her again very soon, but he didn’t. “I had a really good time today,” she said, but she spoke the words very softly, breathed them, really, and if he heard them, he made no response.

      BACK IN HIS VEHICLE, pulling away from the curb, Steven grappled with a bewildering tangle of emotions he’d never felt before. What was it about Molly Ferguson that grabbed him and wouldn’t let go? She wasn’t the sort of person that he should be the least bit attracted to. She didn’t share or even understand his feelings about protecting the environment. To him the word gold brought images of cyanide heap-leaching pits and poisoned waterways, whereas Molly heard the word gold and thought jewelry. There was absolutely nothing about her that should appeal to him…and yet he had very nearly taken her up on that offer of an Irish supper.

      Was he that lonely and desperate that he would try to put the moves on a fellow attorney who had asked him as a courtesy to show her what the New Millennium mine on Madison Mountain would look like? She was a young and inexperienced intern just trying to understand the issues, and he had very nearly taken advantage of her. Dangerous stuff, especially when they were both involved in what could become a nasty bit of litigation between mining and environmental concerns. A definite conflict of interest.

      The drive to Bozeman was filled with a silence so oppressive that Steven turned on the radio, and while the nonstop cacophony bombarded him, he