The Man From Montana. Mary Forbes J.

wash his hands. “In a mood” was the old man’s reference to Daisy’s monthlies. “She’s upset about a couple things, yeah.”

      “What things?”

      “Wants us to rent out the cottage to a reporter.”

      Tom snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

      “New one hired on with the Times. Drove out here this morning while we were moving the yearlings.”

      “You tell him we’re not interested?” The chair whined behind Ash. In his mind’s eye, he saw his stepfather pressing a lever, raising the seat so he could maneuver his stump legs into the open slot Ash had constructed under the counter years ago.

      “Not him. Her.” A sassy-mouthed woman with big eyes.

      “Her?”

      Ash leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. The reporter splashing the ASPCA story across the front of the Rocky Times twenty years ago had been a woman and Hanson Senior’s wife.

      Tom slapped cheese and ham onto a slice of bread, cut the tomatoes deftly with his right hand.

      “What’d you tell this reporter?”

      “That she’s not welcome.” He glanced toward the stairs, warned, “Daiz sees it differently. Figures we need the money.”

      “Huh.” Right hand and left prosthesis worked in sync over the sandwiches. “What’s her name?”

      “Rachel Brant.”

      Silence. Then, “Brant, huh?” More slicing and buttering. “Suppose we could use the extra cash.”

      Ash straightened. “You crazy?”

      Tom shrugged. “Why not? Place is sitting empty. Might as well burn it down if we ain’t gonna use it. Besides, with calving season starting, Inez’ll be feeding extra hands over the next couple months.”

      Inez, their housekeeper and Tom’s caretaker, was in Sweet Creek at the moment, buying two weeks’ worth of groceries. “We’ll get by,” Ash grumbled. “We always do.” He did not need the Brant woman here, within walking distance, within sight. She was a journalist and he would bet a nosy one, prying until she got a barrel of tidbits to create a stir with her words. “Stories,” they called those reports. He knew why. More fiction than fact.

      And with her working at the Times, talking to publisher–owner Shaw Hanson Jr…. Hell, Hanson probably sent her to the Flying Bar T as a dig on the McKees. After all, Ash had gone after Hanson for sending Marty Philips to sniff out that mad-cow scare. Two days following Susie’s death because of that cocky young kid, Ash walked into the newspaper and kicked ass.

      And where did that get you, Ash?

      Tossed in the hoosegow for three days.

      Tom buttered six additional slices, cut another two tomatoes, assembling enough for a soup kitchen. “You said Daisy was in a snit over a couple things. What’s the other thing?”

      “Social studies project.”

      Across the counter, his stepfather eyed Ash under a line of bushy gray brows. “You wanted it done yesterday.”

      “No. I don’t want her bugging you.”

      That narrowed Tom’s eyes. “Me?”

      “She’s supposed to interview a vet for war facts.”

      “Huh. Don’t they have textbooks for that?”

      “They do, but this time the kids are supposed to get it from the horse’s mouth. So to speak.”

      “Well, this old horse ain’t talking.” The chair hummed as Tom wheeled around to the range. “Same reason you don’t talk about Susie,” he muttered.

      Same reason? Hell, there were things Ash would never share with his family. Like the day he’d buried Susie. How he’d gone back at dusk and sat where he’d put her ashes and cried until he puked. How he pounded his fists against the sun-dried earth, cussing that she’d known better than to drive after drinking, a fact he found out from the coroner four days later.

      Alcohol at three in the afternoon.

      Alcohol affecting her competence.

      No seat belt. Busted windshield. Busted brain.

      God help him, but Susie’s disregard was his secret. Not Tom’s, and never, never Daisy’s.

      His pain. His business. Like Tom with Nam.

      Ash pushed away from the counter. Patting the old man’s shoulder, he said, “I’ll tell Daiz to wash up.”

      At her computer in the cramped newsroom of the Rocky Times, Rachel put her face into her hands and took a long, deep breath. Yesterday she had gone about it wrong, driving out to the Flying Bar T, trying to get past Ash McKee and his warhorse.

      God, when she thought of the rancher and that animal… They exuded a beauty and authority that kept her enthralled for twenty-four hours. McKee’s pole-erect back, his muscular thighs controlling the animal whose charcoal forelock shrouded its eyes. The man himself blocking the sunlit sky with his mountain-wide shoulders, his Stetson.

      She rose and went to the window beside her desk, drew up the dusty blinds, welcoming the sunlight. Shaw had swept the sidewalk clear of snow. On this last day of January, the sky promoted a bank of gray snow clouds to the north, which meant that before midnight February would be whistling its way over the landscape.

      Several pickups drove down Cardinal Avenue, their wheels churning the previous night’s snowfall into a crusted brown blend. Across the street, a two-tone green crew-cab angle-parked in front of Toole’s Ranch Supplies.

      Ash McKee stepped down into the crystalized mush. As he closed the door of his vehicle, his gaze collided with hers across the street. Rachel drew a sharp breath. Again, she saw him on that sweat-flanked horse, smelled the steamy hide of animal, the leather of the saddle as the rancher leaned down toward her….

      He turned and disappeared inside Toole’s.

      Ash. Here in town. Tom, alone on the ranch.

      Rachel snatched up the phone on her desk. In the face of what she wanted, Ash McKee was a massive problem. Local lore, gleaned at Old Joe’s Bakery and Darby’s coffee shop down the street, said he was not a man to take lightly. And when did that stop you, Rachel? You’ve met men far more daunting than this one. Case in point, your father and Floyd Stephens.

      This was her chance. Phone Tom while his son was twenty miles away, talk to the old soldier about the guesthouse first, give him a reason to speak with her. Later, she could bring up the story.

      “At all costs, get the story.” Her father’s mantra.

      Nerves and guilt lifted the hair on her nape. Don’t think. Do. Her fingers shook, but she punched the number without stumbling. At the other end the phone rang twice, three times, six times.

      “Come on, pick up or at least get an answering machine.”

      Eight rings… “’Lo.”

      “Mr. McKee?”

      “Yeah?”

      “My name is Rachel Brant.” She glanced toward the window. No Ash. “I was out your way yesterday to see you, but—” she couldn’t stop the edgy chuckle “—your cattle were in the way, so I wasn’t able to—”

      “You the reporter?”

      “I, uh—yes, that’s right. I work at the Rocky Times.”

      Silence.

      “I’d like to talk to you, sir, if you have a moment.”

      “You’re looking to rent the cottage.”

      So Ash had relayed the information. “If possible.”

      “Ain’t