The Man From Montana. Mary Forbes J.

of town.

      Of course, the kid had done it. Picturing her boy—with her July-blue eyes and burnt-brown hair, probably minus a front tooth—in that dump of a motel where Ash had sown his oats at eighteen, splintered the stone around his heart.

      Why hadn’t she told him about the boy before? Was she using him to get closer to Tom? No, her eyes when she mentioned the boy’s name said different.

      She loved her kid. The way he loved Daisy.

      Shoving a hand through his hair, Ash sighed. Sucker, that’s what he was. Sucker for kids with sad stories.

      He’d been one himself once. He and his sister, Meggie, living in that ramshackle house on the edge of town, their mom trying to put bread on the table and decent clothes on their backs. Until Tom entered their lives. Tom, changing lives with the Flying Bar T.

      Ash had to give Rachel credit. She’d woven herself right under his skin in five blasted minutes, persuaded him to let her rent Susie’s cottage. Oh, the bit about talking to Tom was only a formality. He knew it, she knew it.

      Hell. Here he was, managing nine hundred head of Black Angus and fifty-five hundred acres of land and he’d been bamboozled by a woman—and a seven-year-old kid he had yet to meet.

      She’d been daydreaming about him striding across the street with snow on his big shoulders when her desk phone rang the next morning.

      “Rachel?” His voice rumbled in her ear.

      Her breath stopped. The way he said her name… “Yes?”

      “You want to look at the cottage, it’ll be open Sunday.”

      In two days. “Thank you for letting me know, Ash.”

      “Welcome. What time?”

      A civil conversation. “Can I come in the morning, say, ten?”

      “See you then.” The phone clicked.

      For the first time in forty-eight hours, she smiled. McKee hang-ups were becoming a tradition.

      At nine-thirty on Sunday, she drove out with Charlie strapped into the backseat and hope in her heart. Snow continued to fall in intervals, spit flakes on a brisk, cold wind the wipers scraped up in narrow, inch-high drifts on each side of the windshield.

      Ahead, the road lay in stainless splendor while behind, the car left a single pair of tracks. Beyond the barbed wire fences, field and hill faded to a duvet of white.

      She’d be seeing him again. Ash McKee. You’re not there for him, Rachel. It’s the guesthouse, remember? And Tom.

      Still, her heart quickened. She had to admit Ash was an attractive man—in a cowboy sort of way.

      “Are we there yet?” Charlie fisted fog off his window.

      “Five minutes, honey bun. After the turn ahead, we’ll be there.”

      He sat straighter, trying to peer over the passenger seat, his eyes round blue discs behind his glasses. “I can’t see.”

      “Trust me, it isn’t far. Warm enough back there?”

      “Uh-huh.” He settled back and began vrooming his red Hot Wheels Corvette across his little thighs. The car had been one of her presents on his sixth birthday and his favorite, it seemed. Rarely did the toy escape his sight. Her little man, no different than most little boys his age and no different than an adult male salivating over the real machine.

      You lost out, Floyd. You lost out when you walked away from our baby.

      “Are we going to be living on a ranch with horses and cows and stuff?” Charlie asked.

      “If Mr. McKee will rent his guesthouse to us.”

      “I don’t like living in that motel. It stinks.”

      “Can’t agree with you more, champ. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Mr. Ash will say yes.”

      More vrooming. “Is he the guy for your soldier story?”

      She glanced into the rearview mirror. “His daddy is. Which might cause a problem when it comes to renting from him.”

      “Why?”

      “Because Mr. Tom might not want me on his property when he finds out I also want to interview him.”

      Another quarter mile passed. Charlie vroomed, then said, “Maybe he has nightmares about wars like Grandpa.”

      Her jaw fell. “How do you know that?” Bill Brant would die before he admitted any weakness to his daughter.

      “Sometimes he sleeps in the chair. Y’know that one that goes back like a bed? And once he started hollering about killing somebody. I think the guy had a gun.”

      “That doesn’t mean he was dreaming about war, Charlie. Sometimes people dream about violence.”

      “I asked him when he got awake. I asked him what a gook was.”

      She cringed at the ancient epithet. “Son, that’s a very unkind word. Did Grandpa explain it to you?” Unbelievable.

      “Well, kinda. And then he said I shouldn’t make up stories.”

      She squinted into the mirror. “Were you?”

      A hard head shake. “Grandpa was snoring, then he started yelling. And making faces like he was hurt or something.”

      She kept her hands steady on the wheel. “When was that?”

      “Last time we went to visit in the summer.”

      Last August. They’d traveled to the coast of Maryland and stayed in the vacation cottage her father purchased fifteen years ago. Rachel loved the ocean—its smells and sounds, how the salt breeze tasted.

      “Is that the only time he talked in his sleep?” She slowed for the last turn as the Flying Bar T came into view—and fancied Ash McKee thundering up the road on his Crusader steed.

      “Uh-huh. He never slept in the chair again.”

      Of course he wouldn’t. Not with an alert, intelligent little boy within hearing distance.

      The weathered two-story Craftsman home she’d glimpsed over the backs of the cattle last Wednesday now loomed through the snow.

      Driving closer, she noticed the house inhabited a timbered horseshoe with the corrals and outbuildings, including three massive barns, scattered several hundred yards westward. Today’s snowfall hid the Rockies from sight, but four days ago their great, hulking, cotton-capped shoulders were cloaked in a mantle of blue sky.

      Ash McKee lived amidst poster-inspiring beauty.

      Not Ash. Tom. She was here for Tom. And Charlie.

      The black-and-white herding dogs rushed out from under the porch as she pulled up beside the green pickup Ash drove to town.

      “Will they bite, Mom?” Charlie’s voice trembled.

      “I don’t think so. They’re border collies and like to herd sheep and cows. They’re not mean.” She hoped. But who knew how Ash McKee trained his animals? The warhorse had ground at its bridle bit with long, strong teeth.

      She shut off the car, grabbed her purse. Today she simply wanted introductions. No note taking. No pushy reporter manners. Just smiles and a possible welcome to rent.

      “Come on. Let’s see if Mr. McKee is home.”

      Snowflakes speckled her wool coat and Charlie’s blond hair. Cautious of the dogs, Rachel walked with her son up the steps next to a wheelchair ramp. The animals crept back under the wooden deck. So much for guarding the place. Quite possibly Ash, himself, had the watchdog scenario in hand.

      The door swung open. The eager high school columnist and Ash’s companion from last Wednesday offered a smile full of braces. “Hey, Ms.