Cowboy Ever After: Big Sky Mountain. Maisey Yates

chuckled at that, shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m here on behalf of a friend of mine. She’s—in show business, divorced, and she has a couple of kids she’d like to raise in a small town. Wants a big place because she plans to set up her own recording studio, and between the band and the road crew and her household and office staff, she needs a lot of elbow room.”

      Kendra couldn’t help being intrigued—and a little wary. It wasn’t uncommon for famous people to buy land around Parable, build houses even bigger than her own and landing strips for their private jets, and proceed to set up “sanctuaries” for exotic animals that didn’t mix all that well with the cattle, horses, sheep and chickens ordinary mortals tended to raise, among other visibly noble and charitable efforts. Generally these out-of-towners were friendly enough, and the locals were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but in time the newcomers always seemed to stir up trouble over water rights or bounties on wolves and coyotes or some such, alienate all their neighbors, and then simply move on to the next place, the next adventure.

      It was as though their lives were movies and Parable was just another set, instead of a real place populated by real people.

      “Anybody I might have heard of?” Kendra asked carefully.

      Something in Walker’s heretofore open face closed up just slightly. “You’d know her name,” he replied. “She’s asked me not to mention it right away, that’s all. In case the whole thing comes to nothing.”

      Kendra nodded; she’d had plenty of practice with this sort of thing. Most celebrities were private nearly to the point of paranoia, and not without reason. Besides the paparazzi, they had to worry about stalkers and kidnappers and worse. Safety—or the illusion of it—lay in secrecy, and safety was usually what made places like Parable and Three Trees attractive to them.

      “Fair enough,” she said easily. “There are always a few upscale properties available in the county....” She could think of two that had been standing empty for a while; one had an Olympic-size indoor pool, and the other boasted a home theater with a rotating screen and plush seats for almost a hundred. The asking prices were in the mid-to-high seven-figure range, not surprisingly, but it didn’t sound as though that would strain Walker’s mysterious friend’s budget.

      But Walker was already shaking his head. Being a local, he knew as well as anybody which properties were for sale, what kind of shape they were in, and approximately what they’d cost to buy, restore and maintain—and he’d asked specifically about the house on Rodeo Road. “She wants to be in town,” he said. Then a frown creased his tanned forehead. “Is there some reason why you don’t want to show your house just yet?”

      “No, no,” Kendra said, “it’s nothing like that. We can head over there right now if you want. It’s just that—” She stopped in the middle of the sentence because she couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to go on.

      “Show business people are sometimes unreliable,” Walker finished for her. The frown had smoothed away and he was grinning again. “I remember that rock band a few years back—the ones who built a pseudo haunted house, trashed the Grange Hall in Three Trees one night when they were partying and then nearly burned down a state forest, conducting some kind of crazy ritual. But it wouldn’t be fair to hold that against everybody who sings and plays a guitar to earn a paycheck, would it?”

      Kendra let out a long breath, shook her head no. Walker was right—that wouldn’t be fair—and besides, hadn’t he said this woman wanted to raise her children in a small town? That gave her at least one thing in common with Kendra herself, and with most of her friends, too.

      Parable had its problems, like any community, but the crime rate was low, people knew each other and down-to-earth values were still important there. In a very real sense, Parable was a family. And it was cousin to Three Trees.

      The two towns were rivals in many ways, but when trouble came to one or the other, they stood up to it shoulder to shoulder.

      “If you have time,” she reiterated, “I can show you through the house right now.”

      “That would be great,” Walker said, rising from his chair. “I was there a few times when I was a kid, for parties and the like, but I don’t remember too many of the details.”

      Kendra stood, too, simultaneously reaching for her purse and Daisy’s leash. She blushed a little, imagining the state of the Volvo’s interior. Pre-Madison and pre-dog, she’d kept her vehicles immaculate, as a courtesy to her clients, but now...

      “I’m afraid my car needs vacuuming. The dog...”

      Walker laughed. “Given my line of work,” he said, “I’m not squeamish about a little dog hair. Matter of fact, I have three of the motley critters myself. But I’ll take my own rig because I’ve got some other places to go to this morning, after we’re through at your place.”

      Kendra nodded, clipped on Daisy’s leash and indicated that she’d be leaving by the back way, so she’d need to lock up behind Walker after he stepped outside.

      “Meet you over there,” he said, and went out.

      She nodded and locked the door between them.

      Daisy paused for a pee break in the parking lot, and then Kendra and the retriever climbed into the Volvo and headed for Rodeo Road for the second time that morning.

      * * *

      “AT THIS RATE,” Hutch grumbled good-naturedly, surveying the meal Opal had just set before him—a late lunch or an early supper, depending on your perspective, “I’ll be too fat to ride in the rodeo, even though it’s only a few days away.”

      Opal laughed. “Oh, stop your fussing and sit down and eat,” she ordered.

      She’d been busy—had the ironing board set up in the middle of the kitchen, and she must have washed and pressed every shirt he owned because she’d evidently been hard at it all day. Except, of course, for when she took time out to build the meat loaf she’d just set down in front of him. The main dish was accompanied by creamed peas and mashed potatoes drowning in gravy; and just looking at all that food, woman-cooked and from scratch, too, made his mouth water and his stomach growl.

      But he didn’t sit, because Opal was still standing.

      With a little sigh and a sparkle of flattered comprehension in her eyes, she took the chair indicated and nodded for him to follow suit.

      He did, but he was still uncomfortable. “Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked, troubled to notice that she hadn’t set a place for herself.

      Opal’s chuckle was warm and vibrant, vaguely reminiscent of the gospel music she loved to belt out when she thought she was alone. “I can’t eat like a cowboy,” she answered. “Be the size of a house in no time if I do.”

      Hutch was fresh out of self-restraint. He was simply too hungry, and the food looked and smelled too good. He took up his knife and fork and dug in. After complimenting Opal on her cooking—by comparison to years of eating his own burnt sacrifices or his dad’s similar efforts, it seemed miraculous they survived—he asked about Joslyn and the baby.

      “They’re doing just fine,” Opal said with satisfaction. Her gaze followed his fork from his plate to his mouth and she smiled like she might be enjoying the meal vicariously. “Dana—that’s Joslyn’s mother, you remember—is a born grandma, and so is Callie Barlow. Between the two of them, Slade, Shea and of course the little mama herself, I was purely in the way.”

      “I doubt that,” Hutch observed. Opal, it seemed to him, was more than an ordinary human being, she was a living archetype, a wise woman, an earth mother.

      And damned if he wasn’t going all greeting-card philosophical in his old age.

      “I like to go where I’m needed,” she said lightly.

      Hutch chuckled. “So now I’m some kind of—case?” he asked, figuring he was