The Last-Chance Maverick. Christyne Butler

      It was Adele who’d helped her pick out a prom dress, who came to visit her at art school, who got her to laugh again when the someone she’d thought was her true love had broken her heart. Even more than her father, Adele and her mother, Susan, had become Vanessa’s lifeline. They’d been there for every birthday, every holiday and now...

      “Come on...promise me.”

      Adele started to cough and quickly shoved the oxygen mask back into place. Vanessa shot to her feet and bracing herself on the bed, gently laid her hand over her friend’s, making sure the device was working properly. “Hey, take it easy.”

      Adele held up her hand, fingers curled in a fist except for the last, her pinky finger extended into a hook. She looked up, her deep green eyes locking with Vanessa’s. “A solemn vow between best friends.”

      Vanessa saw a lifetime bond that went beyond friendship in her friend’s gaze. Adele was the sister she’d never had. They knew each other’s secrets, fears and dreams. They’d shared late night whispers, dried each other’s tears and laughed together more times than she could count. “You make it sound like this is my last chance to have a life.”

      “No, but maybe it’s a second chance. How many do you think we get? Just promise you’ll work hard to be happy...to fulfill our list.”

      Vanessa wrapped her pinky finger around her friend’s and dropped her forehead to rest against Adele’s as both squeezed tight and held on. “I promise.”

Chapter One

      Present Day Rust Creek Falls, Montana

      Vanessa wasn’t sure she’d heard Nate Crawford correctly.

      A rushing noise that reminded her of the crazy bumper-to-bumper traffic on Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Expressway filled her ears, except it was the beautiful mountain scenery around her that went a bit hazy as she choked down a mouthful of hot tea. Blinking hard, she focused on the disposable cup in her hand, noticing for the first time she’d grabbed two different flavored tea bags which explained the chocolatey-orange taste burning her tongue.

      Even though she’d remembered arriving early enough for this morning’s meeting to grab some refreshment at the canteen here on the job site—not to mention watching the breathtaking Montana sunrise through the two-story, floor-to-ceiling windows that filled the back wall—maybe it had all been a figment of her imagination.

      Maybe she was still tucked beneath her goose-down comforter in that amazingly oversize Davy Crockett–style bed in her cabin, dreaming...

      “Are you all right?” Nate asked, getting her attention. She looked up in time to see him rock back on his heels, a slight frown on his handsome face. He then glanced at his fiancée, Callie Kennedy, a nurse who helped run the local clinic, who’d placed a hand on his arm.

      “Yes,” she gasped, “yes, I’m fine.”

      No, that was a lie. Vanessa was definitely not fine despite the fact she stood in the cavernous lobby and main entertaining space of a log mansion that Nate, a local businessman and member of one of the town’s founding families, was converting into a year-round resort.

      The gorgeous view of the Montana wilderness was at her back while a stone fireplace big enough to stand in filled the opposite wall. And then there were the rest of the walls. All empty. Her gaze honed in on one of them—freshly painted if the scent tickling her nose meant anything, above the oversize, hand-hewed, carved desk where guests would check in once the resort officially opened.

      “You want to hire me—” Vanessa asked, knowing she had to hear the words again. “—to do what?”

      “Paint a mural,” Nate repeated, gesturing at the large blank space. “I thought it would be a great tribute to the people and places that mean so much to this town, to Montana. Rust Creek Falls has a connected history with both Thunder Canyon and Whitehorn and I’d like see all three towns honored here at the resort.”

      Her gaze followed, trying to see the vision the man’s words created, but nothing came to her artist eye. Zero. Zilch. Her stomach cramped at the now conditioned sensation. How many times had she experienced that same feeling over the past year?

      “I think he surprised you, didn’t he?” Callie asked.

      “Ah, yes.” Vanessa glanced down at her cup again. “Maybe I should’ve gotten something a bit stronger to ensure I was fully awake for this.”

      “And maybe we shouldn’t have asked you to meet us here so early, but we both have to be down in Kalispell for most of the day. Nate didn’t want to wait, and you did say—”

      “Ah, no, early is fine. I’m usually up before the sun, anyway.” Looking up at her friend, she waved off Callie’s concern. “But I’m still a bit confused. You’re asking me to do this because...”

      “Because I was quite amazed.” Nate paused and took a step closer, his head bent low even though the three of them were the only ones around, “and pleased when I found out the Vanessa Brent who’s running an afterschool art program at the community center and V. E. Brent, world-famous abstract expressionism artist, were one and the same.”

      Nate’s soft-spoken words took her completely by surprise.

      Not that she went out of her way to hide who she was or what she did with her life before moving to Rust Creek Falls back in July. When asked, she’d only said she’d worked in the creative arts, but was currently on a time-out, rethinking her career plans. She’d then change the topic of conversation because deep down, the explanation had more than a ring of truth to it.

      Or more simply put, she hadn’t painted anything in almost a year.

      Oh, she’d thought about her craft often, obsessed about it, really. At least until she’d moved out here. Lately, she’d begun to dream about it again, like she’d done as a child. But even though she’d brought along all of her supplies, the white canvases that lined one wall of the cabin she’d rented a few weeks after arriving in town were still blank. Her paints and brushes lay untouched, her heart and her mind as vacant as the walls that surrounded them now.

      “Ah, yeah, we’re the same person,” she finally responded to the expectant looks on Nate’s and Callie’s faces. “I mean, yes, I’m V. E. Brent, but I haven’t...been involved with the art world for quite some time.”

      Even now, Vanessa was still surprised at the deep depression she’d sunk into after Adele’s death last year. Or the fact that she hadn’t been able to fill the void with her art.

      Adele had hung on until just before Thanksgiving and the day of her memorial service had been the start of an arctic winter that had settled in Philadelphia, and most of the country. Vanessa, too, had become locked in her own personal deep freeze. For months she’d mourned, but unlike when her mother died, she failed to find the same solace and comfort in her work. No matter how hard she’d tried, no matter the techniques or tools she employed, her gift had faded into a vast wasteland where nothing flourished.

      Even after she’d finally broken out of her self-imposed grieving this past spring, thanks to an intervention led by Adele’s mother, the ability to create was still dormant and she’d decided something drastic was needed to shake her back into the world of the living.

      Number ten: move out west.

      Vanessa had been reading a weekly blog by a big-city volunteer coordinator who’d moved to Rust Creek Falls to help the town recover from a devastating flood the year before and ended up falling in love and marrying the local sheriff. Soon the idea to move to this little slice of cowboy heaven planted itself in her head and wouldn’t let go. So she’d sublet her loft apartment, refused to listen to her father’s halfhearted attempts to change her mind and bought a one-way plane ticket to Big Sky Country, placing the first check mark on her and Adele’s bucket list in months by arriving just before the July Fourth