Big Sky River. Linda Lael Miller

way, of course.

      In his opinion, Tara was not only a city slicker, out of touch with ordinary reality, but a snob to boot. Too bad she had that perfect body and that head of shiny hair. Without those, it would have been easier to dislike her.

      “Hello to you, too, neighbor,” Boone said, in a dry drawl when he was darned good and ready to speak up. “How about this weather?”

      She frowned at him, making a production of ferreting through her shoulder bag and bringing out her wallet. Behind her, in the passenger seat, the dog yawned without displacing its aviator glasses, as though bored. The lenses were mirrored.

      “If you’re finished at the machine—?” Tara said, with a little rolling motion of one manicured hand. For a chicken rancher, she was stylin’.

      Boone stepped aside to let her pass. “You shouldn’t do that, you know,” he heard himself telling her. It wasn’t as if she’d welcome any advice from him, after all, no matter how good it might be.

      “Do what?” She had the faintest sprinkling of freckles across her nose, he noticed, oddly disconcerted by the discovery.

      “Get your wallet out between the car and the ATM,” Boone answered, in sheriff mode even if he was dressed like a homeless person. He was in a hurry to get to Missoula, that was all. Hadn’t wanted to take the time to change clothes. “It’s not safe.”

      Tara paused and, sunglasses jammed up into her bangs now, batted her thick lashes at him in a mockery of naïveté. “Surely nothing bad could happen with the sheriff of all Parable County right here to protect me,” she replied, going all sugary. She had the ATM card out of her wallet by then, and looked ready to muscle past him to get to the electronic wonder set into the bank’s brick wall.

      “Have it your way,” Boone said tersely. Why wasn’t he back in Hutch’s flashy truck by now, headed out of town? He wanted to see his boys, do what he could do for Molly and her three kids, maybe stop by the hospital and find out how Bob was holding up. But it was as if roots had poked right through the bottoms of his boots and the layer of concrete beneath them to break ground, wind down deep, and finally twist themselves into a hell of a tangle, and that pissed him off more than Tara’s snooty attitude ever had.

      “Thank you,” she said, a little less sweetly, brushing by him and shoving her bank card into the slot before jabbing at a sequence of buttons on the number pad. “I will.”

      Boone rolled his eyes. Sighed. “People get robbed at ATMs all the time,” he pointed out, chafing under the self-imposed delay. It would take a couple hours to reach Missoula, who knew how long to sort things out and load up the kids, and then two more hours to make it home again. And that was if they didn’t stop along the way for supper.

      Tara took the card out of the machine, collected a stack of bills from the appropriate opening, and started the process all over again. Who needed that much cash?

      Maybe it was a habit from living in New York.

      Her back—and a fine little back it was, partly bared by that skimpy sundress of hers—was turned to him the whole time, and she smelled like sun-dried laundry and wildflowers. “In Parable?” she retorted. “Who would dare to commit a crime in your town, Boone Taylor?”

      He waited until she’d completed the second transaction and turned around, nearly bumping into him. She was waving all those twenties around like the host on some TV game show, just asking for trouble. “I do my best,” he told her, enjoying the flash of flustered annoyance that lit her eyes and pulsed in her cheeks, “but Parable isn’t immune to crime, and there are some risks nobody but a damn fool will take.”

      She arched her eyebrows, shoved her sunglasses back into place with an eloquent gesture of the middle finger on her right hand. “Are you calling me a damn fool?” she asked, in a tone about as companionable as a room full of pissed-off porcupines.

      “No,” Boone said evenly. I’m calling you a spoiled city girl with a very high opinion of yourself, he thought but didn’t say. “I’m only suggesting that you might want to be a little more careful in the future, that’s all. Like I said before, Parable is a good town, but strangers do pass through here, in broad daylight as well as after dark, and we might even have a few closet outlaws in our midst.”

      Tara blinked up at him. “Are you through?” she asked politely.

      He spread his hands and smirked a little, deliberately. “I tried,” he said. He could have added, “Don’t come crying to me if you get mugged,” but of course she’d have every right to do just that, since he was the law.

      She went around him, sort of stalked back toward her car. It was amusing to watch the slight sway of her hips under that gauzy dress as she moved.

      “Thanks so much,” she said tersely, opening the driver’s side door and plunking down behind the wheel. Only then did she bother to stick the cash in her wallet and drop that back into her bag.

      The dog looked from her to Boone with the casual interest of a spectator at a slow tennis match.

      Boone swept off his baseball cap and bowed deeply. “Anytime, your ladyship,” he said.

      Tara pursed her lips, looked back over one satin-smooth shoulder to make sure no one was behind her, and ground the car’s transmission into Reverse. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear what she said over the roar of the engine, which was probably just as well.

      It would serve her right, though, he thought, if he cited her for reckless driving. He didn’t have the time—or a case, for that matter—but he savored the fantasy as he got back into Hutch’s truck.

      * * *

      BOONE TAYLOR WAS just plain irritating, Tara thought, as she and Lucy drove away from the bank. Unfortunately, he was also a certified hunk with the infuriating ability to wake up all five of her senses and a few she hadn’t discovered yet. How did he do that?

      She stayed on a low simmer all the time she was running errands—buying groceries, taking them home and putting them all away, filling the pantry and the fridge and part of the freezer. Boone had disrupted her whole afternoon, and wasn’t that just perfect, when she should have been enjoying the anticipation of her stepdaughters’ arrival?

      To sustain her momentum, she prepared the guest quarters, scrubbing down the clean but dusty bathroom, opening the windows, vacuuming and fluffing pillows and cushions, swapping out the sheets, even though the first ones hadn’t been slept in. Tara hadn’t had company in a while, and she wanted the linens to be clothesline-fresh for the twins.

      Throughout this flurry of activity, Lucy stayed right with her, supervising from the threshold, occasionally giving a little yip of encouragement or swishing her tail back and forth.

      “Everything is done,” Tara told the dog when it was, straightening after smoothing each of the white chenille bedspreads one final time and glancing at the little clock on the nightstand between them. “And it isn’t even time to feed the chickens.”

      Lucy uttered a conversational little whine, keeping up her end of the conversation.

      Tara thought about her family-unfriendly car again, and Joslyn’s generous offer to lend her the clunky station wagon her housekeeper, Opal, shared with Shea, Joslyn and her husband Slade’s eighteen-year-old stepdaughter.

      Borrowing the vehicle would be too much of an imposition, she decided, as she and Lucy headed down to the kitchen via the back staircase. It was time to head over to Three Trees, cruise past both auto dealerships, and pick out a big-girl car. Something practical, like a minivan or a four-door sedan, spacious but easy on gas.

      Within minutes, she and Lucy were back on the road, this time with the car’s top up so they wouldn’t arrive all windblown, like a pair of bad credit risks.

      * * *

      MOLLY AND BOB lived in a modest two-story colonial on a shady side street in the best part of Missoula. The grass in the yard was greener than green and