Under Montana Skies. Darlene Graham

Doc isn’t a medical doctor, you know. He’s a botanist.”

      How the older couple had long dreamed of retiring up on Sixteen Mile Creek: “Because there is no more beautiful place on earth.”

      Laura had to agree. “Where’s your house?”

      “Oh, quite a distance back down the road. It takes a good thirty minutes to get there, but one can go faster in a canoe when the creek’s high. There’s also the shortcut—nothing more than a rough logging road. I don’t recommend it to the uninitiated.”

      When Katherine showed no signs of volunteering any information about Adam Scott, Laura decided to ask.

      “How long have you known Mr. Scott?”

      “Oh, many years.” Katherine smiled as she used a little funnel to fill the feeder.

      This seemed to Laura a cryptic answer. She tried again.

      “What, exactly, does he do for a living?”

      “Oh, he doesn’t like to talk about that much.” Katherine screwed the lid on the feeder, carefully turned it over and held it up by its chain, examining her handiwork. “All done,” she said cheerfully.

      “And Mrs. Scott? Did you know her?”

      Katherine dropped the hummingbird feeder onto its side, and as the sticky cherry-colored liquid gurgled out, the woman did nothing to stop it. She touched her gnarled fingers to her heart and paled, staring at Laura while the mess ran over the side of the cabinet top and onto the floorboards.

      “Oh, dear,” Laura said as she jumped off her stool and righted the feeder. “Let me help you clean that up.”

      Katherine swung her gaze to the red liquid dripping at her feet, but still she didn’t move.

      “Did I say something wrong?” Laura asked gently as she snapped off a handful of paper towels and started soaking up the puddle.

      “No.” At last Katherine seemed to come to herself. “No, dear. You didn’t.” She turned toward the sink and ran water over a dishrag. She twisted the rag, wrung out the water, then started furiously mopping up the mess on the counter-top. “It’s…well, Adam’s wife is…” Katherine stopped cleaning and looked at Laura with eyes full of something unspoken. She seemed to be gauging how much to reveal. “Adam’s wife is deceased.”

      “I know that. I read it in his chart. I was just wondering about her.”

      “I see.” Katherine resumed scrubbing the counter, and Laura could see that her hands trembled.

      “She died in the car wreck?” Laura asked gently.

      Katherine nodded. “Instantly. The car plunged off the side of a mountain back in Washington.” She kept on scrubbing.

      “Oh, that’s terrible,” Laura whispered. “No one told me exactly how it happened.”

      Katherine continued to clean.

      Laura sensed the woman was holding something back. She squatted down with the paper towels and started wiping up the mess on the rough wood as best she could.

      “I’m sorry.” She looked up at Katherine’s back. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

      Tension built in the quiet kitchen while the ashes in the old cast-iron stove collapsed with a pop and a hiss and bird song filtered in from outside.

      Finally Katherine turned and looked down at Laura. Her wrinkled old eyes communicated an unspeakable sadness when she spoke. “I…I did know Elizabeth. Quite well. And I knew their little girl, too. Anna. She died in the accident, also…with her mother.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      HIS CHILD HAD DIED, too?

      Laura stared up at Katherine’s seasoned face in disbelief.

      “I’m sorry,” she managed. “How old was his daughter?”

      Katherine’s hand stilled on the dishrag and she stared out the window. “Three.” She spoke as if in a trance.

      “How awful,” Laura said.

      Katherine nodded. “Elizabeth and Adam had waited several years to have her. Elizabeth was a research scientist and did not want her demanding career goals to interfere with a child’s happiness. She had waited until…she and Adam had reached a certain level of success and then…then they had Anna.”

      “I see,” Laura said quietly. She still didn’t know what to say.

      Katherine turned on the spigot in the sink. Water blasted out and she rinsed the cloth under it, shaking her head. “This water drains by gravity from the spring. Never reliable. Sometimes a torrent, sometimes a dribble. And always freezing.”

      “Katherine, are you okay?” Laura asked.

      Katherine nodded. Laura reached out and clasped the older woman in a hug.

      And that was how Adam Scott found them, embracing.

      “Ms. Duncan!” he boomed from behind the screen door, then jerked it open.

      Laura and Katherine broke apart as he stepped into the room, but not before they gave each other one last parting pat. When their gazes met as they released each other, Laura thought she read warning in Katherine’s.

      “Are you ready to go to work?” Adam frowned at Laura’s attire. “I’d like my morning treatment as early as possible.”

      “Uh, no. I’m sorry. I’m not ready.” Laura cinched her robe. “I, uh, I need to go up and put my scrubs on, and—” she pulled her mop of hair back “—I’ll be right down.” She turned, jerked on the leather strap on the narrow door and dashed up the stairs.

      In her embarrassment and haste she hadn’t closed the door completely and when she got to the landing at the top she froze when she heard Adam say her name.

      “What were you and Ms. Duncan talking about?”

      “I think you know.” Katherine’s voice sounded tearful.

      Laura clutched the railing.

      She heard Adam’s sympathetic reply— “Ahh, Katherine,” —and then his heavy bootfalls as he crossed the room. “Are you all right?” he asked tenderly.

      She heard Katherine sniffling and saying something in a small pained voice. Then Adam murmuring softly. He finished with something that sounded like, “You mustn’t keep upsetting yourself.”

      Laura crossed the room to start dressing and tried to ignore the conversation below her, but the voices continued to drift clearly up the stairs.

      “Adam, I think we should be honest with this young woman.” Katherine’s voice was louder, firmer now.

      Adam’s tone sounded exasperated. “No. That’s not a good idea.”

      Laura coughed loudly, hoping they’d realize she could hear them. Evidently they must have gotten the idea, because she heard Adam’s footsteps again and then a creak as the stairway door closed.

      ADAM HAD PUT his finger to his lips as soon as he’d heard Laura cough. Katherine was a little hard of hearing, and it was easy for her to forget how well sound carried in the quiet cabin, but he had no excuse for being so careless. After he closed the door to the stairs, he led Katherine into the front room to continue their conversation.

      “Laura and the people at Mountain Home Health Care don’t need to know any details. The fewer people who know, the better. That way nobody can inadvertently lead Gradoff to me before I’m ready.”

      “Adam, I told you before—this is a dangerous scheme. You don’t know—”

      “I know what I’m doing, and I’m sticking to my plan.”

      “But