Linda Lael - Big Sky River

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 neatly trimmed, possibly with fingernail scissors. Flowers grew everywhere, in riotous tumbles of color, and the picket fence was so pristinely white that it looked as if the paint might still be wet.

Boone stopped the truck in front, and though not usually into comparisons since he wasn’t the materialistic type, he couldn’t help being struck by the contrast between his sister’s place and his own.

He sighed and shoved open the driver’s side door, keys in hand. He’d been wishing he’d taken the time to shower and put on something besides fishing clothes ever since the run-in with Tara Kendall outside the bank in Parable, if only to prove to the world in general that he did his laundry and even ironed a shirt once in a while. Now, faced with the obvious differences, he felt like a seedy drifter, lacking only a cardboard begging sign to complete the look.

The screen door opened and Molly stepped out onto the porch, waving and offering up a trembling little smile. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she wore jeans, one of Bob’s shirts and a pair of sneakers that looked a little the worse for wear. Mom-shoes.