Linda Miller - Big Sky Country

Another blink, and, of course, it was all gone.

They’d taken Spunky with them the night they fled, she and her mom and Opal, and he’d lived to a ripe old age.

Joslyn shook off the twinge of longing she felt and moved farther inside the room. A comfortable seating area filled one corner, but there were no customers waiting, so it was an all-clear. She’d done her duty as far as her friend was concerned, she decided, at least for the time being.

Turning on one heel, Joslyn practically ran out of that house, haunted, as it was, by the ghosts of her pampered youth, and zipped around back to the cottage to fetch her purse and car keys. She needed to cook—like reading, making her favorite dishes and trying new recipes were forms of personal therapy for her—and that meant a trip to the market.

The limestone gravel crunched under the wheels of her car as she drove onto Rodeo Road and turned right.

Parable, population 10,421 according to the sign at the outskirts of town, boasted at least two supermarkets and the discount store she’d visited the day before to buy necessities, but Joslyn liked Mulligan’s Grocery, the mom-and-pop establishment across the street from the Curly-Burly Hair Salon, because the meat and produce were organic.

It had been a lot of years, though. Was Mulligan’s even there anymore? Or had the small family business gone under, done in by competition from the bigger stores and the rocky economy?

Her heart lurched a little when she rounded the corner and saw cars in the store’s grassy parking lot and an open sign in the front window. The soda machine, probably a valuable collector’s item by now, still stood next to the screen-door entrance, along with an ice holder and rows of propane tanks for barbecuing.

Cheered, Joslyn parked her car, got out and headed for the door, looping her purse strap over one shoulder as she went.

The same sense of déjà vu she’d experienced in the living room of Kendra’s house swept over her as she stepped inside.

She might as well have entered a time warp, things had changed so little. The bread and candy racks were right where she remembered them being, and the floors were still uneven planks, worn smooth by several generations of foot traffic and stained from a thousand spills. The brass cash register, another relic of days gone by, like the soda machine, occupied the same counter in the same part of the store. Only the people were different.

Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan, already old when she’d known them, were probably long dead. Joslyn didn’t recognize the gangly man behind the counter or any of the other customers.

The tension that had drawn up her shoulders, without her really noticing, eased so suddenly that it left her a little dizzy. Her mind occupied with memories and ingredient lists, she’d forgotten to dread encountering one or more of her stepfather’s numerous victims.

That was bound to happen, sooner rather than later, most likely, but for now, Joslyn dared to hope she’d wandered into a confrontation-free zone.

Please, God.

Except for a nod of greeting, the clerk at the counter didn’t pay her any particular attention, and neither did the few shoppers gathering food from shelves and coolers.

Joslyn took a cart, one of the half dozen available—it had a rattle and one hinky wheel—and started down the first aisle. She hadn’t bothered to make an actual list, since she needed practically everything.

She was standing in front of the spices, picking out the must-haves, like paprika and poultry seasoning, when she suddenly realized someone was watching her.

Joslyn looked up into a pair of eyes so blue that they might have trapped fragments of a sky darkening its way toward evening. Her heart fluttered up into the back of her throat and flailed there as she registered the man’s identity.

Slade Barlow.

A badge glinted on his belt, reminding her that he was the sheriff of Parable County now, and he carried his hat in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

Be out of town by sunset, Joslyn imagined him saying, in a slow, thoughtful drawl, befitting his jeans, Western shirt and polished boots.

“Hello,” she said, sounding stupid in her own ears and feeling as stuck as a deer caught in the dazzle of oncoming headlights.

A slight frown creased Slade’s tanned forehead. His hair was dark and short, though not too short, and those new-denim eyes were slightly narrowed.

“Joslyn?” he asked.

She bit her lower lip, nodded, wishing she’d worn a pair of shades and a baseball cap, so she could have pulled the brim down over her face.

Or, better yet, one of those dime-store disguises with the big plastic nose and mustache attached to a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

Slade’s white, even teeth flashed as he grinned. “Well, now,” he said, still watching her.

Well, now? Just what did that mean?

Joslyn racked her brain, trying to recall if Sheriff Barlow had been caught up in Elliott’s scam, but it didn’t seem likely. He’d grown up in the trailer across the road from Mulligan’s, the shy son of a single mom, holding down a paper route until junior high and washing cars and helping out with hay and wheat harvests after that. He’d driven an old car with rust spots on the chassis and the muffler duct-taped to the undercarriage.

A far cry from the flashy red car she’d been given the day she’d gotten her driver’s license.

Nope, Slade wouldn’t have had the means to sign up for pie-in-the-sky with Elliott Rossiter. Lucky him.

“I was sorry to hear about Elliott,” he said.

Here it comes, Joslyn thought, inwardly bracing herself. “Sorry?” she echoed, stalling.

“That he died?” Slade prompted with just the hint of a grin dancing in his eyes and flirting with the corners of his mouth. For the most part, though, his expression was solemn. Thoughtful. Like she was the last person on earth he’d expected to run into in Parable, Montana, or anywhere else.

“Thanks for not adding ‘in prison,’” Joslyn said, without intending to say any such thing.

“I reckon that part goes without saying,” Slade replied easily. She knew he wanted to ask what she was doing back in Parable, and of course she couldn’t have told him, even if she’d been inclined to do so, because she still didn’t know herself. He nodded, started around her and her cart. “Anyhow, good to see you again,” he said.

It was a lie, of course, though cordially told.

“Same here,” Joslyn fibbed.

She’d have avoided Slade if she could have, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that Callie Barlow’s baby boy had grown up to be one good-looking hunk of cowboy.

Once he’d rounded the display of boxed doughnuts at the end of the aisle, Joslyn tried to concentrate on spices again, but all she added to the seasonings already in her cart were salt and pepper.

The shopping cart wheel creaked and grabbed at the floor with every revolution as she pressed on toward the meat, fish and poultry, showcased in a refrigerated cooler, sure that everyone in the store must be staring at her by now, suddenly recalling her former association with Elliott Rossiter.

She selected a package of tilapia, an organic game hen and some lean hamburger, trying to distract herself by ogling the prices—which were outrageous. She’d go broke if she did all her shopping at Mulligan’s, that was for sure, nostalgia or no nostalgia.

But she didn’t stay distracted for long.

Slade Barlow not only filled her thoughts, he seemed to permeate her body, too, as though there had been some quantum-level exchange of energy.

He was taller than she remembered, broader through the shoulders. It wasn’t even noon, and he had a five o’clock shadow, and, furthermore, that quiet confidence of his both drew her and made her want to sprint in the opposite direction.