Ruth Herne - His Montana Sweetheart

It was Jack’s expression as he spotted her that evening, his look, his gaze, the way his eyes sharpened in awareness.

Her gut clenched, remembering. Her heart skipped a beat.

She smacked a firm “Don’t Go There” on the physical reactions. She hadn’t come back here to see Jack McGuire. She’d come to regather her bearings while at a crossroads of life. To think. Plan.

Pray?

Her mother would have added that. Not Livvie. She’d prayed as a child and as a young adult, but she could see no tangible answer to prayer in her life. Sure, she had blessings in her parents, her education, and a few good friends.

But that seemed like a meager pile at age thirty. Had prayer helped her situation with Jack eight years back?

No.

And if she was to list each instance of prayer in the past decade, she came up with a big fat zero on the response page. So be it.

But as she climbed into the old familiar bed, the memory of those bells, chiming an eventide call to worship, almost made her wish she could answer the invitation. Almost...but not quite.

* * *

“Jack, you got a minute?”

Jack turned at the top of the church steps and nodded to the new pastor of Mountainview Church of the Savior. “Ethan, yeah. What’s up?”

“I heard through the grapevine—”

“Gossip mill, you mean.”

Ethan Johnson’s laugh said he couldn’t disagree. “We’ll work on that over a long, cold winter. Anyway, if you need players for the game, I’m not old-time Jasper Gulch, but I played some ball in my time. I’d be glad to fill a spot.”

“Do you have a favorite position?”

“Shortstop.”

Jack met the thirtysomething pastor’s gaze and lowered his voice. “Folks that play now and again don’t play shortstop. You good?”

“Played in a couple of district championships back in the day. Did all right.” The humility in his tone didn’t negate the high level of play the words district championship brought to Jack’s mind.

“I think the Good Lord just dropped a gold mine in my lap.” Jack grinned and pounded Ethan on the back. “You just filled a very important hole in our infield.”

“Good.”

“No college ball? You didn’t go on?” Jack’s baseball experience told him that most guys fielding district championship teams on the West Coast went on to play college ball or got flagged by the majors with minor-league contracts. Either way it seemed odd for Ethan to stop cold, unless his baseball career fell to an injury, like Jack’s.

“Had other things to do.”

Jack understood privacy. Liked it, even. In a small town known for its warp-speed information sharing, keeping things to one’s self ranked high on his list. “You won’t worry about offending folks from other congregations, will you? Second-guess who you’re throwing out at first?”

“Not on the ball field. Which may say something’s lacking about my ministerial skills, but when there’s a player’s mitt involved...?” Ethan hiked an eyebrow of competitive understanding. “I’m all in.”

“Excellent. Thanks, Ethan. And this—” Jack glanced toward the church as Ethan locked the entry door “—was real nice tonight. Kind of peaceful and calm.”

“Some days we need that, Jack. A chance to just breathe. And not think. Although your expressions tonight said you had plenty to think about.”

Jack gave him a look that said yes and requested discretion, all in one.

Ethan took the hint and didn’t delve. “When are we practicing?”

Jack raised his shoulders. “I have no idea. You’d think a guy who can run a cattle-and-horse ranch would have better organizational skills than this, but I never hung on the fringe of the field. I was always in the middle, working the ball, shifting angles, line of sight, so this planning stuff happened around me. How’s Friday night?”

“Probably good for most, so yes. Six o’clock all right?”

Jack hadn’t even thought of the practice, much less planned it, so he nodded. “Six is good.”

“Want me to get the word out?”

Jack longed to jump on the idea of passing off that task to Ethan, but Rusty would have his head. Worse? He’d be right. “I’ll do it. And thanks, Ethan. For both things.”

“It’s all right. See you Friday.”

Jack logged a message into his phone to set up a Friday practice with the confirmed local players, climbed into his truck and headed home. As he passed River Road, he fought the urge to hang a left and drive to Old Trail. First, it was plain crazy to think he’d be welcome.

Second, it would be worse to start something he couldn’t finish, and a woman like Olivia Franklin needed someone solid and good to stand by her.

He’d failed at baseball, then shuffled off his first career, despite the lure of big-city money. And here he was back at the ranch, which was comfortable, but nothing huge and crazy like the Shaw spread up the road.

He was the King of Mediocrity and Livvie Franklin deserved more than mediocrity in her life.

* * *

Jack heard the appreciative male whistle as he loaded barn supplies into the bed of his pickup the following morning. He turned, spotted Livvie walking down the opposite side of Main Street, realized she was the object of the whistler’s attention and had to fight the urge to stalk across the road and stake his claim.

But when one of the Shaw ranch hands swung down from the back of a full-bed pickup truck and sauntered across the boardwalk to meet her, Jack crossed the road at a sharp angle, ready to interfere. He’d sort out the whys and wherefores later, but for the moment, no whistling cowboy was about to sweep Liv off her feet, so he did her a favor and intervened.

“McGuire.” The cowboy didn’t look all that pleased to see him. For that matter, neither did Liv. Oh, well.

“Reynolds.” Jack indicated the other Shaw Ranch cowboy with a direct gaze to the left. The second man was trying to load the truck on his own, with limited success. “Your buddy could use some help.”

“I figure if he needs help, he’ll let me know.”

“Brent? We ain’t got all day. Let’s get a move on!”

Jack hid the smirk, but inside he smiled at the perfect timing. He turned back toward Liv as Brent Reynolds strode away, but Liv’s cool expression said he better come up with a reason for breaking up the roadside meeting, and right quick. “I need your help.”

The minute he said it, he realized it was true. He’d been lollygagging around this baseball thing, pushing himself to tackle it step by step. He realized last night his steps were too slow.

“With?” She drew the word out, her gaze on his, but her eyes stayed cool, calm and disinterested. Totally understandable, yet a kick in the teeth.

“The baseball game.”

Still silent, she raised an eyebrow, one beautifully sculpted slightly-darker-than-blond brow.

“I kind of fell into this gig, and while I understand baseball one hundred and ten percent, I’m not a great organizer.”

“You run a half-million-dollar beef-and-horse ranch with your father and you can’t put together a local ball game?” Doubt deepened her voice. “Really, Jack?”

“Mostly really, but maybe I made that up because I didn’t want that cowboy hitting on you and I’d have grabbed any excuse in the book to walk over here and put a stop to it.”

Her eyes widened. Her gaze faltered. To his dismay, a quick sheen of tears made him want to either snatch the words back or reach out and draw her into a hug he thought they both could use. “You’re working on the town-history thing, right?”

She nodded, still quiet.

“Well, baseball and Jasper Gulch go hand in hand. While so many of the big towns latched on to a football mind-set, small-town baseball leagues helped settle these parts. There’s almost no other place in the country that produces as many strong contenders without a public school baseball program as Jasper Gulch, Montana. And that goes straight back to the first settlers. Two of the original Shaw cousins played major-league ball, then came back and helped set up the Legion ball programs. There’s a lot of bat-and-ball history here in Jasper Gulch.”