Debbie Macomber - Montana

His eyes weren’t what they used to be and it took Walt far longer than it should have to realize it was a truck that barreled toward him and not a car pulling a trailer. Another minute passed before he recognized his neighbor, Ginny Dougherty. The woman didn’t have the sense God gave a rock chuck.

Walt grunted in annoyance. Ginny was a damn fool. The widow simply didn’t know her limitations; she was crazy trying to run a ranch on her own. Fred, her bachelor cousin—aged at least sixty—lived with her and helped out on the place. In Walt’s opinion, the two of them were like the blind leading the blind. And he’d told her so, too. Frequently.

Ginny’s truck squealed to a halt, kicking up dust. The door opened and she leaped out so fast you’d think the seat was on fire.

“Before you start shouting,” she began, “I suggest you hear me out.”

Walt didn’t have the strength to yell much these days, but he wasn’t letting Ginny know that. “What do you want this time?” he demanded. He wrapped his arm around the post and casually leaned against it, so she wouldn’t realize how weak he was.

Ginny stood with her hands on her hips. Walt looked her up and down, then shook his head. A woman her age had no business wearing dungarees; he was firm on that.

“Someone knocked down your mailbox,” she told him, her chin angled stubbornly toward him. “The way the tire tracks went, it looks deliberate.”

Vandals had been wreaking havoc the past few months. Walt didn’t understand it. “Who’d do such a thing?”

“Anyone who knows you, Walt Wheaton. You’ve gone out of your way to make yourself the most unpopular man in town.”

“Are you going to stand on my property and insult me, woman?” He forgot about conserving his strength. Ginny always did have a way of getting his dander up. He suspected she did it on purpose, and if the truth be known, he often enjoyed their verbal skirmishes.

“I’m not insulting you. I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t … have to … take this,” he said, then slowly lowered himself into the rocker.

Ginny frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.” He closed his eyes, and his breath came in shallow gasps. It always happened like this; without warning, he’d be unable to catch his breath. No feeling on earth could be worse. It felt as though someone’s hands had closed around his throat.

“Walt?”

He dismissed her with a flick of his hand.

“Walt?” She sounded much closer now.

“Pills,” he managed between gasps. He patted his shirt pocket. His head slumped to one side and he felt Ginny’s hand searching around for the small brown bottle. The entire time, she was talking. Leave it to a woman to chatter at a time like this. If his heart didn’t kill him, Ginny’s tongue would.

An eternity passed before she managed to get the pill under his tongue. A couple of minutes later, it took effect. Walt managed to remain conscious, but only by sheer force of will. He refused to pass out; otherwise Sam was sure to haul him back to the medical clinic. If a man wasn’t sick when he walked in there, he would be by the time he walked out.

Dr. Shaver had damn near killed him while Sam sat there watching. Walt had fired Sam three times in the next few days, but Sam had ignored his orders. The problem was, his foreman could be as stubborn as Walt himself.

“Drink this.” Ginny thrust a glass under his nose.

“What’s in it? Arsenic?”

“Water, you old fool.”

When he didn’t obey her fast enough, Ginny grabbed it back and gulped it down herself.

“I thought you said that was for me,” he grumbled.

“I needed it more than you.”

Ginny collapsed in the rocker next to his own. Molly’s rocker. For forty years she’d sat on the front porch with him each night. She’d darned socks, crocheted, knitted. His wife hadn’t believed in idle hands. Every now and again he’d find a way to steal a kiss. It had never ceased to amaze him that a woman as beautiful and talented as Molly MacDougal would marry the likes of him. Her one regret was that she’d only been able to give him one son.

Now they were both gone. Adam killed by a drunk driver while still in his twenties and then, later, his Molly. He’d be joining them soon. But not right away. There was work that had to be done. Affairs settled. Arrangements made. He wanted time with Molly and her boys first. God would grant him that much, Walt was sure. The good Lord had seen fit to take Adam and Molly early in life, and as far as Walt was concerned God owed him this additional time.

“You gave me the scare of my life!” Ginny cried. She was rocking so fast she damn near stirred up a dust devil.

“What’d you do with my mail?” he demanded, hoping to change the subject.

Ginny glared at him, her dark eyes burning holes straight through him. “I saved your life and all you care about is your stupid mail?”

“You’ve got it, haven’t you? Suppose you read it, too.”

“I most certainly did not.”

He snorted in disbelief.

“How about thanking me?” Ginny muttered. “If it wasn’t for me, you could be dead by now.”

Walt made a disgusted sound. “If I’d known you were going to nag like this, death would’ve been a blessing.”

“It’s probably the biggest, most beautiful home I’ve ever seen,” Molly told her boys wistfully as they sped along the two-lane highway. Eager to reach Sweetgrass, she drove fifteen miles above the speed limit. They hadn’t seen another car in more than half an hour, and she figured the state patrol had better things to do than worry about an old country road.

“How many rooms does it have?” Clay asked.

“More than I could count,” Molly said, smiling to herself. As a child, she’d considered her grandparents’ home a mansion. It had taken her two entire summers to explore all three floors. The original house had been built just after the turn of the century, a grand home for its time, with a turret dominating the right-hand side of the wooden structure. There was a wide sweeping porch along the front of the house, added in later years; it looked out over the rolling green paddock where the horses grazed. A narrow dirt drive snaked in from a marked entry off the highway.

“I can have my own room, then?” Tom asked, showing some life for the first time since lunch.

“There must be four, possibly five bedrooms not in use now.”

“I’d sleep in the attic without electricity if it meant I wouldn’t have to share a room with Clay.”

For Tom, that had been the most difficult aspect of their move into the apartment. He’d been tolerant about it for a while, but living in such close proximity to his younger brother had quickly become a problem.

“My grandmother kept the house in meticulous condition,” Molly said. During her last visit, the month following her grandmother’s death, she’d marveled at how clean and neatly organized the house still was. Molly Wheaton had regularly waxed the wooden floors and washed the walls. She’d line-dried all the clothes, ironed and crisply folded almost everything. Even the dish towels.

Out of respect for his wife, Gramps had removed his shoes before stepping into the house, to avoid tracking mud across the spotless floors. Every room had smelled of sunshine, with the faint underlying scent of lemon or pine. Molly could almost smell it now.

“How big’s the barn?”

“Huge.”

“That’s what you said about the house.”

“I named you right, son,” she said, reaching over and mussing his hair. “Doubting Thomas.”

Tom slapped at her hand, and she laughed, in too good a mood to let his surly attitude distress her.