Linda Miller - Big Sky River

Still parked in the dealer’s lot, with hundreds of plastic pennants snapping overhead, Tara bit her lip. “It’s a long story,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Short version—Elle and Erin, my ex-husband’s twelve-year-old twins, are arriving tomorrow. Since we couldn’t all fit in the Mercedes—”

“Elle and Erin,” Joslyn repeated. She and Kendra Carmody were Tara’s best friends, and yet she’d never told either of them about the twins, mostly because talking about Elle and Erin would have been too painful. All Kendra and Joslyn knew was that there had been an ugly divorce.

“I’ll tell you the whole story later,” Tara said, eyeing the passing traffic and hoping she wouldn’t feel as though she were driving an army tank all the way back to Parable. “It’s time to get home and feed the chickens.”

“Right,” Joslyn said. “Exactly when is ‘later’ going to be?”

“Tonight?” Tara suggested. “You and Kendra could stop by my place for lemonade or tea or something?”

Once, she would have offered white wine instead, but Kendra was expecting, and Joslyn, the mother of a one-year-old son, was making noises about getting pregnant again, soon.

“I can make it,” Joslyn replied, clearly intrigued. “I’ll give Kendra a call—what time would be good?”

“Six?” Tara said, uncertain. She lived alone, while both her friends had husbands, and, in Joslyn’s case, kids, as well. They’d have to take family matters, like supper, into consideration.

“Make it seven and we’re good,” Joslyn said. “See you then.”

They ended the call with lighthearted goodbyes, and Tara turned in the driver’s seat to look back at Lucy. The dog wore a blue bandanna and her sunglasses dangled from a loose cord around her neck. “Hold on,” she said. “One test-drive doesn’t make me an expert at handling the big rigs.”

Lucy yawned and relaxed visibly, though she couldn’t lie down with the seat belt fastened around her. As always, she was ready to go with the flow.

They drove back to Parable and then home to the farm, blessedly without incident. There, Tara was met by a flock of testy chickens, probably suffering from low blood sugar. She rushed inside and up the stairs, Lucy right behind her, and exchanged her sundress and sandals for coveralls and ugly boots, the proper attire for feeding poultry and other such chores, and returned to the yard.

Lucy, who was alternately curious about the birds and terrified of their squawking, kept her distance, waiting patiently in the shade of the overgrown lilac bush that had once disguised a privy.

“Dog,” Tara said, gathering handfuls of chicken feed from a dented basin and flinging the kernels in every direction, “we are definitely not in New York anymore.”

CHAPTER THREE

BOTH THE BOYS were sound asleep in their safety seats when Boone finally pulled up in his own rutted driveway around eight that night, shut off the truck engine and gazed bleakly into his immediate future. A concrete plan for the long term would have been good, a to-do list of specific actions guaranteed to carry Griffin and Fletcher from where they were right now—confused and scared—right on through to healthy, productive manhood.

Boone sighed. One step at a time, he reminded himself silently. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on. For now, he only had to think about getting his sons inside and bedded down for the night. After that, he’d take a quick shower and call to let Molly know that he and the kids had arrived home safely. Then, if it wasn’t too late, he’d give Hutch a ring, too, and tell him his truck was still in one piece, offer to drop it off at Whisper Creek before he went on to work in the morning.

Work. Inconvenient as it was, Boone was still sheriff, with a whole county full of good people depending on him, and a few bad apples to keep an eye on, too, and that meant he’d be in his office first thing tomorrow, with his boys tagging along, since he had yet to make any kind of child-care arrangements.

Just then, things seemed patently overwhelming. One step, he reiterated to himself, and then another.

Glad to be out of a moving vehicle and standing on his own two feet, Boone opened one of the rear doors and woke Griffin first with a gentle prod to the shoulder. The boy yawned and blinked his eyes and then grinned at Boone in the dim glow of the interior lights. “Are we there?” the kid asked, sounding hopeful.

Boone’s heart caught. “We’re there,” he confirmed with a nod, then unfastened Fletcher from the safety seat. Griffin scrambled out of the truck on his own, but the little guy didn’t even wake up. He just stirred slightly, his arms loose around Boone’s neck, his head resting on his shoulder.

For all Boone’s trepidation about getting the dad thing right, it felt good to be holding that boy. Real good.

They started toward the double-wide, slogging through tall grass. The trailer was pretty sorry-looking in broad daylight, and darkness made it look even worse, like a gloomy hulk, lurking and waiting to pounce. Why hadn’t he thought to leave a light burning before he took off for Missoula in such an all-fired hurry?

“I bet Fletch peed his pants,” Griffin said sagely, trekking along beside Boone with his small suitcase in one hand. “He stinks.”

Sure enough, the seat of Fletcher’s impossibly small Wranglers felt soggy against Boone’s forearm, and there was a smell, but it wasn’t a big deal to a man who’d spent whole nights guarding some drunken miscreant at the county jail.

Boone spoke quietly to Griffin, man-to-man. “Let’s not rag on him about that, okay? He’s still pretty little, and there’s a lot to get used to—for both of you.”

Griffin nodded. “Okay,” he agreed solemnly.

They climbed the steps to the rickety porch, Boone going first, and once he’d gotten the door open and stepped inside, he flipped the light switch.

They were in the kitchen, but in that first moment Boone almost didn’t recognize the room. The dishes he’d left piled in the sink had been done up and put away. The linoleum floor didn’t exactly shine, being so worn, with the tar showing through in some places, but it glowed a little, just the same.

The effect was almost homey.

“Do we sleep where we did when we visited before?” Griffin asked. He sounded like a very small man, visiting a foreign country and eager to fit into the culture without breaking any taboos.

Still carrying Fletcher, who was beginning to wriggle around a bit now, Boone nodded a distracted yes and, having spotted the note propped between the sugar shaker and the jar of powdered coffee creamer in the middle of the table, zeroed in on it.

Griffin marched off to inspect the cubbyhole he and Fletcher would be staying in while Boone picked up the note. It was written in Opal Dennison’s distinctive, loopy handwriting, and he smiled as he read it. Although she kept house for Slade and Joslyn Barlow, Opal was definitely a free agent, working where she wanted to work, when she wanted to work.

Hutch called and said your boys were coming home for a spell, and you’d all probably get in tonight, so I let myself in and spruced the place up a mite. There’s food in the refrigerator and I put clean sheets on the beds and some fresh towels in the bathroom. I’ll be over first thing tomorrow morning to look after those kids while you’re working, and don’t even think about telling me you can manage on your own, Boone Taylor, because I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

She’d signed the message with a large O.

Boone set the slip of paper back on the table and carried a now-wakeful Fletch into the one and only bathroom. He set the boy on the lid of the toilet seat and started water running into the tub, which, thanks to Opal, was well scrubbed. Boone always showered, and that seemed like a self-cleaning type of operation, so he rarely bothered with the tub.