Montana Miracle

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“I’m sorry for inconveniencing you so much.”

Now she was making him feel like a jerk. There was no way she’d know, and no way he’d tell her, that just about anything that kept him away from the ranch since he’d come back to salvage his life felt like an intrusion and an inconvenience. “Forget it. I’m going that way…sort of, so it worked out.”

“And it’s only going to be for the next ten minutes, anyway,” she said, echoing his words from earlier.

He glanced at her and found her staring intently ahead of them now. “Yeah, ten more minutes,” he said.

She sighed softly. “I never expected to get stuck in this place.”

“Next time you’ll bring chains.”

“There won’t be a next time. No snow, no storms, not again.” He sensed her shift, stirring the air and bringing him that scent again. “I’ve got another question.”

“You never stop, do you,” he murmured.

“Sorry, I tend to be the curious sort, too.”

“I’d say you are,” he said, slowing to find the entrance to Joanine’s property. It was around here somewhere, but the snow was drifting so heavily that it was almost obliterating the old landmarks. Add to that the total darkness beyond the headlights, and he wasn’t certain if he’d passed it or even if he was on the right road.

“Sorry,” she said again, but didn’t sound all that sorry. “I just wondering why you’d live around here.”

That brought some of the tension back. “Why not?”

“Oh, I’m not knocking it. I hate it when someone comes to visit or someone’s passing through, and all they do is knock where you live. I didn’t mean that. But, well, just look outside. It’s like another world.”

It was another world from what he was used to. “You get used to it.”

“How long does it take?”

He actually felt that smile surfacing again. “A life-time.”

The smile died when she said, “Carl told me you left for a while. I can understand why.”

Carl talked too much. “Most of the residents leave now and then. It’s called freedom. Some actually come back.”

“So you came back. Why?”

Just as the tension returned, Mac spotted the entrance to Joanine’s. The heavy stone pillars that marked the end of the drive that led up to the old farmhouse had been refashioned by the drifting snow to look like misshapen snowmen. “Now, that’s one of the ninety-nine percent. It’s none of your business.”

“Well, you’re blunt, aren’t you.”

He slowed more and turned right onto Joanine’s property. “Why I’m here is no one’s business except mine. I live here. Period. And you talk too much.”

He’d meant to stop her in her tracks with a rebuke that he was certain would offend her enough to get to Joanine’s and get her out of the truck in silence. But he was wrong again. She was actually agreeing with him. “I do talk too much. I’ve always been curious and, I’m sorry to say, I always will be. It’s sort of a curse, I think. That need to know everything about everything around me. You know, the mysteries of life? And one of those is why anyone who’d escaped to California would come back to a place that gets this cold and this snowy and is this isolated. You don’t even have a hotel, for Pete’s sake.”

Carl had told her far too much. Even that he’d been in California. He was getting her out of the truck just in time. “I won’t dispute Bliss’s lack of amenities. We don’t have time. This is Joanine’s, at least it is in about half a mile up her drive.”

Before she could respond, there was a sound unlike any other sound he’d heard and it seemed to shatter the night. A falling, cracking, thudding, earth-shaking sound that made him hit the brakes and pray they wouldn’t skid into whatever was happening. Snow was everywhere, but not just falling snow. It was exploding upward, too, only to be driven up and off by the fierce wind.

“What was that?” Katherine gasped as she grabbed his right arm with surprising strength. It startled him, almost as much as whatever had happened outside the truck.

She wasn’t just a talker, she was a toucher. The type of person who always seemed to need to make physical contact with people. He’d never been comfortable with that, which was why he shocked himself when he had to stop himself from covering her hand with his and telling her everything was okay. He didn’t touch her, and even if he had, he couldn’t have reassured her, because he didn’t know what in hell had happened.

Instead, he reached for his hat and tugged up his collar. “I don’t know what’s going on. You stay in here, and I’ll go see.” He opened the door, ducking against the bitter cold and called, “I’ll be right back.” Then he got out into the knee-deep drifts by the truck, and lowered his hat to protect his face.

“Stay put,” he said above the roar of the wind, then shut the door. He went through the snow, into the line of the headlight beams, his progress slow in the deepening drifts. He got near the end of the illumination, stepped to one side out of the light into the dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he knew they were in real trouble.

KATE STARED HARD in front of her, the windshield wipers barely keeping the snow off the glass and doing little to obliterate the crusty patches of frost forming in the corners. Mac had been there in the light, then he was gone. The dark and storm had swallowed him up.

A sense of total aloneness such as she hadn’t felt for years assailed her. As a child she’d felt it, but back then she’d read or written or played make-believe to ignore it. But now reading and writing were out, and making believe that she was at home, snuggled in bed, warm and safe, didn’t work. Not when the truck shook from the wind and Mac’s place on the bench seat was empty.

So she concentrated on why she was here while she sat forward, staring out into the night, willing Mac to come back. She’d found him. No, he’d found her, but either way, she was on a roll. She couldn’t have begun to pull off a meeting like this. In a truck, alone with the man. Talking to him. And she knew, if she had enough time, he’d talk.

He hadn’t left her at Carl’s. She’d had to work on that, but he’d caved in. It hadn’t been easy, and she’d hated pulling out some female tricks, but it had worked. He’d resisted talking, resisted giving her any information, but just before they’d been stopped, he’d started answering her. Sort of. Although she’d almost bit her lip when she’d let California slip. She wasn’t supposed to know that, but he hadn’t called her on it. She’d be more careful when he came back.

If he came back. She was uneasy watching the storm outside. She was losing precious time with him, too. The ten minutes he’d mentioned were ticking away. Soon he’d be gone. She’d be at Joanine’s, and she wouldn’t see him again. She knew that without a doubt. Nothing beyond a great catastrophe would keep him from dropping her here and heading away.

She strained to make out anything beyond the storm, but there was no movement that wasn’t from the wind and snow. A vaguely panicky feeling was starting to take over that aloneness. Mac should have been back by now. He should be here with her, telling her what was going on. She took off her seat belt and reached for the steering wheel to tug herself across the bench seat until she was behind the wheel.

She knew that part of her ability to get a story was her unwillingness to sit still and wait for things to happen. It was also one of her worst flaws. Getting stranded in the snow was evidence of that. But it had turned out great. Right now, she wanted to make something happen. She hit the horn, its blare cutting through the night. She hit it again. Then waited. Nothing.

It was then her imagination kicked into full gear. What if Mac was out there and couldn’t get back? What if he’d fallen and was trapped somehow? Something had happened. Something bad. Should she try to drive farther to find him? Or back out and try to get help? Neither made any sense because she couldn’t see anything.

What she could do was get out and look for Mac. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her, flipped up the collar, then opened the door. The cold air made her gasp, and the snow stung her face when she tried to look up. She hunched more deeply into her, grabbed the door frame and stepped down. The snow immediately penetrated her jeans and boots.

Then the wind snatched the door out of her hand, slamming it with a resounding crack. She turned toward the front of the truck, toward the light, trying to shield her eyes with her hand. But the cold made her bare hand ache, so she pushed it into her pocket and squinted into the night.

“Mac?” she called, but her voice was lost in the wind. “Mac?” she yelled again.

Only the howling of the wind answered her. She started forward, but stayed to the side of the light, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness beyond the beams. Pushing her chin down into the collar, she concentrated on trying to see Mac’s footprints. But all she saw was snow and more snow as she went.

It was then it hit her that Mac might have made the trek to Joanine’s. He’d said it was less than half a mile ahead. He could be there now, warm and dry, getting ready to come back to get her. She looked up then, shocked to find that she hadn’t been going in a straight line, parallel to the lights. She’d wandered off to the right, putting a good twenty feet between herself and the glow. She turned to go back to the lights, but the snow caught at her feet, tripping her, sending her falling.

But this time there were no strong hands to stop the fall, and she went sideways into cold wetness, which went down her neck, up her sleeves, into her nose and mouth. For a split second she wondered if a person could drown in snow.

She couldn’t find anything to hold on to, to push off from, to get back to her feet. The darkness and cold were overwhelming, and she was gasping, flailing, totally off balance. In the middle of the madness, she knew she should have done what Mac had told her. She should have waited. She wished she had. Then she heard something as she hit the icy ground with her hand. The horn? Yes! She screamed, “Mac! Mac!”

Chapter Four

Mac found the problem—an ancient pine, more than twenty feet tall, weighted by the snow. It had snapped and fallen right across the road to Joanine’s. He went farther, past the tree, checking things out, and finally decided that he and Katherine could walk to Joanine’s. Once he got her there safely, he could go back to where he belonged.

As he began to retrace his steps to the truck, he heard something, and even over the wind, he recognized the blare of the truck’s horn. Then it came again. He knew that Katherine had to be getting antsy. She wasn’t born and bred to this life. This sort of weather did strange things to people, even those who were used to it.

When at last he reached the truck and opened the door, he found the cab empty. She hadn’t just panicked, she’d left the truck. He should have made his orders clearer, made her promise not to move. But she’d left in that flimsy jacket and designer boots, regardless of what he’d said.

“Damn it all,” he muttered as he turned to look around him, into the night and storm. “Katherine!” he shouted into the wind. He cupped his hand at his mouth and tried again. “Katherine!”

He reached back into the cab and hit the horn, holding it down for a couple of seconds before letting up to listen. At first he thought there was nothing, then he heard a voice. He wasn’t sure if he’d just imagined it until he heard it again.

“Mac!”

He took off in the direction of the sound, stumbling through the snow, but going as fast as he could. There was darkness all around, then he thought he saw something. A shadow in the swirling snow, crazy movement, thrashings, then Katherine crying, “Mac!”

He headed for her, his progress slow, then he was there. He grabbed her hand, pulling and tugging, lifting her, then grasped both her hands. And without thinking he pulled her to him, and the next instant, her arms went around him, hugging him tightly, her face buried in his chest.

The instant he held her, he felt something in him that he’d been trying to keep at bay. He’d known her an hour, tops, and his heart ached from a fear that came from knowing what could have happened to her. That fear caught at his middle and made his hold on her tighten for a moment. God, he’d never been good at being a Boy Scout, doing good deeds. Especially with a woman with green eyes who was threatening to make his carefully constructed new life show signs of weakness in its foundations.