Loe raamatut: «The Maverick's Holiday Masquerade»

Chapter One

Fourth of July

“Do you see them?”

Kristen Dalton shaded her eyes with one hand as she looked up the road, but she couldn’t see any hint of a horse-drawn carriage. “Sorry, sis. No sign of the bride and groom yet.”

“I can’t wait to see her wedding dress. The rumors have been all over the place. I’ve heard everything from country casual to Kardashian craziness.”

Anything could be true. Although Kristen and her sister lived in a small town surrounded by ranches, technology made the world itself a small place. Even to the far northern edge of Montana, a gown from glittering Hollywood could be shipped overnight. Since the wedding dress possibilities were endless, the speculation around town had been, as well. For weeks, Kristen had been patiently listening to her twin, Kayla, list the pros and cons of every type of gown. Although today was the Fourth of July, her twin’s excitement was closer to that of a kid on Christmas morning.

Kristen handed her sister her paper cup, then hopped up to perch on the top log of the split-rail fence that bordered the town park. She held out her hands for her cup and Kayla’s. “Come sit with me. It could be a while. That photographer has to take pictures of a million Traub family members at the church.”

Kayla climbed up to sit beside her on the railing, settling in for the wait. “What a beautiful day for their wedding.”

Kristen thought it was a little too warm, nearly eighty degrees, which was as hot as things got this close to Glacier National Park. As she handed back Kayla’s cup, Kristen took a healthy drink of her ice-cold wedding punch.

Thank goodness they’d decided to wear sundresses. They didn’t match, of course. She and Kayla looked as identical as two peas in a pod, a phrase Kristen had been hearing for as long as she could remember, but they hadn’t dressed like twins for as long as they’d been choosing their own clothes. From a distance, she supposed they looked like twins in blue dresses, but up close, they weren’t alike at all.

Kayla’s dress had an all-over print of tiny flowers. Her spaghetti straps were delicate, and she wore their grandmother’s earrings. The shiny filigree drops were shown to their advantage on Kayla because she swept her hair up most of the time.

No one would ever see those earrings if Kristen wore them, because her hair was nearly always down. And long. And wavy. And—okay, I’ll admit it, Mom—always blowing in the Montana breeze and getting tangled. Their mother had despaired of keeping it neat and had given up trying somewhere around kindergarten, when Kristen had become quite adept at removing barrettes and bows.

Kristen could also admit that she’d deliberately worn blue because it made her eyes appear their bluest. Her denim halter dress always made her feel like she struck the right balance between sweet and sexy. She got smiles from the town’s mavens and mavericks both. Rather than sandals, she wore her western boots. Not the solid, broken-in ones that she wore to do chores around the family ranch, but the ones with the hand-scrolled swirls in the leather. These were the boots she wore for two-stepping, waltzing and square dancing, all of which she hoped to do before, during and after tonight’s fireworks.

All she needed was the right cowboy to dance with.

If only...

If only there was a cowboy here in Rust Creek Falls that she didn’t already know—and already know wasn’t her type.

“I really admire Braden and Jennifer for thinking up this carriage ride,” her sister said. “Their first experience as Mr. and Mrs. Traub will be private, just the two of them, as they start their journey together, figuratively, literally—”

“Briefly.” Kristen nudged her in the shoulder. “The church is only two blocks away. Then we’ll be right here, ready to say hi while we’re really checking out the newest Mrs. Traub’s gown.”

Kayla shot her a look. “We’re supposed to admire the bride’s gown. It’s expected.”

“I know, I know. It’ll be worth the wait, I’m sure.”

“They say the best things in life are.” Kayla sounded like she really meant that.

Kristen kicked the heels of her boots against the lower log railing. Thunk, thunk. She polished off the rest of her punch, then lifted her heavy hair from the back of her warm neck again. Thunk, thunk. “I hope this carriage looks amazing, because it certainly isn’t a very fast way to travel.”

Kayla nudged her shoulder. “I heard Sutter Traub located true white horses, and they went to someone’s place south of Kalispell to borrow a two-seater surrey. Paige and Lindsay bought miles of white ribbon for it and were making bows all week.”

“Wow,” Kristen said, impressed at the wealth of details her sister knew. Kristen had only heard that the bride and groom were going to arrive at the park by carriage. “You’ve got wedding fever worse than anyone else in town, and that’s saying something, considering the entire town is here for the reception.”

Kristen stopped thudding her heels against the cross rail; even a twin might get annoyed at the rhythmic thumping, even an identical twin who understood Kristen’s restless nature better than anyone else in the world. Squinting against the bright July sun, she joined Kayla in staring silently down Buckskin Road, past their old high school. Every kid in Rust Creek Falls had been educated there. Every kid still was. Some things in this small town never changed, and that was fine with Kristen.

She’d gone to the University of Montana, majored in theater and spent a summer as an unpaid intern in New York City. Like Dorothy in a pair of ruby red slippers—a role she’d played onstage at the university—she’d realized there was no place like home. Cities were great fun to visit, but the tiny town of Rust Creek Falls under the big sky of Montana was home. It always had been. It always would be.

Small didn’t mean boring. Things were always changing. Their local politics could make the national scene appear tame, but everyone had pulled together to rebuild after a flood had wiped out a substantial portion of the town just a couple of years ago. Old Bledsoe’s Folly, an abandoned mountain retreat, was now an upscale resort that had the town buzzing with talk about developing the area’s first ski slope.

But it was the people of Rust Creek Falls that were the most interesting. There must be something about Montana’s famous Big Sky, because lots of folks who’d come to help with the flood recovery or to turn Bledsoe’s Folly into Maverick Manor had ended up staying, partnered up after falling in love in Kristen’s hometown.

She glanced up at that blue sky now, automatically scanning the horizon for planes—for a certain plane. It was a habit she’d formed earlier this year, when she’d thought the blue sky was bringing her true love to her. The handsome pilot of a commuter airline had turned out to be a heartbreaker of the lowest kind. Like a sailor with a girl in every port, he’d had a woman at every airport. Kristen still felt like an idiot for falling for him.

She got another shoulder nudge from her sister. “Does he fly into Kalispell on weekends now?”

Leave it up to quiet Kayla to never miss a detail, not even a glance at the sky.

Kristen wrinkled her nose. “I don’t care what Captain Two-Timer does or where he flies or who he tells lies to after he lands.”

“Or to whom he tells lies after he lands.”

“You should be a writer, you know.” Kristen resumed her rail-thumping. “I don’t care ‘to whom’ he lies. It isn’t to me, not anymore. ‘Gee, I wish I didn’t have to go. I won’t be able to call you for a few days. You know I’d rather be with you, but this job is so demanding.’ I was an idiot. I can’t believe I couldn’t see through him.”

“You were in love.”

“I’m not anymore.” She tossed her hair back. “I’m in the mood to dance. I’m hoping for a handsome stranger or two to flirt with, but I’m not going to fall in love again.”

“Not ever?”

“Not for a long while. Definitely not today.”

Kayla didn’t say anything for long seconds.

Kristen stopped looking for the carriage when she realized her sister was staring at her, not at the road. “What?”

“You shouldn’t dare the universe to prove you wrong like that.”

“Stop that. You’re giving me goose bumps.” Kristen jumped down from the fence, an easy drop of two feet at most, but somehow she stumbled and nearly fell. She was normally as nimble as a cat, and this sudden imbalance struck her as—funny? Yes, it was funny. It was good to giggle after that serious moment. “You stay here on carriage watch. I’ll go get us some more punch. Give me your cup.”

When Kayla reached down to hand her the cup, she slipped, too, and fell right into Kristen. They dissolved into giggles together, for no reason at all.

“What do you suppose is in that punch?” Kristen asked. “We only had one cup.”

“I don’t know, but stay here with me. Just look down that road and wait for true love to come our way.”

* * *

Ryan Roarke parked his red Porsche in between two sturdy pickup trucks. The high-performance sports car belonged in Los Angeles, but this wasn’t LA. In fact, Ryan had come to Montana to get away from Los Angeles. When he’d directed his assistant to reserve a luxury rental vehicle at the Glacier Park airport, he’d expected to be handed the keys to his usual Land Rover or an Audi fitted with a ski rack, the kind of rental he drove when he visited his brother in a different part of Montana, the upscale ski resort of Thunder Canyon.

This was July, however, and the roads were clear of snow, so the clerk had been enthusiastic when she’d handed him the keys to the Porsche. Ryan had attempted to return her smile when he wanted to grimace.

He grimaced now. Pulling into the packed dirt of the parking spaces at the edge of Rust Creek Falls’ park in a Porsche was not what he’d had in mind for the weekend. The flashy car was so inappropriate for this rugged town, it made him look like he was having a midlife crisis. Ryan killed the powerful engine and got out, feeling like a giant at six-foot-one next to the low car. He returned the stares from a few cowboys with a hard look of his own.

Ryan knew what a midlife crisis looked like—too many of his fellow attorneys blew their children’s inheritances on sports cars in an effort to replace their children’s mothers with starlets—but he didn’t know what one felt like. He was not having a midlife crisis. He was only thirty-three, for starters, and a confirmed bachelor. He wasn’t trying to appear more wealthy or powerful or attractive to women than he already was.

As the second generation of well-known attorneys in Los Angeles, Ryan already owned the sports cars, the Rolex, the hand-tailored suits. Physical intimidation had a subliminal effect even in a courtroom, and Ryan kept himself in fighting shape by boxing with exclusive trainers and surfing on exclusive beaches. When it came to young, blonde starlets finding him attractive, he didn’t even have to try.

This was definitely not a midlife crisis.

So why am I standing in the smallest of towns in a landlocked state more than one thousand miles away from home?

He was supposed to be on a yacht, slowly getting sloshed with his fellow millionaires, drinking top-shelf mojitos while waiting for the sun to set over the Pacific and for the city of Los Angeles to blow an obscene amount of money on a fireworks display worthy of a Hollywood movie. One Laker Girl, in particular, was quite upset he’d canceled those plans. But the government had closed the courts of law on Friday for the holiday weekend, and for the past two years, whenever Ryan found himself with a chance to take a few days off, he’d found himself taking those days off in Montana.

The reason he’d first set foot in Big Sky Country was his brother. Shane Roarke had gained fame as a celebrity chef, a man whose dynamic personality and culinary skill had combined to give him the keys to the world. Shane had opened restaurants all over that world, but when it came to choosing one place to live, he’d chosen Montana.

Shane, like Ryan, was adopted. Shane had found his birth family in Thunder Canyon. He’d found a pair of half brothers, a baker’s dozen of cousins—and the love of his life. She’d been working right under his nose at his own restaurant in the Thunder Canyon resort.

None of that would be happening for Ryan. Not in Montana, and not anywhere else on the planet. Unlike Shane, Ryan hadn’t been adopted at birth. He’d been almost four years old, too young to have many memories of his birth mother, but old enough to have retained an image or two, impressions.

Feelings.

And that one clear moment in time: watching his mother voluntarily walk away from him, forever.

No, there would never be an embrace from a happy second family for him. He was loyal only to one family: the Roarkes. His parents, Christa and Gavin Roarke, his older brother Shane, his younger sister Maggie.

It was Maggie who lived here in Rust Creek Falls, some three hundred miles even farther north than Thunder Canyon. Maggie was married now, and she’d given birth to her first baby less than three months ago.

The Fourth of July wasn’t a big family holiday, not like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Between the LA traffic to the airport, the security checks, and the need to change planes in order to cross one thousand miles, Montana was no weekend jaunt. No one was expected to travel for nine or ten hours to see family for a day in July. And yet, Maggie had mentioned over the phone that the whole town would be celebrating the wedding for a couple Ryan vaguely knew from a previous trip, and he’d booked a flight.

Another moment in time, another feeling: A wedding in Rust Creek Falls? I should be there.

He was acting irrationally, following a hunch. Was that any worse behavior than the attorneys who really were having midlife crises?

Maggie had told him the wedding would be in the church, a formal affair with five bridesmaids and men in tuxedos. Accordingly, Ryan was wearing a suit and tie. He owned a few tuxedos, of course, but since the wedding was in the afternoon and he was one of an entire town of guests, he’d assumed wearing black tie would be too much.

As Ryan made his way from the parking lot to the main part of the park, he returned a few curious but courteous nods from the locals. His assumption about the tux being overkill had clearly been correct, but even his suit was too much. The reception was also the town’s Fourth of July community barbecue. Ryan felt exactly like what he was, an overdressed city slicker, standing in a grassy field that was dotted with picnic blankets and populated by cowboys in their jeans and cowgirls in their sundresses.

He stopped near the temporary stage and wooden dance floor. The bride and groom hadn’t arrived yet, but the band was warming up and the drinks were being served. An old man came toward him, going out of his way just to offer Ryan a cup of wedding punch in a paper cup. Amused, Ryan thanked him, realizing the old-timer must have thought he looked like he needed a drink, standing alone as he was.

He was alone, but only because Maggie and her husband were back at their house, hoping their baby would take a nap so they could return for the fireworks later. Being alone didn’t mean Ryan was lonely.

Ryan took a swig of the wedding punch, then immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a god-awful sweet concoction with sparkling wine thrown in, something he’d never drink under almost any other circumstance. Worse, he couldn’t just pour the stuff out on the grass. In a small town like this one, he was as likely to be standing near the person who made the punch as not. Some doting grandma or an earnest young lady had probably mixed the juice and wine, and the odds were good that if Ryan dumped it out, she’d see him do it. He’d break some proud punch maker’s heart.

If there was one thing Ryan was not, it was a heartbreaker. His Laker Girl, for example, was irritated at losing a yacht outing, but she wasn’t heartbroken. He kept his relationships painless, his connections surface-deep. In LA, it seemed right. Today, here in this park, it seemed...too little.

He polished off the punch, but on his way to the industrial-size trash can, he passed the punch table and found himself accosted by a trio of sweet little grannies.

“Well, don’t you look nice?”

“Are you waiting on somebody? A handsome young man like you must have a date for this wedding.”

“It’s nearly eighty degrees. You must be ready to melt in that jacket, not that you don’t look very fine.”

He wasn’t overheated. In Los Angeles, the temperature would easily reach one hundred, and he’d still wear a suit between his office and the courthouse. It took more than a reading on a thermometer to make him lose his cool.

Still, he appreciated their maternal concern. Their faces were creased with laugh lines, and all three of them had sparkling blue eyes that had probably been passed down from the Norwegians and Germans who’d settled here centuries ago. It was like being fussed over by three kindly characters from one of Grimm’s fairy tales.

“Here, son, let me refill your cup.”

“No, thank you.” Ryan waved off the punch bowl ladle.

All three women jerked to attention, then looked at him through narrowed eyes, their fairy-tale personas taking on the aura of determined villainesses.

“Don’t be foolish, dear. The day is hot and this punch is cold.”

This was Montana, land of grizzly bears as well as grannies. At the moment, it seemed like there might not be much difference between the two groups. When confronted by a bear, one should let it have its way. Ryan forced another smile as the punch pushers refilled his cup.

“Thank you very much.” He raised his paper cup in a toasting gesture, took a healthy swig to make them happy and continued on his way.

To where? Just where did he have to go?

To a trash can. He had nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, no one else to see.

His vision burst into stars, like he’d been hit in the boxing ring, a TKO. He put his hand out to steady himself, the wooden fence rough under his palm. He wasn’t drunk. It wasn’t possible on a cup of juice-diluted sparkling wine. And yet he felt...he felt...

Good God, he felt like garbage.

Useless.

Maggie was with her husband. Shane was with his wife. Even his parents were together back in California, planning their retirement, ready to travel and spend time together as Christa and Gavin after decades tirelessly fulfilling the roles of Mom and Dad.

Lonely.

One thousand miles he’d traveled, and for what? To be a stranger in a strange land? He looked around, keeping his grip on the split-rail fence. Everywhere, everyone had someone. Children had grandparents. Husbands had wives. Awkward teenagers had each other. The teen girls were toying with their hair, whispering and talking and looking at the boys. The boys stood with their arms crossed over their chests, testing their fledgling cowboy swagger, but they stood in a cluster with other boys with crossed arms, all being independent together.

All being independent, together. That was what this town was about. Ryan had first come here after a flood had decimated the southern half of the town. His sister had been helping process insurance claims in the town hall. Maggie was so efficient Ryan hadn’t been needed the weekend he’d arrived to help. Instead, he’d picked up a spare pair of work gloves and started using his muscles instead of his brains, picking up the pieces, literally, of someone’s broken dream.

Without a lot of conversation, he’d joined a cluster of men and women as they’d each picked up one brick, one board, one metal window frame to toss in a Dumpster before reaching for the next. One by one, each piece of debris had been cleared away. Independently but together, he and the others removed the remains of an entire house in a day, leaving the lot ready for a fresh building and a new dream.

With a few nods and handshakes, all the men and women had gone their separate ways after sunset, to eat and rest and do it all over again the next day. Ryan had never been part of something so profound.

He stared at the split-rail fence under his hand. That was why he kept coming back. For one day, he’d belonged. No one had cared which law firm he was with, which part of LA he could afford to live in, which clients had invited him onto their yachts. He’d been part of this community, no questions asked, and he’d liked it.

But now, they don’t need me.

He rejected that thought, hearing in it the echo of a pitiful little boy whose mother had decided he was no longer needed in her life. Rejected that emotion as he had rejected it so many times before. He refused to be an unwanted child. He was a Roarke, a powerful attorney from a powerful family, and when he wanted something, no one could stop him from achieving it.

He just needed to know what he wanted.

The drunken, emotional craziness cleared from his mind as he kept staring at his hand, still gripping the solid wood railing. Slowly, he lifted his gaze, following the line of the fence as it stretched along the perimeter of the park. He could hardly believe the direction his own mind was taking, but his thoughts were heading straight toward one idea. What if he chose a new path in life? What if he came to Montana for more than a long weekend? Could he live here? Would he feel like he belonged, or would he always be skirting along the outside of the close-knit community?

His visual run along the length of the fence was interrupted a hundred yards away by two women in blue dresses who were sitting on the railing, their backs to the people of the town. The one with the loose, long hair threw her head back and laughed at something the other woman said, happy although she was on the outskirts of the party.

Happy, because she’s not alone.

Shane and Maggie were happy in Montana, too, because they were not alone. Marriage and parenthood were sobering concepts for him. He didn’t think he’d be very good at either one, and he didn’t particularly have a burning desire to try, either. He let go of the fence and headed back toward the Porsche, loosening his tie as he went. Maybe he had come to Montana looking for something, but it hadn’t been for love.

If he made such a drastic change, if he gave up LA for a life in a small town, he’d do so on his own terms. This was about a different standard of living, a different pace of life. There was only one way to find out if this town could meet his terms, and that was to try it on for size. Just for today, he was going to act like he belonged here. He’d eat some barbecue, dance with some local girls and decide if this community of extended families and battered pickup trucks was really richer than his moneyed life in LA.

If he decided it was, then he’d develop and execute a plan for responsibly resigning from Roarke and Associates in Los Angeles and moving permanently to Montana.

What if they don’t like me here, now that they don’t need me?

He shoved the boyishly insecure emotion aside as he opened the Porsche’s trunk to get to his suitcase. The Porsche had its trunk in the front of the car and the engine in the back, making it just as unusual as Ryan himself in this humble parking lot. The Porsche was doomed to always be different. But he, with a simple change of clothes, could make himself fit in. He’d brought the jeans he usually wore to ride ATVs in Thunder Canyon and the boots he’d worn when he’d helped out after the flood.

If the town rejected him this time, if he was treated like he was no longer wanted now that the flood was a receding memory, then no harm done. He’d lived through rejection before. He could take any heartache this town could dish out.

He took off his Rolex and tossed it into the trunk before slamming the red metal shut.