Loe raamatut: «The Brands of Montana»

Chapter One

“Recalculating.”

Casey Brand had been lost in thought until the portable GPS interrupted her daydream. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel of the moving truck, hands placed firmly at ten and two, before she glanced at the GPS screen.

“Recalculating.”

“No!” Casey argued with the machine. “We are not recalculating!”

“Recalculating.”

The map on the screen of the GPS had disappeared, replaced by a single word: searching. She hadn’t been to her uncle and aunt’s ranch since she was a teenager, so finding it by memory wasn’t a viable option. She needed the GPS to do its job. Casey took her eyes off the road for a second to tap the screen of the GPS.

“Darn it!” She was going to have to pull over.

Her trip from Chicago to Montana had been fraught with setbacks: violent thunderstorms, road construction, bad food, horrible menstrual cramps and a rental truck that struggled to maintain speed on every single hill. Not wanting to risk stopping on an incline, Casey punched the gas pedal several times to help the truck make the climb to the top of the hill.

“Come on, you stupid truck!” Casey rocked back and forth in her seat. “You can do it!”

Halfway to the top of the hill, the check-engine light flashed and then disappeared.

“Don’t you dare!” Casey ordered.

Three quarters of the way up the hill, the orange check-engine light appeared and, this time, it stayed.

Casey groaned in frustration. With every tedious mile, it felt like the universe was telling her that her trip was ill-fated. At the top of the hill, she turned on her blinker, carefully eased the truck onto the gravelly berm and shifted into Park.

“Recalculating.”

“Oh, just shut up,” Casey grumbled as she shut off the engine.

“You wait here,” she said to the teacup poodle watching her curiously from inside a dog carrier that was secured with a seat belt. “I’ll be right back.”

She pulled on the lever to pop the hood and jumped out of the cab. At the front of the truck, she was immediately hit with a strong, acrid smell coming from the engine. The hood of the truck was hot to the touch; Casey yanked her baseball cap off her head and used it to protect her fingers while she lifted up the hood.

“Holy cannoli!” Casey covered her face with the cap and backed away from the truck. A moment later, she ran back to the cab of the truck and grabbed the dog carrier, before she put distance between herself and the rental.

A small electrical fire had melted several wires in the engine; it looked as if the fire had already put itself out, but she couldn’t risk driving the truck now. For the time being, she was stuck on a desolate road, with her sister’s worldly possessions in the back of the broken-down rental, a teacup poodle and angry black storm clouds forming overhead.

Casey pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans to call her sister.

“Come on, Taylor...pick up the phone.”

When Taylor didn’t answer, she called again. She was on her third attempt when a fat raindrop landed on the bridge of her nose. She looked up at the black cloud that was now directly above her.

“Really?” she asked the cloud.

Her sister wasn’t answering, for whatever reason, so she needed to move on to plan B. She was about to dial her aunt Barbara’s cell number when she noticed a horse and rider galloping across a field on the opposite side of the road. She didn’t think, she reacted.

“Hey!” Casey ran across the road, waving her free arm wildly. “Hey!”

The rider didn’t seem to hear her or see her. At the edge of the road, Casey looked down at her beloved Jimmy Choo crushed leather Burke boots and then at the rider. There was mud and grass and rock between her and the rustic wooden fence that surrounded the wide, flat field. Her boots had only known city sidewalks and shopping malls. She didn’t want her beautiful boots to get dirty, but there wasn’t a choice—she had to get the rider’s attention. She ran, as softly as she could manage, through the mud and wet grass to the fence. She put the dog carrier on the ground so she could climb up onto the fence.

“Hey!” Casey yelled again and waved her hat in the air. “Help!”

This time, the rider, a cowboy by the look of him, saw her. He slowed his muscular black horse, assessed the situation and then changed direction.

“He sees us!” Casey told her canine companion. The closer the cowboy came, the more familiar he seemed. Casey stared harder at the man galloping toward her, sitting so confident and erect in the saddle.

“Wait a minute. I know you!”

* * *

Brock McAllister was galloping toward home, racing the rain clouds gathering to the west, when he spotted a woman perched on his fence, waving her arm to get his attention. Brock slowed his stallion and assessed the situation before he decided to change direction. As he came closer, he could see that the woman wasn’t as young as he had thought. She had a slight build, borderline thin, and appeared to be in her midthirties.

“Brock! It’s me—Casey,” the woman called out to him with another wave. “Casey Brand.”

The moment Casey added the last name “Brand” to the equation, Brock made the connection. He had worked on the Brand family’s ranch, Bent Tree, since he was a teenager, and had worked his way up to ranch foreman. Taylor, Casey’s older sister, was married to his stepbrother, Clint, and had just given him a niece. So he’d heard through the grapevine that Casey was coming to Montana to help her sister with the new baby, but he hadn’t given her much thought one way or the other until he found her climbing on his fence.

Lightning lit up the gray clouds hanging over the mountains in the distance and the once-sporadic raindrops were coming with more frequency. He only had a few short minutes to stay ahead of the storm. If Casey needed rescuing, it was going to have to be quick.

“You have perfect timing!” Casey gave him a relieved smile when he halted his horse next to the fence. “Would you believe it? The engine caught on fire!”

Given that information, Brock made a split-second decision that he couldn’t leave Casey behind in the rental while he went back to the farm to get his truck.

“We need to get out of the way of this storm.” Brock walked his horse in a small circle so he could get closer to the fence.

“Is there someone you can call to come get me? I tried my sister, but she didn’t answer.”

“You can’t stay here. We’re under a tornado watch.” Brock halted his horse and held out his gloved hand to Casey. “You need to come with me. Now!”

It seemed to him that his words hadn’t registered. She stared at him with a stunned expression, but didn’t budge.

“Come on!” Brock yelled at her, his large stallion prancing anxiously in place. “Give me your hand!”

The urgency in his voice, along with a clap of thunder, finally got her moving. But instead of giving him her hand, she gave him her dog carrier.

“Hold Hercules! I’ve got to get my wallet!”

Surprised, Brock reached out his hand to take the carrier before his brain had a chance to register that there was a miniature dog, the smallest dog he’d ever seen, inside of the designer bag.

“What the hell...?” Brock’s low baritone voice was caught on a gust of wind. While he waited for Casey’s return, Brock raised the carrier to eye level so he could get a better look at his new passenger. “What in the heck are you supposed to be?”

* * *

Casey ran on the treadmill regularly, so running the short distance to the truck and back was easy for her. She grabbed her wallet then locked the door. Brock’s stallion was chomping at the bit, refusing to stand still by the fence.

“Easy, Taj...” She heard Brock trying to calm the horse while he circled back to the fence. On her way to the truck, the first raindrops had landed on the top of her head and on the tip of her nose. By the time she’d climbed back to the top of the fence, it had begun to rain in earnest. Casey straddled the fence while Brock steadied the prancing, overly excited stallion that was tossing his head and biting at the bit.

“Come on!” Brock ordered. “Use the stirrup!”

Casey grabbed ahold of the damp material of the cowboy’s chambray shirt, slipped her left foot into the stirrup and swung her right leg over the horse’s rump. Casey tucked Hercules under one arm and held on tight to Brock with the other. The heavy sheets of rain were being pushed at an angle by the wind, strong enough and hard enough that the right side of her face felt as if it were being pelted by rock salt. She tried to shield Hercules as much as she could from the rain while she tried to protect her own face by tucking her head into Brock’s back.

Casey pressed her head into the cowboy’s back, and tightened her arms around his waist. In her youth, she had been an excellent rider; she knew how to sit and she knew how to balance her weight on the back of a horse. So, even though his stallion had an extra burden to carry, the impact on the horse would be minimal. Loud claps of thunder followed the lightning strikes by only a few seconds, signaling to Casey that the lightning was too close for comfort. Riding on horseback in a lightning storm was an invitation to be struck.

“Yah, Taj!” she heard Brock yell as he leaned forward and prodded the sure-footed stallion. The stallion leapt forward and kicked his speed into an even higher gear.

Casey squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on following the movement of Brock’s body. All of her senses were being bombarded at once: the masculine scent of leather and sweat on Brock’s shirt mingled with the earthy, sweet scent of the rain, the feel of Brock’s thick thigh muscles pressed so tightly against her own, and the sound of the stallion’s hooves pounding the ground as it carried them across the flat, grassy plain. When she heard what sounded like hooves hitting gravel, she opened her eyes. From beneath the brim of her baseball cap, she saw part of a denim-blue house with a flat roof and a white trim through a canopy of trees.

On their way up the narrow gravel driveway, they passed a faded brown barn and older-model blue-and-yellow Ford tractor. Now in full view, Brock’s two-story house was square with two bay windows and kitty-corner steps leading up to covered porches on either side. Brock halted the stallion directly in front of the stairs, a maneuver Casey suspected he’d done many times before.

“Get inside. The door’s unlocked!” Brock ordered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Brock held the carrier while she dismounted; once she was safely on the ground, he handed Hercules to her. She ran up the steps, and kept on running until she reached the shelter of the covered porch by the front door. She wiped the water off her face as best she could, but her clothing and hair and boots were sopping wet and her skin was wet beneath the material of her jeans and shirt. She hesitated by the door, not wanting to drip water all over his floor. But she heard Brock yelling at her as he dismounted, telling her to get inside. Casey took one last look at the blackened sky filled with swirling gray clouds pouring rain before she followed his direction and opened the front door to the farmhouse.

The heavy door swung open and Casey crossed the threshold into Brock’s dark world. The house was old—she estimated by the look of the lead-stained glass windows abutting the front door that it had already celebrated its centennial birthday. But it had not celebrated in grand fashion. The curtains were made of a dark cherry brocade and were drawn shut to block out any light. Cornflower blue wallpaper dotted with small white flowers contrasted oddly with the forest green shag carpet. Casey knew from her sister that Brock was separated from his wife, Shannon. Brock and Shannon had been “an item” all through middle school and high school. Shannon had been a Miss Montana first runner-up and Casey could remember looking at her when she was a preteen and thinking that Shannon was the prettiest person she’d ever seen. They had married right after high school and the marriage had produced a daughter. But, according to Taylor, they were going through a messy divorce and custody battle and Shannon had been living in California with her new boyfriend.

Yes, Shannon was probably still a very beautiful woman—but she wasn’t a housekeeper. Everything in the house seemed dingy and tired—in need of a good scrubbing to get rid of the wet-dog smell and a serious cleaning in general. Yet Casey could look past the clutter and floral decor to see the potential in the house. The dark, carved woodwork used for the crown molding, the built-in bookshelves and the stairwell, which appeared to be original to the house and beautifully made. The bay windows with those antique stained-glass windows were stunning. Even though the house seemed to be sagging beneath the weight of disrepair, with a lot of TLC, it could be something truly special.

“It’s going to be okay.” Casey put the carrier down on the ground so she could kneel down and take off her boots. No sense just standing there making a puddle in Brock’s foyer. Casey took inventory of her options and then took Hercules, carrier and all, through the living room until she had reached what appeared to be the middle of the house.

“You wait here,” she told Hercules; her pocket poodle had shocked her by not making a sound, even during his first jarring ride on a horse.

Casey went to a small bathroom just off the living room.

“Jackpot.” Casey found a stack of clean, mismatched towels jammed under the sink.

She quickly dried her thick, waist-length hair before twisting it into the towel like a turban. With a second towel, she got the excess water off her shirt and jeans before ripping off her socks so she could stand on the damp towel in her bare feet.

Outside, the wind was howling around the house, sending loose leaves swirling past the window. The trees were starting to bend from the force of the wind and rain, which hadn’t let up since they arrived at the ranch.

What was keeping Brock?

As if on cue, Brock burst through the front door and slammed it shut behind him. Not bothering to take off his wet boots, he strode into the living room and turned on the television. The severe-weather bulletin that had trumped regular programing was running images of a funnel cloud that seemed to be too close for comfort.

“Stay here,” he said as he turned off the television.

Brock took the narrow stairs up to the second floor two at a time. He went to the master bedroom, tugged one of the plaid shirts down off the bedpost, then grabbed a pair of his soon-to-be ex-wife’s jeans and socks out of a dresser drawer. He needed to get his unexpected guest taken care of before he went to go get his daughter, Hannah, who was at a friend’s house roughly fifteen minutes away. He had to get to Hannah.

“They’re clean.” He pushed the clothes into her arms.

Casey was still trying to process the fact that she was caught up in a tornado situation, when Brock swung open a door that led to a cellar. A blast of stale air hit her in the face.

Brock switched on a battery-powered light. “Change and then you and your dog need to go down to the cellar. There’s a weather radio down there, along with other supplies. Switch it on so you know what’s happening. Wait there until I get back.”

“You’re leaving?” There was the tiniest crack in her voice. She was accustomed to blizzards, but tornadoes were an entirely different kind of natural menace.

“I’m going to get my daughter!” he hastened to say. And then he was gone.

She followed his directions—they were sensible and were meant to keep her safe. She stripped out of her wet clothes, wrung them out and hung them over the tub. The plaid shirt was huge on her—she rolled the sleeves up several times so her hands were free. Likewise, the jeans were loose around the waist and hips, and way too long. Casey folded the waistband down to make the jeans fit more securely, and then cuffed the bottom of the jeans so she could walk without stepping on them.

Once she was in dry clothes, she pulled the towel off her head and twisted her tangled hair into a topknot.

“Here goes nothing.” Casey opted to breathe through her mouth to avoid inhaling the musty odor of the cellar. After some time down there, she hoped she wouldn’t even notice it.

At the bottom of the rickety steps, Casey found a spot on the ground where she could unfold a blanket and hunker down until the coast was clear. The wind was so strong that it felt as if the house was swaying and groaning overhead.

“Come on out, little one.” Casey opened the carrier and coaxed the rust-colored micro-poodle out onto the blanket.

She was glad that Hercules was content to curl up in her lap, because she needed his company. He made her feel calmer. With a frustrated, self-pitying sigh, Casey turned on the weather radio and knew that the only thing she could do now was wait and pray.

* * *

“I’m so sorry, Brock.” Kay Lynn opened the door to the trailer. “I had to call. I haven’t seen her like this in a while. She was hitting herself and biting her hand again. She’s been in a nosedive for the last hour or so.”

“Is she in her normal spot?”

Kay Lynn nodded toward the hallway of the single-wide trailer. Brock walked quickly, but calmly, down the narrow hallway to the spare bedroom. Squeezed between a full-size bed and the wall, his twelve-year-old daughter was curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth. In front of her, lying on top of Hannah’s feet, was a golden Lab.

“Good girl, Ladybug.” Brock knelt down, put his hand on the dog’s head for a moment, before he reached out for his daughter’s hand.

“Hannah,” he said softly. “It’s time to go home.”

Hannah had been officially diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when she was eight. Her IQ was very high, but there were quirks to her personality that set her apart from other children her age. And, when a storm was coming, Brock always anticipated that she was going to have an off day. If he’d had any idea that she was going to spiral like this, he would have stayed home with her.

“Come on, baby girl.” He directed the protective dog to move out of the way so he could help Hannah make the transition from the trailer to his truck. “We’re going home.”

Hannah lifted her head up. Her face, so much like his, was still damp from shed tears. His heart tightened every time his daughter cried. Brock wiped her tears from her cheeks before he lifted her up into his arms and hugged her tightly. The squeezing always calmed her.

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Hannah asked when he put her down.

“I got here as fast as I could.” Brock took her hand in his. “Now, I need you to use your ‘stay calm’ plan on the way home. Okay?”

Hannah nodded. “Come on, Lady.”

Now that he had his daughter with him, Brock felt complete. He could handle anything, as long as he had his daughter by his side. He could even handle a messy divorce from Shannon, Hannah’s mother. They were in a custody battle for Hannah and had been for nearly a year. Shannon wanted to move Hannah out to California with her, and it was going to happen over his dead carcass. Hannah was going to stay in Montana, with him, in the only home she’d ever known. Period.

“You’d better hunker down, Kay Lynn. You’re a sitting duck out here. You could come with us, but you’ve got to come now.”

Kay Lynn’s silver-streaked hair blew around the sunken cheeks of her face. She waved her hand as if she could bat away the tornado with her rough-skinned fingers. “That tornado don’t want none of me, Brock. You go on and get Hannah home. I’ll be right as rain.”

There was no sense wasting time trying to convince Kay Lynn to leave her home—she was as much a part of the prairie surrounding the old trailer as was the willowy Junegrass. He’d offered, but knew she wouldn’t take him up on it.

With a quick wave to Hannah’s sometimes babysitter, Brock bundled Hannah into the truck and headed back to his little Montana spread. They didn’t see much more than a few drops of rain on their short drive back. Brock pulled into the gravelly driveway that led to their farmhouse knowing that they were in a lull. The clouds above were still churning and angry, and it was only a matter of time before the wind would start howling again. They were in the most dangerous time of a tornado, the time when many folks get fooled into thinking that the threat was over, when in actuality it was just about to begin.