Montana Red

He wished she’d take off the fancy sunglasses so he could see her eyes.

Jake hit the button to roll down Buck’s window and leaned across him to talk to her. “This is my…”

“You heard me,” she shouted. “Stay in the truck.”

Then she whirled on one heel and pointed the gun at the ground. Tried to aim it.

Both doors on the passenger side opened and Buck and Teddy stepped down off the running board at the same time as if they were doing some kind of coordinated dance, Buck with his rope, Teddy with a quirt in his hand.

“What the hell?” Jake hollered. “You aim to rope a woman with a shotgun?”

“Snake!” she screamed. “Get away from it.”

Now it was the muzzle of her gun that was dancing, swinging around to point everywhere at once. Holy hell. She could blow them all away.

She took a step forward on the porch, braced her legs apart in a high-heeled fighter’s stance, set the gun into her shoulder and—God help them all—propped her right elbow against her ribs to try to steady her aim. She was a right-handed shooter.

The muzzle passed right over Jake. Unless there was a snake in the truck here with him, it was as safe as a church.

He ducked but after a second he couldn’t not look and when he did, the wavering shotgun had left him to hover around and above and below his uncle. Buck held his doubled-up rope ready in the air and Teddy did the same with the quirt, both trying to gauge the striking distance of the good-size rattler coiled on the ground between them. They ignored the woman and the gun completely.

“Get out of the way! I’ll take care of it,” she yelled and then her voice began to shake. “I don’t want to hit y’all…”

Well, that told him she wasn’t from around here. And everything else about her told him she wasn’t the marksman of the year. The barrel of the gun made a big circle and swung back toward the truck again.

Jake threw his door open and hit the ground. He crouched behind the front wheel and yelled, “They’ve killed snakes before, ma’am. Don’t worry about them. Now, put the gun down…”

He could see Buck’s feet and he saw the rope slice down to hit the snake right behind its weaving head. The gun roared anyway.

The whole front of the truck exploded with a crash, rattled and broke into a million pieces. For a second, Jake thought he was dead. He wasn’t even hit.

The truck gave one last gasp and died. Antifreeze poured out of the radiator, red rivulets ran from the power steering, and bits of metal twinkled on the ground. Everywhere.

He yelled, “You boys okay?”

For a minute nobody answered. The sudden silence was deafening. Then, faintly from Buck, “Depends on what you mean by that.”

Jake yelled again, trying to put a persuasive tone in his voice, “You done shooting, ma’am?”

She didn’t answer, or if she did he couldn’t hear her.

“Hold your fire,” he said, trying for authority instead. “I’m gonna stand up now. Put the gun down.” The recoil had probably knocked her down.

He got up and stood behind the truck. Even in the state she was in, which basically was one of a terrible need to let go and crumple to the floor until her legs could regain their strength, Clea knew him. Her Montana Cowboy.

Well, not hers.

He looked her over as if to judge whether she’d take another shot, then he strode around the front of the truck and came up the steps of the porch like a man here to take charge. Who was he really? But if he’d been carrying a foal around on his saddle, he couldn’t be a bad guy. Could he?

All she could do was lean against the wall where the recoil had thrown her. She still held the gun frozen in both hands but she couldn’t lift it. Her shoulder felt as if she’d been hit by a truck. The instructor had warned the class to hold the stock really tight but she mustn’t have held it tight enough.

The cowboy walked straight up to her and took hold of the gun as if he’d decided that she would shoot again. Up close, he was even more rugged and handsome than she’d thought when she saw him from the road.

However, he certainly wasn’t behaving like the mythical cowboy he’d looked to be.

“Let go,” she said, pulling back on her weapon as hard as she could.

“You’re liable to blast a hole in the floor,” he said. “Turn loose. All I’m gonna do is take this gun and stand it up against the wall.”

Whatever happened to a slow, drawling, gallant “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Don’t talk down to me,” she snapped. “I took lessons.”

A spark of humor flashed in his eyes but his voice stayed grim. “My advice? Ask for your money back.”

It might’ve made her smile if she hadn’t felt so…not scared exactly, but yes, scared. And inadequate. The way Brock had made her feel sometimes. She continued to cling to the gun with both hands. He didn’t take it away but his grip was so strong she could tell she couldn’t stop him if he tried.

So much for self-protection. This was why her instructor always said never let a bad guy get close enough to take your gun away from you. There were scarier things in the world than stealing a horse.

For the first time in her whole life, there was no one in the house she could call on for help.

Could Brock have hired these men to take Ariel away from her? No. He couldn’t possibly know where she was. Not yet.

She took a deep breath and took the offensive. “Who are you? You have a nerve, all of you, coming in here as if you own the place. You’re trespassing. I warned y’all to stay in your truck.”

“I’m Jake Hawthorne,” he said. “I live here.”

It took her a second. “In your dreams. We may be out in the middle of nowhere and you may have your snake-killing buddies with you but no way are you moving in here.”

“I already did.”

That flat sincerity startled her into taking one hand off the gun to remove her sunglasses so she could look into his eyes with no barrier.

“Didn’t you see my boots and jeans in the closet? My groceries in the kitchen? My feed and hay in the barn? My shorts in the underwear drawer?”

It all became clear.

“I…I’m in the wrong house?” She hated that her voice revealed just how deep her embarrassment went.

He smiled. Sort of. With just the slightest lift at the corners of his mouth. At least he wasn’t rude enough to really laugh at her.

“I…I leased a house with a barn for a year…”

He nodded. “But not this one.”

He was remarkably calm about her mistake, standing here in the middle of this mess of ruined trucks and dead rattlesnakes, so unlike the yelling, hysterical idiot that Brock would have been if his new truck had just been shot to pieces. In fact, she didn’t know any other man who’d act like this in such a situation.

But who cared what kind of man he was? He might be calm but there was still an undercurrent of steel resolve in him that didn’t bode well for anybody’s opposing will.

Especially a woman’s. Like most men, he saw her as a sex object. His gaze had drifted to her mouth.

She stared at him until he met her eyes.

“I am going to get a refund,” she said. “I had ten lessons and the best score in the class.”

“That’s the devil of it,” he said. “Most times, lessons can’t put a patch on real life.”

Real life. The words hit her like a blow across the back of the knees.

Clearly, this Jake Hawthorne could handle whatever real life threw at him. While she on the other hand had just proved she had a long way to go to even get started on a real life. She’d shot up his truck, misunderstood his remark about living there, moved into the wrong house. If this was the best she could do, how could she survive out here? This was a place filled with tough men.

Get tough yourself, Clea. Say what you think. Say what you want. Sound like you intend to get it.

“Is this what you do? Pin a person up against the wall where they can’t even move—after you tell them to get out of your house?”

“First experience,” he said.

He took the gun and stepped away to lean it against the wall.

“I declare, miss,” one of the old guys said. “You nearly blowed me and Teddy right out of our boots. How come you’re tryin’ to shoot your own snakes, anyhow?”

It was the one who’d killed the snake who was stomping up the steps. He had keen, very keen blue eyes that seemed to see everything. His buddy was right behind him.

Both of them were grinning at her but she was in no mood to smile back. She felt shaken now that Jake Hawthorne had finally let her go.

“Because I’m not really fond of snakes,” she said. “I thought it might get into the house. I thought it might bite me or my horse. I thought this place wasn’t big enough for both of us.”

Completely immune to her sarcasm, the old guys headed straight for her. She moved away from the wall.

“Well, o’ course that’s right,” the blue-eyed one said. “Ma’am, I’m Buck and this here’s my pardner, Teddy.”

They both tipped their hats to her.

“What I was askin’ by my question was, where is your man? Are you here by your lonesome, Miss…uh, Miss…?”

“I’m Clea.” That was all she intended to tell them.

Teddy spoke to her as if he’d known her all her life. “Well, don’t you worry none, Miss Clea. We done kilt that rattler fer you deader than a rock.” His faded brown eyes were as calm and steady as Buck’s were lively.

“You want us to get Jake out’n’ yore hair, ma’am? He can be a real bother sometimes. Won’t listen to a word nobody says. Cain’t tell him nothin’, you might say.”

Jake snorted derisively.

“This here’s quite a party you’ve throwed, Miss Clea,” Buck said. “I ain’t had me such a rousin’ good time since the Miles City Bucking Horse Contest the last year I rode.”

His twinkle and Teddy’s nod of agreement made her smile in spite of all the aggravation of her insecurities. “Usually I entertain at my own house,” she said wryly.

They laughed, then Buck drawled, “Wal, this can be your house if you want. Jake can live with us. You oughtta stay here so you’ll have a nice mantel board where we can tack up this hide.”

He lifted the dead snake. Clea screamed. She hadn’t even noticed he was carrying it by his side. Held up in the air at the old man’s shoulder, its tail brushed the floor. Its mouth was open with the fangs hanging out. It was a horrible sight.

“He’s a beauty, ain’t he?” Teddy said. “Might be near as long as Buck is tall.”

“Don’t worry none,” Buck said. “I’ll skin him out for you.”

The vision of that activity made her whirl on her heel and run into the house. Her stomach clutched. Partly because the snake repelled her so and partly because it had just occurred to her that she might never want to carry her beautiful snakeskin bag ever again.

She got as far as the worn old sofa and collapsed onto it. “Please go,” she called, through the open doorway. “And take the snake away.”

Nobody answered. Clea let her head fall back onto the top of the cushion. Even with her eyes closed, she saw the snake on the backs of her eyelids. Saw it coiled on the ground beside her truck, waiting for her when she went for the door.

Saw it dead, fangs reaching, hanging from Buck’s hand.

What if it had been a mountain lion…or a bear? At least she could stay away from a snake if she saw it soon enough. It hadn’t chased her when she went to get the gun.

Voices murmured out on the porch.

Here was another example of her mishandling real life. No, two examples. Screaming and running away.

Weariness flooded her jangled nerves. This was the wilds of Montana. She was here for a year. She felt completely exhausted and she hadn’t even found her own house yet.

The scuff of boots against the floor and the squeak of the screened door took the place of the voices. She sat up.

Buck stepped through the door. Holding both hands out to show he was without the snake. “I’m sorry, Miss Clea,” he said. “I never thought you might be scairt of a dead snake. Can I get you a cool drink of water?”

It made her feel like a character in an historical novel, a delicate lady who needed a dose of smelling salts. She opened her mouth to say no, but Buck went on to the kitchen.

When he came back with a tin cup of water he called, “Come on in, boys.”

To her, he said, “We ain’t throwin’ you outta this house ‘til you git over this little upset. Mebbe not ever. Jake can take the house over there by the lake that you’re s’posed to have.” He grinned. “Or he can move in with me and Ted, ‘cause…”

Jake interrupted, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Buck.” He was headed for the bedroom but he glanced at Clea over his shoulder. “You can move tomorrow.”

“I’m moving today,” she said, shooting the words back at him as briskly as he’d spoken to her.

“Don’t rush her,” Buck called after him.

Teddy said, “No, don’t. But Miss Clea does need to get settled into the right place so’s she can get started on her—”

He interrupted himself to come closer to Clea, his kindly brown eyes questioning her as he finished, “Well, doing whatever you come to Montana to do, ma’am.”

“Whatever it is,” Buck added helpfully.

Hopefully. They both looked at her expectantly and fell silent, giving her a chance to tell them what she was doing here. In Jake’s house. With her bright orange cashmere afghan thrown over the arm of the couch and her burled wood bowl with its meandering turquoise inlay sitting on the mantel.

Not to mention her sheets on his bed.

She couldn’t help but like the two old-timers who were so lively and curious but no way was she going to get into her story with them.

“Runnin’ from the law, more ‘n’ likely,” Buck said with a grin and a wink.

Clea jumped and spilled water on her jeans.

“I’d lay money on it,” Teddy said. “Don’t she look jist like a hoss thief to you?”

She felt her eyes go wide and the blood rush to her cheeks. “I can’t believe you saw through my disguise,” she said.

They laughed, loving that she played along with their joke.

“We mind our own business,” Teddy said. “So we ain’t turnin’ you in, Miss Clea, not unless you try to throw your long rope on some of our hosses.”

“Yore disguise ain’t so bad, though,” Buck said. “Ain’t seen many thieves wear them high-heeled shoes like you got on.”

She laughed, too, even if it sounded a little forced, then she finished the water fast and stood up. She didn’t want to get involved. She had to be alone to get her head straight and her confidence back.

“All I need is directions to my cabin and I’m outta here,” she said.

The old guys nodded. “We’ll show you where it’s at and then we’ll help you with your move,” Buck said. “If you do move.”

Damn, he was stubborn.

Jake thought so, too, judging by his irritated tone. He yelled from the bedroom, “She is moving. And remember, Buck, we’ve got work to do.”

Gallant enough to carry a foal around but not to carry boxes for her.

Face it, girl. The real cowboys have been gone for a hundred years. “I don’t need any help,” Clea yelled back at him. “I won’t accept any help. I moved myself in here and I’ll move myself out.”

Jake came out of the bedroom carrying a paper sack with a shirt peeking out of the top and a pair of boots in his other hand.

Clea said, “What’re you doing? I just told you I’ll move.”

“This’s only for a few more nights.”

“So’s he can take his turn feedin’ the baby,” Teddy said. “He brought in a orphan foal that we’re helpin’ him with.”

She turned to Buck. “Maybe they could go feed the foal and you could ride with me and show me where I’m supposed to be,” she said. “Then I’ll drop you at your place.”

All three of them just stood and looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“Reckon we’ll all have to hitch a ride with you,” Teddy said, “or walk. Our truck ain’t runnin’ right now.”

Clea’s face went hot. She slapped a hand to her forehead. How could she have forgotten?

How could she survive—anywhere—when she’d lost her memory and most of her good sense?

She found her keys and led the way out across the porch, down the steps and past the ruins of the pickup with Natural Bands, whatever that was, written on the door. It was truly a wreck. Also new and top-of-the-line. How much was that going to cost her?

She’d never had to clean up her own messes before. She couldn’t call Brock to take care of it and she couldn’t call Daddy. There was no one she could call.

Not even an insurance agent. Nobody sold policies to protect shooters against their own bad marksmanship.

“First experience,” Jake had said. No kidding.

CHAPTER FOUR

CLEA KEPT going, using her longest, most confident strides to make herself feel stronger. She was almost to her truck when she realized no one was behind her anymore. She turned to look and then she leaned against the truck and let her shoulders sag.

Of course. Once again, she’d failed to use her common sense. She’d forgotten that she couldn’t get her truck out with the wrecked one blocking her driveway.

Jake was unhooking it from the trailer. Buck was sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open.

“Put ‘er in neutral,” Teddy yelled at him. “I’ll give you the heads-up when we’re ready to push.”

The only answer he got was a light nicker from Ariel.

Clea whirled on her heel to see the mare standing at the fence watching the entire proceedings with ears pricked. Her stomach clutched. She’d prefer that no one ever see Ari, even though she’d dyed her white markings after she fed her this morning.

That was a useless hope, of course. And the disguise was paper thin. She doubted that there were very few horses around this part of Montana at least who were part-thoroughbred and stood nearly seventeen hands, much less horses who moved the way Ariel did.

But no sense in worrying. She didn’t even know whether these guys would pay any attention to or remember the mare. Anybody could go around pulling a horse trailer. That didn’t mean they’d know a warmblood from a quarter horse.

Ignoring Ari in the hope that the mare would wander off, preferably somewhere out-of-sight behind the barn, Clea turned back to the truck and started clearing spaces for passengers in the backseat. She gathered up her barn coat and clogs, piled them on top of the metal train case that held most of her cosmetics and balanced all that on the hump in the middle of the floor. She pushed the sack of snacks and carton of soft drinks left over from the trip to the middle of the seat. The old-timers weren’t very big. They could fit in here just fine.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and looked in the rear-view mirror at the long piece of driveway stretching from the house to the road and the nose of the Natural Bands trailer hanging over it. Backing out, she’d have to swerve her own trailer and then get it back on track so as not to go off into the ditch when she reached the road.

Maybe she should unhook it.

She shook her head at herself in the mirror. No, she had to be able to handle all kinds of situations and she’d backed the trailer before. She needed the practice. And she didn’t need the extra work of unhooking and hooking it up again to move Ariel this afternoon.

Jake finished unhooking his own trailer and went to help Teddy push the truck. As soon as he got behind it, the truck moved smoothly out into her—no, his yard.

Buck steered, holding the door open with his foot. Debris scattered everywhere and a large piece of shiny metal fell and bounced away into the grass when Buck put on the brake.

Dear God. This was going to take every penny she had saved. She might as well drive into Pine Lodge tomorrow and apply for a job at a McDonald’s restaurant. If they even had a McDonald’s. There must a café or two, at least. Could she learn to carry a heavy tray above her head on one hand?

Buck got out, closed the door and started up the little slope toward her. Jake went back to the trailer, picked up his paper sack of belongings from the ground, and he and Teddy followed Buck. Jake’s face, what she could see of it from under the brim of his hat, struck her as incredible. Heart-stopping.

Would he let her get some more pictures of him? No. She didn’t know him, but she could not imagine him willingly posing for a photographer.

She reached down, turned the key and looked at the protruding gooseneck of his trailer again. She’d better keep her mind on her business.

She looked for Ariel. Thank goodness, now she was nowhere to be seen.

Clea made herself draw in a deep, calming breath. Her insides were still a little shaky from all the havoc of the morning but now that was over. It had just been a terrible shock when she’d seen the snake and then three men rolling up into her yard with a trailer. Men who could easily have been sent by Brock to take Ariel back.

They hadn’t come for that at all. Brock still didn’t know where she was. She’d take these men to their cabin, find out where hers was, then come back and load up. She’d be settled again by tonight. Everything would work out all right.

Buck opened the door behind her. “All right, Miss Clea,” he said. “Yore way is clear. Let’s you and me run off and leave them two sorry so-and-so’s.”

He kept chattering away as he climbed in, as if they’d known each other for years. Clea had the sudden thought that she might’ve wrecked the only vehicle they had. What if she had to drive them everywhere they wanted to go until their truck was fixed?

Montana was turning out not to be quite as solitary as she’d expected.

Jake glanced back at his trailer as he walked up to Clea’s truck. It wouldn’t be easy to get past it without messing up one or the other or both, and one wrecked new vehicle was enough for one day. What a waste!

Natural Bands might have deep pockets and probably had good insurance but he wasn’t going to enjoy trying to explain to Celeste how this had happened.

He opened the passenger door as Teddy got in the back.

“I’ll drive,” Jake said.

Clea gave him a disdainful look. “Why should you?”

“In case you can’t drive any better than you can shoot.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Get in.”

“That trailer’s the only one we’ve got,” he said. “And you panicked.”

She sat up straighter and glared. “If you want a ride, get in. If not, shut the door.”

He held the stare, trying to intimidate her, but she wouldn’t give in or look away. Her eyes were blue, instead of brown like Victoria’s, but they were just as sure and hard as Tori’s had been when he tried to talk her out of leaving him.

Yep, here was another woman too stubborn for her own good. Too stubborn to have good sense. Why was that the only kind of woman who ever crossed his path?

He couldn’t by rights throw her bodily out of the seat, therefore he ought to stay on the ground to direct her, at least until she got around the trailer.

But that’d be a good way to get killed, judging by the way she was looking at him now. So, damn it, let her prove what she could do if she thought she was such a hand.

He moved her fancy piece of luggage—one of those with letters and little French symbols printed all over it—to the floor, set his paper sack on top of it and got in.

Clea put the truck in Reverse and her eyes on the mirror, released the brake and started rolling back the rig.

“You can do it,” Teddy said from his seat behind Jake. “Just take ‘er slow and steady.”

“You bet,” Buck said. “We’ll spot you. You git around that gooseneck, you got’er made.”

“You’re all right,” Teddy said, looking out the back window. “Jist do what we tell you now.”

Clea didn’t take her eyes off the mirror but she pulled in a deep breath and lifted her chin. The way her hair moved when she did that—so smooth and sleek and shiny, falling back from her perfect face—reminded him of Victoria again, although Tori’s hair was dark. Maybe that was why Clea’d irritated him from the get-go—besides shooting the hell out of his truck, she was a spoiled rich girl.