Montana Christmas. Jackie Merritt

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СКАЧАТЬ the living room, Shep sat in an easy chair from which he could look out the front window at the lazily falling snow. It was a pretty sight, but the Christmas music on the CD player was emotionally wrenching. Thoughts of the past few months deluged him: learning by accident that Natalie was seeing another man; confronting her with expectations of denial and hearing instead, “I want a divorce”; then the arguments; the pleas on his part; Natalie’s rock-solid determination; his last-ditch effort to win her back by willingly signing a property settlement giving her everything she asked for; her departure for Mexico to get it over with quickly; and finally the day she returned home with divorce papers and told him to pack his personal possessions and get out of her house.

      There was no hope left; it was truly over. He had moved into a hotel and tried to resume his life. But most of his patients were rich, spoiled people who spent a great deal of their time fighting old age, and he had found himself canceling appointments. The reason for his successful practice was a bitter pill to swallow. Natalie’s father was a major producer in the movie industry. He had sent stars, directors and everyone else he knew that wanted a new nose, tummy tuck or some sort of surgical procedure, to Shep’s office.

      Shep had dreamed of a much different practice before meeting Natalie while he was still interning. He had wanted to limit his vocation to accident victims or people born with congenital defects, people who truly needed reconstructive surgery.

      But he’d let himself be dazzled by the life-styles of the rich and famous, and had opened a fancy office in a fancy building and had started making incredible amounts of money from breast implants and face-lifts. For a man from a small town in Montana, it had all seemed like a dream-a gorgeous wife, famous friends and more money than he could spend.

      It wasn’t more than Natalie could spend, however. The truth was that he had worked his fanny off, having become addicted to those astonishing fees. But no matter how much money he put in the bank, it had a way of disappearing. With what Natalie had received in the divorce settlement, he found himself close to being broke. Disillusioned, unhappy with his work and broke. Yes, he could have geared up and built up his bank account. But nothing had held much meaning anymore.

      A week ago he’d parceled out his remaining patients to other doctors, closed his fancy office, packed his car and headed for Montana. Not to burden Lucas with his personal problems, God forbid, but to give himself some breathing space. And maybe to find himself again, to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

      Staring almost hypnotically at the falling snow, he felt the emptiness within himself, the lack of purpose and ambition and the strangest urge to do nothing but watch snow fall or something equally mundane from this day forward. What had working hard gotten him? Why exert so much effort when this was the result?

      He could hear Andrea and his father in the kitchen, moving about, talking to each other and laughing every so often. With a wall between him and Andrea, he could think of her as just another person. During dinner, he had not had that luxury. Her every movement had impacted his libido. Her eyes were especially beautiful, heavily lashed and that striking shade of green, and he doubted if her face and figure had ever been altered by a surgeon.

      But there was something about her that didn’t ring a hundred percent true. Take that comment Lucas had made about her being from California, for instance. Shep hadn’t been contributing much to the conversation and had been feeling a little guilty about it—after all, he was a stranger she’d invited into her home and deserved some courtesy no matter how down in the dumps he felt—so he had pursued the topic his father had introduced. “What part of California?” he had asked Andrea. His eyes narrowed as he remembered how cleverly she had evaded a straight answer. And how she had immediately changed the subject.

      Now, why would she avoid an innocuous discussion of her life before moving to Rocky Ford? And what had brought her to Montana in the first place? Did she have family here? If so, why wasn’t she spending Christmas with them?

      Yes indeed, there was something a little off kilter about Miss Dillon.

      Shep sighed. Hell, she could have a scandalous or even a criminal past, and he wouldn’t care.

      He suddenly couldn’t sit there any longer. Rising, he went to the closet for his jacket and put it on. Taking a pair of leather gloves from a pocket, he began working them onto his hands as he entered the kitchen.

      “I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

      Andrea was loading the dishwasher, and Lucas was putting a covered dish into the refrigerator. They both became statue still and looked at him.

      “Uh…sure,” Lucas finally said. “Enjoy yourself, son.”

      “We’ll have dessert and coffee when you get back,” Andrea said.

      He wanted to tell her not to wait for him, that he didn’t know when he’d be back or even if he’d return to her house at all.

      But he only nodded and walked out the back door.

      Andrea and Lucas looked at each other. “He really is very unhappy, isn’t he?” she said quietly.

      “I’m afraid he is,” Lucas said, sounding deeply concerned.

      “Lucas, if you want to go after him, please don’t feel as though you need to keep me company.”

      Lucas placed the dish in his hand on a refrigerator shelf and closed the door. “I think he wants to be alone, Andrea. He’ll talk to me when he’s ready.”

      “Well…I guess you know your own son.”

      “I used to,” Lucas said in a saddened tone of voice.

      Andrea began wiping down the counter. “He came to you, Lucas. In his time of trouble, he came home. That has to mean something.”

      Lucas’s countenance brightened a little. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?”

      Andrea looked out the window above the sink. “It’s snowing harder. Oh, it’s lovely.” But it was also freezing cold out there, and she couldn’t help worrying about Shep Wilde walking around in such weather in an unhappy daze.

      But he was a grown man and none of her business.

      Briskly she turned to Lucas. “Everything’s in order in here. Thank you very much for the help. Now, shall we retire to the living room? I’ll build a fire in the fireplace, and we can either watch a movie or just sit and relax until Shep gets back.”

      They started for the living room. “How about if I build the fire and you pick out a movie?” Lucas said.

      Andrea smiled. “If that’s what you want, sure. What’ll it be, a Western, a mystery or a romantic comedy?” She opened the cabinet that contained her collection of movies.

      Lucas was already bending over to lay a fire. “Anything you choose is fine with me.”

      Andrea sighed inwardly. Lucas didn’t care what movie she put in the VCR because of Shep out walking in the cold and snow.

      Well, wasn’t that where her mind would be, as well?

      Today was not turning out at all the way she’d planned. But had any Christmas of her life been storybook perfect? Sighing again, she grabbed a movie without checking its title and inserted it in the VCR.

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