A Montana Cowboy. Rebecca Winters

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      His parents had divorced when he was eight years old. His mother had settled in Billings, only forty minutes away, taking him with her. She didn’t like the ranch’s isolation and preferred the amenities of living in town.

      His dad had moved heaven and earth to be with his son as much as possible during those years. After living with such a kind, laid-back father, it had been hard for Trace to adjust to being around the rigid-type man his mother married soon after the divorce. When Trace turned eighteen, he joined the air force. His mom now lived in Oregon with her husband.

      Trace hadn’t come back to the United States very often and traveled home to visit his parents on his infrequent leaves. Over the past year the ranch had stood empty. While no one lived there, his dad had hired a former ranch hand named Logan Dorney from the neighboring Bannock ranch to be the foreman on the place until Trace claimed it for his inheritance. But Trace learned the other man had been accidentally killed by a stray bullet from a hunter in February.

      Except for Logan’s widow, Cassie Dorney, formerly Cassie Bannock, who came in to do the housekeeping once in a while, the ranch no longer had a foreman. Trace would take over that job until the place was sold. Again, all this had to be discussed with his father who knew nothing yet about Trace’s plans.

      When the fasten-seat-belt sign flashed on, he’d been deep in thought. It surprised him that the flight from Denver to Montana had been so short. He looked out the window. As the plane made its descent to the Billings airport, he decided summer was the best time to see the patches of wheat and corn fields. Below him lay a different mosaic from the farms dotting the Italian countryside he’d so recently left.

      Soon the Yellowstone River came into view under a June sun. The airport itself sat on top of Rimrock, a unique five-hundred-foot-tall sandstone feature rising from the valley floor. It all looked familiar, but Trace felt little sense of homecoming.

      After the jet landed and he’d picked up his bags, he grabbed a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the Marlow Ford dealership where he’d arranged to have his new Ford Explorer waiting for him. He inspected the vehicle and liked its Kodiak-brown color.

      Trace took off for White Lodge, anxious to spend a little quality time with his father. It had been six months since they’d last seen each other. But when he dropped by the vet clinic, the new vet, Clive Masters, who’d replaced Liz Henson since her marriage to Connor Bannock, said Trace’s dad was out on an emergency.

      The world he’d once known kept going through changes. You couldn’t go back and find everything the same. He understood that, but the thought added to his depression.

      “Doc Rafferty has been expecting you. He said if you came while he was gone, he wants you to drive out to the ranch and get settled. When he’s through, he’ll meet you there.”

      “Good enough. Nice to meet you, Clive.”

      “I guess you know your dad thinks the world of you.”

      “He’s my hero,” Trace replied, which was only the truth. “See you again soon.”

      Trace got back in the Explorer and headed for the ranch bordering the Bannock’s huge spread outside White Lodge.

      For the past few years his dad had opened up the Rafferty property to seasonal hunters with permits. Whenever Trace thought about the ranch, it filled him with remembered pain over his parents’ divorce and the move to Billings, wrenching him away from his dad. At least when he started work in Colorado, he’d be able to see his dad a lot more often as Sam and Ellen could drive over to visit him.

      The old ranch house with the deep porch was set back from the road in the forested area. Two streams running brook trout and cutthroats ran through it. A perimeter dirt road to the side of the property led past crop land that opened up into pasture where cattle could graze. At one time his father had done it all, and had grown alfalfa and barley besides, but that portion lay fallow now.

      To reach the house, you took the right fork in the road. There was only one other road before you reached it. This one led to an abandoned logging site and trailed into national forest land. At least here nothing looked changed about the area until he came in sight of the house.

      He put on his brakes. At first he thought he must have come to the wrong place. The old log cabin had been freshly stained. Its big picture window and the attic window were now framed by exterior wooden shutters exquisitely hand painted with wildflowers of every color.

      The addition of white wicker porch furniture with pale yellow padding and several large baskets of multicolored flowers hanging beneath the eaves added bright spots of color. He found that the changes transformed the place, making it inviting in a way it had never been before.

      His father must have hired a decorator from town to come out and get all this ready in order to welcome Trace home. The knowledge filled him with guilt over what he planned to do. Those years of working on the ranch with him on visitation were over. Sam Rafferty’s cowboy son wasn’t a cowboy anymore.

      Curious to know who was responsible for the actual transformation of the house, he parked around the side next to an unfamiliar green pickup truck. He jumped down from the cab. The barn in back had been freshly stained, too. Everything looked in fabulous shape!

      He walked around behind it where his dad had built a kennel for their dog, which stood empty now. Remembered pain propelled Trace back to the front door of the house. He knocked. Even though he had a key to get in, he’d seen the truck and didn’t want to walk in unannounced on whoever was here. While he waited, he admired the professional quality of the artwork on the panels.

      They reminded him of the shutters you saw on hundreds of alpine-style homes in the Alps. Trace never dreamed his father would go to this extent to make him excited about being home for good.

      When no one answered the door, he left the porch and walked around the other side of the house where he was met with another surprise. The ground cover that had always grown next to the house had been cleared to accommodate a well-tended garden full of strawberry plants and raspberry bushes planted in rows. The strawberries looked ripe for the picking and smelled delicious on this hot Tuesday afternoon.

      Trace caught a glimpse of someone working between the rows. Curious to know who was there, he walked down one of them. As he got closer he saw it was a woman with wavy blond hair to the shoulders, gilded by the sun.

      “Hello?” he called to her.

      She lifted her head and got to her feet, holding a basket under her arm partially filled with strawberries. The raspberries hadn’t ripened completely yet. The last time Trace had seen Cassie Bannock she was in her early teens. It strained the imagination that anyone in the well-heeled Bannock clan would be working as a housekeeper.

      When Trace could sit down with his father, he’d find out the whole story behind it, but first things first. She was of medium height, her well-endowed body filled out an aqua-colored cotton top she wore over a pair of jeans. On her feet she wore cowboy boots. He found himself staring at her. She was blooming with health. He’d heard the term before, but she personified it.

      “Captain Rafferty!”

      “Call me Trace.”

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