Beneath Montana Skies. Mia Ross

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      He sat back, then stood and grinned at someone behind Morgan. “Hey, Ty,” he greeted their prodigal cowboy, offering his hand. “Welcome home.”

      “Thanks, Dave. It’s good to see you. How’re Bonnie and the boys?”

      “Good, busy. They’re both playing baseball this year, so she’s at their game tonight.” The proud father held up his phone. “She’s keeping me updated by text.”

      “Great idea. Tell her I said hi.”

      “Will do.”

      Dave sat and started typing on his phone while Ty looked down at Morgan. “Mind if I take this seat?”

      She shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

      The moron actually had the audacity to grin at that, and once he was settled, he leaned in to say, “I’m not the enemy, MJ.”

      “Y’know,” she shot back, her already unsettled nerves tightening like the overstretched strings of a fiddle. “No one calls me that anymore.”

      “Yeah?” The grin widened, and he draped a muscled forearm over the back of his chair. “Then I guess that makes me special.”

      Dad chuckled beside her, and she angled a look at him. “You think that’s funny?”

      “Yup. You two are as entertaining as ever.”

      “I’m so glad you’re amused by your daughter being harassed.”

      “How’s Clyde settling into your new place?” he asked, pointedly looking over her head at Ty.

      “Fine. He’s used to moving around, so being in a new barn doesn’t bother him a bit. The house, well, that’s a different story.”

      Dad chuckled again. “Oily rags and a match might be your best option.”

      “I’ll keep that in mind.”

      The two of them carried on that way, talking over the top of her as if she wasn’t even there, until Kevin called the meeting to order.

      “Okay, folks, let’s all take our seats.” Once everyone was settled, he gripped the lectern in both hands as if he was preparing for a long, difficult night. “Since we all know why we’re here tonight, I’d like to turn the stage over to Mr. Reynolds, a representative of Cartwright Energy. They’re the outfit from Utah that’s interested in prospecting for oil and natural gas on the wild lands north of town, and he’s here to make a presentation about their proposal. After that, he’ll answer any questions you might have about their operation.”

      Morgan had read the prospectus cover to cover—three times—so she knew what it contained. After several hours of discouraging research, she had a pretty good idea what they were up against. While she half listened to the slick performance unfolding up on stage, she kept a roving eye on the assembly to gauge their neighbors’ reactions to what they were hearing. Some looked intrigued, others were obviously fuming, but most seemed to be neutral.

      At least for now.

      Those who hadn’t yet made up their minds were the ones who gave her hope that their efforts to protect the ridge from development might actually have a chance at succeeding. When the man was finished, several people asked the usual questions about land values and potential for damaging the local environment. All of them were deftly handled by their guest, who clearly had a lot of practice dealing with local residents’ apprehension about his company’s activities.

      When the comments dwindled into silence, Kevin stood to take his place at the lectern. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Reynolds. I’m sure we’ll be talking to each other again real soon.”

      Their polite handshake was punctuated by equally polite applause, and the executive gathered up his materials and his designer briefcase and strolled out. His confident gait suggested to Morgan that he thought the presentation had gone well.

      “He thinks we’re a bunch of uneducated hicks,” Ty muttered in unbridled disgust. “Just ’cause you’ve got graphs and stuff on a fancy laptop don’t mean that what you’re planning to do is okay. Anyone with half a brain can see that what they’re proposing is gonna destroy everything within thirty miles of that installation.”

      Stunned by his quick—and very accurate—assessment, she stared at him in disbelief. “You really think that?”

      “I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know a song and dance when I see one. The front office executives sent this guy to pull the wool over our eyes, but I got news for him. We ain’t sheep.”

      “All right, folks,” the mayor announced, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “What do we think?”

      That was a mistake, Morgan thought wryly, as the general hum of comments escalated into a chaotic mess. After waiting a couple of minutes for the hubbub to die down, Kevin apparently decided it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Pleading for cooperation, he managed to regain control of the restless crowd and plucked his microphone from its stand. Handing it off to the town clerk, he said, “Polly, take this around to people who’ve got something to say. That way, we can all hear what’s going on for ourselves.”

      “My place isn’t big, but it’s up near the ridge,” one elderly man said, “and they’re offering us triple what it was assessed for last fall. My wife and I are barely scraping by on our fixed income, and we can’t hardly afford the taxes anymore. We’ve got no choice but to sell.”

      Unable to sit still any longer, Morgan jumped to her feet. “Anyone who’s got land to sell, the Mustang Ridge Conservancy is interested in buying. We don’t have the kind of money Cartwright does, but we’ll work with you to find an arrangement that suits all of us. We can’t just let them stroll through here and destroy anything that’s in the way of profits that may or may not be buried under our land.”

      Her offer got everyone buzzing again, and Kevin had a tough time getting the meeting back under control. Several people voiced their support of the conservancy, while others scoffed at it as a waste of time and effort.

      “Standing in the way of progress is pointless,” one woman insisted. “If it doesn’t happen now, sometime in the future it will.”

      “Not while I’m around and still breathing,” Dad assured her in his booming, listen-to-me voice as he got to his feet beside Morgan. “My family dug our homestead outta the dirt with their bare hands back in 1882, and we’ve got no intention of letting it go now. Or ever.”

      Many sitting around them voiced their agreement, and the public debate got sidetracked into a multitude of conversations between friends and neighbors over what to do and the best way to go about getting it done.

      In the middle of it all, Ty leaned in close and said, “Way to go, cowgirl.”

      When she looked at him, he grinned and gave her the same wink he’d used when they were kids planning some kind of mischief. And for the first time since he’d so unexpectedly strolled back into her life, she felt herself wanting to smile back. But that would only encourage him, so she stemmed the impulse and returned her attention to the meeting. There was the expected back-and-forth, and at the end the only thing that had changed was that they were all an hour older.

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