Big Sky Mountain. Linda Miller Lael

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СКАЧАТЬ Hutch, though nettled, had reluctantly—okay, grudgingly—accepted the explanation.

      Down deep, he’d been out-of-his-gourd jealous, though, and soon enough the bickering commenced.

      Chamberlain, knowing full well what he’d set in motion, had found excuses to stay on in Parable and he just bided his time while things got worse and worse between Hutch and Kendra.

      Inevitably, the bickering escalated to fiery yelling matches and, worse, single words, terse and biting, punctuated by long, achy silences.

      Eventually, Kendra had given Hutch an ultimatum—trust her or leave her.

      He’d chosen the latter option, being a stubborn, hard-headed cowboy from a long line of stubborn, hard-headed cowboys, never really thinking she’d go at all, let alone stay gone; everybody knew they belonged together, he and Kendra. After a semidecent interval, though, she’d hauled off and eloped with Jeffrey.

      There were still days—moments, really—when Hutch couldn’t believe it had come to that, and this was one of them.

      Now, standing in his kitchen, he closed his eyes, remembering.

      Kendra had called him three days after tying the knot down in Vegas.

      Even then he’d wanted to say, “This isn’t right. Come home.”

      But he’d been too cussed proud to take the high road.

      He’d wished “Lady Chamberlain” well and hung up in her ear. Hard. They’d seen each other numerous times afterward, the way things shook out, especially after Chamberlain bought his way out of the marriage and crossed the pond to resume his Lord-of-the-manor lifestyle while Kendra remained in Parable, rattling around in that hotel-sized mansion on Rodeo Road.

      Small as Parable was, he and Kendra had come close to patching things up a few times, making another start, but something always went wrong, probably because neither one of them trusted the other any further than they could have thrown them.

      They’d been civil last Saturday night at Slade and Joslyn’s noisy supper table, but Kendra had looked ready to jump out of her skin at any moment, and as soon as the meal was over and the dishes were in the machine, she’d grabbed up her little girl and boogied for town in her boxy mom-car.

      What had happened to that little BMW convertible she used to drive?

      “She wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” Joslyn had explained, touching his hand once Kendra and the child were out of the house.

      Hutch had slanted an evil look at his half brother. “I know the feeling,” he’d said.

      Slade had merely looked smug.

      Now with another long, dirty workday behind him and lunch a distant memory, Hutch stood there in his stupidly big kitchen and tried to shift his focus to rustling up some kind of a supper, but the few budding science experiments hunkered down in the fridge held no appeal. Neither did the resoundingly empty house—by rights, the place should have been bursting with noisy ranch kids and rescued dogs by now. Instead it was neat, cold and stone silent.

      Hutch sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. Stepped back from the refrigerator and shut the door.

      Upstairs he took a quick shower and donned fresh jeans, a white shirt and go-to-town boots.

      He’d hidden out long enough, damn it.

      By God, he was through keeping a low profile—he meant to fire up one of the ranch trucks, drive into Parable to the Butter Biscuit Café, claim one of the stools at the counter and order up his usual cheeseburger, shake and fries. As for the joshing and the questions and the speculative glances he was bound to run into?

      Bring it, he thought.

      * * *

      KENDRA HAD HAD a week to put that off-the-wall encounter with Hutch the previous Saturday night behind her and she was mostly over it.

      Mostly.

      She’d been busy, after all, overseeing the move of her real estate company from the mansion on Rodeo Road to the little storefront, catty-corner from the Butter Biscuit Café, enrolling Madison at the year-round preschool/day-care center and scanning the multiple-listings for cozy two-bedroom houses within a reasonable radius of Parable.

      In a town like that one, smaller properties were always hard to find—people didn’t necessarily sell their houses when they retired to Florida or Arizona or entered a nursing home. They often passed them down to the next generation.

      At present, Kendra’s choices were a double-wide trailer in the very court where she’d grown up so unhappily with her grandmother—no possible way—what resembled a converted chicken coop on the far side of Three Trees, which was thirty miles away, or the cramped apartment over old Mrs. Lund’s garage on Cinch Buckle Street, which rented for a tidy sum and didn’t even have its own entrance.

      With her fifteen-thousand-square-foot mega-mansion on the market, already swarming with cleaning people and painters these days in preparation for showing—she and Madison had taken up temporary residence in the estate’s small guesthouse.

      Given that two different potential buyers, both highly qualified, had already expressed interest in the main residence, Kendra had no intention of getting too settled in the cottage, cheery and convenient though the place was. Upscale homes were much easier to sell than regular houses, at least in that part of Montana, because so many jet-setters liked to buy them up and visit them once in a blue moon.

      For now, though, the guesthouse was sufficient for their needs. Madison loved the big yard, the thriving flower gardens and the swing on the mansion’s screened-in sun porch. The four-year-old was content to share the cottage’s one bedroom with Kendra, take meals in the tiny, sun-splashed kitchen, and ease, an hour or two at a time, into the preschool program, where there were plenty of playmates around her own age.

      Already Madison’s fair skin was golden, having absorbed so much country sunshine, and she didn’t cry at the prospect of even the shortest separation from Kendra.

      Tara Kendall stopped by the real estate office just as Kendra was about to close up for the day. She and Madison planned on picking up a takeout meal over at the Butter Biscuit, then eating at the small white wrought-iron table at the edge of the rose garden on Rodeo Road.

      “Can we get a dog now?” Madison was asking for the umpteenth time, when Tara breezed in, pretty with her shoulder-length brown hair expertly layered and her perfect makeup that looked like no makeup at all.

      “Do I have an offer for you,” Tara said, with a broad grin. She wore a sleek yellow sundress that flattered her slight but womanly figure, and her legs were so tanned she didn’t need panty hose. “My golden retriever, Lucy, just happens to have a sister who still needs a home.”

      “Gee,” Kendra drawled, feeling self-conscious in her jeans and T-shirt. “Thanks so much for that suggestion, Tara.”

      Madison was already jumping up and down in anticipation. “My very own dog!” she crowed.

      Tara chuckled and reached out a manicured hand to ruffle Madison’s bright copper curls. “Oops,” she said, addressing Kendra in a singsong voice that sounded warmly insincere. “Did I just СКАЧАТЬ