Montana Standoff. Nadia Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ put the cast-iron pan over it to heat. Within moments, thick slabs of smokehouse bacon were beginning to sizzle. The sweet hickory aroma mingled with the sharp, rich fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee. Surely the smells of breakfast cooking would rouse her from slumber land.

      In the meantime, he’d keep studying.

      MOLLY WAS IN ATHENS, standing among tall, bone-white pillars. A long gown of the finest silk whispered in the breeze off the Aegean Sea and brushed against her long, slender legs. Her magnificent hair was long and thick, the deepest chestnut, just as she’d always wanted. His was a shade of ebony that shamed the night and his eyes were dark, as they were in life. He lifted a powerful, beautifully muscled arm, beckoning her to the top of a mountain where men swarmed like ants carrying rocks out of a shaft and running to the bottom. Thousands of rocks being carried by thousands of men, all of them running, running….

      “They’re stealing our soul,” he said in his deep, masculine voice. “They’re killing our mountain.”

      Her mother was calling her to breakfast. “Molly? Time to get up. Rise and shine, lass, you’re burning daylight.”

      Molly’s eyes flew open. She stared up at the blur of white ceiling, moved her head toward the rectangle of light in the unfamiliar room. Her momentary disorientation was quickly replaced by the pleasant memories of the night before. She relaxed and stretched beneath the covers. It was so quiet here, and so gloriously peaceful. The smell of bacon tantalized, and her stomach growled in response. She pushed the covers off and sat up, reaching automatically to try and subdue her wild hair. Hopeless.

      She stood and went into the bathroom, stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked almost normal. The swelling had gone down overnight, but there was no mistaking where she’d been stung. She sighed with relief and glanced down at the vanity. Steven had left her a brand-new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. She brushed her teeth, washed the baking soda poultice off her cheek, and was drying her face on a hand towel when she heard a knock.

      She padded barefoot across the room and opened the door. Nothing. The knock came again and she realized that there was someone at the front door. She waited a moment for Steven to answer it, but apparently the loud spatter of frying bacon had drowned it out. Still holding the hand towel, Molly crossed the room, slid back the dead bolt, and opened the front door. Sunlight spilled over her bare legs but the chill air negated any warmth. She blinked with surprise as a very pretty young woman with eyes and hair as black as Steven’s stared back at her.

      “Yes?” Molly said. “Can I help you?”

      PONY YOUNG BEAR was struck speechless by the sight of the woman who stood in her brother’s doorway, dressed in what she had to assume was one of Steven’s white shirts…and apparently little else. The young woman’s hair was a shoulder-length flaming mass of curls that took on a life all their own. Her left cheek was red and slightly swollen, and she was holding a hand towel as if she’d just come from the bathroom.

      “I… I’m here to see Steven,” Pony managed to say, wondering if the poor woman was a victim of domestic violence. Steven was always rescuing people from less fortunate circumstances.

      “Oh.” The woman lifted one hand in a futile attempt to corral her hair. “He’s cooking breakfast. I’ll tell him you’re here. And you are…?”

      “His sister.”

      “Oh! Well, please, come in….”

      “Pony?” She heard Steven’s voice as he appeared in the entryway, holding a spatula. “You’re just in time for breakfast,” he said, his expression betraying nothing. “This is Molly Ferguson. Molly, my sister, Pony.” Pony shook hands with the redhead, whose grip was surprisingly firm.

      “I’m pleased to meet you,” Molly said. “And now if the two of you will please excuse me…”

      Pony noticed how Steven watched the young woman walk across the living room. Then he turned back to her with a faint grin. “Nice legs, huh?” he said.

      “Steven, why didn’t you bring her with you to Leona’s wedding?”

      “Because I only just met her last night.”

      “Oh.” Once again she was struck speechless.

      Steven drew her inside and closed the door behind her. “So. What brings you to my humble abode?” he asked as he returned to the kitchen to turn the bacon.

      She trailed after him, noticing the drink glasses on the coffee table in the living room. She looked at her brother. “I just wanted to tell you that you looked really handsome in that tuxedo.”

      “You told me that yesterday.”

      “I wanted to ask you if you could wear the same thing on my wedding day.”

      “You already asked me, and I told you I would.”

      Pony sighed. “All right. I was worried about you. You were so quiet, and you left the reception so early.”

      “We’re talking about Jolly John Johnson’s wedding reception. At least I went, didn’t I? And I’m always quiet, remember?”

      “Yes, but yesterday was different.” Pony sat on a stool at the counter and teased her brother with a smile. “Today, though, I can see that you’re doing okay.”

      “Yeah. I went to a bar and picked up a woman. I did good, huh?” He grinned over his shoulder. Steven lifted the bacon out of the pan and laid it on a paper towel. “How many eggs do you want?”

      “I can’t stay. I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

      Steven drained the bacon fat from the pan. “You’re not. She got stung in the face by a bee yesterday and drove her car into a ditch. I offered to give her a ride home from the public meeting in Moose Horn which, by the way, we both attended. As it turns out, she’s the New Millennium Mining Company’s legal rep and she lives in Helena. You see? No hanky-panky going on.” He gave her a long significant stare and then repeated, “How many eggs?”

      “One. So, she’s the high-priced attorney representing the corporate giant, and no doubt you’re representing the penniless environmentalists.”

      “Some things just never change. Over easy, or sunnyside up?”

      “Over easy.” Pony rested her elbow on the counter and her chin in the palm of her hand. She gazed speculatively at her brother. “And so. She spent the night?”

      “It was late by the time the meeting adjourned. We were both hungry and she needed some first aid. Today we’ll pull her car out of the ditch and she’ll be on her way. Story over.”

      Pony smiled as she slid off the stool. “Chapter one is over,” she corrected. “I’ll make the toast.”

      MOLLY’S CAR WAS OUT of the ditch by eleven. The day was a beautiful blue-and-gold celebration of September, and though Molly was a city girl, she found the mountainous terrain compelling. She was almost disappointed when Steven’s Jeep pulled the Mercedes onto the roadway so easily, and she almost hoped he’d find something wrong with it, some reason why she couldn’t possibly drive back to Helena.

      “She’s as sound as a dollar,” he said, levering himself out from beneath the vehicle where СКАЧАТЬ