Montana Dreaming. Nadia Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ to a cup of coffee and cool your jets. We’ll head out at first light.”

      GUTHRIE WAS SURPRISED to see all the trucks parked in front of the Longhorn so late of an evening. Bernie usually closed the café up at 8:00 p.m. sharp to go home and kiss her babies good-night. He parked at the end of the line, relieved that his long drive was over and pleased as all get out at the thought of a cup of hot coffee and the prospect of seeing his sister.

      He climbed out of the truck into over a foot of heavy snow and clumped up the boardwalk, knocking the snow off his boots as he pushed open the Longhorn’s door. The place was crowded with familiar faces. They all turned toward him and half raised up out of their seats as if they’d been expecting him for hours.

      “Guthrie!” Bernie came out of the kitchen holding a platter stacked high with sandwiches. She dropped the platter on the counter and ran across the room to hug him fiercely. “Oh, Guthrie, how on earth did you know? Thank God you’re here!”

      Guthrie felt a peculiar tightening in his stomach as he gently pried himself out of her desperate embrace and held her at arm’s length. “How did I know what? What’s the matter, Bernie? What’s wrong?”

      IN SPITE OF THE COLD she slept, and in her dream the snow-laden moan of the wind became the somber voice of her father. He was sitting at his desk, working on the books the way he often did in the evening, his pen scratching spidery figures in the columns, his eyebrows drawn together in a perpetual frown of concentration. He laid his pen down and glanced up at her with a weary sigh.

      “Looks like we took another big loss this year, Jessie. Maybe Harlan Toombs was right. Maybe we should’ve held the prime steers over another year rather than sell them at that ridiculously low price. I don’t know.” He sighed again and ran his fingers through his thin, close-cropped hair. “I don’t know much of anything anymore. Times are changing so fast I can’t keep up. Cattle prices keep dropping. taxes keep climbing. You should’ve stayed in school, Jessie. By now you’d be well on your way to being a veterinarian. You’d be a good one. Hell, you were almost there. There’s still time. Go back to school and finish up your degree!”

      And then Guthrie was in the room with them, his face lean and handsome, his expression intense in the glow of the lamplight. “Marry me, Jess! We could have a good life together. You don’t have to be a veterinarian to have a good career. You have one now, raising those fine Spanish horses of yours. And the most important career you could ever have would be raising our babies.”

      Another figure moved out of the shadows, a man nearly as tall and lithe as Guthrie in spite of being a good twenty years older. Caleb McCutcheon held out the bank check. “Take it. It’s your money now, Jessie. It’ll buy you a fresh stake someplace else if you feel you have to leave, but give some thought to my job offer. It still stands. This place needs you, and you’ll always need this place.”

      Steven Brown was a silent presence in the background, his dark eyes somber. He was watching her, but he said nothing. He gave no opinions, made no requests or demands. He was simply there, the way the rocks and the trees and the mountains were there. She felt herself being drawn to his quiet solid strength.

      Fox was running at a dead gallop along the creek where the west fork fed into it. Ears pinned back, nostrils flaring, her mane and tail streaming behind her, she looked as if she were flying just above the earth. The other mares followed at her heels. They were heading for the old Indian trace that led up Montana Mountain. Jessie knew Billy could never catch them up. She reined him in as they raced past, running hard for a place where the wind blew free and the land stretched out as far as the eye could see, a place with no fence lines, no roads, no boundaries. A place that no longer existed except in their memories.

      The grizzly was huge and angry. It rose up on its hind legs and stared in her direction, swinging its massive head as it tasted the air for some scent of her. She felt herself cowering, paralyzed with fear. Mouth dry, heart pounding, she was unable to move when it suddenly dropped back onto all fours and began to charge toward her. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came forth. Her legs felt mired in quicksand. The bear lunged and grabbed her arm in its powerful jaws, and pain shot through her—

      “No!” She came awake in midcry, gasping for breath in blind panic, until reality reasserted itself and chased the nightmare away. Blue was tense and whining in her arms. Oh, her arm hurt! It ached unbearably. She shifted her position and sat in the inky darkness until her heartbeat steadied.

      Where was the bear? What time was it? Surely morning was near. It was so dark. And cold… It was so very, very cold….

      STEVEN SET ASIDE the paperwork he’d been reading, or at least pretending to read, and glanced up at the clock. Midnight. He’d called the Longhorn ten minutes ago. Would it be rude to call again so soon? He pushed out of his easy chair, carried his cup of coffee with him to the door and opened it. The windblown snow whirled past. Jessie Weaver was out in the brunt of it tonight. Alone. Perhaps hurt. Maybe dead. And he was here, his back to the warm room, a cup of hot coffee in his hand.

      He slammed the door and stood in the foyer of his little cedar-clad post-and-beam house in Gallatin Gateway, hating the fact that he was safe while she was in trouble. Hating the helplessness that had overwhelmed him since he’d gotten McCutcheon’s message on his answering machine earlier that evening. He’d spoken with Bernie four times since, and each time had brought the same information.

      No news.

      He walked into the kitchen, slatted the remains of his coffee into the sink and rinsed the mug. Without even thinking of what he would do when he got there, he dressed himself for a winter storm, and less than ten minutes later he was in his Jeep Wagoneer, heading for Katy Junction.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      GUTHRIE WAS TAKEN ABACK by the stranger who opened the door of the Weaver ranch when he banged on it just past midnight. “Who the hell are you?” he said.

      “Caleb McCutcheon. Are you the warden?”

      “No! I’m here to look for—” He spotted someone else in the lamp-lit room. “Badger! Where’s Jess!” Guthrie pushed past the stranger and into the kitchen, relieved to see the bewhiskered and familiar face.

      “Oh, I expect she’s up on the mountain somewheres, hunkered down and waiting for dawn. Same as we are. Only, I don’t doubt as we’re a whole lot more comfortable. Good to see you, Guthrie. You been gone awhile. Too long. A lot’s happened since you left. This here gent’s bought the whole Weaver ranch, lock, stock and barrel.”

      Guthrie rounded on the stranger as if drawing a sword. “You’re a developer?”

      “No. Like I said, I’m Caleb McCutcheon. And if you have any ideas on how to find Jessica Weaver, I’m listening. We’ve been sitting around doing nothing for way too long.”

      The two men measured each other for a brief moment, and then Guthrie nodded curtly. “I brought snowshoes from my place. You’re welcome to a pair. She’s up on Montana Mountain—like Badger says. Probably went looking for Fox. That mare always heads up there this time of year, trying for North Dakota. Damn mustang thinks they don’t have such things as fences there, though that gray stallion of Jessie’s usually manages to convince Fox to stick around.”

      “Old Gray’s dead,” Badger said bluntly. “Got struck by lightning this summer.”

      Guthrie was taken aback for the second time in as many minutes. “She thought highly of that horse.” He could hardly conceive of what СКАЧАТЬ