Big Sky Secrets. Linda Lael Miller

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      CHAPTER TWO

      RIA DID NOT like Landry Sutton, did not like him one bit—never had, never would—which was why she intended to make herself scarce when he came to round up his smelly, flea-bitten, poppy-scarfing buffalo.

      Landry had arrived in Parable County at about the same time as Ria, a little over a year before, and, from the very beginning, he’d struck her as bullheaded, full of himself and, for the most part, insufferably stubborn. Only his impossibly good looks—the classic square jaw, those perfectly sculpted features and blue eyes that changed, according to his mood, from periwinkle to cornflower, that shock of shaggy, wheat-blond hair, a lean but powerful build, not to mention innate masculinity—kept him from being entirely unendurable.

      Physical qualities were genetic, after all, accidents of birth; it wasn’t as if the man could take credit for having good DNA, for Pete’s sake.

      But, being Landry, he probably did anyway. He had the air of a man who had never failed at anything he attempted, and since that was humanly impossible, Ria had long since dubbed him a poser.

      Now, stepping up to the darkened picture window—an act that set her barely calmed heart to pounding all over again, because she knew she’d jump right out of her skin if she found herself face-to-face with Buffalo Bessie for a second time in one night—she squinted through the glass.

      The lumbering creatures were nowhere in sight—not surprising considering the density of the gloom—but Ria had no illusions that the animals had wandered conveniently homeward, never to trouble her again. That would have been too easy, and while her life hadn’t been any more difficult than anyone else’s, she was accustomed to dealing with obstacles.

      She checked her watch, frowned. The great Landry Sutton was certainly taking his sweet time getting over here and tending to business, that was for sure. At least an hour had passed since she’d called his place to demand action.

      Following a surge of renewed frustration, Ria stretched out her arms, grabbed hold of the drapes and yanked them shut. She might have been in a more forgiving state of mind if this same disaster hadn’t befallen her, and her struggling crops of zinnias and gerbera daisies, half a dozen times in the past few months.

      Then she heard the noise. It was an alarmingly loud and wholly horrific combination of furious thumping and repeated scraping, and it was coming from the front, right-hand corner of the cottage, just a few feet from where she stood, in the questionable safety of her own living room. Holding her breath, Ria crooked an index finger to pull one of the drapes aside by a couple of inches and then looked out again, but she still couldn’t see what was going on.

      Which was not to say she hadn’t guessed.

      Incredibly, the nerve-shattering racket intensified. Once or twice, she would have sworn that the whole house trembled on its ancient and probably cracked foundation.

      Her sense of caution exceeded only by a need to confirm her suspicions, Ria tiptoed over to the door, flipped on the porch light, turned the dead bolt from its locked position with a decisive twist of one wrist and stepped outside, poised to run back over the threshold in a heartbeat if the situation warranted.

      Inside its bug-speckled cover, the single bulb glowed a sickly yellow, throwing a small spill of light onto the welcome mat, no threat to the thick darkness of a near-moonless night in the Montana countryside.

      All around her, crickets croaked in the balmy gloom, and although the sky was spangled with stars, they certainly didn’t illuminate the landscape.

      A sudden, roaring bellow froze her blood in an instant.

      But this was her house, her property. And, damn it, enough was enough.

      Steeling herself, Ria ventured a few steps closer to the corner of the porch, where shadows loomed, knowing, on some level, what she’d find there, but, at the same time, not quite believing it.

      Sure enough, there was Bessie, scratching her mangy hide against the corner of the house.

      “Shoo!” Ria whispered hoarsely, making a flapping motion with both hands but otherwise standing still. “Go away!”

      The response was another earsplitting, window-rattling bellow. Was the animal warning her? Issuing some kind of primitive protest?

      Ria neither knew nor cared. She wasn’t fool enough to move any closer, but she wasn’t about to retreat, either. Damn it, she had rights.

      Being a buffalo, Bessie couldn’t be expected to know that, but her owner sure as hell should have. Especially since this certainly wasn’t the first time her farm had been invaded by his livestock.

      And what was keeping him anyhow? He lived on the next place over, and he’d had plenty of time to saddle up a horse or whatever.

      After pushing up her mental sleeves in preparation to do battle, Ria drew a deep breath and tried once more to scare the creature away, this time raising her voice to a near shout. “Shoo!”

      Again, nothing happened, except that the floor of the ancient porch seemed to ripple slightly under her feet as Bessie heaved her gritty brown bulk against the corner of the house.

      As if in answer to her exasperated wonderment of moments before, headlights swung in at the top of Ria’s long dirt driveway, and she heard wheels bumping over hard, rocky ruts as a large vehicle barreled toward the house.

      Mercifully distracted, Bessie stopped the awful bawling and the assault on the cottage, and Ria put her fingers to both temples and gave a sigh of angry relief as the tension-tight muscles between her shoulder blades relaxed slightly.

      As the rig drew nearer, she could make out the outlines of the trailer being hauled behind it.

      Bessie’s calf, invisible before, trotted out of the darkness and stood still in the cone-shaped gleam of the truck’s headlights. The animal didn’t seem frightened, as a deer or other wild creature would have been; instead, the calf remained where it was, giving a single, low grunt. A moment later, Bessie ambled over to stand beside her baby boy.

      Ria was astounded by this behavior, and annoyed, too. She’d been sure both animals would charge her if she dared step off the porch, but now they were acting like well-trained pets.

      Were they tame? Hard to believe, after the way they’d carried on like banshees with bellyaches, trampling her flower beds, trying to knock down her house.

      As casually as if the incident were no big deal, though admittedly an inconvenience on his part, Landry opened the truck door, activating the interior lights and thus becoming deliciously visible. He raised one hand to Ria in a desultory wave, got out of the vehicle and started toward the back of the trailer. He whistled once, low and through his teeth, and, miraculously, both buffalo obeyed the summons as readily as a pair of faithful farm dogs.

      Despite her earlier intention to avoid direct contact with her neighbor at all costs, Ria didn’t disappear into the house, shut the door and wait for Landry to retrieve his stray critters and leave, as she probably should have. Instead, she remained where she was, stubborn and indignant and, though this was completely unlike her, spoiling for a fight.

      She СКАЧАТЬ