Montana Man

She packed her satchel and checked out. She’d noticed a quiet hotel just a block away. Lucky for her, they had an available corner room with two big windows and a fireplace to chase away the winter’s cold. It would be her home for the duration of the storm, and she was grateful for it.

Alone, she pulled the book out of the mercantile’s brown wrapping and settled down beside the fire to read. Alone, the minutes passed slowly. The hour hand on the clock crept across the small etched face.

She ate in her room and went to bed early, reading until her eyes were heavy. But the minute she closed her book, Trey materialized in her mind. His saucy grin, his twinkling eyes, the tender way he’d given Josie her parents’ picture.

She lay in the dark a long time, listening to the howl of the storm, hearing its loneliness.

“Uncle Trey?” It was the faintest whisper.

He looked up from his medical journal, blinking. The lamp at his elbow cast only enough light to read by; he couldn’t see anything else but darkness in the room. Then a ghostly wisp of pink flannel shivered through the deep shadows.

He rubbed his tired eyes and pushed back his chair. “Josie? What are you doing up?”

“Nothin’.”

She sniffed once, and his heart broke. It simply broke. How was he going to make her world right again?

Determined, he pressed a kiss to her brow. “You’ve got to be awake for a reason. Don’t tell me you’ve developed a bad rash on your big toe and it itched so much it woke you up.”