Big Sky Dynasty

“Sure it is,” McKenna said with a laugh and the others joined in.

Only Agnes Palmer sat quietly in the corner knitting as if born to it. Agnes took every knitting class offered. Georgia suspected the petite, slightly built elderly woman knew more about knitting than Georgia did, but took the classes for the companionship.

Georgia loved the chatter—and the wonderful sound of nothing but the soft clack of knitting needles once class started. These women took their knitting seriously and she could appreciate that.

Knitting was a safe place for Georgia where she loved to return every chance she got. She’d been taught by the woman who’d adopted her, an elderly woman she’d called Nana. Georgia loved the feel of the needles in her hands as the yarn magically turned into some creation of her imagination.

The smooth repetition of movement lulled and comforted her, and just the sight of new yarn filled her with the excitement of all the wonderful possibilities.

Glancing at the clock, she announced, “Okay, ladies, that’s it for today, but you’re welcome to stay and knit if you’d like.”

Usually after an hour, most of her class couldn’t wait to quit, fingers cramped, eyes aching, patience spent. But they would all be back, some with several inches done, others with mistakes to be fixed.

Georgia heard Jim Benson, the local delivery man, come in the back door of the shop and call to her. This morning she’d left both the front and back doors open to get a breeze moving through the shop. It was going to be a warm one.

“See you tomorrow!” Georgia called to her departing class. As she started to turn toward the back of the shop, she saw a woman she hadn’t seen before standing in the front window peering at the Apartment for Rent sign she’d put up just that morning.

“Looks like you’ll be unpacking boxes all day,” Jim said, drawing her attention as he came in through the back door carrying his clipboard. “You want me to stack them up in the storage room or bring them up here for you?”

She gave him a grateful smile as she signed for her shipment. “Up here if you don’t mind. Over near my shelves?”

“No problem.” He smiled. Jim was a nice-looking man only a few years older than Georgia herself. “Just heard on the radio. Some weather’s coming in this afternoon. Talking storm warning. Thunder, lightning and maybe even some hail. Pea-sized or larger.” He shook his head. “The farmers aren’t going to like this one bit.” He turned then and headed for his truck to unload.

When Georgia looked toward the front window again, the woman was gone. Too bad. Georgia had hoped to get the apartment rented. When she’d bought the building for her shop, she’d been excited to find there was a two-bedroom apartment upstairs for her and a one-bedroom rental apartment just across the hall.

Even though yarn sales and the knitting classes were going well, she really could use the additional income from the rental. She’d only recently finished painting, decorating and furnishing it.

Jim brought in all the boxes of knitting material, stacking them in easy reach for her to unpack near her shelves. “That work for you?” he asked.

“Thanks, Jim. I really appreciate it.”

He nodded and seemed to hesitate. She could tell the past few times he came in that he wanted to ask her out, but he was having trouble getting up the nerve. She could have helped him out, but she was too busy trying to get her business going to date right now.

“Well, then, you have a nice day. Watch out for that storm later,” he said, but then something caught his eye.

Georgia turned to follow his gaze. The woman she’d seen earlier was back standing in front of the Apartment for Rent sign. Slim, pretty with chin-length blond hair, she glanced up and smiled. Georgia smiled back and crossed her fingers that the woman was interested in the apartment.

AS DALTON DROVE into Whitehorse, he swore. He hadn’t wanted to go into town and wasn’t the least bit happy about it. As he drove, he rehashed the conversation he’d had that morning at breakfast with his family.

“I need you to go in for feed,” Russell Corbett had said the moment Dalton entered the main house dining room.

The oldest of the five Corbett brothers, Russell had moved up from Texas with the family to help their father run the ranch. The rest of the brothers had come when their father had asked and ended up staying for a while.

Not everyone had been happy about their father’s move to Montana. Mostly because it had come as such a shock. None of them had expected their father to remarry. For years after losing the boys’ mother, Grayson had been too busy raising his sons. By the time the boys had reached their twenties, they just figured he would never marry again.

Then Kate had shown up one day at the ranch in Texas with a box of photographs. Kate had grown up with their mother Rebecca on a ranch in Montana, the Trails West Ranch, and thought Grayson might want the photographs. Kate had lost touch with Rebecca after their lives took different paths.

Grayson had fallen for Kate like a boulder over a bluff. Within months they’d married and he’d sold the ranches in Texas to move to Montana to buy a belated wedding present for Kate—Trails West Ranch, the ranch where she’d grown up. Her father had lost the ranch when she was twenty-two, shortly before his death.

At first, Dalton and his brothers had thought the marriage and move too impulsive. But seeing how happy their father was had changed their minds.

“Give him a chance to eat his breakfast,” his father had said, smiling down the table at Dalton this morning. Grayson loved having his sons in Montana and so far he’d been able to keep them here.

“Everyone else is tied up today,” Russell said, pushing his plate away. “Did you have something else you had to do this morning?”

Dalton had been looking forward to a hard day’s work on the ranch, even if it meant mucking out the horse stalls or stacking hay. After the nightmare, the last thing he wanted to do was go into Whitehorse. He’d be looking over his shoulder the entire time.

“I was just planning to work around here,” he’d said as he’d dropped into an empty chair and helped himself to Juanita’s huevos rancheros, one of her specialties. The smartest thing his father had done was talk their Texas cook into coming to Montana with them.

“Why doesn’t Shane pick up the feed and I’ll do his chores for him?” Dalton had suggested, expecting his older brother to jump at it.

“You’re on,” Shane had said with a grin. “I’d much rather pick up feed from town than drive to Billings with Maddie to attend a wedding extravaganza at the Metra and spend the day planning our nuptials.”

“You’d better not let Maddie hear you talking like that,” Kate joked.

His brothers Jud and Lantry had chuckled but were too busy putting away breakfast to comment.

“I guess I’ll be going into town.” Dalton had finished his breakfast with a lot less enthusiasm as everyone headed in different directions for the day.

The summer day was bright and blue, not a cloud in the sky, making it hard to believe a storm was headed their way. The air smelled of dust and grasses. With his side window down and his arm resting on the ledge, he drove the two-lane dirt road north. The sky seemed vast, as endless as the rolling prairie. It felt good to be on solid ground after years of spending days at a time afloat on the Gulf of Mexico.

Whitehorse was miles from anything else. Its original town had started farther south, nearer the Missouri River Breaks. But when the railroad came through, the town took its name and moved north, leaving behind little more than a few houses in what was now called Old Town Whitehorse.

Dalton dropped the truck off at the store to have the feed loaded and, too antsy to wait around, walked down the tracks the few blocks to the center of town. It was one of those Montana towns that had as many bars as it did churches.

There was a weekly newspaper, the Milk River Examiner, a grocery store, a clothing and a hardware store, an old-timey theater that showed one movie a week and a lumberyard.

Parked along the main street that faced the railroad tracks were always more pickups than cars. This was ranching country and the talk in the cafés and the bars always came back to the price of wheat and beef, the promise of rain, the threat of hail.

Dalton was considering stopping in the Great Northern for a cup of coffee when someone caught his eye. Just up the street a woman stood in front of a shop window. She appeared to be interested in something in the window.

He’d seen Nicci stand like that when she knew she was being watched. Her head was turned away slightly—just as it had been on the late-night television news. Even though she was no longer wearing the baseball cap, he could see that it was the same woman.

Dalton felt himself stagger as if a crushing weight had been dropped onto his chest. Fighting to catch his breath, he stopped under the shade of the hardware store’s awning to get control. The woman wasn’t Nicci. She just reminded him of Nicci enough to take him back to when he was eighteen and thought he knew everything.

Nicci had taught him how little he knew, a lesson that had almost gotten him killed and left him more than a little distrustful of women.

She stood in front of a small shop called In Stitches according to the sign. He’d never paid much attention to the store since it sold yarn.

Determined to get a better look at the woman and put this foolishness to rest, he stepped from under the awning into the morning sun.

As he drew closer, the woman slowly turned her head toward him. Her look said she’d known he’d been watching her the whole time.

She wore a large pair of dark sunglasses that hid part of her face and obscured her eyes. Still he could feel her green-eyed gaze, cold as the Arctic.

Before he could react, she turned and ducked into the yarn shop.

GEORGIA HAD JUST OPENED another box of yarn when she heard the click of heels on the floor as someone hurried into the shop.