Montana Wrangler

Paige eyed the horses shifting around in the nearby corral—her grandfather’s stable of horses used in his Bear Lake Outfitters operation. Their tails flashed as they flicked flies away. They stomped their feet. Occasionally they snorted or tossed their heads from side to side as though warning Paige to keep her distance.

Even from several hundred feet, she caught the earthy animal scent, which almost overwhelmed the more pleasant perfume of pine trees.

She wrinkled her nose. Did everyone in Montana have to own a horse?

She’d been terrified of horses almost as long as she could remember. Their size. Their big teeth. And that she’d been dumped from the saddle when she was five years old. A memory she couldn’t forget and one that still gave her nightmares. A broken leg. Pain. Surgery that left a scar she could still see.

Her mother upset and angry because she had to stay home to take care of Paige instead of working at the family’s hardware store.

Everything about Bear Lake and the outfitting business was entirely different from Paige’s life and her career in Seattle. In the same way, Paige and her younger sister Krissy had had little in common.

Krissy had loved horses, loved riding them, the faster the better. Four days ago, not far from here, riding a horse too fast, jumping the horse too far, had killed Krissy.

Growing up, everyone had said Krissy was the pretty sister. The fun-loving sister. Paige was the good sister. The plain sister.

Being pretty hadn’t done Krissy much good.

“My sister shouldn’t have died so young,” she said aloud, as though accusing the horses in the corral.

“If she hadn’t been riding so recklessly,” a smooth baritone voice announced, “Krissy wouldn’t have died, and I wouldn’t have had to put a good horse down.”

Thinking that she’d been alone, she started. Turning, she discovered Jay Red Elk had walked silently up onto the porch and was now looming over her. Considering she was a good five foot seven or eight, depending on which pair of high heels she wore, that was quite a feat.

Of course, her grandfather’s wrangler and trail guide stood well over six feet. His unreadable expression and more than a hint of his Blackfoot heritage in his chiseled cheekbones made him an intimidating figure. Not that she had any intention of backing down to him.

She realized during her occasional visits to Montana in the past few years she hadn’t paid much attention to Jay and had purposefully kept her distance from him and his horses. Mostly his horses, she realized.

Now she took a closer look at his hard, potently masculine physique, his closed expression and felt a shiver of awareness scurry down her spine.

“Krissy was reckless from the day she was born,” Paige admitted, her throat tight with the tears she hadn’t shed. The wildness and rebellion ingrained in Krissy’s personality had culminated in her pregnancy at age fifteen. Their parents had sent her here to live with their grandparents and to raise her son, Bryan. Apparently the change of scenery hadn’t tamed her spirit.

Jay rested his lean hips on the rustic porch railing and folded his arms across his broad chest. “She didn’t respect her horse or the land that is God’s gift to us. Perhaps if she had lived longer, she might have grown more wise.”

Shaking her head, Paige wasn’t at all sure age would have changed her sister. She was surprised, however, to hear the depth of caring in Jay’s voice. Perhaps living so close to the land, guiding others through the nearby wilderness areas, had given him a respect for both his horses and the rest of the Lord’s creations. She could admire that in a man.

“There were quite a few people at the funeral this morning. She must have had a lot of friends.” Paige, who often found herself in her sister’s shadow, had envied Krissy her popularity, but not the arguments and fights she perpetually had with their parents. Those battles had sent Paige fleeing to the safety of her room to hide behind a closed door.

“Bear Lake’s a small town,” Jay said. “Friendly, for the most part. Everyone knew Krissy. Some more than others.”

She winced, suspecting those who knew Krissy the best were men eager to take advantage of her. The few relationships Krissy had talked about during Paige’s infrequent visits had seemed like disasters in the making.

Despite herself, Paige wondered what the relationship had been between Jay and her sister. Had he succumbed to Krissy’s charms? Not that it was any of her concern.

“I would have thought you and Krissy would have had a lot in common.” Two attractive people. Horse lovers. How could they not have found themselves drawn to each other?

She felt his eyes, shadowed beneath the brim of his hat, surveying her. “Krissy wasn’t my type.”

No? What was his type, she wondered.

“Bryan seems pretty quiet for a kid,” she said, intentionally shifting her thoughts away from Krissy. Although Paige always sent Bryan birthday and Christmas gifts, she hadn’t spent too much time one-on-one with him. In recent years during her short visits, he much preferred to be outside with the horses than visiting with Aunt Paige. Now she wished she’d tried harder to get to know him. “How do you think he’s taking his mom’s death?”

“Like any twelve-year-old, I guess. He loved his mother.” Pushing away from the railing, he shoved his fingertips in the hip pockets of his new jeans and stood looking past Paige toward the corral. Instead of his usual dusty work clothes, he’d worn a turquoise western-cut shirt with a silver bolo tie and a dressy black Stetson to the funeral service at the community church in town. He hadn’t changed yet. He thumbed his hat back to a rakish angle. “He’s confused. Missing her, I suppose. He spends most of his time either at school or with the horses anyway. He’s getting to be quite a good trail hand.”

She shuddered at the thought of her young nephew spending so much of his time on a horse. Raised in Lewiston, in a small town in Montana prairie country, Paige was now a full-fledged city girl.

“I hope Grandpa Henry doesn’t let Bryan go riding off by himself,” she said.

Shifting his attention back to her, Jay’s startling blue-green eyes widened and his dark brows lifted. “Why not?”

“Well, because he could get lost. Or hurt.” That seemed perfectly obvious to her. This was wilderness country.

“If he got lost, he’d follow his own tracks back to where he started just like I’ve taught him.” Jay shrugged. “As for getting hurt, that can happen to any kid, even ones who live in a big city like Seattle. If you ask me, a kid’s better off living here than most any other place I could think of.”

She disagreed, and certainly didn’t care for his attitude about the city she now called home. After all, Seattle had wonderful parks and schools, top-notch cultural activities and every sporting event imaginable.

She lifted her chin. “I’m going to check on Grandpa. See if I can fix him something to eat.” The ladies of the church had provided a buffet lunch following the funeral service even though they hadn’t known Krissy well. But she’d noticed Grandpa had barely touched any of the salads or casseroles. “If you could round up Bryan, I’ll fix him something, too. Of course, you’re welcome to join us.”

One corner of his firm lips lifted into an imitation of a smile. “Thanks. I’ll come in later.”

* * *

Jay waited a moment after Paige went inside, then stepped off the porch. He strolled to the bunkhouse where he had his private quarters.

Whenever Paige had shown up at Bear Lake, she’d made no secret of her feelings about Henry’s outfitting business. Or her sister’s behavior. Granted, she’d been polite, and she’d tried to make friends with Bryan. But a career woman like Paige, who had some hotsy-totsy corporate job with a big hotel chain, had no clue what little boys liked to do.

She’d kept her distance from Jay. Unlike Krissy, who had fallen all over herself trying to seduce him with her bubbly personality and seductive body. He’d known right off that Krissy wasn’t a woman interested in a long-term commitment. Once he’d made it clear that he was having none of it, she had moved on to someone more accommodating.

In the process, she often left Bryan’s parenting needs to Henry and his late wife, Lisbeth. Over time, Jay had simply picked up some of the slack with Bryan—a good kid who needed a bit of encouragement and guidance.

Oddly, he’d always found Paige more physically appealing than Krissy. Paige seemed more natural than her younger sister, for all that she’d traded a small town for a big city. Instead of bleaching her hair nearly white like Krissy, she’d left it the color she’d been born with, a shade that reminded him of the sleek strands of a palomino’s mane. A straight nose and a cute little chin gave her an innocent look. Not as curvaceous as her sister, Paige was a more petite package, yet still feminine.

Not that he ever intended to act on his attraction to Paige. Like always, she’d be gone in a few days. Back to the crowds, traffic congestion and wealthy guests who stayed at her hotel. He wouldn’t even try to compete with that.

Jay’s apartment consisted of a living room, one bedroom, a bath with a claw-foot tub and a kitchen that was barely big enough to turn around in. Most of the time he ate in the big house with the family, so about all he did in his kitchen was brew coffee, which he drank black and potent.

For an emergency, he kept a jar of peanut butter on hand and some bread in the freezer.

His mother, who lived in Browning on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, kept him well supplied with photos of his nieces and nephews, which he propped on the end table next to the broken-down couch.

A photograph of his wife, Annie, took center stage among the other pictures. Annie had died trying to give birth to their stillborn son nearly six years ago. Annie had been everything a man could want—smart, funny, with dark eyes that sparkled when she smiled, and she rode a horse like she’d been born in the saddle.

Ignoring the familiar tightness in his chest, he went into the bedroom to change into a pair of well-worn jeans, scuffed boots and a comfortable shirt. Although he had a local kid who took care of the horses and was learning to be a trail guide, Jay never took that for granted. The animals were his responsibility.

* * *

Paige found her grandfather sitting in his recliner in the living room staring off into space. At eighty-five, he was still lean, his arms striped with ropy muscles, but his hair had thinned, revealing brown age spots the gray strands barely covered. From years in the sun, his face had taken on the look of a topographical map crisscrossed by rivers and canyons.

The room itself was familiar to Paige: the knotty-pine paneling, overstuffed furniture, photographs of Bear Lake on the wall and the upright piano she used to play with Grandma Lisbeth when her family came to visit. Those visits had been rare, her father reluctant to close the hardware store for even a few days.