Big Sky Reunion

April, his favorite sorrel mare, trotted over to the fence. He tooted his horn and she shook her blond mane in response, keeping pace with the truck until she reached the end of the pasture.

He pulled the truck up next to the barn and parked just as Arnie came out of the open double doors riding his shiny red ATV.

“Yo, bro.” Daniel swung down from the truck. “What’s happening?”

Using hand controls, Arnie brought the ATV to a halt. His dog, Sheila, a golden retriever mix, sat proudly behind him. “What I want to know is what took you so long, Danny boy. Had Doc Harper gone fishing?”

Daniel slapped himself on the forehead. Doc Harper was the town pharmacist. “The prescription. I forgot to pick it up.”

Arnie gave him a steady-eyed look and slowly raised his brows. Although they both had inherited their mother’s olive complexion and the telltale cheekbones of the Blackfoot Indians, Arnie’s upper body was more muscular than Daniel’s. His legs, though, had withered considerably since the accident that had paralyzed him eight years ago.

“You got distracted, I gather,” he said.

“Yep, you could say that.”

“Good lookin’?”

Heat from more than the sun flooded Daniel’s cheeks. “Mindy Spencer’s back in town.” He used the nickname for Melinda that family and close friends used. “She’s helping her aunt.”

Arnie’s eyes widened and he tilted his head. “If Ivy hears about Mindy, she might not be too happy.”

Scowling, Daniel shook his head. “Ivy doesn’t have any claim on me.”

“She’d sure like to.” Taking off his hat, Arnie wiped the sweat from the inside of the hat band. “Is Mindy planning to stay permanently?”

“She said not.”

“Interesting.” Arnie shifted the ATV into gear. “Have a nice ride back to town.”

Daniel held out his hands, palms up. “Ah, come on, Arnie. The prescription can wait till tomorrow, can’t it?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. Doc Harper closes up shop on Sundays.” He drove the ATV to the back porch of the house. Sheila agilely jumped down and waited while Arnie unloaded the wheelchair from the back of the all-terrain vehicle. Using a trapeze device Daniel had jerry-rigged for him, Arnie lifted himself out of the ATV and into the chair. “Say hello to Mindy for me next time you see her.”

Daniel jammed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Right.”

Chortling a big-brother laugh that put Daniel’s teeth on edge, Arnie wheeled himself up the ramp and into the house, Sheila right behind him, ready to be of service whenever she was needed.

Yanking open the truck door, Daniel got inside. He’d go into town. Get the prescription. And come right back. Like he was supposed to have done the first time.

Unless Goldilocks was still hanging around the knitting shop.

Then he might stick around for a while.

Chapter Two

Head down, her footsteps as slow as a desert tortoise, Melinda left Knitting and Notions to walk the short distance to Aunt Martha’s house.

She hadn’t spent long in the shop after Daniel left. Realizing how much needed to be done to get the store up and running was a daunting prospect. First, a top-to-bottom cleaning would be needed, followed by rearranging the stock and ordering new yarns and notions. Advertisements would have to be created and placed in the local biweekly newspaper, flyers made and posted around town about classes and special activities.

To make the shop a profitable venture, she’d have to attract customers not only from Potter Creek and its five thousand residents, but from the surrounding area, as well. Which meant she’d be competing with shops in Bozeman, less than an hour away.

Daunting was an understatement.

For as long as Melinda could remember, Martha had lived in a small one-story stucco house facing Second Street, directly behind the shop. The large backyard used to be a riot of color during the summer, roses in full bloom, morning glories scampering up a trellis, beds of purple iris and lilac bushes. Ten years ago Melinda had helped her aunt put up jars and jars of vegetables she’d grown in her garden, most of which she’d given to the church’s food pantry to help the poor.

Now the yard had gone scraggly and overgrown. Only the indestructible morning glories struggled onward and upward, covering the trellis with bright blue flowers.

The house looked as ragged as the yard with its chipped paint and dangling window screens.

Guilt punched a hole in Melinda’s chest. A knot tightened in her stomach. So much had changed in the past ten years. She should have kept better track of her aunt’s situation instead of focusing only on her own problems.

For three agonizing years, she’d devoted her life, day and night, to Jason. The last two she’d rarely left his side or thought of anything but his well-being.

The steps wobbled as she walked up onto the porch where a wicker slider sat, dusty and abandoned.

In the kitchen, which featured a circa-1950 chrome-and-Formica table and a white tile counter, the dishes she’d washed after their lunch sat drying on the drain board. From the living room, she heard the sound of the TV playing.

Aunt Martha sat in her favorite wingback chair, the remote control in her hand, her walker right next to her chair. Her collapsible wheelchair was in the front entry if she needed it.

“Hello, Mindy, dear. Did you pick out some yarn while you were in the shop?” Due to the stroke, the right side of Martha’s mouth didn’t work quite right and her speech was slightly slurred. Her hair had long since gone from the blond of her youth to silver-gray, and her face was lined from a lifetime of Montana sunshine and hours of hearty laughter.

“Not today. I brought along a sweater I’ve been meaning to finish for ages. I’ll work on that first.” She picked up the newspaper Martha had dropped on the floor and set it on the coffee table. “Anything I can get for you?”

“No, I’m fine. I don’t want you to trouble yourself over me.”

“That’s why I’m here, Aunt Martha. Have you done your afternoon exercises yet?”

“Oh, pshaw, child. Those therapists at Manhattan Rehab purely wore me out. I’m taking today off.”

Frowning, Melinda picked up the rubber ball her aunt was supposed to squeeze multiple times during the day and handed it to Martha. “You aren’t going to be able to knit a stitch if you don’t get your strength back in your hands.”

Martha looked up over the top of her glasses at Melinda. “You’ve turned into a bossy little thing, haven’t you, child?” With a funny twist of her lips, and considerable effort, she held out her hand for the ball.

Melinda placed it in her palm. “Now squeeze.”

Martha did as instructed.

Sitting down in the floral-print love seat, Melinda stretched out her legs. She wiggled her toes in her sandals. She wasn’t wearing polish on her toenails and idly wondered if Daniel had noticed.

Rejecting the thought, she sat up straighter, pulling her feet closer to the sofa.

“Before your stroke, were you still teaching knitting classes?”

“Oh, my goodness, no, dear. Young people don’t seem so interested in knitting these days and most of the ladies who used to come into the shop have either died or moved into an old folks’ home in Bozeman or Manhattan. Unless someone called for something special, I’ve hardly opened the door for the past year or so.”

Which explained both the obstinate key and the disarray in the shop. Melinda puffed out her cheeks on a long exhale.

“I was thinking… I thought I might reopen the shop.” She chose her words carefully. Her heart stuttered in the same uncertain rhythm. “Maybe stay in Potter Creek permanently.”