Montana Hearts

“Then you shouldn’t be hanging out with a boy who doesn’t care about your feelings or your safety.”

“He was just showing off.” Her lower lip extended into a full-fledged pout.

Anger and love, fear and frustration tangled in his chest. “I think your grandmother is right to ground you for a week. Maybe that will teach you to respect yourself enough not to allow some kid to put your life at risk. And next time, you tell Nana where you’re going and with who.”

“You’re taking Nana’s side?” Beth shrieked, shock and dismay twisting her pretty face into an ugly mask.

“You’re grounded, Beth. For a week.”

“You can’t do this to me!” She let loose a fountain of tears that ran down her cheeks. “I hate you! I hate you both!” She whirled, racing out of the kitchen and thundering up the stairs to her room. A door slammed, shaking the house.

Taking off his hat, Kurt slapped it against his thigh, creating a puff of dust. “I’m sorry, Grace. I don’t know what’s got into her lately.”

“I don’t either, son.” She used the napkin to dab the sweat from the back of her neck. Her hair looked unkempt. She hadn’t had a color job in months, and her hair had turned mostly gray. She’d lost weight in the past year and gained a web of wrinkles that crisscrossed her face. “But I can’t take it anymore. It’s too hard being around here every day, around memories of Zoe, and that child bickering with me constantly. Every time she goes out, I have to check to make sure she isn’t wearing some outlandish outfit. I just can’t—” She broke into sobs and put her head down on the table.

Feeling helpless, Kurt’s hands hung at his sides. His mouth worked but no sound came out, no magic words of consolation or support. Like a dry summer wind-storm, a sense of failure swept over him, sucking the life from him and his family.

“Go on home, Grace.” His words were thick with regret, his chest hollowed out with his own grief and guilt. “Get some rest. Take some time off. I’ll try to—” He didn’t know what he’d do. He only knew that he needed help.

In a hurry.

Chapter Two

In the hour since Kurt had driven away, Sarah had walked the length of Main Street, as far as the glistening white church steeple that rose at the east end of town, then back to her car. She had explored the town where Zoe Ryder had lived, the town that perhaps Sarah’s new heart already knew.

Since her surgery she’d worked hard to gain strength and build endurance. In recent months she’d walked three or four miles several days a week and felt stronger because of the effort. She had needed that energy today to work off the adrenaline and distress that flooded her veins and her heart.

She’d walked past buildings constructed in the early 1900s with the brick facades and actual hitching posts left over from an earlier era, making the town look like a set from an old Western movie. Kurt Ryder, with his long legs and masculine swagger, fit like a well-cast actor in this setting.

He still fit into the scene now that horses had been replaced by battered pickups with large dogs standing guard in the beds of the trucks or tied up to the fenders.

He wasn’t going to hire her as a housekeeper. She’d seen rejection in his golden-brown eyes and the surprised arch of his brows.

Probably for the best, she thought as she had stood staring off into space, trying to quell her sense of failure. Admittedly, she wasn’t the greatest housekeeper in the world. Or cook, for that matter.

She never should have told him she had planned to stay around for a couple of days. He wasn’t going to call. She’d been foolish to even consider coming here.

There was no reason for her to stay.

No way for her to help the family who had lost so much.

On a weekday afternoon, no one seemed in a rush in Sweet Grass Valley. Traffic through town was light. The lush scent of sage and grass on surrounding open rangeland drifted on the air along with the smell of hay stacked in the backs of passing trucks.

Zoe Ryder had walked down this sidewalk, past the bakery, dress shop, grocery store and the one-screen movie theater across the way, probably greeting the proprietors by their first names. She’d been a part of this community in a way that Sarah had never been a part of Seattle.

Did the people miss her? Had Zoe left a hole in their lives as she had in those who had loved her?

It felt strange to envy someone who was dead. But Sarah did, at some cavernous level she hadn’t realized existed in her soul.

Please, Lord, help those who loved Zoe and miss her to find peace within Your loving embrace.

Sarah had seen a decent-looking motel about twenty miles back in Shelby, on the highway the way she’d come. She’d stay there tonight and then head home to Seattle tomorrow.

As she got into her car, her cell phone rang.

She froze, momentarily paralyzed. It could be her friend who was waiting on the results of her CPA exam and handling Sarah’s accounting business while she was out of town. A simple business question she could answer.

Or it could be…

With a shaking hand, Sarah flipped open the phone. She didn’t recognize the number.

Her throat tightened and her mouth went dry. “Sarah Barkley,” she answered.

“Ms. Barkley, this is Kurt Ryder. If you’re still interested in the housekeeper job, I’d like to talk to you.”

“Yes…” Her voice caught. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes, I’m still interested.”

“Good. I think it would be best if you came here, to the ranch. Then you’d know what you’re getting into.”

That sounded a bit ominous, as though she’d agreed to work for the local ax murderer. “I can come there.”

She propped the phone against her shoulder and searched for a notepad and pen in her purse while he gave her directions to the ranch.

When he finished, she closed the phone and took a deep breath. Her insides quivered with a combination of excitement and trepidation. Second thoughts assailed her like the bugs that had spattered her windshield on the highway.

This is what she wanted. This is why she had come to Sweet Grass Valley. To help those who had given so much.

As instructed, she took Second Street north out of town. Residences on modest lots quickly gave way to open prairie. Scattered clusters of cattle grazed on rolling hillsides and horses stood head-to-tail in pairs beneath shade trees, switching flies with their tails. A gentle breeze rippled the fields of tall grass like waves on a summer-green ocean.

Soon she spotted her destination. She turned off the road to drive under the arched entrance of the Rocking R Ranch. In the distance, a two-story house appeared through the rising waves of heat. Several outbuildings were also visible including a large red barn and a corral. The Rocking R appeared to be a profitable enterprise.

In front of the house, a white gazebo sat in the middle of a lawn surrounded by flower beds that had been left untended for some length of time. Weeds had invaded the plots where rosebushes and irises had gone scraggly. Sarah suspected Zoe had kept her garden a showpiece. Since her death, the family had let the beauty wither away.

A porch with two wicker rocking chairs and a cedar porch swing stretched the width of the house on the western side. She imagined sitting there at the end of a day, drinking iced tea and watching the sun set behind the distant mountains.

A black-and-white dog wandered out of the barn and barked at her.

As soon as Sarah came to a stop, the front door of the house opened. Kurt waited for her on the porch, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, his legs wide apart. The cuffs of his blue work shirt were rolled to his elbows, revealing muscular arms lightly covered in dusky hair.

The dog had kept track of her as far as the corner of the house, where he stood guard.

“Thanks for coming,” Kurt said as she reached the porch steps.

“You have an amazing place here. How much of this land do you own?”

“About all you can see plus a little bit more.” She sensed he wasn’t bragging. He was simply stating a fact.

Sarah’s small cottage on a city lot didn’t bear comparison.