The Man From Montana

He rubbed Daisy’s shoulder. “We’re not so hard up, honey, that we need to rent to a reporter.” Never mind that the woman in question had him thinking about things he hadn’t thought of in a long time. Like how pretty a female could be and how feminine her voice sounded on the cold morning air—even though she pushed with her words.

“Got any homework that needs doing?” he asked, veering off the thought of Rachel Brant and her attributes.

“Some social studies and English.”

The thought of Shakespeare and essays had him sweating. “Better get at it after lunch.”

“I need Grandpa’s help. We’re doing this project in socials.” A small sigh. “I have to ask him some questions.”

“What kind of project?” They walked up the wheelchair ramp to the mudroom door at the side of the house. Tom was good at English, good at reading and writing. If his blood had run in Ash’s veins maybe—

“We’re supposed to pretend we’re journalists.” Shrugging off her coat, Daisy trudged into the mudroom ahead of Ash. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “And…and we’re supposed to interview a veteran, so I was thinking of asking Grandpa.”

Speak of the devil. First a real reporter and now a make-believe one in the guise of his daughter. No wonder he had hated school. Teachers were always pushing kids into role-playing and projects, pretending they were real life. Just last week, John Reynolds’s eleventh grader brought home an egg and said it was a baby. Ash snorted. What the hell was the world coming to anyway? Eggs as babies? Kids playing war correspondents?

Ash closed the door, hooked the heel of his left boot on a jack. “You know Gramps won’t talk, Daiz.”

Holding back her long, thick hair, Daisy removed her own boots. “Well, dammit, maybe it’s time, y’know?”

Ash glowered down at his child. “Watch your language, girl.”

A tolerant sigh. “Dad, it’s been, like, thirty-six years. Why won’t Grandpa talk about his tours? I mean, jeez. It’s not like they happened yesterday. He even got the Purple Heart.” Frustrated, she kicked her boots onto the mat with a “Get over it already” and flounced into the kitchen.

Ash watched her go. They had been over this subject two dozen times in the past three years, the instant she reached puberty. She wanted to know episodes of her heritage, about her mother, about him, about Tom.

Ash had no intention of talking about Susie or her death. Too damn painful, that topic. What if he accidentally let out the truth, that his wife was as much to blame for the accident as that two-bit journalist?

He shook his head. No, he couldn’t chance it. Hell, thinking about it gave him hives.

Maybe one day he would tell Daisy, but not during her “hormone phase,” as Tom put it.

As for Tom…Vietnam was the old man’s business.

Ash entered the quaint country kitchen. “Hey, Pops.”

His stepfather, bound to a wheelchair for three-and-a-half decades, swung around the island, a loaf of multigrain bread in his lap. “Daisy in a mood?” On the counter lay an array of butter, cheese, tomatoes and ham slices ready for Tom’s specialty: grilled sandwiches.

Ash walked to the sink to wash his hands. “In a mood” was the old man’s reference to Daisy’s monthlies. “She’s upset about a couple things, yeah.”

“What things?”

“Wants us to rent out the cottage to a reporter.”

Tom snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

“New one hired on with the Times. Drove out here this morning while we were moving the yearlings.”

“You tell him we’re not interested?” The chair whined behind Ash. In his mind’s eye, he saw his stepfather pressing a lever, raising the seat so he could maneuver his stump legs into the open slot Ash had constructed under the counter years ago.

“Not him. Her.” A sassy-mouthed woman with big eyes.

“Her?”

Ash leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. The reporter splashing the ASPCA story across the front of the Rocky Times twenty years ago had been a woman and Hanson Senior’s wife.

Tom slapped cheese and ham onto a slice of bread, cut the tomatoes deftly with his right hand.

“What’d you tell this reporter?”

“That she’s not welcome.” He glanced toward the stairs, warned, “Daiz sees it differently. Figures we need the money.”

“Huh.” Right hand and left prosthesis worked in sync over the sandwiches. “What’s her name?”

“Rachel Brant.”

Silence. Then, “Brant, huh?” More slicing and buttering. “Suppose we could use the extra cash.”

Ash straightened. “You crazy?”

Tom shrugged. “Why not? Place is sitting empty. Might as well burn it down if we ain’t gonna use it. Besides, with calving season starting, Inez’ll be feeding extra hands over the next couple months.”

Inez, their housekeeper and Tom’s caretaker, was in Sweet Creek at the moment, buying two weeks’ worth of groceries. “We’ll get by,” Ash grumbled. “We always do.” He did not need the Brant woman here, within walking distance, within sight. She was a journalist and he would bet a nosy one, prying until she got a barrel of tidbits to create a stir with her words. “Stories,” they called those reports. He knew why. More fiction than fact.

And with her working at the Times, talking to publisher–owner Shaw Hanson Jr…. Hell, Hanson probably sent her to the Flying Bar T as a dig on the McKees. After all, Ash had gone after Hanson for sending Marty Philips to sniff out that mad-cow scare. Two days following Susie’s death because of that cocky young kid, Ash walked into the newspaper and kicked ass.

And where did that get you, Ash?

Tossed in the hoosegow for three days.

Tom buttered six additional slices, cut another two tomatoes, assembling enough for a soup kitchen. “You said Daisy was in a snit over a couple things. What’s the other thing?”

“Social studies project.”

Across the counter, his stepfather eyed Ash under a line of bushy gray brows. “You wanted it done yesterday.”

“No. I don’t want her bugging you.”

That narrowed Tom’s eyes. “Me?”

“She’s supposed to interview a vet for war facts.”

“Huh. Don’t they have textbooks for that?”

“They do, but this time the kids are supposed to get it from the horse’s mouth. So to speak.”

“Well, this old horse ain’t talking.” The chair hummed as Tom wheeled around to the range. “Same reason you don’t talk about Susie,” he muttered.

Same reason? Hell, there were things Ash would never share with his family. Like the day he’d buried Susie. How he’d gone back at dusk and sat where he’d put her ashes and cried until he puked. How he pounded his fists against the sun-dried earth, cussing that she’d known better than to drive after drinking, a fact he found out from the coroner four days later.