Montana Miracle

James was still looking at the monitor, and his pale-blue eyes, even paler in his deeply tanned face, narrowed thoughtfully. With his shock of blond hair styled to a T and his fashionably rumpled look, he definitely looked like a thirtysomething man on the way up. Any way he could get there.

James finally turned his gaze to Kate. “The question everyone’s tried to answer is, why did he walk away right when he was at the top? He was the best nip-and-tuck man in the city, privy to the inner circle of this town. He had any woman he wanted. Why did he leave and go to some blip on a map in the middle of nowhere and drop out of sight?”

She shrugged. “Drugs, women, rock and roll? Malpractice, gambling? You name a vice, and I’m sure someone’s thought about pegging him with it. But the fact is, no one’s been able to peg anything on him, no matter how hard they try.” She looked at James. “Are you saying you’ve got something on him?”

“There, finally a question. I was wondering if your famous curiosity was fading. The one thing that’s always fascinated me about you is the way you keep at something until you have all the answers. That’s why you’re damn good at this business.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He exhaled. “Actually, it’s the same thing that makes it impossible to be around you for very long.”

Right then she remembered why she’d stopped seeing James six months ago. He’d been just as impossible to be around for any length of time as she’d been for him. Any relationship between the two of them ended up being almost all business and no fun. “Same back at you,” she murmured. “Now, answer my question. Do you have some new facts on this?”

“Facts? No, but I’ve got an idea.” He studied her for a long moment, then said, “From where I’m sitting, I’m looking at someone with a brain who knows how to go for the jugular, a woman who is definitely the type the good doctor favors. A tall, leggy blonde.”

“James, what the—”

“You heard me. You’re a hell of a reporter and you’ve got that extra something that can make the difference. In this business, you know you need every edge you can get.” Without warning he was out of his chair, coming around to take her by her arm.

He ignored the way she tried to get free of his hold and took her over to a mirrors. He got behind her and made her face the reflection.

“There. Look. You’re what’s going to make this happen.” His hands rested on her shoulders, his fingers tightening slightly. “Everyone’s tried everything and gotten nowhere. A cement wall. And I got to thinking, the man has to have a weakness, something that will get to him, and from everything I’ve seen, that weakness is beautiful blondes.”

“I knew I broke up with you for some reason,” she muttered.

“You also know I’m right,” he said from right behind her. “Take a good look.”

She stared at herself, at Katherine Ames, twenty-seven years old, tall, blond and leggy. That much was right. But at five feet ten inches, she was gangly. Her blond hair was very blonde, almost silvery, but straight and long and worn the way she had it now, in a single braid that ended halfway down her back. She wore little to no makeup, had freckles across her nose and what she thought was a very sharp chin.

She tended to wear what she had on then, simple slacks and a plain shirt, navy and white today. There were no tight miniskirts or plunging necklines, no bronzed skin, no big hair, and she had never been called voluptuous. She wasn’t flat, but one of her dates had called her figure “boyish”—not the greatest compliment. No, she wasn’t Parish’s type, no matter what James thought.

“I’m not looking at some starlet bimbo,” she said, meeting his gaze with a frown. “No makeup, no false lashes, no implants.” She’d never thought of herself as beautiful. Rather, growing up as the only child of two selfish, self-centered people, had helped foster her strengths. She’d developed a fertile imagination to keep her occupied when she’d been alone, a desperate need to write so she could connect to something when she was by herself, and an insatiable curiosity about the outside world. Those were her credentials as a writer, what made her good at what she did, not any physical attributes. “I’m too thin, too tall and too pale, and I’ve got freckles.”

James frowned at her over her shoulder. “Boy, your self-image is miserable,” he said. “If you’d stop scowling like that and put on a bit of makeup, maybe let your hair loose, with those green eyes you’d stop traffic on Sunset Boulevard.”

She twisted around to face him and he drew back. “If you want me to go after this story, give it to me.” That familiar tingle of excitement was starting to grow in her at the challenge of getting to a subject and getting him or her to talk when no one else could. “The thrill of the hunt,” James had called it. “If it’s possible, I’ll get it. But let me figure out what tack to use.”

“Hey, sure, absolutely.” His pale eyes flicked suggestively over her, then he met her gaze again. “You’re a hell of a writer. I’ve always said that, and that’s why you’re here. So it’s yours. Go for it.”

Even his compliments sounded compromising to her, but she wasn’t going to take the bait that easily. “Okay, give me details.”

He went back to his desk, reached for the folder and held it out to her. “Here’s everything we have.”

She crossed to take it from him, a thick manila folder with “Dr. MacKenzie Parish” in bold type on the right edge, then a list of names and dates on the cover, others who had checked it out of Research and the dates it had been in use. Lots of interest in the man. She opened the cover and shuffled through several glossies, magazine tear sheets and newspaper clippings.

Two of their own articles were mixed in with an impressive group of stories on the man. The headlines ran the gamut from Sexy Doc Nips & Tucks His Way To Fame, Partying Is A Science For This Doctor, to Merry-Go-Round Stops For Famous Surgeon and The Doctor Has Left The Building.

And in every picture that wasn’t a head-and-shoulders shot, he was with a woman. A star, a wanna-be star, a nobody. But always a beautiful woman. He definitely liked tall blondes. “He partied hard,” she murmured, not bothering to hide her distaste for his lifestyle. She sank into the chair facing the desk, closing the folder and resting it in her lap. “So where is this place he ran off to?”

“Montana, a ranch outside the tiny town of Bliss, and from all accounts, he seldom leaves it.”

“No favorite haunts, no daily schedule in here?” she asked, tapping the folder.

“Sorry, if it were that easy, someone would have done the story by now.”

“Okay, there has to be a way to make him stick his head out of the bunker. Then the trick is to get him to talk.”

He sat forward. “Getting him to talk is the easy part for you. You could get a monk to break a vow of silence. Look what you did with the Blanchard story.” He smiled at her. “She wouldn’t talk to anyone, and you got her to do an exclusive for us.”

“That’s different. I went to the same deli she did and saw her there all the time, and she recognized me.”

“See what I mean? You use what you have to get what you want. Only you could turn a trip to the deli into a great interview with a woman who had just been acquitted of murdering her husband. You had an ‘in’ with her, and like it or not, you’ve got an ‘in’ with Parish.”

She hated it when he was right. But he was. If the man’s weakness was blondes, she’d have to factor that into the equation, whatever she did. “Bliss?” she asked.

“Bliss as in a podunk town out in the middle of nowhere. Bliss for the gophers and cows, I guess.”

“Maybe for the doctor, too,” she said.

“That’s what you’ll find out, won’t you?” he asked, stretching his arms over his head.

“I hope so.”

“Also, the bonus for an exclusive kicks in, and that can’t hurt, either.”

She could use the money, but more than that, she loved this part of the job. The hunt, the discovery. She pressed her hand on the closed folder. “What’s the deadline?”

“I can give you a week, maybe a bit longer if it looks really good after you get there, but that’s about all the budget will bear. Also, it’ll give us time to make the semiannual special issue, too, if you come in around then.” He took a thick envelope out of a side drawer. “Here’s your packet.”

She took it, and said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Just be prepared. From what’s in the research, Bliss is a tight little community where the townspeople don’t talk and won’t even give directions to Parish’s place.” He tapped the envelope. “That’s what county assessors are for. There’s a map in there of his place.” He studied her. “So, any ideas how to get to him?”

She didn’t think, despite James’s optimism about her looks, that putting on a skimpy silver dress and walking the streets would work. “Something will come to me. By the way, is there anyone living with him?” The man never seemed to be alone in L.A., so there was no reason to think he suddenly became a monk in Montana.

“No ranch hands this time of year, but there’s a housekeeper, or a friend of some sort who keeps the house, and a little boy. Word is it’s his dead brother’s child, but there isn’t a birth certificate on him in that county. Maybe the kid’s his?” He glanced at the envelope. “You’ve got an air ticket for tomorrow out of LAX in there, car rental and your per diem. Sign off for the folder and read it on the plane.” He scrounged around and passed her a pen.

As she signed the folder front and dated it, she asked, “What about a place to stay?”

“There’re no hotels or motels listed in Bliss, but there’s a bed-and-breakfast called Joanine’s Inn. You’re expected tomorrow evening by seven, under your own name. I wasn’t sure about getting you a place to stay because of the holiday.”

“Holiday?”

“Thanksgiving, Kate, remember?”

“I remember,” she muttered.

“You come from a strange family, Kate. I’ve never heard of a family who ignores holidays the way yours do.”