Montana Miracle

“Born and raised.”

“But you said you weren’t from Bliss.”

“I said I didn’t live in Bliss.”

It shouldn’t be this hard to get simple information out of him. All he had to say was “a ranch outside of town.” Simple, but she had the feeling that nothing was simple with this man. “Just where do you live?”

“Around.”

Damn him. He wasn’t just in hiding, he was shut down completely. And that only made her more curious. “Around where?”

“Bliss,” he muttered, and shifted gears.

She needed to take a new tack. She felt in her purse, found the phone and cord and pulled them out. “Can I plug my phone into your cigarette lighter to charge it?” May as well be sure it wasn’t dead once she did get a signal. Plus it gave her something to do, for a moment.

He waved at her. “Go for it.”

She shifted, pulled the lighter out and plugged in the phone. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back as she laid the phone by his hat on the seat.

They hadn’t been going terribly fast, but now they were almost crawling along the dark, snowy road. She turned from the man and looked ahead. There were lights, faint and almost swallowed up by the snow, but lights to the right and to the left. “Is this Bliss?”

“Main Street,” he said.

She could barely make out the surroundings, except for a few neon lights that managed to penetrate the storm and night. The Alibi Diner & Bar was to the right; Lou’s Seed & Feed was to the left; then an orange ball that seemed suspended high in the night was to the right. Gas. The truck slowed even more, then swung toward the sign and stopped.

“Carl’s garage,” he said as he put his hat on and exited the truck, leaving the engine idling.

Kate braced herself, gripped her purse, then opened her door to jump out of the cab. She felt herself sink into almost knee-deep snow and saw the man ahead of her, a dark silhouette against the weak light coming from high, leaded windows in a sprawling building that was almost lost in the night. She hurried after him, then a door opened and more light spilled out. She made her way toward it and stepped into warmth that was heavy with the scent of oil and grease.

The door closed behind her and she was in a room divided by a counter, with auto supplies at the back, hubcaps lining the walls near the ceiling, tires stacked by the door and a potbelly stove in one corner sending off wonderful waves of heat. A man stood behind the counter in greasy gray overalls. He was a pale man, with freckles, thinning reddish hair and bright blue eyes. When he saw the two of them, he grinned.

“Hey, Kenny, what’s happening?” the man said.

Kenny? She looked at the man she could’ve sworn was Dr. Mackenzie Parish.

“Hey, Carl. The lady’s car’s stuck south of here and needs chains. Compact car, fourteen-inch tires, two-wheel drive.”

Carl looked at Kate. “You were out on a night like this in something like that?”

She stuck with the story Parish had given her. “I thought I was going to Shadow Ridge and ended up here.”

“Well, you’re way off the track for Shadow Ridge.”

“Hell and gone from it,” she murmured.

“I’d say so. Now you hold on, and I’ll check in the storage room for the chains,” he said as he stood.

She turned to the man by her, the man she knew was Mac Parish, despite the fact that Carl had called him Kenny. He was taller than she imagined from the pictures, just one more discrepancy in her preconceived ideas about the man. Then again, he’d always been with tall women.

“So, you’re Kenny,” she said, not speaking until he glanced at her so he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard her.

He shrugged. “To some.”

“And to others?”

“Whatever they want to call me,” he said, and deliberately turned from her to get closer to the counter. “Carl, I have to get going. I’ll see you later,” he called out to the man in the back room.

“You do that,” the disembodied voice responded.

Then he turned to her, his eyes, a deep, rich hazel. The color she expected. He touched the brim of his hat. “Good luck,” he murmured, and would have moved right past her, out into the night and storm to be gone forever, if she hadn’t acted instinctively and touched his arm.

The rough material of the heavy coat didn’t hide the sudden tensing in him at the contact, and on some level it pleased her. He wasn’t as closed and indifferent to her as he was acting. Whatever, she wasn’t going to let him just walk out after Fate had dropped him in her lap. “I didn’t thank you,” she said quickly, staying firmly between him and the door.

“No need,” he said, then broke their contact to move around her.

The only thing she could have done to stop him right then was throw herself at the door to block his escape. She didn’t think that would be a good idea with this man. Instead, she had to watch him tug his hat lower, pull up the collar of his jacket, then, flashing a glance at her, walk out the door.

“Great, just great,” she muttered, considering running after him for something…anything.

“Bolted, didn’t he,” Carl asked from behind her.

She closed her eyes for a long moment when the headlights of the truck flashed on. He was leaving. She turned to Carl, the only connection she had to Parish now. “He’s in a hurry.”

Carl shrugged. “I’m surprised he stopped to help you.”

She moved closer to the counter. Carl was obviously friends with Parish. He’d know something. “I’m glad he did.”

“The Kenny I grew up with would have helped anyone just like his dad did. But he changed after he came back.”

“Came back?”

“He left for a while, went to California.” Carl shrugged. “And when Kenny came back to that mess…” He exhaled. “That’d change anybody.”

That mess? She’d struck gold. “What happened?”

Before she could ask anything else, the door swung open and cold air rushed into the shop. “Talk of the devil,” Carl murmured as he looked past her. “That was fast.”

Kate turned as the door slammed shut. Parish was there, snow on his Stetson and shoulders. She felt like jumping up and down for joy, but one look at his face, and she knew he wasn’t happy at all. But she’d do whatever it took to keep him right here.

Chapter Three

Mac stood in the middle of the room, cold and wet, clutching the cell phone and charging cord that Katherine had left in the truck. He’d almost driven off, but it had fallen on the floor when he’d started out. Now he was back where he didn’t want to be. Involved. He worked at not being involved. His life was involved enough to keep him busy without any outside force intruding on it. Something in him felt as if with one slip on his part, this woman could be very involving. He’d make this fast and get out.

It was the first total look he’d had of Katherine, tall and leggy in a blue corduroy jacket, slim-fitting jeans and boots that would probably fall apart in snow, not any sort of protection. He looked up and met her gaze.

That was another thing he’d hadn’t seen in the truck. Her eyes. They were the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, thickly lashed, set in a finely boned oval face. There were freckles on the small, straight nose. Just a few. He hadn’t noticed them before, either. And her hair, an almost silvery blond, wasn’t done in any fancy way, just pulled straight back from her oval face into a single braid that fell down her back.

It had been a long time since he’d noticed a woman. And now wasn’t the time to start. He held out the phone to her, and when she didn’t step forward to take it, he moved closer to put it in her hand. The heat was there, on the fingers that brushed his, and he jerked, almost dropping the phone. Then she had it and stepped back, stirring the air around him.