A Baxter's Redemption

Isabel got back into the car and turned the key. The engine coughed to life.

“Thank you,” she said, the old smooth voice again, a cool mixture of sweetness and indifference. She paused, cleared her throat and changed her tone. “What did you do?”

“Reconnected loose wires on the starter. It happens sometimes.”

“Well...” She smiled. “I’m grateful.”

“No problem.”

She eyed him for a moment. “What are they like?”

“Who?”

“My father and... Britney.”

“Happy,” he said with a shrug.

“You have to say that, don’t you?” Bitterness laced her tone.

“I don’t have to say anything,” he replied. “And I can’t say more than that. Like I said, discretion is part of the job.”

“Of course it is.” She smiled tightly. “Well, thanks again.”

She put the car into gear and pulled away, her tires crunching along the drive.

James was no longer a smitten teen. He’d never acted on his crush on Isabel because Andrew was dating her, but her cruelty was what doused his feelings for her. She was heartless and self-centered.

Would it have been different if she’d had the compassion to sit down and talk to Andrew instead of publicly mocking him? People broke up all the time, and it didn’t end their lives. Would Andrew have made different choices, maybe been more careful over there in the war zone, if her cruelty hadn’t pushed him out of town early? She hadn’t remembered him—and it made him wonder if Andrew had slipped from her memory, as well.

He’d do his job. He’d give her the advice her father wanted her to have, and he’d provide legal counsel should she require it. But after that, Isabel Baxter was on her own.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a5e14d89-1ce0-5d21-a4fc-ed96bd7e8601)

HAGGERSTON WAS A TOWN that landed like a splatter in the middle of open prairie, cut through by a highway, and left on its own in the patchwork of Montana’s fields and pastures. It was large enough to have the main amenities—a supermarket, a hardware store, a veterinarian clinic—but small enough that everyone still knew each other.

Isabel had been born here, and when she left home to go to college, she never thought she’d return. Not like this. She’d always imagined her homecoming to be a triumphal entry—a successful, beautiful woman come back for a quick weekend where she showed off her husband and kids. She’d be the topic of local gossip, word of her arrival spreading faster than the flu.

She had the gossip part down, she realized wryly, but not the way she’d hoped. Life had a way of turning full circle and swallowing a person whole.

When she’d graduated from Yale and moved to New York for her first job—a desk job in a marketing company—life had seemed shiny and exciting. And it was. For a young woman with family money, New York had a lot to offer.

One rainy evening after work last year, Isabel had headed out to catch a cab home. As she’d stepped out into the street to hail one, a bike had swerved around her and pushed her into oncoming traffic. She didn’t remember the car hitting her at all, but she did recall waking up in the hospital, in agony from head to toe. Her face had been badly cut, and from that moment on, she knew that her life would never be what she’d imagined.

After that first surgery, she could remember feeling like a heavy weight was on her chest, refusing to let her inhale. It was like being smothered from the inside, and when the doctors told her that she’d nearly died on the table, she knew she wouldn’t have another surgery. Vanity wasn’t worth dying for, but the adjustment to becoming ordinary when she’d been used to being stunningly beautiful was a difficult one. No one jumped to open doors for her anymore. No one checked her out in the street—unless one wanted to count the double takes from passersby when they saw the scars. They weren’t looking with admiration. They stared in pity, then dropped their gazes.

So when her father suggested that she might come back to Haggerston for a while, that old yearning to finally be a part of the family business—maybe even take it over—resurfaced. New York was a big and scary place for a woman who’d lost her beauty, and she’d already been passed over twice for a promotion at her marketing job. She’d gotten her education, had four years of work experience under her belt, and she was no longer the beauty queen who’d left town eight years ago. Perhaps a shot at Baxter Land Holdings wasn’t as out of the question anymore. So she packed up her things to make the move.

It was then that she’d seen the ad for a tiny house for sale. It was beautiful—a miniature home on wheels like a trailer, but built to look exactly like a house, complete with sloped roof and a small porch on the front. Inside, it was arranged with artistic precision. The front door opened onto the wee sitting room, behind which were the kitchen and bathroom. Overhead was a sleeping loft, with long, narrow windows spilling light under the sloping roof. The entire inside was made of natural wood, softened by wax, and was at its most beautiful in the afternoon light.

Everything had to be carefully arranged so that not an inch was wasted, and that was part of what made Isabel fall in love with the tiny house. It forced her to reexamine her life and the items that she’d collected along the way and pare them down to the essentials.

Who was she underneath the makeup, the fashion, the money... What mattered most?

So she’d bought the house, hooked it up behind her SUV and began the long drive from New York to Montana.

Within a week after her visit with her dad, she’d been set up. Finding a place to park her little house had been easier than she’d imagined. Outside Haggerston, a local man had a piece of property with electricity and water all ready to hook up, and he charged her a miniscule rent for the pleasure of living on his land. It had a view of green pasture where horses grazed on one side, and on the other, the foothills sloped lazily toward jagged mountains. Just standing there, breathing in the pristine summer air made everything seem possible again.

Isabel pulled two grocery bags full of fresh produce out of the trunk of her car and was heading back to the house when the sound of an engine rumbled into the drive. She turned back, squinting against the afternoon sun. A black pickup truck pulled in, dusty from the road. It came to a stop next to her white SUV, and her father’s lawyer—James? Was that it?—grinned down at her out the open window.

“Hi,” he said with an easy smile. “This isn’t what I expected.”

She glanced back at the little house. No, she doubted that her living arrangements were what anyone expected from her, but at this point, she didn’t care. Life hadn’t been what she’d expected, either, so she figured they could all be mildly surprised together and then get on with things.

“How did you find me, exactly?” she asked. She hadn’t given him her address—she hadn’t given it to her father, either, for that matter.

“In Haggerston? Nothing’s as secret as you think,” he replied with a shrug. “I asked around a little. Didn’t take much.”

She didn’t doubt that for a minute. Haggerston was nothing if not efficient in its gossip. James opened the truck door and hopped out.

“What can I do for you?” she asked. She turned and climbed the three steps up to the tiny porch and opened the front door. Inside, she had everything arranged already—two wood-framed leather chairs on one side, an oval table between them that doubled as a place to eat and a place to visit. Across from the little table was another compact chair, this one upholstered in gold and burgundy, with a Tiffany lamp perched on a plant stand next to it. Afternoon sunlight slanted through a window, brightening everything into a cheery glow.

James ambled after her, pausing on the porch to peer inside. “Does your father know about this?”

She turned to eye him curiously. “Do I need his permission?”

He smiled wryly. “Sorry, that was just curiosity.” His gaze moved around slowly. “It’s kind of neat.”

“Thanks.” She moved toward the kitchen space. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“I take it you don’t remember me.”

“You’re my father’s lawyer,” she said, giving him a funny look.

“I mean from before.”

“No. Should I?” Her parents had always had a hundred business contacts, and she’d never been able to keep them straight. Perhaps James was the son of one of them. Although he didn’t come from money if his suits were anything to go by, so maybe a nephew. She pulled open the small fridge under the counter and began to unpack her groceries into it—peaches, pears, nectarines.

“I’m James Hunter.” He paused. “Jim Hunter. They called me Jim. We went to high school together.”

“Oh—” She stopped herself before she could pretend to remember. She certainly hadn’t been friends with a Jim Hunter, and she’d remember a guy as good-looking as this lawyer was. He was tall, broad and muscular, with green eyes and the faintest hint of freckles across his cheekbones as if he’d stepped off the farm and into a suit. His jaw was strong, and he met her gaze with easy directness. She shut the fridge and rose to her feet.

“It’s okay. We didn’t run in the same circles.” He smiled wanly, and for the life of her she wished she could remember him, put him into context.

“I’m really sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I stayed pretty busy in high school.”

“I know.” He cleared his throat. “I came to bring by those documents your father mentioned. I have a check for you here, and a few pages for you to sign.”

He put a folder onto the tabletop.