Big Sky Reunion

“Mommy! Mommy! Watch me! Watch me!”

Tears rolled down Melinda’s cheeks unabated. In three short years he’d gone from that beautiful child to little more than skin and bones, racked with pain with every breath he took, unable to walk or talk.

A sense of panic, of not being able to breathe, started like a coiling snake in her midsection. Twisting and turning and spinning, a tornado of blackness rose into her throat. Her head threatened to explode. Muscles and bones lacked strength and began to crumble. She was falling, falling…

Brain tumor. No hope. Vegetative state.

“I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.” She slid off the bed onto the floor and buried her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

A counselor had told Melinda she’d effectively been in a war zone for three full years struggling to save her child. She was suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Knowing hadn’t changed a thing.

God hadn’t saved her baby boy.

The following morning, Aunt Martha insisted they go to church.

Melinda tried to talk her out of it. “You’re not strong enough yet.”

“Nonsense, child. I can sit in church as well as I can sit at home. And I need to thank the good Lord for saving my life and bringing you to stay with me.”

Clearly she could do her thanking right here in the living room, but it was impossible to argue with Aunt Martha.

No matter that she was sweet and syrupy and full of lopsided smiles, she wasn’t about to give an inch.

No matter that Melinda didn’t belong in any church.

So, with her teeth clamped tightly together and her jaw aching, Melinda wheeled her aunt out to her fifteen-year-old Buick sedan, helped her into the car and drove her to church.

And, of course, she couldn’t simply drop her aunt off and come back in an hour, although that’s exactly what Melinda would have preferred. Instead she had to help her into her wheelchair and push her up the walkway to the double-door entrance of Potter Creek Community Church.

The whitewashed structure wasn’t the largest church in town, but it did have the tallest steeple. Today, instead of beckoning her inside, it seemed to cast a shadow over Melinda that said she wasn’t welcome. She kept her head down and her arms close to her body as she pushed her aunt into the cool interior.

“Morning, Aunt Martha,” a familiar masculine voice said. “Glad you’re back home and out on the town.”

Melinda stopped stark still and her head snapped up. Daniel O’Brien? At church? Dressed in a fine-cotton Western-style shirt and slacks? Greeting folks as they arrived?

She blinked and shook her head. She must be hallucinating. The Daniel O’Brien she remembered wouldn’t have been caught dead in church on Sunday morning or any other time.

A smile curved his lips and crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Good to see you, too, Mindy.” His dark brows lifted ever so slightly as he handed Aunt Martha and Melinda each a program for the morning service.

Melinda wanted to take it and run. Instead she gave him a curt nod and pushed her aunt past Daniel as quickly as she could. They didn’t get far. Several of Martha’s longtime friends spotted her. They gathered around, most of them as gray-haired as her aunt, welcoming her back home. A few looked vaguely familiar to Melinda, but she couldn’t recall their names.

“We’ve been so worried about you.”

“The prayer circle has been praying for you.”

“Isn’t it nice your niece could come stay with you for a bit.”

Melinda forced a smile that instantly froze on her face. She was annoyingly aware of Daniel standing no more than five feet behind her. In his deep baritone voice, he greeted new arrivals, all of whom he knew by name. They responded with the same warmth of friendship that he had extended.

She felt like Alice slipping down the rabbit hole and discovering Daniel was the king of hearts.

Where had his wild side gone? The risk taker who drove a hundred miles per hour down the highway. The fighter who’d landed in the town jail more than once. The daredevil who raced a train to the crossing—and won. Barely. Leaving her breathless that they had escaped death and releasing her own wild side that she’d never known lurked somewhere inside her.

Did his new persona merely mask the man who had kissed her so thoroughly and wanted more? He would have gotten it, too, if Aunt Martha hadn’t returned home earlier than expected.

Heat flamed Melinda’s face as she remembered that memorable August evening ten years ago. She’d left town the next day right after an older girl, DeeDee Pickens, had flaunted the ring Daniel had given her.

“Hope you know you don’t stand a chance with my Danny boy,” DeeDee had crowed.

Melinda parked Martha’s chair at the end of a pew near the back of the church and slipped past her to take a seat.

Reverend Arthur Redmond, the pastor according to the program, looked to be in his early fifties and graying at the temples. His voice carried to the back of the room with ease as he welcomed the congregation to his church.

Melinda lowered her gaze, pretending to study the program. Tears blurred her vision. No matter what the pastor said, she knew her sins were too great to be forgiven.

The service seemed excruciatingly long. She sat with her eyes cast downward, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, knowing she didn’t belong in church. Wishing she could flee back to the knitting shop to scrub it clean and start over, in the same way she’d start a new knitting project with clean needles and a fresh skein of yarn.

Finally Reverend Redmond released his grip on the congregation and allowed them to file out into the warm sun. As though she’d been released from prison, Melinda drew in a deep breath of fresh air tinged with the scent of sage.

“Pastor Redmond surely knows how to preach, doesn’t he?” Martha said. “I feel renewed every time I hear his sermons.”

Melinda didn’t respond. She’d spotted Daniel off to the side of the parking area shooting baskets with a half-dozen high school boys. It appeared to be a two-on-six game as he agilely dribbled past two boys, sank a banked shot, then stole the ball back from another youngster. He flipped the ball to a man in a wheelchair, who neatly made a lay-up shot.

Her forehead furrowed and she squinted. Could that be Daniel’s brother, Arnie?

She dragged her gaze away and pushed her aunt’s wheelchair toward the car. After settling Aunt Martha in the front seat, Melinda walked around to the driver’s side. She took one last look at the basketball game.

A young woman, probably in her twenties, wearing heels and a floral-print dress, went tiptoeing out onto the basketball court and snatched the ball away from Daniel.

“Hey!” he complained, trying to grab it back.

The brunette scooted toward the basket without bothering to dribble the ball. “What’s the matter, Danny? Don’t you let girls play in your league?”

The teenage boys hooted and hollered. A couple of teenage girls, who’d been preening as they watched the game, shouted, “Way to go, Ivy.”

Standing with his legs wide apart, hands on his hips, Daniel watched the young woman with an amused smile on his lips.

She launched the ball underhanded toward the hoop. It fell well short and one of the teenagers snagged it on the bounce.

“Oh, well.” The brunette cocked her hip toward Daniel and gave him a long, leisurely smile. “You coming in for the Sunday special, Danny?”

He intercepted a pass between two teenagers. “Nope, I’ve got a date with April.”

Melinda chose not to watch any longer. Daniel hadn’t changed. He still had an eye for the women, and they reciprocated the feeling.

Which was of no concern to her.

As she backed the Buick out of its parking spot, she said, “I was surprised to see Daniel O’Brien at church.”

“Oh, yes, when he was a youngster he was a bit wild, but he’s become a fine young man. Not at all like his no-account father, God rest his soul. Daniel’s taken an interest in the church youth group.”

Probably to lead them astray, Melinda thought uncharitably. “Was that his brother in the wheelchair?” Arnie had been the solid, responsible older brother. So far as Melinda knew, he’d never gotten into trouble or broken any laws. Daniel had had almost as many battles with his brother as he had with his father.

“Yes, that was Arnie. Poor boy. Had a terrible accident a few years back.” Martha pulled a hankie from her purse and dabbed at the perspiration on her face and neck. “Can’t remember just how long ago. It left him paralyzed from his waist down. The past few years, those two boys have been nearly inseparable.”

There Melinda went, sliding down the rabbit hole again.

The whole world had slipped off-kilter since she’d seen Daniel at church.

That wasn’t an image she’d ever had of him. She couldn’t believe what she’d seen and learned about him. It had to be an act, all smoke and mirrors.

A wolf couldn’t change his killer instincts.

Daniel couldn’t change his instincts, either. Beneath the charade, he was still Potter Creek’s baddest of bad boys.

He had to be.

Back at the ranch, Daniel made himself a roast beef sandwich with mustard and lettuce, and washed it down with a soda. In the upcoming Potato Festival in Manhattan, he and April, his best cutting horse, were entered in the cow-cutting and trail-riding events. Last year Charlie Moffett from Three Forks had beaten him in both events, Daniel’s first loss in six years.

Charlie had lorded it over him for nearly a year.

Daniel took a big bite of his sandwich and chewed down hard. That wasn’t going to happen again. The reputation of the quarter horses he raised and trained was at stake. Not to mention the income they produced for O’Brien Ranch.

The double prize money when he won both events would punch up the bank account so they could pay the balloon installment on this year’s mortgage bill, a result of refinancing the ranch to modernize the place seven years ago.

Outside the afternoon had heated up. In the distance, dark clouds had begun to form over the mountains. They wouldn’t amount to much this time of year. Along about August they’d bring some much-needed rain, even a few gully washers, and plenty of thunder and lightning. Maybe even start a wildfire or two.

In the shade of the barn, Daniel saddled April. A sorrel with a blond mane and tail, she was a sturdy girl with strong legs and a sweet disposition.

“You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you, love.” He tightened the cinch under her belly and checked the stirrups. “This time we’ll leave Charlie and his swayback nag in the dust. He’ll stop his crowing on his Facebook page. Best Quarter Horse Breeder in Montana, my foot.”

Arnie and his dog, Sheila, arrived at the corral on his ATV. “You’re sure spending a lot of time with April. The other horses are getting jealous.”

Daniel snorted. “She’ll keep them in their place.” He tugged the reins loose from the fence rail and mounted. “Time us, will you?”

“As always, your wish is my command.”

Eyeing his brother skeptically, Daniel settled his Stetson more firmly on his head. “Since when?”

“Since you started telling Ivy to get lost.”

“Not lost, exactly. She’s not my type. She’s too young. Too clingy.” Although a few years ago the waitress at the diner might have been. But not now. The kind of female that was looking for trouble no longer appealed to him.

The picture of Mindy walking into church with Aunt Martha popped into his head. A summery dress that skimmed her calves. Golden curls bouncing as she pushed her aunt along. Blue eyes that sparked like a summer wildfire, challenging him to keep his distance.

Like the upcoming riding events, he’d always loved a challenge.

Too bad she hadn’t still been at the knitting shop when he went back to town for Arnie’s prescription.

Daniel reined April into the ring where he’d set up an obstacle course—a low bridge to walk over, logs laid out in a path to be daintily stepped over, a rail to straddle. Although the trail event wasn’t timed for speed, the time to finish the course was limited, and time penalties were added for every misstep or refusal the horse made.

“Okay, here we go.” With the almost imperceptible pressure of his knees, he urged April toward the bridge.

“The clock is ticking,” Arnie announced.

Without faltering, April went up and over the bridge. Daniel maneuvered her to the next obstacle, the row of logs, which she took with ease. Throughout the course, she didn’t falter once. Even when he dangled the required bundle of burlap on a rope in front of her face, she didn’t flinch.

They reached the end of the course, and Daniel trotted April over to the fence. “How’d we do?” he asked Arnie.

“A perfect ride. More than two minutes under the limit, bro.”

“Ha!” He gave April a congratulatory pat on her neck. “Eat your heart out, Charlie Moffett. This year you’ll meet your match. And eat our dust.”

Chapter Three

Monday morning, Melinda took her aunt to Manhattan for her three-times-weekly physical therapy appointment. When they got back home, it was time for lunch, followed by a much-needed nap for Aunt Martha.

Melinda gathered up a bucket, rolls of paper towels, plastic trash bags and cleaning supplies and carried them to the shop. The door opened much easier this time and she stepped inside.

A groan escaped her lips. Where to begin?

“Take your pick, Melinda Sue,” she said aloud. The whole shop had to be cleaned up eventually.

Leaving the door open to let some fresh air in, she walked over to the cash register beside a glass case that displayed yarn winders and bobbins.

She’d checked the cash drawer on Saturday and found less than twenty dollars in change. Tugging a plastic box out from beneath the register that was crammed with file folders, she squatted down to go through the records.

Invoices from three years ago were mixed with even older records. None were noted as paid. A handwritten ledger showed checks written from 2001 through most of 2006 and a bank balance that wasn’t worth writing home about. Hadn’t Martha paid any bills since then? Maybe she’d switched to a different bank account.

Blowing out a discouraged sigh, she made a cursory examination of the rest of the business records, then set the box aside. She’d have to talk to Martha about the bookkeeping. Her time while Martha napped would be better spent cleaning and tossing what wasn’t usable.

On her knees, she pulled everything out of the display case, set the items aside and used window cleaner on the neglected shelves and inside of the case. Years of grime darkened paper towels as one section of glass after another began to sparkle.

“Hello? Anybody here?”

Melinda started at the sound of Daniel’s familiar voice.

“The shop’s not open,” she called from behind the counter.

“Your door is.” His boots tramped across the wood floor until his long, jeans-clad legs materialized in front of the display case. “Hey, Goldilocks. Looks like you’re hard at work.”

“I am.” She considered asking him if he’d enjoyed his date with April, but thought better of it. Instead, she squirted window cleaner on the next section of glass.

“Is Aunt Martha planning to reopen the shop?”

“We’re thinking about it.” She swirled the glass cleaner around, blurring her view of his legs.

“That a fact?” he drawled, an arrogant grin in his voice. “Want some help?”

She lifted her head too fast, whacking it on the inside of the display case. She rubbed the back of her skull.

“No! I’m fine.” She looked up at him. Foolish woman! She should’ve known he’d be grinning at her, a wolfish grin, a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made them flash with amusement.

“You got another one of those squirt bottles? I can do the outside of the case while you’re working on the inside.”

Trapped on the inside, he meant.

She wanted to tell him no, she didn’t have another bottle of window cleaner. But he was just clever enough to look over the display case, spot her spare bottle and see that she was lying.

She reached for the bottle and tossed it up and over the case, following that with a roll of paper towels. “There you go, Swagger. Do your best.”

“I intend to.”

An odd shimmer of unease slid down her back. What did he mean by that? And did she want to know?

Over the next few minutes, she kept her head down and her hand moving on the glass. At one point, her hand and his were only the thickness of two paper towels and the glass apart. His heat seemed to burn right through the transparent barrier to her palm.

She snatched her hand back. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“I wouldn’t think Aunt Martha would be well enough to keep the shop open by herself,” Daniel commented in a casual tone.

“Probably not.”

“She going to hire someone to help?”

Melinda sat back on her haunches and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “If you must know, I’m going to manage the shop for her.”

“Yeah? You know enough about knitting to run this kind of operation?”

“I ran a very successful knitting shop in Pennsylvania until—” She clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t want to finish the sentence. Daniel had no need to know about Jason. She didn’t want his sympathy and didn’t want to discuss the subject. The depth of her loss, her failure, was far too painful.

“Then I bet your aunt is happy you’re staying in Potter Creek.” He took a final swipe at the outside of the display case. “So am I.”

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. The sincerity in his lowered voice had nearly undone her. Her chin trembled. She tamped down the emotion welling in her chest as hard as she could and dug deep to find the protective shield that had kept her sane the past three years. A shield that kept the PTSD at bay most of the time.

She balled the damp paper towel in her fist. “Don’t feel you have to stick around on my account. I’m sure April would be happy to see you,” she said.

He laughed. A big, booming, masculine laugh that exploded from deep in his chest and bounced off the walls of the cluttered knitting shop.

Confusion knitted her brows. Why did he think her remark was so funny?

Standing, his grin unnerving her, he placed the glass cleaner and paper towel on the counter. “I’ll be sure to give April your regards.”

The rest of the week was a blur of taking Aunt Martha to physical therapy, scrubbing the shop clean and sorting yarn, creating bins of fifty-percent-off odd skeins and discarding others that had faded or become hopelessly tangled.

Invariably, sometime during the day Daniel showed up. Once he came with a bucket and a squeegee on a pole to clean the front window, inside and out.

Another day he came with a container of chili Arnie had made that he wanted taste-tested for the chili cook-off at the Potato Festival. Daniel stayed long enough to climb up a ladder to clean the ancient light fixtures and replace burned-out bulbs.

Aunt Martha and Melinda devoured the chili for dinner that night.

Melinda wasn’t sure what Daniel was trying to accomplish. She hadn’t given him any cause to think she was interested in him. On the contrary, she was often sharp with him. The fact that she’d begun to look forward to his arrival didn’t mean a thing.

Or so she told herself.

She didn’t want a relationship with anyone, certainly not with someone like Daniel, a consummate flirt and ladies’ man.

A man who had always made her heart beat faster.

By the following Monday, Melinda declared she’d scrubbed, cleaned and sorted all she could. Now she needed new, fresh stock, which would enable her to hold a grand reopening next Saturday. Her dream was to someday add needlepoint to the inventory, but not yet. She had to get the yarn sales on a solid footing first.

She was on her cell phone, having placed an order for yarn and other supplies with a Denver wholesaler, when Daniel strolled into the shop. She acknowledged him with a quick lift of her hand, palm out, sending a message that she didn’t want to be interrupted.

“I’m sure Aunt Martha’s Knitting and Notions has had an account with you for many years,” she said into the phone. “I’ve seen the invoices.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that account has been inactive for a long time,” Jeff, the sales rep, replied.

“Well, then, let’s reactivate the account, shall we? We’re planning to reopen this Saturday and I need that merchandise. Please.” She used her sweetest, most persuasive voice to cajole the man on the other end of the line.

“To reactivate the account, I’ll need you to complete our credit forms and submit them. They’re online at our website. You can download them.”

Aware that Daniel was poking around the shop, flipping through pattern books, looking as relaxed as he would in a public library, Melinda gritted her teeth. “How long will it take to get them approved?”

“Two or three weeks is the usual time period.”

She groaned and dropped her head into her hand. “Let me explain again, Jeff. I want to reopen the shop this Saturday. That’s five days from now. I need the merchandise no later than Friday to stock the bins. I cannot wait two weeks for approval of credit.”

“It often takes three weeks, ma’am.”

Holding the phone away from her ear, and holding her temper in check, she looked up at the ceiling. She drew a steadying breath and brought the phone back to her ear.

“What do you suggest I do in the interim while you check our credit?”

“You could charge the merchandise to a personal credit card. We’d ship this afternoon and you’d have the delivery by Wednesday.”

“A personal credit card.” The words landed with a thud in her midsection. Since declaring bankruptcy, she’d been living on a cash basis. She didn’t want to run up any personal debt. The one credit card she possessed had a very low limit, which she’d almost exceeded buying the airline ticket to Bozeman and hadn’t paid that off yet. “I don’t have my card handy,” she hedged. “I’ll have to check with the shop owner.”

“I’d be happy to wait, ma’am.”

That wasn’t likely to help much. Aunt Martha seemed to be living on her Social Security, which was less than munificent. Assuming she had a credit card, Melinda doubted it had a high enough limit to cover the cost of the merchandise she’d ordered.

Daniel crossed the shop to the counter and handed her his credit card.

Gaping, she stared at the silver card embossed with Daniel’s name and O’Brien Ranch. She shook her head.

“Ma’am, are you still there?”

“Uh, hang on a minute, Jeff.” She covered the phone with her hand. “I can’t use your card, Daniel,” she whispered.

“Why not? You need the merchandise. When you get the shop open and doing business, you can pay me back.”

“I’m buying more than a thousand dollars’ worth of yarn and notions.”

He lifted his shoulders in an easy shrug. “That’s fine. Think of it as a loan.”

“I may not be able to pay you back right away.”

He touched her hair, twirling a finger through one of her curls. His lips curved ever so slightly with the hint of a smile. “We’ll work it out.”

Goose bumps sped down her spine and her knees went weak. She definitely shouldn’t let him do this. It wasn’t right for him to pay for what she couldn’t afford. But if she didn’t, how could she reopen the shop without a decent selection of yarn?

“Ma’am, did you want to call me back when you work something out?”

“No, I, uh…”

Daniel slipped the cell phone from her hand. “Hi, Jeff. I’m Daniel O’Brien, a friend of the shop owner. We’ll put the charges on my card. How does that sound?” He winked at Melinda.

While she stood staring at him dumbstruck, Daniel reeled off all the necessary information to charge his card over a thousand dollars.