Montana Daddy

Rory straightened in his chair. “Not if the ranchers have been paying attention to the weather reports. They’ll bring the cows into their home pastures.” He glanced toward Pauline. “Some of them might still need your backhoe to get in to feed them but mostly I’d say they’ll be okay.”

Joe Moore said, “In my experience, it’s folks that do something stupid in a bad storm, not dumb animals.”

“Let’s hope everybody has enough sense to stay off the roads,” Eric commented. “I don’t have any urge to start digging folks out of snowbanks.”

“There’re a couple of families that live hand-to-mouth,” Joe said. “If the storm lasts too long they could be in trouble, and the phone lines will go down first thing.”

Reverend McDuffy spoke up. “I’ll get the cots out and ready in case we need to use the rec room as a shelter.”

“I can use my snowmobile to transport supplies or people if they need to get to the shelter,” Rory volunteered.

“Or if they’re injured,” Kristi added, “you can bring them to the clinic.”

Harold finally spoke up. “I’ve got a good supply of pharmaceuticals on hand for anybody who gets sick.”

“Right.” Eric nodded and glanced around the room. “I’ll keep that in mind. But let’s hope things don’t get that bad. Well, it looks like we have our ducks in a row. Unless anyone can think of something else, I think we’re done here. Thanks for coming tonight.”

Rory didn’t want to drag out the meeting any longer than necessary, and he stood when the rest of the group did.

“Can I walk you home?” he asked Kristi.

“I drove, thanks.”

“Oh, okay. You got chains?”

“Snow tires and four-wheel drive.” She made for the door. “I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe I should drive you. It was really coming down hard before the meeting.”

She nailed him with an annoyed look. “It’s all of two blocks back to the clinic, and I have driven in snow before, Rory. I’ll manage.”

He grimaced. “Right. You’ll be fine. I was just thinking how cold and wet I’m going to get walking back to my place. But that’s okay. I’m used to this kind of weather.”

Her blue eyes cut through him like lasers. “You’re trying to make me feel sorry for you, aren’t you?”

“No, not me.” He fought a grin. “Well, maybe a little.”

She threw up her hands in defeat. “Oh, all right. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

“Want me to follow you, Kristi?” Eric asked. “The roads are a mess.”

She visibly clenched her teeth. “I think I can make it.”

“And you don’t need any protection from my brother?”

“Not in this lifetime,” she muttered, stalking toward the door.

Making a fist, Rory make a threatening gesture toward his brother. “Follow us at your own risk, White Eyes.”

Eric only laughed, and Rory hustled to catch up with Kristi.

The truck had the advantage of getting them out of the wind, but it was still icy cold. The seats crackled with it, and their breath fogged the inside of the windshield. The wipers struggled to clear the snow away, leaving frozen half circles on the glass.

“So do you work at a hospital in Spokane?” he asked as Kristi let the engine warm up.

“Actually, it’s a low-income clinic. We serve mostly itinerant workers. I see the patients first and handle routine problems like colds and flu or stitching up a cut. More serious injuries I refer to the doctor.”

“So you’re practically a doctor.”

She glanced at him, then shifted into gear. The headlights bounced off the curtain of falling snow as she eased forward. “The American Medical Association doesn’t see it that way.”

Behind them Rory noticed the headlights of Eric’s four-wheel-drive patrol cruiser snap on. There were some serious disadvantages to having brothers who tended to stick their noses into a man’s business. Not that Rory wouldn’t do the same, given a chance.

Leaving the parking lot, the rear end of Kristi’s truck slid sideways before the tires caught hold. She handled the skid with skill and followed the tracks left by Joe Moore’s vehicle when he’d preceded them out of the lot.

“How long before the plow comes by?” she asked.

“They concentrate on the Interstate. In a storm like this, it might be days before we see a county plow. Some of the locals usually get out their Jeeps with a scoop on the front to keep things moving here in town. Nobody bothers with the ranch roads.” Which is why his brother Walker hadn’t come into town for the emergency meeting. Too much chance of getting stuck.

“I’m glad I got Grandma home before all this mess started,” Kristi said.

So was Rory. He’d hate to think of Kristi out on the highway with this much snow falling. It would be too easy to go off the road or get stranded with no one to help her.

“Why don’t you pull in at your grandmother’s place? It’d be easier and I can walk across the street.”

“Your veterinary clinic is that close?”

“Yep. Only a couple of patients have gotten the two clinics mixed up though. I take their temperature, give ’em a rabies shot and send them home. Haven’t had any complaints.”

She sputtered a laugh. “That’s probably because none of them survived.”

Deep snow made the turn into the medical clinic drive a challenge, but Kristi made it just fine, parking near the front door. Rory admired her skill even as he wanted to linger in her company.

They both got out, and Kristi started up the steps to the porch.

“I’ll come in with you. Just to make sure the doc’s okay.” And maybe he’d talk Kristi into making a pot of hot chocolate. It was a perfect night for cuddling in front of a fire, listening to a little music. Making out.

“I haven’t been gone long. I’m sure she’s fine.”

Kristi opened the door, and Justine’s voice carried out to the porch.

“How long has he been unconscious?”

A woman responded over the sputter of static on the emergency radio set up in the clinic. Justine stood beside the radio, a crutch under one arm and the microphone in her hand.

As Rory listened to the conversation, he realized Doc Justine had a patient in trouble—Everett Durfee, who lived with his wife, Jane, in a remote cabin miles from town.

Rory suspected this was likely to be a long night for everyone when headlights flashed across the front windows of the clinic. He knew Eric had heard the tail end of the same emergency transmission on his car radio, and he’d come to the doc’s place to deal with the crisis.

When illness struck in this weather, isolation was more than a lifestyle choice. It became a life-and-death issue. And could put more than one person at risk.

Cuddling with Kristi and a pot of hot chocolate no longer seemed a possibility.

Chapter Three

“From what Jane tells me, it sounds like Everett was shoveling snow and had a heart attack. He’s unconscious, but he has a pulse and is still breathing. He staggered inside before he collapsed.”

Leaning back against the radio table, Doc Justine still had one crutch propped under her arm, and she looked worried. None of her flippant, complaining airs now. She was all professional.

Rory was impressed, as he always was, with how committed to her patients and up-to-date Justine was for a small-town doctor. Given the number of medical journals he’d seen around her office, she worked at it.

“How do you think Jane is holding up?” Eric, who had followed them into the house, shrugged out of his heavy jacket and hung it on a peg near the door.

“The Durfees are both proud and hard as nails, which is why they’ve survived this long living like a pair of hermits. But Jane doesn’t have enough arm strength to haul her husband out to their Caterpillar tractor if he’s nothing but deadweight.” She shoved away from the table, and Rory helped her to a nearby chair.

“I’d hate for her to try to drive that thing in this kind of weather,” he said. “Even assuming she could get Everett onboard.”

“I agree,” Eric said.

“How far away do they live?” Kristi lifted her grandmother’s leg and shoved a stool under her injured ankle.

“About twenty-five or thirty miles east as the crow flies,” Rory said. “There’s a dirt road that winds around for closer to sixty than thirty miles.”

“Jane also said they had three feet of snow on the ground before this storm hit, another foot’s fallen since.”

The Durfee cabin was about as isolated as you could get, located near the headwaters of the Willow River. Not exactly a tourist destination.

Kristi looked puzzled. “If they are so remote, how do they have electricity to run the radio?”

“A gas-driven generator,” Rory explain. “It’s powerful enough to run the radio or a few lights but that’s about all. They heat with a wood stove and use kerosene lamps.”

“This is one city girl who can’t imagine living that far removed from civilization,” Kristi said with a dubious shake of her head.

Eric brought them back to the crisis at hand. “Would it help if we could get some medicine to him?”

“I told Jane to give him an aspirin if he regained consciousness. But that isn’t going to help much.”

“Sounds like he needs to be in a hospital,” Kristi said. “Preferably in Great Falls. He needs an IV and ought to have resuscitation equipment on hand, electric paddles to restart his heart if he goes into cardiac arrest.”

Justine snorted. “Their cabin doesn’t come equipped with that kind of gear. If someone doesn’t get to Everett pretty darn soon, we could lose him.”

“You have portable equipment here, don’t you, Grandma?”

Rory eyed Kristi, wondering what she was thinking. Getting to the Durfee cabin on a sunny, summer day wasn’t easy. The current conditions would make it a serious challenge.

Leveling her granddaughter a stern look, Justine said, “Don’t even think about it, child. Your mother would kill me if something happened to you.”

“But he may die if he doesn’t get help. Surely there’s some way—”

“There isn’t,” Rory said. “Not for a greenhorn.”

“How about a helicopter?” she persisted.

“Not in this weather. You’d need a tank or a bulldozer to get there, and then it would take hours to go that far.”

Eric held up his hand. “Not so fast. A snowmobile could make it.”

Kristi brightened. “There, you see?”

“You can’t mean to send Kristi out there on her own.” Rory was appalled his brother would even consider the possibility. “For one thing, she’d probably freeze to death before she got a mile from town.

And if she made it that far, she’d probably get lost.”

“Not if you went with her as a guide.”

The room went very still. Only the low hum of the shortwave radio broke the silence. And everyone was looking at Rory.

“I’d go myself, bro,” Eric continued, “but I’ve got to stay in town to organize the disaster plan. Besides, you know the area better than anyone else.”

Rory looked for an escape route. Granted, he could probably find the Durfee cabin in a blizzard, but he didn’t want to put Kristi at risk. He wasn’t worried about himself. He’d gone out in rougher weather than this to rescue or doctor animals. Kristi hadn’t. She didn’t know what she was up against. The threat of frostbite. Getting lost and disoriented in a howling storm. Freezing to death. No way would he let her go on her own.

“How ’bout I take the gear to the Durfees,” he said. “I can do an IV as well as Kristi, and your heart monitor can’t be all that different from the one I use during surgeries.”

“I told you they were proud folks, young man. I can’t see Jane letting a veterinarian treat her husband no matter how bad off he is. If we’re gonna do this, Kristi has to go, too.”

“I’m willing,” Kristi said. “It’s not like I haven’t been on a snowmobile before. I’ll be fine.”

Rory glared at her, but she wasn’t going to back down. What the hell!

“You think Everett will last till morning?” Rory asked.

Justine considered her answer. “His health has otherwise been good, and he’s as strong as a horse. He’s got a better-than-average chance to last out the night.”

“That’s good, because trying to make it to that cabin in the dark and in this storm would be asking for more trouble than anyone could handle. Myself included.”

“I agree,” Eric said.

Rory figured the fat was in the fire, so to speak. No way could he back out. “Okay, we’ll take two snowmobiles, one of them pulling a sled. We can bring Everett back here, then we can figure out how to get him to Great Falls. And Jane can ride double on the second snowmobile. She’ll want to come along with Everett.”

Justine nodded her agreement. “That seems like a reasonable plan to me. I can trust you to take care of Kristi. And with her there, Everett could hold on till the weather clears a bit if necessary. We can be in touch by radio.”

His brother shot Rory a smug look. “Looks like you’ll have your big chance to impress Kristi, bro. Good strategy!”

Both Rory and Kristi argued that wasn’t the situation at all. But they really had no choice. A man was in trouble. He could die. Both of them needed to do what they could to save Everett Durfee.

It was simply their nature, and Rory mentally cursed Kristi’s unselfishness, which would put her at risk as well.

By radio, Doc Justine let Jane know of their plan. There had been no change in Everett’s condition, which brought a renewed frown to the doctor’s forehead.

“The longer he goes without treatment, the greater the damage to his heart could be,” she reminded the rescue team.

“I’ll pack up the medical equipment we’ll need.” Kristi’s gaze slid to Rory. A slight frown tugged her brows together, her expression more determined than worried. Courageous and unselfish.

“I’ll get our cold-weather gear and supplies together,” Rory said. “And I promise I’ll get you there and bring you back safely. You can count on me.”

“I hope so. This time.”

She turned and walked toward the examining rooms, leaving Rory wondering what she’d meant by her last remark. Whatever it was, he imagined neither one of them would get much sleep before they had to head out at first light.

DAWN BROUGHT very little illumination to the landscape. The gray light cast few shadows, making it difficult to follow the old roadway. Pine trees and firs were buried until only their snow-laden tips showed above the drifts. If there were any houses in the area, they were invisible beyond the curtain of falling snow. No glimmer of sunrise gave a hint of the direction they were traveling. Without Rory guiding her, Kristi would have been lost a half mile out of town.

She kept her snowmobile in the tracks left by Rory’s snowmobile and the sled he was pulling, letting him cut the trail. In addition to the medical equipment she’d gathered together, they’d brought along survival gear, including a rifle strapped onto Rory’s machine, which she sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to use against a marauding black bear.

They were bundled up against the weather in so many layers of clothing, it was a wonder either of them could move. Even so, bits of ice and snow crept past zippers and slipped behind her visor, stinging her flesh and threatening to drop her body temperature to dangerous levels. They hadn’t gone far before she began to wonder how foolhardy this trip might be.

As long as there was some way to reach Everett Durfee and bring him to safety, her conscience wouldn’t have permitted her not to try. But she didn’t want to lose her own life in the process. She didn’t want to do anything so foolish that she’d deprive Adam of a mother, particularly since he was growing up without a father.

I’ll get you there and bring you back safely, Rory had said. Surely this time she could trust his word.

She glanced ahead, beyond the turkey-tail of snow blowing back from Rory’s snowmobile. How would he react if he knew the truth? Did she dare risk finding out? Or would that be even more dangerous than this freezing-cold rescue attempt through the woods.

The small radio in her helmet sputtered over the roar of the snowmobile, startling her.

“You okay back there?”

She quickly blocked the fears that had plagued her since she’d made the decision to return to Grass Valley to help her grandmother—and tell Rory the truth. “I’m mentally planning a trip to Palm Springs when this is all over,” she quipped.

“Great. We can get hot together there. Right about now a little slow heat sounds good to me, too.”

He’d responded in a low, intimate baritone, and a shudder went through Kristi. This time it wasn’t from the cold. They’d been hot together that summer she’d fallen in love, hot enough to singe the sheets. And once their fervent lovemaking had nearly melted a scratchy blanket they’d taken on a picnic to a secluded spot near the river.

“Come to think of it,” he continued, his disembodied voice caressing her in ways she hadn’t been touched in a long time, “I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit. The one time we went swimming in the river, we omitted that little item of clothing.”

The chips of ice that had reached her flesh melted with the heat that flushed her body. “Rory!” She swallowed hard. “Will you hush up. This isn’t a private phone line. Somebody could be listening to the radio.”

His warm chuckle made her acutely aware of the vibrating snowmobile she was straddling. Her whole body trembled with every motion of the vehicle, and a sensation of warmth formed in the overheated vee between her thighs.

“Not much chance of that, sweetheart. These radios only transmit about a mile. It’s just the two of us out here in the woods.”

“Well, there could be someone listening. I’d just as soon not give them your version of phone sex to talk about.”

“It’d make their day. I know it’s making mine.” His voice dropped to an even more private note. “We were great together, Kristi.”

Erotic images flooded her brain—of Rory kissing her, tugging and nipping at her lips. Rory laving her breasts with his tongue. Rory above her blocking out the sun as he entered her for the first time. Rory watching her with his dark, intense eyes as she came apart in his arms. An experience that transcended anything she had imagined could pass between a man and a woman.

She uttered a low, throaty moan.

“Something wrong?”

Oh, yes, everything was wrong—starting with her visit to Grass Valley that fateful summer. She’d only been a vacation fling to him. He’d been so much more to her.

“How do I turn off this blasted radio?” she asked in panicky retreat.

His laughter careened around her, and her eyes fluttered closed against the deep ache that filled her chest.

Another big mistake, she realized as her snow-mobile plowed its way out of the rut Rory’s machine had cut through the snow and she nearly stalled the engine before wrenching herself back onto the track.

She needed to concentrate, both on where she was going and on her life. Rory wasn’t a part of that picture except as a temporary guide to the Durfee cabin. A medical emergency had brought her out here, not the urge for a romantic interlude.

By not returning her phone calls, he’d chosen to not become involved with her. He’d found another woman. Yes, Kristi felt guilty about not telling Rory about her pregnancy—about his son. But dammit, she’d tried! And her guilty conscience—and her grandmother’s injured ankle—had forced her to confront what she feared most. Rory’s rejection of her and her son, and the possibility of a custody battle.

She had a lot at stake here, and her damn reawakened libido had better learn to behave itself.

Determined, she adjusted her position on the snow-mobile to ease the pressure and tightened her grip on the throttle. This time there’d be no burning up the sheets; she would stay in control of her emotions.

THE SNOWMOBILE SURGED beneath Rory’s legs and so did hot blood through his veins.

Had he imagined Kristi’s heated response to his teasing words? Did her low, throaty sigh mean she was remembering, too? Did she still want him as much as he wanted her?

The snow blew horizontally toward him, reducing his visibility to almost nothing. He let his instincts guide him, keep him on course. The feel of the terrain. A clue from a fleeting glimpse of cuts in a hillside that had been made when the old dirt road was laid out. The hundreds of hours he’d spent tramping through pine forests and exploring prairie grasslands gave him a sense of the land.

Navigating through a blizzard was a helluva lot easier than knowing what Kristi was thinking. One mistake with her and he’d be over the side of the road in an instant, his second chance lost.

But did he really have a second chance with a self-proclaimed city girl? Maybe Grass Valley wouldn’t be enough for her now.

Maybe he’d never been enough for her and that’s why she’d never written. Never called.

Clearing the negative thoughts from his mind, he spoke into his helmet microphone. “How are your feet doing?”

“What feet?”

His lips quirked. Despite the cold she was hanging on to her sense of humor. “I’m going to look for a place out of the wind to pull over. We need to get our circulation back.”

“Wonderful. Maybe there’s a four-star hotel over the next hill.”

He chuckled. “I’ll check my tour book.”

Within a quarter mile they rounded a bend in the road that was edged with a sheltered stand of pines heavily laden with snow. He eased the snowmobile in that direction and pulled to a halt, turning off the engine. Kristi followed him into the copse of trees.

Dismounting, he shrugged out of his backpack. In order to get at the contents, he had to shed his heavy snow gloves.

“Stomp your feet and walk around some,” he directed Kristi as she climbed off her shiny blue vehicle. Encased in the thick garb of a recreational snowmobiler, she looked like a delectable snowlady who’d had a helmet plopped on her head. Rory had the urge to uncover what was beneath those layers of fabric and insulation, garment by garment. Probably not a good idea with the temperature about twenty-five degrees and the windchill factor around zero.

He uncapped the thermos he’d taken from his backpack. “Hot chocolate whenever you’re ready,” he announced. “It’ll warm you from the inside out.”

She shifted her helmet toward the back of her head and reached for the thermos top he’d filled with the steaming beverage. “My insides aren’t the problem, but I could use a hot tub to stick my feet in.”

“Hot tubs are good. You still like to swim naked? Or have you become the modest type?”

Her head snapped up, and she sloshed hot chocolate over her gloved hand. “Since I’ve never been in a hot tub, I have no idea how I would like it.”

“Too bad we aren’t closer to Yellowstone. We could slip into one of those bubbling pools—”

“I think the Durfees would be happier if we just did what we came to do and get Everett to a hospital as soon as we can.”

He lifted one shoulder in an indolent shrug that was a sham. He cared too much about Kristi to be unaffected by her brusque tone. “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

“Not when the life of someone else is at stake. Or their future.”

Rory sensed she was talking about something besides the current medical crisis, but he wasn’t all that good at reading women. In college he hadn’t had much time for dating; he’d been lashed to the books with only a faint hope he would manage to finish the rigorous training to become a vet. Since then, living in Grass Valley, the selection of females had been limited. Granted, he’d dated a few women but none of them had clicked.

No woman could compare to his memories of Kristi.

She drained the cup and passed it back to him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Their words sounded too formal, considering all that they had once shared together.

He filled the cup again and sipped while keeping his gaze on Kristi. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold, twin spots the color of a summer rose. Her eyes were almost midnight blue under the cloudy sky, and their depths held both question and pride. “Don’t mess with me” radiated from the way she held her shoulders so rigidly.