Under Montana Skies

“The man’s impossible.”

Laura Cresswood said nothing as the supervisory nurse, Sylvia Summers, continued. “He wants everything his way, including the exact timing of our visits—which is impossible to predict. Why he chooses to live up there on that mountain—”

“Especially with all that money,” one of the field nurses interrupted as she scooted past Laura’s desk.

“The man is a hermit,” Sylvia continued. “And he’s already run off two physical therapists.” She handed the chart to Laura. “Now it’s your turn. The chart should be labeled P.I.A., because the guy’s a genuine pain in the—”

“I’ve handled P.I.A.’s before,” Laura answered quietly. And I’m an expert on rich, demanding men.

“This is a really tough case, Laura. No one wants to deal with Adam Scott, much less stay on that mountain to give him his therapy.”

“You told me all that, and about the car accident.” Laura flipped back a page in the chart. “It says here he’s a widower. Was his wife killed in the crash?”

“Yes.” Sylvia ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. “A terrible accident. You know, since you’re taking this on as a private contract, you’ll be totally on your own. You’re a brave woman, Laura.”

Bravery has nothing to do with it, Laura thought as she closed the chart.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever noticed how, when your heart is troubled, it helps to go someplace quiet? We all have peaceful spots where we retreat when we need a moment of refuge. Mine is a small duck pond a few blocks from my home. I walk over there and stand on a small arched stone bridge. After a while, the sounds of the ducks quacking and the wind in the cypress trees and the gurgle of the low waterfall soothe my spirit.

But sometimes there are circumstances in life when we need a greater escape, times we need a special, remote place where we can go to experience…a healing. I’ve had such times myself, and I know firsthand the magical restorative powers of the vast national forests in the mountains of northwestern Montana. The primitive cabin in this story is very much like a real cabin in the Kootenai National Forest where I stayed with some friends many years ago. After I experienced the profound peace and beauty and wholeness of that wilderness, I knew I would use it as a setting in a story some day.

And though Laura Duncan and Adam Scott have retreated to the Montana high country for completely different reasons, it doesn’t matter what heartaches drew them there. What matters is their healing. What matters is that in the midst of that wildness and isolation, they find peace…and, more important, they find each other.

Darlene Graham

Your kind comments about my books are always very much appreciated. Visit my web site at http://www.superauthors.com or write to me at P.O. Box 720224, Norman, OK 73070.

Under Montana Skies

Darlene Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Marilyn Watley.

Thank you, dearest friend, for taking me to high places.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

WAS THIS WRONG?

Her conscience squirmed, but Laura Duncan Crestwood reminded herself that she intended to pay Stuart back, even if it took her ten years. She refused to think of herself as the kind of woman who would actually steal.

In fact, she reminded herself and raised her chin, she was a nice woman. The kind of woman who complimented the chubby grocery sacker on his new jacket, listened to the elderly lady’s third repetition of an old story and smiled at every single baby she encountered, homely or not. A nice woman—who was robbing her soon-to-be ex-husband blind. Her chin lowered and her shoulders slumped.

Was this wrong?

“May I get anything else for you, Mrs. Crestwood?” the fashionable young clerk asked.

“I don’t think so.” Laura smiled a sad little smile and handed over the platinum charge card, the one embossed with STUART HAYDEN CRESTWOOD.

She sighed, folded her hands on the chest-high mahogany counter and studied the high-priced travel accessories under the glass.

Okay, she admitted, she was robbing Stuart blind, and probably deaf and dumb, too, but there seemed to be no alternative.

She watched the clerk scanning tag after tag on the heavy woolen sweaters and sturdy jeans that would serve her well in her new life in Montana. Stuart will have a fit when he gets these bills. Or a heart attack.

Well, she didn’t want that exactly. In fact, Laura wanted Stuart to live on and on. Live on, and be completely miserable with that piglet, Charlene. Laura smiled again, not quite so sadly.

Yeah. Wouldn’t it be just lovely if Charlene got fat, and Stuart got fatter? Yeah. Stuart would end up being the absentee father she’d always known he would be, and Charlene would morph into the whiny hag that lurked under that false-eyelashed facade.

A guilty frown replaced Laura’s smile. She couldn’t really wish for that. Unhappy parents wouldn’t be good for a child, and Laura truly loved kids. Unfortunately, nature had denied her the ability to bear one of her own.

And right there in the upscale sportswear shop, Laura’s eyes started to mist up. Because that was the reason Stuart was leaving her. At least that was her least-painful theory—that he’d only married her because she was a young sexy aerobics instructor who exuded health and…fertility.

When he discovered she wasn’t fertile, he’d moved on to the next sweet young thing—Charlene. Charlene, who was destined to be his fourth wife. Charlene, destined—Laura had learned only two days ago—to be the mother of the heir to the Crestwood fortune.

And that fortune, she’d learned later the same day, was now parked nineteen thousand miles off the coast of New Zealand. On the Cook Islands to be exact. In an offshore trust.

“Safeguarded,” Stuart had claimed, “from frivolous lawsuits.”

Safeguarded from Laura was what he meant. After splitting his assets with two previous wives, Stuart Crestwood the Third was not about to allow another divvying up.

“Fraud,” Laura’s attorney Irene had said as she studied the documents. “But no way to prove it. ‘Spouse of the Settlor’—very clever language.” She riffled the thick stack of pages with a thumb. “Your name isn’t anywhere in here.” Irene propped her elbows on her desk. “Face it, Laura. You will never get your hands on one penny of that nine million.”

Laura sighed, then shielded her eyes with a shaky hand. Alone and poor. Just the way she’d started. “Once, when I’d gotten to feeling so hollow, so dead, in this marriage, I actually asked Stuart for a divorce.”

“And?” Irene prompted.

“And he started yelling, saying stuff like, ‘You came into this marriage with nothing and, by God, you will leave it with nothing.”’

Irene shook her head and spread her palms over the compelling documents. “Unfortunately that was not an idle threat. It would take an entire law firm working full-time to beat this contract, not to mention your prenuptial agreement. Besides, Stuart keeps several big Dallas firms on retainer. None of them will touch your case. Let’s face it—Stuart has arranged things so that you can’t get at his assets no matter how costly a lawsuit you launch.”

Costly lawsuit? Laura couldn’t imagine how she was even going to pay Irene’s fee for this one brief consultation. Stuart had made certain he held all the purse strings.

The sportswear clerk coughed and looked at her apologetically. “Sorry this is taking so long, Mrs. Crestwood.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Laura flapped a dismissive hand at the pile. So many clothes! But she knew these things would have to last her a very long time. That was why she was buying the best.

She felt suddenly self-conscious, wondering if the young woman had noticed the tears in her eyes. She turned away, focusing on a nearby mirror, pretending to arrange her masses of blond curls.

How could you have been such a class-A idiot? she asked herself as she studied her reflection. No use mentally kicking herself for the millionth time for getting involved with a cold-hearted creep like Stuart Crestwood. She supposed she’d reaped exactly what she’d sown: all this stuff and not one shred of happiness.

When she met Stuart right after Gran had died, she’d naively thought he was the answer to a prayer. A handsome man, that powerful, that rich, interested in her, a girl barely out of her teens, a girl who couldn’t stick with anything, a—what had her second stepdad called her?—a dingbat.

Stuart had seemed so perfect, so together. Older. Wiser. Who would have guessed he was such a manipulator? Vicious. Cunning.

Thoughts of the real Stuart brought back the defiance Laura had felt that day in Irene’s office when she’d first gotten the bad news, when she’d first hatched this crazy plan.

She wasn’t going to wait for Stuart’s precious divorce to go through. She was leaving him. Without a trace. No lengthy, fruitless court battle like the other wives had fought. Not for her. All she wanted was a little boost to kickstart her new life, to help finance an education that would allow her to be self-supporting. This time she would create a life that was totally her own, without relying on Prince Charming to save her. Never again would she look to a man for security.

But her hand shook a little as she tucked a strand of fluffy hair behind one ear. She had never lived on her own, and she had never lived anywhere but Texas.

She was about to cry. “I’ll take these, too.” She added a pair of two-hundred-dollar sunglasses to the pile.

The clerk nodded and gave Laura a thin smile as the machine clicked and whirred obligingly, converting another little chunk of Stuart’s money into contraband for Laura’s flight to freedom.

“Do come back and see us again soon, Mrs. Crestwood,” the girl crooned as she slid the charge slip forward.

For a second, Laura wondered if she would miss that. Being Mrs. Stuart Crestwood, getting that reflected respect clerks showed when she whipped out a platinum card and signed that well-heeled last name, dropping a couple of grand as casually as if she was buying a pack of gum. Would she miss that? Without even checking the total, Laura scrawled Mrs. Stuart H. Crestwood.

Undoubtedly, in this radical new life she’d set up for herself, she would miss many things—the glittering social life, reported almost weekly in the Dallas Morning News; the mansion in Briarwood; never having to cook, clean or even run her own errands—but Stuart was not one of the things she would miss.

Her best friend, Janie, had urged her to “battle it out in court for any of the SOB’s money you can get. After all,” Janie had argued, “you’re already twenty-eight, honey, and even if you are petite and kind of…voluptuous, you’re no supermodel. You know what I mean? What are you going to do if you can’t find another man to support you? Spend your life working? Can you even imagine yourself being some…some secretary?”

Maybe Janie’s way was smarter. Maybe even easier. Laura was leaving Dallas unskilled and friendless—the future was so uncertain! But however uncertain, this way felt right to Laura. She would make a new life up north; she had to.

Laura gathered her bags of loot, feeling their weight and another twinge of guilt about the devious way she was doing this.

“Goodbye,” she told the clerk, and turned, wrapping her determination around herself like armor.

She’d be fine, somehow. Even if she ended up poor, it would be an honest poverty. Well, she’d make it honest. Eventually.

She crammed the sunglasses, with the tag still dangling from the earpiece, onto her nose, and marched out of the store with her chin up.

All that remained was to park her Mercedes convertible in an inconspicuous space in the crowded Wal-Mart lot, stuff her hair under the nondescript hat she’d just bought and call for a taxi.

Investment account, converted to cash.

Plane ticket, bought under an assumed name.

Mrs. Stuart Hayden Crestwood, vanished into thin air.

CHAPTER ONE

Four years later, fifty miles deep in the remote Kootenai National Forest of northwestern Montana

“THIS MAN IS IMPOSSIBLE.” Sylvia Summers, the nursing supervisor at Mountain Home Health Care, complained as she stood putting together a copy of a patient’s chart for Laura. “Even over the phone he comes across as brooding, wants everything his own way, including the exact timing of our visits. Can you imagine how hard it is to time our trips up to the Yakk River and then along that Sixteen Mile…cowpath to the exact hour? Why he chooses to live out there—”

“Even with all that money,” one of the field nurses interrupted as she scooted past Laura’s desk, “he lives an austere existence on the side of the mountain. Doesn’t even have a TV.”

“The man’s a hermit, who hardly speaks except to snap my nurses’ heads off,” Sylvia continued. “And he’s already run off two other physical therapists. Now it’s your turn.” She handed Laura the chart.

Another nurse peeked around the supply shelves and chimed in. “That chart should be labeled P.I.A., because if ever there was one, that guy’s a genuine pain in the—”

“I’ve handled P.I.A.’s before,” Laura answered quietly as she walked to her desk. And I’m an expert on rich, demanding men, she added to herself as she thought of Stuart Crestwood for the first time in ages. “Difficult patients don’t bother me. Remember Mr. Buchanan? Wouldn’t even get out of bed at first.” She sat down and pushed her glasses up on her nose, trying to focus her mind on the chart, in spite of the nurses’ discouraging verbal barrage.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Hon-nee child!” another nurse hooted. “Mr. Scott makes old man Buchanan seem like a sweet cuddly teddy bear.”

The others muttered their agreement.

Sylvia raised a palm. “Okay, girls. We’ve scared her enough.” She crossed to Laura’s desk.

“Listen, Laura, this is a tough case. No one wants to deal with this man, much less stay up on that mountain and do the hours of therapy necessary to—”

“You told me all that,” she put in, “and about the car accident.” She flipped back a page in the chart. “It says here he’s a widower. Was his wife killed in the accident?”

“Yes.” Sylvia sighed and ran a hand through her short-cropped frosted hair. “A terrible accident. Anyway, you’ll be taking this on as a private contract, with no supervisory visits. In other words you’re totally on your own. And once you and Mr. Scott sign that contract, I hope you’ll stay to finish the therapy regimen.”

Laura flipped more pages. Fractured scapula and humerus. Severe rotator-cuff tear, avulsed muscles, some nerve damage, adhesive capsulitis…. “This man’s surgery was almost a year ago. Why are we just now doing joint mobilization?”

“He shut himself off from people when he left the hospital. But now, all of a sudden, he wants full use of his shoulder back. It wasn’t happening fast enough to suit him with only two visits a week.”

Laura nodded and closed the chart. “I’m going to do joint mobilization once every day, assisted exercises twice a day, ice packs after each treatment.”

“Sounds good.” Sylvia glanced at her watch. “You’d better get going. As I said, Adam Scott demands punctuality.” Frowning, Sylvia bent her head, and said confidentially, “You know, you’re a brave girl to accept this assignment.”

Bravery has nothing to do with it, Laura thought as she lugged the heavy portable massage table and arm bike out to her old Toyota. The obscene amount of money this patient was willing to pay for a private full-time physical therapist for six weeks was her sole motivation.

When Laura had first taken off with Stuart’s money, she hadn’t realized how much she would change. Over the past four years, as she’d finished her education and forced herself to mature and grow, she’d come to realize that she wouldn’t really be free until she paid Stuart back every cent. The salary Adam Scott was offering would go a long way toward getting rid of her debt.

But the nurses’ descriptions of her new patient kept ringing through her mind as she steered her little car along the narrow gravel road that skirted the sheer wall of rock high above Sixteen Mile Creek.

When at last the road ended, she felt as if she’d traveled back in time. A weathered log cabin squatted in an open glade like an old hen brooding on a nest. Two quaint dormer windows twinkled in the September sunshine, and a sturdy native-rock chimney buttressed one side of the steep blue roof. A deep porch across the entire front seemed like the perfect spot for enjoying mountain vistas, but it didn’t have a stick of furniture on it.

And there, on that porch, stood Adam Scott, waiting for her.

His face was hidden in the shadows, but his long muscular legs, clad in worn jeans and hiking boots, were crossed causally at the ankle. He leaned one shoulder—not the bad one, she noticed—against the rough-hewn door frame.

His body looked so…young. So strong!

The relaxed powerful figure leaning against that door certainly didn’t fit the picture of the lame bitter recluse her colleagues had conjured up.

She peered through her windshield. He didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Well, he was close enough at thirty-eight, but somehow she hadn’t expected him to be such a…hunk.

Laura fumbled on the floor for her satchel and tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat.

She glanced back up at him. He wasn’t leaning against the door frame anymore, and now his stance and folded arms radiated impatience.

She opened the car door and drew a deep breath. She climbed out, then carefully closed the door and walked up the path with what she hoped was self-assurance.

He came forward, scowling from under thick dark eyebrows, and the lump in her throat doubled in size, because now that he was in the sun, she could see that not only was he young and fit, he was extremely handsome.

He looked like a younger version of—who was that actor who’d played Marshall Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke?—James Arness. This guy had the same strong jaw. The same big hands. All of which kept him from seeming too perfect, too pretty.

His thick dark hair looked wild and untrimmed, with a few silvery strands sprigging at the temples.

His whole presence seemed unreal. As if he’d been plunked into this rustic setting by some visionary movie director: All right now. Stand there with the sun in your eyes—no, don’t shade them. Look mean. As if she’s a bug you intend to squash with your boot. That’s good. Oh—nice touch! Raising your arm and propping your palm rigidly against the porch post, like you aren’t even going to let her inside the cabin. Does somebody in wardrobe have a really worn-looking denim shirt?

The man fixed his dark eyes on her. When they caught the sun they flashed silver, like a…a wolf’s or something.

Laura averted her own gaze, feeling a little breathless. Not because she was climbing a steep grade, but because that look in his eyes had been so intense that it had left her feeling stunned.

As she climbed the porch steps, it occurred to her that the man before her might not even be her patient. He could be the hired help or a relative, perhaps.

But when he said, “Are you my new physical therapist?” in a low baritone, that small hope burst like a punctured balloon.

“Yes. I’m Laura Duncan—” Laura smiled and put out her hand as she took the last stair “—from Mountain Home Health Care.”

“And who is that?” He nodded toward the Toyota.

Laura dropped her hand and swiveled her head. Ned! She was so used to her ever present “safety man” riding in the passenger seat that she’d forgotten he was supposed to look real from a distance.

“That’s a safety dummy.” She looked up at her patient and smiled. “You know, to make it look like I have a passenger—I drive on a lot of isolated roads.” She stuck out her hand again. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He stared at her hand, then gave her a critical frown. “My right arm is injured, remember?” With that he turned his back and disappeared into the cabin.

Laura’s eyes went wide and she dropped her hand. Her throat got tighter as she felt herself blushing at her mistake.

She hesitated at the doorway, then peered in, wondering if he meant for her to follow. She couldn’t see him; her eyes were still adjusting from the bright mountain sunshine to the gloomy interior of the cabin.

“Well, come in, dammit.” His rich baritone came from somewhere in the darkness. “Don’t just stand there.”

Laura’s back stiffened, and she stood firmly rooted in the doorway. No amount of money was worth being cursed at. She’d had enough of that kind of treatment from Stuart.

She heard heavy footsteps, and in the next instant his face materialized in the shaft of sunlight pouring through the cabin door. She quailed at his fierce expression, but she stood her ground.

“What?” he said.

“Let’s get something straight, Mr. Scott. I heard about the way you treat the nurses. I’d appreciate it if you’d watch your language and your temper.”

He gave her another dark squint. “For the exorbitant amount I’m paying you, I can say and do just about anything I please.”

“Not to me.” Laura turned on her heel, stomped across the porch and clattered down the steps, marching to her car as fast as possible.

“Wait!” he hollered as he sprinted down the steps behind her.

“Okay, okay,” he said, coming up short beside her car as she tossed in her satchel and climbed behind the wheel. She saw him throw up his hands as she slammed the door.

He bent down beside the closed window as she started the engine. “Okay! No cursing!” he yelled through the glass.

Laura lowered the window a couple of inches but didn’t kill the engine.

“Look, Ms.—What’d you say your name was?”

“Duncan. Laura Duncan.” After four years she’d grown comfortable with her maiden name again.

“Ms. Duncan. Stay.” He backed up from the window, jammed his left hand into the pocket of his jeans and shrugged uncomfortably. “Please.”

Stuart used to shrug like that. An innocent-looking gesture that in Laura’s mind was as phony as a three-dollar bill.

“Please,” he repeated. “I’ve got to get this shoulder working again. And I can’t do it without a therapist.”

Laura held her foot on the brake while she stared out the windshield and considered.

He needed her skills, and she needed his money.

Four years of physical-therapy training had depleted every cent she’d filched from Stuart. All she had now was a simple little frame house back in Kalispell, this eight-year-old Toyota and her self-respect.

She gave Adam Scott a sidelong glance. “I suppose you know I’m the only physical therapist who’s prepared to work with you.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t look angry, didn’t even laugh derisively. He merely gave her another squinting assessment, then blinked as if coming out a dream.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all, Ms. Duncan,” he said. “I can’t say that I blame them. I can be difficult. But I promise, if you stay, I’ll treat you professionally. Now, won’t you please come inside?”