Montana Miracle

“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.

Over the grease and hint of gasoline in the shop, he caught a whiff of something that had been there in the truck. A fragrance from somewhere in his past, but he had no memory to pin it on.

“Boy, I’m glad you came back,” Carl was saying, and Mac forced his gaze from the woman to the man. “I don’t have chains to fit her car. Not one set,” Carl said.

All Mac wanted to do was get out of there and go home. “I guess you’ll have to order them,” he said, then looked at Katherine. “Have a safe trip.”

She frowned at him. “Have a safe trip? You…you’re the one who told me I can’t drive anywhere without chains, so I guess a trip is out, isn’t it, safe or otherwise.”

For some reason she seemed angry at him, as if he controlled the weather or Carl’s chain supply. He should have driven right past her car in the first place. And he wasn’t going to argue with her now. “That was just a pleasantry, not a command.”

Her frown deepened. “Easy for you to joke about this,” she muttered.

When had this shifted to an argument with a woman he didn’t even know? He was leaving. But before he could turn and walk away, Carl was speaking. “Without chains, she’s stuck, Kenny. She ain’t going farther then right here.”

Now Carl was acting as if he should have answers for this. What was he supposed to do? She had someone named James who could work this out for her, and neither Carl nor Katherine needed his input. “Use Carl’s phone and call James.” The words were too abrupt, too harsh, but he didn’t try to soften them. “Let him figure it out for you.”

That logic didn’t seem to help at all. “What can he do?” She shook her head as she pushed her phone and cord into her purse. “He couldn’t get here.”

“Maybe he can send a rescue party.”

“A rescue party?” Any anger was gone, blotted out by a sudden smile that put light in her green eyes and curved her pale lips upward. “What’s he going to send out?” she asked, her voice slightly husky now. “A St. Bernard with a keg of brandy around his neck? I need chains, not brandy.”

He could have used a drink right then.

“I can get your chains tomorrow or the next day,” Carl said from behind the counter. “Depends on the delivery service. But definitely not tonight.”

She shrugged, and the smile was gone. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “What a mess. I didn’t expect this to happen.” The woman changed her emotions with a speed that left Mac slightly off balance. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, her finely defined eyebrows lifting slightly as she looked at Mac. “I’m at a loss.”

She was looking at him as if he had the answer. He hadn’t had answers for anyone for a very long time. “You’re in a mess,” he murmured.

“You’ll have to stay around here for tonight,” Carl interjected.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, sure, a hotel.”

Mac wished it was that simple. “There’s no hotel here.”

“A motel?” she asked, still sounding hopeful.

“Nope,” Carl chimed in.

“The diner?” she asked Mac. “I could stay there if it’s open all night?”

“Nothing stays open all night around here,” Carl said.

She turned to Carl then, and the air stirred again, bringing that scent with it. Soft and provocative. You, that was what it was called. You. He didn’t inhale too deeply as she spoke. “You don’t have a room with a cot that I could rent for the night?”

“Sorry, miss, I don’t even have a real back room. Just shelves and storage for automotive supplies.”

“But not chains,” she said.

“But not chains,” he agreed with a frown.

She looked back at Mac and drew him into the mess again with another smile that exposed a dimple. “Don’t you have any ideas?” she asked.

Any idea he had at that moment wouldn’t help in this situation at all. Not when it centered on wondering why that James guy didn’t have this woman with him in Shadow Ridge in front of a roaring fire. Heat and pleasure. The man was obviously a fool. “No, no, I don’t have any ideas,” he lied.

“Hey, how about Joanine?” Carl asked.

That drew her attention away from him again, and as he took a deep breath, the perfume tangled with the air that went into his lungs. “Joanine?” she asked.

“She runs a boardinghouse, well, what they call a bed-and-breakfast. I can call and see if she’s got a room.”

“Good idea,” Mac said. “I’ve got to get going. I’m late as it is.”

“You drive carefully, Kenny,” Carl said, then reached for the phone.

Katherine touched him the way she had before, and he realized why his nerves were so raw at the moment. A pretty blonde. A needy woman. A touch. A look. This woman was bringing back a past he’d buried. That was enough of a reason to get the hell out of there.

“What?” he asked, not even bothering to be polite about how he pulled his arm away from her touch.

“I’ve still got a problem,” she said, not reacting to his abrupt severing of the contact.

He didn’t want to hear about any problems from her. He had enough of his own. “What now?”

“How do I get to her place?”

Carl cut in right then. “Good news, people. Joanine’s got space. She’s opened up for someone coming around seven, and she figures that a second guest wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Terrific,” Katherine said without looking at Carl. “So how do I get there?” she asked Mac again.

“I’ll leave it to you and Carl to work out the finer points,” he said, glancing at Carl. “Your truck’s a four-by-four, so I think you’re all set.”

“Well, I can’t leave for at least an hour or so. Dave’s not working tonight. Why can’t you drop her off on your way?”

Why not indeed? he thought. Anything he could come up with not to take her with him wasn’t worth saying out loud. He knew he’d hesitated beyond a polite period to consider Carl’s suggestion when he saw color rise in her cheeks, emphasizing the delicate bone structure. “Forget it,” she said in a low voice. “I can’t ask you to take me any farther.” There was no smile now and he missed it. “I…I can just call a cab.”

“Never has been a cab service in Bliss,” Carl said.

Mac looked at her, and he knew when he’d been backed into a corner, neatly and tightly. All he had to do was take her to Joanine’s, drop her off and keep going. Simple. So why didn’t it feel simple? “I think you’re out of options,” he said, but meant he was out of options too.

“Is that an offer of a ride?” she asked, the frown shifting to what might have been a hint of that smile again.

“I guess so,” he murmured.

The smile was back. “Then I accept.”

He nodded, then headed to the door with a wave to Carl. “Take care, Carl,” he said as he reached the door.

“You, too, Kenny,” Carl replied.

The cold cut into the office like a knife as he pulled open the door. “I’ll call Joanine’s when I find the chains,” Carl called after them.

“Okay, thanks,” Katherine said. Mac could feel her presence behind him as he trudged toward the truck. By the time he got to the passenger door and opened it, she was there.

She reached past him to grip the door frame and pull herself up into the cab, her purse in her other hand. Oddly, he noticed her hand then, oval nails with no polish, and slender, ringless fingers. Then she was inside, and he swung the door shut as the wind all but pulled it out of his hand.

He hurried around the hood closing out the storm as he got in behind the wheel, tossed his hat on the seat by him and started the engine. Warmth filtered into the cab from the heater, and the windshield wipers groaned under the effort of keeping the snow from clumping on the window.

“Can I ask you something?” Katherine said as he inched out onto Main Street.

“Depends,” he murmured.

“On what?”

“On what you ask. It’s been my experience that when someone says they want to ask something, it’s usually none of their business in the first place.”

There was a soft laugh that added to the warmth in the cab of the truck. “You’re right…ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“So, is this that one percent?” he asked, chancing a quick glance at her. She was sitting with her back partially to the door so she was almost facing him. It made him feel uncomfortable to be under anyone’s scrutiny, and with her, he felt even more uncomfortable. “Or is it in the ninety-nine percent group?”

“That’s a matter of opinion, I think,” she said softly.

If this had been any other situation, he would have thought she was coming on to him. That softness in her voice, that sense of being the full focus of her attention. But that was ludicrous. He had no trappings of money and power out here. And he liked that. He liked the old truck and the rough clothes. Not exactly a turn-on. This wasn’t a game between them, just a conversation. That was the old Mac trying to sneak back, but this Mac knew better. “Everything is in this life.”

“Exactly. So why don’t I just ask, then you can decide if you want to answer it?”

That seemed safe enough. “Okay.”

“Good. But there’s a question I need to ask before I ask the real question.”

It was a game of some sort. “What are you talking about?”

“First, who am I talking to and driving with and being rescued by? That man, Carl, he called you Kenny. So, is it Kenny? I really need to know before I ask the question.”

It wasn’t discomfort he was feeling, it was more like confusion. “First of all, that’s hardly one question,” he muttered, not sure if his name would mean anything anymore to anyone, especially this woman, but he wasn’t going to offer it up to see. “For what it’s worth, Kenny’s fine.”

She hesitated, then, “So, your name’s Kenny or is that a nickname?”

“Where are the rubber hoses and bright lights?” he asked.

“Oh, come on,” she said, her words tinged with soft humor. “I just asked your name. It’s polite if someone introduces himself, which I did a long time back, for that other person to respond with, ‘And my name is—’”

“Miss Manners?”

“What?”

“That’s what your name really is, isn’t it?”

She laughed again, and the sound only added to his confusion. “Sorry, no, I’m just polite, and my last name is Ames, Katherine Ames. And your name is…”

He found himself smiling a bit, an easing of the tension that had been a huge part of his life for the past year or so. “Okay. You shamed me. My name’s Mackenzie, a name my mother used when I was in trouble as a kid. Kenny is what I got saddled with because my father was named Mackenzie, too. That meant I was young Mac, small Mac. My Dad got big Mac most of the time, but he hated old Mac. It was easier to call me Kenny, then he was just Mac. I’ve also been called jerk. That’s pretty self-explanatory. So the choice is yours.”

“Mackenzie,” she said softly. “Kenny, Mac, Jerk.”

“Those are the choices.”

“What’s your middle name?

She never stopped. “Ashton, and before you ask, that was my mother’s maiden name and her name was Ruth.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I guess you wouldn’t go by your initials, then, would you?”

“What?”

“You know how people get called B.J. or J.R.?”

The easing grew in him as he manuvered on the snow-choked road. “No initials.”

“Is your father still alive?”

“No, and what does that have to do with anything?”

“I was just asking, because if he was still around, calling you Mac would be confusing. You said so yourself.”

“He’s dead, but even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be at Joanine’s, so there wouldn’t be any confusion.”

“Good point,” she said. “Okay, Mackenzie Ashton…”

Her voice trailed off and he could feel her gaze on him. No last name. There was no reason for there to be a last name. She’d be out of the truck in ten minutes, and that would be that. “Oh, just call me Mac.”

“Okay, that’s settled,” she murmured.

Why in hell did he feel relieved to have that settled? “Okay, and with you it’s Katherine.”

“Fine by me. Although, Katherine sounds pretty formal and I’ve been called a lot of different things, less formal and maybe you should—”

“Enough,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s Mac and Katherine for the next ten minutes. Then it’s goodbye.”

“Now, can I ask you that question, Mac?”

There had been no women around in the past year or so, besides Natty, and maybe he was out of practice. Or maybe he’d never really talked to any woman just to talk. Katherine was for talk. That was all. “Okay, Katherine, what is it?”

“Were you really going to leave me there at Carl’s?”

Yes, he was way out of practice. “I was leaving, period. If you hadn’t left your phone in the truck, I would be long gone.”

“You would have made your escape?”

“Call it what you will, I’d be someplace else.”

“I’m sorry for inconveniencing you so much.”

Now she was making him feel like a jerk. There was no way she’d know, and no way he’d tell her, that just about anything that kept him away from the ranch since he’d come back to salvage his life felt like an intrusion and an inconvenience. “Forget it. I’m going that way…sort of, so it worked out.”

“And it’s only going to be for the next ten minutes, anyway,” she said, echoing his words from earlier.

He glanced at her and found her staring intently ahead of them now. “Yeah, ten more minutes,” he said.

She sighed softly. “I never expected to get stuck in this place.”

“Next time you’ll bring chains.”

“There won’t be a next time. No snow, no storms, not again.” He sensed her shift, stirring the air and bringing him that scent again. “I’ve got another question.”

“You never stop, do you,” he murmured.

“Sorry, I tend to be the curious sort, too.”

“I’d say you are,” he said, slowing to find the entrance to Joanine’s property. It was around here somewhere, but the snow was drifting so heavily that it was almost obliterating the old landmarks. Add to that the total darkness beyond the headlights, and he wasn’t certain if he’d passed it or even if he was on the right road.

“Sorry,” she said again, but didn’t sound all that sorry. “I just wondering why you’d live around here.”

That brought some of the tension back. “Why not?”

“Oh, I’m not knocking it. I hate it when someone comes to visit or someone’s passing through, and all they do is knock where you live. I didn’t mean that. But, well, just look outside. It’s like another world.”

It was another world from what he was used to. “You get used to it.”

“How long does it take?”

He actually felt that smile surfacing again. “A life-time.”

The smile died when she said, “Carl told me you left for a while. I can understand why.”

Carl talked too much. “Most of the residents leave now and then. It’s called freedom. Some actually come back.”

“So you came back. Why?”

Just as the tension returned, Mac spotted the entrance to Joanine’s. The heavy stone pillars that marked the end of the drive that led up to the old farmhouse had been refashioned by the drifting snow to look like misshapen snowmen. “Now, that’s one of the ninety-nine percent. It’s none of your business.”

“Well, you’re blunt, aren’t you.”

He slowed more and turned right onto Joanine’s property. “Why I’m here is no one’s business except mine. I live here. Period. And you talk too much.”

He’d meant to stop her in her tracks with a rebuke that he was certain would offend her enough to get to Joanine’s and get her out of the truck in silence. But he was wrong again. She was actually agreeing with him. “I do talk too much. I’ve always been curious and, I’m sorry to say, I always will be. It’s sort of a curse, I think. That need to know everything about everything around me. You know, the mysteries of life? And one of those is why anyone who’d escaped to California would come back to a place that gets this cold and this snowy and is this isolated. You don’t even have a hotel, for Pete’s sake.”

Carl had told her far too much. Even that he’d been in California. He was getting her out of the truck just in time. “I won’t dispute Bliss’s lack of amenities. We don’t have time. This is Joanine’s, at least it is in about half a mile up her drive.”

Before she could respond, there was a sound unlike any other sound he’d heard and it seemed to shatter the night. A falling, cracking, thudding, earth-shaking sound that made him hit the brakes and pray they wouldn’t skid into whatever was happening. Snow was everywhere, but not just falling snow. It was exploding upward, too, only to be driven up and off by the fierce wind.

“What was that?” Katherine gasped as she grabbed his right arm with surprising strength. It startled him, almost as much as whatever had happened outside the truck.

She wasn’t just a talker, she was a toucher. The type of person who always seemed to need to make physical contact with people. He’d never been comfortable with that, which was why he shocked himself when he had to stop himself from covering her hand with his and telling her everything was okay. He didn’t touch her, and even if he had, he couldn’t have reassured her, because he didn’t know what in hell had happened.

Instead, he reached for his hat and tugged up his collar. “I don’t know what’s going on. You stay in here, and I’ll go see.” He opened the door, ducking against the bitter cold and called, “I’ll be right back.” Then he got out into the knee-deep drifts by the truck, and lowered his hat to protect his face.

“Stay put,” he said above the roar of the wind, then shut the door. He went through the snow, into the line of the headlight beams, his progress slow in the deepening drifts. He got near the end of the illumination, stepped to one side out of the light into the dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he knew they were in real trouble.

KATE STARED HARD in front of her, the windshield wipers barely keeping the snow off the glass and doing little to obliterate the crusty patches of frost forming in the corners. Mac had been there in the light, then he was gone. The dark and storm had swallowed him up.