Montana Hero (12 page)

He punched the little folder image and arranged the images from old to newer. Mom had scanned a few pictures of GG when she was younger, from a baby on the knee of a man he’d never met to a high school graduation shot of a girl with long blonde hair, parted down the middle to frame her pretty smile.

He’d read a ton of articles online about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Mom had tried her best to take care of GG, but…he looked at the scar on the back of his hand. The doctor had talked about skin grafts but Brady threw a fit. So much changed because of the fire, he wanted to keep his scar as a reminder.

GG hadn’t meant to hurt him. She’d gotten distracted telling him about her life in Montana. She’d do that sometimes—get caught up in something and tune out the rest of the world. Brady understood because that happened to him, too—especially if he was doing something he really loved.

“I fell in love, Brady. With the wrong man. A man who wasn’t free to love me back.” He’d never forget the look on her face—a mix of happy and sad. “But we still did…love each other. Sometimes you do things even if you know they’re wrong…and then you pay the price.”

She talked about the hikes they took to escape from his family. Their need to keep everything between them a secret so his wife wouldn’t find out. “He was married, Brady. But he didn’t love her. He loved me.”

That was when her expression changed and he knew the part that was GG had left the station. And when the smoke alarm went off a few seconds later, he watched in horror as she made everything worse.

His whole world changed that day. He and Mom moved into a motel while their house was getting fixed and GG left for the place that made Brady sick to his stomach when they went to visit. The smell was bad enough, but the people sitting in the hallways in wheelchairs—the “zombies,” he called them—were the worst. He didn’t want his grandma to end up that way.

He touched his finger to a picture of GG and him when he was a tiny baby. Her smile made him happy. It was the same look she’d had on her face when she talked about the man she loved in Montana. Brady couldn’t remember his first name…Robert, maybe…but he’d never forget the man’s last name.

Zabrinski.

His grandfather.

Although Mom never said so, he’d assumed the real reason they’d moved to Montana was to find her birth father. He’d been waiting patiently, but, so far, nothing had happened.

Boring.

When he started fifth grade and met Chloe Zabrinski, he felt like a spy. He listened to everything she had to say about her family, which he assumed was connected in some way to GG’s man. But Chloe mostly talked about her horse and the new baby her stepmother had given birth to recently.

Boring.

Brady was tired of waiting.

He didn’t know much about love, but it sounded like a really stupid emotion. One of his grandmother’s last memories was the place where she fell in love with a man who couldn’t love her back. Mom insisted she’d always love his dad even though they couldn’t be together because they didn’t make each other happy any more.

Not that she seemed all that happy most of the time.

Until last night. She’d laughed more—and in a different way—than he’d ever seen. And the only reason he could think of was because of Flynn Bensen.

He opened the search engine app and typed in Flynn’s name. He ignored the obvious attempts to extort money from him and added a few more key words to narrow his search.
Firefighter. Wild Fires.

“Yes,” he said with satisfaction.

The article was less than a year old. He skimmed the key words: wildfire, fatality, and horses.
A horse died?
Brady frowned. He liked animals a lot more than he liked people.

Aloud, he read, “Benson carried the victim more than a mile across smoldering terrain to reach help. Unfortunately, the woman, identified as sixty-eight-year-old…blah, blah, blah.” He read silently for a another couple of paragraphs then picked up again, “…Bensen was unable to get the halter off the second animal and it later got hung up on a branch in the fire’s path.”

Brady shuddered. “Eiouw.”

“Eiouw what?” Mom asked, from the doorway. “What are you reading?”

His hand hovered over the delete key, but he knew she’d check the computer’s browser history and find the page if he made her suspicious. “I searched Flynn’s name. I found an article about him. A horse and a lady died.”

Her face got a look he knew well.

“Read it for yourself,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I’m going to the bathroom. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

Mothers. They got upset for all the wrong reasons.

‡

H
appy Hour at
Grey’s Saloon on Friday night had been a regular deal for the SAR crew since before Kat got hired. She’d stopped going after getting cornered by their boss who’d made a flagrant and unwanted pass at her. He must have known she was considering filing charges because he’d apologized on Monday, blaming a bad mix of beer and prescription drugs.

She’d agreed to drop it because Ken had been smart enough to make sure the contact took place in a dark corner with no one around, and Grey’s was not the kind of place that believed in cameras.

In the spirit of a new beginning, Kat brought up the idea of resuming the practice. Unfortunately, thanks to Brady’s suspension, she’d forgotten about the gathering until Rebecca texted a reminder that morning.

Luckily, a young mom in her apartment complex was a licensed babysitter. She took children of any age. Brady didn’t object because the woman had good Wi-Fi and she let him play games on his iPad to his heart’s content.

Plus, Kat had agreed to his blackmail price of lasagna from Rocco’s Italian Restaurant.

The hubbub that greeted her the moment she opened the door made her pulse quicken. She’d missed people, she realized.

“Kat,” a voice called. “We’re over here.”

Rebecca.
Good, Kat thought, another woman.

Kat never liked walking into a bar unaccompanied—something a good Southern girl just didn’t do. But codes were different in Montana, she told herself. And it’s not like she had a date…or a lover…or…anything. Her gaze swept the room until she spotted the broad shoulders and wavy brown hair she hadn’t been able to get off her mind.

“Here you go, Kat,” another voice called. “I saved you a seat.”

“Janet,” Kat said, slipping into the chair at a table already packed with pitchers of beer and a dozen or so glasses. “This is a surprise. How are you feeling?”

Everyone knew her so-called “flu” had been a power play to send a message to Flynn.

“Good enough to work today. Since you were out, I didn’t think it was fair to make Rebecca hold down the fort alone.”

Dig, dig, dig.
“That was nice of you,” Kat said, keeping her tone pleasant. She wouldn’t stoop to Janet’s cattiness. “Hi, everyone. Did you all manage without me?”

Everyone had something to say on the subject…except Flynn, who joined them a few seconds later. He nodded with a smile but kept his thoughts private. Only his eyes showed any hint of the interest she thought she’d detected the last time they were together.

“Beer? Or…beer?” he asked.

“I believe I’ll have a beer. Thank you.”

The roar that followed lifted her spirits. She’d had a rough day, juggling Brady’s sudden uncooperativeness, her inability to get answers about what was going on with Molly O’Neal’s case, and the lingering memory of the news article Brady had shown her last night.

Flynn’s replies to the reporter who wrote the article had touched her heart. Flynn obviously blamed himself for not saving the old woman’s life, despite the coroner’s report that put her cause of death as a concussion, not smoke inhalation. She could picture the scene so clearly she’d fallen asleep with tears in her eyes.

She pushed the thought away when Flynn, who’d volunteered to buy the next round, returned with a frosted mug for Kat. He poured the golden liquid so the inch of foam stayed in the glass instead of boiling over. “Nice job.”

“Thanks. I used to tend bar in college.”

“I waited tables.”

He leaned in closer so they didn’t have to shout. “How’s Brady?”

The scent she’d come to recognize as pure Flynn found its way to her nostrils above and beyond the smell of beer and bodies.

“Grumpy. We both spent too much time online today. I’m taking him to the Natural History Museum in Bozeman tomorrow. He loves that place.”

His expression turned wistful. “I did, too, as a kid.”

“I beg your pardon? I thought you grew up back East?”

He nodded. “I did, but my dad loved Montana. He bought ten acres along the river just outside of town. We’d camp there every summer, Dad, my brother and I. Some of my best childhood memories are of this state.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I told you my mom was the same. She only spent a few months here, but that was long enough to leave a big impression. When her mind started to unravel, she’d often talk about going home to Marietta. Funny, huh?”

“Interesting. You should ask Molly if she remembers your mother. I spent some time at the hospital today, and, let me tell you, Molly O’Neal is one sharp octogenarian.”

She took a healthy swallow of beer. She’d been hoping someone would bring up the subject of the elderly woman they’d helped, even though she knew they weren’t supposed to talk about clients or cases outside of work. “What’s going to happen to her?”

Flynn shook his head. “I don’t know. I gave Molly’s granddaughter a list of repairs that need to be made to make that old house a little safer. It’s amazing Molly hasn’t broken a hip…or worse.”

The intensity of his frown made Kat wonder if he was remembering another old woman who suffered something worse.

“How’s the house hunting going?”

He made a low growl. “Ryker says I’m too picky. Mia thinks it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time, which, she says, is how she and Ryker met.” He laughed. “Ryker says she tried to kick him off his own land. He tells people he was damn lucky she wasn’t packing.”

Kat laughed. She’d seen Mia around town and couldn’t picture the diminutive woman with a .357 Magnum. But she was a sucker for a good love story, and from what she’d heard, all four of the Zabrinski children had experienced an arrow from Cupid’s bow in the past year or so.

Although in Bailey and Paul’s case, the two had been high school sweethearts who broke up, married other people, and then found their way back to each other.

“One of Brady’s classmates is Chloe Zabrinski. Paul’s daughter. Do you know if her mother lives around here? I’m always curious about how people handle custody matters.”

“She was living in Bozeman, but I believe she’s in Atlanta, now. Her husband got a big promotion. Mark and Chloe didn’t want to move, so they’re with Paul fulltime.” He paused. “Don’t quote me on that. It’s hard to keep up with that family.”

Kat smiled. She’d done her best not to “cyber stalk” the family, despite the fact some members—like Austen, Mia and Paul—appeared in the Courier regularly or shared personal milestones like baby showers, engagement parties, Save-The-Date announcements, and, photos from the groundbreaking of their new home all over social media.

She held up her index finger as a thought struck her.
Should I have remembered this sooner? Are pieces of my brain falling victim to plaque buildup?
She ignored the gloomy voice in her head and asked, “Didn’t I see a photo of you and your brother with a stringer of trout on Throw Back Thursday?”

He cocked his head. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Facebook.”

He shrugged. “Ask Ryker. He claims he got his love of photography from a camera Dad gave him one summer when we came to Montana.” He took another drink of beer before adding, “He’s working on a collection of old shots he found in some stuff our mother sent. Should be pretty cool…even though Ryker says I look like I’m in training to be a Unabomber. Apparently, I glared a lot.”

Kat laughed. But when she looked around she spotted Janet staring at them. “Who wants to beat me at a game of pool? I’ll buy,” Kat called out, jumping to her feet.

Brad and Jeff nearly tripped each other trying to beat the other to the table. Was she glad or disappointed that Flynn didn’t raise his hand?

Glad.
Two beers loosened her self-control to the point where not flirting with him would have been next to impossible. Better to hang out with the guys she knew and trusted.

Tonight was about fun and games and celebrating a new boss who was a thousand times better than their old boss. And that’s all she planned to think about. Not the future. Not the past. And most definitely not the attraction she felt toward Flynn Bensen.

*