Montana Refuge (3 page)

At six foot two inches and muscled from thirty-four years of ranch life, Tyler was a formidable man in his own right, but the farrier always made him feel like a dwarf. What everyone who met Lenny soon recognized, however, was that he had the disposition of a sweet kid. The horses loved him.

The truck stopped close by and Lenny launched his six-foot-six-inch, 250-pound frame from the cab. “Sorry I’m late,” he bellowed in a deep voice that lived up to the packaging. “Got tied up over at Hidden Hollow. So, you’re having trouble with Ned?”

Tyler explained about the thrown shoe.

“I’ll get started on him. The rest of your string isn’t due for reshoeing for almost a month. Long as I’m here, you want me to check ’em out? I’m not due at the Blister Ranch till tomorrow morning.”

“Sure,” Tyler said, taking off his hat and wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “You’re welcome to spend the night. We can offer you a bed and a decent dinner.”

“No need. You know me, I’m like a turtle, carry my little home on my back.” With this he gestured at the dusty camper on the rear of his truck. Tyler wasn’t altogether sure Lenny could stand up straight in the thing. Behind the truck he pulled a big trailer that he called his office. It was filled with supplies and equipment as Lenny went from ranch to ranch on a six-week cycle keeping the horses’ hooves in top condition.

“Suit yourself,” Tyler said, pulling his hat back on his head. “Tell me if you need anything.”

“I’ll just get started and, you know, let you two talk,” Lenny said, his voice lower.

Tyler’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean? Let who talk?”

Lenny looked back at his truck and made a little motion with his fingers. The passenger door squeaked open. The glare on the windshield had obscured the fact that Lenny had a passenger.

“I ran across her in town,” Lenny said under his breath. “Because I was coming out here anyway—well, I’ll just go see about Ned.” He made a point of walking toward the horse barn without looking back.

Tyler’s jaw literally dropped as a woman appeared.

Julie?

For what felt like a month, they just stared at each other, he frozen to the ground, she half in and half out of the truck. He took in her sheath of glossy black hair, her deep brown eyes, the elegant features of her face. A year had passed since he’d last seen her, but right that second, it seemed like a lifetime or maybe even someone else’s lifetime.

“What do you want?” he finally managed to say in a voice he didn’t even recognize. It was hard to sound normal when there was a knife twisting in his heart.

That unfroze her. “Well, hello to you, too.” She slammed the truck door and leaned back against it, arms held across her chest, chin up.

She’d always been on the tall, slender side, but she was really thin now, too much so. She was also beat up on her face and what he could see of her arms, like she’d been in a fight. There was something else—a furtive look, a jumpiness he’d never witnessed in her before.

Had she left him to get tangled up with some kind of vicious jerk? That was the exciting new life she’d dreamed about? The wonderful world of domestic abuse?

“I need to talk to you,” she said with a defiant tone to her voice. Or maybe it wasn’t defiance. Maybe it was nerves.

“I know I haven’t signed the divorce papers,” he told her. “I will, though. Been busy.”

“It’s not about that.”

He turned his back on her and returned to his truck. With one leap he was in the bed again, hefting sacks of grain, moving faster now, fired up with nerves.

She followed him and then stopped. Standing a few feet away, she murmured, “It wasn’t easy coming back here, you know.”

“Then why did you?”

It took her a moment to answer and when she did, her voice shook. “Tyler, I’ve messed everything up.”

He glanced at her, hoping the look in his eyes communicated the fact that he thought she was an expert at messing things up and he wasn’t interested in it anymore. When she started to continue, he cut her off.

“Don’t tell me, Julie. I don’t care. Just leave.”

Her response came quicker this time. “How do you suggest I do that? Lenny is my ride.”

“Walk. Fly. You left once, you can do it again.”

“Tyler, please listen to me. I need—”

He threw the bag to the ground and cut her off with a single slice of his hand. “No, you listen to me.” He stopped and shook his head but didn’t add anything because he didn’t know what to add.

Below him, Julie rubbed her temples. The action exaggerated the sharp angles of her shoulders. He hitched his hands on his waist and stared at his boots for a second, taking deep breaths.

He had to stop acting like a hurt kid. Fact was, she couldn’t walk all the way back to town and he wasn’t about to be alone in a vehicle with her. He could get one of the many ranch hands to give her a ride, but looking around, he didn’t see a soul.

“You can stay until Lenny leaves,” he finally said. “Try to keep out of the way. We’re leaving on a cattle drive in the morning and everyone is pretty damn busy.”

“What about Rose?”

“My mother? What about her?”

“Maybe she could use some help.”

“I doubt she wants your help,” he said. In truth, his mom liked Julie and would probably love to see her, but that would just up the pressure on him to be reasonable and accommodating, neither of which he felt inclined to be, not with Julie, not now.

“I guess not,” Julie said. “That’s another bridge I burned, isn’t it? Rose probably hates me. I shouldn’t have come.”

Was he curious what had brought her back? So what if he was? He’d live with not knowing. He lifted another sack and heard himself say, “Cabin eight is empty. It’s yours for the night.”

The relief in her voice was genuine. “Thank you.” Then she added, “But Tyler, please, can’t we talk for a moment?”

Bag atop his shoulder, he paused and looked down at her. “I’m very busy...”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“Just stop,” he said with a sarcastic laugh and a sweeping glance. “I’m not falling for that. Look at you. You’re a mess. Something bad is going on. Man trouble? New boyfriend got a temper?”

“You’re acting like a jerk,” she said.

“There you go. I’m a jerk. No news flash there, right?” It went against every ingrained instinct of his to turn her away, but there came a time when a man had to look after himself.

She turned with a flourish and stomped toward Lenny’s truck. Maybe she planned to sit in the front seat all night. Fine with him. As he kept at his job, he saw her retrieve a large paper bag and a purse from the front seat, then walk off toward the line of pine cabins south of the main house which doubled as a lodge. She was traveling kind of light.

He looked away from her retreating form. When he heard a door close up at the cabins, he dropped the sack he held in his arms and sank onto the side of the truck bed, winded not with effort but something else, something deep inside his chest that felt as if it was sucking the breath out of his lungs.

Julie was back. And just like that, everything felt different. He rubbed his eyes and swore under his breath.

* * *

A
T FIRST
J
ULIE LOCKED
the door, sat on the edge of the double bed and tried to pull herself together. Coming face-to-face with Tyler had been a lot rougher than she’d anticipated.

For two days of an endless bus ride where every stop and every new person to board loomed as a potential threat, she’d been afraid to sleep and too frazzled to eat. Getting to the ranch had been her solitary goal.

And now she was here and sure enough, just as she’d known in her heart of hearts, Tyler hated her. Couldn’t stand the sight of her. Winced when he looked at her.

Damn.

She finally got to her feet and pulled the curtain aside. The blinds were open, and through them she could see that Tyler was still in the back of the big truck, hard at work.

It had been over a year since she’d seen him and time had done nothing to lessen his physical appeal. If anything, he was more dynamic than ever, his shoulders and chest broader, body leaner, face more chiseled. The ease with which he handled those fifty-pound bags of grain was remarkable and the memory of those strong arms closing around her in the dead of the night still made her ache with loss.

How could two people who were so right together also be so wrong?

She let the curtain fall back into place. She’d screwed everything up.
Everything.
What had made her think Tyler would want anything to do with her? Now what?

She finally realized she still carried the brown paper bag and set it on top of the dresser. It held the only possessions she had with her—a second pair of jeans so new they still bore their tags, underwear and a couple of T-shirts, all purchased in town before coming out to the ranch. She was down to about twenty dollars in cash and she was afraid to use her credit cards or cell phone because Roger Trill was a cop, and didn’t that mean he had access to data banks and records?

She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know. If he was working independently from the department, if he was a crook, then maybe he would have to be cautious about drawing attention to himself. Maybe he would just cut his losses and forget about her.

She’d never talked about this ranch to anyone, not even her friendly neighbor or the other woman in the office or the lady who did her dry cleaning who was crazy about country western music and would have loved to talk about Montana. She hadn’t used the name Hunt since leaving here. She’d figured if she needed so desperately to change her life, to give up what she had in order to find herself, well, then, she shouldn’t rely on the past.

Gee, hadn’t that worked out well?

A fresh start, that’s what she’d wanted. She’d chosen Oregon because she’d never been there. She’d found the job with Dr. Killigrew almost immediately and been thrilled to discover it included occasional travel and adventure. And it paid well. She’d rented an apartment and spent her paychecks furnishing and decorating it. There wasn’t one thing there that even hinted at ranch life. She’d made a place she could call a home. A fresh start. A new life.

There was a phone sitting on the nightstand, a holdover from the pre-electronic days when every room had had a land-based line. Today was a Thursday, which meant her neighbor Nora had worked the morning shift and might be away from work by now. Julie sat down on the side of the bed and placed the call. Nora picked up almost immediately and her relief at hearing the call was from Julie brought tears to Julie’s eyes.
Someone still liked her.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Nora cried.

“I’m so sorry,” Julie said. “I had to get away and there wasn’t time to let you know.”

“I thought something terrible had happened to you!”

“No, I’m fine.”

“The police came by and got the manager to open your door in case you were inside, you know, hurt or something.”

“The police?”

“Yeah. You weren’t in your apartment of course, but the cop asked me a few questions about your emotional state of mind. What’s going on?”

“Just a minute, Nora. Did you get a name from the policeman?”

“Yeah, Brill. No, Trill. He was really worried about you, Julie. He said they suspected you purposely stepped in front of a bus.”

“No, that’s not true,” Julie protested.

“Are you depressed? Why didn’t you come to me? What happened?”

“Nora, please listen. It didn’t happen that way.”

But Nora couldn’t seem to stop and listen. Instead, her voice continued to grow more shrill. “Did you really run away from the police station without telling anyone? Julie, that cop made it sound like you’re crazy, like you’re trying to hurt yourself.”

Julie clutched her stomach. Was Trill trying to set her up for a fake suicide?

“Was he alone or with other policemen?”

“Alone.”

“Did you tell him anything?”

“What could I tell him? I’d been with George that afternoon and then when I got home, that policeman showed up.”

Julie knew how stressful time with Nora’s brother was for Nora. George was dying, and even though they tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, they all knew it was. “I’m sorry I’m adding to your stress,” she said. “Tell George hello for me when you see him again.”

“I’ll do that. I’m going back over there tonight. What the heck is going on with you? Where are you anyway?”

“That doesn’t matter. Don’t tell Trill you heard from me.”

“But what if he comes back?”

“Play dumb. Promise me. I’ll explain it when I get home.”

Nora sounded worried, but she agreed. “I have your number on my caller ID,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning—”

“No!” Julie said. “No. I won’t even be in the same state by tomorrow. Please, Nora, just don’t talk about me with anyone.”

“Not even your boss?”

Julie rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t have a boss. Killigrew fired me.”

“Then why did he come here looking for you, too?”

Why would Killigrew travel across town to come to her apartment?
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully.

“Is that why you were emotionally distraught? Because you got fired?”

“I’m not distraught,” she insisted. “Trill is making that up.”

“You sure sound like you’re distraught.”

“Not the way you think.”

Nora was silent for a second, then she lowered her voice. “I hear a noise coming from your apartment,” she said. “Just a second, I’ll see what’s going on.”

“No—” Julie said, but Nora didn’t respond. Instead, Julie heard footsteps and then a door opening. “Oh, it’s you,” Nora’s voice said to a third party. “I wasn’t expecting—”

She was cut off by a male voice and then she spoke again. “Sure, I’ll be happy to help,” she said. “Just give me a second to get off the phone.”

The man asked her to hurry and this time he was closer and Julie recognized the voice. Chills raced up her spine.
Trill!
As she heard the door close, she said, “Nora? What’s Trill doing there?”

“He wants me to take a look in your closet and see if anything is missing.”