Montana Refuge (7 page)

He waited a heartbeat, then got up. Without pausing, he walked out the back of the barn, the door slamming behind him.

Chapter Five

Julie paid a last visit to Babylon before starting the walk back to her cabin. The threat of Trill and the confusion over exactly what had happened in Oregon was still ever present in her mind, heightened now by the fiasco of a few minutes before when she’d been about to make love to Tyler.

Walking with her head down to watch her step, she suddenly sensed a presence and looked up. A man stood within a pool of light out in front of the cabin next to hers, leaning against one of the porch supports, almost blending into his surroundings like a chameleon. He was as tall as Tyler, a little heavier, lighter coloring. Julie didn’t recognize him and stopped dead in her tracks, a scream edging its way up her throat.

“You couldn’t sleep either?” he asked, straightening up but not making a move in her direction. It was obvious he’d correctly read the alarm on her face. “I’m a guest here, too,” he added. “I saw you in the kitchen after dinner. My name is John Smyth, by the way.”

“Julie Chilton,” she said automatically, beginning to remember him now.

“Look, I can see I startled you. I’ll go back inside. We can meet again later today on the cattle drive.”

“I’m not going on the cattle drive,” she said, her heartbeat back to normal. The feeling of threat had passed, replaced by something else that emanated from this man. Curiosity? Recognition? She was too upset to figure what it was. “Been standing here long?” she asked, trying to remember if she and Tyler had been noisy. She didn’t think so and besides, the barn was quite a distance off.

“For a while. Well, it’s time to hit the hay. I’m sorry we won’t be riding the trails together tomorrow, Julie. Sleep well.” He turned and walked back into his cabin, firmly shutting the door. A second later, she heard the click of a lock.

And that reminded her she’d not locked her cabin when she left it an hour before. Well, it wasn’t as though she had anything worth stealing. She turned the knob and flicked on the light, turning to close and lock the door before facing her room.

Somehow, things looked different.

The fear that was always there, always waiting to erupt, came crashing back as she looked at the sack of clothes and noticed the jeans on top weren’t folded the way she folded them. And hadn’t her purse been lying on its side instead of standing upright? She reached for her wallet—credit cards and cash were still there. In fact, she decided as she checked everything else out, nothing seemed to be missing.

What had someone been looking for? If it was information about her, they’d seen it all, or at least everything she carried in that handbag.

The closet door was open, as was the bathroom door. She armed herself with a rod iron lamp and searched anywhere someone could be hiding and found she was alone. Then she sat down in the chair where Tyler had settled himself a couple of hours before, all the lights on, still clutching the heavy lamp, heart racing and body so pumped with adrenaline she was ready to smack anyone or anything that tried to get into her room.

Her heart about burst through her chest when she heard a knock on her door. She was instantly on her feet, clutching the heavy lamp even though her brain said bad guys didn’t knock on doors.

“Who is it?” she asked, standing to the side of the door, barely breathing.

“It’s Heidi, ma’am, you know, Rose’s help up at the house.”

“What do you want?” Julie asked.

“Rose wants to know if you could come talk to her for a few minutes,” Heidi said.

“Now?”

“She said to tell you she’s sorry it’s so late.”

It had to be important or Rose wouldn’t have asked. Julie set the lamp aside and grabbed the cabin key. This time she locked the door before walking back to the house with Heidi.

* * *

T
YLER WAS OUT IN THE BARN
early the next morning, helping the newly arrived doctor choose a suitable mount. Dr. Robert Marquis was a tall man with a gaunt face and clothes that seemed too big for his build. More importantly, he didn’t seem all that comfortable with horses and mentioned his job as an emergency room doctor in Denver several times as though depending on those laurels to cover his visible awkwardness with the animals. He all but tripped over himself when his sorrel gelding gave him a friendly nudge with his soft nose.

Tyler was anxious to get the last-minute details sewed up so they could hit the trail. He wanted to put to rest the thundering hormones and unresolved emotions that blasted around inside him like steel spheres in a pinball machine and there was no better place to do that than out herding cattle. He’d have a week to forget Julie had ever been here and then he’d sign those papers and bury a marriage that was obviously already dead.

“This one is kind of big,” Dr. Marquis said, looking at the horse he’d been given with a wary eye. Seeing as he was a tall guy with minimal experience, Tyler knew the doctor needed a big, gentle horse. “Tex is a sweetheart,” Tyler explained, rubbing the reddish face. “Think of him as an overgrown puppy.”

Heidi showed up at the barn door, all scrubbed and smiling. “Rose wants to see you,” she said.

Tyler touched his chest. “Me? Where is she?”

“Up at the house.”

“What’s she doing up there?” It was her job to get the chuck wagon rolling way before the rest of them hit the trail.

“I didn’t ask,” Heidi said. “She just told me to come get you before I laid out the breakfast buffet, so I did.”

Tyler turned to the doctor. “Before you go inside and tuck into pancakes and bacon, do us all a favor and ride around in the ring for a few minutes to make sure you and Tex get along okay.”

“Sure,” Dr. Marquis said, casting the horse a suspicious glance. “I’m not much of a heavy eater anyway.”

Tyler gave additional instructions to one of his men, then left for the house, his gaze straying only once to cabin eight.

Was Julie gone yet? Lenny had driven off bright and early; presumably, she’d left with him.

Rapping on the door of his mother’s ground-floor suite, he let himself in and found her seated at the small kitchen table, still dressed in her robe, nursing a cup with a tea bag on the saucer.

“What’s up?” he asked, looking around for some explanation as to why she wasn’t at work.

She folded and unfolded her hands. “We may have to send everyone home,” she said.

“What!”

“We’ll have to refund their money and pay any travel fees they acquire,” she added. “And we’ll have to cancel the drive.”

Tyler stared at his mother as though he was looking at a stranger. “We can’t afford to do that,” he said. “Anyway, the cattle need the high meadows for summer feed. What are you talking about?”

“You and the boys can drive the herd to pasture by yourselves and it won’t take half the time it does with guests.”

He whipped off his hat. “What’s going on?” He narrowed his eyes and looked closely at her, alarmed by what he saw. Not only wasn’t she dressed for work, but she didn’t look so good, her skin almost as pale as her ivory robe. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Are you sick?”

She glanced into his eyes and away, then nodded.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What are your symptoms?”

“Don’t you grill me, young man. I’m not dying, I’m just a little under the weather and worn-out.”

“At the beginning of the season?”

“The beginning of the tourist season, maybe, but we had a hard winter and the calving was tough this year—on me, I mean.”

“If you’ve been feeling sickly, then why in the world did we let Mac leave when he did?”

“His daughter’s baby came early and her husband is off fighting a war. What else could we do? I just thought I could handle things, but it’s become clear to me that I can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“Since when are you getting old?”

“Since the birthdays keep piling up.”

Tyler’s antenna went up again. If he didn’t know better, he’d say his mother was dissembling, which was so unusual it stuck out. Rose Hunt told things as she saw them. There wasn’t a beat-around-the-bush bone in her body.

And yet hadn’t he noticed yesterday that she was moving a little slowly and hadn’t she been untypically short-tempered the night before? This was the woman who once did a drive with a broken foot, who never quit anything, ever. If she was backing out of an obligation now knowing what it would mean to the ranch—the loss of income and reputation—then she had to be suffering. Since his father’s death, Rose had been like the Rock of Gibraltar, allowing Tyler to manage the ranch as she more or less took care of their guests and the necessary staff at the lodge. She’d danced at his wedding and cried when Julie left.

If she said she was tired and feeling her age, then at the very least, she was just those things. More likely she was underplaying things rather than exaggerating them. Drat.

Perhaps he’d been leaning on her too much, asking her to be too stoic. Perhaps without knowing it he’d pushed her past her limits. “I don’t know how we’ll manage to pay everyone back, but your welfare comes first. We’ll think of something.”

“There is another option,” she said.

“What kind of option?”

“Get a fill-in for me.”

“Who? I can’t think of anyone we can get on such short notice. I mean, we’d need someone who could manage the team and wagon as well as rustle up the kind of grub you’re famous for.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “Andy can drive the wagon. He was going to help me at the camp anyway, so he’s a logical choice.”

“Andy can make a decent cup of coffee if you don’t care about stomach ulcers, but he can’t cook.”

“So we get someone else for that job.”

Tyler thought through their current roster and tried to think of anyone, man or woman, with the skills to handle the specific requirements of cooking over open fireboxes and all the rest. He’d been trying to introduce some conveniences for food prep, things like gas burners and refrigeration, but Rose had steadfastly refused to modernize all the way.

“Someone like Julie,” she added.

“Julie?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait just a minute—”

“Let me remind you that she rode out with us for several years. She knows how to cook and manage a fire. I packed all the food yesterday and the menu is in the kitchen by the phone. Everything is ready to go.”

“Julie won’t do it,” Tyler said. “Why should she? She didn’t like helping out when she had a vested interest in the place, so why would she consent to dirty her hands now? Anyway, I think she left with Lenny—”

“No, she’s still here. I spoke with her already,” Rose said. “She agreed to take my place as a favor to me.”

He leaned against the doorjamb and stared at her. The feeling he was with a stranger returned full force. How could he handle seeing Julie again after what had happened the night before? “Is this all a put-on?” he asked. “Are you really sick?”

“Of course it’s not a put-on. I’m just reminding you that at this late date we have two options. One, we cancel and refund. Two, Julie goes and does her best.”

“So, it’s a done deal. I have no choice.”

Rose said nothing.

He knew they couldn’t afford a loss of this magnitude. He rubbed his forehead and glanced out the window where he saw John Smyth ride by. As Tyler watched, Smyth tossed a lasso and roped a post. He got off his horse and walked up to release the rope, remounted and rode off toward the barn as though he’d been doing it his whole life.

“I bet
he
could help,” Tyler mused aloud, nodding at John’s retreating figure. If Andy was driving the chuck wagon, they’d be a little shorthanded on horseback. “That guy seems capable of doing anything.”

“No,” Rose said emphatically.

He raised his eyebrows in query, surprised at her tone of voice.

“I don’t like him,” she added.

“I kind of got that feeling. He seems like a nice-enough guy. What’s your problem?”

“There’s something about him that puts me off. I think he’s trouble. You shouldn’t have much to do with him.”

“I’ve never heard you talk like that before,” Tyler said. His sense of unreality was growing greater by the minute. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Can’t a person just not like another person?”

“Not when one of them is a guest of the other, paying good money for a good time,” he said. “I believe I’ve actually heard you say as much to some of the wranglers.”

She shook her head. “I’m just off-kilter right now. Let me be. What happens on the trail is your concern, not mine. Go on now, get going.”

He stood and for a second wondered if it was wise to leave her to deal with this alone. Really, though, what choice did he have? The cows needed the pasture, the ranch needed the income from the guests and the guests needed him to hold things together. And there were half a dozen reliable people around the place to help her if it came to that.

“We’ll miss you,” Tyler said, tugging on his hat.

“You’ll all be fine. Have a little faith in your wife.”

His wife.
That was a joke.

“See you in a week,” he said.

* * *

A
FEW YEARS BACK
, one of the wranglers had asked if he could spend the winter rebuilding the chuck wagon. As the thing was very old and had a myriad of problems, Tyler had given the man the okay. Turned out the guy was a real craftsman and had taken the job to heart, ordering replacement pieces and adding on all the bells and whistles he could think of.

The result was beautiful and never failed to seduce guests with its charm. The natural wood pieces were shiny with varnish, while the trim had been painted a weathered-looking green. Large red wheels handled the rocky terrain with ease. The built-up back housed a dozen wooden cubbyholes and cabinets intended to hold supplies, while a table that folded down from them formed a work space. A big box below called a boot was devoted to storing cooking gear. The inside bed was empty to accommodate bedrolls, personal items and emergency supplies. The canvas awning stretched atop the bows that formed the overhead superstructure were covered with linseed oil to keep the contents dry and clean. Oak barrels for water and wooden kegs for sugar and flour were strapped along the sides.