of milk, steaks. A grin tugged his mouth. “Steaks, huh? Good choice.”
She snapped around. “Ash.”
“Rachel.” He reached for the separation bar, set his own filets behind hers on the counter. He couldn’t think of another word to say, not with her eyes glued to his face.
Charlie stared up at him behind round-rimmed glasses. Kid had her nose. Small and straight and slightly freckled. Why hadn’t he noticed before?
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Hey.” The boy moved timidly behind his mother; she set a protective arm around his shoulders.
Had Susie given Daisy the same sense of support at that age? He couldn’t recall. Susie had been guiding guest riders up ridges and across ranch woodlands when Daisy was seven.
Rachel looked at his purchases. “I thought ranchers ate their own beef.”
“Where do you think stores get their beef, if not from ranchers?” he teased, setting his empty basket on the rack.
A smile lifted the corners of her lips. If he bent his head, he figured his mouth would fit there just fine.
Hold on. Where had that come from?
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said, suddenly spellbound by the cashier’s scanner.
He dug out his wallet. “You don’t expect me to eat?”
“That’s not what I meant. I thought maybe you’d be—”
She looked so flustered, he couldn’t help chide, “Where? Home on the range? Down on the south forty?”
Suddenly, he liked teasing her, liked the sound of her little gust of laughter. Liked a lot of things about her. Things he hadn’t thought of in years. Things he hadn’t experienced in years. She made him feel. He wasn’t sure if he liked that.
“You should laugh more often,” he remarked suddenly. “Does something to your eyes. Makes them bluer.”
This time she flushed pink. “Are you flirting, Ash McKee?”
His teasing died. “No,” he said curtly, thinking of the last woman he’d joshed around with—Susie, the night before she died.
“Don’t worry,” Rachel said, but the sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “I’m not interested, anyway.” Pulling money from her purse, she guided Charlie forward, then paid the cashier. “Bye.” She flung the word over her shoulder and left the store carrying two bags.
Ash watched through the store’s wide windows as she walked Charlie through the dark parking lot, then climbed into her car.
He wanted to hurry after them, tell her he had been flirting, that he liked the way her laugh lit her eyes and, oh yeah, he was glad she’d be living ninety feet from his house.
Grabbing up his meat package, he strode through the electronic doors. Hell. Next he’d be admitting he fancied Rachel Brant, reporter for the Rocky Times, as a potential date.
She wasn’t interested in flirting, dammit. Not in the least. And certainly not with Ash McKee with his frost-lined attitude.
She understood his abrupt mood change, understood it as if he’d lectured an hour. Flirting meant he thought of her as a woman. He did not want to think of her as a woman. He did not want her living in his dead wife’s dollhouse. Well, tough. He’d made his decision and she was moving in.
Snow fell again. Confetti flakes that came out of a nowhere night and zeroed in on the headlights and windshield in long, gossamer needles.
She drove with care and caution on the road out of town. One slip and they could wind up in a ditch, miles from help, impotent against the cold. With a U-Haul trailer on top of us.
Tonight, the radio forecasted temperatures dipping to twenty below with the windchill. February, galloping like the great lion, Aslan of Narnia, through winter. On the ranch those mothers with little calves would hunt for protection inside the barns.
Or will you herd them inside, Ash?
Unlikely. His animals no doubt were descendants of the Texas longhorns Nelson Story and his cowboys had driven to Montana in 1866. Cattle that died by the thousands in blizzards twenty years later, but evolved over the past hundred and forty years into sturdy range creatures with hardy hides and thick coats, barriers against freezing winds and drifting snow. Historic details she picked up from the old-timer talk at the coffee shop and in the archives of the Rocky Times.
Nonetheless, Rachel shivered for those tiny newborn calves, and looked in the rearview mirror to check her own offspring. “Okay back there, champ?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to sing a song?” He loved singing in the car.
“No.”
“Something happen today, Charlie?” His mood had been off-and-on from the moment she’d picked him up from school.
“Nuh-uh.”
“You’d tell me, right?”
“Maybe.”
Uh-oh. Something had happened. Though Rachel understood her son was a quiet student, Mrs. Tabbs may have had a bad-hair day. Or gotten frustrated with the novel reading and daydreaming.
“Have a fight with Tyler?”
“No. Tyler’s nice. He’s my bestest friend.”
“What happened then, baby?”
“I want to live here forever. I don’t wanna leave anymore.”
“Oh, Charlie, you know that’s impossible.”
“Why? Why do we have to move all the time?”
“Honey, I’ve explained it lots of times. The old soldiers live in different states and it takes a while to build up their trust for the story. Besides, we like living in different areas,” she added cheerfully. “Right?”
“But I want to stay in one house forever.” In the mirror his eyes were hard blue jewels.
One house forever. She had grown up in one house forever and it hadn’t been happy. With Charlie, happiness had come naturally—from the moment she knew of his existence, Rachel had loved her child. “Next house,” she promised him. “Richmond will be the one forever.” If she had to flip burgers for extra money, she’d get him that home, that school, those friends, the dog, a tree house.
“Okay,” came his little voice.
“I love you, champ.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” He drove the Hot Wheels car over the window glass where it left toothpick tracks in its wake.
Through the dark, she saw the ranch house ablaze with light. The collies, black shapes in the night and yellow eyes in headlights, crept around the car as she cut the
