style="font-size:15px;"> “Fiona Barkley,” she’d said, extending her hand.
Her hand had been cool and dry, her grip strong. “Chase Steele.”
She’d chuckled, her green eyes sparking with humor. “For real? A cowboy named Chase Steele?”
“My father was an extra in a bunch of Western movies,” he lied since he had no idea who his father had been.
She cocked a brow at him. “Really?”
He shook his head. “I grew up on a ranch in Montana.” He shrugged. “Cowboying is in my blood.”
Fiona had taken his almost empty beer can from him and handed him her untouched drink. “Try that. I can tell that you need it.” The drink had been strong and buzzed through his bloodstream.
Normally she wasn’t the type of woman he gravitated toward. But she was so different from Mary, and it had been so long since he’d even thought about another woman. The party atmosphere, the urn behind his pickup seat and the drinks Fiona kept plying him with added to his what-the-hell attitude that night.
“How long have you two been dating?” Rick asked now in the cool dark of the bar.
“We never dated. I told her that first night that I was in love with someone else. But I made the mistake of sleeping with her. Sleeping with anyone given the way I feel about the woman back home was a mistake.”
“So you told Fiona there was another woman.” His boss groaned. “That explains a lot. Fiona now sees it as a competition between her and the other woman. She won’t give up. She hates losing. It’s what makes her such a great Realtor.”
“Well, it’s all moot now since I’m leaving for Montana.”
Rick didn’t look convinced that it would be that easy. “Does she know?”
He nodded.
“Well, hopefully you’ll get out of town without any trouble.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Sorry, but according to Patty, when Fiona feels the man pulling away... Well, it makes her a little...crazy.”
Chase shook his head. “This just keeps getting better and better.” He picked up his beer, drained it and got to his feet. “I’m going home to pack. The sooner I get out of town the better.”
“I wish I could talk you out of leaving,” Rick said. “You’re one of the best finish carpenters I’ve had in a long time. I hope you’re not leaving because of Fiona. Seriously, she’ll latch on to someone else. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just Fiona being Fiona. Unless you’re going back to this woman you’re in love with?”
He laughed. “If only it were that easy. She’s the one who broke it off with me.” He liked Rick. But the man hadn’t warned him about Fiona, and if Rick mentioned to Patty who mentioned to Fiona... He knew he was being overly cautious. Fiona wouldn’t follow him all the way to Montana. She had a job, a condo, a life here. But still, he found himself saying, “Not sure what I’m doing. Might stop off in Colorado for a while.”
“Well, good luck. And again, sorry about Fiona.”
As he left the bar, he thought about Mary and the letter he’d hidden in his sock drawer with her phone number. He’d thought about calling her to let her know he was headed home. He was also curious about the package she’d said a friend of his mother had left for him.
Since getting the letter, he’d thought about calling dozens of times. But what he had to say, he couldn’t in a phone call. He had to see Mary. Now that he was leaving, he couldn’t wait to hit the road.
* * *
MARY CARDWELL SAVAGE reined in her horse to look out at the canyon below her. The Gallatin River wound through rugged cliffs and stands of pines, the water running clear over the colored rocks as pale green aspen leaves winked from the shore. Beyond the river and the trees, she could make out the resort town that had sprouted up across the canyon. She breathed in the cool air rich with the scent of pine and the crisp cool air rising off the water.
Big Sky, Montana, had changed so much in her lifetime and even more in her mother’s. Dana Cardwell Savage had seen the real changes after the ski resort had been built at the foot of Lone Peak. Big Sky had gone from a ranching community to a resort area, and finally to a town with a whole lot of housing developments and businesses rising to the community’s growing needs.
The growth had meant more work for her father, Marshal Hud Savage. He’d been threatening to retire since he said he no longer recognized the canyon community anymore. More deputies had to be hired each year because the area was experiencing more crime.
Just the thought of the newest deputy who’d been hired made her smile a little. Dillon Ramsey was the kind of man a woman noticed—even one who had given her heart away when she was fifteen and had never gotten it back.
Dillon, with his dark wavy hair and midnight black eyes, had asked her out, and she’d said she’d think about it. If her best friend Kara had been around, she would have thought Mary had lost her mind. Anyone who saw Dillon knew two things about him. He was a hunk, and he was dangerous to the local female population.
Since telling him she’d think about it, she had been mentally kicking herself. Had she really been sitting around waiting to hear from Chase? What was wrong with her? It had been weeks. When she’d broken it off and sent him packing, she hadn’t been sitting around moping over him. Not really. She’d been busy starting a career, making a life for herself. So what had made her write that stupid letter?
Wasn’t it obvious that if he’d gotten her letter, he should have called by now? Since the letter hadn’t come back, she had to assume that it had arrived just fine. The fact that he hadn’t called or written her back meant that he wasn’t interested. He also must not be interested in the package his mother’s friend had left for him either. It was high time to forget about that cowboy, and why not do it with Dillon Ramsey?
Because she couldn’t quit thinking about Chase and hadn’t been able to since she’d first laid eyes on him when they were both fifteen. They’d been inseparable all through high school and college. Four years ago he’d told her he was going to have to leave. They’d both been twenty-four, too young to settle down, according to her father and Chase had agreed. He needed to go find himself since not knowing who his father was still haunted him.
It had broken her heart when he’d left her—and Montana. She’d dated little after he left town. Mostly because she’d found herself comparing the men she had dated to Chase. At least with Dillon, she sensed a wild, dangerousness in him that appealed to her right now.
Her father hadn’t liked hearing that Dillon had asked her out. “I wish you’d reconsider,” he’d said when she’d stopped by Cardwell Ranch where she’d grown up. She’d bought her own place in Meadow Village closer to the center of town, and made the first floor into her office. On the third floor was her apartment where she lived. The second floor had been made into one-bedroom apartments that she rented.
But she still spent a lot of time on the ranch because that’s where her heart was—her family, her horses and her love for the land. She hadn’t even gone far away to college—just forty miles to Montana State University in Bozeman. She
