Big Sky Dynasty

He turned his thoughts from Nicci, to the apparent owner of the yarn shop. The young woman was the classic girl next door with her short curly chestnut brown hair, big brown eyes and glowing skin. The kind of woman who would protect another.

He recalled the determination he’d seen in her gaze and cringed remembering how he’d called her a liar. But she had helped the blonde disappear. He wasn’t sure how, just that she had. Understanding why didn’t help given who they were dealing with.

Tomorrow he’d go back to the shop and apologize. Maybe he’d take her some flowers. Anything to get her to tell him where Nicci had gone.

With a start, Dalton came out of his thoughts to silence. As quickly as the hailstorm had begun, it was over, having moved on. He sat for a moment, listening to water drip from what was left of the tree’s leaves onto the truck roof before he pulled out and headed for the ranch, knowing what he had to do. It was something he’d put off far too long.

Dalton hated asking. Grayson Corbett had raised five overly independent sons. All of them would rather chew nails than admit they needed help.

As hard as it was going to be, he dialed his brother’s cell phone number and said without preamble when Lantry answered, “I need a lawyer. I’m in trouble. Serious trouble and I need your help.”

AGNES PALMER hurried home after her knitting class, praying she could beat the storm. The weather service had updated the forecast and was now calling for hail.

Agnes’s pride and joy was her tomato garden. She was known all around the county for growing the biggest, beefiest and most beautiful tomatoes anyone had ever seen and had been for years.

This year she’d outdone herself. Her tomatoes would win blue ribbons at the fair and have people talking for years, although that wasn’t why she did it. She raised tomatoes because her husband, Norbert, God rest his soul, had loved tomatoes. It was her way of never forgetting the man she had married and loved for more than fifty years.

As she drove up in her yard, she saw the thunderhead at the edge of her field. Ignoring the weatherman’s advice to stay inside and away from windows, she hurried to the back porch for her plastic tubs and hightailed it out to her garden.

She could hear the thunder rumbling. Flashes of lightning lit the darkening sky. The air smelled of rain, which would be bad enough, but hail would destroy her tomato crop and Agnes wasn’t going to let that happen even if it killed her.

Clouds obscured the light, pitching the day into a premature darkness as she began to pick. She’d filled half a tub when a bolt of lightning lit the darkness in a blinding flash of light. Agnes glanced up at the angry sky and considered the danger.

But she still had too many tomatoes to pick. She wasn’t leaving them to this storm. More determined than ever, she began to pick more rapidly, filling one tub after another and dragging them over to the oak tree her grandmother had planted so many years ago.

Her roots ran deep in this part of Montana and she took a certain pride in that just as she did in her tomatoes.

As she scurried back to the garden to save the rest of her precious tomatoes, the first drops of rain slashed down from the dark heavens. Large, heavy and icy, the raindrops hurt as they struck her thin back and shoulders.

She bent her head against them and thought of something pleasurable—her knitting classes. While she enjoyed knitting, it was Georgia Michaels who made the classes so enjoyable. Never having had any children of her own, Agnes thought of the loving, caring woman the way she might have a daughter or granddaughter.

Not that she didn’t find something to like in everyone. She’d gotten that from her mother, who always said, “People are like gardens. While they need sunshine, water and a healthy dose of prayer, grace grows good gardens and people. Mind you remember that.”

Agnes had remembered.

The rain soaked her to the skin, beating her slim back and running in rivulets off the brim of her garden bonnet.

She glanced at her watch. Only a few more tomatoes to go. A bolt of lightning lit the garden in a blaze of white light. The thunderous boom was deafening and directly overhead.

Agnes reached for one perfect, large tomato, perhaps the one that would take the blue ribbon this year. She never saw the lightning bolt that hit her.

GEORGIA PICKED UP her keys for the apartment from where she’d thrown them on the counter earlier before her class and opened the door to the second floor.

Leading the way, she climbed the stairs to the landing and unlocked the one-bedroom apartment door across the hall from her own. Stepping back, she let her prospective renter enter.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” the blonde exclaimed. “Did you decorate it yourself? Of course you did. I saw how you decorated the shop downstairs. You have a real talent for it.”

The woman moved through the small apartment admiring the things Georgia had done, making her flush with embarrassment and pleasure. She’d hoped to rent the apartment to someone who appreciated what she’d done to make it more comfortable and homey.

Georgia watched the woman step to the front window that looked out over the main street. Directly across the street was a small city park and past that the old train depot next to the tracks. The depot wasn’t open, but you could still catch a passenger train from here that would take you to Seattle or Chicago and all points in between.

The woman stared out at the street for a long moment as if looking for the cowboy, but when she turned back to Georgia, her face was glowing. “It’s perfect.”

“I’m so glad you like it.”

“I love it,” she said excitedly. “You’re sure you won’t mind renting it to me? But you don’t even know me.” She took a step toward Georgia and, smiling, extended her hand. “Forgive me, I should have introduced myself before. I’m Nicci. Nicci Corbett.”

“Georgia Michaels,” she said, taking the woman’s hand, her eyes widening as she recognized the name. “Corbett?”

AGNES PALMER came to lying in the soft dirt, soaked to the skin and staring up at the rain. She blinked and sat up, relieved to see that when she’d fallen, it had been between her tomato rows and she hadn’t hurt either her plants or her tomatoes.

“How odd,” she said as she saw the overturned tub of tomatoes and saw where her body had left an imprint in the freshly turned earth. What had happened?

She glanced at her watch, shocked to see that she couldn’t account for the last twenty-two minutes.

“Strange indeed,” she said as she bent to pick the largest of the tomatoes and felt a little dizzy. Holding the tomato she stared at it, seeing it more clearly than she felt she’d ever seen anything in her life.

Hail began to pelt the cabbage patch, tearing through the leaves before bouncing along the ground toward her.

Agnes quickly righted her tub of tomatoes and lifting it into her arms, skedaddled over to the old oak. She wormed her way back in against the trunk, pulling her tubs of tomatoes with her and sat down, suddenly tired but content.

Smiling to herself, she reached into one of the tubs, took out a fat, juicy tomato and took a bite as she watched hail as big as gumballs ravage her garden.

It wasn’t until later, when the storm passed and she went inside with her tubs of tomatoes that she caught sight of herself in the hall mirror.

Her salt-and-pepper short brown hair was completely white—and curly. She’d stood staring, stunned, then she’d smiled at herself in the mirror. She’d always wanted curly hair.

GEORGIA COULDN’T HIDE her surprise as she shook Nicci’s hand. Everyone in town had heard about the five Corbett brothers. In fact, two of Georgia’s friends had fallen for Corbetts.

“That man who was chasing me was Dalton Corbett,” Nicci said. “He’s my husband. Soon to be ex-husband if I have anything to do with it.”

Instantly Georgia regretted offering the apartment. The last thing she wanted to do was get involved in a squabble between a husband and wife in the middle of a less than amicable divorce. From the look on Dalton Corbett’s face earlier…

Nicci must have seen her doubts. “I love the apartment and appreciate the offer, but I can’t chance that Dalton will come back here under the circumstances and upset you.”

Georgia nodded, relieved, but also feeling a little guilty. “But I thought you said you couldn’t go to a motel?”

“Please, don’t worry about me,” Nicci said. “You’ve already done so much. I never expected to see a friendly face in Whitehorse, not with my husband’s family living here. I wasn’t joking when I said you’d saved my life. I wasn’t looking forward to spending possibly months here waiting for the divorce to go through without even a friend.” She glanced away from Georgia to look wistfully at the apartment.

“I think you should stay here,” Georgia said impulsively.

“Are you sure? I promise I won’t let him know where I’m staying,” Nicci said hastily. “There won’t be any trouble.”

“I’m not worried.” Crazy, yes. Worried, well, maybe that, too. But Georgia felt as if she was doing the right thing. The woman needed help. How could she turn her out onto the street?

“Dalton is harmless. Unless you’re married to him.” She’d looked sad for a moment, but quickly altered her expression to one of delight as she looked around the apartment again. “You won’t be sorry you befriended me.”

Georgia laughed. “Please, I haven’t done anything.”