Montana Dreams

“Welcome to life in Prospect, Montana,” she quipped. “Where everything is small.”

“This is the main street?” Simon scratched his head, looking around with a wrinkled nose and a slight look of dismay. He’d been asleep on the drive from the Bozeman airport. Milton had met their plane, a tiny prop that lurched and swayed with every gust of wind. She dreaded getting back up in the air for her return trip.

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s the quality and not the quantity that counts,” she said of the town.

“What does that mean? More is better, Mom. You know it is.”

“I was talking about the people. That’s what makes the difference anywhere.” She swung into a lot, yanking hard on the wheel. Boy, did she miss power steering. It was all she could do to grapple the big truck into a parking space. At least she hoped she’d managed to fit between the lines. Who knew? She was afraid to pop open her door and take a look. Good thing there was plenty of room in the nearly empty lot. The engine shuttered to a stop, she tossed the keys into her purse and unbuckled.

A hot, dry wind puffed over her as she led the way into the store. The grocery hadn’t changed much. It was still family owned, sporting fading posters in the front wall of windows, and the automatic doors gave a long pause before they wheezed arthritically open.

Just get in and get out, she thought as Simon tromped alongside her. If she hurried, then maybe no one would have time to recognize her and see what had become of her.

“I’ll grab a cart!” Simon leaped forward to pick apart the wire carts and took charge of one, steering it by its red handlebar. He stopped dead in his tracks when he looked around. “This is it?”

“I’m afraid so.” They were used to a large chain store in Portland bursting with selection. This little place had ten aisles—short aisles—and hadn’t been remodeled since she’d left town. The fifties decorating scheme added charm, but it didn’t come close to impressing her son. She smiled and rubbed his shoulder encouragingly. “Maybe their pizza selection isn’t too bad. See the refrigerated cases along the back wall? Why don’t we go check ’em out?”

“Okay.” Leading the way like an intrepid explorer who just discovered the terrain was much more perilous than expected, Simon shoved the cart ahead of him.

“Millie? Millie Wilson? Is that you, dear?” An elderly voice quivered with excitement.

Millie skidded to a stop. Up ahead of her, Simon did, too. He turned around with curiosity bright in his dark blue eyes. So much for getting in and out of here without running into someone she knew. “Mrs. Hoffsteader, how are you?”

“Fine, just fine. I can’t believe my eyes. Little Millie, all grown up. I almost didn’t recognize you.” The white-haired lady tapped up with her loaded cart, her cane hanging on the handlebar. Her smile turned serious. “I suppose you’re back in town to help with your father.”

“Yes.” She nodded at Simon, letting him know to go ahead without her. Not only was the pizza case in plain view, but she was a little afraid of Myra Hoffsteader’s sharp gaze. What if someone recognized Simon’s dimples and dark blue eyes a shade lighter than his father’s?

“Whip has his faults and he’s the hardest man I’ve ever met, but I hate to think of anyone ill.” Compassion wreathed the woman’s lovely face. “It has to be hard for you, too.”

“I’ll be fine. Wherever I am, I’m not alone.”

“No, God is watching over us all, and that’s the truth.” Myra’s gaze narrowed, perhaps eager to bring up a certain subject. “He’s still in town, you know.”

“H-Hunter?” She gulped for air, nearly choking over the name she hadn’t spoken aloud in so long that it felt foreign on her tongue. The one name she’d once loved most of all.

“In fact, there he is, walking this way.” She nodded her silver head in the direction of the front windows where a tall, wide-shouldered man stalked across the parking lot, his Stetson brim tipped to hide the sun. All she could see of his face was the firm, unyielding line of his mouth and the square manly cut of his jaw.

Hunter. Her heart rolled slowly in her chest, flipping upside down. Hunter, here, after all this time. And so close. She stumbled a few steps back. Her first instinct was to run. She cast her gaze down the aisle where Simon stood in front of the glass doors, fist to his chin in thought.

There was no reason why Hunter would suspect, she told herself. But those words didn’t comfort her. “Mrs. Hoffsteader, it’s been good seeing you, but honestly, I don’t want to be standing here when Hunter walks through that door.”

“I understand, dear. He broke your heart.” Sympathy softened her voice. “I suppose you’ve got a lot on your plate tending your father. That’s enough adversity for a girl to deal with. You go on now.”

“It was good running into you.” Millie backed down the aisle, taking refuge between the tall shelves of cooking oils on one side and spices on the other. “I’ll see you Sunday?”

“Absolutely. I’ll keep an eye out. We’re having a church picnic. Rumor has it that you are a Christian now. Be sure to come.”

“I’ll try.” She glanced toward the door—it whooshed open, meaning Hunter was almost in sight, so she took off. No way would he recognize the back of her as she skedaddled down the aisle.

“They had pepperoni.” Simon smiled, dimples flashing, holding up the box. “It’s the large size, but that’s okay. The coupon covers it.”

“Good boy.” She glanced at the price tacked inside the case, but it was hard to concentrate with her heart drumming a thousand beats a second.

“I found a coupon in there for cookie dough.” Simon’s gaze slid sideways to the rolls of premade tubes sitting in bright yellow packages. “It’s okay if we can’t afford it, but they just look good.”

“Yes, they do.” Impulsively she yanked open the door and snagged a roll of chocolate chip, Simon’s favorite. She heard a man’s boots thud nearby, a gait she’d know anytime and anywhere, it was sewn into the fabric of her being.

Hunter. His step hesitated directly behind her. Her blood pressure rocketed into the red zone. He tugged at her like a black hole’s gravitational field—a force she had to resist. Her palms went slick. She slowly set the dough tube in the cart. Maybe if she didn’t make any sudden movements, he wouldn’t look her way. Let him go on with his shopping without noticing her. That way she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye and feel her heart break all over again.

“Mom?” Simon grasped the bar and gave the cart a shove. “What’s next?”

“Uh—” She stared at Hunter’s reflection in the glass refrigerator case. He was tall enough to steal a woman’s breath, well-built in a country sort of way—those were solid muscles beneath his T-shirt. His dark hair, still thick, tumbled over his forehead. Her fingers remembered the silken feel of those locks. If he wasn’t wearing that Stetson, his hair would stick up just a hint at the crown, where a cowlick whirled.

She swallowed hard, feeling a bump against her elbow. Simon. She saw her reflection, too. Not the youthful girl she’d been when Hunter had loved her, when the most handsome man in the county had chosen her as his girlfriend. Time and hardship had worn their way onto her face. Faint creases marked the corners of her eyes, the plane of her forehead and bracketed her mouth. No, she was so not the girl she’d been.

That wasn’t the reason she didn’t answer her son right away. What if the sound of her voice drew Hunter’s attention? She pointed to the dairy case. Simon turned the cart with a rattle and headed toward the egg cartons lined up in the next case over.

There was a thump behind her as something landed in Hunter’s cart. Wheels squeaked and boots knelled on the tile. Thank the heavens above, he walked away in the opposite direction. Thank You, Lord.

Relief blasted through her. She risked a glance over her shoulder just as he turned down the next aisle, his attention on his shopping. Iron jaw, granite features, he’d become a man who looked harder than she’d remembered—the father of her son.

Chapter Two

Guilt wrapped around her as she faced the little boy checking the prices on the various egg cartons.

“This is the best price.” Simon slipped it into the basket. “I got a carton of milk, too. The generic stuff. We don’t have coupons for either of ’em.”

“That’s okay. We need bread and peanut butter next.” And ice cream, she remembered through the rattled terrain her brain had become.

Hunter. She wanted to get a better look at him and see how deep that rock-hardness went. He’d been tough but tender in their teen years, but it looked as though time had hardened him more.

Maybe he was too harsh for anyone to reach. She didn’t have to wonder if he’d married—he’d been very clear on his opinion of matrimony. Nothing but a ball and chain for a man and misery for a woman, he’d told her. There’s not one thing on earth that would ever make me do something that stupid.

Sure, he’d been twenty-two at the time and embittered by his father’s betrayals. She hadn’t seen, until too late, how she’d been attracted to a man similar to her father—too remote and unfeeling to ever soften, a man who became more unreachable as the years went by.

Her heart broke a little walking away.

“Mom.” Simon held up a loaf of bread. “Score.”

“Good job.” She grabbed a pint of ice cream, not bothering to check her coupons.

“Mom?” Simon clunked a jar of peanut butter into the cart. “What else?”

“Crackers.” She plucked several cans of her dad’s favorite soup off the display.

“Roger, captain!” Simon made a jet-engine sound as he spun the cart around and headed off for the saltines at the end of the aisle.

Her mission had changed—to get everything they needed and get out of the store before Hunter recognized her.