"I'll be close by," he said, letting go of her hand and pointing.
"Because we're neighbors."

She stared.

The house on the hill was his.

The house that was so incredibly beautiful. She'd spent more than one
night watching the wooden and stone lines of it sleep in the moonlight
when she hadn't been able to find any such rest.

"You lived behind my father." j

"Yes."

She didn't know what to do with her hands. One was still tingling. The
other felt cold.

She forced them to remain at her sides, fighting the burgeoning need to
ring them together. "Who built the house?"

"I did."

"You?"

"I'm capable, too," he drawled, his voice impossibly dry.

She ignored the small jab, not doubting his capabilities for a second.
The man undoubtedly exceeded "capable" on every front.

2 Dear Reader,

Well, we're getting into the holiday season full tilt, and what better
way to begin the celebrations than with some heartwarming reading? Let's
get started with Gina Wilkins's The Borrowed Ring, next up in her FAMILY
FOUND series. A woman trying to track down her family's most mysterious
and intriguing foster son finds him and a whole lot more?such as a job
posing as his wife! A Montana Homecoming, by popular author Allison
Leigh, brings home a woman who's spent her life running from her own
secrets. But they're about to be revealed, courtesy of her childhood
crush, now the local sheriff.

This month, our class reunion series, MOST LIKELY TO..., brings us Jen
Safrey's Secrets of a Good Girl, in which we learn that the girl most
likely to.. .do everything disappeared right after college. Perhaps her
secret crush, a former professor, can have some luck tracking her down
overseas? We're delighted to have bestselling Blaze author Kristin Hardy
visit Special Edition in the first of her HOLIDAY HEARTS books. Where
There's Smoke introduces us to the first of the devastating Trask
brothers. The featured brother this month is a handsome firefighter in
Boston. And speaking of delighted?we are absolutely thrilled to welcome
RITA® Award nominee and Red Dress Ink and Intimate Moments star Karen
Templeton to Special Edition. Although this is her first Special Edition
contribution, it feels as if she's coming home. Especially with
Marriage, Interrupted, in which a pregnant widow meets up once again
with the man who got away?her first husband?at her second husband's
funeral. We know you're going to enjoy this amazing story as much as we
did. And we are so happy to welcome brand-new Golden Heart winner Gail
Barrett to Special Edition. Where He Belongs, the story of the bad boy
who's come back to town to the girl he's never been able to forget, is
Gail's first published book.

So enjoy?and remember, next month we continue our celebration....

Gail Chasan Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O.
Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

3

ALLISON LEIGH

SPECIAL EDITION'

Published by Silhouette Books America's Publisher of Contemporary Romance

4 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."

For my girls, Amanda and Anna Claire.

I'm so very proud of you both.

Love, Mom.

SILHOUETTE BOOKS

ISBN 0-373-24718-4

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Copyright © 2005 by Allison Lee Davidson

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or
utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any
electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission
of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY
10279 U.S.A.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of
the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same
name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual
known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license.
Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent
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Visit Silhouette Books at www.eHarlequin.com

Printed in U.S.A.

5 Books by Allison Leigh

Silhouette Special Edition

*Stay... # 1170Home on the Ranch # 1633

*T!ie Rancher and theThe Truth about the Tycoon #1651

Redhead #1212All He Ever Wanted #1664

*A Wedding for Maggie #1241 The Tycoon's Marriage Bid #1707 *A Child for
Christmas #1290 A Montana Homecoming #1718 Millionaire's Instant Baby
#1312 *Married to a Stranger #1336 Mother in a Moment #1367 Her
Unforgettable Fiance #1381 The Princess and the Duke #1465 Montana
Lawman #1497 Hard Choices #1561 Secretly Married #1591

*Men of the Double-C Ranch

ALLISON LEIGH

started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class
performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for
reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by
the day.

She has been a finalist in the RITA® Award and the Holt Medallion
contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she
receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried of lost a night of
sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different
cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a
cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently
begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an
administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently
makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her
readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

6 ©ecu. 9\am,

Goming, home, to- Łuciui, apeA, twelve, yeaAA, hain't been eoiu. 9'd
ptAooUen what it'i, USce, to- Hue- in a irnalt town. EveAuone, tvontl
to- know- i$ 9'm heAe, to- itau, 1$ 9'm going, to- tell Qaddu'i, home,,
% 9'H tale, a {ol at the, local befool. And then, theAe-'i, iPhane
Goliqhtlu. He'd, the, town iheAlfafc now-, and he, lixteA, neat dooA.
Ue-'i, fteollu been taofung, out pyA me,?even though AomeUmeA, 9 pel
USce, he-'i. juit being oveA^iAoteckve,, it'i, been nice, to- home, him
abound. 9 can't even ieem, to- get a good night'i, ileep- anymoAe,
iwle&i, he'i, neoAbu. 9 think 9 mLgMbe-pMnap^himaaain but 9'm bo-
opioid?opioid a$ getting, hu/it, opioid o$ huAting, (Urn,, but moAilu
juit opioid o\ picing, the, pait 9 teJp behind. 9 tviih you voeAe,
heAe,, 9>vam. 9 miM, you.

Łove,,

ŁauAel

7

What do you mean you're leaving?" Laurel sat up, clutching her cotton
dress to her chest. Her bare back felt itchy from straw that only a half
hour earlier had felt like the sweetest of mattresses. And there was a
horrible hole yawning open inside her.

Shane didn't look at her. He yanked his T-shirt over his head. His thick
hair looked more brown than blond in the dwindling light of the ancient
barn and was messy, as much from her fingers as from the shirt. "I have
classes." His deep voice was clipped.

"Starting tomorrow?" She couldn't hide her disbelief. She knew good and
well that Shane's graduate school classes weren't beginning for another
few weeks. She knew, because he'd told her so himself.

His gaze finally slanted toward her, and he crouched next to her, leaned
toward her?making her heart stop with

8 8A MONTANA HOMECOMING

hope that he really couldn 't be serious about leaving her, not like
this, not now, after they'd?

He plucked his sock from the straw beside her, and his hand brushed her
bare thigh as he pulled back, straightening. He didn't even bother to
sit on one of the hay bales. Simply balanced easily on one foot and drew
on the sock, then did the same for the other, then shoved his feet into
his scuffed athletic shoes.

Her eyes burned. "Did I do something wrong?"

He made a low sound. Shoved his hands through his hair. "Laurel?"

Laurel. Not songbird, which he'd been calling her for weeks now.

It had been her first time. But not his. "I didn't cry because it hurt,
Shane, I?"

"God, Laurel." He kicked the bales of hay so hard that suddenly the top
one tumbled off the stack and landed with a thud. A cloud of dust and
bits billowed out, making her wince and squint against the shower of debris.

He swore again, which made Laurel's eyes burn even more, because Shane
just didn't swear.

"I should never have touched you. I'm twenty-three. You're barely eighteen."

"But I am eighteen." Her voice was thick with tears, which wasn't at all
the way she wanted to sound. She scrambled to her feet, awkwardly
pulling her dress over her shoulders and fumbling with the buttons that
ran all the way down the front. But her fingers couldn't seem to match
up any of the buttons with the proper holes and she finally just
clutched it together at her waist. "And we love each other." Didn't they?

He looked pained, his gaze fastened on her white knuckles. He took a
step toward her. Then another.

9

She nearly stopped breathing.

He put his hands over hers and slowly unclenched her fingers from the
pale-yellow fabric.

Then he just stood there, staring down at the hands he held. Her dress,
soft from too many summers and too many washings, parted a little.

He swallowed. She saw it work down his strong, tanned throat. Then he
squeezed her hands just a little and released them. And reached for the
top of her dress.

Her knees?not particularly steady after what they'd just done,
anyway?felt like her mama's strawberry jam left out on a sunny counter.

His fingers were so long. A little bony, and a lot callused. He might be
a preacher's son, but he'd spent the summer working for old Hal Calhoun
right here on his farm.

"Shane." His name was barely a whisper on her tongue. She loved his
name. She loved him. He was tall and good and golden and so incredibly
gentle.

"I shouldn't have touched you," he said again. And as deliberately as
he'd unbuttoned each and every one of those tiny white buttons, he began
doing them up again. "I'm sorry, but it was a mistake. It's my fault. So
go ahead and hate me all you want."

By the time he reached the hem, just below her knees, the tears were
crawling openly down her cheeks. The bleeding from her heart, broken
wide, wasn't visible at all.

He rose.

She was glad that he didn't bother hunting around for her bra or
panties. She could see them from the corner of her eye, tossed
carelessly aside near her sandals.

"I'll drive you home."

She didn't want to go anywhere. She wanted to stay there in Calhoun's
barn with Shane. She wanted him to put

10

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

his arms around her again, to press his lips to hers, to breathe softly
against her ear and make her feel as if everything in life was good and
fine.

They'd barely had a summer together, but it had been the best summer of
her life.

"I'd rather walk," she said quietly.

"Laurel, I'm not leaving you here?"

"Yes, you are," she interrupted, feeling a curl of anger nip at the
yawning pain inside her. "That's exactly what you're doing."

He shoved his hands in his front pockets. She could see the shape of
them, fisted against the worn-white denim. "I never made it a secret
that I was going back to school." He looked away for a moment, and she
saw the muscle in his jaw flexing. "You're starting college classes
soon, too, dammit."

"Preachers shouldn't swear," she murmured.

He snorted and looked back at her, then pointedly looked at the bed of
straw, then her underwear. "I have no business becoming a preacher, either."

Despite her cracking heart, she reached out to him. "Don't say that,
Shane." He had plans. Wonderful, admirable plans. He wanted to be like
his father, to help people however best he could. On someone else, those
plans would just be dreams. But Shane would make it happen. He was just
that way.

His lips twisted. "Get the rest of your things. You can't walk home.
It's nearly dark." He ignored her outstretched hand and walked to the
barn door, sliding it open enough to walk out. A moment later she heard
the rumble of his old truck engine cranking to life.

Dashing her hands over her cheeks, she snatched up her panties and
yanked them on, balled up her bra into her pocket and shoved her feet
into her sandals.

11 11

She didn't look at him as she joined him in the cab of his truck. But
she had to close her eyes against a fresh rush of tears when he silently
reached over and pulled a long piece of straw from her hair.

Then he put the truck into gear and drove her home.

12

Wh o was inside the old Runyan house?

The car?dark blue and dimmed by a thick layer of dust?was still parked
in the cracked, uneven driveway when Shane drove past. It hadn't been
there when he'd gone to the station in the morning. But it had been
there when he'd driven out to his brother's place that afternoon. And it
was still there this evening on his way home for the day.

He could have kept on driving. Instead he pulled in to the rutted
driveway and parked behind the small blue sedan.

A light shone from the front picture window of the house. Old Roger
Runyan had been dead five days now, but the house he'd lived in for as
long as Shane could remember looked more welcoming in that moment than
it had in years.

Question was, who was inside the house, turning on lamps as if they
belonged there? Roger had no kin except Laurel, and she hadn't been in
Lucius for twelve years.

13 13

Twelve years. He sighed and climbed out of his SUV.

There were three steps leading up to the front door. Wooden and nearly
rotting through. It would be a merciful day when Shane finally got the
deed to this place and tore it down. Just the thought of it was almost
enough to put a smile on his face.

He planted his boot on the top of the porch and climbed up, bypassing
the steps altogether, and tilted back his hat a few inches to peer
through the metal-framed screen door as he rapped his knuckles on it.

He already knew from dealing with Roger's death that the furnishings
inside the house hadn't changed over the years. Considering the old man
had rid himself of his wife, Violet, twelve years ago, Shane had been
surprised Roger hadn't done a thing to eradicate her little touches from
his home. But they'd still been there. Fussy little glass lamps with
beads hanging from the fading shades, bowls of dusty plastic grapes and
apples, vases of unnaturally bright flowers that never needed a drop of
water.

Just another thing Shane would never understand about the man.

He figured the person inside the house was the real estate agent. Only,
he didn't recognize the car, and Shane knew all the cars around his town.

All part of the job.

He knocked again. "Hello?"

"Coming."

The voice was female.

Throaty.

Young.

He straightened and absorbed the shock of it.

He was pretty sure he recognized the voice, and it was definitely not
anyone from down at Lucius Realty.

14

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

The woman neared the door, her form blurred by rusting metal mesh. The
porch light flicked on. The door screeched as it began to swing open.
"I'm sorry. I was in the back and didn't hear..." The woman's voice
trailed off as Shane stepped away from the screen door enough for her to
open it.

She looked up at him. Her eyes widened a little. The color in her cheeks
rose, then fell.

Recognition, all right. "Hello, Laurel."

Her lips?damn, but they looked as soft as ever?rounded into a little O.
She wore a tidy white blouse tucked into a slender beige skirt. Little
gold hoops hung in her ears, visible because her hair was pulled back
from her face in a snug knot. She looked about as finished and polished
as she'd looked ravaged and pained the last time he'd seen her.

Except for her eyes.

Her eyes looked positively shell-shocked.

And he felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

Then her lashes swept down for a moment, and when she looked up at him
again, the shock was gone. Everything was gone. There was nothing but
politeness, and for an awful moment Shane thought maybe the stories had
it wrong and that Laurel Runyan had never climbed out of the pit of
despair she'd been tossed into that long-ago summer when her family had
disintegrated before her eyes.

"Hello, Shane. What are you doing here?" The greeting was considerably
less welcoming than the light shining from the front window had been.

But at least she remembered him. That was good. He'd rather have her
still hate him than be feeling the emotional numbness that had gripped
her for months after that summer.

"Saw the light," he said, looking past her into the house. But he
couldn't see hide nor hair of another per-

15 15

son. Had she come alone to Lucius? Had she married? Did she have a
little tribe of kids now? He wished he could blame the questions on
simple curiosity. But nothing about Laurel had ever been simple. "Wanted
to check it out."

Her eyebrows drew together a little, and the corners of her lips lifted
a little. "Check it out. For what? New church members?" Her hands lifted
to her sides for a moment.

A moment long enough for him to see there was no ring. A faint tan line
where one had been, though.

Recently.

"Sorry," she went on, oblivious to his cataloging. "I gave up going to
church years ago."

He had, too. For a while.

"Thought maybe you were one of the agents from Lucius Realty," he admitted.

"Well, as you can see, I'm not." Her voice was still pleasant. But the
edge of curiosity was still there, not quite hidden. "I.. .didn't think
you were still in Lucius," she said. "I saw the sign outside your dad's
church. He's still pastor there. And there was a name I didn't recognize
listed as the associate pastor. Um, Morrison or something."

"Morrissey."

She nodded and leaned slightly against the opened screen door. Her
position was clear. She had no intention of inviting him in.

But she was still curious.

Hell. So was he. If he'd had any way of reaching her, any way of knowing
where she was, he would have notified her himself about her dad.

"I'm sorry about your father." He should have said that right off. No
wonder he hadn't ended up in the ministry. Unlike his father, Beau,
Shane's people skills were miser-

16

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

able. He took care of his townspeople's safety. He left it to people
like his father to take care of their sensibilities.

Her head tilted a little to one side, and a few strands of silky hair
drifted from the knot to lie against her slender throat. Her hair was
darker than he remembered. Almost the color of walnuts. Back then, it
had been streaked with blond from the summer sun, a shifting mass of
burnished gold that had felt like silk against his rough fingers.

"Condolences?" she asked. "I know what you thought of him. What everyone
in this town thought of him."

"He was still your father." He wasn't sorry about Roger. But he was
sorry if the loss hurt Laurel. He was always sorry when something?or
someone?hurt Laurel.

Her lips pursed a little and her lashes swept down, hiding her
expressive brown eyes again. "Yes," she murmured after a moment. "He
was. Thank you."

"If you need any help with the arrangements, just ask."

She lifted her hand and tucked the stray strands of hair behind her ear.
She pushed the screen door the rest of the way open. It was so worn, it
merely settled open with a sigh and she stepped out onto the porch. Even
with her high-heeled shoes?pretty for her ankles, but still a
conservative tan color?she didn't reach past his shoulder.

How could he have forgotten how small she was compared to him?

"I'm not sure my father would have wanted a religious service," she
admitted. "His lawyer, Mr. Newsome?I can hardly believe my dad had a
lawyer?said he didn't have a will when he notified me about his death.
He didn't say if Dad had specified any instructions at all. Only that
he'd asked Mr. Newsome to contact me." Her voice faltered a little. "I,
um, I haven't had a chance to go through any of Dad's records here yet."
The prospect clearly held little appeal for her.

17 17

He couldn't blame her. Even under the best of circumstances, such a task
would be difficult. "The lawyer might not have known, but your father
went to Sunday service every week. Talk to Beau. He'll be able to help
you figure it all out."

"He went to church?"

"Regular as rain," he assured. But he couldn't fault her for her
skepticism. Unlike Roger, who had never gone to church until after his
wife died, Laurel had once been a regular presence at Lucius Community
Church. Her grandmother had taken her every Sunday, and then when
Lucille died, Laurel had continued going on her own.

Until the summer she turned eighteen.

Twelve years ago.

A lot had changed that summer for the Runyan family.

And for Shane.

"So," Laurel finally said, as if she were anxious to move on from the
notion of her father having discovered religion. "Your name wasn't
alongside your father's on the sign at the church. So I guess your
ministry took you elsewhere, after all."

"I didn't go into the ministry. Don't know why I ever thought 1 could."

Her eyes widened again at that, and for a long moment she stared at him.
"You'd planned it all your life."

"Planning doesn't mean the same thing as having a calling."

She finally unfolded her arms and propped one hand on the doorjamb near
her shoulder, which let the lamplight behind her shine through the fine
weave of her lightweight blouse. He could clearly see the outline of her
bra beneath it.

"But you're here. In Lucius. So what do you do?" she asked.

18 18A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Look at you and still want. He wasn't quick enough to cut off the
realization. "I'm the sheriff," he said.

She closed her hand over the screen door latch, that brief moment of
softening, of near welcome in her demeanor drying up as surely as the
grass in the yard behind him had.

"Sheriff. I see. No wonder you wanted to check things out at the Runyan
place. But as you know, my father's dead. There's no one here anymore
for the law to come after."

Without another glance at him, she stepped back into the house and
firmly pulled the screen door shut.

Then she turned away, closing the wooden door with a thud. He heard the
lock sliding into place as she disappeared into the house where, twelve
years ago, her father, Roger Runyan, had gotten away with killing his wife.

Laurel was shaking.

The moment the door slammed shut behind her, she reached out for the arm
of the couch and shuffled around to sit before her legs simply quit
functioning.

Shane Golightly.

She closed her eyes, her hand pressed against the base of her throat.

She'd known that returning to Lucius?to this house?would stir up
memories. She could handle memories.

Most of them.

But why, oh why, hadn't she prepared herself for this? Why had she let
herself believe that he would've followed through, chapter and verse,
with his long-ago plans?

Because the Shane she'd known had never deviated from his chosen course.
Not ever.

Except for her. She'd definitely been off the path for Shane.

"Foolish Laurel," she whispered aloud, and nearly

19 19

jumped out of her skin at the imperious sound that drowned out her
hoarse whisper.

A fist pounding on the front door.

"Laurel, open the damn door."

Her heartbeat skipped right back into triple time. She stared at the
door, half expecting it to open even though she'd flipped the flimsy lock.

"Laurel." He'd moved to the grimy picture window next to the door and
was looking in at her through the limp curtains. As if he had every
expectation of her jumping right to her feet. "I'm not leaving," he
said, and he didn't even have to raise his voice to be heard through the
thin pane.

Voices had always been easily heard through the walls of the Runyan
place. Particularly the raised voices.

She didn't want to open the door. She didn't want to see Shane. She
didn't want a lot of things, and for that reason alone, she forced her
muscles into motion and rose from the couch. He moved away from the
window and was standing in front of the screen again when she unlocked
and pulled open the door. She leaned her shoulder against the edge of it
and was glad he couldn't see the death grip she had on the inside knob.

Weren't sheriffs supposed to wear khaki-colored uniforms and badges in
full view to warn all innocent bystanders of their position? Shane was
wearing a charcoal-gray shirt, open at the throat, and blue jeans that
fit entirely too well.

"I'm busy, Sheriff."

"I could see that through the window." His voice?droll though it was?was
deeper. Everything about him seemed deeper. His gray eyes. His golden
hair. His...intensity.

"Where are you staying?" he asked.

It was the last question she expected. Not that she'd ex-

20 20A MONTANA HOMECOMING

pected any questions from him, since she had been naive enough to
believe he'd be far, far from Lucius. That had been his plan that one
summer. To finish seminary and take his ministry wherever he could help
people the most.

"I'm staying here," she told him.

His mouth tightened. Then, in a clearly conscious effort, his entire
expression gentled. "Do you think that's wise?" His voice was even more
gentle. More careful.

Her spine stiffened. "You needn't speak to me like I'm deranged, Sheriff."

"I wasn't." Again in a gentle, careful tone.

She understood where it came from, and why, but she still hated it.
Hated that it was coming from him, most of all. "Yes, you were. Are."
She also hated the fact that she was the one sounding defensive. She
swallowed and scrambled for her wits. Her composure. She was a composed
woman. Had always been a composed woman.

Except for the brief time when she was more than a girl but not yet a
woman and had spent more hours than she could remember in a room where
there were no sharp corners.

"This is...was...my father's home. I'm staying here. Unless there's some
law against it?"

He didn't look pleased. "By yourself?"

"Yes," she managed calmly.

Something in his eyes made him look even less pleased. Anyone else and
she might have blamed it on the dwindling light, or on the bare bulb
that would have sufficed as a porch light if it had been a higher wattage.

"Here." He abruptly pulled out his wallet and slid a card from it. "Call
me if you need anything." He extended the business card.

She plucked the card from his fingers, careful not to

21 21

touch him. "I won't need anything," she assured him stiffly. "But, thank
you."

"I'll come by and check on you in the morning."

"I don't need to be checked on."

"You're not?"

"Capable enough to stay alone in the house where I grew up?" She crossed
her arms. "I'm not crazy, Sheriff." Not anymore.

"Nobody said you were, Laurel." His deep voice was smooth, so incredibly
smooth, that they might just as well have been exchanging pleasantries
on the steps of his daddy's church. "But this place is?"

"What?"

"Falling apart," he said simply.

Truthfully.

The defensive balloon that had puffed up deflated, leaving her feeling
off-kilter. "I'll be all right."

"The furnace stopped working last year. Roger never had it fixed."

"It's the middle of June. I won't need the furnace yet."

He barely waited a beat. "Yet?"

She unfolded her arms. Folded them again. She'd been debating the idea
of staying since before she'd driven back into the town limits. It
wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go. Not since two weeks ago when
she'd called off her own wedding at the very last minute. Finding out
that Shane was still in Lucius didn't change a thing where her plans,
her nonplans, were concerned.

Did it?

"It won't be cold for months. I'll have plenty of time to fix the
furnace," she said more confidently than she felt.

She had time, yes. Money? That might be another matter. A matter she
intended to keep to herself.

22 22A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"You can't be planning to stay."

He actually sounded horrified, and it surprised her enough that she
managed not to get defensive over the flat statement. "Why not?"

He jammed his hat on his head. "This house isn't fit for anyone to live
in it."

"How do you know?" She highly doubted he'd spent Sunday afternoons
visiting with her father.

"Because I make it my business to know what's going on in my town."

"Including the habitability of my father's house."

"Yes."

"How sheriffy of you."

"You've earned yourself a smart mouth somewhere along the way."

She managed an even smile. But the truth was, she didn 't have a smart
mouth. The only thing she'd done in her entire adult life that wasn't
agreeable and sensible was walking out on her wedding to a perfectly
decent man. "Maybe I've picked a few things up from the third-graders I
teach. You went from the Lord to the law," she observed. "Time brings
all sorts of changes to a person."

"Time doesn't change everything," he said flatly.

She didn't know what on earth to make of that, not when they were both
living evidence to the contrary. So she just stood there. And the
silence between them lengthened.

Thickened.

She cast about in her mind fruitlessly for something?anything?to break
the silence, only to gasp right out loud when a metallic chirp sounded.

Shane made a muffled sound and pulled a minute cell phone off his belt.
"Sorry," he murmured and flipped it open. "Golightly." His voice was
brusque.

23 23

She, for one, was perfectly happy for the intrusion as she drew in a
long, careful breath. His call, though, was brief, and when he snapped
the phone shut, he was very much in lawman mode.

"I'll check on you later." He settled his hat and turned on his heel,
clearly expecting no arguments from her this time as he stepped off the
porch past the rotting steps.

She didn't have the nerve to argue, anyway. Not when he looked so grimly
official. Instead she stood there in the doorway, hugging her arms to
her waist, and watched while his long legs strode across the tired yard
toward the tan SUV parked behind the little car she'd rented at the
airport in Billings.

He wasted little time backing out and driving up the road toward town,
but she still had plenty of time to study the word that was emblazoned
in dark-green printing on the side of his SUV: Sheriff.

Shane was the sheriff.

And it was a sheriff who'd arrested her father one hot summer night for
something he hadn't done. Something she'd never, ever believed he'd done.

The brake lights of Shane's truck?the sheriff's truck?disappeared and
Laurel finally drew in a full, cleansing breath.

It didn't quite stop the trembling inside her, but it helped.

She let her gaze drift up and down the road. One way, the way Shane had
driven, lay the town proper. The other way, beyond a sharp curve that
skirted the stand of tall, centuries-old trees, lay nothing but miles
and miles of.. .nothing.

She'd come back to bury her father.

But once she'd done that, once she'd dealt with his belongings, with the
house, there was nothing else for her

24 24A MONTANA HOMECOMING

here. As much "nothing" as what lay beyond the curving highway.

Unfortunately, Laurel knew as she finally turned and went back inside
the house, there was nothing for her to return to in Colorado, either.
No job. No home. No fiance.

Maybe she was just as crazy as Shane probably thought.

25

1 heard you were here, but I had to see it with my own eyes." The voice
was deep and smooth as molasses and definitely amused.

Laurel set the heavy bag of weed killer in the cart next to the bucket
and cleansers she'd already put there and turned toward the voice, a
smile already forming. "Reverend Golightly. I was going to call you
later today." She dashed her hand quickly down her thigh, then extended
it. "It's so good to see you." The pleasure in her voice was real. In
fact, it was the first real pleasure she'd felt in weeks, and definitely
since she'd arrived in Lucius the previous day.

He cocked an eyebrow and his light-blue eyes crinkled at the corners.
"Oh, Laurel, honey, we can do better than that." He swept her up in a
great hug, lifting her right to the tips of her toes there in the aisle
of Lucius Hardware. "You're the spitting image of your grandmother, do
you know that?"

26 26A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She laughed and very nearly cried as she hugged him back. "I'll take
that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one. In her day, Lucille was the prettiest woman in
five counties. Until my Holly came to town, that is." He grinned and
settled her on her feet, keeping hold of her hands and holding them wide
as he stepped back to look at her. "F m as sorry as ditch water that it
took something like this to bring you home, Laurel."

The knot in her throat grew. "Me, too." She swallowed harder and peered
up into his face. "You haven't changed a bit, Reverend Golightly. How is
your family?"

His eyes crinkled again. "Beau. And they're all fine. Stu's fit as a
fiddle," he told her. "Still single and he's got a small spread outside
of town a bit?Hal Calhoun's place if you remember it?plus he runs the
garage down on Main Street. Evie's running Tiff's. She has three kids.
They're all getting on their feet a little since she and her husband
divorced."

Laurel would be better off if she couldn 't remember Calhoun's place. Or
his barn.

"Your wife doesn't run Tiff's anymore?" For all of Laurel's childhood,
her mother had been employed as a maid at the bed-and-breakfast operated
by Beau's second wife, Holly.

"She passed away some time ago," Beau said quietly.

Laurel pressed her hand to her chest, dismayed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I had
no idea." Her conversation?if one could call it that?with Shane hadn't
gotten to such matters. And she hadn't talked with anyone else in town
since she'd arrived.

"No reason you would, child," he assured gently. "But she'd be pleased
as punch to see you back in Lucius. Had-ley took over running Tiff's
after we lost her mother, but she got married not long ago to Dane
Rutherford, and now Evie's trying her organized little hand at it."

27 27

Laurel paused at the name. "Dane Rutherford?"

Beau grinned, his eyes brightening again with amusement. "The Dane
Rutherford. Didn't they have newspapers where you lived? Sure did make
the news around these parts."

"I'll bet," Laurel murmured. The Rutherford name was as familiar as
Rockefeller and Kennedy. She shook her head, amazed. Hadley was a few
years younger than Laurel and had always had her nose in a book. How on
earth had she met someone like Dane Rutherford? "Well... wow."

"He puts his pants on one leg at a time, too," Beau assured mildly. "So
far he seems good enough for my Hadley. And then there's Shane, of
course. He's the sheriff, if you can believe it."

Her face felt a little hot. They stepped aside to let a woman bearing a
flat of daisies pass. "I know. He told me my father started going to
church."

"You've talked to Shane?" Beau was obviously surprised.

"He stopped by the house yesterday." And surprised her greatly by not
coming by that morning as threatened.

"He didn't mention that when I saw him this morning at the hospital."

Her nerves jangled. "Hospital?"

"Nasty three-car accident on the south side of town. Aside from handling
the reports and such, he's friends with one of the women who got hit.
He's probably still there."

Even as relief that Shane was at the hospital in his official capacity
doused her nerves, an odd sense she couldn't quite identify took its
place. "I hope she's all right." Shane obviously hadn't been as
unsettled by their encounter as she had been, or he'd have mentioned it
to his father.

28 28A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Fortunately, no one was seriously injured," Beau said, mercifully
oblivious to Laurel's undeniable sense of... what? Pique?
Disappointment? Relief? "Now, what about you? Your father said once that
you'd become a teacher."

Laurel nodded. In a way she was as surprised that her father had told
anyone anything about her as she was that he'd evidently found religion.
"Elementary education. I, um, I've been at a school in Denver?Clover
Elementary?teaching third grade."

"Surprised you're not teaching music."

She shook her head. She hadn't sung in public since the day her mother died.

Fortunately, Beau let that topic lie as he surveyed the items in her
cart. "Looks like you're planning on exercising your elbows a bit."

"I'm staying at Dad's place. It needs some work." He probably knew that.

"Well, if you decide you prefer staying elsewhere, you just give Evie a
call. I know she can come up with a room for you at Tiff's that would be
comfortable."

Whether or not she could, Laurel wouldn't be able to afford it. Not even
if Tiff's room rates hadn't budged a dime in the past decade. "I'll keep
that in mind."

Beau's smile was ever kind, as if he'd divined her thoughts perfectly.
"It's good to have you back, Laurel. Everything is going to be fine." He
hugged her shoulder. "Now. We'll need to talk about the service for your
father sooner or later, but I can see you're plenty busy and I'm on my
way over to the hospital for my afternoon visitations. You just let me
know when you're ready to talk about it, and I'm at your disposal. In
the meantime, though, you can still call me if you need anything at all."

Why it was so much easier to take that advice from Beau

29 29

than it was from his son, Laurel didn't know. But where she'd bristled
at Shane's command, she was touched now by Beau's concern, and she gave
him a hug back. "I will. Thank you."

He gave her a little wink and headed down the wide aisle.

Laurel finished loading up her cart. She appreciated Beau's
matter-of-factness about her father's service. Her father had died
nearly a week ago. The attorney who'd contacted her had informed her
that the funeral home would simply wait for instructions from her. The
only rush for a funeral and burial would be whatever rush Laurel felt.

And she didn't really know what she felt.

So she concentrated on the immediate reality.

Her father's house was a pigsty. And she needed to clean away the mess
left by years of neglect before she could begin to figure out what
repairs the structure needed. Then maybe she'd consult a real estate agent.

She made her purchases and headed back to her father's home. On Main
Street she passed the busy-looking garage and auto-body shop that
undoubtedly was the one Beau had mentioned Stu ran.

The sheriff's office was a little ways up the road. She didn't allow
herself much more than a glance that told her the brick-fronted building
hadn't changed during her absence.

She passed the Luscious Lucius, which used to serve up the best
breakfasts she'd ever had, and which?judging by the cars parked in front
of it?was still doing a fine business for lunch.

A little further, beyond the businesses, she passed Tiff's. The enormous
Victorian house looked just as distinctive as it always had, its sharp
angles softened by curlicues and lace. The colors hadn't changed,
either, over the years; still an eye-popping combination of pink and green.

It seemed hard to believe that Beau's wife was gone

30 30A MONTANA HOMECOMING

now. That Evie was running it. Laurel's memories of Evie were of a
light-hearted blond beauty more interested in winning the county science
fair than helping with her stepmother's business.

At her father's house she parked in the cracked driveway bordered by
overgrown weeds, yellow grass and bare dirt. There was no point in
trying to enter the small, detached garage that sat next to the square
house. It was filled to the rafters with about a million years of old
newspapers and other junk. Her father's rusting pickup truck was parked
in the center of it all, and since there was nothing under the hood but
cobwebs and yawning space, the pickup wasn't going anywhere.

She unloaded her trunk, dumping everything on the porch next to the
front door and nearly tripped over the cat that appeared out of nowhere.
The animal yowled and streaked around the side of the house.

Probably belonged to the owner of the lovely rambling house built high
on the hill behind her father's. The house certainly hadn't been there
when Laurel was growing up, and as far as Laurel could determine, it was
the only thing new in this area.

She eyed die worn, tired house where she'd grown up. A person would have
to be desperate to buy it in its current state when there was an
entirely new and modern development on the other side of Lucius.

A person might have to be desperate to stay in it.

She pushed aside the thought. She wasn't desperate. She was just.. .at
loose ends.

After unloading the trunk, Laurel went inside the house, stepping over
the porch steps. She'd already made the mistake of stepping too firmly
on one. It had creaked omi-

31 31

nously. The treads would definitely have to be replaced before some
unwary soul went right through them.

How had her father lived here this way? As if he'd just given up on
having any sort of decent home a long time ago?

She grabbed the box of trash bags she'd purchased and went inside. She'd
start upstairs and work her way down.

It was a nice, sensible plan, and just having a plan made her feel better.

She went up the narrow staircase and paused at the first closed door.
Her parents' bedroom. She hadn't gone in there yet. She started to reach
for the iron knob. But her stomach clenched, and she curled her fingers
into a fist, lowering her hand.

Later. She could clean out that room later.

She went into the only other bedroom. Her own. The narrow bed still had
the afghan her grandmother had given her for her eighth birthday, folded
neatly at the foot. The ancient student desk where she'd done her
homework still stood beneath the single window that overlooked the front
yard.

Nothing had changed since she'd been a girl. Yet everything here?as in
the rest of the house?was covered with the thick layer of years of neglect.

She pulled out an enormous trash bag, flipping the plastic open. She
dropped into the bag the glass jars that she'd painted one summer and
filled with dried wildflowers. She yanked out the slender center drawer
of the desk and tipped it into the bag, a childhood of bits raining out.
She shoved the drawer back in place and slid out the second, tipping it,
too. Magazines. More pieces of nothing. Then several canvas-covered
books fell out from the bottom of the drawer.

She caught at them, her haste fleeing as quickly as it had struck.

32 32A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Her journals. She set them on top of the desk, her fingers lingering on
the top one. The canvas was dull, but the delicate lines of the flower
printed in the center of the cover was still clear. Sighing a little,
she looked from the diary out the window in front of her, then back to
the bedroom behind her.

So long ago, she thought, since she'd been in this house. Her childhood
bedroom. And she wasn't certain if she was grateful for the intervening
years or not.

She looked at the journals again. Flipped the top one open randomly. The
pages were stiff from age, but they parted easily midway through the
book. She looked at the handwriting. Her handwriting. All loops and curls.

The handwriting of a girl.

Dear Gram,

Did you ever have one of those times when you were doing something you
almost are always doing?like taking out the trash or washing the car on
a Saturday morning?and then all of a sudden, time kind of stands still?

That's what happened to me this morning. I was washing daddy's truck, on
account of he'd left it all muddy and Mom was totally mad about it and
they were fighting. (They do that a lot, Gram, but I guess you can see
that from up there in heaven.)

So there I was, standing in the truck bed hosing it down when Shane
Golightly drove down the street in his dad's pickup truck. He stopped in
front of the house and said something. Gosh, Gram, I don't even remember
what it was he did say. Isn't that silly? He was wearing a plain white
T-shirt and his arm was hanging out the open window and he stopped and

33 33

said something?maybe it was about Mom's job at Tiff's. See? I can't
remember even when I'm trying.

I haven't seen Shane since he went off to go to college several years
ago. And I hadn't heard he was back, which was interesting, 'cause Jenny
Travis usually calls me the very second she hears something major like that.

Anyway, there he was. And, oh Gram. He lifted his hand to wave and the
sun was shining on him and everything else sort of disappeared.

Except for him.

The water, the mud, the yelling inside the house behind me, it was all gone.

Shane Golightly, Gram. I've known him?and Stu and Evie and Hadley, too,
of course?all my life, seems like. He was always nice enough to me,
probably because I was a little kid to him. But that moment?and I swear
on a stack of Bibles that I'm not exaggerating like Mom's always
saying?that moment was...special, that's all. Special!!

I just knew, Gram, that I'd remember that very moment, that I'd remember
Shane in that very moment. The way he looked and the way the muddy water
ran cold on my feet and the sun burned hot on my shoulders, and the
grass smelled sweet, like it had just been mown.

I knew it.

I knew that I'd remember that moment all the rest of my life.

Laurel carefully closed the journal on those girlishly written thoughts,
but doing so didn't close her mind to the

memories.

34

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She wished she could say the memories at the end of the summer were as
clear as those from the beginning, when the sight of Shane Golightly had
struck with such singular clarity. If only the entire summer were so clear.

So much of her life would have been different.

She sighed again and stacked the diaries in the bottom drawer, which she
slid back into place in the desk.

She was sweating by the time she finished with the bedroom and the
single bathroom, a state that wasn't helped by the sight of the
sheriff's vehicle parked at the curb, or the presence of Shane studying
the pile of supplies she'd purchased from the hardware store.

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing?"

She gestured at the trio of weighty bags full of trash she'd pulled from
the house. "What does the evidence tell you?"

He didn't look amused. "You shouldn't be staying here."

She crossed her arms, staring down at him where he stood below the
porch. "Because I have to take out some trash?"

He picked up one of the bags and tossed it at the steps. The wood
cracked sharply and splintered beneath the bag.

"Well." Laurel eyed the half-buried bag. "You can pull that out."

"You're missing the point." With no seeming effort, he hefted the bag
free of the jagged wood without managing to tear the plastic. "That
could be you falling through the steps."

"Instead, it was an innocent garbage bag. I'm staying, so if that's your
only reason for coming out here, you can go." The sooner the better.

He just gave her a look and held out his hand for the remaining bags.
She tightened her hold on them. "I can manage."

35 35

"Hand me the bags, Laurel."

She made a face and dragged the bags over to him. His hands brushed hers
as he took hold and lifted them off the porch, carrying all three around
to the trash bins next to the garage.

It was a fine time to realize that Shane Golightly 's touch still had
the ability to make her mind go completely blank.

He was back in seconds, and the hope that he would simply leave died
rapidly when he stepped up onto the porch and lowered himself onto the
faded wicker love seat near the door.

She leaned against the wall. "What do you want, Sheriff?"

He doffed his hat, balancing it on his knee. His hair was darker than it
used to be. Particularly near the nape of his neck where it was cut
severely short.

The last time she'd seen Shane so closely, his shoulders hadn't been
quite so wide, his chest not quite so deep, his forearms, where his
white shirtsleeves were rolled up, not quite so sinewy. And his
deep-gold hair had been long enough at the nape for her fingers to
tangle in it.

She swallowed and looked away. Her gaze fell on his SUV. Sheriff.

She swallowed again. "I saw your father earlier. I was sorry to hear
about your mother." Holly Golightly had been his stepmother, actually,
but Laurel knew he'd considered her his only mother, since his natural
mother had walked out on her family when he'd been very young.

"Cancer. It was fast," he supplied. "And a long time ago."

"Does that make it hurt less? Time?"

His wide shoulders rose and fell. "Yeah. But it doesn't stop us all from
missing her. I moved back to Lucius when she got really bad, and decided
not to leave again once she was gone." The toe of his boot jiggled.
"This place isn't safe for you."

36 36A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She exhaled, impatience swirling through her. "I'm a big girl. I think I
can avoid the bad steps until they're fixed."

"Who is going to fix them?"

"I will."

His eyebrows rose. "Really."

"Yes, really."

"Gonna buy the lumber. Get the tools. Rebuild the supports that are
rotting underneath."

"If I have to." She propped her hands on her hips. "Women are perfectly
capable of?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." He stood. "I'm not getting into that argument with
you. I know plenty of women who can frame a house better than men. My
point is that you're a?"

"A what?" She angled her head.

"A third-grade teacher," he finished mildly, and smoothly circled her
wrists, turning her palms upward. "Without a single callus on these
pretty hands of yours to indicate you're accustomed to this sort of work."

She curled her fingers into fists. He wasn't being chauvinistic. His
attitude was strictly based on what he knew?or thought he knew?of her.

"I'm perfectly capable of learning." And hadn't she learned her lesson
where Shane Golightly was concerned?

His thumbs worked across the knobs of her knuckles. Soothing. "Of course
you're capable of learning anything. That's not the point."

The point. Remember the point. "This house is the only thing left of my
father. Maybe I don't want to abandon it the way he abandoned me." She
pulled her hands away. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of things
to take care of this afternoon, not least of which is planning a
funeral." She reached for the screen door, turning away from him.

37 37

"Laurel."

Why did hearing her name on his lips make her heart still skip? She
didn't want to hesitate, but she did. "What?" When he didn't respond,
she finally looked back at him.

His eyes were unreadable. His expression no more helpful. Did she even
know this man anymore?

"Be careful," he finally said.

She nodded once. "I plan to be." Then she went inside.

I

38

1 he funeral service for Laurel's father was on Friday morning, just
three days after she arrived in Lucius.

Beau Golightly handled most of the details. When they'd met to discuss
the service, he'd told her that Roger had left a plan a few years
earlier. What hymns he wanted sung. What scripture readings.

The fact that Roger had left any sort of instructions had stunned Laurel.

He'd even prepaid for an arrangement of flowers, had prearranged his
burial, had done nearly everything.

The only thing Laurel had done was purchase him a new suit, and she'd
had to depend upon the funeral home director to advise her on the size.

She could have avoided that particular embarrassment if she'd only had
the nerve to enter her parents' bedroom.

39 39

Picking out the navy-blue suit, white shirt and burgundy striped tie at
the new department store on the far end of town was the most familial
task she'd performed for her father in twelve years. And he had to be
deceased for her to even be allowed the task.

She'd gone back to his house and had a glass of wine, after she'd
delivered her purchases to the funeral home, and had felt guilty that
she'd been unable to shed any tears.

She should be able to cry for her father, shouldn't she?

Even now, sitting in the front row of the Lucius Community Church while
a woman Laurel had never before met played "Amazing Grace" on the organ
and Beau Go-lightly stood at the pulpit with his Bible in hand, and the
unprepossessing casket rested ten feet away from her, Laurel wasn't able
to summon any tears.

Maybe there was still something wrong with her, after all.

There were no other mourners. She hadn't expected there would be. Roger
had worked for the town of Lucius all of his adult life. Even after the
charges in her mother's death had been dismissed against him, he'd kept
his job with the town. He'd certainly never considered leaving Lucius to
join her in Colorado, even though she'd asked him.

There was a small arrangement of summer flowers that had been sent by
his department. |

But there were no people who'd interrupted their day to attend his final
service. Even the funeral home director, who was there to take care of
transporting the casket, had chosen not to come in for the service but
was waiting outside.

Nobody had loved Roger Runyan. Most people hadn't even liked him. Even
before that awful summer, he'd been sullen, standoffish and made it
plain that he liked others as little as they liked him.

He may have begun attending church after Laurel left

40

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Lucius, but it seemed that nothing else about him had changed.

The organ notes slowly faded, and Beau gave her one of his unbearably
kind looks. He opened his Bible and began to read.

Laurel closed her eyes and prayed for forgiveness. She'd loved her
father, even if he hadn't loved her.

So what was wrong with her that she couldn't cry for him, now?

For a moment?a weak moment?she almost wished she'd asked Martin to come.
Despite the way she'd left him only a few weeks earlier, he would have
been here for her.

Which would have been as wrong as going through with the wedding.

A rustle sounded behind her and she glanced over her shoulder, starting
as two people slid into the pew.

Evie and Stu Golightly.

She would have recognized them anywhere.

Evie, with her short, fluffy blond hair and blue eyes, and Stu, with his
brown hair and eyes. He was Shane's twin, but the resemblance between
them was limited to their size and facial structure.

Evie sat forward, closing her hand over Laurel's shoulder. "I had to
find a sitter for my kids," she whispered, "or we'd have been here on
time." She squeezed her hand a little, then sat back and pulled a hymnal
from the rack on the back of Laurel's pew and dropped it on her
brother's lap.

"I didn't expect anyone," Laurel whispered, feeling numb. This had to be
Beau's doing.

Evie's smile was sympathetic and very much like her father's. "Maybe
not, but here we are."

Beau continued reading, his voice beautiful and soothing and after a
moment Laurel gathered herself enough to

41 I

ALLISON LEIGH41

turn back around in her seat. Then the organist played again. The small
congregation rose and sang the two hymns that Roger had requested. And
that was it.

The end.

There was to be no graveside service, in accordance with Roger's wishes,
and Laurel rose as Beau stepped down from the pulpit and approached her.
"Thank you." She held out her hands to him.

He took them and gave her a hug. "Your father would be very proud of
you, Laurel."

Behind them, the funeral director and his associates were efficiently
removing the casket. Laurel watched them for a moment. There was an
awful, hollow feeling inside her, and it surpassed the emotional black
hole that had prompted her to call off her wedding. "Proud? I can't
imagine why."

"Remember? He told me you iwere a teacher. That you have a master's
degree in educatii >n from the University of Colorado, even. He was
proudj" Beau assured. "Now, there's a table waiting for us over at the
Luscious. Evie, Stu, you'll join us."

Neither seemed inclined to argue. Evie tucked her arm through Laurel's
as they headed out of the church. Within minutes their small caravan
arrived at the cafe and, just as Beau promised, there was a table waiting.

The waitress had barely delivered their water glasses and menus when
Evie sat forward. "You know, Laurel, the school here has been short
staffed for over a year."

"Geez, Evie," Stu groused a little. He didn't bother with a menu. "Give
her a chance to settle in first." He focused on Laurel. "How long do you
have that rental car for?"

"Er, through the weekend."

"Well, you let me know if you're gonna be in the mar-

42

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

ket for buying something more long term. I'll make sure you get a good
deal."

Her mouth dried a little. She had a car back in Colorado. It was still
parked at the apartment complex, where the rest of her worldly goods
were stored in a locked garage. None of it would be moved to Martin's as
they planned to do once they returned from their honeymoon. "Thank you,"
she said. She didn't know how to tell them that the permanency of her
stay in Lucius was still undetermined.

"Stu knows what's under the hood of all the used cars around here," Evie
said. "It's one of his few skills."

Stu shot her a look. "I'll remember that when you need your engine rebuilt."

Evie grinned.

The tears that had been painfully absent earlier now seemed to clog
Laurel's throat. She looked down at the menu, blinking hard. Why was it
that she could cry just because this family behaved so normally? Because
they just let her be, didn't seem to expect her to break down and didn't
seem shocked that she hadn't.

Around her, the cafe was alive with conversations, the clatter of
dishes, the aroma of coffee and grilling hamburgers. And after a minute
she could actually absorb the words that she was staring at.

The menu, aside from a few modern additions like grilled-chicken wraps
and low-carb hamburger buns, held few changes. "Is the fried chicken
here still good?"

"Better 'n ever," Beau assured. "Oh, good. There's Shane. I was hoping
he'd be able to join us."

Laurel's water glass tipped precariously when she knocked into it with
her menu, but Stu stretched out a long arm, capably catching it before
it spilled.

"Sorry I couldn't make the service," Shane murmured

43 43

as he took the seat beside her. Beneath the square table, his thigh
brushed against hers as he returned the few hails sent his way from
other diners. "Stuck in court."

"I, um, I didn't expect anyone at all," she admitted, carefully shifting
away. She felt a little steadier if she focused on the other members of
Shane's family. "It was just.. .so.. .nice of you to be there."

Evie smiled. "If we're nice enough, maybe you'll decide to stay in
Lucius and look into a teaching position. Julie goes into third grade in
the fall and I really, really don't want her to have to have Mrs.
Cuthwater as a teacher."

"Mrs. Cuthwater still teaches?" Laurel remembered the woman. Any child
who passed third grade was left with the desperate fear of not sitting
up straight enough or of slanting their cursive writing the wrong way.

"She substitutes," Shane supplied. "Out of necessity."

"See?" Evie leaned forward, her blue eyes merry. "Think of my sweet,
innocent baby, Laurel."

"I could be worse than Mrs. Cuthwater," Laurel warned.

Evie, Stu and Beau all chuckled at the prospect, and Laurel felt her
tension begin to leave again. The waitress came by and they ordered.

"I probably should thank you," she told Shane after the waitress
departed. "For the plywood. I assume that was you." Before evening had
fallen on that day, an enormous sheet of wood had been laid across the
steps, creating a rough but sturdy ramp. It had been a nice gesture,
though it had rankled her that he'd done it without consulting her.

"What plywood?" Beau asked.

Shane plucked the lemon out of his iced tea and dropped it into hers, as
if it were perfectly natural for him to do so. As if he remembered, from
those few weeks they'd once

44

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

spent together, just how dearly she loved lemon in her tea. "To cover
the steps at the house before she breaks a leg going through them." His
voice was flat.

Laurel's cheeks went even hotter at the tsks that statement elicited.
Nobody questioned, of course, which house, as if Roger Runyan's house
was the only one in all of Lucius that could be in such disrepair.

"It's not that bad," she defended.

"Maybe you should stay at Evie's," Stu suggested, and Evie immediately
nodded.

"I have an empty room right now. The tower room, in fact. Nicest one at
Tiff's."

Laurel remembered it, having helped her mother occasionally. "I'm fine
where I am. Really." Even if the entire Golightly clan did believe she'd
be better off staying in a cardboard box than in her own father's house.

"She thinks she's gonna fix things up there by herself," Shane said.

"'She's' sitting right here," Laurel interjected, "and can speak for
herself. The house needs repairs if I'm going to sell it."

"If?" Shane's voice was incredibly mild.

"Mrs. Cuthwater needs a reprieve," she reminded, and saw the triumphant
look passing between Evie and Stu.

"Without a reason to get up in the morning, Mrs. Cuthwater might as well
lie down next to Mr. Cuthwater in Lucius Cemetery."

"Shane," Beau cautioned.

"She shouldn't be staying in that house, much less wasting time and
energy fixing it up, and we all know it."

Laurel angled herself away from Shane. "You've made your opinion more
than clear about that house. I don't really need to hear it again."

45 45

"Evidently, you do. Because you're still there. You don't have to fix it
up to sell it."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Who on earth would buy it in its current condition?"

Evie made a faint sound.

"All rightee, here we go." The waitress arrived, bearing plates of food.
She brushed her hands together when she finished unloading. "I'll be
back to top off your drinks. Anything else I can get for you?"

Laurel's appetite for her fried chicken was definitely waning, but
mindful of the concerned look in Beau's eyes and not wanting to add to
it, she picked up a drumstick.

"Probably should have a contractor look at your dad's place," Stu said.
"Jack Finn's the best around. He wouldn't have to do the work,
necessarily, but he could steer you in the right direction."

Stu either possessed a remarkable ability to remain oblivious to the
irritation rolling off Shane in waves or he simply didn't care. Either
way, Laurel wanted to lean over and kiss him. "Finn? He's Freddie Finn's
dad, isn't he?" She was surprised at the ease she had recalling old
names, old faces.

Stu buried his attention in his burger as he nodded. "Call Jack. You
won't regret it."

Laurel glanced at Evie. She would have to think about calling the
contractor. It certainly made the most sense to get advice from a
professional. But the cost was a consideration she couldn't ignore, no
matter how wise it would be. "Is Freddie still in Lucius? She was in
your grade, wasn't she?"

"Yes. And she's still here."

Stu made an unintelligible noise.

Evie rolled her eyes. "Ignore him. He's just irritated be-

46

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

cause he signed a lease for her to rent the barn he converted a while
back. And she's holding him to it, even though they can't agree on the
color of rice."

Laurel buried her nose in her glass of tea. Stu's barn was probably old
Calhoun's barn, unless he'd built another one.

She didn't dare glance at Shane.

Evie, fortunately was chattering on. "Freddie runs a tow service with
Gordon, but if you ask me, she's the brains behind keeping the business
going since her brother hardly has the sense God gave a goose." Evie
flicked a look at her father. "Sorry, Dad. But it's true."

"Gordon's a hard worker," Beau said, looking slightly amused. "There's a
lot to be said for that. But I agree with Stu about calling Jack Finn,
Laurel."

Shane breathed an oath that only Laurel heard. "Laurel shouldn't be in
that house at all, and we all know it."

Silence settled over the foursome, and Laurel wished she were anywhere
but there.

"So, Dad, have you heard from Nancy?" Evie finally broke the silence,
her voice deliberately cheerful.

"Nancy Thayer," Beau supplied to Laurel. "She directed our junior choir.
Kids in fifth grade through eight. She eloped last week. And no. I
haven't," he told Evie.

"Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love," Evie's voice was a
little tart at that, "but she couldn't have timed it worse." Her blue
gaze shifted to Laurel. "The junior choir still spends every year
raising enough money to travel to Spokane to participate in the choir
festival there. Now they won't be able to go."

"Never put my truck through so many car washes." Stu dumped more ketchup
on his French fries.

"Or bought so many homemade brownies," Beau added. "Think you financed
two kids' expenses on that alone."

47 I

ALLISON LEIGH47

Stu just grinned.

Laurel didn't quite see the problem. "If they have the money, why can't
they go?"

"Without a director, they won't be able to sing." Evie shook her head.
"Rules."

"You can't hire someone else? Or maybe have a parent fill in temporarily?"

Evie's eyebrows rose pointedly. "The only other parent aside from me
who's even willing to try that is Tony Shoemaker, Shane's senior deputy.
And he can't carry a tune in a bucket."

"Neither can you, Tater," Shane drawled.

"A person doesn't have to sing themselves in order to direct a youth
choir. Surely you can find someone." She flushed when she realized Beau
was studying her.

"The festival is next weekend," he said.

"What about you or your associate pastor?"

"Jon is on study leave for a month, and I can't leave for three days
without someone to fill the pulpit on Sunday. Believe me. If I could
figure out a way of not disappointing Alan and the others, I would."

Alan, Laurel knew, was Evie's eldest son. "There's not anyone?" Her
stomach felt in a knot. She wasn't so oblivious that she didn't know
where this was headed. The hopeful look in Evie's eyes was enough to
tell her that.

"Not so far." Beau dropped his napkin on his empty plate. "Some things
just can't be helped. They'll have a chance to go next year."

Laurel swallowed. "Maybe I could, um, fill in as director. Just to get
them through the festival."

"No." Shane's voice was flat.

Laurel bristled, her nervousness shriveling into irritation. "Why not?"

48

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Joey Halloran is in that group. He's hell on wheels. He got caught
shoplifting last week at the thrift store."

"All the more reason for him to keep involved with more appropriate
pursuits. But I suppose being the sheriff, you think anyone who even
slightly breaks the law ought to be punished, rather than resolve the
issue at the root of the problem?"

He looked equally irritated. "I didn't say that."

She turned in her chair and looked at Beau. "It's been a long time since
I've sung?" a severe understatement "?but I can probably keep a group of
kids on key."

Shane shoved back his chair. He was surrounded by people bent on
ignoring reality. Laurel didn't need to be filling in for that twit
who'd eloped, any more than she needed to be fixing broken steps. "I've
gotta get back to the office." He tossed some cash on the table and
ignored the disapproval in Beau's eyes as he turned to the door.

The wounded look in Laurel's eyes, though, followed him all the way back
to his office.

When he got there he stopped at Carla's desk and picked up the stack of
pink messages awaiting him.

"How was court?" she asked.

"Too long." He knew she wanted a blow-by-blow account because she always
did. And, as always, she'd have to get her gossip from somewhere else.
He flipped through the paper messages as he headed back to his office,
only to stop. "What's this number?" One of these days, he needed to get
the county to spring for a voice-mail system. Carla's writing had never
won any awards for legibility.

Carla craned her neck, peering at the message. "Um, a five."

He nodded and started for his office again. Behind him the door jangled.

49 49

"I'd like to make a complaint."

He stopped cold. Slowly turned.

Laurel stood in the doorway. Her hair was still pinned back the way it
had been in the cafe, but her cheeks were flushed, her golden eyes snapping.

"Excuse me?"

"I have a complaint." Her voice was as crisp as her eyes.

Carla was watching them avidly. She liked hearing gossip almost as much
as she liked sharing it.

"We'll talk in my office."

"I don't want to talk in your office."

"Laurel?"

"Good heavens. You're little Laurel Runyan. I should have recognized you
the second you walked in." Carla was around her desk in a flash. "Carla
Chapman. I used to sit in a quilting circle with your grandmother. She
was the oldest, I was the youngest. Neither one of us could abide any of
the other women. She used to bring you with her, though. You'd sit in a
corner in the quilting room with your own squares and a big oF darning
needle and yarn. I've heard you're a teacher. That's a fine thing.
Lucille would be proud. And my condolences on your daddy passing," she
added belatedly.

Laurel loofted a little dazed. "I remember the quilting circle."

Carla looked pleased and only slightly abashed when she caught the look
Shane was giving her. She cocked her eyebrow and returned to her desk.

Shane grabbed Laurel's arm, ignoring the start she gave, and led her
back to his office. He let go of her as soon as they entered his cubicle
and flipped through the messages again without bothering to look at
them. Mostly he wanted to rid his hand of the feel of her supple arm.

50 50A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Okay, what's the complaint?" He sat down behind his desk.

She, however, didn't sit. She crossed her arms, looking at him with a
schoolmarm look that probably did wonders for straightening up
mischievous third-grade boys.

For a thirty-five-year-old man, it did not have the desired effect.

"Just because you loathed my father, and dumped me the second you'd
finished with me, does not give you the right to harass me about what I
choose to do or not do with his house, or to dictate what I do with my
time while I' m here!"

"I didn't dump you." He kept his voice low. His conscience, however, was
screaming at him with the ferocity of a freight train.

Her eyes went even chillier. "There may be some things I don't remember,
Sheriff, but I remember that quite well."

He wished she'd sit. Or pace. Do anything but stand there the way she
was, looking as cold and brittle as a narrow icicle. An icicle that
could snap in two as easily as a whisper.

"I didn't know how much you remembered." He'd been an ass. An ass who'd
been old enough to know better than to get involved with her. Eighteen
or not, she'd still been too young and innocent.

Neither fact had stopped him back then.

He hoped to hell he'd learned something in the years since.

Her expression remained glacial. "Not remembering what I saw the night
my mother died does not mean I cannot remember the exact details of how
you dumped me an hour before it happened." Her chin lifted a little.
"Therapy," she clipped, "does wonders for enabling a person to
state...unpleasant...facts. And the unpleasant fact is that you don't
want me in Lucius at all. You probably figured

51 51

that with my father's death, your town was finally free of Runyans."

He leaned back in his chair. The springs squeaked slightly. "That
therapy may have done you a world of good, but you are way off the mark
when it comes to reading me."

"Really. You can't wait for me to sell my father's house. To dump it,
really. You nearly came unglued when Evie was talking about
someone?me?replacing Mrs. Cuthwa-ter. And then this festival business?
What's the matter? Are you afraid a Runyan will bring rack and ruin to
the innocent children of Lucius?"

"No. I'm afraid Lucius will bring rack and ruin to you." He exhaled
roughly, wanting to rip out his tongue. Where the hell was his control?

Her lips parted, and all the color drained from her cheeks.

He went around to her, taking her arms. "Sit."

She shook off his hold. "I don't need to sit."

An icicle. Too easily snapped in two. "Laurel, please. I didn't intend
to upset you."

"Of course not. Heaven forbid you upset the crazy lady. She might just
lose her mind again."

"I never said you were crazy." Maybe he was. Maybe that was why he
sometimes still?all these years later?woke up sweating in the middle of
the night with the vision of her inside that room at Fernwood, rocking
herself to sleep, her eyes roiling pools of despair.

"You didn't have to say it," she whispered. "When everything you do
makes it obvious you think it."

Then she turned on her heel and walked out of his office.

52

1 he next day, Laurel took the bus back to Lucius from Billings after
returning the rental car there. Keeping it longer was simply an excuse
she couldn't afford. But standing in the depot, she very nearly changed
her mind about climbing on the bus.

Wouldn't returning to Colorado be preferable to returning to Lucius?

She could find another teaching position. She did have good credentials,
after all. She'd left her last school on good terms. Had even helped
find her replacement. She'd been planning on marrying. Martin had wanted
to travel. See the world. He was forty-five and more than financially
able to take an early retirement. Giving up her job had been perfectly
understandable, considering the circumstances.

There was no earthly reason why she had to return to Lucius. The junior
choir would survive without her inter-

53 53

vention. Mrs. Cuthwater could keep on substituting for third grade.
Laurel could contact that attorney?Mr. New-some?and put him in charge of
disposing of her father's house and personal effects.

She didn't have to go back.

The worst memories of her life lived in Lucius.

But so did the very best memories.

When she went up the ramp of plywood mat covered the perilous porch
steps at her father's house, she couldn't pretend mat she hadn't chosen
to return willingly.

None of it had anything to do with Shane, of course. Heavenly days, no.
Where would be the sense in that?

Whether or not he admitted it, at worst the man thought she had a screw
loose. At best he thought she needed coddling to make sure her screws
didn 't come loose.

So she unlocked the flimsy lock and went inside, leaving the door open
for the fresh summer air. Even after only a half a day of being closed
up, the house felt stuffy and close.

In her marathon cleaning sessions before the funeral, she'd managed to
rid the house of its suffocating layer of dust, but instead of making
the house look better, she'd only managed to make its rundown condition
more evident. Yes, the windows were clean and shining again, but the
cracks only glistened more. Yes, the cobwebs were gone, but the walls
and ceilings now screamed for fresh plaster and paint.

She dropped her suitcase on the couch. She knew she needed to get to
work on the place. She'd done enough vacillating. Whether she fixed the
house up to remain in it or fixed it up to sell it, either way the work
needed to be done.

While in Billings, she'd called Martin and asked him to sell her car. It
wasn't worth much, but it had been reliable enough for her needs. Going
all the way to Denver to re-

54 54A MONTANA HOMECOMING

trieve it though seemed more effort and expense than it was worth. His
son from his first marriage?a high school senior?had been begging for a
car for a year. Now he'd have one. She'd hung up feeling better and
worse. Better that she'd made a productive decision. Worse because
Martin was simply too good. He hadn't deserved her treatment, and she
still felt badly about it.

But not badly enough to go through with a marriage that had put her in
the worst panic attack she'd had since she'd been a patient at Fernwood

She'd left Denver. She had no intention of going back. She'd had
friends, but no one?other than Martin?who'd been truly close. Aside from
him, she'd spent nearly all of her time teaching. Teaching during the
regular year. Teaching during the summers.

And dwelling on it all accomplished nothing.

Martin was sending her money for her car, and she'd find something
economical in Lucius. On Monday she would open a bank account in town,
have her funds transferred from Colorado. She'd have enough to tide her
through the summer, hopefully enough to accomplish the most necessary
repairs on the house, if she was careful. And then.. .and then, she
would see.

Concrete plans. Achievable goals. Such behavior had gotten her through a
lot of years. She could do this.

She would do this.

"Laurel?"

She started, pressing her hand to her heart when it jolted. She turned
to the doorway. She hadn't seen Shane since she'd gone to his office.
"What do you want, Sheriff?"

She didn't need to see his expression clearly through the screen to know
he was irritated. The way he yanked open the door and stepped inside
told her that quite well enough.

55 ALUSONLE1GH55

He swept off his dark-brown cowboy hat and tapped it against the side of
his leg. "What are you doing here?"

"Where else would I be?"

"You left town this morning."

"How'd you know that?"

"The grapevine is as active now as it was when you were a girl. More so,
I 'spose, considering half the town has cell phones now. You drove out
of town and word spread."

"And I wasn't allowed back?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

She felt herself flush when she realized she was staring at his legs,
strong and long and clad in fading blue jeans that fit extremely well.
He looked delectable and she looked.. .as if she'd just spent a few
hours on a bus. "I had to return the rental car in Billings."

"How'd you get back to Lucius?"

"The bus." Looking at his dark-blue pullover didn't help her any,
either, because the fabric did little to disguise the massively wide
chest beneath.

She settled for focusing on the faint dent in his stubbornly square chin.

He tossed his hat and it landed unerringly on the corner of the coffee
table, right next to a footed glass bowl of ugly plastic purple grapes.
"For crissakes, Laurel. You could have called someone."

She sank her teeth into her tongue for a moment. "Is it the bus you
object to, or the fact that I didn't remain out of town?"

"I never wanted you to leave town in the first place."

"No, leaving was what you liked to do." Her words seemed to hang in the
air, giving her mortification plenty of time to set in good and deep.

If she'd wanted to prove that the brief past they'd shared

56 56A MONTANA HOMECOMING

was completely irrelevant to her now, she was doing a miserable job of it.

"Leaving is what I had to do," he said finally. "If I'd have stayed, I
wouldn't have been able to keep my hands to myself again. Not after we'd?"

"Stop." Heat filled her face. She had only herself to blame for opening
up the matter, but she really didn't want to go into those details. "It
was a long time ago. No need to rehash it."

"Maybe not for you. I always meant to tell you that I was?"

"Please, this isn't?"

"Sorry."

"?necessary."

He frowned at her, looking very much as if he had plenty more to say.
After a moment, though, he just raked one long-fingered hand through his
hair, ruffling the deep gold into soft spikes. "So you really do mean to
stay while you work on this house."

She could feel her scalp tightening. "Yes."

"Despite what happened here."

There was no possibility of pretending she didn't know what he referred to.

"Was Holly in the hospital when she died?" she asked.

His eyes narrowed. "No."

"Hospice care?"

"She was at home." His voice was clipped.

"With your father."

"Yes."

"Did he leave his house after? Sell it?"

A muscle flexed in his jaw. "No."

"And you still visit your dad there. At the house where you and your
brother and sisters grew up."

57 57

"Apples and oranges, Laurel. My father didn't?" His teeth snapped
together. "God. What is it about you that pushes me right off the edge
of reason?"

She crossed her arms, stung. "Why don't you just finish it, Sheriff?
Your father didn't kill your mother. And you believe?just like your
predecessor, Sheriff Wicks?that my father killed mine. Well, he didn't.
Her death was an accident." She dropped her arms and stepped closer to
him, forcing the words past her tight throat. "I may have been stuck in
a straitjacket five-hundred miles away, but even I knew the charges
against my father were dropped. Sheriff Wicks obviously changed his
mind. So why can't you?"

"You were never in a straitjacket."

"How do you know?"

"Because I visited you there."

Shock reared her back. "I... what?"

He stepped past her, pacing the close confines between the faded couch
and the equally faded rocking chair. He rounded the back of the couch.
Stopped. Closed his palms over the back of it. "Guess I don't have to
ask if you remember that."

She stared at him. His fingertips were white where they sunk into the
faded floral upholstery.

"You...saw me there. At Fernwood."

"Three times a week for three months."

She couldn't breathe. Her lips parted, but she simply could not draw a
breath. She sat down on the rocker and pressed her forehead to her hands.

Everything she'd thought about him for all these years tilted.

She finally dragged oxygen into her lungs. "I didn't know."

"There was a sunroom there. Plenty of windows. A lot of fake palm trees
planted in pots."

58

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She didn't even have to close her eyes to recall the room. To this day
she preferred any tree other man a palm. "It overlooked a parking lot.
The nurses tried to brighten it up with the plants."

"Right."

She remembered the room, remembered so much of Fernwood.

But not his visits.

Which meant he'd been there only at the first. She knew, because she'd
been told, that she'd been moved to Fern-wood within a month of her
mother's death. But the time between that and the wintry morning when
she'd sat looking out at the falling snow and her mind had just..
.clicked on again.. .had been nearly six months.

"Your father toldyou I was at Fernwood, I suppose." She wasn't sure how
she felt about that. She knew Beau had been instrumental in getting her
placed at Fernwood, a private mental health facility outside of Denver,
where she received more care than she would have through the system in
Lucius.

"Holly told me. She came to visit me at seminary. Came to give me a
piece of her mind, actually, for going for weeks on end without calling
home. That's when I learned what your father had done. What had
happened.. .to you. After I'd dropped you off that evening, I picked up
my suitcase from the house and kept driving. I didn't know about any of
it until Holly came to see me in California."

She pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets. "My father didn't do
anything."

"Then you remember that? You remember what happened that day, but not
the hours you and I spent sitting in that bloody sunroom at Fernwood."

"I remember enough!" She dropped her hands, staring

59 59

at him. Wondering why the pain of it was as sharp as it was, when time
was supposed to dull this sort of thing. "You slept with me in Calhoun's
barn, and then you dumped me, and after you drove me back to my
house?insisted on it, in fact?I arrived in just enough time to see my
mother accidentally fall down the stairs. I don't care what everyone
said. My father did not push her."

"Because you remember it."

Her eyes burned. The truth was that she didn't remember anything beyond
the sight of Shane driving away in that old pickup truck while she stood
on the porch, silently crying. "My father wouldn't have hurt my mother."

"Did you ever talk to him after you left Lucius?"

The question came like a slap. "Yes." Often, once she left Fernwood.
Then over the years dwindling down to just once a year. On his birthday.
Calling him more often might have been the right thing to do, but she
hadn't been able to bear the constant disappointment.

"And? What'd he say?"

"What does it matter to you? It wasn't a confession, I promise you
that." She knew her father would never have made such a confession. Not
to her. Not to anyone.

He had been a miserable man, but he hadn't been an abusive one. No
matter what the rumors around Lucius had said.

She ought to know.

She'd lived under his roof.

He'd often raised his voice, but he'd never once raised his hand.

That had been her mother's particular domain.

"Laurel." Shane's voice went soft. Careful. Gentle. "I'm just trying to?"

60

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Coddling.

She hated it.

"He told me not to come home to Lucius," she said baldly. "So I didn't.
He never came to visit me. His actions were perfectly clear. He didn 't
want to be around me. But now he's gone and what he wanted doesn't
matter anymore. I'm here whether you like it or not."

"I don't want you to get hurt again."

"There's nothing in this house that can hurt me."

"Hurt doesn't have to be physical."

She knew that as well as anyone.

And she was still grappling with the revelation that he'd visited her at
Fernwood. "I'll be fine."

Something came and went in his eyes. "I guess I'll be close enough by to
make sure of it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He merely straightened and rounded the couch, stopping in front of her.
"Come with me."

Wariness edged in again. "Where?"

He held out his hand. "You'll see."

She swallowed. Eyed his palm. She could see the row of calluses, the
signs of a man perfectly accustomed to physical labor, despite his
position as sheriff. His fingers were long. Square-tipped. His wrist corded.

She swallowed and gingerly placed her hand in his.

And even though she'd braced herself, the contact felt electric.

If he noticed, he hid it a lot better than she did.

She rose.

He led her out the front door. The plywood vibrated under their feet as
they went down it. There was no sign of Shane's SUV. Instead, there was
a small blue sedan parked at the curb.

61 61

It didn't look at all like a car he'd ordinarily drive.

But then, what did she know?

She absently noticed that a breeze had cropped up. It felt welcoming,
given the heat of the afternoon. Given the heat charging up her arm to
her elbow to her shoulder and beyond...

He walked the length of the house, then around the southern side. Fifty
yards behind the house, the land rose sharply. Growing up, she'd done a
lot of sledding in the wintertime on that hill.

"I'll be close by," he said, letting go of her hand and pointing.
"Because we're neighbors."

She stared.

The house on the hill was his.

The house that was so incredibly beautiful. She'd spent more than one
night watchini the wooden and stone structure sleep in the moonlight
when she hadn't been able to find any such rest. She'd admired the
gleaming windows, the stone chimneys, the inviting porch. The house had
been built while she'd been gone from Lucius, yet it didn't reek of
newness at all. It possessed only a timeless beauty.

"You lived behind my father."

"Yes."

She didn't know what to do with her hands. One was still tingling. The
other felt cold.

She forced them to remain at her sides, fighting the burgeoning need to
wring them together. Her appreciation for the house now seemed like
another betrayal of her father. "Who built the house?"

"I did."

"You?"

"I'm capable, too," he drawled, his voice impossibly dry.

62 62A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She ignored the small jab, not doubting his capabilities for a second.
The man undoubtedly exceeded capable on every front.

Even if he was the sheriff.

The sheriff.

Who'd lived within eyeshot of her father.

She finally identified the feeling that was hollowing her out.

Disappointment.

"Were you so set on keeping an eye on my father that you chose to live
behind him?"

Not even strictly behind him. Above him. Like some almighty watchdog
waiting for the moment to attack.

Had her father been bothered by the sheriff's proximity? Had he felt as
if the law were breathing down his neck, just waiting for the moment to
strike again?

Or had he been as unconcerned about that as he'd been unconcerned about
his daughter?

Shane's dark brows had jerked together over his sharp nose. His lips
were thinned.

He was displeased, definitely. But he didn't deny the truth in her sharp
question. "I chose to build there because of the view," he said.

The view of what? Her father's rooftop?

The hollowness inside her widened. What had he expected her father to
do? Once her mother was gone, when Laurel was gone, when the charges
against him were dropped, he'd lived alone. He'd still worked as a
maintenance engineer for the town of Lucius, but he'd still... been...alone.

Her father's attorney had been very clear on that point.

She'd had no reason to doubt him.

And it made her ache inside to think of her dad being

63 63

watched by the sheriff, as if his life was continually on display, under
a microscope, awaiting a misstep.

If only he 'd let me come home. The futile whisper screamed through her.
Some portion of her mind realized she'd said it aloud even before Shane
spoke.

"You could have come home if you'd wanted," he countered.

"There was nothing here for me." Her father had been adamant. Don't come
back.

Shane's lips tightened even more, as if he'd taken her remark personally.

Which was simply ridiculous.

"You had friends," he finally said.

She rubbed her palms together. The tingling stubbornly remained. "Jenny
Travis moved away to college that year." That year. As if there were
only one year that was important.

"I wasn't talking about Jenny."

She knew that. "You left, too."

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he couldn't change history. He had left.
And he hadn't returned permanently until his stepmother was stricken
with cancer. He'd already admitted that to her.

"I really don't want to rehash the past," she said suddenly. She didn't.
She just wished she could get the past out of her mind for two minutes.
But every time she looked at Shane, all she could remember were those
summer days, when everything had been fresh and beautiful and full of
promise. When she'd awakened each morning with anticipation and
enthusiasm and hope. :

Until it had all ended on one terrible, terrible Sunday.

"Suits me. The present is interesting enough. What are you doing about a
car?"

64 64A MONTANA HOMECOMING

It was such an abrupt switch, she was momentarily unnerved. "I, um, I
thought I'd talk to Stu about it."

He pulled something from his pocket. "You can use this in the meantime."
He held out his hand.

"That's a key."

His lips twitched. "So it is."

"I don't need any favors."

"Consider it a neighborly gesture," his voice went silky.

At least she retained enough good sense to recognize that the silkiness
was not an auspicious sign. "It's not necessary. I'll have funds for a
used car in a few days."

"It's Beau's spare car and it's parked out front. He'd have brought it
by himself, but he's tied up with some stuff today."

Her breath escaped. He'd won handily. He knew she had a particularly
soft spot for his father. That she could deny him almost nothing.

She carefully plucked the key from his palm, only he closed his fingers
around hers before she could draw away.

She went still, her gaze snapping to his.

"You call me if you need something."

They were both older. The years had brought plenty of changes. He even
had laugh lines arrowing out from the corners of his eyes.

But those eyes were still the same silvery gray that haunted her memories.

His thumb rubbed across her knuckles. "I mean it, Laurel. Promise me."

She moistened her lips.

He'd visited her at Fernwood.

She slipped her hand free of his, holding on to the key.

"I promise." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

65 !

ALLISON LEIGH65

The lines beside his eyes crinkled. And she forgot all about the
hollowness that she'd felt earlier.

Evidently, some things never did change. Shane Golightly's effect on her
was one of them.

66

Laurel didn't go to church the next morning, despite nearly every member
of the Golightly family offering to give her a ride, even though they
knew full well she'd accepted the loan of Beau's spare car.

Fortunately, neither Stu nor Evie had challenged her decision. They both
thought she was still recovering from the funeral service, and she left
them to their assumption.

She felt slightly guilty at that.

Her parents, her gram, hadn't raised her to lie.

But the truth was, she was simply too tired.

She hadn't slept more than thirty minutes at a stretch all night long.

It was no better than before the funeral service, and if she didn't
start sleeping better soon, she wasn't going to be in any shape
whatsoever to wield a hammer or a paint-

67 67

brush, much less accompany a choir she'd yet to meet to an out-of-state
festival at the week's end.

She'd tried sleeping in her old bedroom.

She'd tried sleeping on the couch.

She'd tried the basement, the dilapidated wicker love seat on the porch
and had even eyed the bathtub as a possibility.

She'd ended up with a blanket and pillow on the dining room floor where
she could see out the picture window to the cool rise of sun above a
stone and wood house high on a hill.

And when she figured the Golightlys would be collectively occupied with
Sunday services, she bathed and dressed in a lightweight sundress and
drove Beau's spare car through town.

Lucius had never been short of churches. When she was a girl, they'd all
been located on church row. Poplar Avenue was the official name, but
she'd never known anyone to actually use it.

Until her grandmother died, Laurel had gone with her every single Sunday
to Lucius Community. And after Gram died, Laurel walked to church. If
the weather was particularly bad, her friend Jenny could be counted on
to get her parents to drive out and pick up Laurel.

Laurel's parents, however, never sat in one of those pews.

But that wasn't strictly true, for her fatfier had begun attending
Beau's church after his family was no longer around.

While the sight of church row with its congestion of vehicles was a
familiar sight as she drove beyond the older part of Lucius, she
encountered plenty of the unfamiliar. There was a shopping center with
an enormous discount store. There was a small hospital with an adjacent
medical complex. There were apartment buildings and houses that looked
so new she wondered if the exterior paint was even dry.

The cemetery?not at all new?was amidst all the recent

68

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

buildings springing up around it, but even it showed signs of progress
in the profusion of bushes and trees and picturesque bits of stone walls
that hadn't been there before.

She turned her borrowed little sedan through the opened iron gates and
depended on memory to guide her around the winding, narrow road. So many
landmarks looked different. Small trees had become towering hardwoods.

Her grandmother's grave was still recognizable, though. The family
headstone had been put in place when her grandfather died long before
Laurel was born. She wasn't sure how old she was when she could first
remember visiting the grave with Gram. Three? Four?

It was one of her earliest memories.

Holding Gram's hand. Dusting away the dried leaves that had accumulated
at the base of the massive granite marker. There'd been nothing fearful
in this place with Gram.

Nothing fearful ever with Gram.

She'd been Laurel's rock.

Laurel sat down on the grass beside the graves. The ground was damp. It
had probably been watered early that morning. She leaned forward and
brushed her hand over the small flat stones that marked each individual
grave.

It had been so long since she'd visited. She should have brought flowers
or something. But Laurel wasn't particularly worried about her gram
looking down on her with displeasure. She carried the woman with her in
her heart wherever she was. She didn't need to visit a grave to feel
close to her.

She'd learned that courtesy of Beau Golightly, who'd been the one to
suggest she write to her grandmother when she'd been inconsolable after
her death.

She lifted the canvas journal she'd brought with her. "I shouldn't have
stopped, Gram. Seems like life was so much

69 69

clearer when I was still writing to you. I've been rereading all the
journals. Five years' worth. And I remember writing it all, I remember
living it all. But I still can't remember that night, Gram, or the
nights that followed. I still can't."

On the other side of her grandmother was Laurel's mother. And beside her
lay freshly turned earth.

Her father. She hadn't come to the cemetery for his burial. No one had.
That had been his request. Just another way of pushing her away, she felt.

She looked across the road, away from the family plot.

"I was going to get married, Gram. Of course, you know mat. And you know
what happened." She drew in her feet and rested her cheek on her bent
knees. Her vision blurred, wet. "I really tried. Martin is a.. .a dear
man. We'd been friends for years. Then a few months ago, he proposed.
And I accepted. But I just couldn't make myself go through with it."

"Why not?"

The voice was not a ghostly whisper of her grandmother's spirit.

It was deep. Slightly drawling. And indescribably male.

She didn't lift her cheek. Didn't want to draw attention to the fact
that now, here, at her grandmother's grave her tears had found their way
to the surface and were slowly creeping down her face.

"Are you following me, Sheriff?"

She heard his footsteps. His legs?jeans again and boots probably shined
up for Sunday?entered her field of vision as he came up beside her.
"I've got people in this place, too," he said.i

Of course he did.

Holly. The stepmother who'd been the only mother who'd mattered to him.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She turned her head, brushing her cheeks across her knees as she did so.
She stayed huddled. "Shouldn't you be at church? Or your office or
something?"

"Even sheriffs get a day off now and then. And Beau expects me only when
he sees me." He hunkered down beside her. "Grass is damp. You're getting
your butt wet."

"It'll dry."

Shane had no comment to that. He just crouched there next to her,
studying the family marker. "Lucille was a great lady," he said after a
while. He remembered the woman well, even though she'd died when he was
a teenager. "She never had an unkind word for anyone, but she sure did
manage to express her opinion, whether positive or negative, about the
antics folks got up to around here."

"Sort of like your father." Laurel finally lifted her head, cutting off
his view of her long, slender neck when her silky ponytail slid over it.
She seemed to be staring at her father's fresh grave.

"You're very lucky, you know. To have been raised by a man like that."

Shane took off his hat and slowly turned it in his hands to keep them
busy and out of trouble. Her shining hair was just as beckoning as her
soft neck. "Being a preacher's kid isn't necessarily a walk in the park.
Folks put their clergy on a pedestal. Expect the families to live up
there with them. Fact is, we're all just human like everyone else. Full
of fallibility."

"And full of goodness." Her voice was barely audible.

He slanted his gaze from the crown of his hat to her face. Her cheeks
were wet.

Pointing it out to her wouldn't win him any favors, he figured.

71 71

He wasn't used to being presented with situations where he didn't know
which direction to step. The law, well the law was pretty
black-and-white. He was comfortable in that sort of environment. He'd
already proven that fact with his one foray into commitment. But even
when he'd called off his engagement to Denise, he'd been comfortable
with the decision. It, too, had been clear cut. Maybe not easy. But
clear, all the same.

Laurel Runyan though, was an environment unto herself.

And he wasn't as young as he used to be. His knees were killing him,
crouched down the way he was.

He finally just sat down, and as he'd expected, the damp grass
immediately started soaking through his jeans.

"You'll get wet," she said.

"I'll dry," he drawled.

She shook her head a little, then rested her cheek on her knees again,
looking sideways at him.

He knew she was thirty years old, but just then she looked about as old
as a teenager.

"You needn't babysit me, Shane. I'm sure you have better things to do
with your time."

Shane. Finally.

He dropped his hat over his knee. For once her voice hadn't been tight
or defensive. "Not right at the present. Unless you really want to be
alone." He'd give her that. For now. Here in this place.

Her eyes were the wet, warm color of amber hit by sunlight. "No. I don't
want to be alone." The admission seemed to surprise her more than it did
him, and she looked away, propping her chin on her knees once more. A
sigh lifted her shoulders, bare except for the wide straps of her pink
sundress and the light tan that coated her supple skin.

His fingers flexed.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"It's like a pretty park here," she murmured after a moment. "I've
always thought that, but it's even more so now, what with the stone
benches and the new plants."

"Doesn't bother you that it's a cemetery?"

"No. It used to annoy my mom when I'd want to come out here and sit with
Gram. Mom didn't like it here. Said it gave her the willies being around
so many departed souls. When did you decide you wanted to be a cop?"

He slid a glance her way again. She was still looking ahead, giving away
none of her thoughts. "Same year I quit seminary."

"That tells me a lot."

"The year after that summer," he elaborated, knowing she'd have no
desire to delve further into that bit.

He was right. Sort of.

She placed her palms on the grass behind her, leaning back a little as
she stretched out her legs. The folds of her dress fell softly around
her calves. "Was your dad terribly disappointed?"

"He'd have been more disappointed if I'd continued seminary without
really feeling the call."

They'd sat on the grass almost this same way that long-ago summer. Only,
they'd been at the school fields, stuffing themselves on fried chicken,
corn on the cob and icy watermelon. And later that night they'd watched
fireworks.

And he'd kissed young Laurel Runyan for the first time.

"Why law enforcement? Your bachelor's was in psychology, wasn't it?"

He nodded. But going into his reasons for such a career shift was not
going to lead anywhere good. And just then, he didn't particularly want
to start an argument with Laurel on whether or not her father had gotten
away with murder.

Naturally she believed one thing. He, however, believed

73 73

the other. And the fact that he'd gone into law enforcement to do his
part in keeping such travesties from occurring wouldn't make things
between them any easier.

"Evie's bound to have a pot roast going for Sunday dinner," he said
instead. "She'll nag me for a month of Mondays if I don't get you there."

"Is it that time already?"

"Gettin' there."

"I didn't know I'd been sitting here for so long." Her forehead wrinkled.

"No crime in it, Laurel. No curfew's been set limiting time spent
sitting on wet grass."

Her expression smoothed. She looked at him. "My dress is cotton. It'll
dry about five minutes after I stand. You, however, are wearing denim
jeans. You're not going to be so fortunate."

Seeing that faint smile curving her lips generated enough heat that his
jeans ought to dry instantly. "Been through worse."

Her lips twitched. "I'll say. Remember when your truck stalled out by
the creek?"

He hadn't stalled. He'd run out of gas because he'd been too damned
preoccupied with keeping his hands off the pretty girl who'd been with
him and had made some fool excuse about engine trouble because he hadn't
wanted to admit the truth. They'd been spending every moment together
when he wasn't working for Calhoun. They'd laughed and talked and fished
and sometimes just sat quietly together, watching the summer clouds
drift. But aside from a few kisses, he hadn't really touched her. "I
wouldn't have fallen in the creek if it weren't for you," he countered.

Her eyebrows rose. "That's not the way / remember it.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

You were standing in front of the truck with your head buried under the
hood and when you stepped back to close it, you went right down the bank
of the creek."

"I didn't know you were wearing a bikini under that dress of yours."
Seeing her stretched out on the ground sunning herself in those minute
scraps of fabric had knocked him for six.

She rose suddenly, brushing at the folds of her current dress. "The
swimsuit was Jenny's. She was a little... smaller than me."

"Suppose you returned the suit to her."

"What? Yes, I imagine I did."

"Too bad."

Her eyebrow peaked. "Why?"

"I have fond memories of that bathing suit."

Her cheeks went pink. Then red. As red as they'd been that day when he'd
tugged the strings loose on that bikini top and she had made no attempt
at stopping him.

She swished her hands briskly down her dress. "Well, I, um, I have
things to get to. And you've got Sunday dinner waiting."

"We 've got dinner waiting."

She blinked. The riotous color in her cheeks faded, but only a little.
"Oh, I really don't think?"

"Beau will be disappointed if you don't go."

Her lips firmed a little. "Do you regularly use your father to obtain
what you want?"

He pushed to his feet, smiling a little. "Whatever works, songbird."

Her pupils widened. She blinked suddenly, as if she were coming out of
some spell. "I'm sorry. You'll have to give Beau my regrets. I really do
have things to do." Her voice had that tone again. The tight, defensive
tone. The

75 75

one that warned him to stay well clear of the invisible boundary she
held around herself.

"What things?"

Her posture had always been perfect, but her shoulders went back a
little more at that. "If it's so important that you know my business,
Sheriff, I have an appointment with Mr. Finn this afternoon."

"What time?" He knew for a fact that Jack Finn played golf every Sunday
afternoon, weather allowing. He wouldn't be finished until four at the
earliest.

Her lips firmed. "Six."

"Giving you plenty of time to eat, put up with my dad's kibitzing and
even have a little nap if you choose."

"I'm not three. I don't need a nap!"

She was as beautiful as ever, but a person would have to be blind to
miss the dark circles under her golden eyes.

He wasn't blind.

He'd seen the lights that burned every night?all night?in her father's
house.

The fact that the location of the light had changed almost hourly had
told him that she hadn't simply fallen asleep with the lights on. She'd
been awake. Moving around the house. Flipping on and off lights as she
went. That, combined with the dark circles now, told him plainly that
she'd slept poorly, if at all.

He made himself shrug. "Suit yourself. But Evie's turned into a mighty
fine chef."

"For heaven's sake. I'm not going to starve if I'm not sitting next to
you for Sunday dinner. I am capable of fixing a meal for myself."

"You cook?"

Her hands flopped. She started walking toward the road. "Of course I can
cook."

76 76A MONTANA HOMECOMING

His long stride more than kept pace. "Like what?"

"I don't know!" She shot him a look. "Are you wanting evidence to prove
my claim or something?"

"Is that an invitation to supper?"

She stopped at her car. Uttered a short laugh and rolled her eyes. "You
need no invitation, Sheriff. You've got a plate already waiting for you
at Evie's. And somehow I think you're not likely to starve in this town
even if your sister weren't a fine chef."

He grinned a little. It was true. People around Lucius were always
pressing food on him. But not everyone in Lucius cooked as well as his
sister did.

His hand brushed hers as they both reached for her car door. She drew
back quickly, avoiding his gaze.

He opened the door-?not locked, but there was no need in this place?and
she slipped in, gathering up the floaty folds of her dress before he
closed it. He leaned over a little, studying her through the opened
window. "Tiff's," he said. "Just in case you change your mind."

The edge of pearly white teeth sank into her soft lip, barely
noticeable. She nodded and fit the car key into the ignition.

Shane straightened and stepped back.

Her ponytail drifted over her shoulder, caught by the faint breeze, as
she started the car.

The car that promptly died.

She shot him a look, shrugging a little nervously as she turned the
ignition again.

Nothing.

He stepped forward, heading to the front of the car. "Pop the hood."

She did so.

He lifted it, then stuck his head around so he could see

77 77

her through the windshield. "You don't happen to have a

bikini on under your dress do you?"

- She laughed abruptly, shaking her head.

He smiled and turned his attention back to the engine. But the sound of
her musical laughter stuck in his head.

He tweaked a few cables, twitched a few wires. "Try it again."

She did. Still nothing.

He brushed his hands down his jeans and closed the hood. "Gotta be a
fuel thing," he told her.

She looked stricken.

"Car's ten years old," he said as he opened the door for her again.
"Little things happen often enough. Don't worry. It's not your fault."

She still didn't look particularly convinced. "I should probably arrange
a tow truck or something."

He shook his head. "Just roll up the window. Leave the key under the mat."

Her eyes widened.

"Everybody in town knows this car is Beau's. Nobody's likely to steal it
before I have it towed to Stu's garage."

She tucked the key under the mat and rolled up the window, then climbed
from the car. Her feet didn't drag?quite?as she walked with him to his
SUV he'd parked a short distance up the road.

He opened the passenger door for her, but she nearly jumped out of her
skin when he touched her elbow, helping her up inside.

He closed the door a little harder than necessary and went around to the
driver's side.

The drive through town took longer than necessary only because of the
after-church rush disgorging from Poplar Avenue onto Main. And he was
perfectly aware of Laurel's

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

small start of surprise when he drove right past Tiff's without slowing.

He kept on driving until he reached the Runyan place. But instead of
turning in her driveway, he drove past and went up the graded drive that
led to his own house.

At that, she did give him a sharp look, her eyebrows lifting.

"Decided I don't want to sit through dinner with my jeans sticking like
wet glue to my butt."

That made her laugh briefly.

He parked behind the house where he usually did. She didn't wait for him
to open her door, but slid off the high seat before he got around to her
side. Her gaze traveled over the back of his house, comprised almost
entirely of windows, then moved to the landscape which they overlooked.

"This is the view you meant," she said after a moment.

The creek meandered in the distance, close enough to be easily visible
through the stand of trees that lined its banks.

It was idyllic.

"Yeah. Sunrises are pretty spectacular." He held out his arm. "Come inside."

The edge of that row of teeth was nibbling at her lip again. "I thought?"

"I know." He knew what she'd thought. That he'd set himself up as
Roger's watchdog. And maybe he had. "Forget it."

She didn't look as if she was going to do any such thing, but she
stepped forward and accompanied him up the sweeping wide steps that
spanned the width of the sitting porch stretching across the back side
of his house. "You have a pet?" She nodded her chin toward the empty
food bowl.

"I have a cat who visits occasionally," he corrected. "Speck isn't
anyone's pet. Beneath his dignity."

79 79

"I think Speck and I have already met," she said, remembering the cat
she'd spotted when she'd first arrived in town. "Who designed the
house?" Her palm lingered on the door.

"I did." He tossed his keys on the granite counter separating the
kitchen from the great room where he spent a good deal of his time when
he wasn't in the front of the house watching for the nightly
traveling-light show within the Runyan house. "Make yourself
comfortable," he said.

She smiled again, a trifle weakly, he thought.

There was only one chair in the great room. That, and an enormous
television.

The rest of the room was all but empty.

He headed to the staircase. She perched on the arm of his big black
leather recliner, looking as if she were going to bolt down the hill to
whatever haven her father's house provided the second his back was turned.

He rapidly exchanged his clothes for dry ones and went back downstairs.
His white shirt was still untucked, but he figured if he gave her two
extra seconds, she was gonna head for the hill, literally.

She was still sitting on the arm of his chair when he went back
downstairs, boots^in hand, and started to rise when she spotted him.

He waved her back and grabbed one of the two iron bar stools from the
counter, perched on it and shoved his foot into first one boot, then the
other.

"How long did it take you?"

He was fairly certain she wasn't referring to the production of pulling
on his cowboy boots. "About three years, start to finish." Thoughfinish
was a relative term, since there were projects he was still tweaking. "I
moved in a few years ago."

"Going for the minimalist approach when it comes to furniture?"

80 80A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Boots in place, he leaned back against the counter. "Been waiting to
find things I want to fill the house with." He wasn't necessarily
referring to furniture.

"That's an enormous kitchen behind you," she observed after a silence
that stretched a little too long. "How often do you give Evie a break
and do the Golightly Sunday dinner thing here?"

"They'd all end up in the hospital. Only cooking I do comes out of the
microwave or off the grill."-

"At least that's honest."

"I'm the sheriff. Supposed to be honest."

Her lashes swept down. "Well, I guess you're changed and dry again, so..."

He stood. Opened the door. She rose, too, giving another sweeping look
around the interior as she joined him. Almost as if she wanted to
memorize the sight.

Then they went outside and he drove down the dirt driveway and stopped
in front of her father's house. "Are you really going to help with the
kids' choir?"

"I told your father I would. We'll start rehearsals tomorrow evening."
She reached for the door handle. 'Tell Beau I'm so sorry about his car."

He wasn't surprised that she still intended to decline the dinner
invitation. "Not your fault," he assured. "You need a ride tomorrow
before Stu's got it running again, just give a shout."

She nodded, but he figured there was about a snowball's chance in hell
of her actually asking for help from anyone, unless her circumstances
were dire.

"Thanks." She quickly climbed out of the truck, slamming the door shut
and hurrying around the back of it toward the patch of brown grass that
surrounded her house.

He waited until she'd disappeared inside.

81 81

Interesting that she hadn't made any noise about getting out of the SUV
and going to her house before he'd driven up the hill to his place.

Maybe she'd been as curious to see it as he had been to see her in it.

82

Dear Gram,

The Fourth of July picnic is coming up soon. There's the dance and
fireworks and stuff, same as always. Dad says I can go with Jenny and
her family. I'm pretty sure the Golightlys are going to be there, 'cause
Mom has been helping Mrs. Golightly bake the stuff they'll sell at
Tiff's booth at the picnic. I hope Shane will be there, too. I ran into
him yesterday at the dime store. He'd just been over at the Luscious for
lunch with Stu. He's so perfect looking, Gram. I always thought guys
with dark hair were the best-looking ones, but Shane is blond and nobody
is better-looking than he is.

He told me that he liked the solo I sang at church on Sunday. It wasn't
anything fancy. The solo, I mean. Just a few lines. But it was pretty
nice of him

83 83

to notice, I think. I sure miss going to church with you, Gram. Mom is
always working on Sundays, or sleeping it off if she's not, and Dad,
well we both know he never steps foot in a church. Personally, I think
he's afraid the walls might fall down around his ears or something if he
did.. .ha ha. Not really funny, though, when you think about it.

Anyway, I'm hoping to see Shane at the picnic. So what do you think I
should wear? My cutoff shorts? Or I could wear my red sundress, even
though that's getting a little short. Mom says I've grown at least two
inches in the past month, and I'm thinking she might be right. Pretty
soon I'll have to start packing up everything that's in good condition
to take with me to college. Can't believe it's coming so soon, but I got
a letter just the other day from the college of music about a special
summer program. Can't go to it this summer, because it costs too much,
but it's exciting all the same. Gotta run now, Gram. Love, Laurel.

If she hadn't spent so much time reading about the past Laurel would
have probably been done with her latest attempt at home repairs by the
time she saw Shane coming.

It was easy enough to see his approach, considering that she was perched
on the roof. She even sent up a rather futile prayer that he might not
notice her.

Some prayers, though, just weren't worth the Big Guy's time, and that
one was definitely one of them.

She settled herself a little more comfortably on the shingles and dipped
her trowel into the awful, thick black sticky stuff that the hardware
clerk had assured her would work to patch up her collection of leaks
since reroofing was out of her budgetary question, then daubed it on the
roof.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

From the corner of her eye she watched Shane park his SUV presumptuously
on her lawn. Or what would be a lawn if the grass were still living.

She dipped and daubed again and told herself there really weren't
butterflies dancing around inside her.

The slam of his truck door was a solid crack in the hot afternoon.

She dipped again. Wiped a trickle of sweat where it was creeping down
the back of her neck. The faint breeze the day had held earlier had long
gone. It was Tuesday afternoon, and she hadn't seen him since Sunday.

"What the hell are you doing up there?"

She glanced down. Shane stood in the yard, his boots planted, his fists
on his hips.

"Fixing the roof." She stated the obvious, not entirely certain why he
was bristling.

"You don't need to be up there doing that yourself!"

She gaped when he started up the ladder propped on the side of the house.

"I'm perfectly fine up here," she told him when his head appeared above
the roofline. Butterflies grew to the size of hummingbirds. "And I got
all the instructions I needed on how to do this, first from Jack Finn
when he was out here the other day, and at the hardware store." She
swallowed. "I'm not incompetent, you know," she tacked on.

He stepped onto the roof, casting a look of aspersion over the roof.
"You'd be better served taking a wrecking ball to this roof than trying
to patch it. That's something Jack Finn should have told you."

He had, which she didn't see was any of Shane's business. "It only leaks
in a few spots," she defended and slapped more goo in place. Thank
heavens she was wearing thick rubber gloves. If she weren't, she'd never
have

85 85

gotten the sloppy stuff off her skin. "And I'm assured by experts that
this glop will fix them."

He sighed noisily and crouched down beside her. "Glop. Is that a
technical term now?"

Oh, she didn't want him to amuse the hummingbirds flapping away inside
her. "Don't come any nearer. You might get some on your clothes and this
stuff is lethal."

"Exactly. Why do you insist on doing this crap yourself?"

She sighed just as noisily as he had. "I can't afford to hire this out.
Okay?"

"Hire." His voice dismissed the notion. "You've got people around here
who are willing to help. If you're so bloody stubborn that you won't
listen to reason about doing any of this work, then why the hell won't
you accept help when it's offered?"

"Stu is helping me with the wiring in the kitchen," she said
defensively. "I've already talked to him about it. He's coming out as
soon as he has a chance to." She loosened her death grip on the trowel
that he hadn't tried to take from her as she'd feared. It would have
been embarrassing to have to wrestle him for it. But her claim at
competence would have probably required some defense.

"Well, that means he'll be arriving any minute," Shane muttered.

She shot him a look, but the sunlight was half blinding. "He's been very
generous. And he doesn't think he needs to tell me what to do."

"I'll bet he doesn't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't get too cozy with my brother. He's not known for his longevity
when it comes to women."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "I beg your pardon?"

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

She let go of the trowel. The handle fell against the goop and stuck.
"You mean hurt like I was with you?"

His lips tightened. "No, that's not what I meant."

She shifted, planting the rubber soles of her tennis shoes a little more
firmly against the shingles. She badly wanted to stand, but her legs
weren't up to it. Better for him not to know just how badly he shook
her. "Then just what did you mean, Sheriff?"

"Dammit, Laurel. I have a name."

"And maybe if you didn't act all.. .high and mighty all the darned time,
I might use it more often!"

He frowned. "Don't you know how dangerous it is up here for you? How
many roofs have you climbed around on?"

"One." And she didn't like it, at all. But she was determined to do what
was necessary.

"One." Clearly disgusted, he rose.

And his boot heel slipped.

His foot skidded a good twelve inches, knocking into the can holding the
roof patch.

Laurel gasped, horror engulfing her as she grabbed for him,
instinctively wrapping her hands tightly around his legs.

He swore loudly as his boot slid again. He leaned forward, nearly right
over her, to catch his balance. His head was two inches from hers. She
was still latched on to him like a limpet.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Keeping you from falling off the roof!"

"Jesus, Joseph and Mary." He pressed his forehead to her shoulder for a
moment. "You're lucky you didn't send us both off."

She realized her arm was wrapped rather.. .high.. .around

87 87

his thighs. If anyone had been able to see them, it would have looked as
if they were preparing to get horizontal on the rooftop. Her heart was
charging in her chest, making her breathless. "I was only trying to help."

He'd bent one knee when she'd unbalanced him. Unfortunately, he'd
planted it directly in the roof patch. Now, he looked down at the mess
and shook his head. "Hell," he muttered.

"I'm sorry." She tried leaning away from him.

He made a rough sound. "Just...don't move, okay?"

She winced. What was he irritated with her for? She hadn't asked him up
onto the roof; hadn't asked him for anything, for that matter. "What are
you doing here, anyway? I was perfectly fine, so there was no need for
you to come charging up here in the first place?"

His head angled, his gray gaze slamming into hers, and her voice dried
up as surely as the day's breeze had.

"Stu's got the car fixed. I brought the key."

She realized she was staring at his lips and didn't realize that she'd
moistened her own. "Um, thank you."

He eyed her for a moment, then closed his eyes, uttering a half laugh.
"Laurel, honey, you're killing me."

She let go of him as if he'd jabbed her with a hot poker. "What are you
talking about?"

He exhaled and disentangled himself the rest of the way from her. One
leg of his jeans was sticky with thick black glop. He twisted around and
sat down on the roof.

He didn't look inclined to explain his comment.

He had roof patch on his boots, too. And a roughly hand-shaped stain on
his hip.

She swallowed, looking down. The heavy gloves she'd been wearing were
too big, and were now too heavy with

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

patch. It took only a gentle shake of her wrists and they slid off her
hands onto the shingles.

They sat there for a while, side by side, silent.

Eventually, her hummingbirds and butterflies quieted.

And there was nothing but the warmth of the sun on her shoulders through
her Clover Elementary School T-shirt, and the solid presence of Shane
Golightly next to her.

The comfort of it sneaked in, seductively, and that was a danger all on
its own.

Even if she could trust Shane after what had happened in the past, she
couldn't trust herself. "Shouldn't you be out keeping the peace or
something?"

He cast her a sidelong look. "Even in this hotbed of crime, I get a
lunch hour now and then."

A lunch hour he was now spending sitting on her roof. "Is that a hint
for a peanut butter sandwich?" She knew it wasn't, but she felt absurdly
self-conscious all of a sudden.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. "Man oughta get something in return
for hazardous duty."

She huffed softly. "And what is ever hazardous around Lucius?"

He looked at her for a long moment. Then his lids drooped a little,
hiding the expression in his eyes.

But she'd seen enough.

Her mouth ran dry. Her lips tingled.

He was going to kiss her.

It was written on his face. In his body. Those wide shoulders angling
her way, his elbow?where his hand was pressed flat against the
roof?bending slightly as slowly, so slowly, so deliberately, he leaned?

"Yo, Shane."

Laurel's spine snapped straight, her first indication that she'd been
leaning toward Shane, as well. She stared

89 89

blindly down from the roof, hardly taking in the sight of the
familiar-looking vehicle that now sat at the curb or the brawny man who
stood beside it.

Shane seemed less startled by the interruption, as he looked down, as
well. He shifted, propping one wrist over his bent knee. "Stu," he
greeted blandly.

A small pickup truck pulled up behind the car.

Stu remained well back from the house so he could see them. He tilted
back his battered ball cap. "Working on your suntans up there?" His
voice was full of laughter. As if he knew exactly what he'd interrupted.

Nearly interrupted.

"He was helping me with my roof leaks," Laurel said hurriedly. She
pushed to her feet, feeling unsteady in a way that had nothing to do
with her sheer nervousness of being up on a roof at all. She swiped dust
off the seat of the decrepitly old jeans she'd found in a drawer in her
bedroom. "You brought the car."

Stu folded his arms across his wide chest. "Figured the spare key my
brother there took off Riva's hands would do more good if you had
something to put it in."

It seemed so elementary that Laurel felt foolish for not having thought
it herself.

"I was gonna take Laurel by the garage," Shane drawled.

"Who's Riva?" Laurel asked Shane.

"She keeps the garage running for my inferior twin, there."

"Her?" Laurel nodded toward the pickup truck idling at the curb. She
could just make out a sheaf of dark hair?maybe auburn?through the
windshield.

"No. Riva's about 150 years old," Shane murmured. He rolled to his feet,
far more comfortable with their perch than Laurel. "That's Freddie
Finn's truck. She gives Stu a

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

ride now and again out to his place on those rare occasions when they're
speaking to each other." He closed his hand around Laurel's upper arm
when she gingerly took a step in the direction of the ladder. "Watch
your step."

She couldn't really watch anything when she was so excruciatingly aware
of the brush of his knuckles against the side of her breast. But the toe
of her tennis shoe brushed against the pail of roof patch, nudging her
out of her stupor.

She crouched to pick it up, thankfully breaking that disturbing hold of
his. But when she tried to pick up her gloves, she found they were stuck
firm as concrete to the shingle where she'd dropped them. "Well, fudge,"
she muttered, and reached for the trowel.

It, too, had made itself a permanent attachment to her roof.

"Just leave 'em."

She looked up at him. "Don't you laugh."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he assured smoothly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Shane?"

"Your face is getting sunburned," he said. "You need to get out of the
sun for a while."

She needed to have her head examined again is what she needed. She
picked up the pail by its wire handle, and Shane took it from her, then
waited for her to work her way past him to the ladder.

She stopped a foot away from the edge of the roof.

Going down looked a lot worse than going up.

And she hadn't much liked going up.

"Here." Shane took the pail from her. "I'll go first." His voice was
soft. Gentle.

"Gonna stand up there all day?" Stu inquired. He'd moved around the
house and stood at the base of the ladder.

"Ignore him," Shane murmured.

Laurel sank her teeth into her tongue when Shane's

91 91

hand slid up from the small of her back to curl around the base of her
neck beneath her ponytail.

"Just take one rung at a time and don't look down," he added.

"It's not the rungs, it's getting to the rungs," she admitted.

"Just turn yourself around and step down." He moved to the ladder,
putting action to words. "Not so bad." He easily stepped down a few more
rungs, but his head was still above the roofline. "Okay. Come on. I'll
be right here."

She swallowed. How could she have been so stupid as to come up on the
roof without being absolutely certain that she could make her way back
down again? "Just, um, just take the pail of goop down. I'll be along."

He gave her a look assuring her he knew she was putting off the
inevitable. "Okay. Sit down. Scoot to the edge and put your feet on the
top rung. Sit there, relax a little, and don't look down."

"Maybe you ought to call out the firetruck," Stu said humorously. "They
could send up the basket."

"Shut up, Stu."

But Laurel didn't take offense. It was true. She was acting like such a
ninny. And Stu was trying to make it easier in his way, the same as
Shane. She sat down and gingerly inched her way toward the edge.

Shane nodded, went down the rest of the way, dumped off the heavy pail,
and started up again. He stopped, still several rungs down, but still
high enough to put his hands on either side of her legs where they
dangled off the roof's edge. "Ready? Unless you prefer Stu's method and
having it get all around town how you had to be rescued off your roof?"

She rolled her eyes.

His lips twitched a little. "Didn't think so. Just scoot

92 92A MONTANA HOMECOMING

around until you're facing the roof instead of me. Your feet have plenty
of room where they are on the rung."

And when she did what he said, she'd be sticking her rear practically
right in his face. But if she asked him to give her more space, she was
going to be right back in the fix she'd been in all along. Feeling as if
she was hovering on the edge of a chasm with no support around her at all.

She slowly turned. Shane's hand went from the roof to her hip. Her waist.

It was a terrible irony that he made her feel secure enough to step down
to the second rung, yet could still make her feel shaken right down to
the core of her in the same breath.

"Doing okay?" His voice was near her ear.

She could feel the entire length of him protecting her from behind. She
nodded.

His fingers squeezed her waist, approvingly. "Ready for more?"

Ready?

"Yes," she managed.

Step by step, they descended the ladder.

It was too bad that Laurel wasn't certain?even when they safely made it
to the ground?if Shane had been referring to the ladder rungs any more
than she had.

"Good grief, Stu, what's taking you so long?"

Laurel's uneasy thoughts stumbled at the impatient voice drifting around
the side of the house.

"I told you I was expecting a call at home, and...oh." The leggy redhead
rounded the side of the house and stopped short at the sight of them
clustered around the base of the ladder. "Hello," she said, looking from
Laurel to Shane to Stu. "Got a problem?"

Laurel felt her face flush. Undoubtedly Freddie Finn, who was the brains
behind her family's towing business,

93 93

could have capably shinnied up and down the ladder a dozen times over.
"Not anymore. I'm the worst kind of fraidy cat, I guess. Got up the
tree, so to speak, but didn't want to come back down."

The somewhat tight speculation in the other woman's brown eyes eased.
Freddie didn't look at Stu as she stuck out her hand toward Laurel. "You
probably don't remember me," she said. "Freddie Finn."

"I remember," Laurel assured, shaking her hand. "I met with your dad a
few days ago. Between making notes on this place, he could hardly stop
talking about you and your brother, Gordon."

A hint of embarrassment leaked into the other woman's face. "Yeah,
that's my dad, all right. My condolences on your father."

"Thank you." Guilt joined the swirl of emotions that were still bubbling
inside her. She'd barely given her father a single thought that day. "I
hear that you live in a converted barn?"

Freddie looked as relieved at the change of topic as Laurel felt. "Yes.
Dad did a lot of the work, actually. You should come out and see it. Get
an idea on the kind of things he could do for you." She flipped her hair
behind her shoulder, glancing at Shane. "I guess you're not going to buy
the property after all?"

A bubble of silence formed.

Laurel looked at Shane.

Stu finally huffed. "Nice one, Fred," he muttered, closing his hand
around her shoulder and pushing her along. "I'll let you know when I can
check your wiring, Laurel," he called back.

"What the heck's wrong with you," Freddie grumbled as they went.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

A moment later she heard car doors slam, followed by the rev of the engine.

Laurel crossed her arms, still watching Shane. Waiting.

What more surprises lay in wait?

"It's nothing to get upset about," he said after a moment.

She figured she'd be the judge of that. 'Tom wanted to buy my father's
house."

"I still do."

Her gaze dropped to the roof patch staining his clothes. It was
incomprehensible to her. "Why?" She waved her arm at the hill behind
them. "You have a beautiful home already. What could you possibly want
with my father's house?"

"Does it matter?"

Did it? "Why didn't you say something before now? You've had enough
opportunities."

"Because you wanted to be here," he said flatly. "You never once came
back to Lucius, Laurel. How could any of us have predicted that you'd
want to be here, in this house?"

"Okay, but why hide it? If Freddie Finn knows you wanted to buy it, who
else knows? Why not just admit it, Shane, or are you afraid the news
might send me off the edge of sanity!" Her voice rose sharply, despite
her efforts to control it.

"Would you quit blaming every single thing that you don't like about me
on that? I didn't tell you because it didn't matter. You're here and no
amount of persuading you otherwise is going to change it. Hell. Look."
His arm swept out.

The ladder.

The roof patch.

The gallons of paint stacked nearby.

95 95

"You're bound and determined to work on this house no matter what"

"Somebody has to," she said thickly. Her mind was teeming. "Even if it
were you."

His lips thinned. "Honey, the only effort I planned to put into this
house would have been spent pulling it down."

Her throat went tight. "You only want to buy it in order to tear it down?"

"Yes."

"Why?

"So nobody would ever get hurt in this house again."

Shane's words hung in the still, hot afternoon.

Laurel pressed her hands together. He'd said that before, but she hadn't
believed he felt so strongly about it nor did she know why he'd taken it
so personally. Had she misread his feelings for her?

96

1 hank you for helping with the, uh, the ladder," Laurel said, changing
the subject. She stooped down and picked up the pail of roof patch. Her
head spun when she straightened. "But I'm sure I've taken up enough of
your time now. And I'm supposed to meet with the kids again this
evening. They, um, they're quite good. Even Joey. He's got perfect
pitch. He just needs to stand still long enough to finish a song."

He exhaled. "Dammit, Laurel."

"Anyway, I need to clean up and get to the bank before then."

He closed his hand around her wrist, halting her when she took a step
away from him. "Stop running away from me."

She lifted her eyebrows. "I'm not running from a/rything."

"Not even the guy you were supposed to marry? The one you were talking
about to your gram at the cemetery?"

97 97

Laurel snatched her hand away. "That is none of your business."

"Maybe I want it to be my business."

"For pity's sake. That's taking the sheriff business a bit far, even for
you."

His lips twisted. "Believe me, Laurel, it'd be better if it were sheriff
business. Then I'd have these great, clearly defined lines to follow.
Instead, I've got?" He broke off, shaking his head, muttering an oath
under his breath.

"You've got what?"

He breathed in with a hiss. "This." His hand caught her behind the neck
again, only this time there was no comfort in the touch. There was only
heat.

"This," he said again.

And, lowering his head over hers, he captured her lips with his.

She gasped, rearing back, but his hand on her neck held her in place.
And still he kissed her.

His head angled. His thumb found its way to her chin and nudged, angling
hers.

Oh, heavens. She'd forgotten how he tasted.

No. She remembered the Shane he'd been. The thoughtful, kind young man
before he'd left her.

This...this...was...

Her mind went blank.

She barely realized she'd let go of the pail. It fell to the ground with
a rattle. Her fingers opened. Closed. Empty. But that was solved when
she pressed them to his chest. Felt his surging heartbeat through the
shirt he wore. "Shane," she breathed against his mouth.

He tore his lips from hers. Pressed his forehead hard against hers. "No
clear lines," he muttered.

She was shaking.

98 98A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Who's the guy?"

When had she ended up pressed back against the side of the house?
Sandwiched between Shane's tall, hard body and peeling, weathered
siding? "What guy?"

His hands slid down her shoulders, her forearms, her wrists. He tangled
his fingers through hers and pulled her left hand up. "The guy whose
ring you don't wear anymore. The one you didn't marry."

Laurel's head fell back against the wall. She closed her eyes against
the sight of Shane, but bis image was still burned into her mind. "A
good man," she whispered. "A really good man."

"But you chose to be here. Staying in this dump."

"This dump was my father's home," she countered, but without the heat
she would have preferred.

"Do you still love him?"

"I'll always love Martin."

Shane let go of her hand. Stepped away.

And even though the sun was angled over them, hot and dry, she felt chilled.

"What are you doing here, then? Waiting for him to chase after you?" His
voice was low. Silky.

As dangerous as his kiss had tasted.

"Martin would never do anything of the sort." He had too much dignity.
"I wouldn't want him to." When she'd ended it between them, it had been
final and they'd both known it.

There was no point in trying to make their relationship something it wasn't.

"Martin," he said, obviously waiting.

"Martin Kellner."

Shane's eyebrows lowered. "Kellner. I remember that name."

99 99

Laurel pressed her fists against the wall behind her back. "He was on
staff at?"

"Fernwood," he finished, looking disgusted. "He was your doctor."

"Therapist," Laurel countered. "And get that look off your face. Nothing
unprofessional happened. Martin would never?"

"Of course not. The man was probably a saint. What did he do? Convince
you he was your savior? Your only road to happiness? Keep you occupied
all these years? Is he the reason you never came back to Lucius?"

Laurel's hand flashed out.

The slap sounded loud.

The silence afterward sounded louder.

Her chest heaved. The outline of her fingers was clear on his hard
cheek, and her palrn felt on fire.

Horror filled her, making her nauseated. She'd never struck another
person. Not ever. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Dizziness was a swamp she
couldn't escape. She leaned forward against the blackness, staring hard
at the ground as her vision seemed to pinpoint. "I shouldn't have done
that."

I'm sorry, honey. Mommy shouldn't have done that.

Shane barely caught her before she pitched forward in a dead faint.

He swore and swept her up in his arms. She felt clammy. Her skin was
flushed.

He carried her around the front and inside the dimness of the house. It
was cooler inside, but only slightly, and he lowered her carefully onto
the couch, propping her feet on the arms so they were higher than her head.

She didn't stir.

100 100A MONTANA HOMECOMING

But she was breathing.

He cursed the fact that his hands were shaking. He pulled her shirt
loose from the waist of her jeans. Flipped open the button at the waist,
even though they weren't the slightest bit tight. There was nothing else
she wore that was the least bit constricting.

He tapped her cheek lightly. "Laurel, honey. Come on. Wake up."

She didn't move.

He hissed out a breath and dragged out his cell phone, calling 911.
Assured that help was on the way, he tossed the phone down and strode
into the kitchen. There, he doused a towel in the sink, then returned to
Laurel, pressing the dripping cloth to her arms. Her face. Finally just
spreading it over her chest to soak through her dark-blue T-shirt.

He felt her pulse. It was fast but strong.

Heat was coming off her in waves.

Heat exhaustion, he figured. She was sweating, which was a good sign
that it hadn't escalated to heatstroke.

He could hear the siren approaching and felt only marginally better.

He lifted her hands. Pressed them to his mouth. "Come on, honey. Open
those eyes. Wake up."

She didn't stir.

The siren grew louder, cutting off abruptly when the ambulance arrived.
Moments later Palmer Frame charged into the room. "What happened?" He
set his enormous field kit on the floor beside the couch, taking Shane's
position beside Laurel.

Shane told him. Palmer nodded even as he checked Laurel's vitals.
"Temp's only one-oh-two, but she's definitely dehydrated," he said. He
flipped off the wet towel

101 101

and whipped up Laurel's shirt, attaching leads for his cardiac monitor.
"How long was she in the sun?" With barely a pause, he began an IV.

Shane could only guess. "She was up there for a while before I got
there. Maybe two, three hours."

"Any vomiting? Other injuries?"

Only arguing.

"No."

"Is she eating regularly?"

"Far as I know. She's got some groceries in the kitchen. An empty plate
in the sink."

Palmer grunted. "IV's going. She should've come around by now. Noah," he
looked over at his driver, who was waiting at the doorway, prepared to
assist however Palmer needed. "We're gonna transport her."

Noah nodded and disappeared. Moments later he returned, pushing the
rolling stretcher ahead of him, and the two men carefully loaded
Laurel's limp body onto it.

Shane could only stand there feeling useless.

He hated it.

Palmer finished strapping Laurel in place, attaching the cardiac monitor
and the IV bag to the gurney beside her, and they began maneuvering her
to the door. "Does she have kids?" he asked suddenly.

Shane shook his head. "No. Why?"

Palmer jerked his chin toward the dining room. "My kids do that. Make
forts underneath the dining room table with sheets and pillows. Just
wanted to be sure we didn't leave behind some kid." He kept up with Noah
as his assistant guided the stretcher down the plywood ramp.

Shane eyed the bedding. It wasn't fashioned into a fort. It was folded
neatly atop a stack of two thin pillows and sat right beneath the dining
room window.

102 102A MONTANA HOMECOMING

What the hell was Laurel doing sleeping in the dining room?

He heard the slam of doors and hurried out to catch the ambulance. "I'm
riding with you."

Palmer shrugged. "Get in the back."

Shane did, climbing in behind the other man.

The gurney was fastened down on one side of the ambulance. Shane sat on
the other empty one, out of Palmer's way. He felt the vehicle turn in a
sharp U, then frowned when the siren came on, nearly deafening him. It
wouldn't take long for the ambulance to make it to the hospital, though.

He raked his hands through his hair. He'd forgotten his hat somewhere.

"Don't hit me."

He jerked upright. Laurel's eyes were still closed. Her head slowly
turning against the stretcher.

He met Palmer's grim look and crouched down beside her. "Nobody's gonna
hit you, honey." He carefully folded her limp fingers in his hand.
"You're safe."

And he damned Roger Runyan to hell, all over again.

"Well, this was a warning for you, young lady. You can't be in the sun
for hours the way you were without drinking plenty of water. Heat
exhaustion is nothing to mess with. The IV will take care of your
dehydration this time, but next time it'd just be easier to drink a few
bottles of water, don't you think?"

Laurel nodded, feeling foolish, as the emergency room doctor, Dr.
Carmichael, lectured her.

"I'd like to see you put on a few pounds, too," he went on. "And you
either see your own doctor in a few weeks for a blood pressure check, or
you come back here. Your

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ALLISON LEIGH103

body's showing all the signs of extreme stress, Laurel. You need to deal
with it before you start experiencing more permanent consequences."

She frowned down at her hands. She'd wakened up in the hospital. Been
put through a battery of tests.

Shane hadn't left except when the doctor had insisted on it, and now he
was leaning against the wall, listening to every word the doctor said.

There was probably some law being broken by that, but she just didn't
have the energy to insist he leave.

"Can I have my clothes back?"

Dr. Carmichael nudged his round glasses up his nose and smiled faintly.
"Don't like our cutting-edge fashion, eh?"

The hospital gown she wore was pale blue with little flowers on it. It
was also humiliatingly thin against Shane's gray gaze whenever he looked
at her.

Which was often.

She could just imagine what he thought now.

He'd probably blame her entire state on "the house."

As if it were cursed or something.

"The nurse will help you get dressed again," Dr. Carmichael assured her.
"She'll be here in a few minutes. You'll have a few forms to sign, and
then you can go home. To rest and to eat. Understand?"

"I'll make sure of it," Shane said before Laurel could even get a nod in.

Her fingers slowly curled and she felt ill again.

She'd struck him.

There was never a reason to strike another person. Certainly not because
he'd kissed her silly, then misunderstood everything about her
relationship with Martin.

Her heart started racing and she closed her eyes, concentrating on her
breathing, on slowing her pulse.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She did not need to have a panic attack here.

She flexed her toes. Concentrated on the movement. Ignored the activity
around her in the curtained-off room. Flexed her foot. Released it.
Tensed her calf muscle. Released it.

Her heart calmed.

Her breathing evened.

She hadn't even needed to get up to her thigh muscle.

She let out a long breath and opened her eyes, only to find her gaze
landing immediately on Shane, who was watching her closely.

She lifted her chin a little.

She wouldn't be ashamed of a panic attack, not when she'd managed to
stave it off more effectively than she'd done the last time she'd had one.

Then she'd been wearing a white wedding gown and had felt as if she were
going to have a heart attack.

"Okay, Ms. Runyan." A nurse slipped around the curtain and approached
the bed. She handed over a clipboard with an assortment of forms
attached. "Some instructions from the doctor on avoiding heat exhaustion
and heatstroke. Your insurance statement and a release form. Sign by all
the red Xs, and the sheriff here can take you back home again."

Laurel scribbled her name where she was supposed to, took the pamphlets
she was meant to keep and handed the clipboard back to the nurse.

"Okay, Sheriff. Outside the curtain again." The nurse shooed Shane, then
turned back to Laurel. "That's one fine-looking man," she said under her
breath, "but I figure you can get dressed with a little privacy here."
She plucked a plastic bag out from a rack beneath Laurel's bed and
plopped it beside her. "Now, if you wanna throw off your

105 105

clothes again the second he gets you alone, that's your business." She
grinned wickedly.

Laurel flushed. "It's not that way between us."

"Hmm. Didn't look that way to me. The sheriff was beside himself when
they brought you in. You know, there are a lot of women around Lucius
who would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Give a shout if you need
some help."

Laurel didn't doubt there were plenty of women around who were
interested in Shane. Even when he was a teenager, he'd drawn women like
bees to pollen.

She'd been no different, either.

She quickly exchanged the hospital gown for her clothing, frowning a
little over her shirt. It was definitely damp.

As if he'd been able to see right through the opaque curtain, Shane
poked his head back inside the moment she finished zipping up her pants.

She quickly tugged the hem of her shirt down, avoiding his gaze as she
reached for her tennis shoes.

He slid one out of her hand and hunkered down in front of her. "Push
your foot in."

"I can put on my own shoes." She pushed her foot in.

"You can," he agreed, and tied the laces. He grabbed the other shoe,
waiting.

She sighed. Slid her other foot into it. Then he straightened, picked up
the paperwork the nurse had left and wrapped his hand around her upper
arm, guiding her off the high bed.

"We're stopping for supper at the Lucius," he said evenly as he
accompanied her out of the emergency room.

The sun was nearly set.

She hadn't realized so much of the day had slipped by. "I have food at
the house." If she were quick, she wouldn't be late for the choir practice.

106 106A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Food you're evidently not eating enough of, according to the doc."

His SUV was parked blatantly in the No-Parking zone outside the door.
Perks of the job, she supposed, as he practically lifted her into the
front seat.

He got behind the wheel, flipped down the visor and found the keys
tucked there, then drove out of the parking lot. Minutes later he parked
in front of the cafe. He'd barely tooted the horn when the waitress
Laurel recognized from the other day trotted out, a big bag in her hand.
She handed it to Shane through the window, then trotted back inside.

Shane set the bag on the seat between them. "Fried chicken. I know you
like that."

"I thought you meant you wanted to stop there and eat."

"Figured you could use a day or two before you have to stand up to all
the gossip that'll be flying. Everyone in town knows you passed out and
were taken to the hospital today."

She hadn't thought of that.

"They'll be speculating for weeks on the reason." Shane slid a look her way.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Watching to see if you're pregnant."

She flushed. "You heard the doctor."

"I heard him. Nobody else did."

"I'm not pregnant."

His gaze seemed to slide over her body, and she felt herself flush even
harder. She'd have had to sleep with a man to get herself in that state.
And even though she'd been engaged to marry Martin, she'd never slept
with him.

The last man she'd been intimate with, the only man, had been Shane.

There was an identical sheriff's unit still parked in front

107 107

of her house when they arrived and Laurel frowned. "Your SUV is still here?"

"We've got three units for the department." He got out, carrying the
food, and opened her door for her. "Watch your step."

She no longer felt in danger of collapsing with each step. "I'm fine."

His lips merely tightened. "Yeah, you looked real fine when you were out
cold and Palmer Frame was hooking you up to a cardiac monitor."

The front door was still open and he went right in as if he already
owned the place. "Sit." He dumped the bag of food on the coffee table,
pushing aside the knickknacks she still hadn't bothered to pack away.

She didn't want to sit.

But the truth was, the chicken smelled mouthwatering, and she was
feeling suddenly famished.

So she sat.

He went into the kitchen, returning with plates and silverware. She
silently set out the food.

They ate.

And even when Laurel was full! she made herself finish a second piece of
chicken if only tp keep him from voicing the order to eat more, which
was clearly written in his eyes.

Fortunately, the amount she did manage to put away must have been
satisfactory, for he said nothing when she finally dropped her napkin on
the plate and sat back from the coffee table.

He merely gathered up the plates and took them to the kitchen. Threw
away the trash. Wiped up the few crumbs.

Laurel watched him. She knew what was coining. She just didn't know how
to argue against it.

And when Shane finally stopped playing waiter and

108 108A MONTANA HOMECOMING

stood at the end of the couch, determination carved in every line of his
hard face, she knew the time had come.

"You're not up to directing the choir."

The base of her neck tightened. "Did I ever tell you how little I like
being told what to do?"

"They'll survive without going to the festival this year. You're not up
to it. You shouldn't even be here alone." He waved at the dining room.
"It looks like a damn linen closet in there. You're sleeping on the
floor, aren't you?"

She winced. "Maybe it's just my laundry."

"You never could lie worth squat, songbird. Now, you can pack, or I can
do it for you while you call Evie and she can call the parents to cancel
the choir deal. Your choice."

"I am not leaving and I'm not going to disappoint those children. You
cannot force me to change my mind!"

"I wish I could force this place to be condemned," Shane bit out. "Then
you'd have to leave." He was sorry for the words the minute they hit the
air.

What was it about this one woman that sent his control right out the window?

She'd risen and moved behind the couch, as if she needed to put some
distance between them. Her expression was brittle. Definitely not what
Carmichael had advised, and Shane was only making matters worse.

"Laurel," he began again, determined to get it right. "You heard the
doc. You can't go on like this." His cell phone chirped, and he ignored
it. "Go pack. Please. You can go to Tiff's. Maybe with enough rest
you'll be up to directing the kids for the festival," he coaxed. The
phone chirped again and he yanked it off his belt. He wanted to throw it
against the wall just then, but he couldn't. He had a duty to the people
who'd elected him.

"I can't afford Tiff's." She leaned over and flicked her fin-

109 109

gers against the pink and yellow papers from the hospital that were
lying on the couch. "I can't afford that. Not if I'm going to have
anything left over to make the repairs here."

"For Pete's sake. Laurel. I'll pay for your room if you're so worried
about it!"

His phone beeped again.

Laurel lifted her hand in a futile gesture, turning away. "You don't
understand at all," she said tiredly.

Understand? She was the one with her head stuck in the ground like an
ostrich. He put the phone to his ear. "What?"

"Whoa, Nelly. Don't shoot the messenger." Carla's voice was tart. "Got a
break-in at the Tipped Barrel. Manager just called it in. Said he
arrived to find the office safe standing wide open."

"Send Tony," he said impatiently.

"He's not on," Carla remindejd him. "His daughter's swim meet over in
Billings, remember?"

Shane grimaced. How could he have forgotten? He'd signed the
vacation-day request. "Fine. I'll take care of it." He'd also pay for
barking at Carla for a month, no doubt.

He hooked the phone back on his belt.

Laurel hadn't moved.

"I'm just trying to?"

"Protect me. I know. I know." Her smile was thin. "Everyone has to
protect Laurel, because, goodness knows, she can't seem to protect herself."

"I didn't say that."

Her eyebrows lifted a little. "Your entire attitude screams it, Shane."

The damnable thing was he knew she was right. "Maybe I need to protect
you now because I didn't protect you before."

Her eyes flickered. "I didn't need protecting then, either."

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Don't hit me. Her soft words in the ambulance rang inside his head.

"Besides," Laurel continued, "we were kids." "You were barely eighteen.
I was well beyond it. And regardless of how old we were, I shouldn't
have left you the way I did."

She pressed her soft lips together. "It was a long time ago." "It was,"
he agreed. "So why do I have the sense you're no closer to forgetting it
than I am?" Or to forgiving me, he silently added.

111

As far as Shane was concerned, the Tipped Barrel could close its doors
and he'd be the first one to raise a beer in celebration of it.

Not that he had anything against a good watering hole. He liked to have
a drink and shoot pool just as well as the next guy. But the Tipped
Barrel just naturally seemed to draw more than its share of trouble.
There was hardly a week that passed without some incident there
requiring action from the Sheriff Department.

Yet even though he didn't want to leave Laurel alone, he did, after
eliciting her promise to cancel the choir practice just for that
evening. He drove out to the bar, which would fortunately remain fairly
empty until after the dinner hour. He took the report from the manager,
and on his way back to the office, called Donny Hicks, who owned the
place, to confirm a few facts.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Wouldn't be long before Donny Hicks realized he'd hired a thief to run
his business.

He stopped at the office and picked up Carla, so she could drop him off
at Laurel's place and take the extra vehicle back where it belonged.

He didn't expect to see another car parked in Laurel's driveway when
they arrived, but there it was.

Evie.

He went inside, not bothering to knock, to find his sister and Laurel
parked on the couch, a bag of chocolate Kisses and a quart of ice cream
parked between them.

Laurel didn't look surprised at his intrusion. She'd expected him back,
after all.

His sister, however, was another story. She looked at him, her eyebrows
shooting up into her blond bangs. "Ever heard of knocking, brother dear?"

"What are you doing here?"

She waved her hand at the treats. "Gorging ourselves on chocolate and
ice cream," she said patiently, "while we go over details for the
festival trip. What are you doing here? Or need I even ask? Everyone in
town's been talking about the fact that you've staked your territory."

"What?" Laurel snatched her legs from the coffee table. "That's
ridiculous." Her cheeks were pink.

"Is it?" Evie eyed him, mischief clearly evident in her gaze. "Don't
think I'd put any bets on that, Laurel." She deftly unwrapped a
chocolate and popped it in her mouth. "I came out to make sure Laurel's
not suffering any consequences after her afternoon at the hospital. And
to bribe her into helping me again," she admitted, tucking the chocolate
in her cheek, making her resemble a blond chipmunk. "I need more help
manning my booth at the July Fourth picnic in a few weeks."

113 113

"No."

"Think that's Laurel's choice," Evie drawled. "And she's already agreed.
We've already got her working with the junior choir, and then there's
the Lucius Ladies' Association, and?"

"She needs rest."

"She needs people to stop talking about her as if she weren't here,"
Laurel inserted. She picked up the ice cream container and stuck her
spoon in it as if she wished she were stabbing something?or
someone?else. "And as Evie said, I've already agreed to help at the
picnic and that is that."

"She needs a room at Tiff's."

Evie shook her head. "Can't. Yesterday I could have, but not today.
Booked full up for the next three weeks." Her eyes were merry. "Seems
like you've got empty rooms going begging at your place, though. Of
course, unless you've gone furniture shopping lately and haven't
mentioned it to the family, I recall you having only one bed. In your
bedroom."

Laurel's cheeks were red and he felt a strong desire to throttle his
sister for embarrassing her.

The image of Laurel in his bed had been stuck in his head since the day
she'd been in his house. He didn't need Evie's suggestions to breathe it
to life when it was hale and hearty all on its own.

"Where are the kids?"

As a distracter, it worked only too well. Evie's merriment dwindled.
"It's Charlie's night to have them."

"They don't spend the night, do they?" After Evie left Charlie, he'd
remained in their small house while Evie and the children had moved into
Tiff's.

"No. He'll bring them back before bedtime. He missed the last two weeks."

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

One of them, because he'd been locked up in a jail cell, Shane knew, for
being drunk and disorderly. Too bad Shane hadn't been able to keep him
there. "Kids would be better off if he missed every week," he muttered.

"They still need a dad, Shane." Evie's voice was practical. "And
speaking of bedtime, I'd better get. One of my guests is planning to
move to Lucius, Laurel. He's about your age. Single. Very good-looking.
Change your mind and come to Sunday dinner and I'll introduce the two of
you."

He caught the glance Evie slanted his way and ignored it even though the
notion of his sister setting Laurel up with another guy annoyed the hell
out of him.

"Invite Stu," he suggested. "She can have a real choice then."

"Stu's hung up over Freddie Finn," Laurel said abruptly, missing the
look Evie gave him.

"Not a chance. They can't exchange five words without getting into an
argument."

Laurel just lifted her shoulder as she gathered up the remains of the
ice cream and chocolate and put them back in the bag in which Evie had
brought them. "Whatever. Evie, thanks for coming by." It had been a
surprisingly nice surprise to find the other woman at her door.

She'd known it couldn't have been Shane returning when she'd heard the
knock on the door, because he didn't seem to feel a need to knock at all.

Evie had helped knock out the phone calls to the choir parents and had
been just as concerned about Laurel being up to helping with the
festival as Shane had been. Only in a nicer way.

"I'll see you at choir practice tomorrow."

Evie waved off the bag when Laurel tried to hand it to her. "Pop that in
the freezer," she suggested. "We'll finish

115 115

it another time. One way or the other we're going to get you permanently
back in the swing of life in Lucius."

Laurel squelched the warmth that tried to curl inside her. What would
happen if she did find her fit in the fabric of Lucius again? Was there
any hope of making it actually last?

Ignoring Laurel's lack of a resounding agreement, Evie slipped past
Shane, patting him on the cheek. "Be good, Mr. Sheriff."

Then, as abruptly as she'd appeared, she was gone.

There was only Laurel and Shane now.

She swallowed and went to the kitchen, stowing the desserts?bag and
all?in the old-fashioned freezer. There was barely enough room since the
tiny freezer desperately needed to be defrosted.

"Is there something wrong with your bed?"

Laurel shook her head. "You're like a dog with a bone," she murmured.
"No, there is nothing wrong with my bed."

"Then why don't you sleep in it?"

"I just don't. I.. .don't like sleeping upstairs. And yes, I realize
that makes me sound just as crazy as you seem to think I am."

"Dammit, woman, I don't think you're crazy!"

She jumped, more stunned that he'd raised his voice than at his words.

He raked his hair back. His shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh. "You
don't have to be afraid of me."

Shock had a bitter tang as it settled inside her. "Why would I be afraid
of you?"

"You keep jumping like a rabbit."

"I do not," she dismissed.

He took a step toward her.

She jerked, her foot sliding a few inches back.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

His lips thinned. "Really."

Never before had she been so despairing of her fair skin as she felt the
ever-ready flush rise hotter than ever. "I'm not afraid," she insisted.

Admitting that he made her nerve endings jump just from his presence
wasn't exactly something she was raring to divulge, however.

"I'd never hurt you, Laurel. It's important that you believe that."

She hesitated, wariness adding yet another prickle to her overactive
nerves. "What.. .exactly are we talking about here?"

"I don't hit women."

She tucked her arms together tightly. "I never suggested that you did.
Or would." She'd been the one to strike him. "I don't know what came
over me earlier." Her voice trembled. "I never should have slapped you."

"I deserved it."

Her eyes burned suddenly. When she wished for tears, they wouldn't come,
yet when she didn't, they were all too ready. "Nobody deserves it. No
matter what the provocation, physical violence is never an answer."

Oddly enough, his lips curved faintly. "Is that what you tell your
third-graders?"

"I.. .not in those words, but yes. I do."

"Beau would be proud. He does use those words. Almost verbatim."

"Your dad is a wonderful man."

"Sainted as they get."

She couldn't quite tell if he was being facetious or not. But she knew
he had a good relationship with his father. "He's very proud of you, too."

"I'll stay here tonight. Will that help you sleep better?"

117 117

She stared. "Is that on the regular menu of sheriffly services?"

"No," he said evenly. "And you don't have a lot of choices, Laurel. You
have to sleep. You can do it here, with me?" he tilted his head, looking
amused when she made a sound at that"?on the couch," he elaborated. "My
place won't do. You've seen it. There is no couch. Or you can go to
Beau's. He's got a spare room."

"What about Stu?" Her voice was a little tart. "You're ready to farm me
out to any one of your family. Evie's full up, so you'll just work your
way down the list?"

"Stu doesn't need any encouragement. And as you'll remember, I offered
to stay here first." He scrubbed his hands down his face, looking like a
man struggling with dwindling patience.

And finally, Laurel looked beyond her own discomfort and managed to see his.

He was exhausted.

His eyes were dark. Bloodshot.

There were lines in his cheeks that weren't ordinarily there.

It was nearly midnight, and he'd been on duty since just after dawn. She
knew because from her impromptu bed beneath the window, she'd watched
the headlights of his SUV bounce down the steep road from his house.
Then, hidden in darkness behind the front screen door, she'd watched him
head past her house toward town.

She'd watched until the red glow of his taillights was no longer visible.

"You work too hard."

He looked at her. "Trying to divine the way your mind works, songbird,
could keep a man busy for a lifetime."

No man had ever wanted to spend a lifetime with her.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Not even Martin, who, dear as he was, had included an escape clause in
his proposal plans. They'd get married. Travel the world. Enjoy life
together. If the marriage didn't seem to be working for them down the
road a few years, no harm, no foul. They'd still be friends. And if it
were working, on they'd go. Still together.

Not the proposal of one's dreams, she supposed. But he'd meant it in the
best of ways. There simply wasn't an unkind bone in Martin's body.

So why couldn't she love him?

Why couldn't she have looked at him while her nerve endings popped and
crackled like crispy cereal, making her long for things she'd barely
ever known?

"The couch has a broken spring somewhere in the middle," she said
abruptly. "You won't like sleeping on it. I managed it only the first
night I was here."

His gaze focused on the couch. A muscle sprang to life in his jaw,
flexing rhythmically. "Then I'll take the floor."

"There are two bedrooms upstairs. And," her voice faltered a little when
his gaze slanted to her face, "and you could use.. .one." She sucked in
her lower lip, moistening it.

Just because she couldn't seem to find any peace in the one room she'd
even entered, didn't mean he wouldn't.

Since he was so set on staying, that was.

"I could use one," he repeated. "I'm not going to mistake that for an
invitation to share." He lifted his hand as soon as the words were out.
"Don't worry. That deer-in-the-headlights look of yours is answer enough."

"I?" She sank her teeth into her tongue, hastily stopping its wayward
tendencies.

"You...?" .

"My old bed is twin-size," she finished hurriedly. Was she simply doomed
to embarrass herself around him at

119 119

least once an hour? "You're so tall, you might not be very comfortable."

"And your dad's room?"

"I, um, I...you're welcome to check it out and decide for yourself." How
could she admit the truth? That she hadn't had the stomach for doing
something so simple as opening the door to her parents' bedroom.

Something in his expression sharpened. "You haven't gone in there?"

She shrugged. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Laurel."

She felt ridiculous. "Okay, so I haven't gotten to that room yet. Want
to arrest me for it?"

Shane watched the parade of emotion crossing Laurel's face. He had no
desire whatsoever to sleep in old man Runyan's bed.

He had every desire to sleep in Laurel's. But that wasn't going to
happen now. It probably wouldn't happen ever, not after the way he'd
treated her all those years ago.

Didn't stop a man from wanting the impossible, though.

He went up the stairs. Stopped at the top and looked down at her.

Small prisms of light refracted off the colored beads hanging from the
old lamp on the end table, casting little bursts of fireworks on the
cracked and peeling walls. "Ever wish you could turn back the clock,
Laurel? Turn a different way, take a different path?"

She closed her arms around herself again as if she were chilled from the
inside out. She didn't answer for a moment, and when she did, it was no
answer at all. "That sounds odd coming from you."

"Why?"

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She shrugged a little. "I don't know. It's something you might have said
before. But?"

Before, he knew, was before. Before he dumped her with all the grace of
a rhinoceros. Before her mother died.

Before.

"But now?"

"You're the sheriff," she said simply.

"And in your world, sheriffs don't ponder philosophy? The twists and
turns of fate or choice?"

"The only time sheriffs have been in my world was when Sheriffwicks
questioned me about my mother's accident, and I only know he did that
because I was told he had." She dropped her arms and moved away from the
golden circle of light cast by the lamp. "It happened there, you know."
She pointed to where he stood. "That's where she fell from."

The head of the stairs, in front of her parents' bedroom door.

"At least that's what I read," she added after a moment. "In the news
archives when I needed to know such things."

Wicks had hammered her to admit what she'd witnessed, Shane knew. He'd
read the case file when he'd joined the department, though he'd heard
enough of the story from Beau and Holly.

Laurel had had no attorney present during Wicks's questioning, and only
Beau's intervention had stopped the futile inquisition. He'd insisted
that Laurel be seen by a physician as she was obviously in shock. Shock
was the least of it. Within a month she'd been moved from the county
hospital and placed at Fernwood for psychological care.

When she was released nearly a year later, she didn't return to Lucius.

The gossip around town at the time, according to

121 121

Holly, had been that she refused to return because of her father's guilt.

"Wicks was voted out of office," he told her. "There was a recall
election, in fact. Caused quite the uproar."

"Because he couldn't make the charges against my father stick?"

"A woman had died, Laurel. People wanted?" for her benefit, he kept
himself from saying Roger "?someone to be held accountable for it."

Her head lowered. She sat gingerly on the edge of the worn, tapestry
rocker. "I should have been able to clear him."

"It wasn't your responsibility. No one blames you for being unable to
corroborate the charges against your father."

"My father blamed me for being unable to corroborate the facts. He
wouldn't have had suspicion hanging over him the rest of his life
despite the dismissal of the charges if I'd been able to make a statement."

"And so you stayed away."

"He didn't want me here," she clarified, her voice thin. "He made that
abundantly clear."

"Laurel?"

"Don't come home ever again, Laurel," she intoned in a macabre mockery
of her father's voice. "Every year, he said the same thing.
Don't...come...home." She tossed back her head. Her walnut hair
shimmered in the lamplight. "If that doesn't prove he blamed me, I
cannot imagine what would."

Shane wrapped his hand around the old-fashioned iron doorknob on the
bedroom door. The white paint had long ago been nearly worn off, and it
felt rough under his palm. The paint on the door itself was thick and
ridged with too many years and too many coats.

He took his hand off the knob, turning away from the

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room, and went back down the stairs again. He stopped in front of
Laurel. Crouched down until he could see her face.

Her eyes were wet.

"Then he was a fool," he told her softly. "For not appreciating the one
person who still believed in him."

"And you think I'm a. fool, because I did believe in him."

He wished he could deny it. More than wished. He'd have given his right
leg just then if he could have, to believe Laurel's faith in her father
wasn't severely misplaced.

He stroked his hand down her hair.

Her lashes fluttered, her eyes nearly closing. She exhaled, a shaking
sigh that reached down inside him and twisted him into an even tighter knot.

He wanted to hold her against him and make everything bad disappear.

He might as well try spreading a piece of the moon on a cracker.

He wasn't good at personal relationships. He'd failed Laurel years ago.
He'd failed his fiancee and her son not so many years ago. So what made
him think he had a chance in hell of doing any better now?

"Go over there to your bedroll," he said gruffly. "Get some sleep."

"You're leaving, after all?"

He shook his head. "I'll sleep on the side of the couch that doesn't
have a broken spring."

She pressed her lips together softly. Then gave the faintest of nods.
"You're even more stubborn than I remembered," she murmured.

"That'd be me." He took her hands and pulled her to her feet, and then
she went over to the mound of pillows and sheets and sank down on them.

He reached for the lamp and switched it off.

123 ALLISON LEIGH123

Maybe it was his imagination, but, despite her assertion that she wanted
to be left alone, her eyes had shown nothing but relief when he'd told
her he was staying.

124

1 do not need this right now." Laurel pushed back her hair from her face
and glared up at Shane. "We need to leave or we're going to miss our
flight from Billings to Spokane."

It was early Friday morning. The choir members were already loaded up in
the school bus for the trip to Billings, along with the three parent
chaperones. After the past week of almost manic rehearsals, everyone was
set?anxious?to depart.

Only Shane the Sheriff stood in Laurel's path. "You're not up to this,"
he said for about the fiftieth time.

She could feel the top of her head starting to lift off. She'd spent the
past week working toward this trip, and the past several nights trying
to pretend that she wasn't sleeping through the night only because of
his presence under her roof.

He'd arrived late each night and left before she'd awakened, but she'd
certainly known he'd been there.

125 125

Every night.

She'd been as grateful as she'd been disturbed.

Now she was just infuriated. "I'm a big girl." Her voice was as tight as
her scalp felt. "I can handle a choir of twenty kids even without the
help of three other adults. But having all of their faces pressed
against the windows of that bus over there while you lecture me isn't
going to help me any."

"You don't look any better than you did Tuesday when you passed out."
His voice was just as tight. Just as quietly furious. He shot a look to
where Beau was ambling toward them. "I can't believe you haven't put a
stop to this," he told his father when he joined them.

Beau's brows rose a little. He lightly touched Laurel's shoulder, a
little gesture of support for which she was profoundly grateful. The
only reason she might have looked shaken was that she'd had no
expectation of seeing Shane come barreling up to the church in his
official vehicle as if he were set on stopping the next great bank
robbery. She'd seen his silent, flashing lights and had expected some
sort of disaster.

Instead she'd just gotten a dose of overbearing censure.

"Why would I do that?" Beau asked curiously. "Laurel's willingness to
temporarily step in withithe choir is a godsend."

"For the choir maybe," Shane countered. "Look at her." He waved his hand
toward Laurel. I'She looks like a stiff wind would knock her over."

There wasn't an inch of skin on her body that wasn't burning, and there
was nothing remotely pleasant about it. "Just because you've set
yourself up as my...my night-light?" which had obviously been a huge
mistake "?it gives you no right to dictate what I am or am not capable
of doing!"

She couldn't even bring herself to look at Reverend Go-

126 126A MONTANA HOMECOMING

lightly, she felt so humiliated. She darted around Shane and strode to
the bus. At least, she hoped she strode. A good, sturdy no-nonsense stride.

As she jumped up the steps, she feared she'd probably just run, and
looked as ridiculous while she was about it, as she felt.

She slid into the first seat, behind the driver. "Let's go."

"But?"

"Let's go!"

The driver shrugged. He got paid whether they left on time or not.

The silence inside the vehicle was palpable as the bus slowly lumbered
out of the parking lot.

Laurel refused to look at Shane or his father as the bus drove past them.

In minutes, the bus was out on Main and heading toward the highway. She
exhaled silently and tilted her head back against the seat.

They were on the road. They had a long trip ahead of them, but they were
on their way.

Everything was going to be fine.

It would be fine?just so she could put that fact in the sheriff's
face?even if it killed her.

Everything wasn 't fine.

They arrived at the airport to find the flight was delayed nearly an
hour. The news was A-okay with their twenty excitable teens and
preteens. But fine wasn't the word Laurel would have used to describe
the way she felt when she realized that there was one glaringly absent
suitcase among the dozens of backpacks and assorted luggage that was
slowly being fed through the security machines.

Her own.

127 127

She knew just where she'd left it, too. And why.

Sitting on the hood of her borrowed car, parked in the lot at the Lucius
Community Church. Sitting there, because she'd been too anxious to get
away from Shane before she did something foolish.

Like leaving behind her only suitcase?

At least she'd packed all of the music and her binder containing the
trip details in the book bag she'd already loaded onto the bus. She
could deal with not having her own toothbrush and a few changes of
clothes. Leaving behind their music would have put a major crimp in things.

Joey Halloran was trying to climb onto the conveyor belt for the X-ray
machine. His father, Tom, grabbed his belt and pulled the boy back off.
Tom and Louise Halloran were two of the chaperones, though as far as
Laurel had been able to tell, it took most of Tom's undivided attention
keeping his son out of mischief.

And speaking of Louise, Laurel hadn't seen the woman for a good twenty
minutes. She'd looked punky on the drive from Lucius, but Louise had
insisted she was just feeling queasy from the bus ride. She sent Sophie,
one of the older girls, to check on her. "She went to the restroom a
while ago," she told the girl who nodded and set off down the wide
corridor. A moment later, Sophie was standing in the doorway of the
restroom, waving frantically toward Laurel.

"Here." She handed Alan her bag of music. "Tell everyone whose luggage
has been cleared to gather by those chairs right there. I want to hear
'It's Good.'"

His eyebrows shot up. "We're gonna sing here? In the airport?"

Singing was the one tiling she knew would keep every single
child?including Joey?occupied. "Yup." She

128 128A MONTANA HOMECOMING

waited a moment, just long enough to see that he was successful in
getting everyone's attention, before she headed toward Sophie.

The sight of the tall, long-legged man bearing down on her from the
opposite direction nearly stopped her in her tracks.

Shane had so little faith in her that he'd tracked her all the way from
Lucius?

She didn't know whether to stomp her feet or bawl her eyes out.

She did neither. She turned into the restroom, ignoring Shane's
approach, and patted Sophie's arm.

"She's been puking like crazy," Sophie whispered, none too quietly.

Laurel herded the girl toward the door. "Don't worry. Go back to the
others."

Sophie looked only too glad to escape.

Laurel entered the white-tiled room. Louise sat huddled on the floor by
the sink, her back against the wall, looking positively green.

"I'm sorry, Laurel," Louise muttered. "I don't think I can make it."

Laurel hushed her and grabbed a handful of paper towels, dampening them
under the faucet. She crouched next to the woman and pressed the
compress to her forehead. "You're burning up. Do you think you have the
flu?"

Louise groaned. "Don't even say the word. My sister-in-law was sick with
it for a week."

Laurel sat back on her heels. "You certainly can't travel like this."

"Tom will insist on driving me home."

Laurel had already come to that conclusion herself. From what she'd seen
of the man, he did nothing without his wife, and vice versa. It was
utterly sweet.

129 T

ALLISON LEIGH129

But right now, it was a problem.

Without both Tom and Louise, there would not be enough adult chaperones
to make the trip. The church's stipulations on the traveling conditions
had been strict and perfectly reasonable. Twenty youth required four
adults, minimum.

"Shane Golightly is here," Laurel said. "Maybe he could drive you home
and Tom could still go with us."

Louise looked doubtful. "He was only going because I insisted." She drew
in a slow breath. Let it out even more slowly. "I'm beginning to think
this trip is jinxed. That the choir simply isn't meant to go to Spokane
this year."

"Don't say that."

Louise looked at her sideways. "Nancy eloping and leaving us with no
choir director? Now this?" She pressed the wet cloths to her flushed
cheeks, then to her throat. "Joey is going to be fit to be tied. The
only reason he's been behaving this past week is because of this trip."

Behaving? Laurel wisely kept her mouth shut on that one. "Nothing is
jinxed," she assured her. "Do you think you can make it out to Tom now?"

Louise reached up and closed one shaking hand over the edge of the sink.
"I can guarantee you that Tom won't be coming in here to get me. He'd be
mortified."

Laurel tucked her hand under Louise's arm, helping her.

"It'll be a miracle if the entire choir doesn't come down with this,"
the woman muttered as they shuffled out of the restroom. "Cooped up the
way we were on the bus, I've exposed everyone. You'd be better keeping
your distance than helping me."

"Your fever is making you delirious. Everything is going to be fine."

"Yeah, if you can talk my husband into going to Spo-

130 130A MONTANA HOMECOMING

kane." They made it to the corridor. "Oh, listen to them. They're
singing. Don't they sound sweet?"

Laurel didn't have to catch Tom's attention. He spotted his wife and
immediately headed their way. His usually florid face was so pale that
his freckles stood out as if they were measles.

His hands reached out for his wife. "Honey, what's wrong?"

Laurel left them to it and swallowed down the knot in her throat as she
headed toward the choir. She'd like to think they were being so diligent
with their singing all on their own, but she suspected their orderly
behavior had more to do with the presence of their sheriff standing
nearby. His cowboy hat was dipped low over his forehead, his boots were
planted firmly, and he definitely did not look like a man to be messed with.

She went up to him. "You had no business following us from Lucius," she
began, trying not to sound nervous and failing miserably, "but since
you're here, you might as well do some good. We need a chaperone. And
you, Sheriff, are elected."

For once, she seemed to have surprised him. He thumbed his hat back. His
eyes narrowed. "Don't recall that particular vote."

"Only one needed to vote. Me." She nodded toward Tom, who was hovering
outside the restroom. Louise was noticeably absent again. Didn't take a
genius to know where the woman had gone. "Louise can't possibly make it.
Tom isn't likely to leave her side. That leaves me one adult short in
the chaperone department, and since you're here..." She clamped her hand
around his unforgivingly hard forearm and dragged him as far from the
singers as she could. "If you refuse, those kids are going to miss the

131 131

festival for certain. Do you really want that on your head, Shane? Be
reasonable. You have deputies. You can leave Lucius for a few days,
can't you? Come with us and you can also have the perverse pleasure you
seem to take in playing watchdog where I'm concerned."

His gray gaze slid over her face, then flicked to the choir. "It'd be
easier to cancel this whole deal."

She crossed her arms and gave him a severe look. "Since when is easier
more important than giving children an opportunity to experience a trip
like this?"

The crease in his cheek deepened. For some reason he'd obviously found
her statement amusing.

"When I was eleven, / went to the Spokane Festival," she said tartly.
"It's an experience I never forgot. Dozens of choirs. Competing, yes,
but there's this camaraderie among all the children. Growing up in
Lucius, most kids don't have that opportunity!" She grabbed his arm,
squeezing it. "Please. Just.. just do this. Do it for Alan, if for no
other reason. He's your nephew."

The youth had sung through at least three versions of "It's Good" and of
their own accord had begun singing another piece?a modern arrangement of
"Ave Maria." A crowd had begun to form as travelers stopped to listen.

"I'm not really any good with kids."

She dismissed that with a soft huff. "Look at them, Shane. They're
marvelous. Maybe playing watchdog brought you after me, but you're here.
And we need you."

Shane looked down into Laurel's earnest face. "I wasn't playing
watchdog," he said after a moment. Not entirely. "Here." He leaned over
and plucked a suitcase from the shrinking collection that was readied
for the security personnel. "Figured you'd need it."

"You came here to bring me my suitcase?"

132 132A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He dumped the plain black suitcase among the others. "You're welcome."

She nibbled at her lip.

Silence fell between them, broken only by Joey's solo. The boy was
positively lapping up the attention he was getting.

Shane had no business thinking of leaving Lucius for three days. But
he'd known he was toast the minute Laurel set her pleading amber gaze on
him and asked him for help.

"Fine," he said shortly.

She stopped nibbling, and her lips stretched into a brilliant smile.

"I might not be able to get a ticket at such short notice," he warned.

"We won't know until you try." Her hands pushed him toward the short
line at the ticket counter. It was sort of like a scrappy little terrier
pup launching herself at an ornery old bull. "The flight could be called
at any time."

Hiding the grin that wanted to tug at him, he went.

"I knew everything would be fine," Laurel said seven hours later.

The choir had duly checked in at the festival site. They'd sat through
an hour-long welcome session, and now they were packed into three large
tables at a pizza joint next to their hotel.

Shane looked over their group, who displayed varying degrees of
exhaustion. Alan looked as if he was as likely to drop his nose into the
slice of cheese pizza he held as he was to taking a bite out of it. No
matter how much Evie had been a proponent of the trip, if she'd seen how
exhausted her boy was, she'd have probably come unglued.

There were twelve girls and eight boys and as far as

133 133

Shane had observed, there was little evidence of the group separating
along the lines of gender or age, which spanned from fifth to eighth
graders. They were an interesting group, actually. And even though
Laurel had been a last-minute addition, there was no question that she
was in charge.

It would have been more logical for either of the other two
chaperones?Jana Waters or Katy Foster?to assume that role since they'd
been involved in the planning of the trip from the beginning. But both
of them seemed perfectly content to leave the task to Laurel.

And Laurel, with her notebook of schedules and agendas and emergency
medical paperwork, seemed perfectly at ease with it all.

He didn't know why it should be so surprising. He knew in his head that
she was a grown woman. That she was educated, that she'd obviously found
a career for herself.

But witnessing her easy competence with his own eyes was surprising.

The question was, Why?

He was no closer to an answer when Laurel started bustling everyone into
finishing their meals while she paid the check. Twenty kids and four
adults ought to have been damned chaotic, he thought. But there was also
little chaos as they all trooped across the parking lot to the hotel.

In the lobby, Laurel flipped open her binder and began doling out room
keys to the chaperones. "The rooms are all connecting," she reminded.
"Visiting between rooms is okay until 10:00 p.m. Then everyone better be
in their own room, or you'll deal with me."

Nobody quibbled.

Not even Shane.

Their fingers brushed when she handed him his key.

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"You're in a two-bedroom suite," she told him, staring fixedly at her
neat little lists. "The hotel wouldn't be thrilled if they knew there
are eight boys in there with you, but given the circumstances, that's
the way it has to be."

"Guess I'll probably survive," he said wryly.

She smiled faintly and turned to the group. "Okay, everyone. Ten o'clock
is lights-out. Breakfast is at 6:00 a.m." She ignored the groans that
announcement was met with, and continued. "We have to be at the
conference facility by eight. Anyone I have to personally wake up is
going to regret it. Okay? Okay. Be off to the elevators, then."

En mass, the youth trudged out of the lobby, dragging backpacks, favored
pillows and suitcases.

More than once Laurel had reminded them that they were responsible for
their own gear.

They seemed to have that fact down pat, now.

He hung back with Laurel, waiting until the last of the last was ahead
of them. He tilted his head. "How would I regret it?"

She blinked, flipping her binder closed as she looked up at him. "Pardon
me?"

"If you have to personally wake me at 6:00 a.m."

Her cheeks went red. "I'll make sure you're sitting next to Joey on
every bus and every plane we take between now and Sunday evening," she
said primly, and grabbed the handle of her own rolling suitcase and
headed after the others.

Shane laughed and followed. Yeah. That would be something to regret, all
right.

They went up to their floor in batches, and Shane had barely unlocked
the men's assigned room before the boys bolted inside, wanting to
explore every nook and cranny of the suite.

135 135

When Joey started poking around the minibar, Shane cleared his throat
and shook his head.

Joey made a face but redirected his exploration.

He let the boys sort out their preferred sleeping arrangements and
wished for the freedom to pop open one of the beer bottles in the
minibar. Instead he made himself comfortable on one end of the enormous
couch in the common living area and grabbed the remote control for the
television.

Joey hung over the back of die couch. "What're we gonna watch, dude?"

Shane lifted his wrist, glancing obviously at his watch. "We 're not
going to watch anything, dude. You've got fifteen minutes before
lights-out."

"Nah. Not really. We're the men, man. We don't have to do what the girls
do."

Shane saw Alan roll his eyes as his nephew opened the connecting door to
the room beside them, and three of the oldest "E" girls practically
tumbled inside. Tiffany, Ashley and Emily were their names. Shane
couldn't keep them straight though. Not when they seemed to have adopted
some sort of like-one-like-all look. Each had their hair pulled back
into the exact same ponytail, with identical pink ribbons hanging from
it. Even their clothes seemed designed as one unit. Short little skirts
and tiny little T-shirts that?if he'd been one of their fathers?he'd
have vetoed before they stepped out the front door.

He tuned out their high-pitched chatter and focused harder on the
baseball game showing on the tube. He figured he had about twelve
minutes left before he had to start shooing teenyboppers to their own
rooms. But he was surprised, yet again, when, just before ten, they
bounced their way back to their rooms, grinning cheeky little grins at
him. "Good night, Sheriff Golightly," they chirped in unison.

136 136A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Odd how they didn't seem to speak separately, yet they could sing in
three-part harmony without turning a pink-ribboned ponytail.

He pulled his boots off the glossy magazine he'd stuck between them and
the glass coffee table and went to check the two bedrooms under his
watch. In both cases, there were two boys per double bed and one on the
floor since they'd all determined that surface was more comfortable than
the roll-away beds the hotel provided. In the second room he eyed his
nephew, making his nest on the floor with pillows and blankets between
the two beds. "What'd you do? Lose the coin toss?"

Alan grinned and shook his head. "Won it." He waved at one bed. "Mark
snores. Matt's feet stink." Then he jerked his head toward the second
bed. "Ryan ate anchovies on his pizza so you know what he's gonna be
like all night. And Ben," Alan shook his head in mock sympathy at his
friend. "And Ben is just stuck."

Boys were boys, Shane figured, amused, and flipped off the light and
closed the door.

The minute he did, he could hear an assortment of snickers and snorts.
But within a half hour, sounds from both bedrooms had finally ceased.

He raked back his hair and rubbed his palm down his face. He might have
delivered Laurel's luggage to her, but he was not similarly equipped. He
had no change of clothes, no razor, no toothbrush.

Well, he was in a hotel. Toiletries were the least of his worries.

He pulled off his shirt and hung it over the back of the swiveling bar
stool at the small bar and tossed the two pillows that he'd confiscated
from the two bedrooms to one end of the couch- Then he sat down again,
tugging off his boots.

137 137

The couch was a damn sight more comfortable than that horse-hair episode
at Laurel's place.

He stretched out with a deep sigh and turned down the volume on the ball
game. It was then that he heard the soft tapping on the door.

Not the connecting door. Not one of the bedroom doors. The outer door.

He pushed his tired muscles into motion and went over to it, pulling it
open immediately when he saw Laurel through the peephole.

"What's wrong?"

Her lips tightened a little. "Why does something have to be wrong?"

He looked over his shoulder into the suite. The bedroom doors were still
firmly closed. "It's after ten. Aren't you supposed to be guarding your
quad of girls?"

"They think I'm doing the official bed check." In the soft light of the
carpeted hallway, her cheeks looked flushed.

He looked at the plastic shopping bag she held. "What do you do?
Confiscate their CD players and headphones if they're not sleeping?"

She smiled a little, though she still looked flushed. "No. This is for
you." She extended the bag toward him. "I, um, I had to guess at the
sizes, but hopefully everything will suit you. If not, the hotel gift
shop opens again in the morning at ten and you can exchange anything you
need to."

He thrust one hand into the bag, encountered fabric, and dragged it out.
"What is all this?"

She tugged at her earlobe, looking down the hall. "Just a pair of
sweatpants and a few shirts. Nothing much, but maybe you'll be more
comfortable than being stuck in the same clothes all weekend long."

"You shouldn't have spent your money on me."

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"I didn't. It came out of the funds for the trip, same way dinner did."
She moistened her lips and looked up at him. A quick, glancing little
look that nevertheless managed to heat something inside him. "I really
do appreciate this, Shane. I know it was a lot to ask. And you really
didn 't have to agree."

"Could have fooled me," he drawled softly. He dropped the dark-colored
T-shirts back into the bag.

Her gaze flicked upward again. She swallowed and nodded, and chewed on
her lip.

The teacher in command was nowhere in sight.

There was only an amber-eyed woman wrapped in a long-sleeved blue
T-shirt and loose-fitting matching pants who reminded him far too much
of the girl he'd made love to on blanket-covered straw about a lifetime ago.

As if she knew exactly where his thoughts had gone, her eyes widened a
little, and she pressed her lips together. "Well. I'd better get back to
my room." She rocked on her feet but didn't really go anywhere, and he
realized she was barefoot, as well.

Hell. He'd been sleeping under her father's godforsaken roof for several
nights, but he had managed not to see her wearing anything looking like
sleepwear. He was thirty-damn-five years old. He'd seen women's bare
feet before. He'd seen Laurel's bare feet before.

He felt like knocking his head against the wall if only to knock out the
image of her, padding barefoot and soft in her cute little blue pajamas,
toward him.

"I, um, meant to tell you that you don't have to hang around with the
choir all day tomorrow or anything. Once we get to the conference
center, you can go sightseeing or do whatever you want."

"I know. I heard Jana and Katy talking about their plans for tomorrow."

139 139

"Shopping?"

He nodded. "I'll happily leave them to it."

She smiled a little. "Well, anyway. I just wanted you to know. You're
not an indentured servant or anything. We just have to have four adults
when we're traveling and at night and stuff."

He wondered what she wore under that soft blue knitted stuff. Not much,
he guessed, when she suddenly crossed her arms, a self-conscious,
protective gesture if he'd ever seen one.

"Better finish your bed check." Get her going. Get her moving. If she
didn't, he was going to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her to him.

And canoodling between the chaperones was probably one of those verboten
items listed on the first page in her handy-dandy binder.

"Right." She curled her toes against the carpet. Her toenails were
painted red. She took a step away. "Don't forget. Breakfast at six."

"I won't forget."

Her lips twisted, the dimple in her cheek appearing. "No. Forgetting is
my gift."

He caught her wrist. Felt the jump in her pulse beneath his fingers.
"No, songbird. Your gift is a lot more complicated." Then, because he
couldn't help himself any more now than he could when he'd been
twenty-something and stupid as hell, he leaned over and pressed his
mouth hard against hers.

When he lifted his head, she swayed a little.

"Go."

She moistened her lips, hesitated long enough for him to nearly have a
heart attack, and then with a quick nod, she turned on her bare heel and
quickly walked down to her room.

140 140A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He could see her fumble with the room key, give him a look over her
shoulder that he couldn't read from this distance, then disappear inside.

He let out a long, long breath.

And he closed himself in his own room.

It was going to be a long, long weekend.

141

Why did you say you weren't very good with kids?"

It was Sunday and they were on the flight home. If Shane had thought the
kids were excitable before the festival, it was nothing compared to
their ebullience on the way home.

The choir had taken third place in their division, and the flight could
have been fueled along by the lively energy pulsing in the rear portion
of the plane where their group was sitting.

He couldn't imagine they'd have been more excited if they'd won first place.

He was sitting next to Laurel, only because he'd slipped into it when
Sophie?assigned the seat?started doing hip-hop in the aisle with the "E"
girls.

"Shane?" Laurel prompted.

He shrugged, not really wanting to think much about his

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near brush with parenting in the past. Not that Denise's seven-year-old
son would have considered his mother's engagement as giving Shane any
sort of parenting rights. The kid had detested Shane.

Unfortunately, though it certainly hadn't begun that way, the feeling
had ended up being mutual. No matter how hard and how many times Shane
had tried with the kid, both before and after his relationship with
Denise ended, his efforts had been futile.

"Don't deal with them much," he told Laurel truthfully. "And when I do,
it's because they're in trouble with the law."

"Evie's kids adore you."

He shrugged again. "Julie likes to come to my place so she can skate
around on my empty hardwood floors in her stocking feet. Mostly, they
relate better to Stu. He's more like our dad. Friendly."

Laurel made a noise.

"What?"

She just shook her head. Her hair slid smoothly over her shoulder.
"Please. You are so much like your father."

He'd never really thought so. Not even when he was planning to go into
the ministry. "Beau has a gift with people. I mostly intimidate them."

"And that bothers you?"

"Better not." He grinned a little. "Handy thing when you're the sheriff."

She made a soft little "mmm" sound and looked out the oval window beside
her. An announcement crackled over the speaker that they were beginning
to near Billings and the passengers should prepare for landing.

The dancing in the aisles didn't even falter, and Shane could see two of
the flight attendants heading their way, purpose in their strides
despite the smiles on their faces.

143 143

He stood and let out a short, sharp whistle, and the revelry ceased,
almost comically. A dozen young faces turned his way. "Seats."

They all began tumbling into their seats as he sat down again. Sophie,
he noticed, didn't quibble, taking the seat he'd had earlier.

"Dad's gonna want you to be their choir director permanently."

She shook her head. "Nancy Thayer might have something to say about that
when she returns from her honeymoon."

"You helped them win third place."

"No, my presence just made certain that they met the requirements for
competing. Nancy is the one who's worked with them as a choir. Not me."

"Nancy's been taking the youth choir to the annual festival for three
years. This is the first year they're returning to Lucius with a trophy.
Believe me. The parents and kids are going to want you."

"Well, I don't want anything of the sort!" Her cheeks flushed and her
gaze darted around, but the noise of the engines did a good job of
preventing voices from being carried.

He was more interested in her vehemence than whether she was overheard,
though. "Why not?"

"I haven't even decided whether I want to stay in Lucius," she said
abruptly. "Once I deal with my father's house?" She broke off with a
shrug. "I don't know." She looked out the window again.

How could he have gotten so accustomed so rapidly to the idea of her
staying in Lucius? Roger's funeral had barely been a week ago. "The
school you teach at in Colorado expects you back in the fall, of course."

She mumbled something, but with her facing away from him and the noise
of the plane, he couldn't make it out. He

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covered her hand where it clutched the armrest between them and felt the
way she nearly jumped at the contact. He kept his hand there, though,
until she looked at him.

"I...don't have a job there anymore," she finally said. "I quit because
I was expecting to be married to Martin by now and he planned to do a
lot of traveling."

He really didn't like the idea of her coming so close to marrying that
other guy. "So there's no reason not to stay in Lucius," he said logically.

She didn't answer that. Merely tugged her hand out from beneath his and
leaned over to fumble in the carry-on bag she had tucked under the seat
in front of her. When she straightened again, the flight attendants were
making their final rounds before the plane landed.

Laurel kept her attention fixed out the window, but she saw nothing. Not
when there was only one thing filling her head, engulfing her senses.

Shane.

He hadn't gone sightseeing the day before while the choir was busy all
day. He'd stuck to her side almost like glue, fading out of sight only
when their choir was on deck or competing. He'd been there, wearing his
jeans and that ridiculous Experience Spokane! T-shirt she'd found in the
gift shop for him. Except, the shirt hadn't looked at all ridiculous
with the way it clung to his broad shoulders.

She still wasn't sure if he'd hung around that way because he figured
she was likely to keel over from exertion or not. In the end, she
supposed it really didn't matter. He'd filled the need for a chaperone,
the kids had their trip, and now everything could get back to normal.

Not that she knew what normal was for her, anymore.

The plane landed and the passengers in the rows ahead of their group
deplaned?undoubtedly happy to no longer

145 145

be cooped up with twenty over-excited youth. Laurel waited until the
kids were moving off the plane before she followed. As she went, she was
eyeballing the seats to make sure nothing had been left behind by her
charges, only to realize that Shane, immediately behind her, was doing
the same thing.

She nabbed a worn teddy bear. He found a portable CD player. From the
plane they boarded the school bus waiting for them, and then they headed
back to Lucius.

Some of the stuffing was starting to leak out from the kids' stores of
energy by the time they arrived. Parents were already waiting in the
parking lot, including Evie and Tom and Louise Halloran-*-who was
obviously feeling better. Shane, Jana and Katy were out, helping to sort
belongings. Laurel stopped long enough to thank the bus driver for his
service, then she too stepped off the bus.

The sun was just beginning to set.

Evie rushed over, pumping Laurel's hand in hers. "Alan called from
Joey's cell phone. Third place! Oh, drat, but I wish I could've gotten
away to be a chaperone. Please tell me you got lots of pictures."

Laurel nodded and laughed when the woman pulled her in for a tight hug.
It was only ope of many. It seemed that every single mother felt a need
to squeeze the dayhghts out of Laurel. By the time the parking lot was
finally clearing and there was only Shane's SUV and Laurel's borrowed
car sitting there, she felt oddly teary.

'Told you," Shane said as he picked up her suitcase and stowed it on the
front seat of her vehicle. "They're going to want you to take the job
permanently. Evie's already on a harangue about it. She won't rest until
she gets what she wants."

Laurel climbed behind the wheel. "Then she'll be pretty unrested."

146 146A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He hooked his arms over the door before she could pull it closed.
"Speaking of rest. Where are you going to sleep tonight?"

Alone, sadly.

Her face went hot as the thought sneaked in. "At my father's house," she
said calmly. "And you don't need to play night-light. I'll be fine. You
were with me the entire weekend. Surely I've proven my own competence by
now."

"It has nothing to do with competence."

"Spoken, like a man who's never had his mind picked apart by
psychiatrists." She realized her hands were squeezing the steering wheel
too tightly, and deliberately loosened her grip as she started the car,
then tugged the door closed. "Good night, Shane. Thanks again for your
help." She drove off before he could respond?positively or negatively.

She was vaguely surprised when the sight of his SUV didn't appear in her
rearview mirror as she drove back to her father's house. Surprised but
not disappointed.

No. Not disappointed.

She tried to shrug off her odd mood as she went inside the house. It was
a far sight tidier than when she'd first arrived, but still it seemed
close and confining.

She dragged her suitcase up the stairs straight past her parents' closed
bedroom door and tossed it on the narrow bed in her bedroom. She
unpacked, exchanged her wrinkled traveling clothes for a comfortable
knee-length T-shirt dress and went downstairs and back out to the car.

She drove out to the cemetery where she sat near her gram and watched
the sun set. She went to the grocery store and stocked up on a few
essentials. She passed the sheriff's office and figured she was in some
trouble when she was able to recognize Shane's usual SUV?which ought

147 147

to have been identical to the other ones the department possessed?parked
on the street there.

She returned to the house again, scrambled an egg and fixed toast for
herself, then collapsed on the makeshift bed under the dining room window.

No, she didn't need Shane there just to get some sleep under her
father's roof.

But as she lay there for a long while before finally dozing off, she was
honest enough to admit to herself that?even if she'd convinced him his
presence was no longer necessary?she missed him.

Taking a long weekend off meant Shane played catchup at the office all
day on Monday, and he was glad to knock off when suppertime rolled
around. He drove home, fully intending to drive right on past die Runyan
place.

But the sight of his sister's car parked in the street caught his
curiosity. The sight of Laurel, standing in the yard surrounded by
painting equipment as she talked with Evie, caught at more than his
curiosity.

He pulled up and parked behind Evie's car.

Laurel had smears of something on her bare arms and a white cap on her head.

He shifted in his seat and watched the two women through the side window.

They knew he was there, since they'd both glanced his way when he'd
driven up. But the smile spreading across Laurel's face didn't dim.

She was beautiful.

He looked down at the thick file he'd been studying for most of the day.
Roger Runyan's file held nothing that Shane hadn't already known, but he
still was going dirough it again with a fine-tooth comb. Now he slid it
under his

148 148A MONTANA HOMECOMING

hat on the seat and got out of the SUV and walked up to the women.

The painter's cap had Lucius Hardware printed in dark-green lettering on
it. And the paint smears, when he got close enough to see, were the
color of buttercups. "Tired of your arms being flesh colored?"

Laurel brushed at the spatters on her arms. "I know. I'm a mess." She
grasped one of the stir sticks stacked on the ground and stirred the
paint slowly. "I tested it a little, there by the front door. I think
it'll be a nice change from white."

Evie was nodding.

He had no desire to take the smile off Laurel's face by stating his
opinion on the practicality of painting a house that would have been
better demolished. "It's a nice color," he agreed.

"Oh, high praise, indeed," Evie said. She suddenly fumbled with her
pocket, pulling out a tiny cell phone that was quietly vibrating.
"Excuse me." She turned and walked a little distance away as she
answered her call.

He was glad Stu had given him a heads-up earlier that afternoon on the
amount of work Laurel had accomplished that day. That he'd had enough
time to conquer the urge to bolt out to her place and remind her that
the last time she'd done some repairs?on the roof?she'd passed out from
exhaustion. Still, seeing the muscles in her slender arms flex as she
stirred the contents of the huge paint bucket, he found it hard to keep
his thoughts to himself. "How much do you plan to do today?"

She lifted her shoulder. "As much as I can. There are still hours of
sunlight left. So..." The edge of her teeth sank into her lower lip as
she concentrated.

The paint was surely the most well mixed in the county, judging by the
attention she was giving it.

149 149

"What made you decide to paint the outside first?"

"Had to start somewhere." She didn't quite look at him when she finally
stopped stirring and picked up a metal paint tray. She dropped it on the
ground next to the paint pail and crouched down next to it, as if she
fully intended to muscle it up and pour a measure into the tray.

He nudged her hands away. "You're liable to dump the whole thing in the
dirt," he told her. He scraped the excess paint off the stir sticks into
the bucket and handed them to her, then lifted it and poured a stream
into the tray.

"Show-off," she muttered. But she didn't look unduly upset as she swiped
the edge of the pail when he set it back on the ground. "If you're that
set on showing me how it's supposed to be done-?" she gestured at the
equipment stacked on a flat piece of plastic "?then grab a paint roller."

There was a hint of challenge in her voice.

He wondered if she was aware of it.

Then he saw the gleam in her eyes as she lifted the paint tray and
carried it up the plywood ramp and set it on the porch.

Oh, she knew all right.

She figured she had him pegged right down to his boots. He thought she
was wasting her resources on the house, and she knew it.

Evie neared again, looking a little frazzled. "You know the architect I
consulted about adding on to Tiff's? He was going to be in town
tomorrow, but he's over there right now, waiting. Says he has only an
hour before he has to return to Billings. Shane, I hate to ask, but
could you keep an eye on the kids for me? They're inside Laurel's. This
guy is harder than wet soap to get ahold of. I don't want to miss him."

150 150A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"They can stay here," Laurel offered easily, "even if he can't. Slave
labor is always welcome."

Trevor poked his nose out the screen door. He'd obviously been
listening. "I wanna paint."

Alan soon appeared after his little brother. "Me, too."

"You don't know what you're getting into," Evie warned Laurel.

"I survived the festival trip, didn't I?"

Evie laughed at that, nodding. "More than some could say, probably.
Okay. Alan, you make sure Trev behaves. I'm not worried about Julie. She
won't go near the paint, probably. Too fastidious." Evie was already
heading to her car. "I won't be long, I promise." She climbed in and
drove off, her hand waving out the window.

Laurel looked at Alan. "You really want to paint?"

He nodded.

"Well, all right. But you need something to cover up your clothes a
little. Don't think your mom would appreciate it too much if she comes
back and you look like this." She swept her hand down, gesturing at her
own paint-spattered jeans and T-shirt. She looked at Shane for half a
moment then quickly went inside.

Shane could hear Trevor's young voice piping along that he wanted a
paint shirt, too.

He stared at the house.

How many times had he envisioned it being torn down? How many times had
he looked forward to that day when there was nothing remaining of the
place where Laurel had been so devastated?

He rubbed his hand down his face. Muttered an oath and went to his
truck. When he turned up the drive to his house, his tires spun a little
on the gravel, spitting stones out behind him as he went.

151 151

# * *

Through her bedroom window upstairs, Laurel saw Shane drive away as if
the hounds of hell were chasing after him.

Disappointment felt heavy inside her, but she put a smile on her face,
anyway, as she surveyed the young males wriggling in front of her. Julie
was sitting primly on the couch downstairs, paging through a magazine
that Laurel had picked up along with her other supplies. She couldn't
help but wonder how long inexpensive home decorating ideas would hold
the girl's interest.

"Okay. Here you go, sir." She handed Trevor an old button-down blouse
from her high school days. It was white and fairly devoid of female
details and wouldn't be so huge on him that he would be unable to
function. "And for you, Alan, I think something larger is in order."

She knew the boy was nearly eleven, and a fair-size youth he was, too.

"Do you still have something?" Worry lurked in the boy's blue eyes that
he might not find suitable attire. "Mom'11 skin me if I get something on
these."

Laurel swallowed. "I definitely have something." She went up the hall
toward the stairs.

The two boys trooped behind her.

Her heartbeat sounded more loudly in her ears with each step that took
her nearer her parents' bedroom door. Hardly able to breathe, she closed
her hand over the iron doorknob and threw the door open.

No ghosts came rushing out.

No remembrances came rushing back.

There was nothing but a stuffy, unoccupied bedroom.

"Miss Runyan?"

Laurel blinked a little. Alan stood beside her. "Call me Laurel."

152 152A MONTANA HOMECOMING

And she stepped into the bedroom, going straight to the closet door,
looking neither left nor right. She pulled out the first shirt her hand
encountered and turned back around, stopping short.

Again the boys had followed her.

Trevor was bouncing his rear end experimentally on the end of the
quilt-covered bed, and Alan was looking at the dresser next to the door.
"You got more pictures than my mom even."

Laurel hurried from the bedroom, aware of nothing more than the
profusion of photograph frames cluttering the top of the dresser. "Come
on. Paint is waiting."

They clambered down the stairs behind her. Laurel handed Alan the brown
plaid shirt she'd grabbed.

Julie was still sitting on the couch. Laurel stopped next to her. "Are
you sure you don't want to come out with us? You don't have to paint."

Julie shook her head, studying the open magazine on her lap. "I'm okay,"
she insisted shyly.

"All rightee. Come out if you change your mind, okay?"

The girl nodded. She turned the page.

Laurel wasn't sure whether to smile or sigh.

The article on painting concrete indoor floors was probably fascinating
to an eight-year-old.

But she wasn't going to push Julie to do anything she didn't want to do.
This wasn't a classroom, after all. So she went outside, organizing the
boys with paintbrushes and small containers of paint and instructions,
as if she were oh-so experienced in the finer details of painting the
outside of a house, when the only things she'd painted were crafts for
school projects.

"Where'd Uncle Shane go?" Alan asked after a moment. He was working more
or less beside her, his tongue

153 153

generally caught between his teeth as he concentrated on his assigned
portion.

Laurel shook her head, determined to ignore the hollow-ness inside her.
She'd survived her dash in and out of her parents' bedroom. She'd
survive the fact mat Shane had left, too. "I don't know. He probably had
something he had to do."

She ran the loaded roller up and down around the front window. She could
see Julie inside, but the moment the little girl realized she was being
watched, she quickly looked back down at the magazine and flipped a page.

It took less time than Laurel Expected to finish covering that short
section of wall, ajnd she moved the boys around to the side of the
house. 'Kll right. Keep the paint on the house, not each other. I'll j)e
right back."

She carried the empty paint tray back to the big bucket. Tipping it
still proved too heavy and awkward. She didn't want the money she'd
spent on the paint just ending up in the dirt.

Too bad Shane wasn't still around.

Annoyed with the thought, she went inside and found a plastic bowl in
the kitchen cupboard. Muscle wasn't everything.

She started for the door again, tapping the bowl against her leg.

"Miss Runyan?"

Oh, success, please. She stopped and looked at Julie. "You can call me
Laurel."

"It's very messy, painting."

"Well." Laurel spread her hands looking down at herself. She had a fresh
new set of spatters. "In my case, I'd have to say so. But my skin will
wash and my clothes are work clothes anyway, so it's okay. Are you sure
you don't want to come give it a try?"

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

The girl looked torn.

"I can get a shirt that'll cover you from your neck to your toes. And I
even have plastic gloves that you can wear, if you don't want to get it
on your hands."

"I just don't wanna get my dress dirty."

"It's a very pretty dress. I wouldn't want it to get dirty, either." It
was so clear that the shy girl wanted to join her brothers. "How about
if I grab another shirt and leave it with you just in case, and you can
decide?"

The girl twined a strand of long, blond hair around her finger. Finally
she nodded.

Laurel grinned. "Be back in a flash."

She went up the stairs again, not giving herself a chance to hesitate as
she went through the still-opened door of her parents' room. Another
shirt in hand, she turned to go downstairs and caught a glimpse of her
reflection in the dusty mirror over the dresser.

She looked a fright.

No wonder Julie was so skittish.

She shoved her hair back more smoothly beneath the cap, but wiping at
the smudges on her face only spread more paint since her fingers were
fairly coated with it.

Her gaze fell on the collection of photographs. Dozens and dozens of
simple frames in an assortment of sizes.

Her gaze sharpened, racing over the items.

So many photographs.

Her throat tightened with each one that she looked at.

So many, and all of her.

She leaned closer, holding the shirt and her hands well away. Elementary
school pictures. High school pictures. Candid shots of birthdays and
Christmases. Of her sitting on Grain's lap. Of her graduation.

She straightened like a shot.

155 155

Her college graduation.

Despite her messy hands, she grabbed the picture frame. It was a small
photograph. But there was no mistake.

It was her all right, in her cap and gown, standing near the entrance to
the student union where she'd met up with classmates following the
commencement ceremony.

How on earth had her father gotten a picture of her when he hadn't been
there?

And why did he have it at all?

"Are you all right?"

She looked up from the photograph.

Shane stood in the doorway. He wore a ragged gray T-shirt with the
collar and sleeves torn out, and a pair of threadbare jeans that ought
to have gotten him arrested in a few particularly conservative states.

"What are you doing here?"

"Julie told me you were still up here. But what you 're doing seems more
the point," he countered quietly. "You opened the door."

She pressed her lips together for a moment. "Shirts," she managed. "For
paint wear."

His gray eyes that missed nothing were unbearably soft. "Are you okay?"

Was she?

"He had this." She held out the photo. It wavered.

He took the photo with one hand and closed his fingers around her
shaking hand with the other. "You were graduating," he said, looking at
the photo. "Hold it. That's not Lucius High. Is this your college
graduation?" His hand tightened on hers. It steadied her, that hold, but
it also made her eyes bum deep inside her head.

She nodded.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

His thumb brushed over the photo, lightly tracing her image. "Prettiest
coed I've ever seen."

It was the absolute last thing she expected him to say. She let out a
sudden burst of laughter even as the burning behind her eyes turned
liquid and spilled past her lashes.

"Ah, baby. Don't cry."

She shook her head, blinking, but the tears didn't stop. "How did he get
that photograph? He wasn't there. He was never there!"

He pulled her against him, and he felt solid and warm and strong. His
hand closed over her neck, smoothed down her tangle of hair, stroked up
and down her back. "Honey, either he was there, or he sent someone in
his place. And he cared enough to save the photograph. Saved a lot of
photographs, looks like."

Her fingers tangled in his shirt. "I don't understand him." She pulled
in a shaking breath, desperately trying to collect herself. She peeled
her fingers away from his shirt and swiped them over her cheeks. "I'm
sorry," she whispered.

He gave her a few inches of space, but when his big palm slid against
her cheek, she nearly lost all the control she'd gained. He tilted her
head back.

She swallowed. Her vision blurred all over again.

"Sometimes not everything has to be completely understood," he murmured.
"Just accepted."

His lashes were inky black, almost startlingly so around his gray eyes.
She could feel herself sinking into his gaze. "Like faith." Her voice
was little more than a breath.

"Like faith. Love."

Her chest ached.

His thumb stroked slowly over her cheek.

She could feel herself slipping further into his mesmerizing gaze. As if
she were leaving the solidity of herself behind.

157 157

He lowered his head and brushed his lips over her forehead. Her temple.

She could feel herself trembling.

His thumb moved again. Lightly chafed her bottom lip.

She dragged in another ragged breath. Exhaled his name.

His mouth drifted again, and slowly, so slowly settled over hers.

158

It was the giggling that finally penetrated the spell cast by the taste
of Laurel.

Still, Shane took his time breaking the kiss. He waited until Laurel's
soft lashes fluttered open, until the satisfying haziness in her eyes
cleared. "We have an audience," he murmured.

Nothing else could have cleared the dregs of desire more efficiently.
Her eyes widened. A flush flirted with the delicate lines of her cheekbones.

She stepped away, focusing anywhere but on him. "Here." She hastily
picked up the shirt, which had fallen to the floor at some point, and
handed it to Julie who, along with her two brothers, was goggle-eyed and
still giggling.

Julie took the shirt.

"We need more paint," Alan said.

"Right. Of course you do." Laurel cast him a somewhat

159 159

desperate look over her shoulder as she hustled the children back down
the stairs.

Shane took a little more time joining them.

But when he did, and the lot of them?including his finicky little
niece?were brushing, rolling and generally swabbing paint on a house he
hadn't figured was worth the effort, he felt something unroll inside him
that he hadn't felt in a very long time.

Contentment.

Evie took longer than she'd expected, phoning Shane at about the time
he'd made his way around to the rear of the house, that she was going to
be a while yet.

He didn't mind. The kids were occupied, and Laurel had a smile on her
face, one that stayed there even when she'd catch him watching her.

The smile was good.

The fact that he'd heard her singing softly to herself as she'd painted
was even better. Even at the festival, he hadn't once heard her sing a
single note.

He assured his sister that her children were being well entertained and
to take her time. Then he went around to the other side of the house
where Laurel was working, the children scattered around her. ;

The sight jarred him for a morhent, seeming to imprint itself on his
brain where he thought he'd never be able to completely remove it. He'd
seen her in what he considered her teacher mode. But just now, she
seemed.. .maternal.

He didn't know why that fact tugged at him so. When he'd been engaged to
Denise, her young son had been a total bone of contention between them.

"What do you think," Laurel called to him, gesturing at the finished
wall. "I'll still have to paint the eaves and

160

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

trim, of course. I figured a sort of dark mossy green would look nice,
but I wasn't entirely sure, which is why I didn't purchase the paint yet."

He nodded, barely seeing the house. "I think it's time for pizza. What
do you guys think?"

The children nodded. Alan had his tongue between his teeth as he drew
the paintbrush along the house's foundation. Julie was busy with the
hose, swishing it over the paint on her bare legs. Trevor had lost
interest in painting the house and was, instead, sitting on the ground
making drawings in the mud with one of Laurel's paint sticks. "I'm
starving" he said.

Laurel looked stricken. "Good heavens. I should have stopped and fixed
them all sandwiches."

"Yeah," Shane drawled, looking at the kids as he came up behind her.
"They look pretty mistreated to me, Miz Runyan." He kissed the back of
her neck, making her jump, and set the kids giggling all over again.
"You have paint on your ear," he murmured against the ear in question.

She cast him a look over her shoulder. "You're just feeling superior
because you are not as messy as we are." A sudden dimple flirted in her
cheek. "Yet."

He barely had time to back away before she'd turned and run her paint
roller right down the front of his shirt.

"Oh, whoa. She's gonna get it now," Alan predicted.

"Julie. Bring me the hose."

Laurel's eyes widened, but they were sparkling. Her lips parted, but
they were still curved into a smile. "Oh, no you don't."

"Maybe I just want a drink of cold water."

"Right. And I'm the Queen of England."

He held out his hand and took the hose from his niece. "Your Highness."
He bent over and took a drink from the

161 161

steady stream of water. Then he straightened and sprayed the water
straight in Laurel's face.

She screamed, laughing, and ran away toward the hill behind the house,
dropping her paint weapon along the way. 'This is not, oh!" She darted
the other way, trying to evade the water. "This isn't dignified behavior
for a sheriff," she sputtered.

The kids were laughing and screaming, too, whether to protect Laurel or
simply to get their dose of water spray, he wasn't sure. He grinned and
sprayed it over them, too, but while he was doing so, Laurel charged
him, low and fast, grabbing his legs.

He gave a bark of laughter as he stumbled and righted his balance. "Nice
try, songbird." He grabbed her around the waist, tipping her upside down.

Her legs kicked, but he held her fast. The kids were laughing so hard
they could barely stand.

She squirmed. "You're going to regret this, Shane," she promised
breathlessly, when he renewed his grasp on the hose. "Really, really
regret this."

Regret seeing her laugh? He shook his head. "Don't think so." And turned
the hose directly against her stomach.

She squealed and wriggled and laughed so hard they wound up in a tangle
of legs and arms and cold, running water.

"Dog pile!" Alan crowed. Then the children bounced on them, too. Shane
laughed, turning his back to the kids, protecting Laurel from the worst
of it.

She was shaking beneath him, water dripping from her hair, her eyelashes
spiked with it. "You are a nut."

Julie squirmed between them. "Are you gonna kiss again?"

He caught Laurel's gaze with his. "Not yet."

162 162A MONTANA HOMECOMING

His hand was on her bare waist where her wet shirt had twisted up, and
he tightened his hold for a moment. Her pupils dilated.

Then he let her go, tipping the children off. "First one cleaned up gets
to choose the pizza."

In a flash they were running hell-bent for the house.

He grabbed Laurel's hand and pulled her to her feet. Miraculously, they
had managed not to spray mud or water on the side of the house, though
the paint roller she'd been using was full of dirt.

He lowered his head and pressed a hard, fast kiss on her lips. "Better
make sure Trevor doesn't win the race," he advised, turning her toward
the house and giving her a gentle push. "He's the only one who likes
anchovies."

She smiled as she walked away from him. "Maybe I'll make sure he does
win," she countered. "I like anchovies, too."

To Laurel's amusement, Julie won the clean-up race, and the pizza?when
it was delivered from the only place with decent pizza in town according
to Shane?was a nice, tidy pepperoni and mushroom, which the little girl
ate with a knife and a fork.

Evie arrived before they were finished, and she hurried them along as
she chattered a mile a minute about her frustrating meeting with the
architect who'd nixed her idea of expanding Tiff's existing structure.
When she finally wound down and hustled the kids out, the house felt
decidedly quiet.

And Laurel and Shane were decidedly.. .alone.

Rather than sit there across the dining room table mulling that
particular point to death, she rose, quickly collecting up the used
paper plates and napkins.

163 163

Too quickly, she realized, when, barely a minute later, she and Shane
were still decidedly alone, and she had nothing to occupy her nervous hands.

When the phone rang, she very nearly jumped right out of her skin.

The corner of Shane's lips twitched, and she wanted to just disappear
under the floorboards as she went to answer the phone.

She was thirty years old, for heaven's sake. Not eighteen.

She picked up the phone midring. "Hello?"

"Miss Runyan? This is Marian Smythe. I'm a member of the Lucius School
Board. Do you have a moment to talk?"

She blinked in surprise, casting a look at Shane. "Yes, Mrs. Smythe. How
can I help you?"

"Well, I'm sure you're aware of our need for teachers and Rev. Golightly
gave us your name. I hope you don't mind me interrupting your evening."

"Of course not."

"Perhaps you'd be willing to meet with the other members of the board
and me this week? We're sorely in need of three teachers, you see, and
the search committee is just about at their wits' end."

Laurel listened as the woman went on. Shane had picked up the last slice
of pizza and carried it with him out to the porch. Through the window
she could see the back of him where he stood outside. "I'll be happy to
meet with you," Laurel finally agreed. "But I really haven't decided if
I'll be staying in town or not."

"I understand," Mrs. Smythe assured. "The reverend said as much, but I'm
hoping that we might be able to convince you. So, the day after
tomorrow? At 10:00 a.m. at the library at the elementary school."

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"I'll see you then." She hung up the phone only to stare at it pensively.

With his usual unerring sense of timing, Shane came back inside. "Here.
Your mail was sitting on the rocker out front."

Laurel glanced through the envelopes. Two "occupants" and one addressed
to her. From Martin.

Feeling the weight of Shane's gaze, she set the mail aside.

"He's probably begging you to come back."

Of course, he would have seen the return address printed on Martin's
envelope. "No. He's not."

"How do you know?"

"Because he understood perfectly when I told him I couldn't marry him."

"Then he's a damn fool."

"First he's a saint, now he's a fool. Well, if you must know, I wish?"
Her back teeth closed hard on each other.

"Wish what? That you had married him?"

She flopped her hands to her sides. "No. I didn't?I couldn't?oh, never
mind! I don't want to talk about it."

"Or read about it, evidently." He flicked the edge of the linen envelope
with his fingertip.

"That is just a check," she assured. "He bought my car for his son.
Nothing more."

"You sold your car."

"Yes."

"But you claim you're not sure you're staying in Lucius."

"I haven't decided."

His gaze slanted pointedly to her palm where she was smoothing down the
bandage he'd produced from the first-aid kit he kept under his trunk
seat when he'd seen the blisters forming in her hand. "You're doing all
this work on the house because you haven't decided?"

165 165

"That's right." She stopped fiddling with the bandage.

"What are you afraid of, Laurel?" His voice was quiet. Patient.

So patient that her immediate rejection of his question died. She
frowned. "I don't know," she finally said instead. "Too many things to
list, I think."

"Is staying in this house going to help that?"

She thought about her parents' room. The photographs on the dresser that
she'd never known were there until that afternoon. "I'm afraid if I
don't stay here, I'll never know the answer to that."

The phone rang in her kitchen again and she picked it up even though
there wasn't a soul she wanted to talk to.

But it was for Shane.

"It's Carla Chapman," she told him and held out the phone.

He automatically patted his belt, where his cell phone ordinarily was.
Only, he wore no belt. Merely the pair of cargo shorts that he'd
exchanged his muddy, painted jeans for before they'd eaten. He took the
phone and Laurel slipped out of his way.

"Whatever it is, have Tony handle it," he said to Carla.

Laurel scooted the metal chairs into the table and went into the living
room, wincing a little when Shane muttered an oath in response to
Carta's answer.

When he finished his call, she was picking up the old games she'd found
in her closet for the kids from the coffee table. Pick-up sticks and a
box of marbles. Hardly the latest in electronic games, but they'd
occupied the threesome simply out of novelty.

"I have to take care of something." He stopped beside her. Any semblance
of patience had disappeared from his expression. He looked grimly
annoyed. "It shouldn't take me long."

166 166A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She wasn't certain how to take that.

Did he think they'd crossed some invisible threshold back into the land
of kisses and caresses?

Hadn't they?

So she simply nodded. "Okay."

He looked as if he wanted to say something more. But he didn't. He
merely headed for the door. Seconds later his headlights flashed across
her front window as he turned toward town.

She clutched the box of marbles to her chest, exhaling slowly.

Then she carried the toys back upstairs and put them away.

Every muscle in her body was tired from the day's activities. She took
another hot bath, scraping again at the bits of paint she'd missed the
first time. The water felt good on her muscles, but only seemed to make
her more tired. Yet trying to sleep held little appeal.

She slipped into a clean gown, picked up the journal that was sitting on
the desktop, and carried' it to the bed. She curled against the thin
pillow and pulled up the knitted af-ghan her grandmother had made for
her when she was little.

She flipped open the book near the front.

Dear Gram,

1 graduated from high school today. Hurrah! Now it's on to college. Mom
says I'm nuts for wanting to study vocal performance. Says its
completely impractical. As usual, Dad didn't say anything, but at least
he doesn't tell me I'm nuts. Love you.

The screen door at Laurel's place was shut when Shane returned from
hauling Charlie, drunker than a skunk, out

167 167

of the Tipped Barrel and home again. He'd left the guy sprawled inside
his front door.

He wished he'd had cause to lock the bum in a cell again, but Charlie
hadn't been driving this time. He'd had his keys on him, all right, but
he'd been hugging a whiskey with one hand and an annoyed waitress with
the other when Shane interrupted the festivity.

Shane peered through the screen into the brightly lit house, expecting
to see Laurel inside. "Laurel?"

There was no answer.

He pulled open the screen and went inside. He'd have to give her his
spiel on safety. Yeah, Lucius was a safe place to live. But she was on
the edge of town, and there was no such thing as being too careful.

She'd moved the pile of linens out of the dining room before they'd
ordered pizza, calling the pile laundry when Alan asked. It was all
still sitting undisturbed where she'd left it at the base of the staircase.

The car his father had loaned her was sitting in the driveway. It hadn't
been moved.

He started up the stairs. Past her father's room. The door was still open.

He'd loathed Roger Runyan, and nothing Shane had found out by looking
over the man's case gave him reason to change his opinion. But he could
acknowledge that the guy must have had some feelings for his daughter.
What else could explain all those pictures of Laurel? Particularly the
one from her college graduation?

The floorboards creaked loudly as he went down the narrow hall. The
bathroom door was open; the room dark. He continued a few more feet.

Laurel's bedroom.

He stuck his head around the doorway. "Laurel?"

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

The bed was small, and she was curled up, barely occupying half of it.
Asleep.

He stepped closer, grimacing when the worn floorboards there creaked
just as badly as the hallway had.

But she didn't stir.

Her hair was damp, streaming around her on the pillow. He carefully
untucked the canvas-covered book she was holding from her lax fingers
and set it quietly on the desk. Then he drew the pink and purple afghan
up to her shoulders.

She sighed a little, seeming to sink even further into the pillow.

He started to smooth her hair away from her face but didn't. "Sleep
tight, songbird," he whispered.

Carefully avoiding the boards that had squeaked before, he left the
room. Downstairs he shut off some of the lights and quietly let himself
out the door, locking it behind him.

The next day Laurel went through the door of the office at Golightly
Garage and Auto Body and nearly swallowed her gum, a feat considering
she wasn't chewing any.

The woman sitting at the counter just seemed to inspire that sort of
response. Laurel was positive she'd never seen anyone with hair quite
that shade of purple or with eye shadow quite that shade of green. Not
outside of a Halloween dress-up contest at any rate. The woman was
eyeing her in return, too, as if Laurel presented as unexpected a sight.

"Help you with something?" The woman held up a bottle of nail polish and
shook it violently.

She was so petite and wrinkled it was a wonder the shaking didn't send
her right off the stool where she was perched.

"I was hoping I could see Stu," Laurel said. The woman must be Riva. The
woman who helped Stu run the garage.

169 169

"And you'd be Laurel. Heard you'd be dropping by soon." The woman tipped
her half-glasses up her nose for a studying moment, then shoved them
even higher until they were stuck in the middle of her forehead, where
they seemed to magnify the penciled eyebrows that hovered a solid inch
above her natural ones. Her teeth?blinding white and seeming two sizes
too large for her tiny face?flashed. "I'm Riva. Been working with Stu
since he was in short pants. You gonna date him?"

"Stu? We're just friends."

"Hhmphf. Friends. That boy needs t' stop being just friends with every
pretty girl he meets and find himself a wife before he's too set in his
way for takers. But I meant the sheriff, hon. You gonna date him?"

Laurel nearly choked. "Is, um, is Stu around?" she persisted.

She hadn't seen him in the service bay when she'd parked near the opened
door.

"Well, yeah, he's around. His garage," Riva said patiently. "You're a
good-looking girl. What's wrong with either the sheriff or Stu?"

"Hell, Riv, would you just shut up?" Stu rambled in from an interior
door, a greasy red shop rag in his hand. "Hey, Laurel, come on back.
Shane said you might come by. Got a car perfect for you back here. Just
been giving it a once-over. Think you'll be happy with it, but if you're
not, there are a few others I can recommend."

Laurel gratefully escaped Riva's arch look and followed him through a
doorway into the enormous garage area. There were two cars up on lifts.
A third car, the one Stu headed toward, had its hood up, and he popped
it shut as he passed by.

"The engine's solid," he said, opening up the driver's

170 170A MONTANA HOMECOMING

side door of the little red sedan, and gesturing with his hand for her
to take a look. "Tires are new, did the brakes just last year."

She'd told Stu she was ready to look at cars to buy, but now that she
was actually doing it, nerves were creeping in. "Why's the owner selling
it?" She slid into the driver's seat, looking around the interior. It
showed hardly any signs of wear.

Laurel glanced up at Stu when he didn't answer. He was staring at
something outside, and she looked over her shoulder to see what so
fascinated him.

A tow truck was pulling up in the parking lot. It parked behind one of
the upraised cars, and Freddie Finn slid out of the cab. She lifted a
hand and shouted something Laurel couldn't quite make out, then began
lowering the bed of the tow truck.

Laurel looked back at Stu. He was twisting his red rag as if it were a
snake he needed to dispatch. "Go help her," she suggested. "I'll just
check out the car a little more." Try to convince herself that taking
this step?this mark of permanency?wasn't a mistake.

"Freddie doesn't want my help. Never has." His lips twisted.
"Stubbornest woman I ever met. She doesn't need to be hauling cars
around all day," he said under his breath.

Laurel bit her tongue to keep from smiling. "What does she need to be
doing?"

He shrugged, looking red around the ears. "She ain't getting any
younger. Getting married. Having kids."

Laurel couldn't help her grin then. "Just exactly what every woman over
thirty wants to hear."

He looked chagrined. "Aw, Laurel. I didn't mean any offense."

171 171

She laughed a little. "None taken. You really like her that much, then,
that you think marriage and babies around her?"

Horror darkened his eyes. "Hell no!"

She just smiled wider and shook her head. "Again, a lovely and welcome
reaction any woman would be happy to see in the man they're interested in."

"She's not interested in me."

"The same way you're not interested in her?"

He cast Freddie a speculative glance. The woman was completely
preoccupied with unloading her cargo. "She's always going out with other
guys," he finally said.

"Well, have you asked her out?"

He looked even more chagrined, and she knew that he hadn't.

"Oh, Stu," she murmured. "You've gotta get on the stick here. After all,
you 're not getting any younger."

He glared at her. Then chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. So, what about the car?
Think she'll do you for?"

Laurel nodded, ignoring the nervousness clutching at her stomach. One
step at a time. Small achievable goals. She could do this. "Can I write
the owner a check, or do you think they'd prefer cash? I have a bank
account here in town now."

"Check's fine. You can leave Dad's car here when you take this one. I've
been wanting to flush the radiator, anyway."

"Hey, Laurel." Freddie sauntered into the garage and flipped a small set
of keys toward Stu. "Owner's name is Reeves. Wants the engine rebuilt.
Said you were expecting the car."

Stu caught the keys easily. "I am. Thanks. Town picnic's next week," he
said suddenly.

"Yeah, so?" Freddie's voice tightened a little.

Laurel quickly leaned over, busying herself peering into

172 172A MONTANA HOMECOMING

the glove box. She hummed a little under her breath, trying not to
listen. But it was hard, when the two were standing right beside the car.

"Just seeing if you're going."

"What? You think I can't get a date?"

"I didn't say that. Hell, you're always on a date." Stu's voice turned
annoyed.

"Which makes me some sort of tramp?"

"Did I say that?"

Freddie made a disgusted sound. "You sure sounded that way. I'd rather
have plenty of dates than be as antisocial as you are. I suppose you
can't be bothered with the town picnic at all."

"Then you'd be wrong, right, Laurel?"

She sat up warily. "Pardon me?"

"Oh, I'm supposed to believe that you are going with Laurel."

"Why not?" Stu asked evenly.

Laurel wanted to disappear. She caught the flash of dismay in the other
woman's eyes, before it was quickly hidden.

"Well," Freddie said blithely, focusing her gaze somewhere in the
vicinity of Laurel. "Everyone in town knows she's Shane's territory. But
I hope you'll have a great time. Maybe we'll see each other there." Her
smile had a brittle edge as she strode out of the garage and climbed
into the truck.

"Sorry," Stu said when Freddie's truck roared out of the parking lot.
"Didn't mean to use you like that. But you see what she's like?"

Shane's territory? How could she have forgotten so well what living in a
small town was like? "Set Freddie straight, Stu. She didn't like the
idea of you taking someone to the picnic. That means something, you know."

"Yeah, it means she thinks I'm an antisocial clod." He

173 173

slid the keys to the car in his lapel pocket. "Make your check out to
Phil Boyle," he said as if the matter were closed. "He's already signed
the title, so you can take the car with you now if you want."

She took out the temporary checkbook the bank had given her until her
own checks could arrive, and made it out. Moments later she had the
signed-over title in her hand. And a fresh set of butterflies in her
stomach. "This is by far the easiest car purchase I've ever made."

He tipped the brim of his ball cap, grinning crookedly. "We aim to
please, ma'am."

There was just no way she could ignore his niceness. It went down to the
bone, just as all the Golightlys did, and she leaned forward, hugging
him. "Thank you, Stu. And don't give up on Freddie. She'll come around."

He patted her shoulder and accepted the key to his father's car. "Don't
mind if I don't hold my breath on that, will you?"

She laughed a little and leaned back, looking up into his face. He was
so like Shane, yet he was ever so much.. .easier. Like a comfortable
teddy bear. "Faint heart never won fair maiden," she reminded him.

The strident honk of a horn brought their attention around.

Shane's SUV sat in the parking lot. His hat was pulled low over his brow
as he eyed them through his windshield.

Stu's arms fell away from Laurel. "What's got his shorts in a knot?" He
headed toward the vehicle.

Laurel followed.

She hadn't seen Shane since the night before. She knew he must have
returned, though, while she'd slept, because he'd left her with a box of
bandages and her front door had been closed and locked when she got up
that morning.

174 174A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Only Shane would have done that.

"Have to drive to Billings this afternoon," Shane said when she reached
the side of his truck. "Won't be back until late."

She couldn't interpret the expression in his eyes, but she knew that
something about it set her teeth on edge. "Drive carefully."

"Thought maybe you'd like to go along. But I see you're busy." His voice
was silky.

Definitely on edge. "I beg your pardon?"

His gaze flicked over Stu. "Make sure she eats her dinner," he said.

Stu settled his cap a few inches back on his head. "Figure she's a big
girl, bro. Doesn't need someone telling her when she's hungry."

Laurel bristled. She didn't know what was going on between the two
brothers, but it surely couldn't be over her. She held up her new set of
car keys, shaking them by the plain metal ring holding them together. "I
bought a car," she said. And hoped she hadn't made a monumental mistake.
At least she hadn't called a moving company to transport the rest of her
stored belongings. "And I'd like to drive it home if you'd be so kind as
to move your SUV out of the way."

What had she been thinking? Just because Shane had been, well, wonderful
lately, didn't mean that it was bound to last.

She hadn't held his interest for long the last time, after all.

She climbed in the car. Turned the key and revved the engine a little
harder than necessary.

The moment the SUV had moved enough to give her an inch to spare, she
zoomed past it.

Just because they were twelve years older, had she expected anything to
change?

175

Laurel sat bolt upright, nearly knocking her head on the edge of the
dining room table.

Seven nights in a row since the one she'd spent in her own bed upstairs.

Seven nights when she'd barely been able to sleep again, this time
wondering what was wrong with her that she'd let Shane Golightly, of all
people, disturb her so badly.

She hadn't seen him since he'd come upon her and Stu at the garage.

Fine with her.

Just because she'd kept a surreptitious lookout for his SUV driving up
or down his steep drive didn't mean anything.

He'd said he was only going to Billings for the day. So what had kept
him away for seven?

For a moment she sat there in the dark, her heart thudding heavily.

176 176A MONTANA HOMECOMING

A glance out the dining room window up the hill told her nothing. His
house was dark as a stone.

It wasn't the sound of his SUV driving past that had wakened her. It
wasn't anything in the house?or her mind?that had wakened her. It was
the squeal of tires on the road outside.

Headlights swept over her head, strobing eerily as they traveled across
the walls.

Somebody driving too fast around the curve on the road in front of the
house.

Happened all the time.

She started to lie back down, bunched the pillow more comfortably for
her head, only to sit up again when there was another shrieking tire
squeal. She pushed to her feet, went to the front door and pulled it
open, peering out through the screen.

A car was doing doughnuts around and around on the curve in the highway.

"Idiot," she breathed.

And then, even as she watched, another car approached.

Her heart rate ratcheted up to the top of the scale, and she could only
stare in horror as the cars headed directly for each other. She was
running for her phone even before she heard the crash.

Her fingers shook. The 911 operator took her information, and she cursed
the fact that her father had never bothered to replace his old-fashioned
phone?the only one in the house and it hung on the wall in the kitchen
next to the refrigerator.

"Emergency services is already responding ma'am," the calm voice assured
her. "Are you hurt?"

Laurel heard the wail of a siren. "No. I'm fine. Thanks." She hung up
and ran for the door again and was halfway down her plywood ramp before
she thought to go back in

177

and pull on something more substantial than her shortie nightgown. She
yanked on jeans, tucking in the nightgown as best she could as she
shoved her feet into her tennis shoes and ran out of the house.

One of the cars lay on its side in the middle of the road. She could
smell the sharp stench of gas from her porch, but what struck her cold
was the high-pitched wail of a child crying.

She ran across the yard, nearly plowing into Shane, bent low over a
woman lying in the street. He barely glanced at her. "She's in shock.
Bring a blanket."

Where had he come from?

Laurel didn't pause to question him but turned on her heel and ran
flat-out back to the house. She grabbed a blanket from her impromptu bed
on the dining room floor and raced back to him with it.

He began tucking it around the woman. "Ambulance should be here in a few
minutes," he said tersely. "I need to check the other vehicle."

Laurel crouched beside the unconscious woman. She took over with the
blanket. "Go."

He headed to the other car. It was facing the opposite direction, but it
was still sitting upright on its four wheels. Laurel saw him bend down,
check on the driver, then he was running back across the road toward her
and the car that was hemorrhaging gas.

Laurel saw the first car's door open, and the driver got out, lurching
around.

Drunk, she realized, disgusted. But it figured, given the way he'd been
driving in circles right in front of her house.

The woman on the ground moaned, and Laurel carefully settled her hands
on her shoulders. "Shh. You're safe. An ambulance is coming."

178 178A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"My...son," she whispered.

"He's safe, too," Laurel assured her, seeing Shane carrying the crying
child away from the wreckage.

The woman's eyes closed.

The ambulance screeched to a stop, pulling right up on Laurel's yard to
make room near the vehicles for the fire engine that was hard on its tail.

Laurel scooted away from the woman as the EMTs took over. She stood to
one side, well out of the way, hugging her arms tightly. Going inside
her house was out of the question, so she continued standing there,
watching and wishing she didn't feel so useless.

"Here." Shane appeared at her side and thrust the child at her. "Palmer
is the EMT in charge. He'll check the boy out in a few, but only thing
wrong as far as I can see is a scrape on his foot. Keep him occupied
until then."

Laurel didn't quibble. The boy's wails had ceased and now he was
staring, his eyes wide and fearful. He couldn't have been much more than
four, she guessed.

Over his head, Shane met her look. His eyes were like ice. It was the
only indication he gave that he was livid.

Unfortunately, she wasn't entirely certain that it wasn't directed at her.

She tucked the boy against her and rubbed her hand soothingly down his
sturdy little back. He was clad only in cartoon-patterned pajamas.

"I want my mom," he whimpered.

"I know, sweetie." Laurel turned so he wouldn't be able to see the
workers huddling over their patient. "She's getting help right now, so
we need to stay out of the way. I'm Laurel, and I live in that house
right there." She pointed and was grateful that she'd chosen to paint
the exterior before tending to the interior.

179 !

ALLISON LEIGH179

It didn't look nearly as ominous as it might have only a week earlier.
And it was a far more comforting sight than the road, where the flashing
blue and red lights created a frantic circuslike atmosphere. The fire
crew was spraying something over the road, presumably to deal with the
pooling gasoline.

"Can you tell me your name?" She prompted gently.

Shudders worked through the child. She wasn't sure at first if he would
answer. "Nathaniel Peters III."

"That is definitely an impressive name." She sat on the ground and took
heart that Nathaniel clung to her neck, staying firmly in her lap. "Are
you named after your daddy?"

"Uh-huh. And my goompa."

"You must be a very special young man to be named after two people. How
old are you?"

He let out a hiccupping sigh. "Five."

"Are you in kindergarten?"

"Uh-huh. I wanna see my mom."

"Soon, sweetie. Where do you go to school?" She kept Nathaniel talking,
trying to keep him as occupied as possible so he wouldn't take too much
notice of the frantic activity around his mother.

Another truck had driven up?a tow truck this time. It parked, its loud
engine idling, by the side of the road. An SUV identical to the one
Shane drove had also appeared, and the man driving it had spread flares
across the road to divert any traffic that might come along. He and
Shane now stood together in the middle of the road and though the second
officer wore a khaki uniform, it was very apparent that Shane?even in
blue jeans and a half-fastened shirt?was the man in charge.

Mr. Doughnut was sitting on the far side of the road, his

180

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

back against the trunk of an ancient pine. Every now and then he moved,
as if he intended to just get up and walk away, but each time he tried,
Shane looked the driver's way and the man subsided.

Eventually Shane finished with his deputy and went over to the driver
and hauled him to his feet. The other officer began talking on his
radio, taking measurements of the road, making notes on a clipboard. The
fire crew righted the car Nathaniel had been riding in, and the little
boy cringed at the loud noise.

Laurel wished she dared take him inside her house, but she didn't want
to agitate him any more than he was by moving him even further from his
mother.

A second tow truck eventually arrived, and both vehicles were loaded up.
Laurel easily recognized one of the tow folks as Freddie Finn. There was
considerable debris littering the road, and a tall man from the second
tow took an enormous broom to the task.

Shane handcuffed the drunken driver, and Laurel continued calmly
chatting with Nathaniel as she watched Shane none too delicately shove
his prisoner into the back seat of his deputy's SUV. She kept up her
chatter, too, when one of the EMTs finally left the injured woman's side
and approached them. He crouched down next to Nathaniel and introduced
himself. The man was huge, but his demeanor was incredibly gentle with
the child as he examined him.

"Good to see you up and around again," he murmured to Laurel. "Palmer
Frame. Saw to you the day you fainted."

"Is my mom gonna die?" Nathaniel whispered, catching sight of the
stretcher his mother was being transferred to.

"No," Palmer assured. He fixed a bandage in place over the raw scrape on
the boy's foot. "But she needs some ex-

181 181

tra attention because her legs are really sore right now. But I'll bet
you can see her in the morning."

"My daddy's on a trip."

"I know, pal. Your mom told us all about it. Don't you worry, though.
We're gonna take care of both of you until he can get here. Okay?"

Nathaniel nodded. He had a stranglehold around Laurel's neck. "I'm not
s'posed to talk to strangers," he divulged belatedly.

Laurel hugged him. "This time it's okay. Everyone here is just trying to
help you and your mom. See that man?" She pointed at Shane. He was in
conversation with his deputy and one of the firemen. "His name is
Sheriff Golightly."

Nathaniel wrinkled his nose. His dark hair was rumpled, his cheeks
flushed. "That's a funny name."

He was precious. "A little, but he's a really good sheriff," Laurel assured.

"What do you do?"

"I'm a schoolteacher. In a few years you'll be in the third grade and
that's the grade I usually teach."

"I don't go to school here."

She didn't teach here, either, despite the efforts of the school board
when she'd met with them. They'd offered her a job.

She'd agreed to consider it.

"What's your teacher's name?" she asked.

"Miss Henderson. She's pretty." Nathaniel lowered his cheek against
Laurel's shoulder. "But not as pretty as my mom."

Laurel rubbed his back, rocking him slightly. Her eyes burned. She could
remember being little and talking about how pretty her mother was.

182 182A MONTANA HOMECOMING

* * *

To Shane the nightmare seemed as if it would never end. And even when
the ambulance had driven off to the hospital with the injured victim and
there was nothing left but the road cleanup crew from Dewey?Lucius's
neighboring town and even smaller than Lucius?Shane felt as though the
nightmare still went on.

Laurel had been sitting on the ground in her front yard with the little
kid clinging to her like a monkey for well over two hours. He could tell
that she had the boy talking, that she was keeping him well distracted
from the grim sight of his injured mother.

The woman would recover, but Palmer had told Shane that she had?at a
minimum?broken both her legs and unquestionably had sustained a concussion.

He consciously relaxed his hands, which wanted to fist and pound the man
who'd caused it all.

Good ol' Charlie Beckett.

Shane wanted the bum to rot in jail, but he knew he wouldn't. He'd get
some time, all right, but nothing that would be punishment enough.

And what about him?

If he'd found some cause, some legality, he could have kept Charlie
locked up and this nightmare would not be occurring. Instead, the last
time he'd seen Charlie was when he'd hauled him home from the Tipped Barrel.

Charlie had probably not been sober since.

He swallowed down his anger, but he knew it was directed against himself
as much as it was against Charlie.

"How're you doing, little man?" He hunkered down next to the pair. It
was nearing dawn and the temperature had dropped. He hoped Denise made
it soon. Her crisis

183 183

center was in Billings, and it was the closest facility to house
children displaced in situations like this.

"You're Sheriff Golightly," the boy enunciated carefully. "I wanna go
see my mom."

He barely contained himself from brushing his hand over the kid's
tousled head. Once again the sight of Laurel with a child was tugging
hard at him.

"You can see her in the morning, after she's had some sleep. I promise."
He knew the crisis center would take the boy to visit his mother daily
while he was in their care. Which shouldn't be long, since Tony had told
Shane the boy's dad was getting the earliest possible flight to Montana.

"Where do I gotta go?" Nathaniel's voice shot up to a squeak.

"Don't worry," Laurel murmured, pressing her cheek against his head.
"You're going to stay somewhere very nice."

"In that house with you?" He pointed behind her.

"I wish you could," she said gently.

"I don't wanna go someplace else!" His face crumpled.

Laurel cuddled him. "He needs sleep," she told Shane over the boy's head.

Don't we all, he thought grimly.

He'd barely walked in his door after spending days chasing down old
witnesses in the Runyan case when he'd heard the noise out on the road.

Headlights danced along the curve in the road followed shortly by the
arrival of a tan sedan. "That'll be Denise Mason," he said. "She runs a
crisis center in Billings."

Laurel's gaze slanted to the car that parked behind hers in the driveway.

He couldn't tell what she was thinking as she watched the woman
approach. He straightened, feeling as if he'd lived about five years in
the past few hours.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

When he'd heard the crash up at his place, he'd somehow imagined Laurel
in peril.

"Howdy, stranger." Denise walked up to him and kissed him smack on the
lips. "We've got to stop meeting like this." Her voice was wry, and he
had to give her credit for it.

Considering they'd once been engaged.

Laurel was watching them, her expression unreadable, and he felt his
neck get hot.

Dammit. He was too old for this crap.

Denise was already moving past him to Nathaniel, her demeanor nothing
but good cheer.

She was great with kids. Always had been. It was only in her own son
that she'd refused to separate reality from love.

She stuck out her hand to Nathaniel. "I'm Denise. And you are Mr.
Nathaniel Peters III, I hear."

His eyes widened.

"I talked to your daddy on the phone on my way here. He left a message
for you. Want to hear it?"

He nodded and she pulled out her little cell phone, dialed a few
numbers, then held it to the boy's ear. Whatever the dad's message said,
it had Nathaniel both relaxing and getting teary again.

"But I don't wanna go somewhere else," he kept saying.

Shane wanted to look away but couldn't. Both Laurel and Denise knew that
leaving the boy in Laurel's care might be the easiest thing at the
moment, but it wasn't at all the legal thing.

With one hand he was clutching the ragged teddy bear that Laurel had
produced and clutching Laurel with the other. Shane could see the
distress in Laurel's eyes as she carefully separated herself from the boy.

Handing Nathaniel over to Denise was the right thing to do. Denise's
center was one of the best in the state. Na-

185 185

thaniel's situation would be remedied within hours at most, just as soon
as his dad could make it to town. His mother would recover from her
injuries. The Peters family would be reunited.

Some families weren't.

The Runyans hadn't been.

Laurel had been barely eighteen when she'd been put into state care
after Roger's arrest. Too old for a place like Denise's?had there even
been such a facility in operation back then?and too young and
emotionally devastated to be on her own.

It didn't take long for Denise to get what she'd come for?whether that
was good or bad Shane couldn't quite decide given the wrenching
separation between Nathaniel and the woman who'd given him comfort for a
few hours?and he and Laurel silently watched the taillights of her car
disappear around the bend.

He saw the surreptitious way she wiped her eyes and felt even worse.

"Sun'11 be up soon," he said. "You ought to get back to bed." She was
wearing her nightgown. It was tucked into a pair of jeans, true, but he
could still recognize the thin white fabric for what it was.

She finally looked at him. "Your face is bleeding."

He touched his temple. Sure enough. Charlie's punch had drawn blood.

Too bad Shane didn't have leeway to punch Charlie.

"It's nothing."

Laurel got that prissy schoolteacher look of hers again and he was
almost grateful for it, considering it was a damn sight easier for his
conscience to take than that pinched look she'd had watching Nathaniel's
departure.

She tsked. "You have a cut. It needs to be cleaned."

186 186A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"I'll take care of it."

"When?"

"Later. Go inside. You should never have come out here in the first place."

She propped her hands on her hips. "I'm just supposed to ignore the fact
that two cars collided practically on my front step? Why don't you just
say what's been bothering you ever since I saw you at Stu's garage last
week?"

"Nothing's bothering me," he said evenly. A monumental lie. "You want to
try your hand with Stu, you're welcome to do so."

"What?"

"Just go back to bed, Laurel." He turned away and headed toward the
gravel drive. He'd been so bloody panicked that, like some damned fool,
he'd run the half mile down the hill rather than drive it.

Then, when he'd realized Laurel was completely safe, his anger had
turned toward himself.

He'd known Charlie was a damn fool. A dangerous fool.

And look what happened.

"I'm tired of you ordering me around. And I'm not trying anything with
Stu. For heaven's sake. He's your brother!"

That hadn't stopped Denise.

He kept walking.

"You need that cut on your head sewn up," she called after him. "Because
I think your common sense is pouring out of it!"

He stopped. Wheeled around and returned to where she stood, nearly
vibrating with emotion as she stared up at him. "My eyesight that day at
the garage was just fine," he said tightly. "He was all over you."

"I hugged him. For the car. You 're the one I was kissing. Just what
kind of woman do you think I am?"

187 187

"You were ready to marry some other guy, what? A month ago?"

She flinched. "It doesn't mean I'm hopping from one bed to another.
Martin and I never even?" She broke off. Waved her hand dismissively.
"Oh, go away. Bleed all over yourself. Why should I care?"

"You and Martin never what?"

Her throat worked. Thin silvery light was beginning to fill the sky.
"Never slept together," she finally said, her lips tight. "And I'm not
remotely interested in your brother that way, either. Not that any of
this is any of your business!"

"You were gonna marry Keljner yet you never slept with him?"

"He was a gentleman," she en undated carefully.

"He was a damned fool," Shane countered bluntly.

Her lips parted. She turned on her heel and stomped across her yard, up
the plywood ramp and slammed the door shut.

He stood there, considering the merits of going after her, and decided
not to.

The mood he was in, God knows what he might do.

188

Ohane went up the drive and back inside his house. His cat, Speck,
streaked around his legs the second he opened the door, bolting past him
to disappear upstairs.

The beer he'd opened earlier was still waiting on the counter. He
grabbed it. It no longer held any appeal. He tipped it down the sink and
went upstairs.

A hasty shower did little to improve his mood, and he dragged on a pair
of old sweats and went back to the kitchen. There were still a few hours
before he had to be on duty, hours that he could spend trying to catch
some Zs.

Instead, he reached for a fresh coffee filter and set the coffeemaker
brewing.

The liquid was just beginning to stream into the pot when his door
opened and Laurel stomped inside.

She made a face at him and stepped forward, dumping a large white
first-aid kit that he immediately recognized

189 189

on the counter. "I knew you weren't going to clean up that cut," she said.

"You took that out of my SUV." He still had the Run-yan file in there.

"So?" She flipped open the kit. "Sit down and let me do this so I can
get out of here."

"I can clean my own cut."

She cast him a pointed look. "Really." Her voice was arid. "And how many
times have I said something to that effect that you've completely ignored?"

"And gotten pissed off whenever I did," he reminded. But he pulled out
one of the iron bar stools and sat. "I thought you were pissed off at me
now."

"I am. I need a clean cloth."

He pointed at a drawer. "I think there are towels in there."

"You think?" She tsked and pulled open the drawer. "Try again. Take-out
menus for pizza and," she lifted one out, studying it more closely,
"Chinese. Since when does Lucius have a Chinese food restaurant?"

"It went out of business a few months after it opened."

"Too bad. I like Chinese." She dropped it back in the drawer and opened
the one next to it. "Struck oil." She pulled out a white dish towel and
wet it under the faucet, then turned to him.

With him sitting on the bar stool, they were very nearly eye to eye. She
seemed to hesitate for a moment, her gaze skimming over his bare chest.

Well, if she didn't like the fact that he was barely clothed, she
shouldn't go around busting into his kitchen. He raised an eyebrow,
daring some comment.

Her lips firmed. She briskly reached for his head with one hand, tilting
it to suit her while she dabbed the wet cloth over his cut.

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He jerked. "Ouch."

"Don't be a baby." She kept dabbing.

"You were way more gentle with Nathaniel."

"Nathaniel is a child. You're an extremely annoying... man." Her voice
dropped a little. She turned away and rummaged in the first-aid kit. She
pulled out a packet of antibiotic ointment and squeezed a dab over his cut.

"Dammit, woman, that stings!"

"Good." She slapped an adhesive bandage in place. "You want to tell me
what's really eating you? Because I don't believe this is about me and
Stu. What happened this week? Where have you been all this time?"

The rising sun sent golden fingers through the windows, and he could see
straight through the folds of her thin nightgown. And he proved to
himself just what a gentleman he wasn't when he didn't look away.
"Nothing's eating me."

"Right." Her fingertip gentled as she ran it along the edges of the
bandage near his eyebrow.

Charlie had rotten aim. He'd been going for Stu's nose.

"Every muscle in your body is clenched for a fight," she said. "So what
is it? You might as well tell me. I'm not going anywhere until you do."

"When did you get to be so interfering?"

"I've been taking lessons from you." She stopped messing with his
bandage and stepped back until she was leaning against the cupboards
across from him. Out of the beams of sunlight. "Well?"

"I don't talk about the job."

"Well, how macho for you. But that at least tells me it isn 't your
ludicrous assumptions about Stu and me that has you so wound up."

He exhaled roughly. "It's not ludicrous. It's happened before. Stu. And
a woman of mine."

191 191

Her lips parted. She blinked. "I'm not a woman of yours," she said faintly.

His jaw tightened. "Aren't you?"

She crossed her arms. "So, who was she?"

There was no point pretending he didn't know what she was talking about.
"Denise."

"That woman from the crisis center? The one who kissed you?" Her mouth
twisted over that last bit. "And here I thought she was just showing
some odd professional behavior. Did you love her?" Her voice went thin.

"Loved her enough to think I wanted to marry her."

She paled a little. "Were you with her, then? In Billings?"

He rubbed his hand down his face. It would be easier to tell her he was
than to tell her what he'd really been doing. "No."

She didn't look convinced.

"We were over a long time ago."

"Then what were you doing?"

Turning over stones from Billings to Orlando as he re-interviewed
witnesses and finding nothing that could dispel Shane's belief where
Roger was concerned. "Working," he said. "Didn't Beau tell you that when
he came by to check on you?" His dad had agreed to go by every day.

She flushed. "Should have known those visits were your doing."

"I had little to do with it. Beau wants you to stay in Lucius. He wants
you to direct his junior choir. Get active in his congregation. He's not
likely to miss an opportunity to try to talk you into all that."

"Did you build this house with Denise in mind?" she asked doggedly.

"No. I started the house before we got serious."

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"But then you broke up and you never furnished this place. Are you still
in love with her?"

"Hell, no."

"Well, that was quick."

He wasn't so unaware of the female mind that he didn't realize he'd
stepped right into a minefield. "She had a kid. Scott. Only seven but he
was already a hoodlum. I knew it but she refused to see it. Despite her
line of work, she couldn't deal with it when it was her own boy. The kid
was heading down really nasty paths, but all she believed was that I
wanted to drag my job into every aspect of our lives. No matter how many
times I tried to get Scott involved in better activities, even
counseling at one point, she thought I was overreacting because of my
career. She turned to Stu, thinking he might be different, I suppose. He
was, but he was no more into marriage man he was into taking tap-dance
lessons. So she ended up getting hurt double measure."

"Well." Laurel crossed her arms again, effectively hiding the shapes and
shadows that so tantalized him. "What happened with her son?"

"He's serving two years in juvenile detention for robbery."

Her lashes drooped. "Then I'm sorry for Denise. But she didn't look like
she's letting that keep her from moving on in her life. The rock I
noticed on her ring finger was at least several carats. I ought to
know." She lifted her fingers, wriggling them. "I gave up one that was
remarkably similar."

He frowned at the reminder that she'd come so close to marrying someone.

Someone else.

"You've been eating better," he said abruptly. She was still slender as
a reed, but there was definitely more curve in her arms. And he could
see, plain as the increasing daylight, that there was nothing wrong with
the rest of her. He

193 193

wondered if her nipples were still the color of new strawberries. He
couldn't tell, despite the near transparency of her gown.

"Is that supposed to be some polite way of telling me I'm gaining weight?"

"You're just looking.. .better." He was a dog. Pure and simple.

She frowned severely. "Fine. Thank you. Now stop sidetracking the issue.
Or do you just generally behave like a missile ready to blow whenever a
car accident occurs in your town?"

"Drunk drivers piss me off." He grabbed two mismatched mugs from the mug
tree on the counter?a gift from Hadley somewhere along the way?and
splashed coffee into them. "Here."

She was watching him, her eyes the color of soft, melting caramel.

He didn't want her soft gazes just then.

He wanted her.

He wanted to bury himself in her and shut off his mind to the crap in
the world that he wasn't able to change no matter how much he wanted to.
He couldn't stop all the drunks. He couldn't stop all the abusers.

He couldn't stop wanting Laurel.

"Talking can help."

"No. Talking won't help. Not this time. That woman is still going to be
in the hospital for a good long while. That little kid is never going to
be able to forget what happened to him tonight."

"But they will be fine, Shane. And none of it is your fault." Her
fingers drifted over his forearm. Settled atop his hand fisted against
the granite counter. "You weren't the drunk behind the wheel."

194

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"No. I'm the guy who's supposed to make sure that drunk doesn't get
behind a wheel."

She turned toward him. Her breast pressed softly against his arm. "And
how are you supposed to do that? Are you the watchdog for the entire
population? You're only one man, Shane. A...good man. But you can't?"

"This one I should have. Because it was Evie's scum of an ex-husband who
was driving. I know he's a drunk, he's always been a drunk and doesn't
have the spine of a flea to ever stop being a drunk. I knew what he was
capable of and I should have prevented it. The guy should've been in jail."

"For what? Had he done something illegal? Last I knew being an alcoholic
was a disease, not a legal offense."

"I knew what he was capable of," he repeated flatly.

"Which still doesn't make it your responsibility." She chafed her palm
over his fist. "My mother drank. She hid it well, but she had a problem.
I knew it when I was barely a teenager. It didn't mean it was my
responsibility to keep her from.. .doing the things she did."

It was the first he'd ever heard of Violet being a drinker and it
distracted him enough that he shoved Charlie to the corner of his mind.
"What things?"

She just shook her head, her hair brushing his shoulder. "The point is
that doing your job is surely as much about not abusing your authority
as it is about exercising it." She settled her other hand on his back,
sliding it down his spine. "Am I right?"

Whether she was or not was moot, because she might as well have set a
match to a powder keg with the way her hand was stroking his back. "Why
didn't you sleep with him? The ex-fiance."

Her hand paused. Just sat there, burning a hole into him from the
outside in. "We were talking about you."

195 195

He flipped his fist over, closing his fingers around her wrist as he
turned toward her, pulling her against him.

Her eyes widened.

Some things just couldn't be hidden by a ten-year-old pair of sweatpants.

"Topic's changed. If you want to leave, now's the time, Laurel."

She drew in a quick breath. Her breasts lifted against him. "I...don't."

"Don't what?" He closed his hands over her shoulders, pushing her back
until they no longer touched. It was like tearing out his own tongue.
"Don't touch you? Don't want you?"

"I don't want to leave." Her admission was little more than a sigh.

It was enough.

He pulled her back to him, lowering his mouth, finding hers. "I'm not
gonna stop," he breathed into her. "And I don't have patience."

Her hands caught his neck. Her fingers dragged through his hair. "And I
don't need coddling." She arched against him, the low sound rising in
her throat more intoxicating than any amount of liquor.

He slid his hands down her back, hesitated on the taut curve of her
rear, pulling her harder against him.

She hissed in a breath. Her hands slid down his spine again, and along
the edge of his sweats, maddening him.

He lifted her against him, his hands sliding under her thighs, turning
and settling her on the counter. Sunlight angled over her, glinting gold
on her skin. "Unbutton your nightgown." If he tried, he'd tear it.

Her throat worked. Her hands trembled. She slowly reached up to the
modest neckline of the lightweight gown. She undid the first little
round button. Then the next.

196

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He could see her heartbeat pulsing against her throat.

There was a soft thud.

She'd toed off her tennis shoes.

Another button came free. Then the fourth.

The fifth.

The gown hung open down to where it was captured by the waist of her jeans.

He drew his finger from that beating pulse at the base of her neck down
the narrow strip of bare flesh.

Against his shoulders, her fingers flexed. Kneaded.

He flipped the button on her jeans loose. Her eyes closed.

"Look at me," he murmured. "I want you to see me."

She moistened her lips again. Her hands tightened. Flexed again. Her
knees hugged his hips. "I always see you," she whispered, but her lashes
rose heavily. She shuddered when he slid down her zipper.

"Lift up."

She lifted and he pulled the jeans free. The tangled hem of her
nightgown dragged along, falling over her thighs as he slipped them down
her legs and tossed them aside.

The sleek curves of her legs beckoned. He pressed his mouth to them.
Each one.

She shifted. Her toes curled. "Shane." Her voice held a new edge.

Her shin was warm. Smooth. Her knee was ticklish. Her thigh was velvet.

She leaned over him, dragging his head up to hers, covering his mouth,
nipping at his lip.

He straightened, his hands sliding along her thighs, finding nothing but
more velvety smooth skin along the way. His heart charged in his chest
like a freight train. The need to plunder, to conquer was a live thing
inside him.

197 197

He pulled her nightgown off her shoulders. It pooled, a drift of
gossamer clouds around her hips on the smooth black-and-brown mottled
granite.

Her breasts were fuller than his dreams remembered. Her tight nipples
still die color of new strawberries.

And he was a starving man.

He leaned down, capturing one crest with his lips, the other with his
fingers.

She jerked. Cried out softly. Arched into him as if she, too, were
starving. "Shane."

He dragged his mouth up to hers, tongue against tongue. She writhed, her
feet twining behind his thighs. Her fingertips dug into his back.

Cursing inside his head at his own raging impatience, his hand dragged
over her breast, flattened against the jumping muscles in her smooth
abdomen and slid down, finding the heart of her, heat and moisture
unhidden despite the soft gauzy gown still draping her.

Her head fell back, breaking his kiss. Her breath was a whistling sob
that drove his touch. She was shaking like a wild thing. He was no
better. He closed his hand around her nape, pulling her against him,
pulling her closer, chest to breast. He slowly dragged the nightgown aside.

She pressed her open mouth against his neck, muffling the cry she gave
when his fingers met her. Parted her. Became part of her. Her legs
tightened around him as she convulsed, nearly blinding him so great was
his pleasure in hers.

Laurel sobbed against Shane, her lungs starved for breath, her body
starved for more. So much more. She pushed at the gray sweatpants that
barely hung on his hips until he finally just yanked them off with one
hand. He was glad for the first-aid kit, then, as he dumped it with his
other hand and found the condoms he'd added to the contents

198 198A MONTANA HOMECOMING

years ago when he'd learned being sheriff sometimes meant explaining the
facts of life to overheated teenaged boys.

He was beyond overheating as he reached for Laurel again and pulled her
forward off the counter. A low, feral growl escaped him as he sank
inside her.

She winced, tightening her arms urgently around him.

But he'd stilled. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head, blindly pressing her mouth against the hard sinew of
his neck. Her breasts tingled from the dark swirl of chest hair abrading
them. "Don't.. .stop."

He lifted her against him, hard and full, so full, inside her. "You give
me more credit than I deserve," he muttered, pressing her back against
something?the refrigerator? "if you think I could." His arm held her
weight as he thrust heavily into her.

She gasped, every nerve inside her tightening.

Something rattled softly. Glassware. Someone was moaning Shane's name,
again and again. She knew it was her but couldn't summon the control to
stop.

And maybe it didn't matter. He surged harder. Suddenly stretching his
arm alongside her head, his palm slamming flat against the surface of
the refrigerator. His arm tightened behind her back, an iron band.
"Song...bird." He groaned sharply, and she cried out, her nerves
spinning free as he jetted hotly inside her.

His breath was as ragged as hers was when her senses slowly returned. "I
think...I've gotta...sit," he muttered.

She didn't have a solid bone or functioning muscle left in her body so
she just hung on, resting her head on his shoulder because she didn't
have the strength to lift it when he turned and slid his back down the wall.

She could still feel him pulsing inside her, and the pleasure of it
caused ripples to work through her.

199 199

He stretched his arms along her back, looping his hands over her
shoulders. She managed to peel open her eyelids enough to see his face.

His eyes were closed, his mobile mouth relaxed.

She shifted, bending her knees a little more comfortably, and inhaled
sharply as her inner muscles flexed around him.

"Don't do that again," he warned. "We might end up killing each other."
His hands slid down her back. Curved around her hips. Slid between them
to cover her breasts, not caressing, but holding. "Perfect way to go,
though."

She was draped over him like a blanket. Yet moving took too much energy
and reminded her just how long it had been since she'd been with him.

He seemed none too anxious to move, either.

"Guess if I were a gentleman, I'd apologize for not making it to a bed
at least," he said eventually.

"Guess if I'd wanted a gentleman, I wouldn't have bugged out on my own
wedding to one."

"Mmm."

His hair had grown since she'd arrived in Lucius. It was starting to
wave behind his ears. She stared at the heavy gold strands. "Did Stu
really have an affair with your fiance'e?"

His chest rose and fell. "Not until after she'd tossed my ring in my face."

Denise was probably the biggest fool on the planet despite the competent
manner she'd displayed with Nathaniel. "Stu's just a friend to me, you
know."

His thumbs dragged over her nipples. "He'd better be."

She sat up, wincing a little as unfamiliar muscles were tested. "Do you
believe me?"

His eyes were slits of silver between his lashes. "I don't think you
have what it takes to lie when you're naked like this." The crease in
his cheek deepened. He slowly pressed

200

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

his thumbs against her nipples, and they obediently rose, pressing back.
"You're sore, aren't you. Every time I breathe, you wince a little."

Heat rose under her skin. "So?"

"You weren't with the gentleman. When was the last time you were with
someone?"

She huffed out a breath. "When was the last time you were?"

He didn't even hesitate. "Earlier this year. Saw a woman who was working
for the guy Hadley married. A private investigator. Her name was Mandy."

"Sounds...exciting." She was making every effort at seeming nonchalant
and failing miserably. Mandy probably was six feet tall with legs to match.

"Mutually satisfying for a few weeks," he drawled.

Her lips twisted. "Bully for you."

His fingers gently toyed with her breasts. "Jealous?"

She lifted her head enough to give him a look. "Not in the least."

"I am," he said quietly. "Jealous of any man who's had your attention.
Particularly this kind of attention."

She swallowed. "Then you'd only be jealous of yourself," she admitted
after a long moment.

201

rte stared at her, not saying a single, solitary word.

"Well." Laurel could feel herself flushing again. "I guess I know what
it takes to make you speechless."

His hands left her breasts. They settled on her waist. "You haven't been
with anyone since me."

"I believe that's what I just feaid." Embarrassed, she turned her head,
looking away frpm him.

"Oh no, songbird." He caughtjher chin in his hand and dragged it back
around. "Why not?"

She wished the ground would swallow her whole. She wished she'd never
admitted it. She wished that she weren't naked as the day she'd been
born and still fused together with him, so she could escape. "Well, how
many men should I have been with? What would be the normal number so you
wouldn't look at me like I'm some sort of... of...feeble oddity?"

202

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

His lips tightened. He thumped his head once against the wall behind
him. "None. Hell, Laurel, you think there's not some Neanderthal inside
me who's pounding his chest right now? I just admitted that I didn't
like thinking of you with anyone else. But I figured I'd have to get
over it, because it was your life. Your business. Your right. And, geez.
I took you against a bloody refrigerator." His voice was gruff.

Her heart clutched. She laid her hand on his chest, loving "the prickle
of hair against her palm, the deep, steady thump of his heart. "You
probably ought to check that we didn't knock over the milk bottle inside."

His brows drew together. Then he gave a bark of laughter. He got to his
feet, lifting her off him. "Come on. Upstairs."

The sun was fully risen now. There were no shadows remaining to hide
within. And even though she tried not to stare, he was fully, gloriously
nude.

"Don't, um, don't you need to go on duty soon?" She knew how early he
went because she'd watched him drive to town almost daily.

"Yeah. But we've got time." He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to
her knuckles as he headed toward the staircase, seemingly unconcerned
that they'd left their only pieces of clothing behind in the kitchen.

"Time for what?" She padded up the stairs when he urged her to go before
him.

"You'll see."

She bit back a huff of laughter. "If it's your etchings, I think I saw
them downstairs already."

On the landing, he turned her toward the room at the end of the hall.
"Better." He walked her through the open doorway. But they passed the
ocean-wide bed, covered in a dark-brown comforter. "This," he said,
nudging her

203 203

through the adjoining doorway and waving his hand at the enormous oval
tub. "It has whirlpool jets."

He let go of her and crossed the spacious bathroom, flipping on the
faucets, located at each end of the tub. "Make yourself comfortable.
I'll be back in a few." He brushed his lips over her forehead, closing
the door behind him.

She stared at herself in the mirror.

Her lips were red and puffy. There was the distinct shape of a hand on
her arm, the tender scrape of razor burn on her breast. And her eyes
were practically glowing.

She looked, she imagined, like a woman who had been very well loved.

She pressed her palm to her chest where her heart seemed to lurch inside.

Making love did not mean being in love, she reminded herself. That was a
lesson learned twelve years ago.

Unfortunately, when Shane returned a short while later carrying two mugs
of fresh coffee, which he set on the side of the tub before sliding into
the swirling water behind her, that reminder seemed woefully inadequate.

"Now," he murmured, kissing the tip of her shoulder as he scooped her
back against him, "justrelax. Have some coffee."

She could feel him, very much unrelaxed, against her. And she felt a
smile on her face that she couldn't seem to remove. She caught his
wrist, pulled his palm to her mouth and kissed it, then slowly drew it
beneath the bubbling, churning surface of the warm water and pressed it
to her breast.

She tilted her head back, looking up at him. "I'd rather see some more
etchings."

His palm tightened on her. "Trust me, songbird. There'll be plenty of
time for that. You're gonna want to wait a while longer?"

She reached behind her, closing her hand boldly around

204 204A MONTANA HOMECOMING

him. "Trust me, Sheriff," she murmured. "I know my own mind, here."

He groaned a little, grabbing her hand, stilling it. "I see. Well, if
you put it that way." He tilted her sideways and found her mouth with
his. His hand stole along her thigh.

The coffee, when they finally remembered it, was stone cold.

For the first time in Shane's career, he called Carta and told her he
wouldn't be in that day unless something urgent arose. She'd been full
of questions, particularly since she knew some of what he'd been up to
while he'd been gone. Questions that he'd ignored, but he knew the
second he hung up that she'd be back on the horn looking for details of why.

Laurel was sprawled facedown across his mattress, the sheet gathered
around her hips. She had one leg stuck out, and her hair was a tangle
around her shoulders.

She was the only woman he'd ever had in his bed here in this house.

He stood in the window that overlooked Laurel's house down the hill.

Laurel's house. When had he begun thinking of it as hers, and not her
old man's?

She'd finished painting die trim while he'd been gone and had, indeed,
chosen a deep mossy green. Shane was honest enough to admit die house
looked far better than he'd expected. But what was wrong with it went
beyond a few coats of paint It needed major renovations?not just a
working furnace and fresh plaster?if it were going to be truly livable.

"You're looking very serious standing there." Her voice was thick with
sleep.

He looked over his shoulder. She'd turned on her side, dragging the
sheet up over her breasts.

205 205

He figured he was a pretty pathetic case when he envied the sheet.

"You did a nice job painting the house."

She bent her elbow and propped her head on her hand. "But?" She waited.

"That's all. Paint looks good."

Her lips curved softly. "Well, you did a good portion of it."

"How'd the school board meeting go?"

"Fine."

"They offer you a job?"

She nodded and shifted again, folding the edge of the sheet neatly
against her.

"And?"

"And I'm thinking about it." Her lashes swept down. "You know, I think
I'm starving."

He knew he was, and not just for some lunch. But it bugged the hell out
of him that she refused to commit to staying in Lucius.

"I've got bread and peanut butter and not much else."

"And you lecture me on not eating well enough," she said lightly. Her
pink cheeks belied her nonchalance as she threw back the sheet and
walked into the adjoining bath, coming out a moment later wrapped in the
robe Evie had given him last Christmas.

Beyond hanging it on the hook in the bathroom, he couldn't recall ever
actually using it. On Laurel, though, the deep blue terry cloth looked
pretty swell, since it was several sizes too large and the lapels kept
parting no matter how tightly she tied the belt.

"We could go to the Luscious." It would seriously set tongues wagging
when they showed up there together, what with him essentially taking the
day off.

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"Maybe I want to cook. I can, you know. I am capable." Her dimple
flashed as she sauntered out of the room. "I can spread peanut butter
with the best of 'em."

He heard the pad of her footsteps as she skipped down the stairs. His
gaze slanted back to the window.

"Shane," her voice floated back to him. "You have beer and apples and
that's it!"

"You're the brilliant chef," he called back.

Her laughter lilted up to him.

He found himself smiling.

She was what his house had been missing.

He slid into a pair of jeans and went down to join her, only to find her
heading out the door, Speck twining around her ankles as if he wanted
her to stay.

Shane eyed the cat. Who knew where he'd been hiding inside the house.
"Where you going?"

"To get some food from my refrigerator."

"In that robe?"

"Nobody's going to see. I'll just run down and be right back." She
suddenly came back in, almost tripped on the cat as she reached for the
first-aid box still sitting on the counter. She'd obviously replaced the
contents he'd scattered. "Silly kitty." She leaned down and scratched
Speck's head. "Never would have figured you for a cat lover." Her gaze
slid up to him.

Shane shrugged, deciding he enjoyed the sight of her, wearing nothing
but her tennis shoes and his robe, petting the cat that had sort of
claimed him. "He only comes around when he's hungry. Doesn't have much
to do with me."

She straightened, tucking the kit under her arm. "Yeah, tough guy.
You're the one feeding him. I'll be right back." She slipped out the door.

He pulled open the refrigerator door.

207 207

Sure enough. A few bottles of beer and a bowl of apples, and even they
looked a little questionable. He didn't even have any leftovers from
Evie's Sunday dinners. And the milk?

"Whoa." He held it away from his nose, hurriedly pour ing it down the
sink along with a strong stream of water. He shoved the carton in the
trash, which was full of about a month's worth of used coffee filters
and grounds and not much else. He quickly pulled out the bag and
replaced it with a new one. Laurel already thought he was nuts for hav
ing practically no furniture. He didn't need her thinking he was a
complete slob.j

He took the bag out to the can behind the house and dumped it in, then
rounded the side. Laurel stood next to his SUV, leaning in the opened
passenger side.

"The first-aid kit doesn't always want to fit under the seat," he said,
stepping up behind her. "Let's go to the Luscious. You can show off in
the kitchen later." He didn't care what sort of gossip that inspired.
The townspeople could get used to seeing the two of them together just
as Laurel could get used to the idea of the two of them. Together.

Laurel stiffened when Shane slipped his arm around her waist. "The kit
fit fine once I pulled this out of the way," she said, pushing at his
arm and turning to face him. She held up a thick file, clearly labeled
Runyan. "This was under your seat." She hadn't noticed it at all when
she'd pulled the kit out in the first place. "What were you doing with
this file?"

His lips tightened. "It's property of the Sheriff's Department. I'm the
sheriff."

There was a dark pain swirling inside her. "It's my father's case. Old
news. Why have it now?"

His hand closed over the top of the opened door. "I've been reviewing it."

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"Since when?"

He hesitated.

"Since when?"

"Since we got back from Spokane."

Her stomach clenched. "Afraid I might follow after their footsteps?"

"Dammit, no. 1 wanted to see if I'd have done the same thing Wicks did.
I wanted to make sure there hadn't been a mistake."

She looked down at the cover of the heavy-duty folder. "A mistake in
dismissing the charges against my father."

"A mistake in making them in the first place," he corrected tightly.

"And?" She could barely force out the word for the hope suddenly
congesting her system.

He looked pained. "The evidence was there. The charges were solid. Wicks
was right when he made them, and wrong when he dismissed them."

How could she have forgotten how quickly hope could be dashed? She ought
to have learned it when she was eighteen. "Is...is my statement in here?"

"Yes."

She felt ill. "What did I say?"

He slowly took the file from her. Flipped it open. Paged through several
sheets, then pulled out a typed report and handed it to her.

The file was at least two inches thick, yet he'd found the page
unerringly. He was obviously very familiar with the contents.

She took the sheet. The contents were painfully brief. "I didn't see her
fall," she read. "That's all I said?" She hadn't defended her father,
hadn't done anything but state that she hadn't seen the fall.

209 209

"Repeatedly." Shane took the sheet from her slack fingers and returned
it to the file. "I'm sorry."

She looked past him, seeing nothing at all. "No wonder he didn't want me
around. What good was I?"

"Don't." His hands closed around her face. "Don't waste your thoughts
anymore on it, Laurel. The guy doesn't deserve it!"

"He deserved more from me than he got! I don't care what all that says,"
she flicked her hand against the file. "I know he wasn't capable of
hurting her! It was an accident." It had to be.

"You know it because you want to believe it. That's your heart talking,
not your head."

"Fine. I know in my heart that he didn't hurt my mother. Ever. Why can't
you believe me?"

"Laurel, there's no point in getting into this."

"I think there is every point!"

He leaned past her, tossing the file on the seat. "You were the one who
said it. Don't hit me."

She frowned at him. "I never said that."

"Ask Palmer Frame. He heard it, too. You were just starting to come
around in the ambulance the afternoon you passed out."

She hugged her arms close. The day was already warm. Why was she
shivering? "And you always take seriously the ramblings of an
unconscious person?"

"I always take you seriously. I always did. That's why you scared the
hell out of me when you were only eighteen!"

Her eyes burned. "My father never hit me. He never hit anyone."

"Honey, it's his shame. Not yours."

"It's not his! It was my mother's." Her voice shook. "It was my mother
who hit me. Never my dad."

210 210A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He closed his hands over her shoulders, muttering an oath, but she shook
him off. "And she only hit me once. She was drunk." Her chest ached.
"She cried for the rest of the day afterward."

"Come inside."

"Why?" Her heart was pounding. Her head felt dizzy. She wanted to
scream, to run away, just run away from the unreasonable panic swelling
inside her. Go. Go. "Oh, God, not now." She leaned forward, gasping for
breath and not finding it. Relax. Relax. She clenched her fist. Released it.

It wasn't working. She still couldn't breathe.

"Laurel." Shane hauled her up, lifted her onto the seat. He caught her
face between his hands. "Look at me."

She wanted to still the shaking. His eyes, God, she'd always disappeared
in his eyes. "You won't.. .believe.. .me," she gasped. "I'm...not...crazy."

He caught her hands, his gaze boring into hers. "Shh. Take a breath.
Inhale. That's it. Squeeze my hands. Good. Let go. Exhale. That's it.
We'll do it again. Together. Slower. Yeah."

His voice mesmerized her. The urge to flee began to fade. She could feel
the edge of the file under her thigh. The sun shining warm and bright on
them.

Tears burned from the corners of her eyes. Her panic dwindled, shrank,
leaving exhaustion in its place. "He didn't do it, Shane."

"Shh." He pressed the backs of her hands against his lips. The concern
in his eyes was clear. "We don't have to talk about it."

But she was afraid that they did. She pulled her hands free and tugged
the file out from beneath her. She set it on her thighs. Her fingertips
dragged over the edges of the papers inside.

211 211

"The first time I saw her hit him was after Gram died."

"What?"

She felt sick. "They were arguing. As usual. I don't know about what.
And my mother hit my dad. Hard enough to knock off his eyeglasses. I,
um, I ran into the room?their bedroom?and picked them off the floor.
They were broken." Her voice lowered. "Dad grounded me for the weekend.
As if I were the one who'd done something wrong." She plucked at the
file folder. She'd faced the truth with the help of a lot of therapy
from a number of therapists. But that didn't make it easy to discuss
now. "My father wasn't the abuser, Shane. He was the abused.'"

Shane looked poleaxed. "There was no record of it, Laurel. No hospital
reports of his injuries, but two of your mother's. A broken wrist. A
laceration that required stitches."

"He didn't want anyone to know," she whispered. "Even me. But you can't
hide everything from your own family in your own home. He always excused
it. Blamed it on her drinking...and that was true. When she was sober,
she was fine."

"Why didn't you say something? Tell someone?"

"They were my parents." She pressed her palms flat on the file folder.
"I don't care what these papers say, Shane, other than that they didn 't
say enough to keep the charges against my father in place. He did not
hurt her."

"Laurel." His voice was cautious again. That awful, horrible cautious
that she hated. "All you've admitted only tells me he had a motive. If
Wicks had known the truth, the charges could well have been lessened.
Roger could have pled out. Instead, he was left to live with the fact
that murder charges could have been brought against him at any time if
new evidence ever came to light."

"Evidence like me remembering what I saw that day?"

212 212A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Her throat felt raw. "Maybe Sheriff Wicks knew the truth but didn't
care. Maybe he wanted my father to never have any sort of closure. Of
resolution. Who knows what Wicks wanted?"

"He damn sure didn't want to lose his career," Shane said quietly. "He's
living in Orlando now, working as a rent-a-cop. Believe me, if he could
have done things differently, he would have."

"How do you know what he's doing now?"

His lips thinned. "Because I just spent the last week tracking him?and
everyone else related to the case?down."

She blinked, slowly absorbing the shock of that. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He sighed. "What good would it have done? You don't want the truth. You
want your faith in your father upheld no matter what the facts state."

She winced, feeling like she'd been kicked in the stomach. She wiped her
cheeks. "Maybe the truth would justify my faith," she countered rawly.
"I can't do this."

"Do what?"

"Be with you." And it was different than when she'd called off the
wedding to Martin.

This felt as if she were ripping out her soul.

"Why? Do you think I'm going to pull the same stupid stunt? We're not
kids anymore, Laurel. I'm not going to walk away from you again."

"Why?"

"Because I want you with me, dammit!"

She sucked in a hard breath.

"That house," he waved his hand behind him, gesturing at his home, "has
been waiting for something for years. You. And now that you're here, do
you think I'm going to just let you walk away?"

213 213

"You think I need.. .protecting. How can you want me with you when you
don't believe in me? Not even enough to tell me the truth of what you've
been doing this past week? If I hadn't found the file, would you have
said a word about any of this?"

His expression tightened. "Probably not," he allowed. "But I don't think
it's me believing in you that's the problem, Laurel. I do believe in
you. Whether or not I agree with your opinion of what happened does not
change that. I think you're the one who's busy doubting herself. That's
why you're so damn quick to accuse me of it."

She stared. "You're wrong."

"Am I? You have a job offer from the school district you won't commit
to. You have a friend in ray sister, but only if she initiates it. You
know you miss singing in church but won't go a step past what you did
for me festival in Spokane. What are you waiting for, Laurel? You said
you'd quit your job in Colorado. But you won't make a decision about
staying here. Do you want to make a life for yourself, or do you just
want to play at it wherever you are, never making a commitment at all
because your brain just wants to protect you from the real memories of
the night your mother died!"

She slid off the seat, pushing past him. "I should have just lied. Told
you that I saw her fall. That my father was nowhere near her."

"I told you, Laurel. You couldn't lie then, and you can't lie now. Stop
putting the past between you and the rest of your life."

His image wavered from the tears blinding her. "Stop telling me what to
do. What to think. To believe."

"God Almighty." His voice rose. "I'm not trying to! I just want you to
see that it doesn't have to matter. We don't agree on what happened. It
doesn't have to come between us."

214 214A MONTANA HOMECOMING

She shook her head. "It's been between us since the day I returned to
Lucius," she said thickly.

Then, before she broke down completely, she turned and walked back down
the hill, feeling as if she were leaving bits of herself behind with
every step she took.

215 *

Chapter Fifteen

Dear Gram,

Shane leaves for seminary in two weeks. I can't stand the thought of him
going. I love him, Gram. So much. He's so funny and handsome. He treats
me like a grown-up, too. He actually believes that I really could be a
singer. For real. I sure dream about it a lot. (When I'm not dreaming
about him, that is.) He promised to meet me after he's done with Sunday
dinner with his family. I baked him an apple pie, just the way you
taught me. He said we'd go somewhere and have dessert. I'm just gonna
tell you, 'cause Jenny would blab to the whole town if I told her. But
I'm gonna be with Shane this afternoon. With him. He doesn't know it,
yet, but I just can't bear for him to leave and not.. .well. You know. I
hope you're not ashamed of me, Gram. I need to get to church early

216 216A MONTANA HOMECOMING

this morning. I'm singing "How Great Thou Art." I know mat was your
favorite hymn. I'll sing it for you, Gram, and maybe if you are ashamed
of me, you'll forgive me just a little. I love you.

"Mind if I come in?"

Laurel jerked, her heart leaping at the voice, only to settle just as
quickly around her toes when she recognized the voice on the other side
of the screen door as Beau Golightly's.

She shoved the journal behind the cardboard-box that was half-filled
with knickknacks and went to the door. "Of course I don't mind." She
pushed it open, stepping back for him to enter.

His eyes, so like his son's, took in the collection of boxes sitting
haphazardly on top of the furniture. "Looks like you're moving," he
murmured.

She couldn't even make that decision. "Just boxing up stuff for
donations. There's a truck coming on Monday."

"Always nice to contribute to a good cause." He settled on the arm of
the couch. "Weren't you supposed to be helping Evie over at the picnic
this afternoon?"

She wouldn't have thought she could feel any lower, but she did. "I..
.didn't want to run into Shane," she admitted, feeling raw.

For the past two days she'd been feeling raw. Wincing with every sound
outside her house, expecting him to be there. Not sure if she felt
better or worse that he never was.

"Having a disagreement?"

She twisted newspaper around the base of a lamp. If she hadn't started
reading her old journals again, she'd have been done with the packing-up
chore. "He didn't tell you?"

217

ALLISON LEIGH217

"Shane stopped confiding in me years ago," Beau told her gently.

She pushed the lamp base into a box that she'd have no hope of sealing
with packing tape the way she'd done the others. "Do you believe what
everyone thought?" Her voice was abrupt. "About my father?"

Beau took his time framing his answer. "I believe he was a very private
man and he loved you."

She'd boxed up the contents of her father's bedroom first. Only the
photographs had been left untouched. "That's not an answer."

Beau stood. He cupped her shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's not what
everyone else thinks that matters, child. It's what you believe."

Believe. She picked up the tape gun, even though there was nothing for
her to tape. "Shane doesn't believe me. He thinks it's just...wishful
thinking on my part that my mother's death was an accident."

Beau let out a sigh. He looked at the staircase. "It was an accident,
Laurel. A tragic accident."

She felt something inside her loosen. As if she'd been waiting a
lifetime for someone to just say the words she knew in her heart had to
be true. "Then my father did talk to you about it."

"No." He squeezed her shoulder again. "Let it go, Laurel. Your
father?right or wrong?thought your absence from Lucius would ensure that
you could let the past go."

"He was wrong," Laurel whispered. "Because I can't seem to let anything go."

"Ah." He smiled wryly. "You must know my take on that."

She shook her head.

"Get yourself back in my church on Sundays and maybe you'll remember,"
he chided. "I believe the biggest messes

218

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

we make in our lives are when we think we 're the ones in control."

She managed a smile.

"You and Shane will find your way if you both want it badly enough," he
predicted. "In the meantime, you and I are probably the only residents
of Lucius not at the picnic. Your grandmother would be appalled at us
both. She was on the town council back when they started having a town
picnic, you know."

Laurel shook her head. She hadn't known, and she wasn't entirely certain
that Beau?reverend or not?wasn't padding the facts a little. "I'm not
dressed for it."

"Then go throw on a pretty dress. I'll wait. The Golight-lys are known
far and wide for their patience." He slipped the tape gun out of her
hands, pulling loose the tape where she'd nervously stuck it over her
palm. "Go on. You know you want to."

She wasn't sure of any such thing.

But she went.

Mindful of the increasingly late hour, she dashed a brush through her
hair, splashed water on her face and pulled on the first thing her hands
came to. If Beau's approving expression was anything to go by when she
returned downstairs, she supposed the red sundress suited the patriotic
theme of the day.

He ushered her out to his waiting vehicle, and they headed into town.

When she'd been little, the Independence Day festivities had been held
on the fields that the junior high shared with the high school.

Now there was a lovely town park where it could be held. Beau parked as
close as he could get, and they walked the rest of the way, passing
carnival-type rides and games of every

219 219

sort before they reached the collection of food booths serving up
everything from watermelon slices to fried wontons.

"I knew you'd make it," Evie said when she spotted Laurel. "Here." She
pushed an apron at her. "You're not going to want to get chili spattered
on your clothes."

Laurel took the apron and slipped it over her head, tying it behind her.
"I'm sorry I'm late." Late? If it weren't for Beau, she'd have been a
complete no-show.

Shame weighted her down.

"Forget about it. You're here now."

Evie was a whirlwind. Filling empty containers of pastries to display,
greeting people as they went by. It was hard not to be swept along in
her energy.

"Stu was looking for you earlier," Evie said when she had a chance.
"Wants to show you off around Freddie, I imagine."

Laurel waited until her chili customer walked away from the booth.
"There's nothing between us."

"Oh, sugar, I know. Here. Toss that in the trash barrel behind you,
would you please?" She handed Laurel an enormous empty foil pan.

Laurel stuffed it in the barrel.

"Heads up," Evie said in a low voice before she turned around. "Lawman
at eleven o'clock, heading this way."

Her mouth dried.

"Oh, geez. Don't look like that." Evie smiled, talking between her
teeth. "His ego is healthy enough as it is. Hey, there, Shane," she
turned, greeting her brother. "I have a peach cobbler with your name on it."

"Maybe later. Hello, Laurel."

She dared a glance at him. Nearly did a double take. She'd never seen
him before in an actual uniform. Sharply pressed khaki from head to toe,
badge on his chest catching the dwindling rays of sunshine.

220 220A MONTANA HOMECOMING

He was impressive. "Hello."

He didn't waste any time over her appearance, though.

"Keep an eye out for Billie Whittaker, would you?" He asked Evie. "Heard
he's been visiting the keg a lot at the Tipped Barrel's booth. He'll be
looking for trouble same as every year, no doubt."

"Tony already said to keep a look out."

He didn't give Laurel so much as another glance as he turned and strode
away.

"Take a breath," Evie advised dryly.

"I've never seen him in uniform."

"He wears the khaki-badge-deal to things like this. Most people around
Lucius know him no matter what he wears, but we get tourists for events
who sometimes need to see the whole package. Reminds them to mind their
manners while in our fair town." She made a face as she discarded yet
another empty container. "Of course, then there's my former spouse who
doesn't know how to behave properly in any town." She straightened
again. "He's lucky he didn't kill someone that night."

"On the way here, your dad told me that Mrs. Peters was transported to a
hospital back in Helena where they live. And Nathaniel is back home,
too. He spent only a few hours at the crisis center."

"All's well that ends well, I suppose." Evie shook her head. "I don't
know what's happened with Charlie. He never used to be so reckless."

"Alcohol can change a person," Laurel murmured.

Stu was approaching and his attention noticeably dragged on Freddie Finn
and her date where they sat together at a round, plastic table covered
with a red, white and blue cloth. Freddie looked glorious in scarlet
shorts and a matching halter top, and the man with her was

221 221

clearly appreciative of the fact since he could hardly keep his eyes off
her. "I suppose you knew Denise," Laurel asked suddenly.

"Oh, sure. But you don't have to worry about her. She and Shane were
over a long time ago."

"And Stu?"

Evie's eyebrow lifted. "You heard that bit, too?" She finally paused,
resting her hands atop the wooden plank that served as a countertop for
the booth. "Denise is a smart cookie, but she had a seriously blind eye
when it came to her son. That whole thing was constantly between her and
Shane. Unfortunate. Shane could have helped Scott if Denise hadn't been
so stubborn. I don't know if she turned to Stu with the idea that Shane
wouldn't want to lose her to his own brother or not, but regardless, she
managed to completely ruin things for good with Shane, and made Stu even
more distrustful of women."

She knew she ought to correct Evie's impression that Laurel was in any
position to worry about Shane's past love. And she wasn't blind to the
fact that, essentially, she was doing a similar thing by pitting her
belief in her father against Shane's belief in the so-called facts.

Evie dished up a bowl of chili and exchanged it for a handful of change
from a customer. "It wouldn't have worked between them even had it not
been for her son. Maybe you've noticed that Shane likes to keep control,
particularly when it comes to work, which he never discusses with anyone
outside the department. Denise liked to run the show, too. And she blew
it, on her end, by trying to manipulate him." She rolled her eyes,
wrinkling her nose. "And listen to me. As if I'm the pinnacle of success
in the relationship department."

"You sound pretty smart to me." At least Evie had tried.

222 222A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Mom, can we go over to the rides now?" Alan stopped next to the booth,
his siblings in tow. "We've played all the games twice and you said we
could before fireworks time."

Evie nodded and handed her eldest a few bills. "Keep hold of Trevor's
hand," she warned, raising her voice above the sudden blast of music.
"Band's warmed up, obviously."

Alan took the money, and the trio raced off again, stopping long enough
to tussle with their uncle Stu when they encountered him. But after a
few minutes of that, they continued on their way and Stu stopped at
their booth. He had a new grass stain on his shoulder.

"Want some chili?" Evie held her ladle aloft. "I'm starting to run low
on it here."

He shook his head. "Can I steal Laurel for a few minutes?"

"A. few minutes," Evie allowed, looking amused. "Actually, I can spring
her for the night, I think. I'm almost out of food at this point."

"Did you see the guy Freddie's with?" Stu looked over his shoulder at
the pair. "His hands are all over her."

Which was almost exactly what Shane had said about the hug she'd given
Stu the day she'd bought the car. "Looks can be deceiving," she said.
She hadn't seen any noticeable groping. Just a lot of soulful-looking
stares. "Maybe they're just friends."

Stu snorted. "Too friendly if you ask me. Come on. Take off the apron.
We gotta dance."

"Go, Stu," Evie murmured, helping Laurel remove the apron.

"Are you sure I shouldn't stay and help you? I was late as it was."

"Sugar, I can handle this with one eye closed. You've helped me as much
as I needed. Stu, on the other hand, still needs all the help he can
get." Evie waited until Laurel was

223 T

ALLISON LEIGH223

around the front of the booth, heading off with Stu toward the source of
the loud country music. "Have fun dancing," she called loudly.

From the corner of her eye, Laurel saw Freddie craning her head around,
watching them go.

Stu's hand was tight on hers. "Come on. Let's make this look good."

She figured it was high time Freddie sat up and took notice of Stu, but
she wasn't entirely certain this was the proper means. Nevertheless,
when they made their way down the grassy hill to the dance area?in the
middle of a natural amphitheater?and Stu swung her into a sturdy
two-step, easily moving her among the other couples doing the same, she
didn't protest.

"Smile," he said grimly, and pushed his lips into one.

She couldn't help smiling a little. He looked like a man heading off to
his execution, not a man having a good time. "This is not going to fool
anyone. Why don't you just go ask her to dance?"

"No. The only time I ever asked her to dance, she laughed in my face and
said her toes would never survive."

"When was that?"

"Fifth grade," he said grimly.

She stared. Then she threw back her head and laughed.

She was dancing with his brother.

Shane stood in the shadow of the trees and watched.

Not only was Laurel dancing, but she was grinning and laughing her head
off as if she hadn't had so much fun in all of her life.

It was a hell of a note to be jealous of his own brother.

He'd never been jealous of Stu. Not even when he'd discovered Denise was
seeing him.

224 224A MONTANA HOMECOMING

"Gonna stand here looking hangdog, or are you going to go cut in?" Beau
seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He had a hotdog in one hand and a
beer in the other.

Nobody would ever make the mistake of thinking Rev. Beau Golightly
didn't know how to celebrate the Fourth of July.

"I'm on duty."

Beau snorted softly. "It's a sin to lie, son."

"Well, believe me, Dad. I've got plenty of sins in mind that are a far
sight worse."

"Loving a woman is no sin."

Shane jerked. Stared at his dad. "Who said anything about love?"

Beau just shook his head, taking a pull on his beer, looking amused.

"I'm not in love with anyone," he said flatly. That was a whopper of a
lie. "Denise said I was incapable of it."

"Denise wasn't the right woman for you," Beau said equably. "Don't get
me wrong. She's a very fine woman. I admire her greatly. But she wasn't
the one for you, and I knew it when you said you two were getting
married. And it had nothing to do with that boy of hers."

"If you think Laurel is the one," Shane kept his voice low, "you're way
off base. She doesn't want me."

Beau polished off his hotdog and dusted his fingers down his jeans. "You
think Holly and I couldn't see what was going on between you two the
summer her mama died? Guess you figured none of us knew about all that
sneaking around you were doing."

"That was a long time ago."

"True. So what explains the way things are now? Been a hot topic after
choir practices, I can tell you. Everyone buzzing about the special
attention the sheriff gives his

225 225

closest neighbor. The way you hared off to Spokane when she needed you."

His dad would think whatever he wanted, no matter what Shane said. "The
choir needed another chaperone. And maybe I just want to help Laurel now
'cause I feel bad about what her father did."

"The charges against Roger were dropped, son. Don't forget that."

"Now you're sounding like her." He jerked his chin at the couple on the
crowded dance floor. "She can't bring herself to accept what happened. I
pulled the case file to see for myself. Tracked down every person whose
name was in it, including Wicks. He shouldn't have dropped the charges.
But he did, and it was the end of his career." He shook his head. "Even
after all these years he didn't change his story one bit. It doesn't add
up."

"Wicks used to date Violet before she married Roger," Beau said,
seemingly out of the blue. "Don't suppose he told you that."

He hadn't. "Too bad she chose Runyan," Shane muttered, thinking that
fact should have been even more reason for Wicks to want the case
against Runyan to stick. "She might still be alive." She might not have
become an alcoholic. Might not have done the things Laurel remembered.

"That's a question that won't ever be answered, isn't it, son? Well,
what a surprise. Isn't that the prettiest sight you've seen in a while?"
Beau's voice went from soberly philosophical to jovial as he noticed a
couple approaching. He tossed his beer bottle into a nearby bin and
smiled broadly, clearly pleased.

Shane's youngest sister, Hadley, spotted them and let go of her tall
husband's arm, breaking into a run. She launched herself at Beau first,
her long dark waves bouncing around

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her shoulders as she laughed and kissed his cheek, then turned to Shane
and treated him to the same.

"Hell, turnip. Let a man breathe." He straightened, grinning at his
youngest sister. He shook Dane's hand, genuinely pleased. The guy had
been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but Shane had come to like
and respect the man regardless of his wealth. "When did you get to town?"

"Just now." Dane's arm slid around Hadley's shoulder. He smiled. "She
kept talking about Lucius having the best fireworks display around, so
here we are."

Which was a testament to the man's devotion to his wife. They all knew
he could have flown Hadley anywhere in the world for any sort of display
she wanted to see.

"You're just in time, then," Beau said. "Fireworks go right after dark
and it's nearly that now. How are things in Indianapolis?"

"Fair," Dane said.

"Fair," Hadley scoffed, swatting her hand over his arm. "RTM's opening
another branch outside of Detroit. Wood Tolliver will be going there.
Dane and I are staying in Indy."

"Congratulations." Shane couldn't pretend surprise. There was nothing
that Dane Rutherford put his hand on that wasn't successful. But it was
the light practically beaming from his sister that made him like the
other man. Hadley hadn't ever really come into her own until she'd
literally run into Dane. Only half a year ago, yet so much had changed
since then.

"That's not our only news." His gaze slanted toward his wife. "Had sold
her first novel."

"I did, I did." Her long, brown hair bounced all over her as she did a
little jig. "I don't have any of the details yet, but it's official
nevertheless. I'm a writer! Where's Evie? She's never going to believe it."

227 227

Shane pointed toward the food booths where the lights hanging from a
wire strung among the trees were beginning to come on. Hadley set off in
a jog, Dane following leisurely behind.

"It's good to see your sister so happy," Beau said. "Worried a little
about that. The Rutherford world is a far cry from Lucius, Montana."

"They love each other. They want to make it work, they will."

Beau smiled slowly. "Now that is one of the smarter things I've heard
you say lately, son." Looking satisfied, he wandered off, leaving Shane
standing there alone among the pine trees.

His dad was too optimistic.

Two people needed to love each other, before they could even get into
the game.

228

.Laurel couldn't concentrate. The music was too loud. The dance area too
crowded.

She stumbled, her toes knocking over Stu's boots yet again. She mumbled
another apology?they were automatic after the first half dozen?but her
gaze was caught on the solitary figure standing at the edge of the trees
at the top of the amphitheater's sloped grass seating area. "I haven't
danced in a while," she told Stu, feeling lame.

Shane looked so alone.

'"S okay," Stu excused a moment later. He was as distracted as she was.

"Mind if I cut in?"

The stranger stopped behind Stu, waiting expectantly. She managed to
gather her attention together well enough to realize the man was
Freddie's date and immediately let go of Stu's clenched hand. "Don't let
her stand there long,"

229 229

she warned him softly and smiled brightly at the man, who quickly swung
her into the sway of people. She turned her head, keeping an eye on
Freddie and Stu.

"Come on, come on," she murmured under her breath. "Take her hand. Start
dancing."

'That's for sure," her new partner agreed, surprising the life out of
Laurel.

He spun her around, giving them both a chance to look. "I might be
speaking out of turn here, but you two looked about as cheerful as we
felt. Something needed to be done."

"Yes," she agreed, a little bemused.

He looked relieved. 'Thank God. If I had to gaze adoringly into
Freddie's eyes for another minute we were both going to go into a coma.
I'm Dan. Freddie's second cousin, up from Dallas. And you're?"

"Laurel Runyan. Freddie's your cousin?"

"She was desperate," he said, shrugging. "What's a guy to do when his
little cousin calls him up, offering a free trip if he'll come and
pretend to be a suitor?"

They'd circled the area. All the dancers were beginning to give the
standing couple a wide berth. Freddie had her hands on her hips, her
chin thrust out pugnaciously. Stu looked as animated as a rock.

"It's not looking good," Dan murmured.

Laurel looked beyond his shoulder. Shane was no longer standing in the
shadows.

No. It wasn't looking good at all.

And she had no more stamina for charades, even when it was presented in
a surprisingly charming and wry dance partner. The song ended and she
stepped free of him. "Think I'll get back to my post at Tiff's booth,"
she told him. "Thanks for the dance."

"My pleasure."

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A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Another song had already begun, a slow one that enticed even more people
to dance, and she slipped between the people, making her way up the
incline to the stand of trees. On the other side of the trees, she could
see the food booths.

Evie was there, one arm around Julie and another around a slender brunette.

"We had our first dance on the Fourth of July."

Shivers rippled down her spine. She surreptitiously pressed her palm
against the jumping in her stomach. "We had our only dance on the Fourth
of July." She didn't turn to look at Shane. It was hard enough not
recalling every single detail of that night, without him talking about
it, too. "Is that Hadley over there with Evie?"

"Yes. Have you had something to eat?"

"Yes."

"What?"

She pressed her lips together for a moment. "Chili."

"Liar."

Defending the untruth would take too much effort. "I need to be going."

"Before the fireworks?"

Definitely before the fireworks. "I.. .have things to take care of at
the house."

"What things?"

She frowned. "Things. It doesn't matter."

"Then they can hardly be important enough for you to need to leave just
now, can they?"

"I don't want to stay!" Her voice sounded loud despite the music and
revelry around them.

"Okay."

Wariness pricked at her. That had been too easy. "O-okay, then."

231 ALUSONLEIGH231

Shane easily fell into step beside her, even when she quickened her
step. She finally stopped and faced him, midway through the carnival rides.

Yellow and red lights flashed merrily from the ticket booth where a long
line of people?young to old?stood waiting. Carnival workers hawked their
games, pennies and nickels pinged as they were tossed into stacks of
colorful glass dishes.

It was achingly familiar.

"Don't you have something else to do? Go write some tickets for all the
people who are double parked."

"How did you get here?"

"Your father, which you probably already know." His stony expression
assured her he did.

"Then you'll need a ride."

"It's a lovely evening and I can walk, thank you."

"It's nearly dark. You're not walking."

She pushed at her hair, her hand unsteady, and turned again to walk.

She nearly tripped over a little girl dashing toward the ticket booth,
money clutched tightly in her fist.

Shane's hand shot out, grabbing her arm, steadying her as the child sped
merrily along her way.

Laurel jerked free and kept going. Past the Ferris wheel. Beyond the
Tilt-A-Whirl. The Fua House. When she made it to the street beyond the
park, she slipped around and through the parked cars.

She could feel Shane on her heels with every step.

She kept going. Turned up church row. Her breath was hitching in her
chest. Her sandals were comfortable if she weren't trying to do a
twelve-minute mile. Now, the strappy red things were rubbing a raw spot
across her instep. She set her chin and kept walking. Turned onto Main.
Strode by the Luscious Lucius. Even it was closed in ob-

232 232A MONTANA HOMECOMING

servance of the holiday. Or?more likely?to pick up the only business in
town there was to be had. At the food booths in the park.

"You're limping," Shane commented from behind her when they passed
Tiff's, where lights shone from the windows, making the big Victorian
look welcoming.

She ignored him. She had a stitch in her side now.

And to think she'd considered herself in fairly decent shape. During the
last school year she'd had no problem keeping up with an overfull
classroom of third-graders.

Oh, Lord, her feet hurt. She stopped. Ripped off the sandals and
continued as the concrete sidewalk gave way to soft ground.

A sudden bone-shuddering boom rent the air and she started. The sole of
her foot trod on a sharp pebble.

The fireworks had begun.

There was not a single vehicle traveling into or out of town. She began
crossing the gritty pavement. Her house was within sight.

"You're not going to have any skin left on the bottoms of your feet by
the time you finish proving how damn stubborn you are."

She stopped. Her hands curled. Uncurled. A sharp, whining whistle
sounded, and white sparks exploded in the air, a trio of cascading
brilliance.

She turned. "I'm stubborn. That's ironic, coming from you. You're the
epitome of stubbornness."

"I'm not the one making a five-mile walk in my bare feet."

"And I didn't ask you to follow me home as if I needed some sort of
watchdog."

"Seeing Eye dog would be more useful," he said grimly. "Maybe then you'd
have a clue about where you're heading."

"The only place I'm heading is away from you."

233 233

"Because you're afraid of what you might find if you actually stopped
and stayed?"

This wasn't about her finding her way to her father's house, and she
knew it. "Stayed for what? To live in a town where people still think my
father got away with murder? Just because he endured the rumors and
speculation doesn't mean / want to."

"The only rumors in this town concerning you right now are whether or
not we are sleeping together. Has anyone made you feel unwelcome? Or
have you even let anyone close enough to find out?"

Her throat ached. "I let you close." Her voice was thick.

"And you pushed me away the second you found a reason."

"A little more than a reason."

"I had that file out?traced Wicks to Orlando?because I was trying to
prove you were right. Not me. I'm sick of having a difference of opinion
rule my relationships. You used it as an excuse to end things between us."

"You would have left, anyway!"

He watched her. "Why? Because I made that mistake a long time ago? If
there was one thing I could change in my life, Laurel, it would be that.
If I'd stayed with you a little longer, hadn't dumped you off at your
house the way I did?"

"You would still have left," she finished.

He didn't deny it. "But you wouldn't have walked in your house when you
did. Yeah. I left. I was twenty-three and you scared the hell out of me.
But I'm not wet behind the ears anymore, and I am here to stay. Are you?"

She couldn't form a response to save her soul.

His face turned grim. "So, you are leaving, then. You gonna go back to
the gentleman!"

234 234A MONTANA HOMECOMING

Her voice finally broke loose again. "No!"

"Then what are you going to do? Where are you going to go?"

"What does it matter?"

"Because I want you to start living your life instead of running from it!"

Rapid bursts sounded, heralding a shower of green and gold sparks.

"Maybe running is the only thing I'm really good at," she said hoarsely.
"I ran out on my father when he needed me most?"

"That's bull."

"?and I couldn't bring myself to go through with my wedding?"

"Thank God," he muttered.

"?and I don't want to do that to you!" Her eyes burned. "What if I were
in your life? And I panicked again. They're real, you know. Panic
attacks. I...I used to have them at Fernwood. And then not until the
wedding, after Mr. New-some had contacted me about Dad. I couldn't bear
it, Shane, if I ran away from you that way."

He took a step closer. "So you'll run away from me this way? Laurel,
maybe you panicked because you knew you weren't meant to marry him. That
you didn't love him the way a wife should love a husband. Damn. For a
while after Denise and I split up, I broke out in a cold sweat every
time I thought about how close we came to marrying. You think that means
anything deeper than that you and I both narrowly avoided making the
same huge mistake? Of marrying someone we didn't love enough?"

The fireworks were exploding rapidly, the sky a brilliant display of
color after color after color.

He took another step nearer. "I loved you when you

235 235

were a girl, Laurel. I shouldn't have, but I can't bring myself to
regret it. And I love you now. I can't change the past, and I can't
force you to stay where you don't want to stay." His jaw tightened. "But
I will ask you to. You want me to trust what you believe. Well, I want
you to trust me, too."

Tears blinded her. "I'm.. .afraid."

"Of me?" His voice was gruff.

She shook her head. "Of me! What if I'm like her? Like...my mother."

He swore under his breath, closing the last few steps between them. He
swept her off her feet and strode the last yards to her house. Carried
her up the plywood ramp and setded her on the old wicker love seat.

He crouched before her. His hands cupped her face, thumbs brushing at
the tears. "You're not your mother."

"I slapped you that day." j

"I said some damned offensive things. A man says crap like that to me,
I'd have wanted to take his block off." He pressed his lips to her
forehead. Her temples.

His gentleness only made her tears flow faster. "You... should be
married. Fill that house of yours with children. I.. .don't know if I
could do that, Shane."

"I've seen you with children," he reminded her softly. "Dozens of times
now. And I don't have a doubt in my mind what you can do. Just like I
don't have a doubt in my mind about what you would never do." He pressed
his mouth against hers.

She trembled, her heart aching.

Then he slowly lifted his head. "I love you, Laurel. I want you to be my
wife. I want your children leaving toys on the floor in my house,
playing their music too loud, breaking curfew when they're not supposed
to. I want Christmas mornings and July Fourth fireworks and Sun-

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day dinners with the rest of the GolighfJys. I want it all with you.
Only with you." He uncoiled himself, straightening. Stepped a foot away.

She barely kept herself from reaching out for him, begging him to return.

"But I don't want any of it until you can let go of the past and start
living now. Stop blaming yourself for not remembering a horrific
incident that no person should have to witness. Regardless of why it
happened, it was not your responsibility. You have to let it go, Laurel.
I'll fight anything for you, but I can't fight ghosts."

She sank her teeth into her lip.

"Only you can do that," he finished quietly. "You've accomplished so
much in your life, Laurel, since that night. You finished school. Became
a teacher. You made a life for yourself that anyone can be proud of. I
don't doubt you. Now you need to stop doubting yourself, too. Have some
faith."

The plywood vibrated as he slowly walked down it. He looked back at her
once, seeming to wait for some response, some proof that she was capable
of it.

She tried to speak, but the words didn't come.

And after a long moment he turned away.

Overhead dozens of fireworks were exploding in the sky in a glorious finale.

Laurel could only sit there and watch Shane walk away, feeling as if
every speck of light within her was winking out as surely as the sparks
died in the star-spangled sky.

237

"Did you hear the news?" Evie greeted, when Laurel opened the door to
her knock the next day. She pulled open the screen door without waiting
for an invitation and pushed the large, plastic container she held into
Laurel's hand. "Peach cobbler," she said briskly. "Freezer's full up at
Tiff's, so I'm farming it out to everyone I see whether they want it or
not."

"I, um, don't have room in my freezer, either."

Evie waved her hand. "Supposed to eat it, sugar, not freeze it. So, did
you hear?"

Laurel shook her head. She had a splitting headache and was still
wearing the same clothes from the previous day. She barely felt like a
functioning human. "Hear what?"

"Stu and Freddie eloped last night." Evie nodded and grinned. "He called
this morning from Reno. They're well and truly hitched. Finally." She
rolled her eyes and flopped

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dramatically onto the couch. "Oh, geez." She moved rapidly to one side.
"Didn't notice before, but I think you have a broken spring in there, my
friend."

Laurel's eyes burned. Friend? So far, she hadn't been much of a friend.
She stared at the container, blinking hard. "I'm happy for them. Um..
.thanks for the cobbler. I, I love peach cobbler." She quickly went to
the kitchen, slipping the container on the counter next to the percolator.

It hadn't been used since the last night Shane had stayed there.

She swallowed the knot in her throat.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" Evie's voice was quiet. "I'm
hoping you're not as pigheaded as Stu and Freddie have been all these
years. Hate to see my other brother wait even longer before he gets the
woman he wants."

Trust Evie not to stand on ceremony. "It's not that easy."

"It's not that complicated, either." Evie stepped into the kitchen. "Did
you know that this house is exactly point three seven miles from Tiff's?"

Laurel hesitated, thrown. "Um, no. I didn't."

The other woman was nodding. "Did you also not know that there's a
dearth of lodging around Lucius? The Lucius Inn is okay for anyone who
doesn't mind rooms with the television bolted down, but there are a
whole lot of people who prefer something more homey. There are less than
a handful of houses around here that are rented out for vacations?one of
them was decked out with a heart-shaped tub in the middle of the living
room, if you can believe it. But the owner recently sold it. So we can't
even count that one." She propped one elbow on the counter and glanced
toward the front of the house, ignoring Laurel's confusion. "Some nice
shrubs and trees, maybe a pretty fence and

239 239

gate, to block off the view of the road. Just one bathroom, right? We
wouldn't want to have a heart-shaped tub."

Laurel had never even seen a heart-shaped tub. "Er... yes. One bathroom."

Evie tucked her tongue between her teeth, sliding a glance Laurel's way.
"Would take some real money to put things truly to rights, though."

"What's your point, Evie?"

"You and me. A business deal. Between the two of us, we turn this place
into a sweet little getaway cottage. I'll manage rental, same as I
manage Tiff's. We can either split the profits down the middle and you
pay me a management fee, or we come up with some other split. Either
way, all three of us stand to gain."

"Three?"

"You. Me. This house."

Laurel's head spun with surprise at the very thought of it. "Did Shane
put you up to this?"

"Good heaven's, no. Why would he? He wanted to buy it himself, remember?"

Laurel shook her head a little. "I.. .no reason."

Evie looked disbelieving, but she let it go. She pulled a piece of paper
out of her pocket and laid it flat on the counter. "You know my
architect said I couldn't expand Tiff's. So I've been thinking about
other properties. And frankly, yours is the most logical choice. These
are some numbers I ran on what we might be looking at. Expenses. Income.
Take a look. Think about it. Let me know. I've got the financing end
lined up, thanks to a certain brother-in-law who gives a great interest
rate on a business loan." She headed to the door. "Enjoy the cobbler.
Come to church tomorrow. Dad's despairing over what to do about the
junior choir. Nancy isn't going to have the job even if she does

240 240A MONTANA HOMECOMING

come back to Lucius, which is looking doubtful at this point."

Just that quickly the woman left.

Laurel stared at the paper, not seeing any of the numbers. Turn the
house into a vacation cottage? Could she do that?

Yes, she could. And she could walk away from it, leaving it all in
Evie's more-than-capable hands.

She ought to have felt relief at the idea. Instead her stomach just felt
more hollow than ever.

The phone rang beside her, and she grabbed it, answering automatically.

"Laurel? This is Marian Smythe calling again."

She marshaled her thoughts. "Mrs. Smythe. How are you?"

"Fine. Getting anxious, of course. Have you thought any more about the
teaching position here?"

Laurel pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs.
Smythe. I know the school board is anxious to fill the position. If you
have another candidate, I'd understand."

"1 wish we did," Marian admitted, sounding wry. "Wouldn't it be
wonderful to have a plethora of willing applicants. Unfortunately, we're
more in the position of having to chase down than being chased. Is there
anything we can do to help persuade you? I've spoken with your former
principal from Clover Elementary. She gave you a glowing recommendation,
even though she freely admitted she'd despaired over your departure."

"Mrs. Smythe, I appreciate the school board's confidence. But I'm afraid
I'm not ready to commit to a position yet."

Not ready to commit? Afraid to commit.

Exactly what Shane accused her of being.

She rubbed her eyes again. "Could I have a few more days?"

241 241

Marian agreed, but Laurel could tell the woman was frustrated and
unhappy about it as she ended the call.

Laurel picked up the paper Evie had left for her.

She'd come to Lucius thinking she had nothing but her father's rundown
house.

Instead she had job offers and options she'd never have thought of on
her own when it came to the house.

And none of it meant anything.

She climbed up the staircase and shoved open the door to her father's
bedroom. Turned and stood on the landing, her hands clutching the
banister. "Why can't I remember, Gram? Why?"

But there were no answers in that empty house.

Only silence.

From where she stood, she could see Evie's page of estimations lying on
the counter. The boxes Laurel had packed up for the donation pickup were
scattered all over.

Her gaze slowly slipped over it all. What was here that made the house a
home, when everything she wanted was in the house on the hill behind her?

She turned and went into her bedroom, where she retrieved the suitcase
she'd brought from Colorado. She flipped it open on the bed. She filled
it to capacity, then had to sit on it to get the zipper to close all the
way.

She found an empty old school backpack on her closet shelf and filled it
with her journals. Then she went into her father's room and plucked the
graduation picture off the dresser. She added that to the backpack, too.

Then she hefted the backpack and the suitcase down the stairs and out to
her car. She took one more look at the house, trying to imagine it the
way Evie had described, but failing miserably.

Maybe it was because there were tears blurring her eyes.

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Then she got in her car and drove away. But for the first time in a very
long while, Laurel finally knew where she was going.

"You're going to be fine."

Laurel brushed her hands down the front of her pale-yellow dress. She'd
bought it new just before the department store had closed the previous
day. She needed every bit of confidence she could summon, but the dress
wasn't as helpful as she'd hoped.

She was a nervous wreck.

"What if he refuses to come?"

Beau smiled as he unhooked his black robes from the hanger on his office
door and shrugged into them. "Evie will get him here."

"Are you sure?"

"Evie has a knack for getting her way. But if for some reason she
doesn't get him here this morning, then you'll try again."

She could hear the organist playing the prelude. "I'm going to make a
fool of myself. I haven't sung in...well.. .not since the day my mother
died."

"Is that what matters?" Beau stopped in front of her. The Bible he
tucked beneath his arm was dog-eared and worn. "Whether or not you make
a fool of yourself?"

She shook her head. "He needs to know that I'm here to stay."

"All right, then. You'd better scoot down to the choir room or you'll be
making a grand entrance by yourself." He nudged her toward the door.

Her feet hesitated. "Thank you. For everything. For.. .looking out for
me when my mother died. And for opening your door to me when I came to
you yesterday."

243

243

He smiled gently. "I wish I could have done more for you back then,
child. I wish I'd known more."

"It's in the past," she said, lifting her chin a little. "What's
important is now." She picked up the hymnal that she'd left on the chair
inside his office door. "See you in church."

She walked down the narrow corridor from Beau's office to the choir room
where the other adult choir members had already assembled and warmed up.
She took her place with them, smiling nervously.

Louise Halloran leaned over and squeezed her hand, smiling her
encouragement. "Joey's going to be so happy," she whispered.

Well, at least there was that, Laurel thought, her nerves lightening for
just a moment.

And then they processed into the church.

The pew felt about as comfortable as the cots in his jail cells.

Shane glowered at his sister's head. She, annoying woman that she was,
blithely ignored him.

He shifted again, stretching out his legs. He didn't want to be in
church. Couldn't believe he'd let his sister nag him into it. Especially
at a time when the sight of Laurel driving away had caused him so much pain.

"Would you sit still? You're fidgeting worse than my kids do," she
hissed beside him.

Their father was in the pulpit, greeting the churchgoers, many of whom
were still filing into the pews. He caught Tom Halloran in the middle of
a huge yawn.

Couldn't blame the guy. Shane had a yawn or two built up inside him, too.

He had a whole new appreciation for Laurel's inability

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to sleep certain places in that damn house of hers. He was feeling about
the same way toward his own bed, because every time he closed his
eyes?and even when he didn't?he was remembering her in it.

"Here." Evie opened their hymnal and held it out in front of him. He
gave her a look and rose.

And he didn't need a hymnal. It might have been a long time since he'd
been a seminary student, but he still remembered most every hymn his
father had ever used in a Sunday service.

Just as they'd done all of his life, the choir filed into the church
during the first hymn, filling the loft behind the pulpit.

Forty-seven minutes, he thought grimly. It would be just about that
amount of time before the service would be finished and he could get out
of here. He'd go to the station. Hang out there. Better than going home
to an empty house that overlooked an equally empty one.

"Thank you," Beau was saying as the organist finished the hymn on a
flourish. "Please be seated. And welcome again. What a beautiful Sunday
morning it is, indeed. Ordinarily, I like to save announcements until
the end of the service when all of you are awake again after napping
through my sermon."

Smatterings of laughter rippled through the congregation as they sat.

Forty-six minutes, Shane thought. He stared at his boots, his father's
voice nothing more than a deep murmur in his head.

What could he have done differently? He tried to protect her; she pushed
him away. He tried to let her go; she drove away. It was no different
than it had been with De-nise. Only, instead of a seven-year-old
miscreant between them, they had a twelve-year-old memory.

245

245

And the end of his engagement to Denise hadn't felt as if he was being
gnawed painfully from the inside out.

Evie slowly pinched his arm, and he caught her hand in his. "Grow up.
We're not ten anymore."

"Pay attention," she whispered back, yanking her fingers out of his.

His lips thinned. He didn't want to be there. He wanted to be out
finding Laurel. God knows where she'd gone. He'd known her state of mind
was...fine. Her emotional state, though? That was another matter.

And he hadn't helped it with hisjultimatums and demands.

He should be out finding Lauiel.

He wasn't twenty-three anymore. He was thirty-five, and he'd be hanged
if he'd let ahother twelve years pass before he had a chance for the
kind of love he'd only ever seen between Beau and Holly.

He dropped his hymnal on Evie's lap and pushed to his feet. "I've got
something to do." It wasn't the first time he'd left in the middle,
beginning or end of his father's service; though before, it had always
been hjs duties calling him away.

This time it was his heart. j

He figured God would understand.

He glanced at his father as he moved toward the aisle.

And his boots rooted in place.

She wore a yellow dress. With little buttons that stretched from the
scooped neckline all the way down to the hem. Her hair was pulled back
in a ponytail, loose curls streaming down her neck.

Her amber gaze was focused directly on him. She had a hymnal open in her
hands, but she didn't so much as glance at it when a single organ note
sounded, then slowly faded away. And Laurel opened her mouth and began
to sing, her voice as pure and beautiful as it had ever been.

246 246A MONTANA HOMECOMING

When the notes finally faded, the congregation sat there, seeming to be
stunned in silence.

Beau returned to Laurel's side. "We all know about the junior choir's
wonderful trip to Spokane. And that it wouldn't have been possible at
all if this lovely young woman hadn't stepped in for us. So I think
you'll all agree, then, with our selection of Laurel Runyan as their new
director?"

Someone clapped. The applause built. Laurel's gaze was glued to Shane's.
"I'm staying," she said, and even though her voice was too soft to be
heard over the enthusiastic response of the members, he still heard.

And he didn't care that there were still a good forty-one minutes left
in the service.

He walked up to the chancel, stopping in front of her. Taking her
shaking hand in his. "I thought you'd left," he said, his voice gruff.
"I saw you from my place. Watched you drive away."

She shook her head. "I only left a house." Her eyes were wet. "Because I
want to have a home. With you. If you'll have me."

"Is that a proposal?"

Her lashes drifted down for a moment. The clapping was fading away and
the listening had definitely begun.

Her lips trembled. He could see the pulse beating like a butterfly at
the base of her lovely neck. Her lashes lifted again and her eyes met
his, her lips curving softly. "No," she said. "It's a promise. I love
you, Shane. I always have. I always will. I'm sorry if you think I
didn't trust you. Didn't believe in you. You were right. It's been me
that I was afraid to trust."

"And now?"

Laurel pressed her lips together for a moment, dredging up courage.

247

247

But it turned out the words weren't so difficult after all. Not when
Shane looked at her with those beautiful gray eyes, so soft and so full
of love. She forgot the fact that they were standing in front of a
hundred people, interrupting a summer Sunday church service.

There was just her and Shane.

The boy she'd loved when she was just a girl. The man she'd love until
they were old and gray, and beyond, if they were lucky.

She settled her hand lightly on his chest. "I'd rather be with you and
chance a few fears and mistakes, than be alone and never know what
happiness really is. I want the toys on the floor. The broken curfews. I
want all that with you. Because I know that you are my home. This place.
Lucius. These people. Your family. And you, above all else. I love you."

He lowered his head and pressed his mouth against hers, leaving her
breathless when he finally pulled away. She could feel the stories
forming in the minds of the congregants. "We're in church here," she
whispered.

"A good place to kiss my wife."

She inhaled shakily. "We haven't said any vows yet."

He lowered his head toward hers again. "Like you said. We're in church
here. And they sounded like vows to me." Then he closed his mouth over
hers and slowly kissed her again while cheers and hoots filled the
rafters of the church.

It was a moment she knew she would remember all of the days of her life.

248

"What are you working on over there?" Shane's voice was curious as he
came up behind her. She was sitting on the porch, a worn afghan pulled
over her legs against the October chill in the air. "Thought you
finished grading papers before lunch."

Laurel looked up from the journal lying open in her lap. "I did." She
nodded toward the house down the hill where Jack Finn's renovations were
newly complete. "Evie's going to be pleased the work is done so early.
She says she has a waiting list already for reservations. I went through
the house this afternoon. It looks really great. Evie has a real talent."

"My sister. The up-and-coming B&B mogul."

"You know, she and Tony are going to hook up. Mark my words."

"No way."

249 T

ALLISON LEIGH249

"That's what you said about Stu and Freddie," Laurel reminded, smiling
faintly. "And look how that turned out. For a smart lawman, you're sure
behind the times when it comes to certain matters."

"The only 'certain matters' that matter to me are you and me." He slid
onto the seat beside her, pulling her back against him, nuzzling her neck.

She barely caught the journal from falling off her lap. Shivers danced
down her spine and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the dwindling
afternoon temperature that boded an early snowfall, and everything to do
with him. Her husband.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back against his shoulder.

His hands slowly burrowed beneath the thick sweater she wore. "Come
inside with me where we won't be putting on a show for the construction
workers cleaning up down there."

She laughed softly. "They can't see what you're doing from there."

"Shameful." He lightly bit her neck. "Who'd have thought third-grade
teachers and choir directors were so brazen?"

"All depends on how inspired we are," she said a little breathlessly.
She caught his hand before he could start really doing damage to her
self-control. "Like I said. I went through the house. The new staircase
is a thing of beauty."

"You're a thing of beauty," he murmured, delving his hand again beneath
her sweater. "Well, well. You're not wearing a bra."

She smiled faintly. "Write me a ticket, Sheriff."

He chuckled.

She leaned her head back against him again and couldn't

250

A MONTANA HOMECOMING

prevent the satisfied sound that rose softly in her throat. "I
remembered," she murmured.

His fingers paused on her breasts. "You.. .remembered." She closed her
hands over his, holding them against her. Maybe she was brazen. But she
couldn't get enough of his hands on her. The more days that passed since
they'd stood in front of Beau and said their vows?their official vows
only two weeks after that memorable Sunday morning?the more she realized
that they were only at the tip of the iceberg. The wholeness of their
love was simply deeper and wider and stronger with each passing day.
"Hey." He shifted. "Is that all you have to say about it?" She realized
belatedly that he was staring at her, tension stilling him.

"I was going through the house, admiring all the work. The changes are
just remarkable. It's as if the old house was barely even there. Just a
whisper of it remains. And I was standing there, at the base of the
stairs, running my hand over the new wooden banister, and it was all
there. The memories. She did fall," she said quietly. "When I went
inside the house that afternoon after you drove me home, they were
arguing. Dad came out of their bedroom and she was right on his heels.
When they realized I was standing in the living room, Dad stopped. I
suppose it was the suddenness of that, but I'll never know for sure. She
just sort of pitched right past him."

"Ah, Laurel." He pressed his head against hers. "Dad tried to catch
her," she finished. "He almost had her, almost went tumbling after her,
in fact. It really was just an accident."

"Are you okay? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" She lifted her palm,
laying it against his jaw. "I'm glad the doubt can finally rest. But
you'd already helped me let

251 ]

ALLISON LEIGH251

it go. Maybe that's why the memory finally came back. Because I knew it
couldn't hurt me anymore."

She swung her legs down and swiveled around until she could face him.
"And I have something much more important to concentrate on." She leaned
forward, pressing her mouth to his. "The here and now. With you."

"Now?" His lips curved against hers.

"Now," she promised softly. "Today." She tugged aside the collar of his
shirt and kissed his throat. "Tomorrow." She kissed the small dent in
his chin. "Next year." She slowly rubbed her lips against his. "Twenty
years."

His arms tightened around her. "Then let's go inside," he suggested,
looking gratifyingly impatient. He pulled her to her feet. The journal
slid off the seat with a soft thump.

"Just one more thing." She leaned over and picked it up. "Read."

"Later."

She pushed it into his hands. "Read." Smiling a little, she stepped
inside the doors to their bedroom. She knew she wouldn't have to wait
long. And she didn't.

He came through the door, hard on her heels. "Seriously?"

"Absolutely." She slowly took the journal from his slack fingers and set
it aside, then stepped into his arms. "I love you, Shane Golightly."

He pulled her tightly to him. His touch gentle, his voice rough. "I love
you, Laurel Golightly."

Dear Gram,

We're going to have a baby.

Love, Laurel.

252 A bear ate my ex, and that's okay.

Stacy Kavanaugh is convinced

that her ex's recent disappearance

in the mountains is the worst

thing that can happen to her.

In the next two weeks, she'll

discover how wrong she really is!

Grin and Bear It Leslie LaFoy

NSt

^ HARLEQUIN' ? Available December 2005

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