Montana (18 page)

“Guess that means he's not interested,” Sam said, picking up the cardboard box. “It's your loss, old man.”

Gramps stood in the doorway, as they piled into the car. Tom climbed into the back seat with his brother, although he almost always sat next to his mother up front. He didn't mind—but only because it was Sam who sat beside her. With anyone else, he might not have been so generous. On the way into town his mother sang. Little kids' songs, for crying out loud—they were the only ones she knew all the words to.

She only did that when she was happy.

They arrived in Sweetgrass early enough to get prime seats for viewing the parade. They found a vacant bench at the edge of the park, and the four of them sat facing the street, eating flavored snow cones while they waited.

Sam teased Tom and Clay, telling silly jokes that made them both laugh. Tom noticed when Sam stretched his arm across the back of the bench and placed it around his mother's shoulders. He encouraged the foreman with a wink, but if Sam saw it, he didn't respond.

Just as the parade was about to begin, something happened. Tom didn't understand exactly what it meant—only that it changed the course of their day. Sam had been laughing when all at once he went quiet.

Tom looked up to find Sheriff Maynard standing directly in front of Sam, blocking his view of the street. The sheriff was a big man with a belly that hung over his belt. But he wasn't soft, Tom could see that. He stood with his feet apart and glared down at the four of them. The way he scowled at Sam made Tom angry. And it really bugged him that the sheriff was checking out his mother like…like she was some bimbo in a bikini.

“Dakota,” the sheriff drawled.

“Sheriff.”

“Come to enjoy the festivities?”

Although the words were friendly enough, Tom had the impression the sheriff would have welcomed a reason to ask Sam to leave or, better yet, arrest him. Tom glanced from one man to the other.

“I understand there's been some trouble at the Broken Arrow,” the sheriff remarked next. Just the way he said it irked Tom. He knew Sam was angry, too, because he saw a small muscle jumping in his jaw.

“Nothing I can't handle,” Sam returned after a moment, and there seemed to be a hidden meaning in his words. His eyes had narrowed and there was a hardness in his face.

Tom studied the lawman and decided Sheriff Maynard looked like he ate too many doughnuts. His hands were huge, too. Tom wondered what Sam had done to get on the bad side of the authorities. It didn't take much; he'd learned that himself back in San Francisco.

The sheriff left as soon as the parade started, but he might as well have stayed, because all the fun had vanished. Both his mother and Sam were subdued. They tried, everyone did, but to little avail.

Later, when they ate at a picnic table in the park, Tom wondered why everything had changed. He watched his mother and Sam. In the past the idea of his mother remarrying had bothered him. It wasn't that he didn't want her to be happy, but things were good with just the three of them. She didn't need anyone else. Every now and then she'd dated when they lived in California, but there'd never been anyone Tom would want for a stepfather.

He wouldn't mind if Sam married his mother. That might be cool. And he wouldn't have to worry about Sam moving away, either.

 

Russell had given up counting the number of excuses he'd invented to get out of attending the town's Fourth of July celebration.

Carrying a tall glass of iced tea onto the cabin's deck, he gazed out at the valley below. He'd bought the place a couple of years earlier as an investment. He wasn't really the outdoor type. He'd always figured he'd leave the adventures of back-to-the-wilderness living to those who appreciated that sort of thing.

He'd never guessed the cabin would become his love nest.
Love nest.
Silly term. Kind of old-fashioned. It made him smile. Sitting down, he arranged the chess pieces on the board and waited for Pearl to join him. She wasn't long.

“I'm after revenge,” he announced, grinning up at her. Pearl claimed she hadn't known how to play chess until he'd taught her. After the first few games he found that hard to believe. Her skill was amazing. It wasn't only chess that she was good at, either. She had an incisive logical mind and grasped ideas quickly. Because of her reading difficulties, she'd assumed she was stupid when in reality the opposite was true. He marveled at her almost photographic memory. That, together with her wit, made an intriguing combination. She fascinated and challenged him. The Sundays he spent with her had become the highlight of his week.

He'd asked her about IQ tests in high school, and she had told him she'd dropped out before ever taking any. Then, when she confessed she couldn't read, he'd decided to teach her. She picked it up with astonishing ease. He loved her reaction, the excitement and giddiness she didn't try to hide. She was never without a book these days, and he was impressed by her insights into character and theme.

Ironic. Pearl had been his birthday present. An evening with a prostitute. He'd felt sordid, at first, going to her—as sordid as he'd always considered his older cousin. But what his cousin didn't understand was that knowing her, loving her, was perhaps the greatest gift he'd ever received.

The one question that had hounded him for months was how she'd become involved in this life. Despite his curiosity, he'd never questioned her. Fear was the main reason for keeping his questions to himself. He'd recognized immediately that the subject of her career, for lack of a better word, was strictly off-limits. The one time he'd mentioned it, she'd refused to speak and had nearly run away. He couldn't, wouldn't, risk it again.

What most concerned him was the question of her pimp. She had one. Almost every hooker did. But Russell had never had the courage to ask who it was. So he had to pretend things were different. Pretend they had a normal relationship.

Either he was the biggest fool who'd ever lived or her love for him was as real as his law degree. As real as she said it was. He chose to believe her. It was as if there were two Pearls. One of them was the brazen cold-eyed hooker he'd met on his birthday. The woman who was a consummate actress, using soft baby talk with him and behaving in an almost subservient way as she offered tantalizing glimpses of her wares.

Then there was the other Pearl. The real Pearl.

He wasn't sure why he'd suggested they talk first that night. Probably because he'd been nervous and on edge. His cousin had made a big deal of this evening, and while it had embarrassed and even disgusted Russell, he'd reluctantly gone along.

He'd never intended to go to bed with her, never intended to visit her again. But their first evening together had been…so wonderful. So unexpected. He discovered he could be himself with her, whereas with other women he felt self-conscious and shy. He knew women considered him attractive; nevertheless he'd never found it easy to talk with them.

Later his cousin had interrogated him about his gift. Pried him with questions. Russell had lied, saying as little as possible. His cousin had given him a congratulatory slap on the back, then lowered his voice and asked if he'd sampled Pearl's specialty. It was all Russell could do not to slam his fist down the other man's throat as he relayed in profane detail what kept Pearl's customers coming back again and again.

Then Russell had stumbled on her in the grocery store, and they'd started meeting at his cabin. He was fairly sure no one knew, which was undoubtedly for the best. Their secrecy protected his reputation and, she'd once implied, her safety. And there was the fact that she wasn't exactly the type of woman a man introduced to his mother. Yet Russell would gladly have married her. He'd asked her to be his wife a dozen times; he'd stopped only because he could see how much it hurt her to turn him down. Tears would fill her eyes and she'd whisper that he didn't know what he was asking. Russell
did
know. But he'd let the matter rest and went about proving how much he loved her, even when it meant turning a blind eye to how she made her living.

Looking at her now, no one would ever guess her occupation. Her hair was tied back in pigtails and her baggy T-shirt disguised the fullness of her breasts and just about every other feminine attribute.

“Your move,” she said, glancing up and beaming him a wide triumphant smile.

It was difficult to stop gazing at her long enough to examine the chessboard. Once he did, he frowned. The obvious move would put him in check; any other move would place his queen in jeopardy. He reconstructed her moves and saw that there was no hope for it. She'd won. They could play to the end, if she insisted, but the outcome was inevitable. She'd outsmarted him again.

He looked at her and grinned. “Come here,” he whispered.

“Russell?”

He held out his hand to her. She knew what he wanted and blushed. The first time he'd seen that tinge of color on her cheeks he was convinced it was a trick. This woman knew everything there was to know about sex. But over time Russell had come to trust that everything between them was as new and fresh for her as it was for him. Like him, she was in love for the first time in her life.

“You can get out of that,” she said, pointing at the chessboard.

But Russell already had his next move planned, and it didn't involve chess.

Pearl giggled, sounding like a teenager. She exhaled the softest of sighs, then gently placed her hand in his. Russell pulled her close.

Out here he could forget that this never should have happened. That he'd fallen head over heels in love with a whore.

 

On Friday morning Molly and Gramps received news from Sam that one of the water holes had been poisoned. The carcass of a calf had been dumped in the largest cow pond in the new pasture. Every indication was that this had been done deliberately.

Ten cattle were already dead and another thirty head were sick. Between the vet bills and the loss of cattle, this was one more disaster they didn't need.

“We've got to do something, Gramps!” Molly cried in outrage as she stormed about the kitchen. She wasn't sure how she expected him to respond. She'd thought it over countless times, and her conclusions were always the same. The record books told her they were already in financial trouble. Any more would cripple them. It was clear to her that someone wanted the ranch to fail. “Who would do this to us?” she muttered. “Who?”

“If I knew who'd do such a thing, Molly girl, I wouldn't be sitting here stewing.” He'd played solitaire for the past hour, slapping the cards against the table and just as quickly snatching them up again.

“But why?”

Gramps slowly shook his head. “I wish to hell I knew.”

“Isn't it obvious someone wants us to bail out?” Surely he hadn't forgotten the offer Russell Letson had brought her a few days after her arrival. That seemed the perfect place to start looking. “Maybe we should ask Letson who his client is.”

“Sam already did that.”

“He did?” That the two men would exclude her didn't sit well with Molly, but this was an issue she'd take up with Sam, not Gramps.

“Now, don't go gettin' your dander up,” her grandfather muttered. “It was a logical decision. You'd just arrived and we couldn't see any need to drag you into something you knew nothing about.”

“So do you know who made the offer?” she asked.

“It wasn't someone local, if that's what you're asking. No one from Sweetgrass would want this land so bad he'd be willing to hurt us in order to get it,” Gramps told her.

“Who is it, then?”

Gramps scratched the side of his head. “My guess is it's one of those movie-star types outta Hollywood. I hear that's quite common now. These people think they're gonna turn back time and have bison on the land again. Romantic malarkey.” The old man rolled his eyes. “Sam talked to Letson for quite a while. Letson couldn't tell him who made the offer, but he didn't say no when Sam mentioned the movie-star idea. So we don't know for sure, but that's who we think it is. Some actor. Most folks around here won't sell to a movie star, so he must've hired Letson.” Gramps paused. “Can't see one of those Hollywood pretty boys comin' out here to knock down mailboxes and poison our cattle, though.”

Molly agreed. But she was going to ask Sam about it. In the meantime she wanted to clear the air about something else. Something she'd put off since the Fourth of July.

“What exactly do you know about Sam?” she asked in what she hoped was a conversational tone.

“Sam?” Gramps's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not that again! Why're you asking
this
time?”

“Sheriff Maynard stopped by for a chat with us before the parade last week.”

“Oh?”

“He wasn't particularly…pleasant.”

“Oh.”

“He seems to know something about Sam that we don't.”

“Oh?”

The
oh
's were beginning to irritate her. “Gramps, I know you like Sam. I do, too, and so do the boys. But something's not right. Why would Sheriff Maynard want to make trouble for Sam? And even more important, why did Sam clam up afterward?”