Montana Hearts (3 page)

Bree nodded. “Yeah, but she said she couldn't find the right guy.”

Was that why the dark-­haired tease had taken to flirting with him? Because she couldn't find anyone else? He pushed down the sick sensation forming in his gut, realizing there was something worse than being used. It was being someone's “last resort.”

“Seriously, where can I find a date?” Del asked, turning to wipe Meghan's jelly-­stained mouth with a napkin.

“Ask the UPS man?” Luke teased.

Del swatted his arm with her hand. “Have you
seen
the UPS man? No way.” Then she smiled. “Maybe I'll get lucky and a handsome loner will decide to rent one of our cabins that week. A guy who loves animals as much as I do. Maybe a conservationist.”

“What about you?” Bree asked as Luke was taking a bite of his food. “Why don't you try MontanaMingle.com?”

Luke shook his head. “I don't want to meet new ­people. I'm pestered enough by the ones I've already met.”

“Sammy Jo feels the same way,” Delaney assured him. “You can ask her to be your date for Bree's engagement party.”

Luke set his jaw. “No.”

“Sammy Jo came over late last night,” Bree confided. “She was angry because her father tried to set her up with the horse auction transporter, a real loser of a guy. She says it's not the first time her father's done this to her either. Seems like her father's trying to marry her off.”

Luke knew Sammy Jo had to have an ulterior motive for suddenly wanting to date him. It
was
to get back at her father. Bree's words just about confirmed it. He sucked in his breath, held it for a moment, then released the air slowly while trying to erase Sammy Jo's fun, flirty image from his mind. Yep, the curly-­haired cutie couldn't be trusted. She was an expert manipulator, a spoiled only child used to getting her way.

Last month, Sammy Jo had tricked Bree into thinking she was hurt. He'd been in on the plan, along with Delaney and Ryan, but only because he agreed that Bree needed to get over her horse's death. It worked. Bree
did
start riding again after her mad dash on the nearest horse she could find to rescue her best friend from supposed life-­threatening danger.

Bree had been mad at first, but had since forgiven them.

However, the incident had made Luke wonder if now it was his turn. If Sammy Jo had no qualms about deceiving Bree, how hard would it be for her to justify deceiving him?

He guessed he now had his answer.

All of a sudden the pantry door burst open and their two teenage twin employees, Nora and Nadine, rushed toward him, each taking one of his arms.

“We'll be your date for the engagement party,” Nora exclaimed. “But first there's the big Fourth of July celebration, and—­”

“We need someone to be our partner for the three-­legged race,” Nadine finished.

Luke glanced back and forth between them. “You only need two ­people for the three legged race, not three. You each have one leg free and tie your other two legs together to make the third.”

The brown ponytailed twins stared at him, then chorused in unison, “You're
right
!”

Bree gave each of the sixteen-­year-­old girls a stern look. “What were you doing hiding in the pantry?”

“We needed bottle caps,” Nora replied. “I saw on TV that if you glue a design inside a bottle cap, add a dab of clear coating, and then put it on a chain—­”

“We thought we could help you, Bree,” Nadine said, cutting her sister off in her excitement.

Luke smirked as Bree asked hesitantly, “Help me how?”

“We're going to help design boot bling jewelry for your new business!” they chorused again.

Grandma turned from the stove and waggled a crooked finger at them. “You better have left my bottled syrup unopened.”

“We got the caps out of the garbage,” Nora assured her.

“Yes,” Nadine agreed. “The five-­gallon recycling bucket.”

Luke's ma pointed to the bottle caps in their hands. “I hope you're going to wash those first.”

“But—­” Bree's face took on a horrified glance as the twins ran from the room. “That's
not
the kind of jewelry I had in mind.”

“You won't make much money with that,” Del agreed.

“Speaking of money,” Luke said in between bites of food. “Any news from the PI we have tracking down the Randalls?”

The last they'd heard, their embezzling ranch managers had been hiding out in Arizona. However, Susan and Wade Randall had still not been caught despite the efforts both the police and their hired PI had put into the search. The husband-­and-­wife duo had been at large for over six weeks, ever since mid-­May when their father's fall from his horse put him in the hospital with a concussion and a broken leg.

Having been misinformed about the seriousness of his injuries, Luke, Bree, and Delaney had all flown home thinking the worst. They hadn't been planning to stay, but when the Randalls stole the money and it became clear Luke's and his sisters' assistance was needed to keep the ranch afloat, their grandma offered them each a portion of the ranch if they agreed to stay.

“Doug Kelly has a few leads so I hope to hear something good from him soon,” Bree said, referring to the PI as she rose from her chair and took her plate to the sink. “Dad's given up on the sheriff's efforts. Can you believe it? After all his fuss about how he trusts the authorities to do their part, yesterday Dad actually admitted he was glad I hired the PI.”

Their father wasn't one to dish out compliments or lend support, but since Bree had taken over management of the ranch she'd found a way to win the old man's respect. So had Delaney, mostly because she'd brought back an adorable granddaughter. But their father had always been hardest on him, maybe because he was his only son, and had always demanded more than Luke could give.

Now that he'd come home with a limp, and they'd had to hire Ryan Tanner to be head wrangler because he couldn't ride, Luke felt like it was even more impossible to please his father than before. But he would do what he could.

He pushed back his chair and thanked his ma for breakfast. “Got a full day of work ahead of me,” he announced. “I best be getting to it.”

“Luke,” Bree called after him as he headed toward the door. “The father of the bride for the August wedding asked if we have a gazebo. He said the bridal ­couple would really love to get married in a gazebo.”

He nodded, knowing they all had to do whatever it took to keep the Hamiltons and their one hundred guests from finding another venue. “They will,” Luke assured her. “Tell him they will.”

As soon as he could build one.

S
AMMY
J
O ROUNDED
the first barrel, already a fraction of a second behind where she wanted to be. She gave Tango an extra tap with the heel of her boot and pressed on. In professional barrel racing, an eighth of a second could make all the difference between a cash prize and going home with her pockets empty. But it wasn't Tango's fault. He'd been eager to leave the alley and take his turn in the arena. No, today the problem was her own. Her head . . . or maybe her heart . . . just wasn't in it.

She and Tango rounded the second fifty-­five-­gallon drum and her balance was off, making her trusty horse circle too wide. Another fraction of a second lost.

They approached the third barrel just fine, kicking up dust, but by then it was too late. Their completion of the clover leaf pattern had not beaten the top three competitors' scores. She gave Tango an affectionate pat on the neck as an apology for letting him down. For she knew, if it hadn't been for her sloppy cues, her beloved quarter horse would have won.

“Better luck next time,” one her circuit buddies consoled.

Sammy Jo gave her a nod, and flashed a halfhearted smile. “Yeah, Tango will be raring to go at the next rodeo.”

But would
she
? As her friend rode into the arena for her shot at the prized purse and accompanying buckle, Sammy Jo's smile slipped into a frown.

All her life she'd wanted to race barrels, and she had, winning many competitions and making it into the finals several times. But since the Collins siblings had returned to Fox Creek, her enthusiasm for the sport had waned. Instead of concentrating on the performance pattern, she'd been thinking of Luke and how his eyes used to twinkle right before mounting a wild bronc in the bull pen. How once in a while he would turn that twinkling gaze on her and how she wished he'd do it more.

She also thought of all the other women her age who were already married and brought their children to the horse camp where she worked a few days each week. Over the last year a creeping emptiness had taken root inside her and had only grown worse when Delaney returned with little Meghan, and Ryan asked Bree to marry him and be a mother to his seven-­year-­old son.

Sammy Jo had always considered her horses her kids. She'd had several of them over the years. But now she suddenly found herself longing for a child she could ride
with
and not ride
on.
And a loving husband to ride beside them.

A man of her own choosing. She shuddered as the image of the guy her father brought home for dinner came to mind. She'd thought her father had been bringing home a date for himself, not for
her
.
Ugh.

After Harley Bennett left, she'd confronted her father in the living room.

“He's not the one who sells the mangy horses to the meat factory,” her father argued. “He's just paid to transport them.”

“No self-­respecting cowboy could ever do that,” she'd snapped back. “Driving the horses to their deaths makes him an accomplice in their murders.”

“Strong words for someone who helped Luke Collins steal a crate of Thanksgiving turkeys and set them loose in a field full of hunters.”

She shuddered. “That was a long time ago, and . . . that was a mistake. We thought we were saving them. We didn't know the hunters were there.”

“I'll tell you what. You hanging around with that Collins kid is a mistake. Why do you think I brought Harley home? To get your mind off those no-­good neighbors of ours.”

“You admit you tried to set me up?” she demanded. “How could you! I'm
twenty-­seven
, far too old to have my father pick out my dates, as if I
ever
needed your help in that department.”

Sammy Jo would have left with her mother and moved to Wyoming, but her mom only had a tiny apartment with no acreage, and her father still had the barn where she kept her horse.

Saying goodbye had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but she and her mom kept in touch weekly via phone and computer, and they visited each other every ­couple of months. Still, she couldn't help thinking that if her father had tried harder to get along, her mother might have chosen to stay.

“I talked to Mom earlier,” Sammy Jo informed him, throwing down the statement like a challenge for him to pick up.

Her father glared at her, then his expression softened and he cleared his throat. “How
is
your mother?”

“As well as she can be.”

“Is
she
dating anyone?”

Sammy Jo scowled. “Of course not. I wish she would, but she won't, not while she's still married to you. You've been separated for five years. Why don't you make it official and get a divorce already?”

“We vowed on our wedding day we'd never divorce.”

“But you're both miserable.”

Her father shook his head. “I'm not.”

“You are. I can see it in your face, and the way you talk, and the way you stare at her picture on the table beside your bed each night.”

“How would you know—­”

She waved his words aside. “Just like I see the way you look out the window toward the Collinses' property when you think no one is watching, with that same expression of regret. You are sorry you have an ongoing feud with them, aren't you?” Sammy Jo narrowed her gaze. “And the real reason you don't want me going over there is because you're jealous that I have a
good
relationship with the Collinses.”

“I don't want to talk about them,” her father said, his voice cold as his John Deere in winter. “Don't ever mention their name to me again in this house.”

“But they're our neighbors,” she said, trying to understand. “Why won't you tell me what happened between you and Jed and Loretta Collins? What is it you think they've done that would make you hold a grudge so long?”

“I said, I don't want you to talk about them,” her father warned.

“I didn't say their name.” She raised herself up on her tippy toes to look him straight in the eye and he looked right back.

“Subject closed.”

Sammy Jo shrugged and turned away. “Okay, I'll see you later.”

“You're leaving?” Her father's expression faltered. “At this hour? Where are you going?”

Sammy Jo glanced back over her shoulder as she headed toward the door. “Over to the
Collinses
.”

Her father had called after her, “Don't forget you have to leave early for the Great Falls rodeo tomorrow morning.”

As if she'd ever forget. She'd had this rodeo marked down on her calendar since the previous year. If there was one thing she
never
forgot it was the date of each rodeo. It was her dream, her life, her whole reason for being.

Until now.

L
UKE SMILED A
greeting at a few of the guests walking the path past the line of riverfront cabins. Everyone wanted to see how he was doing, and although he found some of the carpentry challenging, he was determined not to let it show.

Dropping a handful of nails into his shirt pocket, he hooked his hammer through his belt loop, and dropped his cane. Then leaning on his good foot, he took hold of the ladder with both hands and lifted his weak leg to stand on the bottom rung.