LITMIR.BIZ

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a care package for me this morning. There’s more than enough to share.”

      Barbara Brand, Nick’s aunt, was the matriarch of the Brand family and self-appointed caretaker of the disavowed and disenfranchised youth. Nick’s aunt had been looking after her, in one way or another, ever since she was a little girl.

      They took turns scrubbing their hands in the cabin sink with a sliver of soap that had become cracked and chalky over the years. Then they turned a crate over in the yard for a makeshift table and salvaged a couple of creaky-legged wooden chairs out of the cabin; with the backdrop of the expansive, cloudless blue sky and mountain peaks in the distance, Nick joined her for lunch.

      “Okay—let’s see what we’ve got here.” Dallas fished into her cooler for the care package.

      “This looks to be smoked ham and Swiss on Barb’s homemade sourdough bread. And this one is...” She peeked inside the wrapping. “Roast beef and cheddar on sourdough.”

      “I’ll take whichever one you don’t want.”

      She wrinkled her brow at him with a shake of her head. She held out both sandwiches. “Pick.”

      Nick pointed to the roast beef.

      “Perfect.” She smiled at him. “I wanted the ham.”

      For the first several big bites of their sandwiches, neither of them spoke. They were too hungry to try to talk and eat.

      “Hmm.” Nick made a pleased sound after he had devoured the first half of the sandwich.

      Dallas nodded her agreement, still chewing on a bigger-than-necessary bite. Barbara was known in the county for her cooking. If you were invited to Bent Tree to eat, you didn’t turn the invitation down. She loved to cook, she was great at it and she always made enough for plenty of leftovers.

      “I appreciate you sharing your lunch with me.” Nick balled up the wrapper.

      She nodded to say “you’re welcome.” “I think your aunt planned it this way. She’s always thinkin’ about everybody else.”

      “You seem to know Aunt Barb pretty well.”

      Dallas watched Nick stand up and stretch. He didn’t have the height of the Montana Brand men, but he had nice shoulders and a fit body. Nick’s sister, Taylor, was married to Dallas’s best friend, Clint McAllister. Nick didn’t much resemble his male cousins, but she could definitely see the family resemblance with his sister and she told him as much.

      “I’ve heard that all my life.” Nick looked down at her with his lips turned up slightly into the smallest of smiles. “I got razzed pretty regularly about it by my friends. The worst days were when Taylor wore a dress.”

      “Why?”

      Nick crossed his arms in a relaxed, resting manner. “Oh, you know... I’d hear things like, ‘what happened to your pretty blue dress, Nicki?’ Stupid stuff like that.”

      “Heck.” Dallas stood up and tossed her wrapping onto the trash heap. “I get worse than that from those cowpunchers I bunk with part of the year.”

      “It does sound tamer than I remember,” Nick said with a laugh. She liked how he could laugh at himself so easily.

      Dallas stood next to the Chicago native wishing that they had met under different circumstances. She wasn’t at her best right now—she was dirty and sweaty and smelly. She wanted Nick to see her as a woman, not as a work buddy.

      “Are you ready for round two?” Dallas asked, half hoping he’d give up for the day.

      “The sooner we start, the sooner we’re going to finish.”

      They walked the short distance back to the cabin side by side.

      “You must know Taylor from Bent Tree.”

      “No.” She grabbed the pitchfork she had left leaning against the side of the cabin. “I know her ’cuz she’s married to my best friend.”

      It must have taken Nick a minute to make the right connections in his mind, because they were back inside the cabin before he asked her, “Clint’s your best friend?”

      “Yep.” Dallas stabbed a stack of papers with her pitchfork.

      Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nick lean on the handle of his shovel.

      “You bunk with men and your best friend is a man? You lead an unusual life.”

      Perhaps he didn’t mean it to sound condescending and judgmental, but that was how it sounded to her ears and that was how she took it. She didn’t much care what most people thought about her life, but for some reason, it stung when it seemed like Nick was joining her naysayers.

      She grunted as she lifted the heavy pile of newspapers and dumped them into the empty cart between them.

      “It might seem unusual to some.” Dallas turned away from him to stop him from seeing the hurt in her eyes. “But it’s normal for me.”

      * * *

      They spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the small cabin. Years of her father’s life were spent “collecting” these papers, something he could never explain to her, and she was shoveling those years into a trash pile to be burned. She didn’t feel sad too often—but this made her feel sad.

      Dallas stood by the large pile of trash they had started, and she knew that this was just the beginning of what was going to be a painful journey of simultaneously discovering and discarding the secretive last years of her father’s life.

      Nick wheeled another cart over to the pile and dumped it with an exhausted grunt.

      “I think I’ve had enough for today,” he said to her. “How about you?”

      More than enough.

      “The cabin still’s got a long way ta go.” She expected Nick to suggest that they bring in a crew to clear off the land and just be done with it. She wouldn’t blame him, but she prayed that he wouldn’t. Her father still deserved his privacy. It made her heart hurt just thinking about strangers rummaging through his belongings, judging him.

      “I’m not sure it’s ever going to get there,” he said.

      She tucked her hands in her back pockets, glad that Nick was signaling that he was ready to leave.

      “Well,” he said after she didn’t continue the conversation, “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

      “Yep.”

      He started heading to where he had left his rental car. But then she saw him hesitate.

      “Are you sure you’ll be okay out here by yourself?”

      She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was way more fit to rough it than he was. He was a Brand man, albeit a citified Brand man, and it was his nature to be a gentleman.

      “Go on back to Helena and get some rest,” she tried to reassure him with a forced half smile. “We’ve got a full day ahead of us tomorrow.”

      He hesitated for a moment longer; he gave her a quick nod to let her know that he’d gotten the message she was sending.

      Once Nick was out of earshot, Dallas lowered herself onto her haunches, her arms folded tightly in front of her body, her hands pressed into her stomach. All of this was so much harder than she had thought it would be. One minute she thought she was okay and the next minute she felt like crying. And, other times, like now, she just needed to be alone.

      “Oh, Pop.” Rare tears slipped onto her cheeks. “I miss you.”

      * * *

      Nick stood under the showerhead, letting the hot water beat down on his shoulders until the water started to run cold. He hadn’t ever worked that hard in his life. Not ever. And the only reason he had pushed himself as hard as he did was that Dallas was

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