LITMIR.BIZ

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      Flipping up her rearview mirror, she pulled her western hat down and stayed low in her seat, telling herself the truck wasn’t following her. Anyone going into town would come this way. It was a coincidence that the truck had pulled out behind her at that moment. Right.

      She tried not to look back as she turned left onto Main Street. Downtown Three Forks was only about four blocks long. She went two of those blocks and parked diagonally between two cars in front of the Headwaters Café, the most well-lit part of town and the busiest this time of night.

      Immediately she realized that if she got out, she’d be caught in the pickup’s headlights like a deer on the highway. She shut off her engine and slid down in the seat, knowing no matter what she did, if the pickup was following her, the driver knew where to find her.

      Facing the inescapable, she watched the pickup park back up the street a few spaces away. She could see the driver silhouetted behind the wheel, a man wearing a cowboy hat, his face shaded and dark. But she could tell he was looking her way. Her heart lurched, her pulse taking off at a sprint as he opened his pickup door and stepped out.

      It had been two years since she’d last seen the tall, broad-shouldered cowboy, but there was no mistaking him or the impact he had on her.

      He pushed back his Stetson and glanced in her direction as he walked toward her truck. Her breath caught in her throat. What was Clay Jackson doing in Montana?

      Chapter Two

      Josie held her breath as Clay started in her direction, her heart pounding. He stepped up onto the sidewalk, the heels of his expensive boots tapping lightly as he walked. He wore a gray Stetson, a western-cut leather coat and jeans. He looked like he belonged here. Or maybe Clay just had a way of looking like he belonged anywhere.

      As he neared her truck, she slid farther down in the seat, afraid it would do no good. Of course he’d seen her. He’d been following her! He’d watched her park. He’d know that she hadn’t had time to get out of the truck.

      She grimaced, realizing she was caught. She waited for him to turn at her front left fender and walk back to her door, maybe tap on the window, or knowing Clay, just stand waiting until she acknowledged his presence.

      To her amazement, he didn’t slow in front of her truck, didn’t come alongside. Instead, he walked to the café entrance, his gaze not on her or the ranch truck at all, but down the street, toward the Town Club bar, where the rusted, dented cream-colored Lincoln Continental that she’d almost hit a few minutes earlier was now parked.

      In fact, it was as if he hadn’t seen her at all slumped down in the seat, peeking out from under the brim of her hat.

      It suddenly hit her. Clay Jackson hadn’t been following her! Wasn’t looking for her!

      She felt a bubble of relieved laughter float up. As far as she could tell he didn’t even know she was here in Three Forks.

      But if he wasn’t looking for her, then what was he doing here?

      She watched with interest as he entered the Headwaters Café, took a seat at a front table. He looked out the large picture window in the direction of the Lincoln as a waitress slid a cup of coffee in front of him. The Lincoln hadn’t moved, but the driver, Josie noticed, was no longer inside.

      She studied Clay, thinking how little he’d changed, as if life had stood still back in Texas, back on his Valle Verde Ranch. While time had flown for her and everything had changed—especially her. And yet just the sight of him still evoked a mix of emotions, regret at the top of the list and an even stronger emotion that she’d spent two years trying to forget.

      She rolled down her window and let the cool air rush in, feeling the flush of memory play in her mind like a country-western song, making her ache with a longing of something unfulfilled. An odd feeling, considering the way things had ended.

      She forced another memory to the surface, one that firmly put her feet back on the ground and cleared her head of all romantic notions about him. The day Clay Jackson had forbidden her to go near his prized horses other than to clean out their stalls.

      But as she watched him now, she knew her problems with Clay ran a lot deeper than his horses. Or her unresolved feelings for him.

      She studied him, wondering what he could be doing here. She doubted horses had brought him all the way to Montana.

      As she watched him idly sip his coffee, she realized she wasn’t going to find out. He wasn’t looking for her. Wasn’t that enough? She started the truck and backed out, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. It hadn’t been that long ago she’d wanted more than anything for Clay to notice her. To see her not as Shawn O’Malley’s wild daughter but as the woman she’d become.

      Funny how times had changed.

      Keeping her face turned away, she drove away from the café—and Clay—down to the end of the street and doubled back, taking side streets until she was clear of town.

      She told herself that the man Mildred had seen at the grocery store had to have been Clay. But he wouldn’t have recognized Ivy as being Josie’s. Or guessed who the father was. He had more pressing concerns than a fourteen-month-old toddler with pale blond hair and dark eyes. Or that baby’s mother. But just in case, Josie would stay close to the ranch and keep Ivy close as well.

      She peeked in on Ivy when she reached the cabin, only to find her sleeping, looking like an angel. She bent down and kissed her warm, plump cheek and breathed in her smell, smiling at the sight of her precious daughter. She felt blessed.

      For a few moments, Josie let herself think about Ivy’s father, then quickly banished the thought. Some things were best left buried, she thought as she closed the door softly and asked Mildred if she would like to stay over.

      Mildred looked tired and worried, but she didn’t ask what Josie had found out in town. She readily accepted the invitation to spend the night on the couch. Josie wondered if Mildred stayed because she was concerned about her and Ivy. That would be like Mildred, Josie thought as she went to get the older woman a pillow and some bedding from the closet.

      Too restless and wide awake to sleep, Josie went out on the porch and sat down on the step to stare up at the stars.

      A pine-scented breeze skittered coolly across her bare arms, making goose bumps rise on her skin. She hugged herself. She’d done the right thing two years ago. The only thing she could do. No reason to start doubting herself now.

      But she felt uneasy and knew it was more than just knowing Clay Jackson was in town or seeing some man in the trees the night before. It was the unshakable feeling that her past had come looking for her before she’d finished what she had to do. Before she could go home to Texas and face it as she’d planned.

      She leaned back against the step and began counting the stars overhead, anything to distract her from thinking about Clay. Or worse, worrying about why he was in town.

      Just an unhappy coincidence.

      Right.

      She caught the flicker of a light below her on the hillside not far from the stables and the creek.

      Must be the owner of the ranch, Ruth Slocum, since she was the only other person here besides Mildred, and Mildred was snoring on the couch.

      Josie sat up straighter. The faint light moved like a firefly through the dark. She watched it quickly disappear into the stables. Something must be wrong for Ruth to be in the stables this late at night. Odder yet, why had she come from the creek instead of her ranch house, which was in the opposite direction? Had one of the horses gotten out?

      Worried, Josie got a flashlight from her truck and started down the hill.

      The moon crested the mountains in a sky shot with stars. The breeze whispered through the tall, dew-damp grass, sending up the sweet scent of spring. Grass pulled at her boots, the night sky at her soul, making her feel small and insignificant.

      She pushed open the stable

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