Long Live Cowgirls (Silver Creek #3)

Chapter 1 – Molly

“This is such bullshit, Clara. Look at this—an article about the old Franklin tree down at the park. They’re planning to tear it down so some company can slap a damn building on top of it. Can you believe that? That’s such crap.”

I skimmed the newspaper, scanning for the name of the company behind it—the one trying to come into Silver Creek and destroy a landmark that had stood for generations.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one pissed off either.

The article mentioned a protest happening to stop the project from moving forward.

After a few scans of the article, I realized it was scheduled for this afternoon—in thirty minutes actually.

I turned to Clara, still clutching the newspaper.

“Do you think you could close up for me today?”

Clara was a retired schoolteacher who spent her free time helping me at my bakery. Her homemade apple pie had taken home the trophy every year at the Silver Creek Fall Fest since I was a little girl, so hiring her was a no-brainer for me.

She reminded me a lot of my grandma who had passed away when I was a little girl.

She had this ability to make you feel like you could trust her with your darkest secrets.

Combine that with my ability to never shut my mouth, and she basically knew everything about me, since she’d been working here a little over a year.

Her smile turned crooked. “You want to go down to the protest, don’t you?”

“I just want to take a peek at what’s going on, that’s all. See if there’s been any progress on stopping the project. I’ll be good—I promise,” I answered, crossing my fingers behind my back.

“Now Molly, I’d bet my entire retirement your fingers are crossed behind your back right now,” Clara said, shaking her head, fully aware of how much of a troublemaker I could be.

If I was anything, I was passionate—about my family, my business, and anything else I believed was worth fighting for.

As the youngest of the three McKinley kids, I learned early on how to be independent and resourceful. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t love me—they were saints—but they already had their hands full with two older boys. Both were trouble in their own ways, like most brothers are.

By the time I came along, my parents were probably too tired to try to tame me the way they’d tamed them. I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind—never had been—and I think that was something I got by watching my brothers. They’d never admit that though.

After ditching my black apron behind the register, I grabbed my purse off the hook and exited the bakery. I marched down the sidewalk, headed toward the park.

Silver Creek was small; the entire downtown consisted of approximately three blocks of businesses. After that, it was mountains and cattle ranches for miles—until you hit Great Falls.

Everyone knew everyone in Silver Creek. As an adult, that was really helpful. I was always one phone call away from solving a problem or from someone willing to help out anyone that needed a helping hand.

But as a kid, it sucked. When everyone knew your parents, it was really hard to sneak around and do normal teenage shit. Like drinking around a bonfire with your friends in some random pasture out in the middle of nowhere. Or getting secret tattoos your parents would never approve of.

Either way, I still managed to do all of that. I just had to go the extra mile not to get caught. Could’ve saved myself a lot of stress if every damn person in this town didn’t do business with my dad at some point.

But now I was an adult, and I could cause as much trouble as I wanted to—like going to protests about trees and trying to tell corporate America to go fuck themselves—and no one could do a damn thing about it.

Rounding the corner, the park was within view, and a small group of people surrounded the tree, holding up picket signs. Someone had a megaphone, shouting something I couldn’t quite make out yet.

As I got closer, I could see two girls had actually climbed the tree. Both of them were sitting side by side on one of the thick lower branches. They each wore white shirts that said Leaf It Alone. I gave ’em an A for effort for sure.

I melted into the crowd, listening to the guy with the megaphone.

Based on the conversations playing out around me, the general plan was to have someone block the tree—night and day—assuming the demolition crew wouldn’t mess with it if someone was in the way.

A solid plan, but realistically, it wouldn’t last. People would eventually get tired, and they would run out of volunteers willing to block the tree.

What they needed was a legal injunction—something from a judge to permanently prevent the tree from being torn down, now and in the future.

I opened my phone, searching how to make a tree a historical marker. According to Google, I needed someone to verify the age of the tree, fill out some paperwork, and send it in to one of Montana’s historical tree programs. That seemed easy enough. I could handle that.

“Here comes the demolition crew,” someone whispered next to me in the crowd.

I looked up from my phone as a crew of three men, all wearing hard hats and bright yellow safety vests, walked our way. The older one, who seemed to be in charge, put his hands up, signaling he didn’t want any trouble.

“Listen guys. We have orders to cut this tree down. We don’t want any problems. We just want to get the tree cut down and move on to the next job.” He sighed, clearly fed up with the entire situation.

“Well, you’re in Silver Creek, buddy, and we don’t tear things down willy-nilly around here, okay?

” an elderly lady spouted off from somewhere in the middle of the crowd.

She looked like she was missing her walker.

Okay, granny, you tell ’em, but not too fast. We didn’t need anyone going to the ER tonight for a broken hip because things got too wild and someone got hurt.

Police sirens turned our attention from granny to the parking lot adjacent to the park. A truck with the word sheriff on it pulled into the lot, inching its way closer to the crowd.

Now it’s a party.

The man behind the wheel stepped out, grabbing his hat off the dash and setting it on top of his head as he made his way toward us.

He looked super clean-cut in brown uniform pants with creases going all the way down. His matching brown shirt was tucked in behind his belt almost perfectly, and his badge, attached to his shirt, gleamed in the sun like it had never seen a smudge of dirt.

He tipped his head back, assessing the crowd in front of him, giving me a better look at his face.

Liam Carson—my brother Jace’s best friend.

Best known for being an absolute stick-in-the-mud. Someone was getting arrested today for sure.

Growing up, Liam had made it his goal in life to remind everyone around him to do the right thing. No muss, no fuss. He took everything seriously—too seriously.

I still had a running theory that he was the one who ratted me out to my parents for skipping school to go to the mall in Great Falls back in high school.

I got grounded for a month. He was the only person who saw me and Jessica leave school early that afternoon.

There was no other reason my dad would’ve been by the American Eagle store in the mall that day.

I was positive he ratted me out—I just couldn’t prove it.

As always, I decided my best course of action was to talk myself out of whatever was coming next. I gently pushed past everyone, straightening my shoulders and turning on the Molly McKinley charm.

“Why am I not surprised to see you here?” Liam asked, walking toward me, clearly over the conversation before it had even gotten started.

“Why are your panties always in a wad?” I crossed my arms.

“I’m here to tell you and all your little friends that y’all gotta go,” he said, eyeing the crowd. “This company owns this land, fair and square now, and they’re here to conduct business on it. So everyone has to go, or I’ll arrest them for trespassing on private property. Plain and simple.”

“Will you arrest me?” I smirked, stepping closer to him.

“Are you telling me you plan on disobeying my orders?”

“No, I just have a handcuff kink is all. It really gets me going if you know what I mean,” I deadpanned, holding out my wrists in front of me.

The muscles in his clean-shaven jaw twitched.

“A lady in the streets, but a freak in the sheets, some might say.” I gave him an exaggerated wink.

“Molly James McKinley,” he replied gruffly, running his hand over his face, clearly hating every moment of this. He was making this too easy.

I smiled wide, enjoying how much this moment was making him squirm. “You’re calling me by my full name now? My dad used to call me that all the time when I was in trouble, you know,” I said, popping my hip out. “Am I in trouble right now… daddy?”

Liam’s cheeks turned red, and his left eye twitched. You could practically see the steam coming out of his ears.

“Put your hands behind your back, Ms. McKinley,” he said, rotating me until my back faced him.

“You’re into roleplaying too, huh?” I teased. And with that he snatched me by the arm and marched me toward his truck.

I was in time-out—again.