One
One
She burst—no, erupted— through a shimmering splash of sunshine, like a human bullet, or an angel busting in from a neighboring realm, where magic was the rule rather than the rare exception.
Half blinded by the glare—it was mid-July, the Montana sky was sugar-bowl blue, and he was sweating in his town marshal getup—Liam McKettrick squinted hard, sure he was seeing things.
Too much stress, too little sleep.
But she was real.
A bride, in full regalia, veil billowing, lacy skirts and snow-white train trailing in the dry dust of Bitter Gulch’s Main Street, heading straight for the Hard Luck Saloon.
Liam, standing on the balcony outside the make-believe brothel above the very authentic—and currently empty—establishment below, bolted for the back stairs.
Whatever was going on here, he damn well wasn’t about to miss it.
He’d just entered the saloon and established himself behind the long bar, idly wiping out a glass with a piece of cloth, when she arrived.
She pushed back the swinging doors with both palms, then swept across the sawdust floor to the bar.
After hoisting herself onto a stool, she folded back her veil, blew a strand of brown-gold hair off her forehead with a long, resigned breath and rested one hand on the polished surface between them.
“Set ’em up, bartender,” she said.
Liam was doing his damnedest not to grin.
The situation was wild.
And way more fun than he’d ever expected to have on an ordinary day in the “town” of Bitter Gulch—an oasis of fantasy, a place where men, women and children came to escape the modern world for a while and experience the Old West.
Standing at the southern edge of Painted Pony Creek, Montana, Bitter Gulch was Liam’s brainchild; he’d designed it. Hired his younger brother, Jesse, to oversee the construction phase.
Liam swallowed, unable to look away from the bride, especially now that she was up close and very personal. Just across the bar.
She smelled of dust, subtle perfume and something sugary.
“What’ll it be?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse. He didn’t use it much, his voice, as a general rule, and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning, according to the huge antique wall clock on the opposite wall.
So his social skills were still resurfacing.
She paused to ponder the question, looking solemn. She had wide hazel eyes, heavily lashed, and full of—something. Indignation, clearly, and confusion.
Pain, too, though she was doing a fairly good job of hiding that.
Liam’s heart, usually heavily defended, like an isolated cavalry fort in those thrilling days of yesteryear, besieged by furious warriors riding painted ponies, hitched and hitched hard.
“Whiskey,” the woman decided.
“What kind?” Whiskey was whiskey, and he could have poured a shot without asking another question, but he wanted to extend this encounter.
It was amazing.
She was amazing, with those expressive eyes.
Her skin was flawless, her lips full and her brown hair shining, but now slightly out of kilter under the exquisitely made veil, a lacy affair that might have been assembled from starlight and spiderwebs, in some strange and secret place beyond the tattered edges of the ordinary world.
“Any kind,” she responded.
Liam nodded, put his hand out and introduced himself. “Liam McKettrick,” he said.
They shook. Her hand felt dainty, but strong, too.
“Madison Bettencourt,” she replied, straightening her spine and lifting her chin a little. Tears rose along her lower lashes and smudged her mascara when she brushed them away with the back of one hand. “By now, I would have been Madison Sterne ,” she told him. “But I bolted.”
Liam poured two fingers of Maker’s Mark into a clean glass, listening not just with his ears, but with the whole of his being.
It was an unusual thing, the way his senses seemed to be revving up, as if he were a race car instead of a man.
He’d never felt anything quite like this before.
“Ice?” he asked. He pushed the glass toward her—slid it, more like. He wasn’t planning on making any sudden moves, lest she dissolve into sparkling particles and disappear. “Maybe some cola?”
Madison glanced back at the double doors, looking a little uneasy. “Ice,” she said resolutely. “Otherwise, I’ll take it straight.”
Again, Liam wanted to laugh, but he knew that would be a mistake.
He filled a paper cup at the ice machine, brought it to Madison without another word.
“Is this place real?” she asked after dumping the ice unceremoniously into her glass, causing some of it to splash over the rim and stand melting on the scarred wooden surface of the bar.
“What do you mean, is it real?” Liam asked, amused, and not completely able to hide it, try though he did.
“It’s like going back in time or something,” Madison responded after a long sip of whiskey.
“One minute, I was at my wedding , across the road, finding out I’d just said ‘I do’ to a total pushover of a mama’s boy, and the next—” She paused, raised and lowered her shoulders in a semishrug and gazed sadly down into her drink.
A moment later, the lovely shoulders slumped slightly, and the sight gave Liam a twinge, deep in his chest. If he’d known her for more than five minutes, he would have put his arms around her right then and there, held her close. Reassured her somehow.
Yet another bad idea.
A few seconds of silence stumbled by. Then she looked up, met his eyes and finished with, “The next minute, I was here, in the Old West. In a real saloon.” Another sigh.
“You know what I wish, Liam McKettrick the bartender? I wish I really could go back in time. Be somebody else. Live a different life—an entirely different life.”
Madison took another swig of her whiskey. At this rate, she was going to be disastrously drunk, and soon.
Liam moved the bottle out of sight and leaned against the bar, bracing himself with his forearms.
She looked him over, taking in his collarless white cotton shirt, the black waistcoat he always wore when he spent time in Bitter Gulch. Along with his tall, scuffed boots, suspenders and itchy woolen trousers—not to mention the shiny silver star pinned to his coat—the outfit added to the ambience.
And Bitter Gulch was all about ambience.
That was the point of the exercise.
Tourists came from all over the world to don costumes, live the Old West experience. Movies were filmed there, on occasion, along with TV series for all the major players in the streaming game.
Liam knew most of the visitors wouldn’t have lasted a day in the real Old West, but then, that didn’t matter.
They were paying to pretend, not to teleport themselves back to a previous century, when most of the amenities they were used to had yet to exist. Hot and cold running water had been a rarity in communities like Painted Pony Creek, electricity a fledgling science, and Wi-Fi—well, nonexistent, of course.
He pictured his kids, Keely, nine, and Cavan, seven, riding in wagons or on horseback everywhere they went, stripped of their cell phones, their tablets, the huge flat-screen TV in their grandparents’ family room, and smiled.
God, he missed them.
“You wouldn’t like it,” he responded, after some time. He’d gotten lost in those lovely eyes of hers, along with his own thoughts.
“I wouldn’t like what?” she asked, still putting on a brave front.
“Life in the past,” he replied. “There are reasons why we’re advised to live in the present, you know.”
She let the remark pass.
“Are you really a lawman?” Madison inquired, having drained her glass while Liam was pondering the situation and, as always, wishing Keely and Cavan were with him instead of far away, staying with their grandparents in Seattle.
Liam allowed himself a minimal grin, really just an uptick at one corner of his mouth, hardly noticeable to the casual observer. “No,” he replied. “I’m an architect.”
Madison frowned, musing again. She was getting tipsy, and Liam wondered how much champagne she’d had before deciding to ditch the mama’s boy.
What a numbskull that guy must be.
“You don’t look like an architect,” she responded solemnly.
“What does an architect look like?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Madison answered, still as serious as the proverbial heart attack.
“But I’d have pegged you for an actor, with your dark hair and those indigo-blue eyes and—well.
” She paused, gestured with both hands, indicating their surroundings.
“When I picture an architect, I guess I see someone more—ordinary. Like an accountant.”
“An accountant,” Liam echoed, hiding another grin.
“Whatever,” Madison said, and now she sounded cheerier, although the word got tangled up in her tongue before she turned it loose.
Resolutely, she slapped the bar again. “More whiskey.”
“Look,” Liam reasoned. “Maybe it isn’t the best idea—”
“Are you cutting me off?” she interrupted, though calmly. Her beautifully shaped eyebrows drew together for a moment.
“No,” Liam replied. “I’m just suggesting that, after what happened today, you might want to pace yourself a bit. That’s all.”
“Do you want to know, Liam McKettrick, architect and barkeep, just what did happen? I mean, bartenders are supposed to be good listeners, right?”
“I’d say I’m a pretty fair listener,” Liam allowed. Then, knowing he’d already lost the argument, unspoken though it was, he picked up the bottle he’d set aside moments before, twisted off the cap and poured her a double.
“I could use one of those right about now,” Madison replied, after another healthy swig of liquor. “A good listener, I mean.”
“Okay, shoot,” Liam said. He’d done a lot of listening in his life, largely because he was a man, as the saying goes, of few words. So many people were uncomfortable with silence, felt a need to speak into it. “What happened?”
Madison mirrored his earlier posture, leaning on her forearms, all but hidden by puffy sleeves, and said in a confidential tone, “You won’t believe it.”