Chapter 3
She took one last turn, driving down the unpaved road that led to Silo Springs Ranch. She rolled the windows down and let her hair blow as she stuck her left hand out the window to feel the breeze.
June in Montana was more like spring. These kinds of temperatures made one feel totally at peace, along with the green and yellow hue’s and wide open spaces.
As she pulled up to the white, double story, 1920’s style ranch house, she could see two little dresses jumping up and down on the big wrap-around porch. It was evening, and the girls were already dressed for bedtime.She remembered how much she loved the blue shutters outside every window.
She nearly jumped out of the car after putting it in park.
“Girls!” she called as she bounded up the porch steps.
Addie and Evie were on either side of her as she wrapped them both in a tight squeeze.
“It’s been so long,” she nearly whimpered with mist in her eyes.
Both girls squealed in delight and finally let go.
“Daddy, she’s here!” Adelaide called from the porch.
Chris walked out mid-call. His solid shirt and light wash blue Wranglers were covered in dust from whatever he’d been doing that day. His arms were covered in tattoos. They weren’t full sleeves, but there were enough to say he’d lived a life and documented it. He was over six feet tall, and his brown hair was still full on his head. Though, the sides above his ears and his beard were a little more salt and pepper than she remembered. His light brown eyes still had that sparkle she’d known since childhood. But she could see now, there was a deep sadness hiding behind them, and she knew his pain might never fully heal.
“I see that…” He motioned with his chin and a smile as he wrapped his niece in a warm embrace. “I’m so glad you’re here, Lythie. These girls have been running me ragged since school got out. You’d think I had two boys instead of two little princesses.”
“Grrrrrrr…” Evolette flexed her bicep and stomped her foot as she stood in the afterglow of her daddy’s declaration.
Since Claire Cole had gone to heaven two years earlier, Chris and his girls had been three peas in a pod. When Addie and Evie weren’t at school, they were cleaning out horse stalls and riding in the tractor with their dad.
Cancer was the devil, and if there was a soul on earth who should’ve been spared, it was Claire. The sorrow of her absence left a gaping hole in every heart that had known her, especially Chris. She was the love of his life.
Blythe looked at the man she revered and silently hoped that someday she’d find a man of her own who loved her the way her uncle had, and still did, love his wife.
Chris chuckled and poked his youngest daughter on her nose. “Without your mom around, and you little ladies getting older, I thought Lythie could help give you a woman’s touch this summer while we can have her.”
“Aw, man…” Evie whined.
“Don’t worry.” Blythe tossed a hand in front of her face, then stomped her foot and flexed her own bicep—the same way she’d just seen Evolette do. “I came here to catch lizards and toads, roll in the mud, and maybe even ride a buckin’ bronco!” She threw her arms in the air and twirled.
Chris gave her a side eye and lifted a brow.
“I mean, after we do all that important womanly stuff your daddy wants us to do, of course…haha.” Her cheeks turned pink, and she smiled sheepishly at her uncle.
That man knew full well he was the one who took her out to catch those amphibians as a little girl. They’d gone out in the pouring rain and got covered head to toe in mud jumping after bullfrogs. There was an audible giggle leaping from her throat as she remembered the unique mooing sound the critters always made.
He winked and waved for them to come inside. “Alright, troops. I’ve got dinner ready, hot off the grill.”
The smell that hit Blythe as she walked through the door knocked her back ten years. Chris was a master grill man, and she knew, without a doubt, the meat she was about to devour was expertly seasoned and tendered to perfection.
“It smells like my childhood in here, Uncle.” She stood still and took a deep sniff.
As the family ate and caught each other up on life, she realized just how truly happy she was to be home. Happy to be with the ones she loved most—the ones who cared about her as much as she cared about them. She never wanted to leave ever again.
“I’m still sorry I couldn’t be here for the funeral. You know how bad I wanted to come. As per their mode of operation, my parents had things going on. If I’d been on my own then, there’s no way I would’ve missed it.”
“I know, Lythie. It’s ok. Claire would’ve understood, too.”
When dinner was over, Chris stood and gathered the plates—attempting to clean up. Blythe beat him to it, though, and called Addie and Evie to start filling the large farm-style sink with warm, soapy water.
“We’ve got this. You’ve had the weight of the world on your shoulders for a long time. Go kick your feet up and turn on whatever John Wayne classic floats your boat.”
Her eyes locked with her uncle’s wide ones. He’d probably gotten so used to taking care of everything on his own that he didn’t know how to walk away and just sit down.
Chris gave a nod, and with a smile and a finger pointed at his daughters, said, “Don’t just play in the damn bubbles, ok?”
After his back was turned, a sly grin spread over Evie’s face—telling the room that she would most definitely be playing in all of the damn bubbles.
Blythe got settled in her room once the girls were in bed. It was the same one she used to sleep in every summer. The walls were tan with a ribbon of wall paper running across the middle of each one. The paper had wild horses running straight for her as she looked at it head on. The bedspread was quilted with wildflowers, and there was the same chest of drawers that had been there for as long as she could remember—toward the back of the room.
In her opinion, the best view in Montana was out that bedroom window. You could see all the way to the treeline, with silhouetted mountains behind it. She pulled the iron latches to open the pane just a crack and took a deep inhale…
The smell of night air at Silo Springs was the best kind of drug, and she wanted to take in as much as she could while she stayed there.
The alarm on her nightstand was going off, and she reached over to snooze it. Chores started early, and she was excited to go wake up the girls. Chris and the bunk boys took care of most of them, but they left the small chores for the girls. Silo Springs Ranch was a fair size. There were mainly horses, and cattle for grazing and slaughtering. There was a cow they used for milk, and that would be a fun chore, but the chicken coop and gathering the eggs had always been her favorite.
She went to her suitcase to pick an outfit and sighed with relief as she reached in and grabbed what she needed. There was not one stupid dress in the entire bag. The little country girl she'd always been grinned at herself in the mirror as she tied her hair in two braids that hung behind her ears. She slid on a pair of Levi’s and a white tank top, then placed her favorite trucker hat on her head—giving it a little wiggle for good measure. Tying her jacket around her waist and tucking her pants into the high top boots she’d brought, not bothering to tie the laces, she marched down the hall to grab her two little friends. As she opened the door to Addie and Evie’s bedroom, she saw them sleeping soundly. She didn’t have the heart to do it.
Tomorrow.
She told herself the girls had gotten up early every day for months to meet the bus on time—it was summer. What was one more day of sleeping in? She could gather the eggs on her own. She remembered how.
Blythe tiptoed down the stairs and walked out onto the wrap-around porch she loved so much. Hopping down the steps, she headed off toward the chicken coop. When she got to the wired door, she made sure to unlatch it carefully and shimmied her way in, so she didn’t let any of the hens out in the process. She clicked the latch one more time to close the door and spun her jacket around her hips, turning it into an apron of sorts, and started reaching for eggs.
“Excuse me, ladies. How many eggs do you have for me this mor?—”
“Now who might you be?” came a voice from the lowest register she’d ever heard.
The moment the first word hit her ears, she screamed—flinging the three eggs she’d already gathered in her jacket straight up into the sky. Her instincts whipped her around, tripping over the shoe lace she neglected to tie, and falling flat on her ass.
Damn shoe lace!
Like a bolt of lightning, the stranger was inside the coop, reaching down and picking her up and out of the dirt.
“Shit, I’m sorry! I should make more noise. My grandma always told me that stealth was my weapon of choice.” He chuckled, trying to make the situation a little less awkward than it was.
Blythe tipped her face up to look at him. Damn, he was tall—much taller than any man she’d been around in a while. She guessed about six feet three inches. Max was short in comparison. Five foot eleven barely came to this man’s nose. His arms were like solid rocks as she rested her weight on them. He had large, broad shoulders, and she could only imagine what type of muscle was under that black T-shirt he was wearing. His face was shaded by his ball cap, but she could see there was a handsome layer of stubble lining his jaw. She could tell he was older than she was, much older. His thirties maybe? She didn’t know a man in his early twenties with a build like this guy. There was also a maturity in his posture and his voice that didn’t belong to a younger man.
“Justin Forge, nice to meet you, uh…”
“Blythe, Blythe Harri…I mean Harper!”
Phew, that was a close one. She’d been calling herself Harrison to get used to it since her engagement to Max. She wanted nothing to do with his name now, didn’t want his name touching her or Silo Springs within a thousand miles.
“Nice to meet you, Blythe. Is your bum alright? You landed pretty hard.”
How embarrassing. Not only did she fall in front of a stranger, she fell in front of a drop dead gorgeous one. Her thoughts were scrambled.
Poker face. Poker face. Poker face.
“I’m fine, Mr. uh—Forge, did you say?” She tried to rip her eyes from him and pointed toward the mess she’d made. “But maybe next time you could stomp the ground a little or whistle while you’re walking by so I don’t waste three good eggs in the dirt.” She reached behind her to dust off her back side, her jacket apron still hanging around her waist and over her thighs.
“Of course, I’ll remember that.” He grinned with a wink. “I was just on my way to put a new set of shoes on a couple of horses in the barn. Would you…like to come with me?”
A bold offer coming from a complete stranger. Blythe stared at him, trying to see what color his eyes were under that hat. He wore it low, and she wondered why.
You've watched way too many FBI shows, girlfriend.
“I don’t know, Justin, that hat is riding suspiciously low. I can’t see your eyes. What if you’re really not the horse shoeing guy, and instead plan to take me into that barn and pull some freaky Criminal Minds stuff?”
The laugh that came from his chest as he threw his head back echoed in her ears. “Miss Harper, if I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have said a word. I would’ve kept my stealth and stolen you out of this chicken coop without bruising your poor little behind.”
“Fair enough, but I need to finish gathering the eggs.”
The girls were probably already scrounging around the kitchen for the breakfast she was supposed to be making by now. She turned, exaggerating her annoyance, and shuffled back to the nesting boxes.
Gosh, why couldn’t he have been one of the old man ranch hands, or one of the more homely looking cowboys?