Chapter Seven #2
Buttercup slammed on the brakes and Beau pitched forward, his ass parting ways with the saddle.
He hit the ground shoulder first, tucked, then rolled to a stop against the side of the barn.
He stared up into a blue Montana sky that spun to the right in a circular motion while his brain counted stars.
Still alive. All was good.
He sat up. The dizziness passed. Buttercup was nose-deep in the water trough next to the hitching post.
Adam rode up and dismounted. He flicked his reins over his horse’s neck and strode over to crouch beside Beau. “You did all right for a city slicker.” He sounded disappointed, not impressed.
Beau knew the feeling.
*
Belle
Belle suffered conflicting emotions while eating breakfast with the Lovetts.
A few hours before daybreak, Jayce and Adam had stormed through her front door, marched up the stairs, and turned Beau out of bed.
Adam had brought a striped cotton shirt and woolen trousers for him to wear, and since no one ever mistook Adam’s flint-eyed expression for patience, Beau wisely, for once, did as he was told.
“Return him in the same condition you found him,” the doctor in Belle compelled her to say.
The rest of her, however, half hoped Beau made his escape.
She hadn’t minded the late-night guitar strumming that lasted into the wee hours of the morning, even though the music Beau chose wasn’t exactly conducive to sleep.
She’d learned during residency to sleep when she could, and she actually liked the deep, rumbling growl of his voice.
She had no problem with him staying in bed until noon, either, because it made her task of keeping him confined to the house for a few days easier.
She could even ignore him using her expensive shampoo for bodywash and leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor.
But Beau liked to complain. His bed was too hard, but it sagged in the middle. He needed fresh air, but mountain air smelled funny. It was too cold at night. It was too quiet outside his window, but the crows were too loud in the morning.
And he was nosy. Obnoxiously so.
“How come you’re playing hard to get with the cowboy? He seems okay. I mean, I can’t imagine there’s much better to choose from around here. You aren’t first cousins, are you?”
She sympathized. She really did. But none of this was her fault. She’d tried being nice. She’d tried being kind.
Now she wanted him gone.
Luckily, today was the day he was supposed to move in with Adam. No one had made any more mention of it, however, and that was becoming a worry.
Which was why, right after breakfast, Belle visited Mavis on the pretext of dropping off an herbal tea she’d put together for Benny’s arthritis. Mavis was the only person who could convince him to drink it.
She lived in a two-bedroom house on the outskirts of town, only a short walk down the main street from Belle’s. Belle found her in her rocking chair on the porch, with an eReader in one hand and a hand-rolled cigar in the other, and her knitting safely stored in a bag at her feet.
“Good morning,” Mavis said. She set the eReader aside. “What’s the word on our Chinese guests?”
Belle settled in on the steps. She’d been briefed over breakfast so she could give her a report.
“According to Grady, Adam picked them up shortly after midnight, gave them their costumes, and got them settled into their camp by the creek. They’ll sleep in, then Grady will serve them an early lunch.
” Food was never left in a camp because it might attract bears.
“Tilly will give them a gold panning lesson this afternoon, then they can choose to either go fishing or hiking. Dave”—or Thundering Buffalo, to Benny and guests—“and a few of his friends will drop in on them this evening for a friendly parley around the campfire. Tomorrow, they’ll come to town to look around and do some shopping at the mercantile, then have dinner at the hotel.
Afterward, Adam will then take them to rejoin their security detail in Butte so they can visit the Mai Wah Museum and see old Chinatown before flying home. ”
“Perfect.” Mavis’s expression turned thoughtful.
“Your country singer’s been here a few days and had a chance to settle in.
Adam and Jayce are going to show him a bit of the mountains so he can see there’s no way he can leave here on his own.
All that’s left is for you to go ahead and fill him in on what Burning Scrub is all about.
Remind him of the nondisclosure agreement he signed.
After that, keep him happy. You can lead a horse to the stage, but you can’t make him sing. And he’d better sing.”
No. No, no, no. Belle had to get rid of him. The sooner the better. “When can we move him into the bunkhouse with Adam?”
Mavis frowned. “Moving him in with Adam might not be the best way to earn his cooperation. Adam doesn’t have a whole lot of patience for townies.”
No kidding. But Belle was beginning to see Adam’s side of things, too.
“I’m not comfortable having him in my house,” she said.
Mavis’s frown deepened. “He has a reputation for being respectful of women. It’s one of the reasons his fans love him. Has he done something to make you uncomfortable?”
“Well, no,” she was forced to admit. “But he demands a lot of my attention.”
The older woman drew her own conclusions from that.
She patted Belle’s arm. “You’re a beautiful woman, not a schoolgirl, so own it. It’s only natural he’d be attracted to you. And you have the most in common with him. You were a townie, too, before you came here.”
She felt confident it wasn’t attraction Beau felt toward her. Resentment, anger, and frustration were frontrunners.
“A few years in Helena, then med school in Missoula, wouldn’t qualify me as a townie to someone from New York,” she said.
“Your fourteen years in Toronto would, though.”
How in the world…
Belle got another one of those chills Mavis sometimes passed out. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Mavis began reciting facts.
“Your father was a grad student at the University of Toronto. He taught economics. Then he met your mother—a pretty Montana grifter who introduced him to some of her shady bookmaker friends. She disappeared shortly after you were born, leaving him to raise you alone. By then, he’d gotten in deeper with the bookmakers, who were connected to Asian gangsters, who were laundering money through casinos in three major Canadian cities, including Toronto.
You used to deliver hockey bags stuffed with cash to high rollers at casinos for your father.
He also ran luxury cars across the border—the Asian gangsters bought them using cash credit accounts at casinos, then sold them through dealerships they owned.
The Canadian police tipped off the FBI.” Mavis took a puff of her cigar, then studied the slender tip. “And … here you are.”
That had all happened a lifetime ago. So long ago that it felt like a dream whenever Belle thought about it, which wasn’t often these days.
She hadn’t spoken to her father since he’d gone to jail, except for one visit.
He’d refused all requests to see him after that.
She’d responded by breaking into her foster family’s liquor cabinet, drinking a whole bottle of Irish cream, and throwing up for three hours.
After that, she spent two days with her very first and last hangover.
The lesson she’d learned was that letting life get her down resolved nothing and hurt no one but herself.
She’d listened to her father’s advice on that final visit, though, and taken advantage of every opportunity presented to her that would better her life—accelerated summer school programs, internships, scholarships…
And yet, after all of that, here she was. As Mavis said. Living on a commune with tax evaders who’d kidnapped a country musician.
“Those records are sealed,” was all she could think of to say.
Mavis’s eyebrows rode up. “Adam is our procurement officer.”
True.
Belle’s brain circled around to the first part of her life story. The part she couldn’t remember—because she hadn’t known it—and her father had refused to discuss it with her. Why had her mother disappeared from their lives? What had happened to her?
When Belle was younger, she’d made up wild stories.
Her mother had entered the witness protection program because she’d turned on the Mafia.
She worked undercover for the FBI or CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and in order to protect Belle and her dad from the law, she’d had to disassociate from them.
She was already married to someone high up in the Mafia, and Belle had been a love child she’d been forced to abandon along with Belle’s father.
“Do you know my mother’s name? Where she is?”
She winced, because she sounded so eager.
Like such a child. Especially since she knew in her heart that the reality was likely a whole lot less romantic than the fantasy her childhood imagination had produced.
Her dad, no matter how well-educated he was, was a convicted criminal who’d known he was breaking the law.
Her mother had been a grifter, according to Mavis.
But that didn’t explain why she’d walked out on them.
That was what Belle needed to know.
“Her first name is Shanda,” Mavis said. She was watching Belle closely.
“I have no idea what last name she’s using these days.
Not Forsythe, for sure. She knows how to hide.
” Her cool gaze gained some warmth. “She’s not someone you’d want to find, Belle.
She’d only disappoint you. And probably steal anything that wasn’t nailed—”
A gunshot rang out in the distance. The report ricocheted off the mountains before fading away. Seconds later, another shot followed.
Mavis launched out of her rocker. “What on earth…”