The something she fetched was root beer in old-fashioned brown bottles, brewed just over the mountains in the Flathead Valley. David had chosen a spot to sit where they could use the bottom log as a backrest. Several more were propped across it at an angle, providing shelter from the breeze.
Mary handed over his root beer and sat down beside him, leaving a safe distance between them, he noticed. She twisted the top of her bottle and then scowled. “Crap. I forgot. These aren’t twist tops.”
“Here.” David set his root beer aside and took the bottle from her hand. Lifting his shirt, he unhooked his belt buckle, clamped the prong over the edge of the cap and popped it off. He held the bottle out to Mary. “Old cowboy trick.”
Her gaze was stuck on the front button of his jeans and the swatch of exposed stomach. Her eyes came up, saw that he was watching, and color stained her cheeks. She snatched the bottle from his hand. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” To the root beer and anything else that strikes your fancy.
She buried her nose in the bag of sandwiches, rooting around in there twice as long as she needed to, considering both sandwiches were the same. He squelched a grin, taking his time to pop the top of his bottle of root beer and buckle up his belt. So…he wasn’t the only one taking notice of things he shouldn’t. And damned if he wasn’t dumb enough to feel a little cocky about it.
Mary handed him his sandwich without meeting his eyes. He took the first bite and momentarily forgot everything else, his appetite roaring to life at the yeasty perfection of the bread, the tang of ranch dressing and salty crunch of bacon. He barely paused to breathe while he wolfed down the rest.
Mary fished a pair of white Styrofoam containers from the bag. “This is the best huckleberry pie you’ve ever tasted.”
“Guaranteed, since I’ve never had it before.”
She widened her eyes at him. “What, were you raised by wolves?”
“Worse. Flatland farmers.”
She laughed, and it made him tingle in places that had no business getting tingly with this woman. The same way he shouldn’t watch how the breeze ruffled her spiky hair, or how the reflection of the water made her eyes look almost green.
He pulled his gaze away and settled back, tipping his head to inspect the nearest sheer rock face. Were any of the white spots up there mountain goats? He stared, waiting to see if they moved, until all of the spots began to dance in front of his eyes.
“Did you know the guy who took Muddy?”
She stiffened. “Not personally. Why?”
“I was curious, that’s all. I wasn’t accusing you of anything.” This time.
She eyed him for a long moment, then relaxed, popping open the top of her pie container. “Most people who follow rodeos in Montana had heard of Jinks. He roped tough, won a lot when he was sober. Sometimes even when he wasn’t.”
“Rusty said no one would be surprised that he’d picked up a good horse somewhere. Legally, I mean.”
“Depends on your definition of legal.” Mary forked up some pie, lifted it toward her mouth, and then set it down again. “You were right. I suspected something was fishy about Muddy. But I never dreamed he was stolen. You gotta understand… Jinks dealt a lot more than horses. I assumed some cowboy had snorted more than he could afford, and Jinks took the horse as payment.”
David stared at her, dumbfounded. She talked about drug deals as if they were an everyday occurrence. Maybe in her world they were, along with street people and sisters who did prison time. Cripes. David felt like a country hick on his first trip to town.
Mary caught him staring and flushed. “I suppose it sounds ridiculous, knowing the truth. I have a bad habit of seeing things the way I want them to be.”
Things, or people? He saw the memories that passed behind her eyes, like the cloud shadows that skimmed across the lake.
“Have you ever been married?” he asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.” He forked in a bite of pie and took a moment to savor the explosion of sweetness on his tongue, tarter than blueberry, more intense than blackberry. It would be killer with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Might even cover the bitter taste of the words when he added, “I assume Hilary told you why.”
Mary hesitated and then nodded.
“So that’s my excuse,” he said. “What’s yours?”
He expected her to shrug off the overly personal question, but maybe she figured fair was fair since she knew his story. “There aren’t many men who want to raise someone else’s problem child.”
She added air quotes, echoing words she’d heard too often, or from the wrong person, judging by the hint of venom. Sore subject. Not sure how to back away, David kept quiet.
“That wasn’t fair, blaming Kylan.” She stabbed at her pie, pulverizing a section of the crust. “It’s not like I was any good at relationships before he came along. When it comes to men, my judgment is questionable at best.”
David took another big bite of his pie, a legitimate excuse to avoid answering, since he once again had nothing to add. He attempted to change the subject. “What happens when Kylan graduates next spring?”
“He’ll still be mine.” Her voice went fierce, her eyes hot. “No matter how old he gets, he will always be mine. I’m not booting him out the door the minute he graduates, and anybody who wants a piece of me will just have to deal with it.”
David blinked, taken aback by her intensity. “I, uh, meant…is he going to college?”
“Oh.” The color burned hotter in her cheeks, and her gaze dropped to the pie plate in her hand. “Yeah. We’re looking at classes at the community college.”
“In Browning?”
“He’s not ready to go off on his own.” She licked the tines of her plastic fork, the dart of her tongue momentarily distracting David from the subject at hand. “Kylan is very…naive. Easily led. He wants so bad to belong, he doesn’t see when people are using him. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if he gets in trouble it’s because he let someone talk him into doing something he knows shouldn’t.”
“He’ll have to learn to take care of himself someday.”
Her mouth flattened into an obstinate line. “He’s got plenty of time.”
He was tempted to ask how long she planned to keep the kid under her thumb. The rest of his life? Or just until she found the right girl to take over babysitting duties? Starr, or someone like her, who craved a place to belong, someone who needed her, didn’t mind being as much mother as lover as long as she had a man who treated her decent. Nice plan, but David figured Kylan would eventually have other ideas, if he didn’t already.
When that happened, where did it leave Mary?
“You can have the rest.” Mary shoved her pie box toward David and jumped up, that firm little butt directly in his line of sight as she brushed the sand off her jeans with brisk slaps. David clenched his fists, fighting the urge to help her out. “I should quit boring you with all our troubles.” She turned, avoiding his gaze as she reached for the empty sandwich bag. “I also have a bad habit of…uh…” Her eyes went wide. “Bear.”
David squinted at her, confused. Bear what? The responsibility for Kylan? Or did she mean bare, like her soul?
“Bear!” she whispered, making a jerky motion toward the trees with her chin.
David froze. Oh. Shit. “How close?” he whispered.
“Too damn,” she whispered back, her lips barely moving.
Ever so slowly, he turned his head to look over his shoulder. Less than twenty yards away, a bear stood at the edge of the trees. A big bastard, with broad, muscular shoulders and a head the size of a tree stump, sunlight gleaming off his blond coat.
“That’s not a black bear,” David whispered.
“Grizzly.” Mary breathed the word like a prayer. “What do we do?”
“You’re asking me?” David kept his eyes locked on the bear. “I’m the prairie boy. What do they teach you mountain people?”
“Mostly to hope I’m faster than you.”
David choked off a nervous laugh. The bear’s nose came up, twitching as he tested the air.
“He smells the food,” Mary whispered. “We have to get rid of it.”
David rotated his head inch by inch, eased a hand out to grab the paper bag and slide both pie boxes inside. The bear sniffed again, its beady eyes watching every move. David rolled the top of the bag to secure it, then in one swift move, pivoted onto his knees and heaved the whole thing as far as he could, toward but not directly at the bear. It flinched but didn’t give ground as the bag skidded over the rocky beach. The bear looked at the bag, then at David, head swinging side to side as it debated which it would rather snack on.
David grabbed Mary’s wrist and yanked her down beside him.
“Hush!” he said when she yelped in protest. He scooped one arm under her knees, slapped a hand on top of her head, folded her in half and shoved her into a space beneath the crossed logs. “Get under there.”
She pushed back, trying to resist. “No. We’ll be cornered—”
“We can’t outrun him.” He gave her another shove, wedging her all the way under the logs, and then dropped down behind her, still watching the bear, who stared back at him with what David hoped was a curious gleam in its eye as opposed to hunger.
“What about you?” Mary protested. “We won’t both fit—”
“I’m not snack-sized. And I’ve heard something about playing dead. Covering your head and curling up to protect your vitals.”
“I guess it is our best bet.” She sounded dubious, but she wiggled farther into the crevice under the logs.
David eased his body flat, hating when he lost sight of the bear, praying it would lose interest when it couldn’t see him anymore. If it came around to their side of the log pile, they were screwed. David slid his arms around Mary and scooted his body as far under the logs as he could, curling his knees up and his head down until they were spooned so tightly together he could feel every shallow breath she took. Under other circumstances, it would be a real turn-on, but right now all of his parts, manly and otherwise, were more concerned about staying attached.
She squirmed, twisting her head and using one hand to carefully scoop away the coarse gravel. “There’s a gap under this log. I can see him.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Nothing. Yet.”
They waited, every second an eternity, every sound magnified. The shush and splash of the waves. Distant voices calling out, too far away to hope for help even if any of the tourists had witnessed their dilemma. The bear snuffled and grunted, grinding rocks under his weight as he moved.
David’s lungs ached with the effort to corral his panic into slow, silent breaths. His heart pounded so hard he was sure Mary could feel it. He fought the rising swell of adrenaline that urged him to jump up and run, tried to block the image of claws raking his exposed back, those huge teeth clamping down on his leg, his shoulder, his neck…
“He’s moving,” she whispered. “Oh God, he’s coming this way.”
Go for the pie, dammit. Weren’t bears supposed to be crazy about huckleberries?
Mary whispered a jumbled mix of profanities and prayers as claws clicked against the rocks. “Wait. He stopped… He’s turning…” David felt her body tremble. “He found the pie.”
Paper crumpled and tore. Styrofoam crunched as the bear helped himself to their dessert. There was slurping and the smacking of very large jaws, then David jerked, smacking his head on the log as the sound of a car horn blasted into the evening air, long and loud. The bear snorted. Rocks scattered under his retreating steps when the horn sounded again.
“He’s gone.” A shudder of relief racked Mary’s shoulders, her body going limp as the horn blared once more. “Some guy in the parking lot must’ve seen we were in trouble. And there’s a park ranger headed this way.”
David let go of Mary and rolled out from under the logs, flopping onto his back to gulp in air. “Holy shit. That was…” He slapped his free hand onto his thundering chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
Mary’s laugh climbed the scale into the hysterical range as she squirmed free of the logs and rolled over, David’s arm still pinned under her. “Lucky for you, I know CPR.”
He turned his head, intending to make some kind of joke, and found her nose only inches from his. They both froze, awareness sizzling through the tiny space between them.
“Oh hell,” she said. And then she kissed him.
Shock paralyzed him for a beat. Then he curled up his arm, dragging her against him while their mouths tangled, hungry and hot, adrenaline and desire crashing together and exploding into white-hot flame. He angled his head, intending to go deeper with the kiss, until he heard a shout.
Mary jerked away, pushing herself upright as footsteps rattled down the beach, coming fast.
“Are you okay?” a woman called out.
“Yeah.” Mary skimmed an unsteady hand over her hair and scrambled to her feet. “We’re fine, thanks to that guy and his car horn.”
David sat up, propping his elbows on bent knees and taking long, deep breaths, not sure whether the fear or the kiss had made him dizzier.
The ranger was a tall, bony woman, her brown hair pulled back into a neat braid and her finger on the trigger of a canister of bear spray. “Quick thinking with the car horn,” she said, nodding her approval. “And smart of you to get down and lie still.”
“Not bad for a prairie boy,” Mary said, flashing David a smile that melted what was left of his brain cells. She jerked her gaze away, brushing at the dirt on her clothes. “We should get out of here, in case the bear decides to come back for seconds.”
They gathered their wits and the remains of their dinner and quick-stepped with the ranger back to the parking lot. A cluster of onlookers had gathered, eager to hear the story and offer backslaps to their rescuer. With every word, every moment they spent working through the crowd, David could feel Mary retreating, putting distance between them.
Finally, they escaped to the pickup, closed the doors, and sat in shell-shocked silence for a few beats.
“Don’t say anything,” Mary warned, her eyes fixed on the mountain in front of them. “Just…don’t.”
“Okay.” Like he had any idea what to say anyway.
Her hands clenched the steering wheel. “I overreacted, all right? It’s not every day a man puts himself between me and a grizzly bear. I was…grateful.” She nodded once, then again, as if satisfied with that explanation. “I got carried away. I do that sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything. We’ll drive back to town, I’ll drop you off, and we’ll pretend this never happened, okay?”
No. Not okay. But a whole lot smarter than any of the ideas running wild in his head. “Mary—”
“Don’t.” She gave a quick, hard shake of her head. “It was a huge mistake. If Kylan knew…”
Her words brought David back to earth with a bone-rattling thud. Of course. It was all about Kylan with her. Always would be. Something David would do damn well to remember, not that he intended to stick around long enough to risk forgetting.
Fatigue rolled over him in a dense gray wave, blurring his mind. He slumped down in the seat, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. “Just take me home.”
She did, and left him standing beside his cold, dark trailer to watch her taillights disappear into the dusk. Just as well, he told himself.
And he damn near believed it.