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- Herausgeber: Vanessa Vale
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
The ultimate boxed set! All 5 Small Town Romance series books in one!
Includes:
Montana Fire
Montana Ice
Montana Heat
Montana Wild
Montana Mine
The Small Town Romance Series...where the men aren’t just hot, they set things on fire!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
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Small Town Romance Boxed Set
Books 1 - 5
Vanessa Vale
Montana Fire: Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Vale
Montana Ice: Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Vale
Montana Heat: Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Vale
Montana Wild: Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Vale
Montana Mine: Copyright © 2018 by Vanessa Vale
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design: Bridger Media
Cover graphic: Hot Damn Stock; Fotolia: chesterF
These books were previously published.
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Contents
Montana Fire
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Montana Ice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Montana Heat
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Montana Wild
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Montana Mine
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Note From Vanessa
Get A Free Book!
About the Author
Also by Vanessa Vale
Montana Fire
1
“I’m not sure which one I want. I didn’t realize there were so many choices!”
The woman wasn’t on the hunt for a new car or juice boxes at the grocery store. Nope. She wanted a dildo. I called her type a Waffler. Someone who contemplated all options before even attempting to make a choice. Because of Miss Waffler, I had ten different dildo options spread out across the counter. Glass, silicone, jelly and battery powered. She needed help.
That’s where I came in. My name is Jane West and I run Goldilocks, the adult store in Bozeman, Montana, my mother-in-law had opened back in the seventies. Story goes she named it after the fairytale character when a mother bear and her two cubs strolled down Willson right in front of the store the week before it opened. She called it fate. Or it could have been because her name is Goldie, so it made sense. I started working for her when my husband died, a temporary arrangement that helped her out. Three years later, things had turned long-term temporary.
The store was tasteful considering the offerings. The walls were a fresh white with shelves and displays just like you’d find at the typical department store. Then tasteful made way for tacky. Gold toned industrial carpet like you’d see in Vegas, a photo of a naked woman sprawled artfully across a bearskin rug hung over the counter. A sixties chandelier graced the meager entry. Goldie had to put her unique stamp on things somehow.
It wasn’t a big store, just one room with a storage area and bathroom in back. Whatever she didn’t have in stock—although you'd be amazed at the selection Goldie offered in such a small space—we ordered in. Montanans were patient shoppers. With few options store-wise in Bozeman, most people ordered everything but the basics from the Internet. There’s one Walmart, one Target, one Old Navy. Only one of everything. In a big city, if you drove two miles you came across a repeat store. Urban sprawl at its finest. Not here, although there were two sets of Golden Arches. One in town and one off the highway for the tourists who needed a Big Mac on the way to Yellowstone. The anchor store of the town’s only mall was a chain bookstore. No Nordstrom or Bass Pro Shop out here. You shopped local or you went home to your computer.
In the case of the woman in front of me, I wished she’d just go home.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked helping people and I was comfortable talking sex toys with anyone. But this time was definitely different. Big time.
Behind Miss Waffler stood a fireman. A really attractive, tall, well-muscled one wearing a Bozeman Fire T-shirt and navy pants. Can you say hot? A hot man in uniform? Yup, it was a cliché, but this one was dead-on accurate. God, he was literally heart stopping gorgeous. He’d made mine skip a beat. I felt all tingly and hot all over.
He’d come in while I was comparing the various dildo models before I went into the perks of having rotation for best female stimulation, and when I looked up…and up and he was there, I practically swallowed my tongue. I’d certainly lost my train of thought. I had no idea God made men like him. Magazines, maybe. Real life? My real life? Wow.
“Can you explain the features of each one again?” Miss Waffler had her fingers on the edge of the glass counter as if she were afraid to touch them. Petite, she was slim to the point of anorexic. Her rough voice said smoker, at least a pack a day. Her skin was weathered, either from cigarettes or the Montana weather, and wrinkles had taken over her face. She’d be pretty if she ate something and kicked the nicotine habit.
I gave her my best fake smile. “Sure.”
I darted a glance at the fireman over the woman’s shoulder. Sandy hair trimmed military short, blue eyes, strong features. Thirties. A great smile. He seemed perfectly content to wait his turn. If the humorous glint in his eye and the way he bit his lip—most likely to keep from smiling—was any indication, he was clearly enjoying himself. And learning something about dildos. Maybe he wanted some options for his girlfriend. He had to have some woman warming his bed. A radio squawked on his belt and he turned it down. Obviously, my lesson on sexual aids was more important than a five-alarm fire.
Miss Waffler was completely oblivious of, and unaffected by, the fireman. I now knew why she wanted a dildo.
I picked up a bright blue model. “This one is battery powered and vibrates. Ten settings. Good for clitoral stimulation.” I put it down and picked up another. I was used to talking sex toys with people. Some guys, too, but I was dying of embarrassment having said clitoral stimulation in front of him. I just imagined this hot fireman stimulating my clit. I squirmed, cleared my throat and continued. “This one is glass. No batteries, so it’s meant for penetration. The best thing about it is you can put it in the freezer or warm it and it provides a varied experience.”
The woman made some ah sounds as I gave the details. I went through all the possibilities with her one at a time. I got to the tenth and final model. “This one is obviously realistic. It’s actually molded from the erect penis of a porn star. It’s made of silicone and has suction cups on the base.”
Fireman peered over the woman’s shoulder as I suction cupped the dildo to the glass counter. Thwap. He didn’t seem too stunned by the size. Did that mean he was that big, too?
“You can…um, attach it to a piece of furniture if you want to keep your hands free.”
Both fireman and Miss Waffler nodded their heads as if they could picture what I was talking about.
“I’ll take that one,” she said as she pointed to number ten. The eight-inch Whopper Dong.
“Good choice.”
I rang up Miss Waffler’s purchase and she happily went off to take care of business.
And there he was. Mr. Fireman. And me. And dildo display made three. Fortunately, he stood in front of the counter and I wasn’t able to look down and see if his Whopper Dong fit inside his uniform pants. Oh god, I was going straight to hell. He saved people’s lives and I was thinking about his—
“Um…thanks for waiting.” I tucked my curly hair behind an ear.
“Sure. You learn something new every day.” He smiled. Not just with his mouth, but with his eyes. Very blue eyes. I saw interest there. Heat, too.
Right there, in the middle of my mother-in-law’s sex store, dildos and all, was the spring thaw in my libido. It had long since gone as cold as Montana in January. Who could have blamed it with all of my dead husband’s shenanigans? But right then, I felt my heart rate go up, and my palms sweating from nerves. The fireman didn’t seem the least bit fazed by my little sex toy talk. I, on the other hand, was having a hot flash like a menopausal woman just looking at him. I needed to be hosed down. Speaking of hoses—
“I’m Jane. What can I help you with today?” Hi, I’m Jane. I’m thirty-three. I like hiking in the mountains, cross-country skiing, I’m a Scorpio, and I want to rip that uniform off your hot body and slide down your pole. I wiped my sweaty palms on my shorts.
He laughed and held out his hand. His grip was firm, his skin warm and a little rough. “Ty. Thanks, but no toys for me.” A pager beeped. He looked at it on his belt briefly and ignored it.
“Don’t you need to answer that? A fire or something?” I asked, pointing to his waist.
“Cat up a tree,” he joked, the corner of his full lips tipping up.
I laughed, and heard my nerves in it. I took a deep breath to try and calm my racing heart. It didn’t work. All it did was make me discover how good he smelled. It wasn’t heavy cologne. Soap maybe. I didn’t really care if it was deodorant. He smelled fabulous.
“Actually, it was for Station Two. I’m here for your fire safety inspection.” He placed papers on the counter. Had he been holding them all this time? I hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, um…inspect away.”
Inspect away?
He grinned at me as I blushed, ready to slink behind the counter and die of embarrassment. Fortunately, he switched topics. For the next fifteen minutes, we went over fire inspection paperwork with the attraction I felt for him an elephant in the room the shape of a dildo.
The next morning, I was out bright and early. If you lived in Montana, you got out and enjoyed good weather while the getting was good. Even in July. Especially in July. The days were long, the sky was big and there was a lot to do before it got cold. I didn’t mean November like the real world. This was Bozeman. Summer was over the day after Labor Day. It had even been known to snow in July. With that small window for wearing shorts and flip-flops and the threat of white flakes at any time, I was out and about by seven on a Saturday. I got more done before nine in the morning than the military. Not because I really wanted to, but because I had kids.
My boys, Zach and Bobby, were raring to go. Since it was Saturday morning, that meant garage sales. To kids, garage sales were serious business. Toys to be had, books to find. Even free stuff to rake in. As a grown up, I loved buying things I didn’t know I needed. Last week, I bought a shoe rack for my closet and a toaster for the pop-up camper. For two dollars, I could have some toast while camping in the wilderness.
We were in the car, Kids Bop bounced out from the CD player. I had the hot garage sales circled in the classifieds, the Bozeman Chronicle open on the passenger seat next to me, ready to guide us to our treasures. The morning’s first stop was a volunteer fire department’s pancake breakfast. Bargain shopping could wait. With a pancake breakfast, I didn’t have to cook—at seven in the morning, who wanted to?—the kids could stuff their faces, and I could get coffee. Coffee.
I realized the boys were yakking at me, so I turned down a sugary version of Dynamite to listen.
“He’s so cool, Mom. He’s a fireman and he was a soldier and he said we could play in his yard. He’s at least seven feet tall. His snow blower is bigger than ours. His truck is silver and it has four doors,” Zach said from his booster in the back.
“He gave me a high five after I ridden my bike down the sidewalk. His name is Mr. Strickland,” Bobby added. I peeked in the rearview mirror and saw him nod his head, super serious.
The man I’d heard about ever since the boys woke me up was Mr. Strickland, the new neighbor. Mr. Strickland did this, Mr. Strickland did that. The boys’ new super hero had bought the house two doors down and just moved in. I hadn’t met him yet, but the kids obviously had. In my coffee deprived mind, I pictured a fifty-something man with half a head of graying hair, a slight paunch—he was a fireman, so it couldn’t be too big—and by Zach’s description, taller than a basketball player. Great. He’d come in real handy when another ball got stuck up in the gutter.
“The Colonel likes him a lot,” Zach said.
Well, that settled it. If the Colonel gave his approval, the man had to be all right, regardless of gargantuan size. The Colonel’s real name is William Reinhoff, but everyone who knew him, which was the entire town, called him Colonel. He’d earned the title while fighting in Vietnam and it stuck. Gruff and ornery on the outside with a campfire toasted marshmallow center, he was one of my favorite people. The Colonel’s house was wedged between Mr. Strickland’s and mine. He was next-door neighbor, pseudo father, close friend, occasional babysitter, and my mother’s long-distance boyfriend. The kids had obviously met Mr. Strickland with the Colonel while I was at work yesterday and the man had made a serious impression. No way would the Colonel let the kids call the man by his first name. He was entirely too old school for that.
I pulled into the packed dirt parking lot of the fire department, parked, and turned to the kids. They sat in their boosters with the dollar bills I’d given each of them to spend on garage sale paraphernalia clenched in their fists. At seven, Zach was string bean skinny with knobby knees and dimples. Blond hair and light eyes had him looking like me. No one was sure where Bobby got his black hair and dark eyes as they surely hadn’t come from either me or his father. Some people said he might be the Fed Ex man’s kid, but I didn’t see much humor in that. My husband had been the cheater, not me.
“Take only what you can eat, good manners, and put your dollar bill in your pocket so you don’t lose it,” I reminded them.
The kids nodded their heads with excitement. Garage sales and pancakes. Could life get any better?
The sun felt warm on my face. It had just popped up over the mountains, even though it had been light for almost two hours. “Leave your sweatshirts in the car. It’ll be warm when we come out.” I stripped off my fleece jacket and tossed it onto the front seat. It might have been summer, but it still dropped into the forties overnight.
The breakfast was in the fire department’s bay. One big space, concrete floor and walls made of gray sheet metal siding. Two fire trucks were parked out in front with volunteer firemen watching kids swarm over the equipment. My two looked longingly at the apparatus but knew they could explore only once they’d eaten. Inside, it smelled like bacon and coffee. Two of my favorite things. I collected paper plates and plastic utensils and got in the buffet line for food.
“There’s Jack from school,” Zach said as he tugged on my arm and pointed. I waved to Jack and his parents who were already digging into their pancakes at one of the long tables. Everywhere you went in Bozeman, you ran into someone you knew. It was impossible to avoid it. Even a seven-year-old like Zach felt popular. It was nice sometimes, the sense of community, but once I’d ducked around an aisle at the grocery store to avoid someone so I didn’t have to talk to them. Who hasn’t? That time it had been my dental hygienist, and I hadn’t been overly interested in being interrogated about my flossing practice.
Since I ran Goldilocks, the only adult store nearby—you had to go all the way to Billings otherwise—I had a lot of customers. Local customers. It was hard sometimes to make small talk with someone at the deli counter when you really only knew them from the time they came to the store to purchase nipple clamps for the little wife. Thus, the ducking around in stores. I held a lot of confidences, kept a lot of secrets, and over the years, the general population trusted me with them.
We approached the first breakfast offering. At the word ‘eggs’, the boys stuck out their plates. I watched them load up and move on to hash browns, which they skipped over with a polite, “No, thank you.” I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back for their good manners. They could squawk like roosters at each other but were almost always polite to strangers who offered food.
“Mom! There’s Mr. Strickland!” Zach practically yelled.
“Hi, Mr. Strickland!” Bobby chimed.
I searched for Mr. Strickland over the crowd of tables, down the length of the food, looking for the Mr. Strickland of my imagination. Where was the fifty-something man? The paunch? Zach held out his plate for pancakes.
“Hey, Champ!” the pancake man said to Zach.
My heart jumped into my throat and I broke out in an adrenaline-induced sweat.
“Holy crap,” I said.
Pancake man was not fifty. Not even forty. He most definitely didn’t have a pot belly. Only an incredibly flat one under a navy fire department T-shirt. Solid. Hot. Zach had certainly exaggerated Mr. Strickland’s height. He was tall. I had to tilt my head up a bit to look him in the eye, which I found A-OK. Being five-eight, I liked a man with altitude.
The fireman was certainly lighting my fire.
“Holy crap?” Pancake man, also known as Mr. Strickland, replied.
Flustered, I tried to smile, but I was mortified. Not because I’d said holy crap. That had just slipped out. I could have probably come up with something better, but holy crap, he was the fireman who’d come into the store for the fire inspection. The one with the Whopper Dong. The one who—
“I know you,” Ty said, smiling. Damn. His teeth were straight and perfect. I could feel my blood pressure going through the roof. No bacon for breakfast for me or I might have an embolism on the spot. “You’re Jane from Goldilocks.”
His smile widened into a full-on grin. Yeah, he remembered me and the array of dildos.
“You know Mom from work?” asked Bobby, eyeing both of us curiously. His plate was filled with food and he needed two hands to carry it. “Mom says her work is for grown-ups.”
Ty nodded his head and looked Bobby in the eye. “I had to inspect the sprinkler system and make sure there are fire extinguishers in the store. I was working, too.”
“Boys, take your plates and find a place to sit.” I angled my head toward the tables. “I’ll be right there.”
“Will you sit with us, Mr. Strickland?” Zach asked, full of hope.
“Why don’t you two call me Ty, all right?”
The boys nodded their heads.
“Give me a few minutes to finish here and I’ll join you,” Ty replied, holding up his metal tongs to prove he had serious work to do. The kids scurried off to scarf down their meals. Ty watched the boys go then turned his gaze to me. Grinned some more.
“I learned a lot from you at the store yesterday,” Ty said. He appeared to be enjoying himself immensely. Me, not so much. Mr. Tall, Light and Handsome was…was flirting with me.
Standing in the pancake line, I did a quick mental inventory. It wasn't quite eight in the morning so I wasn’t at my best. On a good day, or at least later in the morning, I liked to think of myself as better than average looking. I’m above average in height, longer than average in curly, dark blond hair, larger than average in breast size, and lighter than average in weight. The weight part I could thank my mom. Like her, I can eat whatever I wanted and not gain an ounce. My best friend Kelly hated me for that, but what could I do? She should hate my mother instead.
The downside to being skinny was that I had no calves. None. It was a straight shot down from knobby knees to feet. I could run until the cows came home and I wouldn’t develop calves. At least Kelly had calves. The rest, including the calves, was just weird genetics.
Of course, this morning I hadn’t pulled myself together as I should, or how Kelly said I should. I was what was called a low maintenance woman. I didn’t even think I had a can of hairspray in my house.
I went over the crucial things in my mind. Hair, breath, bra, zipper. At least I'd brushed my teeth, but my hair was pulled up into a ratty ponytail, probably curls sticking out every which way. I wore shorts—the zipper was up, an old Sweet Pea Festival T-shirt and flip-flops. No make-up. It couldn’t have gotten much worse unless I had decided to skip a bra. Which, being a 34D, would have been really bad.
I was a mess! Kelly would disavow any knowledge of me if she came through the door.
Then I remembered Ty was my new neighbor. No matter how much I felt like it at the moment, I couldn’t hide from him forever.
What could this guy see in me besides a complete slob who was an expert in dildos? What had I worn yesterday? It didn’t matter. He’d probably been too blinded by all the sex toys to have noticed my clothing. I felt like a total freak. And yet he was flirting.
“This is one of those embarrassing moments in life.” I pointed my finger at him. Hot or not, I felt very cranky. How dare he flirt with me when I was unprepared! “You need to tell me a secret about you so it balances out.”
A corner of his mouth tipped up into a grin. “Fair enough.” He leaned toward me over the platter of pancakes, looked to the left and right and whispered so only I could hear. “I can see the perks of the silicone dildo you talked about yesterday, even the one with the top that rotates.” He twirled his finger in the air to demonstrate, then looked me straight in the eye. “But I like a woman who goes for the real thing.”
Was that steam coming up off the platter of pancakes I was leaning over, or did I just break out in sweat?
It took Ty five minutes to separate himself from the pancakes and tongs and sit across the table from me and Zach, with Bobby on his right. He hadn’t left his grin behind.
“When we’re done here, we’re going to garage sales,” Bobby told Ty around a mouthful of egg.
“Yeah, we each have a whole dollar to spend,” Zach added. A piece of pancake fell out of his mouth and landed with a plop back in the syrup on his plate.
“No talking with your mouth full,” I murmured.
“Sounds like fun. Make sure you show me all your loot later,” Ty told them both.
The boys nodded to Ty in answer, their lips tightly sealed as they chewed.
“Aren’t you eating?” he asked me.
I took a sip of the heavenly coffee. “I will.”
He lifted an eyebrow, but made no comment.
Small talk. I needed to make small talk. The kids could do it. Forget the past. The dildos. Bad hair. It was all about the future. He was my neighbor and I had to stop feeling embarrassed someday. “I…I didn’t know you were a volunteer fireman.”
Ty shook his head. “I’m not. I work in town for Bozeman Fire. Station One on Rouse. Here, this area south of town, is volunteer. I have friends on the department and offered to help with the breakfast this morning.”
So, it was small town coincidence I bumped into him. First thing in the morning looking a total mess. It would have worked better if I’d primped a bit and taken brownies to him at his house, welcoming him to the neighborhood. The only perk of running into him this way was I didn’t have to bake.
“What about you? Is Goldilocks your shop?”
“You must be new to town.” I reached out and grabbed Bobby’s OJ cup before it tipped over, moved it out of the way.
“Yeah, Montana raised, but new to Bozeman. I’ve been in the military for years and decided to settle down close to home. Bought the house down the street from you.”
“Goldilocks belongs to Goldie, my mother-in-law. It’s her store. Everyone knows Goldie. She’s famous around here. You’ll know what I mean when you meet her. She’s a pistol. I just work there to help her out since my husband died.”
Ty had a look on his face I couldn’t read. Pity, sadness, heartburn. It could have been any of them.
“My dad died in a hamburger,” Bobby told Ty.
Now Ty just looked confused. He was frowning and eyeing me as if we were all crazy.
“All done?” I asked the boys, grinning, glad to see the man at a loss. “You can go check out the fire trucks if you want.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. They were out of their chairs faster than a hunter at the start of elk season. I slid Bobby’s plate in front of me and I dug into the pancakes and eggs left on the plate.
Ty cleared his throat. “Your husband died in a…”
“Hamburg,” I said, and then laughed. "As in Germany. Blood clot that traveled to his lung, supposedly from flying.”
This was where I usually stopped when I talked about Nate’s death. Juicy gossip wasn’t something I wanted to deal with. But as I looked at Ty, I decided to share the rest. What the hell. What could it hurt? The man thought I was a Looney Tune already. For some reason, I wanted him to know the truth. The details. “He was there on business—and pleasure. He died in bed with another woman.” I took a deep breath. “And another man.”
“Holy crap,” he murmured, his mouth hanging open just a touch. I could see his straight white teeth.
I got lots of pity parties and uncomfortable sympathy when people heard Nate had died, especially since I wasn’t that old. Only a select few knew about his extracurricular activities, that he’d cheated on me. Not only was I a widow, but my husband had cheated on me before he decided to up and die.
I was long over it—and him—when I’d gotten the call. I’d wanted to kill him myself a time or two for being a two-timer, so I found it ironic he’d died going at it. But I was still working on my self-esteem because of him, even years later.
Ty leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table. When they came away sticky with syrup, he grabbed a napkin and scrubbed at his arm. Someone messy must’ve eaten at the table before us. “Did you know about her—them, his…Jesus…you know, before?”
The fire truck horn, which was probably one of the loudest things in the entire county, blared. Everyone within a mile must have heard it. Those in the bay were lucky if they hadn’t dumped their coffee in their lap. And gone deaf. Babies cried, old people placed hands on their chests contemplating a coronary. I saw Zach wave to me from the driver’s seat of the fire truck with a guilty look on his face. I waved back. “Long story. Gotta run before they arrest him. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
2
At seven, the sun was still high in the sky, but I sank lower in my chair, sheltered by the patio umbrella. The remnants of dinner were spread out before me on the teak table. Plates, napkins and silverware were strewn about, cobs were corn free, grilled chicken a memory. The aroma of burning charcoal still lingered in the air. I slumped down, comfortable with my head resting against the high wooden back. Relaxed with a full stomach. Wiped out. The tip of my nose was hot and stung a little, probably sunburn.
It had been a long day. After the breakfast fiasco at the fire station, we’d hit six garage sales then hiked up Pete’s Hill and had a picnic lunch. PB&J with a view. I loved that trail as it was right downtown but up on a ridge that offered expansive views, especially at sunset. Bozeman was in a valley bordered on three sides by mountains. The Gallatins, Spanish Peaks and Tobacco Roots. Big Sky vistas in every direction. The kids liked it because we could see the roof of our house from our favorite bench.
While I watched from the patio, the boys played in the backyard wearing their Halloween costumes from the previous year. Zach, dressed as a Stormtrooper, was on the rope swing pretending to be either a futuristic Tarzan or a pirate. Bobby wore his Spiderman suit with Zach’s Stormtrooper mask. They had to be hot and sweaty in their polyester wardrobe.
Bobby dug in the sandbox with a garden trowel, pretending he was Indiana Jones looking for lost treasure, although how he could see through the little eye holes was beyond me. My kids weren’t obsessed with one favorite children’s character splattered across bed sheets, beach towels and lunch boxes. They liked all kinds. They didn’t discriminate.
Next to Bobby, tilted at a cockeyed angle, was the ceramic garden gnome he’d bought with his dollar at the second garage sale. It had a little blue coat, red pointy hat, and white beard. A foot tall. It smiled that creepy closed lipped smile. Zach got a gnome, too. His was different, red coat and blue hat. Same white beard. His sat on its own patio chair at the table with me. Zach had insisted it join us for the meal. If I leaned back in my chair, its beady eyes weren’t trained on me. Fortunately, there had been two gnomes at the sale because only one would have caused global nuclear meltdown. I couldn’t split a ceramic garden figurine down the middle to share like a brownie or cookie. At a dollar apiece, the kids were happy, which made me happy. Life was good.
“Arr, put your blasters down!” shouted Zach as he whizzed through the air. The swing hung from the ash tree that shaded the yard. The fence between the Colonel’s house and mine was waist high, so Zach climbed it and launched himself from there. Even though the houses weren’t shoehorned into small lots—mine was over a quarter acre—from my position on the patio I could see inside the Colonel’s family room at night. He too, could see into my house, although his view was the bank of windows into my kitchen. Maybe that was why he came for dinner so often. He could see what I cooked.
We live on Bozeman’s Southside, ten blocks off Main. Each house was different, some original mining shacks from the town’s start to sixties ranchers. Mine fell toward the latter. It was a mid-century modern one story with a flat roof and tons of character. Typical dingy basement. Redwood siding painted a dark gray-green with black trim. Deep set eaves gave the house a Frank Lloyd Wright feel. What made it special was the floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall windows. The family room, kitchen, dining room and master all had walls of glass that let the outdoors be a part of the house. Unfortunately, the huge windows let anyone see in. Neighbors, Peeping Toms. They didn’t discriminate either.
I loved my house. It had been Nate’s before we married, his parents’ house before that, and Goldie’s parents’ house before that. Nate’s grandfather bought it brand new in ’59, gave it to Goldie and Paul, her husband, as a wedding present in the late sixties. They lived there until Nate and I married and gave it to us as a wedding present. I would have been perfectly content with china or a fondue set for a present. But giving the house to the next generation had turned into a tradition. Nate, being the selfish bastard he was, hadn’t turned down a free lunch. Or a free house.
When Nate died, I’d expected to give the house back to Goldie and Paul and move out. Find something smaller for just me and the boys. They’d been practically babies then. Bobby actually had been. But Goldie had insisted the house was mine. I’d more than earned it, she’d said. She’d loved her son and still missed him, but she knew all that Nate had put me through. Besides, she’d said the house was too big for just her and Paul.
And so I stayed and the house was mine. But three generations of Wests had put their stamp on the home. I’d always been a little nervous to mess with that, but I had to admit I was getting sick of Nate’s eclectic hand-me-down furniture. He’d died years ago so maybe it was time to pass on his furniture, too. This winter, I promised myself.
But with a great house with great windows came a whopping heating bill. Those windows were single pane, original glass which weren’t the best choice for Montana winters. Or little boys with aspirations of making it in the major league.
The Colonel’s house didn’t have quite as much vintage as mine. It, too, was a ranch, but all similarities ended there. It was wide and squat, had a shallow peaked roof, white siding with brick accents and was as vanilla as they came. He did have a pristine yard with the most amazing flowerbeds to add spice the house lacked.
Ty’s house had been built at the same time as the Colonel’s, but had wood siding painted a mud brown with a bright orange front door. He’d bought the house from the estate of Mr. Kowalchek who had been ninety-seven when he’d died. The dearly departed had been the original owner and the man hadn’t done a thing since the day he moved in. The bathroom was probably avocado green. I could see Ty filling his days with updates and renovations that could last as long as his mortgage.
“What’s Mom up to today?” I asked the Colonel. He ate dinner with us often and tonight, brought a Jell-O mold for dessert. It was his specialty. I personally loved a good Jell-O mold as long as there were no weird vegetables or nuts in it that would ruin it. Today, it was in a Bundt shape tiered with four different colors. Very impressive.
“Golf,” the Colonel muttered. “Damned if I know how that woman can play in that heat. It’s like a furnace down there. Chasing a little ball around for hours on end. Always sounded stupid to me.”
One thing about the Colonel was he didn’t mince words. You knew where you stood with him. At sixty-five, he had a full head of gray hair. Helmet head. His hair was too scared of the man to fall out. He wore crisp khakis and a white button-down shirt, his standard uniform. Sometimes he wore shorts, but they were his old khakis sheared into cut-offs.
“It’s not a furnace to her. She says Savannah is ‘like a soft baby blanket’ in July.” I thought Savannah, Georgia, in July was a furnace. With the heat turned on full blast, windows closed and an electric blanket on top of you. Plus, a steam sauna. Couldn’t forget the humidity. “She thinks golf is calming.”
The Colonel harrumphed. “If that woman gets any calmer she’ll be dead.”
“Mommy, I found a prehistoric car that used to chase the dinosaurs!” Bobby shouted from his sandy seat, his mask propped up on top of his dark hair. He held up a Matchbox car he’d gotten from a birthday party favor bag earlier in the summer. I raised my eyebrows and feigned interest. Satisfied with my attention, he shoved the mask back down and went back to his dig.
“When’s she coming next?” It might have seemed strange I asked the Colonel about my own mother’s comings and goings, but she talked to the Colonel ten times more often than she talked to me. Not that she didn’t love me. But she loved the Colonel. And being two thousand miles apart made that love all the stronger.
“End of August when school starts. She wants to be here for the first week.”
Worked for me. I liked my mother. We got along well and when she came to town, it was great. She took care of the little details of raising kids. Baths, story time, lunch boxes. It was nice to be taken care of for a change. A mother hen clucking at her chicks. She didn’t do laundry, but that I could handle.
Zach ran over and grabbed his gnome. “Can I go show Ty my George? He said this morning he wanted to see our booty.”
My mouth dropped open but I shut it before I could laugh. Actually, I wasn’t sure what I should laugh at first: his costume, his gnome or his pirate jargon. “George? You named your gnome?”
Zach nodded his head. “Sure, everyone needs a name.”
I wasn’t aware everyone included a ceramic garden statue, but I wasn’t going to ruin Zach’s fun. “Sure. Don’t go out front by the road, cut through the Colonel’s backyard to get to Ty’s.”
Zach was off like a flash. Bobby, realizing where his brother was headed, hurried after him, his gnome—whatever its name was—in hand.
“So, tell me about our new neighbor.” I was desperately curious about Ty. As the first man to make my pulse rise in forever, I wanted to know more. Even if I was too chicken to act on it. I could have sexy thoughts about him though. Those didn’t harm anyone and I’d be having those sexy thoughts as I pulled out my own vibrator in bed later tonight.
“He’s from over by Pony. Parents have a ranch there. Cows. Lots of cows.” Pony was a tiny speck of a town west of Bozeman, right smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful country, but isolated. Even more so than Bozeman. Heck, with forty-some thousand people, Bozeman was like New York City by comparison. The Colonel shook his head. “I don’t mind eating ‘em, but I don’t need several thousand as pets.”
I rolled my eyes. There really was nothing to say to that.
“Went into the army right out of high school,” he continued. “Did two tours in the Middle East. Serious stuff. Came back with all his parts and now he’s a firefighter.”
The man’s entire life story in four sentences. I should have asked a girl to get the juicy details. I inhaled sharply—in the way a person would if they found a bee on their nose—when I realized I didn’t even know if Ty was married. It was impossible to remember if he had a ring on his finger. I’d been too blinded by his wide shoulders and blue eyes. I needed to get a woman’s inside scoop. First off, wedding ring. Then current girlfriend, bad relationships, what side of the bed he slept on. The important stuff. Kelly. I’d have to call her later. My best friend had the fast track on information I couldn’t get. With seven kids involved in school, swim lessons, soccer practice, orthodontist appointments and whatever else, she ran into every person in town I didn’t.
Or I could go right to the source. Which, based on the hooting and hollering getting louder and louder, was coming my way. Through the backyard tromped Fireman, Spiderman and Star Wars-man. I felt protected from flames, bugs and aliens. Two, though, were carrying garden gnomes so the image was slightly tarnished.
Ty had changed out of his volunteer fire department T-shirt and wore a pair of jeans, white T-shirt and flip flops. Oh my. He did casual really well. And those jeans, they were well worn and very well molded. I blinked, realizing I was staring at his crotch. Why did he make me so nervous? He exuded manliness, that easy way he moved, with a confidence in himself. Montana sure knew how to make a man. Testosterone seeped from his pores and I just sucked it right in. That was what I found so attractive about him. His appeal went beyond his good looks. I had been married to a good looker and he hadn’t exuded anything. Maybe ego. Not much had come out of Nate’s pores except bad-karma goo as he’d been so slimy.
Ty shook hands with the Colonel, smiled at me. Our eyes met, held. And held. His were so blue, intensely focused on mine, then lower, to my mouth. I melted inside. Other places, too. I smiled back. The boys yanked on Ty’s arms, breaking the spell between the two of us.
Ty cleared his throat. “Looks like you did well at the garage sales,” he said, enjoying the kids’ gnome enthusiasm.
“Yeah, George is great!” Zach exclaimed, placing his ceramic friend on the table next to the chicken platter.
“Glad the fire department put Zach on the ‘No-Fly List’ instead of arresting him outright,” Ty said as he sat down. Bobby, still hugging his gnome, climbed up in his lap.
In his lap, completely comfortable and at ease with the man. My heart flip-flopped and I felt like I was fifteen again. Just looking at him gave me butterflies in my stomach, made my palms sweat. I was afraid I might start to ramble and giggle. I laughed instead. I couldn’t help it. Nice to see someone poke fun at life’s little foibles.
An hour later, so I could go to work, I left the boys with the Colonel. They were camping out in his backyard for the evening, the tent going up as I left. The sun was setting, pink and purple streaked the sky. The air had finally started to cool. I zipped up my hoodie sweatshirt.
“Camping will put hair on their chests,” he said.
Zach and Bobby glanced at him and didn’t look particularly excited about that concept.
“You get to pee outside,” he added, and the boys jumped up and down for joy.
I gave the boys quick hugs and kisses before they dashed over to the nearest pine tree to pull down their pants and water it.
“Don’t worry about anything,” the Colonel told me. “I’m more comfortable in a tent than inside anyway.”
Probably true after all the years in the military.
“I’ll wake you when I get home and lug them into the house,” I said, then dashed off.
I opened a shipment of peek-a-boo lingerie. It was pink, it was stretchy and it was all see-through. It left nothing to the imagination and gave a ton of access to all the important places.
The store smelled like piña colada as a customer had dropped a canister of tropical scented dusting powder on the floor. It had taken me fifteen minutes to vacuum up what looked like flour, but its use was less culinary and more sexual, although there was some licking involved. The scent lingered. I probably smelled like it, too.
The phone rang.
“Goldilocks.” Goldie listened, and then answered, “You got it stuck where?” She listened some more. “Uh huh.” And then some more. “We don’t give advice on medical conditions, but if it’s stuck where you say and you can’t reach it, then you need to go to the ER to get it out. Come in next week when you’re feeling better and I’ll give you a replacement, on the house.” Goldie hung up.
Nothing like customer service!
“So, I heard about the incident at the fire station this morning,” Goldie commented, gum popping between her capped teeth. My mother-in-law was seventy, five feet nothing, lots of dyed blonde hair piled high on her head. She wore a black V-neck stretchy top, which showed off ample cleavage. Trim jeans and a pair of clogs. She aimed for under forty above the ankles, and went for comfort when it came to her feet.
Her husband, Paul, was her antithesis. Calm, quiet, reserved. He chose his words wisely. When he spoke, I listened, as it was always something good. I had no idea how they’d stayed married for almost forty years but, whatever it was, it was working.
Paul was an obstetrician who’d delivered more than half the babies in town. Now he delivered those babies’ babies. He’d been on call when I went into labor with Zach, but I drew the line—even at nine centimeters dilated—at my father-in-law seeing my hoo-hah, so they’d called in an alternate. It was no small stretch that as a couple, my in-laws knew more about a woman’s hoo-hah than anyone else in town. She was the expert on fun, he the consequences.
“John Poleski was at the breakfast with his wife and grandson. Fortunately, he had that pacemaker put in last year.”
John Poleski was eighty if he was a day, shaped like a tall Humpty Dumpty and bald. He’d worked for the railroad on the highline near Malta, a small town near the Canadian border, for decades. I’d never seen him in anything but overalls.
I rolled my eyes at her as I rung up a sale for strawberry-flavored body lotion and a DVD rental of Hit Me With Your Black Cock.
“Wish I’d been there.” She chuckled. “I’ve got to kiss my grandson for stirring things up.” Goldie was all for stirring things up. She was Bozeman’s Stir-Things-Up Queen. She liked to stick her nose in everyone’s business, which was easy to do around here. “John also said you met Ty Strickland. He’s a real man. I bet he’s good with his hands.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
I dreaded where this was going. I decided to take the high road because I was not talking with her about my dirty thoughts involving my new neighbor. “I’ll definitely remember him when my snow blower stops working.”
She clicked her manicured nails on the glass-topped display case full of the higher end toys. “Snow blower, my ass. He can take care of other things you need worked on, Jane.” She looked at me, her head tilted down to give me a beady-eyed gaze. “You need sex and that man can give it to you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I grumbled, walking over to the hanging racks with the lingerie. I had no doubt Ty Strickland could give it to me. I also had no doubt he’d be really good at it. Really, really good.
“It’s been three years since Nate’s been gone,” she replied, breaking me from my thoughts of having sex with Ty. “How long before that?”
This was a typical conversation I had with my mother-in-law. She’d talk sex with the pope. Although I thought the pope would be more comfortable than I was at the moment. This was her son—her dead son—she was talking about. But she was the first to admit his elevator hadn’t gone all the way up and it had skipped the morals department altogether.
“Obviously, you did it to have Bobby and that’s been, what, five years or so?” She looked up in the air at her imaginary calculator.
“Holy crap,” I whispered. I’d have sex with the first guy who came through the door if Goldie would just shut up.
“Honey, I’ve known you since you were a little baby freshman at MSU.”
MSU, or Montana State University, was practically downtown, in fact, only a few blocks from my house. “Coming from a state like Maryland, I swear you didn’t know one end of a cow from another.”
It was true. I hadn’t.
“Didn’t know one end of a man from the other, either.” She chuckled. “You met Nate right away. I bet he was your first too, hmm?” She winked at me.
No way was I answering that one. She knew the answer. Making me say it out loud was cruel and unusual punishment.
“Then you up and married him. Your first. Your only.” She casually rearranged the basket of foiled condoms we offered like mints to customers. “Your mama has always entrusted me to be there for you. I swear Savannah’s gotta be on the other side of the world and you needed all the help you could get. Still do, for that matter.”
Goldie had been a fixture in my life from the very beginning of my fateful relationship with her son. Sweet and kind, yet over the top crazy, I’d fallen in love with her almost as fast as I had Nate. Since I’d grown up in Maryland, Bozeman was as far from home geographically as possible, barring moving to Alaska. Lifestyle-wise, it would have been more familiar to me if I’d been launched into space.
At the time, I’d wanted something different, something far away. My dad had walked out and my mom divorced his sorry ass lickety-split. I’d figured I’d find myself in Montana. I was still working on that one. During my college years, my mom had moved south to Savannah to find herself, and Goldie became a substitute mom as I settled into Bozeman. My real mom, more apt to wear Lily Pulitzer than Levi’s, had forged an unusual bond with Goldie and was comfortable with her acting as mom-by-proxy.
“The way I see it, you’re due.”
I groaned and shook my head. Not because she annoyed me, which she did, but because she was right. I was due. Overdue, like a carton of milk.
The night Bobby was conceived was the last time Nate and I had had sex. The last time I’d had sex period. I’d discovered I was pregnant the same day I’d discovered Nate with another woman in Goldilocks’ storage room. Pants around ankles, Nate’s white butt thrusting Bimbo into the shelves of porn. I’d had his clothes tossed out across the front yard an hour later.
“Ty seems nice,” I replied as neutrally as possible. “I don’t even know if he’s got a girlfriend. Besides, I’ve only talked to him for about five minutes. Total. I think I need a little more foreplay than that.”
She winked at me again. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll help.”
Oh god. Goldie help? This was so not good.
Four hours later, I unzipped the tent to haul my kids back to their rooms. They weren’t up for an all-nighter yet. I whispered goodnight to the Colonel as he climbed out and went into his house.
It was really dark. No street lights shined, the Milky Way easily seen stretching across the sky. All was quiet. Even though we lived only a few blocks from MSU, and on the south side of town near Main, not much happened this late at night in the summer. Except snoring. Or sex.
The college students were off partying in their hometowns. The locals had church in the morning. I was inside the tent lifting Bobby into my arms when I heard the ruckus. It sounded like a large animal foraging through my yard. Plodding footsteps, leaves rustling. Had a dog gotten loose? Was a deer eating my tomato plants? I froze in place, Bobby’s heavy head cozy on my shoulder. Neither he—nor Zach—would have woken up for a parade coming through the Colonel’s backyard. They were no help.
Wild animals didn’t scare me. Bears hadn’t been seen in town since spring when they’d woken up from their long winter’s nap. All other creatures of the night were more afraid of me than I of them. Except snakes. I was definitely more afraid of them. But snakes didn’t have feet, or hooves, so I ruled them out. I figured all the noise I’d make to get Bobby—and myself—out of the tent, across the Colonel’s yard, through the gate and into mine would scare away any animal. By the time I got to the fence, I heard its retreat across the grass and past the lilac bush separating my yard from Mr. Blumenthal’s behind us.
The next morning, bright and early, my right eyelid was pried open by little fingers. “Mom! There are footprints in the backyard!” Bobby exclaimed. “I think Santa was here.”
My brain was slow and foggy. I blinked several times and peered at the clock on the nightstand. Eight. Not too shabby for a Sunday. I wouldn’t have minded ten, but beggars couldn’t be choosers with kids around.
“Mooom!”
“Shh! Zach’s still asleep.” Footprints, right. “It’s July. No Santa. But I think Shrek or Donkey was out there rustling around when I came home last night.”
The previous winter, we had a family of deer visit the crab apple tree in the side yard, rooting around in the snow searching for fallen fruit. The family of four had made a path through the snow in a circuit around the neighborhood. They’d known where to forage for food in the lean months. Stopping to paw at the crusty snow and frozen ground, they’d eaten up the rotten fruit. The cold winter morning we’d first seen them the boys were watching Shrek II. Thus Shrek, Donkey, Dragon and Fiona joined the family, if only extraneously. Once spring came, they’d moved to greener pastures. Literally.
Bobby shook his head, kneeling next to me. “No, Mommy, people footprints.”
That woke me up faster than a cup of coffee. “What? People footprints?”
Bobby nodded.
“Wait, what were you doing outside by yourself while I slept?”
“You didn’t bring in the gnomes from the tent last night. They were out there all alone. ‘Sides, the Kernel is out having his coffee so I wasn’t by myself.”
The gnomes. Couldn’t leave the gnomes alone outside.
“Okay.” I sighed as I hoisted myself out of bed. I wore pink and white striped cotton drawstring jammie pants and white tank top. Following Bobby out the back door, I crossed my arms over my chest in deference to the coolness of the morning and my lack of bra.
Bobby ran to the lilac bush. “See!” He pointed to the ground and walked all around the yard. I decided to follow him, careful not to step in deer poop with my bare feet. Where there were deer, there was always poop. Shrek and family were nice leaving little presents like that. But instead of deer poop, there were footprints. Bobby was right. The ground was soft from the sprinkler and slip-and-slide and it was easy to see indentations of footprints all around the yard. My arms fell to my sides as I took in the big man prints shaped like work boots. It looked like someone had been blindfolded for Pin the Tail on the Donkey and hadn’t found the donkey.
Who was in the yard last night and why?
Crazy things happened when you lived near the University. One summer night, a car had driven up on the front yard, realized there was a house in the way, did a three-point turn and kept going. I hadn’t seen—or heard—it happen as my bedroom was at the back of the house, but the tire marks gouging the front grass was proof enough. Having someone in the backyard though was way too creepy. A little too close to home.
As I looked around assessing the nocturnal activity, I saw the Colonel, coffee cup in hand, head into his house. He hadn’t seen me before he went inside. Left standing at their shared fence was Ty. He too, held a mug. It must have been the morning coffee klatch. His gaze was intense, his look serious as he stared at me. No smile. I gave a small wave and noticed Ty wasn’t looking at my face, but a foot lower. I felt heat rush to my cheeks as I remembered.
White tank top. No bra. Two mornings in a row of looking bad.
I crossed my arms over my chest for modesty’s sake, although I was already past embarrassed. Even with the Colonel’s yard between us, I could see Ty’s mouth drop open. His gaze was aimed on my chest like a heat-seeking missile on a target. I dared a glance down at myself.
Instead of covering myself, I had all but hoisted the girls up so that inches of cleavage showed. One nipple had popped out the scooped neckline and was pointed right at Ty. Holy crap! I tugged the tank back up and back into place, then dashed into the house to get dressed before anything more mortifying, if that were even possible, could happen. I’d given a talk on dildos and flashed him all within two days. Just great.
3
Ty and the Colonel couldn’t make heads or tails of the footprints and were not happy, to say the least, about someone traipsing through my backyard. We sat on my patio having second and third cups of coffee. I pretended I wasn’t absurdly embarrassed about the whole nipple incident. The Colonel was oblivious to the whole thing and Ty was a gentleman and didn’t bring it up. But his lips quirked up frequently as the three of us talked and I caught him glancing at my very covered chest. Nothing was falling out now that I wore a big, baggy sweatshirt. It didn’t stop him from looking though, nor from my nipples getting hard wondering exactly what he was thinking.
We chocked the footprints up to some college kid, drunk and lost. Happened often enough to be plausible. We debated what to do about preventing another late-night visitor. Options ranged from Zach’s idea of setting booby traps to the Colonel’s thoughts about adding motion sensors to my exterior lights. The motion sensors won.
