Page 36 of The Way to a Cowboy's Heart

“Oh, God. Should I be scared?”

“Not at all.” Jake laughed. “He’s said only good things about you. And when he told me he wanted to take you for a ride, I had to agree. You know, Liam is a hard man to say no to.”

She smiled at Liam. “Quite.”

The dog wagged his way over to her and gave her a good sniff at the knee.

“This is Monday. He’s along for the ride today.”

She bent down and rubbed behind the dog’s ears. “Hello, Monday. You’re a beauty.”

“He’s here for the compliments,” Jake joked. “His favorite thing is riding along. Besides, I have some business up the mountain with my uncle, and he loves it up there. So, Liam’s timing was perfect. I was hoping my wife, Olivia, would be here by now, so she could meet you, but she’s dealing with the kids this early, and I guess she couldn’t wrangle them. You two ready to go?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Liam told him, clapping him on the shoulder.

“All right then,” Jake said and climbed into the pilot’s seat. “Let’s go!”

A few minutes later, they were flying over the valley Liam called Paradise Valley where the land stretched out before them toward the rising sun like a golden wave. Liam had put Monday in the back with him and her up front in the copilot’s seat with the best view of the landscape. It was, in a word, exhilarating.

Through their headsets, Jake pointed out the land features as they flew past—the Yellowstone River that snaked across the prairie, here shallow and full of little ruffled rapids and icy edges and there, pocketed by deep, dark pools. Behind them was Copper Mountain and in the distance, the towering Absarokas, with their craggy mountainsides covered with pine and what she imagined were aspen, though they were naked from winter and only hinting at budding green. The stands of trees were slashed by massive granite cliffs that started and stopped with dangerous suddenness, and she thought of that photo of the mountain goats clinging to a mountainside that Liam had sent her that day of her last interview. The one she’d had trouble imagining seeing as real. But there they were. Jake pointed them out a few minutes later, scurrying along the steep side of the mountain, spooked by the sound of their chopper. There were a half dozen of them, and a little baby goat, as well. Emily almost squealed with delight at seeing them.

Everywhere she looked was the topography of that old Brad Pitt movie,A River Runs Through It, but seeing Montana firsthand was a revelation. They flew across landscape without roads, where one could only get to by hiking nearly impossible territory. But she was grateful to be able to see it from the air. She could almost smell the sharp tang of pines as they flew past them.

She pointed at the sight of a moose standing near the river that cut through a canyon. “Look!!” she told Liam through her headset, who just smiled back at her and nodded. “It’s enormous! I thought they only lived in your Alaska.”

Jake laughed.

Liam did, too. “We’re lucky to see them,” Liam told her. “But they keep pretty much out of sight in the forests and willow fens nearby that flood in the spring.”

“Incredible.” She nodded, peering down through the bubble of glass at her feet, hoping to see more.

“Ready for a little thrill?” Jake asked her.

She gripped her seat. “Um… Am I?”

His answer was to dive the helicopter sideways and swoop into a thick-sided canyon, following the path of the river that flowed from somewhere above them on the mountain. Emily held her breath, her eyes wide as he skimmed the surface river closely and then suddenly climbed as the canyon opened up to a higher meadow where touches of winter still clung.

In the distance, she saw a home perched in the middle of nowhere, all glass and wood and quite beautiful, tucked into a mountainside looking as if it had just sprung out of the rock itself.

“What in the world?” She forgot she was speaking into the mic.

“That’s my uncle’s place,” Jake told her. “He’s a bit of a hermit. But a very… wealthy hermit. He’s a technology wiz, inventor, and one of my favorite people. Anyway, I promised him I’d deliver him some supplies from town this morning. See? There he is.”

Indeed, there was a middle-aged gentleman standing near a landing pad waving at them. Two dogs were by his side, wagging their tails. With graying hair and wearing an old cardigan and shlumpy-looking khakis, Jake’s uncle might fit in perfectly with half of the pub-goers in the Cotswold villages back home. As unpretentious as they came. A bit of a grandpa vibe.

“He lives all the way up here on his own?” she asked.

“He’s got his birds and his dogs. That’s enough for him. He’s not unfriendly. He just prefers his own privacy. Every now and then, we talk him into town for a celebration of something or other. Otherwise, we come to him. He’s also part owner of my aviation company.”

“Birds?” she asked.

“Falcons,” Liam told her. “We’ll see them later if he has time.”

Falcons?This was turning out to be a fascinating outing. Once they landed, Liam’s uncle came and helped her out of the helicopter. Monday bounded out to greet his furry cousins.

“You must be the Emily I’ve heard so much about,” Jake’s uncle said, extending a hand. “I’m Deke. Deke Lassen.”

How in the world had he heard about her all the way up here? Liam winked at her.

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