Page 6 of Plentywood
The belt buckle had the insignia of The University of Montana Grizzlies etched on the face. Monte was the nickname for the mascot, a grizzly bear. I’d even had a dog named Monte.
“You’re thinking about Monte, aren’t you?”
I looked up at my husband and smiled. “Yep. I was,” I admitted. “I miss him.”
Mark stood and came to stand behind me, tugging on my short hair. “I’m sorry I’m not contributing more,” he whispered, raking my hair with his fingers. “No one’s hiring. At least not around here, or so I can still work remotely.”
“You’ll figure it out, Whip,” I soothed, raising my hand to my shoulder for him to hold. I’d called him Whip since we were kids. “Wewill figure it out. I don’t want you living in Missoula part-time while you work.”
“You’re supporting us, Hunt. I don’t feel good about it.”
I pushed my chair back and tapped my lap, inviting him to sit. Mark sat down, wrapping his arms around my neck and nuzzling my unshaven face. “I love you, kiddo. I don’t mind,” I said.
Mark and I were three years apart. I was a sixth grader when we met. He was a small fella. A shy third grader that other kids picked on. Weirdly, and I have no idea how I knewthis, but I wanted him the day I saw him. Want was a strange feeling for an eleven-year-old, but there was no other way to describe my feelings for him the very day I saw him. I think when he joined me at the middle school, him in sixth and me a ninth grader, we both knew what we were to one another.
Our small town figured out what we were to each other when I took his sister to prom, and he made a big scene by showing up at the high school. “He belongs to me, Jill,” he’d declared, hands on his hips. “Hunter Copeland is mine, and he’s going home right now.”
I was this huge senior in high school. All wiry muscle. Lean and tall, and very strong. The star quarterback. Mark was a little whippersnapper. All brains. No brawn. By then I’d been calling him Whip for a couple of years. I loved him even then. Our relationship got hard when it was me, an eighteen-year-old senior about to go to college, and him, almost fifteen, a minor.
“What are you thinking about?” Mark asked, running his fingers along my chin.
“You,” I replied. “Always you, Whip.” I kissed his cheek. “Do you remember when I went away to college, freshman year?”
“Of course,” he answered. “I swore I’d never forgive you for leaving me alone in this town.”
“You made me that ring out of barbed wire,” I reminded him. “It was my birthday the summer before I left. Do you remember that?”
“Marking my territory,” he said. “I was going to kick any asses that tried to take you away from me.”
“All one-hundred and twenty pounds of you?” I asked, chuckling at the memory.
“Whatever it took to keep my man.”
“That was the best birthday present you ever gave me,” I admitted. “And so is this,” I added, holding the buckle up to his face. “You always know the perfect gifts to give me.”
Mark held my chin, turning my face toward him, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. “I don’t deserve a man like you, Hunter Copeland,” he whispered.
“Trust me, you do,” I argued. “I’ll never leave you like I did for college again.”
“Good. And I’ll never leave you either. Happy birthday, my love.”
* * *
Bella nuzzled my leg, so I reached for one of her floppy ears and rubbed just behind it on her favorite sweet spot. She was a blurry figure in my eyes. Eyes that were full of memories. Full of tears.
“Happy birthday,” I whispered.
CHAPTER FOUR: Benedict
What was it about small towns? Every single one I’d ever driven into had a sign stating the town’s population. Were they bragging? Was it to make sure people still lived there by keeping count? Plentywood had one-thousand-something. Twice the size of the town I’d just left.
I spent the last twenty miles or so thinking about the guy at the gas station. He was rude, was my first thought. He was smoking hot was my second, third, fourth, and every thought since I drove away. A country hick, yet worldly in an odd way. I couldn’t put a finger on what he had that made him interesting. Besides his looks, of course.
The road came to a four-way stop. Straight ahead, a sign read, ‘Sixteen Milesto the Canadian Border.’ Part of me wanted to step on the gas and hit the border hard, never looking back on rural America. But I could see hills in the distance, at least sixteen miles away. Canada looked exactly the same. Wooded. Empty. Not New York.
To my left was a road that disappeared into the wilderness. No houses, no barns, no life, for as far as I could see. I turned my signal to go right. Why, I wasn’t sure. There wasn’t a soul behind me and there hadn’t been since Culbertson and hot Charlie.
Making a right turn and driving about an eighth of a mile, I found myself on Main Street. With little effort, I could see the end of Main Street two blocks away. My stomach fell to my feet.Itwasas bad as I thought it’d be. The next two blocks had old buildings on each side of the street. Many had the years they were built above their entrance doors.
