Page 27 of Moonlight Over Montana

“I’ll do anything, even muck stalls.”

He chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Susie pecked Maggie’s cheek and said good night before disappearing inside their cabin.

“Jed, if you’re busy, don’t feel you need to take time out of your day to give her a lesson.”

He gestured for her to sit down, and he leaned back in the same chair he had been in earlier. “Mags, just to be clear, I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. And showing Susie the ropes for riding and caring for a horse might help to ease the tension between the two of you while you’re living out here.”

His deep, rich voice was a balm to her ragged soul. She exhaled. “It really is pretty out here this time of night.”

“Technically, it’s morning, very early, but it still counts.”

She took several deep cleansing breaths. “To pick up on our earlier conversation, I talked to Jesse and got in touch with a crew that will clean the debris away and get us to square one, and Annie gave me Tasha Melnick’s business card. I reached out to her and she’s going to meet me tomorrow around nine at the diner. Even though it’s still a mess over there, I want to show her some pictures and have her get a feel for the town.”

“Solid plan. Now, what about the matter of you lacking a commercial kitchen?”

The light was too dim to see his face, but she’d hazard a guess his brow cocked like it usually did when he asked a question that needed more than just a quick answer.

She rubbed her hands together to warm them and stuck them into her fleece pockets. “Good news there too. I talked with Annie and she went down with me to see Quinn. I had to promise I would bake one day a week for the ranch hands which will lighten his load in exchange for kitchen privileges.”

“Sounds fair and the hands will go nuts over your pies and cakes. Quinn’s a great chef and he’s good at desserts, but they don’t compare to yours.”

“The last few days have seemed like months but with everyone being so generous and supportive, it’s made this bearable.” Maggie had always known she was lucky to live in the small ranching community of River Junction and did her best to be a good neighbor, but never in a million years would she have guessed she’d be the one who needed help.

He reached over and placed a hand on her arm. “I can guarantee people willing to help out isn’t over either.”

She blinked away the tears that she wanted to save for when she was alone in the shower.

He squeezed her arm gently. “Everyone loves you and no one wants to see you or Susie suffer any more than you already have. Losing everything in that fire, well, I can’t even begin to grasp how you must feel and on top of it, that it was deliberate.”

“That’s something that scares me. What if Tye Blackstone can’t find who did it and they come back for another go at my diner after it’s rebuilt?”

“That won’t happen for two reasons. Tye is good at his job, and this time around you’ll have state-of-the-art security cameras and a fire suppression system. With the new construction, you’ll have to meet the new building codes.”

Her gut clenched. That sounded very expensive even if it was necessary. “How will a security system help?”

“I’ve seen what Annie has around here. Linc installed it after Polly and I were kidnapped, and if anything triggers a camera, they get an alert on their cell phone. It’s slick and you don’t have to be glued to a monitor. If you have questions about how it all works, I’m sure Annie would fill you in on the details.”

“You know, I’ve never told you how impressed I was knowing you tried to save Polly from that crazy man. You’re a good friend.”

With a snort, he said, “Yeah, but did you hear, she ended up saving us both. I was hog-tied and not much help to her when we were in that cave. I was able to cut her hands free but that was it.”

“You had a concussion so cut yourself some slack. The best thing you did for her was show up. Who knows what might have happened to her if you didn’t come along and slow the whole kidnapping down. He might have killed her before nightfall.”

In the faint gray of the coming dawn, she watched as he rubbed a hand over his face. Weary-worn, not from the night that had just happened, but haunted by the memory of what did. Anyone would have felt helpless, and Maggie could tell by the dip of his chin and slump of his shoulders he carried that burden every day. “Have you talked to Polly about what happened?”

“No.”

He got very quiet and she waited. Sometimes silence with a friend helped more than anything.

“I was coming up from the barn, headed to the dining hall when I saw Polly coming down from the greenhouse and he was with her, not touching her but the expression she wore confirmed things weren’t quite right. We had started to carry handguns from the mountain lion incident and when I reached for my gun, I remembered I’d taken it off when I was in the barn. I sauntered over with a big stupid grin on my face the entire time my brain was racing on what I could use as a weapon if needed. But sadly, there was nothing.”

Her heart ached for him, and she understood the helplessness that must have washed over him. It probably compared to the split second it registered the diner was burning down around her.

“When I was a couple of feet away from them, Polly started yelling at me like we were in the midst of an argument. Telling me I was a jerk and if she had wanted an apology, she would have come lookin’ for me. Told me to beat boots.”

“Had you been arguing?”

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