Page 21 of Hiding in Montana

His voice grew husky. “You’ve become important to me and knowing more about who you are and our earlier connection reinforces that.”

“I get it. Now that you do know, please don’t go getting all macho dude on me. Just keep being you so we can continue to enjoy our time together. I don’t want my past to intrude on my present or future.”

“Our history is what makes us who we are today.”

“True.” She gave him a look through her dark lashes. “Since I’ve told you my deepest, darkest secret, tell me about the girl who broke your heart and left you in the single state of mind all these years.”

Polly was very perceptive. After sharing her deepest secret, he would tell her all she needed to know. “It’s a dull and boring story. Boy meets girl, girl meets a different boy, one who offers her all the shiny things in the world. Then the first boy loses the girl, and he’s left with a shattered heart.”

“Matters of the heart are rarely that simple.” She slipped from the shelter of his body and threaded her fingers with his. “Let’s have lunch and afterward, you can bare your soul to me.”

Clint allowed himself to be led to the blanket, and he stretched out next to her. The last topic he wanted to talk about was Janice, but she was right. Sharing the past was the best way for them to get to know each other better, but damn, if it wasn’t embarrassing. He got dumped at the altar for some guy with a fast Mustang, and not the kind with four legs.

Leaning with their backs against a tree, Clint and Polly sat close to one another, content after lunch, watching the small ripples in the surface of the river slide by.

“It’s so peaceful here.” Polly gave him a sidelong glance before returning her attention to the view in front of them. “I know Annie owns the land on the other side too, but how do you get the cattle across the water for grazing?”

“We farm the land to the west and we have enough pastureland to the south. But occasionally a few find their way to the other side. They cross in the shallows and when we figure out where they crossed, we drive them back to this side.” He held out his hand, and she slipped hers in it. The way their hands fit together was like a glove and it felt darn good. “That is actually how Renee and Hank from Riverbank Orchard got back together. Cows from his dad’s ranch found their way into her orchard after crossing the river. After they trampled her new tree stock, Hank offered to help her replant. In a way, cows are good luck around here.”

“Doesn’t seem like Renee would agree, but it sounds like it all worked out. She got the guy and her orchard planted.”

“Since they got married, Hank is working the land with her. He has a law office in town with limited hours and occasionally lends a hand at his dad’s ranch. Ford, his brother, came back home and he’s really running the place now.”

Polly squeezed his hand. “Tell me about her.”

Today against the backdrop of the land, her hazel eyes seem more green than gold. Would it cast a cloud over their date to talk about her? But she had shared some of her past with him, so he took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“I met Janice on a hiking trip to Yellowstone. I was with friends and she was taking a group on a tour. She was a guide back then.” He remembered how she looked that first day. Her straight dark hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. Her long toned legs were visible from the hem of her shorts to her bright-pink hiking socks. She looked like an ad for the best-dressed hiker, but there was a no-nonsense air around her. And her confidence swirled around her like an old friend. She knew the area and was excited to share her knowledge with the group.

He felt a gentle poke in his ribs.

“Earth to Clint.”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I got lost in the past. But I’ll tell you whatever you’d like to know.”

“What attracted you to her first?” Polly’s face was relaxed and her smile encouraging and genuine.

“Confidence. She owned the tour business, taking people on adventures all over the world. I liked how she was talking to a group of hikers. It sounded like this was their first big hike and she took it all in stride, reviewing where they would go and the type of trail they’d be taking. Me and my buddies were headed in that general direction, and I found myself wanting to go on the hike with them, just to see her in action.”

“If she broke your heart, I’m guessing you went on that hike and…” She let the word dangle.

“I did. We had a long-distance relationship for the first six months. She came to River Junction that first winter and fell in love with the ranch and set up a tour business here—fishing mostly.”

“She sounds like a real outdoors-woman.”

Her gentle voice prodded him forward. “She was. There wasn’t anything she didn’t get once she set her mind to it.” He dropped his head and looked at their intertwined hands. Janice never liked just being still. She had always wanted to be on the move. “Me included.”

“How long were you together?”

“Five years. We were getting married, and I bought a small house in town. We fixed it up, and that’s where she was living until after the wedding, and then I’d move in. It was how she wanted it, so I agreed.” The words soured as they rolled off his tongue. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. She didn’t want me around since she had met someone else, and he was coming to the area more and more.”

“But,” she sputtered, “surely someone mentioned something to you.”

“He was her new business partner. They were working on taking the business to new heights, she told me. It was good for our future.” With a snort, he said, “Turned out, it wasn’t good for my future. The morning of the wedding, she asked me to come to the house. When I got there, her suitcases were packed and sitting by the door. He was waiting for her in the car parked in front of our house.”

Polly’s hand flew to her mouth, and she cried, “No, she broke it off the day you were to be married?”

He bowed his head. “It humiliated me. Janice left me to tell my family and friends. On the upside, we had one hell of a party and I got plastered and stayed that way for a couple of days. Until Linc came to the house and asked me what I was gonna do. Sell the house and move back to the ranch or wallow at the bottom of a bottle.”

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