“I will hope that wasn’t a really expensive piece,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Tara looked down at her hands as she held the broom and dustpan. They were shaking violently. She shoved the broom and dustpan at Dixie. “I’m sorry, but can you clean up that mess I just made on the sidewalk. I don’t know what got over me.”
With a look of confusion, Dixie placed the doorstop down on the counter and then took the broom and dustpan. “Sure thing, Tara. Are you okay?”
Tara took in a deep gulp of breath and nodded. “Please hurry. I don’t want anyone to cut themselves on the fragments. And be careful. It was a lot of glass.”
“Sure.”
Dixie hurried through the store. Tara heard the bell for the door ring as Dixie disappeared onto the sidewalk and went to her task.
Tara reached her hand up to the wall and held on for support. This nightmare was never going to end. She thought that she had gotten over what had happened. No, that wasn’t it at all. She was never going to get over what had happened between her brother and Brody Whitebear. But Tara had moved past it. At least she’d thought she had.
And now Brody was here in Sweet. He’d been standing on the sidewalk right across the street from her shop. It was insane. The only hope of Tara getting any semblance of sanity back would be if Brody turned right around, drove out of Sweet, and never returned.
Sweet Montana Outlaw: Chapter Two
If not for one of the taillights in his truck being blown out, Brody wouldn’t have been walking to the hardware store to get a replacement bulb before heading over to the Lone Creek Ranch to meet with the owner for a job interview. He’d thought long and hard about what Hunter said about second chances, and his friend had been right on all counts. He didn’t want to make a bad impression when he met the boss by having a blown out taillight on his truck. Even the smallest of things could give an employer a reason not to hire him.
He hadn’t counted on seeing Tara Mitchell on his first day in Sweet. Now that he knew where her shop was located, Brody aimed to avoid it as much as he could.
Tara Mitchell. He was still reeling from seeing her again after so many years. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen hate in her eyes as he had that morning. The first time was at his sentencing, and then a second time at his parole hearing when he’d been freed from prison. Time hadn’t made it any harder to see.
Of course, Tara had every right to feel the way she did. It may have been an accident, but her brother had been killed during a fight they’d had, something that was unforgivable. Even after all these years, Brody couldn’t justify what had happened beyond the fact that it had stopped the destruction of his sister, Marie’s, life that day.
Many years had passed since then, but the look Tara had cast him from across the street just punctuated his beliefs that although he done the time, people weren’t going let him forget no matter how many people understood what really happened that day, and why Doug Mitchell ended up dead.
Brody pulled into the driveway of the Lone Creek Ranch and then parked his truck next to Hunter’s truck. Despite Hunter’s crazy notion, his friend had insisted on introducing him to Trip Taggart, the owner of Lone Creek Ranch, in the hopes of giving Brody gainful employment where it seemed hard to get elsewhere for more than a few months at a time. People got a little twitchy about hiring a convicted murderer, even if it was involuntary manslaughter.
Hunter poked his head out from the barn just as Brody got out of the truck and slammed the door.
“You made it,” Hunter said.
“Was there any doubt?”
Hunter laughed as he walked over to where Brody was standing by the truck. “When I left you, you insisted I was out of my mind and there was no earthly way I could get you out of here. So yeah, I had a few.”
A smile pulled at Brody’s face. They’d been friends a long time, long before the craziness out on the reservation had started.
“So where is Trip?”
“Up at the house,” Hunter said pointing to the main house. “He’s in his office there. Relax. You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin. It’s not like you’ve never worked on a ranch and gotten your boots full of manure before.”
“Is that supposed be my pep talk?”
“It’s what you’re going to get. Don’t worry. Trip is a good guy. If he has any reservations about you at all, and so far he doesn’t given what I’ve told him, you’ll be back in your truck and on the road in five minutes.”
“What exactly did you tell him?”
Hunter shrugged. “Everything that matters. I had to. People know Tara Mitchell around here.”
“And he still wanted to see me?”
“Just meet the man.” Hunter slapped his hand on the back on Brody’s back. Then the two men started walking, following the brick path along the back of the house to where Trip’s office was located. Trip must’ve heard the two of them talking outside as they walked and met them at the door.
“I hear you’re looking for a job,” Trip said.
He was a tall man in his mid to late forties, Brody guessed. And he was strong. He had that look about him, as if he wasn’t afraid to get out of his office and work in the barn or the field if he had to. His thick crop of dark hair was starting to gray and his skin was dark from being
