“This is my favorite spot,” Trip said.
“I can see why.”
“When I first bought the ranch I had the bulls up here in this pasture. By the end of the season, the ground was all dug up. I knew it would come back. It always does. But my sister, Brenda, came up here and spread a whole bunch of seeds on the ground. At the time, I thought it was grass. I wasn’t sure why she was bothering. The next spring there were little pockets of flowers. That’s what she called them. Pockets of flowers. The year after that, they’d filled in more. Now it’s full of flowers and I hate to bring the bulls up here to pasture.” Trip laughed. “She’d probably have a fit I ruined all her work.”
“It’s nice. The view is amazing.”
“Well, I had no hand in that. Anywhere you go in Big Sky Country, the view is pretty spectacular. But I lucked out when I got this place.”
“How long have you been here?”
Trip thought a moment. “I’d say it’s going on fifteen years.”
“Really?”
“As I said, I lucked out when I found this place. It’s close to family. Brenda lives in the next town with her family. I’ve got some cousins not too far up the highway. I had a good couple of years on the rodeo circuit and I saved every penny I could to have something of my own one day. The ranch was in foreclosure at the time I bought it. A sad story. Of course, there were some out of state suits who’d come into town to buy it. I can almost bet my bid on the property wasn’t as high as what others offered. But the bank gave the ranch to me and I’ve made it my home. Levon was with me from the start. It was his home. Tabby came to live with us after her parents died. I knew her dad on the circuit. The Lone Creek became her home. Now it’s yours.”
Brody looked around the meadow of color and to the mountains beyond. How the hell had he gotten so lucky?
“Come on. I’ll show you the creek this ranch is named after,” Trip said.
They’d spent another hour or two riding. It was well into the afternoon when Brody headed back to the barn alone with Desert Rose. Trip had decided to stay out for a while longer. He passed Dusty bringing one of the horses in the arena as he brought Desert Rose into the barn. He’d yet to see the arena. The ranch offered riding lessons and barrel racing lessons to the locals. Trip had told him that Tabby had done most of her barrel racing training with Tenterhook here at the ranch.
Tenterhook had star quality, Trip had told him. But a devastating injury caused by the same man who’d killed Levon, forced Tenterhook into early retirement at least until his injury was fully healed.
Brody passed Tenterhook’s stall on the way to putting Desert Rose in her stall. Tenterhook lifted his head above the gate to greet him.
“You sure are a beauty,” Brody said as he passed. He opened the gate to Desert Rose’s stall and led her inside. He filled her water trough with water. Then he headed down to the stall where they kept the fresh hay and grabbed the pitchfork, taking a good mound of hay and putting in a wheelbarrow so he could fill the hay bin in the stall when he heard the sound of boots charging down the center aisle of the barn toward him.
He dropped the hay into the wheelbarrow and then poked his head out from the stall to see who was coming.
“I don’t believe it.” Tara Mitchell looked at him in disbelief.
“What?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, anger seething inside of her and threatening to bubble over the surface.
Brody held the pitchfork in his hand. “I work here.”
She sputtered. “You? Who’d give a murderer a job?”
He tamped down the pain in his gut he always felt any time anyone ever used that term. This time it was worse because it was Tara.
“Someone who was willing to give me a second chance. Trip Taggart hired me. And yes, he knows about my past.”
He knew as soon as he’d uttered the words that they were the dead wrong thing to say. Tara Mitchell wasn’t interested in giving him a second chance, not that he blamed her for it.
“My brother didn’t get a second chance, did he? Why should you?”
He shifted uncomfortably where he stood. This war would wage between them for the rest of their lives. And if he was living in Sweet, then they were bound to eventually run into each other.
But he was starting over. It had taken a long time and he had done a hell of a lot of things in his life to set himself straight and get to this point. After that ride with Trip, he could see himself digging in roots here, just as Levon had done.
He didn’t blame Tara for her anger or her resentment. But he wasn’t going to let her destroy this chance he had by making a scene.
“I know you’re upset, but—”
She threw her hands out to her side in disgust. “Upset? That doesn’t exactly cover it. He was my brother, Brody. He wasn’t some rodeo guy who had ridden into town and then left and broke my heart on his way out to the next rodeo.”
“I know that. I also know that there isn't a damn thing I can do that will take away the pain you feel. I’m sorry for that. But I did pay for my part in it. And it was an accident. The jury saw it that way and so did the judge. Hell, even the prosecutors saw it that way and asked for
