Dixie was doing a happy dance as she searched the bakery case. “You know, you should just get over this thing of falsely accusing that guy.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“You said you were sorry. If you still feel bad, make a peace offering. Bring him some of Norma’s pastries. Guys love food. It solves so many things.”
She chuckled. “Is that right?”
Dixie shrugged. “It works for me all the time.”
“Do you mind taking care of things out here while I check what she brought?”
“No problem, boss,” Dixie said with a smile as she walked and danced behind the counter as if listening to a pop song in her head as she searched the case. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, making her look younger than she already was. When she found the triple fudge brownies, she let out a little squeal of delight.
Tara smiled as she walked past her into the stockroom. She found the boxes of pottery that Shana had brought, immediately regretting having missed seeing her. As always, the pottery was amazing. She loved Shana’s work. But one particular item caught her attention. Shana loved to write little notes about her work to include with each sale. Customers loved it because it gave more meaning to each piece.
She pulled out one of the pieces and read the note. It was as if it were meant for her. And then she had an insane idea she couldn’t get out of her mind before she acted on it.
Sweet Montana Outlaw: Chapter Five
“Just go there, give him the gift, and leave, Tara,” she muttered to herself as she tapped the steering wheel of her car. “There is no need to do anything but give him the gift. A peace offering. You can do this.”
She drove down the driveway of the Lone Creek Ranch with knots in her stomach that threatened to make her throw up. That wouldn’t be a good thing to do given she was apologizing for her blunder.
It had been Dixie’s idea to give a peace offering for almost getting Brody thrown in jail.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” she muttered, parroting the words that Dixie had said to her. Sometimes she thought Dixie was a little too much sunshine on a rainy day. But after thinking about it, Tara knew she was right. She’d make this small gesture of kindness and hope that both of them could have a second chance to move on. Alone. Without having to see each other or run into each other again.
Tara knew the likelihood of that was slim. Sweet was a tight knit community. It was one of the reason she loved living there. The whole town came out for festivals, potlucks, and parades down Main Street. She was bound to run into Brody no matter how much she tried to avoid him.
He’d changed. Not just because of being in prison, but in physique. Somehow, she remembered him being a little scrawnier. It may have been her faulty memory or the fact that she had never seen Brody as a man. She’d always thought of him as a monster. It amazed her how her opinion of him had changed over the years as she’d matured and learned to live with the truth of who her brother really was.
Doug had been an addict. And although she hated to dwell on it, there was damning evidence he’d been a dealer as well. It was one of the biggest crises that small towns across America faced today. And her brother had been caught up in it.
It was hard to accept that Tara was probably never going to know the truth about how he’d gotten started with drugs and where he’d gone wrong in deciding to deal. But if he’d truly been pushing drugs on young kids, then it was wrong. Brody’s sister was about sixteen years old at the time of Doug’s death. Doug had been twenty. There were days Tara wondered what his life would be like today. And then the realization that if he’d never gotten help for his addiction, he may have been dead from his own hand, not Brody’s.
* * *
After a quick search around the ranch, asking each of the hands if they’d seen Brody, she finally found him in the barn.
“You’re a hard man to find,” she said.
“I don’t know why. I haven’t left the ranch in days with so much work here.” He stopped nailing in the hooks he was nailing to the wall of a small room at the far end of the barn by the tack room.
Curious, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting this room set up as a bunk room. The bunkhouse isn’t that far from the barn, but animals seem to want to birth during the night and it’s a little inconvenient, especially during the winter weather, to run back and forth from the house to the barn to check on the animals. I’ll bring in a bed and a few supplies so someone can sleep out here if they need to watch one of the stock.”
“Oh.”
He finished nailing the hook to the wall and then turned his attention to what she had in her hand.
“What is that?”
She looked down at the package in her hand as if she had forgotten. “A gift.”
“For who?”
“You.”
He frowned. “Me? What for?”
“It’s a peace offering.”
He slipped his hammer into his tool belt. “Uh, huh. What for?”
She stood uncomfortably, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She glanced away and then looked back directly at him. “I was wrong about you.”
“Yeah. So? You aren’t the first.”
“Probably not the last either,” she said under her breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” She drew in a quick breath. “I know what it’s like to be judged before people know you. It’s hard when someone looks at you with preconceived ideas about who you are.”
He picked up the box of nails he’d set on the bench and sealed it, leaving it on the bench.
