“Is the camper for them?” Caleb asked.
“No, silly. It’s for me!”
“I don’t understand.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “What’s not to understand? I’m staying.”
“What?”
“Kas and Tabby are going to build a house on the far end of the property.” She pointed west of the chapel toward a line of trees. “The barn will go next to it and I get to renovate the chapel.”
He smiled, but Katie could tell that he was still unsure.
“What are you going to do with the chapel when it’s done?”
She giggled. “Live in it, silly.”
He looked so confused it was almost comical.
“Kas said he bought the place. He asked me if it was romantic to propose in a big snowy field next to a broken down chapel. I thought he was going to propose to Tabby here. I thought… I thought they were going to live here.”
“Tabby and Kas are already engaged. He was talking about me.”
“Me what?”
She threw her head back and squeezed him tight. “Do I have to hit you over the head with it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She let go of him and got down on one knee. “You said you wanted me to take you out of the equation. But I realized that’s impossible. Because if I left here, you wouldn’t be in my life anymore. And that would leave a huge hole in me. What good is a dream if you can’t share it with someone? I love you, Caleb. I’ll admit I was afraid to, but I do. I love you.”
She saw his expression change from confusion to hope. “Get up from the ground, Katie.”
“Why? I’m proposing to you. You’re supposed to get down on one knee when you propose.”
He huffed and then got down on his knees in front of her. “You’re supposed to let me propose to you,” he said, cupping her face with his hands and kissing her sweetly on the lips.
“I love you, Caleb Samuel. Will you marry me?”
“There you go again. You are a whirlwind, Katie Dobbs,” he said, laughing. “I’ll marry you, and help build this house with you, and live it in with you for the rest of our lives. Or I’ll follow you anywhere. I will. Because I love you, Katie. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“Neither can I. You are my dream and everything I want.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
He held her tight and laughed as they looked up at the big blue Montana Sky. Oh, what a beautiful sky is was.
Sweet Montana Rescue: Chapter One
The man was late.
Harper Madison glanced over at the ugly wagon wheel clock on the wall across the room of the dispatch office and frowned when she saw the time. She'd purposely skipped her lunch because Nash Webber was supposed to meet her at the police station at noon.
Needless to say, that hadn't happened. One o'clock came and went along with two o'clock, and three o'clock. It was now three-thirty and her shift was ending at four, just in time for what was shaping up to be an epic spring blizzard in Sweet Montana.
Nash Webber. The name conjured up images of a Hollywood movie star in an action flick. The small town of Sweet and the surrounding Montana territory certainly got their share of Hollywood types. But the guy was some sort of scientist and survivalist, her grandmother had told her when she’d packed up the linens and the key to the cabin and left the house this morning.
No matter. He was coming to town for the summer and renting her family’s mountain cabin to do research. He picked a lousy day to show up though because the dispatch phone had been ringing off the hook all day.
Harper shifted papers around her desk to organize herself before the next call came in. She didn’t get far. The phone rang while she was still sorting through paperwork that needed to be filed.
With her headset on, she answered the phone with the press of a button to the switchboard using her canned response. “Sweet Police Department dispatch. You’re on a recorded line. What is your emergency?”
“It's me, Harper,” the woman on the other end of the line said. So many people in town knew Harper worked as a dispatcher at the police station that it was easy for them to expect she’d recognize their voice immediately. Harper knew it was Tara Mitchell, who owned a novelty shop and bakery in town. She catered to the tourists who were abundant in Sweet during the rodeo season.
She smiled after recognizing Tara’s voice. “Please state your name and emergency for the record,” Harper said.
“Tara Mitchell. I don’t exactly know if it’s an emergency or not. But the argument out front is getting pretty loud,” Tara said. Her voice was muffled for a moment. When she came back on the line, she added, “Apparently a car with Alabama license plates took a liking to Jeff Stanley's front fence, which is now toast. Jeff’s not too happy about it.”
“The Stanley place is the one that's next to your store?”
“A few doors down.” Tara recited her address for the record and Harper recorded it into the computer.
Harper knew where it was and didn’t need the details from Tara. But she’d been trained to have the caller give her the information and then record it exactly as spoken.
“It doesn't look like anyone's hurt except for maybe a bruised ego.”
Harper smiled. “We seem to get a lot of those in the spring, especially during a late storm. I’ll send an officer. Do they need a tow truck?”
“Jamison was already across the street at the diner with his tow truck and saw the accident. If the car needs towing, he's already here.”
“Okay, I’ll have Officer Samuel head out there.”
Harper hung up the call and logged the rest of the details in the computer system. Then she pressed the button to radio
