“You sound like Walker when he doesn’t know I’m listening,” Avery said. He was far more cynical when he thought she wasn’t around.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Walker sounds like you these days,” she corrected her, “all light and hope and unicorns. In a few generations global warming could decimate bison herds like this. Everything we care about could be gone.”
“Which is why we have to keep doing whatever we can!”
Elizabeth sighed. “That’s what I keep telling myself, but sometimes I wonder—why not forget it? Why not just take a round-the-world cruise, see it all before it disappears? I don’t have kids. What do I care what the world looks like in fifty years—or a hundred?”
“If you feel that way, why marry Walker?” Avery asked her.
The look Elizabeth gave her twisted something low in Avery’s gut. Determination and desperation were at war there, and for a moment Avery almost pitied her. When Elizabeth turned on her heel and walked away to join the others without answering, all her pity evaporated, and anger simmered in its place. Elizabeth didn’t deserve Walker. She certainly didn’t love him.
Avery wasn’t going to give him up without a fight.
Chapter Three
‡
A week later, Walker ducked into the stables after a quick trip to the bunkhouse to grab a drink, and found Elizabeth on her phone, her back to the door. Greg and Hope were sorting through tack at the far end, out of earshot. Avery was hard at work mucking out a stall at the far end of the row.
He edged closer silently, wondering who Elizabeth was talking to.
“I’m being careful,” he heard her say. “There are ten Navy SEALs here and cameras on me at all times.” He must have made a sound because she turned, spotted him and frowned. “It’s under control.” She ended the call and faced him.
He waited until she’d pocketed her phone and picked up a pitchfork. “You’re with the EPA, right?” He hoped she’d think he hadn’t heard anything. She hadn’t sounded like she was talking to a boss or coworker. More like someone who cared enough about her to worry about her safety. Had she told him or her about the intruder?
She headed for the nearest stall. “That’s right.”
“Shouldn’t you be working, then?” He stepped in front of her, opened the door and sent Lucifer into the corral outside the stable. Elizabeth began mucking out the stall as soon as the horse left.
“I’m on leave.”
Leave was temporary. Did that mean she didn’t actually intend to marry him? Or that she’d put her job on hold until the show was over? He figured a direct question wouldn’t get him any answers. Elizabeth seemed determined to keep him off-balance.
“You’re researching wildfires and air quality?” He pulled that last fact out of his memory. Something Sue had told him once when he hadn’t asked about Elizabeth. She was always feeding him tidbits of information despite his lack of curiosity. “Elizabeth is moving up in the ranks. She got a promotion.” He’d barely bothered to listen.
“That’s right.”
“There’ve been some fires around here the last few years.” The cold winters they’d had didn’t seem to stop them.
“It’ll be worse this year.”
His head snapped up at that. “You think?” The way temperatures had shot up in the past days had left him worried about what the summer would bring, but Elizabeth was the expert.
She nodded.
“That’s what the government is saying?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I’m saying. I can’t predict the weather any better than anyone else, Walker, but I’ve worked fires for years. I’ve got a feeling.”
Walker was a big believer in feelings. They both grew up here and knew Montana in all its moods.
Elizabeth got back to work without answering the real question he wanted to ask. Why had she come here? The girl he grew up with wouldn’t throw over work she loved for an old promise she never believed in.
It wasn’t like Elizabeth had been pining for him, either, no matter what she claimed now. She’d never shown him an ounce of respect, let alone desire when they were young. As for him, she wasn’t his type. Even if he’d never met Avery and he wanted a partner, he wouldn’t choose a wife so aloof from him. Sue was aloof like that. His father had been, as well.
He wanted something different.
Hell, he hadn’t wanted anything at all—not for years. Not knowing the way the world was going. Now he did, and it was going to be taken away from him.
“Why are you here?”
Elizabeth sighed and leaned on her pitchfork. “I made a promise—” She cut off and started again. “We made a promise to someone special, Walker. To the one person who was always there for me. I intend to keep it. Don’t you understand that?”
Another gut punch. Walker grabbed a rake. Elizabeth knew all his buttons. Knew calling on Netta’s memory would strip him of all his ammunition against her, since he wanted to honor Sue as much as she wanted to honor Netta. They were all caught in a spider’s web of duty, and Elizabeth was tugging on a crucial strand. She had the power to cut through the ties that bound them or to snare him tight.
She was choosing to snare him.
“Netta wanted us to be together,” Elizabeth said primly. A corner of her mouth quirked. “Don’t forget I’m madly in love with you.”
She didn’t sound madly in love, and Netta had been terrified of the thought of leaving an eighteen-year-old Elizabeth alone in the world, that’s all. Now Elizabeth was a
