Czytaj książkę: «The Brands of Montana»

Chapter One

Rancher Gabe Brand would never forget the day he first saw Bonita Delafuente.

It was a typical cloudless summer day in Montana: warm enough to make a man sweat but not so hot that he couldn’t get some work done at high noon. He’d finally gotten around to cleaning his two-horse trailer, something he’d been putting off for weeks. Gabe had already sweated through his shirt, so he’d taken it off and hung it on a nearby fence post. With Johnny Cash playing on the phone in his back pocket, Gabe was pouring more gas into his pressure washer when he heard the faint sound of Tater, his dog, barking from inside the house. Tater, who was geriatric at this point, preferred sleep above all activities and only made the effort to bark when someone came up the drive.

Gabe put down the gas can and walked toward the front of the house. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but that didn’t mean much. People often landed in his driveway hunting for the main entrance to his family’s ranch, Sugar Creek.

“Hello, young man. We’re looking for Gabe Brand.”

An older gentleman with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and a bit of a beer gut rounded the corner of Gabe’s cabin. Walking beside the older man was a younger woman wearing English riding clothes. It was unusual to see someone wearing that kind of riding gear—most folks he knew rode Western.

“For better or worse, you found him.” Gabe reached for his shirt and shrugged it on.

“I’m hoping for the better,” the man said.

The minute Gabe got a good look at the woman’s face, he was smitten.

“George Delafuente.” The older man offered his hand. “And, this is my daughter, Bonita.”

George had a firm handshake and carried himself like a man who had made his own way in the world. Gabe made note of the gold-and-diamond-encrusted Rolex his visitor was wearing. Yes, George had all of the trappings of a Montana native—jeans, cowboy boots and button-down striped shirt tucked in tight. Yet all the clothing was too clean, too new, too expensive-looking to be owned by a working rancher.

Gabe shook the man’s hand and then turned his attention to the daughter.

“Beautiful,” he said rather dumbly as he shook her hand.

Behind her mirrored designer sunglasses, Bonita looked at him in surprise. “I’m sorry?”

“Your name. It means beautiful in Spanish, doesn’t it? That’s about the only word, other than hola and adios, that I can seem to remember from high school Spanish.”

Bonita pulled her hand back, her full lips unsmiling. “Yes. My parents took a gamble on that one.”

No gamble at all, as far as Gabe could see. He had ranched all of his life and had made a good living training and transporting high-priced horses across the country. He’d met a lot of women along the way. None had been as lovely, to his eyes, as Bonita. Her sable-colored hair, wavy and worn loose down to her narrow waist, framed her oval face in the most lovely way; the light, occasional breeze sent tendrils of hair dusting across her tawny cheeks.

Gabe liked how slender her fingers looked as she tucked those wayward strands behind her ear. And he noted that she wasn’t wearing a wedding or engagement ring on her left hand. Her handshake had been firm and strong, belying how delicate her hand seemed to be. This was a woman confident in her own skin, who seemed unafraid to assert herself in a man’s world.

“Do you have a minute to talk some business?” George asked him.

Gabe caught Bonita glancing at his bare chest and stomach and fastened a couple of buttons to appear more suitable for mixed company. Everything about Bonita read class act—from her polished black riding boots to the well-tailored fawn-colored breeches that hugged her hips and shapely legs to the brilliant diamond stud earrings and matching diamond tennis bracelet.

He was sweaty and dirty and had no doubt that he’d made a less-than-sterling first impression with this woman.

“I’ve got a minute.” Gabe gave a nod. “Can I get you folks something to drink?”

“No. Thank you.” George checked his phone briefly before he continued. “We don’t want to impose on you.”

“No imposition.” They walked together to stand in the shade of one of the large ponderosa pine trees near his cabin. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure you can do anything for us, actually,” Bonita said, her head turned away from him, her arms crossed in front of her body. Her body language wasn’t difficult to read—she wanted to leave.

George glanced at her before he said, “We’ve got a horse back East that we need brought to Montana. He’s a graduation present...” George smiled proudly at his daughter “...and your brother told me that you’re the best transporter in the business.”

“I don’t know about the best, but I know what it takes to get a horse home safe.” Gabe spoke to both of them, even though it seemed to him that Bonita had already made up her mind about him. “Which of my brothers has been bragging about me? My pop had a litter.”

George had an easy smile; his daughter, from Gabe’s brief experience, did not.

“Dr. Brand,” George said. “He was out at our place for my wife’s horse. Your brother is one of the most competent vets I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen my share.” The man pointed at him. “That’s why I’m inclined to believe him about you.”

“I’ve been hauling horses for the better part of my life.”

Bonita had been looking everywhere but at him. “This isn’t just any horse.” That’s when she looked at him. “Vested Interest is an Oldenburg. He’s seventeen hands tall.” She nodded her head toward his two-horse trailer. “That trailer is way too small.”

As pretty as this woman was, Gabe bristled at the condescension in her tone. It was coming across to him that she thought he was a dumb cowboy who didn’t know one horse from the next. He didn’t bother to tell her that he’d trained Oldenburgs along the way—what would be the point? Yes, he could always use the business, but he wasn’t going to grovel at the feet of the princess to get it.

Flatly, he said, “I don’t transport long-distance in that trailer.”

“You have your rig here?” George seemed to want to get the discussion back on track.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d like to see it,” George said with a bit of resolve in his tone. “If that’s not too much trouble.”

“I’ve got a minute.”

Gabe loved his long-distance rig and loved to show it off. And his bruised ego made him want to prove to the princess that he wasn’t some ignorant yokel. It had taken him years to build his reputation; he didn’t need Bonita bad-mouthing him in the high-end horse community.

“Where’s the horse?”

“Northern Virginia,” George told him. “Every day we board him in Virginia is another dollar we burn.”

Bonita trailed behind them as they walked the short distance to an oversize garage.

“I hear that,” Gabe said with a nod. “Virginia’s pretty country.”

“Yes, it is,” George agreed. “But nothing like this land right here. This is God’s country.”

They reached the large garage Gabe had custom-built to house his trailer. “I can’t argue with you there.” He pushed the heavy door open and flipped on a light switch.

George whistled, long and appreciative. “Now, that’s a fine setup!”

“Thank you,” Gabe said. “She’s my pride and joy.”

It had taken him several years to save up enough money to put a down payment on this customized, midnight blue, luxury Equine Motorcoach. It had been his dream to own one, and it still felt a little surreal every time he took it out on the road.

George was sold—Gabe could see that. He’d earned the man’s business. But he couldn’t be sure of the daughter. While George set off toward the back of the long rig, Gabe was left with Bonita, who had been standing just inside of the garage in silence. He turned to face her, and that’s when he saw that the lovely woman had had a slight shift in opinion of him.

Bonita slipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. The expression on her face said it all: she was impressed. Their eyes met; Gabe was immediately drawn in to rich, mahogany brown.

“This is unexpected,” she told him in a blunt manner, her eyes back on the rig.

He decided not to be offended. After all, Little Sugar Creek was purposefully humble. The main house at Sugar Creek was a statement of the wealth his father had amassed, but Gabe didn’t need anything fancy. He just needed comfort, function and easy-to-care-for, because he spent a good deal of his time on the road.

“All right.” Bonita’s body language, her tone, as well as the expression on her face, had all softened, signaling to him that she had decided to give him a chance to earn her business. “I’d like a tour.”

* * *

“Hi, Mom.” Bonita smiled fondly at her mother on video chat. “How are you feeling today?”

“I miss you, mija,” her mother said, affectionately calling her “my daughter” in Spanish.

“I miss you, too, Mom. I’ll be home soon.”

Today was the day that Bonita had been waiting for—Vested Interest was going to begin the journey from Virginia to Montana. In advance of the trip, she had taken her father’s personal private jet to Washington, DC, her old stomping grounds, and had a chance to visit with friends and go out on the town. Oh, how she missed living close to the nation’s capital.

“I’ve got to go, Mom. Jill is driving me and we’re almost there.”

“Hi, Mom!” her friend Jill called out from the driver’s side.

One last “I love you” to her mom and Bonita ended the video chat. With a wistful sigh, she admired the Virginia landscape. “I miss it here so much,” she told her friend. Montana was picturesque, but as far as Bonita was concerned, that’s all that was in the plus column. Other than that, it was desolate, backward-thinking and boring.

“We miss you!” Jill exclaimed. “Last night was long overdue.”

“Agreed.”

Bonita had attended graduate school at George Washington University, located in the heart of Washington, DC, and had made so many good friends along the way. Many of her friends, like Jill, went on to take jobs in Congress or went on to attend law school.

Bonita’s plan had been to go to law school and then pursue a career in politics. But that was before her mother was diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative illness, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That devastating diagnosis changed the trajectory of Bonita’s life.

Her mother, Evelyn, had dreamed of retiring to Montana. With time not on their side, her father retired early, putting the day-to-day operations of his lucrative consulting business in the hands of a chief operating officer, and bought his wife the ranch of her dreams just outside Bozeman, Montana.

Bonita, who had decided to change majors and prepared herself to attend medical school, decided to take an extended break after graduate school to help care for her mother. It hadn’t been a difficult decision to make, but living in Montana had been a hard change for Bonita. She missed her cosmopolitan life—she missed her friends.

“Darn it,” Jill complained. “It looks like we’re here already. This visit was too short!”

“I know,” Bonita agreed. She had thought she would get back to DC much more frequently than had actually happened in reality. It was difficult not to feel a pinch of envy for all of her friends who on social media seemed to be having the time of their lives. While her life seemed to have ground to a halt.

Jill pulled through the gates of Prestige Farm, a state-of-the-art equestrian facility that had been Bonita’s home away from home for much of her teens and twenties. She didn’t have any reason to feel nervous, and yet her stomach felt a bit unsettled. She had never had to have one of her horses transported on a trip that would take over thirty hours. Maybe that was it. Or maybe, it was the thought of encountering Gabe Brand again.

“Promise me.” Jill parked her Mercedes just outside the main office of Prestige Farm. “Promise me. You’ll come back for another, longer visit soon.”

Bonita got out, lifted her suitcase out of the trunk and shut it. “I promise.”

They hugged each other tightly, sad to be parting.

“Besides, don’t you want to see Mark sooner than later?”

Mark was a very handsome attorney who had been in their circle of friends for years; but this year, he was single. He had asked Bonita out for dinner her last night in DC and she had accepted, with the caveat that they were just two old friends sharing a meal. Mark had wanted to kiss her “good-night” and she had let him. It was the first kiss she had experienced since she broke things off with her college boyfriend; even a sweet kiss couldn’t change how she felt about starting a new relationship. For now, her focus needed to be her mother.

“He lives here. I live there.” Bonita shrugged. “I’ve never really liked long-distance relationships. Too much effort.”

“Your father owns a private jet,” Jill said, a conspiratorial gleam in her hazel eyes.

“Maybe if I met the right guy,” Bonita said with another noncommittal shrug.

“Mark could be the right guy.”

She didn’t want to kiss and tell, so she just kept her mouth shut. But the first kiss with Mark hadn’t set off any bells and whistles. Instead, she dropped the subject, gave her friend another hug and then waved as Jill drove away and headed back to her life in DC.

Luckily, Bonita didn’t have a moment to be melancholy. Her longtime dressage instructor, Candace, noticed her standing in the driveway with her suitcase, looking like a waif.

“Big day!” Candace was a tall, lanky woman with cropped blond hair framing a long, tanned, makeup-free face.

“A long time coming,” Bonita agreed.

They stowed her suitcase in a locker in the climate-controlled tack room and then headed toward a small turnout paddock to see her boy.

“He’s been doing great.” Candace leaned her arms over the fence.

Bonita felt happy, truly happy, when she was able to lay eyes on her horse again. His full name was Valdemar’s Vested Interest and he had been imported from Germany two years prior as an upper-level dressage prospect. Now that she was taking a break from school, her father wanted her to get back into showing. But in her heart, Bonita wasn’t sure that she wanted that for herself.

She clucked her tongue at Val to get his attention. The gelding, so regal with his long gray-and-white tail and his shiny dappled, blue-gray body, lifted his head for a brief moment before he went back to grazing. Was it right for her to take him out of the heart of dressage country and move him to cattle country?

“How have you been? How’s your mother?”

Bonita filled her trainer in on the last several months of her life, trying to sound more positive about the move than she actually felt.

“Here’s the million-dollar question. Have you been riding?”

They turned away from the paddock. “Honestly? Not much. I mean, I’ve been hopping on Mom’s old girl just to keep her moving, but other than that...” Bonita’s words trailed off. “I don’t know what to tell you. I feel stuck since I’ve moved out there. Frozen. I feel completely out of my element, disoriented. I just can’t seem to get myself motivated to do much of anything, other than making sure Mom’s okay. I’m hoping Val will give me the motivation I need to snap out of it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Candace said, “Once you get Val settled, I’ll come out to Montana. He’s fit. He’s been on a strict training program. He’s not the kind of horse you can leave to his own devices. You’ve got to get him back into his workout routine immediately.”

“I will. I promise. And yes to you coming for a visit.”

Candace got a text on her phone. “Your transporter is being buzzed in at the gate right now.”

There it was—that flip-flop in her stomach at the thought of seeing Gabe again.

Even after Gabe showed her his rig, even after she had checked his credentials, followed up with references, checked prices to fly Val to Montana, interviewed other cross-country transport companies, Bonita kept coming back to Gabe Brand.

She had been impressed with his rig—it was top-notch, with all the safety features and comfort necessary for such an extensive trip. Gabe had contacts with quality stables along the route so they could stop and let Val rest overnight. The rig was also equipped with a box stall so that Val could move around and stretch his neck down, which would lessen the risk of respiratory problems from the trip.

Even though she had dismissed him in the beginning, after speaking with Gabe about his transport experience and probing his knowledge about horses, Bonita couldn’t dismiss him for long.

* * *

Gabe Brand pulled up to the secured gate of Prestige Farm after traveling for several days. He had been able to coordinate a delivery of a quarter horse to a facility in Maryland before heading down to Virginia to pick up the Oldenburg.

He loved being on the road, just him and his dog, Tater. The peace and quiet of the road was something he craved during the spells when he didn’t have any transport business on the books.

“Gabe Brand,” he spoke into the intercom. “I’m here to pick up Vested Interest.”

The ornate gate, decorated with intricate scrollwork and a large gold horseshoe in the center, slowly opened. Gabe had been to a lot of barns, big and small, but this was one of the swankier facilities he’d ever visited. The place just said “money.” The barn didn’t even resemble a barn—it looked more like a fancy stucco hotel with brick pavers leading up to a two-story clubhouse.

“Fancy.” Gabe found a place to park his rig near what appeared to be the main entrance of the barn.

The rancher grabbed his cowboy hat and gave Tater, who was curled up in the front seat, a quick pat on the head. “I’ll let you out on the grass before we take off,” he promised his tiny canine companion.

Gabe hopped out of the truck, shut the door and turned to head to the front office.

“Hi.”

“Holy Jesus, woman! You scared the living daylights out of me.”

Bonita, a person he didn’t expect to see, had sneaked up on him out of nowhere. She was just as pretty on second look as she had been on the first; her hair was braided into a thick, single plait and she was wearing slim-fit jeans that hugged her body in the right ways. Her face was made-up, just like the first day they had met, and it made him wonder what Bonita looked like without a full face of makeup.

“All I did was say hi,” she countered.

“I suppose I didn’t expect to see you here today.” Gabe tipped his hat to her. “How do?”

“I’m doing okay. A little anxious. Val’s paperwork is in order, he’s up-to-date on all of his shots and he’s been given a clean bill of health. One of the stablehands is putting on his shipping boots right now.”

Gabe nodded. She had just answered most of the questions he was going to ask any warm body he could find at the front office.

“Any loading issues with this horse?”

“No.” She gave a little shake of her head. “And my trainer said he’s always been a good traveler, so we shouldn’t have any problems along the way.”

Gabe stopped in his tracks. “Hold up. What do you mean by ‘we’ exactly?”

“Oh.” Bonita looked him straight in the eye, her jaw setting. “Didn’t I tell you? I’ve decided to tag along.”