Montana Darling

By Debra Salonen

Mia Zabrinski‘s lost enough– her marriage. Her job. Her body image. Mia is ready to rebuild her life in her hometown of Marietta,Montana, and she’s damned if she’ll let some stranger camp on her land and claim squatter’s rights.

Ryker Bensen doesn’t have much– and that suits him fine. Less than a year ago, he had everything: a beautiful girlfriend, a baby on the way, a career that earned him fame and a very comfortable living…until he didn’t. When beautiful Mia shows up and orders him off what she says is her land, Ryker realizes she might be the spark he needed to jumpstart his interest in living again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Jan 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781942240266

Debra Salonen

Susan was born with a book in her hand. Okay, maybe not quite, but she did begin reading at the age of four and hasn't been able to stop. Her mother enrolled her in the Weekly Reader Book Club before she went to school, and provided her with books in all shapes, sizes and genres. Born and raised in northwestern New Jersey, Susan grew up in a houseful of readers. Trips to the library were frequent, and she always participated in summer reading programs and read-a-thons. (Though getting sponsors, if they knew her voracious appetite for books, wasn't always easy.) Named valedictorian of her high school class, Susan also cowrote the school's alma mater - and married her cowriter/high school sweetheart after college. With a love of books and schooling, it was only natural that she become either a teacher or a writer. And she's been both. Graduating from Douglass College - Rutgers University - with a B.A. in psychology, and certified to teach early childhood/elementary school, Susan went on to a nine-year elementary teaching career, teaching second and fourth grades. Her favorite part was passing on her love of reading and books to a new group of eager students each year. She left New Jersey in June of 1996 to follow her husband's career, which first took them to Clarksburg, West Virginia, and then a year later to Erie, Pennsylvania, where they still reside. Erie is the setting for her first novel. Getting her teaching certificate in Pennsylvania turned out to be more hassle than Susan wanted to deal with, so she taught in a private school for one year, then homeschooled her own son for a year, then turned to writing in an effort to restore her sanity, having discovered that instructing one child of her own was far more challenging than teaching 25 kids who belonged to other people. She admires the people who can homeschool and do it well. In December of 1999 she was facing her 35th birthday and the turn of the century. She knew it was time to set some goals, to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. The goal she set was to sell a novel to a major publisher within five years - before her 40th birthday - but she reserved the right to reevaluate the goal in five years if she hadn't succeeded. In January of 2000, she enrolled in an online class on "Writing and Marketing the Category Romance," started her first romance novel and was off and running. She submitted The Baby Plan to Harlequin Superromance in April of 2001. At the end of August the full manuscript was requested, and the "hear-by" date was set at April of 2002. In February of 2002, Susan Gable got "The Call" from Harlequin. In November of 2002, she held the culmination of her dream in her hands. "I do believe dreams can come true," she says. "You just have to work hard at it. It's not enough to just dream it. You have to go after the dream with a plan for success. Henry David Thoreau said, 'If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.' And I really believe that." What are her hopes for the future? "To keep writing and selling books. And hopefully to have readers enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. It's just as much fun on this side of a book." Any regrets at this point in her career? "That my sophomore English teacher, Mr. Solomon, didn't live to see this. He always hassled me about starting sentences with conjunctions in my creative writing assignments, and I'd tell him that published authors did it all the time. He told me when I was a published author, then I could do it, too. Look, Mr. Solomon. I can start a sentence with a conjunction now."

Book preview

Author

Dedication

For Lilian Darcy, my kind, immensely creative, and insightful editor. I enjoyed working with you on this project and wish you all the best in your future plans. Play, giggle, break rules and be happy! Until we meet again...Deb

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

I love connected stories. I love to read them and I love to write them. When I wrote my first Tule Publishing book, COWGIRL COME HOME (now, MONTANA COWGIRL, for branding purposes), I had no idea I’d wind up with a series called: BIG SKY MAVERICKS. But, once I met the Zabrinski family, I was hooked.

To the surprise of many readers, my first spin-off, MONTANA COWBOY, told Austen’s story. Yes, that Austen. I was relieved to find he just needed the right heroine to whip him into shape. And I couldn’t tell his story without introducing his twin sister, Mia.

Poor Mia. That’s what everyone says. A breast cancer survivor and single mom, Mia’s fed up with having things taken from her. Look out, hot, gorgeous, interesting stranger camping on her land. You’re about to meet your match...your perfect match.

I couldn’t have written Mia’s story with the generous help of my dear friend, Linda Barrett, who documented her experiences as a two-time breast cancer survivor in her wonderful book, Hopefully Ever After (available in print and ebooks).

Also I consider myself so lucky to have worked with the fabulous Lilian Darcy as my editor on this book. Lilian’s understanding of story and the fundamental workings of the creative brain brought so many insights to this story and my characters. I learned so much. I can’t thank you enough, Lilian.

I hope you enjoy Mia’s story and develop a curiosity about her older sister, Meg, whose book follows soon. Please keep your eyes open for the newly titled, MONTANA MAVERICK.

Happy reading, my friends,

Deb

Prologue

The boy lifted his face to the sun and inhaled deeply.

Heaven, he thought, is Montana in the summer.

He put his new camera to one eye, squeezing the other so he could focus on the scene in his viewfinder. His father stood thirty feet away, casting back and forth like one of those old mechanical toys they saw at the museum in Bozeman. No waders for Dad, who insisted he needed contact with the river to feel the fish.

He snapped a shot, then looked for his brother in the distance.

No luck.

Only the flickering tip of his brother’s rod was visible a hundred yards away. Mr. Independent, Dad called him. Two years older meant he didn’t have to wear the hideous, bright orange Coast-Guard-approved safety vest that smelled like fish and chafed the boy’s bare arms when cast. But no amount of complaining helped. Dad said even good swimmers could panic and drown in the fast moving Marietta River and he wasn’t taking any chances because Mom would kill him if he returned to Pennsylvania one kid short.

A sound reached his ears. Not the usual bird cries or the muffled roar of Harleys on the road that led to Yellowstone. Laughter punctuated with high-pitched squeals. He squinted against the bright light as a girl in a red swimsuit rounded the bend in the river, her legs draped over a big black inner tube. She kicked hard, water splashing.

She had something clenched in one fist as she paddled fiercely with her free hand, obviously trying to stay ahead of the others that followed. He could hear their shouts but the only thing he could make out was one word: Nitro.

Her dark, wet hair was pulled back in a ponytail that trailed in the water when her head dipped backward. Water drops on her tanned skin sparkled like tiny jewels. Even from a distance he could tell her eyes were blue. Electric blue. The color of the vodka bottle Dad brought for his evening cocktail.

The boy’s hand shook as he hurried to take her picture. This was something special. A moment in time that might never come again.

The expression on her face was part laughter and part win-at-all-cost. Clamped in her mouth like a knife was a smoking punk—the kind he and his brother used to light fireworks on the Fourth of July. Taking a break from paddling, she pinched off something, held it to the punk then tossed it high in the air, nearly upsetting her tube.

A loud crack filled the air, followed by three or four more explosions.

Firecrackers.

She had another ready to light when she spotted him.

Her eyes went wide. Her top teeth bit down on her bottom lip, a look of being caught doing something wrong on her face.

Sorry, she called, as the other kids caught up to her.

She pointed to the boy, their camp.

The bigger kids—there were six total—formed a circle around her—probably to make sure she didn’t throw any more firecrackers and disturb the fishermen. One thing the boy knew about western Montana, people took their sports seriously.

The older kids in the group exchanged words with Dad, but the boy didn’t pay them any mind. He couldn’t stop looking at the girl in the red suit. She kept looking over her shoulder at him, too.

He snapped another shot. A keeper. He’d bet anything on it.

He watched until they were nearly out of sight.

Just before the flotilla cleared the bend where his brother was fishing, he saw the girl kick free and spin around to face him. She took the punk from her lips and waved. Her smile was the sweetest thing he’d ever, in his whole life, seen. And it made him happy.

He didn’t know why.

It just did.

He carried his camera to dry land and stashed it in his sleeping bag. He couldn’t wait to finish the roll so he could get it developed. He wanted to see the picture of the girl—the girl he’d never forget.

Chapter 1

"Jab. Jab. Uppercut. That’s the way. Now, give me two knee lifts...and a kick. Quickly, now. Repeat."

Mia Zabrinski blinked the salty sting of sweat from her eyes with the back of her glove so she could see the video she’d uploaded on her tablet that morning. Her sides heaved. Lungs burned. Her pathetic little biceps quivered from the use/abuse. Not for the first time since she moved back to her old home town of Marietta, Montana, she asked herself what the hell am I doing and how did I get here?

She’d loved her old gym in Cheyenne. Fresh, hip, and stylish. She’d felt smart, alive and cool every time she walked through the door. Now, she was stuck in her parents’ basement in the space once dedicated to her super-jock twin brother, Austen. Back then, she’d secretly resented all the attention he got on the playing field, but she’d used that to fuel her own successes. Academically and in life. She’d one-upped him a few times—first to marry, first to have kids.

First to crash and burn.

Give me ten squat kicks starting now. Kick. Higher. Faster. Build on your power, the lithe woman instructor ordered.

What power? Mia would have cried if she weren’t struggling to get enough oxygen.

She’d handed over her power as payment to board the Eradicate Fucking Cancer Express fifteen months earlier. She’d opted for the most aggressive treatment available. No hoping for the best where her life was concerned. A single mom with two kids in her care didn’t gamble on pesky leftover cancer cells.

Okay. Good. Take it back a notch as we start winding down. Stretch right. Reach. Breathe.

She inhaled deeply, ignoring the residual twinges from stretched skin and perky new replacement boobs. Let me give you new breasts, Mia, her doctor in Cheyenne had begged. You’ll feel whole again. More you.

No more surgery. I don’t have time to go through this again. I need to move my kids and get them settled. I have to find a new job. From the outside, I look as normal as I need to be, she’d argued.

But her mother, Austen—even her sister, Meg—weighed in on the subject until Mia finally caved. Now, she was whole—whatever that meant. Outwardly, at least. Inside, she was a hot, screaming mess.

She was a fighter and, as anybody in her family would volunteer, as tenacious as a Montana winter.

She stayed married to a man she didn’t love until he walked out on her. She’d stayed in—and excelled at—a job she hated—prosecuting the scum of the earth in Cheyenne, Wyoming—because it gave her the illusion of power. Her take home pay had matched Edward’s, which brought a certain level of satisfaction, too. Their combined incomes placed them in an economic bracket that provided a gorgeous home she could hire someone else to clean. Their children went to private schools—fat lot of good it did them. Her life was freakin’ perfect—until it wasn’t. Until the day Edward told her, I’m done playing this charade. Get a good divorce lawyer. I suggest Don Cho.

Her settlement provided enough to start over in style—until cancer kicked her ass and she’d needed her family’s help simply to make it through the day.

Mom, a perturbed voice called from the top of the stairs. We need to leave, now. I texted you twice.

Mia flopped over in a forward bend, her fingers brushing the ugly commercial carpet. She hated basements. As soon as she had her mobility and endurance back, she planned to check out the new Martial Arts studio that had opened up in the strip mall just outside of town, but no stranger was going to see her in this shape.

Coming.

She grabbed the towel she’d set on the old rocking chair that her mother had tried to palm off on her fourteen years ago when Emilee was born. Mia trotted up the stairs, still breathing hard, to find her daughter standing, arms crossed and toe tapping impatiently.

You do this on purpose, don’t you? You get a kick out of making me late so I have to walk into First Period when everyone else is in their seats.

Mia wiped the sweat out of her eyes. Annoy Emilee is the first thing on my to-do list every morning. How am I doing?

Em made a face of pure disgust and stomped out the door of the attached garage. Mia’s Escalade no longer had a pristine heated garage to call home. The beautiful white gas hog sat outside because her parents were home for another month. Normally, they headed to their winter habitat once school started. But, lucky for everyone, Mia’s younger brother, Paul, was getting married the first weekend in October.

Mia stifled a sigh as she grabbed her purse. Hunter, we’re leaving.

Her eleven-year-old son blew through the mudroom with a grunt that probably meant Good morning in pre-teen boy vernacular.

Good morning to you, too, my only son.

He tugged his Rockies ball cap to the top of his thick black brows and shouldered the backpack that probably weighed half as much as he did—ninety pounds at his recent school physical.

Both kids were in the back when she climbed behind the wheel. She tossed her purse on the passenger seat and started the engine.

No elevator music, Emilee ordered.

Mia looked in the rearview mirror and shot her a my-car-my-music look. Then she touched a title on the console’s mini computer for a song she’d downloaded from her future sister-in-law’s playlist. As much as she hated to admit it, Mia liked Bailey Jenkins. They’d had practically no contact when Bailey and Paul dated in high school. By then, Mia was in college, living with Edward, making babies together.

The beat pulsed with a hint of African rhythms. She tapped the steering wheel as she drove, ignoring the death rays shooting from her daughter’s pretty green eyes. Mia deserved her children’s anger. She’d given up on her marriage long before Ed started sleeping with his fave barista. She’d been too focused on her work for years, spending extra hours when her babies were sleeping and working on cases that would help build her reputation as a hard-ass prosecutor. She paid a nanny to do the car-pool thing, to take them to play dates and dance lessons, although Mia almost never missed a recital or performance. Not any more than Edward did, at least.

But Ed dodged the kids’ fury by taking off. Their children hated him, too, but since he was five hundred miles away basking in the glow of babyhood with his twenty-eight-year old wife, what did he care?

Mia cared. Lately, she’d awakened with tearstains on her cheeks and a persistent cough. She’d even made her doctor take an X-ray of her lungs last week to be sure the cancer hadn’t spread. You’re sleeping in a basement, Mia. Move upstairs, for God’s sake, he’d ordered.

She intended to. Her parents would be taking off for their annual Snow Bird migration to Arizona in a few weeks. She’d move into the master bedroom the day after Paul and Bailey’s wedding.

Mom and Dad had convinced Mia to housesit for them this winter. She didn’t delude herself that she was actually doing them a favor. Since retiring and buying a giant travel trailer, they’d closed up the family home every winter without issue. But having a place to live for the winter meant she and the kids would be able to move into their new home in the spring, if her contractor could get started on the foundation of her new place right away. She’d received the ten-acre riverside lot she and Ed bought for retirement in the divorce. Since she owned it outright, she felt comfortable getting a building loan to construct a modest, three-bedroom, two-bath house on the site.

Did I tell you I got the name of a contractor from Uncle Paul? If we can decide on a plan, he might be able to get the foundation in before the ground gets too hard. She’d hoped to keep the job in the family, but Paul’s crew at Big Z Hardware and Lumber stayed busy with handyman jobs and left ground-up construction to the pros at Heath McGregor’s company.

Like we’ll have any say it, Emilee muttered. You’ll build what you want and we’ll just have to like it. Huh, Hunter?

Mia stretched to see her son in the rearview mirror.

Hunter made a face. As long as it has fast WiFi, I don’t care where we live.

Emilee fisted her hand to slug him, but Mia called out, We’re here in time to save him.

She flicked the blinker and turned into the drop-off line.

Brat, Emilee muttered, jumping from the car before Mia came to a complete stop.

Emilee...

Mia’s stomach clenched, and the sick feeling she associated with first trimester childbirth made her chest hurt. She fought back tears as she put the car in park and loosened her seat belt so she could kiss her son goodbye. Have a good day, sweetheart.

I will. He started to scoot across the seat but stopped and looked at her. It’s not so bad here, Mom. Em just doesn’t want it to be good because that would mean you were right to move us here.

Eleven, going on forty-five.

Thanks, honey. I love you.

He nodded his reply. When had love words become verboten, she wondered? When he hit double digits? She couldn’t remember.

Mia watched her children melt into the crowd until a polite toot urged her to keep the line moving. She drove slowly, her gaze taking in the morning hubbub. Parents walking their little ones to the elementary school doors. Kids on bikes. Big orange busses parked to one side. She’d missed out on so much of the childrearing experience. Despite Emilee’s vehement protest about moving to Marietta, Mia was hopeful she’d made the right decision. It’s too small, Mom. And backward. They won’t have an arts program. I’ll hate it.

The school hadn’t changed much since Mia and Austen attended it. Some programs had been cut, including art. But to Mia’s surprise, Austen’s girlfriend, Serena James, had started Twisted, a fiber arts program using the fleece from her herd of alpacas. Emilee—along with her cousin, Chloe—had found an outlet for their creative energies.

Mia figured Serena’s program bought her a couple of months of relative peace. Time Mia could devote to getting her new life in order. In addition to finding a contractor, picking a house plan and going deeply into debt, she needed to pull Austen down to earth from Cloud Nine so they could set up their partnership.

She thought about their recent conversation as she headed out of town to check on her land. Austen had been disappointed when she told him she’d decided to table the idea of running for public office. Maybe in four years. The kids will be older and I’ll have my feet on the ground.

But with your experience, you’d make a great D.A., Austen had argued.

"Thanks for the vote of support. Unfortunately, we both know I don’t have the fire in the