Montana Standoff. Nadia Nichols
her shyness…and the glory of her beautiful red hair.
CHAPTER THREE
BY NINE MINUTES past nine o’clock the following morning, Molly’s morale had hit an all-time low. StevenYoung Bear wasn’t coming. She’d known all along that he wouldn’t. And why should he? He had no obligation whatsoever to help her out any more than he already had. She’d made a fool of herself yesterday, putting him on the spot, pressuring him that way, and now she was paying the price. Not only was she probably going to lose her job because of her poor performance at the Moose Horn town meeting, but she’d messed up any chance she might have had to further her acquaintance with StevenYoung Bear. She’d asked him to do something he obviously hadn’t wanted to do: chaperone her on a field trip to an open pit mine. If she’d asked him to dinner, he might have said yes. It would have been a far more diplomatic move, since, after all, she owed him one. She could have offered him a good, old-fashioned Irish corned-beef-and-cabbage feast.
Instead, she’d behaved just like one of those brassy, forward women her mother so disapproved of. Twenty-six-year-old Molly Ferguson, lonely and desperate, had flung herself at a man who had ever so politely tried to brush her off. She had humiliated herself by allowing her impulsive emotions to get in the way of reason and logic.
She paced the confines of her apartment, thinking about all the awful dates she’d been on since her father had reluctantly allowed her to go out with boys at sixteen. She’d said yes to every invitation to go see a movie, not because she liked the boy but because her father was so overprotective. But the truth was, most of the time she’d secretly wished she were ensconced in her room reading a good book. Then later, when she was all grown up and in college, she’d gladly spent all of her time in the dorm, studying. Studying was a good excuse not to suffer through another boring date. She’d given up on dating until John had pestered her into a routine of having dinner with him on weekends he was free… and even those dates with John sometimes had her thinking about the current book she was reading, or the files she was working on in the office.
Not John’s fault, really. She’d been totally focused on attaining her law degree ever since she could verbalize what she wanted to do with her life, and after getting her degree she’d been totally focused on becoming as competent a lawyer as she could. But moments after meeting Steven Young Bear, her law degree and her career were suddenly no longer enough to sustain her. She’d known Steven for less than a day and already she wanted more out of life than going to work every day, spending long hours at the office, and coming home to an empty apartment.
Much more.
Molly marched to the kitchen, ignoring the packed picnic basket that silently mocked her on the counter. She’d clean the apartment. Lord knows it could use it. She’d start by washing the windows, her most dreaded of all chores. She reached for a roll of paper towels, retrieved the glass cleaner from beneath the kitchen sink, and snapped on a pair of yellow latex gloves. She was halfway through the third window when a firm knock at the door startled her. She paused and smoothed her hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Who is it?”
“Steven Young Bear.”
Molly crossed rapidly to the door, snapping the dead bolt back and releasing the security chain. She opened the door wide, still clutching the spray bottle of window cleaner and the crumpled wad of paper towels in her yellow-gloved hands. He was here, standing right in front of her, within arm’s reach. She had to look up to meet his eyes. Handsome and rugged in blue jeans, flannel shirt, sheepskin jacket. She fought to catch her breath and steady her racing heart. Miracle of miracles, Steven Young Bear had actually come.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said in that deep, masculine voice. “I misjudged my driving time.”
“Oh, you’re not late at all.” Flushed with embarrassment, she stripped off the gloves and motioned him in. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, thanks. We should get on the road right away. It’s a long haul.”
“Of course. I’ll just grab my jacket….” She snatched the picnic basket off the counter, feeling awkward and shy. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Minutes later they were heading north toward Havre. Steven was driving, though she’d tried to persuade him to let her take her car. “No, thanks. Government studies have proved that red sports cars are involved in more accidents than any others,” he said, deadpan, thus ending any further conversation about who would drive. She sat meekly in the passenger seat, hands folded in her lap, gazing out the window and reminding herself that she was a grown woman, not a giddy high-school girl with a crush on the captain of the football team. Remember, you’re Molly Ferguson, corporate lawyer at least for another day, and this isn’t exactly a date, she told herself firmly.
“You must hike,” Steven said suddenly, and she glanced over at him, startled. “Those hiking boots of yours look like they’ve traveled up and down some pretty serious mountains,” he said, eyes fixed on the road.
“Yes, they sure have.” She peered down at them, flexing her ankles back and forth and silently thanking Dani.
“What’s your favorite climb around here?”
“Actually, I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “What about you?”
“I’ve only climbed one mountain around here. Cante Tinza. Brave Heart Mountain. I went there on a vision quest and stayed up there for three days.”
She shifted in her seat, glad to change the subject. “What’s a vision quest?”
“It’s a ritual period of solitary fasting in a sacred place that puts you alone before the Great Mystery, ready to make contact with the Higher Power and become one with the universe.”
“That sounds like pretty serious stuff. Did you make the proper connections?”
He shook his head. “I got really cold and tired, and on the fourth day it began to rain and sleet, so I walked back down the mountain and went home. I guess the spirits didn’t want to talk to me.”
Molly studied his expression, searching unsuccessfully for the humor she heard in his voice. She looked out the window again and sighed. “I have a confession to make. These are my ex-roommate’s shoes. Dani hikes and climbs all the time, she’s a regular mountain goat, and when I told her we were going to look at a mountain, she took it upon herself to dress me appropriately for the occasion.”
“You look very nice.”
“Dani’s my fashion consultant. She’s descended of old French nobility and knows about such things, but I’m the daughter of an Irish laborer and a Scottish dreamer, neither of whom paid the slightest attention to what was in vogue. They were too busy trying to raise a bunch of wild kids.” She heard his laugh for the very first time. It was a deep, sexy laugh that made her feel more like a giddy high-school girl than a corporate lawyer.
Molly stretched her legs out, flexed her ankles again in their stiff leather hiking boots. She longed to sit closer to him and trace the powerful curve of his shoulder with her fingers, breathe the intoxicatingly masculine scent of him. She’d never felt this way around John, or any other man, for that matter. It was with great effort that she forced herself to look out the windshield and not at Steven. “I think I’d like to climb a mountain some day,” she said, watching the scenery flash by. “Just to see what the view’s like from the top.”
THEY REACHED THE MINE east of the Rocky Ridge Reservation at a little after 1:00 p.m. The name of the mine was displayed on a large sign at the base of the gated road. “Soldier Mountain Mine,” Molly said, drawing her knees up on the Wagoneer’s bench seat. “How do you suppose it came by that name?”
“Supposedly, a cavalry detail on a routine patrol was wiped out near here by the Sioux back in the 1870s. The story goes that a few of them escaped to high ground and made a stand there. Since this was the only high ground around, I guess that explains it.”
“Did any of the soldiers survive?”
“Not