Montana Cowgirl by Debra Salonen

Author:Debra Salonen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: montana, cowboy, cowgirl, contemporary romance, romance
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2014-07-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Bailey adjusted the strap of the cloth grocery bag on her shoulder and pushed the doorbell, bumblebees raising a ruckus in her mid-section.

She’d checked the address twice. Right number. Right house. But she still couldn’t quite believe it.

She’d never been inside, but when they were dating, she and Paul had cruised down Bramble Lane debating about which house they’d buy when they were rich and famous.

“This one,” they’d said simultaneously, on more than one occasion.

Two stories, skinny lap siding with brick accents, a porch that begged you to sit there every evening as the neighborhood settled down. This wasn’t the biggest or showiest house on the street, but she liked how it seemed lovingly coddled by older trees and full, green hedges.

Although she could hear the chime echoing inside the house, nobody came to greet her.

Out back, she guessed.

She held tight to the handrail going down the steps. The entire porch had been replaced by new, manufactured “wood.” Winding her way past a skateboard, a girl’s bike and some kind of motorized scooter, she reached the privacy fence gate. A post-it note fluttered in the late afternoon breeze.

“Come in,” it urged, in hot pink ink with five odd-shaped hearts forming an arch.

She was tempted to snatch it up and press it to her chest but didn’t. She opened the gate and walked into a world unlike anything she’d been expecting.

“Hey,” a high-pitched voice called from the large, rectangular pool. “You’re here.”

Chloe abandoned her orca-shaped raft and rolled into the water. Once her head re-emerged, she yelled, “Da...ad, your girlfriend’s here.”

Bailey waved but didn’t walk any closer, still trying to take in the unexpected landscaping.

Somehow—at tremendous cost, she guessed—he’d built a year-round pool right up against the back patio of the house. The roof reminded her of something she would have seen at the Louvre—a pyramid with solar panels and skylights and retractable doors that opened a wide expanse to the elements. Presumably, the panels could be closed in the winter.

“Wow. This is really something,” she said when Paul vaulted over the back porch in a pair of board shorts and a black tank. “Four seasons of swimming, huh?”

He tried to look modest but she could tell he was proud. “Thanks to the power of solar energy. You recognized the place, right? I couldn’t believe my luck when it came on the market. I made an offer without consulting Jen.”

He winced elaborately. “You can imagine how well that went over. She’d been working with an architect—an over-priced ninny from Bozeman—to design a new home on one of the lots south-west of the river.”

Bailey knew about the development but she hadn’t seen it. To her taste, downtown Marietta was the only place to live, if you couldn’t afford a ranch.

“The house was in pretty rough shape, so I got it for a song. Jen remodeled the inside, and I designed the pool. What do you think?”

“It’s amazing.”

He looked proud and pleased. “Like I told Jen, if you’re going to have a pool in Montana, you better build a cover or those couple of summer months will go by much too fast.

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