Montana Miracle by Debra Salonen

Author:Debra Salonen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Christmas, Western
ISBN: 9781943963669
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2016-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

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Sam’s fingers were stinging from the cold by the time she finished texting her daughter. She shoved the phone and her hands into the pockets of her heavy jacket and called out to the men, “Quitting time, gentlemen. Your wives are going to come after me with tar and feathers.”

“Naw, they won’t,” Mort said. “The tar will freeze too fast to be any good.”

All three laughed, but she noticed they also stopped what they were doing and took off with tired waves and promises to return “sometime soon.” The only one not running for his truck continued rolling up the large extension cord he’d brought with him. “Aren’t you frozen?”

“I worked in Alaska. That was cold.”

She could see her breath and couldn’t feel her lips. “Are my lips blue?”

“Purplish pink. Go inside. I’ll pick up the tools and put stuff away so nobody trips over anything. I don’t want the church to get sued.”

“Okay, but only if you stop by for a hot toddy before you leave. I have a tiny bit of rum that I’ve been saving for just this sort of occasion.”

She thought she saw him nod. “Scoot.”

She usually avoided bossy men. Men like her father, who still called a couple of times a week to give advice she didn’t need and usually ignored. She thought about her parents as she trudged toward her little house. Despite their divorce, Mom and Dad both managed to make her feel as though she were important to them and a cornerstone of their new families. She probably made the transition easy for them since she loved their subsequent spouses and, in her dad’s case, the additional children that populated her life.

She had nothing to complain about where her family was concerned, but she’d felt stifled in Detroit. Smothered by their good intentions and their efforts to help raise Makayla. She didn’t think she’d done too badly as a single parent, but moving had brought unexpected challenges—like dealing with Makayla’s determination to find her father.

Sam hadn’t seen that coming. Avoidance, plain and simple. And, now that the truth had come out—relatively painlessly, thanks to Godiva Lynch’s direct, matter-of-fact intervention—Sam could breathe without the weight of fear of discovery hanging over her head.

“Fear is the root of all evil,” a seminary lecturer once pontificated. “The terrifying what-ifs keep us from realizing our true potential.”

She paused on the stoop and looked behind her. The early winter night had descended quickly, but Gage had started his truck and turned on the headlights so he could finish picking up the site.

He scared her. Not because of his past or his plans to leave, although both gave her pause. When she was around him—heck, even when he was miles away—he remained in her thoughts and under her skin. He made her crave something she didn’t dare call by name.

She stepped into the house and closed the door, breathing hard. Not from the cold. Not from fear. From anticipation of something she had no power to squash.

Lust.

Maybe that theologian was wrong.

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