His Montana Sweetheart (Big Sky Centennial Book 2) Read online

  Catching His Heart

  Olivia Franklin suspected coming home to Jasper Gulch would mean eventually running into her first love, Jack McGuire. But she’s adamant that she not repeat the mistakes that led to her broken heart. Yet from the moment she lays eyes on her former sweetheart, her resistance begins to crumble. The tall, handsome rancher made his choice all those years ago. He’d gone from the baseball diamond to a high-rise office and finally back home to the Double M—all without her. And no amount of centennial nostalgia can change the past. But the future is another story, and the pretty historian is about to get a lesson in romance from the lonesome cowboy she will never forget!

  Big Sky Centennial: A small town rich in history…and love.

  Batter up!

  The Jasper Gulch Centennial Committee

  Invites You to Join In

  Some Old-Fashioned Fun

  as We Welcome Back Our Hometown Heroes for

  an Old Timers’ Baseball Game…

  Montana Style!

  There’s nothing like baseball in Montana.

  Is it the fresh mountain air? The cowboy mentality?

  No one knows for certain. But it’s no wonder the

  Jasper Gulch Old Timers have captured our hearts!

  And no two hearts could be more entwined than

  Livvie Franklin’s and Jack McGuire’s. Though it’s been eight years since these former high school sweethearts have laid eyes on each other, something tells us Livvie

  has never gotten over her Jasper Gulch all-star.

  Can the centennial celebration help them turn back time? Join us in the bleachers as we root them on!

  * * *

  Big Sky Centennial:

  A small town rich in history…and love.

  Her Montana Cowboy by Valerie Hansen—July 2014

  His Montana Sweetheart by Ruth Logan Herne—August 2014

  Her Montana Twins by Carolyne Aarsen—September 2014

  His Montana Bride by Brenda Minton—October 2014

  His Montana Homecoming by Jenna Mindel—November 2014

  Her Montana Christmas by Arlene James—December 2014

  Books by Ruth Logan Herne

  Love Inspired

  Winter’s End

  Waiting Out the Storm

  Made to Order Family

  *Reunited Hearts

  *Small-Town Hearts

  *Mended Hearts

  *Yuletide Hearts

  *A Family to Cherish

  *His Mistletoe Family

  †The Lawman’s Second Chance

  †Falling for the Lawman

  †The Lawman’s Holiday Wish

  †Loving the Lawman

  His Montana Sweetheart

  *Men of Allegany County

  †Kirkwood Lake

  RUTH LOGAN HERNE

  Born into poverty, Ruth puts great stock in one of her favorite Ben Franklinisms: “Having been poor is no shame. Being ashamed of it is.” With God-given appreciation for the amazing opportunities abounding in our land, Ruth finds simple gifts in the everyday blessings of smudge-faced small children, bright flowers, freshly baked goods, good friends, family, puppies and higher education. She believes a good woman should never fear dirt, snakes or spiders, all of which like to infest her aged farmhouse, necessitating a good pair of tongs for extracting the snakes, a flat-bottomed shoe for the spiders, and for the dirt…

  Simply put, she’s learned that some things aren’t worth fretting about! If you laugh in the face of dust and love to talk about God, men, romance, great shoes and wonderful food, feel free to contact Ruth through her website, www.ruthloganherne.com.

  HIS MONTANA SWEETHEART

  Ruth Logan Herne

  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall

  I know even as also I am known.

  —1 Corinthians 13:12

  To my beloved father-in-law, Floyd “Sonny” Blodgett, a gentle man of few words and a loving heart. Dad suffered through the years of Alzheimer’s slow decline with his family surrounding him. Dad, your example of handling whatever came your way has passed on through multiple generations. God truly blessed us with your kind, quiet presence. May you rest in the peace and light of God’s eternal love.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Questions for Discussion

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Of all the town meetings, in all the world...

  The altered line from Casablanca knotted Livvie Franklin’s heart.

  Jack. Here. Now.

  She drew a breath that stuck square in her throat.

  Tall. Still lanky, but with a shoulder breadth that made folks take notice, and from the appreciative glances of the single women in the room—and a couple of older mothers, too—she wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

  Green eyes. Brown hair, shaggy, in need of a cut, but she understood the rigors of ranching, and Jack had lost his mother a few years before. Now he and his dad had house chores on top of everything else in their short Big Sky growing season.

  She knew she’d run into him sooner or later. In a town the size of Jasper Gulch no one stayed hidden forever.

  But she’d dismissed the possibility at a council meeting about the Old-timers’ Baseball Game. Jack had shied away from all things baseball since he blew his arm out over eight years before. He decided then to shrug off ball-playing and his girl—her—as anathema.

  So be it.

  She’d slip out the back, she decided, but Olivia had forgotten the force of the locals. As soon as the small gathered crowd saw Jack—

  The same folks who’d been greeting her since she came into town a few days before—

  Heads swerved from Jack to her, their looks expectant.

  Jack turned, following the track of their collective attention. He stopped. Stared. His gaze, always so open and trusting for the years they dated, was more somber. Surprise widened his eyes, and the saltwater green brightened.

  He moved her way, preventing her escape, forcing a confrontation she didn’t want. As he drew closer, with pretty much the entire group focused on this unplanned reunion of high school sweethearts gone amok, she forced herself to engage in a moment of self-honesty.

  She did want to see him. She’d been hoping to see him. And she’d made sure she looked good before she left the house each day this week, just in case.

  “Livvie.”

  “Jack.”

  For the life of her, the one word was all she could manage, looking up—way up—into the eyes she’d known and trusted for so long. Her Jack...

  Then. Not now. She hauled in a breath and stuck out her hand. “Good to see you, although I’m surprised. I was pretty sure you’d stayed away from anything to do
with baseball since college.”

  His expression confirmed her assumption, but his words surprised her. “Adam’s little sister shamed me into it. I’m still wondering how to get even with her, but she’s gone and gotten herself a cowboy fiancé and it would be too bad to burst their little bubble of happiness. Although the ride into town gave me time to ponder some creative options. He’s in pretty good shape, though, so why tempt fate?”

  Half hermit, Livvie’s mother had said. Keeps to himself. No one sees too much of him or his father these days.

  Change and grief. Livvie knew the reality of that firsthand but quelled her urge to sympathize with a dose of reality.

  She’d loved Jack once. He’d broken her heart. Squaring her shoulders, she nodded toward the front. “I think they’re getting things under way.”

  Resignation marked his gaze. For her? For the situation? The meeting?

  She had no idea, but Livvie Franklin had vowed one thing on her long drive back to Jasper Gulch to help organize a town history for the ongoing Jasper Gulch centennial festivities. The trip back home had been rife with self-appraisal. And the timing? Imperfectly perfect as she nursed the wounds of an unexpected divorce.

  Jack McGuire was off-limits. She’d placed him in the high-risk category eight years before and there he’d stay, no matter how handsome he was, or how his eyes gazed straight into hers as though drinking in the vision.

  She’d save her romantic notions for Jane Austen and history, a perfect coupling. Modern romance?

  She’d finally figured out it was nothing to write home about.

  * * *

  Broadsided by the petite, blue-eyed blonde that had won his heart over a decade before. He stood before the board, offering what he hoped was a coherent report on the old-timers’ game, but he couldn’t wrap his head around baseball right now. Not with Livvie twenty feet to his left.

  Why was she here? Were her parents okay? Was she?

  Questions bombarded him from within and without, and he wasn’t sorry when his elderly friend Rusty Zidek chimed in a time or two to clear matters up.

  Were they gathering players?

  Yes.

  Were player shirts ordered for both teams?

  They would be this week.

  Had they invited Hutch Garrison, the current Jasper Gulch baseball success story, a newly signed outfielder for the Colorado Rockies?

  Yes, but he hadn’t been able to confirm his presence yet.

  By the end of the back-and-forth, the board seemed satisfied with how things stood. Jack needed to hear from more players, but they had weeks to straighten things out, and a pledge from some guys in Bozeman to fill in if necessary. That bit of news made the council give a collective sigh of relief.

  The mayor tipped the central microphone toward himself. “Jack, I’m speaking for the entire board when I say we’re grateful you took this on when Wes got sick.”

  Wes Middleton, the previous chair of the Old-timers’ Committee, had unexpectedly needed bypass surgery. Jack met the mayor’s gaze frankly and replied, “I believe ‘railroaded’ by your youngest daughter would be a more apt term, sir. Seems the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree in this case.”

  Mayor Shaw’s gaze glinted with humor and something else. Regret? Maybe. But the look disappeared before Jack was sure he read it correctly. “Her mother’s powers of persuasion, actually. You know how it is, Jack.”

  He didn’t, not really, because he’d run cold and hard from anything to do with long-term relationships for years. Maybe he wasn’t meant to settle down, settle in. Maybe—

  A glimpse of wavy, layered blond hair to his left put his heart in pause mode. He’d blown it once, the only relationship that mattered. He’d tossed her overboard in a groundswell of self-pity and anger. Like Scrooge in the famous Dickens story, he might have ruined his one and only chance at love eight years before, but he had his ranch. And his father. And—

  The appreciation list cut short right there because he’d already summed things up and felt the lack to his core. He drew a breath and nodded to the mayor, raised the few sheets of loose-leaf paper he’d brought and swept the board a glance that included Rusty. “We’ll have it running smooth by game day.”

  He ignored the bemused look Rusty aimed his way, because Rusty was the only person who knew how little he had really done. The board nodded and moved on to the next item as Jack turned to say goodbye to Olivia.

  Gone.

  He scanned the room quickly.

  No Olivia.

  He headed toward the backdoor quicker than necessary, and when he stepped through and saw her perched on the brick wall alongside the steps, his heart did a rapid thump of gratitude, a reaction he didn’t deserve and couldn’t pursue. But for that one instant, a decades-old feeling power-rushed him, the way it used to every time he saw her. When she shifted her attention his way at the sound of the door, however, her gaze bordered on polite and distant, and that realization settled his pulse in quick order. “I thought you left.”

  “I am leaving, but I wanted to jot down a few names, and if I waited to do it at home I’d forget half.”

  “With your brains?” He scoffed and moved closer. “Not gonna happen. Are you here to visit? And why are you writing down random names? Did you drive in?”

  She closed the electronic tablet and stood as she addressed his questions in order. “I’m in town to help put together a biographical history as part of the centennial. If my research goes well, my information will be ready by the time they open the new Jasper Gulch historical museum in December. I came into town tonight because I thought some of the old-timers coming in for the game could help fill in some time-line gaps I’m seeing.” She didn’t add that she assumed Wes Middleton was in charge of the game, and that if she’d known Jack was involved, she’d have shied away, but her expression made that clear.

  “The car question?” She turned her gaze toward a red compact angled into a parking slot up the road. “I figured it would be dark by the time the meeting was done, or at least by the time I made it home, and walking the two-lane at dusk is stupid.”

  It was. Sun glare blurred the horizon and the road at dawn and dusk. She’d made a smart choice, but that was no big surprise. Her brilliance had earned her a prestigious scholarship to Stanford, while he’d been playing ball five hours south at UCLA. A long-distance relationship that worked until...

  He cut that thought short by hooking a thumb south. “You got time to walk, Liv? Catch up? Somewhere that every citizen of Jasper Gulch isn’t watching?”

  * * *

  Oh, she had time, all right. Nothing but time. And he was right about the citizenry because she’d been fielding questions about her marital status and Jack’s single-guy life for the past seven days, as if one plus one should naturally equal two.

  They didn’t, of course. Not all equations worked out in mathematical precision, especially with human quotients.

  But did she have the moxie to maintain polite distance from Jack McGuire, her first love? She hesitated, knowing she was vulnerable, lost in the kicked-up dust of a three-year marriage gone bad the year before.

  She’d wanted a family.

  Her husband had wanted a divorce. Since the two were at distinct odds, he had hightailed it out of their marriage and into the arms of a woman he’d met eighteen months before, a woman he’d married and had a baby with not long after the ink dried on the divorce decree. Which meant for well over a year Billy Margulies had been living a lie. She wasn’t sure which hurt more—his lie or the fact that she fell for his act the entire time.

  Jack tipped his gaze down, and that sweet expression, hinting question and tinged with humor, made her decision hard and easy. “Yes. I’ve got time for a walk. A quick one.”

  He rocked back on his heels and dipped his chin, total cowboy
. He didn’t reach for her hand as she slipped her iPad into the tooled-leather Western bag at her side, but he looked as if he wanted to hold her hand, and that evoked a wave of sweet memories best kept at bay.

  Here in Jasper Gulch, where every storefront and street held a memory?

  Keeping those thoughts in their place would be tough to do.

  * * *

  Tongue-tied.

  Jack headed toward the old bridge, trudging the worn path with Olivia as he’d done so often in the past. But things were different now. Knowing that, understanding the ensuing years had gone downstream swift as minnows from the Big Timber fish hatchery, he knew nothing would negate the past, but he’d hurt this girl—woman, he corrected himself—and fate or God had put her in his path tonight. Maybe he could make amends.

  “I hated you for a long time.”

  Jack quickly downscaled amends to initial-apology status. Amends would take longer. Like maybe forever. Or never. He winced inside because talking wasn’t his strong point, and waded into the waters of repentance with “guilty as charged” stamped on his forehead. “You had reason to.”

  She acknowledged that with a questioning look. “Yes and no.”

  “My vote is yes because I threw a hissy fit about my injury, dumped you, chased off after a career I ended up not liking, then came back home with my tail tucked between my legs like a naughty pup.”

  “Your mother’s illness brought you back,” she corrected him. “And you did the right thing. But was it the job you hated, or the city?” She asked the question without looking at him, skimming right over the whole part where he admitted to dumping her. Breaking her heart.

  Unless he hadn’t broken her heart.

  That thought rankled enough to have him clap a hand to the nape of his neck.

  And then a surge of instant guilt sprouted because the idea she might not have been all that heartbroken irked him. What kind of man was he?

  Shallow, self-absorbed, inwardly focused, take your pick, advised his conscience.

  He preferred God-fearing, upright and responsible, but the past year had nudged his conscience into a more accurate appraisal. Ignoring the internal stab, he pondered her question as they approached the creek bank above the rapids. “Eventually I grew to hate both,” he admitted. “I actually didn’t mind the city at first. It was vibrant. Different. Full of life.”