Small Town Romance Boxed Set: Books 1 - 5

Chapter 2-1

2

At seven, the sun was still high in the sky, but I sank lower in my chair, sheltered by the patio umbrella. The remnants of dinner were spread out before me on the teak table. Plates, napkins and silverware were strewn about, cobs were corn free, grilled chicken a memory. The aroma of burning charcoal still lingered in the air. I slumped down, comfortable with my head resting against the high wooden back. Relaxed with a full stomach. Wiped out. The tip of my nose was hot and stung a little, probably sunburn.

It had been a long day. After the breakfast fiasco at the fire station, we’d hit six garage sales then hiked up Pete’s Hill and had a picnic lunch. PB&J with a view. I loved that trail as it was right downtown but up on a ridge that offered expansive views, especially at sunset. Bozeman was in a valley bordered on three sides by mountains. The Gallatins, Spanish Peaks and Tobacco Roots. Big Sky vistas in every direction. The kids liked it because we could see the roof of our house from our favorite bench.

While I watched from the patio, the boys played in the backyard wearing their Halloween costumes from the previous year. Zach, dressed as a Stormtrooper, was on the rope swing pretending to be either a futuristic Tarzan or a pirate. Bobby wore his Spiderman suit with Zach’s Stormtrooper mask. They had to be hot and sweaty in their polyester wardrobe.

Bobby dug in the sandbox with a garden trowel, pretending he was Indiana Jones looking for lost treasure, although how he could see through the little eye holes was beyond me. My kids weren’t obsessed with one favorite children’s character splattered across bed sheets, beach towels and lunch boxes. They liked all kinds. They didn’t discriminate.

Next to Bobby, tilted at a cockeyed angle, was the ceramic garden gnome he’d bought with his dollar at the second garage sale. It had a little blue coat, red pointy hat, and white beard. A foot tall. It smiled that creepy closed lipped smile. Zach got a gnome, too. His was different, red coat and blue hat. Same white beard. His sat on its own patio chair at the table with me. Zach had insisted it join us for the meal. If I leaned back in my chair, its beady eyes weren’t trained on me. Fortunately, there had been two gnomes at the sale because only one would have caused global nuclear meltdown. I couldn’t split a ceramic garden figurine down the middle to share like a brownie or cookie. At a dollar apiece, the kids were happy, which made me happy. Life was good.

“Arr, put your blasters down!” shouted Zach as he whizzed through the air. The swing hung from the ash tree that shaded the yard. The fence between the Colonel’s house and mine was waist high, so Zach climbed it and launched himself from there. Even though the houses weren’t shoehorned into small lots—mine was over a quarter acre—from my position on the patio I could see inside the Colonel’s family room at night. He too, could see into my house, although his view was the bank of windows into my kitchen. Maybe that was why he came for dinner so often. He could see what I cooked.

We live on Bozeman’s Southside, ten blocks off Main. Each house was different, some original mining shacks from the town’s start to sixties ranchers. Mine fell toward the latter. It was a mid-century modern one story with a flat roof and tons of character. Typical dingy basement. Redwood siding painted a dark gray-green with black trim. Deep set eaves gave the house a Frank Lloyd Wright feel. What made it special was the floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall windows. The family room, kitchen, dining room and master all had walls of glass that let the outdoors be a part of the house. Unfortunately, the huge windows let anyone see in. Neighbors, Peeping Toms. They didn’t discriminate either.

I loved my house. It had been Nate’s before we married, his parents’ house before that, and Goldie’s parents’ house before that. Nate’s grandfather bought it brand new in ’59, gave it to Goldie and Paul, her husband, as a wedding present in the late sixties. They lived there until Nate and I married and gave it to us as a wedding present. I would have been perfectly content with china or a fondue set for a present. But giving the house to the next generation had turned into a tradition. Nate, being the selfish bastard he was, hadn’t turned down a free lunch. Or a free house.

When Nate died, I’d expected to give the house back to Goldie and Paul and move out. Find something smaller for just me and the boys. They’d been practically babies then. Bobby actually had been. But Goldie had insisted the house was mine. I’d more than earned it, she’d said. She’d loved her son and still missed him, but she knew all that Nate had put me through. Besides, she’d said the house was too big for just her and Paul.

And so I stayed and the house was mine. But three generations of Wests had put their stamp on the home. I’d always been a little nervous to mess with that, but I had to admit I was getting sick of Nate’s eclectic hand-me-down furniture. He’d died years ago so maybe it was time to pass on his furniture, too. This winter, I promised myself.

But with a great house with great windows came a whopping heating bill. Those windows were single pane, original glass which weren’t the best choice for Montana winters. Or little boys with aspirations of making it in the major league.

The Colonel’s house didn’t have quite as much vintage as mine. It, too, was a ranch, but all similarities ended there. It was wide and squat, had a shallow peaked roof, white siding with brick accents and was as vanilla as they came. He did have a pristine yard with the most amazing flowerbeds to add spice the house lacked.

Ty’s house had been built at the same time as the Colonel’s, but had wood siding painted a mud brown with a bright orange front door. He’d bought the house from the estate of Mr. Kowalchek who had been ninety-seven when he’d died. The dearly departed had been the original owner and the man hadn’t done a thing since the day he moved in. The bathroom was probably avocado green. I could see Ty filling his days with updates and renovations that could last as long as his mortgage.

“What’s Mom up to today?” I asked the Colonel. He ate dinner with us often and tonight, brought a Jell-O mold for dessert. It was his specialty. I personally loved a good Jell-O mold as long as there were no weird vegetables or nuts in it that would ruin it. Today, it was in a Bundt shape tiered with four different colors. Very impressive.

“Golf,” the Colonel muttered. “Damned if I know how that woman can play in that heat. It’s like a furnace down there. Chasing a little ball around for hours on end. Always sounded stupid to me.”

One thing about the Colonel was he didn’t mince words. You knew where you stood with him. At sixty-five, he had a full head of gray hair. Helmet head. His hair was too scared of the man to fall out. He wore crisp khakis and a white button-down shirt, his standard uniform. Sometimes he wore shorts, but they were his old khakis sheared into cut-offs.

“It’s not a furnace to her. She says Savannah is ‘like a soft baby blanket’ in July.” I thought Savannah, Georgia, in July was a furnace. With the heat turned on full blast, windows closed and an electric blanket on top of you. Plus, a steam sauna. Couldn’t forget the humidity. “She thinks golf is calming.”

The Colonel harrumphed. “If that woman gets any calmer she’ll be dead.”

“Mommy, I found a prehistoric car that used to chase the dinosaurs!” Bobby shouted from his sandy seat, his mask propped up on top of his dark hair. He held up a Matchbox car he’d gotten from a birthday party favor bag earlier in the summer. I raised my eyebrows and feigned interest. Satisfied with my attention, he shoved the mask back down and went back to his dig.

“When’s she coming next?” It might have seemed strange I asked the Colonel about my own mother’s comings and goings, but she talked to the Colonel ten times more often than she talked to me. Not that she didn’t love me. But she loved the Colonel. And being two thousand miles apart made that love all the stronger.

“End of August when school starts. She wants to be here for the first week.”

Worked for me. I liked my mother. We got along well and when she came to town, it was great. She took care of the little details of raising kids. Baths, story time, lunch boxes. It was nice to be taken care of for a change. A mother hen clucking at her chicks. She didn’t do laundry, but that I could handle.

Zach ran over and grabbed his gnome. “Can I go show Ty my George? He said this morning he wanted to see our booty.”

My mouth dropped open but I shut it before I could laugh. Actually, I wasn’t sure what I should laugh at first: his costume, his gnome or his pirate jargon. “George? You named your gnome?”

Zach nodded his head. “Sure, everyone needs a name.”

I wasn’t aware everyone included a ceramic garden statue, but I wasn’t going to ruin Zach’s fun. “Sure. Don’t go out front by the road, cut through the Colonel’s backyard to get to Ty’s.”

Zach was off like a flash. Bobby, realizing where his brother was headed, hurried after him, his gnome—whatever its name was—in hand.

“So, tell me about our new neighbor.” I was desperately curious about Ty. As the first man to make my pulse rise in forever, I wanted to know more. Even if I was too chicken to act on it. I could have sexy thoughts about him though. Those didn’t harm anyone and I’d be having those sexy thoughts as I pulled out my own vibrator in bed later tonight.

“He’s from over by Pony. Parents have a ranch there. Cows. Lots of cows.” Pony was a tiny speck of a town west of Bozeman, right smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful country, but isolated. Even more so than Bozeman. Heck, with forty-some thousand people, Bozeman was like New York City by comparison. The Colonel shook his head. “I don’t mind eating ‘em, but I don’t need several thousand as pets.”

I rolled my eyes. There really was nothing to say to that.

“Went into the army right out of high school,” he continued. “Did two tours in the Middle East. Serious stuff. Came back with all his parts and now he’s a firefighter.”

The man’s entire life story in four sentences. I should have asked a girl to get the juicy details. I inhaled sharply—in the way a person would if they found a bee on their nose—when I realized I didn’t even know if Ty was married. It was impossible to remember if he had a ring on his finger. I’d been too blinded by his wide shoulders and blue eyes. I needed to get a woman’s inside scoop. First off, wedding ring. Then current girlfriend, bad relationships, what side of the bed he slept on. The important stuff. Kelly. I’d have to call her later. My best friend had the fast track on information I couldn’t get. With seven kids involved in school, swim lessons, soccer practice, orthodontist appointments and whatever else, she ran into every person in town I didn’t.

Or I could go right to the source. Which, based on the hooting and hollering getting louder and louder, was coming my way. Through the backyard tromped Fireman, Spiderman and Star Wars-man. I felt protected from flames, bugs and aliens. Two, though, were carrying garden gnomes so the image was slightly tarnished.

Ty had changed out of his volunteer fire department T-shirt and wore a pair of jeans, white T-shirt and flip flops. Oh my. He did casual really well. And those jeans, they were well worn and very well molded. I blinked, realizing I was staring at his crotch. Why did he make me so nervous? He exuded manliness, that easy way he moved, with a confidence in himself. Montana sure knew how to make a man. Testosterone seeped from his pores and I just sucked it right in. That was what I found so attractive about him. His appeal went beyond his good looks. I had been married to a good looker and he hadn’t exuded anything. Maybe ego. Not much had come out of Nate’s pores except bad-karma goo as he’d been so slimy.

Ty shook hands with the Colonel, smiled at me. Our eyes met, held. And held. His were so blue, intensely focused on mine, then lower, to my mouth. I melted inside. Other places, too. I smiled back. The boys yanked on Ty’s arms, breaking the spell between the two of us.

Ty cleared his throat. “Looks like you did well at the garage sales,” he said, enjoying the kids’ gnome enthusiasm.

“Yeah, George is great!” Zach exclaimed, placing his ceramic friend on the table next to the chicken platter.

“Glad the fire department put Zach on the ‘No-Fly List’ instead of arresting him outright,” Ty said as he sat down. Bobby, still hugging his gnome, climbed up in his lap.

In his lap, completely comfortable and at ease with the man. My heart flip-flopped and I felt like I was fifteen again. Just looking at him gave me butterflies in my stomach, made my palms sweat. I was afraid I might start to ramble and giggle. I laughed instead. I couldn’t help it. Nice to see someone poke fun at life’s little foibles.