4Ever N MyHeart

CHAPTER ONE

Chapter One

Montana

January 2006

 “Well, the snow fell without a break. Buffalo died on the frozen ...” the raspy voice of Rod Stewart blasted through the car’s speakers. Lorena turned up the volume a notch and began to sing. Her fingers drummed the steering wheel. A huge pair of eyes glinted from the darkness. She braked, skidding to a stop within ten yards of a yearling moose. The animal, mesmerized by the blinding headlights, froze in place, straddling the yellow lines of the highway.

Lorena lowered the headlight beams and waited. She barely heard the ringtone of her cell phone above the music. She turned down Rod Stewart and flipped open her phone. “Hey, Becka.”

“Hi honey, just thought I’d check in with you. The snow’s getting heavy. Where are you?”

“About twenty minutes away. Everything good at the homestead?”

“You bet. I fed up the barn about half an hour ago.”

When the moose ambled into the left lane Lorena pressed her foot to the pedal and eased past him. “Thanks, Becka. I’ll see you shortly.”

“Have you had dinner yet? Pot roast is in the crock pot and biscuits in the oven.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Lorena laughed. “See you in twenty.”

“Drive carefully, kid.”

Lorena closed the cover of her phone. A single bar on the right blinked. “Damn!” She’d forgotten to charge it. She was tired. The impending weather and the long ride from Billings had taken its toll. If not for the urgency in Matthew Sterling’s voice, she never would have gone. Damn her sister! Not once in the last five years had Carly made an effort to visit Grandpa, much less come to his funeral; but damn if she didn’t make the time to contest his will and to lay claim to half of his estate.

The Blue Sky Ranch had been in the family since the 1870s. It was hers now, all six hundred and fifty acres of prime real estate that she had promised Grandpa she would never sell to developers. Yet, selling off parcels was precisely Carly’s intention.

Over my dead body!

Carly was thirty-eight, married three times and divorced twice, self-centered, eccentric, high maintenance, flirtatious and loud. There had been a time, Lorena recalled, when she’d been foolish enough to shadow her big sister—to flaunt her long legs in a short, skimpy skirt and spiked heels, to spare no expense on leather and lace, make-up, manicured nails and styled hair.

Lorena’s lips curled to a slow smile. Not one semblance of that shallow teenager remained.

Nope. She was Lorena Brinton, and damn proud of it. Thirty-one, blue jeans, flannel shirt, muck boots, and slicker. Beneath her old battered hat a dark chocolate pony-tail snaked the length of her spine.

Lorena flipped on the high beams. Huge flakes, heavy and wet, continued to blanket the road. She strained her eyes through the curtain of white that danced in her headlights. Turning the switch to defrost, she cranked up the heat. She was almost home. A hot cup of tea, a heaping plate of Becka’s home cooking and a warm bath would suit her just fine.