Man From Montana

“Thanks,” Kara said, “but really, I don’t go to bars.” Not anymore.

“So you said. But it’s not like it’s a rowdy honky-tonk—well, not from six to eight, anyway.” Derrick smiled. “I think the wildest person in the dinner crowd is usually Lily Tate. She loves the all-you-can-eat ribs, and if the cook runs out, she gets hostile.”

Kara laughed. Lily Tate was a regular customer at the bank, still feisty at seventy-eight. “Well, when you put it like that…I suppose I could come for a little while.”

“Great.”

Kara reached to set her glass on the table, and Derrick’s gaze fell on her wedding band.

He looked as if someone had knocked the air out of him.

“That is,” he added, “if your husband won’t mind.”

Dear Reader,

Where would I be without you? I truly appreciate each and every one of you who reads the books I write. Oftentimes the characters I create pull me into the story so deeply, I feel as though they’re real people. This was definitely the case with Kara and Derrick.

As a huge fan of country music, I had a lot of fun writing a hero who plays the guitar and sings country love songs. And the fact that he’s just an average guy next door made me fall in love with Derrick. (I hope you will, too!) Of course, Kara is exactly the sort of person I’d like to have for a best friend, especially since she loves horses and dogs.

Friendship is all Kara can afford when Derrick first knocks on her door. But she’s soon caught up in an inner battle—trying to move forward but afraid to let go of her past. Derrick faces a similar dilemma except, like a lot of men, he hides from his problems. He soon finds out that “ignore it and it’ll go away” doesn’t apply here.

I hope you enjoy Derrick and Kara’s story as they travel a rocky road in their search for happiness.

Please come visit my Web pages at smrw.org or superauthors.com or e-mail me at [email protected]. I love hearing from my readers.

Brenda Mott

When Brenda isn’t writing or rescuing animals—she has about thirty dogs at any given time—she enjoys curling up with a good book (naturally!), riding her horses or walking the German shepherds along the riverbank. Brenda can trace her family roots back to the Cherokees who walked the Trail of Tears, and her ranch, deep in the Tennessee woods, is located on part of what used to be the Cherokee Nation.

This book is dedicated to my Cherokee family,

especially my dad’s great-great-grandma Dancer, who was brave enough and tough enough to walk from the Eastern Cherokee Nation all the way to Oklahoma. ^>*Nv-wa-do-hi-ya-dv, e-ni-si. Peace, Grandmother. We got ten acres back.

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

Summer 1993

DERRICK WAS IN THE MOOD TO PLAY. He pulled his ’68 Gran Torino to a halt at the only stoplight in town. Beside him, Nick Taylor smirked and revved the engine of his Chevelle.

“Hey, loser!” Nick challenged through the car’s open window. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

From the Chevelle’s passenger seat, Jason Fremont sneered at him. “Your Torino sucks, Mertz, you drop-out hick!”

Nick and Jason had graduated last year and gone on to college, while he’d stayed right here in Sage Bend, Montana. Being the father of a two-year-old and holding down a full-time job didn’t leave much time for anything else.

But tonight Derrick felt like the boy he used to be—the boy he sometimes wished he still was. Just a guy out celebrating his nineteenth birthday. Even if Shelly had tried to ruin it by dropping Connor off on his doorstep unannounced. It wasn’t his weekend to take care of their son. He had planned to party with his friends, and she’d known that.

Derrick glanced into the back seat where his son sat strapped into the car seat. The little guy loved riding in the Gran Torino. They’d make their own fun.

The thud against his car door made Derrick’s head snap around. He saw raw egg running down the side of the Torino and choked back a curse.

Nick and Jason howled with laughter, then took off with a squeal of tires as the light turned green.

Assholes!

Derrick put the Torino in gear. “What do you think, Connor? Want to show those jerks what for?”

“What for!” Connor replied, his dimpled cheeks reflected in the rearview mirror as he giggled.

Derrick let out the clutch, and the Gran Torino leapt forward like a big cat on the run. He’d gotten the car from his grandfather, and while it didn’t look like much on the outside, he and Grandpa Mertz had made everything under the hood purr.

No way could that piece of crap Chevelle outrun him.

Rapidly shifting gears, he caught up with Nick and Jason, passing them by a half length as they sped away from town out onto the county road. Country music blared through his stereo speakers—a song about fast cars and faster women—as Derrick watched his speedometer needle arc higher.