Holiday Homecoming by Jillian Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

smart.
    He’s probably commitment shy and has a list of typical male faults a mile long, she thought to intentionally counterbalance the admiration glowing in her chest like the rising sun.
    He rubbed his eyes and his nose. Scrunching up his mouth like a little kid, he looked ten times more handsome as he did. He blinked, as if his eyes were still trying to focus on the rolling mountain valley and the dazzling peaks rimming it. “Look, the snow’s stopped.”
    â€œYeah. About an hour ago. There’s nothing like aMontana morning.” Her eyes hurt with the beauty of it. She was home. Rose-hued sunlight shimmered on miles of quiet, pristine snow, like thousands of tiny faceted jewels flung across the land. A land so big and untamed, it still felt wild over a century after it was settled.
    Wooden fence posts draped in snow marched along meadows and over undulating hills, not unlike the fences the pioneers had sunk into this land. Up ahead an elk, a light milk-chocolate tan against the dazzling snow, ambled onto the two-lane highway. He swiveled his elegant head to look at her, his polished antlers gleaming like ivory in the light.
    She slowed on the recently plowed roadway. Ice had her fishtailing but she steered into it, shifted into neutral and eased to a stop. With no traffic so early in this desolate place, she waited instead of going around.
    â€œI haven’t seen that in a while.” Ryan breathed, sitting up straight. “We used to have a whole herd of them that would graze in the fields next to our house.”
    â€œWe did, too. They’d come and eat the grain set out for the horses.”
    â€œIs he awesome or what?”
    Pure, elegant power, the male elk lifted his head to scent the wind. Muscles rippled beneath his tan coat as he stretched. As if sensing danger, the great animal gathered up into a breathtaking leap. Agile and lithe, the bull galloped across the ruby-hued landscape, a streak of brown against the wonder of the dawn. A ray of sunlight haloed him and he vanished.
    â€œAwesome,” Kristin agreed into the silence.
    As the SUV crept forward on the ribbon of road, Ryan fought the memories crowding up from the deep well in his heart he’d boarded shut decades ago. Memories of the crisp winter air searing his face. His boots sinking deep in the snow as he tried to walk in his dad’s tracks, though the footprints were too far apart. The crackle of the dried marsh reeds as they rustled when Dad knelt down. The black stock of his hunting rifle resting on his thigh.
    â€œWhat made these tracks, son?” Dad had asked in that hushed voice he used, not as harsh as a whisper but so quiet Ryan had to scoot up closer to hear. “Look carefully.”
    His eight-year-old body had been thrumming with excitement. He hitched up the woolen hat that had slung too low and into his eyes, and frowned at the tracks. They looked just like the deer tracks they saw on the north side of the marsh. But he didn’t want to blurt out the wrong answer without thinking long and hard on it first. He didn’t want to disappoint his dad.
    â€œHere’s a hint. First figure about how long they are.”
    â€œI shoulda known that right off, Dad!” Ryan remembered to keep his voice down even if he wanted to shout with excitement. “It’s an elk. Elks’ tracks are bigger than deer. And, uh, it’s a bull elk. He’d been polishin’ up his antlers on that cottonwood. The bark’s all gone in spots.”
    â€œThat’s my smart boy. My guess is if we move along nice and quiet, we just might be lucky enough to get a good look at him.”
    The rasping hum of a diesel engine tore Ryan from the past and from his father’s side. He sat with the morning sun stinging his eyes in the passenger seat as Kristin merged onto the wide-open lanes of I-90. The three-trailer semi barreling along in the lane beside them pulled ahead, the driver in an