Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) by Debra Salonen Read Free Book Online Page A

delightful.”
    “Sugar is not part of my diet anymore.”
    Mom stepped closer and gave Mia a one-arm hug. “A piece of cake isn’t going to bring the cancer back, honey. You’ve done everything in your power—and then some—to beat this. Everybody deserves a little sweetness in their life.”
    Mia ignored the “and then some” dig and tried to open herself to her mother’s energy and life-affirming attitude. Mom had argued long and hard for Mia to try the less invasive treatment that had worked for her, but every woman’s body was different, and Mia had chosen the course of treatment she hoped meant she would live to be her mother’s age.
    Mom had had her own brush with cancer when Mia was in high school. Neither of her parents had been terribly forthcoming with Mia or her siblings at the time. “We didn’t want to worry you kids,” Mom had explained.
    “Didn’t work. We worried anyway,” Mia told her years later.
    Attempting to learn from her mother’s mistake, Mia had tried the opposite approach with Hunter and Emilee. She shared every report, scan result, biopsy pathology…too much, it turned out. Hunter had escaped the real life horror show by burying his head in his computer games, building imaginary worlds or slaughtering zombies. Emilee hid her fear by acting out, turning rebellious—as if pretending she was someone else would keep a worse reality from touching her.
    “You’ve beaten this, honey. You have to believe that and get back to living your life,” Mom stressed, squeezing so hard Mia thought she heard a vertebra or two realign. “We Sharpe women are fighters.”
    We’ve had to be, Mia thought. The Sharpe family…formerly Shapiro, originally from Germany, became more American on Ellis Island, but the genes of their Ashkenazi bloodline didn’t get the memo. Mom’s mother died of breast cancer when Mom was still in high school. Before she was thirty, Mom lost two aunts to the disease, and could name at least three cousins undergoing treatment. This made Sarah Joan Sharpe Zabrinski extraordinarily aware of her own body. She found the tiny lump before a mammogram picked it up. There wasn’t a thing called genetic testing back then. She followed the protocols suggested at the time. And, to everyone’s relief, Mom remained a cancer survivor.
    But Mia knew the odds were high Mom’s cancer would return. They’d had this discussion. Mia understood why her mother chose the wait-and-see option, but passive acceptance wasn’t part of Mia’s personality.
    “I got the message, Mom. I’m fighting with everything I’ve got. Kick-boxing, even.”
    “Fighting doesn’t serve any purpose if you’re not living, too, darling. Come to the cake tasting with me.”
    Mia was nobody’s darling. She hadn’t been for longer than she wanted to remember. She looked at the wall of boxes—a daunting, impossible, mind-numbing task—and her mind slipped back to the moment Ryker Bensen looked up from his mug of freshly ground coffee. His eyes had been so alive, so engaged.
    She hadn’t been able to get his handsome, rumpled, wonderfully sanguine image out of her mind all morning. Saliva pooled in her mouth. She was hungry…for something. “Okay. I’ll go.”
    Mom clapped silently. “Shower fast.”
    Fifteen minutes later, Mia settled into the passenger seat of her mother’s Jeep. In a few weeks, the vehicle would be tethered to the senior Zabrinski’s “Galactic cruiser,” as Paul called the forty-foot motorhome, when Mom and Dad planned to head south to their winter stomping grounds.
    “How many people are coming to this shindig?” Mia asked. She hadn’t been paying much attention to all the wedding plans. She’d had her mind on other things—like figuring out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
    “The wedding? Forty, I believe. Bailey wanted to keep it low-key since it’s a second marriage for both of them, but Paul keeps adding names. It’s hard when you’ve been in