exclusive trainers and surfing on exclusive beaches. When it came to young, blonde starlets finding him attractive, he didn’t even have to try.
This was definitely not a midlife crisis.
So why am I standing in the smallest of towns in a landlocked state more than one thousand miles away from home?
He was supposed to be on a yacht, slowly getting sloshed with his fellow millionaires, drinking top-shelf mojitos while waiting for the sun to set over the Pacific and for the city of Los Angeles to blow an obscene amount of money on a fireworks display worthy of a Hollywood movie. One Laker Girl, in particular, was quite upset he’d canceled those plans. But the government had closed the courts of law on Friday for the holiday weekend, and for the past two years, whenever Ryan found himself with a chance to take a few days off, he’d found himself taking those days off in Montana.
The reason he’d first set foot in Big Sky Country was his brother. Shane Roarke had gained fame as a celebrity chef, a man whose dynamic personality and culinary skill had combined to give him the keys to the world. Shane had opened restaurants all over that world, but when it came to choosing one place to live, he’d chosen Montana.
Shane, like Ryan, was adopted. Shane had found his birth family in Thunder Canyon. He’d found a pair of half brothers, a baker’s dozen of cousins—and the love of his life. She’d been working right under his nose at his own restaurant in the Thunder Canyon resort.
None of that would be happening for Ryan. Not in Montana, and not anywhere else on the planet. Unlike Shane, Ryan hadn’t been adopted at birth. He’d been almost four years old, too young to have many memories of his birth mother, but old enough to have retained an image or two, impressions.
Feelings.
And that one clear moment in time: watching his mother voluntarily walk away from him, forever.
No, there would never be an embrace from a happy second family for him. He was loyal only to one family: the Roarkes. His parents, Christa and Gavin Roarke, his older brother Shane, his younger sister Maggie.
It was Maggie who lived here in Rust Creek Falls, some three hundred miles even farther north than Thunder Canyon. Maggie was married now, and she’d given birth to her first baby less than three months ago.
The Fourth of July wasn’t a big family holiday, not like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Between the LA traffic to the airport, the security checks, and the need to change planes in order to cross one thousand miles, Montana was no weekend jaunt. No one was expected to travel for nine or ten hours to see family for a day in July. And yet, Maggie had mentioned over the phone that the whole town would be celebrating the wedding for a couple Ryan vaguely knew from a previous trip, and he’d booked a flight.
Another moment in time, another feeling: A wedding in Rust Creek Falls? I should be there.
He was acting irrationally, following a hunch. Was that any worse behavior than the attorneys who really were having midlife crises?
Maggie had told him the wedding would be in the church, a formal affair with five bridesmaids and men in tuxedos. Accordingly, Ryan was wearing a suit and tie. He owned a few tuxedos, of course, but since the wedding was in the afternoon and he was one of an entire town of guests, he’d assumed wearing black tie would be too much.
As Ryan made his way from the parking lot to the main part of the park, he returned a few curious but courteous nods from the locals. His assumption about the tux being overkill had clearly been correct, but even his suit was too much. The reception was also the town’s Fourth of July community barbecue. Ryan felt exactly like what he was, an overdressed city slicker, standing in a grassy field that was dotted with picnic blankets and populated by cowboys in their jeans and cowgirls in their sundresses.
He stopped near the temporary stage and wooden dance floor. The bride and groom hadn’t arrived yet, but the band was warming up and the drinks were being served. An old man came toward him, going out of his way just to offer Ryan a cup of wedding punch in a paper cup. Amused, Ryan thanked him, realizing the old-timer must have thought he looked like he needed a drink, standing alone as he was.
He was alone, but only because Maggie and her husband were back at their house, hoping their baby would take a nap so they could return for the fireworks later. Being alone didn’t mean Ryan was lonely.
Ryan took a swig of the wedding punch, then immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a god-awful sweet concoction with sparkling wine thrown in, something he’d never drink under almost any other circumstance. Worse, he couldn’t just pour the stuff out on the grass. In a small town like this one, he was as likely to be standing near the person who made the punch as not. Some doting grandma or an earnest young lady had probably mixed the juice and wine, and the odds were good that if Ryan dumped it out, she’d see him do it. He’d break some proud punch maker’s heart.
If there was one thing Ryan was not, it was a heartbreaker. His Laker Girl, for example, was irritated at losing a yacht outing, but she wasn’t heartbroken. He kept his relationships painless, his connections surface-deep. In LA, it seemed right. Today, here in this park, it seemed...too little.
He polished off the punch, but on his way to the industrial-size trash can, he passed the punch table and found himself accosted by a trio of sweet little grannies.
“Well, don’t you look nice?”
“Are you waiting on somebody? A handsome young man like you must have a date for this wedding.”
“It’s nearly eighty degrees. You must be ready to melt in that jacket, not that you don’t look very fine.”
He wasn’t overheated. In Los Angeles, the temperature would easily reach one hundred, and he’d still wear a suit between his office and the courthouse. It took more than a reading on a thermometer to make him lose his cool.
Still, he appreciated their maternal concern. Their faces were creased with laugh lines, and all three of them had sparkling blue eyes that had probably been passed down from the Norwegians and Germans who’d settled here centuries ago. It was like being fussed over by three kindly characters from one of Grimm’s fairy tales.
“Here, son, let me refill your cup.”
“No, thank you.” Ryan waved off the punch bowl ladle.
All three women jerked to attention, then looked at him through narrowed eyes, their fairy-tale personas taking on the aura of determined villainesses.
“Don’t be foolish, dear. The day is hot and this punch is cold.”
This was Montana, land of grizzly bears as well as grannies. At the moment, it seemed like there might not be much difference between the two groups. When confronted by a bear, one should let it have its way. Ryan forced another smile as the punch pushers refilled his cup.
“Thank you very much.” He raised his paper cup in a toasting gesture, took a healthy swig to make them happy and continued on his way.
To where? Just where did he have to go?
To a trash can. He had nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, no one else to see.
His vision burst into stars, like he’d been hit in the boxing ring, a TKO. He put his hand out to steady himself, the wooden fence rough under his palm. He wasn’t drunk. It wasn’t possible on a cup of juice-diluted sparkling wine. And yet he felt...he felt...
Good God, he felt like garbage.
Useless.
Maggie was with her husband. Shane was with his wife. Even his parents were together back in California, planning their retirement, ready to travel and spend time together as Christa and Gavin after decades tirelessly fulfilling the roles of Mom and Dad.
Lonely.
One thousand miles he’d traveled, and for what? To be a stranger in a strange land? He looked around, keeping his grip on the split-rail fence. Everywhere, everyone had someone. Children had grandparents. Husbands had