Big Sky River. Linda Miller Lael

more introductions, and Erin responded politely before looking around the quiet kitchen. “Where are Lucy and Elle?” she asked.

      “Outside,” Tara answered, with another smile. Her face was starting to hurt, but she couldn’t help it. She was just too happy to maintain a normal expression for very long.

      Erin excused herself and hurried through the back door.

      “Maybe I ought to find out what they’re doing out there,” Tara fretted. She was a little rusty at mothering, she realized; back in New York, she’d never have let Elle and Erin out of her sight unless they were in the company of one or more trusted adults.

      “They’re just fine,” Opal said with pleasant certainty, and Tara believed her. Settled back into the chair she’d half risen from on the spur of the moment.

      “Are you working for Sheriff Taylor now?” Tara asked when the conversation lagged, albeit in a comfortable, kick-off-your-shoes-and-sit-awhile kind of way.

      “No,” Opal said, shaking her head slowly. “I’m just helping out for a little while. Boone wasn’t expecting to get the kids back when he did, and I figured he might be in over his head at first.”

      “Oh,” Tara said, nodding and taking a sip from her frosty glass of lemonade. When it came to Boone Taylor, irritation had sustained her for a long time. It was odd to find herself feeling a little sorry for the man, but kind of satisfying, too, because she knew it would annoy him plenty, rooster-proud as he was.

      The kids came back inside then, all four of them, with Lucy in the lead.

      They were only passing through, it turned out, on their way to the front porch, where they could keep an eye on the chickens and Griffin could point out his dad’s place, across that slice of river that separated it from Tara’s property.

      Leaving Opal to sip her lemonade in peace, Tara piled a plate high with cookies, filled four more glasses from the pitcher and carried the refreshments out front on a tray.

      Griffin was standing at the end of the porch, one arm extended toward the double-wide on the other side of the water, pointing an index finger.

      “You live there?” Elle asked, sounding amazed though not quite disdainful. “That’s an actual house?”

      Tara closed her eyes for an instant, cleared her throat loudly and made a rattling fuss of setting down the tray on the low porch table.

      “Yes, it’s a house,” Griffin replied tersely, offended.

      “It’s really a trailer,” Fletcher interjected, in a helpful tone. “It had wheels, once.”

      “Lemonade and cookies!” Tara sang out.

      “What’s wrong with it?” Griffin asked, frowning at Elle. So much for diverting the conversation away from the trailer next door.

      “Nothing, squirt,” Elle replied cheerfully. “Give me a break, here, will you? I didn’t mean any harm—I’m from New York City and we don’t have trailers there, that’s all.”

      Tara passed out lemonade, and the children each accepted a glass, though they barely seemed to see her.

      “We lived in a house in Missoula,” Fletcher said, gripping his lemonade tightly in small hands. “It was bigger than this one and way nicer.”

      “Well, excuse me,” Elle said, with lighthearted indignation.

      Erin was perched in the porch swing, her feet curled beneath her on the floral cushion. She smiled angelically and commented, “That’s what you get for making snotty remarks, sister-dear.”

      “Suppose we all start over?” Tara suggested.

      The tension seemed to abate a little, and she was just congratulating herself on the success of her front-porch peacekeeping mission when she saw a car turn in out by the mailbox.

      Specifically, a sheriff’s department squad car.

      Boone.

      Tara froze, irritated with herself for being surprised and, admit it, a tad electrified, too. Get a grip, she thought. The man lives next door. He probably saw Opal’s car here as he was passing by and decided to stop in, knowing his boys would be with her.

      The cruiser caused another chicken riot, which resulted in clouds of feather-speckled dust and a cacophony of fowl complaints. Boone opened the door, a wry half grin resting easy on his sexy mouth, and set his hat on his head as he got out.

      Tara almost expected to hear the twangy theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as he shut the car door and ambled, in that loose-jointed way of men who are damnably comfortable in their own skin, toward the front gate.

      Out of the corner of her eye, Tara saw Griffin’s little-boy chest swell with a pride that clearly said, That’s my dad.

      “Another cowboy,” Erin said, in a fascinated whisper.

      “With a gun,” Elle added, sounding as awed as her sister.

      For some ridiculous and incomprehensible reason, Tara’s heart was racing, and her breathing was so shallow that hyperventilation seemed a very real possibility. She swallowed and smiled, raising one hand to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun.