“Is that your truck, Mom?” He sprang to his feet and squinted in the direction of the driveway.
Her green monster of a vehicle rattled over the gravel. “Looks like it. I left my keys with Tripp, and he said he’d have someone fix the tires. That must be him.” She pushed up out of the chair and crossed to the steps.
The man climbing out from the driver’s side looked about the same size as Tripp, but that’s where the similarities ended. Ali pursed her lips.
Chance jostled past her. “Jericho!”
“Hey, bud.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Ali.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you have my truck?”
He looped his thumbs in his pockets. “You left it at the nursing home. It’s got new tires. The old ones couldn’t be saved. But these are good ones. You won’t have to put chains on them in the winter.”
“I’ll go inside and get my purse. How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? The tires I had were almost bald. I priced out new ones weeks ago, and the lowest I could find from anyone was around a thousand. I can’t...won’t be able to give you all of that right now, but I can mail you the rest and—”
He shook his head. “Like I said, you don’t owe me anything. But your engine’s making an unnerving jangling noise, so I’m going to take a peek at that sometime this week.”
She thrust out her hand. “My keys.”
“Funny thing about that.” He leaned a foot on the steps and rested his hands on his knee. “I didn’t have keys so I had to hot-wire it.” He scratched his neck. “Hadn’t done that since high school. Remember how we used to drive Principal Ottman up the wall?”
Ali bit back a grin. “He never could quite figure out how he kept losing his car, or why the police kept finding it at Dairy Queen.”
Chance leaped off the last two steps, landing beside Jericho. “What’s hot-wire?”
“Well, it’s how you can drive a car if you don’t have keys. You see, first you take a screwdriver and pull the trim off the steering column. Unbolt the ignition switch, then—”
Ali cleared her throat.
Jericho’s lips twitched with the hint of a smirk. “Right. Not something you need to know, bud.”
The front door creaked, and Kate popped her head through the opening. “Al? Oh hey, Jericho. Your hot chocolate’s boiling over. I shut it off. Hope it’s not scalded.”
Ali slapped her hand over her heart. “I’d completely forgotten. Do you still want cocoa, Chance?”
Her son’s affirmation propelled her into the house. She stuck a spoon into the pan full of liquid chocolate. She brought the hot cocoa to her lips, blowing on it before tasting. “Still good.”
Kate set out three mugs. “Jericho can have my cup. I’m headed upstairs anyway.”
“He’s not staying.”
“Guess again, sis. He and Chance are already out there, cozy together on the steps. It sounds like they’re swapping tall tales.”
The ladle rattled in Ali’s hand. “He can’t stay. I don’t want him on our property, not near Chance.”
“Too late.” Kate drummed her fingers on the counter. “Did he fix your truck?”
“The tires.”
Kate let out a long, low whistle.
“And he won’t let me pay him back. Not like I have the money to anyway.”
After wishing her sister good-night, Ali hugged the three mugs of steaming cocoa to her chest and strode back outside. Chance popped up, reached for his and then hunkered back down so close that he bumped knees with Jericho. She handed a cup Jericho’s way, and his fingers slipped over hers in the exchange. Ali inhaled sharply.
He took a sip, then tipped the mug at her in a salute. “This is good.”
She wrapped an arm around her middle and looked out to the Bitterroot Mountain Range. The snowcapped peaks laughed down at the fading sunlight in the valley. The sides were blanketed in a vivid green tapestry of pines. Each canyon crag vied with the peaks for splendor. The Bitterroots calmed her. Taking them in reminded her that even when life felt topsy-turvy, purpose and beauty remained in the world.
“It’s from scratch. Mom says none of the packaged stuff in our house, right?” Chance beamed at her, a whipped cream mustache covering his top lip.
“Right.”
“Jericho told me he used to ride the broncos in the rodeo. Isn’t that cool? But he said he never rode the bulls. He said it’s too dangerous, just like you always say.”
Ali leaned her shoulder against a support beam on the porch. “Yes, Jericho used to ride the broncs. He used to rope in the rodeos, too.”
Chance plunked down his mug. “Sounds like you were more than neighbors, ’cause I don’t know things like that about old Mr. Edgar, and he’s lived right across the field my whole life.”
Jericho shifted to meet her gaze. He raised his eyebrows.
She let out a long stream of air. “We used to be friends, Chance, that’s all.”
Chance tapped his chin. “Does that mean you’re not friends anymore?”
Jericho kept staring at her. His intensity bored into her soul, and she looked down.
“Jericho’s been gone a long time.”
She wandered down the steps and into the yard. Their pointer, Drover, trailed after her. She scratched behind his ears, causing his leg to thump against the ground in doggy-bliss.
That had been a close call. Too close. But it’s not like she could kick the man out right after that conversation. Doing so would only raise Chance’s suspicion.
The low rumble of Jericho’s voice carried as he launched into a story detailing an adventure from his days in the army. “We had to go in helicopters, only way to get there. We could hardly see through all the sand swirling around and—”
“So it was like a beach?” Chance peppered Jericho’s monologue with a constant stream of questions.
“Naw. Beaches are nice. This was a desert. Hot. It’d be about one hundred twenty degrees, and we’d have to lug around seventy pounds of equipment on our backs without an ocean to cool off in. Ants all over our food. Not too much fun.”
Ali coughed. “I think it’s about bedtime.”
“No way. C’mon, Mom. One more story.”
Jericho laid a hand on her son’s head. “Don’t argue with your mom, bud. Go on up. You’ll see me again. Promise.”
With a loud groan, Chance shuffled into the house.
A pace away from her, Jericho rose to his feet, his masculine frame outlined by the light flooding from the house.
She crossed her arms. “I can pay you back.”
He stepped closer. “I promised to protect you, remember? I made that pact, and I aim to keep it for the rest of my life. You owe me nothing.”
She bit her lip.
He tipped his hat. “Sleep tight, Ali.” Then he brushed past her and strolled, hands hooked in his pockets, into the hay field back toward his pa’s place.
* * *
Sweat trickled down Ali’s neck as she lugged the last saddle onto its peg in the barn. The triangular posts