High Mountain Home Read online

  “I have moved on!”

  “Not far.” Gabe touched her shoulder before she could move away. “It’s not just you, Siddah. My parents are the same way. I know you loved Peter. Everybody did. But don’t you think he’d rather see you enjoying life again?”

  Siddah glared at him, but she waited to speak until a couple on the sidewalk had passed them. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said when they were alone again.

  “I know my brother. I know how much he liked to laugh. I know how much he enjoyed life. Of the two of us, I was the serious one. So I know how much he’d hate seeing my mother so sad and my dad so angry. I’m sure he’d feel the same way about you and Bobby.”

  “We’re trying,” Siddah snapped. “Helene’s already different since you've been back, but I can’t just flip a switch on my feelings.”

  Gabe’s expression remained kind. Too kind. “I’m not suggesting you should. But you wouldn’t be betraying Peter if you rejoined the human race.”

  Siddah opened her mouth to argue, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Dear Reader,

  Every once in a while, I’m lucky enough to stumble across a fully formed character in my imagination. In the blink of an eye I know about his hopes, his dreams, his sorrows, his joys, his deepest fears and his wildest dreams. It doesn’t happen to me often—maybe once or twice in a decade—but it’s a whole lot of fun to write a story when it does.

  Other people keep a notebook and pen beside the bed so they can write down the flashes of brilliance that come to them in the middle of the night but, frankly, my thoughts in the middle of the night are rarely even coherent, much less brilliant. The night Gabe King popped into my head just as I was drifting off to sleep was a rare (and welcome) exception. Even half asleep, I know a good man when I see one, so I scrambled out of bed and spent the next hour or so writing down everything I’d learned about him between one breath and the next.

  I’m endlessly fascinated by family dynamics, and the dynamics within the King family were especially interesting to me. Like all families, the Kings have places where they bump up against each other, but all relationships constantly grow and change, and theirs do, too. I hope you enjoy meeting Gabe and his family, and that you enjoy this visit to my home state of Montana!

  Sherry Lewis

  I love hearing from you! You can reach me by e-mail at [email protected], via my Web site at www.sherrylewisbooks.com, or by regular mail at P.O. Box 540010, North Salt Lake, UT 84054.

  High Mountain Home

  Sherry Lewis

  For Troy and Emily

  Books by Sherry Lewis

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  628—CALL ME MOM

  692—THIS MONTANA HOME

  744—KEEPING HER SAFE

  816—LET IT SNOW

  826—A MAN FOR MOM

  883—FOR THE BABY’S SAKE

  974—THAT WOMAN IN WYOMING

  1072—MR. CONGENIALITY

  1169—THE CHRISTMAS WIFE

  1237—THE CHILDREN’S COP

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  TOO FURIOUS TO TAKE the news he’d just been given lying down, Gabe King struggled to sit upright in his hospital bed. “Six months?” he demanded. “What the hell am I supposed to do with myself for half a year?”

  “You’ll figure something out.” From the visitor’s chair at his bedside, Professor Wes Buchi met his gaze and held it. Wes had been his teacher, mentor and friend for the past ten years. He knew more about Gabe than any man alive, which meant that he also knew just how much Gabe’s career meant to him.

  “I’ve spoken with the local doctor,” Wes said, “and I know what he’s told you. I’ve also spoken with the doctors from the university. They agree you’re well enough to travel, but you’re not going back into the field for at least six months. I don’t want to see your face here in Ecuador before March.”

  “Be serious, Wes. I’ll go crazy and you know it.”

  “Maybe so, but at least you’ll be alive.”

  Gabe made a noise of derision and fell back on his pillow.

  “I want you back in the States,” Wes ordered. He grimaced at the patches of sweat staining his shirt. “Preferably somewhere without humidity. Later, when you’re feeling better, we can get you an office at the university so you can catch up your journals.”

  “I’m not a scholar, Wes. I belong here.”

  “You’ll be back here once you get clearance from the doctors.” Wes must have felt Gabe’s next protest coming, because he held up a hand to ward it off. “This isn’t negotiable, Gabe. You’ve already been out of commission for over a year. Another six months isn’t going to hurt anything.”

  “I’ve already lost eighteen months,” Gabe argued. “If I don’t get back out into the rain forest, I’ll lose the Oxbow Grant. I can’t afford to pay back the money I’ve already received from them.”

  Wes mopped his face with a handkerchief and hitched an ankle over one knee. “Oxbow’s already pulled out,” he admitted reluctantly. “The grant was reassigned three weeks ago—before you were well enough to even think about this stuff. I know this isn’t the ideal situation, Gabe, but it’s the only thing we can do. The university won’t accept the liability for letting you back out into the field, nor should they.”

  “They don’t have to accept liability.”

  “As long as you’re part of this research team, they call the shots. You know that as well as I do.” Wes’s expression softened. “As your colleague and your friend, I’m begging you to be reasonable. Take time. Heal. Come back to us when you’re one-hundred percent again. A few months completely away from all of this might do you a world of good.”

  “And what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Relax. Enjoy. Go see your family. How long has it been, anyway?”

  Not even Wes knew the real answer to that. Gabe shrugged and raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s been a while. A couple of years, maybe.” Or ten.

  “Then it’s definitely time to go home. They must be worried.”

  “My family? Worried?” Gabe laughed harshly. “Not in this lifetime.”

  “I know you had problems with your father in the past,” Wes said, “but your mother writes.”

  “Occasionally.”

  “So go see your mother. She’s probably crazy with worry and she deserves to know how sick you’ve been. The fever nearly killed you.”

  “Seeing my mother means seeing my old man, and what happened here doesn’t concern them.”

  “They’re your family,” Wes insisted. “What concerns you concerns them.”

  Gabe had never liked talking about his family. Wes knew that. So why was he pushing this? “That’s a nice platitude. Where did you find it, on a greeting card?”

  Wes gave him a thin smile. “Look, Gabe, we’re all away from our families too much. It’s easy to let distance grow…”

  “It’s not just about a little distance.” Gabe could feel the tremors starting again and he cursed silently. The fever’s symptoms would pass in time—at least that’s what everyone kept telling him. “My brother’s there with them. They don’t need me.” His old man had made that abundantly clea
r the last time he’d been in Montana. “Believe me, I’m the last person my father would want to see walking through the door.”

  Wes pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and held it out for Gabe. “I found this yesterday. It’s been sitting in a box in the storage room for a while.”

  Suddenly wary, Gabe took the envelope and checked the handwriting. “It’s from my mother.”

  “Maybe you should read it.”

  Gabe felt his pulse stutter. He checked the postmark, and saw that the letter had been mailed the previous spring. Eighteen months was a little long to remain silent, even for him. “Why wasn’t this sent to me at the village?”

  “It must have fallen through the cracks. I also found a notation in the records that your family tried to reach you through the embassy.”

  That brought Gabe’s head up with a snap. “When?”

  “About the same time the letter was mailed.”

  Gabe felt his chest tighten. No one from Libby would have gone to those extremes unless something was wrong. So what was it? Had something happened to his mother? No, she’d written the letter. So it must have been the old man. He ignored the sharp pang of regret and focused on Wes’s narrow face.

  “You were out there under some rather unusual circumstances, Gabe. Only a couple of us knew exactly where you were. I was out of the country, and VanPelt was called back to Virginia unexpectedly. We didn’t know where to look.”

  Heat seemed to rush from the envelope into Gabe’s fingers and, from there, to his entire body. He’d always known this day would come, and for that reason he’d promised himself to mend the rift between himself and his father. Had he waited too long?

  At thirty-four, he’d grown tired of the anger, tired of pretending nothing was wrong and of telling himself he didn’t long for closer ties with his family. He could have done something about it a long time ago, but old habits were hard to break.

  A tremor shook his fingers and made it difficult to hang on to the envelope. Slowly, hesitantly, he tore open the flap and removed the single sheet inside. He read the words penned in his mother’s cautious handwriting and felt the world he’d constructed so carefully come crashing down around him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  BATTLING SELF-DOUBT and second thoughts, Gabe stopped his Jeep on the edge of the winding two-lane highway he’d been driving for the past hour. Far below, a broad valley in the heart of Montana’s timber country stretched between mountain and river. Spires of spruce and pine reached toward the deep blue sky, jockeying for their share of the late-August sunlight, leaving little for the undergrowth. In the distance, he could see rooftops from the town of Libby and the water of the Kootenai River sparkling in the noonday sun. A little beyond that the Cabinet Mountains, purple and majestic, stood watch over the valley.

  It had been years since Gabe had seen this view, but little had changed in the time he’d been away. The valley, including the house barely visible directly below, was as familiar to him as it had ever been. Since graduating from the university he’d traveled the world over, yet he’d seen nothing that could top this combination of blue and green, sky, water and earth. But appreciation for the magnificent scenery warred with trepidation over what he was doing.

  It wasn’t too late to change his mind. His family didn’t need to know he’d come back. If he drove away, he wouldn’t have to explain or apologize or—far more likely—argue. But he’d spent the past ten years running away, or at least avoiding what he couldn’t change. He was here now. He wouldn’t turn back.

  Gabe fingered the letter in his pocket, fighting the impulse to read it again. He’d tortured himself with it a dozen times or more in the past two weeks, but the words never changed. Maybe he should have called to warn everyone of his impending visit, but that old fear had kept him from doing it. Now that he knew how fragile life really was, staying away was no longer an option.

  Smiling grimly, he shifted into gear and pulled onto the road, sending a shower of dust and gravel into the air behind him. He followed the highway almost to the bottom of the hill, then turned onto the lane that led through an arched wooden gateway made from Triple Crown lumber, past a long split-rail fence, and finally into the front yard of the home where he’d grown up. Even after all these years, the house managed, somehow, to look haughty and humble at the same time.

  He shut off the ignition and studied what had once been so familiar. Before he could take it all in, the front door banged open and a lone figure stepped onto the porch. Although his once-dark hair had turned to gray, and his shoulders were stooped instead of straight and proud, in every other respect Montgomery King looked much younger than sixty-eight.

  Shielding his eyes with one hand, Monty walked to the edge of the porch and looked out at the Jeep. Gabe hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, before opening the door and stepping out. He stood there, unmoving, until he was certain his father had recognized him, then walked slowly toward the house. He’d played this moment in his mind a thousand times in the past two weeks but now, faced with the reality of his homecoming, he suddenly had no idea what to say.

  His father remained silent until Gabe reached the bottom of the three short steps that led to the porch. Then, without a hint of emotion, jerked his head toward the Jeep. “You’re going to have to move that thing. Your mother won’t be able to pull her car in when she gets home.”

  It was so far from the reaction Gabe had expected, he couldn’t even think of a response.

  “Did you hear me?” Monty demanded. “Park that thing somewhere else. You’re in the way there.”

  “Sure,” Gabe sputtered. “Where would you like me to put it?”

  “Wherever you want, long as it’s not there.” Without another word, the great Monty King stepped back into the shadows of the house and let the screen door bang shut between them.

  Gabe wondered what he had expected. Not tears of joy, that was for damn sure. But the old man could have worked up a bit of anger if he’d tried. Gabe would have known what to do with that.

  The one thing he hadn’t expected, and wasn’t at all sure how to handle, was complete indifference.

  Telling himself he was lucky he hadn’t been sent packing, Gabe slid behind the wheel of the Jeep and looked around for a parking spot his father might consider acceptable. He settled on a patch of mowed wild grass near the back fence, parked, and crossed the yard to the kitchen door, soaking in the almost-forgotten scents of pine and sweet grass.

  He’d been away too long to act as if he’d never left, so when he reached the porch, he knocked, just as he would have at a stranger’s house.

  The old man kept him cooling his heels for a few minutes, but his burly shadow finally materialized behind the lace curtains in the kitchen doorway. Gabe could see a deep scowl on his dad’s face, but Monty merely opened the door and motioned Gabe inside with a jerk of his head.

  “There’s a beer if you want one,” Monty said with a nod at the refrigerator.

  Gabe glanced at the clock—it was barely twelve-thirty. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Mom’s gone somewhere?”

  “Just into town to see Siddah and the boy. She goes every Sunday, but she won’t be long.”

  Gabe had only seen the name written in a couple of letters, so it took a second to place it when he heard it spoken aloud. “You mean Peter’s wife?”

  “I mean his widow.” Some of the coldness Gabe remembered so well crept into his father’s voice. “And don’t pretend you didn’t hear about that, because your mother tried everything to find you when it happened.”

  Almost unconsciously, Gabe’s hand flew to his pocket. “I got the letter,” he admitted, “but only a couple of weeks ago.” He thought about telling his dad why the letter had languished for a year before he received it, but he wasn’t ready to hand over proof that the career he’d chosen had turned out to be as dangerous and unreliable as Monty had warned him it would be. “I was in the interior when it came. Ou
t of touch. I came as soon as I heard.”

  His father made a sound deep in his throat. “Well, isn’t that just fine? You came as soon as you heard. I’m sure it’ll make your mother feel a whole lot better to know that.” Monty opened the refrigerator and pulled out two cans. Tossing one at Gabe, he resumed his journey into the living room. “You be sure you let her know that, Gabriel. You came just as soon as you heard.”

  When had his father started drinking in the middle of the day? Was it something he did often, or was today an exception? “I didn’t come home to fight with you,” Gabe said, setting the can on the table. “I came because I got Mom’s letter. What happened? The letter just said it was an accident at the sawmill.”

  His father stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before speaking. “Are we going to pretend you care now?”

  “I’ve always cared.”

  “You’ve always had an interesting way of showing it, then.”

  “Dammit, Dad—”

  Some of the old, familiar anger flashed in his father’s eyes. “I’ve let you in because your mother would never forgive me if I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean things have changed. You’ve made your choices.”

  Now there was the Monty King Gabe knew best. “Yeah, I have.”

  “Family never was important to you. I think showing up a year and a half late ought to make it plenty clear that nothing’s changed, even to your mother.”

  “I would have been here if I’d known.”

  “Yeah?” Monty tilted his head to one side and pretended to consider that. “For how long, Gabe? Ten minutes? Two days?”

  “I’d have stayed as long as you and Mom needed me.”

  Monty laughed harshly and turned away. “Yeah. I believe that, all right.” He shuffled out of the room, leaving Gabe staring after him.