Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) (6 page)

“M
om. Stop. Seriously.
This is useless. My head was full of wicked ugly drugs when I packed. I don’t know where anything is.”

Mia, her mother, Sarah, and the kids’ dog, Roxy, had been digging through packing boxes stacked with pyramid-builder efficiency in one stall of the Zabrinskis’s two-car garage. Mom clamped her hands on her slightly widened hips impatiently. “That doesn’t sound like you. It must be here somewhere.”

Mia closed her eyes. The person who packed these boxes was a stranger—a woman possessed by poisonous chemicals, and by an even-more-poisonous anger. She’d wanted to hide all evidence of the perfect life she’d once bragged about to any and all that would listen.

“I have the best husband and most wonderful kids any woman could ever hope to have,” she’d claimed at the birthday party Edward had thrown for her…a few weeks before he broke the news that he was leaving her for another woman. Someone who “…isn’t married to her job,” he’d told her.

After a year or so of trying to hold the fragments of her perfect life together—while battling cancer, her devastated children’s sadness and anger and her ex-husband’s joy, she’d finally admitted the truth: she hated her life. She hated the monstrous house she’d once claimed to love. She hated its five toilets that nobody could flush, let alone keep clean. She hated the pool that absorbed money as fast as it grew algae. She hated Edward and was ambivalent toward their children, who had turned, almost overnight, into snarly, contemptuous, demanding brats. She tolerated Roxy, the mocha-colored labradoodle, who, at least, had the good sense not to bite the hand that fed her. She kept Roxy—for companionship—and sent Hunter and Emilee to Marietta to stay with her parents while Mia set out to deconstruct her perfect life.

In truth, although she blamed chemo for her brain fog, the drugs that may or may not have been necessary to rid her body of any trace of cancer were probably out of her system by the time she started packing. She’d done such a terrible job simply because she didn’t care about any of the crap she’d once valued so highly.

Unfortunately, a few important items—such as the children’s birth certificates and the deed to the lot she and Edward bought to retire on—were nowhere to be found. She’d gotten duplicates of the birth certificates and immunization records in time to register the kids for school. And she probably could obtain a duplicate deed from the Crawford County Clerk as well. She just couldn’t tolerate the idea of having lost yet another piece of herself.

She pawed through a bizarre mix of plastic superhero figures, hand-thrown bowls that Edward bought for her at the Big Marietta Fair a couple of years ago, kitchen knives—in their burly wooden block and a dozen or so cookbooks. “Hey, I could use these,” she said, yanking out the knife stand. “You don’t have a sharp knife in the house.”

Mom shook her pretty bob, artfully streaked with pale gold highlights to mask the silver. “Don’t cast aspersions on my cutlery. It served me just fine when I was raising you four.”

Mia wrestled the stupid cardboard flaps into submission. Edward had never, in all their moves, figured out how to layer three sides and slip the locking side into place. For some reason, that deficit seemed very telling given what happened in their marriage.

“They served their purpose. Now, it’s time for something new and cutting edge, so to speak.”

Her attempt at humor made her mother roll her eyes. Edward would have laughed. He always laughed at Mia’s stupid jokes…until he stopped.

She kicked the unmarked box into the stack. “Forget it, Mom. I’ll get what I need from the County. Don’t you have to get ready for Bailey’s cake tasting?”

Mia’s younger brother, Paul, was marrying his high school sweetheart, Bailey Jenkins, in a few weeks. Although they’d been apart for nearly fifteen years—and broke up under pretty horrible conditions, they’d reunited a few months ago and decided they couldn’t live without each other. Mia knew with certainty the sort of love they gushed about was an illusion. Bailey and Paul might be able to make a go of it—the way Mom and Dad had, but the chances were greater that they’d wind up like she and Ed. Divorced. Bitter. Disillusioned.

Mom checked her watch. “Yes. And so do you,” she said pointedly. Mom had been diligent about getting Mia out of the house and involved in life. “Rachel at Copper Mountain Gingerbread Factory is setting up a special little tasting at her place on Main. Bailey’s expecting you, too. It’ll be charming and 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 business in the same town for so long. Remember your dad’s retirement party?”

“Sorta.” She’d flown in at the last minute to join Ed and the kids who’d driven to Marietta a few days earlier. “You held it at the Fairgrounds and everyone in town came…or so it seemed.”

Mom backed out of the driveway slowly. “Pretty much. Bailey wasn’t here for that, but Paul showed her the video. She told him, ‘Yeah. Very nice. So not happening.’”

They both chuckled. Mia didn’t know her future sister-in-law well, but she admired a woman who set boundaries and kept them. “I have to admit, Mom, I’ve never seen Paul so happy. He’s really on top of the world right now, isn’t he?”

Mom sighed in a heartily satisfied way. “He is. So’s Austen. Both my boys in love at the same time. It’s hard to believe.”

“And both your daughters are under-achievers in that area.”

Mom made a clucking noise. “You sound like Emilee when you put yourself down. Cut yourself some slack. Dad and I both know how hard you tried to make your marriage work.”

Wrong. Mia gave up long before Ed strayed. She could even point to the exact moment she stopped trying. She’d just won an eight-week jury trial that could have gone either way. She called Edward to arrange a celebration and he said, “Can I take a rain check? I’m up to my nose hairs in notes for a big client who needs all her paperwork filed before she leaves for Spain. Once this deal closes, we’ll plan something big.”

Something big.
The best table at the most expensive restaurant in town. Champagne and caviar flown in that morning from Paris or Kiev. That was Ed. And Mia had grown tired of pretending she enjoyed the pretense.

“Did I hear you talking to your sister last night?”

“Yeah. She invited Emilee for a visit. They’re going to shop for something to wear to the wedding.”

“Good. Maybe you should go along and talk some sense into her. You heard about her plans for her sabbatical, right?”

Mia shrugged, which made her seatbelt rub against her faux boobs. She hated everything about them and could barely bring herself to look in the mirror after showering. “Mom, Meg’s nearly forty years old. If she wants to spend the winter in her cabin writing another book on wolves, who am I to criticize? Like my life is so perfect.”

“Paul said she’s had the cabin winterized and has enough provisions for the zombie apocalypse, but if we get a lot of snow, she could be stuck there until spring.” A point, Mia was certain, every member of her family made to her older sister…more than once. “And, for your information, she isn’t writing another treatise on wolves. She wants to try her hand at fiction. Young-adult fiction.”

“Oh, now, I get it. Meg wants to spend time with Emilee to pick her brain.”

Mom made a sound of disapproval. “Meg is Emilee’s aunt. She knows Em has been having a rough time with the move. Maybe your sister wants to do something nice for her.”

Mia bit back the cynical answer that jumped to her lips. When had she lost the ability to take anything or anyone at face value? Like Ryker Bensen, for instance. She’d known immediately he wasn’t a bum, drug addict or hippie. He wasn’t a tree-hugger or back-to-nature fanatic, either. His tent and bike were top of the line. He ground his own beans. Who did that? Why did that make her feel a tiny bit sorry about kicking him off her land?

“You’re right, Mom,” Mia said, trying to stay focused on her family issues. “It was nice of Meg to ask, and Em is thrilled to get away. I’m sure we’ll hear all about Meg’s new project at the wedding.”

Mia loved her sister, but they’d never been as close as Mia and Austen were. Older sister versus twins? Plus, Meg’s single-minded passion for wolves took a little of the fun out of playing with her.

Mia would never forget the day Austen informed his sisters they were going to be part of the Big Sky Mavericks—a make-believe squadron of Navy jet fighter pilots he’d dreamed up after watching the movie, Top Gun. He’d tried to assign Meg a call sign, but she cut him off. “My name is Lone Wolf.”

She was one and her family knew it.

“I need to drop off a key to the motorhome with your dad,” Mom said, pulling into the parking lot of Big Z Hardware. “He’s helping Paul make room for the new Outdoor Living display.”

The parking lot was a beehive of activity. As usual. Paul knew how to bring in buyers and keep them here. Mia had never ceased to marvel at her younger brother’s entrepreneurial genius.

“Coming in or waiting here?”

“I’ll stay.” She lowered her window all the way down and undid her seatbelt so she could rest her elbow comfortably on the ledge. Her black tank and dark denim skirt absorbed the sun’s rays, warming her central core. She let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

Being back in Marietta was a mixed blessing. People knew her. They also knew her story. In Cheyenne, she’d never—or very rarely—had to deal with people’s well-intended sympathy…or worse, their cancer/chemo/recovery sagas.

Mia knew she should be grateful for people’s concern, but she’d moved away from Marietta to become her own person. Here, she’d always been Bob and Sarah Zabrinski’s daughter. Or, worse, Austen Zabrinski’s twin.

In Cheyenne, she’d been defined by her work. Deputy District Attorney Mia Zabrinski. Only at the very end of her tenure had people started referring to her as “the DDA with breast cancer.”

“Wow, it’s a mad house in there,” Mom said, when she returned. “Your dad and OC Jenkins are like two old peacocks trying to out-strut each other.”

Mia grinned at the image that sprang to mind. Her cell phone rang as they turned on Main. A local number, but not one she recognized.

Her heart rate sped up.
Not the school
, she silently prayed. She’d gotten more than enough of those calls at Emilee’s old school. “Hello?”

“Is this Mia? It’s Ren Fletcher. How are you doing?”