Montana Morning (2 page)

“Would you mind if
I talked with her?” Jack asked, watching her reaction carefully.

Suddenly Maggie
Banks looked and sounded like a mother bear protecting her cub.  “Adrianna
is a member of my family, not a perspective employee.  Now let’s forget
this nonsense, and get back to finding you some help.”

Maggie began describing the process she would now
use to expand the search.  She promised she would deliver someone to meet
Jack’s requirements in the near future.  He appeared to be listening and
nodded in most of the right places, but his mind was elsewhere. 

The time had come to do some searching on his own.
As he left the employment agency office, he crossed the snow-filled street and
found a phone booth in the next block.   This Adrianna person had to
have a last name, and with any luck it was Banks. 

***

The address Jack found in the phone book, led him
to the outskirts of town; most homes here had small pastures and were well
kept.  Folks in this part of town appeared to be well off. ‘
So much for
hoping this gal is desperate for work,’
he grimaced
.

The white house
with red trim at the end of the cull de sac was 705 Dalecort, the address
listed for A. Banks.  Jack ran his hand over his beard. This was a crazy
idea.  Never in all his fifty years had he gone on such a wild goose
chase. 
‘She’s going to slam the door right
in
my face!
’ The
question was what to say if she didn’t slam the door.  

Jack pulled his
truck into the driveway, turned off the ignition and waited.  Questions
flew through his mind.
  ‘How do I approach her?  How much do
I tell her?   What if she’s too old for the job?’  
 

After gathering
his courage, Jack pulled on his hat, buttoned his Levi jacket, got out of the
pickup and started up the walkway.  With hat in hand, he rang the
doorbell.  As he stood waiting and listening for signs of life, he found
himself half-hoping there would be no answer.  Feeling very awkward and
suddenly sure this was the dumbest idea he’d ever had, Jack rang the bell once
more.  When there was no answer, he sighed in a combination of frustration
and relief.  He turned back to the truck, defeated and exhausted. 

***

Adrianna heard the
doorbell as she came in the back door.   Who could be here at this
time of day? She left Chester in the fenced yard and hurriedly removed her
parka.

“I’m coming, just
a minute!” she called, as she struggled with her boot strings. 
‘Darn
things will not stay tied and then won’t come untied.  Next time I buy
ones with Velcro.’  
Adrianna was hopping on one foot, yanking on
the offending lace of the other boot, when she opened the front door. She found
herself gazing at the back of a stranger. Still tugging at her boot, she
stepped into the doorway. 

“Wait!  Can I
help you?” she yelled to the man, just as he opened the door of the big green
pickup in the drive.   He looked up in her direction and
paused.  If this man was a salesman of some sort, he did not look the
part.   She was certain, judging by his clothes and the way he
walked, he was from one of the local ranches.
 
The stubborn boot
finally released its hold and Adrianna stepped onto the porch.  As the man
came closer she could see the deep brown eyes, weathered face and strong mouth.
  He walked like a man on a mission, determination in each step.

Jack could sense
the woman on the porch studying him as he approached.
 ‘Probably
wondering what a hick cowpoke is doing in this neighborhood.’
Jack had no
idea what he was going to say to her or what he had expected, but the gal
standing waiting on the porch wasn’t it.  He had come prepared to meet a
little, old, gray-haired lady with her hair in a bun.  This gal was
blonde, green-eyed, petite, and much younger than him.  She also had the
longest braid hanging over her shoulder he’d ever seen.  He had the right
address but obviously the wrong woman.

“Sorry to bother
you, ma’am, I was looking for Adrianna Banks,” he spoke with a deep voice that
matched his smile.

“You’ve found
her,” she said, looking up at the man standing at her door, hat in hand.

Jack stood stock
still, studying the woman looking up at him.  “If you’re the gal I’m
looking for you must have had your kids when you were in grade school,” he
finally chuckled.

Adrianna looked as
astonished as she felt and could not help laughing.  “Who in the world are
you and what brings you here?”  This fellow wasn’t dressed like a salesman
but he sure had a line.

Jack grinned
sheepishly at the floor and brought his eyes back up to look at the woman
studying him in confusion.  “Sorry about that, I’ve got a nasty habit of
saying what I’m thinking,” he said nervously clinching his hat.  “Can we
start over?  My name is Jackson Kilbourne and I just came from the Banks
Placement Agency.  I talked to your sister, Maggie.”

“Maggie is my Sister-in-law.
 Please come in out of the cold; I was about to have a cup of
coffee.  Why don’t you join me?” She moved aside and ushered him into the
large living room.  The room was light and airy with large windows and
greenery everywhere; Jack felt as if he had just stepped into a spring day.

“Do you always
invite total strangers into your house?”  He asked as he hung his hat on
the back of a chair and Adrianna helped him out of his coat.

She was heading for
the kitchen when she turned in his direction and tilted her head as she
pondered his question, “There’s a first time for everything, I guess. 
I’ll get us some coffee and then you can tell me what brings you here.” 
Adrianna poured the coffee into mugs, watching the man out of the corner of her
eye as he stood looking out the window towards the mountains, lost in thought.
Was it only her imagination or was there a lot of sadness behind his easy
smile?

“Would you like
your coffee in there or at the kitchen table?”

Jack sensed she
was going out of her way to make him comfortable.  “The kitchen table will
be fine,” he replied as he walked into the room and sat down facing the
window. 

Adrianna handed
him a mug. “Black?”

“Yeah,
thanks.”  Jack sipped the hot coffee and plunged into his explanation. “I
wish I could think of a better way to approach this, Mrs. Banks.”

“Please call me
Adrianna,” she said as she blew gently across the top of her coffee cup. 
Whatever this man had come to tell her or ask of her, it was not coming easily
to him.

“Adrianna, as I
said, my name is Jack Kilbourne.  I own the Kilbourne Cattle Company on
the other side of Pineridge Mountain,” he said, pointing out the mountain range
she looked at every morning.  “I had an appointment with your
sister-in-law this morning, and she mentioned your name.”

Adrianna looked at
him incredulously.  “Maggie runs an employment agency.  Why on earth
would she give you my name, Mr. Kilbourne?”  The man across the table was
giving her that sheepish grin again.

“My friends call
me Jack; she didn’t exactly mean to give me your name.  It just kind of
slipped out.”

“Slipped out
how?”  Adrianna was becoming more confused with each passing minute. 
“Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

Jack took a deep
breath and studied the table top for what seemed like hours, when he looked up
again, Adrianna saw the tears brimming in his eyes.  “I suppose you read
in the paper, around Thanksgiving, about the plane crash west of town?”

She nodded. 
“The pilot and his wife were killed, leaving behind a badly injured little
boy.”  She saw the pain flash across the rugged face and bury itself deep
in his eyes.

“That woman was my
daughter and the boy is my only grandson.”  He stared out at mountains
without really seeing them.

“Scott is a nice
boy,” she replied, as she resisted reaching out to touch the fist clenched on
her table.

He looked up at
her in amazement.  “How . . . how did you meet Scotty?”

“I volunteer twice
a week at the hospital.  I read to him in the evenings when I’m
there.  I’m surprised I haven’t run into you.”   

The eyes looking
back at her were now black with anger.  “I’ve been there as much as I
could.  I had to take care of funeral arrangements, custody and . . .”

“Whoa,” she
whispered, softly touching his big hard hand.  “I wasn’t criticizing
you.   I understand you can’t be there every minute.”

“I wonder if Scott
understands that.” He glanced down at the very soft small hand touching his.

“I’m sure he
does.”   She wondered if the man understood just how badly Scott was
hurt, and how much love he needed.  “I guess I still don’t understand why
you’ve come here.”

“No, I guess you
don’t.”  He knew he had to tell her.  Putting it off was not going to
make it easier, and so taking a deep breath, he plunged in. “We need help
taking care of Scotty when I take him home.  I came here to offer you a
job.”  Jack looked out at the mountains and sighed; he turned back to see
Adrianna shaking her head in disbelief.

“But Mr.
Kilbourne, Jack, I’m not looking for a job.  I don’t even know what you’d
need or if I’d be qualified,” she rambled as she tried to make some kind of
sense of the situation.        

Jack grinned
across the table, a bit more relaxed now that she knew why he was here. 
“Apparently you are perfectly qualified; Mrs. Banks said what I was looking for
was an angel, and you were the only one she knew.”

“So she sent you
to see me?” Adrianna couldn’t help but sound shocked. Maggie just wouldn’t do
such a thing, not without warning her first.

“Well, not exactly.”
Jack suddenly looked as guilty as he felt and shifted in the chair.

“What do you mean,
not exactly?”  Adrianna raised her eyebrows and tucked her chin as if she
was looking over the rim of her imagined glasses, just as she had done to her
children when they were telling her a story she didn’t believe.

“She mentioned you
in passing and I decided to meet you for myself.  She’ll probably be
furious when she finds out I came here.”  Jack was looking down at his
hands, cradling the now cold coffee, not wanting to see her face.  He was
certain she would throw him out the front door any minute.  The silence
was killing him and he looked up to discover she was grinning.

Tilting her head
to the side she chuckled, “You are one brave man, Jackson
Kilbourne.   Have you ever seen Maggie in a rage?”

“No, I
haven’t.”   He had no doubt he soon would, and it occurred to him
that any hope of Mrs. Banks helping him was now gone.

Adrianna sat
quietly studying the man sitting at her table. 
‘Today is the first day
. . . preparing you for a new beginning.’
This morning’s conversations
whirled in her head.  She walked to the sink with her coffee cup, looked
at the snow gently falling in the back yard, and gathered every ounce of
courage she possessed.

“I think this
requires a lot more discussion.  Would you like some lunch?” she
asked.  Adrianna didn’t know why she felt so at ease with this man, but
she did.  She wanted to know more about him, his grandson, and the job for
which she was ‘perfectly qualified’.

“Only if you let
me buy;  I know a great place on the far side of town that serves a chili
burger to die for.”  ‘
Maybe ladies don’t eat those kinds of things!’
he
panicked.  “Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”

“Chili burgers
sound fine,” she snickered, “besides we’re not apt to run into Maggie
there.” 

He flashed an
understanding grin.  

“Help yourself to
another cup of coffee while I change out of these sweats, then we can
go.”           

Jack watched her
disappear down the hall as he reached for the coffee pot.  This was not
going at all like he had pictured.  He had the feeling most things didn’t
go quite the way you would expect when Adrianna Banks was involved but then,
just maybe, that wasn’t all bad.

***

Adrianna pulled on
the new turquoise sweater Amy had given her for Christmas; that and a new pair
of jeans should be just right for eating in a place serving
‘chili burgers
to die for.
’  Adrianna studied her image in the mirror.  The
woman looking back at her had never done anything impetuously. Up to this point
in her life, every person and event had seemed a part of a master
plan.   She had asked God to help her find a new direction and
perhaps this was it; this was not going to be a decision to be made lightly.

***

Jack wandered
around the living room, his mind going a mile a minute.
‘How am I going to
convince her to take this job? And if she finally agrees, how will I ever get
her to sign a contract?’

Only four months
ago things had been so simple.  Andy, Pops and he had run the ranch. 
Period.  No complications.  Jack would never forget the joy he had
felt when his attorney had arrived at the ranch house to tell him that after
all the years of searching he had found Jack’s ex-wife and
daughter.   Judith had left the ranch when Jack was in Vietnam. 
After he arrived stateside, he learned she had given birth to his child and
divorced him.  The little girl had been named Mary.  Jack had spent
almost thirty years looking for them.  Howard had found them through the
obituary column of
The Los Angeles Times
.  Judith had died, but he
had found Mary; many telephone calls later, Jack invited her to come for
Thanksgiving.  They would meet at last.  “What better reason on this
earth for Thanksgiving?”  Pops had asked.

Mary’s husband,
Jeff, had been piloting the small aircraft as it approached the county
airfield.  Something had gone terribly wrong.  Without warning, the
plane had nose-dived into the runway.  Jack and his father had run to the
end of the field and pulled Mary, her husband, and small son from the craft
before it exploded in flames.  Jeff   died on impact.  Mary
died in her father’s arms.  She lived only long enough to ask Jack to take
care of Scotty.  Jack had found his daughter and lost her in a
heartbeat. 
‘If I’d never found her, she would still be alive.’
 
The guilt was eating him alive.  Jack stared out the big bay window,
watching the falling snow as the pain of the past enveloped him.