Wild Montana Skies (Montana Rescue Book #1) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - May Warren Susan

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180 pages

English

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Bestselling Author's New Series Delivers Romance and Adventure as an SAR Team Searches for Others--and Finds ThemselvesSearch and rescue pilot Kacey Fairing is home on leave in Mercy Falls, Montana, twelve years after she joined the military to escape the mistakes of her past. With a job waiting for her as the new lead pilot of Peak Rescue in Glacier National Park, Kacey hopes to reconnect with the now-teenage daughter she sees only between deployments. What she doesn't realize is that someone else is also back in town.Ben King has been building his country music career since the day Kacey shut him out of her life. Now all of that's on hold when his injured father calls him home to help run Peak Rescue until he's fully recovered. It doesn't take long, though, to discover his father's ulterior motives as Kacey Fairing walks into the house and back into his heart.With Mercy Falls in a state of emergency due to flash floods, Kacey and Ben are forced to work together to save lives. But when floodwaters turn personal, can they put aside the past to save their future?

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	18 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493405282
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0360€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2016 by Susan May Warren
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0528-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Published in association with The Steve Laube Agency, 5025 N. Central Ave., #635, Phoenix, AZ 85012.
Dedication
For your glory, Lord
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
Kacey didn’t want to raise eyebrows and alert the entire town to her return. She simply hoped to tame the beast that had roared to life when she spotted the billboard for the Gray Pony Saloon and Grill, off Rt. 2, on the outskirts of Mercy Falls.
The home of the best hickory rib sauce in the West.
From the look of things, the hangout on the edge of town hadn’t changed in a decade.
Dim streetlights puddled the muddy parking lot, now crammed full of F-150s and Silverado pickups. The twang of a Keith Urban cover swelled as the door opened. A cowboy spilled out, his arm lassoed around a shapely coed, probably a summer intern for the park service. She wore Gore-Tex pants, a lime-green Glacier National Park T-shirt, and a too-easy smile on her face. Kacey watched as the cowboy wheedled her toward his truck. The coed tugged his hat down, and he braced his hands on either side of her, leaning down to steal a kiss.
The sight had the power to stop Kacey cold, reroute her down the country road of regrets.
Maybe she should simply keep going, head north to Whitefish, back to the anonymity of a town that couldn’t catalog her mistakes.
Still, the brain fog of two days of driving, not to mention the drizzle of a nagging rain, could be the recipe for disaster on the winding roads that journeyed north through the foothills.
The last thing she needed was to drive headfirst off the highway and die in a fiery crash here in her own backyard. Some welcome home that would be.
Kacey parked just as thunder growled, lightning spliced the darkness, and rain began to crackle against her windshield. The soupy night obliterated the view of the glorious, jagged mountains rising on the horizon.
Another pickup rolled up next to her, the running boards caked with mud. A fleet of what looked like army types piled out, garbed in mud-brown shirts and camo pants. Fatigue lined their grimy expressions, as if they were just returning from a two-day march in full field gear.
The nearest army base was over 150 miles away, so the appearance of soldiers had her curiosity piqued. She watched them go in, and a reprimand formed on her lips about donning utility wear off duty. But, like her army psychologist had suggested, some time away from her fellow soldiers might help her heal.
Keep her from derailing twelve years of distinguished service with an ODPMC discharge—or, to her mind, the old Section-8, Maxwell Klinger designation.
She wasn’t crazy. Just . . . exhausted. Maybe.
She couldn’t let the war follow her home. Let it destroy the best part of herself, the part she’d left behind in Montana.
The part of her that desperately needed a definition of life that included words like safe and normal.
Instead of, oh, say, deployment and Afghanistan .
And acronyms like PTSD.
Which meant she had to start living like a civilian and keep her military secrets safely tucked away if she intended on putting herself back together and returning to base, healed and fit for duty, by the end of the summer.
Kacey scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then got out, hunting ribs and a frothy homemade root beer.
The Pony might not have updated their exterior, with the rough-hewn porch, the Old West–style sign, and neon beer ads in the windows, but inside, they’d overhauled for the next generation.
The honky-tonk tones of some country musician met her as she opened thick double doors, and she walked into the distinct intoxicating aroma of hickory barbecue.
She glanced to the front and almost expected to see cowboy crooner Benjamin King on stage at the back of the room, past the gleaming oak bar. Work-hewn muscles stretching out his black T-shirt, one worn cowboy boot hooked onto the rung of his stool, and wearing his battered brown Stetson over that unruly dark blond hair, Ben would grind out a love song in his signature low tenor, wooing every girl in the room.
His devastating blue eyes fixed only on her.
Kacey blew out a breath, letting the memory shake out, settle her back into reality.
Stopping for dinner at the Gray Pony would be a very bad idea if Ben hadn’t long ago sprung himself from the grasp of Mercy Falls, his guitar slung over his shoulder, nary a glance behind. No, she wouldn’t find him, a big star now with the country duo Montgomery King, back in this one-horse watering hole tucked in the shadow of Glacier National Park.
Now, Kacey scanned the room, getting her bearings. Roy had kept the taxidermied moose, rainbow trout, and black bear still posed over the bar, but the rest of the joint, from the themed barrel tables to the sleek leather barstools, suggested an upgrade. Along the wall, every few feet, flat screens displayed sporting events—bull riding, a UFC fight, a golf tournament, and a fishing show. And the adjacent hall that once hosted a row of worn pool tables now sported a shiny mechanical bull-riding pit.
Judging by the cheering of the fellas gathered at the rail, more than a few wearing Sweetwater Creek Lumber Co. shirts, the girl in the center of the ring offered up quite a show.
The saloon seemed to have upgraded their clientele from the obligatory cowboys and park workers to a large conglomeration of army, local law enforcement, and even what looked like young, long-haired hippies hoping to spend their summer in yurts and hiking the craggy routes of the Rocky Mountains, cameras hanging from their necks.
Waitresses squeezed through tables packed with hungry patrons, their trays stacked high with wings, onion rings, and nachos. An “oo-rah!” rose from a table of soldiers as one of the UFC fighters went down.
She recognized no one, which, of course, could be providential. Because they might not recognize her, either.
Kacey squeezed past a group of hikers perusing a map and nabbed the only empty barstool. She climbed up, took a napkin, and mopped up the remains of a frothy beer puddling on the counter.
“Sorry about that.” This from the woman behind the counter, her dark hair pulled back in a long braid, her brown eyes quick as she surveyed the activity behind Kacey. She took a rag and wiped the counter. “I think the person sitting here stiffed me.” She glanced at the door.
“Where did she—”
“He. I dunno. I don’t see him. He wasn’t in uniform, but he could be with the guard.” She tossed the rag under the counter, grabbed a coaster. “We have specials on tap—”
“Do you still have the house root beer?”
A hint of a smile. “Home brewed, my daddy’s recipe.”
Her daddy . . . seriously? Ah, sure, Kacey saw it now. Hair dyed black and about fifty pounds thinner. And of course, a decade in her eyes, on her face. She couldn’t help but ask, “Gina McGill?”
The woman frowned. “Do I—”
“Kacey Fairing. I used to—”
“Date Ben King, yeah, wow, how are you?”
Kacey was going to say that she’d sat behind her in Mr. Viren’s biology class, but she supposed Gina’s version might be an easier association. “I’m good.”
“I haven’t seen you since, uh . . .” And there it was. The prickly dance around Kacey’s mistakes. The ones that had driven her out of Mercy Falls and into the army’s arms.
“Prom,” Kacey filled in, diverting, trying to make it easier for both of them. “Nice of your dad to let us host it here. One of my favorite high school memories.”
“What are you up to?” Gina said, pulling out a frozen mug from the freezer, filling it with frothy, dark, creamy root beer from the tap.
“I’m a chopper pilot. For the army.”
“Really? Wow. I suppose they called you in, huh? Rescuing people off rooftops?”
Kacey frowned. “Uh, not sure what you’re talking about.”
Gina set the mug on the coaster. “Oh, I thought you were here with the rest of the National Guard. The Mercy River is flooding, and all these guys are working twenty-four-hour shifts sandbagging upriver all the way down to the bridge.”
Ah, that accounted for dinner in their field dress.
Kacey took a sip of the root beer, let the foam sit on her upper lip a second before licking it off. “Nope. Here on leave for the summer, although, yeah, I’ll be doing some flying for Chet King’s PEAK.” See, that came out easily enough, no hitch, no hint at the past. No irony.
And no suggestion that she might not be fit to fly. Keeping her chopper in the air had never been her problem, thank you.
Besides, she needed this gig, if only to keep her sanity during the daylight hours. Too much idle time only invited the memories.
Gina offered her a menu. “Well, don’t be surprised if Sam Brooks comes knocking on your door. The Mercy Falls EMS department has the PEAK team on full alert, and he’s recruiting volunteers for the sandbag brigade.”
Kacey perused the menu offerings. “Why is Sam doing the recruiting? Is Blackburn still sheriff?”
“Yeah. He’ll be in office until he retires, probably. Sam is the deputy sheriff. So, the smoked BBQ ribs are half off now that it’s after 10:00 p.m., and I think I