Montana Refuge Read Online Free PDF Page A

before. Then she hadn’t been able to stand being away from Tyler for very long and those nights under the stars or cuddled in his tent still awakened twinges she doubted would ever completely go away.
    Sooner or later, she’d just stopped going. He’d called her spoiled and immature for not wanting to help, and she’d wanted to snap his head off. Was it immature to like different things, to want more out of life than cows and mountains?
    The only one in the horse barn was Lenny, the farrier, and he was busy clipping the hooves of a palomino Julie didn’t recognize. She returned his smile of greeting and walked down to Babylon’s stall. Sure enough, the big red gelding was still there, his white blaze as blinding as always, his huge brown eyes alert and soft at the same time. He whinnied when he saw her and she offered him the apple she’d taken from the barrel as she entered the barn.
    “How have you been?” she said as he dispatched the apple in a couple of bites. “Are you mad at me, too?”
    The horse sniffed her hands for more produce and she stroked his head. “Want to sneak away for a while?”
    The horse whinnied again and Julie opened the stall door. It was while she fastened a lead to his halter that she noticed a jacket hanging from a hook on the outside of the stall and beneath it, next to a stool, a pair of boots.
    Her jacket, her boots, both still sitting here after a whole year as though she’d taken them off yesterday.
    She looped the lead around a post and sat down on the stool, turning each boot upside down to make sure it wasn’t home to a spider or two, then exchanged her casual leather shoes for the boots. They fit as they always had, like a second skin. Babylon snuffled her hair as though in approval.
    Next she shook out the denim jacket and exchanged it for the red one. “I’m back, at least for tonight,” she told the horse, and led him to the area they used for saddling.
    Waving off the help of a new wrangler, Julie saddled Babylon before leading him out of the barn. She rode toward the river, not as comfortable and accomplished a rider as Tyler, but Babylon was an easy horse with a smooth gait and an even temperament.
    She didn’t need to think twice about where to head. There was one spot that had always filled her with peace when she felt this way and she headed there now. She would go to the river even though it meant riding by the century-old ranch house she and Tyler had shared during their marriage.
    The house was still there, two stories of white shingles, a broad porch, barns and pastures and corrals. Tyler’s truck wasn’t pulled up out front and she wondered if he’d moved back to the main house after she left. The place had a deserted appearance.
    Eventually, as she got closer to the river, the land began to slope gently downward until it sported underbrush, trees and wandering animal trails. She heard the rush of water before she saw it, catching sparkling glimpses through the branches as she headed to the bend where she knew a downed tree arched over the water.
    This was the place on the ranch she’d missed the most, her private spot where she’d come to think and dream and work things out in her head—the one place where she could be sure to be alone.
    The breeze ruffled the boughs overhead. The smell of flowers and grass chased away some of the insecurities and fears that had driven her here and she knew the sound of moving water would calm her. She pulled the horse to a stop after a while, preparing to get off and walk him down the steeper bank to water’s edge, but stopped when a glimpse of something big and brown down by the river caught her eye. Her first thought was that a bear had wandered down from the mountains.
    And then she realized it was a horse. Babylon sensed this, too, and made a little sound in his throat.
    Her heart made a startled leap and it was a measure of where her head was that the only thought that sprang to mind was that Roger Trill had