Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

poured his coffee into the whimsical mug he’d bought at a yard sale for fifty cents. Be Happy, it said.
    Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. Peace was an illusion. A dream. And his wake-up call was standing a few feet away tapping her toe impatiently.
    “Cheers,” he muttered.

Chapter 2
    ‡
    T he look on this surprisingly attractive stranger’s face when she told him she had a deed to the land he was squatting on would have made a bigger woman pull the poor guy into a hug and tell him everything was going to be okay. But that would have been a lie, and Mia was truthful—sometimes to her deep regret. Like when she told Edward exactly what was wrong with their marriage. The truth drove him straight into the sympathetic arms of his starry-eyed barista. It was almost enough to make a person drink tea.
    Almost.
    Ed’s new wife, Bree, was about the same age as the scruffy camper guy who, instead of defending himself, turned around to pour coffee from his French press into his stupid cup.
    The aroma made her mouth water and her empty stomach gurgle.
    How come my coffee never smells this good? Her coffeemaker had a built-in grinder and water purifier, and it cost three hundred bucks. He made his with beans he’d ground without electricity and run through the simplest contraption she’d ever seen.
    She wished like heck that didn’t impress her. Why did it? Because the simplicity reinforced her sense of disconnect? Lately, she’d noticed just how out of touch she’d become from everything important—her family, her kids, the simple act of living in the moment. As if she ever had.
    Even at age ten, Mia had been self-motivated, highly competitive and intensely focused. Her brother hadn’t given her the call sign Nitro when he was naming the Big Sky Mavericks because she sat around communing with nature. What kind of grown man did that?
    A loser.
    Said loser straightened his broad, rather muscular shoulders and inhaled deeply, which brought her attention to his nicely formed chest and narrow waistline. He closed his eyes and let out a long, heartfelt sigh, before taking a sip from his ridiculous mug.
    She was standing close enough to see the lush imprint of black lashes against his tanned cheekbones. Yes, his face was too hairy. She didn’t like beards or bearded men. She’d always assumed the facial hair hid some kind of flaw—bad skin, a weak chin, or jowls.
    None of those defects appeared to be Ryker Bensen’s reason for sporting a beard, but she used his scruffy appearance as proof of his unsavoriness. “How long have you been camping on my land?”
    The sharpness of her tone could have come straight out her daughter’s mouth. Lately, nothing Mia did was right as far as Emilee was concerned.
    He opened his eyes and stared straight into hers, unblinking, despite the bright Montana morning sunlight. A shiver she couldn’t explain started under her breastbone and radiated inward and down, swirling with lush, crazy warmth that pooled somewhere it had no business settling. The sensation was so real, so unexpected, she took a step back, heart racing.
    Goddamn hormones. She blamed all her emotional highs and lows on the stupid little buggers bouncing around her body like Tasmanian devils, stirred into a frenzy by the poisons she’d received and the operations that took away her natural hormones. She and her doctor were still trying to discern the right supplemental cocktail to make her fairly normal.
    But, at least, the worst of the treatment was behind her. Now, all she had to do was concentrate on regaining her energy and strength so she could pick up the pieces of her life.
    What she hoped would be a long and cancer-free life.
    He took another drink of coffee. “A couple of months I suppose. Time sorta blurs when you’re camping.”
    The word made her look around. Camping sounded so innocuous. Living off the land in the high country. Hiking, backpacking. Healthy, ambitious pastimes. As a kid, she’d been