Page 79 of North

NINE

Selah had never slept so well, so hard, so peacefully as she did in the upstairs bedroom of the Marshall family ranch home. She woke in a double bed, in a room that bore a masculine feel, with a single framed picture of a dark-haired man in skates and a blue hockey jersey and helmet, looking into the camera. It was signed at the bottom.

Huh. She was sleeping in the childhood room of Wyatt Marshall, superstar goalie for the Minnesota Blue Ox.

She got up and stared out the window at the glorious sunrise that crested over the mountains to the east.

They’d pulled up last night under a golden moon, and even in the semidarkness, the place had taken her breath away.

The two-story ranch house sat in a pocket between two hills, log-sided, with a stone front porch. Lantern light had cast upon ocher flowerpots filled with geraniums flanking a couple rocking chairs.

Like she’d stepped inside the Yellowstone set. Without all the drama, swearing, and violence.

Please, God.

If she couldn’t find peace here, then maybe it wasn’t to be found. The place was breathtaking. Rolling green pastures cordoned off by fencing as far as she could see, and in the distance, grand gray-brown mountains jutting into the horizon.

A freshly painted white barn sat at the end of a gravel driveway—an RV parked in front—and beyond that, a corral with a couple of grand steeds grazing in the green field.

The air was scented with lilies and lilacs and wildflowers, and she heard a Scripture in her head as she stood there: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

Please let this be a place of green pastures and still waters. Because despite North’s words yesterday about peace not being about never fighting, but when…she desperately needed a break from the fighting right now.

His low voice thrummed through her as she made her bed. I need you to be strong, and wise and brave. The rest—that’s what I’m here for.

She could have lost herself inside his arms. Parked there and never come up for air.

She would never run again.

Her backpack had somehow made it all the way from the train crash to Josephine’s B&B to the straight-backed chair in Montana. She pulled out clean clothes and headed to the bathroom. The smell of something baking in the kitchen below put some hurry-up in her shower.

She emerged a new woman, the grime out of her hair, clean and whole and hungry, and discovered that someone had left clothing on her bed. Leggings, a T-shirt, and a clean snap-button denim shirt. She was in Montana, after all.

She dressed, then followed the smell out of her room and into the hallway. It overlooked the great room, and apparently they did all things big in Montana, because a gorgeous stacked-stone fireplace stretched two stories and took up a great portion of the gleaming peeled-log walls. Three worn leather sofas suggested long conversations by the hearth, and adjacent to that, a granite island held eight high-top chairs.

And between the great room and the kitchen stood a round table with leather chairs.

She came downstairs, past family pictures hanging on the wall, and caught a glimpse of the backyard through a window.

The land yawned wide there too, anchored at the end by more mountains falling into a green valley. At the bottom, a river curved through a canyon, winding into a small town in the distance.

Yep. Peace.

A woman—Gerri, was it?—looked up from the kitchen area.

“Selah. Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Amazing.” She glanced at the empty kitchen. “Did I miss breakfast?”

“Oh, darling. You’ll never miss breakfast around here. I have cinnamon rolls in the basket on the table, and I’ll be happy to whip you up some eggs and bacon.” The woman opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of orange juice. “Sit down. Tell me how you ended up at my house with my daughter and grandchildren and that good-looking man who is sleeping in the RV.”

She set the half-full glass on the island in front of a spot that Selah took.

The woman must be in her late sixties, but she seemed fit and spry and exuded a joy that just swooped Selah up. She wore a pair of jeans, a plaid snap-button shirt over a tank, and a handkerchief pulling back her curly brown hair.

“This is an absolutely gorgeous place, Mrs. Marshall.”

“Gerri. Last name Colt, actually. I remarried a few years ago. Hardwin is out in the barn with my oldest son, Reuben. He and his wife and their kids live just down the road. He runs the ranch now.”