Free Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller Page A

what was up with calling Montana—the place she loved best in all the earth, her soul’s true home—“godforsaken”?
    “Nash is used to finer digs than this old, neglected ranch,” Zane explained dryly, when Brylee proved to be at a loss for a reply. With a weary sigh, he sat down opposite her at the rickety folding table. “You know—homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, maybe a bunk in a rusted-out camper in somebody’s backyard now and then.”
    Brylee’s eyes widened. Where she came from—which was right there in Parable County, thank you very much—those were fighting words, yet Zane’s tone wasn’t unkind, merely matter-of-fact. And she’d thought her family relationships were complicated.
    Nash, left to stand like the odd man out in a game of musical chairs, leaned casually back against a counter and folded his underdeveloped arms. There was something very reminiscent of Zane about the posture. The man-child smiled winningly and said, “As you can see by the way my brother treats me, I am in drastic need of a friend.”
    Brylee smiled back at the boy, amused and at the same time concerned. “You’ve come to the right place, then,” she said. “Three Trees and Parable are both great towns, and I’d be glad to introduce you around, starting with my nephew, Shane—he’s about your age—and my niece, Clare, too.”
    “Is your niece as beautiful as you are?” Nash asked smoothly.
    Zane laughed and shook his head. “Next he’ll ask you what your sign is, or look puzzled and ask if you’ve met before.”
    Brylee liked Nash, even though he was half-again too smart-alecky for his own good or anybody else’s, so she ignored Zane’s remark. “And you’re how old?” she countered lightly.
    Nash reddened a little under her kindly scrutiny, and he seemed stuck for an answer. Brylee would have bet that didn’t happen very often.
    “He’s twelve,” Zane supplied graciously.
    Nash glared at his brother.
    Twelve? Impossible, Brylee thought. “Going on forty-five,” she said.
    A short silence followed, the air between the two brothers so charged that Brylee wouldn’t have been surprised to see thunderclouds forming beneath the ceiling.
    “I could show you around,” Nash finally volunteered, effectively rendering his older brother invisible, at least as far as he was concerned. “I mean, since you haven’t been here in a while and everything...”
    Zane sighed at that, but raised no objection. Was he ashamed of the place? It was pretty dilapidated, an unlikely abode for an established movie star, certainly.
    “That’s a great idea,” Brylee said, pushing back her chair to stand. “I’d love to have a look at the place.” She glanced at Zane, who was standing now, too. “You don’t mind?”
    “I don’t mind,” he confirmed. The twinkle in his eyes and the twitch at one corner of his mouth said he knew full well she didn’t really care whether he minded or not.
    “We’re getting more furniture after the renovations are done,” Nash hastened to explain. “Right now, we’ve got a couple of beds and an air mattress, and that’s about it.”
    Following Nash, with Snidely right behind her, Brylee suppressed a smile. “Things take time,” she said.
    The house, though empty, was just as she remembered it—large and rambling, with spacious, raftered rooms and tall windows and a total of three natural rock fireplaces. There were four bedrooms and as many baths, along with a sizable dining area and a living room that not only ran the full width of the house, but offered a magnificent view of trees and mountains and that endless pageant of sky.
    “Cleo gets here tomorrow,” Nash announced, when they’d come full circle, after about fifteen minutes, and returned to the kitchen. Zane and Slim were both gone, and Brylee caught the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of a hammer somewhere nearby. “She was my brother’s housekeeper, when he lived in L.A.”
    Brylee offered no comment. She