Free Montana Standoff by Nadia Nichols Page B

shyness. “Aren’t you going to try to change my mind?”
    His eyes were impossible to read. “No,” he said.
    She clutched her keys tightly, sharp metal biting into her palm. “So, that’s it? You drive me to this open pit mine, show me how ugly it is, tell me that it’s killing a lot of people, and then you bring me back here and say good night. No closing arguments?”
    â€œNo closing arguments.”
    She took a step back, thrown completely off balance by his candor. “Well, okay, then, counselor. Thank you again for everything, and good night.”
    â€œGood night, Molly.”
    She leaned over the stairwell and watched him walk down the stairs. He was a powerful, graceful man. Completely confident and self-possessed. She yearned for him to stop and look up at her with a parting promise that he’d call her again very soon, but he didn’t. “I had a really good time today,” she said, but she spoke the words very softly, breathed them, really, and if he heard them, he made no response.
    B ACK IN HIS VEHICLE , pulling away from the curb, Steven grappled with a bewildering tangle of emotions he’d never felt before. What was it about Molly Ferguson thatgrabbed him and wouldn’t let go? She wasn’t the sort of person that he should be the least bit attracted to. She didn’t share or even understand his feelings about protecting the environment. To him the word gold brought images of cyanide heap-leaching pits and poisoned waterways, whereas Molly heard the word gold and thought jewelry. There was absolutely nothing about her that should appeal to him…and yet he had very nearly taken her up on that offer of an Irish supper.
    Was he that lonely and desperate that he would try to put the moves on a fellow attorney who had asked him as a courtesy to show her what the New Millennium mine on Madison Mountain would look like? She was a young and inexperienced intern just trying to understand the issues, and he had very nearly taken advantage of her. Dangerous stuff, especially when they were both involved in what could become a nasty bit of litigation between mining and environmental concerns. A definite conflict of interest.
    The drive to Bozeman was filled with a silence so oppressive that Steven turned on the radio, and while the nonstop cacophony bombarded him, he wondered what Molly was cooking and which of Remington’s prints she had on her apartment wall, but most of all he kept wondering what it would have been like to kiss her.
    He had wanted to. Back at the picnic spot when he smoothed that stray lock of hair behind her ear, he had wanted to kiss her. Standing outside her apartment door, saying good-night to her just a few moments ago, he had wanted to kiss her. Perhaps now was the time in his life that he needed to go to the mountain on another vision quest. Perhaps now he needed to fast and suffer severallong, cold sleepless nights in order to drive the heat of this red-haired white woman from his blood.
    Or maybe all he needed was a little time to regain his equilibrium. If Manning had his way, Molly would be removed from any association with the New Millennium mine project and Steven would never see her again. They certainly didn’t live in the same town or travel in the same social circles. This strange, wild fever she’d ignited in him would slowly subside. All he needed was a little time….
    He reached his house in Gallatin Gateway by nine-thirty. He was hungry and looked in the refrigerator for something quick and easy. There was a fair assortment of things he liked, but his eye was arrested by a small green cabbage in one of the vegetable drawers. He used cabbage frequently as an ingredient in salads and stir-fries, but he’d never regarded it as the main course. He pulled it out and hefted it. Minutes later it was quartered and boiling in a covered pot, and the kitchen filled with the strong, steamy smells of what