Big Sky Eyes Read online

  “You oughtta remember him, Kelly. That’s Ty’s best friend, Brent,” Bev answered.

  “That’s Brent?” she exclaimed.

  Chapter 2

  Brent knew the Chevy was approaching long before it made it to the top of the hill. The way Ty drove, he threw clouds of dust that could be seen for miles. When the truck finally parked in front of the house, he had no interest in its passengers. Ty had told him that the two of them would be wrangling the horses, instructing the guests and running the trail rides for the summer along with Ty’s cousin Kelly and a school friend.

  “Great,” Brent had drawled. “Babysitting tourists and teenage girls. Just what I had planned for my summer.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Ty had replied. “You didn’t plan anything for your summer, Brent, because you are way more boring than you think you are.”

  That comment had indeed shut him up. Shut him up and pissed him off. So he’d grabbed an axe and was well into chopping enough wood to last through the whole summer and most of fall. He couldn’t believe what he’d be forced to endure. He remembered Ty’s cousin from when she had been out to visit during Christmas three years ago. She had been fifteen then and the unashamed owner of every annoying teenage habit in existence. Brent had been twenty-one and found it almost intolerable.

  He heard the rising female voices behind him followed by their squeals and cackles and he shook his head with a roll of his eyes. How would he ever survive the season?

  “Brent!” he heard Bev’s call. “Put down that axe and come on over here and say hello to my gals!”

  It was the last thing Brent wanted to do, but he would never disrespect Bev, so he stuck the axe blade into the tree stump, grabbed his flannel shirt and flung it over his shoulder and obeyed. From his distance, they looked like two normal teenage girls, but he immediately noticed a shock of curly red hair on fire in the fading sunlight. The other girl appeared to be a blonde, so he knew the redhead had to be Kelly.

  A wave of surprise washed through him. The pestering runt had grown up.

  And filled out.

  Tremendously.

  He definitely noticed the full and ruby red lips breaking into a wide smile as he approached.

  Mackenna was the first to admit the difficulty in deciding which view of the man was the best: the back or the front. A shadow of stubble covered the lower half of his face framing firm and full lips kinked into a haughty grin. Like the rest of his body his face was bronzed from long days in the sun, highlighting the lightness of his bright blue eyes. The muscles of his torso were so big and taut that she wondered how his tank top remained intact.

  She knew she was gawking and so shyly averted her eyes. They fell onto his hands as he wiped them clean on his jeans. His fingers were long, strong, and she’d bet anything that they were beautifully calloused. She forced herself to swallow down the tiny flutters working up from her stomach to her throat just as Brent stopped in front of them.

  “Well, well, well,” he mused arrogantly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Can this really be the teenage brat I met three years ago?”

  Kelly piqued, and her cheeks flushed as brightly as her hair. Mackenna’s own brow wrinkled defensively for her friend.

  “Couldn’t have been me,” Kelly said in tamped down anger. “I’ve never been a teenage brat.”

  Brent laughed. “Yep, it was you. I’d remember that red hair anywhere.”

  Kelly pinched her lips into a thin line, unable to think of a clever comeback.

  “Don’t worry,” Brent brushed casually. “I can see that you’ve…ah…” he looked her body up and down slowly, “grown up quite a bit since then.”

  The compliment had its intended affect and Kelly’s ire disappeared, instantly replaced with her earlier infatuation. Her flush turned to blush and she smiled demurely out of the corner of her mouth. Mackenna was astonished to watch the stranger play her friend so expertly. He knew it, too, for she also did not fail to notice the triumphant smirk on his face.

  “Okay,” Bev interrupted the awkward silence that had fallen. “So, you know Kelly. This, here, is Mackenna, Kelly’s best friend.”

  Brent turned to her and each looked the other in the eye as he held out his hand for a solid shake that Mackenna returned.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she offered.

  “Likewise,” he returned before he narrowed his eyes in study of her features. “You have a very honest face.”

  She furrowed her brow and answered, “And you have a very odd way of speaking to women.”

  He smiled with a soft chuckle. “Is that what you think are you are? A woman?”

  “As much as any other, I imagine.”

  “I suspect every teenage girl feels the same” he jeered.

  Ty had returned through the door in time to witness the pair’s introduction and he shook his head disapprovingly at his best friend.

  “Jesus, Brent,” he admonished. “Can you remember your manners, please?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Ty,” Mackenna offered nicely. “Brent is just pleased to have a two kindred spirits here.”

  Brent raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “Kindred spirits?”

  “Well, sure” she returned brightly. “With us two kiddies here, you won’t be burdened by the great difficulty it so obviously is to act your own age.”

  Bev chuckled once before biting her bottom lip to stifle the rest, but Ty let his full laughter rumble from the depths. Brent’s features remained unreadable but for what Mackenna determined was a tiny hint of humor lighting his eyes as they locked onto hers.

  “Come on, kids,” Bev said. “Supper’s been waiting on you.”

  As Bev and Kelly led into the house, Ty followed. Mackenna took one step before Brent’s voice stopped her.

  “So, you’re saying I’m immature?” His tone was challenging and teasing all at once. Mackenna turned back toward him and cocked her head to the side. She smiled sweetly with a feigned innocence and batted her eyelashes before she spoke.

  “I also have an honest tongue.”

  With that, and one eyebrow spiking as mockingly high as his, she turned and entered the house, leaving Brent chuckling good-naturedly and genuinely amused.

  Bev McCrae was accomplished in every way that a Montana rancher’s wife should be. She could rope and ride. She never balked at blood or blemish. She was thick and strong, wild and just plain good through and through, and no one had ever cooked a better beef stew. She would tell you so herself. As the entire McCrae family gathered to fill their bowls with it, Kelly was busy locking arms and elbows with all manner of cousins.

  Greetings flew across the room to Mackenna as well and she felt quite at home as she filled a ladle and emptied it into her bowl. Brent was soon beside her, standing so close that she could feel his body heat meddling with hers.

  “So,” he began, quietly speaking only to her. “You left me out there thinking that I ought to just call a truce now and be done with it.”

  “Oh, but it'd be so much more fun to cut each other down all summer long," she returned with sarcasm. "You certainly proved that you are quite capable of that."

  “Well, truth be told, that show out there was more for Kelly’s benefit.”

  Mackenna laughed. “Oh, please. That show was for your benefit and yours alone.” She scrunched her face and puffed her chest in a caricature of him and said in a deep, mocking voice, “No woman can refuse me….even after I insult her.”

  Brent laughed loud and long. His ego wanted to be offended. It begged him to stomp away, but the rest of him knew her to be so right that he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You do have an honest tongue,” he relinquished and Mackenna seized the opportunity.

  “Oh yeah, what the hell kind of line is that anyway?” she asked. “You have an honest face? I mean, what does that mean? That’s like saying ‘Hmmm, you’re not pretty, but I can’t really insult you, so what should I say about you? Oh yeah, you have an honest face.’ I
mean, really? Come on!”

  “It wasn’t a line,” Brent defended. “I meant it. I mean everything I say.”

  “Everything?” she asked disbelievingly.

  “Well, except for when I’m drunk. I don’t really know if I believe half the stuff I say when I’m drunk.”

  “Noted,” she quipped. “And you’re not drunk now?”

  “Not hardly,” he chuckled, filling his bowl with stew.

  “So, then I’m to assume that what you said about Kelly out there is what you meant to say?”

  “What? That she was a teenage brat when I met her? Or that she has grown up since then?”

  “I mean what you said with your eyes,” she answered, stopping Brent in his tracks.

  “And what did I say with my eyes?” he asked with measured curiosity.

  “You said, quite clearly I might add, something to the effect of ‘She’s toast. I got this one.’”

  Brent’s mouth nearly fell open. She was right. Kelly was so readable and predictable. It didn’t take a genius to see the lust in her eyes, indeed in her entire face, as he’d approached. With only two sentences spoken to her, he thought the very thing that Mackenna had recognized: that Kelly would be putty in his hands if he so wished it. Something in Mackenna’s tone in pointing it out had made him feel guilty and ashamed.

  His failure to respond was confirmation enough for Mackenna and she determined right then and there that she did not like him and she shook her head with a sigh. What’s more, she felt an inherent responsibility to protect Kelly from his advances, and since she possessed both an honest face and honest tongue, she told him so.

  “Look, Brent. I’ve known the McCraes for most of my life, especially Kelly and Ty. Now, Ty says you’re his best friend so there must be more to you than what I’ve seen so far, but Kelly is my best and dearest friend. She falls for guys easily, and she gets her heart broken easily. So, if you can’t respect your ties to the McCraes and keep away from her, know this: if you pursue her, she will fall for you, and I don’t want to see her hurt again by someone just after a fling. I also don’t want anything to ruin this wonderful Montana escape that she looks forward to every year.”

  Brent stared, slack-jawed, as he battled between angry and…well…really angry. This girl, this teenager, had assassinated his entire character based off of twenty seconds of flirtation. For crying out loud, he had flirted with Kelly, not propositioned her. He had done what every other hot-blooded man does in testing the limits of his influence with any female he is physically attracted to. Where was the affront in that? He hadn’t planned on pursuing Kelly. He had just wanted to know what sort of challenge she would be if he’d wanted to.

  “Well, Mackenna,” he said tightly. “I thank you for assuming the worst of me, but your warning is wasted. Not only do I value my friendship with Ty more than some fling with his cousin, but girls don’t interest me.”

  He stormed off in such haste that Mackenna felt sorry for offending him and she fought to reassure herself that she had guessed his intentions correctly. She turned to join the family and meet the woman Ty had boasted of.

  “Mackenna, this is my beautiful Leslie,” Ty introduced.

  “Yes, she is!” Mackenna exclaimed, shaking the woman’s hand. She was tall and Nordic looking with long, thick blonde hair and bright, round green eyes. Mackenna instantly thought she had the regal look of a goddess.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mackenna,” Leslie chimed after a laugh. “I’m looking forward to spending the summer with you and Kelly.”

  “Me, too,” Mackenna answered. “I’ve been looking forward to this all year.”

  Chapter 3

  Mackenna had been dreaming an odd dream as her subconscious sorted through the experiences of the previous day. She replayed her meeting of Leslie, and how lovely she had turned out to be, but her mind gave her the head of a talking daisy, which no one in the room seemed to find interesting.

  She dreamed of Kelly propped up on the twin bed next to hers in the loft, her red curls bobbing up and down as she spoke excitedly of Brent. Mackenna had tried to talk her out of her scheme to seduce him, but found that her dream-mouth was made of a metal that she could not move and so she resorted to banging her head against the wooden walls methodically. It made a loud thumping sound and as Kelly’s voice began to fade in the background, the thumping grew louder, spaced out evenly until Mackenna’s eyes finally fluttered open. The thumping carried on, plucking at her ears until she sat up and went to the window to investigate.

  Brent was there, exactly where she’d first seen him the day before, doing exactly what he’d been doing then: chopping wood. She wondered that no one else had been woken by the heavy sound of his falling axe. Dawn was approaching enough that the sky was a deep purple, but there was no sun to speak of. She dressed in her jeans and a long-sleeve flannel shirt, tying the bandana once again into her hair before she made her way downstairs. No one else was awake and the cabin seemed sadly abandoned, given the spirited reunion that had taken place the night before.

  She brewed some coffee and tried to ignore the thudding axe pricking at her conscience, chiseling away at her righteousness and replacing it with guilt. It was not like her to be so judgmental. When the coffee pot sputtered and spewed its final puff of steam, she let out an equally tired sigh and poured two mugs full.

  She caught the screen door with the toe of her boot so that it didn’t slam and wake the house and made her way across the dampened gravel, standing quietly behind him as he hammered away. Different from the day before was that he had abandoned both his red bandana and his shirt. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail and his bare skin was smooth and shiny, rippling in perfect melody with the axe.

  He must have been at the wood pile for quite some time for his body had worked up enough heat that it mixed with the cool morning air, producing an aura of steam around him that made him look like a figment of her imagination. While her mental judgment of him was wary, her body was responding quite differently and she thought it wise to end the vision. She cleared her throat, loud enough to stall his movements. She made the noise again and he finally turned. His face was a mixture of annoyance and surprise, the combination of which rendered Mackenna speechless.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked finally and sharply. His tone brought back her voice.

  “Well, it’s kind of hard to sleep with a pounding axe in the air,” she said with irritation.

  His eyes made an exaggerated sweep of the area to prove his point before he said, “doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.”

  “True enough,” she conceded. “Maybe it’ll just take me a bit longer to get used to life here again.”

  “Maybe,” he mocked and then returned to the wood pile.

  Mackenna’s fury was mounting. His behavior was nothing short of childish. What had got him so upset?

  “You know,” she shouted above his pounding axe, “if you plan on chopping this much wood every time someone calls you on your…” she fought for a more civilized word before giving up and shouting “bullshit, then there will be no trees left in Montana when you’re done!”

  He stopped in mid-swing for a few long seconds before slamming the blade into the stump and rounding on her.

  “My bullshit?” he called.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “What are you so pissed about? I come out here with a cup of coffee for you, feeling…God knows why…guilty for what I said to you, when everything inside me tells me that I’m right!”

  She was standing almost within an arm’s length of him. His eyes, which had been bright with fury, were slanting humorously as the corners of his mouth began to lift. Without warning, he began chuckling and it progressed until he was doubled over with laughter. Mackenna was flummoxed, not knowing what had generated such a fit. He soon answered the question for her.

  “Guilty? You came out here because you felt guilty?” he asked.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” s
he spat.

  “That’s rich,” he said. “We both came out here for the same reason.”

  “Well, I fail to see what is so funny about that.”

  He settled himself and explained. “You said that you felt guilty even though you knew you were right. Well, I felt angry even though I knew you were right, and then I felt guilty for being angry.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “God, what a pain in the ass feelings are, eh?”

  Put that way, she couldn’t help but smile. The smile soon turned to a chuckle.

  “You’re right,” she said.

  “Well, at least I get to be right about something in this scenario.”

  They smiled and she handed him the cup of coffee. He took a hearty swallow, not minding the scald. Then, his brow furrowed in question.

  “What do you have to feel guilty about, though?” he asked.

  Mackenna gulped down a mouthful of strong, hot coffee and coughed. “What?”

  “I said I felt guilty for being angry. What made you feel guilty?”

  She mulled it over for a second. They had both agreed that she’d been right, but she had still felt guilty. Why? Because he had lost sleep over her accusation? That had to be it.

  “I guess,” she stammered, “because you were out here chipping away at something that was bothering you pretty badly.”

  “And you assumed you were responsible for that?” he asked, amused.

  She nodded and shrugged.

  “Well,” he said, “you’d best get over that quickly, Miss Mackenna. The one thing you can be sure about with me is that I stew over many things. Don’t give yourself responsibility for all of that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if I misjudged you,” she said. “It’s not because I’m judgmental by nature. It’s more because of my love for Kelly, you see?”

  “I figured,” he answered. “And I shouldn’t have let something silly like that get to me, but, well, the truth of it is I’m not used to a female calling me out on something like that.”