Read Online Montana Standoff by Nadia Nichols - Free Book Online

uncomfortable warmth rise in her face. She dropped her eyes. “That would be interesting, but we really don’t have the time to go there today.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t think so,” Steven said.
    â€œWe could plan another visit,” Molly said, her face burning. She sat through an awkward silence, struggling to find a way beyond it. “Look, Steven, I’m fully aware that there’s a lot I don’t know yet, but I’m willing to learn. That’s why I’m here with you today.”
    Steven started the Jeep and let the engine idle for a few moments before putting it into gear. “Let’s find a prettier place than this to eat our lunch,” he said.
    The place they found wasn’t all that pretty, but it wasprotected from the chill winds that swept out of the northwest, and the Milk River ran past it. The hollow he chose on the riverbank cupped the afternoon sunlight. She carried the basket of food to the place where he had spread his jacket for her to sit. “You’ll be cold,” she protested.
    â€œNot here. Sit.”
    She sat, opened the basket, and began taking out the lunch she had packed for them.
    â€œI hope you like deviled ham.” She held out the sandwich and their hands touched as he took it from her. His fingers were warm and hers tingled where her hand had met his. “I didn’t have much in the cupboard. Chips, pickles, two cans of cola.” She glanced up, unnerved by his closeness and by the steadiness of his gaze. She adjusted her sunglasses. “You’re staring.”
    â€œSorry.” He sat cross-legged on the dry grass and looked out across the river while he unwrapped his sandwich. Unseen on the highway above them, vehicles hurtled past with high-pitched whines. “We’re sitting in the middle of the Lewis and Clark Trail,” he said.
    â€œReally? Wow.” She looked around, seeing nothing extraordinary. “So how did you happen to get involved in environmental litigation? Did you always want to be an attorney?”
    â€œThe only burning ambition I had while growing up was to get off the reservation. As soon as I graduated high school, that’s what I did. I headed west, worked odd jobs when I ran out of money, and ended up pumping gas in a little town north of Seattle. Lots of logging trucks gassed up there. Big trucks carrying big trees, so big that sometimes only one log would fit on the truck. One day after work I caught aride on a logging truck heading back into the woods. I wanted to see what those trees looked like before they were cut down.”
    Molly held her sandwich in her lap. “Were they redwoods?”
    Steven nodded. “I stood at the base of one and listened to the roar of the wind blowing through the crown some two hundred feet above me and all of a sudden I saw things differently. I saw the stumps, what was left of the old-growth forest. Trees, forests thousands of years old, wiped out just like that. A little later I ran into a bunch of tree huggers staging a demonstration and volunteered to handcuff myself in a human chain around one of those trees to keep it from being cut. Needless to say, we were all thrown in jail, and while there I decided maybe it was time for me to do something more meaningful with my life than pump gas into logging trucks. So I went back to school, majored in environmental science, went to law school, and here I am.”
    â€œHere you are,” Molly agreed. “Still fighting for the trees and the mountains.” She studied him for a moment. “Tell me about your family.”
    â€œI have three younger brothers who live with their families on the res. Until this past spring, Pony was teaching at a reservation school just outside Fort Smith. Then she took a summer job working for Caleb McCutcheon at his ranch outside of Katy Junction, managing his buffalo herd. It sounds storybook, but the long and short of it is, they fell in love.