Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,4

their engagement trip.

When she’d asked where they were going, all he’d said was “It’s a surprise, but we are almost there.”

She’d never guessed when he’d told her to pack warm clothing that they were coming to Montana. She should have known it would be somewhere completely out of her comfort zone. Collin and his surprises.

Even as she tried to embrace the whole experience, the snowstorm was making her nervous. She pulled out her cell phone, needing to connect to one of her daughters, to reach out and ground herself through a lifeline to the familiar and safe. This new life made her feel anxious as if she were lost and would never find her way home. Isn’t that what she’d believed in her heart at first about Danny after the accident? That Danny had gotten hurt and confused, that he was out there somewhere waiting for her to find him because he couldn’t find his way home?

Why was she thinking about that now? Because that’s how she felt, that she might never be able to go home again. She looked down at her phone. No cell service. How was that possible? She tried again and heard Collin chuckle.

“Kate, you aren’t in a place where you can get cell-phone coverage everywhere. This is the Wild West. Watch for a cell phone tower. That’s your best bet.”

Reluctantly, she pocketed her phone. “I didn’t realize there were still places like this. I guess I’ve lived in Houston for too long.”

“And not gotten out in the real world enough,” he added. “But that is all going to change, starting with this trip. I’m glad you agreed to it.”

“Me, too,” she said automatically. He was probably right about her needing to expand her boundaries. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out of Houston, let alone Texas. There was a whole country she’d never seen.

Until Collin, she hadn’t realized how isolated her life had been. She’d lived in other people’s stories with her work. She’d been so busy raising her girls that she hadn’t been aware of her life passing by.

Collin reached over and put his hand on her knee. She covered it with her own and saw the flash of the large diamond he’d put on her finger. It still felt strange, always startling her when she caught sight of it there. She looked away, hating that the ring made her feel as if she’d broken her promise to Daniel. She felt as if she wasn’t just letting go of him after all these years but that she was no longer holding on to hope. Now, untethered, her future felt uncertain.

Years ago, the refinery had paid for the families of those who’d lost their loved ones to see a therapist. Kate had gone at the insistence of her family doctor, who felt she wasn’t coping well with her loss.

“You don’t believe your husband is dead?” the therapist had asked her.

“Rationally, I know it must be true. It’s just that he doesn’t feel...gone,” she’d said. She’d explained that she felt Daniel could have been injured in the explosion and was alive and living somewhere, still unaware that she and the girls existed. “There was so much confusion at the hospitals with so many patients...” She’d gone looking for Danny, believing in her heart that he was still alive, but there’d been so many wounded that the victims of the blast had been dispatched to hospitals all over East Texas. The others to the morgue. So many patients had been brought in badly burned with no idea who they were.

“You aren’t the first spouse who feels this way,” the therapist had told her. “You didn’t get to say goodbye. Nor did you get to identify his body and bury him.”

Kate had nodded through her tears, thinking of the others who’d lost their loved ones that day. So many of the victims were unidentifiable and lost in the fiery grave.

The therapist had been sympathetic and kind. “You have to decide how you want to spend the rest of your life. Isn’t it possible that your hope that Danny is alive and will show up one day at your door is keeping you rooted in a fantasy?”

Kate still recognized the truth in what the therapist had said all those years ago. She didn’t want to let go of Danny and not just because she still loved him with all her heart. She didn’t want to let go of the fantasy of him returning because then she’d have