Page 3 of Storm in Montana (Montana Becketts, Wild Spirit Ranch #3)

The train’s whistle pierced the crisp Montana air as steel wheels ground against frozen rails, preparing to move on to its next stop. Through billowing steam, a figure stood in eerie silence.

Annalee Beckett, transformed by her eastern sojourn, her tailored dress a splash of sophistication against Mystic’s rugged winter backdrop. Snow drifted in lazy spirals around her boots as she paused at the edge of the platform, one gloved hand gripping the iron railing.

Behind her, porters wrestled with leather trunks while the platform filled with the controlled chaos of arrival. Her family surged forward through the crowd, their voices rising above the hiss of steam and clatter of wagon wheels from the street beyond.

“Annie!” Lilian’s voice broke first, followed by Nathan’s deeper call. “Look at you!”

Their mother, Naomi, pushed through with her youngest son, Parker, close behind, her weathered face creasing into a smile in contrast with her usual stoicism. “Come here, we’ve been waiting!”

Annalee’s dress, a deep blue creation with precise pleating and delicate buttons, caught the last of the day’s sunlight as she descended the steps to meet her family. The fabric whispered against the wooden planks, so different from the sturdy cotton and wool she’d left behind a year ago.

“Mama!” She fell into Naomi’s embrace, breathing in the familiar scent of wood smoke and rose water.

Parker, never one for patience, grabbed her arm as soon as Naomi released her. “You look like one of those fancy paper dolls Lily keeps in her drawer.”

“Parker Beckett, mind your manners,” Naomi chided, but her eyes sparkled with amusement.

Nathan stepped forward, towering over his sisters. “He’s right, though. Philadelphia’s changed you, Annie.”

Through the reunion, another figure stood apart from the family cluster.

Brodie Gaines kept to the shadows of the station’s overhang, his heavy coat bearing testament to long hours in the saddle.

Mud and snow caked the hem of his coat, and his hat tipped low couldn’t quite hide the intensity of his gaze as it followed Annalee’s every movement.

“The trunks need loading,” Naomi announced, breaking the moment. “Nathan, Parker. Make yourselves useful.”

The boys moved to help the porters while Lilian linked arms with her sister, chattering about the latest town gossip. Annalee smiled and nodded, but her attention kept drifting to the silent lawman in the shadows.

Brodie’s hands flexed against his sides as he watched the Beckett boys heft trunks into the waiting wagon. His jaw clenched when Annalee laughed at something Lilian whispered to her. It was a sound both familiar and somehow foreign after her months away.

“Miss Beckett,” he murmured, too quiet for anyone to hear over the platform’s din. The words fell into empty air as Annalee climbed into the wagon, never turning his way.

The wagon wheels creaked as Naomi took up the reins. Brodie remained motionless, watching until they disappeared around the corner, leaving only tracks in the fresh snow and the lingering scent of eastern perfume that didn’t belong in Montana’s winter air.

Someone bumped against him, muttering an apology, but Brodie barely noticed.

His eyes stayed fixed on the corner where the wagon had vanished, his expression hidden beneath his hat brim.

Finally, he turned away, his boots leaving heavy prints in the snow heading in the opposite direction from the Beckett wagon.

The train whistle sounded again, preparing for departure. Steam clouded the platform once more, obscuring the solitary figure of the sheriff as he descended the steps of the platform, leaving only the echo of wooden wheels and the ghost of unspoken words hanging in the frozen air.

Wild Spirit Ranch emerged from the winter haze as an old painting coming into focus.

The main house’s strong lines cut against the Montana sky, smoke curling from the chimney in lazy spirals.

Naomi slapped the lines, picking up the wagon’s pace as it traveled along the familiar path, each turn of the wheels bringing Annalee closer to a home so different than she remembered.

The wagon creaked along, Naomi handling the lines with the easy confidence of a born horsewoman.

Fresh snow blanketed the yard, broken only by boot prints leading to and from the barn.

The scent of pine smoke mixed with the sharp bite of winter air, a stark contrast to Philadelphia’s coal-tinged atmosphere.

Naomi guided the wagon as close as possible to the worn wooden steps leading up to the porch. Nathan slid off his horse to the ground, holding out his hands to help Annalee down.

Climbing up the steps, the sound echoed through her memory. How many times had she made this same approach? But now, the familiar scene felt strange when viewed through eyes used to grander stages.

The front door swung open before she reached it, spilling warm light across the porch.

“Welcome back!” Annalee’s oldest brother, Grayson, picked her up and whirled her around.

“It’s good to have you home,” he said, ushering them inside, where the rich aroma of her mother’s beef stew reminded her of cold nights and raucous family meals.

“How did Philadelphia treat you?” Lilian asked, helping Annalee with her coat. The question opened a flood of others, voices overlapping in their eagerness.

“Tell me about the grand houses!”

“Did you really attend balls?”

“Were the streets as wide as they say?”

Annalee laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls as she followed her family to the dining room.

The long table, hewn from local pine by their father decades ago, stood solid and welcoming, already set with their best dishes.

She ran her fingers along the smooth wood, thinking how primitive it seemed after dining at Philadelphia’s finest establishments.

“Let her breathe,” Naomi commanded, ladling stew into bowls. “She can tell us everything over supper.”

The familiar routine of passing dishes and breaking bread grounded Annalee, even as she noticed the differences.

Her mother’s ceramic bowls, once considered fine, now seemed rustic compared to the bone china she’d used in the East. The silver, though polished, showed its age in ways she hadn’t noticed before.

“I visited Independence Hall,” she began, watching Lilian’s eyes widen. “The architecture is magnificent. The columns reached toward the sky, every detail crafted with such precision. And the history there, you can feel it in the very air.”

“Did you really see where they signed the Declaration?” Parker leaned forward, nearly knocking over his water glass.

“I did. And the Liberty Bell, though it’s not as grand as you might imagine. The stories about it hold…” Annalee paused, stirring her stew. “I attended lectures at the Franklin Institute and saw exquisite paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.”

“Fancy learning,” Parker muttered, but Naomi silenced him with a look.

“The galleries were overwhelming at first,” Annalee continued. “But there was one painting, a Western scene, I could never forget. The artist had never been west of the Mississippi, and it showed. The mountains were all wrong, like something from a fairy tale rather than our Montana peaks.”

Nathan chuckled. “City folks don’t know what they’re missing.”

“No,” Annalee agreed, but her voice held a note of hesitation. “Though they have their own kind of beauty. The grand ballrooms of the Knowlton Mansion, all gilt and crystal. The Academy of Music where I heard an entire orchestra play Wagner.”

“Wagner?” Parker wrinkled his nose.

“A German composer,” Lilian supplied. “I read about him in one of Faith’s newspapers.”

The conversation flowed as easily as the creek behind the house.

Sometimes rushing, sometimes meandering, and always moving forward.

Annalee described the mansions along Rittenhouse Square, the ladies in their Worth gowns, the gentlemen in their top hats.

With each story, she watched her family’s reactions, noting how Lilian absorbed every detail while Parker grew restless.

“But surely you missed home,” Naomi said, her words carrying more weight than their simple meaning suggested.

Annalee met her mother’s gaze across the table. “Every day,” she answered, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. She had missed them, missed the daily routine and lively suppers, but she’d also discovered parts of herself she’d never known existed.

The clink of spoons against empty bowls filled the following silence. Through the window, Annalee caught a glimpse of the barn where Cody and his best friend, Brodie, had first taught her to shoot straight. The memory arrived unbidden, sharp as the winter air outside.

“More stew?” Naomi offered, already reaching for Annalee’s bowl.

“Please,” she replied, grateful for the distraction. As her mother filled the bowl, Annalee noticed how the lamplight caught the silver threads in Naomi’s hair. Time had moved on here, too, just in a different way than in Philadelphia’s marble halls.

The floorboards creaked beneath Annalee’s feet as she entered her bedroom, each step marking the distance between who she’d been and who she’d become. The travel trunk waited near her bed, filled with evidence of her transformation.

Lamplight cast shadows on the worn furniture and rugs. The same shadows that had kept her company through countless nights before Philadelphia. Her fingers traced the worn brass lock of the trunk, remembering how new it had looked when she’d first arrived in the East.

The lid opened with a soft groan. Inside, her Philadelphia life lay neatly folded. Silk dresses wrapped in tissue paper, kid gloves cushioned in velvet boxes, letters tied with blue ribbon. She lifted out one of her day dresses, the fabric whispering against her fingers.

A wooden chair stood sentinel beside her bed, accepting each garment she removed.

The pile grew slowly. First, a sophisticated evening dress, then the crisp petticoats, and finally, the corset her aunt had ordered for her.

Each piece carried the ghost of Philadelphia’s refinement yet seemed oddly out of place in her childhood room.

The full-length mirror, a gift from Grayson and Jolene the Christmas before she left, reflected a woman caught between worlds. Removing her traveling clothes, Annalee stood before it in her chemise, studying the familiar stranger who gazed back. A year had changed more than her wardrobe.

She reached for the wool dress hanging on a hook, its somber color a stark contrast to the pieces from Philadelphia.

The fabric felt sturdy and practical. It was everything her eastern clothes were not.

Each button slipped through its hole with deliberate precision as she dressed, watching the transformation in the mirror.

Down below, a horse’s whinny caught her attention. She moved to the window, drawn by the sound. Through the gathering dusk, her mind imagined a lone figure sitting astride a horse at the edge of the property. She envisioned Brodie. The set of his shoulders, the angle of his hat.

He remained motionless, a silhouette cut from the dying light. If he was out there, would he be watching her window? The thought sent a not unwelcome warmth through her chest. She stepped back, letting the curtain fall, knowing her vision was one of wishful thinking.

Her fingers moved to her hair, working quickly to transform the eastern style into something more suitable for ranch life.

Each pin removed felt like shedding a piece of Philadelphia’s polish.

The face in the mirror shifted subtly. Less Miss Beckett of Philadelphia’s social season, more Annie of Wild Spirit Ranch.

But not entirely. Something remained in her eyes, in the way she held herself. An awareness of a world beyond Montana’s borders she hadn’t possessed before her travels. The kind of awareness making it impossible to simply step back into her old life as if Philadelphia had never happened.

Her hand settled on the doorframe as she prepared to leave the room. The wood felt solid and real, unlike the gilded doorways she’d touched in her cousin’s home. Below, she could hear her family’s voices, the comfortable symphony of evening settling over the ranch.

Glancing back through the window, Brodie’s elusive silhouette had disappeared into the gathering darkness. She could still feel his presence, a shadow at the edge of her consciousness, raising questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

Annalee’s fingers tightened on the doorframe. Ahead lay the warm embrace of family, the familiar rhythm of ranch life. Behind her, the travel trunk stood partly unpacked, holding pieces of a life she wasn’t sure she could abandon.

She hesitated in the doorway, caught between stepping forward and looking back, while outside, somewhere in the Montana night, a lone rider moved through the darkness, carrying his own unspoken truths.