Page 1 of Feels Like Falling
PROLOGUE
MONTANA
ONE MONTH AGO
“Dammit, Grandad!” I yell across the field as the old man on the seat of theverystuck tractor turns to look at me with a toothy smile and a wave.
“Montana, my boy!” He gestures toward the wheel with a shrug. “I seem to be a little stuck.”
“Yeah, Grandad, looks like that mud puddle jumped up and got ya,” I say as my lips twitch and his eyes sparkle.
“Damn things been poppin’ up all over the place,” he agrees, amused and not the least bit worried.
“Incoming,” I murmur as a woman in her sixties comes into view. I’d originally hired her to look after Grandad, but she’d taken to lookin’ after me too.
The woman is a saint.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Hal,” Miss Celeste huffs as she hustles across the grass in her apron, wavin’ a hand towel around like she’s trying to land an airplane. “Montana, I am so sorry. I was gettin’ supper ready and he told me he was headin’ in to lie down.” Lowering her voice, she mutters, “the rascal,”before returning her attention back to my grandad.“Well Hal? What do you have to say for yourself?”
She slams her hands onto her hips as the old devil grins at her from his perch.
“You’re lookin’ lovely today, Miss Celeste. Is that a new apron?”
“You know darn well, you old loon, that this is the same one I wear every day.” She shakes her finger at him, but her lips are fighting a smile. Grandad just has that way about him, and it’s one of the many reasons I knew I’d never let him live anywhere but here.
“Help an old man down, wouldya?” he asks, finally turning to me with a grin, and like always, I help ease him down until he’s found his footing. He pats my face with his palm, the skin rough from years of farming this very land. “You’re my favorite, you know that, right?”
“I do,” I say, returning his grin even as emotion clogs my throat. Nodding, he turns and holds out his arm, Miss Celeste shaking her head as she loops her arm through his offered elbow.
“Don’t tell your sisters I said that!” he hollers over his shoulder.
“It’ll cost ya,” I yell, and he waves a hand without looking back.
“Put it on my tab.”
Chuckling, I watch them walk across the field and back onto the path that leads to the house I grew up in.
The house Grandad did too.
It’s home.
It’s the reason I’ll never lay my head down anywhere else. The soil under my boots and the way the wind whips through the cotton is a part of me just like the blood flowin’ though my veins.
My sisters never understood it, and my parents couldn’t wait to get out of here after Vienna and Aspen left for college. They all couldn’t wait to leave, but the only way I’d be leavin’ is when the good Lord calls me home.
I watch until I know he’s safely inside before turning my attention back to the tractor I know isn’t comin’ unstuck anytime soon and pull out my phone.
There’s no greeting as the line picks up, just a grunt of irritation from my friend—the new owner of the Rusty Fender, the mechanic shop the next town over—and that makes me smile.
“Hank, you’re never going to believe what happened…”
1
MONTANA
PRESENT DAY
Stepping out onto the back porch, I take a deep breath and smile, the steam rising from my coffee mug as the sun peeks over the horizon. It’s my favorite time of day.
