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window in his small cabin out behind the main house, he gradually became accustomed to stability and routine, to waking up in the same n arrow bed under the same patchwork quilt he’d had as a boy. He no longer had to repeat silently, you’re on the ranch, ten miles out of Plains, Montana. You’re home.
    He still didn’t like it. Home didn’t seem to fit how he felt at all. There was an unchanging pattern that stifled his soul on this ranch where he’d be en born and grown to young manhood. Even as a boy, he couldn’t wait to grow up and leave, and homesickness was a thing that had never troubled him in his years on the road. Now he was a man, and he was going to have to learn to want to stay and grow old here, just the way his parents had done. It was the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do, this taming the restlessness in his character, and some mornings he despaired.
    He sorely missed the excitement, the Challenge, the raw emotion he thrived on during competition, it bothered him most when he was still halfway between asleep and awake, when logic still slumbered and instinct ruled his brain. But the morning after he met Sara, these thoughts were totally absent for once.
    Instead, there was the image of a tall woman with golden brown hair and soft gray eyes, hovering tantalizingly just behind his eyelids. And the dream he’d been enjoying was about Sara, as well. Ridiculously he felt himself blushing crimson at the vivid memory of that dream.
     
    Mitch and Sara had tested the pigs on Tuesday.
    That Friday evening, just past seven o’clock, having showered, shaved and changed into fresh Levi’s, Mitch steered his pickup into the dusty parking lot at Bitterroot Resort and wondered which of the assorted vehicles might belong to her.
    Or did she bring the vet truck home with her at night? It wasn’t here now, at any rate. There was the usual collection of vehicles clustered around the sprawling log building that housed the tavern, indicative of the clientele the place attracted: customized hot rods, trucks with mag wheels, several decrepit hulks apparently held together only with baling wire, five shiny motorcycles and four saddle horses hitched to the old rail.
    Bitterroot Tavern was the favorite watering hole for the rowdy young males in the area, which automatically made it th e favorite hangout for the less inhibited females.
    Mitch pushed open the heavy door. The jukebox was turned loud, playing fifties rock and roll, and the air was thick and blue with cigarette smoke. The din of voices rose and fell in waves of indecipherable sound, punctuated with pithy curses and loud cheers from a group around the bar in the corner, where a lively game of keno was in progress.
    Mitch’s gaze roved quickly around the room, checking and dismissing all the women. Sara wasn’t there. It was crazy to think she would be. She wasn’t the type to hang around a tavern like this one, just because her stepfather owned it. Still, Mitch hadn’t banked on feeling quite so let down. His shoulders slumped with disappointment as he maneuvered his way over to the bar.
    “Evenin’, Mitch,” the bartender-owner greeted.
    “Hello, Dave.”
    Dave Hoffman loomed half a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than most of his patrons, and it was typical of him that he would remember Mitch’s name after the most casual of meetings, here in the noisy tavern weeks before.
    “What’ll it be?”
    “Draft,” Mitch replied.
    Dave served him effici ently and then dialed the telephone on the shelf under the bar, frowning when the number obviously didn’t answer.
    “Damn,” he muttered irritably, hanging up the receiver. He raised his voice in an effort to be heard over the din. “Any of you guys see Doc Stone’s old jalopy on your way over here? Doc Stone, the old vet from Plains?”
    Several people casually shook their heads, but most didn’t pay any attention to Dave’s query, except for one skinny young man plugging quarters into the