Batteries Not Required by Linda Lael Miller Page A

credibility. I, on the other hand, had blown into town with my recently divorced mother, when I was thirteen, and remained an unknown quantity. I didn’t miss the latest stepfather—he was one in a long line—and I loved Mom deeply.
    I just didn’t want to be like her, that was all. I wanted to go to college, marry one man, and raise a flock of kids. It might not be politically correct to admit it, but I wasn’t really interested in a career.
    When the Tristan-and-me thing bit the dust, I pulled my savings out of the bank and caught the first bus out of town.
    Mom had long since moved on from Parable, but she still had a financial interest in the Bronco, and the other partners wanted to sell. I’m a paralegal, not a lawyer, but my mother saw that as a technicality. She’d hooked up with a new boyfriend—not the kind that requires batteries—and as of that moment, she was somewhere in New Mexico, on the back of a Harley. A week ago, on the same day I was notified that I’d been downsized, she called me from a borrowed cell phone and talked me into representing her at the negotiations.
    In a weak moment, I’d agreed. She overnighted me an airline ticket and her power of attorney, and wired travel expenses into my checking account, and here I was—back in Parable, Montana, the place I’d sworn I would never think about, let alone visit, again.
    â€œMiss?” The flight attendant’s voice jolted me back to the present. From the expression on her face, I would be carried off bodily if I didn’t disembark on my own. I unsnapped my seat belt, hauled my purse out from under 3B, and deplaned with as much dignity as I could summon.
    I had forgotten why they call Montana the Big Sky Country. It’s like being under a vast, inverted bowl of the purest blue, stretching from horizon to horizon.
    The airport at Helena was small, and the land around the city is relatively flat, but the trees and mountains were visible in the distance, and I felt a little quiver of nostalgia as I took it all in. Living in Phoenix for the decade since I’d fled, working my way through vocational school and making a life for myself, I’d had plenty of occasion to miss the terrain, but I hadn’t consciously allowed myself the indulgence.
    I made my way carefully down the steps to the tarmac, and crossed to the entrance, trailing well behind the other passengers. Mom had arranged for a rental car, so all I had to do was pick up my suitcase at the baggage claim, sign the appropriate papers at Avis, and boogie for Parable.
    I stopped at a McDonald’s on the way through town, since I hadn’t had breakfast and twenty-six peanuts don’t count as nourishment. Frankly, I would have preferred a stiff drink, but you can’t get arrested for driving under the influence of French fries and a Big Mac.
    I switched on the radio, in a futile effort to keep memories of Tristan at bay, and the first thing I heard was Our Song.
    I switched it off again.
    My cell phone rang, inside my purse, and I fumbled for it.
    It was Lucy.
    â€œWhere are you?” she demanded.
    I pushed the speaker button on the phone, so I could finish my fries and still keep one hand on the wheel. “In the trunk of a car,” I answered. “I’ve been kidnapped by the mob. Think I should kick out one of the taillights and wave my hand through the hole?”
    Lucy hesitated. “Smart-ass,” she said. “Where are you really?”
    I sighed. Lucy is my best friend, and I love her, but she’s the mistress of rhetorical questions. We met at school in Phoenix, but now she’s a clerk in an actuary’s office, in Santa Barbara. I guess they pay her to second-guess everything. “On my way to Parable. You know, that place we’ve been talking about via BlackBerry?”
    â€œOh,” said Lucy.
    I folded another fry into my mouth, gum-stick style. “Do you have some reason