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one of those models was her sister, Nicole. “But when I was fourteen I rebelled and ran off to check out the Tower of London and see where Anne Boleyn was beheaded.”
    â€œWhat happened after that?” Alaina asked with a laugh.
    â€œI nearly got beheaded myself, but they finally gave in and let me explore.”
    Alaina seemed puzzled, but didn’t say anything.
    As they continued looking around the house, Emily hoped that she might be making a new friend. The hardest part about leaving Southern California had been moving away from Lauren, her best pal for over two decades. They talked on the phone often, but it wasn’t the same.
    Alaina Hawkins was almost as pretty as Nicole, but she didn’t seem bigheaded or overly focused on her appearance. Not that Nicole was snotty, but despite them being sisters, Emily had little in common with her.
    From an early age Nicole had spent most of her time on the modeling circuit. Emily, on the other hand, had developed a thriving business advising kids how to dress like her sister...and selling Nicole’s clothes when she moved on to the next size or style. Opening a boutique had seemed a logical step after graduating with a business degree.
    â€œWow,” Alaina exclaimed, interrupting her thoughts. “The view up here is terrific.” They were in one of the rooms where the windows looked past the edge of town at the land and hills beyond.
    Schuyler sat on the margin of where rolling prairie gave way to the mountains, rising west to the continental divide. It made for glorious vistas, though Emily had yet to see a part of Montana that wasn’t beautiful. The whole state seemed designed for a photographer or artist, though she didn’t know how anyone could capture the breathless sensation of endless sky arching over vast reaches.
    â€œI love the view,” she said, “though I haven’t decided what to do with these rooms.”
    â€œThis is the first time I’ve realized how fun it might be to remake a house.” Alaina gave Emily an embarrassed smile. “That probably sounds strange since I work at a construction company, but I haven’t been at Big Sky for long. Before that I was at an investment firm in New York.”
    â€œThat’s a big switch.”
    â€œYeah, I got homesick.” Alaina glanced around, a thoughtful frown creasing her face. “I’ll have to ask Trent which room used to be mine and what it looked like back then.”
    Emily wanted to ask if Alaina knew why Trent was acting so oddly about Wild Rose Cottage, but decided not to say anything. While the brother and sister appeared to have opposite personalities, they might both prefer keeping certain things private.
    * * *
    T RENT ’ S HEAD THROBBED and he lay in the dark, staring at the moonlight leaking through the broken blind on the window. For two days Emily had tenaciously stuck close to her house, but surely she couldn’t stay away from her new business much longer.
    He got up and turned on his bedside lamp. The mattress was high quality—he believed in a good night’s rest—but aside from a shabby dresser and the lamp sitting on an old wood chair, there wasn’t much else in the room.
    The floor creaked as he went into the living room where he kept his weight machine. The Balderdash ranch house was old, but it wasn’t an architectural treasure... It was barely habitable. He could renovate it or build a new one, but he didn’t care what sort of place he used for sleeping. Mostly he kept an eye on whether any part of it was in danger of collapsing.
    The family assumed he was just waiting until he found the right woman so he could build a home to suit them both. At least that’s how they’d talked since Jackson had married Kayla. Trent smiled grimly. It had been an unholy mess when his cousin-brother had discovered he had a teenaged son with his old high school girlfriend. Now that the truth was