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Chapter One
Josie Calhoun squinted against the late afternoon sunlight, studying the front of the big, beautiful Montana log cabin.
The ranch house, completed four years ago, had been built for a man who had everything. For a man who thought he had everything.
The twenty-three-year-old designer-in-training stood at the edge of the sweeping gravel driveway, holding her breath, feeling the awful weight, and truth, of this house. Of what this grand sprawling house represented. It was to have been a celebration of a Montana man’s accomplishments. This was his success story. His reward. It was also a house that had never been lived in until now.
Josie hadn’t been part of the design team that built it, but she’d been aware that her firm had created the luxurious home, turning Bear Anderson’s wish list and dreams into reality. He’d been an integral part of the plans and she’d poured over them in the office because Bear Anderson was huge, a local hero. Everybody knew him, even if they hadn’t met him. For years, the state and local papers faithfully covered his career, keeping the public up to date on his success in the PRCA, and then later on the Professional Bull Rider tour.
It was on the PBR tour that it changed. She, like everyone else in Montana, knew the moment life as he knew it vanished. It had only taken six and a half seconds in Tulsa to destroy a life.
No one thought a catastrophic accident would happen to Braden “Bear” Anderson. The Clyde Park native, a three-time national bull-riding champion, had never even been seriously hurt before—or if he had, he’d kept his injuries to himself, competing as if he was invincible.
And in the public’s mind, he was. Bear was Bear. A legend. He earned his nickname as a skinny freckled faced ten-year-old when he took on a grizzly during a family fishing trip outside West Yellowstone, distracting the bear who’d gotten a little too interested in Braden’s eight-year-old sister.
Montanans loved courage. Bravery. And they loved that one of their own would challenge a grizzly and live to tell about it.
So, Bear became a hero long before he ever won his first big belt buckle. It went without saying, it just about broke everyone’s heart when that rank bull came crashing down on him in Tulsa and wouldn’t let him up.
Folks watching the event that night—whether there at the Bank of Oklahoma Center or home watching live—thought the bull had killed Bear. People wept as he was carried unconscious from the arena and the other PBR cowboys took off their hats, formed a circle and got down on a knee to pray. Please, Lord, don’t take Bear.
God heard. He spared Bear’s life, but Bear was done riding and competing. Done walking, too. No way he could walk, not with what that bull did to his spinal cord.
It’d taken tough, fearless Bear Braden Anderson two and a half years to accept that there was nothing else the medical community could do for him. His bull riding career was behind him. He’d left his place outside Nashville and was returning to Montana, and the luxurious cabin built for him on his Clyde Park ranch with the jagged, snow-capped Crazies for a view.
Josie blinked against the glaring reflection of the summer sun off the long metal ramp. The ramp hid the handsome log cabin’s big front porch. The two-story, five-bedroom home had been built with reclaimed lumber, which had cost a fortune, but Bear hadn’t cared. Bear had been making good money on the circuit and even better money through sponsors and endorsements. Everyone loved a success story, and Bear’s was downright mythical.
Now Bear was back, broken, and as he’d said in a late-night phone call to the design firm’s answering service, he couldn’t even pee in his multimillion-dollar dream home because his wheelchair couldn’t fit through any of the bathroom doors on the main floor.
Which was why Josie was here. To get changes made. Fast.
But before she could even get to the interior modifications, she’d be sure to have something done about the ramp out front, aware that Bear hated it.
The lead architect at the firm had tried explaining to Bear on the phone yesterday that it was just a temporary ramp, quickly constructed so Bear could get into his house, as there were three steps to the front porch, and six at the back, where the property sloped down. But Bear didn’t care that it had been thrown together for his convenience. He hung up on the architect, and then one of the project managers. He refused to speak to the contractor who came out yesterday to meet him, and now Josie was here, not because there was no one else, but because she’d volunteered.
Her brother was in a wheelchair. She’d grown up watching him struggle. Accessibility wasn’t an option. It was necessary. But it didn’t have to be ugly, and she could see how the cheap aluminum ramp in front of his house upset him.
But there was more to it than compassion. Working on his house could fulfil her final design project requirement for her to graduate and, so far, her advisors hadn’t signed off on a project and she was down to six months before graduation, six months to show her advisors—and future employers—what she could do.
Josie sucked in a breath for courage and called Bear.
He didn’t answer.
He could have been sleeping, or he could just be sitting inside ignoring her.
Josie drew another breath and phoned again. It rang and rang, and she was just about to think she’d end up in his voice mail again but suddenly he was there.
“Hello?” he said tersely.
“It is an ugly ramp,” Josie said quickly. “I’m standing outside, in front of your house, and I can see why you hate the ramp. It’s a monstrosity and everyone could have done better. We should have done better, Mr. Anderson.”
“Who is this?” he asked after a moment, his voice deep, hoarse.
“Josie Calhoun.”
“I don’t recognize your name. Were you on my design team?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m an intern with the firm—”
“An intern?”
“Yes, an intern, but I also have more experience with universal design—”
“What does that mean?”
“I specialize in accessible design, and I’m here of my own volition. I’m here because I want to make it right, and I know I can.”
“Are you the one standing in my yard?”
“I am.”
He sighed, exasperated, and then the line went dead.
Josie glanced at her phone. He’d hung up on her.
But then the front door opened, and a shadow stretched across the porch. “You coming in?” The deep voice called, coming from the threshold.
Bear.
Josie swallowed hard, suddenly nervous, and clutched her notebook closer to her chest. “Coming,” she said loudly, before quickly walking up the shiny silver ramp, her footsteps sounding like thunder on the aluminum surface.
Bear rolled back from the door to let Josie Calhoun enter. He wasn’t in a good mood. He hurt. But then he hurt all the time now. There was nothing right about being stuck in a chair. Stuck sitting. Even thirty-three months after the accident, he still felt trapped.
“Should I shut the door?” she asked.
Bear turned a little, glanced back at her. The white silver light reflecting off the ramp shone around her, creating a halo around her head, as if she were an angelic being instead of a Bozeman interior design intern who’d decided to pay a house call because she considered herself an expert. He appreciated confidence but today he wasn’t in the mood for this … or her.
“Do you close your front door?” he snapped.
She quietly closed the door, but her expression was amused more than intimidated.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling,” he said tightly through gritted teeth.
“I’m just happy to be meeting you. I’ve followed your career since I was a little girl.”
His narrowed gaze swept over her from head to foot. “You’re still a little girl.”
“Not super tall, no, but that’s because I take after my mom.” Her voice was light, friendly, as if determined to not be offended by his temper tantrum.
He knew he was having a temper tantrum, too. It’d been a terrible forty-eight hours, and Bear couldn’t seem to shift his mood.
“What do you think you’re going to do, Josie, when no one else at the firm could make things more accessible for me?”
“Let’s put our cards on the table. There wasn’t enough advance notice that you were returning—”
“It’s my house. Why should I give advance notice if I want to come home?”
Her slim shoulders shrugged. “You are the one that wanted to get inside. And you are the one that requested the big porch and wide front steps. The house wasn’t built with accessibility in mind. So now we need to do some retrofitting, but those changes take time.”
He glanced away, jaw aching with suppressed fury. He’d taken a hard fall last night trying to get through the narrow bathroom door to the toilet, and some falls bruised the ego, but this one had jarred his spine sending shockwaves of pain throughout his upper body. God only knew what his paralyzed lower half thought of it.
“I do want to help,” she said quietly, her tone growing serious. “And I can. At least, as much as you’ll let me.”
He looked at her, his gaze sweeping over her, even as emotion filled him, nearly overwhelming him. Before he’d been hurt, he was the one helping others. Before Tulsa, he’d been the strong one, the one lifting others up, getting them through the hard times.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, voice dropping low.
“Your priority list. What needs to be fixed first, and so on.”
“The bathroom.”
“And then?”
“The kitchen.”
She nodded. “How about I follow you? We can start with your bathroom or the kitchen. Your call.”
“Let’s start with the kitchen since it’s the first room up.”
“Sounds good.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a tape measure. “Lead the way.”
Josie wasn’t as confident as she sounded. If anything, she was struggling not to be intimidated. She could feel Bear’s tension. His frustration radiated off him in waves and every now and then there was a crack in his voice, a break that burrowed into her heart, taking up space.
He’d been through hell. She knew that. He was still going through hell, and she couldn’t fix everything, but she could at least give him a space where he could be more comfortable and function without help. Independence was huge, especially for men like Bear.
Following him down the hall was deliberate, too. She wanted to see how he moved through his home, how he navigated the halls and spaces with his wheelchair. Wheelchairs weren’t the same either. Some were wider, some set taller, some more manual. Some were electric, and she needed to see how he moved it and how much mobility he had, and it was all that would determine the choices she made.
Bear rolled past her, hands pushing the rims on his chair tires in quick impatient bursts. He wore a thick silver ring on his right hand, and as he pushed forward the ring tapped against the titanium rims. His chair was very new, and high performance, which meant lightweight, and durable, forgiving should it be dropped or kicked or worse.
Her family had a van for her brother but there was no van here. The only vehicle here—besides her own—was the orange and white Bronco out front.
“Is that your truck outside?” she asked, trailing after Bear as he led the way down the wide paneled hallway into an enormous kitchen with a soaring ceiling, rustic beams, handmade custom cabinets, and gleaming marble counters with tiled backsplash. The hood over the professional grade stove was hammered copper. Burnished copper pots hung from a beam near the stove and the line of stools at the island were covered in soft, supple butterscotch leather.
“Yes,” he answered, coming to a stop on the far side of the kitchen. “Probably not the most practical vehicle, but it’s been mine forever.”
His right hand turned his chair around, facing her in front of the kitchen sink. The huge island stood between them; the island far too tall with him confined to a chair. There was no area for him to prep, nothing at the island that would allow him to roll under. Even washing dishes would require him to turn sideways and reach awkwardly into the deep sink.
“I like the colors,” she said. “It’s very seventies, and retro is in.”
“Classic Broncos never went out.”
She couldn’t help smiling. He was so irritable and yet it was okay. She wasn’t hurt by his brusqueness. If anything, his brusqueness told her just how much he was struggling.
Now he simply sat and waited, watching her.
Josie suspected this was a test, but she understood it. Very little worked for him in this gorgeous kitchen. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t roll under the sink or roll under a prep space, but the kitchen itself dwarfed him.
She walked the opposite way around the island, passing the refrigerator, around to the eight-burner stove with the big griddle in the center.
Everything in the kitchen was tall and oversized. Everything had been built on a massive masculine level. Even though Bear had once stood over six feet, he wasn’t that man anymore. He had to operate from the height of one sitting, which meant counters needed to be lower, the sink and work stations needed to be open so he could roll under.
“I would replace your sink cabinets here,” she said gesturing to the doors beneath the deep farmhouse sink. “If we remove the cabinets and shift the pipes back, you could roll right under, giving you better access to the faucets and the sink itself. I’d also downsize this island, which would give you more room to navigate around the appliances. You could keep some of this counter space, but here at this end I’d eliminate the under cabinets and drop the island surface to make it a proper work-prep area for you. The scale in here is impressive, but unfortunately, it doesn’t suit your needs now.”
She crossed back to the refrigerator and opened it, pleased to see that the refrigerator had adjustable shelves and drawers. The freezer also had flexible space. So, the fridge wouldn’t need to be replaced. Just changing the island size would create more space for Bear to cook at the stove. He needed to be able to roll backward to open the oven doors, and needed space to pivot, shifting hot pans from one area of the stove to another.
But still, it was a tall stove. For his needs something smaller would be better.
“The stove is high,” she said, “and I’m tempted to suggest that we remove the double ovens so the gas top can be lowered, but that depends on how much functionality you want and need.” She hesitated. “And your budget, of course.”
“I don’t want to spend money I don’t have to spend.”
“Do you have a budget in mind?”
“I want to do as little in here as possible. I spent a fortune the first time getting it just the way I wanted. I’m not wanting to destroy what we did.”
“But the layout doesn’t work for you anymore—”
“It’s fine.”
“I don’t think so. As a designer, I believe that functionality is even more important than aesthetics.”
“If you cut down the island like you suggested, you’ll have to replace flooring.”
“I’m sure we can find an open box of material to patch, and you’d really be so much happier with a work or dining area that you could just roll under, whether you’re prepping something or reading mail.”
“Maybe.” His brow furrowed. “Can you give me some numbers for what it would cost?”
“I can.” She hesitated. “What about the sink?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You’ve only been back a few days. Won’t you be frustrated when you try to use your kitchen?”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “What makes you think I haven’t?”
“The stove top is spotless. I doubt you’ve ever turned a burner on, never mind the oven.”
“I’ve turned the oven on.”
She remembered the stack of frozen pizza boxes in the freezer. “I suppose pizza counts.”
His hard jaw eased. His lips curved faintly. “They don’t have Door Dash out here, and I’m too far for Domino’s.”
She smiled back. “Well, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.” Josie turned to the island again, studied the dimensions, making a mental note of where she’d cut the island, and where they’d need to patch the floor. “Just a thought, we could turn some of the island’s lower cabinets into dish drawers. That way everything you need is easily available beneath the counters. I know a good carpenter who could do it in a couple of weeks, but you’d have to be patient with the process, since he’d probably be working you into his existing jobs.”
“A couple weeks?”
“You want someone good,” she said. “This is a custom kitchen with custom cabinetry. I’d only have the best finish carpenter work here.”
“How disruptive would it be?”
“Depends on what we need to do for the bathroom. Should we look at that next?”
“That’s where your skilled carpenter will be spending most of his time.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the bathroom?”
“A seven or eight? You’ll see in a moment what I mean. With enough maneuvering, I can shower and brush my teeth, but I’m not always successful. I’ve ended up on my butt more times than I care to admit.” His lips twisted, a mocking smile. “Not that I haven’t ended up on my butt plenty of times in the arena, but I got paid to fall. Here, not so much.”
Again, Josie heard that thing in his voice that moved into her chest, making her heart ache. At least Jasper had grown up with his disability, not ever knowing a different life. Her dad had spent a life as a rancher and roofer, and he’d found it nearly impossible to come to terms with his accident. “Show me the way to your bedroom.”
He gave her a look that put heat in her cheeks and made her face burn, a look that indicated he’d heard that before with very different intentions. Thank goodness, he didn’t say anything, though, and pivoted the chair. She followed him through the wide kitchen doorway, back to the entry hall, where he turned left, rolling down a narrower hallway. The hallway was paneled, a warm rich wood that added warmth and style to an otherwise uninspiring space. Josie was surprised when he stopped, and leaned forward to turn the doorknob, pushing it open and rolling inside.
It was a small bedroom, with a full-size bed. There was no fancy bedframe or elegant linens, just a simple comforter spread over a mattress, the mattress on top of the box mattress, on a metal frame. The bed, though, was the same height as Bear’s wheelchair which would make it easy to transfer. She suspected the wide nightstand was also there for leverage, should he need it. Except for the bed and nightstand, there was no other furniture in the room, and she knew why. He wouldn’t be able to turn in the room if there had been a chair or desk. Throw rugs would just tangle him up. The room was empty and plain so he could get around. But it didn’t have to be that colorless. It could be so much better.
“The bathroom is in here,” he said gruffly, passing what she imagined was a tiny built in closet, to push open a door, revealing a small bathroom with a tub-shower combination, a built in vanity, and a toilet. A hospital style shower chair sat inside the tub. The shower head was a handheld device and it dangled into the tub.
Bear made it through the bathroom doorway, but his rims scraped on one side of the frame. She glanced down, seeing the scuffmarks and paint that had been scraped away, and then a hole in the drywall that clearly shouldn’t be there.
“Was there always a handheld shower head in here?” she asked, ignoring the hole and focusing on what was important now.
“A neighbor put it in for me,” he said.
Her attention shifted to the tiny sink. This sink, like the one in the kitchen, would work for him if he rolled up sideways and leaned forward, but she didn’t know how much flexibility he had in his spine, or strength in his pelvis and hips. The ideal situation would be a roll under sink with no pipes in the way. Knee clearance needed to be at least twenty-seven inches high, and close to fifteen inches deep to accommodate his chair and knees—and he had long legs.
The towel bars should also be moved, and the toilet itself needed to be higher. She didn’t know if he’d want a grab bar on one side. Jasper needed two grab bars, but she’d become aware in the past few months that some people wanted to downplay their different requirements, not wanting a home to look handicapped.
“You don’t have a lot of room in here,” she said finally, thinking as he transferred his chair would knock the sink, the toilet, the tub. There would be a lot of bumping around.
“It’s frustrating,” he agreed. “A bigger door would help.”
“But you need more than just a couple inches for the doorway. You need to be able to move and turn. This isn’t good space for you, not as your main bathroom.”
“My only one,” he corrected. “The guest bath off the entry is just a powder bath sort of thing. I can’t even get my casters through that door, and well, obviously upstairs is off limits.”
She faced him. “You have an enormous house here, and you can’t use most of it. Wouldn’t it be easier to sell this one, and find something that works better for you?”
He stiffened, broad shoulders squaring. “This is my home.”
She heard his sharpness, but then, she’d been expecting it. But she had to ask. It was important to ask. “What you need then is a proper main suite downstairs. I’d need to see more of the house to know if you have space to convert, or if you’d have to build new—” She lifted a hand to stop his interruption. “A master on the main level would change everything for you.”
“It would mean a huge remodel.”
“You’d have to move out for a number of months, yes.”
“Where would I go?”
“That’s a good question.”
His expression darkened. “I’ve spent years living in hospitals and facilities that weren’t my home. I want to be home.”
“I understand,” she said softly. “I also understand this is your house, but it’s clearly not home right now. You’re not comfortable, or happy, here.”
“I just want a bathroom that works for me.”
“I want that for you, too. But the only way to do that is to enlarge this doorway and try to grab some space to give you a proper bathroom.”
“What about when I want to sell this place? If it’s full of special accommodations for me, it won’t work for those … unlike me.”
“Just because you have a more accessible home doesn’t mean it will be unattractive to buyers. If anything, having a bedroom suite on the main floor will be appealing to most.”
His jaw worked. “You make it sound so easy.”
“When you know the right people, I can safely promise you a good renovation experience, but demoing a bathroom always takes time. There are permits to be pulled and inspections to be made. We probably couldn’t even get started for a good month—”
“That’s too long.”
“I suppose we could get some small changes done to try to tide you over.”
Bear shook his head, clearly unhappy with what he was hearing. “I can’t do months of this. I can’t.”
“In Bozeman, there are a number of long-term hotel options, and they’d have accessible suites.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. “I’ll see you out.”
She nodded, aware that he was disappointed, and his disappointment was heavy.
“The changes sound daunting, Mr. Anderson, but the good news is that once the remodel is done, this house will feel like you. It’ll be your home again.”
He opened the front door. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
She picked up her purse from the hall table, putting the measuring tape and notepad in one pocket and drawing out her business card folder from another. “Think about your options, and what you want to do,” she said, placing her business card on the table. “These decisions are yours, and yours alone. But if I can help, I want to.”
Josie climbed into her small SUV and carefully backed into the driveway and then shifted into drive and pulled away from Bear’s house, thinking it was possible Braden Anderson had earned his nickname not from fighting a bear, but from resembling a bear.
He was tough. Hard. Hurt.
But she could handle him. Braden Bear Anderson didn’t scare her.
Hard to be scared of someone that made her breath catch. He was gorgeous. His back might have been shattered, but the good Lord had spared his face.
There was a reason local girls had been falling at Bear’s feet since junior high, long before the buckle bunnies had picked up the chase.
Braden Anderson was all man, and the very definition of rugged, tortured … and beautiful.
End of Excerpt
