Alisa is chopping firewood for her inn when a scruffy
drifter named Nick, with an equally scruffy dog, shows up
and offers to take over the chore in return for scraps for
the dog. Cautious but very busy, the girl agrees. Nick
has a varied background, between serving in the army and
being in
prison, but for now he is just living in his pickup, hiking
in attractive country and trying to reconnect with life.
Mama Machak, Alisa's mother and cook, is delighted when
Nick fixes her dishwasher and offers him a temporary
handyman's job which comes with room and board. Alisa is
less sure, because she's a lone parent with a boy old
enough to want to play ball with a father figure and Nick
might not be a good role model. But only the local barber,
an ex-soldier, recognises Nick as a former sergeant and
understands his tendency to flashbacks. Cleaned up, Nick
jogs Alisa's memory of him as a kid in the local school,
until his father moved the family from the area. So he's
come HOME TO MONTANA - but how long will he stay?
I liked the matter-of-fact attitudes of the people at Bear
Lake, the hardworking spirit and resignation that profit
margins are eroded by higher wholesale food prices. Nick
has seen kitchen injuries from his time in army kitchens
and is on hand to deal with a terrifying scalding
incident. The trouble with industrial kitchens is that
there is so much more of everything harmful, all the time.
But when Mama is hospitalised Nick realises he is going to
have to say the hardest words in his vocabulary - "I can
cook." The catering skills he has learned have not been
wasted, and he is a much better match for Alisa's family
than a front-line soldier would have been. But he really
is very troubled and can't completely relax.
Although HOME TO MONTANA has a Christian ethos, the single
mother is seen as having made the mistake of trusting the
wrong man, and she is determined to raise her child well
with the support of her mother. I enjoyed this quiet tale
and the believable romance. Charlotte Carter has put a lot
of thought into her characters and fleshed out the story
well, with plenty of scenes set against a rugged landscape.
Staying in one place was never Nick Carbini's plan. When
his troubled past leads him to Bear Lake, Montana, single
mom Alisa Machak makes him consider putting down roots.
Alisa doesn't have a problem letting Nick work in her
diner, but when he starts edging his way into her heart,
she has to draw the line. He reminds her too much of her
son's father, another drifter who abandoned them both. Nick
wishes he could be there for them, but believes he's not
fit to be a husband. When his worst fears come true one
night, it's up to Alisa to show him the perfect recipe for
a forever romance.
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