On the one hand, it didn't seem especially strange for Jack McMurtry to offer me a room at Sweetgrass Ranch. People are friendlier in the country, right? It was just a room. But on the other hand, I was still the woman who was probably going to make the call to take Sweetgrass Ranch out of McMurtry hands for the first time in its history. Was he trying to butter me up? He'd laughed at the notion, as if it was ridiculous, but was it? He had to know he was handsome and charming, with the kind of good-natured ease of manner that tends to drive women crazy. He also had to know his story was gripping, with an easy villain in the IRS trying to take property from a man who a)had nothing else and b)appeared to have nothing to do with his grandfather's years-long refusal to pay taxes.

I would stay at Sweetgrass Ranch, but I wouldn't be affected by Jack's tales of woe. I had a job to do, and everything they told me during training about it not being fair for some to pay their share and not others was still true. Sad story or not, the whole system would collapse if we let everyone with a sad story get away with their debts.

Before Jack arrived back at the clinic I went to the bathroom and got my first look in the mirror since a flash flood had nearly swept me to an awful death. I blinked at my reflection, not quite believing that muck-covered, Medusa-haired creature was me. But of course it was, why was I even surprised? Leaves and twigs were twisted into my hair so tightly I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get them out without just chopping it all off. Dirt and mud were caked everywhere – in my fingernails, behind my ears, and my clothes were torn and even filthier than I was. Briefly, I thought about going back to the hotel and washing my face, maybe putting a little make-up on before Jack showed up but he arrived too soon.

"Blaze?"

I poked my head out the bathroom door. "Do you have a washing machine? I wonder if I could wash my clothes?"

"Sure you can. You're going to have to have a shower, too – I can't have you dirtying the bedding."

He was joking. After procuring a second hospital gown – this one to wear backwards so I wasn't forced to walk out of the clinic and to Jack's truck with my bare ass hanging out – we set off for Sweetgrass Ranch.

"Well this isn't awkward at all," I commented as we drove in silence.

"Awkward?" Jack asked, turning to me. "How is this awkward?"

I ignored him, because he had to know damn well why it was awkward. Also because I felt guilty, and I wasn't ready to recognize that guilt for what it was.

About five minutes into the drive, a horrific smell suddenly filled the truck. I glanced briefly at Jack, wondering if it could possibly be emanating from him.

"What?" He asked, looking like he hadn't noticed the stench.

"What is that –" I started, when it suddenly became even worse and I leaned forward and gagged violently.

"Oh shit!" Jack exclaimed, pulling over, jumping out of the cab, running around to my side and yanking the door open faster than I would have thought possible. I undid my seatbelt and hopped out, eager to get away from the mysterious smell. But it was even worse outside. How was that possible?

"What," I retched again, "the hell is that?!"

"You're sick," Jack said, leading me away from the truck. "The doctor said to bring you back right away if you showed any signs of nausea or vomiting, so if you need to throw up get it over with so we can go back."

I started to chuckle before being cut off by more gagging. When it seemed to stop, I bent over and put my hands on my knees, feeling hot and sweaty in the early evening heat. "It's not a concussion," I gasped. "It's that smell. It smells like, oh my God, it smells like shit."

Jack stared at me for a few seconds, his eyes widening, and then surprised me by bursting into laughter.

"What's so funny? Don't you smell it?"

Jack kept laughing for a good couple of minutes, stopping every now and again to look at me as if he couldn't believe what was happening. Since I had no idea myself, all I could do was wait until he was finished.

"You really are a tenderfoot, aren't ya?"

I peered at him. "What? I'm a what? Jack, ugh, oh God," I gagged again and yanked the hospital gown up over my face, breathing through the fabric even thought it did next to nothing to keep the stench out of my nose.

"A tenderfoot. A city-slicker. You know, the kind of person who damn near pukes when they smell a little manure."

As soon as it was confirmed that what I was smelling was, in fact, excrement, the gagging became something much more productive and I promptly threw up all over the ground near Jack's feet. Well, OK, some of it was on Jacks feet.

"Jesus!" He yelled, leaping back, half-laughing, half-grossed out. When he saw my face, though, and realized that this humiliation was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back of an already supremely-shitty day, he stepped back towards me and put his hand on my back.

"Hey, Blaze. Hey, tenderfoot. Are you OK?"

I tried to blink back the tears that were just making my embarrassment even more acute, and threw up again, although I managed to miss Jack's feet that time.

"OK then," he said gently, pulling my hair away from my face. "Alright. You just get it all out. I'm surprised you've got anything left in there! I've got some water in the truck, let me grab that for you." He ran to get the water and passed it to me, watching as I took a feeble sip. "How's that? I'm sorry I made fun of you, Blaze, I thought you'd see the funny side, too."

"I would," I muttered, out of breath from the vomiting and the humiliation. "Usually, anyway."

"Not today, though," Jack said soothingly, still rubbing my back.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" I croaked, when the urge to puke again seemed to have passed. "Because it's not like I don't realize that, out of the two of us, my problems are small potatoes compared to yours."

Jack put the cap back on the water bottle. "How about we get you back to Sweetgrass Ranch? You need to get yourself cleaned up, and the way the wind comes down off the mountains it usually doesn't smell like this out there, so maybe you can keep some food down. How does that sound?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to open my mouth again without barfing, and climbed back into the truck. The rest of the trip out to Jack's ranch was awful. My stomach lurched with every fresh intake of breath but there was nothing else to purge, so I just sat there retching and hacking and wishing I'd never gotten it into my head to come out to Montana and track down the money Jack McMurtry owed the IRS.

Jack was right, though – the air around Sweetgrass Ranch was completely free of the thick, visceral smell of manure. He led me inside, into the kitchen, and told me to wait there. A few minutes later he returned with a towel and what looked to be some clothing.

"I got some of my sister's clothes, I think you're about the same size. And here's a towel. Why don't you go have a shower and I'll fix you something to eat?"

"You don't have to –"

"I know. Now go have a shower, you'll feel better afterwards."

I wasn't sure that was true, but I obeyed Jack's instructions anyway, because I was too tired to argue.

The bathroom I eventually found was like something out of a movie from the 1930s or 40s, all thick jadeite tiles and heavy ceramic. There was a claw-foot bathtub which looked like it had seen better days. Its sides were so high I only just managed to step into it – the bruising on my body was starting to set in at that point and with it came a soreness that made even the smallest movement agony. It was only once I'd adjusted the water temperature so it wasn't either scalding or freezing that I realized there wasn't a single bar of soap or bottle of shampoo to be found.

I washed myself as best as I could without them, bending over and letting the warm water rinse the thick creek dirt out of my hair for a good five minutes. When I got out I stumbled slightly, suddenly realizing that I was so tired my legs actually felt shaky. It was also then I realized I was absolutely starving. Unsurprising, as I hadn't eaten since early that morning, and what I had eaten had been pretty efficiently expelled over two separate bouts of barfing.

I put Jack's sister's pajamas on carefully, wincing as even the soft fabric on my cuts and bruises caused me pain, and then shuffled back down the long, high-ceilinged hallway to the wide staircase that led back down to the first floor of the house. Before I even got to the bottom of the stairs the smell of something delicious filled my nostrils.

"Oh my God," I said, walking into the kitchen to Jack standing in front of the stove. "What is that?"

He turned around to look at me and I thought I caught something in his expression, a softening of some sort, before he turned away again. "Bacon. Bacon from one of my own pigs – we raise one pig a year and slaughter it in November. And maple-smoked baked beans, fried eggs and hash browns. I know it's breakfast food but I figured you needed something stick-to-your-ribs."

I smiled at the colloquialism. "My grandmother says that."

"So does mine," Jack replied. "Well, she did, anyway."

I'm afraid I might have embarrassed myself a little during that dinner. It was so good, and I was so hungry and traumatized, that I didn't really think twice about wolfing it down and then swiping the back of my wrist against my chin as I asked for seconds.

"Seconds of what? Everything?"

"Um. Beans? And – yeah, just beans. Maybe one piece of bacon?"

"One? Or Two?"

"OK," I laughed. "Two."

Jack brought me back a plate piled with beans and five strips of bacon and eyed me while I ate. "Your hair is still full of crap."

"I know. You don't have any shampoo in your bathroom! Or a hairbrush."

"What? Yes I do. Wait – did you use the up-upstairs bathroom? Oh Blaze, no one's used that for years."

"The up-upstairs bathroom?"

"Yeah, surely you noticed that this is a big house? It has six bathrooms in total, and you managed to find the most out-of-the-way one. I'll show you where the main bathroom is when you're finished eating."

"I don't know," I said quietly, because even talking at a regular volume was beyond me at that point. "I don't think I have the energy to have another shower." I reached up and touched my hair, making a face at the matted, snarled mess. "This is going to be a delight to brush out, though. Ugh. I'll do it in the morning."

Jack looked skeptical. "You probably shouldn't sleep on it. If it dries like that it's going to be a goddamned nightmare."

"How do you know?" I asked, curious as to how Jack McMurtry, a man who in no way looked like he might be familiar with the trials and tribulations of long hair, knew it would be more difficult to deal with my own hair once I'd slept on it.

He turned his head and looked out the window into the dark night for a moment, making me wonder if I'd said something wrong. "Oh, no reason," he replied. "I used to help someone brush her hair before she went to sleep."

If I'd been less tired, and Jack had looked less sad when he talked about this woman whose hair he used to brush, I would have questioned him further. But I was tired, and he did look sad, so I didn't. What I did do was clear my plate and then lean back in my chair, realizing with some dismay that I'd eaten so much my stomach felt like it might burst.

"Oh my God, I think I just ate you out of house and home."

Jack took my plate to the sink, grinning. "That's OK. You've had a rough day, and I'm happy to feed the random women I pull out of floods. Now – come with me."

As Jack led the way through one of the large, dark-wood framed doorways out of the kitchen, he reached back and grabbed my wrist. It was a reassuring gesture, and one I could tell he hadn't really thought about. I noticed it when he flinched just slightly, as if suddenly realizing what he'd done. He didn't let go, though, not when I didn't say anything.

We ended up in another room that felt like something out of a bygone era, a huge sitting room with high ceilings, stately crown molding and furniture that looked both substantial, like it had been there forever, and incredibly dated. The sofas and chairs – and it was a big room so there were a lot of them – were covered in a gaudy pink and green floral pattern, like someone's grandma would have used to decorate her country house in 1960s.

"Wait here," Jack said, guiding me to one of the sofas and disappearing. I sat down and looked around, running my fingers along one of the pillows and watching as a thick layer of dust piled up in front of my nail. It didn't feel like anybody had spent any time sitting on that strange furniture for years.

A few minutes later, Jack returned with a hairbrush in one hand and a bottle in the other.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Detangler. Here," he said, chucking a pillow on the floor at the foot of one of the armchairs. "Sit down. Let's sort out your hair before you go to bed. Don't look so worried, Blaze, I've spent probably hundreds of hours brushing hair before, I'm not going to mess it up."

I sat down on the pillow, stiffening slightly as Jack sat down behind me in the armchair and I felt his legs against my back.

"Is something wrong?"

"Uh, no," I lied. "I just, uh –"

"This is weird, isn't it?" Jack asked, standing back up again. "Shit, yeah, this is weird. Maybe I'm getting all awkward living out here on my own? It's just that I, uh, actually never mind." He offered me the detangler and the brush. "Here, take these. You can use them."

I looked up at him from my spot on the floor. "Are you having a moment, Jack?"

He laughed. "It looks like I am, doesn't it? I used to brush my grandma's hair all the time when I was kid. It was sort of our little routine. Every night before bed she would catch up on her soap operas – she was always too busy during the day to watch them so I would record them for her and while she watched, I would brush her hair. She had a few medical conditions that made it difficult for her to do it herself and she said I was the only one who knew how to do it properly. So, uh, I think I might have underestimated how strange that might seem – to offer to brush your hair. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Jack," I said, before he could leave the room.

"What?"

"I want you to brush my hair. If you don't mind, I mean."

I don't know why I said that. At the time I told myself it was a kindness I was doing for him, because he had a sad look in his eye when he talked about his grandmother. But looking back I think maybe it had to do with a lot more than me trying to be a nice person.

Jack sat down again and I handed the brush and the detangler back.

"This is going to take awhile," he said, lifting up one section of my matted hair.

"I know."

He got to work right away on a very small section. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all. There was no painful yanking or snagging.

"You are good at this," I commented sleepily a few minutes later. "Better than my mom used to be."

Jack started on another section. "Grandma Dottie had very long, fragile hair."

"Grandma Dottie?"

"Yeah, short for Dorothy. She died in 2003. We were close."

As the minutes wore on, and my hair slowly began to lay flat again, Jack talked about his grandmother. He told me how she'd answered a classified ad that Blackjack had placed in a number of local newspapers in County Kerry, Ireland.

"Ireland?" I asked.

"Yeah, the McMurtrys are Scots-Irish from way back. Blackjack couldn't be bothered with American girls, got it into his head that they were no good. So he advertised for someone from the old country and 18 year old Dorothy O'Reilly showed up in Montana barely two months later."

"18?!" I asked, incredulous. "She just up and left her country at 18 years old to marry some guy she'd never met before?"

"Sure did," Jack replied softly. "She said in her head America was this land of Fourth of July parties and Cadillacs and sunshine. Some small town in Ireland couldn't compete with that – not in the mind of an adventurous teenager, anyway. They went to the courthouse less than a day after she arrived, and my uncle Jerry was born 9 months later."

We were quiet for a few minutes as I thought about what it would have been like for me, at 18, to move to another country and marry a man I'd never met before. I had to admit, it's not something I would ever have considered – even as an impulsive teenager.

"What do you think of that? Would you have done something like that?" Jack asked, echoing my own thoughts.

I shook my head. "No way. But I grew up in a big city with a lot of friends and supportive parents. There was nothing to run away from."

"You're lucky," Jack said, in a tone that almost sounded sad. I was trying to figure out how to ask him about that sadness when he suddenly put the brush down on the sofa and patted my shoulders. "There. Done. Now you don't have to sleep on that mess."

I found that I did not want to get up. I liked it on the floor in front of Jack, leaning back against his legs. I liked the way it sent a little thrill through my body when he put his big, heavy hands on my shoulders. We both stayed where we were for a few moments, hesitating. The back of my neck prickled a little with anticipation as I thought about how easy it would be for him to lean down and press his lips against my bare skin...

"Thank you!" I said – a little too cheerily – as I got to my feet. "That would have taken me forever."

Jack was still sitting on the sofa with a somewhat faraway look in his eyes. When I asked him if he was OK he jerked his head towards me, like he'd been thinking of something else entirely. "What? Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Probably time to hit the hay, though."

After spending the entire day – after the dramatic rescue – in a state of almost overwhelming fatigue, I suddenly didn't feel tired at all. I was buzzing – not that it mattered. The fact that Jack McMurtry was seriously, jaw-clenchingly hot didn't matter, either. He was right. We both needed to go to bed. Separately.

After he told me which bedroom I was to sleep in and I handed over my mud-encrusted clothes to be washed, we parted at the bottom of the stairs, mumbling our goodnights the way you do when you're scared that the inappropriate thing you really want is written all over your face.

I dreamed of Ireland that night. Or what my brain managed to cobble together from various movies and books as 'Ireland,' seeing as I'd never actually visited the country. I was looking for something, walking over endless green hills and getting increasingly anxious at not finding it. When I woke up in the morning, I couldn't remember what – or who – it was that I'd been looking for.