Read the book: «Montana Passions: Stranded With the Groom / All He Ever Wanted / Prescription: Love»

Montana Passions
Christine Rimmer
Allison Leigh
Pamela Toth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In the town of Thunder Canyon there are men who can send pulses racing and temperatures rising!

Montana Passions

Three thrilling and satisfying romances from three beloved Mills & Boon authors!

Stranded With the Groom

By

Christine Rimmer

CHRISTINE RIMMER came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a sales clerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Those who know her best withhold comment when she makes such claims; they are grateful that she’s at last found steady work. Christine is grateful, too—not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves who loves her right back and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

For Montana readers everywhere. Welcome to Thunder Canyon, Montana.

Chapter One

“A mail-order bride,” Katie Fenton muttered under her breath. “What were they thinking?“

In Thunder Canyon, Montana, it was the first Saturday after New Year’s—and that meant it was Heritage Day.

The annual celebration, held in the big reception room of Thunder Canyon’s sturdy stone-and-brick town hall, included rows of brightly decorated booths, some serving food and others displaying endless examples of local arts and crafts. There was always a pie auction and a quilt raffle and, as evening drew on, a potluck supper and dancing late into the night.

Also, this year, the Thunder Canyon Historical Society had decided to put on a series of historical reenactments. In the morning, they’d presented the local legend of the great Thunder Bird, a mythical figure who took the form of a man every spring and met his mortal mate on sacred ground. According to Native American lore, their joyous reunion caused the spring rains to fall, the leaves and flowers to emerge and the grass to grow lush and green.

At two in the afternoon, there was the discovery of gold in 1862 at Grasshopper Creek—complete with rocks the size of baseballs, sprayed gold to look like huge nuggets.

And now, at four-thirty, it was time for the mail-order bride—played by Katie—arriving by train to meet and marry a man she’d never seen before.

Katie stood huddled on the narrow stage at the west end of the hall. Perched on a makeshift step behind a rickety cardboard mock-up of a steam engine and a red caboose, she kept her shoulders hunched and her head down so she couldn’t be seen over the top of the fake train.

Utterly miserable—Katie hated, above all, to make a spectacle of herself—she stared at the door hole cut in the caboose. On cue, she was supposed to push it open and emerge to meet her “groom.”

Outside, the wind howled. A storm was blowing in. Though the local weatherman had promised nothing much worse than a few flurries, most of the Heritage Day crowd had departed the hall during the past half hour or so and headed for the safety of their homes.

Katie herself was more than ready to call it a day.

But unfortunately, this year for the Heritage Day revels, a local merchant had come up with the bright idea of providing free beer on tap. The beer booth was a big hit. Certain of the citizenry had been knocking it back since eleven or so. They couldn’t have cared less that the predicted flurries seemed to be shaping up into a full-blown blizzard. They were too busy having a grand old time.

Out on the main floor, someone let out a whistle. Katie heard the impatient stomping of heavy feet on the old, well-polished hardwood floorboards.

“C’mon, where’s the bride?”

“Get on with it. We want the bride!”

“The bride!”

“The bride! Give us the bride!”

Katie cast a desperate glance to the tiny wing area at the edge of the stage where sweet old Emelda Ross, one of the few members of the Historical Society who’d yet to go home, hovered over an ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder.

“The bride, the bride!”

“Wahoo, let’s see her!”

Katie gave Emelda a shaky nod. Emelda turned on the tape and two loud train whistles erupted: her cue.

Sucking in a big breath and letting it out slowly, Katie tugged on her 1880s-style merino wool frock, adjusted her bonnet and pushed open the cardboard door.

The beer drinkers erupted into a chorus of catcalls and stomping.

“The librarian!” one of them shouted. “Hey, the librarian is the mail-order bride!”

Another let out a whoop. “Hey, Katie! Welcome to Thunder Canyon!”

“We love you, Katie!”

“If your groom stands you up, I’ll take you, Katie!”

Lovely.

With care, so as not to knock over the train, Katie emerged to face the crowd. She smoothed her dress again, her nervous hands shaking. How, she wondered miserably, had she let herself get roped into this one?

With great effort, she forced a wobbly smile and waved at the beer drinkers, who obligingly clapped and stomped all the louder. She stared out over the seventy or so grinning faces—many of them looking downright woozy by then—and longed to be anywhere but there.

It was all dear old Ben Saunders’s fault. The high school history teacher had been the one to propose the mail-order bride reenactment. The Historical Society went wild for the idea—all except for Katie, who was lukewarm on the concept at best.

Since most of Katie’s fellow society members were well into their forties at least and the other two younger ones were already slated to play the legendary Thunder Bird and his mortal love, it was decided that Katie should play the bride.

She had tried to say no, but who listened? No one, that’s who. And now, here she was, alone in front of the cardboard train, a ludicrous spectacle for the Heritage Day beer drinkers to whistle and holler at.

Ben himself was supposed to be her groom. Unfortunately, the history teacher had awakened that morning with terrible stomach cramps. He’d been rushed to Thunder Canyon General for an emergency appendectomy. And then, when the sky darkened and the wind came up and the first snowflakes began to fall, pretty much everyone from the society except Emelda had decided to go home. They made the plans and now Katie stood on the stage alone, shaking with nerves and stuck with the follow-through.

Since her “groom” was in the hospital, she’d almost succeeded in canceling this ridiculous display. But then, a half hour ago, an out-of-towner named Justin Caldwell had agreed to step in and take Ben’s part. Caldwell was a business associate of Caleb Douglas—Caleb being a local mover and shaker who owned half the property for miles around and also happened to be a second father to Katie. Caleb had ribbed the stranger into playing the groom. The poor guy resisted at first, but when Caleb kept after him, he couldn’t refuse.

And speaking of Justin Caldwell…

Where was he?

Frantically, Katie scanned the noisy crowd for her impromptu pretend groom. Good gravy. In a moment, one of the drunken men down on the floor would be staggering up to take his place.

But no—there he was.

He stood off to the left, at the edge of the crowd, wearing the ill-fitting old-time garb—complete with silly red suspenders and clunky nineteenth-century-style boots—intended for the potbellied Ben Saunders. Katie met the stranger’s piercing blue eyes and a crazy little thrill shivered through her. Even in the ridiculous outfit, the guy still somehow managed to look absolutely gorgeous. She felt the grateful smile as it quivered across her mouth. If she had to make a fool of herself, at least it would be with the best-looking man in the hall. And beyond being handsome, there was the added attraction that he appeared to be sober.

“The groom!” someone shouted. “Where’s the damn groom?”

“Right here,” Justin Caldwell answered easily in a deep, firm voice. He took off his floppy felt hat and waved it high for all of them to see.

“Get up there and claim your bride!”

“Yeah, man. Don’t keep her waiting!”

Justin Caldwell obliged. He mounted the steps at the side of the stage and came toward Katie, his long strides purposeful and confident. When he reached her, he gallantly swept off the floppy hat a second time. Her overtaxed heart raced faster still.

And then, of all things, he reached for her hand. Before she could jerk it away, he brought it to his full-lipped mouth.

Katie stood stunned, staring into those gleaming blue eyes of his, every nerve in her body cracking and popping, as he placed a tender kiss on the back of her hand.

The crowd went wild.

“That’s the way you do it!”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Way to go!”

His lips were so warm—and his hand firm and dry. Her hand, she knew, was clammy and shaking. Gulping, Katie carefully pulled her fingers free.

Caleb’s business partner nodded and put his absurd hat back on. He looked so calm. As if he did this sort of thing every day. He leaned in closer, bringing with him the subtle scent of expensive aftershave. “Now, what?” he whispered in that velvety voice of his.

“Uh, well, I…” Katie gulped again. She just knew her face was flaming red.

“Kiss ‘er!” someone shouted. “Lay a big, smackin’ one right on ‘er!”

Everyone applauded the idea, causing Katie to silently vow that next year, under no circumstances, would there be free beer.

“Yeah,” someone else hollered. “A kiss!”

“A big, wet, juicy one! Grab ‘er and give it to ‘er!”

Justin Caldwell, bless him, did no such thing. He did lift a straight raven-black eyebrow. “The natives are becoming restless,” he said low. “We’d better do something…“

Do something. His soft words echoed in her frazzled mind. “The, uh, ceremony…”

He smiled then, as if mildly amused. “Of course.” He suggested, “And for that we would need…” He let his voice trail off, giving her an opportunity to fill in the blank.

She did. “The preacher.” Her throat locked up. She coughed to clear it. “Uh. Right.”

“Get on with it!” someone yelled.

“Yeah! Get a move on. Let’s see the rest of the show!”

Outside, a particularly hard gust of wind struck the high-up windows and made them rattle. Nobody seemed to notice. They kept laughing and clapping.

“So where is this preacher?” her “groom” inquired.

“Um, well…” Katie wildly scanned the crowd again. Where was Andy Rickenbautum? The balding, gray-haired retired accountant was supposed to step up and declare himself a circuit preacher and “marry” them, but Katie couldn’t see him among the crowd. Evidently, like most of the Historical Society members, he’d headed home.

Maybe Caleb, who’d gotten such a kick out of the whole thing, could help out and play Andy’s part…

But no. Caleb appeared to be gone, too. And Adele, his wife, who had taken in a teenaged Katie and raised her as her own, was nowhere to be seen, either. Now what?

At the Heritage Museum several blocks away, the society had set up a wedding “reception,” complete with finger food and beverages and an opportunity for folks to see up-close the artifacts of the life the mail-order bride and her groom would have lived. The idea was to lure everyone over there behind the “bride” and “groom,” in the museum’s prized refurbished buckboard carriage. They’d all enjoy the snacks, look around—hopefully make a donation—and then head on back to the hall for the potluck supper and dancing that would follow.

But without the fake wedding first, how could they hold a pretend reception?

A couple of the beer drinkers had figured that out. One of them yelled, “Hey! Where’s the preacher?”

“Yeah! We need the dang preacher to get this thing moving!”

What a disaster, Katie thought. It was definitely time to give up and call the whole thing off.

Katie forced herself to face the crowd. “Ahem. Excuse me. I’m afraid there’s no one to play the preacher and we’re just going to have to—”

A resonant voice from the back of the crowd cut her off. “Allow me to do the honors.” Every head in the room swiveled toward the sound. The source, an austere-looking bearded fellow, announced, “I’d be proud to unite such a handsome couple in the sacred bonds of matrimony.”

Someone snickered. “And just who the hell are you?”

The tall fellow, all dressed in black, made his way to the front of the crowd. He mounted the steps and came to stand with Katie and her “groom.” “The Reverend Josiah Green, at your service, miss,” he intoned. He dipped his head at Katie, then turned to Justin. “Sir.”

Someone broke into a laugh. “Oh, yeah. Reverend. That’s a good one…”

“He’s perfect,” someone else declared. “He even looks like a real preacher.”

Looking appropriately grave, the “reverend” bowed to the crowd. The usual whistles and catcalls followed. “Reverend” Green turned his gaze to the spindle-legged antique table a few feet from the cardboard train. “I see you have everything ready.” On the table, courtesy of the Historical Society, waited a Bible, a valuable circa-1880 dip pen and matching inkwell and a copy of an authentic late-nineteenth-century marriage license.

Emelda, smiling sweetly, emerged from the wings. A smattering of applause greeted her as she got the Bible and handed it to the “reverend.”

“Ahem,” said the “reverend.” “If you’ll stand here. And you here…” Katie, Justin and Emelda moved into the positions Mr. Green indicated.

The man in black opened the old Bible. A hush fell over the crowd as he instructed, “Will the bride and groom join hands?” Caldwell removed his hat. He dropped it to the stage floor, took Katie’s hand and gave her an encouraging smile. She made herself smile back and didn’t jerk away, in spite of the way his touch caused a tingling all through her, a sensation both embarrassing and scarily exciting.

The fake preacher began, “We are gathered here together…”

It was so strange, standing there on the narrow wooden stage with the cardboard train behind them and the wind howling beyond the stone walls as the pretend reverend recited the well-known words of the marriage ceremony.

The rowdy crowd stayed quiet. And the words themselves were so beautiful. Green asked if there was anyone present who saw any reason that Justin and Katie should not be joined. No one made a sound. If not for the wind, you could have heard a feather whispering its way to the floor. Green said, “Then we shall proceed…”

And Katie and the stranger beside her exchanged their pretend vows. When the “reverend” said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Katie had to gulp back tears.

Really, this whole weird situation was making her way too emotional.

“You may kiss the bride.”

Oh, God. The kiss…

It hadn’t seemed so bad when it was only good old Ben. But Justin Caldwell was another story. He was just so good-looking, so exactly like the kind of man any woman would want to kiss.

Truth was, Katie wouldn’t mind kissing him. Not at all. Under different circumstances.

Maybe. If they ever came to really know each other…

Oh, why was she obsessing over this? The final vow-sealing kiss was part of the program. It wouldn’t be much of a pretend wedding without it.

Almost over, Katie silently promised herself as Caldwell turned to face her. With a small, tight sigh, she lifted her chin. Pressing her eyes shut and pursing up her mouth, she waited for her “groom” to lean down and give her a quick, polite peck.

The peck didn’t happen. Warily, she opened her right eye to a slit. Caldwell was looking down at her, apparently waiting for her to look at him. When he saw she was peeking, one corner of that full mouth of his quirked up and he winked at her.

A ridiculous giggle forced its way up in her throat and almost got away from her. She gulped it back, straightened her head and opened both eyes. At the same time as she was controlling her silly urge to laugh, the man before her reached out his hand. He did it so slowly and carefully, she didn’t even flinch.

He took the end of the bow that tied her bonnet under her chin. One little tug and the bow fell away.

Gently, he guided the bonnet from her head. Her brown curls, which she’d hastily shoved in beneath the hat, fell loose to her shoulders. Justin—all of a sudden, she found she was mentally calling him by his first name—tossed the hat to Emelda and then, with tender, careful fingers, he smoothed her hair.

Oh, God. Her throat had gone tight. She felt as if she would cry again. This pretending to get married was darned hard on her nerves—or maybe she had a little natural-born performer in her, after all. Maybe she was simply “getting into” her part.

Their formerly boisterous audience remained pin-drop quiet. How did people in the theater put it? The phrase came to her. She and Justin had the crowd in the palms of their hands…

Justin braced a finger under her chin and she took his cue, lifting her mouth for him.

His dark head descended and his lips—so gently—covered hers.

That did it. The Heritage Day revelers burst into wild applause, sharp whistles, heavy stomping and raucous catcalls.

Katie hardly even heard them. She was too wrapped up in Justin’s kiss. It was a kiss that started out questioning and moved on to tender and from there to downright passionate.

Oh, my goodness! Did he know how to kiss or what? She grabbed onto his broad, hard shoulders and kissed him back for all she was worth.

When he finally pulled away, she stared up at him, dazed. He had those blue, blue eyes. Mesmerizing eyes. She could drown in those eyes and never regret being lost…

“Ahem,” said the “reverend,” good and loud, gazing out over the audience with a look of stern disapproval until they quieted again. “There remains the documentation to attend to.”

Katie blinked and collected herself, bringing a hand up and smoothing her hair. Justin turned to face Josiah Green, who had crossed to the spindle-legged table. He picked up the old pen and dipped it in the ink and expertly began filling out the fake marriage license. “That’s Katie…?”

“Fenton.”

“Speak up, young lady.”

“Katherine Adele Fenton.” She said her whole name that time, nice and clear, and then she spelled it for him.

“And Justin…?”

“Caldwell.” He spelled his name, too.

They acted it all out as if it were the real thing, filling in all the blanks, signing their names. When the “reverend” called for another witness besides Emelda, one of the guys from down on the floor jumped right up onto the stage and signed where Josiah Green pointed.

When the last blank line had been filled in, Green expertly applied the sterling silver rocker blotter. Then he held up the license for all to see. “And so it is that yet another young and hopeful couple are happily joined in holy wedlock.”

As the clapping and stomping started up again, Emelda stepped forward. She waited, looking prim and yet indulgent, her wrinkled hands folded in front of her, until the noise died down. Then she announced that, weather permitting, there was to be a reception at the Heritage Museum over on Elk Avenue. “Everyone is welcome to attend. Help yourself to the goodies—and don’t forget that donation box. We count on all of you to make the museum a success. Just follow the bride and groom in their authentic buckboard carriage.”

Evidently, the crowd found that suggestion too exciting to take standing still. They surged up onto the stage and surrounded the small wedding party, jostling and jumping around, knocking over the cardboard train and almost upsetting the antique table with its precious load of vintage writing supplies. Laughing and shouting, they tugged and coaxed and herded Katie and Justin down the stage steps, across the main floor and out into the foyer.

Katie laughed and let herself be dragged along. By then, the crazy situation had somehow captured her. The day’s events had begun to seem like some weird and yet magical dream. Her lips still tingled from the feel of Justin’s mouth on hers. And she was pleased, she truly was, that her little reenactment, skirting so close to disaster, had ended up a great success.

In the foyer, the crowd surged straight for the double doors that opened directly onto the covered wooden sidewalk of Old Town’s Main Street. They pushed the doors wide and a blinding gust of freezing wind and snow blew in, making everyone laugh all the louder.

“Brrrr. It’s a cold one.”

“Yep. She’s really movin’ in.”

“Gonna be one wild night, and that’s for certain.”

The snow swirled so thick, the other side of Main Street was nothing more than a vague shadow through the whiteness. The horse, a palomino mare, and the buckboard were there, waiting, the reins thrown and wrapped around one of the nineteenth-century-style hitching posts that ran at intervals along Main at the edge of the sidewalk, bringing to mind an earlier time.

Katie herself had requested the horse, whose name was Buttercup. The mare belonged to Caleb. He kept a fine stable of horses out at the family ranch, the Lazy D. A sweet-natured, gentle animal, Buttercup was getting along in years—and, boy, did she look cold. Icicles hung from her mouth. She glanced toward the crowd and snorted good and loud, as if to say, Get me out of this. Now…

Really, maybe they ought to slow down here. The snow did look pretty bad.

“Um, I think that we ought to…” She let the sentence die. She’d always had a too-soft voice. And no one was listening, anyway.

The revelers herded her and Justin into the old open, two-seater carriage. It creaked and shifted as it took their weight.

“Use the outerwear and the blankets under the seat!” Emelda shouted from back in the doorway to the hall foyer. A frown had deepened the creases in her brow. Maybe she was having her doubts about this, too.

But then Emelda put on a brave smile and waved and the wind died for a moment. Really, it was only two blocks west and then three more northeast to the museum. And, according to the weather reports, the storm was supposed to blow itself out quickly.

It should be okay.

Justin brushed the snow from a heavy ankle-length woolen coat—a tightly fitted one with jet buttons down the front and a curly woolen ruff at the neck. He helped her into it, then put on the rough gray man’s coat himself. There was a Cossack-style hat for her that matched the ruff at her neck. No hat for Justin, and he’d left the silly, floppy one back in the hall. But he didn’t seem to mind. There were heavy gloves for both of them.

They shook out the pile of wool blankets and wrapped up in them. Justin pulled on his gloves and Josiah Green handed him the reins.

“Bless you, my children,” Green intoned, as if the marriage vows he’d just led them through had been for real.

“Thanks,” Justin muttered dryly. “Looks like we’ll need it.” He glanced at Katie. “Okay…” He had a you-got-us-into-this kind of look on his handsome face. “Where to?”

“If you want, I’ll be glad to take the reins.”

“I can handle it. Where to?”

Even if he didn’t know what he was doing, it should be all right, she thought. Buttercup was patient and docile as they come. “Straight ahead. Then you’ll turn right on Elk, about three blocks down.”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

She forced herself to raise her voice and repeated the instructions.

Justin shook the reins and clicked his tongue and Buttercup started walking. Her bridle, strung with bells, tinkled merrily as they set off, the beer-sodden townsfolk cheering them on.

The wind rose again, howling, and the snow came down harder.

A half block later, the thick, swirling flakes obscured the hall and the knot of cheering rowdies behind them. A minute or two after that, Katie couldn’t hear their voices. All at once, she and this stranger she’d just pretended to marry were alone in a whirling vortex of white.

Katie glanced over her shoulder. She saw nothing but swirling snow and the shadows of the buildings and cars on either side of Main.

The snow fell all the harder. It beat at them, borne by the hard-blowing wind. Katie huddled into the blankets, her cheekbones aching with the cold.

Buttercup plodded on, the snow so thick that when Katie squinted into it, she could barely see the horse’s sleek golden rump. She turned to the man beside her. He seemed to sense her gaze on him. He gave her a quick, forced kind of smile—his nose was Rudolphred, along with his cheeks and chin and ears—and then swiftly put his focus back on the wall of white in front of them.

For a split second, she spied a spot of red to the side—the fire hydrant at the corner of Elk and Main. Wasn’t it? “Turn right! Here!” Katie shouted it out good and loud that time. Justin tugged the reins and the horse turned the corner.

They passed close to the fire hydrant. Good. This was the right way. And as long as they were on Elk Avenue now, they’d literally run into the museum—a sprawling red clapboard building that had started out its existence as the Thunder Canyon School. It sat on a curve in the street, where Elk Avenue made a sharp turn due east.

The palomino mare slogged on into the white. By then, Katie couldn’t see a thing beyond the side rails of the buckboard and Buttercup’s behind.

Good Lord. Were they lost? It was beginning to look that way.

Hungry for reassurance, Katie shouted over the howling wind, “We are still on Elk Avenue, aren’t we?”

Justin shouted back, “I’m from out of town, remember? Hate to tell you, but I haven’t got a clue.”

Chapter Two

Just as Katie began to fear they’d somehow veered off into the open field on the west side of Elk Avenue, the rambling red clapboard building with its wide front porch loomed up to the left.

“We’re here!” she yelled, thrilled at the sight.

Justin tugged the reins and the horse turned into the parking lot. Ten or twelve feet from the front porch, the buckboard creaked to a stop—at which point it occurred to Katie that they couldn’t leave poor Buttercup out in this. “Go around the side! There’s a big shed out back.”

He frowned at her.

She shouted, “The horse. We need to put her around back—to the left.”

His frown deepened. She could see in those blue eyes that he thought Buttercup’s comfort was the least of their problems right then. But he didn’t argue. Shoulders hunched into his ugly old-fashioned coat, he flicked the reins and Buttercup started moving again.

When they got to the rear of the building, Katie signaled him on past a long, narrow breezeway and around to the far side of the tall, barnlike shed. “I’ll open up,” she yelled and pushed back the blankets to swing her legs over the side. She opened the gate that enclosed a small paddock northwest of the shed. Justin drove the buckboard through and she managed to shut the gate.

The snow was six or eight inches deep already. It dragged at her heavy skirts and instantly began soaking her delicate ankle-high lace-up shoes as she headed for the shed doors around back. How did women do it, way back when? She couldn’t help but wonder. There were some situations—this one, for instance—when a woman really needed to be wearing a sturdy pair of trousers and waterproof boots.

There was a deep porchlike extension running the length of the shed at the rear, sheltering the doors. She ducked under the cover, stomping her shoes on the frozen ground and shaking the snow off her hem. Even with gloves on, her hands were so stiff with cold, it took forever to get the combination padlock to snap open. But eventually, about the time she started thinking her nose would freeze and fall off, the shackle popped from the case. She locked it onto the hasp.

And then, though the wind fought her every step of the way, she pulled back one door and then the other, latching them both to hooks on the outside wall, so they wouldn’t blow shut again. She gestured Justin inside and he urged the old mare onward.

Katie followed the buckboard inside as Justin hooked the reins over the back of the seat and jumped to the hard-packed dirt floor. “Cold in here.” He rubbed his arms and stomped his feet, looking around, puzzled, as Buttercup shook her head and the bells tinkled merrily. “What is this?”

“Kind of a combination garage and barn. The Historical Society is planning on setting it up as a model of a blacksmith’s shop.” She indicated the heavy, rusting iron equipment against the walls and on the plank floor. “For right now, it’ll do to stable Buttercup ‘til this mess blows over.” There were several oblong bales of hay stacked under the window, waiting to be used for props in some of the museum displays. Buttercup whickered at them hopefully.

“Go on through there.” Katie indicated the door straight across from the ones she’d left open. It led to the breezeway and the museum. “It’s warm inside. And a couple of ladies from the Historical Society should be in there waiting, with the food and drinks.”

He looked at her sideways. “What about you?”

She was already trudging over to unhook Buttercup from the buckboard. “I learned to ride on this horse, I’ll have you know. I’m going to get her free of this rig and make her comfortable until someone from the ranch can come for her.”

“The ranch?”

“She’s Caleb’s, from out at the Lazy D.”

He stomped his feet some more, making a big show of rubbing his arms. “Can’t someone inside take care of the horse?”

“Anna Jacks and Tildy Matheson were supposed to set out the refreshments for the ‘wedding reception.’ They’re both at least eighty.”

“Maybe someone else has shown up by now.”

Doubtful, she thought. And even if they had, they’d most likely be drunk. “I’d rather just do it myself before I go in.”

He gave her an appraising kind of look and muttered, heavy on the irony, “And you seemed so shy, back there at the hall.”

She stiffened. Yes, okay. As a rule, she was a reserved sort of person. But when something needed doing, Katie Fenton didn’t shirk. She hitched up her chin and spoke in a carefully pleasant tone. “You can go on inside. I’ll be there as soon as I’m through here.”

He insisted on helping her. So she set him the task of searching for a box cutter in the drawers full of rusting tools on the west wall. When he found one, she had him cut the wire on a couple of the bales and spread the hay. Meanwhile, she unhitched Buttercup from the rig, cleaned off the icicles from around her muzzle and wiped her down with one of the blankets from the buckboard.

“Okay,” she said when the job was done. “Let’s go in.”

He headed for the still-open doors to the pasture. “I’ll just shut these.”

“No. Leave them open. The walls cut most of the wind, so it won’t be too cold in here. And Buttercup can move around a little, and have access to the snow when she gets thirsty.”

He shrugged and turned to follow her out—which was a problem as the door to the breezeway was locked from the outside. They ended up having to go out the big doors. Hunched into the wind, with the snow stinging their faces, they slogged through the deepening snow around the side of the shed and back through the gate that enclosed the paddock.

Once under the partial shelter of the breezeway, they raced for the back door, the wind biting at them, tearing at Katie’s heavy skirts.

It was locked. Katie knocked good and hard. No one came.

Justin wore a bleak look. “What now?”

“No problem.” Katie took off her right glove and felt along the top of the door frame, producing the key from the niche there. She held it up for him to see before sticking it in the lock and pushing the door inward onto an enclosed back porch. He signaled her ahead of him and followed right after, pulling the door closed to seal out the wind and snow.

By then, it had to be after six. It was pretty dark. Katie flipped on the porch light and gestured at the hooks lining the wall next to the door that led inside. “Hang up your coat,” she suggested, as she set her gloves on a small table and began undoing the jet buttons down her front. The porch wasn’t heated and she shivered as the coat fell open. “Whew. Cold…”

“I hope it’s warm in there.”

“It is,” she promised as she shrugged out of the long gray coat and hung it on a hook. He hung his beside it. She swiped off her hat, shook out her hair and tossed the hat on a porch chair.

“This way.” Katie unlocked the door and pushed it open into the museum’s small, minimally equipped kitchen area. Lovely warm air flowed out and surrounded them.

“Much better,” Justin said from behind her.

She led him in, hanging the key on the waiting hook by the door and turning on the light.

The long counter was spotless, and so was the table over by the side windows. A few cups dried on a mat at the sink. No sign of Tildy or Anna.

They moved on into the big central room, which a hundred years before had been the only schoolroom. The room was now the museum’s main display area—and pitch-dark. Years ago, when rooms were added on around it, the windows had been closed up. Katie felt for the dimmer switch near the door, turning it up just enough that they could see where they were going.

The light revealed roped-off spaces containing nineteenth-century furniture arranged into living areas: a bedroom, a weaving room, a parlor, a one-room “house” with all the living areas combined, the furniture in that section rough-hewn, made by pioneer hands.

“No sign of your friends,” Justin said.

“They probably got worried about the storm and went home.”

A quick check of the two other display rooms confirmed their suspicions. They were alone.

“No cars out there,” Justin said once they’d reached the front reception area, where trays of sandwiches, cookies and coffee, tea and grape drink waited for the crowd that wasn’t coming. “Remember? The parking lot in front of the building. It was empty.” She did remember, now that he mentioned it. He asked, “What now?”

It was a good question; too bad she had no answer to it. “I guess we wait.”

“For?”

She wished she knew. “For the storm to die down a little so we can leave?”

He gave her a humorless half smile. “Was that an answer—or just another question?”

Katie put up both hands, palms up. “Oh, really. I just don’t know.”

Justin studied her for a moment, wearing an expression she couldn’t read. Then, out of nowhere, he plunked himself down into one of the reception chairs and started pulling off his boots.

The sight struck her as funny, for some crazy reason. She laughed—and then felt stupid for doing it when he glanced up from under the dark shelf of his brow, his full-lipped mouth a grim line. “These damn boots are at least a size too small.”

Katie winced. “Sorry.”

With a grunt, he tugged off a boot. “For what?”

She sank to a chair herself. “Oh, you know. Caleb shouldn’t have roped you into this. And I should have spoken up and called the whole thing off.”

He dropped the boot to the floor, pulled off the other one and set it down, too. “Are you capable of that?”

“Excuse me?”

That dry smile had gone devilish. “Speaking up.”

She sat straighter and brushed a bit of lint off her skirt. “Now and then, absolutely.”

His smile got wider. “Like with the horse.”

She nodded. “That’s right.” Blowing out a weary breath, she let her shoulders slump again. “But back in the hall—oh, I just hate getting up in front of a lot of people. Especially a lot of people who’ve had too much beer.”

“I hear you on that one.” He looked down at his heavy wool socks—and wiggled his toes. “Now, that’s more like it.”

Her own feet were kind of pinched in the narrow lace-up shoes. What the heck? She hiked up her soggy skirts—which gave off the musty scent of wet wool—and set to work on the laces. When she had both shoes off, she set them neatly beside her chair, smoothed her skirt down and straightened to find him watching her. There was humor in his eyes and something else, something much too watchful. She found herself thinking, What’s he up to? And then instantly chided herself for being suspicious.

What could he be up to? Except wishing he hadn’t let Caleb talk him into this.

The watchful look had faded from his face as if it had never been. He asked softly, “Now, isn’t that better?”

“What?”

“Without your shoes…”

She felt a smile tug at her mouth. Oh, really, he was much too good-looking for her peace of mind. She answered briskly, “Yes, it is.” And she picked up a tray of sandwich triangles from the reception desk. “Help yourself. It’s probably the closest thing to dinner we’re going to get.”

He took one and bit into it. “Ham and American. With mayo. The best.”

“Oh, I’ll bet.” She took one for herself and gestured at the big stainless steel coffee urn, the hot water for tea and the glass pitcher of grape drink. “And coffee. Or a cold drink…”

He got up. “You?”

“Coffee sounds good. With a little cream.”

He poured them each a cup, splashed cream from a little stoneware pitcher into hers and handed it over with a courtly, “Mrs. Caldwell.”

She played along. “Mr. Caldwell.” Really, she was grateful he was taking this so calmly.

He sank into his chair again and sipped the hot brew. “Now we’re married, I think you’re going to have to call me Justin.”

She had that silly, nervous urge to laugh again. She quelled it. “By all means. And please. Call me Katie. I firmly believe married people should be on a firstname basis with each other.”

“I agree. Katie.” He finished off the rest of his sandwich. She held out the tray and he took another. She took one, too. He asked, “So how was that train ride?”

She rolled her eyes. “I should have taken a club car.”

About then, the false cheer they were both trying to keep up deserted them. They sat silent, like the strangers they really were, eating their sandwiches, listening to the wind whistling in the eaves outside.

Eventually, he turned to her, his expression grave. “Will anyone else show up?”

“In this?” She gestured at the six-over-six front windows. Beyond the golden glow of the porch light, there was only darkness and hard-blowing snow. “I don’t think so.”

He turned and looked at the round institutionalstyle clock on the wall above the desk. It was six thirty-five. “How long will we be stuck here?”

He would have to ask that. She cleared her throat. “Maybe, if we’re lucky, the snow will stop soon.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Katie sighed. “Good question. We’ll just have to wait and see how bad it gets.”

“Should we call someone, let them know we arrived here and we’re safe?” He felt in his pockets. “Damn…”

“What?”

“I left my cell in my own clothes, back at the hall.” He produced a handsome calfskin wallet and waved at her. “The good news is I’ve got plenty of cash.”

Katie forced a grin. “Whew. I was worried. What if we wanted to do a little shopping?” He made a sound halfway between a grunt and a chuckle, and she added, on a more somber note, “And cell phones don’t work all that well around these parts, anyway. Lots of mountains. Not many cell towers.”

“I knew that,” he said, his mouth twisting wryly.

She set her coffee cup on the edge of the reception desk, reached for the phone and put it to her ear. “Dead.” Carefully, she set it back in its cradle.

“Terrific.”

“Count your blessings,” she advised, trying to keep things positive. “At least we still have heat and electricity. And plenty of water, as long as the pipes don’t freeze.”

He didn’t look too reassured, but he got the message. “Right. Might as well look on the bright side.”

“Exactly.”

Rising, he went to the trays of food and chose another sandwich.

The museum had propane heat throughout, but there was also the remains of a fire in the potbellied stove in the corner. Katie got up and put in another log. She jabbed it with the poker until it was well nestled in the bright coals. The red flames licked up.

She shut the stove door and turned—to find him watching her again. “Is something the matter?”

He frowned. “No. Of course not—well, except for the situation we’re in here.”

“You keep looking at me strangely.”

His gaze remained far too watchful—for a moment. And then he shrugged. “Forgive me. I’m just…curious about you, I guess. Caleb Douglas told me you’re the ‘little girl he never had.’ He raised you, I take it?”

She had no idea why she felt reluctant to answer him. What was there to hide? She said, “My mother and Adele were both from Philadelphia, best friends at Bryn Mawr—you did meet Addy, didn’t you?”

“I did.” He looked like he was waiting to hear more.

So she elaborated. “They had an instant connection, my mother and Addy, from the way Addy tells it. And their families were friends. When my parents died, I was fourteen. There was really no one left in my immediate family to take me. Addy came and got me.” Katie smiled at the memory—Adele, with her suitcases at her feet in the foyer of the Center City brownstone near Rittenhouse Square that had belonged to Katie’s grandparents and their parents before them. When Katie came down the stairs to meet her, Adele held out her arms, her blue eyes shining with tears…

Katie swallowed down the emotion the memory brought with it and Justin asked, “Adele brought you here, then—to Thunder Canyon?”

“That’s right, to live with her and Caleb.”

“And you loved it.”

“Yes, I did. From the first.”

“Because?”

She hesitated. Could he really want to hear all this? But he was looking at her expectantly. So she told him, “It was…just what I’d needed. A close-knit community, where people looked out for each other. I lived at the Lazy D through my teenage years, went to Thunder Canyon High and then on to college in Colorado. As Caleb told you, he and Addy never had a daughter, so it worked out beautifully. For all of us.”

“All?”

“Caleb. Addy. And Riley. Have you met Riley?”

He nodded. “Their son. Caleb introduced me to him a few days ago—and I suppose he’s like a big brother to you?”

She picked up her soggy skirt so it wouldn’t drag on the floor and padded to one of the front windows, where she looked out at the porch, the darkness and the driving snow beyond. “Yes. I think of Riley like a brother…” She turned back to him. “They’re fine people.” Did she sound defensive? A little. She wasn’t really sure why. Something hostile in the way he’d spoken of Riley, maybe.

But why in the world would Justin Caldwell be hostile toward Riley, whom he’d only just met? Clearly, the stress of their situation was getting to her, making her read things into his tone that weren’t there.

She tried for a lighter note. “Caleb is so pleased that you’ve invested in his ski resort.” Caleb had always been a wheeler-dealer. The resort was a longtime dream of his and it was finally coming true. He’d opened an office on Main Street for the project—complete with a model of the future resort in the waiting room—and hired a secretary. Thunder Canyon Ski Resort would be built on a ridge about twenty miles out of town on land the Douglases had owned for generations. Caleb had worked for months, hunting down investors. Everything had finally fallen into place in the past few weeks. Caleb had told her proudly that Justin’s company, Red Rock Developers, was the main reason it was all working out.

“I think it’s a solid investment,” Justin said.

“Good for everyone, then.”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Another silence descended. Oh, this was all so awkward. If she had to get herself stranded in a blizzard, you’d think it might have been with someone she knew. Or at least, maybe someone less…attractive.

He was almost too good-looking, really. And she felt a certain fluttery sensation in her midsection every time she glanced his way. Her excited response to him made her wary.

She wondered if he knew about her money. There was a lot of it. Katie mostly ignored it and let the estate managers handle everything. Her interests were in her family—and to her, that meant the Douglases—and in her town and in the Thunder Canyon Public Library, which she had generously endowed and where she was privileged to work at a job she truly loved.

But she could never completely forget that she was the sole heir to large fortunes on both her mother’s and her father’s side. Everybody in town knew it, of course. She’d even had a couple of boyfriends who’d turned out to be nothing more than fortune hunters in the end. From them she’d learned the hard truth: when it came to men, she had to be careful. If a man seemed interested, there was always a chance that his interest was more in her money than in Katie herself.

Sometimes she wished she could be like other women, and just go for it, when it came to guys. But she had a shy streak and she had too much money, and both made her more guarded than she would have liked to be.

She kept thinking of that kiss, back in the hall, kept remembering the feel of his mouth against hers…

But really, other than that kiss, which had only been for show, he’d made no moves on her. He wasn’t even blaming her for the fact that they were stuck here for Lord knew how long.

She could have been stranded with worse, and she told herself firmly to remember that.

“Deep thoughts?” Justin asked softly.

“Not at all.” She gestured at the trays of food. “If you’ve had all you want, I think we should go ahead and put this stuff away…”

He gave her a level look. She knew what he was thinking. They could very well end up enjoying those sandwiches for breakfast. “Let’s do it.” He rose and picked up a tray and the pitcher of grape drink.

She grabbed another tray and followed him through the main display room, to the kitchen at the back.

Twenty minutes later, they had everything put away. They returned to the reception room and sat down again. They made halting conversation. He told her a little about his company, said he’d started from nothing and had “come a long way.”

“You’re based in…?”

“Bozeman.”

“Did you grow up in Montana?”

“No. I was born in California. We moved a lot. To Oregon for a while and later to Colorado, Nevada, Idaho…”

“Brothers and sisters?”

“Single mom—and she only had me. She died two years ago.”

“It must have been tough for her…”

“Yeah. It was.” He’d rested his dark head back against the knotty pine wall. He glanced her way. “We could use a television. Or at least a radio.”

Boy, could they. “We can look around for one.”

So they returned to the kitchen and went through the cabinets. Nothing but pots and pans and dishes and such. In the storage room off one of the side display rooms, where the society kept the donations they were collecting for their next rummage sale, they did find a battered old boom box.

Justin scanned the small room. “Any plugs in here?”

“Just the one in the light.” They both looked up at the bare bulb above. The cord wouldn’t stretch that far. “Why don’t we take it with us out front?”

“Fine,” he said, glancing around. “Lots of clothes in these bags…” They shared another look and she knew they were thinking along the same lines. If they didn’t get out of here soon, they could always go through the bags, maybe find something more comfortable to wear.

The idea depressed her—that they might be stuck here long enough to need a change of clothes.

“Look at it this way,” he advised gently. “We’re safe and warm. And we’ve got plenty of sandwiches.”

They took the radio out through the silent display rooms to the front. Justin plugged it in and turned the dial. Nothing but static.

Thoroughly discouraged, Katie went to the window again. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out for a while at the steadily falling snow.

Justin spoke from behind her. “Those old beds in the center display room…”

She faced him. They shared a grim look.

He asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Her nod was resigned. “It does begin to look as if they’re going to get some use tonight.”

Past midnight, Justin Caldwell lay wide-awake staring at the shadowed rafters in the museum’s central room. He’d taken the narrow, hard little cot in the one-room pioneer cabin display and stretched out, fully clothed but for those damn too-small boots, under the star-patterned quilt. He’d had to pull out the sheet at the bottom of the bed. It was too short by a foot and his stocking feet hung out over the edge.

But at least the bedding was clean. Katie had told him it was all antique stuff donated by local families. The Historical Society took pains to keep it laundered and in good repair.

Katie…

He could hear her soft breathing from the “bedroom” on the opposite wall, where she lay in a wide four-poster with pineapple finials that some pioneer family had probably dragged across the plains in a covered wagon. He smiled to himself.

She was…a surprise. A quiet woman; selfcontained. With those wide honey-brown eyes, that tender mouth and the shy way she had about her, she seemed, in some ways, so young—younger than her age, which he knew was twenty-four.

Yes. Very young. And yet, at the same time, she had that self-possessed quality that made her, somehow, seem older.

He knew much more than she’d told him so far. He’d paid and paid well to learn all about her—and about Caleb, Adele and Riley Douglas, as well.

Katherine Adele Fenton was the only child of the jet-setting Paris and Darrin Fenton. She’d been born in Venice, Italy—and immediately turned over to a nanny. Into her teens, Katie hardly saw her parents. She was fourteen and living a sheltered life with a governess in London when both Paris and Darrin died tragically; their private plane crashed on the way to a society wedding.

That was where the Douglases came in. As Katie’s godmother, Adele had gone back east to claim the orphaned child of her dear college friend.

From what Justin had been able to learn, the Douglases considered Katie one of their own. She was, though not by blood, a full-fledged member of their family. She was the daughter Adele Douglas never had. Though he’d taken her into his home and treated her as family, Caleb had never made any effort to lay claim to a red cent of Katie’s considerable inheritance. And from what Justin knew of Caleb Douglas—who loved nothing so much as making big deals involving large sums of money—that was saying something.

Justin pushed back the quilt. When he returned to the hard pallet laughingly called a bed, he’d leave off the blankets. The old building’s heating system seemed to have one temperature: high. He sat and swung his legs soundlessly to the floor.

Rising, he ducked under the rope that was supposed to keep visitors away from the displays, and went to the door that led out to the reception area. It opened soundlessly and he shut it without letting the latch click.

In the men’s room off the reception area, he flicked on the light and used the urinal. At the sink, he splashed cold water on his face and avoided meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

Back in the reception area, he stood by the window. The snow was still coming down. It lay, thick and white and sparkling, covering the steps up to porch level.

If it kept up like this, they could be stuck here for a day or two. Maybe longer. Who the hell knew?

Lots of time alone, just him and Katie…

Though he generally preferred a more outgoing, sophisticated type of woman, he was drawn to her. In the end, he supposed, there was no predicting sexual chemistry.

She felt attracted to him, too. He’d seen it in those big brown eyes of hers, known it in the way her body softened and melted into him during that kiss that had sealed their fake vows back there at the town hall.

Maybe he had something here. Maybe he ought to consider taking advantage of the way this sudden winter storm had thrown them together.

But he would have to watch himself. He couldn’t let things get too hot and heavy. He had nothing with him to protect her from pregnancy and he’d have wagered half his assets that Katie Fenton wasn’t on the pill.

No. He couldn’t take the chance that she might become pregnant. He’d grown up without a father and he knew what that could do to a kid.

But he could certainly draw her out a little. No doubt she knew things about the Douglases—things that even his expert, high-priced sources couldn’t have dug up. Knowledge was power and the more he had of it, the better his position would be in this special game he was playing.

And in spite of her wariness, Katie should be approachable if he took the right tact with her—if he were frank and friendly; helpful and easygoing…

It wouldn’t have to go too far. Just enough for her to trust him, to tell him her secrets—and those of the Douglases. Just enough that she would believe in him as a man. Just enough that she’d come to…care for him.

In the end, if he worked it right, she’d be brokenhearted. He regretted that. But when it came time for payback, a man had to accept some degree of collateral damage. She would be hurt—and the people who cared most about her would hurt for her. It would add a certain…turn of the knife, you might say.

Justin flicked off the porch light. No need for it at this late hour. The window became a dark mirror. He saw his own reflection faintly, a lurking shadow in the glass.

Hell.

Maybe not.

He’d always been a man who did what needed doing. Still, he was having a little trouble getting around the fact that Katie Fenton was a good woman. An innocent in all this.

He should leave her out of it.

But then, if it worked out according to plan, he wouldn’t be hurting her that bad. Just a little. Just enough to get to Caleb. She’d get over it in time.

And there was no saying that he could even fool her. She might be innocent, but she was also smart. It was just possible she’d see him coming and refuse to let him get close enough to make her care. They’d be locked in here for a day or two and she would merely tolerate him until their time of forced proximity had passed. She’d escape unscathed.

Maybe.

But then again, there was the real attraction between them. If he let himself go with that, he wouldn’t be faking it. And he would tell her the truth—just not all of it.

Taking it forward from that angle…

Say it was all the same, except for the fact that she’d been raised by the Douglases. Say she was only the town librarian playing the mail-order bride and he’d been a stranger talked into taking the part of her groom. Say they ended up here, alone, snowed in at the museum, just as they had.

Take away her connection to the Douglases and he would still be intrigued with her, would still want to pursue her, to hear her secrets, to hold her in his arms and steal a kiss or two.

So in the end, he would only be doing what he would have done, anyway: getting to know a woman who interested him.

Yes. He could look at it that way. He could take it from there and go with it. Be friendly and open and willing to talk about himself—to hear about her and her life and the people she cared for.

Maybe nothing would come of it.

Or maybe, in the end, he’d have found a second, more personal way to make Caleb Douglas pay for his sins.

Chapter Three

Katie woke to the smell of coffee brewing.

That was the good news.

Everything else? Not nearly so pleasant. Her mouth tasted like the bottom of someone’s old shoe. Her wrinkled wool dress gave off a distinctly musty odor. And she had a crick in her neck from sleeping on a too-fat pillow.

She let out a loud, grumpy groan—and then snapped her mouth shut. After all, there was a virtual stranger in the bed across the way—or wait. Probably not. He must be the one who’d made the coffee.

Katie sat up. She’d left the dimmer set to low, so the light was minimal, but she could see that Justin Caldwell’s narrow cot lay empty, the covers pulled up and neatly tucked in.

Anxious, suddenly, to know what time it was, to find out if the storm had ended, if it might be possible that she could go home to her own comfy house on Cedar Street, Katie threw back the covers and jumped from the old bed. Ducking under the rope that marked off her “room,” she pulled open the door to the reception area—and blinked at what she saw.

Beyond the windows, a wall of snow gleamed at her in the gray light of a cloud-thick Sunday morning. It was piled above the porch floor now. Though the wild winds of last night had died in the darkness, the snow itself continued to fall, a filmy white curtain, whispering its way down.

The clock on the wall read seven-fifteen. She picked up the phone. Silence. With a heavy sigh, she set it down again and headed for the ladies’ room, where she used the facilities, rinsed her face and made a brave effort to comb her tangled hair with her fingers.

Snowed-in without even a hairbrush. Definitely not her idea of a good time.

In the kitchen, Katie found Justin sitting at the table by the window, wearing jeans and a cable-knit red and green sweater with reindeer leaping in a line across his broad chest. On his feet were a battered pair of black-and-white lace-up canvas All-Stars.

“It’s true,” he announced at her look. “I have raided the rummage sale bags and I feel no shame.”

“Love the sweater,” she muttered glumly. “Phone’s still dead.” Beyond him, out the window, the snow kept coming down. “They won’t even be able to get the plow out in this.”

“Relax,” he advised with an easy shrug. “Have some coffee.” He toasted her with his stoneware mug. “I even found a smaller pot, so we don’t have to brew it up for a hundred every time we want a cup.” He gestured at the plateful of sandwiches on the table. “And did I mention there are plenty of sandwiches?”

“Wonderful.” She padded to the counter, poured herself some coffee, added cream from the carton in the fridge and plunked herself down in the chair opposite him.

“Better?” he asked after she’d taken a sip.

“A little. Though I’d give a good number of stale sandwiches for a toothbrush. And a comb.” She put a hand to her tangled hair. “If we’re stuck here much longer, I may consider raiding the museum displays for some long-gone pioneer lady’s sterling silver dresser set.”

He looked very pleased with himself—and, now she thought about it, he looked as if he’d shaved. And his hair was wet—was that shampoo she smelled?

She set down her cup. “You found a razor in the rummage sale bags—and you washed your hair.”

He laughed. It was a low, velvety kind of sound and it played along her skin like a physical caress. “Was that an accusation?”

She sat back in her chair and regarded him with suspicion. “You’re much too cheerful.”

“And you are very cranky.” He took another bite of his sandwich, chewed and swallowed. “If you don’t be nice, I won’t let you have what’s in that bag over by the sink.”

She glanced where he’d indicated. The bag sat near the edge: a plain brown paper bag. “What’s in it?”

He pushed the plate of sandwiches toward her. “Eat first.”

She reached for a sandwich, raised it to her lips—and lowered it without taking a bite. “Just tell me. Is there a hairbrush in there?”

He nodded. “More than one. And combs. And a few toothbrushes—still wrapped in cellophane. And travel-size toothpaste. And sample bottles of shampoo and lotion, boxed-up shower caps and miniature bars of soap—oh, and did I mention razors and travel-size shaving cream cans? Looks like someone held up a drugstore, raided a motel supply closet and gave what they stole to the Historical Society rummage sale.”

“Shower caps,” Katie repeated wistfully.

Justin grunted. “Yeah. No need for those.”

“Since we don’t have a shower.”

“But remember. It could be worse. The heat could be out and there could be no wood for the stove. The ladies from the Historical Society could have failed to leave us these delicious sandwiches.” He waved one at her.

“You have a surprisingly vivid imagination.”

“Thank you. And what I meant is, we’re doing okay here. And after you eat, you even get to brush your teeth.”

She supposed he had a point. “You’re right. I should take my own advice from yesterday and keep a more positive outlook on our situation.”

He faked a stern expression. “See that you do.”

Katie ate her sandwich and took a second, as well. Her spirits had lifted. If she wasn’t getting out of here today, at least she’d have clean teeth and combed hair.

Once she’d spent twenty minutes in the ladies’ room using various items from the brown paper bag, Katie went to the storage area and chose a bulky sweater and a pair of worn corduroy pants. She even found thick gray socks and jogging shoes that were only a half size too big.

“Lookin’ good,” Justin remarked with a wink when she returned to the kitchen where he sat reading yesterday’s newspaper.

“The fit leaves something to be desired—but I have to admit, I’m a lot more comfortable.”

“And less cranky.”

“Yes. That, too.” She gave him a smile, thinking how even-tempered and helpful he’d been since she got them into this mess. Really, she could have been stranded with worse. She added, in an effort to show him her friendlier side, “While I was choosing my outfit, I found some old board games. Maybe we can haul them out later. I play a mean game of checkers.”

“Sounds good.” The paper rustled as he turned the page.

“Justin…”

He lowered the paper and gave her an easy smile.

“I just want you to know I appreciate how well you’re taking all this.”

He gestured toward the snow beyond the window. “This is nothing, believe me.”

Really, this positive-attitude approach could be carried too far. “Oh. So you’re telling me this kind of thing happens to you all the time?”

“Only once before.”

“Oh. Well. Only once. That’s nothing—and you’re joking, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not. When I was thirteen, we lived in this vacation-home development in northern Nevada. I got snowed-in there alone for a week.”

She couldn’t have heard right. “Alone for a week—at thirteen?” He nodded. “But what about your mom?”

“She was supposed to be home, but she didn’t make it. The situation was similar to yesterday’s—a sudden storm that turned out much worse than predicted. It got bad fast and she couldn’t get to me.”

“But…where was she?”

His expression turned doubtful. “You sure you want to hear this? It’s not that exciting. And as you can see by looking at me today, I got through it just fine.”

She’d been planning to go check on Buttercup. But that could wait a minute or two. She pulled out a chair and slid into it. “I do want to hear. Honestly.”

He studied her for a long moment, as if gauging the sincerity of her request. Finally, he folded the paper and set it aside. “At the time, we were living in this one-room cabin not far from Lake Tahoe.”

“You and your mom?”

“That’s right. The cabin was one of those ski chalet designs. On a two-acre lot. Intended as a vacation home. It had a single big, open room with lots of windows, the roof pitched high, a sleeping loft above?”

“Yes. I can picture it.”

“My mother was in real estate at that point. She went off to show someone another cabin identical to ours. A bad storm blew in. She couldn’t get back to me, so I was stuck on my own. It was…a learning experience, let me tell you.”

“Yikes. I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah. It was pretty grim, looking back on it. The phone line went dead the first day. Then, the next day, the power went out. But I had plenty of candles and a woodstove for heat. I kept the fire going and tucked into the canned goods when I got hungry.”

“But what did you do, alone for all that time?”

One corner of his full mouth quirked up. “I got pretty damn bored, now you mention it. Bored enough that I taught myself solitaire with a dog-eared deck of cards I found in a kitchen drawer. When that got old, I started working my way through all my schoolbooks. For a thirteen-year-old boy to do every problem in his math book for recreation, that’s desperation.”

“But there was plenty of canned food, you said?”

He made a low sound in his throat. “For some reason, my mom had a case each of canned peaches and cream of mushroom soup. To this day, I can’t stand the sight or smell of either.”

“I’ll bet—but what I can’t imagine is how you made it through something like that.” She scanned his face. “Thirteen,” she said softly. “It’s too horrible. You must have been scared to death.”

He shrugged. “The wood lasted ‘til the end of the sixth day. I got out the axe and chopped up my mother’s oak-veneer kitchen table and chairs. Once I’d burned them, I kind of lost heart. The fire died and I piled every blanket in the place on my bed and burrowed in there for the duration. I have to admit, by that time I was getting pretty damn terrified.”

“But then you were rescued.”

“That’s right. The snowplow arrived at noon the next day with my mother, in her Blazer, right behind it. She was seriously freaked, I can tell you.”

Katie almost wished his mother could have been there, with them, right then. She’d have had a thing or two to say to her. “Your mother was freaked. What about you? You were the child, for heaven’s sake. How could she leave you alone like that?”

He let out a low chuckle. “Katie. Settle down.”

Easier said than done. His story had seriously hit home for her. She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them, feeling antsy and angry and definitely not settled down. “I’m sorry, but it just, well, it fries me, you know? Children are so vulnerable. Parents have to look out for them, take care of them, pay them some attention now and then…”

He sat back in his chair. “Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about more than what happened to me when I was thirteen?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle and looked out the window at the falling snow, blinking against the glare of all that shimmery white.

“Katie?”

She faced him. “You’re right,” she confessed. “I was thinking about how things were for me, before Addy came and got me, when my parents were still alive.”

“Rough?” Those blue eyes had a softness in them, as if he understood—and from what he’d just told her, she had a feeling he did.

She hugged herself harder. “I rarely saw them. They enjoyed traveling. They had a flat in London, the family brownstone in Philadelphia, villas in France and Italy. And where they didn’t have a flat or a villa, they had friends who had one. You know the words. ‘Globe-trotting.’ ‘Jet-setting.’ My parents were the beautiful people. They came from fine families and the money was always there. They never had to work. So they didn’t. They didn’t even have to take care of their child. There were nannies and governesses, plenty of hired help for that.”

“So you weren’t left alone,” Justin said, his eyes direct. Knowing.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But you were lonely.”

“Exactly.” She looked down. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her middle, they made her rib cage ache. With a slow, deep breath, she let go of herself and folded her hands on the tabletop. “I never knew a real family—‘til Addy and Caleb.” She smiled to herself. “And Riley. He was all grown up by the time I came to them, twenty-three, when I moved to the ranch. How many young guys in their twenties have time for a gawky fourteen-year-old girl? Not many. But Riley did. He was so good to me, you know?” Justin made a sound of understanding low in his throat. “What the Douglases gave me was something so important. The two big things I’d never had. Their time. Their attention. Riley taught me to ride—”

“On Buttercup.” He grinned.

“That’s right.” She glanced toward the door to the back porch, thinking she should get out there and check on the old mare. Soon.

But it was so…comfortable. Sitting here with Justin, talking about the things that had made them who they were. “So you don’t blame your mother for leaving you alone in that cabin?”

He shook his head. “It’s tough for a woman on her own, with a kid. She’d been left high and dry, pregnant with me by the no-good bastard who used her and then walked away from her when she told him she was having his baby. She was…a good mother and she took damn good care of me. But there was no getting around that she had to make a living and that meant when the storm blew in, I was at the cabin, and she wasn’t. It’s the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.”

“It’s the kind of thing that could scar a child for life, that’s what it is.”

He pressed a fist to his chest right over the row of reindeer prancing across the front of his sweater. “That’s me. Deeply damaged.”

She tipped her head to the side, considering. “Well. I guess it’s good that you can joke about it.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It happened. I survived. And I’ve done just fine for myself, though I never had a father, never had much formal education and started, literally, from scratch.”

“In…development?” She laughed. “What does that mean, exactly, to be a ‘developer.’”

“Well, a developer ‘develops.’”

“Sheesh. It’s all clear to me now.”

He grinned. “Property, in my case. We start with several viable acres and we develop a project to build tract homes. Or say I got hold of just the right business-district lot. I’d start putting the people and financing together to build an office complex. A developer is someone who gets the money and the people and the plans—and most important, the right property—and puts it all together.”

He hadn’t told her anything she couldn’t have figured out herself, but she was discovering she enjoyed listening to him talk. She liked the way he looked at her. As if he never wanted to look away.

She said, “Like Caleb’s ski resort? He’s got the property and you’ll work with him to ‘develop’ it.”

“That’s right. But don’t misunderstand. It’s his project, his baby. He’ll be in charge, though I’ll be involved every step of the way.”

She looked down at her folded hands. She was just about to tell him how much the project meant to Caleb. Caleb was getting older and Katie knew that sometimes he worried he was losing his edge—but no.

Katie kept her mouth shut. Yes, she was finding she liked Justin. A lot. However, the last thing Caleb would want was for her to go blabbing his secret doubts to a business associate.

She glanced up and found Justin studying her again, his dark head tipped to the side. “Question.”

“Ask.”

“Yesterday. Didn’t you mention that you went to college in Colorado?”

“That’s right. CU.”

“I’ll bet you had straight A’s in high school.”

She gave him a pert little nod. “You would win that bet.”

“High scores on the SAT?”

“Very.”

“Then why not Bryn Mawr, like your mother, and Adele Douglas? You’d have been a legacy, right—pretty much guaranteed to get in—even if your grades and test scores hadn’t been outstanding?”

“I liked CU. They have a fine curriculum. Plus, it was closer to home.”

“Home being here, in Thunder Canyon.”

“That’s right—and you? Where did you go to college?”

“I told you. No real formal education. I went to real estate school and then got my broker’s license a couple of years later.”

“You started in real estate because of your mother’s connections?”

He chuckled at that, though there wasn’t a lot of humor in the sound. “My mother had no connections. She’d been out of the real estate business for years when I started. It didn’t work out for her. Like a lot of things…”

She might have asked, What things? But he wore a closed-in, private kind of look at that moment and she didn’t want to pry. She coaxed, “So you started in real estate…”

He blinked and the brooding shadows left his eyes. “Yeah. By the time I was twenty-five, I’d branched into property development.”

“A self-made man.”

“Smile when you say that.”

She was smiling. But to make sure he noticed, she smiled even wider. And then her conscience reminded her that she had Buttercup to think of. She stood.

He put on a hurt look. “Just like that. You’re leaving. Was it something I said?”

“What you said was fascinating. Honestly. And I’ll be back soon.”

“The question is, where do you think you’re going?” He tipped his head toward the window and the still-falling snow outside. “I hate to break it to you, but I doubt you could get beyond the front porch.”

“I want to check on Buttercup.”

He rose. “I’ll come with you.”

She started to argue—that it was cold out there and she could take care of the job herself and he didn’t really need to go. But then again, it wasn’t as if he had a full schedule or anything.

He ushered her out to the back porch, where they put on their antique outerwear. Then they pushed open the door to the breezeway.

The snow had piled four feet or so on either side, sloping to the icy ground, leaving a path maybe a foot wide. “After you,” Justin said. “Watch your step. It looks pretty slick.”

In the shed, Buttercup snorted in greeting and came right to Katie. She stroked the old mare’s forehead and blew in her nostrils. “How’re you doing, sweetie? Kind of lonely out here?” The horse whickered in response. “And I’ll bet you wish I had some oats. Sorry. That hay’ll have to do you for a while.” She patted Buttercup’s smooth golden neck and pulled out one of the brushes she’d brought from inside. It was hardly a grooming brush, but nothing else was available.

She brushed the old mare’s knotted mane and spoke to her in low whispers for a while. Then she and Justin broke open another bale of hay.

“Watch out,” he warned when they were spreading it around a little. “It’s damned amazing how much manure one horse can produce in a sixteen-hour period.”

“It is at that.”

“Just don’t step backward without looking behind you first.”

She found a shovel in the corner and took it to him. “Get to work.”

“Shoveling horse manure?”

“That’s right.”

“But where am I going to put it?” The gleam in his eyes said he already had a pretty good idea.

“Just shovel it up, carry it out those open main doors there and toss it as far as you can into the snow.”

“That snow’s piling up pretty high out there. This could be dangerous.”

“So pay attention when you throw it. Wouldn’t want it to come flying right back at you.”

He pretended to grumble, but he started right in. She looked around and found another shovel. With both of them scooping and tossing, they had the mess cleared away in no time at all.

As they went to put the shovels up, Justin remarked that if the snow got much higher, swamping out the shed was going to be a real challenge.

“We’ll manage,” she told him. “Somehow…” She set her shovel against the wall and turned so fast, she almost ran into him.

“Watch it.” He laughed down low in his throat, the sound emerging on a cloud of mist.

She laughed, too.

And then, all at once, she wasn’t laughing and neither was he. They were just looking at each other—staring, really. And the cold air seemed to shimmer between them.

Oh, my goodness. Those lips of his…

Too full, for a man’s lips. Really. Too full and yet…

Exactly perfect.

If only she didn’t already know how delicious those lips felt pressed against her own. Maybe, if she didn’t know what a great kisser he was, she wouldn’t be standing here, sighing out a big breath of misty air and lifting her mouth to him.

He said her name, on a fog of breath. “Katie…”

She was so busy imagining what it was going to feel like when his lips met hers, that she didn’t register how close Buttercup was behind him—not until the mare let out a low whinny and head-butted Justin a good one.

“Hey!” He surged forward, right into Katie. She went over backward and down they went into the newly spread hay. He ended up on top of her.

Katie blinked up at him and he looked down at her and there was a lovely, strange, breath-held kind of moment. He was so…warm and solid, pressed all along the length of her—and heavy, too, but in a good way. He looked deep in her eyes and he said her name again and she held up her lips to welcome his kiss.

But Buttercup wasn’t finished. She bent her head and started nipping the back of Justin’s baggy old coat.

He rolled away from Katie to glare up at the mare. “Knock it off.”

Buttercup whinnied again and clopped off toward the double doors. A moment later, she was outside beneath the overhang, lipping up snow.

Justin canted up on an elbow and looked down at Katie. “That animal has it in for me.”

Katie was thinking that she really ought to sit up. Her hat had come off when Justin landed on top of her. She knew she had hay in her hair. But she felt kind of…lax. Lax and lazy and oh-so-comfortable, lying there in the hay on the frozen dirt floor.

“Hmm,” she said, and the sound was every bit as low and lazy as she was feeling. “Maybe Buttercup thinks you’re up to no good.”

He leaned in closer. She gazed up at his thick black lashes and his red nose and that wonderful, soft, oh-so-kissable mouth. “I’m perfectly harmless.”

“Perfect?” she heard herself answer, her tone as husky and intimate as his. “Maybe. Harmless? Oh, I don’t think so…”

There was a silence, a quiet so intense she could hear the soft sound of the snow falling outside and the faint rustling noises Buttercup made beyond the shed doors. Slowly, his mouth curved into a smile. And his eyes…

Oh, it was just like right before he kissed her, in front of everyone, back in the hall. His eyes kind of sucked on her. They drew her down.

“I don’t think that mare wants me to kiss you.”

And she probably shouldn’t kiss him. “Well, Justin. Okay, then. Let me up and we’ll—”

He cut her off by placing a gloved finger against her lips. “Not yet.” She probably should have protested, told him firmly to let her up.

But she didn’t. She watched, entranced, as he lifted his hand, took the tip of the glove’s finger between his white teeth and pulled it off. He dropped the glove beside her and then he touched her lips again—skin to skin this time. That brush of a caress made her mouth tingle, made her whole body yearn.

He let his hand drift over until it lay against the side of her face. “Soft,” he whispered. “So pretty and soft…” He lowered his mouth.

She expected a hot, soul-shattering kiss. But he only brushed his lips sweetly, one time, across hers—and then he lifted away again and she was looking in those haunting eyes once more. “What’s another kiss? Between a man and his wife.”

Now she felt truly torn. She longed to kiss him—yet she knew it was probably a bad idea. “We shouldn’t…get anything started, you know? We hardly know each other and—”

“But that’s just it. I want to know you better. What about you, Katie? Do you want to know me?”

She did! And that seemed…dangerous, somehow. That seemed foolish and scary and simply not right. “I—I don’t really want to start anything casual, you know?” She found her throat had gone desert-dry. She paused to swallow and then rushed to continue before he could do anything that would make her thoughts scatter and fly away. “I know it’s probably every guy’s fantasy to get stranded with a woman who, uh, knows what she wants and knows how to get it—not that I don’t know what I want. It’s just, well, I don’t want…that.”

He only smiled. “That, huh?”

“Yes.”

“That…what?”

Oh, this wasn’t going well. “Look. I just don’t want to start anything I know I’m not going to finish. Okay?”

“Katie?”

She glared at him. “What?”

“It’s only a kiss.”

“Oh, I just don’t—”

“Katie. Do you want to kiss me?”

“We’ve just about talked this to death, don’t you think?”

“But do you want to kiss me?”

“Oh, all right, damn it.” Katie rarely swore. But right then, damn it seemed the only thing to say.

“But do you?”

“Yes.” The word came out breathless-sounding. “I do.”

“Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

Katie sighed once and she sighed again.

Her hands slipped up to encircle his neck and she held on for dear life as he played with her mouth. With that clever tongue of his, he traced the seam where her lips met, teasingly at first and then with a more insistent pressure. She couldn’t resist him—didn’t want to resist him. Shyly, she let her lips relax and he swept that tongue of his inside.

It was a shocking, thrilling thing, the way Justin Caldwell could use that mouth of his. And it was a truly wonderful thing, the way his body felt, so warm and close, pressed against her side, the way he smelled of soap and shaving cream.

His cold nose touched hers and his hot breath burned her icy cheek. As he kissed her, he stroked her with his hands. That was wonderful, too. Each separate caress left a burning trail of longing in its wake. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled a little, so they were both on their sides, and his hand moved lower, to the small of her back. He rubbed there, a sweet, firm pressure, soothing muscles cramped from sleeping on that lumpy ancient mattress last night.

She moaned and pressed herself all the tighter against him. His hand swept lower. He cupped her bottom and tucked her up into him.

That was when she felt the hard ridge in his jeans.

Oh, my.

Time to stop.

Time to stop right now.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and tore her mouth away from his. “That’s enough.” She looked at his face and she feared…

What?

She realized she didn’t know. Her fear was formless, and yet she did feel it.

Remember the others, she reminded herself. They were after your money. They hurt you. He could so easily do the same…

But even as she thought of that, she didn’t believe it. Oh, he might hurt her, yes. But in her heart, she simply didn’t believe it would be for her money.

Which probably made her the biggest fool in Montana.

He loosened his hold on her. With a deep sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re right,” he said. “Enough.”

She slid her hands down to his hard chest. Beneath her palms, she could feel his heat, and his heart racing. His breath came out in ragged puffs—just like hers.

She whispered, “We’d better go in.”

He touched her hair. She thought that she’d never felt anything quite so lovely in her whole life as that—the tender caress of his hand on her hair. He threaded his chilled bare fingers up under the tangled strands and cupped the back of her neck. She took his cue and tipped her head up to look at him.

“Yeah,” he said. His mouth was swollen from what he’d been doing to her, his eyes twin blue flames. “We’ll go in. Now.” He pressed one more quick, hard kiss on her lips—as if he realized he shouldn’t, but couldn’t resist. Her mouth burned at the contact.

Then he reached across her to grab his discarded glove. Rolling away from her, he rose. She scuttled to a sitting position.

“Here,” he said.

She stared at his outstretched hand. It seemed…too dangerous to take it.

Her gaze tracked upward, to his face. She knew by the heated look in his eyes that if she reached out, he would only pull her close and start kissing her again—and the thrumming of her blood through her body left her no doubt that she would end up kissing him right back.

No. Not going to happen. She’d known this man less than twenty-four hours. And she refused to end up rolling around naked with him on a bed of hay in a freezing old shed.

“I can manage, thanks.” She pulled off a glove and felt in her hair. It was just as she’d suspected: threaded through with bits of hay. “Oh, just look at me…”

Justin let his hand drop to his side. “I am.” His voice was husky and low. And in his eyes she saw desire—real desire. For her.

And not only desire, but also something dark and lonely, something that might have been regret.

Katie’s mouth went dust-dry. This was danger—a danger far beyond any threat a mere fortune hunter might pose. Peril to her tender heart, to her very soul.

No doubt about it. She wanted him—with a kind of bone-melting yearning, with a merciless desire the like of which she’d never known before.

It was…a physical aching. A hunger in the blood.

Oh, she would have to watch herself with him. She would have to exercise a little caution, or she’d be in way over her head.

Somewhere far back in her mind, a taunting voice whispered, Katie. Come on. You’re already over your head. Over your head and falling fast…