Kitabı oku: «The Montana Hamiltons»

CHAPTER ONE

THUNDER CRACKED OVERHEAD in a piercing boom that rattled the windows. As she huddled in the darkness, rain pelted down in angry drenching waves. Lightning again lit the sky in a blinding flash that burned in her mind the image before her.

In that instant, she saw him crossing the ridge carrying the shovel, his head down, rain pouring off his black Stetson. It was done.

Dark clouds blanketed the hillside. Through the driving rain, she watched him come toward her, telling herself she could live with what she’d done. But she feared he could not. And that could be a problem.

* * *

BRODY MCTAVISH HEARD the screams only seconds before he heard the roar of hooves headed in his direction. Shoving back his cowboy hat, he looked up from the fence he’d been mending to see a woman on a horse riding at breakneck speed toward him.

Harper Hamilton. He’d heard that she’d recently returned after being away at college. Which meant it could have been years since she’d been on a horse. He was already grabbing for his horse’s reins and swinging up in the saddle.

Runaway horse.

He’d been on a runaway horse when he was a kid. He remembered how terrifying it had been. With that many pounds of horseflesh running at such a deadly speed, he prayed hard she could hang on.

He had to hand it to Harper. She hadn’t been unseated. At least not yet.

Harper, yards away on a large bay, screamed. He spurred his horse to catch her and as he raced up beside her, her blue eyes were wide with alarm.

Acting quickly, he looped an arm around her, dragged her off the horse and reined in. His horse came to a stop in a cloud of dust. Her horse kept going, disappearing into the foothill pines ahead.

Brody let Harper slip to the ground next to his horse. The minute her feet touched earth, she started screaming again as if all the wind had been knocked out of her when he’d grabbed her but was back now.

“You’re all right,” he said, swinging out of the saddle and stepping to her to try to calm her.

She spun on him, leading with her fist, and caught him in the jaw. He staggered back more from surprise than the actual blow, but the woman had a pretty darned good right hook.

He stared at her in confusion. “What the devil was that about?”

Picking up a baseball-sized rock, she brandished it as she took a few steps back from him, all the time glancing around seeming either to expect more men to come out of the foothills or looking for a larger weapon.

Had the woman hit her head? He spoke calmly as he would to a skittish horse—or a crazy woman. “Calm down. I know you’re scared. But you’re all right now.” It had only been a few months since the two of them were attendants at her sister Bo’s wedding, not that they hadn’t known each other for years.

She peered under the brim of his hat as if only then taking a good look at him. “Brody McTavish?” She stared at him as if in shock. “Have you lost your mind?”

Brody frowned, since this hadn’t been the reaction he’d expected. “Ah, correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “But I don’t think this is the way most women react after a man saves her life.”

“You think you just saved my life?” Her voice rose in amazement.

“You were screaming like either a woman in trouble or one who has lost her senses. I assumed, as any sane person would, that your horse had run away with you. No need to thank me,” he said sarcastically.

“Thank you? For scaring me half to death?” She dropped the rock and dusted the dirt off her hand onto her jeans. “And for the record, I wasn’t screaming. I was...expressing myself.”

“Expressing yourself at the top of your lungs?”

Harper jammed her hands on her hips and thrust out her adorable chin. He recalled her sister’s wedding back at Christmastime. While both attendants, they hadn’t shared more than a few words. Nor had he gotten a chance to dance with her. His own fault. He hadn’t wanted to get in line with all her young suitors.

“It was a beautiful morning,” she said haughtily. “I hadn’t been on a horse in a long time and it felt so good that I couldn’t resist expressing it.” She looked embarrassed but clearly wasn’t about to admit it. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nope. But when I see a woman riding like a wild person, screaming her head off, I’m going to assume she’s in trouble and needs some help. My mistake.” Didn’t she know how dangerous it was riding like that out here? If her horse had stepped into a gopher hole... A lecture came to his lips, but he clamped his mouth shut. “You have a nice day, Miss Hamilton.” He tipped his hat, grabbed up his reins and started toward his property.

“You’re just going to walk away?” she demanded to his back.

“Since you aren’t in need of my help...” he said over his shoulder.

“I thought you would at least help me retrieve my horse.”

He stopped and mumbled under this breath, “If your horse has any sense he’ll keep going.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Brody took a breath and turned to face her again.

Her blond hair shone in the morning sunlight, her blue eyes wide and filled with devilment. He recalled the girl she’d been. Feisty was an understatement. While nothing had changed as far as that went, she was definitely no longer a girl. He would have had to be blind not to notice the way she filled out her jeans and Western shirt.

She shifted her boots in the dust. “I’d appreciate it if you would help me find my horse.”

“By all means let me help you find your horse, then. As you said, it’s the least I can do. Would you care to ride...Miss Hamilton?” He motioned to his horse, glad he hadn’t called her princess, even though it had been on the tip of his tongue.

Looking chastised, she shook her head. “And, please, my name is—”

“Harper. I know.”

“Thank you for not mistaking me for my twin.” She sounded more than a little surprised. “Not even my own father can tell us apart at times.”

He could feel her looking at him, studying him like a bug under a microscope. He wondered what she’d majored in at college. Nothing useful, he would bet.

“Thank you also for helping me find my horse,” she said into the silence that fell between them. “I really don’t want to be left out here on foot if my horse has returned to the barn.”

He thought the walk might do her some good but was smart enough not to voice it. “The last I saw of your mare she was headed up into the foothills. I would imagine that’s where we’ll find her, next to the creek.”

She glanced up at him. “I should probably apologize for hitting you.” When he said nothing, she continued. “With everything that’s been going on in my family, I thought you were... Anyway, I’m sorry that I hit you and that I misunderstood your concern.” He could hear in her voice how hard that apology was for her.

And, he had to admit, her family had recently definitely been through a lot. The family had seemed to be under attack since her father, Senator Buckmaster Hamilton, had announced he would be running for president. Three of her sisters had been threatened. Not to mention the mother she’d believed dead had returned out of the blue after twenty-two years—and her stepmother had been killed in a car accident. It was as if tragedy was tracking that family.

“Apology accepted,” he said as he picked up her cowboy hat from the dust and handed it to her.

As they walked toward sun-bleached cliffs and shimmering green pines, he mentally kicked himself. He’d had a crush on Harper—from a distance, of course—for years, waiting for her to grow up, and now that she finally had and he’d managed to get her attention, he couldn’t imagine a worse encounter.

Not that he wasn’t knocked to his knees by her crooked smile or the way she had of cocking her head when she was considering something. Or the endless blue of her wide-eyed innocence—all things he’d noticed from the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He smiled to himself, remembering the first time he’d seen her. She’d just been a freckle-faced kid.

Somehow, he’d thought... She’d be grown-up and one day... He told himself someday he and Harper would have a good laugh over today’s little incident, before he mentally kicked himself.

He’d actually thought he’d rescued the woman of his dreams—until she’d hit him.

* * *

BRODY MCTAVISH. HARPER grimaced in embarrassment. She’d been half in love with him as far back as she could remember. Not that he had looked twice at her. He’d been the handsome rowdy teen she used to spy on from a distance. She’d been just a girl, much too young for him. But Brody had come to parties her older sisters had put on at the ranch. She and Cassidy were too young to attend and were always sent up to bed, but Harper often sneaked down when everyone else, including her twin, thought she was asleep.

Several times Brody had caught her watching and she’d thought for sure he would snitch on her, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d given her a grin and covered for her. Her nine-year-old heart had beat like a jackhammer in her chest at just the thought of that grin.

She’d seen Brody a few times after that, but only in passing. He’d graduated from high school and gone off to college before coming back to the family ranch. She’d been busy herself, getting an education, traveling, experiencing life away from Montana. When she’d heard that her sister Bo was dating Jace Calder, she’d wondered if he and Brody were still best friends.

It wasn’t until the wedding that she got to see him again. She hadn’t been surprised to find that he was still handsome, still had that same self-deprecating grin, still made her now grown-up heart beat a little faster. She’d waited at the wedding reception for him to ask her to dance since they were both attendants, but he hadn’t. She’d told herself that he probably still saw her as a child, given the difference in their ages.

Glancing over at him now, she didn’t even want to consider what he must think of her after this. Not that she cared, she told herself, lifting her head and pretending it didn’t matter. He probably didn’t even remember the secret they had shared when she was a girl.

As they walked, though, she couldn’t help studying him out of the corner of her eye. Earlier, she hadn’t appreciated how strong he was. Now that she knew he wasn’t some predator who had been trying to abduct her—something she’d been warned about as a girl since she was the daughter of a wealthy rancher, not to mention US senator—she took in his muscled body along with the chiseled features of his handsome face in the shade of his straw cowboy hat.

No matter what he said, he hadn’t accepted her apology. He was still angry with her. She’d given him her best smile when he’d returned her hat from the ground and all she’d gotten was a grunt. Her smile was all it usually took with most men. But Brody wasn’t most men. Isn’t that why she’d never been able to forget him?

“I feel as if we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” she said, trying to make amends.

Another grunt without even looking at her.

“My fault entirely,” she said, although she didn’t really believe that was true and hoped he would agree.

But he said nothing, nor would he even look at her. He was starting to irritate her. She was doing her best to make up for the misunderstanding, but the stubborn man wasn’t giving her an inch.

“You can’t just keep ignoring me,” she snapped, digging in her boot heels as she stopped shy of the pine-covered hillside. “Have you even heard a word I’ve said? If you don’t look at me right this minute, Brody McTavish, I’m going to—”

He swung on her. Had she not been standing flat-footed she would have stumbled back. Instead, she was rooted to the ground as suddenly he was in her face. “I’ve been listening to you and I’ve been looking at you for years,” he said, his voice deep and thick with emotion. “I’ve been waiting for you to grow up.” His voice faltered as he dropped his horse’s reins. “Because I’ve been wanting to do this since you were sixteen.”

Grabbing her, he pulled her against his rock-hard body. His mouth dropped to hers. Her lips parted of their own accord, just as her arms wrapped around his neck. Her heart hammered against her ribs as he deepened the kiss and she heard herself moan.

The sudden high-pitched whinny of a horse only yards away brought them both out of the kiss in one startled movement. Turning, she could see her horse in the trees. Her first thought was that the mare had gotten into a hunter’s snare, because the whinny was one of pain—or alarm.

Brody grabbed her arm as she started past him to see what was wrong with her horse. “I think you should wait here,” he said, letting go of her arm as he took off toward the pines.

“My horse—”

“Stay here,” he said more sternly over his shoulder.

Still stunned by the kiss and anxious about her horse, she set off after him. The ground was soft under her feet. She saw where fresh soil had washed down through the pines, forming a dark, muddy gully.

Her horse was partway up the hillside near where the rain a few nights ago had loosened the soil and washed it down the hillside. As Brody approached, the mare snorted and crow-hopped away a few feet.

“She’s afraid of you,” she called to his retreating backside. She could hear him speaking softly to the horse as he approached. She followed, although she was no match for his long legs.

An eerie quiet fell over the hillside as she stepped into the shadowed pines. She slowed, frowning as she finally got a good look at her horse. The mare didn’t seem to be hurt and yet Harper had never seen her act like this before.

“I thought I told you to stay back,” Brody said as she came up behind him. “You’ve never been good at following orders, have you?”

So he did remember her sneaking downstairs at her sisters’ parties. She felt a bump of excitement at that news, but it was quickly doused. Past him, she saw that her horse’s eyes were wild. The mare snorted again, stomped the ground and shied away, to move a few yards back from them and the gully.

“What is wrong with her?” Harper demanded, afraid it was something she had done.

“She’s reacting to what the hard rain dislodged and sent down the hillside in an avalanche of mud,” Brody snapped. What was he talking about? As she started to step past him to get a look, he put a hand out to stop her. “Harper, you don’t want to see this.”

She did want to see whatever it was and resented him telling her she didn’t. Protective was one thing, but the man was being ridiculous. She’d been raised on a ranch. She’d seen her share of dead animals, if that’s what it was. She stepped around him, determined to see what the storm had exposed.

At first all she saw were old grimy, weathered boards that looked like part of a large wooden box. Then she saw what must have been inside the container before it had washed down the slope and broken open.

Her pulse jumped at the sight, her mind telling her she wasn’t seeing what her eyes told her she was. “What is that?” she whispered into the already unnerving quiet as she took a step back.

“From the clothing and long hair, I’d say it was the mummified body of a woman who, until recently, had been buried up on that hillside.”