Slow Fever

“What Would The Women’s Council Say If They Knew We Were Spending The Night Together—Again?” Michael Asked.

Kylie’s smirk died. “You know good and well that the traditions of Freedom Valley are that if a couple spends the night together, the man is expected to go before the council and present himself as a proper bridegroom candidate. It isn’t necessary, but it’s a custom that every woman really wants, no matter how modern she is. Our mothers and grandmothers had wanted the same, and were courted according to the custom. I can’t see you doing that. You’ve been a Cull too long. You have all those women. You’re a legend in your own time, a heartthrob of every girl when we were younger. You wouldn’t do that just to embarrass me, like that kiss on the dance floor, would you?”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“…Ms. London creates complex, humanly flawed characters who overcome great emotional turmoil to reach a wonderful happy ending.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

Slow Fever

Cait London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAIT LONDON

lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She enjoys research trips, meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs (particularly scented geraniums right now). She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” Cait says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift.”

To Mary Jo

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Prologue

Town of Freedom 1882

From the journal of Magda Claas—

I have sisters, not of my blood, but of my heart. Women alone in a rough new land without protection, we formed a family. We settled in this valley bordered by high soaring mountains and traveled by men seeking wives. In this rough land, called Montana by the Indians, we’d come from all parts of the world. Some of us had thrown away hope, our lives ruled by men, yet it glimmered boldly when we decided to take this valley for our own and to call it “Freedom.”

That is how I feel. These women, and more coming to the town we have created, are my sisters. We want to command our lives, to work hard and to be respected. We want love and husbands, too. We know now, after surviving a year in this beautiful valley, that we are strong and we have pride in what we have built. Not one of us will easily toss that away.

So we cherish each other as would a family, and we set our conditions for the men who want us.

Love? Will it come to each of us? Is it too much to ask of a woman’s life? There are bargains to be made, but it is the hope of every woman to find peace and love. Peace? I am told that there is no peace around me, for I am too busy with life.

With dreams and conditions, we, the women of Freedom Valley, build our town. Let it be known through this rough land that we protect our sisters, and that any man wishing a bride must first come to us, her family. He must present himself as a prospective candidate, the same as he would come asking a father for a daughter’s hand in marriage.

He must abide by our Rules of Bride Courting and meet the terms of the Women’s Council. We will have our due as brides and wives and we will come together as sisters, though marriage bonds have tied us to husbands.

Magda Claas

Town of Freedom, Freedom Valley

Montana Territory, July 1882

One

My daughter, Kylie, is fourteen and has just threatened to kill young Michael Cusack, or at best, make his life unbearable. In a mood, she can make grown men shiver, but not Michael. Two years older and toughened by life, Michael is seeking curvier, more womanly fare. His father was heavy-handed and drunken, and Michael is not a boy, rather a scarred soul in a boy’s body. I’ve fed him and done for him what his pride would allow. But Michael isn’t the loving sort, trusting his heart to others, and he’s having none of either of my girls. Because he respects me, he will not toy with my daughters, much to their annoyance. Miranda is merely nettled, but Kylie will never forgive that trespass.

—From the journal of Anna Bennett, descendant of Magda Claas and the mother of Kylie Bennett Patton.

“Mom?” Unanswered, Kylie’s call echoed through the white two-story house. The mid-September night wind slashed autumn leaves against the windows, and memories whispered around Kylie.

“Mom?” she called again, her heart tearing, for Anna Bennett would not be answering her children’s calls. She lay by her husband’s side in Freedom Valley’s small cemetery; a semitruck at a foggy intersection had cut her life short just eleven months ago. “You’re here, I know you are, Mom,” Kylie murmured.

Kylie’s brother, Tanner, was now off on his honeymoon, remarried to his childhood sweetheart, Gwyneth. They would return to their ranch near Anna Bennett’s tidy, small farm. In her mother’s darkened house, Kylie stood by the windows, scanning the small sleeping town of Freedom. Its cluster of twinkling lights spread into Montana’s night stars. In the three days since Kylie had returned, she’d learned that little had changed in Freedom Valley. The Rules of Courting and the Women’s Council still managed to nettle the Bachelor Club, composed of single men banded together for protection.

Kylie knew most of them; they were her brother Tanner’s lifetime friends. They were more like her brothers, since she and her sister, Miranda, had tried to make use of their frequent visits to Anna’s house. Only one of the tall, swaggering devastating males could really upset her—Michael Cusack. Back then, she’d wanted to leap upon him and tear him to pieces.

Grown up and divorced now, Kylie didn’t want to think about Michael Cusack. Before her mother’s funeral and her brother’s wedding, she hadn’t seen Michael in years, purposely missing him on her frequent visits to her mother’s. An older, very tough looking Michael had been at Anna’s funeral and Tanner’s wedding. According to Leonard at the gas station, Michael had been back for three years and was running a small electric service company—while he tended the mysterious women and children who came to stay with him. Kylie tensed, nicked by the slight annoyance she always experienced when Michael’s name hovered around her. Through her early dating years, Michael had cut short her experimental escapades with fascinating men. One look at Michael’s dark, ominous expression and the fascinating men seemed to shrivel away. He had the hard, blunt face of a fighter, the mysterious jade-green eyes of a poet, a mouth that could be line-thin and cruel or curved with laughter and warmth. That tall, lean body moved restlessly, like a wolf prowling, never relaxing, always ready to spring. His black rough-cut hair and thick, gleaming brows, those fascinating long lashes, could ruthlessly grasp a woman’s heart. His brooding, lonely storm-tossed look made a woman want to hold him tight, to snag that wild hair in her fists and claim him.

Kylie sniffed lightly and shrugged, dismissing the dark and dangerous bane of her young life. He’d been a challenge then and nothing more. He’d tripped her fighting instincts long ago, but she was wiser now. Though Michael had dampened her experimental years, he and his women weren’t Kylie’s problems. Kylie scrubbed the tears from her face. “Mom, I’m in the pits right now, but don’t worry. I will work things out. My brother is off on his honeymoon—sailing the seas with Gwyneth—and I’m tending your house and their ranch. A baby-sitter for everyone but my own kids—oh, I know. It’s a dark and lonely night and I’m deep into a pity party. I’m stressed from dealing with my ex-husband, the breakup of the business, and I’m supposed to be sorting over the things in your house. I can’t, no more than my brother could when he came back to Freedom Valley. Instead, Tanner started a custom-made wooden boat company and remarried his ex-wife. So here I am and I can’t bear to separate your things any more than he could. It’s only logical that your homeless daughter came home to roost.”

Kylie swallowed the tears tightening her throat. A widow raising three children without a complaint, Anna had always been there for her children—and now she wasn’t. During those hard years, Anna had managed the small twenty-acre farm, selling butter, eggs and vegetables. She’d midwifed and birthed a good share of the babies in Freedom Valley. She’d washed and ironed for others, sold her herbal soaps and ointments, and most of all she’d loved and tended her children—and others who needed a kind heart. From her mother, Kylie had learned how a gentle, caring touch could heal. Kylie had learned the first elements of her profession as a massage therapist from Anna. “So here we are, Mom. I’m back home again. Single white female, recently divorced, with a zero bank balance, and all I can do is polish your furniture.”

Kylie could almost hear her mother say, You’ll do fine. Make the best of it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with life. Whatever is troubling you, deal with it as best you can, her mother had said. In the lonely hours, lemon and beeswax and plenty of good cherished furniture is a fine way to deal with troubles.

“I failed at everything, Mom. My life, my dreams, my marriage. I came away with nothing but a few things packed into the back of my pickup.”

Mmm. And other people haven’t failed? You came away with yourself and I’d say that is something. You’re strong and you’re good and you’re talented. Take your time, deal with it and go on.

“I love you, Mom. I always will.”

Love yourself more, Kylie. You’re a special person, giving light to dark, troubled souls. The world needs your laughter and energy and your beautiful, loving heart. You heal with your hands and your laughter.

“I did take in a few strays, didn’t I?” The Bennett house had always overflowed with Kylie’s refugees—even the box of newborn mice that she’d wanted to keep, and baby birds tossed to the earth by the winds.

You’re strong, Kylie. You love to tend those who need you, but take time for yourself, too. Mend and go on.

“Is that what you did after Dad died? Kept us all fed on a threadbare budget, worked until you dropped, and still loved everyone around you, tending them?” Kylie had only been eight, but even then she’d known that she could never give her heart to a man who was less than her father—“Why did I have to marry Leon then?”

Her mother’s soft reminder floated in the shadows. Sometimes the helpless take advantage of a good heart, honey. Don’t worry so—

“Mom, I need you—” The shadows didn’t answer this time, but the scent of Anna’s herbs and her baking still clung to the house as Kylie wandered through it. The pantry was lined with Anna’s canning jars, seeds and dried herbs neatly labeled, the clutter of hot water kettles and pressure cookers and juice makers ranged across one shelf. In a shallow basket, bars of lavender soap were neatly wrapped in plastic and tied with ribbon, waiting to be taken to Anna’s customers.

In the shadowy room familiar to Kylie, the dim light gleamed upon a tall bottle labeled Blackberry Wine. The cork had been dipped in wax, and cording wound around the base, neatly finished in a bow and waiting to be tugged.

Kylie inhaled the scents flowing through her like memories. “Mom, I don’t suppose you ever had a pity party, did you? Just to get everything out of your system, so you could go on?”

She could almost hear her mother’s soft, knowing laughter—then Kylie remembered when she was nine and had awakened for water. Her father had been gone a year then. Life had changed for the Bennett family and Anna hadn’t complained about the hard work, the long nights mending and struggling to support her family. Yet all those years ago, in the kitchen, her mother’s face had been covered with a mud pack and her hair was coated with mayonnaise. She had been soaking her work-worn hands in an aromatic soapy water, clear fingernail polish at the ready. A bottle of blackberry wine had been opened; Anna’s glass was half full. Kylie had stared at her usually neat mother, and Anna had said, “There are times when life hits a woman hard, and it’s best she pamper herself a bit, undergo a cleansing of sorts. And then she goes on. That’s what I’m doing now—dealing with the woman in me. When it’s your time, you’ll know.”

“It’s my time tonight, Mom,” Kylie said. “Thanks. I love you.”

Whoever knocked persistently at the front door wasn’t giving up and they were interrupting her blackberry “glow.” Careless of the plastic wrap sheathing her naked body, Kylie jerked open the door. Through her mellow mood, the music of the tranquillity tape flowing around her, she saw the man she once detested. There was no mistaking the width of his shoulders, that hard, blunt face and untamed hair. She eyed him warily; she wasn’t certain she didn’t still hate Michael Cusack. Once, she would have hurried out the back door to let air out of his motorcycle tires. Once, she would have dumped water balloons on his head from the second story of her house. She would have written creative passages in bathrooms, like “Michael Cusack sucks eggs” or “Cusack has a fatal and contagious disease.” Now she only wanted to be alone, sharing her blackberry wine with her mother’s soothing presence. The blue clay facial mask cracked when she stated, “It’s midnight, Michael. Go home to your harem.”

In the light passing through the opened door, Michael Cusack loomed over her, even more rugged and dangerous looking than that night thirteen years ago when he’d plucked her from a mechanical bucking bull she’d been riding on a dare. “I could have ridden it, you know. Go away.”

He rubbed his jaw, black eyebrows drawing together as he studied her. The scar ripping across his jaw was old and deepened his dangerous look. The September wind whipped at his shaggy black hair, his dark green eyes lighting with humor as he looked down at her. “I usually check on Anna’s place as I pass. The yard pole light is out. What’s with that getup and the goo on your face?”

“And I never liked being called ‘short stuff.’ Don’t do it ever again. You did that at Tanner’s wedding two weeks ago when Miss Bosom was draped around you.” Kylie wanted to make certain he knew exactly his crimes of the past. She resented the inches up to Michael’s six-foot-two height. At her eye level, the width of his chest was covered by a black sweatshirt. Well-worn jeans ran the long powerful distance between his black motorcycle boots, and Kylie launched her next volley without reservation. “It didn’t bother me at all that you never asked me to ride on the back of your motorcycle.”

“Okay,” he said slowly in that gravelly voice that could raise the hair on her nape and his eyes hadn’t moved from her plastic wrapped body. Humor softened the lines on his face. “You used to be a stick. Things have changed.”

She jabbed him with her finger and carelessly tossed away the challenge that sprung from his narrowed green eyes. “Hey, buddy. I’ve been having a hard time, okay? Mom and I are having a little chat, and you aren’t invited. I’m trying to lose weight fast, to feel better about myself, and I’d heard about this somewhere—whether it works or not, I don’t know. But I’m activating, buddy. I’m not just letting myself wallow in things that weren’t. When I’m up to speed, I’ll get a good exercise program and drop the comfort foods.”

“Mmm. Too bad. The curves suit you,” he murmured, his voice lowering a notch. His eyes roamed slowly up to her hair, propped high upon her head to escape the various mud packs and cleansing treatments she’d concocted. The tiny waves were exciting, not gracefully waved and tamed but wild and gleaming and soft as silk…just the kind a man wanted to spread his fingers into and feel drag against his body. Then his gaze dropped to lock onto her flattened breasts; her nipples peaked despite the transparent confinement and his mouth went dry.

Kylie swallowed tightly. She’d forgotten she’d opened the door wearing only the plastic wrap, to keep in the almond and herb oil mixture she’d concocted. The plastic wrap rattled slightly as she shivered, aware that Michael was slowly looking down the length of her body. She closed the door and turned off the living room light, tossing him a big “I want to be alone” hint.

Michael sucked in the night air and Kylie’s scent and tried to drop his heart rate to a mere full-throttle race. Kylie’s face had lost that round young look, her cheekbones slashing against the blue goo on her face. He mourned the shadows beneath her eyes and welcomed the blue burning slash of her eyes. As a child, she’d fascinated him. As a teenager, she’d made his blood churn. As a woman, she could devastate him. He recognized the hardening of his body and pushed away the thought of having her.

Anna Bennett’s daughter wasn’t for the likes of him. She’d be after a man’s heart and he was lacking in that area; she deserved a family man, and he’d never wanted those ropes strangling him again.

Finding Michael Cusack on her mother’s front porch wasn’t exactly calming, a real dent in Kylie’s healing ritual. A massage therapist and schooled in anatomy, and as a woman, she knew after one look down Michael’s tall body that he was in perfect physical shape. From the fit of his black leather jacket, she knew that his biceps, triceps, deltoids, and pectoral muscles would be powerful and bulky beneath her hands. Under his sweatshirt, his flat stomach probably rippled with muscles. She didn’t want to think about the abductor muscles occupying his inner thighs, or the quadriceps of his thighs. Beneath his jeans’ back pockets, his backside’s gluteus maximus muscle would be firm and powerful. Over it all, his skin would be firm and warm and fine.

Before she closed the door her flush—around the area of the blue mask—amused him, for he recognized a woman’s awareness of him. He also knew how well she could hate. Yet, it was fascinating to watch those blue eyes darken, prowling over his body, evaluating it as if he had potential to fulfill her needs. The sensual tug curled around him, though he knew Kylie would never see him as her heart mate.

She still hated Michael Cusack, she decided, as she peered out into her mother’s driveway. His metallic gray Cusack Electric service truck was parked next to her white economy pickup; he wasn’t going anywhere. Easing away the lacy curtain that shielded the front porch, Kylie saw Michael sitting on her mother’s porch swing. It was the same porch swing upon which teenage Kylie had tried to vamp him. She’d wanted desperately to see if Michael Cusack’s famed tongue could make steam come out of her ears. Not even the socks stuffed in her bra had added to her allure. Michael had laughed, the very worst offense to a potential first-time vamp.

Now the long, hard length of his body contrasted with the lace curtain framing him. Kylie held a sofa cushion up to her chest and rapped on the window. He turned to her and when she waved him away, he shook his head and grinned that fascinating beautiful grin as if he were a boy again, a boy who had forever devastated her.

Kylie dropped the curtain, and grabbed another pillow to cover her backside. She shuttled through the darkened house as fast as her plastic wrapped legs would carry her. She took another sip of her mother’s blackberry wine and shook her head. Michael wasn’t going anywhere until she disposed of him properly.

Minutes later, she jerked open the door again, quickly tying a flannel robe around her plastic encased body. “People will see you sitting there and you know how the gossip will spread.”

He lifted an eyebrow and Kylie closed her eyes. “Okay. Come in,” she said with all the warmth of the doomed.

As she stood holding the door open for him to pass, Michael looked even bigger than she remembered. Though bulkier now, he was still lean and moved gracefully. He carried with him dark tasty edges that she’d never know. He wouldn’t fit on her massage table. She’d have to use the fold-out extensions— Her fingers flexed; she didn’t want to think of Michael’s body beneath her hands…all that lean, long body packed with cords and muscles and wrapped in tanned skin. She wondered if the deep tan on his face matched the shade on his—

Her fingers flexed again as he dipped his head to take a quick kiss. Stunned, she watched him lick his lips, tasting hers. Her hands ached to grab his hair, those thick shaggy black strands, and to tether him for another kiss. She licked her lips, tasting his and wondered what she had been thinking. His eyes were just as green as she remembered, framed by dark lashes. Humor deepened the lines fanning from his eyes and danced upon his lips as he drawled, “Blackberry wine. You’re tipsy, right?”

“You’re interrupting my party,” she said when she could struggle past the sizzling burn on her lips.

“I’ve been there,” he said gently, easing his finger through the curls on top of her head. “Want to tell me about it?”

“No. Get lost.” If she could have packaged that dark, brooding male scent, she could make a fortune. He smelled of the night and secret longings that most women couldn’t refuse—but Kylie would.

“Can’t leave. Told Tanner that I’d watch out for you while he and Gwyneth are on their month-long honeymoon.”

“Big brothers. Who needs ’em?” Kylie muttered, uncaring that her tone reflected her dark and evil mood.

“What’s the problem?” Michael asked, settling down on the sofa. He stretched his long legs out to the footstool that held her sea salt foot soak, peppermint foot cream, and bright red toenail polish. He placed his hands behind his head and studied her intently.

Kylie tossed away the uncomfortable, slightly guilty emotion that he had caught her in a criminal act. Anna had never allowed heavy drinking in her home. At the midnight hour and the changing of her life, she wasn’t drunk, but a nice toasty “mellow.” She was taking steps—the next major one was to do her toenails. She was actively dragging herself out of the post-divorce bog. She was jumping from a bad plateau in her life to her future.

She’d use him. Michael could always be trusted as a confidant. She lit the candles her mother had made, beeswax mixed with chamomile and ylang ylang. She’d shared that with her mother, the love of herbs and their uses and together they’d distilled the chamomile from her mother’s herb garden. Kylie’s plastic wrap rustled as she settled down beside him and indicated the spread of blackberry wine, cheese and crackers and rich, rich chocolate truffles which she had been slathering with her mother’s raspberry jam. Michael poured wine into her glass, sipped and closed his eyes to enjoy. They were chums in this, the appreciation of Anna Bennett, a woman who had loved and tended them. “You’ll have to do,” Kylie said finally as she dipped the chocolate into the jar of raspberry jam.

She dipped a finger into the jam and suckled it thoughtfully as she studied Michael. “You seem tense. I suppose it’s the reflex you got from back in the days when I was interested in you—when I was a child,” Kylie said, sucking the rest from her fingertips. “I’d give you a massage, but right now I’m concentrating on my healing process and aligning my chakras. I’m in the ceremonial mode now—dispensing with the old to make a clean cut for the new me. I’m not usually self-indulgent, but I’ve got to deal with the pits before moving on. Meditating isn’t cutting it.”