Montana Man

“Does your family know you’re unchaperoned and in trouble?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way.” She couldn’t believe it. Six long months she’d kept her secrets safe, and in less than an hour, she’d opened up her heart and her life to a man she didn’t know—to a doctor, no less, to the kind of man she was running from.

“I know how to keep a confidence.” Trey—she didn’t even know his last name—flashed her a wink. The devil shone in his eyes and in the cut of his one-sided grin. “I’m a doctor.”

“I know what you are.”

“Handsome, charming, debonair. Kind to children and damsels in distress.” Twin dimples danced and beguiled, and he was far too sure of himself, yet, with those wicked eyes and the mesmerizing cut of his muscled body, he was that and more!

Praise for Jillian Hart’s previous titles

COOPER’S WIFE

“Well-crafted and poignantly funny…this is a feel-good story for both veterans and newcomers to the genre.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

LAST CHANCE BRIDE

“It will touch you deeply.”

—Rendezvous

“The warm and gentle humanity of Last Chance Bride is a welcome dose of sunshine after a long winter.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

Montana Man

Jillian Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

Montana Territory, 1884

P lease, don’t let them find me. Miranda Mitchell glanced over her shoulder at the snow-covered town street that stretched out behind her. Breathing hard, she kept running. She might not be able to see them, but she could feel them coming closer. A crowd surrounded her, blocking her view of the street. She was still safe. For now.

Driven by fear, she swiped at the snow gathering on the brim of her bonnet and kept running, her shoes tapping on the slippery ice toward the train at the end of the platform. The conductor’s last call to board rang in the crisp morning air, carried by the bitter wind that knifed through her clothes as she picked up her skirts and sprinted across the slick platform, her ticket crumpled in one hand.

Dark smoke plumed into the air, ash mixing with snow, and the train gave one long departing whistle. Miranda kept running. The platform seemed to go on forever. Well-wishers crowded next to the train, waving to loved ones safe inside, blocking her way.

Determined, she shouldered through a break in the crowd only to see the doors shut tight, the train ready to leave. Her faint hopes tumbled, and she simply stared. It couldn’t be. She had to make this train. Her entire life depended on it.

“They’re still taking passengers down there.” A kindly woman touched her elbow and then pointed with one gloved hand. “Maybe you can still make it aboard.”

“Oh, thank you.” Miranda gathered up her hopes and her skirts and ran, barreling down the edge of the platform with all her might. She still heard no commotion on the street, but wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the deafening roar of the train’s engine. If they saw her, would they shoot? No, not in a crowded place. Surely even a bounty hunter would have that much sense.

Then again, the man who’d tracked her down didn’t have the look of wisdom about him. Hard-eyed and ruthless, he’d kicked in the back door of the boardinghouse, both guns already drawn. The sound of wood breaking had given her enough time to grab her satchel and run out the front. Without this warning, she would be in his custody now, enduring Lord knows what kind of treatment.

Her stomach turned to ice, and she skidded to a stop at the end of the line. A conductor was helping an old man board, and the train waited impatiently, engines rumbling. Miranda glanced over her shoulder but couldn’t see the street. There were too many people. She eased up on tiptoe, but still couldn’t see much more than an array of hats and a slice of the icy platform. The bounty hunter and his men could be out there, maybe as close as the ticket window, and she wouldn’t be able to see them, wouldn’t even know they were near.

Fear tasted cold and metallic on her tongue, and her heart thudded so hard in her chest, it hurt. The line in front of her was growing shorter, but not fast enough. Please, hurry, she prayed, her fingers curling around the tiny gold locket at her throat. Please, keep me safe.

“No-o-o-o. No train.” A little girl’s voice cut above the din of voices, the rumble of the engine and the clang of baggage being loaded, her heartbreak and terror keening on the wind.

Miranda turned and noticed a man, not three paces away, kneeling on the platform before a fragile child, holding her tenderly in his solid arms. He had the look of a lawman—broad shoulders and intelligent eyes, strength and a hint of danger. He radiated might and competence. But there was no badge on his chest and nothing more than a six-shooter strapped to his muscled thigh. Two train tickets peeked out from his jacket pocket too fine to be bought and paid for with a sheriff’s salary.

She shuffled a step forward in line, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the handsome man made stronger by his tenderness for a child.

He brushed at the layer of snow that clung to the girl’s wool cap. “Josie, if you and I don’t board this train, then how are we gonna get to my house?”

The girl’s brow wrinkled as she thought. “We can walk right on down the road, Uncle Trey. Then we don’t gotta take no train.”

“You want to walk all the way to Willow Creek?”

“I won’t complain none. Not once.”

“But it’s a hundred miles from here to there.”

“I ain’t afraid to walk.” Josie tilted her head to one side, pure fight.

A sharp, high sound split the air. Miranda jumped, ready to bolt, expecting to hear the clatter of galloping horses on the frozen ground or shouted threats from the bounty hunter and his men. When the sound shrilled again, she realized it was only the train whistle. Goodness, she felt foolish.

The conductor reached down to help a frail old woman onto the bottom step. She moved carefully, and while Miranda didn’t want the woman to fall, she wished the line would move a little faster. The back of her neck started to prickle—she could feel those dangerous men gaining ground. She couldn’t let them find her, she couldn’t—

“Well, now, Josie.” The man’s voice, deep and tender as twilight, again cut through Miranda’s thoughts and the noise surrounding them. She turned just enough so she could see him lean closer to speak with the small child in his arms, forehead to forehead. “I got a confession to make. I’m afraid to walk all that way.”

“You ain’t afraid of nothin’, Uncle Trey, not even the train.”

Miranda couldn’t help herself. Unable to tear her gaze away, she peered past the brim of her bonnet at the man’s profile and the charming grin that turned his chiseled face from handsome to breathtaking. She felt drawn toward his tenderness, something she’d seen so little of in her own life or in her years volunteering at Children’s Hospital.

And she was amazed that this man, so big and strong, didn’t seem diminished, less masculine, for his gentleness. It tugged at her heart like a thousand midnight dreams. The anxiety cold in her veins felt small when compared to the warmth of this man’s treatment of the child he held—a niece, not a daughter of his own.

“Suppose we do decide to walk through the mountains all the way to my house. Now, there’s all sorts of dangers to a man on foot,” Josie’s Uncle Trey confided. “A wild buffalo herd could trample me. A bear could decide I’d make a fine supper. I could develop a bad case of bunions from walking in these new boots. You wouldn’t want that, now, would you, Red?”

“Yes.” Josie looked up at the train, tears pooling in her big green eyes. Fear lived there—true as a spring morning, fresh as rain.

“Now, how am I going to do my job with bunions?” He tried to keep his voice light, but he glanced up at the diminishing passenger line and the sound of the engines ready to go. Miranda saw his panic and more, much more. “If I get a whole lot of bunions, I won’t be able to do more than limp. How would I make house calls? When Mrs. Watts gets another rash, I’ll have to say ‘Sorry ma’am, I won’t be able to limp over and ease your misery.’ C’mon, do your old uncle a favor and get on the train.”

“But the tr-train m-might c-crash again.” The little girl laid her cheek against his wide chest and sobbed. “That’s how Ma and Pa died.”

“I promise it won’t happen again.” Deep lines of anguish matched the choked sound of his voice. “Honey, there’s no other way to get to my house. Not this time of year. There’s a storm coming up, and the mountain passes are closed—”

“I don’t wanna new home.” Although the little girl’s voice was quiet, hardly more of a sound than the wind, the suffering in her voice rang as loud as the biggest bell—sharp, pure, true. “I want my ma.”

“All aboard!” the conductor’s call pierced like a knife, and Miranda realized everyone had boarded the train except for her and this man and child.

“I don’t want to force her.” The doctor’s voice drew her gaze and she realized he’d noticed her watching them—it was hard to miss. She was standing with her back to the train, her hands to her mouth, tears pooling in her eyes when she should be safely hidden on the train. Standing in plain sight like this—

Her toes slid forward, bringing both feet and all of her closer. What was she doing? Every instinct screamed at her to turn around, that this wasn’t any of her concern, that she had her own life-and-death problems.

And yet deep in her heart, the little girl’s words resonated over and over. That’s how Ma and Pa died. All her life, she’d never been able to walk away from a child who needed help. Not one.

“I could use a hand.” His gaze flickered with relief, and she could see the anguish in those eyes as dark as a moonless night, deep like shadows. “This train is about to roll down those tracks, and I’ve got to find a way to get her aboard. I hate to force her after the accident.”

Miranda saw the brace wrapped around the child’s stick-thin leg, the steel still shiny and new. She remembered the train wreck of a month ago—twenty-seven days, to be exact.

She’d disembarked from that fated train here on that same day. She’d been asking the ticket clerk directions to a respectable boardinghouse when she’d heard the crash in the distance. Minutes later, a ball of fire rose on the western horizon.

Thirty-six people died and many more were injured. This little girl had been one of them. Agony twisted through her, her goal to escape unimportant. She turned her back on the street.

“Don’t be afraid.” Miranda took a step nearer, unsure if there was anything she could do for this frightened, hurting child. She had to try. “Your uncle is right. Trains don’t always crash.”

The little girl didn’t look up. She clung to the strong doctor, her light red curls shaking with each tortured sob.

“Josie is a very brave little girl.” Grief darkened the uncle’s eyes, revealing a steady substance that drew Miranda closer, and she lowered her defenses just a little.

“I can see that. But the train is starting to move.” Her heart gave a little jolt when she saw the wheels turn once, and then again. The creak of steel upon steel and the groan of the loaded cars on the tracks filled the air.

“Looks like I’ll have to carry her on—” Regret laced his voice as he straightened, holding the girl captive in his arms.

“No-o-o-o, Uncle Trey, don’t m-make me.” The sobs came, genuine and sharp with fear. “I don’t wanna get hurt again.”

“Hurry.” Miranda’s hand tightened around her satchel’s grip, not sure how best to help the frightened child. She saw a black bag alone on the platform and grabbed that up, too. “We still can make it.”

“We have to. I’m sorry, Josie.” Anguish drew deeper lines across his face as he began jogging with the child, who struggled in his arms.

Miranda saw his remorse in the pinched lines around his expressive eyes and the fine cut of his mouth, drawn tight with worry for the child. He ran along the edge of the platform toward an open door.

As the long line of cars continued to slide away, one by one, Miranda saw in her memory the train wreck, surging back like the leading edge of a Montana blizzard—harsh and swift and without mercy. She smelled the acrid scent of smoke, imagined the stillness after the world-altering screech of steel impacting steel, heard the passengers crying out in grief and fear and pain.

She’d hurried to help those she could then, and she ran to the uncle and niece now, her hand brushing the hard, lean curve of the doctor’s upper arm. She felt a flash of heat through his wool coat and her kid gloves where they briefly touched. But her gaze was only on the child, a little girl so fragile it looked as if the wind could blow her away as easily as it drove delicate snowflakes to the ground.

“I know what you need.” Miranda heard an explosion of gunfire behind her, pivoted, and saw the band of men riding hard down the nearby street.

The train continued snaking away, car after car lumbering by as Josie’s Uncle Trey stopped running and turned to study her with eyes dark with hope. “What you need is a good-luck charm.”

“Ain’t no such thing.” The child’s eyes shone with unshed tears.

“Sure there is. I have one hanging around my neck right now.”

“It’s just a locket.”

“Just a locket?” Her hands trembled as she heard the approaching thunder of horses growing louder and closer. She lifted the chain over the knot of hair pinned at the crown of her head and the peak of her bonnet.

“Sounds like some trouble’s headed this way.” Trey straightened his broad shoulders and gazed quietly toward the street, where a handful of rough men drove lathered horses through the crowd of departing people straight toward the platform.

Trouble? It was the end of her life. Her instincts told her to run, but it wasn’t the right thing to do. She placed the gold chain over Josie’s strawberry blonde curls and laid the small locket against the placket of the girl’s fine dress. “I promise, Josie, this will keep you safe. It’s always worked for me.”

“Really?” Doubt-filled eyes blinked away tears.

“I’ve ridden on probably fifty trains, and look at me, I’m as safe as can be.” She might be trembling and might be looking danger in the face, but she had to help this child. It mattered more to her than she could explain. “I promise, if you wear this, you’ll be safe.”

“Looks like this is the last car.” The doctor’s voice sounded gruff, raw with emotion, as he started running. “C’mon, hurry. We can still make it.”

Miranda heard the drum of shod hooves on the platform and felt the boards quake with the force of the galloping horses. She took off at a dead run as the caboose ambled past and caught up with the doctor as he handed his niece to the conductor inside the train.

“Hurry. You can do it.” He held tight to the metal bar at the open door and reached out for her with the other.

Gunfire pierced the air, a warning shot from not three feet behind her. Fear drove her forward and she caught the tips of the doctor’s fingers.

Strong and sure, he clamped on and pulled her to him. She pitched into his arms and somehow the toe of her shoe caught the bottom step. She stumbled, but the strong man’s grip on her shoulder guided her into the car.

She looked back to see the caboose slipping away from the edge of the platform, leaving the armed bounty hunter and his men at the edge.

Gaining speed, the train eased around a slow curve, breaking away from the bustling town toward the steep peaks of the Continental Divide.

Trey closed the door behind him, gazing at her with eyes wise and wondering, with a hint of a smile touching the left corner of his mouth. “Looks like your friends didn’t make the train.”

“They weren’t friends I wanted to travel with.”

“Then you’re in luck.” He reached past her to heft Josie up into his arms. “Those bullets could have hit someone. Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t think they would have actually shot me.” She righted her bonnet and tried to take a step back, to put distance between them. “Thank you.”

“Well, I want to check on the caboose. Those might have been warning shots, but bullets fired up in the air have a way of coming right back down. I want to make sure no one’s hurt. Would you do me a favor?”

“If I can.”

Steady warmth snapped in his eyes, drawing her closer even when she wanted to escape. “Would you stay with Josie? Josie, would it be all right if our mystery lady stays with you for a few minutes?”

“I’m no mystery, believe me.” Miranda dropped her eyes to the child’s peaked face, pinched with worry, and tried hard to ignore Trey’s measuring gaze. “My name’s Miranda.”

“No last name to go with that?” His grin dazzled, carving twin dimples in his left cheek. “Or are you on the run from the law?”

“That’s right. I’m fleeing from justice and it’s best for both of you if you don’t know my last name.” Her chest tightened, for that wasn’t far from the truth. She was an heiress, not a fugitive, but she was fleeing and from far more than the price on her head.

Remembering her pursuers, she glanced out the window at the heavily falling snow and saw nothing but rangeland, the town and the bounty hunter left far behind.

“I would love keeping an eye on your niece.” She was safe, for now at least. The men who hunted her would wire ahead to the next major town, she had no doubt of that. But somehow she would figure a way out. She’d been doing it all the way from Philadelphia.

“Miranda.” Josie tilted her head to one side, fear still glittering in her emerald eyes, but at least the panic was at bay. “Wanna see my baby doll?”

“Sure I do.” She stepped forward to lift the child out of her uncle’s protective hold. The scent of him enveloped her, leather, wood smoke and man, the blend attractive and pleasing, making her wish…well, for things that she could never have if she were caught.

Miranda knew it was a risk to speak with anyone who would remember her, especially to tell them her first name, but she knew what it was like to be a child, defenseless and alone, with a broken heart and a sorrow big enough to drown in. She cradled Josie close, careful of her braced leg. “Let’s go find your seats.”

“First class.” The doctor handed her the tickets, and she noticed for the first time as their fingers brushed how well shaped his hands were, thick and strong, but sensitive. Healer’s hands.

Just like her father’s.

Her stomach snapped tight at the memory, pain and regret gripping her hard. She nearly dropped the tickets as she spun away, closing her mind off from a past she’d vowed never to remember again.

Chapter Two

“N o one was hurt.” Trey Gatlin knelt down beside the plush seats where the mysterious Miranda cradled his little niece. “Lucky that bullet hit the caboose. The men after you didn’t hesitate to fire a gun near a train full of people.”

“I never should have—” Miranda closed her eyes, and a dark lock of hair tumbled down from her bonnet to caress her porcelain cheek, but her softness and beauty paled next to the concern and regret that gleamed in her eyes when she opened them. “I just wanted to get away. I thought I would have enough time.”

“And you would have.” Trey slipped his black bag under Josie’s seat. “If you hadn’t stopped to help us, you would have been safely on the train and out of sight. Who were they?”

She bit her bottom lip, indecision on her face warring with regret. “I don’t know them personally.”

“The West is a rough place for a woman alone.” He’d noticed only the single satchel she carried. What kind of trouble was she in? In his profession he’d seen far too much of the hardship that could befall a woman, and he’d always done his best to help.

With an angel’s face and the way she’d comforted Josie, Miranda wasn’t running from trouble with the law, he knew that. But who was she running from?

The train jarred. Josie gave a cry of alarm, and he dropped to his knees to take the child in his arms. All fear and fragility, she fit against his chest, under his chin, and clung to him.

Trey’s heart cinched tight, and pain sheared through him. He missed his sister. But his loss, as painful as it was, did not equal Josie’s. “The train is just slowing down because of the storm, that’s all.”

Her tears fell hot and wet against his shirt. “Th-that’s what happened last time.”

“Just hold on to your good-luck charm,” Miranda advised above the rustle of her skirts as she stood. “Do you know why my locket is special?”

Josie shook her head, not quite willing to believe.

“Because it’s full of my mother’s love. And you know that a mother’s love will always keep a little girl safe.” She smiled up at him, a slow, shy curve of her pretty mouth that drew his gaze and made him measure the fullness of her bottom lip. She had a sensitive mouth, shaped like a cupid’s bow, and his chest clamped tight as she slipped past him.

“I don’t know what to say, Miranda.” Trey cleared his throat, unable to lift his gaze from this woman who spoke like an angel. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” She smiled, and all the air fled from his lungs. “Take care of little Josie,” she told him, her voice resonating with a hollow sound that made him wonder again who she was and what she was running from.

Not a family—no woman that compassionate could leave a child behind her. Not a husband—no ring marked her fourth finger, not even the imprint of one was visible as she grabbed the sides of her skirts to better maneuver in the aisle.

“Miranda.”

She turned. The train bucked again as the swift edge of a blizzard hit. The car rocked as the light drained from the windows. Alarm widened her eyes, and she looked vulnerable and young. He remembered the men racing to the edge of the platform, the dangerous ruffians who’d fired loaded six-shooters, trying to intimidate an innocent woman.

Josie sniffled against his chest and held him with bruising force. He had a child to comfort, and he knew next to nothing about children. He had his own problems back home. But something about Miranda drew him, and he wanted to pay back her kindness to Josie. Or maybe he simply couldn’t bear to let her go.

“Come sit with us.” He held out his hand.

“No. I have my own ticket.” She turned, chin set, her knuckles white around the walnut grip of her expensive satchel. There was no mistaking the softness of her hands; they bore no calluses from hard work or redness from lye soap. She was a gentlewoman, city bred, and she was alone. A young woman of means did not travel this rugged land without an escort.

Again, Trey thought of the men following her. The train crept along the tracks as the furious north winds and icy snow battered it. He figured if a man was determined enough, he could race a horse down the tracks and catch up to the now slow-moving train.

Judging by the look on Miranda’s face, the same thought occurred to her.

Trey took another step, leaving his hand outstretched, waiting for her touch. “This storm has both me and Josie scared. We could use a little of your good luck up here with us.”