Montana Miracle

The instant he held her, Mac felt something in him that he’d been trying to keep at bay

He’d known Katherine an hour, tops, and his heart ached from a fear that came from knowing what could have happened to her out in the storm. That fear caught at his middle and made him hold her even tighter. This woman with the incredible green eyes was threatening the foundation of his carefully constructed new life.

Fear. Real fear. It was hash and unwelcome. “What in the hell were you thinking?” he demanded with more roughness than he intended. “I told you to stay in the truck. That I’d be back.”

“Looking for…you,” she said in a voice so unsteady and low that he almost couldn’t make out her words.

He held her away from him and saw her chin trembling. “You could have been seriously hurt.”

“Oh, Mac,” she gasped. “I thought…” She shuddered violently. “I never meant…”

He knew then that once Katherine left, being alone would never feel right again.

Dear Reader,

Things get off to a great start this month with another wonderful installment in Cathy Gillen Thacker’s series THE DEVERAUX LEGACY. In Their Instant Baby, a couple comes together to take care of an adorable infant—and must fight their instant attraction. Be sure to look for a brand-new Deveraux story from Cathy when The Heiress, a Harlequin single title, is released next March.

Judy Christenberry is also up this month with a story readers have been anxiously awaiting. Yes, Russ Randall does finally get his happy ending in Randall Wedding, part of the BRIDES FOR BROTHERS series. We also have Sassy Cinderella from Kara Lennox, the concluding story in her memorable series HOW TO MARRY A HARDISON. And rounding out things is Montana Miracle, a stranded story with a twist from perennial favorite Mary Anne Wilson.

Enjoy all we have to offer and come back next month to help us celebrate twenty years of home, heart and happiness!

Sincerely,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Montana Miracle

Mary Anne Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my dad, Herb Bignell

My hero

I miss you

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California, where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over a ten-year career, she’s published more than thirty romances, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.

Books by Mary Anne Wilson

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

495—HART’S OBSESSION

523—COULD IT BE YOU?

543—HER BODYGUARD

570—THE BRIDE WORE BLUE JEANS

589—HART’S DREAM

609—THE CHRISTMAS HUSBAND

637—NINE MONTHS LATER…

652—MISMATCHED MOMMY?

670—JUST ONE TOUCH

700—MR. WRONG!

714—VALENTINE FOR AN ANGEL

760—RICH, SINGLE & SEXY

778—COWBOY IN A TUX

826—THAT NIGHT WE MADE BABY

891—REGARDING THE TYCOON’S TODDLER…*

895—THE C.E.O. & THE SECRET HEIRESS*

899—MILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE*

909—THE McCALLUM QUINTUPLETS “And Babies Make Seven”

952—MONTANA MIRACLE

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

He looked around the party in the glass-and-steel house high in the Hollywood Hills and saw nothing but emptiness. The women and men, partying as if there were no tomorrow, didn’t exist for him at that moment. Nothing existed for him. Not even himself. Dr. Mackenzie Parish. That man was gone. Gone.

Mac set his champagne, untouched, on the marble table by massive glass doors opened to the terrace and the night beyond. A blanket of city lights lay far below, a city as unreal to him as he felt at that moment. He turned from it, pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather bomber jacket and headed for the spiral metal stairs that went down three flights to the garage level.

He was down two flights when he heard someone call out, “Doc? Hey, Doc!” the sound echoing off the stairwell walls, which were splashed with modern art.

He looked up, and on the top landing someone was waving to him. Clarisa? Marissa? He couldn’t remember the name of the woman he’d met when he’d walked into the party less than an hour ago. An actress of some sort, he thought, although he’d never seen her in the movies. A woman who hung out at parties like this, a woman who did whatever it took to be close enough to fame to rub shoulders with it.

She hung over the railing, dangerously close to coming down without using the stairs. “Where you going?” she called, a bit tipsy now, no surprise, the way she’d been drinking champagne. Blond, busty, tattooed on one shoulder, a snake or something, poured into a dress a size too small. Pretty, if one looked at her with unprofessional eyes. But he could see where she’d been “nipped and tucked,” and although it was done well, she wasn’t anywhere near the twenty-something she was pretending to be.

“See you,” he called out, and started down again.

“Hey, I’ll go with you!”

He would have taken her up on the offer three months ago, but now he rejected it out of hand. If he’d still been Mac Parish, doctor to the stars, he would have motioned for her to come on down. She would have been thrilled to be with him. A genius at plastic surgery, a man who worked on the best and brightest, wealthy, famous in his own right. But he ignored her offer now and hurried out of her sight.

He reached the garage level, pushed open the outer door and met the valet, a man probably working as a valet while he waited to be “discovered.” He was young and good-looking, obviously worked out and had a megawatt smile. “Ready to leave, sir?” he asked brightly.

“Yes.” Mac handed him his tag and the guy nodded.

“Be right back, sir,” he said as he set off.

Mac stood alone and took a breath. He must be real. He could feel the chilly October air rush into his lungs, could hear the drone of voices and the music drifting from the multistoried house. But he still didn’t feel real. He took out his wallet for a tip to give the valet and stopped when he saw the only picture he carried in the slender leather holder.

It was a small photo of three people, a softly pretty woman, a sleeping baby in her arms, and a man in his early thirties. The man was Mac’s mirror image. Almost a dead ringer, but the man in the picture had shorter hair, no razor cut, but just as thick and sandy blond. Hazel eyes squinted into bright sunlight, eyes set in a face with rugged features that seemed to be all planes and angles. His skin was tanned but not from sets of tennis in the California sun at private clubs. It was from hard work in the outdoors.

The look on the man’s face was something Mac almost didn’t remember ever feeling, the look of a man who had everything he ever wanted. The delicate blond woman at his side smiled at him as if he was the center of her world. The baby in her arms, swaddled in a blue blanket, linked them forever.

“You have nothing, Mac. You stopped existing a long time ago.”

Mac shoved back the memory of those words as headlights arced up the driveway, blinding him for a moment. Then the low throb of the Porsche’s engine vibrated in the air as the car slid to a stop in front of him. The valet got out and took the bill Mac offered him in exchange for the keys. Mac got in, and he drove down the winding driveway to the street below.

“You can’t go on like this. I won’t let you.”

The words rang in his memory as he headed south toward Hollywood Boulevard. “You’re lost. You’re so lost.”

He reached for his cell phone, hit a number and waited for two rings. A woman answered in a sleepy voice. “Yes?”

“It’s me. I’m coming back. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“We’ll be waiting,” she said.

Mac flipped the phone shut, tossed it on the empty passenger seat and took the last curve so fast that the tires of the sports car squealed on the pavement. When he reached the boulevard, he never looked back. He concentrated on what was ahead of him, and what he had to do.

“You’re lost, so lost.”

He was going to find Mac Parish. He wasn’t sure he’d like what he found at the end of his search. But if he was going to try to find himself, that meant going back.

Chapter One

Katherine Ames stood in the cramped office of James Lowe, the features editor at the Final Word, a Los Angeles-based magazine that fed into the public’s need to know anything and everything about celebrities and would-be celebrities. She was watching edited video on the largest of five television monitors set on the far wall. “Why am I watching this?” she asked, never looking away from the screen that showed arrivals of the stars and celebrities at a movie premiere.

“Watch, Kate, just watch.” James said. Lights flashed, and a white limo drew up to the curb at the end of the red carpet. A banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen—Dr. Mackenzie Parish—at the same time James spoke again. “There he is.”

The limo stopped and the door was opened. The scroll on the bottom of the screen changed to The Doctor to the Stars as the man himself stepped out onto the carpet and into a sea of lights, microphones and interviewers. Fans were held back by security guards and velvet ropes.

Kate had seen the doctor the way most of the public had, his face plastered all over the gossip pages, filling a lot of space in magazines like theirs, a man with as much “presence” as a lot of his clients, the beautiful and the famous. Now he was standing on the carpet, a tall, lean man, with sandy hair, in a well-tailored tuxedo, smiling, waving, offering his arm to his companion, a tall, leggy blonde with more hair than dress.

“Look at that guy. He had everything,” James murmured.

Kate saw Parish turn and for a fraction of a second, he looked right at the camera. His dark eyes narrowed slightly at the glare from the lights. His face sharply angular with a strong jaw, he was clean-shaven and had just enough lines around his eyes and mouth to make him ruggedly appealing.

He was a striking man, attractive in a definitely male way, with a deep, even tan that set off the color of his longish hair, brushed straight back from his face. The blonde waved and giggled, holding on to his arm as if he were her personal trophy.

“Yeah, he had everything,” Kate said, slightly taken aback when he smiled at the woman with him. A half smile, really, but enough to crinkle the skin at the corners of his eyes, lifting his lips in what was almost a seductive manner. The man was sexy. Damn sexy. He was listening to a bimbo starlet as if she was telling him the secret of life. Right then James paused the picture, freezing that frame, and the smile.

“He sure as hell did,” James said. “Everything.”

“Where’s this going?” Kate asked, turning from the image and feeling oddly uneasy. “This tape’s at least two years old.”

James was still looking at the monitor, and his pale-blue eyes, even paler in his deeply tanned face, narrowed thoughtfully. With his shock of blond hair styled to a T and his fashionably rumpled look, he definitely looked like a thirtysomething man on the way up. Any way he could get there.

James finally turned his gaze to Kate. “The question everyone’s tried to answer is, why did he walk away right when he was at the top? He was the best nip-and-tuck man in the city, privy to the inner circle of this town. He had any woman he wanted. Why did he leave and go to some blip on a map in the middle of nowhere and drop out of sight?”

She shrugged. “Drugs, women, rock and roll? Malpractice, gambling? You name a vice, and I’m sure someone’s thought about pegging him with it. But the fact is, no one’s been able to peg anything on him, no matter how hard they try.” She looked at James. “Are you saying you’ve got something on him?”

“There, finally a question. I was wondering if your famous curiosity was fading. The one thing that’s always fascinated me about you is the way you keep at something until you have all the answers. That’s why you’re damn good at this business.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He exhaled. “Actually, it’s the same thing that makes it impossible to be around you for very long.”

Right then she remembered why she’d stopped seeing James six months ago. He’d been just as impossible to be around for any length of time as she’d been for him. Any relationship between the two of them ended up being almost all business and no fun. “Same back at you,” she murmured. “Now, answer my question. Do you have some new facts on this?”

“Facts? No, but I’ve got an idea.” He studied her for a long moment, then said, “From where I’m sitting, I’m looking at someone with a brain who knows how to go for the jugular, a woman who is definitely the type the good doctor favors. A tall, leggy blonde.”

“James, what the—”

“You heard me. You’re a hell of a reporter and you’ve got that extra something that can make the difference. In this business, you know you need every edge you can get.” Without warning he was out of his chair, coming around to take her by her arm.

He ignored the way she tried to get free of his hold and took her over to a mirrors. He got behind her and made her face the reflection.

“There. Look. You’re what’s going to make this happen.” His hands rested on her shoulders, his fingers tightening slightly. “Everyone’s tried everything and gotten nowhere. A cement wall. And I got to thinking, the man has to have a weakness, something that will get to him, and from everything I’ve seen, that weakness is beautiful blondes.”

“I knew I broke up with you for some reason,” she muttered.

“You also know I’m right,” he said from right behind her. “Take a good look.”

She stared at herself, at Katherine Ames, twenty-seven years old, tall, blond and leggy. That much was right. But at five feet ten inches, she was gangly. Her blond hair was very blonde, almost silvery, but straight and long and worn the way she had it now, in a single braid that ended halfway down her back. She wore little to no makeup, had freckles across her nose and what she thought was a very sharp chin.

She tended to wear what she had on then, simple slacks and a plain shirt, navy and white today. There were no tight miniskirts or plunging necklines, no bronzed skin, no big hair, and she had never been called voluptuous. She wasn’t flat, but one of her dates had called her figure “boyish”—not the greatest compliment. No, she wasn’t Parish’s type, no matter what James thought.

“I’m not looking at some starlet bimbo,” she said, meeting his gaze with a frown. “No makeup, no false lashes, no implants.” She’d never thought of herself as beautiful. Rather, growing up as the only child of two selfish, self-centered people, had helped foster her strengths. She’d developed a fertile imagination to keep her occupied when she’d been alone, a desperate need to write so she could connect to something when she was by herself, and an insatiable curiosity about the outside world. Those were her credentials as a writer, what made her good at what she did, not any physical attributes. “I’m too thin, too tall and too pale, and I’ve got freckles.”

James frowned at her over her shoulder. “Boy, your self-image is miserable,” he said. “If you’d stop scowling like that and put on a bit of makeup, maybe let your hair loose, with those green eyes you’d stop traffic on Sunset Boulevard.”

She twisted around to face him and he drew back. “If you want me to go after this story, give it to me.” That familiar tingle of excitement was starting to grow in her at the challenge of getting to a subject and getting him or her to talk when no one else could. “The thrill of the hunt,” James had called it. “If it’s possible, I’ll get it. But let me figure out what tack to use.”

“Hey, sure, absolutely.” His pale eyes flicked suggestively over her, then he met her gaze again. “You’re a hell of a writer. I’ve always said that, and that’s why you’re here. So it’s yours. Go for it.”

Even his compliments sounded compromising to her, but she wasn’t going to take the bait that easily. “Okay, give me details.”

He went back to his desk, reached for the folder and held it out to her. “Here’s everything we have.”

She crossed to take it from him, a thick manila folder with “Dr. MacKenzie Parish” in bold type on the right edge, then a list of names and dates on the cover, others who had checked it out of Research and the dates it had been in use. Lots of interest in the man. She opened the cover and shuffled through several glossies, magazine tear sheets and newspaper clippings.

Two of their own articles were mixed in with an impressive group of stories on the man. The headlines ran the gamut from Sexy Doc Nips & Tucks His Way To Fame, Partying Is A Science For This Doctor, to Merry-Go-Round Stops For Famous Surgeon and The Doctor Has Left The Building.

And in every picture that wasn’t a head-and-shoulders shot, he was with a woman. A star, a wanna-be star, a nobody. But always a beautiful woman. He definitely liked tall blondes. “He partied hard,” she murmured, not bothering to hide her distaste for his lifestyle. She sank into the chair facing the desk, closing the folder and resting it in her lap. “So where is this place he ran off to?”

“Montana, a ranch outside the tiny town of Bliss, and from all accounts, he seldom leaves it.”

“No favorite haunts, no daily schedule in here?” she asked, tapping the folder.

“Sorry, if it were that easy, someone would have done the story by now.”

“Okay, there has to be a way to make him stick his head out of the bunker. Then the trick is to get him to talk.”

He sat forward. “Getting him to talk is the easy part for you. You could get a monk to break a vow of silence. Look what you did with the Blanchard story.” He smiled at her. “She wouldn’t talk to anyone, and you got her to do an exclusive for us.”

“That’s different. I went to the same deli she did and saw her there all the time, and she recognized me.”

“See what I mean? You use what you have to get what you want. Only you could turn a trip to the deli into a great interview with a woman who had just been acquitted of murdering her husband. You had an ‘in’ with her, and like it or not, you’ve got an ‘in’ with Parish.”

She hated it when he was right. But he was. If the man’s weakness was blondes, she’d have to factor that into the equation, whatever she did. “Bliss?” she asked.

“Bliss as in a podunk town out in the middle of nowhere. Bliss for the gophers and cows, I guess.”

“Maybe for the doctor, too,” she said.

“That’s what you’ll find out, won’t you?” he asked, stretching his arms over his head.

“I hope so.”

“Also, the bonus for an exclusive kicks in, and that can’t hurt, either.”

She could use the money, but more than that, she loved this part of the job. The hunt, the discovery. She pressed her hand on the closed folder. “What’s the deadline?”

“I can give you a week, maybe a bit longer if it looks really good after you get there, but that’s about all the budget will bear. Also, it’ll give us time to make the semiannual special issue, too, if you come in around then.” He took a thick envelope out of a side drawer. “Here’s your packet.”

She took it, and said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Just be prepared. From what’s in the research, Bliss is a tight little community where the townspeople don’t talk and won’t even give directions to Parish’s place.” He tapped the envelope. “That’s what county assessors are for. There’s a map in there of his place.” He studied her. “So, any ideas how to get to him?”

She didn’t think, despite James’s optimism about her looks, that putting on a skimpy silver dress and walking the streets would work. “Something will come to me. By the way, is there anyone living with him?” The man never seemed to be alone in L.A., so there was no reason to think he suddenly became a monk in Montana.

“No ranch hands this time of year, but there’s a housekeeper, or a friend of some sort who keeps the house, and a little boy. Word is it’s his dead brother’s child, but there isn’t a birth certificate on him in that county. Maybe the kid’s his?” He glanced at the envelope. “You’ve got an air ticket for tomorrow out of LAX in there, car rental and your per diem. Sign off for the folder and read it on the plane.” He scrounged around and passed her a pen.

As she signed the folder front and dated it, she asked, “What about a place to stay?”

“There’re no hotels or motels listed in Bliss, but there’s a bed-and-breakfast called Joanine’s Inn. You’re expected tomorrow evening by seven, under your own name. I wasn’t sure about getting you a place to stay because of the holiday.”

“Holiday?”

“Thanksgiving, Kate, remember?”

“I remember,” she muttered.

“You come from a strange family, Kate. I’ve never heard of a family who ignores holidays the way yours do.”

“They’re a waste of time,” she said, echoing her mother’s words from years ago when she’d asked why they didn’t do anything for Christmas. She’d stopped caring about holidays around the same time she stopped asking about them. “We never noticed them very much.”

“By the way, how are Frank and Irene?”

“I haven’t heard from them since…” She had to think about that one. Contact with her parents was rare. They left, and when they thought about it, they called. Kate was used to it. She’d been on her own since she was a teenager. “I guess it was in July sometime. They were in Borneo working on some irrigation project.”

He sat back in the chair. “Fascinating people,” he said. “Lousy parents.”

She didn’t argue with that. “They are what they are, and it’s not important,” she said, cutting off that discussion as she stood holding the folder and envelope.

“Kate?” he said when she would have left.

She turned to look at him. “Something else?”

“I’m not expecting miracles on this, but anything you can find I’ll use.”

She nodded and as she crossed to the door, she glanced at the still-frozen image on the monitor, the man and that smile. A real challenge. She tossed over her shoulder, “Keep that spot in the special open.” She looked back at James before she went out the door. “Maybe the cover.”

SNOW WAS BEAUTIFUL in pictures and on greeting cards, but that was the only experience Kate had ever had with the white stuff. She had no idea that in real life it could be blinding, even in the early evening, or that it could be driven by wind so hard that it shook a car and made it tremble, even though the car was a sturdy sedan she’d rented at the airport two hours before.