Klondike Hero

“Why don’t you like me, Gage?”

She hitched her chin up a notch, studying him with blue eyes capable of bending unsuspecting men to her will.

“As far as I can tell, Karenna, you ran out on your wedding. What you’re doing here in a wedding dress is anyone’s guess. Why didn’t you change on the way? Or did you think the men here would be rubes, easily tricked into marrying you, so you didn’t bother to change?”

“Believe me, if you are anything like the rest of the men in this town, then I want to sue that magazine for false reporting. You are hardly hunky, marriage-minded or charming.” Okay, maybe she’d gotten carried away. Gage Parker was hunky, but that was about all the good she could say about him.

Alaskan Bride Rush: Women are flocking to the Land of the Midnight Sun with marriage on their minds

JILLIAN HART

grew up on her family’s homestead, where she helped raise cattle, rode horses and scribbled stories in her spare time. After earning her English degree from Whitman College, she worked in travel and advertising before selling her first novel. When Jillian isn’t working on her next story, she can be found puttering in her rose garden, curled up with a good book or spending quiet evenings at home with her family.

Klondike Hero

Jillian Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Lord is near to all who call upon Him.

—Psalms 145:18

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

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Prologue

Karenna Digby pulled her car in front of the diner in nowhere, Washington State—she had no idea where she was—and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat. The lace cuff of her sleeve caught on the emergency brake. Stupid wedding dress. She was tired, heartbroken and starving. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had a real meal, since she’d been dieting to fit into her gown for months.

She shoved open the door, the tap of rain on her face felt like the tears she could not shed. She grabbed her purse and her dress’s train, planted her expensive white shoes on either side of a huge puddle. Yes, she would have to park in a puddle. That was the way her day—her would-be wedding day—was going. She slammed the door and spotted the “Just Married” sign on her back window.

Stupid sign. She skirted the puddle, tossed her train over the crook of her arm and tore at it. It ripped in half, one piece sticking stubbornly to the window. What had her sisters used to adhere it to the glass? Superpowered glue? It wouldn’t come off.

The heavens opened, and the rain turned to a torrential downpour. Leaving the tattered half of the sign for later, she wove around the puddles on the worn blacktop. She could only hope she didn’t look as bedraggled as she felt—then she caught her reflection in the diner’s windows and groaned at the lonely bride with wilting roses braided into her hair.

“Table for two?” The gum-cracking waitress asked at the rickety podium that served as a hostess stand.

“No. There’s just me.”

“I see. Sorry to hear it. Once that happened to me, too, honey.” She led the way down the aisle in sensible rubber shoes that squeaked with her gait. “What you have to do is not let it get to you. Get back up, shake off the hurt and find you another man. Don’t let one bad seed ruin your attitude about love.”

“Thanks.” She slipped into the booth patched with duct tape and let the train fall to the bench beside her. At least she wasn’t the only bride in history to have been left at the altar. It just felt that way.

“Menus are on the table.” The waitress pulled a pad out of her pocket. “What you want to drink, hon?”

“Coffee, please.” She would start with that. Her stomach might be growling, but she wasn’t sure she could keep down anything more than liquids. Devastation hung on her like a lead weight. She thought of her family’s fury at her, and her younger sisters, both married of course, patting her consolingly. “He’ll come to his senses,” Kim had said. “You just have to be patient with him,” Katie had advised.

Patient? She wanted to be married. She had the dress. She’d had the groom. She had a future as Alan’s wife all mapped out. How could he do this to her? Her two-carat engagement ring sparkled as she reached for the worn, laminated menus tucked between the paper napkin dispenser and the wall. She didn’t know what to do. She’d dated Alan for seven years. They’d been high-school sweethearts and attended the University of Washington together, strolling hand in hand down the tree-lined avenues and along picturesque walkways, and studying in their favorite carrels in the undergraduate library.

Now that was all gone. All the love and hope vanished as if they’d never been.

Send me a sign, Lord. Please. Show me what to do. She yanked the menu free, and bold print caught her eye. There was a magazine tucked against the wall, its pages folded over to an article with a catchy headline. “Treasure Creek, Alaska, Seeks Brides for Hunky Habitants!” Rain dripped off her hair as she seized the magazine and spread it out on the table in front of her. Hunky men were looking for brides? Was this for real?

Sure enough, the picture above the headline showed a small town, tucked into the gentle embrace of thick, lush forests and reaching, breathtaking mountains. Another picture, inset into the article, showed a long-angled shot of a cute old-fashioned town and a sign that read, Welcome to Treasure Creek.

“A customer left that behind.” The waitress returned, overturned the cup and poured. “Interesting article. If I was single, I might hop in the car and go take a look. I mean, good, decent single men are hard to find.”

“And even when you do, they have commitment issues.”

“Amen, sister.” The waitress set the carafe down and hauled out her notepad. “Does anything on the menu look good?”

Maybe she could eat. She ordered a cup of soup and a club sandwich and turned her attention back to the Now Woman magazine article.

“Think all the good men are taken? Not so in tiny, charming Treasure Creek, Alaska, population 724. The hunky inhabitants are churchgoing, marriage-minded single men in a town with one woman for every five men! Many of them are tour guides for the town’s popular tour company, Alaska’s Treasures.”

Churchgoing and marriage-minded sounded good. In fact, it sounded heaven-sent. She grabbed the sugar jar and upended it over the steaming cup, stirring it into the black, tarry brew as she kept reading….

“Alaska’s Treasures is run by the founder’s widow, Amy James. They’re the best tour guides in the state, she says, proudly. And they’re the hottest, ladies. A handsome pediatrician, originally from the big city, moonlights as a tour guide along the famous Klondike Highway, the very route taken by the gold rush stampede of 1898. No worries if you break a nail on the trail, ladies, he’ll be right there to mend it!”

A glossy photograph of a totally hunky man with brownish hair and blue eyes stared back at her. The caption underneath the picture stated jauntily, “Doctor Alex Havens is single, ladies!”

Not bad. Karenna took a sip of coffee, let the heat and sweetness roll over her tongue. Rain sluiced down the window, smearing the view of the outside world, making the small diner seem cozy and the agony of the morning fade a notch. If only she could make her despair fade, too.

A muffled electronic chime rang from inside her purse. She unzipped the compartment and checked her cell. Her sister calling. Karenna squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the humiliation. Her stomach knotted, knowing what Kim would say. All that money, and no wedding. All the time spent, and for nothing. Come back and try to fix things.

She took a deep breath and let it ring. She wasn’t up to talking about her failures right now. What she needed was hope. She’d spent seven years of her life on a man who ran at the reality of marrying her. She’d wasted seven years loving someone who didn’t truly love her back.

When she opened her eyes, the article stared up at her. She turned the page and several more hunky men smiled up at her, all proclaimed bachelors, each handsome face looking like Mr. Right. Maybe these Alaska bachelors were the kind of men who knew how to keep promises and make commitments, men of honor and great of heart. Interested, she kept reading.

“So many of the guides, from the hunky chief of police to the strapping commercial fishermen, are among Alaska’s Most Eligible bachelors. So, ladies, if you’re looking for the adventure vacation of a lifetime that just might last a lifetime, what are you waiting for?”

Thirty-eight hours, forty-two minutes and a few coffee breaks later…

Chapter One

“I’ve got more diapers and formula,” Gage Parker grumbled into the pay phone on the corner of the town’s main street. Treasure Creek, Alaska, sandwiched between rugged snowcapped peaks and pristine forests, was an old gold-rush town currently jam-packed with women, thanks to some magazine article. He couldn’t hear a single word his grandmother said, because a pair of fancy women strolled by the booth, talking and giggling and commenting on how quaint everything was.

He didn’t like “quaint” and he didn’t like giggling women. Women were everywhere in a town where females were usually scarce. They’d all flown in with their mounds of luggage and driven in with their city cars—not a four-wheel-drive among them. Even in the falling twilight, he could see them. They strolled the sidewalks, took up tables at Lizbet’s Diner and went exploring in the wilderness, which is why he was out at nine forty-five at night when any sensible person would be home. But no, some clueless woman had gotten herself stuck halfway up a cliff this evening and he’d been on the search-and-rescue team that rapelled down to save her.

“I didn’t know rock climbing would be so hard,” the clueless gal had breathlessly explained, once she was clipped in and safely against his chest. She smiled coyly up at him. “My, don’t you have strong arms.”

Ugh. The lack of needy women was one of the big draws for moving from Seattle back to Alaska. His grandmother needing help had been the other.

“Sounds like all kinds of commotion is going on,” Gran chirped, downright chipper on the other end of the line. She would be. Nothing tickled her more than that article telling about how Treasure Creek’s men wanting for wives seriously outnumbered the available women. “Any of those gals catch your fancy, Gage?”

“Wishful thinking on your part. There would have to be something wrong with a woman to want to get tangled up with the likes of me.” He had proof of that in his ex-wife, who had been one of those women who’d wanted a wedding but not marriage. She’d seen her vows as merely a suggestion on how to behave as a wife. “Anything else you need me to do in town?”

“I’ll take pity on you, my boy, and I won’t tell you to find a nice girl and bring her on home—at least this time. You already know the baby could use a mama.”

Oh, she was having a heyday. Gage shook his head, trying to drum up some patience. He didn’t want to hurt the elderly woman’s tender feelings. “My nephew is doing just fine with the two of us. What I need is to find the right nanny, not a wife—just so we’re clear on that.”

“That won’t stop me from praying the right woman for you comes along.”

Great. More prayers. Just what he needed. God had better things to do than trying to fix the impossible. The darkness he’d seen in his recent life had only reinforced that. His baby nephew’s mother had died, his brother had been too busy to raise the child and dumped him off just shy of a week ago. Ben James, Gage’s boss and one of his close friends, had died in an on-the-job accident in January, leaving his wife, Amy, a widow, with two young sons and a struggling business. Not to mention his own fight to recover from a bitter divorce. That was plenty enough disillusion to go around.

Yep, there didn’t seem much reason to believe God was up there looking out for him. Not these days. He shook his head. “Gran, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that and head home.”

“You and that surly disposition of yours. You had better shape up. You never know when your future wife will come along and you go and scare her off. Why, you could meet her on the street tonight.”

“Sure, she could fall from the sky like manna from heaven.” He did his best not too sound too cynical. His grandmother was a firm believer. He didn’t want to mar that for her. He wished he had her strength of faith—a strength she maintained despite all her life’s hardships.

He ended the call and grumbled because his cell phone had run out of juice. He wove around another pair of women dressed up in what they thought was Alaska garb, who probably had bought their pricey outfits in some fancy boutique in Beverly Hills. Ridiculous. Thoroughly disgruntled, he hopped into his four-wheel-drive. He pulled his black SUV away from the curb and had to wait for someone in a Porsche—what were people thinking?—to squeeze into a space between a tractor and an ancient pickup, before he could motor away from the madness.

On the outskirts of town, he breathed a pent-up sigh of relief. He hadn’t dealt with traffic congestion since he’d been commuting across Seattle’s Evergreen Bridge twice a day.

His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, a bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. By the time he’d turned off the main road from town and headed home, twilight was deepening. He switched the vehicle’s headlights to bright. The beams swept the shadowed, narrow two-lane road, illuminating undergrowth, a long wood fence line and two grazing deer, who fled into the woods.

Something reflected up ahead. He slowed down, a bad feeling settling into his gut. It looked like dark taillights and the back window of a sports car. Not a car he recognized, and he knew everyone who lived on this road. Not one of his neighbors would be foolish enough to own a car they couldn’t drive when the weather turned and the roads muddied up.

Probably another one of those desperate women.

Great. Just what he needed. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. Tension seeped back into his muscles. He slowed down, close enough to make out a faded-purple Fiat perched on the narrow shoulder. The hood was up and the car appeared abandoned. A torn sign hung from the back window, bearing a single, bright pink word: Just.

He rolled to a stop and something white moved from behind the raised hood and into the sweep of his high beams. A woman. No, a bride. He dimmed the lights and hopped out of his rig. He noticed the Washington state plates, an expired UW parking permit decal in the window and the bad feeling in his gut turned into an ulcer. Not just another one of those marriage-crazy women who’d come to town, but this one had brought her wedding dress. How enterprising. Looked like she was having a bit of trouble, and not just with the car. He wondered what happened to the “Married” part of the sign, a sign that looked as tattered as she did.

“What are you doing here? This is a private road,” he bellowed.

“Yes, I figured that out as soon as I turned onto it. But is there a place to turn around anywhere? No.” She marched toward him, apparently not at all a shy, retiring sort of woman. He placed her as somewhere in her early to midtwenties. Fury punctuated every word and pounded in her heeled footsteps. “Obviously, I’m having car trouble. Do I look like I want to be here?”

“It’s hard to say, with the dress.”

“Oh, don’t even mention that.” Her eyes flared.

She could be a cute little thing if she wasn’t so angry. Note to self: Don’t let this one too close. It wasn’t often a man got to see what lurked beneath a woman’s guileless face and pretty smile before they said “I do.” What he could already see was a major turn-off. He took a step back, because he didn’t need this kind of a headache. He had enough of his own. “I’ll put a call in and get a tow truck out here.”

“Great. You have a cell phone?”

“Not a working one.”

“You don’t? You’re kidding, right? Mine wouldn’t get reception out here. Stupid phone.” She hiked up her skirt and gave the Fiat’s back tire a hard kick. “Stupid car.”

“Ordinarily, I’d worry about a woman alone at night, but my guess is that you can hold your own against any threat, including a bear.” No doubt a grizzly would take a look at her and run.

“Bears?” The anger drained away. She turned to face him, standing full in the light. Soft golden curls tumbled to her shoulders and framed a face that was both beautiful and unique. Big china-blue eyes dominated her pixie face, with a perfect slope of a nose and a mouth that had to have been sculpted by angels. “Are there really bears here?”

“Yes, but not many would want to take you on.” Maybe he’d better look at her engine first, then figure out what to do with her. “What’s with the car?”

“It started smoking. The temperature thingy has been higher than normal for a while. I think from about Vancouver on.”

“British Columbia?” He grabbed the flashlight he kept behind the seat.

“But a few miles down the road it started creeping into the red zone. There was no place to stop, so I turned in here, thinking there might be a house. But there are only trees.”

“And your husband? Didn’t he have the sense to check the fluids?” Please tell me there is a husband, he thought. “Where is he?”

“No idea.”

Figures. Love and marriage were supposed to mean something, but not to this flighty woman. “Why did you leave him? What was the problem? He wouldn’t do what you wanted? Wouldn’t take you on the honeymoon of your dreams? Give you every little thing you demanded?”

“Not your business.” The anger returned, her soft jawline went rigid and her hands turned into fists that looked ready to punch something. Maybe him. “What about the tow truck?”

“I’m going to have to call from home, but I’m not wild about taking you to my house.”

“Me, either.” She hiked up her chin. “Where’s the closest residence? I was about to grab my things and start walking, but I didn’t know which way to go. I haven’t seen anyone so far on this road.”

“Myron lives up a ways. You’re right. It’s too far to walk. I’ll take you there. Get in.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

That made two of them. She yanked open the Fiat’s door and pain shot through her fingertip. Another broken nail. The third one to break on this impulsive trip. So much for her pre-wedding spa day. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been. She’d been driving on pure anger, coffee and heartbreak all the way. She yanked her purse off the seat and followed the mountain man to his SUV. Maybe she should introduce herself. “I’m Karenna Digby.”

“Gage Parker.” He wasn’t a friendly sort, and there was no missing the frown he tossed at her. No doubt he didn’t think much of her.

And why would he? She looked a fright. If only she wasn’t wearing this stupid gown. This dress had been the start of her problems—the catalyst that set everything in motion. The gown she had to have, that had cost three months of her salary, because it had represented everything she’d prayed for as a little girl.

She gathered up her train, climbed into the passenger seat and groaned at the pristine condition of the leather. She sat down, wincing because she wasn’t exactly sure how much dirt, mud and grease was on her skirt. Should she apologize ahead of time? One sideways glance at Gage Parker made her change her mind about saying anything at all. Stoic guy, dark look, scary frown. Best to clean up any grime she left behind after she’d gotten out of the vehicle.

He slammed her door, circled in front of his Jeep and stalked through the headlights like a Sasquatch. He was deep shadows, big brawn and leashed power. Suddenly the shadowy woods seemed enormous and she felt very small. Miniscule, in fact. She’d been so steamed about Alan leaving her at the church, her broken-down car and her emotional decision to drive all the way to Alaska, it hadn’t even occurred to her she was alone with a strange man. Sitting in his SUV. He could be a rapist or a serial killer who lived in a weird cabin, miles from known civilization.

The driver’s door swung open and he angled in behind the wheel. No smile, no reassuring clue to signify he was a decent, respectable, law-abiding, nondangerous man. The dome light winked out, leaving him in shadow, making it easier to think the worst.

Okay, I’m out of my element, alone in the dark. Could You please send me a little sign here, Lord? Just something, so I know I’m all right? She knew the Lord might be busy. There was a world of strife and suffering He was tending to, but she still hoped for a small heavenly hint before the SUV started to roll and it was too late to jump out.

“When you get to Myron’s, be sure you call the hotel so they can hold your room.” The mountain man eased his vehicle around her disabled car and accelerated along the road. Twilit forests and a pair of antlers on a startled-looking deer sped past her window.

“My room?” She bit her lip, not quite wanting to admit the truth to the imposing man. Of course he would assume she had a reservation. Any sensible person would. But had she taken the time? No. She’d been too wound up and upset over Alan’s hastily scrawled note.

“I don’t love you enough to marry you,” he’d written. “You’re just too much to deal with.”

“You have a room, right?” Mr. Imposing glowered at her. The look on his face clearly said he thought she was one of those stupid women who wouldn’t have planned ahead.

Since she’d used that word a lot over the last thirty-eight and a half hours, she couldn’t argue with him. Her mother’s voice blasted in her head like a badly burned CD. “You have no common sense, Karenna. You don’t think things through. Who can blame Alan for chickening out? I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.”

No place to sleep. Another inadvertent blunder. She should have done an Internet search for Treasure Creek hotels. Now what? She couldn’t look at Mr. Disapproving, so she pulled at a loose thread on her embroidered skirt. “This wasn’t exactly a planned trip. I figured I could find something once I was here.”

“Do you realize half the women in the contiguous United States are in Treasure Creek? At least it seems that way. There can’t be an available hotel room within fifty miles.”

She hadn’t been the only one to read the article. Of course. She hadn’t looked before she leaped. She’d been too busy trying to escape her grief. How could she admit that out loud? She would have to talk about what happened—about her shattered hopes and Alan’s hurtful letter. Better to let this guy think she was a flake in a ruined wedding dress.

She twisted in the seat to take one last look at the shadowed hump of her car on the lonely road. That’s when she noticed something in the man’s backseat. A baby’s car seat. Tension rushed out of her and Gage Parker no longer looked intimidating or questionable. Strong and stoic and grim, maybe, but he was a father. A decent family man. That meant his wife and child were waiting for him at home. No wonder he was put out.

“Without a reservation, you’re probably out of luck,” he growled, wheeling his vehicle off the road and down a bumpy dirt driveway. “Myron might be able to suggest someone who could put you up for the night.”