Last Chance

by Jill Marie Landis

  Last Chance

  Jill Marie Landis

  * * *

  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 Nineteen

  * * *

  Dear Reader…

  Some books just have to be written. Last Chance is one of them. Reader response to two of the characters who appeared in After All (Jove, January 1995) was overwhelmingly in favor of a spin-off about Lane Cassidy and his teacher, Miss Rachel. Last Chance has been written in answer to those many, many requests.

  Rachel Albright McKenna's former problem student returns to Last Chance, Montana, as a hardened gunslinger who has yet a few more secrets to his past. Set in the West of the late 1800s, this is a story of two people who learn to love and trust themselves and each other despite the odds and challenges life throws their way.

  I hope you get as much enjoyment out of reading Last Chance as I did from writing it!

  Wishing you peace and joy,

  * * *

  Turn the page…

  and enter a world of romance and adventure!

  Discover the critically acclaimed novels

  of bestselling author fill Marie Landis…

  * * *

  Also by Jill Marie Landis…

  AFTER ALL

  The passionate and moving story of a dance hall girl trying to change her life in the town of Last Chance, Montana. Gruff rancher Chase Cassidy didn't think Eva had what it took to be housekeeper for a bunch of ranch hands. But he was in for a big surprise—when she captured his heart…

  UNTIL TOMORROW

  Cara James was a backwoods beauty who passed the time making rag dolls. Then a soldier returning home from the Civil War showed her that every dream is possible—even the dream of love…

  "Landis does what she does best by creating characters of great dimension, compassion, and strength."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "Four stars… a delicious delight."

  —Affaire de Coeur

  PAST PROMISES

  She was a brilliant paleontologist who came west in search of dinosaurs. But a rugged cowboy poet was determined to unearth the beauty and passion behind her bookish spectacles…

  "Warmth, charm and appeal… Past Promises is guaranteed to satisfy romance readers everywhere."

  —AMANDA QUICK

  "An incredible, poignant and humorous story… Past Promises shimmers with vitality… a love story of grand proportions!"

  —Romantic Times

  * * *

  * * *

  LAST CHANCE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / December 1995

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1995 by Jill Marie Landis.

  Cover art by Berney Knox.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  ISBN: 0-515-11760-9

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  JOVE and the "J" design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  * * *

  COME SPRING

  Winner of the

  "Best Romance Novel of the Year" Award

  Snowbound in a mountain man's cabin, beautiful Annika tried to resist his hungry glances—but learned that unexpected love can grow as surely as the seasons change…

  "A beautiful love story."

  —JULIE GARWOOD

  "A world-class novel… It's fabulous!"

  —LINDA LAEL MILLER

  "A winner."

  —DOROTHY GARLOCK

  JADE

  Her exotic beauty captured the heart of a rugged rancher. But could he forget the past—and love again?

  "Guaranteed to enthrall… an unusual, fast-paced love story."

  —Romantic Times

  ROSE

  Across the golden frontier, her passionate heart dared to dream…

  "A gentle romance that will warm your soul."

  —Heartland Critiques

  WILDFLOWER

  Amidst the untamed beauty of the Rocky Mountains, two daring hearts forged a perilous passion…

  "A delight from start to finish!"

  —Rendezvous

  SUNFLOWER

  Winner of the Romance Writers of America's

  "Golden Medallion for Best Historical Romance"

  Jill Marie Landis's stunning debut novel, this sweeping love story astonished critics, earning glowing reviews including a FIVE STAR rating from Affaire de Coeur…

  "A truly fabulous read! The story comes vibrantly alive, making you laugh and cry…"

  —Affaire de Coeur

  * * *

  Titles by Jill Marie Landis

  LAST CHANCE

  AFTER ALL

  COME SPRING

  JADE

  PAST PROMISES

  ROSE

  SUNFLOWER

  UNTIL TOMORROW

  WILDFLOWER

  * * *

  To Barnes and Barnes, Aloha nui;

  To the Birthday Club—Westbergs, DeCoudres and Schacks;

  To Maggi Davis, with an i;

  To the real Miss Rachel, for years of help and lots of laughter in the classroom;

  To Tucker Hannah, who wrote the best line in the book.

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Independence Day

  Montana, 1894

  The sun had long since slipped behind the distant mountains, but the day's revelry in Last Chance continued. It was the hottest Fourth of July anyone could recall, without even enough of a breeze to sway the rainbow of Chinese lanterns strung around the wooden dance floor set up at the respectable end of Main Street.

  The Last Chance Brass Band, accompanied by a drum, two fiddles and an off-key banjo player, pounded out a polka with all the gusto the heat and their ill-fitting red and gold uniforms would allow.

  Nearly a dozen wallflowers of all ages sat like sentries at the edge of the canvas-covered dance floor. Sitting with them, swathed from throat to ankle in proper widow's weeds, Rachel Albright McKenna shifted uncomfortably on the edge of a cane-bottom chair. Beneath the unrelieved, black grosgrain bodice of her gown, sweat trickled a slow, snaking path between her breasts. Fighting to ignore her discomfort, as well as the occasional stare that came her way, she felt detached as she watched laughing couples bob, dip and weave their way around the floor to the merry polka tune.

  I will not wear black tomorrow.

  The spontaneous thought came to her unbidden, startling in its intensity. Fearful that she might even have expressed the rebellious notion aloud, Rachel glanced around, but no one was paying any particular attention to her. That in itself was a welcome relief. Her husband, Stuart, had been dead a year, but whispered comments about the circumstances surrounding his death were still exchanged daily behind her back.

  Absolutely no more black.

  The resolution could not be dismissed. B
esides, she hated wearing widow's weeds as much as she despised the way some folks had taken to calling her Widow McKenna. Thirty seemed far too young to assume the title.

  Her father, were he alive, would have told her she had just received Divine Inspiration and should listen to it. As she sat there absently watching the dancers, she warmed to the idea that tomorrow she would definitely don something other than the mourning clothes convention dictated she wear.

  She had put up with the farce of mourning Stuart McKenna long enough. Now it was time for a change.

  As the music oompahed on, she imagined the thrill of packing away all of the matte black silks, the midnight bombazines, the ebony crepes that she had worn for so many tedious months. Tomorrow she would wear gray, or perhaps even lilac, colors of half-mourning that were certainly permitted—but usually after two full years of black.

  Her mother-in-law, Loretta McKenna, who would openly and dramatically grieve over her eldest son's untimely death for the rest of her life, would argue that surely another full year of black was appropriate, especially for the widow of a prominent man like Sheriff Stuart McKenna. Loretta would feel that it was far too soon to abandon tradition, that these things "just are not done, not in the McKenna family, anyway."

  Rachel sighed at the thought of the confrontation her act of defiance was bound to set off, but the hush of her sigh was lost amid the dancers' laughter and stomping feet as they whirled around the floor. Listlessly, she lifted the black lace fan she had hand-decorated with jet beads and a black tassel and tried to create enough breeze to offer slight relief from the heat.

  If only the music would end. Determined to leave at the next intermission, she looked forward to walking home. Waiting for her there were her son Tyson and her housekeeper, Delphie. She wondered if they had already gotten into the strawberry ice cream they had turned and then tucked into the icebox in the basement earlier that afternoon.

  Something stirred beside her. Rachel looked at the woman sitting next to her. Millie Carberry, owner of the general store and self-appointed town gossip, had just said something and seemed to be awaiting a response. Rachel continued to fan herself. It was impossible to converse over the music, so she mouthed, "What did you say?"

  Millie leaned closer and practically shouted in her ear, "I said, did you ever see such a sight? Why, when I was a girl, we weren't allowed to show our petticoats the way these young women do today. I think it's disgraceful."

  Millie's wide, stiff mouth flapped up and down like the lips of Ty's metal monkey bank did when it swallowed pennies. Rachel merely nodded and wondered if Millie Carberry had ever been young. There was nothing wrong with the way anyone was dancing.

  She smiled as a teenage girl danced past, gowned in a froth of white ruffles. Nearly every face on the temporary dance floor was familiar to her. Last Chance had still not grown so big that she didn't know all of her neighbors, especially the younger ones. Ten years ago she had taught at the newly built school-house just outside of town. Many of the dancers whirling by had once been her students.

  The afternoon had unfolded pleasantly enough for a holiday. Delphie had made up a big basket of picnic fare and, at Rachel's insistence, the housekeeper had accompanied her and Ty to the town picnic. There had been a parade at noon, political speeches delivered beneath the obligatory red, white and blue bunting stretched across Main Street, and enough intense July sunshine to pinken cheeks and redden bald heads. The day had been full. There had been no need for her to attend the dance, but some perverse curiosity had led her there. Now Rachel found herself wishing she had not subjected herself to the acute loneliness she felt whenever she was part of a crowd.

  She longed for the music to end. There was no joy in watching. She had not been asked to dance all evening—not that she had expected or even wanted to be. She wondered what had ever possessed her to attend in the first place. The decision to do so had come upon her suddenly, like the notion to abandon her widow's weeds. Lately she had felt adrift, buffeted about on the sea of life like a sailboat without a skipper. It was a sensation she did not care to embrace very long. With a glance over her shoulder, Rachel looked back down the length of Main Street, wondering if the marathon polka would ever end.

  Rachel pointedly ignored Millie Carberry, as well as the woman on her right, who, despite the blaring music, had fallen sound asleep, with her head lolling and her mouth gaping open. The matron was drooling quite unattractively on her bodice. Rachel looked away.

  The nearest Chinese lantern caught her eye. She watched the moths being drawn to the candle flames shimmering behind the translucent tissue paper. What magic hidden in the flames tempted the moths to their demise? What was it about the fire that the insects could not resist, not even to save themselves?

  Rachel felt as unfettered as the darting, fragile moths. There was a time, years ago—before she had married Stuart McKenna, before she had given up her teaching to become wife, mother, daughter-in-law—a time when she had felt confident and sure of herself. Back then she had been in control of her life and her destiny and looked forward to every day with purpose.

  But even eight years of marriage to Stuart could not compare with the trial of this one year of mourning. Now she was the Widow McKenna, and even now, an occasional topic of gossip on everyone's lips.

  No, nothing had been the same since Stuart McKenna, sheriff, father and husband, had inconveniently died of a heart attack in a shabby room above a saloon, atop one of the town's most notorious whores.

  Lane Cassidy stood in the shadows of a narrow alley between the barbershop and a bakery, hoping that his black clothing concealed his presence. Alone, shrouded in darkness, he shifted his stance and watched the crowd on the makeshift dance floor from beneath the brim of the black hat that rode low on his forehead.

  He recognized a few of the dancers who reveled beneath the unevenly hung paper lanterns. Two he could name. James Carberry, whose mother owned the general store, whirled past holding tight to a plump, matronly young woman whose smile revealed too many teeth. And it was impossible not to recognize Harold Higgens. Once a pest always a pest. Harold had to be fifteen now, and yet there he was, purposely treading on the boots of the unwary and trying to act as innocent as a virgin on her wedding night if anyone looked his way. Lane wondered if the brat still peed his britches whenever he got scared.

  How could he have forgotten it was Independence Day? A day when families and neighbors gathered together for picnic socials, parades, dances and fireworks displays. A holiday that, like all the rest, held no special meaning for a man like him.

  If Lane had recalled what day it was, he would have put off his arrival until the festivities were over. It would have been easier to slip into town unnoticed, rent a bed at a local establishment and see his business through to its end with as little fanfare as possible.

  But he had never been one to pay particular attention to the calendar—which is how he came to find himself lurking in the dark like the delinquent most of the good townsfolk remembered and wondering whatever possessed him to think he could come back to Last Chance without stirring up the past.

  He didn't notice her until the tempo accelerated and the dancers who could no longer keep up with the music fell into each other's arms and with laughter and apologies left the floor together. As the crowd began to thin, the remaining dancers ebbed and flowed and he caught a glimpse of Rachel Albright across the dance floor.

  He nearly called her name, so great was his surprise when he recognized her. Then, almost instantly, he slipped into the measured calm he called upon whenever he found himself in a tense situation. Lane hooked his thumbs into his gun belt and pressed a shoulder against the wall beside him.

  For now, it was enough just to watch her.

  Rachel Albright. Miss Rachel. His Miss Rachel.

  Seated alone beneath one of the paper lanterns, she stared not at the crowd, but upward, at a saffron Chinese lantern that hung suspended above her. The dancing candlelight shone down
upon her upturned face to bathe it with a shimmering halo. He thought the crown of light fitting, exactly right for someone as angelic as Miss Rachel.

  Ten years ago she had been his teacher and his only friend. She had harbored him when he had no place else to go, defended him, attempted to teach him to read and write. But then all he knew how to be was insolent, headstrong and scared as hell of his past and what the future held in store for him.

  Ten years that seemed a lifetime ago.

  He watched her with a curious hunger that had nothing to do with the heady scent of bread that emanated from the bakery next door. She was intent on the paper lamp. One of her hands lay forgotten in her lap, her skin a pale ivory in the candlelight. In the other, she held a fan which she slowly ruffled back and forth in a quiet effort to create a wisp of coolness. The light played across a row of jet beads on the fan, which was as black as her gown.

  Realization hit him immediately. She was clothed entirely in black—the color of mourning. Again, he felt an intense urge to go to her. Again he held himself back. She had no family living when he left, and yet there she sat, clothed in midnight, from the stiff lace at her throat to the hem that brushed the instep of her black shoes. He caught a glimpse of black stocking as she tapped her toe to the rapid beat of the polka. There was not so much as a pearl button on her gown.

  Deep mourning. The tribute a wife reserved for a husband, a mother for her child.