by Jill Gregory
Finally, the housekeeper’s expression broke into a wide grin. “You’re sure every inch the lady.” She chuckled, then shook her head wonderingly. “Who would’ve guessed that my wild little monkey would’ve turned into such a high falutin’ fancy-looking gal?”
She said it with love and rich pleasure, and looked ready to burst with pride.
“Well, fancy... maybe. The clothes are, at least.” Emma laughed. “But I feel it only fair to warn you—even now, I wouldn’t turn my back on a fresh-baked chocolate cake, Corinne, if I were you.”
“Which you ain’t, that’s for sure. If you was me, you’d be plumb tuckered out. I’ve been cooking your homecoming meal all afternoon, and now it’s going to burn if I don’t get back in that kitchen and tend to it.”
This was the Corinne she remembered. Always muttering, grumbling, her bark far worse than her bite.
“Mmmm.” Emma sniffed the air appreciatively. “Don’t tell me you fixed roasted chicken?”
“And beef stew. And them potatoes fried with onions you always had a hankering for.”
“And chocolate cake,” Win Malloy added, winking at Emma as Corinne sent him a scowl before bustling back toward the kitchen.
Hefting Emma’s trunk, he started toward the curving oak staircase. “Corinne’s been fussing in the kitchen for days. And polishing floors and lamps as if royalty was coming to stay.”
“Everything looks wonderful, Papa.”
“You’ll find that nothing much has changed since you’ve been away.” He turned right at the head of the stairs and led the way to her bedroom. “I’ve kept your room as it was. Thought you might want to add some new things, pick out what you want. I expect you’ll want some fancy female knickknacks. Maybe some new curtains. Whatever you like, Em. Change whatever you want in the house, too. This is your home, and it should suit you now that you’re all grown up.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a few ideas about that. I brought some things with me from Philadelphia, from Aunt Loretta’s house. But oh...”
She broke off as she reached her doorway. Warmth and pleasure and a thousand happy memories flooded through her.
It was all just as she remembered. The room was large and simply furnished, with a wide featherbed covered by the same green and blue patterned quilt she’d had since she was a child, and with the same rag doll cradled on a pillow in the center. The green cotton curtains at the window were somewhat faded now, as was the rag rug across the polished wood floor, but the bedside table and lamp, the bookshelves, and the big oak dresser with the gold-framed photograph of her mother sitting atop it, beside a white china pitcher and basin, were as sturdy and solid as ever.
“It does feel wonderful to be home,” she said softly, glancing over at her father with satisfaction. But with a sinking of her heart, she saw that he looked distracted again. His brows were knit, his eyes shadowed with worry, and it was obvious his mind had wandered to something other than her homecoming.
Something that deeply troubled him.
“Papa, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”
He stiffened, and his attention sharpened on her, even as a flush came over his face. “Nothing, honey. Nothing worth speaking of. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“Is there something I should be worried about?”
“Yep, sure is.” He moved toward her and pinched her cheek, a glint of warm humor suddenly lighting his eyes. “How you’re going to beat off all the young cowpokes for miles around once they hear you’re home. And once they see what a looker my little girl’s grown into. Why, I’ll have to fight ‘em off night and day—”
“Papa,” she scolded him. “You’re changing the subject.”
He grinned at her.
“See you downstairs, honey. I reckon you’ll want to rest for a while after your trip.”
Then Emma was alone in the room of her childhood, surrounded by the familiar sights and smells—the dancing fragments of memory.
Papa’s probably only concerned about some minor problem with the ranch, she told herself as she set her small silk handbag on the table. She made up her mind to coax him into telling her about it at supper.
Then, with light, eager steps she crossed to the window and lifted the curtain, hoping to catch the final glow of sunset. But she was too late. Mysterious gray darkness draped the land. But pure Montana air wafted like cool silk over her, and she knew that the glorious mountains and canyons, the grass-rich plains, and the singing waterfalls were out there and would be there in the morning, as they had been a thousand mornings before.
She could wait.
For now, all she could see were the shadowy shapes of the ranch outbuildings and in the distance, the jaggedness of black looming peaks.
Whisper Valley—the most beautiful place on earth.
“I won’t leave you again,” she whispered.
She thought of the letter inside her handbag, the letter from Derek Carleton tucked alongside her lace handkerchief and velvet money pouch.
It was a marriage proposal, written in Derek’s flawless black script, and it was eloquent and heartfelt. She’d memorized every word of it.
But she had yet to answer it.
First, I guess I need to decide if I’m in love with him, Emma thought ruefully, tracing a finger across the windowpane.
Love. That was something she hadn’t yet figured out. How did one know when one was in love? She enjoyed Derek’s company when he escorted her to balls and parties and operas. She liked him, she enjoyed kissing him—but she didn’t feel anything like the raging passion she’d always associated with being in love.
And, even if she did love him, Emma had made up her mind that she would only marry him if he would agree to live here in Montana, preferably at Echo Ranch.
And that was one very big “if.”
Derek was headstrong and ambitious, and the son of a powerful railroad magnate. He had plans of his own. And she wasn’t sure if he loved her enough to meet the one condition she’d impose if she did decide to accept his proposal.
She wanted to live in Montana. Period.
Her gaze fixed again on the darkness beyond her window and shifted, without her being aware of it, to the south, where the Garrettson ranch straddled a huge chunk of the valley.
Emma’s turquoise eyes narrowed. Why was she thinking about the Garrettsons?
None of them are worth a plug nickel, she reflected, letting the curtain drop. They were the only part of Whisper Valley she hadn’t missed at all—especially Tucker Garrettson.
With any luck at all, he’d have left home by now and she’d never see him again. That would suit her just fine.
Luck? Emma whirled away from the window. She kicked off her shoes and sank down on the bed to rub her feet.
It was luck that had started the feud between the Malloys and the Garrettsons sixteen years ago. Her father’s luck.
True to his name, Win Malloy had beaten Jed Garrettson at poker one fateful night—and in a flash had gone from being a rancher of modest means and aspirations to one of the richest stockmen in the valley. On that single final hand, he’d won half of the Garrettson spread—the biggest spread in the valley.
And made himself an enemy for life.
Three enemies actually. Jed and his two sons, Beau and Tucker.
Grimacing to herself, Emma whipped the ribbon from her hair, shook it loose, and lay back against the pillows of her bed. Against her will, the image of the younger son, Tucker, swam into her mind. Tucker was her nemesis, her enemy. Since their childhoods, the feud had enveloped them, hardened them, one against the other.
Except for that one day... that terrible, humiliating, unforgettable day...
It had happened just days before she’d gone away to school. She’d been fourteen then, teetering oh-so-awkwardly on the brink of womanhood. He was nearing his eighteenth birthday.
But with a strangely vivid intensity she remembered the breadth of his shoulders, and, even at that young age, the promise of raw, rough ha
ndsomeness he’d exuded. She could still see the sunlight gilding his sandy hair that day he’d “rescued” her, the mocking glint in eyes that were stunningly, devastatingly blue...
It had been warm and humid that day in May—warm enough so that the flowers drooped in their grassy beds and gave off a sweet scent that lingered in the air, and warm enough so that Emma had coiled her hair high on her head that morning, leaving her neck bare to catch whatever coolness the breeze might offer. She’d stepped down wrong on the rough track that ran along a belt of trees and had gone down hard. The ferocious bite of pain had actually made her feel faint for a moment.
But then she’d recovered and had tried to stand, only to gasp at the wrenching pain that shot through her ankle.
She couldn’t get up.
She was half a mile from home, she’d realized.
And nearly the same distance from the schoolhouse. Her books and papers had scattered when she’d fallen, and the little sketch she’d made of a barn kitten was streaked with dirt.
Now what am I going to do? Emma had wondered in dismay as the sun beat down on her shoulders and her ankle throbbed.
But she hadn’t cried. She’d crawled on her hands and knees to gather up her sketch and her books, then had forced herself to stand. Gritting her teeth, she’d hobbled forward. Each step was agony. But she had to get home and she refused to crawl.
By the time she’d made it to the bottom of a knoll, with another rise curving before her, she’d been ready to weep. But she took another step. And another. And then suddenly, with the next, the pain intensified, everything blurred, and she went down again with a cry of sheer frustration.
That’s when Tucker had appeared. Sneering at her. Through a blur of hot tears, which she’d angrily swiped at with the back of her hand, she’d looked up to find him towering over her.
“What do you want?” she’d demanded, her voice shaking as much with wrath as with pain.
“Question is, what do you want? Do you want to get home?”
“No, you idiot, I want to go to Timbuktu. Now get out of my way.”
She’d clutched at her books then and stumbled up, determined to walk away from him without so much as a wince. But the pain was almost more than she could bear, and the moment her foot touched the ground fresh agony splintered through her—and then Tucker moved forward so fast she thought he was going to knock her over, but instead he scooped her up.
She might have weighed no more than one of the flowers crushed beneath his booted feet as he grabbed her and hoisted her into his arms with a grunt.
Of course she’d hit him. With her books. She’d slammed them against his shoulder. “Let me go. Damn you, Garrettson, get your hands off me. I can walk.”
“The hell you can.”
“The day I need help from anyone named Garrettson is the day I’ll shoot myself.”
“Then go home and shoot yourself. See what I care.”
“I’ll shoot you if you don’t set me down. Or else my Pa will—as soon as he finds out you touched me.”
“As if I’m scared of your Pa.” He’d snorted then, and continued walking, breathing a bit hard, but holding her tightly, and Emma had been so shocked by this turn of events that she’d forgotten to keep hitting him and instead had clutched at her books and thought that never in a million years would she have expected a Garrettson—especially Tucker Garrettson—to come to her aid.
Not that she’d needed him to, not at all. She could have made it home herself, it simply would have taken a while longer. But it seemed like an eternity with him trudging along carrying her, and she tried hard not to move, not even to breathe, for it was the strangest feeling to be held this tight and this close by her enemy.
It was easy to hate him—his being a Garrettson was enough. Added to that was his undeniable good looks, and the fact that for years he’d been the only boy in school as quick as she was at learning arithmetic and facts and spelling.
Of course, he was older. But every time he’d shown her up over the past years, Emma had resented him a little more. Just as she resented the smug smile on his face when he reached the first outbuildings of Echo Ranch and halted.
“Guess this is the end of the road, Sunshine.”
“So what are you waiting for? Set me down.”
He did. He dropped her on her rump in a pile of hay behind the corral. It was Emma’s turn to grunt.
Tucker knelt down on one knee beside her. There was laughter in his eyes now, infuriating laughter which made hot color rush into Emma’s already flushed cheeks. Her turquoise eyes flashed like a sky caught in storm.
“Next time maybe you’ll say thank you and I won’t have to drop you on your butt,” he told her, grinning.
“You’ve got the manners of a mongrel, Garrettson! Get off my land!”
“Your land?” His eyes looked as icy cold as a glacier. “Only because your pa cheated at cards.”
She slapped his face, her hand leaving a red mark on his left cheek.
For a moment, deathly stillness gripped the summer air. From the corrals came the muted sounds of horses whickering, of cowhands whistling or calling to one another. She could hear her father’s hound dog, Blue, barking in the distance. But she might have been alone on the ranch, for she was isolated here beyond the corral, half hidden by the stables. Isolated on the fringes of the ranch—with Tucker Garrettson.
“Go on,” Emma challenged, her chin rising as she gazed into his eyes. “Hit me back, I dare you!”
“I should.” When Tucker had leaned in closer, looming over her, it was all she could do not to flinch.
“I damn well should, Malloy. You ought to have thanked me, ‘stead of hitting me. The coyotes could have gobbled you up for supper before you crawled home on your own. A simple thank-you would have been enough, but I guess it’s too much to expect from a Malloy.”
He grabbed her up by the front of her plaid shirt then, yanking her halfway off the ground. “I never should have bothered with you.”
“Who asked you to?” She pried at his fingers trying to loosen them, but he only held on tighter.
“Let me go, or I’ll hit you again! Or scream!” she gasped, frightened and uncertain, suddenly aware that their faces were only inches apart. The blaze of his eyes sent a strange beat coursing through her, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
“The hell you will.”
“I will... I...”
What happened then surprised both of them. Tucker stared at her furiously and then he kissed her—just pulled her close and kissed her. Before either one of them realized it.
He let her go just as suddenly, expelling his breath in a rush, shock showing on his face, and for a moment Emma couldn’t remember where she was. She couldn’t even remember who she was.
Then it all came flooding back. Especially the fact that Tucker Garrettson’s lips had touched her own. She scrubbed furiously at her mouth.
“Get out! Get away from me!” she yelled.
He stepped back, looking stunned. Raking a hand through his hair, he knocked his hat off; then stooped quickly to pick it up—but not before she’d seen that his face was every bit as flushed as her own.
“I just did it to shut you up.” He sounded dazed, his gruff voice filled with a hollow disbelief. He seemed to be speaking almost to himself. “It didn’t mean a thing.”
“Damn right it didn’t!” Emma shouted.
Before she could shout at him again, he turned on his heel and strode away, back the way he’d come. Not fast, not as if he was scared that she’d call out for one of the hands, or her father. His gait was steady, sure, and deliberately unhurried.
Emma couldn’t take her eyes off him until he vanished over a rise.
Then she’d hauled herself up, hobbled the rest of the way to the house—and spent the next five years trying to wipe that kiss from her mind as she’d wiped it from her lips.
Now Emma sat up abruptly, restless and irritated with herself.
Why o
n earth was she thinking about Tucker Garrettson when she ought to be thinking of nothing except the pleasure of being home?
Damn him. Damn his entire family for all the trouble they’d caused. If not for the Garrettsons sharing the valley, coming into town, inhabiting the earth, life would be far sweeter.
Deliberately, she banished his image from her mind.
She refused to let Tucker Garrettson—or any of the Garrettsons—spoil her homecoming. Not for a minute.
* * * * * * * * *
Titles by Jill Gregory
Now Available As Ebooks
THE COWBOY HEROES WESTERN SERIES
Always You
Never Love A Cowboy
Cold Night, Warm Stranger
Daisies in the Wind
Cherished
When the Heart Beckons
And Then There Was You (a novella
THE STOLEN HEARTS REGENCY SERIES
Forever After
Moonlit Obsession
Just This Once
About the Author
Jill Gregory is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of more than thirty five historical and contemporary novels.
She has received the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as back-to-back Reviewer’s Choice awards for Best Western Historical Romance. Her books have been published in more than twenty-four countries. Her contemporary suspense novel SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE, co-written with Karen Tintori, was adapted into a CBS TV movie of the week and was excerpted in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
Jill’s most recent series is her contemporary LONESOME WAY book series (SAGE CREEK, LARKSPUR ROAD, BLACKBIRD LAKE and SUNFLOWER LANE), set in Montana and published by Berkley Sensation.
Jill grew up in Chicago and received her bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Illinois. An animal lover, Jill loves long walks, reading, hot tea on a winter’s day, and the company of friends. She lives in Michigan with her husband, and enjoys her home overlooking the woods where the deer, rabbits, squirrels, and an occasional owl or hawk come out to play.
For more information, visit Jill’s website.