Montana Welcome (The Blackwell Sisters)

by Melinda Curtis

  A bride on the run

  And a cowboy to show her the way home...

  Lily Harrison’s wedding day isn’t quite what she imagined. Not only does her fiancé not love her, she’s just discovered she’s a Blackwell—a member of Montana’s well-known ranching family. Now Lily’s ditched her own wedding for a road trip with handsome cowboy Conner Hannah. But will Lily find her answers in Montana...or lose the cowboy she’s already begun falling for?

  “Slow dances were made for confessions...”

  Lily swiveled in her seat. “I shouldn’t be dancing. Or having fun. I just left a man at the altar.”

  “Technically, he never stood on the altar.” Conner took Lily’s hand. When they were together, it was easy to forget all the reasons they shouldn’t be. “Dance with me, Lily.”

  She didn’t move.

  Emotions were spinning in Conner’s chest, trying to break free. “Sometimes, you have to go with your gut, even if others might raise their eyebrows. Sometimes, you have to honor your feelings, because they don’t fit into a polite box. But following those feelings makes you feel more like yourself.”

  Being with Lily made Conner feel all kinds of emotions he’d kept locked away since his accident—guilt, tenderness, duty, joy. “Let’s dance, Lily. Just you and me.”

  Because they’d be in Falcon Creek tomorrow and go their separate ways. Because feelings got in the way of responsibilities. Always.

  Dear Reader,

  I enjoy writing about characters that have made bad decisions in their past and suddenly wake up to find themselves in a bind. How did their lives come to this? And what are they going to do about it now?

  The key players in this story each find themselves at a crossroads. Old Elias Blackwell has just found out he has a son and a set of five granddaughters. Lily Harrison, one of said granddaughters, is having doubts about marrying her childhood best friend. And Conner Hannah is realizing there might be more to life than working on the Blackwell Ranch. The decisions these three make, the emotions they sort out...they impact the entire Hannah, Harrison and Blackwell families.

  I hope you enjoy this installment of The Blackwell Sisters, as well as the upcoming books in the series. It was a joy working on another project with my writing sisters—Amy Vastine, Anna J. Stewart, Carol Ross and Cari Lynn Webb. Yes, this wasn’t our first writing rodeo, so to speak. And yes, we’re something of a family. We all share a love of handsome heroes and a sense of humor, one we wield on the sometimes painful journey to a happily-ever-after.

  Happy reading!

  Melinda

  Montana Welcome

  Melinda Curtis

  Melinda Curtis is the USA TODAY bestselling author of lighthearted contemporary romance. In addition to her Mountain Monroe series for Harlequin Heartwarming, she’s published independently and with Forever Romance. Look for a TV movie based on her Harlequin Heartwarming title Dandelion Wishes. Between books, Melinda spends time with her husband remodeling their home by swinging a hammer, grouting tile and wielding a paintbrush.

  “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll want to visit again soon!” says Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author, about Can’t Hurry Love.

  “A small town brought to life with wit and charm,” says Sheila Roberts, New York Times bestselling author, about Can’t Hurry Love.

  Books by Melinda Curtis

  Harlequin Heartwarming

  The Mountain Monroes

  Kissed by the Country Doc

  Snowed in with the Single Dad

  Rescued by the Perfect Cowboy

  Lassoed by the Would-Be Rancher

  Enchanted by the Rodeo Queen

  Charmed by the Cook’s Kids

  Return of the Blackwell Brothers

  The Rancher’s Redemption

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Carol Ross, Cari Lynn Webb, Amy Vastine and Anna J. Stewart. I know I often scare you with my writing ideas—“Come on! Let’s write another set of Blackwell books!” Thanks for having my back so I don’t face plant on a public sidewalk. Love you, ladies!

  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

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THE DALMATIAN DILEMMA BY CHERYL HARPER

  PROLOGUE

  SEVEN WAS A magical age for Lily Harrison.

  Six had been pretty good, too. But seven...

  It was the first year she hadn’t been in the same classroom as her triplet sisters, Amanda and Georgie. The first year Mom had called her a big girl and it felt like she meant it. Before that, her older sister, Peyton, had been the big girl.

  Being seven was cool. It was nothing like being five, like Fiona, the baby in the family, who could barely tie her shoes.

  Lily was seven when Danny Belmonte moved in next door. He was seven, too. And in her class.

  From her perch on top of the backyard swing set, she watched his family carry boxes and furniture into the house. From there she could see Danny’s driveway and his back porch. The Belmontes were navy, same as the Harrisons. But they had three boys, all of whom had dark, curly hair and rich, loud laughs. Lily had wondered what they’d think of their new neighbors—five girls who, according to Dad, shrieked and shouted and generally “carried on” nonstop.

  While Lily was enjoying her bird’s-eye view of the Belmontes moving in, Danny stepped out onto the rear deck with a plastic baseball bat and a Wiffle ball. He took a swing and whacked the ball over the fence into Lily’s yard.

  “Gahhh!” Danny stomped off the deck and onto the grass, out of sight.

  Lily didn’t think twice. She swung to the ground, picked up the ball and threw it back over.

  “Hey. Who did that?” Danny ran to the fence and pressed one eye to an open knothole. “A girl?” He made a sound like she did when presented with beets on her dinner plate.

  “Yeah.” Lily scrambled to the first branch of the apple tree and looked down on him the way Peyton looked down on her sometimes. “So?”

  Danny scrunched his face. “Girls don’t get ta play baseball.”

  “Who says?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Well, that’s stupid.” Lily pointed her thumb at her chest. “I play everything.” That was true. She wasn’t much of a reader, like Georgie and Peyton, and didn’t like to sew and stuff, like Amanda and Fiona. “My dad says I’m the sporty girl.”

  Danny pounded his bat in the dirt. “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  A grin spread across his face, a grin she recognized since it was much like her own. “You wanna do something super fun?”

  “Yeah!” Because shrieking and shouting and carrying on weren’t really super fun.

  And so started an instant friendship based on Danny’s wild ideas and Lily’s determination not to say no.

  Lily was close to her sisters, but
Danny was truly like her brother from another mother. During their first year of friendship, they shrugged off skinned knees and stubbed toes. They laughed at clothes they’d torn from climbing trees. Together they egged each other on and got away with a lot.

  And then the day before Lily, Amanda and Georgie were going to turn eight, Danny came up with the best plan—they were going to launch themselves in a homemade rocket. Lily couldn’t wait.

  In reality, the supersonic rocket was the box the Harrisons’ new dishwasher had come in. Their launching pad was the top of the slide attached to one end of the swing set. Danny had made holes in the box for their heads and feet to stick out. Lily had drawn red stripes on each side of the box with a marker because she refused to let him do all the work.

  They pushed their boxy rocket to the upper platform and looked down.

  “Don’t rockets shoot up?” Lily asked.

  “We’re going to take off like a plane.” Danny sliced his hand down through the air and then up toward the sky. “Whoosh!”

  Over at the picnic table, Amanda clasped her hands and Georgie hugged her first-aid kit. Fiona sat in the sandbox. She’d arranged a row of dolls in front of her to watch. Peyton had left a book on the picnic table and gone inside, probably to get Mom or Dad.

  “It’s not high enough.” Danny frowned. He pointed to the shed Dad had built last weekend, the one that was within touching distance from the slide. “We’ll start up there and fly over here. It’ll be cool.”

  Of course, Lily agreed. When had Danny ever led her wrong?

  While they wrestled the box up to the roof of the shed, Amanda came forward and wrung her hands. “Don’t. It’s too high.”

  “It’s not,” Danny scoffed. While Lily held the box, he scrambled inside, using his feet to hold the rocket at the roof’s peak.

  “You’ll break something!” Georgie still hugged her first-aid kit.

  “Will not!” Danny snapped.

  Fiona started to sob in the sandbox.

  Deep inside Lily, something didn’t feel so good. Just last week Dad had told her she had to slow down and think. Danny said slow was boring. Nothing was boring when Danny was around. But that didn’t make the sick feeling in her tummy go away. Lily wished Peyton would hurry back with Mom.

  “Ready?” Danny grinned.

  Lily crawled into the unsteady box and poked her head out the top.

  “Here we go!” Danny drew his feet in.

  The box slid down the roof and off the edge. For one exhilarating moment they were flying just like Danny had promised.

  But that moment was short-lived. The rocket never made it to the slide.

  They dropped.

  On the way down, Lily’s head whacked something hard and then they landed in a heap.

  The next thing Lily remembered was Dad telling Danny he had to cut out the shenanigans and watch out for Lily.

  All the time.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “OF COURSE I’LL take care of Lily.” Danny’s voice drifted down the hallway. “But I don’t need to marry her to do that.”

  Lily froze at the corner of the church corridor in San Diego with a soft rustle of tulle.

  She’d left the bridal vestibule to find Danny and ask him if this was something they shouldn’t be doing, like that rocket ride from long ago. Because it didn’t feel right. Their engagement. This wedding. Things had happened too fast. He hadn’t even told her he loved her!

  “Oh, you need to marry her.” The man Lily had called Dad for twenty-nine years, the man whose name she’d just discovered was not on her birth certificate, spoke in the commanding tones of a naval officer to his subordinate.

  “She had a scare,” Danny said respectfully to his boss. “But this is all just...rushed.”

  Danny has cold feet, too?

  Lily held her breath, waiting for her heart to break.

  It didn’t.

  It should, right? If I love him?

  “Aren’t you the one who always cautions Lily and me to stop and think before we act?” Danny said in a much louder voice, the timbre resonating with annoyance. “We need to take a breath, sir.”

  “We?” It was a good thing the man who’d raised Lily and her sisters was wearing his dress whites and not his weapon. Rudy sounded like there was just cause to use deadly force on Lily’s fiancé. “We lost Susan six months ago. We nearly lost Lily a week later when you took her skydiving.”

  “Something wild always makes her feel more alive,” Danny retorted.

  Not always.

  Lily steadied herself with one hand against the wall as the memories intruded.

  Being tossed by currents of wind. The earth rushing up toward her. The mind-numbing fear. If not for Danny, she would have plunged to her death.

  “You’re the reason she’s the way she is,” Dad—Rudy—said harshly, referring to their childhood. “Don’t forget that.”

  Lily stared at her hands, feeling numb.

  She loved Danny. Truly, she did. He always had her back. But she wasn’t sure she loved him the way you were supposed to love a husband. They’d been best friends for over twenty years and had only kissed for the first time when Danny proposed to her—the day after she’d nearly died skydiving. He was good at the kissing thing and Mom had just died of an aneurysm and she’d said yes, except...

  I don’t love him to the tips of my toes.

  Lily swallowed thickly; sad, but not heartbroken. Sad, but oddly...relieved.

  We shouldn’t be getting married.

  As quietly as possible, Lily turned in her ball-gown wedding dress and made her way back down the church corridor, wondering what she was going to do.

  Stop the wedding.

  But...

  Dad—Rudy—had spent a fortune on it.

  Lily opened the door to the bridal vestibule and eyed her four sisters in their lilac bridesmaid dresses. They were smiling and laughing, so carefree.

  The champagne might have had a little to do with that.

  Lily, who hadn’t drunk anything, was a wreck.

  The Harrison sisters surrounded Lily, chattering excitedly, perhaps eager for the upcoming nuptials, perhaps sensing her uncertainty.

  Was Lily uncertain? No. She knew what she should do. And it didn’t involve walking down the aisle on the arm of a man who wasn’t her father to pledge herself to a man who didn’t want to marry her.

  “I need some time alone.” Time to work up the courage to stop the wedding. Lily tried to smile at her sisters.

  Peyton, the oldest, frowned. “Now isn’t the time to be alone.”

  Fiona, the youngest, moved toward the door. “If Lily needs a few minutes to collect her thoughts, we should leave.”

  “What can I get you? A stiff drink? Aspirin?” Dr. Georgie Harrison, one of the triplets, would never stop trying to make things better for everyone around her.

  “I don’t think you should be alone.” Amanda tenderly touched Lily’s ornate updo. Of all her sisters, Lily was closest to Amanda. “There’s something about your mood today that worries me.”

  “I just need a few minutes.” Refusing to be put off, Lily opened the door. “Please go...find Dad.”

  As was usual with the Harrison sisters, it took more than a little effort to shoo them out the door.

  Finally, Lily was alone with that familiar feeling of unease, the one that preceded an activity Danny would consider perfect and Rudy would consider rash. She had to find the strength to stand behind her decision to stop the wedding.

  Her decision would be challenged. To be honest, most of her decisions were challenged by her family.

  Stay out of trouble. Rudy’s words echoed in her head. Honor your word. Live up to the military code of conduct. Do the right thing.

  Canceling the wedding, refusing to get married... Her word would
be broken, and mayhem would ensue.

  Mayhem. The ripple made by my life.

  Rudy’s anticipated displeasure descended upon her like a cold, wet blanket.

  Lily drew a deep breath, and—

  The door opened behind her.

  She spun with a swirl of voluminous skirt, the momentum of which nearly carried her in a complete circle.

  A cowboy stood in the doorway. A handsome cowboy.

  Lily blinked. This was San Diego. Cowboys didn’t just mosey on by.

  Tan cowboy hat, black cowboy boots, a blue checked shirt and dark blue jeans. Yep. It was a cowboy. His body was lean, his features chiseled, and his expression said he was uncomfortable being here.

  That makes two of us.

  “Can I help you?” Lily asked.

  The cowboy stepped aside to allow an elderly man through. And then the cowboy closed the door and leaned against it.

  “Lily Harrison. You have doubts.” The old man’s white hair was thinning. His brown cowboy boots were scuffed. His face was wrinkled and lined from years of sun exposure. His blue wool suit was rumpled and worn at the elbows. Everything about him looked washed out. Everything, that was, except for his eyes. Those dark orbs were focused on Lily. “You have doubts,” he repeated. “About who you are. About getting married.”

  “How did you...?”

  Who am I if not Rudy Harrison’s daughter?

  She’d been asking herself that question for a few weeks now, ever since she’d requested a copy of her lost birth certificate from the county clerk and had noticed Rudy Harrison’s name wasn’t on the line labeled Father. She would have asked Rudy about it except he’d been in overprotective mode ever since Mom’s death and Lily’s near accident.

  And her four sisters?

  They weren’t as close as they used to be now that they didn’t live under the same roof. Lily and Amanda were always in touch since they were the ones still living in San Diego, but mostly Lily felt like the loose end the family wanted to wrap in cotton so they could carry on with their own lives. So she’d kept the birth certificate revelation to herself.