by Laurie Paige
Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!
“I’ve wanted to touch you since you walked into the cabin in that fancy bride’s outfit.”
“It wasn’t fancy,” Leanne protested.
“You were beautiful in it,” Cade said. “A dream come to life.”
He touched her hair, startling her as he smoothed the tangles caused by the busy day. Electricity ran through her scalp and down her neck, lodging in the middle of her chest. There was something in him, some breath-stealing darkness that called to something equally wild and restless within her, a quality she hadn’t known she possessed until she’d stumbled into his hidden lair.
She didn’t know why he made her feel this way, and it bothered her. No man had ever induced the pulsing sensations that throbbed inside her, demanding attention. It confused her. It made her angry.
And it excited her beyond all reason.
LAURIE PAIGE
Cheyenne Bride
LAURIE PAIGE
“One of the nicest things about writing romances is researching locales, careers and ideas. In the interest of authenticity, most writers will try anything…once.” Along with her writing adventures, Laurie has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the Romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award finalist for Best Traditional Romance and has won awards from RT Book Reviews for Best Silhouette Special Edition and Best Silhouette Book, in addition to appearing on the USA TODAY bestseller list. Settled in Northern California, Laurie is looking forward to whatever experiences her next novel will bring.
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
One
Cade Redstone pulled his mount to a halt on the trail at the edge of the woods. Protected from the wind by the trees, he surveyed the broad meadow below. To think that part of it was his…or would be if the sale of the ranch went through as his newly found grandfather hoped.
That he, a cowboy, dreamer of impossible dreams and former champion calf-roper, would be a one-sixth or one-seventh owner of the Kincaid spread of Whitehorn, Montana—according to whether his biological father had sired six or seven illegitimate sons—totally blew his mind.
He’d been saving every penny for years to buy into his own place. And now this…
The wind surged down from the Crazy Mountains, stirring the fir trees, setting the Appaloosa to sidestepping, and sending shivers down his neck. He heard the first drops of rain hit the woods with a sharp rat-a-tat-tat.
He pulled the waterproof slicker from under the straps on the back of the saddle and slipped it over his head. After tucking an edge under each leg, he adjusted his hat to a more secure position and, lowering his head against the wind, headed for the cabin at the far side of the pasture where three hundred head of beef grazed in the deepening twilight.
The rain turned to a combination of sleet and hail before he was halfway to his destination. The wind was icy cold. This was January weather back in Gilas, near San Antonio, where he hailed from.
Welcome to July in Montana.
Cade reached the clearing just as the heavens opened up in a deluge that obscured everything more than ten feet away. He led the horse around the cabin and into a lean-to. There he unsaddled Stepper, named because he had a high, showy way of prancing, and wiped him down with a burlap sack. He broke a hay bale apart and tossed half of it into the manger. Stepper whinnied his approval and began chomping on his supper.
“Yeah, I’m hungry, too,” Cade said, hanging the sack to dry on a nail. “It’s been a long day.”
But he’d wanted to see the land for himself, alone, to smell it and study it, hell, to taste it if he wanted, with no one to laugh at his foolishness. He’d drunk from a mountain spring, so cold and pure, it was better than champagne. Not that he was much into fine wines. He was mostly a beer-and-peanuts man.
Dashing around the corner of the building, he entered the rough cabin and lit the kerosene lamp. Good, there was firewood.
He flung his coat and slicker on a hook near the door and tossed the saddlebags on a chair, then checked the damper and started a fire in the potbellied stove. The thing looked old enough to have been the original one invented by Ben Franklin, but it drew air just fine. Soon he had a crackling fire going.
The pantry was well-stocked with soup, assorted beans and a variety of canned or dried meat. There was a plastic container of crackers and a half full-bottle of whiskey. Four bunk beds occupied one wall, complete with plastic-covered foam pads for mattresses. A chest contained wool blankets. All the comforts of home.
He mixed a can of beef stew with one of lentil soup in a beat-up pan and set it on the stove to heat. He filled a teakettle from a hand pump on a well beside the cabin door. He could make a cup of coffee after dinner, then use the rest of the hot water to wash up before bed.
All the comforts of home except a hot shower and an indoor bathroom, he amended after he ate. He poured up the coffee, left it to cool, and headed for the outhouse set well behind the cabin after pulling on his coat and slicker again. The rain was coming down in buckets.
Leanne Harding stared at the dirt road barely visible through the gloom and rain. She had a feeling she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere on this mad journey.
She should have been at the Kincaid ranch by now. She’d been to the place several times since her brother, Rand Harding, had taken a job there as the foreman.
Her plan was to hide out in his house for a while. She knew he wasn’t home. Rand, his wife Suzanne, Joey, their baby, and Mack, Suzanne’s teenage brother, were in Ox Bow to attend a wedding. Hers.
The white lace on her wedding dress fluttered as she sighed in despair. Why had she run away?
She had panicked, pure and simple. Her family was going to be furious with her. A quiver of despair trembled deep inside her at the thought. Some people thought she was flighty and spoiled. Right now she worried they might be right.
Was that a light up ahead? She peered through the driving rain that fell faster than the wipers could swish it away from the windshield. Yes! A ray of hope glowed in her.
It wasn’t the Kincaid ranch quarters, but it was shelter from the storm. She pulled her compact car under the branches of an old oak tree at the end of the road. Grabbing her overnight case, she scrambled out and ran across the stubby grass toward the house.
Thank goodness the door wasn’t locked. She was drenched and cold and shivering by the time she got it closed and was securely inside. She quickly surveyed the room, then went back over it more thoroughly.
No one was there, but a pan and a teakettle bubbled on a stove, which emitted the most wonderful warmth. She moved closer to it.
Her stomach growled at the aroma coming from the pan. She found a generous serving of soup in it. A cup of coffee, still steaming, was on the wooden table.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
She felt like Goldilocks exploring the cabin of the three bears. The weather, however, wasn’t conducive to a walk in the woods while waiting for their porridge to cool. So where was the person who had prepared his supper and a cup of coffee and then disappeared?
She wondered why she thought the absent owner was a male. Because no sane female would be caught dead out on a night like this, she told herself with a wry attempt at humor.
Her amusement fled when she caught sight of herself in an old mottled wal
l mirror. Her hair straggled around her face. The arc of white roses and baby’s breath attached to a froth of gossamer veil was wilted. The bridal wreath tilted drunkenly toward one side of her head.
Her wedding dress was ruined. Mud stained the hem of the heavy cream satin. Tears filled her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to hold the useless emotions in check. She was twenty-six years old and she was as unsure as she’d been at sixteen and in the unhappy throes of her first big case of puppy love—
The door burst open just as a clap of thunder broke over the cabin and reverberated between the mountain peaks that surrounded them like a thousand marching drummers. She gasped as a dark apparition entered the cabin and slammed the door.
Leanne remained frozen in place while the intruder hung up his hat, rain slicker and a sheepskin-lined denim jacket. She had an impression of darkness as he pushed black hair off his forehead. His eyebrows were thick and dark, shading deep-set eyes that seemed as black as the storm-driven night. His skin was deeply tanned, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors.
He was also brawny, at least six feet, with wide shoulders and muscular arms that flexed under a blue plaid work shirt as he leaned against the wall and tugged his boots off. He neatly lined them up against the wall and padded toward the table in his socks. Then he stopped.
Leanne held her breath.
His gaze swept over the cabin and landed solidly on her. She felt his antipathy in the piercing silence that surrounded them while they stared at each other.
“You just passing through or are you staying awhile?” he asked in a steel-tinged baritone.
“Staying.” She surprised herself at how determined and certain she sounded. As if she knew what she was doing.
“How’d you get here?”
“Car. It’s under the tree at the end of the road.”
He grunted and settled at the table. He studied her over the rim of the heavy white cup as he took a drink.
She folded her arms and waited, ignoring her hunger and the sudden fear that he would cast her out into the night. She realized she was more afraid of that than of him. Which was probably the craziest of the insane thoughts she’d had that confusing, disappointing and dreary day.
Dizziness washed over her. She hadn’t eaten anything all day but a piece of toast that morning. Her stomach growled again. Embarrassed, she placed a hand over it.
“You’d better sit before you fall,” he said, rising. “There’s some soup left.”
She did as he advised. In less than a minute a big bowl of lentils and beef was in front of her. He placed a plastic container of crackers on the table.
“Dig in.”
She did, aware of his disapproving scrutiny while she scraped the bowl clean. He opened a can of peaches and a package of cookies. She thought she could have eaten the whole thing, but he doled them out equally. He made a cup of instant coffee and plunked it down at her place, then refilled his own cup. She sighed when she had eaten the bowl of peaches and four cookies. She was tired to the bone.
“Okay,” he said in a businesslike manner, “tell me who you are and what you’re doing out in these parts in that get-up.” He motioned toward her bedraggled wedding outfit.
She sighed again. “My name is Leanne Harding.”
“Kin to Rand Harding?”
“Sister.”
She saw the light dawn in his eyes. “He’s gone to his sister’s wedding over in Ox Bow.”
“I—I left before the ceremony.”
She thought of Rand and Suzanne, her sister Daisy, the wedding guests…. With a guilty start, she realized she hadn’t thought much about Bill at all.
“Why?”
“I realized I couldn’t go through with it.” She bit into her bottom lip while she sought words to explain. “It seemed all wrong…”
“A little late to be thinking along those lines.”
His tone hardened. It felt like a whiplash cracking over her taut nerves. She glanced at him and saw contempt in his eyes. She looked away. Whatever he thought couldn’t be half as terrible as she felt about herself.
She could imagine the anger and humiliation she had left in her wake. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to myself,” she told him, the misery rising to the surface and misting her eyes.
“It’s nothing to me. I just feel sorry for the poor slob you left at the altar.”
“No, I didn’t. I mean…I told him before we went to the church. I found out— Well, it doesn’t matter. But then I couldn’t…I was so shocked and disappointed that he’d bought a house instead of the ranch—”
She realized she wasn’t making much sense. She sighed as the disappointment rushed over her again, just as it had when Bill’s sister, who couldn’t keep a secret in a locked vault, had told her he’d bought a house for them in town, near the country club. Without asking her. Without her seeing it. As if her opinion didn’t count.
All her dreams, all the plans they’d made, had shattered in an instant as she realized he’d never meant to buy the small ranch they’d looked at. “I gave him all my savings and part of the inheritance from my parents. Twenty thousand dollars. I trusted him…”
Her lips trembled. She pressed them together.
“You gonna cry?” her host asked, his tone dry as day-old toast.
Not trusting her voice, she shook her head. She’d rather die than break down in front of this hard-hearted stranger. “Thank you for the meal,” she said politely. “I’ll be on my way. Could you tell me where the Kincaid place is and how to get to the foreman’s house?”
Cade studied the bride in her stained finery. The dress was sort of old-fashioned, with long sleeves and beads over the bustline. It fit real nice up top, then slid gracefully down her slender figure to her toes. In the back, it was gathered into a fold, like a bustle, and swept to the floor in a short train. A wilted wreath sat at a rakish angle on her head. Her dark hair picked up red highlights in the lantern light.
She looked miserable, and well she should, standing a guy up at the church. But even as his contempt rose, he had to admit to a stirring in his body. His unwanted guest was beautiful, if a trifle frazzled.
“You’ll never make it in the dark,” he advised. “You passed the turnoff from the main road a few miles back. Now you’re in the back country. That was an old mining road you followed. It’s too dangerous to navigate at night.”
Her wide green eyes sparkled in the lamplight, and he realized she was near tears. Her fingers shook slightly when she lifted the coffee cup to her lips. He wondered about the chump she’d left behind.
Bitter anger flashed through him like heat lightning. He knew how that felt. Donna, his one-time fiancée, had gotten cold feet at the last minute and left him at the altar, quite literally.
Luckily it had been a small wedding with only their folks and closest friends in attendance. Feeling like the biggest fool that ever lived, he’d had to tell everyone they had changed their minds. He’d made a joke of it, but it had hurt. He’d made sure no one realized how much, including his fiancée’s weeping mother.
Women. Who needed them?
“Is it okay if I spend the night?” she asked.
He exhaled heavily. “Do we have a choice?”
“Here.”
A tanned hand thrust a pan of steaming water behind the blanket suspended on a rope between two nails. Leanne quickly took the water and set it on a wooden chair, trying once more to release the tiny hooks at the back of her dress.
“Uh,” she said out loud to get his attention. He hadn’t told her his name and, for some reason, pride refused to allow her to ask. “I, uh, need some help. I can’t get the hooks on this dress undone.”
She heard another heavy sigh, then the blanket was jerked aside. “Turn around,” he snarled.
“I got the zipper, but the hooks are stuck or something,” she explained in carefully reasoned tones.
She was used to explaining herself to her famil
y. They loved her, even indulged her “whims,” as they called them, but everyone thought she needed lots of direction. They called her dreams “flights of imagination.” No one considered them very practical.
She blinked away tears as she obediently turned her back to her host. The space seemed smaller as he moved closer, then took hold of the cream satin. She shivered as his fingers brushed her spine.
“The hooks are tangled in a bunch of threads. I don’t see the wire loops they’re supposed to hook onto.”
“The threads are the loops. The material is supposed to lie smoother that way.”
“Huh,” was his succinct comment.
As he bent close, she felt his breath on her back. She peered over her shoulder to see what he was doing. A frown of concentration creased two lines over the bridge of his nose, which was thin and sharply chiseled.
“Are you Native American?” she asked.
He glanced up and met her eyes. His probing glance caused her heart to beat furiously, like a butterfly trapped in a web. His fingers touched her back again, raising chill bumps.
“Half,” he told her, his face expressionless. “My mother is Cheyenne. There’s a little Mexican sloshing around in the background, too.”
“Uh, you haven’t told me your name.”
He was silent for so long, she decided he wasn’t going to tell her now, either.
“Cade Redstone. One of the long-lost bastard sons,” he finally replied.
“I thought you must be one of Larry Kincaid’s offspring. You have the Kincaid look and manner. Haughty.”
She was appalled at herself for the insult. She pressed her lips together, but it was too late to take the words back. She retreated a wary step.
To her amazement, instead of anger, Cade burst into laughter. Even more amazing was the change in his expression. She’d thought he was handsome in a moody, exotic way, but his smile transformed his face, disclosing white, perfectly aligned teeth and, most amazing of all, a dimple indenting one cheek. Lines etched the corners of his eyes, indicating he had once laughed often.