by Jill Gregory
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Praise
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” CAITLIN ASKED, HER EYES WIDENING.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
About the Author
Dell Books by Jill Gregory
Copyright Page
To my beloved father, the best dad in the world—with love forever
RAVE REVIEWS FOR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR JILL GREGORY AND HER BESTSELLING NOVELS
Cold Night, Warm Stranger
“YOU WILL BE ENTICED FROM THE FIRST CHAPTER. . . . You will cry and cheer for these wonderfully beloved characters, who will do nothing less than capture your heart. . . . Jill Gregory has done it again. Her talent shines through in this sensually captivating novel—she shows us once again that love can conquer all.”
—Rendezvous
“Jill Gregory’s western romances always pack a wallop. Cold Night, Warm Stranger is true to form. Strong characters that engage readers’ emotions and an action-packed story with a powerful plot makes this a not-to-be-missed western.”
—Romance Reviews
“ANOTHER WINNING WESTERN.”
—Booklist
“An engaging book, supported by a well-drawn cast of townspeople.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A THRILLING STORY which has more than one plot to keep readers hooked . . . Jill Gregory seems to have the rare ability of breathing life into her characters.”
—Huntress Book Reviews
Never Love a Cowboy
“This is a who-done-it with strong elements of suspense . . . but the emphasis is definitely on the romance. This book has wonderful, tender scenes.”
—The Romance Reader
“SENSUAL . . . Enjoy Never Love a Cowboy: a western, a suspenseful mystery and a good book. Combining grit, sensuality and a cleverly plotted mystery takes talent.”
—Romantic Times
Just This Once
“REFRESHING CHARACTERS, WITTY DIALOGUE AND ADVENTURE . . . Just This Once enthralls, delights, and captivates; winning readers’ hearts along the way.”
—Romantic Times
“Here is another unforgettable story that will keep you captivated. She has combined the old west and the elegance of England into this brilliantly glorious tale.”
—Rendezvous
Always You
“COMPELLING . . . DEFINITELY A WINNER!”
—Affaire de Coeur
“A SURE-FIRE WINNER . . . REMARKABLE . . . A delightful romance with both tenderness and tough western grit.”
—Romantic Times
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” CAITLIN ASKED, HER EYES WIDENING.
“Refreshing your memory.”
Tension rippled through Wade as he hauled her into his arms. “So you’ve forgotten what it felt like when I kissed you,” he said, and she shivered in his arms.
“Y-yes.”
He lowered his mouth closer to hers. “And none of this seems familiar?”
“No . . . not the least little bit . . .”
His mouth covered hers and he kissed her again. She tried to pull free but a moan escaped her lips as a sweet, dazzling pleasure spun through her.
“Caitlin,” Wade groaned, his lips grazing the slender column of her throat. His hand swept up to her perfect gold chignon.
“No . . . Wade, don’t!”
His chest felt on fire when he heard her say his name. “Can’t help it,” he growled, his fingers closing on one of her hairpins. “Been wanting to do this for a long time . . .”
Prologue
Cloud Ranch
Wyoming, 1867
For as far as the eye could see, snow blanketed the valley. The sturdy log ranch house nestled among the trees looked as tiny as a bug against the backdrop of snow-glistened mountains and pine trees. In all that wide lonely space and deep dark quiet, nothing moved or broke the stillness except the woodsmoke curling from the chimney.
Inside the ranch house he had built with his own two hands, Reese Summers leaned against the desk in his lamplit office and studied the three Barclay boys. Seven-year-old Nick, nine-year-old Clint, and Wade, who was eleven, were lined up before him, standing shoulder to shoulder like wooden soldiers. They looked so touchingly young, so vulnerable, and yet, somehow, so united. Just as Linc Barclay would have wanted, Reese thought as he gazed into the young faces full of painful uncertainty.
“Boys, let me tell you something.” His voice was gruff, but a thread of gentleness ran beneath it. “Your father was the best friend I ever had.”
Young Wade nodded. The others didn’t move a muscle.
“Your father was also the bravest man I knew. He died trying to save your mama’s life, and I want you boys always to remember that—to remember both of them as two of the finest people who walked this earth.”
The boys all nodded, but none of them said a word. As the wind rose, whistling at the windows of the square, sturdy Wyoming ranch house, and the fire blazed with cheery ferocity in the hearth, the three dark-haired boys, orphaned only a few weeks now, clenched their jaws and watched their father’s old friend in silence.
Nick, the youngest, hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived at the ranch just before supper. But he heard and noticed everything with those dark, long-lashed eyes of his. Clint, the middle child, was the spitting image of his father, his hair the same shade of deep mahogany, his features sharp and handsome. Wade, the eldest, was clearly in charge. He’d inherited his mama’s raven-black hair, but even at this young age, had the rangy toughness and the promise of height and muscularity that had been Linc’s.
“We ’preciate your taking us in, Mr. Summers,” Wade said at last, stepping forward and meeting the man’s keen brown eyes.
Reese put a hand on his shoulder. “Call me Reese, son.”
The boy nodded. “Reese,” he repeated uncertainly.
Then his jaw tightened. With pride, Reese noted.
“We’ll earn our way,” the boy said with dignity. His hands were clenched at his sides. “I promise—we won’t never be a burden to you.”
“That’s right,” Clint piped up. “I know how to pitch hay. And throw a rope.”
Little Nick, the one who had witnessed the stagecoach attack and seen his parents slaughtered, the one who had not yet spoken since that day, merely nodded, though there was wonder and a touch of hope in those huge, sad eyes as they remained riveted on Reese Summers.
Reese knelt down before all three boys. “Listen to me. You’ll never be a burden to me. I want you here. You understand? You’re not hired help. You’re . . . family. That’s what I’ve got in mind.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll be my family, and I’ll be yours.”
“But what about your family, Mr.—er, Reese?” Wade asked.
Reese’s gaze shifted to the bronze-framed photograph on the mantel acros
s from his desk, lingering a moment before returning to settle upon his young charges. “Well, you see, boys,” he said quietly, “I lost my family, too.”
“You did?” It was Clint who spoke. He turned suddenly to glance at the photograph that showed an elegantly gowned woman seated on a flowered wing chair, with a small, golden-haired girl on her lap.
“Are they dead too, like Ma and Pa?” Wade ventured.
Reese shook his head. “No.” His voice was heavy, almost as heavy as his heart. “They’re not dead. But they’re gone just the same.”
Suddenly young Nick inched forward and pushed his small hand into Reese’s big, callused one.
Reese met the child’s eyes, then a lump rose in his throat. He looked from Nick, to Clint, to Wade—three brothers trying so hard not to cry, to be strong, but each of them hurting badly.
“It’s going to be all right, boys,” he said slowly, his warm gaze encompassing all three of them. “Cloud Ranch is your home now as much as mine. We’re going to be a family—you hear? A real family, just you wait and see.”
He didn’t know if they believed him. He vowed to make his words come true. It would take time, but he would make it work. Not like the last time.
Once the boys were settled in their beds in the big room down the hall from his, he tossed back a shot of whiskey and thought about this chance he’d been given. The chance to help out his old friend, and to end his own agonizing loneliness.
Slowly, like the plume of smoke rising from the chimney, his heart lifted. It was good to be needed. Wanted. There would be children and noise and laughter in the ranch house again.
Maybe with someone other than himself rattling around in here, it would actually start to feel like a home once more.
He picked up the photograph and stared at it, longing in his eyes. He was going to have sons now, three fine sons. But that didn’t stop the hurt as he gazed at the tiny daughter whose absence made a hole in his heart.
Caitlin . . . if only . . .
He closed his eyes and let the pain rock him.
And with it came a renewed determination. Someday, somehow, he’d win his daughter back, bring her here to Cloud Ranch. Home, where she belonged.
Chapter 1
“Oh, Miss Summers, do remember what I said. Don’t ever, ever, ever fall in love with a cowboy.” As the stagecoach lumbered to a shuddering halt in the center of the tiny Wyoming town called Hope, the stout woman wearing the feather-trimmed hat and the puce traveling gown leaned forward, and nodded wisely at the blond girl seated across from her. “If you do,” she sighed, “he’ll only break your heart.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Casper.” The blond girl’s tone was reassuring. She straightened the satin bow atop her smart pink hat, smoothed her pale lavender skirt, and managed a smile for the woman who had talked incessantly since boarding the stage, mostly about her niece in Kansas who’d been left brokenhearted by a smooth-talking wrangler. Despite her tendency to babble, Mrs. Casper was kind, and Caitlin appreciated kindness. She hadn’t seen much of it lately.
“I promise you, there’s no need to worry about me.” The girl spoke quietly as the stagecoach driver clambered down from his perch and the coach swayed. “There is absolutely no chance of my falling in love with anyone.”
Ever again, she thought firmly.
Once had been more than enough.
Caitlin fought the pain that squeezed around her heart as Alec Ballantree’s sensitive, beautifully handsome face surged into her mind. She didn’t want to think about that, or the fact that her reticule contained only a meager twelve dollars and forty-seven cents, all the money she had left in the world—or about any of the countless other ways her life had fallen apart in the past few months. She wanted to think only of what must be done, only about Becky, the little sister who needed her. Only about the future.
But her stomach clenched at the thought of all the responsibilities facing her. Her eleven-year-old sister’s wan little face and worried brown eyes lingered in her mind and she knew she must not fail.
She turned her attention to the sights beyond the stagecoach window, trying to concentrate on the town, to forget her weariness, the length of her journey, and the uncertainty of the future. She was here now, in Hope, and it was only a matter of hours before she reached her father’s ranch.
Cloud Ranch. Reese Summers’s pride and joy.
The town looked small, but bustling. Laughing children ran along the boardwalk, while men in chaps and spurs and Stetsons strode up and down the street. Women wearing bonnets and bright gingham dresses bustled in and out of various shops. And there were wagons and buggies and horses everywhere she looked. From the saloon came the tinny plinking of piano keys and the sound of deep raucous laughter.
Mrs. Casper’s high-pitched voice overrode everything else.
“Mmm, take that one there for example. Isn’t he a handsome devil? Just the kind to steer clear of, dear. Mark my words.”
Caitlin spotted him even as Mrs. Casper spoke. For a moment her breath caught in her throat. The dark-haired man leaning against the railing outside of Hicks Mercantile was eyeing the stagecoach, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his dark pants, two six-shooters slung in the gunbelt fastened across his lean hips. Handsome devil didn’t begin to describe him. Dangerous, gorgeous, intimidating—those words did describe him, Caitlin thought faintly.
Well over six feet tall, he was deeply bronzed and muscular, with sharp, even features, wide shoulders, and an air of nonchalance.
Was he a gunfighter perhaps? she wondered a bit uneasily. There was something undeniably dangerous about him. His looks and demeanor didn’t shout danger— but instead whispered it.
He was certainly handsome, but in a completely different way from Alec, she thought as she recalled her former fiancé’s curling light brown hair and debonair smile, his quick laughter and smooth elegant hands, hands befitting the gold signet ring that had been in his family for four generations. This man, this cowboy, appeared to be about as different from Alec Ballantree as a slab of steak from a lobster patty.
This man, with his pitch-black hair just long enough to brush his shirt collar, and the cool diamond-blue eyes that glinted from beneath the brim of his hat, was rugged as rock and looked as if he’d never seen the inside of an opera house or a tearoom, never had a servant shine his shoes or draw his bath.
Never danced a waltz with a woman beneath a crystal chandelier and told her he loved her . . . told her he would always love her . . .
He looked tough and capable—and just a tiny bit angry.
About what, she had no idea—and wouldn’t even try to guess. There was no time to waste speculating about handsome strangers, especially cowboys, whom Mrs. Casper had spent the last few days of the journey warning her about.
She had to find Wade Barclay, her late father’s foreman, and get to the ranch.
“Hope, Wyoming!” the stagecoach driver bellowed, and threw open the stagecoach doors. As he let down the steps with a grunt, she bade farewell to Mrs. Casper, clutched her pink satin reticule between her gloved fingers, and carefully stepped down into the dusty street.
Hope. That’s what she wanted, what she needed. Hope. Hope that the sale of the ranch would go smoothly and swiftly, hope that she could return to Becky as soon as possible.
Hope that no more trouble would catch up to them.
Caitlin peered up and down the street. The handsome cowboy had straightened and was studying her, but she resolutely ignored him. When she spotted the older, potbellied man in the huge white Stetson ambling toward her, she felt a wave of relief.
He looked exactly as she had pictured her father’s foreman. Genial, easygoing, avuncular. And punctual. She was grateful he had met the stagecoach on time.
“You’re Miz Summers, ain’t you?” He squinted at her, but it wasn’t his close-set eyes or the mole on his chin she noticed but the beet redness of his bulbous nose. “I’m—”
“Yes, of course, I know who
you are. Good afternoon, Mr. Barclay. I appreciate your arriving here on time.”
“Huh?”
The man stumbled as he reached her, and Caitlin instinctively shot out a hand to steady him. She tensed though as she smelled the liquor on his breath.
“Mr. Barclay . . . are you all right?”
“Wha? Never better, little lady. But call me Wesley.”
“Wesley? I thought your name was Wade—”
“Hell, no, honey, I reckon I know my own name.”
He chucked her under the chin, playfully, then as she drew back and stared at him in amazement, he threw back his head and let out a ripsnorting belly laugh. “Just bein’ friendly-like, honey. So you’re old Reese’s long-lost little girl. And a right purty filly you are, too.”
Gracious, he’s a drunk, Caitlin thought in dismay. Bitterness filled her. She should have known Reese Summers would have had a drunk for a foreman. “I’d like to get to the ranch as quickly as possible.” She tried to keep the anxiety from her voice. “If I’m able to complete my business tonight, I can purchase a ticket on tomorrow’s stage and return to Philadelphia—”
“Tomorrow . . . Aw, honey, so soon? You just got here.”
“Mr. Barclay . . . take your hand off me, please.”
“I’m just bein’ friendly. You’re about the purtiest little gal I ever did see—”
“Mr. Barclay!” Caitlin slapped his hand away as it slid up her arm. Before she could order him again to keep his hands to himself, a gust of wind seized her hat and blew it clear off her head. She whirled to chase it and ran smack into a wall of rock.
It took a moment for her to realize that it wasn’t a wall of rock after all—it was a man. A tall, lean, dark-haired man with an iron chest, a fierce scowl, and a body that was pure steel. The cowboy.
“Take it easy, princess.”
Stunned, she couldn’t do more than stare up into those clear blue eyes. For a moment, as his cool gaze commanded hers, she felt a wave of heat rush through her. Perhaps because she’d banged into him so abruptly, she felt light-headed.
