by Cait London
THE TALLCHIEFS THE BELOVED, BESTSELLING MINISERIES BY CAIT LONDON CONTINUES!
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Dedication
Books by Cait London
CAIT LONDON
Letter to Reader
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
THE PALLADINS SERIES by Cait London
Copyright
THE TALLCHIEFS THE BELOVED, BESTSELLING MINISERIES BY CAIT LONDON CONTINUES!
In The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief, you’ll share in the love story that has all of Amen Flats, Wyoming, talking. Because many years ago, the Tallchief siblings were orphaned by a man named Palladin. A man whose three innocent sons were run out of town. And now, the three Palladin brothers have come home to make their own peace—and find their own love—with Tallchief women. In this novel, you’ll meet Joel, a strong, sexy hero you’ll never forget!
And coming from Silhouette Desire in August, be sure to look for the next book in THE TALLCHIEFS miniseries, when Rafe Palladin shares his love story. You’ll find a sneak preview of this sensual, emotional love story waiting for you at the end of
The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief.
Dear Reader,
This month Silhouette Desire brings you six brand-new, emotional and sensual novels by some of the bestselling—and most beloved—authors in the romance genre.
Cait London continues her hugely popular miniseries THE TALLCHIEFS with The Seduction of Fiona Tal/chief, April’s MAN OF THE MONTH. Next, Elizabeth Bevarly concludes her BLAME IT ON BOB series with The Virgin and the Vagabond. And when a socialite confesses her virginity to a cowboy, she just might be Taken by a Texan, in Lass Small’s THE KEEPERS OF TEXAS miniseries.
Plus, we have Maureen Child’s Maternity Bride, The Cowboy and the Calendar Girl, the last in the OPPOSITES ATTRACT series by Nancy Martin, and Kathryn Taylor’s tale of domesticating an office-bound hunk in Taming the Tycoon.
I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Desire’s selections this month—and every month!
Regards,
Senior Editor
Silhouette Books
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
CAIT LONDON
THE SEDUCTION OF FIONA TALLCHIEF
America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance
To Tanner Franklin Davis,
born December 21, 1996.
Books by Cait London
Silhouette Desire
*The Loving Season #502
*Angel vs. MacLean #593
The Pendragon Virus #611
*The Daddy Candidate #641
†Midnight Rider #726
The Cowboy #763
Maybe No, Maybe Yes #782
†The Seduction of Jake Tallman #811
Fusion #871
The Bride Says No #891
Mr Easy #919
Miracles and Mistletoe #968
‡The Cowboy and the Cradle #1006
‡Tallchief’s Bride #1021
‡The Groom Candidate #1093
‡The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief #1135
*The MacLeans
†The Blaylocks
‡The Tallchiefs
Silhouette Yours Truly
Every Girl’s Guide To...
Every Grooms Guide To..
Silhouette Books
‡Tallchief for Keeps
Spring Fancy 1994
“Lightfoot and Loving”
CAIT LONDON
lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She loves research trips, meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs—particularly scented geraniums right now. She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she also writes historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” she says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift.”
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your enthusiastic response to the Tallchief family. From your letters, I see that you love them as much as I do. (I really appreciate those letters.) Duncan, Calum, Elspeth, Birk and Fiona are absolutely dedicated to each other, and the dynamic entrances of their loves enrich this strong family. To my delight as a writer—and reader, I had everything I adore in this family—the West, heritages, legends and, like a cherry on top of a sundae, steamy, evocative romances. At times, there were tears, especially when it was time to leave one story and begin another. Now I invite you to meet the Palladins next, an exciting addition/twist to the Tallchiefs. I had to write about Joel, Rafe and Nick Palladin as they struggle with their dark legacy, which changed the lives of the Tallchiefs. Love doesn’t come easy to the Palladin brothers, especially when they tangle with Tallchiefs. Enjoy.
To finish the circle, an unlikely love of the battlemaiden will come calling, bearing his angry dragon on one arm and the chest to win her heart. Then the magic circle will be as true as their love.
Prologue
“Good? I just haven’t tried to be ‘good’ yet. It can’t be that hard,” ten-year-old Fiona snapped at her family. Dressed in her nightgown, she shoved through the kitchen door she had been listening against and stood ramrod straight She crossed her arms and leveled her stare at her older sister and brothers seated around the kitchen table. “Hold a powwow, a family meeting, in which I’m the problem, will you? And not invite me? What about my rights? Aren’t I a Tallchief, same as you? Is that fair?”
Nothing was fair. The cold October night shrouded the Tall-chief house the afternoon after Matthew and Pauline Tallchief had been killed. They’d stopped for pizza, a special treat for their five children waiting at their ranch home, and had interrupted a convenience store robbery.
Her brothers had set off immediately on horseback, tracking the killer into the mountains. While Elspeth stayed with Fiona, the Tallchief brothers proved that they had been taught by the best tracker in the country, their father—who had learned the skill from their Sioux great-great-grandfather, Tallchief. The killer’s flight into the rugged Rocky Mountain night hadn’t saved him. At dawn, Fiona’s brothers had ridden back into Amen Flats, Wyoming, the killer walking behind their horses and tied to a rope.
Her brothers had become men instantly, their boyhood gone, replaced by gaunt, grim shadows of men bound by duty and sadness. Elspeth, her pride holding her chin high and squaring her shoulders, had already set about taking up the task of feeding the family. Fiona wanted to smash something; she wanted to hide in the safety of her father’s arms. She wanted her mother to tell her that everything was a bad dream.
She fought back tears and faced Duncan, her eldest brother at eighteen. With the Tallchief height, black, glossy hair, gray eyes and rugged, high cheekbones, he reminded her of her father, and an arrow of pain sliced through her. She couldn’t afford not to be strong now, not when they worried about her. “I’ve got the same black hair from our great-great-grandfather, Tallchief, and our great-great-grandmother’s
gray Scottish eyes. I know how he captured Una Fearghus and how she was an indentured servant and how they fell in love. And how she sold her dowry to keep Tallchief land safe. That’s why we have Tallchief Mountain and our cattle ranch today. I listened when Mother read Una’s journals to us. I know how Mom was a judge and how Dad got his tracking skills handed down from his father before him. I know all that. Don’t you sit here and plan what to do without me and how to protect me. Don’t you dare! I can carry my share.”
Duncan looked at his brothers and other sister. At seventeen, Calum nodded. Sixteen-year-old Birk, usually happy and teasing, nodded grimly. Fourteen-year-old Elspeth lifted her chin, and in each of her family, Fiona saw a bit of her parents. Her brothers and Elspeth were dressed in flannel shirts and jeans and boots, which meant they had been out in the cold mountain wind, tending the ranch while she’d selfishly slept, her head tucked beneath her mother’s hand-stitched quilt, hoping to awaken and find the nightmare gone.
She hated the man who shot her parents, the fiery emotion pulsed through her, devouring her.
“If you are not very, very good, Fiona—” Duncan began slowly, methodically picking through his thoughts as he looked at the others.
“Be careful,” Calum warned. “She’s only ten and it’s a big weight.”
Fiona stared at him. “I’m getting mad. You keep treating me like a kid, and there’s no telling what I’ll do,” she warned quietly.
“She has the right to know what’s at stake,” Birk stated.
“I’m in. What’s the plan? And can we pull it off?” Fiona flipped back her long black braids and leaned on the table with her hands. She looked at her family, read their sorrow and grim determination. She saw Duncan the defender, Calum the cool, Birk the rogue and Elspeth the elegant. The play names suited them and they were hers now, more than ever.
A wash of October leaves, tossed by the wind, slashed against the window as she leveled a look at each one. They needed her. With her in the plan, the Tallchiefs could do anything.
“Agreed,” Elspeth added after a slow look around the table.
“There will be people watching us,” Duncan began slowly. “We’ll have to mind our business—”
“Or?” Fiona shot back. “Just what is our business?” Wasn’t her business living and playing with the barn cats, leaping into the stacked hay and riding her bicycle and tormenting her brothers and—
One look at her family told her that with two bullets, the world had flopped over and crushed her life.
Calum leveled a look at Fiona. “Our business is to stay together, and it starts tomorrow, when people start calling and visiting and bringing over tears and casseroles. Then there’s the funeral, and we’re putting Mom and Dad on the mountain to sleep. But the five of us have to look as if we’re staying together from the start.”
Elspeth flicked her brothers a look and sighed. “They can’t handle crying women. That’s up to us, Fiona.”
“Right Crying, sobbing, wailing, tear-dripping women bearing tuna and rice casseroles. I can handle them.” But could she handle the fear and the sorrow within herself?
She would. Her brothers and sister would tell her what to do, and she would do it Mom? Dad? Please come home? I’m scared!
Calum tapped his pencil on the pad in front of him. Birk looked at Duncan, and Duncan looked at Elspeth.
Fiona shivered. “You’re worried they’ll try to take me away, aren’t you?”
She fought the icy fear surging through her, curling her hands into fists. She shivered, willing her mother to come hold her. How could her mother’s kitchen, still fragrant from applesauce cake, and the pantry, lined with jars of her best jams, be so empty? Mom? Dad?
“They won’t take you away,” Duncan said quietly, drawing her onto his lap. “Because you’ll be so good, they’ll all see how well you’re doing and how happy you are.”
Fiona burrowed closer to him. “Just how good?” she asked very cautiously.
“No causes,” Elspeth stated. “No leading the rebels.”
“Before you leap into any right-versus-wrong battles or fight for the underdog, you have to tell us about it,” Birk added. “We’ll decide—together—if you need to take action, or if we can help.”
“Just who is going to take care of the bullies of the world? They have to be stopped, you know,” Fiona demanded, outraged that she was asked to desert the defenseless.
“You will. When you grow up,” Calum said, lifting her onto his lap and holding her. “And you’re going to have very good grades in all your subjects. If you need help—”
Fiona hugged Calum. He smelled of wood smoke and leather and cattle and of love. She looked around the table at her family. They needed her.
“Aye,” she stated, using the Tallchiefs’ word to swear upon their honor. “I’ll be a perfect little angel,” Fiona the fiery vowed and then began to cry as she moved onto Birk’s lap, and Elspeth’s arms curled around them.
Mom? Dad?
One
“Get off Tallchief Mountain. It’s my mountain,” Joel murmured, repeating what a ten-year-old girl had yelled at him twenty years earlier. Fiona Tallchief’s fierce challenge rang in his mind as though it were yesterday.
Joel glanced at his knuckles, recently skinned in a brawl. He skimmed his hand expertly over the classic sports car’s steering wheel, guiding it around a sharp mountain curve. Bright red, white and easily noticed, the 1958 Corvette convertible seemed perfect for what he wanted to do—dive right into the nest of Tallchiefs in Amen Flats, Wyoming, and face his past. At thirty-seven and a corporate attorney for his grandmother’s company, Joel Palladin knew how to make dramatic statements.
The first week of October lay cold and black on the Rocky Mountains, reminding him of the day he and his brothers, Nick and Rafe, had come to the Tallchiefs’ funeral. Cramped and dirty from the bus trip from Denver, they’d arrived too late for the church service. They had spent their last “eating money” renting horses for the second private service high on Tallchief Mountain. They were city boys, tough and wary, yet grimly determined to complete their mission in the cliffs, meadows and wild forests of Tallchief Mountain. Their father had left them little honor, but the scrap that remained demanded that they apologize for him.
Joel glanced in the rearview mirror. Though he hadn’t had time to shave, and a new stubble covered his jaw, he found the dark skin and hard features of his father stamped upon him. Lloyd Palladin had left his mark on his three sons—the same jutting cheekbones, soaring dark brown brows over deep-set, green eyes, a prominent jaw and a cleft in his chin. While Lloyd had let his unsavory passions rule him, the three grown Palladin sons kept a firm rein on their pride and their emotions. Nick, Rafe and Joel were painfully aware of their dark legacy and their inability to deal with softer emotions.
Joel inhaled sharply at the memory of his father’s open hand connecting with his mother’s cheek. As a child he could do little to protect her, and as a man he feared that Lloyd’s wild passions could one day be his own. He feared coming too close to emotions, controlling himself even during sex. A big, powerful man, Joel could easily hurt a woman—
He did not want to hurt Fiona Tallchief, but he needed to reckon with his unexpected desire and fascination for her.
That day twenty years ago lay fresh in Joel’s mind as he expertly handled the small sports car he’d purchased a few days ago. Lost in his thoughts as he sped toward the old homestead he had acquired, Joel saw the animal too late to stop. He expertly swerved around the deer poised in his headlights and prayed that the animal wouldn’t leap the wrong way. The doe safely bounded off into the woods.
Joel flicked on his sound system, settling down with Mozart and his thoughts, accustomed to staying on track in emergencies. After a long, hard, tense week fighting his grandmother’s corporate battles and his rebellious son, Joel didn’t want to be pushed by anyone. He ran his finger over the long knife-cut in the convertible’s vinyl top, which he’d tempora
rily patched with duct tape. Caught in the act of stripping and stealing his newly purchased Corvette, the gang that had jumped him in the alley soon discovered that he was in no mood for orders.
Fiona Tallchief had started issuing orders to him when she was ten, and again two years ago when she was twenty-eight. The hot tirade coming from her mouth while he stood covered in sludge had almost caused him to lose control. “Iron Man Palladin” let very few issues disrupt his cool and few women interrupt his sleep. When something nettled him—and hot-blooded, lean and leggy Fiona Tallchief did—Joel took action. An emotional, volatile woman, she wouldn’t fit into his streamlined life on a permanent basis, yet Fiona excited him on a primitive level, igniting desire that had surprised and bothered him. That raw desire caused him to be uneasy; he sensed Fiona Tallchief could test his control, and he didn’t like that feeling. In a bold move typical for him, he intended to settle two mismatched corns of his life: Cody, his troubled ten-year-old son and Fiona Tallchief.
Dressed in his favorite battered leather jacket that had taken his first paycheck to buy, years ago, a biker’s club T-shirt, black jeans and boots, Joel rolled his shoulders and settled his six-foot-four frame more comfortably into the plush, low seat, preparing for the long drive to the ranch he had just purchased.
Though he had not seen it, the old homestead was not far from Amen Flats, within bicycle riding distance, and Cody needed—Well, what Cody needed, Joel had decided, was a firm hand and love. Mamie, Joel’s grandmother, was temporarily taking charge of those duties. Mamie was providing a buffer for the transition between Cody’s mother’s negligence and Joel, who was about to become an active parent. Cody was Joel’s son and his responsibility. Buying the run-down ranch was a long shot; Joel hoped that Cody would take pride in bringing it to life.
