“But she never does,” Annabelle murmured.
Cailean made a noise deep in his throat of agreement. “I think she fears what will happen when she marries Alistair.” He paused a moment as though relishing the feel of her in his arms. “We’ll help them through their troubles, as they aided us.”
“Their wedding should be joyful, Cailean, not traumatic.”
He chuckled as he met her gaze. “Thank God we reconciled, or I fear she would have postponed the wedding for fear of what MacKinnon men are like.”
Annabelle watched him with a flirtatious smile, pressing into him while her arms snaked around his shoulders. “And what are MacKinnon men like?” she whispered as she kissed his jaw.
“Handsome.” He kissed her eyebrow. “Persuasive.” A kiss to her nose as she giggled. “Impossible to resist.” He laughed as she playfully bit his earlobe.
He rolled over with her, nuzzling her neck before meeting her gaze. “Loyal. Honorable. Dedicated to family.” His eyes shone with love as she traced her fingers over his jaw. “I love you, Belle.”
She nodded as her fingers tangled in his hair. “I never thought to feel what I feel for you. I didn’t know it possible.” She pulled his head down for a kiss. “I love you, Cailean.”
“Whatever challenges come, we will face them together, Belle.” His gentle kiss ended too quickly for her as she arched up, following his lips.
“Yes, Cailean, always together,” she whispered, her eyes lit with a transcendent joy.
Sneak Peek at Montana Grit!
CHAPTER ONE
Montana Territory, June 1885
No one expected the wedding to be a disaster. In fact, it had been heralded by many in Bear Grass Springs, Montana Territory, as the wedding of the season. Another MacKinnon brother was to wed, to the dismay of the mothers in the town who had hoped for more than a wandering miner for their daughters. As for the bachelors of Bear Grass Springs, few eligible women lived in town; thus many of the men were equally disappointed to see the beautiful teacher marry the livery owner.
Alistair MacKinnon, the second eldest sibling at the mature age of thirty-four, paced in front of the altar on a bright Saturday afternoon in early June. He wore his best suit and had polished his rarely worn dress shoes three times, although he fought grimacing with each step because they pinched his toes and he longed for his boots.
“Stop fidgeting and sit down. You’ll give yourself blisters,” ordered Cailean, the eldest MacKinnon sibling by three years. He shook his head in amusement as he watched Alistair.
“Ye were no’ any better,” Alistair grumbled.
Cailean chuckled as he thought about his own wedding to the town baker, Annabelle Evans, the previous June. Although the two eldest MacKinnon siblings had left the Isle of Skye together over a decade ago, Cailean had worked to hide his accent, while Alistair had never lost his. “I know. But I was always the more emotional sibling.”
Ewan, the youngest MacKinnon brother, approached with a flask. “Take a wee nip,” he urged the anxious groom-to-be and rolled his eyes as Alistair waved away the offered libation. “Ye dinna ken how much longer she’ll keep ye waitin’, an’ this will calm yer nerves.”
Alistair glared at his youngest brother. “I willna meet my bride on our weddin’ day through a haze of whiskey.” He allowed his brothers to push him onto the front pew.
“Ignore Ewan. You know Sorcha is with Leticia, and our sister will ensure they are not too late.” Cailean rapped his fingers on the pew’s back as time seemed to crawl. He looked toward the front of the church. “Guests are arriving, and Ewan and I should welcome them.” Cailean placed a firm hand on Alistair’s shoulder. “Stay here. Think about your bride-to-be, about what’s to come.” He gave his brother a pat on the shoulder and marched down the aisle with Ewan behind him.
Alistair sat in a daze on the bench, his mind filled with images of his fiancée, Leticia Browne, as he thought about the last few days leading up to the wedding.
As spring would soon give way to summer, and the bear grass that gave the town its name verged on the point of blooming, Alistair breathed a sigh of relief that his long courtship with Leticia was almost at an end. As he squired his fiancée through the newly constructed home they would share in two days’ time, he smiled with contentment. The new home had been built on the opposite side of Main Street from where the MacKinnon Livery stood, on a large empty plot near the alley that abutted the rear door of Annabelle’s bakery.
“Dinna Ewan create a lovely home for us?” he asked, the hint of Scotland stronger in his voice as he beheld Leticia standing amid the early evening rays in their living room area on the ground floor. Although smaller than the home he shared with his siblings, the basic design for their new home was the same with the kitchen and dining area separated from the living room on the other side by a long hallway. Upstairs were three bedrooms, rather than four.
She smiled at him and sat on the secondhand settee given to them by Irene and Harold Tompkins—a couple who acted as doting aunt and uncle to the MacKinnons and ran the local Sunflower Café. “I love it.”
“An’ ye dinna mind that the kitchen is small?” Alistair stood over six feet tall, and his brown hair was virtually black in the dimming evening light. He watched Leticia with warmth in his brown eyes.
She laughed. “Do you know what it will be like to have a home that is mine? To decorate as I want, without worrying I’ll offend the owner? To build a home with you?” She rose, smiling broadly as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her thick blond hair, pulled back in a bun, loosened as his fingers tugged at the pins holding it in place.
“I’m fighting my impatience,” he whispered as he pulled her close. “Two days seems an eternity.”
She shivered and squeezed her arms tight around him. “It will pass faster than you imagine.”
He sniffed her lilac scent and smiled. “Aye, I know. After waiting years to marry, I fear ye’ll find another reason we should wait.”
“No,” she whispered as she traced a pattern over his lower back. “No more waiting, not after two days from now.”
He groaned, bending his head to kiss her. She sighed softly, arching up to meet his impassioned kiss. After only a few moments, he broke their embrace, wandering the room. “I canna be trusted to touch ye just now.” He shared a rueful smile with her, his smile broadening as he saw her pleased blush. He broke his gaze from her delighted blue eyes and looked around the room. “Ewan did a good job.”
She chuckled as she ran a hand over her light-blue dress that nearly matched her eyes. “He did a masterful job, as you knew he would. He was determined to build a beautiful home for his brother.” She traced the fine trim on the sill around a side window. “I can envision a vase of flowers here, with curtains blowing in the breeze.”
He sat on a windowsill at the front of the house, maintaining his distance from her. “I can see us curled on that settee, warming each other on a cold winter day while Hortence plays on the floor.”
She laughed as she thought about her six-year-old daughter. “You’ll be on the floor playing with her.”
“Aye, I probably will. Although ’twill be a tough choice. Canoodle with my wife or play with my daughter?” He frowned as he saw Leticia fight tears. “What is it, darling?”
She watched him through eyes drenched with adoration, love, and wonder. “I will always be humbled by how you have accepted Hortence as your own.”
“She’s an easy lass to love.” He rose and outstretched his hand to Leticia. “Come. Let’s explore our home.” He laced their hands together as they wandered to the sparsely furnished kitchen and dining area, although it had a top-of-the-line Great Majestic stove. They continued upstairs, poking their heads into the three rooms before returning downstairs. “I ken I’m supposed to wait until after the ceremony to give you my wedding present, but this is all I can offer.”
She fought a mixture of laughter and tears as she threw herself into his arms. “Oh,
Alistair. I could want for nothing more than to marry you in two days’ time and to live here with you and Hortence.”
“An’ ye don’t mind that wee Hortence will spend a few days with Cailean and Anna?” he whispered into Leticia’s ear, provoking a shiver.
“I’ll miss her. I’ve never spent a day apart from my daughter.” She arched away, meeting his worried gaze. “But I want time with you, Alistair. Time for the two of us.”
He moved as though to swoop forward and kiss her but then backed up with such speed he bumped into a door. “Aye, ’tis good to know.” He cleared his throat. “I dinna think we should linger here alone for much longer.”
“Yes, you might damage the schoolteacher’s reputation, retiring at twenty-eight to wed,” she teased. Her latent anger eased at being forced to give up her teaching position as her wedding day approached. She followed him outside, looping her arm through his elbow.
“’Tis a good thing the schoolteacher taught her final class last week,” he murmured.
They walked the short distance to the house he shared with his siblings, where his sister, Sorcha, helped mind the house with his sister-in-law, Annabelle. As the town baker, Annabelle did the majority of the cooking for the family, while Sorcha preferred to embroider, mend the clothes, and spin wool. The MacKinnon house sat next to a large livery and the nearby paddock where Alistair worked with his eldest brother, Cailean.
While Alistair and Leticia walked arm-in-arm through town, they smiled, nodded, and spoke to all they passed. As co-owner of the local livery established four years ago, Alistair knew most men in town, and, as the former schoolteacher, Leticia knew all those with children. The engaged couple ambled up the boardwalk, past the bakery, the bustling café, and the Odd Fellows Hall.
Bear Grass Springs sat toward the apex of a large valley with the Obsidian mining camp in the tall granite-peaked mountains above it, while a creek gurgled past the edge of town. Down the rolling hills, a broad valley opened up for as far as the eye could see, providing the perfect habitat for large herds of cattle. The green hills heralded a wet spring, although summer’s heat would soon turn them a golden brown.
The couple turned as gunshots sounded, and raised voices floated on the wind from the opposite side of town. “Seems the good times have already begun at the Stumble-Out,” Alistair said wryly as he looked at the saloon down the street that sat across from Betty’s Boudoir, the town brothel.
“There’s nothing to worry about as I’m sure Ewan is home,” Leticia soothed.
Alistair squeezed her arm and turned for the family home. “For now.” He inhaled deeply, then shook his head. “Stay for supper with us. Annabelle’s cookin’ tonight, so I know we’ll eat well,” he said with a wink. When they arrived at the MacKinnon home, they found his sister, Sorcha, the youngest MacKinnon sibling at twenty-four, on the parlor floor, playing with Hortence.
Hortence saw her mother and rose, hugging her around the waist. After her warm welcome, she ignored her mother, dropping to her knees to play with Sorcha again. “I have an aunt!” she proclaimed with a triumphant thrust of her fist upward, as though she had won something.
“Aye, in two days ye’ll have two aunts and two uncles,” Alistair said as he sat on the floor near her. “Ye’re a lucky girl.” He smiled as she giggled.
Her giggles faded as she ducked her head a bit and smiled at him. “I’ll have a papa too.”
He tugged her to his lap and held her tight. “Aye, technically ye will.” When she stiffened in his arms, he stroked a hand over her head. “I already consider ye mine, Little Bug. The weddin’ just makes it official.” He grunted as she flung her arms around his neck and gave a small whoop of joy. He laughed as she kissed him on his cheek. Another grunt followed when she scampered off his lap, her knees and feet digging into his legs. He rose and joined Leticia on the settee, content to watch his sister and his daughter play.
“I love your nickname for her,” Leticia murmured.
He smiled as he watched Hortence’s exuberant play. “We found a ladybug on one of our rambles, an’ she proclaimed it her favorite bug because it was part red and pretty.” He shared a long look with Leticia. “I told her that she was my Little Ladybug, but that’s a long name, ye ken?” His gaze softened further as he continued to focus on Hortence. “So she’s my Little Bug.”
“She’s been teased terribly about her red hair.”
Alistair tensed next to her. “I hate the cruelty of others but especially when directed at children.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “And I love how you want to protect her.”
He held his fiancée’s hand and sighed with satisfaction as she rested her head on his shoulder. When Annabelle called out that dinner was almost ready, they rose, washing their hands before sitting at the round table set for seven with a small bouquet of wildflowers at its center.
“Who brought you the flowers?” Cailean asked Annabelle.
She flushed. “One of the miners has a sweet tooth but can’t afford a cookie. I gave him a few of the cookie pieces a couple days ago, and he brought the flowers today as a thank-you.”
“And you gave him more sweets today,” Cailean said matter-of-factly. He laughed as his wife blushed. He raised her hand and kissed it as she paused by his side in her movements about the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re soft hearted, Belle. Not everything can be about profits.”
She served them all large bowls of venison stew and set a plate of sliced bread on the table. After pulling a small slab of butter from the icebox and placing it alongside their meal, she sat next to Cailean.
“Did ye hear what Mrs. Jameson has proposed?” Ewan asked as he paused in wolfing down his supper. At their curious stares, he set aside his spoon. “She read a story about rules for schoolteachers and is intent on enacting them for the next one.”
“What sort of rules?” Leticia asked.
“Ones to prevent illicit behavior.” Her soon-to-be brother-in-law wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Illicit behavior? When did I ever do anything illicit?” She shot a worried glance at her daughter, Hortence, but everyone appeared as confused as Leticia was.
“Seems she wants to forbid the walking out with gentlemen and to enact curfews. Female teachers should be home each night by eight, should refrain from wearing any form of scent or any provocative clothing.”
Annabelle choked back a laugh. “Is she serious?” At Ewan’s nod, she shook her head. “This is her petty way of declaring that Leticia was an unfit teacher, simply because she was courted by an honorable man while she taught.”
“’Tis more than that,” Alistair murmured. “Mrs. Jameson wants to strike out at us because she’s bitter that her daughter willna be Mrs. Alistair MacKinnon.” He leveled an intense gaze at his youngest brother who had just turned thirty. “I’d be careful, Ewan. She’s intent for Helen to be a MacKinnon, an’ ye better have yer wits about ye so that ye don’t get trapped by one of her schemes.”
Cailean chuckled as he played with a ruffle on his wife’s collar. “That’s one of the reasons she was irate that Annabelle had lured me into marriage.” He winked at his wife as she rolled her eyes. “After Mrs. Jameson overcame her delight in spreading gossip about us, she realized she’d lost me for her daughter.”
His siblings laughed. “Helen wouldna have had ye!” Ewan said. “Not after ye told her that she looked worse than an overripe raspberry about to burst at the previous Founders’ Day party. She couldna stand the sight of ye.”
“The same could never be said for her mother.” Cailean frowned. “All Mrs. Jameson cared about was that I had a good business and a large house.”
“Now that she sees ye happily wed, it only makes her envy greater,” Sorcha murmured. “An’ she’s delusional enough to believe her daughter would have been equal to Annabelle.”
Cailean squeezed his wife’s hand. “For me, Annabelle is incomparable. As Leticia is for Alistair.” He raised his glass of water in a toast. “To the l
ucky couple, who, in two days’ time, will end the longest courtship in town history.”
They raised their cups before clinking them.
Annabelle giggled. “Yes, this family will have the longest and one of the shortest in town history.”
“As long as we are wed, I dinna care how many years it took us to arrive at this place,” Alistair said with a loving gaze into Leticia’s eyes.
Available March 13, 2018!
Montana Grit (Bear Grass Springs, Book 2)
Also by Ramona Flightner
Are you yearning for more time in Bear Grass Springs? The next books in the series are coming soon!
Coming Soon:
Montana Grit (Bear Grass Springs, Book Two) March 2018!
Montana Maverick (Bear Grass Springs, Book Three) April 2018!
Montana Renegade (Bear Grass Springs, Book Four) May 2018!
Also by Ramona: The Banished Saga:
The Banished Saga Books 1 &2 (Banished Love and Reclaimed Love)
Undaunted Love, Part One (Banished Saga, Book 3)
Undaunted Love, Part Two (Banished Saga, Book 3.5)
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Afterword
As most often occurs, the idea for this novel came to me as I sat by a river a few summers ago as I took a break from fly fishing. I had been toying with the idea of starting a new series, but had put it on the back burner as I was busy writing novels in the Banished Saga. However, the words, “I’m not marrying a whore,” popped into my head and I immediately wanted to know who said them and why. Thus, this new series was born.
Montana Untamed Page 25
