Montana Man. Jillian Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ so reaching the bowl of crackers wasn’t such a long stretch for her. “One day the fantasy wears off, and you’re left with reality—a plain man with flaws and failures, not some shining hero of your heart.”

      “Now you think you’re an expert on a woman’s love life, is that it?”

      “Well, I have observed quite a few situations—”

      “It’s not like that.” Irritation sliced through her, and she frowned at him. It was her experience in life that men took a very cynical view of love, and it bothered her to no end, as if women were made to love and care for others but did not deserve great affection and esteem in return. “Lewis is an awful man. He’s charming and—”

      “Debonair and dashing?” Trey cocked one brow, attempting to tease her away from her anger.

      Well, she wasn’t about to be cajoled out of anything. “Yes, that’s right. He thinks he’s handsome and intelligent and so very fine, but he’s the worst sort of man.”

      “Just like me?” Trey’s brow crooked higher.

      Oh, she would not grin. She wouldn’t. “As a matter of fact, he’s exactly like you.”

      “Surely a man any beautiful woman ought to run screaming away from.” He might be humoring her, but the light in his eyes was fading, as if he sensed what she was about to say.

      She pushed aside her soup, no longer hungry. The man, who’d stepped into the car earlier, settled into the table behind her. Aware, she lowered her voice. “I did run away screaming.”

      Her palms prickled and every muscle in her body began to quake. The pleasant dining car faded away until memory dominated her senses. She saw again the parlor’s drapes pulled tight against the midday sun and smelled the fragrance of freshly blooming roses.

      She closed her eyes, hoping to stop the memory, but she still heard the click of the big double doors closing, locking her in with the man she’d given her heart to. She’d escaped him before he could rape her, but he’d blackened both her eyes, and when she’d leaped out the window running, she’d believed her father would protect her.

      But Father only handed her back to Lewis, his words destroying every illusion she’d had about her life.

      “I’m sorry he hurt you.” Trey’s words rumbled low like thunder, as powerful as a storm, more comforting than any man’s voice had the right to be. “Is there—”

      “No.” She stopped him before he could offer more than she could endure. She didn’t want to go back, she didn’t want to dwell on what could never be changed. Or remember more of that day, of what she could not face again.

      “I’m fine, really. I got away before he could take from me what no man should have by force. I—” Her voice wobbled, and she hated it. She hated that he could coax secrets and wounds from her heart with such ease.

      “He’s the one after you?” A muscle jumped in Trey’s jaw, and there was no longer even a glimmer of humor. His gaze was as harsh as any bounty hunter’s and twice as determined.

      She shook her head. “My father. He’s a powerful man. He’s dead set on this marriage. Lewis is his protégé, a young doctor he’s groomed in his own image. He wants him for a son-in-law.”

      “Your father thinks so little of you, his own daughter?” Trey’s words came low, but his anger boomed.

      “My father is a man just like you.” She lifted one brow and waited. “Charming, debonair…”

      “Aw, but he obviously lacks my kinder nature toward the fairer sex.”

      “Obviously.” She almost smiled, their gazes latching together.

      She felt it like light to her soul. She saw past the dark brown of his eyes into a deeper place, where his concern gathered with a quiet strength she’d known in no other man. A strength of character and heart, not of brawn and force. Her hand trembled, and she was glad she wasn’t holding the spoon, because she would have dropped it.

      The train jerked, breaking the motion, and the renewed howl of the storm slammed into the north side of the car with inhuman force. Josie cried out, tears rising, the trauma of the wreck and losing her parents stark against the other passengers’ gasps of concern.

      The brief smile was gone, the fears of an orphaned and injured girl returned. Trey wrapped his arms around the girl, holding her close, reassuring her. The door at the end of the car banged open and the bounty hunter strolled in.

      Fear ran like ice water through her veins, and Miranda eased from her chair. She knew Trey was armed, but he was holding a child. There would be no confrontation, no risk to Josie or anyone else in the car. There would be no gunfight, no bullets firing wild.

      The hired gun’s gaze fastened on her and she felt the impact, cold and lethal, as cutting as a blizzard’s wind. The train shuddered again, doubling the sound of Josie’s cries. Trey, busy with the child, hadn’t noticed the man behind him, and maybe it would stay that way.

      She took a quick breath, gathered her courage and stood from the seat.

      “I need to excuse myself,” she whispered, so he would think she was headed to the water closet. It was better to repay him this way for his kindness. She wanted him safe. After all, he had Josie to protect.

      She’d never wanted her freedom to come at the price of anyone else coming to harm. Her days of dreaming dreams and wishing on first-stars-of-the-night were past. There was no sense in running. She would give herself up before the bounty hunter decided to fire his gun again.

      As if reading her mind, the ruffian slipped one gun from his holster, the smooth glide of steel against leather lost in the noisy car. Cocked, then aimed.

      Her chest felt so tight, it was impossible to breathe. She couldn’t let Trey face down an armed man. She couldn’t! Her knees wobbled and her throat was dry, but she managed to keep breathing and put one uncertain foot in front of the other.

      “Hold on a minute.” A man’s voice—it wasn’t Trey’s—boomed with heated fury and cold threat. The well-dressed man seated at the adjacent table now towered behind her, gun drawn, his aim steady on the threatening man. “I’m a Pinkerton agent, and she is my quarry. Back down, bounty hunter, if you value your life.”

      Out of the corner of her eye, Miranda saw Trey set Josie in a vacant seat. He rose, a man of might who stole her breath and made her heart stammer. He wrapped his hand around the Colt’s handle and drew, standing between her and the bounty hunter, as strong as legend, as powerful as myth.

      She did not doubt that he would protect her. But it wasn’t protection she needed.

      It was her freedom.

      It was all she wanted.

      “Put down the gun, bounty hunter.” Trey nodded toward a neighboring table, where diners turned with gasps and exclamations. This was not the kind of behavior they expected to see in their first-class dining car.

      Miranda took one step toward the door, afraid to draw attention to herself but longing—how she longed—to escape.

      “We’re being robbed!” СКАЧАТЬ