Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Copyright

“I was hoping to get another dance with you,” Parker said.

Molly gave a happy laugh. “All you had to do was ask.”

He pulled her to a stop, then pointed above her head. “I’m asking,” he said, his voice suddenly thick.

She looked up to catch a brief glimpse of mistletoe, just before his lips came down on hers.

Parker had meant the gesture to be friendly, but before he had reached her mouth he knew that it was going to be more than that. He kissed her once, before releasing her as if he’d been burned. Molly stood watching him for a long moment.

He put his arm back around her waist. “I… ah…could try it again.”

She stepped backward and shook her head. “No. Then I’d have to fire you.”

“So if I kiss you again, I lose my job? Hmm.” The decision took him about three seconds before he snatched her against him again….

Dear Reader,

Ana Seymour’s seventh book for Harlequin Historicals, Lucky Bride, is a sequel to Gabriel’s Lady. When ranch hand Parker Prescott discovers that his boss might be forced to marry a dangerous con man, he sets out to save her… only to fall in love with her in the process in this delightful Western set in Wyoming Territory.

Romance Writers of America RITA Award nominee Gayle Wilson is back with Raven’s Vow, a haunting Regency novel about a marriage of convenience between an American investor and an English heiress. Elizabeth Mayne, another March Madness/RTTA Award nominee author, is also out this month. Lord of the Isle is a classic Elizabethan tale featuring an Irish nobleman who unwittingly falls in love with a rebel from an outlawed family.

Our fourth title for the month, The Return of Chase Cordell, is a Western from Linda Castle, who is fast becoming one of our most popular authors. It’s a poignant love story about a war hero with amnesia who rediscovers a forgotten passion for his young bride.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you’ll enjoy all four of these terrific stories. Please keep an eye out for them wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.:3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Lucky Bride
Ana Seymour

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ANA SEYMOUR

has been a Western fan since her childhood—the days of the shoot-’em-up movie matinees and television programs. She has followed the course of the Western myth in books and films ever since, and says she was delighted when cowboys started going off into the sunset with their ladies rather than their horses. Ms. Seymour lives with her two daughters near one of Minnesota’s ten thousand lakes.

In memory of my grandmother Jane Lovene Eiler my ever-present example of a woman of spirit

Chapter One

Wyoming Territory

November, 1876

Parker Prescott pushed back the brim of his lucky Stetson and grimaced as he surveyed the dusty street. Whoever had named this place Canyon City must have had a darn good sense of humor. This sure as hell wasn’t Parker’s idea of a city. And the closest thing he’d seen to a canyon in the brown plains he’d just crossed was the collapsed prairie dog hole that had lamed up his horse.

He sighed. It appeared the livery was at the far end of town, past a row of three saloons, a bathhouse and a tonsorial parlor. He took a step back and gave his mount a pat. “Just a little farther, Diamond,” he told the animal. “Then you can give that leg a nice long rest.”

Parker had walked the last few miles into town, and the thought of that bathhouse was appealing. He’d see to Diamond, then head back and try to soak away his aches and his gloomy mood in a steaming tub. The aches would disappear faster than the gloom, he reckoned.

Diamond seemed to sense that her limping journey was about over. She tossed her head and followed willingly as Parker started up the street. His horse’s mishap was the last in a string of plain bad luck that had set Parker to wondering why he’d ever left New York City in the first place.

He’d headed out of Deadwood in Dakota Territory in October and had intended by now to be clear to the West Coast, trying his luck in the dying gold fields of California. But he’d been hit by an early fall snowstorm and had had to hole up in a cave until his supplies were gone, forcing him to double back to Lead to restock. When he’d finally gotten out of the Black Hills and hit the vast, rolling plains, he’d lost the trail, wandering like an idiot for days. He’d never be a mountain man, he’d decided ruefully. There’d been no need to learn to steer by the stars in the busy streets of Manhattan.

And now Diamond had come up lame, forcing Parker to abandon the idea of making it across the mountains before winter. But he wasn’t about to get stuck for the season in Canyon City. There had to be someplace in Wyoming Territory where a man could find some of life’s amenities—a thick steak and a pretty girl would do to start.

He passed the third saloon, taking a step away from the wooden sidewalk as a cowboy out front spewed a poorly aimed wad of tobacco in his direction. Perhaps he could make it to Cheyenne for the winter, Parker mused. Surely the territorial capital would offer some…

His head spun around. As if conjured up by his thoughts, directly across the street from him stood the two prettiest females he’d seen since his last stroll down Park Avenue.

Diamond gave a slight whinny of protest as her owner tugged on her reins. Parker hesitated a moment. Diamond needed attending to, but by the time he made it to the livery and back, the two visions across the street might have disappeared. He reached over to tie the horse to the saloon hitching post, then gave a halfhearted swipe to the dusty front of his clothes. His appearance couldn’t be helped. He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. If the ladies had any sense, they’d be able to see through the dirt to the sterling qualities of the man underneath.

He strode across the street and planted himself in front of the two women, scooping his hat off his head and giving a little bow. “Morning, ladies,” he said politely. Their pastel dresses were as fresh and pretty and sedate as an Easter church service. The two were obviously not the kind of women who sold themselves in the upstairs rooms of saloons. Too bad. Parker wasn’t much interested in decent women these days. But it still would be a pleasure to hear a feminine voice.

“Excuse my taking the liberty of addressing you two ladies without an introduction.” He flashed the easy smile that never failed to charm and tried to keep from staring at two sets of golden lashes fluttering over two sets of enormous blue eyes.

“The name is Parker Prescott, at your service,” he continued with another slight bow. “I’m new in town, and I wondered if I might prevail on you ladies to help a weary traveler with a bit of information.” He made his speech New York-formal and his manner as elegant as if he were wearing cutaways at the opera instead of buckskins in the middle of a godforsaken cow town.

His efforts appeared to have some effect. The taller of the two gave him a shy, dimpled smile and said, “What kind of information, sir?”

This time Parker’s grin was genuine. The girl’s smile was the loveliest thing he’d seen in a month of Sundays. And her voice would stand out in an angel chorus. After a fascinated moment he managed to say, “I’ve had an accident with my horse and am in sore need of a hearty meal and a good hotel.”

“There’s just the one place for both,” the girl answered, pointing to a faded yellow clapboard building behind her. A sign over the double doorway said Grand Hotel.

Parker’s smile dimmed, but he recovered and continued. “Perhaps you ladies would join me for a meal? I’ve had a long, lonely trip, and I’d surely appreciate a bit of company.”

The girl who had answered him looked at her companion. They had to be sisters. Their delicate features were nearly identical, noses tilting upward and cheeks pink with a natural blush. The shorter one spoke for the first time. “Don’t even think of it, Susannah. You know nothing about this man.”

Susannah tossed her head, sending her blond curls bouncing under the silk-ruched bonnet. “If we have to sit around all afternoon waiting for Molly we might as well be comfortable in the café with a nice cup of tea.”

“She’s right, you know,” Parker said, addressing the shorter sister with a serious expression. “You shouldn’t be out here on the street waiting for your companion. It would be much better to wait inside enjoying a nice piece of apple pie.”

The girl’s face brightened a bit at this suggestion, but she still looked skeptical. “Molly would throw a fit,” she said slowly to the girl she had called Susannah.

“Oh, pooh. She’s not our mother, you know, for all she tries to act like one.”

“You ladies are sisters?” Parker asked.

Susannah nodded and held out a gloved hand. “Susannah and Mary Beth Hanks. Molly’s our older sister. She’s over at the Feed ‘n’ Seed.”

Parker took the offered hand and held it in both of his. For a moment he lost track of his thoughts in the depths of Susannah Hanks’s blue eyes. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Hanks,” he said finally. Lord almighty, it had been entirely too long since he’d been around decent women. He felt as tongue-tied as a schoolboy at his first afternoon social. Where was that glib Eastern patter that had set all the ladies back in Deadwood to sighing? Of course, the ladies of Deadwood hadn’t exactly been ladies.

He dropped Susannah’s hand and turned to her sister. “And yours, Miss Hanks. I can hardly believe my good fortune at meeting two such lovely examples of Wyoming aristocracy.”

Mary Beth gave a little giggle and slowly offered her hand. “I reckon that’s the first time the Hanks sisters have been called aristocracy,” she said.

Parker took the girl’s hand. It was plumper, smaller than her sister’s. He lifted it toward his lips. “It isn’t hard to recognize—” he began, then froze as he felt the cold pressure of a gun barrel against the back of his neck.

“Take your hands and your eyes off my sisters or I’ll blow that fancy-talking tongue clear out of your head.”

The voice behind him held nothing of the melodious grace of her sisters. Parker held one hand in the air and with the other carefully reached behind his head to grasp the end of the gun and move it away. “I assure you, Miss Hanks,” he said smoothly, “I mean no disrespect to your sisters or to you.”

He turned around and tried to keep his astonishment from showing in his expression. The woman he faced was as unlike the two pastel confections behind him as a rattler from a pair of buttercups. She stood like a man with her feet planted apart, a mean-looking buffalo rifle cradled easily in her arms. At least it was no longer pointed at him. She wore denim pants that hung on her like a half-empty flour sack and a bulky buckskin jacket, also several sizes too big. An oversize man’s felt hat was pulled down over her hair, but he could see from the wisps that escaped along each side that, unlike her sisters’ blond tresses, her hair was a nondescript brown. Her cheeks were chapped and roughened by the wind.

“You can be on your way,” she said, swinging the rifle barrel in the direction of his horse. “We’re not interested in talking with any traveling sidewinders.”

He felt a surge of irritation, but hid it behind a smile. “My own sister has called me worse things at times, Miss Hanks, but she never really meant them. She has a right feisty temper when she gets riled. I believe it was my homesickness for her that emboldened me to address your lovely sisters.”

Molly Hanks’s expression did not soften. “There’s a telegraph at the end of the street. Why don’t you go send your sister a wire and leave mine alone?”

Parker turned back toward Susannah and Mary Beth, but they were both staring down at the ground. “I didn’t mean any harm, ladies,” he said.

Susannah looked up quickly, and he thought he detected a hint of apology in her eyes before she shifted them downward again.

“I just might take your advice, Miss Hanks,” he said softly, turning back to the oldest sister. With a last glance at her rifle, he clapped his hat on his head and headed across the street toward Diamond.

His delight at the unexpected encounter with the two lovely sisters had faded, and a wave of homesickness hit him. Perhaps he would send Amelia a telegram, let her know where he was. She and her new husband, Gabe Hatch, would be back in New York City now, with Gabe taking over the family banking position that Parker had so detested. He grinned as he thought about his former mining partner turning on the charm for all the reformer friends of Parker and Amelia’s mother. He wondered if the true story would be revealed—that his bluestocking sister had gone to Deadwood to save Parker from the evils of the Wild West…and had instead fallen head over petticoats for a wickedly handsome professional gambler.

He found the telegraph office and sent his message, then went back out into the street with a lump the size of a potato in his throat. All of a sudden, winter was looking mighty long.

As he stepped off the sidewalk, the three Hanks sisters exited from a doorway across the street. All three turned their heads his way. He gave a little bow and tipped his hat, but as the two younger sisters started to smile at him again, the oldest grabbed each by an arm and tugged them in the opposite direction.

“He was being a regular gentleman, Molly,” he heard the tall, pretty one say in a loud, angry whisper.

Molly didn’t bother to lower her voice. “There’s no such thing as a gentleman, Susannah. Leastwise, not in Wyoming Territory.” She uncocked her rifle and passed it to her left hand. “I’m finished here. Let’s get home.”

She turned and marched up the street toward a wagon parked out in front of the feed store. Susannah looked across to where Parker stood with Diamond, watching them. She gave him a furtive wave, to which he tipped his hat and winked. Mary Beth nervously grabbed her sister’s arm. “C’mon, Susannah. Molly says we have to go.”

Parker watched them leave with a sigh of regret. He’d best put the beautiful Hanks sisters out of his mind. If their older sister was such a tigress, he’d hate to imagine what their father or brothers would do to guard their virtue.

Parker eased his shoulders into the steaming, soapy water. It felt even better than he had anticipated. He hadn’t had bathwater this hot since he’d headed west. Perhaps Canyon City would do for the winter after all. The Grand Hotel, despite its unimpressive exterior, had yielded a prime sirloin the size of a serving platter. The liveryman who was tending to Diamond appeared to be a proper expert in horseflesh. And then, of course, there were those intriguing Hanks sisters.

He’d promised himself to put them out of his head, but the rest of his body kept bringing up the subject. If he could just get the two younger ones alone, preferably the taller one, Susannah… He closed his eyes and pictured them, standing there in the dusty street. Her eyes had been the color of his mother’s prize china. Cornflower blue, it was called.

“I ain’t about to fish you outta there if you fall asleep, sonny.”

Parker jumped at the strident voice. He sat up with a slosh. A large woman had come in at the far end of the room carrying a load of towels. She was as tall as Parker and twice as wide. Parker looked down at the water in consternation. The last of the bubbles had gone over the side of the tub when he sat up, leaving him fully exposed to view.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said, following the direction of his gaze. “You ain’t got nothing in there I ain’t seen before.” She lowered the towels and craned her neck to peer at the water. “Though it don’t look too bad for a pilgrim like you.”

Parker felt his skin grow hotter than the temperature of the water. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, ma’am,” he said, masking his discomfiture.

“Maxine McClanahan,” she said, her voice booming. “Most folks just call me Max. I thought you’d need a towel.”

“Much obliged.” His embarrassment faded at the woman’s brisk manner. He met her steady gaze. Her hair was shot through with gray, but she was definitely not the grandmotherly type. She had a nononsense air about her. Max. It suited her.

He sat back and allowed her to finish her unabashed perusal of him. “Do you work here?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Own the place.”

Parker lifted his eyebrows in surprise, eliciting a chuckle from Max.

“So what, pilgrim? You don’t think a woman can own a respectable business? I thought you’d be a mite smarter than the usual drifters we get through here. The only time they feel comfortable givin’ money to a woman is when she’s lying on her back.” She gave a little huff and deposited the towels on the room’s only chair.

Parker grinned. “I’ll be happy to give you my money, ma’am. What was it you called me? A pilgrim?”

“Yup. A pilgrim. A tenderfoot,” she clarified.

“How’d you know I was a tenderfoot?”

She glanced at the jumbled heap of Parker’s things. “The clothes, for one. Ain’t a gent in Canyon City who’d wear a silk vest like that one. ‘Cept maybe Harvey Overstreet. And that’s ‘cause he’s been expectin’ to die for the past ten years and wants to look pretty in his coffin.”

“Back in Deadwood there were lots of men with vests like mine,” Parker protested.

“Deadwood’s a boomtown—gamblers and scalawags and fancy dreamers.” Her grimace left no doubt as to Max’s opinion of the quality of Deadwood menfolk. “Out here’s the real West. Honest-togoodness cowpokes who wouldn’t know a silk shirt from a burlap bag.”

“And who don’t like women in business,” Parker added.

Max put her hands on her ample hips. “That’s for darn sure. They’ve near run poor Molly Hanks out of the territory.”

“Molly Hanks?” Parker pushed himself farther out of the water and felt the sudden chill on his skin.

Max nodded. “After her pappy died, none of these pea-brained cowhands would work for her. They say a woman’s got no business running a ranch.”

“That particular woman looks like she could run just about anything,” Parker said under his breath.

“Molly’s a tough one,” Max agreed with another rumbling chuckle. “But if she don’t get some of them to change their minds by spring roundup, I’m afraid she ain’t got a sinner’s chance in heaven of making a go of it.”

Parker shivered. He looked over at the stack of towels, just out of reach. “Ah… would you like to hand me one of those?” he asked.

Max leaned her back against the wall and let a broad smile cross her face. “Come on, pilgrim. At my age there just ain’t that many pleasures left in this life, so I take ‘em where I can get ‘em. And from what I’ve seen so far, a nice long look at you would be pure pleasure.”

Trying not to feel self-conscious, Parker stood, letting the dirty water sluice down his lean body. His eyes met Max’s. She watched him with a brief flicker of a nearly forgotten hunger, then it was replaced by her sardonic humor. “Pure pleasure is right,” she said with a wink as he grabbed a towel and began to dry himself. She looked him up and down without selfconsciousness. “You can bathe here any time you want, pilgrim. Half price.”

Parker laughed. Canyon City was definitely proving to be much more enjoyable than he had suspected. “Is there work hereabouts?” he asked.

Max cocked her head. “Not this time of year, I wouldn’t think. Except out at the Lucky Stars, of course.”

“The Lucky Stars?”

“Hanks’s place. Ol’ man Hanks named it after his three girls. He always called them his lucky stars.”

“They didn’t have any brothers?”

“Nope. Just the three fillies. Sarah Hanks died on the last one and Charlie Hanks never got over it. Not ‘til the day he died.”

“So the three girls are running the ranch now?”

“Molly is. Can’t say as the other two are much help.”

Parker tied the towel around his waist. “Where might I find their outfit?”

Max pushed away from the wall and started to walk toward the door, a secret smile on her face. “You plannin’ to sign on out there?”

“I might give it a try.”

Max shook her head. “Head straight north out of town. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Parker said with a smile and a nod. “And thanks for the, ah…company.”

Max started out the door, her broad shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Lord almighty,” he heard her say as she disappeared into the front room, “that’s all Miss Molly needs… a gol-danged pilgrim with the body of a prize stallion.”

He’d found the canyon. It wasn’t much of a canyon, but it sliced deep enough so that the horse he’d exchanged for Diamond tossed her head and looked reluctant to start down.

Parker dismounted and walked to the edge, looking for a path. A pilgrim, Max had called him. At the moment he was ready to add some epithets of his own to the description. When he left Canyon City he could have sworn he was heading due north, but he’d been riding a good portion of the afternoon and hadn’t seen the Lucky Stars ranch. Nor had he seen anything of the Hanks sisters. To make matters worse, the wind that had been brisk when he left town was now downright nasty. He hunched into his sheepskin jacket. Max hadn’t said anything about having to cross a canyon. Maybe he should turn back to town. If, indeed, he knew which way was back.

“What do you think?” he asked the swaybacked sorrel. The animal had been a sorry trade for Diamond, but the liveryman had insisted that Diamond might never heal up, in which case any trade was a good one. Parker didn’t know enough about horses to argue.

The animal looked at him reproachfully, as if to remind him that finding the right road was the rider’s responsibility, not the horse’s. He took another look into the canyon. The riverbed at the bottom was dry. There’d be no problem crossing. And the slope up the far side looked more gentle than the one he was standing on. If he could make it down, he should be all right.

“Ah, hell,” he said aloud. He grasped the horse’s reins firmly in one hand and started down the slippery side of the cliff, pulling the balky animal after him. Now that he was on his way, it didn’t look so formidable. And the wind cut a little less once he was within the shelter of the rocks. A few ominous white flakes whipped by him, but he ignored them and concentrated on his footing.

“Just one foot after the other,” he said under his breath. One tenderfoot after another, he silently corrected, remembering his encounter with Max. He grinned in spite of himself.

Chapter Two

“Papa must be a-rollin’ in his grave to see me like this,” Susannah said with disgust, tearing off the oversize gloves and looking at her chapped hands. “My skin’s going to be as tough as shoe leather.”

“People don’t roll in their graves,” Molly replied. “Once they’re dead, they’re dead.”

“Can’t we go back now, Molly? I’m half-froze.”

Molly pulled off her own gloves and huffed on her numb fingers. The storm was getting worse, and if they hadn’t found the blamed mule by now, they probably weren’t going to. They could only hope that the poor nag had found a place to take shelter. Beatrice was too old to weather a storm like the one kicking up just to the west of them. Too old to be of much use around the ranch, either. She’d been their father’s favorite—the only animal he could afford when he’d first come West back in ‘50. He’d been on his way to join the California Gold Rush, but had fallen in love with the wide open skies of Wyoming and had never left. Molly still felt the pain like a piece of glass in her throat every time she thought about him. She reckoned she owed it to Papa not to let Beatrice freeze to death alone in a snowstorm.

“We’ll look along the canyon,” she told her sister. “If we can’t see any sign of her there, we’ll have to head back.”

Susannah wheeled her horse toward the west. She was actually the best rider of the three sisters, but she played down her skill, not wanting Molly to assign her more tasks around the place. “Hurry up with it, then. That’s a blizzard coming,” she called back to her sister. “I don’t see what’s so all-fired important about an old mule. She won’t even let any of us ride her.”

“She misses Papa, just like the rest of us. One of these days she’ll calm down.”

Susannah frowned and let Molly pull up alongside her. “You talk about her as if she were a member of the family.”

“Don’t be stupid. You and Mary Beth and I are the family. The only family we have left.”

They’d been riding toward the edge of Copper Canyon, an unexpected gap that opened up in the middle of the prairie like a crack in a smooth pan of cake. It was named not for any particular mineral content but for its burnished red color when the sun hit it right. Susannah reached the edge first and pulled up, holding her hat down on her head as the wind tore into her. “She’s not going to be down here, Molly,” she hollered. “Papa never took Beatrice into the canyon.”

Molly squinted to keep the snow from her eyes. The big flakes were coming down harder, and it was becoming difficult to see. She flipped her horse’s reins over its head and handed them to her sister. “Hold on to Midnight. I’m going to take a look.”

“I don’t think…”

Before Susannah could finish her protest, Molly had jumped from her horse and was walking toward the edge of the cliff. As she reached the rim, her heart gave a little jump. Through the snow she could make out the distinct shape of an animal, just a few yards down into the canyon. “She’s here!” she yelled to Susannah as she scrambled over the side.

“Be careful. The ground’s slippery,” her sister warned.

In fact, the footing was more treacherous than Molly had anticipated. The snow had formed an icy coating over the rocks. She turned around and began to climb down backward, holding to the side as she went. From beneath her came a gentle whinny. She straightened up in surprise and looked over her shoulder. She knew the mule’s throaty sound. The animal below her was not Beatrice.

Her body sagged a moment with disappointment, then she straightened her back. It was someone’s animal, and it didn’t belong stuck here on the side of a canyon. She faced the rocks once again and continued down until she reached the horse. Close up, it didn’t look as if it was worth saving, but there was a fancy tooled saddle on its back and bulging saddlebags.

She looked around. Where in blazes was the rider? The gale tore at her, threatening to blow her off the side of the cliff. She clutched at the horse for support. “What are you doing here, you old nag? Where’s your owner?” The animal tossed its head and gave another whinny of complaint.

Molly twisted around to survey the surrounding area, but the canyon was fast turning into a sheet of white. She could barely see the ground right next to her own feet. She started to feel an ominous cold from the inside out. If the owner of this horse was lying hurt or wounded somewhere near here, they might not find him until after the storm, and by then it would surely be too late.

“Susannah, come help me!” she shouted.

She could barely hear her sister’s reply over the wind’s howl, and she could no longer see to the top of the cliff. She grabbed the horse’s reins. The leather was frozen stiff. “Halloo! Is anyone there?” she called out.

The snow blew into her mouth and stung her eyes. Leading the horse, she started to climb down into the canyon. She sensed that someone was in trouble out here, and helping people out of trouble was her specialty. But for once she was plumb out of ideas as to what to do.

Her boots slipped on the glassy rocks and she slid several feet, landing with her back against the sharp edge of a cracked boulder. The horse skidded along behind her. “Sorry,” she said to the animal as she scrambled back to her feet, ignoring the pain where the jagged rock had bruised her ribs. She took another look around. The world was utterly white. In just a few short minutes the snow blanket under her feet had become over an inch thick. Soon it would be blowing into immense drifts up on the plains.

She leaned back against the rocks. Her fists tightened in frustration as she tried to decide what to do. After all, she didn’t know for sure that the animal’s owner was in the canyon. The horse may have run away and left its rider miles from here. And with the progress of the storm, she and Susannah would be lucky to find their own way back to the ranch. To stay out here any longer would risk both their lives. Reluctantly she turned around once again and started up the cliff.

She almost fell on top of him. The horse pulled her to the left and she stumbled down a crevice, catching herself just before she slid right into him. Molly’s first thought was that he was dead. His body was twisted in an unnatural heap and his skin was totally white.

“Molly, are you hurt?” Susannah was climbing down toward her. She sounded terrified.

“I’m fine. But there’s someone here. He’s hurt…or worse.”

The storm seemed to abate for just a minute as the two sisters stared down at the frozen man.

“It’s that stranger—the one we saw in town yesterday. The gentleman,” Susannah said.

Molly gave a snort of disgust. “Maybe he is a gentleman if he’s blamed fool enough to try to cross Copper Canyon in this kind of weather.”

“What are we going to do?” Susannah asked, her eyes wide.

“We’ve got to get him up on his horse so we can take him back to the ranch.”

“We can’t lift a big man like that,” Susannah protested.

“It’s either that or he dies. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Susannah was silent, but she bent to help as Molly tugged at the man’s boots, trying to straighten out his body.

“You take the legs and I’ll take the shoulders—they’re heavier,” Molly ordered. Susannah was taller than Molly, but there was no question about who had the greater strength. They maneuvered the horse so that it was slightly below them on the cliff, leaving less distance for them to lift their burden. “On the count of three. Use all your strength, now,” Molly urged. “You can do it, Susie girl. One, two, three!”

They half lifted, half rolled the inert form over onto the saddle. Thankfully, the horse seemed too cold to protest and stood stock-still.

“We did it!” Susannah cried in triumph.

“Good job, sis,” Molly said, her entire chest filling with relief. Now all they had to do was find their way back home through a blinding snowstorm. “You lead the horse up and I’ll hold him on the back. We’ll tie him down when we get back on top.”

They struggled, pushing and pulling the reluctant mount up the rocks and onto level ground. Both girls were wheezing with the effort by the time they were at the top, and they threw their arms around each other in a victory embrace. “We made it,” Susannah gasped.

Molly was more reserved. “We can’t rest now. We’ve got to get started home.” She pulled a rope from her own horse and began to tie it around the inert man. There was no movement from him.

“You don’t suppose he’s dead, do you?” Susannah asked warily.

Molly brushed the snow from her face so that she could see the knots she was tying. “After all this trouble,” she said grimly, “he wouldn’t dare be dead.”

For several hours after they arrived home it looked as if the stranger they had rescued might indeed dare to die. His skin was completely cold to the touch, and his breathing was so shallow that at times it seemed to disappear altogether.

An anxious Mary Beth had greeted them at the big oak door of the ranch house, exclaiming over their tardiness in arriving through the storm. When they told her of the man, still tied to his horse out front, she ran to the kitchen to get Smokey. The bewhiskered old man was a roundup cook who had stayed on one spring years ago and had become a fixture at Lucky Stars.

“Where will we put him, Miss Molly?” Smokey asked as he helped her drag the stranger into the house.

“We’ll take him up to Papa’s room,” she answered after the briefest pause.

Susannah and Mary Beth exchanged a look. Since their father’s death the previous winter, his room had been unoccupied. When Susannah had once suggested that she would like to move there from her tiny corner room, Molly had answered her with a withering look and had gone upstairs to lock the door. It hadn’t been opened since.

Together the four of them carried the half-frozen man up the curving stairs and across the hall, then waited while Molly opened the door to the spacious bedroom. It was just as it had been when their father lived—his stand of pipes on the dresser, his old felt hat hanging from one corner of the clothes tree. But a groan from the unconscious man kept them from dwelling on the past.

“I’ve never seen skin so white,” Mary Beth said in a hushed voice as they laid him out on top of the high poster bed.

“Bring some coal oil, Smokey,” Molly directed. “We’ll have to rub it on him.”

Susannah and Mary Beth stared at her. “All over him?” Susannah asked.

“You girls ain’t rubbing no ‘all over’ on any shiftless cowboy,” Smokey said indignantly. “If he needs rubbing, I guess I’ll be the one to do it.”

Molly paused and looked up and down the stranger’s lean body. “I guess we could leave that part to you,” she told the old man. “But mind you’re gentle about it, or you’ll rub that frozen skin right off him.”

Smokey gave a little grunt. “I reckon I’ve unfroze my share of fingers and toes and ears in my time,” he muttered. “Now, you three can just skedaddle on downstairs.”

Molly set Mary Beth and Susannah to fixing supper and some hot soup for when their patient regained his senses, then she went back up to the bedroom with the coal oil. She hesitated at the door. Smokey had stripped off the stranger’s clothes, leaving his lower half covered by a blanket. She’d never seen a man’s naked chest close up. Papa had always said that any hand showing up around the big house without a shirt would be turned off the place. He’d guarded his daughters’ sensibilities as if they’d been princesses in a European castle rather than redblooded girls on a Wyoming cattle ranch.

She averted her eyes from the bed and held out the can of oil. “Are you sure you don’t need any help?” she asked.

Smokey walked over and gave her cheek a little pat. “You go down and get something warm into your gullet, missy. Let me worry about him.”

“Do you think he’ll be all right?”

Smokey shrugged. “He looks pretty froze. But we’ll do the best we can for him.”

“I’ll come back up in a little bit and sit with him, so you can have your supper.”

“Take your time. He’s not going anywhere.”

But Molly found she could not rest easy downstairs without knowing about the stranger’s progress. After gulping a few bites of stew, she said, “Mary Beth, you do the washing up tonight so Smokey can help out upstairs. And Susannah, bring some more firewood up to his room. We’ll need to keep it warm in there all night long.”

Susannah’s lower lip came out slightly. “I can hardly move, Molly.”

Molly felt much the same way herself. The struggle at the canyon and then battling the fury of the storm all the way home had taken its toll. But she pushed herself up from the table and said, “You can haul the wood or wash the dishes. You two work it out between yourselves, just so it gets done.” She stalked across the dining room to the front entryway and the graceful curved stairway that had been her papa’s pride and joy. No other ranch house in the territory had one like it.

“You have to help, too,” Susannah retorted.

“I’ll be up with the cowboy.”

“I’m not sure that he’s a cowboy,” Mary Beth corrected shyly. “Parker, he said his name was. Parker Prescott.”

“Kind of a gentlemanly sounding name, don’t you think?” Susannah added.

“Gentleman or not, he won’t be anything but a corpse unless we keep him warm,” Molly said.

Susannah’s smile dimmed. “I’ll bring up the wood,” she said.

And Mary Beth added, “I’ll bring some, too.”

By midnight the man’s skin had turned red. He still hadn’t regained consciousness. Molly had sent Smokey to bed, but she was determined to sit by their patient’s side through the night. She didn’t know whether Mr. Parker Prescott was a gentleman, but he was a human being. And if he was going to die, she wasn’t about to let him do it alone.

She’d sat with her father through two weeks of restless nights before the pneumonia had taken him last year. And she’d had her share of sleepless nights ever since. Sometimes, usually at times like this in the darkest early-morning hours, the responsibility of it all would overwhelm her. Everything depended on her— the ranch, her sisters, even Smokey and poor Beatrice, both of whom were too old to find a place at any other spread. And now this stranger’s fate had ended up in her hands, as well.

She-sighed and walked over to the bed to examine him. Against the snowy white of the pillow his hair was a dark chestnut color—thick and wavy. He had the chiseled features of an Eastern blue blood, but the upper part of his body, which was not covered by the blanket, was as strong and well muscled as the loggers who came through town on their way to the north woods. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest for a few moments. His breathing appeared normal once again. And his skin tone was looking better. She reached out to lift one of his hands. Fingers were often the hardest hit by frostbite. But he’d been wearing thick leather gloves, and she could see no sign of the deadly white spots that would indicate frozen skin.

She held his hand for a long moment, wondering at her own fascination. She’d certainly bandaged enough banged-up knuckles and sprains among the cowpokes. But this stranger’s hand didn’t look like those of the cowboys she’d nursed. His skin was clean and soft, the fingers long. There were, however, calluses on his palm. He’d not been entirely idle, this gentleman of theirs.

With a little grimace she put his hand back. She reckoned the rest of the household was asleep by now, but she wasn’t about to have someone come in and see her musing over some stranger’s hand. She went back and sat in the rocking chair next to the fire. The important thing was that it appeared Mr. Prescott was going to recover. Which meant that soon he could ride on out of here and things would be back to normal.

“Oh, my!” Mary Beth’s voice from the doorway woke Molly from her doze. Through the shutter slats she could see that it was daylight, though the storm still raged. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then glanced over at the bed.

She saw at once the cause of Mary Beth’s exclamation. During the night the man had twisted the blanket around himself in such a way that only the barest portion of his naked body was concealed from view. Fortunately that portion included his most private parts, but it was still a shocking sight. One long, hairy leg was exposed to view clear up to his backside. Molly felt a bit queer in her midsection. She jumped up and walked over to the bed, intent on protecting her sister from seeing anything more.

“Oh, my!” Susannah’s exclamation came like an echo behind Mary Beth. Both girls stepped into the room and stood staring at the bed.

“You two can go on downstairs,” Molly snapped. “It’s not decent for you to be seeing him like this.”

“It’s not decent for you, either,” Susannah said, sounding more intrigued than shocked. She walked across the room, then made a slow tour around the end of the bed. “He’s surely a pretty thing, isn’t he?” she said with a low laugh.

“Has he woken up yet?” Mary Beth asked cautiously. She stayed put over by the door.

Molly grasped one end of the blanket, but it was so twisted around him that she couldn’t pull it free. “I must have dozed myself,” she answered. “But I don’t think he has. His color looks good, though.”

“More than his color looks good, if you ask me,” Susannah said with a little giggle.

“Susannah!” Mary Beth chided.

Molly grabbed a coverlet from its stand and flung it out over the entire bed, burying the patient. “You two ought to be down fixing breakfast,” she said again, facing her sisters with her hands on her hips.

“Smokey’s fixing it. He said we should come up and help you.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“We’ll just watch, then,” Susannah said with a wicked grin.

Molly gave a huff and went back to trying to free the twisted blanket, working underneath the coverlet. In exasperation she gave a forceful tug. The patient rolled, causing the blanket to come free in her hands and knocking her off balance. She ended up in a heap on the bed, not two feet from Parker Prescott’s wide open brown eyes.

“Hello,” he said mildly.

Molly pushed the hair out of her face and scrambled backward, making sure that the coverlet stayed over most of his body.

“Ah…hello,” she said.

Susannah gave one of her musical laughs. “You’re awake!” she said.

Parker turned his head toward the tall blonde standing next to the bed. He blinked a couple of times. “If this is heaven,” he said, “then dying was worth the price.”

Molly felt an odd mixture of relief, irritation and panic. She was pleased that the stranger had recovered his senses and was not going to die in their midst. But she was not pleased at the way he was eyeing her sister. Charlie Hanks had guarded his three daughters like a shepherd guarding a flock of sheep surrounded by slavering wolves, a comparison that, he always said, was being overly complimentary to the cowboys of Canyon City. When he’d died, Molly had simply taken over the guarding duty, as she had all the others. Now all at once she had one of those very wolves lying naked in her father’s bed. What was worse, Susannah’s eyes were sparkling with interest as she returned his gaze.

“La, sir,” Susannah said, her voice flirtatious, “we simple prairie girls aren’t used to such pretty talk.”

Parker looked from Susannah over to Mary Beth at the door, then more briefly at Molly, who had hastily pushed herself off the bed and was standing over him with a glower. Finally he turned back to Susannah and shook his head. “I can’t believe you girls don’t have every eligible cowboy in the territory swarming over this place trying to talk pretty.”

“A few have tried,” Molly said curtly. “We aren’t interested.” She glared at him as she folded the freed blanket.

“Speak for yourself, Molly,” Susannah retorted. “Mr. Prescott can talk to me all day long if he’s a mind.”

Parker looked from one woman to the other. It was almost impossible to believe that they were sisters. Susannah was regarding him with that special kind of male-female look that he’d forgotten how much he missed. Her older sister, on the other hand, was watching him as if he were some kind of poisonous lizard.

Making sure that he was decently covered by the quilt, he sat up. He closed his eyes briefly as a wave of dizziness hit him. When it passed, he said, “Perhaps before we go any further one of you would be kind enough to tell me how I came to be here in the first place.”

“We rescued you!” Susannah said, beaming. “You were near frozen to death.”

“We dragged you out of Copper Canyon in time to save you from that,” Molly added, pointing at the window where the snow still whipped against the glass. “What in tarnation were you doing out there in weather like that?”

Parker looked sheepish. “I…ah…didn’t know it was going to storm.”

“Haven’t you got eyes in your head, man?” Molly asked. “It was building up in the western sky since daybreak yesterday.”

“Maybe he’s not used to Wyoming weather, Molly,” Susannah told her sister in a tone of reproach. Then she turned to Parker. “Anyway, Mr. Prescott, the important thing is that we found you, and you’re going to be all right.”

“I reckon if you saved my life you better call me Parker, Miss Hanks,” he said with another of his justfor-the-ladies smiles.

“And I’m Susannah,” she said with a nod.

Suddenly Molly felt invisible. Parker and her sister were looking at each other as if the rest of the room had faded from view. That panicky feeling came back. Susannah was too darn pretty for her own good. And even Molly had to admit that the stranger was the handsomest male who’d come their way in quite some time. His eyes, gleaming now as they locked with Susannah’s, were nearly the same rich chestnut color of his hair.

Molly couldn’t blame Susannah for her interest. She’d have to act quickly to scare the man off before problems could develop. “The storm should lift by noon, Mr. Prescott,” she said loudly. “If you’re feeling all right, you can be on your way.”

Both Parker and Susannah looked over at her as if surprised to find her still standing there.

“Don’t be churlish, Molly,” Susannah chided. “We need to give Mr., ah, Parker—” she paused to flash him a smile “—time to recover.”

Molly’s frown deepened. “He’s looking pretty darn healthy to me,” she said. The coverlet had slipped down again, revealing their guest’s well-sculpted chest with its sprinkling of chestnut-colored hair.

“Actually,” Parker said slowly, “I was on my way out here to your place when I got lost in the canyon.”

“Out here?” Susannah and Mary Beth chimed in unison. Mary Beth had not moved away from the door.

“What for?” Molly asked curtly at the same time.

“I heard you might be hiring.” Parker turned to address Molly with his answer. Though he would prefer to continue looking at Susannah’s dazzling smile, it was obvious that the oldest sister was the one he would have to deal with on matters of business. Her sisters might talk sweetly and smile at him, but if he wanted work he’d have to convince the unsociable Miss Molly.

Molly looked down at him in disbelief. “Hiring what?”

“Hands. Cowboys,” Parker said, meeting her eyes with a steady man-to-man gaze.

“You’re a wrangler?” she asked with a scornful laugh.

Damn, but the woman had an abrasive way about her. He kept his voice even. “No, ma’am, I don’t reckon I am. But I can ride and I can shoot. When I’m not lying in bed after being half-frozen, I’ve got a strong back and two strong arms and I’m not afraid to work. I guess that qualifies me just about as well as any of the other men you got working here.”

Molly suspected that Parker Prescott already knew that there were no other men working at the Lucky Stars. As he looked up at her with just a hint of challenge in those velvety eyes of his, she suspected he knew exactly how badly she needed an extra rider and an extra pair of strong arms. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. And she wasn’t about to let him think that just because they needed a man around the place, he was free to come in here and seduce her sister right under her nose.

“Susannah, Mary Beth,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument, “you two go downstairs. Mr. Prescott has obviously recovered, and I don’t want to see either of you back in this room until he’s left it.”

“Are you going to let him work for us, Molly?” Susannah asked, ignoring her sister’s threatening expression.

“When Mr. Prescott feels well enough to get up and… put some clothes on, he and I will discuss the matter. Now go on, get out of here.”

“Your sisters are lovely,” Parker observed, watching them leave. He knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Molly Hanks had probably had that thrown in her face more than once over the years—the contrast between the younger girls’ grace and beauty and her own rather plain appearance and masculine ways. He could try to rectify his error by making up a compliment about Molly herself. But he had the feeling that she would detect the falsehood immediately and scorn him for it. He decided that frankness and honesty were the best approaches to the eldest Hanks sister.

“They’re lovely, but I can assure you, I’m not here to corrupt them in any way. I’m just looking for somewhere to work through the winter, then I’ll be on my way to California.”

Molly had backed up several steps from the bed. Without looking at him, she said reluctantly, “Spring’s when we need help the most. Roundup time.”

She looked as if she would rather be eating a keg of nails than talking with him, but he sensed that she couldn’t afford to let an able-bodied man go. “I’ll stay through the spring if you need me,” he said. “I have no particular schedule.”

“Do you know anything about cattle?” she asked. Her voice took on a slightly wistful note. If her expression hadn’t been so forbidding, he would have felt a touch of compassion. As Max McClanahan had said, Molly had had quite a burden thrust on her. She couldn’t be more than early twenties, though it was hard to tell for sure behind that stern face and those oversize clothes.

He answered honestly with a shake of his head. “I’m willing to learn.”

Molly sighed. “I reckon you already know that we need the help, Mr. Prescott.” She turned to leave the room. “You can sleep here through the rest of the storm, then you’re to move on out to the bunkhouse.”

“Much obliged,” he said. “And thank you for saving my hide yesterday.”

As she reached the door, she spun around to face him. “Just don’t make me regret it, mister. If I find you with your hands on my sisters, I’ll personally toss you right back down that canyon and leave you there for buzzard meat.”

Parker looked across the room at the girl who stood glaring at him from the doorway. He was tempted for a moment to make some kind of joking reply, as he would have with his own sister. When Amelia had been riled up about one of his childhood antics she had scolded him with the same brave scowl he now saw on Molly Hanks’s face. But Amelia had never run a cattle ranch, and she had never cradled a buffalo rifle in her arms the way Molly had back in Canyon City. No, Molly Hanks was not Amelia. And he didn’t think she would be teased into a good humor.

“I’ll remember that, ma’am,” he said, keeping his face serious.

“See that you do,” she snapped, then disappeared down the hall.

Chapter Three

For the rest of the day Molly avoided the room where their visitor still rested. At the noon meal Smokey had reported that Prescott had been weak and dizzy when he’d gotten up that morning. Smokey had told him to get a few more hours of sleep. Molly busied herself in her father’s office going over the ranch ledgers, hoping that the numbers would somehow have changed from the last time she had looked at them.

Every few minutes she found herself walking over to the window and staring outside. The snow had finally stopped, leaving a rolling landscape of white, dotted here and there by dark green firs. She usually found the first thick snow cover exhilarating, but today it just looked frozen and desolate. She didn’t know if her restlessness and her strange mood were due to the bleak financial picture or to the knowledge that a strange man was sleeping in her father’s bed.

After losing her place in a column of numbers for the fourth time, she slammed shut her father’s big leather account book and let loose with one of his favorite expletives. “Hell’s bells!”

“Are you all right, Miss Molly?” Smokey’s head peeked cautiously around the office door.

Molly ducked her chin in embarrassment. “Ah…of course. I’ve just finished up with the books.”

Smokey looked reproachful as he entered the room, but made no comment.

“Did you want something, Smokey?”

The old cook nodded. “It’s your friend upstairs.”

“He’s not my friend…” Molly began indignantly, but she stopped as she saw concern on Smokey’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“I reckon it’s the chilblains, settling into his ears. They’ve swelled up something fierce and turned a color I ain’t never seen before.”

Molly got up quickly. Frostbite was not a light matter on the prairie. Frozen areas could get putrid within hours. People died of it. Damnation. She’d checked the man’s hands. But she hadn’t thought about the ears, hadn’t noticed them under all that curly hair.

She followed Smokey up the stairs. There was no doctor in Canyon City, and even if there had been, it would have been hard work slogging through the drifts to get word to him. Most of the cowboys hereabouts did their own doctoring. They stitched their gashes with the same needles they used on their saddle leather. Molly had wanted to send for a doctor when her father had taken sick, but he’d refused. He’d lived fine without one, and he vowed he could die just as fine without one.

Susannah was sitting on the bed next to their visitor, her skirt fluffed up around her with at least a foot of petticoat showing plain as day. She held one of Parker Prescott’s hands in the two of hers, just as Molly had the previous evening.

“Susannah!” Molly admonished.

Her sister looked unconcerned at the tone of rebuff. Her eyes were worried. “He’s gone feverish, Molly. Smokey says it’s the chilblains.”

Molly finally looked at their guest’s face. He was awake and making an attempt to smile, but his eyes were red and his cheeks were flushed. Among the tendrils of hair she could see his swollen ears. They were a mottled dark purple.

“We’ll need some glycerine,” she said at once, forgetting about Susannah’s unseemly position on the bed. “And a feather to apply it.” She looked back at Smokey. “And we’ll need more blankets.”

At her commanding tone Susannah dropped Parker’s hand and slid off the side of the bed, Smokey disappeared down the hall and Parker himself sat up, weaving a little as he did so. “I’m sorry to be putting you all to such trouble,” he said.

Molly walked over to him and bent for a closer look. Both ears were monstrous, the right a little worse than the left. She should have checked them last night. Heat radiated from his skin. “It’ll be more trouble if you die on us, mister,” she told him. “So just lie back down there and let us try to get you better.”

He moved down under the covers once again and closed his eyes. “I don’t intend to die on you, Miss Hanks,” he said weakly.

“Now, that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say, Mr. Prescott.” She turned to her sister. “Susannah, go make some hot plasters for his chest. We’ve got to sweat out this fever.”

They worked on him straight through the supper hour. His fever rose as they piled on the coverings and by eight o’clock he was out of his head and ranting. He seemed concerned about his horse’s leg and then asked for his sister. And finally, with anguish, he called for someone named Claire.

Molly had taken over the position next to him on the bed. She supposed she didn’t look any more decorous than Susannah had earlier, but it didn’t seem to make much difference now. She gnawed at her fingernails, trying to decide what to do. She’d known of cases where a finger or a toe had gone bad and had had to be cut off. But an ear? The mere thought made her shudder.

Neither Smokey nor her sisters were of much help. Smokey sat in a chair on the other side of the bed and looked mournful. “Nice-looking young feller,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s a low-down shame.”

“He’s not going to die, is he, Molly?” Mary Beth asked for what must have been the twentieth time in two days.

Molly resisted making an angry comment. Mary Beth was the baby of the family and approached life with a bit more trepidation than her two sisters. “We won’t let him die, Mary Beth,” she answered her sister resignedly, hoping that she was telling the truth. They’d built the fire up to a blaze and shut the hall door, so it was steaming hot in the room. Their patient was drenched in sweat. Molly walked over and wiped his forehead. He snapped his head back and forth underneath the wet cloth.

“I’m not giving you up, Claire,” he said almost lucidly. Then he reached up, grasped Molly’s wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and moaned, “Noooo.”

Was Claire a former sweetheart? she wondered.. Or a current one who was awaiting him in California? He had said that he had no schedule, which didn’t sound like a man on his way to be reunited with a lover. Either way, it was of no concern to her, Molly told herself.

Smokey got up from his chair and walked over to the bed. “I hate to say this, Miss Molly, but I think we better cut the danged things off.”

“Cut what off?” Mary Beth asked, her eyes wide.

“Them ears.”

All three girls looked at the sick man with horror.

“Have you ever seen it done, Smokey?” Molly asked.

The cook shook his head. “Heard of it, though. And I’ve seen ‘em chop off plenty of fingers and toes. If we don’t do it, the pizen could go right to his head.”

“Blood poisoning, you mean.”

“Yup. Right to his brain.”

He waited, looking at Molly. Susannah and Mary Beth were looking at her, too. Why did it always have to be her decision? “Would you know how to do it, Smokey?” she asked.

“Cut ‘em off, stitch ‘em up, I reckon.”

Smokey’s surgical technique obviously left something to be desired. But what if they waited and the pizen, as Smokey had said, did travel into his brain? A man could live without ears, she supposed, but she was curiously reluctant to maim the handsome stranger.

“No. We’ll wait,” she said finally.

Smokey shook his head gravely but didn’t say anything. After a few moments he returned to his seat near the door. Another quarter of an hour passed. No one spoke, but Molly knew they all were thinking about her decision, wondering if it would cost Parker Prescott his life.

She wiped sweat from her forehead and felt it under her arms. “It’s so hot in here he’s like to suffocate,” she said irritably.

“But he’s got the fever. We’ve got to keep him warm,” Mary Beth protested.

Susannah was dozing in the rocking chair by the fire. She opened her eyes and said sleepily, “Just ‘cause he’s got himself frostbit doesn’t mean we should roast him to death, if you ask me.”

Molly straightened from the bed and made another decision. “Open the door, Smokey, and let’s get some of these blankets off him.”

Smokey looked doubtful. “He could take a fatal chill.”

“Well, his skin’s hot as a branding iron right now, and he’s delirious. I have a feeling he’d feel better if we cooled him down a little.”

Smokey opened the door, and a chilly whoosh of air blew into the room. They pulled the stack of covers off him, leaving only the quilt and one blanket. Almost immediately his tossing and moaning subsided. As the room cooled, Molly felt calmer. She put another coat of glycerine over the swollen ears and wiped his face again with the cool cloth. His breathing grew deeper, more even.

After several minutes Molly said in a soft voice, “I think he’s fallen asleep.” She looked around the room. “Why don’t you all go to your rooms and get some rest? I’ll sit with him.”

“You were up with him last night, Miss Molly,” Smokey protested. “I’ll stay by him tonight.”

Molly shook her head. “I’m not tired. If I need you during the night, I’ll knock on your door.”

“You can knock on mine, too, Molly,” Susannah said in a subdued voice.

Molly looked up at her sharply. Even when their father had been so sick, Susannah had not been willing to allow her beauty sleep to be disturbed.

“I’d not mind sitting up with him,” Susannah added. Her eyes regarded the sick man with concern and something more.

“He’s breathing easier now,” Molly said, motioning toward the bed. “I think I’ll be all right with him.”

With final glances at the sleeping man, her sisters and Smokey left the room. Molly pulled the rocker close to the bed and sat down. She hoped she’d done the right thing by cooling down the room, she thought groggily as she pushed the chair back and forth. She hoped the fever would break overnight. The old rocker creaked rhythmically…. She hoped she wouldn’t have to cut off her patient’s ears…. Her head lolled against the chair cushion…. She hoped she had misread the look in Susannah’s eyes….

Parker’s mouth tasted as if he’d eaten a dead squirrel. His head pounded, and his ears felt as if someone had stuffed them full of cotton. He was still in the bedroom of the Hanks’s deceased father, even though the sunshine through the slats of the window meant that the storm had long since ended. He must have been so plumb tired that the fierce Miss Hanks had decided to extend her charity a few more hours. For some reason, he could remember little of the previous day, other than the fact that Molly Hanks had threatened to turn him into buzzard meat if he touched her sisters. He smiled. She had a right tender way about her, that one.

After a moment of debate he decided he would have to move his head. The prospect did not please him, but he had to move some part of his body, and he might as well just start right in where it hurt. Nausea hit him as he turned to one side, but he controlled it as he focused on the woman in the chair beside him. Not the termagant older sister, but Susannah, looking pretty as spring in a bright yellow dress with flounces of lace from the high neck to just above where the tightly fitted bodice showed off her full… Parker blinked twice. He was in a strange place, coming out of some kind of delirium, weak and disoriented, yet he could feel his body reacting to Susannah’s female perfection. Perhaps her sister had been right. Perhaps he should be left for buzzard meat.

“You’re awake,” Susannah exclaimed.

“Have I…” Parker stopped to swallow down the fuzz in his mouth. “Have I slept long?”

“You were out of your head yesterday afternoon and into the night. We didn’t know if you were going to make it. Smokey wanted to cut off your ears, but Molly wouldn’t let him.”

She had jumped up and come to the side of the bed, speaking excitedly. Parker’s head throbbed. “Cut off my ears?” he asked, not certain he had heard correctly.

“They’re frozen,” Susannah said with a frown, her excitement decreasing.

He raised a hand to the side of his head and encountered a large, sticky mass that seemed to have no relation to the rest of his body. He looked up at Susannah in dismay.

“Don’t touch them or they might fall off,” she said quickly, and he pulled his hand away as if he had been burned.

He tried to bring the rest of the room into focus at the same time as he tamped down another wave of sickness. “Have you been beside me all night?” he asked her.

She hesitated a moment. “Molly was helping, too,” she said finally.

He smiled. “I owe you a big debt.”

She stood and leaned across the bed, putting a cool hand against his forehead. “Last night you were burning up with fever. You seem cool enough now.”

He wasn’t feeling cool. Her chest pressed gently against his arm as she bent over him. She smelled faintly of lemon. Even still weak from a night of fever he felt a surge of desire. He bit his lip until she pulled back. It might be harder than he had thought to keep his promise to Molly Hanks through the long winter.

She was looking at his ears. It was odd, but he couldn’t feel them. He carefully touched first one side, then the other. “You were serious about cutting them off?” he asked.

Susannah nodded. “They’ve got the chilblains, Smokey says, and the pizens are what made you go out of your head.”

“Do you have a mirror?”

“I… I don’t think you want to see them, Mr. Prescott. They’re just about every shade of the rainbow this morning.”

Parker grinned. “Sounds pretty. But didn’t we agree that you’re to call me Parker?”

Susannah nodded. “Molly might have something to say about it, though. She gets nervous when we start getting too familiar with anyone wearing pants—except for her, of course,” she added with a giggle.

“Well, at least you can call me Parker when we’re by ourselves, Susannah.”

“Which isn’t going to be often,” a blunt voice said from the doorway.

Parker jumped, sending a spiral of pain from the base of his neck up to the top of his head. Molly Hanks stalked across the room and looked down at him. “You look as if you plan on sticking around for the winter after all, Mr. Prescott,” she said. Her blunt comment from the door had made him expect to see her upset, but she actually sounded pleased to see that he was recovering.

“Thanks to you and your sister,” he said. “I’m beholden to you both.”

“Just get yourself healthy enough to help out around here and remember what we talked about yesterday. That’s all the thanks I ask.”

He started to nod but thought better of it. He wouldn’t move his head again unless he had to. “I probably owe you my life,” he said. “And I understand that I definitely owe you my ears.” Smiling didn’t hurt, so he turned the full force of one of his best on Molly. He saw immediately that it had some effect. She might dress tough and talk tough, but he had the feeling that underneath, Molly Hanks was not so very different from her two sisters.

“We’ll keep putting on the glycerine,” she said, ducking her head to hide the flush that had crept over her face. “But the swelling’s gone down some from last night. I think they’ll be all right.”

Smokey appeared in the doorway. “He’s doing better?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

Molly turned around with a smile.. “Yes. I think we’ve got those pizens on the run.”

The cook gave a satisfied nod. “You’ve got a visitor.”

“A visitor? Through this snow?”

“Mr. Dickerson. The son.”

“Jeremy or Ned?”

Smokey grimaced. “Mr. High-and-Mighty. Jeremy.”

Without appearing aware of her actions, Molly smoothed her hair with both hands. “Tell him I’ll be down directly,” she said.

“I told him to wait in the parlor, but he says he wants to come—”

From behind him an authoritative voice interrupted. “What’s going on here, Molly? They told me you’re caring for a stranger in your father’s room.”

The man who pushed past Smokey to enter the room was about Parker’s size. He was dressed well in a black pin-striped suit and string tie. His boots were polished and the hat he held in his hand would have set most cowboys back three months’ pay.

Molly straightened at his approach. “I don’t mean to be rude, Jeremy, but if Smokey asked you to wait downstairs, you should have done so.”

Parker felt oddly proud to hear her stand up to him. The man was obviously not used to following orders. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his head, he sat upright in the bed. He didn’t want to be flat on his back when he made Jeremy Dickerson’s acquaintance.

Dickerson smiled at Molly. Both his straight black hair and black mustache were neatly trimmed. In spite of riding from somewhere through fields of new snow, he had not a hair out of place. “Forgive my eagerness to see you, my dear,” he said to her. She did not flush as she had when Parker had smiled at her earlier.

“It’s no matter,” she muttered.

Dickerson strode over to the bed and stared at Parker, then addressed Molly as if he were some sort of dumb animal. “ Where’d he come from? And why have you got him here in Charlie’s room?”

Parker couldn’t tell if Molly was irritated by the tone of authority. She was not bristling as she had upon occasion with Parker himself. She answered evenly, “He’s our new hand, and he’s recovering from frostbite.”

Jeremy looked down his nose. “He looks healthy enough to me.”

Hoping he wouldn’t be sick, Parker leaned forward and extended his hand. “Parker Prescott,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Dickerson looked taken aback by Parker’s move, but he recovered and halfheartedly shook his hand. Then he turned back to Molly. “I don’t like the idea of a stranger staying here in the house with you girls. It’s not the same as when your father was under the same roof to protect you.”

Now there was a definite bristle in the set of Molly’s shoulders. She ignored his comment, but stayed calm as she said, “Why don’t we go on downstairs and have some hot coffee, Jeremy?” She started moving toward the door. “I can’t believe you came here through all this snow.”

“I just wanted to be sure everything was all right….”

Dickerson followed Molly out the door, and Parker said to his back, “Nice to meet you, too.”

Susannah giggled and stuck her tongue out at the retreating pair.

“Who was that charming fellow?” Parker asked.

Susannah’s expression grew sober. “That charming fellow,” she said, “is my future brother-in-law.”

Chapter Four

Parker’s dark eyebrows shot up. “He’s engaged to your sister?”

“Well, not exactly. But he expects to marry her. The Dickerson ranch adjoins ours, and it’s something our pa always talked about with Jeremy’s pa, Hiram.”

Parker sank back into his pillow. He’d been holding himself up with his arms and they were starting to quiver. It was amazing how weak a man could grow in just a couple of days. He couldn’t say why the news that Molly Hanks had a serious suitor seemed so astounding, but it did. “We are talking about Molly?” he asked Susannah.

“Molly’s the one he wants, all right. You see, even though Papa left the Lucky Stars to the three of us, Molly is—how do they say it legally?—executor of the property, even if Mary Beth and I get husbands of our own, which isn’t likely the way she greets every man coming within a mile of the place with that rifle of hers.”

“It’s an impressive weapon.”

Susannah grinned at him. “Didn’t scare you off, though, did it?”

Parker relaxed and enjoyed the sheer pleasure of watching her smile. “It would take something mighty powerful to warn me off a lady as pretty as you, Susannah. Though if your father had been behind the barrel, I might have had to think it twice.”

Susannah’s expression became thoughtful. “Well, now, there you go. I guess what Molly says is true.”

“What’s that?”

“That the only things men take seriously are other men. They won’t believe a woman is ever a threat.”

“I didn’t mean—” Parker began in apology, but Susannah interrupted him.

“I can assure you, Parker, if Molly had thought you represented a danger to us, she’d be fully capable of sending a ball spinning right through your middle.”

Her smile had faded, and Parker realized that, while she was not as tough as her older sister, there was a little more than spun sugar to Susannah herself.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered sincerely.

Susannah smiled again. “Not that Molly’s ever actually shot anyone, you understand. I just know that she’d do it if the moment came. Molly always does what has to be done, no matter what.”

“An admirable quality.”

She gave a pretty little shrug. “I guess. But that’s enough about Molly.” She flounced down on the side of the bed. “You’re not too tired, Parker? Do you want me to stay awhile?”

He reached for one of her slender hands. “I’d be honored, Mistress Hanks,” he said with exaggerated reverence.

Susannah giggled and gave a little bounce on the bed. “Oh, Parker, it’s been gloomy and dull around here since Papa died. I’m so very glad you’ve come.”

By the next day Parker had recovered sufficiently to leave his bed, at least to take care of the most urgent of his personal needs. Once he had regained consciousness, it had at times been agony awaiting the appearance of Smokey so that he could ask for help in using the night jar that sat discreetly tucked under Mr. Hanks’s carved washstand. But he’d be darned if he was going to start his stay on the Lucky Stars by involving any of its three owners in such matters.

He’d spent a few moments musing over what he’d do if Smokey rode off somewhere for several hours. Asking Mary Beth was out of the question. She hadn’t ventured within five feet of the bed, and mostly watched him as if he had arrived from another planet. Although the few times she did send a shy smile his way, it had been mighty sweet.

He’d have to choose between Molly and Susannah. He reckoned Molly would be downright belligerent about having to deal with such intimacies. On the other hand, Susannah, even though she was what his mother used to call “a decent girl,” gave the impression that she would be willing to get that intimate and more, if he led the way. As he lay helpless on his back, he wasn’t sure which scared him more.

Fortunately, it never came to the test. He was up and around, still dressed only in an old nightshirt of their father’s that Molly had pulled out of the big mahogany wardrobe and given to him without comment.

Susannah poked her head in the door. “You’re walking!”

“Like a hundred-year-old man,” Parker said with a scowl. “I can’t seem to get my strength back.”

“You were very ill, Parker. Give yourself a little time.” She crossed the room and pulled his arm through one of hers. “Lean on me. We’ll take a stroll.”

With Susannah supporting him, they slowly walked to the end of the narrow upstairs hall. Parker looked down to watch his unsteady footing as they made their way along the Persian runner that covered the center of the polished wood floor. It was an elegant carpet, darkly patterned, that suited the dark wood of the paneled walls. Parker wished his sister could be here to see this house. It might change her opinion of the Wild West. She’d seen only two homes in her short stay in the Black Hills—his crude log cabin and Mattie Smith’s place. Mattie’s had been nice enough, but nothing like the Lucky Stars ranch house. And besides, it was a brothel, which meant that poor Amelia had spent most of her visits wondering which direction not to look.

“You have a lovely place, Susannah,” he said.

“Papa was proud of his home. Some of the things here have come all the way from the Orient.”

“And now it all belongs to you and your sisters?”

Susannah looked reflective. “Even though I grew up here, I always felt as if it belonged more to Papa than to any of us. And now to Molly.”

“But you inherited it equally, you said.”

“I suppose. I guess we just all assume that Mary Beth and I will leave here some day, whereas Molly won’t. Molly will never leave the Lucky Stars,” she added more firmly.

They had reached the end of the carpeting and started back. Parker would be glad to hit the bed again. A great hired hand he was turning out to be—he could walk all of fifty feet and then he had to sit down. “Anyway, it’s a wonderful place.”

“One of the biggest ranch houses in “Wyoming Territory,” Susannah said with a touch of the pride she had attributed to her father.

“I don’t doubt it.” He gazed up at the huge carved beams of the vaulted two-story ceiling, then he slipped his arm out of Susannah’s to lean on the railing that overlooked the imposing living room. He hoped it appeared that he was examining the impressive architecture of the house, but actually he just wanted to rest a moment. The balustrade would take more of his weight than he was willing to throw on Susannah’s slender arm.

As he took in a deep breath, there was a pounding on the front door beneath them. Susannah joined him at the railing and they both peered down as her older sister crossed under them to answer the door.

“Why, Jeremy, what a surprise.” Molly did not sound too enthusiastic. “To what do we owe the honor of two visits in two days?”

Jeremy moved a step forward, expecting Molly to usher him into the house. When she didn’t move, he was forced to retreat slightly. “I’m always eager to see you, Molly, if that’s what you mean. But today I came to be sure that cowboy was out of your father’s room.”

Molly cocked her head. “Why am I having trouble understanding how that is any of your business, Jeremy?” Her voice had a restrained calmness that Parker had already come to recognize as more dangerous than her explosions of temper.

Evidently Jeremy could also read her mood. He took yet another step back—all the way onto the porch—took off his expensive hat and spoke with a cajoling tone. “Now, Molly, my dear. You know that I care about everything that goes on with you and your sisters here at the ranch. Why, Pa and Ned and I feel as if we owe it to poor Charlie, rest his soul, to watch outfory’all.”

When Jeremy Dickerson started in with his y’alls, Molly knew that he wanted something. The Dickersons had been Southerners long ago before the move to Wyoming, and Jeremy could pour on the honey when he had a mind to. Molly didn’t know why it riled her so, or why she should be upset that he had come to check up on her. It was, in fact, a neighborly thing to do. None of them knew Parker Prescott. He might be a thief or a scoundrel. He could have murdered them all in their beds by now. She gave a little laugh at the absurdity of the idea and stepped back to let Jeremy enter. “Well, as long as you’re here, come sit awhile.”

Jeremy smiled, evidently pleased that his charm had smoothed Molly’s prickly disposition one more time. But then he unwisely returned to his first topic. “Honestly, my dear, I don’t like that new man of yours. I can read people, you know, and he’s not the sort you want around here.”

“You mean I should hire one of the dozens of others I have clamoring on my doorstep?”

“I’ve offered to lend you workers,” he reminded her.

“I don’t want to borrow from you, Jeremy. I thought I’d made that clear. I’ll run this ranch on my own and I’ll have my own help. Hiring Mr. Prescott is just a start.”

“I don’t like him,” Jeremy repeated.

From above them, Parker and Susannah listened in amused silence. Parker leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Your neighbor doesn’t like me, Susannah. Should I be devastated?”

She smiled broadly, causing two tiny dimples to appear in her smooth cheeks. “Isn’t he an overbearing prig?” she whispered back.

“I guess that’s as good a word as any.”

Susannah leaned her head back and gave Parker a long look. “Let’s play a little,” she said slyly.

Parker looked puzzled at her suggestion, but she only smiled, pulled his arm off the railing and draped it around her neck. Then she moved close to him. He shifted self-consciously. Parker wasn’t sure if Susannah was aware of how her breasts pressed against the thin lawn of his nightshirt, but he certainly was.

“You see, Parker,” she said loudly. “You’re getting so much stronger. I barely have to hold you.”

Molly and Jeremy turned their heads in unison to look up to the second-floor balcony. From their position beneath the railing, Parker and Susannah’s posture must have looked even more intimate than it felt. “Susannah!” Molly gasped.

Susannah turned her head casually, then gave a wave down to the onlookers. “Oh, hello, Molly… Jeremy. I was just helping Parker take a little walk. Doesn’t he look so much stronger?”

Her voice dripped. Parker had finally caught on to Susannah’s definition of “play” and had trouble restraining a smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. Dickerson,” he called down, meeting the neighbor’s glaring dark eyes with a calm stare.

“Susannah,” Molly said angrily, “if Mr. Prescott is that much recovered, I’ll send Smokey up directly to see that he gets some clothes on and gets moved out to the bunkhouse.”

Susannah’s pretty lips turned down. “You can’t put him out there yet, Molly. He’s still recovering.”

“He can recover outside,” she snapped.

Parker, his bout of weakness gone, pulled Susannah away from the edge of the railing. “It’s all right,” he said to her in a low voice. He leaned over the edge one last time. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Dickerson,” he called. Then he guided Susannah toward the master bedroom. “I’m feeling quite good, actually.”

Susannah frowned. “Molly’s such a stick at times. I’m afraid I’ve made a muddle of things. She’s making you leave because of the show we put on out there.”

Parker grinned. “It doesn’t matter. It was worth it to see the expression on Dickerson’s face when he looked up and saw you in my arms.”

She giggled. “It was funny. I thought he was going to swallow his tongue. Well, I guess I should leave you alone to get dressed,” she concluded reluctantly, and left the room.

The fickle November weather had turned seductive once again. The light breeze felt almost warm as Parker made his way with Smokey out to the Lucky Stars bunkhouse. The snow was slippery and wet under their boots. In the sunlight the drifts were shrinking into hard, icy mounds. A small waterfall of snow melting from the roof cascaded down alongside the door of the Spartan wood bunkhouse. No Persian rugs here. He followed Smokey inside, ducking to avoid the cold drips.

“Home sweet home, lad. It’s not as comfortable as up at the house, but I guess you’ve probably seen worse in your day.”

Parker made no reply. Though his parents had spent most of the family money trying to convert the world to their various causes of abolitionism, temperance and so on, the money from his father’s bank had been enough that the Prescott family had lived in considerable luxury compared with most of the rest of the country. Except for his few months in the Black Hills, Parker had never awakened in the morning without stepping on a carpet, never had to go out the back of the house in the middle of a January freeze to relieve himself. He’d never gone to sleep in a room without real windows with linen drapes and a real bed with a silk coverlet. “I reckon this will be just fine, Smokey,” he said, surveying the barren room. There were five bunk beds lining the walls and a big round table in the center. In one corner of the room was a stack of wood piled next to a rusty iron stove.

“You can light up the stove,” Smokey said. “And I’d take the bunk right next to it, if I was you. This thaw’s not going to last, and it can get colder’n a whore’s heart in here.”

Parker grinned at the old man.’ “Now, just what would you know about whores, Smokey?”

The cook scraped a boot along the dusty wood floor. “I know a thing or two about them, you young whippersnapper. Just because I’m long in the tooth doesn’t mean—”

He stopped his sentence dead and stared over Parker’s shoulder.

“I see you’re making Mr. Prescott comfortable, Smokey,” Molly said in a voice that was as frosty as the room.

“Shucks, Miss Molly. You shouldn’t sneak up on a body like that. We was having a conversation not fit for a lady’s ears.”

Parker had the fleeting impression that Molly had set her face in those stern lines in order to keep from laughing, but when she started to speak again he decided he must have been mistaken.

“There’s not a conversation that goes on around this ranch that’s not fit for my ears, Smokey. I’ve told you that before.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Smokey did not seem to take the dressing-down too seriously.

“If you’re finished here, I’d like to speak with Mr. Prescott.”

Smokey looked from her to Parker, then gave a nod and made his way around her and out the door.

Parker waited for Molly to speak, but she seemed to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She looked at the ground, then back up to his face with a sweep of long eyelashes several shades darker than her light brown hair. Her eyes were as blue as her sisters’, he noted. More so. Or perhaps it was just the difference in intensity. Finally he said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

She bit her lip. “How are you feeling, Mr. Prescott? I mean… ah…. are you sufficiently recovered to…”

“To be cast out into a freezing bunkhouse?” Parker finished for her, amused at what was apparently a rare attack of conscience.

“I just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t get sick on us again,” she said stiffly.

“I don’t think I’d dare risk it, ma’am.”

“And why’s that, Mr. Prescott?”

“Because, ma’am,” he said respectfully, “I might end up staked out for buzzard meat in Copper Canyon.”

Molly gave a half smile and the lashes swept down again. “I did mean the warning about my sisters, Mr. Parker.”

“I know that, Miss Molly. May I call you that?” He ducked his head a little to catch her eyes, then gave her one of his made-for-charm smiles. “Seeing as how there’re three Miss Hankses, it could get confusing around here if we insist on all the formalities.”

Molly took in a little gulp of air. She would rather swill the pigs on a ninety-degree day than admit it, but she reckoned that Parker Prescott was just about the handsomest thing she’d ever seen. There’d been a heap of cowboys who’d come and gone at the Lucky Stars since Molly had been old enough to notice, but there’d never been one like him. Of course, Canyon City was hardly the place to find the pick of the crop. But even when she’d traveled to Denver with Papa, where one might expect to find other “gentlemen,” as her sisters described them, she’d not seen the like. He was waiting for an answer. What had he just asked her?

“Ah… three Miss Hankses. Yes, I see your point. I suppose Miss Molly would be acceptable, Mr. Prescott.”

Parker leaned back against the table, crossed his arms and studied her. “So then…I guess you’ll have to call me Parker. Or else it would be too impertinent of me to call you Miss Molly.”

Molly felt as if the entire conversation was out of her control. It was an unaccustomed sensation, and one she was not sure she liked. “Fine. Names aren’t of that great importance out here, anyway, Mr.—Parker. I suppose back East you pay more attention to those things.”

“I suppose.”

“You are from the East?”

Parker nodded. “New York.”

Molly’s eyes widened. “New York City?”

“Mmm,” he confirmed with another nod.

She wanted to say, What in tarnation are you doing in Canyon City, Wyoming, Mr. Parker Prescott? But the unwritten law of the West was you didn’t ask about things that were none of your business. So instead, she said, “Well, I just wanted to see if you were settled in.”

“And to see if I was healthy enough to sleep out here in the cold.”

Her brief moment of remorse or whatever it had been appeared to be over. “There’s a wagonload of wood out there. As soon as you’re feeling up to it, I suggest you start chopping.”

Parker let his grin break through. This was the real Molly Hanks. He was beginning to consider it a challenge to see how riled he could get her without risking losing his job. It was an unfair contest, really, because he knew that she wouldn’t have kept him on at all if she hadn’t needed him desperately. “I’ll do that, ma’am,” he told her.

“So you do feel recovered?” She took a step closer to him. He unfolded his arms and grasped the edge of the table as she reached up to touch one of his ears. The swelling had gone down, but their color was still far from normal. Her hand was surprisingly gentle. She smelled of saddle soap.

Suddenly she seemed to be aware of how close their bodies had become. She backed away with a little stumble and her voice once again lost its power. “If you start to feel dizzy or anything, you let us know.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked uncertainly from him to the cold stove. “Can you get a fire started in that thing?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The gear he had packed on his horse was already piled in a heap in the middle of one of the bunks. “I’ll have Smokey bring you out some warmer bedding,” she said.

“That would be very kind.” There was uncertainty in her eyes. Parker had the feeling that if he wanted to plead his case, she would change her mind and tell him to come back over to the big house. But as he was considering the possibility, he remembered the reason for his exile, and apparently she did, too.

“I did warn you about my sisters.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean…Susannah told me that it was all her fault and that she was just trying to bother Jeremy….” She was still wavering. It was almost as if she was trying to give him an argument to change her mind. But Parker had decided he would not press the issue at the moment. If he talked her into letting him stay up at the house a few more days, then he’d be on the owing side. This way, he had Miss Molly feeling sorry for him, and more than a little guilty. Leave a little on the table, his father always used to say. You never know when you’ll need to call in a debt. Parker had come west to avoid working the rest of his life at the family bank, but he supposed that he’d picked up some of his father’s negotiating skills somewhere along the line.

“I don’t believe Miss Susannah has a very high opinion of your Mr. Dickerson,” he said, making no mention of his accommodations.

Molly hesitated for another minute, then sighed. “He’s not my Mr. Dickerson. He’s just a neighbor who is good enough to help us out now and then. Susannah thinks he’s a little overbearing at times.”

“I think I might learn to agree with her.”

She backed up to the door and grabbed the latch behind her. “Mr. Prescott…Parker,” she began firmly. “When I agreed to your employment, you said you were willing to learn. Perhaps your first lesson should be to remember that you are now a hired hand. You’re on this ranch to work. It’s not your job to have opinions about our neighbors, or our friends, or my sisters and me, for that matter.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said mildly. “Anything else?”

“No.” She looked around the room. “Smokey will bring you out some breakfast in the morning.”

“Much obliged.”

She gave a brisk nod, then opened the door and left. Parker grinned at her back. The oldest Hanks sister talked a tough game, but she wasn’t as hard as she looked. She hadn’t come out here to see that he was settled. She’d come because she was worried about him. There’d been genuine concern in her eyes when she’d checked on his ears. Oddly enough, he could still feel the traces of her fingers in his hair.

He pushed himself away from the table and headed for the stove. Wincing at the stiffness in his joints, he knelt beside the woodpile and began to stuff logs into the iron potbelly.

He found a box of matches on top of the stove and lit the fire. The dry wood took immediately, snapping warmth out into the room. Parker began to hum a little tune. It was an interesting discovery. Miss Molly wasn’t so tough after all. When she’d opened the door to leave, her hands on the latch had been trembling like a frightened rabbit.

Chapter Five

Parker finished off the last of the flapjacks Smokey had brought out to him, then gulped his coffee. It had already grown cold in its tin cup. He hadn’t bothered to stoke up the stove, which had gone out during the night. The mild weather appeared to be holding and the temperature in the bunkhouse was tolerable. In fact, the cold night seemed to have done “him some good. His body was almost back to normal, and for the first time since he’d started down into Copper Canyon his head felt clear.

He’d awakened at dawn and unpacked his gear, stowing it neatly in the big, empty cupboard. Then Smokey had shown up with the food, grumbling that he saw no reason why Parker shouldn’t just come on up to the house and eat with the rest of them.

“It was different when Mr. Hanks was around. This place was full up back then,” he’d said, looking around at the empty bunks. “The cowhands ate at the cookhouse out back. Charlie liked to keep them away from his three treasures, you know.” Smokey looked older suddenly as his eyes softened in memory of his boss and friend. He paused for a minute, then continued briskly, “Can’t say as I blame him. About the hands, I mean. Some of them galoots I wouldn’t invite to my privy, much less my dinner table.”

He’d stayed to reminisce a few more minutes about “those days” before finally moving stiffly out the door, shaking his shaggy gray head. Parker had the feeling that Smokey, as much as he cared for his old boss’s “three treasures,” had no more belief than the townsfolk that three young women could run the Lucky Stars. Parker didn’t share his pessimism. Growing up surrounded by female suffragists and temperance crusaders, he knew a woman could be as bright and as strong and as stubborn as a man. Hell, one look at Molly Hanks should be proof enough of that. But it didn’t seem as if anyone was willing to give her a chance.

He pushed aside the breakfast dishes and stood. He’d do what he could to help, at least through spring, though he wasn’t at all sure just how much help he would be. He’d made it clear to Molly that he wasn’t an experienced cowhand, but he hadn’t dared tell her the whole truth—that he’d never so much as been near a cow. A steer. Whatever the hell they called them out here. With a sigh he reached over to the bunk and snatched up his hat. He supposed she’d find out soon enough.

Molly knew that she had not been in the best of tempers at breakfast that morning. She’d snapped at Susannah and even had a harsh word for Mary Beth when both her younger sisters had argued that their new hired hand should be invited to take meals with them in the house.

“It’s downright silly to try to have a mess for one cowboy,” Susannah had said with a slight pout.

And Molly had to admit that her sister had a point. But she just wasn’t ready to sit down at a table with Parker Prescott. For one thing, she didn’t trust the way he looked at Susannah, his brown eyes lit and dancing. And then there were the odd sensations Molly herself had been having. Scary feelings, like a sudden chilly wind in a mountain pass. She’d had one yesterday when she’d seen Parker’s arms around her sister up on the balcony. And again last night, after weaving her fingers through the soft waves of his hair. She’d lain awake for what had seemed like hours last night trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Which undoubtedly had not helped her crankiness this morning.

The meal had ended without resolving the issue. Molly supposed that eventually she’d invite Parker to eat with them, but she’d like to feel a little more in control of things before she did. Part of the problem was the unavoidable intimacy of their first few meetings. She’d scarcely seen the man dressed, for pity’s sake. It would undoubtedly be easier once their roles as boss and hired hand were firmly established.

She gave a last swipe to the breakfast platter and hung the dish towel on the rack. The sooner the better, she reckoned. Of course, if Parker was still feeling poorly, she couldn’t put him to work yet. But if he was recovered enough, she might as well get him started. It was a nice warm morning. They could get a lot done. And they could establish once and for all just exactly who was the boss.

Parker could tell that his bout with frostbite and fever had taken a toll. Back in the Black Hills, when he’d been at his most enthusiastic about the mine, he’d worked for sixteen hours or more without a break, well into the late-summer twilight. But right now he felt much as he had when he’d been beaten up by Big Jim Driscoll’s thugs after Claire’s death. Every muscle was screaming.

He and Smokey had spent most of the morning baling, with Molly appearing every now and then to check up on them and add one more chore to their list. At noon Smokey had left to get dinner started, leaving Parker glumly eyeing the endless mound of hay left to bale. According to his new boss lady, after finishing with the hay, he was to shore up the timbers around the pigpen, then repair the chute at the end of the corral, put a new set of hinges on the bunkhouse door, clean the stable…what else? Parker plunged his baling fork into the ground and leaned backward, stretching out the muscles of his long back.

“Getting tired, cowboy?” Molly asked from behind him.

He turned around in annoyance. One of these days he was going to figure out how to hear her coming. “You part Indian or something?” he asked her.

She frowned. “No. Why?”

“’Cause you sure do know how to sneak up on a person.”

“That’s what you get for daydreaming on the job. I suppose you were pining away for whatever fancy pen-and-paper job you used to do back in New York City.”

“I worked in a bank.”

Molly gave a little laugh of triumph. “I suspected as much. Kind of hard to build up a sweat adding up numbers, isn’t it?”

She was wearing her typical oversize pants, but thanks to the warmth of the day she had discarded her ever-present baggy jacket and was wearing a blouse that looked almost feminine. Certainly the curves molded by the silky fabric looked feminine. She wasn’t as amply built as either of her sisters, but everything was most definitely in the right place.

Parker gave himself a shake. In Deadwood one night last spring when he’d been discouraged about his mine and homesick for his family back in New York, he’d sought solace at Mattie Smith’s tidy main street brothel. There he’d met Claire Devereaux, an almost ethereal beauty who had grown up as an orphan when her parents drowned on the family’s passage from France. She’d shared her hopes and dreams with Parker along with her perfect body, and he’d fallen irrevocably in love. When Claire had died in the dreadful smallpox epidemic that swept through Deadwood last fall, he’d thought it would be months—years, maybe—before he’d ever want a woman again. But it appeared that the body had a way of continuing to work even when the heart inside it was dead.

“I’ve built up a sweat or two in my day, Miss Molly,” he answered her quietly.

Something had flickered behind his eyes that made Molly pause. Her head was telling her that she would never get the upper hand with Parker Prescott unless she stayed on the attack, but her resolve kept weakening. She hated to think that she was as silly as Susannah and Mary Beth, dazzled by his easy charm and New York manners. “Well, you’ll sweat plenty while you’re working here,” she said finally. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to go easy to start. Three days ago we didn’t even know if you were going to live through the night.”

“I’m ready to earn my keep.” He pulled up the fork and stabbed at a pile of hay.

Molly watched him work for a minute. Who’d have thought a tenderfoot Easterner could have shoulders like that? She backed away. “No, really, Mr. Prescott. You can stop now and come in for dinner.”

“Come in?”

She bit her lip. She’d set out this morning determined to establish her authority over her new hired hand. Instead, she felt even more tongue-tied than she had in the bunkhouse with him last night. “Yes, come in. Inside. We don’t have time to be settin’ up separate dining for just one lone cowboy,” she said, echoing Susannah’s arguments of the morning.

Parker turned toward her, the forkful of hay stopped in midair. “I’d be honored to join you and your sisters, Miss Molly, but only if you’ll call me Parker.”

She nodded.

“Fine. I’ll just wash up, then, and change my shirt.”

“No need for formalities at our table, Mr. Pres…Parker. We all know what a barn smells like.”

Parker grinned at her. “So do I, but it doesn’t mean I have to smell like one myself. There’re barn smells and there are man smells, Miss Molly. You might enjoy learning the difference one of these days.”

He threw the hay, fork and all, over onto the pile, then tipped his hat and walked away. Molly watched him head toward the bunkhouse, her cheeks flaming with a blush for the first time in her life.

After the first few moments it felt entirely natural to have Parker sitting at the big Lucky Stars dining-room table. Not long after Charlie Hanks’s death, Smokey had taken to joining the girls there. Parker sat opposite him, next to Susannah, while Molly took the hostess position at the end. No one sat in their father’s old place opposite her.

Their new hand’s presence had enlivened the meal. Molly couldn’t remember when the conversation had been so spirited, the laughter so frequent. Certainly not since Papa died. Parker seemed to know a lot about many things. He’d traveled all the way to Paris and had studied for a year at Harvard University before he’d become restless and returned to work at a bank in New York City. He was just a year older than Molly herself, but he’d seen and done wondrous things that she couldn’t imagine doing in an entire lifetime.

Of course, it might be that he was showing off a bit for Susannah. His conversation had been directed her way often enough during the meal. Molly studied the pair as he leaned his dark head toward Susannah’s blond one to catch something her sister was saying. Susannah was wearing a simple blue gingham gown today that made her eyes the deep blue of an autumn sky. The two made an attractive couple. Molly wondered if she should relax her guard a bit and see if anything developed between them. Susannah and Mary Beth had to find husbands at some point, and, goodness knows, there weren’t many candidates to choose from around Canyon City. As Molly drummed absently with her spoon on the table, Susannah gave one of her magical little laughs, bringing a flare of response from Parker’s bright eyes. It was an interesting thought…her sister and a Harvard man.

Suddenly he was addressing her. “So do you agree, Miss Molly?”

“I…I’m sorry. I guess I was daydreaming.”

“Dangerous practice,” Parker said gravely. A hint of a smile twitched his full lips. “You never know what kind of varmint might sneak up on you when you’re daydreaming.”

Molly gave a reluctant smile as Mary Beth explained, “Smokey was saying that with the weather this mild, the cattle should last until Christmas without extra food. Parker asked if you agreed.”

Parker’s gaze had moved back to Susannah. Molly took a deep breath. “Yes, I agree. And we’d better be right, because if we have a hard winter, we’re going to lose some animals. We don’t have too much supplementary feed left.”

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