Her Montana Man. Cheryl St.John

as impeccably as always in a dark coat and white shirt, his brown hair parted so that it waved away from his forehead. “I’ll take my supper now.”

      “I’ll get your plate from the oven.” She walked around the opposite side of the table and grabbed one of the flour sacks Nora had layered and sewn for protection from hot pot handles.

      Royce’s boot heels struck the wood floor in a rapid cadence a split second before he reached her.

      She whirled to face him, her body stiff.

      He stopped inches from her. He wore closely trimmed sideburns and a ribbon-thin mustache on the very edge of his upper lip.

      Eliza turned her face to the side to avoid his unbearable nearness and drilling gaze. His breath touched her chin. Hairs rose on her neck and arm.

      “You’re looking lovely tonight.”

      “You’re married to my sister.”

      “A tenuous bond at the very least.”

      Her heart thundered against her rib cage. “How can you treat her death so callously?”

      He leaned forward without actually touching her until his heat scorched her cheek and seared her body. “It’s business, my dear.”

      The sensation of being trapped sent a shudder of revulsion along her spine. She closed her eyes in the futile hope that she’d open them to find this encounter had only been another menacing nightmare.

      “Don’t be so priggish, Eliza Jane. You’re no unblemished paragon of virtue.” She started at the touch of his finger as he ran it along her jaw. “I expect you’ll be quite an enthusiastic partner once you’ve resigned yourself to the next phase of our relationship.”

      “We don’t have a relationship.”

      “Ah, but we will.” His hand circled her wrist, and she spun away from him then, escaping from the heat of the oven behind her and his menacing overtures.

      She darted to the opposite side of the table and stood with her hands on the spindles of the chair back, bile rising in her throat. “You disgust me.”

      “I find the chase quite titillating, actually.” With a swagger, he moved to a chair and seated himself before the place setting she’d prepared. He adjusted the cutlery in precise alignment before leveling a warning gaze on her.

      “Don’t get carried away, however. There’s a time and a place for everything, and soon your time for coy resistance will run out. Once Jenny Lee is gone and we’ve served a respectable mourning period, you will become my wife.”

      Eliza stood with her heart in her throat, trapped in this house and under this man’s rule for the time being. She couldn’t leave Jenny Lee or Tyler. They needed her. He knew it. And he used her love for them to his advantage.

      “It’s the natural course of things in anyone’s eyes,” he added.

      A hundred nights she’d lain awake into the wee hours of morning, listening for him, dreading his next move, imagining endless scenarios of telling Jenny Lee the ugly truth, of going to the marshal, yet always coming to the same hopeless conclusion: she could not break Jenny Lee’s heart. She would never let her sister know that Royce had married her for a percent of the brickyard…and that he was awaiting her death to amass the final ownership.

      Once that happened, he would have control. All Eliza could do was bide her time and endure. Shelter her sister. Protect Tyler. And avoid this deplorable excuse for a human being until—until their situation changed.

      She moved to the oven, took out the hot plate and set it in front of him while guardedly keeping her distance. Sometimes she was so angry with her father for allowing this to happen that she didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

      “You’re quite transparent, Eliza Jane,” he said. “But resenting me isn’t going to do any good.” He picked up his fork and knife and sliced the roast. “We both know why you’ll comply.” He took a bite and chewed before looking up at her again. “But you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you?”

      Her heart skipped a beat.

      Anger distorted her vision for seconds and she clenched her teeth, unable to speak.

      “You have no legal rights to Tyler unless you marry me.”

      “You aren’t human,” she finally replied, venom lacing her tone.

      “And you will marry me. Because I have knowledge that will hurt both of you. And you don’t want me to tell.”

      “I could kill you in your sleep,” she said. And God help her, she’d already thought of it. But she was too much of a coward. What if she went to jail and left Tyler here alone?

      Royce actually smiled, something he did rarely, and she suspected it was because one of his front teeth overlapped the other. “I shall remember to sleep lightly.”

      Why should he sleep any better than she?

      Once Jenny Lee was gone, Eliza would be forced to put her plan into action, take Tyler and escape. This house her father had built, the town she called home, all the precious memories, none of it mattered as much as protecting Tyler.

      The bell on the front door screeched as a visitor twisted the handle. Relieved at the interruption, Eliza tossed down the towel and hurried to answer the call.

      A young man in a flannel jacket and mended dungarees stood on the porch holding a fistful of white daisies. “Miss Sutherland?”

      “Yes.”

      “These is for you.” He thrust the bouquet into her hands and turned away.

      “Wait!” she called, but he was already out the gate and running down the street, where dusk was turning Silver Bend to shades of gold and deep lavender. She glanced at the rocky buttes in the distance, then down at the flowers she held.

      “Who was it?”

      Royce stood behind her. She turned to meet his thunderous expression. He spotted the bouquet. “Who sent those?”

      “I don’t know.”

      She spotted the small note tucked between the blooms at the same time he did. He snatched the card, catching several delicate white petals that fell to the polished wood at their feet.

      Royce read the note, then his ominous gaze rose to level on her. He set his mouth in a disapproving line and grabbed the bunch of flowers from her hand. “Don’t be getting any ideas. You’ll be sorry if you cross me.”

      He threw the daisies to the floor and crushed them beneath the heel of his boot, grinding until stems and petals and leaves were a mass of ruin.

      With deliberate intimidation, he tore the note into pieces and tossed it onto the debris.

      “I want coffee in the study after I’ve eaten.” He turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

      Confused, Eliza looked down at the trampled flowers. She would have to get a broom and dustpan. Kneeling, she picked up the strewn scraps of paper and fitted them together on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle.

      The handwriting was square and neat, unfamiliar.

      “Hopefully these will make a better impression,” she read. No signature. Nothing that should have angered Royce to the degree it had. But then he didn’t need much prompting.

      She tucked the bits of paper into the pocket of her skirt. No signature had been required for her to know the daisies had come from Jonas Black. He’d already thanked her for telling the marshal what she’d seen. This gesture had been unnecessary…but she found it touchingly kind.

      There was no way Royce could have known who sent the bouquet. He’d have been even angrier if he’d suspected they’d come from the “slave trader,” the man she’d seen fighting in the street that day.

      Jonas had