Rocky Mountain Man. Jillian Hart

       Praise for Jillian Hart

      ROCKY MOUNTAIN MAN ‘This book’s intense emotions reach out to touch readers. Betsy’s unwavering belief in Duncan and willingness to fight to save him from himself is so moving you’ll want to cry with happiness as Hart plays on your heartstrings.’ —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

      HIGH PLAINS WIFE ‘Finely drawn characters and sweet tenderness tinged with poignancy draw readers into a familiar story that beautifully captures the feel of an Americana romance. Readers can enjoy sharp dialogue and adorable child characterisations while shedding a tear or two.’ —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

      MONTANA MAN ‘Ms Hart creates a world of tantalising warmth and tenderness, a toasty haven in which the reader will find pure enjoyment.’ —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

      COOPER’S WIFE ‘…a wonderfully written romance full of love and laughter.’ —Rendezvous

      “A real love, a real marriage, is struggling to make life better for the person you love.”

      “That’s just how women do it.” He ground out the words, crumbling. Hell, he was like a granite rock disintegrating. “They say all the right words. Do all the things meant to fool a man into thinking…”

      He choked back the rest of the memories too bleak to imagine. Images that whirled like black wraiths before his eyes. “Women know just what to do to make you think how wonderful they are. So sweet and dainty and feminine and loving, until your heart is caught like a fish on a line and you don’t even know enough to escape until you’re out of the water. Struggling to breathe. Seeing the glint of the knife before it slices you wide open. So when I say get away from me, I mean get away from me!”

      Jillian Hart grew up on her family’s homestead, where she raised cattle, rode horses and scribbled stories in her spare time. After earning an English degree from Whitman College, she worked in advertising before becoming a writer. When she’s not hard at work on her next story, Jillian can be found chatting with a friend, stopping for a café mocha with a book in hand, and spending quiet evenings at home with her family.

       Novels by the same author:

      LAST CHANCE BRIDE

      COOPER’S WIFE MALCOLM’S HONOUR MONTANA MAN BLUEBONNET BRIDE MONTANA LEGEND HIGH PLAINS WIFE THE HORSEMAN ROCKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS (short story in A Season of the Heart) MONTANA WIFE

      ROCKY MOUNTAIN MAN

      Jillian Hart

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Prologue

       Montana Territorial Prison, 1879

      Sweat crept like a spider down the middle of his back and stung in the open gashes made fresh with the edge of a bullwhip. Duncan Hennessey didn’t mind the harsh midday sun fixing to blister his skin. No, he’d grown used to the burning heat so that he hardly noticed it. Nor was he bothered by the thirst so strong his mouth had turned to sandpaper and his tongue felt thick and dry.

      He did not feel hunger chewing through his stomach. Or the cuts on his calloused hands or the rough stones scraping away the calluses on the insides of his fingers. He’d grown accustomed to it because there was no other choice. For ten cruel winters and as many brutal summers, he’d bent and lifted, bled and labored behind the tall stone walls that caged him.

      Today, at sundown, it would all come to an end. For at the end of the day, he would be set free. It was unbelievable, but it was true. His name was on the short list—he’d glanced at it over the shoulder of one of the prison guards. It was really going to happen. He simply had to make it through the rest of this day. That was all. When the sun inched behind the Bitterroot Mountains, his punishment would be over.

      He’d been afraid to think of this day. Hopelessness was the killer here, more than the cold or heat or beatings. More rampant than sickness and the endless violence. His soul had hardened into impenetrable iron. He no longer felt. Not hope. Not fear. Not sorrow.

      Not even today, as the sun crept along its course through the sky, did he feel a single hope. He knew better. He might be a free man come dusk, but he had to be alive to enjoy it.

      “You!” A voice as hard as Montana granite seemed to come out of nowhere. As did the whip snap—the only warning of what was to come. “You’re not sweatin’ hard enough, you worthless rat. Don’t think you get outta puttin’ in your fair share a work. You ain’t free yet.”

      It was a game to the guards. To brutalize especially those who were leaving. They thought it funny that while the Territory of Montana might grant a man his freedom at the end of his time served, they held the greater power, to keep him from it. Many had failed to live through the beatings that marked their last day. So he was not surprised by the hiss as the whip sailed through the air.

      He knew better than to stop working. As he bent to lift a heavy rock torn apart by the pickax crew, he saw the whisper-thin shadow undulate across the yellow-hued earth. Like a snake rising back to strike and then attacking.

      Duncan relaxed his back muscles, surrendering to the pain instead of bracing against it. Pain wasn’t as bad when you gave in to it. The lash sliced through his skin. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from groaning, for the keen bite of the whip pierced bone-deep.

      He breathed in, let the pain course through him until it seemed to flow outward and away from the wound. He heaved the chunk of granite into the wagon, a second slash gnawed into his shoulder blade. He hardly felt it. He was made of steel and no whip made could defeat him.

      He chucked another rock into the wagon. More sweat trickled into the newer open gashes and stung like hell. This punishment was meant to reduce him, to defeat him, but he was stronger. Warrior’s blood of the proud Nez Perce tribe flowed through his veins. The Territory of Montana had done its best to strip him of all he held valuable, but it had failed.

      He was Duncan Hennessey, grandson of the respected Gray Wolf, and no territorial law and no prison guard could take that from him or beat it from him.

      He winced as his torn back muscles spasmed, but he refused to slow the pace of his work. He pushed harder and labored faster. Much awaited him outside the walls. He would not give the guards any further reasons to use their whips. Even as the sun began to slide down from its zenith, marking the day as half over, he controlled his thoughts.

      He would not look ahead to seeing the outside world. It would make him yearn, and yearning came hand in hand with need. And need was like a sharp knife—one edge but two sides. It was both strength and weakness that cuts, either way. A man who showed any weakness did not survive.

      He intended to survive. He made himself of stone, like the arrowheads of his mother’s people. Like the mountains that ringed the great prairie and rose proudly above the jagged foothills around him. His grandfather had named him “Standing Tall” for the mountains and their jagged profiles that seemed to watch over him as he struggled to lift what had to be a hundred-pound boulder and dispose of it with the other waste rocks.

      His wounds could bleed. The guards could strike again. But those great mountains reminded him of who he was. He was strong. He was a warrior.

      He would survive this day and then—He banished the image of lush green forests and the sweet tang of pine that rolled into his mind. Not yet. He would not dare to think of the day’s end, for he had the rest of the day to live through.

      Only then would he dare to dream of home.

      Light from the setting sun flared brightly, spearing over the faces of the mountains