Montana Man. Jillian Hart

tea sloshing over the rim and onto his other hand. He cursed mildly, the burns hot and stinging. He set the cup in its saucer, already nearly full with spilled tea, and reached for his napkin.

      She was faster. Heat stained her face as she dabbed at the mess. “I can’t believe I was so clumsy. Are you hurt?”

      “Not a bit. Nothing lasting, anyway.”

      “This time I didn’t do it, Uncle Trey.” Josie, pleased because she excelled at spilling drinks at the table, clapped her hands. For an instant she looked more like the little girl he remembered, eyes bright and sparkling, the smallest pleasure alight on her pixie face.

      For a moment, it was as if the past had returned, that Madeline could be alive and well, and this child’s heart whole. His chest tightened as the moment passed. The train rattled, shuddering against the steep slope as they climbed in elevation. The gladness drained from Josie’s face and she climbed into his lap, quiet and subdued.

      Miranda noticed as she added cream and sugar to her own cup, took Josie’s vacant seat between them, and offered the girl a sip. Trey’s heart squeezed a little tighter. He was grateful to this woman, a stranger, who’d taken the time to comfort a frightened little girl.

      He wondered what road lay ahead for him and Josie. He didn’t think he could keep her, despite his sister’s wishes. There was so much he couldn’t give a child, even though he wanted to.

      The waiter arrived with their first course, steaming clam chowder garnished with bits of green onion and tiny oyster-shaped crackers. Their server had the foresight to bring a small bowl of those special crackers just for Josie.

      “I hate to admit it, but you were right.” Miranda dipped her spoon into the thick chowder. “He is a jackass.”

      Oh, yes, the fiancé. “He would have to be to let a pretty lady like you run off on him.”

      “I never said—”

      “Did I mention I also read minds?” His dark eyes glimmered, full of mischief. “Just another one of my many talents—”

      “Flaws, you mean.” She startled when the door opened at the end of the elegant car.

      A well-dressed man, distinguished in a black suit, stepped inside, and she relaxed. “Lewis wasn’t the man I thought he was.”

      “Ah, the real truth of love relationships.” Trey scooted Josie closer to the table, so reaching the bowl of crackers wasn’t such a long stretch for her. “One day the fantasy wears off, and you’re left with reality—a plain man with flaws and failures, not some shining hero of your heart.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      She’d never wanted her freedom to come at the price of anyone else coming to harm. Her days of dreaming dreams and wishing on first-stars-of-the-night were past. There was no sense