Whitefeather's Woman

Whitefeather's Woman
Deborah Hale

Jane Harris, on the run fr om life back East, hoped only to survive. Still, everything in this breathtaking territory was overwhelming–including John Whitefeather, a blue-eyed Cheyenne leader who'd awakened her to womanly desire.John Whitefeather knew what it was like to be an outsider. That was why he was so drawn to Jane. But this shy violet was blossoming into a passionï ¬ ‚ ower with roots deep in Montana soil, and maybe deeper still in his lonely heart….

Stories of family and romance

beneath the Big Sky!

Did she dare bare her ugly past and risk turning him away forever?

“You know,” John murmured, “the first time you got me talking about what happened to my folks, it was almost like living it over again. I was angry at you for making me remember.”

She nudged her horse a little closer to his. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve thought about it since. Talked a little about it. Each time it gets a little easier, and I never would have found that out if you hadn’t made me speak of it the first time.”

Jane’s heart seemed to swell within her until she wondered how her small body could contain it. Here was something more she could give this man who offered her so much. She could give him balm for his wounded heart, because she, too, had known hurt and bereavement….

Whitefeather’s Woman

Deborah Hale

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

DEBORAH HALE

After a decade of tracing her ancestors to their roots in Georgian-era Britain, Golden Heart winner Deborah Hale turned to historical romance writing as a way to blend her love of the past with her desire to spin a good love story. Deborah lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, between the historic British garrison town of Halifax and the romantic Annapolis Valley of Longfellow’s Evangeline. With four children (including twins), Deborah calls writing her “sanity retention mechanism.” On good days, she likes to think it’s working.

Deborah invites you to visit her personal website at www.deborahhale.com, or find out more about her at www.eHarlequin.com.

To my editor, the phenomenal Margaret Marbury,

who trusted me with John, Jane

and their wonderful story.

And to two of the most gifted writers

of American historical romance,

Cheryl St.John and Carolyn Davidson,

from their adoring fan.

Contents

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

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Chapter One

May 1897, Whitehorn, Montana

A frontier saloon was just about the last place on earth Jane Harris had ever expected, or wanted, to find herself. Why, Mrs. Endicott and her Ladies’ Temperance Society back in Boston would have been properly horrified. They’d have been more horrified still by the knowledge that Jane had stolen and sold a brooch of Mrs. Endicott’s to get here.

The jarring notes of a tinny piano pummeled Jane’s throbbing head, and the reek of raw spirits and tobacco smoke made the flesh at the back of her throat constrict. If she’d had anything to eat in the past twenty-four hours, the stink, the noise and her own overwrought nerves might have conspired to make her violently ill.

Perhaps it had been a harsh blessing that she’d run out of money for food back in Omaha.

“Kin I pour ya a drink, little lady?” bellowed the man behind the bar, his voiced laced with genial mockery.