Luke's Runaway Bride

Luke's Runaway Bride
Kate Bridges

Kidnap Victim–Or Runaway Bride?What would people think of her, Jenny Eriksen fumed. After all, she'd disappeared from her own engagement ball! And now she was trapped in a tumbleweed of a town, facing down Luke McLintock, a man with a mission, who'd stolen her away from her fiancé–body, soul…and heart!Luke McLintock couldn't afford to fail. Yes, he'd "kidnapped" his boyhood friend's fiancée–but only because Jenny Eriksen was the key to a little boy's future. But beneath the wide Western skies Jenny had bloomed beyond her high-society restraints and Luke was wondering how he would ever be able to let her go!

“I can’t keep you here against your will.

“Someone’s bound to get hurt. That’s not my intention at all.”

Her insides fluttered. “Will you play any more tricks?”

“No.” He said it with such honesty and compassion, but he looked so defeated standing there.

Her heart would not go out to him, she warned herself. “Can’t you see—” she pleaded, stepping closer. “Can’t you see? How am I supposed to know who to believe?”

Luke stepped closer. He lifted her hand, his unexpected touch sending a ripple cascading up her spine, and placed her palm over his heart. Then he flattened his own hand over hers. She felt the heat of his flesh beneath the cloth, the pounding of his blood.

“You’re not supposed to know it, you’re supposed to feel it.”

She withdrew her hand, feeling as if it had been singed in a flame….

Praise for KATE BRIDGES’S previous title

The Doctor’s Homecoming

“Dual romances, disarming characters and a lush landscape make first-time author Bridges’s late 19th-century romance a delightful read.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The great Montana setting and high Western action combine for a top-notch romantic ending.”

—Romantic Times

“Kate Bridges has penned an entertaining, heartwarming story that will live in your heart long after you turn the last page.”

—Romance Reviews Today

Luke’s Runaway Bride

Kate Bridges

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

Dedicated to my dear friends Donna L. and Heather H.—thank you both for your encouragement, and your wonderful sense of humor.

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 One

Denver, September 1873

Tall, rugged and dangerous. Who was he?

Jenny Eriksen spotted the stranger from across the deserted street. Her pulse strummed with awareness.

Silhouetted in moonlight, the stranger walked his bay past the golden cottonwoods near the livery stable, then past the newly painted hitching posts of the corner café. A rough block of square shoulders and long legs, the man moved with muscled control. With a gun belt slung low around his hips, his Stetson tugged over his brow, he was the type of man in this wild mining town Jenny tried to avoid. Especially since the robbery in Daniel’s office that afternoon.

For a moment, Jenny stopped breathing.

She had just stepped out of the crowded dance hall onto the boardwalk with her housekeeper. At first, she’d been relieved to escape the charity ball to run her delicate errand, but now Jenny wasn’t so sure. In the cool night breeze, she studied the wavy black hair and somber, clean-shaven face of the stranger.

Lord, he was handsome. But what set him apart from other men was his air of isolation, of danger. His long, deliberate stride and his easy, graceful movements commanded obedience. Definitely a man who’d never interest her. She preferred…a milder man, who thought with his head and not his hands. A man like her wonderful Daniel, her fiancé.

The wind danced across her bare shoulders and stirred her blue velvet sleeves. Familiar piano music floating through the air eased her tension, reminding her she was safe. She yanked her peacock-feather shawl tight against her gown.

“Six months in Denver,” she said, gulping perfume-scented air, “and I’m still not used to seeing strangers wearing guns.”