Montana Unbranded

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#u9e926cd9-1a8a-5dda-8f74-bdcf0cbb19ef)

EVER SINCE THE SHOOTING, his nights had been fractured with brief moments of consciousness, coming up out of the darkness to remember things he’d rather forget. The awful struggle to breathe. Marconi’s face bending over him. Marconi’s voice, taunting him. The taste of copper in his mouth and the smell of rotting garbage. The cold pelt of rain washing his blood into the city gutter. Rico finding him, the sound of sirens. Darkness and pain... How long that lasted, he didn’t know, but it felt like forever before the tormented struggle between life and death finally became a deep, healing sleep.

The ringing of the telephone brought him awake with an upward lunge, a movement that exploded in pain as his hand stabbed beneath his pillow for a weapon that wasn’t there. The room was dim. Shades drawn. The illuminated hands on the bedside clock read nine a.m. He’d been sleeping for twelve straight hours. Not possible, not in a hospital. He reached for the phone, his voice hoarse from sleep. “Ferguson.”

“Hey, it’s Rico, hope I didn’t wake you. I figured you’d have been up for hours, flirting with the nurses. Thought you’d want to know, the date’s been set for the court hearing. June 23. Thought you’d also want to know, Cap said you should get out of town until the hearing. Thinks it’d be safer. So do I. We all do.”

He moved his head on the pillow, back and forth, as if Rico were in the room. “I’m not running from those bastards.”

“I wouldn’t, either—I’d fly. A Boeing 747’d get you a whole lot farther a whole lot faster.”

“They won’t try anything now.”

“No? You dusted three of Marconi’s henchmen in that shoot-out, and it’s your testimony that’s going to put him away for life. You’re messing with the Providence family here, Joe. This is serious stuff.”

“Tell me about it. I’m the one lying here looking like a piece of Swiss cheese.” The door swung inward. A nurse entered briskly, opened the shades and gave him a brief, professional smile as she lifted the plate cover on his breakfast tray. He hadn’t heard breakfast being delivered. Slept right through it. Jesus, Marconi himself could’ve crept in here and smothered him with a pillow, except for the two badges stationed outside his door.

The nurse frowned at the untouched food before replacing the plate cover.

“What about that pretty red-haired sister of yours?” Rico pressed. “Stay with her.”

The nurse was taking his vital signs, jotting them on the clipboard that hung at the foot of the bed. He waited until she left before responding. “Molly’s busy planning her wedding. She doesn’t need her big brother hanging out.”

“Molly won’t have a big brother and your son won’t have a father if you don’t wise up.”

“Find Marconi.”

“We will. Meantime, go visit your sister.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Time’s up. Dead men don’t make good witnesses. And, Joe? I mean it. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, not even your mother. Cap’s hand-delivering a new ID for you this morning. He’s making the flight reservations and providing transportation to the airport.”

Rico hung up. The nurse had returned with a syringe in her hand and was preparing to draw blood, something nurses did 24/7 and seemed to enjoy. She put a rubber tourniquet on his arm, swabbed briskly with an alcohol-drenched cotton ball, pinched him with the needle. Blood flowed into the tube, as if he hadn’t lost enough already.

“Rumor has it I’m being discharged today,” he said.

She tucked the syringe and vial of blood into a little tray. “Not if you don’t eat your breakfast,” she said with all the warmth of the military police, though she softened her words with a smile before departing the room. He lifted the plate cover to study the contents. Lowered it. Looked around the drab room he’d come to hate over the past two weeks. Rain streaked the window, blurring his view. It hadn’t stopped raining since the night he was shot. He was sick of the rain. Sick of lying in a hospital bed and counting the holes in the ceiling tiles. Sick of this city.

Maybe Rico was right. A few weeks in Montana with his baby sister might not be such a bad idea. She was always asking him to visit, and he’d always wanted to see just how much wild was left in the West.

CHAPTER ONE (#u9e926cd9-1a8a-5dda-8f74-bdcf0cbb19ef)

“STOP YOUR FIDGETING, Molly. I promise I’m almost done.”

Dani Jardine deftly inserted three more pins into the cream-colored fabric gathered at her friend’s waistline, then rose to her feet and executed a slow walk-around, studying the drape of the gown. Molly Ferguson was standing with her arms obediently outstretched at shoulder height and had been for the past five minutes, but her patience was wearing thin. She met Dani’s eyes in the mirror, tossed her shoulder-length mane of red hair, blew out an impatient breath and dropped her arms to her sides.

“Well? Can you fix it?”

“There might be just enough fabric for me to make the alterations.”

“Will it look all right?”

“You’re going to be the most beautiful bride ever.”

“You don’t think I look fat?”

“Molly, you couldn’t possibly look fat.”

“I’ve gained five pounds in the past two weeks.”

“So stop eating all that corned beef and cabbage.”

Molly gnawed on a fingernail, turning sideways and eyeing herself in the full-length mirror on her friend’s bedroom door. “I wish it were that easy, but it’s more than just food.”

Dani met her friend’s eyes in the mirror. Molly’s were dark with unspoken pathos and shining with tears. For a few moments Dani wondered what could possibly be wrong, and then it clicked, and a big smile brightened her face. “You’re pregnant! I don’t believe it.” Dani hugged her friend impulsively. “You’re having a baby! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I only found out this morning. All winter we’ve been crazy busy with the fund-raiser for Madison Mountain and I was so afraid we wouldn’t make Condor International’s deadline to raise the money. I was sick to my stomach all the time and I thought it was from the stress of it all. Then we made the deadline, we raised the money, we did it. The mountain was saved from that huge mining operation. I should have felt better but I just kept feeling squeamish. Then this morning, because Steven insisted, I went to see my doctor and...” Molly drew a sharp breath and the three recently inserted pins popped out of the fabric. The tears spilled over and Molly wiped them from her cheeks. “It turns out, I’m very pregnant.”

“That’s wonderful news, Molly! You always wanted kids, and in a few weeks you’re getting married to the man of your dreams. But you’re acting like the doctor just gave you a death sentence. What’s wrong?”

“Steven doesn’t know yet, and when my mother finds out she’ll disown me. She’s very Catholic.”