Mountain Wild (Harlequin Historical Series) (2 page)

Central Wyoming Territory—Fall, 1889

S
he moved with the caution of a doe caught grazing in an open meadow. Her dirt-stained fingers quickly secured a rope behind her saddle, binding her supplies as she discreetly watched the men filing out of the newly constructed town hall.

Following a roomful of grumbling cattlemen out onto the boardwalk, Garret Daines spotted the woman they called Mad Mag the moment he stepped into the crisp evening air. Her mangy bearskin coat and battered brown hat was hard to miss in the fading light of an otherwise deserted street. Murmurs of recognition and surprise rumbled through the crowd of men.

Garret had seen the mountain recluse in a town only one other time in the eight years he’d lived in these Wyoming hills, some years back in a settlement further north. The bushel of tangled black hair beneath her hat suggested she could still benefit from a lesson or two in hygiene. Known for having a temperament on the far side of crazy, Mad Mag tended to avoid folks altogether. She obviously hadn’t expected all the cattlemen within fifty miles to spill out onto the streets of Bitterroot Springs at five o’clock in the evening. He glanced
around at the men watching her with an equal measure of curiosity and caution.

“What’s the plan?” Duce asked, clapping a hand on Garret’s shoulder as he stepped beside him.

Garret glanced over at his business partner, the man’s wide grin striking him as a pure wonder. The past two hours of heated debates and near brawls, two of which had included Garret, left an ache in his shoulders, the frustration winding inside him still burning for release. In the fourteen years he’d been riding with Duce the wiry cowpuncher had never known a sour mood.

He doesn’t handle the account books,
he silently retorted. Duce had signed on as his partner in name only, refusing to take a cut or responsibility for a business he hadn’t funded. At the age of forty-two, Duce still lived for Saturday nights and blowing his paycheck on weekend benders. In the past six years of running his cattle ranch, Garret had come to envy Duce’s carefree attitude and figured the past few winters had closed the wide gap in their ages.

Garret felt old. Nothing like a failed marriage and Old Man Winter cramming his boot up your behind to age a man.

He glanced out at a pink-streaked sky. “Sun’s about down. Might as well spend the night.”

Duce gave a nod. He raked his fingers through his bushy red hair glowing bright beneath a streetlamp then tugged on his hat. “Think I’ll head over to the Gilded Lady. Winter snow will be piling up soon and my girls are bound to miss me. Care to come along?”

“Not in the mood.” He shook his head, a weary sigh breaking from his chest. “I feel like I’ve just been ambushed by seven cattle barons.”

Duce chuckled.

Garret didn’t share his humor. To secure his place in the stockyards come spring he’d signed over a small fortune to
the wealthy bandits of the newly appointed Cattlemen’s Association. They’d seemed rather disappointed in his ability to meet their demands. He wasn’t about to be pushed off his land. He’d faired better than many of his colleagues, men who’d lost all their stock in the freeze a couple of winters back, a blizzard that had damn near wiped out the cattle trade across the state. Now the railroad and invading cattle barons circled like vultures, ready to pick off the smaller ranches struggling to make ends meet.

“I’ll settle for a pint of whiskey and passing out in a hotel room.”

“You can do that over at the Gilded Lady,” Duce persisted. “What you need is a night in the saddle with some wild women. Ain’t no reason for you not to.” He moved closer as they stepped into the street. “Amanda’s not coming back, you know?”

Garret rolled his shoulders against the surge of anger and resentment tightening his muscles. “I sure as hell hope not.” Staring at that outrageous cattlemen contract reminded him of the divorce papers he’d finally signed last spring—cutting his marital ties to a woman he’d not seen in nearly three years. A wife walking out on a marriage left a man with no small amount of humiliation. He didn’t see the need to announce his divorce.

Life sure hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. Having acquired his ranch at the age of sixteen and marrying at nineteen, he truly thought he’d be settled in with his own family by now, not contemplating a night at a brothel. Damned if he could figure out what he’d done wrong. One thing he did know: he was through chasing women. If he was to have another wife, she’d have to run him to ground first.

“You can slug me for saying so,” said Duce, “but you’re lucky to be rid of that one. All that pretty was wasted on a woman who don’t do nothin’ but sniffle and pout ’cause you’re too busy to sit and stare at her all damn day.”

The truth didn’t keep Garret’s chest from burning at the thought of Amanda Billings standing on his sister’s front porch bound and bustled in the fanciest gear he’d ever seen. The daughter of a Southern banker, she was a true belle, her soft-spoken voice never reaching much above a whisper, her long, lithe body and graceful movements
mesmerizing.
The fact that she’d looked twice at his weather-beaten hide had lit his fire, and he’d sure as hell lit hers.

Passion hadn’t been enough to hold her. After eight months of marriage Amanda had her fill of him and Wyoming winters—a winter like nothing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t new to tragedy or hardship. Raised on cattle trails by his older sister, he’d survived raids, floods, droughts and damn near being washed out of a Colorado Canyon—none of it had prepared him for watching his livelihood go to hell in a frozen handcart.

Murmurs buzzed from the men around him as Mad Mag guided her horse along the main strip. The top of her hat was barely visible beyond the large bay she led by the reins. A fine horse, its golden coat gleaming in the low light. His gaze stopped on the Morgan brand singed into the animal’s haunch—the brand of his sister’s ranch. He glanced again at the horse’s golden coat, black socks, the burst of white on the horse’s dark frock—
Star.

“Is that Star?” he said to Duce as they stopped beside their own mounts.

“Yep,” he answered, not bothering to shift his gaze toward the woman and her horse. “Chance sold his mare to the trapper, Ira Danvers just before you bought your ranch and we moved onto the Lazy J.”

That was six years back and he and Chance Morgan hadn’t been on good speaking terms, Chance having stolen his girl right out from under his nose. Still, he found it hard to believe Chance would sell his prized mare to someone like Ira
Danvers. Garret had never actually met the mountain man, but had heard he was far less sociable than his woman.

“How can filth like that own a Morgan horse?”

Garret glanced back at the newest member of the Cattlemen’s Association standing on the landing of the town hall, his expression filled with disgust. Strafford, the newly elected mayor of Bitterroot Springs, gripped the sides of his shiny blue jacket and stepped onto the walk, his group of ranch hands moving with him like a clutch of chickens scurrying after a peacock.

“Folks call her Mad Mag,” said one of his men. “Ain’t ever seen her in town before.”

“Mad Mag?” Strafford’s gaze narrowed. He stepped off the boardwalk into the dusty road. “You there? Come back here.”

The woman increased her strides and urged the mare to move faster.

“Uh…Boss?” his man called after him. “I wouldn’t—”

“Hey!” Strafford shouted. “I’m talking to you!”

“He’s barkin’ up the wrong tree with that one,” Duce murmured.

Mad Mag turned into the alley beside the mercantile. Strafford hurried after her.

“Someone might ought to fetch the sheriff,” suggested one of the men.

“Who wants to bet Mayor Strafford just got a new mare?”

The large group erupted with laughter.

Anger snapped at Garret’s nerves. He’d disliked the overdressed rancher the moment he’d met the man. Nathan Strafford had moved into these hills with the greasy finesse of a snake-oil salesman, forcing out the smaller ranchers while pouring his money into this town. He’d funded a new school and the first courthouse in Bitterroot Springs, which had gotten him elected as the new town mayor.

Garret started across the road, damned if he’d stand by
while that arrogant jackass took advantage of some poor deranged woman.

“Garret?”

Leaving Duce to chase after him, he rounded the building. Mag was near the far end of the alley, Strafford closing in on her.

“We got new laws in this town,” Strafford announced, his long arm reaching for her. He grabbed a fistful of fur.

Mag spun to face him, the rifle in her hands forcing him to take a backward step. “Back off,” she growled.

Strafford’s six-plus frame towered over the small woman. “What business do you have in
my
town?” he demanded. “Aside from reeking up the streets and stealing our horses?”

The woman’s cold, throaty laughter echoed through the hallow shadows of the narrow alley. “Oh, that’s rich.
You
calling
me
a thief.”

Strafford leaned closer to her.
“Mag—?”

The butt of her rifle connected with Strafford’s gut, ending his words in a hard cough. He doubled over. She swung again, her rifle cracking against his skull, sending him staggering back. Another swift blow to the brow, and Strafford hit the ground like a fallen timber.

Damn.
Her reputation wasn’t just rumors. She stood over Strafford, the barrel of her rifle pressed to his chest. She trembled. Jagged puffs of breath lifted the tangled black hair covering most of her face. Her finger flexed over the trigger.

If she shot Strafford, provoked or not, she’d hang before sundown.

“He’s not worth it,” Garret whispered, slowly moving in beside her while keeping an eye on that rifle.

Rage shaking her, Maggie couldn’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t put a hole through Nathan’s black heart. He had no right to touch her—no right to be in this part of Wyoming!

His
town? Her gaze raked over his fancy suit. Bile burned in her throat. Did this town know the vile measures he used
to acquire his wealth? It was past time for Nathan to be stomped back down to the devil.

She startled at a light pressure on her shoulder. Her gaze snapped to the long fingers touching her fur coat. She glanced up at wide shoulders creating a clear line on the pink horizon.

“Careful,” he said. “Sheriff’s coming.”

Pale blond hair glowed white against the sunset, instantly identifying the man beside her.

Garret Daines.
Recognition broke across her senses like a crack of lightning, shattering her tattered nerves. She’d spotted Daines and his cow dog often enough in the hills around her mountain, but never so close. He appeared rather like the Vikings she’d learned about during her studies as a young girl, his pale hair wavering in the cool breeze, the span of his chest blocking out the world. A colorful sky outlined his profile, defining the sharp lines and intriguing contours of his face.

“Ma’am, you’d better git.” The hand on her shoulder urged her aside, jarring her from a mental stupor. Not that he noticed. His hard gaze never strayed from the murmur of voices growing louder by the second. He glanced to his right and his friend moved in beside him, completely blocking her from view of the approaching mob.

“What’s going on?” a man shouted.

“What happened to Mayor Strafford?” called another.

“Not much that I could see,” said Daines. “Ol’ Strafford didn’t mind his footing. Tripped over his own boots and bumped his head.”

Maggie stared up at Daines’s broad shoulders, staggered by his outright lie, his offer of protection. Seizing the opportunity, she grabbed Star by the reins and stepped around the corner of the building. She wouldn’t be back to this town.

Garret glanced over his shoulder as the crowd descended on Strafford, and was relieved to find the woman had fled. He looked at Duce and nodded in the direction she’d gone. They
prudently made a swift exit. Garret scanned the surrounding hills and tall grasses spotted by patches of trees and scrub. Mad Mag was nowhere in sight.

“You got some kind of death wish I should know about?” asked Duce.

“Why would you think—?”

“You’re lucky that woman didn’t fill you full of buckshot. Or didn’t you see the way she laid out Strafford?”

“She had a rifle, not a shotgun. And he likely frightened her, grabbing her the way he did.”

“Frightened
her?
That’s it,” Duce said, shoving him across the road. “We’re headed to the whorehouse before you end up dead or courting a mountain shrew.”

Garret laughed, and didn’t argue. Watching that woman knock Strafford down a few notches had lightened his mood.

Finally a bit of justice in this world.

A
soft swirl of snowflakes cold against her face, Maggie tugged her hood low and tightened her hold on the rope of her sled as she increased her stride through the soft powder. Her body ached to hunker down in her warm bed.

Two more miles.

The crunch of her snowshoes pressing through the soft ground echoed across the silent countryside. Dark clouds loomed to the north, telling her this was only a small reprieve in the blizzard. The late-winter storm had come on strong and without much warning the prior evening. Maggie barely had time to skin and dress the big buck she’d shot before having to bury her kill in the snow and seek shelter. Huddling in a dank alcove near the river had been no way to pass a frigid February night.

Despite the inconvenience, her hunt had been worthwhile. The frozen deer meat on her sled would last her the rest of winter, and then some.

A streamer of sunlight pierced the thick gray sky and glistened against an embankment of fresh snow up ahead. The silver sparkle captured her attention. As she drew closer she noted the metallic gleam was a
spur.
A spur attached to the vague outline of a boot buried beneath the snow.

Maggie slowed her stride. Her breath hit the cold air in a puff of white as her gaze moved across the long, lumpy mound.

Some fool cowpoke had gotten himself caught in the storm. He’d likely ventured up here looking for strays. High country weather was nothing like the lowlands. Lying on his side, the bulk of him was covered by a foot of snow.

The storm hadn’t been
that
bad—nothing like the freeze two winters back. The deadly cold had caught beast and man in its clutches for miles around, reaching deep into the plains. The stench of death had lasted long into the spring. Any cowboy worth his salt would have learned from such disaster, and sought shelter or at least dug himself in to wait out the blizzard.

She shook her head and pressed on. As Ira used to say, she’d leave it to God to have sympathy for the men too stupid to save themselves. The world could get by without another cowpoke. Hundreds littered the lowlands around her mountain, whooping and hollering at their herds of cattle. At the rate things were going, she’d soon be crowded out of her mountain home just as the Indians had been forced from theirs.

A whimper broke across the winter silence. The snow-covered mound shifted.

Maggie hitched her shoulder, slinging her rifle forward, into her hands. Caution prickled at her skin as she watched the long shape rise up near the center.

A dog stood and gave a vigorous shake. She recognized the mutt’s shaggy black fur and four white paws.
Boots.
The sound of Garret Daines calling after his dog was as familiar to her as a meadowlark’s song.

Oh, no.
Maggie’s breath stalled as she cautiously approached the figure partially buried beneath a blanket of white. Something inside her softened at the sight of pale hair and familiar features.

Why did it have to be Daines?

She crouched beside him. He had the pallor of a dead man.
Blood matted his pale hair. A dark bruise protruded on his forehead—suspiciously shaped like the blunt end of a rifle.

Someone had knocked him out.

She glanced around the clearing. Undisturbed snow coated the ground, blanketing wide-spaced shrubs and trees. Any tracks had long since been snowed over.

How long has he been here?

She brushed away some of the packed powder and noted the slight movement of his chest. Relief swamped her. Biting the fingertip of her glove, she pulled the lined leather from her hand. She slid her fingers along his stubble-coated jaw. The man didn’t so much as flinch. His skin was cold, but still soft. She didn’t see any blackening signs of frostbite. His dog had likely kept him from freezing, but his shallow breathing didn’t make even a slight mist in the frigid air.

He wouldn’t live long if he didn’t get out of the cold.

She reached for his coat and his dog barked, the sharp sound echoing through the winter silence. His master’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.

She glanced at the dog prancing nervously beside her. The dog had distinctly different colored eyes. One deep green, the other pale blue.

Peculiar.

“Come’ere, Boots,” she said, holding out her bare hand.

The dog’s damp nose bumped against her palm.

“You stay friendly,” she said, scratching behind its ear, “and we’ll see about waking up your master.”

She fisted the front of Daines’s thick jacket and tugged him up, out of the snow. “Daines!” she shouted, giving him a shake. “Wake up, Daines!”

Pale lashes lifted. Glazed green eyes stared up at her.

“Ma’am?”

For being half-frozen, his vision was keener than most. Not
too many folks looked at her long enough to determine her gender. “You’ve got to get up,” she said.

“Cattle…Duce…” His lids drooped.

“You don’t get out of this cold, you’re gonna lose more than cattle,” she said, certain she was talking to herself.

His head tipped back and Maggie fell forward, his dead weight dragging her down with him. She landed flat on top of him. Her bare hand plunged into the bite of ice-cold snow.

“Damn it, Daines,” she shouted, pushing off him.
“Wake up!”

He blinked, but didn’t move another muscle.

He’d already been exposed to the cold for too long, addling what she knew to be an otherwise sharp mind. Ira had fallen into an icy river once and had emerged from the frigid water dumber than a rock and helpless as a babe.

Maggie sat back on her heels and knocked the snow from the cuff of her white fur coat. The cold breeze snaked inside her sleeve, sending a chill across her warm skin. She quickly pulled on her glove. Her gut burned as the true extent of his situation sunk in. He wasn’t going to make it.

He was too far from his ranch, at least six miles. The last thing she wanted was to take this Viking cowboy inside her home. There wasn’t a soul alive who knew the location of her cabin. She lived up in the dense wild country for a reason—she didn’t want to be bothered. The one time she’d had unexpected company she spent a whole spring and summer relocating.

The fact that her visitors had been relatives of Garret Daines didn’t ease her reluctance to help him. By her account, his relation to Chance and Cora Morgan made him more of a threat. Morgan and his wife knew too many of her secrets already and she knew too well how a helpful hand could turn to a threat in the blink of an eye.

Don’t trust your back to no one.
Ira’s mantra was embedded in her mind.

Thanks to her run-in with Nathan a few months ago, wanted posters now hung in surrounding settlements featuring a poorly drawn sketch of a mountain shrew, announcing a five-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Mad Mag.

Why should she put herself in further danger by helping a man she barely knew?

“M-m-ma’am?” His unfocused green eyes blinked up at her. “Are y-y-a…all right?”

Was
she
all right? She wasn’t the one lying half-frozen in the snow.

The blatant concern in his expression prodded at her usually silent conscience. Garret Daines seemed to have more charm than sense. Despite his intimidating size, he had a kindness to him that had struck her right off the first time she’d spied him in the low country. With his unusual pale hair and a deep laughter that could carry for miles, he was always easy to spot. Her Viking protector hadn’t been smiling a few months back—a vision that had been plaguing her dreams ever since. His gaze had been hard and focused as he had stood between her and the riled citizens of Bitterroot Springs.

He’d defended her.
Her.
Mad Mag, the local lunatic.

I can’t just leave him here to freeze.
Unlike those who’d betrayed her, Garret Daines wasn’t a man who’d stand by while harm befell another. He’d do as Ira had done, taking on a burden he didn’t want to save the life of a stranger. She’d also been small enough for a grown man to toss over his shoulder and cart off into the woods. She couldn’t carry Garret Daines five feet, much less up this mountain through the snow. She had to get him up.

“Help me, Garret,” she said in her best damsel voice. “It’s so cold. I need to get home. Can you help me?”

He nodded, muscles bunching beneath his thick coat. He tried to push up, and groaned, his stiff body rebelling against the movement. She gripped his arms and helped to tug him
up. Snow clung to his thick coat and buffalo-hide chaps—clothes that should have kept him warm. His hat lay crumpled in the top of the outline of his fallen form. She noted the creases pressed into his left cheek. His dog and his hat had protected those handsome features from hours of exposure. But the icy weather had taken a toll on his mind. He stared blankly at the ground before him.

He swayed, his eyelids drooping.

She reached for him, her arms sliding into his open coat. His shirt crinkled like a sheet of ice.

Alarm squeezed her chest. His clothes had gotten wet.

The rain from yesterday,
before the heavy snowstorm had set in. No wonder his coat and woolly chaps weren’t holding heat—they were likely keeping him as chilled as an icebox.

“Come on, Garret,” she urged, trying to guide him toward her sled. “Stay with me.”

His expression contorted with pain. His boots barely moved in the deep powder. With a rumbling groan, he fell from her grasp and landed face-first into the snow.

Boots yapped at him and nudged his tangled hair with his nose.

“It’s no use, dog. We’ll have to get him on the sled.”

Working quickly, she pushed her supplies and the frozen meat wrapped in deerskin aside and rolled Garret onto the wooden slats. After shoving her supplies beneath his legs to keep his boots from dragging on the ground, she bound a strip of rope across his middle, pinning his arms against his sides. Finished, she fetched his hat, shook off the snow and tugged the dark felt over his white hair.

She glanced at his dog standing up to its chest in snow. She’d seen the cow dog jump onto the back of Garret’s horse more than once while roaming through the lower hills, settling in a spot behind the saddle as though curling up on a porch rug—one of the oddest sights she’d ever witnessed.

“Come on, Boots,” she said, patting his master’s coat.

That was all it took. The hound curled up on Garret’s chest and laid its head on his white paws, his two-toned eyes watching her as she grabbed the sled rope and slipped it over her shoulder. Using all of her weight, her leg muscles burned as she began to haul her heavy load toward home. She’d be drenched in sweat before she reached her cabin, creating a nice layer of ice between her skin and her clothes. Risking her life for a stranger only to catch her death with pneumonia.

She glanced back.

Bound and unmoving, Garret looked like a big prize buck strapped to her sled. The ache in her gut intensified.

“You better not die.”

By the time she spotted the gap in the stone leading to a secluded meadow, every muscle in her body burned despite the increasing chill in her skin. A freezing wind whipped at her back as snow swirled around her in a flurry of white. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She hadn’t slowed to check on her cargo, but kept her focus on the mountainside rising beyond the trees.

She always missed her horse over winter, never so much as the past two hours. But she had no way to house and feed Star once the long freeze set in, forcing Maggie to leave her with the man who’d given her the mare. Chance Morgan’s generosity didn’t keep her from resenting having to depend on his services. Life had been so much simpler when she could keep to the rivers, bartering with only the Sioux and other trappers. Ira had warned her. It was past time to move on.

Barely visible through a thick forest, she spotted her cabin front built into the stone alcove.
Home.
Relief dragged a groan from deep within her chest.

She dragged the sled through the tight maze of trees then
stopped before the snowed-in door topped by a stone overhang. After releasing the bindings on her snowshoes she cleared away the snowdrift then lifted the lock. Her cabin door squeaked open. The small dark space inside was no warmer than the brisk cold blowing through the trees. She hurried to the stove against the stone wall and reached for the matches.

Within moments flames licked over dry wood, illuminating the darkness. She’d expected to come home cold and had left her cabin prepared. She lit the lamp sitting atop her storage shelves beside her stove then moved her full teakettle to the warmest spot on the range top.

Movement beside her made her jump. Boots gave a vigorous shake, spattering a fine spray of melting snow across her cabin floor. She followed a trail of dirty paw-prints across the polished wood. Irritation burned through her.

You brought them here,
she silently berated.
You’ll have to deal with the messes.
She turned and took a small throw from the foot of her bed. She tossed the thin blanket into the corner beyond the stove.

“Lay down,” she said, pointing to the rumpled fabric.

The dog went right to the corner and curled up.

Easy enough.
She glanced through the open door at the lump of leather and man bound to her sled. Snowflakes swirled down from a storm-darkened sky.

Dread pooled in her belly and seemed to settle like a lead weight in her deerskin boots. She forced herself to move toward him. Despite her anxiety, she hoped she hadn’t endured that exhausting climb for two-hundred-plus pounds of dead cowboy. She stepped back out into the whipping wind and a shiver moved through her, the biting cold a prelude to the storm rolling in with the dark sky. She released the rope and brushed the fresh snow from Garret’s face. His eyelids fluttered, but didn’t quite open.

“Couldn’t just come home with deer meat,” she lamented,
pulling her supplies and the bound venison from beneath his legs. His boots dropped over her threshold. She tossed her gear inside then carried the meat bound in fresh deer hide to the cold box buried beneath a foot of snow just outside her cabin. She dug up the lid and dropped in the whole hide-bound parcel. Salting and stewing would have to wait.