Harlot at the Homestead Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Harlot at the Homestead

  ISBN # 978-0-85715-662-4

  ©Copyright Molly Ann Wishlade 2014

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright March 2014

  Edited by Sue Meadows

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Sizzling and a Sexometer of 2.

  The Duggans of Montana

  HARLOT AT THE HOMESTEAD

  Molly Ann Wishlade

  Book one in the Duggans of Montana series

  Sometimes retribution finds its own way but sometimes it needs a helping hand.

  When Catherine Montgomery shows up at Kenan Duggan’s homestead, she expects him to be surprised. She’s been gone two years and she’s devastated to hear that her former fiancé was forced to give her up for dead.

  Catherine never stopped thinking about Kenan and hoped that they’d be reunited one day. She has suffered at the hands of another but nothing tortured her as much as being apart from the man she loves. She doubts, however, that Kenan will be able to forgive her when she reveals her secrets.

  As Kenan battles his desire for revenge, their mutual desire reawakens like a creek bed in the rain, and soon they are swept up in rediscovering their all-consuming passion.

  Retribution often finds its own way in the Wild West and the men to blame for Catherine’s disappearance may well find themselves paying for their crimes in unexpected ways.

  That’s if Kenan doesn’t get to them first!

  Dedication

  This one is dedicated to two very strong and special women.

  Firstly, my lovely little Welsh Granny. Thank you for all those magical afternoons, when we sat together in front of your tiny portable TV and watched wonderful Westerns. I miss you so much but I treasure our memories. Love you!

  Secondly, thanks to my fabulous editor, Sue. Without you, I might still be aspiring. You have taught me so much—I’m still learning—and I will be eternally grateful. Big hugs, lovely! xxx

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmark mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Stetson: John B. Stetson Company

  Chapter One

  “Kenan!” The cry pierced the night like a flaming arrow. “Help me!”

  Kenan jumped to his feet, instantly alert. Just moments ago he’d been slumped in the fireside chair, losing the battle against exhaustion as the rain pattering against the windows and the crackling of the fire had lulled him to sleep. After two months on the cattle trail, he’d been relieved to be back at the Duggan homestead and his mind and body had begun to unwind.

  But someone needed help. He grabbed his gun belt from the floor by the chair and fastened it around his waist.

  “Kenan!” The anguished cry came again, carried on a voice filled with pain and fear.

  He turned to check on his siblings, but the three of them stood wide-eyed and pale behind him like unearthly specters haunting the dimly lit room.

  So who, on earth, had called him?

  “Kenan, what was that?” Rosie rushed to his side and took hold of his arm. The alarm in her amber eyes was echoed in his racing heartbeat.

  “It sounded like…” He squeezed his twin sister’s hand. “Like…but it can’t be.”

  There was a thud from outside as something landed on the wooden porch. Kenan took hold of Rosie’s shoulders and pushed her back toward their two younger brothers.

  “Stay here,” he growled.

  As he turned and walked toward the door, he removed his gun from its holster. He held it steady in his right hand and placed his left one on the door handle.

  “Matthew, keep Rosie and Emmett well back.”

  Matthew nodded his dark head, his own gun already cocked.

  Kenan released the catch and slowly opened the door, letting in the black night, the rain and a dead woman.

  “Dear Lord in Heaven!” Rosie appeared at Kenan’s side as he lifted the inanimate woman in his arms and carried her toward the warmth of the fire. She was drenched and ice cold. He laid her on the rag rug in front of the hearth and gazed at her.

  “Kenan?” Rosie patted his shoulder and he stared into her bewildered eyes.

  “It can’t be.”

  Matthew knelt at Kenan’s side and frowned at the sight before him. “How…why…I mean…”

  Kenan shook his head. “I have no idea but she’s soaked through and most likely has a fever.” His thudding heart threatened to explode at any moment and as he reached out to smooth back the girl’s sodden red hair, his hands trembled violently.

  This didn’t make any sense.

  He couldn’t fathom how or why, but Catherine Montgomery, the fiancée he’d grieved for the past two years, had appeared out of the blue at his homestead. His mind raced with unanswered questions but a flicker of hope sparked deep in his gut. He realized that in spite of his uncertainty and regardless of his fears, he was darned glad to see her—the woman he’d thought he would never see again.

  “We’d better get her out of these wet things.” Rosie nudged Kenan’s shoulder.

  “Yeah…of course.” He leaned over and lifted the unconscious woman from the hearth.

  She was as light as lamb’s wool and blossoming warmth seeped through her damp clothing. Everywhere their bodies touched, his skin burned like it had been seared with a white-hot poker. He’d dreamt of holding her in his arms so many times and he’d even made silent promises to whatever deity existed that he’d ask no questions if she could just reappear in his life. But now that she had, Kenan was aware that he had a whole barrel full of questions that couldn’t remain unanswered.

  “Take her through to my room,” Rosie whispered.

  Kenan walked slowly, careful not to bump Catherine’s feet against the table or the door frames. He looked down into her beautiful pale face and savored the beauty of her petite freckled nose and her coral rosebud mouth. Suddenly, she opened her eyes wide. She frowned for a moment then her pupils enlarged and Kenan’s heart leaped with a mi
xture of love and fear. She’d come back from the dead but how and why? And what had happened to her?

  “Kenan,” she croaked and lifted a tiny hand to touch his face. Her fingertips were ice cold and for a moment he wondered if she really was dead—a spirit come to haunt him. Or had his grief finally become too much and his mind cracked with the sheer agony of it all? Maybe insanity would offer him some relief from the daily suffering he endured every time Catherine crossed his mind.

  “Put her onto the bed.” Rosie directed him.

  He considered refusing and holding onto her, never letting her go again, but she was cold and wet and he realized how ridiculous he was being. “I…I just can’t understand this.” He shook his head as he laid her down. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Of course it doesn’t.” Rosie squeezed his arm. “Some things just don’t. Let me get her changed. You go and make some coffee to warm her up.”

  Kenan backed slowly away from the bed, afraid to look away in case Catherine disappeared from view—and his life—again.

  “Kenan!” Rosie waved her hand at him. “Give us some privacy.”

  He forced himself to turn and walk from the room, to drag his eyes away from Catherine’s emerald green ones, though he longed to rush back to the bed and take hold of her—to shake her and force her to wake up properly, to explain where she’d been all this time when he’d been grieving her loss. Did she have any idea of how much he’d longed for her, missed her, worried about her?

  He shut the door behind him and leaned his forehead against the solid wood, inhaling the comforting scent of the mountain pine. He would give Rosie a moment to help Catherine change and gather her wits but he needed some answers and he needed them tonight.

  * * * *

  “Here we are,” Rosie announced as she returned to the room. “All dry and warm.”

  Kenan turned from where he’d been pacing in front of the fire. Matthew and Emmett had excused themselves from the house and gone out to tend to the animals in the barn. The storm had gathered pace and some of the beasts were becoming distressed. Ironic, Kenan had thought, as inside the house another storm was breaking.

  Catherine emerged from behind Rosie and Kenan held his breath. He dug his fingernails into his palms to try to still their trembling. As she walked toward him, he glared at the vision who had haunted his day dreams, screamed for his help and protection in his nightmares and robbed him of all belief in his own masculinity. He had almost been destroyed by the realization that he hadn’t been there for her. He hadn’t protected her when she needed him most.

  Damn it, she looked so good. Her hair glowed crimson in the firelight and in spite of his determination to remain aloof, his heart lifted at the sight of her even though his mind insisted that it was impossible. She’d been gone two years. Two whole years of missing that pretty face, those full sensual lips and that soft-as-velvet voice. Twenty four months of wondering how much she’d suffered, how long it had taken her to die and if she’d cried for him as she’d drawn her last breath.

  If this was some kind of twisted dream he sure as hell didn’t want to wake up. He’d had his fair share of those and waking always brought the fresh agony of renewed grief. Or relief in the case of the nightmares where her screams rang out and he was up to his knees in thick mud, unable to free himself, let alone her. He always woke from the nightmares in a cold sweat, his heart a wild mustang galloping and his own cries stuck in his throat. Once or twice—though he was ashamed to admit it—he’d even broken down and wept on waking, the sheer horror of his loss too much to bear.

  This was actually happening and she was really at his homestead, walking toward him wearing one of his sister’s old housedresses. Just like before. Like none of the bad things had ever happened and life was fine and dandy.

  He shook himself. This would not do. He’d thought he’d never see her again, never converse with her or hold her close and it had drained him of everything he’d once been. Losing her had torn him apart and he’d had to adjust to giving up on the life he’d dreamt of. His days had become little more than just existing, as weak as an acorn calf.

  Yet she was here.

  She hadn’t died. Hell, if this wasn’t the opposite of an afterclap.

  But images of the broken woman he’d imagined after her kidnapping resurfaced like flotsam on the sea, so he quickly snuffed his burgeoning hopes. He’d grieved for this woman once and no matter how she was here, how she’d survived, it would make no difference to him.

  He had no intention of grieving for the titian-haired Catherine Montgomery a second time.

  Catherine shook all over. Though this had been her intention all along, she couldn’t believe that she was actually here, looking at Kenan once more. In the two years she’d been away, he’d matured and grown leaner. Yet he was even more desirable than she could remember. His hair was still thick and black, though there was a dusting of white at his temples as if age had tried to claim him but had lost the battle against youth. His jaw was still square, his mouth still full and his eyes…still so deep and dark. She had always been able to lose herself in his eyes.

  But he looked shocked and furious and no wonder. He had probably just returned home after months on the Texas to Montana trail, expecting to rest up before heading out again. Instead, he’d been surprised by her arrival. How did she expect him to feel?

  What a mess. She had never wanted it to turn out like this, never dreamt that it would. They’d had a good life mapped out, had been due to get wed and they had hoped to raise a family. It had been all she’d wanted, all he’d wanted. Their joy in each other had been so complete and intense that they’d neither wanted nor cared for anything else.

  Even though she’d known that the life of a homesteader could be tough and harsh—especially for a woman—she’d still been happy to live that life, as long as it was with Kenan. The thought of their wedding had thrilled her and she’d even been excited about the charivari. Catherine had dreamt of how she’d keep their little farm in apple pie order and raise big strong boys to help Kenan out on the land and make him proud.

  But after all that had happened, all the time that had passed, she doubted if there was any way to put it all right. Surely there was no way to ever recapture the innocence of their love. It would be like wading through quicksand—impossible and hopeless.

  Catherine bit her lip. How awful to feel so estranged from the man she’d loved with all of her heart.

  “We need to talk,” Kenan gestured toward the table. “Sit.”

  Kenan lowered himself onto the bench at the rectangular pine table. He’d helped his pa make the long benches, but he wished they’d made them higher. At just over six feet tall, he had to sit with his knees almost pressing against his chest. He felt awkward and cumbersome, though he knew that his feelings had more to do with the new addition to his household than anything else.

  He reached for his coffee and realized that he was shaking. Anger and grief boiled inside him and memories of the day he’d been told of Catherine’s demise flashed before his eyes. He saw himself riding over to her uncle’s homestead, jumping down from his horse, striding across the front porch, hovering his hand ready to knock…already aware that something was different, something was wrong. Usually, his arrival brought Catherine immediately to the door but this time she was nowhere to be seen.

  Suddenly, her uncle had stood before him, eyes red, face blanched, a broken man.

  “Kenan?” He was dragged back to the present.

  “Huh?”

  “Kenan?”

  He jumped as the voice he’d believed he’d never hear again broke into his thoughts. She’d moved across the room like a spirit. For a moment his heated brain wondered if she was. Some folks believed that the spirits of the dead roamed the earth. Maybe she’d returned here to haunt him and she really was dead. The old familiar pain thudded though his skull like a tomahawk.

  Catherine stood opposite him, hovering like a nervous bird beside the ta
ble.

  “Sit down.”

  He gazed at her hand with its petite fingers and lightly freckled skin, as she placed it on the table. That hand belonged to the woman he had adored. He had showered it with kisses, held it over his heart when he proposed. She had gripped him with passionate ferocity when she had sought to pleasure him in return for the sensual delights he relished offering her. He hardened beneath the table as images of her encircling his erection and caressing the length of him before taking him between her breasts, flooded his mind.

  “Kenan, are you okay?”

  He shrugged, not meeting her eyes, not looking at her face. He couldn’t. Instead, he drained the dregs of his coffee then stared into the bottom of the pewter cup, willing his cock to go down.

  “Kenan?”

  He tightened his hands around his drink.

  “Kenan, please?”

  The voice persisted, breaking into his consciousness, seeping into his soul like the warmth of the sun. It penetrated his tension, permeated his grief and reached down to his broken heart like a healing salve.

  It carried him back to the summer they’d shared three years ago when she’d agreed to marry him. It had been the best summer of his life. He’d been helping her uncle with some work around his farm when Catherine had arrived, fresh from teaching college in the east. As her parents had both been taken by smallpox during her time at college, she’d had nowhere else to go than the home of her paternal uncle. She’d been delivered by wagon like an unwanted package one July morning. Kenan had watched her arrive. He’d been fascinated by her beauty in her green satin traveling attire, all wide eyes and fiery hair. His curiosity had been provoked and he had known at that moment, that she was the one for him, and that he’d do whatever it took to make her love him.

  He slammed his cup on the table.

  “What in the hell happened, Catherine?”

  He glared at her.

  “How are you here?” He gestured at her. “Alive?” His voice cracked on the final word.

  He hung his head and ground his teeth. He would not submit to his grief and confusion. He was the man of the house, he had to be strong.