Montana Surrender Read online

  Montana Surrender

  Trana Mae Simmons

  Montana Surrender cover design

  and copyright 2011 by

  Angela Rogers

  Misadvmom @ yahoo.com

  Copyright 1993, 2011 by Trana Mae Simmons

  Montana Surrender originally published as

  A Leisure Book by Dorchester Publishing

  in 1993

  Bittersweet Promises Excerpt Copyright 1994, 2011

  by Trana Mae Simmons

  Bittersweet Promises originally published as

  A Leisure Lovespell by Dorchester Publishing

  in 1994

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, or by any means existing now or in the future, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Reviews:

  Montana Surrender reads like a good old action packed Western movie. Trana Mae Simmons understands the wild land, its untamed characters and brings their complex stories to life. Romantic Times Magazine

  "A wild and adventurous shoot-em-up ride through the Old West, filled with unexpected plot turns and an intriguing cast of unusual characters a reader will remember long after the last page has been read. A winner! Michalann Perry, Zebra Books Author

  Excerpt from Montana Surrender:

  With a conscious effort, Jessica relaxed her muscles and felt the tentative loosening of the hand on her mouth. Her violent wrench tore her face free and she threw her head back, encountering a hard chin behind her.

  "Ouch, you little wildcat."

  Jessica took advantage of the man's pain to grip the little finger of the hand he held on her waist. Frantically she threw all her strength into bending it back until she thought surely it would break. He gave a grunt of pain and pulled his hand away. Jessica scrambled free, another scream building in her throat, though she had little hope of it traveling as far as the camp site. She had walked too far.

  A hand grabbed her booted foot and the breath meant for the scream left Jessica's chest in a whoosh as she fell again to the hard packed trail. A hard object pressed into the side of her tender stomach — her derringer. Good Lord. She must have been terrified a moment ago to even forget she had the little gun. Swiftly she shifted around and pulled the small pistol from her pocket.

  The man batted the gun away and it flew from her fingers in an arch, tumbling down the hillside. A cry of dismay left Jessica's lips, cut off abruptly when the man's body covered hers and he thrust his bandanna between her lips and tied it behind her head. Panic-stricken, she struggled under the threatening weight, her body snaking from side to side, feet scrabbling in the dirt and rocks beneath her. She wouldn't let herself be taken!

  "No you don't. Not this time," the presence holding her said.

  Quicker than she thought possible, she found her hands tied with a rawhide thong he jerked from his leggings and her feet followed a bare second later. A picture of the calves bound for branding incongruously flashed in her mind, furthering the embarrassment of her predicament.

  The man rose to his knees, his body shadowing the light from the moon. "Look, I'm sorry as hell about this, but it seems like the only way you'll listen to me. Damn it, I'm not going to hurt you."

  Terror-stricken eyes gazing up at him told the man she didn't believe a word he said. He leaned closer to her, his breath feathering on her face and his hand unconsciously stroking the silky strands of hair away from her face.

  "I mean it," he said quietly. "I'll carry you back closer to your camp and let you go if you promise me to talk those men with you into leaving in the morning. It's not safe for you around here."

  Jessica stared up into the dark countenance above her, eyes straining as she tried to make out his features in the darkness and forcing her muscles into immobility. His body and the rock above them shadowed most of the moonlight and she could only see dark, rather longer than usual hair spilling around the man's face.

  And lips — lips just full enough to be sensuous. The thought crept into her mind before she could stop it. Lips that came closer again as he whispered in a manner meant to soothe her.

  "That's better, pretty lady. Now, if you'll behave yourself, I'll pick you up."

  For Ransom, Bryan, Adam

  Here's a good shoot-em-up y'all

  should enjoy!

  Prologue

  Wyoming - 1893

  The old doctor glanced worriedly at the young woman by his side. He had brought her into the world on a cold winter night much like this one and watched her grow up pampered by her father after her mother died in the horrible accident the following summer. But even the doctor would be the first to admit her father's attempts to spoil his daughter had failed to turn her into the simpering ninny she could have become. Instead, she had blossomed under his sheltering love, returning it twofold to those around her.

  Oh, she had a stubborn streak a mile wide, the doctor thought to himself, but Jessica Callaghan also had an amazing capacity for loyalty and love for those close to her. Perhaps that capacity would be her undoing this time. Though he had feared for her very sanity last winter, he could see no way to shield her from this latest blow to her life.

  And he knew only one way to tell her — straight out, without giving her any false hope.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Callaghan. There's just nothing else I can do. The pneumonia's being complicated by heart failure."

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Jessica had anticipated the doctor's prognosis, but it didn't lessen the thunderbolt of pain that shot through her. Her trembling legs wilted under her and she sank down on the bed beside Uncle Pete.

  "Oh, God, no! Please, doctor!" Jessica made no attempt to disguise the agony in her voice. "I lost Daddy only a year ago. I can't lose my uncle, too."

  The doctor patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, but he couldn't make himself meet Jessica's ravaged gaze. Instead, he turned away and busied himself packing his supplies back into his tattered black medical bag. It didn't matter how many times he faced the death of one of his patients — it never came any easier. Nor did he find it any easier to help relieve the pain of those death left behind.

  "These old mountain men were tough, Miss Callaghan," he said as he worked. "But they lived an awfully hard life, and it eventually takes its toll on them."

  The doctor picked up his bag and paused to take in the young woman huddled on the bed with the now pitifully shrunken figure of a man who could not possibly live until morning. He watched Jessica reach out a hand and tenderly run it across her Uncle Pete's fevered brow, then stroke the full beard covering his face. Loud, labored breathing filled the room.

  He couldn't leave her alone with the dying man. "Miss Callaghan, I'm going to fetch Mrs. Daniels to stay with you."

  Jessica choked on a sob, but shook her head. "No. Mattie nursed him all last night and today. She's exhausted," Jessica managed to say. "Besides, I...I want to be
alone with him. Will you c...come back?"

  "Depends, Miss Callaghan. It's Mrs. Rogers' first, you know. First ones can take their time, but you can't tell Mr. Rogers that. He's still waiting down in your living room for me, probably pacing a hole in your rug by now."

  "I know. You better go."

  The doctor hesitated another moment. She was probably right about Mrs. Daniels being exhausted, but he would feel the sharp side of Mattie's tongue himself if he left Jessica to cope with the coming hours alone. Deciding he could convey Jessica's wish for privacy with her uncle and ask Mattie to be unobtrusive, he gave Jessica his final instructions.

  "I've left a bottle of laudanum on the bedside table for you, Miss Callaghan. If his pain gets much worse, you may need it."

  "No," Jessica denied emphatically. "My uncle wouldn't want to be drugged."

  "Nevertheless, I'll leave it. He's faded quite a bit since I first started tending him, but he's still large enough for you to have trouble handling him if he...."

  "I'll manage, Doctor," Jessica broke in. "Thank you for all you've done."

  She picked up Uncle Pete's gnarled hand and sat silently until she heard the doctor's footsteps behind her and the click of the bedroom door. The sound of the door giving her privacy released the pent up anguish, and sobs racked her body.

  A vision of her hours' long vigil by the ice-covered window a year ago swam in Jessica's mind. The storm had broken that afternoon with no warning, catching many of the hands on the range while trying to drive the cattle in to safer ground. Again and again she had rubbed away the ice on the window to watch one or two men ride into the yard, but not one of them had been her father. Ned found him the next morning, barely a half mile from the ranch.

  And now Uncle Pete. Her shoulders quaked harder. Only Uncle Pete's arrival last spring had finally broken through the grief Jessica couldn't seem to shake. She suspected that Ned had found a way of getting word to the crusty old mountain man after his and Mattie's alternating pleas failed miserably to halt her fading weight and deep, abiding depression.

  Pete stirred slightly and Jessica's head rose in hope. But he only began muttering and tossing his head — the delirium the doctor had warned about. Jessica glanced at the laudanum bottle, then resolutely away, failing to hear the door swing open behind her as she concentrated on soothing her uncle.

  Ned stood watching the scene in front of him until assured his presence wasn't needed. Pete calmed somewhat under Jessica's ministrations, though he continued to murmur words Ned couldn't make out from across the room. After a moment, Ned silently limped across the carpeted hallway to the other bedroom and sat down in the rocking chair he had pulled up to the doorway. Though Mattie would probably think she should be here in his place, Ned was terribly afraid his wife would need all her strength to comfort Jessica, come the following morning.

  Jessica sat alone with Pete in her father's old bedroom through the long night, holding his hand and listening to the wild ravings of stories she had heard in her childhood. Over the years, she had come to think of his tales as just that — tales to entertain a small child. But now she realized he had indeed lived through many of his adventures — Indian attacks, grizzly bears, and one tale she hadn't heard before. He must have loved the dark-haired woman he called Caroline deeply. Why had Jessica never heard of her before?

  And why had no one told her in the past that her father and Pete were not truly half-brothers, as she had always thought. But her grandfather's grave did lie between the headstones of two different women, she realized as she listened to Pete speak of both Mommy and Mama Nell, the latter being Jessica's own grandmother. And Uncle Pete's stone would soon rise among the lonely sentinels in the ever expanding grave yard on the ranch.

  Jessica grabbed yet another handkerchief from the drawer in the bedside table. Already several lay scattered like soggy snowflakes on the carpet beside the bed, and her red-rimmed eyes had swollen almost shut. Even the soft linen rasped painfully on her tender nose.

  "Jessica. Darlin', don't cry."

  "Uncle Pete!" The clarity of the brown eyes gazing at her sent a measure of relief winging through Jessica. It was almost morning. Surely if he had lived through the dark night....

  "Jessica, honey, I want you to do something for me." A violent coughing spell racked Pete's body, shaking the entire bed.

  "Uncle Pete! Please don't talk. Save your strength."

  Pete shook his head against the pillow and took a deep breath. "Can't, darlin'. Don't have much time."

  "No! I won't let you die! I can't stand to lose you and Daddy both!"

  Pete lifted a gnarled hand and stroked her sable hair. "I've lived my life the way I wanted it, honey. There's only one thing I regret now, and it's too late. Please. Just go over to the dresser and pull out that bottom drawer."

  Jessica found she couldn't turn away from the plea in his eyes and the anguished voice urging her to grant him this one last request. Slowly rising to her feet, she did as he asked. As Pete continued murmuring instructions, she felt under the folded clothing until her fingers encountered a piece of rolled up hide. She carried it back to the bed to give it to him and watched Pete open it with trembling hands, covered with brown age spots.

  "Thought I might find him some day, Jessica. Thought it might be something I could leave him. But I guess he's dead, and I don't reckon I'll see him where I'm going. The innocent go straight to the good side when they leave this earth."

  "Who, Uncle Pete?"

  But another frenzied coughing spell shook Pete, drowning out Jessica's question. The piece of hide dropped from his fingers onto his stomach. When the spell at last abated, Pete took a deep breath.

  "W...water, Jessica," he whispered.

  Jessica hurriedly poured a glass from the pitcher by the bed and lifted his head. When he only managed a few sips, she urged him to drink again, but he shook his head slightly and turned it aside. Trying to steady her own violently trembling fingers, Jessica quickly set the glass down and turned back to see Pete's eyes again open.

  When Pete held out his arm, Jessica clasped his hand between hers and curled up beside him on the bed. She carried his hand to her face and rubbed her cheek against the callused roughness of Pete's palm, struggling with everything in her to give him a measure of comfort. But instead, she felt the strength of her uncle's love flowing into her as the old, knotty fingers stroked her.

  "You'll be fine, Jessica," Pete said in a firmer voice. "You're strong and you've grown into a beautiful woman. Think of you almost as my own, I do, and I'm proud of you. I love you, girl."

  "Uncle Pete! Oh, Uncle Pete, I love you, too. Please don't leave me."

  "Shhhh, Jes. I have to tell you."

  And while Jessica sat with tears streaming down her face, Pete told her the tale of the map drawn on the hide. How he had been on the supply boat that waited on the Little Big Horn River, miles away from where General Custer would fight his last battle the next day. And the leader of the pack train, who had arrived scared to death of the throng of Indians in the area he had carried the Army payroll through.

  Pete had drawn the map from memory the next day after their midnight excursion to bury the gold on the shores of the river. He knew the entire area from all his wanderings. Every step of the way from his brother's ranch to the Little Big Horn River had more than once been trod by his mocassined foot.

  No one knew if even they would escape the area when they finally realized exactly how many Indians had gathered, Pete told her. And as far as he knew, only he and the ship's captain could have returned to where they buried the payroll.

  "The captain's dead now, Jessica," Pete said, his voice now gasping. "We...we left the key in the strongbox, but far's I know, no one e...ever went back for that gold. And I never needed it. Never wanted to live the life that money would give me. Never wanted to be burdened by all them possessions."

  He drew in a ragged breath. "But you might need it, darlin'. I know how bad off the ranch is gettin'. And
that gold will belong to whoever finds it by now. You find it, darlin', and let it be my legacy to you. It and the other I left f...for...."

  His brown eyes closed.

  "Uncle Pete!"

  For a second, Jessica thought he had responded to her. But then she saw his eyes staring over her shoulder. His face took on a look of wonder.

  "Caroline," he breathed. "Oh, Caroline, my love. Did you...did you come alone?"

  Jessica glanced over her shoulder, but could see no one. Pete's voice drew her back.

  "I see," he murmured. "Then at least we can wait together. You're so beautiful, my darlin'...." His last breath left his chest on the final word.

  No matter how hard Jessica shook him or raged at the injustice of it, his eyes remained closed and his presence left her. Long moments later, she felt the coldness in the room and pulled herself together long enough to hide the map again in the drawer. She had to go for Ned and Mattie. With their help, she would give Uncle Pete her final gift — a decent and fitting burial.

  But she would never touch that gold. It had already cost too many lives. It had to be cursed.

  Chapter 1

  Little Big Horn Valley

  Montana - 1893

  A cooling evening breeze chased away a little of the summer heat, whispering tendrils of sable hair around Jessica Callaghan's face. While the men around her swung down from their mounts, she sat in her own saddle for a moment longer, focusing on the westward miles they had yet to travel.

  Tomorrow — or maybe the next day. No stretch of the imagination could put any kind of scale to the map drawn on the piece of rolled up hide. Landmarks stood out clearly, but the past week of travel had proven it might be only an hour, or as much as a day, between each marker. The short explanation accompanying the map, written in Pete's spidery hand, left a host of unanswered questions.