Love on the Range Read online

  Books by Mary Connealy

  From Bethany House Publishers

  THE KINCAID BRIDES

  Out of Control

  In Too Deep

  Over the Edge

  TROUBLE IN TEXAS

  Swept Away

  Fired Up

  Stuck Together

  WILD AT HEART

  Tried and True

  Now and Forever

  Fire and Ice

  THE CIMARRON LEGACY

  No Way Up

  Long Time Gone

  Too Far Down

  HIGH SIERRA SWEETHEARTS

  The Accidental Guardian

  The Reluctant Warrior

  The Unexpected Champion

  BRIDES OF HOPE MOUNTAIN

  Aiming for Love

  Woman of Sunlight

  Her Secret Song

  BROTHERS IN ARMS

  Braced for Love

  A Man with a Past

  Love on the Range

  The Boden Birthright: A CIMARRON LEGACY Novella

  Meeting Her Match: A Match Made in Texas Novella

  Runaway Bride: A KINCAID BRIDES and TROUBLE IN TEXAS Novella (With This Ring? Collection)

  The Tangled Ties That Bind: A KINCAID BRIDES Novella (Hearts Entwined Collection)

  © 2021 by Mary Connealy

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3379-7

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by LOOK Design Studio

  Cover photography by Aimee Christenson

  Author is represented by the Natasha Kern Literary Agency.

  To my mom, Dorothy.

  She’s survived COVID-19 and

  a host of other struggles that go with being ninety-three.

  Mother of eight. Grandmother of twenty-nine.

  Great-grandmother of thirty.

  A legacy of love and hard work and faith.

  I love you, Mom.

  And to the hard-working staff at the

  nursing home where my mom resides.

  They have worked through such a hard time, doing their best to keep the residents they care for safe and healthy.

  Thank you to the Oakland Heights Nursing Home.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Mary Connealy

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  One

  SEPTEMBER 1870

  BEAR CLAW PASS, WYOMING

  Molly Garner bent over Wyatt Hunt, bathing his fevered brow. How many gunshots did a woman have to tend in one lifetime?

  This was her third in the last month. It might happen more if you were a doctor or fighting a war, but she thought she’d done more than her share, and she’d had several pointed conversations with God about why this kept happening to her.

  Of course, she wasn’t the one who had been shot. So she admitted, as much as she’d been called on to doctor people, she was better off than the wounded. And they weren’t yet sure they’d caught whoever had shot Wyatt, so that danger remained until they got a confession out of one of the outlaws.

  Yes, in calmer moments she admitted that tending gunshots wasn’t as bad as being shot. So she wasn’t the only one who’d had it hard.

  God’s answer was to make Wyatt’s fever come back up, so Molly tried to quit feeling sorry for herself and just pray for her patient, tend him, worry, and pray some more. His fever had been up and down several times.

  The work didn’t occupy her mind. It occupied endless hours with no sleep and precious little help, but soothing his fevered brow with ice-cold water and pouring willow bark tea and a few other concoctions she’d contrived didn’t take much thinking. While she cared for Wyatt, she considered how much her life had changed in just a month’s time.

  One big change: Kansas.

  She most certainly wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  She had been born and raised there. Now she was long gone, living at a ranch in Wyoming. It was only two states away from Kansas, but they were big states. She thought of what she’d left behind in Kansas and fervently hoped they were big enough.

  Another change: Kevin, her brother, got married. His bride, Winona Hawkins Hunt, seemed decent enough. She worked in the kitchen to keep the broth and tea brewing for Wyatt. She’d started talking to Molly a few times, as had Kevin, but it seemed they both had a talent for wanting to talk right when Wyatt started burning with fever.

  A second wedding was joining Wyatt’s big sister, Cheyenne, and his big brother Falcon. Molly would have enjoyed watching them explain that to the parson.

  Andy, her little brother, was turning into some kind of cowboy.

  And of course, Molly—her own life had changed.

  Somehow she’d become the cook, housekeeper, and doctor for a crowd of strangers. What did they call it? She remembered something . . . oh yes, chief cook and bottle washer. Or maybe jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

  Or just the dupe who’d found it her lot in life to care for a herd of thankless strangers who kept getting themselves shot.

  She caught herself. Breathed in and out. Bathed Wyatt’s fevered brow and calmed down, counting her blessings. Then she thought of Kevin getting shot and forgot about calm. He was no stranger. And he was mostly well by the time he got home, so he required no doctoring. And neither Kevin nor Andy was thankless, but they weren’t around all that much.

  And maybe worst of all, Kevin, her big brother, her closest confidant, the man she trusted most in the world, a man who had once saved her—he’d betrayed her.

  And she couldn’t wait to get shut of all of them.

  She’d do it as soon as Wyatt got over this most recent gunshot.

  She’d thought Kansas—before, during, and after the Civil War—had been dangerous. They’d called it Bleeding Kansas, after all. A state acting out the Civil War before the real one got started, with people deciding elections by shooting the opposition to stop them from voting. There was a half-witted way to run a state.

 
But Wyoming was no Sunday picnic party, either.

  “Chey!” Wyatt tossed his head. His fever had come back up. He was calling for his sister, Cheyenne, whom he called Chey. It sounded like shy, and no woman Molly had ever met was less likely to be called shy.

  But tough, dangerous, not-shy Cheyenne wasn’t here to help with her brother. Her real brother—not the connected-but-not-by-blood brother she was marrying. And her absence upset Molly’s patient. And that made Molly want to punch Cheyenne right in the face.

  Of course, if she did, Cheyenne would probably beat her to a lump on the ground and shoot her, so Molly would just daydream about swinging a fist while doing all the work and taking care of everyone.

  Something that, in all honesty, she felt like she’d been doing all her life.

  She caught herself again. Breathed in and out. Bathed Wyatt’s fevered brow and calmed down, counting her blessings.

  “Chey. Chey.” Wyatt tried to throw the covers back. He couldn’t. Molly had a firm hold of his right hand, and his left arm was strapped tight to his body because, in Molly’s doctorly opinion, he’d broken his collarbone. It wouldn’t heal if it wasn’t kept still.

  Cheyenne should be here helping with this.

  Yes, they’d gotten home late last night. Yes, they’d captured four gun-slinging outlaws. Yes, they’d found and rescued Amelia Bishop, who’d been kidnapped, and yes, they needed to go with the Pinkerton agent, Rachel Hobart, to talk to the sheriff today about the crimes committed by people far and wide. The wedding was going to be in there somewhere, so yes, they had a lot to do.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Fine!

  With a moment of desperate recklessness, Molly sat down beside Wyatt, cradled his rough, calloused hand as she’d seen Cheyenne do, dropped her voice to a hoarse whisper, the best she could do to imitate Cheyenne, and said, “I’m here, Wyatt. I’m here. This is Cheyenne.”

  She held tight. Her right hand to his. A bullet wound in his upper left shoulder. She rested more weight on him, trying to keep him still, and set the cool cloth on his forehead.

  “I’m here. Stay still, please. Lie still.”

  For a moment, his eyes fluttered open. They were dazed and cloudy with the fever. The bullet wound didn’t appear to be suppurating. It gave her hope that he just needed to beat this fever, and he’d be fine.

  But that didn’t help her get through this moment, right now.

  “You’re not Cheyenne.” He’d quit thrashing at least.

  “I’m taking care of you until Cheyenne gets back. She’ll be here right away.”

  Let him think she just went to get supper or tidy her hair. Molly wasn’t about to remind him that his sister was off marrying Falcon Hunt. That news had almost shot him out of bed before. Cheyenne had at least told him though. More than Kevin had managed when he’d sneaked off to his wedding.

  “Why is it so h-hot?” Wyatt’s throat worked as if he was parched. “Oh. Summer.”

  Molly gingerly released his hand, got a few sips of water down him, more willow bark tea. Then she dipped the cloth in the basin again to cool it, then wrung it out and folded it, keeping an eye on him in case he started rolling around. Trying not to say anything that got past his dazed confusion. Once he started remembering things, like the bullet wound, who knew what all he might recall.

  “You’ll be fine. You need to rest.” She had a doctor’s voice, and she used it as best she could. She lifted the cloth away so he could see her, and he shook off the hold she had on his right hand, grabbed at her left with the cloth, and pressed it back to his brow.

  “Feels good. Stay, stay with me.” He held her hand with the cloth beneath it. “Burning. Hot. Hot.”

  His eyes locked with hers as he refused to let her go. Of course, she wasn’t exactly fighting to escape. The poor man needed someone to care about him. His cheeks were flushed. His gazing eyes were that same brown shot through with gold that Kevin and Falcon both had. There was a dimple in his chin that was barely noticeable with his three-day scruff of beard. All three brothers had those eyes and that chin dimple in common, features they shared with their worthless father, Clovis Hunt.

  Beyond that they didn’t look much alike. Wyatt was a handsome man, though he could use a haircut. Falcon was a rough-looking mountain man dressed in homespun clothes with little interest in haircuts and shaves. She had her suspicions about his interest in baths, but Falcon had recently been swept a long way down a stream, and they’d cleaned him up when he got back, so that was two baths in a short stretch of days.

  Kevin was . . . well, Kevin was her brother. It was hard to think of his looks because he just looked like himself.

  Since Wyatt gave her no choice, she kept the cloth in place.

  Slowly his grip relaxed. The willow bark tea mixed with yarrow was bringing the fever down. Before this most recent feverish stretch, she’d gotten a fair drink of water down him and some broth with bits of bread soaking in it. It combined to give him the strength to . . . sleep.

  And he was one of the strongest men she knew, so that was a sad commentary on his condition.

  He sank down into real sleep. She stayed with him, hoping the cool cloths fought his fever. Finally, she was satisfied the fever was coming down again.

  This time she promised God no whining. No self-pity. Before her mind could start churning again, being awake for twenty-eight straight hours caught up with her.

  Two

  Wyatt woke up to a woman in his bed.

  Very few things in his life had ever been stranger.

  She had her hand resting flat on his chest, right over his heart. Her head lay on his uninjured shoulder. His arm was around her.

  She was on top of the covers, and he was under, but it was still the strangest and most wonderful thing that’d ever happened to him.

  And he’d once watched a cow sniff a little cloud that rolled into a mountain valley, leading a horde of clouds that settled into fog.

  That fog rolling in like little balls of fluff and that sniffing cow had been the strangest and most wonderful thing . . . up until now.

  Molly. And boy, oh boy, this was now number one. The sniffing cow wasn’t even a close second.

  Molly what? What was her last name? He’d hardly ever talked to her. Well, a few times. And she’d served him delicious food. She was a way better cook than Cheyenne and a fair sight better than Win. She’d patched some of his clothes, washed them, hung them on the line. He’d seen her doing it. She’d cleaned up after all of them. She’d kept this house running through a time of madness.

  And now she was sleeping in his bed, in his arms, and it felt . . . right.

  Most everyone around here was named Hunt. His mind rabbited around to Win marrying Kevin, and then like a jolt of lightning, he remembered Cheyenne marrying Falcon. He leapt out of bed . . . except he didn’t.

  He tried. Realized he was all but tied up. Remembered why—his broken bone—and figured he was too late to stop the wedding anyway.

  So he just stayed where he was and watched Molly sleep. He’d done some wiggling when he’d tried to sit up, and she’d slept through it, so she must be exhausted. Poor thing.

  He realized that her name could be Hunt, too, if he married up with her. And shouldn’t a man marry a woman he shared a bed with?

  Especially when he was so uncommonly pleased to wake up next to her.

  There were dark shadows under her eyes. His head was clear enough to remember being in and out of consciousness, fighting a blazing fever. A lot of it was blurred, but he knew whatever else was going on, whoever else was around, Molly had always been there.

  Marrying a woman he really didn’t know at all just because he liked waking up next to her struck him as a lunatic notion. But his life was one lunatic moment after another lately.

  Anyway, she didn’t like him much. So he set the idea aside.

  Garner. Molly Garner.

  There, somehow knowing her name released him
from any plans to change her name to Hunt by marrying up with her. He could remain single.

  Relief swept through him, and that relief told him he’d made the right decision.

  Still, she was a pretty little thing.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Lashes long and dark around eyes blue as the Wyoming sky. Her fine, flyaway blond hair was a real mess. He wanted to smooth it down, but one arm was tied up, and the other was busy holding her.

  She had on a dress in the same pale blue as her eyes. The dress was sprinkled with little white flowers. The whole thing was a mass of wrinkles. That’s what came of sleeping in your clothes, and in fairness, it also came from working day and night, probably not taking the time to change, and for certain not taking the time to iron her dress.

  His last clear memory was of morning, and now, judging by how the sun came in his window, it was near suppertime.

  “How long have we been sleeping . . . together?” Some impish impulse made him add that last word.

  She gasped, sitting up like she’d been bounced by a spring. Her fair skin flushed until he was afraid her head would light up like a torch and set her hair afire.

  He smiled, couldn’t stop himself. Then he laughed.

  He hadn’t laughed much for a long time.

  “I-I—that is—we—”

  Since words seemed to be beyond her, and he remembered how she’d cared for him, he figured asking for some kind of help would bump her off her stuttering.

  “Can I have a drink of water?”

  She grabbed that request like it was a lifeline thrown to her in a rampaging river.

  Picking up the tin cup, still with water in it, she slid an arm behind his shoulders. Getting close to him just like she’d been, but now it was work.

  He took a sip. “That tastes like a bit of heaven.” He drained the whole cup. Then saw a slice of bread on the bedside table. “Can I have that bread, too? I think my stomach is waking up along with me.”

  The flush was fading as she found work to do. She picked up the bread, then frowned and tapped it, dry as the Mojave, against the plate it lay on.

  “You just stay still.” She had a pert little voice. Bossy, but in a way so cute, he didn’t mind taking orders, much.