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Badlands Bride
Cheryl St.John
Shooting a bandit was reporter Hallie Wainwright's introduction to the Wild West, where she'd traveled with a bevy of mail-order brides.But it was the more intimate "hello" in the arms of Cooper DeWitt that sent her heart racing - and made it all the more difficult for her to tell the brawny plainsman that she wasn't the woman he'd sent for… .When she jumped from the stage, shining with true grit and spewing tall tales, Cooper DeWitt thought he just might have struck gold. Raised with the Sioux, Cooper needed a wife who could brave the frontier and corral his restless heart. The problem was, his would-be bride had no intention of marrying him!
Hallie raised a brow in question. (#ud534ee6d-219e-5f1f-a465-f906edbe7be2)Letter to Reader (#u2fa8f103-425b-5df5-83da-25ff96ac83f3)Title Page (#ub0604930-0e78-56e3-9655-211dd09bd882)About the Author (#ud080f4c9-e581-5461-9f4f-dded1b86db5d)Dedication (#ubb9c772b-830a-5bce-b811-0ab86dc135f0)Chapter One (#u76149e71-0736-55ed-8a0f-cc4ef84a56bc)Chapter Two (#ua52cacec-55c4-5116-9e23-45e5b2cc18cf)Chapter Three (#u56ad87ad-ea79-5886-9761-49df2172e24b)Chapter Four (#ubcec70a7-6a19-590a-9b15-f2c48291c04a)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)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)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Hallie raised a brow in question.
“Come.” Cooper gestured and led her outside the door with one hand on her upper arm. “There are the other men, Hallie. Once they know you’re alone at night... ”
She saw the picture. Remembering the way they’d ogled her at the trading post with lecherous eyes, she didn’t need any more convincing. “I’ll take a few things and stay with Chumani.” The warmth of his hand burned through her sleeve. “Thank you,” she said. “You always think of my safety.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth, and she caught her breath at the heat she read in their depths. His other hand raised her face to his.
Hallie’s heart set up a flutter. “What—?”
“You could talk a man blind, Hallie.”
Her eyes widened and his face lowered.
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t care if you think or not. Just don’t talk....”
Dear Reader,
Since her outstanding debut in our 1994 March Madness promotion of brand-new authors, Cheryl StJohn has been delighting readers with her unique brand of historical romance. This month’s story, Badlands Bride, is about a newspaper reporter who goes west pretending to be a mail-order bride, only to find herself stranded in the Dakotas for one long cold winter. We hope you enjoy it.
Margaret Moore’s new medieval novel, The Baron’s Quest, is the captivating story of a rough-edged Saxon who falls in love with the refined gentlewoman whom he has inherited as part of his new holdings. Pearl, from Ruth Langan, is the next in her new Western series, THE JEWELS OF TEXAS, featuring four sisters who are brought together by their father’s murder.
Liz Ireland rounds out the list with Millie and the Fugitive, a lighthearted Western about a spoiled rich girl and an innocent man on the run.
We hope you’ll keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Badlands Bride
Cheryl St.John
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHERYL ST.JOHN
is the pseudonym for Nebraska author Cheryl Ludwigs. Cheryl’s first book, Rain Shadow, 1994, received award nominations from Romantic Times, Affaire de Coeur and Romance Writers of America for their RITA.
She has been program director and vice president of her Heartland RWA chapter, and is currently a liaison for Published Authors’ Network and a conference committee chairman.
Married mother of five, grandmother of three, Cheryl enjoys her family. In her “spare” time she corresponds with dozens of writer friends from Canada to Texas, and treasures their letters. She would love to hear from you.
Send a SASE to:
Cheryl St.John
P.O. Box 12142
Florence Station
Omaha, NE 68112-0142
This book is dedicated with appreciation and
recognition to the distributors and booksellers who
promote romance and romance authors, especially:
Nelson News, Omaha/read all about it! bookstores:
Kim Huebner, Terri Foster, Rosie Christensen,
everyone in the book room and all the drivers;
read all about it! bookstores, Nebraska and Iowa:
Karen Lafler, Jennie Mathisen, Clay Nottleman,
Robbi Pozzi, Matt Rohde, Laura Tadlock,
Linda Theile, Sue Turner, Kirk Utley, Pam Williamson
and the staff at each store.
Debi Jo Miner, 3 R’s, Omaha
Linda Mullet, Waldenbooks, Sioux City
Terry Showalter, Lee Books, Lincoln
Sherry Siwinski, Waldenbooks, Grand Island
Penny Spoerry, Waldenbooks, Des Moines
Kathy Uttecht, The Book Center, Norfolk
Jo Lent, Waldenbooks, Mall of the Bluffs
my friends at Baker Place, Omaha
Donita Lawrence, Bell, Book & Candle, Del City, OK
To all of you who order my books and recommend
them to the readers, keep my backlist in stock and host
signings, this doesn’t begin to cover it, but here it is:
Thank You
Chapter One
Ignoring the reflection of the businesses across the street behind her and the words The Daily meticulously painted in gold and black lettering on the glass, Hallie Claire Wainwright observed herself in the window of her father’s newspaper office. She adjusted the jacket of her carefully chosen two-piece fitted dress and smoothed a hand over her dark hair, fashioned into an uncharacteristically neat bun.
“I think I’ve earned the responsibility of reporting on the boxing matches,” she said to her reflection. The sporting event would make the front page every day for weeks, and Hallie could think of nothing more exciting than seeing her name beneath the headline.
“I’m sure I could get interviews with the participants,” she said convincingly. “Perhaps they’ll share insights with me they wouldn’t give the men.” Forest green curtains obscured the interior of the newspaper office, but she didn’t need to see in to picture her oldest brother, Turner, setting type and her father in the office beyond.
“I’ve been doing the menial jobs without complaint. It’s time you gave me a chance. I’ll do my best.” Hallie gave her likeness a last confident nod and opened the door.
The reassuring smells of ink, paper and grease, which she’d grown up with, boosted her confidence. Turner didn’t glance up as she strode pass the Franklin press to her father’s office. She rapped twice and opened the door.
Samuel Wainwright glanced up and immediately returned his attention to the papers on his desk top.
“Father, I —”
“No.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How do you even know what I was going to say?”
“You have that stubborn look on your face.”
“I want to cover the boxing matches.” She placed her fists on her hips. “Evan—” her lip curled around the name of the new apprentice “—gets all the good stories.”
Samuel shifted his smoking cigar stub from one side of his mouth to the other and leaned back in his creaky leather chair. “Now, Hallie,” he cajoled. “Don’t get in a huff. You know it wouldn’t be acceptable — or safe—for you to take up with that rowdy crowd in the Piedmont district. Any female in Boston with half a brain in her head wouldn’t set foot within a mile of the place.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s all the brain you give any woman credit for having.”
He harrumphed, then shuffled through a stack of papers, finding one he wanted and ignoring her while he checked the list in his other hand against the sheet.
“Hello, Precious,” Turner said, entering.
Hallie winced inwardly.
He’d rolled his white shirtsleeves back, and his dark hair stood up on his head in finger-combed waves. He handled the office work, overseeing the typeset and presses. “I want to check this against your copy,” he said to their father.
Samuel extended a paper, and the two men concurred. Used to being ignored, Hallie sat on the corner of the ink-stained oak desk and crossed her arms over her chest, unwilling to acknowledge her father’s wisdom in this particular case. So what if he was right for once? Her father and brothers, Charles and Turner, always came up with some inane reason that she couldn’t handle a story, and ninety-nine out of a hundred times the real reason—the infuriating reason — was that she was a female.
Turner reached for a strand of Hallie’s hair that had fallen loose. “You’re a sight.”
She batted his hand away.
“What are you pouting about now?”
“I’m not pouting.”
He laughed. “You’re mad as a March bare. Still in a fix over Evan? He says he can’t sleep nights for the ringing in his ears. For the last week at supper, you’ve managed to discredit everything about the man, including his parentage.”
Hallie uncrossed her arms and shot a glance at her father. He wore a smile of bored amusement. “I keep hoping someone around here will notice that he’s not any more capable than I am.”
“And as we’ve told you a thousand times,” Turner said, raising a superior brow, “Father needed Evan.”
She tried her best to swallow her resentment. Her father did need help, and she’d worked so hard to prove herself. Samuel had hired the young man to assist Charles with the reporting, so he could devote himself to the book work and editing. It hurt immeasurably that none of them had considered her for the position. And it frustrated her beyond words that they refused to listen to her reasoning.
It was one thing to constantly defer to her brothers, but now an outsider had displaced her! “Perhaps if I put on a pair of trousers, the lot of you will notice I have a whole brain in this head.”
Turner scowled. “If you put on a pair of trousers, the men around here will notice more than that. And I’ll have to turn you over my knee and discipline the object of their attention.”
Hallie resisted the urge to stick her tongue out. Just because they treated her like a child didn’t mean she’d give in and behave like one.
“Did you turn in the piece on the quilting society?” Turner asked.
“Now that was an unequaled challenge,” she replied, tracing a worn scar on the desk top with an index finger. “Think it’ll make the headlines tomorrow?”
“Look,” her father said, interrupting. “Remember those classifieds we ran a while back? Here’s more of the same.”
Turner bent over the desk and read aloud. “‘Bride wanted.’ Another one—‘Wife wanted to cook, do laundry and care for children.’”
“What kind of self-respecting woman would answer an ad like that?” Hallie asked, frowning her distaste.
“A woman who wants a husband,” Turner replied, directing a pointed glance at his sister. “Unlike you.”
She ignored the familiar taunt. “It’s barbaric.”
“But newsworthy,” her father added. He caught his cigar between two fingers and squinted at her through curls of blue-gray smoke. “Some of the young ladies at Miss Abernathy’s Conservatory answered the last ads. Why don’t you do a story on them, Hallie?”
“Really?” she asked, jumping up.
“I haven’t seen anything in the other papers,” he continued. “Maybe, for a change, we can print a story before they get the idea.”
