Montana legacy, p.1
Montana Legacy, page 1
“Did you ever think, cowboy, this change in your niece is kinda due to you, too?”
Nick liked the idea, even if she was saying it just to please him. Then a drop of rain fell, followed by another until the flash storms so frequent in Spring left them both wet to the skin and running for the hotel.
Two minutes later he was bidding her goodnight.
“Goodnight, cowboy.” She smiled.
He paused, then pressed a kiss, hot and firm, on her mouth. She tasted of scotch and strawberries and before she could brush him off, he straightened and nodded. “Goodnight, then.”
She hesitated for only a moment and closed the door.
He stood, staring at her door a second too long, wishing he had said how he felt.
Dear Reader,
I was home for the holidays when I saw the call for Westerns. A Desire blitz...with the promise of editorial feedback! My youngest, Matilda, was responsible for the sleep deprivation that motivated me to challenge myself, and I’m so glad I did!
I loved every moment spent creating Montana Legacy: the vast beauty of Montana, the complicated hero, the deception and drama accompanying generational wealth and a leading lady with a secret!
Rose and Nick are united in grief, finding in each other a connection forged through loss and compassion. I took a risk introducing a sixteen-year-old orphan as a strong secondary character, but I loved the layered conflict Alix brought to the story and, I must admit, she reminds me of my little sister, Trish—spunky, clever and independent.
Rose, who previously lacked direction in her life, identifies with Alix, determined to mentor the girl and falling for her brooding uncle in the process. Nick? Despite swearing to keep things strictly business, the new tutor is intoxicating...
I can’t wait for you to read it.
Bisous from the Alps,
Katie
Please say hi: Instagram, @romanceinthealps; Goodreads and Bookbub, Katie_Frey; or, more embarrassingly, TikTok, @romanceinthealps.
Katie Frey
Montana Legacy
Katie Frey has spent the better part of her adult life in pursuit of her own happily-ever-after. Said pursuit involved international travel and a few red herrings before she moved from Canada to Switzerland to marry her own mountain man.
Katie is a member of the RWA and an avid writer, and Montana Legacy is her first novel for Harlequin Desire. She wrote the bulk of the book in a local coffee shop. Any excuse to stay near the fresh croissants!
She is most active on Instagram, @romanceinthealps, but you can also find her on Facebook at Kate Frey Writes, on Goodreads and Bookbub or, most embarrassingly, on TikTok, @romanceinthealps. The communication she’s most proud of however, is her newsletter, which you can join at bit.ly/3COLHoP.
Books by Katie Frey
Harlequin Desire
Montana Legacy
Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or romanceinthealps.com, for more titles.
You can also find Katie Frey on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at www.Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!
I’d like to dedicate my first Harlequin novel
to my mom, who never doubted for a second
it would exist.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Excerpt from One Night Expectations by LaQuette
One
“Look, I’m just saying, maybe it’s time you came home.”
Nick Hartmann raised his voice as he adjusted the Bluetooth volume settings on the steering wheel of his Nissan Titan Platinum pickup truck. The clock on the dashboard blinked a foreboding reminder he was late, and he leaned on the gas in answer.
“I’m not coming home, Nick,” Jackson snapped, his refusal ringing throughout the truck. “I’m on circuit for the season. Look, I signed the power of attorney—just make a decision and keep sending the checks.” Nick’s younger brother’s voice was partially obscured by the roaring soundscape of a lively party. Nick tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his fingernails dug into the leather. He was tired of being the only Hartmann to know his brother’s alias, which he apparently needed for riding rodeo, although it was a small price to pay for the extra vote on the board. Of course, even with Jackson’s vote, Nick had held a minority voice in the face of their three siblings. Until now. Now it was two siblings against two siblings, with a swing vote no one saw coming.
The sun was rising on a new era for the Hartmanns.
“So Austin, Katherine... Alix?” Nick started, choking on the names. “It doesn’t change anything?”
“No. These broncos aren’t going to ride themselves. Plus, I don’t see what my coming back can do for anyone at this point.” It was a cavalier dismissal. Very Jackson.
“It’d be nice to have you back, Jacks,” Nick tried again. If he stood a shot at convincing his brother to do anything, honesty was the best policy. In the four years since their father died, Jackson hadn’t so much as seen the grass seed on the plot where they’d buried Dad. Sure, the deathbed argument had been a bad one. But his dad was gone, and instead of helping with the ranch, Jacks had checked out the day their dad died. Jackson’s exit he could understand. Nick supposed it was easier to feel like less of a disappointment without facing the headstone of the man who’d labeled him as such.
Of course, Jackson wasn’t the first Hartmann to leave. Austin had scorched the earth like an enemy trailblazer sixteen years ago, leaving with Katherine of all people. She’d been Nick’s high school sweetheart, and, he grimaced with the memory, his first love. Even now, close on two decades later, he didn’t know what had hurt more: Austin leaving, or the fact that he took Katherine away, too.
Yep. First Austin, then Jackson. Now, with Evie living in California, only Amelia, the bossy twin, was left to fight with him. Nick Hartmann was the only one left who wanted to keep this ranch intact.
Until now, if he played his cards right.
* * *
“You wanted to be in charge, big brother, and now you got it.” Without ceremony, Jackson disconnected. Honesty indeed.
Nick stared ahead, wondering if it was true, the cars he followed zooming out of focus. Had he wanted this?
Only now, in the solitude of his new truck, was he ready to admit how he’d felt when his older brother Austin’s name flashed on his cell phone at four a.m. last week. Annoyed.
The annoyance was followed by shock upon realizing it wasn’t his estranged brother on the other end of the line, but a hospital administrator. Austin and his wife, Katherine, were dead on the scene of a helicopter crash. At least, per the hospital, the deaths had been quick and clean.
The feelings crescendoed; then guilt sang the loudest of them all. The guilt was still with him, a punishment for the few seconds he’d wished Austin hadn’t woken him up.
The guilt deepened when Saul Kellerman, the family’s lawyer, called the following day with the news that Nick had been designated guardian of Alix, his sixteen-year-old niece. A niece he had never met. Then came the silver lining—impossible to ignore and disgusting to recognize. As her guardian, Nick would vote in her stead at the family’s company for two years, until she came of age. As long as Nick maintained custody of Alix, the tides would turn. And so the two votes, his and Jackson’s, became three. Austin’s child, the unwitting pendulum swinging favor to the coalition of siblings set on saving the ranch.
Nick was now the head of the new majority.
But his plan had one weak point. The kid. Austin naming him the guardian of his and Katherine’s daughter was salt in the wound, inexplainable, but also an opportunity.
In two years, she’d vote on her own, and if she hated the ranch? Hated him? The two years could flip from a saving grace to a paltry stay of execution if he didn’t manage them right. Nick swallowed his feelings, his guilt, amplified in the heat of his truck. The kid looked like Katherine. Hard to pretend she didn’t. But looking like his lying ex-girlfriend was hardly an excuse for turning his back on her. She was a kid. No, he was going to do right by Alix. Nick knew exactly how it felt to be abandoned by family, and he wasn’t about to do the same thing to a kid, despite her parents. In spite of Austin and whatever agenda he’d issued from beyond the grave, Nick would do the right thing for Alix and the ranch.
The best for Alix started with the best education money could buy, in the form of a world-class tutor. No one could say he was cutting corners, not even the ghost of his father. A live-in tutor was a surefire plan to help Alix fall in love with the land that ran through her blood. Commuting forty minutes to high school was not a selling point for most adolescents, and the last thing he wanted was another boarding school. No, the tutor was a key part of his plan.
Nick frowned at the signs. The tutor cleared customs in Denver, so she’d arrive at the domestic terminal. He just might make it in time.
Nick tilted his hat back, an action so familiar it was reflexive, and drew a hand along his jaw, rubbing the stubble as he slowed on the arrivals ramp. He didn’t see her.
He stayed on the ramp, circling to take another pass, this time slowing to a crawl for the second try. There was only one woman standing at column ten and it wasn’t the tutor. Couldn’t be. He had hired a world-class teacher, multidisciplined and Oxford-educated. He wanted someone beyond reproach, education being a crucial element of guardianship. This woman didn’t look old enough to have a teaching degree, much less bear the accolades advertised by the recruitment agency. Yet she leaned against the column, standing precisely under a clearly marked ten, and there was no one else in the vicinity. Two bags—a large canvas rucksack and a beat-up suitcase—were lined up beside her. He slowed, and rolled down the window, offering a cautious, “Mary Kelly?”
Her head shot up, and his inquiry was met with a smile. Cobalt eyes blinked at him from under a tousle of fat blond ringlets. Bedroom hair. He swallowed, dry-mouthed at the sight of her. The schoolmarm cardigan did little to disguise her figure, which was as tempting as her bee-stung lips. This was not what he’d had in mind when he’d put the wheels of homeschooling in motion. The goal was to get the kid to fall in love with Montana, not for him to fall in lust with her tutor.
“Yes?” Her curls bounced as she skipped toward him and put a tentative hand on the door handle.
Nick was out of the car in a flash, circling around to offer his help.
She was pretty, this tutor, but boy did it intensify when she flashed a smile in his direction. It had been a while since he’d been struck by an initial attraction so visceral. It was a problem. The last thing he needed around the ranch right now was another attractive employee temptation. He’d made poor enough decisions in that arena as it stood. If he wanted to keep custody of Alix, thus winning the vote as her proxy and reversing the family’s recent vote to sell the ranch, he needed to be a suitable guardian. One who didn’t just hire tempting tutors, but proper educators.
True to form, airport parking authorities passed his truck, blue lights flashing. “Mr. Hartmann, good to see you,” the man said through an open window, offering a smile in their direction.
Mary paled. “Mr. Hartmann?” she asked.
His smile widened. “Yep.” He paused, and lifted his hat briefly before putting it back square on his head. “And you’re Mary Kelly?” He frowned and cleared his throat. “I’m surprised, that’s all. You’re a tutor? The Oxford-graduate tutor?”
Perhaps it was rude to lace each word with accusation, but he didn’t care. Mary Kelly looked more like an Instagram influencer than a tutor, and he needed to be sure.
She bristled. “Look, it’s been a long day. I’m on the other side of two red-eye flights and a bloody crap connection in Denver, and now what precisely are you saying? That I don’t look like a tutor?” Her posh voice shook with irritation, and she eyed him narrowly.
It had been a long time since someone had talked back to Nick. And in all that time, he hadn’t had any idea what he’d been missing, because the sass aimed his way was more refreshing than an aged Scotch. He stood in stunned silence, fighting back a blush of his own, a feeling as unfamiliar as it was arousing.
“Did you ever think, sir, perhaps you don’t look like a rancher?” she fired back. The way her voice settled on the sir made him think the designation wasn’t meant as a compliment, but rather an insult.
He closed the gap between them, seizing the top handle of her cracked Samsonite, swinging it beside his truck as he bit his tongue. “Look like a rancher? What does a rancher even look like?” He muttered it under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear.
In all honesty, he figured he did in fact look exactly as one would imagine a rancher to look. Skin kissed by the sun in a perma-tan, hair worn long and the same uniform sported by all the men on his ranch—worn jeans and a flannel shirt topped with an oiled Stetson.
“I wouldn’t dare to presume. And neither should you. Talk about judging a book by its cover—you’re a proper chav, I’d say.” She narrowed her eyes at him, the final pronouncement sounding more like a threat than an observation.
“You’ll forgive my audacity,” he replied. Her indignation was reassuring and he did his best to sound affable.
“Right. So it’s sorted, then. I’m the tutor.” Her cheeks colored as she added, “The Oxford-educated tutor, if you must.”
“Yep, I must.”
She tightened her lips again. “You’re not allowed to park here. I’ve seen them yelling at people, even if it’s only for a few minutes. We shouldn’t dawdle.” Mary hurried toward her bags, smiling politely. “I’ll just grab the rest of my things.”
He waved in the direction of the squat man doing a second drive-by in the parking enforcement vehicle. “Gus, nice to see you.” Mary’s smile froze in place as Gus waved back with a smile.
Better she learn sooner as opposed to later that he could park wherever he wanted in Bozeman. There was a different set of rules for a Hartmann.
* * *
She felt sucker punched. What had the director of the recruitment agency said? This family is Montana royalty. So, fancy, she expected. The spanking-new truck? No surprise. But things certainly were bigger in America, hot cowboy included. One look at Nick Hartmann and all the oxygen in her body escaped her. Yep, sucker punched. Tutoring was now the last thing on her mind.
He was tall and broad, living up to every girlhood fantasy of an American cowboy she’d ever had, which, given the worn paperback romance collection she treasured, was quite a lot.
Longish dark hair was tied back and he wore a plaid shirt, the pattern at odds with the tailored fit. The way it stretched, snug across his chest, screamed expensive. Bespoke. High-end. The shirt tucked into a pair of jeans, blue-black in color, held in place with a wide leather belt. When his brown eyes made contact with hers, she wished for a brief moment she’d worn her own clothes instead of her sister’s.
By any definition the man was breathtaking. Word-taking, really. She swallowed. He was the best-looking man she’d ever seen in real life. And he was also her new employer. Perfect.
The beep from his key fob opened the flatbed and Nick heaved her second bag up into the back with ease. He hadn’t struggled in the least, swinging the hefty luggage as though it were a bag of crisps and not a twenty-three-kilo rucksack. He turned, bumping into her.
“Oof,” she let out as her body pressed into him. “I p-packed all my books in my carry-on so they wouldn’t charge me an overweight fee,” she stammered. She blushed at his proximity and felt a wave of heat rush to her cheeks.
He smiled. “I’ve gotta admit, I’m not sure what the going rate is for a checked bag these days.” Nick straightened but didn’t step away. His eyes studied her and she got the distinct impression he hadn’t quite made up his mind about her yet.
She was standing close to him. Closer than she’d intended, and with the realization she had crossed some sort of invisible line, she stepped back and looked up. Fingers nervously tucked a loose wisp of hair behind her ear, and she backed away a few more paces before spinning and opening up the passenger door, stepping up into the truck.
Her buckle clicked into place, the safety belt fastened securely by the time he assumed the driver’s seat. Her finger tapped a staccato beat on her thigh and she stared wide-eyed at the inside of the truck. This would all be easier if he was less attractive. A little less like every cowboy fantasy she’d dreamed up and a little more like a man she could shrug away. Because men like him were dangerous, and she was not in a position to let anyone in. More importantly, she was not in a position to fail.
Nick seemed to drive the forty miles to the ranch on autopilot, replacing one hand on the steering wheel with a knee. Opening his shoulder in her direction he turned and asked, “How was your flight?”
“Which one?” She smiled, but then added, “The trip was lovely. Long, bloody tiring, but lovely.” Great. If there were to be more questions, she hoped they were all this surface level.
