Allie Pleiter - Yukon Wedding

Lana grabbed the rail for support as she nearly tripped down the last stair.

It seemed as if the entire hotel staff and guests had turned out for the occasion—the parlor was filled with peering eyes. Lana felt very much on display, even here among strangers. Mack was right—she’d never have survived this charade in the middle of Treasure Creek.

“You’re a fine sight,” he said as she stepped onto the parlor rug. His voice was tight and unsteady.

“You cut a fine figure yourself,” she managed, then gulped at how foolish the words sounded. He really had surprised her, however. In all the muddy making-do of Treasure Creek, she’d completely forgotten the way he could command a room when formally dressed. Half her bridesmaids had swooned over him at her wedding. Her first wedding.

Stop that. You can’t think about that now. This is a new life.

ALASKAN BRIDES: Women of the Gold Rush find that love is the greatest treasure of all.

Yukon Wedding—Allie Pleiter, April 2011

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA ®Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

—Matthew 6:18–21

To everyone—and I mean everyone—at Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Letter to Reader

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Treasure Creek, Alaska, June 1898

Mack Tanner looked up to see a raging storm coming toward him.

“Good morning,” said the storm, otherwise known as Lana Bristow. Each syllable of her greeting was sharp and steely. She stood in that particular way he called her “speechifying” stance, which heralded an oncoming verbal assault. Mack spread his own feet, not particularly eager to endure whatever was coming in front of the half dozen gold rush stampeders he’d managed to hire off the Chilkoot Trail to build his new General Store.

Lana’s blond hair was a nest of frayed locks, strands sticking wildly out of the careful twist she usually wore. Her apron hung diagonally across that impossibly tiny waist of hers, with a wide smear of something dark that matched the smudge currently gracing her son Georgie’s chin. The brooch she always wore at her neck—that silly, frilly flower thing with all the golden swirls on it—was gone. It was held bent and misshapen, he noticed with a gulp, in her left hand, while she clamped two-yearold Georgie to one hip with her right. One side of her hem was soaked and the boy sported only one shoe.

More was amiss than the argument he’d had with her last night, that was certain. They’d gone at it again regarding Lana’s accounts. Her mounting debts had been a constant sore spot between them since her husband, Jed—Mack’s best friend—had died in the Palm Sunday avalanche. She’d caught him monkeying with her store credit again, giving her more than what she paid for and “misplacing” numerous bills. And yes, Mack had taken it upon himself to slash her debt so that no one in Treasure Creek would guess the sorry state of her finances.

He owed her that much.

She didn’t see it that way.

Instead, his “generosity” made her furious. Why that confounding woman wouldn’t let him settle things up for her—when she needed it and he had the resources to easily do so—never ceased to amaze him.

Lana stood stiff and tall. “I have something to say.”

Mack could have been blind, deaf, half asleep and still have picked up on that. Every inch of her body broadcast “I have something to say.” A low commentary grumble to that effect rippled through the men around him until Mack raised his hand—the one with the large hammer still in it—to silence them.

Not taking his eyes off her, Mack shifted his weight and nodded slowly. For a moment he considered motioning her toward a less public place, seeing as this was no doubt going to be a long “something to say,” but the flash of fire in her blue eyes told him to stay put. He had the odd sensation of facing a firing squad.

“Yes.” That single syllable loudly declared, Lana spun on her heels, hoisted her son farther up on one hip, and started back down the way she came.

Mack’s mouth fell open, letting the nails tumble out to jingle on the ground at his feet. Yes? What kind of riddle thing was that to say? Glory, but the Widow Bristow would be the death of him.

The men found this hilarious, sputtering into laughter and less-than-polite commentary until he threw down the hammer and strode off after her. Once away from the crowd, Mack expected Lana to turn and explain herself. It’s what rational people did, after all. When after twenty paces she failed to either turn or slow, he bellowed, “Yes what?” after her. It echoed across the intersection, raising heads on either side of the roads that made up the center of tiny Treasure Creek.

Lana stopped and whipped around to face him. The sudden move forced Georgie to grab at her just to stay upright, balling the neckline of her blouse in his toddler fists. Lana glared at Mack as if he must be dimwitted not to catch her meaning. “I said, ‘Yes what?’” he shouted again, not caring which of the curious onlookers gathered on the boardwalks heard him.

Lana furrowed her brows so far down she looked catlike. She flicked her eyes around at the small crowd now staring at them, as if his simple request for a reasonable explanation was some sort of cruel punishment. Lana took three steps toward him, and with something more like a hiss than a whisper, said, “For the seventh time, yes.” Having spoken her piece, she turned once again and set off up the boardwalk away from him.

Mack slapped his hat against his thigh, confused and angry. What was that supposed to mean, “the seventh time”? What had he done six times that this now was the seventh…