Cait London - Last Dance

“Some Do Not Care About The Rules For Bride Courting,

“or the way a man and a woman choose each other,” Tanner said softly. “We skipped that part the first time. We let others tear us apart.”

Gwyneth shivered. “That time is gone now, Tanner.”

“Is it? You kissed me hard, Gwyneth, as if you’d waited and couldn’t wait a minute more. Did you think of how it would be, not only the loving, but the life we could have had, babies held close and loved between us?”

She’d dreamed of him…erotic dreams in which he’d moved over her, filled her, stroked and heated her body with his kisses. “It was only a kiss.” The lie crackled around her. “Why are you here?” she asked in a shaky whisper.

“Because I have to know if we could have made it work.”

Dear Reader,

This April of our 20th anniversary year, Silhouette will continue to shower you with powerful, passionate, provocative love stories!

Cait London offers an irresistible MAN OF THE MONTH, Last Dance, which also launches her brand-new miniseries FREEDOM VALLEY. Sparks fly when a strong woman tries to fight her feelings for the rugged man who’s returned from her past. Night Music is another winner from BJ James’s popular BLACK WATCH series. Read this touching story about two wounded souls who find redeeming love in each other’s arms.

Anne Marie Winston returns to Desire with her emotionally provocative Seduction, Cowboy Style, about an alpha male cowboy who seeks revenge by seducing his enemy’s sister. In The Barons of Texas: Jill by Fayrene Preston, THE BARONS OF TEXAS miniseries offers another feisty sister, and the sexy Texan who claims her.

Desire’s theme promotion THE BABY BANK, in which interesting events occur on the way to the sperm bank, continues with Katherine Garbera’s Her Baby’s Father. And Barbara McCauley’s scandalously sexy miniseries SECRETS! offers another tantalizing tale with Callan’s Proposition, featuring a boss who masquerades as his secretary’s fiancé.

Please join in the celebration of Silhouette’s 20th anniversary by indulging in all six Desire titles—which will fulfill your every desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Kerry, a potter.

CAIT LONDON

lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She enjoys research trips, meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs (particularly scented geraniums right now). She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” Cait says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift.”

AN INVITATION FROM CAIT LONDON

I invite you to step into my brand-new series, FREEDOM VALLEY. I hope you enjoy Last Dance, the first of this series. The town, Freedom, is just as picturesque as the valley, packed with everything a small town usually has—except its traditions.

Set in Montana, the series is based on women of the 1880s who came together for protection. Back then, men desiring wives had to present themselves according to the Rules of Courting and the traditions those independent women established. Contemporary males, including the Bachelor Club, chafe at the rules, but The Women’s Council intends to keep those traditions.

In Last Dance, a Freedom Valley tradition, you’ll get a good taste of what is to come as we visit each family established by those Founding Mothers.

See you in Freedom Valley—

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Town of Freedom, 1882

From the journal of Magda Claas

We named our valley Freedom, and our town, too. There were ten of us at first, that hot, dry summer of 1881. We found ourselves by chance, gathered in a small beautiful valley, sharing what we had to survive. Beautiful, snowcapped mountains soared along one side of the valley and there was a lovely lake and lush wild grass for our stock. We came from all parts of the world, women with children, women who had lost families and who had seen the darker side of life. Fleur Arnaud, unmarried, had lost a child by a man who took her against her will. Anatasia Duscha’s husband and son died in the wars. Beatrice Avril was a bondwoman, preyed upon by men for her pretty looks and dainty ways. Jasmine Dupree, full with child, had come from the poor South. Cynthia Whitehall came from Boston for freedom her family would not give. China Belle Ruppurt had run from buffalo hunters who had used her poorly. Fancy Benjamin’s father sold her to a farmer for a sack of oats, and widowed Margaret Gertraud’s breads and rolls didn’t save her or her children from thieves who took everything and left them starving. We know little about the woman called LaRue, except that she had loved and lost.

Magda Claas is my name, and I know how to work. I want a man, the man I choose for a husband, not to see me as a cow in the field or a servant, but as a woman with a heart and pride. I wish to be treated gently, as I have seen men honor their wives. At the end of the day, I crochet lace with needle and thread, and dream of the man I will accept into my heart.

What a strange mix we were, some of us with children clinging to our skirts, or nursing at our breasts. All ten of us without men and not caring much for those that came calling with crude ways.

We wanted to choose our lives, and so it was that day with rawhide men and drovers and rapscallions circling us, that we decided to act. By the end of summer, we knew what we had to do to live as we wished, as we dreamed, and so we made our laws for men who came wife-hunting.

We were not helpless women to be preyed upon by these rough men. Each of us knew how to protect ourselves, and together we were strong as a family.

So it was that we decided to come together, farmers and mothers and women with pasts. We became a community of women who helped each other, governed by the Women’s Council. For we would be free women, to set the rules of how we should be treated as wives. For be it known, that to take a dear wife from our circle, the husband-candidate will have to follow our rules and customs, abide with those rules in the marriage, passing our inspection. Else there would be no marriages or wife-taking in Freedom. We stand together in this, women deciding to marry as we wish, protected by our sisterhood.

Magda Claas, Midwife and Healer and Butter Maker

Town of Freedom, Freedom Valley

Montana Territory, July 1882

They were sweet back then, an eight-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. Tanner had placed his baseball bat aside to fix her wagon’s bent wheel. While Gwyneth clearly adored him, he acted all gruff with his friends riding their bicycles up the road. He made yucking noises when she kissed him on the cheek, but he’ll grow up to be a fine man, just as loving and good as his dad. One day, he’ll know his love and he’ll come courting according to the rules of Freedom Valley.