in the three years since he’d been back. He studied Kylie’s face, and knew that she deserved the best, the courting and the treasuring of a bride. He shrugged and moved away, shoving the lingering warmth on his hand into his pocket. Kylie’s soft heart wasn’t for the likes of him.
“If you tell anyone about tonight and how I’m feeling, I’ll kill you,” Kylie promised adamantly, glaring up at him.
“That might cost,” he returned slowly, and enjoyed her flash of anger.
She punched him lightly in the chest and Michael caught her hand in his. It was small and delicate and yet strong. The impulse to bring it to his lips surged through him as their joined hands rested over his heart. He pasted a leer upon his face, just to remind her that he wasn’t a tender man. Kylie ripped her fist away, rubbing it with her other hand. “I made your life miserable when you were chasing every girl in the countryside and I can do it again.”
“I promise never to make fun of your concoctions for removing freckles again. They’re rather sexy.” Michael couldn’t resist bringing her small fist up to his lips and kissing it. Kylie’s stunned expression was worth the punch to his stomach that followed. “So how do you like your eggs cooked?” he asked, as she walked toward his truck and he reluctantly admired the sway of her hips in the moonlight.
She turned to him suddenly, looking very alone in the moonlight, her hair flowing around her. “I embroidered the pillowcases and tea towels for my hope chest. Mom wanted that. She wanted me to have all the values that she had, stuffing that chest for the home I’d have with my husband someday. I skipped all that, leaped right out there and hurt her. She was at our Justice of the Peace wedding in Kansas City, but I knew that she wanted me to be wearing white and coming down the aisle of Freedom’s church. My hope chest is still in Mom’s house and I can’t bear to open it. Miranda left hers, too.”
“Take it easy on yourself, Kylie. Anna loved you.”
“She loved you, too. Don’t try to deny that you loved her, either.”
Michael thought of the woman he’d adored, the closest thing to a mother that he’d had while growing up. “Yes, I did love her. And that is why I’m taking you home now. She wouldn’t want you out here catching cold.”
At four o’clock in the morning, Michael swung up on his horse, Jack. The gelding stomped and tossed his head, sensing Michael’s restless mood. Michael sat on Jack for a time, studying the home he’d rebuilt for security, to protect the women he championed. A simple ranch house design, it was his first real home. Anna had helped him design the privacy elements, a woman’s bathroom, a playroom and nursery for children that could be turned into a birthing room. A kindhearted doctor in a neighboring county would take care of the women when needed, managing birth certificate legalities. Thomas White quietly supported Anna’s midwifing and both had tutored Michael to care for the women.
He hated the sound of women crying. The sounds were the first in his memory, his mother sobbing.
The night wind slid through the autumn leaves, rattling them in the starry night. In Anna’s house, Kylie could be crying. She was just as sweet and prickly to him as ever, and now she was in pieces.
A sharp order to Jack sent him racing across the field. Another order and Jack sailed over a small fence, racing into the wide Montana countryside. Bent low on the gelding’s back, Michael wanted to work off his dark mood before meeting Rosa two states away. Another restraining order hadn’t worked and Mary Ann Lucas was pregnant and needed help. Michael didn’t want his dark mood to complicate the discussion with Mary Ann’s brutal husband. He didn’t want mistakes that could ruin Mary Ann’s chances for a new life. With Rosa, Michael dealt with details, efficiently blocking the women’s past from their future.
Years ago someone like Mary Ann’s husband had taken Michael’s older sister’s life, but there had been no one to protect Lily, not even the law. He’d made a vow upon discovering Lily’s senseless violent death, that he’d protect other women like her. With each woman he rescued, he felt he gave back a little of what no one had done for Lily.
“Everyone knows that Michael Cusack is a Cull and that his service truck was parked outside your place for most of the night,” Karolina Jones stated firmly the next day in her small, tidy community library. She slammed the Date Due stamp down on a library card and filed it neatly. An anonymous donor had just supplied the library with a hefty contribution that couldn’t be traced. “If he weren’t a Cull, but a man with a good reputation hunting a wife, you’d be called up before the Women’s Council. He’d be obliged to go before them and ask to court you. They’d slap a Rules of Bride Courting handbook in his hands so fast, he wouldn’t have time to run.”
“‘Fast Hands Michael’ didn’t get that reputation for nothing. He’s been labeled a Cull by the Women’s Council since he was thirteen, already hot to trot. Every girl rode on the back of his motorcycle—except me, of course, and Miranda and yourself.”
Kylie smiled as she thought of her sister. Miranda had been elegantly nettled by Michael and his lack of interest in her as she was trying out her flirting skills. Sadie McGinnis, a member of the Women’s Council, had already called as Kylie was struggling out of bed—reminding her that Michael’s reputation was dark and that with the number of children visiting his house, he had the ability to impregnate the state of New York.
However, Michael had stopped to fix Sadie’s front door light this morning and had informed her that the yard light at Anna’s was more of a problem than he’d suspected. And, Sadie knew that though divorcées sometimes leaped into the arms of waiting male predators, Kylie—as Anna’s daughter—was far too sensible. The Women’s Council had decided to dismiss the incident. However Michael’s Cull status remained. “Scandalous, just scandalous how many women he has visiting him in that house. No telling what goes on there. There are probably leopard skin throws and black satin on round beds in every room, push buttons to close the curtains and turn on seductive music. And the way they look at him, as if he were all they had in the world, their guardian,” Sadie had said.
Kylie didn’t want to think about Michael, or the way his dark study of her had sent off clanging warning signals. “Mmm. I don’t want to talk about Michael. Are you still hunting information about LaRue and about the woman in Valentina Lake?”
“LaRue’s the only one on the 1880s Founding Mother’s Council who isn’t really portrayed well. The woman haunting Valentina Lake is supposed to be nothing more than a legend. But once I find the right document, I’ll verify that legend. They haven’t named me ‘Super Snoop’ for nothing. I like mysteries and one of them is finding the person who is donating so much to the town. He paid the well digging company to go out to old Mr. Franks’s farm and drill a new well. Several other incidents have happened, like the Williams girl, Netta, received a notice from an orthodontist that she should set up an appointment for badly needed braces. The Freedmans couldn’t pay their medical bills and their mortgage was up—suddenly the bills were cleared. Weird things—but good things—are happening, and someone with money is behind them.”
Kylie frowned, remembering the different packages her mother had found on their doorsteps. A widow on a tight budget and raising her three children, Anna had smiled softly when the packages revealed material and lace she couldn’t afford. There were other modest gifts—earrings Miranda had wanted for a prom, a graduation watch for Tanner and a golden locket and necklace for Kylie’s sixteenth birthday. A night shadow went slipping through her mind—the image had haunted her since childhood, of that shadow leaving the gifts on their back steps where they could be easily found. While Karolina may have forgotten her sleuth work from back then, pinpointing Michael’s purchases, Kylie hadn’t. “He’s still around then—the anonymous guy,
