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the
chair.
    ***
    If Nick had any real taste in women, his eyes would be
following Lee’s bride around the stuffy, over-decorated ballroom. She was
undoubtedly the most beautiful woman there. In fact, she was the most beautiful
woman Nick had ever met, with hair like black silk and eyes the color of a cloudless
mountain sky. She had the face of an angel and a body to tempt Satan. Yup, if
Nick had any taste he’d be jealous as all get out of the bridegroom, but
instead he was fighting to keep his eyes off the bridegroom’s sister. Tall as
she was, it was hard not to see Miz Montgomery. She’d pulled back her
hair in a dizzying array of curls, with a few light tendrils escaping to tease
her temples and to invite a man to kiss her there. It was her shimmering gold
gown, though, low cut and hugging her body like bark on a tree, that wrangled
his attention.
    From the moment he’d received Melinda’s joyful telegram
announcing Lee and Jess’s wedding—and of the Montgomerys’ impending visit—he’d
been on pins and needles. Bad medicine though Miz Montgomery was, he’d been
unable to suppress the anticipation rushing through his godforsaken blood at
the thought of seeing her again. The couple of days she’d spent at the ranch,
and the few days he’d been with the wedding party in Denver, had transformed
that anticipation into wicked desire, provoked by her seductive smiles, her
singsong voice, and the come-hither expression in her wildcat eyes. Some days
she really did seem part mountain lion, and she was stalking him.
    He had half a mind to let her catch him.
    The other half, though, the smarter half, had glued itself
to honor. She was Lee’s sister and Ward’s daughter. In addition, for the next
three weeks she’d be sleeping under his roof, entrusted to his care with the
expectation that he’d treat her with the greatest respect. He would not abuse
that trust, would not defile his friend’s sister or daughter, no matter how
much those eyes asked for it. That invitation was a lie, anyhow, because she
was a lady and “catching him” could never lead to the mad passion those eyes
promised.
    “How you holding up, Nick? Not quite your style, I imagine.”
    Monty—Lee Montgomery—appeared out of nowhere. Or at least so
it seemed to Nick, whose mind had been focused on his sister.
    Forcing a wry grin to rest on his face, Nick glanced around
the hotel ballroom, decorated in white and red, with enough flash and gilt to
blind a blind man. Even with the short notice, a couple dozen of the
Montgomerys’ closest friends had traveled from the East and West Coasts for the
wedding, along with Jess’s actress troupe, currently playing in Denver. The
women were decked out in lace, satin, silk, and velvet, and men in starched
black and white, with stiff collars high enough to cut off a man’s head if he
moved too quick. Nick reached up to pull at his own, digging into his neck.
“Nothin’ that a bowie knife wouldn’t fix.”
    Tall, Montgomery-handsome with green-grey eyes, Monty
smirked. “A good tailor can make clothing appear fashionable while sparing the
vocal cords.”
    “It’d be a helluva lot cheaper not to wear the collars.”
    “Which is why I came West. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the
bulls into account.”
    Nick barked a laugh. “Wasn’t the bull that got you, Monty.
It was the horns, and it would’ve let you be if you hadn’t been mooin’.”
    “I wouldn’t have been, mooing,” Monty said dryly, “if my
employer hadn’t encouraged me to do so.”
    Nick grinned as his gaze settled on Miz Montgomery again.
“’Spose so,” he said. Now she was flirting with Del Huntington, who was a
handsome fella, tall, dark-haired and as nattily dressed as Lee in a form-fitting
black tuxedo suit. Huntington was a life-long friend of the Montgomerys’, the
son of English nobility and as rich as Midas with all the grand manners to
match. The kind of man Ward would choose as a husband for his