www.millsandboon.co.uk

       Chapter One

      “Lock up your women and check your ammunition supply, men. Cain Paxton is back in town!”

      The sun had yet to crest the trees interspersed throughout Almost, Montana, but Merritt Miller had already heard variations of that warning at least four times since the first customer had shuffled into Alvie’s café shortly after 6:00 a.m. After the second alert, Merritt had gone to ask Alvie Crisp herself about the matter, as the sturdy woman worked.

      “Who’s Cain Paxton?” Martha had asked.

      Barely glancing up from her work, single-handedly preparing breakfast for a near capacity crowd, Alvie had replied, “Someone you better not give two seconds of thought to, Miller Moth.” Pausing, the salt-and-pepper-haired woman wiped perspiration from her broad forehead with the back of her left hand. Outside, it might be struggling to stay above twenty-eight, but it was always somewhere between toasty and roasting in the kitchen. “Just another mother’s heartbreak,” Alvie continued, “another father’s shame.”

      Merritt had ignored the nickname Alvie had given her on the first day she’d begun working here, now over two years ago. It was milder than some she’d been called in her twenty-seven years. She knew she was a drab specimen of womanhood compared to the pampered daughters and wives who sometimes dined here when reluctantly staying in town to shop if weather or time didn’t allow them to get to Montana’s larger cities like Bozeman or Billings on either side of them, or the state capital, Helena, to their north. Her petite, thin frame had never turned heads, nor had her pale face earned studied admiration. Her one good feature—her dark brown hair—had to be constantly tied back by an elastic band because there was plenty of it. In these last three years of her “emancipation,” as she secretly dubbed it, she’d come to the conclusion that she was meant to sit alone on the grocery shelf of life. If her unspectacular looks weren’t reason enough, her semi-lameness made it official.

      “I was just wondering what the fuss was all about,” Merritt said softly as she returned again to pick up the twin plates brimming with ham, eggs over easy, hash browns and biscuits with gravy for table three. The only Paxton she knew owned one of the biggest ranches in the area, and as far as she knew he was an aging widower and childless. “Usually all anyone wants to talk about is the price of beef, feed, cranky machinery or how your cooking has ‘hit the spot.’”

      Alvie grunted as she turned another batch of thick-sliced bacon. “Helps to be the only joint in town. After you deliver those plates and refresh everyone’s coffee mugs, come on back here. I want to talk to you about the latest weather report I heard on the radio.”

      “Is the storm coming in early? From the looks of the skies, it sure seems like it will be a strong one.” Merritt didn’t know how the woman discerned anything with the thing turned so low. All she was hearing over the conversations flowing in from the dining room was static.

      “That it is, and it’s going to be worse than they thought. Now move, child.”

      Merritt went with a slight smile rather than hurt feelings. She was well used to Alvie’s frank, no-nonsense approach to things and that was also reflected in her appearance. Her employer’s clean-scrubbed face was as bare of makeup as her own. Alvie’s hair was shorter, but still pulled back into a tight bun. As always in cold weather, she wore a white chef’s apron over overalls and a man’s plaid flannel shirt. Today’s was mud-brown, like her hiking boots. No frills for the woman who had buried two husbands and a daughter; she said what she meant and meant what she said. But her heart was gold. Merritt could vouch for that. Alvie had been the one to give her a job and a place to stay when she’d first arrived here with barely enough money left in her wallet to pay for a night’s stay in a cheap motel—if there’d been such a thing in Almost.

      On the way up front, Merritt grabbed a full pot of the aromatic coffee from the machine’s secondary hot plate, then delivered the two platters to ranchers who never paused in their intense conversation. They were regulars and knew that unlike the other waitress, feisty and flirty Nikki Franks, she didn’t crave small talk with them, let alone anyone to flirt with. She topped off their mugs, then continued around her half of the café to see who else needed another dose of caffeine before braving the day’s weather.

      After returning to the kitchen, Merritt watched Alvie remove the bacon and add a slab of sirloin for one of Nikki’s hungrier customers. Then she started on two orders of scrambled eggs. As she often did, Merritt picked up the ladle in the nearby bowl and stirred the pancake batter to keep it from settling.

      “So how much snow do they expect?”

      “Maybe a foot before you head home tonight. Twice that before we open in the morning.”

      Since Merritt had spent her whole life where snow was common, and this wasn’t her first winter in Montana, she wasn’t immediately intimidated. Besides, Thanksgiving was just around the corner. It might not say “winter” on the calendar, but frigid weather had definitely dipped below the forty-ninth parallel from Canada. “Okay. Guess I better arrange to come in earlier tomorrow.” As a rule, she arrived minutes before the doors opened at six o’clock.

      That earned her a critical look from Alvie. “I want you to be