Hallie's Hero

She was so determined to keep any hint of her femininity hidden

A lopsided smile quirked up his mouth. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Compared to what, dancing a reel with a tumbleweed?” Hallie managed, trying not to give away the effect being this close to him had on her.

Despite her light quip, Jack felt her quickening breath, saw her eyes widen slightly. She might not look or act like any woman he’d known, but she couldn’t help responding like one.

“Come on,” he said, sliding his gaze down her. “Let’s get you inside and out of those britches.”

“You don’t give up, do you, Dakota?” Pulling away from him, she swung around and started toward the house, ignoring his call after her.

“I didn’t intend to take them off you, darlin’,” he said to her back. “Though I’d be glad to help, if you’d like.”

Praise for Nicole Foster’s recent books

Cimarron Rose

“A must read.”

—Rendezvous

“A spirit-lifting, heartwarming story.”

—Romance Reviews Today

Jake’s Angel

“Finely rendered…expressive…Jake’s Angel is a classic romance, and any reader devoted to this genre will love this book.”

—Romance Communications

“A charming tale from a promising new talent.”

—Affaire de Coeur

#639 LADY LYTE’S LITTLE SECRET

Deborah Hale

#640 THE FORBIDDEN BRIDE

Cheryl Reavis

#641 DRAGON’S DAUGHTER

Catherine Archer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin Historicals and NICOLE FOSTER

Jake’s Angel #522

Cimarron Rose #560

Hallie’s Hero #642

For our families near and far.

Best regards,

Annette and Danette

Contents

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 One

Paradise, Arizona Territory, 1876

It couldn’t be gone. Hallie Ryan gripped the battered metal box in her hands, closed her eyes and took a deep breath to fight off the surge of panic. But when she looked again nothing had changed. More than half the money she’d so carefully hoarded all these months was missing.

She realized right then who had taken it. Only Ben would leave part of her money, thinking he’d sweeten her temper by not stealing it all. And Ben would do it even though he knew she’d been scraping together every penny, selling practically all she owned of value, to buy back Eden’s Canyon before the bank sold their ranch to the first buyer who came along.

The only reason they were still living in the house was because she’d choked down her pride and begged Mr. Parsons to let them stay until the bank could find a buyer, giving her a last chance to beg, steal or borrow enough money before they lost everything.

Hallie welcomed the sudden anger flaring up inside her. For the moment, anyway, it pushed away the sick feeling twisting her stomach, and gave her the prod she needed to do something besides curse and cry. Shoving the box back into her wooden chest, she grabbed up her hat and headed for the barn.

She couldn’t remember when she’d been madder at Ben, although her little brother had given her plenty of opportunities in the last year. He was always promising he’d finish one chore or another, always swearing he’d start taking on his share of the responsibilities. But then he’d sneak off to one of the saloons in town to gamble and guzzle a bottle of whiskey or two.

This time, though, he’d gone too far.

Yanking open the barn door, intent on getting to town and confronting Ben, Hallie nearly tripped over Tenfoot Jones on his way out.

“Whoa, there,” Tenfoot said, holding up his hands and stepping back as Hallie stalked into the barn. He pulled a faded bandanna from around his neck and rubbed it over his weathered face and under his braid of iron-gray hair as he watched her drag out the rigging for the wagon. “You’re lookin’ as mad as a peeled rattler, Hal. What’s young Ben done now?”

“Nothing a few years locked in the barn won’t fix.”

“Meanin’ he’s in town puttin’ his money into someone else’s pocket again.”

“No, this time he’s putting my money in someone else’s pocket,” Hallie said, as she led the piebald gelding out of his stall and started hitching him to the wagon. She didn’t tell Tenfoot what money Ben had taken. Like everyone else who lived and worked on the ranch, the cowboy was already worried enough about where they’d be bedding down next month. “I aim to stop him if I have to hog-tie him and drag him home behind the wagon to do it.”

Tenfoot snorted and shook his head. “That boy’s wilder than a barn rat. Always has been. Be the best thing for everybody if you left him where he is, and let him learn about livin’ the hard way.”

“Maybe. Maybe I should’ve done that a long time ago. But I can’t.”

“So you keep tellin’ me. But durned if I understand why.”

Tugging one of the harness straps tight, Hallie’s hands faltered. She swallowed hard, gritted her teeth and forced her fingers to finish the job without shaking. “Because I said I’d look after him.”

“I don’t think your pa meant until Ben was dried up and gray. The boy’s old enough to look after himself. Hell, Hal, you were runnin’ this whole spread when you were his age.”

Hallie shook her head. “He doesn’t have anybody else.”

She’d made her pa two promises before he died less than seven months past: to keep Eden’s Canyon thriving and to take care of Ben.

So far, she hadn’t been able to do either.

Pa had always counted on her to help him with the ranch. He’d taught her to raise cattle and break horses, and to hold her head high even when people stared and whispered behind their hands when she walked down the street in her leather britches and beat-up hat.

But he hadn’t told her about the debts he’d left behind, debts that had cost her Eden’s Canyon. And he hadn’t shown her how to corral a seventeen-year-old brother determined to get himself shot or thrown in jail before he saw twenty.

Climbing onto the wagon seat, Hallie tugged her hat down and took up the reins. “I’ll be back with Ben and my money,” she told Tenfoot as she slapped the leather against the gelding’s back, “one way or the other.”

Jack Dakota figured the kid had less than ten seconds to live.

From the way he swayed on his feet, and the unsteady fumbling of his hand at his holster, the fool boy wouldn’t even get his gun drawn before a couple of bullets laid him facedown in the dirt.

Everyone in the Silver Snake had crowded onto the porch of the saloon to get an eyeful of the kid facing Redeye Bill Barlow. The noon sun beat down on the dusty street, rippling the air, and in a sudden moment of stillness when everyone in Paradise seemed to stop breathing, Jack swore he could hear the sweat trickling down the boy’s face as he squinted toward Redeye.

Jack cursed under his breath. He’d come to Paradise to start new, to finally put down roots, not to get caught in the middle of the kind of trouble he’d been trying to sidestep ever since he was old enough to shuffle a deck of cards.

It had started out harmlessly enough, a quick game with his old rival Redeye to pass an hour or two. Then Ben Ryan had insisted on joining them. Jack thought the kid looked too young to be emptying his pockets at a card table and had told him so a few days earlier, when Ben had tried to talk his way into a high-stakes poker game.

But today Redeye had had the boy’s money on the table before Ben even sat down. An hour later, Barlow staggered to his feet, yanked out his gun and called the kid a cheater.

Now Jack didn’t have time to consider how stupid he was about to be.

Taking two running steps off the porch, he slid his Colt out of the holster, aiming and firing in one swift motion.

The shot caught Redeye in the shoulder. Barlow staggered, lost his footing and fell on his backside, dropping his gun, an almost comical look of surprise twisting his face.

Glancing at Ben, Jack saw him drop to his knees and double over, clutching his stomach.

Jack shook his head and, holstering his gun, strode over to where Redeye still sat in the dirt, holding his bloody shoulder. Jack kicked Barlow’s six-shooter several feet to the side, resisting the urge to kick Barlow along with it.

Redeye glared at him through bleary eyes. “Damn you, Dakota. The kid was cheatin’. He had this comin’.”

“You had this coming. Although with two bottles of that rat poison they call whiskey in you, I don’t know how you could tell one way or the other.”

Before Barlow could argue, Jack reached down and rifled through the other man’s vest pocket, pulling out a crumpled wad of notes. Barlow made a grab for them, but Jack easily snatched the money out of his reach. “Part of this is mine. And you might remember next time that the game’s played with only four aces.”

He was just about to turn his back on Redeye, give Ben his share of the money and disappear before the sheriff arrived, when a wagon came clattering up the dirt street straight at him, the driver practically standing, urging the horse on in a headlong gallop.

At the last moment, the madman holding the reins reared back, jerking the horse to a stop and jumping down from the seat before the wheels stopped sliding.

“Ben!”

Jack first thought the wiry figure in the baggy duster was a boy—until he saw the lumpy braid underneath her sorry-looking hat slap her back as she ran toward Ben. Even then it was hard to believe anything that dusty and rumpled could be female.

“Are you all right? What happened?” the girl demanded, dropping to her knees beside Ben and running her hands over him. Ben, still bent over, answered her with a groan.

“He was trying to get himself killed,” Jack said, walking up to them.

The girl looked up, ran her eyes over him and frowned. “What would you know about it?”

“More than you at this moment. Trust me, darlin’, he was close enough to hell to smell smoke.”

“It looks to me like he wasn’t doing too badly,” she said, flipping a hand to where Redeye still sat in the dust, chaperoned now by Joe Bellweather from the general store as Joe waited for his son to fetch the sheriff.

“C’mon, Hal, Ben couldn’t hit a bull’s rump with a banjo, even when he ain’t been drinkin’,” one of the cowboys still lounging on the porch of the Silver Snake called out.

A loud outburst of laughter greeted his remark, and Hallie flushed. But she kept her chin up and refused to look away. “And I’m supposed to believe one of you gentlemen helped him?”

“No, you should be thankin’ your friend there for keepin’ Ben out of a pine box. He drew so fast Redeye didn’t have time to blink.”

Hallie turned back to the stranger, who seemed to think very little of shooting a man on the main street in the middle of the day. He looked more like the fancy-dressed gamblers who came through town than a gunslinger, but you never could tell. “Is that true?”

“Oh, I think Bill probably blinked a couple of times. Here,” he said, reaching down to take Ben’s arm before Hallie could refuse his help, “let’s get him in the wagon before he decides to sleep it off in the street.”

More than ready to end being the afternoon’s entertainment, Hallie helped get her brother to his feet and half carried him to the wagon. She started to guide Ben to the seat, but Ben’s rescuer shook his head and hefted him onto the back floorboards instead. Ben, his eyes screwed shut, curled up on his side, moaning softly.

Jack pulled off his hat, wiping his brow with the side of his hand. He wondered how many times the girl did this in a week. From the way she handled Ben, he figured she spent a good deal of her time getting the kid out of one scrape or another, although it was hard to understand why. Ben Ryan was nothing but trouble.

Hallie watched Ben a moment before reluctantly turning from her brother to the man who’d helped him. She supposed she owed him, but right then she wished he could have been anybody else.

From the look of him, she guessed she’d been right from the start, and he was the kind that made his living flipping cards in every saloon and hotel he passed through. But even if he wasn’t, she immediately mistrusted that lazy, charming smile that seemed to be there in his eyes even when it wasn’t on his mouth.

He reminded her of a phrase she’d once heard Tenfoot use to describe a rogue stallion: long, hard and fast. His hair, overlong and tousled, looked a hundred different shades of dark gold, as if the individual strands hadn’t been able to agree on a color. It insisted on falling over one eyebrow, giving him a slightly rakish air that, combined with a wicked smile, Hallie was sure he used to his advantage.

“I’m Hallie Ryan,” she said gruffly, sticking out her hand.

If he was surprised at her hesitation or her gesture, he didn’t show it. “Jack Dakota,” he said, taking her hand in a firm grip, at the same time studying her from her hat to her boots. From the look in his eyes, Hallie got the impression he disapproved of every inch of her.

Why should she care? She’d thank him and he’d be on his way, and that would be the end of it. “I guess I owe you, Mr. Dakota. You saved my brother’s life. Thank you.”

“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself sayin’ that, Miss Hallie.” Jack grinned when she scowled. Then, pulling out the wad of notes he’d taken from Redeye, he counted off several and handed the rest to her. “Ben’s money. Don’t bother thanking me for it, since he lost some of it fair and square to me. Most of it’s there, though.”

“How generous,” Hallie muttered, thumbing through the notes, not about to give Dakota the satisfaction of seeing how much getting her money back meant to her.

Jack watched her, trying to figure her out. He’d known his share of women, but Hallie Ryan stuck out like snow in the desert. Then again, it was hard to tell she was female from the way she looked and acted.

Though tall for a woman and on the thin side, she might be pretty if she stripped off the dust and the cowboy garb, and stopped scowling. He couldn’t tell the color of her hair with it haphazardly braided and stuffed under that twisted wreck of a hat. But she did have beautiful eyes, clear and direct, an unusual shade of soft green that reminded him of wild sage and sunshine.

Hallie shifted a little, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. “Look, Mr. Dakota—”

“Jack.”

“Mr. Dakota, like I said, I owe you for helping Ben. If you’re ever in Paradise again, you’re welcome to call on us if you need anything.”

“Well, Miss Hallie, I may be calling sooner than you think. You see…” Jack leaned against the wagon, thumbs hooked in his belt. “I plan on staying in Paradise.”

“Staying?”

“Don’t look so surprised. I can’t leave until I collect on your neighborly offer, now can I?” Suspicion flared in her eyes and he laughed. “Don’t get your fur ruffled, Miss Hallie. I was only thinking of asking for a little advice. Ben told me you know more about ranching than any man in the territory.”

“Ben says a lot of things when he’s had too much whiskey. Besides, why should you need advice on anything to do with running a ranch?”

“Because I’m now the proud owner of one.”

Hallie barely stopped herself from laughing in his face. “Pardon me, Mr. Dakota, but you don’t look anything like the kind of man who belongs on a ranch.”

“I won’t ask you where you think I do belong—I have a good imagination. But I plan on settling down and becoming a good citizen.” Jack winked at her, laughing when she stared at him as if he was crazy. “I just bought what your friendly banker called one of the finest pieces of land in the territory. Eden’s Canyon.”

“You…” Stunned, Hallie could only gape at him. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.

“The bartender at the Silver Snake heard I was looking for some land and told me it was for sale, and that it was a pretty fair piece of property. It seemed like a good gamble so now it’s mine.”

Jack eyed her for a moment. The look on her face worried him. For the first time since he’d set foot in Paradise, he started to have second thoughts about how quickly he’d decided to try his luck at ranching rather than the dice table.

He couldn’t blame Hallie Ryan for thinking he’d spent too much time in the desert sun. He’d surprised himself. But he had one very good reason for staying in this town, and because of that, he’d made up his mind to make this ranching business pay.

No matter what it took.

“Is there a problem, Miss Ryan?” he asked at last, when it looked as if she’d stand there for the rest of the day, staring at him as if he’d announced he’d come to town to turn the church into a house of wicked women and whiskey.

“A problem?” Hallie found her voice as the truth of what he’d told her finally hit and hit hard. “Oh, yes, there’s a problem, Mr. Dakota. A big problem.”

“Are you going to share it with me, or do I have to guess?”

“They should never have sold you Eden’s Canyon. That land is mine.”

All at once Jack’s easiness slid away, leaving him tense. He straightened and slapped his hat back on. “I don’t like to disagree with a lady—” the slight emphasis he put on “lady” made Hallie flinch inside “—but I’ve got the deed to prove it isn’t.”

“Eden’s Canyon has been Ryan land for nearly forty years. I would have bought it back if Ben hadn’t taken my money to put in your pocket!”

Hallie could have bitten her tongue off the moment the words left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell Jack Dakota anything about herself. But the shock and anger of losing Eden’s Canyon to him, of all people, left her too furious to think straight.

“I’ll buy it back from you,” she said through gritted teeth. She thrust out the wad of notes he’d given her. “I have more than half the money now. I’ll get the rest soon.”

Jack ignored the money. “I’m not selling.”

“You don’t know the first thing about running a ranch! You’ll lose everything before a year’s over.”

“I wouldn’t bet your last dollar on that, Miss Hallie,” he said, smiling tightly.

“What I’d bet is that you’ve never stuck with anything longer than a week,” Hallie said. Desperation began to spark the first twinges of panic in her. She couldn’t lose Eden’s Canyon. Especially not like this. Oh, Pa, how could you have done this? “Why would you even want to try?”

“One very good reason.” Gesturing to the porch of the saloon, he called over to one of the saloon girls. “It’s okay, Kitty, it’s over. He can come out now.”

The girl leaned inside the door, beckoning with her hand until a fair-haired boy, about seven or eight years old, came out onto the porch. He stood by one of the posts, looking at Jack and Hallie with a mixture of curiosity and defiance.

“He’s why I’m here,” Jack said.

Hallie’s face puckered in confusion. “Ethan Harper? What would you have to do with Ethan?”

“He’s my son.”

“Your—that’s impossible. You couldn’t be—I mean, when…how?”

“I do put the cards down once in a while, darlin’. And as to how, I’d demonstrate but I don’t think you want to give the boys at the Silver Snake another spectacle.”

Hallie flushed and opened her mouth to snap back at him, but Jack took a step closer so she could feel the heat of him. She faltered and stepped backward, uneasy with the expression in his eyes, which made her wonder if she’d misjudged his determination to suddenly become a rancher.

“Paradise is where Ethan’s grown up, so Paradise is where he stays,” Jack said. He looked straight at her. “And Eden’s Canyon is mine and it’s going to stay mine. Like it or not.”

Hallie stood by the window in the front room of the ranch house, her hands fisted at her sides, and forced herself to look at the stretch of fine grazing land beyond the knobby wooden corral fences. The brilliant sunshine hurt her eyes, but at least it distracted her from thinking about Ben and what his latest escapade had cost her.

Outside her window, grasses knee-high and thick rolled in green, gold and brown over the flat plains of the Rillito Valley. On either side of the valley, the mountains, painted in reds and browns, jutted up in crags and peaks, guarding the rich grassland. Her grandfather had left behind a dirt farm in Missouri to stake his claim on this piece of wild Arizona territory. He’d built the sprawling cedar-and-adobe house near the river, started breeding Mexican cattle and made a modest fortune before Paradise was even a thought.

Hallie couldn’t imagine living anywhere but here, or doing anything but ranching. She was good at it, if nothing else. She would never be the pretty, graceful, quiet kind of woman that men courted with their Sunday-best manners and sweet talk. But she told herself she didn’t care. She didn’t need nice ways and soft words to break a wild mustang or round up a herd of cattle.

She did, however, need Eden’s Canyon.

A timid knock at the door turned Hallie from the window. The girl who poked her head into the room was not much younger than Ben, with smooth pale hair and round blue eyes that dominated her thin face. Hallie had given Serenity Trent a haven and a job at Eden’s Canyon more than two years ago, and only regretted that the girl still crept around as if she expected someone to holler at her just for being in the room.

Hallie motioned her inside. “What is it, Serenity? What’s wrong?”

Chewing at her lower lip, Serenity glanced over her shoulder. “It’s—”

“Jack Dakota. Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, winking at Serenity as he pushed the door wide and walked inside as if he had a right to be there. “Miss Hal knows Ethan and me.”

Serenity, her face bright red, appeared ready to crawl under the rug. Ethan hung back, his face set in a sullen scowl as he clutched a ragged carpetbag close to his side. Only Jack smiled at Hallie, taking the whole mess in stride as if it were of no more consequence than an afternoon picnic. She ground her teeth together, feeling the itch to string him up the first opportunity she got.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Moving into my house.”

“It is not your house.”

“I thought we’d settled this.”

“We didn’t settle anything!”

“Well, the bank and I did,” Jack said. Becoming slightly annoyed at her stubborn refusal to face the truth, he held the deed papers in front of her nose. “These look familiar?” He pulled the papers back when she made to snatch them away. “I didn’t want to leave Ethan at the saloon any longer, and I didn’t fancy staying in town after my little misunderstanding with Redeye. So I’m here, to stay, at my house.”

They glared at each other before Serenity interrupted the charged silence by touching Ethan on the shoulder. “I’ve got some gingerbread in the kitchen. Would you like some?” She gave him a gentle prod in the right direction, and after a glance at Jack, Ethan left with her.

Jack nearly protested, but he didn’t like arguing with Hallie in front of the boy. “Who is she?” He nodded toward Serenity.