First Class Male

  First Class Male

  By Jillian Hart

  Copyright 2013 by Jillian Hart

  http://jillianhart.net

  Cover Design by Kim Killion, Hot Damn Designs

  http://hotdamndesigns.com

  E-book Formatted by Jessica Lewis, Authors’ Life Saver

  http://authorslifesaver.com

  Editing by Jena O’Connor, Practical Proofing

  http://practicalproofing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Table of 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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Montana Territory, August, 1886

  Callie Carpenter tugged at her sunbonnet brim, stepped around her four sisters and peered down the depot’s platform to get a better view. Any minute now the train would come chugging around the bluff and down the tracks, but this time she would be getting on it. Excitement ran through her, thudding fast and strong in her veins, and she clutched the ticket in her hand a little tighter. Oh, she couldn’t wait to start her adventure, her chance to find an entirely new life and (more importantly) true love.

  “I’ll say it one more time. This is a terrible idea, Callie.” Emma, her oldest sister, shook her head, her mouth pruney, which you would expect from a self-declared and proud of it spinster. “You still have time to reconsider. Please don’t go off and marry a perfect stranger.”

  “A perfectly nice stranger,” Callie corrected, going up on tiptoe, squinting through the bright rays of the hot summer sun. One thing she was sure about was Earl. He’d been thoughtful enough to send his daguerreotype so she knew he was handsome and upstanding looking. A pillar of his community. “He’s promised to be a very kind and faithful husband. And as he’s a doctor, he’s gainfully employed. Even you can’t find fault with that.”

  “Don’t tempt her,” Maggie leaned in, red-blond curls framing her heart-shaped face. “You know Emma. She’s a fault-finding genius.”

  “Not a genius,” Emma corrected with dignity, brushing a perfectly curled lock of blond hair out of her eyes. “I see things clearly with my mind, not my emotions. Unlike some people, I’m not prone to romantic fantasies.”

  “We are.” Abby gave a dimpled smile. “Oh, here it comes!”

  “I see it!” Callie didn’t care that her oldest sister didn’t approve, the others understood and that was support enough.

  They’d grown up in the orphanage here in the tiny town of Holbrook, spending way too many years as children who wore handed down dresses and went to bed with stomachs that weren’t full. Oh, how she’d longingly watched the other kids at school who had real families and parents who loved them—mothers who tied ribbons in their hair and fathers who drove them to school. Well, now it was her turn. She was going to find her own family. She couldn’t wait to be a wife and ma, to know what love and family was all about.

  The train rounded the corner, the noise deafening, the power vibrating the plank boards beneath her feet. The giant mechanical beast lurched closer, brakes squealing and smoke billowing, and coughed to a screeching stop along the platform.

  It was here! Sparkling with excitement, Callie grabbed her satchel and reticule, her palms going damp, her heart rate kicking up. Her adventure was about to begin—but first, she realized with a painful twist in her chest, she’d have to say goodbye to her sisters. She’d never been parted from them before. Ever.

  “If only you weren’t going so far away,” Dee said, the youngest of them, with her dimples and sweetness. “I’m going to miss you, Callie.”

  “I’m going to miss you all so much.” She sniffled, torn between sadness and excitement. “But we can write. Oh, I just love you all.”

  “Not more than we love you.” Abby squeezed in, arms out, and wrapped Callie in a hug. “Take care.”

  “Stay out of trouble.” Maggie was next, hugging her quickly.

  “Be good.” Emma offered a stiff hug. “If you get lost or kidnapped or find out that doctor lied to you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take.” More teary than she wanted to admit, Callie stumbled backwards a step, savoring the look of her sisters clustered together. Tall, slender Emma, short and adorable Dee, elegant Maggie, fun Abby. Beautiful blond women, their skirts snapping in the summer winds. Callie’s vision blurred as she gave them a little wave.

  “All aboard!” A man’s voice boomed out gruffly.

  Oops! She swung around and ran to the steps where a surly conductor moved aside to let her through. He looked as if he’d seen far too many women with their time-consuming goodbyes and didn’t approve.

  Well, she didn’t care. She was on a train! Her life was never going to be boring again. She tripped down the aisle, feeling the rumbling power of the idling engine vibrating through the car.

  Spotting an empty seat, she rushed over and plopped into it. She didn’t have time to adjust her skirts before she was jerked forward and tossed back against the cushioned seat. The train surged forward. Her sisters! She only had time to give them one last finger wave before the platform fell away and they were gone.

  And she was alone.

  Missing them already, she untied her sunbonnet, stowed it and her satchel beneath her seat and plopped her reticule in her lap. She felt funny, like her ribs were cracking one bone at a time. In all the days of dreaming and the nights too excited to sleep imagining this moment, she hadn’t wanted to think about this, about leaving her sisters behind.

  Needing to get rid of the sadness, she opened her reticule and dug inside for Earl’s daguerreotype. Her fingers brushed a piece of parchment that hadn’t been there before. She smiled, already knowing what she would find when she pulled it out and unfolded it. A note from her sisters.

  Dear Callie,

  Have fun! Enjoy the adventure! (written in Abby’s looping script).

  Missing you as much as you must be missing us. Don’t look back, keep going forward (Maggie’s tidy handwriting).

  Love you! I admire you for going. Be happy. (Dee’s block letters).

  If you get into trouble, write and I’ll send money (Emma’s precise, tidy writing).

  Love,

  Your adoring sisters (Abby had written it, Emma would never be that demonstrative).

  Callie sighed, touched. Well, that was just what she needed. Encouraged, she folded up the letter, slipped it into her reticule, smiling so wide she could feel her ears wiggle. It really helped to know that her sisters were behind her, even Emma. Their love would always be there, something distance could never diminish.

  As the landscape sw
ooped by at a dizzying speed, she pulled out Earl’s image, just to dream a little more. She soaked in the pleasant sight of him. His neat, precise haircut told her he wasn’t a messy sort. His dark hair could be any shade of black or brown, but she imagined it a warm chocolate to compliment the lighter shade of his eyes, which would be a stunning blue, of course. His nose was straight, and if you didn’t stare at it for too long, it almost didn’t look too big.

  He had a nice chin though, with a handsome dimple in it, so over all, he was attractive. Better looking than the few men in the little ranching town of Holbrook, that’s for sure. And he was a doctor. That was something to be proud of. He was also a widower, the poor man, who’d mourned his wife for several years. Now that his two daughters were getting older, they needed womanly guidance and, he’d admitted tenderly in his letters, he’d been lonely too. Callie was exactly the kind of woman he’d been hoping to marry.

  He’d touched her heart with his confession, she recalled, running the tip of her finger around the frame. Somehow she’d come to know Earl so well through their months of correspondence, amazing how words in a letter could bring two people together. She studied his picture one last time before sliding it back into the depths of her reticule. Now her heart was filled with a different sort of ache. She was longing for him, for her husband and family to be.

  “Tickets!” The conductor called out from the front of the passenger car, official looking in his uniform. “I need your tickets, please—”

  But the door slammed open behind him and two rough-looking men strong-armed him aside, tossing him into the nearest seat nearly on top of two lady passengers. The sunlight slanting through the windows gleamed on a revolver, and Callie shivered. This was a train robbery. The lead robber’s eyes narrowed, mean and dark, over the top of the red bandana pulled over the lower half of his face.

  “Ladies and gentleman, this here is your lucky day.” He strolled down the aisle, pulling a folded pillowcase out of his pocket and snapping it open. “Think of it as your chance to be charitable. Gimme your money and your valuables. If you don’t, I’ll just as soon put a bullet in ya.”

  The second gunman behind him, standing as stoically as a mountain, thumbed back the hammer on his revolver, proof they meant business.

  “Hurry up now.” Red Bandanna shoved his gun into the conductor’s face. “We start with you.”

  She gasped, terror crawling through her as the conductor complied, on his knees on the floor now, rifling through his pockets, tossing cash, his pocket watch and his wedding ring into the pillowcase. Callie was too far away to see if any sweat popped out on the conductor’s forehead, but she figured it did because it was popping out on hers.

  “Now you ladies, just throw in your reticules. Do it,” Red Bandanna growled, his feet planted, invincible in black. He rammed his gun into the elderly lady’s temple. “And gimme that real fancy pin on your dress too.”

  The woman squeaked with terror and tossed everything she had into the makeshift bag, including the pin. Her seat partner did too.

  “For your convenience, we got someone in the back of the car. You in the last row, I’d give up that wedding ring if I wanted to live.” Red Bandana turned to the other side of the aisle and terrified two businessman out of their valuables while the train chugged merrily along. Clearly everyone else on board, in other cars, had no idea what was transpiring.

  “You.” A big, beefy man who smelled like fried onions stopped beside her seat. He wore a blue bandana and had fringe on his leather vest. “Toss it in.”

  She held onto her reticule, the one her sisters had made her for Christmas out of purple calico trimmed with matching ribbon. She thought of the money inside, even if it wasn’t much, it was her life savings. She’d worked hard to earn it. Her sister’s letter was there too, and the picture of Earl. Not worth her life, but still. It was hard to let go of it.

  “Hurry up,” Blue Bandanna rapped his gun on her wrist, pain shot through her bone, and her fingers released.

  The pain remained.

  “Now gimme your jewelry,” he demanded, towering over her, so big and strong he could snap her in two if he wanted. He jammed his gun against her jaw. Horror rocked through her at the feel of the cold metal. The robber’s black eyes told her that he wouldn’t have any problem pulling the trigger, ending her life right then and there.

  “I don’t have any jewelry.” Uncontrollable tears blurred her vision, terrified he’d pull the trigger anyway, but she tried to make eye contact, so he could see she told the truth.

  “Say, now, ain’t you a pretty thing.” Blue Bandanna kept his attention on her but turned his gun across the aisle. The farmer sitting there tossed in his billfold and wedding ring without so much as a whimper. Blue Bandanna gestured to his fellow robbers. “Hey, look what we got here. A real looker.”

  “Is that so?” Red Bandanna stopped in the middle of terrifying a nun. She dropped money and her rosary into his bag with trembling hands. He straightened up so he could better see through the car. When his gaze landed on Callie, his eyes smiled cruelly. “Look at that. She is mighty pretty.”

  Callie gulped, shaking hard. She didn’t like this attention, she didn’t want to be around rough men. Besides, they had her money, they had everything she had to give. Would they just go away if she ignored them? She stared down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. Just think about Earl and his daughters, she thought. The robbers would leave, the journey would go on and she’d be with her new family in a matter of hours. It was going to be okay.

  “I’ve had me a hankering for a pretty little thing,” Red Bandanna said thoughtfully as he whapped a young mother across the face with his gun when she couldn’t juggle her baby and take off her necklace fast enough. “Now that the last one is all used up, guess it wouldn’t hurt to get a new one.”

  “Just what I was thinkin’,” Blue Bandanna agreed. His beefy hands clamped around Callie’s arm before she realized they meant to take her. Her bottom left the seat and she dangled in mid-air. She tried to cry out, tried to wrench away but the man was too strong. He was like Goliath, his strength not even human. He tossed her over his shoulder like she was a sack of laundry and clamped his hand around the back of her legs to keep her there.

  “You’d be smart to lay there nice and quiet,” he told her, moving down the aisle, holding his pillowcase for the next row of passengers to toss their things into as fast as they could. “Or you won’t ever walk right again.”

  Tears squeezed out of her eyes. Her head thudded with all the blood rushing through it. Her stomach felt queasy, but that was nothing compared to the absolute sheer panic charging through her. Help me, she wanted to scream, but she knew no one would. No one could.

  “That’s it!” Red Bandanna called, heading to the door with his cache. “Let’s go.”

  Bounce, bounce, bounce she went down the aisle, hanging over Blue Bandanna’s shoulder. Breathing hard, blinking away the tears of terror that just kept coming, she caught the apologetic look on the farmer’s face. Like the others, he was too scared to do anything. She saw the young mother, clutching her baby, crying with fear for her, and the nun bowing her head to pray for her as Blue Bandanna reached the door at the end of the car. Prairie wind billowed her skirts.

  No, she thought. No, no, no. She went cold inside, numb with terror. Desperate, she grabbed onto the handrail by the door, holding on as hard as she could. Voices were shouting in another car, maybe help was coming if only she could hold on long enough.

  “Let go, dammit!” Blue Bandanna lunged against the side of the door, slamming her head into the metal frame. Agony burst through her skull, spots danced before her eyes and then there was only darkness.

  Belly down on the backside of a hill, U.S. Marshal Mason Greer knuckled back his hat for a better look at the craggy bluff up ahead and squinted through his binoculars. He frowned, straining to make out the distant smudges that were too far away, but he couldn’t get closer. Hell if he’d risk be
ing spotted, not after twenty-eight days on the Folsom brothers’ trail. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he felt something crawling along his pant leg but he didn’t move, not until he was sure.

  “It’s gotta be them,” Clint Dawson drawled, uncapping his canteen. “We’ve been weaving in and out of these bluffs and hills for too long. We’ve come up on everyone but the Folsom Gang. There ain’t anyone left. It’s just the process of elimination.”

  “Yeah, it’s gotta be them.” Pauly Black agreed, rubbing dust off his rifle barrel with his sleeve. “It can’t be anyone else.”

  Mason cut his gaze back to his binoculars, amused by his junior marshals. They were good men and better gun fighters. He was glad they had his back. “Looks like activity at the camp. Horses coming up the trail.”

  A lot of horses. With his elbows digging into the hard-baked Montana earth, he swiped a stream of sweat trickling down his forehead, his eyes peeled for a better view. Eight, nine, ten horses. He frowned, biting back a curse of frustration. He would have liked to be closer, but he knew from personal experience the risk of being spotted.

  Once he’d been closer than this and the gang had mysteriously fled in the cover of night, an hour before he’d planned to burst into their camp and make his captures. Somewhere out there was a lookout for the gang, scanning the silent craggy rises of bluff and cliffs.

  The lookout would be up high, he figured, one or two men guarding the camp. Best place would be up on that tall bluff wall, tucked in behind those big boulders. You could see for a mile, probably, and get a good look at anyone coming and stay perfectly hidden.

  Then that would be the first place he’d strike. Mason turned his attention back to the outlaw’s camp where the horses, nothing but blurry forms, had stopped, standing still while the fuzzy shapes of what had to be men swarmed into the shadows beneath the Ponderosa pines, out of his sight.