βTell me the truth, Daniel. When you married me, were you planning to love meβ¦ or destroy my father?β
The question trembled between them beneath the golden Montana sunset.
Elizabeth Hawthorne stood against the rough wooden wall of a secluded ranch cabin, her long golden-blonde curls spilling across her bare shoulders. Her chocolate-brown corset hugged her beautiful figure, while delicate ivory lace framed the low neckline of her pale-sage-green prairie gown.
Only inches away stood her husband, Daniel Carter.
He was twenty-six years old, extraordinarily handsome, with a towering muscular physique, broad shoulders, powerful arms, a rugged bearded face, and long dark-brown hair falling across his gray-green eyes. His weathered leather trousers were held by a thick belt, and an open leather harness crossed his bare chest, still damp with sweat from repairing the pasture fences.
One of Elizabeth's hands rested over his heartbeat.
Daniel held her fingers gently against his chest, as though he were afraid that releasing them might mean losing her forever.
For weeks, she had wanted him to kiss her.
Not the restrained kiss he'd placed on her knuckles during their humiliating wedding ceremony.
Not the tender brush of his lips against her forehead when she fell asleep beside the fireplace.
She wanted him to kiss her like a man who had finally stopped pretending his heart was untouched.
And until five minutes earlier, she had believed that moment had arrived.
Then a folded document slipped from his leather belt.
An old land deed.
A name she recognized.
And a legal description of nearly six thousand acres that her father, Judge Edward Hawthorne, had claimed belonged to the Hawthorne family for more than twenty years.
Daniel had tried to conceal the document.
Elizabeth had seen his expression.
And in that terrible instant, she realized that the penniless servant her father chose as her punishment was carrying a secret powerful enough to bring the most influential family in Silver Creek to its knees.