My Darling Melissa Read online

  LOOK FOR THESE THRILLING NOVELS BY

  LINDA LAEL MILLER

  BANNER O’BRIEN

  CORBIN’S FANCY

  MEMORY’S EMBRACE

  MY DARLING MELISSA

  ANGELFIRE

  DESIRE AND DESTINY

  FLETCHERS WOMAN

  LAURALEE

  MOONFIRE

  WANTON ANGEL

  WILLOW

  PRINCESS ANNIE

  THE LEGACY

  TAMING CHARLOTTE

  YANKEE WIFE

  DANIEL’S BRIDE

  LILY AND THE MAJOR

  EMMA AND THE OUTLAW

  CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

  AND DON’T MISS HER NEXT

  EXHILARATING TIME-TRAVEL ROMANCE

  KNIGHTS

  AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER

  FROM POCKET BOOKS

  Captives in a War of Hearts …

  Melissa and Quinn just stood there in the railroad car, staring at each other.

  Melissa recovered first. “Well,” she said, with a brave lift of her chin, “I’m off to make a name for myself.”

  Quinn’s hands were strong on Melissa’s shoulders. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Go home, little one.”

  “Do you think I’m a child?”

  Anger flared in Quinn’s brown eyes. Just then, the train stopped, hurling Melissa and Quinn onto the wide bed.

  Melissa was breathless, but Quinn rolled onto his side laughing, to look down into Melissa’s face. As his gaze swept her features, however, his expression turned somber.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and then his mouth descended to Melissa’s, with the utmost reluctance …

  Books by Linda Lael Miller

  Pirates

  Princess Annie

  The Legacy

  Taming Charlotte

  Yankee Wife

  Daniel’s Bride

  Caroline and the Raider

  Emma and the Outlaw

  Lily and the Major

  My Darling Melissa

  Angelfire

  Moonfire

  Wanton Angel

  Lauralee

  Memory’s Embrace

  Corbin’s Fancy

  Willow

  Banner O’Brien

  Desire and Destiny

  Fletcher’s Woman

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  For Debbie Macomber,

  loyal friend,

  walking partner,

  and yarnspinner extraordinaire

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1990 by Linda Lael Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-73771-6

  eISBN-13: 978-1-45165-528-5

  First Pocket Books printing February 1990

  10 9 8 7 6

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Lina Levy

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  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 Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Dear readers,

  Over the last few years many of you have written to ask for a book about Melissa Corbin. Well, here it is! I hope you enjoy reading Melissa and Quinn’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. All of Melissa’s brothers and their wives appear in the novel and, for those of you who asked, there’s even a romance for Katherine.

  I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for the encouraging letters you’ve written. What you want in a story matters, and I am always ready to listen, so please write me, if the spirit moves you, at the address below. You will automatically receive my newsletters after that.

  My next story, coming soon from Pocket Books, will be LILY AND THE MAJOR, the start of my Orphan Train Trilogy. It’s a project that excites me tremendously, and I hope you’ll be watching for it.

  All best,

  September, 1989

  Port Orchard, Washington

  Linda Lael Miller

  P.O. Box 2166

  Bremerton, WA 98310

  One

  Port Hastings, Washington

  March 7, 1891

  She appeared out of a driving rain, a spirit of the storm, clutching the skirts of her billowing white wedding dress in her hands and running for all she was worth. A circlet of bedraggled flowers graced her dark hair, which hung in sodden ropes to her waist. Her gown was most definitely ruined, and her dainty slippers were muddy and wet.

  Quinn Rafferty stood fascinated on the platform of his private railroad car, heedless of the rain and the keening of the train whistle that signaled imminent departure. The nymph had gained the tracks now and was charging toward him.

  Quite a lot of her trim but womanly bosom was visible from Quinn’s vantage point, and he was charmed. When the train lurched into motion and began to clatter and clank he saw the bride set her beautiful jaw and burst into even greater speed.

  “Damn you, h-help me!” she gasped, holding up one hand.

  Quinn was stunned to realize that she’d actually caught up to the train. Like a man moving in a dream he reached down, gained a hold on her, and hauled her aboard.

  Her small, nubile body slammed against Quinn’s, and although the impact was slight, for a moment he was as breathless as though he’d been buried alive in a high-country snowslide.

  The sprite was spitting mad and panting from her flight and her fury. Her azure eyes snapped. Quinn recovered himself enough to grin and tip the brim of his hat with insolent good manners. He allowed his gaze to slide down over her, and again he had that sensation of being crushed beneath some invisible, elemental substance.

  “This is so sudden,” he quipped, to hide his distress at being so violently affected by this little snippet of a girl in a muddy wedding dress and a crown of drooping petunias.

  She was looking back on the town of Port Hastings now, a certain dismay in her round eyes. A flock of disgruntled wedding guests had gathered at the tracks, peering after her through the drizzle, shouting and waving their arms.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered. And then she lifted delicate, gloved fingers to her lips and blew a kiss to the throng.

  Three men towered in the forefront of the crowd. The one wearing a clerical collar lifted his hand in farewell and smiled sadly, but the other two looked as though they could uproot railroad spikes with their teeth and chew them like peppermint sticks.

  Quinn wondered which one was the spurned groom. While he’d never been afraid of a
ny man—save his own father—he was glad he didn’t have to give an accounting of this episode to either of those two. And that very relief nettled his pride.

  “Shall we?” he asked with biting politeness, extending an arm.

  The lady took the offered arm, full of disdainful dignity, and allowed Quinn to escort her into the car.

  She looked around her, clearly unimpressed with the luxury Quinn had worked all his life to acquire, and plopped her sodden bustle down on a velvet-upholstered bench. She was peeling off her spoiled slippers while Quinn went to the liquor cabinet and poured healthy doses of brandy for himself and the runaway bride.

  “What’s your name?” he demanded, fairly shoving a crystal snifter into her hand.

  She accepted it without the maidenly reluctance Quinn had anticipated, her incredible azure eyes fixed for the fraction of a moment on something above and beyond his right shoulder. “Pullman,” she said, after that brief and patently disturbing hesitation. “Melissa Pullman.”

  He took a long draught of his own brandy before sitting down in a nearby chair and ran one hand through his light brown hair. “Well?” he prompted when, after several long sips from her glass, Miss Pullman had not volunteered her story.

  “Well, what?” she countered testily.

  Quinn sighed, turning his snifter between his palms. “I’d like an explanation,” he responded tautly. “I think you owe me that.”

  She sighed, and her straight little shoulders stooped just a bit as she pondered the amber depths of her brandy. “I suppose I do,” she conceded, and Quinn found himself feeling sorry for her.

  The sentiment was of short duration.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to tell you anything, though,” she added. She eyed him in an appraising fashion. “You are a man, after all.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “Not at all,” came the immediate retort. “It wasn’t a compliment. And your name, sir?”

  “Rafferty,” her host allowed, annoyed. “Quinn Rafferty.” Even though he was indisputably the best poker player in four counties, Quinn found that he couldn’t keep a straight face. What he was feeling was more than mere idle curiosity; it was a driving, vital need to know. “Which one of those three giants was supposed to be your husband?”

  A smile curved her lips, and Quinn was struck with a piercing awareness of her loveliness. God in heaven, even in that dirty, water-spotted wedding dress, with her hair dripping and her face wet with rain and, Quinn suspected, tears, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “None. They were my brothers.”

  Quinn searched his memory for a trio of Pullman brothers based in Port Hastings and came up dry. “And the groom?”

  “I doubt that Ajax would stoop to running after me.” She made the admission with a small sigh. “He’s practically royalty, you know. His family goes back to the time of William the Conqueror.”

  Quinn shrugged, irritated by that kind of pretension. “We all go back to Adam and Eve, don’t we?”

  To his surprise, she smiled. “You’re right, Mr. Rafferty. You’re absolutely right.” She shoved the snifter at him. “Might I have more brandy, please?”

  Quinn was about to refuse—it was powerful stuff, that brew—when he knew a certain stab of sympathy. The poor little sprite had run out of a church, through a pounding rainstorm, and been wrenched aboard a railroad car by a complete stranger. Despite the cocky act she was putting on, Quinn was convinced that Melissa Pullman was nervous and afraid.

  He rose and refilled her snifter, and when he handed it back she took a great gulp. After a few more such swallows she seemed more receptive to sensible conversation.

  “Why did you leave Ajax at the altar?” Quinn asked kindly.

  Melissa smoothed her skirts, ignoring their hopeless condition, and avoided Quinn’s eyes. She bit down hard on her lower lip for a moment, then tossed back the last of her brandy. “I didn’t love him,” she stated shakily, and in a hoarse voice, after a very long time.

  Quinn had his doubts as to her sincerity. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to say so?” he prompted in a gentle tone.

  “I couldn’t have faced him,” she said.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell your brothers how you felt? Surely they would have understood.”

  Melissa hiccuped and set her snifter aside on a table that, like all the other furniture in the car, was bolted to the floor. She shook her head. “As far as they’re concerned, I’m a spinster,” she confided. “I’m sure they thought Ajax was my last chance.”

  Moments before Quinn had been glad not to have to deal with the Pullman brothers. Now he longed to confront them. “Bull—balderdash!” he muttered. “How could you be an old maid? You’re on the sunny side of twenty or I’m a donkey’s first cousin!”

  She gave a pealing, slightly drunken giggle and gingerly removed her halo of flowers. “I’m twenty-two, and your family heritage would explain your stubbornness, wouldn’t it?”

  Quinn knew that he should have been insulted—in essence, she’d just called him a jackass—but the truth was that Melissa’s presence filled him with a peculiar, suspenseful kind of joy. “How do you know I’m stubborn?” he demanded to know.

  Melissa yawned, delicately covering her mouth with one hand. “It’s written in every line of you,” she answered. And then she toppled unceremoniously to one side and closed her eyes with a sigh that wrenched at Quinn’s insides. “I’m very tired,” she explained.

  Quinn went to the bed, hidden beyond an ornate partition, and came back with a lush, furry lap robe that was usually put to more adventurous uses. He covered Melissa, who made an endearing little snoring sound, and then turned away.

  It was at that moment that his gaze found the word “Pullman” stenciled discreetly near the arching roof of the car. Quinn Rafferty knew then that he’d been bamboozled, and the humiliation robbed him of every whit of tenderness he’d drummed up for the would-be bride sleeping on the bench.

  He wished he’d never laid eyes on Melissa whatever-her-name-was, let alone hauled her into his railroad car like that.

  His instinct told him he’d made a disastrous mistake—the kind that could change the course of a man’s life.

  Quinn Rafferty liked his life just the way it was.

  *

  It was dead dark when Melissa awoke, confused and a little scared. Noise and motion combined to assure her that she was aboard a train bound for God only knew where.

  She remembered the events of the preceding day in bits and pieces—her family and friends gathered at the church, the confession Ajax had made so offhandedly, the terrible hurt that had driven her to flee, unable to explain to anyone.

  Before that pain could catch hold of her again Melissa shifted her thoughts to the man who had lifted her off the tracks and onto the platform of the railroad car just before her strength would have given out. He was a handsome one, Mr. Rafferty was, with his golden brown hair and eyes the color of caramel, and he had good, sturdy white teeth as well.

  She supposed he was in his mid-thirties; and, since he had use of this luxurious railroad car, he was most certainly well-heeled, probably successful… .

  Melissa stifled a sob. She didn’t give a damn about Quinn Rafferty or what he’d achieved in life, and she never would.

  It was Sir Ajax Morewell Hampton that she loved, and trying not to think about him was a hopeless task.

  If Melissa had had a pillow, she would have buried her face in it to muffle the outpouring of grief she could no longer stem, but she had none. She covered her face with both hands and let go of her despair, wailing as the force of it carried her, like some unseen river, beyond the far borders of her pride and into a place where there was no such vanity.

  The light of a lantern flared, showing red-gold between Melissa’s fingers; there was a muttered exclamation, and then Mr. Rafferty sat down on the bench and drew her awkwardly into his arms.

  His chest was broad and strong; being held by Raffer
ty was like being held by one of her brothers, and yet strangely different.

  “You do love him,” Rafferty said quietly.

  “No!” Melissa lied with all the strength she had, shuddering in his arms. “I hate him—I swear I hate him!”

  Rafferty made no reply to that. He simply held Melissa, and she was grateful, for she felt in that moment as though she would fly apart if it weren’t for his tight grasp holding her together.

  After a long interval he cursed.

  Melissa’s sobs had subsided to sniffles, and she gazed up at him in the lamplight, alarmed. “What is it?”

  Instead of answering, Rafferty got to his feet—he was wearing a silken robe with a dragon embroidered on the back—and stormed around a partition. He returned moments later, carrying a linen shirt.

  “Put this on,” he ordered, flinging it at Melissa.

  She swallowed hard, staring at him. A heartbeat before he’d been comforting her; now he was demanding the unthinkable.

  Rafferty went to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to a drink. This time he didn’t offer Melissa refreshment, and she hadn’t the nerve to ask for it. She couldn’t make out the diatribe he was muttering, except for the word “stupid,” which was woven throughout.

  Melissa finally found her voice. “I won’t,” she said clearly.

  The caramel eyes scanned her with angry impatience. “Look at you—you’re wet to the skin from the rain. If you die of pneumonia before morning, it’ll be no fault of mine.”

  Melissa was profoundly aware, all of a sudden, of her damp, cold gown. Although discomfort had niggled at her in her sleep, she had been too exhausted, and too drugged with brandy, to be concerned. She glanced toward the partition.

  Quinn spread his hands. “You can have the bed, minx, and I’m not going to be peering around the wall at you while you change. Get on with it, so a man can get some sleep.”

  Melissa scrambled around the barrier, as much out of curiosity as cold, and was struck to encounter a bed of nothing less than decadent proportions. A brief investigation proved that the sheets were silken ones, and the blanket was chinchilla.