My Cousin Tried To Steal My Inheritance — So I Married A Montana Stranger

Part 1

The world was nothing but a raging wall of white.

I couldn’t see the sky, the ground, or even my own hands in front of my face.

Snow beat against my skin like thousands of sharp needles.

The wind howled in my ears and wrapped around my body like a living creature trying to drag me under the drifts.

My city coat was far too thin for a brutal Montana winter.

My gloves were soaked completely through to the skin.

Every single breath came in short, painful gasps that burned my lungs like inhaled glass.

I fought the storm with every exhausting step, my legs stiff and shaking uncontrollably.

My horse stumbled again, his tired cry completely swallowed by the roaring blizzard.

We were supposed to reach a small settlement called Redemption long before dark.

The paper map I carried was probably frozen into useless pieces in my coat pocket by now.

Nothing was going as I had carefully planned back east.

Instead of finding safety, I found myself entirely alone in the wilderness with a storm that felt personal in its vicious cruelty.

I had left Boston with a tiny inheritance and a crumpled letter from my great uncle, a man I had never actually met.

He had offered me a fragile glimmer of hope when I had none left.

My parents were gone, suddenly taken by a terrible sickness the previous year.

My cousin Todd had systematically tried to take absolutely everything else.

He wanted total control of my trust fund, my family home, and ultimately my entire future.

His late-night visits and quiet threats had driven me out of my own house.

So I ran west to escape his grasping hands, praying the quiet life I’d been promised out here would be real.

Now I wasn’t sure I would even live to see the morning sun.

Patches fell hard this time, the awful sound tearing through my frozen chest.

I flew forward over his neck and landed heavily into a deep, icy drift of snow.

My body sank instantly into the freezing powder, the impact knocking the wind out of me.

Sharp pain shot through my limbs, but the intense cold quickly numbed the edges of it.

I crawled blindly toward my poor horse, my breath hitching painfully in my throat.

His front leg was twisted at an unnatural angle that made my stomach drop into my boots.

He wasn’t getting back up.

The horrifying truth sank into my bones like solid ice.

I was completely alone in a blinding storm that routinely killed strong, capable men.

I forced myself upright, my legs shaking violently as I turned away from my fallen companion.

I whispered a broken apology to him directly into the screaming wind.

Then I pushed forward into the white nothing, driven only by a desperate, animal will to stay alive.

The cold constantly tried to pull me down, making my eyelids incredibly heavy.

My thoughts turned dangerously slow and thick.

I started imagining the warm fires of my childhood and my father’s booming laughter filling the parlor.

My steps wavered as I stumbled over an unseen rock hidden beneath the snow.

I fell once, scraping my knees, then twice.

The snow welcomed me like a soft, silent bed offering an end to the struggle.

Just when I felt myself drifting into a dangerous, permanent sleep, a sound cut through the howling storm.

Heavy hoofbeats pounded rhythmically against the frozen earth.

A massive dark shadow slowly formed ahead of me in the blinding whiteout.

A towering figure riding a massive black horse broke through the wall of snow.

For a moment, I wondered if my dying, frozen mind was simply imagining him.

He rode closer, stopping right beside my fallen form.

A wide-brimmed leather hat heavily shadowed his face, but I saw the hard, uncompromising shape of his jaw.

Snow clung heavily to his thick canvas coat and broad shoulders.

His voice rumbled deep and rough, cutting right through the shrieking wind.

You picked a bad day to die out here.

I stared up at him, completely unable to form any words.

The freezing air had completely locked my jaw shut.

He swung down from his saddle with surprisingly smooth, powerful movements.

Up close, the stranger looked carved from solid, unyielding stone.

He possessed broad shoulders, a thick dark beard, and pale gray eyes that missed absolutely nothing.

He looked directly behind me, scanning the empty white expanse of the trail.

Where is your horse?

I lifted a trembling, frozen hand, pointing vaguely back the way I had come.

Fell.

My voice was nothing more than a pathetic, airy rasp.

Leg.

He didn’t waste precious time asking useless questions.

He pulled a heavy, dry wool blanket from his saddlebags and wrapped it tightly around my shoulders.

The sudden, shocking heat made me gasp out loud.

His gloved hands were incredibly strong, his movements firm but strangely gentle.

He mounted his horse first, settling into the saddle.

He reached down and hauled me up in front of him as easily as if I were a child.

I felt completely weightless as he pulled me up.

His muscular arm came around my waist, steady and unyielding as iron bars.

My name is Craig Miller.

He turned the massive horse directly into the biting wind.

My ranch is the closest safe place for miles around.

You are extremely lucky I was out checking the perimeter fences today.

I leaned back heavily against his chest, far too exhausted to stay upright on my own.

The radiant warmth of his solid body was shocking after hours of freezing cold.

I am Megan.

I swallowed hard against my dry throat.

Megan Davis.

I felt his muscles instantly tense behind me.

His grip on my waist tightened just a fraction of an inch.

After a long, stretching silence, his voice rumbled deeply against my back.

Any relation to Jonathan Davis?

He is my great uncle.

Craig didn’t speak another word for the rest of the agonizing ride.

The air between us suddenly felt much heavier than the falling snow.

Even through the raging storm, I sensed I had just said something that mattered a great deal to him.

We eventually reached his ranch, a massive wooden house standing strong and defiant against the brutal weather.

Before I could even attempt to climb down, Craig lifted me easily out of the saddle.

He carried me inside the warm house effortlessly.

Heat hit my frozen face like a physical wave, stinging my numb skin.

A roaring fire lit the massive front room, casting dancing shadows on the log walls.

An older man with a bushy white mustache jumped up from his reading chair, his eyes wide with shock.

Craig carried me straight to a large leather armchair near the stone hearth.

Found her near the western ridge.

He set me down carefully onto the soft cushions.

Half frozen to death.

The older man, Gary, immediately hurried toward the kitchen muttering about fetching hot coffee.

Craig knelt on the braided rug and began pulling off my soaked, ruined boots.

His hands worked quickly, rubbing painful circulation back into my blue, freezing feet.

The absolute shock of the sudden intimacy startled me into stillness.

No one had ever touched me with such quiet, intense urgency.

You were headed to Jonathan Davis’s place?

His pale eyes met mine, pinning me to the chair.

Yes.

My voice trembled violently.

Craig paused his vigorous rubbing.

He looked at me with an expression that held absolutely no softness or pity.

No one told you.

He kept his gaze locked completely on mine.

He passed away six months ago.

The terrible words struck my chest like a physical blow.

My one hope, my only destination, was entirely gone forever.

Hot tears filled my eyes and tracked slowly down my thawing cheeks.

Craig stood up slowly, towering over the armchair.

Storm is bad out there.

He turned his broad back toward the fire.

You will stay here tonight.

Humiliation and sheer, absolute terror threatened to completely overwhelm my senses.

I have nowhere else to go.

I clutched the wool blanket tighter around my shivering shoulders.

I can work hard.

My voice broke embarrassingly on the last word.

I can earn my keep around here.

Craig stared down at me for a very long moment, his face a completely unreadable mask.

Fine.

He gestured sharply toward the long hallway.

Gary will show you to the guest room.

Later that evening, I dressed in dry, slightly oversized clothes borrowed from the ranch’s storage.

I stood trembling in the doorway of the great room, unable to hide the bone-deep fear consuming me.

My entire life, I have never even shared a bed.

I stared hard at the worn wooden floorboards.

I meant I had never been this vulnerable, never depended so entirely on the mercy of a stranger.

Craig slowly turned away from the blazing fire.

The heavy iron poker dropped from his grip, clattering loudly against the stone hearth.

He walked slowly toward me with an intense expression I couldn’t begin to read.

Then, he spoke words that completely shattered the reality of my world.

Then, share mine forever as my wife.