Ewan woke, his sense of place slowly returning to him as he inhaled the scents of ink, paper, and a warm woman in his arms. He leaned forward, breathing in the subtle scent of Jessamine’s perfume. He inhaled again. Rosewater. He stilled in his movement that would bring him closer to her and retracted the hand he held around her waist. Momentary panic eased as he realized they were both fully dressed with a blanket separating them.

He kissed her blanket-covered shoulder in a whisper-soft goodbye kiss and eased out of the tiny cot. He froze when she moved toward his retreating form, but then she curled into the mattress and sighed with pleasure as he tucked the blankets around her. He pulled on his boots and tiptoed around the disorganized space. He sat on a stool and ran a hand over his face, his fingers scratching at the stubble. “What have I done?” he muttered to himself. He scrubbed at his hair and face. “I should have remained in the chair.”

The bright moonlight glinting in through the window indicated it was no later than two in the morning. However, he knew it would be difficult to sneak out of the newspaper office unseen, and he had promised her that he would remain to protect her from any unwanted visitors. And yet he knew he needed to leave before dawn. “I have such horrible luck.”

He sat for a few moments as he watched her sleep, battling tender and burgeoning feelings for her. He fought an overwhelming desire to crawl into bed beside her again. His fingers tapped on his knee as he suppressed mounting panic.

He rose, looking for a distraction, and moved to her desk. Moonlight streamed in, providing light on part of her desk and allowing him to read without a lamp. He smiled as he saw ideas for tall tales. He set aside a piece of paper and froze as he saw Leticia’s name under ideas for the News and Noteworthy section and the backbone of a story that had been sketched out.

“Nae,” he breathed. “Has she learned nothing?”

He looked over his shoulder at the woman resting peacefully on the bed, her red hair in its braid, and any harmony he felt earlier ebbed away. He clutched the paper in one hand, any thought of sneaking out before dawn forgotten. He sat on a lumpy chair near her miniscule living quarters with the proof of her foolishness in his hands and waited for her to awaken.

* * *

As the sun began to glint through the windows, J.P. stretched and arched her back. She hugged her arms around herself as she remembered a wondrous dream of being cherished and held in a man’s arms.

“Wake up, ye wee demon.”

She bolted upright, her braid of red hair falling down her back as she spun to face the irate voice. “Ewan! What are you doing here?” She glanced out the window and grimaced at the bright sunlight that burst through it.

“Did ye think it a dream? Me sleepin’ with ye?” He laughed as she paled. “Ye invited me into yer bed.”

She ran a hand over her clothes and then frowned at him. “I’m fully dressed.”

“Do ye no’ ken enough to realize it can be done fully clothed?” he taunted. When she paled even further, he shook his head. “Dinna worry, Jessie. I did no more than lie aside ye in that bed, with a blanket separating us.”

“Why are you still here?” she hissed as her gaze sharpened, and recollection of the previous night’s threats against her lit her expression. “I thought you’d leave before sunrise. Now the whole town will see you depart!” She shifted her legs to dangle over the side of the cot but stopped from rising when he thrust a piece of paper at her. She squinted once before focusing on the paper. “You had no right to rifle through my things while I slept!”

“I did no’ rifle! It was right there for all to see on top of yer desk. I was killing time as I tried to think of a way to escape here unseen. When I saw what ye were considering printing, I realized I could no’ leave. No’ when ye are hell-bent on ruinin’ her life.”

J.P. shook her head and stared at him with wonder. “What is it about you MacKinnons that makes you believe—whatever you do, whatever you have done—you are to be protected from the harsh realities of this world? That those around you do not have the right to know the truth about you?”

“An’ ye think ye are peddlin’ the truth with that vile rubbish?” he snapped as he pointed to the printing press. “If ye print that story, ye’ll be perpetratin’ lies and half-truths in an attempt to rip open wounds that have barely healed, all to sell a few copies of yer paper.”

“What’s wrong with titillating the masses?” She rose and moved past him. However, he clamped a hand onto her wrist and spun her to face him.

“Aye, I’ve complained to all who’d care to listen about how ye’ve treated me. About how ye write about me. But I’m a man. I can do what I like in this world and no’ be affected by its vicious double standards. Ye can no’ do this to Leticia!”

Jessamine took the piece of paper and pushed it into his chest. “Doesn’t it bother you that she tricked a mourning wealthy man into caring for her so she’d have a place to raise her bastard daughter? Doesn’t it matter to you that the one thing she does well is lie and cheat?”

“Do no’ ever again call Hortence that. Do ye want the whole MacKinnon clan against ye? Just try attacking my niece again in yer paper or afore any of us. Ye’ve caused the poor child enough torment with yer words, causing the schoolchildren to think she must be evil because she has red hair, like ye.” Ewan shook his head while Jessamine remained uncharacteristically silent. “All ye care to see about people in this world is the evil. The wrongdoin’s. The meanness. Ye have no ability to see the beauty, the joy, the hope.” His eyes shone with disillusionment as he backed away from her. “Ye refuse to acknowledge the sacrifices and the courage that most in this town exhibit daily to survive. To meet their neighbor’s call with a smile.”

“I’ve seen enough to know what it is to make my way in this world. To fight for what I have, even if it’s against my family’s wishes.”

He glared at her scornfully. “I had hoped ye were more than a scared little girl, playin’ at bein’ a woman, who thrived on the attention her paper brought her because she’d been denied the attention of her family for so long. Seems I was wrong.”

The sound of her hand slapping his cheek echoed through the room. “Don’t you dare judge me.”

“Aye, I will. An’ I’ll find ye wantin’ every time. For ye have no decency. Ye think exposin’ the secrets we want hidden means ye are doin’ a service for the town. Instead ye’re slowly rippin’ us apart.” He huffed and turned on his heel.

She grabbed his arm, preventing him from leaving. “What do you mean?” she asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“No one talks to each other the way we used to. There’s no real conversation at the café, the livery, the sawmill. Everyone watches each other with a wary regard, assumin’ what they say will end up in yer paper.” He shook his head. “Ye’ve managed to turn this town against itself in a few short months.”

She snorted. “That’s not my fault. If people didn’t have something to hide, they wouldn’t be wary.”

He bent forward, his face reddening with his ire. “Everyone has something to hide. Includin’ ye. Ye’d best hope no one discovers yer secrets because ye’ve made plenty of enemies, an’ many will take joy in seein’ ye suffer as ye’ve made others suffer from yer sharp tongue and ill-advised articles.” He shook his head with disgust.

She backed away. “I don’t believe you. I am a respected member of this town.”

“Fear doesna mean ye are respected. Think about that, Jessie.”

They watched each other for a long moment, their breaths emerging in pants. His irate gaze subtly altered, and she shivered at what she saw in his eyes. He raised a hand to brush aside a loose tendril of fiery red hair, while she clutched at the front of his shirt. He leaned forward, groaning as their lips met in a featherlight kiss. He fought his better instincts to tug her closer and deepened the kiss, his hand tightening in her hair as she leaned into him.

“God, I’ve wanted to kiss ye for so long,” he rasped as he peppered kisses over her neck as she arched to give him better access.

“I thought you didn’t like me.” Then she gasped as one of Ewan’s hands roved over her backside and the other cupped a breast.

“I wouldna be disappointed, Jessie, if I dinna like ye …” He leaned forward, kissing her deeply again, the words “too much” lost in their embrace.

Someone banged on the glass. They sprung apart and spun to the door. He watched as she hastily tied her hair and took deep breaths. She tugged at a shawl over her shoulders and pulled it high on her neck to hide the scratches his beard had left. He raised an eyebrow at seeing her pale at the implication of someone finding him inside her locked newspaper office.

“Hide!” she snapped. She shoved him toward a cabinet and moved toward the front door, her shoulders back and head held high.

She stood in front of the door, preventing Walter Jameson from entering her office and home. “I am having a slow morning today, Mr. Jameson. If you will allow me time to begin the day before returning to discuss whatever concerns you?”

“I will not!” he bellowed. He held up a recent edition of the paper. “How dare you write these words about my sister! I thought you understood from our previous discussion that such articles were to cease!”

She pushed back against him when he attempted to enter her office. “I have asked you not to enter, and I am serious in my request.” She met his glare. “You are not welcome inside.”

He leaned forward, his fetid breath washing over her. “Do you have any idea what you have done? You are ruining her chances with another MacKinnon! There are no more after Ewan. What will she do?”

J.P. stood as tall as she could but remained at least half a foot shorter than Walter. “I’m certain your family will concoct some scheme that will continue to humiliate your sister. You never fail in that regard.”

She gasped as his hand lashed out and grabbed a fistful of her hair. “You will cease writing about my family, or you will answer to me. Take my word for it that you will not enjoy it.”

He released her, pushing her with such force that she slammed backward into a cabinet. She righted herself, closing the door and locking it after his departure.

She moved to the back of her office and to the living area, clutching her side. “Go out the back door,” she wheezed.

“I did no’ ken ye had a back door.” Ewan frowned as he watched her. “He hurt ye.”

“I think that man is good for little else.” She kept one hand at her side. “I refuse to argue with you further today, Ewan. Please leave. Please be discreet.”

He watched her with interest. “Why should I be discreet when ye refuse to be about my family?”

She raised a hand and rubbed at her forehead. “Leave.”

“Aye, I will. But here’s my bargain. I’ll no’ say a word about last night if ye refrain from publishin’ about Leticia and Hortence. If ye do print that article, then all will ken about our night of passion.”

She belted him in the shoulder with her free hand. “You know we shared no passion!”

He laughed with no real humor. “Ah, ye ken how to hurt a man. I had hoped ye felt somethin’ when I held ye in my arms for our kiss.” He watched as she lost her battle with a bright flush. He shrugged as though forcing himself to forget their embrace. “But then the truth is in the eye of the beholder. And, as ye’ve shown over and over again, the town likes a good story more than it likes the truth.” He winked and snuck out the back door.

* * *

Ewan sat at the dining room table with his family around him. Hortence was in the livery with Bears, helping with the horses. Bears adored Hortence and spoke more with her than with anyone else in the family and had not minded the request to watch her as the family held an emergency meeting.

Alistair sat in a chair next to his wife, Leticia. “Ye ken this is a busy time right now, Ewan. After the Harvest Festival, many need care for their horses, and it isna fair to leave it to Bears for long.”

Ewan nodded as he looked from Alistair to Cailean and then to Sorcha. Annabelle sat beside Cailean, her hand on her ever-growing belly. “Aye, I ken this is a busy time for us all. But ’tis a true emergency.” He extracted the slip of paper he had pinched from J.P and handed it first to Alistair and Leticia. “Read that.”

Alistair read it and growled with anger. “This is no’ a regular article. The sentences are short and biting.”

Ewan shook his head. “Aye. It’s more of an exposé, and it’s no’ a finished article. As far as she would tell me, she has not set a publication date.” He paused as he clamped his jaw shut in anger a moment. “Seems she’s keen to show the town her journalistic skills while exposin’ Leticia to ridicule.”

“What does it say?” Annabelle asked Alistair. She placed one hand over Cailean’s and another over Sorcha’s.

“It details how Leticia survived, with sordid half-truths and exaggerations, in Saint Louis before she traveled to Montana. After she escaped her husband and was pregnant with Hortence.” Alistair tossed the piece of paper to Cailean. “She has no right!” As Leticia began to cry, he pulled her against his side and crooned into her ear.

Cailean read the roughed-out article and tapped at the table. “How did you come to be in possession of a story proof? I thought they were highly guarded.”

Ewan flushed. “Jessie was in an unfortunate scrape last night, and I helped her out of it.”

“Jessie?” Sorcha asked with a raised eyebrow. “Ye hate the woman. Why give her a nickname?”

Annabelle watched as Ewan squirmed. “You spent the night with her.”

Ewan groaned and lowered his face to his arms crossed on the table. “Aye, I did, but no’ in the way ye all imagine. There was no grand night of passion. We passed out on her cot, fully clothed.” He silenced his brothers’ snickers with a severe glare. “When I woke, she slept. I wandered the print shop, lookin’ for somethin’ to read ’cause I kent I wouldna sleep much more. The town was full of those seekin’ to make mischief with their harvest money, and too many were interested in the pretty journalist, ye ken?” He nodded to the piece of paper. “Then I found that an’ wouldna leave as she expected at dawn until I spoke with her.”

“She prints this soon?” Alistair asked.

“Aye, ’tis her plan.” Ewan held up his hand when all three of his siblings took a deep breath to speak. “I threatened her with my own exposé about our night of passion if she did publish it, an’ I’m hopin’ she has enough sense to hold off.”

“Why should she?” Sorcha asked. “The townsfolk afford her respect solely because they are afraid of her and what she might write about them. Not because they like her.”

“Except for the old men who want to tell her tales and aren’t afraid of what she’ll write,” Annabelle said.

“The townsfolk already believe the worst about her because she traipses after men into whorehouses and saloons. They’ll not find it odd that you were her lover,” Cailean said. He flushed as he looked at his sister.

Annabelle shook her head in disagreement. “I think you’re wrong. She goes where she shouldn’t, but she’s never been seen breaking the bounds of propriety. Not completely. I think, if she were found to have acted on passion, her life would be very difficult here.”

Alistair’s jaw ticked. “How do ye ken she willna write about it in another paper? A later edition?” His brown eyes smoldered with pent-up rage. “I willna have anyone disrespecting Leticia again, nor wee Hortence.”

Cailean met his brother’s irate gaze. “That much is out of your control, Alistair. All we can hope is that the town’s regard for Leticia and your daughter will continue to grow. Enough of the women here know what it’s like to be pregnant and desperate. They have husbands who’d rather carouse and spend all the family’s money than buy food or pay the rent. Look at what happened last night with the men in the saloons until dawn.”

Cailean frowned when Leticia kept her face buried in Alistair’s shoulder as though in shame. He gripped his sister-in-law’s hand. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about, Lettie. We do not judge you for it.”

“I was not his mistress!” she sobbed. “I … swear,” she murmured.

“Aye, but it willna matter what we ken to be true. It will only matter what the townsfolk want to be true. At least for a time.” Ewan scrubbed at his head. “I canna believe she’d write such foul things about ye, Lettie. Not after she swore she’d change after Bears’ story.”

“No one here likes her. She’s abused ye every chance she’s had. And yet ye sound disappointed in her.” Sorcha studied her brother with abject confusion. “Why do ye care?”

Ewan shook his head, his gaze momentarily filled with panic. “I dinna care about her! I care about the family.” He met his sister’s mocking gaze and rose. “I’m away to see Warren. I ken it’s Sunday, but I hope he’ll see me.”

Cailean nodded as he pulled his wife close in his arms. “Aye, he’ll see you. Although there won’t be much he can do.” He handed Ewan the piece of paper sitting in the middle of the table. “Careful you don’t lose that.” He nodded at Ewan as he left the room.

Ewan walked through town, nodding to friends and acquaintances. He stopped to laugh and joke with a few about last night’s incident, easily deflecting inappropriate inquiries about how the pretty young reporter was after she had escaped from the Boudoir. He laughed as they related the rumor that he’d escorted her upstairs to a crib last night. He tipped his hat to his friends. “You ken me, a gentleman through and through! Never laid a finger on her or any Beauty. Slept in a cold bed last night.” He slapped another on the back and made his way to Warren’s house.

The lawyer’s residence was on a street behind Main Street, nearly behind his legal practice. In the beginning, he had lived in the small back room he now used as a private room in his main office. However, after Ewan had arrived in Bear Grass Springs, Warren had commissioned Ewan to build him a home.

Warren answered the door in a white shirt rolled up to his elbows and a glower. “Ewan,” he said on a long sigh. He motioned for him to enter and had him follow him through the sitting room to his home office down a long hallway. Light entered through three windows, and his desk was an orderly disaster.

“How do ye ken where anything is?” Ewan asked as he sat across from him.

“It’s only like this when I’m elbow deep in a case.” He stretched before he sat. “Is it too early for a drink?” He shook his head at not knowing the time before he shrugged. “The decanter’s in the sitting room if you want something.”

“Nae, I need to keep my wits about me.” He paused a moment, appreciating Warren’s calm patience as he waited for him to speak. “What can ye do to prevent someone from printing something?”

“As I’ve told Cailean more times than I care to count, very little. If it’s an outright lie, we can sue after the newspaper comes out. I can threaten her with a lawsuit beforehand, but she knows she has the right to print what she likes, especially if there is truth to what she writes.”

Ewan sighed and dropped his head into a hand. “She mixes lie with truth to the point ye dinna ken where ye’re goin’.”

Warren nodded. “That’s the way of it with most big-city reporters. This town was so excited to have a newspaper and reporter, but I remember too well what it was like in Philadelphia.” He watched as Ewan stared into space. “The town is greatly entertained by what she writes about you, Ewan. And by the fact you now have to deflect the interest of so many women.”

Ewan raised irate brown eyes to meet Warren’s concerned blue eyes. “Aye, if it were about me, I wouldna care. And I would never consider destroyin’ a woman’s reputation. But it isna about me. She’s going to attack Leticia. Attempt to tear her happiness from her. And I canna allow that.”

Warren frowned. “Is there truth to what she writes?”

“Aye, enough mixed in with the lies to make it hard to sue her. She kens what she does well.” He clamped his jaw shut and flushed with anger.

The lawyer studied him as a friend rather than a client. “Seems to me that you are more concerned than you should be by the fact she has disappointed you.” He watched as Ewan flushed even more. “I’ve heard the rumors from the saloons and the Boudoir. That each time she appears to investigate, you are her shadow. Always there to ensure no one oversteps the mark.” He paused. “I never thought to see you in such a state over J.P.”

Ewan groaned and dropped his head in his hands again. “Damn interferin’ lawyer.”

Warren chuckled. “You’re the one who came for my advice.” He paused. “If you are interested in her, and, by all accounts you are, why don’t you speak with her?”

Ewan rolled his eyes. “An’ give her something else to print in her bluidy N&N section?” His next words mimicked her soft voice. “How entertaining to discover our most eligible gentleman has a heart. How disappointing for him to discover the woman he desires will never share the sentiment.”

Warren sobered as he saw his friend’s torment. “You’ll never know until you speak with her. Doubts can be worse than any certainty.”

Ewan stilled and met Warren’s tormented gaze as he understood Warren was not referring to Jessamine. “Why do ye no’ court Helen?”

Warren snorted out a laugh, half-incredulous, half-despairing. “You always were the brother to not hold back.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There are things you’ll never understand. A past that is complicated.”

“The more time ye let come between ye, the more her resentment builds.”

Warren nodded, but then his eyes flashed with anger. “Yes, but do you know what it’s been like, watching her throw herself at you and your brothers? For years now I’ve had to witness her make a fool of herself.”

Ewan sat up straight as though affronted. “We are no’ that bad an option.” He smiled when he saw Warren flush with embarrassment. “We do no’ want wee Helen, but I think her mother and brother are the ones behind her torment.” He frowned. “Her brother came by the print shop this morning and threatened Jessie.”

“Jessie?” Warren raised an eyebrow. “And how were you there before it opened? I already had a visit from Helen’s miserable brother about not being granted access to J.P.’s print shop this morning and his anger at her excuse it was closed. How would you know about their argument?”

Ewan shifted in his seat. “It doesna matter. What matters is that Helen is but a pawn. One day she’ll determine she’s had enough and want to break free. Ye need to be ready to help her, or ye could lose her for good.”

Warren frowned at Ewan’s words before nodding. He tapped at papers on his desk. “As for your problem, I’d speak with J.P. See if you can convince her to see sense.”