“YOUR DAUGHTER NEEDS A HOME, AND MY BED NEEDS A WIFE!” THE LONELY COWBOY TOLD A STARVING MOTHER—BUT HIS LITTLE GIRL REVEALED A TERRIFYING SECRET…
PART 2
The heavy click of Gabriel’s Winchester echoed off the pine rafters like a thunderclap.
“Get the girls upstairs. Now,” Gabriel ordered, his deep voice vibrating with controlled, lethal rage. His piercing blue eyes were fixed on the front window, where the lanterns on the porch cast long, menacing shadows across the yard.
“Mama…” Lily sobbed, clinging to Isabella’s skirts with small, trembling fists. Beside her, Sophie stood completely paralyzed, her rag doll slipping from her fingers onto the polished wood floor.
“Mrs. Higgins, take them to the attic room and bolt the latch,” Isabella whispered, her voice shaking violently as she bent down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “Stay quiet, Lily. Do not make a sound for anyone but me.”
The elderly housekeeper hurried the two terrified children toward the back stairs. As Sophie reached the bottom step, she turned back, her voice barely a breath: “Don’t let him take her, Papa. He hurt Mama… he locked her in the dark.”
The words sliced through the air like a blade.
Isabella stumbled toward the window, her breath fogging the cold glᴀss.
There, illuminated by the porch lanterns, sat six mounted men in heavy wool dusters. And in the center, astride an enormous roan stallion, was the man she had wept over, prayed for, and buried beneath six feet of Montana soil.
Julian Parker.
He looked hale, well-fed, and dressed in tailored leather—not a trace of the sickly, impoverished husband who had supposedly perished of fever in a remote mining camp. And seated directly beside him on a palomino mare was a woman wrapped in a silver-fox mantle.
Her face was pale and hollowed by exhaustion, but the golden hair and high cheekbones were unmistakable.
It was Eleanor Westbrook. Gabriel’s wife.
“Isabella!” Julian’s voice boomed through the shut door, carrying that same smooth, charismatic cadence that had wooed her seven years ago. “Come out, darling! Bring Lily! Don’t let Westbrook poison your head with his lies!”
“You buried an empty pine box, Isabella,” Gabriel said in a low, gravelly tone, stepping up beside her, his rifle barrel leveled at the heavy oak door. “He didn’t die. He took my wife, took fifty thousand dollars in bank bonds from my town vault, and vanished into the Black Hills.”
“No…” Isabella gasped, pressing her hand against her throbbing chest. The silver pendant felt like an iron weight against her skin. “Why would he leave Lily and me to starve? Why would he let us beg in the snow if he had a fortune?”
“Because you were never his wife to begin with,” Julian sneered from the yard, dismounting his horse with easy grace. His boots crunched heavily over the frozen gravel. “Westbrook, open this door before my boys put a torch to your stables! The sheriff is two hours behind us with a warrant for your arrest!”
Gabriel stepped forward and kicked the heavy iron bolt loose.
With one shove, he flung the double doors wide, stepping onto the threshold. The icy wind howled into the warm parlor, fluttering the lace curtains. Gabriel stood tall, his broad shoulders blocking the entryway, the rifle held steady against his hip.
“Take one step onto my porch, Parker, and you’ll find out what two ounces of lead feels like,” Gabriel growled.
Julian stopped at the bottom of the steps, an arrogant smirk curling his lips. Behind him, Eleanor sat on her horse, her eyes wide with terror. When her gaze met Gabriel’s, tears spilled over her cheeks.
“Gabriel…” Eleanor cried out, her voice ragged and frail. “Forgive me… he forced me… he made me sign—”
“Quiet, Eleanor!” Julian snapped, without taking his eyes off Gabriel. Then he looked past the giant rancher, his gaze locking directly onto Isabella. “Come here, Isabella. Bring our daughter. You don’t belong in that house.”
Isabella stepped out onto the porch, clutching the porch rail, her knuckles white. “You abandoned us, Julian! I begged for stale bread to keep your daughter alive! How could you do this to your own flesh and blood?!“
Julian let out a dry, chilling laugh that made the hairs on the back of Isabella’s neck stand up.
“My daughter?” Julian shook his head, his smile turning cruel. “Lily isn’t my daughter, Isabella. And your maiden name isn’t Parker.”
The frozen air seemed to vanish from Isabella’s lungs. “What are you talking about?”
“Seven years ago, when you woke up in that hospital in Denver with no memory of who you were, who sat by your bedside with a wedding ring and a story about a quiet life in the valley?” Julian asked, taking a slow step up the wooden stairs. “I did. I gave you a name. I gave you a past. And when you were pregnant, I made sure you believed that child was mine.”
Isabella’s vision swam. The missing months before her wedding… the memories she could never reach… the terrifying blank slate of her youth that Julian had always told her was caused by a runaway carriage accident.
“Julian… what did you do to me?” she whispered, horror choking her throat.
“You were Eleanor’s identical twin sister, Isabella,” Gabriel said softly from beside her, his voice trembling with an agony he could no longer conceal.
Isabella whipped around to stare at him.
“Eleanor had a sister?” she gasped.
“Eleanor was the heir to the Westbrook land charter,” Gabriel explained, his rifle never wavering from Julian’s chest. “When our father died, the charter stipulated that the land belonged jointly to Eleanor and her estranged twin, Vivienne. But Vivienne disappeared eight years ago. We searched every territory. We thought she was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”
Gabriel looked at Isabella, his blue eyes filled with an unbearable mix of sorrow and recognition.
“You’re Vivienne. You were carrying my child when Julian abducted you from the Denver station seven years ago. He stole your memories, gave you a fake name, and kept you hidden in the south until he could return to claim Eleanor, too.”
“A touching reunion,” Julian mocked, raising his hand. At the signal, his five riders drew their revolvers and cocked the hammers in unison. “Too bad the law doesn’t care about family reunions. Under territorial statute, Eleanor signed over her half of the charter to me three years ago. And Vivienne’s signature is already on this paper.”
Julian reached into his duster and pulled out a bloodstained document bearing an official government seal.
“The entire Silver Creek valley belongs to me,” Julian announced. “And as for the children… the law grants custody to the legal landholder. Hand over both little girls, Westbrook. Or we burn you alive in your own house.”
Gabriel didn’t blink. “You’ll die before your men take three steps, Julian.”
“Will I?” Julian smiled—a grotesque, confident grin. He turned slightly toward the woman on the horse. “Tell him, Eleanor. Tell your husband what’s waiting down at the south gate.”
Eleanor let out a broken, agonizing sob.
“Gabriel… don’t fight him,” she wept, her voice trembling in the freezing gale. “He didn’t come alone. He brought the Pinkertons… and he brought the man who paid for everything.”
From the dark tree line behind the six riders, a black carriage drawn by four pure-white horses rolled slowly into the lantern light.
The carriage door opened.
A tall man in an immaculate military uniform stepped out into the snow, leaning on a polished silver cane. On his lapel was the golden crest of the territorial governor.
He looked up at the porch, his eyes settling first on Gabriel, and then on Isabella.
A cold, familiar smile crossed the Governor’s face as he took off his hat.
“Good evening, Vivienne,” the Governor said smoothly. “I see Julian finally brought my runaway bride home.”
