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  PRAISE FOR THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF JO GOODMAN

  “Fans of Western romance will be thrilled.”

  —Booklist

  “Exceptional across the board, a sheer delight.”

  —Reader to Reader

  “Jo Goodman is a master storyteller and one of the reasons I love historical romance so much.”

  —The Romance Dish

  “A romance to savor.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Jo Goodman is a master at historical romance.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A wonderfully intense romance . . . A captivating read.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “Jo Goodman is one of my favorite authors . . . She has spun a gripping tale that absorbed me to the very end.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Goodman’s longtime fans will recognize the author’s signature style and new fans will enjoy this good, old-fashioned Western.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “An exciting American romance starring two likable protagonists and an overall wonderful cast.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Goodman has a real flair . . . Witty dialogue, first-rate narrative prose, and clever plotting.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Exquisitely written. Rich in detail, the characters are passionately drawn . . . An excellent read.”

  —The Oakland Press

  “For the pure joy of reading a romance, this book comes close to being some kind of perfection.”

  —Dear Author

  Berkley Sensation titles by Jo Goodman

  KISSING COMFORT

  THE LAST RENEGADE

  TRUE TO THE LAW

  IN WANT OF A WIFE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  IN WANT OF A WIFE

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Joanne Dobrzanski.

  Excerpt from The Last Renegade by Jo Goodman copyright

  © 2012 by Joanne Dobrzanski.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-0-425-26417-1

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-60641-4

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / May 2014

  Cover art by Claudio Marinesco.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

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

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  Contents

  Praise for Novels of Jo Goodman

  Titles by Jo Goodman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Last Renegade

  This one is for the ladies at the lake: Joann, Karen, Barb, Debbie, Sharon, and Jeannie. I wrote this book in spite of the distractions (temptations) of good company, good food, and the occasional dead squirrel.

  Prologue

  September 1891

  New York City

  “My son says you are with child. His child. My grandchild.”

  Jane Middlebourne remained stoic in the face of Frances Ewing’s censure. She said nothing. Every word bit at her flesh like a whiplash, and she did not flinch. Oddly, it was not as difficult as she had imagined it would be. Until this moment she had not understood how tolerant, even immune, she had become to the sharp, disapproving nature of her cousin’s discourse. From Cousin Franny’s lips, a passing pleasantry more closely resembled an accusation. When Frances Ewing said good morning, it was a clear indictment against the sun for rising on another day.

  “I cannot say that I am surprised,” Frances Ewing said. “Disappointed, certainly. But not surprised. You are your mother’s daughter, after all, and blood will out. Cousin Eleanor was a source of tribulation to her family, and by extension, mine. And so it goes to the next generation. You are a failed experiment, Jane. You must see that it is so. I offered you every advantage when I took you in. All that was required was for you to demonstrate respect and a modicum of gratitude. I have evidence of neither.”

  Jane kept her hands at her sides. It required some effort. If she curled her fingers into fists, she would look like a combatant, and Cousin Franny would double her attempts to humiliate. If she folded her hands in front of her, she would present herself as a penitent, and Cousin Franny would seize the opportunity to drive her point home. It was better to do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

  Jane’s gaze remained level, unblinking. She stared back at Frances Ewing with eyes that often had been likened to her mother’s for their direct, sometimes defiant aspect, and hardly ever for their unusually deep emerald coloring. Jane took measured breaths, steeling herself without giving away the tension that kept her shoulders taut and her chest tight. Her hair, the exact shade of bittersweet chocolate, was scraped back from her forehead and secured in a coil at her nape. This style, approved by her mother’s cousin as being modest and proper for a young woman with no particular standing in society, frequently provoked a headache. The dull throbbing behind Jane’s left eye made her want to tear at the anchoring pins and combs and shake out the dark mane of hair that she was told required taming.

  Jane did not flush in response to this last rebuke. In spite of her fair—and some would say wan—complexion, she rarely blushed. It wasn’t that she did not feel the heat of shame or embarrassment; it was that she felt it in the pit of her stomach. Her belly was roiling now. Acid burned at the back of her throat. Pride, not defiance, kept her from being sick.

  Frances Ewing leaned forward in the plump, velvet-covered armchair and lifted the teapot from the silver tray that had been placed on the table before her. She added cream and a carefully measured half teaspoon of sugar. She slowly stirred her tea, deliberation in the movement. Her eyes never left Jane’s face.

  Jane’s summons to the parlor included carrying in the tea service. Although there were two china cups on the tray, Jane had no expectation that she would be invited to join her cousin,
or even invited to sit down. The cup was either meant for someone else who would be joining them, or it was another in a succession of pointed reminders of how she occupied no place as family or guest.

  Jane Middlebourne was a sufferance.

  “What do you propose to do?” asked Frances. She set down the teaspoon and raised the dainty hand-painted cup to her mouth. She did not sip. She pursed her lips in a manner that communicated her dissatisfaction with the temperature of the tea and blew. “The enormity of the disgrace your condition will visit upon this house is not to be borne. Consider that before you answer.”

  Jane did not respond. There was no correct answer here, no solution that she could provide that would be accepted. By offering any opinion on resolving this matter, Jane would actually be eliminating alternatives. Cousin Franny would dismiss her suggestions out of hand in spite of the fact that she had invited them. Whatever was to come of this—and there was a hoped-for answer—it had to be Frances Ewing’s idea.

  Over the rim of her teacup, Frances curled her lip. “You have nothing to say for yourself? Nothing at all?” She shook her head, sipped her tea, and lowered the cup until it hovered just above the shelf of her ample bosom. “I suppose I can credit you with enough good sense not to suggest that my son marry you. The idea is entirely without merit. I would never countenance it.”

  Jane remained quiet. She had expected this objection. It was actually welcome. She would not countenance that arrangement either.

  “There are homes for young women such as yourself. I know because one of my charities is a house for girls in your indelicate condition. I have always considered it the duty of privilege to help those less fortunate. You see my dilemma, don’t you? You must. I cannot count you as one of those with no advantages. You cannot count yourself among the less fortunate. Except for the early years you spent in the company of your mother and that fool of a dream-addled do-gooder who claimed you for his own, you have had an exemplary upbringing, a proper education, and the benefits of a society that would never embrace you if I had not embraced you first.”

  Jane narrowly avoided a visible reaction to her cousin’s choice of words. Embraced? Jane could not recall a single instance in which she had ever been embraced, literally or figuratively. In those early days, months, perhaps for the duration of that long first year after her parents had died, Jane had wished she might be sheltered against the same plump breasts that pillowed Franny’s daughter and each of her sons. She was never asked to come forward, never invited to be comforted. In time, Jane came to understand that she shouldn’t expect it. There was good form for the public forum; in the privacy of the Ewing parlor there was . . . nothing.

  Jane Middlebourne was a charity.

  For the first time since Jane entered the room, Frances Ewing turned her gimlet eye on the plate of petit fours, iced cookies, and pastries and studied them at length before making her selection. She chose a rolled almond wafer and lightly tapped it against the rim of the plate until most of the loose dusting of powdered sugar fell away.

  “I am not pleased with my younger son either,” Frances said. “I am aware that your envious nature makes you sensitive to the relationship I enjoy with my children. You think I indulge them, hold them harmless. You wish that I would show you this same consideration, but I cannot since you quite mistake the matter, and what you imagine is special consideration does not exist except in your mind. I am familiar with Alex’s predilections. I cannot explain or excuse these tendencies except to say it is in the nature of some men to behave incautiously.”

  Frances delicately bit off the end of the almond wafer and then sipped from her cup. “You know it, too. That is what I cannot forgive. You very nearly grew up in his pockets. You know him better than his brother and sister. It is with some pain that I admit that you may know Alexander better than I. Yet you behaved as naïvely as a dewy-eyed debutante. Do you tell yourself that he seduced you, made you lose all sense of what was right and proper?”

  Jane knew Cousin Franny was posing what was essentially a rhetorical question. A reply would have been unwelcome.

  “Alex wants to marry you. It is always what he wants to do when he learns that one of his dalliances has consequences. He tells himself that he is righting a wrong, but he knows he is safe to suggest it because I will always save him from himself. I will not permit it. Thus, we go on and inevitably arrive at this end.”

  Frances finished her rolled wafer and sipped more tea. After returning her cup to the tray, she folded her hands together and set that single fist on her lap. “I have no bastard grandchildren, Jane. You understand what I am saying, do you not?”

  Jane’s long stillness was what made her slight nod perceptible. She understood Cousin Franny clearly. There would be no marriage. There would be no home for fallen women. There would be no child. She would not give birth.

  But there would be money.

  “I will leave it to David to make the arrangements,” Frances said.

  It was then that Jane Middlebourne’s heart fell into the acid bath that was her stomach.

  • • •

  Alexander Ewing surveyed Jane’s sitting room before his gaze settled on the chair at her writing desk. He spun it away from the desk so that it faced the window bench and eased himself into it. He looked up when Jane paused in the doorway that led from the bedroom.

  “Were you sick?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I thought I might be.”

  He waved her in. “Come. Over here.” Knowing it was her favorite place to sit in reflection, Alex pointed to the window bench. “I should have brought you something warm to drink. I regret the lapse. I don’t suppose Mother offered you anything.”

  Jane said, “She did not. It’s just as well. I could not swallow my own spit.”

  Alex chuckled. “I doubt that. I am sure you did very well.” He waited for Jane to sit. She curled into the corner of the padded bench as he knew she would and drew her legs up and to the side, arranging and smoothing the skirt of her blue-and-white pinstriped gown until only the tips of her kid boots showed. “She suggested an abortion.”

  It was not a question. Alexander was ever confident. Jane told him, “That word never passed your mother’s lips, but yes, that is her solution.”

  “As I said it would be. She would never countenance a marriage between us.”

  “Her phraseology precisely.”

  “I know my mother.”

  “Perhaps not as well as you think. She said that David would make the arrangements.”

  Alex regarded Jane for a long moment. “That explains why you are as pale as death.” He shrugged carelessly. “You worry too much, Jane. Not everything is your cross to bear. I will take care of David. My brother will want to have nothing at all to do with this. He’ll be happy to pass off the duties. He will lecture me, of course. He takes pleasure in that. From his perspective it will be a fair punishment for me to handle this disagreeable situation on my own.”

  “Do you think he knows about the other times?”

  “Perhaps. It doesn’t matter. On his own he would arrive at the same solution as Mother. He is equally ruthless. A marriage between us would never be a consideration.” He winked at her. “We’re cousins.”

  “Cousins twice removed is the proper term, I think. We are hardly related.”

  “And you should rejoice in that.” Alex observed that Jane’s lips did not so much as twitch. “Jane. Cease your worry. I promise you it will all turn out exactly as I planned. David is a mere fly in the ointment. Mother will give him the money for the abortionist. He will give it to me. I will settle my debt with Eddie Hardaway and you will have enough to leave the city.”

  “I do not need the money to leave New York,” said Jane. “Mr. Longstreet is paying for my ticket. It is included in our arrangement.”

  Alex quickly held up his hands, palms out. It was a gesture of apology, though not terribly sincere. “Yes, yes. Your arrangement. I understand. You need the mone
y in the event Mr. Longstreet has a face more fit for the back end of a mule and the character to complement it. I know you, Jane. That little nest egg is your ticket out of Butter Springs.”

  “Bitter Springs,” Jane said. “It’s Bitter Springs.”

  Alexander Ewing leaned forward in his chair, his expression earnest. “Have a care that it isn’t Bitter Pill, Jane. You don’t have to go.”

  Jane held his gaze. The narrow smile that touched her lips was defined by sadness but not regret. “Yes,” she said, “I do.”

  Chapter One

  October 1891

  Bitter Springs, Wyoming

  “Hey, Mr. Longstreet.”

  Hearing his name, Morgan Longstreet broke stride. He avoided trampling eleven-year-old Finn Collins because the boy was as slippery as quicksilver and scuttled sideways at the last possible moment. Morgan looked down and gave him a brief nod. His acknowledgment was not meant to invite conversation, but Finn did not appear to understand that. The boy pivoted and loped beside Morgan, matching his pace across the platform to the station.

  “Don’t see you much at the station,” said Finn. He glanced over his shoulder at the buckboard waiting at the end of the platform. “And you brought your wagon. I’m figurin’ you’re takin’ delivery of somethin’ pretty big. Am I right?”

  Morgan ignored the overture and realized after the fact that it was the wrong tack to take. Finn repeated himself, this time loudly enough to be heard by the couple standing ten yards down the platform. Their heads swiveled in his direction. It took Morgan a moment to place the pair. He was not used to seeing George and Abigail Johnson away from the mercantile they owned. He touched the brim of his hat and nodded once. Petite Abigail Johnson smiled fulsomely while George raised his hand in greeting. Morgan was satisfied, even grateful, that the exchange ended there.