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Wild Card
Susan Amarillas
Justice Was A Hard Mistress And one who demanded all of Jake McConnell's devotion. Until the day Clair Travers insisted that the straight-arrow lawman remove himself from her saloon. The day he knew his life would never be the same… Clair Travers Was Living a Lie She had gambled on a new life.But she hadn't counted on falling for a man like Jake McConnell, a man whose dedication to the truth could uncover the murderous secret that haunted her past.
“Who do you think you are?” Clair raged, (#u04421d2b-00a1-53c2-aa5e-bafd5217e6b1)Letter to Reader (#u3801744c-76d2-5d66-bac2-1f8a3e79951f)Title Page (#ud6e9864e-157c-58fc-b042-b04c020e266f)About the Author (#u615c4504-3caf-5e2d-a10e-806f0b61424c)Dedication (#ucfadfca8-c738-5a28-a965-0ee795662ab8)Prologue (#ue9d0bc20-cb4d-568c-bff2-15a153ef9c0e)Chapter One (#u950c5e95-2d4d-598b-833b-f15e05a8bbd2)Chapter Two (#uad61d8b1-55b2-5d1d-98ff-b5176614a8ea)Chapter Three (#u3635e559-ea60-527b-9f4f-12d2258da274)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Who do you think you are?” Clair raged,
clinging to the rage like a lifeline. “Let go of me! Who do you think I am?”
With passion clouding his brain, Jake’s temper flared. “I thought you were a woman who wants to get naked as much as I do.”
Desire disappeared faster than gold in a mining camp. “You arrogant bastard! Get away from me! Stay far away from me!” She pulled free of him.
He looked momentarily taken aback, his eyes wide with suppressed passion. “Woman, you can curse me all you want, but I know what was happening here. You want me as much as I want you.”
Without thinking, Clair reached back and swung at him, but he caught her hand, trapping it in his larger one. Black eyes locked with blue, and then he released her.
“Stay away from me!” she flung at him, and with a flounce of black cotton, she spun on her heel and stormed up the stairs.
Dear Reader,
Known for her moving and dramatic Westerns, award-winning author Susan Amarillas’s new book, Wild Card, is the story of a lady gambler who is hiding in a remote Wyoming town, terrified that the local sheriff will discover she’s wanted for murder in Texas. Susan’s last two books have won her 5
ratings from Affaire de Coeur, which has described her as “...well on her way to becoming the queen of the frontier romance.” Don’t miss your chance to read her new story.
Talented newcomer Lyn Stone is back with her second book, The Arrangement, a unique and touching story about a young female gossip columnist who sets out to expose a notorious composer and winds up first agreeing to marry him, then falling in love with him. Kit Gardner’s The Untamed Heart, a Western with a twist, has a refined English hero who happens to be an earl, and a feisty, ranch hand heroine who can do anything a man can do, only better.
This month also brings us a new concept for Harlequin Historicals, our first in-line short-story collection, The Knights of Christmas. Three of our award-winning authors, Suzanne Barclay, Margaret Moore and Deborah Simmons, have joined forces to create a Medieval Christmas anthology that is sure to spread cheer all year long.
Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all four books, available wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Wild Card
Susan Amarillas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
SUSAN AMARILLAS
was born and raised in Maryland and moved to California when she married. She quickly discovered her love of the high desert country—she says it was as if she were “coming home.” When she’s not writing, she and her husband love to travel the back roads of the West, visiting ghost towns and little museums, and always coming home with an armload of books. She enjoys hearing from readers. You may write to her at the address below.
Susan Amarillas
P.O. Box 951056
Mission Hills, CA 91395
To my editor, Margaret Marbury, for her skill, her
patience and her encouragement. Thanks, Margaret.
You’re simply the best.
Prologue
Texas 1879
The gun fell from her hand....
The sheriffs body slipped silently to the floor.... Heart racing, Clair watched as the crimson stain on the man’s shirt grew steadily larger. With every frantic beat of her heart she backed away, one faltering step after another. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. Her mind denied the reality of the gruesome scene.
Panic overcame all other thought.
Run!
She flung open the door and slammed full force into the chest of Buck Hilliard, deputy sheriff. He grabbed her hard, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders through the torn cotton of her dress, his steely gaze focused on the body beside the bed.
“You bitch,” he snarled. “You’ve killed him.”
“I didn’t,” she managed to say, though it was obvious to anyone, including her, that was exactly what she had done. Dimly she realized all sound in the saloon below had stopped.
“Hey,” a man’s voice called up. “Who’s shootin’ up there?”
She met the deputy’s icy blue eyes and she knew she was doomed. Every muscle in her body tensed wire tight. Blood pounded in her neck and her temples. He had her. Trial, jail...and worse.
Terror merged with a lifetime of self-preservation. “Let me go!” she ordered, struggling as she did.
He was still staring at the body when, without a word, he did just that. He let her go. She didn’t wait to ask questions. She shouldered past him and raced full-out toward the rear door, her red satin skirt hitched up around her knees.
Behind her, she heard the men clamoring up the stairs, their voices raised in question, heard the creak of door hinges as someone upstairs probably looked out. The sound of another shot increased her panic.
She glanced back quickly and didn’t see anyone. The deputy was gone—inside the room, most likely, she thought in the fleeting instant before she yanked open the back door.
Down the outside stairs she sprinted, taking them two at a time, the weathered wood creaking and flexing under each urgent step.
Run!
Escape was her only choice. They’d never believe her. Not her, not when their sheriff was dead on the floor of her room.
Down the dark alley between the buildings she fled, careful to keep in the shadows.
She lost her balance in the soft earth. Her hand slammed against the wood siding of the wall and she got a palmful of splinters for her effort.
“Where is she?” a man’s angry voice shouted from the doorway above.
There was no turning back now, no time for explanations.
“Find her!” came another’s voice. “She’s killed the sheriff.”
Like the answer to an unspoken prayer, she spotted several horses tied to a hitching rail in the street. Wild-eyed, her body shaking with fear, she plunged out into the open street.
“There she is!” a man yelled, and she turned in time to see him pointing at her from his place near the saloon doors. Lamplight shone through the windows and landed in a yellow-white square in the center of the street.
She darted through the light—no sense pretending they didn’t know where she was. Her only hope now was that damned horse.
She grabbed a fistful of mane and rein and somehow managed to swing up into the saddle.
Angry men surrounded her, pulling at her, grabbing her.
“Get away from me!” she-screamed, slapping, pushing anything she could think of.
The horse twisted and whirled like the beginning of a tornado. Clair hung on for her life.
“Murderer!” a man shouted, leaping up to clutch her arm, his fingers clamping on to her wrist.
She kicked him in the chest with her foot. Stunned, he fell back, landing in the dirt. At the same instant she drove her heels rib-cracking hard into the horse’s sides.
The animal reared up, screaming its protest—and hers, it seemed. Men scrambled clear of the flying hooves.
She spotted the opening and raced through and into the night.
Chapter One
Wyoming 1879
It was hard to say anything good about Broken Spur. Of course the same was true for most of the cattle towns west of the Mississippi, and in the three months since she’d fled from Texas Clair felt as though she’d seen every single one of them.
But this was a first time for her in Wyoming. As for Broken Spur, it was a quarter mile of dirt street as bumpy as the bark on a cedar tree, if there’d been any cedar trees, which there weren’t. There were no trees at all, not as far as anyone could see, and that was clear to hell and gone, it seemed.
Tired, back aching, Clair squinted up at the late-afternoon. sun and, shielding her eyes, couldn’t help thinking that a little shade would be nice right about now. That sun was darned hot on this navy blue dress of hers. Little beads of perspiration formed on her back and trickled down her spine inside her corset in an annoying itch she couldn’t scratch. And she wondered for about the millionth time in her life what fiendish mind had devised this instrument of female torture.
The stage driver handed over her carpetbag. “Thanks,” she said with a smile. “Are there any saloons in town?”
The husky driver gave her a wide-eyed look of astonishment. “Ma’am?” he muttered, snatching off his hat to wipe perspiration from his forehead with a red bandanna. “Excuse me. Did you say saloons?”
Absently she brushed at the dust coating the front of her dress. “Yes. Are there any?”
He slapped his hat back on his head, tugging on the brim as he did. “Well, yes, ma’am there’s two. The... ah. Lazy Dog over there—” he pointed across the street and south “—and the Scarlet Lady two doors down the other way on this side.”
A mischievous little smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks,” she replied without further explanation. She couldn’t help chuckling. She always took a little perverse pleasure in making men wonder what she was about.
She hefted her one and only carpetbag and started off down the sun-bleached pine of the sidewalk, taking care not to catch her foot or hem on the uneven boards. Her heels made a steady clip-clop as she went.
She passed several people, women mostly, and she smiled. “Afternoon.” She kept walking, glancing in store windows as she did, checking her appearance in the reflection there. Not bad, she thought, adjusting her hat a little more to the left, brushing at her skirt front again. It was a miracle she looked decent, considering she’d been bouncing around on that stage for the better part of three days now.
She was tired and dirty and would have sold her soul for a hot bath and a soft bed. But business first.
She passed Nelson’s Grocery, with a sign in the window proclaiming a sale on yard goods, then angled across the street in front of Nellie’s Restaurant. The smell of freshly baked apple pie made her stomach growl, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Lunch later, she promised herself, glancing over her shoulder at the restaurant as though to cement the pledge in her mind. A couple of cowboys rattled past in a buckboard loaded with crates; they tipped their hats and she nodded her response.
The Lazy Dog was the last building on this end of the street, and she paused outside to give the place a quick once-over. It was large, square and reasonably well cared for. A one-story false-front with an alley separating it from the other buildings. The name of the establishment was emblazoned in a curve of faded red letters on the front window. Being cautious, she looked in through the glass trying to get a feel for the place, trying to make sure if there was anyone in there she wanted to...avoid.
Pushing open the doors, she walked inside and got the usual double take from the three cowboys seated at a table near the end of the bar. The man behind the bar had a scowl cold enough to freeze milk. She didn’t speak to anyone, just scanned the room.
The floor was bare. That was good; she always hated sawdust clinging to her skirt. The place looked pretty quiet, but it was only afternoon—around three, she thought—and saloons didn’t really come alive until after sundown when the men finished working.
A mahogany bar took up the length of one wall, and six—no, eight—tables were scattered around the room. The wallpaper was so faded the dark flowers dissolved into the cream-colored background. A half dozen stuffed animal heads decorated the walls—elk mostly, and one antelope. Over the bar there was a painting of a well-endowed nude.
The air smelled stale and acrid from too much tobacco and whiskey and sweat.
The barkeep was a slick-haired little guy who was staring at her with all the fierceness of a bulldog. He toyed with his flimsy excuse for a mustache that appeared to have enough wax to make a candle jealous. She took an instant dislike to the man.
Arms braced on the bar’s surface, he leaned forward, his white shirtsleeves pulling tight against his wrists. “Lady, if you’re on one of them temperance crusades you can save your trouble and just move on,” he told her in a voice that rubbed on her nerves. “This here is a saloon, not a sideshow. So just turn your behind around and sashay right on out of here.”
The three cowboys lounged back in their chairs, laughing.
“Come on, lady,” the barman prompted. He made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Or do I have to come around this bar and move you out?”
Clair hesitated for a full five seconds. His type always rankled her and she was tempted to tell him just what she thought of him. But she didn’t. She didn’t want any trouble. She didn’t want to attract any...unpleasant attention to herself, all things considered. So she bit back her deliciously sharp retort and merely said, “Too bad, mister. It’s your loss.”
Turning on her heel, she strode out the door, which she slammed just as hard as she could. Hey, she had to do something with that temper of hers, didn’t she?
Outside, the sun was high overhead. A pair of blackbirds perched on a hitching rail squawked but didn’t move as she went past. She skirted a supply wagon parked in front of Hansen’s Hardware and cut across the street, the dirt marble-hard against her shoes.
A breeze tugged at her upswept hair and she had to fuss with pushing a stray lock back under the rim of her hat.
On down Front Street she continued purposefully toward the opposite end of town and the only other saloon Broken Spur had to offer. This one was two stories and shared a common wall with Brownell’s Feed and Grain, and it sure looked the worse for wear. The outside was raw wood. weathered and cracked from too much sun and too little paint. The one large window hadn’t been washed since Noah was a boy, judging by the dirt and mud splattered there.
Over the doorway someone had nailed up a handmade sign proclaiming this to be the Scarlet Lady Saloon. Scarlet Lady, huh? Sounded good to her.
Feeling a little more confident, she pushed open the door and went inside. It took a couple of seconds and a little blinking for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The place was pretty much the same layout as the first, though this one was more rectangular than square. The bar ran the length of the left side of the room and the walls had the added elegance, if you could call it that, of wainscot halfway up—though it was anyone’s guess what kind of wood it was, it was so black with dirt and stains.
