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Lady Renegade
Carol Finch
Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesCarol is an Oklahoma resident, with Native American heritage. She attended Odessa College in Texas on a tennis scholarship, then graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B. Sc. degree. She has earned hours toward a masters at Southwestern University, Oklahoma. Before making a full-time career of writing, Carol taught high school biology.Carol began writing while her children were preschool age. She gave up her teaching career to be a stay-at-home-mom on their isolated family ranch. After reducing life to the simplest explanations to answer her young children's questions, she decided to try her hand at writing to see if she could still communicate intelligibly with adults. After two years of keeping vampire hours to write after the children were tucked in bed, her first book was published.She progressed to writing during the day when her children were in school. During her 20-year career, Carol has penned 73 books under five pseudonyms in several genres. In her spare time and there hasn't been much of it because she never missed her children's school activities or baseball and basketball games.Carol likes to garden, do carpentry projects, and help her husband, Ed, with farming chores on their 400-acre ranch. Over the years they have raised cattle, wheat, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, and peacocks, plus dozens of cats, dogs, and horses. The place is a zoo and that's the way Carol likes it.Carol, formerly a nationally ranked tennis player in high school and college, traded her racket for golf clubs. She's still the outdoorsy type at heart, although writing has become one of her greatest passions right behind her husband, children, and young grandchildren.
Gideon noticed movement in the shifting fog.
A shapely female in her early twenties emerged from the hazy shadows of trees and underbrush. Her long hair caught in the sparkling sunlight and danced like red-and-gold flames. She wore brown, trim fitting breeches that accentuated the shapely curve of her hips and a white shirt that molded itself provocatively to her full breasts.
Honest to goodness, Gideon had never seen a woman so captivating and alluring in all his thirty-two years of vast and varied experience. If there were angels sent down from above, he’d like to think this was what an angel looked like. Either that or she was one of the Native American spirit guides he’d heard described by his Osage mother.
And yet, a quiet voice inside his head whispered, Here comes trouble, and the cynic he’d become paid close attention.
Lady Renegade
Harlequin
Historical #1017—November 2010
Praise for
Carol Finch
“Carol Finch is known for her lightning-fast, roller-coaster-ride adventure romances that are brimming over with a large cast of characters and dozens of perilous escapades.”
—RT Book Reviews
The Kansas Lawman’s Proposal
“Fast-paced, sensual… One of the genre’s top-notch Western writers delivers the expected in a tale that’s as classic as they come.”
—RT Book Reviews
Texas Ranger, Runaway Heiress
“Finch offers another heartwarming Western romance full of suspense, humor and strong characters…It’s hard to put this one down.”
—RT Book Reviews
McCavett’s Bride
“For wild adventures, humor and Western atmosphere, Finch can’t be beat. She fires off her quick-paced novels with the crack of a rifle and creates the atmosphere of the Wild West through laugh-out-loud dialogue and escapades that keep you smiling.”
—RT Book Reviews
The Ranger’s Woman
“Finch delivers her signature humor, along with a big dose of colorful Texas history, in a love and laughter romp.”
—RT Book Reviews
Lone Wolf’s Woman
“As always, Finch provides frying-pan-into-the-fire action that keeps the pages flying, then spices up her story with not one, but two romances, sensuality and strong emotions.”
—RT Book Reviews
Carol Finch
Lady Renegade
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin
Historical and CAROL FINCH
Call of the White Wolf #592
Bounty Hunter’s Bride #635
Oklahoma Bride #686
Texas Bride #711
One Starry Christmas #723
“Home for Christmas”
The Last Honest Outlaw #732
The Ranger’s Woman #748
Lone Wolf’s Woman #778
(#litres_trial_promo)The Ranger #805
(#litres_trial_promo)Fletcher’s Woman #832
McCavett’s Bride #852
Cooper’s Woman #897
The Bounty Hunter and the Heiress #909
Texas Ranger, Runaway Heiress #927
Cowboy Christmas #963
“A Husband for Christmas”
The Kansas Lawman’s Proposal #976
Bandit Lawman, Texas Bride #995
Lady Renegade #1017
Other works include:
Silhouette Special Edition
Not Just Another Cowboy #1242
Soul Mates #1320
Harlequin American Romance
Cupid and the Cowboy #1055
Harlequin Duets
Fit To Be Tied #36
A Regular Joe #45
Mr. Predictable #62
The Family Feud #72
(#litres_trial_promo)Lonesome Ryder? #81
(#litres_trial_promo)Restaurant Romeo #81
(#litres_trial_promo)Fit To Be Frisked #105
(#litres_trial_promo)Mr. Cool Under Fire #105
This book is dedicated to my husband, Ed, and our children, Kurt, Shawnna, Jill, Jon, Christie and Durk. And to our grandchildren, Livia, Harleigh, Blake, Kennedy, Dillon and Brooklynn. And to Kurt and Shawnna’s children, whenever they may be. Hugs and kisses!
Contents
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter One
Osage Nation, Indian Territory
Early 1880s
Lorelei Russell halted her strawberry roan gelding in the copse of trees overlooking Burgess Ranch and Stage Station. A well-manicured two-story clapboard house, a stage station, three wooden sheds and an oversize barn sat in the lush valley. The spring sunset cast filtered light and shadows in the trees, giving the Osage Hills a fanciful quality.
Dismounting, Lorelei patted her horse, Drifter, affectionately then received a nudge from him on her elbow in response. Hiking off, she reread the note she’d received from Anthony Rogers, foreman at Burgess Ranch.
She had meant to stop by earlier in the day, but she and her father had been busy unloading the delivery wagon that had arrived at their trading post and ferry on Winding River. Then she had made a delivery to a homebound customer before stopping by to see Anthony.
Lorelei had hoped to return home by dark, but Russell’s Trading Post was ten miles south of the station on the stagecoach route. Although the territory had become a refuge for outlaws that holed up in thickly timbered hills and rocky gorges, Lorelei had lived the last decade of her twenty-three years in the area. Her father, a former military officer, had made certain she could take care of herself. She was very familiar with the tree-choked hillsides of the Osage reservation and she could protect herself with a variety of weapons.
Her wandering thoughts trailed off when she glanced at Anthony’s note again. The honest truth was she had procrastinated in stopping by to see Anthony. He had been courting her for over three months but her feelings for him hadn’t progressed past the friendship stage. Unfortunately, she had the impression that Anthony had developed the kind of affection for her that she couldn’t return. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive, with his sandy-blond hair, thick-lashed blue eyes and lean physique. He just wasn’t…
She sighed heavily. She wasn’t sure what love was, but she didn’t think this was it.
“Thank goodness you’re here.” Anthony suddenly appeared from the deepening shadows to envelop her in a hug. “I was getting worried, sweetheart.”
“Papa and I have been busy with inventory and customers,” she explained as she backed from his embrace.
He nodded and smiled. “I should have come to the trading post since we’re running low on a few supplies, but I’ve had dozens of last-minute chores to wrap up here.”
