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“Damn right. I’m sorry your father felt the need to call me out.”
Her father wouldn’t have done any such thing!
“I’m sorry as hell for every circumstance that led to this moment, where I’m staring into the pretty green eyes of a woman who’s come to shoot me.”
“You can’t have—My father wouldn’t—”
“I am and he did.” Juniper Barns pushed away from the cell.
Lily flinched back against the cot.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, shutting and locking the cell door as he left.
“Wait! Where are you go—” The cabin door slammed shut.
Lily pressed her hands to her chest, her heart beating fit to burst. He wasn’t supposed to be so young. All the stories, the images in her mind. This was all wrong.
What kind of a boy shot men for sport? Yet … he’d said her father had been the one to call him out.
He had to be lying. He was covering for his father. Red Palmer had been a gentle giant, Mother always seeming so tiny and frail beside him. He was as kind as he was big. He had to travel for work, but they’d hardly been destitute.
He wouldn’t do such a thing!
The cabin door opened and Lily surged to her feet. Sheriff Barns opened the cell and ducked inside. She realized anew just how tall he truly was. He stepped toward her, and she bumped against the cot, her mind a tangle of fear and confusion.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Lily.”
His gentle voice prickled her skin. She didn’t know how to react to him, a confusion intensified by the sadness vivid in his expression.
She had expected Juniper Barns to be … older and mean.
Cold steel closed over her wrists, jarring her from the mental haze. She gasped at the sight of handcuffs circling her wrists. “What are you—?”
“Getting you out of here before I have a chance to find out if your bounty-hunting father passed on his skill with a gun.”
“What! My father was a sa—” He strapped a bandanna around her mouth. She screamed into the roll of cotton.
He knocked her back. Lily landed on the cot, flat on her back. Her heart lurched as he reached for her skirts.
Lily thrashed against his hold.
A second bandanna went around her booted ankles. He pulled her up into a sitting position and sat back on his heels.
Fear transfixed her as he stared at her.
“Aside from the fact that it’s just not safe for you up here, I don’t feel like taking a bullet this afternoon. And I’m not about to raise my gun to a woman.”
“I ‘ily ‘ar-eon!” The roll of fabric in her mouth kept her from pronouncing her full name. Why hadn’t she said her full name sooner?
He lifted her with startling ease, cradling her in his arms. She tried to twist from his grasp, but it was no use. His sturdy hold imprisoned her against his chest. He eased the door open with the toe of his boot and scouted the area.
“There’s no reason to fret, Miss Palmer,” he soothed, the warmth of his lips alarmingly close to her ear.
“‘Ar-eon,” she corrected, but the word Carrington didn’t go beyond the gag in her mouth. “I ‘ily ‘ar-eon!”
“Chuck will get you safely down the mountain.”
“I grabbed all the blankets I could find, Sheriff, just like you said.”
Lily turned her face toward the gritty voice and saw a wall of plaid shirt before she was shrouded in gray wool.
“Thanks, Chuck. I don’t want her bumping her head.”
They were truly trying to sneak her out of camp! She heard the jingle of harnesses and snorting of animals as she was placed on something soft. She wiggled free of the blanket and gazed up at blue sky and the sheriff towering over her. She squirmed as he used a strip of rope to tie the chain linking her handcuffs to the spring of a wagon seat.
He eased back.
Her bound hands prevented her from sitting up.
The rogue! She adamantly shook her head, terrified he was about to leave her. The wagon rocked as the man in the plaid shirt climbed into the seat and propped his boots on the front of the buckboard, directly above her. An older man with a thick gray beard, he squinted down at her.
“Sheriff done you a favor,” he said. “Pine Ridge ain’t no place for a woman.”
A woman? She was the owner! “I ‘ily ‘ar-eon!”
Juniper Barns leaned close. “Chuck’s a little rough around the edges,” he whispered, “but trustworthy as they come. He’ll get you to the valley. This is enough fare to take the stage back to ‘Frisco.” His hand pushed into her skirt pocket.
He reached up and stroked her hair, sending a shiver of fear down her spine.
“Swelling’s gone down,” he said. “Do yourself a favor, Lily. Don’t come back.”
You stupid clod! I own this camp! Useless muffles vibrated against the roll of fabric as she tugged at her restraints. Juniper Barns tossed a blanket over her, shrouding her in darkness.
Wait!
A whip cracked.
This wasn’t happening!
“Move, you lazy animals!”
Lily yanked at the handcuffs and twisted in the nest of blankets.
Think, Lily.
She knew all the thought in the world wouldn’t release the bindings holding her captive beneath the blanket.
A few moments later the wagon slowed to a stop and she heard muffled voices.
Reginald!
“It’ll have to go on the back,” said Chuck. “I’m plumb full up here.”
Something thumped into the wagon. The strongbox. Regi must be sending the payroll down to The Grove.
“Where can I find the sheriff’s office?” Regi asked.
She squirmed and tried to scream, drowning out Chuck’s reply. Her muffled screams were lost in the groan and creaks of the wagon as Chuck cracked his whip.
She rocked against the buckboard.
Regi!
Chapter Three
Juniper collapsed into the chair behind his desk, his gaze landing on the revolver he’d taken from Lily. He scrubbed a hand over his face. The rage he’d seen in her emerald gaze ignited a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Her pretty green eyes had blazed with hell’s fury before he’d tossed the blanket over her. He had a notion that when not encumbered by a head injury, Lily Palmer was a force to be reckoned with.
Not unlike her father.
He remembered the ol’ man-hunter quite well. Though rumored to be ruthless in his occupation of bringing in some of the most infamous criminals in the territory, Red Palmer had actually seemed a decent sort of fellow. Juniper had spoken with him several times over at the general store and in the saloon. On many of those occasions he’d mentioned the wife and daughter he had stashed up in the mountains.
Juniper had never been forced to shoot someone he’d been cordial with—until the night Red went after him like a loco steer. He’d never faced a more terrifying adversary. He sure as hell hadn’t expected to live beyond that night. Part of him still wished he hadn’t.
Would he ever outlive his reputation as a gunfighter?
Not likely. The last four years of being a lawman had afforded him some peace, putting his infamous reputation to good use, or at least giving folks pause about approaching him. He’d been trying to build an honest life for himself—but none of it mattered. Watching the mention of his name turn the sweetness in Lily’s smile to undiluted fear brought him back to what he’d always be.
A no-good gunslinger.
He was so damn tired of fighting the past. Juniper closed his eyes, silently praying that Lily Palmer would take his advice.
“Good afternoon.”
Juniper opened his eyes as a little man in a bowler hat and ruffled suit stepped into his office.
“Reginald Carrington,” he said, rushing toward the desk, extending his hand.
“Sheriff Barns,” Juniper said as he stood and shook the man’s slender hand. His last name, dainty grip and frilly white shirt explained a lot. “I take it you’re the new owner.”
“Of sorts. We arrived a short while ago and I seem to have lost my charge.”
“Your charge?”
“My partner, actually. Lily Carrington.”
“Lily Carrington?”
“Yes. She insisted on being present for the inspection and must have taken a notion to have a look around on her own. Quite like Lily, you see. She’s very involved in all of her projects. The boy from the mill suggested I’d find her here.” The man’s brows pinched inward as he glanced around the office.
“She’s not here,” Juniper said, the sick feeling in his stomach turning to a ball of flames. He wondered if this dandy was her husband. “She’s on the ox wagon headed down the mountain.”
“The wagon that just left a short while ago?”
“Yeah.”
“You must be mistaken. We stopped the driver. Lily wasn’t with him.”
“She was, you just didn’t see her because, uh … she was on the buckboard. Under a blanket.”
Reginald’s dark eyes grew wide. “I beg your pardon?”
“Women aren’t allowed up here. She was unconscious when—”
“Good Lord!” Reginald said in alarm. “You knocked her out?”
“Of course not. That was how I found her. She had stepped into the path of a lumber hoist.”
“Is she all right?”
“She seemed all right.” Other than wanting him dead. “When she woke up she didn’t say anything about being a Carrington. She just said her name was Lily. I sent her down the mountain the best way I could without causing a ruckus with the men.”
“If she allowed you to send her off without a fight, she was far from all right! Lily is hardly some docile flower.”
“I noticed.” Juniper rubbed at the tense muscles in the back of his neck. “Believe me, she was fighting mad. Did I mention she was handcuffed under that blanket? And gagged?”
Reginald blinked several times, his expression seeming frozen in place. “You accosted the owner of this camp and sent her—”
“The who?”
“Your boss, Sheriff Barns. Lily is L. P. Carrington. Lily …Palmer … Carrington.”
His slow, clear pronunciation didn’t make the announcement any less of a shock. “Oh, hell.”
“Indeed.” Laughter tickled from Reginald’s throat. “You poor man. Don’t think for a moment I’ll be able to save this situation. Lily controls everything, and her wrath could make the devil tremble.”
Somehow Juniper didn’t doubt it. Cursing, he reached for his hat. “Can you ride?”
The dandy snapped straight as though pricked by a pin. “Of course I can ride. I wouldn’t have kept up with Lily all these years if not.”
“If that means you can keep the devil’s pace and stay in a saddle, you can come with me.”
Outside he motioned toward the brown-and-white mare tethered beside Scout, his chestnut stallion. “You can take Günter’s mount. You’ll likely have to raise the stirrups.”
Reginald didn’t hesitate, stepping up to the horse to make necessary adjustments.
“She your wife?” Juniper asked as he slung into his saddle, the notion refusing to take hold in his mind.
Reginald glanced up from a stirrup. “Heavens, no. Lily’s my second cousin.”
