Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Romance
Publisher: Amazon
ISBN-10: 1545459983
Type: Fiction
Copyright: July 2017
ISBN-13: 9781545459980
Price: $3.50 (eBook)
Slade Barlow discovers hiding out at Jill’s corn farm is more rewarding than dealing stud or robbing the Arizona silver mines.
Managing the farm since her pa’s death hasn’t been easy for Jillianne Prescott. The list of repairs is long and money is scarce. To add to her burdens is the deal Ma struck up with the sheriff. In exchange for food and a warm bed, the sheriff sends his prisoners to work the farm. Never one to bother with men, Jillianne is nonetheless thankful for the help, until, one by one, they run off. This latest one won’t be any different. Heavily muscled and full of tomfoolery, she has no doubt he’ll sneak off to Mexico before the sun rises. But when he proves her wrong, and takes it upon himself to find the coyote prowling the farm at night, Jillianne can’t help but admit there’s more to Slade than sinew and tomfoolery.
Be the guest at a necktie social or work at the widow Prescott’s farm? He might be an outlaw, and have a lot of faults, but stupidity isn’t one of them. Slade Barlow will hide out at the farm until tempers cool and then leave Texas for good, have the spread he’s been saving for. But the widow isn’t the frail woman he expected. And her daughter does things to his gut best left ignored. Then again, Jill has an intriguing birthmark. And curves his fingers itch to explore. Sassy and pretty, she’s the type of woman a man marries. Never one to favor a woman’s long list of rules, he’ll keep his distance, track down her coyote, and steal more than one kiss from her.
Excerpt
One
Jackson Creek, Texas March 1865
Halting his mare alongside Sheriff Buck Grayson’s mustang, Slade Barlow’s jaw fell open at the sight of the farmhouse before him. Paint weathered and chipped, shutters hanging precariously, a gaping hole in the porch floor; he stretched a hand down his leg and massaged his sore calf. Grayson said the widow Prescott needed help with chores. He didn’t say she needed a miracle.
“Your new home,” Buck drawled in his usual smug tone.
“Are you crazy?” Slade ceased the massaging motion and jerked his neck to the right to glare at the lawman.
Sitting tall in the saddle and outfitted entirely in black, a grin hugged the corners of Grayson’s mouth.
“Could be. But then, so are you. You agreed.”
Slade shook his head. “Not to this.” The tent with the mud floor near the Nevada silver mine had been better than this eye sore.
“Choice is yours. You hole up here or take your chances with Roth and the Governor.” Grayson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Doesn’t matter to me what you do, so long as this damn headache goes away.”
Rotten, no good sonofa… Slade clamped his back teeth tight, the urge to plow his fist into Grayson’s gut strong. The sheriff was an ornery bastard, full of himself and the tin star pinned to his chest. Then again, he had saved Slade from a lynchin’. And the bowels of Huntsville Penitentiary. But he hadn’t given Slade back his guns.
Damn Wes and Charley! He ground his teeth tighter. If they hadn’t lied, he wouldn’t have gone to Revolving Point… wouldn’t have ignited Roth’s temper… wouldn’t have made an enemy of the governor… and he sure as hell wouldn’t have agreed to hide away in this hellhole until Grayson deemed it safe for him to leave. But unwilling to die at twenty-seven and lose out on the spread he wanted, this morning, under the cover of darkness, he trailed the lawman out of Revolving Point to Jackson Creek.
His gaze shifted from the yard overrun with tumbleweeds to the barn behind the back left corner of the house. Just like the house, the paint was weathered and chipped, and a door was missing from the hayloft. Leaning forward in the saddle, he rested an arm over the saddle horn and considered the barn. If the inside was as wretched as the outside, no telling what kind of critters had taken up residence in the stalls. Bedding down in one of them was certain to infest his bedroll with bedbugs.
He gulped at that, and whirled his mare toward the open land they had traversed. “Take me back to Revolving Point.” Bugs ain’t burrowing beneath my skin.
“Don’t make me chase you,” Grayson warned. “You’ll end up in Huntsville.”
“Then take me there. That hellhole is better than this one.”
“I won’t be the one escorting you. Roth will. Governor’s orders.”
At Grayson’s words, Slade pulled back on the reins and swore under his breath. Ride to Huntsville with Roth Beaumont? Shit, no! He’d never set eyes on the prison’s bell tower. Roth would plug him full of bullets as soon as they cleared Grayson’s territory, and leave his body for the buzzards to feast upon. Not that Slade faulted Roth for wanting him dead. He did accost the deputy’s wife, and for good reason. Or so Wes and Charley led him to believe.
“What’s it gonna be?” Grayson challenged. “The widow? The Governor? Or Roth?”
Damn good-for-nothings, Wes and Charley, Slade swore again. Next time he met up with them, he’d make them suffer for the quandary he was in. Where Roth and a posse of government agents were sure to kill him, there was a chance the widow had a clean bed of straw for him to rest his leg, preferably in a space wider and longer than the cot he’d been sleeping on these past weeks. And she might serve him a hot meal. Not that he hadn’t been fed well in Grayson’s calaboose. The lawman’s wife proved a good cook. She fixed him three plates a day overflowing with grub. Bastard that Grayson was, he let the food get cold before he passed the tray beneath the narrow opening at the bottom of the cell door. Then again, hiding out in a filthy barn and risking bugs burrowing beneath his skin wasn’t worth a hot meal.
But it was worth saving his hide.
“Women in dress shops make decisions quicker ‘n you.”
Slade narrowed his gaze in response to Grayson’s jibe, and reined his horse around. Halted beside the sheriff. “I’ll get you for this,” he hissed. “Roth, too. Ain’t no crime scaring a woman, including his.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Grayson snickered the same time the front door opened.
A body attired in long skirts stepped onto the porch. A quick perusal of her and Slade’s mouth fell open again. The widow Prescott wasn’t what he’d imagined. Instead of old and frail, she was young, with wavy dark hair, green eyes and full lips. The green dress she wore was cut tight at the waist, and upon seeing Grayson, a sultry pout sprang into her eyes.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff.”
“Miss Prescott,” Grayson acknowledged, his tone guarded. “Is your ma here?”
“She’s in the kitchen. She’ll be right out.” She craned her neck toward Slade, perused him slowly. “Helloooo, handsome,” she purred before sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. The hunger she had for Grayson now included him.
“Miss.” Slade lowered his chin, studied his reins. He knew her type, had spent his growing up years watching women ply a man with her charms to earn a few coins. But this girl wasn’t a working girl. She was worse; a flirt who’d let a man sample her kisses and caress her then shed an abundance of tears when caught by her ma or pa. Someone who wasn’t averse to watching a man stumble toward the altar and speak his vows with a shotgun aimed at the back of his head. He wasn’t that man.
The door opened again. Glancing up, Slade watched an older plump woman, her brown hair streaked with grey and knotted at the back of her head, take stance beside the flirt. She wore a faded dress of blue and a dingy apron tied around her waist.
“Afternoon, Buck,” she greeted the sheriff in a gravelly voice.
“Evelyn.” Grayson touched a finger to his Stetson.
Evelyn shifted her gaze to Slade, gave him the once over and then returned her attention to Buck. “Is he another poor soul you’ve cajoled into helping out around here?”
“Yep. You can thank Roth when you see him.” He hooked a thumb toward Slade. “He requires one meal a day and a stall to sleep in.”
Slade sneered at that, but kept quiet. Soon as tempers calmed he was free to gallop away from this Godforsaken land he loathed and forget all about Grayson’s orneriness.
“Are you sure you want to work here?” Evelyn centered her attention on Slade. “I can’t afford to feed you only to have you sneak off in the middle of the night.”
“I―” Slade began only to have Grayson interrupt.
“He won’t run.”
“The barn’s around back.” The flirt continued to fixate on Slade, her eyes sparkling with feminine mischief. “I’ll get some blankets and meet you there, Mr., ah…”
“Barlow,” Slade said. “Slade Barlow.”
“My, such a strong name for a strong man.” She batted her eyelashes and Slade gulped.
“Camille!” Mrs. Prescott snapped.
Camille’s cheeks flamed red, but in the blink of an eye, she schooled her features to that of an innocent child. “Forgive me, Mama. I didn’t mean to say anything untoward. I was merely stating fact. Mr. Barlow is very muscular. Therefore, I’m sure he’s more than capable of helping us.”
Evelyn Prescott lifted her gaze toward the sky, as though asking the Lord to refrain her from walloping her daughter. “Mop the floors, Camille. I’ll get the blankets.”
“Blankets?” A female rounded the corner of the house and Slade inhaled sharply. Let the breath out slowly. Petite, with long chestnut hair draped over her shoulder in a braid, instead of a skirt she wore a man’s coat, shirt and trousers. A length of rope tied around her slim waist served as a belt, and her fingers were curled around a hammer.
Slowly dragging his gaze back up the length of her, he admired her soft curves, her heart-shaped face and long lashes. Her eyes were a chocolate color and… he rubbed a hand over his jaw, took a closer look at a blemish marring the white of her right eye. The opaque mark hugged the outer curve of her pupil, lending intrigue to her beauty. Suddenly, hiding out in an infested barn held merit.
|
