“I couldn’t shoot him—” she gasped. “I wanted to…
“I wanted to kill Midnight for destroying Frank. And I wanted Virgil Gates to find the body. I wanted him to know that he hadn’t won.” Her hands clenched on Matt’s chest.
“But I couldn’t do it.”
Matt’s arms tightened around her. She was so wounded and alone. Her vulnerability tore at his heart. His protective instincts surged. He found himself wanting to fight her battles and keep her from harm. Without conscious thought he let his lips nibble along her hairline, tasting the sweetness of her skin.
For a moment her breath seemed to stop. She gave a tremulous little sigh and began to melt against him. Then, abruptly, she stiffened in his arms. Bracing her hands against his chest, she shoved him away. Shards of ice glittered in her violet eyes.
“Maybe I should have shot you instead,” she said coldly.
Acclaim for Elizabeth Lane
Her Dearest Enemy
“A pleasurable and well-executed tale.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
Wyoming Woman
“This credible, now-or-never romance moves with
reckless speed through a highly engrossing and compact plot to the kind of happy ending we read romances to enjoy.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
Bride On the Run
“Enjoyable and satisfying all round,
BRIDE ON THE RUN is an excellent Western romance you won’t want to miss!”
—Romance Reviews Today
Apache Fire
“Enemies, lovers, raw passion, taut sexual tension,
murder and revenge—Indian romance fans are in for a treat with Elizabeth Lane’s sizzling tale of forbidden love.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
Wyoming Wildfire
Elizabeth Lane
For Powderpuff,
Who left her pawprints on my heart 1982–2005
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
Epilogue
Chapter One
Felton, Wyoming,
May, 1887
J essie Hammond belly-crawled her way up the muddy bank that rose above the wagon road. Her right hand clawed for purchase on the rain-soaked ground. Her left hand gripped the handle of a long-barreled Colt Peacemaker. The hefty single-action revolver was loaded and Jessie knew how to use it. Only last week, she’d downed a prime buck at a hundred yards with a shot through the heart. But she didn’t intend to fire the weapon today. Not unless she had to.
Digging into the mud with the toes of her worn riding boots, she heaved her way onto the level ground at the crest of the bank. Keeping low, she inched forward through the rabbit brush to the edge, where the ground dropped off fifteen feet to the road below. She anxiously scanned the road’s rutted surface.
Last night’s storm had flooded the wagon tracks and turned the indentations to gleaming puddles. Fresh hoofprints would be easy to spot because they wouldn’t be filled with water. Jessie saw none. Unless the lawman had chosen to take her brother the twenty miles to Sheridan by a different route, she had managed to arrive here ahead of them.
Jessie had watched from behind the Felton general store that morning as Heber Sims, the elderly town marshal, had opened up the makeshift jailhouse and allowed the tall U.S. deputy to lead the manacled prisoner to the spare horse. Jessie knew that Heber would be relieved to see Frank gone. There’d been talk of a lynching, and if a mob had stormed the jail, neither the old man nor the rickety clapboard building would have been strong enough to stop them.
As the two men were mounting up, Jessie had sprinted for her own horse, sneaked quietly out of hearing, and then cut hell for leather across the open hills to intercept them on the road. It was a desperate risk she was taking, but she had to stop the federal deputy from locking Frank up in Sheridan. She had to convince him of the truth—that her brother was innocent of murdering Allister Gates.
The Gates brothers’ ranch occupied a choice spread of land bordering upper Goose Creek. While not as wealthy as the Tollivers, who owned the vast acreage to the north, the family was certainly well-off. Allister, a big, affable man in his early fifties, had looked after the ranch’s financial interests while Virgil, a decade younger, ramrodded the work.
Allister had been well-thought-of by the townspeople and neighboring ranchers. The whole community had been thrown into shock two nights ago by the discovery of his body, sprawled facedown in the horse corral owned by the Gates with a bullet through the back. Frank’s rifle, with his initials, F.H., carved into the stock, had been found lying a few feet away.
Marshal Sims, flanked by two nervous deputies, had come for Frank just as he and Jessie were finishing breakfast the next morning. They had clapped the handcuffs around Frank’s wrists, giving him no time to resist.
“Since when is it a crime for a man to steal back his own horse?” Frank had argued as they led him toward the marshal’s buggy. “Far as I’m concerned, it’s Allister Gates you should be arresting, not me.”
Only then had the marshal told Frank that he was under arrest for Allister’s murder.
Frank’s young face had turned as white as bleached bone. “No!” he’d screamed as the deputies dragged him into the buggy. “I only took the stallion! Allister made me drop my gun, and I rode off without getting it back, but the man was alive when I left the place! I swear it by all that’s holy! On my parents’ graves, I swear I didn’t kill him!” His frantic gaze had swung toward Jessie, who stood frozen in shock. “Help me, sis! Tell them! Make them listen!”
The memory of his cries tore at Jessie’s heart as she crouched in the tall brush, waiting. What she was about to do would likely get her arrested, too. But once Frank was locked up in Sheridan, she would be all but helpless to aid him. With the evidence that stood against him, he could be tried and hanged in a matter of days, giving her no time to clear his name. She had to act now, before it was too late.
A spring breeze skimmed her face, fluttering one jet-black curl that had tumbled loose from beneath her old felt hat. Nervously she tucked it back beneath the brim. She’d disguised herself as a boy because she didn’t want to be recognized. But she’d begun to wonder how well her masquerade would work. Even with her hair out of sight, she didn’t look much like a male. The bandanna over her face would help a little,