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