by Kaki Warner
KAKI WARNER, 2011 RITA WINNER FOR BEST FIRST BOOK FOR PIECES OF SKY, IS “A TRULY ORIGINAL NEW VOICE IN HISTORICAL FICTION.”
—Jodi Thomas, New York Times bestselling author
PRAISE FOR HER NOVELS
“[An] emotionally compelling, subtly nuanced tale of revenge, redemption, and romance . . . This flawlessly written book is worth every tear.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Romance, passion, and thrilling adventure fill the pages.”
—Rosemary Rogers, New York Times bestselling author
“A romance you won’t soon forget.”
—Sara Donati, international bestselling author
“Draws readers into the romance and often unvarnished reality of life in nineteenth-century America.”
—Library Journal
“Kaki Warner’s warm, witty, and lovable characters shine.”
—USA Today
“Filled with passion, adventure, heartbreak, and humor.”
—The Romance Dish
“Halfway between Penelope Williamson’s and Jodi Thomas’s gritty, powerful novels and LaVyrle Spencer’s small-town stories lie Warner’s realistic, atmospheric romances.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Bring[s] the Old West to sprawling and vivid life.”
—BookLoons
“This is Western historical romance at its best.”
—The Romance Reader
Berkley Sensation titles by Kaki Warner
Blood Rose Trilogy
PIECES OF SKY
OPEN COUNTRY
CHASING THE SUN
Runaway Brides Novels
HEARTBREAK CREEK
COLORADO DAWN
BRIDE OF THE HIGH COUNTRY
Heroes of Heartbreak Creek
BEHIND HIS BLUE EYES
WHERE THE HORSES RUN
HOME BY MORNING
TEXAS TALL
BERKLEY SENSATION
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2016 by Kathleen Warner
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and BERKLEY SENSATION are registered trademarks and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
eBook ISBN: 9780698195219
First Edition: October 2016
Cover art by Judy York
Cover design by Lesley Worrell
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
There is a special place in
heaven for the spouses of writers.
Thanks, Joe, for your support,
patience, and understanding.
Contents
Praise for Kaki Warner
Titles by Kaki Warner
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
WEST TEXAS, 1875
“Ishouldn’t have to do this!” Charlotte Weyland swiped a sleeve over her brimming eyes and flung another stick onto the brush piled against the shed door. “But you never listen to me, do you?”
A faint clink of metal.
She stiffened, head cocked, then realized it was the sorrel gelding tied over by the creek, fussing with his bit.
But what if it wasn’t?
Stepping closer, she peered through a gap between the weathered slats of the shed wall. “You awake?”
The figure on the cot lay still. The chain binding him to the center pole hadn’t moved.
“If you are, you better say something.”
Silence.
With a sob, she slumped to her knees and pressed her forehead against the rough wood. “You promised. Remember? You said on my fifteenth birthday, you would take me to Galveston. You said we would chase crabs across the sand, and let the waves lap at our toes, and eat shrimp gumbo. You promised!”
A hot gust of wind whipped up a dust devil, peppering her face with grit before it swirled on through the drooping trees along the dry creek where her horse was tied. Withered mesquite pods rattled like dice in a wooden cup, then fell silent as the wind died and dust drifted slowly back to the parched earth. The air was thick enough to taste. But to the west, thunder rumbled and dark clouds churned in the leaden sky.
Charlotte pushed herself to her feet. With a shaking hand, she fumbled in her pocket for the box of lucifers, opened it and pulled out one, then dragged the coated tip across the striker. It broke. Two more snapped before the fourth flared to life. She dropped it into the nearest pile of brush then ran to the next as flames licked at the plank walls. Soon all the piles were crackling.
She hurried to the house.
In the main room, she poured lamp oil over the rags and brush and broken furniture she had heaped on the floor then splashed what remained on the walls. Blinking against the fumes, she took a final look around. But after years of selling off everything of value, there was little left except a wrenching sense of defeat. Shutting her mind to the despair clogging her throat, she struck a lucifer, dropped it on the soaked rags, then ran out the front as flames caught with a whoosh.
Thunder rumbled again, closer now and heading east fast. She darted across the porch, her throat burning from smoke and a new rush of tears, and hurried over to calm the nervous sorrel pawing at the dirt. “It won’t be long now, Rusty.”
She watched flames curl around the eaves of the shed. Tongues of fire shot through the gaps in the walls. With a crack, a beam fell, bringing most of the roof down with it. From inside came a groan that was so lifelike it sent her back a step.
He couldn’t still be alive, could he?
The thought was so horrifying for a moment she couldn’t move. Then gripped by mindless terror, she whipped around, yanked Rusty’s lead loose, and flung herself into the saddle. With a last backward glance at the only home she had ever known, she kicked the gelding into a gallop.
She was on her own now. She had no family left. No home. All she had to her name was the horse she rode, the contents of the bulging saddlebags strapped behind the saddle, and the twelve dollars she’d taken fr
om her grandfather’s desk.
With only a vague destination in mind, she headed east, away from the past and ahead of the storm, her tears turning to salt in the hot, dry wind.
Chapter 1
1878, THREE YEARS LATER
The morning the Texas Rangers rode into Greenbroke, Texas, Charlotte Weyland—or Lottie, as she called herself now—was sweeping the boardwalk in front of Brackett’s Market and Grocery. Normally, it was a task she enjoyed since it gave her a chance to leave the stuffy confines of the store and feel the sun on her face. But this early August day was already blistering hot. Not yet ten o’clock, and the air seared her lungs, drying sweat almost as soon as it rose on her skin. By noon, the streets would be empty. Even the two old checker players outside the Western Union office would move inside.
But this morning there were big doings. Strangers were coming through, and the word “Rangers” rushed along the boardwalk as people braved the heat to watch the tight group of men ride down Main Street. Despite a brief growth spurt after the railroad added two more runs on the spur line to Dallas, Greenbroke didn’t draw a lot of visitors. And visitors with badges were rarer still.
Brushing a wave of light brown hair out of her eyes, Lottie paused in her sweeping to watch them approach.
They were five in number, led by a grim-faced man with a mustache that stuck out more than his nose and covered both lips. Behind him rode three men abreast, followed by the drag rider, a tall, lean man who looked younger than the others. Except for the man in the middle of the threesome, they were all heavily armed with rifles butted on their thighs and pistols in their holsters. The unarmed rider wore manacles instead.
“The Frontier Battalion,” Lottie’s friend, Becky Carmichael, whispered, suddenly appearing beside her. “They’re the ones that got Sam Bass down in Round Rock last month. Heard the old one in the lead is McNelly’s Bulldog, Lt. John Armstrong, himself.”
“Heard where?”
“The bank.” Becky held up a canvas pouch with People’s Bank of Greenbroke stenciled on the side. “The crab sent me to get change.”
The “crab” was Frances Seaforth, Becky’s employer and owner of the only dress shop in Greenbroke. Fashions by Fanny—an odd name, Lottie thought. Miss Seaforth was a hard taskmaster, but sometimes Becky needed a firm hand.
Lottie glanced around, hoping none of the others who had come out onto the boardwalk to watch the rangers had overheard. Even though Becky was nineteen and two years older than herself, she didn’t always show good sense. “You shouldn’t call her that.”
“Why not? She is a crab.”
“If she hears you, she’ll show you the street, that’s why.” Employment was hard to find in Greenbroke, especially for young women who had no family to watch out for them.
Becky tossed her blond curls. “Then I’ll move in with you.”
“In the back room at the market? Just you and me and the mice? That’ll be cozy.” Sometimes Becky’s lackadaisical attitude irritated Lottie. They were barely two meals short of starvation as it was. The next stop would be whoring in the saloon or moving on, and despite its slow pace, Lottie liked Greenbroke. There was a welcome hominess to it. Maybe because people had accepted her without questioning why a ragged fourteen-year-old girl would ride into town on her own. Or maybe it was because Greenbroke was the only town she had ever spent time in. Either way, after being here for three years, she felt she belonged.
“That last one’s a handsome devil.” Brown eyes dancing, Becky puffed out her impressive chest and waved to the young man riding drag.
Handsome? Lottie assessed him over the top of her broom handle as he rode by. A stern, angular face with an unyielding set to his wide mouth. A shadow of beard covering his square chin. Longish dark hair sticking out from beneath his black Stetson. From this distance, she couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but guessed they were more light than dark. Young. Probably barely past twenty. In a few years he might be handsome, once he grew into that jawline and learned to smile a little. But right now, except for the Ranger star pinned to his shirt, he looked like any other big, rawboned farm boy who had yet to flesh out.
Ignoring Becky, he swung his gaze over the other onlookers, then up to the false fronts rising above the overhang along the boardwalk. Looking for what?
Lottie studied the slumped back of the manacled rider as the troop rode past the telegraph office and on toward the depot where Sheriff Dodson waited on the platform. “Wonder what he did.”
“The prisoner?” Becky shrugged. “Something bad if they sent the Frontier Battalion after him. Probably taking him somewhere to stand trial.”
Outside the depot, the rangers dismounted. The leader went inside with the sheriff. One ranger positioned himself by the water tower, one stayed with the prisoner, and the young drag rider walked back down the street, his head swiveling as he scanned the buildings they’d just ridden past. Did he expect ambushers? Here, in sleepy little Greenbroke?
In the distance, a train whistle blew.
“Lordy, is that the ten-ten already?” Becky tucked the bank bag under her arm. “Better get back before the crab pinches me. Meet for dinner?”
“Mr. Brackett asked me to look over the week’s receipts.”
Becky gave her a sour look. “It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have told him you could tally.”
“I’m not complaining. I like it. Working sums is relaxing. Numbers are so . . . predictable.” It seemed all her life Lottie had worried where her next meal was coming from. She was tired of it. She wanted more than a hardscrabble life sweeping boardwalks and emptying potato sacks and listening to mice scurry in the night. She had ambitions and a strong conviction that a better future awaited her if she only knew how to get to it.
The locomotive pulled into view, slowing to a crawl as it neared the water tower. Sooty smoke billowed out of the stack. Brakes squealed. Once the train came to a full stop, the conductor stepped off. Only a few passengers followed after him, crossing from the train into the station. It wouldn’t be a busy shopping day in Greenbroke.
Becky’s voice took on a wheedling tone. “Any chance you could sneak me a can of beans then?”
“Sneak? You mean steal?” Lottie frowned. “Becky, I dare not. The Bracketts treat me good. I don’t want to steal from them.”
“You did before.”
“Once. I hadn’t eaten in two days and they hadn’t paid me yet.” Honesty lost much of its appeal when survival was at stake. “And anyway, I put money in the till after they paid me.”
“But I already ran through last week’s pay and there’s barely enough leftovers to feed Mrs. Ledbetter.” Mrs. Ledbetter was the elderly lady Becky watched over. In exchange for room and board, Becky cooked and did light housekeeping. A good arrangement for both.
“You should be more careful with your money.” Lottie regretted the words as soon as she said them. Becky was her friend. She didn’t want to run her off. But she owed the Bracketts, too.
At Becky’s pleading look, Lottie sighed. She hated begging almost as much as stealing, but she didn’t want Becky to go hungry. She had suffered a hollow belly too many times, herself. “The Bracketts always feed me when I work late. I’ll try to save something for you.”
“Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”
Becky’s grin was slightly off-kilter because of the scar at the corner of her top lip where her daddy had tried to rearrange her face with his fist before she ran off for good. It marred what would have been real beauty, although the cowboys in the saloon didn’t seem to mind.
“Come to the back door.” Lottie made a last swipe at a manure smear below the display window, then gave up. “I should be done by nine.”
“I’ll be there.” With a backhand wave, Becky headed down the boardwalk.
Lottie started back inside, then flinched when gunshots rang out.
&n
bsp; Becky ducked into the doorway of the newspaper office next to Brackett’s Market. Shouts up and down the street. Heavy footfalls thudding on the boardwalk as onlookers scrambled to safety.
Heart pounding, Lottie peered around the doorframe.
One ranger lay twisting on the ground by the station platform. The young drag rider was running back toward the train, gun drawn. A stranger with a kerchief over his face fired wildly as he steered the prisoner toward a masked rider holding two sidestepping horses.
Bullets peppered the dirt by his boots, but the drag rider kept going, his dark Stetson flying off as he ran. The sheriff and older ranger ran out of the station and fired at the fleeing men.
The kerchiefed man fell.
More shots from the ranger by the water tower. The second masked man toppled from the saddle. Horses scattered. The prisoner fell to his knees, hands over his head, screaming, “Don’t fire, don’t fire,” in a panicky voice.
Less than ten seconds. A dozen shots. And as suddenly as it had begun, the shooting stopped.
Silence, except for the exhalations of the idling locomotive.
“Sweet Jesus!” Becky peered at Lottie from the newspaper doorway. “Is it over?”
Through the dust and gun smoke hanging in the air, Lottie saw the drag rider sprawled in the street, a bloody hand pressed to his head.
“Get Doc Helms!” she shouted to Becky and jumped off the boardwalk.
As she neared, the ranger tried to rise up, the gun wobbling in his right hand. Blood coated the fingers pressed to the left side of his face and ran down his neck to turn the banded collar of his shirt bright red.
“Lay back!” Lottie knelt beside him. “You’ve been shot.”
He rolled toward her, the gun swinging up.
“No!” She grabbed his thick wrist with both hands. “Stop! It’s over! You’re safe!”
With a groan, he slumped back, the pistol sliding from his grip.
Lottie pulled his left hand from the wound. Blood matted the dark hair, welling from a long furrow stretching from his eyebrow, past his temple, and back along the side of his head. Not serious, despite all the blood.
