A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

  She stood on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his. “I thought about you, and nothing else.”

  Rowdy tasted her lips, made them tingle. “I’ll be a good husband to you, Lark,” he said gravely. “And if you ever have cause to shed tears again, it won’t be on my account.”

  They were still standing there, exchanging a covenant too deep for words to express, when Sam and the major arrived a few minutes later, and Maddie, too.

  Mai Lee and Hon Sing were summoned, and the marriage took place right there in the kitchen, where so much had happened. Lydia had been brought there, sick unto death. Autry had died there, and violently.

  But it was also where Lark and Rowdy had met and looked into each other’s eyes for the first time. It was where Rowdy had taken Lark on his lap, that night, and held her until she slept.

  She’d been in the worst danger of her life there.

  And felt safest.

  Oh, yes. It was fitting indeed that the ceremony was held in the Porter kitchen, with Pardner standing between the bride and groom, listening raptly to the solemn and holy words Major Blackstone read from the Good Book.

  Lark wouldn’t have swapped it for the finest cathedral in the world.

  * * *

  LARK CROONED HOARSELY, her body straining under Rowdy’s as she gave herself to him, fully and without reserve, in the bed where they had every right, before God and man, to make love. To make babies. To share secrets they’d kept even from themselves.

  His eyes burned, even as he struggled to keep from joining her in the sweet maelstrom of release. Lark.

  She stilled, sighing, and looked up at him. “Let go, Rowdy,” she whispered. “Let go.”

  And he did, with a groaning shout, throwing his head back, emptying himself into her. All of himself, not just his seed, but his spirit and his mind and everything he’d never dared hope for.

  She soothed him, during and in the sacred aftermath, her fingers playing in his hair. Murmured gentle, nonsensical words. Granted him a solace he’d never known he was seeking.

  “I love you, Lark Yarbro,” he said, much later when he had the breath for it. He moved in her, hard again, and she gave a soft gasp of pleasure and arched her back to receive him more deeply.

  “Prove it,” she teased.

  “Our bathwater’s getting cold,” he said, enjoying the way her eyes widened. “You’re going to have to wait.”

  “I don’t want to wait. I want you now, because you’re mine, and I can have you. I can have all I want of you.”

  He chuckled, withdrew from her, delighted in the look of rebellious disappointment on her face.

  He got out of bed, and scooped his wife—his wife—into his arms. Carried her into the bathing room and lowered her carefully into the lukewarm water he’d run earlier, right after they’d come back to the marshal’s house as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Yarbro.

  He’d needed a bath, having been in jail for a week, where he’d had to be content with a basin and a rag, when he wanted to wash. But Lark hadn’t been willing to wait, and he hadn’t been able to resist her.

  Now he joined her in the water, and they sat cross-legged, facing each other, like a couple of naked Indians at a powwow.

  She pouted.

  He rubbed soap between his hands and lathered her breasts.

  She moaned.

  He lifted her onto her knees, lathered another part of her, playing with her until she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, the temptress, surrendering.

  He rinsed her, and that was almost as much fun as the washing had been.

  She began to quiver, whimpering his name.

  He bathed himself, got out of the tub and left her kneeling there, staring up at him in baffled defiance.

  “If you want what I’m about to give you, Mrs. Yarbro,” he said, “you’d better get yourself back to bed.”

  She flushed, stubborn and flushed with arousal, but she got out of the tub. Let him dry her off with a towel, watched as he dried himself. Saw just how much he wanted her.

  Biting her lower lip, Lark ducked out through the doorway, and he swatted her lightly as she passed.

  He took his time getting back to the bedroom, and the wait was excruciating, but when he got there, Lark was lying in the middle of the mattress, in a tangle of covers, wearing a pair of bloomers with a tear in just the right place, and nothing else.

  She grinned mischievously.

  He laughed and shook his head.

  And then he went to her, and in a slow, smooth tumbling roll, turned her, so that she was kneeling on the pillows, clutching the top of the headboard in both hands.

  Rowdy slid between her legs, parted the ripped in the bloomers, and grasped her hips to lower her onto his waiting mouth. She groaned and rocked and, finally, pleaded.

  He teased her.

  She ground herself against him.

  He suckled hard, brought her to the edge of satisfaction. But when she tensed to let loose, he turned her again, laid her down, and entered her with a hard thrust. Watched as her eyes rolled back and she came unwound slowly and silently, a thousand different expressions flitting across her face in the space of a few moments.

  In the next instant Rowdy’s own release came, consuming him in a silver fire, blinding him to everything but her.

  * * *

  “DID I MENTION that I own a railroad?” Lark asked her husband—her husband—the next morning, while she fiddled with the stove, trying to figure out how one went about cooking, exactly. Snow drifted past the windows, and the world seemed blanketed by peace.

  Rowdy, who had been admiring the way she looked wearing only his shirt, and idly sipping coffee he’d brewed himself before she was even awake, shook his head. “No,” he said mildly. “I don’t think you did.”

  She smiled at him, over one shoulder. Stepped over Pardner to take a skillet from a shelf. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” she asked, testing him a little. Would it matter to him, the money and the railroad? “Autry was so busy trying to find and kill me, he forgot to change his will.”

  “Imagine that,” Rowdy said, glowering a little.

  “I’m very, very rich,” she told him. And she was rich, but not because she’d inherited a fortune from Autry Whitman. She was rich because Rowdy Yarbro loved her.

  He frowned.

  “I have a mansion in Denver.”

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  “We could live there,” she said, watching his face. “You’d never have to work again. Instead of robbing trains, you could send them here and there, at a whim.”

  “Wherever there were tracks,” he pointed out, still looking serious. And then he said precisely what she’d hoped he would. “I don’t want to live in Denver, Lark. And I sure as hell don’t want to run a railroad.”

  She went to him, sat astraddle of his lap.

  Kissed the sides of his strained mouth. “You mean you didn’t marry me for my money, Marshal?”

  He began unbuttoning the shirt she’d thrown on after getting out of bed.

  “Last I knew,” he said, looking thoughtful as he concentrated on the task at hand, “you were a schoolmarm, without two nickels to your name. And you intended to keep on teaching as long as the town council would allow.”

  She was bared to him. Goose bumps rippled over her flesh in anticipation of his touch.

  He cupped her breasts in his hands, looked into her eyes.

  She squirmed slightly, gasped as he chafed her nipples with the sides of his thumbs. “Well,” she murmured, between little catches in her breathing, “maybe our sons will want to run a railroad.”

  He tilted his head to one side, nibbled at her. “Sons,” he said, clearly not listening.

  “Or even…our…daughters,” Lark gasped.

  He suckled, even as he moved to open his pants.

  Paused long enough to ask, in a low, rumbling rasp, “Do you want children, Mrs. Yarbro?”

  “Yes,” Lark managed.

  “Then be quiet, so we
can get one started.”

  She bit her lower lip, nodded.

  He lunged inside her, claiming her so fully that she cried out in shameless welcome.

  And then she was instantly, utterly, deliciously lost.

  * * *

  ROWDY YARBRO WALKED the streets of Stone Creek that night, with his badge pinned on the outside of his coat and Pardner trotting happily at his side.

  He tested shop doors, to make sure they were locked.

  He counted the horses in front of the saloons.

  He checked on the schoolhouse.

  He stood awhile outside the Porter house, and thought what a fine thing it was that Mai Lee and Hon Sing owned it now.

  Passing the only church in town, a small, white clapboard structure, he stopped and looked up at the steeple, with its plain wooden cross stark against the night sky, trimmed in soft-falling snow.

  For a brief moment he was a boy again.

  Bless my boy Rob, he heard his mother say.

  He knew she’d asked for a lot of things on his behalf—a loving wife, a home and an honest road to travel from one day to the next.

  Those things had been a long time coming, but here he was, a marshal, sworn to uphold the law, with a strong, smart woman to partner with. He had a clear conscience, friends like Sam O’Ballivan and Major John Blackstone, Mai Lee and Hon Sing. He had a good dog and a fine horse.

  He reckoned his ma would count all those things as answers to her prayers, and who could say if she’d be wrong?

  Standing there in the silent, drifting snow of a February night, looking up at that cross, Rowdy lifted his hat.

  “Much obliged,” he said.

  * * * * *

  ISBN-13: 9781488091315

  A Wanted Man

  Copyright © 2007 by Hometown Girl Makes Good, Inc.

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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  www.Harlequin.com

  He survived his past, but this reformed outlaw is falling for a woman hiding secrets of her own… Don’t miss this beloved classic from #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller.

  Where does an outlaw go when he’s ready to turn straight? For Wyatt Yarbro, reformed rustler and train robber, Stone Creek is his place of redemption. Setting his sights on winning over the lovely Sarah Tamlin provides even more motivation to clean up his act as soon as possible. Men like him don’t usually get women like Sarah, but he’s determined to beat the odds.

  What he doesn’t know, though, is that Sarah keeps a dark secret behind her prim and proper facade, even as she starts falling for the charming, sexy Wyatt. When a vengeful enemy prepares to unleash havoc on their peaceful town, Wyatt and Sarah will discover that they can’t hide from the past. To win the fight, they must believe in something they never trusted before—the hope of tomorrow.

  Originally published in 2008

  The Rustler

  LINDA LAEL MILLER

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Southern Arizona Territory

  August, 1907

  A RUSTLER’S MOON GLIMMERED faintly in the sky, a thin curve of light soon obscured by rain-ripe clouds. Wyatt Yarbro sat a little straighter in the saddle and raised the collar of his battered canvas coat, not so much against the threat of bad weather as the intuitive sense that things were about to head south, literally and figuratively. He tugged the brim of his hat lower over his eyes as the kid rode toward him, bearing the unlikely name of Billy Justice, along with a shotgun, bad skin and a contentious attitude.

  Skirting the restless herd of soon-to-be-stolen cattle, Billy drew his sorrel up alongside Wyatt’s paint gelding, shifted his slight frame with an easy, soft creak of old leather.

  “The boys are ready,” Billy said, in that lazy drawl of his. “You with us, or not?”

  Inwardly, Wyatt sighed. Thunder rolled across the darkened sky, like a warning from God. Turn your horse and ride, cowboy, said a still, small voice deep inside him. Go now, while the getting is good.

  His younger brother, Rowdy, was up north, in Stone Creek, and he’d offered Wyatt a place to stay. Said he could get him honest work, help him leave the outlaw life behind for good. Still, the town seemed far away, like some fairy-tale place. Wyatt was flat broke, his horse—won in a poker game in Abilene two weeks after he got out of a Texas prison—wasn’t fit for the trip.

  He supposed Rowdy would wire him some money, if he could swallow his pride long enough to ask, but stealing would be easier. It was the only trade he’d ever learned.

  “I’m with you,” Wyatt said without inflection.

  Billy nodded. “Then let’s make for the border.”

  Wyatt assessed the sky again, watched as a streak of lightning ripped it open in a jagged, golden gash. “I don’t like this weather,” he admitted.

  Billy turned his head and spat. “You turnin’ coward on me, Yarbro?” he demanded coolly.

  “Ever seen a stampede, Billy?” Wyatt countered, keeping his voice quiet. Young as Mrs. Justice’s boy was, Wyatt had him pegged for the sort who could draw and shoot without so much as a skip in his heartbeat or a catch in his breath.

  The cattle, more than five hundred of them, roiled in the gulch below like water at the base of a high falls, swirling in on each other in dusty, bawling eddies of hide and horns.

  “Nope,” Billy said, his tone blithe. Wyatt knew the kid was probably planning to gun him down from behind as soon as they’d delivered the herd and collected the loot. He wasn’t afraid of a pockmarked whelp, even a cold-eyed one like Billy, but the charge in the air itself made his nerves claw and scramble under his skin.

  “Let’s get this done,” Wyatt answered, and rode in closer to the herd.

  The wind picked up, howling over the bare Arizona desert like a banshee on the prowl for fresh corpses, but the gang, six of them in all, got the critters moving in a southerly direction. Wyatt watched Billy and his four riders even more closely than the cattle, making sure none of them had a clear shot at his back.

  They funneled the herd through a narrow wash, raising dust so dense that Wyatt pulled his bandanna up over his nose and mouth and blinked to clear his eyes.

  He thought about his brother as he rode. Rowdy, a former member of the infamous Yarbro gang, just as he was, had managed
to set his feet on the straight and narrow path. He’d changed his ways, gotten himself a pardon, and now he not only had a wife and a new baby, he wore a star on his vest.

  Despite the brewing storm, and his own uneasy feelings, Wyatt grinned wryly behind his bandanna. Rowdy, the erstwhile train robber, a lawman. That just proved what he’d always known: life was unpredictable as hell. Right when a man thought he had it all worked out in his brain, it would twist like a rattler striking from the woodpile.

  Wyatt had never known any other way of living than holding up trains. Neither had Rowdy, until they pinned a badge on him and made him marshal of Stone Creek, Arizona. Soon after that, Rowdy had met and married a schoolmarm named Lark Morgan.

  While he envied Rowdy a little—what would it be like to settle down with a good woman and a community of friends?—Wyatt wasn’t entirely convinced the change would stick. Once an outlaw, always an outlaw, as Pappy used to say.

  And Pappy had been in a position to know.

  Wyatt felt a mingling of irritation and sorrow as he thought of his father. If he’d been standing over the old man’s grave at that moment, he wouldn’t have known whether to weep or spit on the headstone.

  He was debating the virtues of one approach over the other when a second bolt of lightning struck, this time in the center of the herd. Eerie light illuminated the whole scene—the terrified cattle and the other men stood out in sharp relief against the darkness for a long, bluish-gold moment—and then all hell broke loose, exploding in every direction like dynamite tossed into a campfire.

  Wyatt’s horse reared, shrieking with panic, and nearly threw him.

  He caught the scent of scorched flesh. Cattle bellowed in fear, and the other riders scattered, fleeing for their lives.

  The paint gelding wheeled in the midst of hoof-pounding chaos, and though he fought to stay in the saddle, Wyatt found himself rushing headlong for the ground. The wind knocked out of him by the fall, he lay there in the dirt, blinded by dust, and waited to be trampled to death.

  Cattle pounded past him, shaking the earth itself.