Wilde-Fire: Wonder Women 0f The Old West (Half Breed Haven Book 1)
Page 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
HALF BREED HAVEN WESTERN SHORT STORIES
PART 1: FIRESTORM
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
PART 2: MASQURADES
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
PART 3: GAMBITS
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
PART 4: RECKONING
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
EPILOGUE
HALF BREED HAVEN WESTERN SHORT STORIES:
WILDE-FIRE
Copyright © 2017
Cedar Ledge Publishing
All Right Reserved.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE WILDES OF THE WEST SERIES
NOW AVAILABLE
THE WILDES OF THE WEST #1: THE DAUGHTERS OF HALF BREED HAVEN
HALF BREED HAVEN #2: IN DANGER’S SHADOW
(A Cassandra Wilde adult western adventure)
HALF BREED HAVEN #3: DARK RIVALS
(A Lijuan Wilde adult western adventure)
THE WILDES OF THE WEST #1: THE DAUGHTERS OF HALF BREED HAVEN
HALF BREED HAVEN #2: IN DANGER’S SHADOW
HALF BREED HAVEN #3: DARK RIVALS
(A Lijuan Wilde adult western adventure)
ALL CAN BE FOUND AT THIS LINK
https://www.amazon.com/A.M.-Van-Dorn/e/B077GNX3GP/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
COMING SOON in EARLY 2018
HALF BREED HAVEN: SILVER, GOLD, AND DECEPTION
(A Catalina Wilde adult western adventure)
HALF BREED HAVEN: THE FORBIDDEN RANCH
(An Honor Elizabeth Wilde adult western adventure)
HALF BREED HAVEN: SING THE DEATH SONG
(A Dutch Wilde & Bright Feather adult western adventure)
HALF BREED HAVEN: DISASTER AT DEVIL’S CANYON
(A Blue River Wilde adult western adventure)
AND
THE WILDES OF THE WEST #2: DANGER DOWN MEXICO WAY
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
* * *
Thank you for joining the Wilde sisters on one of their adventures. Just a quick note regarding what you are about to read
Please be advised the Wilde sisters are all grownups and therefore they engage in very adult escapades and situations that include their romantic encounters as well as the sudden violence that can occur in their continued fight against assorted bad guys of the Old West.
So, in short, these stories are recommended for mature readers of 18+ years of age.
With that said, it’s time to saddle up and dive into the world of Half Breed Haven!
A.M. VAN DORN
Contact Information can be found at:
www.thewildesofthewest.com
PART 1
FIRESTORM
PROLOGUE
* * *
TOWN OF CLOVERFIELD
Arizona Territory
Early 1873
Cassandra Wilde slowly traced circles on the man’s chest, her green eyes seductively settling on his face. He was naked—they always were—and while he laid beneath her, she plastered her equally naked body atop his and let the tips of her nipples brush his muscled chest. As she arched upward, never letting her eyes trail off her new lover for the day, she caught him looking lazily up at her goldenrod hair as it spilled in a tangle around her shoulders. Leisurely, she forgot about teasing him with her nipples and leaned back down again and began to kiss her way down … lower … and lower … until she got to his torso.
He grinned almost childishly when her lips brushed across his belly button. Grinning too, Cassandra looked up at him, wondering, for an instant, the thoughts that raced in his mind. Probably so many thoughts, she decided. With the growing admiration in his eyes, he probably was loving how remarkably she had treated him since making the suggestion to visit his bedroom. Perhaps, he was also thinking of how that she and her three improbable, yet amazing sisters had come through for him beyond measure, earning their reward. Yet here she was, letting him reap a reward all of his own; one that made his bank’s payout to the Wildes pale in comparison.
He arched his back as she continued her downward journey of exploration until suddenly, Cassandra paused, a look of pure mischief settling on her face. She looked up at him with her flashing eyes and let her tongue slowly swipe across her lips with such deliberation she knew he couldn’t resist.
For her part, Cassandra always loved to find some manner of tease before she got down to the pleasurable business at hand. Make ‘em wait and they will only enjoy it more, she always told her trio of sisters. She knew that afterwards, the banker was going to remember his encounter with her for quite some time to come, long after she had given him absolute pleasure and gone on her way.
As she tucked a lock of her hair behind her right ear, making the next move to keep him deep in lust, she thought it was the perfect ending. It was the kind of ending she had expected to play out, almost as if she had scripted it herself.
Getting to the present moment hadn’t been easy however. The path had been fraught with danger that could have ended with Cassandra and her beloved sisters meeting their demise amid a dusty, fiery street of an Arizona ghost town.
CHAPTER 1
* * *
HELL’S KITCHEN WASTELAND
Arizona Territory
Five Days Earlier
The late afternoon rays of the sun washed over the quartet of riders as they trotted along towards the hopeful endgame of their hunt. Cassandra, in the lead, astride her horse Lily, briefly looked back as the trinity that were her sisters—Honor Elizabeth, Catalina, and Lijuan—rode up to join her. They were with her at her behest, and she knew they were following her strictly on the basis of her hunch and their faith in her skills.
Cassandra held up her hand a second later, bringing them to a halt. Her eyes narrowed towards a speck on the horizon as she tried to focus on the view of the vast land sprawling in front of them.
“That’s got to be it, girls: Beacon—boom town turned ghost town once the last of the gold played out,” she said, looking back at her sisters once again until they brought their horses to a stop, all side by side.
“Well, I surely hope the water supply is not played out as well,” Honor Elizabeth said with a sigh. Her velvety mocha skin gleamed with sweat while her curly black ringlets slowly flickered with the dry desert wind.
“I could truly use a long drink of some nice cold well water,” Honor lifted her canteen and sighed again. “This stuff we have been imbibing, I would rather equate to bath water.”
It was at this point that Lijuan, with her usual dryly nonchalant tone, commented, “Water is water, Honor Elizabeth.” She waved a few strands of her long hair to the side of her narrow face and shook her head.
“I strongly disagree,” Honor argued, ignoring the roll of tiny brown eyes that Lijuan subsequently threw her way. “There is nothing more refreshing than sipping cool water
on the hottest of days. Pure ambrosia!”
Lijuan shook her head again while Catalina slightly threw back her own and reeled with laughter. “I don’t know about that, Sis!” she said. “An ice-cold beer from Gabriella’s Cantina could give your tall cold drink of water a run for its money right about now!”
Cassie smiled and looked ahead, ignoring the argument that sprouted between her sisters. She was used to their constant bantering. They had been doing it their whole lives while growing up at the family’s ranch, Cedar Ledge.
Instead of listening to them or interrupting the unnecessary quarrel, she turned her attention towards the ever-nearing town of Beacon. This just had to be it! she thought.
Two weeks ago, she had received her latest assignment from their uncle, Nathanial Duvalier, the Arizona territorial governor. Going on four years now, she had been acting as a special undercover agent for him, putting into use all the skills she had learned from her days of being the personal protégé of Kate Warne, the first ever female Pinkerton agent.
Cassie had returned to her home in Arizona at a time of dire need and had left the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to stay on at the family ranch, all the while working for her uncle when he needed her. Frequently, she would enlist her sisters’ aid on some of her missions. She herself had trained the other three with all of her skills to augment their own natural talents, leaving them more than capable of backing her up.
As her eyes swept over her family, she looked at them with love. She was happy to have them there with her. The four of them were as unique as they came. The Wildes, she knew, had always been a striking family that continually garnered attention, especially when they traveled together. Their looks were all so different indeed.
Though Catalina and Lijuan were half Mexican and Asian respectively, very little of their Anglo blood showed through. With Honor Elizabeth, however, there was no mistaking her as the mixed-race woman that she was. No matter how different the four may have looked from each other, the one constant they all shared to a woman was their well-endowed hourglass figures. The women all agreed they inherited it from their paternal grandmother, whose portrait as a young woman seemed to bear out their belief.
Cassie at thirty-one was not only the oldest with a gap of two to three years generally separating the four, but the tallest of the four sisters. The combination of her shoulder-length golden tresses, dimpled smile, and sparkling green eyes were an asset that opened many doors for a woman operating in the male-dominated world of law enforcement. She failed to have the slightest hesitation about using her allure if it helped achieve her goals and fulfill a motto the four had lived by: A Wilde always gets her man, one way or another!
Lijuan, on the other hand, was the shortest, but her height was more of a blessing because it complemented her attractive figure and her curvy hips. The sisters teased her mercilessly about how she carried around such endowment on her tiny frame. Her thin red lips were a plus too, while her long blackish-brown hair framed her slender face, the most telltale evidence of her father’s blood in her, highlighting her beauty that lived up to the first half of the Chinese meaning of her name—beautiful and graceful.
Honor Elizabeth and Catalina, though having dark skin, each had a different shade with Catalina’s being a deep copper reflecting her Latin heritage. Though their skin and facial features differed, their bodies, like the other two, were similarly sexy. Honor Elizabeth, with her creamy and smooth mocha skin was almost as tall as Cassie. As was her custom, she adorned her buxom figure in dresses. The dresses never succeeded in hiding her fully round breasts nor her curvaceous rear, though. In fact, it only made it impossible for men, black, white or Mexican to resist her.
Catalina similarly grew into an awesome beauty with her own well-formed figure. A wide oblong face complemented with mirthful brown eyes and wavy ebony hair spilled from her head. Most notable about the young woman was that, because of the extremely physically demanding work she carried out on the cattle ranch, her pleasing body was all compact, solid muscle. Cattie liked to joke that it gave her preferred choice of lovers the best of both worlds.
All three of them, with their various differences and similarities, were always happy to assist Cassie, as they all shared her thirst for adventure and helping to keep law in order in the Arizona territory that they loved so much. However, that didn’t mean that it was always the land of milk and honey when their four strong personalities came into play with each other.
Cassie, considering that and awash in thoughts about her sisters, tossed a quick glance admiringly at Honor Elizabeth. The smoldering mullatos’s delicate ringlets of hair continued to bounce as she rode. As another of her custom, besides the dress, Honor was the only one who always forsook wearing a hat. The woman was fond of telling the other three that her ringlets were her best feature and she had no wish to cover them up. Somewhere back in a closet in her room at the ranch, still in a box was the matching rounded flat brim hat that the others all wore and that Catalina had bought for them all one Christmas. They all routinely joked about whether the day would ever come for her to don it.
She chuckled to herself, thinking how Honor Elizabeth did her fair share of complaining all the time and how she always shrugged it off. It was just Honor being Honor and they all knew she didn’t mean most of it. It was just her way. Lord knew they all had their quirks, Cassie thought.
Then there was Lijuan. Her half-Asian sister, as she had thought earlier, was the very definition of petite. This stature was often underestimated by the various criminals they went up against. Without question, Lijuan was the most dangerous of them all. Cassie knew a deeply buried frustration controlled her, and Lijuan had only two outlets for it. Whenever they found themselves in a do-or-die situation, Lijuan’s fangs came out and many a bad guy felt themselves on the receiving end of the small foot-long blacksmith’s hammer she kept tucked in her belt at all times.
Lijuan’s other outlet was the business of running the Cedar Ledge ranch. She reveled in the task since the day their father, Judge William Henry “Whip” Wilde had turned it over to her so he could focus on his career as a circuit judge. Lijuan loved the power of being in control of the sprawling five-hundred-square-mile spread of land and all its hired hands.
Cassie knew, of course, she was partly to blame for her sister’s love of being in control. As children, Lijuan had been a mousy child dominated by her older sister when Cassie herself was still but an immature, bossy child. The youngster had resented the addition of Lijuan when she appeared with Whip after the whole family had thought he had been lost at sea off China. Young Lijuan had felt powerless against Cassie’s treatment of her and now that she was an adult closing in on thirty, she relished being the opposite of her old self.
Cassandra’s deepest regret in life was all those years she had mistreated the little girl who had grown into the woman she now loved so dearly. She gave thanks every day that Lijuan had forgiven her, but she knew Lijuan would never forget how it had been. At the end of the day, though, she knew Lijuan would unquestionably be at her side when she needed her, but her preference was always to be at her desk holding sway over the family’s business interests.
Cassandra was jolted out her reverie as Catalina dug her heels in and rode her horse close enough to give Cassie a playful nudge. She gave Cattie a mock look of irritation before bursting out laughing. Quickly, however, she returned to her silent thoughts, which this time around, were about Catalina. The young beauty had been born to the Mexican wife Whip had taken after he had met her during his purchase from her family of what at the time had been one hundred square miles of Arizona land. Leaving Mexico behind with her new husband, Mercedes Corderro, had christened her family’s former land, Cedar Ledge, only to die a short time after the ranch had been completed. Despite the tragedy of losing a mother she never got a chance to know, Catalina was an irrepressible, fun-loving free spirit, and Cassandra loved her for it.
Cattie would always be her rock, Cassandra thou
ght. They were the youngest and the oldest sisters and they shared a deep bond. Cassandra also knew that Catalina had always looked up to her as a role model and perhaps even bit of a hero. She really didn’t think she deserved the admiration, but it flattered her. Truth be told, she admired Catalina for living life the way she wanted to, even though her choices, more so than even the rest of the family’s, flew in the face of what society expected.
It had been in her teenage years that Catalina discovered that while she greatly enjoyed the attention of the young men in their hometown of Alamieda, she found she couldn’t just limit her interests. Everything in the world had screamed at the young girl to deny her feelings, but in the end, she had decided if it felt right to her, then who was the rest of the world to tell her she couldn’t dally with members of her own sex? Catalina had gone for it and never looked back.
Cassie knew it was dangerous, of course, as other women who dared to engage in such activities had been known to wind up in mental institutions, but she had vowed protection for her baby sister, and as long as she lived, no one would ever make an attempt to put Catalina away. She knew her other two sisters and their two brothers were also united in their protection of Catalina and her choices.
Cassandra always took a certain comfort with Catalina at her side. The young woman’s perpetual cheerfulness and good nature could lift even the darkest of spirits, but more than that, Cassie knew she could always count on her help. Really, the only thing that could ever keep Cattie from aiding Cassandra was the fact that while Lijuan ran the overall business of the ranch, Catalina, who was just in her early twenties, was in charge of the entire physical operation when it came to the Wilde’s cattle ranch. As long as her duties didn’t call for her to be away on such things as cattle drives, Cassie could be assured of Cattie being at her side when needed.