“Aw, hell, Alex…” His guard slipped. He dragged out a chair and straddled it, keeping the back like a barricade between them. “I didn’t mean…” Josh slapped his hat down on the table and raked one hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. Sorry this happened. I feel like—”

“Like saying I told you so?” She made a small sound in the back of her throat that could have been a chuckle.

“Never,” he lied, having thought that exactly. She looked so pitiful. It was all he could do not to reach out and pull her into his arms, to hold her until the fear went away.

Don’t even think about it. She’s trouble. She’s the one woman in the world you can’t have.

Yeah, he knew that. So how come she was the one woman he wanted so much?

Dear Reader,

Josh Colter is a rancher on a trail of revenge. Alexandria Gibson is on a journey to find her brother. Both are looking for the same man in Susan Amarillas’s new Western, Wyoming Renegade. Susan’s last two books have won her 5 ratings from Affaire de Coeur and many new fans who’ve been eagerly awaiting this tale of two people who must choose between family, and love and honor. Don’t miss this exciting story.

Catherine Archer’s Lady Thorn is the story of a Victorian heiress who falls in love with a sea captain who promises her protection in exchange for her help in locating his son. We hope you’ll find this gifted author’s story—in the words of the reviewer from Affaire de Coeur— “impossible to put down.”

USA Today bestselling and multiaward-winning author Ruth Langan’s new series, THE JEWELS OF TEXAS, moves into full swing with this month’s Jade, the story of a small-town preacher who surrenders his soul to the town madam. And in Kate Kingsley’s new Western, The Scout’s Bride, a determined young widow decides to accept the help of a rugged army scout who has made himself her unwanted protector.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you’ll keep an eye out for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie. Ont. L2A 5X3

Wyoming Renegade
Susan Amarillas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN AMARILLAS

was born and raised in Maryland and moved to California when she married. She quickly discovered her love of the high desert country—she says it was as if she were “coming home.” When she’s not writing, she and her husband love to travel the back roads of the West, visiting ghost towns and little museums, and always coming home with an armload of books.

To my “big sister” Madeline Baker

There from the first, there for me still

Many thanks

Prologue

Zeke Larson was going to die. He knew it, and so did his captor.

Moonlight, white and cold, flooded the valley, casting the red rocks in black shadows. The woeful howl of a coyote and Zeke’s harsh breathing were the only sounds.

He was strung up to a cottonwood tree like a damn four-pronged buck, his arms stretched painfully over his head, hemp rope cutting into his wrists. Every time he moved, the trickle of blood oozing from his side turned into a crimson rivulet.

Close by, stood his captor. A motherless gut-eating ‘breed by the dark look of him. Zeke hated half-breeds and Indians and just about anyone else who- wasn’t what he thought of as “his kind.”

“I’m telling you I ain’t the one you’re lookin’ for,” Zeke argued, not for the first time.

The man didn’t answer, just pushed the cold, hard barrel of his .45 deep into Zeke’s wound.

Zeke groaned against the searing pain. “Damn you, ‘breed!” he spat.

“Absarokee,” his captor corrected flatly. “Are you ready to tell me?” His voice was soft, almost serene, as though he hadn’t been torturing Zeke for the past several hours.

Zeke knew he could end it, knew what the bastard wanted. Damn ‘breed had said so plain enough at the beginning. He wanted the names of the other two who’d gunned down a group of Indians a couple of weeks back.

Zeke had denied everything, not that it had done him any good. Zeke liked to drink and he liked to brag. He had made the mistake of doing both at the local saloon. He figured that was how this coldhearted scum had gotten on his trail.

Now Zeke was trying frantically to come up with a way out of this—an excuse, an alibi, a deal. So far nothing had worked.

A sage-scented breeze rustled the leaves of the tree, but it didn’t do a thing to ease the sweat that beaded on his forehead. He swiped his face on his sleeve. He was determined to outlast this bastard. No Indian was gonna get the best of him!

“Are you ready to tell me?” his captor repeated.

“I don’t…know nothin’.” Zeke ground out the words between clenched teeth. That bit of defiance earned him another slap in his throbbing wound.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Tell me.”

Zeke wanted to stay alive, at least he did if he could get free of this. He knew the other man meant business, knew that once he told the bastard what he wanted to know, there was nothing and no one to stop his captor from killing him.

Another sudden slap against his wound and he wasn’t so defiant anymore. Pain pulsed and trembled through him, searing his mind and body in a blinding red haze. The scent of his own blood filtered into his nostrils, his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his chest.

It wasn’t any kind of loyalty that kept Zeke from spilling his guts; it was spite, and the knowledge that this information was the only thing keeping him alive. Besides, there wasn’t much to tell.

They’d split up right after their little “party.” Cordell had said he was headed south. Hell, that could be anyplace from Colorado to Texas. And there was the kid, Gibson. They’d picked him up in Gunlock. He had been working in a bank, of all things, and when they’d said they were headed out to look for ranch work, he’d come along, eager for excitement. Well, the tenderfoot had gotten his share, and then some.

A few days out of town, they’d spotted a bunch of Indians camped by Lazy Horse Creek. Zeke didn’t know one tribe from another, didn’t care. Everyone knew them redskins were causin’ trouble, slipping off the reservation, stealing horses and cattle. There were way too few soldiers to keep them in line, teach ‘em just who this land belonged to.

It hadn’t taken much talking, or much drinking, for the three of them to decide to ride on in and put the fear of God into them heathens. Why, it was a white man’s patriotic duty. Hell, they were only doing what the army did. They were probably saving some rancher’s life, they’d told themselves. It had seemed a mighty fine idea then.

Zeke lifted his head slightly to see that his captor had stepped directly in front of him. The breeze stirred the ‘breed’s shoulder-length hair and the moonlight caught on the beading of his buckskin shirt. Without a word, he put his gun barrel next to Zeke’s thigh and fired, the bullet ripping through flesh and muscle.

“You bastard!” Zeke snarled, then clamped his jaw down hard to hold back the scream. He yanked at the restraining ropes, wrapped skin-tearing tight around his wrists.

His captor only smiled, a slow menacing smile. “Tell me.”

Zeke remained silent. He tried to think of something, anything, but the constant pain. But no matter what he tried, the only thoughts that came were ones of them Indians. One in particular. He’d never seen such hatred in a pair of eyes, not that he’d cared. She was just some whoring squaw. He’d held her down and forced her legs apart. He’d rode her hard, ignoring her screams.

When he let her up, she’d charged at him, claws bared. He’d had to kill her—self-defense and all.

The sharp metallic click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back brought reality clearly and painfully into focus an instant before the gun fired, the bullet ripping through his other leg.

This time Zeke did scream. Blood soaked his clothes and his skin. Pain was a living force inside him. There were no other senses, no other emotions, only the pain and the knowledge that this was just the beginning. A man could last like this for days if he let himself.

“Anything! I’ll tell you!” he screamed.

“I’m waiting,” the man said quietly.

“Cut me down, dammit. I’ll tell you.”

There was a moment of hopeful silence, then the sound of the gun hammer being cocked again.

Zeke sagged in defeat. He told the man everything, the names, the smallest detail of descriptions, every little bit he knew about destinations. When he was done, he said, “Kill me. Just kill me and be done with it.”

“You mean quick?” his captor said, sliding his gun back into his holster. “Or do you mean slow, the way you killed my sister, you bastard?”

“Sister?” Zeke’s head came up and he was eye to eye with his tormentor. Moonlight illuminated the man’s face and eyes, hard eyes, black as Satan’s.

He knew then his fate was sealed. Reason was lost. “Well, just so as you know, the squaw was good. Real good. The way she clawed and bucked under me—”

The scream of rage that came from the half-breed’s throat bore no resemblance to human sound. It pierced the night like a war lance tearing through human flesh.

“I’ll see all of you in hell,” the half-breed snarled, and plunged the blade of his knife into Zeke’s throat.

Chapter One

Alexandria Gibson stood in the elegant parlor of her Nob Hill home. She pushed back the curtain covering the double French doors, and the delicate white lace brushed butterfly soft against her hand. The night was ink black, the barest beginnings of fog drifted up from the bay.

“I’ll be leaving in the morning.” She didn’t look at her father, who was seated five feet away on one of two matching love seats. She could practically feel his icy gaze boring into her. “Eddie will be here bright and early.”

“What do you mean, Eddie?” her father demanded, his baritone voice seeming to fill the. highceilinged room.

Alexandria looked at him along the line of her shoulder. Even at fifty her father was a fine figure of a man—tall and lean, his brown hair graying, but thick enough to make a younger man envious.

“New evening clothes?” she asked, ignoring his question. She didn’t want to get into another long discussion. They’d been going around and around about her trip since Monday, when she’d announced her plan.

“Yes,” he muttered, momentarily distracted. “I’m playing poker with Strickland later at the club.” Anger sparked quicksilver bright in his blue eyes. “Never mind my clothes.”

She sighed inwardly. Well, if he was intent on being stubborn, she could be equally stubborn. She was her father’s daughter, after all, and that gave her more than a fair amount of hardheadedness.

“What’s Eddie got to do with this?” her father grumbled.

“He’s going along.”

“As what, your chaperon? Ha! If I can’t keep tight reins on you, then Eddie sure as hell can’t.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Me? I’m not the one who’s being difficult.” He shook his finger at her in a way that made her feel like a child, which she wasn’t, not at twenty-five. That short temper of hers was moving up the scale faster than mercury on a July day.

“I need help, with the horses and such.” She gritted her teeth to keep her voice calm.

Her father scowled. “This is going to give the gossips enough grist to fuel the rumor mill for months, maybe years.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will. Just as I’m sure they will blithely overlook the fact that Eddie is only eighteen, my first cousin, and has enough freckles sprinkled across his face to make him look tan even in winter.”

“And you don’t care a whit what’s said, do you?”

“No, not a whit.” She’d been her own person since, well, all her life and she saw no reason to change now. “You, of all people,” she told him, in what she hoped was a reassuring tone, “shouldn’t worry about me.”

“But I do. More than I want to, dammit.” He surged to his feet and paced—marched actually—across the room, until he practically slammed into the upright grand.

He faced her, one hand braced on the top edge of the gleaming mahogany, the other curled into a fist at hi side.

“It’s no use, Alexandria.” He had a granite-hard expression that said he wasn’t going to be put off. She braced for the fight.

He continued. “Letting you go off to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was one thing. But how the hell you ever talked me into letting you go to Paris to study that damn painting business…” He shook his head again. “But no more. Do you hear me? No more. You should be settled, married. I want grandchildren.”

Muscles down her back tensed in reflexive response. Not again! If she had a dollar for every time they’d had this discussion in the past six years, she could finance her own trip back to Europe instead of having to rely on his financing.

With resignation, she steeled herself to try to explain one more time. “Papa, you are too conventional, and I’m too stubborn to be someone’s submissive little wife.”

It wasn’t the marriage part she objected to, it was the submissive part she couldn’t get past.

She dropped down onto the side chair, the pale green silk upholstery smooth and cool against her skin. A shiver prickled over her shoulders.

Her father’s voice carried across the room to her.

“How do you know you couldn’t be someone’s wife, missy?” She heard him moving closer. “Good Lord, Alex, men have been turning up on the doorstep since you were sixteen. You’ve never given any of them half a chance.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him headed for the small walnut table on the far wall that held an array of crystal decanters with an assortment of whiskey and bourbon.

He tossed the stopper down with a clunk and snatched up a glass. He sloshed the Irish whiskey into the cut crystal. It spilled over the top and over his hand and he quickly held it away from him, letting it drip onto the carpet.

He sipped the drink down a quarter inch.

“If your mother had lived…she would have made certain you were settled.” He took a hefty swallow.

Alex faced him, the love seat like a defensive wall between them. “Please, please don’t worry about me. The world doesn’t begin and end with marriage. I do fine on my own.”

“For now, but I’m thinking of later. What about when you’re forty or fifty or… ?” He took another drink. “I think you’re too picky, Alexandria. What about Ned?”

“Your precious Ned is only interested in himself and his blossoming career with your bank.”

He regarded her through narrowed eyes. “‘My precious Ned,’ as you call him, is a man with ambition. It’s usually considered an attribute.”

“Yes, I know about ambition, only in women it’s considered a failing. I have no interest in marrying just to be Ned Hager’s stepping-stone to success. He’s going to have to earn that by himself. I have my own plans.”

“To be an artist.” His tone was skeptical. “Do you know how many successful artists there are in the world? Damn few, and even fewer women artists.”

“Then there’s room for one. I’m leaving tomorrow for Wyoming. My plans are made.”

He glared at her.

She glared back. Finally, wanting to end this, she said, “I’m going to see Davy while I’m there. Don’t you think he’s been exiled long enough?”

“Your brother is not exiled. You make it sound like he’s in Siberia. I simply sent him to our bank in Gunlock.”

She knelt on the love seat, her fingers curving over the smooth wood trim. “Papa, please. He’s learned his lesson, I’m sure.”

“Well, it’ll be a miracle if he has. As I recall, his habits included public drunkenness, gambling, staying out all hours… and let’s not forget the women. David’s only nineteen. At the rate he was going, I doubted he’d live to see twenty.”

There was a hitch in his voice, a crack that expressed his feeling more accurately than his words. It was that little crack that quelled her temper. “I know,” she told him softly, sincerely.

Tears threatened, and she blinked them back. “I know you love Davy. Just as I know you love me.”

His chin dropped to his chest for a moment, and she wondered what he was thinking?

Drink in hand, he moved to the other love seat. They faced each other across the small expanse. Elbows on knees, he said simply, “David doesn’t make loving him easy.”

With a feeling of deéjà vu, she leaned forward, touching his sleeve with her hand. “I know he’s been difficult, but he means well.”

She missed her brother terribly and loved him unconditionally. “You miss him, too, don’t you?”

“I miss him.”

His voice was husky, and far away—as far away as Wyoming. “It’s time,” she told him firmly, confidently, maybe a little more confidently than she felt. She’d failed to stand by Davy once, but never again.

“Yes,” he said, and sighed. “Tell him to come home.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “I’ll make it my personal mission to take care of him until he gets settled, until I leave for Paris.”

“Thanks,” he said absently, his gaze still focused on the dancing flames.

“Now that that’s settled, I’d better get to bed. I’ve got an early start in the morning.”

She hadn’t taken three steps when—

“Hold on there, missy. Thought you had me, didn’t you?”

I was so close to making a clean getaway, she thought.

“Assumed all this talk about your brother would make me forget about that blasted contest and about your trip, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think you’d forgotten. But I’m done talking.”

“By that I guess you mean you can run off to Wyoming and I’m supposed to give my stamp of approval? I’m supposed to pay the bills for this fiasco.”

She needed up-front money, his money. She’d used the last of her savings to pay the fee. The entry form had been mailed and accepted. Everything was in place, but it all hinged on her ability to make this trip.

“Two months,” she coaxed.

“You don’t need a career.”

“I’m an artist.”

“It was supposed to be a hobby,” he retaliated from his love seat.

“It’s an occupation.”

“It’s futile.”

“It’s exciting and challenging.” This time she took an aggressive step in his direction. “This is not some whim, Papa. I’ve been working hard in Paris. It took me a long time to find my place, my style. I’ve already shown two paintings in an exhibit and—”

“Two paintings! In all these years!” He raked his hand through his hair. “You call that success?”

“I call that a start. It’s more than I’ve been able to do here. I have to go back. You’ve said you won’t support me any longer, and I accept that. This contest money will let me make it on my own. I have to go. I have to.”

She wanted him to understand how she felt, the urgency that drove her, the excitement that filled her every time she made a painting, captured a feeling, a bit of herself on canvas. “Two months is all I’m asking.”

Uncertainty flashed in his eyes, and she gave him what she hoped was her best, most imploring smile, the one that had been letting her get her own way most of her life.

“I’ll be back by August.”

He shook his head, but he was vacillating, she could tell. “But all alone…”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Eddie.”

That head shake was getting more adamant.

“All I’m asking is for you to trust me, to understand. I’m not asking you to do it for me, just don’t stop me.” Very softly, she entreated, “Please.”

Heart pounding, she waited for the decision that would determine her future. She wondered for the first time what she would do if he refused. Would she give up painting? Would she try to find the money somewhere else? There was nowhere else to turn and there was a deadline rushing at her. Who knew when she’d have another opportunity like this?

Panic prickled along nerves already tight with anticipation. “Papa, I have to—”

“All right.”

“What?” she repeated, not certain she’d heard the words she’d waited for. “What did you say?”

“I said all right. On one—”

“Thank you!” She hurled herself in his direction, threw her arms around his neck and kissed his beardroughened cheek.’ “You won’t regret this!”

“One condition.” He tugged at her arms and set her away from him. His expression was executioner serious.

“Condition?” Dread coiled and swirled in her stomach like acid. She stepped back, her heel catching on her hem and making her more off balance than she already was.

“I’ll let you go on this trip. I’ll fund your expedition on the condition that when you don’t win this contest, you will give up this art business and allow me to find a suitable husband for you.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“I’m very serious.”

“You’d force me into a marriage?”

“Not force. Encourage.”

“But I…”

“What’s the matter, Alexandria, aren’t you willing to play the long shot? I’m giving you what you wanted. Have you changed your mind? Aren’t so sure you’ll win?”

She pulled herself up to her full height. “It’s a deal.”

“I want your word, Alexandria,” Jack Gibson said. “You will honor this arrangement. No arguments later. This contract is not renegotiable.”

Knowing her whole future was riding on the outcome, she said, “I agree.”

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Wyoming Renegade

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Table of Contents

Colter, sometimes you can be a first-rate ass, Josh thought to himself.

Wyoming RenegadeSusan Amarillas

SUSAN AMARILLAS

Prologue

Chapter One

Wyoming Renegade
Susan Amarillas