Stacey Kayne - The Gunslinger's Untamed Bride

She certainly wasn’t a woman willing to be fought over! “This is all a terrible misunderstanding. I’ve come to Pine Ridge on business.”

“I am aware.” The corners of his mouth slid upward again, and Lily was quite certain she’d never known a more handsome man with such a charming disposition. “Or was that pistol in your pocket purely for protection?”

Her mouth dropped open. Her hand slid to her empty skirt pocket.

“It’s on my desk.”

Her gaze darted to the side. Her father’s gun sat atop a stack of papers on the sheriff’s desk.

Oh, dear.

“If that revolver wasn’t so polished, I’d worry about the missing bullet.”

Lily groaned and slumped back onto the cot.

“Lily, why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

She stared into his gentle blue eyes and wondered if he used such charm to interrogate all his prisoners.

“I can’t cut you loose in this lumber camp, but if you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

Yes, perhaps he could. “I’m—”

“Sheriff Barns!”

He glanced over his shoulder as Davy burst in through the door.

“What is it, Davy?”

“Barns?” said Lily.

The sheriff looked back at her, and Lily realized she’d spoken the name aloud. “That’s right,” he said. “Juniper Barns.”

Lily couldn’t draw her next breath. His narrowing blue eyes suggested her expression revealed her shock.

He can’t be.

“Well, heck. You already found her,” Davy said before stepping back outside.

Sheriff Barns didn’t take his eyes off her, eyes that didn’t seem quite so warm and gentle as a moment ago. “Heard of me, have you?”

He wasn’t much older than her, far too young. She’d been only twelve years of age when her father had been killed, nearly thirteen years ago.

“Does your father work up here, Sheriff Barns?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve got no blood kin left to speak of. My father died in Missouri nearly fourteen years ago.”

His emphasis on Missouri throbbed through her mind as chills raced across her skin. Her gaze dropped to the holster strapped to his lean hips, the pearl grip of one of his guns visible beneath his vest.

Gunned him down with those pearl-handled six-shooters.

Oh, God. She glanced up and fear shivered through her.

She’d come to Pine Ridge to kill the sheriff.

And he knew it.

“Where are you from, Lily?”

He’d killed her father. “San Francisco.”

“Born and raised?”

There was no running from the situation. She’d waited twelve years for this day, to meet the man who’d stolen her life.

“No.”

“Hell,” he muttered, dropping his gaze. “Why can’t the past ever stay where it belongs?”

Lily couldn’t stop staring at him, the clear blue eyes that had seemed so warm a moment ago, such handsome features. He just didn’t fit.

“Guess that explains why you’d be foolish enough to show up alone in a camp full of lumberjacks.” He swore beneath his breath.

“You can’t be the Juniper Barns from Missouri.”

“I am, though I haven’t stepped foot in Missouri since I was fourteen.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’m assuming you knew at least one of the men who fell to my guns.”

“My father,” she said, her mind still refusing to comprehend that this man was the callous killer who’d murdered him. Her heart thundered painfully in her chest as he stared back at her, his gaze so intent she could hardly draw breath.

“My God,” he said in a whisper. “You’re Red’s daughter.”

Her eyes surged wide.

“Lily,” he said reflectively, as though he’d just recalled her name. “Lily Palmer.”

“None of this is right,” she said, fighting the sudden burn of tears.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“You’re sorry? ”

“Damn right. I’m sorry your father felt the need to call me out.”

Her father wouldn’t have done any such thing!

“I’m sorry as hell for every circumstance that led to this moment, where I’m staring into the pretty green eyes of a woman who’s come to shoot me.”

“You can’t have—My father wouldn’t—”

“I am and he did.” Juniper Barns pushed away from the cell.

Lily flinched back against the cot.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, shutting and locking the cell door as he left.

“Wait! Where are you go—” The cabin door slammed shut.

Lily pressed her hands to her chest, her heart beating fit to burst. He wasn’t supposed to be so young. All the stories, the images in her mind. This was all wrong.

What kind of a boy shot men for sport? Yet … he’d said her father had been the one to call him out.

He had to be lying. He was covering for his father. Red Palmer had been a gentle giant, Mother always seeming so tiny and frail beside him. He was as kind as he was big. He had to travel for work, but they’d hardly been destitute.

He wouldn’t do such a thing!

The cabin door opened and Lily surged to her feet. Sheriff Barns opened the cell and ducked inside. She realized anew just how tall he truly was. He stepped toward her, and she bumped against the cot, her mind a tangle of fear and confusion.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Lily.”

His gentle voice prickled her skin. She didn’t know how to react to him, a confusion intensified by the sadness vivid in his expression.

She had expected Juniper Barns to be … older and mean.

Cold steel closed over her wrists, jarring her from the mental haze. She gasped at the sight of handcuffs circling her wrists. “What are you—?”

“Getting you out of here before I have a chance to find out if your bounty-hunting father passed on his skill with a gun.”

“What! My father was a sa—” He strapped a bandanna around her mouth. She screamed into the roll of cotton.

He knocked her back. Lily landed on the cot, flat on her back. Her heart lurched as he reached for her skirts.

Lily thrashed against his hold.

A second bandanna went around her booted ankles. He pulled her up into a sitting position and sat back on his heels.

Fear transfixed her as he stared at her.

“Aside from the fact that it’s just not safe for you up here, I don’t feel like taking a bullet this afternoon. And I’m not about to raise my gun to a woman.”

“I ‘ily ‘ar-eon!” The roll of fabric in her mouth kept her from pronouncing her full name. Why hadn’t she said her full name sooner?

He lifted her with startling ease, cradling her in his arms. She tried to twist from his grasp, but it was no use. His sturdy hold imprisoned her against his chest. He eased the door open with the toe of his boot and scouted the area.

“There’s no reason to fret, Miss Palmer,” he soothed, the warmth of his lips alarmingly close to her ear.

“‘Ar-eon,” she corrected, but the word Carrington didn’t go beyond the gag in her mouth. “I ‘ily ‘ar-eon!”

“Chuck will get you safely down the mountain.”

“I grabbed all the blankets I could find, Sheriff, just like you said.”

Lily turned her face toward the gritty voice and saw a wall of plaid shirt before she was shrouded in gray wool.

“Thanks, Chuck. I don’t want her bumping her head.”

They were truly trying to sneak her out of camp! She heard the jingle of harnesses and snorting of animals as she was placed on something soft. She wiggled free of the blanket and gazed up at blue sky and the sheriff towering over her. She squirmed as he used a strip of rope to tie the chain linking her handcuffs to the spring of a wagon seat.