Lynna Banning - The Law And Miss Hardisson

There were some things about Irene Hardisson he’d give his eyeteeth to know—like what she thought about at night. What she wanted in life. What she looked like underneath all those flounces.

That settled it. He’d stay. For a while. A short while. Might do him good to hang his hat somewhere he was actually wanted for a change. But she was no rambling rose. She was a lady and he wouldn’t compromise her. And he’d work damn hard to keep her from sticking in his memory when he rode away.

PLUM CREEK BRIDE

“…pathos and humor blend in a plot that glows with perception and dignity.”

—Affaire de Coeur

WILDWOOD

“5 *s.”

—Heartland Critiques

WESTERN ROSE

“…warm, wonderful and witty—a winning combination from a bright new talent.”

—Award-winning author Theresa Michaels

The Law and Miss Hardisson

Harlequin Historical #537

#535 THE STOLEN BRIDE

Susan Spencer Paul

#536 SILK AND STEEL

Theresa Michaels

#538 MONTANA MAN

Jillian Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Harlequin Historicals

Western Rose #310

Wildwood #374

Lost Acres Bride #437

Plum Creek Bride #474

The Law and Miss Hardisson #537

To my aunt, Jean Banning Strickland

With special thanks to Suzanne Barrett, Ida Hills, Norma Pulle and Leslie Yarnes Sugai.

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

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Author Note

All he could remember was there were cherries on her hat. Bright, shiny, red cherries, nodding over her forehead. Nothing else penetrated the fog of pain and nausea while they’d loaded him into the stagecoach. He slumped into the corner seat and set himself to endure the thirty-mile trip across the eastern Oregon plains to Cedarville, where the driver claimed there was a doctor.

Early that morning he’d been full of beans and vinegar, anxious to get this job over with and head back to Texas, anxious for a meal he didn’t have to cook over a fire he built himself. That ended when someone shot him off his horse and the gelding dragged him a quarter of a mile before he could get his boot out of the stirrup.

“He’s probably broke some ribs and maybe busted his arm in a couple places,” the stage driver had said. Someone sloshed whiskey down his throat and the cherry hat lady sniffed.

There were other passengers, but the one he vaguely remembered was the one who was dressed Eastern and acted mighty prim and proper. The driver suggested she might care to wait for another stage, but she gave him a frosty look and in a tone like flint said, “I am expected in Crazy Creek, and I intend to get there.” After a pause, she added, “Is he more drunk, or more hurt?”

“Oh, Lordy, ma’am. He ain’t a drinkin’ man. But he shore is hurt. Somebody musta bushwacked him, cuz he’s good with a gun, bein’ a Texas Ranger, y’see. He ain’t likely to lose a fair fight. He’s hurt, sure enough.”

“Very well. He is as anxious as I am to get to town. Why delay further?”

The driver grunted.

When the coach started up, his head slid forward against the siding. Then something soft and warm cushioned his cheek and he vaguely remembered a wet, cool cloth against his face and a not-to-be-denied voice saying crisply, “Drink this,” and the burn of straight whiskey from a tilted bottle.

When they pulled into the dusty town, he remembered that she climbed out and started giving orders. “Watch his head. If the doctor is nearby, you men can carry him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said.

“Wait!” she commanded. “Should he have more whiskey if the pain gets worse?”

“We ain’t got more, ma’am. Only had one bottle.”

She looked up and down the dusty trail that passed for a street, pulled a bill from her reticule and handed it over. “Get whatever you think he might need, and bring me the change.”

They manhandled him out of the coach and he thought dimly that his chest might explode with the pain. But the only thing he could recall clearly were the bright red cherries on her hat.

When he finally regained consciousness, he was on a bed in the corner of the doctor’s office, trussed up in tape and bandages with one helluva headache.

Crazy Creek, Oregon

1883

Clayton Black drew rein at the top of the hill and gazed down at the secluded valley stretching below him. He sucked in some air, winced at the familiar pain in his rib cage and let his breath out easy. Two of his ribs were bruised, the doctor had said. One was cracked. He couldn’t take a breath without being reminded.

He rubbed his injured arm as he gazed down at the creek twisting through the land. Bordered by gray-green willow and cottonwood trees, it lazily encircled the tidy town and then meandered off to the west.

He hurt enough that camping out another night held little appeal, but still he hesitated. Crazy Creek looked too civilized to attract an outlaw like Brance Fortier, but you never knew. Maybe Fortier had passed through here. Maybe somebody had seen him, would remember which way he was headed. Not likely he’d stay long in a town as peaceful as this.

Clayton didn’t plan to, either. Just the look of the place—trim picket fences, rosebushes in bloom, boardwalks on both sides of the streets—gave him the jitters. Too orderly. Too civilized.

He squinted under the wide brim of his hat. Newspaper office, mercantile, hotel, livery stable, barbershop, sheriff’s office. A gleaming white church steeple drew his gaze and he groaned. It was one of those towns full of pious people and prayer meetings. A white steeple town.

Too much like his mother’s meticulously kept plantation in Louisiana, and not enough like the dusty, ramshackle ranch in East Texas he and his father called home. Or had, before Fortier killed him.

A lump the size of a walnut swelled in his throat. I’ll get him, Pa. You just lie easy and don’t worry. If he got back alive, he vowed he’d plant a sweet-briar rosebush on the graves of his father and his sister.

Once more, Clayton directed his gaze on the little town curled in the lap of the green valley. The late morning sun poured down like honey. The landscape was so different from the dry, sagebrush-dotted desert he’d ridden over the past four days for a moment he thought the view might be a mirage, a glimpse of some lush emerald and gold paradise. Only thirty miles from Cedarville, but it looked like another planet.