Joanna Wayne - Son of a Gun

Rescuing a woman in distress was the cowboy way

Amid a freak snowstorm, Texas rancher Damien Lambert made the unlikeliest find on his Bent Pine Ranch—a bloodied woman and her infant daughter in hiding. Though her story was transparent as ice, the heat he saw in her eyes made him offer her refuge.

After a ruthless kidnapping and a harrowing escape Emma Duran needed a hero…and the baby needed a home. She’d found both in Damien—the perfect man with a cowboy’s swagger and a lover’s touch—until he learned about the incredible danger they faced. After that, Emma knew it would take all the cowboy Damien had to keep her and the child alive.

She’d gone to Paradise and found hell...

Now she’d gone to Texas and found Damien. The first had ruined her life and left her an emotional wreck. The second was likely to break her heart.

She was not what the cowboy needed, and he’d realize that as soon as he was through saving her.

She pulled out her pajamas from the travel case. Then, unable to help herself, she reached for the silky chemise inside. She held it in front of her in the full-length mirror.

She hardly recognized the woman staring back at her—the Emma she used to be.

Damien knocked on the door she’d left ajar. “How about a nightcap to—”

She saw his face reflected in the mirror. The chemise pooled to the floor, leaving her feeling exposed, though she was still dressed.

A second later Damien wrapped his arms around her from behind.

She turned and with tears she could neither explain nor stop, she lifted her mouth to his and melted in his kiss.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joanna Wayne was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from LSU-Shreveport. She moved to New Orleans in 1984, and it was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. Her debut novel, Deep in the Bayou, was published in 1994.

Now, dozens of published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and single-title novels. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list for romance and has won many industry awards. She is also a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.

Joanna currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas, with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star State. You may write Joanna at P.O. Box 852, Montgomery, Texas 77356.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Emma Muran—aka Emma Smith. She is on the run from a kidnapper who cannot afford to let her go free.

Damien Lambert—He’s the oldest son of a powerful and influential Texas business and ranching family.

Tague and Durk Lambert—Damien’s brothers. Durk is involved in the family oil business. Tague manages and works the ranch with Damien.

Carolina Lambert—Damien’s mother, who is still grieving for her husband, Hugh, who died a few months ago.

Sheriff Walter Garcia—Local sheriff.

Julio—Operates a human trafficking operation.

Caudillo—Wealthy arms dealer who lures women to his private island in the Caribbean and holds them captive.

Grandma Pearl—Damien’s grandmother. She can be a bit mischievous at times.

Aunt Sybil—Damien’s aunt who lives on the Bent Pine Ranch with the rest of the Lambert family.

Blake Benson—A veterinarian who owns the ranch next to the Lamberts and helps out in an emergency.

Dorothy Paul—Emma’s friend who was supposed to go with her on vacation.

Carson Stile—A good friend of Damien’s, an expert tech guy who never reveals how he gets his information from the internet.

Chale—Caudillo’s head guard.

Thanks to Dr. Lindsey Whitehurst for her information on how a veterinarian might help out in an emergency. A special thanks to all my psychology professors who taught me so much about abnormal behavior, though of course I took liberties with their lectures. And thanks to my husband for putting up with me when deadlines make me a pain to live with.

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

Prologue

Damien Lambert worked the curry comb in a circular motion, talking to King as he did. The black steed stood contentedly even though thunder growled continuously and zigzagging bolts of lightning split the sky, the glaring streaks of light visible through the open barn doors.

The other horses in the barn were also calmed by Damien’s soothing voice and company. Only Jolie, his mother’s pale gray quarter horse, pawed the hay-covered dirt as if she knew something about the approaching storm they didn’t.

Normally, Damien appreciated a good thunderstorm. It watered the pastures and refilled the creeks. The fierceness even had a way of clearing the air, a release of the occasional friction that erupted between him and his father. At times the two locked horns so tightly that Damien didn’t see how they could keep working together in the same state, much less on the same ranch.

Hugh Lambert. Bigger than life. A man who swore like a sailor, liked his bourbon a little too much at times and who’d go up against any politician with rhetoric, clout and his considerable wealth if he thought their policies interfered with him running his spread or his oil company as he saw fit.

But Hugh was also a man who’d fire his best wrangler or even a foreman in a second if he found they’d mistreated an animal. And even in the business world, he was a man whose word and handshake were as binding as a contract.

Damien had grown to appreciate that more and more as he’d matured. And when his father wasn’t reaming him out, Damien realized how lucky he was to have Hugh as a father. It had made him the man he was. Independent, tough and thick-skinned.

A clap of thunder fired like an explosion. Apprehension surfaced and weighed on Damien’s mind. His father and some of his ranching buddies had flown by private jet to the Cowboys/Cardinals game in Arizona. That would put their return flight straight in the path of the storm.

But they’d run into weather like this enough times that they knew the risk. When the weather warranted, the pilot landed the plane in any small airport in their path or else postponed the trip home until the next day.

Damien finished currying King and was brushing him down when he heard his brother Tague yelling for him. By the time Damien reached the barn door, Tague was standing there, out of breath, panic rolling off him like the dust the wind had kicked up.

“It’s Dad.” Tague’s words were shaky and barely audible.