Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Welcome to Bent, Wyoming

Where the Wild West Never Died

Resident bad boy and saloon owner Grady Carson knows his brother is not a murderer, and he’ll do anything to prove it. But partnering with Laurel Delaney? Worst idea ever. The beautiful by-the-book cop challenges him like no other. Bad family blood—and a killer at large—makes their attraction unthinkable. Dangerous. Reckless. How can they solve a crime to prevent a family war and then let forbidden love ignite it anew?

Carsons & Delaneys

NICOLE HELMgrew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

Also by Nicole Helm

Stone Cold Texas RangerStone Cold Undercover AgentStone Cold Christmas RangerAll I HaveAll I AmFalling for the New GuyToo Friendly to DateToo Close to Resist

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07939-6

WYOMING COWBOY JUSTICE

© 2018 Nicole Helm

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Extract

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Laurel Delaney surveyed the dead body in front of her with as much detachment as she could manage.

“Know him?” the deputy who’d first answered the call asked apologetically.

“We’re distantly related. But who am I not related to in these parts?” Laurel managed a grim smile. Jason Delaney. Her third cousin or something. Dead in a cattle field from a gunshot wound to the chest, presumably.

“Rancher called it in.”

Laurel nodded as she studied the body. It was only her second murder since she’d been hired by the county sheriff’s department six years ago, and only her first murder in the detective bureau.

And yes, she was related to the victim. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exaggerating about the number of Bent County residents she was related to. She’d known Jason in passing at best. A family reunion or funeral here or there, but that was all. He didn’t live in Bent, his parents—second cousins, she thought, to her parents—weren’t part of the main offshoot of Delaneys who ran Bent.

“We do have a lead,” Deputy Hart offered.

“What’s that?” Laurel asked, surveying the cattle field around them. This ranch, like pretty much everything in Bent County, Wyoming, was in the middle of nowhere. No highway traffic ran nearby, no businesses in the surrounding areas. Just fields and mountains in the distance. Pretty and isolated, and not the spot one would expect to find a murder victim.

“The rancher says Clint Danvers broke down in front of his place last night. Asked to use his phone. He’s the only one who was around. Aside from the cows, of course.”

Laurel frowned at Hart. “Clint Danvers is a teenager.”

“One we’ve arrested more times than I can count.”

“Had to be a Carson,” she muttered, because no matter that Clint wasn’t technically a Carson, his mother was the mother of a Carson as well. Which meant the Carson clan would count him as theirs, which would mean trouble with a Delaney investigating.

Laurel herself didn’t care about the Delaney-Carson feud that so many people in town loved to bring up time and again, Carsons most especially. Her father could intone about the generations of “bad element” that had been bred into the Carsons, her brother who still lived in Bent could sneer his nose at every Carson who walked into his bank, her sister could snidely comment every time one of them bought something from the Delaney General Store. The street could divide itself—Delaney establishments on one side, Carson on the other.

Laurel didn’t care—it was all silliness and history as far as she was concerned. She was after the truth, not a way to make some century-old feud worse.

A vehicle approached and Laurel shaded her eyes against the early-morning sun.

“Coroner,” Hart said.

Laurel waved at the coroner, Gracie Delaney, her first cousin, because yes, relations all over the dang place.

Gracie stepped through the tape and barbed wire fence easily, and then surveyed the body. “Name?”

“Jason Delaney.”

Gracie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is it bad I have no idea how we’re related to him?”