Patricia Potter: The Lawman

“Patricia Potter is a master storyteller, a powerful weaver of romantic tales.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Mary Jo Putney

“Pat Potter writes romantic adventure like nobody else.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Joan Johnston

“Patricia Potter looks deeply into the human soul and finds the best and brightest in each character. This is what romance is all about.”

—RT Book Reviews

“When a historical romance (gets) the Potter treatment, the story line is pure action and excitement and the characters are wonderful.”

—The Book Browser

“One of the romance genre’s finest talents.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Pat Potter proves herself a gifted writer-as-artisan, creating a rich fabric of strong characters whose wit and intelligence will enthrall even as their adventures entertain.”

—BookPage

“It’s Potter’s unique gift for creating unforgettable characters and delving into the deepest parts of their hearts that endears her to readers.”

—RT Book Reviews

Dear Reader,

I’m overjoyed to return to my Western roots after visits to other historical venues and romantic suspense. And when I was offered a chance to write for Harlequin Blaze, well, how could I resist?

My hero and heroine, Jared and Samantha, have long haunted me. In truth, they have been demanding my attention for nearly eight years. I’ve ignored them until now, promising them their day. And this is it.

Sam and Jared are one of the strongest pairs I’ve ever brought to life. She’s the adopted daughter of an outlaw she dearly loves, and Jared is a marshal with a personal vendetta against that same outlaw.

Samantha will do anything, including shooting Jared, to save the man who protected her for most of her life. Jared will do anything to hang the man he believes responsible for the murder of someone dear to him, even if it means breaking the heart of a woman he’s coming to love.

Don’t miss the fireworks!

Patricia Potter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Patricia Potter is a bestselling and award-winning author of more than sixty books. Her Western romances have received numerous awards, including an RT Book Reviews Storyteller of the Year, Career Achievement Award for Western Historical Romance and Best Hero of the Year. She is a seven-time RITA ®Award finalist for RWA and a three-time Maggie winner. She is a past president of the Romance Writers of America.

For Carolyn, Barbara and Phyllis for their patience, support and really good advice. I love you guys.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Colorado Territory

January, 1866

GUILT WEIGHED like an anvil on his heart.

He should have insisted that Emma wait until he could accompany her from Kansas to Denver. He should have been with her.

Now she was dead, and he was responsible.

Just like before.

“You know her, Marshal?”

Jared Evans heard the question but didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the body of the young woman from the inside of the coach and carried her into the office he sometimes shared with Denver’s sheriff. He wanted her away from the prying eyes of curious onlookers.

He gently laid her down on the bench and knelt beside her, choking off the growl that started deep in his chest.

Emma. Pretty, smart Emma lay still, her dress stained with blood from a gunshot to the heart. She’d been all he had left of his wife, Sarah, who’d also died from an outlaw’s bullet three years earlier. Sisters.

She looked so much like Sarah. The same soft, pretty features and golden hair and blue eyes.

Jared hadn’t seen her since he’d returned after the war, only to find his wife, young daughter and brother dead, killed months earlier by Quantrill’s bloody murderers. Emma had taken him to the graves. Watched as he’d knelt down and howled in grief.

Emma was engaged then, and he’d left to track down the men who’d killed his family….

He closed his eyes. Sarah’s face replaced Emma’s in his mind’s eye.

“Marshal?”

He turned around.

“You know her, Marshal?” The driver, who’d followed them inside, asked again.

He nodded.

“Wasn’t no need to kill her,” the driver said. “Wasn’t no need for anyone to git killed. I stopped. But one of them bushwhackers tried to kiss her after he took her purse, and she bit him. He just plain shot her, then turned the gun on me. I dropped when it hit my shoulder. Heard someone use the name Thornton.”

Thornton. He knew the name. Knew it too damned well. He’d been chasing the Thornton gang for more than eight months. Confederates who didn’t know the damn war was over. Been robbing mostly military payrolls all over the territory. The jobs had been meticulously planned.

No one had been killed until now.

He touched Emma’s hair and closed her eyes. Rage and a terrible grief warred in his heart. For the second time in his life, he was too late to save someone close to his heart. “I’ll get them for you,” he said to her. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, every one of them will hang.”

Colorado, 1876

SHOOT HIM!

Samantha Blair’s fingers flexed as she watched the tall, lean man approach with an easy, graceful stride. The man she intended to stop at any cost.

She had stepped off the crumbling porch of the saloon just seconds earlier and stood in the middle of the rutted street in a stance that was all challenge.

Her long duster coat was confining and hot on this unusually warm day, but it disguised her sex. So did her loose shirt and worn pants. A hat covered her short hair, and she’d pulled the brim down over her forehead to cut the glare from the afternoon sun.

Sweat dampened her leather gloves as she stared across the forty feet that separated her from the man with a hard face and a star on his vest. His skin was deeply browned by the sun, his hair black and his eyes deep set. He looked like a hawk to her, dark and predatory. His grim expression did nothing to allay the impression of deadly competence. He moved with a grace that persisted even as he halted.

She pushed her coat back on the right side. He stopped, stiffened when he saw the gun. The intent.

The dry wind kicked up dust, and a hot sun bore down on her and the man who had hunted Mac, one of the three people in the world she loved, for years. She was a healer, not a killer. But now Mac was helpless. Critically wounded. Defenseless.