Laurie Kingery - The Sheriff's Sweetheart

“Are you…are you an outlaw? A wanted man?” Prissy held herself very still, as if she were afraid of the answer.

“No,” he said.

“Are you…are you married?” Her voice was a shaky whisper. “Did you leave a wife behind somewhere?”

He couldn’t stop the hoot of laughter that burst out of him and seemed to bounce off the twisted tree limbs hanging above them. “No, Prissy! No, I’m not married, or promised or anything like that.”

“Then what could it be?” she asked, her blue eyes puzzled in the sun-dappled shade. “If you’re not in trouble with the law, or married…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you play a guessing game,” he said, contrite over the worry that furrowed the lovely brow framed by her strawberry-blond curls. “Here’s my confession—I didn’t come to Simpson Creek for the sheriff job.”

“Y-you didn’t? Then why—”

“I came to meet you.”

makes her home in central Ohio, where she is a “Texan-in-exile.” Formerly writing as Laurie Grant for the Harlequin Historical line and other publishers, she is the author of eighteen previous books and the 1994 winner of a Readers’ Choice Award in the Short Historical category. She has also been nominated for Best First Medieval and Career Achievement in Western Historical Romance by RT Book Reviews. When not writing her historicals, she loves to travel, read, participate on Facebook and Shoutlife and write her blog on www.lauriekingery.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Choose you this day whom ye will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

—Joshua 24:15

To A.C.F.W., the American Christian Fiction Writers, an amazing organization that inspires and informs me, and as always, to Tom

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Houston, Texas, June 1866

“Hold him a moment, gentlemen,” the silky voice purred, like a sleepy lion preparing to toy with some hapless creature his cubs had brought down.

Sagging between two burly men who each held an arm to keep him upright, Sam Bishop opened his eyes just enough to see Kendall Raney clenching his fist and drawing it back. The flickering lamplight winked from the pigeon’s egg-size ruby on the man’s ring finger. Sam closed his eyes, reluctant to watch the pain coming at him. Pinwheels of fiery light exploded in his head, and everything went black.

He awoke moments later when they dropped him unceremoniously on the filthy floor of another room. His arms were tied behind him, his legs bound together. He gave no sign he was once again aware, hoping the dust wouldn’t make him sneeze. Unconscious men probably didn’t sneeze, and the pain an innocent sneeze would send shooting from the ribs they had broken might make him groan aloud.

“You want us to finish him, Mr. Raney, and leave him in some alley?”

He heard an anxious whine and the scuffling of small paws on metal. Added to that was an acrid smell that suggested the beast hadn’t been let outside lately. He opened one eye just a crack. His back was to the cage, so he couldn’t see the dog; all he could see was Raney’s booted feet and beyond him a square, squat safe on the floor against the wall.

“Wait till it’s dark,” Raney said. “Then we’ll take him out to the bayou. I’ve seen half a dozen bull alligators out there sunning themselves on the banks. I imagine they’d relish a taste of this fellow.”

The other two chuckled but their laughter was tinged with uneasiness. “Sounds like you’ve used those gators to solve your problems afore, boss,” one of them said.

“Only when someone is foolish enough to accuse me of cheating,” Raney answered in his silky voice.

Again, too-hearty chuckles. “Hope they don’t mind if he’s already dead by then,” the other said. “He ain’t hardly breathin’. I think I broke his skull when I hit him.”

“I don’t think they’ll mind. Meat is meat, after all.”

“You oughta take off that ring, boss. Looks like yer hand’s swellin’. You might not be able t’git it off later.”

“I believe you’re right. Why don’t you step outside a moment, fellows? Then we’ll stroll down to Miss Betty’s place for supper. It’s on me, as payment for your services.”

“Why, thanks, Mr. Raney,” one of them said. “You want us to walk yer dog for ya?”

“No, we’re going to take that cur along when we go to the bayou. He’s nothing but a nuisance. He’s too small for fighting and he chewed up my best gloves, blast his hide. The gators can have him along with that senseless fool on the floor.”

So Raney planned to feed him and the dog to the alligators? Now freeing himself meant even more than avoiding another beating.

Sam heard the sound of the door closing behind the other men and Raney’s booted feet crossing to the window. There was a swish of fabric as he wrenched the curtains shut. Of course—he wouldn’t take a chance that one of his henchmen would peek in and be able to read the numbers he turned on the safe’s dial. Raney’s crouched form hid the safe’s dial from Sam, too, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a safe or a lock that could keep Sam Bishop out.

He heard clinking as Raney laid the money he’d “won” from Sam inside the safe, then the footsteps retreated and the door slammed.

Sam waited a full minute until the footsteps faded down the boardwalk, then cautiously opened his eyes and rolled onto his other side. In the corner sat a metal cage, and in it crouched a small black, brown and white canine—some sort of terrier mixed with who-knew-what. The dog cringed as Sam looked at him.

“Don’t worry, fella, I’m not going to hurt you or leave you for gator food,” he assured the dog, who cocked his head at the hoarse whisper. “When I leave here, you’ll be free, too.”

Once he broke free of the ropes and rubbed the circulation back into his wrists, he gazed at the safe. The dog watched him now, a down-on-his-luck cardsharp who’d been fool enough to stop in at The Painted Lady and think that he could beat the house with his skill at cards. And more foolish still to think he’d survive calling the proprietor a cheat when he’d detected the man’s surreptitious palming of a card.

While Sam worked the lock, one ear pressed up against the metal to listen for the tumblers falling, he pondered his situation. It was time for a change of scenery. Houston’s supply of gullible card players was played out, which was why he’d taken the chance of coming to this infamous waterfront establishment to begin with. He’d been a riverboat gambler before the war, and he could go back to that, but the large number of Federal troops and carpetbaggers coming south via the riverboats had made his southern drawl a professional liability.

And, if he was honest with himself, it was a lonely existence, always coming back to an empty rented room with a saggy, lumpy mattress. Maybe it was getting to be time to think about settling down. Maybe.