© 2018 by Mary Connealy
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961163
ISBN 978-1-4934-1366-9
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Studio Gearbox
Cover photography by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studios, Inc.
Author is represented by Natasha Kern Literary Agency.
To My Cowboy. My husband.
My very own romantic cowboy hero.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Mary Connealy
Back Ads
Back Cover
CHAPTER
1
SOUTHWEST OF LAKE TAHOE, NEVADA
OCTOBER 1867
Deborah Harkness came awake with a snap, her hand already steady on the six-gun under her pillow.
Just as fast, she eased off the tension and the trigger. She knew that sound.
“Deb, I’ve got to go.” Three-year-old Maddie Sue needed to make a predawn run into the tall grass.
It was almost encouraging that, after months of being awakened many mornings in just this way, Deb could still get nervous. A woman needed to be alert on a wagon train heading through the wilderness.
“Shhh, honey. I’ll take you. Shhh.” The little girl did her best to wait quietly—three-year-olds weren’t famous for that—while Deb slipped on the heavy coat she used for a blanket. Not waking up Maddie Sue’s exhausted parents was always Deb’s first goal. After that—not waking up Deb’s sister Gwen and Maddie Sue’s toddler cousin Ronnie ranked very high.
Everyone needed their sleep.
Deb had learned early on during this wagon-train journey to sleep fully dressed, so it took just seconds to put Maddie Sue’s little coat on her—it was sharply cold in the peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in October. Deb grabbed her knapsack and shoved her pistol inside. She never, ever left the safety of the wagon train without the bag and the gun. Mr. Scott had stressed this small precaution until it was a reflex. She urged Maddie Sue toward the back of the covered wagon.
A whimper stopped her.
Ronnie. If she left the little boy, he’d be bawling his head off before Deb got back, and it wouldn’t just be Mr. and Mrs. Scott who’d be awake—it’d be the whole wagon train. Ronnie could howl something terrible.
“I’ve got him, Deb.” Gwen was awake now, too. “I’ll walk out with you.”
In the pitch-dark of the wagon, Deb could more hear than see her eighteen-year-old sister donning her own coat.
Deb was tempted to growl with frustration. At this rate, she and Maddie Sue would be leading a parade into the privacy of the grass.
Instead she just whispered, “Thank you.”
She and Gwen had teamed up to keep the Scott children tended in return for a ride across the country.
They’d earned every penny of the trip.
Now they walked silently away from the small wagon train. There was not a stir from behind them, so Deb thought they’d left the Scotts still sleeping.
She sincerely hoped so.
The Scotts worked so hard and were so kind to Deb and Gwen. Deb’s life hadn’t had a whole lot of kindness in it for a long time.
They didn’t go far into the grass. Taller than her head, the grass could be disorienting, and in the moonless, starless hours before dawn, fear gnawed at her. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily get turned around in her directions and not find her way back to the wagons.
“Hurry up, honey.” The chilly air kept everyone moving fast. Gwen had Ronnie quiet, and Deb heard the eighteen-month-old boy sucking at a bottle. Gwen must’ve had the bottle ready from the night before and thought to grab it as they left the wagon.
“Good thinking on the bottle,” Deb whispered. The boy was probably too old for the bottle, but in the hectic world of the wagon train they hadn’t thought to spend time weaning him, and right now Deb was very glad for that.
Gwen’s quiet chuckle was followed by a soft croon as she kept the boy eating. “I’m on to him by now.”
They finished their little trip and turned to head back to the wagon when a gunshot cut through the night. Deb grabbed Maddie Sue’s arm and dove for the ground. Gwen landed right beside her, then stuck the bottle back in Ronnie’s mouth before he could start crying.
A scream ripped through the air.
The gunfire came again and again. More guns, many guns. The shouts, the cries of fear and pain and, to her horror, cries she recognized as people dying.
“Take the children and run.” Deb, her heart pounding, her stomach twisting until she feared she’d be sick, drew her gun from the pack and took one step toward the wagon train.
A hard hand slapped her wrist and hung on like a vise. “You’re not going back there.”
“I have to.”
“No, Deb, wait. Listen . . . it’s already over.” Sure enough, the hail of bullets had tapered off, followed by a few single but deliberate shots. Another cry of agony. Then the shooting ended as suddenly as it had begun. No more cries of any kind, only harsh laughter and a few last gunshots, aimed into the air maybe, joined by whoops of celebration.
“Let’s strip these wagons!” a man shouted in a high-pitched voice. It stopped Deb from trying to pull free from Gwen. Her sister was right. It was too late. There was no one left to save.
The horror shocked her to the marrow.
“We have to go, Deb,” Gwen whispered. “In case the children cry out. We have to get out of earshot.”
Maddie Sue whimpered.
Though Gwen was right, they didn’t both have
