The Gunslinger’s Untamed Bride

by Stacey Kayne

She shifted, pushing her elbows up beneath her as she started to sit up. Long shiny hair tumbled to her shoulders in a shimmer of russet and gold. “I…” She winced, her eyes pinching shut. “My…”

  Juniper quickly slid his hand beneath her head as she dropped back down.

  “Easy, sweetheart.”

  She blinked up at him. Her lips tipped with a smile.

  Juniper’s mouth went dry. She sure was pretty.

  “Oh my,” she said, sounding breathless.

  “You’ve taken a swift hit to the head.”

  “I must have.” Her eyelids drooped.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Lily.”

  Lily. What was this sweet, delicate flower doing way up here? Her weight relaxed against his palm.

  “Lily? Can you hear me? Lily?”

  She didn’t stir.

  Definitely a concussion. She’d moved enough to assure him nothing was broken. Needing to get her out of the sun and away from all the onlookers, he slid his arms beneath her shoulders and the bulk of her skirt. As he straightened, something solid jabbed against his ribs. He shifted her against him, firming his hold on her, and was pretty damn sure he felt the outline of a revolver packed into the green and blue folds of her skirt.

  At least she had enough sense to travel armed.

  He glanced up at the crowd of woodsmen. “Anyone willing to claim her?”

  The eager expressions of the men told him that was about the stupidest question he could have asked.

  “I will!” shouted one.

  “I’ll take her off your hands, Sheriff,” called another.

  He shook his head and carried her toward his office. Whatever her reasons for coming up here, riling the interest of a bunch of salivating lumberjacks was only going to get her into more trouble than she could handle.

  “Find Marty and Günter,” he said to no one in particular. “Tell them to hightail it to my office.”

  “You arresting her?” someone shouted after him.

  “I sure am! She’s breaking Pine Ridge law by being here. When I find out who’s responsible for bringing her up here, he’ll be packing his gear.”

  “Juniper?” His deputy hurried toward him. “She hurt?” Günter rushed ahead to open the door of the sheriff’s office.

  “Most likely a concussion,” he said, hoping that was the worst of her injuries. He carried her inside and carefully stepped into one of the two jail cells.

  “Who is she?”

  “Hell if I know. Go see if you can find Marty,” he said, placing her on a fairly clean cot. “I’d feel better if he had a look at her head before we send her down the mountain.”

  As the door shut behind his deputy, Juniper slid his hand into Lily’s skirt pocket. Just as he’d suspected, his fingers closed over a gun. Expecting a dainty Derringer or stylish Colt, the .44 Smith & Wesson surprised him. A right decent weapon by his standards and any man’s whose life depended on speed and accuracy. The plain wooden grip showed signs of heavy use, some of the varnish having worn through. He opened the cylinder, noting the empty first chamber and clean barrel. To his relief, the use hadn’t been recent.

  He glanced again at the woman. She seemed far too delicate to be carrying such a thing. Not that he blamed her for packing iron in such rough country, but why in creation would she have come all the way up here with nothing but a hard-used pistol in her pocket?

  Leaving her in the cell, he tugged off his hat and tossed the brown Stetson onto his desk. He set the lady’s revolver on a stack of reports. Crouching before the cabinet that held a pitcher and washbasin, he took out a clean towel. After pouring some water into the white basin, he dunked in the cloth, wrung it out and went back to Lily.

  Such a tiny little thing, he thought as he knelt beside her. Not much over five feet, and he’d bet ten pounds of her slight weight was sheer clothing, her full skirt fluffed up by a stack of petticoats. He laid the cool wet cloth over the bump hidden beneath her hair and stepped back.

  She seemed comfortable enough, though her fitted jacket did look rather constrictive. He wondered if he should open the high collar. He reached for the pearl buttons, then decided against it.

  “Wake up, pretty lady.”

  Günter stomped into the cabin. “Marty went up to check a bad-tempered ox. I sent a man after him.”

  Juniper released a sigh of disappointment. “All right. As soon as he gets back, send him over.”

  “Da.” Günter poked his head inside the jail cell, taking a closer look at Lily. “Pretty, ya?”

  “Yeah. A regular sleeping beauty. Go on and get some chow before Cook closes the kitchen.”

  Günter didn’t hesitate. Once Cook locked his doors there’d be no chance of getting a hot meal. “I’ll bring you a plate.”

  Juniper wasn’t sure when they expected him to eat—he’d hardly slept in a week. Between gun-toting damsels, renegade lumberjacks, crazed oxen and L. P. Carrington’s latest notice starting riots all over this mountain, he had more trouble than he could handle. The sheriff’s office had somehow become the headquarters for company complaints. Much more of this and he’d be making a trip to ’Frisco for a little one-on-one with L. P. Carrington. The man clearly had more money than smarts.

  Work had been rendered, timber cut and hauled off the mountain. These men needed their wages, not letters asking for patience while some overstuffed suit polished his coins.

  He leaned down and stroked a few strands of reddish-blond hair away from Lily’s face. Her long auburn lashes rested peacefully against her fair skin.

  He had a hunch he wasn’t the only one on the warpath. This wouldn’t be the first time a scorned lover had shown up at the lumber camp with a pistol in her pocket. If that was the case, one of their lumberjacks had been a right lucky man.

  Lily woke with a dull headache.

  She didn’t bother to open her eyes, not wanting to increase the throbbing in her skull. She needed hot chocolate. Reaching out, she blindly searched for the servant bell on her night table, yet the table eluded her.

  “Emily?” she called.

  “Whoever Emily is,” said a low, smooth voice, “it’s fair to say she ain’t comin’.”

  Lily sat bolt upright. She barely caught a glimpse of the man moving toward her before her brain seemed to slam forward, pounding stars into her eyes.

  She swayed. “Oh, my goodness.”

  “Easy, now.” Warm hands closed over her shoulders and eased her back down. “You took a swift blow to the head.”

  Eyes of the palest blue gazed down at her. She had a vague recollection of peering up into those cerulean depths once before.

  “How’s the eyesight?” he asked.

  Her gaze moved over his tanned features, sharp jawline and wavy blond hair with startling clarity. He held one hand up, two of his long fingers creating a vee.

  “How many fingers do you see?”

  “Two,” she said, smiling despite her headache. She sat up, slowly this time, and leaned back against the wall.

  His swift smile didn’t help her wooziness. The handsome stranger eased back. Light glinted off the silver star pinned to his dark leather vest.

  The sheriff. She glanced past him and noticed the metal bars.

  “Am I in jail?”

  Warm throaty laugher drew her gaze back to sparkling blue eyes. Flutters erupted low in her belly. She definitely remembered him, and was quite certain she’d found him just as striking the first time she’d looked into those sky-blue eyes.

  A sudden heat flooded her face, and Lily averted her gaze.

  “You’re getting some color back in your cheeks,” he said, which only increased the heat flaring into her face.

  Good gracious. Lily Carrington did not swoon over men!

  Glancing back at the sheriff, she now knew why. Lily Carrington had never been in the presence of a man like the sheriff of the Pine Ridge Lumber Camp.

  He took a step back, his broad shoulders seeming to block out
the rest of the world as he leaned against the metal door frame. He crossed his law-enforcing arms over his strong chest, creating a formidable barrier between her and the open doorway of the cell.

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing up here, Lily?”

  Her eyes surged wide. How did he know her name?

  “Don’t remember telling me your name?”

  “No,” she said, lightly touching the tender spot on the side of her head. “I’m not even sure how I ended up in here.”

  Golden eyebrows pinched inward, a look of concern narrowing his eyes. “Do you know where you’re at?”

  “The Pine Ridge Lumber Camp.”

  He smiled at her answer. The reaction caused an alarming effect on her pulse.

  “Yes, ma’am. How many women do you reckon we have here at the lumber camp?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “None. Do you know why, Lily?”

  “No.”

  “Same reason this logging camp has to employ its own sheriff. It’s not safe. I have enough work cut out for me without our rowdy crews fighting over a woman.”

  She certainly wasn’t a woman willing to be fought over! “This is all a terrible misunderstanding. I’ve come to Pine Ridge on business.”

  “I am aware.” The corners of his mouth slid upward again, and Lily was quite certain she’d never known a more handsome man with such a charming disposition. “Or was that pistol in your pocket purely for protection?”

  Her mouth dropped open. Her hand slid to her empty skirt pocket.

  “It’s on my desk.”

  Her gaze darted to the side. Her father’s gun sat atop a stack of papers on the sheriff’s desk.

  Oh, dear.

  “If that revolver wasn’t so polished, I’d worry about the missing bullet.”

  Lily groaned and slumped back onto the cot.

  “Lily, why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

  She stared into his gentle blue eyes and wondered if he used such charm to interrogate all his prisoners.

  “I can’t cut you loose in this lumber camp, but if you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

  Yes, perhaps he could. “I’m—”

  “Sheriff Barns!”

  He glanced over his shoulder as Davy burst in through the door.

  “What is it, Davy?”

  “Barns?” said Lily.

  The sheriff looked back at her, and Lily realized she’d spoken the name aloud. “That’s right,” he said. “Juniper Barns.”

  Lily couldn’t draw her next breath. His narrowing blue eyes suggested her expression revealed her shock.

  He can’t be.

  “Well, heck. You already found her,” Davy said before stepping back outside.

  Sheriff Barns didn’t take his eyes off her, eyes that didn’t seem quite so warm and gentle as a moment ago. “Heard of me, have you?”

  He wasn’t much older than her, far too young. She’d been only twelve years of age when her father had been killed, nearly thirteen years ago.

  “Does your father work up here, Sheriff Barns?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve got no blood kin left to speak of. My father died in Missouri nearly fourteen years ago.”

  His emphasis on Missouri throbbed through her mind as chills raced across her skin. Her gaze dropped to the holster strapped to his lean hips, the pearl grip of one of his guns visible beneath his vest.

  Gunned him down with those pearl-handled six-shooters.

  Oh, God. She glanced up and fear shivered through her.

  She’d come to Pine Ridge to kill the sheriff.

  And he knew it.

  “Where are you from, Lily?”

  He’d killed her father. “San Francisco.”

  “Born and raised?”

  There was no running from the situation. She’d waited twelve years for this day, to meet the man who’d stolen her life.

  “No.”

  “Hell,” he muttered, dropping his gaze. “Why can’t the past ever stay where it belongs?”

  Lily couldn’t stop staring at him, the clear blue eyes that had seemed so warm a moment ago, such handsome features…He just didn’t fit.

  “Guess that explains why you’d be foolish enough to show up alone in a camp full of lumberjacks.” He swore beneath his breath.

  “You can’t be the Juniper Barns from Missouri.”

  “I am, though I haven’t stepped foot in Missouri since I was fourteen.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. I’m assuming you knew at least one of the men who fell to my guns.”

  “My father,” she said, her mind still refusing to comprehend that this man was the callous killer who’d murdered him. Her heart thundered painfully in her chest as he stared back at her, his gaze so intent she could hardly draw breath.

  “My God,” he said in a whisper. “You’re Red’s daughter.”

  Her eyes surged wide.

  “Lily,” he said reflectively, as though he’d just recalled her name. “Lily Palmer.”

  “None of this is right,” she said, fighting the sudden burn of tears.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “Damn right. I’m sorry your father felt the need to call me out.”

  Her father wouldn’t have done any such thing!

  “I’m sorry as hell for every circumstance that led to this moment, where I’m staring into the pretty green eyes of a woman who’s come to shoot me.”

  “You can’t have—My father wouldn’t—”

  “I am and he did.” Juniper Barns pushed away from the cell.

  Lily flinched back against the cot.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, shutting and locking the cell door as he left.

  “Wait! Where are you go—” The cabin door slammed shut.

  Lily pressed her hands to her chest, her heart beating fit to burst. He wasn’t supposed to be so young. All the stories, the images in her mind…This was all wrong.

  What kind of a boy shot men for sport? Yet…he’d said her father had been the one to call him out.

  He had to be lying. He was covering for his father. Red Palmer had been a gentle giant, Mother always seeming so tiny and frail beside him. He was as kind as he was big. He had to travel for work, but they’d hardly been destitute.

  He wouldn’t do such a thing!

  The cabin door opened and Lily surged to her feet. Sheriff Barns opened the cell and ducked inside. She realized anew just how tall he truly was. He stepped toward her, and she bumped against the cot, her mind a tangle of fear and confusion.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Lily.”

  His gentle voice prickled her skin. She didn’t know how to react to him, a confusion intensified by the sadness vivid in his expression.

  She had expected Juniper Barns to be…older and mean.

  Cold steel closed over her wrists, jarring her from the mental haze. She gasped at the sight of handcuffs circling her wrists. “What are you—?”

  “Getting you out of here before I have a chance to find out if your bounty-hunting father passed on his skill with a gun.”

  “What! My father was a sa—” He strapped a bandanna around her mouth. She screamed into the roll of cotton.

  He knocked her back. Lily landed on the cot, flat on her back. Her heart lurched as he reached for her skirts.

  Lily thrashed against his hold.

  A second bandanna went around her booted ankles. He pulled her up into a sitting position and sat back on his heels.

  Fear transfixed her as he stared at her.

  “Aside from the fact that it’s just not safe for you up here, I don’t feel like taking a bullet this afternoon. And I’m not about to raise my gun to a woman.”

  “I ’ily ’ar-eon!” The roll of fabric in her mouth kept her from pronouncing her full name. Why hadn’t she said her full name sooner?

  He lifted her with startling ease, cradling her in his arms. She t
ried to twist from his grasp, but it was no use. His sturdy hold imprisoned her against his chest. He eased the door open with the toe of his boot and scouted the area.

  “There’s no reason to fret, Miss Palmer,” he soothed, the warmth of his lips alarmingly close to her ear.

  “‘Ar-eon,” she corrected, but the word Carrington didn’t go beyond the gag in her mouth. “I ’ily ’ar-eon!”

  “Chuck will get you safely down the mountain.”

  “I grabbed all the blankets I could find, Sheriff, just like you said.”

  Lily turned her face toward the gritty voice and saw a wall of plaid shirt before she was shrouded in gray wool.

  “Thanks, Chuck. I don’t want her bumping her head.”

  They were truly trying to sneak her out of camp! She heard the jingle of harnesses and snorting of animals as she was placed on something soft. She wiggled free of the blanket and gazed up at blue sky and the sheriff towering over her. She squirmed as he used a strip of rope to tie the chain linking her handcuffs to the spring of a wagon seat.

  He eased back.

  Her bound hands prevented her from sitting up.

  The rogue! She adamantly shook her head, terrified he was about to leave her. The wagon rocked as the man in the plaid shirt climbed into the seat and propped his boots on the front of the buckboard, directly above her. An older man with a thick gray beard, he squinted down at her.

  “Sheriff done you a favor,” he said. “Pine Ridge ain’t no place for a woman.”

  A woman? She was the owner! “I ’ily ’ar-eon!”

  Juniper Barns leaned close. “Chuck’s a little rough around the edges,” he whispered, “but trustworthy as they come. He’ll get you to the valley. This is enough fare to take the stage back to ’Frisco.” His hand pushed into her skirt pocket.

  He reached up and stroked her hair, sending a shiver of fear down her spine.

  “Swelling’s gone down,” he said. “Do yourself a favor, Lily. Don’t come back.”

  You stupid clod! I own this camp! Useless muffles vibrated against the roll of fabric as she tugged at her restraints. Juniper Barns tossed a blanket over her, shrouding her in darkness.

  Wait!

  A whip cracked.

  This wasn’t happening!

  “Move, you lazy animals!”

  Lily yanked at the handcuffs and twisted in the nest of blankets.