The Gunslinger’s Untamed Bride

by Stacey Kayne

  “Musta been nothin’ but women and children on that ferry,” said Jake.

  Juniper grinned at the barb. With Kyle’s straight dark hair and midnight eyes, Griggs couldn’t have picked him out due to any family resemblance. The only similar features they shared were height and build.

  “Your other deputy caught up with us,” Kyle continued. “He came barreling down that mountain road like Paul Bunyan come to life. He tore into Deputy Griggs for leaving his post. You ought to have that big Swede in your sheriff’s office. I didn’t think there was anyone who could cast a shadow over you, and that boy looks mighty fierce when he’s riled.”

  “Which is why I’ve needed him up at the camp. In the past couple months most of my trouble has been with the crews up at Pine Ridge. Inundated by pay holds and informative leaflets that only stoked tempers, the men have been so riled they don’t know who to fight first.”

  “Guess the Chandler boys were able to give them some direction.”

  “It would seem,” said Juniper.

  “Those Chandlers are everywhere these days. I just spent a few months up in Montana with Ned Chandler and his buddies. You’ll never guess where they were headed.”

  “Is that what brought you home, the Chandlers?”

  “I don’t like to leave any loose ends,” said Kyle.

  “You sure loose ends brought you home?” said Jake. “I think it had more to do with a certain Montana wildflower.”

  “Shut up, Jake.”

  Juniper arched an eyebrow, Kyle’s sharp response piquing his interest. “You have a wildflower I ought to know about?”

  Kyle scoffed. “Hell no. I learned my lesson. I don’t pick flowers, I just roll in ’em for a while.”

  Juniper couldn’t say he blamed him. He sure hadn’t envied Kyle the day he’d stood beside him and Jake, looking out at a church full of expectant faces, waiting for a bride who never showed.

  “Why focus on a single flower when all I gotta do is ride through town and have entire bouquets blooming for my touch.”

  “Careful,” Jake warned. “Your head’s gonna swell up inside your hatband.”

  “A snug hat’s one thing,” said Juniper, “but you go spending time with them indoor bouquets and something else is liable to shrivel up and fall off.”

  Jake gave a hoot of laughter.

  “Keep it down,” Kyle grumbled. “Or have you forgotten we’re a half mile from the Chandler place? June’s the one with flower troubles. According to Günter, the lilies are particularly vibrant this spring.”

  “I can handle the lilies, it’s the Chandler boys I want to know about. I didn’t place the name until Emma Donnelly mentioned their homestead in the flat-topped hills. I know there’s been stage robbers in the family.”

  “Just before I checked Ned into a Montana prison, he’d gotten word from Clyde and Billy about a job up in the pines. I don’t think he was referring to cutting down timbers.”

  Juniper muttered a curse. “Everyone on that mountain knew we were waiting on two months’ worth of wages.”

  “A big chunk of change,” said Kyle.

  “Had I known that cash was coming up the mountain, I damn sure would have had a swarm of armed guards. Even so, I had a hard time believing our guys would shoot a man down in cold blood during the heist.”

  “Billy and Clyde have done far worse. If they’re from the same stock as the rest of their kin, like Ned, which I’m betting they are, finding a pigeonhole and lying low in between jobs is what they do best.”

  Juniper shook his head. “Desperate as everyone has been for their wages, I doubt it took much carousing to get the rest of the crew involved. They’ve got honest men caught up in all this.”

  “You? A bleeding heart?” asked Kyle.

  “Lord knows I’ve spilled more than my share. But I’d bet my gun belt some of those men didn’t want any bloodshed and went into this with good intentions.”

  “Not to worry, June.” Jake started in the direction of the homestead, his dark hat fading into trees and shadows. “We only shoot when shot at.”

  “Amen, brother,” said Kyle. “It’s the vermin you can count on to strike first and ask questions second.”

  “All right then,” Juniper said, taking the lead. “Let’s go flush ’em out.”

  The Chandler house seemed to rise up out of nowhere.

  Lily, emerging from a dark channel of stone into a thick field of sagebrush, stayed just beyond the yard of the ramshackle house and dilapidated woodshed. The run-down place stood in a small clearing just beyond the high cliffs.

  Even in the dim moonlight, the house appeared abandoned, showing signs of long-term neglect—weeds growing from the uneven roof planks, tall grasses almost overtaking the shack. But the house was occupied. She’d smelled fresh wood chips as she passed the old woodshed, and a thin trail of smoke snaked from the stovepipe on the house.

  She crept lightly through the dense sage and manzanita, wondering if Juniper had already entered the house. She’d lost track of him quite a ways back, but the channel of stone leading through the gap, just as he’d described, had been easy enough to find. This had to be the Chandler homestead.

  Light burned in the single front window. Yet she didn’t spy a flurry of activity as she’d expect following an ambush. She couldn’t rightly walk up and knock on the door to see if her strongbox had been collected and all the men apprehended.

  A low murmur of voices drew her gaze to the corrals beyond the far end of the house and a wide patch of sheer darkness. With the moon at her back, a stone ridge cast a wide shadow, cloaking a broad stretch of ground in the pitch of night.

  Suddenly she wondered if the gun she gripped tightly in her right hand was even loaded, something she should have checked before now. Crouched low, she eased into a patch of milky moonlight and opened the chamber.

  Fully loaded.

  Drawing a silent, steady breath, she raised her gun, not knowing if the hushed whispers were lawmen or outlaws. She eased up, and took a cautious step forward. With her next step a man seemed to materialize out of the shadows, soundlessly appearing before her, his gun trained on her.

  She gasped, and looked up into wide blue eyes beneath a brown hat.

  Juniper.

  He stared at her, his gun dropping to his side.

  “Lily?”

  His whispered word barely reached her ears. He’d obviously expected to find someone else standing in the brush. Someone other than the woman he’d brazenly kissed as a cruel ploy to leave her behind.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger. Maybe he was just who she wanted to have in her sights.

  Juniper hardly believed his eyes. Yet there she stood, her pale skin bright in the moonlight, a revolver aimed at his chest. Her glistening eyes narrowed; her gun hand steadied.

  Holy hell. She meant to shoot him.

  He fought his reflex to raise his gun. Damn if he’d take aim against her. He’d sooner take his place in hell.

  Her gaze darted past him. Her eyes flared. Her aim shifted, the blast splitting through the evening silence as she shouted his name.

  He twisted to see the man who’d been sneaking up on him stagger back, the blood trailing down between his eyes appearing black in the moonlight before he toppled to the ground. His rifle hit the dirt beside him.

  A man sprang up from the brush, the barrel of his rifle nearly touching Lily. “You sunuva—”

  Juniper fired both his guns, dropping the man nearly as quickly as he’d sprung up.

  Gunfire rang out all around the house, his men clearly mistaking the first gunshot as their signal to rush the house. Shadows moved off to the right. Two figures started running toward a south pasture.

  “Get down!” he shouted to Lily as he ran after them.

  Crashes and shouts came from inside the house as June reached the edge of the yard.

  “Don’t move!” Kyle’s voice boomed amid the ruckus. The sound of pounding hoofbeats told him the two deserters had re
ached their horses.

  With no chance in hell of catching them on foot and his men outnumbered, Juniper turned and sprinted toward the porch. He vaulted up and over the railing and kicked in the door. Two lumberjacks stared up at him, their arms stretched over piles of money.

  Jake charged in from the other side, his gun drawn.

  Both men threw their hands up.

  “Face down,” Juniper ordered.

  They dropped to their bellies.

  “Restrain ’em,” he said to Jake.

  “Put it down!” Kyle shouted from one of the bedrooms on the right. Juniper stepped inside and saw Calvin, his gaze wild, a pistol in his hands.

  “Do as he says, Cal,” Juniper said in an easy tone.

  The kid’s gaze moved between them, but the gun didn’t waver.

  “You make me break your sister’s heart again, and I swear I’ll shoot you twice just for the hell of it.”

  His hands trembled on the gun as he stared at Juniper. The distraction was all Kyle needed to rush him and knock him to the floor.

  “Wait!” Cal shouted. “I was just—”

  “You were just pissing me off,” Kyle said in a growl as he cuffed the younger man’s wrist.

  “How many we got?” Juniper called out as he stepped back into the main room.

  “I got two,” Jake said, straightening away from the two men kneeling, their wrists and ankles bound by the same strip of rope.

  “Three secured in here,” Günter shouted from the kitchen.

  With the two dead and two deserters, all ten were accounted for. He had to get back to Lily. He’d need her to identify the man who’d abducted her yesterday. Tension coiled across his back at the thought of bringing her within the view of these men.

  “Blindfold all of them,” he said to Jake.

  “What?” Calvin stumbled in from the bedroom, Kyle at his back. “Why?”

  “We’ll ask the questions,” Kyle said, shoving him to the floor beside the other two timbermen.

  “Can you cover this?” he said to Kyle.

  Kyle gave him a questioning glance. “Sure.”

  “Where you goin’!” Cal called after him.

  Juniper was already rushing across the rotted porch.

  Chapter Eleven

  S tanding in the tall brush beyond the yard, her pale skin aglow in the moonlight, Lily hadn’t moved an inch. Juniper’s gaze locked on the fine trembling of her body and the gun still in her grip. Her arms limp at her sides, she stared at the body sprawled on the ground a few yards out.

  “Lily?”

  She looked up at the sound of his voice, then dropped to her knees, her breath rushing out in a sharp burst. Juniper knelt in front of her and slid the gun from her grip as his arm closed around her. She drew a jagged breath, the all-too-familiar tremors shaking her small frame.

  “You’re all right, darlin’.”

  “I…H-he…”

  Juniper eased her limp weight against him. “Shh. You’re all right,” he said, lifting her into his arms as he stood.

  Her arms went around his neck and held tight. “I shot him,” she breathed against his throat.

  Pain twisted through Juniper. He should have been the one to shoot Clyde Chandler. He carried her beyond the back of the house. Not wanting any of the others to know she was here, he continued toward the shed some fifty yards from the house. He eased onto a rough-cut bench at the side of the shed. Her breath came in and out in short puffs. Her tight grip damn near cutting off his air, he reached for her arms.

  “Lily?” he whispered, loosening her hold.

  “Don’t let go,” she gasped, pressing more firmly against him.

  “I won’t,” he promised, working to ease her hold so he could help her catch her breath. “But you’ve got to breathe, darlin’.”

  Lily shut her eyes and tried to draw a full breath. The image of blood spattering into moonlight forced them back open. Pain racked her body, her lungs rebelling against her attempt to suck air.

  “I can’t stop…shaking.”

  “I know,” he said. “Focus on those deep breaths. Nice and easy.”

  She gazed up at him, confused by the simple order as panic swelled up inside her.

  “Focus,” he said. “Deep breaths.”

  She dragged in a hard breath. “He’s dead,” she said on the exhale. She twisted, trying to look back.

  Juniper’s hand cupped her chin, preventing her from glancing toward the front yard.

  “You’re safe,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

  Tears streaked hotly across her cheeks. “I nearly…got you killed,” she said, knowing he’d likely have seen the other man if she hadn’t distracted his attention.

  “But you didn’t.”

  Dear God, her chest felt as though it might burst open at any moment. She kept seeing the man’s head rear back, the spray of blood, his blank expression as blood trailed down his face before he toppled to the ground.

  Her stomach turned.

  “Head down,” Juniper instructed. The hand on her back gently eased her forward as he spoke. “Got to keep breathing, sweetheart. Slow and easy.”

  After a few minutes of focused, steady breathing, her stomach began to settle. Still, Juniper didn’t let her up.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, his soothing voice encouraging her to keep taking long, slow breaths.

  As her mind began to clear and her nerves settled, she realized she was actually on his lap, her head between her legs, her hair hanging toward the ground. Suddenly, she hated him seeing her like this.

  She dragged in another deep, shaky breath and eased back.

  “I think I’m okay,” she said, using his knee to push up.

  “You’re still shaking,” he said, the arm around her waist keeping her on his lap. His hand slid into the side of her tangled hair, his fingers resting on her neck. She knew he was checking her pulse, the flat line of his mouth suggesting he wasn’t satisfied with what he felt.

  “Believe me, you’re not ready to stand just yet.”

  “I’m j-just cold,” she said, realizing the fact.

  “Then I’ll warm you up.” His arms tightened around her, tucking her against his chest, beneath his chin. His big hands slid over her arms and her back in slow, gentle strokes.

  Another shudder racked her body. She shut her eyes, allowing him to rub the chill from her skin.

  After what felt like an eternity, his warmth began to seep through her and her pulse settled to match the steady thump of Juniper’s heart. Shouts from inside the house drew her attention. She sat back, realizing she was keeping Juniper from doing his job.

  “Shouldn’t you be inside?” she whispered.

  “There’s three other lawmen in there to keep things under control.”

  Lily released a long, shuddered breath.

  “Feeling a little better?” he asked, his hand gently stroking her hair away from her face, his gaze heavy with compassion and understanding.

  “You’ve felt like this?”

  “More times than I care to recall.”

  The blend of understanding and regret in his gaze filled her with an instant unease. She hadn’t imagined he’d feel such emotion over taking a life. Yet he’d come to her, knowing just how to penetrate the chaos in her mind, to calm the grip of cold fear that had surrounded her. His warm hand moved across her back, and this time the startling intimacy of his tender embrace filtered into her dazed mind.

  “If you need to go inside—”

  “In due time. I haven’t yet lectured you for following me, when you knew damn well I wanted you to stay put.”

  “Remind me to listen to you next time.”

  His slow grin caught her by surprise. The backs of his fingers brushed lightly across her cheek, setting off a rush of shivers that owed nothing to fear or shock.

  “Count on it,” he said, his smile fading as his hand dropped away from her face.

  The back door opened, spilling light across
a small back stoop. A wide span of shoulders filled the doorway. He wasn’t tall enough to be Günter.

  “Juniper?” she whispered, sliding her arms inside his jacket, around his waist.

  “June?” the man called out.

  “It’s Kyle Darby, one of ours,” he whispered. “Over here,” he called out.

  The man hurried toward them, and Lily tightened her hold.

  Juniper’s hand moved reassuringly across her back.

  “Two men are missing,” Kyle said as he approached. “Best we can figure, the men standing off in the scrub were…” His voice trailed as his gaze locked on Lily tucked against Juniper’s chest. “Apparently there were more than bandits hiding out in the brush.”

  He pulled off his hat, revealing dark eyes and straight dark hair. “I didn’t know you were bringing your girl,” he said to Juniper.

  “She decided to surprise me.”

  Lily’s cheeks burned. She tried to rise, but Juniper’s arms held her firmly on his lap.

  “Neither Chandler is inside,” said Kyle.

  “Then Billy must be one of the two men who got to their horses. Clyde and his uncle are in the front yard awaiting headstones.”

  Lily turned her face to his shirt, the image of pooling blood and glassy eyes dragging an involuntary whimper from her throat.

  Juniper’s arms tightened around her. “She got caught between Clyde and me.”

  “Did he hurt her?” asked Kyle.

  “She’s just shook up. First kill is never easy on the stomach.”

  Kyle’s eyes widened.

  “As far as this investigation goes, I shot both men.”

  “Understood,” said Kyle.

  “But you didn’t,” Lily protested.

  “She saved me from a bullet,” said Juniper.

  “Any one of us would have done the same,” Kyle said to her. “Cousin, I do believe I need a proper introduction.”

  “Kyle Darby, this is the owner of Carrington Industries and the Pine Ridge Lumber Camp and Mill, Miss Lily Carrington.”

  “Palmer Carrington,” she corrected.

  Juniper raised his eyebrows, surprised by her sudden insistence on the use of her given last name.

  “Miss Palmer Carrington,” said Kyle, “it’s a fine pleasure to meet you.” He took her hand in his and drew it to his lips.