Beneath him the paint horse stomped, blowing nostril smoke into the chill March afternoon as if to question his master's pause. A swirl of wood smoke rose from the cabin into the slate gray heavens, the promised warmth a lure. Like the woman had been to his brother.
For a hundred miles or more he'd considered exactly what he'd do when he arrived at Silas's homestead on the Kansas prairie. He still didn't know if he'd stay. One thing for certain, the harlot had to go.
While he squinted, thinking, a red roan horse came into sight and stopped in front of the log cabin. A woman came out onto the porch, hugging a blue shawl to her chest. Esther. The harlot.
Anger unfurled inside him, a snake ready to strike. He'd been angry so long he didn't know how to feel anything else.
A man in a suit and black bowler dismounted and approached the porch. He grasped the woman's arm and she shrank back, resistant.
Jericho frowned, more interested than he wanted to be.
Leaning forward in the saddle, he squinted hard, saw the woman struggle against the man's superior grip. Struggle and fail. Jericho should be happy to see her in trouble but he wanted to be the cause. Not some dandy in a black bowler.
Whatever the dandy wanted couldn't be as troubling as the news Jericho carried inside the pocket of his duster.
A grim smile flickered.
A man against a woman. He didn't like the odds. Might as well make it two.
He clicked his tongue softly and tapped his heels to the strong brown flanks that had carried him hundreds of miles for this moment.
Time for a reckoning.
Read the rest in THE RAMBLER'S BRIDE by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Linda Goodnight - available March 15!
More teasers...
Excerpt from Janet Tronstad's Lovebirds at the Heartbreak Cafe
July 1958
A fly buzzed outside the screened window of the Heartbreak Cafe while, inside, a truck driver named Buddy Hamilton sat in a worn booth and nursed his tall glass of lemonade. He'd seen the Waitress Wanted sign in the café window for the past month, but he hadn't paid it much attention. Jobs were scarce, but working at the Heartbreak couldn't be anyone's dream come true.
Besides, the place with its white and black cracked linoleum and slow-moving ceiling fan was practically deserted. Right now, it was only him and another trucker – a man he called Shades in honor of the movie star sunglasses he wore. Buddy and Shades never spoke, but they nodded hello and good-bye the way truckers did with each other.
Buddy was starting to stand up and make his farewell nod to the other man when the door opened.
Whoa, he thought, as he stood there, trying to keep his mouth from hanging open. A gorgeous blonde woman stepped into the cafe. Well, not so much stepped as bounced. Then she stopped and pointed at the waitress ad with a red-tipped finger. Buddy had always been a sucker for polished nails on a beautiful woman.
"Well, hello there," he said in his friendliest voice.
She smiled back at him and his heart raced.
He was trying to think of something clever to say when Fred Norris, the middle-aged owner of the cafe, came out of the kitchen and saw her. Bubby couldn't help but notice Fred's appreciative look turn a little sour when he saw where she was pointing. The man always said he didn't hire young women because they didn't stay on the job and this one looked like she couldn't be much past twenty-one. Still, Fred set down the coffee pot he had been carrying and motioned for the woman to take a seat.
Buddy sat back down, figuring he should stay around to console the woman when Fred refused to hire her. She was a looker, all right. Now that he saw her up close, he could see she was more wholesome than he'd first thought with her shining golden hair pulled into a sleek ponytail and the ends of her white long-sleeved shirt knotted tight around the waist of her denim jeans.
Her cheeks were rosy and Buddy didn't think she was wearing any makeup. But then he could never tell those things. He did notice she had a bit of what looked like grape jelly on one cuff of that blouse of hers. She probably didn't even know it was there.
Buddy enjoyed looking at the woman, but Fred was right -- she didn't belong here. He figured she'd taken a break from a cheerleading squad on some college campus. When she got the full picture of Webster Crossing though, no amount of rah-rah optimism would make her stay. The place was so nondescript that he wouldn't be stopping himself if it wasn't the only place to eat along this stretch of desolate highway.
Read the rest in LOVEBIRDS AT THE HEARTBREAK CAFE by USA TODAY bestselling author Janet Tronstad - available March 15!
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Excerpt from Debra Clopton's Her Mule Hollow Cowboy
Buford snorted, sending Maddie Rose instantly on alert. She knew the ornery hunk of steaks could make mincemeat out of her if he chose.
He chose.
One powerful kick sent the gate slamming into Maddie. A scream ripped from her as the bone-crunching impact knocked her off her feet. Flying backwards like a rag doll, she slammed into the pipe fence. Pain exploded, glazing everything as it seared through her, dazing her.
Got to stay on your feet.
The gate swung away from her and instinct had Maddie clawing, grasping for its rungs.
Stay off the ground or be trampled.
Bufford kicked the gate again, and this time, Maddie's breath whooshed from her and she hit the ground instantly.
Right in Buford's path.
She landed face first in the dirt. Wheezing, she willed herself to move. To breathe.
But, as she'd been unable to help herself all those years ago when she was a sickly abandoned baby, she was helpless now.
Suddenly, boots attached to denim-clad legs thudded to the ground between her and Buford.
"Yah," yelled the cowboy, planting himself directly in the line of danger as the bull bolted from the trailer like a runaway tank.
Where the cowboy had come from, Maddie didn't know, but from her position he looked like a gift dropped straight from heaven.
"Go on, now," he yelled, stomping and waving his arms he held his ground.
Buford cut sharply to the right, away from Maddie.
Relief surged through her as the cowboy herded the bull into the holding pen then dropped to his knees beside her.
"Here you go," he drawled, easing her to her side. "Try to relax. Come on now, go easy."
She struggled to relax and the breaths got easier, though there was a sharp edge to each one if she inhaled too deeply. "Thank. You," she managed, smiling weakly.
He didn't smile back. Concern etched his rugged, handsome face. "Glad I was here. How are you now?"
Maddie's pulse fluttered, she was mesmerized by his penetrating indigo eyes. Flustered, she rubbed her ribs, winching. "Like I've been kicked by a two-thousand-pound bull."
His soft chuckle sank over her like warm honey.
"You may have broken some ribs," he said kindly, then demanded, "What were you doing out here by yourself in the first place?"
"Loading a bull," she retorted, humiliated. This cowboy probably thought she was some greenhorn who didn't know beans about bulls or cattle.
She struggled to sit up without groaning. Honestly, she was feeling better—but who wouldn't? Her cowboy rescuer would make any woman forget she'd been almost stomped to a pulp—even her.
Those eyes of his were lethal weapons.
The guy was gorgeous—even oxygen deprived and in pain as she'd been, she'd realized that immediately. Touchable dark hair curled from beneath his straw hat and enhanced his firm, chiseled jaw. His high cheekbones underlined those penetrating, strength filled, blue eyes.
He flashed an enticing crooked grin. "You're one tough lady, Maddie Rose."
Maddie got hung-up on that smile—suddenly thinking about long, slow kisses... There was an understandable delay in her fogged brain relaying the message that he knew her name...
Read the rest in HER MULE HOLLOW COWBOY by #1 Amazon bestselling author D
ebra Clopton - available March 15!
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Excerpt from Margaret Daley's Deadly Hunt
Tess Miller pivoted as something thumped against the door. An animal? With the cabin's isolation in the Arizona mountains, she couldn't take any chances. She crossed the distance to a combination-locked cabinet and quickly entered the numbers. After withdrawing the shotgun, she checked to make sure it was loaded then started toward the door to bolt it, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
Silence. Had she imagined the noise? Maybe her work was getting to her, making her paranoid. But as she crept toward the entrance, a faint scratching against the wood told her otherwise. Her senses sharpened like they would at work. Only this time, there was no client to protect. Just her own skin. Her heartbeat accelerated as she planted herself firmly. She reached toward the handle to throw the bolt.
The door crashed open before she touched the knob. She scrambled backwards and to the side at the same time steadying the weapon in her grasp. A large man tumbled into the cabin, collapsing face down at her feet. His head rolled to the side. His eyelids fluttered, then closed.
Stunned, Tess froze. She stared at the man's profile.
Who is he?
The stranger moaned. She knelt next to him to assess what was wrong. Her gaze traveled down his long length. Clotted blood matted his unruly black hair. A plaid flannel shirt, torn in a couple of places, exposed scratches and minor cuts. A rag that had been tied around his leg was soaked with blood. Laying her weapon at her side, she eased the piece of cloth down an inch and discovered a hole in his thigh, still bleeding.
He's been shot.
Is he alone? She bolted to her feet. Sidestepping his prone body, she snatched up the shotgun again and surveyed the area outside her cabin. All she saw was the sparse, lonely terrain. With little vegetation, hiding places were limited in the immediate vicinity, and she had no time to check further away. She examined the ground to see which direction he'd come from. There weren't any visible red splotches and only one set of large footprints coming from around the side of the cabin. His fall must have started his bleeding again.
Another groan pierced the early morning quiet. She returned to the man, knelt, and pressed her two fingers into the side of his neck. His pulse was rapid, thready, and his skin was cold with a slight bluish tint.
He was going into shock.
Read the rest in DEADLY HUNT by #1 Amazon bestselling author Margaret Daley - available March 15!
One more teaser...
Excerpt from Camy Tang's - Necessary Proof
Jane Lawton nearly dropped her steaming pot of Mac-N-Cheese at the sound of a powerful fist knocking at her apartment door. "Coming!" She spooned the gooey, bad-for-you goodness into a bowl, then ran some water in the pot in the sink.
The urgent knocking sounded again. Somehow it didn't sound like one of her neighbors, wanting Jane's help with a computer problem. She looked through the peephole.
She felt a sharp pulse at the base of her throat. "Alex?" She opened the door.
Normally a walking Calvin Klein ad, he now had a grim, serious cast to his face as he hurriedly entered her apartment with a messenger bag slung across one broad shoulder. "Quick, close the door."
"What's going on?" She locked the deadbolt.
It frightened her that he looked so different now, lacking his usual smile and dimples. "I need your help, Jane."
She couldn't control the bitterness that burned the back of her throat. It seemed that was the only thing she was good for, helping the men in her life so they could leave her and move on. She swallowed and said carefully, "Doing what?"
He pulled a laptop from his messenger bag. "There's information on this that I need, but I'm not sure if there's any type of security protecting it."
"Whoa." Jane took a step back. "You're saying that's not your laptop, and you want me to get into it? What's going on?" She knew he had been in prison for a few years, but she thought he'd put his illegal past behind him.
He scrubbed his hand over his high forehead. "It's not what it looks like."
"That makes it sound even worse."
He exhaled and seemed to study her. His intent, dark eyes made her squirm. She knew she'd changed a lot in the past year. She'd only spoken to him once in all that time, a few months ago at the party celebrating his brother's engagement to Rachel, Jane's second cousin but as close as a sister. After a minute or two of chit-chat, he had been quick to leave her to speak to Detective Carter, which had given her a pang even though she hadn't been in a sociable mood. What a difference from when she and Alex had first met years ago. He had seemed interested in her, but she'd been ...
She shoved the memories aside. "I'm only going to ask this one more time. What's going on?"
"I just ... I can trust you, right?"
"Trust me with what?"
Read the rest in NECESSARY PROOF by author Camy Tang - available March 15!
Don't miss this collection of brand-new novellas! FIRST KISSES will be available March 15. If you want to receive an email when the collection releases, please sign up here: http://eepurl.com/M6d9z .
About the author
Lacy Williams grew up on a farm, which is where her love of cowboys was born. In reality, she's married to a right-brained banker (happily with three kiddos). She gets to express her love of western men by writing historical romance. Her books have finaled in the RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Awards (2012, 2013 & 2014), the Golden Quill and the Booksellers Best Award.
Find Lacy on the web at http://www.lacywilliams.net and www.facebook.com/lacywilliamsbooks .
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