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Join Jake and Ellie on a wild ride!
Outlaw Jake Avery is handed an ultimatum–hang for his crimes, or become the new Sheriff of Sheridan, Wyoming. When he chooses the life of a lawman, he doesn’t expect a local widow woman to tangle with his emotions.
Ellie Reed needs Sheridan’s new sheriff to help her rob a train, and recover her late husband’s treasured property. She doesn’t expect the outlaw-turned-sheriff to steal her heart, as well.
As the train barrels through Wyoming, Jake and Ellie plan a robbery to avenge the past. But can they heist a future together?
EXCERPT:
Ellie shifted on the hard seat of the ladderback chair and stiffened her spine. She laced her fingers together and squeezed one hand with the other to keep from landing a blow to the good Sheriff Jake Avery’s face. His large hands gripped the front of his desk as the waves of his laughter slapped against her. He’d blinked twice at her proposition to rob a train, and then… this…laughter, so deep his tight stomach rolled and teardrops rested on long dark–blond eyelashes. He even snorted a couple times.
Refusing to let the insult of his laughter humble her, Ellie never allowed her gaze drop to her lap or shift from his face. If he thought her insane, he had cause—she’d give him that much. Over the past week, she’d called on Jake for everything from a cat stuck in a tree, one she’d chased up that tree, to a broken fence she said her neighbor cut allowing her cattle to scatter. Jake spent all day and well into the night helping her round up the cattle she’d let lose by cutting her own fence. These were just two of the awful things she’d done, all to test Jake’s patience, endurance and trustworthiness. And he’d passed.
Oh, she’d noticed the tick in his clenched jaw, the looks toward the heavens, and clenched fists. But Jake was a man who saw a job through, no matter how frustrating or distasteful. She’d also been introduced to how quick he could open a safe without the combination when she “forgot” the combination to her husband’s safe. And through a series of other mishaps, she’d been schooled in his skill with armaments of any variation. She’d heard the stories, now she knew the man. So, if he wanted to play the buffoon and howl with laughter for a few moments at her expense she’d allow it…this time.
But Lordy, she wished he’d be quick about it, she was about to melt in a pool of blue satin from all the clothes she was layered in, from bloomers, to corset, to the indigo dress she’d worn with the infernal feather hat to match. It was a dress her late husband brought back to her from his last trip to Australia. Jim saw her in it once when he took her out to a celebratory supper. He’d fallen ill the next day, and the dress was hidden in mothballs until she aired it out two days ago for her meeting this morning.
The pain in her left hand alerted her that memories were causing her to clamp down too hard. She cleared her throat in an effort to speed things along. The sheriff’s laughter died with a sputter as his gaze met hers and his right eyebrow hitched.
“You’re not laughin’?”
“Because it wasn’t a joke, Sheriff Avery. I want you to help me rob a train.”
Copyright Prairie Rose Publications, Kirsten Lynn, 2015
