Natchez Flame - Couverture souple

Chapter 1
Galveston, Texas
July 20, 1846

Lord in heaven, what have I gotten myself into this time? Priscilla Mae Wills stood at the rail of the steamship Orleans surveying the scattered wooden buildings, weathered and unpainted, and the unkempt, seedy-looking men who lined the dock of the strand.

In the distance, the dirt streets of Galveston bustled with activity, wagons heavy with bales of cotton rumbling toward the wharf, men and animals clattering along in confusion. Puddles of mud still dotted the road from a recent summer rain.

Though the rest of the passengers had already departed, Priscilla searched the long wooden dock for the hundredth time, hoping against hope that Barker Hennessey, the man sent to meet her, had discovered the Orlean's early arrival and might yet appear.

You're a grown woman, Priscilla. You can do this on your own. But in all her twenty-four years she'd never traveled by herself, and even with her Aunt Madeline had never gone far from home. And she'd certainly never expected the newly formed state of Texas to be this untamed.

Bedraggled and wind-chafed and tired clear to her bones, Priscilla scanned the dock in search of anyone who might be Barker Hennessey. Several brown-skinned Mexican men singing in Spanish strolled past, but no one that her fiancŽ could possibly have sent to meet her.

Forcing a stiffness into her spine, she stepped off the wharf onto the wide dirt streets. A hot, muggy breeze whipped the dark brown skirts of her serviceable cotton day dress, and with every weary step the stiff white ruffle around the neck scratched the soft white skin beneath her chin. Strands of dark brown hair had come loose from the tight chignon hidden at the back of her bonnet and whipped tauntingly in the wind.

Priscilla glanced up the street. The sign for the Galveston Hotel and Saloon gleamed red and white in the hot July sunshine beside another large painted sign advertising Samuel Levinson's Bath House. Barker Hennessey, the man her fiancŽ, Stuart Egan, had sent to escort her on the final leg of her journey, would look for her at the hotel once he discovered her ship had come in.

And someone from the hotel could fetch the heavy steamer trunks that contained her trousseau: the finely crafted dresses she had carefully sewn over the past few weeks, as well as the doilies and linens and dainty embroidered tablecloths she had stitched and laid in her hope chest throughout the years.

Determined to ignore the heat and the tightly laced stays of her steel-ribbed corset, Priscilla walked the bustling dirt streets. Weathered batten-board structures crouched beside a few sturdy establishments built of pinkish-white stone.

The hotel was by far the best-looking building in town, she thought as she drew near. At least the paint wasn't peeling and the walk in front had been swept clean. It was a far cry from Cincinnati, with its sophisticated brownstones, elegant restaurants, and lavish opera houses. Still the thought of being inside, out of the blistering sunshine, made her quicken her pace.

That's when she noticed the commotion out front. A crowd had gathered, grumbling among itself, then seemed to be backing away.

"Look, Jacob--ain't that Barker Hennessey?" a slender man in a red-checkered shirt asked the small man beside him. The name registered immediately, and Priscilla glanced toward the big-boned man at the opposite end of the porch.

"That's him, all right," Jacob said. "Barker's madder'n a wet hen 'cause he lost his poke to some gambler."

Gambling, Priscilla thought, feeling sorry for the big strapping man in the black felt hat who stood in front of the swinging double doors to the saloon, the devil's own sport. But hearing his name, she also felt a wave of relief that she had found him so easily.

"Excuse me, please." Nudging her way through the crowd, she headed for the porch, intent on catching Mr. Hennessey before he got away. With her mind on the coming introduction, it took a moment for her to realize he was speaking.

"You're a cheat and a liar!" Hennessey called out just as she stepped on the boardwalk. "I want my money back, Trask, and I aim to get it!"

At the angry tone of his words, Priscilla swung her gaze toward the object of his wrath, the tall, broad-shouldered man standing right beside her.

"I won that money fair, and you know it," Trask said.

"Mr. Hennessey!" Priscilla called out, waving a white-gloved hand and starting in his direction.

"Goddamn it!"

Priscilla felt the tall man's hand on her arm, his grip so hard it made her flinch. His free hand slapped against the leather holster tied to one long leg. She saw the bluish flash of metal, heard the deafening roar of gunfire. Whipping her head toward Barker, Priscilla breathed the acrid smell of burnt powder and stared in horror at the opposite end of the porch.

Barker Hennessey's eyes remained open, his mouth gaping wide in an expression of astonishment. He swayed on his feet while his sausage-sized fingers clutched the still-smoking pistol in his hand. Only a trickle of blood ran from the small round circle that marked the entrance of the tall man's bullet--centered squarely between his eyes.

Watching Hennessey crumple to the porch, Priscilla wet her suddenly dry lips. Her mouth moved as she tried to say the words that hovered at the corners of her mind, but no sound would come. Her ears buzzed and her knees felt weak. The images on the porch suddenly blurred and jumbled.

Heart hammering, she swayed toward the man named Trask whose painful grip seemed the only thing holding her up. His angry blue eyes fastened on her face just seconds before her lids flickered closed, the world tumbled sideways, and Priscilla sank into darkness.

"Jesus Christ, what next?" Brendan Trask swung the slender young woman up into his arms and stepped off the boardwalk onto the street.

"Nice shootin'!" Jacob Barnes called out to him as he strode toward the shade of an oak tree that grew beside the watering trough just half a block away.

"You'd better get the sheriff," Brendan called back without breaking his long-legged stride.

She all right?" the little man asked, catching up and trying to keep pace without running.

"Just fainted. She's lucky she didn't stop a bullet." Brendan recalled all too clearly the moment she'd started to step in front of him. He glanced down at the small round hole in the full white sleeve of his shirt.

The man followed his gaze. "Lucky ain't the half of it."

"Get the sheriff," Trask reminded him.

"Sheriff got hisse'f kilt last week. I'll see if'n his deputy's down at Gilroy's Saloon." The man scurried off to find the law, though Brendan figured what little there was had probably already been summoned. Galveston might be the wildest port on the Gulf, but a shooting was a shooting, and Barker Hennessey worked for one of the most powerful men in the country.

"Damn." Brendan said the word beneath his breath, wishing he could have avoided the killing, but Hennessey had left him no choice. He just hoped to hell there wouldn't be trouble.

He'd had enough of that already.

Brendan propped the lady against the trunk of the oak tree, noting her somber brown dress, high-necked and long-sleeved, and the tiny waist pulled tight by her corset. Clothes like that in this heat--no wonder she'd fainted. Sometimes women didn't have the sense God gave a mule.

Shaking his head at life's little absurdities, Brendan walked to the old stone trough where a young boy watered several horses. The animals nickered and blew, sucking in great gulps of the cool reviving liquid.

"Guess I missed all the fun," the youth said, a boy of about fourteen. He looked down at the gun riding low on Trask's hip, unlike the pistols of most men, who wore theirs at the waist, and noted the flap that had been cut away from the heavy leather holster for easier access.

He puffed out his chest. "Been savin' my money for a gun of my own. Someday I'll be able to shoot like that. Man don't have to clean stalls and tend horses, he kin shoot like that."

rendan flashed him a look that made him take a step backwards and melted his cocky half-smile. "Better to be cleaning stalls than lying out there in the street. That dead man could just as well have been me--someday it probably will be. You'd best think on that, son.

"Turning away from the boy, Brendan dipped his handkerchief into the water, wrung out the excess, and returned to the base of the oak tree. He untied the woman's bonnet strings and pressed the wet cloth against her forehead.

At the sound of a soft moan, he wet her dry lips. They were full, he noticed and a delicate shade of pink. Her features held a trace of that same fragility: slim, straight nose, fine chestnut eyebrows, thick dark lashes. She wasn't really a beauty, but she was definitely attractive.He thought of Patsy Jackson, the woman he'd spent the night with. He remembered her full ripe curves, red-painted mouth, and fun-loving warmth in bed. There was nothing frail about Patsy, nothing prim or proper. She was the kind of woman who could pleasure a man, have a rollicking good time in bed, but didn't give you trouble in the morning.

Not like this one. This little miss would probably pass out again just thinking about what he had done to Patsy last night. Pretty as she was, she held little appeal for him. Brendan liked his women lusty.

Still, in a town where men outnumbered women a dozen to one, she'd undoubtedly be considered quite a catch. He wondered which man she belonged to--and why that man hadn't the good sense to keep her out of trouble.

She moaned a second time, and her lids fluttered open. Warm-brown, gold-flecked eyes looked up at him in confusion. Brendan shoved his broad-brimmed hat back on his head and assessed her pale oval face. If he hadn't spotted her from the corner of his eye, she'd probably be dead right now. The thought sent a shudder down his spine, and a bit of his anger returned.

"Lady, you are some piece of goods." The words came out a little harsher than he had intended. "What the hell did you think you were doing? Don't you know any better than to stroll into the middle of a gunfight?"

"Gunfight?" she repeated, looking more confused than ever. Her pretty face paled even more.

"Mr. Hennessey," she said, sitting up straighter, "is he . . . is he . . .?"

"Barker picked that fight, not me. I won his money fair and square, and I shot him in self-defense."

"Oh, dear," she said, looking ready to faint again. Her dainty pink tongue wet her lips. "I don't feel very good. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Oh, no, you don't--" Brendan pressed the cool wet cloth against her brow. "Just lean your head back and try not to think about it."

The woman swallowed hard and closed her eyes. Eventually the color returned to her cheeks, and he noticed again how pretty she was. Catching the glitter of the sun on wisps of shiny dark hair beside her cheeks, he wondered what the heavy mass would look like freed from her wide-brimmed, coal-scuttle bonnet.

"Thank you," she said softly, taking the cloth from his hand. "I'm feeling a little better now."

Brendan felt a wave of relief, until an unpleasant thought occurred. "Barker wasn't your husband, was he?" Until that moment it hadn't crossed his mind that a man like Hennessey could have a wife. Especially such a young and tender one.

She shook her head. "No. He's the man my fiancŽ sent to escort me on to his ranch." Her bottom lip trembled. "I never met him before, but he looked like a nice enough man."

Brendan's face went taut. "There wasn't a nice bone in Barker Hennessey's body. He'd have killed me without a second thought if I hadn't shot him first."

Priscilla chewed on that for a while and took a long assessing look at the man who squatted with easy grace on the stiff salt grass beside her. His hair was as dark as hers, but a richer, warmer shade of brown, and he wore it longer than he should have. Several days' growth of beard roughened a rugged jawline, but his mouth curved nicely and his eyes, a light shade of blue, watched her with a look of concern that melted away at the fear she should have felt.

How could that be? she wondered. He'd just killed a man--a man whose help she desperately needed. He was a gambler and a gunman, yet there was an honesty about him, a sense of compassion--and something else she couldn't quite name. Something that told her the words he spoke were true.

"Does that mean the sheriff won't arrest you?"

"Not as long as he learns the truth," he said with sincerity.

Priscilla had always had a knack for judging people. Since she was a girl, she could size a person up in only a meeting or two. On making a new acquaintance, Aunt Maddie often asked her opinion, though she never admitted Priscilla's assessment actually mattered.

And this man had saved her life--probably at considerable risk to his own.He took her hand and helped her climb shakily to her feet. Priscilla clutched his arm to steady herself and felt the flex of muscle beneath his shirt. Though she stood taller than the average woman, Trask towered above her, his wide shoulders blocking the hot yellow rays of the sun. Hard-edged, unkempt, and rugged though he appeared, even in his worn homespun shirt and frayed blue twill breeches he was handsome.

When he discovered her watching him, Priscilla flushed and glanced away. "I . . . I can't believe Stuart would have sent the kind of man you describe here to meet me. We would be traveling together and I don't think--"

"This is rough country, Miss . . . ?"

She swung her gaze to his. "Wills. Priscilla Mae Wills, and I believe your name is Trask."

He nodded. "Where did you say you were headed?"

"Rancho Reina del Robles--the Triple R. Stuart Egan is my fiancŽ."

Trask's hard features closed up. There was an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before. "That explains Hennessey--he's Egan's right-hand man."

"Then you know Stuart?"

He shook his head. "No, but I've heard of him. Most folks 'round these parts know who he is. Why didn't Egan come for you himself?"

"Apparently he was short-handed. The ranch is quite large, you know."

"So I've heard." Something flickered in his light blue eyes. "I'll have someone get word to him and he can fetch you home."

Priscilla's dark brows shot up. "But that would take weeks! I can't stay here--"

She felt his hand on her arm, halting her protest and urging her back toward the hotel.

Priscilla let him lead her, trying to gather her thoughts. From what Stuart had written, the ranch was still quite some distance away. It would take weeks for a letter to reach it and just as much time for Stuart to come, or send someone to get her. In the meantime she'd be alone in this wild Texas town. A place where people got shot in the streets! She had only enough money for a few days lodging and food--what would she do after that?

As they approached the hotel, Priscilla surveyed the porch in dread, expecting to see Barker Hennessey's lifeless body sprawled on the boardwalk among a crowd of onlookers. Instead only a handful of men lounged beside the door of the saloon. The plinkity plink of a cheap piano and the high-pitched sound of women's laughter seemed almost sacrilegious in light of what had just happened.The scraping of a chair drew her attention.

"Where'd you get the new gal, Trask?" one of the rough-looking men called out.

"Looks like a real little lady--you always did have a way with the women." The othe...

A woman of courage and honor. She sold everything she owned to go west and marry a powerful land baron she’d never seen. But Priscilla Wills hadn’t counted on the gunfight—or the gun—fighter—who would change her life: the tall,
broad-shouldered man who killed her guardian in self-defense. Reluctantly he agreed to take her through the dangerous Texas back country to her fiancé's ranch. She hadn’t planned on a journey that would take her into a stranger’s soul as he delivered her into another man’s waiting arms.

A man who lived by the gun. He was an outlaw—yet Brendan Trask unleashed in the prim and proper Priscilla a fiery passion that matched his own. But a man running for his life couldn’t afford a woman who hungered for the security that only her wealthy fiancé could provide.