Outlaw Hunter
An outlaw's wife…With her home burnt down, her outlaw husband believed dead, and five children entrusted to her care, Melody Dawson must leave the ashes of her past behind to start afresh…And an outlaw hunter…Atoning for a youthful mistake, US Marshal Reeve Prentis has made tracking down criminals his life’s work.His dangerous job has always demanded a solitary existence, yet escorting Melody across the Wild West has Reeve longing for change – and a family of his own!
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“You have a way with the polka, Reeve.”
He dipped her backward, sideways, and quickstepped her about to the tinkling tune. At times his broad hand slid up her back. Once he drew her forward so that her apron’s bodice grazed his plaid shirt.
Still, the most intimate step of the promenade was when he held her at arm’s length and simply gazed into her eyes.
A meeting of bodies was tantalizing, but a meeting of souls… Well, that was spellbinding.
Was she a fool to be drawn in when there was no future for them?
When I typed ‘The End’ in REBEL OUTLAW I kissed the characters goodbye and sent them off to my editor. Story over.
But to my surprise there was one character who kept tapping me on the shoulder—because her story, she assured me, had only just begun. Kidnapped bride Hattie Travers (now known as Melody Dawson) had a good bit to say about her future…and not hers alone but also that of Reeve Prentis, the US Marshal who had agreed to escort her and her children home after the outlaw ranch where they lived was burned to the ground. Hattie wanted her happily-ever-after and she wanted it with Reeve.
It was a pleasure to be able to give her that. I hope you enjoy Hattie’s and Reeve’s tale, where love heals mistakes of the past and anchors the foundation for the joyful future that Hattie requested.
Best wishes and happy reading!
To my sister, Nancy.
Of all the special gifts Mom and Dad had to give, I cherish you the most.
While in the third grade CAROL ARENS had a teacher who noted that she ought to spend less time daydreaming and looking out of the window and more time on her sums. Today, Carol spends as little time on sums as possible. Daydreaming plots and characters is still far more interesting to her.
As a young girl she read books by the dozen. She dreamed that one day she would write a book of her own. A few years later Carol set her sights on a new dream. She wanted to be the mother of four children. She was blessed with a son, then three daughters. While raising them she never forgot her goal of becoming a writer. When her last child went to high school she purchased a big old clunky word processor and began to type out a story.
She joined Romance Writers of America, where she met generous authors who taught her the craft of writing a romance novel. With the knowledge she gained she sold her first book and saw her life-long dream come true.
Today, Carol lives with her real-life hero husband, Rick, in Southern California, where she was born and raised. She feels blessed to be doing what she loves, with all her children and a growing number of perfect and delightful grandchildren living only a few miles from her front door.
When she is not writing, reading or playing with her grandchildren, Carol loves making trips to the local nursery. She delights in scanning the rows of flowers, envisaging which pretty plants will best brighten her garden.
She enjoys hearing from readers, and invites you to contact her at [email protected]
Contents
The Badlands, Nebraska
Hattie Travers had dreamed of her husband again last night. The fact that he had been dead for eight months didn’t make her any less fearful of him.
Even in the cold light of morning, with the children safe in the buckboard with her, his ghost had the power to put her into a cold sweat.
“Go away,” she whispered to the wicked-eyed vision haunting her mind.
She focused her attention on the US marshal sitting tall on his rum-colored horse, leading her, her children and the ranch orphans away from the cindered ruins of the Broken Brand Ranch.
The marshal’s carriage was straight, his shoulders broad and, from what she had seen so far, his honor incorruptible.
She owed him a great deal...her life, really, and more than that, her children’s lives.
If only she could take a deep cleansing breath and purge the stench of the outlaw ranch from her soul. If she could just relax and trust the marshal, but she had been wrong about a man before.
The marshal turned his head, peering out from under his Stetson at the flat, dry land, scanning it from horizon to horizon. His eyes were the only bit of green that she had seen in nearly three years.
He held her gaze for a long moment then nodded and set his face toward the east...toward home. The regular clop of his horse’s hooves made the fringe on his buckskin shirt dance and sway.
“You reckon he’s looking for stray Traverses?” Beside her, thirteen-year-old Joe Landon gripped the team’s reins in his fists. He sat tall, imitating the lawman’s erect posture.
Joe had to be cold but he didn’t shiver. The marshal didn’t, so he wouldn’t, either. It was chilly, though, even with the sun coming up over the ragged land.
