Heart Of The Lawman

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Linda Castle

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Copyright

“Don’t ever do that again,”

she whispered. Impotent rage burned in her eyes. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear you, Marydyth, but I can’t say I won’t kiss you again,” Flynn replied truthfully. He didn’t trust her, but, damn it all to hell, he could no longer trust himself, either.

In that moment she hated herself almost as much as she hated him. She should’ve fought him, should’ve scratched his eyes out. But the kiss.

It filled her with an emotion she didn’t want to feel and was hungry to feel again. She was mad and confused, and Flynn only made it worse. All of her notions about J.C. were nothing more than a foolish woman’s dreams, and in the midst of all that, Flynn O’Bannion had managed to make her feel like a woman again.

“I do hate you.” She spat out the only defense she had…

Dear Reader,

As the weather heats up this month, so do the passion and adventure in our romances!

Since her publishing debut in 1995, Linda Castle has gone on to write five more Harlequin Historical novels, including Heart of the Lawman, which is a spin-off of her very first book, Fearless Hearts. In this emotional Western, a woman’s greatest nightmare is replaced by her greatest dream, when she is finally reunited with her daughter after being wrongfully incarcerated. And now she must face the man who put her away, Sheriff Flynn O’Bannion—not only because she’s undeniably attracted to him, but also because he’s her daughter’s legal guardian!

Temperatures—and tempers—flare in Plum Creek Bride by Lynna Banning, about a German nanny whose new position leads to a marriage of convenience with a singlefather physician who must grapple with a town plagued by cholera. The Captive Bride, a new medieval novel by Susan Spencer Paul, is the tale of a fierce knight who’ll stop at nothing to reclaim his father’s estate—even if it means marrying the headstrong vixen who now inhabits the keep!

Sit close to a fan while reading Ana Seymour’s Lord of Lyonsbridge, because her sinfully handsome hero, Connor Brand, might cause a meltdown! Connor, the horse master at Lyonsbridge, teaches a spoiled Norman beauty some important lessons in compassion and love…

Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historicals® novel.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Heart Of The Lawman

Linda Castle

LINDA CASTLE

is the pseudonym of Linda L. Crockett. Linda is an avid reader and writer of historical romance of all types and periods. She is enchanted with the West, but is an admitted Anglophile. For a bookmark and autographed bookplate write to Linda at her address: Linda Castle/Crockett, #18 County Road 5795, Farmington, NM 87401.

This book is lovingly dedicated to my family and God, and to my legion of loyal readers. We have come full circle; we started our dance together with the O’Bannion family in Fearless Hearts, and we finish with the O’Bannion family in Heart of the Lawman. Enjoy!

Prologue

Tombstone, Arizona Territory

November 1886

“Please, please take good care of my baby.” The blowing dust made Marydyth’s voice crack. She stroked her daughter’s downy soft hair with her fingertips, trying to memorize every detail of the baby’s face. “Tuck her in at night. She likes to hear a lullaby.”

“She likes lullabies sung by a Jezebel?” Victoria Hollenbeck’s voice floated from under the netting of her mourning attire. Her words were harsher than the winter wind coming off the low, rugged mountains to whistle through the streets of Tombstone.

“Promise you will rock her at night.” Marydyth’s eyes scanned the innocent face, lingering on her upturned nose and dewy soft lips. “And—and just pick her up and hold her for no reason during the day. Will you do that, Victoria?”

Rachel’s babyish cheeks were growing pink from the scuffing wind. Marydyth cursed herself for being so selfish. She had thoughtlessly begged Victoria to bring Rachel to the train depot in this weather—how she hungered for just one more minute to look at her baby. “Please help her say her prayers. Tell me that you’ll help her say her prayers, Victoria.”

“What kind of prayer would a gold digger like you know?” Victoria spit the words at Marydyth in a voice so bitter it singed the edges of Flynn’s soul to hear it. As he watched from under the protective brim of his hat, Victoria swiveled her body, forcing her shoulder between Rachel and Marydyth’s outstretched hand. The younger woman’s anxious fingers reached for the child but all she grabbed was a tuft of white rabbit fur accidentally plucked from the collar of the baby’s red velvet coat.

“Let me hold her. Please, Victoria. Let me feel her in my arms—one last time?” Marydyth begged.

Flynn unconsciously inhaled and looked heavenward. The scent of a storm was on the ocher coattails of clouds scudding from the hills.

“I wish there was sun,” Marydyth muttered. “Her curls shine like crimson-kissed gold in the sunshine.” Marydyth’s fingers managed to touch one silken curl. She leaned closer and tried to kiss the top of Rachel’s head but Victoria stepped away.

Victoria was not going to give an inch—not even today, the last time Marydyth would ever see her child.

“Before you get on that train, Marydyth, there is something I want you to take with you into the walls of Yuma. Let this be your company for the rest of your life-and I pray to God it will be a long one.” Victoria shuddered and took a deep breath, as if her hatred were about to consume her and render her mute. “I would’ve seen you hung for what you did to my boy. Hung and left for all the world to see.” Her voice cracked. “But I couldn’t do that to my only grandchild. I will raise Rachel to be a lady, but not for you. No. I will do it because she has Hollenbeck blood in her veins.”

“I know you don’t believe me, Victoria, but I loved J.C.,” Marydyth whispered.

“Loved him so much you stabbed him in the heart.” Victoria took another step backward.

Marydyth did not deny the deed.

Victoria trembled beneath the dark veil. “You are a murderess and a liar. Just think about this every night before you go to sleep in that place. I will do everything in my power to erase your mark upon this child. She will never know that her mother is the Black Widow.”

Marydyth could not hold back the strangled sob. Rachel fastened chubby, dimpled fingers over the black lace on her grandmother’s Cisele collar.

“Mama.” She gurgled.

Hot, dry tears stung Marydyth’s eyes, choked off the air in her lungs.

So, this is justice?

“Please, Victoria, tell her that I love her.”

“I’ll tell her nothing about you.” Victoria’s biting declaration carried on the grit blowing into Flynn’s eyes. He didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to listen, but he had no choice.

“Marydyth, I want you to suffer as I have suffered. Your child will be alive, but to her, you will be dead—as dead as I can make you. Nobody in Hollenbeck Corners will ever mention your name again, I’ll see to that.” The black netting on her mourning hat fluttered in the wind.

Flynn felt the current of anguish, hatred and love flowing between the trio of Hollenbeck women. It was like a tainted river that threatened to overflow its banks.

It was a pitiful thing to behold, these women tearing at each other. It was gut-wrenching and full of sorrow, and something that a man like Flynn had no belly for. His nerves felt raw. They had been that way since the trial.

He drew hard on his cigarette and wished the scene over soon.

A small crowd of people had gathered near the station. Angry murmurs and the sound of a mob made the hair on the back of his neck bristle. He crushed the stub of his cigarette into the ground with the toe of his boot.

Somebody threw a rock. It hit the side of the locomotive with a hollow ping. Flynn peeled back the edge of his coat and drew his side arm.

“Black Widow!” somebody shouted.

“Murderin’ Mary, I hope you burn in hell!” yelled another bodiless voice.

“Mrs. Hollenbeck?” he said.

Both Victoria and Marydyth turned to look at him.

How the hell did I get tangled up in this mess?

It was a bitter irony that he had been drawn into this tragedy simply because he was the only lawman available to come to the Arizona Territory.

Pitiful.

The crowd sounds grew more agitated, like a swarm of riled yellow jackets. Flynn kept his gun at waist level, his finger on the trigger.

“Ma’am, we’ve got to go,” Flynn said.

The train belched out a cloud of steam and the slithering vapor swirled around Marydyth’s skirt. The relentless wind broomed along the street, driving back the crowd with stinging pelts of sand.

Flynn turtled into the warmth of his sheepskin coat. It didn’t help. He hadn’t been able to shake the chill that had seeped into his soul when he’d heard the verdict.

For the first time in his career justice didn’t taste sweet. It tasted sour, and grew more foul each time he looked at the baby Victoria held in her arms.

It was a damn poor thing to be taking a woman to Yuma. And even worse knowing she left behind an infant.

Flynn shoved the sympathetic thoughts aside. He had no call to feel anything one way or the other about it.

He wore a badge—nothing more or less. The jury had had their say. Marydyth Hollenbeck’s fate was sealed. Nothing this side of heaven could save her from the hell that waited within the prison gates of Yuma.

The train whistle blew, which sent an icy finger trailing down Flynn’s spine.

“Ma’am.”

Marydyth’s shoulders stiffened inside the smoke-gray wool coat. Invisible fingers of wind pulled at her hat, which merely rested on her head since she wasn’t allowed a hat pin.

Flynn narrowed his eyes against the sting of blowing sand and watched her turn. No bandido or high-line rider had ever managed to stare him down, but enduring the gaze of Marydyth Hollenbeck’s red-rimmed blue eyes rattled him. His pulse ticked off the time as they stared across the mile-wide gulf between lawman and prisoner.

“It’s time,” Flynn said gruffly. “You better get on the train before this turns ugly.”

She grimaced.

Flynn kept his gun pointed into the crowd and extended his hand to help her aboard, but she jerked back. The iron manacles locked around her slender wrists clanked together in a discordant peal.

“I don’t need your help to get where I’m going. I managed it all by myself this far and I’ll see it through to the end,” she said. She grabbed hold of her skirts, climbed the steps to the train and never looked back at the jeering crowd.

Chapter One

Territorial Prison, Yuma.

April 1889

Marydyth fell onto her hard cot. Exhaustion and heat sapped her strength and dragged her toward sleep.

But she never rested

Night was the worst time in this place that men had named Hellhole. Night was when the specters of her past came to visit

She tossed and turned on the hard mattress, willing them to stay away for just one night.

But her guilt would not abate. Andre’s face floated before her. His eyes were hollow, dark sockets but his lips twisted into a hideous grin. Then Andre’s face shifted and changed.

It was J.C.

Oh, J.C., I didn’t do it—you know I didn’t kill you. But J.C. only stared at her with dark, haunted eyes until his face transformed and became Victoria. She was laughing. Laughing.

Go away!

Did Marydyth scream aloud or was it only in her head?

Next, Andre’s face returned and loomed closer, pale blue and lifeless. His eyes were empty holes.

I didn’t want to kill you. I didn’t want to kill anybody.

Rachel was crying. She was lost, somewhere just beyond Marydyth’s reach. She turned in a circle, searching, looking for her baby.

Where is my baby? Who will love my baby?

Marydyth woke to the sounds of her own frightened screams.

Hollenbeck Corners, Arizona Territory

April 1889

“Unca Flynn!” Rachel darted down the stairs, her black leather shoes clacking out a quick tempo while she ran. She launched her body at Flynn’s outstretched arms without a single doubt that he would catch her.

He spun her around and held her above the crown of his cream-colored Stetson hat.

“Whe-e-e-e!” The little girl squealed in delight

He gave her one last turn and then brought her to his chest. She was giggling and squirming in his arms.

“How’s my girl today?”

“I missed you.”

“I didn’t miss you at all.” He pulled a face. “Not even when I went to the mercantile on the way home.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you bring me somethin’?”

“Naw.” He grinned. “There is nothing in my shirt pocket for you.”

Rachel attacked his pocket like a hungry coon. She dug deep and came up holding the hoarhound stick.

“Shh—don’t let Mrs. Young know.” Rachel held one dimpled finger to her lips.

“Is it a secret?” Flynn whispered.

“Uh-huh. Mrs. Young made gingerbread men for our dessert, so you mustn’t let her know.” Rachel’s warm breath fanned out over his face as she whispered.

“Then it will be our secret. You can count on me.” He winked.

Rachel hugged him tight around the neck, and liquid warmth—love—exploded in his chest.

It had been this way for a long while now. Flynn and Rachel. Unca Flynn.

He deposited Rachel on her feet and she immediately wrapped her fingers around two of his. “I missed you,” she said for the second time.

“I had to move the cattle, honey,” Flynn explained. “It will take a few more days.”

“Oh.” Flynn felt as if the sunshine had been covered by a cloud when Rachel stopped smiling.

“Tell me about those gingerbread men,” he said as they walked through the parlor. The tall, narrow windows were open and the evening breeze fluttered the heavy, green tasseled draperies.

It was still hot

“I made a special one just for you, Unca Flynn. I saved it.” Rachel’s eyes darted toward the kitchen at the back of the house. She leaned close enough for him to feel the angel’s wing of her breath along his neck. “Mrs. Young didn’t like it, but I saved it anyway,” Rachel whispered into his ear.

“I am mighty beholden to you for the kindness. Gingerbread is one of my particular favorites.” Flynn folded himself into a chair, and Rachel scrambled into his lap. She sucked on her hoarhound when he patted her knee.

“I love you, Unca Flynn.”

That hot feeling expanded in his chest again. He swallowed hard.

If anybody had told him three years ago that he would give up his badge and become nursemaid and surrogate parent to a four-year-old charmer, he probably would have locked them up for drunkenness. But sure as God made little green apples, U.S. Marshal Flynn O’Bannion was now just Unca Flynn.

“I love you too, sugar.” His voice had gone husky with emotion. He cleared his throat “I’m hungry enough to eat the south end of a northbound bear.”

Rachel giggled as he hauled them both up from the chair.

“Are you done with that sweet stick yet?” he asked as she crunched the last bite.

“Now I am.”

“Then let’s go see what old Mrs. Young has for us tonight.” He levered her up onto his shoulder and gave her a ride down the carpet-lined hall.

“Unca Flynn.”

“Yes, sugar?” he asked while he ducked the fancy chandelier. The flickering lamps made long-fingered shadows on the ornate wallpaper as he passed.

“You smell funny.” Rachel wrinkled her nose when he glanced at her.

He laughed. “Yep, I guess I do. It was mighty hot out there today.” Too damned hot to have to wrestle cattle all day, but there was nobody else to see they got moved to the high country for summer grass and water. When he took over caring for Rachel he had mingled his herd in with the Hollenbeck beeves. Come fall he would cut out enough for his walking-around money, and the Hollenbeck profits would go into Rachel’s trust fund.

“After dinner I’ll see about a bath.”

“Good,” Rachel agreed as Flynn reached the kitchen. He swung her down to the floor while the rowels on his spurs jingled. The smell of gingerbread and wood smoke filled his nostrils.

“Miz Young,” he said to the wide back in front of the Monarch cookstove.

Mrs. Young allowed her attention to stray from the pot she was stirring for only a moment. “Evening, Mr. O’Bannion.” She turned back to the bubbling pot. Her gray hair was pinned tight but one or two disobedient strands had worked free in the heat of the kitchen.

Flynn shoved his hands in his pockets. It was damned awkward but she had greeted him in exactly the same way for close to three years.

“Come lookie, Unca Flynn.” Rachel pulled one hand free and yanked on his finger. He moved to the scrubbed pine table, glad for something to do until Mrs. Young was ready to leave. Rachel pointed to a blue-sprigged china plate. In the center lay a slightly gimpy, somewhat misshaped gingerbread man.

It was the prettiest thing Flynn had ever seen.

“Do you like it?” Rachel asked.

“I do, I surely do.” Flynn smiled down at her expectant face. It took no effort to act as if he were pleased. He had grown a mighty soft spot for Rachel since Victoria had drawn up the papers and roped him into becoming the child’s guardian.

Her voice grew serious. “It isn’t very good-not like Mrs. Young’s.” Rachel’s gaze slid to the closed pie safe with the pierced tin panels. Flynn was sure inside must lie a treasure of perfectly formed gingerbread men in precise rows upon the scrubbed wood.

Flynn’s heart contracted at the searching expression in Rachel’s cornflower-blue eyes. “Dumpling, I think that is the finest gingerbread man in town—probably the whole territory.”

Some of the strain left her small shoulders. “Mrs. Young said it was crooked.”

Flynn’s eyes slid to the housekeeper. She was in the process of folding a dish towel. When she had folded four layers she used the towel to pull a black Dutch oven out of the front of the Monarch stove. Then, as she had done every night for three years, she stripped off her apron and turned to Flynn.

“Dinner is roast beef. There is a pan of biscuits and a bowl of gravy on the warmer.” She laid her apron aside and retrieved her brown bonnet from a hook by the back door. “Yesterday’s loaves are in the pie safe if you take a hankering for some.”

Without another word she tied the bonnet on her head and shuffled out the back door. Heavy, determined steps thudded alongside the house. The iron gate in front creaked once when it opened and once when it swung shut. They would see no more of Mrs. Young until seven o’clock in the morning.

The huge house seemed to sigh in relief.

“I’m glad she is gone,” Rachel whispered.

Flynn frowned and rubbed his rough palm against Rachel’s satiny cheek. “It’s just the two of us again, partner.”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel said with another relieved sigh.

Flynn knew that Rachel was uneasy around Mrs. Young. Most of the time he was home and things were fine, but when he had business to take care of or the herd to move, then he saw Rachel become unhappy.

Maybe it was time to make a change. Mrs. Young was old and set in her ways. Rachel had all the energy and curiosity of a normal child.

Maybe if he talked to Mrs. Young…

He wasn’t sure how to ride herd over her. Still, the notion that he needed to make changes for Rachel nudged at the corners of his mind.

He yanked out a kitchen chair and helped Rachel into it. She straightened her petticoats over legs as straight and slender as a yearling filly’s.

“Are you eating man-size or little girl-size tonight?” he asked as he lifted the heavy iron cover from the Dutch oven.

“Man-size,” Rachel said.

He looked at her from under lifted brows. “How about we start small and work up?”

“All right, Unca Flynn.”

He dished up two plates. “Did Mrs. Young snap at you again, punkin?”

“No, not ’xactly.” Rachel squirmed in her chair.

“Truth?”

“No. She isn’t like you, Unca Flynn,” Rachel explained patiently in her young-old voice.

“I should hope not.” He chuckled and tried to make light of what she had said. “I’m a tough old range bull.”

“You’re not old, Unca Flynn.” Rachel laughed but then her expression turned serious. “You’re not old like Grandma Hollenbeck.”

“No, I’m not old like that, Rachel, but your grandma is very sick.” Victoria probably seemed aged beyond counting to Rachel since the woman had been ravaged by her strokes.

Flynn sat down at the table. He picked up a fork and rotated it between his finger and thumb, chewing on the question that he knew had to be asked. Finally he just spit it out.

“What did Mrs. Young say to upset you today, Rachel?” He stared at his food, while he waited for her to find the words.

“I asked her why I didn’t have a mama like Becky Morgan and Maizie Duncan and all the other little girls in town.” Her voice was a quivering whisper as she stared down at her lap.

A hard knot took up residence in Flynn’s belly. This was a day he had long dreaded.

“What did she say?”

“She said I didn’t have a mama.” Rachel’s voice was dry and whispery. “But how come, Unca Flynn?” She looked up at him and tears swam in her blue eyes. “How come I don’t have a mama?”

“Oh, honey, don’t listen to Mrs. Young. She is a grumpy old sage hen who has forgotten how to raise a little girl.” Flynn reached out and rubbed her soft cheek with his thumb. He made up his mind then and there. Mrs. Young would have to go. He would not have a woman in the house who had so little compassion.

Rachel swallowed hard and toyed with her food Flynn tried a piece of meat but it tasted like sawdust while he chewed.