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The River Rogues #2
Sandra Jones
Releasing Nov 17th, 2015
Samhain
It’ll take more than a badge to get her to confess her secrets.
Kit Wainwright only meant to stop the thief making off with his beloved uncle’s ashes. He wants to hang up his gun, become a law-abiding citizen and leave his violent past behind. But the mayor takes notice of his sharpshooting skills, slaps a badge on his chest and puts him in charge of cleaning up this lawless town. Starting with tracking down the notorious Velvet Grace.
Bordello owner Cora Reilly never meant to become a crusader. But after shooting the last corrupt sheriff in self-defense, she’s spent the last few months turning her hastily donned disguise into a local legend to defend the girls in her town from riff-raff.
There’s no way Cora can trust the handsome new sheriff. Yet Kit’s kisses leave her wanting to open her arms—and her bedroom—to soothe his grief. Even if it brings him too close to the truth that could send her to the gallows.
Warning: Contains a reluctant sheriff with a keen eye for a moving target, and a take-no-crap madam who isn’t about to let him get close. Okay, maybe just a little bit closer. Just this once…
Kit Wainwright only meant to stop the thief making off with his beloved uncle’s ashes. He wants to hang up his gun, become a law-abiding citizen and leave his violent past behind. But the mayor takes notice of his sharpshooting skills, slaps a badge on his chest and puts him in charge of cleaning up this lawless town. Starting with tracking down the notorious Velvet Grace.
Bordello owner Cora Reilly never meant to become a crusader. But after shooting the last corrupt sheriff in self-defense, she’s spent the last few months turning her hastily donned disguise into a local legend to defend the girls in her town from riff-raff.
There’s no way Cora can trust the handsome new sheriff. Yet Kit’s kisses leave her wanting to open her arms—and her bedroom—to soothe his grief. Even if it brings him too close to the truth that could send her to the gallows.
Warning: Contains a reluctant sheriff with a keen eye for a moving target, and a take-no-crap madam who isn’t about to let him get close. Okay, maybe just a little bit closer. Just this once…
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Excerpt
The gun, still warm from shooting
the sheriff, fit just right against Cora Lynn Reilly’s ribs, wedged beneath her breasts
between her corset and her blouse. Her heart thundered like a cannonball as she looked for
a way to exit the room that wouldn’t require going near the body on
the floor, but unfortunately, there wasn’t one. The sound of the
blast would likely bring someone upstairs to check on the man, and
she couldn’t be caught alone with him.
Balancing on her toes to miss the
blood spreading across the boards, she stepped over the first booted
leg, her skirt spanning Bill Sidlow’s bloated thighs. She lifted
her hem to avoid dragging her petticoat across the man’s torso, now
damp and crimson, and set her left foot down with care between his
side and his spread-eagle arm.
Don’t
look, don’t look. But
morbid curiosity got the better of her. She had to be absolutely certain the bastard was dead, so she
glanced down at Sidlow’s face. His sightless eyes stared back at
her, familiar enough to make a frisson of terror run down her spine
again after he’d cornered her against his apartment wall with
demands of sex.
“Shoulda known better,” she
scolded beneath her breath. But whether she’d directed her words at the sheriff or herself, she
wasn’t sure.
He gave no response, his flaccid
mouth and sagging jowls glistened with spittle—no different than in life, she
supposed. When he’d visited the club earlier that night, he’d
pulled her aside to invite her here to his place for a private word,
and even then his breath against her ear had been wet and disgusting.
She’d assumed he wanted to talk
about business away from the girls and their customers, because if he’d wanted to make any
advances of a sexual nature, where better than the Willows, the
popular social club she owned on the Row? But she’d been wrong. The
sheriff had wanted more than to talk. He’d wanted to take,
and that was something Cora wouldn’t allow.
Now, one mistake and a bullet later,
she had to get out of his apartment fast before anyone found her here.
Tearing her stare away from the
sheriff ’s corpse, she set her body in motion for the door, but the sudden tread of boots
on the stairs outside stopped her in her tracks.
“Sheriff? Was that your gun I
heard?” Mrs. Murphy, wife of the boarding house owner, called from a short distance below.
Cora’s pulse raced. She scanned
the room again. There was a window, but she didn’t recall seeing a way down. She was
certain no one else had seen her enter the building. She couldn’t let Mrs. Murphy find her
now, for who would believe a bordello madam who’d shot the sheriff
with her pearl-handled pistol in his own bedroom?
No way would she allow anyone to
hang her for the likes of Bill Sidlow. She’d never shot anyone else in her life and hadn’t
even taken her gun out of its case before tonight. The only reason
she’d brought the weapon was in case she was accosted by one of the
drunks in the streets outside.
Besides, her girls needed her.
Especially now that there would be no one to keep the
town’s worst ruffians from their
doorstep, and God knew, Fort McNamara had its share of those.
She swept another glance around the
room for something she could cloak herself in. The bed was stripped to the
sheet, but a long blue velvet drapery hung above the lone window. It would have to do.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Sheriff? You all right?” Mrs. Murphy asked again.
Cora vaulted over the body and
yanked the heavy fabric from the rod. Returning to the door, she swirled the drape
around her head and shoulders until she’d fully cocooned herself, then she waited for a
chance to escape.
The door metal rattled. When Mrs.
Murphy peeked in, Cora threw her weight against the wood panel, knocking the woman
outside off balance, and then barreled past. She descended the stairs, running as
fast as she could in the tight wind of her drapery cloak.
As she reached the front door of the
boarding house, she heard the woman’s shriek of horror at discovering her boarder’s
remains. “Murder! Help, the sheriff ’s been murdered!”
Bursting outside into the darkened
street, she kept to the shadows, holding the fabric closed at her neck as she dodged
drunken cowboys looking for good times. She averted her face, praying
no one would recognize her until she made it back to the bordello.
One thing she knew for certain,
after this night, she had better get used to carrying her pistol.
Sandra Jones is a multi-published author of historical romances. A former bookseller and librarian, she's always had her nose in a book.
When not researching or writing her next novel, she enjoys being with family, reading, cooking for her husband, and watching British TV. At home in the South, her house overlooks a river and a farm, where most days you can find her working to the sounds of wildlife and cattle. Sandra loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website at www.SandraJonesRomance.com
Don't Miss the first in the River Rogues Series
HER WICKED CAPTAIN
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