The Gunfighter and the Heiress

The Gunfighter and the Heiress - By Carol Finch

Chapter One

Wolf Ridge, Texas, 1880s

“Go away.”

Donovan Crow groaned as he dragged the pillow from his head and listened to the persistent knocking at the door of his hotel suite.

“Can’t,” his friend and business manager called from the other side of the door in the sitting room. “You told me to wake you after you’d had a full day’s sleep.”

“Changed my mind,” he mumbled.

“You told me you’d say that, Van. Now I’m supposed to say, ‘Get up and open the damn door and do it now!’”

Muttering, he levered himself onto the side of the bed. He raked his hand through his disheveled raven hair and forced himself to stand upright. Sluggishly, he reached for his breeches. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired. The past few weeks of riding back and forth on the Higgins Stagecoach Express line to stop the rash of robberies had taken its toll on him. Come to think of it, he should have told his business manager to let him hibernate for a week.

“Van? Are you up yet?” his friend called impatiently.

“More or less,” Van mumbled.

“Then open the blasted door. I have several telegrams and letters offering you jobs.”

Van strode from the bedroom to the sitting area to open the door. Bartholomew Collier stared at him all too cheerfully as he invited himself into the suite. Bart was two years younger than Van. He stood five foot eight and had a wiry build and tireless energy. He had curly brown hair, a broken nose and pale green eyes covered by wire-rimmed glasses. Van had saved Bart from disaster eight years earlier and in return he’d acquired a business manager and a friend for life.

Since then, Bart had handled the steady flow of paperwork that arrived at Van’s hotel headquarters. He hadn’t thought that advertising himself as a gun for hire would bring in so much business, but he was bombarded constantly with jobs.

“You look like hell,” Bart observed as he plunked himself down in the chair, then dropped the stack of letters and telegrams on the table near the window.

“Thanks. Sure would hate to look better than I feel.” Van strode over to pour himself a glass of water to lubricate his parched throat. He wished it were that easy to cure all the aches and pains caused by bouncing around on the inside of a stagecoach for days on end.

“Oh, almost forgot.” Bart bounded up like a jackrabbit and sailed from the room. He returned two minutes later with a heaping tray of food, two cups of coffee and a bottle of whiskey.

Van arched a curious brow as he studied the food Bart set in front of him. “What time is it?”

“You mean what day is it?” Bart helped himself to a slice of bacon. “I let you sleep an entire day away, just as you requested.”

Van took a cautious sip of steaming coffee. “That last assignment was a bitch.” He narrowed his eyes at Bart. “Don’t sign me up for that kind of assignment again.”

Ever cheerful—damn him—Bart grinned, revealing the slight gap between his front teeth. “You sure about that? Think of all the money you made and the attention you received for arresting those two stagecoach robbers.”

Bart always insisted that Van demand high prices because he risked his life as a detective for railroads, stage lines and cattlemen battling rustlers. He also served as a personal bodyguard for the highbrows who traveled through wild country to reach their destinations on the east and west coasts.

Unfortunately, Van was rarely in town long enough to spend the money piling up. He had countless job offers but he didn’t have much of a life. Not that many whites invited him to social gatherings. He was the dispensable mixed-breed scout—detective and gun for hire who did his job, but was then quickly dismissed in favor of socially acceptable friends.

“Mr. Higgins is singing your praises to high heaven and you’ve received publicity in newspapers from Arizona to Louisiana. I should know,” Bart declared. “I subscribe to several of those papers so we can keep abreast of what’s going on. As for Mr. Higgins, he wants to pay you handsomely to keep you on retainer so you can put the fear of God in would-be outlaws trying to rob his coaches.”

Van snorted sourly, then sipped his drink. “Can’t stand that much confinement. What other jobs are waiting?” When Bart picked up a telegram, Van flung up his hand to forestall him. “And bear in mind that I am not taking any assignment until I catch up on my rest.”

Bart shrugged and smiled wryly. For the life of him, Van couldn’t imagine why his friend—and Van didn’t have many of them in white man’s society, so he was careful not to offend Bart—looked so amused. Certainly nothing in their conversation accounted for it.

Bart tapped his forefinger against the stack of telegrams and letters. “You have a wide range of jobs to choose from. You can serve as a railroad detective to quell trouble on the line from Fort Worth to points east near the Mississippi River. Several robberies are occurring on the line. Also, you can become a personal bodyguard for some highfalutin politician who wants to inspect the Texas Ranger stations on the frontier.”

Bart leaned toward Van. “Personally, I think the Ranger captain is trying to recruit you. He thinks if he can get you to show up at one of their headquarters, you’ll cave in and finally agree to join.”

“Not happening.” Van munched on a slice of bacon, then slathered sand plum jelly—his favorite—on the toast.

“I’ll be sure to quote you verbatim when I respond to the Ranger captain and the politician.”

Van disliked the Rangers that had swooped down on the Kiowa and Comanche village where he’d grown up. His clan had been in constant conflict with the army and Rangers…until the military had received orders to slaughter Indian horse herds and to march surviving tribe members to the hated reservations in Indian Territory. His mother’s people had urged him to take advantage of the fact that his father had been a white trader and to avoid confinement by becoming white.

He had fled to begin indoctrination into white society. Now he had his freedom and he received exceptionally high fees for his skills as a hunter, tracker and shooter. But he refused to take any assignment for the Rangers or the military. They couldn’t pay him enough to forget the heartache his people suffered at their hands.

“Van?” Bart prompted.

Van shook off the unpleasant memories then sipped his coffee. “Sorry. My mind wandered. What were you saying?”

“Some large ranchers in Colorado are feuding with sheepherders who have slaughtered their livestock…or so they claim. Five big ranchers formed a stock growers association and want to hire you to investigate. You’ll receive the usual going rate of two thousand dollars for every conviction, plus reward money and traveling expenses.”

Van munched on his tasty meal while Bart listed other assignments that would take him hither and yon, investigating a recent robbery in the no-man’s-land between Indian Territory, Texas and Kansas and a horse theft in the Texas Panhandle.

He didn’t show much interest in any of the assignments until Bart said, “But I agree that you won’t have time for too many new jobs since this telegram states that your fiancée will be arriving tomorrow on the five o’clock train from Fort Worth.”

“MY WHAT?” Van croaked—then choked on his toast.

Bart leaped to his feet to whack Van between the shoulder blades until he caught his breath. “That’s what I said,” he remarked while Van wheezed and coughed. “You never mentioned a fiancée.”

“That’s because I don’t have one,” Van chirped, then guzzled his coffee to dislodge the toast from his throat.

“Apparently you have one now. Congratulations, by the way. When is the wedding?” Bart asked, and chuckled.

Van leveled a glare at his grinning friend. “I didn’t hire you for your sense of humor,” he muttered as he snatched the telegram from Bart’s hand. Sure enough, the message stated that his fiancée would arrive tomorrow at five.

Bart plunked down in his chair, pushed his drooping spectacles up the bridge of his crooked nose and stared speculatively at Van. “I’ve always wondered what your fiancée might look like. Is she Indian or white?”

“I’m not the marrying kind. Not now. Not ever. I don’t know who this charlatan is but I damn well intend to find out.”

Bart’s pale green eyes glinted with amusement as he gestured toward the plate of food. “You should keep eating. Keep up your strength for when the fiancée arrives.”

Van gave Bart “The Stare” he was famous for. He’d backed down many a troublemaker with that chilly glare. His friend merely snickered.

“But what if she’s really attractive and charming and you decide to keep her?”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would pull such a stunt. This has to be a trick.” Van shoved aside his plate and poured himself a tall drink of whiskey.

Bart jerked upright in his chair. “You’re right! Maybe this has something to do with that threat—” He sorted through the stack of letters on the table and then waved it in Van’s face. “I didn’t give this warning from the Harper Gang much thought. Outlaws always vow revenge after you wrap up an assignment that didn’t end in their favor. But according to this letter the Harpers are out to get you for killing their little brother, Robbie.”

Van slouched back in his chair to read the missive. It said:



Eye for an Eye. We will get you for this.



Three months earlier, Van had been on assignment to track bank robbers who’d split up. He’d hunted them individually. He’d been forced to shoot and kill the twenty-four-year-old Robbie Harper, who’d had too much to drink and drew on Van in a saloon in a dusty, no-name little town west of San Antonio.

The drunken fool had tried to make a bigger name for himself. Instead, he’d made the obituaries.

Van had apprehended Georgie Harper, age thirty, Charley, age twenty-eight, and Willy, age twenty-six. He had collected the hefty rewards, but he hadn’t had time to recover the stolen money because a high-profile murder assignment awaited him. He’d told the bankers to let the Texas Rangers hunt for the missing money since they worked cheaper.

Unfortunately, the three Harper brothers had escaped from jail and now they were out for Van’s blood.

“You must admit this ploy of an arriving fiancée would entice most men to show up at the railroad depot at five o’clock, if only to see what a fiancée of yours might look like,” Bart was saying when Van got around to listening. “You’re right. This has bushwhacking written all over it.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Van chugged his whiskey. “That’s why you will meet the train and I’ll reconnoiter the area to see if Robbie’s vengeful kin are lying in wait.”

“Me?” Bart crowed.

“You’re the business manager, a practicing lawyer and my spokesman,” Van teased as he rose to stare out the window that overlooked Main Street. “In the meantime, I’m planning to catch up on my missed sleep.”

“That’s it?” Bart huffed. “That’s all the forethought you’re giving this potential threat? But what if it isn’t the Harpers who are using a distraction to lure you out and gun you down? What if you really have a fiancée that you conveniently forgot about?”

“I think I’d remember if I had a fiancée.” He strode over to grab the tray and handed it to Bart. “That’s not the sort of thing a man like me would forget.”

Bart, with tray in hand, headed for the door. “Seems to me that plenty of men conveniently forget about fiancées and wives, in favor of visiting the harlots in Cardinal Row.”

Cardinal Row was the red light district that Van and Bart visited occasionally, along with dozens of other local patrons. If Van had approved of blackmail schemes, he could make a killing off unfaithful husbands who frequented the local brothels. Maybe he’d take up that line of work when his lightning-quick accuracy with pistols and rifles failed him in old age. If he managed to dodge the bullets with his name on them for the next thirty years.

Sighing tiredly, Van returned to the adjoining room and stretched out in bed. He’d need quick reflexes and sharp wits at five o’clock the next day if he planned to deal effectively with the bloodthirsty Harper Gang. “A fiancée?” Van chuckled at the preposterous thought.

What the hell would he do with a fiancée? Leave her at his hotel headquarters for Bart to tend to while Van took one long-distance assignment after another? Anyway, what sort of female would want to attach herself to a mixed-breed with his reputation as a gun for hire? Women didn’t line up to fill a position as his future wife. Never had. Never would.

“No woman with a lick of sense would consider marrying me. I’m the furthest thing from husband material that any man could get,” he mumbled drowsily, then promptly fell asleep.



Natalie Blair, alias Widow Anna Jones, craned her neck to survey the landscape outside the train window. Anticipation bubbled inside her as she appraised Wolf Ridge. The Western community of three thousand residents—more or less—sat on a rise of ground, surrounded by a tree-choked creek known as Wolf Hollow. Even the possibility of this area jumping alive with wolves—and who knew what other vicious predators of the two-and four-legged variety—didn’t diminish her excitement.

She had been riding the rails for four long, tedious days. She was about to reach the end of the line—literally—because the railroad was under construction across West Texas. This community was the jumping-off point to launch her into her new life.

The train whistle jostled her back to the present and Natalie stood up to work the kinks from her back. She took her place in line behind an elderly gent who braced his arms against the back of the seats to steady himself as he moved slowly down the aisle.

Beneath the lacy black veil of her widow’s digs she had donned to conceal her identity and provide protection, she smiled in triumph. She had succeeded! She had calculated, planned and outsmarted the conniving bastards trying to control her life. She would like to see their expressions of confusion and surprise when they realized she had vanished into thin air like a fleeting phantom.

Serves them right, she mused as she stepped onto the landing. She tapped the gold band on her left ring finger and told herself that her mother was up there somewhere, smiling down on her. This is for both of us, Mama, she thought as the conductor offered a hand to assist her down the steps.

With Phase One of her escape plan completed, Natalie surveyed the crowd waiting for arriving passengers. There were a dozen women waiting to welcome home their menfolk. There were several older men waiting to greet women passengers.

But there was no knight in shining armor waiting to help Natalie complete the next phase of her plan.

Disappointment swamped her as she searched for the man she’d hoped would meet her. She had been so certain her provocative telegram would produce the wanted results.

Although she wasn’t sure what Donovan Crow looked like, because she didn’t have an accurate physical description, she knew him by reputation. She had read every article she could find in the newspapers. The legendary thirty-two-year-old gun for hire—known from Louisiana to Arizona and points north—had been the subject of her research for the past three months.

Refusing to be discouraged because her heroic knight wasn’t waiting for her, Natalie stepped to the ground. She searched the gathering crowd once again, while the porter retrieved the luggage.

She fixed her gaze on a rough-looking character with a scraggly beard. Unkempt hair poked from beneath his oversize sombrero. Surely he wasn’t her gallant knight.

Next she focused her attention on a thin, wiry, scholarly looking young gent who kept pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose—a nose that looked as if it had been broken sometime in the past. He was well dressed and reasonably attractive. He glanced this way and that, as if he were expecting trouble. Then he whirled around and strode past the depot to disappear from sight.

“May I help you with your luggage, ma’am?”

Natalie pivoted back to the porter, who looked to be in his mid-fifties. “I would be most grateful if you could direct me to the best accommodations Wolf Ridge has to offer,” she said in an exaggerated Southern drawl. “It has been a long, tiring ride and I am most anxious to rest.”

The frizzy-haired porter with a pot belly and thick shoulders smiled kindly at her. “That’d be the Simon House. The restaurant adjoining the hotel serves fine food, too.”

Natalie clutched the hem of her black dress to keep from dragging it in the dirt street and tramped off behind the porter, who lugged her oversize suitcase and tattered carpetbag. She paid close attention to the row of stores facing each other on Main Street. This town—the last civilized outpost on the Western frontier, and the end of the tracks—boasted a livery stable, blacksmith shop, billiard parlor, three hotels, several cafés and two general stores.

She noticed a gunsmith shop—which she intended to visit first thing in the morning—a newspaper office, boutique, bank and three saloons named Road to Ruin, End of the Tracks and Last Chance. She frowned disapprovingly at the three bordellos that set apart from the businesses and residences. A covered walkway connected the upper story of the billiard parlor to the more elaborate-looking brothel.

The town couldn’t match New Orleans in architecture, accommodations or extensive selections of supplies or luxuries, but it looked like heaven to Natalie. This was the Promised Land. This is where her freedom and independence began—if only she could locate the legendary gun for hire that could help her achieve her long-held dreams.

She reminded herself that Donovan Crow might be on assignment, in which case he wouldn’t have received her telegram. Which would explain why he wasn’t waiting at the depot to meet the woman who claimed to be his fiancée.

It could very well be that she might have to wait a week or two to meet him. If that proved to be the case, she would spend her time equipping herself for the next leg of her journey—a journey that would be a hardship for the two conniving bastards who would likely try to overtake her.

When they arrived at Simon House, Natalie paid the good-natured porter and then turned to the hotel clerk who looked to be a few years older than she was. He was blessed with thick blond hair, round face and barrel-sized chest. Without delay, he spun the ledger for her to sign, then handed over a key to her room.

“Will you be staying long…?” He glanced at the name. “Missus Jones?”

“That depends,” she drawled. “I’ll pay for two days and check on my travel arrangements. In the meantime, a bath would be most appreciated.”

The clerk snapped his fingers and two teenage boys lounging against the door to the restaurant came to attention. “Take Missus Jones’s belongings to her room and fill the tub,” he ordered.

While the boys scurried off, she glanced back at the clerk through her concealing veil. “Would you happen to know if Donovan Crow is in town?”

The clerk’s hazel eyes widened in surprise. “Why, yes, he is. Just returned two days ago, in fact.”

Natalie told herself it was possible the gun for hire hadn’t taken time to collect his mail. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t shown up at the depot. Either that, or he suffered from a shameful lack of curiosity.

No matter, she reassured herself as she ascended the steps behind the young boys. Donovan Crow would know who she was and what she wanted very soon. She had come to strike a bargain with him and he could name his price.



Van rose from a crouch atop the roof of the train depot. Then he holstered his pearl-handled peacemaker—or widow maker, depending on the outcome of potentially deadly situations. He’d scanned the area around the depot but the vicious Harper Gang was nowhere to be seen. And neither was his supposed fiancée. The only woman near his age had hurried off the platform to greet a waiting sodbuster who hugged the stuffing out of her.

If the telegram announcing his fiancée was someone’s idea of a joke, Van was not amused.

Apparently, Bart had come to the same conclusion about the hoax telegram for he halted behind the depot to peer up at him.

“No fiancée.” Van walked over to the eave, then shimmied down the gutter pipe.

“Not that I could see,” Bart said as he monitored Van’s descent. “The only unattached female was a widow in mourning.” He frowned pensively. “That odd telegram still bothers me. If I were you I’d watch my back—just in case.”

“Exactly what I plan to do. Come on, Bart. I’ll buy you supper,” he invited.

“Let me stop by my office and close up for the day, then my time is yours. Later, we can decide which assignment appeals to you and I’ll send off a correspondence soon.”

“I’m not going anywhere for at least a week,” Van reminded Bart sternly. “I damn well intend to sleep in my bed instead of a flea-bitten way station or on the hard ground.”

On the wings of the declaration, they strode off. Van didn’t give another thought to the disturbing telegram from his so-called fiancée.



The next morning, after a surprisingly tasty meal at the hotel restaurant, Natalie returned upstairs to discard her disguise. She hoped to make Mr. Crow’s acquaintance and negotiate a price for the assignment she had in mind for him.

Anxiously Natalie appraised her reflection in the smoky cheval glass that stood beside the plain dressing screen and bathtub. The modest gown she selected didn’t hint at the wealth her parents had amassed in New Orleans. That was nobody’s business and she didn’t approve of flaunting wealth the way her stepfather and former fiancé were prone to do.

However, she hoped to look partially rested and presentable when she met Mr. Crow.

She wondered if Crow was holed up at one of the brothels, tripping the light fantastic after completing his most recent assignment. She didn’t want to have to march into a bordello. Yet, as of three months ago, Natalie had cast off the burdensome yoke of proper behavior and protocol demanded by the upper class. Now she was alone in the world and vowed to do whatever necessary to make a new, unrestricted life for herself that didn’t involve those two devious bastards she’d left behind.

“First things first,” she told her reflection as she fluffed the wrinkles from her bright yellow gown. “Purchase a weapon to defend yourself from trouble. Then locate Mr. Crow and strike your bargain.”

As she descended the staircase, she noticed she was receiving far more attention than she had while dressed in widow’s digs. Since she had moved her mother’s wedding band to her right hand, the three men exiting the restaurant made note of her ringless left hand. They gave her a thorough once-over. Their blatant interest was an annoying reminder of the hassle she encountered in New Orleans where adventurers and gold diggers, familiar with the Robedeaux-Blair family name, congregated around her like pesky flies.

Although the men in the hotel didn’t know who she was, nothing could change her cynical opinion of the male species. To date, she hadn’t met a man who proved to be reliable, trustworthy or honest—certainly not all three at once!

Especially not those two sneaky bastards who sought to destroy her life—and would have if she hadn’t spirited away from New Orleans when she did.

Natalie walked straight up to the clerk and said, “Could you tell me where I might find Donovan Crow?”

Shocked, the clerk leaned close to say confidentially, “Ma’am, I wouldn’t want to be seen with him if I were you.”

“Why ever not?”

“Most dignified ladies avoid him whenever possible. He has an infamous reputation, you know. He’s also half Kiowa.”

“Oh? Which half?” she asked straight-faced then pivoted toward the door. She wanted to ask the clerk for a physical description of Donovan Crow, but that would invite too many questions since she planned to marry him immediately.

“Ma’am? Are you staying at the hotel?” the clerk asked as he perused the ledger.

“I’m Anna Jones,” she informed him.

His blond brows shot up his forehead and he glanced owlishly at her.

“I used the widow’s digs as a protective disguise during my trip. It worked amazingly well.”

The three men who overheard her conversation with the clerk fell into step behind her. Natalie rolled her eyes in annoyance when the men followed at her heels, showering her with effusive compliments.

Change of plans, she thought to herself. She would purchase a pistol to scare off the men who wouldn’t take the hint of being ignored and leave her alone. Then she would wander around town, hoping she would know Donovan Crow the moment she laid eyes on him.



The night after Van’s supposed fiancée failed to show up at the depot, he lounged against the bar in the Road To Ruin Saloon. He threw back a drink and let the strong whiskey burn its way down his throat. He was feeling considerably better after sleeping most of the day away—again.

“There’s a saddle tramp in the corner who’s been eyeing you for ten minutes,” Bart murmured quietly.

“I noticed him. Spoiling for a fight is my guess.”

“He’s consumed enough liquor to assure himself he can outdraw you and make a name for himself.”

“That’s exactly how I ended up with Robbie Harper’s three brothers gunning for me,” Van grumbled. “The little fool couldn’t clear leather nearly as fast as he thought.”

“Whiskey makes a man reckless with his tongue and far braver than he actually is,” Bart agreed.

When Van heard the sound of a chair being scooted across the planked floor to clank against the wall, he pivoted to face the glassy-eyed, peach-fuzz-faced kid toting double holsters and shiny pistols.

He flashed the would-be gunfighter his trademark glare. “The last drunken fool who decided to draw down on me is wearing a marble hat.”

The kid had drunk enough bottled courage to make him defiant. He jutted out his pointy chin. His hands hovered over his pistols. “You’re the one who’ll be wearing a marble hat, Crow. You worthless half-breed,” he slurred.

“No one is going to become a permanent resident in the cemetery,” came an unexpected female voice from the doorway.

Startled, Van—and every man in the saloon—glanced at the stunning female who stood five foot six and looked to be about ten years younger than he was. Her trim-fitting yellow gown displayed her full creamy breasts to their best advantage. Her eyes were black as midnight and sparkled with so much inner spirit that Van became lost in their depths—and he wasn’t alone. The woman had captivated the male crowd with her arresting beauty and her daring.

He dragged his gaze from the enticing display of cleavage to survey her curly auburn hair. The highlighted red-gold strands seemed to dance like flames in the lantern light. To his amazement, the alluring woman headed straight to him. Then, to the shock of every man—including Van—she pivoted to position herself in front of him like a human shield.

“Mr. Crow and I are going to be married day after tomorrow and I will thank you for not spoiling my wedding, sir,” she said in a heavy Southern drawl to the drunken kid. “You, of course, are invited to the festivities, along with everyone else. I’ve decided to hold the ceremony in Lobo Park so we can have a town-wide reception.”

“Married?” The crowd hooted in unison. They gaped at Van, then their bewildered stares bounced back to the enchanting female, dressed in bright yellow—who had burst into the saloon like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.

Van clamped his sagging jaw shut as he stared down at the crown of her shiny auburn head. Despite his vast and varied experience, he couldn’t recall a single instance in his life when he had been struck speechless.

“So…this is your mysterious fiancée,” Bart murmured, his green eyes dancing with amusement. “Excellent choice, my friend. You have my stamp of approval.”