A Wanted Man Read online

  Dear Reader,

  A Wanted Man is the story of two passionate people with secrets to keep. Rowdy Rhodes appeared very briefly in The Man from Stone Creek, and the first time he walked onto the stage of my mind, I knew he would have his own story. Rowdy is a fascinating enigma, an outlaw with honor, a fugitive with courage, a teller of truth whose whole life is basically a lie. Lark Morgan, the woman he didn't plan on meeting, let alone loving, is guarding dangerous secrets of her own. So come along with Rowdy, Lark and me on a journey to Stone Creek as it was in the turbulent early years of the last century.

  I also wanted to write today to tell you about a special group of people with whom I've recently become involved. It is The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), specifically their Pets for Life program.

  The Pets for Life program is one of die best ways to help your local shelter—that is to help keep animals out of shelters in the first place. Something as basic as keeping a collar and tag on your pet all the time, so if he gets out and gets lost, he can be returned home. Being a responsible pet owner. Spaying or neutering your pet. And not giving up when things don't go perfectly. If your dog digs in the yard, or your cat scratches the furniture, know that these are problems that can be addressed. You can find all the information about these and many other common problems at www.petsforlife.org. This campaign is focused on keeping pets and their people together for a lifetime.

  As many of you know, my own household includes two dogs, two cats and four horses, so this is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I hope you'll get involved along with me.

  May you be blessed.

  With love,

  Linda Lael Miller

  Praise for the novels of LINDA LAEL MILLER

  "Loaded with hot lead, steamy sex and surprising plot twists."

  —Publishers Weekly on A Wanted Man

  "This spin-off of The Man from Stone Creek will more than satisfy Miller's fans and draw in new readers seeking a realistic, powerful western."

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews on A Wanted Man

  "Miller's prose is smart, and her tough Eastwoodian cowboy cuts a sharp, unexpectedly funny figure in a classroom full of rambunctious frontier kids."

  —Publishers Weekly on The Man from Stone Creek

  "[Miller] paints a brilliant portrait of the good, the bad and the ugly, the lost and the lonely, and the power of love to bring light into the darkest of souls. This is western romance at its finest."

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Man from Stone Creek

  "Intrigue, danger and greed are up against integrity, kindness, and love in this engrossing western romance. Miller has created unforgettable characters and woven a many-faceted yet coherent and lovingly told tale."

  —Booklist on McKettrick's Choice (starred review)

  "An engrossing, contemporary western romance... Miller's masterful ability to create living, breathing characters never flags...combined with a taut story line and vivid prose, Miller's romance won't disappoint."

  —Publishers Weekly on McKettrick's Pride (starred review)

  "Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget."

  —NewYorkTimes bestselling author Debbie Macomber

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  For Shaun Bleecker,

  who identifies so strongly with Rowdy-perhaps because he's a hero, too.

  Also available from

  and HQN Books

  The Stone Creek series

  The Man from Stone Creek

  A Wanted Man

  The McKettricks series

  McKettrick's Choice

  McKettrick's Luck

  McKettrick's Pride

  McKettrick's Heart

  The Mojo Sheepshanks series

  Deadly Gamble

  Deadly Deceptions

  In October 2008 return to Stone Creek in

  The Rustler

  And in November 2008 celebrate the holidays McKettrick-style with

  A McKettrick Christmas

  -1-

  Stone Creek, Arizona Territory

  January, 1905

  Rowdy Rhodes leaned back in the whorehouse bathtub, a cheroot jutting from between his teeth, and sighed as he waited for the chill of a high-country winter to seep out of his bones.

  Jolene, an aging madam with pockmarked skin, three visible teeth and a bustle the size of the Sonoran Desert, sloshed another bucketful of steaming water at his feet. "I done seen everything now," she told him, her eyes narrowed in lascivious speculation as she studied Rowdy's submerged frame. "Ain't nobody never brought a dog to my bathhouse before."

  Pardner, the old yellow hound, sat soaked and bewildered in the tub next to Rowdy's. He'd gotten pretty scruffy on the long ride up from Haven, the dog had, and Rowdy meant to take him for barbering next. They could both do with a haircut, and Rowdy was itching for a shave.

  Pardner was just plain itching.

  "Always a first time," Rowdy said, drawing on the cheroot and then blowing a smoke ring.

  Jolene lingered, probably hoping to do less-hygienic business, but willing to settle for whatever conversation might come her way. "It's one thing, you payin' for clean water for yourself, but I don't see how as it makes a difference to the dog."

  Rowdy grinned and blew another smoke ring. "We'll be wanting steaks, soon as we're dried off and decent, if you can scare them up," he told Jolene. "Pardner likes his rare."

  "If that don't beat all," Jolene said, pondering the hound. "I can get steaks, all right, but they'll cost you a pretty penny. And if you've a mind to pass the time upstairs with any of my girls, cowboy, your partner here will have to wait in the hall."

  Given that he was naked, and in a prone position, Rowdy didn't see any profit in pointing out that he didn't have truck with whores. His .44 was within easy reach, as always, but shooting a woman, saint or sinner, was outside the boundaries of his personal code. Unless, of course, she drew first.

  "No time for idling with the ladies," he said, feigning regret. He idled with plenty of ladies, whenever he got the chance, but he favored fine, upstanding widows.

  "You lookin' for ranch work?" Jolene asked, in no apparent hurry to rustle up the steaks.

  "Maybe," Rowdy answered. The truth was, he'd been summoned to Stone Creek by none other than Major John Blackstone and Sam O'Ballivan, an Arizona Ranger he'd chanced to encounter down south, a little over a year before, in the border town of Haven. He'd come partly because he and Pardner hadn't had anything better to do, and because he was curious. And there were a few other reasons, too.

  He suspected his pa was somewhere in these parts, up to his old tricks, for one.

  "Try Sam O'Ballivan's place," Jolene said helpfully. "Sam's a fair man, and he's always hirin' on hands to feed them cattle of his."

  Rowdy nodded. "Obliged," he said.

  "Not that you're hurtin' for money, if you can afford clean bathwater and a steak for a dog," Jolene added.

  "A man can always use money," Rowdy allowed, wishing Jolene would order up the steaks, go back to riding herd over the drunks he'd seen out front in the saloon swilling whiskey, and leave him to bathe in peace.

  Pardner gave a despairing whimper.

 
"Just bide there for a while," Rowdy told him quietly.

  Pardner huffed out a sigh and hunkered down to endure. He was a faithful old fella, Pardner was. He'd trotted alongside Rowdy's horse for the first few miles out of Haven, but then he'd gotten footsore and come the rest of the way in the saddle. As they traveled north, the weather got colder, and they'd shared Rowdy's dusty old canvas coat.

  Remembering the looks they'd gotten from the townsfolk, him and Pardner, riding into town barely an hour before, Rowdy smiled. Even with a new and modern century underway, the Arizona Territory was still wild and woolly, and odd sights were plentiful. He wouldn't have thought a man and a dog on the back of the same horse would attract so much notice.

  "You run along and see to those steaks," Rowdy told Jolene. Even with the bucketful of hot water she'd just poured into his tub, the bath was lukewarm, and there was cold air coming up through the cracks between the ancient, warped floorboards. He wanted to scrub himself down with the harsh yellow soap provided, dry off, and get into the clean duds he'd saved for the purpose.

  Of course, Pardner needed sudsing, too, and Rowdy didn't reckon even Jolene's services extended quite that far.

  Jolene hadn't had her fill of visiting, that much was clear by her disgruntled aspect, but she lit out for the kitchen, just the same.

  Rowdy finished his bath, dressed himself, then laundered Pardner as best he could. He was toweling the poor critter off with a burlap feed sack when he heard the sound of spurs chinking just outside the door.

  Rowdy didn't hold with the use of spurs, branding irons or barbed wire. Whenever he encountered any one of those three things, he bristled on the inside.

  Out of habit he touched the handle of his .44, just to make sure it was on his left hip, where it ought to be.

  Pardner bared his teeth and snarled when two drifters strolled in.

  "Easy," Rowdy told the animal, rising from a crouch to stand facing the strangers. One was short, and the other tall. Both were in sore need of a bath, not to mention the services of a dentist.

  The short one looked Pardner over, scowling. His right hand eased toward the .45 in his holster.

  Rowdy's own .44 was in his hand so fast he might have willed it there, instead of drawing. "I wouldn't," he said affably.

  "It's a hell of a thing when a man's expected to bathe himself in a dog's water," the taller one observed. He had a long, narrow face, full of sorrow, and thin brown hair that clung to the shape of his head, as if afraid of blowing away in a high wind.

  "For an extra nickel," Rowdy said, "you can have your own."

  The short man took a step toward Rowdy, and it was the tall one who reached out an arm and stopped him. "Me and Willie, here, we don't want no trouble. We're just lookin' for hot water and women."

  Willie subsided, but he didn't look too happy about it. Rowdy reckoned he'd have shot Pardner just for being there, if he'd had his druthers. Fortunately for him, his sidekick had interceded before it would have been necessary to put a bullet through his heart.

  Pardner, who looked a sight with his fur all ruffled up and standing upright on his hide like quills on a porcupine, from the rubdown with a burlap sack, growled low and in earnest.

  Yes, sir, Rowdy thought, looking down at him, he did want barbering.

  "That dog bite?" Willie asked. A muscle twitched in the beard stubble along his right cheek. He carried himself like a man of little consequence determined to give another kind of impression.

  "Only if provoked," Rowdy answered mildly, slipping the .44 back into its holster. He was hungry, but he tarried, for it was his habit to take careful note of everyone he encountered, be they friend or foe. Pappy had taught him that, and it had proved a useful skill.

  Just then Jolene trundled in with the littlest Chinaman Rowdy had ever seen trotting behind her. The sight put him in mind of a loaded barge cutting through the muddy Mississippi with a rowboat bobbing in its wake.

  "Ten cents if you want clean water," Jolene told the new arrivals, clearly relishing the prospect of ready commerce. "A nickel if you don't mind secondhand."

  Willie and the sidekick didn't look as though they were in a position to be too picky.

  "A dime for a tub of hot water?" Willie demanded, aggrieved. "It's plain robbery."

  The tall man took a tobacco sack from the inside pocket of his coat and dumped a pile of change into a palm. After counting out the coins carefully, he handed them over to Jolene.

  "We'll have the best of your services," he said formally.

  The Chinaman, strong for his size, nodded at a go-ahead from Jolene and turned Pardner's tub over onto its side, so the water poured down through the gaps between the floorboards.

  "I ain't bathin' in the same tub as no dog, Harlan," Willie told his friend stoutly.

  Harlan sighed. "Willie, sometimes you are a trial to my spirit," he said. "That mutt was probably cleaner than you are before he even set foot in this place."

  "Them steaks are about ready," Jolene informed Rowdy, giving Pardner a dark assessment. "I don't reckon the dog could eat out back, instead of in my dining room?"

  "You 'don't reckon' right," Rowdy said pleasantly. With cordial nods to Harlan and Willie, he made for the bathhouse door, Pardner right on his heels.

  Lark Morgan watched slantwise from an upstairs window of Mrs. Porter's Rooming House as the stranger strode across the road from Jolene Bell's establishment to the barbershop, the dog walking close by his side.

  The man wore a trail coat that could have used a good shaking out, and his hair, long enough to curl at the back of his collar, gleamed pale gold in the afternoon sunlight. His hat was battered, but of good quality, and the same could be said of his boots. While not necessarily a person of means, he was no ordinary saddle bum, either.

  And that worried Lark more than anything else— except maybe the bulge low on his left hip, indicating that he was wearing a sidearm.

  She frowned. Drew back from the window when the stranger suddenly turned, his gaze slicing to the very window she was peering out of, as surely as if he'd felt her watching him. Her heart rose into her throat and fluttered there.

  A hand coming to rest on her arm made her start.

  Ellie Lou Porter, her landlady, stepped back, her eyes wide. Mrs. Porter was a doelike creature, tiny and frail and painfully plain. Behind that unremarkable face, however, lurked a shrewd and very busy brain.

  "I'm so sorry, Lark," Mrs. Porter said, watching through the window as the stranger finally turned away and stepped into the barbershop, taking the dog with him. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

  Lark willed her heart to settle back into its ordinary place and beat properly. "You didn't," she lied. "I was just—distracted, and you caught me off guard."

  Mrs. Porter smiled knowingly. There wasn't much that went on in or around Stone Creek, Lark had quickly learned, that escaped the woman's scrutiny. "His name is Rowdy Rhodes," she said, evidently speaking of the stranger who had just entered the barbershop. "As you may know, my cook, Mai Lee, is married to Jolene's houseboy, and she carries a tale readily enough." She paused, shuddering, though whether over Jolene or the houseboy, Lark had no way of knowing. "It's got to be an alias, of course," Mrs. Porter finished.

  Lark was not reassured. If it hadn't been against her better judgment, she'd have gone right down to the barbershop, a place where women were no more welcome than in her former husband's gentlemen's club in Denver, and demanded that the stranger explain himself and his presence in her hiding place.

  "Do you think he's a gunslinger?" she asked, trying to sound merely interested. In her mind she was already packing her things, preparing to catch the first stagecoach out of Stone Creek, heading anywhere. Fast.

  "Could be," Mrs. Porter said thoughtfully. "Or he might be a lawman."

  "He's probably just passing through."

  "I don't think so," Mrs. Porter replied, her face draped in the patterned shadow of the lace curtains covering the hallway window.


  "What makes you say that?" Lark wanted to know.

  Mrs. Porter smiled. "It's just a feeling I have," she said. "Whoever he is, he's got business around here. He moves like a man with a purpose he means to accomplish."

  Lark was further discomforted. She barely knew her landlady, but she'd ascertained at their first meeting that Mrs. Porter was alarmingly perceptive. Although the other woman hadn't actually contradicted Lark's well-rehearsed story that she was a maiden schoolteacher, she'd taken pointed notice of her new boarder's velvet traveling suit, Parisian hat, costly trunk and matching reticules.

  Stupid, Lark thought, remembering the day, a little over three months before, when she'd presented herself at Mrs. Porter's door and inquired after a room. I should have worn calico, or bombazine.

  Now, in light of the stranger's arrival, she had more to worry about than her wardrobe, plainly more suited to the wife of a rich and powerful man than an underpaid schoolmarm. What if Autry had found her, at long last? What if he'd sent Rowdy Rhodes, or whoever he was, to drag her back to Denver or, worse yet, simply kill her?

  Lark suppressed a shudder. Autry's reach was long, and so was his memory. He was a man of savage pride, and he wouldn't soon forget the humiliation she'd dealt him by the almost-unheard-of act of filing for a divorce. Denver society was probably still twittering over the scandal.

  "Come downstairs, dear," Mrs. Porter said, with unexpected gentleness. "I'll brew us a nice pot of tea, and we'll chat."

  Lark wanted to refuse the invitation—wished she'd said right away that she needed to work out lesson plans for the coming week, or shop for toiletries at the mercantile, or run some other Saturday errand, but she hadn't. And she'd surely aroused Mrs. Porter's assiduous curiosity by jumping at the touch of her hand.

  "Thank you," she said, smiling determinedly and under no illusion that Mrs. Porter wanted to "chat." Lark knew she was a puzzle to her landlady, one the woman meant to solve. "That would be very nice. If I could just freshen up a little—"