The Loner
Chapter One
Chapter One
"What the hell are you doing back here in Bitter Creek?"
Billy Coburn heard the challenge in the low, menacing voice but took his time turning to confront Jackson Blackthorne. He set his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, squinting against the smoke that caught under the brim of his Stetson, and stuck his boot on the brass footrail at the base of the Armadillo Bar. "None of your damn business," he said at last.
Billy saw the anger flare in the older man's eyes and watched his shoulders square as he straightened. Billy almost smiled. Jackson Blackthorne's six-foot-three-inch height wasn't going to intimidate him. He was an inch taller than Blackjack, maybe even broader in the shoulders, and a hell of a lot leaner in the hip. His father-it felt strange to use the word, since he was the man's bastard son-didn't scare him.
"We had a deal," Blackjack said. "I agreed to put that badge on your chest, and you agreed to stay as far from my daughter and this town as you could get."
Billy thumbed a smudge off the silver TSCRA badge that was pinned to a l ... read full excerpt from: The Loner ebook
