Chapter One

Elisa Taggert stood in the corner of the store with her fists clenched. She told herself to relax and take a breath, but it was hard. So hard. What she really wanted to do was follow Samuel O'Shea out that door and put a bullet in him. Or two.

Bastard.

He dared pretend he hardly knew her, or that he hadn't stolen her father's land right out from under him. O'Shea treated her like a goddamn stranger!

The bell tinkled over the door and a man walked in. Elisa judged him to be in his mid-twenties, with dark hair settled under a dark brown hat. Gray trousers marked him as an ex-Confederate soldier, although his jacket was of good quality. Elisa noted the bulge of a gun on his left hip. Wide shoulders filled out the jacket nicely. His fingers were long and twitched as if he needed to be moving constantly.

His gaze swung to hers and she could see the hunter within him. The moment his dark eyes touched hers, she felt a jolt go through her from top to bottom. Her heart started pounding and her palms grew moist. Actually, to her shame, they weren't the only moist part of her body.

Sweet Mary, he was beautiful. A sharp chin with an outline of whiskers framing the deep cleft in the middle. A long, aristocratic nose sat between the darkest, deepest eyes she'd ever seen. Eyes that knew pain, misery and perhaps joy. Elisa's entire world shifted slightly under her booted feet and she knew an eternal moment of uncertainty.

Who was he?

He blinked and the spell between them snapped. She stepped further into the shadows of the corner and he paused before walking to the counter to talk to Marvin. Elis

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