An Outlaw Bride (Crest Stone Mail-Order Brides #10)

Chapter One

The gunshot came from nowhere.

Isabella Sutcliffe instinctively ducked as the horses stamped their feet and tugged at the reins she clutched.

“Hush, now,” she said, sounding much more assured than she felt.

The leather dug into her gloved hand as she tried to make sense of where the shot had come from. It had been close—much too close. And it was her duty to alert Papa, Carter, and Henry if she saw anyone who might suspect what they were doing.

Izzy pressed her back against the clapboard wall of the newest shipping company to open its doors this side of Cheyenne.

The building was so new it still smelled of sawdust. Perhaps the shot had been nothing at all.

Maybe it was just some fellow out on the street .

. . doing what exactly? There was no way the men inside hadn’t heard. She needed to see what was going on.

Another shot came, and Izzy squeezed her eyes closed.

She couldn’t write this one off, not when a shout and a loud thump followed it.

When the third shot sounded, followed by the unmistakable sound of her father’s voice telling someone to get down, she knew she had to do something.

She couldn’t just stand here with their horses, waiting for a bullet to find her.

But Papa and her brothers were still inside that building.

There was no door, but there was a single window just beyond where she stood. Just as she started to nudge the horses a few steps so she could look inside, the glass shattered and a man tumbled out.

“Carter!” Her brother’s name slipped past her lips as a barrage of shots echoed from around the front of the building.

Carter stumbled to a standing position, and Izzy nearly dropped the reins that held their only way out of this town when she saw the blooming bloodstain on his thigh.

He took one look at her as he leaned his weight against the wall.

Without a hat, his red hair—the same color as Izzy’s—was rumpled, and sweat beaded his forehead.

“Go!” he said, gesturing weakly at the horses. “Leave them, and get out of here.”

“Not without you.” Purpose overtook the fear that clenched Izzy’s heart. She had to get Carter to safety. And then she had to find a way to get Papa and Henry out of that building. They were all she had.

When Papa had spouted this idea of a way to help poor folks get a little more money, Izzy had only agreed to help because he’d asked her.

She cared about people like them, people down on their luck.

But she never would have said yes if it hadn’t been Papa asking.

Her family was everything to her, especially after they’d lost Mama.

“Izzy, I can’t.” Carter’s breathing came in short gasps as he slid down the wall. “Can’t get on a horse. Go.”

“No!” Izzy reached for his arm, but there was no way on this earth she could lift her older brother.

He gripped her arm and held her gaze with clear eyes. “I left them inside to fight alone so I could come out here and find you. Don’t make it be for naught.”

A wave of terror surged through her. Those men out front—lawmen, she had to suppose—were still shooting. Surely that meant Papa and Henry had a fighting chance.

“They’ll surrender,” Carter said, as if he were reading her mind.

Izzy shook her head. “That isn’t any better!”

“I’ll get Henry out. He’ll be behind you.”

“What about you? You need a doctor!” Izzy’s voice was bordering on hysterical.

“They’ll see to it. You can’t try a dead man.” He gave her that lopsided smile she’d always made fun of.

Her heart clenched. “I’ll get a lawyer.” She knew where the money was, the remaining funds Papa squirreled away to give to families that needed it. Her family were the ones who needed it now.

“You have to ride out of here first.”

Izzy glanced over her shoulder, as if she’d find reassurance somewhere behind her. But all she saw was the building next door and the dusty ground that led to it.

“Go around back!” a voice shouted between shots.

It jarred Izzy into motion. If she didn’t leave now, she wouldn’t be able to help any of them. She handed the reins of the other horses to Carter and scrambled up onto Sally, her chestnut mare.

With one last look at Carter, she fled off across the flat ground toward the low hills rising in the distance. Hidden beyond those hills was a small lake—and the tiny cabin they’d moved into that winter.

Only when she was some distance away did Izzy dare to look behind her. There was no sign of Henry, but she could just make out the men surrounding Carter. All she could hope was that they didn’t look out across the green prairie and spot her.

Izzy whispered words of prayer under her breath as she continued on. It seemed the only way she could keep from letting the fear take over her mind. Because if she let it in, she’d crumple into a heap on the ground.

And that would do no one any good.

So, she kept riding. And riding. And riding.

Just as the sun slipped behind the hills that cradled the lake, she arrived at their cabin. Relief relaxed her shoulders for the first time in hours—until she noticed the door was wide open.

Izzy stiffened and nudged Sally around to the side of the cabin, where it abutted the side of one of the hills. There were no horses in sight. And it was silent.

Her breath stuttered out as she slipped out of the saddle.

She looped Sally’s reins around the trunk of a spindly tree and stood on shaking legs.

She withdrew the small knife Papa insisted she keep from the waistband of the hand-me-down pants Henry had outgrown years ago.

She didn’t know what she would do with it, but she felt braver with it out.

And then ever so slowly, she crept toward the door.

The cabin boasted a single step that led up to the door. Izzy stood to the side of it, knife clutched tightly in her hand, and peered inside.

The fading sunlight was just enough to see by. No one was in the single wide room that made up the cabin. One of the boys must not have shut the door tightly enough when they’d left that morning.

Izzy fell back against the wall, half a second of relief washing over her—until she remembered what had happened that day.

Sleep didn’t come for hours, and when Izzy woke in the morning, it was clear Henry wasn’t coming home. It was the not knowing that was the worst—whether the only family she had was in jail or . . .

No. She wouldn’t let herself think like that.

After three days passed, she couldn’t bear it any longer.

She retrieved the money Papa had stashed away and wrapped it in a dish cloth.

With her hair tucked up under her hat and wearing Henry’s old clothes again, Izzy rode back into the dusty little town of Roebuck. The one that had taken her family.

Half-afraid she would be carted off to jail the second she arrived, instead she found that not a soul gave her more than a passing glance.

She supposed she looked like any young man who rode into town.

Heaven knew she was skinny enough. Sometimes she wished she looked more like the twenty-year-old woman she was, instead of the boyish frame she had.

Izzy had two goals: find out what had happened to her father and brothers, and—hopefully—find a lawyer. The first was easy to accomplish. She purchased a newspaper that had been published in Cheyenne at the town’s poorly stocked general store.

Tucked out of sight between her horse and someone else’s, she scanned the small print for information.

A single sheet of newsprint fell from the back of the paper onto the ground.

Izzy bent down to gather it. Matrimonial Advertisements.

Her eyes tracing the words on the page, she found herself half horrified and half intrigued.

What sort of man advertised for a wife? And what kind of woman thought she’d find love through answering one of these requests?

The sheet must have been accidentally folded into the newspaper she purchased. Tucking it into the middle so it wouldn’t fall out again, Izzy went back to searching for the information she needed.

It didn’t take long to find it.

Sutcliffe Gang Captured, the headline read.

Relief at reading they were alive turned to a sick feeling just looking at the words.

They weren’t a gang. That implied some nefarious characters, shooting their way through robbing good folks left and right.

Papa only took from people who deserved it.

Companies that wouldn’t miss the money at all.

And he gave away nearly all that they’d taken, keeping only the bare minimum for themselves to subsist upon.

She forced down the indignation that made her want to toss the newspaper to the ground. She forced herself to keep reading. The article indicated three men had been apprehended—one of which was injured—and one remained at large.

Izzy blinked and read the sentence again. One man remains at large. That made no sense. There was no other man. There was only her.

She drew in a sharp breath. They meant her.

She glanced quickly around her, but no one could see her here. No one had even paid her a lick of attention so far. Her racing heart slowed a little, but she still couldn’t wait to be free of this town. She didn’t think she’d take a full breath until she was safely back at their little cabin.

But she couldn’t do that until she found a lawyer.

After a fruitless search of the town, she realized there wasn’t a lawyer to be found. Which was just as well. She’d have to come up with some tale about why she had this money and who Papa and the boys were to her if she didn’t want to see herself occupying a cell next to them.

She’d have to go to Cheyenne.