Union Belle (House of Winslow Book #11)

Gilbert Morris

Description

As the nation recovers from the Civil War, Sky and Rebekah Winslow's wayward son Mark is slowly making his way north through Texas after his release from a Mexican prison. Headed for Omaha to work for the Union Pacific Railroad, he is forced to shoot a man, then thrown into jail to await his prison sentence. In a small Texas town where justice will not be served, Mark's only hope is the young woman whom he defended. Lola Montez had attempted to escape the horrible saloon life she inherited from her mother, but she was held there by circumstances beyond her control. When Mark Winslow stopped her attacker, he also became her ticket out of town. If Lola can break him out of jail, surely he will take her with him to look for her father in Omaha. But a jailbreak is a small matter compared to what they will face. Mark becomes a trouble-shooter for the Union Pacific, responsible for law and order in the towns that spring up as the transcontinental railroad heads west, and he must live by his gun. Lola must live by her iron heart and find her way in a West where only the strong survive. While treachery, betrayal, and sabotage lie before them, so does an unexpected confrontation with a kingdom not of this world. House of Winslow Book 11.

Sujets

• Historical romance
• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441270375
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 1992 by Gilbert Morris
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-7037-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Cover design by Melinda Schumacher
Cover illustration by Brett Longley
To Bobby Funderburk
How strange a thing friendship is! We live in the midst of throngs, yet know most people so little. But from time to time one person out of the hundreds we meet will open a door, admitting us into his very life and we in turn will open ourselves up to that one. This transformation that makes strangers into friends is one of the miracles of human existence. We touch so many people, yet so rarely does the alchemy take place that turns cold knowledge into the warmth of friendship!
Well does the old Book say, “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” and since I have no brothers in the flesh, I am grateful that I have found one in the spirit Bobby a fellow pilgrim along the way who makes the path pleasant and life far richer.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART ONE
Escape From Texas
1. Gunfight at La Paloma Blanca
2. Shedding the Prison Walls
3. Escape From Eagle Pass
4. Into the Storm
5. Friends and Enemies
6. A New Kind of Dealer
PART TWO
Fury at Julesburg
7. An Old Acquaintance
8. Sioux Raiders
9. Clean Up Julesburg!
10. Death at the Silver Dollar
11. Shep’s New Plan
12. A Different Kind of Preacher
PART THREE
Cheyenne Summer
13. A New Season
14. The Fall of a Man
15. The Shepherd Calls
16. Showdown at Fort Sanders
17. End of Track
18. A Lost Sheep Is Found
PART FOUR
The Golden Spike
19. A New Life
20. The Noose Is Set
21. Called Home
22. A Late Buggy Ride
23. Out of the Past
24. Test of a Man
25. The Golden Spike
About the Author

CHAPTER ONE
Gunfight at La Paloma Blanca
Lola came out of a coma-like sleep with a violent start the instant she felt a hand touch her. She opened her eyes to find Ramon Varga, her brother-in-law, pawing her, and instantly jerked away, rolling across the narrow bed to avoid him. The door of her small room stood open, but as soon as he saw her eyes light on it, Ramon quickly moved to block the opening.
“Get out of my room!” she said at once. “I told you to stay out of here!”
Varga was a tall man, powerfully built, though beginning to show fat. His hatchet-shaped face was dark, and his flat black eyes gleamed as he maneuvered around the bed. For all his size, Lola knew he was very quick, and she retreated until her back pressed against the wall.
“I was worried about you, Chiquita,” he said. “You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours.”
“Next time, Ramon, knock on my door before you come in here.”
His eyes suddenly glowed with anger, and he reached out and seized her shoulder. His fingers cut into her flesh like steel hooks and she could not conceal the grimace of pain that touched her face. “You never learn do you?” he said, making no attempt to conceal the pleasure that her gasp of pain gave him. “If you had any sense, Lola, you’d know by this time I’m never going to let you get away from me.”
Despite the pain, Lola threw her head back defiantly, and staring straight into his face, she said, “You’re a yellow cur, Ramon!” She tried to pull away, but moved too slowly to avoid the ringing slap that caught her full on the cheek. She closed her eyes, waited until the pain and the ringing in her ear subsided, then gave him a steady glance, saying, “You can hit me, but you’ll never have me!”
Anger blazed in Varga’s eyes, and with a curse he threw her away from him. The bed caught her behind the knees, and she fell across it, but in a quick, reflexive motion came to her feet and moved across the room to stand by the open door.
“Get out of here, Ramon,” she said, her eyes filled with disgust. “Or maybe you want me to scream and let Maria know you’ve been after me?”
Ramon stood across the room, studying her, his expression a mixture of violent anger and admiration. He was accustomed to having his way with women, and Lola Montez’s resistance both angered him and whetted his appetite. He studied her as his anger subsided, his eyes wandering over her. She was, he saw, still half exhausted, for there were faint circles under her large eyes. Those eyes were her most prominent feature, a visible inheritance from her American father. The jet black hair that fell in lush profusion over her shoulders and the olive complexion, unbelievably smooth, were gifts from her Castillian mother. Although she was barely five feet five inches in height, her carriage was so erect that she seemed tall. The plain brown cotton dress she wore did not conceal the full-bodied figure that at the age of nineteen was mature in the manner of Mexican girls. Her eyes were the darkest of blue, and the curving lips and smooth oval face made a striking combination, imparting a rare beauty that had brought her the unwelcome attention of men since she had been fifteen years old.
Even now, Ramon watched her with a look in his eyes she had grown to hate, but he was baffled by her defiant stubbornness. “You didn’t learn anything the last few days, did you?” He slapped his hands together in an angry gesture, adding, “You can’t run away from here don’t you see that?”
Lola thought of her abortive attempt to run away with a sinking feeling. Three days earlier she had left Eagle Pass, Texas in the middle of the night, taking what little money she had. It had been a desperate effort to get away from Varga, for he was getting bolder in his attention to her. She had known better than to get on the stage, for Varga would check that first. Her hope had been to walk north along the Rio Bravo as far as Del Rio where the stage stopped once a week. But Ramon had been too clever for her, for as soon as he discovered her flight, he had known she would either have to cross the Rio Bravo and try to hide in Mexico, or take a stage into the heart of Texas. Varga had rightly guessed that she would not cross the border, so he had sent Sid Marsh, the deputy sheriff of Eagle Pass to Laredo, while he himself had gone to Del Rio.
Lola thought of how she had walked through the cold all the way to Del Rio. The memory of the brief thrill of victory when she had gotten on the stage came to her quickly followed by the bitterness she had felt as Ramon Varga had opened the door just before the stage pulled out for San Antonio. She had fought him, but he had the sheriff of Del Rio with him.
“I’ve done nothing!” she had cried. “He can’t force me to go back with him!”
But the sheriff, an elderly man named Johnson, had said, “Sorry, Miss. He’s got a warrant signed by a judge. It says you’re charged with grand theft. You’ll have to return with him.”
Varga had brought her back, and now as he stood looking down at her, he seemed to read her thoughts. “Yes, I dragged you back, Chiquita, and if you run away again, I’ll let them put you in the women’s prison at Brownsville.” His thin lips curled in a cruel smile, and he shrugged. “You may not like me so much but you’d like that a lot less! You’d come out an old woman and I don’t want to waste all those good looks.”
Fatigue from the long miles on the road had worn her down, he saw, and he stepped beside her, laying his hand on her shoulder in a soft caress, saying in a silky tone, “Chiquita I’m not such a bad fellow. Why don’t you try to like me a little? It’d make things nice for both of us.”
“You’re married to my sister,” Lola said wearily. She had gone over this with him many times in the past, but Ramon had a morality not far removed from that of the skinny cats that roamed the town. He had been, everyone knew, the lover of Delores Montez, the owner of the cantina and the mother of Lola and Maria. Varga had been a useless vagrant, but in her loneliness, Delores had let herself be drawn to him. He had asked her to marry him many times, but she had refused, knowing that he cared nothing for her; it was her money he was after. She had died a bitter woman, burned out by her trade of dance hall girl and saloon keeper, leaving La Paloma Blanca to her daughters. It had been a simple thing for Ramon to shift his “affection” from the mother to the daughter. He had attempted to court Lola, but when she had coldly repulsed him, he had turned to Maria, five years older than Lola and already hardened beyond her years. They had been married, and it had been Ramon’s next move to get Lola’s half-interest in the cantina.
That was on his mind as he stood there stroking Lola’s shoulder, and he murmured in answer to her statement, “Maria knows better than to question anything I do.” He took her other shoulder, pulled her against him, and before she could protest, kissed her.
Lola broke away and shook her head. “Ramon, just leave me alone!”
“I’ll never do that, Chiquita! I’ve got to have you!” He moved toward her, but she drew back, and he shrugged. Turning, he moved to a chair beside the door and picked up something. “Here’s a nice dress I bought for you in Del Rio. I want you in the bar tonight.”
“I have to do the cooking.” La Paloma Blanca was more or less a hotel rooms upstairs with a bar and a restaurant downstairs. Three girls including Maria worked the bar, but Lola had for the most part managed to avoid that duty by doing the cooking for the diners.
“I hir