A Man for Annalee Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for Vonnie Davis and…

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Other Books You Might Like

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  A Man

  for

  Annalee

  by

  Vonnie Davis

  A Cicero Creek Romance

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  A Man for Annalee

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Vonnie Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Angela Anderson

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Cactus Rose Edition, 2013

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-906-3

  A Cicero Creek Romance

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Vonnie Davis and…

  STORM’S INTERLUDE

  HOLT Medallion Award of Merit Winner

  Nominated as Book of the Year (2011) at LASR

  “Simply a book you should not miss. The characters are well crafted and I fell in love with [them]. Vonnie Davis’ writing is tender, witty and beautiful. I…didn’t want the story to end because it’s so powerful.”

  ~Siren Book Reviews

  THOSE VIOLET EYES

  National Excellence in Romance Fiction Finalist

  “This novel has it all! Ms. Davis has crafted dialogue for her characters that is witty and captivating. The story draws you in and holds your interest until the last page. You won’t want to put it down!”

  ~The Romance Reviews TOP PICK

  TUMBLEWEED LETTERS

  “The Old West and a couple that need more from each other than simple romance. The characters were unique and bold, including a two-year-old that stole my heart. As with all of her stories, I fell in love…it could have gone on forever.”

  ~Sandra Dailey

  MONA LISA’S ROOM

  Book One of the Red Hand Conspiracy

  “In the same terrific voice as her romantic comedies.… It’s everything her other books are and perhaps more:… terrorists, international intrigue, and handsome French heroes…a suspense story that takes the reader on a fabulous vacation in France and along the way lets them fall in love.”

  ~Romancing the Book, TOP PICK

  Dedication

  To all the Roses at The Wild Rose Press.

  Hundreds of talented writers

  and not a thorn in the bunch.

  Chapter One

  Wyoming Territory—1871

  Gunfire jarred Annalee Gallagher. She straightened in her seat, her heart pounding. Another bullet zinged past the stagecoach, and the older couple sitting across from her gasped in unison. Heaven help her, she’d escaped one nightmare only to find herself in the middle of another.

  The broad-shouldered man who’d been drowsing against her jerked upright and drew a pistol from his holster in a blur so fast Annalee wondered if he hadn’t been holding it all along.

  He fired six shots out the window before leaning back to reload. “Think I winged one.” Was he speaking to himself in affirmation or bragging to the occupants of the stagecoach?

  One thing for sure, though, Annalee wanted a look at the gunmen. Did they resemble the criminals in her dime novels? She slowly leaned toward the open window next to her. Surely one peek wouldn’t hurt.

  Thus far her journey from Chicago to Cicero Creek, Wyoming, had been blessedly uneventful. She’d met none of the miscreants and bloodthirsty Indians written about in her books, so the thrill of living through a stagecoach robbery, like those in stories she’d read, warred with her sense of self-preservation.

  If she’d had her wits about her, she’d be afraid, or so she told herself as she glanced out of the window, hoping to see the highwaymen. With her mind and heart so absorbed with grief this past week, this incident, no matter how perilous, was a welcome respite.

  The gunmen were out of her line of vision, but the pounding of their horses’ hooves growing closer. More shots rang out. The stagecoach driver cracked his whip and bellowed an order to the team of horses. “Hi-ya! Go! Go!” The stage swayed precariously as it accelerated over the bumpy road. Gritty dust blew into the coach with such force the air seemed alive with it.

  She flinched as the coach’s jarring motion caused her burns to throb. Having just survived the devastation of the great fire in Chicago—a tragedy that snuffed out three hundred lives and destroyed nearly one-third of the city—she didn’t think anything would ever frighten her again.

  She had been wrong.

  Still, wanting to get one good look at the shooters, Annalee stuck her head out of the stagecoach window. A rider came into view. Before she could duck back inside, he raised his rifle and fired, shooting off her new traveling bonnet.

  Heart racing, Annalee plopped back onto her seat. “He shot off my hat!” Her voice rippled with astonishment and fury. Her trembling hands touched her scalp, and she prayed she’d feel hair. She breathed a sigh of relief when her gloved hands showed no blood.

  “What did you expect after sticking your head out like that?” The man beside her fired off another shot. “You made a target of yourself.” He quickly reloaded his revolver, muttering under his breath before redirecting his attention to the shooters. “Just my luck to be sharing a seat with a lunatic.”

  Annalee’s eyes opened wide and then narrowed. How dare he talk to me as if I have no sense. And after I’ve been shot at, too!

  The wide-eyed elderly couple in the opposite seat watched her as if she were as unbalanced as Granny’s one-legged goose.

  “That was the last hat my momma helped me make.” Her inane remark was a feeble attempt at explaining her behavior. She stuck her head out of the window once more, shaking her fist at the approaching gunmen.

  A steely hand yanked her back inside. “Do you want your fool head blown off?”

  Before she could utter a pithy reply, he shoved her face to her lap, leaned over her, and fired several shots out of her window. Pain from the weight of his body against her burns made her gasp. She’d have asked the clabber-headed fool why it was seemingly fine and dandy for him to stick his head out of the window, but with her mouth pressed against her black wool skirt, talking was futile.

  The pain from her burns was unbearable. Between her corset rubbing them and now this man’s elbow, she could barely catch her breath. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, and she willed them away. She would not allow this man, whoever he was, to see her cry.

  He slithered over her to gain a better viewpoint. Nearly out of her mind with pain, she inched her way from under him. Just then, the stage jostled and lurched over a series of ruts, causing both her and her tormentor to topple
off the seat.

  Stars burst in her eyes. It felt as if the burned skin were being peeled from her. Screams and grunts filled the coach. Sweet heaven, the pain. If she could get her hands on this man’s gun, she’d shoot him herself. She grabbed his revolver, fighting for control. “Get off me or give me that gun,” she ordered through clenched jaws.

  “Let…me…do…my…job.”

  In the midst of their struggle and the flurry of their grappling hands, the gun fired.

  “I’ve been hit!” The driver yelled in obvious pain. “Boone! Boone, you gotta take the reins.”

  They glared at each other with shocked expressions.

  “See what you did?”

  “Me?” Annalee’s voice squeaked.

  “I ought to arrest you.” He finally unwrapped his legs from around her and settled back onto the seat, quickly firing two shots from the window. “I’m a little busy with bandits and a runaway stage to tie you up, though God knows the idea holds some appeal.”

  “I’ll thank you to tie up your brainless tongue.” Annalee scrambled back onto the seat, smoothing her skirts with jerking motions. “I certainly did not shoot the driver.” She poked her finger into her tormentor’s back as he looked out the window, firing off a shot. “And I’d just like to see you try to arrest me, you arrogant fool.”

  “You are one peevish woman.” He spared her an angry glance.

  Another bullet ricocheted off the back of the stagecoach. All four passengers ducked.

  The elderly woman across from Annalee sobbed while her husband held her protectively, though he was sweating and pale with panic. “Now, now, Cora. God will protect us.”

  “Yeah, well, God’s not the one holding the gun, now is He, Franklin?” Mr. Arrogance himself sat back, hurriedly peered out the window of the swaying stagecoach, and then opened the door to climb out.

  Annalee grabbed the fringed sleeve of his buckskin jacket in alarm. “What are you doing? What if you get shot? Who will protect us?”

  “I’m going to drive the stagecoach.” His brown eyes swept over her. “And if I get shot, I reckon you better start praying, ’cause, lady, your loco goose will be cooked.”

  She’d never met a man so arrogant or insulting. No doubt they’d all be killed. Her mouth worked, but words wouldn’t come. The man disappeared, climbing to the driver’s seat of the runaway stage.

  The portly gentleman sitting across from her leaned forward. “If anyone can save us, miss, it’s Boone Hartwell. He’s the marshal at Cicero Creek.”

  Annalee had exchanged pleasantries with the couple when the red stagecoach rolled out of Fort Laramie, heading down the Oregon Trail on the last leg of her trip, although trying to hold a pleasant conversation had been near to impossible with her seatmate snoring like a locomotive. The elderly couple was Franklin and Cora Maguire, returning from a trip to Virginia to see family. Franklin was a banker in the town that would be her new home. That is if she lived long enough to see Cicero Creek.

  A rider came abreast of the stagecoach. His grubby hand grasped the door next to her as if he had a mind to jump from his horse onto the stagecoach. Give me strength, Lord, just like you did David when he went against the giant. She whacked the man’s hand with her black velvet reticule, hoping its contents would crack finger bones. Soon realizing that tactic was a waste of time, she pounded his hand with her fist. When that didn’t break his hold, a frantic Annalee did the first thing that came to mind—she bit him.

  The rider cursed and jerked his hand back. Annalee swiped her mouth with her gloved hand, trying not to gag. So this was the Wild West. I’ve barely arrived and already I’ve turned into a crazed barbarian, fighting and biting.

  What would the stern headmistress of Miss Feather’s Finishing School for Refined Ladies of Culture and Proper Decorum think of her now? Miss Feather had always deemed her as severely lacking in the proper decorum department. Annalee didn’t have a clue why. Granted, she was rather strong in spirit and gumption, but in this day and age, she figured one had to be to survive.

  Another robber came abreast on the opposite side of the stagecoach as it sped and bounced over the rutted road. Reacting purely on instinct, Annalee slid across the seat, snatched Mrs. Maguire’s parasol and, using it like a club, whacked the gunman’s rifle out of his hand. Then, with great effort and a loud grunt, she stabbed him in the neck with the parasol’s pointy steel tip. The rider grabbed his throat, falling backward off his horse.

  Two more shots rang out. Then all was quiet. The marshal continued pushing the horses hard.

  “Thank God we’re almost to Cicero Creek.” Mr. Maguire blotted perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief. “No doubt Boone will go directly to Doc Lufkin’s, since the driver’s wounded. Young lady, you were like a tigress back there, striking at the foe, first on one side of the coach and then the other. You saved our lives. We’ll be forever grateful.”

  “Yes, my dear.” Words flowed from Cora Maguire’s lips in a syrupy, southern drawl. “You were most brave. We are deeply in your debt.”

  Annalee couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it. All the recent terrors and memories she’d fought hard to suppress moved in on her, squeezing her heart with an icy fist. She gulped large breaths of air, gasping, trying in vain to calm down. The physical pain from her burns was unrelenting. A ragged sob escaped the restricted confines of her corseted ribs. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes.

  If there was one thing she’d learned this past week, it was that life was fragile. Precious. Fleeting. Blood colored the metal tip of the parasol she still grasped in her trembling hands. Horrified she’d physically hurt another human being, she did something she’d never done before in her twenty years—she fainted.

  Chapter Two

  Annalee didn’t know which was more disconcerting: the fact she’d fainted or that the marshal now held her like a baby. She shifted in his arms, nervous at being held this close. Her burns throbbed so badly, she could barely think. “I can walk, you know. I only fainted.”

  “You might have hit your head. Caused an injury.” He tilted his head to the side and stared at her, unsettling warmth in his brown eyes. “No need to frown like that. You’re not heavy. As soon as the doc’s through with your shooting victim, I’ll carry you inside.”

  “I did not shoot the driver.” She pursed her lips and glared at him. Up close, the marshal had an interesting face. A bump on his nose indicated it had been broken, probably in a brawl or two. His square jaw proclaimed stubbornness—something she could relate to—and a scar from the corner of his lower lip to the cleft of his chin no doubt signaled a life of violence. Dark, wavy hair hung over his jacket collar and nearly brushed his shoulders.

  Boone cleared his throat, arching one dark eyebrow. “Are you through with your examination? I could take my boots off so you can count my toes.”

  Her hackles rose at his remark. “Put me down, you annoying man.” She shoved at his hard chest. His hold tightened, increasing her pain. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.

  The lawman tilted his head to the side again and his eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I wonder…”

  “What?”

  “Were you born cranky, or have you been practicing on a daily basis? Frankly, I’ve never met a more peevish woman. Now Widow Morrison, she’s a mite cranky, but rumor has it she’s got trouble with her bowels…”

  Annalee gasped, her cheeks heating with the blush of embarrassment. “I’ll have you know there’s nothing amiss regarding my disposition. Why, I’m a graduate of Miss Feather’s Finishing School for Refined Ladies of Culture and Proper Decorum.” She gave an imperial sniff and hiked her chin a notch.

  He grinned, a sight that made her insides flutter, before he inclined his head and whispered, “You flunked that part, didn’t you?”

  His warm breath against her ear caused her toes to curl in her black leather, high-button shoes and a shiver to race through her system, reactions she found troubling. She p
ierced him with an imposing glare. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The decorum part. You flunked that, didn’t you?” The corners of his mouth twitched as if he were fighting a smile. “Because every time you get riled, your mouth turns as nasty as a cowpoke with saddle sores.”

  He had her there. Her “devil tongue,” as Miss Feather called it, had earned her more demerits and kitchen duty than she cared to admit. Thus she’d been dubbed with the disparaging title of the “Demerit Damsel.”

  She’d not share that morsel of information with this infuriating stranger. She shot the marshal a sideways glance. For some reason, he grated on her nerves. “You, sir, have a brainless tongue that goes off half-cocked with what little sense God gave you.”

  The marshal’s soft chuckle rankled, but for once she kept quiet.

  Movement snagged her attention. She looked over his broad shoulder at Franklin Maguire, who waved his arms as he recounted the events of their harrowing ride to Cicero Creek to a group of men congregated next to the stagecoach. “The woman was like a tigress. Why, I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s no doubt in my mind she saved us.”

  “If we had one a them train spurs comin’ from Ft. Laramie to Cicero Creek like Clarence keeps talkin’ ’bout, those stagecoach robbers be outta business.” The elderly speaker poked holes in the air with his cane.

  A bearded man spat on the ground and crossed his arms. “Yeah, well, you know old man Tanner rejected that idea in a mighty big hurry, and whatever he wants, he gets.”

  “Well, not anymore. Things have changed, and in a mighty big way.” This opinion was put forth by the cane-wielding man, whose voice was growing louder. “I say we need that railroad spur.”

  Franklin Maguire placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Now, Simon, no need in your working yourself into a lather over this. I’m sure the marshal will round up those outlaws who attacked the stage.”

  Annalee groaned. Once word of this reached her grandpa, he’d probably be humiliated beyond belief. His only granddaughter, a graduate of Miss Feather’s Finishing School for Refined Ladies of Culture and Proper Decorum, had bitten and fought her way to town. Now, thanks to a slight fainting spell, she was carried about like a bag of sugar by the town’s marshal.