Pistols and Petticoats (A Historical Western Romance Anthology)

Pistols and Petticoats

A Historical Western Romance Anthology

featuring

Barbara Ankrum

Adrienne deWolfe

Sharon Ihle

Bestselling, Award-winning Authors

Dear Reader,

Thank you for purchasing Pistols and Petticoats, a historical western romance anthology by three bestselling, award-winning authors.

Each new novella in this anthology is a prequel or sequel to a bestselling full-length novel by the same author. For your reading enjoyment, we've included a special excerpt from each of those novels.

We hope you enjoy Pistols and Petticoats featuring three firebrand ladies, each determined to make her mark while making her match.

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Table of Contents

Ethan's Bride by Barbara Ankrum

Shady Lady by Adrienne deWolfe

Bareback Bride by Sharon Ihle

Published by ePublishing Works!

www.epublishingworks.com

ISBN: 978-1-61417-569-8

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Ethan's Bride: Copyright © 2014 by Barbara Ankrum. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Shady Lady: Copyright © 2014 by Adrienne M. Sobolak. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Bareback Bride: Copyright © 2014 by Sharon J. Ihle. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Cover and eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

Ethan's Bride

Pistols and Petticoats

Novella #1

by

Barbara Ankrum

Bestselling, Award-winning Author

Dedication

To David, my love, for your constant belief in me, and for always having my back. It was definitely a destiny thing.

To Laura Wright, for the plotting brilliance and enduring friendship. Thank you!

To Julie Ganis, editor extraordinaire and my sister, Sarah Sullivan, for all your help with this book. You're the best!

And to Nina and Brian Paules for making this happen!

Chapter 1

August 15, 1867

Today I have said goodbye to all I know, and leave for a strange place and a man I hardly know. Catherine and Margaret and Isabelle have all tried to talk me out of it. But they have husbands and babies to hold. As I boarded the train, they tried not to dampen my spirits, but I know what they were all thinking. We will all miss each other terribly. I shall, most likely, never see them again.

* * *

Clear Creek, Colorado

Eight Days Later

Miss Bradford? the pastor queried. Shall I repeat the question?

Violet Bradford bit her lip and wondered what the chances were that a person-sized hole might open up in the raw wood floor beneath her and suck her down into it.

She was not lucky enough for that. Her intended, Ethan Walker, still loomed across from her, looking tall and foreboding and completely different from what she'd imagined, despite the sepia-toned Carte de Visite war photograph he'd sent.

In person, he was so much more... more... vivid, with sun-burnished skin, too-long dark hair that curled over the collar of his jacket, and startling blue-green eyes.

Those eyes studied her now in the same far-off way they had studied the corsage of purple flowers he'd pinned to her dress before this whole farce began.

Dampness prickled her palms and she felt the tendrils of loose hair that had come undone from her chignon sticking to the back of her neck.

Miss Bradford?

Violet lifted her gaze. Repeat the question? No, she understood it quite well enough, thank you. But the real question wasn't the question itself but, instead, why she was hesitating now, when all of these decisions had already been made, bought and paid for?

Her hesitation couldn't be explained in words, exactly. Possibly only in what hadn't been said. For Ethan Walker's part, that would consist of the polite handful of words he'd exchanged with her since they'd met two hours ago. Something along the lines of "How was your trip?, This is my daughter, Ella, and I bought you some flowers."

Violet glanced down at the flowers pinned to her dress. They were drooping, like her spirits.

Yes or no?

I do or I don't?

Ohhh, she thought. It was as if the room and everyone in it had forgotten to exhale.

She swayed slightly in the late August heat that suffused what passed for a chapel, crowded as it was with the six of them—the pastor, Ethan and two-year old Ella, all blonde and dimpled and delicious, squirming in the arms of a sweet-faced woman whose name Violet had already forgotten, and her husband, Matthew-something, who stood beside Ethan as witnesses.

In the heat, the newly built chapel sweated the scent of fresh cut pine from the nearby forests, and it reminded her of the stables in her late father's barns. She suddenly wished she was back there. What would her father think if he could see her now?

Outside on the street, the sound of gunshots and raucous celebration sounded as a fistful of men clomped down the wooden walkway shouting about a gold strike one of them had made. They passed the chapel and a man poked his dirty, unshaven face in the door and shouted, Filthy rich is what we are! Where's the whores?

Violet bit her lip. She was a long, long way from home.

The stays of her corset were poking her. And had it suddenly grown hotter in here?

Matthew's wife gasped, Oh! Is she all right? My dear, you're pale as a ghost.

Without warning, Ethan Walker grabbed for Violet's arm and steadied her against him. She sucked in a surprised breath and gripped him tightly. He might have just kept her from falling.

Her intended was scowling again. Remarkably, that had been his entire repertoire of expressions since she stepped off that stage two hours ago.

Except for that momentary flash of disappointment he'd been unable to conceal at his first good look at her.

There had been that.

He steered her to a raw pine bench that stood in for a pew. Sit down, he commanded, then turned to the preacher. Thomas, can you give us a moment alone?

His voice was low and tumbled around her in the mire of her thoughts as she lowered herself to the bench. The scent of him, masculine and slightly musky, made her feel unexpectedly dizzy.

Or, more likely, it was the idiotic turn her life was taking just now.

The pastor frowned for a moment before nodding. Sure, Doc. He gestured for the other couple to follow him and they all disappeared out the double doors of the minuscule, now empty church, into the late afternoon sunshine.

I never faint, she said in her own defense, pressing her hankie to the moisture on her forehead.

He pulled a dented flask from his inner pocket and offered it to her.

And I don't drink.

One corner of his mouth lifted in an imitation of a smile. What else don't you do, Miss Bradford?

Well, she allowed, I don't usually marry strangers.

Ahh. That's all right. I'm particularly good at it. He unscrewed the cap on the flask and held it out again. Here. It's just water.

Oh. She sniffed at it delicately.

It does, he allowed, however, admit to a sordid past.

Violet exhaled a nervous little laugh before taking a long sip, more grateful than she could say for the drink. She wasn't certain if she was more thirsty or exhausted.

So, he asked, should we call it off?

She jerked a look up at him and lowered the flask. He might have just asked, "Shall we have tea? or Isn't the sky blue today?" He was watching her closely now, his gaze on her eyes and then, more intimately, her mouth.

Is that what you want? she asked.

"I said my vows."

He had, it was true. But we've hardly spoken two words between us, Dr. Walker.

His gaze slid toward the window where the sounds of celebration were still going on.

His eyes were the color of a robin's egg, but with none of the fragility. Everything about him seemed strong. His tall, muscular build. The stark, handsome angles of his face. Even his voice. No, that was more gruff.

He reminded her of no other doctor she could remember meeting. Certainly he was nothing like her brother, Elliot Bradford, who was funny and kind and not at all fierce-looking.

No, Ethan Walker was more soldier, she thought. More warrior. More like her step-brother, Chase Whitlaw, who'd been through so much in the war and had finally found love with a most unlikely woman.

As her intended turned back to her, something seemed to shift in his expression. She'd seen that look already once before. Almost as if he was chinking the walls of some barricade between them.

Let's talk, then, he said, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.

She decided there was no reason to beat around the bush. I couldn't help but notice the disappointment on your face when you saw me get off the stage. Am I not what you had hoped for?

He straightened abruptly, like a man who'd just realized he wasn't invisible. Why would you say that?

I'm only saying what I saw.

He flinched and a muscle clenched in his jaw. You saw wrong, Miss Bradford.

Did I? Dr. Walker, I've come a very long way. I've left behind my life in Baltimore and my friends and my home there. I am almost thirty years old. I have pulled up my life by its roots to come here to marry you. Partly because I don't wish to be a burden on my brothers or their families, but mostly because my possibilities are behind me now, and, as I've told you, I can't have children of my own. And I want to be a mother.

What idiot told you that?

Heat crept to her cheeks. That I can't have children?

That your possibilities were behind you.

Unbidden, a pinprick of heat blossomed from the center of her somewhere. That's neither here nor... we're getting off track. You've made it clear from the start that love is not part of this bargain. That I shouldn't expect it or hope for it. But I feel if I'm to marry you, I deserve at least to know why.

Walker stared down at his hands. I thought I explained all that. And you agreed.

She nodded. You explained the terms, Dr. Walker. Not the reasons behind them.

My reasons are my own, Miss Bradford. Private. And they are non-negotiable. You either accept them or you don't. While I admit that living in a mining town in Colorado has its downsides, you'll have the full protection of my name and my support as your husband. I'll take care of you and we'll raise Ella together, as her parents.

Violet swallowed. Those were the most words he'd strung together since they'd met. So, she wasn't to know. Could she live with that? Was it enough?

She lifted her gaze to him. He'd stated the terms as a businessman might a contract to build a bank, complete with vault and locked safe. Yet there was something in his eyes as he said it. Something wounded and vulnerable.

But who was she to quibble, she thought, considering her options. He'd chosen her. And many, many marriages began this way, without love, without friendship, even. And her alternatives, which she hardly even considered alternatives, swirled unpleasantly in her mind. She was walking a thin line here of losing even this one.

All right, she said. "But as far as the way I look, in my defense, I did send you a Carte de Visite of my own."

He was scowling again. Silence stretched between them for several beats. Who sends a picture that undersells them?

She blinked. I'm sorry?

That picture. The one of you in a nurse's uniform? It doesn't exactly look like you. I wasn't expecting you to be... pretty.

Oh, dear.

Ruari had been the only one who'd ever told her she was pretty. He had loved her just as she was: too tall, too thin and too opinionated. To everyone else, pretty was all the girls back home who knew how to flirt behind their fans, and dance reels and waltzes, and didn't give a fig about an unpopular opinion.

I turned down the pretty ones, he said, dragging her up from her thoughts.

She felt her color rise. Why? And how many pretty ones had he rejected before he'd decided on her for her plainness?

My goodness, Dr. Walker. That's enough to turn a girl's head.

That came out wrong. What I meant was—

"I doubt I fit neatly beneath whatever bar you're measuring me by, as pretty or not pretty. She got to her feet, the dizziness gone, and walked to the window. I can only hope that's not the only standard by which you'll judge me."

He followed her, reached for the flask and replaced the top slowly, his remarkable eyes not straying from hers. "If, in my clumsy way, I didn't make it clear to you, you fall well above the bar for pretty."

Her lips parted and she suppressed the urge to fan herself. He was much taller than she was and he made her feel almost... delicate. She hadn't expected him to be as handsome as he was, either. He'd shaved his beard since the war, revealing a face years younger than his Carte de Visite had hinted at, as well. But pointing that out now seemed unwise.

But for my sake, he continued, I hope we're not limited to first impressions. I'm no good at them. I do apologize. An otherwise invisible dimple appeared on his left cheek as he dipped his head in gentlemanly repentance.

Good Lord.

He had the presence of a backwoodsman and the manners of a Harvard man. His broad shoulders were barely contained by his jacket and the seams strained when he bent. She wondered, irreverently, what it would be like to be held in the arms of a man like him.

She fumbled to find her footing again. The question remains, do you want me as I am or not? I cannot change who I am. I'll admit I can be independent and opinionated. Most men consider those things flaws in a woman.

His gaze took her in, one feature at a time. An independent thinker is exactly what I'm looking for in a wife.

She brightened. It is?

He nodded and slid the flask back in his pocket. I need someone to think on their feet with my daughter. Not turn to me for their every need. Ella is already a handful at two. God knows what challenges a few more years will bring. The question is, do you accept?

She looked for somewhere safe to land her gaze. She chose the dark heel smudge on the floor near her foot.

She'd had love. She didn't expect to find the like again in this lifetime. At least she'd resigned herself to it. The fleeting image of Ruari, laughing at something she said, skidded across her memory. She pushed it away.

I do, very much, want to be a mother. And there seems to be only one way for that to happen. But if you didn't want a real wife, why didn't you just hire a nanny or a housekeeper?

Ethan stared out the window, looking suddenly lost. There are many definitions of a real wife, Miss Bradford. As for hiring a nanny, there are plenty of folks here who have already had a hand in raising her. Helping me. But it's not good for her. I don't know what to do with a daughter now that she's growing up. She needs a mother. A permanent mother.

Ella. Was it wrong that just the thought of holding that little girl made Violet's womb ache? She would be a mother at last. That's why she'd come. She had to remember that.

People married for worse reasons than this, she thought. Far worse. And as trade-offs went, this was not a bad one.

He was, no doubt, still in love with his late wife and probably always would be. Allowing herself to fall in love with a man like him would be like fighting a ghost for his heart.

He was watching her now, waiting for her answer.

There is one other thing, she told him.

He cocked his head.

The vow. I'd like not to say the word 'obey'. It is a promise, after all, and obedience is something I've never been very good at. You can ask my brothers.

I'll be your husband, not your keeper, Miss Bradford, he replied. Don't expect me to be.

"Please call me Violet. And I will be your wife, nothing less. Do we understand each other then?"

He nodded, but he was watching her sideways, as if she were a surgical puzzle he needed to approach with caution. We do. He got to his feet and reached a hand down to her. Shall we?

Chapter 2

Ethan tugged his hat down over his eyes as he pulled the buggy to a stop in front of his home and office at the end of Golden Street. Ella had wrapped herself around him like a baby possum on the ride back.

Ethan could feel the dampness of her tears and the occasional hiccupping sigh that told him she was too tired to do more than this silent, clinging protest against change of any sort.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but her reaction to today confounded him. She wasn't a shy child by nature, because God knew she'd been passed around enough to those who'd helped him with her care. Nor had Violet had much chance to get to know her with all the chaos of the afternoon. Nonetheless, Ella sensed, as all children must, a change in the wind of her future.

His new wife appeared not to take offense at the distance Ella had imposed between them. Instead, she appeared to be taking in the whole town of Clear Creek, as unimpressive as it was. Music spilled out of a half-dozen saloons with the tinny plink of as many pianos, and the ladies of Ike's strutted outside the doorways, enticing inside miners with pockets full of gold dust.

The hitching rails were lined with horses and mules, as nearly every man from the camps up the creek had come in to enjoy what Clear Creek had to offer.

Despite that, it was a town that had the makings of a future, if that future decided to cooperate. Families had begun to settle here. They boasted a real bank, a land office, a mercantile and a handful of other stores. At the intersection of success or failure, Clear Creek's future existence would be decided soon, either by the railroad or by the strength of the growing community itself. If it didn't go their way, they'd all be looking for a new town to settle in.

The sun was nearly set by the time they got to his place at the edge of town, after the ceremony finished. That struck Ethan as fortunate. It had been some time since he'd looked at this place with anything close to a critical eye, but now, with this new woman beside him, her wide eyes taking in Clear Creek as a child might an exotic zoo, he found his own place lacking.

The shingle hanging over the door that read Ethan Walker, M.D., Surgeon and General Practitioner needed painting again after a long, cold winter, and the small paned window facing the street could stand a good cleaning.

Worst of all, he'd never even gotten around to finishing his front door, and it stood a raw, shabby gray and utterly without welcome.

None of those things had bothered him until this moment, but he saw now that they should have. He wondered what she was thinking as she perused his place, and he could only imagine it was the same disappointment of which she'd accused him.

As the sun dropped behind the mountains, the sky turned from a fiery orange to a rosy pink and, as it always did at this time of day, the crisp air carried the scent of the fir-covered slopes nearby.

When he looked at her, she was staring at the point where the mountains met the sky as if she was seeing a sunset for the first time.

The sky, she practically whispered. It's so big here. I can't get over it. It's quite, quite beautiful.

Something tightened inside him, watching her. He had expected her to comment on the vulgarity of the place. Instead, she saw the beauty.

Against his will, he noted how the sky painted a rosy blush on her creamy skin and gently shadowed the curves of her throat. Her eyes weren't brown, exactly, but a turbulent hazel color that shifted with the light.

And her mouth. Ah, he thought, her mouth was a delicate pink, turning up at the corners even without her permission. Though she'd confessed to twenty-nine years, she looked younger.

Or maybe he just felt much older than his own thirty-four.

He turned away, wrapping the reins around the handle of the brake and glancing at the fading sunset. You'll get used to it.

Oh, I hope not, she breathed. I truly do.

He hopped down holding Ella, and tied the team to the hitching rail. Then he walked around to Violet's side and reached up for her hand. Ella tightened her death grip on his neck.

"No, Daddy," she whimpered softly, tucking her face into his shoulder.

It's been a long day for her, Violet allowed. She must be tired. I know I am.

No! Ella cried and buried her face deeper.

Violet reached for her tapestry traveling bag then pulled a small gingham-wrapped package from it. Look, Ella. I was going to wait to give this to you later, but I can't think of a better time than now.

Ella sniffed dramatically and peeked out from under her arm, reluctantly curious.

Here, Violet said. I brought it just for you.

Ethan nodded his approval to her, and shyly, Ella reached for the gift, bound in a pink satin ribbon.

Violet had been quite right about his disappointment, but surprisingly, she'd imagined it was because she was not pretty enough. Confound her. Did she not know she was pretty? How could she not? Her beauty was natural, with no need for embellishment.

But her self-doubt wasn't his problem. She wasn't his problem. She was his solution. His practical solution to a domestic problem. One it now appeared he'd solved rather handily.

Ella tugged the ribbon from the package and opened the sack. In spite of herself, a little gasp of happiness escaped her. From inside, she pulled a small, colorful children's picture book, with paintings of ducks, horses and puppies on the cover. She ran her small fingers over the pictures in awe and smiled up at Ethan with a look that nearly shattered him.

Dog, Daddy, she whispered.

I think she likes it, Violet said, stepping down from the carriage before Ethan could offer her a hand.

Charlie Harris, the burly, gray-haired smithy from down the street, hurried up to the buggy. Be happy to give you a hand with that trunk, Doc, he said, indicating the large trunk Violet had brought with her from the East.

Thanks, Charlie. I could use a hand, by the looks of it.

Then, you and your new wife just go on up now and don't you worry about your rig. I'll feed Jigger and put him up at my place tonight.

That's not— Ethan began to argue.

"I won't take