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Authors: Eugenia Riley
Bushedwhacked Groom
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BUSHWHA
CKED GROOM
by
Eugenia Riley
Time Travel Romance
Eugenia Riley Classic
Copyright © 2004 by Eugenia Riley Essenmacher
Publication History:
First
Dorchester
Publishing Love Spell Edition, 2004;
First Nook Original Edition, June 2012
Cover Image Copyright
© Mark Stout Photography 2012;
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
BUSHWHACKED GROOM is a novel. Although the book incidentally portrays a few actual characters from the history of the times, all non-historical figures are strictly imaginary, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
The cover image of this novel is used strictly for literary and illustrative purposes, and any models depicted in the cover image bear no relationship whatsoever to this work of fiction or to any of the characters or events depicted herein.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce or transmit this book or any part thereof by any means whatsoever, without written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Address inquiries to:
Eugenia Riley Essenmacher
P.O. Box 840526 Houston, TX 77284-0526
[email protected]
www.eugeniariley.com
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Buck Hollow,
Colorado
2004
“You know, darlin’, here in the West, when a man catches his woman cheating on him, he can still shoot both the low-down sinners and the jury will salute him.”
The two occupants of the sagging bed at the Buck
Hollow Motel jumped awake at the sound of the
charged voice of the vengeful man who loomed in the
opened doorway with antique Colt pistol in hand, his
tall, hard frame and black Stetson backlit by an angry red
Colorado
dawn. A bitter cold spring wind blew in after him, heightening the terror of the two transgressors cowering in the darkness.
“L-lucky!” gasped the voluptuous blonde, clutching
the cheap sheet to her neck. “What are you doing here?”
Lucky glared at his so-called “girl,” Misti Childers,
trembling next to his so-called best friend, Bobby
Stringfield. “Under the circumstances, darlin’, I should
be asking that of you,” he drawled. His gaze shifted to the wild-eyed naked man who shivered next to her, the
coarse hairs of his brown crew cut standing on end. “
Though it’s pretty obvious what you’ve been doing,
eh, Bobby?”
Bobby gulped. “Now, Lucky, this ain’t what you think
it is—”
“No?” Lucky mocked. “Don’t tell me you two are out
on a scavenger hunt, chasing up Bibles in motel rooms,
naked as two jaybirds?”
Bobby held up a quivering hand. “Lucky, if you’ll just
put down that gun—”
Lucky’s derisive laughter cut him short, followed by
dead silence as he cocked his revolver. “Thanks for re
minding me, partner. You know what? Think I’ll just let
my granddaddy’s pistol do the talking for me.”
Both went wide-eyed. “Lucky, no!” Misti wailed.
“Please, man, I know you’re pissed, but—”
Both protests ended in screams as Lucky opened up fire, shooting several holes in the mattress. With grim satisfaction, he watched the two fornicators go diving
off the bed in opposite directions, their white butts
flashing in the dim light as they struggled to their feet. Lucky took gleeful aim at the
floor by Bobby’s feet, and chuckled at the sight of the coward dancing about crazily, trying to avoid the bar
rage of bullets. Meanwhile Misti stood paralyzed, hol
lering at the top of her lungs. Lucky pivoted, his
well-aimed shot cutting across the cheap carpeting
and streaking between her widely spread legs, sending
her into a tortured jig, as well.
What a sight they were! he thought with vindictive pleasure. The two looked as ridiculous as a couple of drunken, naked fools doing the schottische on a huge ant bed. He was continuing his fun when an ominous
click warned him he was out of ammunition.
Through the acrid haze of smoke, he glanced over
to see the two regarding him in frozen terror. Reaching
into his pocket for bullets, he began calmly reloading.
“Know what, folks? If I were you, think I’d hightail it be
fore I have time to refill this cylinder.”
At that, Misti seemed to recover herself. Face red
with anger, she waved a fist at him. “You’re the one
who’d best head for the hills, you rotten SOB! You’re go
ing to jail for this, do you hear me, Lucky Lamont? Or have you forgot my uncle Bub’s the county sheriff?”
“Yeah!” added Bobby with bravado.
Lucky fired a shot through the ceiling that left both
cringing. His voice came cool and hard. “No, I haven’t
forgotten, honey. Now scram before I change my mind
and kill both of you no-good backstabbers.” As Bobby
reached for his jeans, he waved the pistol. “Don’t
bother with clothes, either. You’ll want to present
all
your evidence to good old Uncle Bub, right?”
At this insult, Misti squealed in frustrated rage, then
another shot from Lucky sent both of the cowards
shrieking past him out the door. Lucky watched them
skedaddle into the parking lot, darting about like two
cockroaches panicked by a sudden light, their naked
forms skidding past the scandalized eyes of an elderly couple just emerging from their sedan. As the oldsters
watched openmouthed, the two streakers dashed
across the two-lane highway toward a gas station that
sat framed by breathtaking
Broken
Buck
Mountain
.
Lucky relished their humiliation. ‘Bout time the two traitors got a taste of their own. Should he go shoot the miserable dogs? Hmmmm. They were clearly headed
for the hills. Had they suffered enough already?
Naw,
he quickly decided,
not nearly enough.
“Hey, what the hell is going on here?”
At the sound of an irate male voice, Lucky turned to
watch old Mr. Winston emerge from the motel office. A
thin, bent man in checked shirt and jeans, he hobbled
forward with a painful, arthritic gait, an expression of
fury gripping his whiskered face.
Lucky lowered his pistol. “Sorry, Mr. Winston. Just
taking care of a little business.”
Arriving at Lucky’s side, the old man’s horrified
glance moved from the pistol to the smoke-filled,
bullet-riddled room. “Lucky Lamont, you low-down
snake! What do you mean, shooting up my motel? Your
granddaddy would have your hide for this.”
“Sorry, sir.” Lucky shoved the Colt into his waist. “But
it was a matter of honor. My woman was running
around on me.”
“Well, no wonder, with a temper like yours.”
“Look, sir, I’ll pay for any damages—”
“Damages, my butt!” Winston snapped back. “You’ll
rue the day you trashed the Buck Hollow Motel, you lit
tle shit. I’m calling Sheriff Childers, and fetching my
shotgun to hold you, you no-account saddle bum.”
Watching the old man quickly hitch-step back to
ward the office, Lucky reflected ruefully that there
were just too many people with short tempers in these
parts. Tipping his hat at the elderly couple who still
stood frozen like statues in the parking lot, he beat a
hasty retreat and drove off in his pickup truck.
***
You’re the one who‘d best head for the hills.
Two hours later, riding his nutmeg yellow horse
Gypsy out in the mountains, Lucky was galled to re
member Misti’s words—and, especially, to realize their
truth. After shooting up the motel, he had been forced to turn tail and run, humiliating though it was.
Lucky Lamont wasn’t a coward, but he
was
a realist. Between old Mr. Winston being riled as hell and Misti
being the sheriff’s niece, his goose was cooked pretty
good, he reckoned. Even Granddad would have boiled his gizzard over this prank, and Grandma would have
wrung her hands and beseeched the Almighty to re
deem him.
Lord, how he missed his folks. As Gypsy crested the
hill, he reined her in and stared at the old homestead in the hollow below. The white cottage where he’d
been raised was a ramshackle, falling-down
shack covered with vines. Once a cozy ranchstead
nestled between soaring, snow-capped mountains, the whole enterprise had now wasted away just like his
grandparents had, the barn a sagging heap, the corral
teetering on its posts, the pond dried up, his grandma’s
beloved vegetable garden overrun with brambles and
weeds.
Lucky shuddered slightly in the frigid air and pulled his jean jacket more tightly about him. Even the birds
seemed to be hiding on this chill spring morning.
A lump rose in his throat as he gazed off to the east,
at a knoll with two simple stone crosses. He galloped
over to the small cemetery and dismounted, pulling
off his hat. He fought the sting of tears as he knelt and
pulled the dandelions off Grandma’s grave, then
Granddad’s. The mingled smells of earth and greenery,
powerful scents from his youth on the land, tugged at
his senses.
Virgil and Bessie Lamont. They’d raised him here,
these two wonderful people. Lucky had never known his parents. His father had deserted his mother shortly after conceiving him; after his birth, his mom had de
scended into wild ways and had run off with some
drunken fool, both of them getting killed in a traffic ac
cident. His grandparents had stepped in and done justice by him, adopting him, raising him righteously,
taking him to the Baptist Church each Sunday. It would
have been an idyllic upbringing for any child; but
Lucky in particular had thrived here on this ranch and
in the nearby town of
Buck Hollow
, with its economy
based on hunting and fishing, its conservative values
and community spirit. He’d bought into the entire
baseball and apple pie philosophy, adopting his
granddad’s code of honor—that men should be men, and women should remember their place.
Of course, Lucky had never actually met a woman
who knew her place, aside from his own grandmother. By the time he’d been in high school, he’d realized that
his granddad was a relic, a man of another time, and
his grandmother a jewel from a gentler age. But Lucky
loved and respected both greatly, and had never told
them about all the sex-crazed cheerleaders who had
jumped his bones in the back of his pickup truck.
After graduating from high school, Lucky had con
tinued to work the spread with Granddad. He'd hoped eventually to marry an old-fashioned, God-fearing
woman like his grandma, though where he would find
her, he had no idea.
Then times had turned tough. Granddad had been a
smoker all his life and for years had suffered from de
bilitating emphysema. Three years ago when Lucky
was only twenty-two, Granddad had passed away. Grandma had never been the same afterward, and had
followed her husband to heaven that winter, quietly
slipping away in her sleep. Lucky had been alone, dev
astated, faced with a stack of bills from two funer
als and his granddad’s last illness. Ultimately he’d been
forced to sell the family homestead to settle his grand
parents’ debts. Now he worked for the rich rancher who’d bought him out, and the land he loved was no
longer his.
And he’d lost all faith in the goodness of life. He’d
quit attending church, for what cruel God would
snatch away from him not just the true parents of his
heart but the home for which all of them had sacri
ficed? He’d begun to hang out in honky-tonks, pick up
women, get in fights, even land in jail on occasion . . .
Hell, even his granddad’s good friend, old Mr. Winston,
now considered him bad news—no doubt the reason he’d called Sheriff Childers.
Lucky knew he’d been searching for something ever since his folks’ deaths—for a friend he could count on,
a woman to share his life with, a sense of home and
belonging. Instead he’d found Misti, his tramp of a new
girlfriend, and Bobby, his traitor of a best friend, the man he’d thought he could trust, the one he’d bunked
with at the Flying T. Both of them had let him down—
although in some ways Bobby’s betrayal had hurt even
worse than Misti’s. By now Lucky had a pretty jaundiced view of women;
but what did a man
have without the loyalty of his friends?
And what would his granddad advise him to do
now? Again a tear threatened to well up as he gazed at
the graves. No doubt Granddad would understand his
anger toward Misti and Bobby, since he’d always been
a firm believer in the double standard. But he’d still ad
vise Lucky not to run from his fate, but to turn himself
in to the law. After all, he hadn’t actually shot anyone.
He might get county lockup for thirty days this time—
perhaps an even longer stretch, with Misti’s uncle be
ing the sheriff and all—but it shouldn’t be too bad.
But first, before he faced the music, he’d spend one
night out here on the range, camping beneath the stars
just as he and his granddad used to do. He’d ride on
out past the old ghost town of Mariposa, where no one
was likely to follow him, then turn east to Reklaw
Gorge, the old outlaw stomping ground and hideout.
Tonight the earth would be his bed, a rock his pillow, the small flask of whiskey he carried the source of his
warmth.