Authors: Sabine Starr

Lady Gone Bad (23 page)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Most of the locations in
Lady Gone Bad
are real places. I enjoyed visiting and researching these wonderful historic sites.

Today the former outlaw hideout, Robber’s Cave, is an Oklahoma State Park. You can explore the cave, climb to the top of Lookout Point, walk through Stone Corral, and walk or ride horses along the old horse-thief trail.

Step back in time at Fort Smith National Historic Site in Arkansas to view Judge Isaac Parker’s federal courtroom, the basement jail, and the re-created gallows. See museum exhibits for details about outlaws and Deputy U.S. Marshals.

Once known as one of the three toughest towns in the West, Delaware Bend is now at the bottom of Lake Tex-oma. The Bend was named for a Delaware Nation village on a bend of the Red River. Today, you can visit Dexter, a nearby town.

After devastating fires, Paris, Texas, rebuilt with a fascinating variety of architecture. You can view the 1868 Victorian Italianate Sam Bell Maxey House, the 1889 Wise House decorated with ornate Queen Anne scrollwork, the redbrick Santa Fe Station, or the replica of the Eiffel Tower topped with a red cowboy hat.

Antlers Spring continues to flow and is listed on the National Register as a notable historic site. In 1887, a few years after the events in
Lady Gone Bad,
the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (the Frisco) established Antlers as a station on the Fort Smith to Paris line. At Antlers Frisco Depot, built in 1913-1914, you can tour the train station and the Pushmataha County Historical Society Museum.

I hope you’ll fall in love with the Red River Borderland of Texas, the majestic splendor of Southeast Oklahoma, and the Indian Nations like I have while writing
Lady Gone Bad
.

Read on for a taste of
Angel Gone Bad
by Sabine Starr, available from E-Kensington next March.

Chapter 1

1884, Dennison, Texas

“Harmony swooned into the muscular arms of the virile stranger with blazing blue eyes. ‘My hero!’ ”

A
ngel paused and glanced up. Were the words she read from
Sweet Rescue in the Indian Territory,
her first dime novel, creating the desired effect?

Fresh-faced ingénues in flowery dresses and stout matrons in Sunday-go-to-meeting-hats sat absolutely still in rapt attention, eyes open wide, hands clasped to bosoms, faces pink with excitement.

Yep, she had ’em. Angel breathed a silent sigh of relief. Short lived, of course. She was in the last place she wanted to be, daring fate to smash her flat. At the Bonham Female Academy, reading, much less writing, dime novels was definitely
not
part of the curricula and could cause her to lose her position.

To protect her identity, she used a pen name, dressed flamboyantly in rich colors, and wore a blond wig to cover her sorrel tresses. She would never, ever read in Bonham or nearby communities. Angelica and Crystabelle Morgan must always be kept in separate worlds. Even with so much caution, she lived in fear somebody would recognize her.

But the Red River Book Club grew restless, corsets creaked, throats cleared, feet shifted. They weren’t in the most comfortable of surroundings. Wolfpath Mercantile, named for the original community at Dennison, provided a location while the ladies squeezed into chairs from home. Wolfpath catered to a hardworking population, selling a wide variety of items, plus dime novels. A pickle barrel, bolts of cloth, sacks of flour and sugar, farm implements, jars of candy, and tins of tobacco cast a dizzying array of scents into the air. A checkerboard table had been moved aside to make room for the ladies, who sat facing the author with their backs to the front door.

Angel couldn’t let personal worries intrude. She wanted to do her best and please these ladies who had taken time out of their busy lives to be here and support her. She raised her voice as she returned to Harmony’s torrid adventures in the Wild, Wild West.

Wolfpath’s front door was flung open. Boot heels rang out against the wood floor. Spurs jingled an angry tune.

Angel stopped in shock, looking up from her book and over the heads of her audience.

A sea of hats swiveled as the ladies turned to see who had the nerve to interrupt the quiet Sunday afternoon. Gasps of surprise filled the store.

“You may call yourself Angelica, but you’re sure as hell no angel,” the stranger said in a deep voice with the lilting cadence of a Norseman.

Heads turned from the intruder back toward the author. Embarrassed titters filled the room as the ladies pressed white handkerchiefs to their lips as if to hold in their excitement.

Angel felt her breath catch in her throat. Her greatest fear had just stepped through the doorway. She’d never expected to see Rune Wulfsson again, not after what she’d done to him. If he was here, he’d been released and was hunting her down for one reason and one reason only.
Revenge.

She felt her blood run cold. He was a formidable opponent. He knew too much. He hated her too much. She must be smart, think fast, and save the explosive situation. From schoolmarm to dance-hall slattern was not her idea of a successful future.

“Right on time.” She pasted on a smile, although her jaw ached with the effort. “Ladies, may I present the Viking.”

Hats whipped back around as the women took a better gander at the tall-as-a-tree Swede with blue eyes the color of a storm-tossed sky. Mad. Angry. Furious. None was a strong enough word for the blaze in his eyes or the clench of his fists.

Angel plunged onward, hoping to avert the next words out of his mouth. “I asked him to join us so you could see an example of how authors draw from real life to write their books.”

The ladies oohed and took the opportunity, maybe a once in a lifetime event, to ogle a surefire, handsome hero.

Belatedly, obviously remembering his manners, the Viking whipped off his white, six-gallon hat, revealing close-cropped sandy hair, and gave a slight bow. Good manners didn’t extend to his scowl, straight brows meeting over hooded eyes. One long-fingered hand dropped near the pearl-handled Colt .44 he wore in a fancy tooled gun belt that emphasized narrow hips and muscular thighs clad in form-fitting Levi’s. A blue plaid shirt strained across his broad chest.

Angel sighed. Last time she’d seen him, he’d worn a fringed leather vest, tight leather trousers, and an eagle feather in long hair bleached almost white by the sun. Cowboy gear suited him just as well. Even if he appeared thinner and a little pale, he couldn’t have looked more delectable if he’d tried.

And that was exactly what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.

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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7920-0