Central Kansas, 1883
Chicago lawyer Blake Barlow has tracked his runaway wife all the way to the middle of nowhere. If she wants a divorce, he’ll grant her one—as soon as she tells him why she left.
Clara Johnson is angry. Blake betrayed her mere weeks after exchanging vows—but when he rides up to her family farm, it’s to get her signature, not to beg for forgiveness.
Clara and Blake agree their brief marriage was an impulsive mistake—but that doesn’t stop the passion between them from flaring as hot as ever…
His Wild West Wife
Lauri Robinson
MILLS & BOON
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Dedication
To my coffee-mate, and fellow writer, Margie Church.
Happy writing!
Lauri
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Blake and Clara’s story. From the moment he first appeared on paper, getting shot off his horse, my heart went out to Blake. He was so in love with Clara, and was so determined not to be. And Clara…This woman so deserved to be loved, she just had to realize it.
I must admit, I didn’t want this story to end. I was having too much fun with these two. Completely caught up in their journey, half the time I wondered what was going to happen next.
Thanks for downloading the book, and I hope you are as drawn in by Blake and Clara as I was.
With my fondest wishes,
Lauri
Contents
Chapter One
Central Kansas
1883
“Geez, mister, I didn’t kill ya, did I?”
Already tired, sore and surly, landing on the hard ground had pitched Blake Barlow into about the worst mood possible. Not to mention getting shot. The high-pitched voice grated on his last nerve, too. With buckshot burning in his thigh and pain still seizing his back from the fall off his horse, he shifted little more than his gaze.
A kid, whose front teeth were bigger than his eyes, dropped to the ground. “Praise the Lord,” he muttered like an old woman who’d just heard the war had ended. “I done thought I killed ya, mister.”
“What were you shooting at?” Blake growled.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No, sir, I was just shooting.”
“Just shooting?”
The kid nodded. “Yep. I didn’t even see ya. Probably on account I had my eyes closed.”
Blake reached over and snatched up the shotgun the kid had dropped, gritting his teeth as the movement sent his back into another seizure of pain. “How old are you?”
“Eight,” the boy said, scurrying back a bit.
“Eight?” The fire in Blake’s leg was subsiding, but that just gave him more energy to turn into anger. “Who gave you a gun?”
With a mop of brown hair that needed a good cutting and even browner eyes, the boy hung his head. “No one. I just kinda borrowed it.”
“Kind of borrowed it?” Blake tried not to yell. The boy was already quivering and digging his dirty bare toes into the recently tilled ground, but this was about the last straw. He’d been crisscrossing no-man’s-land for the past week and had started wondering why. “Borrowed it from whom?”
“No one really. It’s the gun hidden in the barn.” The boy shot a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I’ll get my hide tanned for this one. Clara don’t like guns. None at all.”
All of Blake’s anger and injuries were forgotten. Well, his injuries were. Scrambling to his feet, barely wincing, he asked, “Clara who?”
“J-J-Johnson.”
The sigh that gushed from his chest left Blake about as empty as a rain barrel in this dry Kansas land. He refueled, though, drew up enough anger to see red. Johnson. She wasn’t even using his last name. That was fine by him. She could call herself anything she wanted to—once she signed the divorce papers.
Leaning heavily on the gun—his leg was back to burning—he asked, “Where is she? Clara Johnson?”
The boy cringed as he turned slightly. Blake lifted his gaze, made out the flying skirts of a woman racing across the barren land.
It was her. His wife. The woman who’d left him four months ago. Six weeks after their wedding day.
The miles,
