didn’t have to check Yates to know the man was lying in a pool of blood, a hole through his heart. Juniper had learned, his first time in the street, wounding an adversary only meant he’d also suffer a bullet before having to fire another. The men staring at him hadn’t challenged him—yet.
“Anyone else here for vengeance?” His low tone was barely a rustle on the breeze, his heart slugging slow and hard against his chest.
“No,” one of them called out, still shaking the sting from his fingers. “I got no quarrel with you.”
A second man vigorously shook his head. “We, uh—”
“Ride or die.”
They scrambled onto their horses, hooves trampling weapons as they made a hasty retreat.
Juniper stood just beyond the porch, watching all four fade into the distance. The moment they disappeared over the western hillside, the tremors hit, staggering him.
He leaned forward, planting his hands on his knees. His gaze landed on Yates lying in a circle of crimson, his glassy eyes reflecting blue sky and white clouds.
Nausea rose up like a wave of fire.
The sound of his sisters’ sobs filtered outside as Juniper sucked air. Hearing the door squeak open, he turned toward the house.
“Rachell, don’t let—”
April shoved past her mother before he could tell them to stay inside. “June!” She crossed the porch in a flash of red hair and leaped from the steps into his arms.
Holding her face to his chest, he rushed up to the porch, but he was too late. May stood beside her mother, her wide eyes locked on the man lying in the dirt.
“Is he … dead?”
Rachell turned her oldest daughter toward the door and ushered her back into the house. “We’re just glad you’re okay,” she said as Juniper shut the door behind them.
May glanced at his holster and took a step back, her frightened expression hitting him like a blow to the gut. She stiffened as her gaze shifted toward the sound of horses approaching from the northeast pasture.
“It’s your daddy and Uncle Ben and his boys,” Juniper said, and realized his whole life was about to be exposed. Ben’s sons were just a bit younger than him and had no idea their adopted cousin hid a bloodstained past.
He crouched down to place April on her feet. May rushed forward, crowding into his arms beside her sister. Juniper hugged them both, relief warring with a deep sense of loss. Though he wasn’t related to this family by blood, they’d given him the first real home he’d ever known, sealing his place in the family the day their first daughter had been born. “Now I’ll have May and June,” Rachell had said, June being the nickname Rachell had given him, and he’d never been so honored. April and May were his sisters in every way that mattered.
“You girls stay inside with your mama until your daddy comes for you, okay?”
Both girls nodded, moving toward their mother as he straightened. Juniper was afraid to look at her, ashamed of the terror he’d brought into their home.
The moment he’d taken this man’s life, his own had been stolen. Once the others reached town, word would spread about the gunslinger from Missouri.
More would come. He couldn’t stay.
“You did what you had to.”
Rachell’s gentle voice penetrated the anguish welling up inside him, pulling at his emotions as he felt the door close on the people he loved, the home he’d just lost.
Chapter One
Spring 1883
San Francisco
“Admit it, Lily. Your competitiveness has finally gotten the best of you.”
“I’ll admit nothing of the kind.” Quite pleased with her new business venture, Lily Carrington eased back into the burgundy velvet of her office chair and lifted a cup of steaming hot chocolate to her lips.
Reginald spared her a quick glare, his thin lips set in a grim line as he continued to riffle through the box of disorganized company files atop her desk.
“It’s no matter,” she said. “McFarland is simply being a sore loser by withholding the payroll records and turning over the company files in such disarray. I’ll sort through every page if I have to. There’s more than one way to obtain payroll records. Surely someone on-site has kept a log of employees, work hours and pay rates.”
“Take my advice, sweetness.” Reginald tossed another file into the box, then brushed his fingers against his blue silk jacket as though his hands had been soiled. “Sell it.”
“I will not. You’re being rash.”
“I’m being realistic.” He dropped into the leather chair on the opposite side of her desk. A wedge of sunlight gleamed against the dark hair slicked back against his scalp. Stiff tracks left by his comb added to his look of severity. Even so, with his slight build and delicate facial structure, Regi was no more intimidating than a stern librarian or a cranky banker.
As her second cousin and top financial advisor, it was Regi’s job to be circumspect about business matters, but Lily had run the numbers before going after the lumber company. With proper management, the Sierra lumber camp and mill would become a valuable asset to L. P. Carrington Industries.
“Lily, it’s no secret that this entire venture is nothing but a folly to put o1’ McFarland in his place.”
A smile curved her lips before she took another sip of creamy cocoa, the taste nearly as sweet as her victory. She wouldn’t deny the fact. The old goat had dared to come to her offices a few months ago seeking financial assistance, only to refuse to sit across the bargaining table from a woman. If that hadn’t been insult enough, he’d later publicly ridiculed her before hundreds of colleagues at a charitable ball, calling her a disgrace to respectable businessmen.
A disgrace, was she? She hadn’t been the one sitting idly by while her stock was discreetly bought out from under her. Her initials had been the prefix of Carrington Industries for five splendidly successful years. At twenty-five years old, Lily was L. P. Carrington Industries, owning more than eighty-five percent of the company. The supposed board of trustees, her old and ailing relatives, only cared that their bank accounts were brimming.
The fact that McFarland wasn’t making this particular takeover an easy endeavor didn’t take away from her delight at seeing the utter defeat and humiliation in his face as she had personally claimed the title of her new lumber company.
“L. P. Carrington Lumber,” she said brightly. “I like the sound of it.”
Reginald groaned as he reached toward the tray holding her silver chocolate pot. “Face it, strumpet, he let this money pit go because it was failing.”
“You didn’t see his face when I walked in. He didn’t want to part with Pine Ridge.”
“So
