LINT BARCLAY TOSSED THE DOG-eared pile of wanted posters onto his desk and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, trying to block out the loud snoring of the drunken old miner sleeping it off in the jail cell a dozen yards away. Shrieks and shouts of raucous merriment drifted in through the open window of the office, along with loud singing and the banging of piano keys. Sounded like things were getting pretty wild down at Coyote Jack’s Saloon. And it was only a little past suppertime, Clint noted.

He figured he’d probably have to head over there and calm things down before too long.

But it wasn’t only the miner’s snoring or the saloon’s rowdiness that kept him from concentrating on the wanted posters, memorizing the faces drawn on each one so that he could recognize any of the outlaws at a moment’s notice, if he happened to spot one.

Another face kept appearing in his mind.

A far more appealing one.

The delicately sculpted prettily oval face of Emily Spoon.

Clint shook his head in bafflement. How come with nearly every female in this town devoting her spare time to trying to run his life and find him an eligible bride, foisting every daughter, cousin, niece, and acquaintance upon him in an attempt to corral him into marriage, the only woman whose face seemed stuck in his mind was a rifle-toting, icy-tongued beauty from a family of low-down outlaws?

It made no sense at all.

You don’t want that little handful for a bride, that’s for damn sure, he told himself with a grin. He’d be better off with Mrs. Dune’s whiny-voiced niece, or Mary Kellogg’s sister—or even Carla Mangley, he reflected with a shudder as he thought of the latter young woman’s overbearing mother—than anyone related to Jake Spoon.

Still, it dumbfounded him that a family as low and common and crooked as the Spoons could produce such a gorgeous woman. Especially since there was nothing the least bit low or common about her—not as far as he could see. The raven-haired Miss Spoon spoke as finely as his own elegant sister-in-law, his brother Wade’s new wife, Caitlin Barclay herself. Clint had just returned from Wade and Caitlin’s wedding in Silver Valley, Wyoming, when he’d found out the bad news about the Spoon family moving into town.

But while the eastern-bred and -schooled Caitlin was blonde, cool, and sunny, Emily Spoon with her dark hair and smoldering gray eyes was all fire, earth, and ice.

Clint raked a hand through his hair, thinking of how determined she’d been to wrest that Winchester back from him. No doubt she’d have used it too, if he hadn’t taken it away from her so quickly in the first place.

Two days had passed and Jake Spoon still hadn’t shown up with his supposed deed to the Sutter place. No one had spotted him in town either. Must be away still, Clint reflected.

But doing what? he wondered suspiciously. If old Jake thought he was going to start holding up trains or banks or stagecoaches in other parts of the state, then hightail it to the fringes of Lonesome and hide out in the Sutter cabin, claiming he’d been ranching all the while, he’d sure as hell have another thing coming.

If he doesn’t show up by tomorrow, Clint thought, maybe I’ll just pay Miss Spoon another visit and see if she’s still all alone at that cabin.

Not that she’d ever been exactly all alone to start with. There was the boy—that pale little kid he’d glimpsed at the cabin window just as he was riding off.

Clint wondered suddenly if the kid was Emily Spoon’s son. Maybe she was married …

And maybe not, he reflected, his mouth tightening. Maybe she’s raising him alone—in the midst of an outlaw gang…

Clint frowned. With her fine-boned features and those unusual silvery-gray eyes, Emily Spoon didn’t even look old enough to have borne a child already five or six years old. Not unless she’d borne him when she was sixteen, seventeen … but…

Either way, it was none of his business, Clint told himself, pushing back his chair. He paced across the small office, his boots scraping upon the floor, and gulped a swig of nasty-tasting coffee that had gone bitter and cold in his cup.

Emily Spoon didn’t concern him. It was Jake Spoon and his gang he needed to think about.

But that was part of the trouble. If Jake’s niece was living in the cabin, she could well be involved in whatever the rest of the Spoons were up to. He remembered how insistent she’d been that he stay away from the cabin—and wondered if that boy was the only reason she’d wanted to keep him from going inside. It didn’t make sense that she’d go to such lengths to hide a child. She could actually have been protecting someone else.

A lover? Clint set the cup down on his desk and frowned. A member of the gang? Maybe the kid’s father, maybe he was an outlaw too …

Or maybe Jake Spoon himself had really been inside the cabin all along. Playing possum …

But he quickly dismissed this last idea. From what he knew about the outlaw, Jake wasn’t the type of man to let his niece face down the law on her own. He might be crooked, but he was no coward who would hide behind a woman’s skirts. He was hot-tempered and tough as buckskin. He’d have come out with guns blazing before he’d let a lawman get within an inch of his front door—or one of his womenfolk.

Clint sighed and picked up the stack of wanted posters again, but at that moment the door burst open and Hamilton Smith, Lonesome’s paunchy, mustachioed banker, tumbled into the office.

“Clint—trouble!”

Clint took one look at his face and panic washed over him. “Don’t tell me. Is it Agnes Mangley?” He sat up straighter in the chair. “Did Bessie tell her I’m back in town? Damn it, she’s already picking out a wedding gown for Carla, isn’t she—”

“No, no, nothing to do with Agnes or her daughter. I mean real trouble,” Ham gasped breathlessly. “You’d best get down to Coyote Jack’s—now. That whole place will be smashed to bits if you don’t put a stop to things pronto.”

Only a fight then. Clint relaxed. “Hell, why didn’t you just say so, Ham?” He sprang out of his chair and headed toward the door.

“It’s a helluva fight.” The banker hurried after him, struggling to keep up with the sheriff’s long strides. “The whole place has gone wild!”

Better that than to have Agnes Mangley on the wedding warpath again, Clint thought, loping toward the saloon. Still, he hoped he wouldn’t need the two Colt .45s strapped to his gun belt. Things didn’t get out of hand in Lonesome too often—most of the town was law-abiding, and even the miners and drifters passing through had heard of Clint and knew his reputation, so they toed the line as well. But tonight, things were definitely out of the ordinary. Even from the street he could hear mirrors splintering, bangs and thumps, men yelling.

The piano music had stopped.

As he pushed through the swinging doors and surveyed the riotous scene before him through a cloud of tobacco smoke, he saw that chaos reigned. Men were hurling punches right and left, someone threw a chair at a young cowboy in a green shirt and neckerchief, someone else threw a whiskey bottle that smashed into an already-shattered mirror over the bar.

Saloon girls were crammed onto the stairs or tucked into corners, and everywhere fists and oaths flew, while the owner and bartender, Big Roy, haplessly fired shots into the air, shouting futilely for the fighting to stop.

Clint’s gaze zeroed in on the man in the center of the fray—the dark-haired cowboy in the green shirt and neckerchief, who had adroitly ducked as the flying chair sailed by. He seemed to be fighting three men at once, and though his lip was bloodied and there was already a bruise over one eye, he was holding his own. At six feet, nearly as tall as Clint, he clearly knew how to throw a punch—and how to take one.

Clint waded in among the brawlers, headed straight at the young fire-eater. Along the way he pulled Mule Rob-bins and Squinty Brown apart, warning them that they’d land in jail if they didn’t stop right then. Both men stared into the eyes of the sheriff and quickly returned to their senses.

“Hold on, Ed! Break it up!” Clint grabbed ahold of Ed Perkins’s massive arm just as the blacksmith was about to hit a bewhiskered miner who’d been losing one poker hand after another every night for a week.

“Settle down, both of you, or you’ll find yourself sharing a jail cell for the next week.” The steel in his tone froze both men in their tracks. They lowered their fists and backed away from each other as Clint shouldered past.

Thus the room began to quiet and to clear as the sheriff finally reached the green-shirted man who had just doubled over after being punched in the stomach by Slim Jenks, one of the new hands at the WW Ranch.

“That’s enough, Jenks,” Clint ordered. “You too, Riley—and Frank. Back off.”

The WW wranglers stopped, their fists still clenched.

“He started it, Sheriff.” Jenks glared at the doubled-over cowboy slumped against a table. “He started the whole damned thing. And just guess who he is!”

“I don’t give a damn who he is.” Clint’s steely gaze shifted from Jenks to the other two wranglers, who seemed determined to get in a few more licks. “The next man to throw a punch gets thrown into a cell. You got that?”

None of the three answered, but neither did they make a move.

“Roy,” Clint called to the bartender. “Is what Jenks said true? Did this fellow start it?”

The bartender’s gaze met the piercing stares of the three WW wranglers, then slid to the dark-haired cowboy who groaned, trying to straighten up. “Yep, that’s right. He started the whole thing, Sheriff. Didn’t cotton to something Slim said to Florry, and he lit into him.”

“Then what?”

“Then these two yellow-bellied cowards decided that bastard Jenks needed help and they jumped me,” the green-shirted cowboy snarled, and before Clint could stop him he landed a blistering right cross to Slim Jenks’s jaw. Jenks toppled backward and went sprawling across the floor. Riley and Frank surged forward—but halted at the sight of the black-handled Colt .45 in the sheriff’s steady hand.

“I already warned you that the next man to throw a punch was going to jail and I meant it.” Clint fixed the cowboy with a hard look, the type that had made more than one cold-blooded murderer start to sweat, but the cowboy in the green shirt only glared right back at him. Blood dripped from his cut lip, staining the front of his shirt. The bruise over his eye was already swelling.

“Let’s go,” Clint told him. “We’ve got laws against disturbing the peace and fighting in a public place. Anyone else want to come along and join him in a cell?” The sheriff’s cold gaze raked the three men from the WW Ranch.

Slim Jenks came slowly to his feet and shook his head. “You’re right to lock him up! You know who this is? He’s Pete Spoon!”

That got Clint’s full attention. He eyed the other man intently, then seized his arm. “That true? Are you Pete Spoon?”

“What if I am?” The cowboy wrenched away. “I didn’t do a damn thing wrong—and you can’t prove that I did.”

Clint’s gut clenched. Emily Spoon had assured him that her family meant no trouble. And right off the bat, here was one of the Spoon boys tearing up the saloon.

“You started this fight, Spoon,” he said evenly. “And I’m finishing it. Get moving.”

He half expected the outlaw to resist, but to his surprise, Spoon merely eyed him resentfully from beneath a shock of dark hair and swaggered his way to the door.

“I might have thrown the first punch, all right,” he muttered, “but then they jumped me—three against one.” He swung toward the bartender. “You tell him, damn you. Tell him that’s how it happened.”

Clint saw Jenks, Riley, and Frank all turn to look at Big Roy once more. The bartender’s eyes slid away from Clint’s as he answered.

“Young Spoon started the fight. That’s all I know. He was the one who threw the first chair that smashed into my mirror.”

Pete Spoon snorted in contempt. “You sniveling, low-down coward, you’re as worthless as they are!”

Clint gave him a push toward the door. “That’s enough. Let’s go. And the rest of you—clear out of here. Now. Unless you’re planning to help Roy with the cleanup.”

The saloon girls edged out of their hiding spots as Clint and Pete Spoon reached the double doors.

“Thanks, mister,” Florry Brown said softly. She pushed a strand of toffee-colored hair behind her ear and smiled woefully at the cowboy in the blood-spattered green shirt.

Pete Spoon shot her back a crooked smile, then winced as his cut lip bled harder. “Wasn’t no trouble at all, ma’am.”

Once they reached the jailhouse, Clint put his prisoner in the second cell, then scanned the young man as he shut and locked the cell door. In the first cell, the miner snored on.

“Hold on, while I find some liniment for those bruises.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Pete Spoon growled.

“Don’t intend to.” Clint hooked the keys onto his belt. “Is Jake Spoon your uncle?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“So Miss Emily Spoon is your sister.”

“What of it?”

Clint regarded him coolly. “She tell you and Jake I stopped by?”

“Mentioned it.”

“Your uncle back yet?”

“Could be.”

Clint’s tone was as hard as the bars that separated him from the outlaw. “Then why didn’t he show up here? I’m sure your sister told him I want to see the deed to the ranch.”

Pete pushed away from the bars and sank down on the cot against the wall. Gingerly he touched the bruise over his eye. “Ain’t no law says we have to come in here and show you the deed to our ranch any time you say, is there, Sheriff? I reckon Uncle Jake’ll get around to it when he’s good and ready.”

“By then, maybe I’ll have thrown you all out of town, making it a moot point.”

Pete Spoon stiffened, flashing the sheriff a hostile glance. “You can’t do that.”

“Care to make a wager on that?” Clint drawled. “I don’t know yet what you’re all up to, but I know you’re trouble. And I don’t tolerate trouble in Lonesome.” Clint swung away. “At least, not for long.”

“I didn’t start that fight tonight,” Spoon called after him. “That low-down buzzard insulted that girl and I called him on it. The others jumped in against me.”

“The bartender didn’t back up your story.” Clint was digging through his desk for liniment.

“The bartender’s afraid of those boys. Maybe you are too,” Pete taunted.

Clint had noticed Big Roy’s strange behavior and he sensed that Pete Spoon just might be telling the truth. He hadn’t had any trouble with Jenks before, but still…

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to let Spoon off the hook so easily. He’d been warned not to throw another punch, and he’d done it anyway.

Digging the liniment out of his desk drawer, he returned to the cell and tossed it through the bars to the prisoner stretched out on the cot.

Spoon caught it without a word.

After the outlaw had lowered himself back onto the cot, facing the wall, and Clint had settled back in his chair, he picked up the wanted posters and checked them all again, making sure none of them depicted any of the Spoons.

He didn’t know if they were wanted men now. But they had been for a while, back in Missouri. And he remembered hearing something about Pete and Lester Spoon—cousins—mixed up in some gunfighting in Texas a few years back.

An image of Emily Spoon popped into his mind, that cloud of midnight hair framing her beautiful face. “We’re just a family looking to set up ranching,” she’d said.

Sure you are, lady. And I’m Napoléon Bonaparte.

“Pop! Emily! We got trouble.”

Emily was cracking eggs into the sizzling butter in the fry pan when Lester burst into the kitchen the next morning, his perspiring face so pale his freckles stood out even more than usual.

“It’s Pete—I don’t think he ever came home from town last night!”

Emily froze.

“What do you mean?” Jake had been helping himself to one of the buttermilk biscuits Emily had already set on a plate in the center of the table, but at these words he paused, his hand in midair as he peered hard at his son. “You sure?”

“He and his horse are both gone. I never heard him come in, and there’s not a sign of him this morning.” Lester dropped into a chair, wiping his sweaty face with his shirt sleeve. “And usually he’s the one to fix coffee first thing—and look, Emily, there’s not a drop in the pot.”

“Could he have just decided to spend the night in town?” Emily was trying not to panic, but her expression was worried as she turned imploringly toward Jake. “He could have met a… a saloon girl, and had too much to drink … and … maybe slept it off somewhere … right?”

“Sure, honey, I’d bet my boots that’s all it is.” But they left unspoken the more dangerous possibilities: that some bounty hunter might have found him, recognized him from his days of being wanted in Missouri—then decided to bring him back there—dead or alive. Knowing Pete, Emily thought, her heart growing cold with fear, they’d never take him alive.

Or some cocky young gunfighter could have crossed his path—and decided to make a name for himself. Pete would never turn away from a dare or a fight. Her good-looking younger brother was too impulsive and sure of himself—and too hot-tempered.

“Uncle Jake, I’m scared.” She swallowed past a lump in her throat and whispered, “Who knows what kind of trouble he’s gotten himself into?”

At that moment Joey wandered into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes, his hair still tousled from sleep.

“Who? Me?” he asked, peering at Emily in alarm. He immediately started backing away.

“No, Joey, of course not. We weren’t talking about you. It’s Pete we’re worried about. He…” She took a deep breath. “He seems to be missing.”

“Did a bad man get him?”

Emily shook her head. “No. Come sit down.”

When he obeyed, and was seated across the table from Jake, she returned to frying the eggs. She made a pot of coffee and set out a pitcher of milk and some dishes of butter and jam to go with the biscuits. But all the while her mind was spinning.

By the time she had poured a tall glass of milk for Joey and slipped into her own rather wobbly chair at the table, she had made up her mind.

“As soon as the dishes are done, I’m going into town to find Pete and bring him back,” she said.

Her uncle swallowed a forkful of eggs. “Nope, Emily girl. It’s best you stay here with the young’un—me and Lester will go.”

“You don’t want to run into that sheriff, Uncle Jake,” she said quietly.

“Sure I do.” His eyes blazed. “I want to give him a piece of my mind for coming out here and scaring you like that the other night. And if he wants to see the deed to this place, let him ride up here again in daylight and ask me for it!”

“You see, that’s just what I’m worried about. Your temper is even worse than mine.” In dismay, Emily pushed her plate away, too distraught to eat. “The wisest thing is for you to steer clear of him—you stay here with Joey and let me find Pete.”

She saw his frown deepen and knew what he was thinking: that as the patriarch of the family he ought to be the one to go.

But deep down, Uncle Jake knew as well as she that he needed to lay low until folks in Lonesome got used to having him around and realized that none of the Spoons were going to cause them any trouble. As the one who’d served prison time for stagecoach robbery, the only member of the gang to be caught red-handed with loot from the holdup, he was the most notorious member of the gang and the acknowledged leader. His presence was the one most likely to get folks riled up—especially the sheriff.

Jake hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Lonesome’s resident lawman, but he knew in his bones that situation would be rectified soon. Still, right now, they needed most of all to find Pete, and maybe Emily was best suited to that.

“All right, honey.” He nodded. “You go ahead. See what you can find out. Lester, you stick by her—don’t cause any trouble, boy, but don’t back down from it either.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Pop.” Lester tugged his gun from its holster and checked it for bullets. “We’ll be fine.”

Joey’s eyes widened and Emily saw the worry in their brown depths. She glanced at her uncle and nodded deliberately toward the boy.

“Say there, son.” Uncle Jake’s gruff voice took on a jovial tone. “Looks like you and me will have to fend for ourselves this morning. What do you say we take on kitchen duty and wash these dishes so Emily can get on to town? Think we can handle that?”

To Emily’s relief, Joey nodded and actually smiled at her fierce-looking uncle as she jumped up from the table and grabbed her bonnet from its peg by the door.

“Take care not to break any dishes—we scarcely have enough to go around as it is,” she admonished breathlessly as Lester stomped out the door. “We’ll be back soon—with Pete,” she added over her shoulder. Then she was hurrying toward the barn on Lester’s heels, wondering just what she’d find when she reached Lonesome.

“Good thing that kid takes to Pop,” Lester said as he helped her mount Nugget, the golden-maned palomino mare they’d bought for her in Denver. “You’d think he’d be scared of someone who looks like him. He’s scared of everyone else. Even me,” he said with a sigh.

“Uncle Jake does have a way with kids—he always has,” Emily said absently, frowning into space as Lester mounted his dun gelding and they started toward the ridge.

“No need to worry so, Em.” Her cousin threw her a swift glance. “I’ll bet Pete’s just having himself a good time with some pretty saloon gal, or something like that.”

“We’ll see,” Emily muttered. But she prayed he was right as she spurred the mare to a gallop. The vast land swallowed them as they rode hard and fast across the sloping trail, the fierce sun beating down on their shoulders as they headed toward town.

The first places to check were the saloons, Emily knew. Lonesome had two of them, and she and Lester decided to start with the bigger, fancier one—Coyote Jack’s.

The moment Emily saw the boarded-up windows, her heart sank. And when she and Lester stepped inside the dim, red-carpeted interior and saw the broken mirrors, shattered chandelier, overturned chairs and tables, the carpet stained with spilled whiskey, she knew.

A saloon fight.

She threw Lester a stricken glance.

“Ten to one it was over a girl,” he murmured.

The bartender, still sweeping up broken glass behind the bar, frowned gloomily as they approached, picking their way through the debris. “We’re closed. Until further notice, folks.”

“You haven’t by chance seen a man about six foot tall, wearing a… a…” Lester’s voice trailed off and he glanced at Emily for help.

“A green shirt,” she supplied. “He has black hair like mine—it’s parted in the middle and there’s a scar on his right hand …”

Her voice trailed off as the bartender straightened and scowled at them.

“I wish to hell I hadn’t seen him—but I have.” He grimaced. “Beg your pardon for cussing, ma’am. But that fellow’s the one who started the fight. In ten years, my saloon’s never been torn up this bad before.”

Emily swallowed. “Where is he?” she asked, dreading the answer.

The bartender came around the bar and began whisking the broom beneath a table where shards of a broken whiskey bottle were scattered. “In jail. Where he belongs,” he said darkly. “Thanks to Sheriff Barclay. He can rot there as far as I’m concerned.”

“Sheriff Barclay?” Emily gasped as Lester gaped at the man. “Do you … mean … Clint Barclay?”

Clint Barclay. That name was seared into her brain for all time—he was the lawman who’d sent Uncle Jake to prison. The one who’d tracked him mercilessly, arrested him, testified against him in court.

She felt like she was going to faint.

The bartender eyed them both from beneath bushy brows. “Yep. Clint Barclay. You know him?”

“Not… exactly,” Lester said grimly.

“Well, let me tell you, Clint Barclay’s the best sheriff this side of the Rockies. Cleaned out the Duggan gang a few years back. Single-handed too. He’s the best damned shot I ever did see … Hey, where’re you going?”

His last words were drowned out by the slamming of the double doors.

The black-haired girl and the moon-faced man were gone.