After Sundown
Authors: Shelly Thacker
Tags: #Historical Romance, #Colorado, #Western Romance
He vowed to bring her to justice...
U.S. Marshal Lucas McKenna has brought down some of the most notorious outlaws in the West. Now he’s on a personal mission: hunting the woman who killed his brother.
Antoinette Sutton is running for her life. The evidence against her is overwhelming—and no one will believe the truth about what happened. Lucas captures the dark-haired beauty in Colorado, but before he can take her back to Missouri to stand trial, the two are snowbound in a remote mining town. During the firelit nights of a Rocky Mountain winter, lawman and prisoner are caught in a dance of danger and desire... until Annie loses her heart and Lucas faces an impossible choice: will he do his duty and turn her in, or set her free and become an outlaw himself?
An RWA RITA Award Finalist: Best Historical Romance of the Year
“Fast-paced and poignant. One of the best romances of the year.” –
The Oakland Press
“Refreshing. Capable and strong characters... true emotion... this is a much better offering in the western romance department than many I have read, and if you’ve been looking to try a novel in this genre, I recommend this one.” –AllAboutRomance.com
“Shelly Thacker’s masterful handling of complex emotions is as impressive as her storytelling ability. This fresh, intriguing, sensual tale is just what romance readers are looking for. 4-1/2 stars (highest rating)” –
Romantic Times
A full-length novel of 110,000 words
Adult content: explicit love scenes
Originally published by Dell under the title
Into the Sunset
This revised Author’s Preferred Edition ebook includes additional scenes never before published. Also includes bonus content: “The Making of AFTER SUNDOWN: The Story Behind the Story,” plus excerpts from upcoming Shelly Thacker books.
Search keywords: historical romance, Western romance, captive/captor, sensual romance, Colorado, American West, 1870s, Rocky Mountains, adventure, outlaws, fugitives
About the Author
: Shelly Thacker’s bestselling historical romance novels have won numerous national awards and lavish praise from
Publishers Weekly
,
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
,
The Detroit Free Press
and
The Oakland Press
, who have called her books “innovative,” “addictive,” “erotic” and “powerful.” Find out more at
www.shellythacker.com
.
~ ~ ~
A note from Shelly
Dear Reader: My formatter and I carefully proofread each of my books before publication. We work hard to produce ebooks that are 100% free of typographical errors. But typos are sneaky little devils, and sometimes they slip past us. If you spot any typos lurking in this book, please send them to me at
[email protected]
. Thank you! Together, we can stamp out sneaky typos.
~ ~ ~
Colorado, 1878
H
ow many men were hunting her by now?
Antoinette Sutton pressed her cheek against the coach’s musty upholstery, keeping her eyes shut as the Wells Fargo stage to Leadville rattled up the mountain trail. She struggled to breathe evenly, couldn’t seem to get enough of the thin air into her lungs. Sweat trickled down her face and stained the dress she wore, a stylish French sateen in solid black. Widow’s black.
Her stomach lurched with every sway of the coach. And her fever was getting worse. Annie sank her teeth into her lower lip to hold back a moan.
She felt sick enough to throw up on the nice, shiny kid boots of the lady squeezed in beside her. And not just because of the smothering crush of nine passengers. Or the stale smells of horse sweat and miners who didn’t bathe often enough and the macassar oil the men used on their hair. Or the annoying buzz of conversation as her fellow travelers chatted oh-so-pleasantly about crop prices and how nice the August weather had been and the latest silver strike up in Central City.
Annie remained silent, tenderly, protectively resting one hand over the gentle swell of her belly, hidden by her full skirts. Questions circled and preyed on her mind.
How many men were on her trail?
A handful? A dozen? Or every sheriff and marshal in five states?
How long would they keep tracking her?
And how far?
Trying to swallow the cold lump of fear in her throat, she opened her eyes and lifted the flapping leather curtain on her left. Glaring sunlight blinded her for a second. She blinked, dizzy and half afraid she’d see a rider chasing the stage with badge flashing and gun drawn, like in the dime novels her brother used to love.
Instead she saw only air: empty, heaven-blue sky above
and
below. The stage had climbed high into the Rockies since leaving Trout Creek this afternoon. A ledge fell away sharply beneath the wheels, revealing the jagged green tops of pine trees trailing down the mountainside into a gulch so deep she couldn’t glimpse the bottom.
Annie shuddered and let the curtain fall. After a week of jostling along old Indian trails and back roads day and night, she hated the West. Hated every hot, dirty, wild, godforsaken mile of it. Only once before had she been west of the Missouri River, on a visit to Abilene when she was six, with Mama, to look for Papa.
She knew she was the very picture of what folks out here called a “tenderfoot.” But she needed to disappear—and this was the best place to do it. She had to keep going, changing stage lines, changing directions, covering her trail. Had to put plenty more miles between her and the law back in Missouri. She couldn’t stop to rest, to wait until she felt better.
Or to grieve.
James
. Annie shut her eyes again, curling up in her corner of the darkened coach while the other passengers kept chatting and laughing.
James, oh God, I’m so sorry.
Even now, she longed for his company and his comfort.
Even now
. Droplets of sweat mixed with the trail dust on her cheeks, and felt like tears. But they weren’t tears. They weren’t. Her mama had raised her not to be any man’s fool.
If only she had listened.
One of the wheels struck a rock and the stage bucked like a wild horse. Annie clung to the padded seat, trembling. The uncomfortable feeling in her stomach was getting worse—and it was different from the queasiness she had gotten used to the past weeks.
She tried to tell herself it was only this awful case of the ague. Or the meager food that had been available when they stopped for lunch in Trout Creek: fried cornbread with slices of fat pork and gritty coffee that had tasted like it was three days old.
But she was beginning to fear it was something else. Something far worse.
Annie’s heart seized up like it would stop beating. Like it would break. She had never been the sort to pray much, but she began to pray now, silently, desperately.
For forgiveness.
For the precious new life growing inside her.
“You feelin’ any better, Mrs. Smith?”
Annie lifted her lashes and regarded the young soldier seated across from her, his blue uniform so new it all but gleamed. He was on his way to Fort Collins, he had told them all proudly, had just turned twenty and been promoted to corporal.
Twenty
. He seemed merely a boy. How could he be the same age as her?
“Yes, Corporal Easton.” Annie shrugged, managing a smile and yet another lie. “I’m feeling a bit better, thanks.”
She had told none of them about her delicate condition. Her fellow passengers were only worried about her ague—mostly about catching it.
As she started to turn away and close her eyes again, the boy offered her his canteen and a smile. “You thirsty, ma’am?”
Annie hesitated, her natural wariness sharper than usual. She wasn’t used to people showing her kindness. But then, these folks didn’t know who she was.
Or what she had done.
With a grateful nod, she accepted the canteen and drank, spilling some when the coach rocked over a deep rut in the road.
A gentleman with gray sideburns down to his chin and a southern drawl offered her his handkerchief. “How far did you say you were going, Mrs. Smith?”
Annie tentatively took the offered square of snowy linen and lowered her gaze, dabbing at her ruffled bodice, worried by the way everyone’s attention turned to her.
She hadn’t said where she was going. Had barely spoken ten words to anyone. Had dared hope the black dress and wedding ring would be enough to explain her silence and why she was traveling alone. She didn’t want to make any kind of impression. She wanted to be as forgettable as the fake name she had chosen.
Besides, she was no good at polite conversation, hadn’t spent much time with people like these.
Nice people. Respectable people.
“Montana Territory,” she said at last. “I have family there.” More lies. If any lawmen managed to track her this far and ask her destination, she wanted them galloping off in the wrong direction.
“I’m surprised they didn’t come east to meet you,” the whiskered man commented. “The northern territories are a might unsettled yet. There’s still trouble with the Indians, sometimes even here in Colorado. A lady traveling alone must have a care.”
“Indeed,” the skinny matron next to Annie said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue, hooking her arm through her husband’s. “Why, it’s dangerous venturing into these mountains even with a well-armed escort. Colorado is fairly teeming with gamblers, claim jumpers, speculators, and unsavory types of every ilk these days.”
Annie barely listened as everyone launched into a discussion of the need for better law enforcement, now that the latest silver rush was attracting so many new arrivals to the Rockies. She splashed some water from the borrowed canteen onto the borrowed handkerchief and used it to cool her brow, feeling too light-headed and sick to pretend interest while they tried to persuade her that this was no place for a woman alone.
Don’t you think I know that?
she wanted to shout. She hadn’t planned to come here. There hadn’t been time to think, back in St. Charles, on that horrible afternoon when she had run through the rain.
Had run in a blind panic beneath thundering clouds and lightning that stabbed the red Missouri earth. She had stumbled into a clothing shop and pointed out the mourning dress and paid cash and left quickly—before the proprietor could wonder why she kept her blue silk cape clutched so tightly at her throat.
Then she rushed around the corner and changed in an alley out back, leaving the cape and her bloodstained clothes and her entire life behind in the mud.
Somehow she made it to the train depot—only to realize her mistake. James owned half the railroads in Missouri. The conductors and porters all knew her from the trips she’d taken with him—to New Orleans and Philadelphia and a luxurious suite at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. She couldn’t escape by train.
Soaked to the bone, sobbing, she’d hurried to one of the livery stables instead. And ten minutes later, had a six-dollar seat on the first stage out of town, headed west.
“And the
winters
,” one of her traveling companions was saying with a shudder. “The territories really ain’t a place for any lady who—”
“Thank you.” Annie interrupted the chorus of advice being directed at her. She handed the soldier his canteen, keeping the wet handkerchief pressed to her hot skin. “Thank you, but I’m sure I’ll find Montana to my liking.”
The skinny matron next to her pursed her lips and raised a disapproving eyebrow. “I assure you, you would be much happier elsewhere, Mrs. Smith.”
Shaking her head wearily, Annie closed her eyes and sank back against the upholstery.
Happy
. She would never be happy again, had lost all right to be happy.
But she would give her child a good life, she vowed. A safe, healthy, good life. There was enough money in the leather satchel under her seat to make sure of that. They would live in San Francisco, or maybe Virginia City. In a real house, just like regular folks. And they would be decent and respectable. And they would be together, like a mama and her child should be.
That thought almost made her smile, in spite of everything. Just for a moment.
Then the image shattered in a burst of hot pain that knifed through her. She gasped and slumped forward, her jaw going slack.
“Oh, God.” It twisted through her again and she doubled over. “
Oh, God, no
.”
~ ~ ~
Annie didn’t realize she had passed out until the coach jolted to a stop. She opened her eyes to a blur of pain and noise and shifting shadows. Wrenching spasms in her belly. Voices shouting. Distantly, echoing strangely.
“... Over here...”
“... Well, wake him up, damn it...”
She was too weak to move. Shivering with cold. Something soft was wrapped around her, beneath her, but she was so cold. Strong arms held her, lifting her.
“... Poor thing kept callin’ out for ‘James.’ Guess that were her husband...”
Suddenly there was a night sky overhead. Stars. So many stars. The whole world seemed made of stars and pain. Someone was carrying her. She felt wool against her cheek. Scratchy blue wool. Uniform. The boy. Heavy boots pounded on wood. Running.
Oh, God, please, no
.
Stop
. Every small movement tore through her.
“... Too much blood...”
“... Made a detour ’cause you’re the closest doctor...”
A creak of hinges as a door opened. A flood of light. The smells of burning wood and smoky oil lamps and rubbing alcohol. The boy laid her down on something hard, smooth. Table. A single, choked word slipped past her lips. “Help...”
“We’re going to help you, ma’am—”
“My baby...” She tried to shake her head. “Not me... save the baby...”
Efficient hands began removing her dress. Her widow’s dress. “How far along are you, Mrs. Smith?” The man’s voice was low, soothing.
“F-Four,” she whispered. “Four months... I think.”
James.
Another voice, a woman’s. Soft and insistent. “Y’all can wait outside. Doc Holt doesn’t need an audience.”
“Mrs. Smith,” someone called, “God be with you...”
“... We’ll be prayin’ for you...”
The sound of jostling feet on a wood floor. The rattle of the door again. The clatter of metal. The woman appeared on the other side of the table, with a silver tray. The man took it from her.
Annie summoned all her strength, reached up and clutched the doctor’s arm.
“Money,” she whispered on parched lips.
Money could buy anything. James had always said so.
“I h-have money... pay you if... save my baby.”
The man leaned over her. Tried to ease her back down on the table. “Ma’am, I’m sorry.” His eyes were gray and gentle and sad. “It’s too late. We have to do all we can to save you now.” He turned to the woman. “Chloroform, Mrs. Owens. Quickly.”
No
. A soft cloth covered Annie’s nose and mouth. She tried to push it away. A thick, sweet smell invaded her senses.
No, he didn’t understand
. The baby was all she had. All that mattered. Her own life wasn’t worth saving. Even if he could save her, it wouldn’t be for long. She had only come a few hundred miles. Not far enough to be safe.
Not nearly far enough.
~ ~ ~
He would find her, by God.
That thought had burned in his gut and robbed him of sleep for days now. Five days. Or was it six? U.S. Marshal Lucas T. McKenna rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm, his other hand resting near the Colt .45 Peacemaker holstered on his hip. The smells of smoke and hot iron choked the afternoon air, the train engine a few yards away belching great clouds of steam and ash toward the Missouri sky.
Time had unraveled into one long, shapeless blur since the telegram had reached him in Indian Territory, urgently summoning him home to St. Charles. He could remember only moments of the past week. Fragments, like shrapnel: the cold that had drenched him when he read the words on the small white piece of paper. The endless clacking of metal wheels over railroad tracks. Dozens of unfamiliar faces milling around rooms draped in mourning. The awkward reunion with his sisters. A gleaming coffin with brass fittings.