Western Ways Read online

  Western Ways

  Featuring Stories by

  Tysche Dwai

  Nancy Pirri

  Jane Carver

  Published by

  Satin Romance

  An Imprint of Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.satinromance.com

  Starr For The Teacher, Copyright 2007, 2011-2015 Tysche Dwai

  To Tame a Gambler, Copyright 2007, 2011-2015 Nancy Pirri

  Winning The Ranger’s Heart, Copyright 2007, 2011-2015 Jane Carver

  ISBN: 978-1-68046-085-8

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Design by Caroline Andrus

  Table of Contents

  The Wild West gets tamed by love. Three stories showcasing everything you love about Western Romance, and it’s not all about cowboys.

  Starr For The Teacher by Tysche Dwai

  Fresh out of teaching school, Jayne Kincaid is forced to accept a position in Temptation, Texas. Will feisty Sheriff Prescott claim the teacher's hand?

  To Tame A Gambler by Nancy Pirri

  In 1894, college Professor John O’Connell arrives in Bozeman, Montana. He meets seemingly shy Grace Morgan but discovers this 'Penny Dreadful' writer is anything but proper.

  Winning the Ranger’s Heart by Jane Carver

  Jenny Lincoln keeps one big secret from middle-aged homely rancher Neal Franks. Can he win the Ranger’s heart? Maybe, but first he has to rescue her.

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  Starr for the Teacher

  Tysche Dwai

  To all those who made me love a good Western

  “Class dismissed.”

  They left in a roaring tidal surge of flailing arms and flying pigtails. Tin pails clanked and doors slammed as the children fled the prison of the schoolhouse into the dry grass heat of the Texas prairie, freed for the too brief days of summer.

  Jayne Kincaid smiled, shaking tawny curls. Oh, to be young again...

  With a sigh, the teacher stuffed the last books and papers into the worn leather satchel that served as a briefcase. “Ready to go home?”

  “Yes, indeed,” came the heartfelt reply.

  If anyone had said a year ago that this wild Texas flyspeck of a town would feel like home, Jayne would have said they were out of their minds...

  * * * *

  “Temptation, Texas,” grunted a voice outside the window as the stagecoach creaked to a stop at last, jolting Jayne out of a waking dream.

  It felt like this rocking cage had been Jayne’s prison for weeks instead of days, but—in truth—the first part of this interminable journey had been aboard a coal-belching train. It was only here, in the back of beyond that even that moderately civilized transport was unavailable.

  Jayne gathered the valise and stack of books that had been comforting companions on this miserable trip and opened the door of the stage. Brassy sunlight assaulted the senses as the teacher stepped out of the coach, blinking against the glare.

  Fresh out of teaching college with the highest marks in the class, Jayne was so sure that a lucrative post to one of the Eastern prep schools was in the future. It would be a simple matter of submitting an application and waiting for the acceptance. Only it wasn’t.

  Not three weeks after graduation, Father was killed when his carriage overturned. Mother had been gone for many years, and Jayne was alone for the first time and unsure of what to do. When Father’s lawyer said the estate was penniless and a position had been arranged here in Temptation, there had been no choice but to take it.

  “Well, well, well...what have we here?” drawled a throaty voice. “Surely this ain’t the new schoolmarm?”

  Jayne blinked again and shifted his valise to free a hand. Raising it to shade his eyes from the glare, he made out a petite figure clad in buckskin astride a huge sorrel.

  “I’m the new teacher, if that’s what you mean.”

  The little redhead spat a stream of tobacco juice at his feet. “Well, if that don’t beat all. I send for a teacher, and they send me some city boy.”

  “My services were contracted by Sheriff—”

  “Prescott. Yep. That’s me. Starr Prescott, Sheriff of Temptation.”

  “You’re the sheriff? I was expecting—”

  “You was expecting a man, and I was expecting a woman. Looks like we both got took.”

  “I assure, you, Sheriff, I am fully qualified for this position.”

  “I believe you.” She slid off the back of her horse with one fluid motion. “Probably for the best, actually. Some of them older boys would be a might hard for a woman to handle.” She cocked her head and stared up at him. “Looks like you can take care of yourself.”

  He stared back. This tiny spitfire barely came up to his shoulder. He was pretty sure he could span her waist with his two hands, and it didn’t look as if she were wearing any of those cursed whalebone contraptions he had seen advertised back east.

  In fact, her collar was open at the throat, and from the swell of firm brown skin he could see peeping from her blouse, it didn’t appear she was wearing anything at all beneath the shirt. He felt a most inappropriate stirring at the thought, and moved his valise to hide a telling bulge in the front of his trousers.

  The sheriff didn’t seem to notice. She turned to the sorrel and gathered up the lead rein. “Come on, and I’ll show you where you’ll be boarding. ‘Course, the children are between sessions now, but I figured the new teacher might want a little time to get settled into town before the lessons started.”

  They walked down the dusty main street of the town. Jayne looked about him curiously. The town was all clapboard and split shingles. The only building of any substance they passed was a windowless mud brick slab with SHERIFF over the door in block letters. He saw a general mercantile, a seamstress, and two saloons between the jail and the side street Starr turned down.

  “Interesting town,” he commented.

  “It’s home.” She shrugged expressively. “Here we are.” She pointed to a neat frame house with a postage stamp yard. “This here was the last teacher’s house. It’s yours now.”

  Turning, she pointed out toward the horizon. “The school is over that hill about half a mile. If you want to put those things inside, I’ll take you over there.”

  Jayne started to invite her in, but something about her studied inattention dissuaded him. He hefted the stack of books to a more secure resting place and fumbled open the door of the tiny house. Stepping across the threshold, he was assaulted by a wave of stale, musty air. He wrinkled his nose. The house must have been closed up for quite a while.

  He set the stack of books on the sturdy table in one corner of the lone room. A small wood stove with two burners appeared to serve both kitchen and heating duties. A double cabinet hung on the wall above the table, with a lamp and oil supply atop it.

  There was a neat, single bed covered with a patchwork quilt in the opposite corner of the room. Aside from a scrap rug in the center of the floor, that was the extent of the furnishings.

  “We’ll have to do something about that,” he told himself firmly, voice echoing in the near empty room. “Wonder if I can get some lumber and nails around here...”

  He slung the valise onto the bed. Hopefully someone wou
ld see to his trunk. The sheriff had whisked him away from the stage so quickly he hadn’t had a chance to collect it.

  There was a light knock on the frame of the door. “You all right in there, teacher?”

  Jayne shook himself out of his reverie, turned and looked at the sheriff. “Sorry, Sheriff. Just taking stock of things.”

  “Well, you’ll have plenty of time for that, and I only have a few minutes more to spare for you. A sheriff’s work is never done.” The ghost of a smile flitted across her face.

  Jayne was intrigued by the impish cast it leant her lean features. It made her appear much more approachable...and extremely desirable.

  He felt his face flush. What is going on with me? I’ve only just met this woman. And it’s not as if I am desperately seeking a relationship, for Heaven’s sake.

  “C’mon then.”

  “Right.” He stepped across the room and pulled the door to behind him. “Is there a key...?”

  She frowned up at him. “What for? Ain’t no lock.”

  Well, that is something else that will have to change, he resolved at once.

  Leading the horse, Sheriff Prescott turned and started toward the hilltop she had pointed to earlier.

  “So...how did you get to be Sheriff, Miss Prescott?”

  “Kilt a man.”

  Jayne stopped dead in his tracks. It was not the answer he was expecting. This tiny little thing was a murderer?

  She turned back when she realized he wasn’t following her any more. “He deserved it.”

  “He deserved it?”

  Her head cocked. “You don’t know a thing about it, mister.” Her face shut down to an expressionless mask. “Let’s move. It’s getting late.”

  Jayne followed her in silence. There was a tension to her shoulders that hadn’t been there before. He had broken the fragile web of attraction he had sensed building between them. He sighed. It was probably irreparable.

  “And I hoped I was making a friend,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “You say something?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just talking to myself.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that around here. People will think you’re teched in the head.”

  Jayne grinned despite himself. She was such a little bundle of contradiction.

  They reached the top of the hill, and the sheriff stopped. Jayne came up beside her and looked down at the valley spreading out below them. Nestled in a small copse of trees at the foot of the hill was a neat, whitewashed frame building with a dirt yard before it and a rope swing swaying in one of the trees. There was a cast iron bell set between two posts beside the doorway.

  “That there’s the school. One of your duties will be ringing the bell to call the young’uns to class in the morning and let them go at noon.”

  “Wait...classes only go till noon?”

  “Them young’uns got chores too, y’know. Hard enough to get some of them to set still from eight to noon.”

  He was going to have to revise his lesson plans. Good thing there was plenty of time before the start of the school session.

  “You want to see it?” She gestured toward the schoolhouse.

  “Yes, please, Sheriff.”

  “You might as well call me Starr,” she commented as she started down the hill toward the building. “Everybody else does.”

  This time, Starr looped the horse’s reins to the hitching post beside the building and mounted the steps to the door with him. She pushed open the panel.

  “It ain’t much, but it stays warm in the winter if you get the fire lit before the young’uns arrive.” She pointed out various aspects of the room. “There’s the stove. Boys will help you keep the wood box filled. It’s part of their tuition.” She moved down the double rank of bench-backed desks, running her hand along the top of them lovingly as she passed. When she reached the head of the class, she turned back to him. “This here is your desk. It has one good drawer that locks in case you need it. We got some books over here, but the students all bring along their own primers and slates.”

  She looked down at the teacher’s desk, and he thought he detected a trace of wistfulness in her expression. “Anyhow—there are the coat pegs and boot box by the door. And that’s about it. Anything you need, let me know about it, and I’ll take it to the town council.”

  She drew herself together. “I gotta get going back to the jail. Oh, one last thing. The bell outside is also the fire bell, and you are responsible for ringing it if there is a need.”

  “I see...how will I know?”

  “You’ll be the first to know if a fire breaks out in most cases. The firehouse is right next door to yours.”

  “There’s a fire station?”

  “We ain’t all uncivilized louts out here in the backwoods, y’know,” she said dryly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage you, Sheriff.”

  She cocked an eyebrow.

  “Sorry. To belittle you.”

  “I know what the word means, teacher. I ain’t illiterate.”

  Jayne sighed. He was doing very badly with this woman.

  She untied the sorrel and swung into the saddle, with a little help from the mounting block. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Is there a hardware store?”

  “They got some lumber out to the mill—about a mile that way.” She pointed out past the school. “They’ll deliver it to the mercantile if you ask Pete to get it for you, and he has hammers, nails, and such there at the store. What you need it for?”

  “I’d like to build a bookcase for the house.”

  “I can save you that trouble. There’s one my Pa made setting to home with no books in it. I’ll fetch it over to you this evening.”

  “That is most generous of you. But I’d be happy to pick it up and save you the trip.”

  “Better I bring it over to you,” she replied tersely. “No call for you to come to the house.”

  Jayne recognized that she didn’t want to tell him where she lived. The realization brought a rush of mixed emotions—anger ... amusement ... regret.

  “Sure. If it will make you feel more comfortable,” he muttered, toying with the bell pull.

  “It ain’t a question of what I’d like,” replied Starr, her green eyes raking him from hat to boots, “it’s a question of what’s proper. Hard enough being a single, female sheriff in this town without giving them too much to talk about.”

  He understood her motivation, but he didn’t have to like it. A little female companionship would be most welcome in this wilderness.

  “I got to get to work. Can you find your way back to the house from here?”

  “I believe so,” he answered, amused that she felt there would be any chance of getting lost in the desolation between the school and the little one room house.

  * * * *

  Later that evening, after a trip to the mercantile where he spent more than he liked of the fifty dollars remaining from his father’s estate, Jayne sat down to a solitary dinner. The little house felt a bit cozier in the light of the lamp, but it was still missing the small touches that made it seem like a home. He tried to concentrate on the volume of poetry he was reading, but the words were just blurs on the page. Instead, his mind conjured a red-haired vixen with flashing green eyes. He wondered what it would be like to kiss that upturned nose, caress those firm breasts...

  Once again, he felt his cock reacting to the thought of Starr. It’s been far too long since you’ve had a woman. He shook his head ruefully.

  There was a knock at the door that put paid to his fantasies. He moved to answer it and was astonished to see Starr framed in the opening. “I thought you were trying to avoid talk,” he blurted out.

  She grinned sheepishly. “I figgered there would be less talk if I came here than if you went there. ‘Sides...what do I care if people talk?”

  He could hear the defiance in her voice, but sensed she would care—very much.

  “Co
me on in before anyone catches you,” he urged, stepping back out of the way.

  “That there bookcase is in the wagon.” She pointed over her shoulder.

  He brought it into the house and set it in a place of honor. “Thank you so much for lending it to me.”

  “Think of it as one of them there housewarming presents.”

  “But you said your father made it—he might not want to part with it.”

  “Pa’s dead.”

  Something about the flat tone in which the fact was given told him now was not the time to ask questions.

  “I was just having a bite of dinner. Have you eaten?” He gestured toward the table. “There’s plenty for two.” It was a lie, but he didn’t want her to leave.

  “I am a mite peckish...but you only got one chair.”

  “You take the chair. I’ll sit on the bed.” He reached for the soup ladle, and Starr stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Why don’t we both sit on the bed for a spell?” she asked in a husky voice, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. She perched on the edge of the counterpane and patted the bed beside her.

  He wasn’t used to a woman being so bold, but it didn’t displease him. Sitting next to Starr was precisely what he wanted to do. Something about this girl made every nerve in his body tingle.

  Jayne sank down beside her on the bed. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, Sheriff Prescott—”

  “I thought I told you to call me Starr.”

  “Starr—you are—”

  “Hush up and kiss me.”

  Jayne blinked. Despite the fact he would like nothing better, he was used to taking the lead in such affairs.

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “That’s hardly the point...”

  “Seems like exactly the point to me. Either you do or you don’t.” She rose to her feet, a pretty flush blooming in her cheeks.