Scotsman Wore Spurs

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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF PATRICIA POTTER

“Patricia Potter is a master storyteller, a powerful weaver of romantic tales.” —Mary Jo Putney,
New York Times
–bestselling author

“One of the romance genre's finest talents.” —
Romantic Times

“Patricia Potter will thrill lovers of the suspense genre as well as those who enjoy a good romance.” —
Booklist

“Potter proves herself a gifted writer as artisan, creating a rich fabric of strong characters whose wit and intellect will enthrall even as their adventures entertain.” —
BookPage

“When a historical romance [gets] the Potter treatment, the story line is pure action and excitement, and the characters are wonderful.” —
BookBrowse

“Potter has an expert ability to invest in fully realized characters and a strong sense of place without losing momentum in the details, making this novel a pure pleasure.” —
Publishers Weekly
, starred review of
Beloved Warrior

“[Potter] proves that she's adept at penning both enthralling historicals and captivating contemporary novels.” —
Booklist
, starred review of
Dancing with a Rogue

The Scotsman Wore Spurs

Patricia Potter

Prologue

Near San Antonio, Texas

March 1870

Someone else's troubles were none of his own.

Especially an ambush.

Andrew Cameron, the earl of Kinloch, kept telling himself that, even as he spurred his horse into a faster gait in the direction three men had taken earlier. Three men who planned to kill another.

He'd heard them talking last night in a raucous saloon in a no-name Texas cowtown. He bloody hell hadn't wanted to listen, but their voices, rising in proportion to the amount of liquor consumed, had continued to climb.

“We agree then,” one of the men had said. “Kingsley will be coming this way tomorrow to hire new drovers for the spring roundup. Won't be no one with him since he's so damned shorthanded.”

“Bastard,” one man agreed. “No one will cry over his turning to dust.”

“Serve him right firing us like that.”

“Damn good luck running into that little guy,” the third man said. “Strange coot but the five thousand dollars looked all right.”

Drew now swore. As a landless, near-penniless Scottish peer, he had systematically destroyed all dignity and respect his title once held. He was thirty-five, a wastrel of the first order, good only with cards and horses. There was nothing left for him in his own country, so he had come to America, with a letter of introduction to a man named O'Brien in his pocket. It was given to him by his brother-in-law when he'd raised the idea of perhaps becoming a rancher.

But had never truly belonged anywhere, and wasn't sure he wanted to now. He had made a career of tilling his own rows, crooked as they were, and in the process, he'd deliberately avoided caring about anything and anyone. Caring was much too painful.

He'd even found a measure of satisfaction—if not contentment—in his isolation, but last year he'd tumbled from his role as indifferent observer when a four-year-old girl wrapped herself around his heart. He'd vowed never to repeat that uncharacteristic experience. One slip was sufficient for a lifetime.

But he hadn't been able to block out the overheard conversation or the name Kingsley. Unfortunately, there was no law in town to take a hand in the affair—no constable, no military, no anything but liquored-up cowhands itching for a fight.

He'd told himself it was none of his business. And he'd gone to bed still trying to persuade himself of that.

Yet here he was, riding hard in a country he didn't know, chasing men he didn't know, in defense of still another man he didn't know.

Bloody idiot, he called himself as he checked his horse. The men he'd been following had veered off the trail toward a massive granite outcropping. The rocks, rising starkly out of the ground, were a perfect place for an ambush.

Drew considered his options. The first was the wisest: Mind his own business, turn around and go back the way he'd come. The second held a modicum of danger: Circle wide around the rocks, warn anyone approaching, and look like an interfering fool.

The sound of gunfire from the far side of the rocks immediately reduced his options. He just couldn't ride away. Ambushes offended him; he'd suffered through one himself not long ago.

He spurred his horse toward the outcropping, leaped from the saddle and started to climb. He hoped he wasn't too late. He heard the sound of return gunfire and realized the surprise attack had failed.

When he reached the peak, he looked down. Three men, scattered among huge boulders below him, were firing at a man crouched behind a fallen horse. The animal's stillness told Drew it was dead.
Now
the ambush became personal. He had an abiding affection and respect for horses if not for men.

He found a protected position, aimed the rifle he'd bought in Denver, and fired. He hit two of the ambushers before anyone even knew what was happening. As the third man swung around, Drew ducked behind cover, but not quite fast enough.

He felt a bullet slam into his shoulder, then another tear into him. As consciousness slowly faded, his mouth twisted in bitter self-mockery.

Someone else's troubles were most definitely none of his business.

Chapter One

Near San Antonio, Texas

May 1870

Blinking back tears, Maris Gabrielle Parker ruthlessly hacked off sections of her hair just as she was attempting to hack off the terrible memories of the past week.

Don't think about them.

As if she could think about anything else.

Images replayed themselves in her head. The gunshots outside the theater where she'd finished performing. Her father's body jerking from a shot, then plunging toward her to take a second shot obviously meant for her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw the tall lean gunman, face hidden by a hat whose silver band caught light from the hotel front, darting away as doors opened and people started pouring onto the street. She
did
want to keep seeing him, remembering him. She had plans for him. And for a man named Kingsley.

Her father's final words echoed in her mind. A warning? A deathbed confession? And the unexpected, stunning legacy he left behind. Perhaps that was the most tormenting of all.

She stared back into the cracked mirror on the wall of a mirror in a cheap room in Pickens, Texas, a small town forty miles southeast of San Antonio where her world had collapsed in one violent night.

A haunted face stared back at her. She saw little of the singer who had brought down the house at the San Antonio Palace a week earlier, who'd attracted swarms of unwanted admirers. Instead, her blue eyes looked lifeless, her cheeks thin and white, her lips incapable of a smile.

She was alone now. After spending an entire life with her actress mother and singer father, she was all alone.

And someone wanted her life as well as her father's. They may well try to rectify that unfortunate failure unless she acted first.

The killer, or killers, would be looking for a singer with waist long dark hair and flashy clothes. They would be looking for a readily recognizable woman.

They would not be looking for a grubby orphan lad.

She looked at the hair on the floor and then up at what was left of the long dark hair that had always been her best feature, and she caught a sob in her throat. That hair had disguised a number of imperfections, taking attention away from the too wide mouth and turned-up nose.

“Ah, you have the angel's own hair, just like your mother's,” her father had told her repeatedly. And she remembered her mother brushing it, telling her that a woman's hair was her glory.

Gabrielle bit her lip. Her father's voice was stilled, as were the fine hands that had danced so lightly over strings and keys. Tightening her fingers around the scissors, she started cutting again, tears falling silently and mixing with the strands of hair catching in her clothes or falling in desolate-looking piles at her feet.

She cut closer and closer to her scalp. Released of its weight, soft tendrils curled around her face, giving her a decidedly boyish look. Still, she would have to use a small amount of oil to keep it plastered to her head.

Remember the role, she told herself. Play the role. Nothing else matters.

To give herself courage, she hummed an old French lullaby. The sound was lonely, hollow, in the otherwise silent, stark hotel room. It needed harmony, but there was no one to hum along with her. She felt so alone, more alone than she'd ever been in her life.

When the last lock lay in the heap on the bare floor, she removed all her clothing. Opening a newspaper flat on the narrow bed, she laid her dress on it, along with the corset she'd been wearing under it, and her fine button-up shoes and silk stockings. She tied them together with a piece of string, planning to leave the bundle in a church pew. Perhaps the minister could make good use of them.

Then, sitting naked before the mirror, she opened her stage makeup box and began applying judicious amounts of dye. Enough to darken and roughen her fair complexion. Beginning at her hairline, she covered any patch of skin she thought might show, including the back of her neck, then went back and added a few strategic smudges of genuine dirt, which she'd collected for that purpose. The dye, she knew, would last for weeks without washing. She would take enough for another application. By that time she would have accomplished her task. One way or another.

Finally satisfied with the results, she picked up her petticoat and ripped into it strips, then used the strips to bind her breasts. Not that they were all that large, anyway. Her body was naturally slender, and its few curves would easily be hidden by the layers of clothes she planned to wear. Still, she was taking no chances on being discovered.