Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1)
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Authors: Adrienne deWolfe
Devil in Texas
Lady Law & The Gunslinger
Book One
by
Adrienne deWolfe
Bestselling, Award-winning Author
Published by
ePublishing Works!
ISBN: 978-1-61417-840-8
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2016 by Adrienne M. Sobolak. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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Table of Contents
Author's Note
Dear Reader,
October will live in infamy. I was happily writing page 400 of a new Fantasy novel when WHAMMO, my computer died. To make matters worse, my computer got stolen from the repair shop! I lost all my unpublished manuscripts.
I was catatonic.
Two days later, my publisher contacted me out of the blue, inviting me to write a fresh new novella for a Western Romance anthology. I couldn't bear the thought of re-writing that Fantasy, so I threw myself into
Shady Lady
(the prequel to
Devil in Texas.
)
Shady Lady
was the first story I conceived with the star-crossed lovers, Cass and Sadie. Published in the #1 bestselling anthology,
Pistols and Petticoats,
that novella poured out of me like dictation. I felt like I had lived in 1879, that I knew Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and that I'd performed on the Dodge City stage where Sadie sang her bawdy songs.
While Sadie was born in
Shady Lady,
her lover was born in
Seduced by an Angel
(Book 3,
Velvet Lies
series.) Ironically, "Coyote Cass" was supposed to be the villain of that novel, but he kept whispering in my ear: "Aw, c'mon, I'm not so bad. I need a book—and a woman—of my own!" The next thing I knew, I was doing something crazy: rewriting the plot of
Seduced by an Angel
so I could redeem Cass.
Those revisions let me reunite Cass and Sadie in
Devil in Texas
. The story opens four years after
Shady Lady,
and 16 months after
Seduced by an Angel.
Cass is seeking redemption for his outlaw past, and Sadie (unbeknownst to Cass) is working undercover as a Lady Pinkerton.
Devil in Texas
is Book One of
Lady Law & the Gunslinger,
my first Romantic Suspense series—although I like to think these books are a bit broader than that. I envision Cass and Sadie stories as Action-Adventure mixed with Romance. Throughout this series, you can expect lots of sparks and plenty of humor as Cass and Sadie work together—and sometimes
against
each other!—to rid the world of outlaws.
Welcome back to the Wild West, my friend. With Cass and Sadie, anything can happen.
Let the sparks begin!
Adrienne deWolfe
Austin, Texas
Chapter 1
Galveston, Texas
August 1883
Death: the end of the line.
There was a certain poetic justice to the idea here, at the corner of Post Office and 26th streets, where The Wicked plied their trade in sin. Galveston's tenderloin district—better known as The Line—was doing a booming business. Drunkards whizzed on walls. Hooligans rolled dice in alleys. Prostitutes primped, flashing more than smiles in the ruddy light of brothel windows.
As far as the eye could see, no tin-star intruded on the scene, probably because payoff day occurred on the first of the month. Until then, the law never crossed The Line. That meant tonight, no one would interfere.
'
No one will even notice
,' mused the figure in the itchy, fake beard, who lurked across the street from the Satin Siren Casino and Saloon.
Asrael.
The Regulator of God.
That was how the figure thought of itself while disguised in the rumpled, linen sack suit that sodbusters favored in town. Like the Angel of Death, the mortal Asrael felt no remorse to orchestrate deeds ordained by the King of Heaven. The Satin Siren was a pestilential den of drunken savages and thieving whores. Behind its deceptively quaint, nautical doors, depravity raged unabated. More to the point, the casino was the lair of the She-devil and her spawn, who'd interfered in Asrael's plans.
For the last time.
Fueled by divine righteousness and a potent dose of contempt, Asrael felt no fear of The Line's shifty-eyed rabble, even as twilight faded over Post Office Street, and night stretched its tentacles toward the slutty redhead on the casino's sign. Asrael imagined the She-devil must look much like that garish, birdlimed mermaid.
Soon that mystery would be solved. At eight o'clock, the stage curtains were scheduled to rise. The "Mermaid Queen" would show her tits to morally bankrupt men for the last time.
As if on cue, the hired gun across the street checked his timepiece. When his eyes locked with Asrael's, the man grinned, tossed aside his smoke, and disappeared into the alley of the brothel.
Asrael's lips carved out a ghoulish smile.
Eight o'clock. Divine justice.
Death at the end of The Line.
Asrael couldn't wait for the show to begin.
* * *
Life was about to get good.
That's what William "Cass" Cassidy thought as he craned back his blond head to gawk at the mostly naked mermaid, who protruded in all the right places from the brothel's sign. When he spied the seagull roosting so happily between the nymph's pumpkin-sized breasts, Cass's grin turned lopsided.
"You see that, Collie?" Cass reined in beside his 17-year-old sidekick and jerked his thumb in the direction of the mermaid. "I'm gonna get me one of those."
Collie shoved back his hat, spilling sun-bleached hair to his shoulders. He frowned up at the mermaid's trident. "Looks like another way to get ventilated, if you ask me."
Cass chuckled. Dismounting, he let his buckskin forge a place at the crowded hitching post. About 11 months ago, Collie had saved Cass's leg—and maybe his life—from the bite of a copperhead. Cass had rescued the Kentucky-born orphan from a life of small-time thievery in an even smaller Appalachian town. Somewhere between Louisville and Longview, they'd learned to tolerate each other. Sort of.
"I
told
you," Cass said, using his black Stetson to slap the trail dust from his all-black duds. "The Line is the safest place in Sin City for a fella on the run."