CHAPTER 1

      Big Rock, Colorado, 1902

      Train whistles always had a little bit of a mournful sound to them. Or maybe she was just in a gloomy mood, Denise Nicole Jensen thought as she leaned a shoulder against one of the posts holding up the roof over the train station platform.

      A train like the one that would be pulling into Big Rock in a few minutes had taken Denny’s twin brother, Louis, back East, along with Louis’s wife, Melanie, and stepson, Brad, so Louis could attend law school at Harvard. Denny had put on a smile and a brave face and hugged all of them when they left, but this was the longest she’d been separated from Louis since they were born, and she missed him.

      On this day, Denny looked a little like an illustration on the flimsy yellow front cover of a dime novel. Her blond hair was tucked up under a flat-crowned brown hat with a rattlesnake band. She wore a brown leather vest over a butternut shirt with the sleeves rolled up a couple of turns, revealing deeply tanned forearms. The pair of jeans she wore weren’t exactly baggy, but they didn’t hug her hips and thighs tightly, so her shapely female form wasn’t apparent at first glance. The jeans were tucked into high-topped brown boots.

      A gun belt strapped around her waist, with a holstered. 38 caliber Colt Lightning revolver attached to it, completed the picture of a young gunfighter. Almost, anyway. She didn’t have a smoldering quirly dangling from her lips. Denny had never acquired the habit.

      A voice from behind her said, “Howdy, sweetheart.”

      Denny winced. Without straightening from her casual pose, she looked slowly over her shoulder and asked, “How’d you know it was me, Sheriff?”

      “Well, I recognized you, I guess, even though in that garb, you look like Young Wild West,” Sheriff Monte Carson said. “I’ve seen you wearing that hat before, I think. It’s not new, is it?”

      “No, it’s not,” Denny said. “You have a keen eye.”

      “For an old codger, eh?” The sheriff chuckled.

      “Don’t let my pa hear you calling yourself an old codger. That would mean he’s getting on in years, too.”

      “Well, Smoke’s not a spring chicken anymore, even though he’s not as old as me.” Monte rubbed his chin. “Funny thing is, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t lost a step. His draw is just as fast as it ever was. And your ma . . . well, I’d have to say that she’s just as pretty as she was the day I first laid eyes on her, all those years ago. Prettier, even.”

      “I don’t think anybody who knows her would argue with you about that.”

      Monte gestured toward the gleaming steel rails that ran beside the station platform. “You here to meet the westbound? Expecting somebody, maybe?”

      “Yes to the first, no to the second. I’m not expecting anybody. But I rode into town with Pearlie on the buckboard. He’s down at the store picking up some supplies. I didn’t see any point in standing around waiting while he does that.”

      “So you strolled down here.” Monte leaned toward her and lowered his voice a little. “Can’t say as I blame you. In the old days, we used to get excited whenever a stagecoach would roll in and break the monotony. Now everybody waits for the train to arrive. Kind of makes you wonder what folks will get excited about in the future, doesn’t it?”

      Denny just shrugged as the train whistle sounded again, louder this time. The chuffing of its steam engine could be heard now, too. That noise got louder, and brakes squealed and steam hissed as the locomotive reached the station and slowed so that the passenger cars came to a stop next to the platform. The baggage and freight cars were farther back.

      As the train clattered to a halt, Denny straightened and took a step away from the post where she’d been leaning. She hooked her thumbs in the gun belt and watched with idle interest as porters put steps in place next to the cars so the passengers could disembark. A variety of men, women, and children got off, all of them strangers to Denny.

      Then she drew in a breath so sharply that her nostrils flared slightly. She stood up straighter as her backbone stiffened. Her blue eyes fastened on two men who had just stepped down from one of the cars.

      The first man was tall and slender, well dressed in a brown tweed suit and dark brown bowler hat. He had light brown hair and a mild, pleasant-looking face. He held a small carpetbag in each hand.

      The man who came down the steps next carried himself with an entirely different air about him. He had a self-assured spring in his gait, and as he paused, pushed his coat back, and rested his fists against his hips, he gave off so much confidence that it bordered on arrogance. He wore a dark gray suit and had a black slouch hat pushed back on thick, curly black hair. A smile broke out on his handsome, olive-skinned face as he looked around the platform.

      “So this is Big Rock, eh?” he asked his companion. His voice had a slight accent to it.

      “That’s right, sir,” the taller, diffident-looking man replied. “Big Rock, Colorado. I looked up the population and elevation and other interesting facts about the town, and if you’ll give me a moment, I’m sure I can recall them.”

      The second man waved away the offer. “No, it doesn’t matter. We’re here at last, Arturo. You can go seek out accommodations for us.”

      “Of course, sir.” Despite the Italian name, Arturo’s voice had no accent at all, other than an educated, cultured one. “And where will you be?”

      “When you’ve secured rooms and placed the bags in them, ask someone for directions to the best dining and drinking establishment in town.”

      Arturo inclined his head in a gesture that was almost a bow and said, “As you wish, sir.”

      Over by the pillar, Denny was still watching the two men when Sheriff Carson nudged her and said, “They’re a pretty fancy pair, aren’t