The Perfect Wife by Mary Burton

Author:Mary Burton [Burton, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2002-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Boone stretched out his long legs near the campfire and stared into the flames that snapped and danced in the air. The five men he’d hooked up with slept on their bedrolls nearby. Their breathing was deep and labored, thanks to six bottles of rotgut. He knew none of the men would stir before morning.

Boone was careful not to drink when he had a job to do. His brother, Jimmy, had always said to stay sharp. Drunks, he’d say, landed in jail.

So Boone was doing everything Jimmy would have wanted him to do. “I’m staying alert, Jimmy, just like you always said.”

Jimmy had always known what to do. Since they was kids, he’d been the planner, the thinker loaded with a gutful of ideas and plans. Boone had been content to rustle cattle here and there, but not Jimmy. He thought big.

Jimmy was the one who first talked of robbing banks. Jimmy was the one who could waltz into a bank as bold as you please and poke his gun through the teller’s barred window. Grinning like a cat, he was never in a rush, always enjoying the tension, the smell of fear, the way the teller’s hand shook when he shoved the money in a bag.

There’d been a time in Texas when they’d barely escaped a lynch mob. His brother had enjoyed the chase that day, the thrill of outsmarting the law, whereas Boone still got sick when he thought back on it.

He poked a stick into the flames, churning the embers until sparks popped and danced in the air like fireflies.

Jimmy gave Boone courage. Life made sense when Jimmy had been alive.

The day Mercer put a knife in Jimmy, life had become a jumbled mess. Hell, Boone could have stomached the ten years in prison if he’d known Jimmy had been waiting for him. But Jimmy was six feet under in an unmarked grave.

When Mercer had killed Jimmy he’d stolen Boone’s life, too.

“It weren’t right or fair,” he grumbled.

Boone’s mind drifted back to yesterday, when he’d ridden onto Mercer’s property. He’d not expected much to come of the meeting until he’d seen her.

Jenna Mercer.

A man could live a lifetime without ever coming face-to-face with a woman like that. She had breeding, culture—just the kind of woman Jimmy liked.

Mercer liked her, too. Boone could tell.

The way Boone figured it, Mercer owed him.

A life for a life.

A family for a family.

Mercer had taken the one person in the world that Boone had cared about.

And soon it would be his turn.

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