Lone Wolf Justice by Cynthia Sax Page A

nipples, teasing her into a frenzy of feeling.
    His muscles hardened under her fingertips, and he grunted with desire, spiraling her already fever-pitched passion. She was close to coming, and when she did, he would too. He’d spill his seed inside her womb, and they would be one. All she needed was --
    * * *
    “Ma’am. Ma’am?”
    Diana opened her eyes, dazed and confused, need rocking through her body. The bearded face of one of her fellow passengers filled her field of vision. “If you’re needing Big Rock, ma’am, you best get.”
    She had arrived. “Thank you, sir.” Diana clasped her traveling bag, wished the stagecoach occupants a pleasant journey, and stepped down from the vehicle.
    “Golly!” a little boy exclaimed, his eyes big in his dirt-covered face.
    “Good morning.” She smiled at him, moving farther away from the restless horses. The big beasts scared her, but she refused to show that fear, not wishing to embarrass her husband-to-be, wherever he might be. She was in the Wild West, and cowpokes, as she heard the men referred to, loved their horses. “What is your name?” she asked the boy.
    The child merely blinked, his mouth hanging open, displaying the remnants of what looked to be his breakfast.
    Diana adjusted her best bonnet, ensuring that it wasn’t askew. She tucked her unruly curls behind her ears and smoothed down her pink traveling suit. Although she was satisfied she looked presentable, the boy continued to stare and Diana shrugged, dismissing his attentions as a child’s inquisitive nature. She’d read that, in some small towns, strangers were a novelty.
    Brimming with curiosity, she glanced around her at her new home. The streets were red dirt and lined with wide, wooden boardwalks. Horses were saddled, their reins attached to the hitching posts stationed in front of every whitewashed building. Men stood, leaning against anything they could lean against, their hats worn low, cheroots in hand, watching her. She didn’t see Marvin Burton, her prospective bridegroom, the man of her dreams, and none of the other men greeted her with anything other than shock and suspicion.
    The sun beat down on her shoulders, causing a trickle of perspiration to run down her spine. She swallowed, her throat dry but her smile unwavering. Marvin must be running late. His advertisement had mentioned needing a helpmate. As the town didn’t look very large, she would show him how helpful she could be, and meet him at his residence.
    “Excuse me,” she addressed the boy, bending over to look him in the eyes. “Do you know where I might find Mr. Marvin Burton?”
    The child made a yipping sound and ran off, a dust cloud kicking up from his bare feet. Diana watched with a mixture of amusement and frustration. She’d scared him speechless.
    “Does anyone know where I might find Mr. Marvin Burton?” She raised her voice. It wasn’t ladylike, and her dear momma would be appalled, but Diana knew of no other way to gather the information she sought.
    No one answered her.
    * * *
    “Sheriff, Sheriff.” Billy -- Hoss’s youngest boy -- skidded to a stop. He was all in a pucker about something, breathing heavily like one of those smoke-belching steam engines. “The queen’s here, and she’s asking for a Marvin Burton.” Billy’s little face screwed up. “There’s plenty of Burtons but ain’t no Marvin.”
    There was or had been a Marvin. Billy knew him as Barrel Burton -- a brute infamous in Big Rock for carousing, killing, and drinking rotgut by the barrel. It was the rotgut that got him his skull smashed open on the rocks the town had been named after, putting him six feet under a week ago Sunday.
    Justice had no hankering to tend to womenfolk problems, but -- he cast his snoring deputy a sore look -- there was no one else, and he was the law. “Best be seeing what she wants.” Whoever she was. He kicked his deputy’s boots as he passed, causing the man to snort. There was no way royalty had