Today I want to introduce you to Clint Harris. He’s the hero from the first book in the Prairie Hills Women trilogy. He’s a gunman with a wicked reputation and not only with a gun. I thought I’d let you get to know Clint through the heroine, Mary. She’s a proper lady from back East and she’s also a widow who had a proper marriage and that included proper sex. Way to many propers…
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The covered wagon ambled into the small town of Prairie Hills. Mary was wide-eyed with interest as Lenora pointed out each building running along the single dirt and muddied street that meandered through the town. To Mary they more resembled shacks rather than a mercantile, a bank, a barber shop, a smithy, a saloon, a jail, a boarding house and one building Lenora didn’t comment on though caught Mary’s interest.
While Lenora continued detailing the single street with a new boardwalk running in front of most of the buildings, Mary stared at the nameless building. She couldn’t help but stare at the garish colors, vivid purple, bright pink, and soft rose that made the two story place stand out amongst weather-aged buildings. The two downstairs windows were draped heavily with white lace curtains while closed, rose hued drapes lent privacy to the two upstairs windows. One of the two narrow front doors stood open as if in invitation. A man stood on the front porch, a woman whose bosoms seemed to spill from her red velvet dress and whose face resembled an artist’s palette gone wild hung on his arm.
It wasn’t the woman who had caught her interest, though her lascivious actions did draw attention. It was the man she was rubbing up against seductively, while her hand worked its way naughtily inside his blue shirt. That this was a place of ill repute was obvious, that the woman enticed the man to enter was also obvious, but it was the man himself that stood apart from the scene.
He was tall and broad and there was no paunch to his middle. At least from what she could tell since he wore a long coat or duster as Mary learned it was called in the West. And while the many she had seen were mostly tan, his duster was a faded black. The right side of the duster was drawn back behind a holster with a gun snug tight in it. What kind she couldn’t say since she wasn’t familiar with firearms.
Etiquette escaped her as her glance drifted to a most improper place, but it was only a short distance from where his holster was strapped to his leg, so how could her glance not wander?
She prevented her eyes from turning wide at the sight of the substantial bulge in his pants and without thinking her glance flew to his face, a big mistake since the wagon had drawn closer.
His eyes locked with hers and she thought for a moment that she had fallen into the depths of darkness. And then she caught a closer look at his face, and her breath caught in her chest, almost choking her. He was god-awful handsome. Never had she seen a man with such fine features, high cheekbones, firm sculpted chin, lusciously narrow lips that had her slowly licking her own semi-plump ones. And his dark brown hair fell in disarray to the top of his shoulders, the unkempt look suiting him. He was pure beauty for a man, but then if she remembered her scriptures Lucifer was the handsomest of angels.
She noticed the small woman that hung on him ran her leg suggestively along his, her knee nudging at the bugle in the crook of his legs and that was when the familiar tormenting tingle started.
It caught her by such surprise that she startled and her eyes grew wide.
His smile turned smug and he winked.
He knew.
Mary was so mortified at the thought, that heat rushed to stain her cheeks bright red and she quickly turned her head away, though she heard his robust laughter and knew it was meant for her.
“That’s Clint Harris, a gunman. You don’t need his kind of trouble,” Lenora said without looking at Mary. “It’s said that looking into his eyes is like looking down the dark barrel of a colt, where only one thing waits… death.”
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You can learn more about this book (yet to be titled) this coming Saturday July 14 when I highlight it in my blog. So do stop by and visit.
