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certainly hadn’t been intended for her.
    Yet what he’d spoken of, along with his entreaty for her company, had been an outpouring of his regrets. His confession had touched her so that she couldn’t leave him alone, nor could she get it out of her head today…
    He’d woken as she finished unbuttoning his shirt, wrapped his hand around hers and drawn her closer. “My uncle died last week. Do you know where I was while he was being beaten to death, Cora?”
    Heat had radiated off his bare chest. He’d barely been able to keep his eyes open, his words coming in slurs, but his thumb had rubbed across the back of her hand—perhaps helping soothe himself…or her.
    â€œNo. Where were you?” she’d whispered, thinking maybe if she stayed quiet enough he’d drift off to sleep. Thus far, he hadn’t tried to force himself on her, allowing her to ready him for bed.
    â€œI was in the brothel…in the arms of my mistress.” His lips had skewered with self-disgust.
    â€œYou couldn’t know your uncle would be assaulted.” She’d brushed a wave of dark hair from his brow, drawn to caress his handsome face.
    â€œThey say our true character is defined by the things we do when no one is watching. What does that say about me, Cora?”
    â€œYou didn’t kill that thief tonight. That makes you a man of good character,” she’d said, wanting to believe it was true.
    He’d chuckled and turned his face toward her. “No, sweetheart. I’m still a killer. I wanted to pull the trigger. I want to every time. That makes me as bad as any murderer. I want to do it…so I…simply…squeeze.” He’d fallen quiet for a moment, then his eyes drifted closed again, his breathing becoming shallow as he’d fallen asleep.
    If just wanting to squeeze a trigger made Cora a murderer, then she was guilty too, and just as culpable as the gunslinger with his drunken confessions.
    She supposed she could turn herself in for shooting the sheriff. Every day that she continued her perfidy, she put her girls further in jeopardy. The ladies had no idea she’d killed Sidlow, or that she’d scared the daylights out of Peter Matthews, the brick mason who’d beaten his own wife until she’d become an invalid, or scared Jim Hazen, the sheriff’s deputy, when he’d tried to rape a lightskirt in a riverfront alley. These were two more so-called crimes added to Velvet Grace’s list of offenses.
    The part that made her feel guilty though, was that the girls might mistakenly be considered accomplices.
    Kit Wainwright had described the experience correctly. Even as Cora was protecting herself from Sidlow’s advances, she’d wanted to pull the trigger, needing something to vanquish his unwanted touch on her body. After all, it hadn’t been the first time she’d been touched by a man without giving her permission.
    Presently, she moved last night’s money aside and opened her calendar to October, where one day was circled in red. In a few weeks, the Willows would host its annual fall party, opening its doors to the town and earning more in a single night than any month of the year.
    Once preparations were in place, she would go see the judge, tell her tale and beg for his leniency. Maybe by then the girls would see how strong and independent they could be. But first, there was Andrea’s beating to rectify. Velvet Grace would find the bastard who did it and make sure he wouldn’t be back even if she was put behind bars.
    In a town without justice, men relied on guns for protection. And therefore the few women in Fort McNamara depended on their gun-toting husbands. But for the ladies of the Willows, there were no laws, no men to protect them.
    Only Cora.
    Tonight, for their sakes, Velvet Grace would make one last appearance.

Chapter Three
    Fort McNamara stood in the Arkansas River Valley near the Indian