Exclusive Excerpt from Ride the Whirlwind

by Jackie North

Trent stepped off the stagecoach, took his small, leather-handled carpet bag from the top of the coach, and breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that he got sick on stagecoaches, no. It was that there were so many people jammed into a space that rocked for hours and became filled with dust, that is, when it wasn’t filled with the smell of stale sweat and the scent of nerves on edge. Stagecoaches had to be the worst way that God invented for man to travel. There were better ways, like on foot or by horseback. Never mind. He had arrived in Dilia.

Taking off his hat, he wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, which left a broad sweat stain on his shirt sleeve. He sighed again, put his hat back on and looked up and down the street for the jail.

He had two telegrams in his breast pocket beneath his vest, but he was no closer to understanding what was going on, or why he’d been waylaid from his plans, his very straightforward plans, to head back to Trinidad from Deming, deep in New Mexico Territory, where he’d been asked to witness a hanging.

Deming had been quite far to travel for such a gory, unsavory task as a hanging. However, the governor of New Mexico Territory, one LaBaron Prince, had asked for him in particular, seeing as how he’d been present at the capture of Fenton Barrow, otherwise known as Pretty Boy Barrow, known for stagecoach holdups and petty larceny and the stealing of cows.

Now that the unpleasant task had been completed, with witness documents signed, he’d been more than ready to head home to Trinidad. Unfortunately, he’d gotten a telegram from the small town of Dilia, instructing him to detour to Dilia to transport one Maxton Barnett to Trinidad.

In Dilia, the sheriff and his two deputies had in their care a young miscreant who they wanted taken away before the whole town rose up in rebellion. It all sounded rather dramatic, and not what he’d expect from a fellow sheriff, even if the telegram explained, in very short words, the crime of picking pockets and, mysteriously, other unsavory acts.

Only his sense of duty would encourage him to follow through with the request to pick up the low-life criminal and escort him back to Trinidad, from whence it was said he’d come. Then, of all the queer things, just before he’d gotten on the stagecoach in Deming, he’d received a second telegram, this time from Mr. Laurie Quinn of the Adeline Hotel in Trinidad.

Mr. Quinn was known to him, a recent newcomer to the town with enough energy for three young men, a dazzling smile, and a sweet laugh that would light up the darkest room. Trent had done his best to remain unmoved, but it was hard, especially when Laurie had the most beautiful brown eyes, and dark auburn hair shot with gold. He was like a handsome out of a painting, with slender hips, and long legs, and a vivacious air and zest for life.

But not only did Laurie’s companion, a dour, grim-faced, broad-shouldered man by the name of John Henton, keep Trent from responding, he was also held back by his own promise to himself. He could not make the same mistake that he’d made back home in Aiken, South Carolina, one that had involved kissing a sweet-faced choir boy after church one Sunday.

The kiss had been brief and there’d been an energy in Trent to pull the choir boy into his arms and do more than just kiss. But he’d been unable to act upon that flash of heat and desire as his father had discovered him, waited till his mother died, and then banished him, separating Trent from his sister Lucy.

It had been five years since he’d talked to either of them, though once in a while a letter would come from his father berating him further and taunting him with news about Lucy, but never really telling him anything about what was going on with her. It was like part of him had been cut off, leaving him numb and aching, staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, wondering how it might have turned out differently if Father hadn’t discovered him.

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