The Patricia Potter Western Romance Collection Volume One: Relentless, Renegade, and Notorious

The Patricia Potter Western Romance Collection Volume One: Relentless, Renegade, and Notorious

by Patricia Potter
The Patricia Potter Western Romance Collection Volume One: Relentless, Renegade, and Notorious

The Patricia Potter Western Romance Collection Volume One: Relentless, Renegade, and Notorious

by Patricia Potter

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Overview

Three novels of historical western romance from the USA Today–bestselling “master storyteller” (Mary Jo Putney).
 
Relentless: After years of wrongful imprisonment, Maj. Rafe Tyler wants revenge against the Colorado rancher who framed him. The first step is taking the rat’s daughter hostage. Now, sheltered Boston beauty Shea Randall has a lot to learn about her estranged father’s devious past—and about forbidden desire.
 
“After Relentless, Ms. Potter will surely be in a class by herself.” —Literary Times
 
Renegade: Widow Susannah Fallon came to Richmond to rescue the only family she has left, now held in a Confederate prison. But the stranger sharing her brother’s cell piques her interest too. As Maj. Rhys Redding helps Susannah escort her wounded brother across the war-ravaged South, they face inescapable dangers—and discover undeniable passion.
 
“When a historical romance [gets] the Potter treatment, the story line is pure action and excitement.” —BookBrowse
 
Notorious: The scion of a wealthy Georgia family turned stone-cold gunslinger, Marsh Canton is reinventing himself again. In taking over a San Francisco saloon, he’s met his match in its Derringer-toting proprietress, Catalina Hilliard. But when they submit to outlaw desire, it changes the stakes of their game. Will it redeem them, or destroy them?
 
“Smart dialogue and constant action.” —Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781504056984
Publisher: Open Road Media
Publication date: 11/13/2018
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 1103
Sales rank: 249,368
File size: 8 MB

About the Author

Patricia Potter is a USA Today–bestselling author of more than fifty romantic novels. A seven-time RITA Award finalist and three-time Maggie Award winner, she was named Storyteller of the Year by Romantic Times and received the magazine’s Career Achievement Award for Western Romance. Potter is a past board member and president of Romance Writers of America. Prior to becoming a fiction author, she was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and the president of a public relations firm in Atlanta. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
Patricia Potter is a USA Today–bestselling author of more than fifty romantic novels. A seven-time RITA Award finalist and three-time Maggie Award winner, she was named Storyteller of the Year by Romantic Times and received the magazine’s Career Achievement Award for Western Romance. Potter is a past board member and president of Romance Writers of America. Prior to becoming a fiction author, she was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and the president of a public relations firm in Atlanta. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Boston, 1873

Shea Randall knew her mother was dying.

Guilt mixed with loss. She should have insisted her mother call a doctor sooner, but Sara Randall had claimed over and over again her pain was only the result of eating bad food, that it would soon go away. No sense spending good money for a doctor.

But the pain hadn't gone away. It had increased, suddenly exploding in agony. Her mother now lay on a hospital bed, curled with pain so severe, even morphine couldn't control it.

Despite her frail appearance, Sara had a core of pure steel. She was the most determined woman Shea had ever known. Seeing her now, watching the life drain from her, was like taking a knife to her own heart and exposing it for all to see.

The doctor said Sara Randall's insides were poisoned by the ruptured appendix, and there was nothing he could do. She had simply waited too long before coming to him.

Sara Randall had only a day or two to live, if that much. No more, he had said, and those days would be agonizing as infection invaded and slowly destroyed her mother's body.

Shea held her mother's hand. Sara's eyes opened. "The shop?"

"Mrs. Mulroney is keeping it open," Shea said, fighting back tears she knew would only distress her mother further.

"You ... should be there. Mrs. Logan's bonnet ..."

"Mrs. Logan's bonnet is completed," Shea said, telling a lie her mother would despise. Her mother detested dishonesty of any type. A lie, she always said, is the road to perdition. You can never tell just one lie; lies take on a life of their own, reproducing new lies. A lie was like Hydra, a multiheaded monster that grew two heads for each one cut off.

But Shea justified this particular lie to ease her mother. Anything to relieve the pain and worry. Anything. If she could give her own life in exchange, she would. She was rewarded when her mother's eyes closed, and Sara Randall seemed to relax; the next pain, Shea knew, would come soon enough.

Shea didn't want to think of what might happen now. There had always been just the two of them. Her father had died before her birth, and her mother had supported the two of them with the small millinery shop that barely provided a decent living. There was never any money for extras, but Shea and her mother hadn't needed much. They went to free concerts in the park, to church socials, and on occasion, when they had an extra dollar, to the theater.

They had some friends, but no one really close, since they had been too busy with the shop. And there were no relatives. It had always been the two of them against the world, her mother said, and that was a gracious plenty, more than many had.

There had been a few young men, suitors, but none whom Shea cared about enough to marry. Her mother had always urged her to consider several of the suits. Choose a man with honor, she'd said, and you will grow to love him. Don't trust emotions, trust common sense.

And Shea had tried. She had been courted by some she believed honorable, like the father whose tintype image Shea adored. She had been courted by some she believed decent, but none had made her heart sing; there was no intensity of feeling such as her mother must have known to remain loyal all these years.

No, love had eluded Shea, and despite her mother's urging, she refused to settle for less. Now she was twenty-three and thought to be on the shelf.

It was difficult to think of herself that way. She loved her books, she enjoyed drawing, and she knew she was a good designer of hats, particularly whimsical creations that drew customers to the shop. Those inspirations, as well as the caricatures she drew of people she knew, reflected the secret part of a personality usually considered tranquil and sensible. She would never be a good artist, but she had a sense of the ridiculous that she kept hidden to herself for fear of offending people.

But now nothing mattered except her mother. Shea couldn't even think of life without her. Sara Randall had been friend and teacher as well as parent, and Shea felt lost at even the thought of being alone. Although at times she had rebelled against the possessiveness of and strict standards set by her mother, Shea had always felt deeply loved.

And now ...

Desolation flooded Shea until she heard a moan escape from her mother.

"Can I get you anything?" Shea asked in a whisper.

Her mother's soft gray eyes met hers. "I wish ..."

"What do you wish?"

"Be careful, Shea, be careful who you marry." Sara's eyes filled with tears, and it was almost more than Shea could bear. She had never seen her mother cry before.

"Someone like Papa?" Sara had never said much about Shea's father, and Shea had stopped pressing, thinking that his death had probably hurt her mother too badly. He had been charming, her mother said long ago. Handsome and charming and honorable.

But Sara didn't answer, her mouth contorting as a new wave of pain racked her thin body. Her fingernails dug into Shea's hand until Shea felt blood running down them. And then Sara's pain seemed to weaken.

"I'm sorry, Shea," her mother said in a whisper.

Shea bent down. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I did what I thought was best." Her mother was looking into her face, willing her to believe.

"Of course you did," Shea said, not understanding the sudden urgency in the words, or the meaning.

And then her mother screamed. Shea hurried out of the ward to find a nurse. In minutes there was an injection, and Sara's calm gray eyes clouded.

"I did what I thought was best," she mumbled again.

"It's all right, Mama," Shea said. "It's all right."

Sara's eyes closed, and Shea wondered whether she would ever forget the fear that was etched on her mother's face.

He had been so handsome. So charming. So persuasive. Sara saw him now in her fevered pain.

Jack Randall. He had been everything a young girl could want. It had been a miracle when he asked her to marry him and go West.

And then the miracle had turned into a nightmare. She discovered that Jack Randall was an incurable thief. Far more money than he earned showed up in his pockets. For a while she believed his explanations: a wager, a gift, a bonus from a grateful superior. But then Jack would say it was time to leave, often quite abruptly and in the middle of the night.

He always found another position; he could charm birds out of trees, employers out of checking nonexistent references, but then he would tire of his current job, complain it was not worthy of his skills, start stealing, and, when he thought he might be caught, move on again.

Like so many women often did, Sara thought at first she could reform him. But stealing seemed to be an addiction with him. He took more and more chances, and then she discovered his participation in a robbery of the bank in which he was a clerk. She had found wrapped bills in his traveling bag following the robbery, just days after she knew she was with child.

He had promised so many times to stop, and she didn't believe him anymore. Part of her would always love him, but she wouldn't raise a child on stolen money. Not as the child of a thief. She might be able to exist that way, but she wouldn't burden a child with that kind of legacy.

And so without telling him of the child but threatening to reveal his part of the bank robbery if he came after her, she left him, telling friends in Boston that her husband had died. She had no intention of marrying again. Shea was born just when Sara's own father died, leaving her a small inheritance, just enough to buy the millinery shop where she worked.

And the lies had started, the lies she had warned Shea about, because she knew better than anyone how destructive they became. She couldn't let Shea know of her tainted blood, and so she lied and lied and lied, allowing Shea to believe that her father had been an honorable man, a good man.

She knew now what a mistake she'd made. As she emerged again from the foggy, weighted world of morphine, she was terrified that Shea would learn her father was still alive and try to go to him. She couldn't let that happen. Jack Randall would corrupt her as he corrupted everyone around him.

Why had she kept the letters, the money, the newspaper story?

Because you couldn't ever completely let him go. He was her weakness, the kind of weakness she'd tried to keep from infecting her daughter. Perhaps there was still time to burn those few keepsakes of a marriage that had been both paradise and hell.

She looked up at her daughter, who was sitting in the chair next to her, and saw her blue-gray eyes were closed. If only she could go home, she thought just as the pain hit again with agonizing sharpness.

A moan escaped her, and Shea's eyes opened. Such honest eyes. She must never know about Jack Randall. He would charm her with that smile that delighted the heart.

"Mama?"

"There's a box, Shea, a wooden box," Sara said. "In my closet. Go and bring it to me."

Shea shook her head. "I can't leave —"

Sara tightened her clasp on her daughter's hand. "Please ... it won't take long. ..."

Shea hesitated. She didn't want to leave, but her mother was growing agitated. She would hurry. "I'll bring it."

Sara's fingers dug into her hand. "Don't open it."

"I won't," Shea said. "I'll get a nurse. ..."

Her mother's hand dropped as her body arced again with pain. "Just bring ..."

"I'll bring it, Mama. I'll be right back." She leaned down to place her hand on Sara's cheek, and Sara knew she must look frighteningly ill. "Go," she said.

Her daughter nodded and hurried out the door.

Pain hit again, and Sara felt more of her life draining away with each new onslaught. She must destroy Jack's letters, those few letters that begged her to return, the envelopes of money he'd sent. He had never known about the child, and she never wanted him to know.

Her eyes closed, and she saw him again in her mind, in her heart. Jack had begged her to come back ten years ago. He had said he had joined the army and was now a respected major. He had said nothing about the stealing. He could never admit doing anything wrong, but she knew he was trying to tell her he was through with that. She had been tempted. Dear God, how she had been tempted, and then she read the story in the Boston paper about a court- martial in Kansas and how a Major Randall had testified against another officer accused of payroll robberies. Most of the money had never been found. And she had known, deep in her heart, that it had been Jack who was responsible, not the other man.

She should have contacted army authorities, but then that would have meant revealing her own lies, allowing Shea to know her father was a thief. Still, she had hung on to that clipping. And the money he'd sent. She'd never spend a penny of it. Stolen money. Blood money. She wore an albatross of guilt about that other man.

That clipping ... in the box with the letters.

The pain was fading now, drowning in a sea of fog. Hurry, Shea. Hurry.

Oh, Jack, if only ...

Shea couldn't find the box right away. It was well hidden under a number of hatboxes, and she had to go through each one to find what her mother apparently wanted — a lovely carved wooden box with a lock.

She wondered where the key might be. She went through her mother's desk, looking for one. Wouldn't her mother want the key as well?

Almost frantic with worry, she gave up. The key must be either in her mother's possession or at the millinery shop below. Just as she was leaving the house, a neighbor stopped to ask questions, and it took Shea several moments to get away. She couldn't find a rental carriage and started to run, urgency eating at her.

She held the box as if it were a treasure as she ran up the steps of the hospital.

The nurse on the second floor looked away from her when she approached. Feeling a sting of apprehension, she hurried to the room her mother shared with three others.

The doctor was looking down, his face bleak. He saw her and shook his head. Shea rushed toward the bed, fear rushing through her. Her mother's face was pale, unnatural. Shea leaned down and touched her lips; the cheek was cool. Still. Lifeless.

"I'm sorry, Shea," the doctor said.

Shea looked at him uncomprehendingly. Her mother had been fine five days ago. How could this have happened? She looked at the doctor through glazed eyes. She wanted to blame him, but she couldn't. Her mother had resisted Shea's entreaties too long.

Shea knelt next to the bed. She grabbed her mother's hands, trying to get some sign of life. "You can't," she whispered. "You can't go."

Shea willed her to open her eyes, willed warmth back into those hands. All Shea had was her mother.

She felt pain gather behind her eyes, a tightness that threatened to squeeze life from her. "Don't leave me like this," she whispered as tears started to trickle down her cheeks.

She didn't know how long she stayed there before Dr. Sanson pulled her to her feet, the old, often irritable doctor trying awkwardly to give comfort.

"What will you do now?" he asked.

"I don't know," Shea said brokenly. Dully, she looked at the box that had fallen to the floor. It had held importance to her mother, and that was strange. Shea had thought they shared everything.

But that didn't matter. Nothing mattered now except the loss and loneliness she felt. In that state of numbness that protected one from grief too strong to bear, she thought of what must be done. A funeral. Friends to notify. Decisions about the shop.

She leaned down and picked up the box. She would examine it later. Alone.

She watched as the doctor pulled a sheet over her mother. A tear snaked down her cheek, and she brushed it away. Sara Randall had always been strong. Shea could be no less.

Rafe Tyler hesitated outside the walls of the Ohio Penitentiary. The prison- supplied clothes were ill-fitting on his tall, lanky form, and on a hot summer day the wool was uncomfortable and scratchy. But then anything was preferable to the stripes he'd been wearing for so long. Three thousand, six hundred, and fifty-two days, to be exact. He'd counted each one of those days in hell. Ten years gone from his life. Stolen. Just as his honor had been stolen.

He yearned for a cotton shirt, for trousers that fit, for a pair of boots instead of the little more than cardboard shoes he wore now. He longed for a lot of things. A night looking at stars. He hadn't seen stars in ten years. His tiny cell hadn't had a window, and the convicts were locked up long before evening.

Convict. Even if he didn't wear that damning brand, he knew the stench of convict radiated from him. Outside the walls he still found himself shuffling like one; his voice, like that of so many other prisoners, sounded hoarse from disuse.

His marked hand went into his pocket. Abner was there. Abner who helped save his sanity. His finger rubbed the small, contented mouse who liked the wool far better than he did.

Rafe watched as people looked at him warily while they passed him on the street. Some looked through him, as if he didn't exist. He felt a muscle move slightly in his cheek. Ten years locked away, and now ...

Rafe tried to think of something else, of things small and large he hadn't permitted himself to think about during the past years.

A horse, by God. How he longed to be in a saddle again, to feel control. To go where he wanted.

And a woman. A woman of dubious virtue and no pretensions. Christ, but he needed that physical release. After Allison's betrayal, though, he wanted nothing more from females than a few minutes of physical pleasure with their bodies. He knew damned well he would never trust one again.

But those desires paled in comparison with his longing for revenge. For retribution. For justice, if there was such a thing.

He knew he should feel something more uplifting. Happiness at his release. Relief. But he didn't. Every human feeling had been systematically ripped from him during the past ten years. Pride. Dignity. Everything except hate.

Three years into his sentence, Rafe had been stunned when Clint Edwards had appeared one day. Clint had just heard, he'd said, and knew there wasn't a damn word of truth in the charges.

It had been difficult to comprehend that someone believed him at last, that some human soul gave a tinker's damn. He had seized Clint's offer of help like a drowning man seizing a rope. He had quickly banished his reservations about involving Clint and his brother Ben in his quest for vengeance.

Clint had been a corporal under him during the second year of the war, and Ben a wet-behind-the-ears private. At Vicksburg, Rafe had saved both of their lives. Ben was shot in an open position, and Clint had crawled out to help him. Rafe had disobeyed orders and followed Clint, had given him cover as he dragged his brother back. Rafe had been shot as he turned back to his own lines. Clint and Ben thought they owed him, and Rafe would use anyone to accomplish his aim. Honor was a commodity he couldn't afford. It had been burned away with the branding iron.

Another passerby walked down the street, crossing when he saw Rafe standing in front of the prison. He knew he had changed, that his face had changed. Hate was an ugly emotion, and it left ugly trails. Bitter lines etched out from his eyes now, and a sprinkling of gray mixed with his sandy hair. The once-vivid green of his eyes had dulled; they no longer showed any emotion at all. He had learned that in the first year of prison: Never let a guard know what you're thinking.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "The Patricia Potter Western Romance Collection Volume One"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc..
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

RELENTLESS,
RENEGADE,
NOTORIOUS,
About the Author,

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