Sandra Brown - Another Dawn (Coleman Family Saga)

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright 1985 by Sandra Brown

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover design by Jackie Merri Meyer Cover photography by Photonica

Warner Books, Inc.

1271 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Visit our Web site at www.twbookmark.com

A Time Warner Company Printed in the United States of America

First Warner Books Printing: July 1991 Reissued: March 1993, April 2001

10 9 8

Dear Reader,

Several years ago, my career underwent a transition with my novel, Slow Heat in Heaven. Before then I had written genre romances under several pseudonyms. Because so many of my new readers have expressed an interest in my earlier work, Warner Books is making these books available.

I feel that Another Down, the sequel to Sunset Embrace, tells a compelling love story while staying within the framework of romance fiction and reflecting the elements that characterize it, such as a high level of sensuality and a happy ending.

Thank you for your many requests to have these books reprinted, and please enjoy...

Sandra Brown

The man lunged to his feet, clumsily drew his pistol, cocked it, and aimed.

His stocky thighs caught the edge of the table, jarring it and rocking the glasses full of liquor that stood on it. One sloshed over. A cigar rolled from an ashtray and burned a small hole in the green felt top.

Jake Langston sighed tiredly. He had come in for a game or two of stimulating poker, a glass or two of stinging whiskey, perhaps a satisfying tumble or two in one of the beds upstairsall to fill the hours until his train pulled out.

Now here he was involved in an argument over a hand of poker with a sodbuster named Kermit something or other, who he hoped had more talent handling a plow than he had a gun.

"You calling me a cheater?" the farmer demanded. Unaccustomed to drinking any more than an occasional Saturday night beer, he was none too sober and, though his feet were well planted, he swayed like a sailor on a turbulent sea. His beefy face was perspiring and flushed. The pistol pointed directly at Jake's chest was wavering in an unsteady hand.

"I only said I'd like to see all those aces you've got in your sleeve at one time rather than having them pop up every other hand.'' With infuriating nonchalance Jake reached for the tumbler of whiskey near his right hand, his gun hand, and took a leisurely sip.

The fanner's glance nervously bounced around the barroom, suddenly aware of the spectacle he was making of himself. No one else in the cavernous room was moving. Hie music had ceased at the first sign of trouble. The others at the poker table had carefully ebbed away like the ripples from a stone thrown into a still lake.

The man was trying his best to appear threatening. "You're a liar. I wasn't cheating. Draw on me."

"All right."

It all happened so quickly that, later, only those standing closest could testify as to what had actually taken place. In one little move Jake came out of his chair, drew his gun, swept his other hand wide to deflect the farmer's arm and seat the pistol ineffectually clattering to the floor.

Kermit's Adam's apple elongated to accommodate a knot of stark terror. He looked into eyes as cold and brittle as icicles that cling to the eaves after a frigid, wet January norther. They were much more frightening than the gaping barrel of the pistol pointed at the end of his nose. He faced a body that was leaner man his by forty pounds, but menacing with its taut control.

"Pick up half the winnings you've stockpiled there. I figure you won that much fairly."

The farmer's hands fumbled with the coins and bills as he stuffed them into his pants pockets. He exuded the frenzy of a fox prepared to gnaw off his foot to escape a trap.

"Now pick up your gun real easy-like and get out of here."

Kermit obeyed. Only a miracle prevented the pistol from firing in his trembling hands as he let down the hammer and reholstered it.

"And I advise you not to come back until you learn to cheat without getting caught."

The farmer was humiliated, but vastly relieved that his heart was still beating, that he wasn't bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound, and that he wasn't going home penniless to his harping wife. He left, vowing to himself that he would never return.

The piano player resumed his jumping, jangling tune. Other patrons of the gambling hall drifted back to their tables, shaking their heads in amusement. Smokes abandoned in ashtrays were relit. The bartender immediately began to refill glasses.

"Pardon the interruption," Jake said congenially to the other players as he scooped his own pile of winnings off the table. "Divide the rest," he said of the money the farmer had wisely left on the table.

"Thanks, Jake."

"See ya."

"You could've killed him for pullin' a gun on you like that."

"Damn sure could have. We'd've backed you."

"Damn sodbusters."

Jake shrugged, turned away, and left mem talking. Taking a slim cheroot out of his shirt pocket, he bit off the end and spat it on the floor. Striking a match with his thumbnail, he lit the cigar as he weaved his way through the tables toward the oak bar that extended the width of the room. According to rumor it had been shipped piece by piece from St. Louis to Fort Worth and painstakingly assembled. It was ornately carved, bedecked with mirrors, and lined with bottles and glasses that were kept highly polished. The proprietress wouldn't tolerate dust.

Brass spittoons were strategically placed along the brass rail of the bar. Spitting on the floor was not allowed in Priscilla Watkin's Garden of Eden. Hand-lettered signs posted along the bar at six-foot intervals said so.

Jake smiled. That floor, waxed to a high gloss, was now desecrated by the tip of his cigar. He also took a perverse pleasure in making sure the spurs on his boots scarred the surface the madam of the establishment took such pride in.

A grin tugged at the corners of his thin, wide lips. Priscilla. Just as his mind conjured up her name, he spotted her poised on the bottom step of the curving staircase, looking as resplendent as the Queen of Sheba. Clad in bright purple satin with black lace trim, she would catch any man's eye. Always had. When Jake had first met her almost twenty years ago, she had worn well-laundered calico. But she had turned heads even in that.

Her ash-blond hair was piled on the top of her head and decorated with a single purple ostrich plume that curled down around her cheek and flirted with a dangling jet earring. She held her head at a regal tilt.

Indeed, this whorehouse was her domain. She ruled it like a despot. If customers or employees didn't like the way she managed things, they were summarily dismissed and escorted off the premises. But everybody in Texas knew that the Garden of Eden in Fort Worth was in this year of 1890 the best whorehouse in the state.

Priscilla extended a slipper-shod foot and stepped off the bottom stair. Proudly, leaving behind her a wake of musky scent imported from Paris, she made her way to the bar just as Jake was lifting a glass of whiskey to his mouth.