Once an Outlaw A Novel [Paperback]

USJill Gregoryis theNew York Timesbestselling author of more than thirty novels. She is the winner of theRomantic TimesLifetime Achievement Award for Excellence and her novelsNever Love a CowboyandCold Night, Warm Strangerwere honored with back-to-backRomantic TimesReviewer’s Choice Awards for Best Western Historical Romance. Her novels have been translated and published in twenty-four countries. Gregory grew up in Chicago and received her bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Illinois. She and her husband live in Michigan.Chapter 1

Forlorn Valley, Colorado

“Emily, honey — you sure you’re going to be all right here on your own? I don’t much cotton to leaving you.”

The stoop-shouldered giant with the grizzled face and stringy gray hair peered intently at the young woman beside him on the porch of the old log cabin. His seamed face was full of doubt, but in the gold afternoon sunlight that slanted down across the Rockies and made the sky glisten a hot and burnished blue, his niece looked as calm and unruffled as a mountain lake.

“I’ll be fine, Uncle Jake,” she assured him. “I can take care of myself.”

Yet, even as she spoke the words, Emily Spoon felt an eerie prickle across her neck.

She couldn’t imagine why. She wasn’t afraid of this beautiful isolated patch of land deep in the heart of the Colorado foothills — or of the dark — or of being alone. She wasn’t afraid of anything — except losing her family again.

“And don’t forget,” she added, as a gust of wind swept down from the mountains and blew a strand of midnight hair across her cheek. “I’m not all alone. There’s Joey.”

“Hmmmph. That little twig of a young’un? You know what I mean, girl.”

Her uncle’s voice was deep, sclc3