A Hunter’s Mission of Love (Preview)

Chapter One

Mulberry House, Somewhere In Chicago, 1880

A harsh banging woke Elise with a jolt. 

“Time to get up!” the maid shouted through the door. She was a new hire, a sour-faced young woman here to help the cook and housekeeper with the cleaning, but already she knew the way things worked at Mulberry House. Who to fawn over, who to ignore. Who had to be respected, and who really didn’t. 

No prizes for guessing which one Elise had become. 

The maid—was her name Lucy?—walked away, heavy-footed, leaving Elise to fumble in the dark for her lantern. It was just short of dawn outside—the Sawyer family kept early hours, and so the household had to get up even earlier to make sure everything was ready—and light hadn’t gotten through Elise’s tiny window yet. 

Her bedroom was right up in the eaves of the house, with a small round window set near the floor. Over the years, she’d made it homey enough—patchwork curtains at the window, a handmade rag rug on the floor, a quilt on the bed, and so on. She got up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her slippers were so holey and worn that it was hardly safe to wear them anymore, so Elise padded barefoot across the cold floor, dressing quickly. Her blue dress was the best choice for a cold day like today. A quick wash at the basin, golden blonde hair brushed into a knot at the base of her neck, and she was ready to go. 

Mulberry House was one of the finer homes in their area, on the outskirts of Chicago, three stories high, not including the attic, plus a few rooms down by the cellar for the real servants. 

In the kitchen, everything was in chaos, getting breakfast ready. Cook labored over the stove, barely sparing Elise a glance. 

“Eggs need bringing in,” she said shortly. “Mrs. Sawyer wants eggs for breakfast today.” 

The housekeeper, a prim, thin-lipped woman who disapproved of everything and everyone, eyed Elise over her pince-nez. “And tell Mr. Blackwell that the roses need pruning today. Today, mind you, and weed the herb garden.”

“I will, Mrs. Bragg,” Elise responded, as cheerfully as a person could manage that early in the morning. Lucy, up to her elbows in greasy suds at the kitchen sink, glowered at her. 

Picking up the basket left by the back door for just such a purpose, Elise stepped out of the back door. She’d have happily weeded the herb gardens herself, if it would have gotten her out of the taut, uninviting atmosphere of the kitchen. 

She paused on the doorstep, adjusting her boot, and was, therefore, perfectly placed to hear the conversation that went on in the kitchen behind her. 

“It sticks in my craw, this,” Lucy commented sourly. “She’s down here with us, mucking and grubbing and fetching the eggs, yet sits and eats her meals with the family. It ain’t right.”

“Mind your manners, Lucy!” Mrs. Bragg snapped. “You know fine well why.”

“She’s no better than us. Not really, is she?”

“Be that as it may, Miss Elise is a Sawyer, legally at least. She’s their daughter.”

Lucy huffed. “She’s not their real daughter. She doesn’t even look like them.”

“Course she’s not, anyone with eyes can see that. But until the day Mrs. Sawyer tells us she’s been turned out of the house and isn’t a Sawyer anymore, we mind our business. And you mind yours, girl. You aren’t the first maid we’ve sent packing.”

“The real Miss Sawyer is prettier, anyway,” Lucy muttered, and Mrs. Bragg spluttered in anger. 

“You listen here…”

Lucy started to whine as she was scolded, and Elise turned away from the door, her face hot. 

Eavesdroppers never hear anything to their own benefit, she thought wryly. But they usually do hear the truth. 

Elise kept her head up as she crossed the lawn, the house at her back. If she turned around, she might see Margaret up in one of the windows, watching her. The real Miss Sawyer, Lucy had said. 

Margaret certainly resembled her parents. There was a photograph of the four of them hanging in the hallway, with three blond, blue-eyed family members all sitting and smiling together on the parlor sofa. Elise stood behind, tall, dark-haired, eyes the color of honey, altogether alien. 

She didn’t like to look at that picture much. There were more pictures, pictures of a happy baby Elise on the laps of her happy parents, freshly adopted, plump and cheerful and perfect.

Three years later, their real baby arrived, the baby the doctors had told Mrs. Sawyer she would never have. 

Must be awkward, Elise thought grimly, for the thousandth time in her life. Adopting a baby because you think you can’t have one of your own, and then having a real baby. What do you do with the adopted one? 

She knew the answer to that. 

Near the chicken coop, a short, round-faced man with graying dark hair and a dark beard rose up out of the bushes and waved. 

She waved back. “Morning, Leo!” 

“Morning, Miss Elise!” 

With a flourish, Leo withdrew a bunch of violets and wildflowers, tied neatly at the stems with an old piece of ribbon. “For you, madam,” he said, making a silly bow. 

She took the flowers, giggling as she pinned them to her dress. “Thank you, Leo. They’re lovely.”

Leo was somewhere in his late forties and had been the Sawyers’ gardener for as long as she could remember. He was just about the only servant in the household who was ever kind to her. She remembered crouching in the dirt with him as a child, learning the names of different plants, how to keep flowers alive, and what to eat if it came to it. He’d tried to teach Margaret, too, but she didn’t much like getting dirty.

“Oh, before I forget, Mrs. Bragg said you’re to prune the roses today and weed the herb beds.”

Leo pulled a face. “I pruned them last week.”

Elise shrugged, unlatching the chicken coop. Squawking happily, the birds came flapping out. 

“I just repeated what she told me.”

He sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. The sun was only just up, and already he was working hard enough to sweat? That didn’t seem right. 

“They think I’m not working hard enough,” Leo muttered. “Mrs. Bragg wants me gone.”

A pang went through Elise’s chest. “Surely not. You’ve been here for over twenty years, at least. As long as I have. Longer.”

And yet they’d love to get rid of me, too. I’m a problem that has no easy solution.

Leo didn’t respond. Elise collected the eggs quickly, and when she climbed back out of the coop, he was gone. 

“Nice talk,” she murmured. 

Back at the house, breakfast was almost ready. The dishes were set up, and the rich scent of coffee filled the kitchen. 

Mrs. Bragg eyed the basket, lips moving as she counted the eggs. She glanced up at Elise, almost as if she blamed her for the poor yield. Elise wondered briefly whether she should offer to turn out her pockets. 

“Go on up, then,” Mrs. Bragg said shortly. “Nothing much else to be done here. I’ll do Mrs. Sawyer’s eggs, Cook. I know how she likes them.” 

Elise obeyed. The stairs leading up from the kitchen were narrow as well as too steep and uneven for comfort. The stairs to the upper floors, the stairs the family used, were noticeably different—well-maintained, even thickly carpeted. The dining room—used solely for that purpose—was large, a little too large for comfort. The table was laid, the three of them already waiting. Mr. Sawyer, hidden behind his huge newspaper at the head of the table, Mrs. Sawyer on his left, Margaret on his right, an empty place beside Margaret waiting for Elise. 

“There you are,” Mrs. Sawyer snapped. “You’re getting later and later for mealtimes, Elise. I won’t have it. You know how we feel about punctuality.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sawyer,” Elise responded quietly, slipping into her seat. 

Had she ever called Mrs. Sawyer mother? Elise had a memory of calling them Mama and Papa when she was young, when Margaret was young. It had stopped somewhere, and now they were firmly Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer. 

Mrs. Sawyer eyed Elise up and down, sniffing. “Why do you have those wilted weeds pinned to your dress? Take them off at once.”

Elise swallowed, removing Leo’s flowers and slipping them into her pocket. 

Beside her, Margaret sat very straight and prim in her seat, hands folded in her lap. They were doing deportment in her home lessons at the moment, and she was excelling at it, apparently. 

Margaret was, the whole town concurred, a real beauty. She had beautiful, gently curling flaxen hair, large, doll-blue eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and perfect pink bow lips. It was not surprising, people said, since her mother was so beautiful in her youth. Mrs. Sawyer was beautiful now, with good skin and blonde hair that genteelly did not show the gray, and hardly any wrinkles for her age. 

Mrs. Bragg and Lucy came up with the dishes, setting out the breakfast, then disappeared with bobbing curtseys. Mr. Sawyer took down his newspaper for just long enough to fill his plate with toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon, then erected his paper wall again. 

Mrs. Sawyer sighed. She did a lot of sighing these days. 

“Margaret, you and I are going to pay calls before lunch. Elise, I would like you to stay and do some of the darning in that basket. That wretched girl Lucy really cannot sew a straight seam to save her life. Oh, and another sampler. We’ll have to tell everyone it’s Margaret’s work, as her samplers are too messy to be shown, really.” She shot a disapproving stare at the girl in question, and Margaret dropped her eyes to her plate. 

Clearing her throat, Margaret began to scoop scrambled eggs onto her plate, but Mrs. Sawyer tutted loudly. 

“Not so much, Margaret! That waist of yours must be maintained, you know. You must be just as slim as Elise, if not slimmer. You don’t see Elise filling her mouth with scrambled eggs, do you?”

Both girls turned a vibrant shade of red. Margaret shot a quick, inscrutable glance at her sister. 

“No, Mama,” she said quietly. 

Elise, who did not like scrambled eggs, swallowed her dry toast and prayed to get through the breakfast. 

 

Chapter Two 

As far as he could tell, it was a quiet little town. 

Mason wasn’t sure he liked quiet little towns. They were never as peaceful and orderly as they claimed to be, and there was often a culture of silence against unfamiliar law enforcement officers. Besides, Mason didn’t even have a shiny sheriff’s badge to encourage folks to talk to him. 

Sighing, he banged on the roof of the stagecoach, and the carriage lurched to a halt. His fellow travelers—he hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names, to his guilt—glared at him in passive annoyance. 

He ignored their glares and climbed out stiffly, nodding to the stagecoach driver. He had no luggage to undo from the roof or back of the vehicle, only the pack he carried on his back. The driver eyed him narrowly, his rheumy old gaze traveling from Mason to the low, dark building set on the ridge of a nearby hill. The sign was pleasantly vague—Detention Center—but nobody believed the fancy words. 

It was a prison. 

“Visiting friends, eh?” the driver said with a sneer. Mason clenched his jaw and said nothing, and the driver gave a snort and tapped the reins, sending the stagecoach lurching away. Mason watched it rumble away down the road in a cloud of dust. He shivered in the cold, pulling his thin coat tighter around his shoulders. The coat was a fraction too small for him—a lifetime of hard work and physical effort was making his shoulders, arms, and chest grow and firm up steadily, and his clothes were not keeping pace. 

Still, that hardly mattered. Once this latest job was finished, he could buy a new suit or two. But before he got started on his work, there was something he had to do. Mason trudged up the long, dusty track toward the prison, feeling himself tense up inside tighter and tighter with every step. 

“I’m here to see Carter Wilson,” Mason said, making the greasy-looking prison warden drag his eyes away from his newspaper. “I did write about coming. The visit’s been arranged for a while.”

Not that it would do much good if the warden decided that Carter wasn’t getting any visitors today, of course. 

The warden looked him up and down with distaste. “You’re the brother, then?”

“That’s right.”

“The bounty hunter.” 

The warden spat out the word like it was an obscenity. Well, perhaps to a man who was ‘legitimately’ employed, it would be. In Mason’s experience, sheriffs and lawmen were happy enough to make use of bounty hunters when necessary, then go right back to condemning them as borderline criminals themselves. He didn’t bother pointing this out, of course. No sense getting the man’s back up. He needed to see Carter. 

The warden chewed a wad of tobacco in his cheek for a minute, then snorted to himself. “Follow me.” 

The warden led the way through a narrow, rusting maze of prison cells and foul-smelling hallways, taking his time. He stopped dead in front of one nondescript cell, twirling the keys on his finger. 

“You want to go in? He’s a feisty one. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Mason resisted the urge to smack the warden in his smug little face. “I’d like to go in.”

“Fine,” the warden jammed a key in the lock and twisted. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

Mason’s heart sank. Days of uncomfortable, endless travel across the country, days of uncertainty, of not even knowing why his brother had been transferred from one place to another, longing to see him, longing to clear his name—and all for fifteen minutes. 

Better than five, the pragmatic voice in the back of his head pointed out. Mason stepped inside the cell, and the door was closed with a clang behind him. The key turned, the warden stamped away, and Mason was left alone. 

Well, not alone, of course not. 

A tall, lanky figure, taller than Mason himself, unfolded from the single bunk set into the wall. 

“Mason?” came a scratchy voice. “I started to think you weren’t coming.” 

“Come on, Carter,” Mason said, forcing a smile. “You must know I’d always come for you.”

Prison did not suit Carter. Not that it ever suited most men, of course. Carter had always been the skinnier of the two, no matter how much he ate or how hard he worked, but now he seemed skeletal. His eyes—a vivid green, the same color as Mason’s—were sunk into his head and had long since lost their sparkle. The brothers had the same shade of bark-brown hair, but Mason’s was black with grease, tangled, and reaching to his shoulders, matching the scrubby beard sprouting on his cheeks. There was less than two years between them, with Carter as the older one, but suddenly, he seemed a decade older than Mason, as if he was thirty-five instead of twenty-five.

He unfolded his lanky arms, and Mason stepped forward to hug his brother. He didn’t dare squeeze too hard in case Carter’s bones snapped. Could he count his ribs? 

Don’t think about it. 

They stepped apart, and Mason tried not to breathe too deeply. The prison stunk, the cell stunk worse, and his brother smelled of decay and unwashed bodies. He remembered the baths Carter insisted on taking, even in the depths of winter, in his incessant desire to always be clean. The grime must be killing him. 

“Any idea why they moved you?” Mason heard himself say. Carter sank back down to sit on the bunk, a little breathless already. 

“The old prison was running out of room,” Carter responded. “At least I get my own cell here. It’s no worse than the other place, Mason.”

There was nowhere else to sit, so Mason leaned back against the wall. 

“Well, I’ve got a job that’ll keep me here for a while, so I can visit more frequently. Maybe take a look at getting your case reviewed again.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Carter’s shoulders stiffened, and he dropped his gaze. 

“Don’t, Mason.”

“I’m serious. You’re innocent. Everyone knows it.”

“Everyone does not know it. If they did, I wouldn’t be here.”

“You were set up!” 

Carter lifted a hand in an abortive gesture. He trembled, and he raked his fingers through his tangled hair instead. 

“I’m not getting out, Mason. Six years isn’t a lifetime. I have three years left to go. I can make it.”

Can you? Mason thought, feeling sick. Already, three years in the cells had wasted Carter away to nothing. What would another year do? 

He bit his lip. “I just want to help.”

“I know, I know, buddy. What’s the job?”

Mason paused, and Carter’s gaze narrowed. 

“You’re not still after the Mitchell brothers?”

“Well, I…”

“Give it up, Mason. We couldn’t catch them before, and we can’t catch them now. I thought I could get them, and look where I ended up.”

“I’m not going to let it rest,” Mason retorted fiercely.

Carter got to his feet, a trifle unsteadily, and laid a hand on Mason’s arm. “Leave it, please. Look, if you end up with a six-year sentence slapped on you—or, God forbid, hanged—I won’t make it. I’m serious, Mason. Leave it. For me.” 

The hand on his arm trembled with a weakness it had never had before. Mason swallowed past the lump in his throat. 

“I’ll try, Carter.”

His brother didn’t seem to believe him. He wobbled back to his seat with a sigh, as if he’d just gone for a two-mile run. At the moment, Mason doubted his brother could run the length of his cell. 

“Are they feeding you okay, Carter?”

Carter chuckled. “Yeah, sure. They have a great chef here. We had lobster and roast chicken last night, with roast vegetables and gravy, and a side of oysters. How they got them so fresh, I’ll never…”

“Okay, okay, enough of the sarcasm.”

Carter laughed at his own joke for a moment or two, but the laugh trailed off into a hacking cough. 

“It’s prison, you know,” he said at last. “I’m okay, Mason.”

I don’t believe you. 

Before he could say anything else, the warden appeared at the cell door, rattling the keys on the bars. 

“Time’s up,” he said shortly. 

Mason scowled. “It has not been fifteen minutes.”

“I didn’t say it had,” the warden retorted with a grin. “I just said that time’s up.”

Mason was about to argue, but caught the brief, pleading look on his brother’s face. 

You want to visit again, don’t you? You want your letters to get through? he thought and stepped obediently out of the cell without another word. 

***

Mason felt a little guilty as he put up the Wanted posters. He’d told Carter to leave it, but he couldn’t do that. Another three years in those conditions would kill him, and without getting his hands on the Mitchell brothers, Carter’s name would never be cleared. It all made sense. He’d even dug up an old witness from twenty years ago, back when the boys were just starting out, somebody who was going to testify against them, then got cold feet and fled. If they were caught and attached to the crime Carter had been accused of, Carter would go free. It was as simple as that.

Or else wound up at the bottom of a river somewhere. That was possible, too. 

The little town was busier than he’d expected, the high street bustling with fine-looking ladies and gentlemen, promenading up and down, shawled and scarfed up against the cold of the day, barely sparing him a second glance. 

He imagined he looked a real sight. Mason knew, in a disinterested sort of way, that he was a handsome man. His hair was thick and well-groomed, his beard neat, and he had those pretty green eyes that folks always remarked on. He was healthy-looking and charming when he wanted to be, and plenty of ladies had shown interest over his twenty-three years of life. At the moment, though, he was weary, travel-stained, rumpled, and unwashed. His wallet was a little lighter than before, having had to slip the prison warden some money to make sure his letters got through to Carter, plus a little extra to feed him some more. He had no idea whether it would work, but he had to try. 

He was pasting the Wanted posters along the front of a shabby-looking milliners’ shop when two ladies came out, arms full of boxes and baskets. He stepped aside and touched the brim of his cap, but they sailed past, barely looking at him. 

They were pretty girls, sure enough. The leading one, a stunning blonde in a pink dress with a ramrod spine, ignored him altogether. Her companion, a dark-haired girl in a blue dress in need of hemming, shot Mason a quick, apologetic smile. She had eyes the color of honey, he noticed. Like chunks of amber. It was a rare color, actually. 

Only a few feet down the boardwalk, the girls all but dropped their baskets and started talking to each other, the blonde one hissing at the other. 

“Just do it, Elise!” 

“It’s not honest, Margaret.”

“You don’t have to tell them anything. I’ll say the sampler was mine, that I worked really hard on it, and if you don’t say anything…”

“Needlework isn’t that important.”

The blonde—Margaret? —tossed her head. “You don’t know anything. Mama and Pa think it is. It’s like I’ve got a handful of thumbs when I try to sew. I can’t read like you can, either. The words go all blurry no matter how hard I try.”

“It doesn’t matter, Maggie. You’re their daughter. They love you. I love you. We’re sisters, remember? Forever. That’s what we said.”

The blonde’s face softened, just for a moment. Then she turned away. 

“Don’t call me Maggie, Elise. It’s common.”

Then she strode away, leaving the dark-haired girl to manage the boxes and baskets herself. She stood for a moment, staring after her friend—or sister, apparently. 

Mason cleared his throat, and the girl spun around. 

“Beg pardon,” he said apologetically. “But do you need a hand with those?”

He nodded to the baskets around her feet. 

She bit her lip. “No, thank you. You’re very kind, though. The horse and cart isn’t far away. Margaret will come back and help me, I’m sure.”

She didn’t sound convinced, and Mason wasn’t convinced, either. Still, it wasn’t his business, not by a long shot. 

She didn’t immediately pick up the baskets and hurry away. Instead, she edged closer to the posters he was putting up, tilting her head to one side. 

“You looking for someone?” she asked wryly. 

“How did you guess?” he responded with a grin. “The Mitchell brothers. Gang leaders, all round criminals. Bad news. If you see them, give me a holler. The name’s Mason Wilson.”

“Oh, are you a new deputy? Our sheriff is always getting new deputies I can never keep track.”

“I’m a bounty hunter,” Mason responded shortly. He waited for the wary look to come into her face, for her shoulders to stiffen, and for her to edge away. Nice girls didn’t talk to bounty hunters, everyone knew that. 

Apart from this girl, it seemed. She nodded thoughtfully, taking a step closer.

“Must be a good way to see the world,” she remarked, half to herself. “Sometimes I think that…”

She trailed off, the breath seeming to catch in her throat. Her eyes widened, and he heard her suck in a breath. 

She’s recognized someone, he thought, with a flutter of excitement. She wasn’t looking at the posters of the Mitchell brothers—he’d brought a few different likenesses, just in case—but the poster of the man who’d been set to testify twenty years ago. 

“You see something familiar?” he prompted quietly. “Or someone familiar?”

The girl flinched, blinking rapidly as if waking up from a reverie. The expression of shock disappeared from her face, replaced by something serene, impassive, and entirely unconvincing. 

“What? Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s a terrible business, all of this. I do hope you find the people you’re looking for.” 

She was babbling now, backing toward the packages she’d left on the ground behind her. She awkwardly shoved baskets on her arm, crushing boxes under her arms, and bobbed what might have been a curtsey. 

“Good afternoon to you, sir,” she said with a gasp, and all but raced away. 

Mason stood there for a moment, trying to recover from being called sir and having somebody curtsey to him. The girl knew something, obviously, and she knew it meant something, judging by the way she’d run off. Interesting. 

I’d better stay in town a little longer, and get to the bottom of this, he thought grimly. 

He turned back to his wall of posters, finding the one the girl had been looking at. It was a grainy picture, probably not the best of likenesses, and depicted a black-haired, black-bearded man with a round face and a good-natured expression. 

He took note of the name. Leonard Blackwell.

---

“A Hunter’s Mission of Love” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Elise Sawyer’s seemingly perfect life crumbles when her adoptive family neglects her in favor of their own flesh and blood. Left to toil in the shadows, Elise finds an unexpected ally when a mysterious bounty hunter promises to help her find her real parents in exchange for information on his mission. Soon, fueled by surprising feelings for her rugged companion, Elise’s heart is torn between her past and her future…

Will her love for Mason win over her mistrust before everything collapses?

Mason Wilson is determined to free his brother from prison and clear his name of a heinous crime, bringing to justice the notorious criminals that have eluded lawmen for years. With the key witness absent though, Mason’s only chance to track them down is Elise who claims to have information about their location. Yet, his attraction over her captivating eyes collides with her suspicious manners, making Mason question her true motives and sincerity…

How will he react upon realizing that Elise never intended to provide the information he sought?

Mason and Elise discover that the path to truth is fraught with danger, but the ultimate destination may be worth every risk. As their perilous and long journey unfolds along their blooming love, a criminal duo from old times appears in their way. Will their bond endure the trials that lie ahead? Can the hardships and love cure their troubled souls and lead them to a brighter future?

“A Hunter’s Mission of Love” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 60,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Get your copy from Amazon!