Sneak Peek Sunday … Something wicked this way comes.

Welcome to Sara Walter Ellwood’s Sneak Peek Sunday! This is our last visit with Cal Delaney and Rachel Girard, the bounty hunter hero and cattle princess heroine from Broken Vows, a marriage of convenience tale set in 1878 Fort Worth.

Last week, Rachel began to realize that, with caring, comes risk. Cal has just come to the same realization.

He believed when he hung up his guns that he was finished with his old life and ready to make a new one, but after so many years of living by the gun, does he have it in him to put down roots and make this his home? Maybe it’s impossible for a man to escape what he is. Maybe it’s foolish to even try.

Cal’s right to feel uneasy. There’s trouble brewing. Some aspects of his past will not be left behind…

***

Cal filled his lungs with sweet, clean night air that still carried traces of beef stew from the chuckhouse. The cattle in their pens rustled lazily. Crickets chirped. From somewhere behind the stable, he heard two cats hissing and squealing. Either fighting or making love. He raised his gaze to the moon. It hung low in the sky, nearly full, round and yellow and wrapped in a ghostly haze. But it wasn’t a cloudy evening. What was that filmy haze swirling like misty fingers over its face?

A familiar chill raced up his spine. It reminded him of the hunt—when he was getting close to one of his prey. But he wasn’t a hunter anymore, and a bizarre turn of phrase came to mind. Maybe not the hunter but the hunted?

Don’t ever let your guard down, Cal. Who had taught him that? The old gunhand Grady? Jason Farley, perhaps?

He stared at the moon. That haze, that swirling mist, put him in mind of the steam that rose from a witch’s caldron as she stirred up some diabolical delight, and he recalled a line from Macbeth: By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.

Instinctively, his hands dropped to his sides, to his thighs where his Colts used to ride. They were, of course, not there. He clenched his fists and tore his gaze from the giant glowing orb in the sky. He resisted an irrational urge to steal a glance over his shoulder. There was nothing back there, just a stable full of horses and two randy cats going at it like there was no tomorrow.

There was more to that handsome gun than she wanted there to be…

You’re spooking yourself, Cal. He shook off the feeling and headed back up to the big house.

***

Broken Vows is available now at AMAZON.

Next time… a peek from A Touch of Camelot, a historical western with a Camelot twist!

For more fun sneak peeks, hop on over to SNEAK PEEK SUNDAY HERE!