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From the diary of Jessamine GoldenJuly 4, 1905

Dear Diary,

Today my life changed. It came out of the blue. Like a lightning strike in the midst of a sunset storm or the fireworks lighting up the sky during tonight’s celebration of our country’s independence. I’m not sure how else to describe what happened to me when I first set eyes on Brad Webster—or how to describe the clash of wills when he drew me aside and told me how things were going to be.

“I run a clean town,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble from you.”

He looked stern and angry and so very serious when he talked to me. And yet he didn’t arrest me, this man who walks on the opposite path that fate has set for me.

Sheriff Brad Webster. Just writing his name makes my heart kick around inside my chest like a string of wild ponies. Saying it out loud makes my fingers tremble and my face flush hot and sends strange warm flames licking through my belly. You’d think I’d been smoking locoweed. And it is loco for me to be so obsessed by him.

But despite his anger at me, he is the most beautiful man…if a man can be called beautiful. I remember some years ago Daddy and I were riding strays and we came upon this herd of wild mustangs. The stallion was big and ink-black and, oh, he was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Sleek and muscled, tall and strong. One look in that big guy’s eyes and you knew he was proud and brave.

That’s what I thought when I saw the sheriff. Like that wild stallion, he is proud and brave. His hair is ink-black. His eyes are the most fascinating Texas-sky-blue. And tall. Lordy, is that man tall. But he’s no beanpole. Oh, no. He’s got the build of a working man. And he’s a man who believes in duty.

Duty. His duty is why I must stop carrying on about him so. Brad Webster wears a badge that says he’s the law. And everything about the way he carries himself says he is as loyal to the law as I am loyal to the cause that has taken me on the wrong side of it.

Dear, dear diary. Is there anything in life that is fair? Why does everything have to be so hard? I have met a man who makes me want to forget what drove me to a life of crime. But I can’t forget. I can’t. Just as I can’t forget that this amazing, beautiful man may be forced, by duty, to end my very life. Even worse, I may be forced to end his.