C J Petit

Harry Glenn was asked to investigate the open and shut case of the murder of a prominent judge in Topeka, but quickly realized that the crime was far from simple and wouldn't be that simple to close, either. In just days, the circumstances of the killing would create a whirlwind scandal that would not only involve the victim and the apparent murderer but would suck Harry deep into its depths and threaten not only his career and reputation, but his life.

Lin Chase was aptly named as he'd chosen the profession of bounty hunter. This chase was to apprehend or kill the notorious Whitacre brothers and he was getting close. They were just a few hours ahead of him now after more than a week and a half of tracking. He was the best at what he did and had never even felt the bite of a bullet and didn't expect this to be any different. But it wasn't the Whitacre brothers that would cause the enormous shift in his life. That would come two days later and would start at a peaceful family farm that held more promise than it did danger.

Lynn glared at Ryan Mitchell and wanted to smack his smug face, but even though Ryan meant to insult him, Lynn knew that there was a very good chance that what he said was right. He'd suspected for years now that Dylan Evans wasn't his real father. It didn't take a math wizard to figure out that he'd been born nine months after his mother had been rescued from Fort Benton.But what Ryan had said that pushed him to finally ask his parents if it was true, was when Ryan had laughed and said that Lynn was probably more like his real father, the monstrous Burke Riddell than his hero; the man who raised him.He left the small house to ask that painful question, and if he was told that it was true, he knew that he'd have to leave the Double EE ranch and the only family he'd ever known.

Bryn felt sickened as he felt the ground shake, knowing that one of the two shafts had collapsed. Now, he stood in the pump room and watched the two thrumming pumps as they pulled water out of the deep mines. He knew that one of them would strain when the water became fouled with coal dust and debris from the collapse and if it was pump number two, it would mean that his father and older brothers were probably dead.It seemed like hours as he watched the pump work, but it had only been minutes since the first intense vibrations had struck. He knew that if pump number two began to labor his plans to leave Carbondale would be one more of the coal mine's victims.Just when he planned to check on pump number one, he saw the pipe to the second pump begin to pulse before the belt on the drive wheel squealed in protest and his worst nightmare had come to pass.

Dylan knew that the boiler was about to blow apart and that if he didn't act fast, he and the others in the pump room at the #3 mine would all die. The engine operator was panicking but had fallen in his haste to escape a scalding death, so Dylan lifted his heavy shovel as high as his twelve-year-old arms could manage and swung it in a fast arc to the thundering machine. It may kill him, but he had to try. Even as the shovel's steel head slammed into the machine, it would set in motion a series of events that would shape his entire life.

Henry St. Martin walked into the hacienda to talk to his father. Everything seemed wrong. Where was his mother?Three hours later, sixteen-year-old Henry was ejected from the enormous St. Martin ranch and told never to return, or he would be shot on sight. He vowed to return seek revenge against the entire family. When he finally returned, it wouldn't be as Henry St. Martin, it would not be as a sixteen-year-old boy seeking justice for his mother, but as a hardened lawman with the name of Alex Paine.

Rachel looked down at her husband's dead body, the long knife protruding from his gut. She knew she'd be hanged or shot if she stayed in Missoula, so she'd have to run. But where could she go? The only place that came to mind was the hidden valley northwest of town. It was owned by a loner named Marsh Anderson, whom she had never met. She was going to have to bet her life that he wouldn't turn her in to the sheriff, the brother of her dead husband, but it was the only chance she had to stay alive.

Virgil Scott and his best friend Roy Sheffield left their horse ranch and were making one of their routine runs to Denver to deliver thirty-two horses. But the short trail drive proved to be anything but routine when late that first night, they were set upon by men wielding deadly clubs. In just minutes, Virgil found himself face down in a quickly flowing creek taking him downstream to what would surely be his death. All he could feel was the icy cold water and excruciating pain from his two broken legs. He had given up and there was nothing he could do.Only his canine and equine friends would be able to save him if he ever hoped to provide justice for his murdered partner.

Mark Jordan was in no hurry to finish the long ride across Texas to reach his first assignment in Dallas. He was ashamed of himself for not standing up to his father and choosing his own career. but now he was an ordained minister and wished something would happen to change the course of his life, unaware that the two riders that were approaching him from the west would soon do that and much more.

After five long years in the army, First Lieutenant John Flynn was finally being mustered out and would soon be going home to the family he hadn't even heard from since he enlisted. But when he rode to the family home, he made two shocking discoveries: his family was gone, and he had been declared dead by the army four years earlier. When he finally left to cross the plains of Nebraska to find his family, he would discover things that he wished he'd never known about and one person he knew he could never forget.

Kyle MacKenzie left Fort Omaha to head to do some scouting at Fort Sully in the Dakota Territory at the request of their new commander.He'd been riding west for a few hours with his packhorse in tow, he noticed a set of wagon tracks heading northwest that appeared to be just a couple of days old. It raised his curiosity and as the tracks were going in the direction he was headed anyway, he followed.As each hour passed, his curiosity grew as did his concern for the occupants of the wagon. Just by the signs that they had left behind, he had identified the men guiding the party and had been astonished when he realized that the group that was being led into hostile Sioux territory consisted of not only men wearing inappropriate footwear but there were two women with them.He then picked up his horses' pace to try to reach them before the unsuspecting people in the wagon were murdered by their guides..

Jed Morgan, his brother, sister and parents were enjoying a family picnic in their pastures under the oak tree a few hundred yards from their ranch house. The large herd was grazing peacefully out of sight and Jed had his eyes on his mother's apple pie as she slid her knife into the golden crust.Then their heads all popped up at the sound of gunfire from the east. Each of them stood and turned in that direction, wondering who was firing the shots. Their ranch hands were all in town enjoying themselves after being paid, and Jed was almost certain that Arnie Williams from the Rocking W was behind it.He never had a chance to discover who had pulled those triggers before the ground began shaking and each of them knew it wasn't an earthquake.As the family watched, their own panicked herd flew over the rise and thundered toward them. Death would reach them before they could reach the safety of their ranch house.

After leaving his job as sheriff of Boulder, Sam Brown decided to visit his sister and her family on their ranch south of Denver but discovers the ranch empty. He searches to find them, and what he discovers becomes his mission that would change his life in a way he could have never expected.

Aaron hadn't been caught by surprise by the early arrival of the Nebraska blizzard in November, so after hunkering down for the night to wait out the snow and gale-like winds, he set out in the predawn to resume his trek across the plains to get to his ranch. While he may not have been surprised by the storm, he was soon stunned by what he discovered on the frozen ground southwest of Scotts Bluff.

After twenty years of fighting; first the rebels and then the Apaches, Jonas was tired of it all and decided to return to his unfinished cabin to find the solace and peace that he craved. Yet once he'd returned the place to a livable condition, he realized that life wasn't just about existing. He missed the camaraderie of the soldiers and he really wasn't cut out for the life of a hermit. So, Jonas decided to return to his duties as an army scout at Fort Selden. The cabin would still be waiting for him when he was ready.But by the time he reached the fort, he discovered that in the brief time he'd been gone, there had been changes, and some of them would almost make him regret his decision to leave his cabin.

Sergeant Ellis White had the Yankee colonel in the crosshairs of the Amadon telescopic sight on the J.F. Brown sniper rifle and knew his index finger just had to squeeze the trigger, but he paused. He hadn't wanted to be the regimental sniper in the first place because he thought it was a cowardly way of fighting. Ellis had been fighting in this war since the beginning and was tired of it. He just wanted to go back to his ranch in Hardeman County just two hundred miles away and return to his life as a rancher where all he had to worry about was the Texas heat, ornery cattle and the Comanches. He finally held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

They came out of the sun and through the dust cloud created by the herd, firing their Winchesters and killing the men who were moving the cattle to Abilene. Each man fell just minutes after the attack began and the stampeding cattle finished the job that the rustlers' .44s had started. Just hours later, the herd was already gone, the dust settled, and bodies were strewn along the ground. But one stirred and would never forget what he saw as his eyes opened.

Yavapai County in Arizona Territory was bigger than Pennsylvania, and Sheriff Sam Hicks and his three deputies were the only law that most of its residents knew. When China Joe's gang knocked off the huge cash shipment heading for Prescott, Sheriff Hicks left his office unsure if this would be his last job one way or the other. He knew he had to retire soon, he didn't expect to be alive in six months, whether it was from a .44 or his failing heart.It was after his horse died in the pursuit and he had to find a temporary replacement that he made another discovery that had an even bigger impact on his life.

Ted Shepard had seen many deaths over his ten years as a bounty hunter and then as a United States Deputy Marshal, but none had come close to affecting him as much as this one. He didn't know if he could go on any longer and sunk into an almost suicidal depression. But it only took a very short visit by the one person capable of healing his emotional turmoil to get him to return to living and back on his job, before a return to his hometown of Wilmore, Kansas restored him to the same person he had been before. But the young woman who had brought him out of his morass would then need his help much more when she was charged with murder.

The Witch's medicine was bad. She must be killed. But she ran before they could act. She ran across the Dakota prairie until she could run no more. She turned and faced the oncoming warriors. She had no hope, yet she would defy them until the end. Then came the thunder.