Bound for Sin Read online

  Praise for Bound for Eden

  “Western aficionados will welcome a refreshing new voice in the sub-genre.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “I look forward to the next book by Tess LeSue.”

  —The Reading Cafe

  “Lots of humor, engaging and completely lovable characters, Bound for Eden was just what I was looking for in a book escape.”

  —Tome Tender

  “I adored Tess LeSue’s Bound for Eden! Her voice is brilliant, funny, and immediately draws you into the book. The hero is sexy and protective, the heroine is fierce and independent, and I couldn’t stop turning pages.”

  —Jessica Clare, New York Times bestselling author

  “Tess LeSue has written a great Western romance with all the sass, fun, and riveting action a reader could want. This novel is a rollicking ride with more twists and turns than a bronco with a burr under his saddle . . . You can’t finish Bound for Eden without a smile on your face.”

  —May McGoldrick, USA Today bestselling author

  “I was blown away by the sparkling brilliance of [Tess’s] writing. She has a real gift for historical atmosphere, compelling characters, sexual tension and witty dialogue.”

  —Anna Campbell

  “[Tess’s] writing is lively and taut and generates emotion. Her characters spring to life and her stories move at a fast pace.”

  —Anne Gracie

  “An accomplished mix of comedy and suspense, I found myself cheering with the heroine as she boldly navigates the journey to Oregon and eventually, her freedom. I absolutely loved it.”

  —Victoria Purman

  Titles by Tess LeSue

  BOUND FOR EDEN

  BOUND FOR SIN

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Tess LeSue

  Excerpt from Bound for Temptation copyright © 2018 by Tess LeSue

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK and BERKLEY are registered trademarks and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780451492609

  First Edition: September 2018

  Cowboy by Claudio Marinesco/Ninestock

  Cover design by Alana Colucci

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Bound for Eden

  Titles by Tess LeSue

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from Bound for Temptation

  About the Author

  For Isla Susana, my glorious daughter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Life is busy and challenging and difficult and tiring and taxing—but it’s also exhilarating and exciting and inspiring and filled with love (both the sparkly kind and the less glamorous but more muscular kind). I’d like to thank everyone who sparkles and/or flexes their muscles to hold me up.

  The people who are at the center of it all: my kids (who are the best); my parents (who would think I was ace whether I was a writer or a window washer); my brother (who was my first audience); my cat Lucy (who would be an Insta star if she wasn’t so sensible); my BFFs and fellow writers Lynn (the ultimate warrior cheerleader), Chelsea (my fellow Poseur), and Dan (who looks good sculpted in cheese and who has the best wife ever: love you too, Clare). And then there’s Jonny: thanks for everything except drawing on me with indelible ink, hiding my coffee, tricking my kids into thinking I’m older than I am, and telling people I don’t know who Thor is (for the record: I know who Thor is).

  Thanks to my extra family: Dean and Dot, Anna and Sam and the girls, and to Nick (who I wished lived closer because he loves food as much as I do).

  Thanks to Victoria Purman, Bronwyn Stuart, Trish Morey, Anne Oliver, Elizabeth Rolls, Anne Gracie, and Anna Campbell, and to the sensational writers of Romance Writers of Australia and the South Australian Romance Authors. And thank you to Sarah Tooth and to Writers SA. I have been embraced, supported, encouraged, cheered on and inspired by y’all.

  Thank you to Flinders University—this book was written while I was on study leave and I thank them for the opportunity and support. Thanks also to Patrick Allington for his help last year (freeing up a little bit of my time made all the difference—thank you) and to my colleagues up on the hill.

  And now to the people who make my dreams come true: thank you to Clare Forster and Benjamin Stevenson at Curtis Brown Australia, and to Kristine Swartz and the whole team at Berkley—thank you especially for embracing such a looooooong book.

  Last but not least, the most important people: the readers. To each and every person who picks up a book and steps through into another world and embraces another way of being. You’re my heroes.

  1

  A respectable widow of means seeks resourceful frontiersman for the purpose of matrimony. The lady seeks passage west to land owned in Mokelumne Hill, California. The advertiser presumes her manner and appearance will recommend her and expects applications from responsible parties only. Interviews are scheduled for the 6th of next month, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning, in the front parlor of the Grand Hotel. Please be prompt.

  Independence, Missouri, 1849

  NOW THAT WAS how a man should look. Suffocating in the stuffy hotel parlor, Georgiana Bee Blunt looked long
ingly out of the window, where she could see a backwoodsman tethering his animal to the hitching rail outside Cavil’s Mercantile. The fellow was a brute. He had a wild head of bristling black hair and a stiff beard, and his arms were the size of smokehouse hams. And if that wasn’t enough to make him look like a character from one of her dime novels, he was also clad head to toe in buckskin. And the size of him! My, but he looked like he could rip an oak from the earth bare-handed. That was exactly the kind of man she needed, and exactly the kind of man she had advertised for.

  It was also exactly the kind of man who had not answered her advertisement. Georgiana sighed and looked over at the candidate sitting opposite her. He was a dapper, charming, handsome man, with very white teeth and very shiny hair. His fingernails were perfect ovals. And his shoes . . . They were spit polished until they gleamed. How did he do it? She couldn’t set foot outside without the bottom inch of her dress getting covered in dust. Had he shined them in the foyer before he’d come in for his interview?

  She couldn’t imagine the brute outside doing that, she thought, stealing another glance. He was reaching over to unbuckle his saddlebags, and the buckskin stretched tight over the broadest back Georgiana had ever seen. She sighed again. It was probably too much to hope that he’d come to answer her advertisement.

  “Mrs. Smith?”

  It took Georgiana a moment to remember that she was Mrs. Smith. She’d adopted the name to hide from that horrid Hec Boehm and his henchmen, but she kept forgetting to answer to it.

  “Yes?” She gave the man her full attention and tried her best to look as she imagined a Mrs. Smith should.

  “As you can see, Mrs. Smith, I have a pedigree that would please even the most discerning mother.” Mr. Dugard beamed at her with his white teeth.

  Oh no. He wouldn’t do at all.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Dugard.” Georgiana tried to smile back. “But as you can see, I still have so many people to interview, and the hour is growing late . . . ” She stood and, because he was a gentleman, he stood too.

  “If I could ask you to leave your details, I’ll be in touch as soon as my decision is made,” she assured him.

  “As luck would have it, I’m staying right here in the hotel,” he said.

  Of course he was. Most of them were. She resolved not to use the dining room tonight; she had no intention of talking to any of them again, let alone marrying one of them. They were all so sociable and polite and courteous and civilized. It was enough to make a woman scream. Her ad had clearly specified frontiersman. She didn’t want a well-bred man, or a good-looking man, or a charming man, or a clever man. She’d had quite enough of that with her first husband (God rest his sordid soul). All she was looking for was a simple, hardworking and reliable brute. Like the one outside.

  The one who was not walking toward the hotel to answer her ad. She watched glumly as he headed in the exact opposite direction. He’d been joined by another rough-looking man and was heading for the saloon.

  Perhaps she should have scheduled her interviews for the saloon, she thought with a sigh. The men there were probably far more likely candidates than the ones she was meeting here.

  “May I say, Mrs. Smith,” Mr. Dugard was saying in his low, suave voice, “I hadn’t expected to find you so young, or so beautiful.”

  She flinched. God save her from men with silver tongues. She wouldn’t be in this situation if it hadn’t been for Leonard and his pretty words. She had no interest in listening to any more pretty words in her lifetime.

  Mr. Dugard took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. His dark eyes were moist with admiration. It took all of Georgiana’s willpower not to yank her hand away. She suffered through the press of his lips on the back of her glove.

  There was a disapproving cough from the doorway. The hotelier, Mrs. Bulfinch, was glowering at them. “I hate to break up your tête-à-tête,” she said in her clanging voice, “but there are still men in my foyer.” She said it like they were an infestation of mice. “You promised me, Mrs. Smith, that this affair would be done by midafternoon. It’s now almost five.” She gave a sniff and drew herself up to her full height of four foot nothing. “I’ve dismissed them all and told them to come back tomorrow. This is a respectable hotel, and I shan’t have men clogging up my foyer at all hours.”

  Oh, thank heavens for ghastly old Mrs. Bulfinch! Now Georgiana wouldn’t have to interview another pale, clean, nice man! At least not until tomorrow . . .

  And maybe before then she could hunt the brute down and she wouldn’t need to face tomorrow at all, she thought hopefully. She stole a glance at the saloon. It was a shame ladies weren’t allowed in there, or she would have headed straight across the road and through the doors.

  “May I escort you into supper?” Mr. Dugard asked hopefully.

  Lord, no!

  “I’m sorry,” Georgiana said, skipping out of his reach before he could take her arm, “but I really must collect the children.” If she could get through the knot of hopefuls on the porch, that was. They were milling about, just waiting for a chance to speak to her; each and every one of them was holding his hat politely in his plump, clean hand and giving her an earnest smile. They were a horrific sight.

  She’d never moved so fast in her life. She grabbed her bonnet and purse, and was out the front door and off the porch before anyone could so much as make a move in her direction.

  She took a deep, grateful breath of dusty air as she plunged down the street. She’d been cooped up in that parlor all day, with its smell of desiccated rose petals and burned coffee. Mrs. Bulfinch didn’t hold with open windows: too much dust. After today, Georgiana was sure she would forever associate the smell of mummified roses with disappointment.

  She’d met at least two dozen men today, and not a single one of them was suitable. They’d be eaten alive out west! Just imagine if they met rogues and gunslingers like Kid Cupid or the Plague of the West! They’d probably faint dead away. No, she needed someone who could get her safely to her son . . .

  The thought of Leo took any trace of sunshine out of the day. Her son, her eldest . . . all alone out there with those horrible men . . .

  Don’t think about it. You can’t afford to think about it. You have to keep moving.

  He was safe so long as they needed her signature on that deed. And she was on her way. Soon, she thought desperately, soon I’ll be there. She felt the two thousand miles between them like a searing pain. Goddamn Leonard for taking the boy with him. And double damn him for dying and leaving her baby stranded on the other side of the country, twelve years old and all alone, held hostage . . .

  Don’t. Don’t think about it.

  Georgiana was sweating but felt icy cold, even though she caught the full flood of afternoon sun as she headed to Mrs. Tilly’s to get the other children. Leo was tough, she reminded herself. Of all the children, he was the most resilient. He’d had to be; he’d been the man of the house since he was knee-high. His father would swan out of their lives for years at a time, telling Leo to look after his mother, and it was something the boy had taken to heart. He wasn’t one to cry or feel sorry for himself. She used to watch the way he kept his head high and his expression brave every time his father left, and the way he’d comforted her and the younger children, and her heart would break for him. Her eyes welled with tears. Her poor boy.

  It was just one more disaster in Leonard’s long line of disasters, and he wasn’t even here for her to rage at. This was precisely why she would be choosing her next husband with her head rather than with her heart. Her next husband would protect her children and not abandon them (or kidnap them and take them two thousand miles away from her); he would be frugal and sensible and not sell the rug out from under her; he would be predictable and reliable and not flit from place to place with no thought of building a home for his family. If she had to give up her hopes of marrying a man
she was attracted to, she would . . . After all, what real use was attraction? And she was certainly happy to give up any idea of a love match. Love had caused her nothing but pain.

  * * *

  • • •

  “DID YOU FIND your prince then?” Mrs. Tilly asked her hopefully when Georgiana stepped through the front door of the tearooms. “I saw that nice Mr. Dugard heading over to the hotel. He’s a handsome-looking man.”

  “Yes, he is.” Georgiana pulled a face as she let Mrs. Tilly usher her to a table by the window and pour them cups of tea. The older woman also put out a plate of strawberry tarts and immediately popped one in her mouth.

  “And he’s a capable man,” she said as she brushed crumbs from her lip. “He used to run a furniture store in St. Louis.”

  “He might be capable enough for St. Louis, Mrs. Tilly,” Georgiana sighed, “but he didn’t look anywhere near capable enough for the wilds. I can’t imagine him fording a river or shoeing a horse.”

  Georgiana flushed as Mrs. Tilly looked pointedly at Georgiana’s silk skirts and heeled slippers.

  “It’s a wonder you want to go at all, if it’s so fearsome,” Mrs. Tilly clucked as she sipped her tea. “You’d be better off keeping the little ’uns here. We have a school and lots of nice men.”

  Ugh. Nice wasn’t what she was looking for.

  “I’m committed to going to California, Mrs. Tilly,” Georgiana said firmly. “That’s where our land is. Leonard built us a house in the lovely little town of Mokelumne Hill.” Or so he said. “It has rocking chairs on the porch and enough bedrooms for the children to have one each.” She’d believe it when she saw it. But that’s certainly what he’d written in his letters. “And my son is there.” Oh no, there went the tears again. Georgiana fumbled for her handkerchief. She hated crying in front of people, but these days the tears just erupted. She could be perfectly serene and then, bang, she’d be crying. She had to stop thinking about Leo. She couldn’t afford to be crying all the time; there’d be time for crying once he was safe.