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  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.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jessica Clare

  “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.”

  —USA Today bestselling author May McGoldrick

  “I was blown away by the sparkling brilliance of [LeSue’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

  BOUND FOR TEMPTATION

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 2018 by Tess LeSue

  Excerpt from Bound for Eden 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, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780451492623

  First Edition: December 2018

  Cover design by Alana Colucci

  Cowboy by Claudio Dogar-Marinesco; Horse by Iulia Khabibullina/Shutterstock; Wagon by Terri Butler Photography/Shutterstock;

  Grand Teton Mountains by aoldman/GettyImages

  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

  For Kirby,

  my shining son.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book was written in the Australian summer of 2018, mostly at my kitchen table. I’d like to thank my family, who dragged me out in the sunlight when I needed it, who made me laugh (as they always do) and who unfailingly reminded me that I have feet of clay. This book is dedicated to my son, Kirby, who feels things as deeply as Tom does and who has the soul of a poet (or a mathematician . . . but then I guess theoretical mathematics is a kind of poetry, so maybe he’s both). Thanks, Kirby, for being the calm in the middle of many storms; there are times when you are my rock. Thank you also to his sister, Isla, who is sassier than any heroine and will probably conquer the world one day and have you all in thrall. Trust me, you’ll love it.

  And Jonny. Just when I think you might drop to a four, you hold a torch during a blackout so I can complete my edits and you manage to remain a solid five. Maybe even a five and a half on a good day.

  As always: thanks to my parents and my brother. And now Ash too. Good choice, bro.

  Thank you to Dean and Dot, Sam and Anna and Sarah and Emma (Anna and Emma: I stole your names) and Nick. You guys are higher than fives. Much higher.

  Thanks to Lynn, my disco queen. How in hell would I have survived these last few years without you? Who would dance with me? And who understands the madness of our biz like you do? No one. You’re a ten.

  Chelsea, my friend. Look at us! Who knew we’d not only find our feet but learn to fly! Go us. I am at the other end of a phone whenever you need me, and the other end of a bar even when you don’t.

  The magnificent women of SARA (Victoria, Bronwyn, Trish, Pam and Anne in particular!) and RWA. And Writers SA.

  And of course thank you to Flinders University, where I get to teach some amazing humans and spend my life in the company of books. Shout out here to Amy Mead, who has become my collaborator and friend, and to Patrick Allington. I’m also going to throw Elizabeth Weeks in here because she made me a dress, and that dress makes me very happy.

  Enormous thanks to Sol for checking my Spanish (any remaining errors are mine). Love to you and Dave and the little one.

  Thanks to my agent, Clare.

  And to the team at Berkley for being amazing. Maybe even better than amazing.

  Thank you to Kristine Swartz. My lord, woman, you can edit. I am deeply grateful for your wisdom and skills and the way you tell me I have toilet paper on my shoe (metaphorically speaking). Thank you!

  Last and most importantly, thank you for reading the book. I wrote it for you. I hope you enjoy it. I’m thankful you are reading it and hope we meet again.

  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

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from Bound for Eden

  About the Author

  1

  Mokelumne Hill, California, 1850

  SHE WAS RICH. Standing in her office over the whorehouse saloon, Seline watched as the lawyer’s fountain pen scratched at the ledger, forming a beautiful little billow of zeros. She had to pinch herself. In less than a year, the Heart of Gold had made
her wealthier than she’d ever dreamed of being. And this wasn’t even all of it. She still had two other businesses to cash in. Once she’d sold the other whorehouses in Angels Camp and Mariposa, she’d be almost as rich as Midas himself.

  She watched as the prissy eastern lawyer transposed all of those lovely zeros onto the contract, her heart a tight little ball in her chest. Each zero he added was a further nail in the coffin of her current life. Good-bye, Seline. Good-bye, mining town. Good-bye, men. That money meant a nice little house in San Francisco, maybe even one with a view of the bay. It meant finishing her days when the sun was setting, rather than working through the night. No more hitting her pillow as dawn was breaking. It meant sitting on her lonesome drinking her first coffee of the day, in peace, without having to settle accounts and shoo out the last malingerers filling up her beds. It meant hammering out no more quarrels and mopping up no more tears and helping no more damn fool girls. Once she’d collected the last of her money, Seline planned to never see the inside of another whorehouse in her life.

  “You’re buying one hell of a business,” she told Justine, who was equally transfixed by the ink flowing from the nib of the lawyer’s fancy fountain pen.

  “Don’t I know it,” Jussy said. She looked a little green at how much it was costing her. But she was no fool. She was getting the whorehouse at a cut price; if it weren’t for Hec Boehm running Seline outta town, the place would have gone for more. But with a man like Hec snapping at her skirts, Seline was just happy to grab what she could get. Luckily, what she could get was eye-wateringly wonderful.

  Mr. Teague put the gold dust in neatly folded brown squares of paper and lined up the rows of banknotes, using the beautiful little gold nuggets to weigh the stacks down.

  “You’d best be depositing all of that in the bank, quick smart,” Mr. Teague told her, peering up over his crooked spectacles. “Moke Hill is no place for a . . . ahem . . . lady . . . to be carrying around a fortune like that.”

  Seline ignored him. Even if she planned to stay in town—which she didn’t—she didn’t believe in banks. Especially not the one in Mokelumne Hill, which was run by Wilbur Stroud, a man who liked to be tied to a chair naked while Seline’s girls dressed up like nuns and told him that he was a very naughty boy. Sometimes, when business was especially stressful at the bank, he’d even ask the nuns to take a strap to him.

  No. Seline would look after her own money, thank you very much.

  “Would you like me to read you the documents?” Teague asked.

  Seline snatched them off him. Honestly. These men were all alike. They thought being a whore meant you were stupid. How did he think she could run her businesses without reading? She went through the contract first, and then the deeds to the building and the business. Justine peered over her shoulder. They each found a couple of errors, which Teague swiftly corrected and initialed, looking sour.

  Seline’s hands were sweaty as she took the corrected documents back from him and checked them one last time. There in the thicket of fancy legal words was her freedom. From Hec Boehm and Moke Hill, and best of all, from whoredom. And right at the bottom of the contract was a space for her to write her name. Her real name. The one she hadn’t used for nigh on twelve years . . .

  “You sign first,” she told Justine, her voice a little unsteady. Hell. It was the thought of that name, she supposed. It was like seeing a ghost . . . a ghost that brought with it an ugly mudslide of memories. The weight on her. The pain. The smell of his rank corn liquor sweat. The feel of a hand clamped over her mouth and nose.

  She exhaled. She hadn’t been quick enough to get out of the way, that was all. Not then, and not now. Usually, she could jump aside before the memories hit. And there were more memories than she cared to count; the sludge of her past was a relentless tide, an avalanche of shame and fear, prone to sucking her down and drowning her alive.

  But they were just memories, she told herself fiercely, as she watched Justine bend over the documents, pen in hand. They were the past. And this, right here, right now, was the beginning of her future.

  And her future was going to be a gold-plated, beautiful thing.

  Justine finished her signature with a flourish and handed the pen to Seline. “All yours, boss.”

  “No, honey,” Seline said, shaking off her ugly past and the whipped little creature she’d been, and adopting her fancy welcome-to-the-whorehouse drawl, “it’s all yours now. Boss.”

  And as she signed the deed, her black signature an energetic slash on the page, she did so with her real name. With the name of the girl who had been left back in Tennessee all those years ago, scared and alone and with no other option than to let men buy her body by the hour.

  Emma Jane Palmer.

  She was free.

  * * *

  • • •

  OR, ALMOST FREE. First she had to get out of town without Hec Boehm or any of his greasy henchmen seeing her.

  “He’s got those Koerners parked downstairs waiting for you, and that Dutch thug is watching the back door,” Justine told her. The newly promoted madam was eager to get Emma out of her whorehouse as quickly as possible. She didn’t fancy her expensive business the target of Hec’s violence, not when she’d just paid her life savings for it.

  “Don’t fret, Teague’s going to tell Hec I’ve sold up. He’s headed to Hec’s place now.” Emma swept her fortune into the saddlebags she had waiting on the floor. The bags were deliciously heavy. She was glad the office had a connecting door to her room, so she didn’t have to go out on the landing to get there, dragging her fortune with her. She knew Kipp Koerner would be watching the office door, probably without blinking. That man was like a tick on a dog when it came to doing Hec’s business. His brother Carter, on the other hand, was just as liable to be liquored up and counting his coins to do the nasty with JoBeth or Mona. He favored the young-looking ones.

  “‘Don’t fret,’ she says,” Justine parroted, following her into the bedroom. “It don’t matter a lick if he knows you sold, so long as you’re here.”

  Didn’t Emma know it. She dropped the saddlebags and yanked her carpetbag out from under the bed. “Teague’s also going to tell Mr. Boehm that I’ll receive him tomorrow, at 9 p.m. sharp. To give him my decision.” Justine didn’t look reassured. “Teague will also pass on that my answer will of course be yes,” Emma told her, as though that solved everything.

  Jussy looked less convinced than ever. “And why would you sell this place, if you were planning on staying in Moke Hill?”

  Emma fluttered her eyelashes. “To devote my full attentions to his pleasure.” She snorted. “Or so Teague will tell him—along with how much it will cost him to have me. He did say he wanted me exclusively. And that sure as hell can’t happen if I’m busy running this joint every night.” It would also flatter his vanity, the thought of having her completely to himself. He’d already offered to set her up in a little place of her own, right on the main street across from the Heart of Gold. She’d be like his personal canary, hung right where everyone could see him strutting in and out of her gilded cage. He wanted one and all to know that he’d conquered the unconquerable whore. And he wanted to reinforce that she was, when all was said and done, still just a whore after all.

  She’d made the price absolutely ridiculous. She didn’t think Hec would believe anything less, considering how much of a stink she’d kicked up over the whole business. Unconsciously, she touched her fingers to her neck. The bruises were just about gone now, but the memory of his hands around her throat was too fresh for comfort.

  There was a sharp knock, and she and Justine both jumped. Hell. Was that him now? She’d been sure he’d wait until tomorrow. He was enjoying the theater of her defeat too much to cut it short. Little did the fat pig know that she wasn’t defeated at all. She’d be halfway to Mariposa before he worked out that she wasn’t here.

  “Bo
ss?” Virgil’s voice was muffled through the closed door.

  “Yes?” both Emma and Justine answered. Whoops. It was going to take a while to remember that she wasn’t the boss anymore: Justine was. She gave Justine an apologetic look.

  “You still want to open at the usual time?” Virge asked through the door.

  “God, yes!” Despite her best intentions, Emma couldn’t help responding. Nothing would tip Hec off faster than if the Heart of Gold was shuttered up past opening time. She needed him to think that she was still here. Still here and weeping into her pillow that the mighty Hec Boehm had bested her.

  Emma hadn’t turned a trick since she’d stopped her wagons in Moke Hill just under a year ago. She’d been well and truly done letting men paw at her. She’d spent too many years flat on her back for the profit of others; it was her turn to make the money. And she was a good madam. She paid her girls fair and helped them move on as fast as they could. Very few girls liked whoring; it was something a girl did when she was out of options. Seline made sure that they could do it safely and save their money to start over. She watched them light out after a couple of months, cashed up and free of the trade, and she couldn’t wait to follow in their footsteps. But she was in it to make more than just a handful of cash; the Heart of Gold was her ticket to freedom forever. It took time to build that kind of nest egg; she’d been patient, and now her time had come, and she was glad to say that, since coming to Moke Hill, she’d bought her ticket out of here without letting a single man poke his stick into her. Her body was hers again, and hers alone, and she planned to keep it that way. No matter how much gold the mud-splattered miners offered her, she turned them down. Seline was bright as a peacock, strutting the bar downstairs, teasing and laughing and making sure they all had a good time—but that good time wasn’t going to be with her. Her girls were as fancy as she could make them: scrubbed and scented and dressed to the nines. And the miners were happy enough when she turned them aside, so long as it was into the arms of one of her girls.