Prologue

San Antonio, Texas

1867

Dead?

Kyle can’t be dead.

Travis Nelson stared at the plump woman sitting across from him at the polished walnut desk. From behind a pair of wire-framed spectacles, his dark eyes gave the client, Mrs. Masterson, a distracted glance. Surely she wouldn’t notice the glistening tears he struggled to blink away.

My brother is dead.

“How can I ever thank you, Mr. Nelson?”

“No need for thanks. I’m glad to help.” Travis forced a smile as he signed the last of the legal documents, closing her case. A lock of short, dark hair drifted across his forehead, and he took a moment to shove it back, then scratched the pen through his neatly-clipped beard. Though he just meant to scratch an itch on his chin, he tried to appear as if he were thinking deep thoughts—not struggling to hold in the tears caused by the heartbreaking message he’d received earlier.

It’s not true. It must be a mistake.

“You’ve been so helpful,” the woman continued. “I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. You’re the best lawyer in San Antonio, and I’m going to spread the word.”

Though he felt himself flush at the compliment, Travis was careful to keep it from going to his head. Since he’d taken over his father’s law office, he’d been told countless times how much the community respected him, how well-known the Nelson name had become. He did not take the legacy lightly.

Unlike Kyle.

“You’re very welcome, ma’am.” Travis glanced at the opened letter on his desk.

It’s true.

Heavyhearted, but striving to appear strong and confident, Travis shuffled the legal documents together with large, capable hands.

Mrs. Masterson, a dumpling of a women nearly bursting the seams of a red corduroy dress, chuckled. The small poke bonnet perched on her topknot of white hair bobbed. Her watery-blue eyes twinkled as she blessed Travis with a gap-toothed smile.

“Your father was a saint. He helped me so much when my Steven died—and you’ve done the rest by keeping my greedy children from taking over my livelihood.”

As she prattled on, Travis sighed and put an interested expression on his face, though his mind was a thousand miles away. A quick glance at the Seth Thomas clock on the mantel reminded him to send her politely on her way.

“I see I have another engagement soon.” Travis stood, tugged down the well-tailored jacket of the neat gray suit he wore, adjusted his black string tie, and walked around the desk. Tall and thin, yet “strong as a bull”—as Mama used to say—Travis straightened to his full height and went to pull out her chair.

“Oh, my, I’ve kept you!” Mrs. Masterson stood, gushing a few more expressions of thanks as Travis ushered her out of his office.

Ambrose Lamont, his office clerk, came into the office after the woman had left. “Mr. Nelson, I’ve finished writing those letters as you requested. You’ve no more appointments this afternoon. Did you want anything else?”

“Thank you, Ambrose. As soon as I finish signing these papers, you can take them to the courthouse. Then, feel free to leave for the day.”

After Ambrose left, closing the solid mahogany door behind him, Travis sat behind the desk. Tugging loose his string tie, he looked at the envelope again. It was from one “Luis Scott”—not anyone Travis knew, though he had recognized the town it originated from: Bandera.

A premonition had sent a tremor through his body as he’d slit the envelope with a silver letter opener—just before Mrs. Masterson’s visit had interrupted the letter’s life-changing message. Travis stomach clenched in knots as he reread the note.

Dear Mr. Nelson,

My name is Luis Scott, sheriff of Bandera, Texas. It is my sad duty to inform you your brother, Kyle, was killed last week in a shootout. There is much more to tell, so I hope you can come as soon as possible.

Your brother owned a saloon in Bandera and named you as his rightful heir. We need to make arrangements. Please send a telegraph to let me know when we can expect you.

If you are unable to come, please let me know what I should do about your brother’s belongings.

Sincerely,

Luis Scott

Travis leaned back in the leather chair, a sense of loss filling his heart until he couldn’t draw a deep breath. Kyle, dead?

Usually, at this time of day, he cleaned off his desk and prepared for the next day. The top of his massive desk, cluttered with Mrs. Masterson’s file, the ink stand and pen, letter opener, and untidy pile of books he’d been using, should be straightened. On any other day, Travis’ habitual tidiness wouldn’t allow himself to ignore the mess.

Today, he had no heart to do anything but mourn his brother.

I’m all alone in the world now.

The melancholy thought sank into his mind, like he’d fallen into a deep pit—dark, silent, abandoned.

They’re all gone now. Mama. Papa. Laura. Now, Kyle.

Too fidgety to sit, Travis stood and trudged to the large windows behind his desk. His legs felt like they’d been cast in iron weights. The heavy hand of sorrow pressed against his chest. He fumbled aside the green baize curtains and stared out at the streets of San Antonio.

Dusk had fallen, the last rays of sunlight pale strips of fading orange along the cobblestoned street. Around the buildings, deep blue-purple clothed ordinary crates, steps, and buckets in nighttime shadows. A cat, its yellow eyes pinpricks in the dark, darted from the alley across the street.

Just another evening—except it wasn’t.

Travis listened to the clatter of wagon wheels, the steady clop clop of horseshoes on the brick. Faint wisps of conversation, like ghosts of speech, floated to his deaf ears.

Instead, he heard Kyle’s hearty laugh, his boisterous boasts.

“Betcha I can climb that tree higher than you! Race you to the cornfield! Get your nose out of that book, an’ let’s go fishing! C’mon, Trav, let’s live!”

As Travis turned back to his comforting office, the walnut-paneled room filled with bookshelves and memories, he sighed. It would be hard to leave his practice here, but it seemed he had no choice.

I’ll have to leave San Antonio as soon as possible.

There would be Kyle’s affairs to settle, and the saloon would have to be sold. Who knew what else would be involved?

It will give me time to say goodbye.

“Ambrose!” he called. “I need to leave for Bandera at once!”

What he’d find when he got there, he couldn’t imagine.

The only thing he knew would be missing from Bandera was Kyle, with his lopsided grin and mischievous blue eyes. There would be no welcome from Kyle’s booming voice or hearty handclasp on his shoulder. Never again.

Travis had never felt such terrible desolation.

Oh, Kyle…

Chapter One

Bandera, Texas

A few weeks later

Stiff and more than ready to stretch his legs, Travis stepped from the stage and into the streets of Bandera. The journey had been long, jolting, and tiring; Travis wanted nothing more than a hot meal, an even hotter bath, and a bed in a hotel.

If there was a hotel.

Travis eyed the town warily. While San Antonio was well-established, with plenty of brick buildings and an air of prosperity, Bandera appeared to be an arrangement of ramshackle wooden buildings cobbled together haphazardly. There was one well-built mercantile, at least, its wide, whitewashed porch overflowing with bins of potatoes, cabbages, and turnips. Shiny silver buckets and a butter churn sat alongside a line of brooms leaning before a dusty span of windows.

Next to the store stood a large barn with a sign painted over the stable doors reading Henderson Livery. As Travis watched, a slim boy in worn overalls emerged with a shovel of manure and dumped it into a pile beside the building. He eyed Travis with curiosity before a shout from inside drew his attention back to work.

A line of smaller buildings with false fronts edged the red clay road. One had a whitewashed fence and a few struggling rose bushes. Without rhyme or reason, weathered tents with laundry flapping from clotheslines trailed off toward the edge of town. The main street boasted plenty of fragrant horse droppings and hordes of flies, and Travis wrinkled his nose at the stench of manure. A faint odor of baking bread and a whisper of roses reminded him Bandera was home to more than just saloons.

If San Antonio was a properly-dressed gentleman in pressed suit and tie, Bandera was more a rowdy cowhand in dusty chaps and rundown boots.

Despite his weariness, Travis had to smile at the thought.

I’m like San Antonio, and Bandera sure is more like Kyle.

A stab of remembrance pierced Travis’ heart.

Like Kyle was.

The stage had rumbled to a stop in front of a large wood-frame building. After the driver tossed Travis’ carpet bag over the side, he shook the reins and headed the stage toward the livery.

As he rescued his bag from a near miss with a horse pat, Travis glanced up at the building. A sign on the front, painted in a garish red and lopsided yellow curlicue, read Longhorn Saloon.

Kyle’s place.

His brother had written with pride about his place of business. Though Travis figured a lot of what Kyle wrote was full of cow patties, he had to admit he was impressed by the solid building made of weathered gray boards. It stood two stories tall, with a wide covered balcony on the second floor.

A woman in a skimpy purple dress with long, blonde hair in ringlets and a heavily-rouged face peered at him over the railing. The simper on her lips was no doubt meant to be provocative, but Travis quickly looked away.

Though his wife, Laura, had been dead for almost three years now, he still didn’t feel right looking at another woman for long—especially one dressed in so few clothes. Travis flushed at seeing more of the woman’s flesh than he’d expected. Almost as if she knew his thoughts, the woman’s brassy laugh taunted him.

“Mr. Nelson—Travis Nelson?” a young man with a Mexican accent asked. “You are Kyle’s brother?”

Travis turned to find a short, stocky man with a full head of coal-black hair and dark, coffee-colored eyes staring at him. The man’s weather-bronzed face testified to hours spent in the sun. A shiny silver star on his brown leather vest gleamed as if he took pride in the office.

“Yes, I am.”

The man tipped his black Stetson. “I’m Luis Scott, the sheriff here.”

“Scott?” Travis raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t Spanish.”

“Sí.” Luis winked. “Mamacita was Mexican. Papa was not—so ‘Luis’ for her, and ‘Scott’ for Papa.”

“My brother? How did he die?” Travis hadn’t meant to blurt out the question so fast, but there it was. “I’ve done nothing but think about Kyle for the last hundred miles. Despite his knack for courting danger, he was never one to engage in a shootout—or, at least, not when we were younger.”

“There is much to show you and tell you,” Luis replied. “We will go first to Kyle’s grave. You will see your brother’s final resting place. Sí?”

Travis nodded, then followed the sheriff a short distance out of town, past St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, a well-built wooden structure with a simple bell tower. Someone had planted yellow marigolds in rough clay pots, but the flowers gasped for water in the intense heat. Beside the church, a sturdy iron gate led into a small but well-kept graveyard.

Luis led the way into the graveyard to a new wooden marker above a mound of fresh dirt, which was just beginning to grow a covering of stubby grass.

Kyle Nelson 1867.

Travis’ heart clenched at the thought of his brother’s body lying beneath the mound. He stared at the marker, tears filling his eyes.

“He had asked awhile back to be buried here,” Luis offered. He removed his hat and bowed his head, giving Travis time to pay his respects.

All Travis could do was stare at the mound, heartbroken. He thought of all the regrets, so many words he’d never spoken. How could Kyle be dead?

We should have grown old together.

After a few silent moments, with just the sound of the wind whistling through the trees and the sleepy calls of birds settling for the evening, the sheriff asked, “Would you like to see the saloon now?”

“What I’d really like is a hot meal, a bath, and a bed.” Travis felt so tired, he could barely stand. “We can talk more tomorrow. I have a lot of questions.”

Luis’ dark eyes shone with sympathetic tears as he clapped the Stetson back on his head. “Of course, forgive me! Come, we will go to the saloon. The Jackson brothers, who helped your brother run the saloon, have prepared Kyle’s room for you.”

“I couldn’t—”

“The saloon is yours now, Mr. Nelson,” Luis cut in. “You are responsible for quite a few people now. To keep or sell is your choice, but you must make decisions.”

“I don’t—”

Luis held up a hand. “You are tired. Let me take you to the saloon. The Jacksons will take care of you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “My wife is expecting me home for supper—we have a new bambino. Tomorrow, we can talk, and you can meet Alba.”

“Alba? Is that your wife?”

“Oh—no, no!” Luis appeared shocked, and when he continued, Travis could understand why.

“Alba is the woman who killed your brother.”