Free Deconstructing Lila (Entangled Select) by Shannon Leigh Page A

when.”
    Pru mentioned Pierce in her journal, but Lila didn’t remember reading anything about the two marrying.
    Could this guy be right?
    “That’s interesting. I’d like to research the history of the building and its former owners. Do you know where can I get more information about this rancher?” She hoped he wouldn’t say the library, and if so, she hoped his mother wasn’t still the librarian.
    Randy rubbed his jaw, thinking. “I’d go talk to Threasa Thompson. She owns a small ranch outside of town. From what I hear, part of her place used to belong to this Pierce guy.”
    Threasa Thompson. Lila remembered her vaguely from high school: a tall, thin, quiet girl who missed a lot of school to help her grandfather with his ranch. The same ranch?
    The checker wadded the receipt, dropped it in one of the bags, and pushed them across the counter to Lila. It was time to go.
    “I’ll do that. Thanks so much for your help, Randy.” She smiled at the manager and lifted her bags off the counter.
    She felt a pair of hot brown eyes follow her outside. When she was across the parking lot and in the square, she breathed easier.
    Luke Pierce. She whispered the name as she walked.
    Had he really married Prudence? A rich cattle baron and a prostitute? Not outside the realm of possibility, but never in her family history had she run across anything so interesting.
    It appeared her job in Hannington had taken on a new twist. Win back estranged husband. Make the town like her again. And find out what happened to one Prudence MacIntosh and one Luke Pierce.

Lesson Number Six —
    All people are scared on the inside. Bluff your way to confidence. Eventually, you will become confident, and men like women who know what they want. Trust me.

Chapter Eight
    T he handles of the plastic grocery bags dug painfully into Lila’s palms. Her sandals slapped against the asphalt, her feet feeling heavier with each step. It was going to be a long walk back to her grandmother’s in the late-evening heat. To distract herself, she thought about the early entry she’d read that morning in Pru’s journal.
    The man had hair like a woman.
    That was what I had been hearing for the last couple of months. But today, I saw for myself.
    “Where can a paying man get a decent drink ’round here?”
    Luke Pierce pushed through the swinging doors of the Two Nellies saloon and stood at the entrance, his arms draped over the tops of the curved shutters. I thought an eclipse was in progress until I turned and saw him standing there, blocking the sunlight. He surveyed the card tables and serving girls with a quick, calculating eye.
    The man must have been six foot and a half, if not taller. His hair was indeed long. It hung loose and free around his shoulders, an enviable chestnut color. He had just come from the bathhouse down the street. No one could appear that fresh and cool in this heat.
    A tiny pang of jealousy lodged in my heart upon seeing him. To enjoy the freedom of wearing your hair down, not confined beneath a cap or nailed to the scalp with pins, must be heavenly.
    I may be a woman of questionable virtue, but I wore my hair up during the day as any self-respecting woman did.
    There was some commotion among the smaller, shiftier variety in the saloon with Luke’s arrival. I assumed they were nervous, and rightly so. It was rumored Luke Pierce was a master card player and an unrivaled marksman. He did not lose when he played, or if he did, nobody ever lived to tell about it.
    “You come to the right place, sugar.” The hurdy-gurdy girl known as Little Sally extricated herself from the arms of a local and sauntered in his direction, her two-bit smile as wide as it could get without revealing her missing front tooth.
    The harlot. When she was not turning tricks, she was unconscious in the opium shack on the edge of town. She refused help of any kind with her addiction, content to languish in a hazy stupor.
    Luke ignored her, giving her a wide