It’s up to Longarm to bring in a vicious vixen… Hell hath no fury like Naomi Foster, the felonious female that Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long has been charged with transporting from Wyoming Territory to Denver for trial. In theory, Longarm has help in the form of C. Burton Hood—but the young deputy-in-training is greener than a frog and hornier than a toad, both of which turn out to be big problems when it comes to watching their pulchritudinous prisoner.   After Foster uses her feminine wiles to hoodwink Deputy Hood, it’s up to Longarm to catch the slippery siren—but he’ll have to dodge the bullets of bushwhackers, who seem to be coming out of the woodwork to take the lawman down… Tabor Evans is the author of the long-running Longarm western series, featuring the adventures of Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long. Chapter 1 Custis Long yawned. Stretched. His eyelids fluttered as he fought against sleep. He had to get up soon and head for his own bed. In the meantime he was sated. Maria Lourdes Consuela Valdes lay tucked in close beside him, her breathing slow and steady in the aftermath of their coupling. Chill night air cooled the thin film of sweat on his flesh and somewhere on the street below he heard the sounds of a horse’s passage. Life could not get much better than this, he thought. The deputy United States marshal known as Longarm yawned again and rolled his head to the side. Maria Lourdes’s nipple jutted high off her left tit. The woman had the longest nipples he had ever seen. Sensitive, too. He considered toying with this one, but if he did that, he was likely to wake the lady. And Longarm was just too worn-out already to want another piece of that. Maria Lourdes was wild, but she could suck the life out of a man. She certainly had drained Longarm. Forcing himself to move, he swiveled onto the side of the feather bed and sat upright. Yawned again and scratched. Then he reached down and silently gathered up his clothes and his boots. He padded barefoot out of Maria Lourdes’s sleeping chamber to the outer room of her suite and stopped there to dress. He perched on the edge of a flimsy-looking chair to pull on his boots, stood again, and barely remembered in time to stop himself from stamping his feet firmly into the boots lest the noise disturb Maria Lourdes. Longarm stretched again and decided maybe he was waking up after all. For a minute or so there it had seemed in doubt. There was not enough light in the room to check himself in the mirror as only a very low flame burned in a single lamp, so he had to straighten his collar and tie by feel. And long habit made him check the position of the .45-caliber Colt that rode at his waist, his fingertips finding the polished walnut grips exactly where they should be, just left of his belt buckle with his holster canted for a cross draw. Once that was done he declared himself ready to face the world. Custis Long stood well over six feet in height, lean and whipcord tough with broad shoulders and narrow hips. His features were craggy, tanned by years of exposure to the elements. He had brown hair and a brown handlebar mustache. His eyes could seem golden brown at times . . . or cold steel at others. He wore brown corduroy trousers, a brown tweed coat and checkerboard shirt. His gun belt was black leather, as were his knee-high cavalry boots. On his head he wore a flat-crowned brown Stetson. Once into the upstairs hallway in Maria Lourdes’s rented house—she was in Denver for a month or two to shop, she said—he paused to extract a long, slender cheroot from his inside coat pocket. He bit the twist off the tip and deposited the speck of tobacco into a decorative urn on the landing, struck a lucifer, and lighted his smoke, grateful for the flavor of it after being without for some hours. Maria Lourdes, it seemed, did not care for the scent of tobacco. On the ground floor he smiled and nodded to one of the lady’s housemaids, this one small and dark and wearing a frilly apron over a plain black dress. She had flour up to her wrists and he supposed she was busy setting dough for Maria Lourdes’s morning biscuits. It must be grand, he thought, to be rich and have a staff of house help to do every little thing for you. It was something he would never know. And really did not care. Maria Lourdes’s wealth and below-the-border genteel upbringing did not, however, keep her from liking to fuck like a crazed mink. After a very casual meeting in a café close to the state capitol building, she had worn Longarm near to a frazzle. Not that he minded. Now, however, he wanted to go home. Go to bed. And get a deep, if not a long, sleep before he reported in to the office in the morning. He had been idle here in Denver for several weeks now and was looking forward to an assignment. He smiled a little, remembering the evening. And the lady. Then he let himself out into the night. Chapter 2 Longarm woke too late to have breakfast at his boardinghouse. By the time he went downsta