“I’ve avoided prying into your past, Cassandra,” he said.

“As long as you’re serving a purpose here, I’m willing to let things stand.”

“Serving a purpose!” Cassandra fought back a scalding surge of tears. “Is that the only reason you’ve allowed me to stay, so that you can use me?”

His eyes had gone cold. “You’re getting what you came for, aren’t you? You’ve got a roof over your head, food in your belly and, at least, the trappings of respectability. What else could you want?”

“I want to be valued!” She hurled the words at him, struck by their truth. In the desperate months following Jake’s death she had thought that nothing mattered except having the means to provide for her child. But she’d been wrong. What she’d needed as much as food and shelter was to be of worth to the people she cared about…!

Wyoming Widow

Harlequin Historical #657

Acclaim for Elizabeth Lane’s latest books

Bride on the Run

“Enjoyable and satisfying all around, Bride on the Run is

an excellent Western romance you won’t want to miss!”

—Romance Reviews Today (romrevtoday.com)

Shawnee Bride

“A fascinating, realistic story.”

—Rendezvous

Apache Fire

“Enemies, lovers, raw passion, taut sexual tension,

murder and revenge—Indian romance fans are in for a

treat with Elizabeth Lane’s sizzling tale of forbidden love

that will hook you until the last moment.”

—Romantic Times

#655 BEAUTY AND THE BARON

Deborah Hale

#656 SCOUNDREL’S DAUGHTER

Margo Maguire

#658 THE OTHER BRIDE

Lisa Bingham

Wyoming Widow

Elizabeth Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin Historicals and ELIZABETH LANE

Wind River #28

Birds of Passage #92

Moonfire #150

MacKenna’s Promise #216

Lydia #302

Apache Fire #436

Shawnee Bride #492

Bride on the Run #546

My Lord Savage #569

Christmas Gold #627

“Jubal’s Gift”

Wyoming Widow #657

Other works include:

Silhouette Romance

Hometown Wedding #1194

The Tycoon and the Townie #1250

Silhouette Special Edition

Wild Wings, Wild Heart #936

To my mother, Beryl Washburn Young

1918–2002

The most valiant and beautiful heroine of all.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Laramie, Wyoming

June 10, 1879

“I know you’re in there, girlie,” the wheezy voice rasped through the thin planking of the door. “I heered you rustlin’ them papers in there like a purty li’l red-haired mouse! Open the door, now, so’s I won’t have to get out my key.”

Cassandra Logan huddled in the shadows beside the potbellied stove, her arms wrapped protectively around her bulging belly. Today was the first day of the month. The rent on the shack was due. The landlord, Seamus Hawkins, was here to collect.

And Cassandra had no money to give him.

Her stomach churned as her ears caught the jingle of his heavy key ring. In a moment he would be inside. Then what?

Things had gone from bad to worse in the seven months since her husband, Jake, had died in a gun-fight over a pretty blond saloon girl. For a time, scrubbing floors in the Union Pacific Hotel had brought Cassandra enough money for food and rent. But finding work was impossible now. What employer would hire a woman whose apron strings were wrapped beneath her armpits?

As the key slid into the lock, she forced herself to move. Cowering in the corner would only encourage Seamus to bully her—the last thing she needed at a time like this.

Before he could turn the knob, Cassandra swung the door open and stood facing him, arms akimbo, trying to look as fierce as possible. Since the man was at least twice her size, it was a ludicrous effort. He leered down at her, fat and unshaven, reeking of whiskey and garlic.

“Well, where is it?” he demanded, clearly savoring his power over her. “You knew I’d be comin’ ’round today.”

Cassandra willed herself not to writhe beneath his gaze. “I’ll have the rent by Monday,” she lied desperately. “Surely you can wait that long. I’ve always paid you on time.”

Seamus’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ll give you till this time tomorrow,” he said. “Have the rent in full by then, or it’s out you go. There be plenty folks needin’ a roof an’ able to pay.”

He took a step over the threshold. Cassandra’s stomach clenched as she sensed what was coming next.

“You know, girlie, there’s more’n one way to pay a man. You let me come ’round whenever I get a yen for somethin’ sweet, an’ you won’t owe me a cent.”

“I don’t think your wife would approve of that arrangement, Mr. Hawkins,” Cassandra said icily.

“What my old woman don’t know won’t hurt her none.” He winked slyly, edging closer as Cassandra battled gut-heaving panic. “This could be a li’l private business deal, just between you an’ me. I’d even buy you presents if you was nice to me. How about it, girlie?” His breath was warm and damp, his gaze hungry. “’Twouldn’t be so bad. You might even get to like it.” He groped for her, but Cassandra slipped away, moving back toward the stove, one hand fumbling for the iron kettle.

“Give me a chance to come up with the money,” she parried, stalling for time. “The other—that wouldn’t be a good idea with the baby—”

“Aww…I’d be careful. Truth be told, I’d take you over the money any day. ’Sides, ’twouldn’t be the worst if somethin’ did go wrong an’ you lost the young’un, you havin’ no husband and all. Why, a purty li’l thing like you, with no brat taggin’ along, you could—”

The words ended in a gasp as Cassandra flung the kettle at his head. White-hot rage fueled the impact of the blow. Seamus reeled backward, blood oozing down his temple. He lunged for her, but she spun out of reach, putting the stove between them as she bent to snatch the hatchet out of the wood box.

“What’ll it be, Seamus?” she hissed, gripping the weapon. “A finger? An eye, maybe? Take one step closer and you’ll find out.”

Seamus edged backward. Then, from a safer distance, he grinned at her. “So you like to play rough, eh, you little hellcat? Well, two can play at that game. If I didn’t have my old lady waitin’ down on the road in the buggy, I’d show you right now.” He turned toward the door, then paused, dabbing at his temple with a dirty handkerchief. “I’ll be back tomorrow to collect what’s owed me. An’ one way or another, girlie, you’d better be ready to pay, or you’ll be out in the street. An’ that’d be a damned, dirty shame, now, wouldn’t it?”

Spitting on the handkerchief, he wiped the blood from the side of his face, then turned away and ambled outside. Cassandra slammed the door shut behind him and barricaded it with a spindly chair propped against the knob. Not that it would stop a big man like Seamus Hawkins. When Seamus wanted to come in, he would. His wife had been waiting for him this time. But what about tomorrow?

Racked by stomach spasms, she sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed her hands to her face. Her limbs felt watery. Her skin was clammy with sweat. She had to get out of this place.

But how? Where could she go? What in heaven’s name would she do when the baby came?

Money—she would need money to get away. But she had so few treasures left to sell, and they were so dear—the garnet earrings that had been her grandmother’s; her grandfather’s fiddle; the gold locket with Jake’s picture in it—the only image of him their child would ever know. How could she part with any of them?

A raw wind, rank with the smell of the nearby stockyards, whistled through the cracks in the clapboard walls. Cassandra shivered, her stomach still churning from the encounter with Seamus Hawkins. A cup of hot chamomile tea would do wonders for her body and spirit, she thought. There were only a few sticks left in the wood box, but what did it matter if she wasted them? Tomorrow Seamus would be knocking on her door, demanding payment. She could not afford to be here when he arrived.

Groping on the floor, she found the kettle where it had bounced off Seamus’s head. Now for the stove—what a lucky thing she’d saved that discarded newspaper she’d found yesterday in the street. It would come in handy for lighting the fire.

Unfolding the paper, she ripped off the front page and began crumpling it to stuff into the stove. Suddenly her hands froze. Her eyes stared at the page.

There, smiling at her from beneath the headline, was the lean, handsome face of her late husband.

Cassandra’s knees went watery. She stumbled back to the bed and sank down on the mattress, her hands smoothing the creases out of the page as her disbelieving eyes scanned the headline: Rancher’s Son Missing, Feared Drowned.

She stared at the printed picture—a pen-and-ink drawing that some newspaper artist had copied from a photograph. Of course, it wasn’t really Jake. She had seen Jake dead in his coffin. But it was someone who looked uncannily like him.

Straining her eyes in the scant light, she struggled to make out the small print beneath.

“Ryan Tolliver, son of Wyoming Rancher Jacob Tolliver, was declared missing and presumed drowned last week when a dory containing his possessions washed ashore on the banks of the upper Yellowstone River. Tolliver, 23, had been completing a survey for the United States Department of the Interior, and was last seen alive on…”

Cassandra held the paper to the window, squinting in an effort to finish the article in the fading light. But it was becoming too dark to read the fine print, and she was loath to waste her one precious candle. The picture, however, was still visible in the semi-darkness. Only as she studied the handsome young face again did Cassandra realize she had seen Ryan Tolliver before—right here in Laramie at the Union Pacific Hotel.

It had been last November, she recalled, just a few weeks before Jake’s death. She’d been mopping the foyer when the tall young man strode in through the double doors, wearing chaps, spurs and a thick coating of snow and trail dust. Even then, Cassandra had been struck by his resemblance to her late husband. But she’d had no more than a few seconds to stare before he disappeared upstairs. Half an hour later he’d come down again, washed, clean shaven and looking even more like Jake than before. Whistling an airy tune, he’d walked out the front door and headed straight for Flossie’s House of Blossoms across the street. That was the last she’d seen of him.

But now, as she studied the picture in the paper, Cassandra had no doubt that the man she’d noticed months ago was Ryan Tolliver.

Smoothing the wrinkled page, she laid it on the table, then turned to fill the kettle from the water bucket. She had not really known Ryan Tolliver, but the sense of his loss weighed on her spirit. He had seemed so happy that winter evening, so young and strong and vital. Cassandra could well imagine what the Tolliver family must be going through now as they waited for the news that would end all their hopes.

Crumpling a back page from the paper, she stuffed it into the dark belly of the stove, added two sticks of wood and lit a single match. Shadows danced on the moldering walls as the fire flickered to a steady blaze. Cassandra put the kettle on the open burner to heat. Then she turned back toward the open shelf to find the store of chamomile she kept in an old jelly jar.

Only then did she notice the way the fire flickered through the grate, casting a finger of golden light across the low table—a finger of light that pointed straight toward the smiling image of Ryan Tolliver.

Could it be a sign?

Cassandra stared at the picture, the tea forgotten as a plan sprang up in her mind—a plan so audacious and risk-fraught that only a woman in her desperate state would have thought of it.

For the space of a long breath she hesitated, weighing the idea. It was dangerous. Worse, it was dishonest, even cruel. No, she resolved, her grandparents hadn’t raised her to be a cheat and a liar. She simply could not do it. She would live on the street first!

And the street was exactly where she was headed.

Cassandra sagged against the table, her hands clenching into tight fists. Blast Jake Logan anyway! Why had he gone to the saloon on that awful December night? Why had he gotten himself shot in that silly fight over a dance hall floozy instead of just coming home to her?

But then, she’d asked herself that question too many times not to know the answer. She wasn’t beautiful like the women in that painted and perfumed world. She was small and wiry to the point of scrawniness, with a rag-doll mop of cherry-colored curls and freckles that popped out at the barest touch of sunlight on her skin. Worse, she’d never known the right words to say to a man—words that would make him puff up his chest and feel like a hero. She was as blunt and honest as the grandmother who’d raised her, and if more vinegar than honey fell from her tongue, so be it. Pretense was not in her nature.

Maybe that was the reason Jake hadn’t treated her better. When he wanted to, he could be sweet and tender. But sometimes, especially when he’d been drinking, he could be downright mean. Cassandra had hoped the baby would change things. But on the very night she’d planned to share her news, Jake Logan had died. He had died with his pants down in a tawdry upstairs room, never knowing he was to be a father.

Deep in her body Cassandra felt a little flutter kick, then a shifting motion as her baby turned and stretched in its warm, secret world. Wonder flooded her heart as she smoothed the apron over the growing bulge, feeling for the tiny life that pulsed and stirred beneath her hands. Soon she would have a child, a sweet baby all her own to love and care for. Heaven willing, she would never be alone again.

But what could she offer this child? A safe home with food on the table? The closeness and joy of a family? A secure future with the promise of a fine education?

Cassandra choked back a whimper of despair. She had nothing to offer her baby except love. To provide the rest, she would sacrifice anything—her own pride, her own life.

But even in her desperation, she could not imagine carrying out the wild scheme that had lodged in her mind. To take advantage of a grieving family would compromise everything she knew to be right and good. She would never be able to look at her own reflection in the mirror without a spasm of self-loathing.

No, it was out of the question.

All the same, the story of Ryan Tolliver’s disappearance was intriguing. Cassandra could not resist wanting to know more.

The newspaper article lay on the table, begging to be read. Strangely agitated, she rummaged for another match and lit the candle she’d been hoarding. The story took up just two printed columns. She would only need a few minutes of precious light to read it.

Placing the candle where its light would fall on the open page, she finished making the tea. Then, cradling the chipped white cup between her hands, she sank onto a wooden box and began to read.

The room was a blanket of darkness around her, the tea warm and comforting in her belly. By the time she reached the second column of the news article the print had begun to blur. Cassandra’s eyelids drooped lower and lower. She had been up since dawn looking for work, and she was tired. So very tired…

Startled, she jerked awake. The candle had guttered to half its original length. She had dozed off, Cassandra realized groggily. What time was it? What had awakened her?

As she leaned forward to blow out the candle, plunging the room into full darkness, she heard the low metallic click of a key sliding into a lock.

Instantly wide-awake, she sprang to brace the door. It crashed open, knocking her to one side as Seamus Hawkins lurched across the threshold.

“Awright, girlie.” His voice was slurred, and his body stank of cheap whiskey. “I’m back t’ finish what we started. No need t’ fight me, now. You’ll start likin’ it once I git it ’twixt them sweet little legs o’ yours.”

Cassandra had been thrown back against the wall. As he stumbled toward her, she groped for a weapon, anything she could use to defend herself.

Her hand closed on an iron bootjack with a weighted base—a silly extravagance, she’d called it when Jake had brought it home, as if a man couldn’t pull off his boots with his own two hands. It was heavy and solid, but not long enough to keep Seamus at a distance. Her best chance lay in keeping away from him until she could reach the door and flee into the night.

Hoping to confuse him, she picked up a tin cup from the counter and tossed it across the room. It clattered in the darkness, bouncing against a table leg and onto the floor. Distracted, Seamus swung toward the sound, allowing Cassandra a split second to change her position. Not that it made any difference. He still stood between her and the door.

She shrank into a shadowed corner of the tiny cabin. The mica panes on the door of the stove glowed like little red eyes, giving the darkness a hellish cast. And it would be hell if he caught her. Being raped was unspeakable enough, but if he should hurt her baby, her darling…

Cassandra’s grip tightened on the bootjack. She could hear the rasp of breath in her throat—the breath of a hunted, desperate animal.

Seamus must have heard it, too, for he suddenly turned, blocking the light of the stove as he lumbered straight toward her. “I got you cornered now, you little hellcat!” he wheezed. “Now, I won’t mind if you put up a fuss. A good rasslin’ match gits me as hard as a—”

Cassandra flung the bootjack at his head with all her strength. It glanced off his forehead, doing only superficial damage, but the blow was enough to throw him off balance. As he reeled backward, out of control, one foot landed on the tin cup that had rolled to the middle of the floor. For a split second his legs splayed wildly. His arms flailed like berserk windmills. With a shriek, he pitched backward.

Cassandra heard the awful crunch of bone as the back of his head struck a corner of the iron stove. Then Seamus Hawkins crashed to the floor and lay still.

Chapter Two

Morgan Tolliver stood on the porch of the sprawling log-and-stone ranch house. His raven eyes, a legacy from his Shoshone mother, narrowed as they studied the afternoon sky.

Virga. That’s what they called the phantom rain that hung below the clouds, vaporizing in the heat before the drops could reach the ground. His eyes could see rain, his nostrils could even smell it. But he knew this ghost rain would do nothing for the sun-parched land. There would be no relief today from the searing drought that had turned the rich Wyoming grass to straw and the water holes to dust wallows.

Even the reservoir, which, two months ago had been filled with runoff from the spring snow melt, was getting perilously low. Once the water was gone, there’d be no way to irrigate the new hayfields he’d planted to keep the cattle fed over the next winter.

Everything, it seemed, had gone bad since the news of Ryan’s disappearance. Morgan’s long brown hands tightened on the porch rail as he thought of his spirited young half brother—laughing, reckless Ryan, the darling of the ranch and the apple of their aging father’s eye. During his growing-up years, the boy had dogged Morgan’s footsteps like an adoring puppy. It was Morgan who had taught him to swim and wrestle, Morgan who had put him on his first pony and helped him rope his first calf. Now Ryan had vanished, and it was as if his loss had sucked the life out of the earth itself.

Why in God’s name did it have to be Ryan? Morgan asked himself for perhaps the hundredth time. Why not me instead?

He was turning to go back inside when a faint plume of dust on the far horizon caught his eye. Someone—or something—was moving along the road, toiling its way toward the house.

Morgan’s heart contracted as he watched the dust materialize into a dark shape that looked more like a wagon than a single rider. Could it be someone with news about Ryan—or Ryan himself? Or would it turn out to be nothing more than a wandering stranger in need of a meal and a bed?

“Who is it? Can you tell?” His father had come out onto the porch, his chair rolling across the planks on silent wheels. Jacob Tolliver had aged in the three weeks since word of Ryan’s disappearance had reached the ranch. His face was drawn, his hands and voice unsteady. He spent his days seated at the tall parlor windows, watching the empty road with his field glass, which he now thrust into Morgan’s hand. “Your eyes are sharper than mine. Take a look. Tell me what you see.”

Morgan raised the glass to his eye and trained the lens on the road. He could make it out now—a weather-beaten buckboard that lurched through the ruts on its wobbling wheels, looking as if every yard gained might be its last. A single spavined mule staggered along in the traces, favoring a lame right fore-foot. The whole sad conveyance was so thickly coated with dust that it looked like a ghost apparition emerging through shimmering waves of heat.

The lone driver was hunched over the reins, a small figure in a slouchy felt hat who looked to be either a boy or a shriveled old man. Morgan sharpened the focus of the glass in an effort to see more. Then, giving up, he shifted his attention to what might be inside the wagon.

In this, too, he was left unsatisfied. The rim of a barrel, probably for water, showed above the warped planking along the sides. Any other cargo on the wagon bed was hidden from view.

What could such a decrepit rig be bringing to the ranch?

A coffin?

With Ryan’s body in it?

“Who is it?” Jacob Tolliver’s voice crackled with impatience. “Can you tell? Is it your brother?”

“No.” Morgan shook his head as he lowered the field glass. “It’s someone else. A stranger.”

Handing the glass back to his father, he strode down the steps and across the dusty yard toward the corral. If Ryan’s body was in the back of that wagon, he needed to find out now, so he could do his best to cushion the blow for the old man.

The buckskin mare pricked her ears at his whistle and trotted over to the open gate. Morgan slipped the bridle over her head and buckled the throat latch. Without taking time for the saddle, he sprang Indian fashion onto her back and galloped out to meet the wagon.

The driver of the tottering buckboard straightened on the seat as Morgan approached but made no effort to wave or shout. Probably didn’t have any strength left, Morgan groused. Who would send such a helpless little runt out here alone in a rig that looked like it was about to collapse? It was a wonder the mule and driver hadn’t been picked off by coyotes along the way.

The wagon had stopped. Morgan slowed the mare to a walk as he approached, aware of the eyes that watched him intently from beneath the brim of the dusty felt hat.

“Don’t come any farther, mister.” The voice was small and throaty. A young voice. Just a boy, Morgan surmised, and the youngster was probably scared out of his wits.

But never mind, it was the contents of the wagon that concerned Morgan most. He edged closer, steeling his emotions against the sight of his brother’s remains.

“I’m warning you, mister.” The words held a gritty edge. “I’ve got a Colt .45. It’s loaded and pointed straight at your heart.”

Morgan reined in the mare, wondering if there was anything behind the threat. The only sign of a weapon was a bulge beneath the outsized denim jacket. Probably nothing—but this was no time to be wrong, especially since he himself was unarmed.

“I won’t hurt you, boy,” he said quietly. “I just want to see what you’ve got in the back of that wagon.”

“I’ve got nothing worth stealing, if that’s what you’re after.” The youthful voice shook slightly. “Now get out of my way before I drill you like a grub-thieving possum!”

Morgan’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “Big words from such a little man,” he said, calling the youth’s bluff. “Why don’t you climb down from that wagon and show me how tough you really are?”

Silence.

“Then let me see that pistol you’re so keen on using,” Morgan demanded.

The huddled figure sat like a small, defiant lump of stone. Morgan felt the tension easing out of his body. But the dread remained like a cold knot in the pit of his stomach. If Ryan’s body was in the back of the wagon, he had to face that reality and to deal with whatever came next.

“All right, we’re going to play this my way,” he said. “Tell me who you are and what you’re doing on Tolliver land.”

“This…is Tolliver land?” The husky voice carried a note of incredulity. “You work for the Tollivers?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Morgan took advantage of the stranger’s surprise to nudge the mare closer to the wagon. His heart leaped with relief as he glanced over the side and saw nothing but a tattered bedroll, a moth-eaten carpetbag and the water barrel he’d noticed earlier. His worst fears had not come to pass, thank God. But something strange was going on, and the young whelp in the wagon had some explaining to do.

“I’ve answered your question,” Morgan said irritably. “Now you can damned well answer mine and tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I…” The youth seemed suddenly tongue-tied. Something about the small figure suddenly struck Morgan as odd—the set of the shoulders, the downcast face beneath the floppy old hat, the air of vulnerability that touched a long-buried chord of tenderness in him—a tenderness he swiftly masked.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, boy?” he snapped. “You didn’t come all this way for nothing! Stand up! Let me have a look at you!”

For the space of a breath there was silence. Then slowly the mysterious figure rose. Now, beneath the hat brim, Morgan could see the lower part of the beardless face—the narrow but firm chin, the full, disturbingly sensual mouth. The baggy denim duster hung like a tent on the slight body, hiding everything except for lower down, near the waist, where it was stretched tight, almost as if—

Morgan’s jaw dropped. “What the devil—”

He had no time to say more as the stranger swayed for an instant, then, with a little moan, toppled headlong over the side of the wagon.

Reacting instinctively, Morgan grabbed for the falling body and managed to catch it beneath the arms. The sudden dead weight almost pulled him off his mount, but the mare, trained as a cow pony, leaned outward to compensate until he was able to balance the burden across his knees.

Only then did he have time to look down.

For a long moment he simply stared, cursing under his breath as his eyes took in the wild, impossibly red mop of curls that had spilled free of the old hat; the pale, heart-shaped face with its almost childlike features; the tiny freckles that sprinkled the porcelain skin like cinnamon specks on fresh cream.

Small and limp, she lay in his arms. Her eyelids, fringed with thick taffy-colored lashes, were tightly closed. What color would those eyes be? Morgan found himself wondering. Sky-blue? Green and sly like a bobcat’s. He had known a number of redheaded women in his youth. No two had been the same.

He knew what he would see when he forced his eyes lower—his arms had already felt the ripe weight of her swollen body. How far along was she? Seven months? Eight? Lord, she looked so young, so helpless, more child than woman. What in blazes was she doing out here alone? How far had she come, and—an even more pressing question—why had she come?

She moaned, rooting against his chest like a young animal seeking comfort. Morgan willed himself to ignore the swelling heat in the depths of his body. The woman appeared to be suffering from too much sun, compounded by her delicate condition. He needed to get her to the house and get some water into her. Any questions would have to wait until she’d had time to recover.

He paused an instant longer, weighing the wisdom of putting her back in the wagon to move her. No, he resolved swiftly, it would be faster to take her like this, on his own mount. He could send a couple of the hands out for the wagon and the mule.

Gripping the mare with his knees, Morgan shifted the young woman’s body in his arms to balance her weight for the ride to the house. Her head fell back, lolling over his arm, revealing the small gold locket that nestled in the creamy hollow of her throat.

Driven by a strange impulse, Morgan lifted his free hand and brushed the gleaming heart with the tip of his index finger. The catch must have been weak or broken, because the halves of the locket parted at his touch, falling open to form two miniature hearts where there had been one.

In the section that bore the ring and chain, carefully cut and glued into place, was a miniature portrait. He bent closer to see it, painfully aware of the young woman in his arms, the warm, musky scent of her filling his nostrils, teasing his senses.

Was the man framed in the little gold heart the father of her child? Did she expect him to be here at the ranch, one of the cowhands, maybe? The fact that she wore no wedding ring suggested that, whoever he was, the bastard had done her wrong. Maybe a shotgun wedding was in order.

Morgan’s eyes narrowed, squinting in an effort to focus the tiny heart-shaped image. Then the truth hit him with the force of a gut punch. The breath exploded from his lungs as he recognized the blurred but familiar face.

Ryan’s face.

Cassandra stirred and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was an expanse of whitewashed ceiling crossed by dark wooden beams. As her senses began to clear, she became aware that she was lying on her back, fully clothed except for her boots, hat and duster. A soft pillow cradled her head and a cool, wet cloth lay across her brow.

What had happened to her? Cassandra struggled to collect her thoughts but her heat-fogged brain refused to obey her will. Her mind contained nothing but the echoing creak of wagon wheels, the plodding of weary hooves, the blinding glare of the sun—and the dim awareness, now, of silence and cool shadow. Her limbs felt weightless, oddly detached from her body, with no power to move.

Was this how it felt to be dead?

As she lay staring into whiteness, something twitched below her taut navel. She felt a flutter then a resounding thump. Cassandra’s eyes opened wide in wonder and relief. Her baby was moving. She was alive. They were both alive.

Her hands moved to her swollen belly, palms feeling the precious motion. As her memory began to clear, her thoughts flashed to that awful moment when she’d stood over her landlord’s body, her heart pounding in helpless terror. She remembered the frantic rush to leave town, to be gone before someone opened the shack and set the law on her trail.

Her mind swept backward now, over days beneath the vast, open sky, over nights huddled in terror beneath the creaky old wagon she’d bought and paid for with her grandfather’s fiddle…back to that point of decision when she’d abandoned every principle by which she’d ever lived.

This is for you, my sweet one, she thought, cradling the bulge of her unborn child between her hands. The danger, the deceit, all of it. All for you…

“You’ve got some tall explaining to do, lady.”

The masculine voice, so deep it was almost a growl, caused Cassandra’s pulse to jerk as if she’d been dropped in her sleep. When she turned her head in the direction of the voice, she saw the man sitting a scant pace from the bed, his rangy body overflowing the wooden rocker where he sat. His eyes were the color and hardness of cast iron, his hair as black as an Indian’s. His grim, aloof face might have been handsome had it contained a modicum of warmth or humor. It did not.

She remembered him now—sitting bareback, like a warrior, on his buckskin horse, dust swirling around him as he blocked her way, demanding to know her business. She had not liked his manner then. She liked it no better now.

“What have you done with my rig?” she demanded, struggling to sit up.

“First you drink. Then we talk.” He rose to his feet, picked up a tall pewter mug from the table beside the bed and tilted the rim to her mouth. The water inside was clean and cold, and Cassandra was bone-dry. Seizing the mug, she tipped it upward, gulping frantically as she spilled water into her parched throat.

“Whoa, there.” He clasped her wrist, forcing her to lower the mug. “Take it slow, or you’ll make yourself sick. Do you understand?” When she nodded, he released her and eased back into the chair.

Cassandra wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand. Her eyes glanced furtively around the small room. Its whitewashed walls were bare except for a tanned, painted buckskin hanging opposite the closed door. The only other furnishings were a washstand with a china pitcher and basin, a small side table next to the bed and the leather-backed rocker where the stranger sat, watching her every move. She emptied the mug in measured sips, then placed it on the side table.

“I asked you about my rig,” she said.

“Your wagon broke an axle on the way in.” His voice was brittle and strangely cold. “What’s left of it is still in the road, waiting to be chopped up and hauled to the woodshed for kindling. As for that bag of bones you call a mule he’s in the corral stuffing his belly with hay and oats—probably eaten more than he’s worth already.”

Cassandra masked a surge of relief. She had grown attached to the surly old mule, her sole companion for the past six days. And even the news about the wagon was good. It lessened the chance that this self-appointed guardian of the Tolliver Ranch would simply show her the road and send her back the way she’d come.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said cautiously.

“You can thank me by answering my questions.”

“Which you have yet to ask me,” Cassandra retorted. “For that matter, you haven’t even introduced yourself. Do you work for the Tollivers?”

His eyes regarded her coldly. “Ryan didn’t tell you about his family?”

Cassandra felt her heart drop. He was trying to trap her already, this grim, raw-edged man who had “enemy” written all over him. If she allowed him to outmaneuver her, she might just as well be back in Laramie fending off Seamus Hawkins.

Only then did it hit her that he had mentioned Ryan—speaking as if he already knew the story she’d planned to tell. Dear heaven, how could that be? Had he read her mind, or—

Her hand crept to her throat, fingers groping for the locket with Jake’s picture inside.

“Are you looking for this?”

She saw the locket, then, dangling from his clenched fist. His narrowed eyes cut into her like flints. It would be difficult to lie to such a man, Cassandra thought. But that was exactly what she planned to do—had to do for the sake of her child.

“Give me my locket,” she said. “You had no right to take it from me.”

“I have the right to know what’s going on here,” he retorted. “When was the last time you saw my brother?”

“Your brother?” She blinked dazedly at the looming figure.

“I’ll wager you don’t even know my name. Do you?” he challenged her.

Cassandra shook her head, mentally cursing herself for having missed this vital scrap of information.

“It’s Morgan. Morgan Tolliver,” he snarled. “Now answer my question. When did you see him last?”

“In—in Cheyenne—last November.” Cassandra stammered out the half-truth she’d gleaned from a clerk at the Union Pacific Hotel, who recalled that Ryan had paid him a generous tip to carry his bags to the depot, where he’d boarded the train for Cheyenne. Now, too late, she realized she should have tried to learn more about the Tolliver family. The newspaper article had mentioned nothing about a brother, only a father. And this forbidding man, with his black hair and mahogany skin, bore no resemblance to the laughing, golden-eyed Ryan.

Cassandra’s heart sank lower. What else had she failed to learn? How could she cover herself long enough to play the single trump she held?

“Ryan didn’t talk much about his family,” she said, feeling the ugly weight as she crossed deeper into falsehood. “I…had the feeling there were things he didn’t want me to know. But nothing would have made any difference. I was in love. And so was he—or so I thought at the time.” Cassandra lowered her eyes artfully, writhing with self-disgust. “I fear your brother took advantage of me, Mr. Tolliver. He left Cheyenne without even saying goodbye, and I never heard from him again.”

The man’s expressive mouth scowled. His obsidian gaze never left her as he reached into his deerskin vest and drew out the battered newspaper page that Cassandra had kept in the pocket of her canvas duster. Slowly he unfolded it, taking his time before he thrust it toward her.

“So you saw this and decided to pay us a visit, did you, Miss—”

“Riley,” she said, giving her maiden name. “Cassandra Riley. And yes, that’s what happened. I don’t know if Ryan’s alive or dead, but I thought it right that this child be born here, among his family. Besides—” she cast him what she hoped was a poignant glance “—I had nowhere else to go.”

“Very touching.” His mouth twitched contemptuously. “Let me give you my own version of your story, Miss Riley. My brother liked his women, all right, but he liked them ripe and experienced, with no hidden snares. He would never have taken advantage of someone like…you.”

“But he—”

“Let me finish. I don’t believe you even knew my brother—at least not well enough to be carrying his child. Under circumstances that are none of my concern, you found yourself with child, saw the newspaper story and decided to take advantage of a grieving family.” His dark eyes probed her soul, searching out the lies, the deceit.

“What about the locket?” Cassandra protested. “You saw the picture yourself.”

“A photograph glued into a piece of cheap jewelry doesn’t prove a thing,” he snapped. “Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.”

Cassandra forced herself to meet those accusing eyes. Ryan Tolliver’s brother had seen through her subterfuge. He had her dead to rights. Maybe if she confessed now he would let her stay. Surely a large ranch like this could use one more cook, laundress or housekeeper.

But no—his pitiless gaze told her she had already carried her gamble too far. If she told this man the truth, he would put her on the road himself, or, worse, have her arrested for fraud. She had no choice except to continue the dangerous game, no choice except to play the one trump card that remained to her.

Cassandra dropped her gaze to her where her hands lay clasped protectively over the roundness of her belly. Slowly, deliberately, she gathered her resolve. When she looked up again, her eyes were clear, and when she spoke, her voice was as calm as a frozen lake.

“Ryan had a scar,” she said, “a jagged white scar, running like a streak of lightning up the inside of his left thigh. He came by it, as I recall, at the age of fourteen when he was gored by a bull elk he’d wounded with his first rifle.”

Silence hung leaden in the small room as Morgan Tolliver rose to his feet and stood over Cassandra’s bed. His wind-burnished features might as well have been chiseled from stone. But even he could not mask the emotions that flickered in those anthracite eyes.

Had she reached him? Had the information she’d taken precious time to buy from Yvette, the youngest and prettiest of Flossie’s girls, been worth the price of her grandmother’s garnet earrings? Cassandra’s future, and the future of her child, hung on the outcome of the next few seconds.

Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched his face and waited.

Chapter Three

Her eyes were the color of violets in a spring meadow. Gazing down into their too-innocent depths, Morgan had to force himself to believe this child-woman was lying. Damnation, she had to be lying! It wasn’t like Ryan to get mixed up with such a creature. He’d preferred his women ripe and voluptuous. Cassandra Riley was all eyes and freckles and wild red hair, with barely enough body to contain the child she carried. Even if they’d been acquainted in Cheyenne, Morgan couldn’t imagine his brother would have given her a second glance.

Unless, against all odds, Ryan had fallen in love with her…

But no, even that didn’t make sense. Ryan had a wild streak, but he was decent at heart. If he’d cared for the girl, he would never have run out on her.

She was lying through her pretty little teeth. That’s all there was to it.

But how in blazes, then, did she know about the scar?

“What else do you know about Ryan?” he asked, his voice emerging rough and raw from the tightness of his throat.

“That he was kind and gentle and loved to laugh,” she replied softly. “He never knew about the baby. If he had, things might be different now.”

Morgan felt his jaw muscles tighten as her meaning sank home. If Ryan had known about the baby, maybe he’d have married the poor girl. Maybe he’d have brought her back to the ranch and settled down instead of signing up for that God-cursed government survey expedition.

But this line of thinking was crazy. He was staggering along the edge of believing her, and he couldn’t afford to let himself step over the line. She was a fraud, plain and simple. He’d known it from the moment he set eyes on her.

But what if he was wrong?

What if this conniving little waif was carrying Ryan’s child—the last, best hope that Jacob Tolliver’s line would continue?

Morgan scowled down at the girl, weighing the elements of what he knew. Jacob had always wanted grandsons. When Morgan’s own brief marriage had soured and ended, the old man had shifted his hopes to Ryan. Now those hopes were fading, and Jacob’s life was fading with them. If Ryan failed to return, Morgan feared his father would die of grief.

Unless, woven amid the gloom, some bright thread of promise could be found.

Jacob had not been told about the locket. The old man knew only that a young woman in a broken-down wagon had wandered onto the ranch, alone, pregnant and in desperate need of help. Morgan dared not risk revealing the rest of the story. Not, at least, until he knew the truth of it.

“I’m not asking for charity, mind you.” Her small but determined voice broke into his thoughts. “I’m a hard worker, and I intend to earn every cent of my keep.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Morgan’s gaze flickered downward to the swollen belly beneath the baggy plaid shirt, thinking that there hardly seemed enough of her to carry so much bulk.

“I can cook and wash with the best of them,” she declared. “And while I’m resting up after the baby comes, I can always darn stockings and mend whatever else needs it. I’m a fair hand with a needle and thread.” Her eyes moved to the front of his shirt. “That includes sewing on…buttons.”

Morgan glanced down at his chest. He bit back a twitch at the corner of his mouth as he noticed the loose button, dangling by a single thread, halfway down his shirt.

“Did you happen to rescue my carpetbag from the wagon?” she asked. “I packed my sewing basket inside. Fetch it for me, and I’ll give you a demonstration.”

“Your demonstration can wait.” Morgan edged backward, determined not to give the redheaded charlatan an opening, but she had already spotted her battered valise in the corner where he had dropped it.

“There it is. If you wouldn’t mind—”

“Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I’m not an invalid,” she said. “In any case I can’t imagine that using my fingers will put too much strain on my delicate condition. Now, are you going to bring me that carpetbag and cooperate, or do I have to tie you to the bed and sew on that button by force?”

The mental picture her words painted was so ludicrous that Morgan could not suppress a smile. “All right,” he sighed, reaching for the carpetbag. “You win this round. But I’m not finished with you, Miss Cassandra Riley. Not by a long shot.”

“I’m sure you’re not.” She caught the bag as he tossed it, her small, freckled hands as deft as a boy’s. “Now, please be kind enough to take off your shirt.”

Cassandra’s trembling fingers closed on the sewing basket, where it lay crammed in a corner of the hastily packed carpetbag. She struggled to avert her eyes as Morgan Tolliver slipped off his deerskin vest, laid it over the back of the chair, then began to unbutton his sun-bleached cotton work shirt. She had seen her share of half-clad men—Jake, of course, and a few hotel guests who’d startled her to flight when she’d come to clean what she thought was a vacant room. But this man’s bearing was so aloof, his body so lithe and sinewy that she could not resist watching him. He lured her gaze like a cougar slipping out of its own pelt.

Most men she knew wore long johns even in summer. But Morgan Tolliver was bare beneath the shirt, his muscles stretching lean and taut beneath golden mahogany skin. The rose-brown dots of his nipples caught glints of light as he tugged the shirttail free from the waistband of his worn denim pants, stripped the shirt from his arms and tossed it on the bed. A leather pouch the size of a baby’s shoe dangled from a thong around his neck. When he moved, light glinted on the delicate beading and quillwork that adorned the outside.

His eyes watched her every move as she opened the sewing basket, selected a spool of brown thread and snipped off enough length to sew on the button. Willing herself to ignore his open scrutiny, she found a needle and held it up so the light would fall on its eye. Her hands shook as she tried to force the thread through the tiny hole. Her sun-dazzled eyes began to water, blurring her sight as she wet the cut end to a point and tried again and again.

“Here.” His callused fingers brushed hers as he took the needle from her hands and threaded it deftly. “You look like you could use some sleep. I can sew on the button myself.”

“No.” Cassandra snatched the shirt close to her body, as if challenging him to take it from her. “I’ll do it. It’s become a matter of principle. Give me that needle.”

“Principle!” He dropped the threaded needle into her outstretched hand, then lowered himself into the rocker. His savage eyes seemed to burn through her, all the way to her deceptive little heart.

Cassandra knotted the thread and positioned the button, forcing her fingers to perform the familiar task. “I must say, you’re nothing like Ryan,” she said.

“Ryan’s my half brother,” he replied. “My mother was the daughter of a Shoshone medicine man. Ryan’s mother was a pretty blond schoolteacher our father brought home from Saint Louis. She died nine years later, trying to give Ryan a baby sister. Women don’t seem to last long out here. Not white women at least.”

“I’m…sorry.”

“I take it you and Ryan didn’t spend much time talking.”

The edge in his voice made Cassandra want to slap him. “Whatever you’re thinking, you can stop right now,” she retorted hotly. “I didn’t come here to be insulted like—like—”

“Like what?” he demanded when she failed to finish her sentence. “Like a tramp? Like a whore, even? Is that how you came to know about the scar on Ryan’s leg, Miss Cassandra Riley?”

Cassandra’s fingers froze in midstitch. The shirt dropped unheeded to the quilt as she glared at him, masking her shame with fury. She was not what Morgan had just called her. But under the circumstances, she was certainly no better. At least whores were honest about who they were and what they did.

“I loved Ryan,” she said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “And he loved me—at least I thought he did. He was the only one—the only one ever. As for you—” She caught up the shirt and flung it at his exposed chest. “You can sew on your own damned button!”

Morgan did not stir. He let the shirt slide to his lap, his impassive granite features concealing his thoughts. An eternity seemed to pass before he so much as breathed—a weary exhalation that drained away the tension in his body.

“Do you want to stay, Cassandra?” he asked in a low voice. “Do you want shelter here, for yourself and your baby?”

Cassandra felt her jaw go slack. She stared at him. “Of course I do,” she whispered. “Why else would I have come all this way?”

“Then listen to me,” he said, placing the shirt on the bed, at a neutral distance between them. “There are some things you must understand—and some promises you must make.”

“Promises?”

“If you stay, it’s going to be on my terms,” he said. “Otherwise, first thing tomorrow, I’ll get a wagon with a couple of drivers to haul you back to Cheyenne, or wherever it is you came from. Do you agree?”

“I’ll hold my answer until I’ve heard your terms, if you don’t mind.” Cassandra brushed back the damp tangle of her hair, her heart thundering. “You said there were things I needed to understand.”

He leaned forward in the chair, his Shoshone eyes impaling her like flint-tipped arrows. “First of all, I don’t trust you any farther than I can throw a full-grown buffalo. Is that understood?”

She nodded, struggling to hold her tongue.

“Until I have proof to the contrary, I’ve no choice except to assume you’re lying—about Ryan, about everything.”

“And if I’m telling the truth?” Cassandra met his gaze straight on even though she was jelly inside. “You’ve no proof either way, you know. Not until the baby comes, and perhaps not even then.” Deliberately she picked up the shirt, located the dangling needle and resumed the task of sewing on the loose button. The shirt was slightly warm, its weathered folds releasing the subtle aromas of trail dust, horses and strong lye soap.

“That,” he said, watching her, “is why I’m prepared to make a bargain with you.”

“What sort of bargain?” She cocked a cynical eyebrow, knowing she could not let him see how desperate she was.

Morgan shifted in the chair, leaning toward her now. Through the half-open shutter, the late afternoon sun cast harsh, slanting lines across his face. It was not a gentle face, Cassandra thought, or even a particularly handsome face. Sharp bones jutted beneath his wind-burnished skin, hooding his eyes in deep shadow. He sat lightly, the open locket dangling from his fingers.

“Downstairs on the porch, there’s an old man who’s the heart and soul of this ranch,” he said. “Jacob Tolliver came to this place as a trapper while the country was still wild. He married into the Shoshone tribe, bought land while it was cheap, and went on to build everything you’ll see here. You were likely driving your wagon across the Tolliver Ranch all morning.

“Six years ago, out on the range, my father was struck by lightning. We found him in a gully the next morning, pinned under his dead horse with his back broken in three places. Since then he’s been in a wheelchair, and hated every minute of it.”

Morgan had turned toward the window, his profile craggy against the slanting light. “The one bright spot in my father’s life has been Ryan. Now, with every day that passes, the old man’s growing more frail. If Ryan doesn’t come back, I fear he’ll have nothing left to live for.”

He’ll have you! The words sprang to Cassandra’s lips, but she bit them back without speaking. She had no business meddling in family relationships, she reminded herself.

But then, hadn’t she done that already?

“I won’t have him hurt again.” Morgan had turned back to face her, his eyes challenging everything she’d told him. “If that baby you’re carrying is really Ryan’s, the promise of a grandchild could make my father’s life worth hanging on to. But if you’re lying—if you’re nothing but a cheap little opportunist who’s come to take advantage of a family tragedy—”

He swallowed the surging anger in his voice. “If that’s the case, and my father learns the truth, the disappointment could kill him as surely as a bullet through the heart.”

Cassandra forced herself not to cringe under the blazing scrutiny of his eyes. She forced her fingers to move, plying the needle with a steadiness that belied her galloping pulse. It was already too late for the truth. She had come too far, said too much. Nothing mattered now except providing a secure future for her baby.

“Ask yourself this,” she said quietly. “If this baby weren’t Ryan’s, would I have come all this way, at such risk? Would I have traveled alone, for six long, miserable days in that rickety old wagon, just to find your family?”

“You’re not the one asking questions here,” he said. “I am.”

Cassandra returned his stony gaze, her mind groping for some point of safety. Morgan would check out her story, that much was certain. But she had already laid a false trail to Cheyenne. As for the rest, she and Jake had married in Nebraska, arriving in Laramie only a few months before his death. Even as Cassandra Logan, her past would not be easy to trace. Barring the unforeseen, Morgan would find nothing to disprove her claim.

Unless Ryan Tolliver turned up alive.

But that was a gamble she had already resolved to take.

“You said you were prepared to bargain,” she reminded him.

Morgan nodded grimly. “I’m giving you one last chance to come clean,” he said. “Tell me the baby isn’t my brother’s. I’ll see you safely back to Cheyenne, give you three hundred dollars toward a new start, and forget I ever laid eyes on you. No questions asked. Under the circumstances, I’d say that’s a generous offer.”

For the space of a breath Cassandra weighed his words. Morgan’s offer was indeed a generous one. If she accepted it, the money would take her anywhere she wanted to go and provide food and shelter until she could get on her feet once more. It would pay for the services of a midwife, buy warm blankets and clothes for the baby.

It would give her an honest escape from the deepening tangle of lies she had woven.

But she had not come here to be bought off. She had come here to secure a future for her child. Even now, as she studied Morgan’s granite face through a haze of sunlight, she sensed he was testing her. Pass that test, and she might have everything she had hoped for.

“What if I refuse your offer?” she asked softly.

“Why would you refuse?”

She steeled herself for the lie. “Because whatever happens to me, Ryan’s child deserves to grow up on this ranch, as a Tolliver.”

His dark eyes flickered. “This is your last chance,” he said. “Stay, and you’re on probation until I can check out your story. If I find out you’ve lied, you’ll go to prison for fraud, and your baby will go to an orphanage. Do you understand?”

Cassandra gulped back the lump of fear that had congealed in her throat. Her fingers were so clammy with sweat they could barely hold the needle. The baby stirred, one tiny foot pushing upward in a solid kick beneath her ribs.

“I understand,” she said.

“Until your story can be proved, you’ll take your orders from me. My father’s not to know anything about your claim until I say so. If you speak up sooner, I’ll tell him you’re lying and have you in the sheriff’s office before you can blink. Is that clear?”

Cassandra nodded, feeling as if she had stepped into quicksand and sunk to her chin. The lies sucked her deeper, crushing her chest, cutting off her breath.

“I accept your terms,” she said coldly, finishing the button and snipping the thread. “Here’s your shirt. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have my locket back.”

“A locket that falls open at a convenient touch?” He rose from the chair to loom above her, the locket chain dangling from his fingers. His lean-muscled body tapered upward from the loose waistband of his worn denims, revealing a glimpse of deeply shadowed navel. His skin was like polished copper, as smooth and golden as an Indian’s—but then he was an Indian, Cassandra reminded herself—or, more correctly, a half-breed, the son of a white man and a Shoshone woman.

Towering over her now, with a thunderous scowl on his face, he looked every inch his mother’s son.

“I’ll hold this for safekeeping,” he said, his fist closing tightly around the locket. “You’ll get it back when I decide it’s safe for you to have it.”

Cassandra forced a bitter smile. “As you say, you don’t trust me. That’s something I’ll have to accept—for now, at least.”

His bare body rippled as he thrust the chain and heart into the pocket of his trousers. Picking up the shirt, he slipped it over his arms and shoulders and worked the buttons deftly through their holes. With no trace of self-consciousness, he unfastened the buttons at his waist to tuck in the shirt. Cassandra averted her eyes, fixing her gaze on the painted buckskin that hung on the far wall. Morgan Tolliver was clearly no gentleman, but her grandmother had raised her to be a lady, Cassandra reminded herself. No matter how trying the circumstances, she would remain so.

Only when she heard the faint clink of his belt buckle did she glance up and meet his gaze. For the space of a heartbeat his face appeared vulnerable, even concerned. Then his mouth tightened. The hardness slid back into his eyes so swiftly that Cassandra found herself wondering if she’d only imagined the brief change.

“My thanks for sewing on the button,” he said coldly. “You’ll be wanting a meal and a chance to wash. I’ll send Chang up with some food and order his boys to carry in the tub and some hot water. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling up to it, you can take your meals downstairs at the table. For now, you’re to stay in this room and rest.”

“As you wish, sir.” Cassandra flung the words at him, rankled by his high-handedness.

His eyes narrowed. “You agreed to do as I say. And sarcasm doesn’t become you, Cassandra Riley.”

“I agreed to follow your orders,” she retorted. “That doesn’t mean I have to like them. Am I to consider myself a prisoner here?”

“Not a prisoner. Just an uninvited guest. And until I can check out your story, that’s all you are.” Picking up his vest from the chair, he turned and strode out of the room. Just beyond the doorway, he paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “You’ll find a necessity under the bed. If you’re worried about privacy, you can bolt the door from the inside. But nobody will come in without knocking. Whatever else you might think of us, you’re safe here.”

Before Cassandra could respond, he closed the door softly behind him. Her heart crept into her throat as she heard the key turning in the lock. Merciful heaven, was he locking her in?

But no—as if Morgan had changed his mind, the sound of shifting tumblers paused, then reversed its cadence like a sentence spoken backward. By the time Morgan’s footfalls faded into silence, Cassandra was certain he had left the door unlocked.

Was it an invitation for her to leave? If she were to wait for darkness and steal out to the barn, would she find a wagon loaded, hitched and waiting with the blood money tucked beneath the seat? Was that Morgan Tolliver’s game—giving her one last chance to go?

Cassandra swung her legs off the bed. Her bare feet tingled as she lowered them to the floor and pushed her unwieldy body to a standing position.

Nausea uncoiled in her empty stomach. She felt oddly light, as if the room had filled with water and her head was detached and floating in it. Swaying dizzily, she sank back onto the bed. No, she would not be going anywhere tonight—nor any other night. She was bone tired, drained of every physical and mental resource she possessed. Ever more compellingly, a hidden instinct whispered that it was too late to set out on another adventure. She and her baby needed the safety of this house and the succor of this reluctant family.

Cassandra raked a hand through the tangled nest of her hair and, with a weary sigh, settled back onto the bed. Liar, cheat, whatever she might be, she had reached the end of her journey.

She had no other place to go.

Morgan stood alone on the porch, watching the stars emerge through the indigo twilight. The air smelled of rain—but Nature, the seductive witch, had tricked him before. The hint of moisture was only an illusion. There would be no life-giving storm tonight.

Upstairs, there was no sound from Cassandra Riley’s room. Chang had reported that she’d wolfed down her supper and thanked him effusively for the tub of hot water his two sons had brought into her room. After her bath, she had wheeled the big tin tub out into the hall and closed her door. In the three hours that had passed since then, no one had heard so much as a whisper from her.

After the supper dishes had been cleared away and Jacob had retired for the night, Morgan had spread the ranch’s account books on the dining room table, lit an oil lamp and bent himself to the tedium of entering the past month’s bills and receipts. As the twilight deepened, he’d found himself listening, straining his ears for the creak of a floorboard above his head or the opening click of her bedroom door.

He had ordered her to stay put, Morgan reminded himself. But things were much too quiet up there. From what he already knew of Cassandra Riley, he would bet money she was up to no good.

Earlier he had been on the verge of locking her in for the night. But the woman was not a prisoner, he’d reminded himself. Neither, he sensed, was she a fool. More than anything, she needed a refuge for herself and her child. She would not risk her chances by defying his orders; not, at least, until her position was more secure.

But he could have been wrong. Even now, she could be prowling the house, looking for Jacob or anyone else who might believe her story and take her side against him.

Morgan had struggled to concentrate on the long columns of figures. But it was no use. As the silent minutes ticked past, another worrisome possibility had struck him.

What if she’d simply become restless and wandered off into the darkness—or worse, repented of the whole scheme and tried to leave the ranch on her own?

Good riddance, he’d told himself, blowing out the lamp and abandoning the books to darkness. If the woman was reckless enough to go running off alone, who was he to stop her? Until a few hours ago, he had not known Cassandra Riley and her wild scheme existed. As long as she didn’t harm his family, why should he care what happened to her?

Now he stood at the porch rail, his thoughts churning as he stared into the darkness. Beyond him lay the barn, the sprawling complex of sheds and corrals and the long bunkhouse for the hired hands. From the time he was old enough to swing a hammer, he had labored beside his father to build this place. He had sawed logs, dug postholes and hauled the mortar for the stones that walled the first floor of the house. He had fought off locust swarms and cattle rustlers in summer; diphtheria and packs of hungry wolves in winter. He had poured a lifetime of sweat, pain, blood and blisters into this ranch, and he would protect its legacy with the last breath of his life—even from the schemes of a deceitful woman.

Morgan’s eyes scanned the shadows for anything that looked out of place. There was nothing. But then, what had he expected to see? Did he think she was going to steal eggs, or maybe set the barn on fire? What a joke. The harm she could do went far deeper than mere physical damage.

Seething now, he turned away from the porch railing. There was just one way to find out whether Cassandra Riley was following his orders—go upstairs, check her room and see for himself.

If he found her there, he could stop stewing and get back to work. If the room proved to be empty…

But he would deal with that when the time came.

Squaring his shoulders, Morgan opened the door, strode across the landing and quietly mounted the stairs.

Chapter Four

Darkness enfolded Morgan as he reached the landing, but he needed no candle to find his way. The upper floor, built of hand-hewn logs above the original part of the house, was not large in area. Morgan’s own bedroom lay at the far end of the hall with Ryan’s room—now too silent, too empty—opening on the right. The rest of the space was taken up by two guest bedrooms. The smaller of these, originally planned as a child’s room, was the one Morgan had chosen for Cassandra Riley.

He hesitated a moment in the shadows outside her door, then knocked lightly on the polished pine surface. One rap. Two. He waited.

There was no answer.

He knocked again, more forcefully this time. The door planks were thick, he reasoned, and she might not have heard the light rap. Again he waited. Again there was no response.

Morgan exhaled into the silence. He would try the door, he resolved. If it was bolted, at least he would know she was inside, perhaps asleep.

The latch yielded to the light pressure of his thumb. Morgan’s breath caught as the unbolted door swung open into the darkened room.

“Cassandra?” He spoke in a whisper, not wanting to startle her.

When she did not reply, he stepped soundlessly over the threshold. For the space of a breath he saw only shadows. Then a shaft of light from the rising moon gleamed through the uncurtained window, falling across the narrow bunk to illuminate the slight, lumpy form that lay beneath the quilt.

Morgan’s throat tightened as he saw her. He knew he should turn and go, but his feet held him to the floor, refusing to budge. Unable to look away, his beauty-starved eyes drank in the sight of her.

She lay on her back, one pale arm flung upward, straining the fabric of her muslin shift against one tautly swollen breast. Her other arm curled protectively around the bulge of her unborn baby, cradling it as she slept.

Damp and fragrant, her freshly washed hair spilled across the pillow, rippling outward like the rays of the Madonna’s halo in an old painting Morgan had once seen. Framed by that wild sea of hair, her face was as innocent as a child’s.

His eyes traced the petal curve of her lower lip, pausing to linger on her small, stubborn chin. He should have known she would be asleep, he berated himself. The long, solitary journey in a jouncing wagon would have exhausted any woman, let alone one who was heavy with child. And how could she have managed to rest during those nights on the open plain, huddled alone in the darkness, at the mercy of any passing danger? No weapon and a baby on the way. She must have been out of her mind with terror.

What would drive a woman to take such a risk? Morgan asked himself. But he already knew the answer to that question. It was sheer, raw desperation.

The same desperation that would drive her to lie, to cheat, to do anything to secure a future for her child.

She stirred in her sleep, whimpering as her head tossed back forth and on the pillow. Beneath the patchwork quilt, her feet twitched as if she were dreaming of pursuit.

“No…Seamus, no…” Her body jerked and writhed, the words emerging between muffled sobs. “No…”

Her distress seemed very real. But shysters came in all shapes and sizes, Morgan reminded himself. And the ones who played on the sympathies of good people were worse than bank robbers and horse thieves. He could not afford to be touched by the girl’s vulnerability. Not until he had checked out every last detail of her story. If the little witch proved to be lying…

“No…please…” Her body twisted frantically, small hands clawing at the quilt. “Please, Seamus, for the love of heaven, don’t…”

Morgan felt his resolve crumbling. Cassandra Riley might be a scheming little tramp, but right now something in her mind was scaring her half to death. Even though all the warning signs were up, he was no more capable of walking away from her than from a wounded bobcat cub.

His palm tingled as he brushed the damp hair back from her forehead. The feel of her cool, sweet skin made his throat ache. Only now did he realize how much he had wanted to touch her.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, his hand lingering on her hair. “You’re dreaming, that’s all. Rest, Cassandra.”

As if she had heard him, she stopped thrashing beneath the quilt. Her whimpers subsided as, little by little, she relaxed in the bed, the rhythm of her breathing deep and even once more.

Had he contrived the whole reason for coming into her room? Had his far-fetched suspicions been nothing more than an excuse for him to be here, standing beside her bed in the breath-filled darkness?

Still looking down at her, Morgan forced his hand to withdraw. Yes, he could understand how Ryan might have fallen in love with this girl. She was no beauty, to be sure, but her spirit and vulnerability would tempt almost any man.

Almost. But not all. Morgan had sworn off love for good after the breakup of his marriage. For love to exist, there had to be trust. And this little flame-haired snip, with her bulging belly and her wild claims about Ryan was as trustworthy as a wagonload of rattlesnakes.

An old family friend, Hamilton Crawford, had recently retired from the Pinkerton agency and was living in Cheyenne. Tomorrow—no, tonight, Morgan resolved—he would write to Ham and ask him to check out Cassandra Riley’s story. That way he could send one of Chang’s boys to Fort Caspar with the letter first thing in the morning. Ham’s reply might be slow in coming, but the mere knowledge that an ex-Pinkerton agent was checking her background could be enough to give the mysterious Miss Riley second thoughts.

But what if she was telling the truth?

Morgan’s eyes lingered on her sleeping face as he pondered the idea, then brusquely dismissed it. Her story couldn’t possibly be true. There were too many coincidences, too many holes. He owed it to his father, and to Ryan’s memory, to uncover the lie and to send her packing before it was too late.

His knuckle brushed her skin as he reached down and tugged the quilt upward to cover her exposed shoulder. The satiny coolness of her flesh tingled all the way up his arm. Ignoring the sensation, he turned and walked quietly out of the room only to pause in the doorway, scowling back at her slumbering form as the thought struck him.

Who the devil was Seamus?

Cassandra awoke to the warmth of sunlight on her face. She opened her eyes, only to jerk them shut again as the morning glare jolted her senses through the bare window.

For the first few seconds she remembered nothing. Where was she? How did she get here? Her mind groped for a foothold on reason. Flinging her forearm across her eyes, she forced herself to lie still and take long, deep breaths.

The memory of the dream, in all its grotesque horror, came back first. Seamus had returned to the shack in Laramie, dressed in the brown suit that Jake had worn for his burial. Terrified by his vacant eyes, she had fled from him, running through the empty stockyards in a dreamer’s slow motion, as if her feet were stuck in thick black tar. He had floated behind her, screaming the vilest names she had ever heard. Bitch…filthy, lying whore…

He had finally cornered her against a loading chute. His death-glazed eyes had glittered like a wolf’s as he closed in on her, mouth smiling, hands reaching for her throat. She had cried out, begging him for her baby’s life…No, Seamus…no…

You’re dreaming, that’s all. Rest, Cassandra.

The low, soothing voice had come out of nowhere, as had the gentle touch on her forehead. The strange thing was, she had known at once that the voice spoke the truth. She was dreaming. Seamus was gone.

She had caused his death herself, and fled, terrified, into the night.

Fully awake now, Cassandra curled onto her side and gazed around the little bedroom. The previous day was coming back to her now. Near the foot of her bed was the pine rocker where Morgan Tolliver—the enemy—had sat. Her sewing kit lay open on the bedside table, with her needle stuck into a spool of brown cotton thread. On the far wall, bathed in morning sunlight, the painting on the elk skin she’d barely noticed last night revealed itself as a swirling arrangement of horses, deer and buffalo, all pursued by mounted warriors in streaming, feathered war bonnets. So exquisitely drawn and positioned were these tiny figures that they seemed to be galloping over the creamy leather surface.

Cassandra sat up slowly, feeling the baby awaken and stir in its warm, secret world. “Getting a little tight for you in there, is it?” she whispered, patting the solid roundness. “Don’t worry, little one. You’ll be out in the world soon enough.”

Carefully she stood up, wincing at the bone-deep soreness in her legs and buttocks. She sighed as her hands massaged the small of her back. How long would it be? she wondered. A month? More? Her menses had always been irregular, and with no experienced woman to guide her through the strangeness of it, she had only a vague idea of how far along she was or what to expect when the time came. She had helped her grandfather at lambing time, and she supposed the process would not be so different. Except this would be her baby, and she would be its mother. She could only pray that when the time came she would know what to do.

But why was she standing here muddling when it was time she got dressed and faced the day? The Tollivers wouldn’t think much of her if she malingered in her bedroom half the morning. And it was essential that they think well of her, or at least that they care about her baby. She had made a poor start last night with Morgan Tolliver. But if she could find other allies here, even friends…

Impulsively Cassandra crossed to the window and peered out through the dust-streaked panes. Through the yellow-brown blur she could make out a vast maze of sheds and corrals, dominated by a weathered barn that jutted upward like a cathedral above a town. Behind the nearest fence, large, dark shapes swirled and shifted. Horses? Cassandra’s impatient fingers fumbled with the window latch. Her soft push swung the sash outward.

A light breeze swept into the room, carrying with it a pungent blend of prairie dust, wood smoke, horse dung and fresh morning air. A tantalizing whiff of bacon drifted upward from the kitchen, triggering a growl in the pit of her stomach.

Feeling alive for the first time in days, she leaned outward into the sunlight, her breasts resting on the windowsill. The house was set on a slight rise, overlooking the rest of the ranch. Now she could see the sloping tin roof of the bunkhouse and the fenced enclosure around the coop, where bustling red hens and their fluffy chicks pecked at the earth. Horses milled in the spacious log corral, rearing and nipping in spirited play. Next to the feed trough, Xavier, her own dear mule, stood placidly munching hay. Poor old thing, he probably thought he’d died and gone to heaven. She would go out and visit him later. With luck, she might even be able to smuggle him a treat from the kitchen.

Beyond the dusty sprawl of buildings and corrals, the rolling prairie swept outward like the waves of a yellow sea. Most summers the wild grass would have been pale green, but the drought had left it so tinder dry that the threat of a prairie fire had haunted Cassandra all the way from Laramie. Like a land rising from a far-off shore, the Big Horn mountains jutted the length of the western horizon, blue in the hazy distance, the sunlight glinting on their snowless peaks.

The trill of a meadowlark echoed pure and clear on the morning air. Listening, Cassandra suppressed a little shiver of contentment. This was a good place, she sensed, a clean and honest place, like her grandparents’ lost Nebraska homestead. She would give anything, do anything, to give her child the chance to grow up here, free from danger and want, free from shame.

If only there were some other way.

Below her window, a squat figure distinguished by a graying pigtail that dangled from beneath a blue cotton cap, hobbled off the porch and headed toward the chicken coop.

“Chang!” she said in a low voice. “Good morning, Chang!”

The startled Chinese cook glanced up, caught sight of her and grinned. “Morning, miss. Breakfast? I bring it up?” He motioned toward her with his hand. She had already come to like the small, lively man who’d served her a supper of roast beef and cloudlike buttered biscuits the night before.

“Breakfast, yes,” she replied. “But please don’t bother bringing it up to me. I’ll get dressed and come downstairs.”

“Good!” His smile broadened. “Mr. Jacob, Mr. Morgan, they can eat with you. Almost ready. Hurry.”

“Give me just a few minutes.” Cassandra felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach as she spun away from the window and fumbled in the carpetbag for her only presentable dress. Once more it was time to begin the ugly game of lies and deception, playing her wits against the Tolliver men from behind the mask of Ryan’s grieving sweetheart.

The mask she was prepared to wear for the rest of her life.

Morgan sat in the dining rooming, leaning back in his chair as Chang carried in platters of bacon, flapjacks and scrambled eggs to accompany the steaming pot of beans he had already placed on the table.

In the Tolliver household it was a long-standing custom not to eat breakfast before the morning chores were done. Morgan had risen at six, gulped down a mug of hot black coffee and gone outside to look after the stock. Most of the ranch’s fifteen thousand head of Texas longhorns had been driven to summer pasture in the mountains, but there were horses to feed and water, cows to milk, orphan calves to tend and, this morning, a torn windmill vane to repair.

Morgan could easily have paid someone else to do the chores, but the truth was, he enjoyed them. He liked rising at dawn, watching the sky fill with light and hearing the morning chorus as each creature on the ranch welcomed a new day. He savored the slow rhythm of seasons, each one blending into the next, cycling like the spokes of the great medicine wheel. And he never lost his wonder at each new life that appeared on the ranch, from quivering foals to clutches of yellow-brown ducklings. Though he gave the matter little conscious thought, Morgan could not imagine his life without this work, without this land.

Earlier, he’d been on his way out of the barn when he’d glimpsed a figure in the upstairs window. Stepping back into the shadows, he had caught his breath at the sight of Cassandra Riley leaning into the sunlight, her creamy breasts straining the thin muslin shift where they thrust over the windowsill.

Her loose-hanging curls had caught fire in the morning sunlight, falling over the whiteness of shoulders and breasts to ring her delicate vulpine features with flame. Morgan had never thought her beautiful, but for one riveting instant, the sight of her in that sunlit window was almost enough to strike a man blind.

He would bet good money the little schemer knew exactly what she was doing.

For the space of a breath he had allowed his eyes to feast on the forbidden sight. Then, as Chang came out onto the porch, he had slipped back into the barn and made a discreet exit through a rear door. Cassandra Riley was looking for a protector, casting her web for any man within range, Morgan told himself. He would go straight to hell before he’d let her know he had almost stumbled into that trap.

The letter to Hamilton Crawford was already on its way to Fort Caspar, with wiry young Johnny Chang mounted on the fastest of the Tolliver cow ponies. How long would it take for Ham to come up with some answers? Two weeks, at least, maybe a good deal longer, Morgan reckoned. In the meantime he would be wise to watch Cassandra’s every move—a challenge in its own right.

A light bump on the table’s edge startled Morgan out of his reverie. His attention shifted sideways to where the elder of the two Chang boys had just moved Jacob’s chair into its customary position at the head of the table. The old man looked more haunted than ever, Morgan thought.

“Rotten night.” Jacob’s eyes burned like embers in the hollowed pits of their sockets. “You’ve got a strange look about you this morning. Care to tell me what’s going on inside that stubborn Shoshone head of yours?”

“Not much.” Morgan poured the old man a cup of coffee from the pot Chang had just placed on the table and added a generous dollop of cream. “Just wondering if we ought to get some of those new white-faced Hereford cows, like the ones Alex Swan’s been bringing in over on Chugwater.”

“What’s wrong with longhorns?” Jacob demanded, his gaze narrowing beneath the bristled crags of his eyebrows.

“Nothing.” Morgan poured his own coffee and watched the steam curl upward toward the rafters. “Nothing, that is, if you don’t have to put them in railroad cars. Got word last fall that a full third of the steers we shipped to Omaha were horn-gouged by the time they were unloaded. We had to lower the price for the whole lot.” Morgan had given his father this information at the time, but now Jacob looked as if he had no memory of it. Ryan’s disappearance had taken as much of a toll on the old man’s mind as it had on his body.

“Humph!” Jacob cleared his throat and spat into his cloth napkin. “Longhorns are range bred—tough enough to stand the winters in these parts. Those short-legged bally-faced meatballs over on Swan’s place will bog down in the drifts and starve to death. Take my word for it. Don’t waste time and money finding out the hard way!”

“Want to wager on it?” Morgan speared two flapjacks and dropped them onto his plate. Arguing was a long-established way of communication between the two of them. Now he used it deliberately, as a means to rouse the old man’s interest and draw his mind away from Ryan. “I’ll bring in a hundred head of Herefords this fall, early enough to season them to the cold. With that hay crop we’re growing down in the bottoms—”

“Hay!” Jacob snorted. “Hell, that’s another waste of time! We’ve never had any trouble finding winter pasture for the longhorns.”

“But we always lose some,” Morgan said. “In a killer winter, we could lose the whole herd. A good supply of hay would keep us from being wiped out.”

“Bull.” Jacob toyed with the scrambled eggs Thomas Chang had spooned onto his plate. “These damned newfangled notions of yours are going to—”

He stopped speaking, his mouth, like his fork, frozen in midmotion. Morgan turned in his seat to follow the direction of his father’s gaze.

Cassandra Riley stood, hesitating, in the doorway of the dining room.

She was modestly clad now, in a faded chambray gown with wrist-length sleeves, a high, crocheted collar and a shapeless waist, hiked up in front to accommodate her bulging belly. Her fiery mane of curls had been tamed into a coiled braid at the nape of her neck.

Eyes nervous, mouth fixed in a tentative smile, she walked toward the table. She looked as demure as a round little quail, Morgan thought, and almost as innocent.

“May I?” She paused next to the empty place setting on the far side of the table. Morgan scowled, annoyed at himself for having failed to notice the third plate earlier. Warned, he would have been prepared for her entrance and he would have made more of an effort to prepare his father.

Rising swiftly, Morgan strode around the table to pull out her chair. Her downcast eyes avoided his as she moved into place. “Remember, we have an agreement,” he growled in her ear. “My father’s not to be told anything.”

She nodded almost imperceptibly before lowering herself into the chair. She was every inch the proper lady now, hiding the siren he had seen in the upstairs window.

“Miss Cassandra Riley…my father.” Morgan mouthed a curt introduction.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Tolliver.” Her voice was artificially bright.

“Ma’am.” Jacob acknowledged her greeting with the lift of a bristled eyebrow. Even after all these years, he had the manners of a mountain man. But that hadn’t stopped him from being the very devil with women in his day.

As Morgan took his seat, he shot her another warning glare across the table. Could he trust her to keep her mouth shut? Would she even care how much pain her lie could bring to a grief-stricken old man?

Glancing down, he realized he had lost all interest in breakfast. He could not venture to guess what the unpredictable Miss Cassandra Riley would do or say next. He only knew that if she so much as mentioned Ryan to his father, she would be one sorry woman.

Cassandra spooned a mound of scrambled eggs onto her plate, passionately wishing she’d chosen to eat in the bedroom. Were these two gloomy men all that was left of the Tolliver family? Were there no women and children to liven up this grim household?

“Flapjack?” Morgan passed her the stacked plate. She thanked him politely, took a warm pancake from the middle of the pile and drowned it in butter and maple syrup. He looked hard and angry, but at least he didn’t seem bent on starving her.

Clearly, no one starved on the Tolliver Ranch. But she was already beginning to sense how easily a woman could fall prey to loneliness here. Maybe that was why there were no women in sight.

Determined to be cheerful, she cut off a bite-sized piece of flapjack with her fork and thrust it into her mouth. The batter was crisp and airy, almost melting on her tongue.

“Mmm!” she exclaimed, seizing on an excuse to break the silence. “Manna from heaven couldn’t taste any better than these flapjacks! Did Chang make them?”

“Chang does all the cooking.”

Morgan’s cool answer reminded Cassandra that she had offered her services in the kitchen. Clearly her help was not needed.

Ignoring his rebuff, she turned toward the old man, who sat huddled in his wheelchair, toying with the food on his plate. His skin was gray tinged, his hollow cheeks etched with deep arroyos that flowed into the leaden tangle of his short beard. His flannel shirt was clean, his hair neatly trimmed and combed, but there was a wildness about Jacob Tolliver, a trace of the primitive that burned in his bloodshot yellow-green eyes.

She scrutinized his pitted features, searching for some resemblance to his offspring. But she found none. Morgan could have passed for a full-blooded Shoshone, and there was no echo of Ryan’s golden beauty in either of the two men. Jacob Tolliver’s sons, she concluded, resembled their respective mothers.

“The beef stew and biscuits Chang brought me last night were delicious, as well,” she said, pressing on. “Where on earth did you find such a treasure, Mr. Tolliver? Has he been with you a long time?”

For a moment Jacob Tolliver paid her no heed. Then the old man’s hooded eyes flickered toward her, as if he’d finally realized she was speaking to him. He cleared his throat as if he were about to launch into a story. Then his knobby shoulders sagged wearily. “You can tell her,” he said to Morgan.

Something flashed in Morgan’s black eyes. Was it hostility or only relief, perhaps even gratitude, that she’d steered their conversation onto safe ground?

“My father stole Chang from the railroad,” he said.

“Stole him?” Cassandra’s eyes widened.

“Stole him as slick as whiskey.” Morgan sipped his coffee, taking his time. “Chang came over from Canton in the mid-sixties to work as a dynamiter on the Central Pacific. When a rock slide crushed his leg, he was assigned to the kitchen crew. Chang had never cooked a meal in his life, but he took to it as if he’d been born in a stewpot. Before long, his reputation got around, and visiting railway bosses were coming by just to sample his braised mutton and biscuits.”

Morgan had settled back in his chair, cradling the coffee mug between his hands. Cassandra watched him, bemused by the discovery that this gruff, taciturn man possessed a hidden gift for words.

“My father owned title to some land in Nevada he’d won in a poker game a few years earlier. The railroad wanted to buy the parcel, so he traveled west to see the land for himself and negotiate the sale. The track boss made the mistake of inviting him to dinner. You can guess the rest of the story.”

Cassandra took what she hoped was a ladylike nibble of her scrambled eggs. The moist, frothy clumps were exquisitely seasoned—wild onion, she speculated, with a bit of sage and other flavorings so subtle she could not venture to name them. She took another bite, savoring the rich but delicate taste.

“I would guess,” she said, “that your father, the wily old pirate, found Chang, took him aside and made him an offer too generous to refuse.”

At her words, Morgan’s left eyebrow shot upward. The corners of his mouth twitched, threatening a smile—but only threatening. A real smile, she told herself, would probably crack that long granite face of his.

“Wily old pirate, am I?” Jacob growled. “That’s a right brassy tongue you’ve got in that curly head of yours, Red.”

“Well, aren’t you a wily old pirate?” Cassandra challenged him, her heart racing. “Besides, what makes you think I didn’t mean it as a compliment?”

He scowled at her. Then his thin lips stretched across his teeth in a skull-like grimace. “Right smart one we got here, Morgan. That’s just what happened. But Chang was a mean negotiator himself. Before he’d agree to come, I had to promise we’d send for the wife and two boys he’d left back in China.”

“Thomas and Johnny?” Cassandra took another forkful of scrambled eggs. “I met them last night when they brought in my bath. I must say, they have excellent manners.”

“Good boys.” Jacob nodded his agreement. “Weren’t knee-high to a grasshopper when they come here, but their folks raised them fine. Thomas sees that I’m decently washed and dressed, and helps his father with the house. Johnny took to cowboyin’ from the first time he laid eyes on a horse. Little squirt can rope any critter that runs on four legs and a few that don’t.”

Jacob Tolliver chuckled humorlessly at his own joke. Then his eyes went hard. “That’s enough talk about Chinamen. What I want to know, Red, is what brings a woman in your condition all the way to this godforsaken spot. Hell, it’s a dangerous trip alone, even for a man. You and that old mule could’ve got yourselves drowned in a creek or picked clean by wolves…” His gaze narrowed and sharpened. “Did you come all this way to find your baby’s pa? Maybe get the bounder to marry you? Is that it?”

Cassandra laid her fork on her plate, her appetite suddenly gone. She felt the old man’s eyes drilling into her, felt the cold, silent threat in Morgan’s gaze.

“I don’t like secrets in my house,” Jacob said. “Tell us, Red. Now.”

Chapter Five

Cassandra felt her stomach clench. A wave of cold nausea crept into her throat. Determined not to disgrace herself, she willed it back. It was panic, nothing more, she told herself. She could—and would—control it.

“Cassandra doesn’t feel she owes us an explanation,” Morgan broke in before she could reply to his father’s question. “But, yes, she has reason to think her baby’s father might be working for us—maybe up with the herd in the summer pasture.”

The old man twisted a dangling strand of his drooping mustache. “Well, whoever he is, the damned fool ought to be horsewhipped, runnin’ off and leavin’ a young girl in a family way. Bring him in and I’ll do the job myself. What did you say his name was, Red?”

Cassandra felt her stomach clench again. The flapjacks and eggs swam before her eyes. “Would you please excuse me?” she said, rising. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling well. I need some…air.”

With as much dignity as she could muster, she strode out of the dining room and, once out of sight, bolted for the front door.

The morning breeze struck her face as she staggered onto the porch. She gulped it frantically, leaning over the rail like a seasick ocean passenger.

Little by little the urge to retch diminished. Cassandra closed her eyes, letting the wind cool her sweat-dampened face. It was all right—she was all right. But she could not make herself walk back into that dining room and face Jacob Tolliver’s question.

What should she have told him? Not the truth, heaven forbid. And not the lie she had carried all the way to the Tolliver Ranch. Morgan was right—the old man was not ready to hear the shocking news that her baby was Ryan’s.

If she’d had her wits about her, she could have given Jacob Tolliver the first name that came into her head. Then she could have made a dramatic show of searching for her lost sweetheart, bursting into tears when she learned he was not on the ranch. That, at least, would have satisfied Morgan. But it would have added one more lie to the sickening tangle she’d woven, a tangle that was already threatening to drag her down to eternal fire and brimstone.

Impulsively she stepped off the porch and wandered across the yard toward the corral. Waiting there, just beyond the fence, was her single true friend in this place—the one friend who had no need for lies.

“Xavier!” She held out her hand, wishing she’d thought to steal a biscuit from the table. No matter. At her call the old dun mule pricked up his ears and trotted toward her, his limp noticeably better.

“How’s it going, old boy? Are they treating you right?” Cassandra’s eyes misted as she stroked the velvet nose, then moved her hand upward to scratch between the long, rabbity ears. The irascible creature had been her confidant, her protector and her only companion on the northward trek from Laramie. “It’s a good thing you can’t talk,” she whispered, laying her cheek against the bony neck. “I’d have no secrets at all in this place, would I?”

The mule snorted, bobbing his massive head up and down as if sharing the joke.

“And what secrets would he be telling about you, Miss Cassandra Riley?”

The rough whisper, coming from just behind her ear, startled Cassandra into a fit of hiccups. She glared up at Morgan Tolliver, struggling to maintain her dignity while her diaphragm convulsed in painful spasms.

“Don’t you ever…hic…do that to me again!”

His mouth remained as grim as a hatchet blade, but his eyes, Cassandra noticed, glimmered with sparks of amusement.

“Do you make a habit of…hic…sneaking up on people and scaring them? What if I’d had a gun, or a knife? You could be…hic…bleeding right now!”

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