Hayley Ryan was definitely going to have a baby

That made it a thousand times more foolish for her to be out here, in Jacob Cooper’s opinion. “You’re pregnant,” he said simply. “Why didn’t you tell me that? It puts a different spin on everything. You can’t stay here!”

Hayley wheeled away from him and extended shaking hands toward the fire. “It’s for me to say what I do, Jacob,” she said with renewed ferocity. “Go away and leave me alone.”

“Damn, Hayley. I worried when I thought it was just you. But you and a baby…It’s craziness for a pregnant woman to be this far from a good road. You need—”

“Thank you very much for your flattering opinion of my capabilities. But I don’t answer to you. It’s my baby. My responsibility. My decision.”

“Oh? So the kid doesn’t have a father?”

Hayley’s face crumpled. “He doesn’t want to be a husband or father. Besides, he forfeited all rights when he walked out on me.”

“I didn’t mean to open old wounds. It’s just—if it was me, I’d want to know I had a baby in the works. A man deserves the chance to do right by his child.”

A haunting smile came and went. “Not all men have your sense of responsibility, Jake.”

Dear Reader,

Before I moved to Tucson, I subscribed to the city’s newspaper because I wanted to find out more about the community. I read an article that intrigued me so much, I cut it out and saved it. The article concerned a woman who’d discovered blue opals on a remote site near the Mexican border. This idea kept nagging at me, insisting there was a story to be told.

This is not Cheri Saunders’s story, although her real-life adventure is, of course, fascinating, and you might learn part of it if you visit Cheri at the Jay-R Opal Mine Art Gallery in Huachuca City, Arizona. My tale about Hayley Ryan and Jake Cooper is totally a work of fiction. I don’t even know where the Jay-R Opal Mine is located; I suspect it’s a well-kept secret.

Any mistakes in descriptions of digging the ore and polishing or setting stones are mine alone. I did visit the wilderness ranch area around the old ghost town of Ruby. It was desolate and, in the true sense of the word, awesome. I think I know how Hayley—a pregnant woman determined to make her way alone—would feel while she camped there.

This is really a story about love. And about how Hayley, left pregnant and destitute by a scoundrel husband, learns to trust Jake with her life and that of her child. I hope you enjoy my efforts on Hayley’s behalf.

I love hearing from readers. You can write me at the address below or e-mail me.

Roz Denny Fox

P.O. Box 17480-101

Tucson, Arizona 85731

e-mail: rdfox@worldnet.att.net

Mom’s the Word

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Denny. I couldn’t have written any of the previous books without your love and support. But with this one I really owe you—for driving to ghost towns where there weren’t any roads. For finding a spring that, according to the map, was supposed to exist but turned out not to be so easily located. And especially for not complaining when the water was too deep to cross and we needed to reach the highway we could see in the distance. You probably felt like leaving me there, but you still had a smile after bouncing twenty long, dusty miles over terrain that was really only accessible on horseback. Thanks, with all my heart.

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 ONE

“YOU’RE PREGNANT, Hayley.” Kindly old Dr. Gerrard looked over the top of his half glasses at the young woman seated on the examining table. “Given your circumstances, my dear, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings.”

Hayley Ryan stopped pleating folds in the loose-fitting paper gown and gasped as she spread both hands protectively across her stomach. “But I…I’ve been losing weight. Not gaining. Are you sure your diagnosis is correct?”

The doctor patted Hayley’s suntanned hand. “My practice here in Tombstone may be winding down, child, but I haven’t been wrong in predicting blessed events in thirty years. Why, twenty-six years ago your mama sat in this very room, asking the same question.” He chuckled. “Nine months later out you popped.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that…that you don’t know what you’re doing.” Hayley swallowed hard to keep from crying. “It’s just that this isn’t the best time in my life to be learning I’ll soon have another mouth to feed. I’m not sure how I’ll take care of myself let alone a baby.”

Dr. Gerrard sobered at once. “I know. Gossip’s running rampant about how your husband left town with that sassy-faced Cindy Trent from the nail-painting place.” The doctor removed his glasses and gazed with unfocused sympathy into Hayley’s turbulent eyes. “What kind of man, I’d like to know, leaves his wife while she’s still grieving from burying her grandpa? I said it before, girl, and I’ll say it again—Joe Ryan’s worse than a snake-oil salesman.”

Hayley glanced away. She could do without having that fact driven home. A little more than a year ago, Grandpa O’Dell and many of his friends had cautioned her against marrying Joe. If she had a dime for every person in Tombstone who’d warned her Joe Ryan was the kind of guy who blew into town on his own wind and would likely blow out the same way, she wouldn’t be sitting here now, alone and worrying about how to feed herself and the baby Joe had planted before he pulled his vanishing act. “It’s easier for me to see now that Joe only married me so he could get his hands on the Silver Cloud mine,” Hayley murmured.

“Big Ben O’Dell would turn over in his grave if he knew that four-flushing louse stole his mine and left you in this fix.”

“What’s done is done. There’s no use crying over it, Dr. Gerrard.” Even as the words left Hayley’s lips, tears slid down her cheeks.

“This isn’t something I’d normally suggest—” Dr. Gerrard hesitated “—but you might think about terminating the pregnancy. I don’t perform the procedure, but I’ll recommend a reputable clinic in Phoenix. I calculate the child is due around Christmas.” He turned and picked up a calendar. “Let’s see, it’s June. You’re eight to ten weeks along. You’ll have to decide soon. The surgery does carry some risk, but you’re still within the limits set by the state.”

Hayley looked horrified and linked her fingers across her stomach. “I appreciate your concern, really I do. But the good Lord entrusted me with a new life. I expect He’ll eventually put my feet on a path that’ll allow me to take care of myself and this baby.”

“I wish I had your faith, Hayley. If the Man upstairs takes care of His own, He shouldn’t have let Joe and that floozy forge your name on the Silver Cloud’s deed. Wasn’t more’n six months ago that Ben told me he felt so poorly he’d decided to sign it to you. Joe was sittin’ right here. If you ask me, that’s when the lowlife hatched his plan.”

“Probably so. Then I suppose you could say I brought this mess on myself,” she said glumly. “Gramps didn’t like Joe to drive him to his breathing treatments. That day, Dee Dee Johnson phoned and asked me to go to the gem show in Tucson with her. I’d never been to a gem show, even though I’ve lived in Arizona all my life. I practically begged Joe to take Gramps for me.”

“Don’t be taking the blame, girl. Joe’s the bad apple. He and that deputy-sheriff pal of his would steal a cross from the church if they thought they could melt it down and sell it for a dollar.”

“You don’t mean Shad Tilford?” Hayley frowned.

“The very same.”

“He…he’s in charge of my complaint. Sheriff Bonner assigned Shad to my case when I asked the law to go after Joe for half the money from the mine sale. Shad hasn’t been very helpful. He insinuated it was Joe’s right, as my husband, to sell the Silver Cloud. He finally said he’d issue a warrant to bring Joe in for questioning.”

“Humph! I’ll wager Tilford got a cut of the money Joe received from the deal. I’ve suspected for some time that our deputy’s a little shady. How he ever wound up wearing a badge is beyond me.”

“Francesca said he was an L.A. city cop before he came to Tombstone.”

“Just ’cause a chicken’s got wings don’t mean it can fly. I know Francesca has her fingers in a lot of pies in town, but how does she know Tilford didn’t dummy up those fancy recommendations he flashed at the city council meeting?”

Francesca Portolo was one of the former lady friends of Big Ben O’Dell, and as such, she’d had a hand in raising Hayley. Hayley’s dad had died in a mining accident when she was only a few weeks old. When she was three, her mother succumbed to breast cancer. Hayley’s maternal grandfather, Ben O’Dell, a local prospector who’d—more than once—lost his shirt mining for silver, gold and copper, became guardian and caretaker of his grandchild. He, in turn, relied on the women who fostered dreams of becoming the second Mrs. Ben O’Dell to raise Hayley.

She had a soft spot in her heart for all of them, but Francesca, owner of the local fabric store, had taught Hayley how to sew and cook. In addition, she’d shown a lonely little girl tricks she needed to know about becoming a woman. So Hayley tended to believe Francesca.

“Like I said, Dr. Gerrard, I’m in a fix and it’s not likely to change. Gramps had more downs than ups, but he was never a quitter. Nor am I. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved to hear it’s a baby making me sick and not cancer, like killed Mama. If my health’s otherwise okay, I’ll get by without Joe.”

“You’re fit as a fiddle, Hayley, though a mite on the skinny side. Ask Esther at the front desk for the booklet I give all my prospective mothers. Tells you pretty much everything you need to know about prenatal care. Follow the book’s advice and eat right. You’ll have a healthy baby.”

“Thanks, Dr. Gerrard. I guess my biggest worry, then, is how to earn the money to keep the rent paid, eat right and pay for my delivery.”

“Your grandpa and I went back a long way. I’ll arrange terms to make it easy on you, Hayley. Tell Esther that, too.”

Hayley smiled, the first real smile since her grandfather’s chronic asthma facilitated a persistent bacterial pneumonia from which he never recovered. Thank God, she thought, the world still held a few good men like Dr. Gerrard.

As Hayley left the clinic with the booklet and a supply of prenatal vitamins clutched in her hand, she set her sights on doing whatever was necessary to make a life for herself and the new life growing inside her.

Which seemed easier said than done when she returned home and found the mail had brought overdue notices on her utilities. Not only that, rent on the house was due in three days. She phoned Sheriff Bonner and voiced her concerns about Shad. Bonner said she had to be patient. They’d issued a warrant for Joe. It seemed he’d disappeared.

On hanging up, Hayley reviewed her options. She had the thousand dollars’ guilt money Joe had left on the kitchen table. In the note he’d clipped to it, he’d said the money should tide her over until she found work. Of course, Joe ignored the fact that in a community-property state, he owed her half of the two hundred and fifty thousand he’d received from a mining consortium. Even so, it wasn’t his taking the money that hurt so much. It was his betrayal. Never very outgoing, Hayley hadn’t made a lot of friends her own age before Joe had come to town selling mining explosives. She’d been flattered by his interest. He was good-looking and charismatic. And he’d centered his attention on her.

Gramps had said disparaging things about Joe. So had several of the old-timers in town. Now Hayley wished she’d listened. But no one, especially not Gramps, understood how lonely she’d been for most of her life. Ben O’Dell had been a tough old codger who liked his solitude. He often took off for weeks on end, prospecting. When he was home, he was preoccupied with the Silver Cloud mine.

Mining was virtually all Hayley knew, too. And mining was tough. There hadn’t been money for college at the time she graduated from high school. While her contemporaries moved on, Hayley had been stuck in Tombstone. Was it any wonder that at twenty-five, she’d latched on to Joe like a drowning woman with a life preserver? It was painful now to admit she’d been hood-winked—that she’d been stupidly trusting despite all the warnings.

Not a chance she’d make that mistake again. No, siree! Hayley Ryan was through with men. Anyway, she had bigger worries now. A thousand dollars wouldn’t pay two months’ rent, let alone keep up with utilities and buy food.

She needed a long-term plan. She needed a job. But…doing what? Hayley drew stars on the back of her electric bill. Shoot, she didn’t have a lot of skills, and Tombstone wasn’t exactly a job mecca. Sometimes months went by without an opening being listed in the paper. If she knew anyone in Tucson or Phoenix, she could go there, where unskilled jobs were more plentiful. Thing was, she didn’t even have transportation. Joe had traded in his car and Ben’s sedan on a flashy convertible—or so she’d heard. The pencil lead broke as she bore down on the last star.

“Lord,” she muttered, propping her chin in one palm, “if you’re going to show me a path, now would be as good a time as any to do it.” Idly she sorted a stack of bills while gazing blankly around at the meager accumulation of a lifetime. Dinnertime came, but she had no appetite. Although now she had to think about someone besides herself. The first item in Dr. Gerrard’s prenatal care booklet said to eat nutritious meals.

Hayley finally settled on a salad with some grated cheese for protein. She was in the middle of halfheartedly tearing apart limp lettuce when someone knocked timidly on her door.

For a moment her stomach pitched. Had Joe repented? As quickly, Hayley knew she’d never take him back even if he crawled in on hands and knees.

It wasn’t him she saw, anyway, as she peeped through the window beside the door. It was Virgil Coleman, one of her grandfather’s retired mining buddies.

“Virgil, hi,” she greeted the crusty gentleman who stood on the porch, crumpling a battered hat between his gnarled hands.

“Hate to bother you, little lady, you being in mourning and all.” The old fellow carefully picked his way through condolences, as men his age were prone to do. Clearing his throat, he added, “My oldest boy, Hank, is coming tomorrow to move me up to his place in Flagstaff. We’re putting my property up for sale. I wondered if you’d mind moving Ben’s old pickup and camp trailer out of my shed? The Realtor said I gotta clean the place up.”

“Pickup and camp trailer? I thought all of Gramps’s equipment went to the consortium that bought the mine.”

“Ben never used this stuff at the Silver Cloud. It’s his prospecting outfit. In fact, the whole kit and caboodle was once your dad’s. So I guess you know it’s old. Truck still runs okay, though.”

“I’d forgotten those things.” Hayley could barely contain her excitement. “The unit is self-contained, right?”

When Virgil scratched the fringe of hair that ringed his bald pate, Hayley elaborated. “I mean, the trailer has a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, doesn’t it?”

“About the size of a postage stamp, but yep. Once Big Ben stepped inside, he filled the place. I reckon it served his purpose, though. A man huntin’ ore travels light. He made do with it when he worked his claim down Ruby way.”

“Wait—are you saying Gramps had a mine other than the Silver Cloud?”

“Not a mine, but a claim site.”

Hayley was floored by the news. And thrilled. And suddenly hopeful. “A duly registered claim?” she asked, her heart beginning to flutter excitedly.

Virgil stammered a bit. “’Spect so. Don’t rightly know. If Ben worked it, I knowed he’d have filed right and proper.”

“A name, Virgil.” She grabbed the old man’s scrawny wrist. “If you know what he called his claim, I can find the location in the recorder’s office.”

Shaking his head, the old man backed out the door. “Wish I could help you more, missy. Ben was real secretive about that claim. So can I tell Hank you’ll pick up the truck and trailer tomorrow or the next day?”

“Yes. You bet. Virgil, you just made my day.” Hayley flung her arms around his wasted shoulders and gave him a resounding kiss on his leathery cheek. Typical of an old miner, Virgil blushed and hurriedly stammered out a goodbye.

Hayley spent only a moment hugging herself in glee and dancing around the room. Then she went to the one place she thought her grandfather might have kept a record of the claim. The same antique strongbox where he’d stored the deed that Joe had stolen. But even if Joe had found placer or lode claims for the Ruby site, she’d still have the pickup and trailer.

As she took down the box with hands that shook, Hayley recalled reading a magazine in Dr. Gerrard’s office about campers who parked their RVs for free out on the desert near Quartzsite. If nothing else, it’d be a place she could live rent free until the baby arrived. A place where she could stretch the money Joe had left her.

It’d be too much to hope for—to think she might actually have claim rights to a parcel of land.

After a deep breath, Hayley began unloading the strongbox. She found her birth certificate and her parents’ certificate of marriage, along with old family photos. She paused to look at one of her mom before reverently laying it aside. Taped to the back of her grandmother’s photo was her worn gold wedding band. Old-timers in town said that Hayley, except for her lighter hair color, resembled her grandmother, a full-blooded Apache.

Hayley lightly traced the woman’s high cheekbones and straight black hair. She saw a resemblance both to herself and her mother. It was easy to see why Grandpa had never given his heart to another woman, even though he’d taken numerous females to his bed. There was a strength and beauty about her grandmother that made her very different from softer ladies Ben squired around town.

Hayley neared the bottom of the box and her hopes of finding a claim dimmed. Suddenly, stuck to the lining, there it was. A claim form, yellowed with age, stapled to a hand-drawn map. Hayley could tell by the dates stamped on the form that Ben had refiled on the same site for ten years. To retain rights to any claim, a miner had to do a minimum of a hundred dollars’ worth of work on it every calendar year. The recording calendar ran from July 1 to June 30.

Yikes! She had a week left to ready an outfit and refile on the property.

A week! Yet it felt like a beautiful, wonderful, stupendous reprieve. Hayley hugged the papers to her breast and skipped across the threadbare living-room carpet. She had no idea what Gramps thought he’d find near the old ghost town of Ruby. But certainly something worth going there for year after year.

Gold? Arizona had a rich history of gold deposits. Ben had fascinating stories to tell about placer-gold and flour-gold strikes. He’d taken Hayley prospecting in her younger days. Those trips had been idyllic. Out of her memories, Hayley suddenly formed a vision of cottonwoods shading a lazy stream. It was a vision she couldn’t shake throughout a sleepless night or as she walked over to Virgil’s the next day to claim her truck and camp trailer. Once again life held purpose. Purpose and dreams.

By the end of the following week, she’d paid her bills and said her goodbyes to the people who mattered. Only a very few people knew she’d bought stores for a lengthy outing. Cradling her still-flat stomach, she smiled. “Hang in there, wee one. Your mama’s going to find gold. You’ll never have to worry about where your next meal’s coming from—and you’ll never have to rely on a man to take care of you.”

Monday morning she left Tombstone behind and aimed the old pickup toward the county seat to renew Ben’s claim.

When she got to the courthouse in Nogales, she filed for a divorce from Joe Ryan and posted her filing fee on the claim. Her dreams didn’t stretch so far that she dared believe she’d ever become a millionaire, though she did allow herself to hope that Ben’s secret claim would produce enough ore to provide her child with the kind of life she’d always wanted herself. Including a house. A permanent home in some friendly city that no one could ever take away.

After leaving the courthouse, she began the trek to Ruby. Twice she had doubts—although she never considered turning back. Once when she lost sight of the jutting red rock known as Montana Peak, which she’d been using as her compass since leaving the highway, and a second time when she passed the ghost town of Ruby. One-hundred-degree heat sizzled off the dented hood of the pickup. The remnants of dilapidated buildings depressed her. They stood as grim reminders that this scorched earth had beaten stronger men and women than Hayley Andrews Ryan ever thought of being.

She touched her stomach, where the flutter she felt was fear, not the movement of her child. What insanity had possessed her to come to this desolate land alone? Pregnant and alone.

Then, when the vegetation became greener and Hayley spotted a frolicking white-faced cow and calf, she reminded herself how alone she’d been in Tombstone. “There’s just you and me, kid,” she murmured, patting her stomach again.

The trailer bumped when she hit a rocky dip. Hayley bounced on the seat and settled back with a giggle. “I hope you like roller coasters, kiddo. The track from here on is a real washboard.”

According to the map, she was near the claim. While she’d hoped for an oasis of deer grass and cottonwoods, what lay ahead was an occasional mesquite, ironwood and rock. Sheer cliffs of reddish rock. Turning left around a promontory, Hayley saw a cascade of water falling between the two sentinel rocks drawn on the map. The falling water formed a natural spring. But it didn’t feed the Santa Cruz River as she’d hoped.

A crushing disappointment descended as Hayley stopped her rig in the clearing also indicated on the crude map. So her grandfather hadn’t been panning for gold. What riches had enticed him to come to this desolate place year after year—and to keep it such a secret?

She pulled the trailer beneath the shade of a huge mesquite. Maybe this wasn’t the place, she thought as she climbed down from the cab.

But a hand-carved wooden sign carefully wedged in a stack of rocks said Blue Cameo Mine. Tears sprang to her eyes and it suddenly seemed absolutely right that she be here. A cameo carved in blue was the only memento she had of her mother. Another legacy stolen by Joe Ryan. Losing the cameo had hurt worse than his selling the Silver Cloud.

Ben O’Dell had carved his name in the sign. That was how prospectors staked a claim. Hayley could expect to find a similar mound at each of the claim’s four corners. Twenty acres in all was the limit one person could work.

Night was sneaking up on her. The sun had slipped behind the Sierrita Mountains. Tomorrow would be plenty of time to take stock of the land Hayley planned to call home for at least the next six months. What she needed to do in the remaining daylight was unhitch the pickup and level the trailer. With luck, she’d have time to gather a bit of wood and build a campfire. The trailer’s utilities ran on butane, but she wanted to save that for when inclement weather drove her inside. She hadn’t passed a convenience store or gas station, in the past thirty miles. Twenty of those miles had been unpaved road. Yes, she’d do well to save her store-bought resources and live off the land for as long as possible.

One indulgence she’d bought—a portable radio. And she’d laid in a good supply of batteries. It had seemed a frivolous purchase at the time, but as she snapped it on and twirled the dial until she found the faint strains of Tejano music coming from across the border, Hayley thanked whatever had prompted her to make the impulsive buy. With music, she didn’t feel half so alone.

As she built a fire, hammered pegs to hold the trailer’s awning and dragged out the two lawn chairs that had belonged to Gramps, Hayley paused a moment to appreciate a truly glorious sunset. Life wasn’t so bad, she decided on a rush of emotion. In fact, things had turned out pretty darned good. The thought ended abruptly. Over a lull in the twangy music, Hayley heard the steady clip-clop, clip-clop of a horse’s hooves.

Holding her breath, she lowered the music. Yes, a horse and rider were definitely coming closer. The squeak of leather told her the horse was saddled. Gramps had taught her well to listen for and delineate sounds in the wild. And he obviously didn’t consider this site totally safe; in the pickup’s window rack, Ben had left a twelve-gauge, double-barreled shotgun and a well-oiled rifle.

Hayley dashed to the truck and grabbed the shotgun. She’d never shoot a person, but scaring someone, now, that was a different story. No stranger to guns, Hayley counted on being able to run a good bluff. She carefully put the crackling fire between her and the approaching rider.

Unfortunately he came at her out of the west, forcing her to look directly into the brilliant red glow of the sinking sun. Horse and rider rounded an outcrop of granite, appearing as a huge dark shadow. The horse snorted and blew as if he’d been ridden hard. The man sat tall and menacing in the saddle. These few facts registered with Hayley as she raised the gun to her shoulder and said in the toughest voice she could muster, “Stop right there.” Squinting, she saw that the stranger wore a battered Stetson. His shoulders were wide, his legs long, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while. Even in modern times, Tombstone attracted its share of saddle tramps; Hayley had heard that the farther south one went, the more likelihood there was of encountering men who made their living rustling cattle or running contraband across the border. Just another show of her bad luck that she’d meet one of the unsavory types her first night out.

“Who the hell are you?” a rough voice asked. “This is private property. I’ll give you two seconds to pack up and scram off Triple C land.”

Hayley had to hand it to the stranger. He ran a fair bluff, too. “Scram yourself, cowboy. I have a piece of paper that says this twenty acres belongs to me as long as I work my claim. And I’ve got a loaded gun backing up my right to be here. I suggest you hightail it back wherever you came from.”

“You’ve staked a claim? For mining?”

“Not your business, cowboy.” Hayley drew back one shotgun hammer. Instead of withdrawing as she expected, her visitor touched his boot heels to the big gelding and crow-hopped toward her.

Hayley didn’t want to shoot, but the closer he got, the bigger he seemed. His sweating horse might as well have been breathing fire. Hayley panicked. She envisioned her life and that of her unborn child ending here in no-man’s-land, where the buzzards would pick her bones clean and no living soul would care. Aiming above his head, hoping to make him think she meant business, she fired.

The force of the explosion slammed the stock of the gun against her shoulder and spun her sideways. But not before she saw a limb on the mesquite splinter. A thick limb, about to drop on the stranger’s head. If she didn’t do something, it could strike him dead. Hayley dropped the shotgun and lunged at the bay gelding.

“Are you plumb crazy, woman?” The rider jerked back on his reins, which was the wrong thing to do. The limb hit him hard and scared his mount, who reared high on his hind legs and bolted, sending his rider flying.

The man landed hard enough to shake the ground.

“Oh, no. Oh, no!” This was not at all what Hayley had intended. Muttering a prayer, she hurried to the stranger’s side, fell to her knees and peered anxiously at his face. A great bloody gash spread above his left ear. Hesitantly she slipped her fingers beneath the red bandanna he had tied around his neck, checking for a pulse.

“Thank God.” Hayley heaved a sigh and pillowed his head on her knees. His pulse beat slow and steady. At least she hadn’t killed him.

JACOB COOPER opened his eyes. He felt the world spin, so he shut them again. There was a hollow ringing in his ears. It took Jake several moments to realize he was no longer seated in his saddle but lay horizontally on the ground—with his head resting on something soft. Good, since his head hurt like hell.

What the devil had happened? It’d been years since he’d tumbled from a horse. Not since his rodeo days.

All at once Jake remembered the woman with the big eyes and the even bigger gun. Had she shot him? He struggled to sit up and, though woozy, nearly smacked his nose into a face peering at him from close range. Had he met his maker? Was this the angel of death? Somehow he’d never expected the angel of death to be so pretty.

So pretty, or so solidly real. It dawned on Jake that his head lay on the lap of a flesh-and-blood woman. He was so deliriously happy to discover he was alive he started to laugh.

His angel of death’s beautiful eyes narrowed warily. Jake noticed they weren’t blue as he’d thought at first but almost lavender—unless it was a trick of the light created by a fading sun.

“What’s so funny?” the woman demanded, beginning to edge out from beneath his shoulders.

“You are,” Jake said, planting a hand near her hip so he could lever himself into a sitting position. “If I’d been the kind of guy you thought I was—the kind who needed killing—you’d be in a heap of trouble about now, lady.”

She scrambled backward, still on her knees. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. I’ll have you know I generally hit what I aim for.”

Jake touched his bloody head. “I’ll vouch for that.” He climbed shakily to his feet and whistled for his horse, who now stood quietly lapping water from the spring.

“I aimed over your head. The sun was in my eyes. I didn’t know the shot would sever a dead limb on that big old mesquite.”

Jacob now understood why he couldn’t hear so well. It’d been the nearness of the shotgun blast. He glanced at the ground, saw the size of the limb and thought it was a miracle he and Mojave hadn’t both been killed. The base of the limb was as big around as his thigh, and the front portion looked like a spike. “Loggers call limbs like this widow makers,” he muttered. “Only I don’t have a wife.”

The woman obviously wasn’t anywhere near ready to trust him. While he patted down his horse, checking him for injuries, she stretched out a hand to retrieve her gun.

It was then that Jake noticed how dark it had become. The only light now came from the woman’s campfire. Yet he could clearly see what she had in mind. In two long strides he beat her to the weapon. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not letting you finish the job.” As easily as taking a lollipop from a toddler, Jake divested her of her weapon.

“How about we start with introductions,” he said when she shied away. “I’m Jacob—Jake—Cooper from the Triple C ranch. I admit this spring is on Bureau of Land Management property, but it’s got water crucial to our cattle. In fact, there are some ten ranchers in the area who need that water. July to October our range land is almost dry. The vaqueros we hire to help with roundup start that pump over there at intervals to feed water through the ditches. Well, it’s not really a pump, but a set of four flow valves that work off the water pressure when someone turns the wheels and opens the valves.” He pointed.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Cooper.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve recorded a legal claim to prospect here. My claim starts at that pile of rocks—at the sign declaring it the Blue Cameo Mine. This plot of ground is mine from now until next July.”

“Sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Hayley. Hayley Ryan. Feel free to check with the county recorder and the state BLM office. You’ll find my paperwork in order and my fees paid.”

Jake bent at the waist and scooped up his hat from where it had fallen. He jammed it on his head and then grimaced because it scraped the bloody reminder of his encounter with this woman. “I hate to burst your bubble, Hayley Ryan. You’re claim-jumping. A man by the name of Ben O’Dell filed on this site—and the Triple C has an agreement with Ben. He promised to notify us when he’s finished prospecting, and we’re going to the recording office with him when he releases the mineral rights. Then we’ll buy this twenty acres, plus the hundred that adjoins it.”

“Did my grandfath…uh…Ben…did he put that in writing?”

Jake removed his hat again and slapped it against his thigh. “I shot the breeze with Ben a lot. We swapped stories and drank coffee or an occasional beer. I suppose you could call what we had a gentlemen’s agreement. Are you and he related? He never mentioned having a family.”

“Everyone has a family. Ben passed on recently. That nullifies his claim. If you two had an agreement, he didn’t tell anyone. My claim is good, Mr. Cooper.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Well, I hope you’ll pardon me if I ride into Tombstone to see if you’re telling the truth.”

“Be my guest.” Hayley waved him off. “Don’t let me keep you. It’s been a long day. I’d like to eat my evening meal in peace, if you don’t mind, Mr. Cooper.”

“It’s Jake, or Jacob, please.”

“Jacob, then,” she said sweetly, extending a hand. “And, if you don’t mind, I’ll take my shotgun before you go.”

Jake let his disgruntled gaze circle the isolated campsite before he silently handed back her gun. “Ben never said what he was digging for. It must be something valuable for a pretty lady like you to bury herself in such a desolate place. Are you aware of how far it is to the nearest ranch house?”

When she said nothing, only clamped her pointed little jaw tighter, Jake went ahead and filled her in before he swung into the saddle. “Your closest neighbor would be the Triple C. Eight miles from here as the crow flies. Closer to twelve if you follow the trail. Our ranch sits practically on the Mexican border.”

Again Hayley said nothing. She simply cocked her head.

“Dang! It goes against my grain to leave a lady alone among coyotes and wolves. To say nothing of any two-legged varmints who drift past here, or any illegals jumping the border. Say the word and I’ll help you hitch up that trailer so you can park closer to civilization.”

“I just unhitched, Mr. Cooper, er, Jake.” Hayley enunciated clearly, as if to a child.

“I’m offering you the Triple C’s hospitality, woman.”

“My name is Hayley,” she said pointedly as he’d done with his earlier. “Nice try, but nothing you say is going to frighten me off my claim. You may as well give up. If you have eight miles to travel before sitting down to supper, hadn’t you better take off?” Hayley delivered the advice through a dazzling smile.

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. Stubborn didn’t begin to describe Hayley Ryan. He could just imagine what his dad and his brother, Dillon, who lived with his wife in a separate house on Triple C land, were going to say when he delivered the news about this squatter. He’d catch hell from his mom and his sister-in-law, Eden, too, for leaving a defenseless woman to fend for herself. Jake was torn between going home to impart the news or sticking close to look after the damn little fool.

A sharp pain sliced through his skull. He changed his mind about calling the woman defenseless. She was one tough cookie.

Touching two fingers curtly to the brim of his hat, he wheeled Mojave and rode off the way he’d come. If she didn’t run out of lead for that scattergun, she ought to be safe enough by herself—for one night.

CHAPTER TWO

WADE COOPER met his son in the barn where Jake had stopped to rub down and feed Mojave. A Border collie Jake had raised from a pup yapped excitedly.

“Sit, Charcoal,” ordered Wade, a lean handsome man in his midsixties. Without being asked, he pitched in to help Jake take care of his horse. “Expected you back by suppertime. Why don’t you let me finish here? Go wash up. Your mother saved you a plate in the oven. You know Nell won’t admit to worrying, but she still frets and peeks down the road when she thinks I’m not looking.”

“Yeah, well, I’d have been here sooner, but I ran into a snag.” Jake removed his Stetson and gingerly touched his swollen temple. It still hurt like hell.

“Literally a snag?” Wade stepped closer and frowned at the blood matted in his son’s close-cropped sideburns.

“In more ways than one, I’m afraid.” Jake left nothing out as he replayed his encounter with Hayley Ryan at Ben O’Dell’s claim.

“Well, hell!” Wade exclaimed. His chin sagged to his chest by the time Jake finished his story. “I feel bad about Ben. Would’ve attended his funeral if I’d known about it. Your brother subscribes to all those damned papers—Tombstone, Nogales, Tubac. Wonder how he missed O’Dell’s obituary?”

“You’ll have to ask him. Perhaps Eden lined the bird cage with it.” Jake grinned. His brother was sappy in love with his wife. He’d do anything for her. But Dillon really had a hard time liking Eden’s beloved parrot. Coronado talked a blue streak to everyone who walked into the couple’s house—but reserved special treatment for Dillon, screeching at him and biting him every chance he got.

“Quit needling Dillon over that bird. Tell me more about the Ryan woman.”

Jake scowled. “What’s to tell? She’s no bigger than a flea. One of our stiff Baja winds will blow her and that tomfool toy trailer of hers right off the map.”

“That’s not what I meant. Ben led me to believe he’d kept this claim a secret.”

“Hayley Ryan alleges she’s Ben’s granddaughter. But he never mentioned any kin to me. I wonder if she’s trying to pull a fast one. She told me Ben never said a word about our water deal. And asked me if I had something in writing. I thought I’d drive to Tombstone tomorrow and snoop a little.”

“Let Mom and me go,” Wade said. “We’ll drive on to Tucson. Nell’s been badgering me to go before roundup starts. She heard about a new pottery-supply store.”

“Fine by me. I’d just as soon not drive the pickup over that graveled track between here and Arivaca.” Jake hunkered down to pat Charcoal, then let the dog lick his face.

“Probably wouldn’t hurt if you were to ride back out and check on the woman tomorrow. Someone should warn her about the rattlers nesting back in those rocks. Ben tangled with a couple of big ones.”

“It’s a waste of breath trying to scare her off. I brought up wolves, coyotes and mentioned illegals coming through. Didn’t faze her.”

“Hmm. Then turn on the Cooper charm and see if you can work the same deal with her as we set up with Ben.”

Jake snorted and wrinkled his nose.

“Wha-at? You think I haven’t heard Eden and Nell talk about how all the ranchers’ daughters around here make cow eyes at you? I hear Dillon teasing you about all those single artists in Tubac who’d like to become Mrs. Jacob Cooper.”

“You’re forgetting Hayley Ryan took a potshot at me, Dad.” Jake didn’t tell his father, however, that she’d also cushioned his injured head in her lap. Falling off his horse had been humiliating. But her hands had felt cool against his skin, and she’d smelled good. Very, very good. Jake recalled enjoying the faint scent of apple blossoms when he’d come to. Thinking about it again made him go a little breathless. He took a step back, threw the brush into a box of supplies and led Mojave into a stall.

“What do you suppose Ben hoped to find?” Jake asked Wade, to take his mind off the way Hayley Ryan felt and looked and smelled.

“Can’t recall the old guy saying. I don’t know if he just needed to escape town life for a month or so every summer, or if he actually found ore.”

“You’d think it’d have to be more than just an escape to drag a guy out to live in primitive conditions every year for some ten years.”

“I figured he was halfheartedly hunting silver. A couple of times he talked like the ore was slowly playing out of his mine near Tombstone. But then, I’m a cattleman through and through. I don’t pretend to know what makes a prospector tick.”

“There you two are.” Nell Cooper poked her head inside the barn. Still slender at fifty-five, she had smooth skin and warm gray eyes, which contributed to the fact that she didn’t look much older than her sons, Dillon, thirty-five and Jacob, thirty-two. “Goodness, Jacob, what happened to your head?” Very much in command of the Triple C in her role as family caretaker, Nell silenced Charcoal and bustled the men toward the house.

She clucked sympathetically as Jake and Wade alternately explained Jake’s clash with Hayley Ryan. “Well,” Nell declared as she gently sponged her son’s wound, “that woman sounds crazy. I say leave her alone, Jacob. We used to haul water from the ranch out to some troughs your father and his dad constructed from fifty-gallon barrels. I guess we can do that again.”

Wade and Jake exchanged a very male rolling of the eyes. “After we successfully dickered to use Ben’s spring, it cut our work by half,” Wade reminded his wife. “Not only that, we’re running twice the summer herd now. Jake, Dillon and I can certainly handle one contrary female.”

As Nell got out first-aid supplies, she wore a look that said they should heed her advice and that the matter wasn’t closed by a long shot.

Jake knew that look. “Mom, don’t you be doing anything dumb. You and Dad are going to Tombstone tomorrow to check out the Ryan woman’s story. I’m counting strays that may have drifted up around Pena Blanca Lake. I’ll keep tabs on her when I head out in the morning.”

“You’d better spy on her from a distance,” his mother said as she rubbed antibacterial cream across Jake’s nasty-looking wound. “Her aim might be truer next time.”

Jake sighed. “I told you she was shooting over my head. She stared square into the sun and didn’t see the limb. I peg her as a stubborn female, not a criminal.”

“Jacob Cooper.” Nell wagged a finger. “Now, mind you, I’m not condoning what she did. But I hope you’re not one to be calling her stubborn simply because she’s a woman. If it were a man protecting his claim, you’d give him his due.”

“Now, Mama, I give women their due. What I was trying to say is that Hayley Ryan isn’t all that dangerous.”

“Doesn’t hurt to take it easy until we know more, son,” Wade said, clapping Jake on the shoulder. “I mean, we don’t know anything about her, and we don’t know how old Ben died, now do we?”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Jake threw up his hands and stalked into the kitchen, away from his parents. As they entered the room behind him, he faced them again and ran a hand across his jaw with its three-day growth of beard. He directed his question at Nell. “Look at me. If I rode in and surprised you, and you were camped alone, wouldn’t you pull a gun if you had one?”

Nell studied her second-born son. The love she felt for him shone from her eyes.

“Okay, so it’s not a fair question,” Jake allowed. “All I’m saying is I’m willing to cut her some slack.”

Nell removed a warming plate from the oven and set it on the table, then motioned Jake to have a seat. “You can be respectful without being too trusting, Jacob. Oh, I know, females young and old fall naturally under your spell. At times it’s music to a mother’s ears, even if some of them insult me with their flattery when they’re angling to become my daughter-in-law. But remember, this Hayley Ryan is a total stranger. Just because she appears helpless and vulnerable doesn’t mean she is. Don’t forget the women’s prisons are full of baby-faced stinkers.”

A peal of laughter burst from Jake. His eyes, a shade lighter gray than his mother’s, reflected his mirth. “That must be lecture number ten million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand. Dillon said you quit lecturing him altogether when he married Eden. Is that what I have to do to get you to ease up, Mom? Find me a wife?”

She looked sheepish for a moment, then playfully slapped one of his broad shoulders. “Go ahead, laugh. You’ll understand when you have kids of your own. A mother wants her children’s lives to be perfect. They never get so old that you stop worrying.”

“You worry too much,” Jake told her.

Wade looped his arms around his wife. He pinioned her arms and nuzzled her neck. “Our boys are men, Nell. Time they worried about themselves. In fact, Jake and I were talking yesterday. After the next roundup we thought we’d start clearing that mesa he’s had his eye on. You know, the one overlooking Hell’s Gate.”

The news brought a happy cry from Nell. “Jake. Does this mean you’ve made up your mind to put a ring on some lucky girl’s finger? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Cayla Burke.” She glanced from her husband to her son and back again. “Granted, Cayla can be a little chatty, but she knows ranching. No?” She pursed her lips. “Who, then? Oh, Jake, not Sierra Mackey. I know Eden said you danced with her three times at the grange dance last month. But she’s…she’s…”

“Well, don’t stop there,” Jake teased. “Sierra’s what?”

Nell gulped. “If she’s your choice, Jake, I don’t want to be critical of her. I’ll support your decision and make her welcome here, of course.”

“I’m not marrying Sierra. Just because I’m ready to have a place of my own doesn’t mean I’ve found a partner. Not that I’m not looking. I am. But I’m holding out for what you and Dad have. And I’ll finish the sentence for you. Sierra is exactly like her mother. Myra drinks too much and she can’t keep her hands off other women’s husbands. I’ve got eyes, Mom.”

“And brains,” Wade said, drawing his wife around for a more complete kiss. “Enough said, Nell,” he muttered. “Let’s retire and let Jacob eat.”

Jake watched them leave arm in arm. An emptiness washed over him. He despaired of ever finding a mate who compared to his mother or to Dillon’s wife, Eden. Both were one-man women. Yet they were strong and independent. His mom was a talented potter. Eden, a silversmith. Her jewelry sold in fine stores all over the world. Underneath, at a very basic level, each loved the land. Jake wouldn’t settle for less.

The ranch was important to him. Many of the women he’d dated over the past five years couldn’t wait to shake the dust of the country off their feet. Jake had known from the time he was five that he never wanted to do anything but raise beeves like his dad. Maybe it wasn’t meant for him to get married, he mused as he polished off the last of the casserole and carried his plate to the dishwasher.

Maybe, unlike his father and brother, he couldn’t have both.

HAYLEY SAT BESIDE her campfire and toyed with the hasty meal of biscuits and stew she’d fixed after the cowboy had gone. She couldn’t remember a night so dark. There must have been some, she thought. Those times she’d gone prospecting with her grandfather. But back then, his larger-than-life presence had dispelled all the fears a young girl might associate with the darkness.

Hayley wished Jake Cooper hadn’t ridden into her camp. In doing so, he’d reminded her how isolated she was. As melancholy overtook her, Hayley recognized that she’d fallen into the grip of a terrible homesickness.

Not only that, her uninvited visitor’s unsubtle warning had turned the surrounding blackness into a potential place of terror. No stranger to the yip of coyotes, Hayley now gave a start and shivered whenever she heard distant calls.

She’d intended to stoke the fire after doing her dishes and then read one of the Luke Short westerns she’d brought to spice up lonely evenings. When an owl hooted nearby and she practically jumped out of her skin, Hayley changed her mind about staying up. She scraped her uneaten food into an airtight container to be disposed of later, and banked the fire, instead of feeding it.

She made one last check of the food sacks she’d hung in a tree. Jacob Cooper hadn’t mentioned bears in his list of things she needed to fear, but Hayley would rather be safe than sorry.

Collecting her shotgun and rifle, she retreated into the tiny trailer, where she tossed and turned for hours. One thought she couldn’t shut out: What if Jacob Cooper didn’t belong to any Triple C ranch? What if, even now, he was rounding up pals to jump her claim? Things like that happened with regularity in the books she read. Perhaps she should have stocked some contemporary novels. People didn’t jump claims in the twenty-first century, did they?

It was the newness of the situation, she tried to tell herself, not Jake’s warnings, that had her listening for every whisper of wind through the brush and turning it into a wolf attack or just a plain thief attack.

She’d tried to act brave when Cooper leveled his dire admonitions. Inside she’d been quaking. The man at the recorder’s office yesterday had already informed her that two ranchers in this vicinity had reported jaguars killing their range stock. The friend of Ben’s from whom she’d borrowed the shotgun had painted a more gruesome picture. He’d flatly stated that homeless individuals who wandered the hills would certainly kill her and make off with her pickup and trailer.

Inside, the trailer was hot as sin. At first she wasn’t willing to open either of the small windows, not even if it meant she baked in this tin can. The screens would be no deterrent, she decided, from any man or beast who chose to break in.

She lay on her back in the close confines of the small alcove and laced her hands across her belly. Talking to her baby helped calm her. “This is our only chance to make a go of things, Junior,” she murmured. “Francesca warned me I’d kill us both hauling rocks or blasting ore out of the ground. Hard work never hurt a pregnant woman,” she said, more loudly than she intended. “Gramps said my grandmother took care of my mom, planted and maintained a garden, kept house and helped him haul copper out of his first mine.”

Sweat beaded Hayley’s brow and trickled between her breasts. Breasts that had grown increasingly tender in the past two weeks. She drew up her nightgown and fanned her legs. “It’s not the hard work I mind.” Her biggest worry was determining the best time to leave here so Dr. Gerrard could deliver her baby. And would she have found anything worthwhile on this claim?

Hayley couldn’t answer those questions. She did know that if she didn’t manage to get some rest, she could forgo working tomorrow. Heavens, she ought to be able to stand a little heat tonight. Things would look better in the morning. They always did.

Ten minutes past midnight Hayley gave up suffering and opted for the possibility of a cooling breeze over the threat of death. Soon after she opened the windows, she felt such relief at the breath of fresh air that she began to cry. Unable to stem the flow of tears, she ended up crying herself to sleep.

LIGHT FILTERING in the window woke Hayley before 5:00 a.m. At first it seemed she’d barely gotten to sleep, and she tried to burrow under the pillow. Almost as fast it struck her that she’d successfully spent the first full night in her new home. Not one bad thing had happened. She derived an immense satisfaction from that. Greeting the day seemed far more desirable than lolling about in a hot trailer.

She showered in the cramped hollow carved in rock behind the waterfall. Refreshed, she hummed “Carrying Your Love with Me,” a once-popular George Strait tune, as she started a fire and put on water for tea. She ate a bowl of berries and cottage cheese while she waited for the water to boil. In this heat the ice in her cooler would soon be history. “I can’t be driving into town too often.” She spoke matter-of-factly to her unborn child. “Fresh fruit and veggies are not going to be very plentiful after what I have in my cooler spoils. Maybe some farmer around Arivaca will sell me a milk cow and a few laying hens next time I go to town for supplies. I don’t have a lot of the thousand dollars left after laying in prospecting tools and stuff. But if the price is right, junior, it’ll be worth the money.”

She patted her stomach. “Dr. Gerrard said in a few months I can have an ultrasound done at the hospital to show how far along you are. It might also tell us if you’re Junior or Juniorette.” Hayley chuckled, but soon her laughter faded. “I’m not sure I want to know. Life needs some nice surprises.” For the first time since learning of her condition, Hayley wondered if Joe would care that he’d left her pregnant. Probably not, but he deserved to know he’d fathered a child. If the law found him, she’d tell him.

Pouring herself a second cup of tea, Hayley firmly rejected further thoughts of Joe and set out to wander the low-lying hills beyond the waterfall. What she hoped to find was a stream that might indicate Gramps had been panning for gold. Swishing water around in a sieve would be much easier on her than blasting rock and hauling heavy ore down from a mountain.

Instead of flattening out into a valley that would support a stream, the terrain beyond the spring grew hillier. There were signs in numerous places that her grandfather had used his rock hammer to split rocks. Since some pieces were missing, Hayley surmised he’d taken sections to assay.

At the top of the second rise, she turned in a tight circle and surveyed the area all the way to her campsite. What had her grandfather expected to find?

Sighing, she hopped from rock to rock and picked her way back to the trailer. This would be a beautiful place to build a home. The trees were green, the water sweet and the sky so blue it hurt her eyes. But Hayley was no stranger to the laws governing mining claims. A miner could throw up a tent or move in a motorhome, but any attempt to erect a permanent structure on land open to claims was illegal. And each year the rules got stickier.

At her camp again, Hayley hauled out a couple of her grandfather’s mineralogy books, plus the copies she’d made of his yearly filing papers. Each year he’d listed a different mineral. None were valuable. Mica, pyrite and chalcopyrite, all names for fool’s gold. He’d once reported streaks of copper. Not a big deal. The area around this site was rife with small deposits of copper.

“Gramps was nobody’s fool,” Hayley muttered, pouring herself more tea. He knew that if a person wanted to preserve a claim until he made a big find, it was best to feed the county recorder unimportant facts. His last report included quartz and chalcedony. Totally negative geological findings.

Hayley settled into a chair with her tea, the books and a small journal she’d found in the strongbox. Her grandfather had never been much for writing. In fact, Hayley doubted he’d gone past sixth grade in school. Yet he’d painstakingly cataloged everything he’d found when he worked this claim. She noticed his last entry differed from the report he’d given the county recorder.

Was that significant? Hayley sipped her herb tea and stared into space. He’d written coordinates, and in a shaky hand penned in hydrous silicon oxide. Hayley wasn’t familiar with the term. Did his unsteady writing mean he was excited, or was it simply a sign that he was growing older?

His death was sudden and unexpected. Hayley, as well as others, assumed he’d recover from his nagging bout of pneumonia. Would he have told her about this spot if he’d had more warning? Hayley liked to think he would’ve taken her into his confidence. However, the old man really detested Joe, so maybe he wouldn’t have breathed a word, after all.

The thought saddened her, but Hayley could only be glad Ben had kept his counsel. Otherwise Joe and Cindy would have converted the truck and trailer to cash and sold this claim to the highest bidder. Probably to Jacob Cooper, if he’d been telling the truth.

To keep from sliding into gloom, Hayley set Ben’s mineral books on a low camp stool and opened the first to page one. She might not know what hydrous silicon oxide was, but she had a lot of spare time to find out. If need be, she could drive into Tucson to the library. Although Tombstone was closer, everyone there knew her. The first time any local prospectors suspected she was on to anything, this place would be overrun with scavengers.

The thought had no more than entered her mind when a horse and rider and a black-and-white dog exploded from the trees between Hayley and her trailer. She tried but failed to scramble from the chair. She spilled tea everywhere. Her heart tripped over itself. Darn, she’d meant to keep one of the firearms with her at all times. She’d already forgotten and had left both guns in a closet in the trailer.

Before she could panic or even take a levelheaded look at her situation, a familiar voice rang out. “Don’t go for your shotgun until you see what I’ve brought you.” A gunnysack dropped into Hayley’s lap, and the fright it gave her slammed her heart up into her throat. The bay gelding she’d only seen in twilight kicked sandy soil all over her fire ring as he danced in front of her. The dog, at least, seemed civilized. He ran up and licked her hand.

“Well, open it. It won’t bite,” said the man who’d introduced himself yesterday as Jacob Cooper. Hayley finally caught her breath, although she continued to eye him warily as he dismounted.

Her hands tugged at the string holding the sack closed even as she noted the changes between this man and the stranger from last night. Still dressed in the working clothes of a cowboy, yesterday’s saddle bum now wore a clean shirt and jeans. His hat, instead of the battered Stetson was the summer straw variety, and it was as clean as his newly shaven face. The engaging smile he wore exposed a dimple in one cheek and a cleft in his chin.

Jake dropped on his haunches next to her chair. With a quick flip of his wrist, he spilled the sack’s contents into Hayley’s hands. Four vine-ripened tomatoes, an ear of fresh corn and two thick slices of ham. “It’s home-cured,” he said of the ham. “My brother, Dillon, has a smokehouse. Smoking ham, bacon and turkey is kind of a hobby for him.”

Hayley met the twinkle in the man’s gray eyes with a look she knew must reflect her incredulity.

“I know there’s a thank-you on the tip of your tongue,” Jake said, rising and barely holding back a grin. “It’s not so hard once you get the hang of it.”

“I do thank you,” she finally managed. “It’s just…it’s more like…you took me by surprise. You don’t even know me!” she blurted. “Why bring me food?”

Jake removed his hat and slapped it a few times against his right knee. “No one ever asks why. Neighbors out here share, that’s all. Now you’re supposed to reciprocate.”

This time Hayley clasped the sack to her breasts protectively. She flattened herself tight to the back of the lawn chair.

“Coffee,” Jake said softly. “In exchange, you offer me a cup of java. It’s a dusty ride over here. I could use something to wet my whistle before I go hunting for strays.”

“Oh, coffee. I’ll make some. Goodness, where are my manners?” Hayley babbled. Nimbler than before, she untangled herself from the chair and swept up the pot. “I, uh, have coffee grounds in the trailer. I’ll go put the things you brought in my cooler and grab a clean mug for you, as well.”

“Sure would appreciate it,” he drawled. Watching her hurry away, Jake thought she had to be one of the most naturally pretty females in all three of the surrounding counties. Thick corkscrew curls hung past her shoulders, indicating she probably wore braids. Her eyes were huge and expressive. They were more blue than lavender today. She had a generous mouth and even white teeth. Her skin was possibly her best feature. Bronzed a light gold, to Jake it appeared flawless. At least the part he could see. Dang, he’d barely met the woman. He shouldn’t be wanting to see more of her skin.

Ha, tell that to a certain part of him!

To keep her from seeing how unsteady his hands were, Jake looped Mojave’s reins around a scrub bush and tucked his fingertips into the front pockets of his jeans. No, he decided quickly. That was a bad move.

He snapped his fingers at his dog. When Charcoal dropped panting at his feet, Jake returned his hat to his head and knelt to pet him.

That was the position Hayley found him in when she returned, not only with the coffee grounds and promised mug, but with the shotgun she’d brandished last night.

“Whoa!” Jake tipped his hat to a rakish angle, then held up both hands.

“This isn’t for you,” she said with a laugh. “But when you rode in, I realized it was pretty stupid of me to be out here alone and unprotected.” She leaned the big gun against a boulder and bent to measure coffee grounds.

The seat of her denims pulled snugly over a gently rounded backside. Jake’s mouth went dust-dry. For a moment he forgot any objections he had to her walking around with a loaded gun. He swallowed a few times before he could speak again. “So, you haven’t had enough of your own company yet?”

Hayley poured his mug full, even though the coffee wasn’t much more than colored water at this point.

Jake blew on the liquid to cool it as he waited for her answer.

“I’m planning to stay until December,” Hayley said forthrightly.

“December?” Jake scowled. “We’re sitting on high desert here.”

“Yes.” Her tone held an unspoken So?

“I don’t think you want to camp out when the snow flies.”

“Flurries, right? Nothing major. Tombstone and Sierra Vista get a bit of snow. Generally it melts by noon.”

“We get more than flurries. If snow happens to fall on the heels of a monsoon, it gives new meaning to the great Southwet.”

“Why are you trying to run me off this claim, Mr. Cooper?”

“I thought we settled last night that you’d call me Jake.”

“Either way, I’m not leaving.” She gestured with her own mug, clamped firmly in her left hand.

That was when Jake noticed the white band of skin on her finger—the perfect width for a wedding ring, obviously recently removed. It drew him up short to think of her having been married to some faceless man. He let his face match his mood and he frowned again.

Stubborn as she was, no wonder some poor bastard took a powder.

He’d scarcely had the uncharitable thought when he remembered his mother’s words, and they kicked in. His mom could be plenty stubborn herself. As could Eden. Both women lived in this valley spring, summer, fall and winter. They made daily trips from the ranch into Tubac, where they shared a shop in the arty community on what had once been the site of Arizona’s first mission. The roads in and out weren’t great, but their husbands didn’t expect them to stop working because of a little bad weather. Jake knew he had no business questioning any of Hayley’s decisions.

“Bringing me a few supplies does not give you the right to stick your nose in my business,” she said.

Jake was jolted back to the present in the middle of her tart little speech. “You’re absolutely correct.” He rose to his feet in one rolling motion. “Thanks for the coffee, although it’s a mite weak.” Moving aside the books spread across a small square table, he set down the nearly full mug. His eyes scanned the pages she’d propped open with a fair-size rock. The chapter was titled: “How to Know Your Minerals and Rocks.” Any doubts as to her true intentions were dispelled by her choice of reading material.

“What exactly do you think you’re going to find, hacking around through the rocks and brush, Ms. Ryan?”

“It’s Mrs. Ryan.”

“Mrs.?” Jake hadn’t expected that comeback and it threw him. He recognized that his reaction was equal parts shock and disappointment.

“Yes. Mrs. Joe Ryan.” Hayley bit her lip hard and felt guilty for lying. But technically her divorce wouldn’t be final for six months. By then, she’d better have uncovered whatever secrets this land held. Meanwhile, claiming to be married might discourage Jacob Cooper from making any more uninvited visits.

But as she saw him climb back on the big gelding, a pang of regret gripped her chest. These past few minutes had been quite pleasant.

Really, though, she’d be foolish to trust him. Since Joe’s subterfuge, Hayley had been reluctant to trust any man. She certainly ought to know better than to let one as overtly charming as Jake Cooper get under her skin. She’d landed in this fix because she’d tumbled head over bootstraps for one beguiling frog she’d mistaken for a prince. She didn’t plan to let that happen again.

Shading her eyes, Hayley gazed solemnly at Jake Cooper.

“I’ve got work to do,” he muttered. “Can’t stay here socializing all day.”

“I didn’t invite you here in the first place,” she snapped. When guilt stabbed again, Hayley dropped her arm and leaned down to pat his dog. “Take care, old fella,” she crooned. “Tell your master I’ll enjoy my dinner of ham, tomatoes and fresh corn.”

Jake glanced down at the straight-arrow part in her hair, and despite himself he smiled. She tried so hard to act tough. Something told Jake she was a lot softer inside. But two could play her go-between game.

“Charcoal, you tell the lady to bury her scraps deep. We’d hate to have her blood spilled by some marauding cougar or one of those Mexican jaguars sighted around here last fall. Honest,” he said. “Oh, and tell her to keep an eye out for rattlers. They come out to warm themselves on the rocks by the spring.”

That last bit of information stiffened Hayley’s spine. “Ick. I hate snakes. I suppose you’re telling the truth?” Her hesitancy indicated she hoped he was lying.

“Scout’s honor. Ben collected a whole box of fair-size rattles over the years. Promise me you’ll take care.”

Hayley didn’t know why she should promise him anything. But the concern in his deep voice melted her resistance. “Same goes for you,” she offered in a whisper. “I mean, you take care around those steers. I noticed you have a scar running along the top of your cheek. Last man I saw with something similar said he’d tangled with a longhorn.”

Jake brushed his thumb over the old wound. He tended to forget about it until he went to shave. “This was a present from the last rodeo bull I climbed aboard. My dad said at least the animal knocked some sense into me. And my brother claimed I finally realized a pretty face meant more to me than a trunkful of gold buckles.”

Hayley enjoyed the verbal peek at his family. She envied his close relationship with his dad and his brother. But she couldn’t allow herself to feel such things, to be anything but resolutely self-sufficient. Swiveling, she grabbed both mugs and hurried to the spring where she knelt to swish the cups.

Jake willed her to look his way again. When it became clear she didn’t intend to and that their visit was at an end, he whistled Charcoal to heel and galloped off through the trees. Hard as it was, he resisted taking a last survey of Hayley Ryan.

CHAPTER THREE

HAYLEY WANTED TO CALL Jacob Cooper back. He, his horse and dog had brought some warmth to her day. She felt a sharp loss when they disappeared from sight. Though she’d never had a lot of close friends, in Tombstone she’d at least interacted with people. Every day she went to the post office, the market and the mine. She’d always thrived on the company of others, preferring it to the solitary life she knew too well. Maybe trying to work this site by herself wasn’t such a good idea after all.

What choice did she have? Hayley trudged back to the trailer with the newly washed mugs, thinking it wasn’t like Joe had left her any alternative. Here it was mid-July. Christmas wasn’t all that far off. By then, she’d have the company she craved. A child. Her child. The thought of holding her baby made Hayley smile.

As she returned to the fireside and picked up her book, she gave herself a good talking-to. She hadn’t come to her grandfather’s claim to socialize. She’d come to wrest out a living for herself and for her unborn child. She didn’t need the distraction of a good-looking, soft-voiced cowpuncher. In her limited experience, men who made nice were after more than a cup of coffee. Jacob Cooper wanted something. It was a cinch he wasn’t bowled over by her great beauty or stunning personality.

The notion that he might find her attractive made her laugh. She looked positively scruffy and she’d acted downright surly. If someone had taken a shot at her, she wouldn’t be inclined to go back, let alone bring gifts. Not only that, Joe had made it abundantly clear in his note that she had nothing to offer a man—except her grandfather’s mine.

So, yes. Jake Cooper had an agenda. He wanted free access to the spring. He’d said his family had plans to buy this chunk of land and all the acreage that adjoined it, if and when her grandfather relinquished his claim.

Well…maybe Cooper had a water agreement with Gramps, and maybe he didn’t.

Hayley shook off the uncharitable thoughts that kept crowding in. Jake Cooper had made an effort to be friendly. She needed the fresh produce he’d brought. She needed milk and eggs, too. Why hadn’t she asked him if he knew of anyone who might sell her a milk cow or a couple of laying hens? Instead of getting so touchy, she should have made inquiries of her own.

JAKE RETREATED to the top of a rise that overlooked Hayley Ryan’s camp. Dismounting, he tied Mojave to a scrub oak and flung himself flat behind a slab of granite. Charcoal whined as Jake peeled off his gloves and trained a pair of binoculars on the Ryan woman.

“It’s okay, boy,” Jake murmured. “We’ll hunt strays in a little while. For now, find a shady spot and rest your bones.”

The dog flipped his ears to and fro, then stretched out under a tree. Eventually he settled his nose on his front paws, never taking his eyes off Jake.

Jake wasn’t sure what he’d expected Hayley to do once he’d gone. He felt a vague disappointment when she returned to her chair and stuck her nose in one of the books she had piled beside her.

“Crazy woman,” he growled. “Acts like she’s at a resort, instead of smack-dab in the middle of the wilderness.” He watched her read for the better part of an hour. Suddenly she glanced up and straight at his hiding place. Jake found himself yanking off his white hat, lest she spot him and get it into her head to take another shot. This time with her rifle.

Common sense told him he was too well hidden to be seen by the naked eye. Her naked eye. And brother, what eyes they were. So dark a blue they were almost purple. Still staring through his powerful binoculars, Jake all but drooled on the bandanna around his neck. He didn’t relax until she returned her interest to the book.

That didn’t last. She soon tossed it aside, stood and shaded her eyes, staring hard in his direction. She turned slowly as if searching the hills for something in particular. Or someone.

Jake realized the sun had shifted and was probably reflecting off the lenses of his binoculars. “Crap.” He dropped the glasses and scooted back on his belly until he was safely into the trees. “Why don’t I just send up a flare and announce I’m snooping?” he muttered disgustedly.

Lifting his head, Charcoal barked.

“Shh.” Jake raised a hand. “Sound carries down these ravines, boy. And we don’t want the lady to know the Triple C plans to keep her under surveillance for a while.”

The dog cocked his head, gazing at Jake intelligently before slithering to his side.

Grinning, Jake rubbed a hand between the dog’s ears. “I know. You think I’ve taken leave of my senses. Which is precisely what Dillon will say if I don’t hightail it out of here.”

Dillon was expecting him to report the total number of strays between the ranch and Hell’s Gate, where they were to meet. He’d been at the number-five line shack all week, moving half the herd into summer pastures. Jake was due to connect with him at three o’clock to exchange head counts and…Jake winced. The produce he’d left with Hayley had been meant to replenish his brother’s dwindling supplies. Dillon would have a fit when he learned Jacob had given away the food Eden had fixed for him.

Of course, Dillon would be grumpy, anyway, having spent four nights without his wife. They’d be apart a week all told. Hell, that wasn’t Jake’s fault. He’d offered to move the herd. It was a chore he used to do with his dad while Dillon oversaw the ranch. Last winter, though, Wade Cooper had tangled with a rogue cow and his bum hip hadn’t fully healed. His doctor recommended Wade let the boys handle fall roundup alone. Dillon didn’t have a good eye for spotting strays in the canyons. Not like Jake did. As a result, Dillon got stuck driving the steers to pasture.

Taking a last look through his binoculars, just to verify that Hayley Ryan had gone about her business, Jake climbed into the saddle again and set off to complete the job he’d started.

HAYLEY COULDN’T SHAKE the notion she was being watched. She’d closed her book once and let her gaze roam the nearby hills. Nothing moved and nothing appeared to be amiss. Refilling her teacup, she’d returned to her reading. The feeling persisted. Finally she felt so uneasy that she rose and walked to the edge of the clearing. Shading her eyes against the morning sun, she concentrated on a rocky promontory where she thought she’d seen a flash—like the sun reflecting off a mirror.

Hayley stared at the spot so long she became dizzy. Or had she gotten dizzy from self-imposed fright? Her heart was certainly beating fast.

When she could see no sign of any human presence, Hayley gave herself a stern mental shake. She decided that sitting around doing nothing but reading was making her paranoid. Why would anyone skulk around spying on her? No one other than that cowboy even knew she was here. He’d said his piece last night and had made amends today. She’d been perfectly honest about her reasons for being here.

As for the possibility of someone else keeping an eye on her, well, this wasn’t exactly a people watcher’s paradise. And it was too early for hunters to be combing the hills.

“There, see?” she exclaimed, marching back to her trailer, “You have an overactive imagination, Ms. Ryan. Get over it.”

The best way she knew to allay her fears was through physical labor. Rather than digging willy-nilly when she had no information about what to look for or where to search, Hayley elected to conduct a survey of the site. Gramps must have left, if not an open shaft, then at least test holes that might give her an idea of what he was after.

She loaded a day pack with a rock hammer and a cigar box divided into small compartments to serve as a collection box for specimens. She slapped together a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and added sunglasses and a baseball cap to her stash, before she filled a canteen at the spring. Despite the growing heat, the water was cool and sweet.

“This water could be lifeblood to a rancher,” she said to no one. No one except two squirrels who frolicked on a nearby branch. Their presence, and the melodious trill of songbirds flitting about, dispelled the last of Hayley’s anxiety.

Who needed human companionship when there was all this wonderful wildlife to serve as company and an early-warning system? Hayley took a measure of assurance from the fact that birds squawked and squirrels fled at the mere sound of her footsteps.

She trudged through the trees, walking a blanket of pine needles. For a time she was more interested in the flora and fauna all around her than in settling down to look for test holes in the pockmarked granite hills. She climbed steadily for the better part of two hours before she came to a man-made depression in the facer rock. Bits of broken rock lay strewn about. Hayley paused to inspect the dynamited debris. Quartz and pyrite were all she found. Obviously her grandfather hadn’t wasted much time on this spot.

Hayley continued upward. Eventually the trail petered out and the going got tougher. She could tell that Ben hadn’t taken his search this high. But now that Hayley had climbed all the way up here, she wanted to examine her claim from the ridge a little above her. Even if getting there appeared more suited to mountain goats than humans.

She was winded by the time she reached the sheared-off granite table. The view was everything she’d anticipated. Spectacular hills and valleys stretched out on all four sides. The binoculars she’d found in Gramps’s trailer were old and one lens was scratched; however, they served her purpose and helped her pinpoint his dig sites.

Four were visible to the right and below her. All seemed to follow one deep arroyo. Shedding her backpack, Hayley dusted off a wide flat rock. She clambered onto it, then pulled out her sandwich and a pad and pencil. While she ate, she drew a rough map, sketching in significant trees and boulders and other pertinent features around the test holes, so she could find them again.

As she turned her attention farther afield, a splash of moving color caught her interest. Cattle. The undulations of rock-strewn arroyos were dotted with white-faced steers. Beyond them were square cultivated fields of hay. It seemed strange to see signs of human habitation interspersed with miles of palo verde, ocotillo, yucca and prickly pear. Near the edge of what Hayley judged to be her line of demarcation, were piles of volcanic rock, many with a green tint. Copper. Had her grandfather been drawn to this site by such blatant evidence of copper—before prices plummeted?

A horse and rider came into view over a grassy knoll. The glasses brought him to within seeming arm’s length of Hayley. Her breath did a funny hitch. Jacob Cooper. He, too, had field glasses raised to his face. For a moment Hayley had the oddest feeling that they were staring at each other. But no, Cooper’s head rotated downward. He’d zeroed in on a group of wandering steers. As she studied him, he dragged a pad from his shirt pocket, similar to the one fluttering on her lap. He withdrew a pencil from his pocket and made notations on his pad. Hayley watched until he returned the items to his pocket and let the binoculars swing free around his neck. He nudged the bay’s flanks, and as quickly as he’d appeared, he rode out of sight. The collie trotted complacently at his side.

Only then did Hayley realize she’d been holding her breath. As she let it out, she had to acknowledge that he’d been a sight worth ogling.

Jacob Cooper’s shoulders were wide. His torso tapered to lean hips that melded perfectly to his saddle. His butt was encased in denim so worn it seemed almost white in the brilliant sunlight. Having accidentally honed in on his long legs, Hayley realized why the worn denim hadn’t made an impression before. He wore chaps to keep from being torn to pieces by cactus thorns. His chaps met scuffed and spurless boots. Hayley liked that. She’d always thought spurs were showy, and that the men who relied on them had little regard for the welfare of their horses.

A warm ripple ran up Hayley’s spine when she realized Jake Cooper was exactly what he’d claimed to be. A rancher. She couldn’t say why she’d felt any doubt before. Quite possibly because she was guilty of swallowing so many of Joe’s lines. Hayley didn’t think she’d ever be quite so trusting again.

She reminded herself that one good thing had come out of her brief sojourn with Joseph Ryan. A baby. The reminder brought her crashing back to the present—to her reason for sitting on a broad rock at the top of a dusty lonely hill. She’d come here to find the treasure her grandfather thought was somewhere in this desolate tract of land. She had no business wasting time salivating over Mr. Cooper’s skinny butt, even if it was a nine and a half on a scale of ten.

Sighing, Hayley folded her empty sandwich bag and tucked it into her backpack to use another day. Telling herself she’d probably never see Jacob Cooper again, she took a long pull from her canteen, then started her downhill climb.

JAKE HAD GLIMPSED Hayley Ryan seated on a flat rock at the very top of Yellow Jacket Hill. He’d been surprised to see she’d hiked so far since late morning, when he’d observed her scanning the hill from her camp. He’d been more surprised, though, to see her peering at him through binoculars. Jake didn’t know whether she’d caught him giving her the once-over. He’d certainly made a show of counting steers to throw her off. His heart had yet to settle into a normal rhythm. Hayley Ryan made quite a picture framed by the rock, a ruff of trees and a cloudless blue sky.

Checking his watch, Jake discovered he’d better put some speed on. He still had to cross the pass into Hell’s Gate, where he was meeting Dillon. It was past time he stopped obsessing over a woman he knew little about. One he’d very likely end up fighting with sooner or later.

But as he rode through the arid unfenced range land where the Cooper family had been raising cattle for four generations, Jake’s thoughts remained on Hayley. He couldn’t identify exactly what piqued his interest about her. He’d been fending off prettier women for years. Not that Mrs. Ryan was hard to look at, by any means. On the contrary, she was well put together. Small, but not so skinny you didn’t know she was all woman.

And those eyes. Those changeable eyes that shifted from blue to the color of lavender to a deeper violet, almost purple. He’d never paid so much attention to anyone’s eyes before. His own were light gray. Wouldn’t it be an interesting experiment to see what color eyes their offspring would have?

“Whoa, dude!” Mojave dutifully stopped dead on the trail. “Not you,” Jacob laughed, bending forward to stroke the bay’s neck. When Charcoal trotted back and sat staring up at him, Jake shook his head. “You, too, boy? Too bad you guys can’t talk. You’d tell me soon enough how crazy I’m acting over a woman who’d like nothing better than to see my backside trucking down the trail. She may have warmed up after I pulled those veggies out of the bag, but if you noticed, she didn’t request our return.”

Jake let Mojave amble through the deer grass for a while before they crossed a dry wash and turned north. The sun beat down mercilessly. Jacob thought the humidity had climbed to seventy percent. He shucked off one leather glove, removed his hat and blotted sweat from his brow with the crook of his arm.

“Feels like monsoon weather,” he muttered, settling the hat firm and low over his forehead. “I wonder if our Mrs. Ryan is prepared for the big rains that blow in here off the Baja. What do you think, Mojave?”

On hearing his name, the horse whinnied and swished his ears.

“I guess you’re right,” Jacob continued as if the gelding had spoken. “Better to keep my nose outta her business. She has Ben’s truck and trailer. The old guy must’ve given her directions. If she was stabbing in the dark, she wouldn’t have found her way to the Blue Cameo so easily.”

The threesome covered another few miles before Jacob spoke again. “There’s just something sad looking in the lady’s eyes, don’t you agree, guys?” Jake urged Mojave into a canter up a long steep incline over the ridge into the valley known as Hell’s Gate. “But there’s the matter of her calling herself Mrs. Ryan. Where do you suppose Mr. Ryan is? What kind of husband lets his wife prospect all by herself? Even more curious, why isn’t she wearing her wedding ring?”

The horse blew out a long breath. Cresting the hill, Mojave automatically quickened his pace. Jake knew why. In the distance Dillon’s horse, Wildfire, grazed on a picket. Dillon wasn’t yet visible. Jake figured he’d holed up in the shade of a stand of black walnut trees. Likely he was whittling a car or a truck or some part of a train set from the ever-present hardwoods he carried in his saddlebags. Their granddad Cooper had taught both boys to whittle at an early age. Dillon was much more adept at it than Jake. As kids they’d played with wooden toys; now Dillon carved a batch each year, and Eden’s church distributed them to needy children at Christmas.

In fact, that was how Dillon and Eden had met. She’d moved to Tubac from Albuquerque to open her own jewelry store, had joined a local church and dived right into community affairs. Small-town churches loved new blood. They’d put Eden to work collecting for the yearly toy drive. One October afternoon she’d arrived at the Triple C, all golden-hair and sweet smiles to beg for a donation of Dillon’s toys. Jake recalled wishing he could carve as well as his brother did. Eden Priest was the most beautiful woman Santa Cruz county had seen in a decade. She was nice, too. And talented. Successful in her own right. Both brothers had thrown their hearts at her feet; it was Dillon’s she’d picked up.

Jake grinned now, thinking about all the sneaky tricks he and Dillon had pulled trying to get into town without the other knowing. Some women would have strung them both along. It’d happened before. Eden wasn’t that sort of woman. She chose Dillon fair and square. She took Jake out for a cup of coffee at the local café and let him down gently.

He remembered feeling lower than a worm’s belly all the way home. He hadn’t planned to tell anyone in the family. But his mom had either been perceptive or Eden had told her. Nell Cooper arrived home from a long day spent throwing pots to cook her youngest son’s favorite meal. Afterward she’d coaxed him into taking a moonlight walk with her, during which she convinced him there’d be a woman in his future as wonderful as Eden. Believing that, Jake had decided to shake Dillon’s hand and be happy for him. He vowed to find himself a woman who had both Eden’s qualities and his mom’s.

It was going on two years now. There were times Jake thought he’d set himself an impossible task.

His brother strode out from under the trees and raised a hand in greeting, even though a half mile still separated them. Unlike the volcanic terrain Jake had recently ridden though, this land was barren of all but an occasional scrub brush or cactus. Distance was hard to measure. It was why so many people who crossed the border illegally, seeking work in the larger Arizona cities, died of exposure or of dehydration. On the desert floor temperatures in the summer and early fall soared upward of 115 degrees—exactly the reason Hayley Ryan’s spring was so important to the Triple C. There was precious little hydration in the area. And not a drop of water to spare.

Jacob covered the gap in short order.

“Yo, brother,” Dillon called, holding his ground until Jake had galloped all the way into his makeshift camp. “Took your time getting here. I’d about decided we’d got our wires crossed.”

“Spoken like a man who’s been forced to play the hermit against his will. You haven’t been gone from home a week. Couldn’t be you’re missing someone special, now could it?” Jake laughed and jumped back from the teasing punch Dillon threw at his left shoulder.

“You damn well know I’m homesick as hell. How’s everything at the Triple C?” In other words, how was Eden getting along without him?

“You know, Dillon,” Jake said in a thoughtful voice, “I think Coronado misses you. Why, it’s a crying shame how broke up that parrot’s been this week.”

“Very funny. You know the bird hates me.” Dillon grasped Jake’s shirtfront in both hands, nearly lifting him off the ground. Charcoal charged the men, baring his teeth and barking wildly. Dillon lost no time in releasing his brother.

“Tell me about Eden,” he pleaded. “What did she send me? And don’t hold out. She promised, and Eden never breaks a promise.”

Jake knew when to back off and play it straight. He unbuckled Mojave’s cinch, hauled the heavy saddle under the trees and dropped it beside Dillon’s. Quickly he extracted a pink envelope from one saddlebag. So maybe he wasn’t finished teasing. He passed the scented missive under Dillon’s nose, then drew it back and pretended to take a deep whiff himself. “Mm-mm! I do believe she soaked this in pheromones. Better watch out, or every male in the animal kingdom will be swooping down on us.”

“Give that to me.” Dillon snatched his letter out of Jake’s hand. He promptly put space between them, literally turning his back on his brother while his read it.

Grinning like a crazy man, Jake flopped down with his back against a tree trunk and uncorked his canteen to take a long swallow of the cool water. He’d give Dillon time to read and reread his message from home. There was a limit to his pranks. But the darned thing was four pages long. Eden must have written a page for every night Dillon had been gone. Though he didn’t want to, Jake suffered a stab of jealousy.

He supposed it was understandable. Growing up on an isolated ranch, he and Dillon had gone through all of the normal competitive stages that young boys and then young men developed. At times their poor mother had despaired of their surviving the sibling rivalry. But they had, and had emerged stronger men. They’d ultimately grown to be best friends. So what Jake felt now wasn’t personal. He figured it was more that he’d reached the time in his life when the male in any species needed to find a mate and make a nest of his own.

The idea came so clearly that it surprised the heck out of him. He’d believed himself content to drift along, playing the field, so to speak.

He was concentrating on his thoughts and didn’t hear Dillon at first.

His brother finished folding the letter and tucking it away. “Jacob, my man, what are you mooning about? Where’s the sack of vegetables Eden says she sent me?”

“Oh, that.” Jake knew he’d have to account for the missing produce. Suddenly he was reluctant to tell Dillon anything about Hayley Ryan. He didn’t want his brother making a big deal over nothing.

“Hand it over, dude. I really don’t know how the cowboys of old went for months eating out of cans. Call me spoiled, but I’ve gotten used to picking stuff out of the garden. Man, I can almost taste those beefsteak tomatoes.”

Jake didn’t see any way around it. He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Well, don’t get your mouth too set. I don’t have the stuff Eden sent.”

“You left it at home?”

Jake supposed he could delay the inevitable by letting Dillon think he’d ridden off without the package. But he’d always been one to take his punishment rather than lie. It seemed pointless at any rate, since he’d told his dad he’d fill Dillon in on the situation at the spring. He opened his mouth and out poured the story of Ben O’Dell’s demise—and Hayley Ryan’s appearance.

“Let me get this straight. You and Dad just let that woman squat on the section of land Ben promised would be ours?”

“She isn’t exactly squatting, Dillon. She filed legally. Instead of the claim being in Ben’s name, now it’s in hers.”

“Did she show you the papers?”

“No. But she has Ben’s truck and trailer. Why would she lie?”

“Why wouldn’t you ask to see proof?” Dillon’s eyes, a shade darker than his brother’s, clouded as if heading into a storm.

Jake touched the still-swollen knot over his ear. “She showed me all the proof I needed,” he said wryly. “The business end of a shotgun.” Because it seemed almost funny now, Jacob spun that tale, too.

Laughing, Dillon slapped his knee. “What I wouldn’t have given to see that.”

“I’m sure. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t be spreading the story around. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. She aimed over my head and hit a damned branch.” He gingerly fingered the lump on his head again.

“Maybe you won’t mind telling me what insanity possessed you to have a second go at her today. Why in heaven’s name would you bring her food? My food,” he said irritably.

“Regardless of the shotgun incident, she’s a woman.”

“Yeah, a woman sitting smack alongside the only fresh water for miles around.”

“Exactly. Wild animals aren’t my only concern. Granted, most illegals crossing the border aren’t looking for trouble. But who’s to say they’d consider a bitty woman trouble? Some might risk jail for her truck alone. Or a drifter might. Or the occasional homeless guy trying to live off the land.”

“You have a point.” Dillon ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. His hair wasn’t as dark as Jake’s. He’d inherited more of Nell Cooper’s coppery highlights. When he did start to grow a beard, like now, it was redder still. “What did Dad say?” Dillon asked. “He’s not going to let her stay, is he?”

“He and Mom went to Tombstone today. Dad’s planning to find out if Ben mentioned our deal to anyone. Then the folks are going on to Tucson. Mom’s been chafing to visit a new pottery-supply store she heard about. If Dad doesn’t get answers in Tombstone, he said he’d pay a visit to the county recorder. To take a quick gander at the record of claims.”

“Makes sense. If the woman’s not savvy, she might have slipped up somewhere. Left a loophole or something.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up. She seems knowledgeable about filing issues.”

“Well, hell. Did she happen to say what’s so all-fired tempting about that twenty acres? Ben worked it for years and he never found diddly squat.”

“We don’t know that for sure. The old guy was pretty closemouthed. Oh, he told some tall mining stories, but I can’t recall him ever giving away anything personal.”

“He talked a lot about his silver mine. I had the idea it produced all right, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t that revenue be enough for his granddaughter?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’ Don’t you think if it’d been making good money, he’d have stayed home and enjoyed the fruits of his labor a little more?”

“Prospecting gets in some men’s blood. It’s a lot like gambling. A fellow always thinks his really big strike is over the next rise.”

“I found Ben more down-to-earth than that. I mean, if he had gold fever, he would have spent more than a couple of months a year on his claim. To me it seemed he treated it more like a vacation.”

“Maybe. Gold fever, huh? So you think he was hunting gold?”

“I haven’t a clue. I just used that as an example.”

Dillon dug in his shirt pocket and pulled out a toothpick, which he stuck between his teeth. Modern cowboys, especially those who’d once smoked, had switched from tobacco to mint- or cinnamon-dipped toothpicks. Jake had never picked up the smoking habit. Dillon had, but quit at Eden’s request. But during serious talks, he sometimes reverted to it. He shifted the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other as he gazed toward the granite hills under discussion. “If communing with nature is all the yearly trek was to O’Dell, you gotta wonder why a woman snapped up the claim the minute the old guy cashed in his chips.”

“I don’t know when he died. She just said he had. Don’t tell me you’re getting gold fever, Dillon.” Jake sounded amused. “Strikes were never plentiful in this neck of the woods. The Blue Cameo is so remote, nuggets would have to be lying on top of the ground for anyone to convert the ore to cash. Hauling anything out of here over dirt roads takes money and guts.”

“It’s not so far to hook up with Interstate 19. No one’s ever found reason to lay out the money to improve the road, but that doesn’t mean no one would if they turned up something worth big bucks.”

“I’d have to see it to believe it. It’s not that I think a woman is less capable than a man of hacking into a ripe vein by accident. But I am skeptical of that woman being Hayley Ryan. If you could’ve seen her poring over elementary mineral and gem books, you’d agree. Plus, she’s a flyweight.” He shook his head. “I think if we wait a while, she’ll eventually give up and go home.”

“She might reach that conclusion faster, Jake, if you didn’t supply her with fresh produce. My produce,” Dillon reminded him.

“I know, I know. But if that was Eden camped there, would you turn your back and walk away, big brother?”

A sudden light dawned in Dillon’s eyes. “Are you saying you’ve fallen for this stranger?”

“No!” Jake protested. A bit too fast and much too vociferously. “We were raised to look out for women. So get off my back. You’d do the same—don’t deny it.”

Dillon gazed at his brother narrowly. The staring match lasted only seconds. Dillon capitulated with a shrug. “Then we’ll leave it at that. What’s your count of strays? I turned 1,010 head onto our leased grassland. Nine hundred and thirty to open range near Pena Blanca Lake. And twice as many near Hank and Yank’s dry spring. By my figuring, we’re down roughly five or six hundred head from the number Dad gave me.”

“I can account for roughly half of that in little knots of two or three strays. The missing might have merged with John Westin’s herd. I’ll ride past his spread and ask if he’s seen any of our brand mixed with his.”

Dillon gave his brother a playful nudge in the ribs. “This eagerness to volunteer to ride miles out of your way wouldn’t have anything to do with Ginalyn Westin, would it? Like, give you a chance to ask her to the fall harvest dance?”

“And have Gordy White punch my lights out? Do I look like a man with a death wish?”

“Gordy’s got no claim on Gina. If he did she’d be wearing his ring. But you’re so obtuse maybe you haven’t seen how the heir to the J & B pants after you, old son.”

“You won’t catch me in the stampede to her doorstep. John and Bonnie have spoiled her rotten. Can you really see me licking John’s boots and jumping through his hoops until he gets damn good and ready to hand over the ranch to his daughter? Her husband will always be a flunky. No, thank you.”

“Who mentioned marriage? I only asked if you were inviting her to the dance.”

Jake shot Dillon a quelling glance. “Yeah? So sue me for reading between the lines.”

Dillon laughed. “I’ll concede Gina isn’t your type. Hey, how about taking this Ryan woman? That way you can find out what she’s really up to.”

Jake shook his hand. “Oh, did I forget to say it’s Mrs. Ryan?”

“I’m afraid you left out that crucial fact. Okay, I’ll quit hassling you on that score. Too bad. Okay, go on. Ride out to the J & B. See if John can add to our steer count. You and I will touch base again on Saturday at the ranch. Until then, stay out of trouble.”

The brothers slapped each other on the back, saddled up and rode their separate ways. On the dusty ride to the J & B, Jake couldn’t seem to forget the idea of asking Hayley Ryan to the dance. But hell, it was still four months away. He was betting she’d be long gone and only a sweet memory by Labor Day.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when Jake rode up the winding path to the Westin ranch. The house itself was far more elaborate than the Coopers’ sprawling single-level home. John Westin had not been born into the cattle business as Wade Cooper had. Westin, who’d come from Virginia, was a latecomer to the Santa Cruz basin. A bankroll of family money, coupled with a desire to build an impressive spread, helped him forge a position into the elite establishment of cattle barons. Westin was brash and outspoken—traits that didn’t seem to bother some in the valley. Jake, however, preferred his father’s easygoing manner and willingness to look at all sides of an issue.

John walked out onto the veranda to light up one of the Cuban cigars he favored just as Jake clattered to a halt in the circular drive. Westin had laid gravel in the area for automobiles, but in deference to the business they were in, he also supplied a watering trough for horses and a hitching rail underneath a stand of shade trees.

“Jacob. Welcome.” John puffed out a cloud of smoke. “What brings you to my humble abode?” He leaned negligently against a carved white pillar and guffawed. “As if I didn’t know.”

Jake glanced at the man’s house. The three-storeyed structure looked for all the world like a plantation mansion from the nineteenth century. “‘Humble’ isn’t exactly a word that comes to mind, John, when I see the J & B.”

Westin rolled the cigar around his lips and his laughter deepened. “The place shows well at night. ’Course, my women don’t give a damn about the cost of electricity. They turn on every chandelier in the house.” He grinned. “I notice you evaded my point. You’re here to see Ginalyn. Correct?”

“Nope, though I’ll say hello if she’s around. Dillon and I came up short on our steer count this week. Thought maybe some Triple C stock might have mixed in with J & B herds. If your hands run across our brand, give us a call, will you? I’ll come cut them out.”

“Will do. Grass is so dry all the stock’s scattered. When’s Wade going to wise up and toss that old fool miner off the spring property so we can divvy it up?”

“Dad and Mom are in Tombstone today. We heard Ben O’Dell died.”

John’s eyes lit. “Excellent. Couldn’t happen at a better time. The valley’s growing and changing. The Coalition needs free access to that water.”

“I expect Dad will work out an equitable agreement if he’s able to purchase the property.” Jake didn’t like the greedy gleam in John’s eyes. Or maybe he was touchy about the subject because of the way Dillon had teased him about Hayley Ryan.

“What’s to stop him? O’Dell promised Wade first right of option.”

“Yeah, but it’s come to our attention that someone’s refiled Ben’s claim.”

“You don’t say! Now that isn’t right. Wade’s been far too patient as it is. We ranchers need a show of strength. Did some big mining outfit move in?”

Jake shook his head. “Just a single prospector, like Ben.” Jake couldn’t say why he was reluctant to tell John more about Ben’s granddaughter.

Fortunately he was saved the effort of evasion. The screen door opened and a pretty blond woman strolled out. Ginalyn Westin had her mother’s classic beauty but was cursed with her father’s arrogance. Though Jake had never seen her make a move that wasn’t calculated to put herself in the spotlight, she was still a sight to behold. Shimmering straight blond hair, big blue eyes. She’d perfected the slow sultry drawl of her native Virginia and she had a definite, if practiced charm. Unless a man had seen how those fine attributes changed when things didn’t go Ginalyn’s way, he’d grovel at her dainty feet, which was what most sons of area ranchers did. Jake might be the only single male in a hundred-mile radius who kept his distance.

Which hadn’t escaped the young woman’s notice. “Why, I declare,” she said, slipping a slender arm through her dad’s sturdier one. “If it isn’t Jacob Cooper. Let me guess. He’s happened to ride in at suppertime, but before the evening’s done, he’ll get around to inviting me to the harvest dance.” She managed to sound bored.

Jake, who’d whipped off his hat the moment she appeared, resettled it low on his brow. “Wrong on both counts, Ginalyn. My business was with your dad. We’ve concluded it, so now I’ll get along home.” Jake gave Mojave’s cinch a yank. He whistled for Charcoal, who’d drunk his fill at the trough, and swung lithely into the saddle. Touching his hat brim with two fingers, he wheeled the gelding around and cantered down the lane. Not, however, before he heard Ginalyn’s indignant sputter.

“Jacob Cooper, just for that I’ll accept Gordon White’s invitation. And don’t think I’ll save you a dance, because I won’t!”

Raking his boot heels lightly along Mojave’s sides, Jake picked up the pace. He should go back and apologize. She was already complaining to her dad about Jake’s rude behavior. The news would make its way to the Triple C. Wade would remind Jake that pretty eligible women didn’t grow on trees. Eden and Nell, though more subtle, would find some other approach to get the same point across.

Ginalyn was a beauty and well educated. She just didn’t happen to fit Jake’s concept of an ideal partner and ranch wife. When his well-meaning family had asked him to spell out what he did want in a wife, he’d failed to put it into clear terms. As a result, the Coopers were exasperated with him. Hell, he was exasperated with himself.

He knew what he didn’t want. He didn’t want a wife whose focus was her looks, her clothes or the next big party. Nor did he want someone who’d set her sights on frequent trips to Phoenix. So many of the valley daughters were given a taste of the city at college, and they made no secret of wanting a man willing to help them escape the hard life.

Jake didn’t think it was all that hard. Granted, the money was sometimes iffy and the weather could be the pits. By and large, the freedom a man felt when riding the range was worth far more than the disadvantages. The freedom to call his own shots and be his own man appealed to him.

He tried to understand the situation from a woman’s perspective, a wife’s, if you will. He certainly didn’t object to women pursuing careers. His mother and Eden weren’t tied to the ranch. What set them apart from women he’d dated was their ability to combine happiness at home with work. Jake couldn’t explain it even to himself. He only knew he’d continue to hold out. No matter how tempting it was when winter rolled around to chuck ideals and simply find someone eager to warm his bed.

Lost in thought, Jake didn’t realize he’d unconsciously detoured past the spring until the light from Hayley Ryan’s campfire came into sight. It flickered and blinked in the distance, still far enough off that he could change course without her ever knowing he’d been there.

He still had plenty of time to skirt her encampment.

And he did kind of go around it for a few hundred yards. Then he dismounted and covered the remaining distance on foot. All the while his heart slammed against his ribs. For crying out loud, did he want her to shoot at him again—and aim truer this time?

Of course he didn’t. He wanted to know if she’d found anything worthwhile in her trek over the hill today. Jake had walked to within shouting distance before he admitted that what he really wanted was to see that she’d made it safely back to camp.

Something shifted ever so slightly in his chest the moment he saw her kneeling next to a blazing fire pit.

“Hayley!” he called. “It’s me, Jacob Cooper. I don’t mean to scare you. I’ve been to the Westin ranch and thought I’d stop to say hello before I head home.”

Hayley jerked and went white at the sound of a male voice. She’d been a million miles off in her mind, planning tomorrow’s assault on the hillside she’d settled on to start her mineral explorations. Jacob Cooper was the last person she’d expected to see again today.

Yet his walking in on her with no warning sent shivers down her spine. He might have been anyone. She shouldn’t drop her guard. Especially after the sun had set.

“Mr. Cooper,” she said with a hint of unsteadiness in her tone. “Were you this much of a pest to my grandfather?”

Jake laughed as he looped Mojave’s reins over a limb. “Ben always had a hot pot of coffee on the fire—and an occasional shot of rum.” Thumbing back his hat, Jake moved closer. “If he thought I was a pest, his good manners kept him from mentioning it. I always had the notion that Ben got a kick out of my stopping to talk.” Jake bent and patted the collie’s heaving sides. He pulled a sack of kibble out of his saddlebag and, after sweeping a clear place on the ground, put out a handful.

Hayley dusted her hands along her thighs to wipe away the sweat dampening her palms. She didn’t doubt that Cooper was telling the truth. Her grandfather, like most lonely prospectors, loved a captive audience. He didn’t always waste time talking to her, though; he was a man’s man. Hayley could well imagine him exploring a wide range of subjects with a local cowboy.

If she were to be honest, she’d admit that she, too, liked her long evenings broken up by lively conversation. Tonight might be the exception. Her stomach had felt queasy for a good part of the day. She’d brewed a pot of chamomile tea to go with her light evening meal, but she didn’t know if this was because of the pregnancy or if something she’d eaten for breakfast hadn’t set well. At any rate, she didn’t feel much like entertaining. She particularly didn’t feel like spending time with someone who might see more than she wanted him to see. Jacob Cooper struck her as a man who’d harbor strong opinions about what pregnant women should and should not do.

“You might want to start carrying a thermos, Mr. Cooper. I prefer herb tea to coffee.” She slanted her gaze toward the pot sitting on the grate over her fire.

“Tea, huh?” Jake wasn’t able to hide his disappointment. “My sister-in-law serves herb tea to her customers. Must be a woman thing.” He stripped off his hat and raked a hand through his matted hair.

“Your sister-in-law runs a café?”

Jake shook his head. “She designs jewelry. In Tubac,” he added, although he didn’t know why. Hayley hadn’t given him any reason to think her polite question had been an attempt to strike up a real conversation.

“I’ve never been there. To Tubac, I mean. Well,” she said breezily, though she felt far from breezy as her stomach had begun mixing it up again, “don’t let me stop you from going home to supper. I was about to douse my fire and turn in.”

Jake’s roving gaze lit on a nearly full plate of food she’d left on the small table that had earlier held her mineralogy books. He wasn’t usually the type to stick around where he clearly wasn’t wanted, but something perverse in him made him dig in his heels. Perhaps it was the tense look that brought an aura of fatigue to the Ryan woman’s expressive face.

“Truth of the matter is, anything hot would go down well at this stage in the game. I hate to trouble you for a cup of that tea, but my animals could use a break. While you pour a neighbor a cup, I’ll water Mojave and Charcoal at the spring.”

Hayley opened her mouth to object. Then she bit back a sigh and reached for the pot, and the mug Jacob had drunk coffee from earlier. “You’ll have to take it without milk or sugar. I’m short on some items.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.