The warm air smelled of horses and fresh straw. And lavender.

Wash half turned to her. “You all right?”

She nodded, and he climbed down and began to unhook the rig. She thought a smile touched his mouth. He was pleased, then, with their day’s work? Or was he pleased that his precious railroad could now roll its iron tracks over her farm?

Jeanne was weary, but not so much that she couldn’t feel the inexplicable pull toward the man who was now lifting her sleeping daughter into his arms. He paused at the door to her room while she unlocked it. Light spilled from the doorway, illuminating where she and Manette slept.

He entered as if expecting to be ambushed, then gently deposited Manette on the big double bed. When he straightened Jeanne laid her hand on his muscled forearm. He flinched the tiniest bit, and somehow she guessed he was weighing his reticence about her against his masculine need. That pleased her.

“You have been very kind,” she said. “You are a good man, Monsieur Wash.”

The oddest expression crossed his face, and in his gray eyes she suddenly saw both wariness and raw desire.

Lady Lavender

Harlequin® Historical #1027—February 2011

Praise for Lynna Banning

Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride

“Banning uses the exotic setting of Moorish Spain, troubadours, tournaments, politics and adventure in an engaging tale that will pique the interest of fans of the medieval era.”

—RT Book Reviews

Crusader’s Lady

“Marc and Soraya’s love story is touching, and the plot will make you wonder until the last page how they will get together.”

—RT Book Reviews

Loner’s Lady

“[A] poignant tale of a woman’s coming of age.”

—RT Book Reviews

The Ranger and the Redhead

“[A] fast-paced, adventure-filled story.”

—RT Book Reviews

The Wedding Cake War

“You’ll love Banning’s subtle magic with romance.”

—RT Book Reviews

Lady Lavender
Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin® Historical and LYNNA BANNING

Western Rose #310

Wildwood #374

Lost Acres Bride #437

Plum Creek Bride #474

The Law and Miss Hardisson #537

The Courtship #613

The Angel of Devil’s Camp #649

The Scout #682

High Country Hero #706

One Starry Christmas #723

“Hark the Harried Angels”

The Wedding Cake War #730

The Ranger and the Redhead #773

Loner’s Lady #806

Crusader’s Lady #842

Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride #914

Lady Lavender #1027

Look for another romantic ride

into the West from

Lynna Banning

in

Happily Ever After in the West

Coming May 2011

For my dear friend Susan Renison.

With thanks to Tricia Adams, Suzanne Barrett,

Kathleen Dougherty, Karyn Witmer-Gow,

Shirley Marcus, Brenda Preston, and David Woolston

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter One

Smoke River, Oregon 1867

When Wash Halliday came home from the war, Smoke River gave him a hero’s welcome. The tattered remains of the marching band gathered in the town square wearing their faded green uniforms and once-gold buttons and blared “Hail the Conquering Hero” only slightly off-key.

His ears rang with the noise, and he felt it all the way down to his feet. He glanced down at the leather boots in which, a year ago, he had marched from the Union prison at Richmond all the way to Fort Kearney. Now, he was back in Smoke River.

Midsummer sunlight glanced off the tuba and Wash stifled an urge to duck; the flash of light looked exactly like an exploding mortar.

Thad McAllister, the graying band leader, pumped his skinny arms rhythmically up and down, up and down, but now Wash could hear nothing. A roaring noise bloomed in his head, rolled and echoed like thunder, and then a high-pitched scream began. He pressed both hands over his ears.

Stop. Stop. Behind his closed eyes the red-gold explosions began again.

“Havin’ one of yer spells, are ya?” his grizzled companion queried softly.

“What? No…no. Just can’t stop remembering.”

The sun-blackened half-Comanche furrowed his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “Let’s get away from this headache powwow and have a drink. Saloon’s just across the street.”

Rooney was usually thirsty for some Red Eye about this time of day. Wash usually wasn’t. But today it was the other way around.

He waved his thanks at the bandleader and the two men marched through the crowd across the main street of hard-packed dirt. The hot afternoon breeze rustled the leaves of maple and poplar trees, already turning gold even though it was only August.

The buildings were sparse but well-kept. Livery stable, sheriff’s office, mercantile and two saloons. “Damn small town for a railway station,” Rooney muttered.

“It’ll grow,” Wash said with conviction. “When the railroad comes through it’ll be the biggest town in Jefferson County.”

Rooney shot him a look and spat tobacco juice from one side of his mouth. “Railroad ain’t comin’ if you don’t get the surveyin’ done and get yer clearing crews out here.”

Wash didn’t answer. He had plenty of time. Grant Sykes of the Oregon Central Railroad wouldn’t expect a route plotted for another week; that gave him four days to inspect the area and get the survey crew started.

He resettled his Stetson and gestured at the rickety-looking two-story building with a fancy gold-lettered sign out front. “Golden Partridge. Jupiter! Oregon settlers sure have a knack for fancied-up names.”

“Name don’t mean nothin’,” Rooney said in a dry tone. “It’s the whiskey that counts.”

Wash gritted his teeth. “Names always mean something. Just look at George Washington Halliday here and tell me you don’t see the gold braid and spit-polished boots Pop thought went with the name.”

Rooney grunted. “Get over it, Wash. Your pa named you, but it was you went off to be a big hero in the War. You said your momma like to die when she seen you all bony and crippled up after Gettysburg. Anyway, that was back then, and the Golden Partridge is in the sweet here and now.”

Wash tramped up the board sidewalk, glanced at the horse he’d tied up at the hitching rail and pushed through the double doors of the saloon. Rooney puffed through the entrance behind him.

“Howdy, gents,” the grinning barkeep called. “Beer?”

Wash planted both elbows on the polished wood bar. “Whiskey.”

The place smelled of sour chicken mash and off in a dim corner a black man was playing a twangy-sounding piano. “Oh, Suzanna.” Rooney, already humming the tune, held up two fingers and the barkeep nodded.

“Welcome home, Colonel,” the barkeep murmured while the whiskey gurgled out of the bottle. “War kept you busy, I hear. Sorry about your leg.”

Wash swallowed hard. That wasn’t the worst of it, getting his hip half shot off with a minié ball. The worst was that Laura had gone off and married someone else before he’d even left for the War. His chest had ached for weeks. The years after Laura had been pretty damn dark. Still were, he acknowledged.

The barkeep, short and round with a swatch of red hair and a mustache to match, swiped a rag across the counter. “What’ll you do now?”

“Now I’m working for the railroad.”

“Heard it was coming. Good thing, too. Where you plan to route it?”

“My boss had a choice between Scarecrow Hill and Green Valley. He’s choosing the valley.”

“Not this valley he won’t.” The barkeep recorked the whiskey and set the bottle at his elbow.

Wash’s gut tightened. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“The widow Nicolet, that’s why. She owns land in the valley. Small farm, but you can’t get into town without running an eyelash away from her place.”

“So?”

“Hell’s haystacks, Colonel, a narrow trail alongside her fields is one thing, but a railroad right-of-way? That’s a different breed of bull.”

Wash set his empty shot glass on the bar and caught the man’s eyes. “The railroad owns the land, not the lady.”

“Maybe. But Miz Nicolet thinks it’s hers.” He pronounced the name with a long a at the end. Nicolay.

“You know that for a sure thing?”

The barkeep shrugged. “She hasn’t given in on one single thing in the four years since she settled here. Real stubborn woman. Frenchie, you know. Worst kinda female on the face of the planet.”

Wash quirked an eyebrow. “Why’s that? Because she’s French?”

“Because she’s female. A woman don’t belong out here, farmin’ on her own. Plus that woman don’t allow nothin’ anywhere near her place, not even Fourth of July picnics.”

Wash shifted, hooking his boot onto the bar rail. “That’s a railroad right-of-way her farm’s sitting on. Railroad wants to use it.”

“Huh!” the barkeep spluttered. “Railroad got a few hundred soldiers to back you up?”

“Nope. They got something better—me. I’m a lawyer, and I’m overseeing the railroad crews.”

The red-haired man again swiped his cloth over the bar. “No fancy law-spoutin’ Back-East lawyer’s gonna make a dent in that woman’s spine.”

“I’m not a fancy Back-East lawyer,” Wash said quietly. “And it’s not her spine that interests me. It’s her fence posts.”

All Wash knew about France was that Napoleon was a big overgrown bully and the wine had bubbles in it. Didn’t seem to him that a woman, even if she was French, could be too big an obstacle. If she was halfway intelligent he’d simply point out the advantages the rail line would bring to Smoke River.

And if she wasn’t intelligent, well, then he’d have to maneuver her into relinquishing the land the railroad owned. At his left, Rooney downed a second shot and when he could draw breath, smacked his lips. “Damn good stuff, Wash. Thanks.”

“Don’t know how you could tell, it went down so fast.” He rolled three two-bit pieces down the shiny wood bar and together the two men stepped out into the fading sunlight.

Wash grabbed the reins of the black gelding and swung up into the saddle. “Gonna ride out and take a look at the narrow end of the valley.”

Rooney chortled. “You mean take a look at the lady farmer at the narrow end of the valley.”

“Just reconnoitering the enemy. You coming?”

The stocky man turned back toward the saloon. “Nope. Rather stir up a poker game ’stead of a hornet’s nest. That’s your department.”

Yeah. Hornet’s nests were his specialty. That’s what he’d dealt with in the War and later with the Sioux at Fort Kearney. And that’s what Grant Sykes paid him for now. He reined away from the hitching rail and headed the horse past the whispering maple trees toward Green Valley.

When he got to the overhanging cliff, Wash reined in. Below him stretched an undulating sea of lavender, washing up the surrounding hills like a purple tide. The little farmhouse nestled at the neck of the valley, a long, slim island of green surrounded by hills as brown and dry as old tea leaves. A peaceful place.

He guessed few travelers passed by and those who did kept their horses on the narrow pathway to avoid trampling the purple-topped bushes next to the lane. Wash had to chuckle. Patches of bright green mint grew along the edge, so if a horse strayed off the path, the sharp minty scent alerted the rider. Miz Nicolet must be one canny farmer.

He wondered for the twentieth time why Sykes’s railroad had purchased a right-of-way through this narrow valley. He guessed back then it was the only land the Oregon Central could acquire at a favorable price; the government had set aside the rest for homesteading.

Below him, a movement caught his attention, a flutter of blue swirling across the ocean of purple, a woman running, her apron crushed into one hand, bare legs flashing. She slowed and pointed up at him, then began wading through the field, shouting something.

He spurred the horse, stumbled down the steep edge through crumbling shale that shelved off under the mare’s searching hooves. He shifted his weight to help the animal balance, and when they reached the level valley floor he bent forward, his eyes narrowing.

The tall patch of lavender just outside the weathered split rail fence twitched. His horse tensed and stood still, neck quivering. Wash laid a reassuring hand on the mare’s warm hide. “What is it, General? You smell something?”

The black stood motionless, then took a cautious step forward. Something scrabbled inside the little stand of lavender, and the bushy fronds waved back and forth.

“Jackrabbit, maybe,” Wash murmured. He drew the Colt from his waistband. Too close for a rifle; it’d make mincemeat instead of supper.

Another wriggle and Wash fingered the hard metal trigger. “Okay, girl, let’s flush it—” On the word out, he kneed the mare forward and aimed just left of the jiggling patch. If he guessed right, the critter would exit just in front of General’s front hoof.

He waited. The horse settled a leg on the dark earth and a high, thin cry came from the bushes.

“What the devil…”

A small girl popped up, a little sprite of a thing, with two red-gold braids and a grimy white pinafore. “I am not a jackrabbit,” she announced. “I am an anteater.” She stuck out a tiny hand and unfolded it to reveal a smear of squashy-looking black stuff on her palm.

“You eat ants?” Wash asked.

The small hand closed up tight. “They taste like peppermint. I eat grasshoppers, too, but they wriggle. Do you like ants?”

He studied her. Bits of dry grass were stuck in her hair, and her sunburned nose tilted up as she gazed at him. “You gonna shoot me?”

“No, I never shoot little girls. Only jackrabbits.” He started to stuff the Colt back in his holster when a blur of blue hurtled over the fence and plunged through the lavender patch. The spicy scent wafted on the still afternoon air.

The woman planted herself in front of General, breathing hard, and the horse shied.

“Don’t touch her!” she screamed. She grabbed the child and shoved her behind her skirts.

“He wasn’t gonna touch me, Maman,” came the high voice from behind the blue skirt. “He was gonna shoot me.”

The woman’s face went dead white.

“Oh, no, ma’am, I wasn’t going to—”

“He was, too, Maman. He was going to shoot me and eat me for supper!”

“Mon dieu!”

“I was not,” Wash protested. “See, I thought she was a jackrab—”

“Do not bother to explain, monsieur. Just turn your horse around and go.”

“Now, wait a minute. Let me ex—”

“Go!” She made shooing motions with the blue apron, her cheeks blazing crimson and her eyes…

Her eyes snapped. Magnificent eyes. Like two shards of teal stone flecked with gray. Eyes that made his heart stutter.

He studied the rest of her as she stood panting before him. Slim. Small waist. Couldn’t tell about her hips under all those petticoats, but her breasts, rising and falling as she struggled for breath, looked lush and rounded. His mouth went dry. It had been a long, long time since he’d admired a woman’s breasts.

He wrenched his gaze from her bosom. Her face had a smattering of freckles over a sun-browned nose and a soft-looking mouth the color of ripe raspberries. A wide-brimmed straw hat hung down her back, the blue ribbon ties knotted about her throat.

Wash cleared his throat. “You Miz Nicolet?”

“That is none of your business,” she snapped. “Leave my land this instant!”

“Ma’am? Just listen a min—”

“And do not come back!”

Wash figured if he stayed until sundown, he’d never get to complete a sentence. “Well, now, I can’t exactly promise—”

The woman spun, scooped her daughter into her arms and tramped away toward the house, taking long strides that kicked up her petticoats to reveal mud-caked black leather work boots. Over her retreating shoulder the little girl grinned at him and waved an ant-stained hand. “Goodbye, monsieur! I hope you find something to eat.”

Something to eat sounded like the balm his shaken confidence needed. Better yet, something to drink. He guessed Rooney would still be dealing cards at the Golden Partridge; maybe he could rustle up a steak and some beans before they figured out his partner was cheating.

“Come on, General.” He headed the gelding down the narrow wagon trail toward town. “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman hasn’t liked what she saw of me right off,” he muttered to his horse. “But sure as hell’s the first time a woman’s ever plain run me off. Not good for a man’s spirit.”

Chapter Two

From the double swinging door of the Golden Partridge saloon, Wash took in the cobwebby walls, then the expanse of tobacco-sticky plank floor. Cowpunchers crowded three-deep around the poker table, but the barroom was so smoky he didn’t see Rooney right off. When he did spot him, Wash wished he hadn’t.

Hell’s holy hobnails, Rooney was gambling again. The place reeked of whiskey and sweat, and underneath the sour smell lay a tension so thick it clogged his lungs.

His gray-haired sidekick was absorbed in a game of blackjack with five other men. Three were obviously ranch hands—hair slicked down, fresh-shaved, clean shirts and polished boots. The other two were older men with paunches and gray in their beards. Ranch owners, maybe. After all, it was Saturday night. He hoped they were all drunk enough that they wouldn’t watch Rooney too closely.

Too late. A fresh-faced kid leaped to his feet, revolver drawn. “You’re cheatin’, mister! That card came from your sleeve.”

Wash saw the kid’s trigger finger tighten. He put a bullet through the kid’s hat and the other men at the table swiftly rose, hands in the air, knocking chairs over backward.

“Pay up, Rooney,” he ordered in a quiet voice. “Now. Before you get yourself killed.”

“Hey!” the barkeep yelled. “Thought you was a lawyer-man.”

“That’s right,” Wash replied evenly. “But even lawyers can shoot straight.” He holstered his Colt. “Come on, Rooney, you’re holding up my supper.”

With a scowl, Rooney began to divvy up his pot.

Wash had to laugh. After the war, when he’d soldiered at Fort Kearney, he’d picked up Rooney Cloudman as his part-Indian army scout. It was Rooney who had helped him give up serious drinking. He was a good man except that he’d never been able to walk past a poker table with a card game going.

Every man had his weakness, Wash supposed; when he was younger he’d had the same hunger for whiskey and taking chances, for “riding close to the cliff” his father had said.

He no longer had the carefree heart he’d had at twenty-one; it had taken him three years of prison in Richmond and another year chasing the Sioux before he’d realized he was as close to self-destruction as a man could get. Even now, some days, he felt like a walking corpse. He didn’t seek human interaction beyond keeping his poker-playing partner out of trouble, didn’t want to dance with any of the ladies at the hoedown every other Saturday. And he didn’t want to feel anything except pleasure over his breakfast coffee and bacon.

Dried up as a sun-parched cornstalk, Rooney said.

Rooney was right. The heart he carried around in his chest was dead. Pretty, blue-eyed Laura Gannon had been his first love, the kind that hurt the most. She’d also been his last. He’d never loved anyone like he’d loved Laura, but she’d jilted him the night before he’d left for the War. For damn sure he’d never risk wanting a woman again.

With shaking fingers, Jeanne Nicolet crammed a cartridge into the rifle and propped it with a satisfying thunk on the wooden gun rests over the front door of her tiny cabin.

“Are you going to shoot someone, Maman?” Manette craned her neck to inspect the rifle.

“Non, ma petite. Not unless I have to,” Jeanne said between clenched teeth. Not unless another strange man trespassed in her lavender fields. No one from town ever rode out to pay a call, friendly or otherwise, not since she’d shot the sheriff’s hat off when he’d questioned her right to the land. She had darted into the cabin, dug the deed out of the Bible on her nightstand, then returned to unfold it under the man’s large nose.

He’d stepped forward, saying he wanted to look closer at the document, and that’s when she’d pulled the derringer from her apron pocket and fired. Since then, no one had ventured past her gate.

Until now. She did not know what to think about the tall man who had come. What did he want? All she knew was that she did not trust him, especially since he was not only tall but had a nicely chiseled face and attractive, unruly dark hair.

When Henri had been killed, she’d wanted to get as far away from New Orleans as possible. The men who had survived the War were uncouth and pushy, particularly when they learned she was a widow. It had not been difficult to leave, even though she was completely on her own, the only one to provide for herself and her daughter.

Sometimes she felt so frightened she wanted to crawl into her bed and pull the quilt over her head. But she could not. She must have courage. She must move on with her life, no matter how difficult.

The climate in Oregon was perfect for growing lavender and, thanks to the New Orleans War Widows fund, she had scraped together enough money to buy the narrow strip of land that ran the length of the small valley and the abandoned prospector’s cabin that had come with it. She had known no one; half the time she was scared to death of people, especially the men, but she had managed.

And she had the deed to prove it, now safe in the bank vault in Smoke River. Once each week she saddled up the mare and rode into town to trade for supplies; and once each week she stopped by the Smoke River Bank and smoothed her hand over the strong box where her precious document rested.

Green Valley was the only land she’d been able to afford, and nobody, nobody, was going to stop her from growing her lavender. French lavender. English lavender, Spanish lavender. Her family had grown lavender back in France; she knew more about lavender than she knew about ladies’ fashions.

Her lavender field was the only source of income for herself and Manette. She reached up and patted the rusty barrel of the rifle mounted over the door. She would fight to protect what was hers, even if she had to shoot the first man since Henri who had made her heart jump. All the more reason not to trust him.

The following morning, Wash and Rooney rode out to Green Valley, drawing rein at the rise overlooking the valley. Beside him on his frisky strawberry roan, Rooney grunted. “You see what I see down there?”

“Yeah, I see it. Damn cabin built on railroad land. Who’d expect to find a squatter way out here?”

Rooney patted the neck of his mount and surveyed Wash with narrowing black eyes. “A better question is what’re you gonna do about it?”

Wash blew out a long breath. “If I knew the answer to that, maybe I would have slept some last night.”

Sykes had ruled out Scarecrow Hill because the railroad owned no right-of-way there. Wash had to get Green Valley surveyed, then get Miz Nicolet off that land before the clearing crew arrived. Problem was, she’d set to farming on land she didn’t own. Most likely she thought she owned it; probably paid that cabin owner $2.50 an acre and he gave her a ginned-up deed and skedaddled before the law caught up with him. It had happened before.

He watched gray smoke puff lazily from the stone chimney into the summer air. Poor misguided woman. Her entire crop of whatever that purple stuff was would have to be ripped out. It looked like a nice, neat little farm. Pretty spot, too, with walnut and sugar maple trees covering both sides of the steep hills that enclosed the valley, and the sun bathing her crop in a glow of golden light.

His belly tightened. He hated to see things destroyed, whether it was Reb trains or ammunition dumps or Georgia plantations. Or little farms, like this one.

He’d try not to think about it.

Rooney nudged Wash’s elbow and pointed. The French woman was out beside the cabin, hanging up laundry on a sagging clothesline: four white flounced petticoats and three girl’s pinafores and…

He sucked in a breath. Leaping lizards…underwear! Lacy chemises and ruffled white underdrawers so small he could bunch up a dozen and stuff them in his pocket.

He shut his eyes to block out the sight, steeling his mind against the sensual tug of those delicate lace-trimmed garments and the woman he imagined wearing them. His groin heated anyway. Gritting his teeth he worked to squash the feelings he’d kept buried all these years.

Abruptly he wheeled the black gelding away. “Come on, Rooney, let’s ride back into town and get some whiskey. The railroad can wait.”

But the railroad couldn’t wait, and Wash knew it. All the way back to town he cursed the problem unfolding before him.

“Ain’t ’xactly her fault,” Rooney observed when they had settled themselves at the Golden Partridge’s polished wood bar.

“Widow lady on her own, speakin’ a foreign language. Coulda been took by a swindler easy.”

Wash snorted and sipped his whiskey. “Maybe you should mind your own business.”

Rooney paused long enough to empty his own glass. “Or maybe you should mind your business and get that lady off the railroad land before the sheriff arrests her for trespassin’.”

“I don’t think the sheriff would do that.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it. That’s why Sykes’s railroad company is payin’ your salary. Think about it. Why else would they hire a lawyer with courtroom smarts to supervise railroad crews?”

God knew he didn’t want to think about it. He especially didn’t want to think about those slim bare legs flashing through that purple field.

Late afternoon shadows stippled the trail as Wash guided General back to Green Valley. He didn’t fancy returning, but Rooney was right: he had his orders.

When the path narrowed and began to slope downward, he fought off an attack of belly butterflies. Pretty ironic, to have lived through Laura’s betrayal and then the War, the Yankee prison in Richmond and Sioux-Cheyenne skirmishes near Fort Kearney only to find his entire frame laced up with nerves over one lone woman. A woman who had no legal claim to the land she sat on.

Now on a level with the thick, waist-high field of bushy growth, he reined General to a stop and dismounted. It had to be done; he’d best get it over with.

Dropping the reins where he stood, Wash patted the animal’s neck and made his way toward the small cabin at the far end of the valley. The greenery on either side of him was so close to the uneven footpath his elbows brushed against the purple fronds. A pleasant spice-like scent rose. Lavender! That’s what she was growing. Looked damn nice in the hazy sunlight, like an ocean of blue and purple waves.

He raised his head and glimpsed a movement on the cabin porch. Miz Nicolet had seen him.

He didn’t slow his pace until he was maybe twenty yards away, and then suddenly she pulled a rifle from behind her skirt and aimed it at his heart.

Wash put his hands in the air. “It’s me, ma’am. The jackrabbit hunter, remember?”

She said not a word, and he kept walking toward her, the slight hitch in his gait more noticeable now. When he was close enough to see the dark curls escaping the blue kerchief tied over her hair, he stopped.

“You do remember me, don’t you?”

Her mouth opened. “Oui,” she snapped. “I remember you. What do you want?” She moved the gun barrel an inch to the right. If she pulled the trigger at such close range, she couldn’t miss. His heart would be splattered all over the path.

“I’d like to talk to you, ma’am. About your farmland.”

The teal-green eyes narrowed. “I own this land. It is not for sale.”

“Oh, I don’t want to buy it…well, yes, I do, in a way, but let me explain. You see—”

“You are trespassion—trespassing,” she corrected. “I ask you to leave.”

“I can’t do that, ma’am. See, I’ve been ordered to—”

“Go away,” she interrupted. “Or I will shoot.”

Frantically Wash racked his brain for some words in French. Bonjour? No, that didn’t fit. Au revoir? Not yet. Not until she had heard him out. Comment ça va? That would do.

He pushed his stiff lips into a smile, but it was dicey with that rifle trained on his shirt buttons. “Comment ça va?”

Her gaze widened. “I am quite well,” she replied, her voice tightening. “But I am not patient. Go!”

He waited three heartbeats. “My name’s Washington Halliday, ma’am.”

He took another halting step forward, and then another, until the toes of his boots stubbed the bottom step. At each step she adjusted the angle of the gun to accommodate his position. He was so close now he could see those odd flecks of gray in her eyes.

Wash drew in a long breath and began to recite the first French words that came to mind. “O, claire de lalune…” Damn. He wished he hadn’t switched his long-ago college language class to Latin.

She frowned and tilted her head, obviously puzzled.

“Mon ami…” On the word ami he charged straight up the single step toward her and knocked the gun barrel upward. It went off with a crack, the shot skimming off into the trees where a chatter of birds broke the quiet.

She gave a little cry and Wash grabbed the gun out of her frozen grasp and checked the chamber. She backed away from him until he clunked the rifle flat on the porch beside her, and then she stopped, one hand covering her mouth.

“Sorry I had to do that, ma’am. But it’s hard to talk sense if you’re dead.”

Her throat convulsed in a swallow.

“Talk about what?” Her face was white as limestone.

“Ma’am, you got any whiskey? I think you need a shot.”

“Non. No whiskey.”

“How about tea? Coffee?”

All at once her legs gave out and she sat down hard on the porch, her skirts fluffing up around her. “Café,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky. “Inside. Mais, je—I cannot…”

He strode past her into the tiny cabin and headed for the potbellied stove. The place was as neat as his mother’s parlor, he noted. Nothing out of place except for a child’s exercise book on the kitchen table, propped between a sugar bowl on one side and a white ceramic cream pitcher on the other.

“Coffee,” he muttered. His own hands were shaking by the time he found the coffee mill and a small bag of coffee beans. He chunked up the fire, brewed the coffee extra strong and found two patterned china cups. He grabbed the bubbling pot off the stove and carried it through the doorway.

She was still sitting where he’d left her. Trying to control her trembling hands, she reached for the cup, then quickly set it down on the porch and blew on her fingers. “Hot,” she explained.

“Couldn’t find any saucers,” he said more calmly than he felt. He settled himself not too close beside her.

“There are no saucers. They were broken when I came in the wagon from New Orleans.”

“Drink it black?” He had a hard time getting the words out; being this close to her made his heart beat in an odd, ragged rhythm.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Pardon?”

“Do you want milk or sugar? Du lait? Sucre?”

Her frown lifted. “Ah, non.”

A long, awkward silence fell. He let her drink her coffee while he gazed over the purple fields and tried to gather his thoughts. She’s sure not gonna like what I’m going to tell her.

A heavenly scent invaded his nostrils—probably the lavender. He leaned imperceptibly toward her and drew in another breath. No, it was her. Soap and something spicy.

Wash gulped his coffee and tried to think of how to tell her about the railroad.

Chapter Three

Jeanne could scarcely swallow the hot coffee the tall man had poured into her grandmother’s china cup, but it was not because it burned her tongue or tasted like scorched peppercorns. Her throat was so tight she could not even swallow her own saliva.

He’d come to talk about her farm, the only mainstay she’d found in five years of widowhood, outside of her daughter. And outside of her handed-down family knowledge about growing lavender. How precarious her life seemed at times. Whether she and Manette managed in this untamed, rough land depended solely upon her skill as a farmer. Their survival hung by a thin stalk of lavender.

Gingerly she lifted her cup from the porch and tried again to sip it, mostly just to gain some time. It was lukewarm now, but still the tightness closed her throat. Strange, but he seemed as ill at ease as she did. Three times his mouth opened to form a word, and three times his jaw snapped shut with a decisive click. Mon Dieu, what did he wish to say?

Once more his lips opened and this time she couldn’t help but notice how nicely shaped they were—not too full but… She calmed an odd flutter in her chest…sensual.

This time some of his words tumbled out. “I’m sure glad you didn’t shoot me, ma’am.”

“I meant to,” she said in a quiet voice. “I do not like strangers.”

“How long have you been farming out here, Miz Nicolet?”

She looked up sharply. “How is it you know my name?”

“I asked around in town.”

For an instant she forgot to breathe. “Why?”

He hesitated. “Well, because it seems like…” He smiled at her, his teeth white against his tanned skin. “Seems like you’ve settled on land you don’t own.”

“But I do own it, monsieur. I have the deed to prove it.”

He slurped down a mouthful of coffee. “Problem is, Miz Nicolet, you’ve been swindled.”

“Swindled? What is that?”

“Hoodwinked. Gulled.”

“Hood—?”

“To put it straight, ma’am, you’ve been cheated.”

“Ah, non. I paid all my money for this land, and Monsieur Lavery shook my hand and brought the deed to show me.”

“I’m sure he did.”

The man’s usually rich voice sounded odd. Did he not believe her? “Yes,” she reiterated, “he did.”

The man chuffed out a long breath and stared out over her lavender fields. “I don’t exactly know how to tell you this, Miz Nicolet, but—”

“Then do not.” Her hand shaking, she lowered her half-empty cup onto the porch beside her. “Please, do not say anything that will make me feel sad about what I did. Please, Monsieur…?”

“Halliday. Wash. Short for Washington, but just call me Wash.”

Jeanne followed his gaze as it skimmed over her lavender crop. “It is beautiful in the afternoon light, is it not?”

He nodded without lifting his eyes from the fields.

“This valley, it reminds me of the land near Narbonne, where I grew up. My mother grew lavender to sell at the market. And now I do, as well.”

“I can see that, ma’am. You have a fine crop here.”

“I let it grow as it will, and each summer the ground is covered in purple. I leave some of the stalks uncut until they go to seed.”

The air was sharp with the spicy fragrance. Each year her lilac-tinted sea had pushed farther and farther up the canyon sides. “It makes a small income for Manette and me. I feel safe here.” Up until now.

For an instant Wash closed his eyes. He sure understood safe. “It’s almost dusk, ma’am. I’ve got to get back to town, but before I go, could you show me your deed for the place?”

She could not answer.

“Ma’am?”

“I can show you, yes. But not today. The deed is at the bank in Smoke River.”

He turned his face toward her. His eyes were nice, gray like her grandfather Rougalle’s, with fine sun lines crinkling the corners. Her heart stuttered at the expression in their depths. Such sadness. She did not like that look.

Liar! You like it very much, even if it is sad.

Something about this man’s eyes made her chest hurt. She wished he would smile once more.

“How about meeting me at the bank tomorrow morning?”

She looked at him so long he wondered if she’d heard him.

She turned her head and looked into his eyes, saying nothing for a good two minutes. At last she dipped her kerchief-swathed head in the slightest of nods.

“Very well. Tomorrow.”

Wash unfolded his long legs, stood up and stepped down off the porch. “Eleven o’clock.” He touched the brim of his brown Stetson, then turned away and strode toward General where he patiently waited at the end of the footpath. His hip hurt like hell from squatting on the porch, but he worked to keep his gait smooth.

The eleven o’clock sunlight on a midsummer morning in Smoke River revealed a number of town folk briskly crisscrossing the dusty main street on their way to buy feed or pick up their mail. The grocer, Carl Ness, was sweeping the board walkway in front of his displayed bushel baskets of ripe peaches and bloodred tomatoes. He hummed a tune as he worked his broom down as far as the barbershop where he stopped abruptly, leaving an obvious contrast between the barber’s dirty, leaf-strewn frontage and the grocer’s clean expanse of walkway.

To the left of the grocer’s sat the Golden Partridge, quiet at this hour but not empty. The minute Carl stashed his broom, he ambled toward the saloon where Wash knew he’d sit nursing a beer and glowering at Whitey Kincaid.

Whitey Kincaid was the barber. Watching Carl from the sheriff’s office across the street, Wash laughed out loud. What was known as the “Boardwalk Battle” had been waged since he’d been a boy attending the one-room schoolhouse twenty-some years ago.

The struggle between the two men had started years ago, when Whitey’s prize mare had stumbled into Carl’s carefully stacked boxes of potatoes and fresh-picked corn and broken its leg. Whitey had put the horse out of its misery and then come gunning for the grocer. The sheriff arrested both of them, Wash recalled, and three days in the same cell at the jerry-rigged jailhouse had fanned the animosity into an unspoken war both were determined to win.

Wash gazed at the saloon and ran his tongue over his dry lips. No time for a drink; Miz Nicolet should be riding into town any minute and he had to keep his head clear. He sure didn’t relish telling the French lady how easy it was to get the wool pulled over a foreigner’s eyes out here in the West.

The sound of hooves pulled his attention to the far end of the street; sure enough, it was the lavender lady herself. Her young daughter rode in front, holding a sheaf of dried lavender fronds on her lap.

The woman rode astride, her sky-blue skirt rucked up revealing black leather boots, an expanse of ruffled white petticoat, and the flash of one bare calf. His mouth went dry as a dustbin.

He strode up the street to meet her. “Morning, Miz Nicolet.”

“Bon jour, Monsieur Washington.” She drew the skinny mare up in front of the redbrick bank building next to the hotel.

Wash plucked Manette off the horse and carefully set her on the ground, then reached up for her mother. No stirrup, he noted. How the hell did she mount, anyway?

He closed his hands around her waist and felt a jolt of heat dance up both arms. When she laid her hands lightly on his shoulders, the warmth swirled into his chest. He lifted her down and found he couldn’t bring himself to release her. Her high-collared white shirtwaist swelled over her breasts and nipped into the waistband of her skirt.

She glanced at him from under the wide brim of a straw hat banded with a blue ribbon. He didn’t see her eyes for more than a half second, but her mouth had gone white and tense.

“Manette, take the lavender over to Monsieur Ness.”

But Manette was absorbed by a scraggly dandelion poking up between the wood planks of the boardwalk and the grasshopper clinging to the flower head.

“I’ll take it,” Wash volunteered. He needed to be away from her to regain his equilibrium. “Meet you at the bank.”

Jeanne scarcely stammered out her thanks before he had gathered up the sheaf, bound in twine, and started for Ness’s Mercantile & Sundries.

She turned to her daughter. “Manette?” But just now Manette was looking for bugs under the walkway. She would probably eat one or two, as she was insatiable in her curiosity, and very often hungry, as well. She squinted at something cradled in her tiny palm, a grasshopper. And then whoop! It was gone.

Like life, Jeanne thought. Like youth. You blinked and it was over.

Inside the bank the air was cool, the light dim. Jeanne stepped up to the teller’s window. “I wish to see my safe box, if you please.”

The blond youth behind the iron grate glanced up at her, then focused on Wash, who was suddenly standing at her shoulder. “Sure thing, Mrs. Nicolet. Just step this way.”

Manette settled herself on a bench to wait, and Wash followed Jeanne through the grille and toward a private room.

“I heard all about you, Colonel Halliday,” the boy said as he led the way. “About gettin’ shot and being in prison and—”

“Take my advice, Will. Don’t join the army.”

“Pa wouldn’t let me anyway. Says I have to be a banker, like him.”

“Not a bad life,” Wash said.

“Not very much excitement, bein’ stuck in a bank all day.”

Wash grinned. “Excitement is highly overrated.”

Jeanne’s breath stopped. When he smiled, the perpetual frown on his face lifted. He was not so frightening, now. Alors, he was almost handsome. Or would be if his smile ever reached his eyes. Surreptitiously she studied his profile while the boy returned and plunked the small steel box onto the polished desktop.

“Merci, William.”

The boy unlocked the box. At the click, she leaned forward, plunged her hand inside the receptacle and drew out a rolled-up parchment tied with ribbon.

“Here is my deed,” she said with a note of triumph. “See for yourself.”

Wash unrolled the document and scanned the words. He’d known it all along, but his heart sank anyway. “It’s like I said, ma’am. You’ve been swindled. This deed is fake.”

Her face turned white as cheese. “How do you know this?”

“Well, look here, ma’am.” She stepped up beside him and studied the document he held out.

“There’s supposed to be two signatures, buyer and seller. Only got one here. Yours. Doesn’t prove a thing.”

She stared up at him. “You mean it is false?”

“’Fraid so, ma’am.” He breathed in her scent and his fists clenched.

Her whole body went rigid. “You mean I do not own my farm? My lavender?”

Wash wished he could drop through the floor. “The Oregon Central Railroad owns it.”

“But I paid money to Monsieur Lavery. I paid him all the money I had!”

“I’m real sorry, Miz Nicolet. You’re not the first person to get taken in like this, but I know that doesn’t help much.”

“You mean I have nothing? Nowhere to live? No land? No lavender to sell to Monsieur Ness at the mercantile?”

He nodded.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “But what will I do? I must care for Manette.”

His fists opened and closed. “Maybe I could get your money back. I work for the railroad, see, and—” He broke off at the look on her face.

Her tears overflowed, spilling down her pale cheeks like fat droplets of dew. Wash’s throat ached. Dammit, watching her cry ripped up his insides. He closed his hand about her elbow.

“Come on, Miz Nicolet. You need some coffee.” He folded the deed into her hand and ushered her out past the teller’s window. Manette scrambled off the bench where she’d been waiting, took one look at her mother’s face and flung her small arms around her skirts. “Don’t cry, Maman. Please don’t cry. It makes me feel bumpy inside.”

Absently Jeanne smoothed her hand over her daughter’s red-gold hair. “C’est rien, chou-chou.” The words sounded choked.

Manette tipped her head up and pinned him with a furious look. “Did you hurt my mother?”

Wash flinched at the question. Of course he’d hurt her mother. He’d yanked every bit of security out from under this woman in less than three minutes. He released Jeanne’s elbow and knelt before the girl.

“If I did hurt your mama, it was not on purpose.”

“Make her stop crying, then.”

“I would if I could, honey. I think maybe some coffee might help.” He gestured toward the hotel across the street. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Yes. And some ice cream, too?” She was out the door like a nectar-hungry bee.

Wash rose to his feet with a grimace, fighting the urge to wrap the sobbing woman in his arms. Gently he took Jeanne’s elbow. Her entire body trembled like wind-whipped aspen leaves.

“Oh, hell, I’m sorry.” He grasped Jeanne’s upper arm and guided her out onto the boardwalk and across the street to the hotel dining room.

She gave no sign that she had heard his words.

Chapter Four

A plump older woman in a checked apron glanced up as Wash and Jeanne entered the River Hotel dining room with Manette dancing after them.

“Morning, Rita. Got any coffee?” The woman’s face darkened at the sight of Jeanne. “Always got coffee for you, Colonel. Made fresh, too.”

The waitress shot another look at Jeanne, instantly dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Here, dearie. You just cry it all out of your system.”

Wash settled Jeanne at a corner table and lifted Manette onto the chair between them. The girl leaned toward him. “Why is Maman crying?” she whispered.

Wash flinched. “Because…well, because she’s just had some bad news.”

“Can you make it go away?”

“I wish I could.” Never in his life had he felt this helpless. He didn’t like the feeling one bit.

The waitress sailed off to the kitchen and returned with two delicate cups of steaming coffee. One she placed before Jeanne; the other she brought around the table to Wash and leaned in close to his ear.

“What’d you do to her, anyway?” she muttered.

“Railroad wants her land,” he explained, keeping his voice low.

“And I hear you’re workin’ for the railroad.” Rita sent a speculative glance at Jeanne. “A man’s always at the root of a woman’s troubles,” she sniffed.

Wash waited until Rita had retreated into the kitchen. “It’s almost noon. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head, blotting at her eyes with the damp handkerchief.

“She is hungry,” Manette whispered. “She let me eat all of her breakfast.”

“Well, then, perhaps you both would join me for lunch?”

“Oh, non,” Jeanne protested.

“Oh, yes! Manette’s bright-eyed grin made Wash chuckle. He’d order a steak—two steaks—and a big bowl of chocolate ice cream; maybe it would ease the sick, guilty feeling in his gut.

Jeanne spoke not one word during the meal, but he noticed she ate every ounce of her steak, right down to the bits of gristle. Wash cut up half his meat for Manette, but found he couldn’t swallow even his own portion.

After a tense quarter of an hour, Jeanne quietly laid her fork across the empty plate and looked up at him. “I came from a small village in France to marry my husband,” she said, her voice near a whisper. “It was a mistake.”

Wash blinked. “You mean he was the wrong man?”

“I mean he was killed in the War when Manette was a year old. He had no family and no land. I could not survive in New Orleans, so I left. I came out to Oregon to buy a farm where I could grow lavender. It is all Manette and I have.”

“Your husband was a Southerner, then? Confederate Army?”

She nodded, then lifted her china coffee cup and cradled it in her hands.

“I fought for the North,” Wash said. “Union Army. I grew up out here in Smoke River but I’d gone back East to school when the War broke out. I volunteered right before Manassas.”

Again she nodded. The rivulets of tears had stopped, he noted with relief. Talking seemed to help.

“When my father died,” he continued, “Ma couldn’t wait to get back to Connecticut. Some women aren’t cut out for life on the frontier.”

She held his eyes in a long, questioning look. “What is required for a life on the frontier?”

He blew out his breath. “Horse sense, for one. Hide like a tanned buffalo. Temperament like a rattlesnake. And grit.”

“Grit? What is ‘grit’?”

He studied her work-worn hands, the sunburned patch on her nose, and the unwavering look of resolve in her eyes.

“Grit is being strong when the going gets tough. It’s what you had when you packed up your things and came out here on your own and started your farm.”

She pursed her lips and his groin tightened. Lord, but she got to him easy. Was it because her body swelled in and out in just the right places? Or because he’d been without a woman for so long he’d forgotten the pleasures female company brought?

Or was it because he just plain liked her?

That thought sent a cold thread of fear coiling up his spine.

“I know this has been a hard thing to come to grips with, Miz Nicolet, but do you have any idea what you plan to do?”

She folded her napkin and laid it over the wadded-up handkerchief next to her plate. “Do?”

She reached up to straighten her hat, and tried to smile.

“I will go home to my farm. I will feed my chickens and I will harvest my lavender when it is ready.”

“I mean what’re you gonna do about the land the railroad owns?”

Her smile faded and her eyes suddenly looked distant. “About the land and the railroad I will do nothing.”

“Nothing! You’ve gotta do something, ma’am. My survey crew will be here day after tomorrow.”

She stood up slowly. “That may be, Monsieur Washington. But no matter who comes, I do not intend to leave.”

Wash shot out of his chair. “Wait a minute! You can’t just—”

“But yes,” she interrupted in a soft but determined voice. “Yes, I can. Come, Manette. We will go home now.”

Five minutes later he watched the woman and her daughter clop back down the street atop the scrawny gray mare. Sure was a sorry excuse for a horse.

Sure is one stubborn woman!

And maybe he was a sorry excuse for a railroad lawyer. He’d ended up doing the wrong thing for the right reason and his insides felt like they were splitting in two. One half of him wanted to bundle Jeanne and her daughter up and drag them off that scanty plot she called a farm. The other half wanted to help her fight off the railroad, like David and Goliath.

There was a third part somewhere in there, too—a part of him that wanted to hold her close and smell her hair.

The horse disappeared in a puff of gray dust and Wash headed for the Golden Partridge. He had a headache that felt like the town blacksmith was hammering on his temples.

Rooney stood, his back to the bar, his boots casually crossed at the ankle. “Been waitin’ for ya, Wash.”

“Yeah?” Wash positioned himself next to his friend and hooked one heel over the bar rail.

“One reason is that French lady. That’s a mighty weak-looking horse for carrying all her household baggage out of that canyon.”

“It’s all she’s got. What’s the other reason?”

Rooney turned around so they stood shoulder to shoulder and hunkered over the shiny mahogany bar top. “Don’t rush me, Wash. I’m thinkin’ how to say what I got to say.”

Wash dropped his forehead onto his hand. “I’m dead tired, Rooney. Just spit it out.”

Rooney lowered his voice. “You see those gents over there by the window?”

Wash turned his head to glance at the men. Mean-looking types. One was paunchy, with a ragged canvas shirt and shifty black eyes; the other was well-built, dark-skinned and silent. He had a crescent-shaped scar under one eye. Both wore double holsters.

A third man sat near the other two. This one looked young and fresh-faced, with a hat so new it didn’t yet have creases in it.

“That kid looks so clean he’d squeak,” Wash said under his breath. “The other two look like a couple of hired guns.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Rooney muttered.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rooney raised his thick, salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “That’s your new railroad survey crew.”

Wash’s hand froze around his shot glass. Those grungy-looking men would be hanging around Miz Nicolet’s farm all day? Watching her feed her chickens? Watching her hang up her laund—

“Oh, God,” he murmured.

Rooney nodded. “That’s what I thought, too.”

Chapter Five

The next morning Wash and Rooney escorted the rough-looking survey crew out to Green Valley. The three men unpacked their equipment and set to work at the far end of the valley. Under Wash’s watchful eye, they worked their way toward the far end of the valley. The closer they got to the cabin, the more uneasy Wash felt.

He didn’t want Miz Nicolet’s rifle to stop his crew. He also didn’t want the men getting too near the pretty French woman. He didn’t usually carry a weapon, but today he’d strapped on his Colt and dropped a handful of extra bullets into his leather vest pocket.

No matter how unsavory the men looked, now that they were on the job, the crew seemed to know what it was doing. Handy, the paunchy man, set up his leveling gauge and peered through the sight. Dark-haired, unshaven Joe Montez—the one Rooney had pegged as a hired gun—marched off paces through the lavender field with the measuring chain. The blond kid, Lacey, held the ranging pole while the paunchy one at the leveling gauge sent hand signals, waving the other two farther up the hillside.

The men gradually worked their way closer to the Nicolet cabin. Wash squinted at the structure. Hell and damn, it sat smack in the center of what would soon be a steel railroad track.

The spiral of blue smoke from the stone chimney told him Jeanne was at home, even though he’d not seen her all morning. He left Rooney in charge of the crew and walked his horse through the lavender field, dismounted and tramped up the path toward the cabin. It was close to noon. The sun poured down on the lush purple fields and his elbows brushed the spikes as he moved through the tall plants. Be kinda nice to smell like lavender when he saw her instead of horse and sweat. In the next instant he wondered why it mattered.

Manette burst out of the open cabin door and flew across the porch to clasp her arms around his knees. “Oh, Mr. Washington,” she cried. “Did you come to see my spider box?”

“Manette,” a voice called from inside the cabin. “We have not finished your lesson.”

Wash reached to gently tug one of her braids, tied at the end with a crisp red bow. “You can call me Wash, if you like. What’s a spider box?”

“Manette!” came the voice again.

The girl tipped her head up and grinned. “My spider box is where I keep my spiders. Want to see?”

“Manette, where are you?”

“Here, Maman. On the porch.” She tossed the words over her shoulder and peered up at him again. “Don’t you want to see it?”

Jeanne Nicolet stepped through the doorway, wiping her hands on a huck towel. “See what?”

Wash straightened and their eyes met. A queer little zing went up the back of his neck. Lord but she stopped his breath! Her lustrous dark hair was caught with a ribbon in a fall down her back; she wore a faded blue gingham skirt and a matching body-hugging shirtwaist. From her head to the tips of her black boots, which brushed up a foam of white petticoat ruffles, she didn’t look like any farm wife he’d ever laid eyes on.

She stuffed the huck towel under her apron. “Monsieur Washington.”

He lifted Manette’s thin arms away from his knees. “Morning, Miz Nicolet.”

She inclined her head and pinned him with an unflinching look.

“I’m going to show Mr. Wash my spider box,” Manette announced.

Jeanne’s gray-green eyes widened. “What spider box?”

“I keep it under my pillow, Maman. I have all kinds of spiders, even a big yellow one.”

Jeanne shuddered. “Mon Dieu, I do not wish to see spiders of any color. Especially not under your pillow.”

Manette skipped away into the cabin as her mother spoke. When she disappeared, Jeanne turned her attention to Wash.

He brought two fingers to his hat brim in a salute and smiled. “I see you have no gun today, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes at his gun belt with its holstered weapon hanging low on his hips. “And I see that you do.”

“The survey crew for the railroad is here. Thought I better warn you that those three fellas climbing up and down the hillside work for me.” He gestured over his shoulder just as Handy, halfway down the hill, came to a dead stop and pointed.

“Joe! Hey, Montez! You ever seen a prettier gal?”

Montez’s dark gaze followed Handy’s pointing forefinger and his mouth dropped open. “Holy—”

Wash spoke quickly to cover the profanity. “They won’t bother you, ma’am. They’re just doing their job.”

“And what job is that?” she inquired through pinched lips.

“The survey. You remember, I told you about it yesterday?”

“Oui, I have forgot. How long will they work?”

“Just today and tomorrow.”

She made an involuntary motion and then studied the men more closely. “They trample my lavender.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, what does that matter? In a couple of days it’ll all be gone.”

“Gone?” Her voice wobbled.

“’Fraid so, ma’am. The clearing crew will come through in a few days and mow down—”

“Non! I will not permit it.”

Wash took a step closer, catching the elusive scent of that spicy soap she used. He brought his head up and inhaled deeply. Damn, she smelled good.

“Miz Nicolet…Jeanne…you can’t stop the railroad. I’ve sent a request for your money to be returned, but the legal right to this land belongs—”

“So you have said,” she snapped.

Would she ever let him finish one single sentence?

“If you know that, ma’am, you also know you’ve got to leave.”

She turned away. “Excuse me, Monsieur Washington…I have the bread rising.”

Before he knew what he was doing, he snaked out his hand and captured her forearm. Under the thin gingham her flesh was warm and alive. And so soft he didn’t want to let go.

“Jeanne, you are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever encountered. Even my mother wasn’t as prickly as you! Now, you’ve got to listen to me.”

Jeanne wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “I will listen.” She watched his lips thin. Very fine, those lips. While she stared at them, his mouth opened.

“I think it would be wise not to, uh, do any laundry while the survey crew is here.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Well…” He swallowed. “It could rile a man up seeing your…um…you know, small clothes, drying on your clothesline.”

She cocked her head. “What means ‘rile up’?”

“Ah. It means to, well, to upset a man. Make him want something.”

Jeanne laughed at his embarrassment. “In France, men are much less—what is the word? Suggestible?”

He groaned, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up so close her chin almost brushed his shirt. She looked up into his angry face and her heart began to pound.

“You know damn well what a man wants,” he growled at her. “So don’t go flying your lacy underdrawers under the noses of my crew. We’ve got a railroad to think about, not…” He did not finish the thought.

“I know little of men except for my husband, Henri. And even him I did not understand.” After Henri had lured her to New Orleans with all his lies, she had sworn she would never trust another man.

He glared down at her.

Well! She did not get the smile she had hoped for. What she got instead was an unsettling reminder of what this man wanted—a railroad through her lavender field. She wanted to scream.

But in the next instant she looked into the hard gray eyes in that tanned face and wanted something else entirely. She liked this man, even if he was with the railroad. She liked him so much she hoped he would smile at her again. A man had not looked at her in that way since her husband had been killed.

Late in the afternoon the survey crew finished, packed up their equipment and mounted their horses. Wash led the way back to town on General, remembering that puzzling look on Jeanne’s face—half fear, half pleasure.

Something had shown in the green depths of her eyes he hadn’t seen before. It was when he’d grabbed her shoulders and she’d looked up at him with uncertainty and…something else. He’d wanted to kiss her. To pull her close enough to feel her breasts against his chest and capture her soft mouth under his.

He was glad he hadn’t; he was afraid he wouldn’t have been able to let her go. It was a funny thing, being without a woman for so long. Like the sweet flavor of his first spoonful of chocolate ice cream, he hungered for another taste.

He thought he’d had enough of women since Laura. The day he’d ridden off to the War, he’d told himself that women were fickle and demanding, fainthearted and selfish.

Most women, that is. Jeanne was different. Or at least he thought she was different. But he still didn’t trust her completely; maybe he never would. She had one big strike against her, and that was that he liked being near her. That in itself was a danger sign. She aroused feelings in him he’d long since put aside as the yearnings of a younger man, not some burned-out ex-colonel with a gimpy leg and a heart crusted over like an overcooked flapjack.

He felt an odd protectiveness toward Jeanne Nicolet. Maybe because she was a foreigner, struggling for a livelihood on the rough western frontier, as his mother had. Maybe because she was so delicate she couldn’t hold up a rifle for more than four minutes. Maybe just because she was a woman. Whatever it was, he couldn’t get the feeling out of his head: she liked him. And he liked her. She was all woman, and he was a man.

Damn, that did soothe a broken man’s sense of worth.

Rooney was waiting on the board walkway outside the Golden Partridge when Wash got there, his thumbs stuffed into his denim pockets. The early evening light glowed through the larch trees, turning them into shimmering gold torches. He sure liked these long days, but his stomach told him it was suppertime. Plenty of time to enjoy his steak and beans and linger with Rooney over his coffee. Ever since that Yankee prison at Richmond he’d hated eating in the dark.

He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. He’d survived the War and the Indian skirmishes on the plains, and now he held a good job with the Oregon Central Railroad. The railway fed some hunger inside himself he was only now beginning to recognize.

After the chaos and destruction he’d seen, he longed for order. As the iron tracks spread from town to town across the western frontier he recognized at long last some peaceful purpose in life. Washtubs for farm wives; bolts of calico and denim for their sons and daughters; sacks of seed for the ranchers. It felt good to be part of something growing, even something as inanimate as an iron railroad track. He was building something instead of blasting it to smithereens.

He figured he was a lucky man; he had a satisfying job. And his life was…well, it was satisfying, too. Except for Jeanne Nicolet. He wished he could get her off that land. He wished he could get her out of his mind.

“How come you workin’ the crew so late?” Rooney swung the hinged saloon door open and Wash dismounted, tied General to the hitching rail and hauled off his saddle. He strode inside and dropped his burden just inside the door.

“Not working late. The crew finished early. I let ’em go around sunset.”

“Well, they ain’t back yet. The blond kid rode in ’bout an hour ago, but Handy and that tall Spaniard weren’t with them.”

An icicle clunked into Wash’s belly. Dammit, were they loitering out in Green Valley? Near Jeanne’s farm?

Wash pushed the swinging door back open and peered down the street. A puff of dust signaled a rider about half a mile from town. “That’s probably them now,” he muttered.

Handy clopped into town on his sorrel, headed straight for the saloon, and tied up his mount next to General.

“Where’s Montez?” Wash yelled.

“Dunno,” the big-bellied man replied. “Went back for somethin’.”

Wash’s heart dropped into his boots. “For what?”

Handy jerked his head up at the steely tone of Wash’s voice.

“Dunno, boss. Have to ask him when he gets in.”

Wash had a pretty good idea what would keep Montez hanging around Green Valley. He hoisted his saddle onto one shoulder and bumped past Handy just as the burly man punched through the saloon doors.

Rooney poked his head out the door. “What about yer supper? Rita’s savin’ a big steak for ya.”

Wash tossed the saddle over General’s back and bent to tighten the cinch. “Tell Rita I’ll eat it later.” He mounted, turned the animal back toward the valley and dug in his spurs.

He rode as fast as he could, but it was full dark by the time he reached the lookout from where he could survey the farm. The entire valley was shrouded in black as thick as a velvet curtain save for a soft glow of light from inside the tiny cabin. He pulled up and listened for hoofbeats.

Nothing. He could hear chickens scrabbling in the crude shelter Jeanne had nailed together, and now and then a spurt of melody from an evening song sparrow somewhere in the maples. All seemed peaceful save for intermittent rustling among the lavender bushes. Rabbits, maybe?

But no Montez. He peered through the darkness at the trail that led down to the gate, but he could see nothing. He’d best pick his way down the hillside and check the—

A thin cry floated up to him from the direction of the cabin. Then another, this one sounding choked off.

He kicked General hard and let the gelding find its own footing through the blackness. At the bottom where the trail leveled off he didn’t stop to dismount; he jumped the horse over the gate and pounded up the narrow path toward the cabin.

Chapter Six

In the circle of light from the cabin Wash spied the back of a tall, dark-shirted man bent over something. A blue gingham ruffle poked from between his legs. A woman’s choked cry stopped his breath, and then he heard the crack of a palm against flesh. The man twisted away, one hand pressed to his flaming cheek.

“Ow! You hellcat…”

Sounded like she’d lambasted him a good one. Wash couldn’t help but congratulate her.

Montez lunged at her. “You think I am not good enough for you, is that it? Because my skin is not white, like yours?”

Wash sprinted onto the porch, caught the attacker’s thick shoulder and spun the man toward him. Then he smashed his fist into the side of the Spaniard’s jaw.

Montez dropped like a felled tree and rolled off the porch. Wash peered over the edge at the crumpled form on the ground and tried not to smile. Out cold.

“Is… Is he killed?” Jeanne quavered from the cabin doorway.

“Naw.” He turned toward her. She was trembling so violently the ruffles down the front of her gingham shirtwaist fluttered. She gazed at him blankly.

“Jeanne.” He stepped in front of her to get her attention.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Oui. H-he take my wrist, so.” She extended her arm. A crimson handprint bloomed on her skin.

“Manette? Is she safe?”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Jeanne’s lips. “Oui. She hides in the ch-chicken house. I send her there when that m-man knocks on my door.”

Wash stared at her. She might be shaken, but she’d showed admirable presence of mind in the face of danger. He’d seen army lieutenants fold up under less.

But her face was still white as chalk, and suddenly she sank onto the porch in a froth of white petticoats.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Forgive me, but I c-cannot…”

Wash extended his hand. He pulled her up so close to him he could smell the spicy-sweet scent of her hair and an odd, hungry feeling burrowed into his gut.

Damn. He ached to pull her into his arms. Something about this woman made him aware of how lonely he was. How hungry he was.

He wanted her. Hell’s bells, any man would want her. But with Jeanne it was more than that. He liked her looks, her spirit. Liked her oddly inflected words. He liked talking to her. Jumping jennies, he just plain liked the woman.

He swallowed hard. “What did Montez want?”

One hand flew to her throat. “He…he wanted to kiss me.”

Wash could sure understand that. Kissing her was something he himself had been thinking a lot about for the past two days. And nights.

A stifled groan floated up from the ground. Wash stepped off the porch and straddled the Spaniard. Dragging him upright by the back of his shirt, he planted a boot in his backside.

Damned randy snake.

“Get out of here, Montez. And don’t come back. Pick up your pay from Rooney at the saloon.”

Without looking at him, the Spaniard slouched unsteadily down the path and through the gate.

Wash couldn’t look at Jeanne; he felt responsible. But she pinned him with an unflinching eye. “I do not like that those men come here.”

Wash blew out a long breath. “Those men are my work crew for the railroad that’s coming. A different crew will be here in a day or two to start clearing brush.

“Brush? What brush?”

Wash hesitated, gazing out into the darkness, envisioning Jeanne’s lush fields of lavender glowing in the sun. God help him, he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell her the clearing crew was getting paid to chop down her precious crop.

“Brush,” he echoed. “You know, tickle grass and small trees.” He shot a look at her face. “Anything that’s uh, in the way of laying track.”

She turned to him, eyes narrowing. “I will not have such men at my farm.”

“Jeanne, don’t you understand?” Anger hardened his voice. “It isn’t your farm. This land belongs to the railroad.”

He kept a tight rein on his nerves and watched her mouth turn down, the light in her eyes dim. Maybe she’d cry or something. Her farm had to go. He expected her to crumple in the face of her impending loss. Instead she straightened her shoulders and bit her lower lip.

“Jeanne, don’t you see? Many people will benefit from the railroad.”

She began to crease tiny folds in her muslin apron. “No, I do not see,” she blazed. “I and my Manette, we will not benefit! Do we not matter here in America?”

“Sure, you matter,” Wash growled. “Every citizen matters. That’s what this country is built on.”

“But that is not true! If many people want one thing and two people do not want it, the many will win. Is that not so?”

Wash cleared his throat. “Well, uh, yeah. That’s democracy. The majority rules.”

Her chin came up. “But is that not unfair to the not majority people? To the two that wanted something else?”

He swallowed. Now that he thought about it, yeah, it did seem unfair.

Jeanne propped her hands at her waist. “So, I and my daughter should be pushed out of our home because the people in town want a railroad, yes?”

She had a point, all right. What happened to the rights of a single individual under majority rule? Hell, he was a lawyer; he should have an answer. A war had just been fought between the North and the South over the right of a single state to secede from the union against the will of the government. So what gave Grant Sykes the right to decide that Jeanne Nicolet was not important and his Oregon Central line was?

Money, that’s what. Ownership of the land. Sykes and the Oregon Central owned this land. The whole mess made his head ache.

“Well?” she demanded. Her eyes took on the most intriguing color he’d ever seen, kind of like green tree moss after a punishing rain. But they weren’t soft like moss; they were hard as agate.

“All I know is that the railroad is coming through here. You have to get out of the way.”

She gave him a long, steely look. “I will not move,” she announced through tight lips. “Not until I harvest my lavender.”

Good Lord, her precious lavender. This woman was the most single-minded female he’d ever encountered. His mother had been stubborn, but Jeanne…Jeanne was unmovable as a brick wall.

He reached out to touch her arm. “Jeanne, listen.” Under his fingers the smooth gingham warmed with her body heat. A jolt of yearning skip-hopped into his vitals.

She was a singular woman, all right. She was the starchiest female he’d ever encountered, all prickles and “but this’s” and “but that’s.” Trying to reason with her reminded him of negotiating with an implacable Sioux chief. The Indians hadn’t wanted to move, either, and the news that most of them had died of starvation on the winter trail to the reservation made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t stand to watch anything like that happen to Jeanne and her daughter.

But how was he going to convince her? What if he just hauled her into his arms and let her cry it out?

Because she wouldn’t cry, that’s what. Women with prickles didn’t weep. Women with prickles poked back.

“Could we sit down and talk for a minute?”

She nodded, but he noticed her chin stayed tucked close to her chest. “Oui. I will make coffee.” She called Manette in from the chicken house and opened the cabin door.

Grabbing off his hat, Wash crossed the entrance and followed her into the tiny kitchen. It smelled good, like fresh-baked bread. Four round loaves sat cooling on the wooden table.

It was quiet except for the whisper of trees in the soft wind. Good. Peace and quiet. Now he could make her see some sense.

“Jeanne…”

She kept her hands busy grinding the coffee mill and did not look up. “You like your coffee black, do you not?”

“I— Sure.” Wash turned his hat around and around in his fingers until the brim was sweat-damp. “Black is fine.”

“Bon. I, too, like it black. And strong.” She tipped the ground coffee into a waiting pot of cold water. Her hands shook so violently some of the coffee missed the pot and sifted over the counter.

Wash wiped one hand over the smooth wood, swept the spilled grounds into his hand, then looked around the tidy kitchen for some place to dump them. Finally, in desperation, he dropped them into the crown of his hat.

He stepped toward her. “Jeanne, we have to talk about—”

She moved to one side and with jerky motions began cracking eggs into an iron skillet. “In France I took my morning café with milk. Maman brought it to me in bed, and we would talk.”

The thought of her in bed made his mouth go dry. “We’re not in France,” he growled. “We’re here, in your kitchen.”

“I was only twelve,” she said quickly, running a fork through the eggs. “Maman, she was good to me. We had long talks about Papa and my little brother.”

He moved toward her. “Jeanne, you’re not twelve now.”

She turned her back to him.

Dammit. He tramped out of the front door onto the porch, paced to the steps and back three times, then wheeled and strode back into the warm kitchen. He still cradled his Stetson with the coffee grains in the crown.

Jeanne was wrapping her apron around the handle of an iron skillet of scrambled eggs, which she then yanked off the stovetop. She headed straight for him. “Très chaud. Very hot.”

“I like things hot.” He spoke without thinking, then swallowed hard. He knew she’d heard him, because she clanked the skillet down hard onto the kitchen table.

“I learn from Maman how to cook. Our hens laid many—”

That was all he could take. “Would you just stand still for one damn minute and listen?” he shot. “One thing your mama didn’t teach you was how to have a conversation!”

Jeanne sent him a look that would broil steak, and for a moment he thought he’d gotten past her defenses. But in the next second he saw he was mistaken.

“Maman,” she said in a determined tone, “had a special way with une omelette. She tip the pan just so…” Jeanne demonstrated, then pivoted away from the table and bent over the wooden sink, her back to him.

Dammit, he was trying to tell her something and she just plain wasn’t going to listen. He stepped up behind her, close enough to smell her hair. “Stop talking about your maman.”

Her head came up but her hands in the wooden sink fell idle. She’d heard him, all right. She just didn’t want to admit it.

“Jeanne…”

She began to scrub hard at a china plate, then another, and another. Then a cup…

To hell with it. Wash groaned, spun on his heel and stomped out the cabin door. Halfway across the porch he jammed his hat down on his head. It felt funny, kind of crumbly…

Hell, he’d forgotten about the coffee grounds in his hat.

Behind him he heard a ripple of her laughter. She stood in the doorway, one hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes shining with amusement.

With a curse he wheeled toward her. She backed up until she couldn’t go any farther without scorching her skirt on the stove. He snatched off his Stetson, sailed it off into the dark and reached for her. He knew his actions were rough, but he’d had all he could take.

She shot him a look of surprise, her lips opening to protest, and without thinking he bent to find her mouth.

At the first touch of her lips, he knew he’d made a big, big mistake. Oh, God, she was sweet, and so soft. The pleasure of kissing her sent a skin-shriveling shudder up his backbone. Her lips were like 180-proof double-distilled brandy, and he drank until he was aching with want.

He kept kissing her until a strangled sound came out of his throat. He shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t stop. She was the bone stuck in his craw, all right. The thing he couldn’t swallow or cough up.

He felt like he’d died and gone to hell.

Chapter Seven

Mon Dieu! What does this man think he is doing?

Alors, he was kissing her, that’s what he was doing!

She lifted her hand to swat him across his tanned face, but as her arm rose, his lips moved suddenly deeper, more intensely on hers, and her resolve poofed away like so much dust. No man’s kiss had ever been like this, not even Henri’s on the night Manette was conceived.

She tipped her face to one side and still he did not stop moving his lips over hers. Surely God meant for a man and a woman to enjoy each other, but like this? With such abandon, such dark joy bubbling up inside her? About that, she did not know.

Her breasts were crushed against his chest and all at once she wanted to slip outside her skin and melt into his hot, hard body. Never in all her life had she had such a thought.

His demanding mouth asked and answered, and asked again, while her most private parts swelled and ached. She should push him away, should… Ah, what she should do was of no importance.

He lifted his head and held her close, his chin resting against her temple. She closed her eyes, then snapped her lids open. “Would you perhaps want…?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. His ragged breath ruffled the hair close to her ear.

“…une omelette?” she breathed.

Wash had no memory of his ride back to town. Rooney was at the saloon, as usual; he glanced up from the bar with a questioning look. “Hell, Wash, you look like you’ve been poleaxed.”

Yeah. Something had smacked him over the head, all right. He felt happy like he’d never felt before. He sent Rooney what he knew was a sloppy smile but it was the best he could do with his brain still reeling from that kiss. He hunched his shoulders over the bar and tried to keep her name from hammering through his brain. Jeanne. Jeanne.

Rooney peered at him. “Got somethin’ stuck in your throat?”

“Nah,” he managed to croak. How was it Rooney always seemed to know what he was thinking?

“Mebbe heard some o’ the talk around town about that French lady?”

Wash’s head jerked up. “What talk?”

“Just…talk. You know, some of the townfolk are in a hurry to get the railroad through. Got money riding on it, you might say. Farmers want to ship their apples to the city. Ranchers are lookin’ for markets they don’t have to trail-up for. Even Miz Forester, the dressmaker, wants to bring customers from Gillette Springs. It’s a two-day ride from Gillette Springs to Smoke River, but when the railroad—”

“What’re you trying to tell me, Rooney?”

The older man gulped a swallow of the whiskey at his elbow. “Just that folks are in a sweat. Some of them are gettin’ pretty het up.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Rooney’s black eyes slid away from his gaze. “There’s some kinda meetin’ at Whitey’s barbershop. Mostly men—cowpokes and ranchers. Some shopkeepers. And that Spanish guy on your survey crew showed up.”

“Montez.”

“That’s the one. Mean-lookin’ son of a gun.”

“I told Montez to pick up his pay and get out of town.”

Rooney nodded. “He did pick up his pay.”

Wash let out a breath of relief.

“But he didn’t leave town.”

His spine went rigid. “Where is he now?”

Rooney shrugged. “Dunno.”

“The man’s up to no good, I can smell it.”

Rooney’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

The bartender slid a shot glass of whiskey in front of Wash and he downed it in one swallow. “That damned snake laid his hands on Miz Nicolet.”

Rooney smoothed his beard with his little finger. “Did he, now? What’s that to you?”

Wash dropped his head onto his clenched fists. He didn’t know the answer to that one. He only knew that when he’d seen Montez manhandling Jeanne on her front porch something had come over him. Something hot and possessive.

Something he didn’t want to think about.

“I’m going over to the boardinghouse,” he muttered. “Change my shirt before supper. You coming?”

Rooney cast an appraising glance over the two empty poker tables in the center of the barroom. “Wouldn’t wanna play a hand of five-card stud, wouldja?”

“Nope. Rather eat Mrs. Rose’s fried chicken and gravy.”

His stomach clenched at the memory of Jeanne offering him an omelet. He’d wanted to stay. Forget the omelet—you wanted to kiss her again.

Rooney was staying at the same boardinghouse, in the room just across the hall from Wash. Mrs. Rose had taken quite a shine to his half-Comanche friend. She always saved the biggest drumstick or the juiciest pork chop or the last dish of peach ice cream for Rooney, who accepted the gestures as if he’d spent his whole life being waited on. Wash knew different. His companion had lived a hardscrabble life. It surprised him how quickly his rough-and-ready friend had adjusted to being fawned over by pretty widows who ran boardinghouses.

Wash dragged himself off the bar stool and headed for the saloon entrance. He sure wished his mother hadn’t sold the ranch. One of the things that had kept him going the two years he’d spent in that prison hellhole in Richmond was thinking about the ranch near Smoke River. He’d dreamed about running fifty head of cattle and maybe some horses on the rolling seven hundred-acre Halliday Double H spread. There was something special about a place you called Home. Something worth fighting for.

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