Rave Reviews for Shirl Henke's Historical Romances!

"Love A Rebel, Love A Rogue is a fascinating slice of history [with] equally fascinating characters. Enjoy!"
Catherine Coulter

"Fast paced, sizzling, adventurous. A Fire In The Blood is a true Western with a strong-spirited heroine and a provocative, hot-blooded hero who will set you on fire!"
Roseanne Bittner

"White Apache's Woman is a fascinating book, rich in history, wonderful. I enjoyed it thoroughly."
Heather Graham

Terms of Surrender is "a romantic romp of a Western. I loved it!"
Georgina Gentry

"Terms of Love is a sexy, sensual romp. Without a doubt, Shirl Henke at her best!"
Katherine Sutcliffe

"Strong characters, exotic settings, and a wealth of historical detail. . . . Return to Paradise swept me away!"
Virginia Henley

"A riveting story about a fascinating period. I highly recommend Paradise & More."
Karen Robards Critical Praise for Shirl Henke's Historical Romances!

"Love A Rebel, Love A Rogue is a fast-paced story with many subplots that Ms. Henke beautifully ties together."
Romantic Times

"As always, with A Fire In The Blood, Shirl Henke pens a realistic, action-packed Western that portrays the good, the bad, and the ugly."
Romantic Times

"Return to Paradise is a story you'll remember forever . . . definitely a book you'll keep to read again and again!"
Affaire de Coeur

"White Apache's Woman resounds with the majesty of the early frontier. . . . A not-to-be-missed read for Shirl Henke's fans."
Romantic Times

"Another of Shirl Henke's wonderfully intricate and extremely well-researched tales, Paradise & More is a sumptuous novel!"
Affaire de Coeur

"A riveting love story brimming over with emotions, action, and marvelous storytelling. Shirl Henke is at the top of her form in Terms of Love!"
Romantic Times Intoxicating Love

Maggie could smell the whiskey from across the room. "You're drunk."

"Not nearly drunk enough," Colin replied, his voice raw and hoarse. "You're suppose to be asleep like a good little wife instead of sitting with your bare legs showing in the moonlight. But then I forgot. You're used to keeping late hours, aren't you, Maggie?"

"Go to hell, Colin." She wrapped her arms around herself protectively but did not back down, waiting to see what he would do next.

He walked in a surprisingly straight line to the bootjack in the corner and pulled off his boots, then began to methodically strip, beginning with his shirt.

"Are you going to sleep mother naked?"

"I neglected to pack my nightshirt before riding to Sonora. Please forgive the oversight," he said with a sarcastic bow.

"You boorish, drunken sot!" she hissed, too angry to be afraid.

He laughed crudely. "Don't try to make me believe I offend your sensibilities. It isn't as if you haven't seen a naked man before." He walked a bit less steadily and stood with the bed between them. "Tell me. How do I compare?" Other Leisure Books by Shirl Henke: LOVE A REBEL, LOVE A ROGUE A FIRE IN THE BLOOD WHITE APACHE'S WOMAN TERMS OF SURRENDER TERMS OF LOVE RETURN TO PARADISE PARADISE & MORE NIGHT WIND'S WOMAN McCrory's Lady Shirl Henke A LEISURE BOOK®

April 1995

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

Cover Art by John Ennis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America. For my associate Carol J. Reynard,
who made a flying trip to Ohio to brainstorm with
me when I suffered my first case of writer's block.

Acknowledgment

The romance between a Scots Scalper and a bordello madam required a unique setting. Since Arizona Territory in 1880 was the wildest and wooliest place in the West, it perfectly suited their tempestuous relationship. My associate, Carol J. Reynard, and I had considerable assistance in researching all the facets of this exciting era and wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following contributors.

My general background research on the subject began with the outstanding facilities of the Maag Library of Youngstown State University, and the Main Branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. I owe many thanks to the reference departments for their capable assistance in securing books that were difficult to find, and many apologies to the circulation departments for those so long overdue.

Michael Wurtz, Assistant Archivist of the Sharlot Hall Museum of Arizona History, was our finest resource. He furnished us with enough materials to begin a minor library on the territorial capital of Prescott. Not only did he send us detailed city maps, journal articles on Prescott pioneers, and a city directory for 1881 (which was invaluable), but he also worked on tracking down the illusive meeting places of the Territorial Assembly, whose sessions were exceedingly informal by modern standards. They met in saloons, private homes, the governor's mansion, and various other public buildings.

The Arizona Historical Society provided us with a wide variety of materials on daily life in the Old Pueblo of Tucson, including street maps and even a dissertation written on hotel accommodations and amusements during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Tucson Visitor Information Center kindly sent us wonderful pictorials on Arizona, and the University of Arizona at Tucson was most helpful with additional bibliography for our research. Carol's special thanks go to Dr. Walt Magee, our ''computer doctor," for installing new hard and software and for helping her to work out the bugs in the system and in her head.

Like all our storiesand never moreso than this oneMcCrory's Lady is filled with guns and gunmen. For furnishing all the appropriate equipment for heroes and villains, we again gratefully acknowledge our weapons expert, Dr. Carmine V. DelliQuadri, Jr., D.O., who also answered varius questions about the treatment of smallpox during this bygone era.

Chapter One

Arizona Territory, 1863

The clock on the parlor mantel chimed three a.m. "Sir, sir, ye can come up now!" Eileen O'Banyon's thick Irish brogue echoed down the long flight of stairs. Colin McCrory stopped his pacing across the parlor carpet and headed for the steps, taking them two at a time until he reached his wife's plump little housemaid.

Seizing her by the shoulders, he asked, "Elizabethis she all right?" His whiskey gold eyes were dark with fatigue and his face haggard from a long night without sleep.

Eileen's face split into a homely grin. "Sure and the saints have been watchin' over us all! Miss Elizabeth's fine, sir. Just fine. It took a long time, but she just gave ye a beautiful baby daughter." "Eden. Eden Elizabeth McCrory. That's the name we picked for a girl," he said softly, a smile wreathing his face, erasing the lines of exhaustion from it.

"She has her mother's silver gilt hair and the sweetest, most delicate features," Eileen gushed as Colin rushed past her, down the hall toward the sounds of a baby's lusty wailing. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard in his life.

Arizona Territory, 1880

"Mr. Colin, sure 'n ye can't be meanin' ta go alone." Eileen O'Banyon's voice interrupted his reverie of seventeen years past. He would never forget the day his daughter had been born. Eden. She was his lifeall that mattered to him in spite of the vast wealth he had acquired over the years. Colin looked distractedly at his faithful housekeeper, Eden's surrogate mother, and replied, "I have to do this by myself, Eileen."

Her sturdy, plain face had grown round and wrinkled since she had come west as Elizabeth's maid and remained after her mistress's death to raise Eden. Now thickset with wispy white hair, she looked every one of her sixty-four years. "Them heathens'll shoot ye 'n then what'll happen to me little girl?"

Colin McCrory's eyes were hard as amber glass as he stared across the grassy river basin toward the pale lavender of the jagged mountain peaks to the south. "There were only two of them, Eileen. Anyway, I know the country," he added enigmatically.

Brushing past her, he headed for the corral where he had instructed his stableman to saddle his big buckskin and ready two other of his sturdiest horses for the long, grueling ride ahead. The bastards who had kidnapped Eden had a two-day head start on him.

Again he cursed the monstrous luck that had led him to be in Prescott politicking while his only child was left to the mercies of Judd Lazlo. Everyone on the ranch thought Eden had simply ridden over to the Simpson place to visit with her friend Louise. Not until he had stopped there on his way home had he learned of the diabolical ruse Judd Lazlo had employed.

Lazlo was a snake, a smooth and oily charmer when anyone first met him, but utterly ruthless and cunning. McCrory had known men like him all his life. That was why he had never trusted the gunman when Riefe Cates hired him, and why he had fired Lazlo when he caught him snooping around the big ranch house.

"The son of a bitch was probably looking for a way to kidnap Eden even then. I should've killed him," he muttered as Eileen crossed herself and began to pray fervently. Her voice faded as he reached the stable where Cates was leading out the horses.

A worried frown creased the old foreman's face as he ran a gnarled hand through his thinning white hair. "I oughta go with you, Colin."

"I've already told you, Riefe. Youor any other of the menwill only slow me down. I'll bring her backand the fewer people who know about what's happened, the better."

"You gonna ask Stanley to ride with you? He is Miz Eden's intended," Riefe said.

"Edward Stanley's a city boy. He's the last man I want. Might be best for all if he never finds out Eden was missing."

Grimly, Cates nodded as McCrory swung up onto his buckskin stallion, Sand, and took the reins of the other two prime mounts. Crown Verde Ranch was famed for its splendid racehorses, bred for endurance as well as speed.

"You goin' to Prescott?" Riefe asked.

Colin shook his head. "No reason. They'd never dare go there. No, I figure on cutting their trail between here and Tucson."

"They'll head over the border." Cates's voice was low and desperate.

"I've been there before," Colin replied bleakly with a look in his eyes that could bleach bones. He kicked Sand into a steady canter and rode south.

The journey to Tucson was grueling. Colin allowed himself only three of four hours' sleep during the dark of the moon. By the second day he had cut their trail, but it was cold. Even if he pushed harder, he knew they'd be long into Sonora before he could hope to catch them. Losing them in the trackless wasteland of the Mexican desert never entered his thoughts. He had lived in Chihuahua across the Sierra Madres for nearly four hellish years and had spent some time in Sonora as well. He knew the country and the people. He would find Eden and bring her home.

It was late afternoon when he rode into the Old Pueblo, as longtime residents of the territory called Tucson. He would make a few discreet inquiries about Lazlo and his companion, then gather the supplies he needed and head out. For a decade between 1867 and 1877 the hundred-year-old Spanish settlement had been the capital. It was still the largest city in the territory. Although Anglo street names such as McCormick and Meyer had now supplanted Hispanic ones, the architecture remained predominately Pueblo with its open-timbered adobes.

Colin reined in before Settler's Livery and handed his tired horses to the stable boy. "Rub them down and feed them well. I'll be ready to ride out within an hour or two." He flipped the boy some silver, which the grimy Mexican youth caught handily.

The largest mercantile in town, Winslow Barker's Emporium, lay just down the street. The old reprobate would sell Colin McCrory first-class supplies, not the moldy rations and lint blankets he palmed off on hapless Apaches from the reservation.

When Colin reached the big frame building, the clerk was just pulling the wide double doors closed. McCrory's large hand caught the door firmly and held it open. "I need some things for a trip across the border. It's an emergency." He did not pause as the youth's mouth gaped open, but strode into the crowded dark interior.

"Mr. McCrory . . . Mr. Barker, he's awful strict about closing hours . . . but seein' how it's you . . ." His pale red hair suddenly sprang a cowlick as he bobbed his head in acquiescence. "What do you need?"

"A couple of good thick blankets, beans, coffee, bacon, cornmeal and a couple hundred rounds of .44.40's for my Remington."

The boy's eyes goggled. "You fixin' ta go on a long trip, Mr. McCrory?"

"Maybe," was the taciturn reply. "Deliver the supplies to Settler's Livery as soon as you have them all together." He gave the youth a twenty-dollar gold piece. "That should cover it with plenty to spare for your trouble."

The boy's face lit up like sunrise on the high desert as he stuttered in amazement. "Th-thanksthanks a million, Mr. McCrory!" Whoever said Scots were tight with their money never met Colin McCrory.

Colin made the rounds of several saloons on the rougher side of town where the cowhands hung out, asking casual questions about Lazlo. No one had seen any trace of him, but one hard case did remember seeing a fellow he had ridden with before in town yesterday morning, acting as if he was in a hurry, not stopping to be sociable. His description fit the man who had helped Lazlo steal McCrory's three best stud horses just before they kidnapped Eden.

Eden. Beautiful and delicate, his cherished only child, the living link between him and Elizabeth, to whom he owed so much. His wife had been an "army brat"to use her own words. She had come to Arizona Territory in 1861 with her father, a captain assigned to Fort Lowell outside Tucson. Colin had worshiped her and been amazed that she was attracted to an ignorant foreigner who could barely scrawl his own name, even if he had become a prosperous landowner.

Elizabeth had been every inch a lady of education and refinement. She had taught him everythinghow to read and write, which fork to use at a fancy dinner party, even how to dance. Their time together was tragically brief. After Eden's birth, Elizabeth had wanted desperately to give him a male heir for Crown Verde. In 1865 she died on a snowy December day, giving birth to his son. The boy died within hours of his mother. Colin never remarried.

All his thoughts were focused on his daughter as he walked purposefully back to the livery. His bones ached and his eyes were gritty as if half the sand in Arizona were imbedded in them. He had just passed his fortieth birthday. A man in his prime, Eden had said when she toasted him at the party in his honor. Eden. He hurried his long-legged stride even faster.

As he neared the livery, he could hear the strident voice of Jeb Settler, engaged in an argument with another man whose tones were sibilant and low, faintly dangerous-sounding. "Like I said, I don't cater to no breeds," Jeb said stubbornly with a touch of a quaver in his voice.

"Sorry, but I insist."

Colin watched the confrontation inside the gloomy stable, where twilight was now casting menacing purple shadows on the two men. Jeb was a stocky man of middling height with the thick, slow-moving brawn of a smithy. His antagonist was around six feet tall with a pantherish leanness that radiated deadly restraint. His coppery skin and shoulder-length raven hair marked him Indian, but he was dressed in denims and boots like a white man. It was the Colt Lightning doubleaction .41 caliber tied low on one slim hip that drew McCrory's eyes.

"There some trouble here, Jeb?" Colin asked mildly.

Jeb Settler turned, half relieved to have the showdown halted, yet angry, too, for he knew how the Scot felt about damned savages. "This here Apach wants me to put up his horse. I told him to try another stable."

"I don't feel inclined to ride any further," the half-breed said quietly, measuring the tall man with the hard-looking whiskey eyes. His black ones met them and he felt a flicker of kinship. He said nothing more, poised tautly, waiting to see what this formidable stranger would do.

"Put up his horse, Jeb." Letting his eyes linger meaningfully on the young man's gun, he added, "I have a feeling if you're unreasonable, you'll regret it."

The half-breed gunman smiled faintly with his lips while his cold black eyes moved insolently over the sweating Jebediah Settler. "The man is right."

"You always side with the damn Injuns, McCrory. One of these days they're gonna lift yer scalp." A flash of fury darkened Colin's eyes, but the gunman interrupted before he could say anything.

"You're Colin McCrory from Crown Verde?"

"Yes. That mean something to you?" Colin asked levelly.

"I'm from El Paso. Name's Blake. Wolf Blake." He did not offer his hand, but waited.

Both men ignored Settler, who fumed silently, not daring to interrupt.

"Blake. I've heard of you. And your gun." Colin offered his hand. Wolf took it.

"That's why I was on my way to Crown Verde. I understand you're looking to hire a man like me."

"I might be." Colin turned to Jeb. "Have your boy rub down Blake's horse." As the red-faced angry Settler walked back into the stable yelling for Otis, Colin returned his attention to the gunman. "I'm in a hurry now. Bound for Sonora, but I do need a guard at my timber mill up north of Prescott. I've had some trouble."

"Apache trouble?" Wolf asked evenly.

"No. I made my own personal treaty with the Apaches, way back in sixty-one when I first settled here and there was little or no army. They've kept their word and I've kept mine."

Wolf studied Colin with faint amusement in his dark eyes. "That's not exactly a popular way of handling Apaches these days."

Colin shrugged. "It never was. I might be able to use your gun, Blake, but like I said, I'm on my way to Sonora now."

"You're stalking someone." It was not a question. Wolf studied the heavily armed older man. "I saw the kid from the mercantile bring those supplies and ammunition."

Colin returned Wolf's shrewd inspection, as if debating with himself for a moment, then said, "You just had a hell of a long ride. Feel like taking another one?"

A slow grin slashed across Blake's face, revealing white perfect teeth. "From the look of you, you've ridden pretty damn far yourself. I can keep up."

When the moon waned and a cloudy night sky dictated they stop, the two riders made a cold camp. They'd eaten biscuits and jerky while they rode. As they rolled themselves into their blankets, Wolf broke the long silence.

"You never did say who we're after."

"No, I didn't." He had wanted no one outside Eileen and Riefe to know what had happened to Eden. Her life would be hell enough when she returned home without the sky whispers and speculations about her being "ruined."

After a long silence, Colin made his decision, based more on gut instinct than anything else. He had survived a lot of danger that way. He liked the way the kid did not pry or try to make idle conversation. That suited his own taciturn Scot's soul. It was something else he had in common with the Apaches besides their shared bloody past.

"A man named Judd Lazlo's kidnapped my daughter. He and another man named Max Haywood. They rode for the border with her."

"I've heard of Lazlo. He used to be in my business."

"He still is. I hired him to oversee the lumber mill. Then he made the mistake of sniffing around Eden."

"So you fired him and he kidnapped her in revenge. Did he leave a ransom note?"

"I only wish he had." Colin's voice almost broke in the darkness. "No, the son of a bitch just took her and several of my fastest horses for his getaway. I found out in Tucson he was riding with Haywood. Before that I cut their trail about seventy miles north. I recognized my horses. The shoes are marked.''

"You have any ideas where they might be headed?"

"There's only one route with water enough between Tucson and Hermosillo," Colin replied, memories lying as heavy as the wool blanket covering him against the desert's chill night.

"This have any feel of a trap being sprung to you?" Wolf asked.

"I've thought of it. Maybe that's why I decided to offer you a job."

"Thanks, McCrory," Wolf replied drily.

The Sonoran Desert was awesomely beautiful in the spring. The saguaro cacti reached into the cloudless sky, their majestic arms laden with small white blossoms, like an offering to the merciless sun. The yellow and brown daisylike flowers of the brittlebush bloomed between jagged rocky crevices, and giant century plants grew in immense clusters, their greenish yellow blooms hiding sharp sawtoothed edges that horsemen tried to avoid.

Neither Colin nor Wolf noticed the raw splendor of the landscape. They rode through the heat and dust in stoic silence, watching for signs of the Crown Verde horses. But the powdery dust blew with the searing winds, leaving no traces. They stopped in two small towns along the trail and were rewarded in the second with a report of two gringos and the pale-haired woman riding with them. They persevered.

"The next town's San Luís. Two days. I figure we're gaining on them." Every hour Eden was in those animals' hands was killing him by inches, but Colin said nothing more, his mouth a grim slash. "You know this country." Wolf did not pry, merely waited to see if the older man would elaborate.

"I've been here before." God, don't let the old nightmares return now. Not after all these years!

San Luís dozed in the indolence of noon heat. Flea-bitten horses and mules hung their heads at crude hitching posts in the pitiless sun as flies droned around them. An occasional burst of coarse laughter rose above the low murmurs emanating from the row of saloons along the main street. The played-out silver mines had once made business lively. Up north in the American territories, heavy machinery could still make mining pay. Here where the men worked by hand with crude picks and shovels, the industry was doomed.

Staring out of her office window, Maggie Worthington considered the future of San Luís's economy, or rather the future of her own livelihood and life. "God, I don't want to die in this hole," she muttered beneath her breath. But there had been a lot of stops along the way here, none of them any better. At least here she had a measure of autonomy that few other places had given her.

Just then the sounds of furniture and glass breaking rent the quiet, punctuated by the loud yowls of Henrietta and Lena. With a muttered oath of disgust, Maggie turned from the window and headed out into the hall. Those two whores were fighting over the favors of Jack Schleffer again, she would bet her half of the business on it. Damned if she could see any reason to fight over a man like that weasel-eyed young punk Schlefferor any other man, as far as Maggie Worthington was concerned.

She waded into the hair-pulling, eye-gouging melee, shoving Jack out of the way. "Let me handle this," she said in the precise Yankee accent that always commanded attention. Jack backed off and she bent over the two women, who were now locked in combat, rolling on the floor. Grabbing one fistful of black and one of henna hair, she yanked on their scalps with enough force to pop the eyeballs from their kohled sockets. They both stilled at once.

"I told you the next time I caught you fighting, I'd fire you. I don't want my place busted up, and I sure don't need two whores looking like they just walked into a threshing machine. Pack up and get out."

"She started it, Miz Maggie. Jumped on me fer nothin'," Henrietta accused, wiping at her bloody nose.

"You were screwing my man, you lying, sneaking puta!" Lena shrieked as she stood rubbing her thick mop of tangled black hair.

Maggie turned to Schleffer. "You wanted them. You got them." He paled and started to protest, then took one look at the formidable madam's expression and nodded. Maggie stalked crisply back to her office and leaned against the inside of the door. "Damn, I'm sick of this life."

"Maybe I could take your mind off your troubles, sweet lady," a low masculine voice said from across the big room.

Judd Lazlo materialized from the late afternoon shadows in the corner and approached her with his usual swagger.

"You know better than to come in this office uninvited."

"I was looking for yer partner."

"He's not here. Get out."

"Now, now, Maggie, love, is that any way to treat an old friend? I haven't seen you in nearly a year." An oily smile spread across his mobile lips, revealing even white teeth. Judd always fancied himself a ladies' man with his curly tan hair and broad regular features. He was tall and barrel-chested, the beefy muscular type of Anglo that lots of women in these parts fancied. But the cruelty in his icy green eyes had always been apparent to Maggie. She detested him on sight.

She slapped his hand away when he reached up to toy with an auburn curl falling over her shoulder. "I said, get out." Her voice was ice cold and dead level.

"Where's Fletcher?"

"Hermosillo."

Lazlo cursed. "He was supposed to be here. When's he coming back?"

She shrugged. "He had a rotten tooth begin to really pain him last night. Left at early light for the dentist there. I expect it'll be a few days before he feels up to riding back."

His smile deepened and a feral glow came into his narrowed cat's eyes. He grabbed her with one hand and pulled her up against his body. "Well then, I reckon you and me could"

"No, we couldn't." She jabbed the barrel of the stubby little .32 caliber Colt in her skirt pocket against his crotch. "Don't even breathe or I'll shoot it off." The click of the gun being cocked was unmistakable.

He blanched and backed slowly away. I'll be screwed if you ain't the most unnatural female I've ever met."

"You may be screwed, but not by meat least not the way you'd like."

"I don't know why Fletcher keeps a cold fish like you around. You got a block of ice between your legs, huh?"

"Lucky for you you'll never find out. You might get frostbite and your poor little pecker'd turn black and drop right off," she said with sweet nastiness. He swore as he stomped past her and left, slamming the door.

Maggie uncocked her gun after locking her office door. Then she walked over to the pedestal table against the wall behind the desk and poured herself a shot of eleven-year-old bourbon. It was beginning to go down smoother and smoother every year. That was a bad sign. Resolutely she shoved the decanter away and set down the empty glass. No refills today.

Maybe a turn at the blackjack table would calm her nerves. She was sick of unwashed, arrogant men with no more brains than a box of rocks. Homely Jack Schleffer or pretty Judd Lazlo, it made no difference. They all repelled her. In fact, memory could not recall any man who had not repelled herat least the physical side of them. Ever since her girlish infatuation for Whalen Price had ended in such betrayal, she had learned to use men. And feel nothing.

Of course Bart was different, but Bart Fletcher had never been her lover. Mentor, confidant, business partner, yes. She owed him a great deal, but lately even her comfortable relationship with him had taken on troubling dimensions she could not quite fathom.

Shrugging in frustration, she selected a dress suitable for working downstairs. An evening of blackjack would settle her down. After all, hadn't this been her routine every day for the past seven years?

The Silver Eagle Saloon had been in business since 1861. It was the only two-story frame building in San Luís. Bart Fletcher thought its name blended just the right touch of English heraldry and Mexican imagery. During the boom years it had flourished, its bar, gaming tables and the upstairs bordello beds filled to capacity every night.

In 1873 Maggie had come to work for Bart. Within the year she was his partner. A good madam who was bright, healthy and honest was a pearl beyond price anyplace, especially in a backwater Sonoran mining town. They had been a good team and made good money. For a while. Now . . . Maggie shook her head and dealt the cards.

She watched the faces of her two players, Gregorio Sanchez, a wealthy stockman, and Mateo Guzmán, a mine foreman. Sanchez indicated he would stand pat. Guzmán called for another hit. She dealt him a ten and herself a seven to go with the king and four she already had. "Twenty-one, gentlemen," she said with a professional smile. Sanchez, who had two face cards, folded with a philosophical Latin shrug. Guzmán, who had been dealt a queen, held a nine and a tray. He threw them down in disgust and stalked off.

As she shuffled the cards, her fingers flying automatically, she considered her malaise. Was Bart's absence making her so morose and edgy? That and having that snake Lazlo come asking for her partner yesterday, not to mention having to dismiss two of her best girls.

What did that pond scum Lazlo want with Bart? She laughed to herself. Not that Bartley Wellington Fletcher was any angel. I've just been stuck in this suffocating hellhole for two days without intelligent conversation.

But it was more than that and Maggie knew it. She was bored, inexplicably restless and unhappy. When she actually pined after the company of a worthless rascal like Bart Fletcher, life was indeed passing her by. She had turned thirty-four on her last birthday and had been living here in Mexico for years and still felt like an outsider, always alone, always lonely, listening to her girls pour out their hearts to her, patiently hearing the confessions of drunken men, even fending off the advances of snakes like Lazlo or a rare stranger who did not understand about La Americana Intacta.

Intacta. Untouched. Pure. Maggie scoffed to herself. No man had touched her for a long time before she came here, but she had never been pure. Or if she ever was, she could not remember when. Her mind was not on the game, and the house paid off Sanchez and another miner who had taken Guzmán's place. Motioning one of her girls to take over, she excused herself and headed upstairs for her afternoon ritual of tea, a habit Bart had taught her. She was halfway up the threadbare carpeted steps when he walked in. She turned instantly as if sensing a presence she must not ignore.

He was American. She could always tell after all these years, even though he ordered a beer in serviceable Spanish. He was tall, over six feet. Beneath the flat crowned hat he wore, his dark brown hair was generously flecked with gray. His face was cleanly chiseled, the profile harsh and forbidding yet strikingly handsome. The sun had bronzed his skin, and life had put grooves in his cheeks. Maggie knew they were not from smiling.

She stood transfixed on the stairs, studying his dusty clothes and hardware. Trail-worn but good quality. So were the Colt Peacemaker strapped to his hip and the Remington repeating rifle that he leaned casually against the bar. A stockman, from the look of him.

"You're a long way from home, stranger," Maggie said.

Colin looked up at one of the most striking women he had ever seen. When she moved from the shadows and began to descend the steps, he stared in amazement at lustrous China blue eyes and gleaming dark reddish brown hair set off by high cheekbones and clear creamy skin. Although she wore a faint bit of paint, her face was not hard. Rather, it looked younger than her years, quizzical. He guessed her age to be somewhere around thirty, but in spite of the low-cut blue satin dress and flashing jewelry, she did not move with the inviting swish of a scarlet poppy. Her walk was subtle and graceful, as elegant as the tilt of her head. Under any other circumstances, he would have been fascinated with finding such a woman in a saloon.

Colin doffed his hat and echoed, "I'm a long way from home, yes."

"Arizona Territory?"

He nodded. "I'm looking for two men with a young woman. She's blondeAmerican like you."

A flash of disappointment swept over her. "I haven't seen any Anglo women, except for one who works for meand her yellow hair comes out of a bottle."

"You might've seen the men then," Colin said patiently.

"Come upstairs to my office and we'll talk. It's tea timeor if you prefer, I even have some decent whiskey." She turned and he followed, after setting his empty beer glass on the scarred bar and tossing a coin down to pay for the drink.

As they climbed the stairs, he studied her with curiosity. Her diction was smooth and her voice clear and well modulated. She was tall for a woman, with a handsome figure, slim but well rounded in all the right places. When she ushered him past the open door, he stepped into another world.

The saloon had been big for a Mexican mining town, ornate and prosperous, but it was a bygone prosperity, as worn and faded as the garish carpet on the steps. Her office was as elegant as its owner, with a spinet desk in one corner and a pair of comfortable armchairs across from it. Between them sat a low tea table with a brightly polished silver service on it. But the walls were what held his fascinated attention. They were lined with books, shelved from floor to ceiling.

"This looks like a bloody library back in Edinburgh," he said, a trace of his long-faded burr returning to sharpen his voice.

Maggie laughed delightedly. "Do I detect a hint of the highlands in your voice, Mr.?"

"McCrory. Colin McCrory. I was born there but I've lived in Arizona most of my life. And you are?"

"Maggie. Maggie Worthington and I've lived just about everywhere in my life," she answered brightly, motioning for him to have a seat across the table. "What's it to be? Tea or some of your own fine Scotch whiskey?"

He cocked one thick eyebrow and his golden gaze locked with her fathomless blue one. What was it about this woman? "Tea? You don't sound like a Sassenach, even if your name does," he said as he walked across the room, his eyes scanning the titles along the shelves. "Shakespeare, Dryden, Keats, Swift. Even Mr. Dickens. Your taste in literature is as Sassenach as your tea. I'll have some."

"Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, in case you didn't know it. And if you'll peruse the other walls, you'll see Cervantes, Rabelais and Dante, not to mention a generous sampling of literature from your adopted country.

He shrugged and a half smile touched his lips. "What, no Bobby Burns?"

She pulled a well-worn copy of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect from a shelf and handed it to him, along with several volumes of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson.

"I'm suitably impressed. I didn't think anyone west of Aberdeen had even heard of Fergusson, Miss Worthington."

She sat down and poured two cups of tea with a flourish as he joined her. "Lemon or milk?"

"Lemon." He handled the Haviland cup with consummate skill.

Maggie studied his hands, long strong brown fingers, tapered with clean nails, in spite of the calluses. "I acquired the tea time habit from my partner, Bart Fletcher, who really is a Sassenach," she said, inhaling the fragrant brew the cook had steeped. She studied him through thick dark lashes as she sipped her tea.

"You seem to be a woman who knows what goes on around here. I stopped in several places down the street. The locals all thought if anyone could help me, it would be the gringos at the Silver Eagle."

"Well, Bart's in Hermosillo right now, but maybe I can. Describe the men with your woman."

"She's not my woman. She's my daughter," Colin replied, his voice grim and quiet.

Maggie set her cup down. For an instant she was transported back to Boston, trying to imagine Ezra Worthington coming after his daughter. No two fathers could ever have been more unalike. "You don't look old enough to have a grown daughter. I take it you don't approve of her choice of friends."

"They kidnapped her. I'd fired one of them. Lazlo probably did it out of revenge."

"Lazlo?" Her elegantly arched eyebrows rose. She was startled.

"You know him?" Colin's voice held a dangerous edge now as he leaned forward, waiting intently for her to answer. ''Yes, I know who he is and he is slime. He came in here yesterday." Something kept her from mentioning that he was looking for Bart. "But I don't know where he went. He didn't stay long."

"Was he alone?"

"Yes. I suppose the other man was holding your daughter. They didn't stay in town. There's a placea hideout really, that Lazlo and his cronies use. Somewhere in the foothills east of here, near the San Miguel River. It's pretty deadly country."

"I'm a pretty deadly man, Miss Worthington. If you'll just describe where this hideout is, I'll be on my waywith thanks." He started to rise.

Maggie stretched her hand across the table. "Wait. I don't know where along the San Miguel it is. You could spend a year riding in and out of all those hundreds of box canyons and never find your daughter. What's her name?"

"Eden."

She watched his face soften for an instant as he said the word. Then the stricken fury behind those whiskey eyes burned her like golden flames. "I can still help. I have some men who owe melocals. They can ask the sheepmen who know every inch of the foothills. It may take a couple of days, but I guarantee it'll be faster than riding off blind."

He was damned if he knew why he trusted her, but he did. "I've brought a partner with me. A breed named Wolf Blake."

"From El Paso?"

"How the hell did you hear of him?"

"I've traveled all over, remember?" She smiled as she stood, looking up into his eyes. In heels she seldom met a man who was tall enough to require that. "Let me call some friends and set them to work. They'll expect to be paid." She did not know if he had money with him, but even if he had not, she would pay it herself. If only someone had rescued her from Whalen Price.

"I have money. All you need."

"Good. They won't charge much. I'll see to it."

Colin followed her downstairs and listened as she summoned a small wiry man whose bronzed skin and blunt features gave away his Indian heritage. A rapid exchange followed in Spanish, but Colin understood it well enough. She was sending Emilio and several of his companions to check with the sheepmen scattered through the foothills around the San Miguel. They haggled over the cost of such an expedition briefly, then Emilio agreed to a modest sum upon completion of the task.

Just then Wolf entered the cantina and approached McCrory with a negative shake of his head. "Several folks know of him but they say they haven't seen Lazlo in monthsor any gringa."

"We may be in luck. The proprietress thinks her friends can locate him. He was here yesterday."

"I might just ride along," Wolf said, his eyes studying the other man of mixed blood. "I am called Wolf," he said in Spanish to the Indian.

"El Lobo. Sí," the smaller man responded, recognizing a kindred spirit, but when Wolf asked to ride along, he refused, explaining that the hill folk were afraid of gringoseven gringos with Indian bloodand would not talk to them.

"Guess we'll have to wait here," Wolf said to Colin. "We could use some real sleep before going up against Lazlo and Haywood."

"It's been a hell of a ride." Colin nodded in resignation. Every hour would crawl by until he could get Eden back and see her kidnappers dead.

"Well, hello. Two gorgeous strangers in one day. Things are picking up in San Luís," a cheery female voice said. The speaker was one of Maggie's "girls." Susie was a bleached blonde with round hazel eyes, a toothy smile and generously endowed curves. She eyed Colin like a puma ready to pounce on a crippled heifer. A slim dark-haired young woman with a pretty heart-shaped face gazed at Wolf with liquid black eyes.

"I am Carmelita and I, too, am most pleased to show you hospitality," she said in thickly accented English.

"Right now I'd like a place to sleepalone," Colin replied gravely to the blonde.

Maggie smiled and instructed her, "Take your turn at the card tables, Susie. Business will pick up tonight." For some reason utterly unfamiliar to her, Colin McCrory's refusal to avail himself of Susie's charms pleased her greatly. Wolf followed Carmelita's lead and vanished upstairs.

She turned to McCrory. "I have several extra rooms. I'll have my maid make up a clean bed for you in the one at the end of the hall."

"I'm much obliged, Miss Worthington. You're a good woman . . . for a Sassenach," he added with a wink.

Chapter Two

Colin soaked his aching body in the tub, leaning his head back against the rim. Quickly his body gave way to exhaustion and he dozed. After nearly a week on the trail, sleeping only a few hours a night, he could not longer stay awake.

The fussy little maid had wanted him to bathe in the tub room that all the girls used, but he convinced her that he would be far happier carrying one of the wooden monstrosities into his sleeping quarters where he could soak in peace. As his eyes closed, his mind conjured up the elegantly seductive madam of the establishment who had offered him amazing wit and erudition as well as surprising hospitality. What an enigma Maggie Worthington was . . .

The object of his restive dreams was busy downstairs instructing her recalcitrant Mexican cook about a special dinner menu. When she and Bart dined together, they often enjoyed delicacies imported from San Francisco, such as raw oysters, fresh strawberries, even French champagne. Tonight Maggie was determined to dazzle Colin McCrory. The moonstruck girl from Boston might be a madam in a backwater bordello, but she had learned a great deal about enjoying the finer things in life over the years. For some reason unfathomable to her, she wanted to impress Colin McCrory with that fact.

After leaving the kitchen, Maggie stopped in front of a mirror to straighten an errant curl that had come loose from her sleek pompadour. "I'm fussing like a green schoolgirl. What the hell's wrong with me?" she muttered to herself as she headed upstairs with the bed linens for his room. Lupe, flighty girl, had forgotten them when she took the bath towels up. Deciding to leave the linens in the bedroom for Lupe, Maggie headed to the room at the end of the hall. Without a thought she opened the door and froze in her tracks.

Ever since his scalper days, Colin McCrory had honed a keen sense of wariness. He could awaken from the deepest sleep if a twig snapped within forty yards. And he never relaxed without a weapon within reach. As soon as the doorknob began to turn he bolted up out of the tub, splashing water across the floor as he reached for his Peacemaker.

Maggie had thought Colin McCrory was the most striking man she had ever seenclothed. But, oh my, naked, dripping across her carpet, he was magnificent. His hand closed over his gun with one lithe unbroken motion and he whirled to face her, the weapon cocked and aimed straight at her heart. Water ran down his body in glistening rivulets, clinging lovingly to the long smooth muscles that corded his hard frame. Her mouth was as dry as his body was wet. As he uncocked the Colt, she struggled to find her voice and unstick her tongue from the back of her teeth. "Are you always this friendly, or do places like mine make you especially nervous?" She was proud of her smooth delivery.

"Nothing against your place. It's just my way," he replied, replacing his gun in the holster hanging on a wall hook.

Maggie walked nonchalantly over to the bed and placed the clean linens on the mattress.

By the time she turned around, Colin had a towel wrapped around his hips. "It's not as if I haven't already seen the elephant, Mr. McCrory," some imp made her say.

A smile hovered around the corner of his generously chiseled mouth. "Yes, Miss Worthington, I do imagine you have." He was amazed when a faint pink flush stained her creamy skin, running from the rounded neckline of her gown and climbing into her cheeks.

Maggie could feel the heat and fought an out-raged sense of acute embarrassment. "What is it about you, Scotty, that brings out the schoolgirl in me, I wonder?" she asked breathlessly, not really expecting him to answer.

Colin studied her quiet sense of wounded dignity with surprise. "I should be the one who's embarrassed, Sassenach, not you." Something compelled him to take a step closer to her.

She fought the urge to step closer to him. And lost. Before Maggie knew what she was doing, she was standing directly in front of him. She could feel his heat, and desperately wanted to run her fingers through the wet hair on that hard, beautiful chest. Up close she could see a few faint traces of gray sprinkled through the hair and raised her hands, letting her fingertips lightly graze it, disturbing the beads of water. "Like silver dust," she murmured.

"Just another reminder I've turned forty," he replied. His voice was deeper, thicker now.

She watched, fascinated as the droplets raced down toward the thirsty towel. Never in all her years with menand that was long ago, so very long agohad Maggie ever wanted to touch, to taste, to savor a male body as she did now. "You . . . you make me feel things I never dreamed . . ." She stopped, looking up into his eyes, which studied her with a lustful, cynical light. Of course he did not believe her. Why should he? She was a whore, a madam who ran a fancy house.

Before she could move away, Lupe appeared at the door. "Oh, Senor Colin. I have come to make the bed." One glance at her mistress standing next to the tall naked stranger made her break into a surprised grin and say, "Mil pardones, I thought you were done with your bath. I will come back later." She vanished down the hall.

Maggie took the moment to regroup and clear her head. Stepping away from Colin, she reached for another towel from the neat stack beside the tub and thrust it at him. "I really must speak to Lupe about her initiative in moving the bathing facilities around."

"It was all my fault. I insisted on carrying the tub in here so I wouldn't be disturbed."

"And were you . . . disturbed, Scotty?"

"You know damned well I was, Sassenach." The grooves around his mouth deepened in a scowl.

"Not too disturbed to join me for dinner tonight, I hope? The food our private cook prepares is much better than the hot Mexican dishes served to our patrons." Maggie found herself holding her breath, uncertain of what he might reply, wanting desperately to spend the evening with him.

He inclined his head courteously. "I'd be honored, Miss Worthington."

"That's the best meal I've eaten since the last time I was in San Francisco," Colin said, wiping his mouth with a snowy linen napkin. "Where did you get the oysters?"

"Bart has them brought in from the coast by fast horses, packed in ice."

"Must cost a fortune," he said, his eyes scanning the room with all its bookshelves.

"You can borrow anything you like for bedtime reading," she said with a smile. "As to the cost of all this"she swept her hand over the elegant table and the lavishly appointed office''while the mines were booming, Bart did really welleven better after he took me on to supervise the girls."

"I take it you own a share of the establishment?"

"Half." Her voice held a mixture of pride and defensiveness. Wanting to change the subject, Maggie asked, "You're a Scot who has traveled halfway around the world. From Aberdeen to San Francisco. Sounds as if you're pretty successful yourself."

He shrugged. "I've dabbled in a few things . . . all of it for . . ." His voice grew quiet and he stared down into the dregs of the fine port as if looking for answers to the disaster that had overtaken them.

"All of it's for your daughter," she supplied. "Want to talk about it? Sometimes it helps."

He looked up into her clear dark blue eyes and found them filled with empathy.

"Maybe I know a little of what you're feeling."

"Maybe you do," he said slowly. "Eden has been my whole reason for living since Elizabeth died. She's the image of her mother, blonde and small, delicate, but spunky and bright. She inherited everything from her mother but the color of her eyes. She's engaged to a prominent attorney in Prescott. One day I hope to see her presiding over the governor's mansion as first lady of the territory."

"Pretty grand ambitions. Most men keep those for sons. How long since your wife died?" Somehow she knew it was not recent.

"Fourteen years. She died trying to give me that son and heir," he said bitterly. "I'd trade everything I own to have her back. Eden's all the heir I need."

"And so, you never remarried."

"I don't want another woman's death on my conscience," he said hollowly.

"And no one could ever take Elizabeth's place." For a man to love a woman that way was beyond anything Maggie could imagine. Her father had scarcely seemed to notice when her mother died during an influenza epidemic. Except for the funeral he never missed a day at the mercantile. Nor did he pay more than scant attention to Maggie or her sisters. "My mother died when I was six. I grew up in boarding schools."

He heard the pain in her voice and smiled sadly. "That explains your formidable education." He wondered what had led a woman of good family to this kind of life, but did not pry.

"Oh, my education was polished up quite a bit more by Bartley Wellington Fletcher. He's a remittance man. Son of a baronet. I learned to watercolor and embroider at the ladies' academies in Boston. Bart taught me to love Shakespeare and Cervantes. What about you? Did some tough old Scots schoolmaster teach you to read by applying the hickory rod?" He flushed slightly. "No. I never learned to do more than sign my name before I came to America. Elizabeth, she taught me to read and write, to reach for a whole world that was out there. Things, ideas, places I'd never imagined."

Maggie knew his wife could not have taught him all that much in the few years they'd had together. "You must've kept on reading and learning ever since she gave you your start."

"I have collected quite a library. At first I started with children's books, reading to Eden. She learned so quickly, just like a little sponge, soaking up everything she heard." A look of anguish filled his eyes, darkening them as he clutched the cut crystal port glass in both hands. "I should never have left her alone, not after I caught Lazlo at the ranch house that day."

Maggie paused a beat, considered what she was about to say, then went ahead and said it. "When you find her . . . what do you plan to do?"

His head jerked up. "Kill the bastards who did this to her, then take her home."

"It may not be that easy." She hesitated, feeling his eyes studying her, hooded and inscrutable. "What I mean is, she'll need another woman to be there for her. Lazlo and his partner, they've hurt hernot just physically nearly as much as hurt her mind, her spirit. A girl brought up gently, an innocent raised to be a lady, she'll need to confide in another woman. Not even youher own fatherwill be able to help her through this. I know. I've had young women come to me beforeraped, abused. They heal, Colin, but it takes time and someone who's been there herself to understand."

He stood up angrily. "What do you propose? To treat her like one of your girls? Like she's ruined? Offer her a job?" Maggie felt the pain claw at her with jagged talons. Why did this man, this stranger, have the power to hurt her so quickly, so easily? "Of course not. I'm only offering to go along and be there for her, another woman to confide in. She won't talk to you."

He sank back onto the chair and put his head in his hands. "Forgive me. I . . . I didn't intend to say that. I guess I've been pushing the thoughts of what she must be going through from my mind." His head rose abruptly. "Dear God! What if she's pregnant?" He swore an anguished oath.

"I can prevent it. I've done it before. It's quite safe as long as conception is this early. I learned a lot more about treating unwanted pregnancies than the so-called doctors I've known. Most of it from Indian medicine women."

"I've heard the Indians have ways . . ." He sighed. "Please God, let it not be necessary . . . to kill a child." He shuddered.

She reached out her hand and touched his fist as he clenched the edge of the table. "It isn't like that. A woman just has a heavy monthly and it's over. She never even knows if she was breeding. There's . . . there's really no baby so soon."

Colin felt her cool fingertips graze his wrist and looked at her hand. Slim and elegant with long tapered nails, buffed but not enameled. A lady's hands. But Maggie Worthington was no longer a lady. What had happened to send her down the long road from Boston to Sonora? "You couldn't harm a child, could you?"

She looked away, her haunted eyes unable to meet his.

"I'm sorry, Sassenach. I didn't mean to reopen old wounds," he said gently. "I guess they never really completely go away. Just heal over on the outside and still ache within." Or fester, like your own.

Whether by an act of will or the sheen of unshed tears, her eyes brightened. "It all happened a long time ago. I've learned to live in the present and hope for the future." An idea suddenly caught her off guard. An idea so bold and outrageous she forced it aside to consider later in her lonely bed. "What we have to think of now is Eden. Emilio should be back soon."

"Do you really think his friends will find them?" Colin's face was masked, expressionless, as if he dared not hopeor dared not refuse to hope.

"They'll find them. Question is, are they looking to find you?"

"You mean did they kidnap Eden to lure me here? That's the same idea Wolf had." Colin shrugged. "I have political enemies in Prescott and Tucson, even Washington, I guess. It's possible, but it doesn't change what I have to do."

His expression was carved from granite. Maggie shivered thinking of what would happen when he came face to face with Judd Lazlo.

The Indian returned late the next day. Wolf, having spent the intervening twenty-four hours in the company of Maggie's girls, looked satiated and rested, but Colin had done little but toss in fitful sleep and pace the cantina floor until his boots wore a pathway across it.

"What did your men learn?" McCrory asked as soon as the little Indian walked through the door.

"In my office, Emilio," Maggie said crisply. She headed upstairs, expecting the men to follow her.

As soon as they were seated around her desk, Emilio outlined what he had learned in rapid Spanish. "There is a deep canyon north of the Saddlehorn, just below a creek that runs into the Saint Michael River."

"I know the place. Bart and I once looked at a mining claim up by Saddlehorn Mountain."

"We did not go in, but I talked with several men who graze their sheep across that stretch of the creek. They showed us hoof prints in the mudmarked just as you described your horses, Don Colin."

Maggie raised an eyebrow at Emilio's formal address for McCrory. There was an inbred aura of power about the Scot, something few men are born with and most never acquire.

"Are there just the two men with the girl?" Wolf asked.

Emilio shrugged his thin shoulders. "Who knows? We did not dare ride in. In times past it was a bandits' hideaway. There could be more, but there was no sign, and the sheepmen, they have seen no one coming and going."

"They might be too afraid to say anything if they did," Wolf said.

Or they may have been paid not to say anything. "Let's ride," Colin said, standing up and shoving his chair back impatiently.

"I know how badly you want to get to Eden, Colin, but don't jump too fast," Maggie said. "You'll do her no good dead. I know that pass. It leads into a box canyon. There's a back way up over the side. I can get you in"

"No. It's too dangerous. There might be shooting," Colin interrupted.

"Remember what I said last night," Maggie replied softly.

Their eyes locked for a moment. "Leave us alone," he said to Wolf and Emilio.

The gunman and the Indian left the office, closing the door behind them. "I'm willing to risk it, Colinfor a price," Maggie said when he turned back to her.

"A price?" One eyebrow raised in surprise. He noticed her hands were trembling faintly as she poured two drinks from a decanter on the pedestal table behind her desk. She handed him one and took a deep swallow from the other.

"I don't mean money," she said flatly. "I've made a good living with the Silver Eagle."

"The mines are playing out. The town's dying slowly."

"Bart's invested his cash here and there. He'll buy me out. Consider it a dowry of sorts." Her eyes met his and held them, watching his expression change.

"A dowry? You can't mean"

"Oh, but I can. You need meto guide you in that place and to be with Eden after you free her. I want out of this life. I could erase my past, fit into your world, Colin. I have the essential qualificationsI'm well read, not half bad looking. We can talk to each othereven make each other laugh. And as to your fears about ever getting a wife pregnant, I was told by a doctor I can't have children." There, she had said it. Said it all without losing her nerve.

His face was incredulous. "You actually mean a real marriage."

Maggie felt the sting of those words, had been braced for it. Still, they hurt. "Don't lie to yourself, Colin McCrory. You wanted me yesterday when I interrupted your little siesta in that tub. If Lupe hadn't interrupted us . . . who knows . . . Don't deny there's something between us."

"I'm not," he said flatly. "You're right. You're a damn fine looking woman and I wanted to bed you. I still do. But that doesn't mean I want to marry you." At least he had not called her a whore to her face. "No one in Arizona Territory would ever know about my past. We could make up a story about how we met. You'll need some reason to explain Eden's absence. I'll provide it."

"It seems you've thought of everything," he said, his voice cold and furious. And amazed.

She swallowed hard, willing her pulse to stop racing. "Yes, I have. That's why I always won when I dealt cards."

"Past tense?" he said with disdain.

"That life is over for me. I can be whatever you want me to be, Colin. You owe it to Eden."

"You lied when you said you'd quit gambling, Sassenach."

He pronounced the word Sassenach the same way his eighteenth-century Scots ancestors might have. It was no longer a term of bantering affection. "I may be gambling, Colin, but you know I hold all the cards," she replied calmly.

"If I don't marry you, no one will help me find my daughter. Is just a promise good enough, or do you have a priest tucked away in a closet to perform the ceremony before we ride out?"

"Your word will do, Colin," she replied quietly. What have I gotten myself into? I'm crazy if I go through with this. He'll never forgive me. Maybe it was better this way. A marriage in name only. Be safe, respectable, secure, while at the same time free from any man's touch, ever again. Even Colin McCrory's. In Eden she could have the daughter she lost seventeen years ago. With hope and fear both wringing her heart, Maggie waited for Colin to decide.

"All right, dammit. I'll marry you," he snarled. Turning, he stalked through the door and slammed it. <><><><><><><><><><><><>

Eden McCrory gazed up at the walls of her jagged brown prison. It was siesta time and the men were mostly sleeping. The grizzled Mexican who cooked for them was rattling pots and pans while Judd sat cleaning his gun near the campfire, ignoring her for the present. The hideout in which they had spent the past days was faced with steep stone, so hard and smooth scarcely anything green grew except for small outcroppings of creosote bush. A small sluggish stream meandered across the flat open floor of the canyon, and scrubby pines and madroño trees lined its banks.

Far across the other side, the vegetation was denser and would afford more cover, even the possibility of climbing up and out of the enclosed valley. But there was easily one hundred yards or more of open terrain between their camp site and that refuge. On foot, she could never make it before one of them rode her down.

If only I could steal a horse while they're sleeping. Wishful thinking. Every night Judd took her to his blankets, and after committing all manner of disgusting and painful acts on her body, he held her tightly as he fell asleep.

Judd Lazlo was a very light sleeper. She had found that out the first night in the hideout when she sneaked free of his loathsome embrace and crept to the horses. After putting a halter on the fastest of her father's racers, she had prepared to jump onto its back, scatter the rest and ride like hell. But Judd was standing right behind her, silent as a cat. He had seized the reins, laughing at the game for which he had invented all the rules.

There had been all sorts of other games after that, each uglier and more degrading than the one before. At least he had not shared her with the other men. Yet. Eden shuddered, thinking of Max Haywood's bloated, cruel face and pale doughy flesh that stank like sour wine. At least Judd bathed and was good-looking.

What difference did it make? She was ruined. Defiled. Her life was over, and now they were waiting for the chance to kill her father. If killing herself would have saved him, she would gladly have done it, but she knew the act would be futile. Colin McCrory was most certainly tracking her even now. No, she must stay alive and think of some way to stop these madmen hired by the Tucson Ring from assassinating their deadliest enemy, her father.

The ring was behind the past decade of prolonged bloody carnage between the Apaches and the whites in Arizona Territory. War was profitable if one played both ends against the middle. The ring was composed of rich merchants who supplied everything from food and utensils to blankets and beads to the Indiansonly most of the items never reached the starving and freezing reservation Apaches and what little did was of such ghastly quality that it was all but worthless. The profits from this were split between the Indian agent and the merchants.

At the same time as they cheated the Apaches, driving them to leave the reservation and go on bloody raids, those same merchants contracted with the Army, supplying it, most of the time with better food and equipment than they sold to the Indians. As long as Apache depredations continued, the United States military would station more troops in Arizona Territory than in all the rest of the country combined.

It had been a highly profitable situation for the contractors in Tucson until Colin McCrory and a small band of reformers from the Interior Department set out to stop the vicious cycle. And now the ring had sent Judd Lazlo and his band of hired killers to eliminate Colin.

Eden's life up until now had been simple. She became engaged to Edward Stanley on her seventeenth birthday. At first the betrothal had been very exciting and made her feel grown up, but then she grew faintly dissatisfied. She had agreed to Edward's proposal because she knew it would please her father. Edward supported Colin's views on the Apache question and was a highly successful attorney in Prescott and a member of the territorial legislature. Perhaps one day he would even be appointed governor. But she did not love him. Oh, he was sweet and attentive enough, even attractive in a starched, cool sort of way, but he was wretchedly henpecked, completely under his mother Sophie's thumb. There was nothing to fire Eden's blood with staid, proper Edward Stanley.

Thinking of the crude, dangerous outlaws who now held her captive, their leader abusing and degrading her body, she realized that enduring Sophie Stanley as a mother-in-law would have been sheer heaven if only she could return to the life she had led before this nightmare began.

''Oh, Edward, sweet, honorable Edward, what I wouldn't give to be strolling down the street with you again . . ." Eden choked back a sob and forced herself to take these few moments of peace to think, to plan. If only Judd was not always watching her. The others were far less intelligent and observant. Her previous escape attempt would have succeeded if not for their leader. Somehow she had to remove Judd from the scene, disable him. Then she would stand a chance of stealing one of the repeating rifles, perhaps even be able to make it to the cluster of rocks on the other side of the open campsite and hold them off until her father arrived. Judd leaned back against the tree and crossed his bare feet at the ankles, laying his gun aside. Now that he had cleaned and reloaded it, he looked at Eden with those wicked green eyes. He was bare-chested and clad only in his denims. Picking up his boots, he held them up, saying, "Put a little polish on these, will you, Eden, my darling?" A harsh, mocking smile curved his lips.

Knowing refusal would only earn her another beating, she gave him no satisfaction by refusing or showing any emotion as she walked over and took the boots.

"What do you want me to do? We have no polish," she said tonelessly.

He chuckled wickedly. "Use one of your pretty underthings that I tore off you the other night for a rag. Spit-shine them. You've seen the old saddler at your pa's place work leather before."

Eden turned away, her face scarlet with shame as several of the men chuckled at the mention of her shredded lacy underdrawers.

"When you gonna share her with us, boss?" Haywood asked petulantly, rubbing sleep from his puffy little pig's eyes.

"Aw, I couldn't do that, could I darling?" Lazlo asked Eden with mock solicitude. "This fragile little flower belongs to me. Why, it would really hurt her feelings if I was to lose interest in her so soon. After all, she's in love with me, aren't you, Eden?"

"I hate you! I wish you were dead," she ground out, wanting to fly at him with teeth and nails. Instead she stood clutching the boots, trembling with fear and fury.

Lazlo shook his head in mock reproof. "You sure are a fickle one, miss high and mighty Eden. A few weeks ago you were singing a different tune, sneaking off from Crown Verde to meet me, telling me how we should go to your pa and ask his permission to get married."

She could not deny his words. Shame rushed over her in choking waves as she replied, "I was a lovesick schoolgirl. That was before I found out what a lying, deceitful, cold-blooded bastard you are!"

Chapter Three

Lazlo's expression darkened as several of the men began to chuckle. One sweep of his cold green eyes instantly quelled the laughter. Then he turned back to Eden. "Polish my boots." His voice was deadly.

Still shaking, she turned and walked across the camp to where his saddlebag lay, filled with all the pretty underthings and the fancy dress in which she planned to be married. She had run off to meet Judd Lazlo, thinking they were going to Tucson for a wedding. She had lied to Eileen, telling her she was visiting neighbors while her father was gone. Her father would never have been so easily fooled, nor would he have let her ride alone.

Of course she had been deceiving Colin for weeks. Almost from the start. She could still remember the day Judd Lazlo rode to Crown Verde. He had a sly, sexy smile and dazzling green eyes. He was a handsome, mysterious stranger who lived by his guns. Her father had hired him to stop the trouble at the lumber mill. Judd was dangerous and forbidden and exciting. Everything Edward Stanley was not.

Although Eden had pretended aloofness at first, Judd had subtly pursued her, being careful to keep his interest in her a secret from Colin McCrory. Soon he was stealing kisses that left her breathless and telling her that he loved her, but that if they went to Colin, her father would refuse to let them marry. After all, Judd was just a hired gunman, no one to compete with her rich, influential fiancé. He had led her down the path to destruction one small, clever step at a time until that moonlit night two weeks ago when he despoiled her of her maidenhead.

There had been a dance at a neighboring ranch that night and Edward was unable to squire her because of pressing business in the capital. She had been a petulant, spoiled child, disappointed and angry. After the whole house was asleep, she had sneaked out to meet Judd, who insisted she drink from the unmarked bottle he had brought. He said it was "cordial" but it tasted much stronger, enough to get her slightly tipsy.

Soon all her troubles were forgotten and she was giggling and letting him seduce her beneath the big sycamore by the river. He had been full of tender phrases and soft caresses then, praising her beautiful young body as he undressed her. It had hurt a bit when he actually did the deed, but not all that much. Judd had assured her it was always that way the first time for women. After all her romantic imaginings, Eden had been rather disappointed, although Judd seemed quite pleased with her. Perhaps in time it would get better. Judd said it would. After that night she had felt irrevocably bound to him. She began to search her mind frantically for a way to break her engagement to poor Edward and to explain her feelings to her father. The trouble was, she did not understand her feelings herself. Everything seemed to be moving too fast. Mrs. Stanley announced the betrothal in the Prescott newspapers and arranged a huge party in Eden and Edward's honor without ever consulting her. That night after the engagement ball Judd Lazlo had asked her to run away and marry him.

Like the spoiled young girl she was, Eden had accepted, seeing no way out of an intolerable future. Now poor bumbling, pompous Edward and even overbearing old Sophie seemed a heavenly alternative. If only she could turn back the clock.

But I can't do that, she thought in misery as she rummaged through her saddlebags and pulled out pieces of her torn undergarments to use as rags for polishing Lazlo's boots. Just thinking of that first night on the trail to Tucson with him made her flinch. Within an hour of leaving the ranch, the runaway lovers met up with Max Haywood, who was leading a string of her father's best racers.

Haywood and Lazlo greeted each other like old friends, and the horrible realization of what she had donewhat Judd had done to herwashed over Eden McCrory.

"This man stole from my father. Those are Crown Verde horses," she had whispered in outrage to Judd.

He had only thrown back his head and laughed. "Well, so they are. Consider it your dowry, Miss High and Mighty Rich Girl. You owe me something for hanging around you like a damned lap dog the past weeks, panting after your skinny little body."

Her voice had broken in pain and shock. "If you didn't want me, why didn't you just steal the horses and be damned?"

A sly smile had spread across his face. "We want these horses for more than their cash value. They're our change of mounts. You see, Your Highness, we're taking you to a little hidyhole we have in Mexico and we need to make sure your pa don't catch up to us before we get there."

That was when she realized the full extent of her culpability. Not only had she broken her father's heart by running away, she was risking his very life as well. "That ring of grafters in Tucsonthey hired you, didn't they?"

When he had only laughed and leaned over to grab her horse's reins, Eden had used the heavy leather reins to slash across his face, then wheeled her small, fleet mare around and ridden like the wind. But Judd's big gelding had overrun her in moments. From then on she was his prisoner, and that night he had raped her, while Haywood snickered from the darkness across the campfire.

She held the evidence of that first brutal assault in her hands nowthe blouse and camisole he had torn off her body, now rags with which to polish his boots. Rage washed over her in a sickening rush, leaving her so shaken she felt nauseated. Methodically Eden carried the boots and rags to the stream and knelt by a rotten log to scrub the mud from them. As she worked, she could feel Judd's and the other men's eyes on her back.

Father could be in San Luís by now, asking about me. I have to do something to warn him. She knew about the sentries posted at the opening of the box canyon. As soon as Colin approached, the four gunmen around the campfire would lie in wait, using her as bait until Judd gave the order to spring the trap. He was the clever one, the planner. Maybe if I could kill Judd . . . But she had already tried stabbing him with the cook's knife, even coshing him on the skull with a sharp rock. His far greater size and strength had doomed her puny efforts to failure. Just as she was finishing up the second boot, a big hairy centipede crawled from the hollowed-out interior of the log.

Eden stifled a scream and sat very still, watching the poisonous creature make its way toward her. Very slowly and carefully she lay one of Judd's boots down on its side, the open end toward the centipede. It was a common Southwestern ritual, even indoors, to shake out one's boots before putting them on as a precaution. Eden had grown up doing so and knew how deadly those pincer legs' venom could be when sunk into human flesh.

She held her breath while the centipede meandered its grotesque body around the edge of the boot. Would it climb in? Praying fervently, she watched out of the corner of her eye while she continued to work on the other boot.

"What in hell's taking you so long, Eden?" Lazlo yelled.

Just one more minute. Half a minute. The centipede was crawling over the lip of the boot. "I'm almost finished, Judd." And so are you.

Men did not die quickly of centipede bites. The venom worked slowly and very painfully. Judd would probably kill her, but if the poison finished him before he could trap her father, it would be worth it. With trembling fingers she picked up the boot and walked slowly and carefully back across the camp to where Judd sat.

"Do you want me to put them on you?" she asked sarcastically.

He studied her patrician profile. He had lied when he told her she was skinny and washed out. She was the most beautiful female he had ever bedded. Real quality. And he hated her for it. She had been devastated by his betrayal at first, but then that streak of Scots steel he had recognized in Colin McCrory showed through in his daughter. Judd Lazlo had wanted to break her spirit, to utterly degrade and humiliate her. So far he had failed. Maybe once she saw her precious father's dead body she would snap. He hoped so.

"Give me the damn boots and get your ass over here to fetch me my supper," he commanded roughly.

Eden set the boots on the ground in front of him and walked away, not daring to look back for fear of giving away her secret.

She had not taken half a dozen steps when a loud oath rent the air. Whirling around, Eden watched Judd roll on the ground, shrieking and cursing as he held his foot. One of the other men rushed over and stamped on the centipede with his booted foot, making certain it was smashed into the dust before he stopped.

His face chalk white, Lazlo glared at Eden with hate-filled green eyes, serpent eyes. "You did this, you bitch! I'll kill you . . ." Sweat was pouring off his face and his voice shook with fear and rage.

"You gotta get to a doc, Judd," one of the men said. The others exchanged looks. This far out in the wilds of Sonora, the chances of Judd Lazlo surviving such a deep puncture wound was practically nil.

"Maybe some whiskey will help," Haywood offered, uncorking a bottle.

"You want we should kill her, boss?" a third man offered.

"No," Lazlo rasped out, calming a bit now. He yanked the bandana from his neck and tied it around his ankle. An angry red set of punctures was already creating swelling on the instep of his right foot. "I'm riding to San Luís. They got a doctor there. You keep her here for me. I got real good plans about how I'll kill her myself. I learned a few tricks from the Apach."

His snake eyes studied her with feverish intensity as he forced the boot onto his swollen foot, gritting his teeth against the pain. His shirt was soaking wet, plastered to his heavily muscled torso, and his wavy, thick, tan hair hung lankly, framing a face that looked like a death mask. He struggled to his feet and took the reins of the big gelding one of his men had saddled. "Tie her up. If I'm not back in five days, kill herscrew her to death. You all take turns until she's done for."

With that he swung up onto his horse and hunched over the saddle horn as the big bay bore him toward the mouth of the canyon.

The sun was setting, leaving great vivid slashes of magenta and gold against the western rim of the canyon. Colin took the field glasses from Wolf and scanned the opening to the canyon from their hidden vantage point on the far side of the heavily wooded rim. They had climbed all afternoon, following a twisting overgrown trail that Maggie guided them along.

"I see another one, over against that big boulder by the mesquite," Colin said.

"We need to pick them off before we hit the camp," Wolf replied, studying the terrain with the practiced eye of his Apache forebears.

"Quietly. No guns. If Lazlo hears anything, he might hurt Eden." Colin's voice was grim.

Maggie, who they had all but ignored since reaching the crest of the ridge, had been busy taking the pins from her hair. Lustrous waves of auburn cascaded over her shoulders. ''I can distract the one on this side of the canyon. You go after the other one."

Colin looked at her as if she had said she would fly down to the valley floor. "You'll damn well stay here, out of the line of fire."

Wolf, who had said little since they rode out of San Luís, studied the man and woman glaring at each other. Something had passed between them since last night. They had been friendly, obviously attracted to each other. Now they were openly antagonistic. The sexual tension had not been eradicated. It still radiated between them like the desert sun pounding on a stone mesa, but the easygoing bantering had been replaced by clipped sharp commands on Colin's part and a proud, quiet sort of defiance on Maggie's.

"She would be able to approach the guard easier than we could. Being a woman, she can walk up to him out in the open and hold his attention while I cut across behind him. There's not much cover to let us get close enough to kill him without firing a shot."

"He could yell to his friend across the other side of the pass," Colin said.

Maggie just smiled. "Trust me. He won't want to share. I know men," she said with the voice of experience as her eyes met Colin's.

"Yes, I guess you do," Colin replied tightly.

In half an hour they were in place. Maggie stumbled out of the rocks, sobbing, her clothes disheveled and her hair flying. "Please," she said softly to the armed bandit, "help me."

"What the hell?" He looked around, then rushed toward her as she started to crumple to the ground. His hands trembled with excitement when he saw the pale golden skin of her throat where her blouse had been pulled open. The ripe curve of a breast beckoned him. He set his rifle down as he bent over her, looking into the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

Maggie was the last thing he saw before Wolf's blade slashed cleanly across his throat. He died with a few gurgling gasps.

"You move fast. I figured he'd at least have my blouse unbuttoned first," she said as Blake threw the body face down behind the rocks.

He smiled chillingly. "It's my Apache blood. My mother was Cibeque. I lived with them until I was seven. Some things you never forget."

"You've grown up white," she said as they moved cautiously through the rocks to await Colin's signal that he had disposed of the other sentry.

"My pa came back for me. His white wife had died without giving him any children. My mother was dead. Killed in a smallpox epidemic." He shrugged. "Hell, her band was decimated. They couldn't feed any of the children. The tribal elders let him have me. I guess he figured a half-breed son was better than no son at all. He sent me to school. Beat civilization into me . . ."

When he said no more, Maggie studied the harsh planes of his face. There was a terrible burning anger in Wolf Blake. "There's more, isn't there, but you don't want to talk about it."

"No, ma'm. I don't."

"If you ever do, I'm a real good listener, Wolf," she said gently.

He smiled again, but this time his eyes smiled, too. "I appreciate the offer."

Colin watched the two of them, talking in low, quiet voices. A wave of completely irrational jealousy swept over him and he cursed himself for a fool. The woman was a whore who enticed every man she met. What did he expect? Damned if he'd marry her. She had to have a price. Once Eden was safe, he'd meet it.

Wolf saw McCrory emerge from the shadows. Night was coming on. They would have to move fast to get in position before full dark. "You got the other one?" The look in the older man's eye was confirmation.

"Now comes the tricky part. We've got to pick our positions carefully and locate Eden before we move. You stay back," Colin commanded Maggie. To his surprise, she nodded in agreement.

"I'll just hang onto my rifle. When the shooting starts, I may be able to pick off one or two. I'm a damn good shot."

"Just don't make a sound until we open fire."

With that the two men began to circle around the rocky, tree-studded rim of the canyon, approaching the flickering campfire below. Maggie found a position up on the ridge, behind a pinyon pine. Using the field glasses Colin had left behind, she studied the layout of the camp and located Eden McCrory, who lay bound hand and foot in the shadows while several men milled around the fire, helping themselves to a pot that bubbled over the flames.

Eden had just wriggled into a sitting position, hoping one of the men would untie her long enough to let her eat something when the shooting erupted all around her. Manuel fell first, knocked into the fire by the impact of the powerful .44.40 slug. She recognized the belch of her father's big Remington. Rodriguez and Haywood were picked off cleanly. Only Morton managed to jump into the shadows behind a juniper bush. She knew instinctively he would try to reach her and use her as a shield. Eden rolled toward the campfire, but a strong callused hand tangled in her hair and yanked her back.

For an instant. Then her father's rifle thundered again, and the powerful stinging of her scalp eased as Morton's fingers loosened their hold. His head had been blasted almost off his shoulders. The knife he had clasped in his other hand lay gleaming dully in the dust. A dark river of blood ran across the ground, surrounding her as she screamed and screamed again.

Miles away, struggling to remain mounted on his gelding, Judd Lazlo heard the shots echoing across the foothills. With a curse, he tried to turn his horse. Had McCrory finally shown up? He did not like the sound of that many shots being fired. The guards should have spotted McCrory coming and laid a neat, clean ambush. Of course, he could have miscounted. His head pounded with fever and his vision was blurred. Pain lanced up his leg in jagged waves.

He cursed the whole McCrory family as he felt himself sliding from his horse, unable to stop his fall to the rocky ground below. Judd Lazlo lay still as death, the distant gunfire no longer echoing in his ears.

Wolf reached Eden first as she was trying to roll away from the dead bandit's pooling blood. It had already stained her riding skirt and boots as she thrashed frantically.

"Easy, easy. Let me untie you, Miss Eden," he said, kneeling beside her. Wolf was stunned by her beautiful face. She stared up at him through her father's whiskey gold eyes, fringed by thick dark lashes. But her eyes were the only physical trait she had inherited from Colin McCrory. Eden was tiny and slender with ivory skin, delicate cameo features and masses of silky hair the color of moonbeams. She took his breath away. Everything a breed buck dreams of and can never touch, he thought grimly to himself, noting how pale her flesh was beneath his dark hands as he helped her sit up.

She looked up into burning black eyes framed by thick, arched eyebrows. The stranger had a dark bronzed face of harshly striking male beauty. His hair was shoulder length and perfectly straight, inky black. He had Indian blood, but worse, he was a gunman, hard and dangerous, just as Lazlo had been. Eden shied in revulsion. Then her father was there, kneeling beside her, shoving the disturbing stranger away.

"I'll take care of her. See if any of them are left alive. If they are, kill them," Colin said curtly to Wolf, then turned his attention back to his daughter, cutting the ropes from her wrists and ankles, all the while soothing her. "It's going to be all right, Eden. Everything's going to be all right now, Babygirl."

She could not look at him, could not bear to have him touch her. She was defiled, filthy, ruined. And she had nearly caused his death as well! Tears, held in check for so long, silently streamed down her cheeks.

"There, there, Eden, Babygirl . . . don't." He dabbed at the tears that continued to flow from beneath her thick golden lashes. "It's over. They can't ever hurt you again." Colin stroked her hair and held her. She felt so stiff in his arms, unmoving, silent. His eyes swept over her, looking for any traces of physical injuries. She seemed unhurt, but he could well imagine how they had abused her, how that bastard Lazlo had degraded an innocent like Eden.

Eden's silence frightened him more than anything. Dear God, had they unhinged her mind? "Eden, talk to me. I'm your father. Please . . ."

Maggie watched the desperate scene unfolding across the campfire. Darkness gathered now and the air was turning chill. Bodies littered the ground all around them. They needed to get Eden away from this place of desecration. Maggie walked over to Colin and knelt, placing her hand firmly on his shoulder.

"Leave her to me, Colin. You and Wolf gather the horses and let's get out of here. She can't stay in this place."

Colin's eyes moved from Maggie's calm face back to his daughter, who still sat, rigid and frozen, unmoving and silent while the tears continued to seep from her eyes. She would not even look at him. Nodding in dumb misery, he relinquished his hold on Eden as Maggie sat down beside her.

"Eden, this is Maggie Worthington . . . a friend of mine. She's here to help you."

Eden did not respond. Maggie shook her head at Colin, dismissing him. When he stood up and walked over to Wolf, she took Eden by one arm and gently but forcefully helped her to her feet.

"Let's get away from these men who hurt you, Eden. They may be dead, but the memories still hang on in this place, don't they?"

Eden heard the voice, soft and well modulateda woman's voice with a crisp, unfamiliar accent. Her father was gone. God, she could not bear to look him in the face, to see love and concern in his eyes. She would never again be able to bear her guilt, her shame. As Maggie helped her to stand up, Eden opened her eyes and looked down at the pooling blood around the grotesquely crumpled, decapitated body of Clint Morton. A wailing cry of horror welled up inside her and she screamed, then threw herself into Maggie's arms, sobbing in big loud gulps as the older woman led her away from the scene of carnage. Colin headed back toward her, but Maggie waved him away. He stood for a moment, his hands helplessly at his sides, then turned to continue searching the dead for Lazlo.

Eden could feel the other woman's hands guiding her, rubbing her back as she struggled for breath between the wracking sobs that choked her. A handkerchief, large and snowy white, was thrust into her hands.

"Here, dry your eyes and blow your nose. It'll help you to breathe," Maggie said as they walked down to the stream. "Let it all out, honey. I know what the bastards did to you, believe me."

Eden did as she was ordered, then clutched the soggy handkerchief and looked at the handsome, dark-haired woman. "How could you possibly know what it was like?" she asked, her voice still hoarse and thickened with tears.

Maggie laughed, a soft, sad sound, as she urged Eden to sit beside her by the edge of the stream. The last rays of the sun cast dim, flickering shadows all around them, like old nightmares, rising up from the darkness. "I know what it's like for men to do most anything to a woman."

"What if . . . what if she deserved it?"

"No woman ever deserves being forcedthat Lazlo fellowhe did some pretty rough things to you, I bet. Did he let the others join in, or only watch?"

Eden shuddered. "They . . . they watched, but he told them after he was through with me . . ." She began to sob again.

Maggie held her. "I won't pretend to tell you it's over now. Because it isn't. You and I both know that. You'll remember them and all the ugliness, but gradually the memories will fade and you . . . well, you have a choice. You can fade, too, or you can get stronger. Don't let them win, Eden. They're dead and you're alive. That's all that really counts in the end. Surviving in spite of them."

Eden studied Maggie's face. She had no doubt this woman spoke from experience. She understood. "Who are you? How do you know all these things?"

"My name is Maggie. I met your father in San Luís a few days ago. He'd come looking for youmy cantina seemed like a good place to get information about a gang of cutthroats like Lazlo's."

"You own a saloon?" Eden could not imagine the elegant-looking, educated lady sitting beside her in a saloon.

"I'm half owner of the biggest saloon and fancy house between Tucson and Hermosillo."

Eden's eyes grew wide with surprise. "F-fancy house?"

"Bordello. I'm a madam, Eden. A long time ago I worked in places like the one I run now . . . only some of them weren't as nice. I know all about men and what they can do, but just because you've found out, toothat doesn't make you a whore. Remember that," Maggie said sternly.

On the other side of the campsite, Colin kicked over the last of the men they'd killed and cursed. "Lazlo got away, dammit!"

"We saw every man who was here. If he's gone, he was long gone before we arrived," Wolf said with certainty.

"We can't find him in the dark. Anyway, Maggie's right. We have to get Eden away from here and let her rest safe for tonight. Gather up the horses they stole from the ranch and their scrub stock."

As he put hackamores on his fine breeding stock, Colin listened to the soft, murmuring conversation between Maggie and Eden. At least she's talking, thank God! He could not make out their words but he could see the obvious attachment his daughter was forming to the whore. He cursed silently. That was bound to complicate his plans when they returned to San Luís.

He waited patiently with his horses while Wolf gathered the outlaws' mounts and Maggie and Eden finally approached the campfire, apparently ready to ride. Colin looked at Eden, who still seemed afraid to meet his eyes. Frustration gnawed at him that a strangerthis woman in particularcould gain his only child's confidence when he could not.

He considered whether or not to say anything about Lazlo's escape, then decided it might push Eden over the edge again. He brought her horse over. "Here's Sunglow, Eden. Can you mount up all right? We won't go farjust away from this place."

She darted a glance at her father and tried to smile. "It's all right, Father. I can make it," she said in a husky voice. She swung up onto the palomino mare, then looked at him for a moment. "I should tell you about Lazlo . . ."

"It's all right, Eden. We'll find him. Don't you ever think of the bastard again. He's a dead man." His face was fearsome in the dying light.

"He is a dead man. I killed him," Eden replied.

"She put a centipede inside his boot and it bit him deep in his instep. He rode out not an hour before we got here," Maggie added as she swung up on the horse Wolf offered her.

A grimly proud smile touched Colin's face. "That so, Babygirl? It was better than he deserved, but I'm glad you did it. It's all right." He patted her knee awkwardly. "It's all going to be all right."

"Thank you, Father . . . for coming after me . . ." Her voice broke and she turned her head away and kneed the mare to trot slowly away from the dying fire, riding after Maggie and the half-breed who led a string of outlaw horses.

Helplessly, Colin McCrory followed them.

Chapter Four

Bart Fletcher paced furiously across the Tabriz carpet on his office floor, glancing now and again out at the deserted street below as he passed the big front window. Finally, he poured himself a stiff drink of good smooth Madeira. It cost him a fortune to have it shipped across this godforsaken wilderness. The soothing, sweet, tart liquid rolled across his tongue and down his throat.

He was breaking the rules, of course. Bart ran a saloon but he never drank before five in the afternoon. Not until today when he returned from that ghastly tooth butcher in Hermosillo, his jaw still throbbing, only to learn that Maggie had ridden out with Colin McCrory yesterday. He took another long drink and cursed the rotten timing.

All of this was Judd Lazlo's fault. Emilio told him that the accursed banditti had shown up after he had left town. Maggie had made short work of Lazlo. That brought an unwilling smile to Fletcher's face. His Megs could always take care of herself. ''Riding around out there with McCrory and some breed gunman, it's a bloody good thing," he muttered as he drained the glass.

Still, her absence worried him. Lazlo was a mean one, and as for McCrory . . . God, he hadn't thought of that damned scalper in nearly twenty years. One of Jeremy Nash's charming collection of cutthroat misfits, men who made Attila the Hun seem just the sort one would prefer to invite for afternoon tea. Nash's group of mercenary Indian killers had split up, most either dead or drifted out of Mexico in the early sixties. But now McCrory was backand he had enlisted Maggie in his cause. That made Fletcher nervous.

Maggie. His beautiful, bright Megs with China blue eyes a man could drown in and a body so lush she could seduce an Ottoman sultan. Maggie with her warm sense of humor and even warmer heartexcept where men were concerned. Oh, she was an easy touch when a down-and-out prospector gave her a sob story, and she took in everything from stray cats to broken-down old whores. But her personal life had always been off limits, her body and her soul locked securely away ever since that bloody Southern gigolo had betrayed her.

What a bittersweet joy it had been to become her mentor. How eagerly she had learned, so thirsty to know about the vast world outside the harsh life she had been forced to live. He had taught her about art and literature, history and the sciences, even taken her to Europe a few years ago while the mines were still booming and profits were especially good. He'd still hoped she might share his bed back then. Maybe he had never really given up hoping.

"Foolish man," he said to himself, looking into the mirror at a tall, elegantly slim body and a gauntly handsome face framed by graying blond hair and an immaculately trimmed mustache and Vandyke. Clear ice blue eyes mocked the reflection as he raised his glass. "To Megs." Then, realizing it was empty, he refilled it and drank deeply.

A sense of foreboding hovered in the hot noon air as hoof beats sounded down the street. A pack of stray dogs yipped at the heels of the approaching party, drowning out the muffled plopping of their mounts' hooves in the thick reddish dust. Fletcher was at the front door of the Silver Eagle as they dismounted. His eyes swept from Maggie to the girl standing beside her, an exquisite blonde, very young, pale and nervous-looking.

"Bart, you made it back," Maggie called out in greeting.

"I might say the same for you, Megs. Where the bloody hell have you been? I couldn't get any sense out of Emilio."

"It's a long story, but first I have to get Eden a room and a hot bath." She smiled reassuringly at the girl. "Eden, this pompous gentleman is my partner, Bartley Wellington Fletcher."

"Your servant, Miss?"

"McCrory. Eden McCrory," Maggie supplied as he bowed gallantly. "And these formidable gentlemen are her father, Colin, and Wolf Blake," she added as the two dusty riders climbed the steps onto the cantina's front porch.

Leaving the men to sort out further introductions, Maggie and Eden disappeared up the stairs.

Colin studied the tall, gaunt Englishman who he knew must be the partner Maggie had spoken of, Bart Fletcher. Were they also lovers? Probably. The idea bothered him, and even more upsetting was the very fact that the thought had occurred to him. What the hell difference did it make who Maggie Worthington slept with? He'd be damned if he'd marry her. Every woman like her had a price, and he would pay it. After all, he did owe her for Eden.

Wolf watched the two older men take each other's measure, both wary and irritable as grizzlies in spring.

"So you're Colin McCrory, the man looking for his lost daughter," Fletcher said in clipped British tones.

McCrory's burr thickened in response. "She's not lost anymore." He felt an instant antagonism that went beyond the man's Sassenach ancestry.

"Bloody good show, getting her back. I daresay I'm relieved to see Maggie returned safely, as well." He paused and stroked the point of his beard. "I don't like having her put in harm's way."

Colin shrugged. "She insisted."

Fletcher turned from the Scot to the half-breed gunman and smiled. "I assume you gentlemen would appreciate something to wash away the trail dust?"

"You simply can't be serious, Megs." Bart Fletcher stared at Maggie in shocked amazement as they faced one another across the big desk in the upstairs office.

"I'm serious, Bart. You've known for the past couple of years that I wanted out. You even talked about pulling up stakes yourself. You said Fernando Gomez was willing to buy the Eagle."

"But why now?" His eyes narrowed to icy slits. "This has something to do with that Scot, doesn't it? Has he got some sort of hold on you, Megs?" He rounded the desk and placed his thin, elegant hands on her shoulders.

Maggie laughed softly and turned away. "More like I have something on him. Eden needs me. She's been through hell."

"Ah, Maggie, Maggie, always the earth mother, trying to make up for the child you lost so tragically. But Eden McCrory is almost a woman grown."

"She's the same age my daughter would've been . . . if she'd lived."

He shrugged, still intent on her connection with Colin. "Surely her father will have something to say about your accompanying them back to the States."

A frosty smile wreathed her lips but did not reach the haunted blue depths of her eyes. "He's agreed, Bart." She toyed with the pearls she wore at her throat. "Colin and I are getting married when we reach Tucson."

He almost dropped the decanter of Madeira. Without turning and letting her see his face, he said, "I see."

Maggie could see his shoulders stiffen as he finished pouring them each a glass of Madeira, but when he turned, his gambler's facade was in place. The ruined son of a baronet, banished from home and country in disgrace, Bart had learned how to hide his feelings from everyonebut Maggie Worthington.

"If you must know, Megs my love, this does my ego no good, no good at all. You've certainly been impervious to my charms for the past seven years. Perhaps if I'd asked you to marry me first?" He stroked his beard and studied her consideringly.

She sipped the wine, shaking her head. "You were always too good a friend to ruin our relationship with sex, Bart."

"Surely after all your years of celibacy you've not actually fallen in loveand with an ignorant Scottish cowman? Bloody hell, Megs, I simply don't believe it." "He isn't ignorant. In fact, he's read quite a few of these books." She gestured around the room. "I'm not in love with him. Exactly." She could feel a most unaccustomed blush heating her cheeks.

Bart scoffed. "Why are you doing this if you don't love himexactly?"

She twisted her necklace back and forth across the bare expanse of her collarbone. Bart had given her the perfectly matched pearls as a birthday gift last year. Dropping her hand, she raised her chin proudly. "I want a chance to start over again. To try respectability. And who better than me to help Eden through this rough time? I've been there myself."

He shook a finger at her like a teacher chiding a recalcitrant pupil. "You're still avoiding the issue of McCrory. Lud, if I'd known you fancied taciturn Scots in dusty trail gear"he grimaced in distaste"I might have endeavored to change my ways."

Maggie smiled in spite of herself. "You would never changeeven if you could, Bart. And what's more, I don't want you to. You've been good for me and I'll always owe you"

"Bloody hell, don't go getting maudlin on me, Megs! If Colin McCrory is what you want . . ." He shrugged and gave her an insouciant smile. "I hope he appreciates how hard you worked for your 'dowry.'"

Her smile evaporated. "He appreciates it, Bart, believe me."

Although the food was prepared on short notice and the cook grumbled, he did manage to stuff and roast several fat capons, freshly killed that afternoon. Maggie had the best Wedgwood china set at the table in Bart's apartment. His were the larger quarters with a table suitable for small private parties. Some party, she thought, looking about the gathering at the strained expressions on everyone's faces. Eden was withdrawn and pale, in awe of Bart's British charm, but oddly more comfortable with him than with the father she had always adored. Colin and Bart moved around each other like a pair of stallions ready to fight for a herd of mares. Only Wolf seemed to be taking the evening in stride, watching the interplay across the dinner table with detached amusement. Occasionally Maggie did notice his black eyes linger on Eden, but as soon as the girl looked his way, he feigned disinterest.

Maggie had debated about including him in the invitation, knowing how Eden must feel about any renegade gunman, even her rescuer. But Maggie liked the quiet younger man whose past, like her own, hid a great deal of pain. He had learned impeccable table mannersor had some inbred ability to observe what others did and follow suit with practiced ease.

Maggie had warned Bart not to say anything around Eden regarding the marriage plans. He had already exhausted the conversation with a series of amusing anecdotes about his boyhood foibles in England and travels abroad. "So, you're a cattleman, Mr. McCrory."

"A stockman. I run cattle and breed horses." Colin volunteered nothing else.

Bart turned to Wolf. "And you, my young friend, will you be working for Mr. McCrory now that this dangerous assignment is complete?"

"I've hired on for the timber mills," Wolf replied, no more forthcoming than Colin had been.

"Lumbering, too. What else does your father dabble in, Miss McCrory?"

His guileless smile and English charm had taken Eden's mind off her misery for a bitand also provided a distraction from the disturbing presence of Wolf Blake. She was grateful. "Father has some mining interests. He owns a stage line and he's backing the railroad coming into Arizona Territory," she replied.

Maggie was stunned at the extent of his wealth. She had believed he was just an ordinary rancher, perhaps prosperous, but she had never imagined he was filthy rich. She could feel Colin's whiskey eyes boring into her. He probably thinks I'm a fortune hunter now.

Fletcher's hand stroked his beard as he, too, looked at Maggie. "Well, Megs, did you have any inkling our guest was so well fixed?"

Her eyes flashed a warning, almost a plea; then she lowered them. "No, I didn't."

"Well, all things considered, we haven't done badly ourselves. I don't know how I managed before you came along, love."

"You've always managed, Bart. You always will," she replied quietly.

"This is excellent Riesling," Colin interjected, holding up his stemmed glass to catch the golden reflection of the wine in the light. "The other night Miss Worthington served me fresh oysters and champagne. Your own business is obviously highly profitable."

Colin's eyes met Fletcher's, but he was aware of Maggie's reaction to his implications. He gathered she had told Fletcher she was leaving him. The man was certainly acting the part of a jilted lover.

"I imagine you'll miss Maggie a great deal, Mr. Fletcher, since she's traveling to Tucson with us. I know I'll be ever so grateful for her company," Eden said, pointedly ignoring the two men's veiled comments about Maggie's most unrespectable past.

Colin swore to himself. Damned if he wanted his daughter knowing about the sordid marriage agreement he had with Maggie Worthington. He must buy her offthe sooner the better. Eden was growing altogether too attached to the madam. He didn't want them spending two weeks on the trail together.

"I'll have a modest nest egg coming to me . . . when I leave here," Maggie replied, raising her wineglass. "Here's to new beginnings in Arizona Territory."

Everyone joined the toast, but Colin hesitated, watching Bart touch Maggie's glass with his own and seeing the intimacy between them occasioned by years of living and working together. Finally when everyone else had toasted, he reluctantly moved his glass toward hers. As the crystal chimed, their fingers brushed quickly, but a jolt of lightning would have been less noticeable. Suddenly the room grew very quiet. Their eyes met and held, soft blue and hard gold, each trying to read the other's thoughts . . . and failing.

Colin was shaken by the contact. What was it about this woman? He decided to go to her quarters secretly as soon as everyone was asleep and have a serious discussion about their absurd agreement. Surely she would have her price, and he would pay it just to be rid of her.

Maggie answered his quiet knock at her door as if she had been expecting him. She had changed from the elegant gown she had worn at dinner into a modest, dark blue wrapper. She ushered him inside, saying, "Eden's asleep." She closed the door to the sitting room in her apartment, which occupied the south end of the second floor.

It was small and feminine, furnished with a cabriole-backed settee and a pier table between two windows. The wallpaper was a soft apricot floral and the Oriental carpets were rich rust, ivory and green.

She offered him a seat, which he declined, preferring to stand in the center of the parlor, dwarfing its diminutive proportions with his tall masculine presence.

Maggie was glad Colin had come. They needed to talk in private before they left in the morning. "I put a tiny bit of a sleeping preparation in the milk I had Eden drink. She'll get a good night's rest."

Colin narrowed his eyes, giving his face an even harder cast. "Sleeping potions, abortive herbs. Is there no end to your medical talent?"

She stiffened and met his harsh, cynical stare head on. "I didn't need to use the herbs on Eden. She just finished her flow three days ago. She's safe."

His shoulders crumpled and he looked away. "Thank God for that, but what if"he struggled to say the words"what if any of those bastards were poxed?"

"Only Lazlo took her, and he was healthy."

His head swiveled. "How do you"

"He was a regular of Henrietta's. I make all my girls check their customersand make the men washbefore they're even allowed near a mattress." She felt that irritating urge to blush again and forced herself to ignore it. Better to confront him now and have done with it. "While we're discussing such indelicate matters, I suppose, for your peace of mind I should assure you I'm not poxed either."

"I suppose that means your Sassenach lover is healthy, although he does look a bit gaunt of cheek"

"Bart isn't my lover!" she said furiously, damning his mawkish display at the dinner table.

"Right," Colin replied with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow. "That's why the two of you have this cozy arrangement with your private apartments adjoining each other. Do you meet at night in your office to do bookkeeping together?"

Her fingers dug into the back of the settee. If she let go she was certain she would fly at him and slap that cold, hard smirk off his handsome face. "We keep separate bedrooms because we sleep separately. Bart is not, nor has he ever been, my lover. I haven't had any other men since . . ." Her voice faded as she fought the memories that clawed at her. "If you don't believe me, there's a doctor"

"That won't be necessary," he said curtly. This was humiliating for herhe could tell by the rigid stance of her body, the heightened color in her cheeks, that small pulse beating wildly at the base of her throat. He felt a wholly irrational urge to reach out to her, to touch that pale golden skin and feel the fluttering of her heartbeat.

Damn! This was exactly the opposite of what he had come here to do. "I don't need to know anything about your physical condition. If the marriage were to take place, it wouldn't be consummated anyway."

His words fell like bricks in the quiet room.

"If." Her eyes bored into him. "You mean you're breaking your word with no more regret than a Scots borderer would? No wonder you've called me Sassenach!"

"I'm not breaking my word," he said defensively, spreading his hands across the delicately carved back of a slipper chair.

They faced each other like two combatants across the small room, each using a piece of furniture like a shield.

"Then what exactly are you doing?" Why was it so hard for her to breathe? Damn the man for his power to wound her. ''I'm making you a business proposition. As you probably gathered at dinner, I'm a reasonably wealthy man. And I'm grateful for your help with Eden."

"But now that you have her back, you don't want me contaminating her. Who knows, after what she's been through, I might make her into a whore just like me," she snapped.

"That is not what I meant," he said, his jaw clenched. "You want out of this town, this life. I understand that. I'll send you ten thousand in gold as soon as I can get to a bank in Tucson."

She nodded her head, looking at him with scorn radiating from every pore in her body. "Ten thousand. So that's the price you put on your daughter. Well, I guess you do care for her. She must be worth at least as much as . . . let's see, a good-sized herd of fine cattle or even one of your stagecoach contracts."

"You conniving, gold-digging"

"If I only wanted money, Colin, I'd take the fifteen thousand Bart and I settled on this afternoon and move to San Francisco. I could open a real fancy parlor house there and make a bloody fortune!"

"Just what is it you do want, Maggie?" His voice sounded as uncertain as he felt. Damn, the woman had money. Why in the hell had she stayed buried in this wilderness all these years?

Maggie turned away from him and walked stiffly to the door. Opening it, she said quietly, "I don't, for damn sure, want you. Consider our bargain finished. You welshed. I accept it. Eden's safe, and that's all I care about now. I don't need your money."

Colin started to say something, then stopped. He felt guilty and very, very confused. And he did not like it. Silently he walked past her, inhaling the faint essence of lilies of the valley as she closed the door firmly behind him. His footsteps sounded hollow as he walked to the room at the end of the hall, wondering if he had just made the mistake of his life.

Eden awakened early the next morning and lay staring at the ceiling in the small room in Maggie's place. It was part of her private apartment, so Eden assumed none of the customers had ever used it. Just thinking of the terrible things men did to women in this very building made her shiver, remembering Judd.

She sat up, shaking the last cobwebs of a deep sleep from her head. "I hope he died slowly and painfully," she whispered fiercely and threw the covers aside. In minutes she had completed a simple toilette and brushed her cornsilk hair until it glistened. Last night Maggie had helped her wash it with perfumed soap and added fresh lemon juice to the rinse water.

Maggie. How would she have survived without her? Maggie had not spoken about her own hardships, the awful things that must have happened to force her into this kind of life. But Eden was grateful that Maggie Worthington was a woman of the world with experience enough to understand what she was going throughand compassion enough to care.

As long as Maggie was there as a buffer, Eden could live one day at a time with her father. Somehow she had to gather her courage and tell him the truth about Judd. Once they were back home the lie she had told Eileen and the stories she and Louise Simpson had made up to cover her trysts with Lazlo were sure to come out. Eden could see those accusing gold eyes turn on her in anger. She had witnessed her father's wrath on only a few occasions, for he held his fierce Scots temper in check most always, but there was not a man between Crown Verde and San Carlos who dared to cross Colin McCrory. And never in her life had she been the recipient of that cold, withering fury.

But I will be now. She buried her face in her hands, but no tears would come. She had cried them all out the other night when Maggie had held her and talked to her. Maybe Maggie could think of something if Eden had the courage to confess her folly to her older friend. Of course, her father sure seemed hostile to Maggie at dinner last night. Perhaps he was jealous of Mr. Fletcher.

Now what had made that odd notion pop into her head? Eden had never questioned the fact that her handsome father had never remarried. He had kept company with several very respectable widow ladies over the years. Mariah Whittaker was the latest to set her cap for him, but Eden knew he would never succumb. She disliked Mariah. Maggie, however, was a far different matter. Eden felt a closeness, almost a mystical bonding with Maggie Worthingtonas if Maggie were a surrogate mother to replace the one Eden could not remember.

A smile lit her face. Wouldn't it be quite perfect if her father, the confirmed bachelor, fell in love with Maggie and married her? Perhaps in time he might even forgive his daughter for the awful betrayal that had cost her honor and had almost cost his life.

For the first time since she had run away with Judd Lazlo, Eden smiled as she left her room and tiptoed into the hall, careful not to awaken Maggie. She hoped to find someone stirring in the kitchenor if not, to at least find a bite to eat. Her stomach was growling with hunger. She had been much too nervous and upset last night to eat very much at dinner. She walked to the front stairs and looked down into the big saloon, which was deserted. The kitchen was somewhere in the back. She started down the steps in search of it. A huge walnut bar ran the length of one wall. Across the rest of the room card tables were scattered randomly. The chairs had all been carefully stacked seat side down around them and the floor beneath swept clean.

Eden had never been in a real saloon before, and her curiosity got the better of her empty stomach. She walked over to the bar and stared at the gaudy painting of a reclining nude that hung behind it, scandalized at the voluptuous feminine curves so brazenly revealed. The look on the model's face was one of breathless lassitude.

So intent was she on her inspection that she did not hear Seth Brodie enter until the drunken miner was upon her.

"Well, well, whut we got here, sweet thang? I ain't never seen none of Miz Maggie's gals up so early." He hiccuped and rubbed one bloodshot eyeball. "Now me, I jest keep on celebratin' clean through till mornin'. I don't hardly never sleep whilst I'm in town fer a toot."

Eden looked at his bearded face and inhaled the sour reek of cheap mescal. Greasy hair of an indeterminate color hung in his eyes. He was staring at her as if she were a bucket of cold beer in the middle of the Sonoran desert. He moved with amazing speed, grabbing her before she could back away.

"I'm not one of the girls"

"Shore yew are, sweet thang. Don't fun with me." A lewd grin came over his face as she twisted ineffectually, kicking at him with soft, kid-slippered feet. "'Course, yew 'n me cud go ta yer room 'n fun all we wanted."

"Let me go," Eden panted, dodging his fetid mouth as he tried to kiss her. God, she was so paralyzed with revulsion she could not seem to gather breath enough to scream for help.

"Do what the lady says." A soft voice cut through the warm morning air like a skinning knife through silk. Wolf stood in the back doorway, one hand resting negligently on the gun at his hip. "Now."

Brodie loosened his grip on Eden and stared at his adversary. "I don't give up no white woman to a breed," he said contemptuously, using Eden for cover while one hand slid to the back of his waistband for the Thuer Conversion Colt he always carried.

"Wolf, watch out! He's got a gun," Eden cried. When she twisted away from the big brute she lost her balance and fell to the floor.

Blake had seen the arm movement and drew his weapon with blurring speed, but held his fire until Eden was clear. Two shots rang out almost simultaneously. Brodie's went wild, discharging into the wall several yards away from Wolf, whose shot hit the drunken miner dead center, knocking him against the bar. Brodie slid down into a sitting position, already dead.

"Get up and get back to your room," Wolf said quietly as he pulled her from the floor where she had fallen. He could feel her cringe when his hands touched her arms. Maybe she preferred the drunken miner to a breed. Lots of white women did.

"L-let me go," she whispered, still breathless with terror.

"This is a dangerous town. You're in Sonora, lady. You can't go strolling around alone," he said angrily. Then he realized her eyes were glazed with fright, like a wounded fawn's. He dropped his hands. "Don't look at him," he said when she started to glance down at the dead man.

"You shot him," she said idiotically. Of course he did, to keep himself from being killed and to save you. Men like Wolf Blake were always involved in bar fights over loose women.

Just then the whole room seemed to fill with people. Colin raced down the steps, followed by Maggie and Bart. McCrory holstered his gun when he saw the dead man lying on the floor. He looked at Blake for an explanation.

"She came downstairs early and ran afoul of that drunk." Wolf gestured to Brodie. "I was out back getting our gear ready when I heard them."

Eden looked at her father and Maggie, then ran into Maggie's arms for comfort.

"I'll take her upstairs while you get rid of Brodie. He always was a troublemaker," Maggie said, noting the stricken look in Colin's eyes before he could hide it from her.

"If you've got everything ready, maybe it's best we leave as soon as Eden feels up to starting," Colin said to Wolf.

"But what about all Maggie's things? She can't just ride off and leave them behind. I was going to help her pack today," Eden protested.

Wolf watched the silent exchange between Maggie and Colin, making no move to do anything until they settled things.

"Has there been a change of plans, Megs?" Bart asked from his vantage point at the top of the stairs.

"Yes, there has," she replied quietly, feeling Eden stiffen in her arms. "I'm staying behind until I decide if Arizona Territory is really where I want to go."

"You can't!" Eden blurted out. "Oh, Maggie, I need you! I thought you . . ." She sobbed. I thought you were going to marry my father and make up for what I've done. "I thought you were my friend. Please don't leave me." Tears brimmed in those whiskey gold eyes. Her father's eyes. Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat. "Eden, I can't"

"Let's discuss this in private, if you don't mind," Colin said. The whole place was filling up with sleepy-eyed whores and Mexican servants, even a smattering of local shopkeepers on their way to work. Herding the two women ahead of him, he followed them upstairs, past Fletcher and into Maggie's private apartment, the scene of last night's debacle.

Maggie seated Eden on the settee, then poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the pier table. Both women looked at Colin expectantly, Eden with imploring hope in her eyes, Maggie with angry contempt, damned if she would make this any easier for him.

As he paced he finished fastening the last buttons of his shirt. He'd run out half dressed when he heard Eden's scream.

"Could we please have some coffee?" he asked Maggie. "I need to talk to my daughter alone if you don't mind."

Nodding silently at Colin, she smiled at Eden. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

When the door closed behind her, Colin resumed pacing. "Eden . . . I know Maggie's been kind to you, but"

"She understands, Father, the way only another woman can. A woman who's been through . . . what I have. I know the respectable women in Prescott would shun her if they knew about her pastbut what do you think they're going to do to me?"

"You're not like her, Eden."

"Yes! Yes, I am like her, only Maggie's honest and above board about what she used to do. Now she wants to start overand she couldif you'd help her. She's beautiful and well educated. She looks and acts like more of a lady than any of those women in Prescott you've kept company with over the yearsnot to mention that she's a whole lot smarter."

God, she was matchmaking! "Everyone will treat you decently when we get home. You don't need her, Eden. You have a fiancé who loves you.

She shook her head in desperation, wishing she had the courage to tell him the truth. "No, everyone won't. I'm ruined and I'll never marry Edward Stanley. Even if he were willing, his mother would put a stop to it after the gossip starts upand it will. I'll be alone. I'll have no one who understands without Maggie."

He sighed in frustration. "Eden, we can't just keep her at Crown Verde like a . . . a paid companion. She'd refuse."

"And I wouldn't blame her, especially after she's given up everything here and left Mr. Fletcher. I've watched the two of you together. I think you find her attractive, don't you?"

She looked at him with eyes now wiser and more sophisticated than her tender years should ever have allowed.

Colin swore silently, unable to deny it. "Yes, I find her attractive." For a whore. But he couldn't say that to Edennot in her present vulnerable condition. And he was afraid she was right about the scandal once he brought her home. If word of her abduction ever got out, it did not bear thinking about.

Eden pursued her small victory relentlessly now. "So, I was right. And, even though she won't admit it after the way you treated her last night, Maggie's attracted to you, too."

He cast a surprised look her way, irritated with her woman-of-the-world demeanor. "Presently, I rather doubt that," he replied dryly. "You're both being mule-headed foolsbut I bet Maggie would see some sense if you'd start to treat her right."

Guilt for his nasty, wounding words last night came back to smite him anew. He did owe her an apology. "I can offer my apologies to her, Eden, but that won't change anything. She can't just come to live with us."

"She could if you married her," Eden said triumphantly.

He blanched. "She told you," he accused in a low deadly voice.

"Told me what?" Eden asked, clearly baffled.

Colin sighed and folded his long body into Maggie's ridiculously delicate slipper chair. "Before she'd take us to where Lazlo was holding you, she made me a dealmarriage in return for her help." That should disillusion Eden about the marvelous Miss Maggie Worthington.

"And you agreedthen welshed, after you'd given your word?"

Put that way, it made Maggie sound like the aggrieved party! "No! I mean, well, I offered her a very sizable cash settlement in return for breaking the agreement."

"Of course, she refused."

"Of course," he snapped.

Now her eyes were doleful. And silently accusing. "She doesn't want your money, Father. There's something between you. And if you leave her behind now, we'll all loseyou, Maggie . . . and me."

"You really want this, even knowing that she tried to blackmail me into marriage? That she runs a whorehouse?" He leaned forward in the chair, his eyes locked with hers.

"Maggie's had to struggle to survive, but she risked her life riding into that canyon with you. If she forced your hand that way, well, it only proves my point. She does feel something for you."

Colin looked at the mulish set of her jaw, yet saw beyond that to the haunted, almost feverish longing in her eyes. He had played his last aceand lost. Maggie chose that exact moment to return, carrying a tray laden with coffee and freshly baked bread.

Chapter Five

Maggie surveyed their faces, his in rigid profile, Eden's turning to smile at her like a daisy reaching toward the sun. ''If I've interrupted, I'll leave," she said, setting down the tray on the tea table in front of her settee.

"No. Please stay," Eden replied. "Father and I have said all that we should to each other. Now I think it's time the two of you talked." With that she swept past Maggie and out of the room.

Maggie poured a cup of thick black coffee and handed it to Colin, knowing from the time spent camping along the trail that he drank it without cream or sugar. She stirred a dollop of cream into hers and sipped in silence.

Colin took a manful swallow of the scalding liquid, then clutched the cup in both hands and regarded her over the rim with troubled amber eyes. "I owe you an apology." She set her cup daintily on the table. "Did Eden force you to say that?"

Her expression seemed faintly amused and it irritated him. "No, she did not. I was angry last night and I let my temper get the better of me." And he was letting it get the better of him again. Maggie Worthington had that effect on him. When she said nothing, he took another swallow of coffee and added, "I told her about our bargain."

Her eyes clouded now. She had not meant for Eden to become involved in their private little war. "Eden's been hurt enough already, Colin. I'm sorry I had a part in her further disillusionment." You did not need to tell her about it.

"She thinks we should get married," he said flatly.

"What?" That was the last reaction she expected. "II would have thought she'd feel crushed by my bargain with you. That she'd never want to speak to me again."

Colin laughed mirthlessly. "Quite the contrary. She thinks you a paragon for refusing my bribe."

"I never meant to use her, Colin. You must believe that." There was entreaty in her voice, but she knew he did not believe her.

"What's done is done. You were right. She needs you right now, not me." He stood up and walked over to the window, rubbing the back of his neck with long brown fingers. Then he turned to face her and asked, "Will you come with us? At least as far as Tucson? Maybe by then . . ."

She could see the father's love in his eyes, shining forth so strong. She could also see despair and fear, never for himself, but for Eden.

"You may be the only friend she has left if word of her abduction gets out," he added.

Maggie nodded. "She would be ostracized. Have you given any thought to a story? Some explanation for almost a month's disappearance?"

He shrugged helplessly. "Only my housekeeper and foreman knowand Blake, but I trust him."

"So do I. He'd never do anything to harm Eden," she said, remembering the way the half-breed's eyes sought out Eden's pale blonde beauty and the restive way she seemed to be responding to him, perhaps a good omen. "Could you say she'd been visiting relatives back East or in California?"

He shook his head. "I have no family in the country and my wife's people are all dead now. No one would believe that . . ." His voice trailed away.

"I'll go back with you and Eden."

Preparations for the long ride back to Crown Verde took an extra day. With two women in the party, Colin decided to hire on two extra guns. The quiet older man was Fulhensio Rosa, a Mexican pistolero with a ready smile and an enormous waxed mustache. The other, an Anglo from somewhere in the South, was named Beau Price. Fletcher had secured him through mutual friends. For some reason Maggie took an intense dislike to him although she had never met him before Bart introduced them.

Well provisioned and armed to the teeth, the small party was ready to set out at dawn. Maggie lagged behind in the Silver Eagle, looking at the garish nude over the bar and the gaudy fixtures with their crude kerosene chimneys suspended from the ceiling. So many years of her past were tied up in this place.

"What lies ahead for you, Megs? Did you and McCrory patch it up? Are you really going to get all boring and respectable now?" Bart Fletcher walked down the steps slowly, clad in a robe of quilted satin, carrying a cup of coffee resting delicately in its saucer. He raised the cup in mock salute to her and sipped, then set it down on top of the flat newel post.

"You never get up before noon, Bart. I'm honored," Maggie said fondly, choosing not to answer his questions about Colin.

He smiled. "It was a trial . . . but then so is losing you. I could scarcely let you ride out of my life without a last farewell." Taking her hand in his, he raised it to his lips and kissed, first the back of it, then her open palm, holding it against his bearded cheek.

That was how Colin saw them as he walked through the doorway. "It's past time to ride, Sassenach," he said.

Bart released her hand, feeling the quick snatching movement of her arm pulling back at the sound of McCrory's voice.

"So that's the way it's to be," he whispered softly to Maggie. "Don't let him hurt you, Megs."

To Colin he said nothing, just stared with the ice blue eyes that had unnerved many a poker player in a high-stakes game over the years. The Scot returned his look through shrewd, hostile eyes. They nodded to each other in understanding.

"Good-bye, Bart. Take care of yourself," Maggie said. "I'll never forget you and I'll always be grateful."

"Hasta luego, Megs," he replied. He waited until she was almost out the door, then called after her cheerily, "I'm selling the Eagle. Who knows? Maybe I'll turn up in Arizona one of these days myself . . ."

Colin grimaced but said nothing as Maggie walked beside him to where the others were waiting. He would always believe the worst about her and Bart. Sighing to herself, she admitted that her former partner had not exactly helped matters since meeting Colin McCrory. Odd that she had the feeling he had known Colin before, perhaps a long time ago, but the Scot gave no indication of ever having seen Bart before she introduced them.

Looking excited if a bit nervous, Eden smiled at Maggie, who positioned her horse beside the girl's mount as they rode out of San Luís. The streets were deserted save for a few stray dogs whose yipping broke the silence of dawn. The small cavalcade wended its way down the long, narrow street as the purple shadows of dawn shortened and golden light broke over the horizon. Maggie Worthington never looked back.

The late afternoon heat pounded down on them relentlessly, bouncing back off the pale, parched earth like light reflected from a mirror. An occasional gust of dusty wind would relieve the oppression, drying the sweat to their sticky skin, providing fleeting illusions of the cool that would only come with sundown.

Maggie and Eden rode together, talking about the past and the future, getting to know one another. Maggie explained her mixed emotions about leaving Bart, and Eden described her life growing up on Crown Verde. Neither of them broached the broken marriage bargain between Maggie and Colin.

"It sounds as if you had a wonderful childhood on that big ranch. Eileen O'Banyon must really rule the roost even if your father and Riefe Cates did spoil you," Maggie said teasingly at one point.

Eden smiled as she rubbed her neck with a wet kerchief. "Everyone always jumps when Eileen cracks the whip, even Edward, but he's always been used to a woman running his life." She stopped suddenly and glanced over at Maggie.

"Edward. He's your fiancé?" "He was. Once the scandal about me gets out, Mrs. Stanley will make him break the engagement. His mother's a real tyrant. I always resented the fact that she controlled him so. I guess it made me lose respect for him in spite of the fact he's a successful attorney and territorial legislator."

"But he isn't a strong, independent man like your father?" Maggie knew the answer. "I imagine Colin McCrory will be a pretty difficult man for any suitor to emulate, Eden."

"I suppose my expectations were unrealistic," Eden said quietly. Regret for all she had foolishly thrown away washed over her. "Now no gentleman will ever look at me again."

Maggie wished she could say it was not true, but she feared it was and damned the hypocritical cruelty of polite society. "No man worth having would blame you for what happened. Just remember that if your fancy lawyer turns away."

Eden shook her head, wishing she had the courage to tell Maggie the truth. "My father blames you for your past, but he's still worth havingdon't give up on him, Maggie."

"My past is a great deal more besmirched than yours. I was a fool to try and blackmail Colin into marrying me. I hope you don't think too badly of me because of it?"

"You risked your life riding into that canyon with my father. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been there. Anyway, I know you would've shown him the way even if he'd said no."

Maggie smiled warmly. "Thank you for understanding. Your trust means a great deal to me."

Eden paused. Then, seeing that none of the men were riding near enough to overhear, she asked hesitantly, "II know it's none of my business, but you're so beautiful and bright and really well educated . . ."

"How did a woman like me end up in a place like the Silver Eagle?" Maggie supplied the rest of the unspoken question. She had a hunch about Eden McCrory. Maybe telling about her mistake would lead the girl to share her story as well. "I was born and raised in Boston. I came from a good family and had a dutiful father who sent me and my sisters to the best boarding schools. That was the fashionable thing to do in Boston in those days. Then when I was about your age I met a man named Whalen Price . . ."

Her eyes took on a faraway look as she began her story. She could see it all replaying in her mind, every painful scene, beginning back in Boston in 1863.

"But this just isn't right, Whalen," Margaret Leanna Worthington protested, leaning away from her young swain's most persuasive lips.

"Aw, Maggie darlin', you know it's the only way. We'll have to elope. Your father will never let us marry, what with him bein' such a rabid Union man and me bein' from Maryland." Whalen Price's voice betrayed the soft cadence of his border state birth although he had lived in Boston since he was twelve years old. "I can't join the Federals and shoot at my own relatives. The only solution is for me to leave, and I can't bear to be separated from you, Maggie."

The earnest entreaty in his voice melted her heart. "If only Papa weren't so unreasonable," she sighed, gazing into his warm hazel eyes. Maggie already had dozens of suitors, even before she had finished her education at the Pruitt Institute for Young Ladies. But none of them held a candle to the dashingly handsome blond Southerner who came to clerk for her father's big mercantile firm. It had been love at first sight. But her father, a rabid Republican and decorated campaigner from the Mexican War, was zealous in his insistence that his daughters not only marry wealthy Yankees but that his sons-in-law be staunch Federal supporters. Whalen Price was Southern, impoverished and unwilling to join the Federal Army.

Matters had come to a head the past month when Congress finally enacted a conscription bill which made it mandatory for all able-bodied men to either be inducted into the Union Army or pay a 300-dollar exemption fee. On his poor clerk's wages, Whalen could not do that.

"I still don't see how we can elope. You'll have no job. Papa will discharge you for certain once we wed without his consent. How will we survive?"

"You just let me worry about that. I'll find work out West, Maggie. With all the young men flocking to the war, there are jobs just crying to be filled." His fingers toyed with one long auburn curl falling over her shoulder.

When he leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder where the curl had rested, she quickly looked around the garden in back of the Hershfields' house. Soft music floated on the spring air, coming from the orchestra inside. She had come to Amelia Hershfield's birthday party with her two sisters. Whalen had sneaked in uninvited to dance with her on the patio when she slipped away from the press of the celebration. Her reputation would be in shambles if anyone caught her alone with Whalen Price, but she loved him and refused to consider the consequences. Closing her eyes, she let his warm, persuasive lips set fire to her skin.

A hot rush of pleasure sang along her nerves, sizzling her senses as Whalen's mouth trespassed lower, skimming over her collarbone, then dipping to brush the swell of her breasts. How much longer could she deny him? Her untutored seventeen-year-old body cried out for his touch. Other girls her age were already married with children on the way. His words broke into her jumbled thoughts.

"Say you'll elope. Please. I'm mad for you, Maggie, simply mad with wanting you. I have a plan." He punctuated his words with drugging kisses, feeling her virginal ardor flare.

"Oh, yes, Whalen, yes!"

Eight months later they were in Omaha. Now it seemed like a lifetime ago since she had been that vapid, stupid girl in the Hershfields' garden. Maggie surveyed the shabby hotel room, like a hundred others she'd seen, with its lumpy mattress and splintering bare floorboards. A cracked pitcher and basin stood on a rickety table in one corner and a chair sat across from it, strewn with Whalen's clothes.

Whalen. Her lover but not her husband. Knowing what she did now, she should be grateful for that.

"Gullible fool, I believed him and his story about waiting until we got settled and could plan a fancy weddingjust the kind I deserved. Well, I got just what I deserved, all right." She bit back a sob as she climbed out of the bed and fought the usual crushing ache in her back that always greeted her upon rising these days.

Clutching her rounded belly, she whispered, "Oh, little one, what kind of a world am I bringing you into?"

Maggie was determined it would be a world without Whalen Price in it. As soon as she had begun to grow heavy and shapeless in pregnancy, he voiced his disgust with her body. Then when she became sick and the doctor told her she could not do the heavy laundress work any longer without endangering her unborn child, he had become physically abusive. She would not let him ever again strike her and endanger her baby. Yesterday had been enough!

Maggie washed up as best she could, then brushed her hair and put it up in a smooth bun. Having only one dress left that fit her with its seams let out, her choice of wardrobe was a far simpler one than the other decisions she had to make. By the time she finished dressing and packed one pitiful carpetbag with her meager belongings, Whalen's footfalls sounded on the boardinghouse stairs.

He opened the door and stared broodingly at her with bloodshot eyes, not even noticing her packed bag. "You look like hell."

"I should. I've certainly been there," she replied as he shut the door and slumped onto the chair. "I suppose you've lost at cards again."

"You've become an incredible nag, Maggie. I have to do something to recoup our losses since you can't work," he said bitterly.

"Our lossesyes, the money you stole from my father's mercantile, then gambled away from Massachusetts to Nebraska. You took thousands."

"The old man was filthy rich. He could afford that and a whole lot more! A pity he didn't care enough about his beloved daughter to provide for her in her hour of need," he sneered, watching her blanch.

"You dared write to Papaafter all you've done?"

He shrugged in disgust as he pulled off his shoes and began to undress. "It was worth a try since you were too stubborn to do it."

"I knew he was through with me and I can't blame him. I was a fool to fall for your smooth talk, but I won't let an innocent baby pay for my sins."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked without interest. Yawning, he headed toward the bed, but Maggie's words stopped him. ''I'm leaving, Whalen. Mrs. Birkhauser at the Gilded Lily Saloon has offered me a room and a job keeping her books. She understands about the baby."

"The baby! The damn baby! That's all you've thought of ever since you started breeding. Well, go ahead. See if I care. You're no good to me the way you are nowtoo fat to bed and too sick to earn any money."

If any small part of Maggie Worthington had ever prayed that he would beg her forgiveness and promise to take care of her and their child, that hope died. So did all her faith and trust in men.

"Good-bye, Whalen," she said tonelessly. Picking up her bag, she headed for the door.

"You'll have to start earning yer keep now, dearie. I know it's hard, what with you still grievin' 'n all." Velda Birkhauser's voice was oily with solicitude as she looked at Maggie.

Maggie flushed and put down her cup. "I've been keeping up with the bookwork, Mrs. B. Ever since"she swallowed the hard lump in her throat and resumed"ever since the week after my daughter died, I've balanced the ledgers and"

Mrs. B, as her girls called her, laughed heartily, interrupting Maggie. "Dearie, I don't mean just a leetle addin' 'n subtractin'. I mean really earnin' yer keep. Why'd you think I took you infer charity? I ain't in the charity business," she stated flatly, letting the words sink in.

Maggie's heart froze in her chest. "You m-mean become one of your girls?" Her voice broke.

"It ain't exactly like you was a blushin' innocent, now is it? You been with men before."

Maggie's face flamed with mortification and guilt, but her eyes flashed blue flames as she stared at the round doughy face of the madam. How could she ever have thought those cold, dark eyes kind? I must be the world's poorest judge of character. "I've only been with one man."

"But he warn't yer husband, now was he? And he deserted you without a cent when I took you in."

"He didn't desert me. I left him," Maggie replied with a stubborn lift of her chin.

The old madam snorted. "Same difference. You got any kin that'll take you back?" Her puffy little eyes studied Maggie shrewdly. "I didn't think so."

"You planned this all along, didn't you? The first encounter at the laundry? The offer of a respectable job when the doctor told me I couldn't do heavy work . . . you led me on." Her fists clenched in helpless fury as she realized how she had been duped.

"Look at it this way. I paid fer yer keep these past two months. Even paid the doc to save your life when yer little girl died. I been real patient, waitin' fer you to heal up, but you gotta quit yer grievin' someday'n it might's well be today."

"Today!" Maggie shot up so abruptly the china on the table rattled.

"Well," Velda chuckled indulgently, "I reckon tonight would be more the thing. Margie and Laveryle are about your size. Try on some of their dresses and pick a few. Tomorrow I'll have our seamstress come in and make up some prettier fer you," she added, almost wheedling now.

Maggie sank back into the chair and stared at the half eaten wedge of bread and pile of scrambled eggs on her plate. Here at least she would have food and shelterand no man would ever raise his fist to her again. She had seen firsthand what happened when a customer at the Gilded Lily tried to get rough. A huge black man named Audi threw the offender into the street. Her daughter had died, stillborn after two days of agonizing labor. She had nearly died herself. My body has survived even if I have no soul left.

Maggie looked up and met Velda's eyes levelly. "All right. I'll start tonight. And by the end of the month I'll be the best paid whore in Omaha."

Maggie finished her tale of foolish infatuation and its terrible consequences, recounting her struggle to survive after leaving Omaha and finally ending by explaining how she met Bart Fletcher and how he changed her life. When she had finished the long narration, she looked over at Eden, who stared at her, riveted, with tears brimming in her eyes.

"Do you thinkif you'd gone home your father would've forgiven you?" Eden asked.

Although she knew Cain Worthington would never have done so, Maggie prayed that Colin McCrory was as different a father as she believed him to be. "He might have," she replied carefully, "but I never gave him a chance. He had always been so distant and sternand that was Boston, remember? He was nothing like your father, Eden."

Eden pondered, knowing now that she must confess the truth about Judd Lazlo to Maggie and ultimately even to her father. Then a thought struck her as she looked over at Beau Price, who had been assigned to ride point, watching for Apaches. "Is that why you seemed to dislike Mr. Price? Could he be related to Whalen?"

Maggie studied the beefy profile of the rider. "I doubt it. There's no physical resemblance and the name's common enough. I suppose it's the accentand I don't like his leering attitude."

"He has been rather . . . forward," Eden said with a blush. "I like Mr. Rosa ever so much better."

"Fulhensio is a good man. He's lived in San Luís off and on for the past forty years. You can trust him."

"What about Mr. Blake?" The question just seemed to ask itself, and Eden found herself blushing down to the roots of her hair.

Maggie smiled. "What about him? Personally, I like him. He rescued you from Brodie, who always was a mean devil."

"But Blake's a common gunman," Eden replied stiffly.

"So is Fulhensio Rosa, just older. Or do you object to Wolf's Apache blood?" Maggie asked, knowing that the long-standing fight between white settlers and Apaches had made most Arizonans hate Indians with unreasoning intensity.

"Of course not! My father is one of the few men in the territory to make peace with the Apaches. They've never raided us and always kept their word. Of course, so does my father. He's been fighting in Prescott, even gone to Washington to protest the way the Apaches are being cheated by government contractors and thieving Indian agents. He wants to be appointed agent for the White Mountain Reservation, but first he has to prove that Caleb Lamp is really in cahoots with Winslow Barker and his crowd."

"Somehow I have a difficult time imagining your father as a crusader," Maggie said dryly, looking at Colin's erect carriage on his big buckskin horse as he rode ahead of them.

"He has a lot of fine qualities you should learn about," Eden said earnestly. Before they reached Tucson she had to find a way to get her father and Maggie to agree to their original bargain.

Taking a deep breath, Eden said, "I'm going to need your help, Maggiewhen we get home more than ever. There's something I haven't told you . . . about Judd Lazlo . . ." Her voice faltered as she looked around. None of the men were within earshot.

"You mean that he didn't kidnap you?" Maggie supplied gently.

Eden's mouth rounded in an O of surprise. "How did you know?"

"I suspected, but I couldn't be sure. Some things just didn't add up. You obviously grew up adoring your father, yet you've scarcely let him near you after he rescued you. You feel guilty because you've lied to him, don't you?"

"It's worse than that," Eden whispered brokenly. "Lazlo and his men talked about their plans to kill my father. I was the bait for their trap! They were hired by those men in Tucson, my father's enemies."

"I see," Maggie said. This was certainly getting more complicated than she had ever imagined. "Eden, you were deceived by Lazlo. He set out to trick youin an even more despicable, underhanded way than Whalen Price did me. You're a victim, child, and you would have been killed, tooif your father hadn't loved you enough to risk everything to save you."

"When we get back to Prescott, it's all going to come out. Louise Simpson lied for me all those times I slipped out to meet Lazlo. I told Eileen I was going for a visit at Louise's place when I ran off with him. Mrs. Simpson will wring the truth out of Louise now, then tell Father when we get home."

"Then you'll just have to tell him first," Maggie said, praying that her gut instinct about Colin's love for his daughter was right.

Eden bit her lip. "I know, but I just don't know how. It'll hurt him so much"

"It would've hurt him a lot more to see you dead." "There were times after I found out what Lazlo wasI prayed for death. When I put the centipede in his boot, I hoped he'd shoot me before he died."

"Enough! That's all behind you now and you're back with your family who love you. You'll have lots to live for, Eden, believe me. I know."

"You never gave up hope?"

"Almost, when my daughter died . . . but, no. I kept on fightingjust like you will."

"Maggie . . . Do you think I could . . . that is, would you mind ifif I sort of become your daughter?" Before Maggie could reply, Eden rushed on, "I'm the age she would have been if she'd lived, and I never knew my own mother."

Maggie's eyes glowed with unshed tears as she reached out her hand and took Eden's in a fierce grip. "Like I said, Eden, you're with your family nowand we love you. I love you and I consider myself very lucky to be given this second chance to have a daughter."

By the time they stopped for the night, everyone was exhausted, hot and irritable, but Colin had insisted they push hard through the day. The border country between Arizona and Mexico was where the renegade Apache Victorio raided. The sooner they were safely in Tucson, the better.

As she slid stiffly from her horse, Maggie rubbed her posterior and groaned. "Now I remember why I always detested horses. It's not their fault, but their backbones are hard as granite and their gait bumpy as a washboard."

Overhearing her, Colin quirked one eyebrow. "Maybe it's not the horse's fault but the person atop it."

"I never claimed to be an expert horsewoman. The only reason I learned to ride at all was because the roads in Sonora are too rough for a decently sprung carriage."

"Who told you that you had learned to ride?"

"Maybe the same fellow taught me to ride who taught you Scots poetry," she replied crossly.

Colin sighed and pulled the saddle off Sand. "I suppose that fellow who didn't teach me the right poetry or you the right way to sit a horse also didn't teach you anything about cooking?"

She smiled guilelessly. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd better make supper," he snapped. "You can help."

Maggie looked at him with surprise since he had kept his distance from her after their tense truce two days earlier. "Just tell me what you want me to do."

After the men saw to the horses, Colin sent Eden off with Fulhensio to gather firewood while he and Maggie unpacked the simple trail fare: dried beans, slab bacon and hardtack. Wolf and Price rode out to look for Indian sign and select the best sentry sites in the rough rocky terrain.

"Do you think we'll encounter Victorio?" she asked as she brought a pot of water from the trickling stream that surfaced a few yards from their campsite.

Colin threw several generous handfuls of dried beans into the pot to soak. "I don't know. We didn't riding south, but Wolf and I moved a lot faster. Traveling with white women is always dangerous in this country. You know that. If we should have trouble with any Apache"

"Eden told me you were their champion. You're supposed to have some sort of agreement with them."

"That's with the peaceful ones at White Mountain. Victorio's a renegade. Not that I fault him his reasons for jumping the reservation, but if he comes on us, there'll be no parlays." Suddenly Maggie intuited where the conversation was leading. An icy white rage swept over her and she threw down the sack of hard biscuits and stood up. "If you think"

"If we were surrounded, cut off with no hope of escape, I want you to stay close to Eden. You know what to do . . . for both of you." His voice was hard and ice cold.

"Death before dishonor," she said bitterly. "Aren't you asking the wrong person?"

"Don't be stupid"

"Don't you be stupid! We could die fighting, but I damn sure won't die if there's any chance for lifeeven the life of a squawand faced with the real choice, most women would agree. I think Eden would."

He stood very close to her now, the food on the ground forgotten as he took another step nearer, his hands itching to shake her hard. "Don't think just because of what happened to Eden that you're some sort of sisters under the skin now, because you're not! You're nothing alike. Nothing!"

Maggie acted out of pure reflex before she could stop herself. She slapped him, hard. "You arrogant self-righteous prig! I'm surprised you didn't shoot her to end her shame back in that canyon!"

Flames leaped in his eyes, scorching and smoldering as he struggled to lessen his fury. "For someone who's lived here all these years, you haven't the sense of a halfwit! I'm not talking about death or dishonorI'm talking about torture! Have you ever seen a man staked out over an ant hill until the insects eat his eyeballs away while he's still screaming? Or a woman impaled with a war lance thrust up between her legs?"

"I've learned a hell of a lot living here!" she shouted back. "Raiders like Victorio don't have time for those kinds of atrocities. They kill and stealsometimes they rape women, but I've never heard of his band mutilating a female captive."

"Well, you've heard wrongand I've seen firsthand evidence of it." He swore savagely and turned away, running his hands through his hair. "It's unlikely we'll run afoul of a raiding party large enough to challenge our guns. Just forget I ever said anything to you."

"If you hurt her, Colin McCrory, I swear I'll kill you!" She turned and walked quickly away before they said even more terrible things to each other. She had hoped, had believed that Colin would not be like her own father, that he would love Eden enough to forgive her youthful indiscretion. Now she was no longer certain.

Dinner that evening was quiet, but no one noticed the crackling hostility between Maggie and Colin. Everyone was simply too exhausted by the long ride to care. The two women were given a place to sleep near the fire while the men took turns at sentry duty in pairs while the others slept in three-hour shifts. They were on the trail the next morning before the sun crested the eastern mountains.

Several hours later, Colin studied the western horizon with troubled eyes. Although it was nearly noon, the sky was dark with swirling iron gray clouds massing low and moving toward them.

"Looks like the granddaddy of all sand storms blowing up. There may be some rain in it," Wolf said.

"I doubt it, but just in case, we'd better head for that high ground." Colin pointed to a series of jagged hills spotted with greasewood and catclaw.

"We'll tear hell out of our gear and the horses," Wolf said, but knew that the alternative of being on low ground, caught out in the open when the southwestern skies opened up, could mean sudden death by lightning or drowning in a flash flood.

Colin issued orders and everyone turned their horses to the high ground, but before they had reached the shelter of the rocks, the winds came billowing across the desert like dragon's breath. Sand stung humans and livestock, enveloping everyone in blinding, suffocating gray. Horses whinnied and jumped, sidestepping in fear and pain as the men attempted to calm their terror. Price had the pack animals firmly in hand, and Rosa was controlling the stolen Crown Verde racers.

When Eden's mare shied and tried to bolt, Wolf quickly grabbed her reins, but Maggie had been riding next to Eden and was in far more trouble. Colin saw her gelding rear up, almost throwing her as the winds whipped her hat off and tore the pins from her hair which wrapped around her face, blinding her. The gelding bolted, racing out onto the open plain, away from their small caravan. Colin spurred Sand into a swift gallop, pursuing Maggie before she vanished into the clouds of dust, her cries for help blown away by the howling roar of the wind.

Maggie struggled to control her terrified mount, but she was no match for the big horse. Never a good rider, all she could do was hold on for dear life and pray the stupid beast didn't break both their necks. If she fell beneath the pounding hooves onto the hard rocky earth, Maggie knew she would perish in the desert.

Then over the scream of the wind she heard a man's voice, Colin's voice, yelling as a strong right arm reached out and steadied her.

"Hang onto me!" The wind blew away his words, but she seemed to understand. She wrapped her arms around his neck, plastering her body to his as he pulled her from her horse. Lifting her across the saddle, he guided his big stallion toward the higher ground as sand continued to scour his face and sting his eyes. Maggie buried her head against his chest as her hair whipped wildly around her shoulders.

Colin rode between a big boulder and a sharp wall of rock about ten feet high, enough to provide some minimal shelter for them and Sand. The stallion stood obediently, head down, avoiding the worst of the storm's onslaught. Colin slid from the saddle and lifted her down, then pulled her with him to lie on the ground at the base of the stone facing.

He covered her body with his and used his wide brimmed hat as a partial shield, holding it over their faces. Maggie lay against him, feeling the weight of his big lean frame pressing against hers, feeling the unyielding rock at her back. Colin's body was almost as hard as the ground, yet it felt warm and alive as death howled all around them. She could hear the thudding of his heartbeat and took comfort in its steady rhythm. The whiskers on his jaw rasped softly against her cheek, reminding her of his raw male vitality. The old revulsion, so well remembered since Whalen, did not come. Instead, an insidious warmth, a sense of belonging, of being sheltered and cherished by this harsh, enigmatic stranger filled her with inexplicable bittersweet longing. For the first time Maggie Worthington admitted to herself why she had proposed her bold bargain to Colin McCrory. And it had nothing to do with escaping from Sonora or regaining respectability.

Chapter Six

Colin could feel the curve of her hip, the pillowing softness of her generous breasts, and he knew he was rapidly becoming as randy as a green boy, right in the middle of a blinding sandstorm. Maggie's lush body and quick mind had attracted him from their first encounter. Small wonder, he thought wryly. He had been without Mariah's charms for some weeks now. The response was natural enough. He simply needed a woman, and an attractive one lay beneath him, pressed intimately against his body.

Yet Mariah Whittaker's prim, cool beauty faded and became distorted in the storm-laden air. All his mind's eye could picture were the golden skin and wide China blue eyes of his Sassenach. When had he begun to think of Maggie as his? She was a whoreany man's womanfor a price. Even as he silently reiterated the accusation, Colin knew it was neither fair nor true. He had known his share of whores in his checkered career, and Maggie Worthington was unlike any of them. In fact, she was unlike any woman he had ever met. What had sent a woman of obvious refinement and good breeding down the road to ruin? And, after carving out a life of comfort and financial independence for herself, what had possessed her to make her outrageous proposal to him?

Best if I never know.

Feeling the jab of a stone, Maggie shifted her weight slightly and her hip rubbed across his. Their legs were entwined and one of hers had ridden up between his thighs. She could feel the unmistakable pressure of his erection against her belly and thought he muttered a low oath, although it was impossible to hear distinctly over the howl of the storm. Then he placed his mouth directly over her ear and yelled so she could understand him.

''I'm going to get a blanket off the saddle roll. Hold this over your face so you can breathe!" He thrust his hat at her, covering her face with it, then stood up and moved away from her.

Maggie was assailed by a sense of loss that far transcended the stinging sand buffeting her body with every gust of wind. In a moment he was back, rolling them together under the protection of the blanket. The scorching abrasion abated as he once again protected her from the onslaught of the elements with his body. The blanket enabled them to breathe much more freely, filtering out the dust and sand more effectively than the meager protection of his hat.

Colin could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck and imagined how soft her lips would be pressed to his skin. The brief respite of moving away from her had done little to quell his rebellious body. Now, cocooned in the blanket with her, he once again felt the insistent throbbing of desire, as fierce and hot as the desert wind.

Trying to detour his mind from the immediate problem, he considered what to do when they reached Tucson. Maggie and Eden had become inseparable. He feared his daughter might well refuse to return home without her new friend. He could offer Maggie the marriage she had originally bargained for, but the idea galled his pride. Anyway, she would probably say no with the same cool contempt she had employed last time: Consider our bargain finished. You welshed. I accept it. He had welshed and it bothered him.

The sand began to pile up around them. Maggie found her fingers clutching at Colin's back, her nails digging in as she burrowed against him, hungry for his solid, reassuring presence. His strength and vitality were life, while all around them the threat of death howled in the wind.

Colin responded to the brittle desperation that he felt in her body as she pressed closer to him. He lifted her chin with one hand and brought his mouth down over hers, covering it as he covered her body. Sand gritted between their teeth and the kiss tasted of dust. And still it was sweet, and her lips were soft, yielding.

We may die out here, buried alive. Maggie opened for his invading tongue, relishing the hot male insistence of it, the life force surrounded by desolation yet defying it. His mouth ground over hers as his tongue thrust deep, twining with hers. She could feel the pads of his fingers massaging her scalp as he cradled her head in his hand. Her own lips moved greedily over his, melding with them, returning his kiss with a wild abandon she had never felt before. As suddenly as it had blown up, the wind died. Gradually they became aware of the eerie silence, broken abruptly when Colin's big stallion stamped his foot and snorted restlessly. Colin pulled away from her, breaking off the fierce kiss and rolling free of the blanket, now covered with a thick layer of sand and debris. Maggie turned her head away, refusing to look him in the eye and see the harsh mockery she knew would be there. She had just behaved like the very doxy he believed her to be. Busy berating herself for a fool, she was surprised when he reached out his hand and pulled her gently to a sitting position. A spasm of coughing caught her as she tried to take a deep, calming breath.

"I'll fetch the canteen," he said, stepping over to unfasten it from his saddle.

She took the proffered drink gratefully. He watched her swallow and his eyes followed the muscles contracting down her slender golden throat with its soft sun-kissed skin. Now he had touched and tasted that skin, and he wanted more.

"Careful, don't drink too much or you'll get stomach cramps," he warned.

His voice was oddly neutral-sounding, as if he, too, wanted to forget the insanity that had just passed between them. Steeling herself, she met his eyes. "I owe you my life, Colin," she said simply.

"I owe you Eden's, and she still needs you," he replied, his voice tight.

"So now we're even." He made no comment. She looked down at her ruined clothes and tangled hair. "I feel as if the sand is imbedded in every pore of my skin," she said, shaking out her blouse and brushing her riding skirt.

"If we make up for this lost time, we should reach a good-sized spring by nightfall. You and Eden can enjoy a bath." She studied his profile as he recapped the canteen and hung it on the saddle. "You seem to know a lot about this trail for a man who's only traveled it once before."

A shuttered look came over his face as he pulled her to her feet. "I've ridden into Sonora before. A long time ago," he added with harsh finality in his voice, indicating the subject was closed.

Just then Wolf's greeting echoed from across the next rise. "You both all right?"

"Yes. What about Eden?" Colin yelled back.

"She's fine. So's everyone else. We lost one horsenot one of your racers. We were damn lucky."

Nodding in agreement, Colin shook out the blanket and rolled it up, then tied it behind his saddle and mounted up before pulling Maggie up in front of him. They rejoined Wolf without speaking another word to each other.

True to his word, Colin led the small caravan to a veritable oasis in the desert. Tall oak trees clustered around the spot where the underground spring burst forth from a jagged crevice in the earth and trickled down to form a series of small secluded pools. The last and largest of them was a distance from the first two, hidden by the rocky landscape and sheltered by chaparral and paloverde.

"It's absolutely beautiful!" Eden exclaimed.

"So green and pristineas if this afternoon's sandstorm never touched it," Maggie said, unable to forget the storm or what had happened during it.

They set to unpacking the horses and led them to water, then made camp. Wood was abundant and easily gathered. Soon Fulhensio had a fire set against the night chill which would come with sundown. Colin and Wolf scouted the area for any recent sign of Apache. Price was assigned sentry duty until their return. Eden and Maggie set out for the furthest pool with fresh clothes, toiletries and towels, eager to bathe days of travel grime from their hair and skin.

As they stripped and waded into the heavenly cool of the water, Maggie sighed in bliss, then lay back in the water for a moment with her eyes closed until Eden's next words caused them to pop open.

"I've been watching you and Father all afternoon. Ever since the two of you disappeared during the storm, you've both been acting edgier than usual around each other."

Maggie tried to shrug beneath Eden's whiskey gold gaze. Her father's eyes, damn him.

"Did something happen between you?" A sly smile curved her lips.

"In the middle of a sandstormin the desert?" Maggie scoffed.

"Something happened," Eden replied stubbornly. Then seeing that Maggie was not going to reveal what, she changed the subjectslightly. "What are you going to do when we reach Tucson?"

"Oh, I don't know. I could get a stage to Yuma and then up to San Francisco," Maggie said vaguely, sudsing her body with perfumed soap.

"You don't want to leave us, do you? I don't want you toand even though he won't admit it yet, neither does Father."

"Your father and I have only you in common, Eden. Much as I love you, that isn't the way to begin a relationship with him."

"Then why did you ask him to marry you in the first place?" Eden asked with relentless logic as she worked shampoo through her hair.

"That was a mistake."

The ragged tone of Maggie's voice spoke volumes to Eden. "He's being a fool, but he'll come around. Give him time . . . Maggie, I don't just want you to stay with us for myselfas an ally when I tell my father about Lazlo."

"I know, Eden," Maggie replied.

While the two women talked below in the water, above, hidden in the rocks, Beau Price watched them. A leering grin crossed his beefy red face as he examined their ample charms. The redhead was lushly curved, but there was an air of self-sufficiency about her that made him uneasy. The blonde appealed moreyoung, pale and delicate, but above all, vulnerable. He rubbed his crotch and thought of plunging between those smooth, slender white thighs.

His erotic reverie was taken up short when the icy edge of a knife blade grazed his throat. "Make a sound and I'll cut your throat, Price," Wolf whispered as he backed the other man down the pathway, out of sight of the women, who were dressing now, completely unaware of the invasion of their privacy.

"You sneaked up quiet as an Injun," Price said, rubbing his throat and eyeing Blake nervously. "Hell, I didn't do nothin'. There's no harm in lookin'."

"No harm in spying on Colin McCrory's daughter in her bath?" Wolf said in a deadly voice.

Price gave a low, ugly laugh as the surprise of Wolf's actions wore off. "Why hell, Blake, they're both damaged goods. McCrory's girl ain't no different than that fancy house madam."

"You keep your filthy mouth off of Miss McCrory, Price."

Price's yellow eyes narrowed and he spat out of the side of his mouth. "Well, well, the breed's got the hots for the little blonde hisself. I reckon you're good enough fer her, toonow that all Lazlo's men used her." Blake swung a fast, hard punch that connected full with Price's midsection, knocking the air from his lungs with a giant whoosh. He doubled over, then twisted away, gulping air into his lungs as he grabbed his gun, but Wolf smashed Price's hand against the boulder behind him until he dropped the weapon.

With a curse, Price swung on Blake, but the blow only grazed the slimmer, younger man. Wolf landed a sharp jab to Price's jaw, followed by another to his stomach. Then Price, who had a good thirty pounds on Blake, shook his head like an enraged grizzly and waded forward, trapping his faster, more skilled opponent between the rocks. When Price moved in with big meaty fists raised, Wolf ducked, and the blow meant to take off the top of his head cracked against the rock wall behind him.

Price cursed in agony as he drew back his broken knuckles, but before he could take a breath, Blake was on him, raining hard, vicious punches to his nose, jaw, throat and belly until the big man's knees buckled and he went down.

Eden and Maggie, who had finished dressing and headed toward camp, heard the sounds of a struggle up in the rocks across the other side of the pool. The younger woman dashed toward the embattled men just as Colin rode in.

"Father, he'll kill him," Eden said.

Colin had seen the two women returning, fresh from bathing. He had a pretty good idea of why Blake was administering the beating to Price. He waited until Wolf pulled the unconscious man up by his shirt front for another blow, then stepped in. "You'll only break your hand. He can't feel it."

"He will when he wakes up," Wolf said savagely after delivering the last punch. He dropped the inert body into the dust and stood up, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His eyes immediately moved from McCrory to Eden, who watched him with a mixture of fear and confusion on her face.

"You could've killed him," she accused. "Why?" Because you're a gunman. You like to kill. Just like Lazlo.

"I had my reasons." Wolf met her angry expression with a shuttered look that revealed nothing, but his fathomless black eyes held her golden gaze hypnotically.

"You'd better soak those hands before they start to swell," Colin said to Wolf, noting the currents between the half-breed and his daughter. "Take her back to camp," Colin instructed Maggie curtly, wanting Eden away from the ugliness that was brewing.

Wordlessly Maggie took her young charge by the arm and they walked away from the men.

Colin turned to Rosa, who had brought a bucket of water from camp and motioned for him to revive the unconscious gunman.

With a wide grin, the older man threw the water in a great splash. Price groaned and began to roll over, clutching his stomach with one hand and his profusely bleeding, ruined nose with the other.

"I'll pay your wages in the morning, Price. I want you headed for San Luís at first light. If I ever see you in Arizona, I'll kill you myself."

"I didn't do nothin'. Thet breed there, he"

"I caught you spying on the ladies while they bathedand saying things about Miss McCrory you ought to be gelded for," Wolf gritted out.

Colin's eyes narrowed. He had been sure about the spying, but as to the other, it made him nervous to have a breed gunman championing Eden's honor. "You're lucky I don't finish what Blake started, Price," Colin said softly. "Don't tempt me by saying anything more." The thickening of the burr in his voice betrayed his agitation.

Beau Price subsided, nursing his broken nose in silence as he glared sullenly at McCrory's departing figure.

Eden listened from behind the copse of mesquite where she had insisted they stop to eavesdrop, her cheeks flushed with anger and humiliation.

Maggie touched her arm gently. "I figured Wolf had a good reason for what happenedand that it concerned you."

"He was there, too. He must've seen us the same way Price did." The idea of Wolf Blake's hard black eyes observing her naked was even more upsetting. At least she would never have to face Beau Price again.

Maggie smiled shrewdly. "I doubt Wolf is the voyeur that Price is. But he is your champion. You could do worse, I think."

Eden's startled eyes turned hard as amber glass. "I already have. Lazlo was trying to kill my father. Wolf Blake works for him. But they're both hired killers."

She turned and fled back to camp with Maggie trailing after her. Eden's hurts would take a long time to heal. Maggie wondered if the young half-breed could be the key to that healing.

That night Fulhensio cooked some fish he had caught downriver, and baked fresh biscuits. Everyone but Price feasted. He lay curled up on his bedroll with a flask of cheap whiskey to ease his misery. The other men bathed and shaved before dinner, and Rosa even waxed his mustache to dramatic proportions. Maggie's eyes traveled to Colin as he assigned sentry duties. She could still feel the rough abrasion of his beard on her cheeks and throat. Her lip was even cut from his harsh, savage kiss. And I was just as wildly out of control as he was. What was his fascination for her? She had lived without a man since those months of travesty with Whalen, and that was a lifetime ago.

I don't need Colin McCrory. The crackling night fire hissed, Liar.

Colin felt her gaze follow him. Even ten feet away he could swear he smelled lilies of the valley, although he knew it must be his imagination. What insanity had taken hold of him this morning in that storm? He was behaving worse than a stag in rutover a common saloon whore! But honesty forced him to admit there was nothing common about Maggie Worthington, no matter how disreputable her past.

What the hell would he do when they reached Tucson? Eden was determined that he keep his word and marry the woman. Would it be so unthinkable? She could certainly act the part of a refined lady, and no one in Arizona knew of her past. But I would know.

Marrying a woman like Maggie would be a betrayal of Elizabeth, and he could never imagine that. If only Eden had been old enough to remember her mother, so modest and soft-spoken, yet firm in her convictions. Elizabeth had been a lady born and bred. No acting was ever required from her. Everything good and decent he had aspired to become and had achieved he owed to his wife and her support of him. He could not remarry anyone, least of all a woman of carnal appetites such as the alluring witch sitting across the campfire, silently taunting him by her very presence. Whatever was to be done, there was precious little time in which to reach a decision. They would cross the border into Arizona Territory in a few days. Colin looked over to where Beau Price lay in the shadows, passed out cold. Without Price's extra gun, they'd do best to push harder. Maybe he could hire a few more pistoleros in Calabasas, the border town he was eager to reach. At least it meant sleeping on something that passed for a bed after the rigors of the trail. It also meant he would not have to watch Maggie brushing her hair by firelight, as she did every night.

He could not resist staring at the thick dark waves that fell to her waist, crackling and glowing like the burnished coals in the fire. She sat away from the men, but the chill desert nights kept the women near the fire's warmth. Eden was already asleep. With deft fingers, Maggie plaited her hair into a fat loose braid, then turned down her bedroll and climbed in beside her young charge. He knew she was aware of his perusal even though she gave no overt sign of it. Cursing, he stalked into the dark to take the first turn at guard duty.

The sun rose, a hot sullen ball of dull orange, as the small caravan headed north, minus one rider. Beau Price was left behind to sleep off his hangover and then ride the opposite direction. They had made only a few miles when Wolf signaled from the rise ahead.

Apaches!

Colin scanned the open rocky ground where the only cover was greasewood and saguaros. One jagged pile of rocks lay about a half mile to the west. The raiders, according to Wolf's signal, were approaching from the east. Slapping Eden's horse forward, he yelled at Maggie, ''Ride for that point while we cover you!" She was already pulling the rifle from her saddle scabbard as she spurred her horse after Eden. Wolf had come streaking down the rise, lying flat against his horse's neck as shots whizzed all around him, kicking up puffs of dust. A party of nearly a dozen Apaches followed, about two hundred yards away but closing swiftly. Once Colin leveled his rifle and shot the man in the lead from his pony, the others slowed their headlong rush, seeing two more armed men.

Then one of the Apaches saw the two women riding toward the rocks and veered away to cut them off. Three of the others followed while the rest headed toward the men. All the savages molded themselves against their fleet small mustangs, making difficult targets for the three men who kept up a steady barrage of fire. One Apache's horse went down with his rider, but the rest were gaining on the women.

Suddenly Maggie reined in and stopped her horse, then turned in the saddle and drew a bead on the closest Apache barreling down on her with his arm raised, whooping a bloodcurdling cry of victory. She dropped him with a clean shot through his chest, then aimed for the next one.

"Maggie, get the hell away!" Colin yelled. He, too, fired at her target, but from his galloping horse he missed. She didn't.

The raider left was now caught in a withering crossfire between Maggie and the three white men. He wheeled his lathered mount around and regrouped with the rest of the Apaches, who had fallen back in their pursuit of Colin, Wolf and Fulhensio. By this time Colin had caught up to Maggie and they spurred their horses after Eden. As they entered the protection of the rocks, he seized her reins and pulled Maggie's horse to a halt. "What the hell were you doing out there? Trying to commit suicide?" he yelled as he leaped to the ground and pulled her down to face him.

"I can't ride worth shucks, but I'm a damned good shotas you must have noticed," Maggie said calmly.

"You damn fool! They could've caught youor shot you off your horse."

"They could've ridden us both down if I hadn't slowed them up, too."

"Oh, Maggie, thank God you're safe! I was almost here when I saw what you'd done to save me," Eden said, hugging her friend. Then she looked up at her glowering father. "She saved my life, Father."

"I suppose that means I owe youagain," he snarled at Maggie.

"I suppose it does," she replied calmly.

They pushed on after changing their saddles to the spare horses. The ride that day was a brutal one, as they attempted to put as much distance between them and the Apaches as possible. After two days of riding all the horses in shifts, they reached Calabasas, a small, dusty town just north of the border.

While Rosa and Wolf made arrangements for their exhausted mounts, Colin and the women went to what passed for a hotel.

"It's not much, but at least we can sleep without sentries," he said as Maggie and Eden surveyed the bare adobe building baking in the late afternoon sun. It was built on the traditional southern Arizona floor plan with small high windows and three-foot-thick walls to keep the sun at bay. The rooms were arranged in a row across the fifty-foot front with a sun porch facing onto the courtyard behind. A few scraggly pines and a madrone tree offered a bit of shade. Dust hung heavy in the air as they walked into the dark interior through a narrow doorway. Colin had to duck his head to enter. A short, rotund woman with skin like parchment and eyes like raisins smiled a toothless welcome.

"I'll need your best room for the ladies and three beds for me and my men," he said in serviceable border Spanish.

Knowing he lived far to the north near the Anglo capital of Prescott, Maggie again wondered at his fluency with border language and his familiarity with the land, but Eden quickly diverted her attention by mentioning the well visible outside the back door.

"Do you think we could get baths in our rooms?" she speculated.

Colin made the arrangements, and the old crone ushered the women into the courtyard. Colin touched Maggie's arm lightly, and she stopped as Eden followed her hostess.

"Tomorrow we reach Tucson. We need to talk tonight. In private."

"All right." Her heart skipped a beat but her voice was steady. She looked into his eyesand read nothing.

"Meet me out back by the well at moonrise, after the rest are asleep."

Maggie lay on the hard, lumpy, corn husk mattress, staring at the ceiling where fallen chunks of plaster had left ugly gray patterns. Eden had not made a sound for a quarter hour. Silently Maggie sat up and slid off the crude bed, moving slowly so the leather straps supporting the mattress would not creak.

"You're going to meet Father, aren't you?" Eden's voice broke the stillness. Maggie sighed. "It's not for a moonlight tryst, dear heart."

"I know." Eden paused, then said, "I want to tell him about Lazlo. I've been working up my courage all week on the trail, but I can't seem to do it."

"Just try and sleep now. It'll all work out. You'll see." Maggie left the dark room, hoping Eden could sleep. Lord knew she herself would get no rest this troubling night. We'll end it between us once and for all.

Colin stood in the shadows, watching her approach the well. Bright moonlight spilled over her hair, making it gleam like dark fire as she walked with that sensuous assurance that irritated him and inflamed his blood at the same time. She had long legs for a woman. Long and slender and pale. He could imagine running his hands over them, feeling them wrap securely around his hips. He cursed himself and stepped away from the madrone tree, blocking her path with his body.

Maggie let out a startled gasp. "You're as quiet as Blake. He's supposed to be the Apache."

"Half Apache. Do you fancy the type?" he asked, his face hidden in shadows.

She scoffed in disgust. "Wolf's young enough to be my son."

Now his face turned toward the light and one eyebrow arched sardonically. "You did get an early start, didn't you?"

She raised her hand to slap him, then forced herself to lower it and remain calm. "You'll never forget my start, will you, Colin? You were attracted to me the minute you walked in the Silver Eagle." She turned and sighed in perplexity. "Hell, I was attracted to you the same way. But that's not the stuff of dreams, is it? It's only lust. Respectable businessmen with political ambitions like you can't afford to indulge."

"You make me sound contemptible," he said bitterly, disliking himself.

"You don't owe me for Eden, Colin."

He raked his fingers through his hair. "Yes, dammit, I do owe you for Eden! You risked your life to save her from the Apaches. You saved her sanity after that bastard Lazlo abducted her."

"What are you trying to say, Colin? That your sense of honor doesn't permit you to marry me, but doesn't permit you to walk away from me either?"

"I don't know what I'm trying to say. I never thought to marry again. Eden's mother was . . . was someone very special, a true lady who took an ignorant immigrant stockman and taught him . . ." He raised his hands, then dropped them with a sigh. "Taught him everything that was important."

A real lady. The words galled her. "Once, long ago, Margaret Leanna Worthington was a real lady, too," she said softly.

"But you threw it all away and ended up with a man like Fletcher?" he accused, without really intending to.

She gave a shaky laugh. "Oh, I met a lot worse than Bart Fletcher."

"What Maggie means is when she was my age she met a man like Judd Lazlo," Eden said, emerging from the shadows on the porch.

"Eden, don't"

"I have to tell him sometime, Maggie. He thinks I'm like my motherperfect. That I was an innocent victim of Lazlo."

"You were, Eden," Maggie said as tears thickened her voice. Colin stared from one woman to the other, with growing unease. "Would one of you mind telling me what's going on here?"

"Judd Lazlo didn't kidnap me. I ran away with him."

Eden's words dropped like stones in the still night. Colin stood frozen, staring incredulously at his only child while tears ran silently down Maggie's cheeks.

"Lazlo used me. He set out to seduce me just so he could lure you into a trap when you followed us. I thought he was dangerous and romanticall the same girlishly naive notions Maggie had back in Boston. You see, Father, I'm really more like her than like my perfect mother, but Maggie only ended up endangering herself. I could've gotten you killed as well. I wanted to die out there. I'm so sorry . . ."

Colin's trance broke as sobs began to wrack Eden's slender shoulders. He swiftly walked to her, opening his arms and taking her inside them. "There, there, Babygirl, don't cry. Damn, don't cry. It'll be all right. No one at home will ever know." He stroked her silky hair and crooned to her.

"No, it won't be all right. Nothing will ever be the same again." The words were muffled against his chest. "Louise helped me sneak off to meet Lazlo for weeks before we were supposedly eloping. When we get back home, everyone in Prescott will know what I did."

Her words cut his last thread of hope. He looked over her head and his eyes met Maggie's. "You knew, didn't you?"

She nodded silently.

His thoughts raced. Eden's best hope was marriage. But Edward would never marry her now. Somehow he had to find a way to face them all down. He was one of the richest men in the territory. It damn well ought to count for something.

Maggie felt immense relief flood over her as she watched Colin hold his daughter. So, he could forgive his own flesh and blood, thank God. How much he must have loved Eden's mother! That thought cut her to the heart. She started to turn away, but Colin's voice stopped her.

"Don't go, Maggie. Edenand Iboth need your help."

Chapter Seven

The mission was small and musty with a few splintered benches facing a modest altar. One shaft of brilliant morning sunlight struck the frayed linen altar cloth, making it gleam white as fresh snow. When he heard them enter, the priest, a thin elderly man with a weary smile, rose from the railing where he had been kneeling in prayer.

"Buenos diasgood morning," he amended, seeing that the man and woman were obviously Anglo. "How may I help you?" His English was precise, laced with a faintly Germanic accent. "I am Father Schmitzhammer. Most here call me Father Jan. It's easier for them to pronounce."

"Good morning, Father," Colin said, holding his hat in his hands tight enough to wilt the edges of the weather resilient felt. An alien sense of discomfort came over him as he faced the elderly man in the black cassock. "I'm Colin McCrory; this is Maggie Worthington. We'd like for you to marry us."

Father Jan titled his head as his shrewd hazel eyes looked from the grim-faced man to the pale, solemn woman at his side. "Are you of the Catholic faith, my son?"

"I'm Presbyterian," Colin replied gruffly, embarrassed because he attended the church of his childhood infrequently when in Prescott and then only to please Eden.

"I see." A smile of understanding touched the priest's face as he turned from the tall Scot to his lady, who was dressed somberly in a brown traveling suit, not the formal sort of garment a bride would choose. "And you, my child?"

"I was raised Episcopalian, Father," Maggie said in a low voice, remembering girlhood dreams about wedding lace and a big church filled with joyous people. That was so long ago. Why does it matter now? Because she wanted the reasons for this marriage to be so very different from what they were. She met the priest's kindly eyes, never daring to look at the ramrod straight, cold stranger standing beside her.

"Is there some problem with marrying two non-Catholics, Father?" Colin asked.

"No. I can certainly do it, as long as you are both agreed that you wish to wed." He looked from McCrory's grim visage to Maggie's haunted expression.

"We wish it." Colin's voice was emotionless.

Maggie merely nodded in agreement.

As the priest read the words from a frayed old leather volume, Colin stood as still as a felon on the gallows, damning Judd Lazlo to the hell he was surely roasting in and cursing the folly of all women. He had made a devil's bargain last night and he would honor it, taking Maggie Worthington to Crown Verde as his wifein name only. That part had been a sop to both their senses of wounded pride. He had never wanted to marry her in the first place, and she had released him from his promise to do so back in Sonora.

But they both loved Eden enough to stand behind her through the ordeal ahead, and there was no way to explain Maggie's presence in their lives unless she was his wife. When Eden's future was secure, their marriage could be annulled. They would be free to go their separate ways.

Maggie listened to the tightness in Colin's voice as he repeated his vows. She could feel angry tension radiate from every inch of his body. He hated being forced. That was why he had asked Eden to remain behind at the hotel while they sought out the village curate. Eden had been so tearfully happy when Colin agreed that they would marry, still cherishing naive dreams that they would fall in love after the fact. But once she had gone to bed, Colin had asked Maggie for significantly altered terms to their agreement. Did he honestly think it salved her pride to make this a sham marriage?

He's ashamed of me and angry with himself for desiring me. What else could she have done but hold up her chin with that pride he had scornfully accused her of possessing and say she was happy not to share his bed?

Colin listened to her softly spoken vows, all the while feeling the ring in his vest pocket as if it were burning through to his skin. Elizabeth's ring. He carried it with him always, ever since she had taken it off on her deathbed and pressed it into his hand. How could he place it on another woman's fingerespecially a woman like Maggie? He had tried to find another ring, but in a small border town, early in the morning, there was nothing. He had grieved for fifteen years. Maybe it's best this way. What insidious voice whispered that in his mind?

''The ring?"

"Er, pardon me, yes, the ring." Colin fumbled in his leather vest pocket and pulled out a small velvet pouch. Carefully pulling the drawstring, he let the gleaming gold band tumble into his palm. When he handed it to the priest, the old man smiled. He probably thinks I bought it for her.

Maggie looked up at him with a surprised expression on her face. Where had he gotten such a beautiful ring? It was antique, heavy gold with the flowers engraved all around it worn almost smooth. Suddenly she knew it must be a family heirloom. Elizabeth's! As his large sun-browned hands held her slender one and slid the ring on her third finger, Maggie McCrory swallowed her tears.

Tucson

Winslow Barker sat behind the big walnut desk that looked oddly oversized for such a small man. The huge room dwarfed his five-foot-three-inch frame until he stood up, with his small, fierce, bulldog stance and his vest straining over his paunchy middle. His thinning white hair made him appear distinguished and his hard, narrow, dark eyes made him look ruthless, but the wide hearty smile he affected, along with his back-slapping personality, made most people in Tucson like him well enough. Of course, most folks in Tucson owed "Win" Barker money, so it really did not matter what they thought, as long as they paid up and did what they were told. Most of the politicians in Prescott were in his hip pocket, as was the man quietly sweating in the easy chair across from him. Caleb Lamp dabbed at a trickle of perspiration rolling down his temple and silently cursed. The fat little bastard. "I offered you a fair price, Win. Them Apaches will save you thousands in labor costs."

Barker lit a thick black cigar and puffed on it experimentally as he shook out the match. "They don't call me Win for nothing, Caleb," he said. "Those Apaches will be conscriptsslaves really. They're hardly trained miners. You're asking too much."

"They work real cheap. And when one dies"he shrugged carelessly"I'll just have my reservation police draft another to take his place."

Barker gave the Indian agent a bland smile. "Sure you will, Calebfor their cut of the profits from the mines. Question is, what's the White Mountain Reservation's share of the coal wealth going to be? I've brought in the geologists and mining experts, made all the arrangements. You're just skimming off the top, the same way you've always done with their beef, blankets, medicines, all the other things the federal government pays for and the poor benighted savages don't get."

Lamp's angular lantern-jawed face was as ugly as seven miles of bad road. He narrowed his yellow eyes and met Barker's dark ones head on. "You made enough money to burn up a wet mule working with me over the years, Win. Hell, I've accepted more short shipments of tinned goods and lint blankets from your mercantile than from any other government contractor in the territory. I'm offering you a good deal with them Apach. Free labor in the mines for thirty percent of the profits."

"Twenty-five, and that's my final offer. I'll have to hire extra pistoleros to keep their picks swinging, not to mention keeping them from escaping."

The Indian agent sneered. "Who'd believe what a lyin' Apach said? Especially if he run loose from the reservation! Besides, that'd only help yer other business, selling livestock and supplies to the Army so they can ride out and catch more renegades." Lamp appeared to consider, feeling Barker's piercing little eyes bore into him. Someday he'd wring the old fart's scrawny neck for the pleasure of hearing it snap.

"I'll take the twenty-five percent. When do you plan for the digging to start?"

"I'll have to check with my contacts in the capital. It should be" Barker stopped in mid sentence and chomped down on his cigar, then cursed violently as he stared out the window of his office, which fronted on the street. "That miserable cur bungled it! There's McCrory, looking as hale and hearty as he did the day he rode out of here."

Lamp stood up and walked around the desk to peer out the window at the nemesis who he had evicted at gun point from his reservation. "I thought you said he was taken care of in Mexico."

"That worthlessand now doubtlessly deceasedJudd Lazlo and his gang were hired to kill him. Hell, McCrory was outnumbered six to one and they couldn't even do it." Barker chomped and swore again.

"If that breed ridin' beside McCrory was with him in Sonora, it'd even up the odds real quick," Lamp said, his eyes narrowing with worry.

"You know him?"

"Name's Wolf Blake. His ma's band of Apach was almost wiped out when old Gideon Blake come fer him. Musta been fifteen years ago er more. He grew up on the Texas border. Got a big reputation as a pistolero."

Barker stroked his double chin speculatively. "Hmm, I wonder if he might do the job for us that Lazlo botched." Lamp scoffed. "No chance. Once he hires on, he rides fer the brand. Besides, once he hears about your connection to the ring here, cheating his ma's people, he'll be as like to shoot you as not." He couldn't resist a smirk when Barker's face betrayed a fleeting expression of shocked fear.

"We'll have to find some other way to deal with McCrory then. You might give it a bit of thought yourselfconsidering it's your very lucrative job that he wants, Lamp." Once he was rewarded by seeing the agent's ugly face redden, Barker turned back to the window and said, "I see he retrieved his daughter, no doubt a bit the worse for wear. I wonder who the handsome redhead is riding with them."

Caleb let out a low whistle. "Sure is some fancy-looking female. Will ya look at them teats. You reckon she's McCrory's woman?"

Win laughed mirthlessly. "If she is, Mariah Whittaker will make her as welcome in Prescott as a polecat at a prayer meeting."

As they rode past Barker's office Colin had a premonition that the leader of the territorial merchants' ring was watching him, but he was in no mood to think about corrupt businessmen or beleaguered Apaches. They were approaching the Palace Hotel, where his daughter fully expected him and Maggie to consummate their marriage. Eden would have her own room and expect the two of them to share another. For that matter, so would Blake and Rosa. There had been no chance on the trail to discuss sleeping arrangements with Maggie.

They pulled up in front of the big two-story frame building, which stood out almost as conspicuously on this street of low flat adobes as the Silver Eagle had in San Luís. When the men dismounted, Wolf was beside Eden and helped her down from her mare. If he had not been so preoccupied, Colin might not have liked the notion of the gunman's attentiveness to his daughter.

He reached up to assist Maggie and felt that same magnetic attraction spark between them as their eyes met, even before his hands felt the lush curves of her slim waist. How in hell was he going to endure a night sleeping in the same room with her?

Maggie hated what his touch did to her. The feeling was a betrayal, as if her own body had turned against her. During all the lonely, self-sufficient years when men had thrown themselves at her, she had felt nothing. Now this one despised her and for him she felt everything. She knew his hands lingered at her waist for a fleeting moment longer than necessary, and considered it a small, grim victory of sorts when he self-consciously pulled away from her, as if ashamed of his transgression. At least he's as miserable as I am.

They made arrangements for the rooms, and then the men all headed down the street to Tunstile's Bath House to clean up while the women waited in their rooms for warmed bathwater to be fetched. Wolf and Fulhensio headed to a local cantina for an evening's diversion. Colin was to escort his wife and daughter to dinner.

When he arrived at the hotel, Maggie was waiting in the lobby, perched nervously on the edge of a leather-covered mission armchair. Eden was nowhere in sight. He doffed his hat and nodded to Maggie, noting her flushed, bath-freshened beauty. She had coiled that magnificent auburn hair into a thick twisted bun at her nape and dressed in a soft peach silk gown that hugged every lush curve. For a woman in her profession, Colin was forced to admit she showed remarkably good taste in clothing. The neckline of the dress buttoned up to her throat with a demure froth of white lace around the collar.

Suppressing the compliment that rose to his lips, he asked, "Where's Eden?"

Maggie's eyes were troubled as she took his arm and they headed into the hotel's modest dining room. "She asked to have a tray delivered to her room. I'm afraid it's already begun. Colinshe's hiding, afraid some woman in the dining room or on the street will recognize her and ask what she's doing here."

"We already agreed to our storyshe and I went to Yuma to meet your stage from California. She was there for our wedding."

"You and I can carry it off, but your daughter's not a very practiced actress, I'm afraid."

"She was good enough to fool me when Lazlo was around," he snapped.

"How much attention were you paying to herwith all your problems at the lumber mills, the spring roundups and foaling time for your new racers?" From the stricken look in his eyes, she knew she had hit a nerve.

A smiling young Mexican serving boy showed them to a table and took their orders, then bustled toward the kitchen, leaving them alone to resume their conversation.

"With you around, I'll never have to worry about sugar in my medicine, will I?"

"That's why you agreed to marry me, isn't it." It was not a question. "We'll have to be patient with her and pray once we get back to Prescott that the gossip about our long-distance courtship will overshadow the whispers about her infatuation with Lazlo and her broken engagement."

"If only there was some chance Edward would still marry her," Colin mused. Maggie's fork dropped with a clatter against her plate. "Another marriage of convenience, Colin?" His face darkened, but before he could retort she continued, "It would only compound her problems. Even if he were willing to forgive her indiscretionand we both know how likely any man is to do thatEden never really loved him in the first place."

"She seemed happy enough to accept his proposal six months ago."

"She was a starry-eyed young girl being courted by an older, prominent man, a successful lawyer her father approved of."

His manner grew deadly quiet as he asked, "Are you saying she agreed to the betrothal just to please me?"

Maggie noted his defensiveness and tried to defuse his rotten Scots temper before she lost the chance to straighten things out so they could both work together to help Eden. "No, it wasn't a conscious decision on her part or your fault in any way. It's just the sort of thing that often happens to wealthy young women who've been raised in a sheltered environment."

"Were you like that?" The minute he asked the question, Colin could have bitten his tongue. But he wanted to know in spite of himself. Sisters under the skin.

Her expression became at once both wary and thoughtful. "My father was a wealthy Boston merchant who gave his daughters every advantage and expected us to make conventional marriages. My sisters did. I was foolishly romantic and hoped for more." For what you and Elizabeth had. She looked down and realized she was twisting the antique wedding ring on her finger.

Colin realized it, too. His eyes fastened on the ring as he said, "It's been in my mother's family for generationsthe only thing I brought with me from Scotland as a lad."

Relief rushed over her that he had at least not bought it expressly for his first wife. She had been afraid to take it off to see if there was an inscription on the inside. Quickly raising her napkin to her lips, she dabbed daintily and said, "I think I'll check on Eden before turning in for the night."

"About tonight . . ." She sat back in her chair, regal as Queen Victoria, waiting for him to speak his piece. But what the devil was he going to say: You take the bed and I'll sleep on the floor? Or let's flip a coin to see who gets the bed? After her years in gambling houses, she'd win, no doubt. "Once we get to Crown Verde, you'll have your own room. For now, I'll give you privacy to prepare for bed before I come upstairs. There's a settee in the room I can spend the night on."

Maggie thought of Colin McCrory's long legs crumpled up on the small, rickety piece of furniture, and the picture almost brought a smile to her face. "Don't be ridiculous. The bed's big enough to sharefor sleeping," she emphasized. Then she did let a faint smile curve her lips. "There's an old New England custom called bundling. You may have heard of it."

"Aye. They had it in Scotland, too." He raised one eyebrow sardonically, as if daring her. "Do you think I need to search for a board to place between us, Sassenach?"

Maggie had not played poker for seventeen years for nothing. "No, Scotty. I don't think we'll need one," she replied deadpan. Taunt me, will you?

By the time she had slipped on her nightrail and brushed out her hair, Maggie's coolness had disintegrated into a first-rate case of nerves. What insanity had possessed her to offer him half the bed? She stared at it, and the double mattress seemed to shrink before her eyes. If only he had not been so cold and arrogant, announcing his sacrifice that wayto sleep on an impossible piece of furniture. "He only did it to emphasize we don't really have a marriage. He's punishing himself for lusting after my body," she muttered savagely as she yanked back the covers on the bed. "Hypocritical, puritanical, Scottish . . . Presbyterian!"

She blew out the lamp and threw herself on the farthest side of the bed, away from the door. The air felt still and heavy as if a summer deluge was imminent. The nightrail she had chosen was high-necked and long-sleeved, deliberately the most discreet one she owned. She felt hot and miserable in it.

After nearly an hour of restless tossing, Maggie sat up with an oath and yanked away the sheet. "Why the hell doesn't he come up here and have done with it so we can both get some sleep? As if you'll be able to sleep with him lying next to you, an inner voice taunted. She threw her legs over the side of the bed, rucking up the sheer nightrail around her hips.

That was the precise moment Colin chose to unlock the door and step inside the darkened room. Darkened except for the bright patch of moonlight that splashed through the window and bathed the bed, revealing a long, elegantly curved pair of legs, every bit as beautiful as he had imagined they would be.

Maggie leaped from the bed to face him, pulling down her nightrail. He stood silhouetted in the doorway. The dim hall light accentuated the silver flecks in his dark hair and outlined his broad shoulders, lean hips and long legs. His hair, which had needed barbering since she met him, hung over his forehead, as if he had been rumpling it with his hand. His face was in shadow, but those fierce whiskey eyes glowed, raking over her until she shivered.

God in heaven! The moonlight streaming in the window outlined every curve of her body through that voluminous, gauzy thing she was wearing. His throat went dry when he tried to swallow. He could see the darker tips on those ripe, luscious breasts that were so full, yet firm and high. Her hair fell in a fat plait to caress the curve of her well-rounded derriere. At the juncture of her legs a darker shadow enticed him. He closed the door behind him and stepped inside the room.

Maggie could smell the whiskey from across the room. "You're drunk." She kept the alarm out of her voice with Herculean effort.

"Not nearly drunk enough," he replied, his voice raw and hoarse. "You're supposed to be asleep like a good little wife instead of sitting up with your bare legs showing in the moonlight. But then I forget. You're used to keeping late hours, aren't you, Maggie?"

"Go to hell, Colin." She wrapped her arms around herself protectively but did not back down, waiting to see what he would do next.

He walked in a surprisingly straight line to the bootjack in the corner and pulled off his boots, then began to methodically strip, beginning with his shirt. She watched the muscles rippling darkly across his shoulders in the faint sinister light. When he unhitched his belt and began to pull down his breeches, she knew she should look away, but she could not. His lean buttocks were pale compared to the sun-darkened upper half of his body. As soon as he began to turn around, she averted her gaze and stared unseeing out the window. ''Are you going to sleep mother naked?" What an idiotic thing to say.

"I neglected to pack my nightshirt before riding to Sonora. Please forgive the oversight," he said with a sarcastic bow.

"You boorish, drunken sot!" she hissed, too angry to be afraid.

He laughed crudely. "Don't try to make me believe I offend your sensibilities. It isn't as if you haven't seen a naked man before." He walked a bit less steadily to the bed and stood with it between them. "Tell me. How do I compare?"

She did not turn around but itched to jump across the bed and claw that drunken smirk off his face. Somehow the idea of climbing into the bed with a naked, drunken man as dangerous as Colin McCrory did not sound like a very sensible idea. Quashing the impulse, she stood rigidly with her back still to him, alert for any sound of footsteps drawing nearer to her.

Instead she heard a rustling of sheets and the solid whump of a body hitting the mattress, followed almost immediately by soft snoring. Snoring! She turned and glared at her husband. The lout had drunk himself stuporous and passed out diagonally across the bed. Maggie eyed the settee for a moment, then gritted her teeth and swore.

"I'll be damned if I'll sleep on that rickety contraption." She walked around the bed and seized Colin by his arm, yanking hard in a vain attempt to pull him onto his side of the mattress. The man was dead weight. She crawled up on the opposite side of the bed and tried shoving at his left shoulder. Still no luck. How could a man who looked so lean be so heavy? She sat back, with her heels sinking into the heavenly softness of the first comfortable mattress she had slept on since leaving her bed in San Luís. Colin snored blissfully on under her baleful glare.

"You miserable, mule-headed Scots swine!" She lifted his arm and placed her knee in his back, then shoved again. He seemed to rouse, stopped snoring and flopped over onto his side, leaving her with half of the bed. Sighing with relief, she reclined on the mattress, then reconsidered and sat up. What if he rolled over onto his back again? He'd flatten her. Or worse yet, what if he woke up, still drunk, decided the hell with their agreement and tried to make love to her?

No. As Colin himself had said, he was "not nearly drunk enough." Still, one of those bundling boards seemed like an excellent precaution just to show a pig-headed Scot how determined a Sassenach could be. Are you worried about his forcing youor your giving up without a fight? an inner demon taunted. She observed his even, slow breathing and the way the muscles of his back and arm moved with every breath. His lower body was haphazardly covered by the sheets, but one foot, long and surprisingly elegant with a high arch, stuck out from beneath the bed covers. Longish hair fell around his nape in soft dark swirls, shimmering with silver flecks that looked like stardust. Numerous scars marred his upper body, no doubt from bullets, knives and all other sorts of mayhem, but rather than detract from his male beauty, they only seemed to add to it.

She fought the irresistible urge to run her fingers through that thick hair and touch those lean, sinewy muscles ridged with the trophies of his survival in this violent land. Colin McCrory was a dangerous man. And my husband.

Some husbanda man who vowed never to touch her, who considered her a worthless harlot good enough to bed outside of wedlock but never good enough to make love to as a man did his wife. She looked around the moon-dappled room, her eyes narrowing calculatingly as they made an inventory. There was nothing that would work as a bundling board. She would have to improvise. Then her eyes fell on his heavy leather gun holster and cartridge belt, and a grim smile curved her lips.

Maggie slipped from the bed and seized the gunbelt. Taking the Peacemaker from its holster, she carefully removed all six rounds from the cylinder, then replaced the heavy weapon and wrapped the belt tightly around the holster. The forty-five seemed to weigh as much as a small boulder in her hands. With a wicked chuckle she returned to her side of the bed and climbed in. She shoved the rolled-up gunbelt firmly against the small of his back. Colin grunted but did not awaken. With a beatific smile on her face she lay back down and drifted into an exhausted sleep. Let him try and roll over on that!

The cantina never closed. After midnight the customers started to trickle out, those still able to stand up and stagger after a night of drinking. Others slumped face forward onto the rough pine tables. A few slid bonelessly out of their chairs onto the filthy sawdust-strewn puncheon floor and lay amid the sour stench of spilled beer, cigar butts and lobs of tobacco juice that missed the cuspidor.

Wolf Blake was one of the few men hardy enough to remain upright at so late an hour. He sat in a corner, well away from the front door, as was his usual wont. He also sent the pretty little Mexican puta who made overtures on her way, which was not his usual wont. The barkeep had furnished him with a full bottle of tequila, now empty. Eyeing the bottle, he wondered if he had drunk the worm in the bottom of it and decided he was too drunk to care. But not drunk enough to forget the vision that had haunted his dreams ever since the day he had caught that bastard Price spying on Eden McCrory. Eden, child woman with the shy, sad smile and warm, whiskey gold eyes. Before he called Beau Price to task for his perfidy, Wolf had been just as guilty. How could any man turn away after seeing her slender little body gleaming with droplets of water clinging to every sweet soft curve? Even before that fateful day, indeed from the first evening in the canyon when they had rescued her, Wolf had been strangely taken with her fey beauty. The morning when that drunken miner had put his hands on her, Wolf had itched to kill the man and then fought his insane desire to take her in his arms and shake her senseless for endangering herself that way.

Being a half-breed and one of the hated Apaches at that, Wolf had stayed clear of Anglo women, especially fancy young ladies from rich families who were prissy, frigid and not worth the trouble of pursuing. Yet there was something ethereal and vulnerable about Eden McCrory. He originally told himself the attraction was simply because her pale blonde beauty was forbidden to a swarthy half-caste gunman, but he knew that was not true. He was certainly sympathetic about what Lazlo and his men had done to her, but his feelings ran far deeper than pity.

And all of that was before he had seen her naked in her bath. Ever since, he dreamed of those proudly pointed little breasts with pale pink nipples, that slender waist and those delicately flared hips, the small golden triangle of curls at the juncture of her thighs, those slimly curved legs. Every inch of her body was silky pale and smooth as satin.

He had taken extra turns at sentry duty just to keep from dreaming about her, but still, riding every day in their small group, he could not keep his eyes from seeking her out. It had been excruciating torture, made even worse because she treated him as if he were a leper, avoiding him. Wolf would never forget the angry accusing look in her eyes when she caught him beating Price. She certainly made her feelings of contempt and loathing for him clear. Still he was drawn to her.

"I'm a damned fool," he muttered, tipping the bottle up to his lips to drain the last drop. Tomorrow would bring a terrible hangover, but that was tomorrow. Somehow Wolf Blake had to get through another night.

Chapter Eight

Colin awakened with a throbbing pain in his head. The damn whiskey. That was a bad idea last night. He tried to roll over, only to feel an even worse pain stabbing in his back. Reaching behind him, he extracted his wadded-up gunbelt from where it seemed to have fused permanently to his right kidney. What the devil was going on? Then he snapped his head around to look at the woman sleeping on the other side of the bed. That was an even worse idea.

Everything started spinning and he saw stars. With a loud groan he dropped the gunbelt back onto the bed between them, awakening Maggie. She bolted upright and stared at her prone husband with narrowed eyes.

The soft, springy mattress bounced and he groaned again, then roused himself enough to give out with several exceedingly explicit curses dealing with the sexual practices her parents employed with various barnyard animals.

"If you wanted to become a rich widow, why didn't you just get it over with mercifully and shoot me with this?" he rasped as he struggled up onto one elbow, glaring at her through bloodshot eyes and rubbing his back.

Maggie shrugged. "I didn't intend to kill you, just to keep you from rolling over on me in your drunken stupor and crushing me." He eyed her, then the gun. "I removed the bullets first," she added dulcetly.

Colin hated the smug look on her face, hated the oversweet tone of her voice, even hated the vivid auburn of her hair that seemed so bright in the morning light it hurt his eyes. "I could always reload."

"Your hands are probably too shaky. You'd shoot off your own footif you could even get a bullet into the cylinder."

"For a woman facing death, you're awfully brave," he said, uncoiling the mangled cartridge belt.

"For a man who pioneered Arizona Territory, you're awfully cowardly."

His head jerked up and he glared at her, then winced as another wave of pain pounded through his skull. "Cowardly?" he asked, his voice soft and dangerous.

"Was the only way you could face me last night to get blind drunk first? I thought we had a civilized agreement about the sleeping arrangements. Did you have some problem with it?" You desire me but you don't want me as your wife.

"Aye, I have some problem with it! You've damn near crippled meand I'll drink whenever I feel like itas much as I want. No woman has ever told me no before, and you won't either."

"I told you no, Colin, but when you came bursting through that door last night, you didn't look as if you intended to stick to our agreement. That's why you got drunk."

She had hit too close to the truth of the matter and it made him furious. He'd sat with Blake and Rosa for several hours trying not to think about spending the night alone with Maggie Worthington. No, Maggie McCroryhis wife in name onlyif he could keep his hands off of her lush body. She was right. He was a coward for trying to drown his lust in a bottle. He hated her for knowing it. The woman was many things, but a fool was not one of them.

He let his gaze rake over her, revealing both lust and scorn. "Only a gelding would find you undesirable, Maggie, and I'm damn well not a gelding. But I am a man of my word. For Eden's sake, I'll keep our bloody agreement." If it kills me!

Maggie met his angry, contemptuous stare head on, then sighed and looked away. "Eden has some romantic notions about us, Colin. She needs to believe that men and women can love one another."

He arched one eyebrow. "You think we should act like honeymooners around her? Considering that we plan to separate when her future's secured, that seems like a cruel trick to play on her."

"We don't have to act love-struck, just civil," she said, trying to sound reasonable.

"After you nearly crippled me, I'm not exactly feeling civil," he replied, rolling up and rubbing his back again as he swung his feet over the side of the bed.

"You started itbursting in here stone drunk and looking at me as if I were . . ." A whore you'd paid for.

He threw off the sheets and walked over to his clothes, jerking on a pair of denims. Then he faced her. She still sat in bed with the covers protectively clutched in her fists. "I won't frighten your delicate sensibilities again, Maggie. Crown Verde has a big ranch house. You'll have your own bedroom. Bar the door between it and mine if it will help you sleep better." He finished dressing with a quick economy of movement. "I'll be civil if you willfor Eden's sake." With that, he left the room.

The sound of the door closing echoed hollowly. Separate bedrooms and civility. Why did it all sound so terribly wrong, so empty now? Wasn't that what her pride had demanded when he was forced to ask for her help? Confused and unhappy, Maggie arose and prepared to face her new role as mistress of Crown Verde.

Prescott, one week later.

"I'm not certain that breaking the engagement is the wise thing to do, Mamá," Edward Stanley said cautiously as he stirred sugar into his coffee and tasted it. His dark eyes studied the imperious woman.

Sophie Stanley stood by the bay window overlooking their splendid view of the capital. Prescott lay below in the wide, shallow valley, its frame and brick buildings interspersed with cedar and spruce trees. The town planners had built it with particular attention to a precise orderly grid and decidedly Anglo authenticity in a territory still predominantly Mexican. Sophie approved of Prescott, but her eye was on a higher destinyWashington, D.C.

A thin, slight woman, the Widow Stanley commanded strict respect and attention by sheer force of will. In spite of her sixty-six years, her posture remained ramrod straight. Silvery hair drawn severely back from a pinched, fine-boned face tended to draw attention to her piercing ice blue eyes. She was a small wasp of a woman, and everyone in the capital was wary of her sting.

Edward knew when her back was up by the stiff way she stood, staring out the window, perfectly motionless. He waited for her to speak, a habit learned in early childhood. As an only child, born late in his parents' lives, Edward Stanley had always been sensitive to their moods, especially Sophie's since his father passed on when he was still a small boy. He had grown up, molded both by his father's looks and his mother's will. Unlike Sophie, he had dark brown hair and eyes. Of medium height, he was stocky and square-jawed. Most women considered his straight, regular features to be handsome. He cultivated an image of earnestness.

"The Simpson woman has spread her gossip all over Prescott. Even Jeb Settler came up from Tucson, verifying that Colin McCrory had hired some half-breed gunman last month to ride with him into Sonora. Use your brains, Edward. They were chasing Eden and that trashy Lazlo person she ran away with."

"But Eden arrived home at Crown Verde with her father and his new bride. Colin said they went to Yuma to meet Mrs. McCrory. Perhaps the whole thing's just been a misunderstanding. Colin McCrory is one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the territory. You went to great lengths to arrange my engagement to Eden."

"Are you implying that I am at fault because that stupid little fool had an affair with a gunman?" Her voice was brittle, but carefully modulated, cool, deadly.

Edward took another swallow of his coffee, now decidedly cold, then set the cup and saucer down. "Of course not, Mamá." ''Then you will write to Colin McCrory at once indicating that it would be best if the engagement were discreetly broken."

"I dislike having Colin McCrory for an enemy," Stanley said with a frown.

Sophie sniffed. "By the time this whole tawdry affair comes out, he'll have so many other things to worry about, you'll be the least of his problems."

A sly smile insinuated itself on Edward's boyishly handsome face. "I imagine Mariah Whittaker is ready to kill McCroryor his new wife."

Sophie gave her son a quelling look. Men could be so vulgar at times. "She was a fool to take him to her bed before she wrung a proposal out of him." Dismissing the jilted Mariah, she tapped her cheek with one bony finger. "I wonder what hold this mysterious female has over Colin? Heaven knows he's avoided matrimony all these years."

"I have every confidence you'll find out, Mamá," Edward said dryly.

Ed Phibbs had a nose for news and it was twitching as she sat at her desk in the cluttered office of the Arizona Miner. Desk was really a lofty appellation for the rickety old table in one corner of the narrow room. She shared the long table with the newspaper's typesetter who had stacked his case boxes and linseed oil rags on it.

Sniffing the pungent aroma, she tapped her pencil on the tablet in front of her and squinted in concentration. "Lucille Guessler's holding a tea this afternoon to welcome Colin McCrory's new wife to Prescott," she said to her boss, Clement Algren.

Clement, unaffectionately called Fatty Algren behind his back, raised his gray eyebrows and squinted at her from myopic eyes. "Thought you hated covering teas and other such female folderol," he said suspiciously. Ed's hatchet face was all blandness and guile. "It is news when the richest and most confirmed bachelor in the territory brings home a mysterious new wife after keeping company with Mariah Whittaker this past year."

Clement harrumphed. "Keeping company" was probably a polite euphemism for what really went on with the scheming Mariah, but Clement let it pass. "You better not be thinking about that story on McCrory's war with the Tucson merchants. I told you to keep that long, bony nose out of it." He stood up, all five feet of him, formidable only because of his girth. One wag in town had said, "He was so fat he didn't have no sideways.''

Ed knew better than to trade insults with the cantankerous old newspaperman who had given her a desperately needed job as a reporter last month. "I'll just write up the tea," she replied innocently. "Lucille Guessler is having it to challenge Sophie Stanley as social arbiter of Prescott. I wonder who'll win," she added idly, not really caring a fig.

"You might see what you can find out about that girl of McCrory's while you're at it. I don't believe that tale about her going with him to Yuma to witness his marriage for one minute." If he could get the goods on Colin McCrory, Win Barker just might be real grateful, real grateful indeed. He looked at the tall, gangly woman who grated on his nerves. She was altogether too quick for a female, taking on airs above herself, wanting to usurp his rightful role as the reporter and editorial writer on capital politics.

"It does seem fishy, but all that gossip of old Elda Simpson's about her girl Louise helping Eden elope with some gunhand sounds just plain crazy." Ed loved playing devil's advocate to Fatty Algren.

"Well, Edward Stanley sure must've thought there was something to it. He broke his engagement with the high and mighty McCrory's daughter fast enough," he said nastily. "Never could see why a smart young state councilman like Stanley, with his political future, wanted to marry into a family of Apache lovers."

"Maybe their money? Or McCrory's political influence back in Washington?" Ed couldn't resist taunting.

He harrumphed again, his face glowing cherry red. "Just you have a care about the Stanleys' good nameand stay away from politics. That's my business." He rocked back on his heels and the floorboards groaned in protest.

Ed blinked her protuberant gray eyes innocently. "I'm on my way to report on the tea. I do so wonder what Mrs. McCrory will be wearing."

Algren gave her a warning look, then turned around and sat down at his desk. Ed Phibbs smirked at his back before leaving the office.

Maggie was no more concerned with what she would wear to the tea than Ed Phibbs. Her major concern since arriving in Prescott was Eden, who sat by the hotel window, shoving some chicken and dumplings back and forth on her plate without eating a bite.

"I let you skip breakfast on condition that you'd eat lunch if I brought you a tray, Eden," Maggie said, trying to sound stern.

"I just couldn't face that crowded dining room of whispering people again," Eden said, her voice breaking.

Maggie forced a cynical smile. "They were whispering about me, not youwondering about my mysterious past." "Everyone will think you're a perfect match for Father."

Some perfect match. We sleep in separate bedrooms and act like polite strangers. Maggie wondered if that was how Eden envisioned the life she had expected to have with Edward Stanley. If so, small wonder she ran away with Judd Lazlo! "You have to stop brooding over Edward Stanley. Any man who would send a note to break his engagement without the courage to talk to you face to face was never worth having," Maggie said indignantly, still furious over the cruel, cowardly way Eden had been treated. "He made a decision based on gossip."

"He didn't make the decision at all, I'm certain. His mother did. Sophie Stanley could never abide the faintest hint of scandal. She believes Edward will be a United States senator, perhaps even president one day." Eden's voice was cold now. Thinking of Sophie as a mother-in-law had always chilled her to the bone.

"No man with that lack of gumption will ever be elected president," Maggie said firmly. "Eden, you can't let the Sophie Stanleys of this world win. If you don't stand up to her and all her friends right now, you'll spend the rest of your life hiding. The young woman who put that centipede in Judd Lazlo's boot wasn't a coward. She was incredibly bravewilling to sacrifice her own life to save her father."

"Who wouldn't have been in danger except for me." Looking up at Maggie's determined expression, Eden sighed and took a bite from a dumpling.

"You're getting so thin you have to walk down the street twice just to make a shadow, young lady. Eat every bite."

In spite of herself, Eden smiled. "What would I do without you, Maggie? You're the one with the real courage."

"Pshaw. We'll show this town's old biddies that a couple of McCrory women can face down whatever they dish up. Finish that food while I lay out your dress for the tea. The green dimity, I think?"

An hour later the McCrory women climbed down from their carriage in front of Lucille Guessler's white gingerbread house ringed with her prizewinning pink Baroness Rothschild roses. Maggie was dressed in a powder blue linen suit with a frilly white blouse, sophisticated and understated in contrast to Eden's demurely innocent dimity frock.

"Chin up. You've had lots more practice balancing teacups than I have," Maggie said as they approached the front porch and an unctuously smiling Lucille.

Her gushing welcome could not hide her avid curiosity as she inspected both women with overbright spaniel brown eyes. "I have been so excited about introducing you to Prescott society, Mrs. McCrory. You simply must tell us all about how you were able to capture that elusive rascal, Colin."

Maggie gave vague answers, smiled a great deal and attempted to include Eden in as much of the conversation as possible while she made small talk with half a dozen women clustered around her in the Guesslers' cluttered parlor. In spite of Eden's reticence, Maggie sensed no overt rancor on the part of the women she had been introduced to so far. Even if they were a bit curious about the gossip, they had the good breeding not to bring it up.

Gradually, as Maggie was embroidering on the tale of how she met Colin while he was on a business trip to San Francisco a year earlier, the room began to grow quieter. By now there were at least two dozen ladies present, all sipping tea and sampling the Guessler cook's baking expertise, which ran to gooey petit fours and sodden cream puffs.

A striking woman with ebony hair, dressed in magenta silk was staring daggers at Maggie's back from the front hallway. Her face was pale and as perfectly chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture. And just as cold. The low, furtive whispers began as she made her way across the crowded room. She stopped in front of Maggie and her thin delicate lips smiled but her icy blue-gray eyes did not.

"You must be Colin's new wife. I'm Mariah Whittaker. Colin and I have been friends for nearly fifteen years. I don't know what I would've done without him after my husband passed on two years ago."

So she's the one Eden warned me about, Maggie thought wryly, returning the cool, distant smile. "My condolences on your loss, Mrs. Whittaker," Maggie said dulcetly. She could see Lucille Guessler wring her linen hankie until the lace ripped loose from the edges.

"Your marriage was quite a surprise to everyone in Prescott," Mariah said, ignoring Maggie's taunt and continuing her offensive. "Colin has never mentioned you at all, I'm afraid."

"My husband, as you should knowbeing such old friendsis a taciturn Scot who keeps his own counsel, Mrs. Whittaker."

"Really. My, I wonder if even poor Eden knew about Colin's plans." She turned with mock solicitude on her face to question Eden. "Had you even met your new stepmamáthat is, before you went to Yuma for the wedding?" she added slyly.

Eden's face went scarlet as every eye in the room was now fixed on her, but before she could think of how to field Mariah's nastily insinuated question, Maggie intervened.

"As a matter of fact, Eden was just as surprised by her father's wedding plans as you werebut considerably happier about them," she added. She winked at Eden.

Mariah's eyes turned opaque with fury. "Of course, Eden did have other things on her mind before she returned to Crown Verde with you and Colin."

"You are referring to my relationship with Edward Stanley, I assume. The engagement has been broken, and no one is happier about that fact than I," Eden said with quiet dignity.

Maggie could have kissed her. "No one but her new stepmamá," she said, parroting Mariah's pretentious pronunciation. Turning to her agitated hostess, she dismissed Mariah with a swish of her skirts, presenting her back to the fuming woman. "You must show me your famous roses, Lucille." Taking her stepdaughter by the arm, she added, "Eden's told me all about them,"

They strolled across the parlor, with Lucille making further introductions as they moved from one small group to the next, wending their way to the side door adjacent to Lucille's rose garden. After their exit, conversation returned to its earlier buzzing, although the group that gravitated to Mariah's side was decidedly dour-looking and spoke in sharp whispers intended to carry to their neighbors.

"A nobody from heaven knows where . . . probably married Colin for his money."

"That girl ran off with a common gunman. Who'd believe that fool story about Yuma?"

"I for one don't blame Edward Stanley one whit. Eden McCrory is ruined."

Ed Phibbs had taken in the entire confrontation and its aftermath and admired the gumption of McCrory's women. Lordy, how she detested backbiting busybodies. Perhaps if she could do a flattering piece about the new Mrs. McCrory, she might learn a bit more about the taciturn Scot himself. It was worth a try, and Ed Phibbs would shake hands with the devil himself if it meant a story.

She bided her time until the tour of the rose garden was over. As the trio drew near the porch stairs, Ed descended to meet them.

Maggie saw a tall, mannish-looking woman wearing a shapeless brown dress and sensible shoes approaching them with a no-nonsense look on her elongated, quizzical face.

"Oh, dear, ladies, I hope you don't mind Miss Phibbs. She's a newspaper person," Lucille Guessler said with a censorious tone.

Ed extended one big bony hand to Maggie for a fervent shake, then to Eden as their hostess made introductions. "Please, just call me Ed. My full name is Esmeralda Doucette Phibbs." She rolled her eyes in a self-deprecating expression. "Now I ask you, do I look like an Esmeraldaor an Ed?" Her voice creaked high, then low with a peculiar rhythm.

Eden suppressed a chuckle. Maggie's instincts were to like the homely, unpretentious woman with the highly unlikely name and the calliope voice, but she was wary of any newspaper reporter who wanted to dig into her pastor what happened to Eden. Then again, if she could get Ed Phibbs to do a favorable writeup, it might help Eden quell the storm of gossip flurrying about her.

"Ed it is then, if you'll call me Maggie." She was rewarded by Ed's gummy smile.

"I'd like to do an interview with you, Maggie. You've just landed the most eligible bachelor in Arizona Territory. After eluding the likes of the Widow Whittaker for over a year, that's news!"

Maggie laughed out loud. "I suppose we could work something out. We won't be leaving town until tomorrow afternoon when Colin arrives to escort us back to Crown Verde. How does ten a.m. at our hotel sound?"

Eden looked worried, but Maggie gave her arm a gentle squeeze of reassurance. At present, they needed every ally they could get. She prayed her judgment about Ed Phibbs was sound.

By the time they left Guesslers' later that afternoon, Maggie knew that Eden's nerves were frayed from smiling and pretending that everything was normal with gossip flying around her thick as snowflakes in a blizzard. Mariah and a number of her friends made a frosty early departure, leaving Lucille's soiree in shambles as the remaining women broke into small nervous cliques, whispering and casting furtive glances at Eden and Maggie.

Maggie made their farewells and thanked the harried older woman, who had by this time almost reduced her linen handkerchief back to flax by wringing it so hard. Their carriage was brought around and they headed back toward the hotel.

"I told you it wouldn't work. I'm a pariah and I'll spoil your chances in Prescott society if I come to town with you and Father anymore," Eden said quietly.

"That's absurd," Maggie remonstrated sharply. "That Whittaker witch simply used you as a means to attack me. There will always be those who gossip. The good thing about their kind is that some new scandal comes along every few weeks and they haven't the mental capacity to remember the last one after the next one occurs. It will blow over." At Eden's jaded look of disbelief, Maggie tried to think of something to divert the girl from what had certainly been a depressing afternoon.

As they neared the livery stable, Maggie had an idea. "Why don't we return the rig here and walk back to the hotel? It's only a few blocks, and I seem to recall a hat shop along the way."

"I suppose that would be nice," Eden replied without any great enthusiasm.

They meandered along Alarcon Street, browsing in the shop windows and watching the flow of people in the bustling capital. Teamsters cursed at mules plodding along, pulling their heavy wagons laden with everything from cook stoves to calico, while an Overland Stagecoach whizzed by in a flurry of dust. Men in rough range clothing rubbed elbows with nattily dressed legislators and various political functionaries. Here and there pairs of well-dressed ladies strolled with parasols, while a few more humble sodbuster's wives dragged shaggy-haired, barefoot children behind them as they went about their monthly shopping trip in the big city.

Men tipped their hats and the farm women smiled shyly, but several of the well-groomed older women ignored them and whispered as they passed by on the opposite side of the street. A mixed reception at best. Then as Maggie was pointing out a frilly parasol that would look lovely with one of Eden's day gowns, a reflection in the shop's polished glass window caused Eden to stiffen and freeze.

maggie overheard the caustic clipped tone of the silver-haired woman and knew who she must be.

"She has some nerve showing her face in Prescott after the shameful way she's treated you."

"Mamá, please," a low male voice pleaded.

Maggie turned to get a look at the fabled Stanleys. The woman was the wicked queen straight out of Sleeping Beauty, and oddly enough, the young man with the earnest and embarrassed look on his face was pretty enough to be a fairy-tale prince with curly brown hair and dark eyes. But there was something missing. Backbone. Character. Maggie surveyed mother and son with the cool, disdainful look of cynicism she had spent years cultivating, raking them with glacial blue eyes. She willed Eden to turn and stare them down as well, and was rewarded when the younger woman met her former fiancé's gaze with her chin uptilted. Edward crimsoned and firmly took his mother by the arm, attempting at once to tip his hat perfunctorily to Eden and Maggie while at the same time dragging Sophie away from an ugly confrontation.

Having made her point, the matriarch clutched her gray silk skirts and swished them when she turned away, as if from some offal that would contaminate her. After they disappeared down the street, Maggie could see Eden's resolve crumple, and the tears she had held at bay all afternoon finally welled up in her eyes.

She blinked them back as she said forlornly, "I was a fool to think Lazlo was exciting and Edward was dull. How could I have been so blind, Maggie?"

Maggie took her arm and they began to walk slowly toward the hotel. "It seems to me if Edward had been really all that wonderful and worthy of your love, your head wouldn't have been turned by Lazloor any other man. Marrying Stanley would've been a horrible mistake."

They heard the commotion before they even turned the corner, the sounds of a dog screaming in pain, then the loud, grating curses of a drunken male voice.

A huge, burly miner with a wild yellow beard and bushy eyebrows glared murderously at Wolf. Dressed in rough denims and a plaid flannel shirt, the man was half a head taller than his opponent, with shoulders broader than the handle of the pickax tied to his overloaded mule. The large reddish cur that cowered between them was whimpering piteously. Blood ran from one side of its mouth.

''Damn yew, yew red-skinned son of a bitch! It's my critter 'n I'll treat 'im any which way I want. Filthy Apach eat dawgsya fixin ta steal 'im fer yore cook pot, huh, breed?"

"I'm fixing to keep you from beating the poor animal to death, and I don't give a damn if he's your dog or the territorial governor's," Wolf replied in a low voice gone deadly with anger. His black eyes shot sparks of killing rage.

"He wants that fool miner to draw his gun," Eden said, amazed that the cool, deliberate Wolf Blake would intervene to save a dog.

"Maybe he identifies with the mongrelit's an outcast without a pedigree just like he is," Maggie replied, eyeing the miner. "The only problem for Wolf is that the miner isn't carrying a gun." Before she could think of a way to defuse the confrontation, Eden rushed into the street and knelt between the men, cradling the injured animal's head on her lap and stroking it gently.

"There, there, it's all right." She daubed at the bloody mouth. Several teeth were loosened, and a nasty gash, no doubt caused by the miner's heavy boot, split the side of his muzzle clear down to the gum line.

"You takin' up with this here breed, Miz McCrory?" the miner asked, leering nastily at her.

"Leave the lady out of this. Just take your mule and head out before there's trouble." Wolf edged himself carefully between Eden and the irate giant.

"Aw, there's already trouble, yew murderin' Apach bastard." The miner took a powerful swing at Blake but only grazed his cheek as the faster, slimmer man dodged the clumsy blow.

By this time Maggie had helped Eden drag the injured dog away from the fight as a crowd gathered and the usual bets were exchanged.

"I'll put twenty on Willis."

"Done. I think the breed kin take him."

Blake landed several hard, fast jabs to the bigger man's thick midsection. The crowd warmed to the fight, most cheering for the miner, a few for the dog's rescuer even if he was part Apache. For such a lithe, slim man, the half-breed was a wickedly effective street fighter who used speed and cool nerve to offset brute strength.

The contest was going in his favor until the miner staggered back against his pack mule and seized the long-handled pickax from his pack. At once Blake stopped closing and backed off a step as the bearded giant grinned evilly, revealing a mouthful of straight yellowed teeth.

"Now I got ya." He swung the ax, and its gleaming point missed Blake by a scant inch.

Eden seized Maggie's arm in a viselike grip. "My God, we can't let him kill Wolf! Shoot him, Wolf!"

Maggie wished desperately that she had not decided to leave the .32 caliber Colt she usually carried back at the hotel. As the two men fought, her eyes darted to Eden. I think she cares for Blake even if she doesn't know it yet.

Wolf knew that if a man with Apache blood killed a white man over a mutt in Arizona Territory, he was as good as hung for murdereven if the dead man was swinging a pickax as if he'd just struck the mother lode. He let the bruiser take another swipe at him, then dodged in beneath the deadly arc of steel and tackled the miner to the ground.

After landing hard on top of the bigger man, Wolf seized the miner's brawny wrist and wrested the pickax from his hand. He thrust the sturdy oak handle firmly down on his foe's windpipe and pressed hard, throwing his whole body weight atop the larger man to hold him as he choked and thrashed.

It was over in a moment. The miner's face mottled pinkish red, then turned to a deep plum shade before he slipped into unconsciousness.

Wolf sent the ax sliding across the dusty street and stood up. He turned toward the two women as he picked up his hat, which had fallen into the street during the fight. "I always seem to be brawling around you, Miss Eden." There was regret in his voice but no apology.

She met those fathomless black eyes and somehow could not look away until the dog emitted another low whimper. "It was very kind of you to stop him from abusing this poor fellow any further," she said, resting one small soft hand on the shaggy fur soothingly. "He's badly hurt. Do you think we could carry him to the veterinarian's office? It's only a couple of blocks away."

"I reckon I can manage him," Wolf said, kneeling beside Eden. How small and fragile she was, as silvery and delicate as a moonbeam. He reached out to pick up the dog, and Eden gasped and took his dark hand in her pale one.

"You're hurt, too." His hands were finely made with long, tapering fingers. They could be the hands of a gentleman if not for his Indian coloring. When she touched him a frisson of heat leaped between them, shocking her with its raw sexual potency. "Just look at your knuckles," she whispered breathlessly. Then their eyes met again.

"Always happens when you jab at a fellow twice your size," Wolf said, trying to break the spell of her nearness. He wanted to feel the silk of her skin so badly he ached.

Maggie's voice interrupted them, wry with amusement. "Let Wolf carry the dog, Eden. You show him the way to that vet's. He's new to Prescott, just like me. If you two can manage, I think I'll retire to my room and let Lucille Guessler's petit fours digest for a bit. Wolf, you will see Eden safely back to the hotel, I trust?"

"I'll try to stay out of any more fights," he replied as the two of them exchanged a look of understanding.

Flushing a delicate pink, Eden released Wolf's hand and stood up, dusting off her skirts, which were quite filthy from kneeling in the street. The crowd had trickled away by now and the two of them were left alone. "The vet's place is down the street and around the next corner. I hope Doc Watkins isn't off with some foaling mare."

"Not at Crown Verde," Wolf replied, carrying the dog as carefully as he could. "Colin sent me to escort you and Mrs. McCrory home in the morning."

"And you just happened to stop to rescue this poor critter," Eden said, a shy smile dimpling her cheeks. "I wouldn't have thought you the kind of man to be so soft-hearted."

"Why?" he asked quietly. "Because I'm an Apache?"

"Maybe because you're just so prickly and mean-tempered," she replied tartly, stung at his sudden inexplicable mood shift. What did you expect of a gunman? Then she saw the gentle way he carried the heavy animal, careful of his injured leg. "But perhaps you're only mean to people . . . and kind to animals."

"Animals return kindness for kindness. In my experience, Miss Eden, people usually don't," he replied in a voice that hinted of long-buried pain.

Chapter Nine

"I want McCrory dead." Win Barker's voice was controlled, the ice cold tone masking his fury. "How many men do I have to hire before someone succeeds?" He turned his heavy swivel chair away from the man standing in front of his desk and stared out the window. "Dammit, here in Apache country it isn't as if that man doesn't have enough enemies."

"Hell, he'd make 'em on his own even if he wasn't a dirty Injun lover," the gunman replied. "And now he's got that breed working for him, too," he said, rubbing his whiskered jaw.

"Are you afraid of Blake?" Barker asked contemptuously. "You're pretty lucky to be alive, from all I've heard."

"I'm not afraid of either one of 'em. I'll handle McCroryand that damn breed, too."

"See that you do. Jeb Settler has a couple of men who can back you. You know how to contact him." "Yeah, boss. This time nothing will go wrong. You'll see."

"It'd better not. I want McCrory's meddling over and done with before that special investigator from Washington arrives in Prescott." Barker made a dismissive gesture to the gunman. "Don't come back for your money until it's finished."

After the door to his big, crowded office closed, Barker turned his chair to the side door from his private quarters. "You can come out now. He's gone."

The elegantly dressed man slipped from behind the door and paced across the office, noting the clutter with distaste. "Are you certain you can trust that bungler?"

Barker snorted as he poured two glasses of excellent whiskey from a decanter. "Why the hell should you worry? You never let any of them see your face."

His companion flushed angrily. "You know that my involvement, were it to become known, would ruin everything for you as well as me."

Barker smiled genially. "Don't get your back up. Here, have a drink." He handed the glass to his cohort, then raised his own in a toast. "To Colin McCrory's imminent demise."

Maggie stood by the front window in her big bedroom watching Colin and Wolf ride out. Fuchsia and gold rent the gray velvet darkness of the eastern sky as the horsemen disappeared down the long, curving trail. She scanned the magnificent view of the Verde River Basin spread around her, remembering the first time she had seen Colin's home.

Colin's home. But this magnificent ranch house would never be hers. How splendid it was, sitting in the center of the valley, all lush with spring grass and wildflowers. A huge porch surrounded all four sides of the frame edifice constructed in the Southern raised cottage style made popular by Anglo ranchers in the northern parts of the territory. The "cottage's" first floor was elevated six feet above the storage basements. There were eight rooms on the main floor. The dormer-windowed second story had six commodious bedrooms, including Colin's huge suite and her spacious adjoining quarters.

She stared at the door between the two rooms, a door that had never opened since they took up residence here ten days ago. What a splendidly beautiful prison she had wrought for herself. Rubbing her temples to forestall the pounding headache she knew was coming, Maggie chided herself, knowing it was not entirely fair or true. She did have a far more meaningful life here with Eden than she had had with Bart in Sonora.

But the ranch house, of which she was the supposed mistress, ran like a precision-made clock without her help. Not that Eileen O'Banyon had not been most hospitable, welcoming Colin's unexpected bride and keeping her astonishment well concealed. However, after nearly twenty years of running the household, Eileen was used to making all the decisions. The housekeeper ordered the supplies, oversaw the growing, harvesting and preserving of food and the slaughter of steers, pigs and chickens for their table. A small army of servants kept the house and grounds immaculate under Eileen's watchful eye. Maggie had learned their names and befriended them. Being fluent in Spanish was useful since most of them were of Mexican ancestry. She conversed with them in their native language, something neither the housekeeper nor Colin's foreman Riefe Cates could do. Even if the people at Crown Verde were a bit puzzled and in awe of her, everyone seemed willing enough to accept the new Mrs. McCroryeveryone except Mr. McCrory.

"Don't think of Colin," she murmured to herself as she turned from the window and began her morning toilette. He and Wolf were riding east toward the reservation where Colin's lumber mill sat in the foothills. They were not expected to return for several days. The way her husband avoided her, she would scarcely be able to tell the difference.

Eden was an altogether different matter, but equally as troubling. If Colin wanted nothing to do with his wife, his daughter drew closer to her with every passing day. Maggie had bargained her way into this marriage because Eden needed her, and she had grown to love the young woman like her own daughter. But such dependence was not good for a lovely and bright girl whose body had been defiled by Lazlo's trickery and whose spirit was being demolished by the cruelty of her peers.

Sophie Stanley and Mariah Whittaker had spread Mrs. Simpson's tale of Eden's illicit elopement across the territory faster than a telegraph wire. Eden was "ruined." All the town women snubbed her, and even the men at Crown Verde leered knowingly at her, with the exception of the kindly old foreman and a few of the longtime cowhands. And Wolf Blake.

Maggie felt certain Blake was in love with Eden. There had been a spark of attraction since the first time he had seen the girl. The mutual fascination between them had grown ever since. But Eden viewed Wolf in the same light as she had Lazlo. So would her father if he had any inkling of Blake's interest in his daughter. A half-breed drifter who lived by his guns was scarcely the sort of husband a man of Colin McCrory's stature envisioned for his only child. Neither was Maggie Worthington the sort of woman he would have chosen as his wife, but she refused to dwell on that bitter fact.

As she walked down the long flight of stairs and smelled the yeasty aroma of fresh baked bread, Maggie considered the wisdom of playing matchmaker between Eden and Wolf. Best to go slow there and further take the man's measure. He was a loner, a man whom life had treated harshly. Often such men made less than ideal husband material.

"Sure and ye're lookin' glum, Miz Maggie," Eileen said as her shrewd gaze swept over Colin's bride. "Missin' him already and himself not two miles from the ranch house yet." She wiped her flour-coated hands on her apron, then poured a cup of inky rich coffee and handed it to Maggie.

"Thank you, Eileen," Maggie replied, trying to divert the scrutiny of the well-meaning older woman to a safer area. "I thought Eden and I might ride down to the spring roundup camp on the Verde this morning."

A troubled look came over Eileen's plump, kindly face. "I don't know about her riding today. She got up early to see her pa off, then wouldn't eat breakfast. Said she was feelin' that bad. I coaxed a cup of warm milk down her and it was back to sleep she went. Not an hour ago."

Maggie sighed. "Best to let her sleep then. Is there anything I could help you do todaybesides the cooking?" she asked ruefully.

"I had been intendin' to start the upstairs spring cleaning before Miz Eden's troubles. If ye'd like to help with that, it's grateful I'd be."

After Maggie ate a light breakfast, the two women started upstairs, with Eileen, loquacious as ever, leading the way. "I always like to do the deep cleanin' meself. The maids, they do as I tell them but it's not the same, I'm thinkin'." Armed with dusters and brooms, mops and buckets, they made their way down the long hallway. "Best to begin with the mister's room while he's away," the housekeeper said, noticing that Maggie hesitated a second before following her into Colin's quarters.

Maggie looked at the rough-hewn pine furniture, so heavy and masculine, so like the man himself. "This certainly is different from the furnishings in the rest of the house," she said as her eyes deliberately skimmed past the bed.

"Ye've niver been in here before, have ye?" Eileen asked gently.

Maggie felt the heat steal into her face as she formed an angry retort. Then, seeing the sympathetic light in the housekeeper's eyes, she bit back the words. "No, no I haven't. As I'm sure you know, Colin and I don't have a real marriage. He only married me for Eden's sake."

"And what of yerself? Don't be tellin' me it was only for Eden's sake, no matter that ye do love her like she was yer own."

Maggie picked up a feather duster and began to run it along the low open beams of the ceiling. "No, it wasn't only for Eden. I wanted to escape my past. Colin provided me with a way to do that."

"Why is it I'm thinkin' Colin McCrory's a whole lot more than just a way of escapin' yer past to ye?" Her round, guileless face was openly curious now.

"I had quite a past to escape." Maggie measured Eileen, then decided to gamble on honesty. "When Colin met me in Sonora I was half owner in a saloon and bordello." She raised her chin a notch, waiting for the Irishwoman's reaction.

Eileen digested the startling information for a moment, then said, "Do ye expect me to be shocked right down to me bone marrow? I'm not. But ye sure don't look or act the likes of them scarlet poppies in town. It's good stock yer from. And, after what's happened to me little girl . . . her bein' led astray by that oily-tongued serpent. Well, I can only be grateful she was rescued from what ye must've suffered.''

"Thank you, Eileen," Maggie replied quietly.

When Maggie volunteered no more, the housekeeper patted her arm in a motherly fashion and said, "If ever ye want to talk about it, it's a kind and willin' ear I have."

"There are certain similarities between mistakes I made and those Eden made. That's why Eden was able to convince her father that he should marry me and bring me here."

"And of course ye came like a martyr, not wantin' to wed with the mister atall," Eileen replied with a wry chuckle, noting the heightened color in Maggie's cheeks and the way her eyes could not keep from studying her husband's inner sanctum. In time she might fathom the mystery of their relationship and help the two young fools to work it out. She was a patient woman. Changing the subject abruptly, she said, "Yer right about this furniture not fittin' with the rest of the household. Miz Elizabeth bought everything for the big house when the mister finished buildin' it for her. After she died in this room, he couldn't bear to sleep in the bed. He had a cabinetmaker in Prescott make this set for him. The dainty French furniture the missus favored is stored in the attic, along with the rest of her things."

"He must've loved her very much," Maggie said, feeling that now familiar tight ache forming in her chest as she picked up an old photograph of Colin as a younger man, standing beside a small, beautiful woman.

"Miz Elizabeth was tiny, a real fragile thing, all pale blonde. Miz Eden takes after her coloring and fine bones, but it's her pa's toughness that's seen her through lots of scrapeseven before this last one."

They stripped the curtains and bed linens for the maids to wash, rolled the braided rug for beating, then removed everything from the tops of the chest of drawers and tables and began to polish the wood with lemon oil.

Some self-punishing instinct would not relinquish its hold on Maggie as her thoughts kept returning to the old picture. "Tell me about her, Eileen."

The older woman sighed. "It's been so long ago."

"And yet Colin still grieves. He never remarried all those years while Eden was growing up."

"He blamed himself for Miz Elizabeth's death. A prime bit of foolishness. A man needs sonsespecially one like the mister. Eden needed brothers and sisters, too. But it's a stubborn one he is."

Maggie smiled grimly. "How well I know that."

"I think his grief was part and parcel with his gratitude. He felt he owed everything to her."

A puzzled expression spread across Maggie's face. Colin McCrory had always appeared arrogant, never humble to her. "But I thought he was a wealthy man when he married her."

"Aye, and that he was, but he'd made his fortune with a strong back and a will of iron. He was as rough and unpolished as the likes ye'd see in any saloon. Could barely sign his own name on their marriage lines. Her family was from old money back east. I came west with them as her maid. Her pa had taken a commission from West Point and brought us to Arizona during the War Between the States. The first time Mister Colin went to the Army post to deliver a herd of horses, he was smitten. Her pa wouldn't have allowed the match if the mister hadn't been so successful, him bein' a foreigner with no fancy pedigree and no family." "I imagine Elizabeth had something to say about that," Maggie said, gazing at the photograph of a young dark-haired Colin with an intense expression on his handsome face. How could any woman have resisted him? She still remembered his charm when they had teased and laughed together that first afternoon in the Silver Eagle.

"Oh, she loved him right enough, in her own way," Eileen replied cryptically.

And he still loves her, even beyond the grave.

As Wolf and Colin rode toward the timber mill, Colin explained about the men and the problems with the lumbering operations, outlining what Wolf should do to forestall any further losses. After that they simply rode in silence. Both were taciturn men, comfortable with it.

But although Wolf was comfortable with Colin, he was not at all comfortable around his daughter. Eden was constantly on his mind, and since he had rescued that mongrel dog her attitude toward him had changed considerably. Her accusatory standoffishness had now softened into shy smiles. He had caught her looking at him, fascinated and curious, on several occasions over the past week.

He desired her, yet knew that acting on their mutual and unspoken attraction would be insane. Eden was a white woman from a rich, prominent family, even if her reputation had been besmirched by that scum who had abused her. She's probably afraid of any man's touch now. But she did think of him at her friend. I could show her how good it can be between a man and a woman. Madness! He forced the thought aside and concentrated on the magnificent country they rode through.

The day promised that summer was coming to the high elevations of the Mogollon Rim country. The sky was azure and the sun warm, yet none of the merciless scorching heat of the south plagued them. Bright fairy slipper dotted the mossy ground and dark green cedars stood in dense stands across the river valley. Here and there small groups of cattle grazed contentedly.

"Those steers don't look up to your breeding standards," Wolf said, surveying several cattle as they rode past.

"They're a longhorn mix. I got rid of the last of my Texas stock ten years ago. They must be some of the cheap beeves the Tucson contractors sell to Lampat premium prices," Colin added darkly.

They rode past the stragglers, and McCrory inspected the brand with a frown creasing his forehead, then he cursed stridently. "I think these brands have been runlook, you can see the reservation's US stamp covered over to read WB."

"Win Barker's brand?"

"You catch on quick," Colin said as he scanned the horizon.

"You think Barker's rustlers are still around?" Blake asked.

"Not likely, but we could check."

Wordlessly agreeing, the two men began cutting for sign, but an hour's ride along the Crown Verde-reservation border revealed nothing.

Just as Colin started to rein in and tell Blake they had best abandon the useless search, a shot whizzed past his head and hit the granite outcropping in front of him, stinging his face and arms with chips of rock. A man stood behind a cluster of boulders and took aim at Blake. McCrory yelled a warning to his companion and fired at the target.

Everything erupted in chaos then. Colin whirled in the saddle and hit the bushwhacker with a hip shot from his Peacemaker. Grabbing his Remington repeater, he swung down and dove for cover in a brushy swale as several other men opened fire from the rocks nearby. Wolf slid from his horse, firing at them as he, too, found cover. The fierce exchange continued until one of the men let out a cry as Wolf's shot struck home.

"I wish we knew how many are left," McCrory said.

"Three, but one's hit bad enough to slow him down, I think," Blake replied, carefully squeezing off a shot. Another of the killers went down as the slug connected, sending him sprawling grotesquely out onto the open ground.

"Damn, they got Charlie!" a voice called out. "I'm skedaddlin'." In a moment the sounds of an outlaw's curses were drowned out by the pounding of hooves.

"I think we're down to the last man. Let's try to take him aliveI want to know who hired them."

Wolf nodded. "You cover me with your rifle. I'm going to make a run for those rocks over there." Without waiting for assent, Blake lunged over the edge of the swale and rolled behind a clump of tuna cactus. McCrory's Remington kept the outlaw pinned down until Wolf made it to the rocks. Then they opened up a crossfire as Blake worked his way higher onto an overhang where he could see the gunman below. "Throw down your gun," he yelled at the man he had shot earlier, who was on his side, wedged between two boulders. He complied, and Wolf began to climb down.

Seeing Blake give the all clear, Colin stood up and began to approach the ambush site. Suddenly a shot rang out from where he had taken down the first man. Colin felt a white-hot sear of pain and dropped to his knees. Wolf spun around and fired at the man who had shot Colin. He finished the job Colin had started, pumping three shots into the man's chest, but the assassin had done his work. Colin lay face down on the ground with a widening red stain on his right side.

Before Wolf could move he heard the click of a gun being cocked behind him. Spinning around, he fired rapidly at the wounded outlaw lying in the rocks. The assassin's weapon dropped from his nerveless fingers. Quickly checking to be certain he was dead, Blake raced over to his fallen employer, after first kicking over the man who had shot Colin to be certain he was dead this time.

Wolf knelt beside his boss and examined the wound. McCrory was losing blood fast. Wolf quickly cut the shirt from the dead man's body and used it to stanch the flow at Colin's side.

When he rolled Colin over, the older man's eyes opened and he grimaced in pain.

"You're bleeding like a stuck pig. I'll get the bedroll off my saddle and cut it in strips to tie around your waist," Wolf said, but McCrory's hand, surprisingly strong, seized his wrist and held it.

"First see if that other one behind the rocks is alive. We need information out of him," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "I can hold this rag over my side."

"He's dead. This is a bad hit, McCrory," Blake said.

"I've been shot before and it's never good, but I'll make it."

Without wasting any more time on the bushwhackers, Wolf went to get his bedroll and cut it into bindings for Colin's injury. Then he went back to where his fallen comrade lay, now unconscious. Wolf bound the wound tightly, noting with grim satisfaction that the bullet had exited through his right front side cleanly. At least there was no slug to be dug out. He brought their horses around, then attempted to lift McCrory's inert form onto Sand, no easy task. Colin was a big man, several inches taller than Blake with heavier bones.

"What're you trying to doyank my arms off?" Colin mumbled hoarsely as pain revived him. He staggered to his feet with Blake's help, then struggled atop Sand and clung to the pommel, hunched over the saddle. "You better tie me on," he said, handing Wolf his lasso.

Maggie heard the riders approach, then the shouts of alarm. Dropping her polishing cloth, she ran to the window. Colin! For some inexplicable reason she felt he was in danger. Then she saw two hands untying his slumped form and pulling him from his big buckskin. Was he unconsciousor dead?

"It's the mister, Miz Maggie. He's been shot!" Eileen's voice echoed up the stairs.

By the time they had carried him up the front porch steps, Maggie was flying down the hall. "Bring him up here," she said with a breathless catch in her voice. "Eileen, set some water to boil and bring clean bandages up to his room." She whirled and followed the men, directing them to the last room on the right.

Once they had laid him on the big bed and pulled off his boots, she shooed them all out but Riefe and Wolf, who seemed the calmest. As the old foreman helped her undress Colin, Blake explained what had happened.

"On the way back here, we ran into some Crown Verde hands. One's ridden for the doc in Prescott while the other went after the bodies," Wolf concluded. Maggie nodded absently. God, how pale Colin looked!

"Be gone with ye, now. It's time for the women to get to work," Eileen said, shooing Cates and Blake out of the room

As he walked through the door, Wolf collided with Eden, who looked up at him with huge, frightened eyes. "They said my father's been shot!"

She tried to get past him, but Wolf held her fast. "Let Maggie and Eileen tend him. They've both had experience with gunshot wounds."

"Is it serious? I have to see him," Eden persisted, shoving Wolf aside and rushing into the room where the two women were placing a cover over Colin.

Eileen looked up and saw Eden's terrified expression. "He'll be fine, but we do need to clean that wound and pack it until Doc Torres gets here. It'd be most useful if ye carry up the water once it's boiled, Eden child," she said, reassuring the frightened girl with a pat on her shoulder as she turned her away from the pale, unconscious figure lying so still on the bed.

Maggie pressed more rags against Colin's side with trembling hands. The clean exit of the bullet was a mercy, but he was losing so much blood it terrified her.

"Don't die, Colin. Don't you dare die on me before I tell you" She stopped suddenly, aware of what she had almost blurted aloud. Before I tell you I love you.

Did she? Maggie looked down at his face, bloodlessly pale yet oddly young-looking as he lay so still with those troubling whiskey eyes closed and that perpetual scowl erased from around his firmly molded mouth. She ran her fingers through the thick dark hair flecked with gray, watching the light glint on it. Silver dust, she'd once called it. She swept the hair off his forehead. His skin felt hot to her touch.

Oh, Colin, what will I do if you die? The question made her realize that she did indeed love him, this bitter, distant stranger who loved his first wife and his daughter so devotedly. If only he could love Maggie as well.

Eileen bustled back into the room, having left Eden with Wolf to soothe her. The two women cleaned the wound, then packed and wrapped it tightly.

"Doc Torres is real good with herbs 'n such. He's a strange one, he is, but niver did I see a finer doctor. He'll fix up the mister, right enough." Eileen turned to inspect Maggie. "Maybe you'd better lie down a wee bit."

"No. I'm fine, I'll stay. He could begin bleeding again if he gets more feverish and starts to thrash." She felt his head again and bit her lip with worry. "He feels warmer to me."

"Doc Torres has some strange ideas about fevers and such. Best wait until he gets here and not borrow trouble."

Maggie looked up. "What ideas?"

Eileen shrugged. "Instead of sweatin' it out, it's cold he useswrappin' a fevered body with cool wet cloths to bring down the temperature."

"Does it work?"

"Did on Louise Simpson about six years ago. That was when he first arrived. No one trusted him, what with him bein' a heathen 'n all."

"A heathen? Torres is a Spanish name. I'd assume he's as Catholic as you are, Eileen."

"His people were Spanishway back, I guess, but he's a Jew. I'd not be knowin' anything about his family. The mister always liked him. They play chess on winter evenings when he stops off her while he's out on his rounds. Awfully particular he is about how food's prepared in my kitchen," Eileen added huffily.

Maggie smiled in spite of her fears as she stroked Colin's brow again. "I understand that Jewish dietary laws are rather strict."

"A good Catholic woman like meself wouldn't be knowin' about such things," Eileen said.

"Speaking of diets, you'd better see to dinner. I'll stay with my husband until the doctor arrives," Maggie said.

Dr. Aaron Torres reined in at the front steps and quickly dismounted as Eden flew out to meet him. "I'm so glad you're here! Father's been shot and Maggie and Eileen are keeping me out of the room. I'm afraid it's bad," Eden said as the doctor entered the house in swift strides.

When Eden ushered him into the master bedroom, Maggie looked up in surprise at the tall, slim man with gold hair and smiling green eyes. He was dazzlingly handsome, not at all the sort of small, dark, wizened old scholar Eileen had led her to imagine. "I'm Colin's wife, Dr. Torres," she said as she pulled back the covers to reveal her husband's tightly wrapped injury.

He smiled and nodded at her as he set down his leather satchel. "I only wish the circumstances of our acquaintance were not so dire, Mrs. McCrory." Then he looked over to Eden. "You'd best wait downstairs, Eden," he said with surprising firmness for such a gentle voice. "I'll call if I need anything.''

Wordlessly she did as she was told, and the doctor began to unwrap the bandages. "You've done wellthe bleeding has stopped."

"Wolf packed it before they rode back. I don't know how Colin endured two hours on horseback hurt this bad," Maggie said, blanching when she again looked at the angry red hole in her husband's side. He was so still and silent, his breathing shallow.

"The wound is clean. Here, help me turn him so I can check the back," he instructed as he rolled Colin onto his left side. "Excellent. The lower-level bleed has nearly stopped." He carefully swabbed the angry punctures with carbolic, then poured a dark yellow powder over the wounds. Maggie helped him wrap Colin's waist with bandages again. Then they rolled him onto his back and covered him.

"No vital organs seem to have been hit. The real enemy now is fever. You'll have to watch him closely."

"Eileen said you have some unorthodox treatments for fever."

"I'm unorthodox in most ways. I'm a member of the Reformed Movement of Judaism," he said with a smile. "But I do come from a long line of excellent physicians. A distant great-grandfather of mine learned from the Caribbean natives that cooling a fevered body is far more effective than overheating it. I want you to follow my instructions precisely. I'm overdue at the Zeller place to deliver a baby, so I have to leave. Mrs. Zeller's already suffered two breech births and she'll be needing my help. I should be back here by morning."

Maggie nodded, listening to every word he said, intuitively trusting the earnest young physician with the gentle sense of humor and skilled, patient hands.

By evening Dr. Torres's worst fears were realized when Colin began to thrash with a burning fever. Maggie at once set to work, stripping the bed linens back and covering him from head to foot with wet cool towels while Eileen and Eden fetched fresh ones and took the used ones to resoak in cold water. They continued the process for hours.

Colin was burning up. It was the damnable heat of Sonora, like the furnace of hell. The sun beat down on his half-naked body as he plied his task.

He could feel the hated sucking noise as he tugged with one hand while the sharp tip of his blade sheared around the dead Apache's scalp. Plop! The nasty trophy came free. His keen eyes swept the chaotic scene surrounding him as he tied the scalp to his belt and moved on to his next victim.

"You only shoot the bucks, kid. Got a weak stomach for killin' she cats 'n cubs?" a grizzled old mountain man with one eye missing asked as he tied a dozen bloody hairpieces to his scalp pole.

Colin McCrory shrugged as he went methodically about his task. "A buck brings a hundred dollars. Women fifty, children only twenty-five," he replied in his soft Scot's burr.

Lebo spat a lob of tobacco into the thick red dust and laughed, revealing blackened stubs of teeth. "You ain't got no stomach fer killin' a female. Admit it."

"Leave the Scotty be, Ernst," a big black scalper named Amos said quietly. "He done his share o' the fightin'."

"Yeah. And he don't puke no more when he has to cut 'em up," the huge Kanaka added. His big belly rolled with laughter as he hefted his scalp pole onto his horse.

Colin could smell the acrid sweetness of blood congealing in the intense heat. Flies droned hungrily around the mutilated corpses, landing on his hands and greasy stained buckskin pants. He swatted them away furiously.

The big Kanaka finished his task, then reached into the mochila on his saddle and pulled out a sack of piñole. Using some of the pooled blood from a dead squaw to moisten the cornmeal, sugar and cinnamon into a pasty ball, he licked the noisome mess from one big paw.

"Bloody hell! I told you not to do that, you craven barbarian!" The words were barked in the sharp, twangy accent of Jeremy Nash. Colin had quickly learned why their leader held his Brit employers in such contempt. He was called the Aussie, and was an escapee from a British penal colony in Australia.

McCrory refused to watch the confrontation between the big Kanaka and Nash. His stomach was never the best after a raid, anyway. He had already seen the sticky pink goo Kahoo found such a delicacy. Piñole was hard enough to eat when mixed with brackish water. McCrory swatted angrily at the swarming flies and stood up, grimacing in pain as he bore weight on his injured leg.

"They's a doc in Chihuahua City. Best git that looked at afore it festers," Lebo said, eyeing the slash on McCrory's thigh made by an Apache war lance.

Colin scoffed. "Some doctor. He'd as soon poison me and saw off my leg as spit." Damn, but it ached like a bitch. In this heat and filth, he knew he was in mortal danger even now that the fierce no-quarter fighting was over. He finished tying his prizes to the scalp pole on his pack mule, then limped to the small stream that meandered through the Apaches' camp, intent on cleaning the wound with clean water.

Death lay indecently littered around him, a whole village of Chiricahua Apaches. He had never gotten used to the slaughter. The Aussie's band of scalpers had swooped down on them at sunrise. By full light they had finished their fatal business. The enemy were all scalped, and their hairpieces had been tallied and placed on poles. The Apaches' Mexican slaves were readied to march to freedom, and the horses and mules had been rounded up for the drive to Chihuahua City. Quite a haul. Over 150 Apache scalps, 15 freed captives and at least 200 sturdy animals. The Sterling Mining Company who paid them would be pleased.

Jeremy Nash, wearing a rakish grin and a flashy feathered bush hat, strode over and watched as McCrory washed the angry red gash. "Pour some of this onto the wound after you clean it out, mate." He tossed a small leather pouch to the youth. "'Ow long you been ridin' with me now? A year? Two? Funny. A bloke loses track, ya know."

"Nearly two years," Colin replied as he poured a thin line of the yarrow powder onto the oozing gash.

"You was 'ardly outta short pants when I found you in St. Louis."

"And out of the kindness of your heart, you took me under your wing," Colin said lightly, tossing the sack back, his golden eyes meeting the shrewd slate gaze of the Aussie.

Nash threw back his head and roared with laughter. "The scrawny little Scotty's gone and gotten cojones. Don't say I never taught you nothin', mate. A right tidy profit we made today. Them Brit swells'll bloody well pay upin silverfor every scalp. Yer a rich man, Scotty."

Colin studied Nash's toothy grin. "You must've made a dozen fortunes by now. Why do you keep coming back to this hell?"

The Aussie shrugged. "I was born on the Sydney waterfront. Me mum was a whore. Got no desire to go home, mate. What about yerself?"

McCrory shrugged. "Never knew my mother, but my father was the town sod. I always dreamed of coming to America. I confess when I landed in New York I never thought I'd end up in this godforsaken place."

Nash chuckled. "You'll get used to it. I like it well enough. No rules, no coppers. Lots of whiskey 'n womenand all the silver I need to buy anything I want. You'll get used to the killing, too," he added with a leer.

"You've grown to enjoy it, I think." Shrewd whiskey eyes measured the Aussie. "But I never will."

"Best ya get out thenbefore the nightmares start." Nash's voice was hard.

McCrory's eyes flashed away from the Aussie's level gaze. He tied off the wrap on his injured leg and they began to walk toward their mounts.

The Aussie let out a low chuckle. "So, sweet dreams already began." A smirk creased his beard-stubbled cheeks. "You see the bloody bodies, even smell the sour stink of yer own fear."

"Actually, it's the flies I hate the most. Carrion eaters, gorging on the dead." The heat enveloped him, blurring the Aussie's face in a wavering haze. Then everything faded to black.

Exhausted and frightened, Maggie held him down and listened to his feverish ravings. Mostly disjointed phrases, peculiar comments about the Aussiewhoever that wasand complaints about blood and flies, which she supposed referred to his being shot. Later on he called out for Eden or Elizabeth. Every mention of his dead wife's name was like a dagger in her heart, but Maggie swallowed back her tears and kept bathing him with the cold towels.

At one point when he struggled to sit up, she could find no other way to get him into a prone position but to lay her full weight on him. Finally he seemed soothed, and drifted into a deep sleep.

Around midnight the fever broke. Greatly relieved, Maggie sent Eden to bed, insisting the maid Rita could fetch anything she needed. Getting rid of Eileen was a bit more difficult.

"I'll be fine," Maggie said firmly. "Yer exhausted. The circles beneath yer eyes are wide as saucers 'n ye haven't eaten since morning," Eileen scolded. "I'll not budge until you at least take a good hot bowl of stew."

"Bring the stew," Maggie capitulated.

After forcing down half of the rich beef and vegetables, she shooed Eileen out and turned back to the bed where her husband slept peacefully now.

The housekeeper had been right. She was exhausted, but she did not want to leave Colin to be watched by any of the servants. Then an idea occurred to her. The bed was big and wide. Surely she could lie down next to him without hurting him.

Slipping off her clothes, Maggie quickly sponged her body and donned a nightrail and robe, then climbed beneath the quilts with Colin and lay alongside him, feeling assured by the drop in his body temperature and the strong, steady beat of his heart. Sleep quickly claimed her.

Colin awakened to darkness and pain. He stared at the moonlight bathing his room and recognized where he washome safe at Crown Verde. Then everything came back to himthe bushwhackers and being shot. He thought he remembered Maggie crying over him. The subtle essence of lilies of the valley touched his nostrils. He became aware of the soft curves of her body and knew his wife slept beside him. Colin tried to raise his hand to stroke her dark auburn curls, but the pain in his side prevented him. Wincing, he gave up and let sleep claim him once more.

Softly, unaware he did so, Colin murmured her name and took comfort in her nearness. She stirred but did not quite awaken as he whispered, "Maggie . . . my wife."

Chapter Ten

The sound of voices coming up the stairs awakened Colin the next morning. Thin streams of sunlight bathed the room. He could still smell the faint essence of lilies of the valley, but Maggie was gone from his side. The bed felt empty without her. He lay staring at the ceiling, feeling his side throb while he tried to sort through his tangled emotions.

If not for the soft indentation in the pillow and the traces of perfume, he would have thought he had imagined that she had slept with him last night. Vague images of her bathing his body with cool cloths flashed through his mind. He thought he remembered her tears as she threatened him if he dared to die. He even vaguely recalled that she had thrown herself across him, pressing her soft curves against his heated flesh.

"I must've been crazy with fever." Then a horrifying thought dawned on him, causing him to bolt upright in bed. At once the pain slashed wickedly across his side, driving the breath from his lungs as he fell back onto the pillows. Had he raved about his past, about being a scalper with the Aussie? What if Maggie knew?

He had castigated her enough about her past. Even if he had spent all his respectable years in Arizona trying to atone for the sins of his youth, his own past bore no close inspection, but a man's morals were accounted differently than those of a woman. Anyway, he had left his sordid occupation as soon as he could escape it. She had chosen to remain in hers even though she was financially independent enough to quit whoring.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and Aaron entered with Eileen. Perversely, Colin felt a stab of disappointment that Maggie was not with them.

As if in answer to his reaction, Eileen beamed and said, "I told Miz Maggie not to be frettin' when I sent her down for a good hot breakfast. She's done nothin' but stay at yer bedside since they brought ye in, scarce eaten a bite."

"Good morning, Colin. You seem much improved since yesterday," Dr. Torres said with a smile.

"Easy for you to say, Aaron. You aren't the one whose side's on fire," Colin groused.

"Let me take a look at the wound," the physician said as he unfastened the bandages.

"I'm not too full of holes to hold whiskey."

"A prime consideration for a Scot, I'm sure," Aaron replied gravely, but mirth danced in his eyes as he gently rolled his patient over and checked the exit wound.

Sweat beaded Colin's brow. Fiery pain lanced through him with every movement, but he made no sound as Aaron applied fresh bandages. "I'm goin' to tell Miz Maggie yer on the mendand fetch ye some of the fine calves head broth I've been steepin' since yesterday. It's good and nourishin'," Eileen announced.

"Eating the boiled brains of a calf is enough to make me sick. Hell, Eileen, I'm already shot," Colin protested.

"Ha! This from a man whose national delicacy is oat mush boiled in sheep's guts!" said Torres.

"Haggis isn't a dish I fancy either," Colin replied sourly.

"I think you'd better capitulate, my friend," Torres said with a chuckle as Eileen bustled away. When the two men were alone, his mood grew serious. "You were lucky, Colin. The slug missed your vital organs, and that young hand of yours knew how to slow the bleeding sufficiently to get you home. Your wife did a splendid jobshe has a fine level head on her shoulders. Followed my instructions to the letter."

Although Aaron did not pry, Colin could sense his friend's curiosity. After fifteen years as a widower who had avoided matrimony, his second marriage was quite a surprise. "Maggie helped me with Eden," he said guardedly, knowing the doctor had heard the gossip. "My daughter needed a woman's caring after what she'd been through."

"Has Eden been physically harmed?" Torres asked with concern.

"No, thank God . . . but she was hysterical when we found her. The scars are in her mindand no one in this highly respectable community will give her a chance to heal," he added bitterly.

"I know how vicious gossip can be, how it feels to be an outsider. But it's more difficult for a woman," Aaron conceded. "At least she didn't make the mistake of marrying that spineless Edward Stanley. Now everyone knows the stuff he's made of.''

Torres's words had a familiar ring to them. "My wife said that very thing," Colin admitted grudgingly.

Just then Maggie walked through the door, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl on it. My wife. Her heart lurched in her chest, and the broth spilled as she set down the tray.

"It seems you've pulled him through the worst of it, Mrs. McCrory. I'll leave him in your capable hands," Aaron said with a smile.

"Not if she's going to feed me that swill," Colin interjected, scowling at the bowl.

"It's a clear beef consommé. Just don't think about where it came from," Maggie replied.

"It's calves' brains."

She looked down at the stubborn set of his jaw. "Maybe you could use them. You sometimes act like you don't have enough of your own," she said sweetly.

Aaron chuckled. "I think it's time I was about my rounds. I'll be back in a few days to check on your progress, Colin." He turned to Maggie and said, "Keep him in bed until then. I know he'll be champing at the bit to be out and about before he's had a chance to heal."

"If a man wants some decent sustenance around here, he has to go out and get it himself," Colin said testily as he tried to sit up. The effort cost him dearly.

At once Maggie's hands were on him, pulling gently on his arm and plumping pillows to support his back. The doctor's chuckling farewell echoed down the hall and the two of them were left alone. Maggie's thigh brushed intimately against Colin's, reminding them both of the past night.

She looked at him uncertainly, wondering how much he remembered about their sleeping arrangements. "You really must eat the broth," she said, turning to pick up the bowl as she willed her hands to stop trembling.

Colin noted her reaction and misinterpreted it. "What did I say last night when I was fevered?" he asked softly.

Her cheeks flushed and the broth sloshed onto the tray. "Nothing much that was coherent. You called for Eden . . . and Elizabeth." The last word came out in a whisper.

"That's all?"

She raised the spoon to his mouth. "Nothing else made sense. Here, take a sip." He noticed how she avoided his eyes as she plied the spoon. Glaring at the broth with distaste, he said, "It's my side that's injured, not my stomach. I want a steak."

"If you're luckyand eat this without giving me any more troubleI'll see about some soft-boiled eggs for lunch," she replied, nudging the spoon at his lips.

He sipped, then made a face. "That tastes putrid." He swallowed, then studied her as she continued to feed him. What did you really hear, Maggie? "Were Eileen and Eden herewhen I was feverish?" God, please don't let Eden know!

She blushed again. "No. Eileen and I felt Eden was too upset seeing you unconscious and bleeding. Eileen brought me the cold towels that I bathed you with, then I sent her to bed. She's getting too old to be running the stairs that way. I stayed the night with you." Her eyes met his, waiting for a reaction.

"I know," he replied. "I owe you another debt, Maggie."

"I don't want your gratitude, Colin." She dipped the spoon into the empty bowl with a clank and stood up to replace the dishes on the tray. "What do you want, Maggie?" His whiskey eyes studied her, but already he was growing fuzzy-headed. His side throbbed too wickedly for him to think clearly.

She could see that he was tiring. Ignoring the discomfiting question, she removed several extra pillows from behind him. "You need to rest now."

He started to protest, then gave in to the fatigue hovering over him. As soon as his eyes closed, she released a sigh of relief. How could she answer him? I want you to love me, Colin. No, she would never abase her pride before him again. He'd trampled on it enough already, calling her a whore, trying to buy her off. He would never love her. She turned and left the room in silence.

Colin lay in the twilight world between sleep and wakefulness, feeling oddly alone. He did not approve of her and he certainly did not trust her, but he did desire her. Just the scent of her made him ache with sexual frustration in ways he never had experienced before, not even for Elizabeth. Especially not for Elizabeth, so chaste and ladylike, so far above him. He had worshiped Elizabeth, but always felt guilty about making sexual demands on her. Not that she had ever refused to do her wifely duty, but it had been a duty. As soon as she had been pregnant both times, she had expected him to quit her bed, and he had done so. He'd been a faithful young husband then, not questioning the proprieties, certainly not betraying his marriage vows with harlots.

As Colin drifted off into a troubled sleep, he thought it exceedingly aggravating that his lust at forty should be so much more firmly engaged than it had been when he was a randy lad of twenty-three.

Maggie and Eden shared a simple meal with Eileen in the kitchen that night. Then Eden went upstairs with her father's supper, leaving the two older women alone.

"And it's that tired ye look. Off ta bed with ye. I've been cleanin' this kitchen for near twenty years without help."

"I don't feel like I could sleep, Eileen. I need to keep busy," Maggie replied as she scraped plates and placed them in the dishpan.

"Yer goin' to spend the night with him again, aren't ye?"

"Am I so transparent? The only way he'll tolerate me in his bedroom is when he's too ill to protest."

The housekeeper gave a snort of disgust at the density of younger people. "He wants ye in his bed, right enough. The fool just isn't knowin' it yet. Yer not exactly helpin' the matter, actin' so proper's standoffish."

"I'm sure you're mistaken," Maggie said, refusing to believe that what she wished so desperately could be true.

"I've known Colin McCrory since he had scarce passed twenty years. He wants ye but he's afraid to admit it."

"He's afraid consummating our marriage will tie him to me for the rest of his life," Maggie said baldly. "We agreed to get an annulment after Eden's life is straightened out."

"He no more wants that than ye do, but the only way to prove it to the likes of himself is to make it impossible for him to resist his own nature."

"You mean seduce him?" Maggie asked, shocked at the calm way the old woman said it. "He'd hate me for itif I could even succeed."

Eileen chuckled. "Oh, ye'll succeed all right. And he won't be hatin' ye at all. That's the only way to be bringin' a man as stubborn as the mister to his senses." Maggie twisted the gold band on her finger, almost daring to hope. "I'm nothing like Elizabeth." She played devil's advocate.

"All the better. The mister is a real man who needs a real woman to stand beside him. Don't be misunderstandin' me when I say that. I loved Miz Elizabeth. She was kind and good and sweetbut she never had the passion her man needed. He put her on a pedestal and worshiped her from afar. That's not the way of a real marriage. It should have fire."

Seeing the look of fond remembrance in Eileen's eyes, Maggie said, "You've been married, then."

"Aye. Johnny'n me, we had lots of good years. He worked for Miz Elizabeth's family, too. I was her maid and he was their groom. When she married the mister, Johnny took a job breakin' horses at Crown Verde. He died of the influenza a few years after Miz Elizabeth was taken."

"How much tragedy has occurred in this beautiful place," Maggie said sadly.

"The past is past, the good and bad of it. I only dwell on the goodand me time with Johnny O'Banyon was good. Me only regret was that I couldn't give him babes. I miscarried two. Then there were no more."

Maggie reached out and took Eileen's gnarled hand in hers, silently communicating her understanding, yet afraid to reveal her own tragic loss.

Eileen was deeply touched. "Ye've suffered too, livin' all these years alone. Just like the mister has. Yer both young and strong, full of life and passion. Don't waste it, Maggie. Don't waste it."

Don't waste it. As she sat watching Colin sleep that night, Maggie mulled over Eileen's advice to her. Dare she believe? Dare she act on it? He did desire her, but was that enough in the light of all her past sins? He would have to forgive a great deal . . . and forget as well. Somehow she feared that a man of Colin McCrory's pride could never do that. But isn't it worth the gamble? some inner voice taunted.

Rising from the chair, Maggie rubbed her back and stared down at Colin's splendid features, softened by the dim flicker of a lone candle lighting the sickroom. She walked over and lightly brushed a lock of dark hair from his brow.

A real marriage should have fire. Well, Lord knew there had been crackling fire between them from the first time they had set eyes on one another. She had never felt about another man the way she felt about this one. Perhaps Eileen was right and he had not wanted Elizabeth the way he should have desired a wife.

She blew out the candle and tiptoed from the room, feeling certain that he would sleep peacefully. Just in case, she left the door open between their rooms so she could hear him if he called out in the night.

By the next morning Colin was feeling well enough to grow more insistent with his complaints about the food.

"I detest oatmeal."

"You're a Scot. They're supposed to love oats." Maggie raised the spoon again.

"Mayhap that's why I emigrated." He winced at the pain in his side as he raised his right arm and wrested the spoon from her, plopping it into the bowl. "Bring me a steak and eggsfried eggs."

Maggie sighed. "No steak, but I'll see about the fried eggs."

By that night he had forced the issue of a steak by threatening to walk down to the kitchen and fry one himself if Eileen wouldn't do it for him. The following morning Maggie decided that he was definitely feeling strong enough to sit up in bed for a shave. She brought in a bowl of hot water and placed it on the dry sink, then proceeded to strop his razor.

He eyed her skeptically. "How much practice have you had shaving men?"

She shrugged. "I've watched shearers work on sheep. It can't be much different."

"My God, you crazy Sassenach! I'm a Scot, not a sheep!" He leaned back against the headboard with a look of horror on his face.

A grin twitched at the corners of her mouth. "I've shaved men before. Just hold still, Scotty." She sat down on the edge of the bed and began to lather his face with the thick soap from his shaving mug. "Your beard's heavy," she said in a husky voice.

"Damned nuisance. It itches like hell when it grows out." She wore a simple tan skirt and a ruffled white blouse which buttoned up the front. He could see the curve of her breast when she leaned forward and raised her arm. The soft fragrance of lilies of the valley seemed to emanate from the deep vale of her cleavage. With every stroke of the razor he felt himself growing more aroused.

Maggie bit her lip in concentration, willing her hand not to shake. The rasping scrape of his whiskers felt wildly erotic, sending jolts of excitement tingling down her arm. Strange, she had shaved Bart when he was ill and never experienced anything like this.

"Must you always go around with your blouse half unbuttoned?" Colin said crossly before he realized what he had blurted out.

"Mmm, is it?" she replied absently, seeming to concentrate on plying the razor.

"Ooch! You cut me." "Then quit squirming around and hold still. It would help if you'd stop looking down and raise your chin," she added sweetly. She reached across to tilt his jaw, and her ruffled blouse brushed his bare chest. She heard a hiss of breath as he inhaled sharply. Smiling to herself, she began to hum softly while she completed the task.

The following morning Maggie rose early and went downstairs to fetch Colin a hearty breakfast. His recovery was progressing far more rapidly than she would ever have imagined. When she mentioned this to Eileen, the old woman laughed.

"Sure and he's a tough one. Broke his leg in two places, last summer it was, when the great beastie he was breaking rolled with him beneath it. Doc Torres said he never seen bones knit so fast. That was when the Whittaker hussy first began comin' round, her with her fancy airs. She niver fooled me. A cold calculatin' one, she is."

"We've already crossed swords. The first week we arrivedat Lucille Guessler's house," Maggie said with distaste, recalling Mariah Whittaker's wintry grayish eyes and cold patrician features. "She wasn't at all happy to hear Colin had married. Eden had already warned me about her."

"Just don't be turnin' yer back on the likes of that one," Eileen called after Maggie, who was backing through the swinging door with a full tray.

As soon as she reached the upstairs hallway she heard the sound of footsteps and cursing. Setting the tray hastily on a marble-topped side table by the door, she rushed inside to where Colin stood, holding onto the bedpost. He was wearing the brocade dressing robe that had been hanging in his wardrobeacross the room.

"You've been walking!" she accused.

"I find it preferable to crawling at my age. It's easier on the knees," he said, trying to sound casual. Sweat beaded his forehead and he was weakened by his exertions. He studied her fresh beauty, always so wholesomely startling for a woman with her past. She wore a demure gown of apple green muslin buttoned all the way up to her slender throat. But on someone with her curves, it was far from a sedate little day dress. She filled out every inch of it as the soft cotton molded to her breasts and waist.

"Let me help you back into bed." She noticed his perusal as she crossed the room and reached out to place his left arm over her shoulder.

"Not to bed," he replied stubbornly. "I'm going to eat sitting up in a chair. Food can't digest properly when a man is forced to swallow while he's reclining."

"The Romans managed," she said smoothly.

"Their empire fell, didn't it? I'll sit in the chair by the window," he commanded.

She helped him to the chair, but just as she released his arm, Colin stumbled against the wall. Maggie grabbed for his arm but his foot tripped her and she fell against his chest. His arms instinctively reached out for her in spite of the pain in his side when he raised them.

With a muffled oath, he fought off a wave of dizziness while clinging to her. She braced one hand behind him against the wall.

"You're not strong enough to walk yet."

"I bloody well am if you'd keep from crushing the air from my lungs by falling on me." He could smell her perfume and feel the curves of her flesh through her thin muslin gown.

"Don't you wear anything beneath your dress?" he asked as one big hand splayed across her back.

"First you complained about the buttons on my blouse being open, now it's my undergarments. You must be feeling stronger to take such notice, Colin," she said mischievously, not being able to resist rubbing her body very subtly against his. He tried to shift away but not before she felt the bulge beneath his robe.

She was mocking him, the damnable crafty tart! "Just let me sit down and I'll feel well enough," he growled.

"I think you feel pretty good right now." Maggie leaned away from him and he slid over to the chair and plopped down.

"My breakfast's probably cold by now."

"Nobody's fault but your own, you stubborn Scotty." She thought she heard him mutter something about a conniving Sassenach beneath his breath as she fetched the tray with a smile.

While the cat's away, the mouse will playbut Ed Phibbs's expression was anything but mousy as she watched Clement Algren's fat backside disappear into the outbound stage headed for San Francisco. He was off on newspaper business for several weeks, leaving her in charge of the Miner. She had put on a meek and obedient facade for him the past weeks. In fact, her interview with Colin McCrory's new bride had been so saccharine it even irritated Fatty Algren.

The publisher had wanted some good juicy dirt on McCrory's sudden marriage and she had written a silly bit of fluff instead, detailing Maggie McCrory's fashionable gown and describing the romantic way she met her future husband in San Francisco. Then Ed had tended to society-section business, reporting on garden clubs, tea parties and Eastern fashions to lull Algren into complacence. Now her patience would pay off. She had several hot leads to track down dealing with corruption at the White Mountain Indian Reservation.

Last week she had quite accidentally overheard a conversation between a member of the assembly and Win Barker. The two men had been walking down the hall in the Yavapai County Courthouse. When she heard their voices whispering in furious argument, she had been sitting in a hidden alcove rewriting her notes from a horsetheft trial she had just covered. They were discussing Lamp's increasing demands for larger percentages of the profits on the sale of supplies to the reservation Indians. Barker had been placating, assuring the legislator that he could control the agent, but the politician's voice was imperious and brisk with anger, downright threatening.

Ed would have given a new printing press to know who the scalawag legislator was. He almost seemed to have the upper hand over rich, influential Win Barker. But before she could sneak a peek at the unknown man's face, they had turned the corner and entered the gentlemen's lounge. Unfortunately she could not follow them inside. The facility was crowded with a number of men from the legislature as well as sheriff's deputies and various other local businessmen. Barker emerged a half hour later looking haggard, and then departed on the afternoon stage for Tucson.

Rumors about the infamous Tucson Ring had been circulating around the territory for years. Recently Colin McCrory and a few others in Prescott had been stirring up so much protest that a special investigator from Washington was due to arrive next month. If she could only break the story before he hit town! Just thinking of it made her nose twitch. That ancient relic Clarence Pemberton, who had been her mentor back in San Antonio, had always said a good reporter could smell a story the way a bear smelled a bee tree. She knew she was onto something big.

Ed had tried to interview McCrory's hired gun Wolf Blake when he was in town the past week. But Blake had been as taciturn as his employer, who was at Crown Verde recuperating from a gunshot wound. McCrory had made an enemy powerful enough to try murder. She was positive the assassination attempt was related to the corruption at White Mountain. She planned a trip to the reservation that very day, as soon as she had the morning editorial and a few filler columns polished up for the Miner's typesetter. The editorial was a clarion call for a thorough housecleaning in Indian affairsfrom the territorial capital here in Prescott all the way to the commercial center of Tucson. The cycle of starving the Apaches, then getting rich supplying the Army when the savages took to the warpath, had to stop.

Ed Phibbs's long strides soon took her back to the Miner office where she set to work. Within an hour she had left the newspaper with its press clanking and whirring out the morning edition. The ride to White Mountain would take the rest of the day. Then there was the matter of bearding Caleb Lamp in his den of iniquity.

She had heard of the conditions under which the Apaches there lived. The agent might tidy things up when the Washington politicians arrived, but he would not be expecting her tonight. She would see firsthand everything there was to see.

Ed had learned to cultivate her natural propensity toward eccentricity as a means of concealing her keen intelligence. Most of her acquaintances thought her merely a peculiar old maid and humored heruntil she pulled the rug from beneath those who crossed between her and a story.

Fatty Algren would be furious when his rug was yanked, but what a thump when he hit the ground! If her story sold as many papers as she thought it would, by the time he returned she would be too valuable an employee for him to fire. Whether he fired her or not, she was going to take the chance and see her exposé through to its conclusion.

Maggie's campaign to seduce Colin was producing mixed results. She had used his confinement to his bed and then to his room as a means to subtly tease and tantalize him. It worked. He was certainly aware of her as a woman. He desired her. But he had done nothing to indicate he would act on his desire. Short of climbing in bed and attacking him as he slept, she was running out of strategiesand time.

That morning he had come downstairs for breakfast and strolled around the porch of the big ranch house, then headed to the stables. Soon he would be fully recovered and able to hold her at arm's length again. Perhaps he would visit one of the fancy houses in Prescottor even Mariah Whittaker, if she would still have him now that her matrimonial hopes were dashed. The image of her husband entwined in the arms of another woman sent a furious surge of jealousy through Maggie unlike any emotion she had ever experienced.

''Ye're lookin' so low ye'd have to get better to die," Eileen said as Maggie sat on the porch swing, staring out to where Eden worked in the flower garden, cutting zinnias for the evening dinner table. "The child will mend, Maggie."

Although she was not too certain about Eden, Maggie's troubled ruminations had not been about her young charge but the girl's father. She put him out of her mind and motioned for the housekeeper to join her. "You've been awfully good, you knowin fact, wonderful, allowing me to come and intrude in your place with Eden as well as your place running the household."

Eileen sat down on the big wooden swing beside Maggie. "Saints preserve me, if I'm all that wonderful," she said with a warm chuckle, patting Maggie's hand. "I knew when I saw the two of ye together that Eden had formed a bond with ye that was special, that she needed ye. After what happened to her, I understood. As to bein' mistress hereye've scarce intruded at all."

"That's because I'm a terrible housekeeper and even worse cook."

"I think it's because of yer troubles with the mister," Eileen said bluntly.

"I've been taking your advice," Maggie replied, crossing her arms on her chest defensively. "I've done everything but hold him at gun point and make him strip his clothes off. He may desire me, but he's determined not to do anything about it."

A devilish gleam came into Eileen's brown eyes, which crinkled at the corners as she grinned. "A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do, me mum used to say."

"And exactly what is that?"

"I'd not be usin' a gunjust yet, mind. But I do think the time for drastic measures is here. It's fearful stubborn the Scots are, but when a man's mother naked in his bath . . . weel . . . it tends to weaken his resolveespecially when he can't be hidin' what his body feels."

Maggie remembered the times she had held her body close to his and felt the hardness of his staff pressing against her. "I know what his body feels. It's his mind I can't seem to reach," Maggie replied disconsolately. "I won't approach him that brazenly. I can't." She rubbed her temple, then said, "Speaking of baths, I think I'll take a good long soak in the tub while Colin's not here." She rose and headed for the door.

Eileen did not move but called after her, "Don't be forgettin' them lily-smellin' bath salts." Sure and the mister does love 'em. If she timed it just right, with a bit of subterfuge, those two fools would be at the end of their frustration by tonight! Once Maggie had disappeared upstairs, Eileen set to work. The first thing was to send Rita down to the stables to summon the mister.

Chapter Eleven

Wolf watched as Maggie and Eileen went into the house, leaving Eden alone in the flower garden. Then he approached her with the big shaggy dog they had rescued in Prescott walking beside him. He looked down at the small figure with her silvery blonde hair falling in a curtain of curls down her back. Slim white hands worked skillfully, snipping and pruning, selecting only the largest and most perfect yellow and orange blossoms.

He fought the urge to kneel beside her and bury his face in that cloud of shining pale hair. Instead he said quietly, "I brought a friend. He's real anxious to see you again."

"Oh!" Eden looked up in surprise at Wolf, almost dropping her pruning shears. "You came up on me so quietly." Like an Indian. She wanted to call the words back and blushed furiously. "II mean, I was too absorbed in the flowers." Then his words registered and she looked at the dog. "He's recovered already!" Eden opened her arms and the big red mutt bounded up, giving her face a fulsome slurp as she hugged him, laughing and nuzzling his fur with her cheek.

Wolf wanted to exchange places with the cur. He would have sold his soul to have his appearance light up her face, to have her welcome him into her embrace. "Doc Watkins says he'll be good as new. Lucky for him his leg wasn't broken, but he is missing a few teeth. He has to eat soft food now."

"I could use the sausage grinder Eileen has in the kitchen to make food for himoh, that is, if you'd bring him around to the house every day," she added.

Wolf smiled. "I sort of figured from the way you took to him that you'd want to keep him. A man like me can't keep a pet." Or a woman.

"That's very generous of you, Mr. Blake. Thank you. I haven't had a dog in yearssince I was a girl."

"And that must've been eons ago," he teased with a grin.

She stood up and faced him with the dog between them. Her face sobered in an instant and her eyes were haunted. "At times it does seem that way, but I'm sure this fellow will help cheer me. Dogs aren't like people. They accept you, flaws and all, without judging or condemning."

"I know," he replied quietly.

Eden looked at his dark, handsome face, usually so hard and shuttered, yet now curiously vulnerable. "Yes, I imagine you do."

"They haven't been easy on you, have they? The good people of Prescott." His voice was bitter.

"No, most haven't. I imagine you understand what it's likebeing an outcast. Has it always been hard for you?" She stroked the dog, whose tail thumped loudly.

"I got used to it, but I was born not belonging, between Apache and white worlds. For you, raised so fine, being a lady"

"A lady no longer," Eden said with a scoff in her voice.

"Yes, you are, and you'll always be. Don't ever let them convince you differently," Wolf said with intensity in his voice.

She looked up at him, startled by his vehemence. "Maggie told me the same thing, but . . . it's hard at times. I get so lonely. None of my old friends from the neighboring ranches are allowed to visit. And when we go to town . . . well, after Mrs. Guessler's tea, I won't be doing that anymore."

"Those vicious hypocrites. They're worthless. In time you'll find out who your real friends are, Miss McCrory."

Her hands stilled on the dog's thick red fur and she met his fathomless black eyes with color staining her cheeks. "Would you be my friend, Mr. Blake?"

His smile was a blinding white slash in that dark beautiful face. "Only if you stop calling me Mr. Blake. I'm Wolf."

"And I'm Eden," she said gravely, sensing this was far more than a simple exchange of amenities, but uncertain of exactly how to proceed.

"All right, Eden," he replied in a low voice. "We both have names. Now what about him?" He scratched the big mutt's well-chewed ears.

"Well, since he's big and has red hair, I think I'll call him after the English kingRufus."

"Rufus it is, although I don't think with all his battle scars he looks very kingly," Wolf said, warmed by her smile.

"Neither did William Rufus, from what my father's history books tell," she said conspiratorially. "Nobility is of the soul, not at all involved with mere outer appearance."

As if chorusing agreement, Rufus gave a lusty double woof. Both young people laughed heartily.

From her vantage point in the front parlor, Eileen watched the exchange with troubled eyes. For all the mister championed the rights of those poor benighted savages, she was certain he would not want one courting his daughterespecially when he was a penniless drifter and a gunman to boot. Eden had been hurt enough already. Eileen pondered what to do and decided she would talk it over with Maggie tomorrow. Hopefully by then both she and the mister would be in a better mood!

Upstairs, Maggie had just stepped into the tub, filled with scented water. The oversized tub had been specially ordered from St. Louis just to accommodate Colin's six-foot-two height. A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do. She tried to work up her courage by recalling Eileen's words. No use. She could never seduce her husband.

I'm a whore and I've never seduced a man in my life. What a ridiculously bad joke it was, but true. At the Gilded Lily her first customer had leaped on her as soon as they entered her room. It had always been that way. Every other man between Omaha and Sonora had found her irresistible. She had been fighting off their advances for the last ten years. Now that she finally found a man she wanted to lie withher own husbandhe refused her. I've abased my pride enough. No more. If he won't come to me

Her dozing reverie was interrupted by a guttural male oath. Her eyes flew open and met those of the very object of her desiresfurious whiskey eyes, burning her through the translucent veil of water. He had obviously come into the tub room from his bedroom, half undressed, ready to bathe himself. She sat up and seized a towel from beside the tub, then jumped out, backing away from him. He was furious!

"You've tried it all, haven't you? Teasing, leaving your buttons unfastened, going without a corset, rubbing up against me. Now, just when Eileen draws me a bath, you slip into my tub and wait mother naked!" Colin could not keep his eyes from devouring her, all wet, her skin glistening with bath oil. The smell of lilies of the valley filled the small bathing roomhis private bathing room.

"You were supposed to be down at the stables with Riefe checking the new foals," Maggie said, her pulse hammering as she clutched the thin linen bath towel to her. She could feel the way his eyes swept over her, lustful and angry at the same time. The hard evidence of his desire bulged against his tight denims.

"As if you didn't hear Eileen send Rita down to the stables to tell me my bath was drawn. You must've torn your clothes off in your hurry to jump in the water to greet me."

"I did no such thing!" A woman's gotta do . . . "Eileen!" Her cheeks flamed as she realized what the matchmaking housekeeper had done.

"Don't try to blame your little seduction scheme on my housekeeper."

"I've never seduced a man in my life." She threw back her head defiantly. "I've never had to, and I'm not starting with a husband who's made it more than clear that he doesn't want me." She steeled her courage and started to walk by him with the towel wrapped haphazardly around her body.

"Oh, I want you, all right. You and your whore's tricks have seen to that!" He reached out and grabbed one soft arm, yanking her around to face him, then pulling her against his chest.

As his arms crushed the breath from her, Maggie pushed against his chest. "No, Colin! You'll only regret"

"Hell, I've regretted ever meeting you, much less having to marry you, but as long as we are married, I'm going to sample the charms you've given so many other men." He swept her up in his arms and headed back through the open door into his bedroom.

"Please"

"Please what? You've been begging for this ever since I first laid eyes on you!" He threw her onto the bed, wincing at the exertion. Even after three weeks, his side ached like hell, but he was too overwrought to care. He began stripping off his remaining clothes. He had already shed boots and shirt.

Maggie lay on the bed, her heart pounding, watching as his hands worked feverishly at the buttons of his fly. He shoved the tight jeans down and kicked them away. She had often seen his splendid body naked, but before he had always been lying unconscious as she tended his wound. Now all that remained was an angry red scar puckering his right side, one among many older ones, attesting to the hard, dangerous life of an Arizona pioneer.

He walked toward her, every muscle in his lean body hard and corded. Her eyes fastened on his phallus, at last freed of the restraints that had separated them during all their previous encounters.

A nasty smile spread across his face. "Making comparisons?" He climbed onto the bed and tore the towel from her. "I think it's time I made a few of my own."

His breath fairly caught in his throat. Lord above, she was magnificent! Her beautiful face was flushed and those great blue eyes were wide as they devoured him. Dark auburn hair glowed like a shining curtain around her sun-gilded shoulders, but lower, where her scanty camisa had shielded her from the hot Mexican sun, her skin was creamy ivory, soft and incredibly voluptuous. Large ripe breasts with rosy nipples beckoned a man's hands, a tiny waist and lushly flared hips led to those incredibly long sleek legs with their smoothly turned calves and slender ankles. The dark reddish curls at the juncture of her thighs were partially hidden as she twisted onto one side, trying to prevent his bold inspection.

"A bit late in your life for missish vapors, isn't it, Maggie?" he said softly as he ran one large dark hand over the curve of her hip. I should just roll her onto her back and take her, dammit! Yet she looked so stricken, almost afraid of him. A look he remembered from the long-buried past rose to haunt himthat of a handsome Apache woman the Aussie had taken captive and pleasured himself with . . . before breaking her neck and then scalping her.

Maggie felt his hesitation and saw the haunted look of pain that flashed in his eyes. "Colin, what is it?" Unconsciously her hand reached up and she touched his cheek, forgetting her fears.

Her touch was like a living flame. The instant her fingertips grazed his cheek he felt the searing jolt, that same maddening fascination that had drawn him to her since he had first laid eyes on her. His hand swept up and enveloped hers, drawing it to his lips.

She felt his heat as he leaned over her, then the hot, wet touch of his mouth as he kissed her hand. Like a man mesmerized he lay her back against the pillow, imprisoning her wrists. Then he lowered himself over her and those magical lips sought hers. She knew it was madness not to turn away, not to fight him. After it was over, he would hate her even more. But she could not move, only wait for his kiss.

Their lips met in fierce, bruising passion as he savaged her mouth, demanding she open to him. She obeyed. He tasted her deeply, hungrily, as his hands slid up and down the ripe curves of her flesh, cupping a breast to weigh its fullness, then teasing the nipple into pebbly hardness.

Maggie heard a moan, the sound of passion she had heard girls fake in a dozen bordellosonly this time she was making the noise and it was certainly not false! Somehow while he had invaded her with his bold, searing kisses and his hands had explored her body, she had wrapped her arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer to her. Maggie could feel his heart pounding furiously and her own answering its racing cadence.

The pressure of her long nails kneading into his back drove him wild with wanting her. He cupped the satiny curve of one buttock, then ran his hand over her hip and held it fast as he raised his knee between her legs, separating them. ''Open for me, Maggie," he whispered hoarsely as his aching staff probed the soft curls. He moved lower, trying to guide himself into the heaven he knew awaited him deep inside the silken heat of her flesh.

Maggie felt the rough desperation in his caresses and responded to his need with her own, wanting this harsh, enigmatic man to love her. But when he pried her legs apart and prepared to enter her, all the degrading hurt and humiliation of her past rose up, choking her. She had always been dry and tight. The couplings with Whalen had been painful and unsatisfying. The women at the Gilded Lily had given her a jar of butter to ease the passage. But now it had been so long and his taking her this way so unexpected . . .

She grew rigid with fear as his fingers touched her nether lips, opening them and rubbing the hardness of his phallus against the small, tight passage. Mysteriously, it was not dry. She could feel the slickness of flesh gliding on flesh. He probed with the tip of his staff, then gave a shudder of exultation and plunged deep inside her. Her feeling of pressure and tightness was uncomfortable, but not as bad as her fears. Still, her nails dug into his shoulders, trying to communicate that he should go slower.

Colin was ravenous for her body. He had desired her from the first time he had laid eyes on her, standing on those stairs in that Sonora bordello. For weeks she had teased and tantalized him until he lost all reason when he saw her lying naked in that tub with her splendid mane of auburn hair draped over the rim like a curtain of russet satin. Her skin was soft and redolent of lilies of the valley, her body made to drive men wild. He had felt her writhe under his touch, urging him on in spite of her earlier protestsuntil he moved to complete the act. When he guided his aching staff to the soft wet core of her, she stiffened as if she were a frightened virgin.

A dark surge of anger washed over him, feeding the flames of his passion until he plunged deeply inside her in one hard, deep stroke. He buried his face against her throat and felt her pulse beating frantically as she clutched him in silent entreaty, her whole body frozen, still, silent.

"Maggie?" He groaned her name hoarsely, but did not try to move. Dear God, she was tight, as if she had not been with a man in yearsif ever! But that was not possible. His mind struggled desperately to function as his body clamored for surcease. Maggie held tightly to him, grateful for the reprieve as her body accommodated itself to his, becoming used to the fullness, easing from that first tight thrust when her muscles had clenched in fear. Now her body overrode her mind, moving with an ageless, undeniable rhythm. She could not stop her hips from raising up against his. Their flesh glided, easily this time. She heard a ragged groan escape his lips as he began to move again, slowly at first, then, feeling her respond, harder and faster.

The glory of it took her breath away, that illusive, often laughed-about pleasure that was rumored to be taken in an act that women of her kind usually endured with stoic resignation. Never would she have believed this was possible. Never before had Colin McCrory touched her so intimately. No other man ever could. She cried out and rode with him, loving the feel of his sweat-slicked skin, the hardness of his lean muscles, the keen male smell of him. Colin, her husband, was loving her! She felt the tension build and build until he released a guttural oath and began to tremble as his phallus swelled even larger and deeper inside her. He spilled his seed, driving her over the abyss to join him in a convulsive blinding surge of such intensity that all she could do was hold on to him, letting the magic wash over her newly awakened senses.

Colin felt the old familiar crest approaching, yet it was not old but new, more desperately sought, more intense than he could ever remember. He whispered her name like a litany. His release washed over him in undulating waves, and most wondrously, he felt her coming with him, crying out in incoherent surprise as her flesh danced and pulsed as one with his.

Satiated and exhausted, he collapsed atop her, panting like a spent animal, crushing her into the soft mattress. Colin was a big man, and his first wife had been a small, fragile woman. He had always been sensitive to Elizabeth's comfort and quickly rolled away, allowing her to leave the bed and compose herself. Maggie still held him fast. A strange lethargy suffused his body and he did not want to move. When he finally rolled free of her, she lay beside him, letting her arm remain beneath his neck, turning her head to nestle it against the curve of his shoulder. She felt right.

A swift stab of loss assailed her when he no longer covered her with his hard, warm body. As he slid out of her and rolled onto his back, it felt natural as a flower seeking the sun for her to turn and fold herself against his side. Gradually, as the physical euphoria subsided, she grew aware of his silent withdrawal. A bittersweet sadness swept through her, piercing her to the heart. "You're sorry now, aren't you?"

He cursed low, then said, "It was inevitable, I suppose."

"I didn't set a trap, Colin. Eileen must have"

"I know," he sighed. "Rita made a special trip to the stables to insist that I return to the house at once because the mistress had drawn my bath. The mistress to her is that damnable Irishwoman."

"She meant well, Colin. Please don't be angry with her." She hesitated, fighting tears, then mastered her emotions and said, "When you want me to leave, I will. I know we can't get an annulment now . . . but you've said you never intended to remarry anyway, so a divorce won't really matter that much, as long as Eden is"

"Don't!" he said sharply. "Don't talk about what lies ahead yet. Don't make me feel guilty for taking you. You wanted it." His words sounded defensive and churlish in his own ears. "Yes, I did . . . in ways I never understood," she answered softly. "Thank you for showing me that there can really be pleasure between a man and a woman."

"You never knew?" Somehow he believed her. He had felt her earlier fear, the helpless surprise as her intense passion was spent. "How long has it been, Maggie?"

She knew what he meant. "Since I've been with another man? Over ten years. I never enjoyed it, even with the first man I believed myself in love with. After that . . ." She shuddered in distaste as the hateful memories rolled over her.

"Why did you stay with Fletcher?" He forced himself to remember that she had been a whore, then a bordello madam.

"Surely you aren't jealous, Colin? He was my friend and mentorhe educated me in much the same way Elizabeth did you."

Colin felt at once guilty and disloyal for having enjoyed Maggie's passionate response and remembering that his first wife had never given him that special pleasure. "Elizabeth has nothing to do with this," he said angrily.

"Elizabeth has everything to do with this." She slid from the bed, wrapping the loose sheet around her regally. "You feel you've defiled her memory with me. I'm sorry, Colin." Before the tears threatened to choke her, she turned away and slipped quickly through the door into her own room and closed it softly behind her. She heard no sound from the other side.

Eileen looked hopefully from Maggie to Colin as they entered the dining room that evening. Both seemed subdued and quiet. Their eyes met often, but each glance was quickly averted as soon as the other met it. Maggie flushed each time she had to reply to a casual comment Colin made. He was wooden, his features unreadable.

Eden noted the altered tension between them. Something had happened, but she was not certain what. She decided to ask Maggie later. Her own thoughts were troubled by Wolf Blake. How should she respond to his overtures? She was bruised and vulnerable, not sure she could ever trust a man again, especially a gunman like him. Yet perversely she did. Dangerous ground upon which to tread, indeed.

Wondering how her father might react to her new friendship with Wolf, she decided to test the waters. "Is Wolf staying on at Crown Verde or are you sending him to the lumber mill?"

Colin appeared distracted for a moment as he chewed a bite of Eileen's succulent pork roast without tasting it. His eyebrows rose in inquiry as he leaned forward, scowling. "Since when have you started calling him Wolf?"

She colored, feeling like a fool. "Since this afternoon when he brought Rufus to meyou remember the dog he rescued from that drunken miner in Prescott? I want to keep him," she added defiantly.

A look of faint amusement flashed across his face. "The wolf or the dog?"

Now she blushed beet red.

Maggie, sensing the growing attraction between Eden and the half-breed, stepped in before Colin said something he might later regret. "I think it was very kind of Wolf to bring the dog to you."

"It would seem Blake's become your paladin, Eden," her father said in a measured voice. "Just be careful you don't get too attracted to your new friend."

"Why? Are you sending him to the lumber mills? When the job's done, will he leave Arizona?" Colin shrugged. "A man like Blake makes his own rules, Eden. He signs on only until the job's finished. Then he drifts. He's going to the mill tomorrow. In fact, I'm taking him over there in the morning."

"Be careful, Colin," Maggie said softly, remembering how he had come home from his last trip to the mill, shot and tied unconscious to his horse.

Their eyes met and held until he nodded silently. Then she looked away with a faint flush suffusing her cheeks. What would tonight bring?

Colin wondered himself, but decided it was safer to concentrate on Eden's interest in Blake, which unsettled him. She had not shown any sense in her choices of men to datefirst that weakling Stanley, then that murdering outlaw Lazlo, and now a breed gunman who was as reliable as a tumbleweed. "Eden, only remember that Wolf is a longera man who doesn't fit in white society any more than he does with the Apache."

"We have a great deal in common, then. I don't fit in our society either," Eden replied with a catch in her voice. She had wanted to know how he felt about Wolf and now she did.

"You're not in the position of a half-breed gunman, Eden," Colin replied sternly.

"No! I'm not. No one dares cross himthey're afraid of his gun. They may hate him, but they respect him. I'm despised. The women cross the streets so they won't risk contamination, and the men leer at me. If I gave them a chance, half the respectable pillars of Prescott would probably offer to make me their mistress!" She shoved back her chair and rushed from the room with tears blinding her.

Colin started to rise, his face ashen, but Maggie placed her hand over his, shaking her head. "Let her go, Colin. She's upset now and entitled to a good cry. Anyway, I've been meaning to talk to you about Wolf Blake."

He looked at her incredulously. "I hope you don't want to encourage Eden's attachment to him? She's only doing it because she feels like an outcast now."

"Perhaps, but I don't think so. He's not like Lazlo. I've become a good judge of men over the years. There's a core of strength and decency in Wolf Blake. He was drawn to Eden from the moment he laid eyes on herand she responded. I think it's more than just the tragic circumstances of their meeting. I know he leads a dangerous life, but he could change. Out here lots of men do. What about you? What did you do before you became a respectable rancher and businessman?"

Her question caught him off guard and he looked up into her eyes, startled. I slaughtered Wolf's mother's people like cattle. How much of his gory past had he revealed when he was raving feverishly to her? He studied her face for a moment, but was unable to read anything but concern. His thoughts whirled chaotically in his head as he combed his fingers through his hair. "Point well taken, Maggie. I suppose a father always dreams of his daughter marrying a rich, polished gentleman."

"Do you hold Wolf's Apache blood against him?"

"No, but you've lived in this part of the country long enough to know that isn't the issue. almost everyone hates Apachesfanatically. Eden's got troubles enough of her own. I've been thinking . . . when she's feeling up to it, maybe you could take her to San Franciscoor even back East. I know a few brokers in Chicago and St. Louis. One of their wives might be willing to sponsor her in society. If I could find someone who'd do it, Eden would have a second chance." "For another man like Edward Stanley?" Maggie shook her head. "He was wrong for her the first time. She doesn't want that kind of man, no matter how much she repents falling into Lazlo's trap. You'd be sending her away from the only home and family she's ever known to live in a big city among strangers."

"I don't want to do it, but, hell . . ." He shrugged helplessly.

"What if she did choose Blake? He's bright. It isn't as if you don't need someone to take over your empire one day, Colin. No one's immortal."

He gave her a rueful grin in spite of himself. "That your way of saying I'm getting old?"

"Hardly that," she replied, remembering his passionate lovemaking that afternoon. If only she could give him a son and heir. She pushed the sad impossibility aside, hating the way his very presence brought heat to her cheeks. "Will you give Wolf a chance? Just observe him awhile and then decide if he's good enough for Eden."

"He is educated," Colin said carefully. "I wonder what he'd choose to do if he hung up his guns."

"I think he'd make an excellent stockman. He has a special affinity for animals. You should have seen that dog respond when he picked the poor thing up and carried it to Doc Watkins."

"He's wonderful with horses," Colin agreed.

"That must be his mother's blood," Maggie said.

Colin laughed mirthlessly at that. "Not likely. Apaches use horses only as a means of escaping pursuit. They ride them until the pathetic beasts die of exhaustion, then eat them and use their intestines to make water bags."

Maggie was startled at his matter-of-fact statement. It seemed incongruous for a man who fought for an end to the mistreatment of the Apaches, an unpopular cause in this blood-soaked territory. "You sound as if you used to live with them."

A strange expression passed over his face. Then he erased it and stood up. "No, I never did. If you'll excuse me, I'm going outside on the porch to smoke a cigar."

Maggie sat disconsolately at the table, looking at the remains of Eileen's lovingly prepared feast. Things seldom work out the way we plan them. Would Colin take her to his bed again, now that their marriage was consummated? Did she want him to, knowing that after the pleasure, there would always be his guilt and regret looming between them? Just thinking of the pain was unbearable. She lay her head in her hands and closed her eyes, struggling to gather her thoughts.

Perhaps he suggested sending her and Eden east as a way to rid himself of a wife he had never wanted. But no, Colin dearly loved his daughter and he would never sacrifice her happiness for any reason, even his own peace of mind. After all, Eden was all he had left of Elizabeth, the wife of his heart. Listlessly, Maggie stood up and began to scrape the dishes.

Eileen bustled in with a startled look on her face. "Sure and you don't need to be doin' Rita's job. She'll be along in a minute. I'm to take it my matchmakin' didn't work?"

"Oh, it worked, Eileen, believe me!" Maggie busied herself handing the stacked plates to the house-keeper.

"Then that's why the both of ye and Miz Eden enjoyed yer dinner so much?" the old woman asked shrewdly, watching the normally calm Maggie fidget nervously. She placed her reddened hand over Maggie's. "I'm sorry if my interferin' has caused more troubles." ''No. Colin spoke the truth when he said it was bound to happen, but now that it has . . ." She shrugged helplessly. I'll always remember the beauty in what we could have haddid have for a few brief, blissful moments.

A smug smile lit the housekeeper's homely face. "Well now, let's just let nature take its course for a while." Then her expression turned serious as she recalled the scene she had witnessed between Eden and the half-breed earlier that afternoon. One look into Maggie's haunted eyes convinced Eileen that this was not the time to burden her with another problem. She would just keep an eye on Wolf Blake herself.

Chapter Twelve

"You're fired! Pack up and get out this very instant." Fatty Algren's normally florid face was crimson with rage as he waved a copy of yesterday's Arizona Miner in front of Ed Phibbs's face. His hands were trembling and sweat beaded his upper lip.

"You're scared out of your wits, aren't you, Fatty?" Ed smiled inwardly when his face went bluish purple with rage at her use of the hated nickname. Well, she certainly had nothing to lose now. There was no reasoning with the old fool. "Your friends in Tucson won't be pleased. Maybe Win Barker will even send someone to try and kill you the way he did Colin McCrory."

As Ed gathered her meager belongings from the cluttered table in the back of the office, she was pleased that he paled with fright. Her exposé of the atrocious conditions at the White Mountain Reservation, as well as the article she had done mentioning Caleb Lamp's Prescott bank account, had made some dangerous enemies for the Miner. "You've got a lot of explaining to do to some very powerful men in Tucsonand some legislators here in Prescott, too," she added with a gummy smile that made him shake with fear.

"What do you know about the legislature?" he asked with a quake of incredulity in his voice. "I won't be the only one Barker will be after, you know," he added, his eyes narrowing to fatty slits. "I think I'll just tell him it's you who's done all this digging.''

She grinned sharkishly. "Why don't you do thatif you have the nerve to face Barker. I certainly intend to confront him."

As the two antagonists argued, Maggie stood in the doorway of the big cluttered office. She had been about to knock on the partially open door when she heard Colin's name mentioned. That peculiar female reporter knew something about the attempts to kill her husband!

Maggie's thoughts flashed instantly to Colin, the man whose nameand now whose bedshe shared. So much had changed in the past two months since they had consummated the marriage that he had never wanted. Yet so much had remained the same. Colin went about his work, taciturn and cool, polite for Eden's sake, but unforgiving to Maggie for the way she had invaded his life. Yet no matter how distant he was during the days, each night he came to her bed. He had never again taken her into his bedroom, that inner sanctum where Elizabeth's presence hovered. Maggie filled her days with work in the busy ranch house and tried not to think of the bittersweet nights with Colinor that they might come to an end. The thought that he might ask her to leave she could bear. That he might be killed was unthinkable. What did Ed Phibbs know about Colin's enemies in Tucson? Maggie had come to town with Colin to meet the special investigator sent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Leonard Potkin, whose stage was to arrive tomorrow. She had only stopped by the Miner to thank Ed Phibbs for writing the kind article welcoming her to Prescott as Colin's new bride. Although only a few months ago, it now seemed a lifetime to Maggie.

Living in isolation on Crown Verde, they did not send riders to Prescott for the paper. After Colin had been shot, there was such an uproar that no one would have had time to read it anyway. Events here in Prescott must really have moved rapidly without their knowledge. Apparently Ed Phibbs had stirred up quite a hornets' nest while her employer was away. When it became apparent that the exchange between the owner and reporter was over, Maggie knocked perfunctorily on the door and walked into the room.

"I'm interested in purchasing some back issues of the Miner," she said, smiling at Ed, who returned her smile, revealing buck teeth and a surprising amount of healthy pink gums. Fatty Algren's face was thunderous.

"I was wondering when you'd get word about my crusade, Mrs. McCrory. How is your husband's recovery progressing?" Ed asked, for the moment cheerfully resigned to her unemployed status.

"There are no back copies for sale," Algren said abruptly, cutting off Maggie's reply to Ed. "I would appreciate it if both you ladies"he emphasized the word insultingly"would leave my office."

"I'd be delighted, Mr. Algren," Maggie said sardonically, then turned to Ed. "Could I perhaps buy you lunch, Miss Phibbs? I think we have a great deal to discuss."

Ed grinned, hefting an unwieldy canvas knapsack over one bony but sturdy shoulder. "Lunch sounds grand, Mrs. McCrory. Just grand." As soon as they were out the door and out of earshot, she patted the knapsack. "I have copies of every issue I ran while Fatty was awayright here."

Over fried pork chops and cream gravy at the Guild Restaurant, the two women discussed what Ed had unearthed about the Tucson Ring. "So, although I have nothing to link Win Barker to any one councilman or representative, I do know that Barker's getting information about federal contracts and Army patrol movements from somewhere in the Bureau of Indian Affairsthe only likely source is through the legislature."

"Or the governor, but I admit that's not very likely," Maggie said.

Ed threw back her head and laughed. "John Frémont has scarcely put in an appearance in the territory since his appointment. And as to that sanctimonious prig who's acting governor, John Gosper's too busy being a martyr to be a crook."

"So what are you going to donow that you no longer have a newspaper to support your investigations or print your findings?" Maggie knew the tenacious woman would never give up.

"If I get the whole dirty ring exposed, newspapers from Prescott to Tucson will clamor to print the story." Ed leaned forward, her neck protruding across the table rather like a vulture's. "I must confess to an ulterior motive when I wrote that society piece welcoming you to Prescott, Mrs. McCrory. I needed to get into your husband's good graces. I think we could work on this together." As if befriending me could get anyone in Colin's good graces. "Colin wants Caleb Lamp dismissed and himself appointed Indian agent for White Mountain. I know he'd be interested in what you've learned about Win Barker's ties to the territorial government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is sending a special investigator to Prescott."

"I know. Have you heard when he'll arrive?" Ed asked eagerly.

"On tomorrow's stage from Santa Fe. Colin's been invited to dinner with him tomorrow evening and hopes to take him to White Mountain for a real investigation. That's why we came to town today."

Ed's gray eyes brightened. "I could give him plenty of new materialwe could exchange information."

"Yes, I'm sure you could," Maggie replied thoughtfully. "Let me talk to Colin and see if I can arrange things."

As he crossed the deserted restaurant, Colin studied the gaunt features and hovering posture of the female reporter. She looks like a roadrunner ready to spear a sidewinder. "Good afternoon, Miss Phibbs. Maggie seems to feel you have some information that would be valuable to me," he said. Hat in hand, he stood in front of the secluded corner table where Ed sat with her note pad and pencil ready.

Ed favored him with an assessing nod. "Please be seated, Mr. McCrory. I'm grateful your wife was able to arrange this meeting. I think we can be certain of privacy here."

The small, run-down restaurant was really a crude log cabin left by some miner gone off in pursuit of another bonanza. His deserted structure was taken over by an old woman of mixed blood who served greasy meat and hard cornbread for a cheap price. Down-and-out miners, out-of-work cowboys and an occasional drifter frequented the place. Right now it was deserted, which made it ideal for their meeting.

"You eat here often?" Colin asked as old Matilda Wiggins waddled over, rubbing none too clean hands on a grimy apron.

"The venison stew is edible," Ed replied noncommittally.

"She wouldn't have a tot of whiskey to disinfect it?" he asked hopefully.

Ed Phibbs drew herself up sternly. "I'm afraid I must warn you that I am Temperance, Mr. McCroryso is Matilda." She added sotto voce, "Although I suspect her reasons for not serving liquor here have less to do with principle than with the inability to afford licensure from the local sheriff."

They ordered, then got down to business. Colin laid out what he knew about Lamp's cattle thefts and the tie-in with the Tucson Ring. "I know he's working for Win Barker, but I can't prove it. Unless I can get some help from Washington to investigate conditions on the reservation, my hands are tied."

"You've found the territorial authorities in Prescott less than helpful?" she asked, chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pencil, as if trying to reach a decision.

"Everyone here hates Apaches. If the Tucson merchants cheat thembetter yet starve themit's fine with the government."

"You're a most unlikely man, Colin McCrory, to champion the Apaches." Her gray gaze studied him intently from beneath thin, elongated eyebrows.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up in warning. "What makes you say that?"

"I'm a reporter. I dig up all the backgroundpast historyI can find on prominent people who are involved in the news." Ed studied the wary tension in him. He could be a dangerous man, but his eyes met hers levelly. She plunged ahead. "I know all about you and the Aussieyour past as a scalper before you took the small fortune you'd made in Mexico and became one of Arizona's leading citizens."

Colin swore beneath his breath. The infernal female sat across from him, studying him with those god-awful popeyes of hers, as calm as if she'd just called a temperance meeting to order. He could feel sweat pooling beneath his armpits and between his shoulder blades. "I guess sooner or later someone was bound to find out. What do you plan to do about it?"

"Nothing. Besmirching your sterling reputation would be a big story, I supposeif I were into that sort of sensational journalism. I assure you I am not."

They were interrupted when Matilda finally appeared with two bowls of spicy-smelling stew. As soon as she had served them and ambled back to her kitchen, Colin shoved the food aside and asked, "Then what in the hell do you want?"

"A real storythe whole exposé about the Tucson Ring. The merchants' contacts high up in government. I saw appalling conditions on the reservation. No wonder the Indians turn renegade, running off to do mayhem."

"That's all the more profit for Win Barker and his cronies," Colin said with disgust.

"Because it keeps a large military force in the territory and his ring also supplies them."

Ed Phibbs had done her homework. Colin nodded his approval. "You understand the situation very well. Maggie said you had some information to share with me." She thumbed through the notebook and began to read him all the details she had gleaned on her expeditions around the reservation and in the capital. When she came to the part regarding the conversation between Barker and the unidentified councilman, Colin listened, amazed, then whistled low.

"I have to find out who that man is," Colin said. "It sounds as if he's the key to the whole operation. You're sure you couldn't identify his voice if you heard it again?"

Ed's bony shoulders slumped dejectedly. "They were whispering. I very much doubt it, but I plan to continue watching the comings and goings in the capital. Sooner or later I'll come across somethingand in the meanwhile you'll be meeting with that investigator from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Perhaps he can be of some help."

"A subpoena of all Caleb Lamp's and Win Barker's records would be the real help, but I doubt that's at all likely to happen," Colin said cynically.

"I take it you've tried?" Ed knew the answer. She smiled slyly. "Perhaps I might have a bit more luck perusing those records. Reporters, unlike men looking for government appointments, don't need subpoenas."

"That's not only illegal, it's damn fool dangerouseven for a man, much less a woman!"

"Your wife warned me you might be the weest bit autocratic. Have no fear, Mr. McCrory, I won't do anything too rashfor the moment. You meet with that investigator from Washington. I'll see what I can turn up between here and the reservation in the meanwhile."

As she started to rise, Colin hurried to pull out her chair, a courtly gesture that surprised her. "Miss Phibbs, I had meant to say thank you for the way you handled the article about Maggie and Eden."

"As I said, Mr. McCrory, I'm not a gossip monger," she replied, flustered.

"Then you're the only one in Prescott who isn't," he replied bitterly.

"I know there's been some . . . er, speculations about your hasty marriage and your daughter's absence, but it'll all blow over." Her jaw jutted out defiantly as she added, "Let's give the town some real scandal to read abouthonest black and white facts."

"Miss Phibbs, I think you could grow on a man," Colin said with grudging respect in his voice.

The indomitable Esmeralda Doucette Phibbs amazed him and herself by blushing.

Crown Verde

Eden scanned the note, then turned to Eileen and said, "I have to go to the White Mountain Reservation."

The housekeeper's eyebrows shot up. "And what would a slip of a girl like yerself be doin' ridin' out amongst a bunch of scalpin' Apaches?"

"There's a smallpox outbreak. Dr. Torres needs help, and since he vaccinated me for it when I was a girl, he knows I'm immune. I'm going, Eileen," she said with determination and bypassed the old woman's formidable bulk.

"I'll see that Riefe Cates sends some men with ye," Eileen called after her retreating back as Eden raced upstairs to throw some clothes into a carpetbag. Sighing, Eileen began to trudge down to the stables. After all the troubles that young woman had been through, she would make certain that Eden did not set foot off Crown Verde land without protection.

Wolf Blake rode up to the corral and dismounted just as she reached the stable door. He tipped his hat courteously and saw the wary look in the old Irishwoman's eyes. He was used to it. "Afternoon, Mrs. O'Banyon."

"And the same to ye, Mr. Blake. Aren't ye to be workin' at the timber mills?"

"The problem there seems all ironed out," he replied with a touch of cynicism in his voice.

She saw the way his hand rested lightly on his shooting iron as he spoke. A clever cub, I'll give ye that. But it only made her mistrust him more. "If yer lookin' fer the mister, he and Miz Maggie are off to Prescottmeetin' up with some fancy feller from Washington. I expect ye could"

"Oh, hello, Wolf," Eden said breathlessly as she raced down the path to the corral, carpetbag in hand with Rufus trailing after her, tail wagging.

Wolf drank in her loveliness. She was stunning, even in a simple, pale blue shirt and tan riding skirt. Her big golden eyes danced and her silvery blonde hair was plaited in a fat shiny braid that bounced with every step she took.

"Afternoon, Eden," he said. A devastating smile slashed his dark face. "Where are you off tojoining your folks in Prescott?" He patted the dog.

"Heavens, no!" The very thought of facing all the dignitaries in the capital, not to mention their wives, made her ill. "I'm going to the reservation to help Doc Torres with an outbreak of smallpox."

His smile vanished. "That's crazy! A beautiful white woman has no business riding to such a dangerous, disease-ridden place. It's hell on White Mountain. I ought to know."

"Good sense, Mr. Blake. Listen to him, Eden. He knows the truth of it," Eileen encouraged.

Eden ignored her and said to Wolf, "I've been vaccinatedI can't catch it but I can nurse those who are sick. Eileen insists I need an escort to the reservationbesides Rufus. Would you consider the assignment?" Her gold eyes met his black ones, holding them.

"Ye shouldn't be goin'." Both of them ignored Eileen's red-faced remonstrance.

"She'll go with or without our approval, Eileen," Riefe Cates said with a crooked grin. "I cud ride with you, Miz Eden, but I got me a mighty sick foal I hate to leave." He looked at Blake uncertainly.

"I'll take you, Eden, but I think the doctor ought to be whipped for asking you to do this."

Eden mounted up and kicked her filly into a canter, leaving Wolf scrambling to catch up to her. When he did, she smiled at him. "I dare you to tell Aaron Torres that he should be whipped." He grunted in reply, grim-faced.

They rode in silence for several minutes, watching Rufus caper around, chasing butterflies and rabbits. Finally Eden said, "You really don't mind coming with me, do you?"

"No, but I think it's dangerous for you to be on White Mountain land."

"I've done it before, with my father and Doc Torres."

"At least you realize you need protection," he said gruffly. "The Apaches aren't all grateful for white medicine."

"It's white disease that's killing them. I expect that makes their hostility understandable," she replied, studying the harsh beauty of his dark profile. "These are your people, Wolf. Don't you care about what's happening to them?"

"The Apache aren't my peoplewhite men aren't either. I don't belong anywhere, Eden." His voice lashed out, but he did not look at her.

Eden's eyes widened with hurt at his angry tone, but then she realized the anger was turned inward, not at her. ''Tell me about your life, Wolf," she asked simply.

He looked over at her abruptly and felt himself drowning in those whiskey gold eyes. "I spent my first seven years with the Cibeque. My white father was a drifter who traded with the Indiansand took advantage of a foolish young virgin." The instant he said it, he wanted to call back the words. Regret flooded him as he saw the stricken look in her eyes. "Edenmy motherwhat happened to her, it had nothing to do with you. I didn't mean"

"It's all right, Wolf. I know you didn't. Please tell me what happened next. You weren't raised Apache but white. Your father must've come back for you." She watched his inner struggle, then he continued.

"She died the winter of my seventh birthdayironically enough of smallpox. All the smaller bands wandering around the Arizona-Sonora border had already been decimated. Game was scarce, the weather harsh. They were literally starving to death. Then my father rode into the camp one evening. I hadn't seen him in three years."

"Did you recognize him?" Eden couldn't imagine her father deserting heror any child of his, no matter his relationship with its mother.

He shrugged. "Hell, I don't know. Maybe some part of me remembered the stories my mother had told me about him. He recognized me I reckon. I may have the eye and hair coloring of an Apache, but my features . . ."

"Your face is beautiful as sin," Eden blurted out, then blushed scarlet when he favored her with one of his rare smiles.

"Well, I looked white enough to him. He bargained with the tribal elders. They were glad enough of one less mouth to feed. So he took me with him."

"Why had he waited so long?" "He had a white wife in Pecos even before he took up with my ma. He settled down and bought a hardware store. Planned on raising an heir to inherit it, but his wife was barren. After all those years I guess he figured he'd get no children from her, so he came after me."

"If your mother hadn't died, would he have taken you and left her behind?" Eden's voice couldn't hide her horror.

Wolf smiled sadly at her soft maternal instincts. "She was only an Apache squaw to him. And when he brought me into Hessia Blake's house, I was only a dirty Apache half-breed to her."

"I guess it might be hard to accept another woman's child when you couldn't have your own, but surely she couldn't keep blaming you for what your father had done?"

His black eyes riveted her. "You've been raised in Arizona Territory, Eden. You know how people here hate Apaches. Well, they don't feel any different in west Texas. She blamed me. My pa was a hard man and she had to abide by his decision, but every day of my life under that roof she vented her spleen on me. She hated methe tangible proof of her barreness and shame. I used to hear them arguing behind closed doors, her calling me dirty Injun scum. She tried everything to get my pa to get rid of me. Accused me of breaking things, muddying up her fancy carpets, even stealing her jewelry. Pa'd strap me. I guess he thought all Apaches were dirtyand thieving as well."

Tears filled Eden's eyes. As they approached a stand of ponderosa pines with a small stream gurgling past the towering evergreens, she reined in and dismounted. "Let's rest the horses for a bit while you finish your story," she said in a choked voice. The dog followed her as she made her way to the water. Blake swung down from his big roan and walked over to sit beside her on the stream bank. Her tears touched him deeply. "No one has ever cried for me, Eden," he said softly as he reached out to her. The pad of his thumb gently dried the trickle from one silky cheek, then the other.

"What did you do? How did you stand such coldness and abuse?" she asked, sensing the sudden intimacy and feeling shy about it.

He withdrew his hand, feeling suddenly shy himself. "I knew I couldn't go back to my ma's people. It didn't take much to figure they'd all be dead soon. Anyway, as a white man's get with no father in the band to adopt me, I knew I could never have a place with them either. I decided to learnno, maybe that's not trueMiss Huxleigh decided I would learn. She taught school and sort of took me on like a challenge, I guess." He smiled in remembrance. "She looked rather like that Miss Phibbs in Prescottkind of bony but with a spine as starched as her white shirtwaists."

"She sounds like a strict taskmistress." Eden smiled, scratching the dozing dog's fur as he lay beside her.

"I learned to read and write and cipher. I acquired quite a taste for books. Read everything she could give me from Homer to Mark Twain . . ." His voice faded away.

"What happened then?" Eden sensed it must have been something awful that led him to become a hired gun.

Wolf swallowed. He had never told anyone this, and thinking of it still brought a stab of agony to his heart. "My pa always wanted me to learn his businessto take over running his hardware storesby then he had opened two more in nearby small towns. I hated the drudgery of cataloging tools and lumber; what was even worse, I hated being polite to customers who treated me like I was a leperbut I did it. Then one day when I was fifteen, over twelve thousand dollars came up missing from the month's accounts."

"Surely your father didn't think you'd steal what would one day be yours?"

"He had no one else easy to blame, especially with Hessia there urging him on, saying he should never have let me take over the bookkeeping. She took the moneynot because he denied her anything. Just to frame me. She became really jealous when he stopped strapping me for my boyhood mistakes and started to recognize that I had a head for figures. He'd let me do the books for about three months when the discrepancies began. At first he blamed the clerks and fired several newer ones, but then when so much was gone . . . well, he couldn't see what I'd tried to tell himthat it had been her all along.

"The day he told me to get out and never come back, she was standing behind him. The smile on her face was pure evil. I'll never forget it." His voice was stony and his expression shuttered.

"And your father? How could a man who'd risked public censure to bring a half-caste child into his home turn on him that way?"

Wolf swallowed and tried not to remember the look on Gideon Blake's face. "He was crying. That big hard man had tears in his eyes . . . but he didn't relent. And I didn't beg. I walked out and never looked back."

"How did you survive?"

"I didn't only sell guns. I practiced with them, one of the side benefits of being in the hardware business," he said with a mirthless grin. "I drifted and worked odd jobs until I had enough to buy my first gun. Ended up in El Paso working as a bounty hunter." He shrugged. "One thing sort of led to another and my reputation grew. People may still spit and call me names, but not to my face. Not anymore."

The incredible loneliness his bitter statement evoked stung Eden's heart. "You've survived so much all alone. I couldn't have endured what happened to me without Father and Maggie, and Eileen and Riefe. Have you ever thought of going back?"

"I heard Hessia died a couple of years ago and Pa was looking for me. Hell, I thought about it, but he made his choice when she was alive. Nothing can ever undo that. Like father, like son, I guess. I'm a hard man, too."

"Not so hard, I think. You've hidden your softer side, that's all. Saved it for helpless animals like Rufus here."

At the mention of his name, the dog cocked an ear, then rose and trotted over to the water. Soon he was busily engaged splashing through the creek, barking at pine squirrels that teased him from high in the trees.

"I'm not a nice man, Eden. Don't deceive yourself just because I rescued an abused mutt."

"You're wrong!" she defended hotly. "You're good and decent and strong. After all that's been done to you, you still do care about other people . . . even me." Her face heated and she looked away, too shy to meet those fathomless ebony eyes.

"You're a fine lady, Eden. Beautiful and kind. Every man's dream."

Her head jerked up and her expression was strained, one of intense pain. "Every man's dream. More like a nightmare. I'm ruined, Wolf. Pawed over by a filthy piece of offal while his men watched him take me!" Her voice broke and she sobbed.

Wolf reached out and took her in his arms, comforting her with soft words, holding her as she cried. "You are Eden McCrorybeautiful and gooda real lady, no matter what was done to you."

She shook her head in misery. "No, no, you don't understand. I'm not a lady, I'm a whore. I let him . . . Judd Lazlo told me he loved me, that he wanted to marry me. I ran off to elope with himhe didn't kidnap me." She forced herself to look up into Wolf's face, expecting to see the same scornful condemnation everyone in town had shown her.

Wolf felt gut kicked. So that was what she had been so hysterical about in Lazlo's campher own guilt. He held her fast, one hand caressing her cheek gently. "Eden, Eden, he used youdeceived you. You were an innocent who knew nothing about men like Lazlo." Or me. Wolf ached with the desire to lay her on the soft earth and make love to her, even now in this moment of wrenching emotional outpouring. I really am a bastard.

"I'm not innocent anymore, Wolf," she whispered, seeing the warm light in his eyes, feeling the gentleness of his touch. He had not turned in disgust from her. He was not like the rest.

Wolf lowered his mouth to her tear-streaked face and lightly brushed her thick golden lashes, releasing more silvery droplets that his tongue then softly laved from her cheeks. "Eden," he whispered hoarsely as his lips sought hers in a yearning kiss. It began very gently, grazing, whispering, but when her lips responded, parting slightly, his tongue rimmed her soft pink mouth and entered the heavenly sanctum inside. He could feel her hands clutching at his neck and shoulders, holding him fast, pulling him closer. He tasted her sweetness and felt the hesitant dart of her tongue against his. He was lost.

Groaning, Wolf reclined on the soft grass of the stream bank as he continued the fierce joining of their kiss, feeling her ardent response as she clung to him, pressing that soft, delicate body the length of his own. How long had he dreamed of this? He had spent months tossing in his lonely bed, thinking of her silvery beauty when she had bathed in that Sonora water hole. And now she was his.

Eden felt his passion, the heat and hardness of his body as he pressed her so closely to him. He was nothing like Lazlo, this quiet, bitter outcast who hid such pain beneath his slashing white smile. She could see her hand, cradling his cheek as he rained soft, wet kisses down her throat. How pale her hand looked against his burnished skin. How erotic the feeling of the forbidden. She must surely be wanton, depraved to entice him to do this to herand to enjoy it so! At first Lazlo had also excited her senses and pleased her hungry young body, but then he had hurt her with his uncaring roughness. Would Wolf do the same?

Wolf felt her stiffen and pull away the tiniest bit, but he was so sensitive to Eden's every movement, every feeling, that her withdrawal brought him reeling to his senses. Struggling for breath, he put her gently from him, holding her carefully at arm's length.

"I'm sorry, Eden, I never meant to take advantage of you. God, you've been through enough already with one rotten bastard. Your first instincts about me were right. I should never have sullied you with so much as a glance."

She pulled on the lapels of his open-necked shirt. "No! How can you say such a thing after it was me? I did it. I enticed you. I'm the one who's sullied you, Wolf. I'm just a whore who leads men on"

"You did nothing wrong!" He cut her off angrily. "You trusted mejust like you trusted Lazlo. We both took advantage. You are not a whore, Eden McCrory, and I don't ever want to hear you say that again! You're the woman I love and" He stopped abruptly after the words tumbled out, startled that he had spoken them aloud, for he had never dared to think them to himself before that moment.

Her pale, tear-streaked face took on a tender radiance as she reached up and cupped his jaw in her hands, raising her face to meet his. "Could you, Wolf? Could you love me? Even after what I didwhat was done to me?" She held her breath.

"Oh, Eden, you are as far above me as the stars. From the first moment I saw you in that outlaw camp I was struck by your beauty, your courage . . . I could never stop thinking about you, wanting you . . . and I never dared hope you would look at a lowly breed, a nobody, a hired killer."

"Shh . . ." She placed her fingertips on his lips, those wonderful, magic lips that had spoken the words she most longed to hear . . . and this time knew to be the truth. "Now, who's denigrating himself without a reason on earth for it? I don't ever want you to say you're a breed and a nobodynever again, because you are somebody. You're the man I love, Wolf Blake."

Chapter Thirteen

They sat gazing into each other's eyes, seeing something shining and wonderful that their vows of love had just released. Both were too overwhelmed by the circumstances to speak for several moments, content just to hold one another, communicating silently, drinking in the newness of their love.

Wolf broke the spell at last as he raised his hand, letting his fingertips graze her face and comb through the silver-gold curls at her nape. "Eden, I want to marry you, but I can't offer you the kind of life I've been livingdrifting, in constant danger. You deserve better"

"Nothing is better than this," she whispered, reaching up to place a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. "I'll go anywhere with you. I don't care if we have moneyonly that we have each other."

"I won't risk your life by letting you live with a hired gun, Eden," Wolf said with finality in his voice. "I'm a walking target unless I quit."

"Then quit. I know Father can"

"I won't accept charity. I'm not marrying the boss's daughter so everyone can say I did it to get your money."

Eden stiffened in his arms and her chin went up defiantly. "I don't care a fig what anyone says. Why should you?"

"A manif he's any kind of a mandoesn't live off his woman," Wolf said stubbornly.

"Then . . . then what's to become of us, Wolf?" She held her breath, afraid to meet his eyes. It couldn't end this way, not now, not after all she had been through.

Wolf let out a long, slow breath, then said, "Maybe there is a way. I don't know. I told you I'd never go back after my father's wife died. He sent out word that he wanted to see me. I got a couple of letters, but I never opened them . . ."

Eden studied his proud face, the shuttered expression covering a lifetime of pain. "Maybe he needs your forgiveness as much as he wants an heir, Wolf. Did you ever think of it that way?" she asked softly as hope once more bloomed in her heart.

"I don't want his moneyfor me, but . . . hell, Eden." He couldn't look at the rapt love shining from those clear golden eyes and not feel his resolve melt.

"You're his only son, Wolf. It belongs to you . . . and so do I," she said, moving closer, letting her body speak where words failed.

Wolf felt the brush of her soft breasts against his chest as she melted against him. Her hands clutched his shoulders, and her mouth, oh God, her mouth kissed the hot, salty skin of his throat, then moved lower where his shirt collar lay open to brush and nuzzle against his chest. With a groan he pulled her down with him, onto the cool, mossy earth. They lay, arms and legs entwined, as their kisses grew more voracious. She unfastened his shirt and slid her hands against the hard, hairy expanse of his chest as he slipped the buttons open on her soft blouse and pulled it down, baring her creamy shoulders for his kisses. The lacy camisole beneath barely concealed the rose and porcelain perfection of her breasts. His tongue teased the pale pink nipples through the sheer eyelet batiste until she cried out her pleasure.

Wolf heard her moans and felt the hardening of those perfect little buds until he could no longer endure the cloth separating them from his questing mouth. He freed the camisole from her skirt, then eased it over her head. She raised her arms, helping him bare her upper body.

When he cupped and kissed her breasts, he murmured, ''So perfect, so soft and pale and perfect."

Eden arched against him while her hands tore at his shirt, pulling it from his body. As he threw it aside, he stopped and looked down at her. "Are you sure, Eden?"

"Yes, Wolf, I've never been so sure. Please love me," she whispered.

Slowly and gently, giving her every chance to change her mind, he began to methodically strip off their clothing, starting with her boots and stockings, kissing the perfection of her silky legs, then easing her heavy riding skirt down until she had on only her thin cotton pantalets. His eyes devoured the beauty of her body while his hands touched her as reverently as a priest touches a chalice.

Boldly, she reached for Wolf's belt and whispered with flaming cheeks, "Let me?"

"My greatest pleasure," he answered, his voice trembling and hoarse. Her hands went eagerly to work sliding the leather belt loose, then unbuttoning his fly and tugging his tight denims down over his narrow hips.

Her hand brushed against the hardness of his staff as she freed it. With a small gasp of surprised pleasure, Eden touched it with wonderment and felt him groan in pleasure, letting her do as she would with his body. Lazlo had never given her this sort of freedom, to caress, to explore. She felt bold and wanton while at the same time shy and virginal, for this was so utterly different than her crude deflowering had been.

Somewhere in the dim haze of consciousness, he finally dredged up the words, "Boots. Boots first," and rolled up to tug them off, followed by his denims. Then his hands slid to her hips and he plucked the drawstrings to her pantalets and peeled them over the soft curves of her derriere, leaving her as naked as he was. Wolf studied her small, sleek body, even more intoxicatingly beautiful up close than it had been from a distance that day in Sonora. "You are too beautiful," he murmured, bending down to kiss her as his hands caressed her body.

Lying by his side, Eden reveled in his soft caresses of discovery, feeling the stark contrasts of male and female, hard and soft, dark and fair. His skin was bronze all over, with a light sprinkling of ebony hair over his forearms and legs and a heavier pelt on his chest that lowered in a narrow vee to bloom again thickly around his hard, heavy sex. "You're beautiful, too," she whispered as her mouth followed the quest of her hands, tracing the cunning patterns of masculine body hair.

Wolf cradled her in his arms, rolling onto his back so that she lay on top of him. He wanted her to feel in control, to set the pace of their union. Her breasts hung enticingly above his face. He suckled one, then the other as she cried out her pleasure, but when he raised her hips and positioned her over his phallus, her eyes opened wide with surprise.

"Take me into you, Eden," he whispered hoarsely, "please."

She sensed that a narrow thread of control held him in check, yet he did not impale her, but waited for her to respond. Uncertain of how to proceed, she moved slowly onto him, letting his hands guide her hips until she felt the heat of his sex pushing at the damp, aching core of her body. Every nerve, every fiber of her consciousness seemed to coalesce in that place with such sudden hunger that it took her breath away. With a moan of need, she sank down onto his rigid staff, feeling him fill her.

Wolf trembled and gritted his teeth until the tendons stood out on his neck to keep from spilling himself at once as her tight wet sheath enveloped him in a blinding rush of ecstasy.

Eden felt a fullness and the stretching of her flesh that made her starved young body move of its own volition. She could not remain still. Tightening her knees as she straddled his hips, she rolled hers experimentally. He let out a ragged sigh.

Wolf fought for control and regained it as he felt her hunger answer his own. He must make this good for her. His hands raised her hips, letting her get the feel of their bodies gliding against each other. When she quickly caught the rhythm he arched up, thrusting more deeply into her as she rode him wildly.

Her hair had come undone from its loose plait and now curtained them with sun-gilded splendor. Wolf tangled his fist in it and pulled her down for a long, searching kiss. When they finally ended the kiss, each gasping for breath in their ecstatic exertions, he slid his hands around her waist. Raising her up, he cupped her breasts and worshiped them with his hands.

Eden felt the raw, primitive pleasure course through her and knew at last what it meant to be well and truly loved. Before, she had merely been used. Lazlo had taken, giving nothing in return. But this, this loving with Wolf was glorious, beyond her wildest imaginings. Yet she craved something . . . something unknown, unnamed, something more.

Wolf looked up at her pale, lithe beauty, moving with such graceful abandon, her porcelain skin flushed, her eyes closed in ecstasy. Then he felt the first clenching tremor begin from deep inside her womb. He cried, "Open your eyes, Eden, love, look at me."

Her eyes flew open in wonder as her release from the long-built-up wanting found its culmination. Wave after wave surged through her with every stroke of his body into hers. She stared down at him through passion-glazed eyes, entranced as she felt his shaft swell and his body convulse in wracking shudders. And she knew that he, too, felt this same incredible bliss.

Eden slumped over his chest, damp and exhaustedand utterly content. He held her, flexing his knees to cradle her against his thighs. "Eden, Eden, I knew it would be good between us, but I could never imagine this." He kissed her throat, then took her face in his hands and kissed her lips. When he tasted the saltiness of tears on her cheeks, his body stiffened in alarm. "Eden, what is it? Have I hurt you?"

"No, of course not," she said in a low choked voice as her hands feathered over his shoulders and her fingers dug into his thick inky hair. "You gave me pleasure I could never have imaginedwith you, it was so beautiful . . . you should have been the first, Wolf. I wasted"

He silenced her with a kiss, then held her tightly. "I was the first to make it the way it should be, wasn't I?" At her nod of acquiescence, he continued, "That's all that matters, my darling. You were used and cheated before but that's all over now. No more tears, promise me?"

"What about tears of joy, Wolf? Are they permitted?" she asked with a catch in her voice.

"I suppose." His own voice was none too steady at the moment, which he covered by kissing her eyelids and cheeks until all the tears were gone.

"We're overdue at the reservation. Dr. Torres will be worried," Eden said at last, as reality intruded on their idyll.

"I still think it's too dangerous for you to be on White Mountain. Would your father let you go if he were home?"

She shrugged. "But he isn'tand you're with me. You're all the protection I'll ever need, Wolf."

Prescott

Leonard Potkin was six feet one inch tall, sallow complected and full of himself. Smoothing blunt fingers over his thick head of wavy silver hair, he placed a natty bowler hat on it, straightened his brocade waistcoat over a thickening middle, and descended from the morning stage. After the ghastly trip from Santa Fe, he felt he looked remarkably presentable, certainly more than good enough for a backwater territorial capital like Prescott. But as the senior investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' southwestern division, he did have a certain image to maintain. The smiling group of Western bumpkins dressed in starched shirts and buttoned suits must be the official welcoming committee. At least they were punctual. The stage crossing this godforsaken wilderness had not been.

"Gentlemen," he nodded as a rather dapper-looking young man with dark hair and regular features offered his hand.

"Mr. Potkin, I'm Councilman Edward Stanley and these are my legislative colleagues, Councilman Brockton Styles, and Representative Reese Smithe." Two older men shook his hand gravely. "And this is Mr. Clement Algren, owner of the Arizona Miner."

Amenities were exchanged all around as the men escorted their guest toward a large open carriage waiting around the corner from the busy stage office. As they rode down the broad expanse of Montezuma Street, so typical of frontier towns with its rows of saloons and dance halls, Potkin ignored the rustic scenery and turned to business.

"I understand why Acting Governor Gosper could not be here, but frankly, gentlemen, I am surprised that Mr. McCrory isn't with your group. It was at his insistence, after all, that this arduous investigation was undertaken," Potkin said, noting the sour looks on Algren's and Styles' faces.

"McCrory's an Injun-lovin' troublemaker," Representative Smithe pronounced in his crude local twang.

"Now, Reese, we can't be disparaging one of the territory's leading businessmen," Stanley interjected smoothly. "Mr. McCrory will present his case at the banquet in your honor this evening, Mr. Potkin. The acting governor will be in attendance as well."

"Case, indeed," Algren harrumphed. "McCrory wants to coddle these savages. I've been out to that reservation and I can tell you, Mr. Potkin, they live just like animals." "McCrory has brought some very serious charges of malfeasance against the White Mountain agent, Caleb Lamp," Potkin said evenly, surprised at the vehemence of Smithe and Algren. Then the stentorian voice of Councilman Styles interrupted.

"Lamp is indeed a political embarrassment, a greedy little man whom President Hayes should have quietly replaced."

"But first a worthy candidate for the position must be chosen," Potkin replied with pompous solemnity, casting his eyes from man to man.

"I'm certain there are any number of men who would be qualified," Edward Stanley said cautiously.

"Your Mr. McCrory wants the job. Indeed, he made no bones about it in his charges against Agent Lamp," Potkin said, testing the waters, growing increasingly certain of what the majority of the capital felt.

"McCrory would be suicide for the territory," Representative Smithe yelped. "Damn fool would give them heathens their head until they murdered us all in our beds."

"Colin McCrory does let them wander onto his land and slaughter his cattle at their whim," Councilman Styles added slyly.

"Really?" Potkin stroked his pointed chin consideringly.

"Actually, Mr. McCrory has a sort of arrangement with the Apache leaders to let them take cows for food during times when rations are short at the reservation," Stanley interjected.

"It's caving into the demands of criminal bullies, that's what it is, and if Colin McCrory is put in charge of White Mountain, soon we'll have a full-scale uprising on our hands. Apaches will raid from here to the border, unchecked," Styles pronounced.

"Still, Secretary of the Interior Schurz considers him an important man. McCrory is one of the wealthiest men in Arizona Territoryand politically, he is reform minded and unaligned, qualities President Hayes and his secretary both admire." Seeing Councilman Styles stiffen with affront, Potkin oiled the waters with practiced skill. "But, of course, the administration would never appoint an Indian agent without consulting the territorial authorities. It would seem there is a local consensus against McCrory."

"Few men in Arizona have cause to love Apaches, I fear," Stanley said with regret in his voice.

"You are going to hear out McCrory, then?" Algren asked, his pudgy hands obviously itching for note pad and pencil.

"Of course, gentlemen. Isn't that what an investigator is supposed to do? Colin McCrory has won some influential friends in Washington, where I'm afraid they aren't touched so directly by Indianerdifficulties. But we shall see, we shall certainly see." Potkin preened for the rustic politicians. Frontier oafs.

Inside their carriage another passenger's thoughts were every bit as disdainful and calculating as Leonard Potkin's. If Win can't kill McCrory, I'll have to discredit him before this pompous ass makes his recommendation.

"I bet that miserable little weasel Stanley won't dare face us after the despicable way he treated Eden," Maggie said as they alighted from their carriage in front of the Alarcon Restaurant.

"Oh, he'll be there," Colin replied grimly. "This is politics, after all, and he wants to be the next governor." His voice was tight and dangerous. Maggie looked at his set, angry face and felt the apprehension that had been building all afternoon blossom. "Colin," she said, placing her hand on his arm, "don't do anything rash. He's not worth it. He'll be there hanging on his mother's arm, using her for moral support. She's the one who really wants to be governor."

He laughed grimly at that. "That old harridan's crossed swords with you, too." As if Mariah wasn't enough. Sighing, he added, "I know this is a very important meeting if I'm going to get the agent's job away from Lamp. I won't do anything stupid."

He turned his attention to inspecting his wife in the soft twilight. Colin was continually amazed at her ladylike air, at the inborn elegance of her bearing. She was dressed in a rust brown silk gown, a dark, shimmering hue few women could carry off, but with her golden complexion and rich auburn hair, it was electric, a signature color. The clear blue of her eyes matched the evening sky, and the russet tint of her hair was highlighted in a sleek bouffant pompadour with a chignon holding the thick tresses in place at the crown of her head. A few wispy tendrils escaped at her ears and nape, softening her strong, arresting face.

Maggie was uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny, never certain if he was pleased by her handsome looks or angry because of his reaction to them. She returned his perusal for the sheer perversity of it. In a black homespun suit with a dark wine brocade waistcoat, Colin looked every inch the prosperous Western businessman. He wore dress boots as did most Arizona stockmen, and he carried a gun, albeit well hidden beneath the immaculate tailoring of his jacket. He was so tall and splendidly handsome she felt the urge to reach up and caress his cleanly shaven jawline with wifely possessiveness. But the coolly assessing look in those restless whiskey eyes held her impulse in check.

"I'll be a gracious lady for Stanley and all his cronies and be especially charming to Mr. Potkin," she said.

He tipped his fingers to the wide brim of his flat crowned hat and nodded. "I'm sure you'll act the perfect lady."

Had he emphasized the word act or was she merely hearing the echoes of her own insecurity in his voice? Before she could think about it any further, they were ushered into the dining room. A small crowd conversed quietly, the men in dark suits and their ladies bedecked in the finest fashions from San Francisco and New Orleans. The women clustered around Sophie Stanley, except for a couple of brave legislators' wives who joined in with the men who surrounded their guest of honor, Leonard Potkin.

Colin swore beneath his breath as he swept the room and fastened on Potkin, with Win Barker at his side. "When the hell did he get here? Must've burned up the road from Tucson."

"How did he know the special investigator was arriving today?" Maggie asked.

Remembering Ed Phibbs's eavesdropping on Barker's conversation with some unknown legislator, Colin knew the answer. "Someone here wired him well in advance."

Maggie's eyes narrowed on the assembly and swept from face to face, then collided with the spiteful glare of Sophie Stanley. The haughty ice queen imperiously looked away as if dismissing Maggie McCrory as no one of significance. "Are we to sit with Mr. Potkin at dinner?" Maggie asked as they made their way into the special investigator's presence. ''Charm him enough and we will," Colin whispered beneath his breath just before he made introductions between his new wife and Win Barker, Councilman Styles and Representative Smithe.

Before he could say anything to Edward Stanley, who was discreetly standing with Leonard Potkin's considerable bulk as a shield, Maggie smiled graciously and said, "Of course, Councilman Stanley and I have already met." Her eyes held his for a pregnant instant that spoke volumes, then she quickly turned a blinding smile on the Washington visitor. "But I've never had the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir." She extended her hand like Queen Victoria at a royal reception.

Leonard Potkin was dazzled as he bowed and saluted her delicate fingers. What a superbly beautiful wife McCrory haddressed as elegantly as any of the cabinet officers' wives in Washington. And such an air about her. "I am honored, Mrs. McCrory. Special Investigator Leonard Potkin from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington."

Allowing him to hold her hand just a scant moment beyond propriety, Maggie took his arm with her free hand and turned him toward Colinneatly placing his back to the luckless Stanley. "This is my husband, Special Investigator Potkin, and I'm certain a man with your influence in President Hayes' administration will be very interested in what Colin has to say about the situation at White Mountain."

"Indeed, Mr. McCrory," Potkin said, shaking hands gravely with Colin. "Your charges about living conditions on the reservation are very serious."

"Then it might be best if the two of you had the opportunity to discuss them, perhaps over dinner? Oh, dear me," Maggie feigned distress, "but I may be interfering with Governor Gosper's seating arrangements." "Nonsense, my dear lady. As guest of honor, I may sit with whomever I choose." He made an expansive gesture, signaling the harried Territorial Secretary, John Gosper, who in the perpetual absence of Governor Frémont, had taken over his title as well as his duties. "I'm certain Mr. Gosper will see to itprovided, of course, that you will also grace the table with your husband?"

If the man had not been such a pompous ass, Colin might have felt a twinge of anger at the way he fawned over Maggieand at her skill in getting men to make fools of themselves. Then Gosper arrived and further introductions were in order as they arranged the changes in seating for the banquet. Maggie charmed the men, all but Stanley, who she subtly ignored. Even Win Barker, the crafty old devil, was smiling at her wit by the end of the lavish meal.

Barker had already made certain that his place at Potkin's table was reserved. The Stanleys had no choice but to change seating with the McCrorys, Sophie all the while looking daggers at Maggie over the forced smile pasted on her thin lips.

During dinner, Barker and McCrory went head to head over the issue of how the Indians were supplied by the government. "The merchants in Tucson sell prime goods to the reservationsthe same as they do to the military," Barker avowed at one point.

"I've seen those goods firsthand, Mr. Barker. Blankets my cowhands would call henskins, so thin they wouldn't cast a shadow if you hung them on a clothesline at high noon. Cornmeal filled with weevilsthe barrel count always short. And the beeves . . ." Colin shrugged. "It seems as if they just keep getting rustled off the reservation before it comes time for the Apaches to slaughter them." His gaze met Barker's, whose eyes darkened and narrowed.

The mottling on his sagging jowly face gave away his agitation, but Win smiled expansively and turned his attention to Potkin. "There may be some problems out at White Mountain, but they're not the doing of the Tucson merchants. Ask to see General Willcox's reports on Army supplies when you return to Washington. We sell the best. Now, as to what Caleb Lamp does with our goods and livestock . . ." He shrugged.

Colin looked squarely at Barker and smiled evilly. "My dear departed father had a saying back in Scotland. 'Talk is cheap but it takes real money to buy whiskey.'" Then he turned to Leonard Potkin and asked, "Don't you think you might get to the bottom of our conflicting claims if you rode out to the reservation tomorrow and took a look for yourself? I'll be happy to act as guide, if you're agreeable."

The Bureau Agent blanched. "Back East all we hear about are Apache depredationswholesale butchery and torture. Are you certain it's safe to venture onto the reservation?"

"Caleb Lamp still has his hair after robbing them blind for the past seven years," Colin said dryly.

Maggie leaned forward and gave Potkin an earnest smile. "It's quite safe, I assure you. Crown Verde is one of the largest ranches in the territory and it abuts White Mountain land for about a hundred miles. My stepdaughter and I have ridden onto the reservation ourselves on numerous occasionswith an escort, of course. My husband would provide you with a large one."

"Well, then, I imagine it would be expected that I see the evidence firsthand," Potkin said, attempting to sound judicious instead of fearful. "What time should we depart, Mr. McCrory?" <><><><><><><><><><><><>

When Colin and Maggie had made their obligatory farewells to Acting Governor Gosper and the prominent legislators and their wives, they left the restaurant and waited on the street for the carriage he had hired earlier.

"I don't see that blasted driver," Colin said, looking up and down Alarcon Street.

"Quick, before Mrs. Styles offers us a ride with them, let's walk. Our hotel's only three blocks away," Maggie said, taking his arm. Councilman Styles's wife, Hortense, was a mammoth woman with a braying voice that could crack glass at fifty feet.

Colin chuckled. "She's got breath strong enough to raise blisters on a rawhide boot. I wouldn't fancy being cooped up in a closed carriage with her. Let's do walk."

The night was typical for north central Arizona in summer, cool and dry, the sky glittering with brilliant stars. Once they turned the corner, the area was decidedly quieter for they were in one of the more respectable parts of town.

Gurley Street was liberally sprinkled with churches and private residences, well away from the raucous noise and laughter of "Whiskey Row" on Montezuma Street, near Granite Creek, where shootings were a nightly occurrence.

They strolled in silence for a few moments. Then Colin cleared his throat and said, "You were wonderful tonight, Maggie. You charmed that pea-brained pompous old goat."

"Which onePotkin, Styles or Secretary Gosper?" she quipped.

Colin chuckled. "Potkin, but you have a point. They are a bunch of jackasses." His expression turned grim. "I only wish Win Barker were as much a dupe as those idiots in the government he deals with." "He is cagey, but he seems to have a good, healthy respect for your power, Colin. All that sweating he was doing while you outlined the schemes of the Tucson merchants wasn't just because the restaurant was stuffy."

"He's afraid of meand the connections I've been making back in Washington, but that only makes him more dangerouslike a cornered rat."

"Be careful on your way to White Mountain tomorrow, Colin," Maggie said with sudden intuition.

He looked down at her face, bathed in the moonlight. "Wifely concern?" His voice was puzzled.

"Something of the sort," she replied. Just then a cloud scudded across the moon and he could not read her expression.

As they crossed an alley between a barber shop and a dry goods store, a shot whistled past his head. "That was close," Colin whispered as he clamped an arm around Maggie and pulled her against the side of the two-story brick building.

She could hear him cock the .38 caliber pocket revolver he had taken from inside his coat as he shoved her behind him. "Don't make a sound," he commanded in a soft whisper. His eyes pierced the darkness, scanning for any movement, listening for the faintest sound. The only noise they could hear was the distant din echoing up from Whiskey Row, in full swing on a Friday night.

Maggie held her breath as she, too, peered around, looking at the other corner of the building. Suddenly the moon reappeared and a shadow materialized into the shape of a man, emerging from the opposite alley.

"Colin, behind you!" she cried, shielding him with her body as he whirled.

Two shots rang out almost simultaneously. The assassin's bullet missed because Colin's grazed his target first. With a curse the man vanished around the corner. His shot, aimed for McCrory, had grazed Maggie, who stood in front of her husband.

"Maggie!" Colin shoved the gun into his pocket and grabbed her. "Let me see." He pulled her right hand free from where it clutched the darkening stain on her left arm.

"I'm only grazed. It does sting a bit," she said, knowing she sounded fuzzy-headed and feeling it.

"Sting! I guess so. It's a flesh wound! Why the hell didn't you stay back?" he barked furiously as he wound his handkerchief around her arm to slow the bleeding.

"He could've shot you," she said with perfect lucidity. Then everything went black.

Chapter Fourteen

Maggie awakened to the sharp sting of carbolic being applied to her arm. She was in their hotel room, stripped down to her camisole and underdrawers, lying on their bed. Colin's large hands were surprisingly gentle and deft for such a big man as he cleansed a shallow scratch that furrowed its way across her left arm just below her shoulder.

He sensed her eyes on him and looked up, his face pale and haggard. "Thank God you're conscious," he whispered.

She forced a gamine grin. "How could I stay unconscious through this? It still stings." She wrinkled her nose at the pungent aroma of the disinfectant.

"You're damn lucky it's only a graze," he growled. "Doc Torres is awaysomething about some Indians being sick on White Mountain. There, that shouldn't bleed anymore." "You don't make a bad doctor," she said, watching the concentration with which he applied a healing ointment, then began to wrap her arm with a strip of clean linen.

"I've had lots of practice with gunshot wounds, mostly on myself."

"So I've noticed," she said, thinking of all the scars on his hard, lean body. When he looked up suddenly and their eyes met, she felt heat creep into her face.

"For a woman who just regained consciousness after fainting dead away, you're acting amazingly spunky," he said crossly. In fact, he had been frightened to death when she crumpled against him with blood dripping from her arm.

"I don't faint," she replied tartly. "When you turned to fire, you knocked me against the brick wall. I hit my head at the same time the shot grazed me."

"You risked your life." His tone was accusatory. "He could've killed you."

He was angry! Do you really care this much, Colin? "He was trying to kill you. I just distracted him."

"By trying to take a bullet intended for me? I'd appreciate your keeping out of the line of fire from now on."

"You're welcome," Maggie replied, secretly pleased when he had the good grace to look away as his face darkened with a blush.

"Look, Maggie . . ." He cursed beneath his breath as his hand reached out, almost against his will, and touched her cheek. "I am grateful that you were willing to risk your life for mine. You're a very brave woman."

"So you've told me before. I didn't do it for gratitude, Colin." The minute she said it, Maggie bit her tongue. If not his gratitude, then whathis love? Would he look at her with pity or contempt now? She forced herself to meet his eyes, surprised to see neither.

He was looking at her withfor want of a better wordbemusement on his face. Damned if Colin McCrory knew what he felt for Maggie, his wife. "When everything is settled with Eden, we'll need to talk about us, this marriage. When I thought you'd been badly hurt, maybe even killed in that alley . . ." His words faded away but his whiskey eyes bored mesmerizingly into her blue ones, communicating an urgency that he only partially understood himself.

She worked up her courage and asked, "What do you want to do about our marriage, Colin?" Maggie would have given everything she owned to hear his reply, but a sharp rap on the door interrupted them.

"Mr. McCrory, Sheriff Briggs."

Colin stood up and replied, "We'll be with you in a moment, Sheriff. Do you feel up to answering his questions now or should I go downstairs with him and tell him my side of the shooting?"

"I'd just as soon see him now, for all the good he'll do." Colin went to the armoire across the room and extracted Maggie's yellow silk robe. "Whoever fired that shot is the same person who tried beforeWin Barker has marked you for an early grave, Colin," she said, reaching for the robe.

"I suspect we'll have a difficult time convincing the authorities either here or in Tucson that there's a conspiracy of leading merchants trying to kill me," he said dryly. "Let's just tell the sheriff what we didn't seethe killer's face."

The following day Colin sent Maggie back to Crown Verde with a heavily armed escort. The thought that Barker might use her or Eden to get to him preoccupied him constantly. Indeed, after last night, he was determined to keep both his wife and daughter under careful watch at all times.

As he walked to the livery where he was to meet Leonard Potkin and the Crown Verde men, Colin mulled over his very confused feelings about his wife. She had truly been willing to give her life for him. He knew she had been attracted to him from the first time they met, but even that strange affinity did not explain such sacrifice.

What did a woman like Maggie really want? What did he want? The feeling of compelling attraction certainly was not only on her part. She had become a part of his life in the past few months. Every night he made love to her. Even last night in the hotel, in spite of her injury, or perhaps because of it and the risk of losing her, he had turned to her in passion.

Maggie Worthington McCrory was a fallen woman with a tawdry past, but did he love her in spite of it? Perhaps a woman like Maggie was more suitable for him than Elizabeth had been. He and Elizabeth had never shared the fire that leapt between him and Maggie every time they came together. At first that fact had made him feel guilty and angry. But gradually, as he had watched the way Maggie earned her niche at Crown Verde, providing stability in Eden's life and making friends with his people, Colin had felt the old wounds at last healing, the pain and guilt of Elizabeth's death fading.

His reverie was broken by the commotion as he approached the stables. He could hear Ansel Jetter sputtering, "Why, Mr. Potkin, this here's the gentlest horse I got, 'cept fer the one out back, 'n I'm fixin ta send him ta the glue factory this afternoon.''

Potkin, red-faced and perspiring in spite of the cool morning air, turned to Colin. "I had hoped to take a coach or at least a wagon onto the reservation. I'm afraid I'm not much of a horseman, Mr. McCrory."

"Well, Ansel here could scare us up a wagon, I imagine, but considering how far out of the way the wagon road is, I'm not sure that'd be wise. How long do you plan to spend at the reservation?"

Potkin stroked his chin. "Why, I had thought we could ride out for the day."

Colin resisted the temptation to laugh in Potkin's face. "White Mountain Reservation contains seventy-two hundred square miles. It'll take us almost the day to ride there. If we take the wagon supply route, it'll take an overnight camp before we reach the post."

"Out in the open, on reservation land?" Potkin asked with a tremor in his voice.

"We could stay with some friends of mineNanchi and his wives. They're Tonto Apaches and very hospitable. I'm sure Sumi, his chief wife, would make us her famous stew out of deer's stomach filled with blood, chilies and wild onions."

Potkin quickly averted his horror-filled eyes and reconsidered the docile gray gelding that Ansel was holding. "Very well, I suppose I can managein the interest of saving time."

They rode for the better part of the morning, leaving the cooler high plateau area of Prescott and dropping into lower elevations. After crossing the Verde River with its rich grasslands, they headed southeast into what became an increasingly barren landscape with flat stretches of arid, sandy earth so dry the parched soil seemed to cry up to the heavens for rain. Scraggly greasewood and chollo grew in clumps beneath the merciless sun.

"On my trip from Santa Fe I thought the country desolate, but this is far worse," Potkin said, wiping the rivulets of sweat pouring from his brow.

"This is real desert wasteland. As my foreman calls it, land so dry the trees would follow the dogs around for water . . . if there were any trees," Colin replied.

"It's ghastly."

Colin's expression was bleak. "That's precisely why the government let the Apaches have it. How long have you been with the bureau, Mr. Potkin?"

The older man cast a suspicious glance at his guide. "Six years."

"Then you should remember the Apache relocations of 1875." Obviously Potkin did not. Colin decided to break the monotony of the ride by enlightening the investigator. "General Crook wasn't just a good Apache fighter. He'd had some real success with helping them to adapt to white wayseven got them to grow corn and hay for their livestock. Taught them to irrigate. Of course, the Tontos and Yavapais were living on the upper reaches of the Verde River then, above where my spread is located. They had plenty of water and good land there. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs seemed to have a more sympathetic ear for the Tucson merchants than for the Apacheswho had no one lobbying for them in Washington.

"It seems the merchants and stockmen around Tucson didn't want to lose their lucrative contracts supplying beef, cornmeal and all other sorts of food and goods to the Indian Agency at Camp Verde. If the Indians could feed themselves . . ." Colin shrugged and looked at Potkin levelly. "Well, that not only meant the merchants lost money cheating Indians, but they'd also lose their even more lucrative contracts supplying the Army. You don't need a large standing army if you have pacified Indians with full bellies. So, fourteen hundred Apaches were taken off good land at Camp Verde and sent into this scrub countryto wait for government handouts.

"The man who was your agent then was an idealistic young fool named Clum. He got the bright idea he could be the Apaches' savior if he could just herd them all together from around the territory. Washington was only too happy to oblige and issued orders to send all the diverse Apache bands to White MountainCoyoteros, Tontos with their allies the Yavapais, White Mountains, Cibeque, Chiricahua, Warm Springs, Mimbre, Pinal, Mogollon and Chilecon." He paused. "Just to name some of them."

"But they're all Apaches. They speak the same language. I see no harm in the government's attempt to monitor them in one area," Potkin said impatiently as he sopped a water-soaked cloth over his burning neck.

Colin scowled as several of their armed escort grinned at Potkin's ignorance. "Let me make an analogyjust imagine taking the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and the Cornish and placing them all on a barren patch of English soil. They can all speak the same language, but I haven't noticed in the past few hundred years that they like one another any the better for it."

Potkin harrumphed. "I suppose you have a point."

"Right now there are over a dozen of these subgroups of Apaches all crowded onto this big brush pileover five thousand men, women and children. At least they're here until another gold, silver or copper strike on reservation land makes it worth something to the white settlers. Then the government will find some way to force the Apaches into an even worse place."

Potkin shivered as if trying to imagine a worse place. The further south they rode, the more barren the landscape became.

"The Apaches are mountain Indians," Colin went on. "They can survive in the flat basins if there's enough water for crops and game, but white stockmen and farmers want that land. This is what's left. Even here the Apache could survive if they were free to roam into the mountains and hunt. But they're tagged like dogs and confined to small enclosures with Lamp's reservation police checking on them to see they stay put. Some places on White Mountain Reservation can sustain livestock. Cattle, that isthe Apaches won't herd sheep like their hated enemies the Navaho. But even the cattle are too choice pickings to be left alone. I found some stolen reservation beef a couple of months ago. Looked like the US brand had been run over with WB." He let the information about Barker's brand sink in.

Potkin sputtered. "Do you have proof that Mr. Barker was involved in such thievery?"

"I will," Colin replied grimly. "In the meanwhile, I can show you how the Apaches really liveand die. Try to reconcile that with the supply requisitions and receipts that Caleb Lamp and Win Barker will show you."

Potkin looked highly skeptical. "Lamp may be in need of dismissal, but I find it very difficult to credit that a leading businessman of the territory such as Winslow Barker is involved in such chicanery."

Colin McCrory had never been a patient man, but he ground his teeth and reined in his temper. Perhaps the shock of seeing the living conditions around the supply posts would register with this vain, foolish man.

Shortly after noon they came upon the first small encampment of White Mountain Apaches. Their small brush wickiups sat sweltering under the blistering sun. A couple of scrawny horses, their ribs clearly outlined, stood listlessly staked to the barren yellow earth. A small cluster of scrub pines provided the only natural shade on the flat open terrain. Beneath the shaggy limbs several men sat, one laboriously sharpening a knife on a crude whetstone. They wore only breechclouts and leather moccasins. Their shaggy long hair was held back by thick rolled bands of what had once been brightly colored cloth, now faded and grimy. Some had blue tattoos on their chins and foreheads, adding to the savage mien created by watchful black eyes that studied the mounted and heavily armed whites.

As the riders neared, women engaged in various camp chores paused and stared stoically at the intruders, their faces unreadable, their bodies covered from neck to feet with shapeless tunic blouses and full skirts of dingy cotton. Some of them also sported tattoos similar to those of the men, but their hair was either worn loosely or tied in back of their heads with heavy leather ornaments. A few carried papooses strapped to their backs on heavy cradle boards. Others watched as naked children sat in the meager shade afforded by the brush wickiups. The younger ones played with crude toys. Many merely stared listlessly at the heat and dust around them. There was no laughter.

Here and there a crude iron cookpot bubbled over an open fire. The aroma was not enticing. Several women labored carrying huge woven baskets supported on their backs by head straps. These were filled with water from a sluggish stream at the far end of the village.

The Apaches' nominal leader, recognizing Colin, rose slowly on sinewy arthritic legs and walked toward the riders as McCrory dismounted. They conducted an extended conversation in the Athapaskan dialect, which sounded like guttural gibberish to Potkin, who remained mounted. Then Colin turned and signaled for the investigator to join them, which the latter unwillingly did.

"This is Bonito. He's the leader of this village." Colin introduced Potkin, who stared at the metal tag suspended on a thin rawhide thong around the chief's scrawny neck.

Bonito held out the tag. "VC," he said in a raspy voice. "Agent Lamp give me when I bring my people to him. All have." He gestured around the encampment. "Lamp promise cows, corn, blankets."

"Let him show you what the allotment was last month," Colin said to Potkin, who followed the chief to one of the cookpots, filled with some noisome, grayish substance. "The cornmeal is so full of weevils and other bugs it's rotten. All they can do is boil it and eat it that way. They've seen no beef since one steer was given them to slaughter last spring. One steer for fifty people."

Bonito then ducked into the wickiup behind him and Colin held the door flap open for Potkin, who hesitated until Colin prodded, "You're an investigator, aren't you?"

The older man stepped inside the small, hot shelter and nearly gagged on the smell of stale, sour sweat mixed with the potent aroma of tiswin, the native beer fermented from mescal. The remains of the last batch coated the bottom of a tin bucket sitting against the wall. A few rusty implements for digging, two woven baskets and some leather pouches sat beside the bucket. Across from them lay a pile of filthy blankets. The old man picked one up and thrust it at Potkin, who recoileduntil he encountered the solid wall of McCrory's body.

"Feel the blanket." There was steel in Colin's voice.

"I'll get lice," Potkin hissed beneath his breath, but reluctantly complied, wanting nothing so much as to get out of the stultifying atmosphere before he suffocated. "It is thin," he conceded, rubbing the threadbare cloth between his fingers gingerly.

"You think it got that way from too much washing?" Colin asked wryly.

They returned to the blinding sunlight and Potkin sucked a lungful of air gratefully.

"You saw the condition of that wickiupthe food bags are empty, the tools they used to dig locust pods and mescal roots and to prepare acorns are rusted with disuse. There are no locusts or oaks close enough for them to harvest. They've dug out all the century plants in the vicinity. They're tagged and checked by Lamp's reservation police to see they don't leave their assigned area. There's no way to gather foods, cultivate crops or hunt game for meat and skins in this area. They've been made dependent on government rations. Rations that aren't being given out."

Colin spoke a few more words with Bonito, then they made their farewells. The whites rode away in a cloud of dust, which the Apaches ignored stoically, staring after them with fathomless black eyes.

"Egad, I never saw such filth!" Potkin said, taking another cleansing breath of air.

"You saw their water supply. It's barely enough for cooking and drinking. Apaches in the wild were clean Indians. All their religious ceremonies, even their daily rituals, called for cleansing the body to please the spirits. But small groups like this have become so demoralized with starvation and disease that they've given up. They're losing their culture and religion, not just their physical cleanliness."

"Have you spent time among the savage ones?"

Potkin's question caught Colin off guard for an instant. His face was set grimly as he replied, "You could say that."

It was late evening when they rode into the San Carlos village and post. All were filthy and exhausted, none more so than Leonard Potkin, who regarded the scorched flatland dotted with sparse mesquite. The wickiups lay scattered around the large adobe building that housed the agency. Now that the sun had sunk below the horizon, the thin desert air was decidedly chill and a wind had come up. Even the dubious hospitality of Caleb Lamp looked inviting as the agent, flanked by his reservation police, came out to greet them.

He was a spare, lanky man running to a slight bit of flab around his middle. Lamp stood almost six feet tall, his body was stoop shouldered and his beard-stubbled face was narrow and crafty with a pronounced lantern jaw. He studied the intruders with gleaming yellow eyes reflected in the light of the lanterns his police held up.

"I thought I told you to stay off reservation land, McCrory," he said angrily to Colin as the riders all dismounted.

"I'm here as an escort . . . and guide for this gentleman. Caleb Lamp, meet Leonard Potkin, special investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He's come all the way from Washington to have a look at the White Mountain Reservation."

A slow, cunning smile hovered at the corners of the agent's thin lips, then vanished. "I'm real sorry to have to spoil yet trip, Mr. Potkin, but I don't think it'd be safe to stay here overlong, nosir." "Really?" Potkin's bushy white eyebrows shot up disdainfully. "Why ever not? Have you lost control of the savages?"

"Not at all, sir," Lamp replied righteously. "It's just that there's been a smallpox outbreakright here at the post village."

Colin cursed beneath his breath as Potkin's face took on a ghostlike hue in the lantern light.

"Why wasn't word sent to me in Prescott?" Potkin demanded indignantly.

Lamp put out his hands in a placating gesture. "I didn't know when you was coming, Mr. Potkin."

"Like hell you didn't," Colin said through clenched teeth. One look at Potkin was enough to convince McCrory that the investigator would do precious little investigating. In fact, he looked so energized by fright that he probably could have ridden all the way back to Prescott by sunriseif their horses could have withstood the hardship. So that's why Win Barker was content to let us ride here without any attempt to stop us.

"It might be best if you spent the night here at the post and got an early start in the morning," Lamp said with false solicitude. "I'll have a couple of my Injun gals make up some beds."

"They haven't been exposed to the disease, have they?" Potkin croaked.

Lamp shrugged. "Don't seem like it, but you musta seen how dirty them Apach are. They carry most all kinds of disease. Now it don't make no never mind to me, 'cause I had the smallpox when I was a tad, but if a man never did . . . and wasn't vaccinated . . ." He let his words trail away suggestively.

"I reckon we'll take your graciously offered hospitality, Caleb," Colin said sarcastically. "Maybe Mr. Potkin will have time while your cook is fixing us something to eat to take a look at the reservation's books."

"You stay out of this, McCrory," Lamp said, edging closer to Colin with narrowed eyes, his fists balled tightly at his sides.

"Er, there was some mention of discrepancies between supplies shipped and those received from Tucson. Perhaps we could discuss it over something hot to drink," Potkin said, shivering in the cold night wind.

Lamp glared at McCrory, then shrugged at Potkin. "Let me see what I can do. First let's get some chow. Little Eyes, she's the squaw who cooks for me, made some beef stew. It's a mite chewy, but it'll fill ya up."

They ate the spicy, tough meat, palatable enough to Colin and his men. Potkin consumed his with a pained expression on his face, as if the act of chewing was loosening his teeth. After the meal, when McCrory again brought up the matter of the books, Potkin waved him off saying he was far too exhausted to make any sense out of such records.

Colin awakened with the dawn, already feeling the heat that the day promised. If he were to get any work out of that old fool Potkin, he knew he needed to set at it quickly before the investigator fled the reservation. He swung his feet over the side of the short, narrow pallet, scarcely aware of his dismal accommodations. Potkin had been given a private room on the first floor next to Lamp's quarters. Colin and his men had been put up on the second floor of the big adobe post house. It was really an attic beneath a crude shingled roof which leaked during the rainy season and let in sun during the summer.

The big room was bare of furniture except for the rude pallets lined up across the eastern side of one wall. The rest of the large space was filled with crates, sacks and boxes, all bearing U.S. government stampsprobably grain and other foodstuffs being given out to the Apaches in tiny increments for as long as the goods could be stretched to last.

Ignoring the snores of his sleeping companions, Colin pulled on his boots after carefully checking them for poisonous pests. He rose and strapped on his Peacemaker, picked up his Remington, and swung his saddlebags across his shoulder. As he climbed down the rickety ladder from the attic, the sounds of strident voices echoed across the open front room of the post. The area was huge and high-ceilinged. Scattered around the big room were sacks of cornmeal, barrels of flour, crates of tinned goods, and boxes of blankets and yard goods piled in no apparent order. Most of the dry goods crates and boxes were broken open to reveal their contents and entice the Apaches into buying on creditahead of their allotment allowances. Once enough cheap red calico and glass beads had been given away, then the food rations could again be shorted and the books seemingly balanced.

But Colin's thoughts about Lamp's bookkeeping schemes were interrupted when he heard the familiar voice of Dr. Aaron Torres.

''I've brought medical supplies but what I needwhat I will have at onceis a real infirmary. There's plenty of room in this building."

"You're not bringing a bunch of sick savages into my quarters," Lamp said flatly, stepping toward the slim, unarmed Torres with menace in his voice.

"Aaron, I should've known you'd have a good reason to gallop off into the night, leaving Prescott without a word."

Torres's green eyes widened with surprise and pleasure. "Colin! What are you doing here? Did you get word about Eden?" The smile instantly left McCrory's face, and a vise seemed to squeeze his chest with dread. "What about Eden?"

"She's finejust fine. Nothing's happened to her. I expect word just didn't catch up to you yetabout her coming to the reservation to help me with the smallpox victims."

"No, I hadn't heard," Colin said as air again rushed into his lungs. "She's here?"

"Right behind you," Eden said, dashing from the door of the post into her father's arms for a big hug. "We've been out at Lucero's camp treating the worst cases they have there, but so many of the sick are here. This is the best place to set up an infirmary. They need more shelter from the heat of day and chill of night than their brush wickiups can provide." Her gold eyes darkened as she stared meaningfully at Lamp.

"Now look here, missy, I'm a bureau agent, not a nursemaid. It's my job to give out supplies and keep track of them Apach, not to set up hospitals," Lamp sneered.

"It's your job to see the Apaches of White Mountain Reservation provided forin all emergenciesisn't that correct, Inspector Potkin?" Colin asked as the older man entered the room from the door behind Lamp.

"Well, er, I suppose responding to an outbreak of dangerous illness would be deemed an appropriate action," Potkin replied, rubbing sleep from his puffy eyes.

"I can't be responsible for any white folks' health if you bring them pox-ridden Apach here," Lamp said to the doctor.

Aaron's expression was furious. "If you were really concerned about contagion, you'd have backed my petitions to Washington for cowpox serum to vaccinate these people. Then no one would be in danger."

Lamp shrugged. "Too late for that now. Anyways, you know how the government is about sending perishable supplies. If they can't even get cornmeal here without weevils, what do you expect would happen to serum?"

"We must be careful about spreading the disease. Some white people aren't vaccinated either," Potkin said nervously.

"I'll take care of controlling contagion," the doctor said authoritatively. "One of the first things to do is quarantine those afflicted in decent quarters. I've ridden to every encampment in the outlying areas and warned them to stay close to home. So far the outbreak is confined to two small camps that brought it from the village here at the agency." Torres had some thoughts about why the outbreak had started here, but did not bring that up at the moment. He turned to the dignified but rather rumpled older man dressed in dusty Eastern clothes and said, ''I understand you're from the Bureau in Washington?"

"I'm here to look into the charges brought by Mr. McCrory about the administration of this agency, yes," Potkin replied, straightening his suit jacket.

"I'm a physician and I have at least a dozen cases of smallpox. I need to set up an infirmary here and to have an authorization for more medical supplies. If you'd care to come with me, I could show you the need for"

"Oh, I'm quite certain you can be trusted to diagnose smallpox, doctor," Potkin cut in with alacrity. "As to the use of this post, I see no reason why it can't be converted into a hospitalon a temporary basis, of course. I shall be happy to approve your requisition of any additional supplies you feel are needed. I'm certain I can do that from Prescott. As it is, I must be on my way back for important meetings in the capital."

Colin's eyebrows went up sardonically. "You don't plan to tour the reservation?"

"I scarcely think it prudent if the doctor is trying to enforce a quarantine, do you?" Potkin replied.

"We could visit the sites he's found free of the disease," Colin replied, knowing Potkin would refuse. "But if you think it too risky, you can at least look over the agency accounts to see if they're in order."

Potkin smoothed his hand over his hair and eyed Caleb. "Yes, I do suppose that would be a good idea. Would you be so kind as to show me your records, Agent Lamp?er, after we've broken our fast, of course."

The sun rose over Crown Verde, sending its radiant golden light into Maggie's bedroom where she tossed restlessly in a fitful nightmare she had been having with increasing regularity over the past couple of weeks. She dreamed she had eaten something that made her violently ill. Suddenly she awakened gagging. Throwing off the covers, she heaved her legs over the side of the bed and raced for the washbasin on her dry sink across the room, barely reaching it in time to lose the meager contents of her stomach.

When the onslaught was finished, she felt much better. This was really odd. She dipped a linen washcloth into the pitcher of clean water and sponged her sweaty face, then checked in the mirror. No green pallor.

"Well, at least I don't seem to be coming down with some dreadful malady," she murmured, slipping on her robe and belting it. Eileen, arms laden with a stack of freshly folded quilts, came bustling down the hall just as Maggie opened the door to her room. "Top of the mornin' to ye, Maggie. I've a big pot of coffee on the stove and there's fresh cream and wild raspberries to go with yer oatmeal."

Maggie turned a bit pale as her stomach again lurched. "Just coffee sounds fine, Eileen," she managed as the housekeeper walked past her and deposited her burden in the cedar chest against the wall.

"If ye're not wantin' the oatmeal, I can whip up a plate of them spicy Mexican eggs with chilies the hands fancy so much," the older woman offered. Maggie turned even paler and clutched her stomach. Then Eileen noticed the basin, and a look of concern filled her eyes. "Ye were ill again?" She put her hand on Maggie's forehead and tisked. "Yer not feverish."

"No, I'm fine, really. I just don't seem to have an appetite for breakfast. It's those damn dreams I've been having the past couple of weeks. Thank goodness I didn't have them the two days Colin and I were in Prescott! I'd hoped they'd go awayalong with this waking up to lose my stomach."

A look of shrewd comprehension came into Eileen's eyes. "Let's us go downstairs and have that coffee. Then we can talk."

They entered the big ranch house kitchen, Eileen's domain, for Maggie still had not learned to boil water. The housekeeper poured them each a steaming mug of coffee and then sat down at the big polished oak table beside her friend.

"These dreamsand what happens when ye awakehow long has this been goin' on? I only heard Rita mention yer bein' sick once last week."

Maggie shrugged, uncomfortable about being unwell, she who had always prided herself on being so healthy and strong. "It's all Colin's fault, damn him."

"That might be," Eileen said beneath her breath.

Maggie continued, not hearing the comment. "He's got me so upset it's a wonder I don't have nightmares in the daytime. Eileen, someone keeps trying to kill him. He's made dangerous enemies and he won't take any precautionsriding out to that reservation where anyone can ambush him."

"Well, he'll be wantin' to check on Eden once he gets there and finds out she's with the doctor."

"Yes, I suppose he'd have ridden out anyway," Maggie said, distractedly rubbing her forehead. She had returned the preceding day to Crown Verde to find Eden off on a medical mission of mercy. "Do you think she's safe there? What if Win Barker tries to kidnap her again? He's the one who sent Lazlo. I know he did."

"Be that as it may," Eileen said, "Eden's well guarded. It's ye I'm worryin' about right now. How long have ye been havin' these spells?"

Maggie considered. "A couple of times week before last, then three times last week." She blushed. "I didn't want Rita to have to clean up my mess . . . I'm usually healthy as a horse. Once my nerves calm, I'm sure it'll pass."

"Aye, I'm sure it will, too," Eileen said with a faint smile. "Yer breasts, have they been a wee bit tender? And when did yer last courses end?"

Maggie's head flew up and she almost spilled coffee down the front of her robe. Then she clutched the cup and shook her head. "No, Eileen. I know what you're asking and there is no way I can be pregnant."

"Is that so?" the housekeeper returned smugly. "Just because the mister is too fool stubborn to sleep all night with ye don't mean he can't get a babe on ye."

Maggie's face was at once embarrassed and crestfallen. A deep, haunted sadness filled her eyes, darkening them to midnight blue. "He can't because I can't conceive, Eileen." Maggie made the painful confession about a foolish young Boston belle who had been seduced and left to bear a child in an Omaha whorehouse, only to have her daughter die. "So you see"she paused to swallow the lump in her throat"the doctor told me I could never have another baby."

"Twaddle, and what do the likes of them fool doctors know?" Eileen patted Maggie's hand.

"You know what I was before Colin married me. There were yearsa long time agowhen I lay with the customers just as my girls in Sonora did. I was a whore, Eileen," she said with self-loathing, tears welling up and stinging her eyes. "But I never got pregnant againnot after my baby died. I couldn't . . . I can't."

"There, there, lamb." Eileen was out of her chair and around the table to wrap her fleshy arms around Maggie's shaking shoulders. "No wonder yer such a fine mother to Edenshe must've been sent to ye and ye to her by the Blessed Mother herself."

"I've often thought sohoped so. Eden is my child nowmy only child, Eileen. There can't be any more. Maybe that's another reason Colin and I . . ." She sniffled and scrubbed at her eyes. "A man like Colin deserves a son to inherit Crown Verde, and I can't give him one."

Eileen rubbed Maggie's back and cooed to her as the younger woman struggled to bring her emotions under control. Don't ye be too sure of that. Time will tell.

Chapter Fifteen

Eileen heard hoof beats pounding up to the front of the ranch house, followed by the clump of boots on the front porch. By the time she reached the door, Ed Phibbs was rapping sharply on the screen, her face flushed with excitement.

Opening the door, the housekeeper inspected the bizarre-looking younger woman. With her straight cropped hair, jutting jaw and tall bony body encased in a shapeless gray jacket and baggy trousers, she appeared shockingly mannish. Her popeyes looked in danger of falling out of their sockets.

"Ed Phibbs here to see Mr. McCrory," Ed announced, her calliope voice cracking, barely nodding to Eileen.

"And where might the mister be knowin' ye from?" the housekeeper asked suspiciously.

"It's all right, Eileen," Maggie said, coming down the hall after the housekeeper. "Miss Phibbs is a friend of ours from Prescott." Maggie took in Ed's disheveled appearance and keen excitement. Something important had happened. "Come into the kitchen and tell me what's going on. Eileen can give you some breakfast."

"No time for that. I have to see Colin."

"He's over at White Mountain Reservation with that fool from the Bureau of Indian Affairs," Maggie replied as they walked down the hall.

Sighing, Ed sank onto the first available kitchen chair. "Drat it all. Just when I've really stumbled onto something." She hesitated and looked up at Eileen, who hovered like a silent banshee waiting to peel doom over the intruder in her kitchen.

"Eileen's part of the family, Ed. Now, tell me everything," Maggie commanded.

"Ed, sure and that's not a fittin' name for a female," Eileen sniffed beneath her breath as she walked over to her stove and began to rattle pots and pans.

Ignoring the housekeeper, Ed launched into her tale. "I've been asking around about the stolen cattle from the reservation. Last night one of the women from the Sazerac Saloon contacted me to tell me a fellow named Sug Rigley had been a, er, customer of hers . . ." She paused and blushed. "I'm embarrassed to mention such an indelicate matter in front of a lady like yourself, Maggie."

Eileen dropped a pot with a sharp clatter, then quickly grabbed it, apologizing for the distraction.

"Don't worry about my delicate sensibilities," Maggie said drily. "What did the woman at the Sazerac know?"

"Her customer had been drinking and bragged about the money he'd been paid when he helped a manand here I quote her very words'sell some cows taken from them damn redskins.' This Rigley person put the rustlers in touch with a buyer on the New Mexican border."

"He witnessed the sale of cattle stolen from White Mountain Reservation? That means he could identify the rustlers!"

"Exactly. The difficulty now will be locating Rigley. He left Prescott two days ago after spending most of his ill-gotten gains on drink and scarlet poppies."

"Do you have any clue as to where he's headed?" Maggie asked.

"The woman from the Sazerac said he planned to ride over to Globe where he'd been offered a job as a gunman for some mining company."

"That couldn't be better! Colin and Wolf are both at San Carlos, only a few hours away from Globe. We have to get word to Colin while he still has Potkin here to review the evidence."

Ed let out a most inelegant snort. "That pompous idiot! I interviewed him when he arrived in Prescottusing the pretext I was a reporter from the Arizona Citizen in Tucson. He knows nothing about the Indian situation in the territory and cares less."

"That's true, but he is our best link to Washington now," Maggie replied.

"They'd most likely be at the San Carlos Agency, wouldn't they?"

Maggie nodded. "Yes."

"Then I'm off!"

"You're not off alone. I'm going with you, Ed. There's a lot more at stake here than a story. There's Colin's life!"

Leonard Potkin sat with his pale, knobby hands resting on the yellowed pages of Caleb Lamp's ledgers. Sweat beaded on his face and ran in rivulets beneath his stiff shirt collar, soaking through his jacket. What a ghastly uncivilized climate this was! Perfectly suited to its savage inhabitants, not all of whom were Apaches, he concluded, glancing at the glowering Scots rancher who was comparing tallies of goods purchased with those distributed. They sat at a big pine table littered with papers and books.

"There is a three-thousand-dollar discrepancy in the number of cattle on the hoof bought and those slaughtered here at the agency," Colin said, shoving his notes and one moldy ledger across to Potkin.

"Them savages just steal cows whenever the notion strikes 'emslaughter 'em on the spot and eat 'em. My police can't stop it," Lamp said angrily from where he sat behind his desk.

"Have you seen any fat Apaches since we rode onto White Mountain land, Mr. Potkin?" Colin asked in disgust. "They're all starving."

"But I'm given to understand that they do steal," Potkin replied.

"Yes," Colin admitted. "Raiding is the Apache way. They've survived for centuries by stealing from enemy tribes, Mexicans, then Anglo settlers once they invaded Apache territory. But ride around the reservation now and see how many horses the Apaches have leftand what condition they're in. Those wretched bags of bones at Bonito's village were the best of the lot." Colin shook his head. "Do you honestly think they could ride down hundreds of beeves mounted like that? Besides, all the reservation Indians are tagged and accounted for by Lamp's policea matter the agent is considerably more diligent at than his bookkeeping," he added sardonically.

"I keep a good eye out for trouble. I'm not a man to set himself behind a desk all day, crossing T's and dotting I's," Lamp replied heatedly. "Caleb, if all your brains were ink, you couldn't dot an I," Colin said, slamming a ledger shut. A puff of dust rose in a plume as he lay it on the desk in disgust.

Potkin assumed his most pontifical air, lacing his fingers over his paunch. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please." He turned to the irate Lamp, who had jumped furiously from his chair at McCrory's insult. "There does seem to be a significant enough discrepancy in your records to merit a reprimand, Agent Lamp. When I return to Washington, there'll be a review. I feel I must warn you that your position here is most tenuous."

"Most tenuous?" Colin echoed incredulously. "That's all you can say after everything you've seen? We've hardly gone through half of these papers." He gestured impatiently to the mess strewn haphazardly across the desk and table in Lamp's office.

Lamp, whose face had been flushed dull red with anger at Potkin's rebuke, now turned to smile slyly at McCrory. "You ain't got my job yet, you crazy Apach lover." He stood up, resting his hand on the hilt of the .32.20 caliber Navy Colt strapped to his hip, confident the Scot would be forced to show restraint in front of a federal official.

Colin stood up slowly, fury singing through every nerve in his bodyfury at Lamp's oily confidence that he would escape unpunished and at Potkin, whose stupidity would probably insure that he did. "Don't push your luck, Caleb." His voice was low and deadly.

Potkin could feel the hate radiating between the two men and suddenly realized he was caught in the middle of a highly volatile situation. Arizona Territory was a wilderness filled with savage red Indians and vicious gunmen who often shot each other for amusement. Neither Lamp nor McCrory looked in the least bit amusedand he was sitting in the crossfire! ''Now, gentlemen, please," he remonstrated, scooting his chair back across the crude pine planks. "There is no sense in taking the law into your own hands. Washington will decide the matter of who is to be agent for this reservationand I shall have a major role in that decision," he added with all the grandiosity he could muster, considering that he was sweating and trembling all at once.

Lamp grinned sharkishly at Colin. "Whatever you say, Mr. Potkin." By the time you get back to Washington I'll burn the records I have hidden and be headed for San Francisco with a big fat grubstake. As far as Lamp was concerned, McCrory and Barker could kill each other. He'd be in the clear. Potkin was too gutless to try to stop him now. All he needed was a week or two to collect the money he was owed.

"Yes, yes. It'll all be settled equitably. Now, Mr. McCrory, you must see that I can't stay here poring over ledgers for petty cash thievery." Especially not with a smallpox epidemic about to quarantine this hellhole.

"There are a number of things you should see firsthand before you leave," Colin said, knowing he was wasting his breath. That Potkin had spent a few hours cursorily skimming over Lamp's clumsily doctored books was all that could be expected.

"I can't remain hereand you shouldn't either. I'll require your men to escort me back to Prescott. I do have to spend some time making inquiries with the acting governor and the legislators," Potkin said, bluffing and praying that McCrory would not refuse.

"I'll send my men with you. I have to stay and see to my daughter. She's still here nursing the sick." He could not keep the contempt from his voice and knew Potkin must be aware of it, the pompous coward.

The older man stiffened but said nothing, just mopped the sweat from his face with an acrid-smelling handkerchief and nodded.

"Would you authorize me to send a full report about this 'petty thievery' to Secretary Schurz?" Colin asked, daring Potkin to refuse.

The investigator waved his hand dismissively. "Certainly, certainly. Now, I must be gone. As it is I'll not get back to Prescott until very late."

"I'll have my reservation police escort you to the boundary of federal land," Lamp volunteered. His reservation police were hand-picked Coyoteros, who had the least ties to the other subtribal groups forced together on the reservation. Dislocated hundreds of miles from their traditional hunting grounds to the north, they were willing to work for Lamp, enforcing federal regulations prohibiting travel and checking the identification tags every reservation Apache was compelled to wear.

Potkin shuddered, recalling the ragtag group of savages, dressed in a peculiar mixture of greasy buckskin leggings, Army jackets, bowler hats and sweat-stained turban headbandsall armed to the teeth with old Henry lever actions or Sharps carbines. "I'll be ready to leave in a quarter hour."

Colin stood in the shade of the post's wooden porch, watching in disgust when Potkin rode away with his motley escort of Crown Verde men and reservation police. He returned to Lamp's office, fully expecting the slimy bastard to be waiting, refusing to let him have the records, but Lamp was nowhere to be found. Colin took several of the most damning papers, which easily showed the agent's clumsy attempts at fraud, then headed down to the cluster of brush wickiups that Doc Torres was using as a makeshift infirmary.

By tonight the physician planned to move the worst cases up to the big high-ceilinged post, which would provide far more sanitary conditions and better protection from the elements. Although Colin was concerned with Eden being here, surrounded by restive Apaches, he knew the doctor would not risk her exposure to contagion unless she was safe from the disease. As to the rest, he realized that short of locking her up at the ranch house, there was little he could do to keep her completely safe. Anyway, her willingness to undertake this task was a good sign. Perhaps this was a way for her to regain some measure of self-respect.

When he entered the first low brush wickiup, he saw the doctor examining a young girl whose feverish and blistered skin indicated she was cruelly stricken by the dread disease. Many whites survived it, with greater or lesser amounts of scarring from the pustule-like lesions. Indians, having none of the white man's centuries of built-up immunity, most often died.

Torres looked up as he covered the girl, whose eyes were glazed with pain. "She's mere hours from death and I feel so appallingly helpless, Colin," he said quietly.

"How many cases so far?" McCrory asked.

Torres stood up, rubbing the back of his aching neck with one hand. "A couple of dozen here. Ten at the Chiracahua village and a dozen more at the Yavapai campthe last I heard."

"You can't be everywhere, Aaron," Colin said, placing his hand consolingly on the exhausted doctor's arm.

"But this whole thing could have been prevented! All I needed was a simple cowpox serum that's been used to vaccinate people for nearly a hundred years."

"White people, not Indians," Colin said angrily. "You know what the red tape between here and Washington is like, not to mention how much the settlers in Arizona Territory hate Apaches."

"Not even all the whites in isolated areas around here have been vaccinated. Lots of people are still afraid they might catch the disease from the serum. They sometimes did in past centuries when live smallpox was used in the vaccinations." Aaron continued to be frustrated with the backwardness of the locals.

"Whites still have a far better chance of surviving than Indians, even without vaccination," Colin reminded the doctor. Then realizing how hopeless the discussion was, he changed the subject. "How's Eden holding up?"

"I don't know what I would've done without her," Torres replied with a weary but warm smile. "She's been wonderful, especially with the children. And that smattering of Apache dialect you've taught her has been a godsend. She can communicate with the medicine men. A few, having seen the results we've achieved with quarantine, are willing to use their authority to help us. And she's training a whole group of White Mountain women to work as nurses. At least we can make them more comfortable."

"Hello, Father." Eden entered the wickiup and greeted McCrory with a hug.

He inspected her appearance with fatherly concern. Her braid was partially unfastened and loose tendrils of hair hung limply around her face and at her nape. Dark smudges beneath her eyes attested to several days spent with little rest, but her whiskey eyes glowed with intensity. "Hello yourself. You look like you could use some rest, young lady," he scolded. Ignoring him, she asked, "Has your man from Washington gone already?"

Colin muttered an expletive and nodded. "Damn fool will spend the night camped out in the foothills, but it serves him right for rushing off."

"I take it he didn't exactly fire Lamp on the spot," Wolf said cynically.

He had entered silently and stood behind Eden, almost protectively. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his hair was held back with a red cotton bandana, giving an even more Apache look to his swarthy features. The way Eden gazed up at him and smiled made Colin feel distinctly uneasy. "No. Lamp's conduct is going to be reviewed in Washington." Before he could consider the relationship between Eden and the gunman, a commotion outdoors drew their attention. When Colin heard Maggie's voice, he was the first one out of the wickiup.

Maggie and Ed Phibbs were engaged in an attempt at conversation with one of Lamp's police, who spoke only Athapachen, no English or Spanish.

"It's all right, Natchee. This is my wife and her friend," Colin said, and the hard-eyed guard let the women pass.

"We couldn't get to the post. I didn't think you'd be out here," Maggie said as she dismounted.

Colin had closed the distance between them with ground-devouring strides, leaving Eden, Torres and Blake behind. "What the hell are you doing here? It's nearly dark! Two females alone on the reservationhave you lost your mind?" He practically snarled as his hands reached out, digging into her shoulders. He alternately wanted to hug her to him in assurance she was all right and to shake her until her teeth loosened for endangering her life so recklessly. "Just listen to Ed before you get more worked up," Maggie said, uncertain about the source of his anger but hopeful. He was still holding her possessively when he turned his attention to Ed.

The reporter quickly outlined what she had learned in Tucson about the witness and his whereabouts.

"What did you say his name was?" Wolf asked. He had quickly followed Colin to the women, intuiting that something important was going on to bring the nosy reporter all the way to the reservation searching for Colin.

Ed described what little she knew of Sug Rigley. "Do you know him?" she asked Colin's hired gunhand.

"I've heard of him, over in El Paso a few years back." He turned to Colin. "I might be able to track him down." A sardonic smile slashed his dark face. "And convince him to come back with me."

Colin nodded. "An excellent idea. And while you're heading after him, I think it's well past time for me to call on Win Barker. He beat a quick retreat back to Tucson after checking to make certain Potkin was as incompetent as he could've hoped."

Wolf nodded. "I'll 'requisition' some extra cartridges from the agent's supplies, then ride out."

"Be careful, Wolf." Eden's hand, so pale and delicate, caught his larger dark one and held it fast.

"You be careful here," he admonished with a stern look that spoke more than his terse words. Then he turned and headed to the big adobe building.

Maggie watched the exchange and felt the tension in Colin's body. As Wolf walked away, Eden looked disconsolately after his retreating figure.

"Exactly what is going on between you and Blake, Eden?" Colin asked baldly. "You've already been victimized enough and" "Colin, this isn't the time or place," Maggie quickly cut in, seeing the fire flash in Eden's eyes. "Ed has more information to discuss with you. Let me talk with Eden for now," she said softly.

Ed Phibbs, uncomfortably caught in the midst of such a private family matter, coughed discreetly. "Indeed, I do." Her voice broke as she hastily went on, "I think we should formulate a plan for Tucson. You see, I fully intend to go also. The key to unraveling this whole enigma of the federal graft ring does lie in the Old Pueblo."

Colin frowned, grunting in assent as Maggie whisked Eden away and the two of them disappeared into one of the wickiups.

Once inside, Eden knelt and began to gather up soiled linens. "We have to boil these before we can use them again. Doc Torres says it would be better to burn them, but we have so little clean white cloth. That cheap red calico Lamp doles out irritates the lesions with fading dye."

Maggie knelt beside Eden and stilled her busy hands. "Maybe you'd better just rest for a few minutes and tell me everything that happened," she said gently.

Their eyes met and Eden gave a smile that wobbled a bit. "Father won't approve, I know, but I don't care," she said defiantly. Then her eyes filled with tears and she quickly amended, "No, that's not trueI do care. I've hurt him so much already. Oh, but Maggie, I'm in love with Wolf."

"And Wolf is in love with you." Maggie had been pretty certain for some time about the direction of the relationship, but after all Eden had been through she had to play devil's advocate. "Your father has some legitimate concerns about Wolf Blake as a suitor for you. He's lived a dangerous life as a gunman." "He'll quit for me. He never wanted to become a hired gunleft alone, what else could a half-breed Apache raised in west Texas do?"

"What else can he do to support a wife and family now?" Maggie asked gently, thinking that Colin could give him a permanent job not involving the use of firearms. But somehow she knew Blake wasn't the kind to take the offer from Colin. It smacked too much of charity for his prickly Apache pride.

"His father has money." Eden quickly explained about Wolf's childhood and the attempts at reconciliation his father had made since his wife's death.

Maggie remembered the oblique, bitter comments Blake had made to her on their ride from Sonora. "Wolf is willing to do this for you? It must mean he cares for you a great deal."

"When Wolf told me he loved me . . . it didn't come glibly and quickly like Lazlo said it . . . and other things are different, too." Her face flamed under Maggie's concerned gaze. "He's different."

Maggie's shrewd eyes measured what Eden said and what she did not say. "It seems like the two of you have already set your course. All I can do is try and oil the water with your father. He's not an unreasonable man, Eden." At least where you're concerned. "I'll go with him to Tucson. The long trip will give us a chance to talk everything over."

"Oh, Maggie, whatever would I do without you!" Eden enfolded Maggie in her arms and hugged her tightly. "I'm so happy Father married you."

If only Colin were that happy, Eden. If only . . .

Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon helping Eden and her Apache nurses treat the sick, making them as comfortable as possible. Dr. Torres enlisted Colin to gather a number of his men who had been vaccinated or previously exposed to the disease to make stretchers from pine boughs and then carry the sick Indians into the post. By evening the makeshift infirmary was operational. Agent Lamp was nowhere to be found.

Maggie wrung out a clean cloth soaked in cool water and gently bathed the face of a man still in the early stages of the disease. Sweat-soaked and wracked by pains in his back and head, he had not yet broken out with blisters. All Maggie could do was keep him as cool as possible.

"Here, take a break. The women have prepared some supper. You've been working all afternoon and you had a long hard ride before that," Torres said, taking the cloth from Maggie's hand.

She smiled at the doctor and started to stand up, then felt suddenly light-headed. The room began to spin and she almost lost her balance before he steadied her. "II don't know what's come over me."

"You did say you were vaccinated against smallpox back East?" he asked worriedly.

"Yes. I've been exposed to it many times. I'm quite immune. I've just been feeling a bit under the weather lately."

"You're working too hard and you've had nothing to eat since breakfastor did you even have breakfast?" he asked, concern furrowing his brow.

Remembering her early-morning reaction to food in recent weeks, Maggie realized that she had indeed skipped breakfastin fact been grateful of the reprieve when Ed had arrived just as Eileen was about to force oatmeal on her. "As a matter of fact, I suppose I haven't had time to eat."

As she headed for the kitchen, Torres's troubled green eyes studied her.

The venison stew and tortillas were quite palatable and Maggie was voracious. Colin walked into the kitchen just in time to see her polish off a second helping. "I see you've recoveredyour appetite's good at least. Doc said you were a bit peaked earlier."

She was surprised at the concern that warmed his eyes. They were the rich color of fine cognac and she could have drowned in them, intoxicated without even taking a drink. "II'm fine, Colin. I just neglected to eat today and got a bit light-headed."

"Well, you've worked enough. I'm taking you to bedyou need some rest," he amended too hastily. Then an unwilling smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Doctor's orders."

"And we couldn't disobey Doc Torres' orders, could we?" she asked primly, wiping her lips daintily on her good lace handkerchief, which had to serve as a napkin since every piece of available clean white cotton was being used in the infirmary.

Rather than sleep in the crowded attic where the cries of the sick from below and the snores of his men would keep them awake, Colin had appropriated Caleb Lamp's quarters for his family. They walked down the long hall and through an open door. Although none too tidy a housekeeper, the Indian agent had made the spacious rooms quite comfortable.

"You can tell these are Lamp's rooms, can't you?" she asked, looking at the ugly oversized horsehair sofa. Cigar ashes spilled over the edge of a fancy glass ashtray placed on the low table in front of it. A well-stocked liquor cabinet in the opposite corner and a large oak desk and narrow pine library table with four chairs completed the sitting room.

"I figured since the agent's vacated the premises until the epidemic is over, we might as well use his facilities for the night. There are two bedrooms. Ours is through that doorway. I'm going to talk to Ed and Eden and make certain they use the guest room Potkin slept in last night. I think Lamp's bed is big enough to hold us.''

His voice was coolly neutral, but a spark fired Maggie's heartbeat when he spoke so casually. He did not want to sleep without her!

"Ed can take care of herself, and Eden will be along when she wants to, Colin. Your daughter's a grown woman now. Doing this work with the doctor has been good for her. It's bringing her out of that shell of isolation."

"Sick Indians aren't going to cast stones at her like the proper folks in Prescott," he said bitterly.

"Maybe those proper folks won't matter in a bit," she said obliquely. "Just tell her where she's to sleep. Don't try to drag her back here."

He shook his head. "As if I could. Girl's as stubborn as you are."

"She's as stubborn as her Scots father," Maggie replied with a smile. "I'll have a little talk with Aaron and see that she's sensible. You be sensible, too. Get some sleep." Colin closed the door and headed down the hall to search out his daughter and Torres.

While he was gone, Maggie decided to take a quick sponge bath. The long, dusty ride had left her feeling decidedly limp and bedraggled. She picked up the kerosene lamp on the desk and lit the wick with a match from the dish beside it, then walked to the door of Lamp's bedroom. Opening it, she saw a large four-poster bed, unmade, and a squat trunk at its foot. Wrinkling her nose at the sheets, she set down the lantern and pulled open the trunk. It was filled with clean blankets of fine quality. "He'd never give anything so good to the Apaches."

Stripping and remaking the bed took only a few minutes. Then Maggie checked the big pitcher atop the dry sink. Full. Lamp had not struck her as the kind of man who was overly fastidious. Good. She poured a generous amount into the basin and then found some towels in the chest, also unused. In minutes she had discarded her clothes and soaped herself with a bar of spicy lye soap that Lamp must have used for shaving purposeswhen he used it at all.

Closing her eyes, she began to sluice off, letting the water trickle in cool, cleansing rivulets over her breasts and down the curve of her spine. Heaven. That was how Colin found her when he quietly opened the door to the bedroom. He stood frozen, unable to tear his eyes from the glistening curves of her ripe golden flesh. The droplets raced over the swell of her buttock and clung to the high upthrust point of her breast as she stood in profile with her head thrust back and those thick dark red lashes fanned down over her cheeks. She had tied her mass of auburn curls in a loose topknot. Damp tendrils caressed her face, and she blew one away from her lips as she raised the sopping cloth to squeeze it over a golden shoulder.

His mouth went dry and his heart hammered in his chest. He felt the blood rushing lower to pool in his aching groin. Hard and persistent, the thick length of his staff pushed against his fly until he was mindless with wanting her. Colin forced himself to wait a moment, bringing his body under control while he feasted on the glorious beauty of his wife in her bath.

Then he could wait no longer. Crossing the floor in a couple of swift, silent strides, he gently took the cloth from her hand. "Allow me." His voice was low and husky as he squeezed the water from the rag, letting it trickle across her back.

Her eyes flew open and she gasped softly. "I didn't expect you back so soon," she whispered. "The hell you didn't," he replied, his voice rough but his hands gentle as he ran the cloth over her back. His fingertips followed in its wake, gliding across the wet slippery flesh, caressing the delicate bones of her spine, grazing her soft, rounded buttocks.

Then he moved around to lave the front of her. His hands spanned her waist, glided over the slight swell of her belly. Irresistibly drawn, they moved higher, cupping her breasts until she let out a low moan. He could feel her nipples hardening into even tighter points. Her whole body trembled, yet she stood very still as if waiting to see what he would do next.

"Undress me, Maggie. I need a bath, too." His voice murmured low, softening the command seductively.

Taking a ragged breath, she complied, unfastening his heavy cartridge belt with clumsy fingers. He took it from her hand and tossed it onto a chair as she began to unbutton his shirt and pull it from him. He shrugged out of it, his breathing labored now as her small soft fingers buried themselves in the pelt of dark hair on his chest. Her hands moved lower, slowly inching their way past the hard flat plain of his belly to tug at his belt.

Colin pulled it free and tossed it onto the growing pile of clothes as she worked the buttons of his fly. When his straining phallus was free and he could feel her cool soft hands gliding over its heat, he pulled her against him, burying his face against her throat with muttered curses that sounded more like words of love.

Maggie could feel his tongue, hot and slick as it caught the beads of water pooled at the hollow of her throat. His whiskers, in contrast, scraped roughly as his head moved lower. Then he took one nipple between his lips and rolled it around. She clutched his shoulders and clung to him as his tongue circled the wet hard point with velvety persistence, sending jolts of raw pleasure throbbing through her.

Colin took the other breast in his mouth and heard her moan his name. Then her hands were sliding down his chest and tugging at his denims, pulling them open. He picked her up in his arms and strode to the bed before her busy hands could touch him again and send him spiraling over the edge.

"I'll get the blankets wet," she whispered as he set her on the bed.

"We'll generate enough heat to dry them," he said with a rough laugh. "We always do." He yanked off his boots and slid the tight pants over his hips, kicking them away.

"I haven't bathed you," she said, looking at his hard, sweaty body. The tangy smell of honest male perspiration and heady male musk overpowered her senses. At that moment Maggie knew she would have licked every inch of him cleanand loved doing it. Her eyes traveled up the muscles of his legs, pausing speculatively at his pulsing sex, then following the thin vee of dark hair that widened out across his chest.

When their eyes met at last, he swallowed hard and rasped out, "Then come do it."

She scotted off the bed and seized the rag from the basin where he had flung it. Soaping it up, she approached him and began by wiping his face, tracing the strong, clean lines of his brow, cheekbones and jaw, now dark with an evening shadow of whiskers. Those whiskey eyes watched her like a hawk studying a plump rabbit, ready to swoop down and carry it off. But he held himself still, fists clenched at his sides as she rinsed his face and began to suds his chest. "Raise your arms," she said, and her voice broke as he complied. Her hands applied the wet rag to the swells and curves of his biceps, then down the lightly furred length of his forearms to those clever hands with their long sensitive fingers. Every inch of him was hard with muscles made taut by his closely leashed desire. At least we have this in common, don't we, Colin?

He willed himself to stand still as the cloth moved down his torso toward the core of his heat, his want, the throbbing shaft that trembled with eagerness. His eyes closed and his lips pulled across his teeth in a feral grimace of concentration for when she applied the cloth to its destination. She surprised him, slipping past his sex and kneeling to wash his legs, first one, then the other.

When she stood up and walked to the basin, taking her time to pour fresh water and wash out the cloth, his eyes flew open and he studied her. "You're enjoying this," he accused.

Maggie glanced from his tense arousal to her own damp glistening flesh, soft and pale next to his sun-bronzed hardness. "And you aren't?" Her voice was teasing and breathless at the same time. She walked slowly back to him and wrapped the cool cloth around the heat of his flesh. All breath left his body in a sudden gasp.

"Aaah, Maggie," he groaned as she plied the rag with deft thoroughness, stroking the length of his phallus, then gently cupping him and letting the water trickle down his legs.

"Now, turn around so I can wash your back." She tried to sound calm but her own breathing was becoming ragged. He turned away from her, exposing the broad expanse of his back. He was so big, so tall, she had to stand on her tiptoes and hold onto his shoulder for balance as she plied the cloth. Finishing that, she knelt. His buttocks were small and hard. Like the rest of his body, his backside was marked by a number of scars. One long ugly slash snaked around his side and ended on his left hip. She traced it with her fingertips and her lips grazed it, tasting him.

"Enough of this," he growled, turning and pulling her up into his arms.

Their wet flesh melded wickedly as her breasts slid across his chest and his staff pressed into her belly. Their arms enfolded, their hands gliding, caressing. The moisture added an incredible sensuality to simple touches.

"I never thought lye soap could be an aphrodisiac," Colin whispered raggedly as his mouth came down to claim hers in a fierce hard kiss.

Chapter Sixteen

"There is nothing quite like good, clean fun." Maggie chuckled against his chest as he swept her into his arms again and rolled them onto the bed.

After that she could speak no more, for his hands found her, slick and wet. His fingers opened her petals, caressing, probing, withdrawing, then resuming the magic until she tossed her head back and forth against the mattress.

She lay with her hair spread like dark fire across the faded blue blanket. Her eyes were closed and her face was flushed with passion as she writhed beneath his touch. The flickering lantern light bathed her skin pale gold. His hands glided across her soft, silky hips and her legs fell open, inviting him to bury himself in the dark burnished curls at the apex of her thighs.

How many men had gazed on the splendid beauty of her nakedness? Countless others, he knew, and bitterness filled him. Yet had any of them been given the gift of her passion? Maggie was an excellent poker player and a cool woman in a dangerous situation, but she was not this kind of an actress. He had known his share of whores and they always responded with rote monotony, merely play-acting pleasure, seldom with the slightest conviction. He felt in his bones that her response was genuine.

Maggie gradually became aware of his troubled eyes studying her while his caresses, so swift and frenzied a moment ago, grew slow and languorous. Her eyes opened and she looked up into his face as he lowered his head to kiss her, covering her body with his. Before their lips met she read his tender expression and her heart nearly burst with joy. Perhaps there was hope, she dared to believe as she returned his kiss, softly tasting, exploring.

He rimmed her lips with the tip of his tongue, then took her lower lip into his mouth, tugging gently on it. When he released it, his tongue invaded her mouth in swift thrusts. She captured it with her own, twining them around, following his retreat, tasting of him until he finally pulled away, trailing wet licks and bites over her jaw and throat. Then he raised up over her with his arms extended and slowly thrust into her, holding very still for a moment.

They stared into each other's eyes, both letting down their guard, mirroring the powerful emotions they felt, emotions that went far beyond the joining of their bodies. Maggie felt the pressure of his hardness invading her, filling her even as he had invaded her life and filled it. She could never again imagine existing without him. He gave her pain, but he also gave her joy. And she knew she would always love her husband.

Colin was enveloped by her heat, sweetly pulling him down into a whirlpool of feelings he had believed long dead. In truth these were feelings he had never in his life experienced. Was this love? Afraid to answer the question, he relinquished his control and began to move deeply within her.

Her hips arched in response and her arms reached up, pulling him down as she placed his head between her hands, cradling his face tenderly. How Maggie longed to cry out her love, but some instinct held her back. Instead she showed him with her body. She wrapped her legs around his hips and drew her thighs tightly closed, urging his thrusts deeper inside her. Her lips parted, inviting his kiss as she guided his mouth toward hers.

They moved slowly toward the crest, letting every sigh and caress say what words did not. She loved him. He was afraid to love her. Ghosts from the past still hovered between them until their physical needs overrode all thoughts, all fears, and their joining became swift and frantic. After such delay it was all the stronger.

Maggie's nails dug into his shoulders, pulling him to her. The now familiar waves of ecstasy swept away all else, and she was answered by his fierce shudders as he swelled inside of her, spilling his seed deeply into her womb.

Colin collapsed on top of her, gasping for breath. He buried his face in the cloud of her hair, smelling the subtle essence of lilies of the valley, permeated by the musky scent of satiated flesh.

He turned onto his side, reaching over to the table beside the bed to lower the lantern wick until the room was cast in darkness. Then he rolled back to pull her against him as he covered them with the blanket.

They fell asleep in silence with no words spoken between them in the quiet of the night. <><><><><><><><><><><><>

The next morning Maggie awakened when she felt the loss of Colin's heat. He had slid silently from the bed. Her eyes still closed, she could hear the soft rustling as he dressed. She sensed his eyes on her. He's troubled about what he revealed last night. More than just desiring her, now he needed her, and Maggie knew that did not sit easily on Colin McCrory's shoulders. She vowed to be patient and let him find his way. Perhaps with time he could love her as much as she did him.

When the door closed quietly, she sat up in bed and swung her feet over the side. Immediately she lowered her head between her knees until the sudden nausea subsided. Then she rose on shaky legs, performed a brief morning toilette and donned the same dusty riding clothes she had worn the day before.

Colin was nowhere to be seen when she entered the main room of the post. Hearing Eden's voice from the kitchen, she headed in that direction. "Good morning. I trust you did get some sleep?" she said, giving her stepdaughter a light hug.

Eden looked at Maggie's pale face and smudged eyes. "Some better than you did, by the looks of you. Here, have some breakfast. Caleb's cook has shown us that he had a cache of good food in a private pantry." Eden also had her suspicions about Caleb's relationship with the pretty young Apache girl, who he had most probably forced to be his mistress.

"No Arkansas strawberries?" Maggie said with a smile at the cook.

"For sure not beans," Eden replied. "Good hickory-smoked bacon and even white-flour bread with tinned butter and chokecherry preserves." Eden smiled as the young Coyotero girl served up a rasher of crisp bacon strips on a plate, then sliced a thick wedge of bread.

Maggie poured herself a cup of steaming coffee and sipped it slowly, letting her rebellious stomach settle. She did not want to worry Eden with her mysterious ailment, but perhaps the doctor might have some suggestions. ''Is Dr. Torres around? I know he's gotten little or no rest, but there's something I'd like to ask him."

"I think he's ridden to one of the outlying villages to check on possible contagion. He should be back soon unless the epidemic has spread. Father and Ed are down at the corral getting ready for the ride to Tucson," Eden added, looking expectantly at Maggie. "Have you asked him if you can go along?"

"I haven't told him yet. But I will."

The cook, who understood English well enough, grinned as she placed the plate before Maggie. "You eat?" she asked shyly.

Rather than offend the girl or upset Eden, Maggie sat down at the simple pine table and took a bite of the thick fluffy bread, then nibbled on a strip of bacon. By eating slowly she was able to finish most of the bread and half of the bacon before Eden was summoned into the infirmary to see to a patient.

Thanking the young Apache woman for the meal, Maggie slipped from the kitchen, intent on talking with Colin about the journey to Tucson. She stepped into the hot morning sun and felt the heat beating down on her bare head. Willing the roiling in her stomach to abate, she rounded the corner of the post and looked out toward the corral just as Aaron Torres rode up and dismounted.

He, Colin and Ed were engaged in conversation as she drew nearer, but before reaching the halfway point, her stomach rebelled. Not wanting to disgrace herself, Maggie quickly stepped behind a juniper bush and doubled over, losing her carefully eaten breakfast in several loud, undignified heaves. She was busily mopping her brow and wiping her mouth when the doctor's voice interrupted.

"I thought I heard someone in distress, but I must confess I'm surprised it's you, Maggie. What seems to be the problem? Did you get hold of some tainted meat?" Torres guided her gently over to a large flat rock shaded by a pinyon pine and had her sit down.

"No. The food was fine. It's just me. I've been having these spells for several weeks . . ."

Unaware of the exchange going on between Maggie and Aaron, Colin and Ed continued their discussion of the trip to Tucson.

"We'll need to ride into town separately," Ed said. "I don't want anyone connecting me with your battle against Barker and the ring. I think I can use a nom de plume and bluff myself into a job on one of the local newspapers. It would be best if I left directly from here. I took the precaution of packing extra clothing in my saddlebags before I set out."

Since he had never seen Ed in anything but a rumpled gray suit, Colin wondered what she might have needed to pack but refrained from saying so. "You seem to have thought of everything." His shrewd gaze measured her. He could almost hear the gears clicking in her mind. "Why are you abandoning the search for the ring's man in the capital to go to Tucson?"

"I have my reasons," Ed replied, raising her pointy chin, which made her overlong neck resemble that of an ostrich.

"Those reasons wouldn't have anything to do with perusing Win Barker's records, would they? I seem to recall you saying reporters didn't need subpoenas." "Caught out," she said with a mock sigh. "You have Lamp's recordsor at least what he's made available. If I could get my hands on Barker's, we would be able to make comparisons."

His eyes narrowed. "I already told you I don't want any illegalnot to mention dangeroustomfoolery. All we'll do is drive Barker further underground. Let me confront him with what we know about Rigley and the stolen cattle."

She considered. "That might panic him into some untoward action, yes. And I can observe his every move under the guise of being an eccentric society reporter whose interests lie with teas and garden clubs."

Ed Phibbs was certainly eccentric enough for a man like Win to underestimate. Hell, Colin had almost done it himselfwould have, too, if not for Maggie. Maggie. What would he do about her?

As if his troubled turn of mind had conjured her, Maggie approached them, a bemused expression on her face. "Good morning, Colin, Ed. Doc Torres tells me you plan to ride to Tucson today. I want to accompany you."

"That's ridiculous," Colin said. "What for? This isn't a pleasure trip. It could be dangerous."

"Then you could use my help again." Maggie held out the arm that had been grazed in Prescott.

Colin scowled. "I most certainly do not want you in the line of fire again."

"We have some things to discuss, Colin. Very important things that can't wait." Maggie drew closer to her husband and placed her hand on his arm.

Ed coughed discreetly. "I might be so bold as to suggest, your wife could provide an excuse for you to spend some time in Tucsonshopping, whatnot, while you see what you can learn before bearding Barker in his lair." "She's right, Colin."

His eyes narrowed on his wife. "We're leaving now and you're staying here with Eden. That's my final word. Do you understand me, Maggie?"

"Yes, I understand you, Colin," she replied tightly.

Within the hour Colin and Ed rode away from the post, leaving Maggie and Eden waving farewell.

"What are you going to do now?" Eden asked quietly, knowing Maggie's plans had gone awry.

Maggie turned to Eden with a look of grim determination on her face. "Why, I'm riding to Crown Verde to pack. Then I'll take the stage from Prescott to Tucson tomorrow."

"But you told Father you would do as he said."

Maggie smiled serenely. "No, I told him I understood what he said."

On the long, bumpy stage ride, Maggie had a lot of time to ponder exactly what she was going to tell Colin. So much was at stake. Convincing Colin that Wolf Blake would make a suitable husband for Eden would be a prodigious enough feat. But Maggie had an even more pressing matter to consider. She closed her eyes and hugged herself, still unable to believe Dr. Torres's diagnosis. She was going to have Colin's child!

After all the bitter lonely years mourning the loss of her baby, feeling so cruelly cheated of motherhood, she was being given another chance. And this time she truly loved the baby's father. But that brought sober thoughts. Does Colin love me? Will he want this child?

He had told her in no uncertain terms when they first met that he would never get over his first wife's death in childbirth. He never wanted the responsibility of fathering another child. Eden was the only heir he needed or wanted. And I assured him I was barren. He would think she had lied to entrap him.

Maggie had been so certain for all those years that the doctor in Omaha was right. There had been so many men, each making her feel more defiled than the one before. She had hated their touch, washing, inside and out, after every encounteras if to bathe away her whoredom like Pilate washing his hands of guilt.

Put them in the past, she commanded herself. That part of her life was over. She had to think of the new life growing inside her now. And of the child's father and sister. Maggie leaned back and closed her eyes, to plan and to dream.

Bart Fletcher was also bound for Tucson, arriving from another direction. After selling the Silver Eagle in San Luís, he had drifted up north into Arizona Territory as far as Yuma, a sinkhole of heat and dust. Briefly he debated a return visit to San Francisco, as delightfully sophisticated as any city he had encountered in the United States, but at the last minute some impulse drew him to purchase a ticket for Tucson. Now as the brakes shrieked on the old Overland Stage and the driver yanked on the lines, cursing loudly as he rounded the corner where Pearl Steet converged onto Main, Bart looked out the window, reconsidering his foolish attempt to locate Maggie.

The town boasted over 6,000 inhabitants, a veritable metropolis by Southwestern standards, but it remained little more than a vast collection of adobe structures built in the pueblo architectural style. They differed from those in Sonora only in size and numbers. The streets were narrow and crooked, filled with all sorts of hard-looking Anglo gunmen and Mexican banditti as well as "knights of the green cloth" such as himself, nattily attired with flat crowned hats and brocade vests. Here and there respectable Anglo females dressed in what passed for the latest fashions from back East wended their way down the busy streets, pausing to chat with businessmen in somber frock coats and starched white shirts.

He climbed down in front of the Palace Hotel, one of the town's few two-story structures, actually boasting a porch and second-floor verandah around three sides of the building. Perhaps it might be livable. But for how long? Chasing Maggie Worthington was a fool's errand and he knew it. McCrory had married her and taken her to some godforsaken cattle ranch far to the north. The one weather-stained letter from her that had reached him indicated that much.

Reading between the lines, he also recognized that the unlikely alliance was not making her happy. Perhaps by nowif he could locate herMaggie might be willing to go to San Francisco with him, that Scots scalper be damned. He wondered if McCrory had told her about his past. Would it have made any difference to her? Probably not. Cursing himself for this surprisingly romantic streak at his advanced age, Fletcher sauntered into the cool embrace of the hotel's interior. First he would secure the best possible accommodations, then attend to the most pressing businessthe money Win Barker owed him. After that I'll decide what to do about pursuing Megs.

Fletcher passed a most satisfactory afternoon, squeezing several thousand dollars out of that parsimonious old windbag Barker for the Mexican silver shipment from Sonora that Lazlo and his boys had robbed. For providing the information about it he was owed ten percent of the take, which Lazlo had failed to deliver to him. Learning from McCrory and Blake about the gunman's fate at the delicate hand of Maggie's stepdaughter did excuse Lazlo for defaulting, but a deal was a deal and Barker had owed him. Now they were squareor, Bart cynically thought, as square as one could ever figure on being with an oily character like Win Barker.

He drove down the street in a small rig he had rented from Settler's Livery at a sinfully high price. Anything was preferable to soiling his cream linen suit by walking through the dusty streets, being jostled by Mexican women carrying water jugs or run down by muleskinners recklessly speeding by with overloaded wagons. He reined in the sorry nag and stepped out of his conveyance. A Palace doorman took the silver piece Bart flipped at him and drove the rig back to the stable. As Bart turned toward the hotel, his thoughts on dinner, the clatter of hooves and screech of brakes heralded the arrival of the evening stage from Prescott.

Some intuition made him pause on the hotel porch. His elevated position gave him a good view of the disembarking passengers. He would have recognized that figure and the mass of dark auburn hair anywhere, even before she raised her head to smile at the stage driver who helped her alight.

Dressed in a moss green linen suit with a peacock feathered hat perched jauntily on her head, Maggie looked like a prosperous territorial businessman's wife. She had gone respectable. But then, his Megs had always been a Boston bluestocking beneath the cool, cynical facade of bordello madam. He looked around and saw that she was traveling alone. No other passengers got off at this stop and no one was waiting to meet her. He began to shoulder his way through the motley and odoriferous crowd that always gathered around the hotels when a stage was scheduled to arrive. "So you really have shed your outer shell and reverted to Boston," he said, taking her hand and raising it for a quick salute before tucking it beneath his arm proprietarially.

Maggie looked up into Bart's ice blue eyes and let out a startled gasp. His goatee was freshly trimmed and his silver blond hair perfectly in place. He smiled at her with that sad-sweet cynicism she had always found endearing. "You said you might come to Tucson, but somehow I never believed you. It's good to see you, Bart." She squeezed his arm as they wended their way through the crowd and up the porch steps into the hotel.

"You're more beautiful than ever, Megs."

Megs. How long since a man had spoken her name with such uncomplicated affection. "I really have missed you, you know."

"Then why did you leave?" The minute he asked, he regretted it. Her expression became shadowed. "Has McCrory treated you badly? Has he left you?" he demanded angrily, ready to kill the Scots mercenary for the pain he saw in her sad blue eyes.

Maggie shook her head grimly. "No, nothing like that. I'm meeting him here. He rode ahead two days ago from San Carlos."

"The Apache preserve?" He raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"They call them reservations, not preserves, Bart," Maggie said with fond exasperation.

"The way the Americans treat the bloody blighters, I'd think preserve is a more appropriate term."

Maggie chuckled lightly. "You and Colin agree on one thing, at least."

He stopped in the lobby beside a potted fern and looked at her strong, beautiful features. "No, we agree on more than that." All I need is for Colin to find me here with Bart. She looked around, then asked, "Is there somewhere we could go to talk privately? And don't offer your room."

He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Just a thought to protect your anonymity. I take it the Scot is the jealous sort. We could go to the hotel dining room. The food is passablefor rustic American cuisine," he added offhandedly.

"I think it might be wise to find another restaurant nearby."

"Ah, then McCrory is jealous," he said with a smugly raised eyebrow.

Maggie forced a smile. "Colin doesn't even know I've come to Tucson. He told me to stay with Eden at the reservation, but . . . well, it's a long story, Bart."

"I've always been a good listener, Megs," he said softly.

"I know you have." Suddenly Maggie wanted to unburden herself, to tell her old friend and mentor everything. Perhaps it would help her to see her way more clearlynot that Bart Fletcher was exactly unbiased, she reminded herself.

By the time her baggage had been taken up to Colin's room, Bart's rig had been brought around. They drove to a small restaurant on Menger Street while Maggie explained about Colin's ongoing fight to end the exploitation of the Apaches and expose the ring of corrupt federal contractors headquartered in Tucson. "They've tried to kill him several times since Lazlo lured him into Sonora with Eden," she concluded as they sat at a small table neatly covered with a blue checkered cloth. Maggie stirred the spoon in her coffee nervously.

"He's risking his life tilting at windmills, Megs. Nothing he or anyone else can do will change the fate of those benighted devils," Bart said regretfully. "Colin isn't a pragmatist like you, I'm afraid."

"That's why you're in love with him, not me," he sighed. "But he isn't making you happy, Megs. Is he?"

She laid down the spoon and sipped the coffee. "I'm just so afraid for him, Bart." She looked up, feeling those piercing pale eyes on her. "You always could see through me like glass. No, Colin hasn't completely grown reconciled to our marriage. A man such as my husband doesn't like being forced into anything, but there are times . . ." Her voice faded away as she recalled their tender interlude at the reservation. "Well, let's just say I have hopes.''

"But?" he prodded.

"There's a new complication, one I haven't told a soul. I even swore the doctor to secrecy." She took a deep breath, as if unable to believe it herself, then whispered, "I'm pregnant, Bart."

Bart Fletcher sat speechless for a moment, stunned. Then he saw the glow in her eyes, the pink flush on her cheeks. She wanted McCrory's baby. Hell, she had always wanted a child. "Are you absolutely certain? Who is this doctor who told you? After all the years in your former profession, Megs, I find it difficult to believe."

"So did I at first, but the symptoms are quite conclusive and Dr. Torres is a very fine physician. I didn't want to let myself hope either, but it's true."

"I'll be damned," he mused, then frowned. "A rich man like McCrory without a male heir should be delighted. Why is this a complication?"

She fidgeted with her cup and saucer as the waitress arrived to serve bowls of thick spicy chili along with a plate of warm tortillas. When she left, Maggie replied, "Colin's first wife died trying to give him that son and heir. He never wanted any more childrenand I assured him I couldn't have any." "You're a strong woman, Megs. And you look to be in the bloom of health. There's more, isn't there? Surely the bastard wouldn't accuse you of infidelity!"

"No, nothing like that, Bart. He'll know it's his."

"Then what?"

"I don't want to hold him just because of the baby. We'd talked about an annulment . . ." Her cheeks reddened at the obvious absurdity of that now. "Or a divorce once Eden was all right, but now he'll be bound to me even after her future is secure. I'll never know if he really loves me." Her voice broke and she shoved the rich food away, her appetite fled.

Bart watched her fight back tears and reached across the table to clasp her hand in his. "McCrory's a bloody fool. If you can't be any more certain of his feelings than this, you ought to leave himor is the girl still holding you?"

"I'll always love Eden like a daughter, but she's making her own life now. She's going to marry Wolf Blake."

"The half-breed gunman?" Bart asked incredulously.

"None other. His father is a prosperous merchant in Texas and wants to reconcile. Wolf is willing to do it for Eden's sake. He'll make her a fine husband, Bart."

Bart drummed his fingers on the table as he considered how to say what he wanted to say. "Megs . . . if your noble Scot"he stressed the words angrily"can't make you happy, he doesn't deserve you. You've done your duty to Eden. If she's taken care of, why stay where you're not wanted? What I'm trying to saybloody poorly, I fear, petis that I love you. Come with me, Megs. I've money enough for us to live in grand style in San Francisco. I'll even become a model father for your child."

He knew even before he finished his declaration that she would refuse. She smiled though tears filled her eyes, adhering like silver crystals to her thick dark lashes.

"Bart, you are the dearest friend I shall ever have and I do love you . . . as my friend. You deserve to be loved by a woman who will return your love fully. Not by one who will burden you with another man's child."

"In other words, you love that blighter, no matter how the bloody fool treats you," he sighed.

"It may not be that bad, Bart. There is a chance. Over the past few weeks we seem to have grown closer. Perhaps the real test will be when Eden's future is settled. The reason I've come to Tucson is to convince Colin that Wolf is the right man for his daughter. I think he'll accept that once he understands about Wolf's family and Eden's feelings in the matter. Then . . ."

"Then you'll know if he still wants you for yourselfnot for Eden, not because of the baby," he said gently. "I think he will. He'd have to be insane to let you go."

"You're very dear," she said, holding his pale, soft hand, so utterly unlike Colin's dark, callused one.

"It'll all work out, Megs," he crooned.

"Perhaps." She bit her lip. "If only Win Barker and his cohorts don't kill Colin before this is all done. He's come to Tucson to have a face-down with Barker."

"I've had dealings with the man. A real snake in the grassspeaking as one serpent of another," he added wryly.

"If something happens to Colin . . ." Maggie bit down on her knuckle, pushing the thought away. "You really do love the bloody bastard, don't you?'

She nodded her head, then whispered, "More than I would ever have believed possible."

After seeing Maggie safely back to the Palace Hotel, Bart Fletcher drove up Jackson Street and around Stone up to Congress, deep in thought. He pulled up in front of the huge adobe mercantile which filled a whole city block. Winslow Barker and Co., General Merchandisers was emblazoned across the front. A plan was forming in his mind. "Bloody hell, it's worth a try," he muttered as he climbed down.

A light glowed from the second-story window in front. Barker usually worked late, counting his ill-gotten gains for the day, no doubt. Fletcher went around to the alley door and rapped sharply. In moments he was ushered into Barker's private office.

Chapter Seventeen

White Mountain Reservation

Caleb Lamp squinted through the darkness, then rubbed the grit from his eyes and took a step closer to the window. Damn, but he hated being this near the contagion! Just thinking of all those dirty, diseased Apaches lying on pallets inside his post made him furious. He eyed that Jew doctor with the greaser name as the physician walked through the door into his office. Torres was a troublemaker, almost as big a one as Colin McCrory.

The agent had returned to the post only when he received word that smallpox had broken out in the coal mines. His Coyotero police guarding the slaves had fled, leaving the savages free to take their sick companions to the doctor. If they were able to communicate with Torres about the conditions under which they worked, such testimony would not only cost him immediate dismissal but imprisonment as well. Damn Win Barker, safe in Tucson while he took all the risks!

Nothing for it, he would have to go inside and instill some fear in the heathens by showing himself. The whole place looked like a Civil War field hospital with bodies lying everywhere, moaning in feverish delirium. He made his way across the room, scarcely daring to breath, followed by three of his hand-picked guardsone white, two Coyotero.

Lamp had learned that Torres had quarantined Tome and Echiva, two of the escaped slaves, in his office. Echiva's eyes were glazed with fever as he lay on a pallet by the window. Tome lay beside his companion, mumbling something to Torres while the doctor listened. That spoiled little high-and-mighty daughter of McCrory's was sitting between the dying Indians, wiping Tome's forehead with a cool cloth. Lamp stopped beside the open door to eavesdrop.

"If what you say is true, this is very serious, Tome," Dr. Torres said, trying to gauge how badly the fever had addled the Apache's faculties.

"Is true. Agent Lamp uses reservation police to force us. Hold rifles on us. Make us dig."

"The agency negotiated a contract with a mining company in Tucson for coal rights on reservation land. Your people were to get a share of the profits," Torres said.

"No share. Only slavery," Tome whispered hoarsely.

"He does not speak false," Echiva said as one clawlike hand tugged on the doctor's sleeve. "Ask the old one you call Blue Braid in the mine camp. It is at the fork of Fox Creek. You will see we speak true." Echiva's speech exhausted the last of his strength. He fell back on his pallet, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.

Torres quickly examined him, then pulled the blanket up over his face with a muttered curse. Tome would join his companion momentarily, he feared. "We'll have to send word to Colin at once," he said, rising as Eden did the same.

"You'll just have to pardon me if'n I don't see it that way," Lamp said with a snarl. He stood behind the two figures, gun drawn and leveled at Torres's back as he closed the door to the office. Damn, now he'd have to dispose of these two and try to hide the bodies!

"You can't kill us with all those witnesses outside," Eden said with far more calm than she felt.

Lamp laughed harshly. "Witnesses, shit! They's Apach!"

"But Miss McCrory's father isn't," Aaron Torres said reasonably as he turned to face Lamp. "If you harm his daughter your life won't be worth a red cent, Caleb. Don't be a fool. Get out of the territory while you still can."

"Not till I collect what's owed me, but you're right, I can't kill you without raising a real ruckus." He appeared to consider for a minute, then laughed. "But if you was to have a little accident, say have that buggy of yours get out of control and turn over, maybe by that steep ravine on the Prescott road . . ."

Torres knew that Lamp would not hesitate to kill him and Eden to escape his crimes. With speed born of desperation he slung the wet cloth he had taken from the dead Apache across the agent's face. "Get out of here, Eden! Save yourself!" He knocked Lamp's gun aside and it discharged in the air as the two men fell to the floor where Tome lay dying.

Lamp yelled for his police, who were waiting outside the office door, intimidating the Apaches in the infirmary. As he and Torres rolled across the room struggling, Eden raced to the window and climbed out. Lamp's men burst in, seizing Torres roughly and pulling him off the agent. Caleb struggled to his feet, brushing his stringy hair from his eyes as one of the police handed him his gun.

He leveled it on the physician. "Get that girl before she rides off." He gestured to the open window. Two of his men raced from the office while the third climbed out the window after her.

Lamp turned to Torres with a grim smile. "Now, Doc, what can I do with you until I can arrange that little carriage ride?" He motioned for the doctor to sit down behind his desk, then said conversationally, "After the breakneck fall you're gonna take, one more knot on the head won't be noticed." With that he raised his gun and sent the barrel crashing down on Torres's skull. The doctor slumped across the desk, unconscious.

Tucson

Colin walked down the hall to his room at the Palace after passing a thoroughly exhausting day. He had pored over Lamp's records yesterday evening, then spent today talking with cattle drovers and clerks who worked for reservation contractors, comparing what scraps of information they would divulge about actual supplies sold and their costs with the doctored receipts and expenditures in the agency books. There were some discrepancies, but he doubted that the hirelings working for the rich, powerful Tucson businessmen would dare come forward to testify against their employers. He needed that buyer who had seen Barker's WB imprinted over the US brand and witnessed the illegal sale.

"Where the hell is Blake with that man?" McCrory muttered as he unlocked the door to his room. The instant he shoved it ajar, he froze and pulled his gun with lightning swiftness. Someone was in his room! Then the faint essence of lilies of the valley wafted over his senses. Maggie.

He stepped inside as she walked out of the bedroom, dressed in a sheer aqua silk robe that gaped enticingly over the curve of her breasts. Her hair hung in dark, fiery splendor around her shoulders.

"Are you going to shoot me like an intruder?" she asked in a husky voice, gliding toward him. Her robe slid open, baring one slim leg as she walked nearer.

"I could've shot you," he said as he holstered his gun. "What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay at the reservation with Eden."

"Eden's the reason I'm here." She stood directly in front of him, inhaling the virile scent of his sweat combined with that essence that was uniquely her husband's. She reached up and ran one fingertip from his throat down the skin exposed where his shirt collar lay open, tracing a bead of perspiration. When his chest hair trapped the elusive droplet, she rubbed her finger over it, then brought it slowly to her tongue. "Salty," she said in a whisper. "You need a bath. I've taken the liberty of ordering one."

He felt the old familiar tightening in his loins, the heat curling through his blood, sending it racing. "What about Eden?" he asked gruffly, trying to ignore what her nearness always did to him. "You'd feel more relaxed if you had that bath first. The porter's just poured the water. It's not too hot, just tepid."

She reached up and began to unbutton his shirt but his hands closed over hers, stopping her. "I told you not to come here."

"But you're not sorry I'm here now, are you, Colin?" Her eyes met his, daring him to deny what his tense body made so clear.

He released her hands and reached down to unbuckle his holster, tossing his gunbelt onto the sofa while she continued working on his shirt. When she slid her hands down his arms and around his back to peel the shirt off, he sucked his breath in between clenched teeth and backed away from her with an oath. "Let me undress," he muttered hoarsely, kicking angrily at the bootjack as one boot defied his attempt to pull it off.

Colin quickly finished undressing and followed Maggie into the bedroom, where a big brass tub sat filled with water. He sank into it and seized a cloth and a bar of soap before she could distract him with those clever soft little hands again. "Now, what is it about Eden you have to discuss?" he asked as he soaped and rinsed his face and neck.

"You know she's in love with Wolf."

His head snapped up, sending droplets of water flying in every direction. "I know she's infatuated with the romantic notion of a dangerous gunmanand flaunting the society that's scorned her by choosing a half-breed."

"I admit I was worried about that possibility when I first sensed her attraction to him, but Wolf loves her, Colin. He knows how being an outcast hurts her, because he's always been one himself. This isn't the thrill of the forbidden like it was with Lazlo. I think they can build a good marriage." ''With him supporting her by his guns? He'll end up dead in some back-alley shootout in a year or two."

"Just like you almost did five nights ago?" she retorted.

"I'm not a hired gunand even if I am risking my life right now, I don't have the responsibilities of raising any more children."

Maggie felt a wrenching pain deep inside her and turned away, clutching the bedpost tightly as she gathered her scattered thoughts before replying. "Wolf won't be a hired gun either. He"

"Blake won't take my charity and live off his wife. I know the man well enough for that."

"Then we do at least agree he is a man of principle," she said carefully, daring to turn and face him.

Colin busied himself with scrubbing down, trying to ignore the persistent ache in his nether regions that distracted him from thinking clearly. "Yes, I think Wolf has principleshe isn't out to deceive her like Lazlo, but dammit, Maggie, that isn't enough."

"He's bright and well-read. Did you ever wonder where a half-breed came by his education?" She gave him no chance to reply. "His father is a wealthy man who disowned Wolf for his white wife. After her death he wanted to reconcile with his only son. Wolf's willing to do it for Eden. How easy do you think that decision was for a man like him?"

Colin grew very still sitting in the tub. Pensively he considered what she said. "Not easy at all, I would imagine. But there'll always be the stigma of his Apache blood, the blood their children would have"

"That kind of bigotry has to end somewhere, Colin. Isn't that the reason you're fighting Barker and Lamp and all their kind?" Images of bloody scalp poles and the drone of flies filled his senses for a moment. "My reasons for fighting are my own," he replied with a shuttered expression on his face.

"She'll go to him without your blessing. Is that how you want it to be?"

He stared at her, his eyes riveting her angrily. "And you've already given your blessing, superseding mine."

Maggie shook her head. "You're her father. It's your blessing that she wantsthat she needs, Colin. Please don't drive her away. It doesn't have to be like this." As she spoke, Maggie stepped closer to the tub and knelt beside it, clutching the rim tightly with white knuckles, her voice impassioned.

He reached one dripping hand out and brushed her hair back, leaving a wet mark on her shoulder. Then he tipped her chin up and held it in his fingers. She was crying silent tears. "You love her so muchas much as Elizabeth ever could have. Ah, Maggie, I just don't know . . . but I'll talk to Blake when he brings in that cattle buyer."

She sensed her victory. He was willing to talk; it would all work out for Eden and Wolf. With a small sob she threw her arms around Colin's shoulders. He enfolded her in his embrace, soaking her hair and robe. Neither of them noticed.

Colin stood next to the bed watching Maggie sleep. Lying nestled beneath the sheets with the first thin shafts of pale golden sunlight tinting her face and firing her hair, she was breathtaking. The inner war he had been waging against accepting her as his wife seemed suddenly pointless. Her past was past, just as his was. She would sacrifice anything for his daughterand for him, he admitted. That night in the alley was etched in his memory forever. I guess I do love you, Maggie. A tender, rueful smile spread across his face as he bent down and planted a light kiss on her cheek.

She awakened drowsily and turned into his kiss, claiming his lips in a soft, brushing caress. "Good morning. Where are you off to dressed so nattily?" He was outfitted in the new suit he had purchased yesterday.

"I can't beard Win Barker in his lair dressed like a poor cowhand, can I? Go back to sleep. You should need the rest," he said with quiet amusement dancing in his whiskey eyes.

Her cheeks bloomed under his gaze as she recalled their impassioned lovemaking. She wanted to know more about his plan to face Barker but dared not risk sitting up to talk for fear of triggering her morning sickness. "Be careful, Colin," she whispered as he turned and left the room.

When he arrived at the mercantile, Colin walked through the crowded store, its countertops filled with everything imaginable, from cook stoves to calico. Mining tools filled one wall, while below it were stamped cases of dynamite and boxes of fuse line. Across the narrow aisle, pots and pans of graniteware sat gleaming. Bolts of fabrics filled another counter, which contained every grade from cheap, brightly colored cotton for the poor Mexican laborers to rare silks and velvets for the wealthy mine owner's wives to ooh and aah over.

The acidic aroma of freshly tanned animal hides mixed with the pungent spices from slow-cured hams and the sweet smell of dried peaches and apricots. Win Barker handled everything the inhabitants of a frontier territory rich in minerals, agriculture and livestock could need. Even if he went straight he would still be a rich man, but Colin knew that for a power-hungry man like Barker wealth would never be enough. He wended his way to the narrow stairs at the back of the big store, where a surly-looking man with shaggy dark hair and a decidedly broken nose stood guard.

"Colin McCrory to see Win Barker," he announced genially, brushing past the tough.

"Mr. Barker don't see nobody until I ask him," the guard said in a guttural accent. He shoved his stocky frame in front of McCrory to block his path. Using the extra foot of height that standing on the first step gave him, he looked down into Colin's face. "Wait here."

Colin shrugged and leaned against the wall. "He'll see me. Just tell him it's regarding a cattle transaction he made on the White Mountain Reservation a few months ago."

In moments Colin was ushered into Barker's big office. The small man sat behind an oversized desk cluttered with papers, reclining in a swivel chair with his fingers laced over his paunch. He reached for the large gold watch hanging on a chain from his brocade vest and flicked it open, as if granting McCrory a hearing with a time limit. He did not offer a seat.

"What can I do for you, Colin? Seems to me we aired our differences before Mr. Potkin a few days ago," he added smugly.

His oily smile grated on Colin's nerves, but he remained impassive. "You think you've got that fool Potkin all sewed upyou and your friend in the legislature." He watched as Barker narrowed his eyes and snapped his watch case closed.

Then Win composed himself and chuckled malevolently, swinging the watch hypnotically by its chain. "You do continue to surprise me with your Scots tenacity, McCrory. You're determined to dig until you turn up sufficient evidence to destroy me." "I already have sufficient evidence," Colin said baldly. "A man named Rigley's done some talking about how you sold his boss WB cattleonly they weren't really your brand. He saw the running marks and the forged bill of sale. They were US cattle from White Mountain Reservation. He's ready to testify that you're no better than a common cow thief, Win."

Colin placed his hands on the front of Barker's desk and loomed over the balding spidery little man, but instead of betraying any trace of fear, Barker just smiled evilly. The hairs on the back of Colin's neck prickled with unease.

"You know, McCrory, you look quite forbiddingalmost savagestanding there like that, threatening an unarmed businessman. But then I imagine you've had lots of practice being savage . . . as savage as those poor devils you scalped." Barker could not contain the look of triumph that flashed into his eyes. Dark and beady, they looked piglike and crafty in his wrinkled little face.

"Just what do you mean, Barker?" Colin's expression remained impassive but his heart was hammering.

"You were a scalper, McCrory. Ah . . ." He tsk, tsked in mock reproval. "A bloodthirsty renegade. You rode with a delightful fellow who became sort of a legend on the border a quarter century ago. Jeremy Nashthe Aussie, I believe they called him. Not exactly the sort your idealistic crusading friends back East would approve, was he? But then you were only a poor immigrant lad. A pity the sins of one's youth can come back to haunt a man after he's worked so hard to become respected in the territory."

He knows everything! But how? Ed Phibbs had ferreted it out, but she was far more interested in her exposé of the ring than in one piece of scandal about a prominent rancher. Yet Barker would have no reason to suspect him unless someone who knew the truth had told him. Colin forced himself to set aside his jumbled questions and stare levelly at Barker.

"You're talking crazy, Win. You can't prove those accusations, but I can prove you're a thief."

Barker dropped all pretense at geniality and stood up, his eyes black with spite. "I can tell old Fatty Algren enough to ruin you in Prescott. Then what will your friends in Washington think about the credibility of your charges against me? Of course, that's not even considering how the scandal will affect your lovely new wife and your poor unfortunate daughter."

Colin reached across the desk and grabbed Barker by his jacket lapels, yanking him forward until his feet left the ground. "You do anything to hurt my family and I'll break your scrawny neck!"

"Don't be a fool, McCrory. You kill me and you'll hangif my men don't shoot you first," Barker gasped, his face turning red as he squirmed in McCrory's harsh grasp. "Your daughter's reputation is already in enough trouble. If this comes out, she'd never recoverbut," he hastily amended, "it doesn't have to come out. I won't breathe a word about your sins . . ." He waited for Colin to release him, letting the bargain hang pregnant in the air.

"You're blackmailing me!" Colin let go of his jacket and shoved him back across the desk.

Barker struggled and quickly regained his balance, then straightened his shirt and jacket, his calm, oily assurance returning. "A harsh word. I prefer the term 'bargain.' You desist in your crusade for the Apaches and I'll keep the grim secrets of your past." He waited, trying to read behind the cold, set expression on McCrory's face. A dangerous man.

"You are the lowest form of scum that ever crawled out of the ooze, Barker," Colin said through clenched teeth.

"You're a fine one to call me names after all your bloody butchering against the very savages you're so nobly trying to save nowor is that the reason? To assuage a guilty conscience?" His expression turned ugly. "Salve your conscience some other way, McCrory. Don't interfere with my business to do it."

He picked up a small bell sitting on the edge of his desk and rang it sharply. In a trice the burly guard from downstairs opened the door, flanked by two other men, equally hard-looking and well armed. "Mr. McCrory was just leaving. Escort him from the premises."

Colin stepped away from the desk, but before he walked toward the door he stared at Barker with burning whiskey eyes. "I don't give a damn if I go down, but if you do anything to besmirch Eden, nothing on earth or in hell will save you from me Barker." He turned and stalked out the door, shoving one of the gunmen against the wall as he passed.

Colin walked out into the bright hot sunlight, dazed by Barker's blackmail. He would be ruined politically if his past came out. No one in Washington would ever speak to him again. Hell, he thought with grim irony, even the good folks of Prescott would shun him. They hated Apaches right enough, but being a professional butcher who hunted them down and hacked off their scalps for bounty was not something a respectable community leader would ever do. He would be a pariah and place Eden in even more jeopardy. God, how could he face the horror, the accusation in his daughter's eyes? He had condemned Maggie because of her past. Now she would see that his own was scarcely blameless. Maggie. Colin stopped dead in his tracks. How had Barker found out if Ed Phibbs had not told him? Who else knew? His thoughts flew back to those feverish nights when Maggie sat beside his bed, tending his wounds, bathing down his fever. Had he babbled about the Aussie, about the way he had made his stake in Mexico? Or had she, who had spent years living in Sonora herself, always known? Was she a spy working with the ring?

Absurd. Or was it? There had always been that incredible attraction between them from the moment they met, but it had never really explained the outrageous bargain she had proposed. She could have been in on a conspiracy. But she had risked mortal danger to save Eden from those Apache raiders and even placed herself between him and an assassin's bullet the other night in Prescott. Had her feelings for him grown strong enough to make her repent her betrayal? He had been coming to believe he was in love with his wife. Could Maggie be in love with him as wellperhaps just as unwillingly?

The only way to learn the truth was to confront her. Then he would have to decide how to deal with Barker. Perhaps it would be best to wait until Blake completed his mission. The two of them had a lot of serious talking to do about Eden. If her future was secure with the half-breed, that would allow Colin a lot more leeway to tackle Barker and whoever else was involvedeven if it was his own wife.

Bart Fletcher felt pleased with himself. Well, perhaps pleased was not an adequate word to describe the bittersweet pleasure he was taking in an uncharacteristically noble act. He inspected his appearance in the mirror one more time and smoothed one immaculately manicured hand across his beard. Dressed in his favorite tan linen suit with a crisp white ruffled shirt, he looked every inch the son of a baronet, albeit a disowned one. His wretched cousin Evelyn had no doubt inherited the title by now. Little matter, the country estate had been mortgaged to the hilt when he had left England nearly thirty years ago. Let Cousin Evelyn have it. He deserves the bloody pile of rocks. I've made my own fortune. But all the money or titles on earth could not gain him the one person he desired above all others. His Megs. At least he had done something to make her future secure. Whistling, he set out, locking his hotel door and heading down the long hallway around the corner to the stairs.

He had planned to leave a note for a porter to deliver discreetly, asking her to meet him at the Cosmopolitan Dining Room again, but suddenly there she was, stepping out of her door. They nearly collided as she turned, startled by his appearance.

"Bart! What are you doing here?" She looked down the hall, but no one was in sight.

"I assure you I didn't plan a tryst, Megs. In fact, I didn't even know your accommodations were on the same bloody floor, but I do want to talk with you. There's"

"Quick, come inside," Maggie said as a maid carrying a huge clay olla filled with water rounded the corner.

They stepped into her suite and she closed the door before the girl noticed them. Nervously, Maggie walked across the sitting room and looked out the window. Bart studied her, looking for some telltale sign of her pregnancy. Dressed in a lavender blue silk suit and feathered bonnet, she looked as slim and lovely as ever. "Impending motherhood seems to agree with you, Megs," he said fondly.

She fingered the antique gold band on her left hand beneath the dainty blue glove she wore. "What do you want, Bart?"

He smiled and his pale eyes danced for a moment, then his expression grew rueful. "What I want and what I've come to tell you aren't at all the same."

"Colin's out on business but he could return any minute. He's gone to see Win Barker," she added worriedly.

He put up a hand placatingly. "I'll be brief. What I have to tell you pertains to your fear for your husband's life. He should be safe now. I've, er, neutralized the assassin."

Maggie looked astonished. "How? Have you found out who Barker's hired? What"

"Don't question it, Megs. You know my rather checkered past and unorthodox methods. Suffice it to say no one will be shooting at Colin McCrory from back alleys again. You can return with him to your ranch in the wilderness to rusticate and have babiesif that's what you want," he added with a shudder of distaste. "As for me, I'll be heading to San Francisco in a few days. When I get settled, I'll send you my address. If you ever need anythinganything at all, Megsyou'll know where to find me."

Maggie looked at her old friend, realizing that he was walking out of her life for good. And that it was costing him dearly. He really did care for her. She crossed the room to him and placed her gloved hands on the shoulders of his pristine suit coat.

"I shall always consider you my dearest friend, Bart. I'll never forget you." Emotion tightened her throat as she gazed into his face, now so wistfully sad. "Take care of yourself, you scalawag," she whispered, leaning forward to brush a light kiss on his cheek.

''Well, isn't this touching." Colin stood in the doorway with an ominous scowl on his face.

Chapter Eighteen

White Mountain Reservation

Eden's legs almost buckled beneath her as she crawled from the cramped water barrel where she had hidden after stampeding a dozen horses out of the agency corral last night. Knowing there was no hope of outriding Lamp's Indian police, not to mention the risk of breaking her neck in the dark, she had scattered them on a false trail.

Thank God for Rufus, who had saved her from the brute that Lamp had sent climbing out the window after her. She had given her other two pursuers the slip, but he had caught her. Seeing his mistress under attack, the big dog had leaped like a mountain lion at the Apache's throat. As they struggled, she had seized the rifle the man had dropped and used it to club him insensate. Then Rufus had helped her chase the horses from the corral, driving them far out to the west. She prayed her pet had eluded the guns of the police.

Now if only she could slip inside the stable without being caught. Her own mare, specially bred for speed and endurance, was quartered there. The police had searched everywhere for her last night. They had opened several of the water barrels, then abandoned prying the lids off the rest and never noticed that one had been partially emptied. Her skirts were soaked and her legs ached with cold, but no one had found her. They all assumed she had ridden off on one of the agency horses. Lamp had the police out combing the area between San Carlos and Crown Verde, searching for her. But she would fool them now and head south toward Tucson to her father. She could make it in less than a day.

The stock of the Spencer carbine she had wrested from the guard was wet, but the firing mechanism was dry. Her fingers were stiff with cold as she forced them to check the weapon. With it loaded and ready, she slid around the side of the dilapidated adobe brick stable. No one was in sight except for a few women who were headed to the post. Even if they saw her, she was certain they would not betray her presence. One lone police guard lounged in the shade of the back doorway. She could not risk a shot which would alert the rest of the post. Could she bluff him into believing that she would shoot?

There's only one way to find out. "Don't make a sound. Drop your weapon. I have nothing to lose. If I have to kill you, I will." The guard reluctantly complied. She backed her squat, impassive captive into the stable after kicking his old Henry lever action against the wall. What to do next? "Lie on the floorface down," she said, motioning with her Spencer. The hard obsidian gaze questioned her warily but he knelt slowly, then lay down. Once he could no longer pierce her with his eyes, she felt a bit more steady. Cautiously she stepped closer, steeling herself to do in cold blood what she had done the preceding night in blind panic. She raised the rifle stock, but before she could bring it down and crack him on the head, he rolled against her legs with the speed of a striking rattler, seizing one slim ankle and throwing her off balance.

Eden tumbled to the ground with a yelp of terror as her carbine went flying. He rolled on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs. His lips curved into a grimace that might have been meant for a smile. He began to caress her body. She clawed and bit, thrashing beneath him, dreading the defilement that was to come.

Suddenly a low feral growl erupted from the stable door and Rufus lunged at the guard. Man and dog rolled clear of Eden, locked in mortal combat. She could see the Apache struggling to free the knife at his belt as Rufus's fangs clamped savagely into his forearm. Eden scrambled quickly to where her carbine had fallen. She tried to use it as a club, but man and dog were thrashing too violently for a clean blow.

"Rufus, come!" she commanded just as the Apache free his knife.

The dog released the Indian and jumped back, the glittering slice of the blade narrowly missing him. The guard yelled something in the guttural dialect of the Apache and Eden knew he was summoning help. Aiming the Spencer, she fired just as his knife again swept near the growling dog that stood between them.

With a sharp cry, the guard was thrown back against the rough planks of a stall. Red blossomed across his chest, but Eden did not take time to look as she raced past him, searching for Sunglow. "I don't know where you came from, Rufus, but your timing couldn't have been better." Locating her palomino, she murmured to the frightened horse as she led her from the stables. "No time for a saddle, girl." Eden vaulted onto the mare's back and raced away, with Rufus at her heels. The sounds of angry voices yelling in English and Apache echoed across the compound as they streaked away. Her pursuers would be after her in seconds.

Wolf rode east from Globe, preoccupied with the murder of Sug Rigley. After several days of fruitless searching, he had met a hopeful prospector who had stumbled across the body lying in the bottom of an old mine shaft with his skull caved in. Colin would be disappointed, but perhaps he had learned something in Tucson. For now, all Wolf was concerned about was seeing that Eden was safely back at Crown Verde before they pursued Win Barker and his murdering cohorts any further.

Looking into the bright morning sun, he could see the bleak silhouette of the San Carlos post in the distance. Then the sound of a shot, followed by hoarse yelling, broke the stillness. Wolf recognized Eden's gleaming silver-gilt hair streaming out behind her as she lay low against Sunglow's neck, racing breakneck away from the stable with her big red dog flying beside her.

Then he saw the reservation police, recognizable in their makeshift uniforms, converge on her, several sweeping down from the hills to the north, two more cutting her off from the south. Mounted Coyoteros seemed to materialize from all across the reservation, chasing Eden, but not firing their weapons. What the hell had happened? With a curse, Wolf kicked his big roan into a gallop. Before he could reach her, she had been intercepted. He reined in just as he reached the milling band of police who had surrounded the palomino.

"Why are you pursuing McCrory's daughter?" Wolf asked their leader in the Athapaskan dialect.

"The agent has said he wants her returned unharmed to him. He gave us no instructions about you," the hard-eyed Coyotero replied.

"Wolf, Lamp has Dr. Torres. Two dying Apaches, Tome and Echiva, told us he enslaved themand dozens of othersto work in the coal mines."

"Tome is my cousin," one of the police said in English. "I have not seen him in two moons."

"That's because he was forced to dig in the mine for Lamp until the smallpox struck. The guards there fled, and the slaves brought their sick to Dr. Torres," Eden said, looking around the motley group of police.

"You all know the doctor, don't you?" Wolf asked. According to Colin, Torres had worked tirelessly among the Apache for years.

One man spat in disgust. "He is white and the whites bring us their diseases."

"But this woman has come among you to help. She nurses sick Apaches, and when she found out your agent was an evil man, enslaving reservation men, she tried to stop him."

There was low murmuring among the police. "What the half-blood says is true. She is a medicine woman who taught my sister how to tend the sick ones."

"Echiva was taken from my old village by Lamp's white guards," another added.

"We work for the agent. He pays us with fire water and fine ponies," their leader yelled out, but several others chorused their agreement with the dissenters.

"The Yellow Hair's medicine is strong."

"His heart is good."

"Have any of you seen the men who were sent to work in the mines? Do you know they were forced against their willbeaten, starved?" Eden asked. Several shook their heads.

"Will you sell your warrior's honor for ponies and whiskey while your brothers die at the agent's hand?" Wolf could sense the tide turning in their favor as the muttering grew louder and the leader and a couple of his lieutenants were shouted down.

Back at the post, Caleb Lamp extracted a leather-wrapped bundle from behind several loose adobe bricks in the wall of his office. He carried it to his desk and unfolded a ledger. As he flipped through it, making notations, Aaron Torres watched with narrowed green eyes.

"Tallying up what Barker owes you?" he asked from the corner where he lay, bound hand and foot.

"Quiet, or I'll gag you," Lamp said with a menacing glare.

"Since you plan to kill me, I scarcely think a gag is much of a threat," Torres replied with surprising calm. If only Eden had escaped. Earlier this morning he had heard the guards report their failure to find her to Lamp, but a scant half hour ago a shot had rung out followed by a considerable commotion. As he waited, fearful for her life, nothing more had happened. He was daring to hope again. Lamp was obviously preparing to flee in any case.

"Barker isn't going to pay you, Lamp. Don't be a fool. You've become a liability. Too greedy," he taunted. "I told you to shut up," Lamp replied savagely, rising and walking over to where Torres lay to deliver a vicious kick to his ribs. The physician curled in a ball, coughing as the air rushed from his lungs.

Just as Lamp prepared to strike another blow, the door flew open and Wolf stepped inside, his Colt leveled on the agent. "Don't," was all he said, motioning Lamp back against his desk, away from the doctor.

Eden rushed in behind him and knelt beside Torres. "Oh, Doctor, how badly are you hurt?"

"I have a lump the size of a hen's egg on my skull and some very sore ribs, but I'll survive," Torres said as she struggled with the ropes binding him.

"Well, what have we here?" Wolf asked, glancing at the ledger Lamp was trying to shield with his body as he leaned against the desk.

"That ledger contains the real evidence of his deals with Barkerhe had it hidden in the wall. I think he was planning to blackmail Barker and his cronies with it," Torres said as Eden helped him sit up.

"Colin will really be interested in this." Blake whistled low as he shoved Lamp into a chair and turned the ledger so he could glance through it. "Doc, how'd you like to use the ropes he tied you up with to truss up this patient?"

"My greatest pleasure," Torres replied as he stood, stomping his legs to restore circulation. He took the length of scratchy hemp from Eden and approached Lamp. "I heard a shot and sounds of pursuit," he said, looking at Eden as he bound Lamp's hands.

Eden bit her lip as she recalled her Apache attacker's blood-soaked chest. "I killed one of his reservation police when I was trying to escape. He . . . he'd attacked me."

"It's an ugly story, Doc," Wolf interrupted. "But you did escape, Eden. That's all that matters," Torres said as he finished tying Lamp.

"Thanks to Wolfand your work among the Apaches," she replied, quickly explaining how between them they had persuaded the reservation police to release her. "Then Tome's cousin and two other men disarmed Lamp's defenders and rode to the mines. Once they see what went on there, I don't think there will be any more workers recruited by force from anywhere on White Mountain," she concluded.

"Especially not now that the agent here's being relieved of his job," Wolf added, giving Lamp a chilling smile. "I think you have a date with a jail cell in Prescott."

"No one'll believe you. It's my word against yours'n you're a breed," Lamp said contemptuously, although his eyes betrayed the fear he was fighting to conceal.

"They'll believe me, I imagineand Eden," Torres said in a steely tone. "Let me check on my patients here and then I'll ride with you to deliver the agent to the sheriff."

"I think we should take these books to Father in Tucson as soon as Lamp is locked up," Eden said.

"We?" Wolf eyed her with a mixture of admiration and exasperation.

"Yes, we. Don't you want to keep me under your protective wing?" she called over her shoulder as she followed the doctor out of Lamp's office.

"Barker plays for keeps, Eden. I don't want you anywhere near him. Remember what I told you about Sug Rigley?"

"All the more reason for us to stay together. Either I go with you or I ride back here to help the doctor," she said, turning to face him. "I'm not going to sit home at Crown Verde and repine in the middle of a crisis." Wolf could not stop himself. Right in the middle of the post filled with people, he pulled Eden into his arms and kissed her fiercely, trying to communicate all the love, the need, the fear that swamped his senses. She returned his kiss with fire, feeling the life-affirming warmth of his flesh pressed against hers. Nothing would ever separate them again.

When he finally came to his senses and realized where they were, he released her, whispering against her neck, "You win."

"We both will, just you wait and see, Wolf," she said, caressing his cheek.

Within the hour four riders headed to Prescott. Eden and the doctor rode first while Wolf kept guard on the very reluctant Caleb Lamp, with Rufus loping beside them.

Tucson

Colin stepped into his hotel room and closed the door, struggling to control the furious surge of jealousy that made a red haze shimmer before his eyes. The trembling was not only from anger but also from hurt. He forced the pain aside and focused his wrath on the foppish Englishman who had been holding his wife. "Am I interrupting something, Fletcher?"

"Colin, you're mistaken." Maggie stepped between them, placing her hand on his arm.

He brushed her hand away as if it were a poisonous centipede. "I'll deal with you later, wife."

Fletcher stood his ground against his larger antagonist, sensing the leashed fury in the big Scot. "I've just come to tell Maggie good-bye, McCrory. What you saw was quite innocentat least on her part. I offered to take her with me to San Francisco. The lady declined." ''And she was just kissing you good-bye?" Colin asked with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows.

"Just so. We are old friends, however much you might wish it otherwise." He met Colin's blazing gold eyes with his poker player's ice blue ones.

"How inconvenient that I happen to be her husband."

"Do not hurt her, McCrory." Fletcher's voice was very soft, each word precisely enunciated.

Maggie watched the exchange between the two men with growing alarm. Both of them were dangerous, on the verge of exploding. Colin was wearing his Army Colt and Bart always carried a gun hidden inside his jacket. "This is absolutely insane! Bart, I'll be fine. Please leave before someone is hurt." She implored him with her voice and her haunted blue eyes.

"You take care, Megsand remember what I said."

"Good-bye, Bart. I'll never forget you," Maggie said with tears choking her voice. He nodded with a forced jauntiness that broke her heart and placed his fancy planter's hat on his head as he turned to the door.

"She's made her choice, McCrory. I only pray she doesn't live to regret it." Bart could not face Maggie's tears. With one last warning look to the Scot, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Silence pooled between them as Maggie fought to regain control over her emotions. Dr. Torres had told her that rampant mood swings were to be expected in her condition, but the physician had no inkling about the situation between her and Colineven before this latest fiasco.

She walked to the window and looked down on the busy street below, then turned to face him. "Do you honestly believe I'd invite Bart Fletcher to have a quick toss in our bed while you were out on business?"

He did not reply, just stared at her, gripped by such roiling, confused emotions that her words did not even register.

"God, what a whore you must think I am," she said in a strangled whisper. Unable to bear being in the same room with his brooding presence, accusing her, Maggie turned toward her only means of escape, the bedroom.

"You may be a whorebut by God, you're my whore," he said, irrationally angry at her defiant, aggrieved air. Who was she to make him feel guilty? He stormed across the carpet and caught her just as she stepped inside the bedroom door.

When he seized her arm and turned her to face him, she replied coldly. "I am no man's whorenot for a long, long time."

"Oh, you've become mine, all right. You couldn't seem to help yourself any more than I could," he said with a look of tortured self-loathing on his face. "It's ironic, isn't it, Maggie? Did you hate what happened between usor did you plan it that way all along, I wonder?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked, suddenly afraid of him. He had a wild look in his eyesanger and lust, but something more, something she could not even begin to guess.

Colin watched the fear blossom inside her, saw it on her face, and his heart felt cold and dry, broken. He could not bear the pain. She had betrayed himand he still wanted her! "Damn you, Maggie. Damn us both," he said as he reached out and pulled her roughly against him.

Maggie felt the breath being squeezed from her as he held her tightly and bent down to savage her mouth. Could this harsh stranger be the same passionately gentle lover of the night before? "No, Colin, not this way, please!" She tried to turn her head and push free of his hard embrace, but he would not release her. His chest pressed so tightly against her breasts she could feel his heart slamming furiously and hers beating in counter measure.

"Yes, this way. The only way for us. You told Fletcher good-bye so tenderly. Too bad our farewell won't be so polite." He tore the feathered hat from her head and dug his fingers into her elaborately coiffed hair, sending pins flying as the dark mass tumbled around her shoulders. His mouth devoured her throat, then moved over her delicate jaw and up to her temple, raining harsh, searing kisses across her face until he centered his lips over hers again. Imprisoning her head in his hands, he claimed her mouth, willing her to respond with the old familiar fire.

Suddenly Maggie felt the despair in his kiss, the hungry longing that spoke more of sadness than of anger. She answered his seeking mouth with her own, molding her lips to his, opening for the invasion of his tongue, pulling him to her as their tongues danced a duel.

Colin felt her abrupt assent and gave a low, desperate growl of triumph. His hands began to work feverishly at the buttons of her suit and the frilly blouse beneath. When one hand slid inside the silk and cupped the ripe lushness of her breast, he heard her moan as the nipple hardened and puckered beneath his teasing fingers.

He was rough and quick, pulling off her clothes and tossing them in a pile on the floor as he continued kissing and caressing her. Then she stood before him, wearing no more than her lacy undergarments, stockings and elegant kid slippers. He picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, still rumpled from last night.

Maggie lay watching him rip away his fancy dress clothes as carelessly as he had stripped hers, flinging them across the room until he was naked. She watched the rapid rise and fall of that beautiful bronzed chest, letting her eyes follow the sinuous grace of his movements as he stepped closer to the bed and sank one knee onto the soft mattress.

Colin looked down on the lush voluptuous curves of her flesh and knew she was ready for him with no preliminary love play. "I'm glad you never were the prim type who went in for corsets." He reached out and ripped the thin camisole from her, then pulled open the tapes at her waist and yanked down her lace underdrawers, throwing them to the foot of the bed. "There, that's better," he replied hoarsely, running his hands up the sheer silk of her stockings until he touched the garter on one creamy thigh.

"My slippers and stockings," she whispered as he lay down beside her, opening her legs with his knee.

"Leave them on," he replied as he raised up over her, pinning her to the bed. When he thrust into her, her eyes closed and she turned her head aside, biting her lip to keep from crying out. He could feel the incredible wet, soft heat of her body as she moved with him. Her stockings slid against his hips when she wrapped her legs around him and the heels of her slippers dug into the small of his back. He thrust harder, deeper, wanting to punish her, to punish himself. And all he felt was the rising haze of ecstasy.

Maggie opened her eyes and stared at his face, seeing his tortured expression even as she felt the unleashed strength of his passion swamping her senses, driving away all reason. She wanted to reach up and caress his cheek, but his hands held her fast to the bed, as if he wanted no closeness between them except for the primal savage joining of their lower bodies. Colin, what is it? This was more than the foolish misunderstanding about Bart, but all thought fled as the ripeness of culmination bubbled up from deep inside her, robbing her of breath, seizing her body in waves of wracking bliss. She sobbed and cried out his name.

Colin watched her climax. She arched her hips to squeeze his phallus, pulling him over the abyss with her. Shuddering, he gave in, defeated, spilling himself deep inside her while he watched the rosy blush steal across her breasts and up her neck to bloom in her cheeks.

They were both spent and breathless. Maggie opened her eyes and searched his haggard face. He did not collapse on her or move away, just held his arms rigidly at her shoulders, his flesh still imbedded in hers. Something was horribly, terribly wrong. Maggie felt afraid to speak as confused thoughts tumbled about in her dazed mind. Finally she gathered her courage and said, "Colin, tell me"

"There's nothing to say, Maggie," he replied harshly. Her words seemed to break the trance. He released her wrists and pulled away, stepping off the bed. She lay on the rumpled sheets with her hair tangled, her mouth bruised and her body flushed. "You should always wear stockings and slippers to bed," he said as he began to dress. ''An authentic touch."

Maggie looked down at her splayed legs. Her nakedness was only made more vulgar by the garters and hose. The fancy lavender kid shoes looked particularly obscene, caught in the bedclothes. She felt as soiled as the sheets. A whore, that was what he had named herhis whore. She pulled the covers up and curled in a ball, fighting the onslaught of tears, too emotionally and physically drained to force any further confrontation.

In a moment he finished dressing and walked from the room, closing the door to the parlor behind him. She heard the rap on the hall door and a few murmured words as Colin talked with a servant. Only when she heard him leave their suite did she get out of bed and begin to repair the damage to her person.

After taking a sponge bath, she dressed in a simple skirt and blouse, not feeling up to fussing with another of the elegant suits she had brought. What had turned Colin into a cold, distant stranger again? It was as if the past months together had all been erased and they were back in Sonora. She walked into the parlor and sat down on the sofa, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. In the midst of rubbing her temples, she chanced to look down to the carpet. In the corner by the wall lay a crumpled piece of paper.

She knew it had not been there earlier. A message delivered by the porter to Colin? She hesitated. Perhaps it has something to do with what's happened between us, she rationalized as she walked over and picked it up. Smoothing the balled-up, torn scrap of paper, she tried to read the smeared ink. There was neither salutation nor signature. When she finally deciphered the message, she felt her heart stop beating and the room begin to spin. Maggie sank into an overstuffed chair and reread the note.

Just a reminder about our conversation. You most certainly want the truth about the past to remain hidden in Mexico. If the sordid details were to come to light, the vaunted McCrory name would never survive the scandal. I will be in contact regarding your decision. <><><><><><><><><><><><>

The threat had to come from Win Barker. He was blackmailing Colin with her past! First would come the loss of his bid for Caleb Lamp's job as Indian agent. Then who knew what next? A ruthless, greedy man like Barker could destroy Colin financially as well as put an end to his political aspirations. And it was all because a bordello madam from Mexico had first blackmailed him into marrying her.

Maggie put her hands over her face, but found she was beyond weeping now. No wonder he looked at me with such desperation, then contempt. Colin McCrory desired the very instrument of his own destruction! She would not let him be ruined because of her past. To save him, she would have to leave her love, the father of her child, forever. The irony of the injustice was not lost on Maggie. She had left her first child's father because she did not love him. Now she must leave this child's father because she loved him all too well.

It Colin divorced and publicly denounced her, in time the scandal would die down. There was a double standard for men and women, even out West where women had somewhat more freedom than back in Boston. The good citizens of the territory would forgive Colin for his foolish liaison, probably even tsk sadly over how a brazen hussy had taken advantage of him. Then he could go after Win Barker and all his minions.

Maggie took the note, carefully tore it into tiny pieces and threw them away. Then she returned to the bedroom and lay down. She needed time to think, to plan. Perhaps she could locate Bart tomorrow to see if his offer still held. She had to consider providing for her child as well as herself now, and somehow she intuited that Bartley Wellington Fletcher would make a satisfactory if highly unlikely foster father. Do I have the courage to walk away from Colin? Her throat ached and her eyes burned, but still she could not cry.

Prescott

Sheriff Walter Briggs tried to close his mouth, but as the breed gunman told his tale the lawman knew it kept gaping open. Caleb Lamp was using reservation Indians as slaves and had tried to kill two of Prescott's leading citizens when they found out! If not for the verification of Dr. Torres and Eden McCrory, Briggs would never have considered Blake's wild story. In fact, he might have arrested Blake and freed Lamp. But a second look at the hard, dangerous gunman made him reconsider that rash thought.

A short, thickset man with close-cropped red hair and bulldog jowls, the sheriff had won repeated elections by being genial and not overly zealous in his collection of license fees at the local saloons and bordellos on Whiskey Row. Live and let live was his motto. If the men in the legislature wanted Prescott wide open, it was just fine with him. But murder and stolen government property, now that was a different matter altogether.

"C'mon, Caleb. I reckon you're gonna spend some time in Prescott's reservation," he said with a mirthless chuckle. The iron-barred cells in the basement of the county courthouse were grim and forbidding.

"This is a big mistake, Walt. I'm warning you, I got powerful friends in Tucson," Lamp said as Blake shoved him toward the lawman.

"Them fellers in Tucson don't vote in Prescott. Save yore breath," Briggs replied in his easygoing manner. "They stole my books. Ask that breed if he ain't got my records from the reservation. That there's tampering with federal property," Lamp protested as the cell door clanged shut in his face.

Briggs's gaze skittered away from Blake to Torres. "What he says true, Doc?"

"There are no records here, Sheriff. Lamp's just trying to divert attention from his own heinous crimes," Aaron replied carefully. The records were hidden in Wolf's saddlebags, so strictly speaking, the physician was not lying.

"I have to send a wire to Tucson," Wolf said to Torres, attempting to keep the sheriff from pursuing Lamp's accusations any further.

"To let my father know I'm safe," Eden chimed in.

"If you have no further need of me, Sheriff, I have to get back to the reservation. The epidemic seems to have run its course, but I have to be certain, especially now that our estimable agent is unable to oversee his charges," Torres added with grim irony.

"I reckon I'll be callin' on you when the judge decides to hold a hearing."

"Feel free, Sheriff. Both Miss McCrory and I will be at the court's disposal."

"Maybe some other charges will come to light by then," Wolf added, giving Lamp a quelling look as he ushered Eden out the door and up the stairs.

Once they were out on Cortez Street, Wolf turned to Torres. "Be careful riding back to the reservation. It'd probably be best if you took Rufus with you. It's too far for him to come with us to Tucson."

The physician reached down and patted the dog that had waited patiently for them outside the courthouse. "I'd be glad of his company. I assume you're going to send a wire to Colin informing him of the developments here before you set out?"

"Right away. Then I'm riding out. I really wish this stubborn woman would return to Crown Verde," Wolf replied, turning to Eden.

Shaking her head, she took his arm firmly. "I'm going with you. Now let's send that wire."

"You may ride with me, but no way in hell is a lady like you walking into Kearney's Saloon on Whiskey Row."

Eden huffed. "It was a stupid place to put the telegraph office. I'll wait outside."

Torres hid a smile behind his hand as the small girl faced off against the tall, menacing gunman.

"You'll wait for me at the Wells Fargo office down the street," Wolf said with such a set expression on his face that Eden decided not to push her luck any further lest he pack her off to the ranch.

As he watched them head toward the Wells Fargo office, the doctor remembered the tender scene between the fierce half-breed and a newly alive Eden at San Carlos. Wolf Blake was a good man for her. Eden was beginning to recover her resilient spirit even after all she had endured. Colin and Maggie would not have to fear for her future any longer. But then, after his strange interview with Maggie McCrory, the physician wondered if Colin and his wife were not the ones he should be worrying about.

"Come on, Rufus, old friend. Let's you and I head back to White Mountain."

Chapter Nineteen

Kearney's Saloon was doing a brisk business when Wolf walked in, his terse message to Colin carefully composed. By the time he and McCrory put all the evidence together, those bloodsuckers in Tucson would be sweating bullets. Smiling grimly, he walked down the long plank floor past the scarred walnut bar, heading to the small door at the back of the room. A crudely hand-lettered sign above it proclaimed: "Telegraphs Sent. Cash Only."

The door was ajar so Wolf slipped inside the dingy room, which had previously been a storage area. The floor was hard-packed earth, and chinks had fallen from the log walls. Bright hot sunlight streamed in, casting the room and its sole occupant in yellow and gray stripes. "'Morning. I need to send a wire to Colin McCrory, care of the Palace Hotel in Tucson." Wolf handed the message to a small hunchbacked man with wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his broken nose.

Hector Spoede perused the message through the heavy lenses of his spectacles, then raised his weasel-like face to Wolf's. "This'll cost ya one dollar and fifty cents."

Wolf raised his eyebrows at the price, which seemed steep, but Spoede quickly said, "It's a long message. Ya want it sent or not?"

Blake extracted the money from his pocket and tossed it onto the grimy table beside the telegrapher's key. The feral little man tapped out the message. Blake left the office and headed back to pick up Eden. They had a long ride ahead and she had been pushing herself too hard. They would take it easy on the trip to Tucson.

As soon as the gunman was gone, Hector Spoede jumped up from his chair. A crafty smile revealed small, crooked teeth. That big shot politician would pay plenty this time, yessir, plenty. Hector had fooled the dumb breed by sending out a meaningless signal to a local relay station at the Whipple Barracks. He was certain that neither his employer here in Prescott nor the merchants in Tucson would want this message delivered to Colin McCrory. He hung a closed sign on the telegrapher's key and headed out the back door of the saloon.

Within half an hour he had returned, a hundred dollars richer for his trouble, with a new message to deliver, this time to Win Barker in Tucson:

Blake and McCrory's daughter on way to Tucson Stop Intercept and take ledger from them Stop You know what to do Stop

Scattered clouds scudded past the dull glow from the moon, casting eerie shadows through the basement window into the already gloomy jail cell where Caleb Lamp lay. The night was chilly and the blankets he had been given by Briggs were as thin as the henskins he handed out on the reservation. Maybe Barker had a contract with the Yavapai County Sheriff's office, too.

Lamp was too worried to sleep anyway. Once Blake took that ledger to McCrory, all hell would break loose and he would be caught square in the middle. Bad enough that the truth about his deal using reservation Apaches to work the coal mines was out, but once the chain of graft unraveled from White Mountain down to Tucson, he was going to have some very powerful enemies. Win Barker had hired Judd Lazlo to kill McCrory, and when that failed, he had sent others. how much easier would it be for them to kill him, trapped like a rat in this jail cell? He rolled off the hard, lumpy mattress and began to pace back and forth.

The sheriff had gone home for the night to his soft bed, leaving his old geezer of a deputy to guard the office. What a joke. Clement was dead drunk, snoring away in the swivel chair behind Briggs's desk with his feet propped up. "Probably sleep through Fourth of July fireworks," he muttered to himself.

Then the steady cadence of Clement's snores was broken when the hall door screeched softly. The hairs on the back of Lamp's neck began to prickle in warning as he strained to see what had caused the noise. The wick had burned out on the kerosene lamp by the desk and the office was lit only by briefly passing shafts of moonlight. Then a shadow materialized out of the blackness and its owner said, "Clement will be sleeping through some fireworks." The dark figure raised his pistol and cracked the deputy on the skull, knocking him from his rickety perch. Lamp stood clutching the bars of the cell, too frozen with terror to move. His throat had collapsed like a mine-shaft cave-in, feeling every bit as clogged with dust and debris when he tried to yell. But he knew it was no use, even if he could have cried for help.

The shadow man raised the gun, and moonlight glinted off the barrel as the clouds cleared, driven away by a sudden gust of wind. When he stepped forward and leveled his weapon at Lamp's chest, his face was clearly visible beneath the brim of his hat.

"You!" the agent said in such amazement that he did not even feel the impact of the slug that knocked him across the cell. His lifeless body hit the cold stone wall below the narrow window and slid slowly to the floor.

With the shot still echoing in the small room, the killer walked silently out the door and up the steps. No one would find Lamp's body until morning. By then he would be well on his way to Tucson.

The sun was gilding the eastern sky, casting the low peaks of the Superstition Mountains in deep shades of lavender on the distant horizon. Fuchsia and orange light gripped the skyline with jagged fingers as the two riders held a steady pace. Already the heat hit the desert floor of the vast low basin known as the Valley of the Sun. They had not pushed the horses too hard yesterday, and by late afternoon Wolf had insisted they stop, not only to rest his big roan and her mare, but also to keep his fragile-looking woman from pushing herself until she fell from Sunglow's back.

"We should take another rest in an hour or so," he said, eyeing a jackrabbit making a dash across an open rocky stretch above which a sharp-eyed hawk soared, looking for breakfast.

''I'm fine, Wolf. You don't have to stop for me. I may be small, but Dr. Torres told you I'm tough as an old Army boot."

His liquid black eyes glided appreciatively over her body. "I'm glad to say you sure don't look like one." When her cheeks flushed, he smiled, reveling in the sheer pleasure of having her here by his side. "We don't have to burn up the road. Lamp's cooling his heels in jail, and your father knows we're on our way with the evidence to finish Barker."

"We have ridden since moonrise . . . and the valley will get awfully hot," she said, then added with a shy grin, "I seem to recall a place a few miles to the south where the stage stops. The Salt River runs above ground through there. When I was a girl, Father and I would stop by some secluded pools we found in the rocks. That's where I learned to swim."

"You did, did you?" His thoughts flashed back to the first time he had seen her in the water. "When we were in Sonora, I caught that scum Beau Price spying on you while you bathed."

Eden met his eyes, but could not stop the flush that rose to color her cheeks. "I knowthat is, Maggie figured out that was why you beat him so." She shivered in revulsion. "Price was awful."

"So was I," he confessed. "Before I dragged him away to thrash him, I saw you, too. You were the most beautiful sight I'd ever imagined, Eden, all pink and pale gold."

She felt the heat pooling deeply in her belly as she listened to the sensuous tone of his voice. "I'm glad my body pleased you. I always want to please you, Wolf."

He reached out and clasped her hand, squeezing it. "You do. My God, when I think what Lamp could've done to youor those Coyotero police of his"

"But you saved me. Anyway, the danger's over now and all we have to do is convince my father to give us his blessing."

Wolf chuckled softly. "Knowing Colin McCrory, I wouldn't say that means the danger's over. You're his only child and he won't give you over to a man like me all that easily."

"Yes, he willor I'd go without his permission, but Maggie will convince him to see reason. That's why she went after him to Tucson."

"She always was my friend," Wolf said thoughtfully.

"I only hope Father realizes what a treasure he has in her."

"I know I have one in you," he replied warmly. "How far did you say those pools are?"

Her face split in a dazzling smile. "I'll race you!" With that she kicked Sunglow and took off across the flat, dusty yellow earth, neatly dodging between two big saguaro cacti.

The pools were ice cold for the river ran for miles deep beneath the surface of the earth before bubbling up to rush swift and shallow across the valley floor. Situated between piles of big red and yellow boulders liberally sprinkled with the rich green of spruce and pine, the water was deep blue, the scene breathtakingly tranquil.

"Last one in has to rub down the horses!" Eden squealed as she leaped from Sunglow, who was already drinking at the water's edge. She began to strip off her clothes.

Wolf slung one long leg across the pommel of his saddle and watched his beautiful woman. My woman. A fine white lady with silver-gilt hair and pale soft skin. In his wildest fantasies he would never have dreamed that one day a creature so perfect would be his. Hell, even the pain of facing his father would be worth it, just to have Eden for his wife.

She tugged the last of her clothes off and leaped into the water, shrieking as the icy cold made goose bumps rise on her skin. Then she looked back up the bank to Wolf. "What's the matter? Aren't you hot? Don't you want to cool off?" she asked, studying the bemused expression on his face.

"Oh, I'm hot, all right, but water isn't what will cool me off," he replied in a low, silky growl as he dismounted and began to strip with smooth economic movements. In a minute he walked into the pool as she splashed water at him, laughing and teasing. When he splashed back, she let out a yelp and dove, disappearing beneath the surface.

She swam like a sleek little otter, with her hair flowing behind her in waves. He clasped his hands around her hips and raised her high up out of the water, as if offering her body to sun and sky for their worship. She shook her head and sent her hair flying in a bright cloud, spraying them both with iridescent droplets.

Eden put her hands on Wolf's shoulders. Her fingers glided across his flexing muscles, then moved up to run through his straight inky hair. Their eyes met and she whispered, "Make love to me, please."

Wolf let her body slide slowly back into the water as her belly and breasts rubbed against him. His hands found every slick, sleek curve of her flesh, caressing with infinite patience and wonder. "You are so perfect it frightens meI fear you'll disappear like a fairy from a storybook."

"I'm no fairy. I'm a woman, Wolfyour woman." She wrapped her knees around his hips as he held her by her buttocks. She could feel his erection, so hot even in the cold water, pressing between her legs, seeking the answering heat deep inside her softness.

Wolf positioned her hips and thrust into her as she dug her nails into the bunched muscles of his shoulders. A look of startled pleasure washed over her face. She writhed against him and they rocked back and forth in the waist-deep water.

"I . . . I never knew you could do this standing up," she whispered breathlessly.

"I suspect there are all sorts of things you don't know . . . yet," he replied as he bent his head down and suckled one hard pink nipple, then the other.

Eden threw her head back, holding onto his biceps with her hands as her body arched and bucked. She could feel the vortex of heat building up inside her, surging so swiftly it robbed her of breath.

Wolf watched her hair spill across the surface of the water like silver satin while her eyes closed in the bliss of the moment. He felt her body grow rigid as she neared her crest, and he braced his feet wide apart in the water, thrusting faster and deeper inside of her until he felt her sweet flesh clench around his staff, sending him spiraling off into paradise with her.

Eden felt the sudden rush of completion swamping her senses. Pulling Wolf's head closer to hers, she leaned into his kiss just as he stiffened, his thrusting phallus exploding in shuddering waves while their lips met, fiercely sealing the moment of love.

He gently carried her from the water as she clung to him. When they reached the shallows, he set her on her feet and reached up to cup her chin and kiss her softly. The sun blazed down on their bare flesh, greedily absorbing the droplets of water from their skin as they leaned against one another, struggling to regain their breath. "That . . . that was so fast . . . so intense . . . I didn't know I could . . . we could . . ." Her words faded away.

"You did. We did," he said softly. "But it was too fastif very, very good. Why don't you take a quick swimor float for a few minutes. I have some things to do."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, then waded back into the deeper water and lay back, floating as she watched Wolf's splendid bronzed body. He moved over to the horses, totally unconcerned by his nakedness as he unsaddled them and began to rub them down. His every movement was graceful. Powerful muscles bunched and stretched over sleek dark skin while he worked. His broad back narrowed to a pair of hard, small buttocks and long, powerful thighs. Remembering the feel of his hips thrusting against her made Eden begin to feel the recently appeased heat rise in her again.

As if reading her thoughts, he turned from the second horse, giving him an affectionate pat. A blinding smile slashed across his handsome face as he said, "You said last one in the water had to do the chores." Then he began to unfasten his bedroll from his saddle.

She watched as he strolled leisurely around the edge of the pool to where a tall ponderosa pine cast its looming shadow over a small patch of ground that was clear of stones. He spread the blanket, then stood by it with his hand outstretched in invitation. "Come to me, Eden, and make this place paradise again."

She stood up in the water and began to make her way slowly to shore. As she felt the water inch lower and lower, revealing more and more of her body to him, she could see his staff once more growing rigid with desire. A heady sense of power and a wild surge of love filled her at the same time. She splashed through the last bit of water and ran into his arms.

Wolf knelt and pulled her down with him, then lay her back on the blanket. The cool shade, combined with the rapidly evaporating water on her skin, began to raise gooseflesh. "Let me warm you," he whispered as he covered her body with his, letting his heat seep into her. They kissed slowly, languorously, tasting and exploring each other. The mad passionate imperative of earlier now gave way to timeless communion.

Eden rolled up and placed one hand on his chest, saying, "I want to look at you. Every beautiful male inch of you."

He smiled at her and lay back. "I'm yours," he said simply. His breath caught as her hands traced the patterns of hair from his chest down over his belly, to lightly caress his rigid, aching staff. After a moment's consideration, she skittered her fingers down one leg and back up the other, marveling at the sinuous muscles, the crisp, rough texture of the hair. Her hands slid over his narrow hips and up his sides to glide over the powerful arms that had held her so firmly against him. Finally, her fingertips traced the outline of his chiseled features, the inky slash of his eyebrows, the high prominent cheekbones and straight nose, settling at last over his lips, those magic lips that she yearned to kiss. She dipped her head down, curtaining him with her silvery hair and kissed him.

"You are so lovely . . . everywhere," he breathed after they broke off the kiss. He nuzzled against her ear and his tongue curled inside it. Then he rolled up and pushed her back onto the blanket to begin an exploration of his own. His kisses moved down her throat and over her breasts. He took one in his hand, cupping the small perfect globe as she moaned with pleasure. His tongue traced slow, lazy circles around the pale pink bud, then moved to the other.

When she began to arch and writhe, he gently took her delicate wrist bones and held her hands at her sides, sliding down as his kisses covered her ribs and belly. He flicked his tongue inside her navel and elicited a cry of delight, but when he moved to the pale triangle of curls below, he could feel her begin to stiffen in resistance.

Raising his head, he whispered hoarsely, "I told you there were all sorts of things you didn't know about making love, but I'm going to teach you. Don't be afraid." His black eyes studied her earnestly.

"How could I be afraid with you, my love?"

He nuzzled the silky curls at her mound, then took one hand and slid it between her thighs, letting his callused fingertips graze lightly over the milk white skin. Of their own volition her legs parted, allowing him access to the delicate pink petals, now moist and musky, swollen with want.

"You are beautiful everywhere," he whispered as his mouth brushed her softness. He heard her sharp gasp of pleasure and persevered, letting his tongue swirl, his lips suckle until she grew mindless with the pleasure he was giving her.

When he sent the tip of his tongue plunging inside her she almost came up off the blanket. Her hands, balled in fists at her sides, opened and she buried her fingers in his hair, pressing his head closer to her, letting him work this incredible, blistering magic on her. She felt the slow gradual ascent begin, new and yet the same, hard yet ever so tender, until the sweetness engulfed her.

Wolf felt the rhythmic spasms of her release and tasted the nectar of her body's ecstasy. Never had he taken such pleasure from giving to a woman. And he knew in his heart that this was the woman he would love forever.

When he finally raised his head and met her eyes, she looked awed and bemused. "I take it that look means you're pleased?" He drew up and took her in his arms.

Eden nestled against his chest with a contented sigh. "Pleased scarcely seems an adequate word . . . Wolf . . ."

"Yes?"

"You were right. There are things I never understood . . . I knew women could do that for men . . ." She shuddered, remembering the degrading way Lazlo had forced her, then banished the image forever, secure in her lover's arms.

"You don't ever again have to think of what he did to you, Eden," he said, kissing her temple softly.

"You know . . . you understand." She felt at peace, holding him, stroking his broad shoulders, feeling his heart beat. "When you made love to me that way I loved it because I love you . . . and that's what makes all the difference," she said as her hand reached between them, capturing the hardness of his phallus and stroking it until he gasped aloud.

"No, Eden," he said as she slid down his body, never relinquishing her hold on his aching erection. "You don't have to"

"I know. But I want to. Don't you see, my beloved? It's so different now . . . different and wonderful."

She took her time examining the wonders of the male anatomy, this time with exquisite attention, cupping him with her small hand, letting her nails rake softly over the head of his staff, then down its length until it twitched with excitement. "What a glorious toy," she whispered in surprise. Then she took him into her mouth and tasted his heady male essence, hard yet velvety, pulsing with life as her lips and tongue teased and suckled.

Wolf was totally out of control as Eden's hesitant, experimental caresses drove him mad with excitement. He willed himself to relax, to let her derive the same pleasure from having him in her power that he had experienced loving her this way. But he had waited too long, taking his time when he made love to her. Now he felt himself go up in a blaze of glory.

Eden held onto his hips, letting him buck and thrust as his seed, sweet and hot, pulsed into her. When he was spent, she raised her head and looked at him. "I said this was different, wonderful . . . but it's more. Oh, Wolf, it's so very much more. There are no words . . ."

"Yes, there are," he whispered, taking her in his arms. "I love you."

"And I love you."

They dressed and ate a quick lunch of beef jerky and hardtack, then began to pack up. As he was putting the bedroll on his saddle, Wolf reached to touch her tousled hair.

"Like spun moonbeams gilded with sunlight," he murmured.

Eden caressed his jaw and tiptoed up to place a soft kiss on his lips.

"How touching. Looks as if I missed the best part, though. Too bad. But I have some real creative ideas about using this water hole myself, Eden."

Eden stood transfixed with horror. Wolf cursed to himself. His gunbelt lay on the ground across the clearing. Grinning evilly, his green eyes as malevolent as a stalking jungle cat, Judd Lazlo walked from behind the rocks with a Winchester '73 leveled on them. His eyes raked Eden's damp hair and bee-stung pink lips.

"You're"

"Dead?" he cut her off curtly. "Do I look dead? Not that your little present in my boot didn't almost finish me. But I got lucky. Some dumb greaser sheepherder found me. Took me to his jacal, put some redskin poultice on my foot. Saved my life."

"I imagine it was more likely that biting you killed the centipede," Wolf said calmly, edging away from Eden to get her out of the line of fire.

"Just stand where you are, breed. I heard about you. Seems you're causing real trouble for my bossalmost as much as McCrory." Lazlo smiled, revealing a full set of white even teeth.

"Too bad you're such a lousy shot." Wolf returned the nasty smile. "You must've botched the job threeor is it four times now?"

Lazlo's finger tightened on the trigger but he didn't shoot. "I would've had him in Prescott if that bitch of a whore hadn't got in the way. And speaking of whores" He turned with a vicious glare at Eden. "I've got plans for you after I finish your breed lover here. You sure have taste, Eden. Too high-and-mighty principled to stick with me, but you spread your legs for a dirty Apach."

"Wolf's a man of honoryou're scum, Lazlo," Eden said, regaining a measure of calm. She must reach her saddlebags and the gun inside. Lazlo was enjoying the prospects before him too much to do his job quickly. If she could just keep him talking. "What are you going to do with us?" As if I didn't know.

Lazlo laughed, a low ugly chuckle. "I'm considering right now. I think I'll keep your Apach alive . . . for a little while, just so he can watch what I do with you. Then,''he shrugged"if you're real nice to me, I might take you with me."

"I'd sooner sleep with a whole nest of centipedes than spend one night with you, Lazlo." She was next to her saddlebag now.

Wolf realized her ploy. She'd be killed if she went for that pea shooter. His only weapon was the knife he always wore in his boot. He had to get Lazlo to move in close. "You're a coward, Lazlo. The only way you can take a man is to back-shoot him from ambushand you're not even very good at that."

Lazlo instinctively took several steps closer, his eyes glittering with a mixture of fury and the sick pleasure his kind received when they inflicted pain. And he was going to inflict pain.

"I'll get McCrory, don't you think I won't . . . after I have my fun with you two. But first there's business to attend to here. I was told you have a ledger that Win Barker wants real bad."

Wolf's eyes narrowed. "How did you know about Lamp's ledger? And that we were on our way to Tucson with it?" He was almost close enough.

Lazlo looked smug. "Win, he's got friends in Prescott. Got a wire and sent me up the trail from Tucson to take care of you."

"I have the ledgerin my saddlebags," Eden quickly interjected. The perfect excuse to open the bag!

"No, Eden," Wolf yelled as she began to pull her little Zig Zag derringer from the leather bag while cocking it at the same time. He dived for Lazlo, whose attention was split between the two of them. The killer had allowed them to move too far apart, and his minute hesitation before he swung the rifle Eden's way was all the edge Blake needed.

His body slammed into Lazlo's, causing the outlaw to drop the rifle as both men fell to the ground, punching and rolling, each trying to gain a hold of the pistol in Lazlo's holster. Eden withdrew her derringer but dared not fire for fear of hitting Wolf. As he held Lazlo's hand away from his Colt, Wolf landed a solid blow to the killer's gut, then reached for the weapon while Judd wheezed for breath.

Blake slid Lazlo's six-shooter from its holster, but Lazlo's fist smashed into Wolf's hand. The weapon flew free, bouncing from a small boulder into the pool. Ignoring the lost gun, Wolf pulled the knife from his boot while he rolled away from Lazlo. He sprang up on the balls of his feet, as agile and taut as a mountain lion poised to pounce. The sunlight caught the edge of his wicked-looking blade. His face was harsh and savage, filled with a primitive blood lust.

"Now, Lazlo, you'll see how my mother's people take care of an enemy who threatens their women."

Judd backed away several steps. Eden watched in fascinated horror, seeing the other side of her lover. The man who had been so gentle and understanding with her was once more the man she remembered from the Sonoran nightmare, a hard-faced, fierce killer, the same kind of man as Judd Lazlobut not really. Wolf looked infinitely more deadly as he circled Judd in short arcs, backing him toward the water.

She was just about to cry out for him to stop when Lazlo slid a knife from the back of his belt. "I'm pretty good with this pig sticker myself, breed. Let's go," he snarled.

The two men moved back and forth in a lethal ballet, parrying, feinting, lunging. Wolf drew first blood, opening a wicked cut across Lazlo's shoulder, but then Lazlo retaliated with a quick arc that opened a furrow up Wolf's left arm.

Eden threw down her Zig Zag and edged around the two men to where Lazlo's Winchester had landed. She seized it and cocked it, but was afraid to shoot. If she missed Lazlo, she might at the same time distract Wolf and cost him his life. The combatants closed together then, and turned so quickly, her love was in the line of fire as often as his enemy. She stood with the rifle cocked, waiting, willing herself to be calm. I must keep my nerve. Soon it became apparent that Wolf was taunting Judd, slashing his arms, nicking his neck, all the while keeping up a series of insults in that low silky voice of his.

"You're too slow, Lazlo . . . White Eyes, you never had to hunt with a knife to keep from starving . . . What's the mattera few little cuts hurt too bad? They only sting . . . If you thought the centipede was bad . . . just wait . . ."

Both men were bloody now. The scorching desert sun beat down mercilessly on them. Wolf watched Lazlo, intent on observing any sign that his foe was growing light-headed from the heat and the blood loss. Sweat poured from both of them, making their knife handles slick.

"Getting tired, White Eyes? Us Apache, we're used to roasting in this heat. Now it's your turn."

"It's my turn to kill you," Lazlo snarled in a last desperate bid to win. He feinted, then came in low with his blade streaking to Wolf's midsection.

Wolf parried the blow and their blades locked together. The force of their collision caused them to slide on some loose pebbles. Blake lost his footing and went down on one knee. With a look of triumph blazing in his eyes, Lazlo forced the haft of his knife free and plunged it toward Wolf's throat.

Eden stifled a scream and carefully aimed for Lazlo's upper body. Wolf was crouched between her and her target, but before she could fire, Lazlo's face took on a glazed expression of agony. His body went suddenly rigid and his knife clattered onto the rocks.

Wolf rose and backed away, saying softly, "I bet it's hotter where you're headed now."

Lazlo sank to his knees, his hands clutching his belly where Wolf's blade had zigzagged all the way across and up. He held his own intestines in his hands. Blood foamed at his lips as he gave a final sigh of agony. Then he fell face forward onto the ground.

Eden uncocked her rifle, but held it in a death grip as she stood shivering uncontrollably in the heat. Wolf turned to her and read the revulsion in her wide gold eyes.

"Now you've seen the Apache side of me, Eden," he said quietly, afraid to breathe. The pain clawed at him as he stood facing her, as motionless as she was. "I told you I was a killer. This is how I've survived since I was fifteen. Maybe I can't ever change."

His low, impassioned words, spoken between halting, ragged breaths, brought her out of her trance. He could have been killedshe would have been worse off than dead if Judd Lazlo had been victorious. And now Wolf blamed himself because she had witnessed him fight for their very survival.

"No!" She shook her head in denial of his words. Throwing the Winchester down, she ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, heedless of the blood and sweat covering his body. "You are my love, my life. Without you I wouldn't want to live. I don't care what you wereor what you become. I'll always love you," she said slowly, looking into his fathomless black eyes, willing him to listento believe.

Wolf let the breath he had been holding escape in a long, shaky sigh as he buried his face in her silky hair. Holding her tightly, he felt himself trembling with relief. "Oh, Eden, my paradise, my love. I haven't lost you."

"You never will, Wolf. Never . . ."

An hour after Wolf and Eden had ridden hard for Tucson to warn Colin, a lone horseman pulled off the trail by the river. His mount was lathered from keeping a grueling pace. He eyed the buzzards circling in the sky beyond the rocks. Smiling grimly to himself, he tugged on the lead lines of his two remounts and went to see that Lazlo had done his job.

When he saw the gunman's body lying face down in the dust, he dismounted with a curse and walked over to it. One booted foot kicked the mortal remains of what had been Judd Lazlo face up. Grotesque. There was no sign of Blake or the girl, but they must not be too far ahead of him. Not that he planned to tackle the deadly breed gunman himself, but he must get to the next town and send a wire, warning Win Barker that his inept killer had failed for the last time.

Surely there must be better help in a town the size of Tucson. He would have the situation under his own control from now on.

Chapter Twenty

Tucson

"You still love the bloody fool, Megs. I can see it in your eyes," Bart Fletcher said, brushing Maggie's cheek tenderly. "Only yesterday you were assuring me that you'd work things out." A sudden look of anguish swept over her face. "Surely the jealous bastard hasn't abused you because he caught me in your room. I'll''

"No, Bart. He was angry, but that wasn't the real reasonat least it's not that simple. I'd rather not talk about it, not yet. This is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have to leave Colinfor his own good. If you've changed your mind about being saddled with a pregnant woman, I'll understand."

Fletcher took her hands, so pale and cold, and raised them to his lips. "No, Megs. I'd never change my mind about you. I take it you haven't told McCrory about his impending fatherhood?" He cocked one blond eyebrow, almost certain of her reply.

"No. I won't hold him that way." There was steel in her voice.

"Don't you think a man has a right to know about his childeven a bloody rotter like that Scot?"

She smiled at his playing a scowling devil's advocate. "I'll wait until after the baby's born. Maybe by then things will seem clearer to me. If . . . if he wants the child"she hesitated, fighting the catch in her throat"perhaps I'll have to give it up"

"No." Bart interrupted her with flat finality. "You've already been cheated of enough. You may lose that mule-headed husband of yours, but you'll not give up your child, too. I simply won't permit it." He patted her hand, then took it and placed it around his arm, guiding her away from the deserted fountain in the small city park where they had arranged to meet. ''I'll buy another ticket on tonight's Yuma stageif you think that will give you enough time to pack?"

"I'll be packed and at the depot." She reached out and placed a light kiss on his cheek. "You are a true friend, Bart."

"I'm not so certain of that, Megs. After all, I'm getting what I want at the cost of your happiness with McCrory."

He watched her walk away with her head held regally high. Her strength of character and elegance of manner showed generations of breeding. Again he cursed Colin McCrory for a fool, holding the mistakes of a young girl against the woman who had overcome so much by sheer dint of will. Should he have told Maggie about McCrory's unsavory past? Somehow he doubted that knowing her husband was hiding skeletons in his own closet would make her feel any better about their failed relationship. As she had said, after they were safely settled in San Francisco there would be time to sort out a great many things.

One thing he was certain of. The only way Colin McCrory would ever lay claim to Maggie's baby was if he reclaimed his wife first.

Maggie sat at the desk in their hotel suite, trying to concentrate on the letter she was composing, telling Colin that she had left. She could not bear the humiliation of facing him. He might be foolishly noble and insist she stay. When her scarlet past cost him his reputation, whatever feelings he might have been developing for her would wither and die before they ever had the chance to grow.

"I'm not in any danger of seeing him," she murmured sadly. Since their painful parting yesterday morning, Colin had not returned to their room. A cold, distantly polite note arrived last night explaining that he had been detained on business and would make other arrangements. She was to wait for him at the Palace until Wolf arrived, and they could press charges against Barker.

"it will be easier this way. I won't have to face your awful bleak despair and you won't have to barter your honor trying to force me to stay. Oh, Colin, Colin . . ." Maggie laid down her pen and buried her fists in her eyes, willing herself not to cry. Then resolutely she picked up the pen and finished her farewell to her husband.

The missive to Eden was in some ways even more difficult to write. Maggie knew how the girl had wanted desperately to believe that her father would fall in love with his new wife. She considered very carefully how to explain to Eden why she could not stay without causing her to blame Colin. It was not an easy task. He had forgiven his daughter her youthful indiscretion but could not tolerate his wife's tawdry past. Maggie did the best she could, urging Eden to find happiness with Wolf Blake and retain the special closeness she had always had with her father. At least one thing had gone right on this dreadful trip to Tucson. She had made Colin aware of Wolf's suitability as a husband for Eden.

By the time she had finished both notes, it was dusk. Her bags were packed. As for the rest of her clothes and personal belongings at Crown Verde, Eileen could forward them. She would write the kindly old woman from San Francisco.

Maggie range for a porter. The last and most difficult thing she had to do was to slip the antique wedding band from her finger and place it inside Colin's letter.

She sealed the two envelopes and left them on the desk in the parlor.

Within half an hour she and Bart were boarding the stage for Yuma. The only other passengers were a young drummer selling shoes and a harried woman with a sleepy little boy.

As soon as the driver cracked his whip over the heads of the team, the heavy conveyance lurched forward, gathering speed, leaving Tucson behind in a cloud of dust. Maggie stared out the window into the darkness. Some small part of her prayed against all reason that Colin would return to their suite, read her note and come after her. She listened to the steady pounding of the team's hooves. No other sound broke the evening stillness.

Bart exchanged an understanding look with her. He had always known what she was thinking, sometimes even before she did. She smiled bravely for him, but could not erase the haunted sorrow in her eyes. Sorrow for what might have been but now could never be.

Colin woke up to the stink of stale whiskey and cheap perfume. God, his skull throbbed! He rolled to the side of the narrow mattress and sat up, very carefully cradling his head between his hands. An empty bottle of rotgut lay on the floor beside the bed. The blonde whore whose room he had slept in had left her gaudy yellow sequined dress crumpled in a sweat-stained heap on one rickety chair. Other items of apparel, shoes, underwear and petticoats, lay strewn around the small, dirty room. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

What had possessed him to choose Alma? Or was it Alice? He could not remember through the fog of liquor that had dulled his brain. He had been drinking for nearly twenty-four hours straightever since he left Maggie in their hotel. He had wandered from saloon to saloon, trying to drown his pain. Finally he had paid the persistent little blonde whore not to sleep with him, just to leave him in peace. Then he proceeded to drink himself stuporous in her quarters behind the Legal Tender Saloon.

Anything was better than returning to face his wife. What was he going to do about Maggie? If she was the one who told Barker about his past, he would have to learn the truth sooner or later. But not last night. The shock of Barker's blackmail was still too raw.

He rose on unsteady legs and staggered over to the window. Christ, it was dusk already! He turned to eye the pitcher and washbasin on the scarred little bedside table. They were cracked and chipped, but the water seemed reasonably clean. He poured a generous amount in the basin and dunked his head, then came up sputtering. A wrinkled graying towel hung on the side of the table. He picked it up, then smelled the whore's awful perfume permeating it and threw it down with an oath.

Had Maggie ever lived in circumstances like this? He found the idea impossible to reconcile with his elegant wife's breeding and refinement. Maggie had furnished her quarters in that Sonora bordello as handsomely as any Boston society matron. But she had not always been financially secure. Perhaps somewhere in her earlier past as a working prostitute, she had been forced to endure cheap cribs like this. That might explain why she would be ruthless enough to work with scum like Win Barker.

"Don't forget, my friend, she lived with Bart Fletcher all those years, too," he muttered to himself. A British remittance man was scarcely more upstanding than a Yankee thief. For all he knew, Fletcher was involved in the whole ugly plan with Maggie and Win. He combed his fingers through his damp hair, then rubbed his bewhiskered face. There was a bathhouse down the street. He would feel better if he got cleaned up and ate something.

Where the hell was Blake with that buyer? He should have been able to turn the man to ground and drag him here long before now. Of course, Maggie knew all about that, too. Ed had confided the whole story to her and she had been present when he and Wolf had made their plans. Surely she would not have betrayed Blake to Barker. It made no sense. She had pleaded with him to give his blessings to Eden and the gunman. If there was one thing Colin was certain of, it was that Maggie loved his daughter and wanted her happiness.

He rubbed his aching head, too confused to think straight. Tossing a silver piece on the rumpled sheets, he left the noisome crib and walked out into the cool night air. A few deep breaths did clear his brain a bit. Colin decided to return to the Palace for a change of clothes. He stopped by the telegraph office on his way. No word from Blake. Perhaps Wolf had arrived and left a message at the registration desk of the hotel.

Hiram Jenkins had clerked at the Palace for nearly a decade. Thin and officious, he wore a perpetually quizzical expression and glasses that were too large for his small owlish face. When Mr. McCrory came walking in, reeking of whiskey and wearing filthy rumpled clothes, Jenkins smelled a juicy bit of gossip on the wind. The rich rancher had not returned to his suite last night. Jenkins had delivered a note from McCrory's beautiful bride, noting how upset she seemed. Seeing McCrory's bloodshot eyes and haggard face, he now understood why. Small wonder she had packed up and headed to the stage depot. Hiram Jenkins would have given a great deal to know where the lady was boundback home to Prescott or somewhere else?

"May I help you, Mr. McCrory?" the clerk asked in his nasal voice. His tone was cool and proper, but his eyes gleamed with curiosity behind the thick lenses.

"Any messages left for me? Or has Wolf Blake come by looking for me?"

"That half-breed gunman? No." Jenkins gave a faint grimace of distaste as he turned to check the room boxes for messages. "Nothing here either, sir."

Colin gave the little weasel a steely look as he handed over a silver piece. "I want a change of clothes sent to Hurley's Bath House down the street. Send one of your porters with whatever you select in about a half hour."

Hiram wanted to tell McCrory his wife was no longer a guest at the Palace, but something in that deadly facial expression made him hold his tongue. The clerk watched as the tall Scot stalked out the front door, then rang for Carlos.

A long hot soak, a shave and a change of clothes helped Colin feel almost human again. As he sat in the Cosmopolitan Dining Room chewing a tough hunk of spicy mutton, he considered what his next move should be. Since arriving in Tucson he had not spoken to Ed Phibbs. She had, true to her predictions, gotten a job on the Daily Star writing the society column. He was certain she was snooping around on the side. Perhaps the eccentric female had learned something useful.

Within an hour Colin had located Miss Phibbs's new residence at a respectable boardinghouse on Church Avenue. When he rode up, the redoubtable reporter was on her way out the front gate with her heavy canvas sack slung over one bony shoulder.

"Colin! Good to see you, but do you think it's wise to come to my place of residence so openly?"

He tipped his hat, looking around the deserted street. "It's dark so no one should notice. Anyway, we're just passing a few casual pleasantries. I need to talk to you, Ed. I was going to leave a note at the boardinghouse asking you to meet me at the newspaper office at ten tonight."

She appeared to debate with herself for a moment as her popeyes studied him. "You look like something Rufus dragged in. Very well, I suppose I ought to apprise you of my plansand learn what you've been up to. Circle around the block to be certain you're not followed. Then meet me in the stable behind the boardinghouse."

What the devil was the fool woman up to now? "What plans do you have, Ed?"

She shushed him with her best schoolmarm glance, then strode off in that oddly mannish gait without a backward glance. Or a reply. Muttering about women and how much misery their entire gender caused men, he rode around the block to the dilapidated adobe stable, which was shaded by several ponderosa pines. No one was around.

If Win Barker had anyone following him, Colin was certain the fellow had given up long before now. Why would Barker bother to trail him or kill him anyway? Barker no doubt believed that he had completely neutralized his foe by blackmail. But Win Barker did not understand how tenacious a man Colin McCrory was. To atone for his past, Colin could never give up his fight against Barker and his ring.

He dismounted and slipped into the stable where Ed waited. She studied him in the dim yellow light of a lantern hung from a rusty nail on the wall. "What's happened to you, Colin? I expected to hear from you sooner."

"Sit down, Ed. It's a long story." He gestured to a splintery bench against the far wall. The reporter walked over and plunked down her knapsack, took a seat and waited expectantly. The smell of leather and horses filled the air with comforting familiarity as Colin paced in front of her, gathering his thoughts. "Barker knows about my past. Everything." He looked down at her, gauging her reaction.

"You don't think I told him." It was not a question. Her eyes met his, waiting for him to continue. She said nothing to defend herself.

"You are a straightforward female, Ed Phibbs," he replied with a grudging half smile. "No. I can't see any reason you'd do it. You want Barker's downfall for the storyhis and the whole ring reaching up to the capital. But somehow he found out." "And now he's blackmailing you to stop your interference with his graft. Do you know who told him?" she prompted shrewdly.

Colin's shoulders slumped as he took off his hat, crushing the brim in one hand while he raked his fingers through his hair. "When I was shot a couple of months ago, I had a fever. Raved out of my head. I don't remember what I said. Eileen, Maggie and Aaron were the people who took care of me. I've known my housekeeper and the doc for years . . ."

"You can't believe Maggie would give that kind of information to a man like Win Barker?" Her voice broke off in a high squeak. "That's just plain crazy, Colin. She loves you. Eileen told me Maggie took a bullet meant for you in Prescott."

His expression was haggard and confused. "Hell, Ed, I just don't know anymore. Maggie's an enigma. There are things about her past, too, that are better left alone. Let me just say our marriage hasn't exactly been a conventional arrangement." He would never explain about the way she had blackmailed him into making her his wife. Or how he could not keep her out of his mind, every waking and sleeping moment. She was in his blood and bones. His emotions were too private and painful to reveal to anyone. He was loath to confront them himself.

Ed observed the tortured expression on Colin's face. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked as if the only sleep he had gotten in days was courtesy of the oblivion offered in a whiskey bottle. "I won't pry, Colin. Whatever is between you and Maggie is your business. But I will tell you this. She has nothing to do with Win Barker's learning about your past. No matter how dark her past is, Maggie isn't your betrayer." "I want to believe that, Ed, more than anything. But what we have to decide now is how to handle Barker."

"Are you going to cave in to his blackmail?"

"What do you think?"

Her angular face softened. "It's going to be hellnot just for you but for Eden and Maggie, too. You'll lose your social position in the territory, not to mention your credibility in Washington."

"I don't give a damn about Washington. If Potkin's any example of the men in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they're all a pack of self-serving idiots. As to my family . . ." He shook his head. "Eden is going to marry Wolf Blake."

That startled Ed Phibbs. Her eyes popped out even further. "Having a half-breed gunman for a husband will keep her beyond the pale of respectability even if the gossip about her and Lazlo dies down. I imagine having a former scalper for a father couldn't make much difference," Ed added dryly.

"Blake has a family back in Texas with money. He's good man. He'll take care of her." Maggie's very words to me just a few days ago. "As for Maggie . . . if she . . . if she isn't involved in this, maybe she'll understand because of some other things in the past. Or maybe she won't." You were the first to throw stones at her, and your past is every bit as despicable as hers.

Even though she did not know all the circumstances surrounding his troubled marriage, Ed could see Colin's inner struggle. "You're going to take on Barker and the ring. Have you received any word from Blake? He should've been able to find Rigley by now."

"I would've thought so, too. That worries me. Barker seems so damn confident. I wonder if his political connection in Prescott isn't the reason." ''I've gathered a few bits and pieces snooping around town in the last few days. Jeb Settler, Marsh Grantthere are at least a half a dozen major merchants in the ring, but Barker is the linchpin. Without getting him, we can't break them."

"What about Lamp's records?"

She shrugged. "I went over them with a fine tooth comb. Petty theft compared to what's really going on. We can get him cashiered for malfeasance in office, but that won't do any good if the ring is powerful enough to select his successor."

"Well, I'm sure out of the running once word of my past gets back to Washington." Colin was weary. Soul weary. If Maggie was involved in this mess, did he honestly care about it anymore? Did he need to exorcise the demons from his nightmares?

"We can still break Barker and the ring." Ed's eyes glowed with calculation as she began to rummage through the battered canvas knapsack. She extracted a large skeleton key, a small crowbar, a squat fat candle and several matches.

"What the hell is all that for?" Colin had a suspicion and he did not like it.

"Wipe that scowl off your face. Makes you look like a Scottish kirk preacher. These are my break-in tools. I've gotten more than one story employing my skills as a locksmith." She stressed the last word with a gummy grin. "I'm going after Barker's records."

"Absolutely not. I forbid it. Barker has killed armed men. He wouldn't hesitate a second to shoot a snooping female reporter."

"I have no doubt you're correct in your assessment. That's why I'm also bringing this." She pulled a heavy Mexican War-vintage Walker Colt from the sack and held the barrel up so the lantern light shone dully on the rusty barrel. "Good God, woman, if you try to fire that antique, it'll probably blow up in your face and save Win Barker the trouble!" Colin grabbed the gun from her and checked the firing mechanism. "This hasn't been cleaned in years," he said in disgust.

"To be precise, I believe it was one year ago last May. I, er, dropped it in a creek outside San Antonio when I was being pursued by a rather irate stage robber."

Colin paled at her calm, matter-of-fact manner, making such an outrageous statement.

"I don't want to hear any more of your harebrained schemes!" he shouted,

She shushed him. "Mrs. Schwartzkoff is nearly deaf, but she can hear when she wants to. I can't afford to be evicted from her boardinghouse just yet." She gathered up her tools, including the offending gun, which she grabbed from Colin. Standing up, she straightened her rumpled baggy suit and affixed him with a haughty stare. "I don't care what you say or do, Colin McCrory. I'm going after Barker's records. I've done this sort of thing before," she added huffily.

Colin swore beneath his breath. "What the hell, I'm going to be branded a criminal anyway when Barker gets through. I might as well pay him back in kind."

Ed Phibbs's eyes gleamed with a sudden smug devilment. "Capital! I knew I could count on you!"

"I can hardly let a lone female like you go off half cockedor worse yet, you might manage to cock that damnable antique," he replied testily.

"Win Barker usually works until ten or eleven in his upstairs office. We can hide in the vacant store across the street and watch for him to leave, then slip to the back door."

"He always posts a guard." Ed brandished the crowbar in one bony fist. "This is for more than prying open doors. I'll just cosh him lightly."

Colin rolled his eyes heavenward. "You'll do nothing of the sort, woman! I'll handle the guard." He paused suspiciously. "I thought you said you could pick locks?"

"Well, sometimes if the skeleton key won't jiggle just so, using less finesse and more muscle is required," she confessed.

He scowled. "You planned this whole thinggetting me to go along with your crazy scheme."

"Come, Colin. You know there is no other way. Now, let us press on. It's after nine already . . ."

By the time Wolf and Eden reached the Palace Hotel, they were covered with dust and their horses were lathered and exhausted. "I'll take the horses to the stable and see they're rubbed down. You rouse your father and Maggie and give them Lamp's books," Wolf instructed, not liking her pallor as he handed her the ledger from his saddlebag. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

She was worried about his haggard appearance. He had wrapped a bandana around the worst cut on his left arm and was smeared with so much blood she was still uncertain how much of it was Lazlo's and how much his own. "Be careful, Wolf." She took the ledger from him and tiptoed up to brush a kiss on his lips.

He waited until she was safely inside, then remounted and headed to Leatherwood's livery. There was certainly no sense in letting anyone at Jeb Settler's stables know he was back in Tucson. Settler would run headlong to Barker with the news.

Eden talked with the night clerk, who was really one of the Mexican porters Hiram Jenkins hired to fill in when he went to bed early. "I'm Mr. McCrory's daughter and I've come to Tucson with an emergency message for my father. Would you please show me to his suite? My father and Maggie won't mind being awakened, I assure you."

The youth's eyes grew round with consternation. He himself had taken the beautiful senora's luggage to the stage depot and watched her leave with the gambler for Yuma. Don Colin had not returned to the hotel except to send for a change of clothes earlier that night. "I will show you to their rooms, Senorita," he said nervously, deciding that if the rico's daughter wanted an explanation, she could wake up Hiram Jenkins to get it.

When no amount of knocking on the outer door produced an answer, Eden became concerned. "Surely Maggie is here even if Father has gone out," she said worriedly.

The clerk produced his master key from the large ring at his belt. "I will unlock the door, Senorita McCrory. Perhaps they have left you a message, eh?"

When she entered the parlor, Eden saw two heavy white envelopes propped up on the desk, with her name on one and Colin's on the other. A tremor of dread washed over her as she gave the young man a coin and sent him on his way. She set down Lamp's ledger and stared at the envelopes.

Wolf will be along soon. He'll know what to do. Reluctantly she picked up the envelope addressed to her and opened it with shaking hands, then sat down on the settee to read:

My dearest Eden,

I would not have the courage to write this if your future was not secure with Wolf, and if your father was not better off without me Eden dropped the letter onto her lap as dread squeezed her heart. Maggie had left them! She scrubbed her fists into her eyes, fighting tears, then continued reading the long, painfully composed letter of farewell from the woman she had come to love as her own mother.

When Wolf knocked, Eden ran and opened the door with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Eden, darling, what is it?" He enfolded her in his arms as his eyes swept the empty room. "Where are your father and Maggie?"

"I don't know where Father is, but Maggie's gone." She swallowed her tears and haltingly explained Maggie's painful decision to leave Colin. "She loves him so much that she's willing to give him up to keep her past from harming his reputation. Oh, Wolf, we have to find him! He has to go after her and bring her back. Seehere's the letter she left for him. He hasn't returned to read it yet."

Wolf loosened her fingers from his shirt lapels and held her hands, cold and balled into tight fists, between his large warm ones. "I'll find Colin. If he's being blackmailed by Barker, he might be anywhere."

"I'll go, too. We can search"

"No," he interrupted firmly. "He's probably in a bar somewhere, drowning his troubles after he and Maggie had a fight." In fact there were far more sinister possibilities, but Wolf had no intention of frightening Eden by mentioning them. ''You're exhausted. You spent days helping the doc at the reservation, then riding with me hell-bent to Prescott and now here. Not to mention a couple of brushes with death in the processyou need to rest."

When she tried to protest, he silenced her by placing his fingertips gently over her lips. "No. I don't want to worry about you being attacked by Barker's men while I'm looking for Colin. Stay here, Eden." His eyes riveted her, willing her to acquiesce. "You're too tired to think straight."

"And you're bleeding! You've been through even more than I have. That awful fight with Lazlo." She shuddered and threw her arms around him.

Wolf reached down and swept her into his arms, then carried her into the bedroom. He laid her gently on the large bed and sat by her side after pulling a coverlet over her. "I know you're too upset to sleep, but just rest. If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do."

She was tired, oh so very bone weary. The fatigue made her eyelids heavy. Her eyes burned and every muscle in her body throbbed like a toothache. "Bring Father back here, Wolf. He has to read Maggie's letter. Surely it'll drive some sense into him. He can't let her go!"

"When a good woman loves a man, he's ten times a fool if he lets her go," Wolf said, brushing a soft lock of pale hair from her cheek. He bent down and kissed her tenderly. "We'll get everything straightened out."

He stood up and slipped from the room as Eden fought sleep, too drained to protest further. The ledger lay on the desk where Eden had placed it. He took the wrapped bundle and slid it inside a drawer. Win Barker and his cohorts would have to wait. There was a more important matter to be attended to first. Cursing Colin McCrory for his mule-headed Scots pride, Wolf set out in search of him.

Win Barker sat behind his desk, staring at the telegram. Lazlo was dead and that breed gunman was on his way to Tucson to give McCrory Lamp's incriminating records. What should he do? One hour earlier another wire had arrived all the way from Washington. His agent back East had just learned that a complete investigation was being instituted in the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Secretary of the Interior Schurz. That idiot Potkin must have inadvertently given out some damning information about conditions on White Mountain Reservation. Even if Barker blasted McCrory out of the water by revealing his past as a scalper, it would not save the ring. Their days of lucrative contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Army were numbered.

As if that were not enough, he had made a deadly enemy in Colin McCrory, especially when the Scot learned of their bungled attempt to kill his daughter. "McCrory will come gunning for me in revengeor to keep me from telling about his past. And he'll have that breed with him!"

Barker cursed furiously, mopping the sour sweat from his brow onto a grimy handkerchief. Damn that bastard from Prescott, sitting all safe and secure. Win Barker took all the chances and dealt with the riffraff and cutthroat killers while the politician manipulated things from behind the scenes. "No one even knows who he is!"

Trembling with fear and fury, he stood up, looking wildly around the messy office. Ledgers and papers lay scattered everywhere. Maybe the best thing would be to pack up all the cash he had on hand and hightail it for Mexicoor New Orleans. He had a good amount of money in the wall safe and lots more in the bank. He could arrange to have it transferred from Tucson to wherever he decided it was safest to resettle.

But the records: the accounts, bills of sale for reservation cattle, requisitions for food and blankets. Frantically he started to stack the books and papers into piles. "I'll burn them before I go. That's what. Maybe for a little while everyone will think I died in the fire," he muttered to himself as he built a pyramid of documents on his desk.

"What a superb idea, Win. But why disappoint Colin McCrory by only pretending to die? Why not give himand all the other Apache-loving fools in Washingtona dead ringleader?"

As the figure materialized from the shadows in the hallway, Win Barker dropped a fistful of papers and dived for his desk drawer where he kept his Navy Colt.

Chapter Twenty-One

Outside in the alley behind the huge mercantile, Colin and Ed watched a shadowy figure open the back door with a key and slip furtively inside. They waited a few minutes, then followed silently. Just inside the door, Colin nearly tripped over the body of Barker's guard. He knelt, using the dim light streaming in from the alley to check the fallen man. "He's dead," he whispered. "His skull's been caved in."

Ed stepped gingerly over the corpse and followed Colin into the dark interior. The crowded warehouse was littered with boxes and crates of every size and description. The killer had lit a kerosene lamp and made his way through the labyrinth. Ed stumbled on a keg before Colin could grab her.

"Ouch," she hissed. "I'd better light my candle. We saw his lamp move upstairs." "All right. Light it." Colin had his gun drawn and ready. "Something about this whole situation is definitely not right. Whoever that was, he might just be your unknown man from the legislature."

"What would he be doing in Tucson now?" Ed speculated, shielding the candle's flickering glow. They made their way toward the low rumble of voices emanating from upstairs. Sounds of a struggle quickly ensued. The solid thud of a body hitting the floor was followed by the rustling of papers and the sounds of something splashing.

"What do you suppose is going on?" Ed asked.

Colin squeezed her arm to silence her. "Wait here," he commanded, reaching for the candle.

Ed jerked her hand back, causing the hot wax to splash across her fingers. She let the candle fall with a muffled gasp of pain and they were cast in sudden darkness. "I'm coming with you," she whispered.

Knowing it was useless to try to stop her, Colin shoved her behind him and began to ascend the creaking stairs. The sounds coming from the office had stopped completely now. Fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled in warning as Colin reached the top stair. Ed almost collided with him when he paused. He cursed silently, then took a cautious step toward the lighted office.

Barker was sitting in his big chair, apparently looking out the front window. The lamplight reflected the pink sheen of his sweaty scalp between his thinning gray hair. His body was turned in profile, slumped at an awkward angle. Was he dead? Where was the intruder? Colin did not step into the room. Warning bells went off in his mind as the pungent smell of kerosene wafted out into the hall. Barker made a low groan and stirred in the chair, but before Colin could decide whether to approach the door or not, the sound of a shotgun being cocked at his right side made him freeze.

"That will be quite far enough. I thought I heard someone downstairs, and since I knew the guard was dead, I hoped the intruder might be you. Drop the gun, McCrory. This handsome little piece will take out your unlikely companion right along with you." He had a sawed-off Greener .10 gauge shotgun pointed at them.

Colin could scarcely believe his ears. "So at last we learn who Barker's cohort in the legislature is." He dropped his gun as the man in the darkness motioned him and Ed into Barker's office.

Edward Stanley materialized from the shadows. The cold smile on his smooth face did not extend to his dark, calculating eyes. Hard eyes. "It would seem there will be two more fatalities in the fire. Such a tragedy." He shook his head thoughtfully. "This will tie up all the loose ends. I heard you had been snooping around the capital asking questions, Miss Phibbs. Now you turn up here with McCrory."

"You can't expect to kill all of us and just walk away," Ed said with amazing sangfroid.

"I think he has to," Colin interjected. "The guard outside recognized you, didn't he, Edward? You've been here before."

"You're hoping to cover up your association with Barker by setting a fire to destroy all the witnesses and records." Ed moved a step to the left, away from Stanley as she sniffed the kerosene drenching Win's unconscious body.

As she spoke, Colin imperceptibly moved nearer to Stanley. A shotgun at close range could only throw a pattern wide enough to take out one of them if they moved far enough apart. The kerosene was another problem. "You're the real power behind the ring, not Barker. He was just your go-between, wasn't he, Edward?" Colin's voice was even, almost conversational.

"Barker was a greedy fool, but useful in his time. As was Caleb Lamp. A pity that when your daughter and her Apache watchdog arrive, they'll find you've gone to your death in a fiery inferno along with the man you were so intent on exposing."

A sudden fear far beyond his own predicament gripped Colin. "What do you mean about Eden and Wolf coming here?"

Stanley chuckled, enjoying himself. "Oh, they've found Lamp's real bookswhich quite thoroughly incriminate dear Win here. With him dead and Eden prostrate with grief, I'll take over. After all, who better to handle the investigation into all the ghastly malfeasance than a prominent member of the legislature?"

"Who just hopes to be appointed the territorial governor," Colin added cynically.

Stanley nodded, beaming malevolently. "I'll be a hero." Then his smile erased itself abruptly. "Pick up that kerosene can and finish splashing it around the office."

Colin and Ed exchanged a swift glance of understanding. Then Colin bent over and picked up the can, again a half step closer to Stanley.

Ed calculated swiftly. They had only one chanceto start the very fire Stanley wanted. He had just handed Colin the weapon with which to seal his own doom. The kerosene. The mercantile interior was wooden, but the walls were stout adobe. It took up a full city block. A fire would level the place without spreading to the adjacent buildings. The only trick was for her and Colin to escape the inferno.

"Your Mamá wouldn't approve of what you're doing, would she? Old Sophie's had you in leading strings all your life. Everyone in Prescott laughs about it behind your back." Ed's calliope voice had never been more distractingly shrill, piping high, then low as she moved further to Stanley's left.

He whirled on her with an oath. "Don't speak of my mother, you scrawny hag!"

Just as his attention was distracted, Colin splashed the kerosene across Stanley's body, then seized the barrel of the shotgun. It fired with a deafening roar, spraying the ceiling with pellets and raining plaster down on them.

Colin held onto the gun barrel in a tug of war with Stanley, who stumbled against the door, slamming it closed behind him. As the two men wrestled, Stanley cocked the weapon to fire again. Without relinquishing his grip, Colin yelled, "Now!" He shoved Stanley and dived away.

Ed Phibbs struck one of the matches she had taken from her pocket and threw it into the puddle of kerosene. The flash of the fire exploded, licking all around the big cluttered room filled with dry books and papers. Win Barker's soaked body went off like a Fourth of July flare, but he was not conscious enough to know what happened before he died. Edward Stanley was.

The lightning-swift river of flames flashed across the floor as Stanley cried out and dropped the shotgun. He whirled and began to claw at the door. But he was too late. When he yanked it open, the draft only heightened the speed of the devouring blaze which raced up his back, creating a human torch.

Stanley raced down the stairs, his screams echoing in the big empty warehouse as he crumpled halfway to the bottom. Fire enveloped the office along with thick, choking smoke. Colin saw that the narrow wooden stairs were impassable. Grabbing Ed's arm, he shoved her through the door and out into the hall. Flames licked at her baggy trousers as she jumped across the trail of fire that Stanley had left in his wake. Colin yelled over the roar of cracking timber, "Quick, there must be another way out of this barn!"

"I'm game to jump if we have to," she yelled back as they ran down the hallway to the only door still accessible to them.

Colin threw his weight against the solid wood several times as the flames drew closer. With an oath he turned to Ed, who quickly knelt and busily employed her skeleton key to the lock. It opened with a creak and they peered inside at a small storage room.

Down the street Wolf Blake had heard the loud belch of a shotgun blast. When he had turned the corner onto the street facing Barker's Mercantile, flames were leaping up from the roof and smoke billowed from the entire second story of the block-long building.

After searching all over town for Colin, Wolf had finally concluded that the only logical place he could be was with Barker. What the hell had happened between them to cause this conflagration? With an oath he broke into a run, some gut instinct telling him that McCrory was trapped inside. When he reached the building, a crowd was gathering and a few hardy souls were starting a bucket brigade until the volunteer fire fighters could set up their equipment. It was evident to Wolf that their efforts would be futile, but at least the fire could be confined to Barker's warehouse. The adobe buildings in adjacent blocks were safe.

He raced around into the alley where a back door stood ajar. Inside, the big mercantile's huge inventory was an inferno. By the light from the blaze he saw a dead body. It was not Colin. Just as he stepped back from his examination, two voices yelled from above him. McCrory's deep baritone was interspersed with the high-pitched bray of that peculiar newspaper woman.

''Up here, someone!"

"We need a rope!"

Wolf stepped out of the door and looked up at a small narrow window with smoke pouring forth. He could barely make out Colin's face, "I'm here, Colin. Can you jump?"

"Too narrow for me. I'm going to help Ed out. Try and break her fall."

Colin's face disappeared and Ed Phibbs's long bony legs appeared, kicking against the wall for purchase. She had a death grip on one of Colin's wrists as he leaned sideways out the window, lowering her until her feet dangled a couple of yards above Wolf's outstretched arms.

"Let go," Blake yelled.

Ed did and dropped flailing into Wolf's arms, knocking them both to the ground. As they disentangled and sat up, Ed coughed out, "You've got to get something to break open that sash and free Colin. That little closet has the only window left that's not burning!"

"Hold on, Colin," Wolf yelled up as he rose and raced around the corner in search of a horseany horse. He commandeered one from the hitching post across from the mercantile and leaped into the saddle, galloping back into the alley.

Colin could feel the heat through the closed door, which was beginning to buckle. As soon as it did, the flames would engulf the small room. The smoke blinded him, choking off his breath as he pried at the hard bricks around the window with Ed's crowbar. So far he had only succeeded in dislodging one. Then he heard Wolf's voice calling up to him.

"Heretie this rope to the bar and wedge it between the mortar you've loosened."

The reata snaked up and Colin seized it, quickly tying the end to the steel tool and jamming it in between the small break in the bricks he had made. Wolf looped the other end of the reata around the saddle horn and began backing the horse away until the rope was tight, straining against the crowbar that held it. Then he yelled at Ed to run for cover.

Colin prayed as he never before had in his life. Maggie! I can't leave it this way between us. His hands were slick with sweat as he held the steel in place until the rope was taut and the tool began to bend under the pressure. It was a cheap crowbar and could just as easily snap, ending his last desperate chance. But it held. Colin backed into a corner just as the old adobe around the sash gave way with a sudden rumble. The whole window broke apart, raining bricks out into the alley in every direction, opening a space nearly three feet wide.

Just then the door gave way. Colin leaped into the cool, clean darkness just inches ahead of the hungry flames that engulfed the smoke-filled room. He landed in the dusty alley on the hard-packed ground, rolling on his left shoulder in an attempt to break his fall.

Wolf freed the rope from the saddle horn and guided the nervous, prancing horse to where Colin was picking himself up. He offered his hand, and Colin swung up behind him. They raced out of the alley to escape the flaming debris which was starting to fall.

Eden's eyes frantically searched the crowd as she yanked and clawed her way through the melee of spectators and fire volunteers. "I'm looking for two men!" She had described Wolf and Colin to several of the onlookers and already knew that Wolf was somewhere nearby. What if her father was inside and her love had gone in after him? Wild-eyed with terror, she looked at the inferno lighting up the night sky and forced the unthinkable from her mind.

"Wolf!" She had screamed until her throat was raw, pummeled and shoved by the milling spectators whose eyes glowed with the avid fascination that fire always seemed to evoke. Then suddenly she saw him erupt from the alley behind the mercantile. Her father was mounted behind him. Ed Phibbs, clad only in singed baggy pants and a torn, soot-stained blouse, stood as near the corner as she dared, cheering them on. Eden fought her way free of the crowd and flew to them. Wolf reined in sharply and Colin slid to the ground, soot-blackened and coughing.

"Father! Wolf! Oh, thank God! Are you hurt? What happened?"

Colin took her in his arms and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm fine, Babygirl, just fine, thanks to your intended here."

"If you don't mind, I think it best if we save the explanations for later and adjourn somewhere less public," Ed interjected with as much dignity as her disheveled appearance would allow

"The Palace is close. Miss Phibbs, you could stand to borrow a dress, I think," Eden said as relief flooded her senses. They were alive. Now her father could go get Maggie and all would be well.

As they repaired to the hotel, ignoring the stares of the curious, Colin and Ed explained what had transpired with Barker and Stanley.

"Edward Stanley was behind the whole ring? I can hardly believe it," Eden said in amazement. "And I always thought he was just a henpecked son tied to Sophie's apron strings."

"He took great umbrage when I mentioned that very idea to him," Ed said dryly.

"A good ploy. It infuriated him enough to cause him to lower his guard so I could throw the kerosene at him," Colin said.

"You saved my father's life, Ed." Eden squeezed the gangly woman's shoulder fondly.

"My plan, desperate as it was, almost cost his life, I fear."

"Neither of us would've made it out of the building without your future husband, here," Colin said, looking over to Wolf. "I owe you, Blake. That was quick thinking under fireliterally."

"Does that mean we have your blessing, Father?" Eden knew it did as she slid into step beside Wolf and he took her arm.

"A thought just occurred to me about your futureafter you're married, of course," Colin said as they neared the hotel.

"I'm going to give up hiring my gun, Colin, but I don't want Crown Verde charity," Wolf said as politely as his pride would allow. "My father wants to talk to me."

"So Eden's told me. But if that doesn't pan out, I have another ideanot working for your father-in-law either," he added quickly, throwing up his hands.

"We can discuss that later," Eden interjected as they approached the hotel. "Right now I have to get some clothes for Miss Phibbs and you have to read a letter."

"Maybe it would be best if you explained things to your father, Eden." Wolf said. "I'll take Ed to her place so she can wash up and change there, while I return our borrowed horse." "A capital idea, young man," Ed put in. "I scarcely think Eden's clothes would suit my rather ungainly height." Both she and Wolf intuited there was more that Eden needed to say to her father in private.

Eden led the way inside the hotel and headed toward the stairs. "Are you able to ride, Father?" she asked a bit dubiously, looking at his battered, soot-stained body.

"Ride? What the hell for? I want to talk to Maggie."

"That's what I have to explain to you," Eden said.

Colin sat with the letter in his hands, staring at the page in dull misery. Maggie's words accused him silently:

My dearest Colin,

I found the note Win Barker sent blackmailing you with my scandalous past. At first I worked up my courage to face you and speak my piece, but when you did not return to our suite last night, I knew I had only been deceiving myself. Your staying away gave me the reprieve I needed to think things through. I have made the only decision possible. I am leaving with Bart Fletcher.

When you petition for divorce, that alone should provide ample evidence to win you public sympathy. Barker will not be able to besmirch the McCrory name if you are free of me. You can denounce my perfidy and everyone will be won to your cause. Only be careful in confronting Barker and his friends. We both know how dangerous they are.

I deeply regret the pain my leaving will cost Eden, but feel secure in knowing that she will find happiness with Wolf. Please give them your blessings. And, if you can, forgive me, Colin.

Maggie

He opened his hand and stared down at the wedding band, the old Scottish antique he had been so loath to give her. Gleaming dully in the soft light, it accused him, burning his palm. He clenched his fist around it, as if he could bring her back by holding tight to the symbol.

Colin laid his head down and cradled it on his arms as pain squeezed the breath from him. Pain and guilt. Admit it, you fool. You actually thought Maggie could have been working for Barker. Maggie, who loves you so much she's gone into exile in the mistaken belief that she can spare you Barker's blackmail.

He was the one who was guilty, not his wife. His black sins, so carefully and hypocritically hidden, had now returned to pay him back in full measure. He had lost the most precious thing in his life. The woman he loved more than he had ever imagined possible.

"Oh, Maggie, what have I done?" he whispered raggedly

Eden stood in the doorway, aching for her father, wanting desperately to comfort him yet afraid to intrude on his anguish. "It isn't too late," she finally said softly. He raised his head but did not reply, just stared at the letter. She walked across the parlor and put her arm around his shoulders. "Maggie left on the stage for Yuma. You could catch it before it's much past the first relay station. Go after her. She loves you as much as you love her."

Colin finally looked up into Eden's earnestly entreating face. "There are things you don't know . . . Things that happened long ago . . ."

The agony in his eyes broke her heart. "I don't need to know, Father. Maggie does. What are you waiting for?"

"How did you get so grown-up and sensible and I became such an old fool, Babygirl?" he asked with a bittersweet smile. He stood up and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"You are not old"

"Just a fool," he said abruptly, praying that her instincts about Maggie were right. "But maybe she'll forgive me for it. I pray she can."

The chase after the Yuma stage was grueling. Sand, having been stabled for several days, was fresh and eager for the hard gallop, but Colin was not. He did not dwell on his throbbing head, smoke-seared lungs or aching, sleep-deprived body, but rather on what he was going to say to Maggie when he caught up with the stage.

Bart Fletcher, the oily manipulator, was with her, acting the noble protector. Her friend and "mentor." He laughed jealously at that irony, but then was forced to consider that when his wife felt so utterly alone, making her sacrifice for him, she had Fletcher to turn to. After Colin had thrown her past in her face so often, and then the way he had used her the last time they were together, it was scarcely surprising that she would seek out Fletcher. And the bastard was there, waiting with open arms, I just bet!

The stage had just pulled away from the relay station at Picacho Pass. The other passengers quickly dropped off to sleep. Mrs. Yeaton's little grandson had slept through the brief rest stop while the horses were changed. Maggie looked at his fair tousled head, so innocent and sweet, but what she saw was a dark-haired child with whiskey gold eyes. Would she give Colin the son Elizabeth had been unable to? And if so, did she have the right to withhold the knowledge of his existence from his father?

She stared out at the silvery landscape rolling by. Steep hills surrounded the road, overgrown with greasewood and catclaw. The tang of pine nuts hung on the chill night air. They would travel straight through to Gila Bend before stopping. By then surely she would be exhausted enough to drop off without fear of dreams. Impossible dreams.

Bart studied her face, its sorrow softened by the moonlight. He vowed for the hundredth time to make her happy. Having failed to do so in Mexico did not count, he assured himself. After all, that rough, ugly existence was the very thing she had tried all her life to escape. They had the means to do it now. For himself, living respectably had come to mean nothing, but for Maggie it had meant a great deal more than he had ever imagined.

No, that was not strictly speaking true, he admitted. He could have imagined itif he had not been so selfishly mired in his own comfortable vices. Not until she was gone had he realized how much her presence had meant. He would make everything up to her in San Francisco. He would

The sound of a lone rider approaching at a gallop interrupted the even rhythm of the coach. Someone was yelling, but the hoarse cry did not sound like any command a stage robber might give. Taking no chances, Fletcher pulled his Webley Bulldog from the inside pocket of his jacket.

"Get down, Megs, until we see what this means," he whispered, shoving her to the floor behind him and motioning for old Mrs. Yeaton with her boy to do likewise. The young drummer rubbed sleep from his eyes, then paled as he realized what was going on. "Are we being robbed?" He gulped, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing like a cork in the current.

"I don't know, old chap," Bart replied as the driver tugged on the reins, and the coach rolled to a halt. The drummer would definitely be useless in a fight. Bart shoved him down, too. "No shots fired. Bloody strange," he muttered to himself as the rider pulled alongside the door. Then he heard McCrory's voice.

"My wife's inside and I mean to talk with her."

Maggie exchanged a searching look with Bart, filled with bittersweet hope, but also the certain knowledge that this confrontation must end with someone grievously hurt.

"Talk to him, Megs. I'll be right beside you . . . if you need me." He opened the door and stepped down, then assisted Maggie from the coach.

Her dark rust traveling suit was rumpled and her hair windblown. She felt dusty and disheveled as she smoothed her skirts, delaying the moment she had to meet her husband's eyes. When she raised her head and looked at him, Maggie gasped, fighting the urge to run into his arms and demand to know what had happened to him. He was red-eyed and soot-covered, his clothes ripped and singed. But his faceGod abovehe was in anguishor he was angry. With the moon at his back, she could not be certain.

"I have some things to say to my wife, Fletcher. In private." Colin looked at the Englishman, his face shuttered. His frayed nerves made him teeter on the brink of wanting to throttle the elegant dandy.

Bart looked at Maggie. "It's up to you, Megs."

"I'll be all right, Bart. Wait here, please." She took her gloved hand from his arm and approached Colin on trembling legs. He turned and stalked off the rutted road, waiting for her to follow, afraid she would not. He held his breath. When she did follow, he was even more afraid.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They walked a dozen yards, behind the shelter of a copse of honey mesquite.

Maggie stopped when he did, but he did not turn to face her. She stared at his broad back, aching to touch him. Instead she schooled her voice to sound calm. ''What do you want, Colin?"

He turned, cat-quick and edgy. "Isn't that obvious? I want my wife back."

"I'll only hurt you, Colin. I have already." Tears of denial were gathering in her eyes, threatening to overflow.

"No. I'm the one who's hurt youthrown your past in your face, tried to make you feel guilty for sins long buried. You're not a whore, Maggie, any more than Eden is. I had no rightI above all menhad no right to accuse you. Your noble sacrifice was in vain, don't you see? Win Barker wasn't blackmailing me with your past. He was threatening me with my own."

"II don't understand."

He pulled off his hat and tossed it on a rock, then paced, combing his fingers through his soot-streaked hair. "When I first came to this country I was penniless and alone, seventeen." He looked up with an ironic expression. "An odd coincidence, isn't it? Eden was seventeen, too."

"So was I, when I made my mistake," she said softly. "A man much like Judd Lazlo courted me and convinced me to elope with him. Then when I became pregnant and the money he'd stolen from my father ran out . . . well, he became abusive and I left him. I had to protect my child."

A sledgehammer to his heart could not have hit him harder. He wanted to take her in his arms but did not dare . . . "What happened to the child?"

"She died at birth." She sighed raggedly. "I was ill and alone, a thousand miles from Boston. Not that my father would've been so forgiving as you were to Eden. Anyway, the woman who'd taken me in happened to run a bordello . . . When I recovered, my bookkeeping chores were expanded to include other duties." She met his eyes, her chin upraised with as much pride as she could muster. "I got out as soon as I could."

"And never let another man touch you . . . until me." He smiled sadly. "I guess you never had much luck picking men. I was given the most precious treasure on earth and I threw it away with both hands. Maybe it was my own hypocrisy, my own guilt that made me too proud to admit I love you."

She stood transfixed. He loves me. It could not be. Could it? "Tell me about what happened to that seventeen-year-old boy, Colin." She walked over to a large flat rock and took a seat, motioning for him to sit beside her. Colin dropped onto the hard surface, unaware of the chill. His mind was back in the heat and stench of Sonora and Chihuahua, reliving the horror of all those butchered Apaches. "I joined up with a bunch of scalpers," he began without preamble. "Their leader was a man named Jeremy Nash, but no one on the border called him anything but the Aussie."

"You said something about an Aussie when you were feverish. I didn't know . . ."

He looked at her with stricken eyes. "I wasn't sure what you knewwhat I'd said when I was raving. Then, when Win Barker blackmailed me . . ."

"You thought I was the one." Her voice held a mixture of incredulity and pain.

"A part of me was afraid to believe in you. If you were innocent, I was still guilty. I'd never faced up to my own past. I should have known you could never have betrayed me."

"But then who"

"It was me, Megs." Bart stepped from the other side of the mesquite and faced McCrory, who had risen menacingly. "I'm sorry for eavesdropping, but I had to be certain you wouldn't try to force her or hurt her."

"But why? How?" Maggie's voice was bewildered.

Bart smiled sadly, then cocked his head at that familiar jaunty angle and replied, "The how is easy to answer. I recognized him as soon as I saw him in San Luís." He turned to Colin. "You wouldn't have remembered me from those days. I was just a lowly clerk in the Sterling Mining Company's back office. I kept accounts on the bounties paid the Aussie and his men. I was a rather bookish sort compared to your exceedingly colorful band."

His expression grew thoughtful as he looked down at Maggie's upturned face. She was confused but not condemning. "The whythere's the rub. I convinced myself I was being noble. You told me how afraid you were that Barker would succeed in having your husband killed. I knew you were in love with the bloody bastard, so"

"You told Win Barker so he would blackmail Colin instead of killing him," Maggie supplied with dawning recognition.

Fletcher's expression was wry now. "Don't ascribe any nobility to me, Megs. I don't deserve it. There was still a good chance a stubborn Scot like McCrory would refuse to cave in to Barker. And then when the truth came out . . . well, better if you learned it from someone else besides me. But, as God is my witness, I didn't know that you thought Barker was using you in the blackmail, Megsthat you were leaving McCrory to save his reputation from being destroyed by your past. I would've told you the truth." He paused and smiled at her wistfully. "At least, I think I would have."

"Oh, Bart, I'm so sorry."

"So am I, Megsbut it's your husband here who's got the final apology to make. Somehow I think you'll want to hear it." He took her hand and raised it to his lips for a brief salute, then looked at Colin with his shrewd ice blue eyes. "Take good care of her, McCrory."

Giving Maggie a roguish wink, he turned and walked back toward the stage. She called after him, "Good-bye, Bart. I'll never forget you, my friend."

"I'll send your trunks to Tucson from the next relay station," he called from the distance. The stage took off in a few moments with a loud crack of the driver's whip, groan of harness and pounding of hooves.

They were left alone in the moonlight, standing in silence, facing each other. "I don't deserve you, Maggie." He touched a wayward curl, tucking it gently behind her ear as the night wind rose softly.

"Tell me the rest, Colin." She knew he needed to unload everything he had held bottled inside of him for so long. "A man who killed Apaches for bounty doesn't risk his life and career, everything he's spent years building, just to save the same people he helped subjugate. Yet you have."

"You don't know, you can't even begin to imagine the blood, the stench of death . . . the flies. Those damn flies everywhere, crawling over the carnage. I thought after a couple of years I was growing numb to it all . . . dead inside like the Aussie. No," he stopped, shaking his head. "Not like the Aussie. He relished the killing."

"And you hated it."

"I hated it, but the money was like a dream come true to a boy who grew up in the slums of Aberdeen."

"What finally made you leave?" She read the haunted expression in his eyes and knew how difficult this was for him.

"We went deep into Chihuahua, down to the Durango border, chasing a big band of Chiricahuas. They were moving slow because they had women and children with them. It was easy to catch them." Colin shivered, still seeing the vision that had haunted his nightmares for all these years. "Then the slaughter began. I always tried to kill only the bucksnever women or children." He laughed roughly. "Some code of honor, eh? In the last stages of the fighting I got separated from the rest of the men and two warriors jumped me. We fought and I killed them but I was cut up pretty bad. Took a blow to my head that stunned me.

"I was just sitting there on the ground beside the two dead Apaches when I heard the brush rustle behind me and this old man came out. He was really wizened, crippled with age, but the rifle he trained on me was steady enough. I was surprised when he started talking instead of just shooting me. By then I knew their dialect well enough to understand what he wanted.

"He said he had lived his life. That the days of his people were numbered. That wethe whiteswould win. Then he called out a small girlcouldn't have been more than four or five. She climbed out of the brush and hugged his leg, afraid to look at me. He explained that she was stolen from a Mexican village in Chihuahua. His son had adopted her to take the place of a girl child he and his wife had lost in a Mexican raid. His son was dead nowso were all the others from this band. All but the little Mexican girl who he considered his granddaughter, the only family he had left. He begged me to save her lifeto return her to Campargo. Mea scalper who'd butchered hundreds of his kind. Yet he loved one of my kind so much he gave up his life for hers. One of the other scalpers shot him. Tried to shoot the child, too."

"But you stopped him."

"What does that make mea hero?" he asked bitterly. "They were human beings, Maggiejust like you and melike anyone. They hated but they loved, too. For the first time I came face to face with that. They were human beings." His voice broke on the last sentence, every word enunciated like a litany. His eyes were shiny with tears.

"You've never told anyone this," she said, reaching out to caress his cheek, this hard, solitary man she loved so dearly.

He took her hand in his and held onto it like a lifeline as he struggled for composure. "I've pushed that day to the back of my mind for almost twenty years. I learned too much about myself. I couldn't take it. All I knew was I had to get out of there . . ."

"What happened to the old man's granddaughter?" She knew he had saved the child, or had given all he could in the effort.

"I took the little girl back to Campargo and found her white family. Left some of the gold I'd cashed away with them. I took the rest plus my profits from the last raid in horses and drove them to Arizona. You know the rest."

"You became a rancher and built an empire. And you've done everything you could to atone for your past by becoming the Apaches' defender."

"They keep their word when you make an agreement with them. It was only good business for a rancher to make peace back in the sixties when there was no army here for protection. I've been able to do precious little to help them."

"Not for want of trying, Colin. You're a good man," she said with passionate conviction, trying to shake him from his dark reverie now that he had cleansed away the poison he had kept locked inside for so many years.

"I'm just a rich hypocrite. An illiterate foreigner with blood on his hands. If I became respectable, it was only because . . ."

"Because you met Elizabeth?" she prompted, steeling herself. She had to know if his first wife's ghost would always stand between them. "She introduced you to a whole new world. You must've loved her very much."

He was still mired in the ugliness of the past, but something in Maggie's voice stirred him. He looked up, meeting her troubled eyes. He found no condemnation, no contempt for his hypocrisy or the cruel and hateful way he had treated her. Rather, her eyes were filled with sadness and insecurity. "You're afraid of her." The realization washed over him.

"I'm nothing like her. She was a lady. Yes, Colin, I'm afraid of her hold over you. She died fifteen years ago and you never chose to remarry."

A wry smile touched his lips fleetingly. "But I did remarry." He pulled her closer to him, struggling for the right words. "I always felt as if I didn't deserve Elizabeth because she was so pure and good."

"What does that make me, Colin? Your penance? Do you deserve a whore because you were a scalper?" She could not keep the hurt from her voice.

He shook his head sadly. "No, Maggie. You're too good for me. From the first moment I saw you, I felt a fascination, a hungersomething I couldn't explain. I tried to rationalize my feelings away as simple lust, but I was lying to myself. I lied to you and I hurt you. I'm sorry. I do love you, Maggie."

She should settle for that. Once she would have been thrilled to hear the words, but now, perversely, a part of her yearned for something more, something she did not even comprehend. "I love you, Colin. That was why I made my outrageous proposal to you in San Luís."

He could sense her hesitation, so he plunged ahead. "What I feel for you is different than what I felt for Elizabeth." She stiffened warily in his arms but remained still as he continued. "I was grateful to Elizabeth. I worshiped herput her on a pedestalbut that isn't the way a man should feel about his woman. She was a good wife who did her duty . . . until she became pregnant and asked to be excused because of her delicate condition."

Maggie could not imagine a virile man like Colin being celibate. Yet she could not imagine him betraying his wedding vows, either. "So you did as she asked."

"Yes. It wasn't nearly as difficult to stay out of her bed when I was a randy young stud of twenty-three as it has been to stay out of yours now. That made me feel guilty and angry. I turned that anger on you, denying what I really felt. I burn for you, Maggie!"

A real marriage should have fire. Eileen's words flashed into her mind. Lord knew, even when she and Colin had nothing else, they always had the fire. "And you won't ever feel guilty or be angry again?" She tipped her head up and stared into his whiskey gold eyes.

A crooked grin spread across his face once more and his eyes darkened with passion. "No, I won't feel guilty about loving you more than I did Elizabeth, but as to getting angrywoman, you make me crazy!"

His mouth came down on hers, tasting of smoke and desire, hot, seeking and joyous. She opened for him, clutching his broad shoulders, kneading her nails into his muscles, moaning low in her throat as she felt the answering rumble of his rough growl of possession.

They embraced fiercely in the moonlight for several moments, letting their bodies seal what their painful confessions had revealed. Slowly they broke apart, realizing they were out in the middle of nowhere, alone in the desert night. When Maggie looked into his eyes, her face was smeared with soot. With a tender smile he rubbed at it.

"I've marked you," he said softly. "You're almost as filthy as I am, and I could sure use a bath. We'd better see about riding back to that relay station, but first there is one thing . . ."

He reached into his vest pocket and took out her ring. "I believe this belongs to you, wife," he said softly as he slipped it on her finger. It glowed in the moonlight until he covered her hand in his and squeezed it. Maggie's face tilted up to his with tears sheening her eyes as she looked at his beloved features.

Her fingers gently skimmed over his sooty skin, then examined his singed clothes. "You've been hurtburned, Colin. What happened to you?"

"Let's ride to the station. I'll tell you on the way." He whistled for Sand, then swung up on the big buckskin and pulled her up in front of him.

She nestled in his arms, feeling cherished and at peace as she never before had in her life. As they rode, Colin briefly outlined what had happened to Eden and Wolf in the past several days, concluding with the final conflagration at Barker's mercantile.

"That whey-faced Edward Stanley was the man behind the Tucson Ring! Amazing. Poor old Sophie Stanley. I suppose Lucille Guessler will displace her as the reigning matriarch in Prescott society now."

Colin grunted. "I'm a good deal more concerned with finding shelter for the night than with what that pack of harridans will do. Let them fight with nets and tridents for all I care."

At the image of icy regal Sophie and plump fluttery Lucille embattled like Roman gladiators Maggie chuckled, then laughed.

Colin nuzzled her neck, whispering, "What's so amusing?"

She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes and whispered, "Nothing really. I'm just so happy, I'm giddy as a schoolgirl, I suppose." She paused, then asked in a low voice, "Colin, do you suppose the beds in the station will be softor big enough?"

"Does it really matter?"

"No. Not at all." <><><><><><><><><><><><>

The station was a sprawling adobe building with a traditional central courtyard. At one side the horses were stabled and at the other the kitchen and dining rooms for travelers were situated. Accommodations for overnight passengers and other wayfarers were simple, but Colin McCrory's name was known even in such an isolated place. Within an hour they were situated in a spartanly furnished but clean room with a big tub of warm water emitting steam into the cool night air.

''Ladies first," Colin said when the maid had closed the door, leaving them alone. He gestured to the big tub, but his eyes devoured her.

"There's plenty of room for two." Her eyes mirrored his hunger as she walked slowly toward him.

"I'm filthy from the fire. I'll foul the water," he said, his voice low and husky.

"I don't care. There's plenty more. Anyway, you may have burns that need tending. I'll have to inspect every inch of you to be certain you're all right." She spoke slowly, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue as she reached up to lay her hands on his chest. Deft fingers began to unfasten the buttons, gliding inside the frayed cotton cloth to caress the crisp mat of silver-dusted dark chest hair.

His breath caught, then his heart began to race. "Maggie, Maggie," he whispered as his hands held her face, studying its strong, lovely planes. His eyes traveled over every contour, the straight slim nose, wide China blue eyes with their thick auburn lashes, the high cheekbones and arched eyebrows. A patrician face, bespeaking generations of breeding. "You are so beautiful. I adore you, Mrs. McCrory." The pads of his thumbs gently traced where his eyes had traveled.

Maggie closed her eyes for a moment in pure bliss as she leaned against him, feeling the warm, solid strength of her husband's body. His hands moved slowly lower, caressing her slender throat, then working the fastenings of her suit jacket. She helped him, quickly shrugging it off. While he unbuttoned her frilly blouse, she slid the tattered shirt from his shoulders.

When he slipped the blouse free and cupped her breasts through her lacy camisole, she arched against his hands, moaning softly as he seemed to weigh the incredibly sensitive globes. "Your body is lush, perfect. Don't ever lace it up in corsets," he whispered.

Soon corsets won't fit. She would have to tell him about the baby. But not now. Not yet. She reached down and began to work on his belt buckle while her tongue laved at the smooth sleek muscles of his chest and shoulders. In moments they had undressed each other. Maggie made a great production of having him stand nude in the center of the room with the lamplight gilding his big powerful body. She touched the abraded and blistered skin on his back and neck with soft, brushing kisses.

"Better than burn ointment. Much better," he whispered, loving her boldness, so at odds with the ladylike demeanor she always presented to the outside world. When her cool hands pressed his shoulders, guiding him to kneel in the tub, he did as she indicated. "Now you must join me," he invited, reaching up with his hands to run them lovingly over the creamy curves of her hips.

She stepped into the tub and knelt, facing him, a cloth and bar of soap in her hands. He reached out for them. "Allow me?" Maggie handed them to him. Colin dropped the cloth and lathered his hands with the soap. Then he began to caress her skin, starting with her fingers and moving up her arms to the fine curve of her collarbone. Using more soap, he turned his attention to the ripe fullness of her beckoning breasts. The pink tips turned rosy in the warm water, puckering to hard nubs when he circled them gently with soap-slicked fingertips.

"They're heavier, fuller. Life in Arizona must agree with you," he whispered as he glided a fiery trail down to span the indentation of her waist.

"Life as your wife agrees with me," she murmured as he reached for her buttocks and pulled her closer. She could feel the hard insistence of his arousal, prodding into the slight swell of her belly. "Give me that soap," she whispered raggedly.

Copying his movements, she lathered up her hands and began by sudsing his hair and face, then took the cloth and rinsed when he complained of keeping his eyes closed against the soap. "I want to see what we're doing."

She continued the methodical bathing, rubbing in small, tight circles with the suds until it formed white frothy whorls in his chest hair. When her hands began to bathe his staff, sliding up and down the rigid length, squeezing, then cupping with cunning fingers, he threw back his head and gritted his teeth, breathing a low oath of amazed pleasure.

Colin returned the compliment, reaching for the soft reddish curls between her legs and lathering the swollen delicate petals until she cried out his name. In moments they were covered head to foot with suds, their skin glistening as their bodies glided against each other, reaching, rubbing, caressing. Their breathing had grown fast and rough in counterpart to the slow and delicate way their hands and bodies moved.

Finally with trembling hands Colin reached for one of the tall clay pitchers of rinse water sitting beside the tub and raised it to Maggie's shoulders. "I can't wait any longer," he said hoarsely, pouring the clean water over her. When the heavy pot was half empty, he turned it on himself, holding it over his head and letting the cool water sluice down his body.

Maggie watched the droplets as they slid, letting her splayed fingers follow their course down his chest and over his hard belly until she held his phallus once again in her hands. "I think you're clean enough. Let me tend your . . . burns," she whispered, releasing him with an enticing smile.

"What burns worst isn't where the fire touched me." His breathing was ragged as he stepped out of the tub and swept her into his arms.

"Colin, we're soaking wetthe sheets"

"They'll dry. We'll burn them up!" He lay her on the bed and followed the invitation she offered, her arms and legs open to embrace him. Feeling her beneath him, her heart beating against his was such sweet, sweet homecoming. He longed to hold her, to cherish her, yet his flesh did burn for her and he could feel the answering hunger in her arms.

"Now, Colin, now." Her husky voice urged him to take her.

He needed no encouragement as he raised above her, looking down into her face as he plunged deep inside her. She raised up to meet him, her blue eyes holding his gold ones. He thrust, she arched. At first it was swift and rough, a wild, joyous affirmation of reunion and reassurance. He had come after her and she had returned to him. Now the rest of their lives beckoned.

As that thought slowly permeated the lusty haze of passion, their caresses gentled, grew slow and languorous again, every thrust and withdrawal exquisite with tenderness. She drew his head down to hers for a drugging kiss. Their lips brushed and tongues darted, tasting, teasing, while their hands explored. Colin supported his weight on his elbows and buried his fingers in her hair, pulling the pins free, massaging her scalp gently.

Maggie ran her palms softly over the tender skin on his back, realizing how close she had come to losing himnot only because she had left him, but because he had almost died in that fire with Barker and Stanley. But he had not. Her husband, the father of her child, was alive, here with her, loving her. And suddenly she could not wait. She wanted it all.

Colin felt her abrupt shift from tender languor to keen urging. He let go of his steely control, riding her hard and fast, feeling her body answer his with fiery abandon, bucking and shuddering, sobbing out his name as the tremors wracked her.

The force of her release sent Maggie spinning as if she had been thrust amid the glittering stars that filled the night sky outside their window. Breathless, she trembled and clung to him, letting her senses flood with indescribable ecstasy as she felt his phallus swell and explode so deep within her he surely must have touched the child they had already created.

Colin threw back his head and gave in to glory, the shuddering waves of her tight slick sheath intensifying his orgasm to near madness. Never, with any woman, had there been this intensity, this unbearable sweetness at the very apex of passion. He collapsed on top of her, kissing her face and throat softly between gasping breaths, smelling the soft musky essence of her skin that combined sex with lilies of the valley.

After they had lain quietly for a while, regaining their composure, returning to earth, he rolled them over, lifting her so she lay on his chest, their legs still entwined. "Don't ever leave me, Maggie. I couldn't live without you. I never knew, until I'd thrown away your love, what a precious gift it was."

She buried her face in the curve of his shoulder and tasted the saltiness of his skin against her lips as she whispered, "I was the one who almost lost youin that fire. Oh, Colin, if you hadn't escaped . . ." She shuddered and held him tightly.

"I owe my life to our future son-in-law. Judging from the way Eden was looking at himand he was looking backmaybe I'd better see they're married as soon as possible," he added.

"That might be a wise idea," she replied, already knowing that Eden and Wolf were lovers. Working up her courage, she decided this was the moment to tell him about their baby. "You might become a grandfather almost as soon as you're going to become a father again." Maggie could feel him grow very still, his body tensing. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

Colin searched her face and saw the look of radiant hope on it combined with wary hesitation. She's afraid of my reaction. He reached up and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. "You're certain?"

"I couldn't believe it, but Dr. Torres convinced me."

"I thought you couldn't have any more children." He tried to keep the fear out of his voice.

"It's a miracle, Colin." Please say you want this child, my love. "I was positive that I was barren after my daughter died . . . but now I realize . . . perhaps it took love." She swallowed hard and laid her face on his chest again. "I had always felt so dirty, so defiled . . . I hated it. The instant a customer would leave, I'd rush to scrub myself, trying to wash away my unbearable guilt."

He stroked her hair falling in dark splendor across her back. "And with me you never did that. You held my seed inside you, wanting this." His hand paused in its softly caressing pattern on her back. "Was this child part of the reason you were leaving?"

"I wouldn't hold you that way. I wanted you to love meto want me for your wife without being forced any more than I had already forced you. That last day in the hotel room I knew you desired me and you hated yourself for it. Then when I thought you were being blackmailed because of me, I couldn't bear it. I"

"Shh . . . Maggie, don't, don't," he crooned, feeling the pain in her voice. "I've wronged you so many times. Can you forgive me?"

"You know I have. I love you so much, nothing else matters." Except that you want this child.

"I couldn't bear to lose you, Maggie," he blurted out, holding her in a crushing grip. "I felt guilty when Elizabeth diedbut I didn't love her the way I love you!"

"I'm going to be fine. I'm not like Elizabeth, Colin. I'm strong and healthy and I want this babyI want all the babies you can give me."

The impassioned plea in her voice tore at his heart. "Oh, Maggie, I want to believe, but I don't deserve this happiness."

"Then . . . then it is happinessyou do want another child? A son to run Crown Verde?"

"A child created from our loveyes, my darling, I want it and I don't give a damn if it's a son or a daughter, just that it's ours and that you'll be safe."

She smiled down at him, glowing with joy now. "I think your old friend Aaron Torres is a pretty fair doctor. He's already assured me I'm as healthy as can be and should have no troubleexcept for my morning indisposition." She frowned, realizing that her dreadful penchant for upchucking in the mornings would no doubt worry him.

"What indisposition?" he asked, already growing tense.

"Just a perfectly normal symptom of breeding women that quickly passes. In fact, it's how the doctor discovered my condition back at the reservation." She chuckled, rubbing small circles on his chest with her palms. "I tend to lose my breakfastbut after I've been up an hour or two I can eat my weight. You already commented on how I've filled out." She could feel his hands roaming over the curves of her derriere, then moving to cup her swollen breasts.

"I should've recognized the changes, I suppose . . ." He did not want to say that his first wife had been so prim and shy he had never seen her body unclothed after she became pregnant and sent him from her bed. Then a disturbing thought indeed flashed into his mind. "Maggie . . . should wethat is, should I"

"Don't you dare even think it," she interrupted fiercely. "Making love never harmed a baby, but not making love would definitely harm this mother."

"Are you certain?" he asked, suspicious, yet at the same time relieved, for he knew he could not leave her bed.

"Yes. I've seen lots of pregnant women over the years in my former business. And, as an extra precaution to reassure you, I asked Dr. Torres."

He raised one eyebrow sardonically. "That must've been a very interesting conversation the two of you had."

"Very. I swore him to secrecy about the baby until I could find the right time to tell you myself." She looked into his eyes. "This is the right time, isn't it, Colin?" "From the day I first saw you in Sonora, everything has been right. I'm only sorry it took me so long to realize it . . . but maybe there is a way to show you just how right everything is . . ."

Her joyous laughter blended with his as he rolled up, pinning her beneath him. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and began kissing her as she drew him deeply into her embrace.

Epilogue

Spring, 1881, Crown Verde

"By all the saints, if that dog doesn't stop his barkin', I'll be takin' the mister's shotgun to him," Eileen whispered to Riefe Cates as the Presbyterian minister struggled to make his sonorous voice carry over Rufus's loud protests at being excluded from the solemn festivities held on the front porch of the ranch house.

"I baptize thee Ian Scott McCrory . . ." The tall, distinguished Reverend Osborne looked every inch a curate as he read the words from the prayer book while the assembly beamed on in witness.

Colin stood beside his wife, who proudly held their month-old son. Little Ian gurgled placidly, not in the least upset by a few drops of cool water on his head of thick brown hair.

The proud parents were flanked by the motley assembly whose varied religious backgrounds had given the minister pause when he had been summoned from Prescott to the big ranch to christen the newest member of the McCrory family. Dr. Aaron Torres, a Jew, stood beside Esmeralda Phibbs, a Unitarian, flanked by Eileen O'Banyon, a devout Roman Catholic, and Riefe Cates, who had made it clear he was unchurched and planned to stay that way.

McCrory's daughter and her husband had been married in his church, but somehow Reverend Osborne suspected that the dangerous-looking half-breed probably still prayed to some bloodthirsty Apache war gods.

''Do you think our baby will behave so well when his time comes?" Wolf whispered to Eden.

Patting her swollen belly, Eden smiled up at him. "Not if he takes after his father."

Just then the reverend finished his final prayer and the baptism was officially over. All the people who worked for Crown Verde had assembled in the warm spring sunshine to witness the christening of their boss's new son. A line of well-wishers passed by, admiring the infant and complimenting his parents as the irate housekeeper took out after Eden's excited dog.

Laughing, Eden caught up with Eileen and placed a restraining hand on the old woman's arm. "He's just so happy to be back here and knows something's going on. Why don't I pull a juicy bone off that huge beef roasting out back? I'm sure it will quiet him."

"If ye spoil the little one coming as bad as ye do that mutt, there'll be the divil to pay," Eileen replied, her stern expression softening as she turned from Rufus to Eden.

"I'll take that rascal for his bone," Gideon Blake volunteered, "with your permission, Mrs. O'Banyon?"

Eileen actually blushed. Wolf's father was tall and silver-haired, a lean, spare man of sixty-five with an engaging grin that softened the harshness of his perfectly chiseled features. "I'll show ye the way, Mr. Blake."

As the two of them disappeared around the side of the porch, Eden turned to Wolf and put her arms around him. As he returned the embrace she whispered, "Aren't you glad we went to Pecos, even though you'd already taken the appointment as Indian agent?"

"As in everything else, you were right about my father," he replied.

"He grieved for what he'd done to you, Wolf. Being here to see the work you've accomplished has made him so proud of youand happy that you've let him be a part of it."

"His money for medicine and schoolbooks at the reservation has made a lot of difference. I'm kind of proud he's my father, too," he replied gravely.

"Why don't you tell him that?" she asked.

"I already have."

"So serious, you two. This is a day to celebrate," Colin said to his son-in-law, holding out little Ian to him. "I think it's time you had some practice at being a father."

Wolf's dark face actually paled and his eyes grew round with consternation. "I, er . . . I don't know, Colin . . ."

"Go ahead, Wolf," Eden urged with a chuckle. "My little brother is quite sturdy. He won't break."

Ed Phibbs stood by the front door scribbling furiously on her notepad as Maggie approached the group and rescued Wolf by taking Ian for his feeding. Colin and Maggie passed her with a smile and a nod as they entered the house. As managing editor of the Arizona Miner, which Maggie had bought from the disgraced Clement Algren last year, Ed Phibbs took her job seriously. The christening of her employer's firstborn son was the news event of the season. After the excitement of chronicling the breakup of the Tucson Ring, life had settled down to more prosaic pursuits. And writing a good society column wasn't such a bad job after all.

Author's Note

Arizona Territory had as violent a history as anywhere in the West, the perfect backdrop for our story of a scalper and a prostitute trying to go straight and start anew. Colin and Maggie both want to hide their sins. What sort of villains might want to uncover their past? To what end? I knew the key to the story lay with the bad guys.

In my preliminary research I found frequent references to a ring of corrupt merchants and politicians who got rich off the bloody conflict between whites and Apaches during this era. Variously called the Tucson Ring, the Federal Ring or the Indian Ring, its headquarters were in the Old Pueblo, whose leading businessmen were in cahoots with corrupt government officials from Prescott to Washington. Thus I unraveled the background about a perfectly marvelous set of villains from real life. Caleb Lamp is a fictionalized version of J. C. Tiffany, the actual White Mountain Reservation Indian Agent to whom fate was far kinder; he was allowed to resign in 1882 "for reasons of business necessity and health." My writing partner, Carol Reynard, and I thought Caleb's demise would have been more fitting. Among Tiffany's numerous crimes were the use of Apache slave labor in the reservation coal mines and the pocketing of monies supposedly earmarked for the Indians. For the purposes of our story, I moved the date of the mining operation from 1881 to 1880. I also altered the dates for the final demise of the Tucson Ring, which was not actually exposed until 1882.

While pleading literary license, I must clarify a few other minor points. The telegrapher in Prescott during 1880 was a gentleman named Pat Kearney, who actually worked the key from the back of his saloon. However, unlike the greedy Hector Spoede, a fictional creation, Kearney was quite honest in the performance of his duties. The territorial legislature met only in odd years, so the presence of councilmen and representatives in the capital during 1880 was stretching fact a bit, although they might have turned out for a special Bureau of Indian Affairs investigator. The last bit of tampering with history for which I must beg pardon concerns geography. Arizona is a big country. A plot with so much action moving back and forth between Prescott and the post at San Carlos required that I make the journey shorter than it actually was.

As to the rest of the Arizona cavalcade found in McCrory's Lady, truth is often stranger than fiction and usually more entertaining. John C. Frémont was a vastly unpopular absentee governor and the territorial secretary John Gosper did act in his place. The foolish young Indian agent John Clum, who Colin mentions, did oversee the massive Apache relocations during the 1870s. Other than these gentlemen, and of course, President Rutherford Hayes and his Secretary of the Interior, Carl Shurz, all the other heroes and villains in the book are fictionalized.

To recreate this bloody era, Carol and I did a prodigious amount of research. I will mention only a few of the many pertinent works that we found to be particularly helpful. The two most authoritative standard references on Arizona are Marshall Trimble's Arizona and the wonderfully detailed political history by Jay J. Wagoner, Arizona Territory, 18631912. For general background on ranch life during the era, the Time-Life Old West Series again proved an excellent source for pictorials and bibliography, in particular The Ranchers with text by Ogden Tanner. Arizona Ranch Houses by Janet Steward and Ghost Towns of Arizona by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman gave me the look and feel of life in this harsh yet beautiful land. Melissa Ruffner Weiner's Prescott: A Pictorial History was especially good for recreating life in the territorial capital.

The tragic situation of the Apaches confined on the White Mountain Reservation is portrayed as honestly as I could write it. Many of the details regarding the long and bitter campaigns waged by United States troops and Arizona settlers against the Apaches are vividly described in Jay J. Wagoner's work cited above. For splendid pictorials and a sensitive text on how the Athapaskans lived, I relied heavily on The People Called Apache by Thomas E. Mails.

The grisly flashback in McCrory's Lady and indeed the concept of an ex-scalper as a protagonist I owe to Savage Scene by William Cochran McGaw, whose biography of James Kirker is a masterpiece about the Scottish immigrant's incredible life. Those of our readers who have read the "Discovery Duet" probably recognized Dr. Aaron Torres as a distant descendant of the Sephardic dynasty created in Paradise and More and Return to Paradise. For background in medical treatments during this era, I relied upon Richard Dunlop's Doctors of the American Frontier, although I will add in Dr. Torres's defense that I think he was a far more learned physician than most of the actual doctors who practiced out West in those early days.

Carol and I hope you have enjoyed Colin and Maggie's story. They were certainly the unlikeliest pair of lovers we've created to date. Wolf and Eden proved a delightful surprise, and their romance played a larger role than we had originally envisioned. Please let us know if you enjoyed McCrory's Lady. We always answer reader mail. A self-addressed, stamped envelope would be greatly appreciated. Happy reading.

Shirl Henke
P. O. Box 72
Adrian, MI 49221

Author of 16 award-winning romance novels, Shirl Henke holds her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri. Along the way she earned her Ph.D. in human-nature studies as a social worker on the skid row of a large West Coast city, as the circulation manager of a daily newspaper in a small Southern town, as the chief administrator and political lobbyist for a federal program for the elderly in a Midwestern county, and as a university instructor, teaching history, social work, and freshman writing in the Eastern urban rust belt. All these experiences drove her to a literary career, in which she has been assisted by friend and collaborator Carol Reynard.

Shirl recently purchased her dream home in St. Louis, where she lives with her husband Jim. Their son Matt is an airman first class in the United States Air Force. The family's two tomcats, Leopard and Panther, have refused to enlist and insist on remaining at home.