The FOURTH GIFT

Elizabeth Chadwick

To Matthew and Sheila who came home for Christmas.

Special thanks to Carol and Mike Eastman, our hosts

in Flagstaff; to the helpful Special Collections librarians

at Northern Arizona University; and to Joan Coleman,

good friend and hometown editor.

A determined woman struggles to rid herself of the Yankee partner who has brought out half her Arizona sheep ranch, but by Christmas morning the interloper has fulfilled the three wishes dearest to her heart, and given her a fourth gift she hardly dared hope for.

Chapter One

Jonathan inhaled the cold, thin air with that heady anticipation he always felt at the beginning of an adventure. Wet snowflakes were drifting singly out of the blue-black sky above Flagstaff in the Arizona Territory. The San Francisco Mountains filled the horizon, dark with their huge pines, a jaunty cap of snow glistening against the night sky. Storm clouds, rolling in from the northwest, hastened to engulf an icy moon. Beside him in the street, Jonathan's new acquaintance, Uncle Burden Fox, was slamming a gnarled fist against the office door of a lawyer.

''Wake up, Hiram," Fox bellowed. "Git your butt down here." They were on Railroad Avenue, several doors from Sandy Donahue's Mineral Belt Saloon, where Jonathan had just played the most interesting poker game of his life, not that he had won so much, but Uncle Burden seemed to think it a considerable amount to lose.

The two men listened to heavy footsteps thumping down the stairs inside the building, to low-pitched muttering, to locks snapping open.

"Burden, what the hell?" grumbled Hiram Apple, appearing in his nightshirt at the door to his office, above which were his just-vacated sleeping quarters.

"Hiram," said Uncle Burden exuberantly, "I'm on my way to San Francisco." He broke into a phlegm cough that had interrupted the dozens of sheep-raising adventures with which he had regaled Jonathan during the course of their evening at the Mineral Belt. "I aim to spend my last years surrounded by fallen women with big bosoms an' dimpled knees, all awearin' satin an' feathers an' asquabblin' amongst themselves over my company."

"You drunk again, Burden?" asked Hiram Apple.

"I am Jonathan Forrester, sir," said Jonathan, cutting into Burden's dreams of Arabian splendor in the brothels of San Francisco. "Mr. Fox has just sold me for the consideration of a poker debt, a ticket to San Francisco, and five thousand dollars – his share in the F & F sheep ranch."

"You old fool," said Hiram Apple to Burden. "Merrill's gonna kill you."

"Merrill won't git the chance," said Uncle Burden. "Merrill don't git back till week's end, an' I'm headin' for Californy soon as we sign them papers."

Hiram Apple slanted a worried glance at Jonathan. "Merrill's not gonna take to a new partner," he warned. "Might kill you too."

"Oh, I hardly think so," said Jonathan cheerfully. What a piece of luck that he'd been so taken with the beauty of the mountains as his train made the trip between Santa Fe and San Francisco that he'd decided to stop at Flagstaff. He considered the night's transaction a great bargain, as Mr. Fox had assured him that the F & F ranch was not only profitable but included a large, sturdy log house, cool in summer, warm in winter. What situation could be more ideal, Jonathan reasoned, for research on his next book, which would be about sheep raising in the magnificent mountains of northern Arizona?

Jonathan was an author of some renown, his Western adventure books popular all over the Northeast and Middle West. His publisher would be delighted with this new one. As for the formidable Merrill Fox, over whose reaction lawyer Apple was still fretting, Jonathan foresaw no difficulties. He and his new partner would have a fine time the next year or so, and then Jonathan might or might not retain his rights to the F & F spread. He'd been thinking of settling down, giving up his roving life, and he'd seen no place more beautiful than this one.

"I have a good feeling about this venture," he said to the lawyer. After the hot, dusty plains of Texas and Oklahoma, the locale of his just-published epic, The Last Cattle Drive North, the mountains of the northern Arizona Territory would be a welcome change.

"I'm easy to get along with," he added, glancing politely away from spindly arms and twiggy hands resting on the generous paunch that ballooned under the lawyer's nightshirt. "No matter how grumpy an old codger he is, your Merrill Fox will find me pleasant company."

"Merrill ain't exactly old," said Hiram Apple.

"Mr. Forrester, this is Merrill Fox, best flock-master in Arizona, just back from trailing four or five bands of sheep down to winter pasture."

"My pleasure, Mr. Fox," said Jonathan, holding out his hand.

"Merrill, meet Jonathan Forrester. He's a"

"What the hell is this about, Hiram?" interrupted Fox, ignoring Jonathan's outstretched hand in favor of quieting a short-haired, black and tan sheepdog that was snarling at the lawyer. "Sit, Boss," snapped the flock-master. The dog immediately slapped its rump onto the lawyer's Turkey carpet, but it remained on guard, ears alert, teeth bared. "I was over at Doc Brannen's place getting some Beschee's German Syrup for Boss here, who's been coughing some," said Fox. ''Hadn't hardly passed over the money when one of the Daggs brothers came in and said I'd better head for your office fast."

The lawyer, backing away from the dog, fell into his rolling desk chair. "Well, Merrill," he stammered, "seems like your Uncle Burden got it in his head that he wanted to spend his gray-haired years surrounded by harlots with big bosoms and dimpled knees. Those are his words, not mine."

"Old fool," muttered Fox. The dog cocked its head sideways to study its master's face.

"A-yah. Well, for a consideration of five thousand dollars, a poker debt, and a ticket to San Francisco, where he doesn't expect to see another flake of snow to his dying day"

The rancher, who was brushing snow from the sleeves and shoulders of a sheepskin jacket, glared. "Just what'd my stupid uncle give for this windfall?"

"Half the F & F spread."

"What?" The voice was sharp and indignant. "Why, that skunk-brained, lazy, good-for-nothing, ugly, unwashed ..."

Jonathan could see that lawyer Apple had been right. Young Merrill Fox was not happy to hear that his uncle had sold half of the ranch to a stranger.

"Now, Merrill," said the lawyer as he scooted his chair nervously away from the paper clutter on his rolltop desk, "you can't blame me for this." He was eyeing the dog warily, for the creature's attention had returned to him. "Money had changed hands before the deal ever showed up at my door. Five thousand dollars! Plus the gambling debt forgiven. An' a ticket includin' a sleepin' car."

"Private compartment," corrected Jonathan.

"Soon as I catch my donkey-brained uncle, I'll put a shot right through the hand that signed away my ranch."

"It's not your land only," the lawyer protested. "Burden owned the half your pa didn't leave you."

Jonathan studied the angry young man, who wasn't a whit better dressed than the uncle had been same dusty, rumpled trousers; heavy sheepskin jacket; well-worn, once-brown, broad-brimmed hat. The dog looked better groomed than either Fox, and the only difference in uncle and nephew was that Merrill was a short, slightly built young fellow and clutching a heavy Winchester rifle in his left hand as if he did indeed plan to use it if he caught up with his uncle.

"Since Mr. Forrester here's a writer," said Apple, "it's not likely he'll want to interfere with the way you run the ranch."

"A writer?" groaned the young man as if he'd just been told that his new partner was an outlaw wanted all over the territory.

"Yep, Western adventure books for Yankees. Reckon his next adventure's going to be sheep ranching with you."

"It should work out conveniently," said Jonathan. "For instance, we won't have to change the name. F & F will do as well for Fox and Forrester as for Fox and Fox."

Merrill Fox made a low, snarling noise, which was echoed by the dog. Then the young man jerked his hat down over his eyes and, hands on hips, scowling at his boots, muttered, "Uncle Burden's no great loss, I reckon. I'll buy you out, but I haven't got any five thousand dollars. You'll have to settle for"

Jonathan shook his head. "My thought is to be a working partner," he interrupted.

"That right?" Fox looked insufferably smug. "You know anything about sheep?"

"Well, I'm a man who appreciates a good lamb roast," said Jonathan, who was beginning to enjoy himself. "Especially with mint jelly and a fine, thick gravy." This young fellow was easy to provoke, thought Jonathan, grinning as he watched the boy's scowl deepen. Fox acted a lot tougher than he looked. No doubt the boy was trying to compensate for his youth, small stature, and not very manly voice.

"You wouldn't like sheep ranching," said Fox.

"Oh, but I would," Jonathan insisted.

"Not with me, you wouldn't!" The young man whipped off the battered hat and tucked one thumb pugnaciously into the waistband of his trousers right above a holstered pistol tied with a thong to his upper leg. Merrill fox gave every indication of a mean-spirited satisfaction when Jonathan's mouth dropped open.

However, Jonathan recovered quickly from the shock dealt him by the sight of the long, honey-haired braid that tumbled loose from under the brown hat. Having been fooled by the clothes and the belligerence, he took his time studying Merrill Fox's tanned, delicate features, not to mention the thrust of a small breast revealed under the flannel shirt when Miss Fox brushed aside her jacket to tuck her little thumb into the band that enclosed her slender waist. His new partner was a girl, all right. Jonathan's face lit with a delighted smile, and he bowed politely. How good could a man's luck get? he asked himself. He was going to team up with the only female flock-master in northern Arizona, probably the only female flock-master anywhere. His next book ought to sell better than umbrellas in a rainstorm.

Merrill Fox sat hunched glumly on the seat beside the miserable, stubborn, ass-eared Forrester, who insisted that half her house, as well as half her land and stock, was now his. He had refused to be dissuaded from accompanying her back to the ranch, even though snow fell silently all around them, muffling the thud of the team's plodding gait and nipping at her skin like a cloud of tiny ice insects.

Behind her the sleigh was piled high, not only with the supplies she had bought from Brannen's Pioneer Store for the sheep camps she would visit next week, but with Jonathan Forrester's many trunks and boxes. He'd even had crates of spirits loaded onto her sleigh from Lowenthal and Meyers, the wholesaler who supplied local saloons. She'd evidently traded a drinking uncle for a drinking writer. Merrill sighed and muttered encouragement to the reluctant horses. Boss, who occupied the driver's seat between her and Forrester, nuzzled Merrill's elbow consolingly.

"That was a big sigh for such a pretty young lady," said Jonathan Forrester. He had been looking this way and that through the snow as if he expected something interesting to happen any moment, something beyond their imminent danger of running off the road and getting stuck if the storm worsened.

Merrill gritted her teeth. Her looks were not a subject to which she gave much thought, but she did resent being made sport of by this dandified Yankee. Pretty young lady, huh? She wasn't even particularly young. And Merrill knew what the women and the young men of the area said about her – that she rode like a man, dressed like a tramp, and smelled like a sheep. She'd never much cared what people thought of her, but the last, about the smell, was unfair. Merrill bathed every few nights, not a pleasant pastime when the facilities were a wooden tub filled with water that went from hot to cold before you'd hardly got the first layer of dirt off. Also Merrill saw to it that Mrs. Oblati washed the clothes regularly, so unless she was out there working with them, Merrill figured she didn't smell like a sheep. But she wasn't anyone's idea of a pretty young lady either, while Forrester, who had obviously been making fun of her, was just about the handsomest man she'd ever seen – tall, broad-shouldered, well dressed, with thick, dark hair and a storybook hero's face.

Not that Merrill had ever read a storybook. Her mother had been the reader in the family and had provided many a fine bedtime tale before the books got burned up in a tent fire. Unfortunately, Mama had died in the California gold fields before she could pass the ability to read on to Merrill. In later years when Merrill, Pa, and Uncle Burden – damn him! – had given up prospecting and gone back to sheep ranching, there'd been no time and nobody to teach Merrill to read. Finally drought had forced them to drive their flocks across the Mohave to the Arizona Territory, where they founded the F & F Ranch, by which time Merrill was too old and too embarrassed over her illiteracy to attend school in Flagstaff when the first one opened. Now she'd never learn.

And that was the worst of Jonathan Forrester. Not only was he handsome, while she was homely, but he could read, and she couldn't. And the man didn't just read books; he wrote them. The very idea filled her with awe. And sadness. And humiliation. What if he found out her secret? Unhappily, she slapped the reins onto the horses' necks. Well, she'd never let him find out. Even old Apple, her lawyer – that traitor! – didn't know that Merrill couldn't read the papers he drew up for her, that she had to trust to his honesty.

And look where that had got her. Her no-good uncle had run off, leaving this Eastern dude to claim half the ranch she and Pa had sweated to make profitable these ten years since '76. What she had to do was get rid of Forrester. Make him want to leave. Want to sell out to her. For some amount she could afford, and that wasn't much.

"Do you usually travel in snow this heavy?" asked Forrester.

"Why, this isn't heavy," Merrill drawled. "We're having a real mild winter so far. Only had ice once, and this is the first snow since last April."

She nodded emphatically. "Real mild. The heavy snow won't start for a week or two. Might even hold off until December." That ought to give him something to think about.

"I'll look forward to seeing it," said Forrester, laughing. "The harder the winter, the better the book."

Merrill turned to glare at him. Nobody wished for a hard winter. Only a fool. And a fool would be harder to scare off than a sensible man. She shifted uncomfortably on the seat, half frozen. Why wasn't he shivering? He had an inch and a half of snow on the shoulders of his gray wool coat, and he sat there radiating heat, keeping her Forrester side warm, although the dog was between them and snuggling up to the author with her nose poked into his armpit.

"Boss," hissed Merrill, and the dog reluctantly sat up straight. Since when did Boss take to strangers? Merrill asked herself resentfully. Heretofore, the dog had never liked anyone but Merrill and sheep. Merrill shivered again, but not from the cold. It was that blasted Forrester so close to her on the seat. She had to get rid of him. He was too tempting – even for a sensible woman like her.

"I suppose you think you're going to make more money out of this than a Mexican horse thief," said Merrill, who had always imagined that the wealthiest folk among the nonworking must be Mexican horse thieves, those who didn't get hung, and even then they died rich.

"Well, your uncle led me to believe that there were profits to be made in sheep ranching," said Jonathan mildly. "Investments doubled in only one year."

"We never did that," she protested.

"He said the cost of raising sheep is minimal what with the low wages of the herders and the free grass."

"Humph," said Merrill, and she rattled off what it had cost them to raise an ewe in northern Arizona for the last ten years, what the average clip had been, the price of shearing, the cost of freight to market, and the price of wool paid per pound in markets they had and hadn't used. Merrill might not be able to read, but she had a head for figures and remembered everything she ever heard. "Now maybe that sounds good to you, but you ought to remember that a Western flockmaster needs to bring through eighty to eighty-five percent of the lamb crop to break even and ninety to make a profit."

"The best investment a man can make," said Jonathan, "is a knowledgeable partner," and he smiled at her so warmly through the falling snow that she couldn't miss the compliment in his words and the pleasure it gave her. Boss evidently felt the same, for she snuggled her nose back into his armpit and gave a low woof of friendship.

"Boss!" admonished Merrill. The dog removed her nose and faced forward again on the sleigh seat. "And of course, those profits," said Merrill, staring with disapproval at her fickle companion, "have to be put back into the herd and into land.

Just this year I bought a hundred crossbred rams from Daggs Brothers at twelve dollars a head. That's twelve hundred dollars," she pointed out. "The Daggs paid between one hundred and six hundred in '82 for Vermont merinos and bred them to their best range ewes. Now, you get a forty-pound clip from a purebred, which I can't afford to buy, naturally, and twelve to fourteen from a crossbreed, whereas an ordinary range ewe won't yield you more than six to eight."

"I could put up the money for merinos," said Jonathan. "Then we could breed and sell our own crossbreeds."

Damn, thought Merrill. She'd reasoned that the twelve-hundred-dollar expenditure would shock him. How much money did a man make on a book about Western adventure, and why in the world would he see running a sheep ranch as an adventure? She enjoyed it, wouldn't do anything else, but lots of folks hated sheep. Shaking her head, Merrill fell into a gloomy silence. So far the campaign to discourage Forrester didn't seem to be accomplishing much, and Boss was snuggling up to him again, while Merrill thought wistfully of owning her own purebreds. Suffering sheep scab, but the man was a tempting devil!

"Pay six hundred dollars for a ram and then lose it to sheep scab or lupine!" she exclaimed disdainfully, just to let Forrester know that she hadn't been softened up by his cunning ways. "That would be a fool move."

"Well, you're the boss," said Jonathan.

Merrill blinked. Uncle Burden had never said that to her, although she had been the boss since Pa died. ''Been buying land from the railroad too," said Merrill. "Pa started that before he passed on. He saw the cats-claw hiding in that free grass."

"I'm afraid your metaphor escapes me," said Jonathan as he fondled the dog's ears. Boss's whole body wiggled with delight.

"Boss, get in back," muttered Merrill. The dog cast one longing look at Jonathan and scrambled over the low seat as Merrill tried to figure out what a metaphor was. Didn't Forrester know about cats-claw? Lord, it tore up a sheep's fleece something terrible. "The free grass won't last forever, you know," she said cautiously. "There's sheep and cattlemen driving in flocks and herds from everywhere. Must be 150,000 sheep in the area, most of them not worth more than $ 2.75 a head. Ranges'll be overstocked in no time, and the big cattle outfits – Hashknife and A-1 Bar – are buying up the land. If I don't buy too, I'll end up without grass – summer or winter."

"Very wise," Jonathan agreed. "The same thing's happening in Texas, and smart ranchers take the long view."

Merrill nodded smugly. Uncle Burden had never understood that, but this man – good Lord, what was she thinking of? She wanted to drive Jonathan Forrester off, not make a friend of him. The F & F was hers. And she had to get it back.

"Look at that snow, will you?" exclaimed Jonathan. "If it's this heavy in early November, we should be able to count on a white Christmas."

"A white what?" asked Merrill, jerked out of her resentful thoughts.

"Christmas. A white Christmas."

"Don't celebrate it," said Merrill, hoping once again that he'd be disappointed and go away. If he was looking for festive holidays, he'd bought into the wrong outfit.

Chapter Two

Innocenta Oblati, massive-bosomed and lightly mustachioed, was a railroad widow. Her husband, along with several others, had been killed in an explosion, his body catapulted into the top of a pine tree beside the A & P tracks. Since that time, Mrs. Oblati had been the housekeeper at the Fox ranch.

"You gonna live in sin, I gonna leave," she said, placing great clenched fists on ample hips.

"Who said I was going to live in sin?" Merrill demanded. "Do I look like the kind of woman who would live in sin?"

"He gonna stay here, I gonna leave."

"Mrs. Oblati," said Forrester, "since I'm a partner now ..."

Mrs. Oblati was already on the way to her room to pack.

"Look what you've done," cried Merrill. "On top of everything else, they're going to say I'm a fallen woman." To herself she admitted that she didn't really care what they said. The real point was that, with Mrs. Oblati gone, Merrill might starve to death, her clothes would go unwashed, and there'd be nobody to keep the place clean or to heat her bathwater in the reservoir built into the left side of the wood stove. Furious, she turned on her new partner. "I'm a sheep-woman," she said fiercely. "I don't cook, I don't clean, I don't"

"Now, Merrill," said Forrester calmly, "there's nothing to cooking. You just read the recipe ..."

Merrill hardly heard the rest of his reassurance because his large, warm hand, resting on her shoulder, caused her to feel very peculiar, very skittery, and what had he said? All you had to do was read the recipe? Merrill shook off his hand and the hot tingles it caused along her shoulder, her heart plummeting at the reminder that she couldn't read. "Then you do it," she snapped.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Cook."

Jonathan smiled at her.

Drat the man. Didn't he ever get angry?

"I'm a fine cook," he assured her. "You mustn't worry about a little setback like this."

"You must have donkey brains between your ears," she shouted at him and stamped out into the storm to begin unloading the sleigh. First, she dumped Forrester's trunks and boxes into the thin coating of snow that had accumulated in the yard. Second, she dragged out and saddled the mule Mrs. Oblati insisted on riding to town that very afternoon – stubborn woman! Merrill could just imagine the gossips twittering, "Did you hear what Merrill Fox is up to now? Her housekeeper says she's living in sin with some Yankee. Land sakes!"

Gritting her teeth, Merrill tethered the mule to the hitching post in front of the house, then drove the sleigh on to the barn, where she'd store the provisions and put up the horses, she and Teofilo, a retired Portuguese shepherd who acted as her handyman. Teofilo was so accustomed to the solitary life and open spaces that he refused to eat or sleep in the house or even the barn, which meant she couldn't claim him as a chaperon.

And Forrester, that sissy, hadn't even come out to help. Some partner he'd make. Cooking and writing books. What kind of man occupied himself with things like that? Well, she admitted uneasily, a very handsome one. And he looked as if he could unload the sleigh more easily than she if he wanted to. Oh Lord, what was she going to do? Until now Merrill had never seen a man that interested her in any way other than his connection with sheep raising. Could she, sensible, hardworking Merrill Fox, be infatuated? Maybe she was suffering from indigestion. Forrester had made her try oysters when they'd had a meal at Coulter and Gale's Chop House. Nasty, slimy things. No wonder she felt peculiar.

Jonathan discovered that Merrill had flung his baggage out of the sleigh into the snow. He hoped that she wasn't so angry she'd stay away from the house overlong and endanger her health. He hauled in, first, his clothes, then his books and writing materials, and finally his supply of wine. How had a little thing like Merrill managed to lift that heavy trunk of books out of the sleigh and dump it on the ground? he wondered. Now there was a woman! She was as interesting as her house – their house.

It was a massive, two-story log structure with a steep, split-shake roof and huge native stone chimneys at either end, the whole thing as seemingly indestructible as the mountains that surrounded it. Inside, one end of the first floor had been walled off to form the kitchen and the housekeeper's quarters, both warmed by the right-hand fireplace. Giant logs driven down through the floor, to bedrock for all he knew, supported a second-floor balcony that ran the length of the house and was reached by an open stair of halved logs. It looked as much like a slanted ladder as a conventional staircase. One could glance up and see the bark on the underside of each step or mount on the flat side, polished smooth by ten years of Fox boots.

Large, comfortable chairs fronted the left-end hearth. On the kitchen side of the room were a massive oak sideboard and a round oak table with four straight chairs. Otherwise, the spaces were empty, no desk, no books – didn't the Foxes read or keep accounts? – no decorations except two handsome Indian rugs and some fine, old pots of archaeological interest on a rude shelf in the eating area.

All this he discovered before seeing Mrs. Oblati off on a mule slung with various bundles and bags. The woman, quivering with moral indignation, absolutely refused to reconsider her decision, even temporarily, although she would have to ride into Flagstaff through the snow. What a difficult person, he mused as he boosted her atop the already overburdened mule.

Once she had departed, he went upstairs to explore and found three bedrooms off the balcony – hall that fronted the staircase. Two were now unoccupied, and he chose the room on the left for its proximity to chimney warmth. The small, disgustingly dirty middle room would be cold and tedious to make habitable. The right-hand room, warmed both by its chimney and the kitchen below, was, he assumed, Merrill's not because any dresses or petticoats hung on its pegs, but it did contain a dressing table with a mirror. He wondered if Merrill ever looked into it. So smoky was its glass that she must have looked to herself like some ephemeral mountain wraith.

As he unpacked, he called to mind his first real sight of her, when she'd whipped off her disreputable hat. Given the length of the honey-colored braid, her hair must be knee length. How he'd like to see it undone. He'd certainly need a photograph of her for his book. And her eyes oval and tipped up slightly, with smoky blue-gray irises, long lashes, and brows darker than her hair. And her skin not the sickly white of fashionable ladies in the East, but a satiny pale color like café au lait with an extra dash of cream, stretched tightly over those lovely, austere facial bones. And her body.

At that point Jonathan, having built a pyramid of empty trunks, was shelving his books on the ledges he had created. The body he fantasized what it would be like under her comical masculine clothing. All he had seen was a slender neck and the thrust of one small breast, but her hands were delicate, callused no doubt but delicate, as he imagined the rest of her would be.

He couldn't think of another woman who had so taken his fancy, except perhaps for the picture of a medieval noblewoman he had seen once in a museum in Europe, a childlike miss wearing a ludicrous headdress instead of a sensible hat like Merrill's. What a character Merrill would make for his book! What an opportunity to become friends with such a woman!

Humming to himself, Jonathan slotted the last volumes of his library onto his makeshift shelves and strode to the kitchen to see what delicious thing he could prepare for her dinner. By the time he had finished feeding her, she'd never want him to leave. Ten minutes later, having reconnoitered the kitchen, he was wondering how impressed she'd be with mutton stew. Still, the spice selection was a pleasant surprise, not what one would expect on a wilderness sheep ranch. Mrs. Oblati's doing, no doubt.

It was full dark when Merrill finished in the barn and started toward the house. The snow had ceased, the wind picked up, and the sweat she'd worked up stowing crates of supplies and rubbing down the horses, now turned cold on her skin beneath her heavy clothing. Boss rubbed against her legs as she latched the barn door, then turned toward the house. Forrester's trunks and boxes were gone from the yard, and lamplight flickered in the second-floor window of her father's room.

Dang, she thought miserably. She didn't want anyone in Pa's room, though she knew why Forrester had chosen it. Uncle Burden's room was a pigsty, a place Mrs. Oblati had refused to enter more than once a year. Merrill could see through the first-floor windows that Forrester had built up the fires on the hearths and lit lamps in the kitchen and in the big room that was what they called it. It was there they ate and sat a spell before bedtime, conducted business, and did whatever else a body had to do that didn't involve sleeping, cooking, and washing. He'd made himself right at home.

She pushed open the heavy door and staggered under a smell so enticing that it brought saliva rushing to her mouth. She'd been thinking that, just to discourage him, she wouldn't eat much of whatever he cooked, but she knew as soon as that smell infiltrated her nostrils that she'd eat. Whatever could he have prepared that smelled so good? Then it occurred to her that he must have used Mrs. Oblati's spices.

When the Italian housekeeper first came to them, Pa had said, "None of that foreign Eye-Talien stuff for us – just plain old meat and potatoes," and Mrs. Oblati had obliged. They'd had years of "plain old meat and potatoes." Sometimes Merrill got sick of them, but then she'd feel disloyal to Pa, who had liked his food bland and plentiful. But, suffering sheep scab, if Forrester had used those old spices, he'd probably poison them both. Like as not, spices went bad as fast as anything. All the more reason for her not to eat, although resisting would be hard. Boss, who was not allowed in the kitchen, seemed to be tempted too. She was sidling in that direction, tail wagging.

As Forrester came through the kitchen door, Merrill called her dog back, then clamped her own mouth shut lest she drool onto her chin.

"It's a relief to see you home safe and sound," he said. "If you want to wash before dinner, I've got water heated."

"You saying I'm dirty?" she snapped.

"No need to take offense, Merrill. I'll put the stew right on and open a bottle of wine."

"I don't drink," said Merrill.

"Well, you'll have to try some of this. I was surprised to find such an adequate selection at that wholesaler's you have in town."

Merrill was thinking of hot water and interrupted him to say, "Stay out of the kitchen while I wash." Then she tramped in. He nodded agreeably and made for the stairs.

Relieved, Merrill hustled to the sink and stripped out of her sheepskin jacket, then pulled down her suspenders and whipped off her flannel shirt and the top of her long johns. There wasn't time for a full wash, but, by golly, the hot water he had heated would feel good on her upper body and face. She grabbed her washrag and towel.

Jonathan hastened down the steps with the candles he'd retrieved from his room. Planning to make it a really festive dinner, he put them into holders on the table and lit them, then opened the wine he'd purchased in Flagstaff, a bold red that, if it hadn't turned, should go well with his highly spiced mutton stew. Assuming she'd have finished washing her hands and face, Jonathan started for the kitchen to bring his creation in to the table. He'd no more than got the door open a few inches when he backed out hastily, but not fast enough to miss the sight of a slender, naked back, a thick, honey-colored braid bisecting it, and then a flash of a small, rounded breast as she reached for a towel.

Jonathan felt stunned. As interested as he'd been in her body, he'd not expected to see so much of it. Obviously there wasn't an ounce of excess flesh on her, except for the womanly areas, yet her spine wasn't knobby as you'd expect in a slender woman because her back was so well muscled. And her arm – she'd never really pictured muscles on a woman. They didn't bulge like a man's, but for all that, he could now understand how she'd lifted his trunks and boxes down. She was sleek and strong, not soft or bony as were females with whom he had been intimate now and then in years past. How would it be, he wondered, to make love to a woman like Merrill – a woman full of stamina and power, as well as beauty?

Jonathan thrust those thoughts abruptly from his mind lest his body betray him when she returned to the room. If they were to get along, if she was not to drive him crazy without ever meaning to, he had to think of her as a partner, not a desirable woman.

''All finished?" he asked with false good cheer as she entered, her blue plaid shirt catching the blue of her eyes, her honey hair curling damply around her face. "I'll put the food on." He practically leapt through the door to the kitchen and hustled out with his stew, which smelled pleasantly appetizing considering what he'd had to work with.

"Candles?" she asked. "We've got coal oil lamps."

"Well," said Jonathan, pulling out her chair and then pushing her into it when she didn't seem to know how to respond, "I thought the candles would be more festive to celebrate our partnership."

He poured the ruby wine into a strange, fragile tumbler that sat like a glass flower on a glass stem. He must have brought it with him, Merrill decided. The Foxes had never owned anything like that.

Before seating himself, he ladled out a steaming heap of his stew onto her plate, then a helping for himself. "Do you want to say grace?" he asked.

"What?"

"Guess not." He raised his wineglass to her and said, "To a profitable and happy partnership."

"I don't drink," mumbled Merrill, miserable at how ungracious she sounded, yet terrified to drink with this man. She'd be sure to make a fool of herself if she did. Instead and in self-defense, she popped a piece of mutton into her mouth. It tasted so wonderful that she hardly wanted to chew lest in swallowing she lose that flavor.

At that point Boss emerged from under the table and eyed them reproachfully. "What does the dog eat?" Jonathan asked.

"Whatever I do." Merrill was embarrassed that she had forgotten all about her dog, not to mention her handyman. "Except for beans. Boss has to be pretty hungry to eat beans. Did you feed Teofilo?"

"The old fellow? He came to the door for a plate." Jonathan went to the kitchen and found a bowl for Boss, who wolfed down her portion and headed for the other end of the room and a nap by the hearth.

"Where were you born?" asked Jonathan conversationally when Merrill was halfway through the first helping. "Here in Arizona?" He was pleased to note that she had drunk some of the wine without seeming to notice and was mopping up gravy with a hunk of leftover bread he'd discovered in the bread box.

"During nooning," she said. At his puzzled glance she added, "Nooning. My folks and Uncle Burden were driving a flock to California from New Mexico. I was born when we stopped to rest the sheep at noon."

"Convenient," he murmured.

Merrill nodded. "It was that. Once you get sheep moving, they don't stop till nooning or till they get to bed ground, just keep right on traveling, and you have to chase after them if they go the wrong way, which isn't much fun because you miss breakfast.

Sheep aren't too smart," she added, remembering that she wanted to discourage him. She took another sip of wine and a mouthful of stew, then said around it, "If you've got a thirsty flock, they can be right on the river's edge, and they won't drink. They just run around bleating. Have to use the dogs to drive them into the water."

"Uh huh." Jonathan refilled her glass and plate.

"Why, if one of your ewes falls down in a little depression, she's not smart enough to turn over and get up. You won't like sheep," warned Merrill, digging into her second helping. "Sheep are dumb!"

"I'll look forward to watching their antics," said Jonathan, grinning.

Merrill shot a suspicious glance at him, wondering whether he was laughing at the sheep or her. Then to cover her confusion, she took another sip of wine and sopped up more gravy with her bread. Finally to divert his attention from the fact that she was eating so much, she asked, "Where were you born?"

"In New York City," he replied.

Merrill sighed. That was, as she'd heard it, the biggest, most sophisticated city in the world, or at least in the United States. Like as not, he thought she was a hopeless country bumpkin.

"My father owns a stevedoring company on the New York docks. They unload ships from all over the world and freight the goods out."

That sounded wonderfully exotic to Merrill, who asked wistfully, "Have you ever been on a ship?"

"Oh, yes. Once I graduated from Princeton, I spent a year in Europe – England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany."

Merrill didn't know what Princeton was, but she realized that he must be naming foreign countries, some across the ocean. Italy, now why would he want to go there? It was such a terrible place that Mrs. Oblati couldn't wait to leave it.

"While I was in Europe, I wrote letters back to my friends, and one of them sent a communication of mine to a newspaper. There was money waiting for me when I got back, which gave me the idea of being a writer."

Think of that! she marveled, taking a big gulp of the red wine and eating the last of her second helping. He not only wrote letters, but they were so good that newspapers wanted to publish them and give him money. He could probably get things published in the Arizona Champion, the Flagstaff newspaper, which she'd never been able to read. Her heart plummeted, and to console herself, she dug into the third helping he'd just given her.

"That's when I came out west," he said. "Always had a fascination for the West. Guess I read every book ever written about it."

"Nothing special about the West." If he liked it out here so much, she'd never get him to leave.

"Oh, you say that because it doesn't seem new and exciting to you. You've known it all your life. What did your family do once they got to California?" he asked.

"Sold the sheep," Merrill replied. "Same sheep that go for $ 2.75 today, and they sold them for sixteen dollars a head! Can you imagine that? Then they tried their luck in the gold fieldsCalifornia and Nevada. Didn't do too bad till Mama died."

"I'm sorry," said Jonathan sympathetically. "What happened to her?"

"Bad water," said Merrill. "If she'd drunk whiskey like Uncle Burden or water with a little whiskey like Pa, she'd be alive today, but she was a teetotaler like me." She caught the flash of a smile on his face and glanced guiltily at her wineglass, which was again half empty. "Mining towns were bad for Uncle Burden too, full of saloons, you know. If there was a saloon around, that's where Uncle Burden wanted to be. As long as Mama was alive, she used to go in and drag him home. After she passed on, I did it myself a time or two." She had almost finished her third helping.

"I remember once in Bodie maybe a year after Mama died. I was walking to the dry goods store when I heard someone in a saloon shouting, 'Burden Fox, I'm gonna kill you,' so of course, I rushed right in. This big Irish miner had Uncle Burden backed up against the bar with a pistol in his belly. I had to shove in between them and grab the gun." Merrill took another gulp of wine and wiped her mouth with her towel-sized napkin. They got one napkin a week – that was Mrs. Oblati's way. No telling what they'd wipe their mouths on now that she was gone – their sleeves probably. "Pa was really mad at me about that gun business. He said I like to got myself shot, and besides that someone spilled beer all over my pinafore. Did get my own firearm out of it 'cause I kept the one I took off the Irishman."

"How old were you?" asked Jonathan.

"Oh, seven, I guess."

"And you've been going armed ever since?"

"Well, of course," she replied. "Now and then you have to threaten someone. Maybe even shoot 'em. I shot a cowboy last year who was fixing to run some of my sheep over a cliff. Those cowboys are rough characters."

"I wouldn't argue," said Jonathan. "I've been a cowboy myself."

She stared at him, open-mouthed.

"My last book was about a trail drive from Texas to Kansas. Would you like to read it?"

Merrill flushed and said, "No, I wouldn't. Why would I want to read a book about cowboys? A more worthless bunch of people never lived. I'd as soon shoot a cowboy as"

"I didn't say you had to read it," Jonathan interrupted, looking a little hurt, "but I will say it's too bad your Uncle Burden doesn't have your head for alcohol."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Merrill.

"Between us," he said, "we've just finished off two bottles of wine, and it doesn't seem to have affected you a bit."

She stared, aghast, hardly able to believe what he had said, but there they sat, two empty bottles and just a sip or two left in her flower glass.

"I guess you were teasing me about being a teetotaler," he said.

Merrill shook her head wordlessly, wondering how she was supposed to be feeling now that she had indulged in so much alcohol. He was wrong about it not affecting her. It had made her loquacious, friendly when she should have kept her mouth shut and glared at him. It was going to be a hard task, getting rid of Jonathan Forrester. She'd really have to work at it.

Chapter Three

"In case you didn't realize, this is an unusual catering arrangement," said Jonathan. "I serve a retired shepherd recluse out the back door, a picky dog under the table, and two meals on top of it."

"If you don't like the way we do things, you can always leave," said Merrill.

"Nonsense," Jonathan replied. Boss was nudging him for another helping of sausage and flapjacks. "I can't figure out why a dog this hungry passed up a second helping at dinner last"

"Too spicy," said Merrill.

"It wasn't too spicy for you. I thought he ate everything you eat."

"She. Boss is a she, and she likes more syrup on her flapjacks."

Jonathan grinned and applied the syrup more liberally to the dog's third serving before he slid the bowl back under the table where Boss began to lap up the molasses with noisy appreciation. "Never heard of a dog with a sweet tooth," muttered Jonathan.

"Uncle Burden had one too." Merrill was staring at her own breakfast, the sight and smell of which made her feel queasy.

"So it runs in the family, does it?" Jonathan unfolded his newspaper. "Want part of the Champion? I picked it up yesterday before we left Flagstaff."

Merrill shook her head, which was aching abominably. So much for his idea that she was an accomplished drinker. She never wanted to taste wine again, much less be offered a newspaper she couldn't read.

"It says here that Samuel F. Bullock, who shot Ferdinand G. Hatch during a political dispute, has been acquitted. I wonder whether the jury agreed with Mr. Bullock's politics or his plea."

Bad as she felt, Merrill realized that she'd just been offered a ripe opportunity to discourage him, one she couldn't afford to pass up. "Juries don't hang too many white men," she said. "They always figure it was self-defense, this being a violent area. Cattlemen killing sheepmen and vice versa. Indians killing white men and vice versa. We got the Apaches and the Navahos raiding here in the territory. They massacred twenty or thirty whites at a time last year. And of course, there are the cowboys – obnoxious lot, swaggering around town, picking fights, driving cattle right through the middle of Flagstaff. They did that last July. If they don't shoot you, likely they'll kill you in a stampede. And the trains are always wrecking and getting held up by bandits, folks getting killed – both trainmen and passengers. Fellow named Frank Warner shot conductor Peagram that trial's coming up. Yes sir, must seem pretty uncivilized to you." She sneaked a look at him over the rim of her coffee cup and discovered that he didn't seem at all alarmed. He wasn't even looking at her.

"I couldn't help but notice the pots you've got on that shelf, Merrill," he said. "Wonderful pieces. Who's the archaeologist in the family?"

"The what?"

"The pot collector."

"There's Indian cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon," she admitted. "When I get a chance, I like to go digging."

"You have a feel for it," he responded. "Don't know when I've seen so many fine specimens, some of them very old."

Forgetting her campaign to run him off, Merrill nodded enthusiastically. "I never go over there but I wonder who they were and how long ago they lived in those caves, what their lives were like. It's a real shame it's so hard to get down to the dwellings in winter when I have the time to do it."

"Maybe you'll take me with you next spring," suggested Jonathan. "I'd not only like to see the ruins; I'm pretty sure I could sell an article on the subject back east. We'd co-author it."

Now there was an irony, thought Merrill. He wanted her to co-author an article, although she could neither read nor write. She couldn't even get rid of an unwanted partner. The enthusiastic gleam in his eye told her that he'd be here at least until spring.

In mid November Jonathan insisted on making the supply rounds to the sheep camps with her. She spent the travel time telling him a hundred distasteful things about sheep, but he said, as they approached yet another flock, ''Even so, a pastoral scene has a certain biblical charm, don't you think?"

Merrill turned a puzzled glance his way.

"Well, after all, King David"

"Who?"

"Merrill," he asked, grinning, "are you a heathen?"

She scowled at him.

"King David was a shepherding the Old Testament. And among those who came to pay reverence at the birth of the Christ child in the New Testament were shepherds. With Christmas so close now"

"We don't celebrate Christmas at the F & F," said Merrill. She didn't really see the application to modern sheep raising. Obviously King David's time and even the Christ child's were long before hers. "I don't imagine you'd be too charmed by a flock with scabies," she said smugly. "Did King David's sheep have scabies?"

"Would that be sheep scab? I noticed in the newspaper that the Daggs brothers are calling for stronger sheep scab laws in Arizona."

"Oh, sure," said Merrill. "The Arizona Sheep Breeders and Wool Growers Association. Been meeting since '84, complaining about low wool prices and high freight rates, and the big cattle companies taking over public lands – much they've been able to do about it. You want to represent us, you're welcome. They sure wouldn't take to a woman turning up."

"I don't see why not," said Jonathan. "Apple said you're the best flock-master in northern Arizona. They ought to welcome you."

Merrill sniffed cynically.

"Of course, I'll attend the meetings if you want me to," he added. "I'd be honored."

She knew immediately that she'd made a mistake in showing any dependence on him, although what she said was true: the association would never welcome her.

"Now tell me about scabies – just so I don't make a jackass of myself in front of the other flock owners."

"The name says it all," she replied, planning to make scabies sound as disgusting as possible. "First your sheep start rubbing themselves against trees or posts, frazzled as a dog in heat." Then she flushed, realizing what she'd said, and hurried on. "They've got itching blisters under the fleece and break them by rubbing. That's what forms the scabs. Pretty soon you've got a sheep getting skinnier and more miserable, bald as an eagle's head in places, wool hanging off the skin in tatters like a shirt that's been through barbed wire. After a while your whole flock's infected, you got no wool clip, and they start dying like coyotes at a poisoned spring."

"Well, Merrill, you do have a way with words. You should be a writer yourself."

After that Merrill shut up, flattered and saddened because she'd never be a writer or even a reader.

"I'd be obliged," he said, "to have you read one of my books. Wouldn't have to be the one about cowboys. For instance, I wrote one about a madam in a"

"You want me to read a book about a fallen woman?" she demanded, angrily defensive. She wished he'd stop offering her books and newspapers. She couldn't keep her secret long if he did that. And the strangest thing was that every time she refused to read one of his books, he looked as if she'd hurt his feelings.

"Have you had much trouble with sheep scab?" he asked.

"Some," she replied. "I keep a sharp eye out for it."

"Maybe when you see that a sheep's got it, you could kill the animal and sell it for meat before"

"We don't stock the Rambouillet or any of the heavy meat animals."

"Then maybe we should."

"Bad idea. The feed's not plentiful enough here, and they don't have the flocking instinct that the Vermont merinos and the native sheep have. Oh, there are folks trying foreign breeds, but it's not going to work."

"I'll take your word," said Jonathan.

Merrill had to bite her tongue to keep from thanking him for his confidence and yelling at him because no matter what she said, she couldn't seem to discourage him. He acted like he was going to spend the rest of his life sleeping in Pa's room, cooking up fine dishes for her and Boss and Teofilo, and entertaining her on her rounds between sheep camps when she was used to being by herself, bored with her own thoughts and worries.

Jonathan – he insisted she call him Jonathan was reading the newspaper to her again, and she weak-willed female that she was – couldn't resist listening.

"Says here William McCullum's recovering from being rolled over by logs."

"Lucky him," said Merrill bitterly. "That's what happened to Pa, but he never recovered. He was bossing a gang of tie-cutters for the railroad, making a little extra money." She was sitting in Pa's chair, toasting her stocking feet on the big stone hearth. First time they'd been warm all day.

Jonathan nodded. "I know what you're going to tell me. This is a dangerous place. Paper says C. P. Stanton was shot by three Mexicans at Antelope Springs."

"Good Lord, that's real close to Flagstaff."

"And Cista Lucero was killed," he continued.

"That one of the Mexicans that shot Stanton?" she asked. "Never know who's going to get killed next. Could be you."

"I could get killed just as fast crossing a street in New York," he pointed out. "Ah hah! Sheep news. W. J. Hill has moved his flock to winter range north of the San Francisco Mountains."

"He's leaving it a little late," said Merrill. She had the passing realization that she and Jonathan, sitting in front of a roaring fire, were like two old married folks. Quickly Merrill admonished herself not to think that way. No chance that an educated, handsome man like Jonathan Forrester would ever marry a homely, illiterate.

"Here's some good news. The San Juan Saloon's going to have an old-fashioned rodeo dance. Reckon you'll want to go in for that."

"Look," she said, "I don't have time for dances at the San Juan." Time or a dress, she thought. "Neither do you." Maybe if he never had any fun, he'd want to leave.

"I don't see that we're so all-fired busy we can't"

"Maybe you aren't," she interrupted. "You're always sitting around the table, scribbling, but I'm out there doing real work every day. Maybe you ought to try it. In fact, it won't be a bad thing to have a man with big teeth on the job." She'd just had an inspired idea.

"Big teeth?" He looked puzzled. "You want me to bite someone?"

"Most of the rams have to be castrated, you know. How do you think it's done?"

"With teeth?" he asked, surprised. "I've castrated cattle, but we used knives. Only place I've ever heard they use their teeth is in Australia."

"Where?"

"Australia. It's west of California. Across the Pacific Ocean. They raise a lot of sheep there. Got kangaroos and"

"What's a kangaroo?"

"Well, they carry their babies in a pouch."

"Like possums?" How was it he always managed to derail her conversational attacks and catch her interest at the same time?

"Right, but a kangaroo looks more like oh, maybe a giant squirrel. Big tail. Short front legs. Not so furry. They travel in huge leaps, but on the ground, not through trees."

"You know the damnedest things," said Merrill. "Imagine a giant squirrel with a little squirrel in a pouch."

Jonathan smiled at her. "You know what I like about you, Merrill? There isn't a thing you don't know about your own world, and a thing you don't know about the rest of the world that you're not interested in learning. Now, that's what I call true intelligence."

How was she going to discourage a man who, no matter what she said, seemed to admire her?

"Have a little more wine?" he asked.

She held out her goblet. "Might as well."

"I notice we've got some fine fat squirrels around here. I'll have to get out my rifle and make you a squirrel stew."

"Didn't know you could shoot."

"I'm a crack shot. Now let's get back to that San Juan Saloon and the rodeo party. Even if we don't go, it sounds to me like there's a lot of money to be made investing in a place like that."

Merrill felt a flash of panic. If he was going to start buying into things in town, she'd never get rid of him. "You don't want to do that. Flagstaff's always burning down. Half the town went up in flames last February. They were rebuilding for months."

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "you have to admire their spirit. That's the kind of town a man wants to invest in."

Merrill sighed and gave up. She'd have to think of some new way to discourage him.

Merrill viewed the Mexican who came to her door with hard suspicion. Except for the two Californios, who had come with them over the Mohave, she suspected that all Mexicans were horse thieves. This fellow, with his long hair and black clothes, certainly looked like one, but the flood of excited Spanish that issued from underneath his flowing bandito mustache doused her suspicions.

"What is it?" asked Jonathan, coming up behind her.

She ignored him in order to question the visitor. When he had finally exhausted his information, Merrill said to Jonathan, "Got to head for the sheep camps."

He gave her a sour look. "Tomorrow's Thanksgiving," he protested. "Why did I bother to shoot that turkey if we're not going to be here?"

"Well, stay home and eat it yourself," said Merrill. "I'm leaving."

"Maybe I will," muttered Jonathan, looking distinctly sulky.

Merrill almost grinned. He certainly took his cooking seriously. The Mexican let loose another barrage of Spanish.

"Lobos?" said Jonathan. "That means wolves, doesn't it?"

"Joaquin sends word he's lost four sheep to wolves and needs some fire power." She spoke to the Mexican again. He shook his head, answering.

"What's he saying now?" asked Jonathan.

"He says he doesn't have time to stay and eat Thanksgiving dinner with you but thanks me for the invitation."

"Oh, I see." Jonathan looked even angrier. "I'm supposed to stay home cooking turkey while you go out wolf hunting. Forget it. I'm as good a shot as you."

Merrill raised her eyebrows but didn't argue. Instead she reached into her pocket to give the messenger a coin for his trouble and, when he had left, went first to the gun rack to lift down her Winchester, then to retrieve a supply of ammunition, and finally to the kitchen to assemble food supplies.

"Is this wolf hunt going to take till Christmas?" Jonathan asked. "Or maybe we're going to restock the camps while we're hunting wolves?"

"It's a week to restocking time," said Merrill, "but wolves move on. It may take a few days to track them down, and the weather's bound to turn nasty on us sooner or later."

"I notice you speak Spanish," he said, following her into the big room.

"Got shepherds that speak Spanish," she replied. "They'd never have left California if they thought they had to learn English. Same with the Portuguese and my Basque, Sanxi Ferrieres."

"Good lord, you speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Basque? What else?"

She gave him a sharp look because he was smiling as if he didn't think, one, that she really spoke all those languages and, two, that she'd have any others at her command. "Some Chinese," she said. "I don't hold much with Celestials as shepherds. They're not too reliable, but still"

"You never forget anything, do you?" Jonathan interrupted.

She glanced at him, puzzled.

"Not too many people pick up four extra languages in passing, as it were. I assume you didn't have grammar books for any of these languages."

She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering if he'd finally realized that she couldn't read.

"And then there's the figures. You remember every number pertaining to sheep for ten years back."

"Further back than that," she said huffily.

"My apologies." He grinned. "And you can do figures in your head that would take me five minutes to do on paper. Did you think I hadn't noticed when you calculated what we might make on the spring clip at three or four different prices?

I redid the figures on paper after you went to bed, and you hit it right every time."

"Why wouldn't I? Numbers are numbers. They don't change."

"Your memory is phenomenal, girl. Sometimes I think you don't know how smart you are." He turned toward the stairs to assemble a wolf-hunting wardrobe, leaving Merrill astounded. She'd never thought of her abilities as anything unusual, especially considering that she couldn't read.

After a long ride, they shot two wolves, one each, between Joaquin's camp and Sanxi's, the Basque shepherd who was the closest thing Merrill had to a grandfather. She loved the old man dearly and had always told him her secrets and relied on his advice. Merrill hoped he'd live forever. Given his seamed brown face and thin white hair, he looked as if he already had, yet the old man could still lift a stranded ewe, and his eyes were sharp.

When they arrived, he'd killed another of the wolf pack. "How many sheep did you lose?" she asked in Basque, and he answered, "Three," and pointed them in the direction where he thought the pack was traveling.

She and Jonathan did not tarry but went tracking, which is to say Merrill tracked on foot and Jonathan followed on horseback. Tracking was not a Western skill he'd acquired during his years of adventure. Nor was he an ardent walker. They caught up with and killed three more wolves, then returned to Sanxi's camp, now a full day away from headquarters. Merrill decreed that they spend the night where they were.

As he prepared dinner, Sanxi studied Jonathan closely, and Merrill's attempts to distract the shepherd with conversation met little success. ''It is not courteous of you," he said to her finally as he passed roasted mutton to Jonathan, "to ignore your partner and speak without translating in a tongue he does not understand."

"It is my hope," she replied, "that he will become unhappy with Arizona and go away." She bit into her own share of the dripping meat and added, "This was my ranch and still would be if it were not that my miserable uncle sold half without asking me."

"Burden never liked sheep," said the old man. "It is surprising to me that he stayed as long as he did."

"Probably no one made him an offer before now," she retorted bitterly.

"His betrayal may turn out well. Tell me of this man who is your new partner."

"He writes books."

"Ah, a learned one." Sanxi nodded, an expression of respect lighting his dark eyes under their wrinkled lids.

"And travels all over the world. Even across the ocean. He has seen both France and Spain."

Sanxi beamed at Jonathan, who asked Merrill, "What did you say to him?"

"I said you had been to Europe."

"I imagine even at his age and after so many years, he misses his homeland," Jonathan murmured. "And a beautiful place it is."

Merrill scowled at him.

"What did he say?" asked Sanxi.

"That your homeland is beautiful," she mumbled.

The old man smiled and nodded to Jonathan, then proceeded to question Merrill closely, ascertaining everything she knew about the writer and every interaction between them, chuckling with amusement at Merrill's failures to discourage her partner from staying in Arizona. "You might as well give up," said Sanxi when she had finished. "This one will stay and marry you."

Merrill's mouth dropped open. "Old age is turning your brain to sheep dip," she muttered.

"What did he say?" asked Jonathan curiously.

"None of your business."

"Do not speak to your future husband with such disrespect. It is not seemly," said the old man.

"He's not my future husband," snapped Merrill, who knew all the reasons why he never would be. "He is, as you say, learned, and I can't read. He's not even as old as I."

"How old is he then?" asked Sanxi.

"Twenty-eight."

"Ha! That is nothing. You are only twenty-nine, and he has seen more of the world than you. He will enrich your life. Also, it's time you bore a child. If not, who will follow you and inherit all this?" He waved his arm to encompass the sheep who had bedded down for the night, the surrounding mountains and valleys, some of which Merrill owned, some of which she grazed and hoped to buy when she had the money.

Yes, she thought downheartedly, who would come after her? She had tried for years to find her father a woman so that he could marry and have a son to help Merrill run the ranch when Pa was gone, a brother who would in turn marry and have sons to keep the name alive and the ranch in Fox hands. But there had never been another wife or any brothers. Pa had loved Eleanor Merrill Fox to his dying day and would look at no other woman. Merrill had even tried to marry Uncle Burden to a widow who was still in her child-bearing years, but no sensible woman would have Uncle Burden. That left Merrill, the last of the Foxes. Suffering sheep scab, what was she to do? Jonathan would not want to marry her so that she could produce her own heir, and she knew of no other man who would, especially now that the ranch was only half hers.

She felt Jonathan's hand touch her shoulder and looked up. "What did the old man say to worry you so?" he asked.

"Nothing. Nothing," she mumbled, more unhappy than ever at the kindness Jonathan always showed her. "We'd best turn in," she added, reaching for her bedroll and heading toward the herder's wagon, under which Jonathan and Sanxi would sleep while Merrill took the bunk inside.

"What? Are we not to play together?" asked the old man. "Are you so bemused that you have forgotten to bring your flute?"

Merrill glanced over at her friend, sitting stubbornly beside his fire. Then she went to her saddlebags and took out the flute that Sanxi had carved for her and taught her to play when she was eleven and her father and uncle had given up on the gold fields and gone back to raising sheep. That was before the drought had driven them out of California in '76 and back across the desert to try their luck in the Arizona Territory. For another half hour she and Sanxi played the mournful and the merry songs of the Basque shepherds, their separate parts intertwining with the beauty of those who have played together for many years. As long as the music lasted, Merrill forgot her worries and gave herself to the joy of it.

"Now we sleep," said Sanxi and tucked away his flute.

"Tell him for me," said Jonathan, who had listened to every note floating out into mountain air that bathed their cheeks and fingers like ice water, "that I have heard the finest musicians the world has to offer, both here and abroad, and never have I heard anything more beautiful, nor music that spoke more tellingly to my heart."

Merrill stared at him for a moment, horrified that tears had come to her eyes. She blinked them back and turned to Sanxi, for she would not deprive the old man of such a fine compliment. Sanxi nodded and smiled at Jonathan, revealing both his missing teeth and his acceptance of a new friend.

Merrill sighed and climbed inside the wagon, bedroll under her arm. Always Jonathan said the right thing to make friends, to fit in. No doubt he had done this everywhere he went and, when he was finished here, would move on and find new friends somewhere else. The prospect made her heart sore. She no longer knew what she wanted of Jonathan Forrester, and Sanxi's prophecy, that she and Jonathan would marry, had not eased her confusion. She knew that a marriage between them was impossible.

Chapter Four

"Bruce Rosson got lost in the snow and died. That would be two years ago January."

"He didn't have you with him," said Jonathan. They were huddled side by side with Boss between them in a herder's shack, knees drawn to their chins, horse blankets around their shoulders, their mounts shirting and snorting not four feet away.

"Fellow named Prentice went snow blind two months later," said Merrill.

"I'd say we're safe from that peril," Jonathan replied, "seeing as this shed is black as a railroad tunnel."

He had a point; snow blindness hadn't been much of a scare tactic under the circumstances. In truth, Merrill wished she hadn't insisted on leaving Sanxi's camp when the snow was falling so heavily. She'd just meant to convince Jonathan that they were lost and in danger of freezing to deat – has another lesson on the perils of life in northern Arizona. She certainly hadn't meant to actually die out here, which might now happen with the snow piling up and the temperature dropping like an eagle swooping down on a spring lamb. Unfortunately, there was no way to heat this miserable shack.

"Not that I don't appreciate your warning me of the danger, but I have every confidence in you, Merrill. You're the most knowledgeable woman I know."

Merrill gritted her teeth. The man would go to his grave, frozen solid but believing that she'd save him.

"Now, why don't we share a can of beans and pass the time telling stories?" Which they did, except for Boss, who hated beans and couldn't talk. Jonathan drove his knife into a can, and they shared Merrill's spoon as he told her about trailing cattle to Kansas and she responded with tales of herding sheep across the Mohave to Arizona when drought forced her family to leave California. They swapped mining tales, hers about California and Nevada, his about New Mexico. By late afternoon they were eating canned peaches, which Boss did enjoy, and Merrill was telling Jonathan about hauling the spring clip by ox team over Raton Pass to Trinidad, Colorado, before the railroad came to Flagstaff in '83 and made their lives simpler. "'Course that's when the range started filling up," she concluded ruefully. "By the '90s the sheep and cattle'll be haunch to haunch all over the San-Francisco's, and there'll be enough corpses from the range wars to make the countryside smell like buzzard heaven."

"By God, Merrill, you're wonderful company," said Jonathan, laughing as he hugged her.

Merrill, who had been shivering, froze up, bemused at the feel of his arm around her. Boss, caught between them, wiggled irritably.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Jonathan said, hastily removing his arm.

"I wasn't offended," she mumbled. While she was turning into a human icicle, he was still radiating heat; his arm had felt good.

"You were shivering, weren't you?" he asked. "I don't want to seem ungentlemanly, but I think we'd get through the night better if we curled up spoon fashion with the blankets wrapped around us." So after sharing two more cans of beans, Boss again turning up her nose, they curled together and shared their warmth, Merrill sandwiched between Jonathan and the dog.

Jonathan, who had been lusting after her, managed to keep himself under control by solving the most difficult mathematical equations he could remember from his years at Princeton. Since he'd hated math, that cooled him off faster than the temperature of the air around them, which he estimated was going to drop below zero. Maybe he should have paid attention to her warnings about danger this time, not that there was much they could do about their situation, other than what they were doing. Merrill must find him singularly unattractive, he mused as he was dropping off to sleep with her slight, strong body tucked against him. She hadn't hesitated in taking up his offer to snuggle.

Merrill, although as toasty as a flea on a live dog, didn't sleep for some time. She had thinking to do. First, she concluded that she was not going to frighten Jonathan. He wouldn't leave until he was good and ready. But he would, she was sure, leave someday. Then the ranch would be hers, and, as Sanxi had said, she would need an heir. Why couldn't I have been a boy? she wondered. Then I could just get me a wife and take care of the problem the easy way.

Bearing a child wasn't going to be easy at all. How was she to tend to business, all blown up like a horse with colic? And with Mrs. Oblati gone, who would tend the baby while Merrill was tending the flocks? Not to mention what folks would say about an illegitimate child, for Sanxi was wrong; Jonathan wouldn't be proposing marriage. Sanxi had spoken from love, something Jonathan would never feel for Merrill, not in a million years.

Still she savored the warmth of his strong body against hers and experienced a flash of inspiration. Jonathan Forrester was prime breeding stock big, strong, smart, even brave, and as stubborn as an overburdened mule. Any child of his and hers would be a top-grade crossbreed. If she had to produce her own child, she couldn't do better in the stud department than Jonathan. Of course, the problem was getting him to sire a child. She recollected that Pa had always said a ram would mount any ewe in heat and that men were no better. If she could send Jonathan a signal that she was available, maybe he'd take her up on it. And likely as soon as he discovered that she was with child, he'd run for his life.

Then she'd have at least two of the three things she wanted out of life – her own ranch in her own hands and someone to inherit it. The third thing, learning to read, was beyond her grasp. But how in the world did a woman signal that she was available? Wake him up and say, "I'm in heat"? She supposed that, in some ways, she'd never have a better opportunity than this one, since they were marooned together in this shack. On the other hand, they weren't alone, and she didn't much like the idea of losing her virginity with Boss and the horses looking on. Conception, at least among humans, ought to be a bit more private. On that thought Merrill allowed herself to drift into sleep. If they got out of this fix, she'd think more on the problem. No use seducing a man, only to freeze to death before her womb had a chance to ripen.

Merrill stood in her room staring into the cloudy oval mirror that hung between two raised sections of the dressing table. Pa had bought it for her when she was nineteen. He'd said it was about time she started taking some interest in her appearance. "Fellas like a well-turned-out girl," he'd told her, "and girls, no matter how handy around the ranch, gotta marry." Here she was, twenty-nine and needing a child, but with no more idea than she'd had at nineteen of how to be ''well turned out." In the struggle to establish the ranch, Pa had neglected to provide any practical advice.

Downstairs Jonathan, unaware of her ill-formed plot, was still reading the newspaper he'd picked up in Flagstaff, which had told them what they'd discovered for themselves during the hard going from that shack to ranch headquarters: two feet of snow had fallen, after which the temperature had dropped to seventeen below zero, causing stock losses to both sheepmen and cattlemen. Merrill figured the F & F had lost sixty head, not counting the wolf kills. Looking up from his newspaper, smiling at her, Jonathan had said, "Didn't I say you'd get us home? You're a hero, Merrill."

Merrill had noticed that he didn't say heroine. A man wouldn't want to bed a hero, even if she had got him home through two feet of snow. Then he'd read aloud about the Walters' little girl being saved with milk and eggs after she drank a bottle of corrosive sublimate, thus reminding Merrill of her need to bear a child. A girl would be nice, she'd thought wistfully. So now she was studying herself in the mirror, seeing, as through a heavy winter fog lying over a mountain valley, herself a skinny female rancher, not white-skinned, not soft and womanly, all bone and sinew.

Would a dress help? she wondered. The only dress in the house was one of her mother's, a pretty blue thing that Pa had got out every year on the anniversary of Mama's death. Merrill went to the trunk in the corner and lifted the dress from its muslin wrappings, shaking out the folds of the skirt, then holding it up in front of herself as she peered once more into the mirror. She had Mama's eyes, so the blue silk was a match. Without much hope, Merrill stripped out of her shirt and trousers and her long johns. She didn't have any female-type undergarments, and the goose bumps were already rising on her skin, so she pulled the dress quickly over her head and tried to settle it in place.

Then she looked at herself again and shook her head at what she saw. It was hopeless. Mama must have been her height but carrying a lot more flesh. The round, low neck of the dress dropped off Merrill's shoulders and barely covered her nipples. The upper halves of her little breasts were exposed as if she were some skinny whore at one of the brothels in town. Pathetic, she thought, staring at her reflection. Because she didn't fill out the bodice, the waistline hung down around her hips.

The knock at her door didn't surprise her at all. When luck was running against you, there was no use trying to swim upstream. "Come right in," she said bitterly, having abandoned all thought of seducing Jonathan. If he stood to stud for anyone, it would never be her.

Jonathan pushed her door open, saying, "Donahue's got a new billiard table at the Mineral Belt. Says so right here. If he can get one, so can we." He looked up from the paper, smiling, and then his eyes widened as he caught sight once more of the beautiful lines of her back.

"We could put a billiard table in the big room downstairs," he continued, his voice trailing off because he was mesmerized by the smoky reflection of her delicate collarbones and the rounded curves above her neckline. She looked like an ethereal wood nymph, or maybe one of those ballet dancers he'd seen in Paris, so slender yet, like Merrill, agile and strong. He was drawn across the room to her like a compass needle to true north. Curving his hands over her bare shoulders, he bent and touched his lips to her neck. Then he lifted the long braid aside, dropped it over her shoulder between her breasts, and kissed her again.

Evidently any dress would do, thought Merrill wonderingly as she trembled under the second touch of his mouth, which now moved over the curve of her shoulder, brushing the dress off and revealing her left breast as the blue silk slipped to her elbow.

"Merrill?" he whispered, and he turned her around, wrapping her closely in his arms.

Merrill had never been kissed on the lips before and found it surprisingly pleasant. His mouth was coaxing and his breath sweet with wine. Before he'd finished kissing her, the dress had fallen off completely, and she hadn't tried to stop it happening, although he seemed surprised to find her naked under the blue silk. He drew in his breath sharply and tightened his hold on her, his hand moving up to touch her breast. That was another surprise. Having her breast touched was a little like being stung by a fire ant, only nicer. It surely did send a shock right through you, a shock that headed straight down and just about melted your female parts, she marveled. While he was stroking that breast, Merrill was suffering from wobbly knees.

She didn't know exactly how human females were bred, something like ewes she supposed, but Jonathan, kissing her again, had picked her up and was heading for her narrow bed. Like as not he was cold and looking to warm himself by the chimney stones and wrap up in the quilts. Merrill herself was in a fever and not bothered at all by the cold air. Still, he laid her down on the bed and came down beside her, not bothering with quilts. Maybe he was in a fever too. Hard to tell when he always gave off heat like a good fire on the hearth.

She supposed he meant to take her. He certainly was busy, touching her breasts, her hips, even between her legs, all the time kissing her, and she kissing back. She liked it all, although she'd never expected to take such pleasure in getting herself with child.

Then Jonathan rose and stripped his clothes off. Suffering sheep scab! thought Merrill. She'd never imagined a human organ would be that big, and looking at him, somewhat alarmed at the prospect of him pushing that thing inside her, she felt as skittery as an ewe at her first breeding, which, of course, she was.

He must have noticed her alarm, because he said, "Merrill?" again in that questioning way. Well, she wasn't going to back out. If getting pregnant hurt, then it would just have to. She reached for his hand, and Jonathan, kneeling beside the bed, cupped her face and kissed her lovingly. He must like her a little, she decided as he stretched out and rolled his weight onto her, sliding a knee between hers. Or maybe he just liked what they were doing.

Merrill wrapped her arms around his shoulders to encourage him. Couldn't have him back off because he took her for some scared little chipmunk. She wasn't really scared. Her body was telling her that it wanted him, there between her legs, where he was pressing into her, front to front, surprisingly. She barely had time to realize that it wasn't going to be like sheep or horses when she felt something inside her give way with a sharp pain. Jonathan said, "Oh, sweetheart," in a rueful voice as she bit her lip and held her breath.

Sweetheart? Merrill felt a thrill of happiness, and then he began to move and she to tremble, soaring, her heart pounding and her legs wrapped around him as if to let go would be to lose the most lovely, frighteningly exciting feeling in the world. When he withdrew after what seemed like hours and hours of splendor, she was still throbbing.

"Good Lord, Merrill," he said, as breathless as she, "I wish I'd known that you'd never-ah-that is, I hope I didn't hurt you too much."

"Well, it was no worse than getting tangled in barbed wire," she replied, beginning to catch her breath. Then she added, "Barbed wire's no big problem anymore. The territorial legislature passed a law in '85 that folks can't put up wire without their neighbor's What are you laughing about?"

Jonathan, who was still holding her in his arms and chuckling against her neck in little puffs of breath that tickled her, said, "Well, most men hope they're a little more pleasurable to a woman than barbed wire."

"I didn't mean to say it wasn't enjoyable," Merrill replied defensively. "In fact," she admitted, "this is one of the few times I can think of that being a woman was worth all the trouble."

Jonathan pushed himself up on his elbow and gazed down at her. "Sweetheart, I do think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. You make me all the sorrier that I didn't have the sense to anticipate your – well, inexperience, that I wasn't gentler."

"I suppose you mean you should have realized that a homely woman wouldn't have attracted any men, and you've got that right."

"Homely!" he exclaimed. "Merrill, you're beautiful."

She pulled away from him, scowling. "If there's anything I hate, it's a liar," she said and gave him a push. "Why don't you go on back to your own room now?"

Merrill"

He looked shocked – at her rudeness, she supposed. But what did he expect? To stay all night and have another go at her? Once ought to do the job, and any idiot knew she wasn't beautiful. "Go on," she ordered, sadness settling in. If he hadn't lied to her, she wouldn't have minded doing it again, although she supposed all those church folks in town would say it was immoral, bedding with him just for the fun of it now that she'd got her baby started.

"I hardly meant offense by saying you're beautiful," he murmured, having risen from her side. Merrill whipped a quilt up. She didn't want him looking at her skinny body. He'd turned to leave, giving her a fine view of his body with that long, powerful back and muscular rump. She'd be having a fine, strong child, and Jonathan, if he stayed long enough to find out, would be on the train to San Francisco before you could say "Put out that fire" to a Chinaman. With that thought, she turned over and cried because she was in love and likely to make a fool of herself if she didn't get rid of him fast. The worst of it was that she didn't want him to go.

How could she not know how beautiful she was? Jonathan wondered as he settled into his own bed. He'd never met a woman like her intelligent, although he'd never seen her open a book; completely self-sufficient, although she had that sweet touch of vulnerability that never failed to soften his heart; and ardent – Lord, but she was a hot-blooded woman. How could she have kept herself untouched all these years when that kind of passion simmered underneath her practical, hardworking exterior? Making love with Merrill was like being caught up in a tornado.

He wished she hadn't kicked him out of her bed, that he still held her in his arms. Just thinking of it made him ache to possess her again. And again. Jonathan opened his eyes wide in the darkness, for it had suddenly occurred to him that he might be in love. He loved women, certainly. But in love? And with a woman who was, at this moment, if she hadn't sensibly gone off to sleep, madder than hell at him because he'd told her she was beautiful. Well, she'd have to get used to it. If she thought he'd allow her to continue her funny little campaign to get rid of him, she was in for the fight of her life. Then, uneasily, he admitted to himself that Merill was one tough lady. What if she won?

Jonathan was washing his clothes in the big wooden washtub. He didn't mind cooking, but he hated washing clothes. As he fished his long johns out of the steaming water, Merrill stamped into the kitchen, snow falling off her boots in dirty clots. Well, he wasn't mopping the floor after her. If she expected maid service, she could think again.

Jonathan was peeved. For two nights since their encounter in her room, he'd lain in bed burning for her, while she treated him like a leper, hardly speaking to him by day and locking her door at night. "You must have the biggest wardrobe in northern Arizona," he muttered as she put on the coffeepot to heat. "I haven't seen you wash clothes yet."

"I'm going to town," said Merrill, madder than ever for some reason he couldn't fathom. She stamped out of the room.

As he flung the wash water out the back door and poured more into the tub so that he could rinse his laundry, he heard Merrill tramping up and down the stairs, saw her dumping sacks of something or other into the wagon. Stupid woman! Going into town on such a cold day. The snow was wearing away, but not the low temperatures. She'd freeze her pretty nose before she got to Flagstaff. And he'd freeze his long johns.

He knew from experience that they'd turn into flat-bodied ice figures by morning if he hung them outdoors. With Merrill gone, maybe he'd string a line in the big room. Housewifery was hell! He should have sweet-talked that mustachioed Italian woman into staying on. And where was Merrill going anyway? Getting away from him probably. He supposed that, just like a woman, she was regretting their night together. While he was dying to lure her back into bed.

Jonathan's remark about the size of her wardrobe had made her wonder if she smelled bad. Merrill had worn her way twice through her own clothes, her Pa's, and even the clothes Uncle Burden had left behind, which just went to show how much attention Jonathan paid to her appearance.

He'd never noticed that her working clothes kept getting looser and longer until she looked like a scarecrow in a potato field. Beautiful was she? Even Burden Fox hadn't looked good in his own clothes. Not likely she did. And now she hadn't a half-clean thing left, so, hating dirty clothes, she'd bundled up the three Fox wardrobes to carry in to Charlie Kee, the Chinese laundryman.

She sure hoped they hadn't run him out of town again. Ever since the fire started in Sam Kee's restaurant last February – Sam was some relation to Charlie – and burned down half of Flagstaff, the folks in town had been running the Chinese off. 'Course, the Chinese came right back. If she were lucky, she'd get her clothes washed between one exodus of Celestials and the next.

"Reaving town. Wash own clothes," said Charlie Kee. His face was expressionless as he bundled up his belongings.

"They chasing you off again?" asked Merrill. What was she going to do with all those dirty clothes out in the wagon?

"Fragstaff not rike Chinee."

Merrill nodded sympathetically. The townsfolk didn't care much for her either. They were glad to take her money, but they snickered behind her back, and the women tut-tutted, especially now that Jonathan was living at her place. No doubt, everyone in town believed that she and Jonathan were up to no good, which would be the truth after her successful seduction of him. Or had it been the other way around?

Whichever, she really had to get rid of him. Undoubtedly, she was pregnant now. She'd got out of bed the next morning and hobbled over to her mirror sure of it. He was a lusty man. She doubted that many men could have left her with muscles as sore as a shearer's at clipping time. Her body had recovered, of course. Her mind was the problem. She couldn't stop thinking about him. When she should be plotting how to drive him off, she was thinking about how much she enjoyed his company, in bed or out.

''Where you heading, Charlie?" she asked. He shrugged, and just as she began to feel sorry for the Chinaman, she had an idea. "Say, Charlie, I know you're good at washing, but can you cook?"

"Arr Chinee cook." He tied the knot off on another bundle.

"How about keeping house? Dusting. Floor mopping. That sort of thing." She remembered Jonathan's scowl when she tracked dirty snow into the kitchen. What had he expected? That she'd mop the floor? "How about coming out to the ranch and working as my housekeeper?" said Merrill. She knew that folks who worked for Ayers in Mill Town had Chinese household help.

Charlie squinted his narrow eyes at her, considering the offer. Merrill held her breath. Jonathan was so proud of his cooking. How would he like being replaced by a Chinaman? Anyway, having Charlie Kee in the house would keep Jonathan from getting any ideas about coming back for seconds, keep her from thinking that way too.

"Pay good?" Charlie Kee asked.

Merrill nodded and named the amount she'd paid Mrs. Oblati. She hoped he wouldn't ask for more.

"Buy Treasure Tea at Pioneer Store?" Merrill nodded. She had an account there but hoped the tea wouldn't be very expensive.

"Name Chun Kee, not Charrie." The Chinaman then picked up his four bundles and carried them out to her wagon.

Merrill sighed. She was on her way to getting rid of Jonathan, and Charlieno, Chun Kee ought to be able to take care of the baby that would come along nine months from now.

Chapter Five

Chun Kee was out in the kitchen talking to Boss in Chinese, which Boss seemed to understand or maybe the dog would listen to anything as long as she was allowed in the kitchen. Merrill certainly couldn't understand Chun Kee. His Chinese wasn't like any she'd ever heard or spoken in California. Jonathan said it was a dialect from the Pearl River Delta in China, just one of hundreds, most of which she couldn't expect to know. Merrill hadn't been much pacified to hear about all those different varieties of Chinese. Why couldn't the new housekeeper Jonathan kept saying to call him a house boy speak some ordinary brand of Chinese that she understood? When bad luck sank its talons into you, she reflected morosely, it just wasn't going to let go, unless maybe it dropped you into a freezing lake during a blizzard.

"We've been invited to a dance at Lockett's on December fourth," said Jonathan after he'd drained the last of his morning coffee. "Want to go?"

Sure enough, she'd make a fine sight at Lockett's in her herder's clothes. "Lockett is selling sheep and buying cattle," said Merrill, as if it were a sin rather than a diversification strategy being followed by many sheep men. She'd have considered it herself if it hadn't meant employing cowboys. That would be an irritation Merrill felt she didn't need added to her life.

"What you're saying is that you won't go to Lockett's," muttered Jonathan, "there or anywhere." He slapped the book he'd been reading down on the table and headed for the stairs, back stiff with frustration. "I'm of a mind to dance with a pretty girl, so if you won't go with me, maybe I'll find someone else."

"Do that," she shouted after him. "I don't care." But she did, and she couldn't seem to formulate a plan these days that worked out. Jonathan hadn't been outraged to be replaced as cook by Chun Kee. He'd just chuckled when she told him how dangerous the Chinese were that they started fires, and smoked opium, and might even poison you with their cooking, not to mention the fact that as sheepherders they weren't worth a flock of raggedy Navaho ewes at clipping time. Not a day after Chun Kee arrived, she'd heard Jonathan out in the kitchen discussing recipes with the Chinaman. Darned if they weren't talking about co-authoring a book on Celestial cookery.

Merrill had always wondered why the Chinese were called Celestials. She didn't see anything heavenly about a short man with slanted eyes and a pigtail. Jonathan said it was because China was called the Celestial Kingdom. Her partner had an explanation for everything damn him. And he seemed to have forgotten all about the article he'd planned to co-author with her on the Indian cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon. But there was no use in worrying about that. She had more immediate concerns, having awakened this moming to discover that she wasn't pregnant. Every ewe in her flock started to swell after one encounter – well, except for the old ones. Was that it? She was too old to conceive? What a disheartening idea! She might be twenty-nine, but she didn't feel old.

So where did that leave her? She'd brought the Chinaman into her house to keep Jonathan away, and now she needed to get back in bed with him. Merrill figured she had to give it one more try before declaring herself sterile; after all, it was possible that women didn't conceive as easily as ewes. But how was she to manage it? Surely not with Chun Kee in the kitchen at all hours of the day and night, talking to himself and the dog in his incomprehensible dialect, running around upstairs grabbing dirty clothes to wash before you'd hardly got them off your back and jerking the sheets out from under you before sunup. She'd outfoxed herself. When she realized the inadvertent play on words – out Foxed by Merrill Fox – she had to laugh.

Jonathan, coming back down the stairs, said, "Did I hear a laugh, Merrill? Let me guess. You've thought up some new, more fiendish plot to get rid of me."

Merrill looked up, her smitten heart in her eyes. Had her efforts to drive him away been so obvious? she wondered.

Seeing that soft look for the first time since she'd said that making love with him made it almost worthwhile being a woman, Jonathan felt somewhat cheered, but he surely did wish that he knew what went on in her head. He understood perfectly why she'd brought Chun Kee home and come up with all those crazy tales about Chinamen, but obviously she'd hired a man she knew nothing about. Chun Kee was the most careful, least dangerous person Jonathan had ever met, besides which he'd taken over the washing, and Jonathan would have hired a convicted arsonist to get the washing done.

"Sure you don't want to go to the dance at Lockett's?" he asked.

She shook her head, ducking so he couldn't see that she was wondering what it would be like to dance with him. As wonderful as talking to him? Or making love with him?

"Man ride in, say cowboys on rand. She take many guns, ride out. You stay to eat?" Chun Kee pointed his large wooden spoon at a concoction bubbling in a large pot on the stove. Jonathan had just returned from the dance and a couple of days spent in town avoiding Merrill, whose very presence was beginning to drive him crazy. He armed himself and left, badly shaken, riding as fast as he could to catch up with Merrill. Why the devil had she gone without him? She knew he'd be home by noon; he'd sent word. Was she bent on getting herself killed? His heart clenched with fear at the thought of Merrill shot down, or worse, by those rowdy cowboys she was always complaining about. He kicked his horse to get the last ounce of speed. At least he knew what pasture she'd headed for.

There were six of them, what outfit she didn't know because they'd tethered their mounts in a clump over among the trees. One swaggering fellow with a shaggy, tobacco-stained mustache had Joaquin's dog tied to the wheel of the herder's wagon and was preparing to set fire to it while the shepherd screamed at him in Portuguese. Merrill shot the torch from the man's hand. "The next one'll be a belly shot," she warned, pulling a second pistol from her waistband. She favored a rifle, but two pistols would give her eleven shots, not that she was very accurate with her left hand.

"Well, well," drawled a cowboy with stringy yellow hair while the shot fellow nursed his bleeding fingers. She'd seen yellow – hair staggering around drunk in town on Saturday nights, pursuing whores. "Ain't got your partner with you, honey?" he asked, leering, one hand inching toward his gun.

"Any one of you draws gets killed," said Merrill,

turning her right-hand pistol toward the blond's chest.

"Sure you don't figger to take us all on? You're jus' one lil gal."

"One of me's worth six of you any day," said Merrill, who was almost as angry as she was scared. "I saw ewes shot dead in my pasture. I figure that's the same as rustling, so I've got a perfect right to string you up."

"One lil gal gonna string up six armed men?" That cowboy was laughing so hard he choked on his own spit. As he ha-haed and coughed, the man to his left was edging sly fingers toward his holster. Before Merrill could reaim her right-hand gun, a shot rang out, and the would-be shooter howled a curse and clutched his elbow.

From across the clearing Jonathan had stepped out of the trees, drawn a pistol from his holster, and fired. To Merrill the flash of his gun had seemed almost simultaneous with the first movement of his gun hand.

"One little girl who's a crack shot, and one big partner who's another," said Jonathan, his lathered horse ambling in behind him.

None of the cowboys had yet managed to draw weapons, and they were beginning to look worried with Jonathan's arrival. "Just in time," said Merrill, weak with relief.

"It's real satisfying to know that you're glad to see me for a change," he replied dryly.

"You keep a gun on them, Jonathan, while I start stringing them up," said Merrill.

The cowboys turned pale. Joaquin retrieved his rifle. "Back off my dog," he said to the rider who had planned to burn dog and wagon. Killing a sheepdog was, to Joaquin, a capital crime.

"Why string them up now?" Jonathan asked reasonably.

"They killed some of my sheep and were about to set fire to the wagon and Amador, Joaquin's dog. Figuring to drive me off my own land that's what they had in mind. Wouldn't be the first time someone tried. I told you about range wars and"

"Well, I think we should respond in kind," Jonathan interrupted. "I say we shoot their horses and then walk these cowboys from here to the jail in Flagstaff."

"That must be three-four miles," cried shaggy mustache. "I'd rather git hung."

Merrill grinned. There'd be trouble if she actually hung them, so Jonathan's suggestion presented a satisfying alternative. "Six sheep for six horses. That's a trade that appeals to me," she answered.

"You wouldn't shoot a horse over a smelly old sheep!" exclaimed the fellow whose elbow had caught Jonathan's bullet.

"I would, but I'll give you a choice. It's shoot the horses or hang you."

Five cowboys, looking downhearted, opted to lose their horses. The sixth, who felt that walking was a fate worse than death, voted to hang.

"It's a democracy here in the territory, so you're outvoted," said Merrill. "Too bad." She didn't really, now that she was faced with it, want to kill six innocent horses either, so she counted up her sheep losses and drove the horses into town to see if the sheriff would let her sell them and take the money in reparation. The cowboys were roped together and started on their long walk, neckerchiefs tied around the hand and elbow wounds of those who had been winged. They complained endlessly as their high-heeled boots raised blisters and their pointed toes pinched.

"Shut up," said Merrill. "You ought to be saying a prayer of thanks. This meadow's closer to town than most of my winter pastures." Then she and Jonathan conversed more amiably than at any time since they'd fallen upon one another in her bedroom. "You handled that six-shooter like a gunslinger," she said, glancing admiringly toward him at one point in the conversation. "A real killer."

"I'm no killer," said Jonathan. "I'm just proficient with a revolver. It happens I wrote a book about gunmen. Must have ridden with ten or twelve at one time or another. Naturally, I took a few lessons, but I don't kill people. You want to read my book?"

He could see the flare of interest in her eyes, but she said, "Not me. I'm not interested in gunmen."

Usually her refusals hurt his feelings. Why, he mused, would she never read a book of his? Was there something operating here other than rejection of him?

"Ah'm bleedin' agin," said the cowboy whom Jonathan had shot. "Ah'm gonna drop right over,

an' you'll have to gimme a horse.'' The threat was made hopefully.

"We'll just leave you where you fall," said Jonathan.

"Only another half mile to go," added Merrill. "The sheriff can pay for doctoring you if you make it."

"We're one hell of a team, Merrill," said Jonathan, sounding particularly pleased.

Merrill could hardly disagree. She'd never been so glad to see anyone as when Jonathan had stepped out of those trees and saved her hide.

It was nightfall by the time they'd filed charges against the cowboys and returned to the ranch. The men who had killed her sheep were from a small cattle outfit, newly come to Arizona and trying to muscle in on her range. The sheriff arrested them with no qualms since they'd been on land that Merrill and Jonathan actually owned. He also took charge of the horses, promising to sell them and return her the money once he'd checked out her dead "critters."

As they rode into the ranch yard, Teofilo, their reclusive handyman, told them, highly offended, that no dinner awaited them in the kitchen because the Chinaman had gone off to visit newly returned relatives in town and to replenish his supply of Treasure Tea.

"Suffering sheep scab," muttered Merrill. "That tea is expensive. He's running me into debt at the Pioneer Store."

"Hell," said Jonathan, "I'll pay for the tea as long as he keeps doing my washing. Bringing him home was a fine idea on your part, Merrill."

"Will Chun Kee be home tonight?" she asked Teofilo.

"Mañana," said Teofilo.

She and Jonathan would have the house to themselves, she realized with a stirring excitement.

Jonathan had fixed her a fine dinner. His cooking tasted much better than the Chinaman's, who put strange things together in what he thought of as American dishes. And Jonathan had been friendly and talkative. She couldn't have shut him up if she'd wanted to because he was determined to discuss the confrontation with the cowboys, an event that he'd enjoyed immensely and intended to put in his book. "In a year or two you'll be the heroine of North America," he promised, embarrassing her no end. And she hadn't missed the word "heroine." Last time he made a remark like that, he'd said "hero." Did the change mean he saw her as more womanly?

Now she stood irresolute in her room. If she wanted to have a child, this might be her only chance at the privacy to conceive one, but she'd have to go to him, an idea that embarrassed her. What if he said, "Go away"? She hadn't been very friendly since the last time. Still, what other option had she, unless she found some orphan child to adopt? Some waif whose parents wouldn't have been good breeding stock at all, while she and Jonathan – well, the truth was that, if she went to the trouble of having a child, she wanted it to be Jonathan's. She wasn't ever likely to fall in love again, so at least she'd have his son or daughter to remember him by.

Having made up her mind, she revisited the trunk that contained her mother's things – the blue silk dress, which she rejected as too unsightly on her skinny frame; a worn baby quilt her mother had pieced (she couldn't go to him wrapped in the quilt; it wouldn't cover her up); her china doll with the chipped nose, for which her mother had sewn a more feminine wardrobe than Merrill had had since early childhood (well, she couldn't wear doll clothes); her mother's nightgown, sheer and embroidered at the neck. The nightgown would have to do, she decided, although she'd be half frozen wearing that flimsy item down to the end of the hall. Still, it was pretty and, being shapeless, wouldn't be so obviously meant for a more curvaceous woman.

With a sense of life repeating itself, Merrill stripped quickly out of her shirt, trousers, and long johns. She whipped the nightgown over her head, hardly pausing this time to glance at herself in the mirror lest she lose her nerve before she got to his room. "Sit, Boss," she hissed when the dog tried to follow her. Merrill drew her door closed as silently as possible, hoping that Boss wouldn't manage to pull the latch string and escape. Wouldn't that be fine – Boss outside Jonathan's door, whining to get in while Merrill was – oh well, no use borrowing any more trouble than she already had.

She slipped into Jonathan's room without knocking, somewhat taken aback that his light was out. Usually he lay abed with his lamp burning, reading for an hour or so before he slept. She hoped their scrap with the cowboys hadn't worn him down so much that he couldn't or wouldn't be interested in her. The sound of his breathing led her across the room. "H-s-s-t. Jonathan. Are you awake?"

"Merrill?"

Fumbling for the covers, she crawled into Papa's big bed beside Jonathan, who was astonished to find himself graced once more with her presence. Her conduct had been a source of confusion to him since their one amorous encounter. Here he, for the first time in his life, was thinking of marriage, while she, having given herself to him so ardently, had gone right back to her less-than-subtle efforts to drive him away. He'd about come to the conclusion that she didn't want to marry; perhaps she simply hadn't wanted to die a virgin. Women, as he'd often observed, were curious creatures, and this one was snuggled up to him, all swathed in some voluminous piece of clothing. "I thought you were mad at me," he said.

"I was," she replied defensively, "but-ah-I liked the last time."

Jonathan laughed, thinking how often Merrill managed to surprise him. She was a woman of "infinite variety" like Shakespeare's Cleopatra, but probably more fun in bed.

"Well, if you don't want to, just say so," Merrill snapped, "but I don't see that there's anything to laugh about."

"Don't want to!" Jonathan groaned and pulled her over on top of him. "Sweetheart, this time you're in my bed, so you can't make me leave, and I don't intend to let you loose until the sun comes up."

"Then you're going to be listening to a howling dog all night," said Merrill, who had just realized that her dog was loose and whining at Jonathan's door.

"I've got more staying power than Boss," Jonathan promised. "She'll give up and go away."

"Maybe I ought to"

"stay right where you are," Jonathan finished for her, rolling, bending his head, and touching his lips to her breast. "In the time that you've been keeping me at arm's length, I've thought of a thousand things I want to do to you – all of which you'll like."

Given what he was doing at the moment, Merrill believed him, and somehow one moment melted into the next, Boss forgotten in the hall as Jonathan taught Merrill things about coupling that she would never have dreamed of in her years of experience as a northern Arizona flock-master.

When she staggered out of his bed the next morning, she had no sore muscles, as she'd had after their first coupling. Times two, three, and four had left every inch of her glowing with pleasure, although she hadn't got enough sleep to see a body through the day, and her dog, waiting beside the pile of clothes she'd stripped out of the night before, gave her a resentful "woof" when she walked barefoot and naked into her room,

trailing Mama's nightie behind her. That dainty tent, Merrill recalled, giggling, had been disposed of about three minutes into the night's activities. Catching herself in the giggle as she pulled up her suspenders, she realized, uneasily, that she was turning into a lovesick fool.

"Oh well," she said to Boss, "everyone has to have at least one silly season. Pa always said so. I'm just late coming to mine – and lucky." She hurried cheerfully down the stairs, listening to the sound of Jonathan humming in the kitchen as he shaved and fried up bacon. I'll just pretend, she told herself, for this one morning, that I'm having breakfast with my husband, just the two of us. With a baby coming. She patted her stomach, sure that Jonathan must have planted his seed this time. He'd certainly tried hard enough and often enough.

"Morning, sweetheart," he said, turning from the sink with a smile.

She loved it when he called her sweetheart even if it didn't mean anything long-term. After all, she'd had more happiness from him than she'd ever expected to find in a man. It didn't do to let your wish list get out of hand. Pa always said that.

"Want to go hunting with me after breakfast? I've got a mind to bring down a deer and teach Chun Kee to cook venison."

"Be sure to save him the liver," said Merrill. "He asked me just the other day if I could get him one. Said he wanted to make an aphro-some-thing aphrodisiac?" Merrill never forgot a word, even if she didn't know what it meant. "Offered to give me some and share the profits when he sold the rest in town. Probably some nasty Oriental dish."

"No doubt," said Jonathan, grinning, "but I don't think we need any. Are you coming with me?"

Merrill sighed. "Guess not. I'm meeting the sheriff out at Joaquin's pasture this morning. Don't you remember?" She sat down as he scooped eggs and bacon from the frying pan and put them on her plate.

"Tonight then," he agreed cheerfully and sat down across from her.

He was going to be hard to say no to, Merrill told herself, and why should she, after all? "Tonight," she agreed, smiling. Then she remembered Chun Kee. Oh well. At least he slept downstairs.

Merrill rode into the yard just before noon after a satisfying chat with the sheriff – satisfying and profitable because six cow ponies were worth a lot more than her six dead sheep, and the sheriff had once again promised her the proceeds from the sale. "Teach them newcomers a lesson about causin' trouble in Yavapai County," he'd said smugly, and Merrill wondered whether she'd fare so well if any of the original San Francisco Mountain cattle outfits tried to co-opt her land and kill her sheep.

Then she reined her horse to an abrupt stop because a vision of childhood elegance confronted her, climbing down off the wagon with Chun Kee's help. The little girl was wearing an elaborately ruched green velvet bonnet with a lace ruffle edging the underside of the brim. Dangling beneath the bonnet strings were glossy black curls that rested on the matching green velvet coat. Beneath the coat peeked a froth of petticoat ruffles as the girl alighted, her pretty kid slippers with green velvet rosettes contrasting oddly with the packed gray snow under her feet.

"Thank you, Mr. Kee," she said politely, then turned to Merrill. "Good morning, ma'am. I'm Abigail Mirabelle Forrester, and" she curtsied in midsentence "and I presume that you are my Uncle Jonathan's new partner, Miss Merrill Fox."

Merrill gaped at her.

"Do you think we might go into the house? Your Arizona climate is bracing, but quite cold. Don't you find it so?"

"Actually, we're having a warm spell," said Merrill, glancing at the bright sunlight and blue sky. "May not be another snow till week's end." She followed the little girl into the house, not knowing what to make of the situation. Jonathan's niece? What was she doing here? Who had she traveled with? Besides Chun Kee? Behind them the housekeeper was talking to himself in Chinese, as usual.

"Mr. Kee is quite a conversationalist, isn't he?" said Abigail. "Unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word he said. He spoke no English from the time we left Flagstaff to the time we arrived here. I suppose you're surprised at my arrival, but you see I've come to live with Uncle Jonathan." She removed her gloves and nodded brightly. "My mother ran off with a wealthy manufacturer of fine buggies when I was very young, and my father died just recently. Has Uncle Jonathan received word yet of his passing?"

Merrill shook her head, mute under this flood of information. The child planned to live with Jonathan? Here at the ranch? Occupying the only bedroom left – Uncle Burden's? So much for the nighttime rendezvous she and Jonathan had planned. Abigail Mirabelle Forrester upstairs would be more inhibiting than Chun Kee downstairs. Of course, if the older brother had died, Jonathan would have to return to New York. Merrill bit her lip hard to control the sudden, unhappy emotion that thought aroused.

"Oh, you mustn't look so stricken," said Abigail, tucking her hand into Merrill's and giving it a consoling squeeze. "I have come to terms with my loss. What an absolutely, marvelously pioneer-y room!" Abigail let go of Merrill's hand with a second friendly squeeze and proceeded to remove her bonnet and coat, hanging them neatly on the pegs set into the wall by the door.

She had to go up on tiptoe to manage, and Merrill wondered how old she was. She looked like a little girl, but she talked like a society belle, not that Merrill had ever heard a society belle talk, but she'd heard a woman who ran a boarding house in Flagstaff accusing her next – door neighbor of acting like one. "Who do you think you are?" Mrs. Botts had screeched. "Some hoity-toity society belle?"

"I suppose you're wondering why I didn't stay at home with Grandmother and Grandfather after the death of my remaining parent." Abigail had hastened to the banked fire and was warming her hands at its embers. "The reason is quite simple, really. After Papa died, Grandfather said there was no one to inherit his business, so he sold it. Now he's home every day telling Grandmother how to run the house and conduct her affairs. Unfortunately, family relations have become very strained since then, and I did not think it a proper environment for a girl my age, approaching the verge of her young womanhood. Therefore, I had Uncle Jonathan traced and came here to Arizona."

"By yourself?" asked Merrill, astonished. "How old are you?"

"Eleven," replied Abigail. "Quite old enough to manage the trip. Obviously. Here I am." She spread her arms in proof of her safe arrival and sent Merrill a smile of such childlike sweetness that Merrill felt overwhelmed. "Now you and Uncle Jonathan can be my family. Won't that be nice?" asked Abigail, showing every confidence that Merrill would agree.

Chapter Six

Once he had heard her story, Jonathan chuckled, hugged his niece, and said, ''You and I must be chips off the block of some buccaneer ancestor, Pippin."

"Uncle Jon," Abigail replied severely, "I'm no longer a rosy-cheeked baby, so I think you should stop calling me Pippin. It's undignified. Abigail will do nicely."

"Won't you at least allow me to call you Abbie," he asked, "and congratulate you on managing to track me down?"

"Oh, that was simple. I went to your publisher and explained that we needed to contact you about Papa's death. I didn't mention that Papa died three months ago, or about Grandfather making everybody miserable in his retirement from the stevedoring business. I hope you don't feel that I'm selfish and disloyal in leaving them alone to fight it out."

Jonathan grinned. "I can hardly criticize you for what I did myself eight years ago."

"My thoughts exactly. I was following in your footsteps, although I do think it's fortunate that you've settled down, Uncle Jon. I might have enjoyed adventuring with you, but it would hardly have advanced my formal education."

Merrill, who had been observing the reunion with amazement, shuddered at the mention of education. Where did Abigail think she was going to continue it? At Merrill's knee? Or in town? Flagstaff hadn't had a school until 1883, and then Mrs. Marshall had closed it down because she said all the gunfire in Old Town was endangering the children. It took the town eight or nine months to build her a new school-frame, one-room, spacious, between New Town and Ayers Millbut Merrill doubted that either Jonathan or Abigail would find it as desirable an institution as Merrill did, looking at it wistfully from afar. "I suppose you'll both be going home to New York now," said Merrill.

Uncle and niece turned and stared at her reproachfully. "We are home," they assured her.

Jonathan looked downright smug, as if to say, You surely wouldn't try to get rid of me and my poor little orphaned niece? He looked a lot less smug when, after dinner, he whispered to Merrill, "Shall we meet in my room or yours?"

"Neither," said Merrill, shocked that he'd even suggest such a thing. "Abbie will be sleeping in Uncle Burden's room. Right between yours and mine."

"You're a hard woman, Merrill," Jonathan complained, looking indignant and disappointed.

"Sh-sh!" she hissed back.

"But I'm not giving up." And he shot a merry smile at Abbie, who was observing them closely. Merrill blushed.

Abbie was a source of continuing amazement to Merrill. She had arrived with more baggage than Jonathan – crates of books, trunks of clothes, hat boxes, furniture she had bought in St. Louis in case the comforts she was used to weren't available on the frontier, and even a sidesaddle and riding habit with sweeping skirts. Jonathan informed her that she'd break her neck if she tried to ride sidesaddle in the mountains of Arizona. Abbie replied that, as she did not have a western saddle or proper clothing to wear with it, Jonathan would have to make arrangements for their purchase.

The little girl made friends with Teofilo and lured him into the house to put up a rod for her clothes and shelves for her books and to rearrange three times the placement of her new bed, chiffonier, and dressing table. She announced that since Merrill was uninterested in running the house, she would be glad to assume that responsibility, part of which involved long menu discussions in the kitchen with Chun Kee. The results as they arrived at the table were mixed at best, since Chun Kee listened respectfully to everything the child said and then interpreted her instructions to suit himself.

Merrill's questions about Abbie's education were answered when the girl set up a study program, after minor consultation with Jonathan, and pursued it daily, except Sunday, when she insisted on being taken to church. She wanted Merrill to go with her.

"As soon as the new Methodist-Episcopal Church is ready we shall go there, naturally," she explained. "Completion is expected by Christmas according to the November twenty-seventh issue of the Arizona Champion. However, no mention was made of the subject in the December fourth issue." Abbie had been reading Jonathan's newspapers to ''familiarize herself with issues of local concern." "So we can assume that the new church may not be ready for some time."

"If ever," Merrill said under her breath.

"Otherwise, there would have been articles on its progress. If they can mention a duel in which a Mr. Charles Spencer was killed," said Abbie, looking indignant, "they can certainly give news of the new church. Therefore, I think we should visit various churches as a way of introducing me to the society of the town. You absolutely have to go with me, Merrill."

"There aren't all that many," said Merrill, "and I don't go to church."

"Well, you should!" exclaimed Abbie. "After all, you need to set a proper example since I intend to take you as my model so that I may become a useful Western woman." Then she giggled, hugged Merrill, and said, "Do come." Merrill's heart turned to mush. However, she still refused to go to church, although she did allow the child to follow her everywhere, asking millions of questions to which, and much to Merrill's dismay, Abbie wrote down the answers. Couldn't she just remember them? Merrill wondered as she explained what they did with the manure from the stables.

"Manure is disgusting," said Abbie, "and I'd really hate to eat anything that was grown in it, but if the potato farm man is willing to haul it away for you, I can see the advantage. We don't buy his potatoes, do we?"

"I've brought the mail," said Jonathan, shuffling through a stack of envelopes. "Letters for me from my publisher, two requests for articles from newspapers, one in Boston, one in St. Louis, and a nostalgic missive from a lady friend in Fort Worth." Grinning, he sniffed the last letter, pink and saturated with enough perfume to reach Merrill's nose across the width of the table. Jonathan had just returned from town, where he had been ordering a saddle for Abbie. ''Then here's two for you, little Abbie," he said, sailing them across the table toward his bespectacled niece, who was doing a geography lesson as they waited for Chun Kee to serve the evening meal, "and one for you, Merrill." He flipped a creased envelope with a smudged address in Merrill's direction. "Not to mention the Champion for December eleventh, late but always full of exciting news."

Merrill stared at her letter as if it were a rattler, coiled to strike.

"Let's see. The paper says" Jonathan dropped his coat onto the fourth chair at the table – the one Teofilo refused to occupyand sat down in the third, opening the newspaper. "ah, here's the good news. Ayers is looking for tie choppers, and Hawks has moved his boarders to a two-story brick building, which is marginally better than the old place. I stayed there. In my opinion, Flagstaff needs a good hotel."

"It certainly does," Abbie agreed, removing her eyeglasses from the end of her nose. "I had to stay in a very plain room in some lady's house, and she gave me long lectures about the dangers of girls my age traveling alone, although I imagine I'm the first she ever encountered, and I did pay my bill promptly." She opened and read one of her letters, then glanced toward Merrill. ''Aren't you going to read your letter, Merrill? Mine is from my grandparents, who are angry with me, of course, because I didn't tell them I was leaving."

"You didn't mention that to me," said Jonathan sharply.

"Well, I sent them a wire from St. Louis." She opened the second envelope and glanced rapidly over the text. "My second letter is from Cardinal John Henry Newman of England and Ireland. He says that he was very sorry to hear that I disagree with some of the opinions advanced in his book The Scope and Nature of a University Education, but he thanks me for my letter.

"Grandfather fired my tutor, made me stay in my room for three days, and cut off my allowance for a month when he learned that I had read a book written by a Roman Catholic who deserted the Church of England." Abbie then inspected her letter from England more closely. "I think Cardinal Newman's reply was written by a secretary. Who is your letter from, Merrill?"

Merrill had no idea since she couldn't read anything on the envelope but her own name, which her mother had taught her to write when she was four.

"It's from her Uncle Burden, Abbie," said Jonathan, "and I suppose she won't read it because she's still mad at him for selling me the ranch."

"Half the ranch," Merrill corrected. Uncle Burden? She hadn't even known that he could write.

"Now for the bad news," said Jonathan, taking up his newspaper again. "It's been discovered that the Wells Fargo treasure box is missing from the westbound train."

"What treasure was in it?" asked Abbie, her eyes lighting with interest. "Pieces of eight? Precious jewels belonging to a noblewoman traveling"

"Nothing so glamorous, Pippin. Ah, listen to this. Mr. Cohen has been discharged as having acted in self-defense. Wasn't he the fellow who killed someone named Spencer in a duel?" He looked up. "Good Lord, Merrill, go ahead and read your letter. You know you're dying to hear what the old reprobate has to say."

"I am not," said Merrill self-consciously and flung the envelope right back at Jonathan. "I'm not reading anything from Uncle Burden."

"Is having me in the house really that awful?" he asked with that wistful, charming smile that always turned her heart over.

"I haven't forgiven him. That's all," she mumbled.

"Well, I want to know what's happened to him. I'll read it to you." Jonathan used his letter opener to slit the envelope, then shook out the folded sheet of paper.

"The only reason I'm staying is that I'm hungry, and Chun Kee's about to bring in supper," said Merrill, who was eaten up with curiosity to know how the old fool was getting along.

Dear Meril,

This leter is bein writ by a hore who is a grat frind of mine. Hope you an the shep an yer new pard are doin well ha ha. I am fine an walowin in hi clover.

Yer unkl Birdun

"Writes a fine letter, doesn't he?" said Jonathan, "but I must say his scribe lacks something in the spelling department."

"Oh, can I see it?" cried Abbie, snatching the sheet from her uncle's hand. "What a funny letter! Is that the way to spell whore? I've never seen it written down."

"I'd like to know where you heard it," muttered Jonathan.

Abbie, having perused the letter, giggling, passed it back to Merrill. "I'd love to meet your uncle," she said. "Is he a funny old man? Why did he go off and leave you? I should think you'd be a lot happier to have my uncle for a partner than yours. Don't you like Uncle Jon?"

Before Merrill could answer, Jonathan said, "Not much. She won't even read one of my books, much less forgive Burden for selling out to me."

"Why, Uncle Jon's books are wonderful!" cried Abbie. "All the best people read them, not to mention people who are practically illiterate and have to sound the words out letter by letter. And of course, Merrill likes you, Uncle Jon. Don't you, Merrill?"

Merrill's face, which had turned pink at the mention of illiteracy, turned pinker. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. And what could she say to the demand that she admit to liking Jonathan? "Maybe I do," she mumbled, but she'd only gone that far so as not to upset Abbie, who was a lovable child if somewhat pushy and intimidatingly well educated.

Jonathan caught Merrill just outside her door and pinned her to the wall as if he'd been lying in wait for her. "We need supplies from town," he whispered. "Why don't we send Abbie in with Chun Kee?"

"Merrill!" Abbie's clear, sweet voice drifted up the staircase from the big room. "Hurry up. This is the morning you give me my lesson on the mathematics of sheep raising."

Merrill raised her eyebrows pointedly at Jonathan and ducked under his arm. Jonathan muttered, "Looks like I'm the one who's going to town with Chun Kee." They didn't like to send the Chinaman in by himself for fear irate townspeople would decide he was responsible for the latest fire and drive him out of Yavapai County before they could rescue him. His last Treasure Tea run had resulted in the accusation that he had somehow managed to set a fire, quickly extinguished, in a house rented by one of the Daggs brothers to a Mrs. Jacobs.

Jonathan dragged Merrill back for a quick kiss, and then they both went down to breakfast.

"What's this crunchy stuff in the flapjacks, Chun Kee?" Jonathan asked after taking his first bite.

"Secret ingredient," said the housekeeper.

"Very interesting," said Jonathan.

"But not meant for human consumption," Abbie whispered, grinning, to Merrill.

Merrill stifled a giggle. Much as she tried not to become too involved with the girl, since she still believed that Jonathan and Abbie wouldn't last out the January-to-April blizzard season, Merrill already adored Abbie. She was so much fun – and a fountain of information. Knowing Abbie was almost as good as getting to attend school – or at least so Merrill imagined. Between Abbie and Jonathan, Merrill had learned a million interesting things. Sanxi had been right about that; the Forresters enriched her life. Too bad he couldn't be right about – oh well, there was no use thinking of marriage. She and Jonathan couldn't even couple anymore.

"Merrill, do you realize that you're hurting Uncle Jon's feelings by refusing to read his books?" asked Abbie before Merrill could begin on flock mathematics, as Abbie had dubbed the lesson. "Now, I've chosen the book I thought you might enjoy most, Mining Misadventures. It's about a silver boomtown in New Mexico. I just want you to read two or three pages. Is that too much to ask?"

When Abbie passed the book over, opened to what were presumably the first pages, Merrill realized that she'd have to pretend to read. What if Abbie asked her questions? Oh, this was terrible, embarrassing, dishonest. How long did it take to read a page? she wondered desperately, staring at the strange letters without really seeing them. She had to turn the first leaf sooner or later but had no idea how long to wait. Well, fast. She flipped the page. If she seemed fast and was asked a question, she could say, "Oh, I must have missed that."

She ran her eyes over the next page, taking a little more time since the first page had stopped short of the bottom. "There you go," she said, handing the book back to Abbie. "I mean no disrespect to your uncle, but I've been a miner. I know about mining, and I'm not much of a reader. Too busy, you know. Dead tired when I get in at night. I don't know when I've had time to read a whole book."

Abbie, looking up from the opened pages of the returned book, asked, "Can you read at all, Merrill?"

"Why, I – why would you"

"Your grammar is quite good," said Abbie. "Better than most I've heard in Arizona, so I wouldn't have believed you were illiterate."

Merrill had turned bright red. "Why do you then?" she stammered defensively.

"Because I handed the book to you upside down, and you didn't reverse it."

Merrill hung her head, knowing she was caught, hoping Abbie would keep her secret. "Mama taught me to speak properly," she explained, "although I'm not always sure I still remember what she said. And she was going to teach me to read – as soon as we made our fortune in the gold fields and she could afford to replace the books that burned up when our tent caught fire. Only she died."

Abbie was out of her chair and hugging Merrill before you could say, Shoot that coyote before it brings down another lamb.

"I just knew it wasn't because you didn't like Uncle Jonathan, which is a great relief to me. Now there's no reason you can't marry him."

"What?"

"Many Uncle Jonathan. I need a mother and father, and you two will do very nicely. I'll get right to work on it."

"Abbie, your uncle – he wouldn't to want to marry me," gasped Merrill, anticipating all sorts of horrible embarrassment and hurt if single-minded Abbie pursued her scheme.

"Why not?" demanded Abbie indignantly. "Uncle Jonny's not one of those men who only like loose women. He's just been waiting for the right lady and the urge to settle down somewhere. You and Arizona are perfect."

"How can you say that? I'm - I'm homely, and old, and illiterate," she finished miserably.

"Old?" Abbie fastened on that one aspect with dismay. "How old?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Well, goodness gracious, he's twenty-eight. What's a year? As for homely, you'll dress up well. I'll have a gown made for you and fix your hair, and he won't know he's looking at the same woman. Although he seems to like you fine the way you are, which says something. I've seen better-looking clothes than yours on panhandlers in New York City, on poor immigrants just off the boat, on"

"You don't have to go on," said Merrill crossly.

"Well, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but you aren't well dressed, Merrill," said Abbie. She was wearing a red and green plaid wool dress with green moire ribbons and green-trimmed petticoats. Merrill was wearing a brown-faded-to-spring-mud-colored wool shirt with a hole in the elbow, her black and mold-colored suspenders,

baggy trousers, and heavy boots decorated with manure spots.

"As for reading, I can teach you to readjust like that!" Abbie snapped her fingers and warmed a saddened Merrl with her innocent, eager child's smile.

Oh, the confidence of the young, thought Merrill sadly. "I'm too old to lear now, Abbie," said Merrill, "although it's sweet of you to offer."

"Hogwash," said Abbie crisply. She was picking up the language of the frontier at a frightening rate. "Uncle Jon told me you speak four or five languages. I know for a fact that you're some kind of numbers genius. Well, don't look so shocked. How many people do you think can do huge sums in their heads the way you do? And you have a memory like an elephant."

"What's an elephant?"

"We'll get to that later. We're going to have your first reading lesson right now just to prove that you can learn to read." She grabbed her slate and a piece of chalk and drew a squiggly line. "Look at that," she commanded. Merrill wanted to run. "And this. What do they look like to you?"

Merrill stared hard, fascinated in spite of herself. She knew it was too late for her to learn reading, but she couldn't resist the offer of a lesson. "A snake and a chair," she said.

"Good. Anytime you see those two together, they say, 'sh-sh,' like you say to Uncle Jonathan when he's been whispering to you and you don't want me to hear."

Merrill blushed.

"Say it," Abbie demanded sternly, suddenly a no-nonsense schoolmarm in a rich child's dress.

"Sh-sh," said Merrill obediently.

Abbie wrote 'ee' on the slate after 'sh.' "Look at those two. What do they look like?"

"I don't know," said Merrill, squinting at them. "But they're the same."

"Right. Every time you see them together, they say 'e-e-e,' like a woman who sees a mouse."

"Why would anyone say 'e-e-e' to a mouse?" asked Merrill.

Abbie sighed. "Actually, I don't suppose you would. Just remember – two of those say 'e-e'."

"E-e-e," said Merrill.

Abbie wrote 'p' on the slate. "This letter says" and she puffed into Merrill's face.

Merrill puffed back.

"Now make the sounds one after the other, run them together, and see what the word says."

Merrill stared at the mysterious letters. "Sheep. Sheep?" She felt a rush of exultant wonder. "Sheep!"

"Now you've learned to read your first word," said Abbie smugly. "As soon as you accept Uncle Jon's proposal of marriage, I'll teach you all the rest of them."

"But, Abbie" Merrill's heart fell. Her smile disappeared.

"Don't bother to argue. It'll be your wedding present from me."

"Couldn't we do just one more word?" asked Merrill wistfully, looking at the letters to sheep as if she were Moses looking at the original Ten Commandments engraved in stone. She felt that the magic skill was within her grasp if it weren't for that one condition she could never meet.

''Not even a short one," said Abbie firmly. "But don't you worry. I'll take care of everything. Now I'm going out to see Teofilo about building me a desk. It's ridiculous that I should have to do my lessons on the dining room table."

Abbie would take care of everything? Merrill shuddered to think of what that meant. Abbie was a dear girl but not subtle. There'd be broad hints, outright demands that she have her way. Merrill would be humiliated. Jonathan would run for his life. Had Jonathan been back with the supplies, Merrill would have left immediately and alone for the sheep camps and stayed away for two months.

"Oh, one last thing, Merrill," said Abbie, popping her head, encased in its green velvet bonnet, back in the door. "Christmas is coming. What would you like for Christmas?"

"We don't celebrate Christmas."

Abbie looked shocked. "You don't go to church. You don't celebrate Christmas. Merrill, are you a heathen? No, don't answer that. I'll just have to save your soul too. But at least you can tell me what you'd like for a Christmas present."

"Nothing. I've never had one."

"Oh, goodness." Abbie looked profoundly sympathetic. "Well, do think about it, because Uncle Jon and I will certainly be giving you Christmas presents. Think of three things, so you'll be surprised at which two you get."

Did that mean she'd have to reciprocate? Merrill wondered without an idea in the world of what one gave or received at Christmas. Three things? What three things would she ask for if her wishes could be granted? She stared at the slate where Abbie had written the word sheep. Well, to read, which was, to her amazement, possible, although not likely. And to keep her ranch all her life. She thought she could do that; it had always been her wish, but now, having had Abbie and Jonathan living with her, she'd be lonely when they left. So her last gift wish would be Jonathan's baby, but unless she turned up pregnant, that wish wasn't likely to be granted, not with Abbie sleeping in the room between them.

Merrill sighed and rose from the table. Christmas gifts! What a waste of time! She had more important, more practical things to do than daydream about gifts and wishes and Christmas, the story of which she remembered only dimly from the time when her mother was still alive.

Chapter Seven

Jonathan returned in high spirits from Flagstaff with a wagonload of provisions. He calculated that restocking the sheep camps might be stretched out to allow him three, maybe four days alone with Merrill. Therefore, he was extremely irritated to discover that she felt one or the other of them, in this case he as the blood relation, should remain at home with Abigail.

"Chun Kee can look after her," Jonathan protested. "Hell, if she can go into town and protect Chun Kee from the local bigots, he can damn well take care of her for a couple of days here in the house."

"Fire follows Chinamen like a buzzard follows death," said Merrill, her mouth set in a stubborn line.

"Charming imagery, Merrill," he snapped.

Her eyes narrowed. "So now you've decided you don't like the way I talk. Is that what you mean?"

"I never said"

"Well, fine, Jonathan. You've got Chun Kee to help you with your fancy Celestial cookbook"

"What's that got to do with"

"So you don't need me with my country-bumpkin imagery to take you to Walnut Canyon. You can stay home with Chun Kee and burn my house down while you're writing"

"Don't be ridiculous, Merrill. You act like the man's a pyromaniac."

"I don't even know what a pyromaniac is. You probably made the word up so I'd be embarrassed that I don't know what it means. It's just like you to be such a snob and ..."

Jonathan closed his ears to her tirade. Good Lord, the woman was supersensitive! And she had a temper, and a tongue sharper than a buffalo skinner's knife. "All right, go by yourself," he muttered, knowing that was what the argument was really about.

"I intend to."

Why was she so anxious to get away from him? She ran hot and cold, hot and cold, but mostly cold. Trying to get along with Merrill was a difficult endeavor, but challenging.

"Uncle Jonathan, it's so fortunate that we have this time alone together." Abbie was hopping down the ladder staircase on one foot, a sport she'd invented and one that frightened him half to death. Although he'd appealed to Merrill for support in his objections, she had shrugged and said, "She's surefooted."

"And why are you so glad to get rid of Merrill?" Jonathan demanded. He himself had started to miss his irascible partner before she disappeared over the hill.

"I didn't say I wanted to get rid of her," Abbie replied, coming over to snuggle beside him in the big chair that had been Ben Fox's before the logs killed him.

Good Lord, what was coming? Jonathan wondered. Whenever Abbie climbed into your lap, she had some outrageous request to make. Maybe she wanted him to buy her the town of Flagstaff, or lure Cardinal John Henry Newman across the ocean so that she could debate with him.

"It's about Christmas, Uncle Jon. Did you know that Merrill has never had a Christmas present? I think that's the saddest thing I ever heard."

"Yes, it is," Jonathan agreed.

"So you have to buy her something really wonderful."

"And I suppose you're going to tell me what," he responded, chuckling. "Have you been pumping her for suggestions?"

"She won't say a thing except that she doesn't celebrate Christmas. But that's probably just as well because she might ask for something dull and practical."

"Whereas you have what in mind?"

"A beautiful gown that she can wear to the Christmas Eve ball."

Jonathan shook his head, face gloomy. "Merrill refuses to go to dances."

"You've invited her?" asked Abbie eagerly.

"Repeatedly. I'm not sure whether she doesn't know how to dance or she just doesn't want to be seen on my arm. And even if Merrill were interested in dancing, Pippin, she's not interested in clothes. I'm surprised you haven't noticed that comic wardrobe of hers."

"Well, of course I have. That's why"

"So buying her a dress would be a waste of time. She might even consider it an insult. I think I'll buy her – let's seea purebred merino ram. Now, that"

"You'll do no such thing," cried Abbie indignantly. "I've never heard such an unromantic insensitive suggestion in my life."

"Why do you say that? She'd give her eyeteeth for a merino ram."

"Maybe, but she can't wear it to the Christmas ball. And a merino ram isn't going to convince Merrill that she's pretty. Maybe you don't realize it, Uncle Jon, but Merrill thinks she's homely. Can you believe that? Why, she could be a beautiful woman."

"She already is."

"And her hair. It would be gorgeous if I could get my hands on it."

"It is gorgeous."

His niece squinted at him. "How do you know? It's always in that rag-tag braid."

Jonathan cleared his throat. "I still don't think"

"If Merrill ever saw herself all dressed up in a beautiful gown with her hair fixed, she'd realize that she's not just some homely old sheep rancher."

"Well." His niece might be on the right track. If he could get Merrill to see herself as he saw her, it might make a world of difference in their relationship. "But a dress I'm afraid she'd throw it at me."

"We should go into town today. There's not much time left till Christmas."

"You give her the dress," said Jonathan, "and I'll pay for it."

"No, I have something else in mind. If you don't give it to her, no one will, and then you won't be able to take her to the Christmas Eve ball."

"Where every man in town will fall in love with her, and I won't"

"Oh, but you'll dance every dance with her, Uncle Jon. Won't that be roman fun?"

"Are you up to something, Abbie?" he asked suspiciously.

"I just want to make Merrill happy," the little girl said, an irresistible smile lighting her pretty face.

"Oh, all right," said Jonathan, wondering if Merrill would agree to award her dance card to him exclusively. "We'd better head for Flagstaff while she's away."

The best dressmaker in Flagstaff was acquainted with Merrill Fox and very dubious at the idea of making her a fancy ball gown. "If Merrill's ever wore a dress, I'd be surprised to hear it," said Mrs. Crandell. "An' she ain't here. How'm I s'posed to measure it to her?"

Jonathan and Abigail stared at one another, momentarily stymied. "You've known her longer than I have, Uncle Jon," said Abigail. "How big is she?"

"Well, she stands about so tall." He touched himself under the chin, remembering the first time he'd held her in his arms. "And her waist's about this size." He circled his hands, leaving about an inch between thumbs and fingers. "Does that help you any, Mrs. Crandell?"

The woman glared at him. "I can't be held responsible if the dress don't fit."

"I told you this was a bad idea," said Jonathan to Abbie.

"Oh, stop arguing. We need to pick out a design."

"That ain't no way to talk to your uncle, child," said Mrs. Crandell.

As Jonathan and Abbie looked at fashion magazines, the dressmaker said, "This here satchel bustle is real stylish handy too. If'n the lady is agoin' to an overnight dance, she can pack her nightclothes into her bustle."

"What a peculiar idea," said Abbie, "and the satchel bustle is a year out of date. Goodness, is this magazine"

"We'll take it," said Jonathan.

"Uncle Jonathan," wailed Abbie.

"That way she'll have a place to stow her gun."

"Gun!" cried Mrs. Crandell, scandalized.

"Did you ever see Merrill Fox without a gun? Not likely she'd agree to attend anything, even a fancy dress ball, unarmed. Now, can you make a dress with this skirt and neckline, plus the satchel bustle?" he asked, pointing to a different picture.

They quickly settled on the style, the blue velvet, the embroidered trim, and, most important, the satchel bustle for the well-armed lady who would wear the dres – she hoped. "No one in Flagstaff, least of all Merrill, will know the bustle is out of style," Jonathan consoled Abbie as they left the dressmaker's.

"I'll know," she retorted.

Merrill delayed her return as long as possible and got back to the ranch to discover Jonathan dragging a huge tree through her front door. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "If you're going into the lumber business, you can't do it in my house."

"Our house, and this is the Christmas tree. Abbie picked it out. Teofilo and I cut it down."

"Christmas tree?" Merrill looked astonished. "I told you we didn't celebrate"

"We do now," Jonathan interrupted.

"We'll string popcorn tonight," said Abbie, clapping her hands with excitement, although Merrill said they had no popping corn in the house.

"Oh yes, we do. When we went Christmas shopping" the child bubbled with mysterious glee "we bought yards and yards of colored ribbon and candles so I can make bows and other pretties – oh, we'll have a lovely tree. You'll string the popcorn, Merrill, and I'll make bows and rosettes, and Uncle Jon will set up and decorate the tree. Then we'll have hot chocolate and Christmas cookies just as we did before Mama ran off with the carriage maker."

Merrill hadn't the heart to protest further. Perhaps the poor child's Christmases had disappeared with her mother, just as Merrill's had, for Merrill remembered now that the china doll with the chipped nose had been a Christmas gift from her mother.

Chun Kee found popping corn, which he had never seen before, an alarming foodstuff and, sulking, retired to his room. Merrill wished fervently that he'd taken his Christmas cookies with him. They seemed very peculiar to her. Mrs. Oblati had made cookies for Uncle Burden, who'd had a sweet tooth, and her cookies had never contained unidentifiable chunks of crunchy stuff. Nor had they been sprinkled with red powder that burned your mouth. Abbie had inspected them and declared them "very festive," but she'd turned pale when she tasted one. Jonathan liked them.

He would! thought Merrill, wincing as she jabbed her finger again. After Mama died, Pa had done what darning and patching needed to be done, then Mrs. Oblati. Stringing popcorn was a difficult and painful business, although Merrill supposed Abbie would declare the popcorn strings "very festive" since they were sprinkled with red, Christmasy dots, the result of all the times Merrill jabbed the needle into her finger instead of the popcorn.

Boss certainly liked the decorations. She was caught leaping and snapping at the popcorn strings on the middle section of the tree, having quietly devoured all those on the lower branches. She had to be locked in the barn. And Jonathan kept referring to an article he'd read in the paper about local folk planning to celebrate New Year's in Albuquerque because the railroad was offering special holiday rates. Who did he think was going to run the ranch if the three of them went gallivanting off to Albuquerque?

''You and Abbie go," said Merrill, thinking that would probably be the last she'd see of them.

In the increasing holiday excitement, Merrill's spirits fell. She hadn't forgotten Abbie's comment that she and Jonathan had been Christmas shopping in town, buying extravagant presents, no doubt. And how was Merrill to reciprocate? She didn't know what to give a wealthy child or her wealthier uncle. They both had accounts at the Bank of Flagstaff, whereas Merrill had very little cash money. She could use credit at the Pioneer Store, but that didn't seem a good place to buy gifts unless she wanted to give someone a gallon of coal oil with a potato stuffed in the top as a plug.

To escape the problem, she left the ranch again and stayed away several more days without anyone complaining or offering to go along. Obviously Jonathan had lost interest in getting her off by herself.

Merrill was home the Saturday when Jonathan announced that he and Abbie were driving into town. "I'm taking Abbie to see Santa Claus at O'Neill's store."

"Really?" Merrill had never seen Santa Claus and invited herself along. While she was there maybe she'd find a present or two that she could afford.

"Sorry, Merrill," said Abbie, "but we're staying over for church, and I know you wouldn't want to do that."

Abbie's words hurt. Was she really so upset at the idea of living with a heathen that she didn't want to be seen in Flagstaff with Merrill?

When Abbie and Jonathan arrived in town to pick up the dress, they found that it wasn't ready. "I've had a real rush of business, and you weren't the first to ask for my services," said Mrs. Crandell. "I'll promise it to you on the morning of Christmas Eve day. That's the best I can do."

"Good heavens," complained Abbie as they rode home. "We'll have to come in, get the dress, go home, open the presents, talk Merrill into wearing it, and come right back for the dance. We'll be worn out before the music starts. Did you see that handsome Fenton boy? The one singing in the choir. Do you think he'll ask me to dance?"

"He's too old for you," said Jonathan, realizing that in a few years he'd be fending off Abbie's suitors, just as Christmas Eve he'd be fending off Merrill'sif she agreed to attend the dance. He counted on Abbie to persuade her.

"Here's the Christmas turkey," announced Jonathan, coming in out of the cold, carrying a thirtypound wild turkey. "Pluck it, stuff it, and roast it, Chun Kee."

"Stuff?" Chun Kee stared at the bird, obviously perplexed.

Jonathan scratched his two-day beard as he considered how to explain turkey preparation to a Chinaman. "Fill up the inside with bread dressing. What's in dressing, Abbie, besides bread?"

"How should I know? Cook always made Christmas dinner," said Abbie, who was doing a last set of lessons before she declared school out for the holidays. Abbie turned questioningly to Merrill.

"Don't look at me," said Merrill. "I told you we never celebrated Christmas. Anyway, I have to visit Sanxi's camp."

"Why?" asked Jonathan suspiciously.

"I realized that I forgot to leave him his holiday tobacco bonus."

"There, I knew you did something for Christmas," said Abbie. "And Merrill, if you're not back by noon on the twenty-fourth, I'll never forgive you."

Merrill hoped that Abbie didn't have any silly ideas about that Christmas Eve dance in town. The girl had been talking about it and reading newspaper articles about it for two weeks now.

"I mean it, Merrill," said Abbie. "If you're not home for Christmas Eve, I'll cry till New Year's, and I'm a loud crier, lots of tears. You'll hate it."

Merrill thought about staying away, but she couldn't do that to Abbie, so on the morning of the twenty-fourth she was riding home through light snow, wondering what in the world she'd give as gifts. She'd have to have something ready in case they'd bought presents for her, and her only resource was Mama's trunk. It contained the china doll, whose nose was just a little bit chipped, and the doll had a wonderful wardrobe. Abbie would probably love it.

But it had been a gift from Mama, and Merrill's heart sank at the thought of giving it away. And Jonathan. What could she give him? The only possibility was Pa's watch. She'd hate to see that watch leaving the ranch forever when Jonathan left, but still ... she loved themboth Abbie and Jonathan, just as she'd loved Mama and Pa.

Maybe it was the right thing to do. She didn't know anything about gift giving, but it felt right. It wasn't as if she'd be playing with the doll herself or passing it on to a daughter. Merrill had discovered that again she'd failed to conceive. Evidently it just wasn't meant to be.

As for the watchwell, she didn't know how to tell timeexcept by the sunand she wouldn't be giving the watch to a boy child of hers, so Jonathan might as well have it to remember her by. She, on the other hand, wouldn't need anything to remember him by. He was engraved in her heart, just like those letters engraved on Pa's watch. Merrill knew what they said, even if she couldn't read them. "From Ellie to Ben with love. 1855." Mama had given him the watch.

"Well, where are they?" demanded Merrill, who had slipped into the house, fetched her gifts from the trunk, and wrapped them in material from an old shirt of Uncle Burden's. It was plaidgreen and red, which seemed to be Christmas colors.

"Fragstaff," said Chun Kee irritably. He'd already told her three times during the afternoon.

Merrill opened the kitchen door and peered out. The snow now fell heavily.

Chun Kee thrust under her nose a bowl of cranberries that Jonathan had brought back from Jim O'Neill's store when he took Abbie in to see Santa Claus. "What for these?" Chun Kee asked. "Trim tree or stuff bird?"

"Well, I'm not stringing anything else for that tree," said Merrill. "I've got a hundred holes in my fingers from the popcorn." They weren't coming home, she thought with a painful wave of disappointment. They'd probably decided to stay in town for that dance Abbie kept talking about. They'd probably forgotten all about insisting that Merrill get home for Christmas. "I should have stayed with Sanxi," she muttered.

"Then who eat giant devil bird?" asked Chun Kee.

"I even changed my clothes." She had put on her best blue wool shirt and a clean pair of trousers. She'd even wished, for just a minute, that she had a dress to wear for the occasion. Wouldn't that have been fine – her all gussied up in a dress, eating the giant devil bird by herself at the big table. It was such a silly idea that she had to blink back tears – from trying not to laugh, of course.

Chapter Eight

They probably wouldn't have liked her secondhand presents anyway, Merrill thought. Just as well they hadn't come home. She was sitting in Pa's big chair with her stocking feet on the hearth when the door flew open and slammed against the wall. Abbie's voice rose over the wind's hollow boom. "Our plans are ruined," she cried. "We'll never get back to the dance."

"The snow's slacking off some," said Jonathan. Merrill rose and turned to stare at them. Abbie clutched a square box to her chest, arms extended along the sides, holding the green bow that decorated the top in place with her chin. Jonathan carried two large boxes, one rectangular and flat, one deep, both with large red bows. The wind snatched the bow from the second box and whirled it away into the dark tumult of the yard.

"II thought you two'd be staying in town for the dance," Merrill stammered as Jonathan said, "Damn, there goes my bow."

"Without you?" cried Abbie. "How could you even think such a thing, Merrill?" She kicked the door shut, hurried to the table, and released her burden with a thud. "Why, we risked our lives, driving through snow and ice, buffeted by"

"Oh hush, Abbie," Jonathan ordered. He'd returned from the yard but without the missing bow. "The wind didn't come up until just the last stretch, and as long as Merrill agrees to go, we may yet make it to town for part of the dance."

"I'm not risking my life again in that storm," cried Abbie as Merrill protested, "I never said I'd go to any dance."

"Stuffed berries in bird," said Chun Kee from the kitchen doorway. "Now red juice dripping out."

Jonathan swore under his breath. Abbie said, "Merry Christmas," and, pressing an icy cheek against Merrill's, hugged her. "Isn't this exciting? Uncle Jon can use it in his bookan adventurous uncle and his courageous niece brave a mountain blizzard to make the first family Christmas on the wilderness Forrester-Fox sheep ranch. I get to open my presents first." She was removing layers of expensive clothing that had made her look more like a small green bear than a slender eleven-year-old girl. "Chun Kee, I want hot chocolate and fried donuts."

"For dinner?" asked Merrill, scandalized.

"What about bleeding devil bird?" asked Chun Kee.

"We'll have to hope that by tomorrow noon it will have stopped bleeding," said Jonathan. The thing is, you shouldn't have put the cranberries inside the turkey."

"I ask. You say I decide. Missy Merrir say she not hang berries on tree." Chun Kee stamped out to the kitchen.

"Hot chocolate and fried donuts, with lots of sugar," Abbie shouted after him. "Which present is mine, Uncle Jon? We have to hurry in case the storm does slack off."

"The bowless one is for you." He too had divested himself of bulky winter clothing as Abigail tore into her gift.

"Oh, you got them," she cried. "See, Merrill, the complete works of Charles Dickens. He writes the most wonderful novels. They make you laugh and cry. You'll just love them."

Merrill gave her a reproachful look and mumbled, "I have a gift for you too, Abbie." She brought out the knobby package wrapped in Uncle Burden's red and green plaid shirt. "I didn't have a bow."

"Oh, I do love presents, but we should be sitting by the Christmas tree." Abbie carried her gift to the tree, Jonathan muttering and transporting his rectangular package after her. Merrill followed nervously because Abbie was already seated on the blanket she'd spread around the Christmas tree, pulling Uncle Burden's shirt off her gift and staring. "It's a doll," she said as if she'd never seen one. "But I'm too" A hard look from Jonathan cut her off. "Wherever did you get it, Merrill?" she asked instead.

"My mother gave it to me. At least, that's what Pa said." Merrill wished with all her heart that she had given Abbie something else. Probably Abbie was too old for dolls. She hadn't brought any with her.

ProbablyMerrill noted with dismay that tears were rolling down Abbie's cheeks. Then the little girl hurled herself into Merrill's arms and said, "I'll play with it every day. We'll share it. We'll use it in our lessons. Oh Merrill, it's the lovingest gift anyone ever gave me. It'll be like sharing your mother."

A doll with a chipped nose was the lovingest gift Abbie had ever received? Merrill felt thoroughly confused as she hugged Abbie back, patting her awkwardly on one thin shoulder and wondering how the two of them could share her mother, long dead.

"Here, Pippin, use my handkerchief," said Jonathan. "You're crying all over Merrill's shirt."

Merrill tugged the plaid-wrapped watch out of her pocket and handed it to Jonathan. "This is for you," she mumbled, not looking at him.

Jonathan unwrapped it, ran his thumb over the worn case, and opened the lid to read the inscription. Then he leaned forward and brushed his mouth lightly over hers. "You've given me the gift of your past," he said softly, "and I'll always treasure it."

Merrill wasn't sure exactly what he meant, but she did know he was pleased, which gave her a warmth of heart that overcame any sadness she might have felt as she watched Jonathan tucking her father's watch into his waistcoat pocket.

Abbie was beaming at them like a benevolent bishop. ''Now mine for Uncle Jon," she said and pulled another rectangular box from behind the tree. "I brought this with me from New York."

Jonathan opened it and discovered a blue velvet jacket with satin lapels. "A smoking jacket?" he asked. "But, Pippin, I don't"

"Oh, put it on, Uncle Jonathan. You'll look absolutely smashing." Jonathan obliged, and Abbie said to Merrill, "Isn't he beautiful? Isn't he just the handsomest man you ever saw?"

Merrill was staring at him, wide-eyed. He did look beautiful, although she had no idea what occasion would warrant such a coat.

"Now put your hand in the left pocket, Uncle Jon," Abbie instructed, fidgeting with excitement.

Jonathan drew out a small velvet box and opened it. Inside were three gold rings, one larger than the other two, each etched with an elaborate scroll of leaves and flowers, one of the small-sized rings set with a sapphire surrounded by diamonds. Jonathan glanced at his niece, an eyebrow lifted in wry inquiry. He knew the sapphire ring had passed to Abbie from her maternal grandmother. The other two she must have bought.

"In case you should need them," said Abbie, giggling.

What could have been in the box? Merrill wondered, for Jonathan had returned it to his pocket without comment. Merrill looked questioningly to Abbie, but no answer was forthcoming.

"Now yours, Merrill." Abbie hauled the square box with its green bow from the dining room table and placed it in Merrill's hands, which immediately dropped a foot with the weight. The box was full of books. "Just remember what you have to do," Abbie whispered conspiratorially.

Merrill scowled at the child, which was possible because Jonathan couldn't see Merrill's face. Her back was to him. "Thanks," she muttered ungraciously.

"The idea, Abbie," said Jonathan, "is to give people things they'd like to receive. You know Merrill isn't interested in reading." Abbie giggled, and Jonathan, looking uneasy, handed his box to Merrill. "I'll get you something else if you don't like it," he said.

What had he got her that she wouldn't like? Merrill wondered, undoing the bow. Not more books. The package wasn't heavy enough. She considered Abbie's gift a cruel jest since she had no hope of meeting the child's conditions and earning the lessons. Still, she didn't suppose Abbie was old enough to realize that one couldn't always have what one wanted from lifelike marriage to a handsome, intelligent man in Merrill's case, and a ready-made family in Abbie's. They'd both be disappointed.

Merrill lifted the box lid and stared in confusion at the beautiful blue velvet gown.

"We meant for you to wear it to the Christmas ball tonight," said Abbie, "but the snow ruined our plans."

"But I couldn't haveI mean I've never" Merrill was speechless. The gown seemed meant for a princess, not for a sheep rancher. If she touched it, it would probably flinch away from her work-roughened fingers.

"Still, you can wear it for Christmas Eve," said Abbie. "Come on. I'll help you put it on."

"I can't," Merrill protested, knowing she'd look a fool in the dress. It wouldn't even fit her. She was too skinny for a dress like that. She looked toward Jonathan to rescue her and saw that he too wanted to see her in his gift. So she'd put it on. It would be the final proof to them that they were from another world and should leave her to her own place.

"Oh, here's my chocolate and donuts," cried Abbie. "I'm starved." She ran to the table where Chun Kee had just deposited hot sugar-coated donuts, a steaming pitcher, and cups. Merrill breathed a sigh of relief, set the dress box aside, and joined them at the table, but not for long.

"One's enough," declared Abbie. "Keep my chocolate hot," she sang out to Chun Kee through the kitchen door, "and don't eat my share of the donuts, Uncle Jon. We'll be as quick as we can." With the dress casually bundled up under one arm so that it wouldn't drag, Abbie waved Merrill toward the stair. "You bring the petticoats, Merrill, and Uncle Jon, you'll have to carry the chemise and drawers.''

"What?" exclaimed Merrill, horrified at the idea that Jonathan would see ladies' undergarments, especially undergarments meant for her. She forgot for a moment that Jonathan had already seen the body they'd cover. When she remembered, halfway up the stair, her cheeks turned pinker than before.

"Oh, and the slippers, Uncle Jon. Don't forget them. Getting a pattern of her foot was so much trouble. I had to push her into some mud and then trace the imprint, which was really messy and disgusting. Can't you climb faster, Merrill? You act as if you don't want to try on Uncle Jon's dress. Well, not his dress." Her giggles floated up after Merrill. "Wouldn't he look smashing in it?"

"Better than me," Merrill muttered.

"What was that?" called Jonathan, who was behind Abbie with a load of silk, lace, and ruffles.

"No arguing," Abbie ordered, having reached the top of the stair two steps behind Merrill. "Not on Christmas. I'm going to fix your hair, Merrill. Chun Kee, I need a bucket of coals for the curling iron." She leaned over the rail. "Chun Kee, did you hear me?"

"You're not putting hot irons on my hair," said Merrill, blushing as she accepted the undergarments and slippers from Jonathan.

"Oh, don't be a sissy," Abbie retorted.

Descending the ladder in a dress that was long in front and longer in back, when you never wore dresses at all, with soft little slippers on your feet, when you were used to heeled boots, was, Merrill felt, one of the trickiest things she'd ever done, especially with Abbie behind her on the stairs, hopping up and down and crying, "Look at Merrill, Uncle Jon. Look at Merrill!"

And he was looking. By the time she reached the first floor, Jonathan was staring at her with much the same expression she herself had worn when she first looked into the mirror and saw an unfamiliar lady. The mirror image had thick blond hair arranged in elaborate loops and rolls and wore blue velvet that draped across the hips, making her waist look like nothing at all and her breasts look likewella lot bigger than Merrill had ever thought of her breasts as being, also a lot more exposed. They were sort of squeezed together by an uncomfortable garment that pinched her waist and pushed her bosom up so that she bulged above the low, gold-embroidered neck of the dress. Thank goodness the sleeves were long and warm, not that she felt cold. How could she, with Jonathan looking at her as if he'd just seen a beautiful stranger that he wanted to make a grab for?

Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, Merrill tried to kick into some sort of order the folds of the skirt that dropped from under the draperies. Then self-consciously she poked that huge, silly bundle in back, which was the only ugly thing about the dress.

"She doesn't like the bustle," said Abbie smugly. She'd just jumped down the last two steps to land beside Merrill. "I told you she wouldn't."

"It's so you'll have a place to put your gun, in case you want to carry it to a dance."

"Oh," said Merrill. She stopped scowling and smiled, appreciating his thoughtfulness. Without any weapon, she'd certainly have felt uneasy, and she knew a holster would look ridiculous with the dress.

"Unfortunately, the snow's got heavier," Jonathan added ruefully. "I'm afraid we won't be able to attend the dance."

"I told you so," said Abbie. "Didn't I say we'd never make it back to town? But I brought my music box down, so you can dance to that." She turned a small key on a pretty enameled box. Much to Merrill's amazement, music tinkled out as if there were a tiny man playing inside. "Now I'm going to bed," said Abbie.

"Now?" Merrill echoed. Jonathan always had to drive the child upstairs, and Merrill, acting on her own, rarely got Abbie to bed without telling at least two stories about mining for gold or stalking mountain cats or freighting fleece with Uncle Burden drunk on the wagon seat and the oxen balking all the way to Colorado. Abbie's favorite story was about Jonathan and Merrill shooting cowboys and making them walk to town all roped together.

"Yes, I'm completely tired out," said Abbie. "You look beautiful, Merrill." Then she hissed in Merrill's ear, "Just remember to say yes, or you won't get your lessons, and I'll tell him you can't read." Then Abbie scooped a handful of donuts off the table and hopped up the steps.

"You do look beautiful." Jonathan was still staring at her. He rewound the music box and, bowing, asked, "May I have this dance?" as if she were a real lady.

"I don't know how," Merrill whispered.

Jonathan put one hand at her waist, placed her hand on his shoulder, wrapped his other hand warmly around hers, and exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up, "You're freezing!"

"I am not," Merrill retorted. Actually, she felt almost feverish, as she had the first time he'd kissed her. Only her fingers were freezing. Jonathan smiled at her in a way that made her breath catch, and then he taught her to waltz. They rewound the music box seven times before they stopped dancing, breathless, and Jonathan pulled her down on his lap in Pa's big chair by the hearth.

"Do you like waltzing?" he asked.

She nodded shyly, biting her lip to keep from saying that it ran a close second to making love.

"Will you marry me?"

Merrill stiffened on his knee. "What?"

"I want to get married," he said patiently. "To you."

"But"

"Now that you know you're beautiful, you have one less reason to say nounless, of course, you really don't like me."

"Of course I like you." She loved him. "But we can't get married."

"Why not?"

She thought of spending the rest of her life with Jonathan, spending each night in his arms and each day in his company. "I'm older than you are.

Men don't marry women who are older than they are," she said reluctantly. "I'm almost thirty."

"If you were almost forty, I'd still want to marry you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

Merrill couldn't really believe that. Even after seeing her in this beautiful dress, he couldn't love her. He might think he did, but as soon as she got back into her ranch clothes, he'd change his mind. The ranch must be what he wanted all to himself. "It's always been the Fox ranch," she said. "If we married, it would be the Forrester ranch, and under law you'd probably own the whole thing, and I'd be just a female nobody."

Jonathan thought about that, holding her firmly in place on his lap and in the curve of his arm when she tried to edge loose. "You're a hard woman to please, Merrill, but I'll tell you what. We'll take both names like those fancy English families do. We'll call ourselves Jonathan and Merrill Forrester-Fox. There's probably some legal way to do that. And we'll sign an agreement saying the ranch is half yours, half mine, legal partners, even after we're married. Apple can take care of it."

"You'd do that? Change your name for me?"

He nodded.

"How about Fox-Forrester?" she suggested, an impish gleam lighting her eyes.

Jonathan roared with laughter, and they heard Abbie's voice piping down from the head of the stair. "You're not supposed to be laughing," she called reproachfully.

"Go back to bed," Jonathan shouted, then whispered to Merrill, "I wonder what she thinks we're supposed to be doing."

"Dancing," said Merrill absently, knowing and dreading the one last impediment to the marriage, the thing she'd never wanted to tell him. "Jonathan," she said, staring down at her hands, "I'm illiterate. A famous writer shouldn't marry a woman who can't read."

He tipped her chin up so that she had to look at him and said, "What a relief! I thought you just didn't want to read my books."

Merrill shook her head sadly. She'd love to have read his books.

"Well, if that's the problem, sweetheart, I'll teach you to read. Or Abbieby God, she knew, didn't she?"

Merrill nodded, then giggled. "She's been black-mailing me."

Jonathan's brow furrowed, and his mouth turned hard. "To do what?" he demanded.

"Say yes if you asked me to marry you. But I told her you never would."

"Well, do what the child wants. That minx has obviously known all along that I was in love." He reached into his pocket for the velvet box. "And what about you, Merrill? Are you in love, or just tempted to marry me so that you can learn to read?"

"Both," said Merrill promptly.

"Humph. I'd like to ask which is more important to you – me or the reading lessons, but I won't push my luck." He opened the box and slipped the sapphire ring onto her finger. "Abbie's Christmas gift to the two of us. We'll go into Flagstaff and use the wedding rings tomorrow," he added, showing them to her. "Tomorrow or as soon as the weather clears and Hiram draws up the contracts. Then we'll move Abbie into your room down the hall and you into my bed, because this is, my dear future wife, the very last night I intend to set a good example for Abbie by sleeping alone. Then we'll honeymoon in Albuquerque over New Year's."

Merrill, who had been staring in wonder at the beautiful ring on her finger, looked up, frowning, when he mentioned Albuquerque. "It wouldn't be sensible to"

She'd been about to say "leave the ranch with nobody to watch over it," but Jonathan interrupted her, sounding disgruntled. "Of course, you're right. Albuquerque might be more fun, but the proper thing is for me to take you home to meet my parents."

"To New York?" cried Merrill. She could just imagine what his rich, snobbish New York family would think of her! And it would take weeks to get there and return. They might not be back in time for lambing, if any of the sheep survived her absence.

"I've always wanted to see Albuquerque," she said cautiously, hoping he'd change his mind about his family obligations.

"Me too," called Abbie from the top of the stairs.

"Go to bed this instant," Jonathan roared.

"Oh, all right!"

They heard the door to Abbie's room slam. "You've made me a very happy man, Merrill," said Jonathan, "and I hope to do the same for you. I want to give you everything you've ever wished for."

"I think you have," said Merrill, smiling a secret smile as she remembered her three Christmas wishes a lifetime on her own ranch, the ability to read, and a baby to inherit the land. Now she'd have them all, plus the fourth wish, for which she had never allowed herself to hope, a life with Jonathan.