"The words weren't necessary. We both know you hold a grudge against Chase Calder for sending you to prison, not once, but twice."

Still smiling, he gazed once again at the rug. "That was a long time ago."

"Not so long ago that you have forgotten, though." She pushed out of her chair and crossed to the side of the desk, turned a sheet of paper toward her, and scanned its contents. "At your first trial on robbery and assault charges, it was essentially Chase's testimony that convicted you. With that on your record, when you were found guilty of attempted murder, the judge threw the book at you. Calder made sure of it."

"Like I said, that was a long time ago." But his smile didn't reach his eyes.

"And you were much too greedy," she declared. "I think you should know, Mr. Haskell, that I have run a very thorough check on you. There is very little about you that I don't already know-your likes and dislikes, the books you checked out of the prison library, the educational courses you took, which prisoners you associated with, and which ones you didn't. In your day, you were one of the best in the saddle, a top hand with rope, an expert on cattle, and a competent boss of the men beneath you. Currently I can itemize the contents of the house you are renting, and tell you to the penny how much money you bring in each month. I know where you applied for a job and where you didn't. I must admit I was surprised it took you so long to make an application here."

"You decided to hire me the day you saw me at the ranch, didn't you?"

"That's when it first occurred to me." She came around to the front of the desk and casually braced herself against it. "But you will learn that I never act rashly."

"How long did it take to get that report back on me?" He nodded toward the papers she had consulted. "One week? Two?"

"A little less than two weeks."

"So how come it took you so long to offer me the job?"

"Really, Mr. Haskell," she said in a chiding voice. "I could hardly come knocking on your door. Blue Moon is a very small town. Nothing happens in it that isn't common knowledge by the end of the day. And if I had called you on the phone, you might have listened to my offer, and you might have hung up the minute you heard my name. That wasn't a risk I wanted to take. No, it's better this way. The mine is the only large employer in the area. Anyone would expect you to apply for work here."

Buck read between the lines. "In other words, I'm not supposed to tell anyone that I'm working for you."

"Not yet. Not until I'm ready to take possession. At that point, secrecy will no longer be necessary. Will you take the job? I promise you the salary will be more than adequate to meet your needs."

"Oh, I'm taking it all right, ma'am," Buck drawled in answer. "To be honest, I'd pay for the chance to see Calder's face when he finds you've got title to that land. You just tell me when I start, and I'll be there, all spit and polished and ready to gloat."

"Not for a while yet. I'll let you know. In the meantime," she reached behind her and picked up a slim, square handbag, unfastened its flap, and removed a slender stack of crisp new bills from inside it, "here is your first month's salary in advance."

"You're paying me in cash?" He took it from her and automatically counted it.

"For the time being, I don't want anybody making a connection between us. A check you would have to cash somewhere. And as I said, this is a small town."

"What about the people here?"

"As E.J. Dyson's daughter, I command the loyalty here. This is my ground. Besides, Daigle is the only one who knows I'm meeting with you. And he won't breathe a word of it for fear of losing his job." She straightened from the desk and extended a hand again.

"It's good to have you on board, Mr. Haskell," she said, sending a clear signal that their meeting was concluded.

Slipping the bills into his inside jacket pocket, Buck stood up and shook her hand, sealing their bargain. "It will be interesting, ma'am. It surely will be that."

The first stars gleamed in the evening sky. Scattered across the sprawling headquarters, towering yard lights cast pools of amber light onto the ground beneath them, simultaneously bringing light to the darkness and deepening its shadows.

But Ty noticed none of it as he leaned his shoulder against a pillar and bent his head to light a cigar. He puffed on it until the tip glowed, then shook out the match, pinched the burnt sulfur end until it felt cool, then tossed it away.

Behind him the front door opened, briefly throwing interior light onto the veranda. Then it closed and light footsteps approached. He recognized the gliding tread of them as Tara's and didn't turn.

"I didn't know you were out here, Ty," she declared as she joined him, then smiled when she saw the cigar in his mouth. "Smoking a cigar, I see. Do you remember how much I hated the smell of one? Now, I actually like it. It must come from living in a house without a man around. Smoking cigars is such a masculine thing." She turned her face to the night air. "Isn't it unusually warm for April?"

"Yes," he replied through the cigar, accepting her presence and the underlying sexual tension that always accompanied it. Being with her was a habit he had picked up again over the last year.

"I thought so. Oh, Ty, look at that full moon," she rushed. "Isn't it spectacular? It looks like a big fat pumpkin sitting on the lip of the horizon."

He glanced at the moonrise. "It is beautiful," he agreed, but there was a perfunctory tone to his reply.

Catching it, Tara studied him curiously. "Is something wrong, Ty? You were so preoccupied at dinner tonight. And now?" She left the phrase unfinished, making a question of it.

He felt the probe of her gaze and avoided it by examining the buildup of ash on the glowing tip of his cigar. "Just tired. It's been a long day."

She released the breath she had been holding. "That's a relief. For a minute, I thought the attorneys may have brought you bad news today. And I couldn't imagine them flying in unless they had some positive information." Fortunately she left him no opening to respond. "It has been a long day, but it's been a good one, too. The photographer was absolutely certain that he captured some stunning images on film, both of the ranch itself and the life on it. I know it's been inconvenient having them underfoot for the last three days, but a picture spread will make a much greater impact than an article alone."

"I'll take your word for it." The subtle fragrance of her perfume wrapped itself around him, sensuous and alluring, like its wearer.

"Good, because it's true," Tara declared and again perused the nightscape before them. "The photographer could hardly wait to get back and start developing all the rolls of film he shot. To give you an idea of just how excited he was, he wants to come back when the trees have leafed out and the land has greened up."

"God, no," Ty snapped emphatically.

Tara laughed, low in her throat. He felt the caress of it. "I knew that's how you would react. I promise, I didn't encourage him to return."

"Good."

"This auction is going to be a huge success. I can just feel it." She hugged her arms about her middle, a self-satisfied look on her face.

"It better, with all we have invested in it, both in money and hard work."

"It will." There was a confident curve to her lips. "Do you know what is so ironic, Ty?" Her gaze slanted up to him, partially screened by the thick sweep of her dark lashes. It was an evocative look, full of tantalizing promise.

"What?" His glance drifted of its own accord to her lips, glistening in the moonlight.

"When we were married, ninety percent of all our arguments were about business. Now look at how well we work together. Looking back, I can see the fault was mine. I'll bet you thought I would never admit that," she teased.

Oddly enough, her confession took the sting out of their past. Ty smiled back. "Quite honestly, I didn't."

"I guess it was only natural for me to believe that my father's way was the only way," Tara mused. "After all, he spent his life exploiting natural gas, oil, and coal reserves. I was raised in that world, Ty. But the ranch was totally alien to me. I didn't seem to fit in anywhere. There was nothing I could contribute-no way I could help. And I am simply not the type of woman who is content with home and hearth. I need the mental stimulation that business provides. When Daddy wanted to mine the coal on the Triple C, I pushed for it. This was a business I knew. For the first time I could be useful. You will never know how important that was to me back then," she explained, emphasizing it with a quick glance his way. "That's why I sided against you all those years ago-and destroyed our marriage in the process."

"I never realized any of this." Ty stared, moved by her explanation. It was his first glimpse into their married life from her side of it. He suddenly understood the cause for all the restlessness and dissatisfaction she had exhibited back then.

"Why should you?" Tara shrugged, a beautifully rueful smile playing across her lips. "I spent two years on an analyst's couch before I guessed at any of it. Most of the time I acted like a spoiled, petulant brat. In a way, that is exactly what I was. Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself or flying off to some party or function where I felt important and my views mattered, I should have used that energy to learn the ranch business. I could have asked you to teach me. I knew about these private livestock auctions back then. Maybe if I had tried to learn more about ranching, I would have said something about them to you. But I was too busy trying to force you to become part of my world to take the time to become a part of yours." Her eyes darkened with honest and profound regret. It stirred through his emotions, awakening them.

"I wish I had known. I wish I had guessed." His husky voice echoed the regret in her eyes.

"I have wished that a million times. Even though I never meant to do it, I drove you away. But, Ty," she took a step closer, her expression earnest and imploring, a look of utter longing in her eyes, "it was never because I didn't trust you or believe in you. I truly loved you. That's what is so horribly sad about this. That's why it still hurts." Tara whispered the last in a tremulous voice as tears brimmed in her eyes.

"I know." Ty felt the same pain over this new insight into the past. It linked them closer than before.

"Do you? Do you really?" She looked at him, breathless with hope.

"Yes." He gathered her close to him, seeking the comfort to be found in physical contact, something they both needed. Tara slid her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. It was an embrace without demand, full of warmth and closeness.

"Sometimes, Ty," Tara murmured, "I can't help wondering about what might have been if things had worked out differently."

For the first time, Ty did, too. And it confused him. Suddenly nothing was black and white anymore. He felt again the same tear of loyalties between his feelings for Tara and Jessy that he had experienced back when he was still married to Tara.

"We can't turn back the clock." Ty said it as much for himself as for Tara.

She sighed and pulled fractionally away, allowing a wedge of space to come between them, her hands gliding to rest on his hips as she tipped her head back. "No, we can't, can we? Too many other people are involved now. It's too late for us," she admitted, raising a hand and resting it lightly along his cheek, a fondness in its touch. "But I can't help wishing that wasn't so."

She stretched upward, her lips moving onto his in a tenderly warm kiss of sweet longing. Ty responded in perfect accord, gripped by a sense of sadness and loss.

Some distance off to his right, there was a scuff of a boot on the graveled drive, followed by the tumbling roll of stones. The sounds signaled the approach of someone to the house. Breaking off the kiss, Ty lifted his head.

Tara stepped apart from him, but without haste or guilt. Innocent as the kiss had been, Ty felt unease over it.

"If I plan on leaving in the morning, I need to get my things packed." Tara spoke clearly in a tone that carried without an increase in volume. "Enjoy your cigar, Ty."

But it had gone out long ago. When she crossed to the front door, Ty dug another match from his pocket, watching the hatted figure moving out of the shadows toward the steps. Ty struck the match and held the flame beneath the cigar tip, his gaze on the man not yet close enough to identify. Smoke puffed from the corners of his mouth. He shook out the match, everything inside him hardening when he saw Ballard step into the light.

"What are you doing out and about this evening, Ballard?" Ty demanded, all the time wondering how much Ballard had seen and angered by the sense of guilt the question produced.

"I've been going over the construction billings with Matt Sullivan," he said, identifying by name the Triple C's bookkeeper. "We have a problem with the lighting supplier."

"What kind of problem?"

Ballard climbed the steps and came to a stop in front of Ty. His expression was too bland to tell Ty anything. He detected a certain coolness in Ballard's attitude, but that had been there ever since Ty jumped him for touching Jessy.

"He's refusing to sign a lien waiver. He keeps insisting that we owe him for some equipment that was never delivered. Matt sent him copies of the bills of lading on all the deliveries from his firm, but he claims the equipment was shipped and we owe him for it." Ballard paused, then added, "I thought I'd better go over it with you so you can decide how you want to handle it."

Ty glanced at the sheaf of papers in Ballard's hand, then back to the man's face. "There is nothing I can do about it tonight. You should have waited until morning and saved yourself the walk."

"You're forgetting that I won't be here in the morning. I'm driving in to Miles City tonight so I can pick up that load of antiques Tara bought to add to the barn's decor." He underscored the word with sardonic emphasis. But there was little Ty could read into that. Tara never had been exactly popular with the ranch hands. "I won't make it back until tomorrow afternoon. By then, who knows where you'll be."

"You're right. I had forgotten," Ty admitted and turned toward the front door. "Come on inside and we'll go over it."

At no time during their meeting was there anything in Ballard's manner to indicate that he had observed the embrace. Ty was left to wonder whether he had or not. It only increased his sense of unease.

Chapter Eleven.

Saturdays always brought a change in atmosphere at the Triple C, tingeing the air with an underlying crackle of excitement. Routines were altered. There was a slight spring in the step of those still on duty, and a hustle and bustle in the others, eager to get the odd tasks done so they could head into Blue Moon for a night on the town.

Standing at the top of the veranda steps, Chase felt the familiar pull of it and remembered the day when he had been as eager as the next cowboy to whoop it up after a hard, long week in the saddle. These last years since Maggie died, Saturdays hadn't been different than any other days for him. He just couldn't summon the old enthusiasm for a night out.

There was a time when he would have gone to town a couple times a week to check on Sally. Since she'd sold the restaurant and moved to the Triple C, he didn't have a reason to go anymore. A dry smile tugged at a corner of his mouth as it occurred to him that he was the only one who felt the way.

Chase swung away from the view of the ranch headquarters and went back inside. "Sally!" he boomed her name. "Sally!"

"I'm in the kitchen." Her shouted answer rang above the squeals and giggles of the twins.

"She is always in the kitchen," Chase muttered to himself and set out in its direction at a hobble, his arthritis acting up again.

When he walked into the kitchen, young Trey was struggling to climb out of the playpen while little Laura sat contentedly in the middle of it, playing with one of their toys. Jessy was busy sweeping the floor. Sally turned from the countertop, a white-speckled roaster pan in her hands.

"What did you need, Chase?" Sally questioned with mild interest.

Ignoring the question, he frowned and asked, "What's that in your hands?"

"A roast for tonight's dinner. Why?"

"Let me have that." He limped over to take it from her. Sally immediately hurried to the oven to open the door for him, but Chase walked over to the refrigerator instead.

"What are you doing, Chase?" Sally stared at him with a dumbfounded look.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he retorted and opened the refrigerator door. "I'm putting this away. I'm taking you out to dinner tonight. It is time you ate somebody's cooking other than your own." The look of pleasure that leaped into her face made Chase wish he had thought of doing this before. "You want to go out, don't you?" he challenged, a smile taking all the gruffness out of his voice.

"Of course, I do." The corners of her mouth deepened in a smile that chided him for suggesting otherwise. "But I still have to put that roast in the oven so Ty and Jessy will have something to eat tonight."

"If they want a roast for dinner, they can fix it themselves." Chase immediately set about making space for the long roaster pan in the oven. "For all you know, they just might decide to eat in town, too."

"Which shows how much you know," Sally retorted. "Jessy's parents are playing cards with the Trumbos tonight. There's no one to baby-sit the twins."

"And what is stopping them from bringing the twins along?" Chase countered. "It's time they were taking them out and getting them around strangers. They need to learn how to behave in public sometime. Why couldn't they start tonight?"

"Chase Calder, you know how raucous that place is on Saturday night. It will be packed with people, the jukebox blaring-"

Before Sally could complete her list, Chase interrupted, "You never know. All the commotion might keep them entertained. Isn't that right, Jessy?"

Up to then, Jessy had stayed out of their conversation, preferring to be a fly on the wall while the two of them squabbled like an old married couple. Now Chase had drawn her into it.

"They are old enough now that they probably would enjoy it," she agreed. "Trey would certainly be intrigued by all the action, and Laura would be fascinated by the music and dancing. But I don't think we'll go. You two deserve an evening without the twins underfoot."

Startled by the inference that this was a date of sorts, Sally darted an anxious look at Chase. She had known him too long to believe there was anything romantic behind his invitation. And she was reluctant to have him think she might.

"That's nonsense, Jessy," she rushed in protest. "We wouldn't mind in the least. Would we, Chase?"

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I did. We will make it a family night out," he concluded.

"That sounds fun." The more Jessy thought about it, the more it appealed to her. Lately she and Ty had been bickering a lot. A night out, away from the ranch, might be good for both of them.

The restaurant and bar, formerly owned by Sally, had been repainted a dark brown that was already dulled by a coat of dust. Newly mounted atop its porch roof was a huge neon sign that spelled out the letters HARRY'S HIDEAWAY in fluorescent green.

The summer sun had yet to set in the evening sky, but already the parking lot was full when they arrived. Stopping in the driveway, Ty let the others out, then headed across the highway to park at Fedderson's combination gas station, grocery store, and post office.

Pausing near the base of the entrance steps, Chase surveyed the long, green-glowing sign and snorted his disgust. "Harry's Hideaway. It doesn't look to me like a place to hide. I'll bet you can see the glow of that sign in Miles City."