Frank turned on her and snarled, "I don't need any excuses from a woman stupid enough to sit out here and nurse the son of a b.i.t.c.h who did that to her face. You just shut up and wait outside. This is a family matter."

By the time he had finished talking, his voice had risen to just short of a yell in the small room, and he didn't lower it as he turned on Cord. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you son of a b.i.t.c.h, I keep thinking you can't get any worse, and you keep proving me wrong." Frank's voice lowered to a harsh growl. "Eph thinks we ought to finish you off ourselves and at least take care of the family's own mess right here and now, and maybe he's right, and I suppose you're just going to lay there and pull that G.o.dd.a.m.n silence c.r.a.p on us again."

It was obvious to Anne by now that the Bennetts had not come to help and that Frank was just warming up. Things were not going to get better. She left the bedroom as ordered, then went and got the rifle she had talked Noah Reynolds into reloading.

Keeping the rifle hidden behind her, she slipped back into the bedroom. Ephraim and Frank were either too busy abusing their half-brother to notice or didn't think she was worthy of notice.

Remembering Cord's instructions of the day before, she put her back to the wall in a corner away from the door. Once in position, she raised the rifle. Frank halted in mid-word, and both he and Ephraim turned full attention on her.

"Get out." She wasn't shouting. She said it in quite a conversational tone.

"Now look, Miss Wells, n.o.body meant to...."

"Get out." She said it more forcefully this time. "I probably couldn't hit you at any distance, but in this room, I'm quite sure I can blow a large, nasty hole right in your belly, and if you don't turn around and get out of this house in the next few seconds that's exactly what I'm going to do. I've had enough of you and your kind to last me a lifetime.

Get out!"

Anne was almost disappointed when Frank turned without another word and walked out of the room. Ephraim followed close behind, and Anne made sure they kept going right through the house, out the front door, and got on their horses.

She slammed the front door and returned to the bedroom, collapsed into the rocker still holding the rifle and looked at Cord. "Your family is almost as delightful as mine."

She saw a look in and around his eyes she could only call a smile.

"Frank's got a bit of a temper."

"A bit! That was one of the rudest, most offensive performances I've ever seen. They didn't come to help. They think you.... They never even asked...." She broke off, unable to find words to complete a sentence.

"They've already decided. They don't need to ask." He looked almost gray, drawn and tired beyond bearing.

"Want some water, or some soup stuff?" She saw the slight smile in his eyes again.

"No, just sleep."

The doctor was wrong. He was not going to die. Dying men do not smile with their eyes. So determined, Anne left for the kitchen to make herself some lunch, thinking it was certainly wonderful how nice and quiet life was out here in the country.

It never even occurred to her that less than a week earlier the thought of running two grown men out of the house with a gun would have been inconceivable.

CHAPTER 7.

AFTER THAT, LIFE DID BECOME rather peaceful. Dr. Craig was their only visitor, and from him Anne learned that while Frank and Ephraim knew she was still at the ranch, they weren't discussing their brother with anyone. Chattering town folk fell silent the moment any one of the grim-faced Bennetts appeared. Sheriff Reynolds had told the Wells family that Anne refused to come home but that the Bennetts would help her get to Chicago, which Anne knew she had led him to believe because she had thought that was what would happen herself at the time.

She thought of the last letter she'd had from her aunt, describing a planned trip to New York City this fall. The fact that her Aunt Clara wouldn't be home was one of the things she had counted on in her headlong flight to Chicago. Her aunt's servants would let her stay at the house until her aunt returned, and by that time.... Had she mentioned the news in that letter to her father or brother? Neither one paid much attention to such things. Would her mother say anything? Anne prayed not. She also prayed that her father would be a long time realizing that any letter he had sent Aunt Clara with instructions as to his ruined daughter's punishment and rehabilitation was sitting unread in Chicago.

Anne begged Craig not to straighten anyone out. He agreed with a sympathetic smile.

"If you think it will help, I won't say a word."

Craig also reported that Charlie Meeks and Lem Samuels had come to him and had bullet wounds treated, but they claimed the wounds were the result of roughhousing out at the Double M. The doctor had also heard that a few days later the Double M men had drawn their pay and moved on, giving no hint as to where they were headed.

They're headed straight to h.e.l.l, Anne thought, and I hope being shot at by a dead man gives them nightmares every night till they get there.

And so the golden fall days pa.s.sed. Anne found herself more and more in love with life on the ranch. She was up each morning eagerly, running to the barn in the cold air, talking to each of the animals. She had given them all names, something Cord had never bothered with.

He told her which of the pasture gates to turn the corralled horses out through, so she no longer had their care, and he also instructed her what, how much, and how to feed each animal. Her improvisations in the first dark days had not been too far off, and nothing had suffered. When Cord asked her about the starved colt in the barn, Anne replied that he was now eating and seemed to be feeling better. Cord gave her a strange look but said nothing. When she asked what had caused the colt's condition, he turned away and gave her no answer.

And that, of course, was the trouble with him. Anne might be absolutely sure the fright stories about this man were untrue, but the fact was he was more often than not unemotional and uncommunicative. It was difficult to get him to give a direct answer to a question. He seemed unable or unwilling to speak more than a few sentences at once, certainly unable to carry on conversation as she knew it.

As a patient, however, he was much easier to care for than she had expected. Her father and brother both turned nasty over a cold or cut, but Cord never complained, never demanded, and made the many things that embarra.s.sed her speechless at first routine by his fatalistic acceptance. He might not talk much, but his occasional dry comments about people and situations they both knew from a lifetime in Mason were so perceptive - and often humorous - that she enjoyed being around him. Nursing him, living in his house, caring for his livestock changed nothing for Anne - she liked Cord Bennett.

The house she already loved. Cord did tell her he had been born in a cabin on the site of what was now the main ranch headquarters. This house had come later, when the ranch began to pay, and the whole family had only lived here a short time, for the house was too small by the time it was completed.

Anne herself was used to larger, finer houses. Aunt Clara lived in what most people would call a mansion, with half a dozen servants to wait on one widow. Her family's house in Mason and those of their friends were also much larger and grander. The decors were somber and stately, the furniture was highly polished and expensive, and nowhere Anne had ever lived made her as happy as this house. It was light, bright, and sunny. Just working in it made her happy. And work she did. She baked bread and the few simple cookie recipes she knew by heart, churned b.u.t.ter, and drastically reduced the chicken population.

When supplies ran low, she imposed upon Dr. Craig to bring some things from town, which he made clear he didn't mind doing at all. Getting the money to reimburse the doctor and pay his fees from the cubbyhole Cord directed her to, she found less than two hundred dollars. She realized then that Cord had been trying to force her to take the bulk of what cash he had before her father had smashed their lives to pieces. How had he planned to make it through the winter? Anne knew asking would not get her an answer.

By the time three weeks had pa.s.sed, Cord was able to make it to the kitchen table without help, and the doctor admitted to Anne that this was one of the miracles he had mentioned. Craig told her he had never before seen a man recover from such a beating.

Craig said it was just luck that no vital organ had been ruptured. Anne didn't think luck had anything to do with it. In her opinion, the crowd of men kicking at Cord had been so large that they got in each other's way.

Dr. Craig did think some damage other than the slight b.u.mp of a broken nose and the thin, crooked scar on Cord's cheekbone was permanent. Anne walked into the bedroom during what would be his last visit in time to hear him say so.

"I suppose you don't have any desire to start a dynasty anyway, but it's just as well."

Embarra.s.sed but not leaving the room, Anne knew exactly which of the many injuries Dr. Craig was referring to. Cord seemed unaffected by this news.

"No heirs, huh?"

"Well, I'm not saying it's impossible, mind you, but usually that much swelling and fever...." The doctor became aware of Anne's presence in the room and broke off.

After Craig left Anne wanted to tell Cord how sorry she was, but couldn't find the words.

CORD ON HIS PART HAD first come to with an all-encompa.s.sing fury. Fury at himself for not strapping on a gun the minute he found Anne in his barn. Had he really believed that because he was a Bennett on Bennett land a mob like that would limit itself to threats? He had expected her father to be searching for her with a friend or two if at all, and even after hearing Anne's story, he had underestimated Edward. The Double M men had turned the search party into a lynch mob, but it was Edward's treatment of Anne that had sparked the violence.

Knowing that Anne would tell the truth about being with him, he had believed there would be a lot ugliness, but never expected anyone to try to kill him. Further, he had never imagined anyone subjecting a woman to that kind of abuse. What Edward Wells had done to his own daughter and Anne's courage in refusing to bend to her father's will had almost distracted Cord from what was happening to him.

The hate-driven effort to get to the front door with the pistol had released some of the rage, but he recognized a reflection of his own feelings when Anne drove Frank and Ephraim from the house. He saw the changes in her and thought he understood them more than she did herself. She was out of a cage and finding her wings. No one would cage her again, and he admired her courage and determination.

As her bruises healed, the swelling subsided, and an abundance of decent food rounded out her face and body to the way he remembered them, he also admired the elegant feminine look of her. And he wanted her with such an intensity he could barely hide it.

It was, he thought bitterly, the most foolish and self-destructive desire he had ever had. He might use the fact that she really had no place to go to have her - once, or for a week, or a month. But Anne was not a woman he could ever really have. Hers was a different world, and she would never be satisfied in his for long. Her reputation was now so ruined as to be non-existent, and she could not go back to her life in Mason if she wanted to. Women would shun her; men would be so disrespectful as to be dangerous.

The aunt in Chicago seemed her only real alternative, but the fact that the aunt was Edward Wells' sister worried him.

Maybe if he could convince her to stay it wouldn't be the worst thing for her, but then if he had a decent bone in his body he should talk her into letting Frank and Ephraim help her. Cord would as soon be tied down for Meeks and his friends again as to have to actually explain to his brothers he wasn't either a woman-beater or a rapist, but if that was the only way to get her help he would. He sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to let her go off on her own with twenty dollars.

In fact, it was already becoming unthinkable that she would leave at all and he would no longer be able to covertly study the gentle sway of her walk or the delicate lines of her face. His pulse would no longer quicken watching the thrust of a breast, the graceful curve of her neck, back, and b.u.t.tocks. The house would no longer be filled with the smells of baking bread and cookies, the sound of her laughter, humming, and occasionally, when she thought he was asleep, song.

When after weeks he was finally able to get out of the bedroom, he sat at the kitchen table, keeping busy any way possible, peeling potatoes, turning the handle on the paddle b.u.t.ter churn, or repairing bits of harness and saddlery he had Anne bring in from the barn. The worn books on the shelves had been his father's, and he reread parts of them, but they didn't hold his interest. Being up didn't help at all. He watched her working around the kitchen and the desire just grew like a wild thing with a will of its own. Logic was most definitely losing the battle with l.u.s.t.

CHAPTER 8.

MORE THAN A MONTH HAD pa.s.sed when Cord decided he could make it to the barn and back. He wanted to see the sick colt, for he didn't believe Anne that the colt was alive, much less well. It was as good as dead the last time he saw it. Anne was vocal about her lack of faith he could make it back from the barn and furious that he wouldn't wait a few more days. By now he was used to her quick temper over such things. He ignored her.

"You'll make it out there all right, but you won't make it back, and I'm not dragging you again. You can spend the whole day right where you fall, so help me."

He kept walking.

"Drat you, maybe I'll shove you in the wheelbarrow and just dump you back in the house."

She was berating his back and finally gave up and ran to catch him. He knew by now she wouldn't stay mad for long and in fact would probably be smiling in minutes. He suppressed every emotion. She suppressed none.

His ribs and belly were already a dull ache by the time he got to the colt's stall, and he held onto the stall part.i.tion for support, wanting to disbelieve his eyes. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"That colt was as good as dead. I should have shot him. How did you get him to eat?"

The look on Anne's face told him he had given away how much he wanted to know, and her words set the price for the answer. "I'll tell you how I did it, if you'll tell me how he got like that."

Cord glared at her, knowing full well it wouldn't have any effect. "All right."

"Come on, you'd better sit somewhere or I really will have to use the wheelbarrow."

They sat facing each other on overturned buckets, leaning back against stall walls.

Anne told him about the sugar, how the colt had eventually given in and eaten a bit willingly. The next day she had made a thin sugar syrup and laced it in his grain and poured it in thin streams over the hay. She also confessed freely to the talking and petting. She called the colt Fortune and wanted to know about him.

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to keep his half of the bargain.

Chewing on a bit of hay, he said, "I had a deal with Alferd Lathrum, over north of Grenerton, you know?"

Everyone in Mason knew of Lathrum, who raised quality blood horses but was reputed to be a cruel man. Anne nodded.

Cord continued, "He cheated me by selling me a dead colt is all. And you cheated him by keeping the colt alive." He then rose unsteadily to his feet and headed back for the house.

He knew perfectly well that Anne felt he had broken their t.i.t for tat bargain and was angry. This was a cold fury very different from the fast pa.s.sing little displays of temperament. Worst of all, he knew he had made her think seriously about leaving. Over lunch he asked her, "When will you leave?"

Her voice was cool. "As soon as you can take care of the animals yourself."

"Money?"

"None of your business." After that she was pleasant, considerate, and too polite.

By the next morning he wanted to shake her until she begged for mercy, but he had certainly seen that that didn't work. Over polite protests, he walked with her to the barn for morning ch.o.r.es. He made no effort to try to pitch hay, carry grain or water, but quietly milked the cows, now named Daisy and Rose. When everything was taken care of in the barn, he said, "All right, sit down. I'll tell you."

He was not used to story-telling and spoke slowly with many long pauses.

"You know I was gone from here some of the same years you were."

Anne nodded. She was leaning towards him, lips parted, wide-eyed and eager to hear it all. Maybe telling this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"I had some extra cash when I first got back and thought to use it for a young stallion bred some better than the stock I've got, so I went to see Lathrum."

Anne tried to hurry him. "So you bought a horse from him?"

"Nope. He wasn't too keen on compet.i.tion. Got downright nasty. I heard later he was even making buyers promise not to resell to me."

Cord shrugged, but it pleased him that Anne's mouth tightened. There was no doubt whose side she was on already.

"Not too long after that word got around he'd had a fancy palomino foal born over there. You know the color?"

"Golden. They really are pretty."

"Mm. Unusual color out of his stock. He was offered a lot of money for it right from the start, but being a greedy b.a.s.t.a.r.d he figured he'd get more when it was grown and broke."

A few weeks ago Anne would have had a ladylike fit over his language, but her att.i.tudes had toughened some in the past weeks. Now she only rarely tried to rebuke him by wrinkling her nose or frowning. Hurrying him with his tale was obviously her only interest at the moment. "So?"

"So when the colt got old enough Raoul started working with him and couldn't get a thing done."

"Who's Raoul?"

"Raoul Zamora, Lathrum's head horseman. He's good with a horse, but he uses Spanish methods - harsh - and Lathrum pushes him to where some of it gets pretty ugly.

Hate to think what they probably did to that yellow horse, but that stud beat them - they couldn't get him broke. So they asked around and tried some of the men known for horse taming and that kind of thing. Horse almost killed a man last fall. It was still winning."

"Didn't they consider a surgical solution?"

Her delicate way of alluding to castration amused him, and her blush said she knew it, but she was still leaning toward him, eager to hear the rest of the story.

"Gelding might be worth two hundred dollars. He was offered thousands for that yellow horse, entire and broke."

"I see."