"No one ever sends good news in a wire. It costs too much. It's bad all right. Someone must have died. You ought to go comfort her."

"You go."

"I wasn't engaged to her; you were."

"For G.o.d's sake, there wasn't any engagement."

When Clarence turned to go down the steps, Adam saw his expression clearly.

"Clarence looks scared."

Cole nodded. "He sure is in a hurry to leave, isn't he?"

Adam turned back to Genevieve. "Why doesn't she open the envelope? What's she waiting for?"

"Maybe she wants to stare at it a little longer while she gets her courage up. No one's ever eager to get bad news."

"We shouldn't be watching her."

"Why not?" Cole asked.

"It's intrusive. She probably wants privacy."

He watched her tuck the unopened envelope into the pocket of her ap.r.o.n before taking the pie back from Harrison and hurrying down the steps. She put the dessert on the table with the other baked goods, then turned around and walked away from the crowd.

Adam forced himself to turn to the couples twirling about the dance floor, but he kept glancing back at Genevieve.

He saw her stop when she reached the far side of the corral near the barn. She pulled the envelope out, tore it open, and read the contents.

The news couldn't have been good. Even with the distance separating them, Adam could see how shaken she was. She couldn't stand up straight. She staggered back against the fence and turned away from him, but not before he saw the fear on her face.

"Maybe you ought to go find out what the trouble is," Cole suggested.

Adam shook his head. "She obviously wants to be alone. If she tells us what the news was and we can help, then we will. Quit giving me that look, Cole. I'm not going to intrude into her personal life again, and neither are you."

"Again? What are you talking about?"

"Never mind."

Isabelle was suddenly standing in front of Adam, demanding that he dance with her. Emily grabbed hold of Cole's hand at the same time and pulled him onto the dance floor.

Adam tried to keep track of Genevieve. He saw her crumple up the wire and put it back in her ap.r.o.n, but then the music started and he lost her in the crowd.

After the dance ended, he went searching for her. Harrison intercepted him to tell him that Mama Rose was about to open her presents. Since the family was giving her a trip to Scotland, Harrison thought it would be a nice touch if he played the bagpipes. Adam couldn't talk him out of it. He joined his sister and his brothers on the side of the bandstand and tried to appear interested. He nudged Cole and asked him in a low voice if he'd seen Genevieve.

Cole shook his head. He was going to suggest that she was probably inside the house, but then Harrison began to play, and the piercing noise was so deafening, he knew Adam wouldn't hear him.

"He's getting better, isn't he?" Mary Rose shouted.

"No," all four brothers shouted back.

Their sister wasn't offended. She maintained her smile for her husband's benefit and gave Douglas a hard shove when he put his hands over his wife's ears.

Genevieve was standing in the center of the crowd on the opposite side of the bandstand, watching the Clayborne family-the four brothers side by side, Emily and Isabelle leaning back against their husbands. Their expressions were comical, but she thought Adam's was the most revealing. Like his brothers and his sister, he was smiling, yet every time Harrison tried to hit a high note and missed, Adam would visibly flinch.

They were all such good-hearted people and so very loyal to one another. They were united now in giving Harrison their encouragement and support, and though it was apparent from their forced smiles that they thought the music was terrible, she knew they would cheer him when he was finished and never admit to any outsider that the sound had been less than perfect. And that was what family was all about.

G.o.d, how she envied all of them. She longed to walk across the dance floor and stand in front of

Adam and lean back against him. She wanted to belong to his family, but most of all, she wanted to be loved by him.

It was a fool's dream, she told herself. She whispered a good-bye in Mama Rose's direction, and then turned and walked away.

Chapter Four.

The party didn't wind down until after midnight. Riders with fiery torches lighted the way back to Blue Belle for those guests who lived in the nearby town and wanted to go home. The guests from Hammond stayed overnight. They slept on cots in the parlor and the dining room, filled the bunkhouse, and spilled out onto the porch. Cole gave up his bed to the Cohens, and Adam let old man Corbett sleep in the bunk bed he'd used all week. The brothers weren't inconvenienced, for they much preferred sleeping outside under the stars, away from the crowd.

Adam left at dawn the following morning with three hired hands to round up the mustangs grazing on sweet gra.s.s down in Maple Valley, and he didn't return to Rosehill until late that afternoon.

Cole was waiting for him on the front porch. He handed Adam a beer and sat down on the top step.

He didn't waste time getting to the news. "Genevieve's gone."

Adam didn't show any outward reaction. He took his hat off, tossed it onto a nearby chair, and sat down next to his brother. He took a long swallow of his drink and remarked that it was d.a.m.ned hot today.

"You look tired," Cole remarked.

"I am tired," Adam replied. "Have all the guests gone home?"

"Yes, the last of them left around noon."

"When are you leaving for Texas to bring the cattle up?"

"Tomorrow."

Several minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Adam stared at the distant mountains and tried to ignore the unease he felt about Genevieve. As soon as Cole had given him the news, his gut and his throat both tightened up on him. Why had she left so abruptly, and why hadn't she told him good-bye? Maybe he shouldn't have hounded her with questions, but d.a.m.n it, she'd let it slip that she was in trouble, and he had naturally wanted to find out the particulars so that he could help. No, he decided. His few questions wouldn't have made her so skittish that she would pack up and leave.

The telegram had to be the reason she'd taken off. He remembered the fear he'd seen on her face after she'd read the wire. He should have gone to her then and demanded that she confide in him.

He let out a loud sigh. He knew then what he was going to have to do and was already getting angry about it.

"h.e.l.l," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Did Genevieve say good-bye to anyone?"