"Better?"

"You got it all," he said, not quite answering her question.

"So you were all Marys."

"Well, yes," she said, picking up the threads of her story.

"But not really. I'm called Mary. Sometimes Mary Francis. My sisters were always Michael, Rennie, Maggie, and Skye. They only heard Mary precede their name if they were in serious trouble." Which sounded as if it had been rather frequent, he thought.

"Who stole the cigars from the humidor?"

"What? Oh, the cigars." Mary gave up any pretense of eating. She carried her plate to the sink and scraped the uneaten pancakes into a pail.

"It was Michael. She actually liked the smell of cigar smoke."

"What was your father's punishment?" Turning to face him, she leaned back against the sink. Her nose wrinkled with the power of the memory.

"We smoked until our faces were the color of pea soup."

"Michael, too?"

"Michael, too. She lasted longer than the rest of us, which of course confirmed her as the perpetrator of the heinous crime in Jay Mac's eye, but eventually she succumbed. Jay Mac was pretty certain she'd never pick up another cigar as long as she lived."

"Did she?" Mary shook her head.

"Not that I know." She gave Ryder a dead-on look and added dryly, "She gave them up for cigarettes." One corner of his mouth lifted slightly, acknowledging the irony and humor. He resumed eating while Mary collected the skillet from the stove, the crusty mixing bowl and dirty utensils, and began washing. She didn't hear him come up behind her, didn't know he was there until he slipped his plate into the dish-water. Surprised, she jumped a little. Before she could say that he had merely startled her, he was backing away as if he had been the one who'd been burned.

"Don't worry," he said tersely.

"I'm not going to touch you." Her forest green eyes regarded him curiously.

"I didn't think you were. And I wouldn't jump if you did. You caught me unaware, that's all. I didn't know you were there. I'm not frightened of you." He was quiet, measuring the truth of her words.

"Is it because you feel safe in that getup?" Her brows rose a fraction in reaction to hearing her habit described as a "getup." Her tone was patient but cool.

"It's because I don't think you intend me any harm. You're Walker's friend, aren't you? Why would you want to hurt me?"

"You weren't so confident back at the water hole."

"Back at the..

the water hole I wasn't so confident you even knew Walker Caine." She turned her back on him and continued washing.

"And, yes," she added softly, with almost pained honesty, "perhaps some of it has to do with my getup." Then it had nothing to do with him, he thought, wondering if he could believe her. Nothing to do with his sun-bronzed skin, straight inky hair, or the gunbelt he wore low on his hips. Ryder reached in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out an envelope. It was wrinkled and dog eared. There were a few smudged fingerprints on the back. He opened it carefully and took out the contents. The letter was two pages long, front and back. It had been handled with more care than the envelope. He held it out to Mary.

"You don't have to prove anything to me," she said.

"Take it." Mary pulled her hands out of the water, shook them off, and wiped them on a towel. She took the letter Ryder held in front of her.

"This isn't necessary."

"Read it." She had only taken note of Walker's handwriting once before, at the occasion of her sister's wedding when he'd signed his name to the marriage papers. Mary quickly turned the pages, and her eyes flickered to his signature. She would recognize the scrawled and sweeping lines of his "W" anywhere. Having established the letter was really from her brother-in-law, Mary went back to the beginning and read it through carefully. Most of the letter was about Skye, about the hasty marriage, and the circumstances that had brought Walker to the Granville mansion.

There was anecdotal information about Skye's family and descriptions which brought a smile to Mary's lips. Walker certainly had them all dead to rights. The letter concluded with an invitation for Ryder to visit Walker and Skye whenever he wanted.

"Walker didn't know yet about his assignment to China," she said, returning the letter to Ryder.

"He's been there and back and gone again."

"He didn't know when I would take him up on it."

Ryder replied.

"I haven't been much good about writing back myself."

"It was a rather nonspecific invitation."

"He meant it."

"I know that. Walker didn't make the offer to be polite.

That certainly isn't his way." Mary was able to see the envelope clearly as Ryder replaced Walker's letter.

"Is that where you came from?" she asked somewhat incredulously.

"Fort Preston in the Arizona Territory?"

"That's where I was when I got the letter. I came from Fort Apache."

"You traveled over most of the country to see Walker without ever thinking to check if he was here?"

"There's no need to be scornful," he said evenly.

"Or have I given you the impression I'm a stupid man?" No, she thought, that wasn't her impression at all.

"Quite the opposite," she said. He folded the envelope and put it away. There was a gravity to his voice that hadn't been there before.

"I came East to pay my respects to a teacher who died recently. I missed the funeral the military gave him, but I spoke to his widow and made my peace. That was what was important to me." Mary saw that it was. The cleanly defined lines of his face were still impassive, but there was a certain solemnness about his eyes.

"An instructor at West Point?" she asked, beginning to piece things together in her own mind. He nodded.

"General August Sampson Thorn." It was an impressive sounding name but one with which Mary was unfamiliar.

"I don't believe I know of him."

"A veteran of battles at Shiloh and Manassas and some of the early Western campaigns against the Cheyenne. It's all right," he added when she continued to shake her head slowly in nonrecognition.

"He would have rather been remembered for his career as a teacher."