"Seems like we're splitting up here," Malachi said. "Well, don't stay on my account!" Shannon told him.

He laughed, shrugged at Jon, and the two of them left. Hank followed them and the women were left--Jane, who had barely said a word, Dolly, who was unbelievably quiet, and Shannon and Kristin and Tess.

"All this to make a meal, and then it's just wolfed down, and then everyone runs" -- "Ma," Gabe suddenly interrupted from the end of the table.

"I cleaned my plate. Can I go join Pa?"

Kristin threw up her hands, and Tess felt some of the tension leave her as she laughed.

"Go!" Kristin told her son.

He smiled, excused hun self politely to Tess and ran out of the house.

"We might as well pick up," Shannon said. "Might as well."

Things went quickly with five of them to do the clearing, the sc.r.a.ping, the washing and the drying. Shannon asked Tess what it had been like with the Apache, and by the time she finished with her story about Jon and Jamie appearing at just the fight time, they had finished the dishes. Jane and Dolly kissed Tess again and went to bed. Shannon and Kristin and Tess made tea and then sat around the kitchen table, staring at one another.

"And then this Nalte let you go--just because Jamie asked for you? He let you go to Jamie?" Kfistin said.

Tess felt herself flush, wondering how to avoid saying the very thing the Indian chief had so clearly understood.

"He, uh, he ..."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Kristin, they've been sleeping together and this Nalte man knew it!" Shannon exclaimed.

"Shannon!" gris ting protested.

"Well, all right, I'm terribly sorry, but Ktistin and I both married Slater men. I know. They're so easy to want to shoot, but at the same time ..." Her voice trailed away and she was really beautiful as she grinned.

"Well, they are easy to sleep with. Seductive."

Tess knew she had to be a thousand shades of crimson. Kristin sighed.

"He's very much in love with you. I'm sure We'll see a wedding any day."

"I'm not terribly sure about that."

"He called us here. To protect your interests. He must love you."

"I've turned over half the property to him. It's his own property he's protecting." "Urn. Did he bargain for anything else?" Kristin asked her.

She didn't know why she was being so honest except that somehow she felt she had known the two women all her life.

Maybe it was because they had all become involved with Slater men.

"Maybe they just don't marry easily," Shannon suggested.

"But you're both married," Tess began.

"Cole had to marry me," gris ting said.

"Oh, the baby?"

"No!" gris ting 'laughed.

"There was a horrible, horrible man after me.

The war was going on and the only way he could count on some protection from some old acquaintances was to be able to say that I was his wife.

He fell in love with me slowly; it took him a long time." She smiled sweetly at Shannon.

"And Malachi had to marry Shannon."

"Well, he didn't have to," Shannon protdsted. "The twins?" Tess asked.

"No, a shotgun," Shannon explained ruefully. They both laughed, and Shannon took a deep breath and tried to explain that Kristin was her sister, and that Kfistin had been in trouble.

She and Malachi had gone after her, and a kindly old couple had derided the two of them had to be married. "But they'd been in' love for years.

They wouldn't admit it, of course, because they were too busy gouging one another's eyes out."

"Oh, it never was that bad!" Shannon protested. "No, it was worse!"

Kristin said. She stood up.

"I think that we need a drop of brandy to go with this, too. Girls?"

Shannon and Tess both agreed. Then Tess yawned and complained that her buckskins were filthy and that she felt as if half of Texas was covering her.

The sisters quickly had the hip tub out and filled, and Shannon was racing upstairs for French bath oil, and before she knew it Kristin was presenting her with a lilac nightgown that matched her eyes. "I can't take these things!" Tess protested.

"But you can. It's all in the family," Shannon told her. Tess shook her head.

"I heard Jamie once. He said that no one would ever make him get married." Kristin shrugged.

"They can't force him--but he just might choose to do so on his own."

' "Do you want him?" Shannon asked her.

Tess f~it her heart beat hard and she closed her eyes. Yes! Yes, she wanted Jamie desperately. She had wanted him his eyes had first fallen upon her, since he had killed since he had told her in a soft voice that she was Since that day by the stream before the nightmare had begun and he had touched her and said, "I think I'm falling in love with you ..."

But that had been before they had nearly been destroyea, before he had lost his beloved cavalry mount to retrieve her.

She was trouble. He had told her that again and again. He had walked out at dinner because he had been so furious with her that he hadn't been able to stay at the table. "Do you?"

Shannon persisted.

"Yes," Tess admitted softly.

"I want him. For keeps."

"Then forget the arguments. Even forget the fact that you'll probably never get along. I have," Shannon said cheerily.

"Forget von Heusen, forget everything, and cherish what time you have together in peace."

"And get in the tub with the rose oil," Kristin suggested drily.

"There's just nothing like a very sweet smell."

"And a see-through lilac gown to match your eyes! Aren't they beautiful eyes, Kristin?" "And she's not jealous often," Kristin said, laughing.

Feeling loved and protected, Tess stepped into the water and felt the steam surround her. It was good to be home.

"I'm more worried now that I know just what this man is after," Jamie said.

He was sitting on the rocker on the porch. Jori was perched on the railing with Cole, and Malachi was seated across from him on the swing.

It creaked slowly in the night air.

Jamie exhaled. He looked at his brothers.

"Thanks for coming. I'm just wishing right now that I hadn't had you bring Kristin and Shannon."

"Jamie, you've known the McCahy girls a long time," Cole said drily.

"And you should know at this point that they wouldn't have it any other way."

"I just don't know what this man might plan. I do know that he keeps twenty to thirty hired guns on his property at all times."

"We've met up with bad odds~ before Malachi reminded him.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, don't you understand what I'm trying to say? I don't want you, your wives or your children killed on my account."

Gabe came out then. He glanced at his father and it was obvious he had heard some of what had been said. He went straight up to his Uncle Jamie and took his trail-toughened face into his hands.

"There's right and wrong, Uncle Jamie, and you know that. And my pa and my ma, they say you have to fight what's wrong, because if you just give in, it'll bury you in the end.

I don't mind fighting. Not if it's the right thing to do."

Jamie lifted his nephew and hugged him tightly. Cole smiled.

"I rest my case."

"Malachi, those twins of yours aren't quite three years old. You think they feel the same way?"

"Jamie, we're here, and that's it," Malachi said flatly. "Now, what about Tess?"

"What about her?" Jamie scowled.

"She's the hardest creature to tangle with I have ever encountered, Yanks and Indians and rattlers included." "Think you're going to marry her?" Malachi asked pleasantly.

"If he doesn't do so soon," Jon Red Feather supplied, "I "d.a.m.n you, Jon" -- I'll have to, to keep the poor woman honest." ,~ Jamie ou know the lot of you, you may be but I'm " She's beautiful, very bright and has the will of a wildcat. Besides that, she's worth a d.a.m.ned fortune. He's already absconded with half her property," Malachi said."

Wait a d.a.m.ned minute!" Jamie protested.

"The least you could do is marry her," Cole said. Jamie threw up his hands.

"Thank you, one and all, for coming. And now I'll thank you, one and all, to mind your own d.a.m.ned bus' mess Good night."

He set Gabe on the rocker and headed into the house. He was halfway up the stairs before he realized he didn't know if he had a room in the house. His brothers and Kristin and Shannon and even the kids seemed very happily moved in.

But where the h.e.l.l he was supposed to be, he didn't know. He headed for Tess's room, wondering what her reaction was going to be. If she threatened to scream and bring the house down he thought he'd throttle her.

He tapped on her door, then pushed it open.

"Tess?" "Jamie?" She said his name softly, sweetly. Her voice touched the air like the fragrance of roses that seemed to be all around the room, light as stardust. Her whisper was sultry, as if he had awakened her.

He strode across the room then paused, seeing how the moon entered through the window and glowed upon bet.

Her hair was shining with greater splendor than any sunset, and it was spread out behind her as if each strand were a glorious ray of the sun.

She was dressed in violet, a shade that matched her eyes in the darkness of the night. A shade that was barely concealing, a shade that managed to enhance every beautiful line and curve of her body.

"Tess, where the h.e.l.l" -- He paused, clearing his throat, wondering why the h.e.l.l he was getting so d.a.m.ned angry.

"Tess, where am I supposed to--oh, the h.e.l.l with it!" he growled.

He didn't see her smile as he dropped forcefully upon her, sweeping her into his arms. He didn't really see anything 271 except the color of her hair, entwining and tangling around him. He breathed in the clean, sweet scent of her, and he could barely contain his longings. The Apache had kept them apart for the last two long nights. He hadn't realized how badly he could need her after such a short time, how much he could crave her. She was like a sweet a man thought he tasted once, and yet wanted more and more once he knew the exotic taste. He kissed her fiercely, and he kissed her long, and he felt the frantic rise of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his hand as she lost her breath. Only when she trembled and gasped did he raise his head and stare at her.

"I'm staying here. We're doing it my way, remember?"

She returned his stare. Her arms wound around him, and she pressed her lips to his, then she shoved him slightly away from her and started to open his shirt b.u.t.tons. Slowly, achingly slowly, she opened them one by one, pressing her lips against his flesh. And when his shirt was east aside she tenderly nipped and kissed his shoulders while she tugged at his belt buckle. She inched his pants slowly down his hips. Boldly, possessively she touched him, stroked him and trembled, her fingers shaking as he came hard as steel to her ministrations. Then he could stand no more of the sweet torture and she was on her back, with his lips savoring her body beneath the gauze of the lilac gown. He tasted her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the valley between them and her navel and her upper thighs and teased her more intimately still until she was thrashing and calling his name to the moon-dusted night, begging that he come to her.

With the deepest pleasure, he obliged, and the feeling of being where he belonged within her was almost as great as pure s.e.xual excitement of being so tightly, so erotically He shuddered with the force of his desire, and deeper and deeper until they exploded as one. Then her tightly into his arms, glad of her lips pressed to her head burrowed against him.

You're mine, he longed to tell her. You were mine when I first found you, and mine when I came to Nalte to ask for you. You are mine this night. And if we can only survive, you will be mine forever. His thoughts gave pause, and he added silently: even if you are the most ornery and troublesome female in the western world.

In the morning his troublesome female was up and almost dressed by the time he had pulled on his trousers.

"Afraid of my family?" he asked her.

Tess looked his way curiously and shook her head. No man could be a finer lover, tender and tempestuous, but in the morning his temper always seemed to leave something to be desired.

"I don't care what they know, if you're talking about our sleeping arrangements."

"I see. You think my older brother will insist that we marry."

"No one will ever force you to marry, Jamie. You said so yourself."