She almost laughed. He acted as if the idea affronted him. She picked up the tray and placed it in his lap. "Milk will be better than coffee."

"I've never had milk."

"Never?"

"I don't remember it. Now talk. This soup smells too good to ignore."

So she talked. She told him her mother had died when she was three months old. Her father was fighting in Texas, so she had gone to live with her mother's sister in Richmond. After the war, her father stayed in Texas, started a ranch, remarried, and started raising a second family. She stayed in Richmond.

She told him how her aunt lived in a cabin while she worked to restore her land to production so her children would have an inheritance. She told him of the new house her aunt built on a ridge above the James River, of the fun her aunt had furnishing it, of her first party.

When her father and aunt died within a month of each other, the allowance her father had been sending stopped. Her cousins had invited her to live with them, but Melody had inherited half of the Spring Water Ranch, so she decided to come to Texas. It had shocked her to discover her stepmother had neither the knowledge nor the desire to run the ranch. She let her sons do as they wished and left all decisions to her foreman. She had encouraged Melody to do the same.

"She doesn't even know what we're having for dinner until we sit down to the table," Melody said. "I couldn't accept that."

"I don't imagine you could."

She looked to see if he was mocking her, but he kept his eyes lowered.

"I considered going back to Richmond, but I can't go back without any money. I refuse to be my cousins' pensioner."

"So you are caught here," he said, "unable to realize your a.s.sets."

"I suppose it looks that way now, but that's not what I thought at first. I was determined to learn to run the ranch, to help my stepmother raise my brothers to be effective managers of their inheritance when they grew up. Then Lantz decided he wanted to marry me. When I didn't say yes right away, he had his men bully our cowhands in an effort to convince me I can't manage without him."

"Are you going to marry him?"

"He never gave me a chance to find out if I could love him. He a.s.sumed asking me was enough. Now that I know him better, I'm not sure I could ever love him. He only understands force."

"Marrying him would solve all your problems."

"Not all, but I'd rather not think about that now. It's your turn to tell me about yourself."

"There's nothing to tell."

"There must be something." "Very little. My mother ran away before my brother could walk. My father dragged us around with him, leaving us in hotel rooms scared and hungry most of the time. He was a gambler and a gunfighter. He died the way all men of his stamp do, with a bullet in the back. My brother and I got thrown out of one orphanage after another. If Jake and Isabelle hadn't adopted us, we'd probably be dead by now. It'll probably happen anyway. My brother hires his gun to the highest bidder. One day he'll meet a man faster or luckier. I expect some day the brother, friend, or son of a man I've killed will succeed in getting even with me."

Melody didn't know what to say. The war had given her an understanding of violence and loss, but here she had strayed into a raw land where nearly all men considered gunplay an ordinary part of their lives.

"You're horrified," he said.

"Surprised," she said, trying to get her expression under control.

"No, you're horrified. You think we live like savages. We do, but my brother and I, and men like us, will make it possible for the men who come after us to live differently. Find yourself one of those. Not Lantz Royal. No matter how much he tries to disguise it, he's one of us."

Melody didn't know what to say. For a brief moment, the barriers had come down. His eyes warmed; his expression became intense. For a moment he wasn't so easygoing and uncaring. He seemed pa.s.sionately concerned about what might happen to her. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of the fire that burned so brightly inside him.

Then he closed the shutters once more. But she didn't feel so completely shut out this time. She now knew there were two sides to his relaxed manner. One was his enormous confidence in himself. The other was a shield to keep people from reaching the man inside.

"I'm not sure what I want to do," she said. "I want to escape this trouble, but I can't desert my stepmother and brothers. Belle knows even less than I do. She could lose everything, and my brothers would be penniless."

"Leave everything to Tom and go back to Richmond. You don't belong here."

Having Chet say it like that made it sound as though she was running away, as though she wasn't strong enough to survive.

"Why do you care what happens to me?" she asked.

The shutters closed with a bang. He didn't answer.

"Don't you think I'm clever enough, or strong enough?" she asked.

"I don't know you. I have no right to think anything about you," he replied.

But Melody couldn't accept that. She didn't know what he really thought, but she intended to find out.

Chet told himself that for a man who talked very little, he sure as h.e.l.l could put his foot in his mouth in a hurry. Why did he think he had the right to tell Melody who she ought not to marry? Sticking his nose into something like that was a good way to get another bullet in the head.

That must be it. His head wasn't working right. All his common sense had leaked out through those two little holes or been knocked out by the concussion. Or maybe her sitting next to him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, talking to him as if they'd been friends forever, had caused it to wither and die. Maybe he liked the feeling so much, he wanted to feel she cared what happened to him.

Yes, he'd definitely lost any common sense he'd ever had. His sense of self-preservation must have taken a leave of absence as well. He was putting his head on the chopping block and just begging someone to lop it off. If he was going to be that stupid, he might as well have kept working until the day somebody shot him.

Now he was talking like an idiot. And all because of a woman. All he ever wanted out of life was exactly what Jake and Isabelle had. The irony was that holding on to family, giving up what he had to protect Luke, had cut him off from the very life he wanted. Doing the honorable thing had brought him into dishonor.

He knew all this, accepted it. Going over it again wasn't going to change anything. If he knew what was good for him, he'd pack his concussion into a tight bandage and hitch a ride on the first horse going east, west, north, or south. He'd traveled in worse condition and probably would again.

Chet eased down into the softness of the mattress. It was too late to leave today. Besides, Melody would make a terrible fuss.

Tomorrow would be soon enough.

Chapter Seven.

"You had no right to put armed men at the water holes just because somebody put a little trash in them," Melody practically shouted at Tom Neland.

"It wasn't a little trash," Tom said. "It was dead coyotes. If we hadn't removed them right away, the water wouldn't have been usable for weeks. As it is"

"And while the men are sitting around watching the water, rustlers could be driving our cattle from the range by the hundreds."

"Melody, dear, you've just come from a burned-up city," Belle said. "You can't possibly know as much about the ranch as Tom."

"Even in a burned-up city, men can't be in two places at once."

"I'm sure Tom has that all figured out. You ought to leave everything to him. It never does any good when women interfere in men's work."

Melody was so angry, she didn't dare let herself speak for fear she'd say something unforgivable. Once more Tom had ignored her wishespractically a direct orderand done what he thought should be done. And Belle was backing him up. Not because Belle had any ideas of her own on the subject. Belle never had any ideas. She left all the thinking to men. Any man.

That was what infuriated Melody the most. It wasn't in her makeup to defer to anyone just because he was a man.

She'd be the first to admit she hadn't known anything about ranching when she arrived in Texas, but she did have some firm principles, and the indiscriminate use of guns went squarely against them.

"Why can't they just check the water holes more frequently?"

"Lantz could ruin them."

"He wouldn't do that. He wants them to be his water holes. He's just trying to help me make up my mind to marry him."

"If you'd marry me"

"Then you could have the men carry guns all the time and shoot at anything that moves. No, thank you."

"If you married Lantz, neither of you would have to worry about guns," Belle said. "The boys and I wouldn't have to worry about losing the roof over our heads."

"I mean to love the man I marry," Melody declared. "I don't love Tom or Lantz."

"But I love you," Tom said. "I have almost from the beginning."

"Yet you won't do what I ask." "Lantz loves you," Belle said. "I bet he'd do anything you wanted."

"Lantz Royal has never tried to please anybody but himself in his entire life," Tom said. "If she wants a husband who'll give her the consideration she deserves, she'll marry me."

"Then pull the men off the water holes."

"You know I can't do that. I already explained"

"So much for your consideration. I order you to pull the men off the water holes."

"You can't. You aren't the majority owner."

"Belle, back me up," Melody said.

"Darling, you know I leave everything to Tom."

"So he can do whatever he wants, and I can't do anything about it."

"If you'd marry Lantz, you wouldn't have to worry about any of this," Belle said.

"Then you'd advise me to leave everything up to him."

"Of course. Women should never interfere in men's business."

"Not even when they're wrong?"

"How are we to judge?"

"Because we're not stupid!" Melody said. She practically ran from the room. If she stayed one minute longer, she was surely going to hit somebody. She ran up the stairs and into her room before she remembered it was no longer unoccupied.

"You look upset," Chet said.

He had been lying down, but he sat up when she entered.

Melody should have left immediately, but she needed to talk to somebody before she started screaming. "I didn't mean to barge in, but I'm so angry I hardly know what I'm doing."

"I promise not to provoke you as long as you tell me what I'm not supposed to say."

She closed the door behind her and virtually threw herself into the vanity chair. "You're not to say a woman must yield to a man in everything, that a woman can never understand how to run a ranch as well as a man, or that a woman should never ask a man to explain himself."

"One of the cleverest outlaws I ever went up against was a woman. She got two bullets into me."

A spurt of laughter escaped, despite her mood. "I'm sure Belle and Tom would be glad to attribute my wayward disposition to a lawless streak."

"More likely they doubt anyone reared in tradition-bound Virginia could understand anything Texan."

"My father was able to learn enough to build this ranch and stand up to Lantz Royal's bullying. I'm his daughter. I can learn, too."

"I'm sure you can, but do you want to?"

She'd been letting her irritated gaze move randomly about the room. Now it focused on Chet. "What do you mean?"

"You said you wanted to sell your half of the ranch and go back to Richmond. Why waste your time learning how to manage a ranch you're going to leave the minute you can?"

"I had hoped . . . I'd thought . . . I don't know what I thought, but I'd never run away and leave my family. I was a guest in somebody's house for the first eighteen years of my life. Now that I have a home of my own, I don't mean to leave it." Even though it was raw, sometimes cruel, and seemingly full of guns, she was part of Texas. "I thought I could learn to run this place on my own. My aunt always let me help her. She talked to me about what she was doing, even took my advice occasionally. I felt a part of everything she did. Here I feel like Tom and Lantz would like to lock me up inside a house and never let me out again."

"We don't have many good women in this part of Texas. We tend to want to protect them as much as possible."

"I don't mind being protected," Melody said. "In fact, I rather like it. But I don't like being suffocated."

"You don't like being told no."

"That, either," she admitted reluctantly. She'd bet he told people no all the time. It was probably his favorite word. He had that look. "But I can take it if I feel it's justified." He didn't look as if he believed her.

"Do you think Lantz Royal would let you run his ranch?"

"I'm not interested in running Lantz's ranch. If I married him, I probably wouldn't interfere except to stop him bullying people. I don't think that's fair."

"I'm sure his neighbors would agree with you."

She stiffened. "Now you're laughing at me."

"No, I'm serious. He doesn't have a good reputation."

Her ire evaporated. "That's what Tom said, but I thought he was just jealous."

"What else do you object to?"