The look of horror on her facemaybe it was revulsiontold Chet he had put himself outside the limits of her understanding. He was someone she could never accept. Chet would rather have bitten his tongue than said what he had, but it was just as well. He'd known from the first that there could be nothing between him and Melody.

But he kept hoping something would occur to prove him wrong. It was better that he put an end to all possibility right now, before it became impossible to forget her. "If you're always going to be a gunfighter, why don't you work for us?" Belle asked.

"Belle, you can't mean that," Melody said.

She said it as if she was talking about an infectious plague. She tried to eliminate the disgust from her voice, but he heard it.

"You already hired him once," Sydney said. "He can go after the rustlers with Tom."

"He'll get 'em," Neill said, "just like he got that peach can."

"I don't see why you're acting so shocked," Belle said to Melody. "We can't allow rustlers to keep stealing our cows. He said he'd shoot any rustlers he found stealing his cattle. Well, I don't see any reason why he can't shoot ours as well."

"Because I don't want a gunfighter around here. It'll just attract other gunfighters."

"I don't see why we have to be the only one without one," Belle said.

"I say we hire him," Sydney put in, his eyes shining with excitement. "Then he can get together with Lantz's gunfighter. I bet they'd wipe out those rustlers in short order."

"I'll do anything I can to protect you while I'm here," Chet said, "but I turned down Melody's job and I'm turning down any other offers. Leave the rustlers to Tom and Lantz," Chet told Melody. "These men are criminals, and they have to be treated that way."

"We have criminals in Virginia," Melody said, "but we don't ride after them with guns blazing, shoot them down, or hang them from the nearest tree." Her scorn for such actions was blistering. "They're brought to justice. A judge and jury decide their fate."

Chet was getting tired of being treated like some kind of wild animal. He could admire s.p.u.n.k but not ignorance.

"Someday it'll be that way in Texas," he said, "but not for a few years yet. It'll be best if you go on back to Richmond and leave this ranch to Sydney and Neill. Maybe someday your daughter can come back without feeling that she's living among savages." Chet pushed back his chair and got slowly to his feet. "Now, if I'm to get well enough to give you back your bedroom, I'd better get some rest. The dinner was delicious."

He knew she wanted to think of some reason, to fabricate some excuse, why her remarks didn't include him, but he didn't wait long enough to give her the chance. He would have forgiven her. He could feel himself wanting to do it already. He had to get beyond temptation before it was too late.

Melody couldn't remember when she'd ever felt worse about sticking to her principles. She couldn't change her mindshe didn't intend to trybut the pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction wouldn't go away. She felt the way she did on those mornings when she woke up feeling out of sorts. Nothing felt good, even the things that were supposed to.

She didn't want to sit and talk with Belle and the boys. They wouldn't talk of anything except gunfighters. Sydney and Neill admired them. Belle saw them as the answer to at least part of their troubles. Melody saw them as the introduction of still more trouble.

She couldn't go to her room. Chet was there, and that would lead to an even more difficult conversation. He was the source of all her frustrations. She just couldn't make herself feel that Chet was a gunfighter. He'd told her he was. She'd seen him draw on Lantz without a moment's hesitation. She could even believe he would have used his gun, but she still couldn't believe he was a gunfighter.

Gunfighters were cruel, heartless men who didn't care who they killed as long as they got paid. They were nothing more than a lethal weapon pointed and fired on command.

She couldn't believe Chet was like that. She was beginning to accept that guns were a tool, possibly a necessary tool in Texas. She could also accept that she was wrong to a.s.sign them any kind of power, good or evil, and that they were only what a man made them. Maybe Chet could actually use his gun for good. She would have scoffed at such a notion a few days ago, but she hadn't met him then. She still hadn't known him very long, but you didn't always have to know a person for years before you could discern the quality of his character. Chet was honorable. She would wager her half of the ranch on that.

Her half of the ranch! There might not be any ranch to worry about if she didn't marry Lantz Royal. But the longer she waited, the more certain she became that she could never marry him. He hadn't seemed too bad at first, mostly willful and determined to have his way. She knew many men like that, men reared to think G.o.d intended them to rule the world because women didn't have the intelligence.

Chet's arrival had made her see Lantz's actions in a different light. They now seemed threatening rather than capricious, more lawless than willful. She shook her head. How could she set a selfconfessed gunfighter against a successful rancher and pillar of the community and have the gunfighter come out better by comparison?

Something was seriously wrong with her thinking processes. Maybe she'd been away from Richmond too long. She carried the last of the dishes from the table into the kitchen.

"You don't have to help me," Bernice said.

"I don't mind."

"You're just trying to keep from having to spend the evening sitting with Belle."

"What if I am?"

"You can do anything you want," Bernice said, setting the dishes carefully into the soapy water. They had used the best china tonight. "I just didn't want you thinking I thought you was here for my company."

"Am I that much of a sn.o.b?"

"You're better about helping than Belle ever was, and I like having company. But you didn't come for that. You came because that man is in your craw."

"Lantz isn't in my craw. If he weren't threatening the ranch, I wouldn't even think of him again." The look Bernice gave her said she'd picked the wrong answer. "Tom, either. He's a nice man, but I'd never marry him."

"I don't mean Lantz or poor Tom," Bernice said, rinsing a dish and setting it on the counter to drip dry. "I mean that man upstairs"she nodded her head toward the ceiling"that gunfighter fella."

"Chet Attmore is not in my craw," Melody declared, incensed. "He's"

"He's an invitation to trouble," Bernice said, putting another dish on the counter. "I'd hate to think of the number of poor women who've taken him up on it."

Melody had never thought of Chet seducing a string of women. The picture was not a welcome one. Yet she couldn't banish it. She could easily understand how it could happen. She'd been drawn in by his looks, was certain even now that he was a wonderful human being. The fact that he was a gunfighter seemed to make no impression on her. Why should other women be any different?

"I admit he's very handsome," Melody said, "and I feel guilty over his being shot because he was riding one of our horses. But that's all. Once he's recovered, he'll ride out and I'll never think of him again."

"And I'm a bonny Irish la.s.s with freckles and flaming red hair," Bernice said, shaking her black-as-ink braids. "You've got him in your craw, and you can't get him out."

"He's not the problem I'm worried about," Melody said, refusing to let Bernice shake her story. "It's Lantz and the ranch. Belle says I'm a fool not to marry him. She says I'd have a rich husband who'd give me anything I wanted, and she and the boys would be secure on the ranch." She picked up a cloth and began to dry the dishes.

"It sounds like a good argument to me," Bernice said as she put another load of dishes into the water. "Is this man upstairs making you reconsider?"

"It's Lantz himself," Melody said, looking Bernice square in the eye. "If he's willing to bully me to get me to marry him, who's to say he won't try to bully me into doing what he wants after we're married." "I imagine he'll bully people the rest of his life," Bernice said as she turned back to the dishes in the wash pot. "He's that kind of man."

"Belle says it won't matter, that as long as I don't bother him about his business he won't bother me about mine."

"She's probably right."

"Have you ever been in love?" Melody asked after they'd worked in silence for several minutes.

Bernice's hands stilled. "Why do you want to know?"

"My aunt's husband was killed in the war, but she had the most wonderful memories of him. Sometimes in the evening we'd sit by the fire and she'd talk about him by the hour. Not sad or crying. They were good memories. They made her feel happy. Don't you think that would be something worth waiting for?"

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"Tell me anyway."

"Some people don't rate love as high as your aunt. They like being comfortable, safe, staying with people and things they know and understand."

"Like Belle wanting me to marry Lantz."

"Could be."

"You think I ought to marry him?"

"Do you want to?"

"No."

"Then why are you considering it?"

"Because of Belle and the boys."

"Then you have to decide what's the most important to you. Once you do, you'll know what to do."

"You're not going to give me any advice, are you?" "It's not my life." She dried her hands and started putting the dishes in the cupboard.

"When I get old, I want memories like Aunt Emmaline had. I think I could bear anything if I had that."

"Then you'd better look for some man who can give 'em to you."

Their gazes locked for a moment.

"But you've got to remember one thing," Bernice said before she resumed putting the dishes away.

"What's that?"

"A man who can inspire that kind of memories is not ordinary. He won't follow ordinary rules. He'll make his own way. It's up to others to follow if they dare. If you begin by laying down what you will and you won't, what he can and he can't, you'll never find him."

Chapter Nine.

Lantz couldn't have come at a worse time. She'd known the moment she entered her bedroom that Chet was packing to leave. She'd choked back panic and forced herself to speak calmly. And persuasively, she hoped. She was sure she'd been on the verge of succeeding. She had seen the change in his eyes and his expression. His features relaxed. He might have smiled if Belle hadn't entered with her announcement.

Now he was looking stony, as if he wanted to go back to his packing.

"Tell him to go away," Melody said.

"You can't tell a man like Lantz Royal to come back some other time," Belle said, obviously dismayed that Melody would make such a suggestion.

"I didn't say anything about coming back," Melody said. "Tell him I'm busy, or sick. Tell him anything."

"I will not," Belle said, shocked. "He came to see you, and you've got to go down and speak to him."

"All right. Tell him I'll be down in a minute."

"Now. You can't leave him waiting."

"I haven't finished talking to Chet."

"I'm sure he'll excuse you," Belle said, getting behind Melody and pushing her toward the door.

"I won't be long," Melody said to Chet. "Why don't you saddle the horses? I'll be out as soon as I change my clothes."

Belle stopped, looked from one to the other. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, you won't be long?"

"Chet and I are going riding. He needs to start building up his strength. While he's doing that, he's going to teach me how to run a ranch."

"You don't need to know how to run a ranch," Belle said quite emphatically. "If you did, Lantz could tell you anything you needed to know."

"Promise me you won't sneak off without me," Melody said, ignoring Belle. She was afraid Chet would pack up and leave before she could finish with Lantz.

"This doesn't seem like a good time for a ride," Chet said. "Suppose I"

"It's very ungentlemanly to back out of a promise," Melody said. "I insist upon holding you to your promise."

"For goodness sake, Melody. If the man wants to bow out, let him."

"I'm not leaving this room until you promise," Melody said. "Melody!" Belle said, beginning to sound desperate.

"Not a foot."

"For goodness sakes, don't be so stubborn," Belle said to Chet. "Promise her."

"Okay," Chet said. Melody would have sworn the light of amus.e.m.e.nt danced momentarily in his eyes. "I'll have the horses saddled and ready in an hour."

"I won't need half that long." She started toward the door but turned back when Belle didn't follow her.

"I thought I'd stay here," Belle said. "I've hardly had a chance to talk to Chet."

Melody took a firm grip on her stepmother's hand. "I'll see Lantz to please you, but I won't see him alone."

"But he came to see you."

"A well-bred, unmarried Virginia lady would never entertain an unmarried gentleman alone."

Melody didn't give a fig about propriety, but she had no intention of leaving Belle alone with Chet. Since his presence would displease Lantz, Melody had no idea what Belle might say to Chet to get him to leave, but she wasn't willing to take a chance.

"All right," Belle said when Melody would not let go of her hand. "I don't see why you're acting so formal all of a sudden," she complained as they headed down the stairs. "You never minded seeing Lantz before."

"He has to consult my guardian if he's going to ask for my hand in marriage," Melody said. "You're my guardian."

Belle continued down the stairs but turned to glance at Melody. It was clear that the notion of acting as Melody's guardian had never entered her mind.

"But you never listen to anything I say."

"You never know when I might start."