Belle clearly didn't put much hope in the possibility. "Well, I wish you'd listen to Lantz," she said. "You won't find a better husband."

Belle spoke so loudly that melody was sure she meant Lantz to hear. When they entered the parlor to find him standing and a smile on his face, she was certain of it.

"If you'd listen to your stepmother, you'd make me the happiest man in Texas," he said.

Melody decided that his smile, as well as his feeling for her, was genuine. She might doubt he had the slightest idea what real love was, but his feelings for her were honest. It was just as obvious that he thought his courtship had proceeded along acceptable lines. If he had to rough up a few innocent cowhands here and there, so what.

After a lot of thought, Melody had finally gotten things clear in her mind. Now it was time to get them clear in Lantz's as well. Keeping a firm grip on Belle's hand, she led her across the room. They sat down on the sofa. That didn't leave any room for Lantz to sit next to her.

"Belle tells me you wanted to talk to me," Melody said to Lantz. "I hope it won't take too long. I'm going for a ride."

"Melody! That's rude," Belle protested.

"I'm sorry, but I made the engagement before Lantz arrived."

"You could cancel it."

"That would be ruder still."

"Maybe what I have to say will cause you to change your mind," Lantz said. He was trying to be gallant and failing miserably.

"Tell her," Belle prompted. From her evident excitement and broad smile, a stranger would have supposed Belle to be the one about to receive an offer of marriage.

"I want you to marry me," Lantz said, coming straight to the point. "You know you can't get along without me."

If that was his idea of a romantic proposal, she could only a.s.sume he had carved his first wife out of a fence post.

"You haven't said anything about your regard for me," Melody said.

"Of course he loves you," Belle said, her smile still in place, her eyes anxious. "Tell her you love her, Lantz."

"I already told her when I asked the first time," he said. "I haven't changed the way I feel since then."

"So you love me and want to marry me?" Melody asked.

"Yes."

"You want to make me the happiest woman on earth by giving me anything my heart desires."

Belle squeezed her hand and sent her an imploring look.

"Now hold on there a minute. I'm willing to give you just about any horse you want. A buggy, too, if you treat me right, but I don't hold with dishing up fancy presents just so a woman can dress up and show off. I could buy a couple of prize bulls for what a ring is going to cost me."

Clearly Lantz had never even heard of the game of love, much less bothered to read the rules.

"You haven't bought the ring yet?" Belle wrung her hand painfully this time.

"Haven't had time to get to town. I'm in the middle of roundup. We started over this way, so I could come over without losing too much time."

If she wanted to find love, she was looking in the wrong place entirely.

"You've relieved my mind," Melody said. "I'd hate to cause you to have to return it."

"Melody!" The shriek came from Belle. Lantz merely looked as if he didn't understand her.

"I appreciate your offer," Melody said, "but I can't accept it."

"Why not?"

"I don't love you."

"But I love you."

"No, you don't, Lantz. You want me. I don't know why, but you have no earthly idea what love is."

"I'm offering you my name and my house. What more can you want?"

"Your heart."

"You already got that."

"Is that why you tried to scare me into marrying you?"

"h.e.l.l, you don't know your head from your tail out here. I was just trying to hurry you a little. I don't like wasting time."

"So to keep from wasting more time, you told my stepmother that if I didn't marry you, you'd take the ranch from her and leave her and my brothers penniless."

"I mean to have this ranch," Lantz thundered. "No reason I can't have you along with it."

"I'm not a horse, or a bull, or a building, Lantz. I don't come with the ranch. Neither do I want to spend all your money on clothes and showing off. You don't love me. I'm just something you saw and wanted. When you were told you couldn't have me, you tried to force me to accept you anyway. I would never marry a man who thought like that."

"Are you turning me down?"

"She's just saying she wants to be courted," Belle said, desperately attempting to keep Melody from saying what she obviously meant to say.

Melody looked at Lantz rather than her stepmother. "I'm saying I don't love you. I'm aware of the great compliment you've paid me in asking me to be your wife, but I can't accept now or in the future. I beg you will not ask me again."

"Don't say that!" Belle wailed. "You might change your mind."

"You're telling me you won't have me?" Lantz demanded.

"Yes," Melody said.

"And that's your final word?"

"No!" Belle practically shrieked.

"I'm sorry, but it is," Melody said. "We have nothing in common. We'd make each other miserable."

"No woman has the power to make me miserable."

Melody could have wanted no clearer proof that Lantz did not and never would love her. Her last shred of doubt vanished.

Lantz stalked across the room, the turned back when he reached the archway into the hall. "I hope you're not planning on marrying my boy. Because if you are"

"I've already told you I wouldn't marry Blade."

"So neither one of us is good enough for your Virginia blue blood, it that it?" "I don't have any blue blood, and I'd marry a cowhand if we loved each other."

"Then you're a fool!" Lantz thundered. "You think I've been bothering your cowhands before. You wait until you see what happens now." He turned and stalked out.

Belle let out an anguished wail. "What have you done to us, you foolish girl?"

For a moment Melody doubted the wisdom of what she'd done. She didn't have anything in the world outside this ranch, and she'd just thrown it away, for Belle and the boys as well. Maybe she ought to go after Lantz, try to reason with him, maybe even . . .

No, she couldn't marry him, no matter how desperate her situation. He might not be doing anything illegal, but he had a mean soul. He had no feelings, and he didn't understand people who did. If he couldn't get what he wanted on his own terms, he would take it.

"I can't marry him," Melody told her stepmother. "He wants to own me."

"All men want to own their wives. It's how their minds work."

"Was my father like that?"

"Of course. He was just more civilized about it. Why do you think he built this huge house, filled it with expensive furnishings, bought me all these beautiful clothes, and hired Bernice to cook?"

"Because he loved you."

"Maybe he did," Belle said, softened for a moment, "but he did it to show everybody what a success he was. The boys and I were part of it. So was keeping you with your fancy aunt in Richmond."

Melody opened her mouth to dispute Belle's last statement, then closed it again. She'd often felt the weight of her father's absence. He'd visited her only once after moving to Texas. Even after he remarried, he had insisted she remain in Richmond. She'd told herself he wanted her to stay where she had friends, but she'd often feared he didn't want to be saddled with the worry of a daughter.

"My aunt wasn't fancy," Melody said. "She lost everything in the War. For a long time she depended on the money my father sent for her support."

"I'm not talking about your aunt," Belle said impatiently. "I'm talking about your father. And the rest of the men in this world. They think of everything around them as possessions. They can't help themselves."

"Did you love my father?"

"I doubt you and I have the same meaning for love," Belle said, "not if it leads you to throw away an offer that would have made you rich and will now make you a pauper."

"Love has nothing to do with money."

"Everything has to do with money," Belle declared, "or the lack of it."

"I can't believe that. I could be just as happy as the wife of a cowboy if I loved him and he loved me."

"What's a cowboy got to offer you? Not a house, not money to buy clothes and food, not a steady job."

"How can you think of all those things first? Don't you think of the man, what he stands for, his integrity, what you feel for him?"

"A woman who thinks like that will end up poor. And if you're thinking of that cowboy upstairs, you'll end up a widow."

Melody felt herself flush.

"I thought so," Belle said. "A man that good-looking makes a woman feel things about herself she's never felt before. Dangerous things that make her start wanting and imagining things that can never be."

Melody jumped up, walked a few steps, and turned to face her stepmother. "Why not? Why must a woman be owned and admired but never listened to?"

"Do you think that man up there is going to listen to you any more than Lantz would?" Belle delivered herself of a mirthless laugh. "He's twenty-nine, restless, and penniless. He's also a hardened gunfighter."

"He said he's giving it up."

"Men like him can't give it up. It's in the blood. They can't settle down or stay with one woman. He'll make you feel like the center of the universe, then disappear just as quickly as he appeared."

"If he loved me, he'd take me with him."

"Don't they teach you girls anything in Richmond? Take me with him doesn't mean going home to Papa's plantation. It means being dragged across miles of dry, Indian-infested plains, staying in cheap hotels when you're fortunate, sleeping under the stars when you're not, eating what you can find. It means never having a home of your own or a decent future for your children."

"I didn't say I was in love with Chet or that I would think of marrying him if I were."

"Maybe not, but you're letting dreams of what you think you could find with him cause you to give up what you know you could have with Lantz."

"I want my husband to love me, not feel pride of ownership. I want to feel valued, admired. I want memories I can enjoy when I'm too old to do anything but remember."

"So you're going to throw yourself at that man and hope he'll have you."

"I haven't said a word about throwing myself at anyone, especially Chet Attmore. He'll be leaving in a few days. I'll probably never see him again."

"But you won't forget him?"

"No, I don't imagine I will."

"Fine. Remember him. Dream about him, but don't let him ruin your life. Or mine and the boys'."

Melody had stopped pacing the room and was staring out the window at nothing in particular, but she turned back to Belle.

"Blame Lantz for that, not me."

"But all you have to do is"

"Sacrifice myself so you can have a ranch? If Lantz is willing to take this place in defiance of common decency and the law, he'll take it whether I marry him or not. No matter what I do, you and the boys will lose it."

It gave Melody no pleasure to see that her stepmother's troubled expression indicated that she realized the truth of what Melody said.

"At least he wouldn't leave us to starve."

"You won't starve," Melody said. "I won't allow it."

"What do you propose to do?"