There! That was just about as blatant as she could make it without spelling it out. He couldn't doubt what she was trying to tell him now.

"You shouldn't put so much value on one kiss," he said.

She could see the strain it took for him to speak normally. It sounded almost as if each word were prepared separately so their collective meaning wouldn't overwhelm him.

She wasn't going to let him slide over it that easily. "Why did you kiss me?"

"You're a beautiful woman."

"I'm not beautiful. Only pa.s.sably pretty. Do you kiss every pa.s.sably pretty woman you see? And bear in mind that includes nearly half of the female population of Texas."

She got a real smile out of him. "If I did that, I'd have been shot by at least a quarter of the men in Texas."

"Okay, why me and not Belle?"

"She's older. She's newly widowed. She's"

"That's nonsense. She's twice as pretty as I am. Furthermore, everybody knows it's safer to chase widows than single women. Come on, the truth." She moved closer to him, put her hand on his arm, looked up into his eyes.

She was so close, their bodies practically touched and their breaths intermingledbut Chet was a tough nut to crack. She could almost see him turn to stone before her eyes. His arm was hard, unmovable. All warmth seemed to have drained from his body. It was as though he'd abandoned his body and retreated to a tiny place of final defense buried deep inside him. He was determined to stay out of reach, to deny that their kiss had meant anything to him.

She'd come too faraccepted too much, experienced too much, changed too muchto give up now. It had nothing to do with the desperateness of her position. She'd have done the same thing if the ranch had been secure and she'd had ten suitors in Richmond clamoring for her hand. She moved her hand from his arm to his chest. The irises of his eyes contracted so that the white seemed to dominate, but he remained steadfastly immobile.

"It's very pleasing to a woman to know a man wants to kiss her, especially if he likes it well enough to do it more than once." With her right hand she played with a b.u.t.ton on his shirttwisted it between her fingers, drew circles around itwhile with her left hand she gripped his forearm and held him close. "But it would be very injurious to her self-esteem to know the experience was so unpleasant he didn't want to repeat it. You don't dislike me that much, do you?"

"I don't dislike you at all. Nor do I want to injure you."

He sounded as if the words had been unwillingly squeezed out between the granite boulders of his self-control, but Melody thought he was weakening. His irises seemed to grow smaller still, as though they, too, were retreating. She splayed her right hand flat against his chest and moved her left up his arm. He flinched visibly.

"You're doing both by ignoring me so completely," she said, her voice as close to soft and sultry as she knew how to make it. "Didn't anybody ever tell you it's impolite to treat a woman with such indifference?"

"It would be more impolite to make her think I felt something for her I didn't."

Melody winced. She guessed she'd gotten her answer after all. But she had to admit it was a cruel shock to discover that Chet felt nothing for her.

But it was much worse than that. She loved this man, and he didn't love her. She was doomed to live with a broken heart for the rest of her life.

Melody released Chet and moved back. "I wouldn't want you to do anything like that, either. I dislike it when women attempt to entice men into saying what they don't mean."

She turned away when she felt tears start to swim in her eyes. She didn't want him to think she was so unprincipled as to resort to such an overused ploy to get what she wanted. Neither did she want him to think she was a weak, whimpering female.

"It was good of you to take the time to explain things to me," she said, fighting hard against tears that now seemed determined to come despite her most valiant efforts. She moved farther away from Chet, toward the creek. She hoped the soft gurgling sound as it flowed over the rocks and gravel in the stream bed would cover any catch in her voice. She wanted to throw herself in, let the cold water shock her back to normal. But the water would hardly come up to her ankles. "You can go back to your work now. I don't think I want to see anything else today."

She hoped he would go quickly. She didn't think she could hold on much longer.

"I'll take you back."

"I can find my way. Besides, I'm not ready to leave yet. I want to stay here a little while."

"I'll wait."

"Don't!" The word exploded from her, sounding more like a desperate plea than the indifferent reply she'd intended.

"Are you all right?" he asked. He'd come closer. "Are you overtired?"

The concern in his voice destroyed the last of her control. A sob escaped her. In an instant he'd taken her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. She looked down, avoiding his gaze.

"You're crying."

"No, I'm not."

He put his hand under her chin and forced her head up. She kept her eyes closed. She refused to look at him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying."

"No, I'm just trying to get used to what a stupid man you are." She opened her eyes to see a confused look on his face. "Surely even a Texas gunfighter knows it's embarra.s.sing for a woman to throw herself at a man and be flatly rejected."

"I didn't reject you."

She angrily wiped a tear from her eyes. "Is this more of your we do it different in Texas philosophy?" The tears had begun to roll in earnest now, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. She dabbed angrily at her eyes. "That would qualify as a brush-off in any language. I don't want you to think I make a practice of throwing myself at men," she added, finally beginning to get her tears under control. "I didn't even want to like you. But despite your being a gunfighter, I found I liked you very much. You're kind and thoughtful and think nothing of taking appalling risks for perfect strangers. Not to mention being attractive in a way that had me thinking thoughts that embarra.s.sed me even in my dreams. Then when you kissed mewell, I thought you might like me at least a little. But if you don't"

Without warning, Chet grabbed her, wrapped her in his arms, and was kissing her so powerfully that it took her breath away. She started crying all over again. But that didn't stop her from throwing her arms around his neck and clinging to him with all her strength. She was certain it couldn't be very satisfactory kissing her just now. Her cheeks were wet with tears, she couldn't stop crying no matter how hard she tried, and she wasn't nearly as tall as he was. But he didn't seem to care. He just lifted her off her feet and kept on kissing her.

"I shouldn't be doing this," he said finally.

"Don't ever stop," she pleaded.

"But I'm making you cry."

"Can't you tell tears of happiness when you see them?"

Whether he could or couldn't, he kept a satisfactorily tight hold on her. "I didn't want to let myself love you," he said.

Her heart soared. He loved her. He had tried not to, but he couldn't help himself. Oh, the sound of that was music to her ears, balm to her tortured soul.

"You shouldn't love me," he said. "I'm not worthy of it."

She laid her head on his chest. "Don't say such things. Besides, I can't help loving you any more than you can help loving me."

Her words seemed to shock him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away from him. "Don't say you love me ever again," he said, his expression painfully intense. "Note ever." "Why?" she asked, confused. It was almost as though he didn't want to be loved, was afraid of it.

"Because I'm not the kind of man a woman like you should have anything to do with."

"I'm sorry for what I said. I was ignorant. I didn't understand"

"I'm not talking about that."

"Then what are you talking about? You're a wonderful man. Any woman would be fortunate to love a man like you."

"No decent woman should love me. Don't you remember how Lantz treated me, like I was dirt under his feet?"

"Lantz is a horrible person. I'd never"

"It's not just Lantz. It's everybody. I'm good enough to do their dirty work, but as soon as my job is done, they want me out of their town. Most of them won't even admit they ever knew me."

"I don't care about people like that."

"You will when n.o.body will give me a respectable job, when decent people don't want to be seen with you."

"I'm sure you're taking a much too severe view of things."

"It's more of my we don't do things that way in Texas. People like me will soon be a thing of the past. We've tamed this country so that proper, upstanding citizens can live in it. Now they want us to go away and leave it to them."

"Chet"

"Gunfighters don't retire and grow old. They're killed by somebody hunting a reputation. You'd end up a widow with kids to raise on your own."

"Good gracious, Chet, I haven't even thought that far. I couldn't, not when I didn't know whether you loved me."

"I've loved you almost from the moment I saw you, but I wouldn't let myself admit it. I tried to leave, but I never could."

"I know. I'm almost thankful Blade shot you. If he hadn't, I'd never have seen you again."

"That would have been better for you. It's time you hired a new foreman. I want you to talk to Belle about it as soon as you get back."

Melody decided they'd talked too much. She put her arms around Chet and held him tightly. After a moment's hesitation, he put his arms around her.

"Just hold me," she said. "Don't think about the future. Don't think about anybody else. Just us. Just now."

She didn't want to push him to make any promises. He'd made up his mind gunfighters shouldn't marry, even if they wanted to give up being a gunfighter. He couldn't stop himself loving herhe'd admitted he'd triedbut if she pushed him too hard, he might disappear.

For right now, knowing he loved her was enough. Being in love wasn't at all the way she'd expected it would be. She'd thought it would just happen and everything would work out. Now she saw it would take some thought, effort, and time to make her dreams come true. She needed time to convince Chet he was wrong. Failing that, she needed to convince him he was so desperately in love, he couldn't turn his back on her no matter what the difficulties. They could leave Texas, go anywhere he felt gunfighters wouldn't follow him. She didn't care. She'd never expected to be given a chance for a love like this.

Now that she had it, she didn't mean to give it up.

Chapter Sixteen.

Melody told Chet she hadn't said a word about their conversation down by the creek, but everyone seemed to know their relationship had changed. Since he'd given up pretending he didn't love her, they could hold hands when no one was looking. Even share a kiss when they were alone. He felt guilty about offering so little to the woman he lovedhe felt even more guilty about offering anything at all when they both knew it would come to nothing in the endbut Melody seemed content.

Belle and Bernice weren't so obliging. They never let an opportunity pa.s.s to say something about how wonderful it was to be married, how well matched they thought Melody and Chet were, how fortunate a woman would be to have him as a husband, how glad they were Melody had chosen him over Lantz. Chet knew what they were doing, but he couldn't stop them. One solution would have been to stay in the bunkhouse, but he couldn't stay away from Melody. Because of that weakness, he had to endure their innuendo, subtle hints, and blatant suggestions.

"I think Melody has adjusted very quickly now that Chet's here to explain things to her," Belle was saying to Bernice.

"I always thought she'd adapt to Texas ways," Bernice said. "She's too independent for a place like Virginia. n.o.body but a Texas boy is strong enough to take her in hand."

"Who says I want to be taken in hand?" Melody asked. "Suppose I want a man I can manage, who'll do anything I want just to please me?"

"Then you'd better start looking in another direction," Bernice said. "I don't see any man at this table likely to be taken in by your wiles."

"What's wiles?" Neill asked.

"It's what women do when they want to catch a man," Sydney explained. "Are you wanting to catch a man, Melody?"

"Maybe she's already caught one," Belle said.

"I don't like Lantz," Sydney said. "I hate Blade."

"I don't like them either," Melody said.

"Then who are you giving your wiles to?" Neill asked. "Can I have one?"

Chet grinned. "You'll find yourself tangled in some pretty girl's wiles soon enough," he said. "And you won't find them easy to escape."

"Are you tangled up in Melody's wiles?" Neill asked. "Do you want to escape?"

"Of course he doesn't," Belle said. "Wouldn't you like for Chet to stay here?"

"Sure."

"Are you going to stay?" Sydney asked. "You'd better ask Melody," his mother said as she winked at Bernice.

"I don't understand," Neill said. "If Melody has you all tangled up in her wiles, why can't I see them?"

Everyone laughed.

"Wiles are invisible," his mother said.

"I don't want nothing I can't see," Neill said, losing interest.

"You will one of these days," Melody said. "Most of the best things in life can't be seen."

"Like what?" Sydney asked.

"Like love, honor, kindness"

"Oh, you mean that mushy girl stuff," Sydney said, obviously not impressed. He turned to Chet. "Would you stay because of that girl stuff?"

Chet didn't know how to answer that he'd give anything he owned to be able to stay for that very reason, but that he couldn't because of the things about him Sydney most admired.