Chet opened his eyes. Before him sunlight poured through a window framed by curtains of blue silk trimmed in white lace. A gilt mirror hung on the wall above a dressing table. On it rested a velvet box filled with cut gla.s.s, silver bottles, brushes, and an oil lamp with an elaborate shade. He smiled to himself. It looked like heaven compared to most of the rooms he'd occupied over the last seven years, a heaven on earth. It was Melody's bedroom.

"I'm glad to see you're back," Melody said. "I was beginning to think you'd sleep the week away."

He turned his head. She sat next to the bed on the other side. He smiled. It was good to see her face. She looked just as he remembered. He'd had a lot of dreams. He'd tell her about them someday. Right now he felt almost too tired to talk. "How long have I been here?" he asked.

"Five days."

He must have come close to dying. He'd never been out for more than a few hours before.

"The doctor says you're very lucky to be alive. A quarter of an inch the other way, and that bullet would have killed you."

"Is that why you're crying?" His voice sounded so faint, so slow.

"I'm crying because you're alive, you idiot."

"I hoped that might be it." He felt so tired. It was hard to concentrate.

"Now you ought to go back to sleep. You still need lots of rest."

"Luke?" he managed to say before his voice failed.

"He's gone," Melody said. "I tried to get him to stay, but he wouldn't."

His lips soundlessly formed the word. Why?

"He killed Blade. Luke reached the bunkhouse just as he was about to shoot you a second time. He said he did it so you wouldn't have to kill anybody else, so you could be free to marry me. He said you didn't have worry that anyone would find him. He said he'd always wanted to see California."

Chet felt as if some part of himself had been torn away. He and Luke hadn't always agreed on things, but for most of their lives they'd only had each other. Now Luke was gone, and Chet knew he didn't mean to be found, not even by his own brother. Chet had wanted to be relieved of the curse of his guns, but the price had come very high.

"Blade didn't die right away," Melody said. "He talked a lot. It seems my father's death wasn't an accident. Blade had been rustling for some time. My father caught him. When he threatened to turn Blade over to the sheriff, Blade drove his horse off a cliff." She stopped a moment, looking at her hands. "That wasn't what Lantz and Blade argued about. Lantz didn't seem to care about Pa. He was just furious that Blade would steal from him. He called Blade a fool and said he was going to disown him. That's when Blade killed him."

Chet had been right, but it gave him no satisfaction. A family destroyed because of greed and stupidity. Much like his own. Chet vowed that would never happen with him and Melody. He didn't know where they could go or what he could do, but he wouldn't let it happen to him.

He closed his eyes. He had to rest. He had plans to make.

Melody was exhausted. She'd talked until she was blue in the face, but she couldn't convince Chet to remain at the Spring Water Ranch. Dan Walters had decided to buy Lantz's ranch. It was clear he had every intention of marrying Belle as soon as all the uproar over the deaths of Lantz and Blade settled. The Spring Water still needed a foreman.

"What could be more perfect than for my husband to run our ranch?" Melody asked for the hundredth time.

"Nothing," Chet replied with infuriating calm.

"Then why won't you"

"But not me. I've already explained why it would be impossible."

Sounds of arrival outside the house distracted Chet's attention. Melody jumped up and closed the doors to her father's office. "You can stop wondering who that is," she told Chet. "You're not leaving this room until I talk some sense into your head."

"Melody, we've been over everything a dozen times."

"Two dozen," she said. "I can repeat all your arguments from memory."

"Then why can't you"

"Because they're stupid. You're not a stupid man, so I don't want to hear any more of that. Now here's what we're going to do. First, I'm going to marry you. You can scream and yell and say anything you want, but I'm going to be your wife even if Dan and the boys have to tie you up to get you before the preacher. Be quiet," she said when he started to speak. "I've heard enough. Now you listen to me.

"I don't want to hear any more about you being a gunman and me some innocent from Virginia. I held that gun in my hand, and I fired it at Blade. If I hadn't been such a bad shot, Luke wouldn't have had to kill him. But that's not the point. I did fire that gun with the intention of killing Blade if I had to, so I know what it's like. It doesn't make you a killer. It's simply something you have to do. I didn't like it, but I'd do it again. So that makes me just like you. I'm the perfect wife for you."

The noise outside the office door was so loud, it was distracting. She pulled Chet up from the seat where he'd been sitting for the last thirty minutes and put her arms around his waist. Despite being the most stubborn man in the western world, he was quick to take the hint and put his arms around her. She was just as quick to accept the kiss he offered. After being a.s.sured that his objections were in no way the result of diminished love for her, Melody prepared to continue her arguments.

"We don't have to stay here if you don't want to. Dan can run both ranches. We can go to the far corners of Arizona or New Mexico if you want. We can go to Virginia if you like."

The doors flew open to reveal Belle standing there with a grin so big, it practically made her look idiotic. "How about a certain valley in the Hill Country?" she asked.

Melody felt Chet stiffen. She knew the only place he truly wanted to go was the valley he still considered home. She was angry at Belle for mentioning it. It could only hurt Chet.

"Would you go with him?" Belle asked her.

"You know I'd go anywhere with him, but"

Belle looked at Chet and grinned even more broadly. "I thought he might have turned stubborn, but there's somebody here who's more than ready to twist his arm."

A woman a few years past the bloom of youth stepped through the doorway. Melody couldn't decide whether she was more surprised by the appearance of this stranger or by Chet's reaction.

"Are you going to stand there with your mouth open, or are you going to give me a hug and a kiss?" the stranger asked. She held out her arms, and Chet walked straight into them.

In one horrible flash of insight, Melody was certain Chet hadn't yet agreed to set a wedding date because he was already married to this woman. Melody felt her heart constrict into a tight knot. It was no consolation that the woman was probably older than Chet. She was still lovely, and he obviously loved her very much. "Why didn't you come back?" the woman asked when she finally managed to break Chet's embrace. "It broke my heart when you left."

The tears streaming down her face and the look of love in her eyes left Melody in no doubt as to the truth of her words. A thousand explanations whirled about in her mind. They all ended in her being pushed aside by a woman Chet had walked out on years ago. She heard the sound of more people in the hall.

A man she'd never seen entered the room. The sight of Belle and Bernice watching from the hall, grinning like idiots, told Melody she must have misjudged the situation.

"I tried to leave her behind," the man said to Chet, "but she was saddled up and ready to go before I could get down the steps."

When Chet hugged this man as though he was his best friend in the whole world, Melody suddenly felt something wonderful had just happened.

If these people were who she thought they might be . . .

"I'm Isabelle Maxwell, Chet's mother," the woman said, introducing herself to Melody. "When Luke wrote that Chet had fallen in love but was about to make the biggest mistake of his life by leaving you, I knew I had to come."

"His mother," Melody repeated.

"Chet always wrote at Christmas, but Luke's letter was the first we'd had from him. We knew it had to be really important for him to write."

Jake Maxwell, for that was who Melody was certain the man was, pulled Chet over toward Melody and Isabelle. "Now introduce us to your young woman. I hear she's determined to marry you even if she has to tie you up. I'll be happy to lend a hand," he said to Melody. "He's got a pa.s.sel of brothers who'd jump at the chance to help. Anybody stupid enough to turn his back on you deserves to be tossed over a cliff."

"Chet's not stupid," Melody said. "He's just"

"Stubborn," Isabelle said.

Melody relaxed and smiled. "Yes. Very stubborn."

"We've come to help you out."

"As well as be present for the wedding," Isabelle said. "I couldn't miss that."

Chet had shown more genuine emotion in three minutes than he'd shown the whole time he'd been at the ranch. Melody wished she had a copy of the key Jake and Isabelle seemed to be able to turn so easily.

"Luke told us all about what's bothering Chet. It was a long letter." Jake glanced over at Chet. "It must have taken him a week to write it."

"First, you're coming home," Isabelle said. "There's no point wasting time raising foolish objections. I'm sure Melody has listened to them enough for all of us. I don't want to hear a word about bringing trouble on us. There's not a gunslinger in Texas foolish enough to venture onto Maxwell land."

"But you can't come right away," Jake said. "We've got a little problem we want you to take care of first."

"Jake, I can't"

"I know you're a little old, but I'm going to send you off to college for a year or two. The cattle business is changing too fast for this old cowboy to keep up. I want you to go learn all this stuff about crossbreeding and marketing and new gra.s.s and whatever else it is they're using to threaten to run me out of business. When you figure you've learned about all you can stand, you come back and fix it so we can make more money than anybody else in the state."

"Jake, I can't"

"Be quiet and listen to your parents," Melody said. "I like what they're saying."

"What about it?" Jake asked.

"You forgot about the wedding," Isabelle said.

"I count four women in this room," Jake said. "That's more than enough to organize a wedding. Now let's get out of here and let Chet and Melody talk things over."

"He's marrying you and coming home," Isabelle said, giving Melody a kiss on the cheek. "No matter what argument he presents, just keep saying that. It may take a while, but he'll soon stop talking nonsense."

"Do you always tell him what to do?" Melody asked, still hardly able to believe the past ten minutes.

"Of course. It saves a lot of time." She winked. "Welcome to the family."

Jake stepped over and gave Melody a hug as Isabelle walked out into the hall to talk to Belle.

"We were praying he'd find somebody like you," he said. He gave Chet a punch in the shoulder. "I hope you've told him how lucky he is."

"Considering he's been shot three times since he arrived, I doubt he'd agree with you."

"That was nothing but a few little tests to make sure he was worthy of you. Someday I'll tell you what Isabelle and her gang put me through before they hoodwinked me into adopting the lot of them." He turned to Belle. "I seemed to remember a promise of something to drink."

"You're welcome to anything we have," Belle said as she drew him into the hall and closed the doors on them.

The sudden quiet was almost eerie. Melody felt stunned. Chet looked just as strongly affected. She decided not to waste the opportunity.

"I hope you listened carefully to everything your parents said. I have only one thing to add."

Chet pulled her to him. "Are you going to turn into a dictator like Isabelle?"

"Absolutely. It seems the only way to handle you."

He nuzzled her neck. "I could think of a few other ways."

Melody could tell the battle had been won. They'd offered Chet the opportunity to do exactly what he wanted to do, and he was being smart enough to accept gracefully. She had her man. Not on her ranch where she wanted him, but that was probably best. Sydney would soon be old enough to run it.

"I can think of a few ways of my own," she said. "Suppose we make a list and make our way through it item by item."

Chet kissed her and pulled her close.

"You are going to accept Jake's offer, aren't you?" she asked.

Silence.

She pulled out of his embrace. "I can't stand this any longer. You will accept Jake's offer. If it doesn't work out, we can try something else. But we've got to start somewhere, and that seems like a good place."

Silence. "You do want to go back there, don't you?"

"It's the only place I've ever wanted to be."

Melody breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Now let's talk about weddings."

"I'd rather start on that list you mentioned."

They were in the midst of a very satisfactory kiss when the office doors opened without warning.

"I've got to get the brandy." Neill stopped in his tracks when he saw Melody and Chet kissing. "You're not going to do that, too, are you?"

"Who else did you break in on?" Chet asked, smothering a smile.

"Ma and Dan and your ma and pa. They've kissed twice, and they just got here."

"We can't help it," Chet said. "I warned you about those feminine wiles."

"But you like them, don't you?"

Chet turned back to Melody. "Yes, I like them very much indeed."

Epilogue.

"Are you sure you don't mind changing your name?" Melody asked Chet.

"It's a little late if I did. I've been going by Maxwell for two years now."