Emma? His hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she pressed her cheek to the back of one. What is it? She’s dead, Emma whispered, as Steven pulled up a chair close to hers and sat down. Gently he t...
Couldn’t you stay? she whispered. Couldn’t someone else go on that cattle drive? He shook his head, then bent to kiss her lightly on the mouth. Be ready, he told her, when it was over, because when I...
Caleb’s eyes shifted to something in the corner and went narrow, and a dangerous calm replaced his outrage. My shotgun, he said disbelievingly. Isn’t that my shotgun? I only borrowed it, Lily said, sq...
Caleb, Lily whispered. He turned from the horses to glance at her curiously. What? Indians, she managed to say. Over there, on the rise! He turned in a leisurely fashion to look toward the hillside, m...
Caleb resisted an urge to go back to Fort Deveraux, snatch Lily up, and take her with him to Spokane. If she was at his side, no one would hurt her—he’d see to that.
After that everything was a blur for Emma. She remembered little beyond blinding pain, hazy, shifting faces, and finally, relief and the furious squall of an infant. My baby, she whispered, lying back...
Unless you’ve walked in another person’s skin, you don’t know what he’s put up with, what he’s gone through,
Chigger bites. On the other side of the ranch house, which was, she admitted
You’d like some soothin’, wouldn’t you, Mr. Fairfax? she asked in a sympathetic voice. A raw chuckle left his throat as he thought of Emma forcing this poor little minx into a calico dress and an old...
You look beautiful, Caleb said softly, laying his hands on the sides of her slender waist. Lily smiled at his reflection in the glass. Don’t you try to flatter me, Caleb Halliday, she warned. I think...
Why are you building that house, Caleb Halliday, when we both know you’re going to hightail it back to Pennsylvania and drag me right along with you? She couldn’t read his expression, but she saw that...
Where are you staying tonight? Caleb asked reasonably. Lily had no idea; her mind had been so full of Caleb that she hadn’t thought about that. Nor had she collected her savings from the bank in Tyler...
What will you do if Steven’s convicted? was his question. At first, Emma couldn’t face the thought. Then she allowed the nightmare to take root in her mind and answered. I’d go away—maybe to Chicago o...
To keep him from finding out that he’d pleased her, she turned on the hard, narrow seat to glance behind her. Sure enough, a picnic basket was wedged into the narrow space. Tentatively she lifted the...
To Jacob, bleeding into the ground, in the midst of an endless war, that goal seemed more distant than ever, hopeless, even impossible. And still, had he been able, he would have fought on, died not j...
This is Joss’s place, he sighed, running one hand through his hair in a distracted gesture. He built it into what it is now, not me. Lily began to massage the knotted muscles in his shoulders, careful...
The moment he stepped outside, Macon materialized out of the darkness, as quickly as if he’d been a part of it. Just making sure you don’t decide to take to your heels again, Steven’s half-brother rem...
Steven grinned as though he could see right through her. He was finely dressed, but she could see the bulge of his .45 beneath his suitcoat. Hello, Miss Emma, he said, taking off his new beaver hat. M...
Steven didn’t speak again, didn’t try to erase what she was feeling. Instead, he found a comb in her handbag, knelt behind her, and gently began working the tangles out of her hair. Maybe the women of...
Steven Fairfax was nothing but a saddle-bum—maybe he was even wanted by the law—and bathing him was not a ladylike thing to do. Still, there was the way he smiled. And that glint of mischief in his ey...