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  "Yes, well, I live in a one-room shack that I don't own, and if I don't pay the price for it, someone will throw me out. I don't have it in me to feel your concern."

  She ignored Grady Hawks when he moved behind her. It was more important at the moment to keep Comfort and Hamilton Quince in her sights. "You and your brother own enough land to keep both of you busy, and Mr. Hawks' business doesn't concern me."

  Hamilton explained, "Hawks Nest Ranch has something more valuable than grazing area. The largest spring-fed lake in these parts lies beyond Double-Q borders and is on Grady's land." He paused before adding, "My brother and I have an abiding interest in keeping the water open to all of the ranchers around. In this case, that means supporting Grady Hawks' claim. Call it stability, if you want."

  So they're not bosom buddies. Just a case of you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Jewel was aware of the tension in the Indian, almost a force that touched her.

  Judge Conklin rejoined the conversation. "The Double-Q and Hawks Nest are the two biggest spreads in this part of Texas and control open range and watering rights for half the smaller ranchers in the area. As things stand, that's good for everyone." His voice took on the sharpness of outrage. "Couple years back, there was a concerted effort to tag one of the Quince brothers and steal the Double-Q. Hamilton and his brother Ambrose held firm and beat the bastards back."

  He paused here, looking askance at his own words, "Pardon my language, ma'am,"

  he nodded at Comfort and then, hesitantly, at Jewel. "This year there's a Business Consortium headed by a banker named Alan Michaels." Whatever else the judge was saying was lost to Jewel in a surge of panic.

  The name Alan Michaels, itself, made her dizzy and sick. If these people were in a war with Michaels, they needed more than her help.

  Finally, understanding clicked into place. Dear God in heaven, tell me Frank didn't try to blackmail Alan Michaels. Jewel remembered his whispered apology, He knows …

  sorry.

  What does he know, Frank, what does he know? Did you try to blackmail him? Alan Michaels shot a man in cold blood. Surely you weren't stupid enough to deal with the devil?

  If Alan Michaels was in the area, she needed to leave with her daughters and get as far away as possible. Fear sharpened her voice. "Make whatever point you're skirting around, Judge Conklin. It's been a long day, and I have travelling to do tonight."

  Jewel didn't bother to be polite to the long-winded jurist. Her voice was a whip of command. He responded with a look of new deference.

  "Hawks is a breed"—he nodded apologetically at Grady and continued—"You know, part Indian. Something like a quarter or such, right, Grady?

  "It was only last year or so that the Comancheros burned out Buffalo Creek and the renegade Apache, Mangas Colorado, attacked Eclipse. Everything was fine as long as Henry was alive. But…"

  He cleared his voice twice, looking away from Grady Hawks uncomfortably. "Grady needs to marry white, so he can prove himself loyal to the ranch community hereabouts."

  She looked closer at Grady Hawks. Except for the blue-gray eyes, he looked pure Indian to her, but one drop or full-blooded, it made no difference to her. There were more savages in the west than the Indians.

  "I don't see how any of this concerns me, or the death of my husband."

  She called them back to the reason they'd hauled her in here and addressed the man who now seemed the center of everyone's focus. "I need to be on my way. Mr. Hawks, I can't feel sorry for your troubles. As you've heard, I have my own. I see no way we can be of service to each other."

  It was her guess that until recently, the judge wouldn't have wasted the spit in his mouth to douse a fire on Hawks or her. But at her words, he set forward on the edge of his chair.

  "Awful strange, you being pulled back to Eclipse, on the same day your husband Frank is found knifed in an alley using a blade belonging to Grady Hawks. On the surface, it seems like one or the other of you must have had something to do with it."

  Jewel tensed. An accusation of murder sounded like it would be the next sentence from the Judge's mouth. "Arrest me for the murder of my husband, or shut up about it."

  Now that she knew the children were safe and on their way, she was emboldened.

  She didn't consider why the knowledge of Grady Hawks at her back made her fearless.

  She listened to the conversation, biding her time till Emma and Amy arrived.

  Chapter Four

  Hamilton Quince accepted a cup of coffee from his wife with an absent, "Thank you, darlin'," before he spoke to the gambler's woman. Comfort Quince did not look defeated, merely resting for the next battle.

  Grady maintained his stance behind the Rossiter woman, blocking her from leaving, although he had no intentions of tackling her if she fled.

  "Mrs. Rossiter," Quince began. "The U.S. government and a number of Texas expansionists are engaged in passing new legislation that would open Indian lands for white settlement. The land that Hawks Nest is built on contains two 4,500-acre parcels, given to Henry and Gregory Hawks in 1836…"

  Jewel Rossiter swayed on her feet, obviously exhausted from the day's events. She didn't protest or notice when his coat found its way around her shoulders again.

  "…The brothers built a cabin on the land, and immediately negotiated with the neighboring Kiowa chief for Indian wives." Hamilton Quince, once again the picture of a dilettante, paused to sip his coffee, nodding at the spot where Grady stood, before he continued.

  Grady half wished the gambler's woman would speak up and tell Quince to shut up too. He was as tired of the story as she appeared to be disinterested.

  "Grady's mother disappeared not long after his birth. His father, Henry Hawks, never married again and had no more children. Grady's uncle, Gregory Hawks, and his Kiowa wife perished crossing the Brazos River during a cattle drive. Their son, Grady's cousin, Dan Two-Horse, lives most of the time with his mother's people and spends little time in the ranch house that his parents once occupied."

  "I don't need to know Mr. Hawks' business, because it has nothing to do with mine."

  Her flat words to Hamilton Quince pleased Grady. The woman had fire in her belly.

  Hamilton Quince's eyes were cold when he paused in his telling and took a sip of coffee, speaking directly to Grady Hawks. "There's not much about his circumstances that hasn't been discussed recently, since it affects all of us in Eclipse. Grady's dad was shot down on his way home from Eclipse, eighteen months ago, upsetting the balance of power in the valley."

  Then Quince turned back to Jewel and continued his explanation as though she'd not spoken at all.

  "Although Hawks Nest has been in the Hawks family for almost fifty years, the representative of the Eastern Land Developers Consortium, Alan Michaels, suggests that Hawks Nest is not a ranch."

  His face took on a reflective quality as though he'd considered the merits of the proposal but found it did not benefit the Quince brothers.

  "He wants the land to be considered tribal property that, under this pending legislation, would give each cousin a 160-acre allotment and open the rest up for whites."

  Judge Conklin broke in excitedly. "Ambrose and Hamilton Quince have blocked that scheme so far, and with their continued support and the backing of the local ranchers, we're attempting to head off a range war that could end up with a lot of people hurt and no one but an Eastern Consortium of businessmen winning."

  Comfort Quince spoke in a soothing voice as she carried a silver coffee server around to refill the cups of the men. "Ambrose Quince and his wife, Lucy, are at the state capital, and have been since the end of fall branding. Ambrose will do his own share of arm-bending while he is there."

  "The state has too many residents who carry varying amounts of Indian blood to push this through," Hamilton assured the gambler's widow, who had begun to wilt under the assault of three voices. "But there are Eastern businessmen spreading lies and promising eastern settlers that land in Texas will so
on be opening."

  "Any resident with a drop of Indian blood is threatened by the Allotment Proposal.

  Right, Judge?" Grady Hawks finally spoke, turning the conversation from her to him.

  He had been watching the performers in the room—as a dispassionate audience. As such, he had to admire the grit the woman exhibited. She was dead on her feet, pale, drawn, and worried, but she wasn't about to let anyone present catch her unawares.

  Thank God, the woman wasn't stupid. She listened intently to the explanation, although impatient for the white men to reach its conclusion. Since she'd received his assurance that the children were being retrieved for her, she'd calmed considerably.

  He wanted the whites to get out. He had negotiating to do. This woman was no tame horse to be herded and corralled. She was as skittish and distrustful as a mustang.

  Grady Hawks looked Indian, employed Indian ranch hands, and kept separate from Texas society. His very presence made white citizens uncomfortable. He knew that if it wasn't for the water supply that he controlled, the ranchers would have looked the other way when Michaels' Eastern Consortium pushed to remove him from his land.

  It all came back to the water. Who better to control it, Grady Hawks and Dan Two-Horse, Kiowa, half-breeds, but sons of local ranchers, or Alan Michaels, a banker from back East? It was testimony to the common distrust of bankers and eastern lawyers that the cousins had won that contest.

  The Rossiter woman found a chair and seated herself across from the window. His coat still wrapped her shoulders, and it satisfied him for the moment, but he wasn't sure that she didn't intend to jump through the opening and tensed to stop her if the need presented.

  Grady could tell she attended the goings-on outside as much as in the room, as did he. Torches flickered in a night that should have been dark, which was a sure indication that there was trouble afoot.

  "Again, gentlemen"—she nodded at the room at large—"I fail to see how this affects me or the death of my husband."

  He studied her in the soft lamplight of the sitting room. Her hair was swept off her face and pinned loosely in a knot at the back of her head. She was exquisite—lush body and beautiful face with creamy skin and green eyes that were almost the color of emeralds.

  I wonder how a colt from her would look. Like his Scottish da, she had a few sprinklings of freckles splashed in gold across the bridge of her delicate nose.

  She's thinner, older … harder than I remember. He hadn't consciously kept track of her after learning she was married to the gambler, but he knew every change that the four years of rough living had brought.

  The frightened girl was gone. He faced a feral wildcat of a woman who could be any age between twenty and thirty.

  Abruptly, Grady's attention was drawn back to Judge Conklin, who was ham-handedly trying to approach his proposition.

  "Now as to that, we think you've been drawn into this to hang Grady for your husband's murder, at the same time rid you of Frank Rossiter's protection." The judge had the decency to stumble over the last word.

  "Not, mind you, that you killed your husband, but that it has been made to look like you might have."

  To her credit, she sat, hands clasped before her, giving the judge her full attention, though he couldn't seem to make his point.

  Impatient with the judge's vague mumblings and explanations, Jewel Rossiter finally interrupted. "Judge Conklin, is there an ending to this discussion?"

  Hamilton Quince summed up the bad news succinctly. "Whoever used Hawks' knife to kill the gambler knew both of you would be in town today. Think about it. One or the other of you is meant to be found guilty."

  If those in the room were expecting missish protests or dramatic hysteria from the woman, she offered none. She might have stabbed her husband, and if so, Grady didn't care. She didn't mince words.

  "Mr. Quince, if I have been following this conversation correctly, you were involved in bringing both Grady Hawks and me to town." She swung her gaze to Hiram Potter and continued, "I'd say this man could be named a likely suspect."

  Then tiredly she stood and shrugged his coat off, ready to leave. "When will my children arrive?" she asked him, dismissing the rest of the people as unimportant.

  Grady upped his opinion of her intelligence. Frank Rossiter earned his death and she isn't wasting time pretending false concern.

  He could almost see her brain working as she processed the information, including the rising sound of a mob outside the house. Someone had been busy getting the rowdies stirred into frenzy.

  "They will arrive soon. While we wait, I have a proposition for you." She straightened to face him, tiredness wiped away, as the fighter returned to face this new threat.

  "I need a white wife; you have the bloodlines of the Scots. It's in your features, your hair, and the color of your skin." He almost smiled at the faint surprise on her face. It wasn't what she'd been expecting.

  "Irish," she corrected him. "My dad called our people ridgerunners, redheaded Irish."

  One woman against—he counted heads, three men and a woman who wanted her children. He admired her control. If it was him, he might have had to kill someone.

  And then she spoke directly to all of them, moving toward him and the door he now blocked.

  "Let me get this straight." She swept the room with a quick look of disgust. "Mr.

  Hawks, you want to parade me around the territory as your white wife, to prove how civilized you are. And Mr. Quince, you want me to give my children to your wife, a move that would also eliminate any inconvenience that might disrupt the show Mr.

  Hawks plans to put on."

  Then she looked at Hiram Potter, who was clearly uncomfortable with the way the evening had gone. But she spoke to both him and Judge Conklin, "And you two, they brought in to make everything legal and tight."

  After all the bullshit that had been spattered around in the talking, she'd filtered out what affected her. He gave her the courtesy of a tight smile. She considered him for a minute while the rest of the room studied her. She appeared calmer than she had been all night … and resolved.

  "No one gets my daughters, understand that. My children stay with me." Then she focused on him, and he was reminded that she wasn't a tame dog to be frightened into submission.

  "Are you talking a real wife?" At his raised brow of incredulity that she might consider otherwise, she paused a moment and then amended her question. "Where would this magnificent coupling take place?"

  He almost laughed out loud at her assessment but did her the courtesy of a straight answer. "Hawks Nest Ranch abuts the Double-Q ranch east of town. It stretches above the foothills behind Eclipse."

  "Is it isolated? Can people come and go?" Evidently, the gambler's woman needed a place to lay low with her daughters for awhile. He declined to mention the duration of her visit.

  It seemed to him that the location of the land might be the only temptation to her agreeing. She needed a haven. Maybe Hawks Nest would be that place.

  Her knuckles showed white as she backed against a heavy piece of furniture and clutched the edge of the desk. So, she's not as tough as she wants us to believe. As Grady watched, her translucent skin blanched even whiter, displaying clearly the degree of her exhaustion, as her knees began to buckle.

  He was on her in a second, his arm sweeping familiarly around her shoulders for support. "Only folks coming onto my land are those I allow entrance."

  "I've had a husband, and I don't want another," she told him desperately, but already her gaze assessed him.

  She was interrupted by Hamilton Quince, who edged close enough to follow the conversation. "Want plays a poor second to need, and right now, Mrs. Rossiter, it would appear that you need the protection of a man."

  Grady remained expressionless and silent, letting Quince make his case. But the gambler's woman didn't spare a glance for Hamilton, intent on answers to her questions.

  She skimmed the room with a suspicious gaze at the same time she sp
oke softly to him, pitching her voice so that even Quince couldn't hear.

  "Pretty convenient me just being made a widow." Her tone was intimate, and although quiet, spoke volumes about her willingness to forget the matter if he did admit killing Frank Rossiter. But he had strong doubt that she'd agree to marry her husband's murderer.

  "Did you, or your hireling, kill Frank Rossiter?" She locked eyes with Grady Hawks as though she could read his soul. She was a slender woman who reached his shoulder.

  She was bruised from another man's fists, but she questioned him with authority, asserting her right to know.

  "No," he told her. "I can't claim that pleasure." From the sound of the mob, someone had been busy spreading the rumor that one or the other of them had killed Frank Rossiter.

  "As you have heard, I have twin baby girls." Her bravado wavered at the sound of the mob's approach, and she waited tensely for his response.

  "My wife will be protected, as will her family, because they will belong to me." No sense in lying to her. She's as safe as she wants to be. I sure as hell don't plan to hurt her or a couple of kids.

  He shrugged and waited, admiring the way she hid her thoughts from those in the room.

  "All right," she agreed, accepting his proposal. It was no decision at all when faced with the sound of her other choices coming up the street.

  As they turned expectantly toward the judge, she asked. "How long will we need to playact?"

  The others in the room strained to hear the negotiations quietly taking place, but her words were too softly spoken. He liked her voice and that she appeared to own some sense and had no need to rely on the others in the room to make her decisions.

  "This is no playact. I intend a legal wedding witnessed by the leaders of Eclipse society. We will remain married, and you will give me a son." Grady felt her flinch and shudder.

  She stepped back and away, shaking her head. "Don't be foolish. Playacting at being your wife is one thing," she told him. "But I won't give you a child like I'm promising you the first pup from the litter. I'll not leave a baby—boy or girl child—to be raised by you."