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  But he'd sent the men riding to retrieve the children to get them away from the old harridan more than for Jewel Rossiter's sake. His cousin, Dan, brought a canvas sack of clothes found in the alley near where the gambler had been struck down and figured that they belonged to the gambler's wife.

  Grady subdued his distaste, reminding himself that the fact of her children proved Jewel Rossiter was fertile. It should be enough for him. He didn't expect to see the pedigree of the mustangs he caught and bred, he just used them to strengthen his thoroughbred stock. It would be the same with the gambler's woman.

  Whatever mischief had been planned for the two of them would be set back by their alliance. That irony didn't escape Grady as he heard her footsteps, hurrying to keep up with him.

  When he stepped outside into the alley, she was one step behind. "My children," she managed to say to his back, before he raised the lantern in his hand, and she saw Rowdy with his arms full of sleeping babies.

  "You got them back for me." Grady was jealous of the smile she sent Rowdy. It was the first of its kind he'd ever seen on her face. She would have pushed Grady out of her way had he not stepped aside.

  But it pleased him to see her reach for the babies, settling each close in her arms. So Frank Rossiter had lied. This woman was a true mother. That was suddenly more important to him than it should have been.

  He looked with interest as she settled the two bundles closer, oblivious and indifferent to the men who watched as she clucked and crooned and checked the babies, who both continued to sleep.

  Half a minute later, he scooted her toward the mounts. Navajo Leonard and Dan Two-Horse waited silently, appreciating her beauty until Grady glared at them. Even thin as a rail, bruised from hard blows, and wearing torn, bloody clothes, the woman was a fragile picture of female perfection. It didn't surprise him that his friends admired her looks. It did surprise him that he cared.

  Her canvas bag they'd found stashed in the alley lay across the withers of the horse Dan rode. She headed for that mount, but Grady stopped her and turned her to the gentle mare Dan led. "My satchel." She nodded at the tattered bag expectantly, and waited until he moved it to her mount.

  When Grady lifted her to the saddle, he expected to have to fight her for one of the bundles, but she settled into the saddle, handing one of the babies to him while she arranged her blanket in a crisscross loop held tight by her belt.

  Then, she snuggled the baby on her arm into the first pouch she'd created and reached to him for the other. He watched her arrange the second child in her improvised carrier, then take up her reins and nod.

  She seemed oblivious to the men, and she hunched, crooning, over the babies as he led her mount into the plateaus that climbed toward Hawks Nest Ranch.

  Chapter Six

  Comfort Quince turned to her husband as the door closed behind the last of their visitors. Grady Hawks and his new wife had started the exodus home. Nothing in her graceful posture indicated anything but relief that they were alone. Comfort had spent a lifetime learning to mask her emotions—until she'd met Hamilton Quince and finally found a man she could love. He knew how much she wanted a baby and that she was devastated by this setback. She'd already assembled a layette of clothing and decorated one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her husband knew that her calm acceptance of the night's loss was a sham. "That's it, then." She sighed tiredly.

  "Not necessarily, sweetheart," Hamilton assured her. "Married doesn't make the gambler's widow a good mother. Jewel Rossiter may say she wants those children now, but how long will that last when she's trapped up on that Godforsaken place alone with half the Apache nation?"

  "She loves them, Hamilton." Comfort was no fool. She wanted those baby girls like she hadn't wanted anything else for a long time. Hamilton knew that, and he would act accordingly unless she stopped future actions right now. "I know what it is like to be desperate and alone. I don't think she's what you implied."

  She scolded her husband's insult to Jewel Rossiter. "Her hands are not the hands of a prostitute. She's been doing hard work. Her hands showed it." Her own soft hands clenched as she added, "I want you to promise me you won't bother that woman again. It was not meant to be, and I won't steal a good mother's children to fill a void in my life."

  Hamilton Quince wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace.

  "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

  Comfort's pensive gaze lifted to meet his. "Many times, but I never tire of hearing it anyway. I adore you." She smoothed the material of his shirt as she repeated softly,

  "Promise me."

  Hamilton's answer wasn't the pledge she'd requested. "Nobody knows if she is a good woman, darlin'. Common gossip says that Jewel Rossiter is a rough woman who joined her husband in his illegal dealings. If the day comes when I see that those babies need to be moved, I'll not hesitate. And it will be for them as much as for us."

  "Hamilton, I could see her love for them. She was fairly eaten up with worry, and all you men just made it worse."

  Hamilton answered her fiercely. "I paid that sonovabitch she was married to a thousand dollars apiece for the twins. I'd like to know what happened to the money. I don't think your put-upon woman is as innocent as she would have us believe. I'm not finished with Jewel Rossiter Hawks. Before it's all over, it won't surprise me at all if Hiram Potter discovers that she killed the gambler."

  "Her face still bore the marks of his abuse," Comfort said with disgust. "If she killed him, let it be. She did the town a service. As for the money, this was my scheme. Take it out of the Mercantile profits at the end of the month. I want this over with."

  She wasn't sure, though, that her husband would follow her wishes this time.

  Hamilton wanted her childless despair at an end.

  "I'll get us a daughter, Comfort. I want this as much as you do." She was certain that he already had feelers out looking for other potentially unwanted baby girls. When they'd discussed adopting, he'd grimly refused to consider a boy. It only served to deepen her sorrow knowing that she could never give Hamilton a son.

  * * * *

  Stoically, Jewel rode the animal, focused on one thing at a time. Emma and Amy were safe. The way they slept worried her. She was sure Ma Siler had given them something to keep them quiet. The wind whistled around her thinly clad shoulders, and she held the twins closer, sharing as much of her heat with the girls as she could.

  She ignored Grady Hawks who kept his horse between her and the other men, making it clear she belonged to him. They all rode together, but he was in charge. It's only a year. A person can do anything for a year. Her thoughts chased themselves like a squirrel caught in a cage.

  They eased out of town under cover of darkness and rode through the cold night.

  When her hands were too chilled to hold the reins, the man who now owned her reached over and took them from her stiff fingers, leading her mount. She pulled the girls closer and huddled her body around them but shivered at her feeble attempt to find heat where there was none. Jewel was afraid that she'd never be warm again.

  When they were away from town and the immediate danger left behind, Jewel had time to assess the ramifications of her hasty decision. It had been Alan Michaels watching the mob descend on Comfort's Boarding House. At that moment, the rancher's offer had seemed the only option.

  Now Jewel looked at Grady Hawks, who in making her his wife offered safety but also new peril. Had she been alone, she might have cried aloud, Dear God will this ever end? Instead, she pulled the blanket tight against the wind and held on.

  Her life had toughened her, but still her thighs ached where they grasped the saddle.

  Her body rocked with the horse's movement, each step lolling her closer to exhausted sleep.

  They left the main trail shortly out of Eclipse and cut across rough country that rose and gradually turned into hills dotted with scrub pines.

  As night turned into dawn, Jewel had a glimpse of the ranch long before the
y arrived.

  The trail that wound through the trees descended toward the house giving her both a front and back view where the fall foliage thinned in places. It appeared to be a meager dwelling built of mud, logs, and fieldstone and sat on a bare piece of ground, standing unadorned and ugly.

  As if sensing her mother's disquiet, Emma finally woke up, nuzzling against Jewel's bosom, searching for her next meal. Her fussing roused Amy and both babies loudly announced their hunger. The sounds of the lusty cries in the early morning brought sudden relief, and Jewel sagged in the saddle as tears of relief streamed down her face.

  She'd been so afraid…

  None of the males keeping her company reacted to the squalls emitting from her makeshift carrier. The nappies wrapping the girls had passed from damp into sodden.

  "My babies need changing."

  They stopped immediately, and Grady Hawks stood close, holding one daughter, while she fumbled dry, swaddling clothes out of her satchel, for the other. The wind whipped the cloth loose, and it would have flown from her hand if Grady Hawks hadn't caught it. He moved closer, protecting her as she crouched low to complete her task.

  When she stood, they exchanged babies, repeating the process. The thin covering she'd wrapped them in was damp, and without her asking, he slid his coat around her shoulders and then wrapped the girls in his own blanket, blocking the high wind that blew chill across them.

  "Loosen your dress and feed them." Her new husband's orders were terse and stern.

  When she looked over his shoulder at the other men, he stepped closer, blocking their view as she unbuttoned her bodice with shaking fingers.

  She was accustomed to handling the unwanted attentions of men. But it shamed her to have her daughters be part of the tableau.

  The binding towel was wet and sticky with milk that had leaked from her engorged breasts. A hot blush of embarrassment swept her as she struggled with the tight cloth.

  When his knife parted the material, she flinched back, causing her milk to shoot from her teats, dampening the front of his vest.

  "Stop looking at me." Jewel fumbled to close her dress and waited tensely for the slap and ribald remark.

  "Babies need to be fed. Too cold out here to stand around." He brushed aside her efforts to conceal her white flesh, and watched, fascinated, as her daughter's pink lips settled around her mother's turgid nipple.

  Jewel's throat closed on a sob, but she stifled that show of weakness. Her other daughter's anxious demands filled the air, until Grady Hawks spread her dress wider and set the second baby to feed.

  She stood, awkwardly balancing the girls, until Hawks circled her waist, growling,

  "Hang on to them." Then he stepped into his stirrup, lifting the three with ease. He seated Jewel across his thighs, and she settled the babies, who quickly rooted like little pigs at breasts that had inexplicably stopped giving milk.

  His arms hugged her close as he reached around, guiding the horse that they all now rode. The blanket cocooned her next to his warmth, and her neck ached with the effort to keep her cheek from resting against him.

  She shuddered, remembering that she was riding on the lap of her new husband, whose knife had killed her former husband. Finally, he solved her struggle to remain upright by roughly pushing her head against his chest. With no way to protest, gradually her body swayed, following the movement of the horse, and as she relaxed, she felt her milk come down, flowing from her into the hungry mouths of the babies.

  The other men who had fallen in behind them, offered no talk, as they picked their way through branches and brush, following a trail marked only for their eyes. When they emerged from the woods hours later, they were in the clearing that Julie had seen from above.

  Ugly or not, it was a relief when they arrived at the house. It had taken half the night and almost a full day to arrive. From the back of the clearing, Jewel could see that her first impression had been incorrect. It was not a small building, but a long, low structure that had been built to blend with the landscape.

  Holding both her and the girls, Grady Hawks slid off of his horse, carrying them all to the ground before she realized his intentions. Her legs were stiff from cold, and she staggered, finding her balance on land.

  He took each baby into his arms and headed for the house, leaving Jewel fumbling with the buttons on her dress which flapped open. Shivering from the wind, she hurried into the lodge behind him.

  "Snow tonight," he told the other men who remained mounted, ready to ride on.

  "Post the sentries and keep good watch. We might have been followed."

  Jewel mulled that over silently. Evidently the path they'd ridden was not the usual course to the ranch.

  "Are you expecting trouble?" For a moment she thought that he wouldn't answer her.

  He waited until her canvas bag was inside, and the other men had departed.

  "I don't hunt trouble, but when it's on the way, I don't hide."

  It was such a male response, if he hadn't been so intimidating standing before her, she might have laughed out loud. As it was, Jewel let her gaze play over the interior of the house instead of the man.

  A stone fireplace comprised the entire end wall of the room she stood in. Jewel looked longingly at the empty grate, no longer able to hide the shivers she'd been trying to disguise. She had never felt so vulnerable.

  Her fingers were stiff with cold, and the clean dress Comfort Quince had given her now clung wetly to her front, smelling of milk, urine, and baby spit-up. It seemed a likely deterrent to advances, albeit an uncomfortable one. She wasn't sure what the next move would be or whether it was hers or her new husband's.

  Without her asking, he moved to the stacked wood and quickly got a fire burning.

  She carried Emerald and Amethyst closer, laying them on his heavy blanket to protect their soft bodies from the hard wood of the bench. Then she peeled off the underclothes that were wet again and washed each baby with the rag he provided.

  "…Babies done feeding?" It was an honest question that nevertheless brought a flush to her cheeks. This man has looked at my flesh already. Dislike coiled low in her belly, angry that he'd spied on her in an intimate moment meant only for her family. She bent to pick up one daughter, avoiding his gaze, concealing her own.

  "No," she admitted. The girls were still hungry. Feeding them is more important than covering what he's already seen. She planned to feed Amy and soothe her to sleep and then tend Emma. But when Jewel placed Amy at her breast, Emma emitted a distressed baby sob, unhappy to be alone, and lay waving her feet in the air, whimpering.

  "How old are they?" When she would have set down Amy to take up Emma, Grady lifted the fussing baby to his shoulder and rubbed her back until a contented hum emerged.

  Jewel looked at him sharply. Not many men held a baby so comfortably. Emma settled down, satisfied to be held and cuddled. Grady Hawks stared at the baby's hair, fingering a curl meditatively.

  The golden strand he rubbed between two fingers showed its reddish cast in the firelight. "You'll breed true," he grunted in satisfaction.

  Jewel turned her back on him and fed Amy, stroking her soft hair as comfort for both of them. She anxiously listened as Grady Hawks tended her other daughter. When Jewel's nipple slipped from between Amy's lips and the baby fell asleep, the tiny mouth continued to open and close, dreaming of her time at the breast.

  Jewel's breath hitched on a sob as she stared at the innocence of the child entrusted to her keeping. Under the man's attention, Emerald had stopped fussing and waited for her meal patiently as Grady Hawks cuddled her in his arms and stroked her curls. Jewel noticed how gently he held the baby and the way his swarthy skin contrasted with Emma's.

  He met her eyes and asked again. "You never said their age."

  "They're five months old," she told him softly, pride swelling inside at how perfect they were. The girls were plump and healthy.

  "Feeding one calf takes a lot out of a cow—two'll pull her down if
she doesn't eat enough."

  Jewel didn't know how to respond. The man talked about her as if he'd just acquired a new cow in the herd. She decided any answer would be insulting or antagonistic, and she was already sore from Frank's fists. She remained silent and fed Emma as he watched with eyes that never wavered.

  Emma drank from her mother's breast, burped, and quietly went to sleep. Jewel laid her on the blanket-covered bench beside her sister and faced the stranger she'd married.

  "I'll need a place for the twins to sleep." She frowned at him, edging closer to her daughters.

  "I'll fix up a makeshift cradle for tonight. We'll improve on it tomorrow," he told her.

  Silently, she nodded her head in agreement but stayed next to the bench and steeled herself to show no fear. When he pulled on his heavy coat and left the cabin, she sank onto the end of the bench, relieved of the need to pretend indifference to his presence.

  She was so tired that she was ready to curl up on the floor. Instead, she gathered the babies to her, sagging under the double weight.

  "As fast as you're growing, daughters, I'll soon not be able to hold you both at the same time." She crooned to them softly, carrying them with her as she explored their new home.

  It wasn't the humble dwelling it appeared to be from the outside. The front room they'd entered was heated by two stoves and a rock-faced fireplace, and Grady Hawks had started a fire in each before he left. The room glowed in the soft firelight. For a moment, she stilled, turning around to take in the beauty of the simple structure. Wind rattled the windows reminding her that she had more work before she could rest. The babies needed a secure bed for the night.

  Jewel walked from one end of the building to the other. Frank had drilled his axiom into her head— learn where all the exits and entrances are before you get comfortable. It was a rule that had served them well.

  There were no partitions in the long rectangular space, but she could see that it was used for both eating and living. The kitchen was at the opposite end from the fireplace. It had its own water pump and sink, a luxury Jewel hadn't had in almost five years.