Diana Palmer’s heroes are compelling,

vibrant, and utterly impossible to resist—

just like her novels!

Praise for Diana Palmer:

‘Ms Palmer masterfully weaves a tale that

entices on many levels, blending adventure

and strong human emotion into a great read.’

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

‘Nobody tops Diana Palmer 

when it comes to delivering pure,

undiluted romance. I love her stories.’

—New York Times bestselling author 

Jayne Ann Krentz

‘Palmer knows how to

make the sparks fly…heartwarming.’

—Publishers Weekly on RENEGADE

‘A compelling tale… 

[that packs] an emotional wallop.’

—Publishers Weekly on RENEGADE

‘This story is a thrill a minute—

one of Palmer’s best.’

—Rendezvous on LORD OF THE DESERT

Diana Palmer has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. With over forty million copies of her books in print, Diana Palmer is one of North America’s most beloved authors, and is considered one of the top ten romance authors in the US.

Diana’s hobbies include gardening, archaeology, anthropology, iguanas, astronomy and music. She has been married to James Kyle for over twenty-five years, and they have one son.

For news about Diana Palmer’s latest releases please visit: www.dianapalmer.com, or www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader

It has been several years since I wrote two books dealing with a little town called Medicine Ridge in Montana. One of those books was CIRCLE OF GOLD, which was the story of Gil Callister and his daughters’ governess Kasie Mayfield, whom he later married. Gil had a brother, John, who featured largely in the book but whose story was never told.

I was given the opportunity to revisit the Callisters and tell what happened to John. While my heart is still with the Long, Tall Texans of Jacobsville, Texas (and there will be many more stories about them in years to come), I do like those Men of Medicine Ridge in Montana. So John’s story may not be the last one I tell.

I have spent many happy days roaming around Montana, and I can tell you that it has some of the nicest people on earth. It also has some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere. I hope that I’ve managed to capture some of the magic and elegance of this historic state in the books I write about it. If you’ve never been to Montana, it’s a great place to vacation. I can vouch for that!

I hope you enjoy John Callister’s story. Thank you all for your years of loyalty, and your friendship.

Love from your fan

Diana Palmer

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

BY

DIANA PALMER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my friend Nancy C., who came all the way from Indiana just to meet me. Thanks for the beautiful cowboy quilt, Nancy—I’ll never forget you!

And thanks to all of you on my bulletin board at my website, including Nancy and Amy, who spent hours of their precious free time making me a compendium of all the families in Jacobsville, Texas! Now, guys, maybe I can make fewer mistakes when I write about them! Love you all.

CHAPTER ONE

THE little town, Hollister, wasn’t much bigger than Medicine Ridge, Montana, where John Callister and his brother Gil had a huge ranch. But they’d decided that it wasn’t wise to confine their whole livelihood to one area. They needed to branch out a little, maybe try something different. On the main ranch, they ran a purebred bull and breeding operation with state-of-the-art science. John and Gil had decided to try something new here in Hollister, Montana; a ranch which would deal specifically in young purebred sale bulls, using the latest technology to breed for specific traits like low calving weight, lean conformation, and high weight gain ratio, among others. In addition, they were going to try new growth programs that combined specific organic grasses with mixed protein and grains to improve their production.

In the depressed economy, tailor-made beef cattle would cater to the discerning organic beef consumer. Gil and John didn’t run beef cattle, but their champion bulls were bred to appeal to ranchers who did. It was a highly competitive field, especially with production costs going sky-high. Cattlemen could no longer depend on random breeding programs left up to nature. These days, progeny resulted from tailored genetics. It was a high-tech sort of agriculture. Gil and John had pioneered some of the newer computer-based programs that yielded high on profits coupled with less wasteful producer strategies.

For example, Gil had heard about a program that used methane gas from cattle waste to produce energy to run ranch equipment. The initial expense for the hardware had been high, but it was already producing results. Much of the electricity used to light the barns and power the ranch equipment was due to the new technology. Any surplus energy could be sold back to the electric company. The brothers had also installed solar panels to heat water in the main house and run hydraulic equipment in the breeding barn and the stockyard. One of the larger agricultural magazines had featured an article about their latest innovations. Gil’s photo, and that of his daughters and his new wife had graced the pages of the trade publication. John had been at a cattle show and missed the photo shoot. He didn’t mind. He’d never been one to court publicity. Nor was Gil. But they wouldn’t miss a chance to advertise their genetically superior cattle.

John usually traveled to show the cattle. But he was getting tired of spending his life on the road. Now that Gil had married Kasie, the brothers’ former secretary, and the small girls from Gil’s first marriage, Bess and Jenny, were in school, John was feeling lonelier than ever, and more restless. Not that he’d had a yen for Kasie, but Gil’s remarriage made him aware of the passing of time. He wasn’t getting any younger; he was in his thirties. The traveling was beginning to wear on him. Although he dated infrequently, he’d never found a woman he wanted to keep. He was also feeling like a fifth wheel at the family ranch.

So he’d volunteered to come up to Hollister to rebuild this small, dilapidated cattle ranch that he and Gil had purchased and see if an injection of capital and new blood stock and high-tech innovation could bring it from bankruptcy to a higher status in the world of purebred cattle.

The house, which John had only seen from aerial photos, was a wreck. No maintenance had been done on it for years by its elderly owner. He’d had to let most of his full-time cowboys go when the market fell, and he wasn’t able to keep up with the demands of the job with the part-timers he retained. Fences got broken, cattle escaped, the well went dry, the barn burned down and, finally, the owner decided to cut his losses. He’d offered the ranch for sale, as-is, and the Callister brothers had bought it from him. The old man had gone back East to live with a daughter.

Now John had a firsthand look at the monumental task facing him. He’d have to hire new cowboys, build a barn as well as a stable, spend a few thousand making the house livable, sink a well, restring the fences, buy equipment, set up the methane-based power production plant… He groaned at the thought of it. The ranch in Medicine Ridge was state-of-the-art. This was medieval, by comparison. It was going to take longer than a month or two. This was a job that would take many months. And all that work had to be done before any cattle could be brought onto the place. What had seemed like a pleasant hobby in the beginning now looked like it would become a career.

There were two horses in a corral with a lean-to for protection from the weather, all that remained of the old man’s Appaloosas. The remuda, or string of working ranch horses, had been sold off long ago. The remaining part-time cowboys told John that they’d brought their own mounts with them to work, while there was still a herd of cattle on the place. But the old man had sold off all his stock and let the part-timers go before he sold the ranch. Lucky, John thought, that he’d been able to track them down and offer them full-time jobs again. They were eager for the work. The men all lived within a radius of a few miles. If John had to wait on replacing the ranch’s horses, the men could bring their own to work temporarily while John restocked the place.

He planned to rebuild and restock quickly. Something would have to be done about a barn. A place for newborn calves and sick cattle was his first priority. That, and the house. He was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, heating water on a camp stove for shaving and bathing in the creek. Thank God, he thought, that it was spring and not winter. Food was purchased in the town’s only café, where he had two meals a day. He ate sandwiches for lunch, purchased from a cooler in the convenience store/gas station at the edge of town. It was rough living for a man who was used to five-star hotels and the best food money could buy. But it was his choice, he reminded himself.

He drove into town in a mid-level priced pickup truck. No use advertising that he was wealthy. Prices would skyrocket, since he wasn’t on friendly terms with anyone here. He’d only met the cowboys. The people in town didn’t even know his name yet.

The obvious place to start, he reasoned, was the feed store. It sold ranch supplies including tack. The owner might know where he could find a reputable builder.

He pulled up at the front door and strode in. The place was dusty and not well-kept. There seemed to be only one employee, a slight girl with short, wavy dark hair and a pert figure, wearing a knit pullover with worn jeans and boots.

She was sorting bridles but she looked up when he approached. Like many old-time cowboys, he was sporting boots with spurs that jingled when he walked. He was also wearing an old Colt .45 in a holster slung low on his hip under the open denim shirt he was wearing with jeans and a black T-shirt. It was wild country, this part of Montana, and he wasn’t going out on the range without some way of protecting himself from potential predators.

The girl stared at him in an odd, fixed way. He didn’t realize that he had the looks that would have been expected in a motion picture star. His blond hair, under the wide-brimmed cowboy hat, had a sheen like gold, and his handsome face was very attractive. He had the tall, elegant body of a rider, lean and fit and muscular without exaggerated lines.

“What the hell are you doing?” came a gruff, angry voice from the back. “I told you to go bring in those new sacks of feed before the rain ruins them, not play with the tack! Get your lazy butt moving, girl!”

The girl flushed, looking frightened. “Yes, sir,” she said at once, and jumped up to do what he’d told her to.

John didn’t like the way the man spoke to her. She was very young, probably still in her teens. No man should speak that way to a child.

He approached the man with a deadpan expression, only his blue eyes sparkling with temper.

The man, overweight and half-bald, older than John, turned as he approached. “Something I can do for you?” he asked in a bored tone, as if he didn’t care whether he got the business or not.

“You the owner?” John asked him.

The man glared. “The manager. Tarleton. Bill Tarleton.”

John tilted his hat back. “I need to find someone who can build a barn.”

The manager’s eyebrows arched. His eyes slid over John’s worn jeans and boots and inexpensive clothing. He laughed. His expression was an insult. “You own a ranch around here?” he asked in disbelief.

John fought back his temper. “My boss does,” he said, in an impulsive moment. “He’s hiring. He just bought the Bradbury place out on Chambers Road.”

“That old place?” Tarleton made a face. “Hell, it’s a wreck! Bradbury just sat on his butt and let the place go to hell. Nobody understood why. He had some good cattle years ago, cattlemen came from as far away as Oklahoma and Kansas to buy his stock.”

“He got old,” John said.

“I guess. A barn, you say.” He pursed his lips. “Well, Jackson Hewett has a construction business. He builds houses. Fancy houses, some of them. I reckon he could build a barn. He lives just outside town, over by the old train station. He’s in the local telephone directory.”

“I’m obliged,” John said.

“Your boss…he’ll be needing feed and tack, I guess?” Tarleton added.

John nodded.

“If I don’t have it on hand, I can order it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I need something right now, though—a good tool kit.”

“Sassy!” he yelled. “The man wants a tool kit! Bring one of the boxes from that new line we started stocking!”

“Yes, sir!” There was the sound of scrambling boots.

“She ain’t much help,” the manager grumbled. “Misses work sometimes. Got a mother with cancer and a little sister, six, that the mother adopted. I guess she’ll end up alone, just her and the kid.”

“Does the mother get government help?” John asked, curious.

“Not much,” Tarleton scoffed. “They say she never did much except sit with sick folk, even before she got the cancer. Sassy’s bringing in the only money they got. The old man took off years ago with another woman. Just left. At least they got a house. Ain’t much of one, but it’s a roof over their heads. The mother got it in the divorce settlement.”

John felt a pang when he noticed the girl tugging a heavy toolbox. She looked as if she was barely able to lift a bridle.

“Here, I’ll take that,” John said, trying to sound nonchalant. He took it from her hands and set it on the counter, popping it open. His eyebrows lifted as he examined the tools. “Nice.”

“Expensive, too, but it’s worth it,” Tarleton told him.

“Boss wants to set up an account in his own name, but I’ll pay cash for this,” John said, pulling out his wallet. “He gave me pocket money for essentials.”

Tarleton’s eyes got bigger as John started peeling off twenty-dollar bills. “Okay. What name do I put on the account?”

“Callister,” John told him without batting an eyelash. “Gil Callister.”

“Hey, I’ve heard of him,” Tartleton said at once, giving John a bad moment. “He’s got a huge ranch down in Medicine Ridge.”

“That’s the one,” John said. “Ever seen him?”

“Who, me?” The older man laughed. “I don’t run in those circles, no, sir. We’re just country folk here, not millionaires.”

John felt a little less worried. It would be to his advantage if the locals didn’t know who he really was. Not yet, anyway. Since he was having to give up cattle shows for the foreseeable future, there wasn’t much chance that his face would be gracing any trade papers. It might be nice, he pondered, to be accepted as an ordinary man for once. His wealth seemed to draw opportunists, especially feminine ones. He could enjoy playing the part of a cowboy for a change.

“No problem with opening an account here, then, if we put some money down first as a credit?” John asked.

“No problem at all.” Tarleton grinned. “I’ll start that account right now. You tell Mr. Callister anything he needs, I can get for him!”

“I’ll tell him.”

“And your name…?” the manager asked.

“John,” he replied. “John Taggert.”

Taggert was his middle name. His maternal grandfather, a pioneer in South Dakota, had that name.

“Taggert.” The manager shook his head. “Never heard that one.”

John smiled. “It’s not famous.”

The girl was still standing beside the counter. John handed her the bills to pay for the toolbox. She worked the cash register and counted out his change.

“Thanks,” John said, smiling at her.

She smiled back at him, shyly. Her green eyes were warm and soft. “You’re welcome.”

“Get back to work,” Tarleton told her.

“Yes, sir.” She turned and went back to the bags on the loading platform.

John frowned. “Isn’t she too slight to be hefting bags that size?”

“It goes with the job,” Tarleton said defensively. “I had a strong teenage boy working for me, but his parents moved to Billings and he had to go along. She was all I could get. She swore she could do the job. So I’m letting her.”

“I guess she’s stronger than she looks,” John remarked, but he didn’t like it.

Tarleton nodded absently. He was putting Gil Callister’s name in his ledger.

“I’ll be back,” John told him as he picked up the toolbox.

Tarleton nodded again.

John glanced at the girl, who was straining over a heavy bag, and walked out of the store with a scowl on his face.

He paused. He didn’t know why. He glanced back into the store and saw the manager standing on the loading platform, watching the girl lift the feed sacks. It wasn’t the look a manager should be giving an employee. John’s eyes narrowed. He was going to do something about that.

One of the older cowboys, Chad Dean by name, was waiting for him at the house when he brought in the toolbox.

“Say, that’s a nice one,” he told the other man. “Your boss must be stinking rich.”

“He is,” John mused. “Pays good, too.”

The cowboy chuckled. “That would be nice, getting a paycheck that I could feed my kids on. I couldn’t move my family to another town without giving up land that belonged to my grandfather, so I toughed it out. It’s been rough, what with food prices and gas going through the roof.”

“You’ll get your regular check plus travel expenses,” John told him. “We’ll pay for the gas if we have to send you anywhere to pick up things.”

“That’s damned considerate.”

“If you work hard, your wages will go up.”

“We’ll all work hard,” Dean promised solemnly. “We’re just happy to have jobs.”

John pursed his lips. “Do you know a girl named Sassy? Works for Tarleton in the feed store?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied tersely. “He’s married, and he makes passes at Sassy. She needs that job. Her mama’s dying. There’s a six-year-old kid lives with them, too, and Sassy has to take care of her. I don’t know how in hell she manages on what she gets paid. All that, and having to put up with Tarleton’s harassment, too. My wife told her she should call the law and report him. She won’t. She says she can’t afford to lose the position. Town’s so small, she’d never get hired again. Tarleton would make sure of it, just for spite, if she quit.”

John nodded. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I expect things will get easier for her,” he predicted.

“Do you? Wish I did. She’s a sweet kid. Always doing things for other people.” He smiled. “My son had his appendix out. It was Sassy who saw what it was, long before we did. He was in the feed store when he got sick. She called the doctor. He looked over my Mark and agreed it was appendicitis. Doc drove the boy over to Billings to the hospital. Sassy went to see him. God knows how she got there. Her old beat-up vehicle would never make it as far as Billings. Hitched a ride with Carl Parks, I expect. He’s in his seventies, but he watches out for Sassy and her mother. Good old fellow.”

John nodded. “Sounds like it.” He hesitated. “How old is the girl?”

“Eighteen or nineteen, I guess. Just out of high school.”

“I figured that.” John was disappointed. He didn’t understand why. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do about those fences temporarily…”

In the next two days, John did some amateur detective work. He phoned a private detective who worked for the Callisters on business deals and put him on the Tarleton man. It didn’t take him long to report back.

The feed store manager had been allowed to resign from a job in Billings for unknown reasons, but the detective found one other employee who said it was sexual harassment of an employee. He wasn’t charged with anything. He’d moved here, to Hollister, with his family when the owner of the feed store, a man named Jake McGuire, advertised in a trade paper for someone to manage it for him. Apparently Tarleton had been the only applicant and McGuire was desperate. Tarleton got the job.

“This McGuire,” John asked over his cell phone, “how old is he?”

“In his thirties,” came the reply. “Everyone I spoke to about him said that he’s a decent sort.”

“In other words, he doesn’t have a clue that Tarleton’s hassling the girl.”

“That would be my guess.”

John’s eyes twinkled. “Do you suppose McGuire would like to sell that business?”

There was a chuckle. “He’s losing money hand over fist on that place. Two of the people I spoke to said he’d almost give it away to get rid of it.”

“Thanks,” John said. “That answers my question. Can you get me McGuire’s telephone number?”

“Already did. Here it is.”

John wrote it down. The next morning, he put in a call to McGuire Enterprises in Billings.

“I’m looking to buy a business in a town called Hollister,” John said after he’d introduced himself. “Someone said you might know the owner of the local feed store.”

“The feed store?” McGuire replied. “You want to buy it?” He sounded astonished.

“I might,” John said. “If the price is right.”

There was a pause. “Okay, here’s the deal. That business was started by my father over forty years ago. I inherited it when he died. I don’t really want to sell it.”

“It’s going bankrupt,” John replied.

There was another pause. “Yeah, I know,” came the disgusted reply. “I had to put in a new manager there, and he didn’t come cheap. I had to move him and his wife from Billings down here.” He sighed. “I’m between a rock and a hard place. I own several businesses, and I don’t have the time to manage them myself. That particular one has sentimental value. The manager just went to work. There’s a chance he can pull it out of the red.”

“There’s a better chance that he’s going to get you involved in a major lawsuit.”

“What? What for?”

“For one thing, he was let go from his last job for sexual harassment, or that’s what we turned up on a background check. He’s up to his old tricks in Hollister, this time with a young girl just out of high school that he hired to work for him.”

“Good Lord! He came with excellent references!”

“He might have them,” John said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if that wasn’t the first time he lost a job for the same reason. He was giving the girl the eye when I was in there. There’s local gossip that the girl may sue if your manager doesn’t lay off her. There goes your bottom line,” he added dryly.

“Well, that’s what you get when you’re desperate for personnel,” McGuire said wearily. “I couldn’t find anybody else who’d take the job. I can’t fire him without proper cause, and I just paid to move him there! What a hell of a mess!”

“You don’t want to sell the business. Okay. How about leasing it to us? We’ll fire Tarleton on the grounds that we’re leasing the business, put in a manager of our own, and you’ll make money. We’ll have you in the black in two months.”

“And just who is ‘we’?” McGuire wanted to know.

“My brother and I. We’re ranchers.”

“But why would you want to lease a feed store in the middle of nowhere?”

“Because we just bought the Bradbury place. We’re going to rebuild the house, add a stable and a barn, and we’re going to raise purebred young bulls on the place. The feed store is going to do a lot of business when we start adding personnel to the outfit.”

“Old man Bradbury and my father were best friends,” McGuire reminisced. “He was a fine rancher, a nice gentleman. His health failed and the business failed with him. It’s nice to know it will be a working ranch again.”

“It’s good land. We’ll make it pay.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Callister,” John told him. “My brother and I have a sizable spread over in Medicine Ridge.”

“Those Callisters? My God, your holdings are worth millions!”

“At least.” John chuckled.

There was a soft whistle. “Well, if you’re going to keep me in orders, I suppose I’d be willing to lease the place to you.”

“And the manager?”

“I just moved him there,” McGuire groaned again.

“We’ll pay to move him back to Billings and give him two weeks severance pay,” John said. “I will not agree to let him stay on,” he added firmly.

“He may sue.”

“Let him,” John replied tersely. “If he tries it, I’ll make it my life’s work to see that any skeleton in his past is brought into the light of day. You can tell him that.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“If you’ll give me your attorney’s name and number, I’ll have our legal department contact him,” John said. “I think we’ll get along.”

There was a deep chuckle. “So do I.”

“There’s one other matter.”

“Yes?”

John hesitated. “I’m going to be working on the place myself, but I don’t want anyone local to know who I am. I’ll be known as the ranch foreman—Taggert by name. Got that?”

There was a chuckle. “Keeping it low-key, I see. Sure. I won’t blow your cover.”

“Especially to Tarleton and his employee,” John emphasized.

“No problem. I’ll tell him your boss phoned me.”

“I’m much obliged.”

“Before we settle this deal, do you have someone in mind who can take over the business in two weeks if I put Tarleton on notice?”

“Indeed I do,” John replied. “He’s a retired corporate executive who’s bored stiff with retirement. Mind like a steel trap. He could make money in the desert.”

“Sounds like just the man for the job.”

“I’ll have him up here in two weeks.”

“That’s a deal, then.”

“We’ll talk again when the paperwork goes through.”

“Yes.”

John hung up. He felt better about the girl. Not that he expected Tarleton to quit the job without a fight. He hoped the threat of uncovering any past sins would work the magic. The thought of Sassy being bothered by that would-be Casanova was disturbing.

He phoned the architect and asked him to come over to the ranch the following day to discuss drawing up plans for a stable and a barn. He hired an electrician to rewire the house and do the work in the new construction. He employed six new cowboys and an engineer. He set up payroll for everyone he’d hired through the corporation’s main offices in Medicine Ridge, and went about getting fences repaired and wells drilled. He also phoned Gil and had him send down a team of engineers to start construction on solar panels to help provide electricity for the operation.

Once those plans were underway, he made a trip into Hollister to see how things were going at the feed store. His detective had managed to dig up three other harassment charges against Tarleton from places he’d lived before he moved to Montana in the first place. There were no convictions, sadly. But the charges might be enough. Armed with that information, he wasn’t uncomfortable having words with the man, if it was necessary.

And it seemed that it would be. The minute he walked in the door, he knew there was going to be trouble. Tarleton was talking to a customer, but he gave John a glare that spoke volumes. He finished his business with the customer and waited until he left. Then he walked up to John belligerently.

“What the hell did your employer tell my boss?” he demanded furiously. “He said he was leasing the store, but only on the condition that I didn’t go with the deal!”

“Not my problem,” John said, and his pale eyes glittered. “It was my boss’s decision.”

“Well, he’s got no reason to fire me!” Tarleton said, his round face flushing. “I’ll sue the hell out of him, and your damned boss, too!”

John stepped closer to the man and leaned down, emphasizing his advantage in height. “You’re welcome. My boss will go to the local district attorney in Billings and turn over the court documents from your last sexual harassment charge.”

Tarleton’s face went from red to white in seconds. He froze in place. “He’ll…what?” he asked weakly.

John’s chiseled lips pulled up into a cold smile. “And I’ll encourage your hired girl over there—” he indicated her with a jerk of his head “—to come clean about the way you’ve treated her as well. I think she could be persuaded to bring charges.”

Tarleton’s arrogance vanished. He looked hunted.

“Take my advice,” John said quietly. “Get out while you still have time. My boss won’t hesitate a second. He has two daughters of his own.” His eyes narrowed menacingly. “One of our ranch hands back home tried to wrestle a temporary maid down in the hay out in our barn. He’s serving three to five for sexual assault.” John smiled. “We have a firm of attorneys on retainer.”

“We?” Tarleton stammered.

“I’m a managerial employee of the ranch. The ranch is a corporation,” John replied smoothly.

Tarleton’s teeth clenched. “So I guess I’m fired.”

“I guess you volunteered to resign,” John corrected. “That gets you moved back to Billings at the ranch’s expense, and gives you severance pay. It also spares you lawsuits and other…difficulties.”

The older man weighed his options. John could see his mind working. Tarleton gave John an arrogant look. “What the hell,” he said coldly. “I didn’t want to live in this damned fly trap anyway!”

He turned on his heel and walked away. The girl, Sassy, was watching the byplay with open curiosity. John raised an eyebrow. She flushed and went back to work at once.

CHAPTER TWO

CASSANDRA PEALE told herself that the intense conversation the new foreman of the Bradbury place was having with her boss didn’t concern her. The foreman had made that clear with a lifted eyebrow and a haughty look. But there had been an obvious argument and both men had glanced at her while they were having it. She was worried. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. Not when her mother, dying of lung cancer, and her mother’s ward, Selene, who was only six, depended on what she brought home so desperately.

She gnawed on a fingernail. They were mostly all chewed off. Her mother was sixty-three, Cassandra, who everyone called Sassy, having been born very late in life. They’d had a ranch until her father had become infatuated with a young waitress at the local cafeteria. He’d left his family and run away with the woman, taking most of their savings with him. Without money to pay bills, Sassy’s mother had been forced to sell the cattle and most of the land and let the cowboys go. One of them, little Selene’s father, had gotten drunk out of desperation and ran his truck off into the river. They’d found him the next morning, dead, leaving Selene completely alone in the world.

My life, Sassy thought, is a soap opera. It even has a villain. She glanced covertly at Mr. Tarleton. All he needed was a black mustache and a gun. He’d made her working life hell. He knew she couldn’t afford to quit. He was always bumping into her “accidentally,” trying to handle her. She was sickened by his advances. She’d never even had a boyfriend. The school she’d gone to, in this tiny town, had been a one-room schoolhouse with all ages included and one teacher. There had only been two boys her own age and three girls including Sassy. The other girls were pretty. So Sassy had never been asked out at all. Once, when she was in her senior year of high school, a teacher’s visiting nephew had been kind to her, but her mother had been violently opposed to letting her go on a date with a man she didn’t know well. It hadn’t mattered. Sassy had never felt those things her romance novels spoke of in such enticing and heart-pattering terms. She’d never even been kissed in a grown-up way. Her only sexual experience—if you could call it that—was being physically harassed by that repulsive would-be Romeo standing behind the counter.

She finished dusting the shelves and wished fate would present her with a nice, handsome boss who was single and found her fascinating. She’d have gladly settled for the Bradbury place’s new ramrod. But he didn’t look as if he found anything about her that attracted him. In fact, he was ignoring her. Story of my life, she thought as she put aside the dust cloth. It was just as well. She had two dependents and no spare time. Where would she fit a man into her desperate life?

“Missed a spot.”

She whirled. She flushed as she looked way up into dancing blue eyes. “W…what?”

John chuckled. The women in his world were sophisticated and full of easy wisdom. This little violet was as unaffected by the modern world as the store she worked in. He was entranced by her.

“I said you missed a spot.” He leaned closer. “It was a joke.”

“Oh.” She laughed shyly, glancing at the shelf. “I might have missed several, I guess. I can’t reach high and there’s no ladder.”

He smiled. “There’s always a soapbox.”

“No, no,” she returned with a smile. “If I get on one of those, I have to give a political speech.”

He groaned. “Don’t say those words,” he said. “If I have to hear one more comment about the presidential race, I’m having my ears plugged.”

“It does get a little irritating, doesn’t it?” she asked. “We don’t watch the news as much since the television got hit by lightning. The color’s gone whacky. I have to think it’s a happy benefit of a sad accident.”

His eyebrows arched. “Why don’t you get a new one?”

She glowered at him. “Because the hardware store doesn’t have a fifty-cent one,” she said.

It took a minute for that to sink in. John, who thought nothing of laying down his gold card for the newest plasma wide screened TV, hadn’t realized that even a small set was beyond the means of many lower-income people.

He grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’ve gotten too used to just picking up anything I like in stores.”

“They don’t arrest you for that?” she asked with a straight face, but her twinkling eyes gave her away.

He laughed. “Not so far. I meant,” he added, thinking fast, “that my boss pays me a princely salary for my organizational skills.”

“He must, if you can afford a new TV,” she sighed. “I don’t suppose he needs a professional duster?”

“We could ask him.”

She shook her head. “I’d rather work here, in a job I do know.” She glanced with apprehension at her boss, who was glaring toward the two of them. “I’d better get back to work before he fires me.”

“He can’t.”

She blinked. “He can’t what?”

“Fire you,” he said quietly. “He’s being replaced in two weeks by a new manager.”

Her heart stopped. She felt sick. “Oh, dear.”

“You won’t convince me that you’ll miss him,” John said curtly.

She bit a fingernail that was already almost gone. “It’s not that. A new manager might not want me to work here anymore…”

“He will.”

She frowned. “How can you know that?”

He pursed his lips. “Because the new manager works for my boss, and my boss said not to change employees.”

Her face started to relax. “Really?”

“Really.”

She glanced again at Tarleton and felt uncomfortable at the furious glare he gave her. “Oh, dear, did somebody say something to your boss about him…about him being forward with me?” she asked worriedly.

“They might have,” he said noncommittally.

“He’ll get even,” she said under her breath. “He’s that sort. He told a lie on a customer who was rude to him, about the man’s wife. She almost lost her job over it.”

John felt his blood rise. “All you have to do is get through the next two weeks,” he told her. “If you have a problem with him, any problem, you can call me. I don’t care when or what time.” He started to pull out his wallet and give her his business card, until he realized that she thought he was pretending to be hired help, not the big boss. “Have you got a pen and paper?” he asked instead.

“In fact, I do,” she replied. She moved behind the counter, tore a piece of brown paper off a roll, and picked up a marking pencil. She handed them to him.

He wrote down the number and handed it back to her. “Don’t be afraid of him,” he added curtly. “He’s in enough trouble without making more for himself with you.”

“What sort of trouble is he in?” she wanted to know.

“I can’t tell you. It’s confidential. Let’s just say that he’d better keep his nose clean. Now. I need a few more things.” He brought out a list and handed it to her. She smiled and went off to fill the order for him.

He took the opportunity to have a last word with Tarleton.

“I hear you have a penchant for getting even with people who cross you,” John said. His eyes narrowed and began to glitter. “For the record, if you touch that girl, or if you even try to cause problems for her of any sort, you’ll have to deal with me. I don’t threaten people with lawsuits. I get even.” The way he said it, added to his even, unblinking glare, had backed down braver men than this middle-aged molester.

Tarleton tried to put on a brave front, but the man’s demeanor was unsettling. Taggert was younger than Tarleton and powerfully muscled for all his slimness. He didn’t look like a man who ever walked away from a fight.

“I wouldn’t touch her in a blind fit,” the older man said haughtily. “I just want to work out my notice and get the hell back to Billings, where people are more civilized.”

“Good idea,” John replied. “Follow it.”

He turned on his heel and went back to Sassy.

She looked even more nervous now. “What did you say to him?” she asked uneasily, because Tarleton looked at her as if he’d like her served up on a spit.

“Nothing of any consequence,” he said easily, and he gave her a tender smile. “Got my order ready?”

“Most of it,” she said, obviously trying to get her mind back to business. “But we don’t carry any of this grass seed you want. It would be special order.” She leaned forward. “The hardware store can get it for you at a lower price, but I think we will be faster.”

He grinned. “The price won’t matter to my boss,” he assured her. “But speed will. He’s experimenting with all sorts of forage grasses. He’s looking for better ways to increase weight without resorting to artificial means. He thinks the older grasses have more nutritional benefit than the hybrids being sowed today.”

“He’s likely right,” she replied. “Organic methods are gaining in popularity. You wouldn’t believe how many organic gardeners we have locally.”

“That reminds me. I need some insecticidal soap for the beans we’re planting.”

She hesitated.

He cocked his head. His eyes twinkled. “You want to tell me something, but you’re not sure that you should.”

She laughed. “I guess so. One of our organic gardeners gave up on it for beans. She says it works nicely for tomatoes and cucumbers, but you need something with a little more kick for beans and corn. She learned that the hard way.” She grimaced. “So did I. I lost my first corn planting to corn borers and my beans to bean beetles. I was determined not to go the harsh pesticide route.”

“Okay. Sell me something harsh, then,” he chuckled.

She blushed faintly before she pulled a sack of powerful but environmentally safe insecticide off the shelf and put it on the counter.

Tarleton was watching the byplay with cold, angry eyes. So she liked that interfering cowboy, did she? It made him furious. He was certain that the new foreman of the Bradbury ranch had talked to someone about him and passed the information on to McGuire, who owned this feed store. The cowboy was arrogant for a man who worked for wages, even for a big outfit like the Callisters’s. He was losing his job for the second time in six months and it would look bad on his record. His wife was already sick of the moving. She might leave him. It was a bad day for him when John Taggert walked into his store. He hoped the man fell in a well and drowned, he really did.

His small eyes lingered on Sassy’s trim figure. She really made him hot. She wasn’t the sort to put up much of a fight, and that man Taggert couldn’t watch her day and night. Tarleton smiled coldly to himself. If he was losing his job anyway, he didn’t have much to lose. Might as well get something out of the experience. Something sweet.

Sassy went home worn-out at the end of the week. Tarleton had found more work than ever before for her to do, mostly involving physical labor. He was rearranging all the shelves with the heaviest items like chicken mash and hog feed and horse feed and dog food in twenty-five and fifty-pound bags. Sassy could press fifty pounds, but she was slight and not overly muscular. It was uncomfortable. She wished she could complain to someone, but if she did, it would only make things worse. Tarleton was getting even because he’d been fired. He watched her even more than he had before, and it was in a way that made her very uncomfortable.

Her mother was lying on the sofa watching television when Sassy got home. Little Selene was playing with some cut-outs. Her soft gray eyes lit up and she jumped up and ran to Sassy, to be picked up and kissed.

“How’s my girl?” Sassy asked, kissing the soft little cheek.

“I been playing with Dora the Explorer, Sassy!” the little blond girl told her. “Pippa gave them to me at school!”

Pippa was the daughter of a teacher and her husband, a sweet child who always shared her playthings with Selene. It wasn’t a local secret that Sassy could barely afford to dress the child out of the local thrift shop, much less buy her toys.

“That was sweet of her,” Sassy said with genuine delight.

“She says I can keep these ones,” the child added.

Sassy put her down. “Show them to me.”

Her mother smiled wearily up at her. “Pippa’s mother is a darling.”

Sassy bent and kissed her mother’s brow. “So is mine.”

Mrs. Peale patted her cheek. “Bad day?” she added.

Sassy only smiled. She didn’t trouble her parent with her daily woes. The older woman had enough worries of her own. The cancer was temporarily in remission, but the doctor had warned that it wouldn’t last. Despite all the hype about new treatments and cures, cancer was a formidable adversary. Especially when the victim was Mrs. Peale’s age.

“I’ve had worse,” Sassy told her. “What about pancakes and bacon for supper?” she asked.

“Sassy, we had pancakes last night,” Selene complained as she showed her cut-outs to the woman.

“I know, baby,” Sassy said, bending to kiss her gently. “We have what we can afford. It isn’t much.”

Selene grimaced. “I’m sorry. I like pancakes,” she added apologetically.

“I wish we could have something better,” Sassy said. “If there was a better-paying job going, you can bet I’d be applying for it.”

Mrs. Peale looked sad. “I’d hoped we could send you to college. At least to a vocational school. Instead we’ve caused you to land in a dead-end job.”

Sassy struck a pose. “I’ll have you know I’m expecting a prince any day,” she informed them. “He’ll come riding up on a white horse with an enormous bouquet of orchids, brandishing a wedding ring.”

“If ever a girl deserved one,” Mrs. Peale said softly, “it’s you, my baby.”

Sassy grinned. “When I find him, we’ll get you one of those super hospital beds with a dozen controls so you can sit up properly when you want to. And we’ll get Selene the prettiest dresses and shoes in the world. And then, we’ll buy a new television set, one that doesn’t have green people,” she added, wincing at the color on the old console TV.

Pipe dreams. But dreams were all she had. She looked at her companions, her family, and decided that she’d much rather have them than a lot of money. But a little money, she sighed mentally, certainly would help their situation. Prince Charming existed, sadly, only in fairy tales.

* * * 

The architect had his plans ready for the big barn. John approved them and told the man to get to work. Within a few days, building materials started arriving, carried in by enormous trucks: lumber, steel, sand, concrete blocks, bricks, and mortar and other construction equipment. The project was worth several million dollars, and it created a stir locally, because it meant jobs for many people who were having to commute to Billings to get work. They piled onto the old Bradbury place to fill out job applications.

John grinned at the enthusiasm of the new workers. He’d started the job with misgivings, wondering if it was sane to expect to find dozens of laborers in such a small, economically depressed area. But he’d been pleasantly surprised. He had new men from surrounding counties lining up for available jobs, experienced workers at that. He began to be optimistic.

He was doing a lot of business with the local feed store, but his presence was required on site while the construction was in the early stages. He’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t wise to leave someone in charge without making sure they understood what was required during every step.

He felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been back to check that Sassy hadn’t had problems with Tarleton, who only had two days left before he was being replaced. The new manager, Buck Mannheim, was already in town, renting a room from a local widow while he familiarized himself with the business. Tarleton, he told John, wasn’t making it easy for him to do that. The man was resentful, surly, and he was making Sassy do some incredibly hard and unnecessary tasks at the store. Buck would have put a stop to it, but he felt he had no real authority until Tartleton’s two weeks were officially up. He didn’t want them to get sued.

As if that weasel would dare sue them, John thought angrily. But he didn’t feel right putting Buck in the line of fire. The older man had come up here as a favor to Gil to run the business, not to go toe-to-toe with a belligerent soon-to-be-ex-employee.

“I’ll handle this,” John told the older man. “I need to stop by the post office anyway and get some more stamps.”

“I don’t understand why any man would treat a child so brutally,” Buck said. “She’s such a nice girl.”

“She’s not a girl, Buck,” John replied.

“She’s just nineteen,” Buck replied, smiling. “I have a granddaughter that age.”

John felt uncomfortable. “She seems older.”

“She’s got some mileage on her. A lot of responsibility. She needs help. That child her mother adopted goes to school in pitiful clothes. I know that most of the money they have is spent for utilities.” He shook his head. “Hell of a shame. Her mother’s little check is all used up for medicine that she has to take to stay alive.”

John felt guilty that he hadn’t looked into that situation. He hadn’t planned to get himself involved with his employees’ problems, and Sassy wasn’t technically even that, but it seemed there was nobody else in a position to help. He frowned. “You said Sassy’s mother was divorced? Where’s her husband? Couldn’t he help? Even if Sassy’s not young enough for child support, she’s still his child. She shouldn’t have to be the breadwinner.”

“He ran off with a young woman. Just walked out the door and left. He’s never so much as called or written in the years he’s been gone, since the divorce,” Buck said knowledgeably. “From what I hear, he was a good husband and father. He couldn’t fight his infatuation for the waitress.” He shrugged. “That’s life.”

“I hope the waitress hangs him out to dry,” John muttered darkly. “Sassy should never have been landed with so much responsibility at her age.”

“She handles it well, though,” Buck said admiringly. “She’s the nicest young woman I’ve met in a long time. She earns her paycheck.”

“She shouldn’t be having to press weights to do that,” John replied. “I got too wrapped up in my barn to keep an eye on her. I’ll make up for it today.”

“Good for you. She could use a friend.”

John walked in and noticed immediately how quiet it was. The front of the store was deserted. It was midmorning and there were no customers. He scowled, wondering why Sassy wasn’t at the counter.

He heard odd sounds coming from the tack room. He walked toward it until he heard a muffled scream. Then he ran.

The door was locked from the inside. John didn’t need ESP to know why. He stood back, shot a hard kick with his heavy work boots right at the door handle, and the door almost splintered as it flew open.

Tarleton had backed Sassy into an aisle of cattle feed sacks. He had her in a tight embrace and he was trying his best to kiss her. His hands were on her body. She was fighting for her life, panting and struggling against the fat man’s body.

“You sorry, son of a…!” John muttered as he caught the man by his collar and literally threw him off Sassy.

She was gasping for air. Her blouse was torn and her shoulders ached. The stupid man had probably meant to do a lot more than just kiss her, if he’d locked the door, but thanks to John he’d barely gotten to first base. She almost gagged at the memory of his fat, wet mouth on her lips. She dragged her hand over it.

“You okay?” John asked her curtly.

“Yes, thanks to you,” she said heavily. She glared at the man behind him.

He turned back toward Tarleton, who was flushed at being caught red-handed. He backed away from the homicidal maniac who started toward him with an expression that could have stopped traffic.

“Don’t you…touch me…!” Tarleton protested.

John caught him by the shirtfront, drew back his huge fist, and knocked the man backward out into the feed store. He went after him, blue eyes sparking like live electricity, his big fists clenched, his jaw set rigidly.

“What the…?” came a shocked exclamation from the front of the store.

A man in a business suit was standing there, eyebrows arching.

“Mr….McGuire!” Tarleton exclaimed as he sat up on the floor holding his jaw. “He attacked me! Call the police!”

John glanced at McGuire with blazing eyes. “There’s a nineteen-year-old girl in the tack room with her shirt torn off. Do you need me to draw you a picture?” he demanded.

McGuire’s gray eyes suddenly took on the same sheen as John’s. He moved forward with an odd, gliding step and stopped just in front of Tarleton. He whipped out his cell phone and pressed in a number.

“Get over here,” he said into the receiver. “Tarleton just assaulted Sassy! That’s right. No, I won’t let him leave!” He hung up. “You should have cut your losses and gone back to Billings,” he told the white-faced man on the floor, nursing his jaw. “Now, you’re going to jail.”

“She teased me into doing it!” Tarleton cried. “It’s her fault.”

John glanced at McGuire. “And I’m a green elf.” He turned on his heel and went back to the tack room to see about Sassy.

She was crying, leaning against an expensive saddle, trying to pull the ripped bits of her blouse closed. Her ratty little faded bra was visible where it was torn. It was embarrassing for her to have John see it.

John stripped off the cotton shirt he was wearing over his black undershirt. He eased her hands away from her tattered blouse and guided her arms into the shirt, still warm from his body. He buttoned it up to the very top. Then he framed her wet face in his big hands and lifted it to his eyes. He winced. Her pretty little mouth was bruised. Her hair was mussed. Her eyes were red and swollen.

“Me and my damned barn,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“For…what?” she sobbed. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is. I should have expected something like this.”

The bell on the door jangled and heavy footsteps echoed on wood. There was conversation, punctuated by Tarleton’s protests.

A tall, lean man in a police uniform and a cowboy hat knocked at the tack door and walked in. John turned, letting him see Sassy’s condition.

The newcomer’s thin mouth set in hard lines and his black eyes flashed fire. “You all right, Sassy?” he asked in a deep, bass voice.

“Yes, sir, Chief Graves,” she said brokenly. “He assaulted me!” she accused, glaring at Tarleton. “He came up behind me while I was putting up stock and grabbed me. He kissed me and tore my blouse…” Her voice broke. “He tried to…to…!” She couldn’t choke the word out.

Graves looked as formidable as John. “He won’t ever touch you again. I promise. I need you to come down to my office when you feel a little better and give me a statement. Will you do that?”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced at John. “You hit him?” he asked, jerking his head toward the man still sitting on the floor outside the room.

“Damned straight I did,” John returned belligerently. His blue eyes were still flashing with bad temper.

Chief Graves glanced at Sassy and winced.

The police chief turned and went back out into the other room. He caught Tarleton by his arm, jerked him to his feet, and handcuffed him while he read him his rights.

“You let me go!” Tarleton shouted. “I’m going back to Billings in two days. She lied! I never touched her that way! I just kissed her! She teased me! She set me up! She lured me into the back! And I want that damned cowboy arrested for assault! He hit me!”

Nobody was paying him the least bit of attention. In fact, the police chief looked as if he’d like to hit Tarleton himself. The would-be Romeo shut up.

“I’m never hiring anybody else as long as I live,” McGuire told the police chief. “Not after this.”

“Sometimes snakes don’t look like snakes,” Graves told him. “We all make mistakes. Come along, Mr. Tarleton. We’ve got a nice new jail cell for you to live in while we get ready to put you on trial.”

“She’s lying!” Tarleton raged, red-faced.

Sassy came out with John just behind her. The ordeal she’d endured was so evident that the men in the room grimaced at just the sight of her. Tarleton stopped shouting. He looked sick.

“Do you mind if I say something to him, Chief Graves?” Sassy asked in a hoarse tone.

“Not at all,” the lawman replied.

She walked right up to Tarleton, with her green eyes glittering with fury, drew back her hand, and slapped him across the mouth as hard as she could. Then she turned on her heel and walked right back to the counter, picked up a sack of seed corn that she’d left there when the assault began, and went back to work.

The three men glanced from her to Tarleton. Their faces wore identical expressions.

“I’ll get a good lawyer!” Tarleton said belligerently.

“You’ll need one,” John promised him, in a tone so full of menace that the man backed up a step.

“I’ll sue you for assault!” he said from a safe distance.

“The corporation’s attorneys will enjoy the exercise,” John told him coolly. “One of them graduated from Harvard and spent ten years as a prosecutor specializing in sexual assault cases.”

Tarleton looked sick.

Graves took him outside. John turned to McGuire.

The man in the suit rammed his hands into his pockets and grimaced. “I’ll never be able to make that up to her,” he said heavily.

“You might tell her that you recommended raising her salary,” John replied.

“It’s the least I can do,” he agreed. “That new employee of yours—Buck Mannheim. He’s sharp. I learned things I didn’t know just from spending a half hour talking to him. He’ll be an asset.”

John nodded. “He retired too soon. Sixty-five is no great age these days.” He glanced toward the back, where Sassy was moving things around. “She needs to see a doctor.”

“Did Tarleton…?” McGuire asked with real concern.

John shook his head. “But he would have. If I’d walked in just ten minutes later…” His face paled as he considered what would have happened. “Damn that man! And damn me! I should have realized he’d do something stupid to get even with her!”

“I should have realized, too,” McGuire added. “Don’t beat yourself to death. There’s enough guilt to share. Dr. Bates is next to the post office. He has a clinic. He’ll see her. He’s been her family physician since she was a child.”

“I’ll take her right over there.”

Sassy looked up when John approached her. She looked terrible, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “Is he going to fire me?” she asked John.

“What in hell for? Almost getting raped?” he exclaimed. “Of course not. In fact, he’s mentioned getting you a raise. But right now, he wants you to go to the doctor and get checked out.”

“I’m okay,” she protested. “And I have a lot of work to do.”

“It can wait.”

“I don’t want to see Dr. Bates,” she said.

He shrugged. “We’re both pretty determined about this. I don’t really think you’d like the way I deal with mutiny.”

She stuck her hands on her slender hips. “Oh, yeah? Let’s see how you deal with it.”

He smiled gently. Before she could say another word, he picked her up very carefully in his arms and walked out the front door with her.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU can’t do this!” Sassy raged as he walked across the street with her, to the amusement of an early morning shopper in front of the small grocery store there.

“You won’t go voluntarily,” he said philosophically. He looked down at her and smiled gently. “You’re very pretty.”

She stopped arguing. “W…what?”

“Pretty,” he repeated. “You’ve got grit, too.” He chuckled. “I wish you’d half-closed that hand you hit Tarleton with, though.” The smile faded. “That piece of work should be thrown into the county detention center wearing a sign telling what he tried to do. They’d pick him up in a shoebox.”

Her small hands clung to his neck. “I didn’t see it coming,” she said, still in shock. “He pushed me into the tack room and locked the door. Before I could save myself, he pushed me back into the feed sacks and started kissing me and trying to get inside my blouse. I never thought I’d get away. I was fighting for all I was worth…” She swallowed hard. “Men are so strong. Even pudgy men like him.”

“I should have seen it coming,” he said, staring ahead with a set face. “A man like that doesn’t go quietly. This could have been a worse tragedy than it already is.”

“You saved me.”

He looked down into her wide, green eyes. “Yes. I saved you.”

She managed a wan smile. “Funny. I was just talking to Selene—my mother’s little ward—about how Prince Charming would come and rescue me one day.” She studied his handsome face. “You do look a little like a prince.”

His eyebrow jerked. “I’m too tall. Princes are short and stubby, mostly.”

“Not in movies.”

“Ah, but that’s not real life.”

“I’ll bet you don’t know a single prince.”

She’d have been amazed. He and his brother had rubbed elbows with crowned heads of Europe any number of times. But he couldn’t admit that, of course.

“You could be right,” he agreed easily.

He paused to open the door with one hand with Sassy propped on his knee. He walked into the doctor’s waiting room with Sassy still in his arms and went up to the receptionist behind her glass panel. “We have something of an emergency,” he said in a low tone. “She’s been the victim of an assault.”

“Sassy?” the receptionist, a girl Sassy had gone to school with, exclaimed. She took one look at the other girl’s face and went running to open the door for John. “Bring her right in here. I’ll get Dr. Bates!”

The doctor was a crusty old fellow, but he had a kind heart and it showed. He asked John to wait outside while he examined his patient. John stood in the hall, staring at anatomy charts that lined the painted concrete block wall. In no time the sliding door opened and he motioned John back into the cubicle.

“Except for some understandable emotional upset, and a few light bruises, she’s not too hurt.” The doctor glowered. “I would like to see her assailant spend a few months or, better yet, a few years, in jail, however.”

“So would I,” John told him, looking glittery and full of outrage. “In fact, I’m going to work on that.”

The doctor nodded. “Good man.” He turned to Sassy, who was quiet and pale now that her ordeal was over and reaction was starting to set in. “I’m going to inject you with a tranquilizer. I want you to go home and lie down for the rest of the day.” He held up a hand when she protested. “Selene’s in school and your mother will cope. It’s not a choice, Sassy,” he added as he leaned out of the cubicle and motioned to a nurse.

While he was giving the nurse orders, John stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and looked down at Sassy. She had grit and style, for a woman raised in the back of beyond. He admired her. She was pretty, too, although she didn’t seem to realize it. The only real obstacle was her age. His face closed up as he faced the fact that she was years too young for him, even without their social separation. It was a pity. He’d been looking all his adult life for a woman he could like as well as desire. This sweet little firecracker was unique in his female acquaintances. He admired her.

His pale eyes narrowed on Sassy’s petite form. She had a very sexy body. He loved those small, pert breasts under the cotton shirt. He thought how bruised they probably were from Tarleton’s fingers and he wanted to hurt the man all over again. He knew she was untouched. Tarleton had stolen her first intimacy from her, soiled it, demeaned it. He wished he’d wiped the floor with the man before the police chief came.

Sassy saw his expression and felt uneasy. Did he think she was responsible for the attack? She winced. He didn’t know her at all. Maybe he thought she had lead Tarleton on. Maybe he thought she’d deserved what happened to her.

She lowered her eyes in shame. The doctor came back in with a syringe, rolled up her sleeve, swiped her upper arm with alcohol on a cotton ball, and injected her. Sassy didn’t even flinch. She rolled down her sleeve.

“Go home before that takes effect, or you’ll be lying down in the road,” the doctor chuckled. He glanced at John. “Can you…?”

“Of course,” John said. He smiled at Sassy, allaying her fears about his attitude. “Come on, sprout. I’ll drive you.”

“There’s new stock that has to be put up in the store,” she began to protest.

“It will still be waiting for you in the morning. If Buck needs help, I’ll send some of my men into town to help him.”

“But it’s not your responsibility…”

“My boss has leased the feed store,” he reminded her. “That makes it my responsibility.”

“All right, then.” She turned her head and smiled at the doctor. “Thanks.”

He smiled back. “Don’t you let this take over your life,” he lectured her. “If you have any problems, you come back. I know a psychologist who works for the school system. She also takes private patients. I’ll send you to her.”

“I’ll be okay.”

John nodded at the doctor and followed Sassy out the door.

On the way home, Sassy sat beside him in the cab of the big pickup truck, fascinated by all the high-tech gadgets. “This is really nice,” she remarked, smoothing over the leather dash. “I’ve never seen so many buttons and switches in a truck before.”

He smiled lazily, steering with his left hand while he toyed with a loaded key ring in one of the big cup holders. “We use computers for roundup and GPS to move cattle and men around.”

“Do you have a phone in here?” she asked, looking for one.

He indicated the second cup holder, where his cell phone was sitting. “I’ve got Bluetooth wiring in here,” he explained. “The phone works through the speaker system. It’s hands free. I can shorthand the call by saying the first or last name of the person I want to call. The phone does the rest. I get the Internet on it, and my e-mail as well.”

“Wow,” she said softly. “It’s like the Starship Enterprise, isn’t it?”

He could have told her that his brand-new Jaguar XF was more in that line, with controls that rose out of the console when the push-button ignition was activated, backup cameras, heated seats and steering wheel, and a supercharged V8 engine. But he wasn’t supposed to be able to afford that sort of luxury, so he kept his mouth shut.

“This must be a very expensive truck,” she murmured.

He grinned. “Just mid-range. Our bosses don’t skimp on tools,” he told her. “That includes working equipment for assistant feed store managers as well.”

She looked at him through green eyes that were becoming drowsy. “Are we getting a new assistant manager to go with Mr. Mannheim?” she asked.

“Sure. You,” he added, glancing at her warmly. “That goes with a rise in salary, by the way.”

Her breath caught. “Do you mean it?”

“Of course.”

“Wow,” she said softly, foreseeing better used appliances for the little house and some new clothes for Selene. “I can’t believe it!”

“You will.” He frowned. “Don’t fall over in your seat.”

She laughed breathily. “I think the shot’s taking effect.” She moved and grimaced, absently touching her small breasts. “A few bruises are coming out, too. He really was rough.”

His face hardened. “I hate knowing he manhandled you,” he said through his teeth. “I wish I’d come to the store sooner.”

“You saved me, just the same,” she replied. She smiled. “My hero.”

He chuckled. “Not me, lady,” he mused. “I’m just a working cowboy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with honest labor and hard work,” she told him. “I could never wrap my mind around some rich, fancy man with a string of women following him around. I like cowboys just fine.”

The words stung. He was living a lie, and he shouldn’t have started out with her on the wrong foot. She was an honest person. She’d never trust him again if she realized how he was fooling her. He should tell her who he really was. He glanced in her direction. She was asleep. Her head was resting against the glass, her chest softly pulsing as she breathed.

Well, there would be another time, he assured himself. She’d had enough shocks for one day.

He pulled up in her driveway, went around and lifted her out of the truck in his arms. He paused at the foot of the steps to look down at her sleeping face. He curled her close against his chest, loving her soft weight, loving the sweet face pressed against his shirt pocket. He carried her up the steps easily, knocked perfunctorily at the door, and opened it.

Her mother, Mrs. Peale, was sitting in a chair in her bathrobe, watching the news. She cried out when she saw her daughter.

“What happened to her?” she exclaimed, starting to rise.

“She’s all right,” he said at once. “The doctor sedated her. Can I put her down somewhere, and I’ll explain.”

“Yes. Her bedroom…is this way.” She got to her feet, panting with the effort.

“Mrs. Peale, you just point the way and sit back down,” he said gently. “You don’t need to strain yourself.”

Her kind face beamed in a smile. “You’re a nice young man. It’s the first door on the left. Her bedroom.”

“I’ll be right back.”

He carried Sassy into the bare little room and pulled back the worn blue chenille coverlet that was on the twin bed where she slept. Everything was spotless, if old. He lifted Sassy’s head onto the pillow, tugged off her boots, and drew the coverlet over her, patting it down at her waist.

She breathed regularly. His eyes went from her disheveled, wavy dark hair to the slight rise of her firm breasts under the shirt he’d loaned her, down her narrow waist and slender hips and long legs. She was attractive. But it was more than a physical attractiveness. She was like a warm fireplace on a cold day. He smiled at his own imagery, took one last look at her pretty, sleeping face, went out, and pulled the door gently closed behind him.

Mrs. Peale was watching for him, worried. “What happened to her,” she asked at once.

He sat down on the sofa next to her chair. “Yes. She’s had a rough day…”

“That Tarleton man!” Mrs. Peale exclaimed furiously. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

His eyebrows arched at her unexpected perception. “Yes,” he agreed slowly. “But how would you know…?”

“He’s been creeping around her ever since McGuire hired him,” she said in her soft, raspy voice. She paused to get her breath. Her green eyes, so much like Sassy’s, were sparking with temper. “She came home crying one day because he touched her in a way he shouldn’t have, and she couldn’t stop him. He thought it was funny.”

John’s usually placid face was drawn with anger as he listened.

Mrs. Peale noticed that, and the caring way he’d brought her daughter home. “Forgive me for being blunt, but, who are you?” she asked gently.

He smiled. “Sorry. I’m John…Taggert,” he added, almost caught off guard enough to tell the truth. “My boss bought the old Bradbury place, and I’m his foreman.”

“That place.” She seemed surprised. “You know, it’s haunted.”

His eyebrows arched. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that…!” she began quickly.

“No. Please. I’d like to know,” he said, reassuring her. “I collect folk tales.”

She laughed breathily. “I guess it could be called that. You see, it began a long time ago when Hart Bradbury married his second cousin, Miss Blanche Henley. Her father hated the Bradburys and opposed the marriage, but Blanche ran away with Hart and got married to him anyway. Her father swore vengeance. One day, not long afterward, Hart came home from a long day gathering in strays, and found Blanche apparently in the arms of another man. He threw her out of his house and made her go back home to her father.”

“Don’t tell me,” John interrupted with a smile. “Her father set her up.”

“That’s exactly what he did, with one of his men. Blanche was inconsolable. She sat in her room and cried. She did no cooking and no housework and she stopped going anywhere. Her father was surprised, because he thought she’d take up her old responsibilities with no hesitation. When she didn’t, he was stuck with no help in the house and a daughter who embarrassed him in front of his friends. He told her to go back to her husband if he’d have her.

“So she did. But Hart met her at the door and told her he’d never live with her again. She’d gone from him to another man, or so he thought. Blanche gave up. She walked right out the side porch onto that bridge beside the old barn, and threw herself off the top. Hart heard her scream and ran after her, but she hit her head on a boulder when she went down, and her body washed up on the shore. Hart knew then that she was innocent. He sent word to her father that she’d killed herself. Her father went rushing over to Hart’s place. Hart was waiting for him, with a double-barreled shotgun. He gave the old man one barrel and saved the other for himself.” She grimaced. “It was almost ninety years ago, but nobody’s forgotten.”

“But they call the ranch the Bradbury place, don’t they?” John asked, puzzled.

Mrs. Peale smiled. “Hart had three brothers. One of them took over the property. That was the great-uncle of the Bradbury you bought the ranch from.”

“Talk about tragedies that stick in the mind,” John mused. “I’m glad I’m not superstitious.”

“How is it that you ended up bringing my daughter home?” she wondered aloud.

“I walked into the tack room in time to save her from Tarleton,” he replied simply. “She didn’t want to go to the doctor, so I carried her across the street and into his office.” He sighed. “I suppose gossips will feed on that story for a week.”

Mrs. Peale laughed. She had to stop suddenly, because her weak lungs wouldn’t permit much of it. “Sassy is very stubborn.”

He nodded. “I noticed.” He smiled. “But she’s got grit.”

“Will she be all right?” she asked, worried.

“The doctor said that, apart from some bruises, she will. Of course there’s the trauma of the attack itself.”

“We’ll deal with that…if we have to,” the old woman said quietly. She bit her lower lip. “Do you know about me?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

Her thin face was drawn. “Sassy has nobody. My husband ran off and left me with Sassy still in school. I took in Selene when her father died while he was working for us, just after Sassy’s father left. We have no living family. When I’m gone,” she added slowly, “she won’t have anybody at all.”

“She’ll be all right,” John assured her quietly. “We’ve promoted her to assistant manager of the feed store. It comes with a raise in salary. And if she ever needs help, she’ll get it. I promise.”

She turned her head like a bird watching him. “You have an honest face,” she said after a minute. “Thank you, Mr. Taggert.”

He smiled. “She’s sweet.”

“Sweet and unworldly,” she said heavily. “This is a good place to raise children, but it doesn’t give them much sense of modern society. She’s a babe in the woods, in some ways.”

“She’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Sassy may be naïve, but she has an excellent self-image and she’s a strong woman. If you could have seen her swinging on Tarleton,” he added on a chuckle, with admiration in his pale eyes.

“She hit him?” she exclaimed.

“She did,” he replied. “I wish they’d given her five minutes alone with him. It might have cured him of ever wanting to force himself on another woman. Not,” he added darkly, “that he’s going to have the opportunity for a very long time. The police chief has him in jail pending arraignment. He’ll be brought up on assault charges and, I assure you, he won’t be running around town again.”

“Mr. McGuire should never have hired him,” she muttered.

“I can assure you that he knows that.”

She bit her lip. “What if he gets a good lawyer and they turn him loose?”

“In that case,” John chuckled, “we’ll search and find enough evidence on crimes in his past to hang him out to dry. Whatever happens, he won’t be a threat to Sassy ever again.”

Mrs. Peale beamed. “Thank you for bringing her home.”

“Do you have a telephone here?” he asked suddenly.

She hesitated. “Yes, of course.”

He wondered at the hesitation, but not just then. “If you need anything, anything at all, you can call me.” He pulled a pencil and pad out of his pocket, one he’d bought in town to list supplies, and wrote the ranch number on it. He handed it to Mrs. Peale. “Somebody will be around all the time.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she said quietly.

“We help each other out back home,” he told her. “That’s what neighbors are for.”

“Where is back home, Mr. Taggert?” she asked curiously.

“The Callisters we work for live at Medicine Ridge,” he told her.

“Those people!” She caught her breath. “My goodness, everybody knows who they are. In fact, we had a man who used to work for them here in town.”

John held his breath. “You did?”

“Of course, he moved on about a year ago,” she added, and didn’t see John relax. “He said they were the best bosses on earth and that he’d never have left if his wife hadn’t insisted she had to be near her mother. Her mother was like me,” she added sadly, “going downhill by the day. You can’t blame a woman for feeling like that. I stayed with my own mother when she was dying.” She looked up. “Are your parents still living?”

He smiled. “Yes, they are. I don’t know them very well yet, but all of us are just beginning to get comfortable with each other.”

“You were estranged?”

He nodded. “But not anymore. Can I do anything for you before I leave?”

“No, but thank you.”

“I’ll lock the door on my way out.”

She smiled at him.

“I’ll be out this way again,” he said. “Tell Sassy she doesn’t have to come in tomorrow unless she just wants to.”

“She’ll want to,” Mrs. Peale said confidently. “In spite of that terrible man, she really likes her work.”

“I like mine, too,” John told her. He winked. “Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Taggert.”

He drove back to the Bradbury place deep in thought. He wished he could make sure that Tarleton didn’t get out of jail anytime soon. He was still worried. The man was vindictive. He’d assaulted Sassy for reporting his behavior. God knew what he’d do to her if he managed to get out of that jail. He’d have to talk to Chief Graves and see if there was some way to get his bond set sky-high.

The work at the ranch was coming along quickly. The framework for the barn was already up. Wiring and plumbing were in the early stages. A crew was starting to remodel the house. John had one bedroom as a priority. He was sick of using a sleeping bag on the floor.

He phoned Gil that night. “How are things going at home?” he asked.

Gil chuckled. “Bess brought a snake to the dinner table. You’ve never seen women run so fast!”

“I’ll bet Kasie didn’t run,” he mused.

“Kasie ticked it under the chin and told Bess it was the prettiest garter snake she’d ever seen.”

“Your new wife is a delight,” John murmured.

“And you can stop right there,” Gil muttered. “She’s my wife. Don’t you forget that.”

John burst out laughing. “You can’t possibly still be jealous of her now!”

“I can, too.”

“I could bring her truckloads of flowers and hands full of diamonds, and she’d still pick you,” John pointed out. “Love trumps material possessions. I’m just her brother-in-law now.”

“Well, okay,” Gil said after a minute. “How are the improvements coming along?”

“Slowly,” John sighed. “I’m still using a sleeping bag on the hard floor. I’ve given them orders to finish my bedroom first. Meanwhile, I’m getting the barn put up. Oh, and I’ve leased us a feed store.”

There was a pause. “Should I ask why?”

“The manager tried to assault a young woman who’s working for the store. He’s in jail.”

“And you leased the store because…?”

John sighed. “The girl’s mother is dying of lung cancer,” he said heavily. “There’s a young girl they took in when her father died…she’s six. Sassy is the only one bringing in any money. I thought if she could be promoted to assistant manager, she might be able to pay her bills and buy a few new clothes for the little girl.”

“Sassy, hmmm?”

John flushed at that knowing tone. “Listen, she’s just a girl who works there.”

“What does she look like?”

“She’s slight. She has wavy, dark hair and green eyes and she’s pretty when she smiles. When I pulled Tarleton off her, she walked up and slapped him as hard as she could. She’s got grit.”

“Tarleton would be the manager?”

“Yes,” John said through his teeth. “The owner of the store, McGuire, hired him long distance and moved him here with his wife. Tarleton’s lost at least one job for sexual harassment.”

“Then why the hell did McGuire hire him?”

“He didn’t know about the charges—there was never a conviction. He said he was desperate. Nobody wanted to work in this outback town.”

“So who are we going to get to replace him?”

“Buck Mannheim.”

“Good choice,” Gil said. “Buck was dying of boredom after he retired. The store will be a challenge for him.”

“He’s a good manager. Sassy likes him already, and she knows every piece of merchandise on the place and the ordering system like the back of her hand. She keeps the place stocked.”

“Is she all right?”

“A little bruised,” John said. “I took her to the doctor and then drove her home. She slept all the way there.”

“She didn’t fuss about having the big boss carting her around?” Gil asked amusedly.

“Well, she doesn’t know that I am the big boss,” John returned.

“She what?”

John scowled. “Why does she have to know who I am?”

“You’ll get in trouble if you start playing with the truth.”

“I’m not playing with it. I’m just sidestepping it for a little while. I like having people take me at face value for a change. It’s nice to be something more than a walking checkbook.”

Gil cleared his throat. “Okay. It’s your life. Let’s just hope your decision doesn’t come back to bite you down the line.”

“It won’t,” John said confidently. “I mean, it isn’t as if I’m planning anything permanent here. By the time I’m ready to come back to Medicine Ridge, it won’t matter, anyway.”

Gil changed the subject. But John wondered if there might not be some truth in what his big brother was saying. He hoped there wasn’t. Surely it wasn’t a bad thing to try to live a normal life for once. After all, he asked himself, how could it hurt?

CHAPTER FOUR

SASSY settled in as assistant manager of the feed store. Buck picked at her gently, teased her, and made her feel so much at home that it was like belonging to a family. During her second week back at work, she asked permission to bring Selene with her to work on the regular Saturday morning shift. Her mother had had a bad couple of days, she explained, and she wasn’t well enough to watch Selene. Buck said it was all right.

But when John walked into the store and found a six-year-old child putting up stock, he wasn’t pleased.

“This is a dangerous place for a kid,” he told Sassy gently. “Even a bridle bit falling from the wall could injure her.”

Sassy stopped and stared at him. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“And there are the pesticides,” he added. “Not that I think she’d put any in her mouth, but if she dropped one of those bags, it could fly up in her face.” He frowned. “We had a little girl on the ranch back in Medicine Ridge who had to be transported to the emergency room when a bag of garden insecticide tore and she inhaled some of it.”

“Oh, dear,” Sassy said, worried.

“I don’t mind her being here,” John assured her. “But find her something to do at the counter. Don’t let her wander around. Okay?”

She cocked her head at him. “You know a lot about kids.”

He smiled. “I have nieces about Selene’s age,” he told her. “They can be a handful.”

“You love them.”

“Indeed I do,” he replied, his eyes following Selene as she climbed up into a chair at the counter, wearing old but clean jeans and a T-shirt. “I’ve missed out on a family,” he added quietly. “I never seemed to have time to slow down and think about permanent things.”

“Why not?” she asked curiously.

His pale eyes searched hers quietly. “Pressure of work, I suppose,” he said vaguely. “I wanted to make my mark in the world. Ambition and family life don’t exactly mesh.”

“Oh, I get it,” she said, and smiled up at him. “You wanted to be something more than just a working cowboy.”

His eyebrow jerked. “Something like that,” he lied. The mark he meant was to have, with his brother, a purebred breeding herd that was known all over the world—a true benchmark of beef production that had its roots in Montana. The Callisters had attained that reputation, but John had sacrificed for it, spending his life on the move, going from one cattle show to another with the ranch’s prize animals. The more awards their breeding bulls won, the more they could charge for their progeny.

“You’re a foreman now,” she said. “Could you get higher up than that?”

“Sure,” he said, warming to the subject. He grinned. “We have several foremen, who handle everything from grain production to cattle production to AI,” he added. “Above that, there’s ranch management.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “AI?” she queried. “What’s that?”

If she’d been older and more sophisticated, he might have teased her with the answer. As it was, he took the question at face value. “It’s artificial breeding,” he said gently. “We hire a man who comes out with the product and inseminates our cows and heifers.”

She looked uncomfortable. “Oh.”

He smiled. “It’s part of ranch protocol,” he said, his tone soft. “The old-fashioned way is hit or miss. In these hard times, we have to have a more reliable way of insuring progeny.”

She smiled back shyly. “Thanks for not explaining it in a crude way,” she said. “We had a rancher come in here a month ago who wanted a diaper for his female dog, who was in heat.” She flushed a little. “He thought it was funny when I got uncomfortable at the way he talked about it.”

His thumb hooked into his belt as he studied her. The comment made him want to find the rancher and have a long talk with him. “That sort of thing isn’t tolerated on our spread,” he said shortly. “We even have dress requirements for men and women. There’s no sexual harassment, even in language.”

She looked fascinated. “Really?”

“Really.” He searched her eyes. “Sassy, you don’t have to put up with any man talking to you in a way that embarrasses you. If a customer uses crude language, you go get Buck. If you can’t find him, you call me.”

“I never thought…I mean, it seemed to go with the job,” she stammered. “Mr. Tarleton was worse than some of the customers. He used to try to guess the size of my…of my…well—” she shrugged, averting her eyes “—you know.”

“Sadly, I do,” he replied tersely. “Listen, you have to start standing up for yourself more. I know you’re young, but you don’t have to take being talked down to by men. Not in this job.”

She rubbed an elbow and looked up at him like a curious little cat. “I was going to quit,” she recalled, and laughed a little nervously. “I’d already talked to Mama about it. I thought even if I had to drive to Billings and back every day, I’d do it.” She grimaced. “That was just before gas hit over four dollars a gallon.” She sighed. “You’d have to be a millionaire to make that drive daily, now.”

“I know,” he said with heartfelt emotion. He and Gil had started giving their personnel a gas ration allowance in addition to their wages. “Which reminds me,” he added with a smile, “we’re adding gas mileage to the checks now. You won’t have to worry about going bankrupt at the pump.”

“That’s so nice of you!”

He pursed his lips. “Of course. I am nice. It’s one of my more sterling qualities. I mean, along with being debonair, a great conversationalist, and good at poker.” He watched her reaction, smiling wickedly when she didn’t quite get it. “Did I mention that dogs love me, too?”

She did get it then, and laughed shyly. “You’re joking.”

“Trying to.”

She grinned at him. It made her green eyes light up, her face radiant. “You must have a lot of responsibility, considering how much work they’re doing out at your ranch.”

“Yes, I do,” he admitted. “Most of it involves organization.”

“That sounds very stressful,” she replied, frowning. “I mean, a big ranch would have an awful lot of people to organize. I would think that you’d have almost no free time at all.”

He didn’t have much free time. But he couldn’t tell her why. Actually the little bit of time he’d already spent here, even working, was something like a holiday, considering the load he carried when he was at home. He and Gil between them were overworked. They delegated responsibility where they could, but some decisions could only be made by the boss. “Well, it’s still sort of a goal of mine,” he hedged. “A man has to have a little ambition to be interesting.” He studied her with pursed lips. “What sort of job goals do you have?”

She blinked, thinking. “I don’t have any, really. I mean, I want to take care of Mama as long as I can. And I want to raise Selene and make sure she has a good education, and to save enough to help her go to college.”

He frowned. Her goals were peripheral. They involved helping other people, not in advancing herself. He’d never considered the future welfare of anyone except himself—well, himself and Gil and the girls and, now, Kasie. But Sassy was very young to be so generous, even in her thoughts.

Young. She was nineteen. His frown deepened as he studied her youthful, faintly flushed little face. He found her very attractive. She had a big heart, a nice smile, a pretty figure, and she was smart, in a common-sense sort of way. But that age hit him right in the gut every time he considered her part in his life. He didn’t dare become involved with her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked perceptively.

He shifted from one big, booted foot to the other. “I just had a stray thought,” he told her. He glanced at Selene. “You’ve got a lot of responsibilities for a woman your age,” he added quietly.

She laughed softly. “Don’t I know it!”

His eyes narrowed. “I guess it cramps your social life. With men, I mean,” he added, hating himself because he was curious about the men in her life.

She laughed. “There are only a couple of men around town who don’t have wives or girlfriends, and I turn them off. One of them came right out and said I had too much baggage, even for a date.”

His eyebrows arched. “And what did you say to that?”

“That I loved my mother and Selene and any man who got interested in me would have to take them on as well. That didn’t go over big,” she added with twinkling eyes. “So I’ve decided that I’m going to be like the Lone Ranger.”

He blinked. “Masked and mysterious?”

“No!” she chuckled. “I mean, just me. Well, just me and my so-called dependents.” She glanced toward Selene, who was quietly matching up seed packages from a box that had just arrived. Her eyes softened. “She’s very smart. I can never sort things the way she can. She’s patient and quiet, she never makes a fuss. I think she might grow up to be a scientist. She already has that sort of introspective personality, and she’s careful in what she does.”

“She thinks before she acts,” he translated.

“Exactly. I tend to go rushing in without thinking about the consequences,” she added with a laugh. “Not Selene. She’s more analytical.”

“Being impulsive isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” he remarked.

“It can be,” she said. “But I’m working on that. Maybe in a few years, I’ll learn to look before I leap.” She glanced up at him. “How are things going out at the Bradbury place?”

“We’ve got the barn well underway already,” he said. “The framework’s done. Now we’re up to our ears in roofers and plumbers and electricians.”

“We only have a couple of each of those here in town,” she pointed out, “and they’re generally booked a week or two ahead except for emergencies.”

He smiled. “We had to import some construction people from Billings,” he told her. “It’s a big job. Simultaneously, they’re trying to make improvements to the house and plan a stable. We’ve got fencing to replace, wells to bore, agricultural equipment to buy…it’s a monumental job.”

“Your boss,” she said slowly, “must be filthy rich, if he can afford to do all that right now when we’ve got gas prices through the roof!”

“He is,” he confided. “But the ranch will be self-sufficient when we’re through. We’re using solar panels and windmills for part of our power generation.”

“We had a city lawyer buy land here about six years ago,” she recalled. “He put in solar panels to heat his house and all sorts of fancy, energy-saving devices.” She winced. “Poor guy.”

“Poor guy?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

“He saw all these nature specials and thought grizzly bears were cute and cuddly,” she said. “One came up into his backyard and he went out with a bag full of bread to feed to it.”

“Oh, boy,” he said slowly.

She nodded. “The bear ate all the bread and when he ran out, it started eating him. He did manage to get away finally by playing dead, but he lost the use of an arm and one eye.” She shook her head. “He was a sad sight.”

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “He was from back East.”

She nodded. “Some big city. He’d never seen a real bear before, except in zoos and nature specials. He saw an old documentary on this guy who lived with bears and he thought anybody could make friends with them.”

“Reminds me of a story I heard about a lady from D.C. who moved to Arizona. She saw a rattlesnake crawling across the road, so the story goes, and thought it was fascinating. She got out of her car and walked over to pet it.”

“What happened to her?”

“An uncountable number of shots of antivenin,” he said, “and two weeks in the hospital.”

“Ouch.”

“You know all those warning labels they have on food these days? They ought to put warning labels on animals.” He held both hands up, as if holding a sign. “Warning: Most wild reptiles are not cute and cuddly and they will bite and can kill you. Or, Grizzly bears will eat bread, fruit, and some people.”

She laughed at his expression. “I ran from a grizzly bear once and managed to get away.”

“Fast, are you?”

“He was old and slow, and I was close to town. But I had great incentive,” she agreed.

“I’ve never had to outrun anything,” he recalled. “I did once pet a moose who came up to serenade one of our milk cows. He was friendly.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“It is. Most wild animals that will let you close enough to pet them are rabid. But this moose wasn’t sick. He just had no fear of humans. I think maybe he was raised as a pet by people who were smart enough not to tell anybody.”

“Because…?” she prompted.

“Well, it’s against the law to make a pet of a wild animal in most places in the country,” he explained. He smiled. “That moose loved corn.”

“What happened to him?”

“He started charging other cattle to keep his favorite cow to himself, so we had to move him up farther into the mountains. He hasn’t come back so far.”

She grinned. “What if he does? Will you let him stay?”

He pursed his lips. “Sure! I plan to spray-paint him red, cut off his antlers, and tell people he’s a French bull.”

She burst out laughing at the absurd comment.

Selene came running up with a pad and pencil. “’Scuse me,” she said politely to John. She turned to her sister. “There’s a man on the telephone who wants you to order something for him.”

Sassy chuckled. “I’ll go right now and take it down. Selene, this is John Taggert. He’s a ranch foreman.”

Selene looked up at him and grinned. She was missing one front tooth, but she was cute. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a fighter pilot!”

His eyebrows arched. “You are?”

“Yup! This lady came by to see my mama. She’s a nurse. Her daughter was a fighter pilot and now she flies big airplanes overseas!”

“Some role model,” John remarked to Sassy, awed.

She laughed. “It’s a brave new world.”

“It is.” He went down on one knee in front of Selene, so that her eyes could look into his. “And what sort of plane would you like to fly?” he teased, not taking her seriously.

She put a small hand on his broad shoulder. Her blue eyes were very wide and intent. “I like those F-22 Raptors,” she said breathlessly. “Did you know they can actually stand still in the sky?”

He was fascinated. He wasn’t sure he even knew what sort of military airplane that was. His breath exhaled. “No,” he confessed. “I didn’t.”

“There was this program on TV about how they’re built. And they were in a new movie about robots that come to our planet and pretend to be cars. I think Raptors are just beautiful,” she said with a dreamy expression.

“I hope you get to fly one,” he told her.

She smiled. “I got to grow up, first, though,” she told him. She gasped. “Sassy!” she exclaimed. “That man’s still on the phone!”

Sassy made a face. “I’m going, I’m going!”

“You coming back to see us again?” Selene asked John when he stood up.

He chuckled. “Thought I might.”

“Okay!” She grinned and ran back to the counter, where Sassy was just picking up the phone.

John went to find Buck. It was a new world, indeed.

Tarleton was taken before the circuit judge for his arraignment and formally charged with the assault on Sassy. He pleaded not guilty. He had a city lawyer who gave the local district attorney a haughty glance and requested that his client, who was blameless, be let out on his own recognizance in lieu of bail. The prosecutor argued that Tarleton was a flight risk.

The judge, after reviewing the charges, did agree to set bail. But he set it at fifty thousand dollars, drawing furious protests from the attorney and his client. With no ability to raise such an amount, even using a bail bondsman, Tarleton would have to wait it out in the county detention facility. It wasn’t a prospect he viewed with pleasure.

Sassy heard about it and felt guilty. Mr. Tarleton, for all his flaws, had a wife who was surely not guilty of anything more than bad judgment in her choice of a husband. It seemed unfair that she would have to suffer along with the defendant.

She said so, to John, when he turned up at the store the end of the next week.

“His poor wife,” she sighed. “It’s so unkind to make her go through it with him.”

“Would you rather let him walk?” he asked quietly. “Set him free, so that he could do it to another young woman—perhaps with more tragic results?”

She flushed. “No. Of course not.”

He reached out and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “You have a big heart, Sassy,” he said, his voice very deep and soft. “Plenty of other people don’t, and they will use your own compassion against you.”

She looked up curiously, tingling and breathless from just the faint contact of his fingers with her skin. “I guess some people are like that,” she conceded. “But most people are kind and don’t want to hurt others.”

He laughed coldly. “Do you think so?”

His expression was saying things that she could read quite accurately. “Somebody hurt you,” she guessed. Her eyes held his. They had an odd, blank look in them. “A woman. It was a long time ago. You never talk about it. But you hold it inside, deep inside, and use it to keep the world at a distance.”

He scowled. “You don’t know me,” he said, defensive.

“I shouldn’t,” she agreed. Her green eyes seemed darker, more piercing. “But I do.”

“Don’t tell me,” he murmured with faint sarcasm, “you can read minds.”

She shook her head. “I can read wrinkles.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your frown lines are deeper than your smile lines,” she told him, not wanting to confess that her family had the “second sight,” in case he thought she was peculiar. “It’s a public smile. You leave it at the front door when you go home.”

His eyes narrowed on her face. He didn’t speak. She was incredibly perceptive for a woman her age.

She drew in a long breath. “Go ahead, say it. I need to mind my own business. I do try to, but it bothers me to see other people so unhappy.”

“I am not unhappy,” he said belligerently. “I’m very happy!”

“If you say so.”

He glowered at her. “Just because a woman threw me over, I’m not damaged goods.”

“How did she throw you over?”

He hadn’t talked about it for years, not even to Gil. In one sense he resented this young woman, this stranger, prying into his life. In another, it made him want to talk about it, to stop the festering wound of it from growing even larger inside him.

“She got engaged to me while she was living with a man down in Colorado.”

She didn’t speak. She just watched him, like a curious little cat, waiting.

He grimaced. “I was so crazy about her that I never suspected a thing. She’d go away for weekends with her girlfriend and I’d watch movies and do book work at home while she was away. One weekend I had nothing to do, so I drove over to Red Lodge, where she’d said she was checked into a motel so that she could go fly-fishing with her girlfriend.” He sighed. “Red Lodge isn’t so big that you can’t find people in it, and it does a big business in tourism. Turned out, her friend was male, filthy rich, and they had a room together. She had the most surprised look on her face when they came downstairs and found me sitting in the lobby.”

“What did she say?” she asked.

“Nothing. Not one thing. She bit her lip and pretended that she didn’t know the man. He was furious, and I felt like a fool. I went back home. She called and tried to talk to me, but I hung up on her. Some things don’t take a lot of explaining.”

He didn’t add that he’d also hired a private detective, much too late, to find out what he could about the woman. It hadn’t been the first time she’d kept a string of wealthy admirers, and she’d taken one man for a quarter of a million dollars before he found her out. She’d been after John’s money, all along; not himself. He wasn’t as forthcoming as the millionaire she’d gone fly-fishing with, so she’d been working on the millionaire while she left John simmering on a back burner. As a result, she’d lost both men, which did serve her right. But the experience had made him bitter and suspicious of all women. He still thought they only wanted him for his money.

“The other guy, was he rich?” Sassy asked.

John’s lips made a thin line. “Filthy rich.”

She touched the front of his shirt with a shy, hesitant little hand. “I’m sorry about that,” she told him. “But in a way, you’re lucky that you aren’t rich,” she added.

“Why?”

“Well, you never have to worry if women like you for yourself or your wallet,” she said innocently.

“There isn’t much to like,” he said absently, concentrating on the way she was touching him. She didn’t even seem to be aware of it, but his body was rippling inside with the pleasure it gave him.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked. Her eyes laughed up into his. “You’re very handsome. You stand up for people who can’t take care of themselves. You like children. And dogs like you,” she added mischievously, recalling one of his earlier quips. “Besides that, you must like animals, since you work around cattle.”

While she was talking, the hand on his chest had been joined by her other one, and they were flat on the broad, hard muscles, idly caressing. His body was beginning to respond to her touch in a profound way. His blue eyes became glittery with suppressed desire.

He caught her hands abruptly and moved them. “Don’t do that,” he said curtly, without thinking how it was going to affect her. He was in danger of losing control of himself. He wanted to reach for her, slam her against him all the way up and down, and kiss that pretty mouth until he made it swell and moan under his lips.

She jerked back, appalled at her own boldness. “I’m sorry,” she said at once, flushing. “I really am. I’m not used to men. I mean, I’ve never done that…excuse me!”

She turned and all but ran back down the aisle to the counter. When she got there, she jerked up the phone and called a customer to tell him his order was in. She’d already phoned him, and he hadn’t answered, so she called again. It gave her something to do, so that John thought she was getting busy.

He muttered under his breath. Now he’d done it. He hadn’t meant to make her feel brassy with that comment, but she was starting to get to him. He wanted her. She had warmth and compassion and an exciting little body, and she was getting under his skin. He needed a break.

He turned on his heel and walked out of the store. He should have gone back and apologized for being so abrupt, but he knew he’d never be able to explain himself without telling her the truth. He couldn’t do that. She was years too young for him. He had to get out of town for a while.

He left Bradbury’s former ranch foreman, Carl Baker, in charge of the place while he packed and went home to Medicine Ridge for the weekend.

It was a warm, happy homecoming. His big brother, Gil, met him at the door with a bear hug.

“Come on in,” he said, chuckling. “We’ve missed you.”

“Uncle John!”

Bess and Jenny, Gil’s daughters by his first wife, came running down the hall to be picked up and cuddled and kissed.

“Oh, Uncle John, we missed you so much!” Bess, the eldest, cried, hugging him tightly around the neck.

“Yes, we did,” Jenny seconded, kissing his bronzed cheek. “You can’t stay away so long!”

“Did you bring us a present?” Bess asked.

He grinned. “Don’t I always?” he laughed. “In the bag, next to my suitcase,” he said, putting them down.

They ran to the bag, found the wrapped presents and literally tore the ribbons off to delve inside. There were two stuffed animals with bar codes that led children to Web sites where they could dress their pets and have adventures with them online in a safe environment.

“Web puppies!” Bess exclaimed, clutching a black Labrador.

Jenny had a Collie. She cuddled it close. “We seen these on TV!”

“Can we use the computer, Daddy?” Bess pleaded. “Please?”

“Use the computer?” Kasie, Gil’s new wife, asked, grinning. “What are you babies up to, now?” she added, pausing to hug John before she pressed against Gil’s side with warm affection.

“It’s a Web puppy, Kasie!” Bess exclaimed, showing hers. “Uncle John bought them for us.”

“I got a Collie, just like Lassie,” Jenny beamed.

“We got to use the computer,” Bess insisted.

Kasie chuckled. “I’ll go start it up, then. Come on, babies. You staying for a while?” she asked John.

“For the weekend,” John replied, smiling at the girls. “I needed a break.”

“I guess you did,” Gil replied. “You’ve taken on a big task up there. Sure you don’t need more help? We could spare Green.”

“I’m doing fine. Just a little complication.”

Kasie led the girls off into Gil’s office, where the computer lived. When they were out of earshot, Gil turned to John.

“What sort of complication?” he asked his younger brother.

John sighed. “There’s a girl.”

Gil’s pale eyes sparkled. “It’s about time.”

John shook his head. “You don’t understand. She’s nineteen.”

Gil only smiled. “Kasie was twenty-one. Barely. And I’m older than you are. Age doesn’t have a lot to do with it.”

John felt something of a load lift from his heart. “She’s unworldly.”

Gil chuckled. “Even better. Come have coffee and pie and tell me all about it!”

CHAPTER FIVE

SASSY put on a cheerful face for the rest of the day, pretending for all she was worth that having John Taggert push her away didn’t bother her at all. It was devastating, though. She was shy with most men, but John had drawn her out of her shell and made her feel feminine and charming. Then she’d gone all googly over him and edged closer as if she couldn’t wait to have him put his arms around her and kiss her. Even the memory of her behavior made her blush. She’d never been so forward with anyone.

Of course, she knew she wasn’t pretty or desirable. He was a good deal older than she was, too, and probably liked beautiful and sophisticated women who knew their way around. He might not be a ranch boss, but he drove a nice truck and obviously made a good salary. In addition to all that, he was very handsome and charming. He’d be a woman magnet in any big city.

He’d saved her from Bill Tarleton, gotten her a raise and a promotion, and generally been kinder to her than she deserved. He probably had the shock of his life when she moved close to him as if she had the right, as if he belonged to her. The shame of it wore on her until she was pale and almost in tears when she left the shop that afternoon.

“Something bothering you, Sassy?” Buck Mannheim asked as they were closing up.

She glanced at him and forced a smile. “No, sir. Nothing at all. It’s just been a long day.”

“It’s that Tarleton thing, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “You’re upset that you’ll have to testify.”

She was glad to have an excuse for the way she looked. The assault did wear on her, but it was John Taggert’s behavior, not her former boss’s, that had her upset. “I guess it is a little worrying,” she confessed.

He sighed. “Sassy, it’s a sad fact of life that there are men like him in the world. But if you don’t testify, he could get away with it. The reason you had trouble with him is that some other poor girl didn’t want to have to face him in front of a jury. She let him walk. If he’d been convicted of sexual harassment, instead of just charged with it, he’d probably be in jail now. It might have stopped him from coming on to you.”

She had to agree. “I suppose that’s true. It’s just…well, you know, Mr. Mannheim, some men think a woman leads them on if she just looks at them.”

“I know. But that isn’t the case here. John… Taggert—” he caught himself in the nick of time from letting John’s real surname out “—will certainly testify to what he saw. He’ll be there to back you up.”