The direction her thoughts were taking was alarming, and Jessie put a stop to them right there. She had no reason to fear this brave. Yet. He had condescended to speak to her, which was a good sign.

“I am called Jessica Blair by the whites, and Looks Like Woman by the Cheyenne. I come here often to visit my friend White Thunder and his family, but I am early this year, so I will return in the morning to my home in the south. Do you know White Thunder?”

She helped the lengthy explanation along with what sign language she knew, but he gave no indication that he understood. She fell silent, and he looked away from her toward her horse.

He moved over to examine Blackstar, and she called, “He was given to me by White Thunder.”

The brave said something at last, but she didn’t understand. He reached out and ran a hand over the horse’s flanks, laughing when Blackstar turned his head and tried to bite him.

Jessie lost her patience then and snapped, “Damn it, you can stop looking my horse over right now. You can’t have him!”

The anger in her tone was unmistakable, even if the words were alien. She had managed to get his attention again, and he sauntered over and stood in front of her. This time he was so close she was forced to look up to meet his eyes.

His expression was not so austere now. He spoke again, indicating with signs that he was telling her his name. She tried to decipher his words, and finally grinned as she came up with the English equivalent.

“Little Hawk!” she said proudly, but he shook his head. He had not understood.

Jessie smiled as she indicated again that he was welcome to share her food and fire. This time he acknowledged her offer and sat down by the fire. Jessie returned to her place, wrapping the blanket around her legs again. She had only one plate, and she added more food to it and gave it to him. When all that was left of the food was what had been on the plate when he took it from her, he gave it back. He watched her as she quickly finished eating, and when she was done she got up to clean the utensils and put them away. She could feel his eyes following her every move.

When she came back to the fire, she found him stretched out in the grass, leaning on an elbow, facing her place by the fire.

She might have moved to another spot, but she was too wary to make any changes. She lay down and faced him. Their eyes met, and it seemed they stared at each other forever. His look grew bolder. Hadn’t Blue looked at her that way? It was obvious that Little Hawk desired her, yet she was surprised when he patted the grass beside him, indicating he wanted her to come to him. She shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Little Hawk shrugged, gave her one long look, then lay down and closed his eyes.

Jessie continued to stare at him, relieved, yet oddly disturbed. What was the matter with her? It was his eyes, she decided at last, the way he had looked at her, making love to her with those dark, compelling eyes.

But as Jessie drifted off to sleep, it was not Little Hawk’s eyes she saw, but other eyes, as dark, the eyes of Chase Summers.

Chapter 5

“YOU should have seen him, Jeb,” Jessie was saying as she unsaddled Blackstar. She had just returned and had been talking nonstop since her arrival, ten minutes before. “He was so proud and arrogant, so utterly Indian, if you know what I mean.”

Jeb crooked a single brow at her. “And you weren’t scared, him bein‘ a Sioux?”

“Well a little, especially when he made it known he... wanted me.”

“Did he?” Jeb said. “Well, you sure don’t look any the worse for his havin‘ you.”

“Because he didn’t,” Jessie said simply. “I refused, and he respected my wishes.”

“Is that right?”

“You don’t believe me?” she demanded. “The fact is he couldn’t very well attack me after I had fed him. They do have a very rigid sense of honor, you know. Or is it that you doubt that he wanted me at all? Some men find me attractive, Jeb Hart, even dressed like this.”

“Now, don’t get riled, gal.”

She wasn’t. “Well, anyway,” she went on, “he was gone before I got up the next morning. I even thought I might have dreamed it all.”

“You sure you didn’t?”

She gave him a withering look. “Yes, I’m sure. The grass was still matted where he’d slept, and he left this behind.” She brought out the blue feather she’d been keeping in her pocket.

“Why’d he leave that, do you think?”

Jessie shrugged. She didn’t know. “But I think I’ll keep it.” She grinned. “To remind me of a handsome man who desired me.”

Jeb grunted. “You’re gettin‘ to be a naughty gal, Jessie Blair. I never heard the like, all this talk of desire, and you just eighteen.”

“That’s because you think of me as a boy, Jeb, just like you always have. But lots of girls are married before they’re my age, so I reckon I’m long overdue to be talking about romance.”

“Well, just don’t let Rachel hear you goin‘ on,” he mumbled. “She’s worried herself sick over you this last week.”

At mention of her mother, Jessie’s whole appearance changed.

“She’s been pesterin‘ the hell out of the rest of us with her worryin’. She even sent that fellow out lookin‘ for you the night you left.”

“She did what?” Jessie stormed. “How dare she—?”

“Now hold on. He didn’t find you, did he? And the fact is, he ain’t back yet.”

Jessie let it sink in. She grinned. Then she laughed. “Really? That’s wonderful! So he got lost after all.”

Jeb watched her for a moment before he asked, “You don’t think too kindly of him, do you?”

“How would you feel if some stranger started messing in your affairs?”

“Is that what he’s done?”

“Not yet,” she said tersely. “But I heard Rachel asking him to, and I heard him agree. So if he never comes back, that suits me just fine.”


Chase came back five days later. He was bone-weary, saddle-sore, filthy, and not looking forward to telling Rachel he’d failed her. More than two hundred miserable, dusty miles just to get to that damned reservation, and for what? The agent there had never heard of Jessica Blair. Nor had the Indians who spoke English been able to tell him anything at all. He spent a day covering the area, asking questions, but he was sure no one knew anything.

Jeb was in the tack room at the front of the stable when Chase led Goldenrod in. Chase stared at him, all the weariness and anger of the last week and a half boiling to the surface. But if Jeb had learned anything in sixty years, it was how to talk his way around a mean polecat.

“Well, now, you made good time, didn’t you, young feller?” Jeb commented congenially.

“Did I?” Chase replied harshly. “Aren’t you a little surprised by it?”

“Don’t know that I am.”

“Really? Being a gambler, I think I can safely bet every cent I have that you didn’t expect me back here at all.”

Jeb grinned. “Now, wouldn’t that be easy pickin’s, but plumb ornery of me to take you up on that bet. Fact is, I figured you’d be back just about this time—and in one piece, too, it bein‘ safe enough the way you went. Ain’t had no trouble along that route in a good many years.”

“That’s beside the point,” Chase said coldly. “Going to the Shoshone reservation was a waste of time, and I figure you knew it would be.”

“Well, shoot, I could’ve told you—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask,” Jeb replied with a shrug. “It ain’t my fault you and the lady figured Jessie’s Indians were Shoshone. Mister, I was doin‘ you a favor keepin’ my mouth shut, bein‘ as how Rachel was so set on you ridin’ outta here. You wouldn’t have cared to go the way the little gal went. No white man goes that way if he’s got any sense.”

“What way? Just where the hell did she go? And don’t tell me any more nonsense about Indians!”

“I don’t see what you’re so riled about,” Jeb grumbled. “I probably saved your life, and this is the thanks I get!”

“Damn you, old man!” Chase exploded. “If you weren’t already close to your grave, I’d sure as hell put you there. Now I want some straight answers, not—”

“Leave him alone!”

Chase whirled around to face that angry voice and was stunned to see the girl who had sent him off in the wrong direction when he’d approached this ranch the first time. “You again! What are you doing here, kid?” When she didn’t answer, he asked Jeb, “Who is she?”

Jeb tried to suppress his amusement, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He knew sparks were going to fly, and there was little doubt who would get burned. It would serve the feller right, he thought.

“Why, she’s the gal you been lookin‘ for,” Jeb answered innocently.

Chase turned back to the girl, anger overcoming all sense. “Sonofabitch!” he swore furiously. “I ought to tan your hide!”

Jessie stepped back, her hand automatically going to the gun on her hip. “I wouldn’t try it, mister,” she told him in a cold, calm voice. “I wouldn’t even think about it if I were you.”

Chase eyed her warily. He hadn’t noticed the gun before, seeing only that delicate oval face, a face that for some annoying reason had come to his mind often over the past week and a half. The time he’d wasted looking for her, this girl, not Rachel’s faceless daughter but this little hoyden in boy’s clothes. Christ, he wanted to get his hands on her!

Chase continued to boil, but he managed to get his anger under the surface. “Would you really shoot me, kid?” he asked.

“You better believe she would,” Jeb volunteered from behind him.

Chase softened his expression and repeated in his most beguiling voice, “Would you, Jessica?”

Jessie didn’t know what to make of this about-face, but she wasn’t mollified. Part of her anger was a defense, for she had lied to this man and they both knew it. But most of her anger was because he had no business shouting at Jeb.

“Just stay away from me, and you won’t have to find out.”

“Then I guess I’ll keep my distance,” he conceded, leaning back against the wall. “But you will agree you and I are due for some straight talk?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I don’t owe you any talk, but what I got to say you better pay attention to. Don’t you ever badger Jeb again. He works for me, and he doesn’t have to answer your questions. He doesn’t have to give you the time of day if he doesn’t want to. You don’t work here, so you got no business interrupting his work. Is all that clear to you, mister?”

“Perfectly,” Chase replied, undaunted. “And since you’re the one with the answers, why don’t you tell me why you lied to me.”

Jessie glared at him. “Because I don’t want you here!” she snapped. “And that’s all you need to know.”

She turned on her heel and started out of the stable, but Chase stopped her with the ominous cocking of his gun and the icy warning, “Just hold it right there, shortfry.”

She was not more than a foot away from him, and she turned around to look at him in disbelief. She stared for a moment at the gun he was aiming at her, and then her expression changed to contempt. “You wouldn’t,” she stated flatly. “How would you explain shooting me to your precious Rachel?”

With that she passed on through the stable doors. Chase angrily put his gun away. Jeb’s scratchy chuckling only made him angrier. In fact, he couldn’t remember when a female had ever made him so mad, and he wasn’t going to put up with it.

He went after Jessie, catching up with her halfway between the stable and the house. Too late she heard him coming up behind her, and before she could react, he had jerked her to a stop, getting to her gun before she could and throwing it across the yard.

“We’ll talk,” Chase said brusquely.

“The hell we will!” Jessie shouted each word just a little louder than the last. Before she had finished, she was swinging a fist at him.

Chase caught her wrist and jerked it up behind her back, then went for the other one and did the same, leaving her feet kicking at him. “You were only half-right back there,” he told her sharply. “It’s not that I wouldn’t dare shoot you, kid. It’s that I wouldn’t want to. But I’m not opposed to giving you a richly deserved spanking if you don’t settle down.”

Jessie stopped all resistance instantly and relaxed against him. Chase held her like that, waiting for her to calm down a bit. As he waited, he became acutely aware of her body. Confusion set in. How old had Rachel said her daughter was? Eighteen! She was full grown, even if she didn’t act it and her clothes hid the fact. Soft, full breasts were pressed against his chest. No wonder he was beginning to respond to the closeness.