"It ain't your fault, Red," Stuart mumbled. "It looked all legal-like, and you haven't seen your brother in years, to know any better."

"Then you'll come with us, Aunt Kathleen?" Amanda asked again.

"Oh, yes, I wouldn't miss it,"

"But what about your responsibilities here?" Marian questioned, not wanting her aunt to suffer another setback on their account.

"Lonny's capable of running the ranch for me for a few months, thanks to Chad's teaching him," Kathleen replied, then she chuckled at Chad. "No, I wasn't going to ask you to take over here again till I get back."

"I can even pay for the trip," Amanda added, bringing all eyes back to her. "Well, don't look so surprised. I will be getting my inheritance back."

"I thought you lost all your travel money in a train robbery on the way here," Stuart remarked, then chuckled. "Stage lines don't sell tickets on promises, they want cash up front."

"I know that," Amanda huffed. "I got all my money back when that Leroy fellow brought those train robbers in. They hadn't spent any of their loot yet. They'd just been lying low, as the sheriff put it, and Leroy brought the money in with the robbers rather than keeping it for himself."

"Leroy might be a mean old cuss, but he's honest," Stuart put in.

"He got a nice little reward for his efforts, and I got my money returned to me," Amanda continued. "All because of one of my sister's silly paintings—well, this one wasn't so silly, actually."

Every eye turned toward Marian, which accounted for the bright color rushing up her cheeks. "It was Aunt Kathleen's idea," she explained.

"And a good one." Kathleen nodded with a grin. "But then Marian has an amazing talent for painting, and just from memory. Absolutely remarkable."

The blush got worse, especially when Chad said, "Anything on hand we can see?"

"No," Marian mumbled, causing him to frown.

But Amanda had lost her audience and wanted it back. "So it's settled then?" she said to Kathleen. "You'll accompany us so I don't need my husband along?"

Kathleen coughed over the slur intended for Spencer, but she replied, "Yes, I'll start packing tonight. We can head back to town in the morning with you."

Apparently, Spencer wasn't going to ignore the slur, and decided to be ornery in pointing out, "I believe you need my permission before you go anywhere, wife."

"Like hell—!" Amanda started to snarl.

"Now, now," Stuart cut in to prevent the rant. "There are still some things about this whole mess that bother me, with everything that's been mentioned."

"Like what?" Kathleen asked.

"This whole scheme was a really bold thing for a lawyer to do."

"Or desperate," Chad suggested.

"That's what I was thinking," Stuart said. "Makes me wonder if Bridges wasn't the anonymous buyer their pa kept running into. If he was, and he'd have the information firsthand, of which properties their pa was after, Bridges could have ended up going broke in his scheme to get rich quick. So I have to ask, was your pa's death merely convenient for him? How did he die?"

He was looking at Marian for an answer, and she was afraid she knew what he was getting at. "He fell off a train on his way home."

"Fell? Or maybe he was pushed ..."

With Amanda blanching upon hearing that speculation, Spencer lost his indifference, and said quickly, "All right, we'll leave tomorrow, Mandy."

"Now hold on," Stuart said, having gained the response he'd prodded for. "The stage doesn't leave for another two days, unless you plan to ride your carriage out of town, so you all might as well travel with me. I keep a private train car in Kansas for my trips north. Unless you think going by ship would be quicker."

"Sea travel doesn't agree with me," Spencer replied. "As I found to my misery when my pa sent me back East. So we'll be glad to take you up on that offer." That quickly it was decided they'd all be traveling to Haverhill together. Well, Stuart would probably go no farther than Chicago. And Chad wasn't going at all. He had no reason to, no reason at all.

Marian was already feeling his absence.

Chapter 48

IT WAS BARELY DAYLIGHT when they rode out the next morning. The luggage would follow in the wagon. The sisters and their maid rode with Spencer in his carriage. Kathleen elected to ride her horse alongside it, even though the carriage did have room for her.

Marian was a bit melancholy at leaving the Twisting Barb. She wasn't sure if she'd ever see it again. Her aunt was still her guardian. She hoped to return with her after they recovered her inheritance—if 'they could recover it. But she was going back East, back to Haverhill to be exact, and who knew what might happen, now that she no longer was hiding herself behind fake spectacles nor making any attempts to push men away with contrived insults.

Stuart offered them his house in town while they awaited the stagecoach, though he didn't join them there. He rode back to his ranch that morning to do his own packing, and Chad rode with him. It would be months, if ever, before she saw Chad again. And he hadn't even said good-bye.

He spoke to Kathleen. He even spoke to Spencer, whom he didn't like. Although she was standing there in the stable watching the luggage being piled in the wagon as he saddled up his horse, he didn't say one word to her, didn't even glance her way.

That infuriated her. It was as if he couldn't bear to look at her, now that she looked just like Amanda. No doubt, it was too much of a reminder of what he'd lost. And she couldn't deny that she'd expected him to show at least some interest in her, if only just to test the waters, so to speak. She'd been waiting for an opportunity to brush him off with a "no thanks, you had your chance and picked the wrong sister."

Which was being unfair. Deep down she knew that. After all, she'd tried to make herself as ugly as she could. So of course he'd pick Amanda over her. That had been the whole point of her disguise. But even after Amanda had shown him her worst side he'd still picked Amanda. That was what Marian couldn't forget or forgive, that men, Chad included, could be so blinded by a pretty face to the exclusion of all else.

But he wasn't going to give her a chance to rail at him for all that, to get the hurt out of the way so maybe, just maybe, she could stop experiencing so much regret. Another thing that infuriated her was that regret. She shouldn't be having any if she didn't want him anymore, should be relieved that she'd escaped from her brush with temptation unscathed.

The seamstress in Trenton worked all day and night to complete the two dresses Marian had ordered before she'd left town. Not that she'd find much use for them during the trip, when sturdier clothes were needed to deal with the sweat and dust associated with crossing the country. She wasn't looking forward to more bumpy coach rides, but her one train ride had been rather exciting and offered interesting views, so she was looking forward to more of those.

Chad showed up with Stuart the morning they were to depart, probably just to see his father off. But his presence, when she thought she wouldn't see him again, so flustered her, she found herself being as clumsy as she used to pretend being. She dropped the small bag with her few changes of traveling clothes in it, then tripped over it. When she recovered from that, she turned around and bumped into the fellow who was loading the larger trunks on top of the stagecoach, causing him to lose his hold on one. It fell to the ground, popped open, and spilled half its contents.

The trunk happened to be one of hers, and she gasped as she saw her rolled-up canvases rolling out into the middle of the street. She immediately ran after them, and almost got run down by a cowboy who was racing down the street.

It was Chad who yanked her back, with a snarled, "Maybe you shouldn't have gotten rid of the spectacles."

She would have been blushing if she didn't have to stand tJiere and watch him pick up her canvases. She was holding her breath instead, and praying the tied strings holding the paintings rolled up wouldn't break. And heaven forbid he should ask what they were ...

He asked, "What are these?"

She reached for them without answering and stuffed them back in her trunk. The fellow who had dropped the trunk was apologizing, so she spent a moment assuring him that no harm had been done, then gathered up the rest of the scattered contents. Chad tried to help. She slapped his hands away, then glared at him when he persisted. He finally chuckled and sauntered back to his horse.

She started to breathe normally again—until Chad returned with a bag of his own that he tossed up to the man arranging the luggage on top of the coach. Marian stared, openmouthed at the conclusion she was forced to draw.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Now that Red doesn't need me at the ranch anymore, it's back to business as usual for me," he told her.

"Are you saying going to Chicago with your father is normal for you?"

"Sure is."

"Oh."

She tried to keep the disappointment out of her tone, but she heard it anyway. He didn't. He sauntered off again to help unload the rest of their luggage from the wagon to the coach. And she castigated herself for thinking, even for a moment, that he wanted to come along to help, or, even more unlikely, that he couldn't bear to be parted from her... .

How vain could she get? If he couldn't bear to be parted from anyone, it was Amanda.