Vance took in the rangy blond, noting the tan on her face and neck that extended into the opening of her collarless cotton shirt, the wide black leather belt, the holster slung low on her lean hips, the scuffed boots. One quick survey told her this was a woman who worked on the land, but it was the intelligence in her blue eyes and the flicker of curiosity that held Vance's attention. There was something else in her gaze as well, a look of understanding that was wholly without pity. It was that more than anything else that had her extending her own hand in return. "Vance Phelps."

"Staying at the hotel?" Jessie asked.

"Might be," Vance replied. "But I've got to see about a job first.

Maybe you can tell me where I'd find Dr. Melbourne's office?"

Jessie half turned and pointed down the main street. The street itself was a double wagon-width wide, with permanent ruts carved into it from the passage of countless wheels and horses' hooves. The buildings were two-story wood structures with the exception of the bank, which was of a more recent vintage than most of the others and built of brick. Wide board sidewalks bridged the space between doorways and the street and allowed the ladies to keep their shoes and dresses dry when out walking or socializing during inclement weather.

"About three doors down on this side of the street."

"Appreciate it."

"You're a doctor?"

"Yes."

"Well, welcome to New Hope." Jessie eyed the heavy valise that Ezra dropped onto the ground next to Vance, then regarded the neatly pinned up, and empty, left sleeve. "I'm going that way, if you've got more luggage."

"Just the one." Vance hefted it in her right hand, keeping her expression carefully neutral as the muscles in her left side burned.

Ten cramped hours in the coach had tightened the scar tissue over her ribs. Jessie Forbes was a bit taller than she was and probably five years younger. Fit and strong and clear-eyed. Everything Vance no longer was. Oddly, she didn't resent the careful offer of assistance. On a day when she wasn't so weary, in so much pain, and wishing for nothing more but drink and a bed, she might have wondered why she wasn't bothered. As it was, she just nodded and turned in the direction Jessie had indicated. "Thanks again."

"Don't mention it."

Jessie went back to loading supplies, then checked her watch. She had almost an hour before she was due to collect Kate at the Beecher home. Just enough time for a little socializing of her own.

The saloon was nearly empty at five in the afternoon. Four men played cards at a back table, a bottle of whiskey in the center. A few cowboys stood drinking at the bar that ran along one side of the long, narrow room. An upright piano was pushed against the opposite wall, but the piano player was nowhere in sight. A staircase at the rear led up to a narrow balcony and a hallway beyond. The girls who populated the rooms down that hall wouldn't make an appearance until after ten that evening, when the cowboys and townsmen would be in the mood for company. One woman stood at the far end of the bar talking quietly to the bartender, and when she saw Jessie, she smiled and waved. Jessie tipped her hat and went to join her. "Hello, Mae."

"Why, hello, Montana," Mae said, using the nickname she had coined when Jessie, just eighteen, had first started coming into the saloon with her ranch hands after taking over the running of the Rising Star Ranch when her father died.

"How are you?" Jessie regarded with real pleasure the elegantly made-up blond in her signature off-the-shoulder emerald green dress, cut so low in the front as to flout propriety. Still, she carefully kept her gaze above the level of that creamy expanse of skin, looking into Mae's deep green eyes instead.

"The week after roundup?" Mae laughed sharply. "About ready to shoot half the men in this town. I can't wait till they spend their last dollar and ride on out of here for another year."

Jessie hid her grin and said seriously, "I surely hope it's none of my boys giving you any trouble."

Mae gave her an arch look, one carefully plucked brow rising.

"And I suppose you think because they take orders from you out there on that ranch that they're different than ordinary men? When they've been out on the range for a few months with nothing but their own ornery selves for company, there's only two things they're looking for when they got money in their pocket. Liquor and women."

"If any one of them causes you or your girls any trou--"

"No," Mae said, resting her soft hand on Jessie's forearm. "The Rising Star boys are usually the best in the bunch. Still, I've had my hands full all this week keeping peace down here and making sure that my girls aren't in the middle when some of these hotheads start in on whose ranch raises the finest horses, who can shoot the farthest, who's the best card player..." She shook her head. "You name it, men will argue over it."

"I can't see as there's much to argue about," Jessie said. "Everyone knows the Rising Star has the best horses and the best hands."

Mae threw back her head, her shoulder-length gold ringlets, worn fashionably free that evening, dancing over milky shoulders. "I forget sometimes you're not all that much different than those men of yours."

Her expression grew tender as she took in the handsome rancher's sky blue eyes, her sun-kissed hair caught carelessly at the back of her neck with a leather tie, her worn and trail-stained clothes. Everything about her was so much more appealing than any of the cowboys who frequented the bar or her bed. Her smoky voice grew deeper. "Just different in all the ways that count."

"Mae." Jessie laughed. "I'm about as ordinary as they come."

Mae forced lightness into her voice, reminding herself that things were different for Jessie now, and anything she might have once dreamed about her would never come to pass. Leaning close, she whispered conspiratorially, "I'd bet that's not what your young Miss Kate Beecher would say."

Blushing, Jessie hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and glanced around, grateful that no one was in earshot. "Uh...well, I--"

"Oh, Montana," Mae said, taking pity on her. "You are a wonder.

Where is she? With her folks?"

Jessie nodded. "I had to come into town for supplies, and Kate stopped by for a visit with her mother."

"But not you?"

"I think it's going to be a spell before the Beechers are real comfortable with me."

"Or with Kate living with you."

"Yes."

"Well, never you mind. They'll come around," Mae said kindly, though she doubted that Martha Beecher would ever accept what Kate and Jessie shared--what Kate refused to give up or deny. As much as she'd once mistrusted Kate's motives, Mae had to give her credit for standing up for what she wanted, and for standing by Jessie. "How is Kate after her first week out on the ranch?"

"She's fine," Jessie said with relief. "She still gets a little tired if she overdoes it, which she usually does, but she's nearly back to her old self."

"I think we were lucky that the grippe didn't take more," Mae said angrily. "Seems like life out here is hard enough with the weather, and the outlaws, and the troubles between the army and Indians. We don't need to be dying in droves from the grippe and cholera, too."

Mae's tone was bitter, and Jessie wondered who she had lost in her life. As long as they had been friends, there was far more she didn't know about Mae than what little she did.

"Hate to go through anything like that again," Jessie agreed.

"Looks like the doc is going to have some help, though."

"What do you mean?"

"A new doctor came in on the stage today. At least, I guess she's going to be working with the doc. She was headed in that direction."

"She?" Mae's eyes brightened with curiosity. "I never heard of a woman being a doctor."

"I saw something about it in the newspaper not that long ago.

There are schools back East especially for women to be doctors."

"You don't say. And now we've got us one." Mae tapped an impatient finger on Jessie's arm. "Well. What's she like?"

"I don't know. I only talked to her for a minute." Jessie recalled her encounter with Vance Phelps. She'd seen that look of quiet desperation in men's eyes before and felt a pang of sympathy. "I have a feeling you'll be meeting her soon, though."

"Me? Why?"

"Isn't this where everyone comes for comfort of one kind or another?"

"Why, Montana," Mae whispered. "How'd you ever get to be so smart."

Jessie smiled wistfully. "It doesn't come from being smart, Mae.

It comes from being lonely."

"But you're not anymore, are you?"

"No. I'm not." Jessie leaned forward and kissed Mae's cheek. "It's about time I go collect Kate."

"You tell her I said hello," Mae called as she watched Jessie walk away, her heart aching. She wanted to be happy that Jessie had found someone to love, but remained inestimably sad that she hadn't been the one to claim Jessie's heart.


CHAPTER THREE

Vance knocked on the plain wooden door marked by a small sign that said Doctor's Office in unadorned hand printing.

When no one answered, she peered through the rectangular pane of glass adjacent to the door and, in the murky interior light, could make out a desk, several chairs, and a bookcase. An unlit oil lamp stood on top of the bookcase. After she knocked again to no response, she tried the door handle and, as she expected, it opened. She entered, put her valise down just inside the door, and took a seat in the straight-backed wooden chair opposite the desk. She felt no particular sense of urgency since there was nowhere else she needed to be. She'd long since learned how to let time slip away, so that the passage of it was no longer a painful burden. Closing her eyes, her mind carefully blank, she settled in to wait.