"Colt argue? Since when?"

"Since forever, or so I thought. Are you saying that isn't usual?"

"It sure isn't. There aren't many folks who'd care to argue with him, if you know what I mean. When I do, he just sits back quietly until I run out of steam, then says something to make me laugh."

Jocelyn shook her head, bemused. "I can't believe we're talking about the same man."

"Neither can I, Duchess."

"Would you mind calling me Jocelyn?"

"What, is Duchess just a nickname Colt calls you?"

"You could say that," Jocelyn hedged, not wanting to explain when she had something more important to find out. "I've often wondered what could account for the bitterness IVe sensed in Colt so often. Perhaps you could shed some light on this."

"Are you kidding? It's kind of obvious, isn't it? Folks won't accept him as he is."

"But you said he was happy here, content even."

"That's here on the ranch. He's well known and liked in Cheyenne too, but every once in a while he still draws trouble there from strangers. It'll be a hell-uva long time, maybe not even in his lifetime, before folks can look at him and not see an Indian, one they feel naturally obliged to hate."

"But that's his own fault with the way he dresses to flaunt his heritage!" Jocelyn protested, her temper pricked by the unfairness of it all. "Doesn't he realize how little he actually resembles an Indian? If he cut his hair—"

"He tried that," Jessie interrupted sharply, some of her own bitterness showing through. "Do you want to know what it got him, looking like a white? It got one of my neighbors so riled when he found out the truth that he set his men on Colt, had him tied to a hitching rail, and ordered him whipped to death."

"Oh, God," Jocelyn whispered, closing her eyes as if she were in pain.


"There wasn't much skin left to stitch together," Jessie went on relentlessly as the memories came back to her. "There wasn't much flesh left either, after more than a hundred lashes. But do you know, he was still standing when we got there to put a stop to it. And they hadn't worked even one scream out of him either, though they tried hard enough, the bastards. Of course, we thought we'd lose him when he ran a fever for nearly three weeks. And it was a good eight months before he really got all his strength back.

But what they did to him is not a pretty sight."

"I know," Jpcelyn said in a small voice.

"You know? How'd that happen? He never lets anyone see his back."

"I'm afraid I came upon him by surprise."

"Oh," Jessie said, ashamed of what she'd started thinking. "You must have been — shocked."

"That doesn't half describe what I felt. I was very nearly sick."

"His back's not that disgusting," Jessie protested.

Jocelyn blinked. "Of course it isn't. I was sickened that someone could do that to him. I couldn't under-stand it then, and I still don't. That neighbor of yours had to have been a madman. That is the only thing that could explain such a heinous act of violence."

"Oh, he was sane enough. And he even felt he was justified. Colt was courting his lily-white daughter, you see, and he'd let him. That was all the reason he needed to do what he did, because Colt had dared to want his slut of a daughter. And do you know, she stood there and watched it all without saying a word." Then Jessie frowned, seeing Jocelyn's expression. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you all that. I just get so furious every time I remember it."

"Yes, I understand."

But Jocelyn understood even more than that. She now knew why Colt disliked white women so much, and she felt utterly defeated.

* * *

"What was all that 'your gracing' about?" Jessie asked her husband as they stood watching Jocelyn ride away with the six-man escort that had come for her.

"I think the duchess is actually a real duchess."

"Well, if that don't beat all." Jessie grinned. "My brother doesn't aspire too high, does he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chase frowned at her.

"Don't tell me you didn't notice the way he kept looking at her last night. I expected to see smoke rise up from the sofa she was sitting on."

"Christ, Jessie, you're not thinking of matchmak-ing, are you? She's an English noblewoman."


Her eyes narrowed on him. "Are you saying my brother isn't good enough?"

"Of course not," he said in exasperation. "All I'm saying is nobility marries nobility."

"She's already done that," Jessie snorted. "Seems to me she could marry whoever she wants to now."

"And you think she wants to marry Colt?"

A smug smile curled her lips. "I saw the way she was looking at him, too, last night. And you should have heard her talk about him this morning. I won't have to do any matchmaking, honey. Whatever's between them two is already there."

"You sound mighty pleased about that."

"I am. She's nice, but more than that, I think she can heal the scars on his soul."

"Scars on his soul? Christ, woman, where do you come up with such idioms?"

"Are you making fun of me, Chase Summers?"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Her eyes sharpened on his innocent expression before she humphed. "Good, because if you do, I'll just have to divorce myself from your presence."

"You'll what?" he shouted after her, only to hear her laughter as she disappeared inside the house.

Chapter Forty-five

“You know, Chase, time's a-wasting. Winter will be gone before you know it, and then they'll have missed the opportunity to laze the cold days away, snuggled up in front of a fire like this."

"Who will?" he asked, as if he didn't know. His wife had been able to talk of little else lately.

"Colt and his duchess. I really ought to do something about it."

"I thought you agreed they could find their own way."

"Well, I didn't know they were both going to be so pigheaded stubborn about it. She's been over at the Callan spread for three weeks now. She's got the place all fixed up. Furnishings have been coming in every day from the East. She's even got a new stable built."

"And you haven't told her yet whose place she bought?"

"She'd already spent so much money on it before I found out, I didn't have the heart to tell her. But I suppose that could be one reason why Colt won't go over there."


"Honey, if she was interested, don't you think she would have come up with an excuse or two to visit us here, where she might run into him? That she hasn't ought to tell you something."

"Only that she's stubborn — and maybe needs a lit-tle encouragement. He didn't even tell her good-bye, you know. The last she saw of him was that night he brought her here. And she was still under the impres-sion then that he was glad to be rid of her."

"Maybe he is.."

Jessie snorted: "If you ask me, he's laboring under the same impression."

"Laboring? I see you've been to visit the duchess again."

Jessie grinned to herself, running her fingernails down his bare chest under the fur cover. She didn't always take the bait when he teased her.

"You're just looking to get something pinched, aren't you?"

Since he knew she wasn't mad — the difference was easy to discern after all these years — he pulled her half on top of him and suggested lazily, "If you'll kiss it to make it better afterward, you can pinch me anywhere you like."

"I figured you wouldn't mind too much." But when her hand drifted down between his legs, he went tense, making her giggle. "What's the matter, honey? Don't you trust your sweet wife?"

"Sweet, hell," he grumbled at her own teasing. "Sometimes I think you're still as wild and untamed as you were the day I met you."

Her head turned slightly so she could twirl her tongue around his nipple. Soft turquoise eyes peeked up at him for his reaction.

"Would you want me any other way?"

"Hell, no."

* * *

Later that afternoon, Jessie rode up into the hills to Colt's cabin. It still made her smile each time she passed the spot where she and Chase had first made love, there in the lower hills overlooking the valley.

That first time had been wonderful, even though it had ended badly. He'd thought he wasn't ready for marriage yet and settling down. He'd found out dif-ferently. He had even brought her back up here after they returned to Wyoming, to do it right this time, he said. Did they ever do it right.

The years had been good to them, exceedingly so. She might still be gruff with him at times — old habits died hard, and she'd always been quick to show her temper — but she knew the man loved her as much as she loved him, which was one hell of a lot.

Colt's cabin was higher up in the mountains near the creek where she used to swim as a girl, with a view of not only the valley but the plains beyond. Even with a few inches of snow covering the slopes this high up, she still found him outside wearing only a pair of old buckskin breeches as he chopped wood. He had a small mountain of wood piling up behind him. He swung that ax with a vengeance too. As chilly as the air was, sweat sheened on his chest and back.

She decided not to comment on his method for working off steam, which she had little doubt was the reason for such exertion. "Any coffee left on the stove?"

He didn't look up as he nodded, having known who his visitor was long before she came into sight of his little clearing. "Help yourself."

She did, taking note that his cabin was a mess and about a dozen bottles of whiskey filled a box in the comer, all empty. She came back out to stand in the doorway, cup in hand. He still didn't stop his chop-ping.