New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer returns to Wyoming with a new romance featuring one of the ruggedly handsome Kirk brothers.

Ranch owner Cane Kirk lost more than his arm in the war. He lost his way, battling his inner demons by challenging any cowboy unfortunate enough to get in his way. No one seems to be able to cool him down, except beautiful Bodie Mays. Bodie doesn’t mind saving Cane from himself, even if he is a little too tempting for her own peace of mind.

But soon Bodie’s the one who finds herself in need of rescuing—only, she’s afraid to tell Cane what’s really going on. How can she trust someone as unpredictable as this fierce cowboy? When her silence only ends up getting her into even deeper hot water, it’s up to Cane to save the day. And if he does it right, he won’t be riding off into the sunset alone.

Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

“Nobody does it better.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly…heartwarming.”

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

Wyoming Fierce

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

I wanted to do Cane Kirk’s story from the minute I found him lurking in my brain. He was a man with serious issues. But then, a man without a single flaw would be boring.

The story developed on the computer screen in front of my eyes. I had a basic plot, but the characters themselves wrote this book. I have to admit that the part about the rooster isn’t exactly made up. I had one of those problem roosters myself not too long ago.

One day I looked out my front door and saw a red rooster and two white hens grazing on my lawn. I live in town, so this was rather a surprise. I thought they’d go home and that would be the end of it. The next day they were back. I tried putting them out the gate and closing it. They just came back in the minute I opened it. So the hens moved out back and laid me two nice eggs every day, and the rooster went back to wherever he came from. Except that he started reappearing atop my seven-foot-tall solid wood fence every morning at daylight like clockwork.

I chased him out of the yard daily. But he started to fight back. He had spurs and he could fly. I got spurred twice before I figured out how to protect myself. I learned to carry a garbage can lid out with me to keep him at bay. So I was running him all over the yard (I can’t exactly run—I was sort of hobbling him all over the yard), and it was upper eighties in temperature. We hobbled, then we wobbled, then he was walking and panting and I was walking and panting, but I couldn’t get closer than seven feet away from him. I never could outhobble or outwalk him. But there are sites on the web that can teach you the way of the rooster and how to catch one. No, it’s not what you think. I like chicken soup, but I’m not eating such a valiant feathered opponent. He retired with his laurels to a more suitable location.

Anyway, I feel for poor Cort Brannt at the end of this book. When you get to it, you’ll know why.

As always, thank you so much for your kindness and your loyalty over the long years.

Your biggest fan,

Diana Palmer

To Cinzia (no ice cream trucks!) and Vonda and Cath, and all my DP Girls!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

BOLINDA MAYS WAS HAVING a hard time concentrating on her biology textbook. She hadn’t slept well, worrying about her grandfather. He was only in his early sixties, but he was disabled and having difficulties paying his utility bills.

She’d come home for the weekend from her college in Montana. The trip was expensive, considering the gas it took to get her back and forth in her beat-up but serviceable old truck. Thank God she had a part-time job working for a convenience store while college was in session, or she’d never have even been able to afford to come home and see about her grandfather.

It was early December. Not too long before Christmas, and she was having final exams the next week. Really cold weather would come soon. But Bolinda’s stepfather was making threats again, about turning her grandfather out of the house that had once been Bolinda’s mother’s. Her death had left the old man at the mercy of that fortune-hunting fool who had his fingers in every evil pie in Catelow, Wyoming. Bolinda shivered, thinking how impossible it was going to be for her, trying to pay off her used textbooks that she’d charged on her credit card. Now she was going to have to try to pay for her grandfather’s utility bill, as well. Gas was so expensive, she thought miserably. The poor old man already had to choose between groceries and blood pressure meds. She’d thought about asking her neighbors, the Kirks, for help. But the only one of them she knew well was Cane, and he resented her. A lot. It would be dicey asking him for money. If she even dared.

Not that he didn’t owe her something for all the times she’d saved people from him in the little town of Catelow, Wyoming, not too far from Jackson Hole. Cane had lost an arm overseas in the Middle East, after the last big conflict but while he was still in the service. He’d come home embittered and icy cold, hating everyone. He’d started drinking, refused physical therapy, refused counseling and then gone hog wild.

Every couple of weeks, he treed the local bar. The other Kirk brothers, Mallory and Dalton, always paid the bills and they knew the owner of the tavern, who was kind enough not to have Cane arrested. But the only person who could do anything with Cane was Bolinda, or Bodie as her friends called her. Even Morie, Mallory Kirk’s new wife, couldn’t deal with a drunken Cane. He was intimidating.

Not so much to Bolinda. She understood him, as few other people did. Amazing, considering that she was only twenty-two and he was thirty-four. That was one big age difference. It never seemed to matter. Cane talked to her as if she were his age, often about things that she had no business knowing. He seemed to consider her one of the guys.

She didn’t look like a guy. She wasn’t largely endowed in the bra department, of course. Her breasts were small and pert, but nothing like the women in those guy magazines. She knew that, because Cane had dated a centerfold model once and told Bodie all about her. Another embarrassing conversation when he was drunk that he probably didn’t even remember.

She shook her head and tried again to concentrate on her biology textbook. She sighed, running a hand through her short, wavy black hair. Her odd, pale brown eyes were riveted to the drawings of internal human anatomy, but she just couldn’t seem to make her brain work. There was going to be a final next week, along with an oral lab, and she didn’t want to be the student trying to hide under the table when the professor started asking questions.

She shifted on the carpeted floor, on her stomach, and tried again to concentrate. Music started playing. Strange. That sounded like the musical ring of her cell phone, the theme from the Star Trek movie…

“Hey, Bodie, it’s for you!” her grandfather called from the next room, where she’d left her cell phone in her coat pocket.

She muttered something and got to her feet. “Who is it, Granddaddy?”

“I don’t know, sugar.” He handed Bodie’s cell phone to her.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “Hello?” she said into the phone.

“Uh, Miss Mays?” came a hesitant voice over the line.

She recognized who was calling immediately. She ground her teeth together. “I won’t come!” she said. “I’m studying for a biology test. I’ve got a lab, to boot…!”

“Aw, please?” the voice came again. “They’re threatening to call the police. I think they’ll do it this time. The newspapers would have a field day…”

There was a pregnant pause. Her lips made a thin line. “Oh, damn!” she muttered.

“Darby says he’ll come get you. In fact,” the cowboy added hopefully, “he’s sitting right outside your house right now.”

Bodie stomped to the window and looked out the blinds. There was a big black Kirk ranch truck parked in the driveway, with the lights on and the engine running.

“Please?” the cowboy asked again.

“All right.” She hung up in the middle of his “Thank you!”

She grabbed her jacket and her purse and slipped into her boots. “I have to go out for an hour. I won’t be too long,” she told her grandfather.

Rafe Mays, used to the drill, pursed his lips. “You should get combat pay,” he pointed out.

Bodie rolled her eyes and walked out the door. “I hope I won’t be long,” she said before she pulled it shut.

* * *

SHE GOT INTO THE TRUCK. Darby Hanes, the Kirks’ longtime foreman, gave her a wistful smile.

“I know. I’m sorry. But you’re the only person who can do anything with him. He’s tearing up the bar. They’re getting tired of the weekly routine.” He pulled out into the road, after making sure she had her seat belt on. “He had a date last night up in Jackson Hole. Ended badly, I’m guessing, from all the cussing he did when he got home.”

She didn’t reply. She hated knowing about Cane Kirk’s girlfriends. He seemed to have a lot of them, even with his disability. Not that it made any difference to her. Cane would still be Cane no matter what. She loved him. She’d loved him since she graduated from high school, when he presented her with a bouquet of pink roses, her favorite, and a bottle of very expensive floral perfume. He’d even kissed her. On the cheek, of course, like a treasured child more than like an adult. Her grandfather had worked for the Rancho Real until his health failed and he had to quit. That had been while Cane was still in the military, after the second Gulf War, before the terrible roadside bomb had robbed him of most of his left arm, and almost of his life.

She supposed Cane was fond of her. It wasn’t until last year that everyone had discovered her almost magical ability to calm him when he went on drinking sprees. Since then, when he went on benders, Bodie was recruited to fetch him home. There had been a brief period of time when he’d gone to therapy, been measured for a prosthesis and seemed to be adjusting nicely to his new life.

And then it had all gone south, for reasons nobody knew. His bar crawls had become legendary. The expense was terrible, because his brothers, Mallory and Dalton, had to pick up the expense. Cane got a monthly check from the army, but nobody could entice him to apply for disability. He went to show cattle, with a cowboy who handled the big bulls for him, and he was the idea man for the Kirk ranch. He was good at PR, worked to liaison with the national cattlemen’s lobby, kept up with current legislation that affected the cattle industry and generally was the spokesman for the Kirk ranch.

When he was sober.

Lately he wasn’t. Not a lot.

“Any idea what happened?” Bodie asked curiously, because Darby would know. He knew everything that went on around the Rancho Real, or “royal ranch” in Spanish, named by the original owner, a titled gentleman from Valladolid, northwest of Madrid, Spain, who started it way back in the late 1800s.

Darby glanced at her and grimaced. It was dark and very cold, even with the heater running and the old but serviceable coat Bodie was wearing.

“I have an idea,” he confessed. “But if Cane ever found out I told you, I’d be standing in the unemployment line.”

She sighed and fiddled with the fanny pack she wore in lieu of carrying around a cumbersome purse. “She must have said something about his arm.”

He nodded faintly. “That would be my guess. He’s really sensitive about it. Funny,” he added solemnly, “I thought he was getting better.”

“If he’d get back in therapy, mental and physical, he’d improve,” she replied.

“Sure, but he won’t even talk about it. He’s sinking into himself,” he added quietly.

“There goes that theoretical physics mind working overtime again,” she teased, because most people didn’t know about Darby’s degree in that field.

He shrugged. “Hey, I just manage cattle.”

“I’ll bet you sit around in your room at night imagining the route to a new and powerful unified field theory.” She chuckled.

“Only on Thursdays,” he said, laughing out loud. “At least my chosen field of study doesn’t leave me covered in mud and using shovels and trowels in holes around the country.”

“Don’t knock anthropology,” she said firmly. “We’ll find the missing link one day, and you can say you knew me before I was famous, like that guy in Egypt who’s always in documentaries about pharaohs’ tombs.” She lifted her rounded chin. “Nothing wrong with honest work.”

He made a face. “Digging up bones.”

“Bones can tell you a lot,” she replied.

“So they say. Here it is,” he added, nodding toward the little out-of-the-way bar that Cane frequented. Out front was a stop sign that local drunks often used for target practice when they went driving around in four-wheel-drive vehicles late at night. Now it said “S....p.” The two middle letters were no longer recognizable.

“They need to replace that,” she pointed out.

“What for? Everybody knows it means stop,” he said. “Why waste good metal and paint? They’d just shoot it up again. Not much in the way of entertainment this far out in the country.”

“Got a point, I guess.” She sighed.

He parked in front of the bar. There were only two vehicles out there. Probably those of employees. Everybody with any sense would have left when Cane started cursing and throwing things. At least, that was the pattern.

“I’ll keep the engine running. In case somebody called the sheriff this time,” he mused.

“Cane and the sheriff are best friends,” she reminded him.

“That won’t stop Cody Banks from locking him up if someone files a complaint for assault and battery,” he stated. “The law is the law, friendship notwithstanding.”

“I guess. Maybe it would knock some sense into him.”

He shook his head. “That’s been tried. Mallory even let him stew in a cell for two days. Finally bailed him out, and he went back and did it again that same weekend. Our black sheep there is out of control.”

“I’ll see what I can do to rein him in,” she promised.

She got out of the truck, ran a hand through her short black hair and grimaced. Her brown eyes were somber as she hesitated on the porch for just a minute, and then, finally, opened the door.

The mess was bad. Tables knocked over. Chairs everywhere. One was upside down behind the bar in a pile of glass, and the place smelled like whiskey. This was going to be an expensive mess, too.

“Cane?” she called.

A thin man in a Hawaiian shirt peered over the bar. “Bodie? Thank God!”

“Where is he?” she asked.

He pointed to the bathroom.

She went toward it. She was almost there when it slammed open and Cane walked out. His long-sleeved beige Western shirt with the fancy embroidery was stained with blood. Probably his own, she thought, noting the caked blood around his nose, which was bruised, and his square jaw. His sensual mouth had a cut just at the corner, where blood was also visible. His thick, short, slightly wavy black hair was mussed. His black eyes were bloodshot. Even in that condition, he was so attractive that he made her heart pound. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with long powerful legs encased in tight jeans; his big feet in boots that still had the mirror polish on them despite his exploits. He was thirty-four to her twenty-two, but right now, he seemed much younger.

He glared at her. “Why do they always bring you?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “My unusual ability to subdue charging tigers?” she suggested.

He blinked. Then he chuckled.

She went forward and took one of his big hands in hers. The knuckles were bruised and swollen and smeared with blood. She couldn’t tell if it was his or somebody else’s. “Mallory’s going to be mad.”

“Mallory isn’t home,” he said in a loud whisper. He even grinned. “He and Morie went to Louisiana to see a bull. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Tank won’t be happy, either,” she added, using the nickname that family used for Dalton, the youngest brother.

He shrugged. “Tank will be knee-deep in those old Tom Mix silent cowboy movies he likes. It’s Saturday night. He makes popcorn, takes the phone off the hook, locks himself in and saturates himself with black-and-white cinema.”

“That’s what you should be doing, instead of wrecking bars!” she muttered.

He sighed. “A man’s got to have some recreation, kid,” he said defensively.

“Not this sort,” she said firmly. “Come on. Poor Sid will have to clean up this mess.”

Sid came around the bar. He was huge, and dangerous-looking, but he kept a few steps away from Cane. “Why can’t you do this at home, Cane?” he groaned, looking around.

“Because we’ve got delicate objets d’art in glass cabinets,” Cane replied reasonably. “Mallory would kill me.”

Sid glared at him. “When Mr. Holsten sees the bill for replacing all this—” he waved his hand “—you may be getting a visit…”

Cane pulled out his wallet and pressed a wad of hundreds into the bartender’s hand. “If that’s not enough, you let me know.”

Sid grimaced. “It will be enough, but it’s the principle of the thing! Why can’t you go up to Jackson Hole and wreck bars?”

Cane blinked. “It would take too long to get Bodie up there. I’d be arrested.”

“You should be!”

Cane’s black eyes narrowed and he took a step forward.

Sid backed up.

“Oh, come on,” Bodie grumbled. She tugged on Cane’s hand. “I’m going to fail biology because of you. I was studying for exams!”

“Biology? You’re majoring in anthropology,” he argued.

“Yes, but I still have to pass the minimum required courses of study, and that’s one of them! I couldn’t put it off any longer so I had to take it this semester!”

“Oh.”

“See you, Sid. Hope not soon,” she added with a laugh.

He managed a smile. “Thanks, Bodie. Especially for…” He gestured toward Cane. “You know.”

“Oh, yes, I do know.” She nodded.

She pulled Cane out the door and onto the porch. “Where’s your coat?” she asked.

He blinked as the cold air hit him. “In the truck, I think. I don’t need it. ’S’not cold,” he said, his voice beginning to slur.

“It’s below freezing out here!”

He gave her a woozy look and grinned. “I’m hot-blooded.”

She averted her eyes. “Come on. Darby’s waiting. I’ll drive your truck out to the ranch. Where’s the key?”

“Right front pocket.”

She glared at him. “Going to get it for me?”

“No.”

Her bow lips made a thin line. “Cane!”

“Go fish,” he teased.

She glanced around him at Darby.

“No,” he said, putting his hand over his pocket. “Not giving it to him.”

“Cane!”

“Not!” he repeated.

“Oh, all right!”

She pushed his hand aside and dug into his pocket for the keys, hating the deep, sensual sound that came out of his throat as her fingers closed around them. She was flushing and hoped he couldn’t see. The contact was almost intimate, especially when he suddenly stepped closer so that her small, pert breasts flattened against his broad chest.

“Nice,” he whispered, his lips brushing the thick waves of her short hair. “Smells pretty. Feels good, too,” he added, his one good hand pushing her chest against his so that he could feel the sudden hardening of her nipples.

She gasped.

“Yes, you like that, don’t you?” he whispered. “I wish my shirt was off, and I could feel your bare breasts against my chest....”

She grasped the keys and jerked away from him, her face blazing. “You shut up!” she said under her breath.

He made a face. “’How dare you!’” he mimicked in a high-pitched tone. “How Victorian you sound.” He laughed shortly. “I know all about you college girls. You all sleep around and you want taxpayers to make sure you get birth control so you can do it.”

She didn’t reply. Lots of people thought the same thing. She wasn’t getting into another fight with him, which was what he wanted. He was goading her. Odd, he’d never done it in such a sensual way before. It was affecting her, and she didn’t like it.

“Go on, get in,” she muttered, almost forcing him into the truck beside Darby.

“And fasten your seat belt!” she added.

He gave her another woozy smile. “No. You do it.”

She let out a cuss word and then flushed and apologized.

“No need to say sorry for that,” Darby muttered, glaring at Cane. “I feel the same way.”

Cane glared at him. “Not riding with you!”

He got out of the truck in spite of Bodie’s protests, and when Darby got out to try to force him in, he raised a fist and got into a fighting stance. It reminded both of them that he had a black belt in an Asian martial art discipline.

“Oh, all right, you can ride in your own truck and I’ll drive!” Bodie raged.

He grinned, having gotten his way. He went like a lamb to his own truck, waited for Bodie to flick the remote and let him in. He even fastened his seat belt.

She started the truck, waving Darby to go ahead.

“You’re more trouble than cattle!” she told Cane.

He smiled at her. “You think so? Why don’t you slide over here next to me?” he added with a raised eyebrow. “We can discuss cattle.”

“I’m driving.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Okay, I’ll slide over next to you…” He started to unfasten his seat belt.

“You do that and I’m calling Cody Banks!” she told him, digging out her prepaid cell phone and showing it to him. “You wear a seat belt when the truck is in motion. It’s the law!”

“The law.” He scoffed.

“Yes, well, you unfasten that belt and I’m calling him, just the same.”

He made a face but he stopped fiddling with the belt. He stared at her, his face hard, his black eyes snapping. Actually she only had about five minutes of phone time left on the device, and she didn’t want to waste it calling the sheriff when she might need it for emergencies. Cane could afford a high-tech cell phone and a plan to go with it. Bodie was lucky to have even a cheap one.

“What happened this time?” she asked, not sure she really wanted an answer. But at least it would keep him talking.

His jaw tautened.

“Come on,” she coaxed. “You can tell me. You know I won’t repeat it.”

“Most of what I tell you, you wouldn’t dare repeat,” he muttered, averting his eyes.

“Yes.”

She waited, not pushing, not prodding, not even coaxing.

He seemed to sober a little. “I had on the damned prosthesis. Looks real, right? At least, until you get close up.” He looked out the window at the passing dark silhouettes of bare trees and pasture. “I took her up to my room. It’s been a long time. I was hungry.” Fortunately for Bodie, he couldn’t see the brief anguish that skirted across her face. “I started to take off my shirt and when she saw the straps that held the prosthesis in place, she stopped me dead. She said it was nothing personal, she just couldn’t do it with a man who was crippled like that. She had to have a whole man.”

“Oh, Cane,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. Yes. She was sorry, too. I took off the damned prosthesis and threw it at the wall. Then I flew home.” He laid his head back against the headrest. “I couldn’t think about anything else. The look on her face, when she saw that thing…haunted me all day. By sundown, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get that memory out of my mind. Had to!”

She bit her lower lip. What could she say? Of all the things to happen. She hated knowing that he had women. That wasn’t even her business. But for a woman to treat him that way, after all he’d been through, as if he was less than a man because he lost part of his arm fighting in a conflict sanctioned by his country. It was unthinkable.

“I can’t live like this!” he burst out. “I can’t go through the rest of my life being half a man, being pitied…!”

She stopped the truck. “You stop that!” she said harshly. “You’re not half a man! You’re a hero! You ran right over the damned IED, knowing it would blow up, to save the medics in the jeep behind you! You knew your vehicle had better armor, you knew the bomb would explode when the column went past. You made a sacrifice, saved God knows how many lives by saving those medics. And some stupid woman makes a remark out of ignorance, and you throw away that heroism, that act of gutsy courage, like a used tissue. Well, I won’t let you do it! I won’t!”

He gaped at her through a drunken haze. He shook his head.

She started the truck going forward again. Her face felt hot.

“How do you know that, about me?”

“Tank told me,” she said gently. “The last time I had to go get you from a bar. He said it was tragic, not only what happened to you, but that you wanted to forget something that won you a silver star.”

“Oh.”

She drew in a long breath. “Why do you date women like that in the first place?”

“Most of the women around here are married or ugly.”

She glared at him. “Thanks, from the ugly brigade, I mean.”

“I didn’t mean you,” he said easily. He pursed his lips and studied her. “You’re not ugly, but your breasts are too small.”

The truck almost ran off the road. “Cane!” she exclaimed.

“Don’t worry about it, a lot of men like small breasts. I just like nice big ones. And a soft, sweet belly to sink against when I get inside all that delicate, wet…”

“Cane!” she exclaimed again, flushing.

“Oh, come on, you know about that,” he said, leaning his head back. “Nothing so cushy as a woman lifting to you on cool sheets, feeling you thrust into her, swelling and swelling until you burst and she cries out with the pleasure.”

“I get sex education in school!”

“Well, you get the basics, but they don’t tell you how good it feels, do they? Or that men come in different sizes and shapes. I’m well-endowed myself. Not too big, but I can…”

“Will you please stop?” she raged.

He glanced at her. “Getting aroused, are we?” He chuckled in a deep, soft, sensual tone. “You’re not really my type, kid, and you’re too young, but I could make you get off like a machine gun firing.”

She swallowed, stepping on the gas.

“But I don’t think your grandfather would ever forgive me. That’s probably why you go to college out of state, so he won’t know what you’re up to. How many lovers have you had?”

“Can’t we talk about the weather?” she asked, trying not to sound desperate. She was aroused, unbelievably aroused. He wouldn’t know it, but she was still a virgin. Despite that, the imagery was giving her real problems.

He stretched and grimaced. “Sure. It’s cold.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you like the man to get on top, or do you like to get on top? I can go deeper that way,” he said as easily as if he was discussing the weather.

She groaned.

“Real deep, in fact,” he murmured, getting drowsy. “I remember this one woman, she was small and I was afraid I’d hurt her. But she got on top and pumped me like a shotgun, screaming the whole time. We went all night long.” He grinned. “She liked to try new positions. So one time…”

“I don’t want to hear about your sexual acrobatics, Cane!” Her voice was high-pitched and desperate.

He rolled his head against the headrest so that he could see her face. “Jealous?”

“I am not jealous!”

He smiled. But the smile faded. “You’d have to get on top,” he said coldly. “I don’t have two arms to prop on anymore. I don’t even know if I could do it now. I wanted to find out. I wanted to see if I could still be a man....”

“Cane, there are men all over the world who have lost arms and legs and who can still have sex,” she pointed out, trying to restrain her embarrassment. “People find a way!”

He drew in a long breath. “I won’t have the nerve to try again,” he said in a haunted tone. “She said I was a cripple.” His eyes closed. “A cripple. She wanted a whole man....”

She pulled up at the front of the house and blew the horn. She almost jumped out when Tank came onto the front porch.

CHAPTER TWO

“DAMN IT, CANE,” TANK, aka Dalton, muttered under his breath as he helped Bodie get his brother out of the truck and up onto the porch. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

“He does share,” Bodie replied. “He did it to the bar also.”

Dalton groaned.

“I paid the bar tab, and extra.” Cane sighed. He pulled away from his brother. “I want her to take me upstairs.” He pointed to Bodie.

“No way. I have to go home. I’m studying for biology finals.”

“Won’t go if you don’t go with me,” Cane said obstinately.

Dalton grimaced. He looked at Bodie, pleadingly.

“Oh, all right. But then I have to go home, and somebody will have to drive me.”

“I’ll take you home,” Dalton promised. He smiled. “Thanks.”

She shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

She got under Cane’s good arm, shimmering all over at the feel of that powerful body so close to hers, and guided him up the steps.

“You owe me, pal,” she muttered.

His hand slid over her arm, his fingers accidentally brushing the rounded underside of her breast in the process, and dragging a helpless shock of pleasure that echoed from her throat.

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured.

She got him into his room. He pushed the door closed behind them and let her guide him to the bed, but when he went down, he pulled her with him.

“Now,” he breathed, his hand under her back. “I want to find out something....”

She opened her mouth to ask what and his was suddenly teasing around it, nibbling at her upper lip, teasing the underside with his tongue. The mastery of the caress left her helpless. She just lay there, shocked, tempted…tingling all over with new sensations.

He unsnapped the bra and, leaning on the stump of his left arm, proceeded to unbutton his shirt while his lips were playing with hers. Seconds later, he’d pushed up her shirt and bra and his bare, hair-matted, muscular chest was pressing down against skin that had never been touched.

“Small,” he groaned, “but firm and soft and sweet.”

His thumb and forefinger were teasing the nipple, making it hard. She shivered.

“Yes.” He bent his head and his mouth suddenly opened, hot and moist, right on top of the nipple. He pulled at it tenderly, rasped it against his tongue and finally took all of her into his mouth and suckled her.

She came up off the bed shuddering, trying to contain the hoarse, pulsing cry of pleasure that accompanied the action.

His lean hand was behind her, pushing into her jeans as he shifted, so that he could bring her hips into intimate contact with him. She felt him swell, felt the size and power of him, in a contact she’d never shared with a man in her whole life. Repressed, raised religiously by a grandfather whose morals were still Victorian, she’d kept herself chaste. Now this man, this playboy, was trying to use her like one of his women, make her into his toy, to salve the ego that another woman had hurt.

She was trying to remember all that while one long leg curled around her and his mouth grew more insistent. She was so engrossed in new sensations that she barely heard the knock on the door until it was repeated, loudly.

“Cane! Bodie needs to go home!”

Bodie sat bolt upright, gaping down at Cane, whose expression was a cross between shock and shame.

“On my way!” she called, hoping her voice didn’t sound as unsettled as she felt. She fumbled her bra back in place, pulled her shirt down and stared at Cane in shock.

His mouth was swollen from its long contact with her body. His breathing was fast. But the alcohol suddenly seemed to catch up with him. He stared at her, blinked, started to speak and fell back onto the bed, snoring.

She got up and opened the door.

Tank looked in past her and sighed. “Thank God,” he mused. “I was afraid he might try to get out of hand.” He looked her over, and apparently didn’t see anything to concern him. She was mussed, but that could have come from manhandling Cane into bed. Or so she guessed.

“He’s a handful all right. I thought I’d never get him into the bed. He’s heavy!” she muttered, trying to bluff.

“Yes, he is.” He shook his head. “I wish he’d stop picking up women in bars,” he added coldly. “At his age, he should be thinking about a family.”

“Some men never settle down,” she replied, going ahead of him downstairs. “He seems to be one of those.”

“You never know. We’re in your debt, again,” he emphasized, and smiled gently. “Isn’t there something we can do for you?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. Drive me home, please. I still have to study.”

“Come on. Yes, I remember finals. No fun.”

“Yes, but I only have one more semester to go. If I pass everything, I get my degree.”

“Then what?”

“Then, on to my master’s.” She sighed. “With digs in between and a nice full-time job this next summer to help pay for it all.”

“We could…”

She held up a hand. “You’ve done so much for Granddaddy. You don’t need to do anything for me. I’m happy to help out, any way I can. You’re a nice family.”

He smiled. “Thanks. Your granddad was one of the best wranglers we ever had. Shame he had to go and get old,” he added gently.

“I feel the same way!”

* * *

HE DROVE HER HOME. She went inside, just in time to catch her grandfather in a conversation on the telephone.

“But where would I go, Will?” he was asking heavily. “This was my daughter’s place…yes, I know you own it. But I can’t pay that much in rent! My little monthly check from the Kirks helps, but I’m still trying to get on disability…yes, I know. I know. All right, I’ll try to come up with it. You wouldn’t really…? Hello?”

She walked into the dining room. He was standing by the telephone table that had belonged to her great-grandmother, with the freedom phone held in his hand, frozen.

“Granddaddy? What is it?”

He glanced at her, started to speak, thought better of it and just hung up the phone. “Aw, nothing. Nothing at all. You go back and work on that biology. I’m going to read a book. See you in the morning.” He even managed a smile.

“You sleep well,” she said.

He hesitated. “Oh, did you get Cane home okay?”

She nodded. “Tank drove me back. Cane passed out.”

He sighed. “Cane’s a good boy. Tragic, what happened to him.” He shook his head. “Just tragic.” He went into his room and closed the door.

Bodie went into her own room and sank down on the side of her bed, speechless from what had happened in Cane’s bedroom. He’d never once touched her. He’d told her things, shocking things, like the intimate details of his dates. But this was different. This was the first time he’d treated her as an adult woman.

She didn’t know whether to be outraged, angry or flattered. He was much older than she was. He was rich and handsome. He had a disability that made him forget how dishy he really was to women. But she couldn’t forget the look on his face just before he sank back into the pillows unconscious. That had been shame. Real shame.

She sighed. Her whole life had changed in the course of one night. She’d had her mind on education, on getting degrees, getting a job in her field, making some worthy and famous discovery that would set the world of anthropology on its ear. Now, all she could think about was the feel of Cane’s mouth on her body.

She couldn’t afford to let those thoughts continue. She was poor. Her grandfather was even poorer, and it sounded as if her stepfather had been making threats to him about raising the rent. She grimaced. Will Jones was horrible. He kept all sorts of explicit magazines around the house, and her mother had been furious at the cable and satellite bills because he watched pornography almost around the clock. She’d kept a close eye on Bodie, made sure that she was never alone with the man. Bodie had wondered about that, but never really questioned it, until her mother’s death.

The day after the funeral, which her stepfather had actually attended, dry-eyed, he made an intimate remark to her about her body. He said he knew about college girls and he had a new way to make money, now that her mother wasn’t around to disapprove. If she’d cooperate, he’d share the proceeds with her. He was starting an internet business. He could make her a star. All she had to do was pose for a few photographs....

Shocked and still grieving for her mother, she’d left his house immediately and gone to her grandfather’s rented home with only a small suitcase containing her greatest little treasures and a few clothes. Her grandfather, grim-faced, had never asked why she’d moved in with him. But from then on, they were a team. Her stepfather had tried to coax her back, but she’d refused and hung up on him. He had a friend who liked her. The friend, Larry, wanted to go out with her. She didn’t like the look of him, or the way he spent time with her stepfather. She imagined that he had the same taste in reading matter and film viewing as the older man. It gave her the creeps. She opened her biology textbook and sprawled on the bed. She wasn’t going to think of these things right now. She’d face them when she had to. At the moment her priority was passing biology, a subject she loved but was never really good at. She recalled her first biology exam. She could understand the material; her professor was an excellent teacher. But she ground her teeth together during the oral biology lab. Her professor, a kind but terrifying man in a white lab coat during orals, had grinned when she rattled off the information about circulation through the lymphatic system. It had been harrowing. But that was only a test. She was certain that the final would be much worse.

She sighed, closing her eyes and smiling. Her physical anthropology class was her favorite. She was actually looking forward to that final. Her roommate, Beth Gaines, a nice girl with whom she lived in a small apartment off campus, was in the same anthropology class. They’d spent days before Bodie came home for the weekend, grilling each other on the material.

“Bones, bones, bones,” Beth groaned as she went over the dentition yet another time. “These teeth were in this primate, these teeth were in a more refined primate, this was in homo sapiens…aaaahhhhhh!” she screamed, pulling at her red hair. “I’ll never remember all this!” She glared at Bodie, who was grinning. “And I’ll never forgive you for talking me into taking this class with you! I’m a history major! Why do I need a minor in anthropology?”

“Because when I become famous and get a job at some super university as a professor, you can come and teach there with me.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I’ll have connections! Wait and see!”

Beth sighed. Her expression was doubtful.

“Only a few more years to go,” Bodie teased.

Beth’s green eyes narrowed. “I’m not taking any more anthropology classes, period.”

Bodie had only grinned, as well. Her best friend was like herself, out of step with the world, old-fashioned and deeply religious. It was hard to be that way on a modern college campus without getting hassled by more progressive students. But Beth and Bodie stuck together and coped.

Bodie opened her eyes. She was never going to get this biology committed to memory by thinking about other things.

She frowned as music started playing. She got up to answer her cell phone, which was playing one of the Star Trek themes.

Bodie opened it. “Hello?”

There was a pause. “Bodie?”

Her heart skipped. “Yes.”

She moved to the door and pushed it shut, so she wouldn’t disturb her grandfather.

“About earlier tonight,” Cane began slowly.

“Yes?” She was beginning to sound like a broken record.

He cleared his throat. “If I said anything out of the way, I’m sorry.”

She hesitated. “You don’t remember?” she asked.

He laughed softly. “I was pretty much drunk out of my mind,” he said with a long sigh. “Honest to God, I remember getting into the truck with you. The next thing I remember is waking up with a pounding headache and so sick that I had to run to the bathroom.” He hesitated again, while Bodie’s heart fell like lead. All that, and he didn’t remember anything?

“You should stop treeing bars,” she said quietly.

“If I’m going to have memory loss like this, yes, I guess you’re right.”

“And more specifically, you should stop trying to pick up women in bars,” she said with a bite in her soft voice.

He sighed. “Right again.”

“You need to get back into therapy. Both kinds.”

There was a long hesitation.

“You’re not doing yourself or your brothers any favors by behaving like that, Cane,” she told him. “One day, paying off the damage won’t be enough and you’ll have a police record. Think how that would look in the newspaper.”

There was a sound, like a man sitting down in a leather chair. The sound leather made was no stranger to Bodie, who’d wished all her young life for a chair so fancy for her grandfather. His easy chair was cloth, faded and with torn spots that Bodie kept sewing up.

“You’re not the only person who came home from the military with problems of one sort or another,” she continued, but in a less hostile tone. “People cope. They have to.”

“I’m not coping…very well,” he confessed.

“You have to have a psychologist that you like and trust,” she said, recalling her friend Beth’s entry into therapy over a childhood incident. “I don’t think you liked your last one at all.”

“I didn’t,” he said curtly. “Smart guy, never had a pain or injury in his life, said you just had to pull yourself together like a man and face the fact that you’re crippled....”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed. “You should have walked right out the door!”

“I did,” he muttered. “Then everybody said I wasn’t trying because I quit therapy.”

“You should have told why you quit, and nobody would have said anything,” she shot back.

He sighed. “Yes. I guess I should have.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the road in the morning with Big Red for that cattle show?” she asked suddenly, naming their prize bull who was on the show circuit. He’d won all sorts of awards. Cane took one of the ranch cowboys along with him on the road, to help manage the big bull who was, however, gentle as a lamb on the lead. Having another man who could help if Big Red got out of hand was a smart precaution.

“I’m headed out later, in fact. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t abused your trust,” he added gently. “Not good policy, to alienate your only caretaker.”

“Tank or Mallory could save bars from you if they had to,” she pointed out.

“Well, yes, but not without some broken teeth. You can do it with fewer bruises.”

“Nice to know I’m useful,” she replied with a smile in her voice.

There was another pause. He didn’t like talking on the telephone. He did it reluctantly at best. “You dating anybody from that college you go to?” he asked suddenly.

Her heart jumped. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“I’m too busy studying to run around with men,” she muttered. “I wasn’t blessed with the size brain all you Kirk boys have. I have to dig for my grades.”

“We all have degrees,” he admitted. “But we had to dig for ours, too. Well, maybe not Mallory. He’s just smart.”

“He is.”

“When do you go back to school?”

“Tomorrow morning before daylight,” she said heavily. “My first final is after lunch tomorrow. It’s finals all week.”

There was another pause. “You coming back home after you finish those?”

“Yes. I’ll be here until the first of the year, through the holidays. Granddaddy would be all alone without me. We only have each other.”

“And your stepfather,” he said, but without any warmth in his tone.

“Will Jones is not part of my family,” she bit off. “Not at all.”

“Can’t say I blame you for not claiming him,” he admitted. “None of us ever understood what your mother saw in him.”

Not for worlds would Bodie admit what her mother had said, that she knew she was dying and it was worth putting up with her new husband’s quirks because he was well-to-do and was willing to pay her medical bills and take care of Bodie. It had been a little more complicated than that. Bodie had spent the past two years getting undressed in bathrooms and locking her door at night to prevent any unwanted attention from her mother’s husband. Then when her mother died, everything had come to a head just after the funeral and she’d gone to Granddaddy’s home for good.

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Cane said.

“Truly.”

“It was money, wasn’t it?” he asked suddenly. “She was sick for a long time and couldn’t work.”

Bodie’s heart skipped. Her bow lips made a thin line. “Something like that.”

“She was proud,” he said unexpectedly. “Not the sort of person to ever ask for help.”

She didn’t reply.

“All right, I won’t pry,” he said after the silence. “So, I guess I’ll see you when you come home.”

“Yes,” she said, hesitant.

“If I said or did anything to upset you, I’m sorry,” he added. “I wish I could remember, but the whole night’s a blur. Tank said you looked a little ruffled when he drove you home.”

“I should have looked ruffled!” she replied with spirit. “Trying to wrestle a huge, heavy man onto a bed when he’s deadweight would cause most people to look ruffled! And then you passed out…”

“Oh.” He laughed, softly, deeply. “Okay. That’s really what I wanted to know.”

She was blushing. Thank goodness he couldn’t see. “So, you don’t owe me any apologies,” she said.

“I guess not. I had this really crazy dream tonight…but it was just a dream, I guess, after all.” He laughed, while Bodie bit her tongue. “Damned woman hurt my feelings so bad,” he said in a heavy tone. “I take things hard.”

“Women come in all shapes and sizes and dispositions,” she pointed out. “I don’t think women who hang out in bars looking for men are particularly sensitive. Just my two cents.”

“You want to know what they’re looking for, I’ll tell you…”

“Don’t!”

“It’s money,” he said flatly. “It was a five-star hotel, and a lot of rich men have a nightcap. She was waiting for a patsy to show up, and I walked in. If she’d seen an empty sleeve, she probably never would have come near me, with her hang-ups about disability,” he said curtly. “I guess I should toss that damned prosthesis in the trash can. I would, except I could buy a car with what it cost.”

“They’re working on prosthetics that can be directly connected to nerve endings, so they work like real hands,” she told him. “The whole field of prosthetics is very exciting, with all the advances....”

“And why would you be reading up on that?” he asked suddenly.

She hesitated. “Because I have this idiot friend who thinks he’s disabled,” she fired right back.

He burst out laughing. “Are we friends?”

“If we weren’t, why would I be rescuing you from bars and certain arrest?” she wondered out loud.

He sighed. “Yeah,” he replied. “I guess we are friends.” He paused. “You’re barely twenty-two, Bodie,” he said gently. “I’m thirty-four. It’s an odd friendship. And just so you know, I’m not in the market for a child bride.”

“You think I’d want to marry you?” she exclaimed.

There was a hesitation. She could almost feel the outrage. He’d be thinking immediately she didn’t want to marry him because of his arm.

“Just because you know a tibia from a fibula when you dig it up, right?” she continued quickly in a sardonic tone. “And because you know how to pronounce Australopithecus and you know what a foramen magnum is!” she said, referring to the large hole at the base of the skull.

He seemed taken aback. “Well, I do know what it is.”

“You wait,” she said. “When I finish my master’s work and get into the PhD program in anthropology, I’ll give you a run for your money.”

“That’s a long course of study.”

“I know. Years and years. But I don’t have any plans to marry, either,” she added, “and certainly not to a man just because he can tell an atlas from a sacrum. So there.”

He laughed softly. “I used to love to dig.”

“You can get people to dig for you, and still do it,” she suggested. “In fact, when you’re doing the delicate work, it doesn’t really require two hands. Just a toothbrush and a trowel and no aversion to dust and mud.”

“I suppose.”

“You shouldn’t give up something you love.”

“Bones and mud.”

“Yes.” She laughed. “Bones and mud.”

“Well, I’ll think about it.”

“Think about the therapist, too, would you?” she asked. “I’ve already lined up a summer job at a dig in Colorado next year after graduation. I’ll be away for several weeks. Nobody to rescue you from bar brawls,” she added pointedly. “And depending on which specialization I choose, I might go overseas for PhD work, do classical archaeology in the Middle East....”

“No!” he said flatly. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll talk to your grandfather if you even consider it.”

She was surprised and flattered by the protest. She knew he was remembering what had happened to him in Iraq, with the roadside bomb. “Cane, I wouldn’t be working in a combat zone,” she said softly. “It would be at a dig site, with security people.”

“I’ve seen the quality of some of their security people,” he came back. “Rent-a-Merc,” he said sarcastically. “Not even real military—independent contractors who work for the highest bidder. And I wouldn’t trust them to guard one of our culls!” he said, alluding to the non-producing cows who were sold at auction each breeding season.

“Selling off poor cows because they can’t have babies,” she muttered. “Barbarian!”

He laughed roundly. “Listen, ranches run on offspring. No cow kids, no ranch, get it?”

“I get it. But it’s still cow insensitivity. Imagine if you couldn’t have kids and somebody threw you off the ranch!”

“I imagine they’d have a pretty hard time harnessing me,” he admitted. “Besides, that’s not something I’ll ever have to worry about, I’m sure.” He hesitated. “You want kids?”

“Of course, someday,” she qualified, “when I’m through school and have my doctorate and have some success in my profession, so that I can afford them.”

“I think it might be a problem if you wait until you’re moving around with a walker,” he said.

“It won’t take that long!”

“Generally speaking, if you wait to have kids until you can afford them, you’ll never have any.” There was a pause. “I hope you don’t plan to do what a lot of career women do—have a child from a donor you don’t even know.”

She made a huffing sound. “If I have kids, I plan to have them in the normal way, and with a husband, however unpopular that idea may be these days!”

He laughed. “Statistically, married people still have the edge in childbearing.”

“Civilization falls on issues of religion and morality,” she stated. “First go the arts, then go the morals, then go the laws and out goes the civilization. Egypt under the pharaohs, Rome…”

“I have to leave pretty soon.”

“I was just getting up to speed!” she protested. “Where’s my soapbox…?”

“Another time. I studied western civ, too, you know.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

He hesitated. “You’re sure that nothing…happened?” he asked again.

“Cane, you were too drunk for anything to happen,” she replied. “Why are you so concerned?”

“Men get dangerous when they drink, honey,” he said, and her heart jumped and skipped in a flurry of delight, because he’d never used pet names. “I wouldn’t want to do anything out-of-the-way. Maybe it’s a bad idea to let my brothers keep calling you when I go on a bender. One day, I might do something unspeakable and we’d both have to live with it.”

“The answer to that is that you stop getting drunk in bars,” she said in a droll tone.

“Spoilsport.”

“You can drink at home, can’t you?”

“It’s the ambiance of bars. I don’t have that at the ranch. Besides, Mavie would throw me out the back door and pepper me with potato peelings if I even tried it.”

“Your housekeeper has good sense.”

“Good something. At least she can cook.

“Well, I guess I’ll let you go,” he said after a minute.

“You be careful on the road,” she said softly, in a tone far more intimate than she meant it to be.

“You be careful, too,” he added. His own tone was oddly tender. “Wear a coat when you go out. Temperature’s dropping.”

“I noticed.”

Soft breathing came over the connection. “I guess I should go.”

“You said that,” she replied, and her own tone was as reluctant as his.

He laughed softly. “I guess I did. Well…good night.”

“Good night, Cane.”

“I like the way you say my name,” he said suddenly. “Bye.”

He hung up abruptly, as if he regretted what he’d just let slip. Her heart was pounding like mad when she put up the phone and opened her bedroom door. She felt as if her feet weren’t even touching the floor.

All the same, she did manage to get the material memorized for her biology final. She got up very early the next morning to drive back to school in her battered old vehicle.

She kissed her granddaddy goodbye.

“Good luck on those finals,” he told her as he hugged her.

She grinned. “Thanks. I’ll need it. I’ll see you next weekend.”

He managed a smile. “Miss you when you’re not here, girl.”

She was touched. “I miss you, too. I won’t be away that long, and then we’ll have the Christmas holidays together. I’ll make cakes and pies…”

“Stop! I’m starving already,” he teased.

She grinned again and kissed him again. “See? Something to look forward to.”

* * *

FINALS WERE EVERY BIT AS grueling as she’d imagined. Her first was biology. A lab rat was laid out on a dissecting board with pins stuck in various portions of its anatomy, designating which parts were to be labeled and discussed on the exam.

She felt that she’d sweated blood on the written portion, however, especially trying to recall the methodology of the Punnett Square, used to predict heritability of genetic traits. That was one part of the textbook section that she had problems with. But she hoped she remembered enough of the material to slide by.

The next exam was physical anthropology. That one didn’t worry her. She loved the subject so much that she was in her element when she studied it. She breezed through the test. Only two to go at that point, English and sociology.

* * *

FINALLY THE EXAMS WERE finished, the teacher evaluation forms at the end of each class were filled out and turned in and she was packing to go home.

“You should stay here tonight…come out with us to celebrate,” Beth told her with a grin. “Ted’s got this friend Harvey. He’s really nice, you’d like him. You never date,” she accused.

Bodie just shook her head as she went back to her packing. She wasn’t going to tell her friend anything about Cane, for fear of being teased. It was too early in her changed attitude toward him for that. “I have a career in mind. No time for romantic activities.”

“There’s the holidays, we could go out then,” Beth persisted.

Bodie shook her head again. “I’m going home for the holidays and it’s just too far to drive back with gas prices what they are. I’m really sorry,” she said when her friend looked disappointed.

“Well, I’m going home, too, to Maine,” she agreed. “But after the first of the year, when the new semester starts, you really should meet Harvey. He’s just so cute!”

“Poor Ted!”

“No! I mean, he’s cute. My Ted is gorgeous,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows. “He wants to marry me.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I really want to go on to do my master’s work in history, but Ted wants to get married now.”

“You should do what you want to,” Bodie advised.

“Marrying Ted is what I really want to do. Ted and several babies and a nice house with a fence,” she said dreamily.

“Babies.” Bodie laughed. “I want one, too, but not for years yet. I’m going to be successful first.”

Beth gave her a look that she didn’t see; her nose was in her suitcase.

“That’s why you won’t date,” Beth guessed. “If you fall in love, that career’s going on hold for a while.”

“Mind reader,” Bodie said. “Now go dress for your date and let me finish packing.”

“Ted wants to go dancing. I love to dance!”

“I didn’t notice,” Bodie said dryly, because it was a familiar theme.

“Okay. Well, you drive safely. I’ll see you in January. I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year.”

“Thanks. I hope you do, too. And that Ted buys you a nice big diamond,” Bodie teased.

“On his salary? Fat chance. But the ring doesn’t matter.” She sighed. “All I want is Ted.”

Bodie just smiled.

CHAPTER THREE

BODIE’S HOMECOMING WAS met with a sense of urgent misery by her grandfather’s sudden bout of indigestion. He took a dose of baking soda, an old-time recipe he’d learned from his grandmother, but it didn’t seem to be working.

Bodie was worried enough to get him to their family doctor, who diagnosed something that stood her hair on end.

“I think it’s his heart,” Dr. Banes said gently. “His blood pressure is abnormally high and he has a murmur. I’m having my nurse do an electrocardiogram. I need to send him to a specialist. We have a good one up in Billings, Montana, and he can do an echo, a sound picture, of your grandfather’s heart to see if there are clogged arteries.”

Bodie’s expression was eloquent. “He gets a pension from the ranch he used to work for,” she said, remembering the Kirk brothers’ kindness in that act. “He’s just now eligible for social security, but it won’t start until January. He’s trying to get disability, too, but it’s a long process. We just don’t have any money, and there’s no insurance.”

He patted her on the arm. “We can make arrangements about that,” he assured her. “I know you’re getting through school on scholarships and grants and student loans,” he said. “And you work at a part-time job near the college to pay for your expenses. I admire your work ethic.”

“I learned it from Granddaddy.” She sighed. “He was always a stickler for earning things instead of being given them.”

“He’s a fine man. We’ll do what we can for him. I promise.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You can come in with him when we get the results of the trace we’re doing. Won’t be long.”

“Thanks.”

* * *

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, she went into the doctor’s office with her grandfather. The doctor was very somber.

“I’ve had my receptionist make you an appointment with a heart specialist in Billings,” he told the old man. “Now, don’t start fretting,” he warned. “We can do a lot of things to help a failing heart. You’ll have options and you’ll be able to decide…”

“What did you find?” the old man asked shortly. “And don’t soft-soap me.”

The doctor grimaced. He leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s heart failure.”

“Oh, no,” Bodie ground out.

“I figured there was something pretty bad wrong,” the old man agreed, looking no more upset than he’d been all along. “I’ve had some pain in my chest and left arm, and a lot of breathlessness. That sort of thing. Will I die right away?”

“No one can tell you that. I can tell you that it’s actually a fairly common condition at your age, and not necessarily a death sentence. There are medical options. Drugs. Surgical intervention if it will help.”

“No surgery,” the old man said doggedly. “Nobody’s cutting on me.”

“Granddaddy,” Bodie began.

“Won’t change my mind,” Rafe Mays told her flatly. “I’ve had a long life, a good life. No sense trying to prop up a body that won’t work right anymore.”

“You’ll have great-grandchildren one day,” Bodie said firmly. “I want them to know you!”

He looked at her. “Great-grandkids?”

“Yes!” she said. She glared at him. “So you’ll do what the doctors say, or else.”

The old man chuckled. “Just like your grandmother,” he said. “My wife was like that. Ordered me around, told me what to do. I’ve missed that,” he added.

“I’ll order you around more,” Bodie promised. “You have to try. Please. For me.”

He grimaced. “Okay. But I’m not getting cut on. Period.”

Bodie looked at the doctor with an anguished expression.

“We can do a lot with drugs,” he replied. “Wait and get the results of the tests. Then we can all sit down and make decisions. Don’t anticipate tomorrow. Okay? I mean both of you.”

They both nodded.

“Go home and get some rest,” the doctor said, standing up. “You know, most bad news is acceptable when the newness of it wears off. It takes a day or two, but what seems unbearable at first will be easier to manage once you have time to get used to the idea. I can’t get that to come out the way I want it to,” he said irritably.

“I understand, anyway,” Bodie assured him. “Thanks.”

“Thanks a lot,” the older man said, and shook hands with the doctor. “I appreciate you giving it to me straight. That’s why I come to you,” he added, and chuckled. “Can’t abide being lied to and treated like a three-year-old.”

“I understand,” the doctor agreed.

Bodie followed her grandfather out the door. She felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.

* * *

IT WAS MUCH WORSE when they got home. Her stepfather was in the living room, waiting for them. It was unsettling to notice that he’d used a key to get in. It was her mother’s property. The man had no right to come barging in without an invitation, even if he did own the place!

Bodie said so, at once.

Will Jones just stared at them with a haughty expression. The way he looked at Bodie, in her well-fitting but faded jeans and sweatshirt, was chilling. She glared at him.

“Got no right to barge into my home!” the old man snapped.

Jones shifted his position, in Granddaddy’s chair, and didn’t speak.

“Why are you here?” Bodie asked.

“The rent,” her stepfather said. “I’ve just raised it by two hundred. I can’t manage on that pitiful little life insurance policy your mother took out. I wouldn’t even have had that, if I hadn’t been insistent before she got the cancer,” he said curtly.

“There’s a really easy answer,” Bodie shot back. “Get a job.”

“I work,” the man replied, and with an odd smile. “I get paid, too. But I need more.”

More to buy his porno, he meant, because Bodie’s mother had remarked how expensive it was, considering the amount he bought. It turned Bodie’s stomach. She wanted to order him out of the house, remind him that it had been in her family for three generations, like the land. But she was unsure of her ground. Her grandfather couldn’t be upset, not now, when he was facing the ordeal of his life. She bit her tongue, trying not to snap.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told her stepfather. “But the bank’s closed by now. It will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Oh, you can write me a check,” he said.

She drew in a long breath. “I don’t have enough in my checking account. I’ll have to draw it out of my savings account. I don’t even write checks. I use a debit card for groceries and gas.” Her old truck needed tires, but they’d have to wait. She couldn’t afford to let Granddaddy lose his home. Not now, of all times.

She would have told her stepfather what his health was like, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Will Jones had been watching old movies on television at home when her mother died, with Bodie at her bedside, in the hospital. Bodie and her grandfather had made all the arrangements. Her stepfather said he couldn’t be bothered with that, although he was quick to call the insurance company and empty her mother’s savings account. He’d also been quick to produce a will with her mother’s signature, leaving everything her mother had to him. That had been strange, because Bodie’s mother had promised everything to her. Perhaps she’d had a change of heart on her deathbed. People did. Bodie hadn’t felt bitter at her for making her husband the beneficiary of her property; after all, he’d paid her medical bills.

“I’ll come by in the morning, first thing,” her stepfather said irritably. “You’d better have the money.”

“Bank doesn’t open until nine o’clock,” she pointed out with cold eyes. “If you come before then, you can wait.”

He stood up and moved toward her, his dark eyes flashing angrily. He was overweight, unkempt, with brown hair that looked as if he never cleaned it. She moved back a step. His scent was offensive.

“Don’t like me, huh?” he muttered. “Some fine lady you are, right? Well, pride can be cured. You wait and see. I got a real good cure for that.”

He glanced at the old man, who looked flushed and unhealthy. “I never should have let you stay here. I could get twice the rent from someone better off.”

“Sure you could,” Bodie drawled coldly. “I just know there are a dozen rich people who couldn’t wait to move into a house with a tin roof that leaks and a porch you can fall right through!”

He raised his hand. She raised her jaw, daring him.

“Bodie!” her grandfather called shortly. “Don’t.”

She was trembling with anger. She wanted him to hit her. “Do it,” she dared, hissing the words through her teeth. “I’ll have the sheriff at your place five minutes later with an arrest warrant!”

He put his hand down and looked suddenly afraid. He knew she’d do it. He knew it would be the end of his life if she did.

He lifted his face. “No,” he said insolently. “Hell, no. I’m not giving you a chance to make me look bad in my town. Besides, I wouldn’t soil my hand.”

“Good thing,” she returned icily, “because I’d hurt you. I’d hurt you bad.”

“We’ll see about that, one day,” he told her. He looked around the room. “Maybe you’d better start looking for another place to live. Government housing, maybe, if you can find something cheap enough!”

Bodie’s small hands were clenched at her sides. Now he was trying to make her hit him. It was a good strategy: turn her own threats back on her. But she was too savvy for that. She even smiled, to let him know that she’d seen through his provocation.

He glared at her. “I can throw you out any time I like.”

“You can,” Bodie agreed, “when you can prove non-payment of rent. I’ll require a receipt when I give you the money. And if you want to throw us out for any other reason, you’d better have due cause and a warrant. And the sheriff,” she added with a cool smile, “because he’ll be required.”

He let out a furious curse, turned and slammed out of the house.

Granddaddy was looking very pale. Bodie ran to him and eased him down into his chair. “Easy, now, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…!”

She stopped, because he was laughing. “Damn, girl, if you aren’t just like my mother used to be,” he said. “When I was a boy, she took a length of rope to a man who tried to take one of our cows, said it had strayed onto his land and it belonged to him. She laid into him with it and beat him to his knees, and then invited him into her house to use the phone so he could call the law and have her arrested.” His eyes twinkled. “His pride was busted so bad that he never came back onto the place. Wasn’t going to admit to anyone that a woman beat him up.”

“My goodness!”

“You’re named for her. She was called Emily Bolinda, and her nickname was Bodie, too.”

“I’d forgotten that,” she confessed, smiling. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Just a bit breathless. Listen, he’s going to get us out of here one way or another. You know that. It isn’t the money. It’s revenge. He hates me. I tried my best to keep her from marrying him. I told her we’d find a way to get enough to support you and her, but she wouldn’t listen. She wanted things for you. She knew there was no money for cancer treatments, and no insurance, and she did what she thought was best for both of us.” He shook his head. “It was wrong thinking. We’d have managed somehow.”

She sat down opposite him. “It’s not right, that people can’t get treatment because they’re poor. Not right, when some people have ten houses and twenty cars and ride around in chauffeured limousines and others are living in cardboard boxes. Taxes should be fair,” she muttered.

“Not arguing with that,” he assured her. He sighed. “Well, when do we have to go see that specialist?”

“I’m just going to call the doctor’s receptionist and find out,” she promised, and got up and went to the phone.

She was very worried. Not only about her grandfather but about the threats her stepfather had made. He was going to bleed them dry. If he couldn’t find a way to do it with the rent, he’d find another way to humiliate Bodie. He’d always hated her, because she saw through his act to the filthy man underneath. He’d had plans for her mother’s possessions, especially two pieces of jewelry that had been in the family for four generations and were worth a good bit of money. One, a ring, had emeralds and diamonds; there was a matching necklace. Bodie had them locked away. She’d never have sold them, not for worlds. They were her legacy. Her mother had given them to her months before her death. But her stepfather knew about them and wanted them. He was furious that he couldn’t find a legal way to obtain them. He’d tried to argue with the lawyer that all her property belonged to him, as her husband, but the lawyer pointed him to a handwritten note, witnesses, that her mother had given Bodie—probably anticipating that Will might try to reclaim them. The note entitled Bodie to the jewelry. No way around that, the lawyer assured Will. No legal way.

So it was war. Not only did he want the jewelry, but his younger male friend wanted Bodie. She’d laughed when he’d asked her out on a date. She knew what he was like because her mother had told her. He liked to date prostitutes and film them. She’d said that Will Jones had actually mentioned that it would be fun to film him with Bodie, and her mother had had a screaming, furious argument with him over the comment. Over her dead body, she’d raged, and for once, Jones had backed down. But it had chilled Bodie to the bone, knowing that he’d even thought up such a sleazy intention.

She hated the man with a passion. Once, she’d thought of going to the Kirk brothers and asking for help. But they were just starting to get out of the hole. She’d heard that they’d come into a windfall from the sale of several of their prize purebred bulls and that their business was growing by leaps and bounds. That had increased when Mallory had married one of the heirs to the enormous Brannt fortune. Morie Brannt was the daughter of King Brannt, who was one of the richest ranchers in Texas. He’d provided Mallory with two seed bulls rumored to be worth millions. In fact, they were kept under lock and key with a twenty-four-hour guard around them. No way was Mallory risking his prize bulls.

* * *

THE APPOINTMENT WITH the specialist had been set up for the following Monday. It was quick work, the receptionist said, because the specialist was usually booked months in advance. But Rafe Mays’s heart problem was so worrying to the doctor that the specialist had promised to work him in.

Meanwhile, she went to the bank and drew out the rent money. Her small savings were wrecked in the process. She’d have to try to get a part-time job here until school started again. Then there would be more medicines to buy, groceries....

She felt like crying, but she couldn’t let her grandfather see how despondent she was. There was no money. They lived from check to check, with no luxuries, not even a hot dog and fries on occasion from a fast-food joint. Bodie cooked plain fare, the cheapest food she could prepare, and planned one dish to last at least two days.

It was a frugal, painful existence. She frequently felt guilty at going to college at all. But when she graduated, she could at least get a job that paid a professional wage, so the sacrifices now would be worth it. Master’s work might have to wait a bit, though. In June, after graduation, if she got her bachelor’s degree in anthropology, she was going to get a full-time job and see if she could catch up the bills a bit before she went back to school. She might have to do the work/study thing, and work one year and study the next. Plenty of people did that. She could do it, too, if it meant leaving Granddaddy better off and less worried. She knew that their financial situation was as frightening to him as it was to her.

He’d suggested asking the Kirks, but reluctantly. She didn’t mention that Tank had offered to help and she’d turned him down. She couldn’t even ask Tank right now; he was on an extended trip to Europe on ranch business. Mallory and Morie had gone somewhere out of the country, as well.

“You’re friends with Cane, sort of,” he reminded her. “Wouldn’t hurt to just ask him.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “He’s really sensitive about people asking him for money, especially lately.” She didn’t add that Cane had almost been a victim of a woman who wanted it, when she’d tried to pick him up in the bar.

“I guess he is. With his disability, likely he thinks that’s all women see in him now,” he conceded.

Not for worlds would Bodie have mentioned that no woman in her right mind would turn down a man that attractive, disability or not. Cane was so sexy that memories of their brief encounter still left her tossing and turning at night. Her whole body glowed when she thought of him touching her.

She cleared her throat. No reason to go down that road, especially when Cane didn’t even remember what had happened. That was a mercy, for a lot of reasons.

“We’ll get by,” Bodie promised her grandfather.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you even think of giving up college,” he instructed firmly. “Worked too hard, too long, to have one person in my family with a degree. I didn’t even finish high school. Had to go to work when my mother got sick. It’s a trap. You think you can go back and finish your schooling, but once you make money, all sorts of things come up that needs it,” he added solemnly. “You leave now, you won’t go back. And that would be a pity, Bodie. A real pity.”

She smiled, went and hugged him tight. “Okay.”

He chuckled and hugged her back.

“You and me against the world,” she said when she drew away, her pale brown eyes were smiling as well as her lips.

“That’s how it goes, I reckon.” He sighed. “Don’t want to go see any specialist,” he said heavily. “I don’t like people I don’t know. Suppose he wants to throw me in a hospital and cut on me?”

“We won’t let him,” she lied.

He seemed to calm down then, as if he thought she could see the future.

“One day at a time, Granddaddy,” she said gently. “Step by step.”

He hesitated. Then he nodded.

* * *

THE SPECIALIST WAS A MAN only a few years younger than Bodie’s grandfather. To the old man’s surprise, he was led into an examination room where he was hooked up to some sort of machine that looked right at his heart through his chest. They called it an echocardiogram, a sonogram of the heart.

“Damndest thing I ever saw,” he told Bodie while they waited for the cardiologist to read the results. “They let me look at the screen. I could see inside my body!”

“New technology really is amazing,” she agreed. She was sitting nervously on the edge of her chair. She’d had a long talk with the receptionist while her grandfather was having his test, about monthly payments. The bill was going to be staggering. It was a testament to Bodie’s salesmanship that the payment plan had been agreed on. There was no question of further education after this next semester. Then, too, she had to make sure that her grades held up, so that she’d pass all her subjects and be able to graduate. So many worries. She wondered how in the world she was going to manage any of it.

“Don’t chew on them nails like that,” her grandfather instructed. “You’ll have them gnawed off into the quick.”

“Oh.” She drew her finger out of her mouth. “Sorry. I’m just nervous a bit.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

She got up and found a magazine to read, something about hunting and fishing that she then passed to the old man, who seemed to find it much more interesting than she had.

While they waited, she looked around the waiting room at other people. Some of them had the same worried, drawn expressions that she and her grandfather were wearing. It gave her a sort of comfort, to know that they weren’t the only people here with anxieties.

Time dragged on. She stopped watching the clock. There were so many people in the waiting room. Then, suddenly, time sped up and people started going back into the examination rooms. And finally, the nurse called her grandfather’s name.

Bodie went with him, prepared to fight her way in if she had to. But the nurse only smiled and put them both in the doctor’s office, in front of his desk and padded chair.

Dr. McGillicuddy came in, preoccupied, reading a tablet PC on the way. He glanced at the two worried people facing him.

“We’re not going to recommend operating on you,” he told the old man at once, and this message was received with great sighs of relief and tears from Bodie.

“Not that it isn’t a fairly bad situation,” he said as he sat down and put the tablet aside. He clasped his fingers in front of him. “It is heart failure,” he said.

“Oh, no!” Bodie burst out, horrified.

He held up a hand. “Not what you’re thinking. Not at all. It can be treated with medication and lifestyle changes. It doesn’t mean he’s a candidate for a funeral home.”

Bodie shivered. She’d been so afraid!

Her grandfather smiled at her. “She’s my right arm,” he told the doctor. “Orders me around, takes care of me. Feeds me good, too.”

“No fried foods,” the doctor said. “Everything low fat. Go easy on beef and fatty meats, especially salty meats with preservatives. Lots of vegetables and fish.”

The old man made a face. “I hate fish.”

“You can learn to like it. I did,” the specialist said, glowering. “Anyway, my nurse will get the relevant information from you on the way out. You’ll have three heart medicines to take. I want you back here in two months, sooner if you have any unusual symptoms. We’ll see how the drugs work, first. If they arrest the progress of the disease, we’ll be in good shape. If they don’t, we can make decisions then about how to proceed.”

That sounded ominous, but Bodie didn’t react. She just smiled. “Sounds good.”

“Yes, it does,” her grandfather said heavily. “I hate the thought of hospitals and being cut on. I’m not much keener on some of those tests my regular doctor mentioned.”

“I know, I spoke to him earlier,” the other man replied quietly. “He said you’d fight tooth and nail to prevent me doing a heart catheterization.”

“No, I wouldn’t fight, I’d just go home and take the phone off the hook.” The older man chuckled.

“So I heard. You know, it’s the best way to find out exactly what’s going on. If you have clogged arteries or any other problems…”

“Your technician said my arteries looked fine on that thingabob machine,” he returned.

“They do,” the specialist conceded. “I won’t insist on a catheterization right now. But we did a baseline measurement of your heart in an X-ray and we’ll take others as we go along, to compare. If your blood pressure shoots up unexpectedly, if your heart enlarges, that will mean the road ahead is dangerous and we have to take precautions.”

The old man shifted. “Flying horse.”

The specialist blinked. “Sir?”

“Old story I heard,” he said. “The king was going to execute this guy, and he said wait, if you let me live for another year, I’ll teach your horse to fly. The king was dubious, but he said, well, okay, what have I got to lose? Guy walks out, and his friend says, are you crazy, you can’t teach a horse to fly! The condemned man laughed. He said, in a year, the horse could die, I could die, the king could die…or I might actually teach the horse to fly. Moral of story, time can bring hope.”

“I’ll remember that,” the specialist said with a smile. “Nice story.”

“It was in a series I watched on television, about that King Henry VIII of England, a long time ago. Never forgot it.”

“I can see why.” The specialist stood up and extended his hand. “You go home and take your medicine and call me if you have any problems. Better yet, call my nurses,” he said with a chuckle. “They know more than I do!”

Bodie and her grandfather laughed.

* * *

“WELL, THAT WAS A RELIEF,” he told Bodie on the way home. “I was scared stiff he was going to want to operate on me.”

“Me, too,” Bodie confessed. “It’s such a relief!”

* * *

AND IT WAS, UNTIL they got to the drugstore and presented the prescriptions. She asked her grandfather to go and get a can of peaches to take home for supper. While he was diverted, she asked the clerk how much the medicine would be.

She almost passed out at the figure. “You have got to be kidding,” she exclaimed in a horrified tone.

“Sorry, not,” the young man replied sympathetically. “Look,” he said softly, “we can fill the generic version of all three of them. It will still be a lot, but not quite as much.”

He gave her a new figure that was the whole rent amount for the next month. She felt sick all over.

The clerk winced. “It’s hard, I know,” he said. “I have an elderly mother who has a bad heart. We have to buy her medicine. If it wasn’t for my job, and my wife’s, she’d have to go without. Her social security won’t pay for more than a fraction of them, even though she gets them filled at a discount pharmacy and for a small amount of money.”

“People shouldn’t have to choose between heat and food and medicine and gas,” Bodie said in a haunted tone.

“Tell me about it,” the clerk agreed wholeheartedly.

She drew in a breath. She was thinking about those two expensive pieces of jewelry at home and how far the money for them would go toward paying the rent and medicine bills. She couldn’t let her grandfather die for lack of money. She wouldn’t.

She lifted her chin. “Go ahead and fill them,” she said quietly. “I have some heirloom jewelry I can sell. It will more than pay for them.”

“I hate that for you,” he said. “I had to sell my grandmother’s engagement ring to pay for a car repair.” His eyes were sad. “It would have gone to my daughter one day.”

“In the end, they’re just things, though.” She glanced at her grandfather down the aisle and smiled gently. “People are much more important.”

“I can’t argue with that. We’ll have them for you in about a half hour, if that’s okay.”

“That will be fine,” she assured him.

* * *

SHE DROVE HER GRANDFATHER home. Then she dug the necklace and ring out from under her bed, where they’d lived in a photograph box since she moved in. She looked at them lovingly, touched them, then closed the box. Sentiment was far too expensive at the moment. She’d rather have her grandfather than pretty things from a different day and age, even if it was going to wrench her heart to sell them. Her mother had loved them, shown them to her from her childhood…explained the legends that surrounded them. Bodie had grown up loving them, as well, as a connection to a long-ago place somewhere in Spain.

But it was unlikely that she’d have children. She didn’t really want to get married, not for years, and she wasn’t sure about having a child even then. Or so she told herself. It made it easier to take the box into town, to a pawn shop, and talk to the clerk.

* * *

“MISS, ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?” he asked. “These are heirlooms…”

“I have to,” she said gently. “My grandfather is very ill. We can’t afford his medicine.”

The man grimaced. “Damned shame,” he said.

Bodie stared at the jewels, vaguely aware of someone coming into the store behind her. “Yes,” she said. “I know.” She was fighting tears.

“Well, I promise you I won’t sell them to anybody,” he told her. “I’ll lock them up tight until you can afford to get them back. How about that?”

“You would…do that?” she asked, surprised. “But it might be months…”

“So I’ll wait months.” He smiled.

She had to fight to speak, past the lump in her throat. It was so kind! “Thank you,” she managed to say.

“You’re welcome. Hold on to that,” he added, sliding a ticket across to her. “You’ll need it.”

She smiled. “Thank you very much.”

He counted out a number of bills, more than she’d expected to get for the jewelry. “You be careful with that,” he added.

She stuffed it into her pocketbook. “I will.”

“See you in a few months,” he said, and smiled again.

“Okay. That’s a deal.”

She turned, almost colliding with a cowboy. She didn’t look up to see who it was. Plenty of ranches in the area. She didn’t know who worked for most of them.

The cowboy watched her go out of the shop and frowned. “Wasn’t that Bodie?” he asked the clerk, who was his brother-in-law.

“Sure was. Her granddad’s in bad shape. She couldn’t afford his medicine so she pawned her family treasures.” He showed them to the other man. “Hell of a shame.”

“Yes. It is.”

The cowboy opened his cell phone and made a call.

CHAPTER FOUR

BODIE BOUGHT HER grandfather’s medicine with part of the money she’d gotten from the jewelry. The rest she hid under her bed for an emergency. She would have to find a part-time job while she was out of school, anything to help bring in a few more dollars.

But she scoured the want ads and couldn’t find anybody who was hiring, even temporarily, for the holidays. She could get a job up at Jackson Hole, maybe, in one of the shops, but the sudden snows had closed everything down and at least one road into the area had been shut down. So driving up there even to apply was out of the question now. Not that her junky old pickup truck would even make it that far, she mused darkly, or that she could afford the gas to go back and forth.

She checked at the two local restaurants and the fast-food joints to see if they needed anyone, even to wash dishes, but nobody was hiring.

She went back home dejected, having wasted twelve dollars worth of gas that she could ill afford just to look for work. She did put in applications in a couple of places, but the managers weren’t encouraging.

In desperation she looked for ranch work. Not on the Kirk place, that would be too humiliating even to ask, but on two other area ranches. One rancher did have work, driving heavy machinery. But Bodie had no training and it wasn’t a skill she was eager to learn. So she went back home in defeat.

Her grandfather seemed to react well to the medicine after the first few days. He perked up and had more energy, and he was less breathless. Bodie smiled and pretended that everything was all right, but she was very worried. She worked part-time at a convenience store in Billings near the college she attended, but that was a long commute. She couldn’t even afford the gas. She didn’t know how they were going to afford the medicine next month, or pay the increased rent that Will Jones was demanding, or even have enough for Christmas presents. She went into her room, closed the door and cried. She’d never felt so despondent, and she didn’t dare let her grandfather see how worried she really was. It was like the end of the world.

But she dried her eyes and went into the kitchen to cook, resolved that God was in control of everything, anyway, and would provide somehow. It was faith that kept her going through the worst of times. Often, it seemed that faith was all she had to hold on to.

She went out into the backyard and cut down a small spruce tree, found an antiquated old tree stand and put the tree in it. They had decorations that her mother had stored, some of which were three generations old. Decorating the tree cheered her up and the tree made the living room look alive with color.

At least, it cheered her up until Will Jones came to the door and demanded money for cutting down one of his trees.

“Your trees?” Bodie exclaimed. “My mother planted those trees before she got sick…!”

“It’s my house, my land and my trees, and you owe me fifty dollars for that tree,” Will Jones said haughtily. “That’s what they charge in those tree lots.”

Bodie felt the blood drain out of her face. She hadn’t even thought about cutting the tree. They’d done it for years. In fact, her mother had planted them for just this purpose.

“You can add it in with the rent,” the man said coldly, and he smiled. “How are you managing, anyway? You don’t have a job. I guess all that education makes you too good to get a real job, don’t it?”

“I’ve applied for jobs all over town,” Bodie said in a quiet tone.

“I guess all the boss jobs are taken, huh?” he taunted.

“You’ll get your money,” Bodie said coldly.

Jones looked around the room, trying to find something to complain about. “Needs dusting,” he muttered when he drew a finger across the dining room table.

“I haven’t cleaned house today. I was looking for work,” she reminded him.

“Not many jobs going, I guess. I got one.” He gave her a leering stare. “You get desperate, you just come see me.”

She could guess what sort of job it was. “I can manage.”

“My friend Larry really likes you,” he said. “A lot. He’d like to spend some time with you, at my place. You’d be chaperoned, if that’s what worries you.” He laughed as he said it, and Bodie felt sick to her stomach. She could imagine what he was talking about. He’d mentioned in the past how he’d love to film her with his friend Larry.

“You can pick a woman up on a street corner for that sort of work,” Bodie said coldly.

He gave her a hard look. “You’re so lily-white, aren’t you?” he scoffed. “Upstanding young woman, never put a foot wrong, won’t play around with any men. You gay?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it, if I was.”

He made a sound in his throat. “Everybody knows about you college girls,” he said sarcastically. “You’re like them—you just don’t want anybody around here to know it.”

“I’m not like that,” she said. “I’m a person of faith.”

“St. Bolinda,” he muttered. “Well, you might get a shock one day. It wouldn’t hurt you to learn a little humility. Looking down on other people, making out like you’re so much better than they are, with your sterling morals. You need taking down a peg.”

“And you’re just the guy to do it, right?” she asked with a bite in her voice.

“Maybe I am,” he shot back. “You’re only allowed to stay here if you pay rent and do what I say.” He looked around the house. “Maybe the house needs fixing and you and your old family member will have to leave while it gets done. Maybe it will take a year or so to do it, too.” He was thinking aloud. He smiled with contempt. “Nobody would say you’d been evicted if I did that, and you wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

“Anybody could see that the house isn’t in that bad a shape!” she shot back angrily.

“Middle of the night, something could happen to the roof,” he said, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “Couldn’t prove a thing, either.”

She felt her blood run cold. She couldn’t afford the rent here, how would she afford it someplace else? The cost of moving alone was out of her reach right now. She had just a few dollars, barely enough for groceries and gas. She felt the terror all the way to the pit of her stomach.

And he knew it. He smiled even more widely. “Scares you, don’t it?” he mused. “Good. You think about that. You don’t keep me happy, why you could have to move tomorrow. It could be an emergency.”

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