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Synopsis |
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Excerpt |
Prim and proper Jessica Stanbridge is a brilliant woman who hides her beauty behind a pair of thick, wire-framed spectacles. She travels to the Wild West in search of historical artifacts, but instead finds an ornery—but gorgeous—cowboy who agrees to serve as her guide.
Rory Burnett hides his passion in his secret poetry, but he can’t disguise his growing desire for the determined young beauty . . . or his fear that Jessica’s quest might lead her into deadly danger. As the spark of passion between them flares into an irresistible flame beneath the sizzling kiss of the desert sun, Rory and Jessica must decide if the promises of the past are going to lead them to destruction . . . or to a future in each other’s arms . . .
Jill Marie Landis is the
New York Times bestselling author of
Past Promises, Until Tomorrow, The Orchid Hunter, and
Jade.
Coming Soon!
Chapter One
Southwestern Colorado
1890
THEY WERE WATCHING her
again.
Six Ute men. Four stood,
two hunkered down into a squat. All of them kept their distance; none attempted
to approach her after the one in a tall black hat asked in broken English and
sign language what she was doing on the reservation. Clutching a well-worn copy
of Captain William Philo Clark’s book on sign language, she tried to explain.
After Tall Hat left, she had tried to hire some of the others to help, but they
shook their heads and chose to watch in silence.
Now, miles from nowhere,
Jessica Stanbridge sat on an upturned crate near a half-unloaded wagon and
asked herself if making a name in the annals of paleontology was worth such
dusty, sweaty, muscle-aching misery.
In frustration bordering on anger, she ignored the silent
scrutiny of the Utes, took off her
spectacles, and squinted against the sunlight. Finally Jessica shifted
and shaded her eyes as she stared off across the mesa. The Spanish word was an
apt name for this land that was as high and flat as a tabletop. She felt
vulnerable and exposed sitting atop the world, gazing out over the endless
expanse of browns and tans, taupes and reds of the desolate land that shifted
and came vibrantly alive whenever cloud shadows played across it.
It was an ancient land. A place that in its very silence
spoke clearly of its past. The earth was parched and seemingly barren, studded
by stone columns and high plateaus of sandstone and clay sculpted by water on
its downward journey from high green mountains in the distance.
Pygmy forests of twisted juniper and piñon pine dotted a
landscape spottily carpeted with tough grama grass and the sage that scented
the breeze. The twisted, roughened plants survived not only summer sun, but
winter drifts that sometimes mounted up to thirty feet. Wiping a trickle of
sweat from her temple, Jessica wondered how long it would be until she, too,
withered like the dry sage. The way she felt right now, she feared that might
happen before she unpacked the rest of the supplies.
An eagle circled overhead then banked east. She tried to
imagine what she might look like from its vantage point—a young woman seated
forlornly on a crate not far from a wagonload of boxes and barrels. A lopsided
tent on the verge of tumbling over was pitched a few feet away. Farther on,
tied to a picket line, a horse and two mules munched on grama grass.
Jessica’s long blond hair, once neatly coiled in a bun, had
worked itself free of its delicate hairpins. Most of it was still trapped
beneath her veiled pith helmet, but one long tendril had escaped to drape
itself over her shoulder.
Halfheartedly she tried to wedge the curl beneath the
helmet, then surrendered and let the resistant skein slide back down her neck.
Her once stiffly starched shirtwaist and panama skirt were crumpled and dusty,
her face smeared with the grime that stuck to her sweat-soaked skin.
Without thinking, Jessica reached up and unbuttoned the
high, prim collar of her blouse. A mule brayed. She glanced up at the sound
and wished the Utes would leave, for she longed to slip three more buttons open
and wave the neckline of her blouse to cool herself off. Instead she stood up
and placed her hands against the small of her back and stretched in as unprovocative
a manner as she could manage with six pairs of dark eyes moving over her.
Lord, but her back ached. Unloading some of the heavy
supplies yesterday had cost her more than she had bargained for. At this rate
she would be too stiff to move a muscle when the time came to begin an actual
excavation—provided there would be an excavation. A discovery of any size in
southwest Colorado hinged on her instincts, and so far her instincts had proved
to be useless. When she and her companion, Myra Thornton, had arrived at the
Ute agency in Ignacio, no one had been willing to help them. On top of that,
the inadequate geological maps she was depending on had proved to be highly
incorrect. And along with everything else, there was still much to unpack
before she could even begin her fieldwork. And now every muscle in her body was
screaming for relief.
Unwilling to add any more doubt to her worries, Jessica
called out to Myra Thornton, who was seated on a boulder not far away,
sketching one of the ever-curious Utes. "May I speak to you for a moment,
Myra?” Attempting a smile, Jessica waited while the older woman closed her
sketchbook and hurried over.
Stocky, buxom Myra was over sixty. Just how far over,
Jessica had never deigned to ask, because age never hampered her companion.
"Time is irrelevant,” the philosophical spinster often told her. "It’s merely a
restriction man puts upon himself. How can it really matter what year it is in
the grand scheme of the universe?”
Jessica wanted to believe time didn’t matter at all, but
unfortunately, for her it did. Two months ago she had vowed that before the end
of summer she would make a paleontological discovery that would delight both
Harvard Museum and its generous benefactor, Henry Beckworth, but it was already
mid-June and time was fast becoming her nemesis.
"What is it, my dear?” Myra asked. Her bright brown eyes
peered at Jessica above lopsided spectacles looped over only one ear. Although
she possessed at least four pairs, Myra Thornton’s spectacles were always missing
a stem, yet she never seemed to notice.
"As much as I hate to admit it, I’m afraid we are going to
need some help,” Jess said, her words low enough not to be overheard by the
Utes.
Myra peered up at Jessica, who stood a good four inches
taller, and started to smile. "What kind of help?”
"Male help,” Jess mumbled.
"Did you say male?”
"All right, I’ll admit it. We do need a man around to help
out.”
Myra rocked back on her heels, crossed her arms under the
wide, ample shelf of her bosom, and nodded sagely. "I told you so.”
Jessica abruptly turned away and headed toward the wagon.
"You don’t have to gloat, Myra. It isn’t at all becoming.”
"At my age I am free of the worry about what is becoming and
what is not. Sometimes one must overcome one’s persuasions and let common sense
prevail, Jessica. I told you as much when that pompous young assistant of
yours took ill on the train and you all but forced him to go back to Cambridge.
What was his name? I’ve forgotten it entirely.”
"Stoutenburg. Jerome Stoutenburg. And I didn’t choose him to
be my assistant. The museum insisted he come along with me.” Jessica thought
of the overeager third-year student who had suddenly become deathly ill with
influenza on the train. Blessing fate, she finally convinced Stoutenburg that
she could get along without him. Although terribly disappointed in having
failed on his first real assignment, he had left them in St. Louis to return to
Harvard.
Once she reached the wagon, she uncovered the water barrel,
lifted the long iron ladle from its nail, and dipped it in. "I insisted
then—and still contend—that I don’t
need a trained assistant. What I do need is someone willing to do the heavy
work, to act as a guide, to help set up and break camp. When I make a
discovery, of course, I’ll need professional help with the excavation.” She
took a long sip and offered a refilled ladle to Myra.
Water sloshed on the front of Myra’s shirtwaist blouse. She
seemed not to notice. "You need a man.”
Jessica glowered and ignored Myra’s comment. "What I need is
a porter. A guide. A servant.”
Myra smiled. "And just where do you propose to find one, my
dear? We are, in case you haven’t noticed, in the middle of nowhere, and the
only available male assistance”—she nodded toward the Utes—"doesn’t know the
meaning of the word ‘chivalry.’ I have read that in the society of the red man,
women are expected to do all the heavy work. Such lifting, toting, and
unpacking are deemed quite unmanly.” She glanced at the Utes again. They were
all holding the reins of their mounts, patiently waiting for something
interesting to happen. Myra finished, "I don’t think you’ll find any help in
that quarter.”
Worrying her thumbnail with her teeth, Jessica shrugged in
agreement. "Agent Carmichael was no help either,” she said, remembering the
cold reception they received at the government agency upon entering the Ute
reservation at Ignacio. The sight of her numerous official documents and
permits from Washington did little to ingratiate her to the man who guarded
access to the land as if the reservation and people on it were his very own. He
had been barely civil.
"We’ll just have to ride into Cortez and inquire at the
trading post,” Jessica concluded out loud.
"Not me. I’m staying here,” Myra said stoically.
"Horsefeathers.”
"Try to budge me.”
"Myra, this is no time to be difficult.”
"I’m merely stating my choice.” Myra walked back to the
boulder and opened her sketchpad.
Rubbing her temples, Jessica let go a heavy sigh. Myra
Thornton had been an influence in her life since the very beginning. A close
friend of her mother’s, Myra had been there to comfort and guide her ever since
Elsa Stanbridge had succumbed to rheumatic fever. Jessica had been eight at the
time, but she could still remember the years before her mother’s death when her
father would spend his hours away from the museum teaching her paleontology
while her mother and Myra sat at the dining table and debated philosophy.
One thing had become quite clear on the journey west. Myra
Thornton was a woman accustomed to living alone. She did what she wanted, when
she wanted. But this time Jessica was determined to have her way. She drew
herself up and followed the older woman across the encampment, unwilling to
raise her voice in front of their uninvited audience. She stopped directly in
front of Myra, disrupting her view of the men colorfully garbed in plaid woolen
shirts to which strips of fringe had been added, striped, hand-woven blankets
over their shoulders, ill-fitting boots, and long braids that sported weasel
tails, feathers, and beads.
"I won’t leave you here alone, Myra. I absolutely refuse.”
Myra sighed. "We’ve been here three nights. Our tent seems
to be secure enough and unlikely to fall over again to awaken me from a sound sleep. I have an abundant supply of
food and water and enough scenery to provide a lifetime of landscape subjects.
I do not desire to be trundled off anywhere in the wagon, as the bruises I have
sustained on my backside on the way from Durango are far from faded. You forget
you are a good forty years younger than I. Besides, you will make better time
if you take the horse, not the wagon, and go without me.”
"What if I’m not back by dark?”
"I will simply make myself a cold sandwich, light a lamp,
and turn in early with Mrs. Corelli.”
Marie Corelli, the author of Myra’s favorite novel, A Romance of Two Worlds, was not with
them, of course, but Myra was reading the book for the third time. "Mrs.
Corelli’s work might be entertaining, Myra, but it offers scant protection.”
"Good heavens, Jessica. The last Indian
uprising in Colorado was nearly ten years ago. If you mean to imply
that our friends over there might cause us harm, wouldn’t they have done so by
now?”
Jessica shook her head. "I don’t know. I guess so, but I’m
out of my element here, Myra. Ask me about the Mesozoic era, ask me about leaf
imprints from the Cretaceous period, ask me to describe in detail the Jurassic
and Triassic periods and I can answer you without hesitation. But don’t ask me
if I think you’ll be safe all alone in the middle of the Ute reservation.”
Myra lowered her glasses and folded the one remaining stem.
"Jessica, you know how completely I believe my fate is in the hands of the
universe. I jumped at the chance to accompany you on this adventurous trek
west, and now that the train trip and that horrible wagon ride are over, I am
not about to budge, even for a few hours.” Myra straightened and the buttons
down the front of her blouse strained against their holes. "In making my
choice, I have made a silent commitment with the universe to put myself in its
care.”
She pointed heavenward to make a grand pronouncement. "I am not afraid.”
Jessica knew by Myra’s set expression that it was time to
admit defeat.
Myra glanced at the sun. "If you hurry, you can reach Cortez
and be back before dark.”
Jess pulled off her helmet, wiped her brow with the back of
her arm, and slammed her headgear on again. "I should do it, Myra. I should
just leave you here.”
"I wish you would, dear. As Emerson so aptly put it, ‘It is
easy to live for others... I call on you to live for
yourself.’”
Jessica opened her mouth to respond and abruptly closed it.
It did no good to argue once Myra’s mind was set, especially when she began
quoting Emerson. "If I’m going alone, I’ll have to leave right now. I’ll get my
knapsack and set the pistol right here beside you.”
"Perhaps you should take it. What if you come across
something wild—a bobcat or a snake?”
"I’ll be on horseback, Myra. Hopefully I can outdistance any
predator.”
"What if a wild animal leaps from a tree onto your horse?
What if—”
Jessica crossed her arms. "What tree? There are not many
trees over six feet out here. I insist that if you stay, it is with the gun or
you don’t stay behind at all.”
"Can you really imagine me shooting anyone?” With a
dismissive smile and an absentminded nod, Myra bent over her work once more.
"Have a safe trip, my dear. And remember, everything will be fine.”
It took another half hour for Jessica to locate the saddle
amid the crates in the wagon and saddle the horse she had rented at the stable
where she obtained the mules and wagon. By the time she repinned her hair,
donned and buttoned up her fitted jacket, and pulled on her chamois gloves, she
had used up another quarter of an hour. She glanced up at the sun, slipped the
leather strap of her knapsack over her shoulder, checked the time on the watch
dangling from a ribbon molded in gold, and then mounted up.
Quite an accomplished rider for a young woman born and bred
in Massachusetts, Jessica adjusted her skirts until the tops of her high, laced
boots were covered, and with a last wave to Myra, she headed north.
A few yards from the camp, she paused to take stock of her
friend still perched on the rock. The Ute men seated themselves in the dust not
far from Myra, who was still intent on her sketches. Jess looked at the
lonesome tent standing all too white against the high desert color and hoped
she wasn’t making a very serious mistake.
I
sing in the saddle
When days get too
long.
I sing when I’m
happy
And when things
go wrong.
The cattle don’t
mind it,
It settles ’em
down.
I sing in the tub
When there’s no
one around.
Rory Burnett recognized Cortez in
the distance, kicked his horse into a gallop, and chuckled as he repeated the
stanza again, well pleased with himself. He didn’t fancy himself a true poet,
not like Keats or Shelley anyway. Hell, he wasn’t more than a cowhand turned
rancher, but he enjoyed rolling words that rhymed around on his tongue. Every
so often, when they seemed to "take,” he wrote the words down.
As he watched the newly established trading post grow larger
on the horizon, he hoped this unexpected trip would not keep him away from the
Silver Sage Ranch for long.
With only six full-time hands he didn’t have a lot of time
to waste gallivanting around the countryside.
For the past week and a half he and his men had been trying
to combat the blowflies that were infesting the cattle as they did every
summer. It was a dirty job, but it had to be done. Branding and castration left
the herd with open wounds that soon festered with the screw worms that hatched
when the flies laid their eggs in the open flesh. Axle grease mixed with
carbolic acid was the only way Rory knew of to kill off the worms, but the
mixture had to be hand-daubed on every unwilling animal.
Before he left that morning, he set the men to the
unpleasant task again, and if his errand had been anything else, he would have
declined and been working alongside them. But Piah Jackson, a Ute subchief, had
appealed to him for help, and in Rory’s mind there was little he could do but
answer the call.
Just after dawn Rory had been in the still-cool shadows that
lingered in the corner of the barn holding a bridle with braided reins when
Piah Jackson soundlessly entered the building.
Rory had set aside the bridle and given the Ute his full
attention. The man’s eyes blazed with barely concealed anger, his usual
forbidding countenance darkened by irritation. His braided black hair was
intricately woven with lengths of colored ribbon. A government-issue shirt was
covered by a jacket that had no doubt come from a box of clothing donated by
some wealthy churchgoers in the East—the coat had obviously been fashioned for
a heavyset man. His leggings were of woolen flannel, close-fitted and trimmed
with fringe and beads. Fastened about his waist was a hand-tooled belt and his
tall black hat sported a band of silver conchos, a Navajo trade item.
"I have come to ask you to keep the promise made by the man
who called you son,” Piah said without salutation.
"I’ll do what I can,” Rory said. Miles of the Silver Sage
Ranch bordered the Ute reservation. Now that Wilner Burnett had died and passed
on the ranch and his name, Rory intended to continue to help his closest
neighbors, be they red or white, whenever called upon.
Piah visibly relaxed. "Strangers have come to the
reservation. They have many papers that give them the right to search our land,
to dig for bones and disturb the ancient ones buried on Ute soil.”
Rory took a moment to sort out what the man was trying to
tell him. "Have you asked Carmichael for help?”
"We have asked. But they have papers. The agent says there
is nothing he can do.”
Perplexed, Rory crossed his arms over his chest and leaned
against the scarred wooden rail of the nearest stall. Domino, his big
Appaloosa, nuzzled his shoulder. He reached back to scratch the animal’s nose.
"If they have government permits,” he said slowly, "I don’t see how I can help.
What else do you know?”
"She said they are looking for bones. She wanted to give us
money to help her dig them up.”
She? "A woman?”
Piah held up two fingers. "Two women. One old, one not so
old. No man.”
Shoving away from the stall, Rory ran a hand over his eyes
and said half to himself, "Two women are on the reservation to dig up bones.”
It didn’t surprise him. Since two ranchers had stumbled on the cliff dwellings
at Mesa Verde two years before, the area had been crawling with treasure
hunters, archaeologists, and curiosity seekers. His own opinion was that the
discovery had turned the place into a circus. To Piah he said, "Did you tell these
women that grave sites are sacred to your people?”
With a shrug, Piah turned and squinted out into the sunlight
before he looked back at Rory. "They have papers. They didn’t understand the
signs I made.”
"Then why didn’t you speak English?”
Piah smiled. "I spoke a little, but sometimes it is better
not to let a stranger know all that one knows. They are camped on the high mesa
close to your land.” Piah paused a moment before he added, "Near the cave.”
Rory suddenly knew all too well why
Piah was so disturbed. The strangers were camped atop an extensive
cavern in the sandstone wall of one of the many canyons carved into the mesa.
Situated on land that technically straddled the boundary
between the Silver Sage and the reservation, the huge cave was a sacred site to
the Indians and had been for centuries. Years back, when Wilner Burnett was
out rounding up stray cattle and had innocently stumbled across the place, he
immediately approached the Ute elders, told them what he had found, and swore
to keep the location a secret. No one, he promised, as long as he and his
descendants owned the land, would ever disturb it. Because of his open
sincerity and willingness to help, the Utes had believed him. To Wilner, a
man’s word was sacred. He had always kept his word.
Now Wilner was gone and not only had Rory inherited the
Silver Sage, but the promise to the Utes.
"Maybe Carmichael will listen to you and make the women go,”
Piah suggested.
"Not after the run-in I had with him this past April,” Rory
admitted as he tapped a hand against his thigh. "Our discussion over that rotten beef he tried to hand out to your
people exploded into a shouting match.”
"You gave us cattle of your own so we would not go hungry. I
ask for your help again.”
Rory knew Piah wouldn’t budge until he agreed to at least
try to help. Giving away a few head of cattle had been easy. Interfering in
government-sanctioned work was more than he had bargained for, still, if he
could find the women and explain to them just what their intrusion mean to the
Utes, he thought it was worth a try. "What exactly do you want me to do?”
"Make them go.”
Reduced to three words, the task sounded simple. Rory shoved
back his hat and shook his head. "Not very easy if they have government permission.”
"If they stay, if they disturb the bones of our ancestors,
they will raise evil spirits. It is not right to disturb the dead. We hide the
graves of our people because the spirits that survive them must stay buried.
Nothing good will come of these women digging on our land. Only disaster.”
Now, as Rory unwillingly approached the outskirts of Cortez,
he frowned against the noonday sun. He hadn’t promised Piah he would succeed,
only that he would try to talk to the women and explain the sacredness of the
Ute grave sites to them; he had to be careful how he went about it. If he told
them about the cave outright, it might just send them running in that
direction. More than anything, he wanted to reach the interlopers before they
stumbled upon it themselves. If any "disaster” befell them, the Utes would take
the blame and the surrounding countryside would be up in arms.
He wondered what in the hell possessed two idiot women to
venture onto the reservation alone. True, there had been no major problems with
the Utes since the uprising at White River back in ’79. Agent Nathan Meeker had
been murdered along with eight of his men, and his wife and daughter taken
captive. Still, no one in Colorado had forgotten about the incident. In order
to prevent trouble, the very least he could do was ask around, see if he could
find the two women, and then try to set them straight. He hoped it wouldn’t
take more than a day or two.
As he reined in before the general store and trading post
and dismounted, Rory wondered if it was too much to hope that everything would
be settled by nightfall.
The rowels of his spurs delivered a metallic whisper as he
crossed the lopsided pine sidewalk that bordered the front of the store. He
ducked through the low door frame, took off his hat out of habit, and spun it
around on his finger as he walked toward the counter. The entrance area of the
elongated room was well lit by the front windows, but near the back, only
hanging oil lamps dispelled the shadows.
Rows of canned and dry goods lined the shelves behind the
counter. Barrels of flour, sugar, salt, and cornmeal with scoops and sacks
beside them stood like infantrymen along one wall. Grain, seed, and feed were
stored in the back corner, while household goods, ribbon, and fabric, along
with pots and pans were up front where they would catch a housewife’s hungry
eye.
As Rory approached the counter Willie Henson, the
proprietor, straightened his apron strings and stepped forward expectantly.
"What can I do for you, Rory? Come in to collect your mail?”
Rory leaned one elbow on the cash register and continued to
twirl his dusty black Stetson. "Well, that, and I’m hopin’ you can answer a
question, Willie. You had any women through here, travelin’ alone, maybe buyin’
supplies?” Henson shook his head as he reached for the box of mail he kept
under the counter. "Nope. An’ I’da remembered any unattached females, that’s
for certain.” He began to sort through the envelopes.
"Thought maybe you would,” Rory said.
Willie lay two letters on the countertop. "What’s up?”
"Oh, just curious. Heard there’s a couple of them up the
reservation digging around.”
"You in the market for a wife?” Henson asked.
The Stetson stopped twirling. Rory straightened. "Nope. The
Silver Sage is about all I can handle right now.”
"How you been doin’ since ol’ Wilner died?”
"Not bad.” If you consider working from sunup to sundown and
always coining up short of money good, he thought. "But I miss the old coot
more’n I like to let on.”
Willie smiled. "Nobody could ride down a steer like Wilner
Burnett. Leastwise that’s what they say.”
"What they say’s the truth.” Rory shoved the letters in his
back pocket. Since Willie had not seen the women, he was at a dead end. There’d
be nothing to do now but ride all the way down to the mesa that bordered the
reservation on the south end of his land and search for them.
"With Wilner not long dead you still plannin’ on holdin’ the
barbecue on the Fourth?” Willie wanted to know.
"Sure am,” Rory assured him. Wilner had been dead six
months, but the annual Fourth of July barbecue and rodeo for all the ranchers
and neighbors was a tradition Rory intended to keep. "You be sure to come on
out and bring your ma.”
"I’ll sure do ’er.”
Before he left, Rory remembered to ask, "You get that new
feed mix in?”
"It’s in the back corner. Open up a sack if you want to see
it,” Willie offered.
Rory heard the sound of hooves out front as he sauntered
over to the darkened back corner of the store. Just as he bent over a burlap
sack of grain, he heard the distinct sound of a woman’s heels tapping across
the floorboards followed by Willie clearing his throat Curious, Rory paused to
peer around the end of a row of shelves and there she was, a woman the likes of
which he’d never seen. He knew immediately she was one of the two he was
looking for.
Willie glanced his way. Rory quickly shook his head and held
a finger to his lips, aiming to study the woman before he approached her. The
clerk turned his attention back to the woman at the counter. She was of medium
height, slender, but not bony. From what Rory could see, she neatly filled out
her fitted brown jacket. The trouble was, she had the damn thing buttoned
nearly to her eyebrows. That was an exaggeration, he knew, but despite the
warm June weather, the woman had the jacket closed all the way to her chin. A
hint of cream-colored lace edged all that was visible of the collar. It brushed
against the underside of her jaw.
He couldn’t see her hair because she had it shoved up under
a stiff-looking hat, but he guessed it was probably brown, or a watered-down
derivative of it, just like everything else she wore. The hat itself reminded
him of a picture he’d once seen, a seed-calendar painting of a hunter on African
safari. She had on chamois gloves and sturdy, lace-up boots—again of brown. On
the bridge of her perfectly tapered and slightly tilted nose rode a pair of
thick, wire-frame spectacles.
The woman silently studied Willie Henson, who was smoothing
down his-parted, well-oiled hair with both hands as he stared back wide-eyed at
his surprise customer.
Finally she spoke. "I’m Jessica Stanbridge and I’m here in
Colorado to conduct a scientific search, Mister... ?”
Willie looked startled as she paused, then quickly supplied
his last name. "Henson. Willie Henson, ma’am.”
"Yes, well, Mr. Henson, I’m here on behalf of the Harvard
Museum. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”
"No, ma’am. I’m sorry I ain’t. I mean, haven’t never.”
"I see. Well, at any rate. I’m a staff assistant
paleontologist, and I’ve come to comb the area for signs of huge reptiles that
inhabited the earth millions of years ago.”
"They move back to Colorado?” Sudden concern marred Willie’s
usually bland expression.
Rory swallowed a laugh and noticed the woman missed the
levity of the moment. She merely looked perturbed.
Miss Stanbridge shook her head. "On the contrary, Mr.
Henson. I’m searching for the fossilized remains of saurians that have been
dead for centuries.”
"I see,” said Willie, who obviously didn’t see at all.
"I wonder if you can be so kind as to suggest someone
hereabout that I might hire as a guide?”
She asked so softly that Rory could barely hear her. He
leaned closer.
Willie swallowed and acted as if he’d never heard the
English language spoken before. "Guide?”
She nodded. "Yes. Guide. Scout. Whatever you like to call
it. I need a male. Preferably strong. Someone who knows the area well,
especially the mesas on the Ute reservation.”
Behind a full shelf of tins of cookies and soda crackers,
Rory shifted. The woman fanned herself with her hand, blew at a stray wisp of
hair that was hanging over her glasses, and then went on to explain, "I’ve
tried to get some of the men at the reservation to help, but they seem
unwilling to do so, even for pay.”
"They tend to be a stubborn bunch,” Willie editorialized.
"So it seems. I came to see if you have any suggestions.
Perhaps someone who lives nearby. By the way, I saw your sign out front and
will have my mail forwarded to your store. I would appreciate it if you could
hold any letters that might arrive in the next few weeks, as I don’t know how
often I’ll get into Cortez.”
"Be happy to take care of your mail, ma’am, but as to
gettin’ somebody to guide you, I just don’t—”
Rory suddenly saw his chance yawning as wide as the very
mouth of the cave he hoped to steer Miss Jessica Stanbridge clear of. Signing
on as her guide would give him a perfect opportunity to lead her away from the
cave and off the Ute reservation. Once he had her on his land, he could keep
her busy searching the high plateau for bones while he checked in at the ranch
house. By getting to know her better, he could gauge whether or not she might
be sympathetic to the Ute concerns.
He quickly stepped around the end of the shelves and over to
the counter. When she swung her gaze toward him, he saw that she was startled
to discover someone else was in the store. He was almost as startled as she,
for he hadn’t expected her eyes to be so blue, so wide, or so beguiling. Nor
had he expected the mysterious bone hunter to be so very beautiful. In spite of
the dirt that streaked her face and the owlish look the round spectacles gave
her, her loveliness was still apparent. For a fleeting moment he couldn’t for
the life of him remember what he was going to say.
Then it hit him. "You say you’re looking for a guide,
ma’am?”
"I am.”
"Then I’m your man.”
