Rhys had not expected this. At the invitation of Horace Roper, Rhys approached the main house at the Gamble ranch. The frame structure resembled those he had seen in the East, a two-story building with a turret and wrap of porches, a rose garden and a picket fence in front. Inside he found gleaming walnut paneling and a handsome staircase descending into the front hall.
Rope led him into a parlor which opened off the hall, a room which had wisely been decorated in shades of cool blue. A pattern of forget-me-nots lined the pleasing wallpaper. Soft blue velvet covered the settee and chairs. The room was charming, tasteful, a departure from the austere adobe bunkhouse where he and Lucien had spent the night.
The house and parlor were not, however, the greatest surprise he received at the Gamble ranch. That credit belonged to the woman he observed descending the staircase. Her hair was carefully coiffed, her carriage straight, her countenance serene. His eyes followed as her gliding steps brought her to the last tread and her hand slid from the banister. She wore a dress of black silk, simply but beautifully cut. She was all elegance and grace, so different from Teddy Gamble that Rhys could hardly believe they shared the same bloodline.
“Madame Gamble.” He rose as she entered the parlor and introduced himself before Rope had a chance to do it for him. She offered him her hand. He took it and pressed his lips to the back of it. She was Felicity Gamble, Zack Gamble’s mother, Teddy’s grandmother. She was in mourning for her sons, one of whom she had not seen in many years. “I regret to have arrived with bad tidings,” he said sincerely. “I offer my sympathy and hope you can forgive my need to come here and—”
Her soft smile stopped him. “I understood my son Zachary, Mr. Delmar,” she said quietly. “He had an unwitting way of entangling others in his life and ours. I can hardly blame you for his actions.”
Teddy, in buckskin and boots, had come in behind Felicity. “Ha! Could have said no to a card game with an ailing man,” she mumbled.
“Teddy!”
“All right, Grandmother.” Teddy gave the older woman a quick, conciliatory kiss on the cheek. “Best manners in the house, I know.”
“See that you remember it.” Felicity gave her granddaughter a stern look. “Mr. Delmar is our guest.” She turned to Rhys then. “We would like you to join us for breakfast, Mr. Delmar.”
Rhys made a slight bow. “I am delighted to do so,” he said, smiling inwardly, feeling, at last, that he had an ally. Making a courtly display of his manners, he escorted the older woman to the dining room across the hallway. Rope and Teddy followed, pausing for a moment to speak privately while Rhys assisted Felicity into her chair. He’d have done the same for Teddy a moment later but she brushed him off. “Don’t need any help,” she said tersely.
“Teddy has an aversion to social graces, you may have noticed,” Felicity commented as she gracefully unfolded a crisply starched square of linen and placed it in her lap.
“She is—” Rhys looked at Teddy and deliberated for a moment. Untamed, he thought, like one of the wild, spirited mustangs he’d seen from the window of a train during his long journey. One in particular, a splashy golden steed, had seemed to delight in racing the engine, or the wind. Teddy had that same wildness, that same air of challenge about her. “Original,” he remarked, pleased to note that his comment made Teddy squirm.
“I see you are not without tact, Mr. Delmar.” A hint of a smile turned up the corners of Felicity Gamble’s lips. “You’ll find yourself in the minority at the Gamble ranch.”
“If you two are through discussing my character maybe we can have breakfast,” Teddy said curtly. “Rope’s got to get into town to see the first run out.”
“And we do have a little business to talk over,” Rope said, aligning himself with Teddy but clearly deferring to Felicity’s wish for civility at her table.
Felicity, still smiling faintly, motioned for a servant to bring the food. “Maude is part of the family,” she explained, as a plain-faced woman in a blue gingham dress and white apron dished helpings of eggs and sausages from a crockery platter. “This house couldn’t run without her.”
“Not if anyone wanted to eat,” Maude said good-naturedly. She was nearly the same age as Felicity but Maude moved with a youthful energy born of fresh air and simple living, breezing around the table and serving everyone in a few short minutes, then repeating the circuit and handing round a basket of steaming biscuits. “Mrs. Gamble’s cooking is too fancy for the ranch hands,” she said. “And Teddy wouldn’t know flour from grist.”
“Thankfully,” Teddy retorted. Her brief glance at Maude unexpectedly caught Rhys’s eyes on her.
The others were busy buttering biscuits and stirring cream into the coffee Maude had poured. Rhys did not bother to pull his gaze away, even though Teddy’s face looked as if it ached to scowl back at him. She hadn’t put up her hair today. It was combed back and tied at her nape with a strip of beaded buckskin—the sort of adornment he imagined an Indian woman might wear. Her hair was pretty, nearly down to her waist, the whole skein of it was glistening like honey pouring out of a jar.
He kept staring, realizing, at length, that Teddy Gamble fascinated him. She was original, quite a change of pace from the women of his experience. He was accustomed to faces masked with powder, paint and guile. Hers was scrubbed clean as that of a child who had just walked away from the washbowl. She seemed to wear her feelings up front—no pretense about her at all. He found the trait commendable, even if the feelings she had for him were mostly unfriendly.
What’s more, she seemed less forbidding in her grandmother’s house, where she was surrounded by fine polished furniture and delicate lace curtains. Yesterday at the scarred table in the saloon she’d seemed so much a spitfire he hadn’t known how to react to her. But here, at a table covered with snowy linen and set with porcelain china, Teddy was the one who looked out of place and acted out of sorts.
Made her even prettier, he decided. And easier to read. He considered himself a master at reading people. With Teddy there was agitation, and display of her formidable temper. He suspected it was even shorter than usual today. If he did not miss his guess there was something afoot here. He thought of the invitation Rope had extended for him and Lucien to move into quarters at the ranch’s bunkhouse. Not given out of charity. Oh no, not from Teddy Gamble. When she pretended to be nice she had something up her sleeve.
An idea came to him all at once. This was a contest, the same as a game of chance. Teddy’s brashness, her refusal to accept the legitimacy of his claim was a bluff. She was stalling. But for what reason? He considered, uneasily, that perhaps his share of the Gamble Line was not as valuable as Zack Gamble had represented it. Or perhaps it was worth much more and Teddy did not want to ante up so much. Or maybe she did not want to ante up anything at all. Maybe she was stalling until she could find a way to cut him out of what was rightfully his.
Oddly, he felt himself almost immediately restored in body and mind, though the trip west had been physically grueling, and his head had never been at rest over what he had left behind in London. Almost as quickly, Rhys understood what had energized him. Teddy Gamble had issued a challenge, whether she had meant to or not. No matter. She had made a mistake. Rhys Delmar had never been bluffed out of a hand, nor had he ever walked away from a challenge. Indeed, only once had he ever run from trouble.
“Do you find our food unpalatable, Mr. Delmar?” Felicity’s question broke his train of thought.
He realized he’d not even picked up his knife and fork. Smiling, he did so at once and took a bite of flavorful sausage, finding he was suddenly ravenous. “Excellent,” he insisted before taking another mouthful. “How fortunate you are to have Maude.”
Grinning, her cheeks a candy red, Maude made her way to the kitchen. A few minutes later she was back with a fresh jar of prickly pear jelly and was insisting that Rhys try it with his biscuits. He did, and swore it was easily the best treat he’d had since leaving France. He had not forgotten Jenny, nor his vow to avenge her. But for now he must make the most of life in the Arizona desert. And Teddy Gamble was about to learn that Rhys Delmar would play the fool for no one.
Teddy thought Rhys looked exactly like a fox at the coop. What’s more she had the distinct feeling the coop was hers and that she was powerless to save her prized hens from the likes of Rhys Delmar. Briefly she closed her eyes and asked the powers above what she had done to deserve so much adversity in so short a period of time. The powers, however, did not answer. Teddy was left with the uncomfortable task of figuring it out and combating it on her own.
As for Delmar, he troubled her more than a little bit by looking so at ease and confident in her grandmother’s house. She’d preferred keeping him confused and defensive. A man was easier to handle when he was like that. But here he sat, cocksure and smiling with her grandmother and Maude fawning all over him. If she dared she’d give both of them a tongue-lashing for making such a fuss over him. Didn’t they realize that the scoundrel was threatening to take their livelihood? Uncle Zack, at least, had been an easy partner, not bothering himself with how the Gamble Line was run as long as the company periodically sent him money.
Well. She sighed and pushed her plate aside. Her usually hearty appetite had departed, and her breakfast was mostly uneaten. She and Rope had concocted a plan for keeping Mr. Delmar and his claims at bay until they were better prepared to settle with him—or could find a way of sending him packing empty-handed.
“Mr. Delmar,” she said resolutely.
“Rhys.” Smiling slyly, he cut her short. “This is an informal land, I have learned. You are plain Teddy. I am Rhys.”
The day before, she had made fun of the string of names he’d used to introduce himself. Today he was taunting her with her own words. Teddy’s temper flared but she dampered the heat. Flying into a rage wasn’t going to accomplish what she and Rope wanted to accomplish.
“All right, Rhys,” she said, giving a flat pronunciation to his name. “Rope and I have come up with what we think is a fair arrangement until we get an answer on the validity of your claim.”
“Something other than cleaning stalls?”
The words annoyed her, the tone raised an alarm. Not trusting herself to speak and knowing Rope had an I-told-you-so-look on his face, Teddy locked her tense fingers around the handle of her coffee cup and raised it to her lips. She wondered what had happened in the past twelve hours to give the Frenchman all that brass. For a few seconds she wondered if he was even the same man she’d backed down at their last encounter. This Rhys Delmar looked larger and—dammit—virile as a stud horse.
She could see him quite clearly over the rim of her cup. She noted the sardonic smile, and the peculiar gleam in the pale eyes. An apprehensive shiver came unexpectedly. The way his eyes shone, and the way he was looking at her gave her a perverse and puzzling mix of aversion and excitement. Men around Wishbone had long ago given up thinking of Teddy as an available woman. She was one of the boys to them. So it had been a stretch of time since a man had looked at her in a predatory way, as if he noticed her curves, wanted to see them uncovered, wanted her.
Teddy felt more heat building inside her—not her temper but something wilder, something unfamiliar. She was, abruptly, too acutely aware of the man. Her vision was made keener by the strange heat. She saw what she had refused to notice before, the luster of his black hair, the enticing way the overlong locks curled over his crisp collar. He had a way of giving a half smile. When he did, she felt the power of it like the flame of a match to tinder. She put down her cup. Her hand slid to her throat where she felt her wide silver and turquoise necklace growing hot as a branding iron against her skin.
He followed the involuntary movement with pale eyes that glittered wickedly from beneath thick black lashes. His gaze was like an assault nearly taking her breath. She willed herself to glare back. As their eyes met she came to the disturbing realization that he was fully conscious of the way he was unnerving her.
Indignant, she broke her gaze away and inhaled sharply. Once, she’d been near enough to a lightning strike to feel the jarring current of it hit the ground. The same sort of electric jolt coursed through her as the thought dawned that Rhys Delmar was not the witless, dandified half-man she’d assumed he was.
He was dangerous, definitely dangerous.
“Teddy? You were saying?” As if to prove her the witless one, to make her wonder if she had imagined what she felt and sensed, his expression, when he called to her, was innocently benign.
“Forget that,” Teddy said, not about to offer an apology for her hasty words of the night before, but anxious to keep her unwanted partner away from Parrish Adams. “Rope and I feel that the only fair thing under the circumstances is to put you up at the ranch until this is settled. You and your—uh, valet can keep the room at the back of the bunkhouse and take your meals with the hands. No need for you to sleep in the stable or pay for lodging in town.”
“An interesting change of heart,” Rhys commented. Now he was sure she was stalling. She wanted to keep him close enough to keep a watch on him. Or did she want to keep him away from something? The stage line maybe? “I’ll think it over,” he told her.
“Think it over? Now look here—” Teddy started.
“You think it over and let us know,” Rope interrupted, seeing that Teddy was about two steps from snapping the hold on her temper. “Teddy hasn’t thought to say it but I’m the third partner in this company. I, for one, am willin’ to give you a fair shake.”
“Shake?”
“Deal,” Rope explained. “But anybody can understand that when a stranger shows up claimin’ part of what you’ve worked and scraped for, you want to make sure he’s not tryin’ to pull wool.”
“Anyway,” Teddy chirped in. “I’ve already sent a letter off requesting that witness in London to give us a statement. Don’t reckon there’s any doubt what that man of yours will say.”
“None,” Rhys replied, giving the half smile. He wasn’t happy to know that Teddy’s inquiry was already on the way, but he would not let her know that. He’d been prepared to suggest that a friend of his get the deposition, someone who could do it quietly to ensure the authorities searching for him did not hear of it. But Teddy had preempted that possibility. He said a silent touché to her. She had raised the odds. Did she know that?
Teddy felt a flash of fire inside as he gave the quick smile and the long look. She scowled but tried to keep her voice even. “Unless there’s trouble finding that witness, it shouldn’t take more than a few months to hear back. If what you say is on the level we can pay you what your share is worth at that time.”
Rhys shrugged indifferently, but his eyes sparkled wickedly. Let her worry. It would do her good. “Who is to say?” he asked, as if he had not a care in the world. “By then I may have come to like this land and running a stage company. I may want to keep my shares.”
“Keep?” Teddy’s voice rose. “And where do you get the idea you’ll be running anything? Look here—”
“Simmer down, Teddy,” Rope’s cooler voice drowned Teddy’s out. “Nothing will be running if we don’t get into town.”
Teddy rose quickly, nearly choking on her temper as she saw Felicity Gamble’s frown.
“Don’t concern yourself about me,” Rhys called after her, noting the quick rhythm of her hips as she stalked off—the way the buckskin fringe of her shirt danced around her squared shoulders. “I shall be perfectly content in the company of two charming ladies.”