Chapter Three

Catherine smiled as she watched David sketching a portrait of Tommy Nylan. The five-year-old squirmed, fighting the desire to look over and see how the picture was coming. At last David finished and handed it to the boy for his approval.

“Wow! It’s me! Look, everybody, Davy drawed a pitcher of me!”

Tommy took off at a run to show his prize to the rest of the children, who were playing in the schoolyard during their noon break. The first morning back to school after the incident at church had been uneventful, and Catherine had finally begun to relax in the knowledge that the tensions between the adults had not carried over to the children.

David’s gaze sought hers, and he grinned smugly. “It really does look like him,” he told her.

“I know. See, I told you all you needed was a little practice. Of course, you realize what you’ve done, don’t you? Now all the children will want you to do a picture of them.”

“I won’t mind,” he was saying when the sounds of an altercation drew their attention. Tommy was arguing with his older brother Jimmy.

“You see, it’s started already,” Catherine said in resignation as she hurried over to break up the fight.

“Pa’ll throw it in the fire when he finds out who drew it,” ten-year-old Jimmy was saying. “He told you not to have any truck with Davy Connors.”

“No, he didn’t,” Tommy denied, but his voice trembled and tears brimmed in his eyes. “He won’t burn my pitcher!”

“What’s going on?” Catherine demanded, although her stomach already churned at what she had heard.

“Pa told us to stay away from Davy and his kind,” Jimmy said, but one of the other boys grabbed his arm and swung him around before Catherine could reply.

“Whadda ya mean, ‘his kind’?” Billy McCoy yelled. “You’re nothing but a bunch of lousy free-grassers.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

Before Catherine could think, the two boys were on the ground, thrashing in the dust. “Stop it!” she cried, but to no avail. “David, help me!”

David grabbed Billy while Catherine seized Jimmy and tried to smother his struggles. She hardly felt the small elbows and heels that resisted her efforts until, at last, both boys surrendered to their captors. Only their red faces and raspy breaths gave evidence of their continued fury.

“Fighting is not the way to settle anything,” Catherine insisted, but she could see from the expressions of the children gathered around they did not believe her. “Come inside, everyone, and we’ll talk about this.”

Hoping her impulse to try solving the problems through discussion wasn’t just wishful thinking, she conducted all the students back into the schoolroom. Her mind was racing ahead, trying to think about how to handle the situation, and she decided an informal approach would be best.

“Don’t take your seats. Come up front, all of you. Bigger children take the benches and smaller ones on the floor.” She arranged the reading benches into a V and had the younger children sit down between them. Then she pulled her own chair up in front of them.

“First of all, will someone tell me what a free-grasser is?”

Her question broke the tension. The children could not believe her ignorance, and a few even laughed openly, although no one volunteered to explain.

“Jimmy, will you tell me?” she asked.

Jimmy’s face was still red from the fight, but he blushed even redder. “It’s someone who—who thinks there shouldn’t be no fences at all.”

“Any fences,” she corrected. “Then why were you so angry when Billy called you a free-grasser? I thought your father didn’t believe in fences.”

This remark brought a howl of protest from both sides.

“Only a damn fool thinks there shouldn’t be any fences at all!” Billy McCoy declared to another howl in reaction to his profanity. “Well, that’s what my pa says.”

“Then you should tell your father to watch his language,” Catherine said sternly. “And you should, too. Getting back to our discussion, now I’m totally confused. If everyone thinks fencing is a good idea, why are they fighting about it?”

“Because it’s not fair!” Jimmy shouted, and for a few moments everyone talked at once until Catherine could get them settled down again.

“One at a time, please,” she said. “Why isn’t it fair, Jessica?”

Jessica glanced up in surprise. She had been observing the whole process with contempt, and Catherine was determined to get her involved.

“Because not everybody can afford to fence their land,” she said, giving David a challenging look. “And them who can take advantage of them who can’t.”

“How?” Catherine asked, inspiring another general outburst that she had to quiet. “Alice, can you tell me?”

Alice Tate was a small, shy girl who seemed overwhelmed by the arguing. She looked around uncertainly. “Well, because some people fence other people off their own land.”

“That’s not true!” Billy and his friends protested, but Catherine shushed them.

“What do you mean, Alice?”

“They—they put fences across the roads so people can’t get to town or anything.”

“And what about Mr. Riley and Mr. Spencer?” Jimmy Nylan wanted to know. “They been living on their land a long, long time, but Mr. Pettigrew come along and claimed it was his and put a fence around it so they couldn’t get to it no more.”

“That land didn’t belong to Spencer and Riley,” Billy McCoy argued. “They been using it, but they never owned it legal. Mr. Pettigrew had every right to claim it.”

“But it wasn’t fair!”

“How about them that cut Mr. Pettigrew’s fence. They wasn’t fair, neither!”

When Catherine had once again quieted the children, she said, “I’m new here and I don’t own any land, so maybe it’s a little easier for me to see both sides of the issue. In any case, it seems to me that there is right and wrong on both sides.”

“You’re right, Miss Eaton,” Jessica said, her plain face alight with triumph. “The only problem is that when you’ve got money, nobody cares whether you’re right or wrong. You win anyway.”

Catherine glanced at David, concerned because he hadn’t said a word yet. His startlingly blue eyes met hers, and she could see the anguish he felt over Jessica’s charge. “Not all the big ranchers are cheating people,” he said.

“Just ’cause they didn’t break no laws don’t mean they ain’t cheating,” Jimmy insisted. “If there’s another drought this summer, is your brother gonna take down his fences so everybody can use his water?” David had no reply, and Catherine felt his pain at not being able to defend his beloved brother. She sighed in defeat. She had hoped this discussion would help the children see how foolish their parents’ disagreements were and enable them to get along with each other in spite of what was going on in the community. Now she knew the disagreements ran far deeper than she had imagined. If she hoped to make peace in her classroom, she would have to begin in the homes of her students.

Suddenly, the idea of boarding with the families on weekends began to seem more like an opportunity than an ordeal. Surely the other women were as appalled by the violence as she. She could talk to the mothers, who could then work on the men.

Of course, David Connors had no mother, and from what she had seen of Sam Connors yesterday, Catherine suspected his cooperation would be vital to the cause of peace. But Catherine had the ear of someone equally as influential. She would reach Connors through David.

That afternoon as she and David sat sketching under the willows, Catherine tried to decide how best to approach the subject. Before she could, David startled her with a muttered imprecation. He wadded up the paper in front of him and threw it down in disgust.

“Is something the matter?” she inquired wryly, picking up the discarded page and smoothing it out. David had been trying to draw her face but without much success.

“I didn’t have any trouble drawing Tommy this morning,” he complained.

“Tommy’s not your teacher. Maybe you’re trying too hard,” she suggested with a smile.

“Maybe,” he grumbled, refusing to meet her eye.

She studied the botched picture to determine where he had gone wrong. “Give me your hand,” she said, laying the picture and her own sketchbook aside.

Puzzled, David placed his hand in hers, and she lifted it to her face. “Feel where my cheekbones are... and here, where my jaw curves around...” She let him trace all the contours, and when he was finished, he withdrew his hand slowly, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide.

“Your skin’s so soft,” he marveled.

“That’s because I’m a woman,” she explained easily. “Women’s bodies are different from men’s.”

“I—I know,” David murmured in an agony of embarrassment.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Catherine said with an apologetic laugh. “I wasn’t talking about that. I’m sure you know the differences between males and females. What I meant was that women’s bodies are softer than men’s because women have a layer of fat under the skin. It makes us smoother and rounder. Look, roll up your sleeve.”

David obediently did so as Catherine turned back the cuff of her shirtwaist to reveal her own forearm. She held it next to David’s. “You see the difference? How your muscles are more pronounced and my arm is smooth and round?”

“Yes,” he said, enthralled. He stared at the two arms for a few moments, then said, “Is that what anatomy is? Studying bodies?”

“Yes,” she said in surprise. She’d never dreamed he wouldn’t be familiar with the word.

“I was too embarrassed to ask you yesterday,” he explained. “Is this the kind of stuff they teach you at art school?”

She nodded. “They have lectures using live models for demonstration, and in life class they use live models for you to draw from.” She sighed with regret. “It’s too bad you can’t go to the Academy. I doubt we’d be able to find you a model in Crosswicks who was willing to pose nude.”

“Nude?” David echoed incredulously. “You mean naked? With no clothes on?”

Catherine winced. She tended to forget how inhibited people outside the insular world of art were about nudity. She had obviously shocked David to his core. “Yes, but it’s all very properly done. Some of the models wear drapes, and of course we have female models for the female students and male models for the male students.” And photographs of each for the other, although she didn’t think she would tell David that for the time being.

“Where do you get people who’ll pose with no clothes on?” he asked, still not able to completely believe such a shocking thing.

Catherine briefly considered lying. If David were to carry this wild tale home to his brother, heaven only knew what his reaction would be. “Well, we hire people whenever we can, but... ” Should she mention that they were reluctant to hire prostitutes, the only females generally willing to pose, because the only prostitutes willing were those too old and ugly to earn much money at their chosen profession? No, she wouldn’t tell him. David had been educated enough for one day. “... but mostly the students take turns posing for each other.”

“Did you do it?” David asked with a glimmer of adolescent lechery.

Catherine realized with alarm that the conversation was taking a decidedly dangerous turn. “Well, yes,” she admitted reluctantly, but hastened to add, “but I only posed for the other girls... and there are limits to how much I am willing to teach you.”

He blushed furiously. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what you meant,” she said tartly. “I’ll teach you what I can about anatomy, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do without a live model... except for faces.”

He thought this over for a moment, and then he grinned. “Can I at least touch your face again?” he asked hopefully.

“You’re stretching your luck,” she warned with mock sternness. “Now get another piece of paper and try your sketch again.”

He cheerfully did so and made a great show of hiding his work from her until he was finished.

While he worked, Catherine made a few idle sketches of her own as she mulled over her conversation with David. She would have to warn him not to mention anything about nude models to his brother. She felt certain Sam Connors would not approve of her corrupting this innocent boy with tales of the immorality of the big city.

She pictured Connors’s outraged disapproval and found her pencil tracing the outline of a square-jawed face with wide-set eyes and heavy brows. A few more strokes supplied his blade of a nose, and then she colored in the ebony hair curling to his collar. She paused over the mouth, trying to decide what expression he should be wearing. To her own amazement, her fingers chose a smile, the smile that was so much like David’s. She wondered vaguely how an expression she had seen so seldom could have lingered so vividly in her mind, but she had no trouble recalling it exactly. The eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, and the lines by his nose deepened.

Her pencil flew across the page as memory supplied more details, and when she was finished, she stared down in surprise. Her portrait of Sam Connors was one she barely recognized as the man she had come to know. Was her drawing mere wishful thinking, or could there be a man like this beneath his harsh exterior? If so, he would be an invaluable ally in her peacemaking efforts.

“That must be some picture,” David remarked, startling her back to reality.

He had obviously been watching her for some time, and she wondered what her own expression might have revealed. “Are you finished?” she asked, striving for lightness.

“Yeah, but you can only see it if you let me see yours.”

Catherine resisted a childish urge to conceal her work. She had nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn’t as if she had drawn Sam Connors nude, for heaven’s sake. While few of the female students studied male anatomy, Catherine’s father had thought such strictures ridiculous, and the made nude held no mysteries for her. She realized with some surprise she would have had little trouble imagining what Connors’s powerful body looked like beneath his devil’s black suit.

Feeling the heat in her cheeks at the thought of Sam Connors nude, she handed David the picture and accepted his in return. His was of her face, her lips pursed, her brow furrowed in concentration. Good heavens, had she looked so engrossed?

“Wow! It’s Sam. Wait’ll he sees this!”

“Oh, don’t... ” She caught herself. What excuse would she give for not wanting him to see it? “It’s really not very good,” she tried.

“It’s great,” he contradicted. “It’s the best I’ve ever seen you do.”

“A labor of love,” she muttered miserably. Oh, well, maybe the picture would soften Connors’s heart of stone a little. Maybe it would even inspire him to smile more often.

Now that Catherine was looking forward to her next weekend visit, the week seemed to drag by. The tensions between the children eased somewhat after their discussion, but the conflict was never far from anyone’s mind, and Catherine noticed the children separated into two groups for play in spite of her efforts to unite them.

She was next scheduled to visit little Alice’s home. The Tates were cotton farmers who had been hurt by the drought the summer before and who sided with the smaller ranchers in the fight against indiscriminate fencing. Catherine remembered Mrs. Tate as a soft-spoken woman who she hoped would be more reasonable than Lulie Nylan.

Her well-laid plans collapsed, however, when Alice came in to school on Friday morning.

“Miss Eaton, my ma said to tell you she’s real sorry, but she’s too sick and she can’t have you this weekend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Alice. How sick is she? Should I tell some of the other ladies to go out to help her?”

“They already comed. Ma’s sick in bed, and I heard ’em say she’ll be there for two weeks.”

Catherine recalled that Alice’s mother had been showing with an early pregnancy, and she feared some problem with miscarriage. She would inquire of Twila Shallcross as soon as school was out.

“She said we should change with somebody else,” Alice was saying.

“What, dear?” Catherine asked absently.

“Ma said somebody else should take our turn with you, and you can come another time.”

“That really isn’t necessary... ”

“I’ll take your turn,” David offered, having overheard the conversation.

Alice gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks. Ma was real worried about losing her turn with Miss Eaton.”

David grinned back at her. “I’ll draw you a pretty picture at lunch for you to take back to your ma.”

While they discussed what type of picture it should be, Catherine considered the situation. As unfortunate as it was, Mrs. Tate’s illness might be providential. Now Catherine would have whole two days in which to convince Sam Connors he should adopt the cause of peace.

“But Sam said not to bring you out to the ranch,” David told her that afternoon when she asked how he planned to transport her.

“But you said... I thought... ”

“I’ll take care of your meals. That’s what we’re supposed to do, but Sam already told me when it’s our turn, I’m supposed to stay in town and take you to eat at the hotel. Because you’re a woman and we don’t have a woman at our place, it wouldn’t be proper for you to stay out there.”

“You don’t have any women at all at your ranch?”

“Well, there’s Inez.”

“Who’s Inez?”

“She’s married to one of our men, and she keeps house for me and Sam, but she’s not—”

“Could she serve as a chaperone?” Catherine asked, unwilling to give up her plan if there was any possibility of carrying it through.

“I don’t know...”

“Oh, I don’t suppose you have a place where I could sleep, either,” Catherine said, beginning to see the magnitude of the problem.

“Sure we do. There’s Pa’s old room, and now that I think of it, Inez and Pat could sleep in the house, too. There’s a room where the cook can sleep off the kitchen. I don’t guess Sam thought of that!”

“Then everything would be completely proper.”

David’s triumph faded a bit. “But how would I get you out there?”

Catherine considered a moment. “I know! We can rent a wagon at the livery. We’ll use the money your brother paid me for your lessons.” She felt like rubbing her hands together in anticipation of the coming confrontation, but she didn’t want to frighten David with her enthusiasm. If he even suspected her plans for his brother, she knew he would never take her out to the ranch at all. “Just think, David, we can work together all day tomorrow.”

His eyes brightened. “Sam won’t even know we’re there!”

On the way out to the Spur, Catherine got her first close look at barbed wire. When David stopped the rented wagon to open the first gate, Catherine climbed down, too, and went over to examine the cause of all the controversy.

From a distance, the thin strands of wire looked incapable of retaining anything stronger than a jackrabbit, but up close she could see the sharp barbs that gave the wire its name. She touched one gingerly, imagining how painful it would be to have one’s body impaled on a section of such a fence. No wonder it worked so effectively in restraining the animals within the enclosure.

“Has your brother had much trouble with his fences being cut?” she asked when they were on their way again.

“Not yet,” David said, unconsciously expressing his fears for the future. “Oh, we lost a few sections, but we figure it was mostly for devilment. Some fellows think it’s great fun to go out at night and snip a few wires.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll think it’s much fun if someone starts shooting at them.”

“I just hope the threat of it keeps them at home,” David replied grimly.

Catherine hoped so, too.

The Spur was by far the most impressive ranch she had seen thus far in Texas. The buildings were arranged neatly around a center square, and all of them were large and in good repair. Spreading cottonwood trees shaded the house and the extensive corrals, and the well-tended stock gave evidence of good management.

The house itself was massive, stretching along one side of the square and sprawling back from it in a series of wings. The basic structure was of squared logs and adobe, and porches lined every side, shading all the windows against the merciless Texas sun.

David said, “It’s early. I doubt Sam and the men have come in yet.”

Catherine let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. She would have time to settle in and compose herself before facing Connors.

David stopped the wagon in front of the house and helped Catherine down. An olive-skinned woman stood on the porch, drying her hands on an apron stretched over her faded calico dress. She was short, shorter even than Catherine, and almost as broad as she was tall. Her raven hair was pulled back in a bun, accentuating her strong features and her disapproving expression.

“Who is this lady?” the woman wanted to know. Her dark eyes took Catherine in from head to toe, and the schoolmistress got the distinct impression the woman did not approve of what she saw.

“This is Miss Eaton, the schoolteacher,” David said with forced cheerfulness. Inez might only be the housekeeper, but apparently her opinion carried enough weight to make him wary.

“Why is she here?”

Catherine managed a friendly smile. “It’s the Connors’s turn to board me this weekend,” she said, mounting the few steps to the porch and extending her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs.—?”

“Kelly,” the woman said. She took Catherine’s hand, but her eyes were still suspicious. “Mr. Sam did not say she was coming.”

“He didn’t know,” David hastily explained, mounting the steps behind Catherine. “She was supposed to go to the Tates, but Mrs. Tate is sick, so I thought—” He shrugged.

Inez apparently did not agree. “Mr. Sam will not like it.”

David ignored her remark. “I figured she could sleep in Pa’s old room,” he continued doggedly. “And of course you and Pat’ll have to sleep in the house tonight to be chaperones.”

Inez’s eyes narrowed, and she spoke rapidly in Spanish. The boy colored and glanced at Catherine. Relieved to see she had not understood, he said, “I’ll fix things with Sam.”

“Madre de Dios,” Inez muttered in exasperation, and then she seemed to recall herself and turned to Catherine with a grudging welcome. “Do you have a bag?”

“Yes, I—”

“I’ll get it,” David offered, jumping off the porch.

“Come inside,” Inez said, shaking her head. “I do not know what that boy is thinking sometimes. Imagine, bringing a lady here.”

Catherine began to wonder if she had been foolish to come. “Perhaps I should have David take me back to town. I don’t want to cause any problems.”

Inez shook her head again. “That is for Mr. Sam to say. If he does not want you here, he will tell you. Come, I will show you where you will sleep.”

The front room was enormous and furnished with a curious combination of furniture obviously shipped in from the East and other pieces that were just as obviously homemade. Braided rugs made colorful patches on the floors, and various animal trophies and hides hung on the walls. The whole place had a decidedly masculine feel about it, all except for the portrait that hung over the huge fireplace.

There, framed in gilt and staring down at her with soulful eyes, was one of the most beautiful young women Catherine had ever seen. She knew instantly this was David’s mother. The resemblance was unmistakable. In fact, she looked as if she were hardly any older than David was now. Probably the painting had been done before her marriage back in Louisiana.

Catherine gave it a critical examination. The pose was traditional and uninspired, but the artist had put something of himself into the painting. Probably, he was enamored of his subject, Catherine thought with a small smile. And who could blame him? If the girl had been half as lovely as the artist had portrayed her, she was exquisite.

“That is Senora Connors, Davy’s mama,” Inez explained.

“I can tell. She was lovely.”

Inez made a snorting noise and looked away. “Your room is this way.”

Puzzled, Catherine resisted the urge to question Inez. It was considered bad manners to question servants about the affairs of the family, and Catherine had no reason to believe the housekeeper would confide in her, anyway. She had best concentrate on making friends with the woman instead, since her opinion might influence Sam Connors into letting her stay.

Inez led her down a long, cool hall in one of the wings of the house. A door opened into a large bedroom in which the furniture was covered with sheets, giving it a ghostly appearance.

“I will have to open this room and make up the bed... if you stay,” Inez added.

“Do you think there is a possibility I won’t be staying?” Catherine asked frankly.

Inez crossed her arms over her ample bosom and looked Catherine up and down again. Refusing to flinch, Catherine lifted her chin and looked down her nose at the shorter woman. After a moment, Inez’s skeptical expression slid into a grin.

“I think Mr. Sam will not like it, but I think you will stay. Help me take off these covers.”

An hour later, Catherine and David were sitting in the front room on a velvet sofa left over from David’s mother’s brief reign at the Spur when they heard Sam Connors and his men returning to the ranch. In a few minutes, Connors mounted the front steps and came through the front door.

He paused a moment as he allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the interior dimness, and Catherine rose unconsciously to her feet, her breath lodged somewhere in her chest in anticipation of his reaction to her presence. He was dressed in ordinary range clothes and wore the bat-wing chaps that she found so picturesque. His clothes were dusty and his shirt clung damply to his body. He removed his hat, wiped his brow with his forearm sleeve, and sighed wearily.

Then, sensing her presence, his gaze swung to where she stood. In that one unguarded moment, she saw his initial surprise, but it hardened almost instantly into anger. He took her in from head to toe, much as Inez had done earlier, and then he turned to David, who stood beside her.

“What’s she doing here?” Connors demanded.

“She... it’s our turn to board the teacher,” David said with false bravado.

“That’s not true.”

“You’re right, Mr. Connors,” Catherine said, rushing to David’s rescue. “I was supposed to stay with Alice Tate’s family this weekend, but Mrs. Tate is ill.” Twila had confirmed Catherine’s theory about the miscarriage and assured the schoolteacher that Mrs. Tate was recovering. “David generously offered to take Alice’s turn.”

Connors turned back to David implacably. “I told you to stay in town and feed her at the hotel.”

Catherine knew a flash of irritation at his refusal to address her directly, but she squelched it, reminding herself she was on very thin ice. After all, she had forced David to bring her here against his better judgment and without his brother’s knowledge. Her conscience pricked her, but she couldn’t give in to it, not if she wanted a chance to discuss the fencing situation with Connors. “Please don’t blame David. I’m afraid I insisted on coming out here.”

Again he looked at her, and his eyes smoldered with an anger far greater than her social indiscretion merited. “Why?”

“I—I feel it’s important for me to see my students in their homes,” she improvised. “I can’t understand them completely unless I know what their family life is like.”

“And just where were you planning to sleep?” he inquired snidely. “With Davy or with me?”

“Sam!” David cried.

Catherine felt the heat rising in her face but refused to respond to Connors’s attempt to fluster her. “Your housekeeper has opened up your father’s bedroom for me, and she has also agreed to serve as chaperone.” Connors turned to David in exasperation. “Didn’t you explain to her that a Mexican woman isn’t a suitable chaperone?”

“I—I—” David stammered, casting Catherine a beseeching look.

Oh, dear, what had she gotten herself into? Hadn’t David tried to explain something to her earlier, something she had dismissed as unimportant?

Sensing her uncertainty, Connors made a visible effort to control his anger and become reasonable. “You’re taking a chance with your reputation, Miss Eaton, bunking in with two bachelors. But don’t worry, Davy’ll take you back right now, before any harm is done.”

“Nonsense,” she replied with more confidence than she actually felt. “I’m sure my reputation won’t suffer from my staying here. After all, Mrs. Shallcross made it very clear to me that boarding with the families was part of the teacher’s duty.”

“It’s the teacher’s duty to do as she’s told,” Connors snapped, all traces of reason gone. “And I’m telling you you’ve got no business here. Davy, take her back. Now.”

“Sam, I invited her here!” David protested.

“Then uninvite her. If she wants to make a scandal of herself, she can do it with somebody else.”

Catherine was trembling with suppressed rage, and her voice was far from steady when she said, “I find your concern for my good name rather touching, but totally unnecessary. I do, however, know when I’m not wanted. David, please fetch my bag from my room. It’s obvious your brother doesn’t want me to know what’s going on around here... ”

“What? What are you talking about?” Connors demanded fiercely.

Startled at his vehemence, Catherine could not for a moment realize what she had said to cause such a reaction. “I—I told you, I only came to see what David’s home life is like, but if you have some deep, dark secret you don’t want me to know—”

“Where’d you get an idea like that?”

“From you.”

“I never said any such thing.”

Realizing she had accidentally touched on a sensitive subject—even though she wasn’t exactly sure what the subject was—she played her advantage. “I have no wish to pry into your private affairs. David, if you’ll get my bag—”

“Wait a minute,” Connors said as the boy started for the hall. With difficulty, Connors got control of his temper and managed a semblance of calm. “We don’t have anything to hide.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” she said, as if she were not sure at all, then turned to David. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“Sam!” David pleaded.

“All right, she can stay,” Connors said through gritted teeth.

Catherine did not even acknowledge him. She crossed her arms and kept her gaze expectantly on David. Connors muttered what might have been a curse and then sighed gustily. “Miss Eaton,” he began with exaggerated formality, “we would be greatly honored if you would remain here as our guest.”

Her conscience pricked her again. She was being abominably rude by insisting on Connors’s hospitality. Maybe he did have something to hide, something she would be far better off not knowing. She felt the fight drain out her at the thought. Her hands fell to her sides, and she turned back to Connors with a sigh of defeat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Connors. I’m being terribly rude. If you think it’s for the best, of course I’ll let David take me back to town.”

His eyes widened in surprise, then instantly narrowed suspiciously, not trusting her sudden docility. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re staying here now, whether you want to or not. I won’t have you carrying stories back to town about how I was ashamed to have you here.”

“I assure you, I have no intention of—”

“You’re staying and that’s that. Davy, sit down here and entertain Miss Eaton while I get cleaned up, and don’t let her out of your sight.” With that he stalked off, disappearing down another of the hallways leading out of the room.

Catherine stared after him in wonder. She had won. Why did she feel so defeated? She sank down wearily onto the sofa.

“I’m sorry, Miss Eaton,” David said, sitting down beside her. “Sam don’t mean to be rude. I guess he’s just worried about stirring up more trouble. He’s always telling me how a person’s good name is all he has. I reckon he don’t want to hurt yours none.”

Catherine nodded, although she would have bet her life that Sam Connors’s disapproval of her visit had nothing whatsoever to do with whether she was adequately chaperoned. In any event, anyone who had seen her and Connors together for more than thirty seconds would know there was nothing improper in their relationship. The very thought was preposterous.

Sam stopped off in his bedroom to pick up some clean clothes and regain his composure. What in the hell was Catherine Eaton doing here tonight of all nights? Did she know what was going on?

No, he told himself, she couldn’t possibly know. But if she didn’t, what had she meant when she accused him of hiding something? She must surely suspect or she wouldn’t be here. He didn’t for one minute believe all that bull about her wanting to see her students in their homes.

Shaking his head, he continued down the hall to the bathing room Adora had insisted upon installing. It was, he conceded, one of her better ideas, few though those had been.

As he stripped for his bath, he mentally replayed the scene with Catherine Eaton. Seeing her had given him quite a turn. It had been a long time since he had seen a blond-haired woman in his house, and for a moment the years had slipped away...

But only for a moment. No one could possibly mistake the acid-tongued Miss Eaton for the sweetly submissive Adora. Imagine Catherine coming out here and moving into his house without so much as a by-your-leave. Poor Davy hadn’t stood a chance of convincing her otherwise once her mind had been made up.

Sam shook his head in disgust. What was she up to? Well, whatever she hoped to accomplish, he would put a stop to it. He’d make sure she was in bed and fast asleep long before midnight. She’d learn nothing from her visit here.

When the tub was filled with water from the boiler in the adjacent room, Sam sank down into it gratefully and once more his thoughts drifted to Catherine. This time he allowed himself to recall how cute she looked when she was angry. She reminded him of a cat, sleek and soft but ready to spit and hiss and bare her claws at the slightest provocation.

Sam closed his eyes and imagined all her fire turned to passion. Maybe he’d been wrong to assume she would be submissive in bed. Catherine Eaton didn’t seem the type to be submissive anywhere, and Sam decided he wouldn’t mind at all if she sank her claws into him.

Whose idea had it been to put her in his father’s old room, anyway? He smiled at the thought of having her in his bed tonight. Of course it was only a thought, and he had no intention of doing anything more than thinking, but wouldn’t little Miss Eaton head back to town at a dead run if she could read his mind?

The sight of Sam Connors all freshly scrubbed, his face cleanly shaven, his raven hair slicked back, and his skin still flushed from his bath, was slightly unnerving. Catherine tried not to picture him stretched out naked in the tub Inez had shown her earlier, but her vivid imagination kept flicking tantalizing images in her mind’s eye.

The thin cotton shirt and close-fitting Levi’s he had chosen to wear weren’t helping, either. She could easily see every bulge of muscle beneath them. Even trying to keep her eyes on his face didn’t help, since she was fascinated by the way his dark whiskers shaded his jaw even after a shave.

He had been standing in the doorway for several moments, studying her the way she had been studying him, until David cleared his throat to break the tense silence. “Inez said supper is ready.”

Connors nodded and, to her complete surprise, smiled quite pleasantly. “I wonder if anyone considered the fact Miss Eaton might not enjoy eating with the men down at the cook house.”

“We all did,” David hastily assured him. “Inez set the table in the dining room for us.”

“You should feel honored, Miss Eaton,” Connors said with what Catherine could only call charm. “Inez only lets us use the dining room on Christmas.”

“So David tells me,” she replied, rising to her feet as he approached. She tried to tell herself the strange flutter in her stomach was caused by her astonishment at his sudden change in manner. After the way he had treated her, she should be immune to his charm, shouldn’t she? Maybe she was only reacting to his overwhelming physical presence.

The silence fell again as everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to do something. Finally, Connors said, “Davy, why don’t you escort Miss Eaton in to supper?”

David brightened at the prospect and, with a flourish, offered Catherine his arm. Slightly surprised to discover the boy knew at least the rudiments of mannerly behavior, Catherine wondered vaguely where he’d learned them. Surely not from his obnoxious brother. As if he could read her thoughts, the obnoxious brother shot her a knowing grin just before she turned away.

Sam fell in behind them as they made their way into the other room. He couldn’t keep himself from a silent appreciation of Catherine Eaton’s trim figure. She was dressed, as usual, in something plain and sensible, but she still couldn’t disguise the feminine curves lying beneath the simple skirt and shirtwaist. Beside her petite form, Davy looked like a grown man. Skinny as he was, the boy probably outweighed her by thirty pounds. Which meant Sam himself would make two of her.

The very thought of her fragility compared to his strength made Sam’s body tighten in response. Easy, he told himself sternly, a rattler looks fragile, too, until it bites you. The analogy had the desired effect, so by the time they reached the table, Sam’s more lecherous thoughts were in abeyance.

“A tablecloth,” Sam muttered in amazement as he waited for Davy to seat their guest. Sam took the chair at the head of the table, leaving Davy to sit at his left, across from Catherine.

The dining room was built on the same massive scale as the rest of the house, and the table could have easily seated twenty people. Catherine felt rather grand as the only guest and noted the fine china and silver that had been set out in her honor.

In a moment, Inez bustled out of the kitchen and set a platter of fried steaks on the table.

“I could get used to this, Inez,” Connors told her with a grin.

“Humph,” Inez replied disdainfully. “If you want to live like a gentleman, you will have to act like one... and get yourself a wife, too,” she added slyly, earning a frown from her employer, which she ignored as she sashayed back to the kitchen.

David was grinning, and Catherine looked quickly down at her lap rather than be caught doing the same. At least she now knew Sam Connors wasn’t anywhere near as fierce as he pretended to be. David felt free to laugh at him, and even his hired help was not afraid to sass him to his face. Perhaps beneath the bluster was a reasonable man after all.

“Sam really liked the picture you did of him, Miss Eaton,” David said when Inez had carried in all the serving dishes and vanished again.

Catherine felt the heat in her cheeks once more, but she noticed with relief that Connors seemed equally ill at ease. “Yes, it was... real good,” he said lamely, studiously avoiding meeting her eye.

“At first I let him think I did it,” David explained, “but that was a mistake, ’cause he started saying I sure didn’t need lessons anymore.”

“It’s difficult to do a sketch from memory,” she lied, remembering how easily she had recalled Connors’s features. “I was surprised David even recognized you.”

“Oh, I recognized him, all right,” David said slyly. “Only thing was, I couldn’t figure out how you knew what he looked like smiling.”

“I have a good imagination,” she replied, unable to resist. This time Connors’s glower did not intimidate her.

“Some potatoes, Miss Eaton?” Connors asked, handing her the bowl in a pointed attempt to change the subject.

Catherine accepted both the bowl and the attempt. All three of them fell silent as they filled their plates and began to eat. Like true westerners, Sam and David ate with a singleness of purpose that excluded such amenities as conversation. Catherine respected their silence, although she found herself gulping her food in order to keep up with them. Still, she was not quite finished when their plates were clean, and they waited politely for her to finish.

After a brief internal debate, Catherine chose to introduce the subject that she had come to discuss. “Your friend Mr. Pettigrew was very upset last Sunday morning,” she remarked.

She could almost feel Connors’s instant wariness. “Any man whose fences have been cut would be upset.”

“You did an admirable job of trying to make peace.”

“I wasn’t trying to ‘make peace.’ I was trying to prevent a riot.”

“You succeeded,” she said, trying a smile. “I got the feeling you could put a stop to all this trouble if you set your mind to it.”

Connors frowned. “What trouble do you mean?”

“Why, the trouble with the fencing, all the inequities—”

“Inequities?”

“Yes, the children have been explaining to me how some of the larger ranchers have fenced off public roads and blocked their neighbors from their own land and—”

“Nobody’s broken any laws. The Land Act of ’83 gave us the right to fence land we lease, and that’s what we’ve done.”

“I understand Mr. Pettigrew took over land that belonged to someone else.”

Connors sighed impatiently. “Those men never filed legal claim. Pettigrew was within his rights to fence them out.”

“You can’t really believe that,” she insisted.

“It’s the law, Miss Eaton, whether I believe it or not.”

Catherine tried a different tack. “Then you can’t believe it’s fair, even though it might be legal.”

“Who’s to say what’s fair?” he replied stubbornly.

Fighting her frustration, Catherine managed a semblance of her conciliatory smile. “It isn’t fair to let other men’s cattle die of thirst when you have more than enough water.”

“Is it fair to give them the water I worked so hard to get? You act like water is free, but I assure you, Miss Eaton, it isn’t, not in this country. I built those windmills out there with my own hands. If I don’t have to worry about the drought, it’s because I made plans and worked hard. Why should I give my water away to those who didn’t?”

“But surely you don’t think it’s—” She groped for a word.

“Fair?” he suggested. “Life isn’t fair, Miss Eaton. The strong survive, and the weak get along the best they can.”

“But if the strong help the weak—”

“Why should they? And who says I’m one of the strong ones? Last year my cattle was worth twenty-five dollars a head—that’s up seven dollars from three years ago—but what’s going to happen this year? The range burned up last summer, and we were overstocked because we got greedy. A lot of the grass was ruined, and a lot of cattle died. This year I might go broke, and who’s going to help me out?”

Catherine had no answer.

Seeing he had silenced her, Connors rose from his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go outside to smoke.”

Catherine sighed in dismay as she watched him leave.

“I’m sorry, Miss Eaton,” David began, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand.

“Stop apologizing for your brother, David. I’m not nearly as offended as I pretend to be, anyway,” she assured him with a smile. “I find him particularly irritating because he’s so close to being right most of the time.”

David looked a little startled. “Then you agree with him?”

“Of course not, but his arguments are hard to refute. I must confess, I came to your ranch with the intention of persuading your brother to side with the small ranchers, but now I see that the larger ranchers have right on their side, too.”

“Do you think what Jessie said is true? That if you have money, you can do what you want?”

“Well, that’s usually true, but in this case it seems as if even those with money are at the mercy of the elements.”

Catherine was beginning to see her noble crusade as a futile effort. How could she hope to make peace when even the forces of nature were united against her?

Inez came in and looked around in surprise. “Where is Mr. Sam?”

“He went outside for a cigarette,” David said.

“Is he still mad with you?” she asked Catherine.

Catherine smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid he’s upset about something else now.”

Inez snorted her disapproval. “You will be here two days. Are you going to let him stay mad the whole time?”

Catherine sighed. “Two days is a long time to be at odds, isn’t it?”

“Si, it is. Maybe you should find him and try to make up.”

“That’s a good idea,” David said, jumping to his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Inez said. “She will go alone.”

Catherine winced. She would much rather have David beside her to cry, “Sam!” whenever Connors got too outrageous, but she knew Inez was right. She would have to do this alone. “Where is he?”

She found him on one of the side porches, staring off into the west, where the sunset had streaked the sky with shades of pink and turned the land to molten gold. Catherine still was not used to the magnificent way the sky and land seemed to stretch on forever out here. “I wish I were a better artist so I could do justice to this,” she said as she approached.

He glanced up in surprise, and she could see him brace himself in anticipation of another argument. She stopped a respectable distance away—she refused to think of the distance as “safe”—and tried a friendly smile. His eyes darkened with suspicion.

“I think I owe you an apology,” she said.

“Why?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking, ‘For which offense?’ It seems to me I’ve done several things for which an apology would be in order,” she said archly.

His lips twitched grudgingly into a grin. “I suppose that’s true.”

“If you were a gentleman, you’d deny it.”

“I think you already know I’m not a gentleman.”

“I think you’ve been trying very hard to convince me you aren’t.”

“Have I succeeded?”

“Admirably,” she replied.

“You’ve been a bit shrewish yourself,” he countered.

“Have I?” she asked innocently, pleased to note he was enjoying this as much as she was.

His expression told her he had no intention of answering her question, so she said, “I’ve been very concerned about Mr. Pettigrew’s threat to shoot any fence cutters. I thought perhaps you could help prevent the violence.”

“Don’t give me too much credit, Miss Eaton. Nobody tells a Texan what to do, not even another Texan.”

“So I’m learning. I still plan to speak to some of the women, though. I’m hoping they can influence their husbands and prevent any shooting.”

“I wish you good luck.” His eyes said he thought she’d need it.

Satisfied they had established some camaraderie, Catherine gazed out at the breathtaking sunset again. “Someday David will be able to capture all this beauty on canvas.” He did not respond, so she said, “David thinks he inherited his artistic ability from his mother.”

“I reckon he did. Adora was always drawing pictures of one thing or another.”

“Adora?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yeah,” he said. “Hell of a name, isn’t it?”

His dark eyes challenged her to reprimand him for using profanity, so she chose not to. “Yes, it is.”

“It suited her, though. Everyone adored her.”

Surprised at the bitterness in his voice, she said, “You don’t sound as if you did.”

His grin was mirthless. “I was only seventeen when she came here. I didn’t know any better.”

“What was she like?” Catherine asked, remembering Inez huffing in disapproval at the mention of Senora Connors.

His eyebrows rose. “I thought you had no intention of prying into our private lives,” he chided.

“I need to understand David completely if I hope to teach him,” she replied.

He conceded her point and considered for a moment. “She was like you—small and pretty and useless.”

“Useless!” she echoed, stung.

He was unrepentant. “Yes, useless. Look at your hands.” He took one of hers and spread her palm open in his. His fingers were rough against her delicate flesh, and his touch sent a jolt of alarm coursing through her. “These hands prove you’ve never done a day’s work in your life.”

“That isn’t true!” she exclaimed, but looking down at her smooth, white skin contrasted with his sun-darkened hand, she could see how he would think so.

“You’re a hothouse flower, Miss Eaton, just like Adora. You belong in a city with houses still around and friends coming to call and stores on every corner. You need parties and theaters and art galleries, or you’ll wither up and die. Adora did. I watched her, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“I—I’m not like that,” She said, suddenly breathless and vitally aware of his fingers wrapped around her wrist. The touch of his callused palm sent tingles of warning up her arm, although she could not have said exactly what she feared.

His eyes smoldered, but for once the emotion in them was not anger. “This is a country for men, not for women, especially not women like you.”

She knew a desperate need to retaliate. “And what about boys like David? He’s sensitive like his mother was.”

“No!” Connors denied, but his fingers tightened painfully on her wrist.

“Yes, he is. Is he going to wither up and die out here, too? Look at your hands, Mr. Connors.” She twisted out of his grip and spread his palm open. “Look at these calluses. If David’s hands get like this, he’ll never be able to draw another picture. His talent will be lost forever.”

“What will it matter?” he demanded, jerking his hand free. “Davy’s going to be a rancher.”

“Is that what he wants or is that what you want for him? If you think Adora’s death was ugly, wait until you watch David dying a little every day because you killed his dreams.”

“What do you know about it?” he asked furiously.

“Enough to know I’m right. David needs things he can’t get here, too. He needs a city, and a school, and people who appreciate his talents, and—”

“No, you won’t get him, not this time,” he shouted, and then caught himself.

“Not this time?” she repeated in confusion.

He shook his head as if to deny he had said the words. More calmly, he said, “Davy isn’t going anywhere. This is his home, and he’s not a fragile little girl. He’s a man, and he’s strong. I’ll make him strong, and he’ll survive.”

“But will he be happy?” she asked, desperate to make him understand David’s driving needs.

“Happy? How many people are ever happy? Are you? I doubt it. If you had been, you wouldn’t have traveled over a thousand miles for a three-month job that pays twenty-five dollars a month.”

He was right, of course, making her even more furious. “Mr. Connors, you don’t understand!”

“No, Miss Eaton, you don’t understand. We all have a place in this world, and Davy’s is here. Maybe you ought to go back to your place and leave us alone.”

“Sam? Miss Eaton?” David’s voice startled them both. They whirled around to find him standing in the doorway, frowning worriedly. “I thought you were going to make up.”

Catherine glanced at Connors, who had wiped all trace of fury from his expression. She tried to match his nonchalance and hoped David had not heard too much of the conversation. “We did make up, David, but I’m afraid we started fighting again.”

“Yes,” Connors said with his rueful grin. “Some people just can’t seem to get along, and I guess me and Miss Eaton are two of them. But don’t worry about it. Neither one of us has drawn blood.”

“Yet,” Catherine whispered for Connors’s ears alone.

“Don’t tempt me,” he replied, and then to David he said, “I’m going out for a little ride. You’ll take care of our guest, won’t you?”

Before the boy could answer, Connors was off the porch and striding across the neatly raked yard toward the corrals.

“Miss Eaton, I’m—”

“Please don’t say you’re sorry, David. It was all my fault, anyway,” she admitted sadly. Now she’d really done it. As usual, her tongue had run away with her, and she had managed to alienate the one person whose influence she would need. Not that she cared a fig what Sam Connors thought of her as a woman, although his judgment of her still rankled. No, what mattered was whether he would continue to let her teach David. After the conversation they had just had, she was certain he would not. He would probably even take David out of school completely.

Not wanting to upset David, she did not share her fears with him. The two of them passed the evening looking at his mother’s paintings. Catherine had no trouble picturing the lovely young woman in the portrait sitting at her easel and creating the delicate works David proudly showed her. Adora had had talent, but she had lacked emotional depth. The watercolors Catherine saw were pretty, but they evoked no response in her.

Catherine wondered about the woman and recalled Connors’s assessment. “Everyone adored her,” he had said, but obviously she had cared for nothing and no one in return. She could not even put feeling into her art.

David was indeed blessed to have inherited his brother’s emotional intensity. As infuriating as Sam Connors was, at least he had feelings. Too many feelings, she thought with despair.

It was early when Catherine excused herself for bed. Connors was not yet back from his ride, and she hoped to avoid seeing him again that night. She did not feel up to another confrontation.

Still worrying about the harm she had done, Catherine found herself unable to fall asleep. If only she’d stayed in town as David had suggested. Her plans to get Sam Connors to make peace among the ranchers were nothing but pipe dreams, and she had probably lost David as a student forever by alienating his brother. When would she ever learn?

After lying in bed for several hours, she got up and began to pace the large room, hoping to wear herself out. She guessed the time to be around midnight, and the large house was as still as a tomb. Not bothering with a light, she walked to the window and looked out, enjoying the view of the moonlight bathing the ranch buildings in a golden glow. From here, she could see some of the corrals and a corner of the bunkhouse. She’d been standing there a long time before she realized what was wrong with the scene.

Someone was moving around outside. Not just someone, either, but several people. After a few minutes, a horseman rode in and disappeared behind the bunkhouse. Then two more rode in and spoke softly to those in the yard before following the first rider out of sight.

Soon Catherine had counted over twenty riders. Why on earth would so many men be out at this time of night? She tried to think of all sorts of explanations, but none of them were satisfactory. Finally, she was left with the conclusion that they had come here for a reason, for a meeting of some kind. With growing apprehension, she recalled how eager Sam Connors had been to get her away from here until she had accused him of hiding something.

Was this what he had been hiding? A clandestine meeting? And what could they be discussing that could not be planned in the light of day?

Catherine didn’t know for sure, but she intended to find out.