Papa glared at Eliza across the breakfast table. Their conversation last night hadn’t ended well, and apparently a good night’s sleep had not changed his opinion.

She’d overheard him tell Mama last night that he’d left for New Orleans the same day the telegram from John Brady arrived warning him that Ben Barnhart was in the city.

“Who is John Brady?” she asked.

After a quick sideways glance in Papa’s direction, Mama responded. “He is that nice young man who escorted me home last night.” She paused. “I understand he also escorted you.”

So the masked detective had a name. John Brady.

“Not so much as our daughter led John Brady on a merry ride through the city,” her father said. “I appreciate that he managed to keep up with her on horseback. Many don’t.”

Eliza sighed. “You act like this happens all the time, Papa.”

“It has happened enough.” He slammed both palms on the table, and Mama jumped. Eliza, however, just allowed another sigh. “I have two sons who have given me no grief whatsoever, but this daughter of ours…” He shook his head. “I am at a loss.”

“You did this, William. If you hadn’t insisted on taking her along with her brothers every year on those ridiculous cattle drives, she might have turned out to be a proper lady.”

“Those ‘ridiculous cattle drives’ paid for all of this and more, Susanna,” he snapped. “And she learned valuable skills out there.”

“Like how to ride and shoot like a man,” Mama said. “Not exactly what makes a woman a good wife.”

“I beg to differ,” Papa told her. “I come from a long line of women who could stand alongside a man and defend her home and who could ride a horse as well as any of their menfolk. That is a benefit to a marriage, not a hindrance.”

“Maybe when wars are being fought, but this is 1889 and a woman’s place is not with a rifle in one hand and a saddle in the other.”

Crimson climbed into Papa’s cheeks, and his fingers curled on the table. “Where we come from, it is.”

“Where I come from, it is not. And remind me, dear. What sort of woman did you choose?” Mama’s tone was smooth as silk, but her expression told another story altogether.

“I am right here. Please do not talk about me as if I am not.” Eliza stood. “And Papa, I understand you want to see me taken care of. It’s your job as my father. But if you truly want that for me, settle some money into an account and allow me to get an education.”

He sat in mute silence. This was a battle that had been waged more than once. Never had she won.

“Darling,” Mama said. “If you were to marry, perhaps your husband would allow it. Have you considered that?”

“Allow it.” She kept an even tone. “Mama, I do appreciate your attempt at encouraging me, but I only want to do what makes me happy. All my life I have counted stars and read books about the heavens. Haven’t you realized that what I miss about the ranch is seeing the stars at night?”

Papa let out a long breath. Before he could offer yet another counterargument, she hurried to continue.

“I am still young. If you would just allow a few years of study, I could show you that it is a worthy calling. I do want a husband and children, but I also want something of me to give to them.”

“Something of you?” her father asked. “Where do you think you got this love of the night sky, Eliza?”

“From you,” she said softly.

“Exactly. I learned what I know without having to go off and take lessons, and you can do the same.” He shook his head. “I am trying to be understanding, and I do appreciate that you are a smart woman with a desire to learn more than this old man can teach you. But a woman of your age needs a husband. Not years from now but soon.”

“I am twenty-one years old, Papa. I am hardly an old maid.”

“At the rate you’re going, you will be,” he said, his tone icy.

“That is quite enough, William,” Mama told him. “Eliza has had her share of offers.”

Her temper flared. “Including the one I had last night. Perhaps I will tell him yes.”

Papa shook his head. “What offer? I had a man in mind for you, but I’ve been told the two of you never met. Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know who you thought you would push me off on this time, but no. I did not meet any man who had been told he was approved by you.”

She balled up her fists and resisted the urge to storm out of the room. Instead, Eliza decided to allow her anger full rein. “The offer of marriage last night came from Ben Barnhart.”

“You said you were over him,” Mama protested. “Did you lie to me about that?”

She spared her mother a quick glance. “Oh, I am, but Papa apparently does not care about that. If he wants me wed, I can make that happen this very day.”

With that threat, idiotic as it was, she turned and stormed out.

“Eliza Jane Maribel Gentry, come back here. This conversation is not over,” her father shouted. “Not over by a long shot. I forbid you to go anywhere near the Barnhart boy.”

Eliza turned around and stared at her father’s reddened face. “He’s a man, Papa, not a boy. And I am a full-grown woman. You cannot ignore that fact anymore, and you can no longer treat me like a child.”

“And yet you are acting like one. Stop the empty threats,” he told her. “You’re too smart to run off with a man you don’t like just to prove a point to me.”

He was right. Yet her temper pushed away any reasonable response.

“But I am not smart enough to make a life with my brain instead of my ability to run a household and produce children.”

Mama held up her hands. “That is quite enough. You are both well beyond reasonable discourse.” She nodded to Eliza. “Come back and finish your breakfast as well as your conversation.”

“It is finished, Mama. Papa and I will never agree.”

“I never said you should agree.” She nodded to the chair Eliza had just vacated. “I only said you should finish what you started.”

Eliza remained rooted in place. Her mother rose.

“Think carefully before you answer,” she said. “Were you telling me the truth when you said you no longer had any desire to marry Ben Barnhart, Eliza?”

She took a long breath and let it out slowly. “I was.”

“So you tried to run off with the Barnhart boy and then you changed your mind?” Papa said. “Now you’ve changed it again just to prove a point to me. Eliza, really, if you want to be thought of as an adult, make a choice and stick to it.”

Her father’s statement echoed the same words Ben said to her last night.

“Do you want me to choose between a life of freedom married to Ben or a life back at the ranch being constantly matched up for that husband I require? Then I want neither. But if I must choose, I will.”

She got her temper from her father. Eliza had heard this all her life. They had skirmished off and on for more than a decade, but never had she seen him sit in stony silence.

His silence was much more frightening than all the noise he made when he was arguing his point. Worse, his silence was deafening.

Mama, however, felt no compunction to keep her thoughts to herself in that moment. “You are not marrying Ben Barnhart, Eliza. I forbid it.”

“You too, Mama?”

Her mother looked over at Papa. “Just tell her, William. It is the only right thing to do.”

A look passed between them. For a moment, the only sound in the dining room was the ticking of the massive grandfather clock in the corner.

Finally, Papa stood. “Eliza, we have our disagreements, but I do hope you realize I love you with all of my heart.”

“I do,” she said.

“Then I want you to understand that if I did not have very good reasons to say this, the words would never be said.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“Think very carefully before you pledge your life to become a Barnhart,” he told her. “To choose him is to walk away from this family.”

“William,” Mama said on a sharp exhale of breath. “You do not mean that.”

“I do,” he told her before returning his attention to Eliza. “I will always love you. Nothing you do will change that. But if you marry him, you will be a Barnhart, not a Gentry.”

Her heart raced. Never had she seen this side of her father.

“Papa, I will take the name of whatever man I marry. What makes the Barnhart name particularly offensive to you?”

“Tell her,” Mama repeated.

“Tell me what?” she demanded.

“Susanna, you do not know what you’re asking. You weren’t there.”

Her mother moved to stand between Eliza and her father. “But she was. Even if it didn’t happen in front of her, she was there.”

He seemed to be considering her statement. Then he nodded. “Walk with me, Eliza, while your mother supervises the packing.”

“But you only just got here,” Mama protested.

“And already I am ready to go.” He gestured toward the door. “After you, Eliza,” he told her.

She followed him out into the front courtyard where the groom hurried to open the gate. “Will you need the carriage, sir?” he asked.

Papa glanced across the street and then shook his head. “No, Eliza and I will walk.” He linked arms with her and strolled out through the gates.

Eliza spied the detective, now free of his mask. At the sight of them, he crossed the street to acknowledge first Papa and then, a moment later, Eliza.

She studied his face, its pleasing lines and angles, and the green eyes that watched her with what appeared to be great interest. Then he abruptly returned his attention to her father.

“Would you like an escort, sir?”

Papa dismissed the detective with a curt nod. Eliza fell into step beside him.

They walked for quite a while in silence with only the noise of the city to keep them company. Finally, her father led her away from the street and into the park that had once hosted the World’s Fair.

Though the drought had turned some of the foliage a dull brown, enough greenery remained to almost make Eliza forget she was still in the city. After a few minutes, her father paused to look down at her.

He seemed to be studying her, and then he shook his head. “Eliza, you are me in female form, and that confounds the daylights out of me.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she kept quiet.

“My mama used to tell stories of the women in my family and how they had backbone enough to stand up to anything that came their way.” He glanced around the park and then returned his attention to her. “We come from royalty, from pioneers, and from pirates. Our people are proud—too proud sometimes—and we are tough. But there is one thing we do that is sometimes our downfall.”

“What is that, Papa?” she asked.

“We love too easily and too hard.” He shook his head. “We’re fiercely loyal. We’re smart.” He paused. “But we love too easily and too hard.”

A leaf brushed her sleeve as it fell. “I don’t understand what that means.”

“You know our family history, sweetheart. From Maribel Cordoba and her pirate Jean-Luc to your Ellis Dumont and her solider hero—also part pirate, I should add—to your mama and me, once we set our sights on love, we do anything to have it.” He let out a long breath. “Are you in love, Eliza?”

“In love?” She shook her head. “No, Papa. I thought I was, but I was wrong.”

“When you truly are, you will know.” He reached down to brush his index finger along her cheek. “And when you know, there is nothing that can keep you from the one you love. Not even me.”

She smiled and he joined her. Then his expression sobered.

“I want you settled,” he told her. “A father always wants that for his children. I want a protector for you to care for you when I no longer can.”

Eliza opened her mouth to offer an explanation of just how well she could care for herself. Then she thought better of it and nodded. “I understand.”

“Good. Then we are agreed.”

“Agreed?” She shook her head. “On what?”

“Ben Barnhart is neither the man you love nor the man you will marry.”

She frowned. Papa knew her too well. How had he managed to make a case against Ben so easily? Yet she couldn’t deny it. “We are agreed.”

He let out a long breath. “Good. Now let’s go home. We’ve worried your mother long enough.”

Once again she matched her strides to his as they traversed the length of the park to emerge onto the street. There she stuttered to a stop. “Papa, what was it that Mama wanted you to tell me?”

Her father gave her a searching look and shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Stop,” she said. “You do.”

“Eliza, someday you will realize we just talked about much more than you think we did. I’ve told you. You just don’t know it yet.”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“That means as long as you remember you should have nothing to do with Ben Barnhart, now or ever, that’s all you need to know.”

One week later, June 1, 1889

The Gentry assignment had come to an end, as had the month of May, but there was much more work to be done elsewhere. Work that would pay well and would go far to keep his detective agency’s name on the lips of important people.

Wyatt had letters of request waiting from two senators, a governor, and a very well-placed member of Spanish royalty, yet all he wanted to do was stand in front of that house on St. Charles Street and watch for Eliza to ride past in a carriage with her mama. Or spy a glimpse of her in a second-floor window.

He was like a whipped puppy when it came to that woman. Pained in her presence yet ever aching to see her again.

Wyatt paid his men too well for them to comment on the fact that their boss was acting like he was one of them. Still, they had to wonder why.

The family had set off for Texas this morning. He ought to be securing his own passage to Galveston where he now made his home, but Bryant had sent a message that he had news about Ben Barnhart.

News that might involve something illegal.

That put a smile on Wyatt’s face. He might never be able to see justice done for his pa, but he could certainly put the man away for something else. If he could catch him at it.

Barnhart and his father had powerful friends. They’d gone well beyond the influence of their circle in Texas. The judge had tired of his local brand of popularity and had already seen his boy elected to the state house. The next step was to put him in the White House.

Wyatt, however, preferred to see him in the jailhouse.

He met Bryant at an establishment near the wharfs where decent people wouldn’t be seen. The room was poorly lit, and only a fool would step inside unarmed.

But the regulars knew Wyatt, and they left him alone. In turn, he’d been known to toss the occasional rowdy patron out the door on behalf of the management.

Rodrigo was behind the bar, but he left his place to greet Wyatt with a warm embrace and usher him to a table in the back of the room. Wyatt sat with his back to the wall, facing the door.

Bryant waited until Rodrigo returned to the bar to report his latest findings. “He ran, Boss,” his detective said. “Just two steps ahead of the cops. Another hour and he would’ve been there when they raided the place.”

“Start at the beginning,” Wyatt said as he watched two men step inside and close the door behind them. They looked as if they were fresh off the ship and spoiling for trouble.

“The lady friend was a dead end. No idea what the arrangement was, but she stopped coming around three days ago. I tracked the subject to a warehouse near the river. I was able to get inside when nobody was around, and that’s where I found them.”

Wyatt tore his attention away from the river toughs to focus on Bryant. “Found what?” he asked.

“Plates,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Stacks of them. And not the kind your wife puts on the table for roast and potatoes. These were counterfeiter’s plates. They were making counterfeit money in there. Or they were making plates and selling them to someone who did. I did some investigation while I was at the Service. These are good. Not amateur. We’re not dealing with street thugs on this.”

So Barnhart was dabbling in making money. Literally. He smiled. “Good job, Bryant. You’re certain no one saw you?”

“Absolutely certain.” The detective paused for just a second. “And I made sure to leave everything like it was except for this.” He retrieved a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Wyatt.

After examining it, he shook his head. “This doesn’t look like paper a counterfeiter would make money out of.”

“I thought the same, Boss. And there were stacks of it.” He shrugged. “Not as much as the paper they would use to make dollars, but they had plenty. I snagged that one because I thought you’d maybe know what it was.”

Wyatt tucked the paper into his pocket and retrieved an envelope. Inside was a pay draft and the detective’s next assignment. He’d also added a bonus.

“Good work, Bryant.” He slid the envelope across the table and the detective quickly put it away. “Watch for those two on your way out.”

He grinned and patted the knife hidden beneath his vest, then stood. “Already saw them.”

Wyatt climbed to his feet and followed Bryant toward the door. As expected, the two river toughs stood in a pitiful attempt to block their exit. Rodrigo moved to help them, but Wyatt shook his head.

Bryant took the first one out with two punches. Wyatt finished the second one off with one well-placed blow to his ample belly, then bid Rodrigo goodbye and stepped out into the sunshine.

He patted his vest to be sure the paper was still there and felt something else there. Retrieving the comb, he held it up to the light and watched the diamonds sparkle while he recalled how beautiful Eliza looked with the comb in her hair.

Someday he would put this comb back where it belonged. For now it would remain safe with him.