2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

H e'd always hated his name.

Junior .

John Robert Stone, Jr.

The senior John Stone owned Circle S Ranch, or the "Big Stone Ranch" to the locals. People seven counties over tipped their hats to the cattle baron, neither knowing nor caring that he was the meanest son of a bitch in southeast Texas. His missus, Loretta Stone, liked to call their towheaded little boy, the only fruit of their loins, Junior. Thus, it had followed him into adulthood, clinging like a bad joke.

A dog's name.

A child's.

The minute he'd sworn an oath to the Texas Rangers, he'd abandoned the nickname for Private Stone. His last name was a good one; he shared it with his half-brother Ben. And when "Private" became "Lieutenant," Stone was a name he could be proud of because of himself. Marshals transcribed it on foolscap and stamped it with their insignias. Men shouted it across campfires with grins and raised fists.

Until two years ago, when everything went to hell.

Smiles withered. Faces hardened. Only eyes, dark and distrustful, would lift from campfires when he walked by.

He hadn't worn a Texas Ranger badge in two years. Not even his brother knew.

Now…now he was plain Junior again.

Incompetent.

Pretty-faced, spoon-fed, useless mama's boy.

And the girl who always saw through all of it was right in front of him, clinging to some other man through the college's staff apartment window.

He took a drag of his hand-rolled cigarette, fragrant White Burley tobacco smoke streaming from his nostrils. He wanted to be strangers with Isa. Needed it. Isa was closer to him than a sister; she was a brother wearing the skin of a young woman. Seeing a young woman instead of a girl in braids and bare feet always unsettled him. Sometimes, it knocked the breath clean out of him. The first time it had happened was when she was sixteen. She'd been stolen away by bandits who'd been set on trading her at the border with a dozen other girls, and an oozing, cloying fear he hadn't felt since he'd thought he'd killed his brother had seized him.

A group of men passed him on the street, blocking the shapes of Isa and her gentleman in the window. The men's raucous laughter brought Junior back to dusty, stinking earth. Exhaling the last remnants of smoke hard out of his nose, he shoved his buckskin Stetson low on his forehead, shading his face from the cool October sun. Across the street, Isa pulled away from the man standing two inches shorter than her. Junior crushed his hand-rolled cigarette beneath the heel of his worn boot.

His boot stopped grinding when Isa kissed her gentleman caller on the cheek.

Ben's wife, Lucy, had fondly communicated that Isa had received more proposals from beaus than she and Poppy combined. Junior had only been able to roll his eyes and crack jokes because what the hell else had he been supposed to do? Two giggling college-aged women walking past glanced from Junior's face to the engraved .45 low on his hip and hurried along.

Calm down, Stone. It's not like they're swappin' spit.

Nevertheless, it wasn't proper for Isa to kiss men for the whole world to see. What would her brother say? Stretching the tense lines from his shoulders, relaxing his face, Junior strode across the street and the brick building's front yard to the maroon door labeled with a bold number six on a brass plate. Tied to a post beside the stoop was a beautiful black mare with a hood on, her inky tail swishing temperamentally. The saddle's leather was etched with strange numbers and symbols.

Mathematical equations?

He rapped his knuckles beneath the brass number plate with enough force to start a couple of small dogs barking in the next apartment.

Someone unbolted the door to the modest dwelling, and surprise lit the features of an aging woman. Miss Persimmony. It was what he and Sol had dubbed Miss Pickney, an elderly spinster who hated misshelved books and voices louder than a whisper. Break any of her rules and she looked as though she'd sucked on an unripe persimmon. Over the years, the librarian's salt-and-pepper hair had turned silver and the lines in her face had multiplied, fracturing across her skin like worn vellum.

"Mr. Stone. What a pleasant surprise." The terse tone belied the pleasantry.

He tipped his hat to her. "Miss Pickney. It's good to see you looking so well." The charm came out rusty and dull. It had been years since he'd practiced sweet-talking anyone, much less spinsters with no use for it.

Indeed, her sparse eyebrows rose. "You're early. Are you here to meet Isadora?" Only she could get away with the use of Isa's full name.

"Yes, ma'am." He withdrew an envelope with Sol's latest letter from his jacket pocket and handed it over. "I'm to escort Isa to Dogwood on the train today. Has she packed?"

Miss Pickney pulled a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket, settled them atop the bony knob on the ridge of her nose, and scanned Sol's letter. Her lips pursed impossibly tighter. "She has been up since before daybreak packing. But here it says she's not to depart until four o'clock…oh, Isadora." The last was said with a dissatisfied sigh.

He shifted his feet in the doorway, and she jolted.

"Do come in. I'll inform her that you're here."

"I know he's here," said a familiar voice.

He shut the door behind him and looked for the voice's owner, but it had come from beyond the parlor threshold, out of sight. Standing just within view, however, was Isa's beau. Junior noted the young man's eyes were as wide as silver dollars, an expensive suit, and shiny shoes. A tapering mustache, glossy dark hair, and neat sideburns may not have added years to the fellow, but it did add dollar signs. Junior quashed the impulse to smooth his unkempt beard. He hadn't shaved in months, and the hair he'd scraped back beneath his Stetson touched his collar. Isa's gentleman caller, however, was a city dude, Junior's opposite in every way.

"Mr. Corner, may I introduce Mr. Stone? He's to escort our young charge to the train station. It appears you won't be needed after all."

There was a moment where the two men stared blankly at each other before Mr. Corner jumped forward, hand outstretched. "What a relief! I thought I'd never be rid of her. David Corner, a pleasure to meet you." The young man sounded friendly, cheerful even, but when they shook hands, David Corner gave the taller man a decidedly frosty look from beneath his brows.

"John Stone. Likewise," Junior said softly, his eyes like spear points stabbing into the other man. Their handshake was a hard, finger-cracking pump.

"So. Shall I call you John?" David flexed his hand and slid it into his trouser pocket.

"No," Junior and Isa said in unison, and that was when he finally caught his first glimpse of her in close quarters.

In the light from the parlor window, Isa's wide-set eyes were glittering topaz with flecks of peridot green. Cat's eyes. She looked good. Different. The fringe she'd cut when she'd been seventeen had grown out and was swept into a sizable knot at her nape. As she'd matured, her blonde hair had darkened to the color of pale honey. It made him conscious of the years between them. She felt like a stranger: elegant, confident, and cold. Her face had grown into her long nose and wide mouth, and her expressive brows were darker. His eyes carefully avoided her generous bosom and settled on the gargantuan poofs of her sleeves.

He felt a ridiculous urge to poke one.

Before the sudden hush could become awkward, Isa abandoned the saddlebags on the settee, wiped her hands, and approached him. "Hello, Junior."

"Izzy." Junior nodded at her, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. Once upon a time, he would have tweaked a braid. Bopped a nose. Maybe blocked a punch. Instead, he folded his arms, hands curling into fists. This is a normal day , he reminded himself. A normal encounter.

Isa blinked. "No one's called me that since you swore into the Texas Rangers."

Resentful at being forgotten, her friend piped up. "I call her Dora."

Junior raised a brow. "In front of her?"

Her stony exterior cracked. He saw a flash of big white teeth with a narrow gap in the center. It used to make a perfect funnel to squirt water through when they'd swum in the creek and was the only thing unchanged about her. He wondered vaguely if she was too ladylike to do such a thing anymore.

"Coffee or tea?" Miss Pickney asked suddenly, her shrewd gaze on Junior from above wire-rimmed spectacles.

"Coffee, ma'am. Much obliged."

Her eyes flicked to the hat he'd neglected to doff. With a disapproving little sniff, the starched, prim woman turned on her heel toward the fussily decorated house's kitchen. While a kettle clanged on the stove in the other room, uneasiness trembled between the three people in the tiny foyer.

"Why are you here, Junior?" Isa asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm getting on the train to Dogwood with you."

Hostility pulsed beneath her careful reserve. "I'm not taking the train."

What the hell was she talking about? "What, you gonna ride home on horseback?"

"Yes."

"No, the hell you're not."

After craning her neck around to guarantee Miss Pickney wasn't around, Isa hissed, "Yes, the hell I am!"

Suddenly, she was a snot-nosed brat again. Something inside Junior stood at attention. "Such language," he tutted. "You don't have a choice, half-pint. Your brother gave the orders."

"And you follow them like a good little soldier," she taunted. "If you must know, I tried to get on Tuesday's train, but it proved impossible."

The small hurt gave him pause. "Why would you get on Tuesday's train alone?"

She smiled. "So you wouldn't have to trouble yourself with escorting me today, of course."

"I don't mind." He unwound his crossed arms and braced himself on the doorframe above her head. "I'll just ride with you back to Dogwood. It'll be three days on the open road, and rain is coming, but you'll survive it. You're not sugar; you won't melt."

Isa's chin lifted. She was a tall woman, and it gave him satisfaction that she still had to look up at him. "That won't be necessary."

Junior shrugged like it didn't matter to him. "Just pretend I'm not there."

She folded her arms beneath her bosom (which he'd accused her of stuffing when they were younger) and said cooly, "That will be effortless, considering the practice I've had the last couple of years."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The muscles in his jaw tensed. When had he last written back to her? Had it been years? He still had all her letters in his nightstand, bound in order by date. He was annoyingly aware of David Corner's eyes darting back and forth between them.

"Of course you don't," she said slowly, patronizingly. Ever since she'd been a gap-toothed little spitfire half his height, she'd endlessly trailed his heels, always needing to be right, always needing the last word. It made him want to swat her behind. It wouldn't be the first time. But that was when she'd been in braids and overalls. Now, any touching of her person was out of the question. It didn't matter if she was getting under his skin, pulling at every hair trigger he had.

Miss Pickney chose that moment to back out of the kitchen door with a tray. David pulled his attention from the two locked in a battle of wills and hastily offered assistance. Junior released his steely grip on the doorframe and dropped his arms.

"Well," Isa said unnecessarily loudly. "I'd better pack my bag." And with a last parting glare, she strode past Junior down a hallway.

Miss Pickney wiped her hands on her apron. "You two keep each other company," she ordered. "It's best that I help her pack her bag. She's bound to put something absurd in it." Then she shuffled off after her young charge.

Junior turned his eyes slowly to David, who swallowed. "Tell me why she couldn't get on Tuesday's train."

"Er—"

Using all the authority he'd assumed during his Ranger days, Junior shifted his stance until he loomed imposingly in the doorway. "Tell me everything."

"EXPLAIN TO ME why you're riding to Dogwood on horseback," Miss Pickney snapped, her hands fluttering over Isa's open gunnysack on the bed.

"It's poor manners to eavesdrop at doors," Isa said lightly to cover up her sudden guilt.

Miss Pickney ignored this. "You elucidated you'd be taking the train in some detail. Not only have you lied, but your brother will consider me most unfit to act as your guardian!"

"I no longer require a guardian," Isa defended, pulling several articles of clothing from the back of the little armoire in her room. The small bedroom was as full and cluttered as the recesses of her mind. "I would like to train Mirage while I spend time with my family, but the dadblamed animal—"

"Language!"

"—won't get near a train. I was afraid if I told you the truth, you'd have found some way to stop me."

"You're quite right about that." Miss Pickney's voice was shrill. "Gallivanting across Texas with a bachelor—your poor mother shall expire from shock!"

"He's not a bachelor, he's Junior . Family. He doesn't count." The latter was said with too much vehemence.

"Family or not, it is unseemly, Isadora." Miss Pickney's rheumy brown eyes sharpened behind her spectacles. "What are you doing with those?"

Blast.

Feigning ignorance, Isa shoved the pair of jeans she wore when in disguise into the nearest corner of her bag. "Just some travel clothes—Miss Pickney!"

The little librarian plucked the balled-up jeans from the corner of Isa's gunnysack and held them behind her. "I insist you practice a little decorum, dear," Miss Pickney whispered savagely. "You cannot travel in trousers across seven counties. Think of what your brother would say."

"He wouldn't say anything because he wouldn't know!"

An arthritic finger pointed so close to Isa's face that the girl's eyes crossed. "You keep that sharp tongue where it belongs. I shan't have you sassing me. As soon as you depart, I shall telegraph your brother of your exploits and to expect you to be…delayed. Now, I know very well that you have riding skirts, so I suggest you gather and fold them properly. No, don't wad them up and crease them. Have I taught you nothing?"

Despite the old woman's stern diatribes, she loaded Isa's already-full war bag to bursting with staples for the road, packing tea, sugar, and a sturdy tin cup with tender care. When Isa said her goodbyes for the second time that week, Miss Pickney grasped the youth by her cheeks and kissed her forehead with dry lips. "You had better take care."

"I will." Isa patted the frail hands. "I'll send a letter as soon as I arrive in Dogwood."

In the parlor, both men stood holding delicate blue-and-white printed teacups of half-empty coffee. They set the cups down at the women's entrance like two strangers inhabiting a funeral parlor, stiff and uncomfortable. The relief and guilt on David's face at her approach made her wary. What had they been talking about?

"Getting along?" she asked, looking narrowly between the two men.

Junior's eyes were obscured by his hat, even in the bright room. Through the thicket of his golden beard, his sensual red lips were unsmiling. His blond hair, streaked with natural highlights from sun exposure, touched his collar. A cowboy Adonis. In Miss Pickney's grandmotherly little parlor, he looked immense. His shoulders, encased in a cream shirt and brown vest, were broad and square. He had always been fond of Levi Strauss denim pants, and he wore a faded pair beneath leather chaps. Teeth clenching, she forced her eyes from his person.

"I get along with everyone," David quipped in the little silence following Isa's query. Again, his eyes flickered between her and the other man.

"I am sure the two of you are anxious to get started." Miss Pickney folded her hands together, caught Junior's eye, and asked pertly, "Are you still misshelving books, young man?"

Junior's unyielding fa?ade softened minutely. "No, ma'am. You taught me the error of my ways."

Miss Pickney nodded once. "I had to run you out of my library enough times before the notion stuck, I daresay."

"Yes, ma'am."

"He only did it to inconvenience me, I assure you." Isa hefted her bag higher. "I'll bet a twenty-dollar gold piece he hasn't stepped foot in a library since I left Dogwood."

"There will be no betting in this house, thank you." Miss Pickney's lips cinched tighter.

Isa shared a secretive smile with David, who turned a laugh into a cough behind his fist. Still smiling, she tossed her substantial bag at him. "Will you be a dear and take this outside for me?"

"Certainly." David trotted out of the tiny parlor, huffing at the bag's weight, and sunlight streamed into the open front doorway. Miss Pickney followed behind, doubtless to chat with the neighboring professor.

Isa turned a sly smile on Junior, whose hidden gaze was sharp upon her. "My saddlebags—"

In a voice torn between exasperation and anger, Junior pointed a finger at her and snapped, "Try that on me, and you can carry your own bags."

Chin squaring, Isa let her smile wither. "A smile would be wasted on you in any case."

"You're damned right," he muttered, grabbing the bulging saddlebags from the ugly-as-sin couch. When he halted in the foyer, Isa perceived how he favored his side. "Lead the way."

Isa placed her palm flat against the front door, eyeing him. "What's wrong with your side?"

Ignoring her inspection, Junior made to shoulder past her. "Got shot."

"What?" Isa leaned harder against the wood panels, unbudging.

"Happened a month ago. Went straight through. I'm fine."

"You're fine ?" Her face scrunched as if she smelled something rancid. Even to her ears, she sounded incredulous. "It could have hit a vital organ. Or festered."

"It didn't."

"But what if it had?" She'd seen the effects of bullets traveling at high speeds through the human body; men rarely survived. The thought of one going through Junior made everything in her protest. She wanted to know who had shot him and whether he had gotten his revenge. She wanted to know whether it had hurt very much and whether he'd become feverish.

"What are you, my ma?" he jibed. "And you look just like Miss Persimmony when you make that face."

Isa's unwilling concern deflated. "You're impossible." Turning her nose up, she opened the front door and strode out. David was struggling with Isa's bag behind her saddle's pommel, and she stifled a sigh. She walked to Mirage and pulled the gunnysack from David's hands.

"You have to wait until the saddlebags are attached before you can tie this on," she instructed, tugging her saddlebags from Junior and slinging them over Mirage's twitching rump. "Why don't you take her hood off instead?"

David raised his hands, backing away. "I'll not be getting near either end of her. She's a demon in disguise."

"I'll do it." Junior's voice was disconcertingly deep, and Isa tried to ignore the shiver it sent up her shoulder blades. From the corner of her eye, she watched him walk to her horse with the confidence of someone raised on a ranch who lived and breathed horses. "Why does she have a hood on?"

Isa turned away and fiddled with the saddlebag's buckles. "Because she acted a fool at the train station when the porters put one on her, so I'm training her to become accustomed to it."

Junior grunted, and Isa couldn't resist another peek at him. He didn't act surprised about the train station. David must have told him in the parlor. Traitor .

Junior deftly pulled the hood from Mirage's elegant head and whistled low. "Where'd you find her?"

"I'll tell you where she found her," David said with relish from behind them.

" Et tu, Brute ?" Isa asked, slanting a warning look at her friend.

A corner of Junior's mouth turned up as he stroked the white blaze on the Arabian's dished forehead. The October sunrise cast his features in warm tones, glinting off eyes that were like indigo coals beneath the brim of his buckskin hat. "You got your Black Beauty."

She suppressed a shock at this. Ever since her childish eyes had combed the pages of Black Beauty , she'd dreamed of purchasing an embodiment of her favorite fictional horse. She'd begged her pa for a true black horse with a white star.

"You remember."

"How could I forget? You never shut up about it." Something brilliant flashed in his eyes, hinting at that same wicked humor his younger self had possessed. It made her want to tease him. To poke and prod and enrage him the way she used to. As if he sensed her thoughts, his face shuttered. He settled his hat more securely on his head, tugging an old, tarnished timepiece from his vest pocket, one his brother had gifted him on his eighteenth birthday. She remembered thinking he had been mad to forgo the more accurate, ornate Elgin he used to own in favor of something more sentimental.

Mirage, having curiously scented the human male with some interest for the last several minutes, lifted her head high and nimbly plucked Junior's hat from his head. Feathery yellow locks fell forward into his eyes.

"What the hell?" He was so flabbergasted that Isa burst into laughter. Junior raked his hair from his forehead and yanked his hat back from her horse, scowling. "Your damned horse just took my hat. What kind of animal is this?"

Isa temporarily forgot that she was supposed to be angry with him. "She's a circus horse. The ringmaster trains them to do little tricks for the audience's enjoyment." Then, because she was a mischievous child again, unbothered by the strictures of past hurts or time apart, she teased, "Perhaps she took you for a clown?"

"Isadora!" Miss Pickney called from the neighboring stoop. Beside her, a middle-aged man smoked a pipe and leaned against his door. "Where is your hat?"

Growling softly, Isa secured the last strap and trudged back inside.