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  Owen didn't, and the fat man screamed in pain.

  Owen came to his feet, facing Newt. The big man stood staring at his two wounded companions. Owen thought he looked like a shell-shocked soldier after his first battle.

  "Drop that gun," Owen said.

  "Who the hell are you?" Newt bellowed.

  "A Johnny Reb. If I ever hear of you bullying anybody again, I'll come after you. If it's another Johnny Reb, I'll kill you."

  "You wouldn't be so brave without that gun."

  "If you don't drop yours, you'll be dead, so it won't matter."

  Newt let the gun fall into the dust. Owen fired a shot into it. The gun bounced up in the air and came apart. Owen looked up at Newt and grinned. "I think I broke it."

  "You bastard!"

  "At least I'm not a fat, cowardly slob who has to be backed by two worms before he has the guts to pick on a wounded soldier he outweighs by at least a hundred pounds."

  "I'll kill you for that," Newt roared.

  "Some other time," Owen said.

  "I'm not done with you. Nobody wants anything to do with Newt Howren."

  "Having met you, I can see why."

  Owen collected the weapons of the two wounded men. "Where're you going?" he asked Ben.

  "I was headed to the saloon. I thought I'd have myself a whiskey."

  "Tell the bartender to give you one on me," Owen said. He glanced down at the boy's stiff leg. "I figure you earned it."

  "You don't have to pity me," Ben said. "I got money."

  "It's not pity. You got hit. I came through without a scratch. That could have been my bullet you caught."

  Ben's expression relaxed. "Well, you'd better watch your back. I ain't aiming to catch any more bullets for you." He tipped his hat, turned, and headed toward the saloon.

  Owen was startled to see the boardwalk full of people. "What's everybody staring at?" he asked Myrl.

  "Nobody's ever stopped Newt. You're liable to be a hero."

  The memory of a beautiful young girl dying exploded full-blown in Owen's mind, every horrifying detail etched in painful detail. He shuddered. "Let's get out of here." He walked away from the crowd.

  "The sheriff'll want to talk to you," Myrl said.

  "I'm not hiding."

  "Maybe you'd better. Newt's never gonna forget what you did. He'll ambush you or shoot you in the back. Some people say he's tied in with the rustlers. He doesn't have a job, but he always has money."

  "Anybody ask him where he gets it?"

  Myrl looked at Owen like he was crazy. "Ain't nobody around here going to ask Newt a question like that."

  "Why?"

  "He's got friends."

  "His kind always does. Don't forget to meet me tomorrow. I'm getting real curious about Newt and his friends."

  "There's somebody else you ought to be curious about."

  "Who?"

  "Hetta Gwynne."

  "Why should I be interested in a man-hating maid?"

  "There's still cows left on her place."

  "So?"

  "A fella would think it would only take rustlers a couple of nights to round up what's left."

  "If they bothered."

  "They haven't, and she's got more cows than last year."

  "I expect her cows had calves."

  "What I'm trying to tell you is, rustlers have been especially bad this year, but nobody is rustling Hetta's cows. Now, don't you find that mighty curious?"

  Chapter Two

  There was no one in the dining room when Owen entered. He might have thought he'd mistaken the time, but the table had been set for two and several dishes were already out. "Naturally, Miss Ida would be late," he said aloud. "It would never do for a lady to be on time."

  He walked over to a window covered with lace curtains and looked out. He felt a thousand percent better since his bath. He had worked hard this last year, but Cade allowed Owen and the other ex-Confederate soldiers to live at the hacienda. Owen had gotten used to a soft bed, cool walls on hot days, and good food. There were times when he regretted that his need for revenge had driven him from the comfort of the hacienda. But the longer he remained, the more his life seemed empty and pointless, the more this need tore at his temper.

  Owen had put on a dark suit with striped pants, a cream-colored vest almost the shade of his thick blond hair, a white shirt, and a blue cravat held in place by a gold tie pin. He'd exchanged his boots for soft-soled shoes. His cousin would have said he looked like a tenderfoot, but at least he didn't look like a Texan.

  Hetta entered the room to set down a steaming bowl of beef stew. She gave him a brief glance. "You don't look like the same man who came to the door earlier."

  "I'm glad you appreciate the difference."

  "I didn't say I appreciated it," Hetta said as she turned to leave, "just that I noticed." She disappeared only to reappear moments later with a pan of biscuits and a lump of butter. "Miss Ida believes a man should dress for dinner."

  Hetta had changed into another dress, but it was not a gown. She moved with the quick, efficient stride of a woman with no time to waste. She placed the last dish on the table and took her seat without waiting for Owen to seat her.

  "Where's Miss Moody?" Owen asked.

  "She's spending the evening with her uncle."

  "I thought all ladies avoided being alone with a strange man."

  "I'm not a lady."

  He'd used the term generally, but it surprised him that Hetta didn't think herself a lady though she automatically accorded Ida that distinction.

  "Of course you are."

  "You have to be rich and pretty to be a lady."

  She looked straight at him, her eyes wide and direct. She wasn't unattractive--there was a certain nobility to her features--but you couldn't call her pretty.

  "I've always believed lady should be a title bestowed on a woman only after she's earned it," Owen said.

  "That's not a very gallant attitude for a gentleman."

  "I grew up in the Virginia mountains. I'm not a gentleman."

  He thought he saw a flicker of interest in her eyes. "I thought all handsome men wanted to be thought gentlemen."

  "You think I'm handsome?"

  "You know you are. You wouldn't dress up like a peacock otherwise."

  Owen was irritated that his efforts appeared to have earned disapproval rather than admiration. "Like Miss Moody, I, too, believe a man should change for dinner."

  "Maybe in your fancy cities back East, but I don't see much call for it out here."

  "What do you see a call for, Miss Gywnne?"

  "Call me Hetta." She turned back to her dinner, directing her attention to buttering a biscuit.

  "You didn't answer my question," Owen said.

  "Pretty people don't want to hear contrary opinions. They sometimes say they do, but they really don't."

  A perceptive young woman regardless of her lack of social skills.

  "You don't have to talk to me if you don't want," she said.

  "Well, I do want to talk to you, and I want an answer to my question. What do you think is important in a man?"

  "Character," she answered without looking at him.

  "Everybody thinks character is important," Owen said, a bit impatiently. "I'm talking about the things about a man that make a young woman swoon."

  "Any young woman who swoons over a handsome man is in no position to judge prudently."

  Owen was beginning to be irritated. "Why do you keep talking about handsome men like it's an affliction?"

  Hetta put her fork down, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and turned toward Owen. "It has been my experience that handsome men are too much concerned with their looks and their effect on women. They waste what time and money they do possess on their pleasure rather than use it for their families. Because they've been catered to all their lives, they think their looks entitle them to things less handsome men must work for or do without. They seldom develop character or values with any but the
most shallow roots. And they have a tendency to pontificate on all manner of subjects even when they possess only the most superficial knowledge."

  Owen took a deep breath. "You're certainly comprehensive in your opinions."

  "You asked."

  "I hope you don't mean to include me in that characterization. Why, just this afternoon, at great peril to myself, I rescued a crippled man from harm."

  "I know what you did for Ben."

  He'd only mentioned Ben in a halfhearted attempt at humor. Her knowing about it made it seem like he was bragging, and that annoyed him.

  "While I approve of what you did, I don't approve of men who go around shooting guns in the street."

  "You have a mighty detailed account of what happened."

  "Strangers are rare in Pinto Junction. People remember everything they do."

  "I'll have to remember that."

  "I don't approve of gambling or drinking," Hetta said.

  Owen had never pretended to take criticism well, and Hetta Gywnne was pushing the limits. "Have you ever heard of not passing judgment until you know a person?"

  "I know what I see."

  "What if I did the same thing?"

  "You already have. You've decided I'm plain, that you'll never be interested in a woman like me, and you're wondering if Miss Moody will be at dinner tomorrow."

  Not exactly, but close enough to make him squirm.

  "I did wonder if my presence had driven Miss Moody away. As for you, you're not beautiful, but your face has strength and character. Yet I don't know if I want to get to know you. Your mind is closed on too many subjects."

  "Those are opinions I have reached by observation. I won't change them until I see changes in the men I observe."

  "But men like Newt and me make you doubt you ever will."

  "I don't put you in the same class as Newt."

  "I suppose I should feel fortunate."

  "I don't know why you're so angry."

  "I suppose you would be happy if I criticized everything about you within hours of setting eyes on you."

  She started to say something, then apparently changed her mind. When she finally selected an answer, her expression was very much like that of a child preparing to take a dose of bitter-tasting medicine.

  "All the men of my acquaintance fit the description I've just given you, my father closest of all. I will be quite pleased if you should prove to be the exception." She smiled, but it was an unsuccessful effort. "A woman can't afford to be wrong about a man. If she is, she pays for that mistake the rest of her life."

  "You have a home here with Miss Moody, and you own a ranch. I'd say you were safe enough."

  "Ida was kind enough to give me a job when my house burned."

  "Did you like the ranch?"

  For the first time that evening he saw signs of happiness in her face. "It's the only home I've ever known, the only one I want. I even love the work, the roping, branding--"

  "What the hell did your father mean by letting you do that? You could have been killed!"

  "Miss Moody doesn't allow cursing."

  "I'll make sure I don't cuss in front of Miss Moody. So you had to do the work or it wouldn't have been done?" No wonder she had such a bad opinion of men.

  "My father took the admiration of women as his due. My mother would have done anything for him."

  "Are you back to me and Newt again?"

  "Newt is a bully who feels that anything he can get away with is okay."

  "And you think I'm like that?"

  She shrugged her shoulders. "You've forced me to be quite candid, Mr. Wheeler."

  "Call me Owen."

  She ignored his interruption. "It has been my experience that men who have been endowed with exceptional size, attractiveness, or courage depend far too much on those traits. They foolishly rush into ill-considered undertakings. When they're successful, they're heros and those who failed to follow them are cowards. When they are big and strong, they take what doesn't belong to them. Men who are blessed with looks trade on them, turning foolish women like my mother into blind slaves."

  Owen had listened to her initial remarks with only mild irritation, but her comments about women allowing themselves to be turned into slaves caused mild irritation to become simmering anger.

  "What makes you think men are the only ones to trade on their looks?" he asked.

  "I'm sure they're not, but women have a greater love of home and family, a greater sense of responsibility and fairness, better understanding of the damage they can do by--"

  "You don't know what you're talking about!" The words burst from Owen. "I don't know what your father did, but no man can cause so much pain or be so destructive as a beautiful woman who can't think of anything except how to please herself."

  "I know women who--"

  "You live in a thorn patch too far from civilization to know what a woman of great beauty and a depraved soul can do. Men are driven hard by their physical needs, needs so strong no woman can understand them, needs that drive them like helpless lambs into the slaughterhouse of a female determined to use that weakness for her own pleasure."

  "Are you a weak man, Mr. Wheeler?"

  "No."

  "Are you driven hard by these needs that are so terrible no woman could understand them?"

  "No."

  "Then I must congratulate you on your success."

  He started to tell her he was pleased himself, but he realized in that moment he was angry. He liked women. He enjoyed flirting, but the driving force behind his obsession with women was anger at his mother and what she had done to his father. It was his way of proving he wasn't the pliable, gullible, spineless fool his father had been. No woman was going to manipulate him, humiliate him, laugh at him, treat him with contempt.

  But his behavior made him angry because in toying with women's emotions while remaining uninvolved, he was doing the same thing his mother did. That made him even more angry, more determined to get back at her by flirting even more heartlessly. He'd found himself on a merry-go-round, unable to get off.

  "I'm glad to say no woman has made a fool of me," Owen said.

  "That's very important?" Hetta asked.

  "Wouldn't it be for you?"

  "Women can't afford to be as proud as men. Our lives depend on them too much."

  As far as he could see, beautiful women pretty much called the tune. Even after they were married, they seemed to have a wanton streak that drove them to destroy the very home they worked so hard to create. If a man didn't control his wife, he couldn't blame anyone but himself if she made a strumpet of herself.

  "You're lucky you live so far from civilization," Owen said. "I'd hate to see all your illusions shattered."

  "That can happen in Pinto Junction, too," Hetta said, getting to her feet. "Do you want anything else?"

  He'd been so involved in their conversation, he hadn't realized they had finished eating. He couldn't recall whether he'd enjoyed the food or not. "I'd like some coffee."

  She picked up her plate. "I'll bring it when I come back for your plate."

  "I can wait until you finish clearing the table."

  "That's not necessary."

  "It is if you're going to have coffee with me."

  "I'd rather not."

  "Are you afraid of me?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Does Ida object to you using the parlor?"

  "I'm not a slave."

  "But you're a servant. We never had servants, so I don't know what they can and can't do."

  "I'm paid to do my work, but Miss Moody treats me like her equal."

  "Then why don't you call her Ida?"

  She paused.

  "You don't call her Ida because you don't feel her equal."

  "I do."

  "Then put down those dishes and let's have our coffee in the parlor."

  Hetta called herself an idiot at least a dozen times as she dropped the coffee into boiling water. She must be, to agree to have c
offee with Owen Wheeler. It didn't matter that she always had coffee in the parlor with Ida. It didn't matter that they often invited guests to join them. What mattered was that she had let precisely the kind of man she most distrusted talk her into doing something against her will

  She wasn't worried that he would misbehave. She wasn't pretty enough. Even if her mirror hadn't told her she was plain, she would have had no doubt. As far back as she could remember, her father had told her she and her mother were plain, that they were lucky to have such a handsome man as husband and father.

  Her mother had responded by treating her husband like a minor god. Hetta had rebelled. She'd been particularly angry that her father made no attempt to be discreet about his unfaithfulness, but her mother said a plain woman couldn't expect to hold the interest of such a handsome man all the time. He always came back home when his other women got tired of his shiftless ways. Hetta had actually been glad when he went off to the war.

  He'd died at Shiloh. Unable to endure the shock of losing the man she adored, her mother had died less than a year later. Hetta was still angry at her mother for taking the easy way out and leaving her to wrestle with the ranch alone. It hadn't been a long battle. Bandits had raided with impunity, the house had burned, and she'd had to look for a way to support herself. She'd counted herself fortunate when Ida gave her a job.

  Hetta was thankful for her good fortune, but each day increased her longing to return to her ranch. That had seemed impossible until Mr. diViere rented her land. She would soon have enough money to repair the house, buy more cows, and hire someone to help her.

  She'd never expected to marry. She was too plain and too poor. So she'd been surprised when William Tidwell, who worked in his father's hardware store, began to show an interest in her. She couldn't doubt William's integrity--he was as plain as she--and his sense of duty and responsibility were beyond question.

  But Hetta knew she wasn't in love. She felt vaguely disappointed that she didn't feel more passion for William, but she also felt relieved that she could approach their relationship without any of the distortion of her mother's idolatry. Theirs would be a marriage based on common sense and mutual respect.

  William had nothing of his own and couldn't marry without his parents' permission, but his mother was jealous of her only child. She thought he was too young, that no woman was good enough for him. But William had assured Hetta that his mother would love her once she got to know her. Hetta wasn't so certain, but she hoped William would ask his mother soon. Ida Moody was the best friend anyone could have, but Hetta wanted a home of her own.