LITMIR.BIZ

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host. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” McCollum demanded bluntly. “Behind my back, too.”

      “I was telling my neighbor how much you know about the past,” he said, smiling. “This is Jack Lang. He owns Blackwater Springs Ranch. Jack, this is Dr. Craig McCollum.”

      “Glad to know you,” Jack said. “Are you here to dig around?”

      “No, more’s the pity. I’m in town on business, so I stopped in to see Thorn. What do you think about the Mexican situation?”

      Jack told him. McCollum, a tall, dignified man, pursed his lips and his dark eyes narrowed. “You think the peons have a chance?”

      “Yes,” Jack said. “Do you?”

      McCollum shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Thorn has probably mentioned that he has several Mexican cowboys who work for him. Their fathers worked for his father. To them, being dominated by foreigners is a bitter way of life. Change takes time.”

      “Is Madero going to win?”

      “Yes, I think so,” Thorn said after a minute. “He genuinely cares about his people and he wants something better than they have for them. He’s managed to win the support of most of his people, and they’ll fight. Yes, I imagine he’ll win. But before he does, a lot of good blood is going to be spilled. What concerns me is that some of it may be ours. We’re in a sticky position here, on the border.”

      “We don’t have to get involved,” Jack said stubbornly.

      Thorn smiled indulgently. “We’re already involved. Or haven’t you noticed that some of your vaqueros disappear for a day or two at a time?”

      Jack cocked his head and shrugged. “Yes. They go to see their families.”

      Thorn chuckled and drained his punch glass. “They go to ride with the Maderistas and help raid neighboring ranches. Be careful they don’t raid yours. You’ve lost some cattle recently, too, I believe?”

      “A few head. Nothing serious.”

      “Perhaps those few were to see if you’d give chase,” Thorn cautioned. “Keep a close watch on your herd.”

      “Yes. I’ll do that.” Jack sighed heavily, his eyes going to his wife, who was talking animatedly to some neighbors. “I dragged my family out here without realizing the gravity of the situation, you know. I had no idea the Mexicans would revolt. I put every dime we had into this operation, but it isn’t going as I thought it would. I’m losing my shirt, Vance.”

      “Give it time,” Thorn said, mentally weighing his own chances to latch on to the ranch if Jack looked like he was losing it. “Things generally work out by themselves.”

      “Yes, if I have anything left by then.”

      “No need to sound so pessimistic,” Thorn reminded him. “If things heat up, there are plenty of U.S. troops ready to combat any threat. And besides the local militia, there’s support from Fort Huachuca if it’s needed. Buck up. Come on, I’ll introduce you to a couple of my bankers. You may need a friend in commerce one day. Craig, you can keep us company.”

      From her position with Curt, talking to two unmarried young women talking about the upcoming marriage of a third, Trilby watched Thorn Vance and Craig McCollum with her father. Dr. McCollum wasn’t at all bad-looking, but it was Thorn who caught her eye. He was nice-looking when he made the effort, she thought reluctantly. Black suited him; it made him look more muscular, even taller than he was.

      While she stared at him, he suddenly turned his head and caught her staring in his direction. A cold anger contracted his brows, and she flushed and looked quickly away. Her heartbeat was unusually fast and she wished she didn’t feel or look quite so breathless. It hadn’t been like this with Richard. She’d been so fond of him, but he hadn’t made her knees go weak. For heaven’s sake, all she’d thought about since she’d arrived was how it would feel if Thorn kissed her with real passion—not that faint brushing contact that had unnerved her. She almost wished that she’d given in to him, but that was unseemly, unladylike, and totally impossible. She couldn’t encourage him. A widower like Thorn Vance would certainly want more than she was prepared to offer, and he was hardly likely to offer her marriage. He was something of a ladies’ man, she gathered from their conversation, and he seemed already to think her a woman of loose morals. She had no thought of ending up a scarlet woman because of her body’s helpless reaction to him. She’d simply have to keep her distance from now on.

      “Look at her,” Lou bristled minutes later when Thorn took her onto the dance floor. She was glaring toward Trilby, who was still standing beside Curt. “Has she no shame?”

      “I’ll take care of it,” he told the woman, who was dark and much older than Trilby. “Don’t worry.”

      “So blatant,” she choked. “He’s got two children, and he doesn’t care how much gossip he stirs up. It isn’t only her. Now there’s some woman down in Del Rio.” She dabbed at her eyes miserably. “I wish I’d never met him.”

      “What do you mean, some woman in Del Rio?”

      “A pretty little Mexican peasant girl whose father owns a taverna,” she said huskily. “He spends all his time down there.”

      That struck Thorn as odd. If Curt were having a mad affair with Trilby, why was he seeing another woman as well? And a poor Mexican girl, at that?

      “He likes to see me humiliated,” she whispered, glaring at her husband’s back. “He enjoys hurting me.”

      “Why should he want to do that?” Thorn asked gently.

      Lou blushed. “I was…in the family way when we married,” she said, faintly resentful. “He’s never let me forget it. He didn’t want to marry me.”

      It began to make sense. “Are you certain that he’s seeing Trilby?” he asked her.

      She shrugged. “He disappears every other night. Maybe he’s seeing them both. How should I know? I hate him!”

      “No, you don’t.”

      She sniffed. “No, I don’t. I wish I could.” She leaned her head against him. “Why couldn’t I have loved you, Thorn? You’d never cheat on your wife.”

      “It’s not my way,” he agreed.

      “Look at her,” she muttered, glaring at Trilby. “So cultured and citified and elegant. She’s nothing to look at, though. All bones and a face that no man could call pretty. I’m much better to look at than she is!”

      “Now, Lou,” he said gently.

      She stumbled and had to regain her balance. “I’m being spiteful, I know. Why don’t her people control her? If she’d been raised right, she wouldn’t be carousing around with my husband!”

      The question made Thorn thoughtful. Mary and Jack Lang were moral people. They hadn’t raised Trilby to be licentious. Surely if they knew she was seeing Curt they’d stop her. Of course, he rationalized, they might not know about it.

      Minutes later he approached her where she stood with Curt and slid his hand down to capture hers.

      “Excuse us, won’t you?” he told Curt, and he didn’t smile. His cousin’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

      Thorn led her onto the floor, where several people were doing a lazy waltz to the music of the live band he’d hired.

      “I think it’s time Curt spent just a little time with his wife,” he said icily.

      Trilby flushed with anger. She smiled coolly. “How kind of you to sacrifice yourself on her behalf.”

      He shifted his eyes to where Lou was coaxing a reluctant Curt to dance with her. The whole situation made him angry.

      His arms contracted around Trilby, and she stiffened. “I might as well dance with

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