the Ranger barracks. There must, she thought frantically, be something that she could do to prevent such a move. She had to keep calm and think!
A desperate solution to her predicament came creeping into her mind. If she married, she thought, her father’s hold on her would be broken. She would be free, and surely Alan would be kind to her. But then her father would be alone, and he might hurt himself or someone else. Could she live with her conscience if tragedy resulted from her urge to get away? He had been the best father in the whole world. Had their situations been reversed, he would certainly not have deserted her in her time of need.
She looked up at Alan with soft brown eyes and smiled sadly. No. She could not run from her responsibility. And even if she did, it would not be fair to use Alan in such a way. He was much too nice.
Alan forgot what he’d been saying and smiled back. Odd, he thought as they continued along the path between the fragrant roses, that he hadn’t noticed how pretty Amelia was in the moonlight!
Chapter Two
AMELIA HAD MANAGED TO GET TO BED THE NIGHT BEFORE without having to confront her father. He hadn’t appeared when she came to the breakfast table.
Surprisingly King was there, dressed for work, and so was his father, Brant, and his mother, Enid. Alan wasn’t. Neither were Marie and the children.
“Am I too early?” she asked, halting in the doorway. Her hair was in an upswept hairdo, pulled into a loose topknot on her head, and she was wearing a neat blue-striped pinafore over her gray dress. Her button-up gray shoes were just barely visible below her skirt as she hung there, uneasy. For all her shyness and lack of sophistication, she was the very picture of innocence and beauty in glorious bud.
King looked at her with cool disdain. He was used to women fawning over him. His wealth and family name made him desirable to women, a fact he had long accepted. He was cultured and well-bred and had all the right connections. But this woman got under his skin. Perhaps it was because he knew that she disliked him. Or perhaps it was because her cowardice made her contemptible in his eyes. Nevertheless, she was delightful to look at. If only there was more to her than beauty. She played the piano well, and she spoke a few simple words of French, but she had no real intellect and no backbone.
King was not a genteel city man. He was rough and he could be cruel, and this child-woman would need a very gentle man. No, she was not for him. Besides that, she thought he was an animal. That thought amused him and his lips curved. It had been a long time since he’d wanted anyone with the fervor he felt for Amelia. How ironic that he had to pretend distaste for her to hide it.
“Of course you’re not early,” Enid was telling Amelia with a laugh. “Sit down, child. The others are sleeping in.”
“Including your poor father.” Brant chuckled. “We had a rather late evening. I’ve insisted that he not be awakened, because I’m taking him out on the hunt today, he and Alan. We may be gone for several days. I have my eye on a nasty customer who’s been bringing down cattle hereabouts—a rogue mountain lion.”
Amelia sat down at the table without looking at King. He didn’t return the compliment. His silver eyes cut at her with pure cold mockery. He looked at her as if the sight of her offended him even as it amused him in some cruel way.
“What will you have, my dear?” Enid asked as she put a platter of biscuits on the table, fresh from the warming tray in the gas oven.
“Just eggs and bacon, please,” she replied. “I never eat a large breakfast.”
“Pass the eggs, dear,” Enid asked her husband. “Coffee, Amelia?”
“Oh, may I?” Amelia asked with a guilty glance at the doorway. “Papa does not approve….”
“Papa is asleep,” King replied with faint sarcasm.
“You have a full day, do you not?” Brant asked his son curtly.
King shrugged. “When do I not? Enjoy your trip. Mother and I will see that Miss Howard does not become … bored,” he added with an enigmatic look.
His parents stared after him curiously when he left and exchanged equally enigmatic glances with each other. His hostility toward Amelia had puzzled both of them. Like Alan, they sympathized with her because of her father’s callous treatment. King acted as though he felt she deserved it.
“Roundup is often difficult for King,” Brant said slowly, smiling at Amelia. “Perhaps he will mellow when it is over.”
“Of course he will,” Enid added.
Amelia only smiled. She knew that King’s attitude had nothing to do with his duties around the ranch. They stemmed from a peculiar dislike of herself. She had looked forward to her father’s absence, even while she worried about what might happen to him on the hunt if he were overtaxed. Now she dreaded the certainty of King’s presence over the next week or two.
At least, she told herself, Marie and the children were here, along with Enid, to provide a buffer. Her heart lightened. It would not be so difficult after all.
* * *
The hunting party was provisioned and outfitted and ready to ride by late afternoon.
“We’ll camp in the hills tonight and set out for the Guadalupe Mountains tomorrow. We’ll be near a telegraph office, so I can cable you of our progress,” Brant told his wife, and bent to kiss her cheek and embrace her tenderly. “Take care. King is here, and he can contact the Ranger post in Alpine if there are any dirty dealings on the border while we’re away.”
Enid nodded solemnly. There had been a few isolated incidents, and a murder on a nearby ranch in recent years. Border gangs operated. So did Mexican rustlers. Civilization might abound in El Paso, but this far out of town it was sidearms and careful watch that kept the peace. Not to mention the Frontier Division of the Texas Rangers, although there was much talk of disbanding that, since the Rangers had very nearly worked themselves out of a job here.
“Have you enough ammunition?” Enid asked worriedly.
“Enough, and still more,” her husband said, smiling. His head lifted at the sound of a horse’s hooves, and his eyes beamed with pride as King bore down on them astride his coal-black Arabian. The horse was a stud sire and a champion in his own right. Only King could, or would, ride him. Nor was he a working horse. King exercised him twice a day. He did, too, usually ride him to the neighboring Valverde estate when he paid court to Miss Darcy.
For the week that Amelia and her father had been in residence, Miss Darcy had come one evening for dinner. It had been a cold occasion, during which Miss Darcy had been condescending almost to the point of rudeness, while clinging limpetlike to King. She seemed to sense Amelia’s helpless attraction to King, because she deliberately played up to him, making Amelia feel more inadequate than ever. Lovely she might be to an outsider, but Amelia’s surviving parent had convinced her that she had nothing to offer a man save her domestic skills. Not that they were ever quite adequate to suit him these days….
“Are you off, then?” King asked, leaning over the saddle horn.
“Off and running, my boy,” Brant said with a smile. “Wish us luck.”
“I’ll wish that you corner that vicious calf-killer and score a deer or two as well,” King agreed.
“In
