The Temptress Read online

  Tynan, on the other hand, kept calling her Miss Mathison and tipping his hat to her in the most formal way.

  “He treat you all right?” Del asked her when she was frowning at Ty’s back because he’d again acted as if he’d never met her before tonight.

  “How’d you get him out of jail?”

  Del Mathison gave a little snort. “I don’t plan to start telling you all my secrets. I got him out, that’s all you need to know. He tell you he was in jail?”

  “I guessed it and he answered my questions. Who do you plan to tell your secrets to? The man you picked out for me to marry?”

  “You have been asking a lot of questions. You and Prescott get along?”

  “Well enough,” she answered. “He’s asked me to marry him, if that’s what you had planned.”

  Del looked at her for a while. “It’s time you settled down and gave me some grandkids.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s just what I want to do.”

  They didn’t speak any more as they prepared for bed. Del went to the foreman of the small army of men he’d brought and set up watches all night. Chris, wrapped in a blanket, watched as her father stood in the moonlight and talked to Tynan for a few minutes.

  “He seems like a sensible young man,” Samuel said from near her. “Del said he was in prison for murder.”

  “Yes, but he didn’t kill the man—at least not the man he was imprisoned for killing, and, yes, he is the most competent of men.”

  “You weren’t…frightened of him, of being alone with him?”

  Chris turned to give the man a look of disbelief. “I’d trust Ty with my life, with the life of anyone I loved. He’s a good, kind, intelligent man who has never been given a chance in his life. Yet, in spite of that, he’s trustworthy and has the highest of ideals.” She stopped, feeling a bit embarrassed. “No,” she whispered, “I was never afraid of him.”

  Samuel Dysan smiled at her in the darkness. “I see. Well, good night, Miss Mathison. I’ll see you in the morning.” He went away from her whistling.

  The next day, Del woke the entire camp long before sun-up. Sleepily, Chris looked out of the covers and saw that Tynan was already loading a couple of the pack horses. She threw back the blanket and went to him.

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling at him.

  He didn’t look at her, but moved to the far side of the horse. She followed him.

  “Go get the coffee ready,” he said under his breath. “We’ll need a few gallons of it.”

  “Ty…” she began.

  He turned on her. “Look, Chris, it’s over. You go back to your world and I go back to mine. You become the little rich girl and I’m the ex-convict. It’s over. Now, go get the coffee ready.”

  Quick tears came to her eyes. “It’s not over, Ty. You know how I feel about you.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. They were hidden from the others by the horses. “Chris, I told you it wouldn’t work. I told you that from the beginning. Right now you think you…that you’re in love with me, but you’re not. You love the adventure and the excitement, but you also love the luxury of your father’s house. You wait, you’ll see. Two weeks in your father’s house, after you give a few parties, after you’ve had a few baths and bought a couple of new dresses, you won’t even remember me. If I walked into the parlor, you’d worry that my clothes were going to get the furniture dirty. And you won’t even believe that you once thought you were in love with somebody like me.”

  She looked at him for a long minute. “I hope you make yourself believe that. I hope you can sleep at night. I hope you…” Her anger left her. “I hope that someday you realize that you love me just as much as I love you.” She jerked away from him. “I have to make coffee. When you’re man enough to tell yourself the truth, let me know, I’ll be waiting.”

  She ran away from him, stumbling over Samuel Dysan, but she didn’t look at him either. She kept her head down and helped the camp cook prepare breakfast for the many cowboys who were preparing to ride.

  When they mounted, ready to ride, she saw that all around her the men had their guns ready. She was encircled by her father, Sam, Tynan and three of her father’s hired men. Asher and Pilar were likewise guarded. “Do you think Dysan’s out there?” she asked Samuel beside her.

  “I think he’s out there,” he answered grimly. “We have something he thinks belongs to him.”

  Her father called for them to ride before she could ask another question.

  They rode south for two hours before they encountered Beynard Dysan’s men. He approached them with all the confidence in the world, as if he knew the outcome of what was about to happen.

  Del called a halt to the group behind him, and Tynan put his horse directly in front of Chris. He, Del and Sam were in the front of the army facing Dysan’s hundred or so men.

  “You were looking for me?” Samuel said and there was such coldness, such hatred in his voice, that Chris shivered.

  “Not you,” Dysan answered. “You know what I want. I want what’s rightfully mine.”

  “No,” was all Samuel said.

  “Then I’ll take it,” Beynard answered. “And I’ll take all of you with me.”

  Samuel reined his horse forward, snatching the reins from Del’s hand when Del tried to stop him. Sam rode up to Beynard. Behind her, Chris could hear rifles being cocked, barrels of six-guns being rolled to check that all the chambers were loaded.

  While Sam and Beynard talked, Ty moved his horse back to stand by Chris. “If I give you the order, I want you to ride like hell toward those trees,” he said under his breath. “You understand me? No heroics.”

  Chris looked up to see her father turned around in his saddle and he was nodding to her that she was to do what Tynan said.

  “Pilar?” Ty said over his shoulder. “Be ready to ride.”

  Chris, a lump of fear in her throat, watched as Tynan moved back into place beside her father. The two men she loved most in the world in front of her, the first ones to be killed if Dysan’s men began firing. She was sure her heart was going to break her ribs as she strained to see Samuel talking to Dysan.

  It seemed an eternity before Sam turned back toward Del.

  “This fight is between the two of us,” Samuel said. “Winner takes all.”

  Del nodded at Sam while Tynan looked on with eyes that were dark.

  Chris reined her horse forward. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing for you to concern yourself with,” Del said, his eyes on Samuel’s back.

  “The two of them are going to settle it,” Tynan said. “Whoever wins gets the spoils of war.”

  “But Samuel is an old man,” Chris said. “He can’t possibly have the reflexes of the younger man. And, besides, he has a right to leave his estate to whoever he wants.”

  Del gave her one of his looks that told her he wanted her to shut up. “I am the executor of his estate. If Sam loses, I’ll see that the right person gets his money.”

  “But then Dysan will be after you and—”

  “Chris,” Tynan said softly. “Come over here and be quiet.”

  She ignored her father’s look as she obeyed Tynan and moved her horse next to his. Her hands gripped the pommel until they were white as she watched Samuel and Beynard ride down the trail and into the trees. It seemed forever until they heard the first shot.

  Chris gasped and held her breath and waited. And waited.

  There was a second shot, then nothing.

  She looked at Tynan, saw that the muscles in his jaw were working, then he kicked his horse forward and tore past the hundred gun-bearing men who had been hired by Dysan. He galloped into the trees to where Samuel and Beynard had disappeared.

  Chris watched his cloud of dust for a moment, then she too kicked her horse and went after Ty. Behind her, she could hear her father shouting at her, then at his men, but she didn’t stop, just kept following Tynan into the trees.

  She reached the clea