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“More than you at this moment. Trust me, darlin’, he was close enough to hell to smell smoke.”
“It looks to me like he wasn’t doing too badly,” she said, flipping a hand to where Redeye still sat in the dust, chaperoned now by Joe Bellweather from the general store as Joe waited for his son to fetch the sheriff.
“C’mon, Hal, Ben couldn’t hit a bull’s rump with a banjo, even when he ain’t been drinkin’,” one of the cowboys still lounging on the porch of the Silver Snake called out.
A loud outburst of laughter greeted his remark, and Hallie flushed. But she kept her chin up and refused to look away. “And I’m supposed to believe one of you gentlemen helped him?”
“No, you should be thankin’ your friend there for keepin’ Ben out of a pine box. He drew so fast Redeye didn’t have time to blink.”
Hallie turned back to the stranger, who seemed to think very little of shooting a man on the main street in the middle of the day. He looked more like the fancy-dressed gamblers who came through town than a gunslinger, but you never could tell. “Is that true?”
“Oh, I think Bill probably blinked a couple of times. Here,” he said, reaching down to take Ben’s arm before Hallie could refuse his help, “let’s get him in the wagon before he decides to sleep it off in the street.”
More than ready to end being the afternoon’s entertainment, Hallie helped get her brother to his feet and half carried him to the wagon. She started to guide Ben to the seat, but Ben’s rescuer shook his head and hefted him onto the back floorboards instead. Ben, his eyes screwed shut, curled up on his side, moaning softly.
Jack pulled off his hat, wiping his brow with the side of his hand. He wondered how many times the girl did this in a week. From the way she handled Ben, he figured she spent a good deal of her time getting the kid out of one scrape or another, although it was hard to understand why. Ben Ryan was nothing but trouble.
Hallie watched Ben a moment before reluctantly turning from her brother to the man who’d helped him. She supposed she owed him, but right then she wished he could have been anybody else.
From the look of him, she guessed she’d been right from the start, and he was the kind that made his living flipping cards in every saloon and hotel he passed through. But even if he wasn’t, she immediately mistrusted that lazy, charming smile that seemed to be there in his eyes even when it wasn’t on his mouth.
He reminded her of a phrase she’d once heard Tenfoot use to describe a rogue stallion: long, hard and fast. His hair, overlong and tousled, looked a hundred different shades of dark gold, as if the individual strands hadn’t been able to agree on a color. It insisted on falling over one eyebrow, giving him a slightly rakish air that, combined with a wicked smile, Hallie was sure he used to his advantage.
“I’m Hallie Ryan,” she said gruffly, sticking out her hand.
If he was surprised at her hesitation or her gesture, he didn’t show it. “Jack Dakota,” he said, taking her hand in a firm grip, at the same time studying her from her hat to her boots. From the look in his eyes, Hallie got the impression he disapproved of every inch of her.
Why should she care? She’d thank him and he’d be on his way, and that would be the end of it. “I guess I owe you, Mr. Dakota. You saved my brother’s life. Thank you.”
“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself sayin’ that, Miss Hallie.” Jack grinned when she scowled. Then, pulling out the wad of notes he’d taken from Redeye, he counted off several and handed the rest to her. “Ben’s money. Don’t bother thanking me for it, since he lost some of it fair and square to me. Most of it’s there, though.”
“How generous,” Hallie muttered, thumbing through the notes, not about to give Dakota the satisfaction of seeing how much getting her money back meant to her.
Jack watched her, trying to figure her out. He’d known his share of women, but Hallie Ryan stuck out like snow in the desert. Then again, it was hard to tell she was female from the way she looked and acted.
Though tall for a woman and on the thin side, she might be pretty if she stripped off the dust and the cowboy garb, and stopped scowling. He couldn’t tell the color of her hair with it haphazardly braided and stuffed under that twisted wreck of a hat. But she did have beautiful eyes, clear and direct, an unusual shade of soft green that reminded him of wild sage and sunshine.
Hallie shifted a little, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. “Look, Mr. Dakota—”
“Jack.”
“Mr. Dakota, like I said, I owe you for helping Ben. If you’re ever in Paradise again, you’re welcome to call on us if you need anything.”
“Well, Miss Hallie, I may be calling sooner than you think. You see…” Jack leaned against the wagon, thumbs hooked in his belt. “I plan on staying in Paradise.”
“Staying?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I can’t leave until I collect on your neighborly offer, now can I?” Suspicion flared in her eyes and he laughed. “Don’t get your fur ruffled, Miss Hallie. I was only thinking of asking for a little advice. Ben told me you know more about ranching than any man in the territory.”
“Ben says a lot of things when he’s had too much whiskey. Besides, why should you need advice on anything to do with running a ranch?”
“Because I’m now the proud owner of one.”
Hallie barely stopped herself from laughing in his face. “Pardon me, Mr. Dakota, but you don’t look anything like the kind of man who belongs on a ranch.”
“I won’t ask you where you think I do belong—I have a good imagination. But I plan on settling down and becoming a good citizen.” Jack winked at her, laughing when she stared at him as if he was crazy. “I just bought what your friendly banker called one of the finest pieces of land in the territory. Eden’s Canyon.”
“You…” Stunned, Hallie could only gape at him. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.
“The bartender at the Silver Snake heard I was looking for some land and told me it was for sale, and that it was a pretty fair piece of property. It seemed like a good gamble so now it’s mine.”
Jack eyed her for a moment. The look on her face worried him. For the first time since he’d set foot in Paradise, he started to have second thoughts about how quickly he’d decided to try his luck at ranching rather than the dice table.
He couldn’t blame Hallie Ryan for thinking he’d spent too much time in the desert sun. He’d surprised himself. But he had one very good reason for staying in this town, and because of that, he’d made up his mind to make this ranching business pay.
No matter what it took.
“Is there a problem, Miss Ryan?” he asked at last, when it looked as if she’d stand there for the rest of the day, staring at him as if he’d announced he’d come to town to turn the church into a house of wicked women and whiskey.
“A problem?” Hallie found her voice as the truth of what he’d told her finally hit and hit hard. “Oh, yes, there’s a problem, Mr. Dakota. A big problem.”
“Are you going to share it with me, or do I have to guess?”
“They should never have sold you Eden’s Canyon. That land is mine.”
All at once Jack’s easiness slid away, leaving him tense. He straightened and slapped his hat back on. “I don’t like to disagree with a lady—” the slight emphasis he put on “lady” made Hallie flinch inside “—but I’ve got the deed to prove it isn’t.”
“Eden’s Canyon has been Ryan land for nearly forty years. I would have bought it back if Ben hadn’t taken my money to put in your pocket!”
Hallie could have bitten her tongue off the moment the words left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell Jack Dakota anything about herself. But the shock and anger of losing Eden’s Canyon to him, of all people, left her too furious to think straight.
“I’ll buy it back from you,” she said through gritted teeth. She thrust out the wad of notes he’d given her. “I have more than half the money now. I’ll get the rest soon.”
Jack ignored the money. “I’m not selling.”
“You don’t know the first thing about running a ranch! You’ll lose everything before a year’s over.”
“I wouldn’t bet your last dollar on that, Miss Hallie,” he said, smiling tightly.
“What I’d bet is that you’ve never stuck with anything longer than a week,” Hallie said. Desperation began to spark the first twinges of panic in her. She couldn’t lose Eden’s Canyon. Especially not like this. Oh, Pa, how could you have done this? “Why would you even want to try?”
“One very good reason.” Gesturing to the porch of the saloon, he called over to one of the saloon girls. “It’s okay, Kitty, it’s over. He can come out now.”
The girl leaned inside the door, beckoning with her hand until a fair-haired boy, about seven or eight years old, came out onto the porch. He stood by one of the posts, looking at Jack and Hallie with a mixture of curiosity and defiance.
“He’s why I’m here,” Jack said.
Hallie’s face puckered in confusion. “Ethan Harper? What would you have to do with Ethan?”
“He’s my son.”
“Your—that’s impossible. You couldn’t be—I mean, when…how?”
“I do put the cards down once in a while, darlin’. And as to how, I’d demonstrate but I don’t think you want to give the boys at the Silver Snake another spectacle.”
Hallie flushed and opened her mouth to snap back at him, but Jack took a step closer so she could feel the heat of him. She faltered and stepped backward, uneasy with the expression in his eyes, which made her wonder if she’d misjudged his determination to suddenly become a rancher.
“Paradise is where Ethan’s grown up, so Paradise is where he stays,” Jack said. He looked straight at her. “And Eden’s Canyon is mine and it’s going to stay mine. Like it or not.”
Hallie stood by the window in the front room of the ranch house, her hands fisted at her sides, and forced herself to look at the stretch of fine grazing land beyond the knobby wooden corral fences. The brilliant sunshine hurt her eyes, but at least it distracted her from thinking about Ben and what his latest escapade had cost her.
Outside her window, grasses knee-high and thick rolled in green, gold and brown over the flat plains of the Rillito Valley. On either side of the valley, the mountains, painted in reds and browns, jutted up in crags and peaks, guarding the rich grassland. Her grandfather had left behind a dirt farm in Missouri to stake his claim on this piece of wild Arizona territory. He’d built the sprawling cedar-and-adobe house near the river, started breeding Mexican cattle and made a modest fortune before Paradise was even a thought.
Hallie couldn’t imagine living anywhere but here, or doing anything but ranching. She was good at it, if nothing else. She would never be the pretty, graceful, quiet kind of woman that men courted with their Sunday-best manners and sweet talk. But she told herself she didn’t care. She didn’t need nice ways and soft words to break a wild mustang or round up a herd of cattle.
She did, however, need Eden’s Canyon.
A timid knock at the door turned Hallie from the window. The girl who poked her head into the room was not much younger than Ben, with smooth pale hair and round blue eyes that dominated her thin face. Hallie had given Serenity Trent a haven and a job at Eden’s Canyon more than two years ago, and only regretted that the girl still crept around as if she expected someone to holler at her just for being in the room.
Hallie motioned her inside. “What is it, Serenity? What’s wrong?”
Chewing at her lower lip, Serenity glanced over her shoulder. “It’s—”
“Jack Dakota. Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, winking at Serenity as he pushed the door wide and walked inside as if he had a right to be there. “Miss Hal knows Ethan and me.”
Serenity, her face bright red, appeared ready to crawl under the rug. Ethan hung back, his face set in a sullen scowl as he clutched a ragged carpetbag close to his side. Only Jack smiled at Hallie, taking the whole mess in stride as if it were of no more consequence than an afternoon picnic. She ground her teeth together, feeling the itch to string him up the first opportunity she got.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Moving into my house.”
“It is not your house.”
“I thought we’d settled this.”
“We didn’t settle anything!”
“Well, the bank and I did,” Jack said. Becoming slightly annoyed at her stubborn refusal to face the truth, he held the deed papers in front of her nose. “These look familiar?” He pulled the papers back when she made to snatch them away. “I didn’t want to leave Ethan at the saloon any longer, and I didn’t fancy staying in town after my little misunderstanding with Redeye. So I’m here, to stay, at my house.”
They glared at each other before Serenity interrupted the charged silence by touching Ethan on the shoulder. “I’ve got some gingerbread in the kitchen. Would you like some?” She gave him a gentle prod in the right direction, and after a glance at Jack, Ethan left with her.
Jack nearly protested, but he didn’t like arguing with Hallie in front of the boy. “Who is she?” He nodded toward Serenity.
“My housekeeper. And before you say anything, she might be young but she works hard, and she knows more about this ranch than you ever will.”
“Is that a challenge, Miss Hal?”
“It’s Hallie, and the only challenge I have for you is to see how fast you can ride out of here. You can’t stay.”
“Well now, darlin’, I think it’s the other way around,” Jack drawled.
The color rose in her face and he smiled, slow and easy. She’d left behind her ugly hat, and her hair, a color somewhere between maple brown and honey, looked as if chickens had been scratching in it. He wondered if she knew it, let alone cared.
“If you just expect me to walk out of here and leave it all to you, you’d better be backing those papers up with a rifle,” Hallie said, fighting to keep her voice level, when inside she felt like screaming at him.
“That’s up to you. I came here ready to do some bargaining.”
“Bargaining? Ha! Why do I get the feeling your idea of a bargain is what’s best for you?”
Jack ignored her. “I’ve thought of a way you and your brother can stay at Eden’s Canyon.”
“You leave and sell my land back to me.”
“You stay and work with me.”
This time Hallie did laugh in his face. Work with him? Was he crazy? “I wouldn’t work for you if I was down to my last dollar and starving.”
“Good thing, because I’m not looking to hire you,” Jack said. Leaning back against the wall, he looked her up and down with that infuriatingly smug smile. “I’m asking you to be my partner.”
Chapter Two
“Your what?”
“I think you heard me,” Jack said, looking her up and down with a deliberate appraisal that made Hallie’s cheeks burn. “Though judging from your face, you would’ve thought I’d asked you to be my partner in bed, not business.”
“I’d rather bed a scorpion!”
“Suit yourself, darlin’. But unless you can die from pleasure, my bite isn’t poisonous.”
Hallie fought to keep from completely losing control of her temper. She’d worked with men all her life, but she’d never known any man who, after less than an hour’s acquaintance, could aggravate her with just one look. “This is a home, Dakota, not a saloon. I don’t allow talk like that under my roof.”
“You don’t strike me as the prim and proper kind, Hal.” Jack pushed away from the wall. Pulling off his black Stetson, he tossed it onto a nearby chair with an insolent flip of his hand. “But it’s my roof now,” he said, slowly walking toward her, “and under my roof, I’ll say and do as I please.”
“Why, you low-down, good-for-nothing—!” After everything that had happened, Jack Dakota was one calamity too much. Goaded to the breaking point, Hallie swung a fist in the direction of his jaw.
Jack easily caught her wrist in midmotion, holding her at arm’s length while she twisted to free herself. “If you’ll calm down long enough to think this over, I’m sure you’ll see it my way.”
“Over your dead body,” Hallie muttered at him. She stopped her useless struggle, and the moment he relaxed his grip, whipped her hand out of his grasp. Retreating a few steps, she rubbed her wrist, glaring at him.
Jack cautiously lowered his hands, not fully convinced the little wildcat wouldn’t attack him again. “Look, Hal, before you go for your guns, consider that I could just tell you to pack your bags and get off my ranch.” Fire flared in her eyes again and he held up his palms in warning. “But I’m trying to offer you a deal that’s more than fair, under the circumstances.”
“You expect me to believe you play fair?” Hallie said. She laughed, the sound grating and bitter even to her own ears. “You and I obviously have very different ideas of fair, Dakota.”
Jack shrugged off the insult. “Whatever you want to accuse me of, lady, you can’t call me a cheat. Everything I’ve won and lost, I’ve done so fair and square. I’m making you a straight offer. I’ve got the money to keep this place going, and you’ve got the experience. I’m willing to be your partner, and that’s the best you’re going to get from me or anyone else. But it’s your choice. You can stay or go, but right now, the boy and I are settling in.”
Before she could stop him, Jack strode past her and out the door in the direction Serenity had taken Ethan. Hallie stayed rooted in place and counted to ten, her hands flexing into fists at her sides as she tried to get some control of her stampeding emotions. Then she followed in his wake, catching up with him just as he stepped into the kitchen.
Serenity and Ethan, sitting at the kitchen table with plates of half-eaten squares of gingerbread in front of them, both looked up as Jack and Hallie came in.
