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With her hands on her hips, Stephanie was waiting for Adam when he entered her private car. He had to have known that she would need explanations after what Damon had said about the Navaho.
And by the wavering of his eyes as he shut the door behind him and stood there, silently looking at Stephanie, she knew that she had been right.
“Adam, what’s going on between you and Damon?” she asked, her jaw tight.
Adam shrugged. “We’re friends,” he said. “That’s all.”
“How could you be friends with that beast?” Stephanie replied. “Twice now he has assaulted me. You should hate him, Adam. Instead, you continue to ally yourself with him. What is it that you are planning with Damon against the Navaho? Is that why you agreed to his friendship so readily? Because he has an axe to grind against the Indians?”
Adam raked his fingers through his hair and lowered his eyes. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he mumbled.
“Your refusal to answer me is proof enough,” Stephanie said.
She went over to Adam and forced him to look her straight in the eyes.
“Adam, how can you forget your past friendship with Runner so easily?” she murmured. “And Sage and Leonida. You surely can’t be seriously thinking about taking advantage of them. You came to get their approval, not to take from them that which is precious. Adam, you are wanting more land than is already allotted you. Isn’t that so?”
“And if I do?” Adam said, slapping her hand away. He turned to leave, but Stephanie stepped quickly between him and the door.
“If you do anything else to cause the Navaho problems, Adam, so help me I shall disown you as my brother,” she said in a low, warning hiss. “Do you hear me, Adam? I will no longer be your sister. And I will do everything within my power to see that you don’t get your way, even if that means getting a court order to stop you. If I have to travel to Washington and speak with the president about what you are doing, I shall.”
“You can’t be serious,” Adam gasped, paling. “You would ruin me.”
“Exactly,” Stephanie said, smiling smugly up at him.
“Stephanie, how could the Navaho mean so much to you that you would go against your own brother?” Adam said, his eyes suddenly angry. He clasped her shoulders with his hands, causing her to wince with pain. “We’ve meant everything to each other. You can’t go against me now.”
“Try me,” she said.
Adam dropped his hands to his sides, walked to the window, and stared out of it. “I believe you would,” he grumbled.
Anger was seething inside him. His careful plans were backfiring. When he had wanted Stephanie to ally herself with Runner, it had not been for her to forget her brother. It was only meant for her to sway the Navaho into approving all of his plans. Now it seemed that she was ready to do anything she could for the Navaho because of her feelings for the “White Indian.”
He turned slowly around and glared at Stephanie. “It’s because of Runner, isn’t it?” he said, his voice drawn. “You love him more than you ever loved me.”
“I do love him, but that is not entirely why I am so set against what you’re trying to do,” Stephanie said, torn by her feelings toward her brother. She loved him, yet at this moment, it was very close to becoming hate. “I just don’t like to see this change in you. Runner said that you are someone he no longer knows. I am beginning to feel the same way, Adam.”
She crossed the room to him, framing his face between her hands. “Adam, please stop your friendship with Damon,” she pleaded. “Make a solid friendship with the Navaho again. Tell them that you want nothing more than the land you have already been allotted by the government. If you go in peace, I am sure they will accept your private spur and new town because it is with an old friend that they will be giving their alliance.”
She paused, then added, “And Damon be damned.”
Adam took her hands and kissed their palms, then drew her into his arms. “Sis, I love you so much, and I understand what you are saying. But Damon’s a man I don’t think I want to cross. You have seen his true self. He is a shifty, crafty man who would do anything to rid his life of the Navaho. Who is to say what he would do if he realized that I was friends with the Navaho again?”
“There are ways to protect ourselves against him,” Stephanie said, easing from his arms. She lifted her derringer from its holster, where she had left it hanging on the back of a chair. She caressed the gun as she stared down at it. “I know that he’d better not try anything with me again. I will shoot
him, Adam. He won’t get the chance to touch me with his filthy hands again.”
Adam watched her smoothing her hand over the firearm for a moment, feeling trapped by her demands. There was no way he was going to give up the idea of taking more land, now that he saw it within his grasp. And to do that, he needed Damon.
No. He could not actually do everything his sister was asking, but he could put on a danm good act. He would go to the Navaho and offer apologies. Perhaps, this would also give him the freedom to be with Pure Blossom for a while longer.
Then, after Damon performed his role in framing the Navaho, there would be no one who could cast any of the blame on Adam. In the end, Damon would be the one who would be swinging from a hangman’s noose.
Adam smiled cynically. His sister was no longer his trump card. Damon was. And Damon would have no idea that he was being tricked all the way to the gallows.
“I’ll go to the Navaho and apologize,” he said quickly. He drew her closer to him. “Pretty sister, does that make you happy?”
Stephanie was slow to respond. She studied his eyes, hoping to be able to see if he was sincere or not, but she had learned long ago that her brother was a master at disguising his true feelings. As before, she would just have to take him at his word and pray that things would be put right with the Navaho.
