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“I’m hoping that Chris will accept my proposal,” said someone behind her and she turned to see Asher standing there. There was a bandage across his forehead. With a smile of possession, he put his arm around Chris’s shoulders. Her father looked at her as he had when she was a child, and she knew he was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth or making up one of her highly imaginative stories. Chris couldn’t meet his eyes, so she looked down at her hands clasped in front of her.
Pilar broke the silence. “Let me introduce myself,” she said, moving toward Del, hand outstretched. “I’m Pilar Ellery. We’ve never met, but I’ve certainly heard a great deal about you. You wouldn’t happen to have some food in those saddle bags, would you? We’re all starving.”
Del shook her hand, but he didn’t smile at her, and Chris knew that he was upset, deeply upset, if he didn’t smile at a pretty woman.
She moved away from Asher’s proprietary grasp and slipped her arm through her father’s. “I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble. I didn’t mean to.”
Del looked at her for a long moment and she saw a sadness in his eyes. Was something troubling him besides her being in danger?
“Miss Mathison, may I introduce myself?”
Before her stood the man who’d ridden beside her father. He was about the same age as her father, a tall, slim man with black hair that was graying at the temples. He had the lean, hard look of a man who was used to physical exercise, but at the same time, he had an elegance that could only have come from generations of selective breeding. Even though he looked at home with a gun slung around his hip, she could easily imagine him on a dance floor or holding a wine glass.
“I am Samuel Dysan,” he said in a deep, rich voice.
“Samuel Dysan?” She looked behind him toward Tynan, then back at the older man. “You’re the one Beynard…”
“He is seeking me?” The man looked surprised.
“I heard him saying that he’d searched for years for Samuel Dysan.”
Sam and Del exchanged looks. “Oh yes, I see. And when did he tell you this?”
“I, ah…he didn’t really tell me, he, ah…”
Tynan stepped forward. “She hid in the bushes and listened.”
“It was for a good cause!” she snapped at him. “Lionel was—”
“Lionel?” Del said. “You mean you did something for that brat you sent to me? I turned that kid over my knee three times in one day.”
“YoubeatLionel?” she gasped. “He’s just a little boy.”
“I should have taken my hand to you more often, but, no, I had a soft heart and thought that little girls were different. I’ll not make a mistake like that again. I mean to raise this boy right, so he has some sense and doesn’t go off to big cities and write stories that get him shot at. Do you have any idea how many people have said to me in the last few days, ‘Yeah, she was here, left three dead bodies behind her’?” He looked up at Tynan. “Between the two of you, there’re about a hundred fewer people in this world.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Chris said. “Tynan did what he had to do. He—”
“Except when I shot Rory Sayers,” Ty said in all seriousness.
She turned on him. “And what were you supposed to do? Stand there and let him shoot you? You saw the way all those people were egging you on, trying to make you do something exciting. There was nothing else youcoulddo. Youhadto protect yourself.”
Suddenly, she stopped as she realized what she’d said. She’d told him she was wrong to have left him alone in jail but she’d thought that out logically. This time there was passion in her belief in him.
Tynan stood there looking at her for a moment, an angelic smile on his face, then he turned toward Del. “Sir, she only gets into trouble because she wants to right all the world’s wrongs. I think you’ve done a damn fine job of raising her. Now, would anybody like to eat?” He held out his arm. “Miss Mathison, may I escort you in to dinner?”
Chris felt a little weak-kneed as she took Ty’s arm. She’d never been around a man who didn’t cower in the presence of her father. Every other man did just what Asher was doing now: standing back and looking on quietly.
They joined the others—Del had brought about fifty men with him—and ate the first decent meal they’d had in days. Chris kept smiling at her father as he glowered at her as she tried to answer all his questions without telling the truth about the danger she’d been in. She didn’t want to upset him more than she had already. She never really lied but then she didn’t tell him all of it either.
“You went to Hamilton’s knowing that he’d had his cousin killed?”
“I wasn’t sure of that. I mean, it was an awful wagon accident. I’m sure the fall could have killed any number of people and all I wanted to do was help a little boy. Besides, I had the two big, strong men you sent to me to help me. What could possibly have gone wrong?” She didn’t dare meet the eyes of Tynan or Asher or Pilar.
Del leaned toward her. “What went wrong was Dysan. Do you have any idea what that man’s like?”
“Yes, I do,” she said softly. “Papa, do you think you should talk about him like that now?” She gave a pointed look toward Samuel Dysan.
Mr. Dysan put his plate down. “You can’t offend me. I know more than anyone what my grandnephew is like. I have had the misfortune of watching him grow up.”
