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had to show some restraint and decorum. He wasn’t an animal after all, consumed by his lust. Almost, but not quite. And he had brought home that pile of work from the office, he reminded himself. He needed to get at least some of it done before he and Rebel retired for the evening.
    He mentioned that as he lingered over a snifter of cognac following dinner. “If I don’t take care of some of it, I’ll be too far behind when I start in the morning,” he said. With a smile, he added, “Then I’ll never get caught up.”
    “You should have had Edwin come over to help you with it,” Rebel said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded. He’s such a hard worker.”
    Conrad hesitated. Over the past few years, he had learned a great deal about the sort of natural caution that most Westerners practiced. Living in an often harsh and unforgiving land ingrained that in a person. Rebel was no different. She was probably more suspicious of people as a rule than he was.
    Like everyone, though, she had her blind spots, and Edwin Sinclair was one of them. She seemed never to have seen the things that Conrad had, and he had never mentioned them to her.
    Now, he said, “He offered to help, but I told him it wasn’t necessary.”
    “Why would you do that?” Rebel asked with a frown. “Helping with paperwork is part of his job.”
    “Not after office hours it isn’t.”
    “Yes, but if he doesn’t mind…Anyway, you could always pay him a little bonus for extra work like that, if he’s not too proud to accept it.”
    “I suppose.” Conrad didn’t want to argue with her, not tonight, so he smiled and promised, “I’ll certainly keep that in mind next time.” He swirled the cognac left in the snifter, then tilted it to his lips and drank the last of it. As he got to his feet, he said, “I won’t work for more than an hour or so.”
    “I suppose I can be patient,” Rebel said. “I’ll clear away these dishes and then go upstairs to read for a while.”
    On several occasions, Conrad had suggested that they ask Mrs. O’Hannigan to stay in the evenings until after dinner, but Rebel had insisted that she was perfectly capable of cleaning up. Not only that, she said, but Mrs. O’Hannigan needed to get home to her own family as well.
    That was another point Conrad hadn’t argued. He knew that Rebel would be just as happy sitting next to an open campfire out on the trail as she was in the dining room of this big, two-story house on the outskirts of Carson City. Maybe even happier. So it was best, he thought, to let her do just as much as she wanted to do.
    As he left the dining room and started down the hall toward his study, the image of Rebel in boots and jeans and a buckskin shirt drifted through his mind. Maybe if he could get ahead on his work, he could take some time off and they could head up into the high country on an extended trip. They could go on horseback, just the two of them, taking along enough supplies to last for a week or two. They wouldn’t have to worry about fresh meat; the mountains were full of game, and Rebel was a superb shot with a rifle. Conrad could handle a long gun fairly well, too. They would be fine.
    It was such an appealing prospect that Conrad stopped just outside the door to his study and sighed in anticipated pleasure.
    A knock on the front door broke that reverie and put a puzzled frown on Conrad’s face. They weren’t expecting any visitors tonight. He had no idea who could be at the door.
    “I’ll get it,” he called to Rebel as he started toward the front of the house. He didn’t know if she had heard the knock, but in case she had, she would know that he was answering it.
    When he swung the door open, the light from the foyer revealed Edwin Sinclair standing there on the porch, his hat in one hand and what appeared to be a yellow telegraph flimsy in the other. Conrad was surprised and not very happy to see Sinclair, especially after he had told the man not to come to the