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didn’t know. “But I think I’ll keep it.” She grinned. “To remind me of a handsome man who desired me.”
    Jeb grunted. “You’re gettin’ to be a naughty gal, Jessie Blair. I never heard the like, all this talk of desire, and you just eighteen.”
    “That’s because you think of me as a boy, Jeb, just like you always have. But lots of girls are married before they’re my age, so I reckon I’m long overdue to be talking about romance.”
    “Well, just don’t let Rachel hear you goin’ on,” he mumbled. “She’s worried herself sick over you this last week.”
    At mention of her mother, Jessie’s whole appearance changed.
    “She’s been pesterin’ the hell out of the rest of us with her worryin’. She even sent that fellow out lookin’ for you the night you left.”
    “She did what?” Jessie stormed. “How dare she—?”
    “Now hold on. He didn’t find you, did he? And the fact is, he ain’t back yet.”
    Jessie let it sink in. She grinned. Then she laughed. “Really? That’s wonderful! So he got lost after all.”
    Jeb watched her for a moment before he asked, “You don’t think too kindly of him, do you?”
    “How would you feel if some stranger started messing in your affairs?”
    “Is that what he’s done?”
    “Not yet,” she said tersely. “But I heard Rachel asking him to, and I heard him agree. So if he never comes back, that suits me just fine.”
     
    Chase came back five days later. He was boneweary, saddle-sore, filthy, and not looking forward to telling Rachel he’d failed her. More than two hundred miserable, dusty miles just to get to that damned reservation, and for what? The agent there had never heard of Jessica Blair. Nor had the Indians who spoke English been able to tell him anything at all. He spent a day covering the area, asking questions, but he was sure no one knew anything.
    Jeb was in the tack room at the front of the stable when Chase led Goldenrod in. Chase stared at him, all the weariness and anger of the last week and a half boiling to the surface. But if Jeb had learned anything in sixty years, it was how to talk his way around a mean polecat.
    “Well, now, you made good time, didn’t you, young feller?” Jeb commented congenially.
    “Did I?” Chase replied harshly. “Aren’t you a little surprised by it?”
    “Don’t know that I am.”
    “Really? Being a gambler, I think I can safely bet every cent I have that you didn’t expect me back here at all.”
    Jeb grinned. “Now, wouldn’t that be easy pickin’s, but plumb ornery of me to take you up on that bet. Fact is, I figured you’d be back just about this time—and in one piece, too, it bein’safe enough the way you went. Ain’t had no trouble along that route in a good many years.”
    “That’s beside the point,” Chase said coldly. “Going to the Shoshone reservation was a waste of time, and I figure you knew it would be.”
    “Well, shoot, I could’ve told you—”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “You didn’t ask,” Jeb replied with a shrug. “It ain’t my fault you and the lady figured Jessie’s Indians were Shoshone. Mister, I was doin’ you a favor keepin’ my mouth shut, bein’ as how Rachel was so set on you ridin’ outta here. You wouldn’t have cared to go the way the little gal went. No white man goes that way if he’s got any sense.”
    “What way? Just where the hell did she go? And don’t tell me any more nonsense about Indians!”
    “I don’t see what you’re so riled about,” Jeb grumbled. “I probably saved your life, and this is the thanks I get!”
    “Damn you, old man!” Chase exploded. “If you weren’t already close to your grave, I’d sure as hell put you there. Now I want some straight answers, not—”
    “Leave him alone!”
    Chase whirled around to face that angry voice and was stunned to see the girl who had sent him off in the wrong direction when he’d approached this ranch the first time. “You again! What are you