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your arm.”
    “I’ll have you know . . .” Samantha began, and caught herself. The red in her cheeks deepened. “Listen here. I don’t know what you are about but it stops this instant. I didn’t bring you here to titillate me. I brought you here to help me acquire a fortune.”
    Fargo put his lust on the back burner of the stove for the time being. “You have my attention.”
    “Finally.” Samantha pointed at the portrait. “My father. A pillar of the community. One of the wealthiest men in all Missouri. He attended church every Sunday without fail.”
    “You make him sound like a saint.”
    “I don’t mean to.” Samantha paused. “The truth is, my father was one of the most coldhearted men to ever draw breath. You can’t tell it to look at that painting but he was mean to his core.”
    Fargo’s interest perked.
    “He wasn’t always that way. Before Charlotte was born, I remember him being just like any other father. He spent most of his time at work but when he was home with us children he was gentle and considerate.”
    “What changed him?”
    “Our mother died giving birth to Charlotte,” Samantha revealed. “The whole week after that, Father shut himself in his bedroom and wouldn’t come out. When he did, he was a changed man. Something inside him had died. The milk of human kindness, some would call it. From then on he treated us as if we were somehow to blame for Mother’s death.”
    “How old is your little sister?”
    “Charlotte is twenty-two. I’m thirty-one. Between us came the four boys. Tom Junior, then Roland, then Charles, and finally Emmett.”
    “Your father treated all of you bad?”
    “Actually, no. He treated Tom even worse. He never said why, but I think it’s because he suspected Tom wasn’t the fruit of his loins.”
    “I noticed he doesn’t look like any of you,” Fargo mentioned.
    “It soured our father on us even more. Our entire lives were spent under his heel. One evening at supper some months ago, he told us that we were vultures waiting around for him to die. He said he was glad none of us had given him grandchildren because they would be vultures, too.”
    “How many of you are married?”
    “None of us.”
    That struck Fargo has peculiar. “There’s six of you and not one has ever had a hankering for a hearth and home?” He didn’t, but then he wasn’t like most people. His wanderlust was too strong. It would be years, if ever, before he was willing to give up the saddle for a rocking chair.
    “I can’t speak for the others but I’ve just never met the right man.” Samantha frowned. “In a way I’m glad. Our father grew to hate children. Not just his own but all children. They reminded him of our mother. They reminded him of his loss. Grandchildren would be more reminders.”
    Fargo regarded the portrait in a whole new light. “From what you’re telling me, your father sure was a son of a bitch.”
    “You have no idea. He did all he could to make our lives miserable. I could recite you a list as long as your arm.” Sam stopped. “One incident should suffice. Roland met a woman once and was thinking about marrying her. Do you know what our father did? He drove a wedge between them. Insulted and belittled the poor woman until she wouldn’t have anything to do with us and broke up with my brother.”
    Fargo’s estimation of Roland rose several notches.
    “Then there’s poor Charlotte. She fell in love only a year ago or so. Our father had her beau investigated and one evening had him invited to supper with the rest of us and then proceeded to inform Charlotte that the man she had given her heart to was in fact seeing another woman behind her back. It broke her heart.”
    “He ever do anything to you?”
    “All sorts of things I refuse to talk about. But the worst of his spite was reserved for Tom. He was convinced Mother had slept with someone else even though she had insisted she hadn’t. Father always called Tom his ‘little