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he turned away and went back to the corral. If
she wanted to tell him what was bothering her, she would. If not…he shrugged.
It was none of his business. He’d vowed never to get tangled up with a white
woman again, no matter how pretty she was and it was a vow he meant to keep.
    Picking up the new rail, he laid it in place, then reached
for the hammer, cursing his weakness for smooth pale skin and soft blue eyes.
    Melinda Kershaw’s image danced across the misty corridors of
his mind. Melinda, with her irresistible smile and honeyed words. Melinda, who
had teased and tormented the hired help one summer. Lee’s knuckles turned white
around the hammer. That was a summer he’d never forget.
    He’d been seventeen the year he’d gone to work for Melinda’s
father. Rich and spoiled, secure in her beauty, she had trailed after Lee while
he cut the grass and trimmed the trees, flirting shamelessly, fascinated by the
fact that he was an Indian and therefore forbidden to her. She had paraded
around her family’s swimming pool in a hot pink bikini that left almost nothing
to the imagination. On more than one occasion, she had begged him to rub suntan
lotion on her back and shoulders.
    Nights, she had met him on the sly, vowing that she loved
him, that it didn’t matter that he was an Indian and dirt poor. She had kissed
him and caressed him until he was on fire for her and then, when her father had
caught her in his arms, she had cried rape. And because Lee was just a dirty
redskin, not fit to be in the same room as Frank Kershaw’s virginal
sixteen-year-old daughter, Melinda’s father had believed her every word.
    Melinda had spent the rest of the summer in the Bahamas,
recovering from her dreadful ordeal.
    Lee had spent eighteen months in a correctional institution.
    He drove the last nail into place, then hurled the hammer
across the corral. Chest heaving, he stared at his hands, remembering the
nights he’d spent wishing he could wrap them around Melinda’s pretty little
neck.
    But that was all behind him now. He’d find his ancestor’s
gold, get the hell out of Cedar Flats and start a new life where nobody would
know, or care, who he was.
    And he’d never look at another white woman as long as he
lived.

Chapter Six
     
    He bent over the hand-drawn map spread on his desk. She
wouldn’t keep a fortune in gold in the house, he mused, that much was certain.
Probably not in the barn, either. She might have buried it somewhere, say in the
middle of one of the corrals or in the chicken coop. She might have hidden it
in the well, but he didn’t think so.
    He frowned thoughtfully as his finger made an ever-widening
circle around the drawing of the house. Under a rock, perhaps, or in a cave…
    His gaze moved to the mountain that rose behind the house. A
cave. What better place to hide a king’s ransom?
    He grunted softly as he lifted his head and stared out the
window into the darkness. Roan Horse, a man who had avoided white women like the
plague, had gone to work for Kelly McBride. Why?
    A slow smile spread over his features. It was all so simple.
    Roan Horse knew about the gold.
    All he had to do was sit back and wait for the Indian to
find it.
    Whistling softly, he dialed the phone. “Trask? I need you.”

Chapter Seven
     
    She woke, knowing immediately that she wasn’t alone. Her
first thought was that it was Lee. But then she felt that familiar warmth,
followed by a breath of cool air that sent a shiver down her spine.
    “Who’s there?” She sat up, the blanket clutched to her
breast. “Lee?” Oh please, she thought, let it be Lee.
    Kelly swallowed hard as a corner of the room brightened,
felt herself go cold all over when the light coalesced into the form of a man…a
tall, dark-skinned man with long black hair. A man who was not a man at all.
    “You!” She shook her head, refusing to believe what she was
seeing. “No, it can’t be.”
    The Indian stared at her through fathomless black