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it changed his entire face. The whiteness of such lovely teeth against his black mustache and sun-browned skin was contrast enough, but the transformation from scowl to rakish grin was astonishing. Boggling.
    Oh my. Dimples, too.
    Releasing her hand, he sat back, pulled his hat over his forehead, and closed his eyes.
    She let out air in a rush, only then realizing she had been holding it. Blasphemy with a dimpled smile—threats spoken in a velvet voice—eyes that changed color with his mood. Was anything about Brady Wilkins what it seemed?
    She repressed a shiver of . . . something. Thank heavens he was riding only as far as Val Rosa. In a few more hours, she would be rid of him altogether.
    As the afternoon wore on, heat built. Even with the shade down, dust kicked up by the horses sifted through every crack to settle in the damp creases of Jessica’s neck and wrists, turning perspiration into mud. Her throat was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
    The road grew steeper, tilting the coach and pinning her against the backrest. Wilkins, riding backward against the slant, slouched lower and lower as he napped, his long legs flopping against her skirts with every bump, those oversized feet taking up most of the narrow aisle. She wondered what he would do if she stomped one but lacked the courage to find out.
    The coach slowed to a crawl. Above the rattle of wheels, she heard Phelps urging the horses on. Lifting the shade, she saw that the ground beyond her window dropped sharply away in a long, rock-strewn slope that ended in a treeless canyon far below.
    “Will you be stopping in Val Rosa, Mrs. Thornton?”
    Letting the shade drop, she turned to Mr. Ashford. As she did, she saw that although he hadn’t moved, Wilkins was awake and watching her. “No, I shall be continuing on to Socorro.”
    “Perhaps that’s where I’ve seen you,” Ashford continued. “Although I’m sure we’ve never met, you seem familiar. Have you been there before?”
    Before she could answer, Maude leaned forward to peer past Melanie. “Socorro is Indian country. Dreadful place. Is that where your husband is, Mrs. Thornton?”
    Jessica looked down at her hands. “No. My brother. My husband is dead.”
    “A pity. How did he die, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    She did mind, but knew if she didn’t answer, it would only invite vulgar speculation. “A hunting accident.” That seemed the simplest. Less complicated than disease or drowning, and certainly less dramatic than murder. Or being bitten by a rattlesnake, or one of those giant Gila monster lizards. Or being scalped by natives, or burned to death in a stagecoach. The West offered so many options.
    “He was shot? Oh, how tragic.” Leave it to Melanie to dramatize the simple.
    Jessica smoothed a pleat on her skirt. “Not shot . . . precisely. He was on his way home and fell.” It sounded weak, even to her own ear. She was such a wretched liar.
    Ashford joined the interrogation. “Fell, how?”
    She cleared her throat. “Actually, it was his horse that fell. Slipped. On ice. It was snowing, you see, and when he jumped a hedgerow, he fell and hit his head. My husband, not the horse. Although the horse fell, too, of course.” She knew she was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop herself. She hated lying, hated the reason for the lie, hated the way they were all staring at her. Even Wilkins. Especially Wilkins, with his knowing little smirk.
    “What was he hunting?” Ashford asked.
    Mercy’s sake, what difference does it make? “Grouse, I think.”
    “In winter?” Maude frowned. “Surely he wasn’t poaching?”
    “Certainly not. My husband would never do anything unlawful.” Now she was defending a man who never existed; her perversity knew no bounds. “It was August, I think. Perhaps September. I try not to think about it.”
    “Odd time to snow,” Maude muttered as she sat back.
    Too late Jessica realized her mistake. If her husband had died eight