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catch fire; it was the curse of a redheaded woman, this blushing so easily. If only she’d been a blonde.
    “Let’s have breakfast,” Becky reiterated. Plainly, she’d had considerable experience at keeping the peace, though the hotel didn’t look like the kind of place that would attract rowdies. Boasting a porcelain bathtub and hot and cold running water as it did, not to mention a sink and a commode that flushed, it would have been considered well-appointed, even in Sacramento.
    “I couldn’t eat a bite,” Chloe protested, with a searing glance at Jeb. It was a lie, of course. She had awakened several times in the night with her stomach gnawing at her backbone, and once or twice she’d been desperate enough to consider sneaking down to the kitchen to raid the pantry. Only the fear of being thought a thief had kept her in her room.
    “Guess that’s your choice,” Jeb said, and headed for what must have been the dining room.
    Becky waited, smiling a little, for Chloe to swallow her damnable pride and join them. She did so, with a gulp, and when she caught the scents of fresh coffee and frying bacon wafting from the kitchen, she was completely lost. Pride, after all, makes for a poor breakfast.
    Jeb had chosen a table next to the window, and he stood until both Becky and Chloe were seated, then sat down opposite them. A small woman bustled through the far doorway, carrying a heavy coffeepot in one hand and three mugs in the other, a finger hooked deftly through the handles.
    “Good morning, Sarah,” Becky said cheerfully. “This is Chloe—er—Wakefield. Chloe, my friend, Sarah Fee. I couldn’t run this place without her.”
    Sarah beamed, obviously valuing the compliment, and nodded a greeting to Chloe as she set the mugs on the table and poured coffee for the three of them. It was still quite early, so there were no other customers in the dining room. “Howdy,” Sarah said. “The special is bacon and eggs, with fried potatoes.”
    “Sounds good,” Jeb said. It was a mystery to Chloe how he was so nice to other people, especially women, and so odious with her. Not that he’d always treated her badly. Oh, no. When he’d wanted something—specifically the Triple M—he’d been charm itself.
    “Don’t you have work to do?” Chloe asked Jeb, when Becky left the table briefly, a few minutes later, to speak to someone waiting at the registration desk.
    “No,” Jeb answered, after taking and savoring a sip of coffee. “As a matter of fact, I’m mostly an irritant around the ranch these days.”
    “I can believe that,” Chloe said.
    “Always generous with a compliment,” Jeb replied smoothly.
    “ I despise you.”
    “I know.”
    Chloe, having raised her coffee halfway to her mouth, had to set it down again, lest she spill it. “Just go away. Please. I promise to divorce you as soon as I possibly can.”
    “Why go to all the trouble of a divorce?” Jeb asked blithely. “Since we’re not married anyway.”
    “We are married, more’s the pity!”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Prove it.”
    “Dammit, Jeb, you were there. We stood up before a preacher. We exchanged vows. What a joke that was.”
    “Especially the part where you promised to love, honor, and obey.”
    Chloe narrowed her eyes. “Suppose I’m expecting?” she asked, in a whisper, just to nettle him. Actually, she knew for certain that she wasn’t, but the tactic worked nicely anyway.
    Jeb set his coffee cup down on the red-and-white-checked oilcloth covering the table with a resounding thump, spilling some of the contents and burning his thumb.
    “What?” he hissed.
    She smiled coyly while he cursed under his breath and shook his hand, though she felt unaccountably stung. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what he’d been up to in Tombstone; Jeb wanted a wife and a child—Jack had taken pleasure in telling her that, after that humiliating debacle of a wedding night—and he’d have taken anybody who applied. “You heard