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fashionable this goddamn early in the morning? It simply wasn’t natural.
    He quirked one dark brow at her. “Did you sleep in your clothes?”
    She shrugged, plying her fingers through her tousled mane to work out the knots. “It’s not like I got to go home and pack a traveling trunk when they hauled me off to prison.”
    He gave a quick nod. “What size are you?”
    China crossed her arms. “No. No man is picking out my clothes. I can do that my own damn self.”
    He shrugged, but his eyes lingered a second too long on the buckskin that encased her legs like a second, comfortable skin. “Fine. But first thing after we get some breakfast and go to the office, we’re getting you some other clothes.”
    China didn’t bother to argue. She needed clothes. Her shirt and pants were torn and dirty. He could simply add it to her tab. They ate a quick breakfast. His included eggs and toast. Hers included as much protein as she could pack on her plate, eggs, sausage, sausage gravy and biscuits, and bacon.
    Remington paid their bill, and they headed out into the bright sunlight across the dirt street to his office. It looked completely benign from the outside. The two-story adobe structure was covered over with boards on the front and painted brown with white trim around the four-pane windows on either side of the fancy-cut double glass doors. Overhead a sign swung from the wooden awning. Painted in a flourish of black and gold lettering were the words B ARTEL & J ACKSON , A TTORNEYS AT L AW .
    “Home sweet home,” Jackson murmured as he opened the door for her.
    China glanced down the street and then at the door. “Don’t you ever worry about this fancy glass getting broken in a street fight?”
    Jackson shrugged. “Like most things, it’s replaceable. Offices are on the second floor.”
    China clenched her hands and stalked up the staircase. Remington Jackson had better not think for one second that he could replace her. Without her he couldn’t get to the Book. And since she’d been the one to alert Colt to the potential marker of a piece of the Book of Legend, she had a claim to it. Which she’d remind Remington every time it became necessary.
    The office door marked B ARTEL & J ACKSON swung open. Lined with oak filing cabinets and bookcases crammed with volume after volume of leather-bound books, Jackson’s office smelled of lemon and beeswax wood polish, leather, paper, and the faint, sour chalky scent of india ink. In short, the very kind of place she preferred to avoid. It had a large oak reception desk, with another door behind it that led farther back into what she assumed was Jackson’s private domain.
    “You got a secretary?”
    “No. It’s mainly to add an additional veneer of legitimacy to the practice, as is the name Bartel.” Jackson bent, retrieving a folded telegram page that had been slipped under his door. He flipped it open, frowned, then crumpled it in his hand.
    The fact that Jackson tricked even his own clients into believing something that wasn’t wholly true about him didn’t sit well with her. If anything it confirmed that Remington was far more devious than his brother. Far more like her father than she’d anticipated. Smart, sophisticated, and deadly.
    “Didn’t like the news?” she prodded.
    “It was from Colt. Nothing important.” He dropped the crumpled yellow paper in the trash near the reception desk and went through the direct door to his office where he sat down behind his desk. China leaned up against the doorframe.
    “What do you want me to do?”
    He didn’t look at her when he responded, just kept his head down, sorting through the papers on his desk. “Just wait a bit. I’ve got a few things to arrange before I can leave to go tracking down whatever’s at the end of Diego’s map.”
    She sighed. She hated sitting around and waiting. Indoors no less. Why couldn’t he just have come to get her when he was ready to leave and given her a few more hours of