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it’s been five years, and I’ve come to accept what can’t be changed. My parents would have wanted that. They would have expected it.”
    A floorboard creaked under Chase’s weight, and Annie automatically hushed her voice. It was a reflex she no longer seemed to have control over. “Is something wrong?” she asked, wondering why Chase was staring at her so oddly.
    “Why do you do that?” he asked, studying her as he moved toward the table where he’d tossed his hat. “Talk in whispers?”
    “Force of habit, I suppose. When you live in a convent, you learn to walk lightly and talk softly.”
    “A convent? In Costa Brava?”
    She nodded. “That’s where I’ve been these last five years.” Except for the time I spent in prison, she thought.
    “What kept you there? Your parents were gone. Why didn’t you come to the United States?”
    “There were many reasons.” She considered telling him the whole painful story and decided it could wait. He’d had enough shocks in one day. “I wasn’t there by choice at first, but then I came to see that I was needed,” she said. “I taught Indian children to read and write. And in a war-ravaged country like Costa Brava, my medical skills were needed.”
    “A convent?” Chase asked, still intent. “At the tender age of sixteen? You were only a kid yourself.” Curiosity stirred in his eyes. “What kind of things do they teach young girls in places like that?”
    “Mostly survival, at first,” Annie admitted. “Although Sister Maria Innocentia was also very big on the virtues of obedience, modesty, trust, and submission.” She flushed slightly, realizing that might not be the wisest thing she could have revealed, especially since he was more than likely to mistake her meaning. “Of course, she also stressed prudent self-reliance.”
    Chase didn’t respond other than to scoop his black Stetson off the table and slap it against his leg a couple of times, popping the dents out. But the faintest of smiles was prowling his normally taciturn features, and Annie knew he must be mulling over what she’d said.
    “What do you do here?” she asked, hoping to head off any more questions about convent living. “In the way of work?”
    Chase settled the Stetson on his head, letting it ride low in front so that the brim dipped even with his eyebrows. Equally dark hair swept over his ears and converged in a flurry of curls at the back of his neck. “I do some work for the Cattleman’s Association,” he said.
    “You raise cattle?”
    “No, nothing like that. I provide protection for the local ranchers.” Chase couldn’t see any reason not to tell her what he’d been doing since he settled in Wyoming. He was virtually certain by now that she wasn’t a reporter, and if she was who she claimed to be, there was all the more reason to let her know how dirty and dangerous his work could be. No woman he’d ever known wanted her man tracking down cattle rustlers.
    “I guess you could call me a range detective. When a ranch needs extra security, they hire me to patrol the area, or stake it out if necessary. But mostly I track down rustlers with prices on their heads. That’s called bounty hunting.”
    She looked genuinely surprised. “They still have rustlers in Wyoming? Have you caught many?”
    “A few,” he said, glancing at the shotgun lying on the kitchen floor. He picked up the gun, emptied the shell from the chamber, and reinserted it in the magazine. “Got one today, but Bad Luck Jack doesn’t count. He’s meaner than a nest of rattlers, but he’s also dumb, which makes him predictable. He spends more time in the slammer than out.”
    “Bad Luck Jack?” Annie said, laughing. “Doesn’t sound like much of a challenge for a tough hombre like yourself.”
    “Hombre?” Chase winced. “What’d you do for entertainment in that convent? Watch B-westerns?”
    “No, but I read a lot of western novels. My dad took a trunkload of them with him when he went