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they wouldn't have enough money to make ends meet past summer. When the new cards lay before her, Shelby held her breath before picking them up. Her heart soared at the sight of two magnificent kings. This was her chance!
    Shelby discarded three cards, and she nearly whooped with joy when she saw the new trio. One of them was another king!
    Across the table, Geoff discarded two cards, but left the replacement pair lying face-down. Without looking at them, he gazed soberly at Coyote Matt. "Will you bet, sir?"
    "Uh-huh. Titus, give me fifty."
    "You are nuts!" Ben declared.
    "You shut up!" she hissed, then turned burning blue eyes on Titus. "I'll pay you back."
    The little gnome of a man appeared crestfallen. "I don't like it... but..." He pulled some bills from his pocket and handed them over. "All I have is thirty-five."
    Shelby put it in the pot. "That's my bet."
    "I'll meet you... and raise you a hundred," Geoff replied quietly.
    Suddenly, she noticed that he had apparently forgotten to look at his new cards. An habitual bluffer! Flooded with elation, Shelby said, "I'm outta cash, but I'll make a deal with you, Weston. I have a ranch I can put up that's worth at least ten times as much as your pile of winnings. Whatta you say—how about my ranch against, oh, say, five thousand dollars? That's a deal, sport!" She kept her tone husky and offhand, but next to her she heard Ben's stunned intake of breath, while voices began to buzz around the big room. Cowboys who had been gathered around the other card game had by now drifted over to watch.
    "Now wait just a minute," Ben shouted. "Titus, you aren't gonna allow this!?"
    Titus Pym looked dejected. "I fear we have to, lad. What you don't know is that Fox sent me the deed to the ranch for safekeeping... and it's been signed over to—uh, Coyote Matt."
    Ben turned on Shelby then. "Did you know?"
    Panic began to well inside her as she whispered to him, "No, but I had to do this anyway, and it won't matter about the deed because I am not going to lose."
    Speechless with rage, Ben jumped up and stormed out of the saloon, disappearing into the blinding sunlight. Shelby tried not to think about him, or about Titus's words. It had almost been easier to make the bet when it hadn't been real; now the ranch was really hers to lose. She stared into Geoffrey Weston's rich brown eyes and waited for his response, her heart thundering.
    "I accept," he murmured, "on one condition. If, as you say, your ranch is worth much more than five thousand dollars, I could not accept more than half ownership of it should I win. I won't cheat you."
    "Durned right you won't, 'cause I'm gonna win! But, okay, them terms sound fair enough." Shelby took a deep breath and lay down her cards. "Three kings, Weston. I doubt you can beat that, seein' as you ain't even studied the new cards you took!"
    "So I haven't," he remarked. "Well, let's see what I do have." Geoff displayed the pair of aces and queen of hearts in his hand, then turned over the unseen cards to reveal yet another ace and one more queen. "Egad. What do you call it—a full house?"
    Shocked tears stung Shelby's eyes. She nodded blindly, unable to look at Titus or this Englishman who now owned half her father's ranch. Perhaps this was all a nightmare and she would wake up in another moment....
    "Well-played," Titus was saying to Weston. "I'll take Coyote Matt and fetch the wagon, and what do you say we meet you in front and take you out to the ranch? That'll give you a minute to gather your winnings." He wanted, above all, to get Shelby out of the saloon before she forgot herself and everyone saw that Coyote Matt was really Shelby Matthews. It was enough that she'd lost all that money and torn the ranch in two, but if the rest of the story got out, she'd never be able to show her face in Cody again. Let them think a crack-brained cousin was responsible.
    "It's kind of you to offer, but I'm afraid that I have some trunks... and a manservant who is