Waiting had not been part of the plan. Somehow, it had never occurred to her that Del Rafferty would not be here when she arrived. In fact, she had fully expected him to take a shot at her long before his cabin came into view. Her legs ached from gripping Clyde’s sides in anticipation of the mule bolting. But no shot came.

Not too keen on coming eye to eye with Del’s reptilian doorman, she hadn’t gone up to the door of the cabin to knock. She walked around the side and knocked on a window, but she couldn’t see in because he had covered the glass with muslin from the inside. She called his name and tapped on the glass. The only answer she got was the ominous sound of the snake’s rattle as the noise roused it from its nap.

She checked her watch and sighed. Once Del showed, there was no telling how long it might take to get him to talk-if indeed he would talk to her at all. The sky remained heavy and lead-colored, threatening rain, threatening an early nightfall. She didn’t want to be caught riding down the mountain after dark. It was dark enough in the woods during the day. She wasn’t familiar with the trail or with the mule. And there was always the threat of a close encounter of the wildlife kind. Hadn’t she read that grizzly bears were nocturnal?

She leaned against the corral rail and made kissing sounds to entice a buckskin mare her way from the water trough. Her own throat was parched. It hadn’t occurred to her to bring a canteen or a Thermos. She had been in too big a hurry to get to the truth. Stroking her fingers over the mare’s nose, she stared back at the cabin. There was a water pump in the cabin and cans of Dr Pepper on the kitchen shelf. There was no lock on the cabin door. There was the rattlesnake.

Of course, she knew the snake wasn’t a real threat. It was in a cage. Obviously, it was too large to crawl through the double layers of chicken wire, or it would have done so. It couldn’t actually bite her. Unless the force of its striking body ripped the flimsy wire, in which case it would probably land on her shoulder and bite her in the neck.

She swallowed hard and grimaced at the taste and grit of dust.

“Del Rafferty goes through that door every day and doesn’t worry about getting bit,” she mumbled. “Of course, Del Rafferty is insane.”

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. A roan gelding stuck his muzzle in the water trough and splashed himself and Clyde on the other side of the fence. Clyde cracked an eye open and gave the horse a dirty look.

Mari checked her watch again and tried to sigh, but her throat closed up and stuck to itself like a wad of plastic wrap.

Mustering her nerve, she set off across the yard toward the cabin at a brisk, no-nonsense pace. The rattlesnake lay in its cage like a coiled length of hose. Its head came up when she was twenty feet away. Its tongue flicked the air experimentally. Fifteen feet away and its early warning system came on, the sound of the rattle skating over her skin like skeletal fingers. Ten feet away from the cage, she dropped down on her hands and knees, praying she was out of sight of the watch-snake.

She scrambled across the packed dirt, her heart sounding like the snake’s rattle. Then her hand was turning the knob.

The shot came as she pushed the door in, and she lunged instinctively for the shelter of the cabin just as the bullet struck the snake box and smashed into the side of the building. Its latch sheered off, the door of the snake box flopped down and the rattler dropped to the ground six inches behind Mari’s right foot.

Mari screamed and hurled herself forward into the main room of the cabin, scuttling to get her feet under her. The snake collected itself and followed her in, winding its way across the floor. Mari stared at it, her eyes burning from not blinking. Sweat beaded on her forehead, ran into her eyebrows, and dripped down. She could stay in a crackerbox cabin with a venomous snake or run outside and be shot by a madman. Wonderful options.

“You couldn’t just become a tax attorney, could you, Marilee?” she muttered, backing toward the kitchen as the snake slithered its way across the pine floor, displaying a body that had to be in excess of four feet in length and as thick around as her forearm. “You’ve never seen any tax attorneys scrambling to get away from rattle-snakes, have you?

“Stupid question, Marilee. All the attorneys you know are snakes.”

She saw too late that she had backed herself into a corner. There was no escape from the small galley area without going over the snake that was snuggling up to a pair of cowboy boots on a mat beside the stove. Mari pulled out a kitchen chair and stood on the seat, trying to recall if any of her Montana studies had mentioned rattler’s abilities to scale chrome chair legs. Her legs were shaking visibly. As she stared down at the snake, she could see her heart fluttering beneath her lavender T-shirt. Her tongue felt like a dead gerbil in her mouth.

This wasn’t going at all the way she had envisioned. She had expected to approach Del Rafferty cautiously, beaming good intentions and trustworthiness. She would open with an overture of friendship and segue into an apology for intruding on his privacy. He would sense her innate goodness and tell her everything.

But the man who stepped into the doorway of the cabin didn’t look ready to confide in anyone. He held an ugly black rifle at the ready and wore a black baseball cap backward on his head, presumably so the bill wouldn’t interfere with the scope when he was taking aim. His eyes were slits beneath his heavy brow. His mouth pulled down at the corners-severely down on the side with the scar. Saliva leaked across his lower lip and ran in a thin trail to the knot of flesh and down his jaw.

Mari raised her hands in surrender. They were shaking like a palsy victim’s. “P-please don’t shoot.”

“I don’t want you here,” Del growled. He squared his shoulders to her and brought the rifle up. “You maybe fooled J.D. You don’t fool me. You’re one of them blondes.”

“Y-yes, but I’m the good blonde,” she improvised. “Remember? I’m not Lucy. I’m not the dead blonde.”

He squinted at her until his eyes looked like pencil lines across his face. “I know that,” he grumbled defensively. “Don’t want you in my place. Nobody walks into my place.”

“I’m sorry. My mother tried to raise me right, but I missed out on the gene for etiquette. It probably skipped a generation with me. My children will undoubtedly have impeccable manners-provided I live to bear them,” she added under her breath.

On the mat beside the stove, the rattlesnake had coiled itself and reared up, drawing a bead on Del. Its tail buzzed ominously. Its mouth flashed pink as it hissed at him. Del flicked a glance at it, backed across the small room to the hearth, and came back with the rifle cradled in his right arm and a fire tongs in his left hand. He moved close enough to entice the snake to strike, then stepped gingerly on its head and took hold of it by the neck with the tongs. All this as if it were the most ordinary of household chores.

Mari shuddered as he lifted the writhing creature off the floor and carried it to the door, where he dropped it into the woodbox outside and flipped the lid down with the nose of the rifle barrel. She climbed down off the chair, but kept her arms up.

Del swung the rifle toward her as he stepped back inside. “What do you want? What did you come here for?” To taunt him, he thought. To seduce him, maybe, the way she had seduced J.D. Then he would be under the spell too, and the ranch would be lost. He would have to stay alert if he was to redeem himself. His fingers flexed on the stock of the rifle.

Mari’s gaze darted from the business end of the rifle to his face. The suspicion in his eyes boded ill. He wouldn’t talk if he didn’t trust her. Trust did not appear imminent. “I need to talk with you, Del,” she said as calmly as she could. “I need to talk to you about the tigers.”