“She’s a stupid child. She’s nothing,” she snapped, her voice hoarse and masculine. She stopped within a foot of him, her whole body rigid with fury, hands knotted into fists held ready at her sides. Her upper lip twitched in contempt. “You’re such a fool. There’s so much more at stake here than your chance to play Professor Higgins. The girl is a means to an end. You want her husband’s land; you can get it through her. That is the plan,” she said, speaking very clearly and deliberately, because she knew he tended to hear what he wanted to hear when he was falling into one of his preoccupations. “You don’t need her for anything else. I can give you everything you need.”

“You can’t give me the joy of rediscovering the world. You can’t give me innocence,” he said cruelly. “You never had any.”

That quiet jab punctured her anger and deflated it. She seemed to shrink a little before his eyes, drawing inward on herself. “You bastard,” she hissed, tears rising, mouth trembling. “You rotten bastard. Can’t you see I’m only trying to protect you?”

“From Samantha?” He laughed.

“From yourself.”

“Don’t worry, cuz,” he said softly, reaching out to touch her cheek. He ignored her concern. His priorities were shifting. Nothing mattered but the new goal. “I never had any innocence either,” he murmured absently. “We’re two of a kind.”

Sharon was crying now, her sobs a low keening sound stripping up the back of her throat. The glazed, preoccupied look in Bryce’s eyes frightened her. Still angry with him, she turned her face into the palm of his hand and bit him hard, then kissed the impressions her teeth had made, licking the dents with the tip of her tongue.

“I’d do anything for you,” she whispered. “I’m worth a hundred stupid, naive girls. You need me.”

Bryce smiled distractedly and took her hand, interlacing their fingers. “We’re partners.”

She could see his mind was elsewhere. On the girl, no doubt. And so the obsession had begun. Again. And there was nothing she could do about it but wait. Despair knotted in her chest. She stepped closer and kissed him, a blatantly carnal kiss that was unmistakable in its message. She was still here, available, willing. She would take what he would give her.

“Partners forever,” she murmured, stepping back. She lifted her chin and cloaked her hurt with pride and a wry look. “Amuse yourself with your little Indian princess. Sleep with her if you have to. But fall in love with her and I’ll cut your heart out.”

Bryce chuckled. “I love it when you talk mean.”

“You love it when I am mean.” An irony she enjoyed. She could take out her frustrations on him and actually have him enjoy it. There were advantages to loving a man with a twisted mind. She sent him a feral smile as she took his hand and led him toward the stairs. “Tonight’s your lucky night, cousin.”

J.D. WOKE at four out of habit. Mary Lee was tucked up against him like a little woodland creature seeking warmth. Her nose was burrowed into the hollow of his shoulder. He had his arm curved around her in a way that seemed entirely natural and comfortable. If he canted his head an inch, he could kiss her hair. He already knew that it felt like raw silk and smelled vaguely of coconut and jasmine-just as he knew how every other inch of her felt and smelled and tasted. Every part of her was imprinted on his brain.

He had never thought of any woman as his. Had never wanted to. Had always guarded himself diligently against the risk. How this one had slipped under his guard, he wasn’t sure. He should have been immune to her if for no other reason than her association with Lucy. But he couldn’t look at her without wanting her, couldn’t have her without wanting more.

That truth scared him deep. The fear was a cold rock in his gut. They couldn’t have anything together but what they shared in the heat of passion. He couldn’t allow it. All his energy, all his attention, had to go to the ranch now. He had to protect the land. He had to preserve the Stars and Bars and the way of life that had been entrusted to him. He couldn’t afford a distraction like Mary Lee. He sure as hell couldn’t afford a distraction whose best friend may have been killed by his uncle.

J.D. stared hard at the ceiling, trying to will that thought away. In the cold light of day, when reason was easy to come by, he could tell himself Del’s only role in the drama had been finding the body, that the city boy Sheffield had killed her accidentally. By night, when the world was all dark and shadow, he couldn’t stop thinking about the crazy things his uncle said.

Del was his responsibility. The Stars and Bars was his responsibility. Stopping Bryce from buying up the whole of the Absaroka range was his responsibility. His whole damn life was nothing but responsibility. The weight of it pressed down on his chest.

A dull pain stabbed behind his eyes. He brought his arm up around Mary Lee’s shoulders and checked his watch by the light of the bedside lamp they had never bothered to shut off. Time to go. Past time. He had never spent the night with Lucy, had never wanted to. But then, Mary Lee wasn’t Lucy. She was sweet and earnest, honest and quirky and loyal. He could still hear the sound of her voice, smoky and low, singing about this land, painting a picture that was startlingly sharp, taking a handful of words and touching an emotion inside him that was deep and nameless.

He stared down at the top of her head, at the small hand that lay curled against his chest, and a fine tremor shuddered through him like the precursor to an earthquake.

Her lashes fluttered upward and she looked at him with those big, deep eyes.

“Is something wrong?” she asked in a voice that was half whisper, half rasp.

“I have to go.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s after four.” He moved away from her and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for his shorts. “If I don’t get a move on soon, I’ll be burning daylight. There’s work to be done.”

Mari sat up and stretched, then pulled the coverlet around her. Her head hurt. Having him leave hurt more. That’s bad news, Marilee. She combed her hair back behind her ear and frowned.

“You want a cup of coffee before you go?”

J.D. hiked his jeans up and did the button and zipper. “Go back to sleep. You didn’t get much to speak of last night.”

“Neither did you.”

She climbed out of the bed and began a search for clothes. Her brain throbbed like a beating heart as she bent to pick up the green robe she had worn before, and she briefly reconsidered the option of remaining in a prone position for another eight or nine hours. Her stubbornness won out. If Rafferty was getting up, she would damn well get up too.

She shot him a look as he shrugged into his shirt. “What do you take me for-some kind of city girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well,” she drawled, swaggering toward him with her fists on her hips. “I can ride a mule, I’ve been to a honky-tonk, and I haven’t missed a sunrise in a week. So what does that make me?”

“City girl on vacation in Montana.”

“Jeez,” she grumbled, reaching up to do the snaps on his denim shirt. “They’ll whisk you away to be on Letterman yet.”

Rafferty wasn’t amused. “You are what you are, Mary Lee.”

Her hands stilled on his shirtfront and she stared hard at a white pearl snap. You are what you are. She was a misfit. She’d been a misfit all her life, a social nomad looking for a place where she could blend in without compromising her soul. She thought this might be the place, but J.D. was telling her she would always be an outsider in Montana. Or was he talking about his heart? Either way, you lose, Marilee.

“You don’t know me, Rafferty,” she murmured. “You’re too busy slapping labels on me to see who I am.”