“Mmm. Well, we’ll be a little late bringing the herd,” J.D. said, falling into step beside his uncle. Del’s three dogs stood, hopeful of an invitation, in front of the cabin door. Their master growled at them and swung a hand, sending the trio scrambling away with their tails between their legs. “A week, maybe.”

Del didn’t ask why. He was glad though. He didn’t want the cattle up here now. He wanted the blondes gone first. The women and their familiars. He wished he could decide what to do about them. He wished he had the courage to do something, the sense to know what was right.

The rattlesnake raised its head and hissed at them. Del didn’t spare it a glance. He went into the cabin, to a shelf in the kitchen, and pulled out two cans of Dr Pepper. J.D. eased down on one of the chairs at the table and sipped on his while Del paced the room like a caged animal, rubbing his scar. The cabin was neat as a pin, as clean as every single rifle on the gun racks. The smell of Shooter’s Choice bore solvent served as an air freshener.

“You didn’t happen to be down on the Little Snake over by the Boxed Circle yesterday, did you?” J.D. asked casually.

Del jumped as if he’d been hit with a switch. “No… no…” he mumbled, his eyes on his rifles at the end of the room. “No.” He stopped suddenly and stared hard at J.D., the gray of his eyes seeming to glow like polished pewter in the filtered light that came through muslin at the windows. “You didn’t bring that blond woman, did you?”

J.D. bit back a sigh. “No.”

“I don’t want her here. She’s trouble.” He shook a finger at his nephew. “You mind my words, J.D.”

J.D. wasn’t sure whether Del meant Lucy or Mary Lee. He wasn’t sure Del knew the difference. He told himself he should have listened sooner in either case. “Never mind about her, Del. You leave her be, you hear? I can handle her. There’s no need for you to concern yourself.”

“Don’t you trust her,” Del growled. “I don’t trust none of them blondes. They’re all trouble.”

“Well, that’s a fact,” J.D. mumbled to himself. He took another sip of Dr Pepper and braced himself for the rest of the conversation. “I found Miller Daggrepont dead in the Little Snake yesterday. Guess he had a heart attack. Thought you might have seen him out there fishing.”

He sipped on the warm Dr Pepper absently, his gaze trained on his uncle’s face, looking for any sign of recognition… or guilt. His own guilt ate away at him, bubbling in with the warm pop to gnaw at his stomach lining.

“Did you see anything, Del?”

I saw a tiger on the mountain. I saw the corpses dance in the moonlight. Crazy things. Del felt his throat trying to close up, like one of the ghosts had hold of his windpipe. He tried to gulp a swig of Dr Pepper. Half of it ran out the dead side of his mouth and spilled onto his shirt.

“I-I saw a cat, that’s all,” he mumbled, wiping the stain with his handkerchief. “Don’t want cats up here with the cattle coming.”

He thought he might have already said that, but he couldn’t be sure. Beneath the plate his brain was buzzing like a swarm of mosquitoes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than two hours. He couldn’t remember sleeping without the dark dreams. It was important for him to stay awake now, he told himself. He had to help guard the ranch. He had to make sure the blondes didn’t steal it, or the city idiots, or the men who ruled the dog-boys.

J.D. drew a long breath in through his teeth. “Del, I have to ask you if you saw anything back when that woman was shot.” He searched painfully for the most diplomatic words he could find. Del had his problems, but he had his pride too. “Is there anything about that deal you might want to tell me?”

Del stared hard at his guns, his broken mouth opening and closing like a fish’s. His eyes gleamed with unshed tears and the dark light of a thousand nightmares. J.D. felt as if something inside his chest were being crushed. Loyalties and obligations pressed against one another and pushed and pushed. The pressure weighed on him like lead as he stood and crossed the room.

“Del? Do you have something to say about that?”

“No,” he murmured, staring at the rifles and shotguns with their oiled barrels and polished stocks. “You don’t want cats on the mountain when the cattle come up.”

J.D. rubbed his eyes. He knew he should have pressed. He knew he should have asked Del outright if he’d had anything to do with Lucy’s death. But, God help him, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He got burned either way. Quinn took his word that Del hadn’t done more than find the body. If he lied to the sheriff, his integrity suffered. If he turned Del over, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to live with himself.

And if your uncle is a killer?

No win. The answer slipped through the loop. Hang up your rope and call it a day, cowboy. Catch one tomorrow.

“Where’d you see that cat?” he asked softly. “Maybe I’ll have a look-see on my way home.”

HUMILIATED and hurt, Samantha spent the remainder of the day in the guest room Bryce had allocated her. He checked on her within moments of the scene on the terrace, but she refused to let him in the room. He talked to her through the bedroom door, telling her everything would be all right, that she shouldn’t shut him out. But she kept her face buried in the pillow and eventually he went away.

She cried until she thought she would be sick from it, them, exhausted, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she woke up, the sun had slipped behind the mountains and the room was dim with shadows.

Disoriented and groggy, she sat up and looked at her surroundings. For a moment she thought she was dreaming, that she had only to shake herself and she would be on her own lumpy mattress in the little house she shared with Will.

Will.

She closed her eyes as it all came rushing back. Every bit of it. Her crumbling marriage. Will stumbling drunk on Bryce’s terrace. The way he had punched Bryce. The ugly things he’d said to her and about her.

Take my wife… Hell, I never wanted one in the first place!

Samantha’s eyes burned and her throat closed, but no tears came. She had cried them all. More miserable than she’d ever been in her life, she leaned back against the headboard of the elegant bed and looked down at herself. The elegant copper silk outfit she had put on before Will’s arrival was a roadmap of wrinkles and creases. It looked terrible and she felt that somehow the fabric had undergone some kind of chemical reaction from contact with her skin, as if something so fine had been designed to sort the worthy from the worthless.

Poor, stupid kid. Thought you could pretend different, didn’t you? Stupid dreamer. Grow up, Samantha. Grow up and see what you really are.

Trembling at the self-castigation, she got up from the bed and went to look at herself in the huge beveled mirror above the bleached pine bureau. The reflection wasn’t pretty. Not even the dim lighting could hide the effects of her earlier crying jag. The makeup she had applied so carefully had run and streaked on her puffy face. Her hair hung limp and disheveled. She’d lost an earring somewhere.

She looked pathetic. She felt pathetic.

No wonder Will didn’t want her. She wasn’t worth wanting. She was naive and foolish. Bryce’s friends were probably downstairs laughing at her. Poor little dim-witted tomboy barmaid, pretending she could fit in with the rich and beautiful people.

Her breath coming in broken, disjointed spasms, she turned away from the mirror. She felt hollow inside, aching and hollow, as if everything in her had been yanked out and discarded. Her shoulders pulled forward and she curled in on herself as she moved, walking like an old woman. She felt as ugly and freakish as a giant praying mantis, and as fragile; as if someone could grab her and snap her in two, just crunch up her long bones and toss them aside.