Chapter One

Twin Rivers, Texas

July 4, 1885

“Oh, Miss Independence,” Grace Walker sighed, leaning forward to rest her forehead against her mare’s chestnut-colored shoulder. “I wish I could just stay out here with you all night instead of going back to the ball.”

Miss Independence shifted from one foreleg to the other but made no sound. It was as if she had understood. Grace often felt as if she did. In fact, sometimes it was as if this horse was the only living creature who understood her at all.

The stable was dark and quiet, the only sound the rustling and stomping of the horses. From far away, she could hear the music that meant the ball was still in progress. She would have liked to lie down right here in the sweet-smelling hay—she’d slept here from time to time when she was a child—but she couldn’t do it today and she knew it. She had to go back up to the house. She couldn’t even risk getting dirt on her fine dress.

She looked down at it now, running her palms over the lavender skirts. It was the most beautiful dress she owned, and the most expensive. Her father had selected it for her, and he had purchased an amethyst necklace for her to wear as well. She touched the stone gingerly. It didn’t feel like it belonged to her. It felt like she had taken it from him temporarily, and now she owed it back to him…or owed him something else in return.

That knowledge weighed heavily on her. It was what had driven her out to the stables when she knew full well that she ought to be inside.

And she wouldn’t be able to get away with staying out here for much longer.

She stood upright and retreated to the stable door. “I’ll come back,” she whispered into the darkness. “As soon as I can get away, I’ll be back. I promise.”

Miss Independence tossed her head and fixed Grace with a steady gaze. Not for the first time, Grace yearned to talk to her horse. To really communicate. What would Miss Independence have to say? How might she advise Grace?

Go back to the house before you’re missed. That was what she’d say, most likely, and Grace knew it was the right thing to do.

Little though she wanted to.

She gathered her skirts in her hands and set off at a brisk pace. The music grew louder as she moved toward it, as though it was reaching out and trying to draw her back in.

She slipped through the patio doorway that led into the ballroom and did her best to mingle with the crowd. If she was lucky, no one need ever know she had left the party at all.

But luck had rarely been Grace Walker’s friend.

Her father materialized before her. Henry Walker was a tall, imposing man with strong arms and a square jaw. His hair had gone pale with age. It had once been sunshine-blond, like Grace’s own, but now it was nearly white. He still shared her bright blue eyes, and right now they were fixed on Grace as if he was trying to draw out her secrets.

“Where have you been?” he asked sternly.

Grace swallowed and forced herself to hold eye contact. “I wanted to see whether Bossy was giving birth to her foal yet.”

“Now, you know it’s too soon. We’re nowhere near her time.” Her father narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to avoid the party, Grace?”

“Of course not,” she protested, though her voice was more strident than she had intended it to be. It made it clear that she was being dishonest, and her father frowned at her.

“You know how important this party is,” he said. “You know this might be the best chance you have to find a husband. And without that…”

She held up a hand. “I don’t need you to tell me,” she said briskly. “We’ve talked about it plenty of times.”

Her father gave a single nod. “All right, then,” he said. “If you know what you must do…then do it.”

He turned and walked away without looking back.

Grace summoned her resolve. He could seem cold sometimes, but he wasn’t really. He was trying to do what was best for her, that was all, and if it felt like anger, that was only because he was a man of few words. He had never been one to stand around talking over his feelings about things. As far as he was concerned, they had said all they needed to say. She understood what had to be done.

And he’s right. I do understand it.

She looked across the room, and there he was—Keith Caldwell. Heir to the Caldwell Railroad fortune and the wealthiest man in all of Twin Rivers. He was handsome enough, too, though Grace sometimes got a feeling when she was looking at him that his good looks had more to do with money than nature. He was impeccably groomed. He must have visited the barber every week. His clothes fit him perfectly, highlighting his physique. He had an ease in his face that hard-working men never seemed to find.

I could certainly do worse than to marry someone like him.

For the moment, though, she was going to have to wait her turn, for he was surrounded by other women. Grace managed not to wrinkle her nose at the sight of them all crowding around him, so clearly desperate for his attention. They were getting it, too. Little touches on his arm, batted eyelashes, high-pitched giggles…Mr. Caldwell hardly seemed to know which way to look. He had a mild smile of pleasure on his face that let Grace know he was enjoying all this very much indeed.

Or perhaps he’s just being kind. She ought to give him the benefit of the doubt, she knew. Still, she wasn’t going to vie for his attention while he was in the midst of that throng. She faded back toward the far wall of the room to await her moment.

“Miss Walker?”

She whirled at the sound of the familiar voice. “Sheriff! You startled me!”

Sheriff Logan Hayes stood before her. She had to tip her head back to look at him; he was so tall, but his green eyes sparkled as he gave her one of his rare smiles. “My apologies, ma’am.”

“No, it’s all right.” She gathered herself and smiled back at him. “I didn’t know you were there, that’s all.”

“I didn’t know you were here, truth be told,” he said.

“It’s my father’s house. Of course I am.”

“Well, yes, of course.” He chuckled. “But what I mean is, I looked around for you when I arrived and I didn’t see you. It made me wonder whether you had gone somewhere for the evening.”

“Oh,” she said, her heart fluttering slightly at the thought of him looking for her. For some reason, talking to Sheriff Hayes was always exciting. Perhaps it was just that he knew all about what had happened with Frank Ashton. That was a story she couldn’t tell anyone outside the family, but of course the sheriff knew the whole sordid tale. He didn’t look at Grace any differently, and that gave her hope. Maybe someday other people might be able to hear that story without changing their opinions of her, if she was very fortunate.

“Would you like to dance?” the sheriff asked her. “If you aren’t spoken for, that is.”

“I’m certainly not that.” No one else aside from her father had even noticed she’d come into the house. “A dance would be lovely, Sheriff Hayes. Thank you.”

“No, truly, it would be my way of thanking you.” He held out his hand to lead her into the steps. “Amanda told me what you did.”

“Oh.” She’d all but forgotten, and now heat came into her cheeks. “It was nothing, really.”

“It was far more than nothing.” His eyes met hers as the two of them turned slowly, and her blush intensified. She couldn’t hold his gaze and looked down at her feet just in time to catch herself stumbling.

“Here.” He caught her, holding her upright for just a moment so that she could get her feet back under her. His hand was strong and steady against her back. They’d lost the rhythm of the dance, though, and they just stood still, Grace still unable to meet the sheriff’s gaze.

“Amanda couldn’t have afforded something new for this party,” he said. “Thanks to your generosity, my sister has a fine new dress to wear.”

“Not new,” was all Grace could manage. Her embarrassment threatened to choke her. Even though the sheriff had never looked at her differently after everything with Mr. Ashton, it was still plenty humiliating. And now this dance, this effusive gratitude over something she’d all but forgotten about…was he only saying this out of sympathy for her, knowing all that she had been through? Maybe he was trying to make her feel better.

Grace wished, suddenly, that she had not accepted the dance. As much as she enjoyed Sheriff Hayes, this was too difficult. But there was nothing to do now but to see the dance through and to hope that it would end quickly.

I should have just stayed outside with the horses.

***

“Thank you for the dance, Sheriff Hayes,” Miss Walker said the moment the music had stopped. She gave him a quick curtsy, unfailingly polite, and then hurried away into the crowd.

Logan lost sight of her almost at once. He wouldn’t have pursued anyway—it was clear that she wanted to get away from him—but it still tugged at him to have her disappear. He had searched for her from the moment he’d arrived at Walker Ranch, even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. He’d assured himself that the sight of her would be enough, but of course the moment he had laid eyes on her he hadn’t been able to keep from asking her for a dance.

It was only because I wanted to thank her for the gift she gave my sister. It’s nothing more meaningful than that. Of course I wanted to see her tonight! Amanda was so excited about that dress, after all.

It didn’t fit right into his thoughts. It was like trying to force a jigsaw puzzle piece into the right place. He gave up and moved toward the lemonade. Perhaps a drink would help him put his mind at ease. And then he would go and look for his sister. He didn’t want to leave her alone for too long, after all.

Walker Ranch was one of the finest and oldest houses in all of Twin Rivers. The ballroom was massive, and someone had gone to the trouble to light candles all the way round it. There were garlands of flowers that someone had put together. He imagined Miss Walker doing that for a moment, but of course it probably hadn’t been her. She wasn’t the sort to work for hours on a task like that. She was too free-spirited.

Logan lingered beside the pitcher of lemonade, his gaze on his sister. She had moved from one man to another, socializing, and was now speaking to Keith Caldwell. Logan kept an eye on the situation, but Caldwell was a decent man. He was unlikely to do anything inappropriate. He was smiling at Amanda and nodding along with whatever she was saying.

A different voice caught Logan’s ear. “Father, Grace gave Miss Hayes that dress she’s wearing. And just look at the attention she’s gotten. She’s sabotaging her own chances!”

“Now, Dean.” That world-weary voice belonged to Henry Walker. The conversation was happening around the corner, in a hallway where Logan couldn’t see them unless he walked over to see for himself. He could hear them clearly enough, though. “We should at least give Grace the chance to speak for herself before becoming angry.”

“I did give Amanda the dress, Father.” That was Grace, and her voice was tart. “She’s my friend, and she told me she didn’t have anything to wear. I wanted to help. It’s what Jesus would have done.”

“Given away His dress?” Dean snorted.

“You’re so insufferably literal. No, He would have given up the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet to someone in need.”

“That may be true, Grace,” Henry Walker rumbled. “And I admire your desire to be Christlike, of course. But you must remember that you have other priorities. You cannot simply take responsibility for the well-being of everyone around you. You must give your attention to your family, first and foremost.”

“I know, Father.” It made Logan’s heart ache to hear how submissive Grace’s voice became. It was as if she felt the weight of a reprimand, even though her father had not been cruel.

Dean Walker’s voice was harsher than Henry’s when he spoke. “That’s right,” he said. “You have a responsibility to this ranch, Grace. We’ve faced losses that have to be reckoned with…”

“Dean, that’s enough,” Henry said wearily. “Not in the middle of the party.”

“She knows anyway, Father,” Dean shot back. “She knows what the consequences of the crime committed against us were, and still might be. A marriage to Keith Caldwell is the best way out of this available to our family. And if she dresses up Amanda Hayes, Caldwell is just as likely to notice her as Grace.”

“You’re awful, Dean.” Grace’s voice trembled. “How can you speak about people that way?”

“I want this ranch to survive,” Dean said. “I know you want the same thing.”

“Of course I do!”

“I’m sorry if I seem cold to you, Grace. But someone has to make the difficult decisions. Someone has to take the responsibility for the hard things. Now, I need you to go out there and try to charm Keith Caldwell. That was what we all agreed upon. Are you able to do it?”

“Of course I am.”

There was more strength in Grace’s tone now, and Dean was milder when he spoke again. More tender. “Good girl,” he said quietly. “Go on, then.”

Logan turned away.

He didn’t want to see the expression on Grace’s face when she came out from that hallway. He didn’t want to watch her go over to Keith Caldwell and try to win his attention.

Caldwell was a perfectly nice man, of course. He would make any woman a fine husband. Why did it feel as if a storm was spinning to life in Logan’s heart?

Because they had talked about Amanda? No, it wasn’t that. Amanda had no particular attachment to the idea of Keith Caldwell. Logan didn’t believe he had ever heard his sister mention that name in a romantic context. Her heart would not be broken if Caldwell married Grace Walker.

Her heart isn’t the one that I worry about.

The pain was hot and sudden as a knife as the realization hit him.

It’s me. I’m in love with Grace Walker. This feeling I have for her…it’s love. I can’t bear the thought of her marrying another man because I’d know that she could never be mine.

But she could never have been his anyway. She was the beautiful daughter of the largest landowner in town. Even after everything that had happened with Frank Ashton, it was understood that she would marry someone of her own social standing. Not a sheriff.

He shouldn’t even be thinking of her.

Shame and sadness welled up within him as he turned away and hurried toward the front door. He would go to the post where the horses were hitched. Amanda could find him there when she had finished with her revelry.

As he fled, a prayer formed in his mind. God, I know she isn’t for me. I only do both of us harm by allowing these feelings to take root. Lift them off my heart so that we can both be free.

But if God heard his prayer, there was—at least for the moment—no answer. His feelings for Grace were like a tide threatening to draw him back into the tempest of the party, and it took everything he had in him to get away.

Chapter Two

The mountain air was fresh and crisp, the wind cool on Logan’s face as he rode. But he couldn’t enjoy it. Not today.

The cattle rustlers had struck again.

He had learned of the crime first thing this morning, when Nathaniel Pembroke had confronted him in the sheriff’s office, demanding to know what he was going to do about it. “Another fifty head gone!” Pembroke had raged. “Your father would never have allowed it, Hayes! In his day, these criminals would have been apprehended and put in the stocks after the first time they struck! How many times are you going to allow your neighbors to be raided?”

It was a question that haunted Logan now as he explored the mountains.

He couldn’t ride quickly, because the terrain was so uneven. His horse, Comet, had to pick his way across the loose rocks. But if Logan couldn’t move quickly, the rustlers couldn’t either. How far could they possibly have gotten with fifty head of cattle?

They must have struck in the middle of the night. But even so, they shouldn’t have made too much progress. Where were they?

Coming into the mountains might have been a mistake. He’d hoped to get a high vantage point that might give him a clue to which way the bandits had gone, but the fog was too thick this early in the day. He couldn’t see the town laid out below him.

My father would have thought of this. He would have gotten a posse together or something. I’m not entirely sure of what the right thing to do here is…but that’s the whole problem. That’s what Pembroke is getting at. If I was any use as sheriff, these would be answers, not questions. I would know what to do. Everyone believed I would be an effective sheriff because Pa was, but I’m not living up to him at all.

A dismal thought, but at least it served as a distraction from what he really didn’t want to be thinking about—Grace Walker. Her face drifted through his mind a few times as he rode along, and each time he pushed it violently away. He couldn’t bear to think about how it had felt to hold her in his arms last night, the way she had smiled at him while they had danced.

It can never be.

There was nothing to be seen in these mountains. He was wasting time. Heart sinking like a stone, he pulled Comet around and started back down toward Twin Rivers.

There was no comfortable sensation of homecoming as he rode back into the town limits. That was a feeling he recalled from his youth. Coming back here after being away had been a good thing. But no longer. Ever since he had begun to fail as sheriff, he had increasingly known that he didn’t belong to this place, and that it didn’t really want him. Twin Rivers needed a man who could protect it, and Logan knew in his heart that he was not that man.

The sheriff’s office lay at the center of town. In his father’s time, this building had been a rock that everything else flowed around like a river, the linchpin that held Twin Rivers together. Nowadays, though the building was as well-maintained as ever—same stone front, same strong oak door—there was a sensation of decay about it. Logan often wondered if he was the only one who thought that. He had never had the courage to ask anyone else.

Sam Hawthorne, his blond, round-faced deputy, twenty-two years old and constantly hopping with eager energy, was on his feet when Logan came through the door, and so was Nathaniel Pembroke. Logan’s stomach soured. He had been hoping that Pembroke might have given up and gone home in his absence. Apparently not.

“Well?” Pembroke demanded angrily, pushing past Sam to confront Logan directly. He stopped only inches from Logan’s face. His breath was hot and sour, his dark eyes like coal. “Did you find them?”

“No,” Logan was forced to admit. He circled around Pembroke and went to his desk, doing what he could to remain calm. If he allowed himself to grow angry or agitated, it would only make this situation worse. “It wasn’t likely that they would still be nearby, all things considered.”

“And so you just gave up and came back without any resolution?” Pembroke threw his hands in the air. “Without finding my cattle? That’s my livelihood, Hayes, in case you forgot. You’re allowing these cattle rustlers to ruin the town. What do you think is going to happen when no one is able to maintain a ranch anymore? Or perhaps you just don’t care about that?”

“Of course he cares,” Sam cut in loyally. “Why do you think he became our sheriff in the first place, if not out of a desire to do right by the people of this town?”

Pembroke scoffed. “I don’t know what he thought he was doing, but I can tell you it’s done none of us any good.”

“That isn’t true at all,” Sam barked. “And if all you’re going to do is criticize, perhaps you should leave.”

“I’m not leaving this office until I know what’s become of my cattle!”

That was far enough. Logan looked up from the papers he had been pretending to arrange on his desk. “I think we can all agree that your cattle are not in this office, Pembroke,” he said quietly. “I will continue to do all I can to discover what’s become of them. I understand this is a matter of urgency. In the meantime, please feel free to come back and let me know if any new evidence should emerge.”

Pembroke kicked the visitor’s chair in front of Logan’s desk so hard that it toppled over.

“Hey!” Sam yelled, starting forward, but Logan rose to his feet and held up a hand, warning his deputy back. It would be a very bad thing for a fight to break out in the office. He didn’t doubt his ability to handle Nathaniel Pembroke—the man was a roiling ball of rage, but anger that wasn’t well controlled was no threat to anyone, and besides, Logan was both bigger and stronger. He also had a deputy on his side.

But putting a stop to Pembroke might mean injuring him, and the thought of something like that happening was all but unbearable. His sworn duty was to protect the citizens of Twin Rivers, and it meant the world to him to do so successfully. If he had to harm someone—not even a criminal, just a slightly unruly citizen—in the interest of keeping the peace, he would never forget it, and nobody else would either.

He was about to start backing Pembroke toward the door when it flew open and Amanda rushed in. Her green eyes flashed with energy, and her face was pale, making her freckles stand out even more than they ordinarily did.

The three men were so startled by the new arrival that all the tension rushed out of the room. Pembroke’s shoulders dropped. Sam took a step backward. Logan, anxious to have his sister out of this situation, hurried to her side. “Amanda? Is everything all right?”

“You must come home at once.” She was breathless, her copper hair tied in a kerchief as though she’d hardly had time to think about how presentable she was before rushing out the door.

Logan’s heart hammered. “Is something the matter?”

“I need your help,” she told him. “Urgently, Logan. You’ve got to come right now.”

Her eyes were wide. Her cheeks were pink. She must have run the whole way here…he turned to Pembroke. “I’ll come pay you a visit at your home later today,” he pledged. “We can figure all this out then.”

Pembroke’s gaze was on Amanda. In spite of his anger, he was not an unreasonable man. “If you don’t appear, I will come to you,” he warned.

Logan nodded. That was fair. “All right,” he said, turning to his sister. “Lead the way.”