She had no idea how jealous he was of Guy Cochrane. Even now Tyler felt part of Daisy liked Guy better than she liked him. He thought once you loved somebody, you loved only them, you wanted to marry them. That's how it worked for his brothers. He didn't understand why that didn't work for Daisy. That's how it worked for him. That's why he had come down off the mountain and was trying so hard to understand her.

"You don't love him," Tyler answered.

"He wanted to make all my decisions for me. He would have expected me to be a model wife at social occasions. But the rest of the time, I would have been expected to stay home, have his children and run his household, but not be concerned with his business or what he did when he was away from home. Most important of all, he would have expected me to have no opinions."

Tyler didn't want to suffocate her mind or keep her barefoot and pregnant. What she didn't seem to understand was rustlers wouldn't respect her property and person just because she was a woman. You'd think being shot at and having her house burned down would have convinced her of that.

"I don't see--"

"You never have. You think that just because you have my best interests at heart, it's different for you. But it's not. My father did that -- I didn't realize how much until he was killed -- but I'll never endure that again."

Tyler stopped his horse and waited until Daisy came abreast of him. The narrow trail forced them so close their knees almost rubbed against each other. "Maybe Guy, your father, and I have a lot more in common than I would like to think," he said.

"I don't see how you can say that."

"I'm not trying to defend your father or Guy, but a man just naturally thinks he's supposed to take care of a woman. It's not that he doesn't think she can do it herself or that she's not smart enough. It's just his job. He wouldn't be a man if he didn't."

"Do your brothers do that?"

He laughed. "None better. You ought to hear Fern and Laurel on the subject." He sobered. "Maybe we do too much because our father did too little. My mother wanted all the care and protection you don't. She didn't get it, and it killed her. I guess that made us over protective."

"I'm sorry about your mother," Daisy said, thrown a little off-stride by his unexpected disclosure, "but I'm not like her."

She didn't see. She didn't understand. She was so blinded by one fear she couldn't see anything else. Maybe the same problem affected him. "But I know so much more about so many things than you do."

"I know that. And I appreciate your taking the time to help me, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to turn my life over to you. Talk to me, explain things, try to convince me you're right."

"You never listen to me."

"Do you ever listen to me?"

He thought he did. But did he really listen, or did he just hear what he wanted to hear? According to Hen he'd been doing that for years. Tyler hadn't paid any attention to what Hen said because he was just as bad, but maybe Hen could see the fault better because he had it himself.

He'd better find out if he wanted Daisy to marry him. She was dead set against marrying anybody who would try to control her. Yet he couldn't just let her run loose without making sure she was safe. There had to be some place between the two extremes. Hen and Laurel had found it. So had Iris and Monty. He could, too. If he didn't, he'd lose Daisy.

"You only remember the times I haven't listened to you," Daisy said. "You forget the hundreds of times I did exactly as I was told."

Tyler realized she was right. "I don't do it intentionally. I'm so used to thinking things through on my own and then acting, I don't stop to think about consulting anybody else."

"That's fine when you're living up on that mountain with your mules and that cougar, but it won't work here."

It would be a radical departure for him. He wasn't sure he could do it, but he must.

"Go back to your prospecting," Daisy said. "The branding is about done. Now that we've caught the rustlers, there's not much Rio and I can't handle."

"You think you're ready to run this place on your own?"

"Not completely, but I've got to start some time. As long as you're around, I'll depend on you."

"That's because I know a lot about cows."

"All the more reason to leave. I need to learn to recognize problems and think through to solutions. I won't do that with you here."

"I'll stay until the branding's over."

"See, this is just like every other time. You do what you want to do."

"That's right," Tyler said. "I love you, and I want to be with you. I want to know you're safe, that you're happy. I want to marry you."

Daisy turned her horse around. "That's something of a surprise. When did you decide gold, hotels, and solitude weren't enough?"

He didn't like the brittle edge to her voice. He had never expected telling a woman he wanted to marry her would make her angry.

"I guess I fell in love with you in the cabin. I guess that's why I didn't want you to leave. I didn't want anything to mess up my plans. I didn't want to be in love. I didn't know I wanted to marry you until a short time ago."

"What made you decide?"

"I guess not wanting to live without you."

Daisy looked at him for a long while, but she seemed to be thinking more her own thoughts than of him. Whatever was going through her mind, it didn't make her happy. She showed none of the enthusiasm Tyler expected of a woman when a man asked her to marry him.

"There was a time when I hoped you would ask me to marry you, a time when it was just about the only thing I dreamed of."

Tyler didn't like the sound of that. Her voice was too flat, too impersonal. He didn't like the look in her eyes either. They were dull, closed, shuttered, like she had gone away.

"Even though I didn't want to marry a man with gold fever," Daisy continued, "I probably would have accepted. I loved you too much.

"But these last weeks have changed me. You're responsible for that. You told me I could be anything I wanted, that I didn't have to depend on a man to be a person. I didn't believe you. I was too scared. I'd never been taught to think of being on my own. That's why I almost married Guy. Then you came back and forced me to consider my only other option -- myself. Well, I did. But in doing so, I freed myself from the necessity of depending on any man. And that includes you."

"But you said you loved me."

"I do. I always will, but I love my freedom as well."

"But there has to be a way for us to be married without you feeling suffocated."

"Maybe, but I don't think you're ready to look for it. Besides, you're doing an awful lot of guessing for a man on the verge of making such an important change in his life. I want a man to know his own mind, not guess about what he feels. I want a husband who won't think of me as someone who messed up his life."

"I didn't mean it that way."

"Maybe not, but until you can say it so it sounds different, you can't expect me to believe you mean anything else."

Tyler leaned out of the saddle, pulled her to him, and kissed her hard. "Is that different enough?"

Daisy tapped down a desire to push the whole conversation aside and throw herself into Tyler's arms. "I'm not going to deny the physical attraction between us, but it's not going to change my mind. I waited too long for this chance to mess it up now."

With that, Daisy turned her horse and started back down the trail. It took Tyler a moment to recover sufficiently to follow. That was about as firm a no as a man could get. It hadn't been delivered in anger or any other surplus of emotion. It had been stated deliberately and coherently.

She meant what she said.

Much to his surprise, Tyler found himself smiling. His brothers would give half of what they owned to have heard that. But he was smiling because of Daisy. d.a.m.n, if he didn't love her even more for turning him down. It didn't make sense. He ought to be outraged, to be mad enough to leave her on the spot, but she had mistaken her man if she thought she could get rid of him that easily.

He had gone through h.e.l.l falling in love, but now he liked it. It wasn't at all what he'd expected. He didn't feel even the least bit depressed. In fact, as she watched Daisy riding ahead of him, he felt more alive than at any time in his whole life.

He had always been one to pursue his goals with single-minded purpose. He wanted Daisy a lot more than the gold, more than the hotels if it came to that. He didn't know how much he could change, but he was going to find out. He was also going to find a way to show her being cared for and protected had nothing to do with suffocation.

Daisy spurred her horse up a steep incline. She didn't panic or feel uneasy in the saddle when the sorrel scrambled for its footing on the loose gravel. She was proud of the riding skills she had acquired during the last few weeks. She was also pleased that after a day in the saddle she could dismount without having her legs give out from under her. Life wasn't all that bad even if she was the only woman in New Mexico who was six feet tall and her hair was disgracefully short.

She had almost forgotten about it. It didn't matter out here. She didn't have to worry about putting it up in a tight bun or trying to cover it with a hat. She simply ran a comb through it and put a hat on top of it. n.o.body seemed to notice. n.o.body cared.

She loved it.

Looking out over her land, knowing her cattle were branded, knowing the rustlers were on warning, made her feel proud. For the first time in her life, she had an ident.i.ty in her life and in her own mind. She wasn't just somebody's daughter. She didn't need to be somebody's wife. She was Daisy Singleton, owner of the n.o.ble Ranch.

She was taking a look around before heading back to Albuquerque to find a carpenter to build her house. She had intended to build down near the river as her mother wanted, but she liked the view her father prized so much.

She found herself wanting to ask Tyler's advice.

She didn't know what to make of his behavior during the past two weeks. She hadn't expected him to leave when she ordered him to, but she hadn't expected him to change either.

Yet he seemed to have done exactly that. The only thing he did without asking was cook. Then half the time he asked her what she wanted. The rest of the time he acted like a regular hand. He answered any question Rio put to him, but he didn't volunteer any information and refused to do anything until Daisy had approved it.

A few times she almost laughed watching him struggle with himself. Taking over was so natural that most of the time he didn't even realize what he was doing.

All the while her resolve not to marry him had been slipping a little each day. Tyler had volunteered to take the rustlers to Albuquerque. They didn't know who was behind the scheme, but they had told Tyler of plans to overrun Greene and Cordova. Tyler wanted to talk to his brother, but she had insisted that Rio go instead, that Tyler send a message to his brother. She should have recognized that as the first sign she didn't want him to leave.

She suspected she had first fallen in love with him because he saved her life, had pampered and cared of her. But she truly loved the man who had spent the last two weeks at her side. He wasn't really different from the Tyler she knew at first. He had just become a more complete person.

She had gradually come to realize it wasn't so bad to be looked after, especially when she only had to speak up if she didn't like something. That was new to her. She hadn't known it could work that way.

But Tyler left the day before, and he hadn't said anything about coming back.

It felt strange riding without him. She kept looking for him, waiting for him to appear. She felt lonely. She had come to depend upon his companionship even more than his knowledge of ranching. The empty hills seemed emptier without him. She had been telling herself it was time for him to go, but she realized now she had been hoping he wouldn't. She was finding it painfully difficult to adjust to his absence. She didn't just love him. He had become part of her.

"I wonder what he's doing," she said aloud to her horse, a sure-footed gelding Tyler had chosen for her. "I'm sure it's something I told him not to do."

But that didn't seem so bad. She smiled to herself. No one had ever caused her to have more contradictory feelings. No one had ever caused her to question everything she believed. If he'd stayed longer, she probably would have followed him. She appreciated all his help -- she admitted she wouldn't have done the work without it, especially after Greene and Cordova's men left -- but it was time she started depending on herself.

Daisy had to admit things didn't feel so good without Tyler. For the one hundredth time, she told herself to put him out of her mind. She had urged him to go. She had told him she wouldn't marry him. Now she had to learn to live with her decision.

That made it all the more miraculous when, after having traveled barely two miles from camp, Daisy saw Tyler ride out of a small dip in the ground. She was shocked at her body's response. She felt light-headed, her heart beat faster, her breath was quick and shallow, her nerves felt strung to the breaking point. Her mind was incapable to holding on to a single thought. She knew she stared at him like she didn't have a brain in her head.

"I thought you had gone back to your claim," she said.

"I decided to take a look around in case more rustlers had shown up."

"Why are you putting off going back? Finding gold used to be the most important thing in the world to you." Talking helped Daisy return to normal, or as close to normal as she could get this morning.

"I discovered something I hadn't known before."

"What was that?" What did she want it to be? She was afraid to ask herself that question because she wasn't sure she was ready for the answer.

"I discovered you were more important to me than the gold."

"I've already told you--"

Despite the fact that they rode different horses, Tyler grabbed her and kissed her so hard she couldn't breathe. She came up gasping like a fish out of water.

"I missed kissing you last night," Tyler said. "You've got yourself so balled up with this talk about freedom you probably see it as trying to force you into something you didn't want."

"A kiss isn't exactly the same as ordering me around," Daisy said, trying hard to regain her equilibrium.

"I know that now. I guess -- I know -- I'm a slow learner. But once I get something learned, I've got it forever."

"And what have you learned?" she asked breathlessly.

"That I love you, and I'm going to marry you even if I have to carry you off over my saddle."

Daisy didn't know why that should strike her as funny any more than why it should suddenly make her short of breath. This was the worst kind of domination, and fool that she was she wasn't even angry at him.

"You couldn't carry me over your saddle. Your horse would break a leg."

Daisy could never quite figure out how he did it, but before she knew what was happening, Tyler had her out of her saddle and across his. Nightshade didn't seem to notice the extra weight. But that didn't surprise Daisy. She felt incredibly lightheaded.

"Put me down," she said, holding tight to Tyler to keep from falling. Nightshade was almost a foot taller than her own horse. She felt like she was a mile off the ground.

"I can put up with your maligning me, but I wouldn't have you maligning my horse."

Daisy decided his mind had snapped. He'd been trying too hard to act like an ordinary human, smiling, talking, working around cows he hated. She'd have to be nice to him until she could get back on her horse and get some control of the situation. Meantime she shouldn't do anything that would upset him.

"What are you going to do with me?"

Tyler kissed her. "This for a start."

Daisy laughed. Tyler's foolishness was beginning to infect her. She wondered if it was in the blood, if her father's mania for gold was equivalent to her infatuation with Tyler. Something had to explain how she could so blithely accept his transformation from a silent, brooding prospector to a carefree cowhand. The transition ought to have floored her.

She would have been instantly suspicious of such a change in Guy.

Her metamorphosis from a browbeaten daughter to ranch owner had been equally stunning, and he continued to accept her never-ending string of demands. But this didn't seem to be the time to explore such an idea, no matter how intriguing. She was teetering in the saddle, fearful that any minute, despite Tyler's strength, she would find herself pitchforked into one of the junipers that covered the hills.

"We can't go riding around kissing like a couple of irresponsible kids."

"Why not? I've never felt irresponsible. I didn't know how much I'd been missing. I intend to make up for it now."

Daisy decided, reluctantly, that though this was fun, it must end. "Put me down," she said, pulling herself from his embrace. "If anybody saw me, my reputation would be ruined."

"Would you marry me then?"