"I mean to see she's in the saddle before the sun goes down. You can't think I'm going to do her work as well as mine."

"I don't care who does her work. Fern stays here until I say she's ready to leave."

"Look, lady, I don't know who you are"

"My name is Rose Randolph. My husband is George Randolph."

"but you got nothing to say about what I do with my daughter. Now get out of my way before I have to lay hands on you."

Fern slipped out of the nightgown and reached for her shirt. He couldn't touch Rose. Fern would never be able to face Madison if he did.

"If you so much as touch me, my husband will kill you," Rose stated. She said it quite naturally, with no more fanfare than if she were announcing they were in for another hot day. "That is if Hen doesn't do it first."

That statement, not unnaturally, produced a silence. Fern's fingers froze on her shirt b.u.t.tons. Visions of George in jail for the murder of her father rose before her eyes like demons escaping from h.e.l.l. It would be a nightmare past all imagining.

"No man would kill me for something like that," Sproull sputtered.

"I can't speak for other men," Rose answered, "but I can speak for the Randolphs."

"I don't believe you."

Fern's fingers flew over the last two b.u.t.tons, and she reached for her pants. Her father never believed anybody. He was firmly convinced he was the only authority in the world.

"Mr. Sproull, you earn your living selling to the drovers, don't you?"

"Mostly."

"I have only to say a word to my husband, and no one from Texas will ever buy from you again."

Silence.

Fern had never thought of the influence George Randolph might wield with the other Texans, but she had no doubt he would be more than willing to ruin anybody for the sake of his family.

She couldn't be the cause of her father's ruin. She hadn't meant for any of this to happen, and she certainly hadn't meant for him to threaten Rose, but she should have foreseen it.

She searched for her socks, but Rose's next words stayed her hand.

"I understand you have cattle, the herd you're so anxious to have Fern attend," Rose said. "If you don't get back to them right away, something might frighten them so badly they wouldn't stop running until they were several hundred miles from here. The Indians would probably get them before you could find them."

Fern could almost hear her father making gulping noises. He might pretend the herd wasn't important, but she knew he liked the money she brought in.

"It's sometimes very difficult to keep a trail herd from overrunning fields, especially if those fields are filled with succulent green vegetables."

"Are you threatening me?" Sproull asked. He still sounded rather fierce, but Fern could tell that much of the steam had gone out of his bl.u.s.ter. She sank down on the bed, her bare feet forgotten.

"I'm simply telling you what could happen if you continue to leave your farm unsupervised. We'll keep Fern here. That way you won't have to wait on her and do your work as well."

"I ain't never waited on a woman in my life," Sproull shouted, "not even her mother."

"It was probably very wise of Mrs. Sproull to die at her earliest convenience. It must have seemed preferable to a life spent as your wife. Now if you will excuse me, I have things I must do. Good day, Mr. Sproull."

"Good day," Mrs. Abbott repeated, closing the door in his face with considerable vehemence.

"I never thought Baker Sproull could be so unfeeling," Mrs. Abbott said. "He's downright cruel."

"He's probably never had anyone to tell him when to stop. A good, strong-minded wife might have made a fairly decent man out of him."

"I shouldn't want to try."

"I imagine it's too late now."

Fern felt the tension gradually leave her body until she collapsed on the bed. She wouldn't have guessed until now just how much she had dreaded her father's appearance. She had known she would have to go with him, had been prepared to get out of bed and leave immediately, but Rose had sent him away with a good deal to think about. Fern doubted he would come back. He loved money more than he loved her.

That hurt. She had thought she was used to his coldness. She never really looked for anything else. But Rose and Madison had shown her that people didn't have to be related to her to care.

Still more amazing, they had extended this circle of protection to her after she had done everything she could to alienate them. She didn't understand that. It wasn't as if they were missionaries bent on saving her soul.

Even more profoundly shocking, she didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay with these strangers. It had nothing to do with her injury. For the first time in her life, somebody cared for her enough to be concerned about what was happening to her, about how she felt.

She was drawn to Madison because he saw something in her that no one else had seen, something that made him want to kiss her, want to invite her to Mrs. McCoy's party. It made him want to make her believe in her own attractiveness. It made him care that she still hurt. It made him care how others treated her. Enough to fight for her.

She wouldn't forget that. Not ever.

She undressed and slipped back into bed.

"You're very quiet," Rose said to Fern. "Do you still have a lot of pain?"

"No. I've really felt much better today. I probably ought to go home."

"You can't leave until Madison gets back. He gave me the most explicit instructions on that score."

Fern smiled, but almost immediately her expression turned serious. "Why did you take me in? I've been nothing but trouble."

Rose smiled comfortingly. "Because you were hurt and needed attention. You refused to let a doctor examine you, remember."

Fern nodded. "But why did you keep me?"

"Because you needed someone to take care of you. Besides, we like you. As for your cows, they'll get along without you. I sometimes think cows are the only other creatures in G.o.d's creation to have eternal life."

"You don't like cows?"

"Good Lord, no. How can anybody actually like a cow, especially a longhorn? George doesn't care much for them either, but it's the way we make our living."

Fern could hardly believe her ears. She'd never heard a Texan say he disliked longhorns. From the way they defended the beasts, you'd have thought they loved them as much as their children.

Quick on the heels of that discovery came another. Fern hated cows. She had hated them for years without even suspecting. She had depended on them to give her independence. She had identified with them because it was necessary, but deep down she loathed the huge, stinking, stubborn, noisy, stupid beasts. She'd be perfectly happy if she never saw another one.

The discovery turned everything upside downagain. Her place in the community, her reason for getting up each day, had been tied to that herd. Now it was gone. None of the old equations worked anymore. The whole fabric of her life was unraveling.

And all because of Madison Randolph.

If he had stayed in Boston, none of this would have happened. If she hadn't taken him out to the Connor place, this wouldn't have happened. If he had taken her home and left her there, this wouldn't have happened.

Now it was too late.

But what made it too late? She had been able to forget every other man who had crossed her path.

But from the moment he stepped from the train, she hadn't been able to forget Madison. The way he treated her made his name tremble on her lips. His attention and genuine interest caused his image to dance before her eyes, made her memorize his every word, deed, and expression. She had drunk him in like life-giving water.

Now she was addicted. She couldn't go back to things as they had been. He had ruined that for her. But what was she going to do now? Her father wouldn't accept the change.

She didn't even know if she could.

She felt frightened and helpless. And she'd never felt that way before. There'd always been something she could do. There must be something now, but she couldn't think of it.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked. "You don't look ready to go home."

"I don't feel like it. I don't have any energy."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"It doesn't feel like me either. I've always been active, in the saddle, sure of everything. Now I'm lying around in bed in a pink nightgown."

Rose laughed softly. "I imagine half the women in town are jealous of you. It isn't every woman who gets carried off by a handsome young man."

"And that's something else."

"I thought it might be."

"None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for Madison."

"Maybe not now, but it would have happened sooner or later."

"Are you sure?"

"No one can make you feel what you don't want to feel, be what you aren't, or want what you dislike. We all have reasons for hiding from ourselves, but sooner, or later something happens to tear down the walls we've built up. Then we find out who we really are."

"I haven't found anything. There's nothing behind that wall. There never was."

Madison poured himself a cup of coffee, then settled the pot over the tiny campfire.

"I have to admit I've enjoyed the last few days," he said to George. "But after riding a hundred miles, I would much prefer a hot bath and a decent dinner instead of warm beans and my saddle for a pillow."

There were too many farmers around Abilene for the town to continue as a cattle shipping center, so George had been scouting the new cattle trail the town of Ellworth had laid out to attract the Texas herds. Madison had ridden along with him, spending his time retracing Hen's route the night Troy died, looking for anyone who might have seen Hen, spoken to him, or recognized his horse. He hadn't heard from Tom White's friend, and he was desperate for a witness.

"You don't have a hankering to go back to Texas?" George asked.

"Not for one minute. What would I do there?"

"You could become part of the family again."

Madison supposed he should have expected George to get around to that sooner or later. His family was vitally important to him. Not that Madison thought that was all bad, but George seemed to think that nothing else mattered.

"There's no place for me in this family. That's one of the reasons I left Texas. I know you think we all ought to make up our differences and live happily ever after, but that won't happen. Hen and Monty will never understand me any more than I understand them. There's no feeling of love between us. There never was.

"I hated the noisy way they attacked life and everybody in it, especially me. They didn't trust anything found in a book. There's no use trying to create something where there's nothing."

"You left your comfortable niche to make sure Hen didn't hang," George said. "That must mean you have some feeling of family."

Madison felt nettled. "I may not be the most loving of brothers, but I'm not without feeling."

"You had to know I would have gotten the best lawyer available. I'd have broken him out of jail if necessary."

"I had to see for myself."

"Didn't you worry about what we would say?"

"I didn't expect Hen to understand, but I thought you would."

"I would never have left."

"Don't judge everybody by yourself."

"That's what Rose said, but it's not easy."

Madison decided the family owed more to Rose than he had reckoned. He hadn't thought anybody could change a Randolph, but apparently she could. He wondered if it was just Rose, or whether any woman who could love her husband that much could have the same effect.

He cursed himself when Fern popped into his mind. She was the last person this family needed. Someone like Samantha would be a more logical choice. Or Sarah Cabot. Or Phoebe Watkins. Or any one of a dozen women he knewall charming, graceful, beautiful, and with a strong desire to be married and make a home for their husband and children.

So why did he keep thinking of Fern?

Probably out of perverseness. All his life he'd done things the hard way. He'd insisted upon going to boarding school when everybody else studied at home. He'd left the ranch to try to make a place for himself in the North during a bitter, b.l.o.o.d.y war. He had made up his mind to move into the tightly knit, very exclusive upper echelon of Boston society. He had set his course to ultimately compete with the financial barons who were revolutionizing American industry. It was entirely of a piece that he would be interested in the most irreclaimable female he had ever set eyes on.

Yes, he was interested in her. G.o.d only knew why. Madison didn't understand it any more than he understood why he had enjoyed these few days of being in the saddle from dawn to dusk, riding over hot and dusty trails, or becoming acquainted with a breed of people he was gradually learning to respect.

''Did Rose say anything else?"

"Yes. She said you wanted to become part of the family again or you'd never have left Boston after eight years."

"Do you believe everything she says?"

"She hasn't been wrong so far."

Madison knew he couldn't spend a few weeks deeply involved with George and Hen and then go back to Boston and forget about them. He couldn't know that George had named his firstborn after a father they both hated, and not ask why.

He couldn't get on a train and forget he'd ever met Fern.

"I guess she's right this time, too. I spent a lot of years trying to forget just about my whole life," he said. "I especially wanted to forget all the failures, the waste, the anger and bitterness, the times I wanted to kill Pa, or myself, and didn't have the guts. But the minute I heard about Hen, I knew I had to come."