"Well, I'm asking you to change it right now. I'm asking you to be satisfied in knowing the man is dead and won't cause any more harm."

Lily sensed Nate's apprehension. The man who'd stared death in the face a hundred times, the man who'd captured and killed wanted men for money, looked as though he was afraid of what she was asking of him.

Had the request come from anyone else, she knew he'd never even consider it. But she also knew she held an edge.

"You're holdin' an unfair advantage, Lily," he said finally.

"All's fair in love and war, isn't that what they say?"

"This isn't war."

"No, it isn't."

His jaw muscles bunched. He looked from her to Catherine. "From this moment forward, we will never speak another word regarding this except the story of how the man came to your door to rob you, Mrs. Douglas. The three of us-well, four actually-carry this to our graves. He's just already there."

Catherine stepped forward and flung herself into Nate's arms. She cried openly against his shirtfront. "Thank you, thank you. Lily said you were a man we could trust."

Lily met his eyes, and Nate patted Catherine's shoulder awkwardly.

"I'll go for the undertaker," he said. "Lily can stay with you."

Catherine told her story to a few people who gathered outside the house once the undertaker had been summoned and the news spread. It was dawn when John Douglas woke and came downstairs. Lily sat with them while Catherine told him the story of his father's death. The young man cried. "He was just trying to protect us! What if that man comes back?"

"He won't," Lily told him. "Men like that are cowards and move on when someone stands up to them."

Lily left the family and headed home. She asked Mollie to let her sleep for a few hours and wake her midmorning. Her bed had never felt so good.

WITHIN TWO DAYS the story of the robber spread, and Amos Douglas was buried in the cemetery north of town. After the funeral, Catherine spoke to Lily. "I've found your property deeds and have set them aside to bring to you."

"You hang on to them until the hotel loan is paid," Lily told her. "I'll feel better about that."

Catherine reluctantly agreed.

Nate sought out Lily that afternoon as she worked in her garden. She was at the end of a section of melons, a distance from Rosemary and Violet, who were tearing out the last of the bean plants.

"What did you say to Evangeline?"

Lily straightened at the sheriff's question and shaded her eyes with one hand. "What do you mean?"

"I lay awake for two nights planning how I'd approach her and talk to her, and when I got up the nerve I could tell she was relieved. She said the two of you had talked about a lot of things and that not being willing to conform meant she was being true to herself."

Lily smiled. "She said that?"

"Yes. She packed and she's heading for Denver, where she plans to find work and learn photography. Her mother's fit to be tied."

"Photography. Fascinating."

"So you don't think she's making a mistake?"

"I think she's doing what's right for her."

"She's wise, you'd say?"

"I would say that."

"Well, she also said you love me. How much wisdom can be found in that statement?"

Lily's ears rang for a moment. The sun felt hot, and a trickle of perspiration slid down her back.

"Cat got your tongue, Lily?"

"I...um...." Finally she shrugged.

"You always have something to say," he prodded. "I'm not always sure if it's the whole truth, but you're never at a loss."

"I've never lied to you. I didn't lie to you about Amos, did I? I could have kept the secret myself."

"I appreciate that. It's the other things, the more personal things, where you hold back."

She'd only held back two things from him ever. The truth of her husband's death...and the fact that she'd fallen in love with him.

"I saw gray for you, Lily. Remember?"

She nodded. He'd done something he'd never done before, because she'd asked him to. He'd looked past right and wrong to the connotation of justice. If he'd been able to see it once, he would again.

"Let's meet this evening," she suggested, glancing at the other two women and the sun overhead.

"Name the spot."

"Pick me up when the Shady Lady closes."

He grinned and walked away. Lily watched him for a few minutes, then turned back to her task.

THAT EVENING she looked at the red dress, then at the green one and an entire armoire full of other costumes, and chose not to hide. She wore the most sensible gray skirt she owned with a pink-and-white-striped blouse.

Her attire didn't raise any eyebrows with her staff, and she worked through the evening, waiting for the time when Nate would come for her.

He'd shown up once during that time, and with a lift of one curious brow had surveyed her clothing. She'd made him a Buffalo Bill special and seated herself beside him until he moved on.

Now she stood on the front steps, watching the street.

A horse came into view and Lily watched Nate approach. He slid his foot from the stirrup and reached for her. They were comfortable with this routine.

Neither spoke until they'd reached the stream. Lily slid from the horse and Nate untied a roll of blankets and carried them to the bank. "It's getting cooler, and I didn't know if you'd want to swim."

"For now, let's just talk."

He spread the blankets and she took a seat. Nate's knee popped as he sat beside her. "Where were we?"

"Which time?"

He chuckled. "Today, I reckon. We were talkin' about honesty. I told you that Evangeline said-"

"Okay. I remember."

He draped both wrists over his bent knees as though he had all night to listen.

"You told me about your wife," she said softly, her voice not as strong as she would have liked. She'd had most of the day to think about this and how she'd say it, but her good intentions and pretty words fled. "It was a terrible thing. But you shared it with me. I can't tell you how much that meant to me."

"It wasn't easy to get the words out."

"My words won't come easy, either." She took a deep breath. "My father was a miner. My ma and I followed him from camp to camp, living out of a tent all those years. We panned for gold, cooked, did laundry and lived a mean existence. He always had a big dream that someday he'd find a vein and he'd be rich."

"That's what keeps 'em all in these hills, isn't it?"

She nodded. "I thought about running away all the time, but I couldn't leave my mother. She was never strong, and as time passed she got thinner and weaker. Finally she died."

"That must have been hard."

She nodded. "No sooner was she buried than my father met up with a man who owned a deed to a mine. One night Pa came and told me I was getting married so to pack my things. Like I had anything worth taking. I cried and told him I didn't want to get married. Too late, he said. He'd traded me for a half share of the man's mine."

Nate was looking at her in the moonlight. She was telling this story as though it had happened to someone else, but her insides were quaking as though it was taking place all over again.

"What happened?" he asked.

"We packed up and moved again. My father came, too. He lived in the tent we'd always shared and I lived in my-in Harm's."

"That was his name?"

She nodded. She hadn't said it in all these years. "Harm Augusta."

"You never called yourself by that name, though."

She shook her head.

"He mistreated you?"

"Whenever it struck his mean-hearted fancy. I only knew sex as a debasing, hurtful thing men did to women. A way to wield their power and strength. Some of the girls told me it could be good with a man, but I didn't believe them. I couldn't imagine giving that to a man. Ever."

"What are you saying?"

"When you and I-that night right here-that was the first time I ever let a man kiss me. The first time I let a man touch me and touched him back. That was-the first time for me. Like that. Without getting hit or slapped or bitten."

Nate made a sound like he was strangling and laid his hand on her arm. The warmth of his touch burned through the fabric of her sleeve. "Lily, God, Lily, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I thought you were sellin' yourself to every man who paid your price. I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you told me the truth."

"How could you believe me? I showed you what I wanted you to see. Just like I showed everyone. If I didn't care about what people thought-if respecting myself wasn't an issue-none of what happened in the past would matter. None of the future insult would hurt."

"I'm honored that you shared yourself with me," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I understand how submitting your will and offering your body in any way is a difficult thing for you to do."

"That's not all."

There was more? Nate didn't know if he could bear to hear it. But she'd lived it. Borne it inside her all these years, and he'd asked her to tell him the whole truth. Now he had to listen.

"My father's tent was close by. He had to have heard the-beatings. But he never did anything to stop them. He had his share of the mine.

"After almost a year, I learned I was going to have a baby."

A child? She had a child? His mind rolled over which of the girls at the Shady Lady could be young enough to be her daughter and couldn't think of a one.

"I tried to keep him away from me after that. I pretended sickness and I even stole some laudanum and put it in his food to make him go to sleep at night. One night I was feeling poorly. He came to the tent in one of his tempers and started after me. I fought him-like I'd never done before. I don't know why it was different that time. Some protective instinct just came over me and I was more afraid for my baby than for myself."

Nate listened with his breath caught in his throat.

"He beat me pretty bad. He was insane with anger and he came at me with this look in his eyes. I grabbed a knife that was lying by the cook fire. Next thing I knew, he was lying on it. I was covered with his blood because he was on top of me. I pushed him off and I ran.

"I stole a horse from another miner and rode as far and fast as I could. When I got to this town, the only place with a light on was the bordello. I didn't know what it was, I didn't care. I was bleeding and weak. I went to the door and rang the bell.

"Antoinette Powell answered the door. She was wearing a fancy red dress and a dozen strands of pearls around her neck. She took one look at me and pulled me inside."

"What happened to your baby?"

Lily paused before continuing. "She did her very best. She called a midwife and they sat with me for two days and nights straight. But I lost my baby."

He pulled her into his arms then and she didn't resist. "You knew how it felt," he said. "When I told you about losin' my son."

"I never got to hold my baby," she said. "Or hear him cry or laugh. I only got to see a little grave."

"If that man wasn't dead, I'd kill him myself," he said, his voice low and filled with passion.

"But I killed him, Nate. Antoinette hid me until we knew no one was going to come looking. He was a no-account miner, and my father was glad to get his hands on the mine. He used to come into town."

"Your father? He came to Thunder Canyon?"

She nodded against the comfortingly hard plane of his chest. "For years. A couple of times he asked me to grubstake him for another season."

"Did you?"

"Yes. I used to give him food and buy him socks and shirts. He died one winter, all alone at that godforsaken mine. His belongings were turned over to Sheriff Parson, and I got the deed to the Queen of Hearts. I hated that worthless mine and everything it stood for."

"So you own a played-out mine?"

"Actually, Catherine is holding the deed while I pay back the bank notes. She wanted to give me the hotel, but I insisted."

Nate lowered her back on the blankets and kissed her tenderly. "There's no way to change the past. I've learned that the hard way. No amount of revenge will bring back what you had."

"And runnin' and pretending to be tough as nails doesn't make it go away," she added.

"You're the strongest woman I've ever known, Lily."