MILY GRIPPED THE KNIFE TIGHTLY and hacked away at the five potatoes on the counter before her, then dumped the slices into the simmering pot of beef stew on the stove so forcefully that boiling water splattered. Behind her at the kitchen table, Uncle Jake was blowing smoke rings into the air as he and Joey played gin rummy, both of them yammering over the intricacies of the game. But she barely heard a word—her mind was too full of the image of Clint Barclay’s arrogant face.

I wish I could dump him into a pot of boiling water, she thought savagely.

From the moment she’d returned from town she’d been unable to think of anything but that horrible scene in his office.

Why didn’t I bring the rifle along, aim it at Clint Barclay’s broad chest, and order him to let Pete out of that cell?

Because then you’d have been breaking the law and he’d have tried to lock you up, a small sane voice from within admonished her, but she just scowled and wished she’d done something more useful than slapping Barclay’s face.

The man seemed invincible—nothing seemed to penetrate that cool, iron calm of his, the impression he gave of being able to handle anything that came his way. He’s solid, she thought suddenly, rock solid. She had to admit that wasn’t a bad quality in a man. But it was in a lawman, she told herself. Especially a lawman trying to drive your family out of town.

She remembered the way he’d gripped her wrist when she’d tried to slap him, remembered the heat of his touch on her skin, the strength in his grip. He’d clamped his hand around her tight enough to prevent her from slapping him twice and from jerking free, but not enough to hurt. Even angry, she reflected, frowning, he’d thought to temper his strength.

Doesn’t anything shake him up, make him lose control? she wondered. Not that she wanted him to, she told herself. But it was maddening to confront someone so in command of himself, someone who never lost his temper enough to give anyone an edge.

She, on the other hand, had the Spoon weakness for flying off the handle.

How can you criticize Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester for their tempers, when you can’t even control your own? she thought in frustration.

“That stew smells mighty good,” Jake said from the table behind her, interrupting her thoughts, and Joey chimed in too.

“Smells mighty good,” he repeated. Then his small voice exclaimed, “Gin!”

Jake chuckled. He pushed two marbles toward the boy. “You beat me, son. Good for you. You’re a real fine card player.”

“Mr. Spoon, can we play again?”

The eagerness in Joey’s voice made her pause in the midst of chopping carrots to glance over her shoulder. Joey’s normally pinched little face had lost its tautness for once—his eyes sparkled as Jake handed over his cards and the boy carefully began to shuffle them as he’d been taught.

Oh, Lord, I hope he doesn’t teach the child to cheat, or Lissa will never forgive me, Emily thought suddenly, but aloud she merely said, “One more game, you two, and then someone needs to set the table and someone else needs to tend to the chickens.”

“Already?” Joey sighed.

“Once dinner is over and all the chores are done, you may play one more hand—if Uncle Jake agrees.”

“Do you, Uncle Jake?”

Despite her distraught state, Emily’s lips curved up in a smile. Uncle Jake. The boy was warming to her uncle nicely. Jake noticed it too, and winked at her from the table.

“You bet, son.” He took a drag on his cigar and puffed out another smoke ring. “I need a chance to win back my marbles, don’t I?”

She tossed the carrots into the stew, added a can of green beans, and gave everything a quick stir with a spoon, then slipped off to the back bedroom.

Lester was rolled up in his bunk against the far wall, eyes closed. Gently, she touched his shoulder.

“Are you all right, Lester?”

“I reckon.”

His voice sounded fuzzy.

“I’ll bring you some stew in a bit. Don’t try to get up.”

“That sheriff sure hits hard,” he muttered. “But you wait—next time I’ll be the one to knock him flat on his back.”

“There won’t be any next time,” Emily said quickly. “After tomorrow, you’d best stay away from Barclay—and that goes for Pete too. And double for Uncle Jake,” she added, as Lester pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“Did you tell Pop yet about Clint Barclay being the sheriff here?”

“No, not yet.” Emily paced around the room, her anxiety mounting again. “I’m waiting until Joey goes to bed. I don’t want him getting upset when Uncle Jake explodes.” And he would explode, she knew, her brows knitting.

“Lester.” Abruptly, she returned to her cousin’s side and gazed at him imploringly. “Promise that you’ll help when I have to keep him from riding into town and shooting Clint Barclay!”

“Pop won’t go flying off the handle.” Gingerly, he touched a finger to his swollen jaw. “Maybe he would have before. But he’s different since prison. He knows how to hold his temper better.”

Emily hoped he was right. It was true that her uncle didn’t drink liquor the way he used to, as much or as often, and his temper was steadier, less likely to erupt over small matters.

But this was no small matter.

“I hope you’re right,” she said uneasily. “But if he starts to get all riled up—especially since now Clint Barclay has locked Pete up in jail—then I expect you to pitch in and help me settle him down before he does anything foolish.”

“Don’t worry, Em, I’ll help you. Not that I wouldn’t like to see Barclay get what he has coming,” Lester added darkly.

Unexpectedly, Emily felt the sting of tears behind her eyes.

“Em, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s … nothing.”

“You can tell me,” Lester said quietly. “Come on—you hardly ever cry.”

“I’m not crying.” She blinked back the threatening tears. “It’s just that when we came here, and I saw this cabin, this land, I… I thought we’d be staying, I really did, but now …”

Lester struggled to his feet with an effort and went to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Em, it’ll be fine. It’s not as if we have to mix much with the sheriff—or the town, either, for that matter. We’re all the way out here on our own place. We’ll get the ranch going, and everything will work out.”

But Emily was thinking also of her dressmaking business. She needed the goodwill and patronage of the women of Lonesome. She’d been counting on her knowledge of society fashions to attract their interest in the gowns she planned to sew. But if the women of Forlorn Valley feared or disliked her and her family, who would want to purchase dresses from her?

No one.

The thought frightened her. Because if she couldn’t make a go of her dressmaking business, then everything would depend on the success of the ranch. And if that failed…

She couldn’t bear to think about that—about the possibility that Pete and Lester might go back to holdups and running from the law—that they’d all be separated, and would lose this land, this chance for a fresh start. She’d wind up a servant again, toiling for another tyrannical socialite like Augusta Wainscott.

She never wanted to go back to that.

You’ll simply have to make the dressmaking a success—enough of a success to support the whole family, if necessary.

Just because the Spoons were at odds with the sheriff of Lonesome didn’t mean they had to be at odds with the entire town, she reasoned. But doubt gnawed at her.

“Don’t look so glum,” Lester pleaded. “Honest, Emily, you don’t know how bad Pete and I felt having left you and Aunt Ida to fend for yourself all those years. We want to make it up to you.”

“It wasn’t so bad, Lester,” she lied. “Not for the most part.”

For a moment her mind drifted to the Wainscott household. She could still hear Mrs. Wainscott’s thin, waspish voice, pecking at her, scolding and demanding, continuously finding fault. And she could still remember what it was like scurrying up and down the stairs with armloads of linens and towels and buckets and brooms. She could remember the smell of lemon polish and beeswax and how it felt to endlessly dust and scour and scrub and sweep—three storys, each and every day. The ache in her arms by midafternoon, the rawness of her hands.

Then caring for Aunt Ida at night.

She saw Lester watching her and, pushing the difficult memories aside, summoned a smile. “It’s over now,” she said firmly. “It’s all in the past. Lester, this is our fresh start.”

“Damn right it is.”

Emily thought of the tall handsome sheriff with those cynical storm-blue eyes. “And no one is going to ruin it for us,” she muttered.

“Em-ly?” Joey hovered in the doorway. “Uncle Jake says that in another minute the stew’s going to be all burnt up.”

Oh, Lord. Emily spun around and dashed back toward the stove, thankful she didn’t intend to earn her living in a kitchen.

Fortunately, the stew was only simmering wildly and everything tasted just fine. And after a dinner of hearty stew and thick sliced bread and warm apple pie and coffee, after she’d tidied the kitchen and tucked Joey into bed, and picked up her needle and thread to finish stitching the curtains, she waited until Lester had stretched out on the horsehair sofa, and Uncle Jake had added logs to the fire before sinking down on the armchair with a block of wood and his knife, before she told him the name of the sheriff who had locked Pete up in Lonesome’s jail. The sheriff who wanted to see the deed to their ranch.

The sheriff who wanted to drive them away from his town.

“Clint Barclay!”

Jake Spoon’s thick raspy voice sounded even thicker and raspier than ever as the name exploded from his lips.

“Naw! That… can’t be.” His brows clamped together as Emily bit her lip. “Emily girl—are you sure?”

Filled with dread, she nodded. “I didn’t know his name until today, Uncle Jake—”

He surged off the chair, dropping the knife and the wood as he sprang toward the door.

“Uncle Jake!”

“He locked me up and now he’s locked up Pete! I’ll be damned if I sit here like an old woman while he goes after my family one by one!”

Lester staggered to his feet but Jake was already at the door.

It was Emily who darted after him and grabbed his sleeve.

“No, this isn’t the way. It will only—”

He whipped around to confront her and her voice trailed off at the fury in his eyes.

“Let go of me, girl.”

She almost cringed before that harsh voice. His eyes were cold, slitted, mean, so unlike the eyes of the uncle who had taken her and Pete in when they were children not yet even ten years old, and along with Aunt Ida had promised to keep them, raise them, love them as his own. This was Jake Spoon the outlaw, robber of stagecoaches. Murder shone from his eyes.

“Pop, come on now, you just stop and think. I told Emily you’d changed and she thought so too, but now—”

“Clint Barclay, Lester!” Jake snarled.

Then his gaze at last truly focused on his niece’s distraught face. He saw the tears shining in those wide eyes, the trembling in her lip, and suddenly the violence died out of him as quickly as it had sprung up. The red blinding rage receded, and he gripped the slender hand clutching at his sleeve.

“Emily, don’t look like that,” he said hoarsely. “I’m not… goin’ nowhere.”

Relief flooded her so powerfully she could barely speak. “That’s good, Uncle Jake. It’s… it’s not the way … to handle this.”

“You’re right. Lester, so’re you.” He nodded at his son, but it was Emily he smiled at. His lips almost cracked with the effort but he did.

“You said before … the sheriff wants twenty dollars to cover that fine for fighting.”

“Yes.” Emily moistened her lips. “And he’s insisting on seeing the deed to the ranch.”

“I’ll bring him what he wants tomorrow,” the gray-haired man said grimly.

“Uncle Jake, let me.”

“I’m not scared to face him, Emily girl.”

“Of course not. But… you said yourself when we were traveling out here that you’ve got little use now for towns or people. And maybe it would be best if you didn’t meet up with Sheriff Barclay again—just yet.”

“What the hell’s the point of waiting?”

Lester spoke up. “To tell the truth, Em, I don’t see the point either. Might as well get it over with.”

She glanced from one to the other. Maybe they were right. Uncle Jake had served his time, after all. And no good evidence had ever been found against Pete or Lester.

Lonesome’s sheriff might be a formidable man, but he could hardly arrest them or order them out of town without just cause.

And she’d make sure he had none of that.

Her gaze shifted to Lester. “All right. We’ll go, but you stay here with Joey.”

“Em! You think I’m afraid to face that no good low-down—”

“You’re not afraid of anyone or anything, just like Pete,” she said impatiently. “Though sometimes I wish you were. But I don’t want to bring Joey into town yet. He’s just starting to get comfortable here at the cabin, and I’m not ready for people to start asking questions about him. There’ll be time enough if Lissa doesn’t get back soon and I have to send him to school. But for now,” she took a deep breath, “under no circumstances can John Armstrong find him, so I don’t want to take any unnecessary chances.”

“I’d like to get my hands on that weasel who beat your gal friend and the boy,” Jake muttered fiercely, momentarily distracted from thoughts of Barclay.

“Let’s hope you don’t ever get the chance—that none of us ever sees him again,” Emily said fervently. “But I do think that the best way to keep Joey safe is to keep him here at the cabin, quiet-like, for a while. I’ll figure out what to say about him in time.”

She hooked her arm through her uncle’s and led him back to his chair. Lester followed, sinking down on the sofa once again.

“Right now our first order of business is to get Pete released from that jail,” Emily said.

“I still think you should be the one to stay here with the boy,” her cousin grumbled.

She shook her head. “After what happened today, you’d best stay away from Sheriff Barclay. The less you have to do with him the better.”

“I’m not going to lose my temper again.”

“That’s right.” Emily planted her hands on her hips. “Because you’ll be here with Joey, repairing the corral posts and building that new shed you promised me.”

Jake chuckled suddenly. “Give up, boy. She’s got the Spoon temper and her mother’s stubbornness. I never could talk my sis out of anything once she set her mind to it. Emily not only looks like your Aunt Tillie, she’s got the same spine of steel.”

“I reckon.” Lester slumped back against the cushions and gazed at his cousin, frowning. “But I didn’t like the way that sheriff looked at you, Em. You watch out for him.”

“What do you mean, how he looked at her?” Jake’s gaze sharpened.

“Well, he knew she was a woman, that’s what I mean.”

“Lester, you’re being stupid,” Emily heard herself say, but she felt hot color rush into her cheeks. “Clint Barclay looked at me like I was something that crawled out from under a rock—just because I’m a Spoon. But he’s going to find out that we Spoons don’t scare—or run—quite that easily. Before long, we’re going to be as much a part of this town as he is—maybe more.”

Yet riding to town beside Uncle Jake the next day, the wagon wheels jolting over the rough trail, Emily felt her confidence slipping. She was dreading the imminent encounter with Clint Barclay and praying her uncle would manage to keep a lid on his temper no matter how much the sheriff provoked him.

They had to get Pete out of jail and start getting accustomed to the town—and the town to them. Before Clint Barclay could turn everyone against them.

As far as Clint Barclay looking at her like she was a woman, well—she was a woman. But Barclay hadn’t seemed particularly impressed. She’d had warmer looks from a hitching post.

Which suited her just fine, because despite those keen blue eyes and that lean, masculine jaw, and that broad chest of his, he was the last man on the continent she’d want to be noticed by.

The very last man.

Lonesome’s dusty main street was full of people bustling to and fro. Unlike yesterday, when she’d only had one thought in her mind—finding Pete—today she was far more aware of her surroundings. She noticed that the buildings lining the boardwalk boasted almost identical weathered gray facades, that the high blue sky dotted with satin-puff clouds seemed to dwarf the gritty little town, that horses neighed and buggy wheels groaned and children played beneath a tree at the far end of town.

She saw chickens pecking in the alley behind the Wagon Wheel Saloon and a cat drowsing on the doorstep outside Hazel’s Millinery. From the second-floor balcony of Coyote Jack’s Saloon came the trill of female laughter, and she glanced up to see two women in spangled and feathered dresses, eating apples and calling out to the cowboys who emerged from the feed store with sacks of grain slung over their shoulders.

The largest shop was Doily’s Mercantile, Emily noted, but there was also the Gold Gulch Hotel, a livery, the feed store, a bank, and a leather goods store whose front window displayed several fancy and plain saddles, a handsome pair of cowboy boots, and a shelf full of guns: Army Colts, Remington revolvers, derringers.

She didn’t spot a single dress shop and with a small flicker of excitement guessed that the only ready-made dresses to be found in Lonesome would have to be bought from the mercantile or through a mail-order catalogue.

That was good.

Uncle Jake reined in the team of horses in front of the sheriff’s office, right across from the bank, and as she alighted, she saw that the feed store beside the jail had a sign in the window, as did several other establishments.

Beneath the words was a row of dollar signs.

Reading over her shoulder, Jake grunted. “Pete and Lester see that, they’ll be keen to try their luck.” He squinted at the fine print. “Five dollars apiece to enter. We could buy a pile of lumber and nails for fixing the barn roof with that kind of money.” He snorted. “Bad enough we have to throw away this twenty dollars just to get Pete out of jail.”

“Let’s just take one thing at a time, Uncle Jake,” Emily soothed him.

“I’ve got a notion to tear down all these posters before Pete comes out here and sees them.”

“There’s probably a law against that,” Emily murmured with a rueful smile. She gripped his arm as they started toward the jailhouse. “Now promise me, no matter what happens, you won’t lose your temper.”

“Damn it, girl, I already promised.”

“Promise me again.”

He pushed open the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Emily’s heart thudded as she stepped inside. Clint Barclay was writing in a ledger at his desk, but he looked up as they walked in.

His eyes flicked quickly over Emily, with no display of emotion, she noted, her shoulders tensing. Then his gaze shifted to the man beside her. Slowly, with unsettling grace, like a taut rope unfurling, he rose from the chair.

“Something I can do for you, Spoon?” he asked in a steely tone.

Emily’s fingers tightened warningly on her uncle’s arm. She sensed his fury at the mere sight of the lawman who had put him in jail. And knew how hard this must be for him.

“We’re here to pay the fine for fighting,” she said quickly.

Jake dug in his pocket, then tossed some greenbacks on the sheriff’s desk. “Let my nephew out of that damned cell.”

“You got the deed to the Sutter place?”

“My niece told you I did.”

“Let’s see it.”

“Maybe I just didn’t bring it,” Jake snapped, his eyes like flint.

“Uncle Jake.” Emily glanced over at Pete. He stood gripping the bars of the cell, watching the exchange intently.

“Please,” she whispered, “let’s just get this over with.”

“Don’t show it to him, Uncle Jake!” Pete shouted suddenly. “He has no damn right to ask you for it. I’ll stay here till he’s sick of looking at my face, but don’t you—”

“Pete—hush!” Emily exclaimed.

“You’d best listen to her, Spoon.” The sheriff nodded toward the young woman in the clean, pressed blue gingham, the young woman whose midnight curls were tightly subdued by a single braid down her back. “At least she’s got some sense.”

“Who asked you?” Emily whirled on him. “If you had an ounce of decency in you, you’d open that cell door right now. There’s no law that says we even need to show you the deed. We brought it as a courtesy.”

Clint Barclay met those shimmering gray eyes and felt a tug of respect. And something else, a pang of conscience. He was giving the Spoons a hard time, but that’s because he didn’t trust them. Still, Pete Spoon had served his time and the fine was paid.

He let his gaze linger on those luminous eyes for one more moment before snagging the keys from the desk drawer.

“Let’s see if you can stay out of trouble,” he told Pete as he unlocked the door and swung it wide.

For one awful moment, Emily thought Pete was going to refuse to leave the cell, just to spite Barclay, but then he stalked past the lawman, came to stand alongside Emily and Jake, and planted his feet apart as the sheriff handed him back his gun.

“Now I’d like to see that deed.” Clint spoke solely to Jake.

His mouth tightly set, the older man yanked a paper out of his pocket, uncrumpled it, and pushed it at the sheriff.

“No one’s lived on that property for years,” Clint commented as he scanned the document. “Last I heard, old Bill Sutter got silver fever and headed out to Leadville.” He studied Jake intently as he handed back the deed. “Mind telling me how you got this?”

“None of your damn business.” Jake stuffed the deed back in his pocket.

“You got anything else to say, Sheriff?” Pete’s slate-gray eyes glinted. “Much as we enjoy jawing around here with you all day, we got ourselves a ranch to run.”

Emily wanted to poke him in the ribs but instead she stayed very still and held her breath.

Clint Barclay looked from one to the other of them. Despite her straight back and proudly lifted chin, the girl looked pale. Yet those eyes skewered him.

“You can go. For now. But I’m warning you, all of you—and that means Lester too—if there’s any sign of trouble, any hint of trouble, I’m coming to the Sutter place first. To find you.”

“You mean the Spoon place,” Emily said quietly. “It’s the Spoon place now.”

There was a moment of complete silence. Then Pete draped an arm around her shoulders and all three of them headed to the door.

When it slammed behind them, Clint stood for a moment, lost in thought. He hoped like hell he wasn’t going to have to arrest the Spoons. The girl was too fond of them for her own good, and worse, she was loyal to the bone. When they went back to their crooked ways—if they hadn’t already—it was going to tear out her heart.

He wondered why he should care. Just because she was beautiful, because she had more spunk and passion in her than a wild filly who’d never known a harness or lead rope? Because of the soft, sensuous glide of her hips when she walked? Or because he remembered how she’d felt when he’d held her close that night at the cabin, how she’d stood up to him with a kind of desperate courage that he’d rarely seen.

Perhaps only once, long ago, had he heard of courage like that—when his mother had tried to protect his younger brother, Nick, from the outlaws who’d held up their stage. His mother had snatched Nick behind her, shielding her seven-year-old son with her own body, showing the same kind of frantic courage he’d seen in Emily Spoon that first night.

Clint returned to his desk, but it was a long while before he was able to focus his thoughts on his work.