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  She patted her gloved hands together, welcoming Grace Adams to her performance and gazing at the singer, her profile to him. The dim wall sconce behind them left her face in shadow, but he didn't need the illumination. Her every feature was burned into his memory, and a hollow, empty feeling settled into his stomach when he looked into the future he planned for himself.

  Sunny nudged him in the ribs and he jumped.

  "Watch the performance," she said never once looking at him. "This is the only chance you'll get to hear her, since she's leaving on the afternoon stage tomorrow. We were very lucky to get her for even this one time."

  Jake focused on Grace Adams. The sconces on the wall behind the curtain hadn't been dimmed, and the singer stood outlined in bright light, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes closed as she sang. Her hair, though blond, wasn't nearly as bright as Sunny's. She was also at least three inches taller than Sunny, who fit just right beneath his chin if he bent his head down a little. Grace was probably also twenty pounds heavier than Sunny, part of that weight in her larger bosom and hips. Sunny likely weighed a good ninety pounds soaking wet, but you didn't really notice how tiny she was when she got on a tear about something.

  He snorted beneath his breath in disgust when he realized he was comparing the singer to the woman beside him. And despite her lilliputian stature, Sunny was every bit a woman. Gazing around, he saw the men in the room ogling Grace Adams in her low-cut gown, which barely covered her bosom when she took a deep breath and lifted her head to fill the room with her song. Hell, he guessed she had a nice enough voice, although he hadn't been paying a bit of attention to the words in her song.

  The song ended, and after the applause and fingers-between-the-teeth whistles from the cowboys died down, Grace slowly began a sweet, haunting ballad. Feeling a nudge on his other side, Jake saw Teddy leaning against him, her head slowly dropping, then jerking back up. The little girl yawned widely, and he bent his head to whisper to Sunny.

  "Teddy's almost asleep in her chair. I'll carry her on over to Ginny's office."

  "Oh." Sunny shifted as though to rise. "You don't have to. You'll miss part of the performance."

  Jake stayed her with a hand on her arm. "I don't mind. You go ahead and enjoy yourself."

  "If you're sure. She does have a beautiful voice, doesn't she?"

  "Beautiful," Jake said, knowing damned well he wasn't talking about Grace's voice. He turned and picked up Teddy, who snuggled into his arms. Rising, he carried her along the wall toward the front door, making less of a stir that way than he would if he'd carried her through the crowd to the connecting door to the saloon. In the doorway he turned, staring back at Sunny. Grace Adam's voice broke on a note, and he glanced over to see her watching him. But the singer took a breath and carried on with only that slight pause.

  Not wanting to further disturb the performance, he walked out onto the boardwalk and over to the batwing doors on Ginny's saloon. A man he recognized as Grace's manager was the sole occupant in the saloon, except for Perry, who was polishing the bar surface.

  "There's blankets already on the sofa in Ginny's office," Perry said when he caught sight of Jake. "Just put her down in there and leave the door open. I'll check on her off and on."

  Jake nodded and carried the sleeping child to the waiting bed. She didn't wake when he laid her down and pulled a blanket over her. Straightening, he jammed his fingers in his back pockets and stared down at her. She had blossomed under Sunny's care, gaining some weight and getting roses in her cheeks.

  He had received a telegraph in response to his inquiry to Kansas City, but it only said the officials there would look into the matter. He'd left the still-sealed letters alone, reluctant to read words obviously meant for only Teddy. If the investigation in Kansas City proved fruitless, he would give the letters to Sunny and allow her decide when it would be appropriate to let Teddy have them.

  He strolled out into the saloon, leaving the office door open as Perry had said. Grace Adam's manager gestured with his beer glass.

  "Join me, Ranger?"

  "Yeah, I think I will," Jake said. "Pour me a beer, will you, Perry?"

  The bartender filled a glass, and Jake took it from him. Before he walked over to the table, however, he opened the connecting door to the Center a crack. If anyone got out of hand over there, he would hear the noise.

  Grace's manager leaned back in his chair as Jake approached. He was only a little taller than the singer, and Jake recalled just his first name — Jud something. His round bowler hat lay on the table, and he swept it to one side as Jake sat down.

  "Cute kid you had there, Ranger," Jud said. "She yours?"

  "I'm not married," Jake told him.

  "Don't mean you don't have any kids," Jud said with a snicker, holding up a hand in defense when Jake started to push his chair back and rise. "Whoa, I apologize. And I can't even blame the beer for that stupid remark, because this is my first one. I'll watch my mouth, if you'll stay and finish your beer, Ranger. I've heard the performance going on over there so many times I could sing every word right along with her. She does have a wonderful voice, doesn't she?"

  Jake settled back in the chair, taking a swallow of his beer and wiping at the foam on his mouth. "Yeah, it's a nice voice. She's had some good training."

  "She's come a long way since I found her in that dive in St. Joe, Missouri, three years ago," Jud mused. "Gotten a lot more self-confidence, too, and an independent streak. Hell, I didn't want to stop off here in Liberty Flats on our way to Denver, but she was bound and be damned she was gonna do it. Said she was tired of only singing at the highfalutin places and wanted to entertain the common people just like her one more time."

  "Well, the town's enjoying it," Jake said.

  Jud downed the remainder of his beer and lifted his glass toward Perry. "Two more over here," he called.

  When he belatedly looked to Jake for his agreement, Jake nodded acquiescence. Sitting here drinking beer was better than sitting over there beside Sunny Fannin and knowing she would never be his. A woman didn't marry a friend.

  He choked on a swallow of beer, wondering which word in his thoughts had caused that suffocated feeling — marry or friend!

  "Jocie was quite taken with that little girl you carried in with you a minute ago," Jud said as Perry put two more beers on the table and collected the empty glasses.

  "Jocie?"

  "Oh, that's her first name, but she uses Grace Adams in her performing life. It's her middle name, along with her maiden name."

  "She's been married, then."

  "Not to me," Jud denied. "Jocie and I are strictly business partners, and we keep separate rooms in our travels. I don't have a thing against marriage, but those sparks just aren't there between Jocie and me. If I ever give up my freedom, it's gonna be for a woman who's just as beautiful to me when I wake up beside her in the morning as she is when I got to bed with her at night. Jocie, now, she knows how to cover up the problem areas with paint, but she won't be able to keep doing that for too many more years."

  He shook his head and smiled. "And it takes her at least an hour every morning to do her coverup work, then about as long again before she performs. She's not that old — only twenty-eight — but she must have had a pretty rough life before I met her."

  Whoops, whistles and hollering erupted in the next building as Grace finished another song, and Jud waved Jake back into his seat when he started to check on the commotion.

  "Jocie's got another hour left," Jud said, "and she can handle the crowd. If they get out of line, she'll just stand there and not sing a note until they quiet down again."

  The noise abated, and Jake reached for his beer.

  "Now," Jud went on, "that pretty lady you've got your eye on will age well. She's got the bone structure and...."

  "I'm not eyeing anyone," Jake interrupted.

  "Could have fooled me." Jud shrugged and swallowed half his beer in the resulting silence. "Well," he said at last.
"That makes me wish we'd planned a little longer stay in this town. Is Miss Fannin a permanent resident here? I might be able to shuffle Jocie's schedule around and get back through here soon."

  Jake's hand tightened around the beer glass, and he had to make a conscious effort to loosen his grip before the glass shattered in his hand. "She lives here for now," he said abruptly.

  "I understand," Jud said, making it clear to Jake that he really didn't as he continued, "Soon as someone's lucky enough to get a ring on her finger, she'll go off with her man. Her lucky, lucky man."

  The beer soured in Jake's belly, and he pushed his glass away. "I need to go check the town. With everyone at the performance, someone might think now is a good time to pull something."

  He rose, and Jud stuck out his hand. "Nice talking to you, Ranger."

  Jake stared at the other man's hand for a second, then gripped it briefly and strode off. Jud's palm had been soft, not callused like his own hand. It wouldn't abrade Sunny's delicate skin if he touched her, and the other man wouldn't make the mistake of letting Sunny think he only wanted her friendship if he paid court to her.

  Hell, if he paid court to her! He was probably already sitting in there over his beer rearranging Grace Adams' schedule in his mind in order to get back to Liberty Flats at the earliest opportunity. Ignoring the walkway steps, Jake jumped down into the street, then swiveled and aimed a kick at the nearest hitching rail post. A stab of pain shot through his foot, and he bent forward, squaring back up after a second and flexing the toes inside his right boot carefully. A limp marring his usual saunter, he hobbled toward Saul Cravens' saloon. That was the likeliest place in town for him to find trouble needing taken care of.

  Maybe a good fight would work the restlessness and longing out of his system.

  ***

  Chapter 18

  "Sunny?"

  "What, darling?" When Teddy didn't reply, Sunny glanced up quizzically from grading the wobbly-printed spelling paper on the kitchen table. "Teddy? What is it?"

  Teddy tied a ribbon on the braid in Dolly's hair, her little face creased with a wrinkled frown. "I...." She heaved her small shoulders. "I was wondering. Me and Ranger Jake was...."

  "Ranger Jake and I were," Sunny corrected.

  "All right. Ranger Jake and I was...were talkin' about love last Saturday night at the grand openin'."

  "You were?" Sunny asked with a raised eyebrow. "And what conclusion did you come to about love?"

  "Well, not none, really. If a con...conclusion means an answer to somethin'. Miss Adams began to sing, and I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, it was mornin', and I was home in my own bed. But I been thinkin' about it some more, these whole four days."

  Sunny leaned her chin on her palm, setting her elbow on the tabletop to support her head. "What's been bothering you, sweetheart?"

  "Gettin' married," Teddy said with a firm nod, staring directly into Sunny's face. "You know I told you how handsome I think Ranger Jake is. I thought maybe if he waited 'til I got a little bit older, I might marry him, 'cause I really love him. But then I seen that Ranger Jake loved you, so's I figured...."

  "Whatever gave you that idea?" Sunny gasped.

  "What? That Ranger Jake loves you?" Teddy asked. "Well, I wasn't sure 'til I seen Mr. Duckie with Miss Cassie. Mr. Duckie, he looks at Miss Cassie with them same goo goo eyes Ranger Jake has when he watches you, and lately Miss Cassie's been looking back at Mr. Duckie that same way. So's I knows Ranger Jake's in love with you, but I still don't understand it."

  "Ah...." Sunny swallowed apprehensively, not at all sure she wanted this conversation to continue. "Teddy, I think you're mistaken. Not about Cassie and Mr. Duckworth," she hastily assured the child when Teddy rolled her eyes as though Sunny were the youngster instead of her. "But about Jake. Ranger Jake. Jake and I are only friends. Why, we even talked about it one time, and we decided — both of us decided together — that we were much too different to ever be any more than friends."

  "Yeah, that's what I don't understand." Teddy picked up Dolly and hugged her tight. "I wasn't s'posed to hear, but I did. Yesterday, when I went out to Mr. Duckie's ranch with him and Miss Cassie so's Miss Cassie could look at the furniture in the house and see what Mr. Duckie needed. That's when I heard them."

  "Heard what?"

  "I was s'posed to be out at the corral. Mr. Duckie, he's got a pony there, and he said if you'd let me, I could have it. Can I, Sunny? I'll take care of it, and Mr. Duckie said he'd show me everythin' I needed to do."

  "I don't see any reason why not," Sunny conceded, her patience at the child's meandering tale growing thin. "But Mr. Duckie might change his mind if he finds out you were eavesdropping on a private conversation. What did you hear?"

  "Oh!" Teddy rocked Dolly back and forth in her arms. "I better not tell then, if I wasn't s'posed to hear and if Mr. Duckie might get mad at me and not give me the pony."

  She slid from her chair and Sunny caught her arm, deciding in an instant she truly did want to extend this discussion. But how could she do that after chastising the child for eavesdropping? "Teddy, listen. Yes, you're not supposed to eavesdrop or pass on private conversations. But...well, maybe I can guess what was said. And...and if I'm right, you can tell me just by nodding yes or no."

  Teddy pursed her lips in thought, then nodded.

  "Well, then," Sunny said contemplatingly. "My first guess, since this talk has to do with love and marriage, would be that you overheard Mr. Duckworth ask Aunt Cassie to marry him."

  Teddy's eyes widened and her mouth rounded. "Oh, you're smart, Sunny. I hope I'm as smart as you when I grow up!"

  "Thank you," Sunny acknowledged with a smile, which wavered as she pondered her next guess. "I might need a little hint to guess any more."

  "There's not really no more to guess. That's all it was, and I didn't hear what Miss Cassie answered, 'cause she didn't speak loud enough. She prob'ly said yes, tho', them bein' in love and all."

  She wrinkled her face again. "That's what I don't understand. You and Ranger Jake bein' in love, too, and decidin' just to be friends. That's what me and Ranger Jake were talkin' about Saturday night, and I was tellin' him what you'd said. 'Bout how a body oughta listen to their heart instead of their head when it comes to love, like it looks like Mr. Duckie and Miss Cassie finally figured out. Is it gonna take you and Ranger Jake all them years to decide you should've listened to your hearts tellin' you that you was in love? 'Stead of listenin' to your heads tellin' you all them there reasons why you oughta just be friends?"

  As Sunny sat immobile, Teddy started for the kitchen door. After she opened it, she turned. "I don't wanna scare you none, Sunny," she said. "And I 'member you said a body can't make another person love them — that the love has to be on both sides all on its own. But when I gets a little bigger — when I gets pretty like you — I might's be beautiful enough for Ranger Jake to fall in love with me all on his own."

  Teddy started forward again, then paused. "I think Miss Cassie's real lucky Mr. Duckie didn't find someone else in all those years to fall in love with." She nodded her head emphatically. "Really, really lucky."

  Gripping Dolly in one arm, Teddy closed the door. Sunny heard Rowdy's excited yips as the dog welcomed Teddy. The dog seemed to have fallen into the routine of waiting on the back porch for Teddy each day, scratching a reminder on the door if the lessons ran overlong.

  Sunny leaned back in her chair, releasing a breath that blew the wisps of hair away from her forehead. Teddy was wrong — dead wrong. Jake Cameron didn't love her. Oh, she loved him. The barriers she'd kept around her emotions had been crumbling with every word Teddy spoke, and the honesty she prided in herself wouldn't allow her to lie even in her own thoughts.

  She'd been falling in love with Jake ever since that first day — the first time he had turned around and she'd seen his face without that danged full-brimmed hat hiding his features. The first time she'd gazed into the whiskey eyes and fallen straight into their depths.
r />   Whiskey was the right color for them — the right name. She'd been drunk on sensations every time she got near him, despite never having tasted the alcohol of the same name as the color of his eyes. A color she had given them herself in her own mind, without realizing the significance. She'd stumbled, fallen, gotten bloody and gotten bruised, all on her own and without the excuse the men who drank one too many in the saloons had. She'd been drunk on Jake — only Jake — the nearness of Jake.

  Still, Jake shared that same honest trait with her.

  The rest of it is the problem, she remembered him saying after the fire, after she'd taken yet another drunken plunge in his presence, that time over a chair. I could never make love to a woman like you and walk away from it unscathed, Sunny. You're a woman a man builds his dreams with — not one he loves and leaves.

  And I guess you're a man without dreams, she had replied.

  That's right. Or at least not the type of dreams that include being tied down with a wife and family.

  Or at least not with her, Sunny reminded herself. Some day Jake Cameron might meet a woman who could make him change his mind, but the woman's name wouldn't be Sunny.

  Picking up her marking pencil, she bent over the list of simple spelling words again. Teddy had already advanced to the point where she was thinking of teaching her to write rather than print, but the little girl needed a bit more practice on her stick letters first. The spelling was accurate, although the letters wavered up and down the lines on the paper.

  On the bottom of the sheet Sunny saw where Teddy had been doodling. She smiled at the heart with Teddy and Jake's initials inside it. T.T. luvs J.C. She couldn't mark that misspelling, since it hadn't been a word on the test. She did make a mental note to add to the list of vocabulary words for Teddy, cringing a tad when she thought of Teddy's insistence on having the meanings of each listed word explained to her.