Will of Steel Read online

  Ted was getting some sort of vibrations from her. She was keeping something from him. He didn’t know what, but he was almost certain of it.

  His teasing manner went into eclipse. He became a policeman again. “Is there something you want to talk to me about, Jake?” he asked in the soft tone he used with children.

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It wouldn’t help.”

  “It might.”

  She grimaced. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you some things.”

  “If you marry me, you will.”

  “We’ve had this discussion,” she pointed out.

  “Poor Sammy.”

  “Stop that!” she muttered. “I’ll find her a home. I could always ask John Callister if he and his wife, Sassy, would let her live with them.”

  “On their ranch where they raise purebred cattle.”

  “Sammy has purebred bloodlines on both sides,” she muttered. “Her mother was a purebred Hereford cow and her father was a purebred Angus bull.”

  “And Sammy is a ‘black baldy,’” he agreed, giving it the hybrid name. “But that doesn’t make her a purebred cow.”

  “Semantics!” she shot back.

  He grinned. “There you go, throwing those one-dollar words at me again.”

  “Don’t pretend to be dumb, if you please. I happen to know that you got a degree in physics during your stint with the army.”

  He raised both thick black eyebrows. “Should I be flattered?”

  “Why?”

  “That you take an interest in my background.”

  “Everybody knows. It isn’t just me.” He shrugged.

  “Why are you a small-town police chief, with that sort of education?” she asked suddenly.

  “Because I don’t have the temperament for scientific research,” he said simply. “Besides, you don’t get to play with guns in a laboratory.”

  “I hate guns.”

  “You said.”

  “I really mean it.” She shivered dramatically. “You could shoot somebody by accident. Didn’t one of your patrolmen drop his pistol in a grocery store and it went off?”

  He looked grim. “Yes, he did. He was off duty and carrying his little .32 wheel gun in his pants pocket. He reached for change and it fell out and discharged.” He pursed his lips. “A mistake I can guarantee he will never make again.”

  “So his wife said. You are one mean man when you lose your temper, do you know that?”

  “The pistol discharged into a display of cans, fortunately for him, and we only had to pay damages to the store. But it could have discharged into a child, or a grown-up, with tragic results. There are reasons why they make holsters for guns.”

  She looked at his pointedly. “That one sure is fancy,” she noted, indicating the scrollwork on the soft tan leather. It also sported silver conchos and fringe.

  “My cousin made it for me.”

  “Tanika?” she asked, because she knew his cousin, a full-blooded Cheyenne who lived down near Hardin.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “She thinks practical gear should have beauty.”

  “She’s very gifted.” She smiled. “She makes some gorgeous parfleche bags. I’ve seen them at the trading post in Hardin, near the Little Bighorn Battlefield.” They were rawhide bags with beaded trim and fringe, incredibly beautiful and useful for transporting items in the old days for native people.

  “Thank you,” he said abruptly.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “For what?”

  “For not calling it the Custer Battlefield.”

  A lot of people did. He had nothing against Custer, but his ancestry was Cheyenne. He had relatives who had died in the Little Bighorn Battle and, later, at Wounded Knee. Custer was a sore spot with him. Some tourists didn’t seem to realize that Native Americans considered that people other than Custer’s troops were killed in the battle.

  She smiled. “I think I had a Sioux ancestor.”

  “You look like it,” he drawled, noting her fair coloring.

  “My cousin Rabby is half and half, and he has blond hair and gray eyes,” she reminded him.

  “I guess so.” He checked the big watch on his wrist. “I’ve got to be in court for a preliminary hearing. Better go.”

  “I’m baking a pound cake.”

  He hesitated. “Is that an invitation?”

  “You did say you were starving.”

  “Yes, but you can’t live on cake.”

  “So I’ll fry a steak and some potatoes to go with it.”

  His lips pulled up into a smile. “Sounds nice. What time?”

  “About six? Barring bank robberies and insurgent attacks, of course.”

  “I’m sure we won’t have one today.” He considered her invitation. “The Callisters brought me a flute back from Cancún when they went on their honeymoon. I could bring it and serenade you.”

  She flushed a little. The flute and its connection with courting in the Native American world was quite well-known. “That would be nice.”

  “It would?”

  “I thought you were leaving.” She didn’t quite trust that smile.

  “I guess I am. About six?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll see you then.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Should I wear my tuxedo?”

  “It’s just steak.”

  “No dancing afterward?” he asked, disappointed.

  “Not unless you want to build a bonfire outside and dance around it.” She frowned. “I think I know one or two steps from the women’s dances.”

  He glared at her. “Ballroom dancing isn’t done around campfires.”

  “You can do ballroom dances?” she asked, impressed.

  “Of course I can.”

  “Waltz, polka…?”

  “Tango,” he said stiffly.

  Her eyes twinkled. “Tango? Really?”

  “Really. One of my friends in the service learned it down in Argentina. He taught me.”

  “What an image that brings to mind—” she began, tongue-in-cheek.

  “He didn’t teach me by dancing with me!” he shot back. “He danced with a girl.”

  “Well, I should hope so,” she agreed.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “You already said.”

  “This time, I mean it.” He walked out.

  “Six!” she called after him.

  He threw up a hand. He didn’t look back.

  Jillian closed the door and leaned back against it. She was a little apprehensive, but after all, she had to marry somebody. She knew Theodore Graves better than she knew any other men. And, despite their quarreling, they got along fairly well.

  The alternative was to let some corporation build a holiday resort here in Hollister, and it would be a disaster for local ranching. Resorts brought in all sorts of amusement, plus hotels and gas stations and businesses. It would be a boon for the economy, but Hollister would lose its rural, small-town appeal. It wasn’t something Jillian would enjoy and she was certain that other people would feel the same. She loved the forests with their tall lodgepole pines, and the shallow, diamond-bright trout streams where she loved to fish when she had free time. Occasionally Theodore would bring over his spinning reel and join her. Then they’d work side by side, scaling and filleting fish and frying them, along with hush puppies, in a vat of hot oil. Her mouth watered, just thinking about it.

  She wandered into the kitchen. She’d learned to cook from one of her uncle’s rare girlfriends. It had delighted her. She might be a tomboy, but she had a natural affinity for flour and she could make bread from scratch. It amazed her how few people could. The feel of the dough, soft and smooth, was a gift to her fingertips when she kneaded and punched and worked it. The smell of fresh bread in the kitchen was a delight for the senses. She always had fresh homemade butter to go on it, which she purchased from an elderly widow just down the road. Theodore loved fresh bread. She was making a batch for tonight, to go with the pound cake.

 
She pulled out her bin of flour and got down some yeast from the shelf. It took a long time to make bread from scratch, but it was worth it.

  She hadn’t changed into anything fancy, although she did have on a new pair of blue jeans and a pink checked shirt that buttoned up. She also tucked a pink ribbon into her long blond hair, which she tidied into a bun on top of her head. She wasn’t elegant, or beautiful, but she could at least look like a girl when she tried.

  And he noticed the minute he walked in the door. He cocked his head and stared down at her with amusement.

  “You’re a girl,” he said with mock surprise.

  She glared up at him. “I’m a woman.”

  He pursed his lips. “Not yet.”

  She flushed. She tried for a comeback but she couldn’t fumble one out of her flustered mind.

  “Sorry,” he said gently, and became serious when he noted her reaction to the teasing. “That wasn’t fair. Especially since you went to all the trouble to make me fresh rolls.” He lifted his head and sniffed appreciably.

  “How did you know that?”

  He tapped his nose. “I have a superlative sense of smell. Did I ever tell you about the time I tracked a wanted murderer by the way he smelled?” he added. “He was wearing some gosh-awful cheap cologne. I just followed the scent and walked up to him with my gun out. He’d spent a whole day covering his trail and stumbling over rocks to throw me off the track. He was so shocked when I walked into his camp that he just gave up without a fight.”

  “Did you tell him that his smell gave him away?” she asked, chuckling.

  “No. I didn’t want him to mention it to anybody when he went to jail. No need to give criminals a heads-up about something like that.”

  “Native Americans are great trackers,” she commented.

  He glowered down at her. “Anybody can be a good tracker. It comes from training, not ancestry.”

  “Well, aren’t you touchy,” she exclaimed.

  He averted his eyes. He shrugged. “Banes has been at it again.”

  “You should assign him to school crossings. He hates that,” she advised.

  “No, he doesn’t. His new girlfriend is a widow. She’s got a little boy, and Banes has suddenly become his hero. He’d love to work the school crossing.”

  “Still, you could find some unpleasant duty to assign him. Didn’t he say once that he hates being on traffic detail at ball games?”

  He brightened. “You know, he did say that.”

  “See? An opportunity presents itself.” She frowned. “Why are we looking for ways to punish him this time?”

  “He brought in a new book on the Little Bighorn Battle and showed me where it said Crazy Horse wasn’t in the fighting.”

  She gave him a droll look. “Oh, sure.”

  He grimaced. “Every so often, some writer who never saw a real Native American gets a bunch of hearsay evidence together and writes a book about how he’s the only one who knows the true story of some famous battle. This guy also said that Custer was nuts and had a hand in the post trader scandal where traders were cheating the Sioux and Cheyenne.”

  “Nobody who reads extensively about Custer would believe he had a hand in something so dishonest,” she scoffed. “He went to court and testified against President Ulysses S. Grant’s own brother in that corruption trial, as I recall. Why would he take such a risk if he was personally involved in it?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” he said, “and I told Banes so.”

  “What did Banes say to that?”

  “He quoted the author’s extensive background in military history.”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “Yes? What sort of background?”

  “He’s an expert in the Napoleonic Wars.”

  “Great! What does that have to do with the campaign on the Greasy Grass?” she asked, which referred to the Lakota name for the battle.

  “Not a damned thing,” he muttered. “You can be brilliant in your own field of study, but it’s another thing to do your research from a standing start and come to all the wrong conclusions. Banes said the guy used period newspapers and magazines for part of his research.”

  “The Lakota and Cheyenne, as I recall, didn’t write about current events,” she mused.

  He chuckled. “No, they didn’t have newspaper reporters back then. So it was all from the cavalry’s point of view, or that of politicians. History is the story of mankind written by the victors.”

  “Truly.”

  He smiled. “You’re pretty good on local history.”

  “That’s because I’m related to people who helped make it.”

  “Me, too.” He cocked his head. “I ought to take you down to Hardin and walk the battlefield with you sometime,” he said.

  Her eyes lit up. “I’d love that.”

  “So would I.”

  “There’s a trading post,” she recalled.

  “They have some beautiful things there.”

  “Made by local talent,” she agreed. She sighed. “I get so tired of so-called Native American art made in China. Nothing against the Chinese. I mean, they have aboriginal peoples, too. But if you’re going to sell things that are supposed to be made by tribes in this country, why import them?”

  “Beats me. Ask somebody better informed.”

  “You’re a police chief,” she pointed out. “There isn’t supposed to be anybody better informed.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  She curtsied.

  He frowned. “Don’t you own a dress?”

  “Sure. It’s in my closet.” She pursed her lips. “I wore it to graduation.”

  “Spare me!”

  “I guess I could buy a new one.”

  “I guess you could. I mean, if we’re courting, it will look funny if you don’t wear a dress.”

  “Why?”

  He blinked. “You going to get married in blue jeans?”

  “For the last time, I am not going to marry you.”

  He took off his wide-brimmed hat and laid it on the hall table. “We can argue about that later. Right now, we need to eat some of that nice, warm, fresh bread before it gets cold and butter won’t melt on it. Shouldn’t we?” he added with a grin.

  She laughed. “I guess we should.”

  Two

  The bread was as delicious as he’d imagined it would be. He closed his eyes, savoring the taste.

  “You could cook, if you’d just try,” she said.

  “Not really. I can’t measure stuff properly.”

  “I could teach you.”

  “Why do I need to learn how, when you do it so well already?” he asked reasonably.

  “You live alone,” she began.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not for long.”

  “For the tenth time today…”

  “The California guy was in town today,” he said grimly. “He came by the office to see me.”

  “He did?” She felt apprehensive.

  He nodded as he bit into another slice of buttered bread with perfect white teeth. “He’s already approached contractors for bids to build his housing project.” He bit the words off as he was biting the bread.

  “Oh.”

  Jet-black eyes pierced hers. “I told him about the clause in the will.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he’d heard you wouldn’t marry me.” She grimaced.

  “He was strutting around town like a tom turkey,” he added. He finished the bread and sipped coffee. His eyes closed as he savored it. “You make great coffee, Jake!” he exclaimed. “Most people wave the coffee over water. You could stand up a spoon in this.”

  “I like it strong, too,” she agreed. She studied his hard, lean face. “I guess you live on it when you have cases that keep you out all night tracking. There have been two or three of those this month alone.”

  He nodded. “Our winter festival brings in people from all over the country. Some of them see the mining company’s bankroll as a prime target
.”

  “Not to mention the skeet-and-trap-shooting regional championships,” she said. “I’ve heard that thieves actually follow the shooters around and get license plate numbers of cars whose owners have the expensive guns.”

  “They’re targets, all right.”

  “Why would somebody pay five figures for a gun?” she wondered out loud.

  He laughed. “You don’t shoot in competition, so it’s no use trying to explain it to you.”

  “You compete,” she pointed out. “You don’t have a gun that expensive and you’re a triple-A shooter.”

  He shrugged. “It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to have one. But unless I take up bank robbing, I’m not likely to be able to afford one, either. The best I can do is borrow one for the big competitions.”

  Her eyes popped. “You know somebody who’ll loan you a fifty-thousand-dollar shotgun?”

  He laughed. “Well, actually, yes, I do. He’s police chief of a small town down in Texas. He used to do shotgun competitions when he was younger, and he still has the hardware.”

  “And he loans you the gun.”

  “He isn’t attached to it, like some owners are. Although, you’d never get him to loan his sniper kit,” he chuckled.

  “Excuse me?”

  He leaned toward her. “He was a covert assassin in his shady past.”

  “Really?” She was excited by the news.

  He frowned. “What do women find so fascinating about men who shoot people?”

  She blinked. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  She hesitated, trying to put it into words. “Men who have been in battles have tested themselves in a way most people never have to,” she began slowly. “They learn their own natures. They…I can’t exactly express it…”

  “They learn what they’re made of, right where they live and breathe,” he commented. “Under fire, you’re always afraid. But you harness the fear and use it, attack when you’d rather run. You learn the meaning of courage. It isn’t the absence of fear. It’s fear management, at its best. You do your duty.”

  “Nicely said, Chief Graves,” she said admiringly, and grinned.

  “Well, I know a thing or two about being shot at,” he reminded her. “I was in the first wave in the second incursion in the Middle East. Then I became a police officer and then a police chief.”