A Man of His Word. Sarah M. Anderson

a threat or a promise.

      Four

      Dan sat in his truck, fighting the urge to head straight for the barn, saddle up Smokey and head for the valley. The expectation of bad days were the whole reason he’d driven himself and his horse up here from Texas. He wasn’t going to leave Smokey, his champion palomino stallion, at home—being around Cecil practically guaranteed he’d need to ride.

      A bad day at the office was always made better by taking Smokey out to check on the Armstrong oil derricks. Dan paid people to make sure the derricks ran properly, but there was something about getting his own hands dirty that made him feel like the company was all his. Usually, by the time he rode back in, whatever problem that had been bugging him had either ceased to be important or a solution had presented itself. Sometimes both.

      He could sure use a solution to his long list of current problems, starting with who’d fired on him. He had a feeling that if he camped out in that valley long enough, his Lakota princess would come back to the scene of the crime. He’d rather take his chances there than go in and see his uncle. Going in would mean reporting back, and reporting back would mean having to say something about Rosebud Donnelly, and saying something about Rosebud was… tricky.

      He couldn’t be sure, but damned if that woman hadn’t looked just like his Indian princess, minus the horse. She had the nerve to do it, too. The cold-eyed determination he’d seen when he called her on it told him she had nothing but ice water running through her veins. No doubt about it, that was the bearcat Cecil wanted dealt with. She was why Dan was here. Regular lawyers couldn’t budge her. He was supposed to woo her, for God’s sake, with all his “talking.” He was supposed to talk his way into her panties, compromise her position and report back.

      He was no lapdog.

      His princess. Somehow, he knew there was more to her than just that. Underneath all that cold determination, he’d seen something in her eyes, something that had spoken of a deep sorrow, a deep regret. Something that made him think that if she had taken that shot, she hadn’t shot to kill.

      He couldn’t be sure. But he had a hunch, and he hadn’t had one lead him astray in a long time.

      But what was he supposed to do with it? Make wild accusations—the kind Rosebud was making? What the hell was that about—”Men have died”? Cecil was an ass—that much he knew—but he wasn’t a killer. He didn’t need to be one—it was just a dam.

      Most every person has a reason, his mother’s voice whispered in his ear. If ever there was a situation where his mother’s sensibilities would come in handy, this was it. He turned his phone over in his hand, debating whether or not he should check in with Mom. On one hand, her opinion on these sorts of matters was worth its weight in oil. On the other hand, he’d have to tell her about the gunshot, and once he did that, she’d go all Mom on him, and she was plenty busy keeping the day-to-day operations going while he was up here dealing with the Cecil “situation.” She was the reason he had time to spend days taking notes with Rosebud. Nope. He couldn’t bring Mom in on this yet. He needed her focused on the meetings and deals he’d lined up before he left.

      Dan thought hard, trying to review the interview as his mother would. Rosebud Donnelly’s voice had cracked and Emily Mankiller had touched her, like a mother comforting her child. His first instinct—she’d lost someone, maybe a husband—had been true. Maybe Rosebud had taken a shot at him to make up for a different shot, a better shot. That had to be it.

      Did that even the score? Was she satisfied? No, he decided. A woman like that was never satisfied with just once. He smiled at the thought. But he didn’t think she was going to take another shot at him. He’d looked her in the eyes. Her mouth may have been lying, but he didn’t think her eyes were telling the same tale.

      No, they’d been saying something… different. He adjusted his jeans. Damn it all. He shouldn’t have gotten so close to her, so close to the way she smelled, to those beautiful eyes the shade of a doe’s fur in the early spring. He never should have touched her hair, one long swath of silk. He never should have shaken her hand.

      For that matter, he never should have come here.

      And now, he thought in resignation, he had to go in there.

      Time to get this over with. Dan grabbed his dead hat off the dash. He needed a new one, pronto. A man didn’t go without a hat where he was from.

      “Well?” Dan hadn’t even made it to the door of the dining room. He sighed. There was no avoiding his uncle. The whole house stunk of him.

      Dan was so busy mulling over the best way to handle telling Cecil about the situation that he didn’t see the man in the black leather jacket sitting in front of Cecil until he stood up. Another Lakota Indian? What was Cecil doing with someone who sure as hell looked like one of the very people suing Armstrong Holdings?

      “Dan Armstrong,” he said, making the first move. A fellow could tell a lot about a person by his handshake.

      “Shane Thrasher,” the stranger said. His grip started out rock-hard, but quickly went limp, like he was trying to hide something. Dan decided he didn’t like the man, an opinion reinforced by his uncle’s warm smile for Thrasher. Nope. Didn’t like him at all.

      “Thrasher is—what are you, again?” Cecil opened a lockbox Dan hadn’t seen before and pulled out a thick file. The box looked old—like the house. Definitely not something Cecil normally had in his office.

      “Half Crow,” Thrasher replied as he sat back down. He acted like he’d sat in that chair a lot.

      Hadn’t Emily Mankiller said something about the Crow tribe? Something about Custer and Little Bighorn and Greasy Grass? What Dan needed was an eighth-grade history book, but if he was remembering correctly, according to Ms. Mankiller, the Crow were the ones who worked with the whites against the Lakota.

      “That’s right. I can’t keep you all straight.” Dan winced at Cecil’s words, even though Thrasher didn’t blink. “Thrasher is my head of security. An inside man, if you will.”

      Head of security? Dan looked him over. More like gun for hire. The bulge at his side wasn’t hard to see. Maybe Rosebud Donnelly had taken a shot at Dan, maybe she hadn’t. Dan had a hunch that he needed to be more worried about Shane Thrasher than a beautiful, conflicted lawyer. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

      A muscle above Thrasher’s left eye twitched in response. It appeared the insincere feeling was mutual.

      Cecil was studying a thick file. “What did you think of that Donnelly woman?”

      “She’s trouble.” An honest assessment—but he couldn’t figure out if she was the good kind or the bad kind of trouble. More than likely, she was both.

      Thrasher snorted in a way that struck Dan as too familiar. Wielding a red pen, Cecil made a note in the file. “Think you can handle her?”

      For the first time in his life, Dan wasn’t sure if he could handle a woman. In the space of one afternoon, he’d been impressed by, furious with and turned on by Rosebud Donnelly. The combination was dangerous. “I invited her to dinner Saturday night.” Cecil’s eyebrows shot up. “She accepted,” he added. In the space of a second, he’d seen a crack in her ice-cold lawyer front. He had the feeling that keeping her on her toes was the only way to get through to her. That, and making sure she wasn’t armed. But he’d be damned if he’d bring up any of that in front of Thrasher.

      “That’s my boy.” Cecil’s grin was wide. He looked downright happy, in an evil sort of way. “What did I tell you, Thrasher?”

      “You were right,” Thrasher replied, the butt-kissing tone of his voice at odds with the way his face kept twitching.

      Dan had the sudden urge to punch that face. Instead, he dug his fingers into the chair’s armrest. “I thought it would help if she could see you as a person, not just an adversary.” Although, with that grin, Dan was