“Well, then. There’s your answer. He probably thinks Jack’s with me. I don’t expect he ever heard that Jack took a bullet eight days out of prison. No reason that he should have, seeing as how Morgan was out three years earlier. He’s got the good sense to know by now we aren’t just any rustlers, and after you boys roughed up one of his men the other night, I figure he has an idea that we number about five or six. Better he thinks that than realize there’s only four.”
“How’s that?” Marcie asked cautiously, knuckling his scar.
“It’ll make him cautious, sure, but when we show up at his house, he’ll think we have more men watching. Gives us an advantage.”
“Then we’re going in,” said Dix. “Don’t mind sayin’ it’ll be a fine thing to get out of this cold.”
Gideon chuckled. “Your balls about the size of raisins, Dix? That’s not going to change tonight. Not tomorrow either. I’m of a mind to lie low, stay off Morning Star land for a spell. The snow will make us too easy to track, and it can’t hurt for Morgan to wonder what’s become of us.”
“So we’re goin’ to hole up in the hills,” said Dix.
“For a time,” said Gideon, “then we’re going to Rawlins. Get rooms. Get women. Get warm. And we’ll come back when Morgan thinks we won’t. Now that I know where he is, I can see that he’s not going anywhere. I don’t mind saying that there’s sweetness in the anticipation of talking to him again. I know it’s not the same for you, but you haven’t gone wrong by trusting me so far. You got a look around town the other night, got a feel for the layout. Morgan’s got a fine hand with a safe, and I’m thinking there’s one in the Cattlemen’s Trust that he could crack like an eggshell. He owes me, and he knows it.”
Gideon’s gaze made the circle again. “You’re going to benefit from that, gentlemen. Just see if you don’t.”
Morgan was met with the straw end of Jane’s new broom as soon as he opened the back door. Snow swirled in eddies around him. He shivered in spite of a turned-up collar and a woolen scarf that covered the lower half of his face.
“Stamp your feet,” Jane told him. “Hard. Don’t track snow on my clean floor.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Behind his scarf he was grinning. Only four weeks had passed since the first snowfall, and Jane’s view of winter’s white blanket had changed somewhat. She still enjoyed it from behind a windowpane, but she had no appreciation for it when it came in on a pair of boots. Morgan dutifully stamped his feet.
Jane looked him over before she raised her broom like a tollgate and let him pass. “I thought you were going to ride out with Max. Did something happen?”
“No.” He unwound his scarf but let the tails hang over his shoulders. “Max said he could handle it. Truth is, sometimes he just likes his own company. Jem, Jake, and Jessop are fanning out past Settler’s Ridge to make sure the cattle have water.” He took the broom from her hands. “Come outside with me.”
“Morgan, I am in the middle of baking bread.”
He glanced at the green-and-white striped towel covering a bowl on the table. The towel was still noticeably concave. “Dough hasn’t started to rise. Come on. I want to show you something.”
Jane did not offer a second objection. Even though there had been no sign of the rustlers in weeks, it was not often that Morgan invited her outside. She had resumed some chores that took her past the lip of the back porch and into the weather, but she rarely went as far as the barn, especially if she was unaccompanied.
Morgan waited in the kitchen while Jane collected her coat, gloves, and scarf. There was a pair of black leather riding boots secreted away in the barn loft that he intended to give her for Christmas. It was tempting to present them to her early when he saw what she was wearing on her feet. The dainty calf boots with the pointed patent toes were good for digging up dandelions, he supposed, but not much else. They looked pretty enough, though, and that was as good a reason to wear them as any.
He took the red woolen scarf from her hand and wound it over her dark hair and loosely around her throat. A few wayward strands of hair required tucking under the scarf, and her mouth required kissing before he covered it. She used the pointed patent caps on her shoes to gently prod him.
When they stepped outside, Morgan took her gloved hand in his. They walked that way to the barn. He only dropped her hand when they reached Sophie’s stall.
“She’s saddled,” said Jane. “When did you—” She put up the flat of her hand for Sophie to nuzzle and spoke to the mare. “He gentled you after all, didn’t he? Sweet Sophie. How pretty you are. Have you let him on your back?” She looked askance at Morgan. “Where are the apples?”
Morgan got one for her and cut it into quarters that he gave to Jane one at a time.
Jane laughed as Sophie took each slice from her palm with the refined manners of a New York debutante. “She’s so polite, Morgan. Is that your doing?”
“She’s showing off for you. She snorts and roots like a piglet when I put something in front of her.”
“Well, I think she is a lady.”
“Good. She’s your lady.”
“Have you—” Jane turned her head sharply to look at Morgan, and Sophie used that moment’s inattention to butt her temple. Jane pushed Sophie’s nose back. “My lady? What does that mean?”
“It means Sophie is yours.”
Jane stared at him. “Mine? Do you mean it?”
“Yes. She’s always been yours. Maybe that’s why you knew her name.”
Jane put her hands on Morgan’s shoulders, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him full on the mouth. “It still amuses you that I knew her name, but I don’t mind.” She kissed him again before she dropped back on her heels. “When will I be able to ride her?”
