Asher hesitated for a moment, but, then, with a sigh, he put his foot in the stirrup. “We’ll settle this later,” he said, glancing back to the old man who was sitting atop Tynan’s horse and ready to leave.
Tynan, still holding Chris, stepped back. “Make sure you watch him night and day. Don’t give him a minute or he’ll take all you have and maybe your life with it.”
“Yeah,” Asher muttered and, with one quick look at Chris, reined his horse away. “Come on, old man,” he called over his shoulder and then was gone from sight.
Chris pushed away from Tynan. “Release me, you oaf!”
She turned to look at him, anger in her eyes. “What right do you think you have to tell me what to do? Just who do you think you are?”
Tynan looked completely confused, seemed to want to say something but, instead, turned on his heel and went up the hill toward the spring.
Chris stood there for a moment, glaring after him, before she went to Pilar.
“I thought there was going to be a fight there for a moment,” Pilar said as Chris handed her a full canteen.
“I’d like to take a club to his head,” Chris said. “He doesn’t want me but then he hits anyone else who does want me.”
Pilar leaned back against the hay as Chris began unbandaging her shoulder. “Oh, he wants you all right. He wants you badly.”
“And I know exactly how he wants me.” Pilar smiled. “I’ve never seen him like this. Even that time with that rancher’s daughter, he wasn’t like this. We all hoped then that he was going to settle down, but it didn’t work out.”
“Was that when he ended up in prison?”
“Red tell you about it?”
“Most of it. Pilar, how do you know Tynan? Why were you living with him at Owen Hamilton’s?”
“He saved my husband’s life.”
Chris stopped cleaning Pilar’s wound. “Your husband?”
“I used to work with Red when I was younger. Tynan was there, the prettiest, sweetest little boy you ever met, and we all adored him. After the old man took him away when he was six, I hardly ever saw him again. And when I did see him, I’d see that he’d grown harder. He’d seen a lot in his short life and it’d made him cynical. But by then I’d married a rancher and we had a couple of kids of our own and I wanted to forget where I’d known Ty.”
“Children?” Chris whispered.
Pilar smiled. “Two little boys. They’re nine and seven now.” She paused a moment. “One day I was in town and I saw Tynan on the street. He grinned at me and started toward me, and all I could think of was that he was going to let the ‘good’ townspeople know where I came from and they were going to see that I wasn’t the respectable rancher’s wife they thought I was. I hate to say it, but I ducked into a store and acted as if I didn’t know him. Ty was the perfect gentleman and two days later when I ran into him again, he acted as if he’d never seen me before in his life.”
“So how did he save your husband’s life?”
“I don’t like what I did then. I wouldn’t speak to Ty on the street but a week later, when my husband was being threatened by a big rancher trying to drive us off our little place, I didn’t hesitate to ask Ty for help—and Tynan didn?
?t hesitate to come to my aid.”
“But later, when he asked you to help him get into Hamilton’s house, you agreed.”
“I didn’t even ask what he wanted. I just kissed my family good-bye and went with him. Jimmy didn’t ask what he wanted either, because he knew he could trust Ty.”
Chris’s hands paused in rebandaging Pilar’s shoulder. “Why did he want you to come and pretend to be his wife?”
Pilar smiled. “He wouldn’t say, wouldn’t answer me when I asked him. But one day, he muttered something about a curvy little blonde who was trying to tempt him out of his soul.”
“Hmph!” Chris said. “Some tempting I’ve done! I made the fatal error of liking him, just plain liking him. I liked the way he took on responsibility when he was leading us through the rain forest. And he helped me when I needed him.”
“And then he also happens to be the most beautiful man alive,” Pilar added.
“That had nothing to do with it. He was so quiet. With most men who are silent, I usually find that they just plain don’t have anything to say, but I thought that maybe Tynan did have something to say, but he was repressing it. I’m not sure what it was, but I was certainly drawn to him.”
“Was?” Pilar asked. “You aren’t any longer?”