Cash smiled thinly. "My mother didn't hatch any stupid chicks. I saw Nevada fight once. If I go poking around in that lion's den, it will be with a shotgun."
"But where is Nevada taking the map?" Mariah asked in a plaintive voice.
"I don't know," Luke admitted. "I do know you'll get it back in as good shape as it was when Nevada took it. Better, probably."
"Then you must know where he's taking it."
"No, but I can make an educated guess."
"Please do," Mariah said in exasperation.
Luke smiled. "I'd guess that map will end up in an FBI lab on the east coast. Or some other government agency's lab. Nevada wasn't always a cowboy." Luke stretched and yawned again, then looked at Mariah. "Did you get everything moved into the old house?"
"Yes."
"All unpacked?"
"Well, not quite."
"Why don't you go finish? I'll be along in a few minutes to make sure you have everything you need."
"Why do I feel like I'm being told to leave?"
"Because you are."
Mariah started to object before she remembered that Luke wanted to talk with Cash in private about going prospecting with her.
"I'm not six years old anymore," she said reasonably. "You can talk in front of me."
It was as though she hadn't spoken.
"Don't forget to close the bathroom window," Luke said, "unless you want a battle-scarred old tomcat sleeping on your bed."
Mariah looked at Cash. "Why do you let him insult you like that?"
There was a two-second hesitation before Cash laughed out loud, but the sudden blaze in his eyes made Mariah's heart beat faster.
Shaking his head, Luke said, "Good night, Muffin."
"Don't forget to bring my cookies and milk," she retorted sweetly, "or I'll cry myself to sleep."
Luke grabbed Mariah, hugged her and ruffled her hair as though she were six years old again. Laughing, she stood on tiptoe and returned the favor, then found herself suddenly blinking back tears.
"Thank you, Luke," she said.
"For what?"
"Not throwing me out on my ear when I turned up without warning."
"Don't be silly. This is your home."
"No," she whispered. "it's yours. But I'm grateful to share it for a while."
Before Luke could say anything else, she kissed his cheek and walked quickly from the dining room. Cash stood and watched the outer door for a long, silent moment, admiring the perfection with which Mariah played the role of vulnerable child-woman. She was very good. Even better than Linda had been, and Linda had fooled him completely. Of course, Linda had had a real advantage. She had told him something he would have sold his soul to believe – that she was carrying his child.
What he hadn't known until too late was that Linda had been sleeping with another man. That was another thing women were good at – making each man feel like he was the only one.
"You don't have to worry about Nevada," Luke said calmly.
Startled, Cash turned toward his friend. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, he's a handsome son, but it's you Mariah keeps looking at." Deadpan, Luke added, "Which proves that there's no accounting for taste."
"Despite the beard, Nevada isn't a prospector," Cash pointed out coolly, "and the lady's heart is obviously set on gold."
"The lady was looking at you before she knew you were a prospector. And you were looking at her, period."
Cash's eyes narrowed into gleaming slits of blue. Before he could say anything, Luke was talking again.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, it puts a man between a rock and a hard place when he wants his best friend's little sister. Hell, I ought to know. I spent a lot of years wanting Carla."
"Not as many as she spent wanting you."
Luke smiled crookedly. "So I was a prize fool. If it weren't for her matchmaking older brother, I'd still be waking up alone in the middle of the night."
"Is that what you're doing now? Matchmaking? Is that why you want me to go prospecting with Mariah? You figure we'll find something more valuable and permanent than gold?"
Wincing at Cash's sardonic tone, Luke raked his fingers through his hair as he said, "The area around Devil's Peak is damned wild country."
Cash looked at the ceiling.
"I can't let her go alone," Luke continued.
Cash looked at his hands.
"I can't take her myself."
Cash looked at the floor.
"I need every cowhand I've got, and five more besides."
Cash looked at the table.
Luke swore. "Forget it. I'll get Nevada to-"
"Hell," Cash interrupted fiercely, angered by the thought of throwing Mariah and Nevada together in the vast, lonely reaches of the Rocking M's high country. Cash pinned Luke with a black look. "All right, I'll do it. But I'm usually gone for weeks at a time. Have you thought about that?"
"Mariah said she was a camper. Besides, there's always the Black Springs line shack."
"Damn it, that's not what I mean and you know it! Your sister is one very sexy female."
Luke cocked his head to one side. "Interesting."
A snarl was Cash's only answer.
"No, I mean it," Luke continued. "Not that I think Mariah is a dog, but sexy wouldn't be the word I'd use to describe her. Striking, maybe, with those big golden eyes and lovely smile. Warm. Quick. But not sexy."
"I wouldn't describe Carla as sexy, either."
"Then you're blind."
"No. I'm her brother."
"Point taken," Luke said, grinning.
There was silence, then Cash spoke in a painfully reasonable tone of voice. "Look. It takes half a day just to get to the Black Springs line shack by horseback. From there, it's a hard scramble up boulder-choked creeks and steep canyons. There's no way we can duck in, poke around for a few hours, and duck out. We'll be spending a lot of nights alone."
"I trust you."
"Then you are a damned fool," Cash said, spacing each word carefully.
"You trusted me in the wilds of September Canyon with Carla," Luke pointed out.
"Yeah. Think about it. Carla ended up pregnant and alone."
Luke grimaced. "You're not as big a fool as I was."
"Damn it-"
"Mariah is twenty-two," Luke continued over Cash's words, "college educated, a consenting adult in every sense of the word. I trust you in exactly the same way you trusted me, and for the same reason. You may be hardheaded as hell and not trust women worth a damn, but you would never touch a girl unless she wanted you to. Mariah will never be safer in that way than when she is with you. Beyond that, whatever happens or doesn't happen between the two of you is none of my business."
For a minute there was no sound in the dining room. Cash stood motionless, his hands jammed in his back pockets, his mind racing as he assessed the situation and the man he loved more than most men loved their blood brothers. In the end, there was only one possible conclusion: Luke meant every word he had said.
Well, at least I won't have to worry about getting Mariah pregnant the way Luke did Carla.
But Cash's bitterly ironic thought remained unspoken. It wasn't the sort of thing a man talked about.
"I'll hold you to that," Cash said finally.
Luke nodded, then smiled widely and gave Cash an affectionate whack on his shoulder. "Thanks for getting me off the hook. I owe you one."
"Like hell. I spend more time here than I do in my apartment in Boulder."
"So move here. You can build at the other end of the big pasture, just across the stream from Ten and Diana. Plenty of space."
"One of these days you're going to say that and I'm going to take you up on it."
"Why do you think I keep saying it?" Luke stretched and yawned. "Damn, I wish Carla were home. I never sleep as well when she's gone."