Meade smiled reassuringly. “I last saw her six days ago, and she was fine when I left her. She’s understandably a little frightened and anxious to return home, but she was making a valiant attempt to keep her spirits high. I don’t believe she’s in any danger, if that’s your concern.”
“Are you certain of that, Major? Your military headquarters are in absolute chaos today, as though something dreadful had happened. Has there been another Apache outbreak?”
Meade chuckled. “As far as General Whitlock’s staff is concerned, something dreadful has happened, but it has nothing to do with the Apaches. At least not directly.”
Rayna couldn’t imagine anything that would be a subject for levity at a time like this, and she retracted her hands from his. “Then what is going on?”
“We learned today that the military departments of New Mexico and Arizona have been combined into the Department of the Border, and that new division has been placed under the control of General George Crook.”
“You mean General Whitlock has been stripped of command?”
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“Something like that,” Meade replied. “It is expected that Crook will make his command headquarters in Arizona, nearer to the heart of the Apache con-flict. No one knows for certain yet whether this office will be closed and everyone reassigned. Hence, the chaos you witnessed.”
Rayna couldn’t have cared less whether the insensitive officers she’d encountered were out of a job or not. Skylar was her only concern. “But will Whitlock have the authority to countermand his order and free my sister?”
Meade hadn’t considered that complication because he’d assumed Skylar’s problem had already been solved. “I don’t see why not,” he replied after a moment. “It was his order. He certainly has the power to remand it.”
Rayna turned her profile to him, wishing she had someone to vent her frustration on. “Damn him, why doesn’t he come back?”
“You may rest assured that he’s already en route, Miss Templeton. A telegram was sent to him early this morning at the Montezuma.”
Rayna whirled toward him. “The Montezuma? He’s taking the waters at a luxury spa? I thought he was bear hunting.”
“He hunted for only a few days, from what I gather,” Meade replied.
“Apparently his hunting party, which includes two senators and a European prince, got tired of roughing it in the mountains.”
“Damn him to hell. And damn all those bloody clerks who’ve been telling me they had no idea where he was!” Furious, Rayna pivoted toward the steps, hiked up her skirt, and was halfway up before Meade caught her.
“What are you going to do?” he demanded.
“I’m going to give those bastards a piece of my mind!”
“No, you are not,” Meade said sternly, taking her arm.
“Let go of me, Major! If Whitlock’s aide had told me where the general was staying, I could have ended this ordeal days ago! Skylar could be home now!”
She tugged at his grip, but Meade was unyielding. “Let go, damn you!”
“And what will that accomplish? If you storm in there and blast Lieutenant Bascomb, you’ll only alienate him—if you haven’t managed to do that already.
Now calm down and think this through rationally.”
Rayna stopped struggling and glared up at him, her jaw stiffened with rage. “I don’t need your advice, Major, nor do I appreciate your low opinion of me.”
“My opinion is neither here nor there,” Meade answered, dropping her arm as though he’d been scalded. “What counts is getting your sister back into the bosom of her family. Giving Bascomb a piece of your mind might be a great comfort to you, but it won’t help Skylar one iota. Bascomb is the keeper of the keys, so to speak. No one gets in to see the general without going through the lieutenant, and if you get Bascomb’s dander up, you’ll be twiddling your thumbs in Santa Fe well into the next century!” He took a step back 77
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from her. “Think that over, Miss Templeton, and then tell me you don’t need my advice.”
He turned on his heel and marched down the steps, leaving Rayna standing there, her cheeks flaming and her hands knotted into fists. He was right, of course. She needed Bascomb. Unfortunately Ashford was also right about her already having alienated the general’s aide. So far, she had been none too diplomatic in her handling of any of the officers she’d encountered.
Major Ashford, on the other hand, had been kind and courteous, despite his apparent dislike of her. The quiet moments they had spent in the courtyard at Rancho Verde had forged a kind of fragile truce between them, and Rayna realized she had just shattered it to pieces. He was the closest thing she had to a friend in the military, and it would be moronic to let him slip away.
Swallowing her pride, she hurried after him. “Major Ashford, wait!” she called, and added as an afterthought, “Please.”
It was the “please” that stopped him. He waited a moment, then turned, wondering what expression he would find in her beautiful eyes. Contrition?
Humility? Remorse?
Hardly. She was looking up at him with a mixture of defiance and defensive pride. This was a woman who didn’t back down from anything, even when she was wrong.
Meade raised his eyebrows questioningly, waiting. “Yes?”
Rayna took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said tersely. “You’re quite right.
Telling Bascomb to go to hell won’t do Skylar a bit of good.”
Meade sighed and shook his head in amazement. “How can any woman look as sweet as you do and be so accursedly unladylike? Didn’t your mother ever take a bar of soap to that foul mouth of yours?”
“I am not foul-mouthed,” she snapped, getting her back up again. “Any man could use the words I’ve used and be called hail-fellow-well-met.”
“Yes, but you’re not a man. Good Lord, it’s no wonder you’re long past the age when most young women are married and you still haven’t snared a husband. Who would want you?”
Rayna had suffered many insults in her life, but few as blatant as this.
“Why you bas—”
“I assure you, Miss Templeton, my parents were married. It wasn’t much of a union, but it was legal, so there’s no reason for you to question the circumstances of my birth.”
Rayna ground her teeth together to keep from spewing a string of invec-tive that would have turned the major’s sensitive ears blue. It was a very long moment before she finally had enough control to speak without her voice quavering too much. “Since you find me so offensive, Major, I’ll take my leave 78
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of you now. I wouldn’t want to tax your delicate sensibilities any more than I already have.”
She stalked off, and Meade watched her go, cursing himself and wondering what the blazes had come over him. He’d never been that rude to a woman in his life . . . but then, he’d never met anyone quite like Rayna Templeton, either. When he wasn’t fighting the urge to turn her over his knee, he was wrestling with the far more powerful desire to take her into his arms.
It took only a moment for him to realize that it wasn’t her he was disgusted with—it was himself. Rayna Templeton was too young and too headstrong for a man of Meade’s age and temperament who wanted nothing more from his life now than to lead a quiet existence as a gentleman rancher. Yet he was drawn to Rayna like a moth to a flame. It was outrageous and totally out of character for him. Passions were something he had always controlled easily, but it seemed that he’d finally met a woman who turned that restraint upside down.