"Big one?" Janna asked, looking at the men surrounding her. "Are you implying that one of you is small?"
One of the riders tipped back his head and laughed, reminding her of Ty.
"The laughing hyena is Duncan," Logan said. "The dark-eyed, mean-looking one on the chestnut horse is Blue Wolf."
"Pleased to meet you, Janna Wayland," Blue Wolf said in educated tones, and his smile refuted the very idea of "mean." He tipped his hat to her and went back to scanning the countryside for danger.
"The quiet one is Case. He's the baby of the family."
Case nodded slightly to Janna. A single look at his pale green eyes told her that Case might have been the youngest in years but not in harsh experience. There was a darkness in him that transcended words. A wave of overwhelming sadness and compassion whirled up in Janna as she looked at Ty's youngest brother.
"Hello, Case," she said softly, as though she were talking to an untamed mustang.
Ty heard the emotion in Janna's words, smiled rather grimly to himself and said in a voice too low to carry to Case, "Save your sweetness for something that appreciates it, sugar. Except for blood family, Case has all the feelings of a stone cliff."
"Why?"
"The war."
"You went to war, too."
Logan looked over at Janna. "All the MacKenzie men fought," he said. "Case is the only one who won't talk about it. Not one word. Ever. Not even with Duncan, who fought at his side most of the time. Duncan doesn't talk much, either, but it's different somehow. He still laughs. Case doesn't." Logan shook his head. "Damned shame, too. Case used to have the most wonderful laugh. People would hear him and stop and stare and then smile, and pretty soon they'd be laughing, too. No one could resist Case. He had a smile like a fallen angel."
The clear regret on Logan's face changed Janna's opinion of him once more; despite his hard exterior, Logan was a man who cared deeply for his family. Rather wistfully, Janna wondered what it would have been like to grow up with that kind of warmth surrounding her. Her father had loved her, but in a rather distracted way, never really stopping to discover his daughter's needs and yearnings, always pursuing his own dreams and never asking about hers.
"What a sad smile," Logan said. "Is your family back there?"
"Where?"
"In Cascabel's territory."
"Not unless you could call Mad Jack family," Janna said. "Besides, he ran off rather than hang around and be dragged to the fort. He knew how mad we would be about the gold."
"Gold?" Logan asked, looking at Ty.
"More than a hundred pounds of it."
Logan whistled. "What happened?"
"He gave us half and we promised to take half to his kids."
"Where did you leave it?"
"We didn't," Janna said. "It's in those saddlebags in front of Ty."
Ty and Logan exchanged a look.
"It was too much for Lucifer to carry," Ty said. "I cut it loose."
Janna stiffened. "But that was how you were going to buy your silken la-"
"One more word, Janna Wayland," Ty interrupted savagely, "and I'm going to hand you over to that scalp-hunting renegade myself!" He took a deep breath and struggled to leash his volatile temper. "Anyway, the gold isn't lost. Soon as I'm sure that Lucifer didn't hurt himself on that run, I'm going back for the saddlebags."
Janna wasn't surprised that Ty would risk his life looking for the gold once more, but she yearned to be able to talk him out of it. Hopefully she looked over at Logan. His smile didn't comfort her-it fulfilled the sardonic promise she had first noticed in the line of his mouth.
"So Janna isn't your silken lady after all?" Logan asked Ty. "Damned white of you to save her hide anyway at the cost of all that gold."
The cold, needling edge to Logan's tone didn't escape Ty. Nor did the censure in Logan's eyes, for he had realized that Ty was Janna's lover the first time Ty had called her sugar in a soft, concerned voice.
"Drop it," Ty said flatly.
Logan's smile changed indefinably, becoming almost sympathetic as he realized Ty's dilemma. For years Ty had been pursued by the finest that southern and northern society had to offer; he had turned everyone down in his own pursuit of a dream of the perfect silken lady. Now he found himself hopelessly ensnarled with a wild, gray-eyed waif whose voice could set fire to stone.
Logan leaned over and cuffed Ty's shoulder with rough affection. "Forget the gold, little brother. I'll turn Silver loose on your uncurried mustang lady. In a few weeks you'll never know she wasn't paddock born and raised."
Janna turned her face away, trying to conceal the red tide that climbed up her face as she thought of the unbridgeable gap between silk purses and sows ears. Eyes closed, she held on to Ty, saying goodbye to him in silence, for she knew with bittersweet certainty that he would go after the gold…and she would walk away from the MacKenzies and never look back, freeing Ty to pursue his dream.
"You planning on taking her to Wyoming?" Case asked. Like his eyes, his voice was cool, passionless. He had been watching Janna with measuring intelligence.
Ty turned and glared at Case. "Yes. You have any objections?"
"Not a one."
Ty waited.
"She doesn't want to go," Case added matter-of-factly.
"She'll go just the same."
"Is she carrying MacKenzie blood in her womb?"
If anyone else had asked that question, Ty would have beaten him into the ground. But Case wasn't anyone else. Because Case had destroyed or walled off all emotion within himself, he didn't concede its presence in anyone else.
"She could be carrying my child," Ty said tightly.
"Then she'll be in Wyoming when you get there."
With no warning Case bent over, plucked Janna from Lucifer's back and put her across his saddle.
"Ty!"
"It's all right. Case will take good care of you." Ty smiled oddly. "Don't try running from him, sugar. He's the best hunter of all of us."
Chapter Forty-Four
"They must have magic mirrors in Wyoming," Janna said, looking in disbelief at her own reflection. "That can't be me."
Silver MacKenzie smiled, touched up the dusting of rouge on Janna's cheeks and stepped back to view the results. "It's amazing what three weeks of regular food and sleep can do for a body, isn't it?"
"More like four," Janna said.
Silver's ice-blue eyes closed for an instant as she composed herself; the thought of losing Logan made her heart freeze.
"I'm sure the men are all right," Silver said firmly. "It must have been harder to find the gold than they thought, that's all. Perhaps Ty couldn't remember precisely where he cut the saddlebags loose. You left rather in a rush, from what Case said."
Janna smiled wanly. "You could say that. At least, Ty was in a rush to get away."
"Speaking of getting away…" Silver began, changing the subject eagerly.
A flush crawled up Janna's cheeks as she remembered the night after she had arrived in Wyoming. Case had dropped her rather unceremoniously at the doorstep, told Silver that Janna had come to be combed and curried like a paddock horse for Ty and that she might be carrying Ty's child. Silver had been sympathetic, Cassie had been angelic, and Janna had gone out the second-story window the first time everyone's back was turned.
The next morning a very tight-lipped Case had brought Janna back, set her on the doorstep and told her that she could give her word not to run until Ty came back or she could spend the time waiting for him trussed hand and foot like a chicken going to market.
"… now you know why men like their women dressed in yards of silk," Silver finished. She blew a wisp of moon-pale hair away from her lips as she bent and adjusted the voluminous skirt of Janna's cream silk ball gown.