“I heard him saying that he’d searched for years for Samuel Dysan.”
Sam and Del exchanged looks. “Oh yes, I see. And when did he tell you this?”
“I, ah…he didn’t really tell me, he, ah…”
Tynan stepped forward. “She hid in the bushes and listened.”
“It was for a good cause!” she snapped at him. “Lionel was—”
“Lionel?” Del said. “You mean you did something for that brat you sent to me? I turned that kid over my knee three times in one day.”
“You beat Lionel?” she gasped. “He’s just a little boy.”
“I should have taken my hand to you more often, but, no, I had a soft heart and thought that little girls were different. I’ll not make a mistake like that again. I mean to raise this boy right, so he has some sense and doesn’t go off to big cities and write stories that get him shot at. Do you have any idea how many people have said to me in the last few days, ‘Yeah, she was here, left three dead bodies behind her’?” He looked up at Tynan. “Between the two of you, there’re about a hundred fewer people in this world.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Chris said. “Tynan did what he had to do. He—”
“Except when I shot Rory Sayers,” Ty said in all seriousness.
She turned on him. “And what were you supposed to do? Stand there and let him shoot you? You saw the way all those people were egging you on, trying to make you do something exciting. There was nothing else you could do. You had to protect yourself.”
Suddenly, she stopped as she realized what she’d said. She’d told him she was wrong to have left him alone in jail but she’d thought that out logically. This time there was passion in her belief in him.
Tynan stood there looking at her for a moment, an angelic smile on his face, then he turned toward Del. “Sir, she only gets into trouble because she wants to right all the world’s wrongs. I think you’ve done a damn fine job of raising her. Now, would anybody like to eat?” He held out his arm. “Miss Mathison, may I escort you in to dinner?”
Chris felt a little weak-kneed as she took Ty’s arm. She’d never been around a man who didn’t cower in the presence of her father. Every other man did just what Asher was doing now: standing back and looking on quietly.
They joined the others—Del had brought about fifty men with him—and ate the first decent meal they’d had in days. Chris kept smiling at her father as he glowered at her as she tried to answer all his questions without telling the truth about the danger she’d been in. She didn’t want to upset him more than she had already. She never really lied but then she didn’t tell him all of it either.
“You went to Hamilton’s knowing that he’d had his cousin killed?”
“I wasn’t sure of that. I mean, it was an awful wagon accident. I’m sure the fall could have killed any number of people and all I wanted to do was help a little boy. Besides, I had the two big, strong men you sent to me to help me. What could possibly have gone wrong?” She didn’t dare meet the eyes of Tynan or Asher or Pilar.
Del leaned toward her. “What went wrong was Dysan. Do you have any idea what that man’s like?”
“Yes, I do,” she said softly. “Papa, do you think you should talk about him like that now?” She gave a pointed look toward Samuel Dysan.
Mr. Dysan put his plate down. “You can’t offend me. I know more than anyone what my grandnephew is like. I have had the misfortune of watching him grow up.”
Chris’s curiosity came to the surface. “Then why did he say he’d been searching for you for years? Didn’t he know where to find you?”
Del began to tell his daughter to mind her own business, but Chris kept her eyes on Samuel. The man was watching Tynan, looking at
him with such interest that Chris began to look from one man to the other. Samuel caught himself.
“I have never understood the workings of the boy’s mind,” Samuel said. “His mother married my nephew because she thought he was the heir to my holdings, and when she found out he wasn’t, she turned her son against me.”
“And who is your heir?”
“Christiana!” Del yelled at her. “I will not stand for your lack of manners.”
“I apologize, Mr. Dysan. It’s just the reporter in me. I thought there might be some doubt about who was your heir if the woman thought her husband was going to be.”
Samuel put his hand on Del’s arm. “It’s all right, I don’t mind the questions. I have a son but he disappeared at sea many years ago. Perhaps I’m a fool but I have always had hopes of finding him again. But, even if I never found him, I would never leave a penny to my grandnephew.”
“He seems to have enough money as it is.”
Samuel’s face turned hard. “Whatever he has, he has obtained by stealing, cheating, lying, killing.”