“Oh,” Chris said and looked down at her plate.
“Mr. Tynan,” Samuel said, “I have had some experience with wounds. May I take a look at your leg?”
Tynan looked surprised. “If you’ll look at Pilar first.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, smiling at Tynan.
“You know…” Chris began, looking from one man to the other.
“And what was that you wrote about Hugh Lanier? You accused that poor man of some of the worst crimes of this century,” Del yelled at her.
Chris gave her attention back to defending herself to her father.
Chapter Twenty-five
Chris couldn’t get away from her father for even a minute all that night. She wanted to talk to Tynan alone, but he seemed to always be busy. And then there was Asher. He obviously wanted to prove to Del that he’d done his duty and Chris was planning to marry him, because he was never two feet from Chris’s side. He kept saying things like, “Have another biscuit, Chris, I know how much you love them.” He made it seem as if they were on intimate terms.
Tynan, on the other hand, kept calling her Miss Mathison and tipping his hat to her in the most formal way.
“He treat you all right?” Del asked her when she was frowning at Ty’s back because he’d again acted as if he’d never met her before tonight.
“How’d you get him out of jail?”
Del Mathison gave a little snort. “I don’t plan to start telling you all my secrets. I got him out, that’s all you need to know. He tell you he was in jail?”
“I guessed it and he answered my questions. Who do you plan to tell your secrets to? The man you picked out for me to marry?”
“You have been asking a lot of questions. You and Prescott get along?”
“Well enough,” she answered. “He’s asked me to marry him, if that’s what you had planned.”
Del looked at her for a while. “It’s time you settled down and gave me some grandkids.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “That’s just what I want to do.”
They didn’t speak any more as they prepared for bed. Del went to the foreman of the small army of men he’d brought and set up watches all night. Chris, wrapped in a blanket, watched as her father stood in the moonlight and talked to Tynan for a few minutes.
“He seems like a sensible young man,” Samuel said from near her. “Del said he was in prison for murder.”
“Yes, but he didn’t kill the man—at least not the man he was imprisoned for killing, and, yes, he is the most competent of men.”
“You weren’t…frightened of him, of being alone with him?”
Chris turned to give the man a look of disbelief. “I’d trust Ty with my life, with the life of anyone I loved. He’s a good, kind, intelligent man who has never been given a chance in his life. Yet, in spite of that, he’s trustworthy and has the highest of ideals.” She stopped, feeling a bit embarrassed. “No,” she whispered, “I was never afraid of him.”
Samuel Dysan smiled at her in the darkness. “I see. Well, good night, Miss Mathison. I’ll see you in the morning.” He went away from her whistling.
The next day, Del woke the entire camp long before sun-up. Sleepily, Chris looked out of the covers and saw that Tynan was already loading a couple of the pack horses. She threw back the blanket and went to him.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling at him.
He didn’t look at her, but moved to the far side of the horse. She followed him.
“Go get the coffee ready,” he said under his breath. “We’ll need a few gallons of it.”
“Ty…” she began.
He turned on her. “Look, Chris, it’s over. You go back to your world and I go back to mine. You become the little rich girl and I’m the ex-convict. It’s over. Now, go get the coffee ready.”