Amelia by Diana Palmer

bite her tongue not to say anything. "She will be a match for you," she said finally.
    "Indeed she will. She has spirit, and she is fearless. "
    "She is also cold-hearted and an utter… witch!" she added fiercely. "And you are blind."
    She turned and walked back to the other side of the room to renew an acquaintance with some of the other women present.
    King glared after her. He wasn't about to be swayed by his mother. Perhaps she liked that docility that clung to Amelia. He did not. In fact, it infuriated him. So did the look of her, radiant in Ted's arms, laughing up at him as she danced.
    A picture of her in a green gingham dress, dancing under the mesquite trees with a bouquet of wildflowers, flashed unwelcome into his mind. Amelia, her blond hair flying in the wind, her brown eyes laughing, as they were now…
    His hand contracted in his pocket, and he felt his anger grow as he watched the way Ted handled her. She should not allow such familiarity to a man whom she had only met, he told himself. She was silly and stupid to let his flattery affect her so!
    He almost walked over and took her away from the other man. It was an impulse so unlike him that he deliberately turned away from the temptation and went back to dance with Darcy.
    She walked out onto the shadowed end of the moonlit porch with him, noticing his preoccupation.
    "What troubles you, King?" she asked.
    "Roundup," he muttered. He lit a cigar without asking her permission and hooked his boot on the lower rail of the porch to smoke it.
    "I hate the taste of cigars," she said haughtily.
    He glanced down at her with an amused smile. "Shouldn't I kiss you, then?" he chided.
    She moved closer, almost purring. "If you like."
    He threw the cigar down with little appreciation for its age and cost and drew Darcy roughly against him. He noticed the flicker of her eyelids and her fixed smile, and he wanted to curse her. Darcy pretended to be enslaved by him, but her distaste of intimacy with him was all too visible. Darcy's people had been well-to-do, but that was no longer the case. Darcy liked high living, and with her father facing bankruptcy, King was her best bet. How he hated knowing that she barely tolerated his embraces for the security marriage to him would offer!
    He kissed her roughly and felt her hands go against his chest, pushing, almost at once.
    "King!" she laughed, drawing back. "How impetuous! We aren't even engaged," she added suggestively.
    He let her go and calmly lit another cigar. She wasn't the first woman who suffered him for gain. He could only remember one woman in his life who'd welcomed him in intimacy. But she'd only been hoping to marry him for his fortune. When she thought he was at risk of losing it, she'd run away with a tinker. Ironically, the two of them had been killed by a band of renegades led by a Mexican devil who made a habit of raiding up into Texas. The Rangers were after him even now, although he was like a will-o'-the-wisp to catch. One day, he promised himself, he'd see Rodriguez swing from a rope or stand in front of a firing squad. He was sure that Alice would have come back to him, that she had truly loved him. She had panicked at the thought of being poor, that was all. She would have married him. But Rodriguez had killed her before she could see her mistake in running away. Alice had welcomed him into her bed time and time again, and he still woke sweating, remembering her quicksilver response. He had mourned her deeply, just after her death. But over the years, the sting had faded somewhat. Not that he forgave Rodriguez. Oh, no.
    He smoked his cigar quietly, lost in his thoughts, and decided that Darcy's reluctance didn't affect him. Perhaps if he had cared about her as he had cared about Alice it would have.
    Â 
    Quinn Howard had settled himself down for the night in a small canyon of the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico. He had a smokeless fire and over it he was roasting a rabbit. The critter was mostly