Amelia by Diana Palmer Page A

skin and bones, but it would fill empty space. He was sick to death of hardtack and jerky.
    He settled back against his saddle with his rifle loaded and ready on the colorful but faded serape beside him. His blond hair was sweaty and full of dust from the day's hard ride, tracking the outlaw Rodriguez. The man had actually robbed a second bank while Quinn was trailing him, down in El Paso. He'd struck down a bank president and badly wounded a young employee. Quinn had doubled back, almost to the city, and then caught the trail back up into New Mexico again. He felt as if he were going in circles.
    As he chewed the tough, sinewy rabbit meat, he wished he had a good tracker with him. It wasn't his best skill. His expertise with a pistol and rifle was that. But he did well enough, he supposed.
    He hoped Amelia was all right. Their father drank too much these days, and he could be violent. Quinn had tried to find a way to get Amelia away from him, but it wasn't possible just yet. He slept in the Ranger barracks when he was in town, which wasn't often, and he was stationed at Alpine, not El Paso. It would take a better rank and a better posting before he could offer her any alternative.
    Poor Amelia. Her life had certainly been no bed of roses. Quinn grieved for her. Only he knew the agonies she suffered and the danger she faced. He had to do something soon, he determined. The drinking was worse, and so was its aftermath. One day Hartwell Howard would go too far. His blood pressure would shoot high enough to kill him during one of his outbursts, or he would hurt Amelia. Quinn knew that he could never live with a tragedy if he'd done nothing to try and prevent it. The problem of Amelia had to be solved, and soon. He wished he knew what had made his father change so drastically, and he decided that it was probably grief for the loss of his wife and two little sons.
    If only Amelia felt a tenderness for Alan Culhane, he decided. A marriage between them would be a good idea, and it would put Amelia under King's protection.
    King disliked her, but he wouldn't allow her to be harmed. King was always controlled, and he would never lay a brutal hand on her.
    Now there would have been a match. If Amelia had been her old self she would have been perfect for King. Quinn was sorry that she'd changed so.
    He laughed at his own folly in entertaining such thoughts of matchmaking. They were enemies, and it was better so. Better to let King cling to his misconceptions about Amelia and steer her toward Alan, who would be kind to her even if she never reached any great and passionate heights with him. He finished his rabbit, and without having solved the problem of Amelia, finally leaned back and drifted off to sleep to the crackle of the fire and the distant wailing of coyotes.
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    Amelia had seen King go out on the dark porch with Darcy, and something inside her grew small and withdrew. Nevertheless, she pretended gaiety, and Ted responded to her charm with every scrap of his.
    By the end of the evening, he had promised to call on her the moment her father was back and they were home again. He didn't realize how Amelia dreaded her father's return and the certainty of violence when they were back at the boardinghouse. The one point in her favor she reminded herself again was that it was a crowded boardinghouse at the moment, and her father was forced to be more circumspect than usual.
    But his job at the bank meant that soon they would be able to afford a small house, and that would place Amelia at his mercy as his pain and rage grew. And inevitably, soon, he would die…
    She was standing alone at the drawing room door while Ted went to get her a cup of punch, and her face and eyes registered the panic she felt.
    "Are you all right?" King asked suddenly.
    Shocked by his silent approach, she looked up with wide, wounded eyes and heard his breath catch at the vulnerability in her flushed face. Their eyes held, and Amelia felt new and shocking