In the kitchen, she made fresh coffee and offered Reeve a meal. He accepted the former and declined the latter, saying that he’d eaten at the hotel in town.

“I’m sorry,” Bliss said once she’d completed her duties as hostess and joined Peony and Reeve at the table. “Jamie’s in the hills somewhere, with his sheep, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Reeve grinned, showing teeth as white and straight as Jamie’s. “And ’imself leavin’ a new bride all alone,” he said, his brogue growing more intense by the moment. “It appears ’e needs a talkin’ to, that little brother of mine.”

“He usually does,” replied Bliss, with a smile, and Reeve laughed.

“So that’s the way of it, then,” he said.

“You must forgive Bliss,” Peony said with a pointed look at the mistress of the house. “She thought you were a hooligan.”

Reeve rubbed the back of his head and winced. “Seems like she’d be equal to any no-gooder that might ’appen along,” he observed.

Bliss glared at Peony, but abstained from commenting on the fact that it was better to be safe than sorry. She was smiling warmly again when she turned her attention back to her brother-in-law. “Jamie tells me that you have a wife and two children.”

Reeve looked baffled for a moment, as though he’d misplaced his family and couldn’t think where. “Oh yes,” he finally said. “There’s Maggie—that’s me wife—and Elisabeth and J.J.”

Just then, there was a scratching sound and a plaintive whine at the door. Bliss recognized Dog’s plea for admission instantly and crossed the room to let him back inside the house. “You’re no watchdog,” she said, patting the animal’s head, “but I love you.”

Dog wasn’t supposed to eat in the house, but Bliss was in the mood to flaunt Jamie’s rules. She gave him a generous helping of the potato hash.

“He wanted to make sure Peony and I were all right,” Bliss explained, giving Dog the benefit of the doubt, when she turned and found Reeve and Peony looking at her.

“Aye?” Reeve countered. “And what was ’e to do if you weren’t?”

Bliss remembered the day Dog had saved Jamie—and probably her as well—from Bert Dunnigan and his men, along that isolated road leading away from the inn. “You’d be surprised what Dog can do, if there’s real danger to contend with,” she said, watching fondly as the creature ate.

At least there was someone in that house who liked her cooking.

Dog wandered into camp, exhausted, just after sunrise the next morning. Someone had made a makeshift collar of braided rags and tied a rolled piece of paper to it with a bit of string.

“He looks terrible, don’t he?” Cutter asked, frowning, as Dog nuzzled him and then went to Jamie.

Jamie drew the paper free, a mingling of alarm and amusement spinning in the pit of his stomach. “Bliss probably forced ’er cookin’ on the poor bastard,” he said, to hide his fear.