The name meant nothing.
Until Ayasha continued.
“Rourke wanted the river.”
Maverick frowned.
“Why?”
“Because whoever controls this river controls every ranch south of the canyon.”
She stood and walked toward him.
“Your father discovered Rourke was changing survey markers and filing false claims.
He intended to take the valley, then charge ranchers for access to the water.”
Maverick stared.
“My father?”
“Tried to stop him.”
The room tilted.
Maverick caught the edge of the table.
“My father died after being kicked by a horse.”
Ayasha’s expression softened.
“No, Maverick.”
He looked at her.
“He was murdered.”
The world Maverick had known lasted exactly twenty-eight years.
Then, in one sentence, it vanished.
His father had not died in a stable accident.
According to Ayasha, Elias Cole had discovered fraudulent surveys showing the valley as abandoned territory.
He gathered copies.
He hid records.
And shortly before he intended to deliver them to a territorial judge, he disappeared.
His body was returned three days later.
A ranch manager told Maverick’s mother that Elias had been kicked by a horse.
She had believed him.
So had Maverick.
“Where is the proof?”
Maverick demanded.
“Some of it is here.”
“Some?”
“The rest disappeared with your father.”
“So you brought me across the desert because you think I know where it is?”
“We hoped you might.”
“I don’t.”
Ayasha lowered her gaze.
Maverick laughed bitterly.
“And when I couldn’t help, what then?
You hand me a wife so I stay interested?”
Her head snapped up.
“My father did not hand me to you.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
“No.”
“You stood beneath a veil while he offered me acreage.”
Ayasha’s face hardened.
“And I agreed to stand there.”
“Why?”
“Because I was the one who suggested the marriage.”
Maverick fell silent.
Ayasha stepped closer.
“You think you were the only person taking a risk?”
Her voice trembled now.
Not with fear.
With anger.
“I knew your name.
I knew who your father had been.
I knew you had spent five years looking for land because I had people asking questions about you.”
Maverick stared.
“You investigated me?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Nearly a year.”
“Good God.”
“I learned where you worked.
How you treated hired hands.
Whether you drank.
Whether you struck women.
Whether you paid your debts.”
Maverick could only gape.
Ayasha continued.
“I learned that you once spent half your wages replacing a widow’s roof after a storm.”
“That was none of your business.”
“No.”
“I learned you returned a horse after discovering the seller had accidentally accepted thirty dollars less than the agreed price.”
Maverick rubbed his forehead.
“This keeps getting worse.”
“And I learned you wanted land badly enough that you might follow a map into a place you did not know.”
Understanding struck.
“The map.”
“Yes.”
“You baited me.”
“Yes.”
Maverick laughed despite his anger.
“You are terrifying.”
For the first time, Ayasha smiled fully.
One scar pulled the corner of her mouth slightly upward.
Maverick forgot what he had intended to say.
Her smile disappeared.
“I needed your signature.”
His heart hardened again.
“There it is.”
“Not to take your land.”
“To do what?”
“To challenge the fraudulent Cole claim.”
He stared.
“The claim is in your family’s name.”
“Yes.”
“Rourke filed it after your father died.
If ownership is ever enforced, it passes to you.”
Maverick’s mouth went dry.
The richest valley he had ever seen.
The river.
The grass.
The black soil.
Legally, part of it might already be his.
Ayasha watched his face.
