Someone hit her Ford Model T just behind the door. Her face flew forward and hit the wooden steering wheel.

Damn! My boss is going to love me for this one! Two automobile accidents in less than a year. Where was the justice?

"Are you all right, Miss?" A young woman with round fear-filled eyes and tear-covered cheeks leaned against the side of he car.

Before Meredith could answer, a large man in a dust-covered Stetson stepped up behind the woman. His craggy-looking face reflected anxiety but not gut-wrenching fear like his companion. A cowboy, Meredith thought. A real live cowboy.

"Uncle Ian said he'd teach me to drive if we didn't tell Kathryn. She's gonna bust a gut when she sees the Olds though." Josey referred to the black Oldsmobile still buried nose-to-door with Meredith's black Ford.

So Ian was Kathryn's brother. In the years the two women had known each other, Kathryn Lobo never mentioned that her brother was grown, and she certainly never described him. 

Ian Lobo was fully grown all right, a well-put-together man. His lean tanned face meant he spent time in the sun, and the slight shadow of a beard told her that he cared more for keeping a promise to his niece than looking good. Despite that, the muscles that sprang out along his arms and across his back when he walked away said he worked hard and had the body to prove it.

* * * *

"I bet Mr. Rochester didn't take the news of your vacation well." Kathryn poured more stout tea in both cups.

"An understatement if I ever heard one. First he blustered that I was not going to leave, as if I was joking. Then he tried to flatter me into staying, saying I was his best reporter. Then he threatened me by saying the Star Courier held my contract. He'd see I never worked for another newspaper as long as he was Editor-In-Chief."

"What did you do?" Kathryn leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"I told him this was no joke. I was taking an indefinite vacation--with pay. Rochester's eyes bulged. The paper still owed me back pay for the time I spend recuperating from that first accident. Then I agreed with him, saying I was his best reporter. He puffed up like a toad then. And when I said he couldn't do anything about a contract because I didn't have one, he almost had apoplexy."

"Kathryn clapped her hands in delight. "Magnificent. Serves the old crone right. He's run you around the country for years."

* * * *

"He doesn't know, does he?" A very important question. "I need to know what I'm up against. When I go on assignment, I always find out what the odds are and what to expect."

"Not always," came a reply from the far side of the room. "Oh Meredith," Kathryn pleaded, "You have no idea how lonely it is out here even with a family. There's not another woman to talk to for twenty miles. Josey is only fourteen and knows nothing of the world we took part in when we were at the Academy. She has no idea women can do what you do. Ian is so..." 

"Just say it straight out, Kathy. Why didn't you tell Ian?"

"He wouldn't let you come if he knew."

"He objects to women reporters?"

"He would object to a woman reporter who does anything to get a story. Ian is pretty old-fashioned. His idea of a woman is one who is delicate, dainty and domestic. I could go on, but you get the idea."

"Yeah, I get the idea. I'm not what he wants in his home around his sister and niece. I'd be a bad influence. Too liberated, huh?"

"Yep, something like that. We'll just keep Ian in the dark about your life as dare-devil reporter Molly Fontaine."