The Wildest Heart by Rosemary Rogers

Rowena, and I’ve a good memory. Many’s the time I’ve had to depend upon it. That, and my instincts. Some instinct tells me you’re going to do what your pa wanted. You’ve already made up your mind to go to New Mexico, haven’t you?”
    I could not help smiling at his air of assurance.
    â€œIt’s my turn to compliment you, Mr. Bragg. You’re a very discerning man. My father has left me enough money to satisfy all my material needs, but I think I’ve inherited some of his curiosity about people. Perhaps what I really need is a challenge of some kind. Yes, I think I will go to New Mexico, if only to discover what kind of man this Todd Shannon really is.”
    â€œSo it’s Todd Shannon who’s the challenge, Lady Rowena?” He saw my look and waved his hand impatiently. “Oh, come! Best get used to my rough manners and blunt speech. I’m going to help you, remember? Before you meet Todd Shannon, you have to understand him better. Tell me—” he paused to relight his cigar, “how much do you know of the rest of the story? I mean, what happened while your father was away in England, and after that.”
    â€œThat ridiculous feud started up again,” I said quickly, wondering what he was getting at.
    â€œRidiculous, you call it?” Elmer Bragg’s voice had hardened. “It’s hardly that, I’m afraid. If you’re determined to go to New Mexico, it’s something you’ll have to live with. Every moment of every day. Todd Shannon is a man who has hated a long time, and that hate has eaten into him. While your father lived, he prevented really bad trouble, because he had earned the respect of the Kordes clan too. But now he’s gone you’ll be the one caught in the middle, Lady Rowena. You, a little English gal who knows nothing of our Western ways. Gently brought up, too, from the look of you and your clothes. Maybe you’re intrigued by all the stories you’ve been hearing, but that’s not enough. Do you know what you’ll be getting into?”
    â€œMr. Bragg!” He had finally succeeded in making me angry, and I could not help letting some of my annoyance show. “I may not know exactly what I’m getting into, as you put it, but that is exactly why I have come to you. And, although I may not look it, the life I have led before I came here has not exactly been sheltered.” In a more controlled voice, I continued, “I was brought up in India, and we had our troubles there too. Not only from the wild hill tribes, but from the elements as well. And I have had the opportunity to study people, too. Perhaps there is more of my father in me than you think, Mr. Bragg, and you might as well learn that I can be stubborn!”
    To my surprise, he had begun to chuckle, and pull at his moustache again. “So you have a temper as well! Good, good. I was beginning to wonder if you were all cool composure. But you know what, Lady Rowena? I think you’ll do. Yep! I think that maybe Todd Shannon will find he’s met his match in you!” His chuckle became a laugh. “By God, I’d like to see his face when he meets up with you and realizes he has no milk-and-water English miss to contend with, but a fighter! And you are that, aren’t you?”
    It would be some time before I would meet Todd Shannon, and then under circumstances that were hardly conducive to his thinking of me as an adversary worthy of his notice. But in the meantime, I had made two friends in America, Corinne Davidson and Elmer Bragg, for our strange association had grown into a grudging kind of friendship by the time we parted again, he to go his way on some mysterious errand he would tell me nothing about, and I on my way to New Mexico to claim the rest of my inheritance.
    Neither Corinne nor her aunt, Mrs. Shannon, approved of my determination to travel alone and unchaperoned.
    â€œI do wish you would