SARAH McCARTY

Caine’s Reckoning

www.spice-books.co.uk

To Lori H., Caine’s Woman of Reckoning, for the support you’ve

given, the laughter you’ve shared and for that sharp wit that no doubt

keeps the men in your life on their toes. May life bless you with the

same generosity and joy you give to so many.

Acknowledgments

For Sunny for yanking me out of my comfort zone and into the

mainstream. For Roberta for catching me and guiding me through

skepticism. For Susan for taking my dream and shaping it into what

should be rather than just what could be. Thank you.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Copyright

1

1858: Texas Territory

He hated the sound of a woman’s scream. Caine pulled Chaser up short. The black Appaloosa’s hoofbeats ended in cadence with Tracker’s and Sam’s horses. After fifteen years together, there was no guesswork to the men’s moves. They were a team.

The high-pitched scream came again, cutting through the cold morning air, hovering a desperate moment on the heavy mist before dropping off with eerie abruptness.

Tracker took the blade of grass he’d been chewing from between his teeth. “Looks like we’ve found them.”

“Yup.” Caine pulled his rifle from the scabbard, scouting the surrounding area. There weren’t that many areas a man could hide here in the flatlands.

Sam tipped back his hat, his blue eyes glittering like cold ice. “About the only place that offers protection is that cluster of trees yonder.”

Caine didn’t need to hear the grim edge to the statement to know what that meant. If those were true Comancheros who’d stolen the women, they’d already been spotted. The women were as good as dead, and that scream had merely been a baited invitation to a trap. However, nothing in this whole kidnapping spoke of the snake-in-the-grass intelligence Comancheros were known for. Greed, yes. The women stolen had been the youngest and prettiest, but there was a certain lack of intelligence displayed in taking the sheriff’s wife. Even if he had been out of town at the time. There were some things a smart man didn’t do, and one of them was stealing a lawman’s woman.

Tracker slid off his horse, stepped forward and squatted next to hoofprints in the mud. He flicked aside some debris and touched the base of an indentation.

“Same notched shoe?” Caine asked.

“Yup.” Beneath his hat, Tracker’s long black hair blew back from his face as he followed the trajectory of the tracks to the cluster of trees, revealing the hard ridge of scar tissue puckering the dark skin of his cheek. A scar he’d earned at the age of fifteen when he’d extracted justice for his mother from the man who’d raped her. He pointed to the copse of trees halfway up the rise. “They’re in there.”

Another scream tore through the morning calm, this time rising and falling on a ruptured, barely recognizable “No!”

“Shit.” Sam flipped the strap on his holster. “Stopping to fuck with a posse on their tail? I’ve a mind to complain to the padre. It’s a waste of time sending us out to round up this bunch when any kid in knee pants could do the job.”

Remnants of the scream echoed off the surrounding hills, raising the hairs on the back of Caine’s neck. Right along with memories he’d rather have stayed buried. “Gotta admit that much stupidity fairly begs a man to put it out of its misery.”

“That it does.” Sam checked the cylinder of his pistol, the easy nonchalance of his attitude belied by the grim smile lifting the corner of his lips. Nothing irritated Sam more than a stupid outlaw. “But seeing as they chose to bring their lawbreaking to our land, I suppose it won’t overwork us none to teach them a lesson.”

The same tug of cold intent in Sam’s smile flowed through Caine’s blood, sharpening his senses, giving a home to the anger that had festered without satisfaction for the last fifteen years. They’d fought long and hard for a place to call their own, carved two thousand acres out of these canyons with their sweat and blood. This was their home, and the only law that existed in it was the one they enforced. And on Hell’s Eight land, a body could do a lot of things, but hurt a woman and live wasn’t one of them. “I don’t suppose it will.”

Sam dropped his revolver back into his holster. “I’ll head ‘round.”

“You want the sentries, Tracker?” Caine asked, as Sam loped off, circling to keep the slight rise between him and their quarry.

Tracker stood and put his hand on the worn leather-wrapped hilt of his knife. “My pleasure.”

Silhouetted against the morning mist, he looked every bit of his reputation—a big, mean nightmare come to life. His dark gaze fixed on the copse of trees, his focus already on the battle to come. If Tracker ever allowed one of the sentries to see his expression, the implacable intent there, the man would piss his pants. Too bad Tracker never let them see his face. Caine levered a bullet into the chamber of his rifle with the snap of his wrist. He’d pay money to see that. “Then I guess that leaves the how-de-do’s up to me.”

The barest hint of a smile touched Tracker’s lips. “Enjoy yourself.”

Caine crept on his belly to the edge of the low ridge overhanging the small clearing. Tipping back his hat, he looked directly below to the small group in the hollowed-out bank in the curve of the stream. Stupid did not begin to describe this bunch.

One of the five men they were tracking held a gun loosely on three women who cowered in terror against the earthen bank. Three more outlaws were engrossed in trying to catch a blond-haired hellion knee-deep in the rushing stream, pitching curses and stones at their heads with assorted degrees of accuracy. If she’d once worn a dress, it was long gone. Her bloomers and camisole were plastered to her compact body, her small breasts and mound clearly delineated by the transparent material. The provocative display no doubt contributed to the idiocy of the men, one of whom chose that moment to rush the woman. She jerked to the side, her long hair obscuring her expression as he grabbed her arm and pulled. Instead of fighting, she went with him, planting her feet when he stumbled on the uneven stream bed, bringing her knee up hard enough to feed the guy his balls for breakfast. She should have run, but she was a fighter and clearly had a fighter’s instinct to finish the job. As the guy sank to the ground, hands clamped over his balls, she kicked out again, catching him on the chin. He went over like a felled ox, water splashing high. Out cold.

Caine raised an eyebrow as she turned on the other two, feet braced, daring them to come after her. A smile tugged past his fury. Hell, if they delayed a bit, the little spitfire might just take care of this mess for them. A barely perceptible thud to his left deepened his smile. But it wouldn’t be necessary. Tracker was nothing if not efficient and that thud was the first sentry. One down. Two more to go. Caine inched closer as the outlaws on the edge of the stream shifted position. The bigger of the two said something to the other, his heavy beard obscuring the shape of the words. In response, the smaller man pulled off his hat, revealing a thin face scraggled with beard. He slapped the hat against his thigh. Whatever the suggestion had been, the smaller man wasn’t cozying up to it.

“Just rush her for Christ sake,” the redhead guarding the other women shouted impatiently, punctuating his point with a wave of his rifle that had the women he was guarding screaming and covering their heads with their hands.

“If you want her rushed, Red, do it yourself,” Scraggle Beard hollered back. “I like my balls right where they are.”

“Do I have to do everything myself ?” Red aimed his revolver at the two men. They went absolutely still. With a flick of the muzzle, he ordered, “Get out of the way.”

The two men stepped aside, relief seeping into the set of their shoulders as Red centered the muzzle on the blond woman. “Get out of the stream.”

The blonde’s response to that flat order was a flip of her head that had her hair whipping back over her shoulder, revealing a delicately shaped face devoid of color but full of determination.

She didn’t move a foot, nor say a word, but if there was ever a combination of gestures that said go to hell, it was the lift of that small, pointed chin and the narrowing of those big eyes.

Over the rushing of the stream, Caine heard the faint click of the gun hammer locking into place. Shit.

“Now.”

Caine had never seen a more stupidly brave woman. Instead of obeying, she squared her shoulders. Courage was one thing but she was just about begging the man to pull the trigger, and for that she needed her cute little ass paddled. Caine notched the barrel of his rifle between two stones and took aim as Red straightened his arm.

The blonde narrowed her eyes and stretched her defiance out to the last possible second before, with another toss of that wet mane, she sloshed out of the stream. Water dripped in a small river as she stomped up the bank. She came to a stop three steps from Red, chin still high, shaking like she had the ague. Goddamn, if she didn’t drop with pneumonia before the day was out, they would all be lucky.

“See boys, nothing to be afraid of,” Red sneered, releasing the hammer and lowering the revolver to his side. “Just a pretty little whore displaying her goodies for our pleasure.”

The “boys” converged on the woman, grabbing her arms. If looks could kill, Red would be dead and the “boys” not far behind. The bearded man grabbed the woman’s hair, yanking her around as he ripped the chemise from her body. Her screech echoed around the clearing. With the speed of a rattler, she sank her teeth into his hand, hard enough that his holler followed hers. Scraggle Beard jerked her back. She didn’t let go, just stretched out between the two men, hanging like a crazed coon, anchored by her teeth and the grip on her arm.

“Fucking shit! Stop yanking on her before she bites my thumb clear off!”

Scraggle Beard froze. The bearded man brought his hamlike fist down on the woman’s back. Her knees buckled, but she held on. No matter how the man shook his hand, yanked and threatened, she didn’t turn him loose. Son of a bitch, she was something.

Caine adjusted his aim. “That’s right, hellcat. Keep them busy just a little bit more, just until Tracker gets those sentries.” He tightened his finger on the trigger. “Just a little bit more, and I’ll settle this for you once and for all.”

As if she heard, the woman clung to the outlaw, flopping where he shook her, getting a bit of her own back the only way she could, clearly stuck on her course of action with no real way out. If she let go she’d be helpless, if she held on, she was an easy target for his fist. The man brought his fist up a second time. Caine sighted the gun. That was one blow that wasn’t going to land.

Tracker’s signal trilled through the clearing, sharp and sweet. Followed immediately by another. Caine fired in rapid succession. Simultaneously, three shots shattered the rain of curses streaming into the clearing, followed quickly by a fourth. The men dropped, the blond woman with them. Caine leapt over the ledge and slid down the muddy slope, sending loose rocks tumbling before him. He reached her side in a few rapid strides. No way had he hit her. He’d placed his bullets precisely where he’d wanted them. So had Sam and Tracker. He’d lay money on it. All of the Hell’s Eight were known for their accuracy. That fifth shot had him worried, though. That shot hadn’t come from any of their guns.

The closer he got, the smaller the woman got. Fine bones, fine build. He stepped over the outlaw at her side, the screams and cries of the other three women no more than the buzz of insects. Blood splattered on what he could see of the little blonde’s arms, but he didn’t think it was hers. The impression of fragility increased as he cupped her shoulders through the wet mass of hair. Shit, there wasn’t anything to her beyond grit and determination. And temper, he decided as he tugged up and she snarled. She was still biting the man. “You can turn loose now, ma’am.”

There was a pause and the tension under his hand eased. He pulled. She sat back, wiped at her mouth with both hands before huddling into a ball, looking for all the world like she’d start plastering herself with mud to cover up if he didn’t present an alternative fast. Then she looked up at him and sucker-punched him with the eloquence of those big eyes. Everything she felt inside, everything left out of her remarkably composed expression, whirled in the deep blue depths—shame, anger, hope and fear.

“Who are you?” she asked, through the chattering of her teeth.

“Caine Allen, Texas Ranger.” He’d tip his hat if he had a free hand. Though she was all but naked and covered in blood, she had an air about her that reminded a man of his manners. The introduction didn’t ease any of the turbulence he read in her eyes.

“Father Gerard asked me to come fetch you home,” he added, shrugging out of his wool-lined leather duster and wrapping it around her, drawing her into his body heat. She fit against him nicely.

“Is he dead?”

It was hard to acquaint the quavery whisper with the woman who’d faced down three grown men with nothing more than her temper and teeth. He took in the fallen man’s blank stare, the hole dead-center between his eyes and the blood pooling beneath his head. “If not, he’s doing a fair imitation.”

“Oh.”

If he hadn’t been studying the blue tinge under her skin, he would have missed the subtle tremble that ran through her and just mistaken it for another of the cold chills shaking her from head to toe. Winter was wrapping up, but spring had yet to put in an appearance and the late March wind was cold. He helped her up and forward, moving her away from the blood toward the other women. She’d fought like hell, but as soon as reaction set in, she’d be wanting the company of her own sex.

To their right, there was a series of splashes. He looked up. Tracker stood over the man in the stream.

“That the last of them?”

“Yup.” Tracker bent and grabbed the man’s arms, hauling the body out of the water.

The cold damp of the woman’s hair soaked through his shirt as she turned her head to stare at the gruesome sight. Another almost imperceptible shiver racked her frame. Caine turned his body, shielding her from the horror.

Her “Good riddance” caught him by surprise. He tipped her chin up, checking her expression. Her face was tight with strain, her pale lips drawn to a narrow, bloodless line, but she was still with him. “It is that, ma’am.”

She cautiously moved her chin off the shelf of his finger, her wary gaze locked on his as if afraid to move too fast. He guessed he couldn’t blame her for that—being kidnapped out of her bed and subjected to attempted rape probably made a woman six ways of cautious. He dropped his hand to her back, keeping her against him as the chill from her body seeped into his.

“I need to sit down.”

He just bet she did, but a good twenty feet still separated them from the women. He would take on many things without batting an eye, but a hysterical female wasn’t one of them. She stopped at a fallen tree.

“This is good.”

For such a delicate little thing, her voice had a pleasing depth and a seductive, husky rasp that made him think of dark rooms, soft whispers and hot sex. His cock, semi-hard from the battle, surged to fully erect as the soft scent of lavender teased his senses. He shifted his position so she wouldn’t notice the purely male reaction. A woman who’d just escaped rape would not welcome any sign of a man’s interest, no matter what side of the law he sat on. “No offense, Miss…?”

Instead of immediately supplying her name, she hesitated and frowned. For the space of two heartbeats she left the blank empty, then with a nearly imperceptible shrug she answered, “Desi.”

Unusual, but it suited her in a strange, boldly feminine way. “Would that be Miss or Mrs.?”

Another pause. “Miss.”

Unmarried. His luck was picking up. He motioned with his hand to the women on the opposite edge of the clearing. “I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable with the others.”

She shook her head, turned out of his arms and sank down, clutching his coat around her and repeated, “This is good.”

He let his hands slide up her back as she lowered herself, feeling her wince as she reached the log, the action no doubt compressing her ribs. “You sure you’re okay, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

Remembering the blow she’d taken, he didn’t find that short, breathless assurance comforting. He ran his right hand down her spine over the jacket, spreading his fingers wide, counting her ribs as he went, immediately locating the damaged area by her soft gasp.

“She all right?” Sam asked, strolling up to their side.

His “No” overrode her “Yes.”

Sam, damn his hide, had the gall to look amused at the contradiction. Caine pressed along her sixth rib. She twisted away. He paused. “Maybe you’d feel better with one of the women caring for you?”

She hunched her shoulders into the heavy duster and shook her head. Her chin was set in that way he already recognized meant stubborn. “I’m fine.”

He checked the other side as best he could through the coat.

“Denying what needs to be done doesn’t end the need for the doing.”

Her fingers made deep dents in the coat’s leather sleeves. “Why not?”

He shook his head at the illogic. “Because I said so.”

“I don’t hold you the final opinion on what’s so.”

He just bet she didn’t. “Now that’s a shame, because right now I’m the one calling the shots.”

Her chin came up in that way that just begged a man to make a stronger point. “For now.”

“I’m thinking if anyone’s going to do anything, it’s going to have to be you,” Sam added.

Caine threw him a questioning glance, slipping his hand under the coat and testing the extent of Desi’s tenderness with one hand while keeping her put with the other on her shoulder.

“Seems the other women don’t want to associate with—” a jerk of his thumb indicated the woman beside him “—her.”

If he hadn’t been touching Desi, he wouldn’t have felt her start.

“They got a reason for that line of thinking?” Caine asked. From what he could tell, Desi was the only one worth associating with. Any woman who could spit in the devil’s eye had his admiration.

“Apparently, she has a history of tempting men,” Sam said.

“You’re shitting me, right?” Caine glanced down. Desi didn’t look up, just shook her head, which could have been an answer either way, shivered and then tugged the coat collar higher.

“They seem mighty convinced of their notions,” Sam offered without inflection.

One glance at the sullen faces of the three women standing shoulder-to-shoulder arguing with a nonresponsive Tracker put credence to Sam’s claim. “Is that what they’re clucking about over there?”

“Yeah. About nonstop. Seem to think the more words they throw at a man the more sway they have.”

“Tracker must be in his glory.”

Sam smiled that cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “He says to tell you he’s about ready to cut out some tongues to get some peace.”

Desi jumped and cast Tracker a wary look. He couldn’t blame her. Tracker had a lethal just-give-me-a-reason attitude about him that could clear the roughest saloon with just a glance. The scar on his cheek did nothing to diminish it.

Caine smoothed the heavy mass of hair off Desi’s cheek, absorbing into his palm the trembles the shook her. The “Easy, I’ve got you” welled out of nowhere, a murmured reassurance connected to a foreign sense of possessiveness. Sam cocked a sandy eyebrow at him, a bit of amusement lightening his gaze as he pulled out his makings. He gestured to Desi with the packet.

“I get the impression this one could spout gospel and those three would label it devil worship.”

Beneath Caine’s fingers, the woman’s muscles tightened to rock hard ridges. “Jesus H. Christ.”

Sam rolled a smoke, the sharpness in the move the only indication of his disgust. “It gets better.”

It would. “What?”

He reached into his pocket for a lucifer. “They’re requesting you return them to their homes immediately.”

“That’s the plan.”

He struck the lucifer on the side of his boot. “But they don’t want her brought along.”

“What do they think I’m going to do, leave her as a treat for whoever comes calling?” Desi flinched. He caught a flash of blue as she cut him a glance from under her lashes. He took his hand out from under her coat. As she pulled the lapels closed, he stroked her back, gentling her worries. He wouldn’t leave her.

Sam lit the cigarette. “Don’t think they’d be averse to the idea.”

“Goddamn!”

“I don’t mind.” The soft statement rode his exasperation, feeding it.

“Well, I sure as he—” he caught himself in time “—heck do.”

Sam flicked the match to the ground and took a draw on his smoke. “The women claim they won’t go if she goes with them.”

“So?”

“Just checking how you feel on that.”

Beneath his hands, Desi’s bones felt as delicate as bird wings. It was hard to believe she’d fought as hard as she had or been so successful with so little, but sometimes it wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight as much as the size of the fight in the dog, and this woman had plenty of fight. He admired that. “Tell them when I say mount up, they’ll mount, or they’ll walk tied behind, but one way or another, they’ll go.”

A strident screech from one of the other women snapped his head around. From the pitch he would have assumed the camp was under immediate attack, but in reality, the only one who looked threatened was Tracker. Even from where he stood, Caine could see the anger roll off the women flanking him. The vehemence. Hands waved, fingers pointed, and then, as if it would add emphasis to their point, the women moved in.

Tracker drove the three women back with a slice of his hand and a sharp utterance Caine couldn’t make out. Turning on his heel, he stalked toward them, his long black hair fanning behind him, emphasizing his irritation. He touched the brim of his black hat in deference to Desi as he got close, his expression displaying none of the anger Caine could see simmering under his skin. “This the one the padre was concerned about?”

“Yup. Desi, this is Tracker Ochoa.”

Caine couldn’t blame Tracker for the shake of the head. It was hard to reconcile Father Gerard’s description of “a fragile flower of womanhood” with the hellion who had held off three men with nothing more than sheer grit.

“Hell of a fight you put up, ma’am.”

Desi ducked her head. Her “Thank you” was a wisp of sound as she all but disappeared into the coat. If she was hoping to dispel interest, Caine could have told her she was angling down the wrong path. The contradiction of all that fire banked behind a wall of demure shyness was the perfect recipe to raise a man’s interest. Tracker’s more so than most. For all that he was one scary son of a bitch, he was the softest man Caine had ever seen when it came to women.

Tracker jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The ladies demand to talk to—” he lifted his nose and pitched his deep baritone to a high falsetto “—whomever is in command.” The irritation in the imitation reflected Tracker’s sentiments on the matter. Whereas Desi had earned the big man’s respect, the other women had apparently stirred up nothing but disgust.

“Appears to me they’re not in a position to demand anything.”

“Give them a chance, they’ll argue that into the ground.”

Caine didn’t intend to give them any chance at all. Giving Desi’s shoulder one last reassuring squeeze, he stepped back, settled his Stetson on his head and bit back the anger that rose too swiftly these days. “Then I guess this is their lucky day. I’m available.”

Desi breathed a sigh of relief as Caine took his hands off her shoulders. He was simply too much, from the way he watched her with those intense green eyes that seemed to uncover everything she wanted hidden, to the way his chin squared beneath his generous mouth. Everything about him was raw and untamed and uncompromisingly masculine. The lines that bracketed that mouth could indicate either a tendency to frown or smile. Truth be told, she couldn’t imagine so intense a man smiling, but at the same time he didn’t have that negative feel to him that she associated with bitterness. The hat he kept pulled low over his coffee-brown hair only heightened the impression of power. Angled low over his brow, it shaded his eyes and emphasized the command set into the rugged structure of his face. He wasn’t strictly handsome, but she bet there wasn’t a woman in the territory who didn’t stop and speculate when he passed. He had a presence that just screamed danger, while at the same time that innate strength beckoned with the seductive lure of safety. Both messages were delivered with equal strength, leaving it to the imagination which trait would be the one a woman would find in her bed should she be reckless enough to extend an invitation.

Not that she would ever extend an invitation. Desi shivered. The last year had cured her of all girlish illusions to the true nature of men, and as soon as she located her sister, she was going to find at least one place in this world where she could live her life in peace.

Desi watched as Caine crossed the clearing to talk to her fellow captives, his long legs eating up the distance with amazing ease, his muscled buttocks, perfectly outlined by the straps of his chaps, flexing with every step. Nothing in the easy roll of his gait or the set of his wide shoulders indicated impatience, but he was impatient. She’d felt it in his touch a second before he’d stepped away. Part of her hoped he’d unleash that frustration on Mavis, who seemed to feel it was her God-given right to be judge, jury and executioner over all that came into her domain.

Desi grabbed another fold of the coat into her fingers, the lingering warmth from Caine’s body welcome, the surge of his scent not as unpleasant as it should be, and watched as Mavis drew herself to her full height. Tall for a woman, with big bones and an hourglass figure that men admired, Mavis had presence and she was used to getting her way, in one manner or another.

Her two friends, Abigail and Sadie, stood in her shadow, as always, adding their will to hers, blindly following her lead. As one they stood, watching the big Ranger’s approach. From the expression on Mavis’s face, he was about to get an earful. The woman wanted Desi gone—had been campaigning for it for a year—and clearly saw this as a chance to obtain their goal.

Desi would have gladly granted Mavis’s wish, but there’d never been an opportunity. Until now. This was her chance. She couldn’t mess it up. A shudder came out of nowhere, a debilitating mixture of cold and panic starting in her core and radiating outward.

“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” the blond man said, the kindness in his drawl at odds with the hard implacability of his expression. “There isn’t a soul born who can tell Caine Allen what to do. Those women can fuss all they want, but when the dust settles, you’ll be riding with us.”

That was not what she needed to hear right now. “I don’t want to go back there.”

All that statement got her was a raised eyebrow from the sandy-blond man as he blew out a stream of smoke, along with a “Can’t say that I blame you” from the savagely handsome, completely terrifying Tracker.

She stood, checking the sway in her movement through sheer force of will. Between James’s efforts to starve her into compliance and the fight with the outlaws, her strength was going fast. “I need some privacy.”

Her blush wasn’t entirely faked. No matter what she’d learned to think of as normal in the last year, discussing her bodily functions was not one of them.

Tracker’s hand immediately enveloped her elbow. “This way.”

She couldn’t help her instinctive flinch. His expression went from impassive to stony with a twitch of an eyelid, but he didn’t say a word, just drew her along with him. She went, her lip between her teeth. She had an unreasonable sense that she’d hurt his feelings. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t him—the fact that he was obviously Indian, or his scars. She resented any man’s touch, but she didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. These remnants of softness left over from before had to be squashed before it killed off her last opportunity, because if she didn’t escape now, the only way out from the hell of her existence would be death. Either by her own hand or another’s. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t continue this way anymore.

Guiding her across the uneven ground as if she were the finest of ladies at a social rather than a scandalous woman naked beneath a coat, Tracker helped her over a log, steadying her on the other side, keeping her close as he took her to the copse of trees where the outlaws had tied their horses. The snorts and whickers were welcome indicators that the horses were still there. Maybe her luck was changing.

She stopped before he could guide her through the thicket at the edge. “Thank you.”

He released her elbow. “Give a holler when you’re done, and I’ll come help you back. No need for you to pick up any more bruises than you’ve already got.”

He’d been holding her elbow because he was worried she’d fall, not because he was keeping her hostage…? The realization broadsided her. Desi ducked her head, hoping Tracker would take the gesture as one of embarrassment at the subject matter rather than guilt at her assumptions. “Thank you.”

Casting one quick glance over her shoulder, she stepped through the bushes, making sure he wasn’t following. Tracker stood where she’d left him, leaning against a thin tree, tossing that ugly knife in his hands, flipping it end to end before catching it. Desi shuddered, imagining him in a rage, and ducked through the brush. She had no intention of calling for him. This was her chance, and she was taking it.

2

“You cannot expect decent women to be seen in the company of someone like her.”

The way the older woman, Mrs. Hatchet, referred to Desi set Caine’s back teeth to grinding. And it wasn’t because of the nasal twang to her voice or the highfalutin way she pronounced her words. It was her absolute belief that because she had a husband to shield her that she was better than other women who’d run up against the hard truth of this land. Specifically, Desi.

“Lady, what I expect is silence and obedience.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the open range beyond their sheltered spot. “In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re in the middle of Indian country. Those gunshots are going to attract every Comanche out there, so what I expect is for you to use the next few minutes getting ready to ride, because as soon as we gather what we can off those bodies, we’re lighting out.”

“You’re robbing the dead?”

If a man had made such an accusation, he’d have punched him in the mouth for both the insult and the stupidity behind it. But the insult came from a woman, which tied his hands. “I’m taking what we need to survive.”

Caine spun on his heel. Son of a bitch, he was never taking a wife if he had to put up with crap like that on a daily basis. He expected to see Desi waiting for him with Tracker and Sam. She wasn’t. Sam was at the edge of the trees, checking out the action on a revolver while Tracker was efficiently going over the rest of the possessions looking for anything useful.

“Where’s the woman?”

Sam flicked his used-up smoke into the stream, a genuine grin on his lips. “With the horses.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Escaping.” Tracker dumped out a saddlebag. “I figure we’ve got about twenty minutes before she sweet-talks that big mustang into opening its mouth for the bit.”

This he had to see. Caine cut through the scrub brush to the horses. Evidence of Desi’s attempts was everywhere. A bridle dangled from a horse already tacked out in a nose band. A saddle lurched off the side of a hardy paint mustang with the conformation of a runner. He stepped up to the brown-and-white paint, patting the deeply muscled chest that said he could go for miles without foundering. He ran his hand down its spine, murmuring soothingly as it fussed and gathered his scent, studying the tracks in the muddy ground as he righted the saddle.

Bare footprints littered the mud in mute testament to Desi’s frustration. Sure as shit, she didn’t know anything about tack, but that hadn’t lessened her determination. The tracks spun in a circle, deepened as she’d put her weight squarely on both heels, and then took off in a straight line. The depth and distance between the prints indicated she’d been in a hurry.

Caine looked up the rise. He flipped the paint’s stirrup onto the saddle, kneed him gently to warn him to cut the crap when he sucked in wind and tightened the cinch when he blew out. With an easy leap he was in the saddle, a smile on his lips as he studied those tracks. Damn, if she hadn’t had the guts to light out on foot.

He spun the paint around and urged him up the rise. The outlaws might have been stupid, but they’d known good horseflesh. The paint responded as if he hadn’t just finished a hard ride, driving fast up the hill, eager to run, dancing in a circle when Caine pulled him up at the top.

It wasn’t hard to find Desi in the scraggly sea of winter dead brush. The bright sun shone off her blond hair like a brilliant white-gold beacon. He shook his head. She was heading due west, straight into Indian country. Caine gave the paint its head, smiling as the horse plunged down the rise. A man just had to admire the amount of gumption that drove a woman to take control of her future despite the odds or a poor sense of direction.

He was about forty feet behind Desi before she looked back. He had an impression of big blue eyes in a white face and a startled expression before she took off, bare feet flying across the ground, hair streaming behind her. Caine leaned over the cow pony’s neck. The animal surged forward. Human or cattle, it didn’t matter to the horse. He knew his job. Chase, catch and maintain. He did it well, dispelling the myth that paints made poor cow ponies.

The paint caught up with Desi in less than a minute. Caine reached down, snagging the back of the too-big coat, lifting her up. If her first screech didn’t draw every Indian and bandit for twenty miles, the second surely would. It was all he could do to lift her onto the saddle as she struggled. Damn, who knew one small woman could hold so much wiggle?

“Hold still, damn it!”

If anything, she struggled harder. “Let me go!”

“No.” He gave her a shake. “Settle down.”

She braced her foot on his, lightening his load. Her arm wrapped around his, her fingers tangling in the excess folds of his coat, slipping off his shirtsleeve before grabbing desperately at his wrist.

“I’m not going back!”

“Well, you’re sure as shit not heading out on your own.”

“Watch me!”

She wrenched to the left and to the right. The pony danced beneath them as the coat flapped against his sides. A hard shove and she almost succeeded in unseating him. One minute he had more woman than he could contain and the next he held an empty coat. Caine swore, dropped the coat and leaned back. The pony sat on its haunches, slid ten feet and spun, lunging anew after Desi, who ran ahead, her fair skin glowing in the sunlight, looking like one of those golden nymphs he’d seen paintings of in that fancy whorehouse up Chicago way.

The woman’s determination was no match for the paint’s speed. In about three heartbeats, he was running beside her, adjusting his stride to match her panicked darts, crowding her to where Caine wanted her to go. Over the thunder of the pony’s hooves, Caine could hear her labored breathing, her desperate sobs. Damn it! Why was she making this so hard?

He leapt off the pony’s back and hit the ground running, catching her around the waist as he spun, cushioning her against his chest as he took the brunt of the fall on his back. He crossed his arms over her torso, keeping free of her teeth, trapping her feet with his legs, letting her exhaust herself with her struggles until she was tired enough to find reason.

It took about four minutes for her to figure out she wasn’t going anywhere. When she did, her body just collapsed against his, her skull thunking on his collarbone one last time, her hips settling into the cradle of his groin, her buttocks cushioning the hard length of his cock. Not by a twitch of an eyelash did she let on that she knew what was poking at her down there. She simply turned her face west and stared as her labored breathing pushed her ribs against his.

“You ’bout ready to see reason?”

“I’m not going back.”

Her body was about played out, but her stubbornness sure wasn’t. “Why not?”

She crossed one arm over her breasts. “I’ll die there.”

Her body shook with shivers. He slid her off to the side, keeping her anchored with one arm as he sat up. “That’s a mighty serious accusation.”

“It’s the truth.”

He stood, grabbing his hat before pulling her up with him, admiring the way her breasts swelled over the ridge of her arm. Her hand slipped, treating him to a glimpse of one hard-tipped peak. She was a pretty little thing, all pink and white with a nipped-in waist and rosebud nipples. His cock, hard and aching from the chase, pulsed in response to the inadvertent display. “Tell me why.”

The order flowed over Desi’s calm, digging down into her determination, undermining the confidence she’d cultivated. What would be the point? The truth would only ensure he sent her back. She glanced around his arm to the long stretch of prairie, followed the flight of a bird as it swooped down over the grass, gliding on the wind. Free. For one heartbeat she’d been like that, the future she’d wanted for herself there, just over the horizon. The bird disappeared into the haze, the spread of its wings blending into the rise of the hills. No matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t follow it.

She took a step toward the horizon, wanting more than anything to vanish with it, far away from here. From the hell her life had become. Pressure in her arm drew her gaze down. Caine still held her. His fingers were suntanned and rough, looking very dark against the white skin of her upper arm. Smudges of dirt marred the sides, but, overall, they were surprisingly clean. The nails were pared short.

They were the hands of a hardworking man, bearing the scars and nicks of his life. Her gaze dipped down to the knife in his gun belt and then back up to those scars. A hardworking man and maybe a killer. Everyone knew Rangers were one short step up from the men they hunted—which could be her second piece of luck. If she couldn’t count on his honor to gain her freedom, maybe he had a disreputable side she could exploit.

She tugged at her arm. Wind whipped her hair over her face, blocking her vision, but she didn’t need to see the shake of his head to know his answer to her silent request. The tightening of his fingers said it all. The shifting of his stance reminded her he was still waiting on an answer. She’d definitely give him one, but not the one he wanted. Not the truth. That would cost her too much.

Pushing her hair out of her face, Desi raised her arms so her breasts were showcased, grabbing the heavy mass into a ponytail, relaxing her stance and expression to one she hoped looked welcoming. Flirtatious was going to take some working up to. “I’m looking to move on.”

She bet he was a hell of a Ranger. He wasn’t doing anything more than staring at her, and she could feel the need to confess welling.

“There isn’t much west except Indian country.”

She shrugged, letting her body relax against his. The hilt of his knife dug into her side. The pain blended with the agony in her soul. The muscled planes of his body were an unyielding wall of power, the ridge of his cock comfortingly familiar in the face of so much intimidating strength, and for once she was glad of the experience she’d acquired in the last year. There was nothing more pliable than a man with rutting on his mind. She tilted her head back, letting her hair slide over her shoulders, knowing how the thick, silky length intrigued men, ignoring the cold and the agony of her torn feet as she stepped into his embrace. What was one more scream among the soundless ones she’d already uttered? She kept everything but soft invitation out of her tone as she pointed out, “And California.”

His eyes narrowed, but his arm came around her, his hand spreading on her spine, taking her weight. “You’ve got gold fever?”

He made it sound like a bad case of ague. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to be rich.”

“You’d do better to find a husband.”

She was never going to be dependent on a man’s whims again. She shoved the anger down, hoping that flicker of his eyelids didn’t mean he’d spotted it. Right now she wanted him concentrating on sex and what he’d have to agree to do to get it. She shrugged, rubbing her breasts up and down his chest with the gesture, smiling internally as his cock leapt against her in response and added a bit more husk to her voice. “It’s as easy to love a rich man as a poor one.”

His other hand joined the first on her back. The warmth of his body encouraged her closer more persuasively than the press of his fingertips. “Money won’t keep a woman safe.”

“Now there, I disagree.” She opened her hand, holding his gaze as she placed her palm to the right of his shirt placket, running her tongue over her lips as her fingers teased between the buttons, catching on the tight curls covering the swell of hard muscle. “With enough money, a woman can buy all the protection she requires.”

That twitch of his eyebrows could have been amusement or disbelief. “You’re planning on buying a man?”

“I prefer to think of it as—” she flipped the button open and slid her hand all the way inside, her palm shaping naturally to the curve of his pectoral as she tilted her head to the side, raising her eyebrows suggestively “—renting his skills.”

“Skills?”

The quickened beat of his heart belied the flat neutrality of his question. He wanted her. The truth was in the hard gleam of his eyes and the sharp jerk of his cock. She lowered her lashes the way she’d been taught, letting her lips relax into a seductive pout, working a few more buttons open. “A woman often has needs only a man can fulfill.”

His hand dipped to the hollow of her spine while the other curled under her chin, bringing her gaze dead center to his. “And you intend to buy them as you need them?”

She nodded as she tugged his shirt free of his denims, reaching around him to work it loose at the back, using her eyes and expression to enhance the suggestion in her words. “I find it a more productive method.”

“And we’re in negotiations now?” His grip shifted off her chin, sliding across her neck, the rough calluses of his fingertips sending shivers of sensation blending into the shivers of cold as the wind blew. He didn’t stop until his hand cupped her skull. She gave him responsibility for supporting her as she cuddled into his heat. He took it easily, confirming her belief that he was a man used to being in control. She’d have to play this very carefully.

“Oh, definitely.”

The lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes deepened with amusement. “Sweetheart, I can see from here you don’t have any money.”

That hint of a smile took his face from harsh to sexy, sliding beneath her armor to find the woman she’d once been. The woman who’d believed in happily ever after. The woman who would have been instantly drawn to that mix of power and humor. The woman who would have given him the flick of her fan that would have encouraged him to come call. The woman she’d thought long dead and buried. The woman who thought all there was to seducing a man was a bat of an eyelash and a coquettish smile. That woman had learned a lot.

“But I do believe I have something you need.” Desi dropped one hand from Caine’s chest to his groin, following the bulge down his thigh, blinking when her hand traveled a lot farther than she’d anticipated before finding the fat head through the tight cotton. She gave it a squeeze, fascinated as the muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed. She’d never deliberately set out to seduce a man before. The thrill of power took her by surprise. “And I’ll trade it for what I want.”

“Which is?”

Confidence bubbled at the tension in his drawl. “Out of Los Santos.”

“Take off my shirt.”

The order landed wrong. She was the one in charge. “In a minute.”

His hand came back around her head, more imperative than seductive. “That wasn’t a request.”

As if she didn’t recognize an order when she heard one. Desi rubbed her palm lightly over the spongy head of Caine’s shaft, looking for and finding that response again in the shift of his hips and the rapid beat of his pulse. She was used to men who grabbed, crushed and thrust at the first hint of desire. Caine’s restraint was…fascinating. “I’m aware of that, but I want to play a bit first.”

“You can play as soon as you get warm.”

That pulled her up short. He wanted her comfortable? He hadn’t finished the sentence before he was shrugging out of his shirt, taking his support away as he removed his arms from the sleeves. She just stared at him as she pointed out the truth. “But you’ll be cold.”

He lifted his eyebrow at her as if she’d said something totally ludicrous. His “I’ve been cold before” wrapped around her along with the shirt, enfolding her in the soft, warm wool and the knowledge that he was worried about her comfort. He was a very strange man.

She caught the edges before it could slip from her shoulders. She took a cautious breath. Threading through the faint smell of sweat and horse came that uniquely intriguing scent she associated only with him. Beneath her determination, the girl she’d used to be struggled for attention.

She squashed her flat. She couldn’t afford to kill off this opportunity with idealistic moments. Caine was a man, and she was a woman. What was going on here was a bargain as old as time. Just because she wasn’t hating it didn’t change anything.

Her knees bent with the security she found in this up-front, honest negotiation. “Then I guess it will be up to me to warm you up.”

On the way down, she couldn’t help but admire his form. She’d never seen a naked man on this side of forty, and Caine was a very well-made man. The bulge of his pectorals curved to the broad ridges of his abdominal muscles. His shirt hem brushed her calves, sending a shiver of unfamiliar sensation up her spine as she followed that thin valley between his stomach muscles with her lips counting the hills on either side as she went. One, two, three. The well of his navel tempted her tongue to linger, and flick. The inhalation of his breath proved an incentive to tease.

The gap that spread between the waistband of his pants and his flesh became an invite to explore. She caught the faint line of hair that started below, trapping a strand in her teeth, tugging it instinctively, smiling when he sucked in a harsh breath. He wasn’t so different after all.

Caine’s hand cupped her skull, once again applying that subtle direction she was coming to expect. She opened her mouth, pressing a hot kiss to the hard flesh of his abdomen, tracing a scar with her tongue until the smooth center ended just to the left of his navel in a rough pucker of healed flesh.

Thumbs under her chin pressed back, putting an inch between her mouth and his stomach, but never surrendering control, holding her in place for his pleasure. “Unbutton my pants.”

She reached for the gun belt, flicking her tongue over her lips as she did, feeling his gaze as intently as a touch, the ache in her nipples a foreign, distracting sensation she pushed aside. “Leave the guns,” he said, surprising her. She glanced up. He was staring at her with eyes gone dark with passion and something else she couldn’t define. “They might come in handy.”

She didn’t know whether to be comforted or dismayed he was still so aware of their location and the risk.

It was harder to get his pants undone with the heavy weight of the guns dragging on the belt, but he didn’t fuss or swear, just waited patiently, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as she wrestled with the task. Around them the grass rustled with the passing breeze and birds chirped in a soothing melody she clung to, not understanding nor trusting the undercurrents that made this time feel so different.

She finally got the top two buttons undone. The next three relinquished the battle with an eagerness that reflected the increase in Caine’s respiration, the only indication beyond his engorged cock she had that he was aroused. His stoicism annoyed her on some deeply feminine level she didn’t begin to understand.

His hands left her cheeks just long enough to lower his pants the inches she needed to free his cock. And they definitely needed to lower. The thick shaft was too hard and too long just to pull out. A minute of expectant silence surrounded them as inch after inch appeared until finally, the broad head fell into her hand, swollen with passion, rigid with need, too heavy to stand upright. Dear God, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make him fit. She gave him a tentative squeeze, running her tongue over her lip.

His hand dropped to her shoulder while the other curved under her jaw, steadying her through the awkward moment.

“Hungry, baby?”

She shook her head on an instinctive “no.”

His weight shifted and the whole atmosphere of the moment shifted right along with it. Desi’s sense of power blinked out as if it’d never existed, and she was, once again, just a pathetically weak woman on her knees before a man who held all the cards.

“That’s what I thought.” The hand under her chin turned her face up to his, and she knew what that something else was she’d seen in his gaze. Pity. Her nails dug into Caine’s thighs as he said, “Seems to me a woman must be pretty damned desperate to be willing to freeze her ass off bargaining with a stranger this way.”

She closed her eyes as emotion washed over her in a sick wave. She didn’t know what was stronger, despair or horror, just that both were potent contributors to the humiliation that had a stranglehold on her voice. “Maybe I’m just a natural born whore.”

The statement she wanted to sound cold and matter-of-fact came out high and strained. Caine cocked his head to the side. His thumb stroked the corner of her mouth. “It’s been my experience there’s no such thing. Just women who’ve run out of options.”

The downward tug on her arm was order enough. He didn’t need to add the “Stay put.”

He made himself decent with that efficiency of motion she was beginning to associate with him. His hand came back under her chin. She followed the silent direction. She had the sense he saw in her eyes everything she tried to hide—the pain, the despair, the stupid endless hope.

“Tell me why.”

She couldn’t. He wouldn’t believe her and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to help. He would be honor bound to uphold the law once he knew the truth. “You don’t need to know why.”

If his frown was any indication, he wasn’t used to being denied.

“I’m a Texas Ranger. If you need help, I’m here to provide it.”

She looked past him to the horizon. “We’ve already settled what I need.”

“Indian country is no place for a woman.”

But it was the only chance she had. She licked her lips. “You promised you’d let me go.”

“No. I promised I’d get you out of Los Santos.”

“But it was a trick.” Acceptance flowed from her in a shuddering sigh. Just another trick.

Caine didn’t hide from the truth. “Yes.”

He’d needed to know what he was walking into. Desi’s desperation combined with the padre’s told him all he needed to know. The woman needed help. Badly. “But it’s leading to a promise.”

“What kind of promise?”

There was no challenge in the question, no hellfire and brimstone defiance, just more of that damn hopeless acceptance. The merciless sunlight reflected off the moisture gathering in her eyes, tears he knew she’d rather die than have him see…Ah, hell. There was no going back for either of them.

He rubbed his thumb across her lips. “A Hell’s Eight promise. One you can believe in. From here on out, Desi, you’ve no need to run. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She shook her head, her big blue eyes begging his. “Just let me go.”

“No.” Sending her off into Indian country with no protection would be tantamount to murder. Caine helped Desi to her feet, steadying her as she swayed. He jerked his chin to the west. “Whatever you’re running from, it’s not worse than what you’ll find out there.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you belong with people who care for you.”

“My people are dead.”

“Your guardian, then.”

Her upper lip curled in a sneer. “No, thank you.”

He made a note of her disgust as he dragged her along behind him toward the paint. The uneven tugging of his hand had him looking back. She was limping. He stopped. “Let me see your feet.”

She didn’t hesitate, merely lifted her left foot with an obedience that was oddly disturbing. He took it in his hand, the high arch and fine bones making him want to hold her safe. The state of the sole made him wince.

“Show me the other.”

With that same obedience she lifted the other. Shit. They were both bruised and scraped but the right one was torn to shreds. Guilt roughed his temper. She’d been hurting and he’d let her play sex games. Not that he’d meant for things to go that far. He’d just been measuring the extent of her desperation when something else had risen between them. Something he’d never felt before. Something hot, dark and possessive. As a result, he’d acted as he never had. That fact wasn’t sitting any better with him than the fact that she’d been hurt in the first place. He pressed lightly to the side of the deeper cut. Fresh blood welled. He met her gaze. “You should have said something.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t like the resigned tone of her voice any more than he liked that disturbing obedience. Desi was a woman of fire, not calm. “It matters to me.”

He dropped the reins and put his hands on her waist. His thumb and fingers met above her hips. The edges of her ribs cut into the sides of his palms as he lifted her onto the horse. Whoever had care of her wasn’t doing their job. She was too thin.

As soon as her cute butt hit the saddle, she was kicking away at the horse’s sides, trying to set the pony into a run. The paint snorted and tossed his head but didn’t bolt. Caine picked his reins off the ground, patting the horse’s neck as he danced under the conflicting messages.

“He’s trained to stay put when the reins hit the dirt.”

That just might have been a curse Desi uttered under her breath. It annoyed him that she just didn’t let go with that temper. A woman like her shouldn’t be hiding her light or trying to be less than she was. She should be shining brightly, letting that fire lead the way, burning any man lucky enough to be in her path with all that tempting passion.

He clucked his tongue, leading the pony to where they’d dropped the coat. Desi hunched in the saddle, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression sullen. The wind bit into his skin but not as much as the nagging suspicion tore at his peace that he was missing something important. He grabbed up the heavy coat and held it up to Desi.

“I’ll trade you the coat for my shirt.”

“You’re getting the worse of the deal.”

“Maybe, but it’s the one I’m proposing.”

She took the coat and held it against her chest, glaring at him as if he hadn’t already seen all there was to be seen. “Turn around.”

Caine sighed and gave her his back. First cloth rustled and then leather rasped against the saddle as she donned the coat.

The wind blew across the grass in a play of light, as he ran the facts as he knew them through his mind. She was a young woman without family. Attractive, headstrong and a touch wild. The other women hated her, claiming she wasn’t fit company. There was only one thing that got good women’s tails in a twist like that. The saddle creaked. The pony snorted and then, silence. He turned. Desi was bundled to her neck in the coat, which looked like it could about wrap around her twice. His shirt lay across the saddle. He grabbed it and shrugged it on. As he buttoned the front he said, “The women back there don’t like you much.”

Her gaze focused on a point past his shoulder. “No.”

“You give them cause?”

“No.”

“Are you the whore they say you are?”

The coat rustled as she jerked and cut him a glare. “I just attempted to…pleasure you with my mouth in a field. What do you think?”

“I think you’re not the first woman left with only her body to barter. This country’s hard on women.”

“Not all women.”

“No, but it chews up and spits out those without a man.”

Her jaw muscles flexed. Her mouth worked. He patted her thigh. “Something you don’t have to worry about anymore.”

He stepped to the side, facing the paint. “Scoot up.”

“What?”

He moved her hands to the pommel on either side of the horn. “Lever yourself up there.”

Eyeing him with a clear suspicion that said he was up to no good, she supported her weight on her arms. In a smooth swing he was behind her, taking advantage of the distraction of the horse’s dance to hook his arm around her waist, lifting her up as he swung into the saddle before settling her down onto his lap. She grabbed his hand as he gathered the reins, her short nails pressing against his skin as if she couldn’t decide whether to claw or cling. Caine kneed the paint into motion, taking the decision off her hands.

A trot was never the most comfortable of gaits and the hardest for an inexperienced rider to adjust to. After about the third bone-jarring clop, Desi was bouncing like a sack of grain. He tucked her back against his chest. “Relax into me.”

The glance she shot him over her shoulder clearly showed she wondered what good that would do, but she did, and followed the coaxing of his hand to curve her spine into his chest. He nudged the paint into a canter. He didn’t think she breathed the whole way across the meadow. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he murmured in her ear, “I don’t bite.”

Desi jumped as if he just had. Then her spine pulled taut and that chin tilted up. “Would it make a difference if you did?”

The full-out attack knocked a smile loose. He did like a woman who didn’t duck, hide or play shy. “I’m willing to try it if you are.”

“Why?”

He took a deep breath. She smelled of sweat, fear and that tantalizing touch of lavender. “Because you’ve got grit and fire and are about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t know me.”

“And you don’t know me, but I promise you, I’ll keep you safe, and you don’t have to bargain with anything to make it happen.”

“You promised me out of Los Santos.”

“Don’t worry, I keep my promises.”

Her grunt let him know how little stock she put in that.

The pony stumbled. She lurched to the side and he yanked her back. The coat splayed open, giving him a clear view down between the plump inner curves of her breasts to the small indentation of her navel and the temptation below. He brought his hand up. She stiffened and grabbed his wrist. He let her cling while he closed the gap. They came into sight of the others while he was tucking in the lapels.

The dramatic gasps of the women drew a disgusted glance from Tracker who was repacking the saddlebags. Clearly, the three thought he’d been in the bushes making time with Desi rather than chasing her over every bump in the ground. The fact that they wouldn’t be far wrong stung his pride. Sam looked up from where he was covering the bodies with blankets and debris. The makeshift covering would hide them long enough for them to get clear of the area. More than that they didn’t need. Everyone knew where Hell’s Eight land began and ended. And if they didn’t, he and the men wouldn’t waste time making the knowledge public.

A mutter of whore drifted in on the breeze. Said in a feminine voice and laced with disgust, it hit Desi with the force of a blow. If Caine hadn’t been holding her, she would have doubled over. Hot color rose to flood her neck and cheeks until it finally engulfed her entire face.

If they were in a bedroom and she was dropping her clothing piece by piece, he’d probably find that blush damn charming, but here in the open, with the inspiration being the censure of three women he didn’t give two shits about, well, it didn’t sit well. “Sam, you got any of that salve left?”

“In the saddlebag.”

He slid off the horse, keeping his hand on Desi’s thigh. Even through the coat the firm curve tempted him to slide his hand down the six inches necessary to touch bare skin. She had very soft skin. “Bring it over along with some water, would you?”

“Coming right up.”

Murmurs from the women sidled across the distance. “Disgusting.” Followed by, “Even in front of decent women, he can’t keep his hands off her.” With every word, the muscles beneath Caine’s hand tightened. The paint grunted a protest as Desi squeezed those thighs in reaction to the insults. He looked up, expecting to find that chin set proudly. Instead, it was lodged somewhere down between her collarbone.

Shit. “Want me to cut their tongues out and leave ’em as buzzard bait along with the rest of the refuse?”

He had to wait a second but then her eyes met his. They were packed with a whole lot of anger and maybe just a touch of humor.

“I think that would just make the buzzards sick.”

Yup. Definitely a sense of humor. Fire, grit and humor, all wrapped up in a pretty-as-a-picture package. And he’d woken up this morning thinking it was a day like any other. Just goes to show how far off a man could be in his estimations.

“Now, I definitely think you have the right of that, ma’am.” Sam strolled up with that easy way he had, that smile that women fawned over on his too-handsome face and real warmth in his normally cold eyes. In his hands he had a poncho and the salve. Desi’s response was a minimal twitch of her lips, but that she responded at all nicked Caine on his tender side.

Caine angled in, cutting off Sam’s approach. Unlike Tracker, who’d accepted his claim with little more than a flick of an eyebrow, Sam stiffened. That was the thing about Sam and what had earned him the nickname “Wild Card.” There was no telling which way the man would jump, just a damn certainty that when the bullets cleared, he’d be standing on whatever side he’d decided was right. Sam tossed him a poncho.

Caine held out his hand for the salve and canteen. Sam hesitated another second, his gaze meeting Caine’s in a clear challenge. They’d known each other since they were ten, survived hell together, saved each other’s asses more than once, been the only thing either could depend on for the last fifteen years, but in that moment Caine knew the truth. He’d fight Sam for Desi. And he’d take the battle however far he had to in order to guard his claim. Hell of a thing for a man to realize in the middle of nowhere.

Sam held his gaze for a couple more seconds. Though he wasn’t pushing it now, the message was clear. He had every intention of being competition. Damn!

Sam tossed Caine the salve before turning to Desi with a smile and a nod of his head.

“Sam MacGregor.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t let those biddies get under your skin, ma’am. There’s no one here who gives their opinions any weight.”

Desi took a slow breath as the handsome man made his interest known, concentrating on making that one breath perfectly even in a desperate attempt to avoid bolting. She didn’t want him to want her. Frigid water pouring over her foot ruined her concentration. She took another breath and tried again as Caine cleaned the area with the faded red handkerchief he’d removed from his neck. Through it all, the blond man watched her, studying her reaction.

Big as the other two, he was the handsomest of the lot, but that cold air of lethal efficiency he wore like most people wore a smile was scary. A woman would have no say in his bed. Metal popped against metal as Caine opened the tin of salve. Much as she was trying to avoid looking at either man, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at Caine when he pulled her foot away from the horse’s side.

If the other two men scared her, Caine terrified her to her bones. Danger lurked around him in an invisible shimmer, so much a part of his presence, she didn’t even think he realized it. She knew he could kill as easily as he changed his socks, and she knew he wouldn’t worry overly much about it when he was done. Survival was a matter of course to him. He was a lot like the land that way—rugged, deadly and uncompromising. Those who understood that and respected it would survive. Those who didn’t, would die.

She watched as he threw another silent challenge at Sam and held her breath through the outcome. Oh, God, there wasn’t a thing to stop them from taking what they wanted except maybe the presence and disapproval of Mavis and her friends. As a shield it was an extremely flimsy one and once they got to town even that would disappear.

She realized Sam was still looking at her, waiting on an answer, a slight frown putting a crease between his startling, slate-blue eyes. She blinked slowly, struggling for some sort of neutral response that wouldn’t increase his interest. The only thing that came to mind was “Thank you.”

She dug her nails into the leather pommel as he continued to study her. If these three succeeded in getting her back to town, the situation would only get worse. She knew what James would do. He was too smart to cross men like these. He’d give them whatever they wanted with a smile and an eye to survival.

She locked her gaze over Caine’s left shoulder, focusing on the winter-killed grass at the edge of the frigid stream. No matter what, she couldn’t let them get her back to town.

Sam was still looking at her. She could feel his gaze like a touch. She didn’t know what he was looking for or what he expected, but she sincerely hoped he gave up looking for it soon, otherwise she was going to break and the whirlwind of emotion twisting inside would rip free. If that happened, she didn’t know how she’d ever get it back under control.

The salve stung as Caine worked it into her cuts, giving her something else to focus on. She winced, and Caine paused.

“I’m being as gentle as I can.” The apology in the flatly worded statement brought her gaze down. Caine’s attention was on her foot. Despite the fact that her bare leg was inches from his face and she could see the bulge of his manhood where his chaps hugged his hips, there was nothing lecherous in his touch. Only caretaking with a hint of…tenderness? The sheer absurdity of the notion brought her up short. That soft part of her was once again chasing rainbows. Men like this weren’t tender, and even if they were, it wasn’t the kind of emotion they wasted on women like her.

Sam turned to Caine. “Beyond the horses and a couple decent guns, there wasn’t much worth saving off that bunch.”

Caine didn’t look up from his treatment of her foot. “Not a shock there.”

“One of the horses is wind broke.”

Even Desi knew what that meant. Her brother had once, in ignorance, bought a horse with that condition, ridden so hard and cared for so poorly that he couldn’t exert himself without fighting for breath. Her father had had one of the guides put it out of its misery. There was no mercy for the weak in this territory.

“Damn. Which one?”

“The sorrel. It’s a shame, too. He’s got a nice gait on him and a real pleasant how-de-do.”

Caine patted her thigh almost absentmindedly and ducked under the paint’s neck before taking her other foot into that inexorable grip and dousing it with more of the icy water. “You like him.”

It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of fact. Sam shrugged. “Just hate to see good horseflesh abused.”

Caine ran his finger down the center of her right foot in an ethereal caress, sending strange tingles upward and outward. She couldn’t help her shiver. She didn’t know if the quirk of his lips was for her reaction or Sam’s.

“I don’t suppose it would hurt to bring him along. As long as we don’t run into trouble, he should be fine.”

Sam nodded. “That was my thought.” He jerked his head in the direction of the other women. “Suppose I’d better go help Tracker get that lot saddled up.”

He sounded like he’d rather be nibbled to death by ducks. Not the reaction Mavis and her friends were used to getting from men.

“Better you than me.”

Desi looked down as Caine probed the edges of the deep cut near her arch. “You’re not going to put the horse down?”

She couldn’t see his face for the brim of his hat, but his attention was clearly more on her foot than her words. “Not without need.”

She would have thought the fact the horse couldn’t pull his weight constituted need. Fleeting pressure on her ankle was her only warning before he worked the ointment into the wound. It hurt nearly as much as getting the injury in the first place. Her exclamation was involuntary. His response disconcerting.

“Easy, baby.” The stroke of his hand on her calf was both soothing and absurdly comforting. She yanked back, but she couldn’t break his hold. Caine’s palm curved around her calf. He massaged her leg while standing so close the heat from his body warmed her cold skin. The pain eased.

At her terse “Thank you,” he touched her tightly curled toes in a way she could only describe as tender. Except this was not a tender man. She relaxed her foot, watching him carefully. Her reward was another squeeze of her calf and the resettling of her leg against the horse’s side. He was defintely a confusing one, though.

Caine tugged the reins over the horse’s head and dropped them to the ground, his mouth creasing at the corners with the hint of amusement as he ordered, “Stay put.”

And also an irritating one, she decided. Even if she leaned forward the reins were out of her reach, which meant she had no choice but to stay where he’d put her. Caine headed toward the area where the rest of the group waited, mounted. Each step was infused with that combination of strength, grace and confidence that once would have filled her with interest. He stopped at the side of an all-black horse, with white hindquarters covered with black spots, and opened the saddlebags. The horse snaked its head around, teeth showing. With an ease that spoke of long practice, he smacked it across the nose while pulling something free of the bag. Not brutally, but more in the way of a warning. As he tied the bag shut, the horse gathered its haunches as if to kick. Another light slap, this time on its hindquarters and the horse settled down. With a comment to the women who were waiting in various degrees of comfort on their horses, and a pat to the black horse’s shoulder as if what had passed between them were some sort of game, Caine headed back, tucking something into his back pocket before taking whatever he’d grabbed from under his arm.

When he got close enough, he held up a brown wad of material lying on top of a pile of leather. “Thought you might like these.”

The first “these” were woolen socks, the second, high-topped moccasins.

“They’ll be too big.”

He shrugged and tucked the moccasins under his arm. “They’ll do the job until you get your own clothes.”

“I don’t have any.” The confession slipped out before she could catch it, snapping his gaze to hers. She quickly waved to the items in his hands. “Moccasins, I mean.”

“Uh-huh.” He cupped her foot in his hands, warming it between his palms a second before bending to blow. His breath was hot and moist, scalding in comparison to the chill she felt to her bone. Before she could come up with a suitable protest, he worked the sock over her foot. As soon as he came around to the other side, she tucked her foot back against the horse’s withers.

“I can do it myself.”

“Not without risking falling off that horse, and I’d say at this point you have enough bruises.”

As if that settled that, he hooked his fingers around her ankle and drew her foot forward. She suffered through another warming before he slid the sock on. He tipped his hat back when he was done. “Admit it, that feels better.”

Even though she didn’t like the proprietary way he handled her body, she couldn’t deny how good it felt to have her flesh covered. She hated to be cold. “Yes, it does.”

He slid the moccasin on, tying the fringed top above her knee, his touch impersonal again. “Good.”

He went back around the other side, moccasin at the ready. She experimented with bending her right leg. She couldn’t straighten it all the way. She tried to flex it again as he slipped the other moccasin on. “I can’t walk in these.”

He tied the second moccasin with the same impersonal efficiency as he had the first. “But you can ride, which is more important.”

“What if we need to run?”

“If it comes to a footrace, we’re both dead.”

He pulled worn leather gloves from his back pocket. With a curl of his fingers, he ordered her to hold out her hands. She did cautiously, not liking the emotion flirting with the perimeter of his stern features. He slipped the gloves on her hands and then, before she could pull back, looped a long piece of rawhide around both her wrists, flipping the string between before she could protest. When he put her bound hands on the saddle horn, there was no mistaking the emotion tugging at his mouth. Amusement.

He tipped his battered brown hat and grabbed up the reins, leading the paint toward the black-spotted horse. “Just in case you were thinking of running from me.”

3

Well, at least she was consistent. Caine shifted Desi as she sat sideways on his lap, pulling the thick collar of his coat up over her cheeks, protecting her from chill as they rode into the wind. Adjusting his own poncho, he glanced over at Sam, and damn, he wanted to laugh all over again. Sam was as wet as Desi and mad enough to chew lead and spit bullets. Served Sam right, though, for thinking Desi had even a passing acquaintance with the word quit.

Untying her hands at the river crossing had been Sam’s first mistake. Thinking a fear of drowning would be a deterrent to trying to escape had been his second. Hell, for that much foolishness he deserved a cold ride back. Water seeped from Desi’s clothes through Caine’s denims as he scanned the countryside. They’d saved half a day by cutting through Hell’s Eight land and slipping through the cave at the back of that box canyon, but he didn’t like how quiet things were. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up straight, which always meant trouble brewing.

He didn’t have to look far for the cause. The women’s kidnapping had been too haphazard to have been carried out by experienced men, which meant they must have been hired by experienced men, meaning there were likely real Comancheros sitting out there without their income. Not good. Chaser, sensing his tension, snorted and did a quick sidestep. Desi’s fingers dug into his shirt.

“Easy.”

Both woman and horse ignored the order. A tightening of the reins brought Chaser in line, but Desi was going to take a bit more effort. She shifted on his lap, looking over his shoulder.

“When we get back to Los Santos, you’re going to be owing me a new pair of moccasins.”

Her wiggling stopped and that peculiar stillness that came over her when she was riled and hiding it froze her up. “I’m sure you can soften them up with a bit of saddle soap.”

“Now why would I be doing that since it was your harebrained idea that got them wet?”

“It wasn’t harebrained, it was…” The sentence trailed off. She tucked her head and that wealth of hair fell over her face, obscuring her expression. He tipped her chin up. She didn’t duck his gaze, just glared at him, blue eyes dark with fury and frustration. And under it all, something he was sure she didn’t want him to see.

“Desperate might be the word you were looking for.” Only desperation could drive a woman to turn her horse into deep water, clinging to the animal’s back with the same reckless courage that had the horse following the command.

Her lips set in a flat line. She jerked her chin, but he didn’t let her hide, just held her there, studying the subtle nuance of her expression as she wrestled with her demons. “The closer we get to Los Santos, the more desperate you get. Care to tell me why?”

Cold resentment pushed out every other emotion in that face that made him think of warm smiles and sultry invitations.

“I already told you.”

Yes, she had, but he’d like a bit more detail. He reached back into the saddlebag and pulled out a stale biscuit and some jerky. “Seeing as that’s the case, I expect you’d like a last meal.”

Her stomach rumbled. She held out her bound wrists, arching her hands back to facilitate being untied.

“Uh-uh.” He dropped the food onto the plateau formed by the oversized gloves. “I learned my lesson watching you teach Sam to swim. Those hands stay tied.”

She rested her hands on her lap, making no attempt to eat the food, presenting him with a clear view of her profile; small nose, pointed chin, smooth forehead and full lips that practically begged for a man to plant a kiss on them. He tapped the biscuit, knowing damn well she understood the order. Not by a twitch of those thick lashes did she acknowledge his presence. Another smile tugged at his lips.

“You keep this up and in about four miles, I’m going to start noticing you’re snubbing me and my feelings are bound to get hurt.”

Nothing. He hitched her back a bit and, keeping one hand on the reins, picked up the biscuit with the other. He held it to her mouth. Her stomach rumbled louder, but those kissable lips stayed tightly closed. She swallowed once. Twice. A person had to be damn hungry to salivate at the thought of a day-old biscuit. “When’s the last time you ate?”

Her lips barely moved as she imparted the information, no doubt worried he was going to shove the biscuit in. “A few days ago.”

Damn. “We were told you women were taken sometime last night.”

Outlaws often did their dirty work by the big Comanche moon that lit the plains like daylight.

She shrugged and turned her face into his chest, stomach rumbling, throat rippling, defying common sense.

He lowered the biscuit and shook his head. “You are one stubborn woman.”

“If you put me on my own horse, you won’t have to endure my company anymore.”

He had to smile at her persistence. “Now why would I do that? It’s not so often I get to hold a pretty woman in my arms that I’m eager to give up the pleasure.”

She rolled those big eyes and snorted indelicately. “I’m dripping wet, smell of horse, blood and other unpleasant things.”

“No arguing, you are a bit ripe.” Her outraged gasp caught on his sense of humor and gave it a tug. “But compared to that dead deer I hauled last week, you’re a clear step up.”

That fast, the steel left her spine. She shrugged down into the coat like a cake gone flat. He wondered if she’d actually been fishing for a compliment.

He returned the biscuit to her mouth. “I’m adding prickly to your list of attributes.”

She shot him a glare.

He shook his head. “Not eating won’t prove anything, and will just leave you too weak to fight.”

She snapped a bite, narrowly missing his fingertips. He waited until she got four good chews in, just enough to have the hard tack spread through her mouth before adding, “Truth be told, though, I don’t think I’ve ever had a prettier woman keep me company in the saddle.”

If looks could kill, he’d be dead. She struggled to get a retort out with the hard tack gluing her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

He dropped the biscuit into her hands and untied the canteen. Pulling the cork free with his teeth, he held it to her lips. She swished the first mouthful around before swallowing. After that, she just drank like there was no tomorrow. He pulled the canteen away, anger churning in his gut. If he’d known what bad shape she was in, he would have insisted she eat and drink back at the river and to hell with her stubbornness or the risk. “I take it that it’s been a while since you’ve had a good drink?”

“Our kidnappers weren’t overly concerned with the niceties.”

“None of us had a drink because of her,” Mavis called over the snort of the sorrel she was riding. Her dark hair was pulled back in a makeshift bun, her clothes as properly straightened as they could be after the day they’d had.

Since Tracker had seen to the other women’s needs earlier while Sam had been fishing Desi out of the San Antonio, Caine didn’t see a need for her outrage. Apparently, Mavis didn’t agree. She pointed at Desi and kept going. “She’s always causing trouble, bringing shame down on us all. No matter how often my brother disciplines her, she continues with her promiscuous ways.”

Desi’s face closed up tighter than a drum. She stared out across the rolling plains, shutting the other woman out. Shutting him out. Caine pulled the coat collar up to shield her as Sam rode up. Sam took one look at Desi’s posture, grabbed the sorrel’s bridle and shook his head.

“For an attractive woman, you sure are ugly,” he informed Mavis as he led her horse away. Mavis didn’t take kindly to that verdict and her argument was both loud and heated until Tracker shut her up by pointing out that she was drawing Indians.

Caine waited until she was out of earshot. “That woman has a belly full of hate for you.”

He didn’t think Desi was going to answer, but finally, she did. “Yes.”

“Her brother is your guardian?”

“Yes.”

“How’d that come to be? You kin?”

“No. But the circuit judge felt it was in my best interest to have one.”

“And he picked her brother?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“And they thought ‘best’ was a guardian for a grown woman?”

She shrugged. “The town fathers felt I had wayward tendencies.”

“By wayward, I take it they felt you were forward with men?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do to make them think that?”

Her expression grew tighter, more defensive. “Nothing.”

He believed her. Desi was more likely to remove a man’s balls than to delight in the fact that he had them.

“For a circuit judge to make a decision like that about a grown woman there had to be proof of a need.”

Nothing moved on her except her mouth. “They had a lot of proof.”

He didn’t miss the emphasis on they. “Who are ‘they’?”

“The town fathers,” she said with no emphasis on anything, as if reciting the facts. As if she expected him to believe the nonsense she was spouting.

“Why is it so important to you that I believe the worst of you?”

“It saves time.”

He took the canteen back and handed her a piece of jerky, settling her more comfortably against his chest. She could try until hell froze over, but he was never going to believe she was the forward type who needed a guardian to keep her behavior in check.

“Well, time I’ve got plenty of, so I guess it doesn’t matter if you waste a bit of it.”

Los Santos wasn’t as big as San Antonio, but it shared the same Franciscan heritage reflected in the fact that the church overshadowed every other building in the complex. The steeple could be seen for miles, and when the setting sun glinted off the inlaid tiles around the towers as it was doing now, it served as a beacon, drawing folk in from near and far.

Partial walls protected the town’s most vulnerable sides, but not much else stood in the way of defense. The size of the town itself was its best defense. Ten miles west of San Antonio, situated on a broad bend of the same river and boasting close to one hundred residents—all heavily armed—not many saw it as a prime target. Not when there were so many other smaller settlements and ranches cropping up on the outskirts. As they approached, the church bell rang and residents poured into the street.

“There’s Bert!” Mavis cried as a broad, hatless man came out to the middle of the street. She stood in the stirrups and waved her arms. After a second, the man shielded his eyes against the glare and then turned and shouted before running toward them, sunlight flashing off the star pinned to his chest.

Abigail and Sadie just as eagerly searched the crowd, standing in their stirrups until they, too, spotted their loved ones. Waving and crying, they yanked at their reins until Sam and Tracker turned their horses loose and let them gallop ahead to meet their kin.

In contrast, Desi didn’t even look up, just turned her face into his chest and took slow, even, very careful breaths. Caine brushed her hair off her cheek, dipping his fingers to the base of her neck, sliding his thumb around to the hollow of her throat, feeling the rapid beat of her pulse. For all that she sat calm and composed, she was terrified.

Tracker rode up beside him. He jerked his chin at Desi.

“She doesn’t look none too happy to be home.”

Caine nodded, curving his hand over her shoulder, the rounded point fitting precisely into his palm. “I noticed.”

“I don’t see anyone stepping forward to greet her.”

“It’s only been a minute.” Though he knew what Tracker was getting at. It seemed hard to believe that anyone missing Desi wouldn’t be at the forefront of the watch for her return.

“I don’t like the feel of this.”

He didn’t, either. “She’s got a guardian appointed by the circuit judge.”

Sam rode up on the other side, the same concern in his gaze as in Tracker’s.

“The padre that sent us after her?”

“No. Mavis’s brother.”

Tracker snorted. “Now, why doesn’t that make me all warm and toasty in my gut?”

Probably for the same reason it didn’t make him. The women had reached the men. There was a lot of cheering and hugging as everyone crowded around, wanting to hear the details of their rescue. A man separated from the crowd, the brightness of his white shirt against his paisley vest almost blinding as it reflected the rays of the setting sun. He stood apart from the crowd, legs spread, arms folded across his chest. Waiting.

Sam pushed his hat back off his brow and rested his forearm across the horn of his saddle. A body would have thought him completely relaxed, unless they noticed the repetitive opening and closing of his fingers. Anyone familiar with a gunslinger’s habits would recognize what he was doing. Sam wasn’t getting a toasty gut, either. “Looks like someone’s waiting on her return.”

Tracker spat his disgust. “A gambler.”

“Could just be a fancy dresser,” Sam offered, testing the fit of his revolver in the holster strapped to his leg.

“Yup.” Caine pulled his rifle from the scabbard and rested it across the saddle between the pommel and Desi’s hip. She cut him a startled glance. He squeezed her shoulder. “Is that your guardian, Desi?”

She didn’t turn her head, didn’t answer, but her respirations came two beats faster than normal. Finally, she nodded.

Tracker frowned. “What kind of judge gives guardianship of a young lady to a goddamn gambler?”

None that Caine knew. “Any chance you remember the name of the judge who heard your case, Desi?”

She would never forget. Not the way he had sat up on the church altar as though he were God on high. Not the way he’d acted the all-knowing, benevolent wise man, nor what had come after. “Judge Harvey Clayton.”

All three men swore at once.

“Well, that puts a clearer shine on things,” Sam muttered.

Caine rested his chin on her head and continued to stroke her arm with his fingers while, with every clop of the horses’ hooves on the wet ground, they got closer and closer to James. Desi closed her eyes and worked harder at getting her hands out of the gloves. By keeping her wrists apart after Sam had retied her, and letting her hair drip on the leather, she’d managed to stretch the ties some as they absorbed the water.

She risked a glance out of the corner of her eye. James was waiting and he wasn’t happy. He only stood that way when he wasn’t happy. Oh, God, she needed to get free. She worked her hands more frantically inside the gloves, pulling so hard the ties cut into her skin through the leather. She bit her cheek against the pain.

Caine’s strong hand settled over hers, engulfing her hands and wrists in the warmth of his touch. Again she got that conflicting message of threat and comfort. He squeezed, defeating her efforts with disheartening ease. She looked up. She couldn’t read a thing in his expression, partly because of the glare of the sun, and partly because he was just too good at hiding what he was thinking.

She tugged at her hands. Another squeeze and a shake of his head told her he knew what she was doing. The horse stopped. She heard James approaching. She’d sat and waited too many times like this not to recognize the sound of his tread. He always scuffed his foot on the third step.

Caine straightened. The rifle barrel pressed into her hip as he changed the angle.

“Ranger.”

James’s voice was smooth and well-modulated. Pitched to inspire confidence. He stepped into Desi’s view. His facial muscles were set in the same open, confidence-inspiring expression. His ability to charm people while hiding what he really thought was what made him such a successful gambler. He touched the brim of his hat with his finger. One finger. Her flinch escaped her control. “Desi.”

Caine’s grip on her shoulder tightened. He didn’t have to worry. She would never throw herself into this man’s arms.

James nodded to the other two men, who fanned out on either side of Caine. “I want to thank you all for bringing our Desdemona back to us.”

Tracker was the one who answered, a chill underlying his deep drawl. “It’s our job.”

James’s smile was easy and appreciative, as if he’d been longing to have her back. He probably had been, which accounted for the sincerity she sensed. “I hope she wasn’t too much trouble.”

“Why would you think she’d be any trouble?” Caine asked.

“Pretty as she is, surely you’ve noticed she’s not quite right in her head.”

As naturally as most people breathed, James slipped the lie into the conversation. Against her shoulder, she felt Caine stiffen. She straightened her spine, shifting away from the illusion that his strength was hers. It was starting again, just like it had before. The innuendo, the twisting of the truth until everything she’d done in self-defense was nothing more than another example of her instability.

She curled her fingers into fists as the rage beat against the futility of effort. Lawman or not, with her background, Caine wouldn’t listen to her, let alone believe her. What was the word of one deranged woman compared to the word of so many upstanding citizens? When push came to shove, he’d back James, the sheriff and the court who’d given her to them.

Caine’s “Can’t say that I have” caught her totally by surprise, the same way Tracker’s “Bullshit” and Sam’s “For Christ’s sake” did. Usually, when men came up against James’s confidence and smooth manner they went along with him. Caine and his men were the first who hadn’t, and she didn’t care if it was their naturally perverse nature or genuine belief that drove them to do it. She was just glad they had. It gave her a minute more of hope.

James looked her up and down, the concern never leaving his expression, but that twitch at the corner of his eye let her know that he was annoyed. He stepped in, holding his hand up to Caine. If Caine hadn’t chosen that moment to hook his foot over her ankle, she would have kicked James in his teeth.

“James Haddock. Desdemona’s guardian. And I’m glad she’s been having a good day.”

Caine made no effort to shake James’s hand. “I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘good.’”

“That probably wasn’t the best choice of words.”

If anything, the solid wall of muscle against her side got harder. Desi tilted her head back. Caine was staring at James with that impassive face that gave away nothing. To him or to her.

“What would be a better choice?” Caine asked, his finger touching her cheek, the calluses on his fingertip feeling strange against her skin before recurving his hand round her shoulder. Though it was illogical, she felt safer with it there.

“Stable maybe?” James’s sigh was sympathy personified as he stepped back. Behind him, spectators gathered. Most of them just bored townsfolk, but a few like Bert, Bryan and Carl had an interest even if they weren’t going to reveal it. She shuddered. They would never touch her again.

“Ever since her ordeal,” James continued, taking a step closer. “There’s been no knowing how she’s going to be one day to the next.”

Desi sucked in a breath and held it, pointless outrage surging. Again. Caine unhooked his leg from over her feet.

“Ordeal?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She curled her hands into fists, knowing what was coming. How it was going to end. Caine’s chin bumped her head lightly and then his lips brushed her ear. “Breathe, Desi.”

She didn’t think she was ever going to breathe again.

“Ever since she came to us her mental condition has been…delicate.”

“I am not insane.” For once she wanted to say that and have someone really believe her.

“Of course you’re not,” James agreed immediately, that smile she hated stretching his lips and that warning tic pulling infinitesimally at the corner of his eye. “You’ve just had a tough time recovering from your experience with the Comancheros last year.”

Shame and anger warred for dominance. Everyone knew what Comancheros did to captives. Everyone knew how filthy they left a woman. Forever tainted. Scorned.

“That true, Desi?” Caine asked, no discernible inflection in his voice.

“I’m not crazy.”

“I already know that. I was questioning the part about the Comancheros.”

There would be no point in denying it. The sheriff or the priest would back up James’s claim. She dug her nails so hard into her palms they ached. “Yes.”

“Damn, I’m sorry, honey.”

Honey? When had she become honey? She took one deep slow breath, then two.

“Is that how you lost your parents?”

She didn’t bother with three. Simply gave up the struggle for calm. It just wasn’t possible with the threat of her return hanging over her head and Caine bringing the pain of the past to the fore. “Yes.” And her twin sister. She closed her eyes on that memory.

James took a step forward, and the snap of a twig under his foot jerked her eyes open. This time Caine didn’t put his foot over hers as he came almost into reach. “We’ve done our best by her.”

“That’s true,” Sheriff Hatchet said, coming up. “The girl was wild when she first got here. No one could get near her. There was talk of sending her back east to one of those asylums until James here agreed to take her on.” He slapped James on the back. “Don’t know how he did it, but he worked wonders with the girl.” He shook his head in amazement. “Pure wonders.”

“Did he work wonders on you, Desi?” Caine asked, still with no inflection in his voice to give her an idea of what he wanted her to say.

“Her name is Desdemona,” James corrected before she could answer.

“The girl spoke clear enough when she introduced herself.”

That came from Sam.

James took a step nearer. The side of Caine’s hand dug into her hip as he adjusted his aim. James stopped midstride. He blinked, then slowly raised his hands and reversed his steps. The fear on his face gave Desi no end of satisfaction.

“Ranger,” the sheriff interjected. “James is the girl’s legal guardian. If you have a problem with that, you’ll need to take it up with the circuit judge next time he comes through.”

The saddle creaked as Caine shifted his weight. “I’m thinking maybe I will.”

“I assure you, Ranger, we’ve only had her best interests in mind.”

“Can’t help it if it strikes my suspicious bone funny when the territories’ crookedest judge gives a pretty young girl to a gambler for caretaking.”

“Can’t argue with the results,” the sheriff pointed out.

“I guess that would depend on which angle you were viewing the results from,” Caine countered.

To her surprise, Caine slid the rifle under her hands, pushing it forward until the smooth stock pressed against the heels of her hands and the hammer caught on her gloves. “You want to weigh in on James’s caretaking, Desi?”

She looked up at him only to find him staring down at her, green eyes serious. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. “I can shoot him?”

He nodded. “Anywhere you want.”

He had to be joking. She fumbled through the gloves to get her finger around the trigger. However, if there was a chance he was serious, she wasn’t missing out. Hate welled up, spreading outward in a cold, dark wave. Could she do it? Did she have it in her to kill him and to hell with the consequences?

She tilted the gun. It wobbled. Caine steadied it for her as she lifted it and sighted down the barrel at James’s face, savoring the terror in his expression, remembering how it felt that night he’d begun “working wonders” with her. Remembering how helpless she’d felt. So damn sick and afraid. So betrayed.

The sight at the end of the muzzle dropped over his torso. She followed the line of buttons on his vest until she came to the waistband of his fancy black broadcloth pants. From there it was only a matter of two more inches before she reached her destination. There. Right there was where she wanted the first shot to go.

James swore and backed up, stumbling over his own feet. With Caine’s help, she kept the rifle trained as he landed on his butt in the mud. The sheriff grabbed for his revolver, but before he got it clear of his holster, she squeezed the trigger, keeping her eyes on the target, wanting to see the bullet hit. Wanting the satisfaction.

At the last second, the gun tilted down and there was an explosion of mud that sprayed between James’s feet. While she stared, not understanding, Caine removed the gun from her hands.

“Guess that answers my question.”

But it didn’t answer hers. She wanted the gun back in her hands. She wanted one second more. She wanted James dead. She stared at the gloves overwhelming her hands and felt Caine all around her. Another man using her to get what he wanted. “Why did you stop me?”

The quaver in her voice was barely perceptible but Caine heard it. Desi had a belly full of anger and no outlet. He tipped her face up. The pain and rage in her eyes ate at his gut. “I figure you’ve got enough scars, you don’t need the kind killing a man can bring.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

He released her chin and moved the rifle out of her reach, aiming it at the men rushing up from the edge of town. “I would.”

He squeezed with his right knee and Chaser turned into the oncoming crowd. “You best be telling those men to holster their guns, Sheriff, or this town’s going to be short some of its important citizens.”

“You can’t just come in here and start shooting people, Allen.”

“Unless you’re going to stop me,” he told the older man, “I can pretty much do whatever the hell I want.”

And what he wanted right now was justice.

“He’s got a point,” Tracker drawled, a revolver in each hand, his horse tossing its head as the tension built. “We just start shooting up towns whenever we get the urge, eventually someone’s going to slap up a wanted poster with our pictures on it.”

“Not that I particularly mind,” Sam added, his new revolver in one hand and a shotgun in the other. “Hell, we’ve skirted the wrong side of legal all our lives, but you know damn well they aren’t going to do our handsome faces justice on those damn posters and that would pain me.”

“What would you suggest?”

“We should just take the girl and leave.”

Caine pretended to consider the suggestion as the sheriff—as crooked a son of a bitch as Caine had ever seen—settled his weight into his boots with misplaced confidence. “There are ten of us here and only three of you, son. I think you’d better settle down.”

Caine had no intention of settling down. A short, stocky figure in brown robes pushed through the crowd. Caine bumped Desi’s butt with his thigh to get her attention. “Desi, I want you to slide on down now and go stand with Father Gerard.”

He didn’t want her anywhere near him if shooting commenced. He held her wrists as her feet touched the ground, stretching her back, forcing her to look at him. At the base of her throat, where the coat parted, he could see her pulse pounding. She was afraid but game. A woman a man could depend on.

“No running. Not this time.” He held her gaze, trusting Tracker and Sam to guard his back. She finally nodded. “Give me your word.” A flare of surprise crossed her face, and then that chin set and she gave a short nod.

“Good.” He let her go. She limped over to Father Gerard, her steps awkward due to the way he’d tied the moccasins and the cuts on her feet. As soon as she reached the priest, he put his arms around her. She held up her hands. The older man went to work on the knots. Across the small distance her triumph was palpable. Caine nodded, ceding her the small victory. Then he turned back to the gambler. “I’m revoking your guardianship.”

“You can’t do that.” A portly man who shouldn’t have anything to do with the discussion broke in. Immediately, another man shushed him. Both were better dressed than farmers. All confident. None of them should have cared one way or another what happened to one small woman with no family or influence.

I’ll die there.

Desi’s words took on deeper meaning. An ugly suspicion took root as he pulled the puzzle pieces together. Mavis’s unreasonable dislike. The sheriff’s interest. The judge giving her over to the gambler. Father Gerard’s veiled innuendos about circumstances and his request for Caine to watch out for her personally. Son of a bitch. He didn’t like the conclusion he was reaching. He waved the rifle barrel at the fat man. “Who are you?”

The man paled but didn’t back up, obviously under some illusion that Caine would suffer a pang of conscience at plugging him. “Bryan Sanders. Representative of Steel, Jones and Steel.”

“And who are they?” From the cut of the man’s clothes, “they” were well-heeled.

“A group of gentlemen with financial interests in the region.”

“Bankers.” Sam spat. Sam liked bankers about as much as he liked gamblers.

Caine considered himself to be more open-minded, but in this case, he had to agree. He was developing his own dislike for the fat banker. “It must have been real tempting for y’all, having a pretty young woman come through, no family to speak for her, no one to turn to, traumatized by her experiences.”

The women pushed in from the edge of the crowd. One gasped. Another murmured. The banker drew himself to his full height, his jowls jiggling with his outrage. “I don’t think I like your innuendo.”

“Hate to break it to you, but your likes and dislikes aren’t high on my consideration list.”

“What the hell are you getting at, Allen?” James asked, getting to his feet, wiping mud from his pants. “We took her in, saved her from those devils. Gave her a home. Community.”

Chaser stepped sideways as a horse bumped him.

“Priorities, Caine.”

He spared Tracker a glance, who in turn jerked his chin in Desi’s direction. Her face was bleached white as she stood there, dwarfed by his coat and the truth she didn’t want known. Her chin lifted high as her gaze met his, but he got the impression all that was holding her up was that damn pride as the women murmured among themselves, enjoying the scandal he’d begun.

Caine bit back the rage burning in his gut. Tracker was right. First things first. “We’re taking Desi with us and if anyone has anything to say against it—” he levered a bullet into the chamber, letting the fury roll through him in an open challenge “—step up now so we can get the discussing behind us.”

To his surprise it was Father Gerard who stepped forward. “I can’t let you do that, Caine.”

“I don’t rightly see where you can stop me, Padre.” More titters spread through the crowd.

“I cannot let an unmarried woman go off with three men, lawmen or not.”

“Whatever we have planned, it’s better than what’s here.”

The stocky priest shook his nearly bald head. “It can’t be allowed.”

The longer they stood there, the more dutch courage the men were getting and the more trigger-happy fingers were twitching.

“If you take her like this, she’ll still be James’s ward, and still his by law.”

Caine kneed Chaser in a half circle, drawing his revolver. “Any who want to dispute my claim know where to find me.”

“I’m not going with you.”

He wasn’t surprised when Desi’s protest was the only one spoken. There were times when a deadly reputation came in right handy.

“Ten months ago when I saved your life, Caine Allen,” Father Gerard continued in his calm way, “you told me I could ask a favor anytime, and it would be granted.”

“I did.” Caine had an idea where this was heading. The priest’s next words confirmed his suspicions.

“A husband’s rights supersede all others.”

Caine took aim at a young wrangler on the left edge of the crowd. “Don’t do it, son.”

He cut Father Gerard a quick glance. “You don’t call in markers on something like this.”

The priest shrugged, coming closer, letting go of Desi’s hand when she planted her feet. “You’ll have to forgive me. This is my first time.”

If it was the priest’s first time, he’d eat his boot. The cowboy holstered his revolver and held up his hands. Caine backed Chaser up two steps. “I thought it was a sin for priests to lie.”

“And I thought Rangers always kept their promises.”

They did—he did—but as much as he admired Desi’s courage, he wasn’t about to marry her. Although the thought wasn’t as distasteful as it should have been. “Marriage is a forever thing, Padre.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not a forever kind of man.”

“Then perhaps it’s time you changed.”

“Might be too late in the day for that miracle.”

“Are you going back on your promise?”

This time Caine cut a glance at Desi. She was staring at the smiling gambler with resigned horror, sure Caine would go back on his word to the priest and to her. Jesus, he wanted to walk Chaser over there and kick those damn shiny teeth down the gambling bastard’s throat just for looking at her. “No.”

“Without my approval this marriage can’t take place,” the gambler piped up, clearly looking to shorten his life.

A shotgun cocked on Caine’s right. “Then give it.” Sam’s was short and to the point.

He didn’t give his approval, but he shut up, which was all the same to Caine.

Caine clucked his tongue, guiding Chaser to where Desi stood. He holstered the rifle and motioned for her to hold up her hands. He pulled his knife from his boot top and cut through her bonds. “A woman shouldn’t get married with her hands tied.”

“I don’t want to marry.”

Neither did he, but neither of them had much of a choice. Forced by circumstance and honor, there was only one path for both of them. “Would you rather stay here?”

“No.”

“Then we get hitched.”

He waited for the priest to reach them. His robes flapped around his legs in the breeze. He should have looked ridiculous, womanly in the garb, but he didn’t. He looked what he was. A man at peace with his life and the choices he’d made. Caine envied him. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt calm.

Since the day the Mexican army had slaughtered their entire town, shouting “death” as they’d murdered men, women and children alike, he’d been consumed with a rage for justice that wouldn’t let him rest. The same rage flowed over him now as the men he’d mentally marked gathered together, voices rising and falling in an angry cadence, occasionally punctuating their frustration with sharp gestures. His finger ached on the trigger of his revolver. It’d be so easy to take them out. To save everyone the expense of a trial for what they’d done to Desi. So very easy to make them suffer.

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

Caine didn’t take his eyes off the men, controlling Chaser’s impatient prance with a light touch on the reins. “This time, Padre, the good Lord is going to have to get in line.”

4

Desi huddled deeper into the warmth of her borrowed coat. She pulled the collar up against her cheeks and watched as Caine hunkered down beside the saddlebags and fished something out of the depths. Firelight flicked shadows over his big form, elongating his silhouette into the deeper gloom between the rocks. Making him more than he was, but more distant, too…

“You hungry?”

The question was tossed over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He paused. The glance he cast her was knowing. “I seriously doubt that.”

The shame of that burned to her soul. There weren’t words strong enough to cut him down. She lifted her chin and pulled the cold around her, letting it seep into the well that wedged permanently in her soul. “Nevertheless, it’s true.”

He took his big knife out of its sheath. The rasp of metal on leather was loud. He opened the packet on the ground. Firelight caught in the blade and reflected back as he brought it down. He took the food and held it out to her. “It’s not too tasty, but it will fill the hole in your gut.”

She looked at the handful of dried meat, then back up at him. It was going to take a lot more than jerky to fill the hole in her. She let go of the edge of the coat, watching his hands as she reached for the meal. Watching for any sign of meanness. She was hungry, but not hungry enough to be stupid. She stopped halfway there. Caught between hunger and wariness.

Around them there was only darkness. Just she and Caine trapped in this intimate insubstantial circle of light. Tracker and Sam had gone back to town to get her things. She’d told them it wasn’t necessary, but they’d insisted on some notion that a woman needed her things about her. Maybe a woman did, but her things had been stripped from her long ago, and all she had now was her pride, determination and…her husband. Caine’s fingers twitched and she jerked her hand back.

She took a breath, eyes locked on his hand. Beyond that twitch of his fingers, he didn’t move.

“You’d do better to watch my eyes.”

The low, drawled comment was as startling as the twitch of those fingers.

She clutched at the neck of the coat again, watching his hand, her heart beating too fast to breathe right. “What?”

“If you want a heads-up when I’m about to turn ornery, you’d do better to watch my eyes.”

She had to look then. Caine was watching, no expression on his face, no discernible indication of what he was thinking. Just watching her as if she were some sort of puzzle he intended to figure out. She hated the way that made her feel. Helpless, stupid, easy prey. She snatched the food from his hand, almost whimpering with the stress as her fingers touched his, expecting him to grab her wrist as she grabbed the food. He didn’t move, and his hand stayed where it was even after she had tucked her hand back into the shelter of her body. She forced a normal tone. “What good would it do me to watch your eyes when it’s your hand I’m worried about?”

“It’d give you that split-second warning that could make the difference between life and death.” He waved to the food in her hand with the knife before going back to the chunk and cutting off another piece. “Eat.”

Her throat was so dry she didn’t think she could work up the spit to swallow, so she just sat there, huddled by the fire and waited for Caine to turn his attention to something else. She waited in vain. He brought the meat to his mouth and took a bite, revealing strong white teeth and the hint of a smile. He motioned to the food pressed into her middle. “It’s not going to soften up no matter how hard you squeeze it.”

She wasn’t just squeezing the meat, she had a death grip on it. And he was right. It wasn’t softening up. Feeling like a fool, she brought it to her mouth. She took a bite, chewing it. It was tough and grainy and sat like sand in her dry mouth. There was no way she could swallow it. She chewed until her jaws tired, and it still didn’t soften.

Caine turned away. Shadows from the fire stretched like dark flames up over his shoulders, blending into the deeper shadow cast by the brim of his hat. He was a very powerful man. She remembered how he’d held off the town, how comfortable he’d been in enforcing his will. Fighting him over food she needed wasn’t a battle in which she wanted to engage him. She glanced down and chewed more.

A canteen appeared in her line of vision. “This might help.”

She took it carefully, but without the hesitation of before, which made her feel better. She hadn’t become a total coward.

The water was cool and fresh. He must have refilled it before the others left, because not at any point since had she been left alone. The meat softened, and she swallowed. Her stomach rumbled with eagerness as the small bit of food landed. Caine’s laugh hit her pride like a blow.

“Been a long time since I heard anyone’s stomach get excited about jerky.” The humor in his words didn’t linger in his expression. His mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes narrowed. Worse, they were back to studying her in that way that made her throat close. She brought the jerky back to her lap. “I can’t eat with you watching me.”

She expected him to argue or to spit out a “Tough.” She did not expect him, after a brief pause, to hand her his piece of jerky and to turn his attention to the tiny fire. “I don’t want your food.”

“There’s more coming.”

But not for a while. “I can wait.”

“Gypsy, there’s not enough meat on your bones to wait five minutes, let alone an hour.”

Despite the fact she didn’t care what he thought, it stung that he saw her as scrawny. “I’ve always been lean.”

He turned back. “Maybe so, but now you’re in need of fattening up.”

For the slaughter. The phrase cut through her mind. “It’s not your problem.”

“You’re my wife. Everything about you is my problem.”

“We’re not really married.”

She suddenly had his full attention. “Sweetheart, I made a promise to the padre and to God. It doesn’t get more married than that.”

“I meant you don’t have to stay married. You can get rid of me anytime.”

“Really? And here I thought we were hitched for life.”

She gripped the meat so hard, her short nails cut through the tough strings. “They’re not going to let me go.”

“Uh-huh.” He indicated the barely touched meal. “Your stomach will be happier if you eat that rather than play with it.”

“They’ll come after me.”

He took the canteen from her hand and took a swig. She watched his throat work over the edge of the poncho. Watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. Where was his worry? He had to be worried. “James and his friends are not nice people.”

He handed the canteen back to her. When she took it, his hand came up under her chin, tapping the bottom, bringing her gaze up.

“One of these days I want you to tell me how ‘not nice’ they were.”

She shook her head. She would never tell anyone how it was.

He continued as if she hadn’t denied him. “But for now, you just need to know that they are no longer a threat to you.”

She bit her lip. She couldn’t believe that, either. James, Bryan and Carl had enjoyed having her at their disposal too much to just let her be spirited away. And they thought too much of themselves not to take it personally that she had been. Still, Caine had risked his life for her. She owed him at least a warning. “They’ll kill you.”

Unbelievably, he smiled. A genuine smile full of amusement. “They’re welcome to try.”

He didn’t understand. “They won’t be up front about it.”

He dropped his hand from her chin. “Never thought they would be.”

God, he was arrogant. “If you let me go, they’ll leave you alone.”

He picked up a stick and snapped it in two. “If I let you go, you’d have no protection.”

“I could hide.”

“Sweetheart, no matter where you ran, men would find you and you’d be back in bed.”

“I don’t want a man.”

He added small sticks to the tiny fire. “I don’t remember mentioning that you’d be there willingly.”

He fed the fire another stick.

“I won’t be taken again.”

“On that we agree. My wife stays with me.”

He was really stuck on the wife thing. It obviously meant more to him than it did to her.

“I wish you could forget that we married.”

His gaze traveled slowly down her body before taking an equally slow trip back up. She knew she looked like hell, and knew he couldn’t see a thing through the bulky coat, but she still felt like she was standing before him naked, with no secrets and no protection.

“That’s not something I have any interest in forgetting.”

He wanted her sexually. No doubt he relished the fact that she was at his disposal, probably even expected her to just lie back and spread her legs so he could take his pleasure. She glared at him, anger serving as her friend, giving her the strength to say, “I’ll fight you.”

His eyebrow kicked up. “Did you fight them?”

With everything she’d had, which hadn’t amounted to anything in the long run. “Yes.”

His head canted to the side. “Did it do you any good?”

Up until they’d tied her, it had. “No.”

He handed her back the canteen and placed his fingers under the back of her other hand, pushing the food to her mouth. His voice was incredibly gentle when he asked, “Then what makes you think I’m going to be worried about you fighting me?”

Nothing. Nothing at all. She sank her teeth into the meat, gnawing on the realization that what she thought or wanted didn’t matter here any more than it had mattered anywhere else. And with each chew, she was aware of how he watched her. The food coalesced in a hard lump in her mouth. Caine passed her the canteen. She didn’t lift it to her mouth. There was just no way she could swallow anything with his words sashaying through her head. She turned and spat the food into the dirt. His sigh brought her right back around again.

“I can see I’m going to have to change my ways around you if I don’t want you wasting away.”

“You don’t like skinny women?”

“What I like or don’t like is immaterial. I’m married.” He motioned to the food in her hand. “You going to eat that?”

Was he planning on making her? “I couldn’t.”

“Because I made you mad?”

What did he want? A yes? A no? She settled on a shrug.

He took the food from her hand and wrapped it up. It seemed to take him forever to put it away in the saddlebags, though his movements were smooth and efficient. It was just her own sense of time that was off-kilter. A twig snapped in the darkness beyond the small circle of light. Her heart leapt in her throat.

Caine settled back against the boulder, resting his arm across his bent knee, looking so powerful that the rifle propped by his side appeared superfluous.

“Relax.”

“I can’t.”

He sighed and angled his hat down. “What worries you more, them or me?”

Him, definitely him. “You.”

“Why?”

A stark, bold question by a stark, bold man. She licked her lips, debated answering, but there was something about the set of his mouth that made her think he’d force the response. “I know what to expect from them.”

He pulled the saddlebag over to him and fished around in one of the outer pockets. “What makes you think I’m any different?”

She licked her dry lips again, took a sip of water and forced herself to answer. “I don’t know.”

“That would be my point. You don’t know.” He pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper and untied it carefully. “I could be a real sweetheart between the sheets.”

Sweetheart or devil, she didn’t see how it made a difference. She took another sip from the canteen, at a loss as how to answer.

“Give me your hand.”

She instinctively tucked it into her stomach. He shook his head, reaching for it, pulling it forward until it stretched between them, palm up like a sacrifice. She tugged. He didn’t let go. The corner of his mouth twitched as he looked up at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”

She watched as he put the brown paper in her hand. It was light and solid. He closed her fingers around it and let her go.

“I figure that will go down easier than jerky.”

Desi propped the canteen on the rock beside her. She parted the brown paper. Inside lay three heart-shaped confections. A fourth, more oddly shaped piece was smaller than the other three. Dark, rich and shiny, they lay like the perfect temptation in her palm.

Chocolate. Dear God, chocolate. She brought the package up close enough to take a deep breath of the heady aroma. It flowed through her system along with the memories of happier times, when she and her sister romped through the family mansion, running from room to room with reckless abandon. Never appreciating how good they had it, longing for the adventure they didn’t know could turn into a disaster. Chocolate had been an expected daily treat. They’d pitched tantrums when they hadn’t gotten it. In their innocence and bliss they’d never appreciated what a luxury it was to have it at all. She touched the irregular fourth piece with her finger. It had several vertical slices. Like someone had chiseled bits and pieces off it over time.

“My mother always swore by chocolate in times of stress.”

She looked up. It was Caine’s chocolate. He had to have been the one to chip off those tiny pieces. It was obviously something he valued and savored. She wrapped the package up, biting her lips against the pain it caused, and handed it back to him. “I can’t take your chocolate.”

Just as calmly he pushed her hand back toward her.

“Why not? Don’t you like it?”

“I love it.”

“As I want you to have it, where’s the problem?”

She didn’t look down as he unwrapped the paper again. “Why?”

“Because you’re my wife,” he said, nudging it toward her, “this is our wedding day and thirty years from now when you reminisce to our kids about it, I’d like for you to have a pleasant memory to pass on.”

She didn’t know what to be shocked by more. The fact that he thought so far down the road or the fact that he thought about her at all. She took two of the whole pieces of chocolate and held them out.

He shook his head. “I gave them to you.”

He said that as if he couldn’t care less about the sweet, except she held the evidence to the contrary in her hand. She tucked her pinky against the chopped piece, running her fingertip across the irregular ridges. The chocolate was dear to him, a prize he savored. “You like it, too.”

“That I do.”

“I can’t take something you value.”

“Why don’t you take a nibble before making a statement like that.”

He was tempting her. With chocolate. A devil in dirty clothes and a battered hat and more muscle than she could shake a stick at. The chocolate began to warm to her hand. Soon it would make a mess. “I don’t want it.”

“Now, that’s a lie.”

She cut him a glare.

“Now what?”

The truth just burst out. “I don’t want to be beholden to you!”

His laugh was unexpected. “Are you telling me all it takes is giving you a sweet, and you’ll be in my debt? Gypsy, it’s going to be darn easy being married to you.”

He was right. If she couldn’t even manage this small courtesy, she was going to be very easy to manipulate. However, now that she’d dug this hole for herself, she wasn’t quite sure how to get out of it. She settled for a blunt, “No.”

He took the two pieces of chocolate. “So maybe if we share, it won’t offend your sense of proper?”

This time the look she cast him was puzzled.

He shook his head. “As much as this might ruffle your sense of how it’s going to be, I don’t want to be at war with my wife.”

So he’d made her a peace offering with what he had, giving her something he valued. Sharing. It wasn’t such a bad way to start things. She took back the smaller piece and replaced it with the larger one.

His left eyebrow went up. He flicked a finger in the direction of the smaller piece. “You’re getting the short end of the stick.”

She didn’t think so. “Maybe I want you to have a happy memory, too.”

Even as she said it, she knew it was true. She might not have had the wedding of her dreams, she might be married to a total stranger, but he’d risked his life to save her twice, and he was her husband. Just in case she lived long enough to think back on this day as a memory, she wanted to see herself as more than helpless debris tossed along the current of her life.

Caine took the candy. One glance at his expression made her glad she’d made the gesture. The harsh planes had mellowed into an expression of satisfaction. He held up the candy like a man making a toast. “To a happy future.”

She noticed he didn’t say together. She touched the broken piece to his whole one. “To a happy future.”

He caught her hand before she could put the candy in her mouth. His fingers wrapped around hers, holding her steady as he leaned in. She watched as his mouth opened. The gleam of his teeth was faint in the firelight. His lips brushed her fingers, firm but surprisingly soft as he took a bite.

“To seal the deal.”

“That was mine.” She licked her lips as a fine tingle shivered up her arm. “You gave it to me.”

“Nah, that was clearly mine.” He touched one of the nicked edges. “I put my mark all over it.”

“It’s still mine now.”

He shook his head again, a smile flirting with the corner of his mouth. “Wrong again.” His finger touched the corner of her mouth, drawing those strange tingles there. “Once mine, always mine.”

He held one of his chocolates against her lower lip, pressing in gently as she absorbed his statement. A comfort or a threat? When she didn’t open her mouth immediately, he worked the chocolate in deeper using gentle side-to-side motions that spread the melting confection along the lining of her lip. The taste of his skin blended with the taste of the sweet. His gaze held hers, the green of his eyes almost black in the faint light. “To seal the deal.”

She took a bite, letting the flavor flow through her mouth. It was rich and sweet and so good. She swallowed. The taste of man and chocolate blended in a pleasant combination. She blinked. It was such a foreign concept to think of anything to do with a man being pleasant.

His smile was strangely gentle as he sat back against his rock and fed another stick into the fire. “I’m not an ornery man, Desi.”

What was she supposed to say to that? She settled on “Thank you,” which sounded ridiculous even to her own ears.

“I don’t have any intention of being an ornery husband.”

Again, she didn’t have anything to say. The smile that twitched his lips should have warned her but it didn’t. She was too distracted by the taste of chocolate, the taste of man and the confusing image he presented that was so different from what she thought he’d be. “But I do plan to be real sweet between the sheets.”

Sam and Tracker slipped back into camp with the same stealth with which they’d left. Two dark shadows, as comfortable in the dark as they were in the light.

Caine nodded as they dropped their saddlebags on the other side of the fire. The set of Tracker’s shoulders spoke volumes. Something had happened in town. “Did you have any trouble?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Sam took out his makings. “Sure enough that town needs some cleaning up.”

Across the fire, Desi stiffened. She was watching Tracker and Sam with a dread that didn’t make sense.

“And Desi’s things?” A woman needed her things about her, familiar geegaws and such that made wherever she landed home. He’d never met a woman who didn’t put a lot of stock in her personal treasures, and he had no reason to feel Desi was any different.

Tracker sighed and pulled out a brown, wrapped package and crossed the small distance, standing over Desi where she sat on the low rock, looking big in comparison, which might explain the anxious expression on her face, but he didn’t think so. There was more going on here than what anyone was letting on.

“I’m real sorry, ma’am. The bastards got to your things before I could retrieve them but the mercantile had some ready-mades that might do.”

Desi took the package with hands that trembled. Caine could put that tremble down to fear, but he hadn’t lived this long by guessing wrong. “Thank you.”

There wasn’t a more shaky bit of gratitude ever expressed. Tracker held the package a little longer than necessary, drawing her gaze. “You’re welcome.”

Sam rolled his smoke, his eyes on Desi, too. “You might not be able to believe this right now, seeing as where you came from, but you can relax now.”

Something was definitely up. “Is there something that happened in town that I should know about?”

Tracker shook his head, his long hair sliding over his shoulder. He stepped back. “We handled it.”

Caine glanced over at Sam. “What did you handle?”

“What needed it.” He pitched the unlit smoke into the fire.

It wasn’t like Sam to waste a smoke. A glance at Desi didn’t reveal any more than Tracker and Sam had. She just sat there clutching the package to her chest, all hunched down as if she wanted to disappear. Shit!

“I’m thinking maybe I should have been the one to fetch my wife’s things.”

Tracker’s gaze flicked to Desi as he said, “I’m thinking things worked out the way they should have.”

Maybe. Caine asked Desi, “What do Sam and Tracker know that I don’t?”

She licked her lower lip the way she did when she was nervous. “I have no idea.”

That was a bald-faced lie. He cupped her chin in his hand and brought her face up. She’d tell him and then he’d handle it. Her lids flinched but the rest of her expression stayed stub bornly set. “Now, try telling me the truth.”

“Leave her alone, Caine.”

He didn’t let go of Desi’s chin or take his gaze from hers. “This is between me and my wife, Tracker.”

“Some things don’t need telling.”

He didn’t agree. The haunted look in Desi’s eyes drove him to know. “I’ll be deciding that.”

Denim rustled as Sam stood. “No. You won’t.”

Caine straightened, letting his hand slip from his wife’s chin. “Who’s going to stop me?”

Desi gasped as Sam took a step forward. “If you can’t resist being an ass long enough to find the respect you owe your wife, I guess I will.”

“I don’t think so.”

A soft sound had him looking down. Desi was backed against the boulder doing her level best to fade into the rough rock, her blue eyes wide and locked on him and Sam, but he wasn’t exactly sure she saw him. There was a wildness to her gaze, an inward focus that reminded him of battle-crazed men lost to reality. She clutched the package to her. He stepped back from Sam. Sam’s gray eyes cut to Desi and then back to him. “Leave it alone, Caine. At least for now.”

“She’s had about all she can take,” Tracker added.

Caine could see that. He hunkered down in front of Desi as he asked them. “Tell me one thing, when the time comes, did you leave one for me?”

“We did better than that.” Sam added, “We left you three.”

“Good.” He needed to know there would be a place to release the rage that consumed him. “Desi?”

She didn’t answer the call, didn’t look at him. He rubbed the backs of his fingers across the backs of hers, his nails hitting the paper on the package, the rustle of the paper sounding loud in the sudden silence. “Sweetheart, you haven’t finished your chocolate.”

A long pause and then she blinked. She looked down at her hand. “Oh no.”

Smears were on her fingers and the brown paper. “You’d best eat it fast before it makes a mess of your new clothes.” Her lashes lifted and he was staring into her big blue eyes and all the devastating sadness she normally hid.

“I was going to save it.”

“I’ll get you some more.” He wasn’t sure where he would find it or how he would pay for it—they were building the ranch and not established—but anything that took the sadness from those blue eyes was worth it.

She opened her hand and stared at the mess. He caught her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth. He pressed a chaste kiss on the edge of her palm. Chocolate spread to his lips. He backed off, licking his lips. “It’s still good.”

He brought her hand to her mouth. “Eat it while I get supper.”

She glanced toward the jerky. It didn’t take a genius to interpret what she was thinking. No, not jerky.

“Oh, we can do a lot better than jerky.” Sam disappeared into the darkness and came back carrying two large oval tins with handles. “The padre’s housekeeper sent a bunch of tamales and pork stew along with tortillas and—” he lifted a square basket “—wedding cakes.”

Desi stopped licking at her hand. “Oh.”

Oh, indeed.

“Maria said it wasn’t proper you didn’t have a wedding supper.”

Caine took the basket with the cakes in it from Tracker and put it beside Desi. “Maria cooks like a dream.”

“Learned everything she knows from Tia.”

“Tia?” Desi asked.

“Tia’s been taking care of us since the massacre.”

“Massacre?”

She was beginning to sound a bit like a parrot but Caine couldn’t begrudge her. After the day she’d had she had to feel a bit like she’d been tossed from a coach going at full speed and was now just bouncing around in the aftermath. “We all used to live in the same town. After the massacre took our families, we banded together.”

“We didn’t know shit about surviving,” Sam interjected, opening a tin.

“Damn near starved to death,” Tracker agreed, getting out a metal coffeepot. “Best thing we ever did was to try and steal tortillas from Tia’s windowsill.”

Caine rubbed at the back of his neck with the memory. “That woman wields a mean broom, though.”

“That she did,” Sam agreed, pulling out husk-wrapped bundles. “Lined us up against the wall of her home and lectured us a good hour while dinner simmered in the pot. Quoted the bible one minute and threatened our manly charms the next.”

“Damn longest hour of my life,” Caine said, remembering the hunger that had driven him to steal, the shame at being caught by a good woman who quoted the bible, but most of all he remembered how good that damn meal had tasted after he and the others had worked another hour to earn their place at the table.

“Does she still live with you?” Desi asked.

“Hell, yeah.”

“Runs Hell’s Eight with an iron fist.” Sam popped the top off the second tin. The rich scent of spicy meat stew filled the air.

“She’s family.”

“Yes.” Maybe not by blood but by everything that mattered, Tia was family.

Desi’s face took up that guarded look he didn’t like. He took the package from her hands and set it aside. It wasn’t hard to see where her thoughts had wandered. “She’ll like you just fine, Desi.”

Caine reached back for his saddlebag and fished out his tin plate and spoon. Tracker poured some stew onto the plate and tossed on a tortilla. Sam added a tamale. Caine glanced over at where Desi sat dwarfed by the coat. “Add another tamale on there.”

Sam followed his glance. “Yeah. She could use some fattening up.”

Shit, Caine hoped Desi hadn’t heard that. It only took a turn to see that she had. That full, totally tempting mouth was set in a flat line and those eyes were shooting daggers at him again. He sighed and handed her the plate. “He wasn’t slinging mud. Just concern.”

She took it. “It doesn’t matter.”

He noticed the fine tremor in her hands as he let go. Hunger, fear, anger…? Hell, there were too many reasons that could cause that shaking to pinpoint just one. She didn’t immediately grab up the spoon.

“Maria said to tell you she didn’t make it too spicy, ma’am,” Sam offered.

Desi appreciated that. She’d only met the woman once, early on before James had understood how determined she’d been to escape. Plump and colorful, happily married to the town’s blacksmith, she’d been a too-cheerful reminder of all Desi had lost. Desi’s renewed defiance after the one time she’d delivered food had ensured James had never let Maria back again. “Thank her for me, please.”

“You can tell her yourself,” Caine inserted in his low drawl. “She comes out to Hell’s Eight once a month in good weather to visit Tia.”

Which meant there was no chance she’d find any peace at Caine’s home. Desi clenched the spoon in her hand. The food that had her stomach rumbling a moment before was suddenly as appetizing as glue. No woman wanted her male relations taking up with a whore. If Tia was as formidable as the men implied, she’d spend her days paying for her crimes against decency and her night paying for Caine having to marry her. The future did not look good. She kept her voice even as she said, “Thank you, I will.”

She stared beyond the firelight, to the wildness beyond. It matched the wildness she felt inside. She just wanted to be free. Free of men’s demands, society’s scorn and the personal pain that ate like acid at her soul.

“Desi?”

She resented Caine’s interruption as much as she resented her circumstances. “What?”

He placed his fingers under the plate and pressed, until she either had to lift the plate or wear the contents. She lifted. His cool green eyes met hers with a confidence she wished she could borrow.

“I promise you, nothing’s going to be as bad as you’re imagining.”

5

It wasn’t as bad, it was worse. Desi stared at the bedroll set on the opposite side of the fire from everyone else, the distance emphasizing this was her wedding night. She’d come back from changing into her new clothes and found this. The euphoria and contentment from her full stomach faded. She glanced across the fire to where Caine stood talking to Tracker and Sam. While she didn’t consider twenty feet a token to privacy, Caine probably did. Men, she knew, didn’t mind other men watching them stake their claim. She’d hoped it would be different if she were a wife, but she glanced at the double bedroll again and knew that had been a vain hope.

The Hell’s Eight men did everything together. Legend said they were ghosts of warriors past come back to right wrongs. Others said they’d made a deal with the Devil to survive when the Mexicans had wiped out their town. No one ever said they worried over much about what was proper or respectable. And she was a whore in the eyes of everyone around her. Maybe even in her own heart if she dared to check, but she wasn’t checking and she wasn’t believing it. That being the case, she wasn’t behaving like one.

Deliberately, she picked up the closest half of the bedroll and moved it four feet to the left. She would have moved it farther if a shadow hadn’t come between her and the firelight. A booted foot settled on the far corner of the bedroll. She didn’t need to look up to know who that boot belonged to. She’d spent all day today while riding, watching that boot rock in the stirrup. The three horizontal scrapes across the instep marked it as Caine’s. “You worried about catching on fire?”

“No.”

She gave the bedroll a yank. It came out from under his foot easier than she’d expected. She hit the ground hard enough to leave bruises on her fanny. She also managed to move her bedroll and extra two feet.

His shadow stretched over her, then his hand, and then the amusement in his drawl. “The heat of the fire isn’t going to reach this far.”

She accepted his hand. “I don’t mind.”

He didn’t let go as he bent down and grabbed the bedroll. “I do.”

She snatched it out of his hand, draping it over her arm as she smoothed the wrinkles out. “Then you can stay over there.” She didn’t dare look at his face as she added, “I don’t mind.”

He took her hand again. His thumb stroked over the back of it. “I must be in a real contrary mood tonight because I mind.”

Anger surged from deep within. “Why, because you’ll miss out on an opportunity to show your friends how well you fuck?”

That thumb didn’t even break rhythm. “And here I was thinking I won’t get a wink of sleep watching my wife shiver in her blankets.”

She wrenched her arm from his grip and stomped back to his bedroll. She threw the blankets down atop the saddle. “Do me a favor.”

He came quietly up behind her, but it didn’t matter. The man had too much presence to sneak. The hairs on the back of her neck always warned her when he was around. “What?”

“Don’t try to dress it up prettily.”

“Dress what up?”

She glanced across the fire. Tracker and Sam were staring hard at the flames, pretending not to be aware of what was going on. She lowered her voice. “What’s going to happen here tonight.”

She couldn’t see his eyes under the brim of his hat, but she could see the quirk of his lips. “You got something against sleep?”

She turned and slammed her hands on her hips, anger writhing through her like a living thing. “Stop it. Just stop pretending. If all you were planning to do was sleep, we wouldn’t be over here and—” she kicked the pile of blankets “—we wouldn’t be sharing a bedroll.”

A log popped on the fire. She jumped and spun around. By the time she turned back, Caine was right there, close enough that the edge of his poncho touched her coat. His coat. She swallowed and risked a look at his face. He didn’t look angry, but with him, who could tell? His hand lifted. She flinched. His eyes narrowed. She braced her spine for the blow that was coming. His fingers grazed her jaw, slid along the bone, feather-light, but the drag of the rough callus left no doubt he was strong. His thumb came to rest against her mouth as his fingers cradled her cheek.

“The bedrolls are over here because we thought you might be a bit uncomfortable without privacy. The bedrolls are together because it’s damn cold and you’ve taken enough chill for one day, and also because you’re my wife, and my wife sleeps by me.”

“Why?” It felt strange to speak against his thumb, but she didn’t let that stop her.

“Because it’s my right to protect you.”

She pulled back against his hold. “I don’t need your protection.”

“Too bad. You’ve got it anyway.” He motioned to the right. “You got any business to take care of before we call it a night?”

The blush rose despite her desire to contain it. “No.”

“Good.” He bent, and with a few flicks of his wrists, resettled the blankets. “‘Cause I’m beat.”

“Don’t you have to stand guard?”

“It’s my wedding night. Tracker and Sam are giving me the night off as a wedding present.”

Just what she needed. She glared at the two men. “What was my present?”

His lips quirked and he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Me.”

It just burst out. “I got shortchanged.”

Unbelievably, he laughed. “I imagine you see it that way now.”

He sat down on the blankets, sliding his hand down her neck, her shoulder, her arm, hooking her wrist in his grip when he reached the ground and tugging her down. “But you won’t always.”

He had no idea what she thought and what she planned. She fell, more than sat, beside him. He caught her the way he always did, as if nothing ever threw him off guard. He lay back against the saddle, his hand anchoring her wrist. “Lie down. Morning will be here before you know it.”

An owl hooted in the distance. The first she’d heard this spring. Was it a good omen or a bad one? She didn’t know, but looking at the sheer size of the man waiting for her to bed down beside him, she had to pray it was good.

“I don’t have a pillow.”

He patted the broad expanse of his shoulder. “I’ve got your pillow right here.”

He expected her to sleep against him. She bit her lip. The wind blew, rattling the bushes. A cold chill went down her spine. Caine’s smile faded to a frown. He pulled her toward him, lifting her arm over his head, directing her fall toward his chest, not giving her an opportunity to twist away.

“If you don’t get tucked in here fast, you’re going to freeze over faster than a stream in winter.”

He let her go when she was lying along his side, her cheek on her hand on his shoulder. “Sleeping like this is going to break my neck.”

One big hand came across her chest, pulling her into his torso as he hitched up. Her shoulder tucked under his arm. She had no choice but to drop her hand. Her fingers caught in the folds of his poncho. As much as she tugged, she was stuck under her own weight, elbow wedged to the ground, head at an even more awkward angle. His coat, made for a much bigger person than she, bunched up over her face. There was a deep masculine chuckle and then several tugs. The coat opened inch by inch, revealing the same amusement in his eyes that had been in his voice.

She frowned back at him. “This is not an improvement.”

Another button popped and the gap widened, enabling her to see his expression. Caine was smiling. A full-fledged smile without the usual reserve.

“I can see that.”

Another tug on the coat had her yelping. The buttons were now caught in her hair.

“Now for sure I know this coat is male.”

She twisted about trying to get a hand free to get to her hair only to find his hands in the way when she eventually got herself clear.

“This would go a lot easier,” he told her, “if you’d stop trying to help.”

“I’m trying to keep from being snatched bald.” Another tug had her wincing.

“No danger of that.”

She was so sick of him pretending to be nice to her. “Because you intend to be careful?”

He was shaking his head before she finished, that full smile diminishing to the level of a grin. “Nah.” The tension released on her hair, leaving only a sting behind. “There’s no danger for the simple reason you’ve got enough hair for two women and then some.”

She dug her elbow into his side as she forced her hand free, checking to be sure she still had hair in that spot. She rubbed the sting. “Well, you may not have that concern for much longer.” She ran her hand through her hair and got stopped about one inch into the procedure by a snarl too big to be called anything less than a mat. She gave it a good hard yank, wincing when it held. “We’re probably going to have to shave my head to get the snarls out.”

Once again, his hands pulled hers away. “No danger of that, either.”

“Because you’re going to forbid me to cut my hair?”

He smoothed his hand over her head, stroking from crown to end, smoothing down the wild tangle, lifting his hand halfway down when a snarl caught on his index finger. Men always loved her hair. There was something about the pale blond color and curl that had them always staring at it with a combination of fascination and awe. His gaze met hers, the smile still tugging at his mouth. “Pretty much.”

Nothing was more galling than his assurance that his forbidding would be enough. “I hate you.”

“You don’t know me well enough to hate me.”

“Trust me. I’ve built a real good case in the short time we’ve been acquainted.”

He didn’t look devastated by the statement. But the crinkles by the sides of his eyes deepened. “Then I guess I’ll just have to work at changing your opinion.”

Oh wonderful. He’d taken her comment as a challenge. “Why can’t you just act predictably?”

He lifted her up and scooted her down, a maneuver that would have left her a lot more comfortable if it also hadn’t left her pressed intimately against him. “If you knew me better, you’d know I am being predictable.”

When she tried to wiggle away, he merely curled in the arm she was lying on. The other hand went to her hip, slipped under the coat and rode down to her thigh, hitching it up. Panic immediately chased anger. The only thing that preserved her modesty were the long folds of her new skirt.

“Lift up for a minute.”

“I’m comfortable just as I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

She wasn’t but that wasn’t important. She tilted her head back and strained for dignity. “I am not sprawling across you. It’s improper.”

And if he said one word about the incongruity of a whore worrying about propriety she’d bite the end of his nose off.

“Gypsy, if both of us are going to keep from freezing our butts off tonight, seeing as our wedding night has us way over here in the hollow, we’re going to have to get closer than your sense of propriety deems fit.”

“I’ll chance freezing.”

“Well, I won’t.”

And that settled that. In the time it took her to draw the breath for a retort, Caine had her kneeling. As fast as she batted at his hands, he was tugging her skirts out from under her knees. God, he was fast. She had just reached around to slap his hands from her rear when he lifted her again by her shoulder and pulled her across his lap and lay down. Gravity took care of her defiance. Her body naturally flowed into the planes of his. Her thigh fell over his and her breasts pressed into his side. Before she could pull her leg back, he took her skirts and draped them over his thighs and tucked them beneath, effectively pinning her with her own clothing.

He met her glare with a raised brow and a smile.

“Pretty slick, eh?”

Did he expect her to praise his trickery?

“Taking advantage through your greater strength is what I’d call it.” Two yanks on the material proved the futility of that effort.

Caine shrugged. “Whatever gets the job done is good for me.” With his free hand he adjusted his hat forward as he braced his shoulders against the saddle. “Grab the blankets would you?”

She was tempted to ignore the order, but the thought of what he would do to get that job done had her reconsidering. That and the next wind that sent the dried grass rustling. It was going to be a cold night and while Caine might be big and arrogant, he was warm. She leaned toward the blankets, forgetting her injuries. Stiff muscles and her bruised rib immediately protested.

“Shoot. I forgot about that.” The blankets were removed from her grasp. A broad palm rubbed small circles on her back as if he thought to absorb her pain through his touch. “You just take your time getting comfortable, and I’ll take care of the covering.”

He said that as if he were being perfectly reasonable, but no matter how he couched it, it was an order and it drove home the fact that he expected her to obey. The knowledge that there was nothing she could do about it ate at her defiance, because once all the settling was done, he’d want to be getting on to other things. Intimate, unpleasant things that were now her duty. God help her.

He tucked the blanket over her shoulder. “Now, what thought just made you stiffen up?”

If he didn’t know, she wasn’t telling him. “Nothing.”

His sigh blew over the top of her head. “Are you back to worrying that I’m ornery in bed?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He pulled her forearm up, dislodging her elbow from his bicep. “Doesn’t appear to me that either of us are going to get comfortable enough to sleep without it.”

A muffled chuckle from across the fire alerted her to how that low drawl of his carried. “Hush.”

“I’ll hush if you’ll talk.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what has you scared.”

Her shiver had nothing to do with the wind as memories swamped her. “I just don’t like being with a man.”

“Because it goes against your beliefs, or because of what you’ve been taught?”

“We’re married, it can’t be against my beliefs.”

“I got news for you, Gypsy, many a woman feels it’s wrong to enjoy her husband.”

“I can understand that.”

His finger under her chin tipped her face up. “I can see where you’d have reason to fear a man who’s hurt you, but, Gypsy, I’ve never hurt you.”

Yet. The immediate tag to his assertion lingered in her mind. She just barely kept it from her lips. His hand tilted. Instead of letting her go like she expected, he swapped his fingers for his thumb, the latter brought to rest against her lips, brushing lightly. The fire had died down to the point it was just a small flicker. The faint light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate where they lay.

“And that’s the hitch in your git-along, isn’t it, Desi? You don’t have any idea who I am, or what to expect, so your mind’s just leaping from one awful possibility to the next.”

“You’re a man.”

“And you’re a woman, that should make us more compatible rather than less.”

“Maybe I just need more time.”

His thumb made another of those lazy passes that tickled the edges of her lips and sent little tingles radiating outward. “Time can be a funny thing, Gypsy. You think it’s your friend, but when it comes to fears, it’s your worst enemy. You leave a scare to time’s tending, and rather than making it go away, time turns it bigger and meaner than reality could ever be.”

“So you say.”

His thumb made another pass across her lips, following the swells and dips as if testing the shape of her words. “I know what it’s like to be scared, Desi.”

The “Huh?” escaped before she could contain it. The man was as big as a mountain, had more muscle than a blacksmith and had a reputation that would terrify a hardened gunslinger. What did he know of fear?

“I wasn’t always this big, and there was a time I knew so little about fighting, you could probably have whupped me with one hand tied behind your back.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“Then you’re just going to have to take my word for it the same way you’re going to have to accept I have a reason to start as I mean to go on.”

Because he didn’t see any reason to wait. Because he wanted her. Because she was his and men liked to stake their claims. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, and he was right, she was darned sick of dreading it.

Desi hauled her skirt out from under his thigh and threw herself onto her back. Yanking her skirts up, she spread her legs. Every bit of rage she felt at being, yet again, at a man’s mercy ripped out, along with her snarl. “Then get it over with.”

He came over her, a large black shadow, deeper than the night, scarier, more intense. Her breath caught in her lungs. A fine tremble started in her gut and spread outward, consuming her limbs, ending in her fingers and toes. Dear God, what had she invited?

“Is that what they wanted, Desi? For you to lie there like a doll for them to play with?”

His whisper was scarier than his looming. His whisper wanted to delve, ferret out her past, her weaknesses. “It doesn’t matter.”

There was a long pause. Something touched her cheek, and she shrieked. She was wound so tightly she couldn’t contain it.

A voice intruded into their private battle.

“Just so you know, Desi, I don’t hold the bond between man and wife sacred.”

Sam’s low, cold drawl reached across the fire and the implication had the blood rushing from her head so fast she felt as if she were falling. Except she couldn’t because she was already down. She worked her hand out of the confines of the blanket, grabbing Caine’s wrist. “Please.”

Caine’s snarl was as chilling as the wind. “Shut the hell up, Sam.”

“The lady needs to know she has options.”

Oh God, she didn’t want any more options. One man to deal with was more than enough.

It grated, but if begging saved her from being passed around, even for one night, she’d take it. There were times when pride wasn’t worth the price to keep it. “Please. I’ll do what you want,” she whispered to Caine. She glanced across the clearing to the shadow that was Sam. “don’t call him over. don’t make me…”

“Fuck.”

The epithet tore through her like a shot. She clung tighter, wishing it were lighter so she could see whether her begging was having any effect. “Please—”

Caine’s hand came over her mouth, cutting off the plea. She could feel his stare as clear as a touch, his “My wife doesn’t beg, got it?” She nodded slowly. His hand left her mouth slowly.

“Sam, if you don’t elaborate in the next two seconds, I’m coming over there and kicking your ass.”

Desi ran her tongue across her lips, tasting the salt of his skin and the bitterness of her fear.

“Just saying the lady doesn’t have to suffer thinking there isn’t anyone here who won’t stand for her if she wants it.”

He couldn’t mean what she thought.

But he did. Caine confirmed it. “Sam’s offered you his protection, do you want to take it?”

Was it a trick?

“You’d just let me go?”

“Hell, no, but you’re free to take him up on his offer.”

Some choice. Caine or Sam. Wife or whore. “You’d fight your friend?”

“What’s mine stays mine, Gypsy.”

Oh, yes, he’d fight. Not because he loved her or wanted her, but because his pride was involved. And he considered her his. She understood that.

“So what’s it going to be?”

She didn’t know Sam. She didn’t really know Caine, either, but she knew this one thing. A possessive man wasn’t a sharing man. That made the devil she knew a better choice. “I don’t want his protection,” she whispered.

“Good.” The tense muscles against her relaxed subtly.

“She make a decision?” Sam called.

“Yup. She’s decided I’m the more attractive one.”

“Shit. On top of needing to gain weight, the woman needs spectacles.”

Sam didn’t sound serious or even disappointed.

“You were joking?” she asked Caine.

“No.”

She didn’t know what to do with that flat pronouncement. “I don’t understand you.”

“You might find it easier if you didn’t keep comparing me to cow shit.”

She let go of his wrist. Weariness rolled over her in a debilitating wave, spawning a ripple of defeat. “I can’t help it. I don’t have anything else to compare you to.”

6

Idon’t have anything else to compare you to. Caine had never heard so much hopelessness contained in simple truth. The tension left her body. Ah, hell.

He slipped his hand under her head, the wealth of hair acting as a cushion between her skull and his palm, and dropped his forehead to hers. For sure he liked her better when she was fighting. This lack of passion left him fumbling for a way to restore it. His kept his whisper so low, the words didn’t drift farther than her ear. “I think I mentioned before, that’s your whole problem.”

A stick popped in the fire. She jumped. He pulled her closer, the length of her feeling too fragile to him, the surrender in her body there for all the wrong reasons. He brushed his lips across her cheek. Her muscles grew tighter. “Easy, Gypsy.”

She didn’t move, didn’t respond, just held herself there as if waiting for a death blow…which in her mind, maybe she was. He slid his hands between them, found the bunched mess of her skirts. A soft whimper broke past her lips. He tugged the skirt down as a second whimper joined the first. “It’s all right, Gypsy. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Least of all him.

The kiss he dropped on the corner of her mouth spurred the confession from her throat. Her knee drew up with the tension he could feel growing tighter and tighter. “I don’t like this.”

“I know.” He ran his hand down her arm, under the bump of her elbow and back up. Resentment for the coat that kept his hand from her skin was his uppermost emotion until he got to her wrist. The flesh was cool. He circled the narrow joint and slid his fingers lower, meshing his fingers with hers. Her hand was like an icicle in his. “Jesus Christ.”

She was freezing.

“What?”

“I’m not doing a very good job taking care of you.”

He was so used to living on the trail, the discomfort of sleeping on the cold ground hadn’t even registered with him. He had the muscle and mass to withstand the cold, but there wasn’t anything to Desi. Just delicate flesh and fragile bone. Son of a bitch, no wonder she was freezing. He went to work on the remaining buttons on the coat, opening them with neat efficiency, ignoring the way she seemed to stop breathing as he did. When he had it open, he slid his hand inside. Where he expected to feel the warmth of her skin he found a coldness that alarmed him more. Building the fire wasn’t an option as it would draw attention and wouldn’t warm her nearly fast enough anyway, which only left one other option.

“Hold on a minute.”

He reached into his boot and drew his knife from its scabbard. The blade winked in the faint light. Her big eyes went round with horror as he said, “I’ll have you all taken care of in just a moment.”

He slit the front of the poncho to make room.

She frowned up at him. “What are you doing?”

He turned the poncho around and put the knife back. She was cold and scared and almost out of fight, but she kept her head. A man had to admire that. She was something. “Making you a nest.” He held out his hand. “Kneel up.”

She grimaced as she did and he felt like a heel for making her move at all. He steadied her the last two feet with a hand on her ribs just under her breasts. Christ, his hand about swallowed the widest part of her bone structure. Compared to him, there really was nothing to her.

He lifted the poncho and dropped it over her head. A tug and her head popped through the opening. Her hands came up against his chest as he worked his fingers under her hair and lifted the mass free of the neck. She leaned forward as he got the last foot free and he decided he liked her like this, giving him her weight and the illusion of her trust. Someday, it would be for real.

He glanced over his shoulder, shifted them a couple of inches to the left and then with only a “hold on” to warn her, hooked an arm under her buttocks and leaned back. Her short nails scraped his chest as he caught their combined weights on his elbow, and a quick glance determined her little gasps were from fear, not pain, as he took them down the last couple feet, not stopping until he was resting supine to the ground, his head supported by the leather saddle, her weight a welcome warmth atop him. Her head rested just above his breastbone, her legs falling naturally between his.

“Better?” he asked.

The shake of her head was immediate. “No.”

He frowned. “You hurting anywhere?”

“No, but I liked it better before.”

“You were cold.”

He said that as if it mattered. Desi lifted her hips as he yanked the coat out from under her, wincing as a button scraped her inner thigh. Tracker had fetched her a dress but with only one layer of petticoats, it wasn’t much protection from anything.

Caine patted her back. “Sorry about that.”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you comfortable.”

On top of him? “You intend for me to sleep this way?”

“You got a better plan?”

“The ground was working just fine.”

She could hear his hair swish across the leather as he shook his head. “The cold would sap the life from your bones.”

“You’re on the ground.”

“I’m a lot bigger with a lot more muscle to take the cold.” His hands slid up her thighs under the coat. “You’re just a little bit of a thing.”

He was right about one thing. He was warm, very warm, and if his hands weren’t gathering up her skirts as she lay there, she might have been able to enjoy the heat radiating off him. “Why can’t you let this go?”

“Because you’re afraid of what I’m going to do, which is loco, seeing as I’d cut off my arm rather than hurt you.”

“So you intend…”

She just couldn’t put into words what he intended to do. “I intend to let you experience my touch so you can stop dreading it.”

“The others—”

“can’t see a thing, which means they won’t have any idea anything is going on over here other than sleep unless you make a fuss.”

The thought was little consolation. She pressed her face into his chest as his palms curled around her thighs with only the pantaloons to protect her modesty. He pulled and her thighs separated on either side of his thighs. She could feel his cock—hard and hotter than the rest of him—pressing up into her groin. She shifted to the side to relieve the pressure. “I don’t want this.”

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