“Caroline.” He scarcely recognized his own voice.

Barely aware of what he was doing, he deliberately turned her to face him, bent his head, and caught her mouth under his.

He didn’t know how long he moved over her lips, but he did know he never wanted to stop. She was sweet beyond belief, and soft. And female. So female he ached all over.

“Don’t you ever, ever do that again!” she shouted, pulling away.

He could see her body shaking; the ruffles down the front of her shirtwaist trembled.

He stared at her. Her eyes blazed into his and without thinking he reached for her arm.

“Stay away,” she warned. “Just stay away from me.”

What the—? He stepped back but couldn’t stop looking at her. He’d never misjudged a woman this badly since he was a green boy of fourteen.

Author Note

Women in the Old West struggled to be treated as equals, to own property in their own names and to exercise their right to vote—things we take for granted in today’s America.

This story reminds us that such rights had to be fought for.

Her Sheriff Bodyguard
Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at carowoolston@att.net or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

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In memory of my mother, Mary Banning Yarnes,

and my grandmother, Leora Boessen Banning,

both of whom quietly lived lives that

enhanced the inherent rights of women.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

I, Fernanda Elena Maria Sobrano, am tell you this thing from my heart, how I find this man, Hawk Rivera, and ask for his help. My lady she not know what I do, but you will understand when I tell what happen.

Chapter One

“Sheriff, you can’t miss this.”

Hawk Rivera tilted his head so he could see the pudgy overeager face of the mayor from beneath the broad brim of his well-worn gray Stetson. “Like hell I can’t.”

“But everybody in town’ll be there!”

Hawk winced. All the more reason he should stay away. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the townspeople of Smoke River, just that he didn’t like them in bunches. “Mingling,” his mother had called it. He hated mingling. Made the back of his neck crawl like two dozen spiders had been dropped down his shirt collar. Mayor O’Grady cleared his throat. “She came in on the afternoon train. Fine-looking woman.”

Hawk shifted his boots to a new spot on his paper-littered desk. “Save your breath, Harve. Not interested.”

“Looks kinda feisty, too.”

“Still not interested.”

Harvey O’Grady smacked his now-empty whiskey glass down on top of a Wanted poster. “Not interested in a pretty woman? Somethin’ wrong with you, Sheriff.”

Hawk snorted. “Nuthin’ wrong with me another shot of whiskey and a little peace and quiet can’t fix. Leave me alone, Harve.” He tipped his chair farther back toward the dirty wall of the jail. “Leave the whiskey.”

“Aw, hell. A little excitement’d do ya good. Sure as God made little green leprechauns, yer gettin’ morose as a randy coyote.”

“Drop it, Harve.” Pointedly he looked at the door. “See you tomorrow.”

His office door slammed and Hawk reached for his whiskey, drained the glass, then refilled it from the flask the mayor had left. Night was too damn pretty to spoil it with politics.

Down the street somewhere he heard what sounded like chanting. “Oregon women better take note, Wyoming women have got the vote!”

He snorted. Bad poem. Bad idea. If Oregon women were smart they’d leave the thinking to their menfolk and tend to the business of making love and babies. Like they did in Texas.

But that’s why you left, isn’t it? Love and a baby?

He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw cracked. He grabbed for his whiskey and shut his eyes.

* * *

Caroline MacFarlane leaned out the second floor window of her hotel room and pointed. “Just look, Fernanda. The ladies have made signboards!”

Below her in the street a dozen women marched holding up hand-lettered placards.

LADIES UNITE.

WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO.

VOTES FOR WOMEN!

With their free hands, the ladies gripped their straw bonnets, which the hot afternoon breeze threatened to dislodge. Caroline’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Mama would have been so proud.”

Fernanda shifted her bulk beside her. “Your mama, mi corazón, work too hard.”

True. Her mother had never minded the dust, or the heat, or the rough manners of little towns like this one, out in the middle of nowhere. Evangeline MacFarlane had lived for The Cause. Caroline was doing her best to follow in her sainted mother’s footsteps.

Fernanda touched her arm. “You must eat something before people come.”

“Afterward,” Caroline breathed. “I am far too excited to eat just now.”

“Humph,” Fernanda sniffed. “Soon you look like scrawny chicken. Now you put on speaking dress.”

Reluctantly Caroline let her companion draw her away from the window, lace her up in the whalebone corset that made it hard to breathe between sentences and smooth out the sleeves on her severely cut dark blue bombazine. She must look every inch a lady tonight; winning over an audience of ranchers and townspeople and their wives must be handled with decorum as well as rousing words.

With a final tug at her starched petticoats she donned her favorite speech-making hat, a bonnet with an iridescent green-and-blue pheasant feather drooping stylishly over one eye. She flashed Fernanda a smile and turned toward the door.

“Let us go forth and conquer!”

* * *

Even from inside his office, Hawk could hear the noise rumbling from the town hall behind the barbershop. A twinge of unease crawled up the back of his neck. He hadn’t heard such a commotion since the lynching the new judge, Jericho Silver, had narrowly averted. That, he recalled grimly, had ended up in a near riot.

He was glad Jericho had been elected district judge. That had meant Smoke River had needed a new sheriff. And he’d sure as hell needed to get out of Texas.

He liked Smoke River. The town was flanked by mountains that shaded into purple in the distance, golden wheat fields, and endless grassy expanses where mottled brown cows grazed. Like Butte City, only smaller. Tree-lined streets. Nice houses. Even the main street looked well-kept.

His deputy cracked open the door and peered across the street. “They’re gettin’ kinda riled up, Sheriff.”

“Let ’em. Words never hurt anybody.”

“I dunno,” Sandy said. He pulled his blond head back inside the jail and shut the door. “All the men are lined up on one side and the women are on the other. Haven’t stopped yellin’ at each other for the last half hour.”

Hawk thunked his boots onto the dirty plank floor. “All right, I’ll go have a look. You stay here and keep a cell open in case some damn fool troublemaker needs cooling off.”

He straightened his hat, checked his Colt and swung out the door onto the board sidewalk. Raucous catcalls drifted from across the street and he quickened his pace.

Inside the stifling hall overwrought women waved placards while the men taunted. Hawk frowned. All this uproar over a simple little speech? For a moment he considered tramping back across to the jail and letting them fight it out, but then he caught sight of a trim female figure in a dark blue dress and an interesting-looking hat and he changed his mind.

She had dark hair pulled into a neat-looking twist at the nape of her neck. He couldn’t see her eyes, but the tilt of her chin looked determined enough to stop a cattle stampede. She ploughed her way up the aisle between the two warring factions like an implacable ship on choppy seas and took her place behind the improvised lectern, two stacked apple crates at the far end of the room.

She stood there for a good four minutes while the ladies yelled and carried on and the men shouted. At last she raised both arms and quiet descended.

The sudden silence felt odd. Tension boiled in the room, and when the woman dropped her arms and opened her lips, Hawk’s instincts signaled trouble.

“Ladies,” she began. “And gentlemen.” She put subtle emphasis on the word. “We are about to change history.”

The women cheered. The glowering men sat with their arms clamped across their bellies.

“We must take our future into our own hands. We must...”

Something about her low, melodious voice curled around his gut like smoke on a hot summer night. The women hung on every word, their faces rapt, while the men roared their disapproval and heckled when she stopped to draw breath.

“Go back to Boston, girlie!”

“Our women don’t want the vote.”

“Oh, yes we do!” a woman screeched. She leaped to her feet and pounded the tip of her parasol on the wooden floor.

“Siddown and shut up,” a male voice yelled.

To her credit the speaker waited for the tumult to die down before continuing. But she did continue. Hawk rolled his eyes at the inflammatory stuff she was saying, but he had to admit she had courage. A smart person would edge on out the back door.

“Gentlemen,” she called, after a particularly ugly outburst of catcalls. “Gentlemen, let me ask you a question.”

“Save it, honey!” someone yelled from the back of the room.

“No, I will not ‘save it,’ sir. Hear me out. Did you know that here in Oregon a married woman cannot—?”

“Sure we know all about that, lady. Keeps our women right where we want ’em.”

“And where is that, sir?”

“Underneath a man with her legs spread, where else?”

The men guffawed while screams of outrage erupted from the women, and the shouting match resumed.

Hawk heaved a tired sigh. Enough was enough. He didn’t favor women’s right to vote, but he did support law and order. He strode forward down the aisle separating the warring parties, counting on his presence and the revolver he wore on his hip to calm things down. Deliberately he moved toward the woman behind the apple crates and the noise of the crowd dropped.

He drew close enough to her to note that she had very, very rosy lips, and then suddenly a gun went off somewhere behind him. A bullet thunked into one of the crates.

Hawk dove forward and threw himself on top of her, toppling her to the floor under him. A second shot whined past his head.

Pandemonium erupted. Women screamed, men yelled and somewhere outside a dog began to bark.

“Don’t move,” he ordered the woman pinned beneath him. “Lie still.”

Her body twitched, but she said nothing.

He heard the dog yelp and go quiet. Gradually the noise inside the meeting hall faded to an uneasy buzz, and he rolled off her and onto his feet, revolver drawn.

A sea of stunned faces stared back at him.

“She okay?” a male voice asked.

“I—I am quite well, thank you,” the woman spoke at his back. He heard a rustle of petticoats and he guessed she was getting to her feet. He kept his weapon trained on the crowd, but no one moved or spoke.

He holstered his sidearm. “Meeting’s over, folks. Go on home unless you want to spend the night in jail.”

The hall emptied like a beer keg on Saturday night and Hawk turned to the woman. Damn suffragettes. Stirred up trouble everywhere they went.

Her fancy hat was mashed flat and her hair was straggling out of her bun. A plump Mexican woman darted from the crowd and began brushing the dust off the now-rumpled dark blue dress.

“Stop, Fernanda,” the woman urged, batting at her hands. “We will take care of this later.”

“I’ll see you to your hotel, ma’am.”

She trained the bluest eyes he’d ever seen on him and did not smile. “Thank you, Sheriff, but that will not be necessary. I am perfectly capable of walking.”

“Might be capable all right, but unless you’re carrying a pistol in your skirt pocket, you’re not armed. Come on.”

He grasped her elbow. She wrenched free, but he grabbed her arm again and moved her toward the entrance. The Mexican woman followed them out the door and down the street to the hotel.

“What’s her room number, Ed?” he growled as he marched her past the front desk.

The balding desk clerk gulped. “Two-ten. Top of the—”

“Right.” He snagged the key from the rack, guided both women up the stairs, and shooed them into the safety of their room. “Throw the bolt,” he ordered.

Then he tipped his hat and stalked back down the staircase. Before he returned to the jail he scouted the town from the livery stable at one end to the church at the other, nosed around the saloon and spent the better part of an hour studying fresh hoofprints in the road.

Nothing. Whoever had fired those shots was long gone.

Or the bastard was still in town. It was then he began to taste fear in the back of his throat. Someone was gunning for her.

Chapter Two

Before Hawk could pour himself another shot of whiskey, the jail door banged open and the Mexican woman barreled into his office. Her long braid of black hair was sliced with silver and her large dark eyes snapped with impatience.

“Ah, señor, I am glad to have find you.”

Hawk removed his boots from his desk, planted them on the floor and stood up. “You found me, all right, señora. Question is why?” He motioned for her to take the straight-back chair beside his desk.

“You are Señor Anderson Rivera, are you not? The one they call Hawk?”

“Yeah, I’m sometimes called that. Who are you?”

“I am Fernanda Elena Maria Sobrano. From Tejas. I knew your mother.”

Hawk narrowed his eyes. “What part of Texas?”

“Butte City. Your mother was Marguerite Anderson, no? You look much like her, señor. Your eyes. Green, like hers.”

Hawk could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d thought of his mother in the past twelve years. He topped up his drink, then lifted the bottle toward the woman. “Whiskey?”

At her nod, he pulled a clean shot glass from his desk drawer and filled it.

“Salud!” She took a small sip. Hawk lifted his own glass and downed a hefty gulp.

“Salud. Señora Sobrano, what—?”

“We need your help, Miss MacFarlane and I.” She sipped again.

“What for?”

“Is dangerous, this speaking. You see what happen tonight, no?”

“I saw it. I stopped it. What more do you want?”

Señora Sobrano tapped one finger against her glass. “Someone shoot at her last week, also, in the city of Salt Lake. But she do not give up, Señor Hawk. Tomorrow after tomorrow, Miss Caroline, she make speech in Gillette Springs.”

“Not my problem, señora. They’ve got a sheriff up there, name of Davis. Good man.”

“Is not a sheriff we need, I think. I think this someone follows us to kill Miss Caroline.”

“You mean someone is stalking her? Because she’s making speeches?”

“Si.”

“Then maybe she should stop making speeches.”

The woman gave him a long, considering look. “Miss Caroline, she will not stop. She cannot.”

“Then she’s not as smart as she looks.”

“Is not a matter of smart, Señor Hawk. Is a matter of pride. Her mother makes speeches before her, but she die from the lungs in Tejas. In Butte City. Miss Caroline say is her duty to continue.”

“Stubborn, too,” Hawk observed drily.

“Sí. But even when someone shoots at her, she does not give up. So now I ask you...”

“No.”

She didn’t even blink. “I know of you, señor. In Tejas you were a Ranger. I know such a man seeks to protect.”

“The answer is still No.”

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I ask you to protect Miss Caroline.”

“She needs a bodyguard, señora. I’m a sheriff now, not a Ranger. I don’t ‘protect’ anymore.”

“Your mother would not believe. Your mother would be proud.”

Hawk sat back and studied the woman across from him. Yeah, he’d have done almost anything to make his mother proud. But not this. This cut too close to the bone.

“Miss Caroline know you’re here?”

“Oh, no, señor. She would not like.”

“Then why—”

“Because I promise Miss Caroline’s mother to keep her safe.” Her keen black eyes held his. “This I cannot do alone. But you can do. Your madre would want you to do this.”

Hawk paused, then tossed back the rest of his whiskey. “Sandy,” he yelled.

“Yeah?” his deputy called from the jail cells.

“I’m riding out tomorrow morning.”

Sandy ambled into his office. “Where ya goin’, Sheriff?”

“Gillette Springs. Keep the peace here till I get back.” He gulped down the last of his whiskey and rose.

“Now, Señora Sobrano, let’s go on over to the hotel and make a plan.”

* * *

“Are you out of your mind, Sheriff?” Caroline clutched her blue silk robe about her and shot Fernanda a look of fury.

“Nope, just cautious.”

She advanced on him and poked her forefinger into his chest. “Well, let me tell you something, Sheriff. Caution is not going to win the vote for women.”

“Neither is getting yourself killed, Miss MacFarlane. Whoever shot at you tonight is probably still in the vicinity.”

“So?”

“So I don’t figure he’s going to give up.”

“I have traveled all over the West, from Colorado to Utah to Texas and now to Oregon. Yes, there are those who try to stop me, but I will not give up.”

“You don’t have to give up. You just have to be sensible.” He tossed the package he’d brought from the mercantile onto the bed. Fernanda pounced on it.

Caroline sent her a quelling look, but she was too absorbed in undoing the wrapping to notice. “What does ‘sensible’ mean, then, Sheriff?”

“Sensible means that I travel with you.”

“Oh, no you will not. I do not travel with men.”

“You will this time,” he said. “I’m taking you to Gillette Springs.”

Fernanda held up the clothes he’d brought with obvious delight. Jeans, boys’ shirts—one red, one blue—and boots and hats. Dreadful hats, like cowboys wore.

“I will not wear those garments!” Caroline announced.

“Yes, you will,” he countered. His voice sounded rusty, as if he didn’t talk much. Which was probably true, considering his manners.

“Si, we will wear them,” Fernanda chirruped. She held up the red-checked shirt. “This one for me.”

The man called Hawk nodded. “Now, listen up, ladies. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Chapter Three

At eight o’clock sharp the stagecoach to Gillette Springs rattled up to the Smoke River Hotel and clattered to a stop in a cloud of dust. The driver climbed down and clomped up the steps and through the doorway, emerging a few moments later with a lady’s travel trunk over one shoulder. He lashed it on top, then ostentatiously tramped around to lean in the window.

“That all, miss?”

With a nod, he climbed back up into the driver’s seat and cracked the whip. “Giddap,” he yelled, and the contraption, empty of passengers, rattled off down the street.

From the second floor window of the hotel, Hawk stood next to Caroline MacFarlane, watching the dust dissipate in the morning air. He’d stopped the stage driver outside town and explained the ruse he planned; he knew Caroline didn’t agree with his idea. Agree, his father’s suspenders! Getting her to even look at the boy’s duds he’d bought had taken a stern lecture in his best military give-’em-hell voice and a flood of tears and pleading from Señora Sobrano. Miss MacFarlane was fighting him every step of the way.

“I’m going on over to the livery stable to bring the horses,” he announced.

“Horses! Excuse me, Mr. Rivera, but I expected, well, another conveyance to transport us. Surely you cannot expect us to ride horses to Gillette Springs?”

“I do. You do ride, don’t you, miss?”

“Well of course I ride,” she retorted. “Every well-bred lady in Boston learns how to ride. What a ridiculous question.”

“Señora Sobrano?”

Fernanda’s smooth olive-skinned face lit up. “Si,” she said with obvious relish. “I ride since I was a girl in Mexico.”

“Then get dressed, both of you. Meet me at the back kitchen door in twenty minutes. Whoever’s tracking you expects you to be on that stage. So, you won’t be on the stage.”

Caroline glowered at him as if he was the devil himself wearing spurs and a badge. She was a helluva lot more attractive without the scowl. He wondered how the even-tempered Fernanda Sobrano had hooked up with her? More than that, how did the older woman put up with this spoiled Boston beauty?

Hawk left them to get ready and went to get the horses. He saddled Red, his black gelding, then picked out two gentle mares for the women and had them saddled, as well.

But when he arrived at the back kitchen door, he got a shock.

Señora Sobrano had turned herself into a reasonable approximation of a somewhat-overweight adolescent boy in jeans and shirt and a pair of store-bought boots. But Caroline MacFarlane wouldn’t fool a blind man. Her jeans curved enticingly over a nicely rounded bottom, the blue-striped shirt outlined her breasts in no uncertain terms and curly tendrils of dark hair peeked from under the small black Stetson he’d picked out for her.

Hawk groaned aloud.

“What is the matter, Mr. Rivera?” Boston lady’s voice was crisp enough to fry bacon and those blue eyes of hers snapped with anger. Goddamn but she was one beautiful hunk of female when she was mad.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Let’s mount up.” He laced his fingers together for Fernanda, then boosted Caroline up with a splayed hand on her behind.

Big mistake. The bottom part of her anatomy was warm and soft and so female it made his groin swell. God, he didn’t need this.

Once mounted, she sat the gray mare so stiff and straight she looked like a ramrod had been shoved up inside her shirt. He tried not to look at her breasts.

“Thought you said you knew how to ride.”

“I do know how to ride, but not like this. I ride sidesaddle.”

Hawk groaned again. It figured. Not only that, she looked too elegant. Too starched, somehow.

“Get down,” he ordered.

Her eyes widened. “Why should I? I just got up here.”

“You don’t look right. You’re too...clean.”

She dismounted so fast he caught his breath, then stalked up to him and propped her hands on her hips. “Too what?” she demanded. “Ladies are supposed to be ‘clean.’”

He didn’t answer, just scooped up a double handful of dirt and stepped in close. “Don’t scream.”

He emptied his hands over her shoulders and rubbed the dust in all over her shirt and jeans. Mistake number two. He tried not to register what his fingers were feeling. She hit at him, so he caught her wrist and pinned it while he finished the job.

“Well!” she said when he released her and stepped back out of range. “Now that I look completely disreputable, are you satisfied?”

“Not yet.” He snatched off her new-looking hat and crumpled it in both hands, then dropped it onto the ground and stomped his boot on the crown.

When he straightened, Fernanda handed over her hat, as well. He noted she was trying not to laugh. Caroline, however, was looking daggers at him. No sense of humor, he guessed

She struggled up into the saddle by herself this time and Hawk felt a tiny dart of admiration for her resilience. Most women would burst into tears if a man smeared dirt all over them.

He caught his breath as a wayward thought struck home. Maybe Caroline MacFarlane wasn’t like most women.

Well, hell. He mounted and lifted the reins. “Walk the horses single file. Señora Sobrano, you bring up the rear.”

“Si, Señor Hawk.” The smile in her voice told him something he hadn’t thought of before. Fernanda Sobrano might be Caroline’s valued companion, but she didn’t put up with the lady’s airs. Or her temper. All at once, the trek to Gillette Springs looked almost enjoyable. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting bushwhacked. Nobody would expect them to ride the forty miles to Gillette Springs when a stagecoach was available.

They headed south. He hadn’t gone five steps before Miss High and Mighty’s voice rose in accusation. “Sheriff, we are headed in the wrong direction. Gillette Springs is north of Smoke River, is it not?”

“It is. We’re taking a roundabout route, just in case anybody’s watching.”

That shut her up. He especially liked Fernanda’s half-suppressed snort of laughter.

He led them south for a mile, then circled back onto the old river road and eventually headed north on a little-used trail he’d found on an afternoon spent fishing.

The women were quiet for the first couple of hours, and when they stopped to water the horses at a spring, Hawk studied them. Fernanda grinned at him, dismounted and scooped water up in her cupped hands. Caroline tried it but soon gave up.

Hawk thrust his canteen at her. “Here.”

She took it without a murmur, tipped the metal container to her lips and gulped three big swallows. “Tastes awful, like metal,” she complained.

“It is metal. It’s my old army canteen.”

“Oh? Which army, Union or Rebel?”

“I’m a Texan,” he said, his voice tight. “Ought to be obvious.”

“Si, is obvious,” Fernanda said from the other side of the spring. “Yankee soldiers not polite like Señor Rivera.”

Caroline bristled. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Yankee manners.”

“No? Hija, your manners could use some improvement sometimes.”

Yankee Lady flounced back to her horse and scrambled ungracefully into the saddle. Hawk noticed she was walking a bit stiffly. By sundown she’d be saddle-sore and even more bad tempered. He expelled a long breath. Good thing he’d brought plenty of whiskey.

They stopped before dark in a thick copse of beech and sugar pines. “We stay here?” Fernanda asked.

“Yeah. Gillette Springs is forty miles from Smoke River. We’re almost halfway.” He watched the Mexican woman slide easily off her mount. Caroline sat frozen in the saddle, her head drooping.

Hawk didn’t ask if she needed help dismounting; he just walked over, snaked his hands around her waist and pulled her off the horse. She staggered, then sagged toward him. He caught her shoulders to keep her upright, but her legs wouldn’t support her.

“Fernanda, get a blanket from behind my saddle and spread it over there.” He tipped his head toward a patch of thick pine needles.

“Si, señor.”

“There’s some liniment in my saddlebag. Bring that, too.”

The older woman nodded. When she’d spread out the blanket, Hawk scooped Caroline up in his arms.

“Put me down this instant,” she cried.

He gritted his teeth. “Unless you want to crawl to that blanket, just shut up.” He knelt and rolled her onto the square of Navaho wool, then sat back on his heels.

“Listen, Miss MacFarlane. I didn’t want to come along on this trip. I don’t want to be here now, soft-talking you into behaving like a civilized person. So unless you want to take your chances alone in the middle of this woods, shape the hell up!”

He waited for a response, then lowered his voice so only she could hear. “From now on, you say please and thank you and act like a lady. You get my meaning?”

She nodded and Hawk saw that tears glistened in her eyes. Well, damn. He rose quickly and tramped over to his horse. He couldn’t stand a woman’s tears.

Fernanda found the jar of liniment and held it up with a question in her eyes.

“Smear it on her backside,” he instructed. “And her thighs,” he added. To take his mind off Caroline’s anatomy, he busied himself unsaddling and feeding the horses, then dug a hole for the fire so it couldn’t be seen and started to unpack supper from his saddlebag.

It didn’t help one bit hearing Caroline’s responses to the Mexican woman’s ministrations with the liniment. “Oh, that feels so good. Do some more, here. And here.”

Hawk tried to close his mind off from her voice, but she moaned and sighed like a cat in heat. “Ah, yes, right there. Yes! Oh. Oh. More.”

He swore under his breath and walked away from camp. When he returned an hour later, Fernanda was grinding coffee beans. Caroline limped over with the coffeepot she’d filled at the stream. Hawk lifted it out of her hands so she wouldn’t have to bend over.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She wouldn’t look at him, but her voice sounded like she’d been crying. He caught his breath. Sure was glad she couldn’t see his face in the dark.

While they ate the simple supper of canned beans and tomatoes and hot coffee, he found himself watching her. She sat slumped against a boulder, her knees bent, obviously trying not to move much. He figured her back was aching in spite of the liniment.

What the hell was a delicate slip of an overcivilized woman like Caroline MacFarlane doing traipsing around the country making people mad enough to want her dead?

Tomorrow, he’d ask her. That is, if she was still speaking to him after today.

Chapter Four

My lady very angry today. I think is because riding on horseback make her hurt. She is frightened, but she not admit. Señor Rivera say nothing, not even buenos días, until he drink three cups of the coffee I make extra strong. And I listen to my lady complain about everything, the blanket she sleep in, the boots, the biscuits he make for our supper, everything. She is mad, I think, because underneath she feel scared.

Caroline had never felt so miserable in her entire life, not even the hours spent in dusty stagecoaches rattling through the wilds of Oklahoma and Texas. She was hot and sticky and her derriere hurt as if she’d been bouncing for hours on a pincushion. A pincushion made of hard leather.

It was all the fault of that odious man, Rivera. He was bossy. Rude. And ill-mannered. No matter how admiringly Fernanda gazed at the tall sheriff, the man was nothing but a bully with a shiny silver badge.

With distaste she surveyed their sleeping arrangements for the night. A single blanket apiece and a saddle for a pillow? How primitive. Even the Indians slept in tents, did they not?

Fernanda had taken the tin plates and spoons to rinse off in the stream; when she returned Caroline would ask her to hold up a blanket so she could undress in what limited privacy she could manage. She wondered with a stab of unease whether she would be able to get her boots off without bending over.

Rivera strode off to hobble the horses and she seized her chance. “Fernanda, hold up one of those blankets to make a screen, would you?”

“But you don’t need—”

“Just do it,” she hissed. “Quickly! Before he gets back.”

Her companion sent her an odd look but dutifully unrolled a square of striped wool and held it aloft. Caroline stepped behind it and started to undo her shirt.

“Hold it!” An unwelcome male voice stopped her midbutton.

“I am undressing, Mr. Rivera. Turn your back. Please,” she added as an afterthought. She couldn’t stand the thought that he would laugh at her. But the truth was she was, well, frightened. She didn’t know how to behave in a camp out in the wilderness with a man nearby.

“Not so fast. Out here on the trail we sleep in our clothes.”

“You may do just that, sir. I, however, will not.”

Before she could slip free one more button, he yanked the blanket out of Fernanda’s upraised hands and tossed it onto the bed of pine needles behind him.

“You hard of hearing? I said out here—”

“I heard you perfectly well. The question is, did you hear me?” She couldn’t continue undressing until he turned away. Caroline pressed her lips together and waited.

“Button yourself back up, lady. You’re gonna sleep fully clothed.”

“I—I cannot.” She would not let him see how uncertain she felt about sleeping out in the open. Next to a man. Most of all, she could not confess that her stiff denim jeans chafed the inside of her thighs, despite the liniment Fernanda had rubbed on earlier. Or that her sunburned neck smarted under her shirt collar. She needed to be free of anything that rubbed her skin.

“Like hell,” he muttered. The next thing she knew he had yanked her up like a sack of meal and dumped her onto the blanket closest to the fire pit.

“Ouch!”

He knelt next to her. “I’ll take off your boots so you won’t have to stretch. Give me your foot.” He turned his back, straddled her leg and began pulling off the leather boots.

How humiliating! With her foot in his control she could not wriggle away from him. Oh, she felt so out of place in the West. So incompetent. She hated not knowing how to do something as simple as taking off her own boots.

But the relief she felt when her boot came off overcame her urge to complain. Bliss! She flexed her toes and closed her eyes with pleasure.

“I think my boots are too small,” she said. “My heels are rubbed raw.”

“Not too small,” he countered. “They’re too big. That’s why they rub.” He took her foot in both hands and stripped off her sock.

“Blisters,” he muttered. “Hot damn.”

“Well it isn’t my fault,” she blurted out. “You were the one who insisted on horses. And boots.”

“Yeah, I did. Stop complaining. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Well!” She had never met a man so bad tempered and prone to give orders. She’d bet he’d been at least a colonel in the Rebel army. Maybe even a general.

“Fernanda,” he said over his shoulder to her companion. “You have an extra pair of socks with you?”

“Si. I have extra.” She rummaged in the small canvas bag he had allowed them and pulled out another bulky pair of boy’s socks.

“Your boots fit okay, señora?” he asked.

“Sí.” To demonstrate Fernanda executed a few dance steps, snapping her fingers over her head. “Fine boots, señor. Gracias.”

Caroline’s mouth fell open. She had never, ever seen Fernanda dance. Or even walk fast. Even in Texas, when Mama had hired the Mexican woman as a nurse, she had been the epitome of decorum. What had come over her?

That man, Rivera, had come over her, that’s what. Caroline sensed some unspoken connection between Rivera and Fernanda, but she could not imagine what it was. He was at least ten years Fernanda’s junior, and unless he preferred older women...

How reprehensible! The man was surely taking advantage of her friend.

She tried to yank her foot away, but his big hands held her fast. He massaged her toes, then her arch, and finally drew on the extra sock. Then he picked up her other foot and pulled off the leather boot.

“Tomorrow I’ll help you get your boots back on,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“There is absolutely no need,” she protested. “I have been capable of dressing myself since I was three years old.”

“Did you wear Western boots when you were three years old?”

She flinched. “Certainly not. I wore dresses, like any proper young girl.”

Without a word he dropped her foot, folded the boot tops over and slapped them down next to her saddle. “Good night, Miss MacFarlane. Use your boots for a pillow.”

“Good night? How am I supposed to sleep with just one blanket and a smelly pair of boots?”

He towered over her, then squatted on his haunches down to her level. “You sleep any way you like, Miss MacFarlane. You roll yourself up in the blanket, like a pancake. Personally, I prefer using my saddle as a pillow, but you suit yourself.”

She glared up at him. “I most certainly will not roll myself—”

He said nothing, just straightened to his full height and looked down at her. His eyes did strange things to her equilibrium.

“What if I get cold during the night?”

“You won’t. It’s the middle of the summer. Stays hot all night.”

“Oh.” Again she stuffed down the unwelcome feeling of incompetence. She should have deduced that about the weather.

“Do not worry, mi corazón, you will be close to the fire.”

Caroline bit her lip, hunkered down on the blanket, and pulled both corners up around her. Roll over like a pancake? How did one accomplish that?

She rolled to her left and felt the muscles in her back clench. She reversed direction, but the blanket wouldn’t cover her completely.

All at once the blanket was yanked out from under her and a hand settled on her backside. “Like this.” He tucked one edge under her back and rolled her over twice. The blanket snugged up tight around her body.

“Just like a tortilla,” Fernanda chortled. “Mi hija, pretend you are the molé sauce.”

In the next moment he slid his palm under her neck and stuffed her folded boots underneath her head. She clamped her jaw tight shut and watched Fernanda toe off her boots and roll herself up in her own blanket.

Rivera did the same. She noticed he had positioned both herself and Fernanda next to the fire; he slept on the outside.

Well, at least that was gentlemanly.

* * *

Hawk listened to the quiet breathing of the two women and hoped he’d dropped enough dry wood into the fire pit to last the night. Not that they’d need the warmth, but the flames would keep away predators. He drew in a careful breath. Coyotes, maybe. Not men.

He’d scouted the area around the camp and found no tracks but Red’s and those of the two mares. Maybe Fernanda was wrong about someone trying to kill Miss MacFarlane.

He closed his eyes and tried not to remember how Caroline MacFarlane looked with her shirt half-unbuttoned. A song sparrow twittered among the branches of a nearby alder. Funny how a bird’s singing could fill a man full of questions about his life. He wondered if his deathbed reflections about the decisions he’d made in his life would make it all clear someday. Then he snorted. He’d save his deathbed confession for when the time came.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the fat silver globe of a moon floating above the trees. Suddenly something startled the bird into silence, and the hair on his neck rose. He hadn’t heard a horse. Hadn’t heard a single footstep. Very slowly he sat up and reached for his rifle.

A shadow glided behind a thick pine trunk and he thumbed back the hammer. What would a man on foot be doing twenty miles from the nearest town? Maybe a renegade Indian, looking for food?

Or it might be that someone had trailed them, left his mount a mile or so back and sneaked up on the camp.

He got to his feet and crept forward toward the tree. If it was a man intent on harming someone, he’d bet that someone was not himself. Those who held grudges against him he’d left back in Texas, and besides, too much time had passed since his Ranger days. A Mescalero would have caught up with him by now.

He walked to within arm’s length of the pine, dug a pebble from his shirt pocket and tossed it off to one side. Nothing, not even an indrawn breath. He chanced a deliberately noisy step onto a dry twig. Still nothing. Then he moved so he could see what was behind the trunk.

Nothing but moonlight and tall trees. Either his imagination was working too hard or he was getting jumpy with two females on his hands. Or...

Then he heard the far-off thud of hoofbeats, and his blood ran cold. Someone had been here. On foot, and so quiet there hadn’t been even a warning nicker from the horses. He should have heard something. Anything. God, was he getting old?

He released the hammer, stalked back into camp and dropped the Winchester next to his bedroll.

“Señor?”

“It was nothing, Fernanda. Go back to sleep.”

“You lie, my friend. I hear the horse, too.”

“You’ve got good ears, señora.”

“Ay, that is true.” There was a long pause and then the Mexican woman’s soft voice spoke again. “I have learned to listen, señor.”

Hawk didn’t sleep. He didn’t even try, just lay awake with his thoughts and his doubts and his fears. Not for himself, but for the spirited, headstrong crusader who slept a short distance away from him. She was a damn fool of a woman, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

But he’d agreed to protect her, and he would. Stealthily he moved his bedroll as close to hers as he could get without waking her.

Tomorrow he’d teach her how to shoot his revolver.

* * *

“Señora, can you fire a pistol?”

“Sí.”

“A pistol!” Caroline spluttered.

“Sí. I carry a pistola always in my pocket.”

“What?” Her voice rose an octave. “Fernanda, you never told me that.”

“You never ask, mi corazón. Besides, I never tell you lots of things.”

Caroline struggled to her feet and immediately regretted it. Her legs felt stiff as new sofa springs. Nevertheless, she marched over to Fernanda, who sat placidly beside the fire pit eating the last of the biscuits. Before she could confront the Mexican woman, Rivera laid his big hand on Caroline’s shoulder and spun her toward him so fast it made her dizzy.

“There’s something I want to show you before we get started.”

“Oh? And what is that, Mr. Rivera? How to take off my boots, perhaps?”

A smile flickered. The first hint of any humor in the taciturn sheriff and a welcome change from that smoldering anger in his green eyes and the perpetual frown he wore. My goodness, what a sourpuss he was. He’d be nice-looking if his face were not so scrunched up.

“Nothing to do with boots,” he said in that maddeningly calm voice of his. Didn’t he ever get excited about anything? Even Fernanda’s impromptu fandango last night hadn’t cracked his impassive expression. He must have been a superb soldier in the War, imperturbable as a sphinx under fire.

She sniffed. “Well, what is it? Show me and let us be on our way. I have a speaking engagement in Gillette Springs this evening.”

He shot her a look. “I want you to learn to use a revolver.”

She sucked in a breath. “I beg your pardon? What on earth for?” The very thought of putting her hand on a firearm sent a shudder up her spine. Did women out West actually do such brazen things?

“For protection.”

“Yours or mine? No well-bred lady handles firearms.”

“No well-bred lady travels out West lighting fires under half the population without knowing how to protect herself.”

“Lighting fires? Well, I should hope so. For your information, Mr. Rivera, ‘lighting fires’ is going to be the salvation of womankind.”

He said nothing, just took hold of her upper arm and propelled her away from the fire. Fernanda fled to the stream with the empty tin cups and the coffeepot.

He slid his revolver out of the holster on his hip, spilled the chambered bullets into his palm and thrust the weapon at her, holding it by the blued steel barrel. She knocked it out of his hand onto the ground.

His eyes narrowed into glittery emerald slits. “Pick it up,” he ordered.

“I can’t. I am too stiff to bend over.”

“Then you shouldn’t have dropped the gun. I said pick it up.” He put one hand at her waist and the other at her back and jackknifed her body. She groaned through gritted teeth.

“Pick it up,” he repeated.

She scrabbled on the ground and managed to grab the long barrel, but it was heavier than she expected. She couldn’t lift it with one hand.

“Use two hands,” he ordered.

She pushed the weapon toward her other hand and grasped the handle.

“Now straighten up.” He bit the words out like firecrackers going off.

“You got me doubled over like this,” she said. “You can get me to straighten up.”

Too late she realized her mistake. He slapped one hand on her midsection, grasped her shoulder with the other and yanked her upright.

Her muscles screamed and she wanted to weep with frustration. She thought about stamping her foot onto his toe, but she knew she couldn’t lift it high enough.

“Now,” he instructed, positioning her hand on the gun. “Fold your fingers around the butt and slip your forefinger onto the trigger.” He laid his hand over hers and curled her fingers over the handle. She couldn’t hold up the weight, and the barrel drooped toward the ground.

“You right-handed?” When she nodded, he grabbed her left hand and pressed her fingers on the opposite side. “Hold it steady.”

“I am trying! It is too heavy for a woman.”

“Not too heavy for a crusader,” he said drily.

She glanced into his face. “You think I am a crusader?”

“Hell, yes.” He stepped behind her, brought both hands around her body and rested them under her forearms to steady her grip.

She didn’t like the feel of him at her back. Or the warmth of his arms around hers. Or anything. He smelled of leather and wood smoke and sweat. Well, she acknowledged, she probably smelled the same. He didn’t seem to mind, because he moved his jaw right up against her hair.

“Breathe in,” he said. “Now breathe out.”

She couldn’t. Not with him so close. Not without revealing how uneven her breathing had become all of a sudden.

He lifted her forearms and the gun barrel leveled off parallel to the ground. “Now sight down the barrel.”

“Sight? What does that mean, ‘sight’?”

He snorted. “Hell, lady, it means aim the damn gun!” With his chin he nudged her head down. “Look through those two little notches and point the barrel at something.”

She’d like to point it at him. Instead she swung the weapon toward a low-hanging branch.

“Now squeeze the trigger.”

She heard a metallic snap.

“Good. Now we’ll try it with a bullet.”

Patiently Hawk showed her how to crack open the chamber and slide the cartridges into the slots. She was a quick study, and that surprised him. He only had to show her something once. She was obviously intelligent. Probably had attended some fancy girls’ school, maybe even college.

When she’d loaded his revolver he instructed her about not swinging the barrel around but keeping it pointed down, then showed her how to release the hammer.

“Okay, now aim at something.” Hawk stepped in behind her again and watched her point the weapon at another tree branch.

“Try not to hit a bird,” he joked. She didn’t even crack a smile. “Don’t wait too long or your hands will start to shake.”

“My hands are already shaking,” she said. Her voice was shaking, as well.

“Bring the barrel up slowly. Now hold your breath and sight. When you’re ready, just squeeze back on the trigger.”

The revolver discharged with a sharp crack, and the kick propelled her backward into his chest. Instinctively he grabbed her shoulders. “A gun always pushes back when you fire it, so you need to be ready.”

He liked holding her that way, her backbone pressed against his chest. Her head just fit under his chin. Damn, her hair smelled good, like lemons and some kind of soap.

He could feel every breath she took and he wasn’t liking his reaction one bit. He wanted to slide his fingers around to her chest, cup her breasts and feel her heart beat under his thumb.

He snatched his hands away so fast it was as if a bee had stung him. Now, that was an interesting reaction.

No, it was a damn worrisome reaction. He didn’t have time to dally with a woman, especially this woman, all proper and educated and remote.

Even more important, he didn’t have the guts for it. Not anymore.

Chapter Five

They arrived in Gillette Springs just as the sun dipped behind the mountains to the north. The trunk sat waiting in the hotel foyer, as Hawk had instructed, so he arranged for a room. The women ordered a bathtub to be brought up. He made sure they bolted the door and strode off to find the sheriff.

The man’s office was just three doors down from the hotel, but nobody was there. A sign stuck to the door read At Polly’s Cage. Back at five.

Good idea. He could use a shot of whiskey before heading back.

“Sheriff Davis in town?”

The pie-eyed deputy leaned against the polished wood bar and sent Hawk a sloppy grin. “Leadin’ a posse up to Idaho,” the paunchy man allowed with a derisive snort. “Left me in charge, he did. In charge of what, I’d like to know. Nuthin’ exciting ever happens in this town.”

“Might be something exciting tonight,” Hawk offered. “Suffragette lady’s making a speech.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about her. Over at the church, seven o’clock.”

“Listen, Deputy, someone took a shot at the lady two nights ago in Smoke River. Think you should...” Hawk leaned toward him and lowered his voice. Then he stopped short and studied the man. Old. Out of shape. And drunk. This deputy couldn’t protect a dog from a flea.

Hell. All he wanted to do was head back to Smoke River and forget the woman now taking a bath at the hotel. He wanted to get as far away as possible from Caroline MacFarlane.

But he couldn’t leave her to the protection of this sorry excuse for a lawman. He ground his teeth until his jaw hurt.

“How about you make sure nobody sits down in that church tonight without removing their sidearms. Pile ’em up on the back pew and guard them.”

“Oh. Oh, sure, mister. I’ll do that for sure.”

And not much else, Hawk realized. The minute Caroline entered the church she would be a sitting pigeon. Hell and damn, he couldn’t leave her. When he returned to Smoke River he’d send off a stiff note to Sheriff Davis about his derelict deputy, but for tonight, Hawk figured he’d have to stand in. Maybe he’d have to rethink the whole thing to keep this headstrong woman safe.

He grabbed a bath and a shave at the barbershop across the street from the saloon, then went up the hotel stairs to tell Fernanda and Caroline what not to do tonight.

* * *

“Whatever do you mean, don’t wear this dress? This is my most tailored suit. It is perfectly proper and stylish and it commands resp—”

“It makes you look stiff and superior and men hate women like that.”

Caroline drew herself up as tall as she could and glared at him. “Oh, they do, do they? Well, let me tell you something. It is not men I am trying to reach, Mr. Rivera. It is the women I want to hear my message.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the men you need to convince. The women are already on your side.”

Fernanda laid a restraining hand on her arm. “He is right, hija. It is men who will be voting to give the vote to the women.”

Rivera yanked open the door to her wardrobe where she’d hung up her dresses and flicked through the hangers. “Wear something frilly,” he said. “Something with ruffles or bows or ribbons or something.” He pulled out her flounced yellow skirt.

“Wear this.”

“That is meant for a party or a reception. It is entirely too dressy for speech-making.”

“Wear it anyway.”

The man was impossible. She eyed his selection with trepidation. It was entirely too frivolous for playing the role of a—what had he called her?—a crusader?

Oh, Mama, I am beginning to wish I had known more about what I would be getting into.

But Fernanda had a point; it was men who would be voting to change the suffrage law.

“I—I cannot do it. I refuse to...to...well, seduce the men with a pretty dress.”

“You want to win the war,” he grumbled, “you do what you have to do.” He reached over and plucked the pins holding her bun at her neck.

“And wear your hair down.”

She gasped as her hair tumbled free. “Just what do you think you are doing?”

“Damned if I know,” he muttered. “Keeping you safe. Out of the line of fire from some crazy gent who wants to stop you.”

“Oh.” The look on his face stopped every protest she could think of.

“Look, Caroline,” he said. “I don’t believe in your cause. I don’t want you women to win the vote. But I also don’t want you to get yourself killed.”

“Oh,” she said again. Suddenly all the air whooshed out of her and all her brave words dissolved into thin air. Very well, she would do it. She would wear the yellow dress. She would be soft and feminine and she would win the vote of the men on behalf of the women. Rivera was right. It was +exactly like going to war.

But oh, Lord, no one had told her how frightening it could be.

“Get dressed,” Hawk ordered. “I’ll walk you to the church in ten minutes.” Like a good soldier, she didn’t even flinch. Made him wonder something else about her.

He closed the door and paced up and down the carpeted hallway outside and tried to figure her out.

* * *

The church was filled to overflowing. The mix of seated men and women was about even. Deputy Saunders had secured all the sidearms on the back pew and was standing guard over the pile of holsters and gun belts and revolvers. At least he had sobered up.

Hawk had arranged with the minister to use the entrance in back of the pulpit so Caroline would not have a long walk up the aisle. Fernanda was already seated in the front pew, her face looking serene and her hands folded in her lap. But her dark eyes were wide with apprehension.

Caroline stood next to him, waiting for the last of her audience to squeeze into a pew. She took his breath away in that yellow dress. Hell, she’d have every man in the church in love with her before she even opened her mouth.

She, too, looked calm. Resolute. Suffused with soldierly purpose. He’d seen lieutenants with less steel in their spine.

She also looked female as hell and too vulnerable. His chest tightened just a fraction more than he liked.

Beside him, she drew in a shaky breath and started forward.

“Wait.” He laid his hand at her waist and pulled her to a stop beside him, then slipped the small pistol he’d bought out of his vest and pressed it into her hand.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“It’s a pistol. It’s lighter than my revolver. Carry it in your skirt pocket.”

“I—”

“Careful,” he said. He closed her fingers around the gun butt. “It’s loaded.”

She snatched her hand away, then nodded. “Thank you.” He watched her slip it into her pocket.

“Ready? Let’s go.”

As he had instructed, she moved through the doorway and quickly placed herself behind the minister’s solid oak lectern. Hawk followed, seated himself on a side chair just behind the pulpit, and scanned the crowd. Quietly he laid his revolver across his lap.

The audience couldn’t see the weapon; besides, every eye was glued to the vision in yellow standing at the front of the church.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Caroline MacFarlane.” She kept her voice low and even, not a hint of harangue or inflammatory words. Good girl.

“I want to tell you about my mother, Evangeline MacFarlane. When I was old enough to notice such things, I became aware that my—” she hesitated and Hawk tensed “—my father struck my mother. He did this often, almost every night, and he made no attempt to hide from me what he was doing.”

She paused and Hawk focused on the men in the crowd. Some looked angry; some looked a little guilty; but most bore a look of concern.

“When I was twelve years old my mother took me away from our home. She said she could not live like that any longer, and no matter how my father begged and pleaded, she refused to go back.”

The women in the audience nodded and murmured to each other. A few even dabbed at their eyes.

“But my father went to court. And the judge—” Again she stopped and this time she swallowed hard. “The judge said my mother had to return to my father, had to live with him even though he mistreated her. He said it was the law in Massachusetts, that if a woman left her husband, she forfeited her right to her children.”

Hawk studied the faces of the men. No doubt some of them beat their wives. Maybe they felt they were justified; maybe a few felt guilty. But not one of them challenged Caroline or shouted an insult. Instead, they waited to hear her next words.

“My mother decided this was wrong, that forcing a woman to live with an abusive husband was wrong. She moved us into a room at a boardinghouse. Later, to save herself—and me—she left him for good and took me with her. She joined a group of women and spoke out against this injustice, and other injustices against women. We traveled all over the country, and everywhere we went, my mother spoke out to support women.”

In the uneasy silence, Hawk finally began to breathe easier. It was not an unruly crowd; the men were stirred up, he could see that, but they weren’t violent.

Caroline went on, her voice still soft. “Did you know that here in Oregon a woman cannot divorce a man for cruelty or abandonment? And that if a woman earns any money of her own, it goes to her husband?”

She paused again. “Ladies and gentlemen, do you think this is fair?”

There was a sudden commotion at the back of the church. Hawk lifted his revolver, shielding it from view with his hand, and thumbed back the hammer. But the cause of the disturbance was a young boy of about eight or nine, who darted up the aisle to where Caroline stood and thrust a folded piece of paper into her hand.

“Man said to give you this,” he panted.

She unfolded the note and gasped. Then she looked over at Hawk.

Her face had gone white as milk.

Chapter Six

Hawk didn’t much care what the note said, but it told him Caroline’s speech was over. He lifted his Colt and stepped past her. “That’s all, folks. Miss MacFarlane just got some bad news and she has to leave.”

Behind him he heard the paper rustle and knew her hand was shaking. He ached to turn back to her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the crowd.

The church began to empty. Women chattered excitedly to each other, the men picked up their sidearms under Deputy Saunders’s watchful gaze and went out.

Fernanda edged past him and reached out to Caroline. “Mi corazón, you look like ghost. Que pasa?”

Finally the last man left, followed by the deputy, and Hawk reholstered his revolver. The Mexican woman stood patting Caroline’s trembling hands, her face bleached of color. She held the note out to him. “Here, señor. You read.”

Hawk had the sinking feeling that the contents were going to tie him into something he wanted no part of. Long ago he’d learned to watch his back when something didn’t feel right, and this sure didn’t feel right.

He glanced at the paper Fernanda had stuffed into his hand. Crudely printed in red crayon were the words “I WILL GET YOU BITCH.”

He looked up to find Caroline staring at him like she’d been poleaxed, her widened eyes darkening to blue-violet and her mouth clamped shut so tight her lips formed a thin unsmiling slash in her pale face.

He stepped forward and laid his arm around her shoulders.

“D-don’t,” she whispered. “I need to be strong.”

He could feel her whole body shaking. “Don’t be a fool. You need to stop trying to be brave.”

She jerked her head up. “Don’t tell me what to do! If I p-pretend, it gives me courage. I grew up pretending.”

Hawk snorted. “Someone just threatened your life, Caroline. You should be damn scared, not playacting.”

Fernanda nodded emphatically. “Always she pretend.”

Suddenly Hawk wanted to fold her into his arms, but he figured that would frighten her even more. He settled for tightening his arm about her shoulders and gently tugging her toward the doorway behind the pulpit.

“Come on. You need to go back to the hotel and lie down. Maybe have some coffee brought up.”

“I n-need something stronger than coffee.” Her voice was less shaky, but she was still trembling like she’d taken a bad chill. He guided her to the back entrance, but before stepping through the door he pulled her to a stop.

“Wait.” He withdrew his revolver and inched out the doorway far enough to see both sides of the street. Not a sign of a living soul. A faint light shone in the window of the sheriff’s office, but no horses were tied at the hitching rail in front of Polly’s Cage. Tinny piano music drifted from the saloon. He moved to the corner and studied the buildings on both sides of the main street—still nothing.

He stepped back inside. “Looks clear.”

Caroline drew a deep breath and started forward, but Hawk reached out and yanked her close to his side, then motioned to the Mexican woman hovering behind him. “Fernanda, stay on the other side of her.”

“Si, señor.” She grasped Caroline’s arm.

Once inside the hotel Hawk lifted his arm from Caroline’s slim shoulders, grabbed the room key and went up the stairs ahead of her, his revolver drawn. He unlocked the door, checked inside the wardrobe and under both beds. Fernanda hurried to close the curtains and then confronted him. “What we do now, señor?”

Damned if he knew. He couldn’t leave Caroline alone with just Fernanda; even if the Mexican woman did carry a pistol, he’d bet she wasn’t experienced, and Caroline...

Caroline needed a shot of Dutch courage. Hell, he needed one, too. He also needed to think. He made sure the women were safe and had locked the door. Then he walked over to the sheriff’s office for some reconnaissance and on to Polly’s Cage for some comfort.

By the time Rivera returned, Caroline had talked her fear down to a manageable level and explained again to Fernanda that, no matter what, she would not stop making speeches. She would never stop.

She was afraid, yes. Whoever it was had managed to track her down, and sending a child with such an awful note, in front of everyone, had chilled her to the bone. But she could never let it show. And yes, she used her stiff, proper manners to disguise the terror, the fear that she actually would be killed. Her life, speaking out about what had happened to her mother, and to her, compelled her to go on, even when her heart hammered under her buttons and her throat was so dry she could not spit.

Oh, Mama, if you are looking down on me, give me courage, for I know I must go on.

She had just donned her silk night robe when she heard Rivera’s voice on the other side of the door. Fernanda stopped brushing her hair, turned the key in the lock and let him in.

In his hand he carried three glasses and a pint of whiskey.

Fernanda reached for the bottle. “Ah, señor, you are an angel from God.”

“Not quite,” he growled. “I talked with the deputy sheriff. That kid was the barber’s son. He’d never seen the man who gave him the note. No horse that he could see, but the fellow was tall. Spare build. Walked hunched over a bit. Dark clothing and a hat pulled too low to see his face.”

Fernanda poured three glasses of whiskey. “What we do now, señor?”

Hawk slapped his hat down on the bed nearest the door and downed a big swallow of the liquor. “You’re not gonna like this any more than I do, but—” he took another gulp “—I’m sticking to you like cockleburs on a horse’s tail.”

Caroline sank onto the other bed and eyed him. “I beg your pardon? What exactly does that mean?”

She was dressed for bed, Hawk noted. Bare feet, her hair a loose tangle of curls. For an instant he lost his train of thought.

“It means I’m sleeping in your room tonight. It means you do exactly as I say until I can get you to wherever you’re going next.”

“Boise. In Idaho. We plan to catch the train from Oakridge.”

“That’s fifty miles from here.”

“There’s a stagecoach tomorrow morning.”

He thought that over. Maybe the stage would be safer than traveling on horseback, especially since whoever was trailing them, if anybody really was trailing them, apparently hadn’t been fooled.

A suffocating sense of duty descended on him, the kind of obligation he swore he’d never undertake again. But hell’s bells, here he was, up to his neck in it again. He prayed to God it would turn out better this time.

He polished off his whiskey and poured another for himself and for Fernanda. Caroline had wrinkled her nose at her first sip and the glass she now rotated in her two hands was still full.

“Okay, tomorrow we take the stagecoach to Oakridge.” And he’d pray every mile that the sheriff in Boise was not holed up in a saloon or out with a posse chasing some outlaw. He wouldn’t relax until both women were safe inside the hotel.

* * *

Before first light, Hawk arranged with the livery owner to board Red and the two mares, then walked over to the sheriff’s office, where he caught the deputy asleep at his desk. The man was damn incompetent, but at least he listened and agreed to keep his mouth shut. By eight, Hawk had taken the stage driver aside and explained some things while the women climbed on board.

“Ya wanna ride shotgun, Hawk?”

He thought it over. Jingo could probably use an extra rifle, so he nodded and stepped around to explain to Fernanda and Caroline. “Going to be a long trip, ladies, but we’ll be stopping in Tumbleweed for fresh horses and some dinner.”

The two women nodded, but neither was in a smiling frame of mind. Couldn’t blame them one bit. He climbed up beside the driver and laid his Winchester across his lap. “All set, Jingo. Let’s go.”

Jingo released the brake and lifted his whip, but before he could snap it over the team, a tall man barreled down the hotel steps and yanked open the passenger door. “Aw, hell.” Jingo spit a mouthful of tobacco juice beside the coach.

Hawk grabbed his rifle but Jingo laid a gnarled hand on the barrel.

“You know that guy?” Hawk asked.

“Sorta. Gambler sometimes. Horse trader other times.” The whip cracked and the stage lurched forward.

“Is he on any Wanted posters?”

“Naw. Too slippery if ya ask me. S’ides, gambling ain’t illegal. Yet.”

“Yet? What does that mean?”

Jingo spat again. “Women get the vote, first thing them straitlaced old biddies’ll do is outlaw card playing.”

Hawk kept his mouth shut about the passengers and the straitlaced part. Sure was thought-stopping, though. He’d once won a woman in a card game.

He couldn’t help worrying about what was going on inside the coach. Couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of horses’ hooves and creaking wheels. He knew Fernanda would fire off a shot if something was wrong, but...

“Hold up, Jingo.”

“Huh? What for?”

“You heard me, pull up.”

He was off the driver’s bench before the stage rattled to a stop. He strode around to the passenger door and yanked it open.

Fernanda let out a screech. “What happen, señor?”

“Nothing, yet. Any trouble back here?”

Caroline sat straight-backed in her severe dark blue dress, her hands primly folded in her lap. Hawk noted her knuckles were white. Gambler man tipped his black derby back off his face and blinked small round eyes at him. “You expecting some trouble, Sheriff?”

Hawk swore under his breath. The man was sprawled beside Fernanda, his long legs resting on the seat next to Caroline. Hawk used the rifle barrel to knock them to the floor.

“Hey, what the—?”

“You only paid for one seat, mister. The one next to the lady doesn’t belong to you.”

“Oh, very well. Excuse me, ma’am.” The watery eyes closed and he tipped the derby back over his face. Caroline sent Hawk a grateful look.

“You all right?” he mouthed.

The ghost of a smile curved her lips and she nodded. Hawk tipped his head toward the stranger and lifted his eyebrows in a question. Again she smiled, and this time it touched her eyes.

He sucked in air as his stomach rolled over, then latched the door and rejoined Jingo on the driver’s bench.

“Them ladies all right?”

He grunted.

“Relax, Hawk. We got some hard hours on the road ahead of us.”

“You just drive this contraption, Jingo.” He wouldn’t relax until they reached Oakridge. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Gambling Man inside the coach, whether he was really on the up-and-up or whether he flimflammed when he saw a badge.

Sweat began at the back of his neck. Another few hours of this and he’d draw his weapon on every male that came within twenty feet of her.

“Ya want me to sing somethin’?” Jingo quipped. “The horses like it when I sing.”

Hawk rolled his eyes.

Jingo warbled in an off-tune tenor voice all the way to the stage station. By the time they pulled up at the small two-room shack, Hawk’s patience was wearing thinner than the film on a stagnant frog pond.

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