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“Patricia Potter is a master storyteller, a powerful weaver of romantic tales.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Mary Jo Putney

“Pat Potter writes romantic adventure like nobody else.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Joan Johnston

“Patricia Potter looks deeply into the human soul and finds the best and brightest in each character. This is what romance is all about.”

—RT Book Reviews

“When a historical romance (gets) the Potter treatment, the story line is pure action and excitement and the characters are wonderful.”

—The Book Browser

“One of the romance genre’s finest talents.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Pat Potter proves herself a gifted writer-as-artisan, creating a rich fabric of strong characters whose wit and intelligence will enthrall even as their adventures entertain.”

—BookPage

“It’s Potter’s unique gift for creating unforgettable characters and delving into the deepest parts of their hearts that endears her to readers.”

—RT Book Reviews

Dear Reader,

I’m overjoyed to return to my Western roots after visits to other historical venues and romantic suspense. And when I was offered a chance to write for Harlequin Blaze, well, how could I resist?

My hero and heroine, Jared and Samantha, have long haunted me. In truth, they have been demanding my attention for nearly eight years. I’ve ignored them until now, promising them their day. And this is it.

Sam and Jared are one of the strongest pairs I’ve ever brought to life. She’s the adopted daughter of an outlaw she dearly loves, and Jared is a marshal with a personal vendetta against that same outlaw.

Samantha will do anything, including shooting Jared, to save the man who protected her for most of her life. Jared will do anything to hang the man he believes responsible for the murder of someone dear to him, even if it means breaking the heart of a woman he’s coming to love.

Don’t miss the fireworks!

Patricia Potter

The Lawman
Patricia Potter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patricia Potter is a bestselling and award-winning author of more than sixty books. Her Western romances have received numerous awards, including an RT Book Reviews Storyteller of the Year, Career Achievement Award for Western Historical Romance and Best Hero of the Year. She is a seven-time RITA® Award finalist for RWA and a three-time Maggie winner. She is a past president of the Romance Writers of America.

For Carolyn, Barbara and Phyllis for their patience, support and really good advice. I love you guys.

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Colorado Territory

January, 1866

GUILT WEIGHED like an anvil on his heart.

He should have insisted that Emma wait until he could accompany her from Kansas to Denver. He should have been with her.

Now she was dead, and he was responsible.

Just like before.

“You know her, Marshal?”

Jared Evans heard the question but didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the body of the young woman from the inside of the coach and carried her into the office he sometimes shared with Denver’s sheriff. He wanted her away from the prying eyes of curious onlookers.

He gently laid her down on the bench and knelt beside her, choking off the growl that started deep in his chest.

Emma. Pretty, smart Emma lay still, her dress stained with blood from a gunshot to the heart. She’d been all he had left of his wife, Sarah, who’d also died from an outlaw’s bullet three years earlier. Sisters.

She looked so much like Sarah. The same soft, pretty features and golden hair and blue eyes.

Jared hadn’t seen her since he’d returned after the war, only to find his wife, young daughter and brother dead, killed months earlier by Quantrill’s bloody murderers. Emma had taken him to the graves. Watched as he’d knelt down and howled in grief.

Emma was engaged then, and he’d left to track down the men who’d killed his family….

He closed his eyes. Sarah’s face replaced Emma’s in his mind’s eye.

“Marshal?”

He turned around.

“You know her, Marshal?” The driver, who’d followed them inside, asked again.

He nodded.

“Wasn’t no need to kill her,” the driver said. “Wasn’t no need for anyone to git killed. I stopped. But one of them bushwhackers tried to kiss her after he took her purse, and she bit him. He just plain shot her, then turned the gun on me. I dropped when it hit my shoulder. Heard someone use the name Thornton.”

Thornton. He knew the name. Knew it too damned well. He’d been chasing the Thornton gang for more than eight months. Confederates who didn’t know the damn war was over. Been robbing mostly military payrolls all over the territory. The jobs had been meticulously planned.

No one had been killed until now.

He touched Emma’s hair and closed her eyes. Rage and a terrible grief warred in his heart. For the second time in his life, he was too late to save someone close to his heart. “I’ll get them for you,” he said to her. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, every one of them will hang.”

1

Colorado, 1876

SHOOT HIM!

Samantha Blair’s fingers flexed as she watched the tall, lean man approach with an easy, graceful stride. The man she intended to stop at any cost.

She had stepped off the crumbling porch of the saloon just seconds earlier and stood in the middle of the rutted street in a stance that was all challenge.

Her long duster coat was confining and hot on this unusually warm day, but it disguised her sex. So did her loose shirt and worn pants. A hat covered her short hair, and she’d pulled the brim down over her forehead to cut the glare from the afternoon sun.

Sweat dampened her leather gloves as she stared across the forty feet that separated her from the man with a hard face and a star on his vest. His skin was deeply browned by the sun, his hair black and his eyes deep set. He looked like a hawk to her, dark and predatory. His grim expression did nothing to allay the impression of deadly competence. He moved with a grace that persisted even as he halted.

She pushed her coat back on the right side. He stopped, stiffened when he saw the gun. The intent.

The dry wind kicked up dust, and a hot sun bore down on her and the man who had hunted Mac, one of the three people in the world she loved, for years. She was a healer, not a killer. But now Mac was helpless. Critically wounded. Defenseless.

Except for her.

Mac didn’t know she was here. The sign over the saloon—one of only a few structures left in the small mining town of Gideon’s Hope after a disastrous fire—hung drunkenly by a chain, while the rest of the building looked as if it were about to fall in.

In the distance she heard Dawg yowl, as if he knew something was terribly wrong. The old hound would be clawing at the door, desperate to come to her aid.

“Go home,” the lanky man said in a soft drawl. “I don’t shoot kids.”

She stiffened. “I’m not a kid,” she retorted. She’d hoped her height would offset the impression of youth. “I’ve killed before,” she added, willing him not to see the lie in her eyes. She hadn’t killed, but she was good with targets. Very good. And fast.

She could do this, she reassured herself. She had to do it. She wouldn’t let doubt rock her. She didn’t want to kill the man. Blue blazes, she didn’t want to kill anyone. Just stop him. A bullet in the leg would do. Or arm.

Always go for the heart or head. Hit anything else and your opponent will kill you.

How many times had Mac told her that when he’d taught her to shoot? To protect herself. Don’t ever expect a gunman to give you an advantage. He won’t. And the marshal was a gunman. She knew his reputation. Had dreaded it for years.

The lawman took a step toward her. “I don’t want trouble. I’m looking for an outlaw.”

“There’s no outlaw here,” she said.

His mouth curved into a half smile. “Then I’ll look and be on my way.”

“We don’t like strangers, and we especially don’t like the law,” she said.

“Who is we?” he asked, his voice controlled. No fear. But then he was a lawman, and there was something very sure, very competent in every small movement.

“Don’t matter,” she replied, trying to keep her voice husky. Her heart pounded. Only the conviction that she alone stood between this man and Mac kept her from turning away.

“It matters to me,” he said, taking another step.

It was now or never. If he got past her, then he would go after Mac. Her hand moved to her side, just inches from her Colt.

She had no choice. Mac was like a father to her. Now shattered by three bullet wounds, he lay unconscious in a room inside the saloon. She had to protect him. There was no one else. No one.

“Look, I have no quarrel with you,” he tried again. “I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

“We don’t like strangers,” Sam repeated. She tried to hide her abhorrence at what she was doing. The fear that turned her blood cold in the hot temperature.

It’s for Mac.

Archie was with Mac now. Archie, another of her “godfathers,” was the oldest of the three men who had loved her mother and taken over Sam’s care when her mother died. Now he needed glasses to see across the room. He would have tried to help if he knew what was happening. And he would have been killed.

Only she stood between the marshal and Mac.

She’d be damned—or dead—before she’d let this man take Mac to hang.

She could have ambushed him, but that went against everything Mac had told her. Only cowards ambushed.

“Leave,” she tried again, hoping her desperation didn’t reveal itself in her voice. “There’s other guns aimed at you.” Even as she voiced the words, she knew he wouldn’t retreat. Knew his reputation as a ruthless hunter. Still, she had to try. Her heart pounded so hard she feared he could hear it even from a distance.

“Can’t do that,” the intruder replied. His lips were twisted into a frown. She tried not to look at his holster. Mac said never look at the holster. Or the hand. Look at the eyes. They told you when your opponent was going to draw.

The eyes. Not the face. Concentrate on the eyes. Dark with a glint of blue. Unblinking.

“I’m a U.S. Marshal looking for Cal Thornton. He might be going by the name of MacDonald these days,” the lawman continued. “I don’t have a quarrel with anyone else.” His voice suddenly hardened as he added, “Unless they interfere.”

“Don’t know no Thornton,” she said. “Or MacDonald, either. And that badge don’t mean nothing to me.”

His gaze didn’t leave her face. “That old man in the livery said the owner of the horse there was in the saloon. Thornton rode that horse. There aren’t many pintos like it.”

“He’s crazy. I won that horse in a wager.”

“Then I’ll just take a look and move on.”

“No,” she said flatly.

Something about her answer made his lips twist into a smile.

“Where is he, kid?”

She realized with a sick feeling that she’d confirmed the fact that Mac was here. It didn’t make any difference, though. She’d seen him talk to old Burley, then start in the direction of the saloon without hesitation. If he’d ridden this far to find Mac, he wouldn’t be stopped by a denial. Only a bullet could do that.

She held her ground as he took another step. His gaze met hers, weighing her. Watching her every move.

“No closer,” she said. “I’ll shoot.”

“Are you sure, kid?” His voice was steady. “I bet you never shot a man before.”

Her eyes didn’t leave the marshal’s face. It looked carved from a rock. Lines were etched around his eyes, and she sensed they weren’t caused by laughter but by harsher emotions. He studied her with a cool perusal.

Then he started to turn away from her. “I’m going to look in that saloon,” he said.

Now. She had to make her move now.

Her heart pounded hard, and her throat was so dry she could barely breathe. She shifted and concentrated. She was good with a gun. As good as any man, Mac said. But he had taught her to shoot only for self-protection. In her heart, she knew he would not approve of this.

“One more step, and I’ll kill you,” she said.

He turned back to her.

“Go away,” she tried one last time. “No one here but a few ghosts.”

“And you.” His dark gaze seemed to search her soul. “What’s he to you?” He was trying to disarm her. She knew it, even as she realized it might be working. She widened her stance slightly and didn’t bother to answer. Instead, her fingers inched closer to her holster. Don’t stand there talking, Mac had taught her. Some gunmen will try to distract you with talk.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“Why isn’t he here? Why is he letting a kid protect him?”

She didn’t reply. She had the terrible feeling that every time she did, she revealed more than she intended, that he saw under the disguise she’d so carefully assembled.

“I just want to take Thornton to trial. It will be fair.”

“Not bloody likely.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Then Thornton is here.”

Blazes. She’d said too much.

She hadn’t had much time to plan after a friend of Mac’s from the old days had ridden in three hours earlier to warn him that a marshal named Evans was on the way. He’d moved on after issuing the warning. The man had a price on his head, as well.

Evans. She’d known that name. He’d been dogging Mac for years. A vendetta, Archie said once.

She tried to keep her hand from shaking as she stared into the marshal’s eyes. She didn’t want to kill him. Blazes, she didn’t want to shoot him at all. But she could. She knew she could. She was fast. As fast as Mac had been in his heyday, and she’d beaten him to the draw more than once.

But this was no game between teacher and student.

The lawman took a step toward her, his arms at ease. He obviously didn’t believe she would really draw.

Her heart quaked. If he reached her, he could easily disarm her. She was strong for a woman, but he was well over six feet and she suspected his lean body was all muscle.

Now.

“Draw!”

Her hand dove to the butt of her Colt. She saw a change in his eyes. He believed her now. His hand started toward his pistol, as well. A gust of hot wind caught her coat and flung the other side open.

Her finger pulled the trigger at the same second she realized his hand had stopped moving.

She heard the shot echo down the dirt road and saw the surprise in his eyes as his body buckled and he went down.

2

THE IMPACT of the bullet took Jared Evans by surprise.

Blood flowed from his right leg as it started to fold underneath him. The pain would follow. He knew that from too much experience. He prepared himself for it, even as he stared at the woman who had shot him.

In that split second as she went for the gun, the wind brushed open the coat and outlined the slim body. A woman. God damn, a woman. He’d been distracted just long enough…

He looked at her. She stood where she’d fired, gun firmly clutched in her hand.

He still held his gun as he fell to one knee. Instinct. Never let go. His fingers tightened around the grip. He tried to stand again, but his leg was deadweight. The dirt beneath him seemed to move, or was it him? He looked at his leg. Blood. Too much blood. An artery must have been hit.

He debated trying to return the shot. The woman still pointed her gun at him. He didn’t know her intentions. She might come in for the kill. But he’d never shot a woman. He dropped the weapon and reached for the bandanna around his neck. Tie off the leg….

A woman, dammit….

The sun beat down on him as pain hit him. Sudden, searing pain ripped through his thigh as blood continued to flow from the wound and puddle on the ground. He finally tore the bandanna from his neck when he saw the shadow of the woman. If she shot again…

He looked up. She stood above him, her right hand still holding the Colt. He looked at his own gun. He could try to defend himself. But he’d seen enough wounds to know he didn’t stand a chance if he didn’t stop the bleeding. And his fingers didn’t want to work….

She kicked his gun away and placed her own on the ground well out of his reach. Then she knelt beside him. She took the bandanna from his hands and without a word tied off his leg just above the wound and quickly twisted the cloth into a makeshift tourniquet. He noticed she did it expertly, as if she’d had more than a little practice.

“Hold that while I get something to keep it tight,” she demanded.

He obeyed, even as the pain grew more intense. Think of something else. He concentrated on the woman’s face, and his eyes met hers. Golden eyes. A light golden-brown, almost amber with flecks of gold. And the expression? Regret? Something more than that? An instant awareness flowed between them. Its power stunned him, left him dazed. The wound. It was the wound and the loss of blood.

But for an instant, her fingers froze on his leg. He knew from the intake of her breath she felt that odd pull, too. She hesitated, then breathed in deeply. Shaking her head slightly as if denying any reaction, she took a knife from a sheath on her gun belt and cut the trouser leg until she saw the wound.

He followed her glance. The bullet had driven cloth from his trousers into the flesh. He fought a wave of unconsciousness, even as he noticed her hands were callused. And gentle.

“The bullet’s still inside,” she said, confirming what he’d already suspected. Her voice trembled a bit, and he realized she wasn’t as sure of herself as she tried to project. And her eyes weren’t hard now. They were…worried.

For him?

Hard to believe.

He leaned on his arm, trying to muster his strength. He wanted to pull her down to him and demand answers. She couldn’t have been aiming for his leg; it would be far too dangerous. He could have killed her. And why was she now determined to help him? He tried to sit up but nothing was cooperating.

“Stay still,” she said sharply.

He struggled to focus. The golden eyes were hard to read, and he was usually very good at judging people. Her hat was gone, and short tendrils of damp fawn-colored hair clung to her face, softening it. Pretty, he thought. How could he ever have taken her for a lad? Even for a moment.

He hurt too damn much to notice anything else. Neither was he in a position to question her help at the moment. The leg burned like hell, and he was fading.

“What the Sam Hill happened here?” Another shadow appeared in the late-afternoon sun. An old man sidled next to the woman and brushed her aside to examine the wound. Time had worn trails in his cheeks and forehead. A gray beard reached to the collar of his red shirt. He scowled as his rheumy eyes inspected the wound.

Jared tried to sit, but he fell back. He could barely keep his eyes open. How much blood had he lost in those few seconds?

“Damnation, girl, what did you go and do?” the old man asked.

Her face flushed. “He came for Mac,” she said simply, as if that were answer enough.

“Mac ain’t gonna like this,” the old man said as if she hadn’t spoken. He loosened the tourniquet, and the bleeding started again.

Jared wondered whether he meant the woman should have killed him. Or that he intended to do it himself.

“I’m a U.S. Marshal,” he said. “The Denver sheriff knows where I was going. If I don’t return, you’ll have a posse up here.”

“I’m real afeared,” the old man said, as if swatting off a fly. He waited a few seconds after loosening the tourniquet, then tightened it again and muttered something indecipherable. He turned back to the woman. “Git some sheets and cut them into strips. Clean ones. Then hitch up Brandy. We can’t leave the marshal here, and he’s a big ’un. You and I will have to haul him to the saloon.”

“The saloon?” the woman asked.

“Where else? Lessen you want to leave him to die out here?”

“But…” She stopped suddenly.

“This one ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while. Plenty of time to decide what to do with him. What did Mac tell you ’bout shooting? Make it good, or don’t even think about it.”

“I…I…”

If he didn’t hurt so damn much and hadn’t been the subject of the conversation, Jared would have been fascinated by the interplay between the old man and the girl. He supposed making it “good” meant killing him.

She left at a run, and the old man turned to him, grumbling as he did so. He studied the badge on Jared’s shirt, then muttered an obscenity. “What’s the name?” he finally asked.

“Jared…Evans.” No use in denying it. Papers were in his pocket and saddlebags.

“Evans?” The man frowned. He apparently knew the name, but then many outlaws did. Jared traveled a lot, sent by territorial governors to wherever he was needed. No doubt any number of outlaws would like to see him dead.

Which might well include these two. He forced himself to a sitting position and felt the blood drain from his face. He glanced down at the knife he carried in his belt.

“Don’t even think about it,” the old man said as he eased the weapon out of its sheath. “Lessen you want to bleed to death.” He paused, then asked, “Why are you here?”

The woman already knew why Jared was here. No sense in trying to lie. “Thornton. I have a warrant for him.”

The old fellow’s eyes sharpened. “I should leave you here to die.”

“You a…a friend of his?” Jared was beginning to fade again. Too many hours on horseback. Too little food. Now too little blood.

“Yeah, and I can tell you one thing. You ain’t taking him.”

“The…woman?”

“Sam? You don’t need to know nothing about her, and you have to swear you’ll forget you ever saw her if I fix you up.”

“Can’t…do that.”

The old man stood. “Then you can bleed to death. Won’t bother me none.”

Jared knew he would do exactly that if he couldn’t keep the tourniquet tight. He also knew he needed help. The bullet would have to come out. The wound would have to be cauterized. Even then he might well lose the leg to infection. Being a one-legged lawman didn’t appeal much to him. Still, he wasn’t going to lie, or violate his oath.

“Might matter to the…lady,” he said harshly. “One thing to wound a lawman. Another to kill one.”

The old man stood motionless for a moment, then sighed in surrender. “You know what we gotta do?”

“I know.”

“You hurt her…I’ll kill you. And if I don’t, someone else will.”

Jared didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to make promises he wouldn’t keep. Not even to save his life.

The old man knelt again. This time Jared noted the stiffness in his movements. An old man and a young woman. They obviously knew MacDonald and where he was. Knew him well enough to kill for.

To die for.

SAM HURRIEDLY GRABBED a threadbare but clean sheet she’d washed yesterday. She stopped suddenly and leaned against a table. Her body started shaking. She’d almost killed a man. Maybe even had, if Archie couldn’t control the bleeding. She would never forget the surprise on the marshal’s face when he started to fall.

She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. Dear God, don’t let him die. She had wanted to stop him. Had to stop him. She hadn’t thought beyond that.

His wound was serious, particularly with the cloth driven inside. And his leg? She didn’t know how much damage she’d done to it. Could she have crippled him? Destroyed the pure masculine grace that had intrigued her?

She’d stopped him. She’d given Mac time. But she hadn’t expected to feel this kind of remorse. A raw, wicked guilt that made her stomach turn. Maybe it was because he’d hesitated. He wasn’t what she’d expected.

Neither had she expected the jolt that ran through her when their eyes met. Like a lightning strike. She still felt its heat inside her.

It was guilt. Nothing more.

Stop it! She’d done what she had to do, and now she was wasting time. She started tearing the sheet into strips. She heard Dawg yowl in the storeroom, but he would have to wait.

Damn the lawman. He would have to come now, just as she hoped they could finally head north. The four of them. An odd family at best. Archie and Mac and Reese. Her godfathers, as they jokingly called themselves. All three men had sacrificed for her. Each so different in looks and personal quirks, but ever so dear to her. Mac, the taciturn gunman; Reese, the handsome, easygoing gambler; and Archie, the curmudgeon. Mac was like her father, Archie like a grandfather, and Reese a charming uncle. They were the only family she’d known for the last ten years. She didn’t aim to lose them.

She finished tearing the sheet. They would need a lot of bandages. The lawman’s leg had bled copiously. Bone and muscles were probably damaged. Doctoring his wound was beyond her skills but not Archie’s. He’d been a doctor’s orderly during the Mexican American War.

He was also the closest thing to a doc this place ever had. When Gideon’s Hope had been a roaring, lawless boom town, he was often called in the middle of the night to set a bone or sew up someone, even to birth a baby. After turning fifteen, she’d often gone along with him and helped.

Don’t let there be permanent damage, she prayed. She would never forgive herself if there was, even if the lawman was a threat to the man who’d raised her, protected her, loved her like she was his own.

She gathered up several of the strips and hurried downstairs, her heart pounding every step. She kept seeing the marshal’s face, startled at first, then clenched as the pain hit. Pain she’d inflicted. She bit hard on her lip.

Sam tried to dismiss the thought. Mac’s all that’s important now. She only wanted time for him to heal well enough so they could all go to Montana. They’d talked about building a ranch there someday. Reese had been to Montana and described it in vivid terms: rich grasslands, clear rivers and an endless sky. But it had always been someday. Something had always stopped them. Like not having enough money, or hearing talk of Indian troubles there, or Reese being away on one of his trips through the gold camps.

Why now? Why did the dratted marshal have to come now when they were almost ready. Another month and they would have been gone. Frustrated and still tormented by guilt, she raced out into the street. She handed the torn pieces of cloth to Archie.

“Get Brandy now,” Archie said. “Sooner we get him out of this dirt, the better. Best we drive to the back of the saloon. It’s only a few steps, then.”

She didn’t question him. A quick glance at the lawman made it evident he was in excruciating pain. Dammit, but those midnight-blue eyes would haunt her forever.

In another five minutes she had Brandy—Archie’s old mule—hitched to the wagon and drove him out to the street.

The lawman was sitting up, but the effort was costing him. She saw that right away. His leg was straight out, a bandage wrapped tight around his thigh. The rest of his leg was bare. The soft material contrasted with the sheer masculinity of his powerful muscles.

His eyes were steady on her. He had a day’s growth of beard but it didn’t cover a slight scar on the left side of his face. Sensuous lips had thinned in pain, and a muscle throbbed in his neck. He was a striking man, compelling in a stark way. His face was hard, but that harshness was broken by the barest hint of a dimple in his chin. And those damned dark eyes. Probing. Always probing.

That unfamiliar flicker of heat ran through her again.

“Come on, Sam,” Archie said impatiently. “You’re gonna have to help me lift him.”

She leaned down, picked up her gun and started to replace it in her holster, then stopped as Archie frowned. “Empty your gun.”

“He can’t…”

Archie’s expression made her do as he asked. Removing the remaining bullets, she tucked them in a pocket. Then she knelt and put one arm around the marshal. Archie did the same on the other side.

The marshal tried to help. But he was nearly a deadweight and he probably weighed more than she and Archie together. She was strong, though, and so was Archie, despite the rheumatism plaguing him. With their help, the marshal stood on one leg and slid onto the back of the wagon.

The white bandage was red now. The lawman’s face was pale. She touched his cheek. It was damp with sweat. She sat next to him, trying to protect him from the bouncing that was to come.

“Go,” she told Archie.

Archie didn’t bother to get up on the bench. Instead he led old Brandy down the street to the corner, then around to the back of the saloon. With every bump, the marshal clenched his fingers into a fist, but he didn’t utter a sound.

She knew what was to come would be worse. Much worse.

She wanted to touch him and somehow make his suffering more tolerable. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t take the shooting back and she knew she would never forget this day, this hour, these terrible minutes.

Maybe she should say a small prayer. But she didn’t know any. Preachers hadn’t lasted long in Gideon’s Hope. Neither had teachers. All she knew was what her godfathers taught her and what she’d read in books.

She reminded herself that the marshal probably would have killed Mac. But that didn’t help at the moment, nor did the thought that he hadn’t shot her when he could have….

3

JARED TRIED to help as they dragged him inside what once must have been a busy saloon. But whenever he put any weight on his injured leg, new waves of agony coursed through him.

He ground his teeth to keep an expletive—or worse, a groan—from escaping his lips. He swayed as they entered the building. He tried to take a step with his good leg and sagged against the woman. Her arm tightened around his body. Stronger…than she looked. Hell…of a lot stronger.

A step, a hop.

He fought the fog closing in on him. Too much blood lost in those seconds before the tourniquet was in place. And the worst was yet to come. The damn bullet in his leg had to come out. He also knew the wound would probably need to be cauterized to stop the bleeding and infection.

He was only too aware that more men died in the Civil War from infections and fever than from ordnance. He’d been lucky thus far. He had survived three bullets: two during the war, one while marshaling. Shoulder. Side. Left arm. A bayonet had nicked his face.

He tried to focus on the woman rather than the pain. Who in the hell was she? Thornton’s woman? Must be, to risk her life. Hell, the man must be decades older than she was.

Another step. Why? Why was he being helped inside? As a hostage maybe? To wait for Thornton? The original question pressed him: Why not just a bullet in his heart? Or had she really aimed for his leg? If so, it had been one hell of a gamble.

He might have made the same gamble, though. He was tired of killing. During those few tense minutes outside while he’d tried to avoid a shooting, his mind flickered back to a boy he’d encountered two months earlier. The kid was no more than seventeen, but Jared hadn’t known that then. He’d only seen the gun in the boy’s hand when Jared stepped out of the stable after feeding his horse.

He groaned inwardly, but it was more from the memory than pain. Why now, dammit? Why did those pImages** continue to haunt him? Maybe he should have quit hunting men. He’d been at it far too long….

Then they were inside the saloon.

“Back room,” the old man said to the girl, then as an aside to Jared, “Used it as a cell after the jail burned down.”

Ironic.

The old man and the woman helped him through the back door of the saloon, then down the hall to a door. The woman opened it, and they half carried, half dragged him to an old iron bed and lowered him down on a thin, lumpy mattress. He made himself glance around the room. One chair and a small table in addition to the bed. Nothing else. Stout door. No windows.

His breathing was labored. The last of his strength was ebbing. So, apparently, was the old man’s. His captor collapsed on the chair, his breath coming in spurts. But the woman…

She stood straight as if his weight hadn’t been anything. Tall and slender…she was far stronger than she looked. Her gaze didn’t waver as she met his. It was almost as if she was challenging that connection he’d felt a few minutes earlier. But it was there. He’d felt it, dammit. Felt it still. How could that be? Hellions had never appealed to him. Nor had women who chose the other side of the law.

He had little doubt she was Thornton’s woman. Why else would she risk her life for him?

And why should he care whether she was or wasn’t? Maybe because of the regret in those wide golden eyes as she looked at his wound. Or the gentleness in hands that seconds earlier had fired a gun. Or maybe the glimpse of vulnerability in her expression when the old man appeared.

Her cheeks started to flush as if she knew what he was thinking, or maybe it was because of what she was thinking. She turned abruptly, put a hand on the old man’s back. “I’ll get your bag and some water.” She left the room in a quick stride. Straight. Proud. Defiant.

He fixed his thoughts on her. It blocked the pain, the knowledge of what he had to face next. Damn, but she intrigued him even now.

When she returned several minutes later, she had several sheets folded over her shoulder. She carried a black bag in one hand and a bowl of water in the other.

“Archie, are you all right?” Her voice softened as she placed the items on the table and knelt before the older man. Jared watched affection flicker between the two, and a pang of loneliness ran through him. He couldn’t remember when someone had last worried about him.

“Stop fussin’,” the man named Archie said. “Jest a mite winded. I’m all right now. Let’s get started on him.”

“I fired the stove and more water is heating. I’ll bring it as soon as it’s ready.” She obviously knew what was needed. Jared remembered the deftness with which she’d taken over the tourniquet. He would bet that this wasn’t the first time she’d treated a wounded man.

He was even more certain when she started to pull instruments from the bag and line them up on the table she placed next to the bed. He gritted his teeth as the old man yanked off his boots, then what was left of his pants. He cut away the right leg of Jared’s long underwear but managed to leave enough fabric to cover his privates. Some shred of dignity at least.

Archie’s ministrations weren’t gentle, but they were efficient, and Jared was in no position to complain. He was totally at their mercy and that galled him. He knew the pain to come would be many times worse than their jostling.

“You a doctor?” Jared asked.

“Nope, but I’ve done some doctoring ’round these parts.” Archie peered at the wound through a pair of spectacles he’d taken from a shirt pocket. “Have to take out the bullet and those scraps of cloth. I’ll sew it if I can. Cauterize it if I can’t. It’ll hurt like the blazes, but from some of them scars, I ’spect you know that.” He didn’t sound very concerned.

Jared merely nodded. He’d been through this before.

“We have a small bit of laudanum,” Archie said. “Maybe enough to help dull the pain.”

Jared didn’t like the idea of losing what little control he had. He damn well wanted to know what the man was doing to his leg. “Whiskey will do if you have some.”

Archie shrugged. “Sam will get a bottle,” he said, and the woman hurried from the room.

Sam? The old man had mentioned the name several times. Hell of a name for a woman. Even one who strapped on a gun and shot lawmen.

Archie put his hands in the bowl of water. Jared noticed the white foam. Soap. Good sign.

The man loosened the tourniquet again for a few seconds before retying it quickly. Despite the new rush of blood, Jared was grateful. Keeping the tourniquet tight would cut off the blood supply to the lower leg and he could lose it. He tried to sit upright to see what was going on, but he fell back, his breath ragged. God, he was weak.

He gritted his teeth as the old man chose a probe from the instruments the woman had lined up.

Concentrate on something else. “I would like to know the name of the man cutting me,” he said. “And…the lady’s.”

His captor frowned at him, obviously taking exception to the way he referred to the woman. “Since you ain’t likely to spread it anytime soon,” the old man said, “might as well tell you. I’m Archibald Smith. Archie to my friends. Smith to you. And the lady, she’s just Sam.”

Jared tried to wrap his mind around that. He couldn’t. She might be a lot of things, but she certainly wasn’t “just Sam.”

“Your daughter?”

“Nah.”

The old man was stingy with information. Jared clenched his teeth as he probed around the wound. Christ, it already felt as if someone was sticking white-hot knives in him. “You…raised her?”

Archie sat back and studied him with pale, watery eyes. “Sam pretty much raised herself.” He hesitated, then added, “Heard of you. Didn’t much like what I heard.”

“Because I’m a lawman?”

“You’ve been hunting Mac for years. That ain’t just marshaling, that’s something else. Something dark.”

The probe went deeper, and Jared’s fingers knotted in fists. After a second, he asked, “Then why are you taking the bullet out? You could have left me…”

“Could’ve, but Mac wouldn’t have liked it. He wouldn’t want Sam to kill anyone.” The old man shook his head. “Me, I’m not sure it would be a bad thing.”

Mac again. Jared tried to concentrate on the man’s words. Mac wouldn’t want Sam to kill anyone.

Mac must be Thornton, who also went by MacDonald. Maybe they knew Thornton would want to get rid of Jared himself. The old man just admitted they knew he had been trailing the outlaw for years. He wanted to ask more, but then Archie poked the wound again. Jared’s body arched involuntarily, and the room began to fade in and out.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll forget about Sam.” The old man spoke softly, but there was no mistaking the warning. “No one messes with her and lives.”

It seemed to Jared that it had been Sam doing the messing, but he didn’t reply, partly for fear it might come out as a groan. The pain was too intense. His body shivered. He tried to lie still, tried to adapt to the ever increasing waves of agony. There would be more. Maybe he should have taken the laudanum.

Archie muttered something Jared couldn’t decipher. He tried to concentrate on the words. His life might depend on it. Thornton. MacDonald. A killer with a price on his head. Yet this old man and the woman—Sam—talked about him as if he were some kind of god.

Then Sam returned again, this time holding a bottle of whiskey topped by a cup in one hand, a second bowl of steaming water in the other. She placed the water on the table, then filled the cup with whiskey. She lifted his head as she put the cup to his lips. “Drink,” she ordered.

Knowing what was coming, he gulped down several swallows. He still didn’t know what skill Smith had, but he did know the bullet could eventually kill him if it weren’t removed.

He stared up at the woman. His eyesight was blurring. She didn’t seem boyish now with soft hair framing her face. More…like an angel.

An angel who had shot him.

He finished off the strong, bitter whiskey.

She poured more, but he shook his head. Best to get this over with.

She placed the cup on the table, then dunked a piece of cloth into one of the bowls, took a deep breath and wiped the blood from around the wound. The cloth was hot, burning, but he was grateful for it. The heat would increase his chances of survival, of preventing infection.

There was a stillness in her face, like a mask, as if she were afraid to show any emotion. Only a flicker of her tongue against her lips gave her away. A tendril of hair fell over her forehead and he caught the scent of roses.

Sarah had smelled of roses, too.

Archie probed deeper.

Jared sucked in a deep breath. Christ. He needed something to bite on. Almost as if she read his mind, she stuck a piece of wood between his teeth. He crunched down on it, waiting for the worst of the pain to subside. Then Archie stopped fishing around.

He felt the wet cloth against the tender skin again and looked back at the woman. Damn, why did she have to be…pretty? And dangerous? She’d done what few men had: bested him in a gunfight.

If he lived through this, he had to remember that. He suspected those golden eyes could make a man forget almost anything. When she finished cleaning the area around the wound, Archie gave him a long look. “I got most of the cloth out. The bullet’s deep, lodged against the bone. We can tie your hands and feet to the posts. You don’t wanta be moving when…”

Jared shook his head and dropped the wood from his mouth. “Get…on with…it.”

The woman put the wood back in place, and he bit down as the probe reentered the wound. His left hand clutched the iron frame of the bed. Sam stood next to Archie, washing away blood as the old man worked. Spasms of fresh pain shot through Jared’s thigh and up his body. His teeth chomped harder on the wood and he squeezed his fingers into tight fists. Waves of agony, each worse than the last, swept over him.

Then he was aware of her hand holding his, that he was gripping it. He opened his eyes and saw a tear halfway down her cheek. Her lips were bleeding from biting into them.

Maybe he was imagining it. Or maybe it was the whiskey. He closed his eyes again as the old man pulled out the bullet. Remember. Remember the good times.

Sarah. Sarah stood there in the door of their farmhouse, that grand smile spreading across her face….

THE MARSHAL’S BODY RELAXED. Sam’s body eased, as well, as he lapsed into unconsciousness. She couldn’t feel the full extent of his pain, but some part of it radiated into her. She’d done this to him.

Thank God, he was finally unconscious. It seemed like an hour but must have been no more than three or four minutes before Archie held up a bullet. “Got it,” he said with satisfaction, and dropped it onto the table. Then he went in again and fished out more pieces of fabric. Concealing her bruised hand, she started swabbing the wound again with the wet cloth.

“How bad is it?” Sam asked.

“Bad enough. Lodged against a bone and tore some muscles. Be a while before he can walk again. But if it doesn’t putrefy, he should be all right.” He looked at the gaping wound. It still bled. “I have to cauterize it.”

“You can’t sew it?”

“It’s bleeding pretty bad. Safer to sear it shut.” He looked at her closely. “Best do it while he’s out.”

She retreated to the kitchen area and fetched the knife she’d left in the stove to heat. She stood by as Archie poured sulfur in the wound, then touched the white-hot blade to the marshal’s skin. Shivers ran through her as the smell of burning flesh permeated the room. Thank God the man was still unconscious. But when he woke…

Archie looked weary, the lines in his face deeper than usual.

“You go see to Mac,” she said. “I’ll put some salve on the wound and look after him.”

“Better change clothes first. You got blood all over you.” Archie wearily walked to the door. “Damn fool shoulda taken the laudanum. Got guts, though.” He sighed. “Don’t know what in the hell we’ll do with him. Might have been best to just let him bleed to death.”

She didn’t answer that. There was no answer. She hadn’t planned ahead. She’d only thought about the immediate need to protect Mac.

As for courage? The marshal undoubtedly had that.

Sam took one last look at the unconscious man, then went to release Dawg from the storeroom, where she’d placed him before the confrontation in the street. He’d known something was different, and she hadn’t wanted him to alert Archie or, worse, try to follow her.

The half mutt, half wolf regarded her quizzically when the door opened. Then he tentatively wagged his tail. She leaned down and petted him, assuring him all was well, even if it wasn’t. Dawg cocked his head, trying to understand, then whined.

She’d found Dawg four years ago, his leg half torn off by an old trap. Archie had doctored him, and he’d chosen to stay with them.

He sniffed her now, apparently smelling the blood on her and the scent of a new person. He knew something was wrong but apparently no longer sensed immediate peril for those he cared about. He followed her up to her room and watched protectively as she put on a clean shirt and trousers.

When she finished, she hesitated, trying to steady herself. She’d always been independent. And strong. She’d helped her mother run a boardinghouse until her death when Sam was eleven. Her father had died several years earlier, and there had been no living relatives. Mac, Reese and Archie—all of whom had loved her mother—promised to care for Sam. One of them was usually gone, one was always in town, and each had taught her his special skills, and most of all, how to take care of herself.

She’d never questioned why they’d stayed here when everyone else left. To her, it made sense. Gideon’s Hope was a safe place for Mac. Few people even realized it still existed after the gold ran out. They’d had some visitors. The hopeful who thought they might still strike it rich. Sometimes friends of Mac or Reese or Archie. But visitors were increasingly rare these past few years. The town had made a convenient base for Reese, who gambled up and down the gold camps and now the silver mines, and Mac and Archie both loved the mountains. They had a comfortable home in the saloon Reese owned. There were plenty of trout in the stream, game in the forest and enough remaining nuggets carried down by mountain rain to pay for any additional supplies they needed.

As for her schooling, she had three teachers. Reese had attended Cambridge University in England, and Mac the University of Virginia until the war started. Between the two, she’d learned to love knowledge. Reese had collected books from all over Colorado, and she’d read every one. He’d introduced her to Shakespeare and poets along with penny novels and romances. Mac was more interested in sums and astronomy because that was something he could use.

From Archie, she learned the greatest gift of all: healing.

She’d begged Archie when she was no more than thirteen to take her along with him on one of his calls, and over the years he’d taught her more and more. Even when the last of the residents left, she continued to help him with mountain folks—and even some Indians—who’d heard of Archie and made their way to Gideon’s Hope. And she’d helped him mend creatures who needed it.

At her request, Reese had brought her books on medicine and she’d built a small library. She sometimes dreamed about being a doctor, but she never told her godfathers. She knew it would mean leaving them and she was too indebted to them for that. Archie was slowly going blind, and Mac, well, what would Mac do without having to fret about her? The valley was the only safe place in Colorado for him.

The one thing they didn’t teach her was how to be a woman, and for a long time she hadn’t cared. After most of the miners and merchants left, she had a freedom she relished. She loved running barefoot in the summer and swimming nude in the mountain spring. She could ride like the wind and play a fine game of poker.

They had been talking, though, about going north to Montana, where Mac wouldn’t be known. Starting a ranch with the money they’d saved from years of on-and-off panning for gold and Reese’s winnings.

Her godfathers didn’t have medicine in mind with the move. They wanted her to “have a more normal life.” She knew exactly what they meant by that. The male species. She’d heard them talk about her future, how she “needed” to meet some men—prospective husbands. And, truth be told, she’d been feeling stirrings inside, a longing for something she couldn’t quite define.

And there was no one to explain it to her.

But apparently Mac had sensed it. And for that reason, he’d left the safety of Gideon’s Hope. He’d planned on trading in the nuggets they’d collected over past years for cash for the trip north. For her. Only for her.

If not for her, he wouldn’t be lying upstairs as much dead as alive.

She decided to check on him. She wanted to reassure herself she’d done the right thing by shooting the marshal. She needed that mental weapon before she saw the wounded man again.

She went past the five empty rooms that had once been occupied by the women who worked below, and sometimes above. She’d known many of them, and they hadn’t seemed soiled doves to her. After her mother died, they’d been kind to her, even taught her to play the guitar and to sing songs, both pretty and naughty.

Archie was hunched over Mac when she opened the door. “How is he?” she asked.

“Still slipping in and out,” Archie said.

“He didn’t hear anything?”

Archie simply shook his head.

She went over to the bed and looked down at the man who was the closest thing to a father she had. Father. Friend. Teacher. Confidante. Her heart lurched as she gazed at his wounded body. He’d arrived barely alive four days earlier, and must have used every remnant of strength he had to reach them. He’d been ambushed by bounty hunters. He thought he’d killed two and wounded a third, but the cost was high. He had two bullets in him and a third had smashed his right hand.

It had taken him nearly two days to reach Gideon’s Hope, and by that time one of the wounds had festered. She and Archie had packed it with poultices made of moss, using old Indian remedies Archie had picked up over the years. They’d also gone through most of what little laudanum Archie had hoarded. The fever had lessened, but Mac still alternated between being unconscious and delirious. His breathing was labored and she knew he couldn’t be moved again.

He had always been so strong and sure, so capable in every way. And now his right hand—his gun hand—was buried in a swath of bandages. His unruly sandy hair was touched with gray and his normally sun-bronzed face looked years older than forty-five. A sandy beard covered his cheeks and chin.

Still buffeted by emotions, she drew a deep breath. She had done the right thing, she told herself. The only thing. But what now? Two wounded men. What if the marshal recovered quickly and discovered Mac above him? What then? Her chest tightened.

She wished Reese was here with his cocky grin and quick hands and seemingly endless knowledge. He was close to Mac’s age, but they couldn’t be less alike. The third son of an English lord, Reese was destined to go into the church. Instead, he escaped to the West to make his own fortune, and he’d never been particular as to how he did it. Reese considered life one big joke while Mac was intense and quiet. They had been competitors while her mother lived, and friends after.

“I’ll go look after the marshal,” she said. She had to keep busy. Then maybe she wouldn’t think.

With Dawg at her side, she picked up several more sheets from the room and went back downstairs. The lawman was still unconscious. The sheet Archie had placed under him was bloody, along with what was left of the long johns he wore. They no longer covered much of anything and she couldn’t take her eyes from him. Her body suddenly reacted to his, and she took a deep breath. This had never happened before, but then Archie had always tried to block her from seeing that particular piece of anatomy.

Dawg inched in and bristled as if he detected danger.

“Friend,” she told him softly. Dawg immediately backed off and sat several feet away.

The marshal was no friend, but she didn’t want Dawg to inflict more damage on the man. She reminded herself he was the enemy. He hadn’t had to come here. But he didn’t look like an enemy now. He looked like someone who was suffering.

She angrily brushed away a tear at the edge of her eye. She’d done what she had to do. She kept telling herself that.

First things first. She took a bottle of salve from Archie’s bag and liberally spread it over the wound. It would ease the pain and hopefully speed the recovery.

She fetched fresh water and washed his face where sweat had mingled with dirt, then took stock of every feature. Strong angular bones with thick black brows and eyelashes. The dimple in his chin barely dented the hard face. His cheekbones were lightly covered with new bristles of beard, and his dark hair was matted with sweat, a hank of it falling over his forehead.

Not exactly handsome but intriguing. For a moment he fit the image she had of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, one of the many books Reese had found for her. Dark and dangerous. But, unlike Heathcliff, she sensed there was little recklessness in this man. The intensity was there, though. She’d seen it in his eyes.

She also remembered the story had a very unsatisfactory ending and tried to dismiss it from her mind.

Instead she took inventory. The area around the wound was clean, but he was filthy from the dust, the blood and the sweat.

The shirt had to come off. It was soaked. She didn’t think she could pull it off, though, without waking him. She decided to cut it away. Mac was about the same size and had several shirts. The marshal could use one of those.

Archie had taken his medical bag with him but he’d left the marshal’s knife on the table. A sudden chill went through her. It was unlike Archie to be careless. She would have to watch him more carefully.

She turned her attention back to her patient. She cut off the sleeves of the shirt, then attacked the problem of the sheets. She rolled him as far as she could, taking the bloody sheet with him, then placed a fresh one on the bed. She rolled him back onto the other side, careful of his leg, and was able to pull off his shirt and the soiled sheet, leaving the clean one under him. With a deep breath, she took stock of the chore ahead.

His chest was solid muscle, brown and dusted with dark hair that arrowed down to his abdomen. She’d helped Archie doctor before and was no stranger to most of a man’s body. But definitely never one this fine. Taken as a whole, he was magnificent. Sinewy. Reese had taught her that word, but she’d never entirely grasped the meaning until now.

Thank God he was unconscious. She couldn’t let him see that she was affected by him.

She shook her head. A moment of foolishness.

She rinsed and soaped her cloth and skimmed it over his shoulders and across his chest. Placing the cloth back in the water, she felt his skin. Smooth and warm and covered with soft, springy body hair. Unexpectedly soft. She swallowed. Everything else was so hard.

She drew the cloth across the patterned ridges of his chest and found herself moving it down toward his stomach legs and what little was left of his long johns.

She was twenty—nearly twenty-one—and had never been with a man in a sexual way. Stolen kisses, yes. A few dances with boys when she was fifteen, before the fire that destroyed most of the town and caused most of the residents to flee. But never more than a kiss. One reason was her protectors. No man, young or old, wanted to go up against Mac or Reese, or even Archie with his wicked whip. Her godfathers had made it real clear in the rough mining town they would kill anyone who trifled with her.

She knew all about nature, though. She’d seen her share of cows and horses mate. Goats and dogs, too. Hadn’t seemed all that great to her. As for humans, she’d seen the sadness of the soiled doves who’d once served the miners of Gideon’s Hope. Their relationships with men were nothing like the romances she’d read about in the novels Reese brought her. Nothing like the wild, runaway passion of Emily Brontë’s characters.

Her skin had never tingled, nor had she experienced a deep yearning inside. Until now. She looked down at the marshal and felt an inexplicable rush of heat. Maybe her skin wasn’t tingling, but something was happening inside as she ran the cloth across his stomach.

Her throat suddenly tightened as that warmth puddled in the core of her. An intense need clutched at her. She didn’t know exactly what she was feeling. She just knew it was there. Hungry and wanting.

He’s the enemy.

That reminder did nothing to ease the bubbling cauldron that was her stomach. Nor did it make breathing easier.

She forced her gaze away from his flat abdomen and finished washing him as best she could. She couldn’t help but notice the scars on his body. One on his shoulder, and another on his side. A scar along his hairline was nearly hidden by the thick, dark hair.

He would have another one now. Large and ugly. Because of her.

She lightly bandaged his wound, then arranged another fresh sheet over him. He moved then, thrashed, and muttered something. A name she couldn’t quite make out. A cry of anguish.

She stilled. Then she put her arms around him to keep him from sliding off the bed and hurting his leg more. Empathy flowed through her. Something inside him hurt every bit as wickedly as the wound. Guilt mixed with the other confusing feelings. She didn’t like pain inflicted on man or beast, but she’d had no other choice. She kept telling herself that.

There’s always choices. Mac’s words. He’d made all the wrong ones, he told her once after he’d had some drinks.

Mac and Reese and Archie. Her world. Her family. Her only family. And this man threatened one of them. Maybe all of them.

Yet the marshal had had a chance to shoot, and he’d hesitated.

He quieted now and his breathing eased. She stood. She had to leave for a few moments before guilt—and that intense need—suffocated her. Water. He would need fresh water when he woke.

When she returned with a full pitcher, Dawg was still sitting near the door. The marshal groaned, and his eyes flickered open. As if he sensed her presence, he turned his pain-filled gaze toward her. Like a hawk with a broken wing. Predatory and fierce even while crippled.

“Water or whiskey?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even, trying not to think about the past half hour.

“Water.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were bloodshot and the lines around them deep with suffering.

She raised his head and held it up while he gulped down the contents of the cup she’d filled. When he finished she lowered him back to the bed. He tried to raise himself. His face paled, and he clutched the side of the bed.

“Don’t move,” she ordered. “We didn’t go to all that trouble to see you ruined again.”

“Why did you go to that trouble?”

She shrugged, tried to hide the emotions flooding her. The warmth of his skin lingered on hers. And now she felt that tingling again, and it was unlike any sensation she’d ever known. She swallowed hard. She wanted to touch him again, wanted to know more of those feelings. Instead, she tried to banish them. It was a betrayal of Mac. Of herself. “Wouldn’t watch a varmint die in the street.” She hoped her voice wasn’t as husky as she feared.

Dawg whined from behind her, nudged her.

“He’s…wanted,” the marshal said, his voice ragged. “There are others looking…”

“Not you, for a while,” she retorted.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. His eyes closed for a moment, then opened. His gaze was intense, as if he was looking through to her soul, and a shiver ran down her back.

Dawg brushed by her. He placed his big head on the bed and growled. He sensed conflict, and he didn’t like it.

The marshal’s eyes went to the dog. “Who…is that?”

“Dawg,” she replied, and for the briefest of moments she thought she might have seen a flash of humor.

He went up a notch in her estimation. He hadn’t asked what but who. Dawg usually intimidated everyone he met. He was big and considered ugly by most. But to her he was intensely loyal and brave.

Now he inspected the wounded marshal more closely, baring his teeth as he usually did with strangers.

The marshal stared back at him. Not the slightest flinch. Everyone flinched when they first saw Dawg. Then he said something so softly that she couldn’t make it out.

Dawg inexplicably relaxed. Made a funny noise in his throat. Blue blazes, an accepting noise.

Perplexed, she studied the man in the bed. “He’s not real fond of strangers,” she warned.

“Neither…are you,” he observed. “Apparently…it’s epidemic in Gideon’s Hope.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile.

The marshal’s body suddenly seized again, and his lips clamped down. She found the bottle of whiskey she’d used earlier and quickly filled the cup he’d just emptied. She had to hold his head up again as he drank. When he finished, he turned his gaze to Dawg, trying, she figured, to distract himself from the pain. “Dawg?” His voice was ragged.

“I found him when he was little more than a pup,” Sam continued. “He’d been abandoned and got caught in a beaver trap. Archie saved his paw. Archie always called him the danged dawg. Then everyone did.”

“And me… What do you plan…now?” Every word seemed an effort, but she knew what he was asking.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

The side of his lips turned up in a wry half smile, as if he were surprised by her admission.

She was surprised, too. She hadn’t meant to show that vulnerability.

The words had just popped out when he fixed his dark eyes on her.

“You ever shoot anyone before?” he asked suddenly.

But before she could figure how to answer, she saw him tense in pain. The cauterized leg must be agonizing. Sweat covered his brow. She quickly filled the cup again. His fingers reached for it and touched hers. Heat flowed from him to her. Their eyes met, engaged in a silent but oddly intimate battle. Every bone and nerve in her body was excruciatingly aware of him.

She was so startled she nearly dropped the cup, and he was the one who steadied it. He took a few sips, then sank back against the rough pillow.

Had he felt that same awareness? Or was it only her imagination, stirred by books?

Flustered, she shifted her feet. “I’ll look after your horse. You should get as much sleep as…”

As someone she’d just shot could.

4

WHAT WAS HAPPENING to her?

Tremors were running up and down her spine as she left the room. And her breathing? It was coming in short little blasts.

She should be afraid of the marshal, of what he could do. But what frightened her even more was something other than fear. It was the unexpected longing that clawed at her, striking a wild, lonely chord deep inside.

The constriction in her chest grew tighter. She didn’t want to be anyone’s enemy. Especially his, a secret voice whispered.

Sam took a deep breath. Think of something else. Anything else.

The marshal’s horse, she reminded herself. Animals always soothed her, and the horse probably needed water and feed.

The roan waited in front of the livery.

She concentrated on the animal. Archie and Mac had both told her you could tell a lot about a man by the way he treated his horse, and she knew immediately this one had been treated well. She remembered how the marshal had said only a soft word and Dawg had practically slobbered all over him. She’d never seen the animal do anything like that before.

But the marshal was a hunter. A hunter of men. And, from everything she’d heard, a ruthless one.

She went over all his words, then stopped as she recalled one fevered utterance. “There will be others.”

A shiver of fear ran down her back as she grabbed the horse’s reins and led him inside the stable.

Burley met her at the door.

“Is he dead?” Burley asked.

“No. If anyone else comes looking for the marshal or Mac, you haven’t seen them.” Her eyes bored into Burley and she tried to make her voice as coldly resolute as Mac’s. “Understand? Because if you don’t, Archie will take his whip to you.”

From the way his eyes widened at the last threat, Burley obviously had more respect for Archie’s wrath than her own.

“Didn’t mean to tell him nothin’, Sam,” he groveled. “Honest.”

She felt a second of guilt. Burley had dived into a bottle years ago after he lost his claim in a poker game. She had no idea how old he was, but he stayed in Gideon’s Hope because she and Mac and Archie looked out for him. Although his help wasn’t needed, he cared for the animals in return for food and an occasional drink of whiskey. Burley had pride.

“You told him where Mac was,” she accused.

“No, I swear. He came in and asked ’bout feed for his horse. When he saw Mac’s pinto, he asked about buying it. I said he wouldn’t be for sale, that Mac thought he was something special. That’s all I said. I swear.”

“You mentioned Mac’s name?”

He hung his head.

She sighed.

Probably didn’t make any difference, anyway. The marshal evidently knew that Mac rode a pinto and, even worse, had discovered where Mac was hiding. She took pity on Burley. “Maybe you should put Mac’s horse in the last stall.”

“He gonna live? That lawman?”

She nodded. “He lost a lot of blood, but Archie worked on him.”

“You shot him,” Burley said admiringly.

She didn’t reply right away. The agony on the marshal’s face as Archie dug for the bullet flashed in her mind. “Rub his horse down and give him some oats.”

He nodded, eager to redeem himself. “I’ve been saving some,” he said. “Mr. Reese…he said he would be bringing more.” He looked at her wistfully. “You think he’ll be back soon?”

Sam fervently hoped so. She and Mac and Archie never knew when Reese would return from his travels. If he was on a winning streak, it could be several more weeks. He knew, though, that Mac wanted to leave for Montana as soon as possible. Now they would have to wait until he was stronger.

She had been the one who kept looking for delays. Her mother and father were buried here and she couldn’t imagine life anywhere else.

But now was time to give back. Archie needed her. So did Mac. He was no longer safe here. Maybe never had been. Maybe one of his old outlaw friends had gotten drunk and said something. Or, more likely, he’d been recognized while in Denver. If only the marshal hadn’t kept the hunt alive. Maybe then everyone would have forgotten about Mac.

She remembered his long strides when he returned from a trip, the way he took steps two at a time to see her mother. She’d seen the joy on her mother’s face when he arrived after a long absence, but she also remembered the arguments they’d had when she was a child. He wouldn’t marry her because of the price on his head. When her mother died of pneumonia, he and Archie and Reese had sworn to take care of her. Mac, though, had been the one closest to her. He was the one who wiped her tears, taught her to ride and protected her.

Then, months ago, Reese had suggested Montana as a possibility to give Sam “more opportunities.” He’d been there years earlier and talked grandly about the land. It didn’t hurt that there were numerous mining communities to be picked, as well. But until recently, the Sioux and Blackfeet had both been active in the territory. Now that the army was conducting a major campaign against them, he felt this was the time to go. Land was available under the Homestead Act, and it could be supplemented by open range to graze cattle.

Sam didn’t care about the kind of “opportunities” her godfathers were considering. Marriage was what they meant, and she wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted. Surely a husband would expect her to be like other wives. He would frown on her riding astride and helping Archie doctor folks. She wasn’t reassured by any marriages she’d seen in Gideon’s Hope. Worn women who looked decades older than their real ages waited at home with multiple children while their husbands drank and gambled what little money they had. Hadn’t her mother done just fine on her own after Sam’s father died?

But maybe, just maybe, Sam could learn more about medicine. The farther Mac was from Colorado, the safer he would be.

She had dropped her objections then, and they made plans. Reese would take one last round of the mining camps to raise money. She would can the early vegetables they’d grown in the garden. Mac would bring in game and they would smoke it, and Archie would take what gold they’d panned to Denver and get cash for it. They would need it to buy cattle along the way.

But Archie was beset with rheumatism, and Mac had become restless. He didn’t think anyone would recognize him. He’d grown a beard, and the trip to Denver would be in and out.

Someone did recognize him, though, and now the marshal threatened everyone she loved. Mac. Archie. Even Reese, who’d been harboring Mac all these years.

She led the marshal’s roan into the stall. Burley fetched a bucket of water from the well in back, and together they gave him fresh hay.

“I’ll unsaddle and rub him down,” Burley said, eager to make amends.

She took the marshal’s saddlebags and bedroll, then stood back. Maybe there would be some clothes in them. She didn’t want to keep seeing his nakedness. It was bad enough that the image lingered in her thoughts. She didn’t like the heat that drove through her when it did.

Nor the churning in her stomach when he looked at her with those cool, dark blue eyes.

HAD HE IMAGINED a gentle hand touching him? Even caressing him?

Cool. It had been a brief moment of relief in his fevered world. Soothing.

Sarah? He’d thought that for a moment, then remembered. Sarah was gone. Had been gone for years.

Jared slipped in and out of consciousness. He preferred the darkness to the fire racing through his leg. When he was conscious, he tried to think of anything but the pain.

The woman. Think of the woman! Must have been her hands he’d felt. He had to learn more about her, and her relationship to the man she called Mac.

His life depended on it. Maybe she hadn’t intended to kill him, but from everything he’d heard about MacDonald, he couldn’t count on the same from the outlaw.

He tried to remember what she and the old man said about MacDonald, but the words slipped in and out of his memory. Nothing he’d heard, though, fit the image of the man he was hunting.

The poster had been in his pocket. Probably a bloody mess now, but he’d been tracking the man on and off for nearly ten years. The man she called MacDonald had been named Thornton when he took part in the stagecoach robbery. Jared had confirmed that when he caught one of the men who’d robbed the coach. The man claimed Thornton was the one who’d shot and killed Emma. He’d hung anyway.

He’d tracked the man for six months, then lost the trail, although Thornton had never been far from his thoughts. Occasionally over the years he would get a lead, but it never panned out. Someone had thought he’d seen Thornton in a mining town in central Colorado, but that was years ago. Then he’d heard that Thornton had changed his name to MacDonald. Finally, a week ago, a young would-be gun hand heard someone say a wanted outlaw was spotted in Denver. He gathered two friends and went after him. Only one of the three returned.

It was enough to give Jared a head start. He’d heard that the young gun hand’s father was hiring men to avenge his son’s death. He didn’t think the others knew exactly where Thornton was hiding, but they would figure it out.

Now he was damned close to the man and couldn’t do a blasted thing about it. Not at the moment anyway.

Why was a woman living in a nearly deserted ghost town some seventy miles away from the nearest civilization? Young and…intriguing, even in a man’s garb. Had to be Thornton’s mistress. An outlaw’s mistress. A killer’s woman. Or was she simply an outlaw herself? Part of Thornton’s band?

Sam raised herself. The old man had used his words sparingly.

But now she was full grown. Without the coat, it was obvious that she’d reached womanhood. Her breasts pressed against her shirt, and there was a long-legged grace in her movements. And her eyes. God, they were remarkable. He wondered how she would look in a dress.

He tried not to think about the jolt of awareness that had shot between them in the street despite his pain. Nor did he wish to think about the gentleness of her fingers when she was assisting the old man. Efficient but gentle. It was obvious that she had tended wounds before.

An odd combination for an outlaw. Or an outlaw’s woman.

He moved slightly. The pain was so excruciating that he wanted to sink back into oblivion. He looked down at his bandaged thigh. The wound felt hot and angry and burned like the furies from hell. The barest movement sent fresh frissons of agony through him.

He tried to ignore it. He glanced around the small room. The door was closed. His gun? Neither it nor his holster was in sight. A bowl sat on the table, along with a pitcher and cup. Nothing else.

His throat was parched. He reached for the water, but it was beyond him. With a massive effort he tried to move his legs from the bed to the floor, and the room started to swim. Will. All it would take was will.

He lowered his legs to the floor, his teeth clenched to keep from crying out. He was so damned weak. A step. Just a step. Water.

He stood, wavered, then crashed down, his body hitting the bed and knocking over the table. Then everything went black again.

SAM LEFT Burley unsaddling the horse and carried the marshal’s possessions to the saloon. She thought about opening the door and checking on him, but she hadn’t been gone that long and she wasn’t sure she was up to another encounter with him. She didn’t fear him, but she was wary of the way she reacted to him.

Instead, she put the saddlebags and bedroll on a table and opened the bedroll first. She wasn’t spying, she assured herself. He needed some clean clothes after all.

A heavy jacket fell out, along with a rain slicker. Then she looked through the saddlebags. A pair of leg and wrist manacles. They felt hard and cold and ugly in her hands. She carefully placed them on the table and continued looking. There was a pair of pants, an extra shirt, socks and one set of clean underwear. A container of matches wrapped in oilskin. Then she found a well-worn book by someone named Victor Hugo.

Books were precious to her. She looked at the title. Reese had never mentioned this one. She put it down and continued her search. Some hardtack and coffee. No photographs or miniatures. No other personal items.

She folded the clothes and put the manacles back in the saddlebags. They might just need the latter.

Archie would be up with Mac, just as he had been these past few days. The two usually argued constantly, but they were close friends, and she knew Mac probably would have died had Archie not pushed him into living. And kept pushing.

She sat down at the table and closed her eyes. Everything hit her then. She had nearly killed a man. If the marshal died of blood poisoning, she would have succeeded. Now she knew what Mac meant about killing. A target was one thing, but a man…that was something else.

What if he died?

She shouldn’t care. But hell’s blazes, she did. He had grit for sure. Any other man would have been screaming when Archie poked around for the bullet, then pressed the white-hot knife against the wound.

And something…something had passed between them for the briefest second as she was cleaning the wound, when his gaze met hers. An awareness that had nothing to do with the fact she’d shot him. It had been like a lightning bolt—and a remnant still burned inside her.

Dawg came over, rested his big head in her lap and whined in sympathy. She leaned down and put her arms around him, soaking in the comfort he was offering.

A crash jerked her back to the moment. Dawg’s ears pricked and he ran to the back room.

She hurried after him and opened the door. She hadn’t locked it, thinking the marshal was far too weak to move. Anyone else would still be unconscious.

He lay sprawled on the floor. It was obvious he’d tried to stand. Darn fool. His leg was bleeding again. Blood spread across the bandage.

She heard a noise behind her and spun around. Archie was in the doorway.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He must have tried to get up.”

“More trouble than he’s worth,” Archie mumbled.

She couldn’t have agreed more. Yet there was something about the man—the uncompromising set of his mouth, the hank of dark hair that fell over his forehead.

He was unconscious. And naked except for a scrap of bloody long johns.

Archie took one of his arms and she took the other. Together they got him back on the bed. She quickly pulled the sheet over his near-nakedness.

She averted her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the warmth creeping up her neck. And other places. It’s just the summer heat. It had been warm all day and was particularly so in the small, windowless room.

“Maybe he needed water,” she said.

“Damn fool shoulda waited.”

Archie unwrapped the bandage from his leg and frowned. The burn looked wicked and blood seeped around it. He muttered about wasted effort and damn fools.

“I’ll make a poultice,” Sam said.

Archie rewrapped the marshal’s leg.

He signaled her to go outside. He followed and closed the door behind him. “Best make it two,” he said.

“Is Mac worse?” she asked.

“He ain’t no better. He’s having those nightmares again. Some one has to be with him all the time or he might start thrashing about and hurting hisself again. I don’t even want to be gone now, but I heard the crash. You gonna have to see to the marshal yourself.” He paused and looked at the saddlebags on the table. “Anything in ’em?”

“A shirt and a pair of trousers. Undershirt. Wrist and leg irons. A book.”

“Get that shirt on ’im. And keep him covered with that sheet. Don’t like him being so naked.”

“I’ve seen men before,” she said. “You let me help you doctor them.”

“Mebbe so, but that was then and this is now,” he said grumpily, and looked at Dawg, who was at her heels. “And take Dawg with you. Hound ain’t good for nothing ’cept looking after you.”

She nodded. She didn’t tell Archie that Dawg had already made an overture to the marshal. It wouldn’t sit well at all.

“Manacles may come in handy,” Archie continued. “He ain’t going no place now, but we might need them later. He seems like a mighty determined man.” His frown deepened. “I don’t like leaving you with him but Mac needs me. You watch out for yourself.” He took a step toward the stairs, then turned back. “You don’t tell him nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. If he lives through this, I don’t want him to be able to find us.”

She nodded, a chill settling in her. She was an outlaw now, too, and she’d made Archie one, as well. She’d shot a marshal and was holding him captive. She swallowed hard. “I’ll let you know if he worsens.”

Archie gave her a long, measured look. “You might want to put a drop or so of laudanum in the whiskey.”

She stared at him in surprise. She knew they were running low.

“It will keep him quiet,” Archie said. “That’s what he needs, and what we need.” She nodded.

He gave her a sharp look. “We shouldn’t have kept you here, girl.”

She made a face. “You didn’t keep me. My decision, remember.”

“Mac should have insisted you go off to one of them fancy schools in Denver,” he grumbled.

But Mac hadn’t, not when she threatened to jump off the train and come back. She’d gotten all the schooling she needed from Reese and Mac.

“They would have tried to turn me into a lady.”

He muttered something inaudible, then sighed heavily. “If he tries anything…”

She nodded. She was probably safer than Archie would be with the marshal. Archie had never been good with a gun. He could use a whip like it was part of his arm, but he’d never liked guns. He wasn’t a fast draw or, with his fading sight, a good shot.

“And keep the door locked when you ain’t there. Leave the key under the sack of coffee beans. We don’t want anyone wandering into town and finding him.”

“Not likely,” she replied.

“He found his way here,” Archie retorted. “Might be others comin’ behind him.”

Sam watched him as he moved slowly up the stairs. She found a tin cup and followed him up. He poured several drops of laudanum into it, then she left, hurrying down to the kitchen. She added a little whiskey to disguise the laudanum, then filled the cup with water from the pump.

The marshal was still unconscious, or seemed to be. She used some water in the pitcher to dampen a cloth, then sat in the chair and wiped the sweat from his face.

He groaned. His eyes flickered, then opened, and he stared at Sam. A muscle moved at the edge of his throat.

She studied him for a long moment, noting again the dark, taut skin stretched over high cheekbones, the thick eyebrows framing midnight-blue eyes.

A hard face with hard eyes. A face that looked as if he didn’t smile much. Or laugh. A sudden empathy filled her, and she had the most ridiculous need to see him smile.

Remember Mac. Remember why this man came here.

Their gazes caught, and again she felt something new and powerful spark a response in her body.

She felt rooted to the floor, though her legs were trembling.

He tried to move, and a muscle tightened in his neck as he fell back. “I was trying to get some water….”

“You were on the floor,” she said. “You must have fallen.”

“Did you get me up…by yourself?”

“Archie and me.”

“Where is he?”

She tried to fight off the intimacy that unexpectedly heated the room. “He had better things to do than nursemaid you.”

He didn’t reply, but suddenly his body tensed. She knew pain had struck again.

She offered him a drink from the tin cup. “I put a little whiskey in it,” she said. He took it in his two hands, but they were unsteady and he spilled some despite what seemed to be an intense concentration. She leaned over and steadied his grip. He drank the cup dry.

She felt his forehead. Hot. He was too hot.

“Trying to get up was a damn fool thing to do,” she said.

“Not as foolish…as shooting a marshal,” he shot back.

“Brave words in your position,” she replied. “I can always finish what I started.”

He tried to move again and succeeded this time, but only a few inches. He sank back against the pillow and closed his eyes as if he was too tired to keep them open. The attempt to stand had taken everything left in him.

His breathing was ragged, then calmed. The whiskey was getting to him, or maybe that drop of laudanum.

She pulled up a chair and sat down. She would wait until she was sure he was asleep. Then she had much to do. They had to be ready to leave as soon as Mac could travel.

But all she could focus on was the figure in the bed, the face tight with pain even in the drugged sleep. She wondered whether those midnight eyes would haunt her forever.

5

TWO DAYS WENT BY in a blur.

On the third day, Sam woke and looked out the window to see pouring rain. At least it should lower the abnormally high temperatures that had tormented both injured men.

She stretched. She’d spent all her time lately caring for the marshal and making preparations to leave Gideon’s Hope as soon as Mac was well enough to ride. That meant cutting what meat they had into long strips and smoking it. She also used much of their remaining flour to make hardtack, a laborious process that produced a tasteless cracker. But hardtack didn’t spoil and lasted forever. It was perfect for a long journey where fuel for the body was more important than taste.

She also started a stew from a venison roast, using carrots and potatoes and a number of herbs.

But uppermost in her mind were the two injured men. Archie stayed with Mac and, except for brief inspections and help with the chamber pot, he left the marshal’s care up to her. The marshal was still weak from loss of blood and still in a great deal of pain. The laudanum she’d been slipping him helped him sleep, but he had a fever that worried her. Several times, she’d heard him call for someone named Sarah. She wondered if that was the name he’d called that first night. She couldn’t help but wonder who Sarah was.

Wife? Lover?

He wore no ring, but that didn’t mean anything. Still, there was no tintype of a woman in his saddle bags. No miniature. If she meant that much to him, wouldn’t there be something?

The idea plagued her, and it shouldn’t. She shouldn’t care whether the marshal loved someone. It shouldn’t matter at all.

And yet in the past couple days of caring for him, the connection she’d felt had grown stronger. She tried to tell herself it was only her usual feelings for a hurt critter. Empathy. That was all. But she was intrigued with the marshal’s quiet stoicism mixed with a rare glimpse of wry humor and self-deprecation. She found herself longing to see a real smile.

Unlikely under the circumstances.

He showed signs of improvement this morning. The redness around the wound was fading.

She dressed quickly and ran a brush through her tousled curls. She checked on Mac first. He was sleeping. So was Archie on a cot near him. Quietly closing the door, she went downstairs. She started a fire in the stove. Archie would want his coffee soon. So would she.

She unlocked the door to the marshal’s room. To her surprise he was awake, half sitting up in bed. She’d provided him with the shirt she’d found in his saddlebags, but it was unbuttoned and his chest was highly visible. The sun creases around his eyes were a little deeper. The dark bristles on his cheek made him look even more dangerous. The sheet was gathered around his waist.

He looked better, though. The last remnants of the laudanum were obviously gone. His eyes were sharp and penetrating. The pain was still strong. She could tell by the muscle working in his cheek. And his face was slightly flushed.

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