TEN

She roused herself enough to lay her hand on his chest and prop her chin on the back of it. “About Perkins and the man who shot at you. I know.”

At least she didn’t sound any happier about the abrupt return to reality than he did. He drank in how naturally they had awakened to each other, as if they’d been doing it every morning for years. His stomach knotted with pain as he fought the need to tell her what that meant to him, how powerful their union was to him. But he knew—as she surely did—that there was no time for that.

“I slipped out earlier. No new prints.”

“And Sky Dancer?”

His muscles clenched along with his jaw. “No sign,” he muttered. “But I hadn’t expected there to be.” He let his gaze drift to the tiny window, then he shifted so he could see her face. He pulled in a breath, then forced it out. No time like the present.

“Did you ever go back to Fort Hall? I mean since your grandmother died? Don’t you miss having a home to go to?” she asked.

“What?” He’d been all prepared for his big confession, and her off-the-wall question took him completely by surprise. “Where did that come from?”

“I’ve been wondering why you made the choices you did. Why you took to wandering and never settled down.” She laid her cheek on her hand, turning her face away from him. “Never mind, I know it’s really none of my business.”

He pulled her on top of him so her chin rested square in the middle of his chest. “Ask me whatever you want, little sun.”

She smiled, the blush on her cheeks shy and sexy as hell. “Why did you leave?”

He was a little surprised when the pain didn’t come. Maybe because she’d tried so hard to hide her curiosity. Didn’t she know he could deny her nothing? He actually needed to tell her. It would all lead to the same ending. That he had become a bounty hunter. One most recently employed by a Mr. Samuel Perkins.

He swallowed hard, forcing his mind back to her question. “My mom didn’t handle single parenthood well.” That was a broad generalization if there ever was one. “She knew my father was never coming back, and that staying on at Fort Hall was her only chance to raise me.”

“But that didn’t keep her from hating it, did it?”

Kane’s chest tightened at her softly spoken words. “No, it didn’t.”

“Did she … spend time with your father in hopes he’d take her away? Marry her or something?”

“More than likely. Cloud Dancer, my grandmother, thought so. I only knew she resented the reservation and hated being pigeonholed as just another Indian. She wanted more. So much more.”

“Where is she now?”

“Dead.” He felt the shiver that raced through her. “She killed herself when I was six.” He took a deep breath, feeling somehow cleansed by the admission. “I didn’t understand everything, but I knew she’d have been happier somewhere else.” Without me. He cleared his throat. “Cloud Dancer tried hard to get me to see that the ways of our culture weren’t so bad. But all I knew was that it had been our culture that had taken my mother away from me. I was scared. And ashamed. I knew it was my fault too.” He sighed heavily. “I grew up very angry and resentful. I left as soon as I could. I was barely seventeen.”

“But you went back once.”

“Ten years later. When I found out Cloud Dancer was ill. I was too late. I have no reason to go there again.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Kane felt his heart begin to pound. He’d never told a living soul the things he’d willingly confided in her. When she turned her face up to his, he didn’t even dare contemplate the emotions he found brimming in her eyes.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, honestly surprised.

“For giving me another part of you. I don’t imagine you discuss that part of your life all too often.”

“No,” he said, his voice gruff. “Annie, there’s more. I have to explain what brought me here. What I do for—”

“Shhh!” she said suddenly, placing her hand over his mouth.

He stilled immediately, wondering if he was so far gone with guilt that all his instincts had gone to hell. He heard nothing. “What?”

“I heard something crackling. Wait a minute. Do you smell something?”

“Holy mother of—” Kane sat up, bringing Annie with him, then none too gently deposited her back on the tangle of sheets and blanket. He shot to the window, knowing before he got there what he would find. “The ranch house is on fire.”

Annie was on tiptoes behind him, trying to see out the small murky panes of glass. She gasped. “Oh my God—”

Kane turned and pulled her to him. “There’s nothing we can do.” He wrapped his arms around her and tugged her closer. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

All he could think was that if it hadn’t been for her sneaking up on him the night before, for them giving in to the emotions that had been building between them since the moment he’d found her kneeling out in the field on those ridiculous sponges, she’d have been asleep in that old feather bed … He shuddered against the thought, banishing the mental picture. It hadn’t happened, she was okay. For now.

Elizabeth took comfort in Kane’s arms for a moment, letting the shock of what was happening and all it implied sink in. Then she got mad. Really mad. She yanked herself away from him. “He’s gone too far this time.”

Kane let out an incredulous laugh. “This time? Annie, what do you think he was trying to do with the pickup truck? Bump into you? Scare you?” He grabbed her shoulders. “Sweetheart, the man is trying to kill you. And tonight he damn near succeeded!”

“Well, I’m not going to sit here like a scared rabbit and wait for him to finish the job. I can’t sit and wait any longer.”

“And what do you plan on doing?”

“Face him. Go back. Call the police, the FBI, whoever. Do what I probably should have done in the first place instead of running away.”

He shook her. “Annie, it’s too late for that. We’re trapped. Right now all we can do is keep ourselves alive long enough to find a way off this damn mountain.”

She tried to calm down, think rationally. She looked at Kane, at the man she’d just spent the most powerful night of her life with. Talk about life being unfair.

No! Not if she could help it. Not anymore. She’d reached the end of her endurance. It would end now. One way or another, but it would end.

“Kane, I know you want to help me. Lord knows you could have been hurt—even killed—yesterday, when that man fired at you. And your horse is gone …” She started to shake. “I can’t let you keep—”

“Annie.” His tone was a warning.

Her eyes burned. “If anything happened to you …” She couldn’t finish. In the next instant her face was pressed against his warm bare chest, his hands stroking her back as he spoke into her hair.

“Don’t you understand, little sun? It goes both ways. It goes both ways.”

There was a sudden crackle and hiss, then a loud crash as a beam or a wall in the old house gave way. Realizing the danger they were still in, Kane set her away from him and tilted her chin up.

“Listen, the house is going up like dry tinder. The propane tank sits far enough away so that it probably won’t blow. But the idiot who set the fire could be rigging that to blow right this minute.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, pushing her hair from her face and swiping at her cheeks.

If he’d doubted it before, he knew it was burned in his soul for eternity now. She stood there, damp cheeks and freckles, slender shoulders shaking but squared, splendidly, beautifully naked while she stared at him and calmly handed him her complete faith. He loved her.

The hell of it was, if the pyromaniac out there didn’t get him first, it was likely she’d finish the job when she found out the entire truth. But then, he’d never needed to be told that life wasn’t fair. From the very start, his own had been an outstanding example of that.

“I’m going to see if I can find his tracks.”

“But what if the tank blows—”

“Get dressed,” he interrupted, looking around the small bunkhouse. He scooped up his jeans, sliding his wallet back into his pocket, and stepped into them.

“And then?” she asked as she found her jeans and slipped them on.

He tugged on a dark T-shirt and tossed one of his dark plaid cotton shirts to her. “Do you think you could find your way up that trail? The noise from the fire should cover any sounds you make. Be careful, but move as fast as you can. The fire is lighting up the area as if it were high noon.”

“I can do it.”

He knew she could. Dammit, they were supposed to have more time. There was still so much he had to say. “Annie—”

“What are you going to do when you find him?”

She sounded so sure of him. Never had he hoped so much that she’d be right. “Depends on what I find.” He walked over to the window where she was standing. “Stay up there until it gets light out. If I haven’t come for you by then, grab some water from the spring …” He stopped long enough to rummage around through the mess on the floor. “Here, take this.” He handed her his canteen. “Then I want you to head down to Dobs’s. Stay off the road if you can. No need to hurry and don’t take any foolish chances.” He slid his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He fished around and pulled out a bent-up business card, then held it up to the light cast by the fire outside to check the writing on it. “Here. When you get to town, call Brody Donegan.”

“Isn’t that one of the men I contacted from your list?”

“Yes. Tell him everything. Everything. You understand?”

“Okay, but—”

“No buts this time, little sun. I’d trust Donegan with my life. He’ll help you. And he’ll help you nail Perkins too. After what you told me yesterday, I was planning on calling him anyway.”

“Okay, I will.” She paused a beat, looking up at him with a thousand questions in her eyes. “Thank you,” was all she said.

“Don’t thank me yet.” Lord, what a tangled mess his life had become. “Come here,” he said softly, feeling incredibly blessed when she moved into his arms without question. He lowered his mouth to hers, needing to taste her, absorb all that was her into him. Knowing that even if they came out of this in one piece, he’d never have her in his arms that way again.

The instant she opened her mouth under his, the sweet tender kiss he’d intended turned into something hot and hungry. Needy and demanding. And from the way she clung to him, held his head tightly in her hands, he wasn’t the only one fighting the sudden inferno.

Another roar from outside broke them apart. On a harsh breath, Kane whispered raggedly, “I’ll make sure you get past the open area to the edge of the trail.” He cupped her chin and kissed her hard and fast. “Wait for me.”

He ducked out the door, flattening himself to the wall, not certain, with the rush of sound coming as the house suffered its last death throes that he had heard her quiet response.

“Forever, Hawk.”

Forever. Hawk. He cleared his mind and moved to the corner of the bunkhouse, carefully peering around the edge. In the false brightness he quickly scanned the grounds. No one. Without looking behind him, he motioned for her to take off. He spared a quick glance to make sure she was in fact heading for the cover of the trees at the base of the trail. She was hardly more than a dark blur. He swung around and kept his eyes glued to the Danteesque scenario in front of him, alert for any movement beyond that of the crumbling pile of ash.

Elizabeth stumbled up the last ten yards of the trail, flopping down as soon as she was behind the shrub cover near the ledge. She could hardly believe she had been there that afternoon. It seemed as if she’d experienced more in the hours since than she had in her entire life.

“Come on, Hawk,” she murmured as she flattened onto her belly and shimmied closer to the edge. She found herself half hoping he didn’t find anything. She’d gone over his instructions a thousand times while climbing the trail. And as soon as she saw him, she planned to do everything short of kidnapping him to get him to go down the mountain and contact this Donegan person with her.

She had long since come to the conclusion that the situation was far beyond her control. And she knew now that waiting for Matt to show up was a luxury she couldn’t—

A hand clamped over her mouth, sending her thoughts flying in a thousand directions and her heart rate soaring. She instinctively began to struggle, knowing without conscious thought that it wasn’t Kane’s hand. She kicked and thrashed, trying to scream. She managed to get her mouth open a bit and was preparing to bite down, when the man’s voice penetrated her haze of self-protective rage.

“Go on and bite me, you little bitch. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.”

Elizabeth’s blood ran cold. She turned her head as far as she could—and looked directly into the eyes of her killer.

Her first instinct was to ask what had happened to Kane, but she quickly clamped her lips together. If Kane was hurt or worse … there was nothing she could do about it. But in case he wasn’t, or her attacker didn’t know his whereabouts, she wasn’t about to clue him in.

“He’s not gonna save you this time. You’re mine.”

Her confidence in being rescued took a swift nosedive. She forced herself to maintain eye contact, wanting him to think she wasn’t intimidated. However, no amount of self-control could keep her limbs from trembling. “Is he …?” She couldn’t get past the hoarsely spoken words.

“Dead?” The man laughed. It was a lifeless, menacing sound. He dragged her roughly to her feet, pulling her hard against his body. “Don’t much matter. Unless he’s halfway to Canada by now, he’s as dead as you’re gonna be shortly.”

He pulled one arm painfully backward, then upward until her fist was between her shoulder blades. She sucked in air as needles of pain shot through her shoulders, fighting the burning behind her eyelids. Think, think! she commanded herself. But her mind wasn’t cooperating. Jumbled thoughts of Kane talking to her, kissing her, making love to her seemed to race through her mind simultaneously. Dear God, if she was about to die, then she hoped her killer’s words were prophetic and somehow Kane had escaped.

He jerked her arm roughly, and she couldn’t stem the tiny yelp of pain. Shoving her in front of him, he started to move toward the tiny trail leading down from the ledge. She stumbled blindly for several steps then something inside her snapped. Why am I going along like a sheep to its slaughter? In the next instant she sprang into action. Putting her weight on her left foot, she stomped down with her right, hoping to catch his shin—and him off guard. She accomplished the first and was rewarded with a bellowed curse. However, when she turned into his body and tried to knee him in the groin, her body tangled with his and they both went tumbling to the ground. She landed on the bottom, and the blow drove the air from her lungs in one big whoosh. Even gasping for breath, she didn’t lay still. She squirmed, jerked, fighting and clawing like a wild animal to get free.

“Dammit to hell, lie still.”

The shouted curse was immediately followed with a hard backhand to her face.

Her ears were ringing, and she was having a hard time making her eyes focus, but it didn’t take more than a second to realize she was staring down the barrel of a rifle. Kane’s rifle, she thought dazedly.

“Stupid bitch, we could have had some fun first, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you punch and claw me while I’m at it.”

“You thought I’d lie still and let you rape me!” she demanded. An idea leapt into her mind, and she instantly gave voice to it. “Sam’s paying you, right. Whatever it is, I’ll double it, triple it. I even have contacts that can get you out of here, safe.”

He shoved his sweaty stubbled face close to hers, and her stomach lurched at the smell of his foul breath.

“Sam was right in having you silenced. You don’t understand anything about what we’re doing. You probably been screwin’ that half-breed.” He shook his head and spat in the dirt next to her cheek. “I ain’t doin’ this for the money. I’m doin’ this because it’s the right way.”

Any hope she had of bargaining with the man died as she saw the fanatic flair of obsession light his gray eyes. She should have known he was one of Sam’s followers. His voice rang with an almost religious fervor.

“You women don’t know your place anymore. And your Indian lover, he’s only good for tracking, drinking, and sucking money from the government of the U.S. of A. Can’t decide which one of ya I’m gonna enjoy doin’ more.”

Fear escalated to terror. It clawed at her throat, making it impossible to breathe. Was he going to torture her first? His expression was downright demonic as he stared at her. She began to pray for a swift death, murmuring silent prayers to her brother and Kane, apologizing for not being more valiant in the final moments of her life.

She felt the barrel of the rifle press against her temple at the same moment she heard the click of the safety being released. One hot tear escaped her tightly shut eyes.

The shot was so loud, it deafened her.

But it didn’t kill her.

In fact, it hadn’t hit her at all. Either that or she’d died so instantly, she hadn’t felt anything.

Then another sensation filtered through her brain. She’d heard a sound, a high keening cry almost like a bird—or a hawk—just before the rifle had sounded. Her eyes flew open.

“Kane,” she whispered in stunned disbelief. She blinked once, then again. He was really there. Only then did she realize she was free to move. She rolled onto her stomach, meaning to push up to her feet, but halted on her knees. The pain arrowed through her head where she’d been struck, causing her to bend forward and brace one hand on the ground. She thought she might even be sick. Fighting the nausea and the stars blinking in her peripheral vision, she tried once again to stand.

“Stay down, Annie.”

She turned her head too fast and ended up unintentionally complying. “Kane?” He had her attacker face down in the dirt, his knee planted in the middle of the man’s back, holding his head by a fistful of hair. She didn’t know what had happened to the rifle. Kane was holding his knife.

“Damn you, Hawthorne,” the man ranted. “Get off of me.” Kane must have pulled harder, because the man visibly flinched, then swore again. “We’re on the same side, ain’t we? Sam wanted her found, she’s found. Now let me do my—oof.” His sentence was cut off when Kane jerked his head roughly backward.

Elizabeth thought his neck might snap. She wondered if the man had gone over the edge of sanity. His words made no sense to her. “Kane, tell me where the rifle landed.”

“In the bushes,” he jerked his head to his right.

She scrambled on her hands and knees, heedless of the bite of the rough terrain against her palms. She rooted through the bush closest to Kane and his captive. It only took a few seconds to find it. “Here!”

“Just hold on to it. Aim it at the ground.”

Elizabeth did as he asked. Something about what her attacker had said niggled at her brain, but before she could grasp it, Kane bent low and began talking to him, drawing her full attention.

His voice was a hiss in the man’s ear. “I want your name. Who hired you and why, and where you hid the car. Tell me now, and maybe I won’t slit your neck.”

“Harold Lucheck. Sam Perkins paid me … to silence his girlfriend. Car’s in the trees … about a mile back down the road.”

Kane tugged a bit harder on his hair. “Where’s my horse?”

“Don’t know. Swear. She was gone when I … when I got back from torching the house. Thought I tied her tight. Maybe the smoke spooked her.”

“You alone?”

“Yes.”

Kane didn’t react to the information other than to tuck the knife away. “Put your face in the dirt.”

Kane could feel the defiance in his tightly clenched muscles.

“What you gonna do, half-breed, scalp me? I told Sam not to hire—”

Kane found only a tiny measure of satisfaction in the crunching sound Lucheck’s nose made when he helped him follow instructions. Gripping Lucheck’s wrists tightly behind him, Kane dragged the moaning man toward the nearest tree at the beginning of the trail and shoved him down to his knees. He slipped his belt off with one hand and turned the man so his back was to the trunk. “Put your hands behind you around the tree.”

“Go to hell,” he shot back, but a close-up look at Kane’s knife made him comply.

He cinched the man’s hands tightly around the trunk, then crouched down and took the bandanna from the man’s neck and gagged him.

“Except Perkins, I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone as badly as I want to hurt you. I’m talking long, slow, and bloody.” He stabbed the knife in the ground up tight between the man’s legs. “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

Kane stood and forced his fists to loosen. The whole episode hadn’t taken five minutes. He’d wanted more like five hours with the guy. When he’d first discovered the fresh tracks and found them heading for the trail, his throat closed and his stomach dropped. When he moved into the clearing and saw Lucheck pinning Annie to the ground, a rage filled him so fully that he could barely see through the red haze that clouded his vision.

It had taken considerable restraint not to flay the skin off the man strip by strip. But in the last recess of his brain that still functioned on logic, was the knowledge that this man was their only link to nailing Sam Perkins.

“Kane?”

Annie’s voice, rough and hoarse, drew him from his murderous thoughts, and he turned to face her. He had no idea what she was thinking, but she had to have heard Lucheck. She had to know.

Half expecting her to cock the rifle and aim it at his chest, feeling as if he deserved no less, he was surprised when she dropped the rifle instead and launched her body against his.

He instinctively caught her, but instead of pushing her away as he should have, he tightened the hold and buried his nose in her hair.

“I’m sorry, little sun. I’m sorry.”

“You got here. I’m alive,” she whispered. “You’re alive. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

She didn’t know. Obviously the trauma of the moment had kept Lucheck’s damning words from sinking in.

“Annie—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Is it really over?” She looked up at him. “I can’t believe it’s over.” Tears lined her lashes, but her cheeks were dirt streaked and dry.

He saw the red welt swelling her right temple and tensed with a new rush of fury. “He hit you? What else, Annie? Tell me!”

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

“Like hell you are!”

Kane made to put her aside, but she grabbed his shirt in her fists and held on tightly. “Don’t! Don’t leave me,” she added. Only the vulnerability in her voice kept him from going straight over to the tree where Lucheck was tied and finishing what he’d started, but with a much more satisfying conclusion.

He stared down at Annie, hating himself for not preventing what had happened to her. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked softly. Unable not to, he reached up a finger and very lightly traced the skin near her bruised flesh. “I wanted to kill him, Annie,” he whispered. “I still want to kill him.”

The tears brimmed over and trickled down the sides of her nose, removing tiny trails of dirt to reveal the freckles that lay underneath. In that moment he wondered if he’d ever be able to look at a freckled nose and not feel his eyes burn with shame.

“I know. I’m not too happy with him either. But he’s our link to Sam. You did the right thing. We can get him now. Right?”

He couldn’t answer. All he could do was stare at her, wiping her tears away with his blunt fingertips one by one as they fell. He studied her, her beautiful eyes, her freckles, her lips, everything. He took his time. It was going to have to last him the rest of his life.

“Hawk?”

Unthinkingly, he wiped her last tear and put his damp fingertip to his lips. It was a mistake. Tasting her tears unleashed a tidal wave of emotions he didn’t dare label. All he knew was that she’d almost died and he had to taste her, feel her alive against his mouth—if not his body—one last time. He would likely roast in hell for it. But then, he’d expected to do that all along anyway.

He meant to make it brief, but one touch of her warm lips undid his resolve. He took her hungrily, over and over. When she met his tongue with a thrust of her own, he thought his tears would surely come, but they remained behind his eyes, burning like the acid that was eating away at his soul. “I shouldn’t …” he murmured brokenly, “I can’t stop,” he mouthed against her lips. “Help me to stop, little sun.”

Her breathing ragged, she managed to pull back a breath. “I know,” she panted. “We need to get him out of here, get the authorities.”

Dear God, if it were only that easy, he thought. He knew the pain had only begun for her. He wanted to cut his heart out and hand it to her. It would be simpler than saying what had to be said. Betraying her.

He set her away from him until they no longer touched, stifling the moan that rose in his throat at the severed contact. He wasted a half a second trying to convince himself that what he was about to do was for the best, that no matter how it had started, the ending was inevitable.

“Annie, we need to get to Lucheck’s car and get him down to Dobs. I’m going to call Brody and have him set things in motion.”

“Let’s go then. I want to get out of here.” She shivered slightly and rubbed her arms.

Kane clenched his fists. “There’s something I have to explain first.”

“Can’t it wait? I really—”

“No. Listen to me. I’ve tried to tell you this before. You have to know this.” Kane paused and looked over his shoulder at Lucheck. He motioned for Annie to follow him a few yards down the trail, out of earshot. They’d given the bastard enough of a show, he’d be damned if he’d spill his guts in front of the lunatic.

“What is it, Kane?”

He turned to face her. “I don’t know how else to tell you this, so I’m going to say it straight out. All I ask is that you let me finish.”

“You’re scaring me.” She folded her arms over her stomach. Kane felt his own clench even tighter.

“I’m not here by accident, little sun. Sam Perkins hired me to find you. I’m a bounty hunter.”