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Rayna fought down her exasperation. “Meade, a ranch is not a convent, and I have been off the property once or twice. It might surprise you to know that before the railroad arrived, I participated in a number of cattle drives on the Goodnight Loving Trail.” Well, one drive, actually, but she didn’t want to retract her statement.

Meade was appalled. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, but I am. Believe me, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Be that as it may, you can’t make a trip like this unescorted. It’s unthinkable.”

“Then what do you suggest? Shall I let my sister rot on the Rio Alto?”

“Write another letter!”

“I am sick to death of writing letters. My father’s sick of it, too. He collapsed yesterday when we learned the news about Skylar.”

Meade took another step toward her in concern. “Is he all right?”

“I believe so. I pray so. But the point is, our family can’t take any more of this, Meade. I have to do something.”

Meade turned away, more impatient with the situation than with Rayna.

She was right. Something had to be done, but he couldn’t let her risk her life on a dangerous trip like this. After a long moment he turned back to her, knowing he was going to regret his impulsive decision.

“All right. Can you wait two days before beginning?”

“Why should I? I can be in Arizona long before then if I take the next westbound train.”

“I know, but tomorrow is my last day as an officer of the United States Army, and I have already booked passage to Holbrook Friday morning. I’m going home, and I see no reason why you can’t make the trip with me.”

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Rayna was stunned. “Friday? You were planning to leave the territory on Friday?”

She looked . . . hurt, Meade realized, but he tried to insulate himself against it. “That’s right. As I told you weeks ago, I’m anxious to get home.

Why do you ask?”

Rayna turned away and moved to the window. “No reason,” she replied, trying for a cavalier attitude. “I was just surprised that you’d be leaving so soon.”

Meade accepted her answer because he didn’t want to believe that she might have been disappointed that he had planned to leave without seeing her again. “Well, I am, and it’s to your benefit. I know the route to Fort Apache, and I’m offering to act as your guide. What do you say?”

Considering the circumstances, Rayna found it difficult to believe that he’d made the offer, but she knew better than to question it. Though she had doubts about how much help this tenderfoot would be to her on the trail, at least he knew how to get her to where she was going. If worse came to worst, she could take care of him. “Very well, I accept your generous offer.”

He paused a moment. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“No argument? No protestations that you can get along without my help?”

“But I do need your help. I don’t know the route to Fort Apache and you do. You are known to me, and since you’re going to that area anyway, you’ll be far less expensive than a hired guide.”

Meade bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. “Perfectly logical, reasonable, and economical,” he decreed.

“My thinking exactly.”

He sighed. “Very well. We’ll leave day after tomorrow. Are you staying at the Palace again?” When she answered in the affirmative, he said, “I’ll call for you at eight o’clock on Friday morning.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Good.”

Their business concluded, there didn’t seem to be anything else to say but a polite round of good-byes. Even after they had been said, though, neither of them moved. They looked at each other for a moment; then Rayna finally put an end to the tension by moving to the door.

“Rayna?”

She stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“You had already made up your mind to go to Fort Apache when you got here. Why did you bother coming to me at all?”

A flush of humiliation washed through her. Did he really have to ask? “I thought you might be interested in knowing what had transpired. What other reason could I have had?”

“None, I suppose,” he replied, sorry he’d asked the question.

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A thought occurred to Rayna and she frowned. “I had no idea you were leaving Friday, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t come here to rope you into taking me—”

“No, no,” he assured her hastily. “That thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

“Well, good.” She edged toward the door again. “Good day, Meade. I’ll see you on Friday.”

“Yes.”

She turned and grasped the door handle, then stopped. Without looking at him, she asked softly, “Would you really have left New Mexico without—”

Seeing me again, she wanted to say, but she quickly replaced that phrase with

“inquiring about Skylar?”

Meade wasn’t fooled by the substitution, but he didn’t think it was wise to admit how many times he’d talked himself out of the sentimental notion of stopping at Rancho Verde on his way home. “I had planned to write your father once I reached Eagle Creek.”

Well, that certainly made his feelings—or lack thereof—plain enough.

She said good day again without looking at him and left.

Sun Hawk began covering their tracks not long after they cleared the camp, but except for a few brief pauses to allow Skylar to catch her breath, they never stopped moving, climbing higher into the mountains. At daybreak they stopped at a trickling mountain spring, and Skylar collapsed beside it to drink greedily. Sun Hawk knelt at her side but waited until she had drunk her fill before cupping his hand in the water.

It was the first chance they’d had to talk, but only one question came to Skylar’s mind once she’d quenched her intense thirst. “Do you know this country?” she asked.

Sun Hawk didn’t look at her. “Not as well as some, but I know it. Before the whites came, my people were free to hunt wherever we wanted. I have been in these mountains.”

“Good.”

“Rest. Don’t talk,” he instructed. “We must move on soon.” He stood up, and Skylar grabbed his hand.

“Where are you going?”

Sun Hawk looked down and saw the panic in her eyes. It was only to be expected, he supposed. “You need food, and I must scout the area. You will be safe here for a little while.”

He had to do what was best for both of them, and Skylar reluctantly released his hand. He studied her for a moment, then reached for the revolver strapped to his waist. He extended it to her, and their eyes held as they remembered the last gift he had given her.

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Skylar’s hand was trembling as she took the gun. Sun Hawk turned away and jumped lightly across the stream.

“Why did you do it?” The question was out before she even realized she was going to ask it.

Sun Hawk stopped and looked at her. “The soldiers would have killed you.”

“Why should that matter to you?”

His handsome face hardened into a scowl. “You ask too many questions, even for a woman. It is done. We cannot turn back now.” He spun away from her and a moment later disappeared into the rocks above.

At precisely eight o’clock Meade arrived at the Palace Hotel and found Rayna waiting for him in the lobby with a single carpetbag at her feet. At least she hadn’t overpacked for the trip. If nothing else, he could count on her to be practical once they left civilization behind. Probably.

He took off his broad-brimmed hat as he approached her, and realized that she was looking at him strangely. Knowing that spending the next few days with her was going to be sheer hell, it seemed hypocritical to wish her a good morning, so instead he questioned her odd look. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She waved her hand up and down, gesturing to his clothing.

“It’s just a shock to see you out of uniform, and that’s not what I would have expected you to wear.”

Meade frowned down at his serviceable black trousers, casual white shirt, and open vest. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Not a thing.”

“What were you expecting? A cutaway and bowler?”

Rayna chuckled. “Actually, yes.”

Meade snatched up her carpetbag. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I sent them on ahead last week with the rest of my personal belongings. Shall we go? I have a carriage waiting.”

She dutifully took her place beside him. The doorman took the bag and placed it in the boot while Meade handed Rayna into the carriage. Once they were settled, she shot him a sidelong glance. “Do you really have a cutaway and bowler?”

Meade wanted to order her not to look at him with that delectable teasing smile, but instead he looked straight ahead and replaced his hat. “No, I don’t.

Disappointed?”

“Disillusioned,” she countered. “Although I must confess that I do prefer your cavalry hat to a stuffy bowler.”

“So do I,” he said, tugging on the downturned brim in front. “I’ve spent several years training it to my head, and it’s the only piece of military equip-ment I’ve ever grown attached to.”

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“That’s understandable. It makes you look quite handsome.”

“Thank you.” Meade was uncomfortable with the compliment, but he felt obligated to give one in return. “You look quite . . . nice yourself today.

Though I am a little surprised by the traveling suit.”

Rayna smoothed her skirt. “I thought I should carry one appropriately feminine costume along for my meeting with General Crook.”

“That’s probably wise.” Meade fell silent and dusted at an imaginary spot of dust on his trousers. Good Lord, how was he going to survive the next week?

Already she was wreaking havoc with his senses, turning him into a blather-ing, anxious schoolboy. How much worse would it be once they reached Holbrook and set out alone for Fort Apache?

He didn’t want to consider it. He’d offered to act as her escort so that she’d be protected, but if he didn’t get a firm grasp on his emotions, Rayna would need someone to protect her from him.

They completed the ride to the station in silence and discovered that the train had already arrived. Fighting the crowd, they made their way through the depot to the platform where a porter took their baggage and pointed them to the Liberty Pullman. Rayna allowed Meade to take her arm, and they fell into the stream of passengers moving down the length of the train.

Ahead of them, a young stable hand and a baggage man were approaching, leading a spirited-looking gray Arabian stallion toward the stock cars. As the crowd made way, Meade stepped aside and paused. “Magnificent animal,”

he commented, studying the horse’s features. “Look at the conformation . . .

the perfect arch of the crest.”

“Yes, he’s a real beauty,” Rayna said lovingly, surprised by Meade’s knowledge of horses. She shouldn’t have been, of course. He was a cavalryman, after all, but as she recalled, the horse he’d been riding at Rancho Verde had been undistinguished. She couldn’t fault him for that, though.

“I imagine he has incredible speed and endurance,” he said appreciatively as the horse drew alongside him. Unfortunately, at that moment the train whistle shrilled loudly, spooking the horse, which had already been unnerved by the crowd and hubbub of the train yard. The stallion reared, clawing the air with his hooves, and as the passengers screeched and scrambled for safety, Meade grabbed Rayna to pull her out of the way.

Naturally Rayna had other ideas. The frightened horse reared again, straining against its lead rope, and the stableboy lost his hold. Before the wild-eyed Arabian could bolt, Rayna sprang forward and grabbed the lead.

“Easy, boy, easy,” she crooned, pulling down hard on the hackamore. The animal shied away, but Rayna held on. The battle between the lovely young lady in the beige traveling suit and the powerful stallion should have been a woefully one-sided one, but it wasn’t. When the horse tried to rear again, 153

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Rayna applied all her weight against the rope, tightening the hackamore around his nose, and the stallion quieted.

“Good boy. Easy, boy. There’s a good fellow.” A spattering of applause swept through the crowd, and Rayna stroked the stallion’s nose to keep him quiet.

Feeling like an ineffectual fool, Meade watched Rayna turn the spirited Arabian into a docile pet. Why on earth had he bothered trying to protect her? “Strong, beautiful, skittish, and mean-tempered, to boot,” he muttered churlishly as he moved toward Rayna and the horse.

“He’s not mean; he’s just high-spirited,” she said lightly, stroking the animal’s nose. “That’s the price you sometimes have to pay for a horse this well bred.”

“Well, I wouldn’t pay a greenback dollar for him.”

Rayna shot him an exasperated glance, then handed the lead to the stableboy. “Keep a firm hand on this from now on,” she advised.

“Yes, ma’am. And thank you.” The crowd applauded again as the boy led the Arabian away.

“If you’re finished performing feats of derring-do for your grateful public, could we go now?”

Rayna frowned at him as they began moving briskly toward the Pullman car. “What is wrong with you? I very likely averted a serious accident, and you’re treating me as though I’d done something wrong.”

“You could have been killed,” he snapped as he took her arm and helped her up the steps to the car. “That animal obviously needs a great deal of training and gentling before he’ll be fit for anything but showing off.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t Triton’s fault the engineer blew the whistle.”

“Triton?” Meade frowned as they moved into a coach that looked more like a drawing room parlor than a train car.

“The horse,” she replied, glancing around for a seat. “The name is a mytho-logical reference to—”

“I know what it refers to,” he snapped. “How do you know what he’s called?”

Rayna settled onto a reasonably comfortable padded sofa. “I know his name because I’m his new owner. I bought him yesterday.”

Meade glared down at her. “You what?”

She looked up at him innocently, truly unable to imagine where his ani-mosity had come from. “I bought him from a breeder who lives just outside Santa Fe,” she explained. “Papa and I buy a great deal of our stock from him.”

Meade was still staring at her. “What on earth is wrong? You didn’t think I was going to walk to Fort Apache, did you?”

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serviceable trail horses in Holbrook. I didn’t know you’d go out and pay a king’s ransom for a man-killing stallion.”

“He is not a man-killer, and you’re being contrary for no reason, Meade,”

she said, finally losing her patience.

“That’s because you make me angry with the ridiculous things you do,” he flung back at her.

“If that’s the case, why the devil did you offer to escort me to Fort Apache?”

she snapped.

“Because you needed help and it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Then why don’t you start acting like a gentleman?”

“I will when you start acting like a lady!”

Every head in the coach swiveled toward them, but that didn’t keep Meade from wanting to wrap his hands around Rayna’s lovely throat and strangle her.

Calming herself, she fixed him with her most determined gaze and lowered her voice. “Meade, I didn’t ask for your help, and I certainly didn’t ask to be snipped at, condescended to, and scolded like a child at every turn.”

“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. How you conduct yourself is your own business.” Despite his apology, he didn’t sound the least bit remorseful.

“Remember that, or I’ll go back to my original plan and find another guide in Holbrook.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“Perhaps I will!”

They glared at each other until finally Meade turned away in disgust, wondering if he would ever be able to get the last word in on Miss Rayna Templeton.

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13

Despite the tragic complexities of her situation, life became very simple for Skylar over the next few days. It was an endless, exhausting cycle of sleeping and moving on. Knowing the soldiers would expect him to go south to join Geronimo, Sun Hawk headed north instead, leading Skylar through the most rugged parts of the mountains so that they would be more difficult to track. On the third day they came down to the northern foothills of the Caliente range. A storm blew up, and they took shelter beneath a rock shelf, sleeping through the afternoon so that they could cross the long valley under the cover of darkness that night.

The next morning they crossed the Manosa River and slipped into the southern foothills of the White Mountains.

She knew that having her with him made traveling more difficult for Sun Hawk, but she never complained and he never commented on their slow pace. When she reached the limits of her endurance, Sun Hawk seemed to know it instinctively and would find an excuse to stop. Though scavenging for roots and other food sources was woman’s work, Sun Hawk provided for their needs without complaint. Until they were farther away, building a fire was out of the question, so he made no attempt to snare rabbits or other small 156

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game. They lived on piñon nuts, pine bark, and gooseberries, if they could be found. Skylar had never been so hungry, but she gratefully ate whatever Sun Hawk brought.

Late on the fourth day he found a valley sheltered by steep cliffs on three sides, and announced that they would make camp there for several days. He was convinced no one had followed them, and the entrance to the high valley had a commanding view of the area they had just traversed. No one could approach without his knowledge, and there was fresh water in a pool fed by a mountain stream and the recent rains. He led Skylar up to a shallow cave in one of the cliff walls and left, after promising to return as soon as he had found food.

Too exhausted to question his decision even if she had wanted to, Skylar lay down in the cave and fell asleep. When she awoke the next morning, Sun Hawk was still gone and there was no indication that he had returned during the previous afternoon or night. Though the thought of being completely alone was frightening, it never occurred to her that she had been deserted.

Sun Hawk hadn’t risked everything just to leave her in the mountains to die, and he was too skilled to allow himself to be captured.

Secure in the certainty that he would return soon, Skylar climbed down from the cave and tried to think about what she should do. Making decisions, even simple ones, wasn’t as easy as it should have been. For days, Sun Hawk had directed her every movement, and escape had been her only clear, reasonable thought. Everything else had been shoved away from her consciousness.

She tried to imagine what Sun Hawk would do and realized that her prior-ities were, first, to make certain the valley was still safe and, second, to learn everything there was to know about it. Quietly backtracking to the mouth of the valley, she studied the rugged terrain they had covered the day before.

She stayed there a long time, examining all possible routes that might lead someone to her location, but nothing stirred.

Once she was convinced she was still safe, she returned to the valley and began memorizing every crack and crevice on the cliffs. She found places to hide and even located another way out. She collected what food she could find, but she gathered little of it, for she was not nearly as astute as Sun Hawk in judging what was edible and what wasn’t.

It was midmorning by the time she finished, but there was still no sign of Sun Hawk, so she made her way down to the pool and removed her overblouse. Shutting out the significance of the encrusted bloodstains, she knelt on the bank and scrubbed the dress. When she had finished and laid it in the sun to dry, her hands were nearly raw, but the stains were only faint circles, much dimmer than her memory of how the blood had gotten there. She washed her skirt, too, and then slipped into the cool water to bathe.

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She stayed there for a long time, savoring the feel of the water on her skin, and when she was as clean as it was possible to get, she floated on the surface and forced herself to think about her situation.

It was obvious that she and Sun Hawk could not hide in the mountains forever, but what were the alternatives? Turning themselves in at one of the forts in the territory was unthinkable. In the eyes of the whites, she and Sun Hawk were both murderers, and there was no reason to believe that they would receive better treatment than Captain Haggarty had given her.

Of course, if Sun Hawk would agree to help her get to Rancho Verde, there was a chance that her father could sort out this mess. If she had to go on trial for killing the soldier, at least she would have the benefit of a lawyer, and she would have her family around her. Testimony could be presented to point up the fact that she had not been raised as an Apache, and if she appeared in front of the tribunal dressed in a fashionable tailored dress with her hair upswept, speaking eloquent English as she related what had really happened with Talbot, there was a chance the judge and jury might believe she had acted in self-defense.

But there was a vast difference between what she had done and what Sun Hawk had done to help her escape. Perhaps they could convince a military court that he had acted because he knew the soldiers were going to kill her, but that wouldn’t change the fact that he was an Apache who had killed a soldier in cold blood. They would hang him. Skylar could go back to her placid life as the spinster daughter of Raymond Templeton, but she’d never be able to forget that she had purchased her freedom with Sun Hawk’s life.

Of course he didn’t have to turn himself in. He could deliver her to Rancho Verde and disappear . . . and Skylar would never see him again. The thought brought her almost as much pain as the thought of seeing him hang.

Selfish considerations aside, though, she had to consider what his life would be like from now on. He was a renegade who could never return to his family. He had nothing. Quite simply, he had given up everything . . . for her.

Skylar still didn’t understand why, but one thing was clear to her.

Whatever decision she made about her future had to include what was best for Sun Hawk. She owed him her life, and that was a debt she would repay with her own, if necessary.

She also realized quite clearly that she was in love with him. Her childish infatuation had evolved into a deep respect for the man he was and for his commitment to his people. She wasn’t sure when that respect had turned to love, but it had happened long before he unshackled her from the army wagon. That act had merely bound them together with a bond of blood that could never be broken.

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Skylar floated in the pool, reaching no decisions because none could be made without Sun Hawk. Until she knew what he wanted or what he had planned, she could only go on as they had been, surviving as best they could.

Though her future was as blank as the sheets of writing paper Rayna had sent her, Skylar felt no panic. Perhaps she was more Apache than she had imagined, after all. They lived one day at a time, adjusting and adapting to whatever fate threw at them. She could do the same—as long as she had Sun Hawk’s strength to sustain her.

Skylar opened her eyes and started when she saw Sun Hawk on the rock shelf that bordered one end of the pool. She couldn’t guess how long he had been there, but she quickly righted herself and began to tread water, wafting her arms gently back and forth to keep herself afloat. He was frozen like a statue as he stared at her, his expression hard and unreadable. At his feet were several sacks, but Skylar’s thoughts were too muddled for her to wonder what was in them or where they had come from. She was too overwhelmed by the tension in the air and the sweet, sensual ache that pulsed through her body.

She could think of nothing to say to him. In fact, she could think of nothing at all.

And then he moved. He climbed down the rocks to the pool and placed his rifle near the edge of the water. Never taking his eyes off Skylar, he removed his clothes and stood on the bank naked.

He was elemental, powerful, and frightening. He was also the most beautiful thing Skylar had ever seen. She had lived on a ranch too long to be ignorant of the meaning of his jutting manhood, but she knew instinctively that Sun Hawk would never take her by force. That was why he was waiting at the edge of the pool. It was his way of offering her a choice.

But why did he want her? she had to wonder. Did he think that because he had saved her he had a right to her? Had he simply seen her naked as she floated in the water and become aroused? Was this merely an animal instinct that he longed to gratify? Or did he truly love her?

Most important, did the answer really matter?

Yes. It mattered very much.

When Sun Hawk finally dived into the water and surfaced at the opposite end of the pool, desire coursed through Skylar, but instead of swimming toward him, she made her way to the bank and slipped out of the water. She glanced over her shoulder and discovered that he had turned away. If disappointment or hurt was etched on his face, Skylar couldn’t see it.

Quickly she dressed and hurried back to the cave without acknowledging his presence. Keenly aware of every sound below her, she listened as he bathed and scrubbed his clothes. Then the noises stopped, and a few minutes later Sun Hawk climbed up to the cave wearing only his breechclout and car-159

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rying the sacks he had brought. They clattered when he dropped them at her feet, but his eyes never met Skylar’s.

“We have good food now, and other things we need. I will make a fire below so that you can cook.”

“As you wish.”

He left abruptly and Skylar began opening the sacks. In one she found tins of meat and bags of flour, meal, and sugar. In another she found blankets, a cook pot, and several knives and other utensils. The third held sacks of dried beef and boxes of rifle cartridges, a sewing kit and soap, scraps of material, a shirt, and even a long skirt and other articles of clothing.

What he had brought her, supplemented by what they could forage from the mountains, would keep them alive for weeks. But at what cost?

Her heart tripping with dread, she hurried down the rocky bluff to where Sun Hawk was carefully creating a fire that would make hardly any smoke at all.

He knew she was there, but he didn’t look at her, even when she quietly asked, “Where did the provisions come from?”

“A small ranch many miles to the west.”

Skylar knelt beside him, terrified of hearing the answer to her next question. “You didn’t—” She hesitated, and finally he looked at her with cold, lifeless eyes.

“I did not kill to get the food, if that is what you want to know. It was not necessary.”

Skylar’s relief was overshadowed by the knowledge that her doubts had hurt him. “I’m sorry. It is only that I don’t want anyone else killed because of me,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, but her jerked away from her.

“I will do what I have to do to keep you alive,” he said harshly.

“But I would rather die than know I had caused the death of another innocent person.”

He continued laying wood for the fire. “You think the soldier I killed was innocent,” he said flatly.

“In a way, he was,” she replied. “But I know that if you had not silenced him, I would be dead now.”

“Then what I did was right.”

Skylar didn’t know how to debate the moral implications, and she didn’t want to. It had been done, and there was no way to turn back time. “What you did saved my life, and I am grateful.”

“It is not your gratitude I want,” he snapped.

“Then what do you want?” When he remained silent, a vision of him as he had stood naked at the pool flashed into Skylar’s mind. “You have given up everything for me, but I do not understand why. You made it clear long ago that I am not fit to be the woman of an Apache warrior.”

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Sun Hawk paused in his work. “That is true.”

Skylar swallowed hard and summoned all her courage. “Then why did you come to me at the pool?”

He looked at her then, and the veil of coldness fell away from his eyes. The tender expression that remained told Skylar everything she needed to know.

She reached out and gently touched his face. “If you had ever spoken of love, I might understand better why you risked so much for me,” she said gently.

“Do you need me to speak of it?” he asked hoarsely, moved by her touch and the soft lights in her eyes.

Skylar nodded. “Yes. I do.”

Abruptly Sun Hawk pulled away and stood. Irritation replaced tenderness in his eyes. “My wife has been dead a long time, but I did not imagine that when it came time to select another one, my heart would choose someone like you.”

Skylar wondered if that was as close to an avowal of love as she would ever get from him. He loved her, but clearly he didn’t want to. “Are you asking me to be your wife?”

He drew his shoulders back proudly. She had humiliated him once with her rejection at the pool. He didn’t want to give her the chance to do it again by speaking foolish lovers’ words to her. “We have both killed white soldiers,”

he said flatly. “Neither of us can go back to our people and live as before. It makes sense that we should live together because we have no one else now.”

He was offering her a marriage of convenience? The very idea was ludicrous, since nothing about their situation was even remotely convenient.

Obviously he had not considered the possibility that her white family might be able to clear her of the charges, but there was no reason why he should give the possibility any credence. His treatment at the hands of white men had been vastly different from hers.

Would he take her to Rancho Verde if she asked him to?

Possibly. But Skylar couldn’t bring herself to ask it. Instead, she told him,

“I will think on what you have said because you have saved my life and taken care of me.”

“As I told you, I do not want your gratitude,” Sun Hawk said angrily. “Do not come to me as a wife because you owe me a debt.”

“Then do not come to me as a husband because it is a practical thing to do,” she flung back. “If you want someone to cook for you and see to your needs, you have only to ask and I will care for you as a sister would care for a brother.”

“I do not want a sister, I want a wife!”

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feel in my heart for you is more powerful than anything I have ever known, but I will not be your wife unless I know your heart feels the same.”

Torn between salvaging his pride and the joy her confession brought him, he studied her angry face. “Why do you think I saved your life?” he asked, gentling his voice.

“I have asked you before to tell me, and you would not.”

“If your heart is as strong as you say, it should tell you the reason.”

Skylar did know. She had known it, most likely, from the moment he had given her the knife almost a week ago. “I need to hear the words from you.”

He hesitated a moment. “I love you. Why else would I give up everything to keep from losing you?” he asked quietly.

There. He had said it and there was no turning back. Skylar felt no elation, no flush of longing, only a strange sense of inevitability. All she was certain of was her own love for him and his for her. She had to stay with him now, to go where he went, give up her dreams of being reunited with her family, and spend whatever was left of her life as his wife.

“Very well.” She nodded slowly and turned away.

Sun Hawk took a single step after her. “Where are you going?”

“To get the food. A wife’s first duty is to cook for her husband.”

At that moment Sun Hawk could have argued with her, but he didn’t. She had agreed to be his wife. There would be time for proving his love later. For now he had to finish laying the fire so that his wife could cook for him.

Case rode into Fort Apache unable to imagine why General Crook had summoned him again so soon. Only yesterday Case and a cavalry detail led by the general had returned from a month-long campaign hunting down a band of Chiricahua who had left San Carlos and were attempting to join Geronimo. Luck had been with them and they had captured part of the band, but the others had escaped and were probably already in Mexico. Geronimo’s followers were growing in number, and Crook estimated the total number of braves, women, and children to be nearly a hundred by now.

That seemed like a small number in light of the superior forces Crook was amassing against Geronimo, but it was more than enough to wreak havoc and create panic among ranchers and townspeople throughout the southern half of the territory.

Unfortunately, Crook had been unable to move against Geronimo directly. Faced with administrative problems of pacifying the reservation Apaches and cutting through the red tape involved in persuading the Mexican government to allow his troops to cross the border, the general had been completely stymied.

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That was why Case was so puzzled about the reason Crook had sent for him. Even if authorization to move into Mexico had come, it would take at least a week to mount an expedition.

Quelling his curiosity, Case presented himself to the general’s aide and was ushered in immediately.

“Case, thank you for coming so quickly,” Crook said, inviting him to sit by pointing to a chair. “Please convey my apologies to Mrs. Longstreet for dragging you away from her so soon.”

“Libby understands.”

Crook smiled, betraying his fondness for Case’s wife. “I’m sure she does.

She’s quite a remarkable lady.”

“I agree, General,” Case replied solemnly. “But you did not ask me here to discuss my wife.”

“Quite right.” Crook’s smile was replaced by a frown as he looked down at the enormous stack of correspondence and dispatches that had been awaiting him on his return. “It seems there’s been some trouble with the Mescaleros who were being transferred to the Rio Alto.”

“How many refused to go?” Case asked, understanding the source of the irritation in Crook’s voice. The general had learned of the transfer yesterday almost the moment he arrived at the fort, and he had been furious.

Crowding the Mescaleros onto the Rio Alto was absurd, and Case had no doubt that the commander of the Department of the Border had already lodged a complaint.

Crook looked at the dispatch from Captain Haggarty. “Forty-two in all, including those who disappeared before the forced march began and those who have vanished during the march.”

This was bad news, but not unexpected. “They will join Geronimo.”

“Of course they will, but until I can get down into the Sierra Madre to root Gerry out, there’s nothing I can do but twiddle my thumbs and handle problems like this one.” He tapped Haggarty’s report. “It seems that one of the captain’s soldiers was knifed to death without provocation by a Mescalero woman named Skylark.”

It was clear from Crook’s tone that he didn’t believe the military version of the account. Case didn’t either. That was not what captured his interest, though. “That’s an odd name for an Apache. I’ve never heard anything like it before, even among the Mescaleros.”

“One story at a time. I’ll get to that one in a minute,” Crook grumbled, leaving Case mystified as to what he meant. “It seems that after the woman was caught and questioned, one of the braves helped her to escape, seriously wounding one of the guards.”

“Only one guard?” Case questioned lightly.

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Crook’s mouth twitched at the corners. “My sentiments exactly. The brave was obviously a prudent man whose only thought was to get the woman away from her captors. I know Captain Haggarty, and I shudder to think of the kind of treatment this Skylark would have received at his hands.”

“I know Haggarty, too,” Case replied. The captain was an arrogant imbe-cile with an ugly sadistic streak, but Crook didn’t need Case to tell him that.

“The brave probably saved the woman’s life.”

“Agreed. Certainly I can’t sanction what the brave did, but I can’t say I blame him, either. At any rate, a thorough search of the Caliente Mountains where the cavalry was camped yielded no trace of either of them, and Haggarty is requesting that I launch a full-scale expedition to track the couple down. In lieu of that, he asks for permission to do it himself once he gets the Mescaleros to Rio Alto.”

“We both know that would be a waste of time. They’re probably across the border in Mexico already.”

“Quite possibly. Unfortunately there is a horrible complication to what should be a simple story.” Crook picked up a packet of letters. “This was also waiting for me when I arrived. It is a petition for the release of a Miss Skylar Templeton from the Mescalero reservation. It seems that the young lady is a full-blooded Apache by birth, but she was raised by a white family in New Mexico, educated, and legally adopted.”

Case felt his heart turn over in his breast and he hardly dared to breathe.

Was this what his dreams about his sister had been leading him to? “The two women—Skylark and Skylar—are the same,” he said, trying to keep his voice from betraying the hope that blossomed inside him.

“I would guess so,” Crook replied, “though Haggarty made no mention of the fact that the one he called Skylark was an anglicized Apache.”

Without realizing it, Case fingered the simple medallion that hung around his neck. “If Skylar Templeton has a white family, how did she end up on the reservation?”

Crook glanced through the letter he’d received from Miss Rayna Templeton and gave Case the pertinent details, then threw the paper onto his desk in disgust. “This is a complete travesty. That poor girl was ripped away from her family and is now living a nightmare, thanks to Sam Whitlock. He didn’t need my permission to countermand his own order. He could have put an end to this two months ago, but he was too peeved with the reorganization to do it. He ought to be horsewhipped.”

Case couldn’t have agreed more, but the reasons why this had happened were less important than righting the wrong. Knowing Crook as he did, Case understood now why he had been called here. “You want me to find them, don’t you, sir?”

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Crook smiled at him. Case’s insight was only one of the things that made him so valuable. “Yes, I do. I know that you’ve only just returned, but I’d appreciate you handling this. If anyone can pick up their trail, you can.”

Case nodded. If the couple had joined Geronimo, this would be a very dangerous mission. Even if he could locate the band in Mexico, the renegade might kill him without allowing him to explain the purpose of his mission. But the danger meant nothing to Case. The odds against Skylar Templeton being his sister were enormous, but he could not rest until he knew the truth.

“Their trail will be too cold to follow,” he told Crook.

“I know that, but you can go where I can’t and find information that would never be available to any white man, let alone a soldier.” He handed Case the packet of documents he’d received from Rayna. “Look these over. They contain information that might be useful to you. Frankly, if I were Miss Skylar Templeton, I’d be far more interested in returning to my home in New Mexico than going on the warpath with Geronimo. It could be that she’s headed home even as we speak.

“Now, I’ve already dispatched some communiqués requesting information on this brave”—he consulted Haggarty’s report—”Sun Hawk. If I can track down the former Indian agent for the Mescalero reservation, he may be able to give us some valuable information about the man that would help you in your search.”

“It would be better to speak with Sun Hawk’s people,” Case replied. “If you’ll give me the necessary papers, I’ll catch up with Captain Haggarty and ask questions among the Mescalero. If they know I’m trying to help Sun Hawk, they may be honest with me.” Case stood, then hesitated. “Am I trying to help him, General?”

Crook looked at him blankly, not grasping his meaning. “I beg your pardon?”

“What will happen to the brave if I find him?”

Crook thought it over. He’d been so focused on the problem of the young woman that he hadn’t thought much about the Mescalero brave. “I’ll launch a full investigation into all of this and see if I can find the truth. If the soldier he wounded survives, I can assure you the man won’t be hanged.”

“But he will be punished.”

“As I said, Case, it all depends on the circumstances. Find him for me so that we can get at the truth and get Miss Templeton back to her family.”

Case almost smiled. It would have been so easy for Crook to offer a hollow assurance of leniency, but he never made a promise he wasn’t certain he could keep. That was the reason Case and the other Apaches trusted him so much. “I’ll do my best, sir,” he said respectfully.

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out, and I’ll have the passes for you. I’m told that a number of citizens’ committees have started forming again, and I don’t want anyone mistaking you for a hostile.”

It was a problem Case had faced too often to take lightly. “Neither do I, sir.”

“Do you want to take some scouts with you?”

Case thought it over. “Yes. My uncle, Angry Coyote, and his son will come with me.”

“Very well. You inform them, and I’ll arrange their passes as well. And then I must write to the Templeton family and tell them what’s happened,” Crook added with a bewildered shake of his head.

Having been raised in two worlds himself, Case had a fair inkling of what Skylar Templeton was going through—and what her family was suffering. “I prefer my job to yours, sir.”

“As well you should, my friend.” Crook stood and offered Case his hand.

“Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Case left a moment later, tucking the papers Crook had given him into his shirt. He longed to study them for any scrap of information that might tell him whether or not Skylar Templeton was his sister, but he wanted to get home to Libby and share this with her as soon as possible. She would be upset that he was leaving again so soon, but she would not try to discourage him.

Her heart would bleed for the plight of poor Skylar, and even if the girl was not Sons-ee-a-ray, Libby would want her found.

As soon as Case arrived home, he explained the situation to Libby, and his assumption about her attitude was completely correct.

“Oh, Case, what that poor thing must have suffered,” she said quietly, looking over Haggarty’s report while her husband studied the letter from Skylar’s sister. “Do you think this Private Talbot was trying to assault her?”

Case didn’t want to think about it. “Such things have happened before,” he replied, trying to remain impassive. There was no proof this girl was his sister, but there was no denying that his heart had already assigned her that station.

Though Case had made no mention of Morning Star, Libby knew what he was thinking. “Is this your sister, Case?” she asked, leaning close to place her head on his shoulder.

Case touched her face lovingly and pressed a kiss to her brow. “I do not know.”

“But you think it, don’t you? You told me that your visions were trying to lead you to her, and now this has happened.”

He took Haggarty’s report from her. “The captain said the girl was a Mescalero about twenty years of age. Morning Star would be nearer twenty-five.”

Libby raised her head. “Haggarty could be mistaken.”

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“True, but how could a White Mountain Apache child like Morning Star come to be raised by a white family near Santa Fe? It is much more likely that this Skylar is indeed a Mescalero.”

Libby couldn’t help but smile. Case wanted very much to believe that this girl was his sister, but he was afraid of being hurt by a disappointment that would bring him immeasurable pain. He had kept Morning Star’s memory alive since the day she had been taken, but now that there was a chance that he might be reunited with her, he was trying to think with his head and not his heart.

“Will you be able to find her?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

Libby placed her head on his shoulder again and wrapped her arms around his waist. “If she is Morning Star, the eagle will lead you to her. Your guiding spirit has never failed us yet.”

Case wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Sometimes he wondered if his wife had a deeper Apache soul than his own.

“I pray you are right, beloved.”

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14

Skylar and Sun Hawk filled the afternoon with practical tasks. While she cooked, he began gathering the things he would need to replace the valuable weapons he had left behind with his people. After they ate, while Sun Hawk carved and cured a stout mulberry branch into a bow, Skylar mended their clothes.

They worked quietly, seldom murmuring a word, but their minds were both keenly attuned to the tension that filled the air.

In her youth, before reality had intervened, Skylar had often imagined being married in a beautiful cathedral. In the fantasy, she wore a magnificent dress, and Rayna was standing beside her, smiling happily as the bride and groom exchanged their vows.

The face of her husband-to-be had been a blank then, but it was no longer.

Skylar had pledged herself to a man whose handsome face was forever embla-zoned on her memory and in her heart. There would be no cathedral or expensive gown. Rayna might never know of her betrothal, and there would be no priest asking her to recite the vows. The wedding ceremony tonight would be very simple. When Sun Hawk went to his bed, she would join him. He would take her body and, in so doing, bind them together for as long as they lived.

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Skylar was terrified.

“What does your name mean in our language?”

His soft voice startled her, and it took her a moment to focus on his question. The valley was growing dark, and Sun Hawk had banked the fire so that it was only a red glow in the twilight. She looked across the embers at him and found that he had laid his bow aside and was studying her intently.

It took her another moment to find a suitable translation for her name. “It means ‘one who studied,’” she told him, feeling a flush of heat crawl up her cheeks. “It is a name that my white mother cherished because it belonged to her own mother who died many years ago.” It was the simplest way Skylar could think of to explain how Collie’s maiden name, Schuyler, had been transformed into her own. “Why do you ask? Does it displease you?”

The depth of tenderness in his eyes nearly stole her breath. “No, it does not displease me. I only wanted to know it in the language we share so that I can whisper it to you in the night.”

An ache of need like the one she had experienced in the pool flooded through her, and she looked back at her sewing, unable to comment.

“Do you still miss your white family?” he asked.

She couldn’t look up. “Yes. I always will, just as you will miss the family you left behind.”

“I am sorry you will never see them again.”

“So am I.” She glanced up and met his gaze. “For both of us.” Another silence fell between them as darkness gathered in the valley. “What will we do when we can no longer stay here?”

Thus far Sun Hawk had been acting on instinct and had no particular plan in mind. He might not have confessed his indecision to anyone else for fear it would make him look weak, but he knew he had to be honest with his wife. “I am not certain, beloved.”

Skylar gathered the endearment to her heart and held it close. “Will we join Geronimo?”

“There may be no other choice,” he replied sadly. “We will travel north for a while longer until the soldiers stop searching for us, but when the snows come, we must go south. Only Geronimo and his people are in the south, and we cannot survive alone.”

“Geronimo’s raids have already killed many people who did him no wrong,”

she reminded him. “Will you be able to kill if he says it must be done?”

“I will do whatever I must to keep you safe and alive,” he repeated.

“We will not be safe with Geronimo.”

“Then we will find a safe place,” he promised her, though he knew it was a promise he could never keep.

Skylar knew it, too, but for this one moment it didn’t matter.

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It had grown too dark to see the rents and tears in the leggings she was mending, and when Sun Hawk began laying out his blankets next to the fire, Skylar put her sewing away. A knot of fear and anticipation formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

This was the course she had chosen. No other was open to her, and though she would have given the world to change the circumstances, she could not regret having met Sun Hawk or having grown to love him. Fate had ripped her from her life of security and replaced it with the love of this man.

Whatever event fate planned for her next she would share with Sun Hawk.

He slipped between his blankets and turned his back to the fire, offering Skylar one final chance to change her mind. She wouldn’t, of course, but she had no notion of what she should do next. What she had learned of Apache customs from the Mescaleros had not included the tutoring of a bride for her wedding night.

Clearly, though, it was she who must make the first move, so she cast all thoughts of embarrassment aside, removed her moccasins, and stood. She slipped out of her dress, closing her mind to the way the cool night air felt to her feverish skin as she circled the fire. When she knelt beside Sun Hawk, he turned to her.

A small moan sounded in his throat as he looked at her naked body silhouetted by the red embers of the fire. Reverently he reached out and placed his hands on her waist, then moved them up slowly, savoring the feel of her skin. He came to his knees in front of her, and as he filled his hands with the globes of her breasts he pressed his lips against her throat.

Skylar gasped at the dual sensual assault and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her head fell back, offering his seeking mouth whatever it wished to take, and his hands moved lower, sliding down her flanks until he cupped her buttocks and pulled her to him. Skylar felt the hard ridge of his manhood beneath the breechclout pressing into her belly and it brought a fresh ache of desire to her. She gasped as his mouth found her breast, suckling one, then the other, until her gasps became whimpers.

She wove her hands into his hair as he lowered her to the blanket, and when his knee slipped between hers, Skylar opened herself to him. Poised above her, he looked into her eyes and whispered her name in a lover’s voice as he joined their bodies into one.

“You are mine now,” he said hoarsely again and again as he pressed into her, carrying her past the first jolt of pain to the place where there was only searing heat, blinding light, and a bond of love that could never be broken.

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Holbrook Hotel on Saturday morning was the difference between night and day. Gone was the demure traveling suit with lace at the collar. In its place were boots, Levi’s, and a mannish shirt and vest. Her hair was drawn away from her face into a thick golden braid that fell almost to her waist. What startled him most, though, was the Colt revolver strapped efficiently around her hips.

Rayna was conscious of him watching her as she came down the stairs, but she couldn’t decide if his expression was one of shock or disapproval—or equal parts of both.

“Which do you object to more, the pants or the Colt?” she asked tartly before he could say so much as a good morning.

“Can you use the Colt?” he asked.

“Probably better than you can.”

He let the insult roll off him. “Then I don’t object to either. Frankly, I didn’t expect you to ride Triton sidesaddle.”

She smiled at him. “Good. That will save us another argument when I go to buy a saddle. Now, shall we purchase our provisions? I’d like to be on the trail as soon as possible.”

“By all means.” He gestured toward the door, and she preceded him out of the hotel and down the street to the mercantile.

If all went well, which was certainly not guaranteed, the trip would take the better part of four days, but they kept their rations and cooking supplies simple. Amazingly enough, they found nothing to argue over in the selection.

At Rayna’s insistence, they split the cost of the supplies, and then she purchased a saddle and a simple felt hat. What surprised Meade was that she also selected a Winchester repeating rifle that matched the caliber of her Colt.

She shot him a defiant look as she paid for the lot, but Meade made no comment because he was thinking of the horse she had purchased and what it had cost to ship the animal to Holbrook. Then there had been her train fare, her room at the hotels in Santa Fe and Holbrook, and now this. Their journey had barely begun, and already she had spent an outrageous amount of money without showing any concern that she might run short of funds.

He shouldered her new saddle as she picked up the burlap sack of provisions and moved toward the door. “Rayna, exactly how much money are you carrying on you?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Enough to see me through this trip.”

“Where is it?”

She shot a startled look at him as she thought of the narrow money belt strapped beneath her shirt. “That’s none of your business!”

“It is if I’m going to be protecting a king’s ransom as well as your virtue.”

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door open for her. They left the store without noticing the two men who were playing a game of checkers over the cracker barrel near the door.

They didn’t notice the broad, malicious smiles the men exchanged, either.

It took longer than Meade had expected to find a horse for the trip. The owner of the livery stable sold him a serviceable packhorse, but he had no riding stock that looked suitable for the difficult journey ahead. Ultimately he and Rayna were forced to ride to a ranch eight miles out of town where Meade finally found a sturdy, surefooted bay named Chicory.

By noon they were on their way south, following the course of the Little Colorado River. They made excellent time on the high plateau, but Rayna couldn’t say that Meade was the most invigorating companion she’d ever traveled with. He rarely spoke, and by the time they made camp for the night the tension in the air was as thick as a cloud of swamp mosquitoes—

and just about as irritating.

They shared the camp chores and as soon as they had eaten, Meade spread out his bedroll, said a terse good night, and lay down with his back firmly turned to his companion. Rayna followed suit, but it was a long time before sleep finally found her.

By noon the next day the formidable Caldero Ridge was in view. When approached from the north, it didn’t look particularly threatening as mountain ranges went. There were no towering peaks to speak of but its incredible width made it impressive indeed, as it stretched a hundred miles to the east and west in a seemingly unbroken line. However, its most intimidating feature wasn’t at all visible from the north. The Ridge was the dividing line between the high plateau and the basin that cut across the south central part of the territory. Going into the Ridge was no problem. Getting out of it—or down from it—would be a different story.

They camped that night at the base, and the next morning began the most hazardous part of their journey. The rutted wagon trail they’d been following became more difficult to detect as Meade led Rayna up a series of winding switchbacks, then down a narrow escarpment and back up the next peak. Occasionally they would come across an area where a landslide had obliterated the trail, and they had to find another, even more dangerous route.

As they navigated the treacherous course, Rayna watched Meade closely and discovered that he wasn’t quite the tenderfoot she had expected him to be. He rode exceedingly well and never once betrayed any hint that the perilous trail unnerved him.

“How long will it take us to get through this?” she asked when they stopped near noon to eat.

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“If all goes well, we’ll be clear of the mountains by midmorning tomorrow,”

he said, then fell silent again as he had so much of the trip.

When they were riding, it didn’t bother Rayna much, particularly now that handling Triton on the difficult terrain had become a full-time matter of life and death. But when they were stopped like this with nothing to do, the silence was oppressive. It seemed to Rayna that Meade was determined to ignore her, and she was getting fed up with it. This wasn’t a good time to pick a fight with him, but she was too keyed up to sit quietly.

“You ride very well, Meade,” she told him, hoping a deserved compliment would spark a little conversation. “I’m impressed.”

He didn’t bother looking at her. “What did you expect? My father was a cavalry officer for twenty years, and I’ve spent half that much time as one myself.”

She tried not to take offense at his churlish tone. “Yes, but you told me once that you spent most of your career as a post surgeon and you didn’t do a lot of campaigning. You don’t need exceptional horseback skills to run an army hospital.”

He shot her an exasperated glance. “Would it make you feel better if I fell off Chicory every once in a while?”

Rayna gasped. “Damn you. I was only trying to make conversation. In case you hadn’t noticed, I paid you a compliment.”

“Well, thanks a lot, but your so-called compliment suggested that you had anticipated I would be less than competent to begin with.”

He had a point. “You’re right, I was concerned, but I was wrong. At least I’m not too petty to admit I made a mistake,” she said, more as an indictment than an admission of error.

Meade glared at her. “And what mistake have I supposedly made?”

“You called Triton a troublemaking man-killer, but you were wrong, weren’t you? He’s been an absolute angel.”

“So far,” he admitted reluctantly. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll reserve judgment on him until we’re out of here. This is the easy part.”

Easy? If this was easy, Rayna didn’t want to think about what lay ahead, and she didn’t want to think about Meade’s surliness, either. Falling silent, she chewed on a tough strip of jerked beef until Meade announced it was time to mount up again.

They headed up another narrow switchback with Meade in the lead, and as they neared the summit where the trail seemed to disappear into thin air, Meade called back to her, “Brace yourself.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see,” he replied as he reached the summit. With the packhorse in tow, he disappeared around a sharp curve.

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Rayna had heard about the Caldero Ridge of course, but nothing in the rugged New Mexico landscape had prepared her for the dizzying sight of the mountain falling dramatically away as she rounded the curve. The sheer drop-off just a few feet to her right plunged down a thousand feet or more, making the basin below seem a hundred miles away. Numerous small mountain ranges dotted the basin, but from this vantage point, they looked like insignificant anthills. Rayna had never seen anything quite like it, or even half as breathtaking.

“My God, Meade, it’s magnificent,” she called to him. “I feel as though I’ve reached the end of the world.”

“In many ways you have,” he said, turning in the saddle to look back at her. The glorious smile on her face made him wish he hadn’t. Why wasn’t she frightened out of her wits by the daunting spectacle? Why in hell wasn’t she cringing with dread at the thought of having to make her way down to the valley below? Why did she take everything in stride, even his foul, unfair bouts of temper?

Because she was the singular Miss Rayna Templeton, that’s why, Meade thought, answering his own questions. It seemed that nothing in the world could frighten her. Except, of course, the thought that she might not get her sister back. The sympathy that was mixed with his irritation and his attraction was a potent combination, and Meade righted himself in the saddle.

Being with Rayna twenty-four hours a day was a thousand times harder than he’d imagined it would be, and he just wanted to get to Fort Apache and be rid of her.

“Come on. We can’t sit here gawking all day.” He urged Chicory into motion down the steep escarpment. Then the trail doubled back and the mountains swallowed them again.

An hour later they stopped in a wide gorge to rest the horses, and Meade strolled around the area studying what appeared to be a set of fresh tracks made by two riders on horseback.

“What’s wrong?” Rayna asked as she caught up with him.

“Someone has moved through here recently,” he replied, frowning.

Rayna studied the imprints. “Yeah, I noticed those same markings earlier.”

She knelt and pointed to the irregular ridge left by one of the horses’ shoes.

“See the cleft there? We’ve been following whoever is riding that horse for quite a while.”

She was so proficient at everything else that Meade wasn’t too surprised she’d picked that up. “Did you also notice that they stop frequently, and every so often one of the riders doubles back?”

Now Rayna was frowning. “No, I hadn’t noticed that.” She rose to begin her own survey and discovered that he was right. Near the mouth of the 174

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gorge, the horse with the cleft shoe had made three sets of prints. “They’re not in too big a hurry, are they?”

“Or maybe they’re waiting for someone,” Meade suggested thoughtfully.

“Us, you mean,” she replied.

Meade studied her expression and found concern but no fear. “Could be.

Or it could be that some of my brother-in-law’s instincts are wearing off on me. Somehow this just doesn’t feel right.” He started back to the horses with Rayna at his side.

“What kind of terrain do we have coming up?” she asked.

“The kind I’d rather not be traveling through right now,” he answered, wishing the skin on the back of his neck would stop prickling. “This gorge snakes around for another mile or so, then narrows into Denning Pass, a swath of canyon that’s barely wide enough for a wagon.”

Rayna took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “Great ambush country, huh?”

“Exactly. During the early years of the Apache wars, that pass was the site of more ambushes than I care to count. In fact, it got its name from a party of settlers who were massacred there. Road agents have made use of it, too,” he added grimly.

“Is there another way through?”

Meade looked at her. “Nope.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Rayna looked up at the steep walls of the gorge. “If they’re going to attack us, they’ll have to go into the cliffs eventually. I don’t see that we have much choice but to keep going until we lose their trail.”

Regrettably, Meade didn’t see any choice, either. “Let’s lead the horses awhile,” he suggested.

“Agreed.” She removed her Winchester from its scabbard on Triton’s saddle, and Meade followed suit. Moving cautiously, with one of them always keeping an eye on the cliffs above, they followed the trail left by the cleft-shod horse. In sections where the ground became too rocky to show sign, they stopped and Meade scouted ahead until the tracks resumed.

They rounded a bend that led southward, and the gorge began to narrow before it snaked off to the east again.

“They stopped here,” Rayna commented, and Meade crouched beside the prints.

“Yes, but neither of them dismounted.”

Rayna felt her pulse pounding steadily harder with every foot they traveled, and when the tracks disappeared on a rocky shelf of ground, her heart nearly thudded out of her chest. She waited while Meade searched ahead for fresh sign, and when he returned to her, his expression was grim.

“Come on,” he said, taking Chicory’s reins from her and turning the horse in the direction they had just come.

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Rayna had no choice but to follow. “What’s wrong? I didn’t see anyplace where they could have hidden the horses or led them into the cliffs. Didn’t the prints resume?” she asked.

“Yes, but good old Cleft Shoe’s prints don’t look quite as deep as they did before.”

“You think his rider went up into the cliffs and the other one went ahead?”

Meade shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being an alarmist, but I don’t want to take any chances. You stay here while I check this out more thoroughly.”

It was a gallant sentiment, but Rayna didn’t care much for heroics. “Meade, how long have you known me?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Just over three months, I suppose. Why?”

She smiled at him. “What do you think the chances are that I’m going let you leave me here with the horses?”

He sighed with disgust. “Damn poor, I presume.”

“That’s right.”

“Rayna . . .”

His stern look didn’t intimidate her. “Meade, we can argue, or we can get this over with.”

Her stubborn jaw was firmly set, and he knew it was pointless to try to reason with her. “If I go alone, you’ll just follow me, won’t you?”

She nodded.

“All right. I guess I’d rather have you where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Where we can keep an eye on each other,” she corrected.

Meade shook his head as he tethered Chicory to a stout scrub near the base of a cliff. “God, but you’re stubborn.” He replaced his rifle in its scabbard and advised Rayna to do the same. “If we have to climb, the rifles will only make it more difficult,” he explained, and she couldn’t argue with his logic. Once the canyon narrowed, they wouldn’t need long-range weapons, anyway.

Rayna just hoped they wouldn’t need them at all.

With the horses secured a good distance away, they returned to the rock shelf where Cleft Shoe’s tracks became shallower. They studied the ground and finally found a clear boot print near the east wall of the gorge. Loosened rocks showed them where someone had started climbing, and Meade abandoned all hope that his imagination had just been working overtime. They went up and found a ledge that ran parallel to the trail, then moved along it with as much stealth as they could manage.

A few feet after the canyon curved sharply to the left, the ledge ended and they began climbing again, following the trail of dislodged rocks and an occasional boot print in the soft red clay. Ahead, Rayna could finally see the 176

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mouth of Denning Pass, and she was grateful to be on the cliffs rather than trapped in the bowels of the narrow arroyo.

“Okay, this is as far as you go,” Meade whispered when they stopped to rest beneath a sheltered overhang that hid the mouth of the pass from view.

“Meade, we agreed—”

“We agreed that you wouldn’t stay with the horses. I’m going to follow our clumsy friend and see if I can get the drop on him from behind.”

“And what about his friend? You know . . . the one who went ahead through the pass. Remember him?”

“Of course I do. Unless I miss my guess, he’s already left the horses somewhere on the other side and has climbed into the cliffs, too.”

“Then we should both go.”

“No,” he said as adamantly as he could and still keep his voice low. “You stay here and keep an eye out. That’s an order.”

“But—”

“Rayna, for God’s sake, just shut up and for once do as you’re told,” he said, then ducked out of their little hidey-hole.

Concerned that she might stupidly follow him, Meade spent nearly as much time looking over his shoulder as he did concentrating on the shelf he was climbing. After a few minutes, though, it became obvious that she had done the sensible thing, and he devoted all his attention to following the difficult trail left by the brigand who was waiting somewhere ahead in Denning Pass.

Back in her hiding place, Rayna wasted very little time fuming over Meade’s dictatorial command. She could never have followed without him seeing her, but that wasn’t the logical thing to do, anyway. What they needed was a bird’s-eye view of the pass, and the only way to get it was to go straight up.

After backtracking to a likely spot, she began free-climbing with the same steady skill that she and Skylar had learned when they were thirteen years old and had been trapped in Diablo Canyon by a flash flood. It was a difficult but not impossible climb, and within thirty minutes she had reached the top, where a surprisingly flat mesa awaited her.

Keeping away from the edge, where she might have been spotted from the opposite side of the canyon, she hurried toward Denning Pass. When the opposing rock walls finally narrowed to a point where she could easily have tossed a stone across to the other side, she dropped to her stomach and crawled to the edge.

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crawled on, ignoring the rocks that cut and bruised her elbows, until she finally caught a glimpse of Meade. He was less than a dozen yards below her, crouched on a ledge.

Rayna moved on, knowing that the would-be robber had to be somewhere ahead of Meade, and finally she saw him. He was stretched out as flat as a lizard, and Rayna might have assumed he was napping if she hadn’t seen the movement of the rifle he had trained on the mouth of the pass.

Obviously he expected his quarry to arrive at any second, and considering the length of time Meade and Rayna had spent stalking their assassins, he was probably even beginning to worry that something had gone awry.

She drew her Colt, and her assumption was confirmed when the man suddenly propped himself up and looked up at the cliff opposite him. Rayna followed the direction of his gaze, but saw nothing until the man called out,

“Damn it, Hobie, you seen anything from up there yet?”

The words echoed off the canyon walls, and a moment later a ragged gray hat popped up from behind a boulder on a wide ledge. “No, I ain’t,” came the barely discernible hushed reply. “And I won’t, neither, if you don’t shet up.”

Gray Hat ducked back down, and the Lizard stretched out again. Trying to figure out what to do next, Rayna glanced at Meade and saw him looking around, obviously trying to determine where the second voice had come from. He was well above Lizard’s hiding place, which led Rayna to conclude that he had probably gotten a glimpse of the bushwhacker and had been trying to get above him.

Unfortunately, Meade’s ledge had ended, and the only way off it was to go back or climb higher.

With so many crags and boulders, nooks and turns, it was hard for Rayna to judge whether or not Gray Hat would be able to see Meade when he began climbing. Calling out a warning to him would only betray both of them, so she remained quiet and worked her way along the mesa until she had a little better view of Gray Hat’s hiding place. His hat and part of his shoulder were all she could see, but it was enough for the time being.

But what should she do next? She knew she could easily kill the Lizard with one shot, but could she live with the knowledge that she’d murdered a man in cold blood? No, she couldn’t see herself as a back-shooter. In fact, she had to wonder if she could kill a man at all. Since she’d never been in a situation remotely similar to this one, it was a moral and ethical question she’d never been forced to face. She had always assumed that if a time came when she had to defend herself or someone she loved, she could do it without a second thought.

But principle was considerably different from reality, she discovered.

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shelf above the Lizard, but the cost was going to be too high. Lizard scrambled to his knees, raising his rifle as he frantically searched for the source of the disturbance, and Gray Hat cautiously peered over his boulder.

“Throw the rifle into the gorge!” Meade shouted, his revolver trained steadily on the man beneath him.

“Now, lookee here—” Lizard said indignantly, but Meade cut him off.

“Do it or you’re dead!”

“All right, all right.” Reluctantly the Lizard held the rifle out over the ledge and released it. It clattered on the rocks and then was silent.

“Now your gun belt,” Meade instructed.

“See here, mister, you ain’t got no call—”

“Do it!” he roared.

Considering the circumstances, Lizard’s protestations were laughable, but Rayna wasn’t amused. As soon as Meade had spoken, Gray Hat had disappeared. Assuming that he was crawling around the cluster of boulders to get a better shot at Meade, she scrambled back the way she’d come, frantically searching for a glimpse of him.

She heard Meade order Lizard to drop his gun belt, but there was no time to look to see if he would comply, because Gray Hat chose that moment to come out of hiding. He rose just enough to take careful aim at Meade, and Rayna discovered that her moment of truth was at hand.

Centering him steadily in the sight of her Colt, she shouted, “No! Over here,” hoping to startle him, and that was exactly what happened. Gray Hat instinctively swiveled the rifle toward the sound of her voice, clipping off one frantic shot that thundered through the canyon. Before he could draw the hammer of his repeater or even think about ducking, Rayna pulled the trigger and Gray Hat fell back heavily.

A split second later another shot rang out, and she looked down to find that the Lizard had used her distraction to draw on Meade. He wasn’t successful. Meade’s bullet caught him square in the chest, and he went toppling into the ravine.

Trying to forget the fact that she’d just killed a man, she glanced at Meade just as he looked up and spotted her head and shoulders leaning out over the cliff. They watched each other for a full minute, letting the heat of the moment pass, and then Meade shook his head.

“I thought I told you to stay back where it was safe,” he said without rancor.

“Aren’t you glad I don’t know how to take orders?”

His smile started slowly, but by the time it was completely formed, it was magnificent. “Very glad.” He glanced across the serrated edge of the cliff.

“Now, how the hell do you plan to get down from there?”

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15

Repressing the chill that ran down her spine, Rayna peered into the darkness beyond the golden circle of light from the campfire. Five horses were tethered out there, and she could barely make out the blanket-wrapped bodies strapped over the saddles of two of them.

She was keenly aware of their presence, though. Over the years, she had heard Consayka’s people talk about the ghost sickness that afflicted anyone who stayed too long around the body or property of someone who had died.

She hadn’t understood the superstition until now. Gray Hat’s malevolent spirit was out there somewhere, watching her, pointing an accusing finger.

After the brief, intense confrontation, she and Meade had carefully made their way back down the cliffs. Rayna had gone back for their own horses while Meade searched for those of their would-be assailants. By the time she returned, Meade had wrapped the Lizard in his own bedroll, secured his body to a horse, and started climbing the cliff to retrieve Gray Hat’s body.

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they came from, and whether or not they had families wouldn’t change the fact that Rayna had killed a man.

The day had taken a terrible toll on her, and she knew she should try to sleep. Her bedroll was already laid out by the fire, but she couldn’t imagine being able to rest—not with Gray Hat’s ghost keeping watch over the camp.

“Here, drink this,” Meade said, handing her a cup of coffee that he had liberally laced with whiskey.

He was standing over her, and Rayna looked up at him as she accepted the cup. “Thanks.” She took a sip and found no reason to complain, though she would have preferred the shot of whiskey alone.

She peered toward the horses again, and Meade sat on the log next to her.

“You did what you had to do, Rayna,” he said quietly. “You didn’t force them to bushwhack us. If I had to guess, I’d say they’d done this before. They knew those cliffs too well for this to have been a spontaneous act.”

Rayna nodded and forced herself to look away from the bodies in the shadows. “You’re probably right. That doesn’t make knowing I killed him any easier, though.”

“If you hadn’t, I’d be dead now,” he reminded her.

She turned a sad, rueful smile on him. “Drat. You mean I missed the perfect opportunity to get rid of my churlish traveling companion?”

That’s better, Meade thought. Her humor and fighting spirit were starting to return. He’d been watching her all evening and hadn’t been able to bear the haunting sadness in her, although he understood it only too well. “I have been a real ogre, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.

The tender look he was giving her only confused her jumbled emotions even more. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her, and that was obviously all his comforting words and kind looks amounted to. Wishing things could be different between them, Rayna looked into the fire to avoid his soft hazel eyes. “Why do you dislike me so much, Meade? I know I’m too obstinate and I lack certain desirable ladylike traits, but I’m not really a bad person. I’m kind to children and animals.”

He smiled, captivated by the way the light danced over her face. “I’m sure you are. And you’re also absolutely fearless, loyal, and devoted to your family.

As the Apache would say, you have a strong heart.”

“Then you don’t detest me as much as you pretend to?”

“I don’t detest you at all, Rayna,” he said softly.

She looked at him. “Then why do we fight all the time?”

“You make me angry with all the brash, reckless things you do.”

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Like killing Gray Hat? she wondered. No, that hadn’t been brash.

Following Meade after he’d told her to wait had been reckless, but killing Gray Hat to save Meade had been a matter of harsh necessity. “Have you ever killed anyone before?” she asked after a moment.

“Not with a gun.”

She looked at him, puzzled by his cryptic remark. “What does that mean?”

Meade shrugged. “I’m a doctor.”

His answer confounded her even more, but the weariness in his voice made her heart ache for him. “That doesn’t make sense, Meade.”

“Army doctors lose many more lives than they save,” he told her. “There’s too much we don’t know, and the military is finding new ways to kill faster than we can learn how to cure.”

“Not being able to save a wounded man isn’t the same thing as killing him,” she said gently.

This time he was the one who looked into the fire. “That’s not how I feel when I watch someone die or see a one-legged man drink himself to death because I couldn’t find a less brutal way to save his life.”

“That’s not your fault, Meade. You can’t blame yourself for the cruel realities of life.”

“Can’t I?” He looked at her, and the bleakness in his eyes nearly brought tears to Rayna’s.

“No, you can’t. You just care too much.” Unable to stop herself, she reached out and lightly caressed his face. “No one could fault you for that.”

The combination of her soft hand gently touching his face and the com-passionate light in her eyes was too potent for Meade to bear. He took hold of her wrist, but didn’t force her hand away. “Don’t . . . do that, Rayna,” he said softly, his breath hitching in his throat.

She searched his eyes and found a different kind of torment had entered his gaze. “Why not?”

“Because I want very much to kiss you,” he answered before he could stop himself.

She let her hand slide into his. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because . . .” He took a deep breath, trying to shut out the need that coursed through him more strongly than ever before, but it wasn’t going to go away as long as her hand was in his and her lips were close enough to kiss. He stood abruptly, but couldn’t summon any conviction when he told her, “Because what we’re . . . feeling right now is just a reaction to what happened today.”

Rayna didn’t believe that any more than he did. She rose and stepped closer to him. “We hadn’t been nearly ambushed when you kissed me in my hotel room,” she reminded him.

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Meade knew he should move away from her, but he couldn’t. “But you were feeling vulnerable that day.”

“What were you feeling, Meade?”

“More than I should have.”

They stood looking at each other, not touching, and yet feeling each other’s presence more devoutly than either had imagined possible.

My God, Rayna thought with amazement, I’m in love with him. It defied all logic, but it was true. Meade Ashford wasn’t the type of man who fit into the image she had of her life or what she wanted from it, and she certainly didn’t fit into his; he’d made that abundantly clear. But that didn’t change what she felt—or what she wanted.

Without considering the consequences, she took another step closer, cupped his face in her hands, and brought her lips up to his. The feather-light touch sent a jolt of desire through Meade that he couldn’t deny any longer.

Pulling her to him roughly, he deepened the kiss, probing the sweet recesses of her mouth with an urgency that robbed them both of thought.

With a hoarse moan, Rayna pressed against him, then gasped with delight when Meade cupped his hand around the underside of her breast. He pressed wild kisses across her face and down her throat, and when he claimed her mouth again, Rayna thought she might die from the white heat of his fevered kisses. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his back, clutching at him as though that alone would bring them closer and quench the ache that was spreading through her.

Unable to bear the torture of the clothing that separated them, Meade worked at the buttons of her shirt and pulled it free from her shoulders. As he filled his hands with her breasts and teased the crests to hardness, she cried out in breathless pants and ground her hips into his, inflaming the long, hard ridge of his manhood.

With a rasping moan, Meade tugged at the buckskin cord holding her hair, pulling it free. He dug his fingers into the thick golden braid until it fell loose, and then he pulled her down to the bedroll, kissing her as passionately as she was kissing him. He blazed a fiery trail of kisses down her shoulders to her breasts and rejoiced in the sensuous, writhing movements Rayna made as his lips teased the crests. She dug her hands into his hair and cried out, begging for more.

Exactly what “more” was, Rayna couldn’t have said. She knew only that the fire raging inside her had to be extinguished. The ache had become so deliciously painful that she couldn’t think. Rational thought had deserted her, leaving only instinct and need. She had never done this before, never felt such intense passions, but as in everything she did, she held nothing back. She gave completely, and if it was wrong, she would live with the 183

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consequences, whatever they might be. Her eager hands danced over the muscular ridges of his torso trying to give back every pleasure she received from him.

Somewhere in the dim, clouded recesses of his mind, a voice was telling Meade this was wrong, but he was beyond caring. He had wanted Rayna for too long, and his need was too great. She had penetrated the barrier he’d built around his passions, and that wall had come tumbling down the moment she kissed him. It was much too late to erect it again, even if he had wanted to.

They undressed each other hungrily, every touch fueling their passions even higher, until finally they were naked and Meade was poised above her.

Acting purely on instinct, Rayna wrapped her legs around Meade’s hips and arched up, taking him into her with one swift stroke. Her gasp of pleasure and pain was lost in Meade’s mouth as it closed over hers fiercely.

Overcome by the dizzying sensations he created, she met each thrust eagerly. As the pleasure spiraled and grew, it seemed as though it would go on forever, carrying her higher and higher. And then the fire that coursed through every part of her body exploded in a blinding flash of heat. Meade buried his lips in her throat as she cried out his name again and again and, with a hoarse cry of pleasure, finally found his own release. His body constricted, and then he slumped against her, too spent to move, too overwhelmed to speak or even think.

“Oh, Meade . . .” she whispered, running her hands down the taut muscles of his back. “I feel—”

“Hush,” he said, claiming her mouth in a languid, drugging kiss. “Hush, sweet.”

Wrapping her in his arms, he buried his face in her silken hair and let the comforting pulse of her heartbeat lull him to sleep.

When first light broke in the sky, Meade came awake abruptly and discovered Rayna in his arms, her naked body pressed intimately against his. Her scent was everywhere, even on his own skin, and her golden hair spilled in wild profusion around her head like a breathtaking sunrise. The memory of every sensation, every touch, every sigh they had shared came flooding back to him, arousing him fully again, but it wasn’t night any longer. Meade wasn’t lost in his own needs, and Rayna wasn’t the vulnerable creature who had looked so sad and beautiful in the firelight.

Quite simply, one gloriously passionate encounter hadn’t changed who they were. Rayna was still a hellion, the antithesis of everything he thought a woman should be; and he was still a retired army officer who craved only peace and quiet from the rest of his life. What he had done last night was reprehensible.

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Appalled by what he had done—and craved to do again—Meade gingerly untangled his legs and rolled away from her. He slipped into his trousers and boots, separated his clothes from hers, took his canteen, and slipped away to perform his morning ablutions.

Rayna was still sleeping with the deceptive innocence of an angel when he returned. He wanted her to stay that way so that he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye, but eventually they would have to get on the trail to Fort Apache.

His anger at his own weakness made him clumsy as he began making breakfast, and the clatter of the coffee pot finally roused her.

Still half asleep, Rayna yawned and arched her back, stretching like a contented kitten. The sensuous movement caused the blanket to fall away from her torso, and Meade groaned as her magnificent breasts were revealed to him. He could still feel the weight of them in his hands and the taste of them in his mouth. His loins constricted with a jolt of remembered pleasure, and he swiveled away.

“For God’s sake, Rayna, cover yourself!” he barked.

The rough command brought her fully awake, and Rayna grabbed the blanket and pulled it up between her breasts as she rose up on one elbow.

She didn’t have to wonder how she came to be completely undressed. The memory of their lovemaking was the sweetest thing she had ever awakened to. A contented smile spread slowly over her features as she looked at his back. “And a merry good morning to you, too,” she said teasingly.

“Get dressed while I fix breakfast,” he said gruffly.

Rayna felt too good to be offended by his tone. “Oh, good, my grouchy companion is back. I was afraid last night might have mellowed your disposition.”

Good Lord, how could she joke about it? “Rayna, we don’t have time for sarcasm this morning. Now get dressed so that we can get on the trail.”

Rayna couldn’t imagine why he was being so waspish. Was lovemaking different for men? Didn’t he feel as wonderful as she did? Hadn’t he experienced the same incredible sensations she had? The sweet words he had whispered to her and the fevered moans she could still hear led her to believe that he had. So why was he being mean?

“Meade, look at me,” she said huskily. She wanted to see his face when she told him how much she loved him.

But Meade didn’t want to see her. He could imagine only too well how she looked, lounging there with her bare shoulders and glorious mane of hair, her blue eyes still cloudy with sleep and the afterglow of passion. Just her husky voice was playing havoc with his senses.

“Meade . . .” she said more insistently, and he finally turned, steeling himself against the sight of her.

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“Damn it, Rayna, get dressed. This is not a whorehouse, and I’m not your first customer of the day.”

Her tender emotions and her desire to confess her love died a violent death. Barely holding on to her temper, she wrapped the blanket around her and came to her knees. “Why are you behaving this way, Meade? What in God’s name would possess you to say something that cruel to me?”

Meade was ashamed of himself, but he needed his anger. It was the only protection he had against what his tangled emotions were doing to him. “I’m sorry,” he said tersely. “It’s just that I’ve never deflowered a virgin before, and this is something of a new experience.”

Rayna almost laughed. “Speaking as the virgin in question, I can say it’s a new experience for me, too, but I don’t feel ‘deflowered.’”

“Well, you should. What I did last night was reprehensible. You should hate me for it, Rayna.”

She couldn’t imagine how anything so wonderful could be reprehensible, but she was undeniably hurt that he thought it was. “Would you feel better if I threw something at you and called you a cad?” she asked sarcastically.

“Damn it, Rayna. Take this seriously.”

“All right, I will. Why should you be so angry? I’m the one who’s been ruined, not you.”

“That’s hardly true. Spending the rest of my life married to an uncontrollable wildcat was not in my plans!”

Insulted and deeply hurt, Rayna sat up straight and nearly lost her blanket.

“When did marriage enter this argument?” she asked mulishly.

Her face was set into its most stubborn mode, and Meade realized he was making a bad situation even worse. “Don’t be obstinate. It’s obvious that I have to marry you now.”

“My, how romantic. Why, Dr. Ashford, I do believe that’s the sweetest proposal any girl ever received.”

“Romance has nothing to do with this, Rayna,” he snapped. “What if you’re pregnant?”

She hadn’t considered that, and didn’t want to. “Heaven forfend. If such a blessed event occurs, I’ll be sure to write and let you know,” she said furiously, struggling to get to her feet without losing the blanket.

“That’s not good enough.”

“Well, it will have to be,” she retorted as she began gathering up her clothing, “because marriage to a stuffed shirt like you is far too high a price to pay for one night’s pleasure.”

“Fine. You remain single and if you ever do go to a marriage bed, be sure to have a good excuse ready for why you’re not still a virgin!”

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“Go to hell, Meade,” she said viciously as she disappeared behind a clump of bushes.

“I probably will,” he muttered, then wondered if perhaps he’d already arrived.

The remainder of their journey was even more tense than the first part had been. Where before, Rayna had been eager for conversation to relieve the boredom of the trail, now she wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up and swallow Meade whole. It was her great misfortune to have fallen in love with a man who was determined to deny whatever tender emotions he felt for her simply because she wasn’t enough of a lady to suit him. He wanted to marry her, but only out of guilt and a sense of honor that caused Rayna more pain than if he’d cavalierly taken her virginity and left her without so much as a farewell.

For his part, Meade was almost as furious as Rayna, but his anger was directed inward. His emotions were tangled in knots so tight he didn’t think they’d ever unravel. He couldn’t think straight when Rayna was anywhere near him, and though he hated the thought of what marriage to her would do to his life, he couldn’t imagine letting her go. He had taken her virginity; the only honorable thing to do was marry her. That conclusion should have been simple, but Rayna was just too stubborn to see it. While he fumed and tried to sort out the mess he’d made of both their lives, she fumed and did an excellent job of ignoring him completely.

Once they traversed the Caldero Mountains, the going became much easier despite the encumbrance of the two additional horses they were leading.

Their encounter with the thieves had cost them a great deal of time, and despite the grueling pace they set, they didn’t reach Fort Apache until midday on Wednesday.

The regimental flags that signaled Crook’s presence were flying over the fort, and as Rayna neared the outpost, her anger at Meade began taking second place to her anxiety at the thought of meeting Crook. She had been disappointed by too many military men to have any faith in Meade’s earlier assurances that Crook would release Skylar. As they rode between the two headquarters buildings at the entrance to the fort, Rayna would have loved an encouraging word from her companion, but she was much too proud to ask for it.

Their unexpected arrival caused a considerable stir on the parade ground as former colleagues and subordinates called to Meade in welcome, but only one man came to greet them officially when they dismounted in front of Crook’s headquarters.

“Major Ashford! Welcome back,” Lieutenant Neville Franklin said effu-sively, pumping Meade’s hand. “When did you return to the territory?”

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“It’s just Dr. Ashford now, Neville, and I’ve only just arrived,” Meade answered. “This is our first stop.”

Franklin glanced at the blanket-draped bodies. “I see you two fellows had a spot of trouble.”

Fellows? Meade thought. How could any man be so blind as not to realize instantly that Rayna was a woman, despite her mannish clothes? “Yes, we did.

These two tried to bushwhack Miss Templeton and me in Denning Pass.”

He nodded. “Denning Pass, you say? We’ve had a number of ambushes there in the last few months. Maybe you’ve—” Meade’s words finally soaked in, and Franklin swiveled toward Rayna, who was tethering her horse to the rail. “Oh, I beg your pardon, ma’am. I didn’t mean to be rude. Welcome to Fort Apache.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Could you tell me, please, whom I should speak to about arranging an interview with General Crook?”

“Um, that would be Lieutenant Cary, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

Meade could see that Rayna was anxious to go, and understandably so.

“Neville, would you take care of these bodies, please? They’ll have to be buried at once, but I’d like to know if anyone recognizes them.”

“Of course, Maj—er, Doctor. I’ll see to it at once.” He unleashed the reins from Meade’s saddle horn and led the horses away, tipping his hat to Rayna as he departed.

Meade looked at her. “Would you like to freshen up and change before we meet the general?”

She shot him an exasperated glance. “Why? Are you afraid he’ll mistake me for a man, too? Heaven forfend I should embarrass you with my attire.”

Meade bit down on his tongue and sighed before reminding her, “You’re the one who mentioned something in Santa Fe about wanting to be appropriately dressed when you met Crook. If you want to waltz into his office reeking like a horse and looking like an itinerant saddle bum, far be it from me to object.”

“Good, because I want to get this over with,” she replied.

Meade gestured toward the stairs to Crook’s headquarters. “After you, dear lady.”

He was right behind her as she bounded up the steps, but once they were inside, Meade took charge of arranging an appointment with Crook. He’d never met the general’s aide, and he anticipated having to wait awhile to see the commander, but the mere mention of Rayna’s name sent the aide scurrying into Crook’s office. Less than a minute later they were being ushered inside.

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to Meade. “Good to see you again, Dr. Ashford. I heard you had decided to retire.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, it’s a very grave loss for the army.”

“Thank you, sir,” Meade replied, genuinely warmed by the compliment.

Crook never said anything he didn’t mean. “May I take it from the way the lieutenant rushed us in here that you have some inkling of why Miss Templeton has come?”

“Yes, I do.” Crook came around the desk and pulled a second chair away from the wall. “Please sit down. I’m afraid this isn’t going to be easy, and I certainly hadn’t anticipated being able to discuss this problem with you in person, Miss Templeton. In fact, I’ve been trying to draft a letter to you and your family.”

What did he mean, it wasn’t going to be easy? Rayna’s heart thudded heavily as she took the chair. “You received my letters, then, General?”

“Yes, and you have my heartfelt apologies for the suffering the army has caused you and your family.”

“Then you can help me rectify this injustice?” she asked, almost afraid to hope.

“I am doing my very best,” he said solemnly.

Rayna frowned. “What does that mean? My sister is now on the reservation at Rio Alto. Surely freeing her is a simple matter of signing a form ordering her release.”

“I wish it were that simple, Miss Templeton.”

Meade knew that Crook wasn’t completely at ease in the company of women, but his discomfort was out of proportion to the behavior Meade had witnessed in him in years past. “General, has something happened that Miss Templeton and I are not aware of?”

Crook couldn’t look at either of them. “I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, God,” Rayna breathed, clenching her hands into fists. “What’s happened to Skylar? General, tell me, please!” she begged, coming to the edge of her chair.

Crook was forced to look up from his desk. “The details are as yet unclear, Miss Templeton, but it has been reported to me that a young Apache woman named Skylark killed a soldier before their caravan reached the Rio Alto. She was placed under arrest, interrogated, and subsequently removed from captivity by a Mescalero brave named Sun Hawk. Both have vanished.”

“Dear God.” Rayna’s words were no more than a hushed whisper. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she rose abruptly, whirling away from Crook so that he couldn’t see them.

Meade was at her side instantly, drawing her into his arms. “I’m sorry, Rayna. I should have found a way to help you sooner.”

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Rayna didn’t return his embrace, but she didn’t reject it, either. She needed Meade’s strength right now to bolster her own.

“I am deeply sorry, Miss Templeton,” Crook said. “This never should have happened. General Whitlock should have ordered her release the moment you brought the situation to his attention.”

Rather than comforting her, his apology pierced through her fear for Skylar and found a home at the core of her rage. A flash of blinding anger gave her all the strength she needed to pull out of Meade’s arms and turn on Crook. “Don’t talk to me about what should or should not have happened, General, and don’t expect me to stand still for a mouthful of polite apologies,”

she spat out viciously. “I want to know what the hell you’re doing to get my sister back!”

Crook sat back in his chair so quickly that it nearly toppled over. “I’m doing everything I can, Miss Templeton, I assure you,” he told her when he finally found his voice. “But this is a very complex and complicated matter.

I’ve ordered a full investigation into the death of the soldier—”

“That’s absurd! Skylar couldn’t kill anyone even if her life depended on it.

The charge is obviously a lie!”

“I believe you’re wrong about that, miss,” Crook said, taking a stern tone with her. He understood her anger, but a lady found better ways of expressing her displeasure. “According to the report I received from the commander of the detail, your sister admitted killing the soldier.”

“Damn it, I tell you that’s not possible!”

“Rayna, that’s enough. Sit down and listen to what the general has to say.”

Meade placed his hand on her arm, but she jerked it away.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

He took her arm more forcefully and all but threw her into the chair. “I said sit down and shut up!” he commanded, startling her into momentary silence. He turned toward Crook. “Please forgive Miss Templeton, sir,” he said with very little apology in his voice. “You can’t possibly imagine what she and her family have suffered because of the army’s insensitivity. Perhaps if you gave us more details of this incident, we might be able to piece together the truth of the matter.”

Crook looked at Rayna as though waiting to see if she had any objection.

“I’m sorry, General,” she apologized sincerely. “Please tell us everything you know about what happened to Skylar.”

With a nod, Crook recounted the scant details from the report he’d received.

Despite the sketchiness of the report, Meade thought he had a clear picture of what had happened, and it sickened him. “Who is in charge of the Rio Alto detail?” he asked.

“Captain Luther Haggarty.”

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Meade knew him and didn’t like him one bit. “And the soldier who was killed?”

“Private Stanley Talbot.”

Meade knew him and liked him even less. Now he understood exactly what had happened to Skylar. “General, I have met Private Talbot and know him to be a degenerate swine who openly brags about the Apache women he has molested.” Meade heard Rayna’s despairing gasp, but he continued. “If Skylar did indeed kill him, she was only defending herself from rape.”

“That is my assumption as well,” Crook replied, then glanced at Rayna and found that she was as pale as a sheet. “Are you all right, Miss Templeton?”

The tears she had conquered before were stinging her eyes again. “How can I be all right, General? My sister may have been raped, and she is most certainly living a nightmare. I don’t know where she is or how to get her back or what she is suffering at this very moment.”

Meade reached out and covered her hand, but she balled it into a fist and twisted away from his comforting touch. “Don’t,” she commanded. “I don’t want or need your sympathy. I just want Skylar back.”

Meade retracted his hand and looked at Crook again. He knew the general too well to believe that he hadn’t taken some sort of action to rectify this problem. “What have you done to locate Skylar, sir?”

“I’ve turned the matter over to Case Longstreet,” Crook replied. “He’s taken his uncle and nephew with him, and by now they should have intercepted Captain Haggarty’s detail. His plan was to question Sun Hawk’s family in the hope that learning more about the brave would give him an idea of what he might do or where he’d go.”

Meade felt his first ray of hope dawning. “That’s good news, General. If anyone can find Skylar, it’s Case Longstreet.”

“My thinking exactly.” Crook looked at Rayna again. “I know my apologies are meaningless, Miss Templeton, but my promises never are. And I promise you that I won’t rest until you and your sister are reunited.”

Rayna believed him, and she finally understood why the Apache people trusted and respected him so much. His clear eyes and resolute mien demanded respect. She was only sorry she hadn’t seen it in him earlier.

Crook was an honorable man who would do everything in his power to right this injustice.

Unfortunately, that knowledge did nothing to assuage her fear for Skylar’s safety.

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16

Case caught up with Haggarty’s party at Fort Bowie, where they had been camped for two days to allow for provisioning the soldiers and collecting much-needed rations for the Mescaleros. In two more days the Apaches would be safely ensconced at Rio Alto.

Haggarty hadn’t been happy about giving Case the complete run of the camp, but considering the wording of Crook’s directive, he hadn’t had much choice. Case inquired about the wounded soldier who had been sent ahead to Fort Bowie along with the dispatch that had eventually made its way to Crook. He learned that the soldier was expected to recover. Case considered that very good news for Skylar and Sun Hawk.

He wasted no time questioning Haggarty about the events that had led up to Skylar’s escape, because he knew the captain would resent being interrogated by an Apache—even one who was so close to General Crook. Haggarty would only lie, and Case thought it best not to stir up trouble. He would leave getting the truth from the soldiers to Crook and instead concentrate on what he could learn from the Mescaleros.

Not surprisingly, Case was greeted with looks of suspicion as he made his way to Naka’yen’s campsite. His heart bled for the pitiful condition of the 192

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Mescaleros who had been uprooted from their reservation. He couldn’t understand why the government was so intent on stripping an entire race of people of everything they had—including what was left of their pride.

When he finally found Naka’yen, the old man was the perfect example of the kind of damage the white man could do to an honorable old man.

Naka’yen had kept his people at peace for years and all he had received in exchange were broken promises, and now a broken heart. The old chieftain barely had the strength to sit upright when he saw Case approaching.

Case had had the foresight to bring gifts of food and cloth for Naka’yen.

He knew he could never buy the man’s favor, but at least he could show him the respect he deserved. “I offer a gift of friendship,” Case said, placing the bag on the ground between them.

Naka’yen’s sad eyes studied Case, looking him up and down suspiciously.

“You are an Apache, but you wear the clothes of the white man, and I have seen that you have power over the soldiers. Why should you want to be my friend?”

“Because I have come to help your son.”

Life sparked in the old man’s eyes for the first time, and he sat up a little straighter. “What do you know of my son?”

Case sat facing Naka’yen. “I know that he is in terrible trouble, but that what he did was done for a good reason.”

“He is in love with the girl,” Naka’yen told him. “It was done for her.”

Case wasn’t particularly surprised by the news. He had assumed there was a bond of some sort between Sun Hawk and Skylar. Otherwise the brave would never have taken such a desperate chance to free her. “Do you know where he has taken her?”

Naka’yen’s gaze became shuttered and unreadable. “He said nothing to me before he left. I do not know where he is.”

“Would you tell me if you knew?”

The old man regarded Case suspiciously. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I have been sent here by the Gray Fox, who wants to help your son and the woman called Skylar. He knows that a great wrong has been done to her, and he wants to set it right. He wants to return the girl to the white family who raised her.”

“And what of my son?” Naka’yen asked. “He will be killed for what he did.”

“Not if the soldier lives,” Case assured him. “And I have already been told that the soldier will not die.”

A glimmer of hope sprang into the old man’s eyes. “My son will not be punished?”

“I cannot promise that,” Case answered. “But the Gray Fox has given his word that if Sun Hawk’s actions were justified, he will come to no harm. The Gray Fox has never broken his word to us.”

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Naka’yen took the promise seriously, but there was nothing he could say to help this stranger. “I do not know where my son has gone.”

Case believed him. “Would he join Geronimo?”

The old chief shook his head. “Only if he had no other choice. He does not believe that Geronimo’s ways are good for our people, but this long journey may have changed his mind. He counseled our people to peace and urged them to go with the soldiers. We both wanted to believe this would be good for our people, but I think we were wrong. Even before he left, my son had begun to doubt his wisdom.”

“If he counseled peace, he is infinitely wise, as are you, old grandfather,”

Case said respectfully. “The Gray Fox has made no promises about this, but he is already trying to send you back to your own reservation. He does not believe it was right to send you to Rio Alto. He is a powerful man, and many will listen to him. Speak of peace to your people, grandfather, and pray that you can go home soon.”

Naka’yen nodded, and Case began asking questions about Sun Hawk and about the hunting grounds they had visited before their confinement to the reservation. As he’d suspected, this band like many others had ranged from the plains to the north and east, south to the Mexican deserts, and west as far as the White Mountains. As a boy, Case could remember many encounters with Mescalero bands. Occasionally there had been disputes over their rights to hunt game in the territory claimed by Case’s people, but most of their relations had been friendly. He even knew of marriages that had taken place between the separate tribes.

If Sun Hawk was as skilled as his father boasted he was—and Case had no reason to doubt it, considering the efficiency with which he had engineered Skylar’s escape—he was going to be a formidable adversary. Quite simply, he could be anywhere.

“One final question, grandfather,” Case said. “Do you think your son would take Skylar back to her white family at the Rancho Verde?”

Naka’yen’s surprise suggested that he had not considered that possibility.

“Why would he? She killed the soldier who attacked her. My son would never believe that even the Gray Fox would care so much about a single Apache maiden that he would send someone to help her rather than punish her.”

Case stood. “You have been generous with me and I will remember it, old grandfather.”

He turned to leave, but Naka’yen stopped him. “If you seek to know more about the woman, you should talk to her people.”

“Her people?” Case asked.

“The Verdes. If you find their wagon, you will find her Apache father and mother.”

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Case nodded, feeling his spirits plummet as he turned away. Had Skylar somehow been reunited with her real parents? If so, it was not possible that she was his sister, Morning Star. He looked around and located the wagon Naka’yen had referred to. The old man who greeted him in English seemed to have been expecting him. He invited Case to sit and introduced his wife, Gatana, who had a deep gash on her forehead that had barely begun to heal.

Once again, Case explained the purpose of his visit and assured them that he was trying to help Skylar. Any information they could give him would be to her benefit.

“We know very little, Mr. Longstreet,” Consayka told him. “After Skylar killed Talbot, the officers took her to their camp and questioned her for many hours. They questioned others as well about how she had come by the knife, but Skylar told them nothing.” He shook his head sadly. “She paid for her silence dearly. We all heard about the bruises on her face and the blood that ran from her mouth.”

“Where did she get the knife?” Case asked, trying to shut out the image of his sister—if she was his sister—being so violently abused. In his mind, Morning Star was still five years old, and his instinct to protect her was still strong.

Consayka hesitated a moment, then shook his head, and Case realized that he was protecting someone, just as Skylar obviously had.

“Can you read?” Case asked, pulling a packet of papers out of the pouch that hung from his waist.

“Yes.”

“Then look at these papers and you will know that what I have told you is the truth.” He handed Consayka the passes Crook had written that authorized Case to take custody of Skylar and Sun Hawk and release them to no one except Crook himself. It also stated that Skylar was an Americanized citizen and was to be accorded the respect and rights due her.

Consayka inspected the papers carefully, and any doubts he might have had about Case disappeared. “Sun Hawk gave her the knife the night we left the reservation. Talbot had attacked Skylar as we came into the agency that morning, and he wanted her to be protected.”

Case felt a sudden surge of anger. “Did Captain Haggarty know about that attack?”

Consayka nodded. “There were many witnesses including the man, Norris, and Haggarty himself was there, though he refused to believe Skylar’s word over his soldier’s. But we were all a witness to what he did that day, and my wife was wounded when Talbot attacked Skylar at the river.”

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but two attacks and the captain still placed the blame for the entire incident on Skylar. But that was in the past, and Case had the future to deal with—and his dimming hope that she was his sister.

“I was told you are her parents,” Case said quietly.

“When we were taken from Rancho Verde, my wife and I assumed responsibility for Skylar so that she would have the protection of a family.

She is a kind and gentle young woman. We were proud to call her our daughter for a time.”

“Do you think you can find her?” Gatana asked.

“I don’t know,” Case replied. “Would she try to make it home to Rancho Verde?”

“I do not know where else she would go,” Consayka replied. “I think she would trust that her father or Señorita Rayna would be able to help her.”

It was a natural assumption, but Case didn’t want to jump to a hasty conclusion. There were too many variables involved. “Is Skylar in love with Sun Hawk?” he asked.

Consayka looked at Case blankly, but Gatana spoke up at once. “Yes, she is. I think she is confused about her feelings, torn between loving him and wanting to go home, but I know her feelings are strong. Love is in her eyes every time she looks upon him.”

“Thank you for being so honest,” Case said. “I want very much to help her.”

Gatana searched his face. “I believe you do.”

Consayka glanced at his wife, then at Case. “Would you like to take her things?

She has very little, but if you find her, I know she would want to have them back.”

Case needed to travel as light as possible, but he couldn’t resist the offer.

“Yes, thank you.”

Gatana went to the back of the wagon and pulled out a bundle. She offered it to Case and he accepted it, never imagining the intense effect it would have on him. For a moment he was transported back in time to the day his parents and his eleven-year-old sister were murdered. He had been showing his father the arrows he had made when his mother returned to camp with her two daughters. One Who Sings was shy and quiet, but little Morning Star was a bold child, full of life, with sparkling eyes and a laugh that Case had never been able to forget. On that day, she had run to her father clutching several sticks that she had insisted were arrows.

Gray Wolf had taken her onto his lap, and Morning Star held the arrows out for Case to inspect. He took them from her, praised them highly, and returned them to her. It was his last happy memory of his family, and the sights, smells, and emotions were suddenly as clear to him as if it had happened yesterday rather than twenty years ago.

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memory, he opened the burlap sack and removed a ragged buckskin dress that had probably been quite beautiful when it was new. There was a parcel of writing paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink, but nothing that might tell him if the girl called Skylar was really his sister.

Keenly disappointed, he picked up the dress. As he placed it in the bag, an object fell out of one of the buckskin folds and dropped to the ground. Case looked down at it, barely able to believe his eyes. It was the Thunder Eagle necklace that his father had given his mother thirty years ago and that Case, in turn, had given Libby. Pushing the bundle aside, he reached for the necklace, and it nearly seared his hand as he picked it up.

N o, it wasn’t the same, not exactly. The arrangement of turquoise and silver on the choker was different. There were no feathers, and the medallion was crudely carved. But the similarity was unmistakable.

“This was Skylar’s?”

“Yes,” the old man replied. “She made it many years ago when she was a young girl. In wintertime I would tell stories around the fire, and Señorita Skylar would sneak out of the house to listen to me. Her favorite was the story of Willow and Gray Wolf. Do you know it?”

Case could barely breathe. “Yes, I know it,” he managed to say.

“That necklace represents the one Gray Wolf gave to his bride. It had great meaning to Skylar.”

“She remembered,” Case whispered, clutching the necklace in his hand as he pressed it to his heart.

Consayka studied his intense reaction. “You wear the same symbol,” he said, looking at the plain medallion on Case’s chest.

Case took his own necklace and Skylar’s in the same hand. “I wear this for my sister, the daughter of Willow and Gray Wolf, who was stolen from me when our parents were murdered.” He looked into Consayka’s eyes. “I have been looking for her for twenty years, and now I know she is alive. Tell me everything you know about my sister . . . Please.”

Consayka did as Case asked.

The news Crook gave Rayna changed everything. She couldn’t go directly to Rio Alto now and liberate her sister by legal means, and there was obviously no reason to plan a daring escape. Sun Hawk had already done that, and no one had a clue as to where Skylar and the brave were or when they might be found. Even Rayna wasn’t foolhardy enough to think she could initiate her own search, but she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Rancho Verde without Skylar. And she knew her parents would want her to remain in the Arizona Territory until this insane predicament was resolved.

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Since she had nowhere to go, Meade insisted that she come to Eagle Creek with him, and Rayna wasn’t in a position to refuse. She accepted his offer but made it clear that she would make other arrangements for accommodations as soon as possible.

“Fine. We can argue about it later,” he told her. “For the time being, I just want to get home.”

It took two hours of hard riding to reach Eagle Creek Ranch, but with each passing mile Rayna could see Meade’s excitement growing. When finally they came over a rise and saw the ranch house in the valley below, he stopped and took a moment just to feast his eyes.

“The ranch doesn’t look like much, does it?” he said, but his broad smile betrayed his pride.

“I think it looks wonderful,” Rayna replied. And it did. The house was a simple two-story frame building with a wide porch running along two sides. Cottonwoods and sycamores shaded the yard, and the stock pens, corrals, bunkhouse, and stable that sat away from the house testified to the fact that this was a thriving working ranch. Though it bore little resemblance to Rancho Verde, Rayna was nonetheless struck by a deep pang of homesickness.

When two children darted out of the barn and began running toward the house, Meade’s smile widened even more. “That’s Jenny and Lucas,” he said happily, spurring his horse into motion. He went charging down the hill, and Triton, who had grown accustomed to following Chicory, tried to match the breakneck pace as soon as Rayna signaled him to move. As they neared the ranch house, though, she forced the stallion into a more sedate pace so that Meade could arrive ahead of her. The family she would be intruding on deserved at least a moment alone to welcome Meade home.

The children saw the riders in the distance long before they reached the house, and by the time Meade thundered into the yard, Libby was on the porch with Jedidiah Longstreet at her side. Jenny and Lucas raced to see who could reach Uncle Meade first, but the seven-year-old boy, with his longer legs, won out over his very determined five-year-old sister.

From a distance, Rayna watched in amazement as Meade practically threw himself off Chicory in his haste to greet the children. He gathered the boy to him and a second later was nearly knocked down as Jenny threw herself into his arms, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. He kissed them both soundly, then stood as his sister ran into his arms with more decorum but no less enthusiasm than her daughter had displayed.

By the time Rayna rode up, the man on the porch had come down to the yard and was shaking hands with Meade, beaming happily, and telling him how good it was to have him home.

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Sadly Rayna wondered how long it would be before she could take Skylar home to this kind of warm and loving welcome.

“Libby, I want you to meet someone,” Meade said, finally remembering that he’d brought a guest. Still holding on to her brother with one arm around his waist, Libby looked up at the visitor she’d been too excited to wonder about before. As Rayna dismounted, her golden braid fell over one shoulder, and Libby was stunned to realize Meade had brought home a woman! How wonderful! Judging from her appearance, she didn’t seem like the type of woman Libby would have expected her brother to marry, but despite her attire it was easy to see that she was exceptionally beautiful.

“This is Miss Rayna Templeton,” he told her. “Rayna, this is my sister, Libby Longstreet, her children, Jenny and Lucas, and our good friend Jedidiah Longstreet.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Rayna replied with a subdued smile as the children looked her over with curiosity and Jedidiah murmured a surprised

“How do you do.”

Her name registered on Libby immediately, and she realized she had probably jumped to an erroneous conclusion. However, she wasn’t disappointed.

“You’re Skylar Templeton’s sister,” she said, slipping away from Meade to greet Rayna properly.

“That’s right,” she replied.

Libby glanced cautiously from Rayna to Meade. “You’ve been to Fort Apache?”

Meade nodded. “Yes. We know what’s happened.” Little Jenny impatiently tugged at Meade’s trousers, and he bent to pick her up.

“Your brother has been a great help to me in my efforts to free Skylar,”

Rayna told Libby. “And now I fear I’m about to draw your family into this travesty even further. He’s offered me your hospitality until I can make other arrangements.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! Of course you’ll stay with us until Case finds Skylar.

I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Libby replied, taking Rayna’s arm and drawing her toward the house. She had a hundred questions about Skylar and about how Meade had become acquainted with Miss Templeton, but they could wait until she’d made her guest comfortable.

Jedidiah had far less patience. After the brutal murder of his friends Willow and Gray Wolf, the frontiersman had traveled throughout the Southwest with Case looking for the little girl who had been kidnapped in the wake of the attack. Morning Star had always held a special place in Jedidiah’s heart, and he had never given up hope of finding her. “We’re anxious to learn more about your sister, Miss Templeton,” he told Rayna.

She glanced at him, taking in the anxious look in his clear blue eyes. He was a big man, with a wild mane of silver hair and a beard to match, and 199

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though he was well into his sixties, he looked as vigorous as any man of thirty.

Rayna liked him immediately. “I can imagine that you would be curious about Skylar. I know it can’t be easy for either of you, having Case away from home searching for her like this.”

“Oh, if she can be found, Case’ll find her,” Jedidiah said almost dismissively. “But that’s not what I meant. Is—”

“Jedidiah, please,” Libby said, reaching out to silence him by placing her hand gently on his arm. “There will be plenty of time for questions later. Miss Templeton’s had a long and difficult journey. I’m sure she’d like to clean up and rest a bit.”

Jedidiah stayed behind as Libby led Rayna into the house, and Meade divided a curious glance between his sister and his friend, wondering what to make of the strange undercurrents he was picking up.

“What did you bring me, Uncle Meade?” Jenny asked, drawing his full attention by placing her hand on his cheek and turning his face to hers. “You promised me presents,” she reminded him.

“Can I take care of your horses, Uncle Meade?” Lucas asked before he’d had a chance to respond to Jenny.

“Yes, thank you. And I have presents for both of you.”

Jedidiah moved to the horses. “I’ll give Lucas a hand.”

“Thank you,” Meade said, puzzled by Jed’s subdued mood. He kissed Jenny. “Why don’t you go help Lucas and Jed, little one? If you bring in the bags off the packhorse, I’ll probably be able to find a present or two inside.”

She started squirming even before the last word was out, and when Meade put her down, she was off and running after her brother as quickly as her legs would carry her.

Meade followed Libby into the house and almost wished he hadn’t, because he was pressed into service immediately. While Tessa, Case’s cousin who lived on the ranch with her husband and helped Libby with her household chores, drew water for Rayna’s bath in the kitchen, Meade was assigned the task of moving Jenny’s belongings into Lucas’s room so that Rayna would have a room of her own.

Rayna protested that Libby was going to too much trouble on her account, and Meade was thoroughly delighted to hear Rayna finally lose an argument.

Rayna might be tempestuous, but Liberty Ashford Longstreet was unstop-pable once she set her mind to something.

It wasn’t until after supper that the Longstreet household finally settled down. Jenny hadn’t been willing to wait that long for her present, of course, and the porcelain-faced doll Meade had brought her was given a place of honor at the table while they ate. During the meal, Meade explained how he 200

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had made Rayna’s acquaintance, and Rayna, in turn, told them of the steps she had taken to procure Skylar’s release.

As they talked, Libby began to notice the strange, strained politeness that Meade and Rayna exhibited toward each other. They rarely looked at each other, and when they did, one or both looked quickly away. Theirs wasn’t the behavior of even the most casual friends, and Libby wasn’t quite sure what to make of them until she caught Meade looking at Rayna and Jenny as the little girl forced their guest to examine her new doll for the hundredth time. While Rayna patiently cooed over the newly christened “Matilda” and admired the doll’s starched white petticoats, Meade betrayed his feelings utterly by watching Rayna with an intense hunger Libby hadn’t believed he was capable of.

Obviously her original assumption about Meade and the woman he’d brought home hadn’t been wrong, after all, though Libby suspected that her brother was a long way from admitting that he had finally fallen in love. And what of the lady in question? Libby wondered. She hadn’t known Rayna long enough to truly like her or even to determine whether she reciprocated the feelings Meade was obviously trying to hide.

Only one thing was completely clear to Libby: There was a great deal more to the story they had related about their acquaintanceship than either of them had admitted over dinner.

Libby finally rescued Rayna from Jenny and put both children to bed.

Jedidiah, who had been even more taciturn than usual, seemed relieved when Libby came back downstairs carrying a carved wooden box. He fixed her with an impatient look.

“Can we get to it now?” he asked.

Meade frowned. “Get to what?”

“If you feel up to talking about it, we’d like to know more about Skylar,”

Libby said to Rayna, throwing an impertinent look at Jedidiah as she sat on the sofa beside Rayna and placed the box between them. “In particular, how she came to live with you.”

Rayna thought it an odd question, but she didn’t mind answering. “My father rescued her from a trio of Mexican slave traders while he was buying cattle in Sonora.” She went on to explain how Raymond had brought the frightened little girl home and ultimately adopted her.

“When did he get her from the slavers?” Jedidiah asked.

“When she was about five, nearly twenty years ago.”

“So she’s twenty-four now,” Jedidiah said anxiously, coming to the edge of his seat. “Do you know anything about her Apache parents? The report we read that Captain Haggarty wrote said she was Mescalero.”

Rayna frowned. Their questions and their responses to her answers seemed entirely out of proportion with casual curiosity. “Actually, Skylar remembers 201

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very little about her life before she came to us, but her clothing seemed to indicate that she was from the White Mountain tribe.”

“My God,” Jedidiah breathed, finally allowing himself to hope for the first time that he might be close to finding the child he’d called his pretty little princess.

Libby touched Rayna’s arm. “Does she remember anything about her family?”

“Only that they were massacred by a band of renegade Indians she thought might have been Chiricahua. For years she had horrible nightmares about the death of her parents and older sister.”

“Does she remember a brother?” Libby asked anxiously, but before Rayna could reply, Jedidiah topped her question with another.

“Did she speak any English?”

Rayna was getting dizzy looking back and forth between them. “Yes, as a matter of fact, she did,” she replied, remembering her very first encounter with her new sister. The memory brought a lump of emotion to her throat, and she had to clear it before she could answer, “She . . . knew two words quite well. She could say, ‘Princess pretty.’” Tears were suddenly coursing down her cheeks, and Rayna wiped them away with embarrassment. Her shame faded, though, when she glanced at Jedidiah and saw tears on his face as well.

Stunned, Rayna glanced at Meade, who seemed as mystified as she was, then looked at Libby again. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Mrs. Longstreet.”

“Nor do I, Libby,” Meade added. “I think it’s time you started answering questions instead of just asking them.”

“I’m sorry,” she told them, unable to repress her smile. “It’s just that we’ve waited so long for this.”

“For what?” Meade asked.

Libby opened the box and removed the Thunder Eagle necklace from its velvet cushion. Before she could begin her explanation, Rayna gasped.

“That’s Skylar’s—or very much like it,” she told Libby, reaching eagerly for the necklace.

Libby was shocked. “Your sister has one like this?”

Rayna nodded as she examined the necklace. “It’s not nearly as fine as this.

She made it herself from a description our Apache storyteller used to relate about . . .” She paused, unable to think of the names.

“Willow and Gray Wolf?” Libby supplied.

“That’s right.”

“Then she does remember,” Libby said softly, smiling at Jedidiah.

“Libby, what in blue blazes are you talking about?” Meade demanded to know.

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She looked at him. “Morning Star.”

Meade frowned and searched his memory. “You mean Case’s sister? Oh, but, Libby, surely you don’t think Skylar could be—”

“She is,” Jedidiah said adamantly. “Miss Templeton just gave us the proof of it.”

“You mean the necklace?” Meade asked.

The old frontiersman shook his head and tapped his fist against his heart.

“I taught Morning Star how to say ‘Princess pretty.’ No other Apache child could have known those two words.” Tears were still glistening in his eyes as he looked at Rayna. “Your sister is the daughter of Willow and Gray Wolf.

She’s the sister of Case Longstreet”—his voice broke completely—”and she’s my pretty little princess.”

Waving one hand in the air as though to shoo away his tears, he rose abruptly and stalked out.

Rayna felt her own tears returning. She could barely comprehend the enormity of what these people were telling her, but all she could think about was how happy Skylar would be to know she had another family who loved her this much.

Meade was having a little more difficulty accepting the truth. “Libby, this is too coincidental,” he said skeptically.

“No, it’s not, Meade,” she replied calmly. “It’s fate, and perhaps the mysterious workings of Case’s guiding spirit. Case never gave up believing his sister was alive, and he’s had a number of visions recently that led him to believe he might soon be reunited with Morning Star.”

Meade lowered his head and looked at her cynically. “More visions?”

Libby smiled patiently. “He was right about Crook’s return, wasn’t he?”

Reluctantly, Meade admitted that he had been.

Rayna was growing more confused by the minute. “I don’t understand any of this. Visions? Guiding spirit?”

Libby took her hand and patted it gently. “Let me explain. It’s a story I love to tell, and God willing, it will soon have a happy ending.”

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17

The next morning Rayna forced herself to perform the most difficult task she’d ever done. After breakfast she escaped to the solitude of her borrowed room and began drafting a letter to her parents.

Crook had been conspicuously relieved to have the dreadful burden of conveying the news removed from his shoulders, and Rayna knew that it would be better for her parents to learn it from her than from a stranger—

even a well-meaning one like Crook.

She softened the details of Skylar’s ordeal as much as she could, but she made no attempt to lie. It could be weeks, possibly even months, before Skylar was located, and neither Raymond nor Collie would believe a fabrication about bureaucratic complications. They would open the letter expecting to read that Crook had helped her or that he hadn’t. Rayna knew she owed them the truth.

And she also had the amazing job of telling them that she was staying in the home of Skylar’s brother.

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seemed almost as though she’d lost some special, ineffable quality of her relationship with her sister. Rayna had had Skylar to herself for so many years, and now she was going to have to learn to share her with a brother neither of them had known existed.

Rayna suspected that their mother would feel much the same way. That certainty made writing the letter that much more difficult.

“Rayna, are you finished with the letter?” Meade asked, tapping lightly on her door before stepping inside.

She pulled herself out of the confused reverie she’d slipped into. “Very nearly.”

“Good,” he said, feeling the same quickening of his heartbeat that he always felt when he saw her. She was dressed as she had been last night, in the skirt and blouse of her traveling suit, and the sun that poured in on her through the window gave her a radiance he could hardly bear to see. “I don’t mean to hurry you, but if we’re going to make it back from town by dark, we need to leave soon. Unless, of course, you’d rather wait until tomorrow to post the letter.”

Rayna shook her head. “No. I want to get this behind me, and I know Mother and Papa are anxious to hear something.”

“I wish we had better news.”

“So do I.”

They looked at each other for a long moment; then Meade started backing out of the room. “I’ll let you finish while I hitch up the team.”

“I won’t be long,” she promised, returning to the letter.

Meade turned at the door, but something seemed to pull him back.

“Rayna . . .”

She glanced up. “Yes?”

“We’re going to have to talk eventually.”

She knew what he was referring to, but it wasn’t something she felt equipped to deal with. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Meade.

Why don’t we leave it in the past where it belongs?”

He searched her face. “Can you really do that?”

Of course she couldn’t. What had happened between them on the trail was so much a part of her she didn’t think the memory would ever fade. Her pride wasn’t about to let her admit it, though. “I don’t see why not,” she replied, drawing her shoulders up a little straighter. “You made your feelings clear, and I believe I did, too.”

“But neither of us was thinking straight.”

“I was. And I think you were, too. You offered to marry me out of a mis-guided sense of honor, and I refused. If what happened between us was a mistake, I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life paying for it.”

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could do was hate him for it. Any proper lady of breeding would have. But then, Rayna didn’t know the meaning of the word “proper.” She was a force unto herself who bowed to no rules except her own.

“Very well,” he said after a moment. “If that’s your final word . . . ?”

“It is,” she replied, hoping she had effectively covered her disappointment that he hadn’t told her it hadn’t been a mistake. “Now, may I finish this letter so that we can go?”

“Of course, your majesty,” he said sarcastically, bowing his way out of the room.

Trying to shut Meade out, Rayna looked over the long letter she’d written and added one final assurance that she would do whatever had to be done to guarantee Skylar’s return. As she signed the letter and sealed it with wax, she tried not to think about the effect this news was going to have on her father’s weakened heart.

After stowing the letter in her carpetbag, she checked Jenny’s room to be certain she’d left nothing behind, then put on her jacket and went downstairs.

Libby was waiting to see her off, and Meade was just returning from having brought the wagon around. As he came through the front door, he glanced up the stairs at her and frowned.

“What are you doing with your bag?” he asked crossly.

“I’m taking it into town.”

“Why?”

Rayna thought her reasons should be perfectly obvious. “There’s no telling how long the search for Skylar could take, and I can’t impose on your family indefinitely. I think it’s best that I take a room in Bannon.”

Libby stepped forward and met her at the bottom of the stairs. “I do wish you’d reconsider, Rayna. Having you here is certainly no imposition,” she assured her.

“And besides,” Meade added, “do you really think you can bear the sus-pense of not knowing whether we’ve heard from Case? What are you going to do? Ride out here every day to see if we’ve had word?”

Rayna hadn’t considered that. “Well, of course not,” she said hesitantly. “I suppose I just assumed someone might be able to notify me if—”

Meade cut her off with an exasperated glance. “Rayna, Eagle Creek is in the middle of the fall roundup. I don’t see how we can spare someone to go traipsing into town every day to give you a report.”

“I don’t expect daily reports,” she said tightly.

“Then don’t insist on doing something stupid like staying in Bannon.”

Libby was appalled at the way he was talking to their guest. “Meade! That’s uncalled for.”

“Believe me, Libby, you wouldn’t say that if you knew what she’s really like. All you’ve seen is a rare glimpse of her best behavior. She is the most stubborn, headstrong creature I have ever met, and—”

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“And she’s standing in this room,” Rayna said hotly. “She’ll thank you not to talk about her as though she were in New Mexico.”

Libby whirled to her. “Rayna, I’m sorry. I know Meade doesn’t mean to be rude.”

“Oh, yes he does,” she replied. “He’s very good at it, too.”

Meade’s smile was sarcasm personified. “I’ve had lots of practice, thanks to you.”

Libby looked back and forth between them. “I swear, you two are worse than Jenny and Lucas,” she muttered in amazement. “Rayna, despite Meade’s rather heavy-handed invitation to you, I wish you’d reconsider. You can’t imagine how nice it would be for me to have you around the house for a while. I love the ranch and my children, but I do get lonely for another woman to talk to.”

Meade let out a scornful snort of laughter, and Rayna threw him a look that dared him to express his thoughts aloud. In the face of her challenge, he couldn’t resist. “Oh, by all means, Rayna, stay. I know you and Libby will have a lovely time discussing the latest fashions and exchanging recipes.”

Libby placed a hand on Rayna’s arm. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s only teasing me because he knows how much I hate superficial woman-talk about fashion and such nonsense.”

Rayna looked down at the lovely, petite lady and wondered if perhaps they might have more in common than she’d thought last night, after all.

Actually, it did make sense that she stay, but only on certain conditions.

“Libby, I would be happy to accept your hospitality if you’ll allow me to earn my keep around her. If you treat me like a pampered guest, I’ll go crazy within a week.”

Libby hadn’t been certain before, but she was now: She liked Rayna Templeton. Anyone who could get Meade this fired up and hold her own against his sharp tongue was definitely a woman worth getting to know. “Very well. From this moment on, I shall consider you a part of the family and treat you as such. Tessa and I will be more than happy to have someone to help with the household chores.”

Meade laughed outright this time and looked to Rayna. “Do you want to explain the facts of life to my sister, or shall I?”

Libby frowned in confusion, and Rayna told her, “What Meade is so graciously trying to insinuate is that I’m not very domestic. I’ve been helping my father run Rancho Verde for a very long time, and I’d much rather help with the roundup than with the dishes, if you don’t object.”

Libby was surprised, but not totally shocked. “Of course. Whatever you like. Case took his uncle and nephew with him, so we’ve been a little short-handed, anyway.”

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“Good,” Meade declared. “Now that that’s settled, shall we head into town?”

“Very well.” Rayna removed the letter from her valise and made her way outside to the carriage while Libby gave Meade the list of supplies she needed him to pick up in Bannon.

As they rode away, Libby stood on the porch watching them. She noted their stiff backs and the more than respectable distance between them on the wide wagon seat. They didn’t speak; they didn’t look at each other.

Libby smiled happily. If she’d had any doubts last night, they were gone now. Her stubborn brother, who’d spent most of his life insisting he didn’t believe in love, had fallen hard. He wasn’t happy about it, and he had no idea how to cope with his intense emotions, but he was in love all right.

It seemed that in the space of a single day, Libby had discovered not one sister-in-law but two. Of course, Case still had to find Skylar, and Meade had to admit he was in love, before they could all truly be a family, but it would happen. Libby was confident of that. There was nothing she could do to help Case, but Meade was a different story.

Humming a merry tune, Libby went about her morning chores.

After a very practical shopping spree in Bannon’s only general mercantile store, Rayna waited in the wagon while Meade finished filling the supply list.

She had purchased enough clothes to get by on and had impulsively picked up presents for Jenny, Lucas, and Libby.

The ride home was as uncomfortably silent as the ride into town had been, and the raw tension between them became the cornerstone in the foundation of their relationship for the next two weeks. They spoke to each other only when necessary and managed to keep their arguments to a minimum for the sake of Libby and the children.

Six area ranches had joined forces for the roundup, and Jedidiah was ram-rodding the Eagle Creek contingent. Once he realized what an excellent cowhand Rayna was, he made full use of her services and very quickly came to respect her. She got along well with the other hands and there was no job she considered beneath her. From sunup to sundown, she was on the range searching for small herds and driving them to the holding pens where they were separated into various herds according to their brands and earmarks.

She could cut a single cow out of the herd as well as any man Jedidiah had ever seen, and she was absolutely fearless. In fact, the only problem he had with her was that he couldn’t pair her up with Meade, who was also helping with the roundup. In the beginning, Jedidiah had tried to keep both of them close to him because he knew Meade had a lot to learn and Rayna needed evaluating.

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breakneck speed through the brush and over a hill after a stray, he had left the herd to go galloping after her. Long before he caught up with her, Rayna had reappeared on the rise with the docile steer trotting in front of her. The argument that ensued had spooked the cattle and kept Jedidiah’s ears burning for the rest of the day. The next morning he had wisely paired Meade with one of the other hands.

The arrangement had worked out to the satisfaction of everyone except Libby. She had tried to persuade Jedidiah to force her brother and Rayna to stay together as much as possible, and when he asked her reason, Libby had finally confessed that she was playing matchmaker. Though Jedidiah loved Libby like a daughter, he seriously questioned her judgment—and her sanity.

Never in his life had he seen a less likely couple than Rayna Templeton and Meade Ashford, and he was too busy with the roundup to dabble in playing Cupid for a totally lost cause.

The result of the working arrangement was that Rayna and Meade usually saw each other only at breakfast and supper. They were generally so exhausted from their labors that they turned in early, having barely spoken to each other the entire day.

Though the work kept Rayna busy, she had plenty of time to worry about how the roundup at Rancho Verde was faring without her, and far too much time to fret about Skylar. Every day that passed without word from Case Longstreet drove another spike into the coffin of fear that imprisoned her.

And the situation with Meade wasn’t adding to her peace of mind. He wore his disapproval of her like a badge for all to see, and kept any kinder feelings well hidden behind a suit of armor that nothing could penetrate.

Despite her exhaustion, the frustrating combination of emotions made it increasingly difficult for Rayna to sleep at night. She was tired of fighting with Meade, and she resented him because he couldn’t see that she needed his strength, not his disapproval. She needed his love, not his intractable hostility.

Only Libby seemed to understand what she was going through. Meade’s sister was kind and encouraging. At odd moments Rayna would catch a glimpse of her concern for her husband, but her faith in his ultimate success was unshakable. Rayna needed desperately to believe that all would be well, and though she didn’t quite have Libby’s conviction, her new friend’s faith kept Rayna going.

Two weeks to the day after she’d arrived at Eagle Creek, Rayna lay in bed tormented by fitful memories of her night with Meade and fearful imaginings about what Skylar was suffering. Everyone else had long since turned in, too, and the quiet house closed in on her. Finally she gave up pretending to sleep altogether, put on her robe, and silently made her way downstairs.

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The instant she opened the front door, she realized that she’d been wrong; not everyone had turned in for the night. The faint smell of Meade’s cheroot filled her senses, and her first instinct was to close the door and return to her room before he noticed her. The thought of spending another hour alone, tossing and turning, changed her mind. She saw him silhouetted in the moonlight as he stood leaning against the pillar at the top of the porch steps.

“Couldn’t sleep, either?” she asked as she moved onto the porch.

Meade turned and stifled a groan at the sight of her. He’d come out here to escape the tormenting sound of her tossing and turning in the room next to his. He didn’t need yet another reminder of her nearness. “No . . . I couldn’t sleep. Too tired, I guess.”

He faced the yard again, and Rayna sat on the steps. When he made no attempt at conversation, the silence became too much for her. “It’s not exactly life as you had it planned, is it?”

The question startled him. Surely she wasn’t referring to his obsession with her. “What do you mean?” he asked with a scowl.

“Your image of yourself as a gentleman rancher. It’s not all sipping fine wine on the veranda, is it?”

Meade remembered their conversation in Santa Fe when they’d discussed his plans. That was the first time he’d seen Rayna genuinely amused, and he’d been deeply affected by her smile and the sparkle in her eyes. He shored up his armor against the return of those feelings. “Frankly, I didn’t expect it to be.

I’m not afraid of hard work, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

Rayna sighed regretfully and stood up. “Sorry to disappoint you, Meade, but I’m weary of arguing with you. I’ll find some other place to sit, and let you enjoy your cigar in peace.”

She started down the stairs, but Meade couldn’t let her go. “Rayna, wait,”

he said, stopping her with a hand on her arm. “There’s no reason for you to leave. Sit down.”

She hesitated a moment, but when he lowered his long frame onto the top step, she joined him.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I suppose striking the first blow has become a habit.”

Rayna found a tired smile. “You could always just duck and run.”

“You’re not serious? I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. In fact, one of these days, I plan to get in the last word.”

“Good luck.”

Meade chuckled. “I’ll need it.”

They looked at each other and became ensnared in the web of emotion that always trapped them the moment they lowered their guard. Meade was the first to look away, and Rayna felt a sting of disappointment.

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“How long do you think your brother-in-law will be gone?” she asked, moving the conversation to neutral territory.

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” he answered. “I know Case won’t give up until he finds Skylar, particularly since he suspects she might be his sister.

He will find her.”

Rayna heard the respect in his tone, nor was it the first time she’d heard it.

“Libby told me you didn’t approve of her relationship with Case when they first fell in love.”

“Most emphatically not.”

“Because he was an Apache?”

Meade nodded. “I feared my sister was walking into a living nightmare, and I wanted to protect her from making a grave mistake. I’m not particularly proud of some of the things I did to keep them apart.”

“But you’re very fond of Case now, aren’t you?” she asked. “I can hear the respect in your voice when you talk about him.”

“He’s made Libby happy,” Meade replied, betraying a little of the surprise he still felt. “It hasn’t always been easy for them, but their love has given them enough strength to withstand the prejudice. And Case is an easy man to respect. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more honorable or more trustworthy.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Rayna commented.

“You’ll like him. Anyone who can see beyond the color of his skin does.”

They fell silent a moment, both a little stunned by their ability to have a normal conversation. They’d had so few of them.

“I like Libby very much,” Rayna finally said. “In a way, she reminds me of Skylar. They both have a certain air of quiet refinement and a gentleness of spirit that I envy.”

She sounded so sad about it that Meade nearly suggested she try to emu-late them, but he suddenly realized what a tragedy such an undertaking would be—and how futile. “You can’t change what you are, Rayna. Not every woman can be a Libby or a Skylar.”

“I know that,” she said, looking at him with love and very painful regret.

“But if I were more like them, maybe—” Maybe you could love me, she wanted to say, but couldn’t. She had too much pride to beg him to love her.

Abruptly she stood up. “I should turn in now. We have to get an early start in the morning.”

Puzzled by her sudden change in mood, Meade stood up and cut her off before she reached the door. “Maybe what, Rayna?” He searched her face, unable to escape the feeling that he was standing on the edge of a very important moment in his life. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing.” She tried to go around him, but Meade blocked her way.

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“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because it’s late.”

Meade placed his hands on her arms to keep her from moving away again.

“I don’t believe that. You’re the one who’s trying to duck and run now.”

Rayna looked up at him imploringly. “What do you want from me, Meade?”

“I want to know why you think you should be more like Libby.”

“I don’t,” she said firmly, wanting desperately to escape him before she did something foolish.

“But you said—”

“I was wrong.” She shook off his hands and took a step back. “I can’t change who I am for any man. Not even you.”

Meade was stunned. “I haven’t asked you to change, Rayna.”

“No, but you disapprove of everything I say, everything I do,” she reminded him, feeling the sting of unwanted tears. “One moment you’re kind, and the next you’re cruel. You snap and growl at me, and just when I think you despise me totally, you do something completely incomprehensible, like making love to me. What am I supposed to make of that, Meade? How can I not be confused?”

“Have you considered that perhaps I’m confused, too?” he asked crossly.

“When I’m not possessed with the desire to wring your lovely neck, I want nothing more in the world than to kiss you.”

“But I’m the one who gets punished for your confusion, Meade.” She looked up at him defiantly. “Which would you rather do right now? Kiss me or kill me?”

Meade felt a familiar, painful swell of desire. “Kiss you,” he answered honestly.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because it wouldn’t lessen the confusion for either of us.”

“So be it,” she said, swallowing her disappointment. “Sleep well, Meade.

If you can.” She darted around him and disappeared into the house, leaving Meade on the porch to grapple with the intense emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge.

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18

Rayna had already left with Jedidiah by the time Meade came down for breakfast the next morning. Lucas was in the barn tending to his chores, and Jenny was tagging along, doing her best to pester him.

“You look terrible,” Libby told her bleary-eyed brother as she served him a plate of griddle cakes.

“I didn’t sleep well,” he grumbled.

Libby nodded wisely. “That seems to be a common ailment. Rayna didn’t rest too well, either.”

Meade glared at his sister. More and more she was wearing a look that suggested she knew something he didn’t know, and it infuriated him. “Rayna has a lot on her mind,” he reminded her.

“So do you.”

“Is it any wonder? The roundup is almost completed, and Case still isn’t back. Jedidiah’s going to have to start moving the herd to the depot in Prescott in a day or two, and I’ll have to decide whether to go with him or stay here with you. That won’t be an easy decision to make. Jedidiah needs all the help he can get, but I don’t want to go off and leave you and the children all alone.”

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Libby tried to hide her smile. “I can understand why that would cause you sleepless nights,” she said solemnly.

Meade sighed heavily. “Damn it, Libby, if you’ve got something to say, just come out with it. I’ve never known you to pussyfoot around like this before.”

“All right, I’ll tell you what’s on my mind,” she said, pulling out a chair so that she could sit beside him. “You’re in love, and you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

Meade frowned and shoved his plate away. “I am not in love.” His chair scraped loudly against the floor as he pushed back from the table and stood up.

“Really? Then what do you call what you feel for Rayna?” she called after him as he stalked to the door.

“I don’t know, but it’s not love,” he said emphatically, shoving his hat onto his head.

Libby waited until he had flung the back door open to tell him, “That’s too bad, because she’s in love with you.”

Meade stopped in his tracks and turned. “She’s not.”

Libby nodded. “Oh, yes, she is. It took me a while to be certain, but I am now. I can see the hurt in her face every time you growl at her. She’s vulnerable, Meade, and she needs your love and support to get through this ordeal, but all you’re giving her is your own stubborn defensiveness.”

Meade returned to the table and planted his hands on the rail of the lad-derback chair opposite Libby’s. “Rayna Templeton doesn’t need anyone, and neither do I.” He turned away in frustration, then swung toward her again.

“My God, do you really think I want to be saddled with a hellion like that for the rest of my life?”

Libby smiled. “Yes.”

Meade’s scowl deepened. “You’re wrong. And besides, it might surprise you to know that she already refused my offer of marriage. What does that do to your theory that she’s in love with me?”

Libby hadn’t imagined in her wildest dreams that Meade had already proposed. “I don’t know,” she said with surprise. “Is that why you’re so obnoxious to her? Are you trying to punish her for refusing you?”

“Of course not.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “Well, I certainly can’t imagine why she wouldn’t agree to marry you. It’s so obvious that she wants your love, I just assumed you’d been too stubborn to confess it to her.”

Meade looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Actually, I didn’t come right out and tell her that I loved her,” he admitted, and Libby repressed a smile of satisfaction. At least he was no longer denying the feelings.

“Then what did you say when you proposed?”

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“Well . . . it wasn’t so much a proposal as . . .” He hesitated, realizing that Libby had trapped him into a discussion that was too personal to discuss even with her.

“As what?” she prompted.

He squared his shoulders and started for the door again. “It’s none of your business, Libby. Just stay out of it, all right?”

He stormed out the door, leaving Libby alone to speculate on exactly what was so private that he couldn’t tell her about it. Surely he hadn’t . . . He and Rayna hadn’t . . .

Or had they?

Too practical and nonjudgmental to be prudish, Libby considered the possibility that Meade and Rayna had already consummated their relationship.

The trip from Santa Fe to Fort Apache had been a long and hazardous one.

Two people who were obviously in love but determined to deny their emotions . . . It could have made for an explosive situation.

Libby had a hard time imagining her staid, cynical older brother succumb-ing to his passions, but then, he’d never really been deeply in love before, and he’d certainly never encountered anyone like Rayna Templeton.

It was entirely possible. In fact, the more Libby thought about it, the more convinced she became that she was right. It made a great deal of sense. It was easy to imagine what Meade’s proposal had been like, considering his reluctance to acknowledge his love for Rayna. They had made love, and then he’d probably bluntly told her he was going to do the honorable thing and marry her.

Libby was sure it hadn’t been the avowal of love every woman dreamed of, and knowing Rayna as she now did, she assumed that the response Meade received was probably even blunter than his proposal had been. Just the thought of it kept Libby chuckling merrily throughout the morning.

Obviously they didn’t need her matchmaking after all. If Meade had already made love to Rayna and still felt passionate about her, he wasn’t about to let her get away from him. He didn’t realize it yet, but he’d get her to the altar if he had to drag her there kicking and screaming.

And Rayna would let him.

Meade spent the entire day thinking about his conversation with Libby, unable to believe he’d all but confessed that he was in love with Rayna. It was preposterous, unthinkable, outrageous . . . and totally undeniable. Thorns and all, he loved her. And while he couldn’t imagine what life with her would be like, he couldn’t imagine being able to live without her, either. That was why he’d gotten so angry when she tried to insist on staying in Bannon, and why his heart leapt into his throat every time she pulled some damned-fool dangerous stunt. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.

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Every instinct he possessed called for him to protect her and keep her safe from harm. That was what a man did for the woman he loved, wasn’t it? But the idea of protecting Rayna Templeton from anything was ludicrous. He’d learned that she could do virtually anything a man could do, and when it came to ranch work, she did it a damn sight better than he did! Even if Libby was right and Rayna did love Meade, what could she possibly need him for?

He would never be able to control her. She’d laugh in his face if he tried to coddle her. Their life together would be an endless series of arguments, most of which he’d lose, because no matter what he might dictate to the contrary, Rayna would always do as she damn well pleased.

But on the other hand, she made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before. Just one of her mischievous smiles had the power to wipe away all the cynicism Meade had spent the last ten years building into a crusty exterior designed to keep anything from affecting him. She made him feel young again, and she inspired a passion in him that he hadn’t even known existed.

With or without her, his life was going to be hell. But if their one night of lovemaking was any indication, there could be glorious glimpses of heaven, too.

All he had to do was convince her of that.

By the end of the day Meade felt that he was almost ready to tackle the job. He was disappointed when he returned to the ranch and discovered Rayna wasn’t back yet. While Jedidiah went to the bunkhouse where he’d been staying since Meade’s return, Meade went into the house fully prepared to tell Libby that she’d been right about his feelings for Rayna. She had seemed so positive that Rayna loved him, and he needed a little reassurance to bolster him.

He found Libby in the parlor just completing her daily school lessons with Lucas and Jenny. But when she sent the children out to play, Meade could tell something was troubling her. He’d always been keenly attuned to her every mood, and he knew something was wrong now.

“Libby, what is it? Have you heard from Case?” he asked as soon as the children were out of earshot.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” she replied, then added wistfully, “How I wish it were.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Libby frowned as she collected Lucas’s primer and slate. “I’m not really sure. I had a very strange visit from Black Rope early this afternoon.”

Case tried to place the White Mountain Apache brave. “Isn’t he one of Case’s distant cousins or uncles, or something?”

“No, he’s just a member of his mother’s clan. He and Case have never been particularly friendly. I think there was some bad blood between Black Rope and Gray Wolf before Case was even born. He never comes here.”

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“No one can carry a grudge like an Apache,” Meade said with a grin that Libby wasn’t quite able to respond to. “What did Black Rope want?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. My Apache is only fair, but I understood him to say that he wouldn’t talk to anyone but Case. When I told him Case wasn’t here, he left, and an hour or so later Lucas was out riding and found Black Rope making a camp about a mile east of the house.”

“Maybe he came to ask for a job.”

“Possibly, but he has to know that Case has been gone for weeks. With so much of Case’s family still living on the reservation, news like that is known to everyone there.”

“Do you want me to ride out and have a talk with him?” Meade asked.

Libby shot him a droll look. “Meade, you speak about three words of Apache, and even those you manage to mangle beyond recognition. I don’t think it would be much help. And besides, Black Rope has never been the friendly sort.”

“Maybe his arrival is a good omen,” he suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe Black Rope has had some sort of special—I don’t know—premo-nition that Case is going to be home soon.”

Libby chuckled at that. “We’re going to make a believer out of you yet, Meade.”

“Don’t start, Libby,” he warned lightly. “I’m just trying to do what you do—look for the bright side of everything.”

“In that case, I hope you’re right,” Libby replied. “It would be wonderful if Case came riding into the ranch tonight with Skylar.”

Meade had to agree, but when Case did indeed come home a short time before sunset, he was alone.

Libby and Meade were waiting supper for Rayna when one of the hands coming from the barn sent up the cry of “Rider comin’ in!” Libby flew to the porch and recognized her husband in the distance. She ran across the yard, and the rider urged his horse into a gallop, then flung himself down and gathered Libby into his arms. Case barely had time to kiss his wife properly before Jenny and Lucas caught up with her. He hugged them, and together they made their way to the house, where Meade was waiting on the porch.

“Welcome home, Meade,” Case greeted him as they shook hands.

“The same to you,” he replied. “We’ve been very anxious about you.”

Case nodded. “I just came from Fort Apache where General Crook told me that you had brought Rayna Templeton here. I need to speak with her. Where is she?”

“She’s been working the roundup, and she’s not back yet,” Meade told him, a frown of worry furrowing his brow. “I’m starting to become concerned.”

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Case was surprised to learn that their guest had been put to work, but he didn’t question it. At that moment Jedidiah appeared and greeted his surro-gate son warmly.

“Has Libby told you yet?” Jed asked, beaming from ear to ear. “Rayna told us some things about Skylar that—”

“That prove she is my sister,” Case said, finishing Jedidiah’s sentence for him. “Yes, I know.” He reached into his pouch and withdrew Skylar’s Thunder Eagle necklace. “She made this herself from her memory of our mother’s necklace. The Mescaleros gave it to me along with the other belongings she left behind. Once I saw it and touched it, I knew she was Morning Star.”

“Have you found her?” Meade asked. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

Case’s face took on the inscrutable look of stone that had driven Meade insane in the old days. “No. I went south into Mexico, but I found no trace of them.”

“Did you encounter Geronimo?” Jedidiah asked, as they moved into the parlor.

“It would be more accurate to say that he encountered me, as I knew he would. Once I reached the Sierra Madre, two of his scouts intercepted me and finally agreed to arrange a face-to-face meeting,” he explained. “Geronimo swore that he knew nothing of Sun Hawk or Skylar, and I believed him. He had no reason to lie to me.”

Meade sat on the arm of the sofa. “Did you take advantage of the opportunity to invite him to return to the reservation?”

“After a fashion,” Case answered. “I told him that the Gray Fox would be coming for him soon and he should come in now.”

“To which he replied . . . ?”

Case shook his head. “He is determined to fight to the death this time. He is raiding in Mexico and across the border, and he seems to think he can elude the Mexican authorities forever. He won’t be easy to root out of the mountains—if Crook ever gets permission to go after him,” he added.

“So you’re no closer to finding Skylar than you were three weeks ago,”

Libby noted sadly.

“No. Although Crook did tell me that there have been several raids on ranches to the east of the San Carlos and White Mountain reservations. The locals in those areas are blaming reservation Apaches, and they could well be right—or it could be Sun Hawk trying to avoid having to join Geronimo.” He went on to relate the things he had learned about Sun Hawk from the brave’s father, and he explained the events surrounding the death of the soldier, Talbot.

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“One very good thing has happened,” he told them. “General Crook sent John Bourke, his adjutant general, to investigate Talbot’s death. After questioning Gatana and the other Verde Mescaleros, he interrogated Private Norris, the one who had sworn Skylar acted without provocation.”

“Did Norris recant?” Meade asked expectantly.

Case nodded. “Armed with the facts Gatana had given him, Bourke was able to break down Norris’s story in a matter of minutes. He confessed that Talbot had been obsessed with Skylar from the very beginning of the march.

He didn’t see the actual confrontation between them because Talbot dragged Skylar behind an outcropping of rocks, but he admitted that she had not ambushed Talbot without provocation.”

“Then there are no charges against Skylar?” Libby asked.

“None.”

“Rayna will be very relieved to know that,” Meade said. “But what about Sun Hawk?”

“Since the soldier he attacked didn’t die, Crook is inclined to be lenient,”

he answered, his eyes taking on a shuttered facade that masked his anger.

“Bourke and I both gave the general the accounts of several Mescaleros who swore that my sister was beaten and abused. Crook knows that Sun Hawk was right to fear for Skylar’s life. If he turns himself in, I doubt that he’ll spend more than a few days in the guardhouse.”

It was fully dark, and Libby had lit the lamps by the time Case finished, but Rayna still hadn’t returned. Meade was growing more anxious by the minute, and finally he couldn’t sit still any longer.

“Excuse me, Case,” he said as he stood. “I think I’ll check with the hands and see if anyone knows what’s keeping Rayna.”

As he left, Case looked curiously at Libby. “What’s wrong with your brother?”

“We’ve had a strange time of it here while you’ve been gone, beloved,” she told him. “Rayna Templeton is not a usual woman, and my brother has finally fallen in love.”

Case’s surprise showed plainly on his handsome face. “This is the same brother who so often told you he didn’t believe that love existed?”

“The very same.”

A slow smile spread over his features. “I think I will enjoy meeting Miss Rayna Templeton even more than I had expected.”

Meade made it only as far as the back porch when Rayna and her trail partner, Luis Santiago, came riding in toward the stable. By that time he was so worried about her that all his judicious notions of taking just the right kid-glove tone with her had been quashed.

“Where the devil have you been?” he asked as he charged toward the stable.

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Rayna slid down from Triton and began dusting off her Levi’s with her hat.

“We were rounding up the last of the strays around Windwalk Mesa and delivering them to the holding pen. Where do you think we’ve been?”

“Come into the house,” he commanded.

“I have to take care of Triton first.”

Meade took the reins out of her hands and tossed them to Luis. “Would you mind taking care of Miss Rayna’s horse, Luis?” he asked the man.

“I can take care of my own horse, thank you very much.”

He looked down at her and said bluntly, “Case is back.”

All the fight left Rayna, and she hardly dared to breathe. “Is Skylar with him?”

All of her emotions were shining in her eyes, and Meade hated having to crush the hope that blossomed there. “No.”

Rayna closed her eyes tightly and covered her face with her hands.

“Damn! Damn . . . damn . . . When is it going to end!” she screamed, her voice strangled by all the pain that came bubbling to the surface.

Unable to bear seeing her anguished, he placed his hands on her shoulders gently, and she looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. “When, Meade? When is it going to end?” she asked softly.

He gathered her into his arms. “I don’t know.”

She clung to him for a while, gathering the strength and control that had momentarily abandoned her, then pulled brusquely away and marched off to the house to meet her sister’s Apache brother.

Case Longstreet was everything Rayna had expected and more. He was a large man, very tall and imposing, with broad shoulders; but more than that, he had a commanding presence and an aura of peace surrounding him that was mesmerizing. His dark eyes were often unreadable unless he was looking at his wife, and then he held nothing back. Libby was a lucky woman indeed.

Case repeated to Rayna everything he had told the others and assured her that he had not given up. His next move, he said, would be to investigate the raids east of the reservation. Rayna, in turn, told him what little she knew about Skylar’s early years. The information was important to Case, but he needed no reassurance that Skylar was his sister. The knowledge in his heart was unshakable, and he was much more concerned with knowing about Morning Star’s life with her adopted family.

They sat down to supper, but all of them, including Lucas and Jenny, were too keyed up to pay much attention to the meal. After supper, Case put his children to bed, and it wasn’t until Libby heard a noise on the porch that she finally remembered her strange encounter with Black Rope.

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to the door and wasn’t surprised to find the Apache standing at the top of the porch steps.

“I have come for Longstreet,” he said in his own language.

“I will get him.” Knowing Black Rope wouldn’t come inside even if she invited him, Libby left the door open and she hurried upstairs to tell Case he had a visitor.

As puzzled by Black Rope’s appearance as Libby was, Case made his apologies to Rayna as he slipped out onto the porch.

“You are always welcome,” he told the brave in greeting.

Black Rope’s response was hardly congenial. “I did not want to come.”

“Then why are you here?” Case asked bluntly. He didn’t want to be rude, but Black Rope wasn’t a friend or a relative, and Case was eager to get back to Libby and their very special guest. There was still much he wanted to learn about Morning Star from Rayna Templeton.

What Black Rope had to tell him, though, more than made up for the inconvenience.

“What did he want?” Libby asked a few minutes later when Case returned.

He paused a moment as he captured Rayna’s eyes. “He came to tell me where our sister is,” he replied.

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19

The room erupted into chaos.

“How on earth could Black Rope know about Morning Star?

Where is she? How long has he known? Why didn’t he go to Crook? Why—”

The questions came rapid-fire from everyone in the room, and Case shook his head at the barrage and stood silently until the interrogation stopped. “Everyone on the reservation knows about Sun Hawk and the woman he helped escape,” he told them once he had their undivided attention. “And they also know that Crook sent me to find them.”

“Where is Skylar?” Rayna asked insistently.

“Black Rope told me that two days ago he came across a camp in the Nagona Valley. It had been vacated quickly, as though whoever had been camped there had known someone was coming. The signs he found told him it was a man and woman, but when he tried to follow them, their trail disappeared.”

“Where is this Nagona Valley?” she asked. “Is it far from here?”

“Not too far,” Case replied. “It’s in the White Mountains above the Fort Apache Reservation.”

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Rayna couldn’t sit still any longer. Her mind was racing, and she felt as though she’d had Skylar in her arms for a precious moment and then lost her.

“If Black Rope scared them off, they could be anywhere by now, couldn’t they? For God’s sake, why didn’t Black Rope go to Crook the moment he suspected he’d found them?”

Meade looked up at her. “Rayna, the Nagona Valley is off the reservation. If Black Rope was there, it’s very likely that he was off the reservation without permission.”

“Meade’s right,” Case said. “Black Rope couldn’t go to Crook without risking punishment. We’re lucky that he even came to me.”

“Why did he, do you think?” Libby asked.

“Because he feared that our people would be blamed for harboring renegades if Skylar and Sun Hawk were found anywhere near the White Mountains.”

“Is there a chance they’re still in the area?” Rayna asked hopefully.

“Possibly, but even if they’re not, I should still be able to pick up their trail.”

“Black Rope couldn’t,” Rayna reminded him, then frowned when everyone else began to smile.

“Rayna, Black Rope isn’t Case Longstreet,” Libby told her serenely. “Case will find her.”

Rayna couldn’t argue with her assessment of her husband’s skills because she needed to believe in them as much as Libby and the others obviously did.

“Are you leaving in the morning?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

Rayna squared her shoulders and prepared for a fight. “I’m going with you.”

Case frowned as he thought it over. “That’s not wise, Miss Templeton. I can travel faster alone.”

“I won’t slow you down,” Rayna argued.

“Perhaps not, but if Sun Hawk was astute enough to realize that Black Rope was in the area, he’ll bolt at the first hint that he’s being followed.”

“Then that’s all the more reason for me to come along. Skylar doesn’t know you. She and Sun Hawk will see you as another threat. But if she sees me, she’ll know she’s safe.”

If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Meade might have smiled. Rayna hadn’t uttered a single “hell” or “damn” since she’d started arguing with his brother-in-law. “She’s right, Case. Skylar would never run from Rayna, and you don’t need to worry about her slowing you down. Believe me, I know.” He stood and faced him. “We’re both going with you.”

Rayna turned toward him, wondering what to make of his offer and startling defense of her. “You don’t have to do that, Meade.”

“I want to. I was there in the beginning, and I’m going to be with you till the end. It’s only fitting, don’t you think?”

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He was looking at her so strangely, so . . . tenderly, that she couldn’t hold his gaze. “I suppose so.”

Meade looked at Case again. “Then it’s settled?”

Case knew he could refuse. If nothing else, he could slip off in the night and leave them behind. It would certainly simplify his job of tracking Sun Hawk without running the risk of being discovered.

But then he touched the medallion on his chest, and a strange sense of peace came over him. It was as if his spirit, the eagle, had spoken to him, telling him what he must do.

“It is settled,” Case said with a nod. “We leave together at dawn.”

Skylar was sorry that she and Sun Hawk had been forced to leave the Nagona Valley. The time they’d spent there had been one of the happiest periods of her life. Sun Hawk had felt it safe to stop traveling for a while, and Skylar had built a simple brush wickiup for them. Water had been plentiful, and Sun Hawk had been able to find enough game to feed them and to supply them with several much-needed deer hides. He had patiently taught her how to scrape and tan the hides so that they could make them into moccasins and warm clothing to ward off the autumnal chill of the mountains.

She and Sun Hawk had worked hard, but there had also been time for play, and every night in their tiny home, they had made love with the same sweet passion as the night he had taken her as his bride. He proved his love for her every day in small ways that Skylar had never imagined could be so important.

Though he tried to protect her from his worry about what lay ahead for them, she knew he thought about it a great deal. But strangely, what troubled Skylar most was that he also worried about the connection she still felt to the Templeton family. He knew instantly whenever her thoughts went to Rayna or her parents. He would see a glimpse of sadness in her face, and it would make him angry—or at least that was how it had seemed to Skylar at first.

It had taken her a while to realize that what he felt was fear, not anger.

He wanted so much for her heart to be with him and nowhere else that he was afraid he would someday lose her to the white world she had been raised in. Skylar had tried to assure him that such a thing could never happen because her life was with him now, but she knew that his doubts persisted.