Because he stopped so frequently to check the tracks they were following, Laura became accustomed to sitting on her horse, numb with exhaustion yet nervous, waiting while he walked a circle around her, the thought never far from her mind that she still wasn't certain she could trust this man. It was for that reason that she was so acutely aware of his every movement when he drew up yet again, dismounted, and walked to the opposite side of his stallion. He flexed his shoulders slightly, to work out the cricks, she surmised, and then gazed off into the distance. Laura followed his look, wondering what he saw.

She was still searching the grassy hillside before them when she heard an odd sound. Glancing down, she located its source on the ground in front of Deke Sheridan's spread feet. For a moment, she stared at the growing puddle, quite certain her eyes were deceiving her.

"Mr. Sheridan!"

Startled by her cry, he jerked. The next instant, his gun flashed above his horse's back, his free hand poised to fan the hammer. The muscles in his dark face taut with tension, he spun around, clearly prepared to blow a hole in anything that moved.

"What?"

Already regretting her outburst, Laura gulped. But the damage had been done, and there was naught to do now but continue as brazenly as she had begun. If there was one lesson she had learned over the last two years, it was never to let a man know she was afraid of him. "Were you voiding?" she asked a little shrilly.

He turned that ice blue gaze on her, only suddenly it no longer seemed cold. Searing might have better described it. Laura was still conscious of the fact that he had his gun ready to fire, and for a horrible moment, she feared he might shoot her.

"Was I what?"

There were times when Laura wondered if her life might have proved less stressful had she been born without a mouth. The pitch of her voice now markedly thin, she managed to repeat herself. "Were you voiding?"

The incredulous expression that came over his face made her hands convulse on the reins. He stared at her for a moment so fraught with tension, she could scarcely breathe. Then he glanced down. From the movement of his shoulders, she guessed he was shoving his gun back in its holster and jerking at his pants.

"So-oo-n of a-aa-a bitch!"

She jumped at the snarled curse. A shuffling sound drew her attention to the ground, and she saw that he was rubbing one moccasin in the dirt. A decidedly wet moccasin.

In a high-pitched voice, clearly intended to emulate hers, he said, "Mr. Sheridan! Were you voiding? Jesus Christ." His head snapped up, and he leveled her with a glare. "Hell, no, I wasn't voiding. You screech like that again, and I swear, I'll give you an ass warmin' you'll never forget. I damned near shot the dog."

Laura gulped again. Hoping to calm him down, she said, "Mr. Sheridan, surely there is no need to get so testy."

"Testy! You scare me out of a year's growth, and you think I'm testy? Testy don't say it by half. For two cents, I'd jerk you off that horse and paddle your little behind. If it wasn't for the sorry shape it's already in, I damned sure would!"

"II'm sorry. I was simply It just took me aback."

"Aback?" he bit out.

Laura's muscles felt so brittle, she feared they might snap. "Well, truly, Mr. Sheridan, it is a bit beyond the pale for you toyou knowright out here in front of God, me, and anyone else who cares to look."

"Beyond the pale?"

Judging by the way he kept repeating everything she said, Laura was beginning to think that, in addition to a year's growth, she had scared the good sense out of him as well, if indeed he had any. "Yes," she said weakly. "Beyond the pale. Those with a modicum of couth don't do such things."

"What I got is a wet foot," he shot back. "Couth? What in hell is that? As for doin' it in front of you, you couldn't see a thing."

None too certain he wouldn't carry through on his threat to jerk her off her horse, Laura strove to keep her expression carefully blank and forced herself to meet his gaze. "That much is true, I suppose, if one discounts decent proximity."

"Decent what?"

"Mr. Sheridan," she said, striving rather desperately for a soothing tone, "I've already apologized. What more can I say?"

"God only knows. That's one thing you ain't never short on, honey, and that's words."

"I didn't intend to startle you."

He swiped the back of his hand under his nose. "Well, you sure as hell did. Out here ain't no place to screech at a man when he ain't expectin' it."

"I'm sorry. As I said, you took me aback, and I..." She waved a hand. "Please carry on, Mr. Sheridan, in whatever fashion you wish. Far be it from me to criticize. It just seems to me that it would be little enough trouble for you to walk out into the bushes when you have a need to commune with nature."

"Boston, there ain't a bush for a mile that hits above my knees. You really want me to walk out there and commune? A fine fix you'd be in if I wandered off clear to hell and gone and somethin' happened!"

He had a point. Two, actually. She would certainly be in a fine fix if he wandered too far afield, and when she searched for a suitable bush close at hand, she couldn't see one. They happened to be in a grassy area that sported few woody plants. "Perhaps you might have waited for a more opportune moment."

"Next time I'll stop by a crick, that's for sure," he said as he walked back around his horse. "Leastways then I can wash my goddamned foot."

After swinging up into the saddle, he swept his hand over his face, giving his eyes a rub on the descent, then wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. Laura averted her gaze, afraid he might yet decide to vent his anger.

Voiding, not five feet from her? She simply couldn't credit it. The man had no manners whatsoever.

Without so much as a word to her, he dug his heels in and sent his horse into a jarring trot up the path. Already accustomed to keeping the pace, Laura's gelding fell in behind, snapping her teeth together with every step. She clung to the saddle, determined to follow without complaint at whatever speed Sheridan set.

A little farther north as the slopes became steeper, she noticed that the oaks became strangely absent, giving way to mountain mahogany that interrupted sparse stands of ponderosa pine.

As if he noticed her appraisal of the landscape, Sheridan, his mouth still tight with irritation, finally slowed the pace of his horse and indicated the terrain with a sweeping gesture. "We've come north of Denver. There ain't no oak up this way." Inclining his head, he said, "That's ninebrush. And that's hawthorn. Take a good look and file it away in your memory. If it ever happens that you gotta take these foothills on by yourself and you're travelin' south, you'll know to head east for Denver when you start seein' thickets of oak."

Laura tightened her grip on the reins, wondering a little frantically if he planned to abandon her. She could think of only one thing that might be more frightening than being in these hills with Deke Sheridan, and that was being here without him. "I'd never find my way out of here," she said shakily.

"Hell, Boston, goin' east, how lost can ya get? Telegraph lines, remember?"

Laura wished his horse would get a bee up its nose and throw him clear into next week. "Fortunately, as long as I'm with you, I don't have a worry. Correct, Mr. Sheridan?"

"In this country, you ain't got no way of knowin' what the next minute might bring."

With that, he nudged his stallion back to its former pace, coaxing the string of packhorses to fall in behind. Laura cast a frantic look around at the different species of flora and tried to imprint their images on her mind. No oak north of Denver. It seemed a simple enough thing to remember, but for her, it wasn't, not at all.

She dug her heels into her gelding's flanks. "Mr. Sheridan? You don't have it in mind to leave me out here alone for some reason, do you?"

As if the question startled him, he wheeled his horse around to regard her. The late afternoon sun slanted under the brim of his hat, bathing the right side of his dark face. His eyes caught the light like prisms. Her gaze dropped to the heathen medallion and the sunburst of bear claws on his chest, and she felt idiotic for having pressed him. He had no loyalty to her, and like other men, if the mood struck him to take off, he probably wouldn't think twice about the woman he left behind.

There was no mistaking the indignation in his expression. Laura had dealt with this reaction before, more times than she cared to count. When she had questioned his intent toward her, Tristan had always taken offense as if it were an insult to his masculinity that she should doubt him. In the beginning, Laura had been fooled by that stiff-necked pride.

"I took this job, didn't I?" he bit out.

Laura wanted to scream at him not to answer her question with a question. That, too, had been one of Tristan's tricks, always putting her on the defensive. Why couldn't men give simple yes or no answers?

"I ain't a man to take on responsibility and then shuck it."

Laura surmised he meant shirk and bit the inside of her lip to keep from correcting him. Not that his choice of words made a whit of difference. What mattered was whether or not she could trust him. Bitter experience told her not to. But considering his present frame of mind, she wasn't fool enough to indicate that.

"I meant no offense, Mr. Sheridan. It's just that the thought of being alone out here frightens me."

He gave her a purely scathing appraisal with eyes that made her feel stripped. "Well, you can stop frettin'. Even when it's as plain as the nose on my face that I've made a mistake, I don't light out."

"A mistake? How so?"

"Look at you, and answer me that yourself. I let you rest till damned near noon, and six hours later, you're so played out, you're shakin'. Even your voice is shakin'." He gestured with a broad hand. "Hell, honey, we could be on a Sunday ride for all the ground we've covered."

"I am not played out," Laura protested. "If my voice is shaking, it is only because the thought of being left alone out here unnerves me. I'm not at all sure I could find my way, and I haven't any means of protecting myself."

"Not played out? I'd hate to see what tuckered is. I'll tell you right now, false pride don't take a body far in this country. Even the thin air turns against you. You'd best tell me when your steam runs out. I ain't a mind reader, and I'll keep goin' till you have the good sense to tell me different."

He turned his horse back onto the trail. "As for the other, I ain't gonna leave you, no matter how temptin' you make the thought. If something happens to me, you'll have my weapons, and until you learn to follow your nose, let Chief lead you."

Laura threw the dog a dubious glance. "He'd know to take me to Denver?"

"Nope. But he's got sense enough to sniff out people, and he's a fair judge of character. If you was lost, I don't reckon you'd be too choosey."

Laura conceded the point and reined her gelding in behind his black again. "No, I don't suppose I would." Not too choosey at all, she added silently. The fact that she was in these mountains with a man like Deke Sheridan was testimony to that.

The steady ascent frequently pitted horses and riders against steep terrain. Laura clung grimly to the saddle, ignoring the pain in her back and chest as she leaned close to her gelding's neck. There were moments when she so pitied her mount that she might have followed Mr. Sheridan's example and walked had she not been so weak. The one time guilt drove her to try, he ordered her back on the horse, claiming her weight, unlike his own, was so slight that the animal would scarcely notice it.

The Rockies... Even as awful as she felt, Laura was awestruck by their beauty. Seeing them from a distance was nothing compared to actually being high in the foothills. Sometimes she felt close enough to reach out and touch the craggy peaks, which seemed to stretch forever against a pale blue sky. She marveled that anyone had ever found a route through them.

Deke Sheridan seemed so at home here in the high country that she was finally driven to ask, "Did you spend a lot of time up here as a boy?"

"Not much," he called back over his shoulder. "The Cheyenne is a plains Indian. But they came into the mountains sometimes."

Laura frowned slightly. "To hunt?"

"Nope. There was always plenty of game in the lowlands."

"To escape the summer heat then?"

He took a moment to answer. When he finally did, the last traces of irritation had dissipated from his voice, a great relief to Laura, for it was frightening to have him angry with her. "Mostly to do the unexpected. Ain't nothin' like bein' where you shouldn't to avoid trouble."

Her frown deepened. "Trouble? Enemies, you mean?"

"You sound surprised. The Cheyenne do have enemies, and the braves ain't so different from white men when it comes to worryin' over their women and children. When trouble is on their heels, they ain't too proud to hide for a spell so it can pass 'em by."

"Could it be Cheyennes that the comancheros are going to meet?"

"Could be. Especially right now, what with all the hostilities. I ain't seen no writin' yet to tell me what kind of Indians are up this way."

"Writing?"

"What you'd call marks, I reckon. To us that can read Indian sign, it's writin'. Cowpokes call it an injun post office. When I spot some, I'll show you."

"Why do they leave writing?"

"To say where they're headin'. Indians break off into groupsbands is what you folks call 'em. Sort of like in your white towns, the groups of people live together, the only difference bein' that their towns move to follow the wild game. In your world, just 'cause you live in one town don't mean you ain't white like the folks in the next town. It's the same for Indian tribesa village here, and a village there. They leave writin' so others in their tribe can find 'em if there's a need."

Despite her exhaustion, Laura was alert enough to notice how he referred to the "white world" as if he didn't belong in it. He clearly considered himself to be a Cheyenne, and given her vulnerability, that wasn't particularly reassuring.

"So your people have a means of communication, then, rather like our telegraph wires?"

"Except you gotta go lookin' for the messages."

"Aren't they afraid their enemies will read the messages?"

"Depends on the enemy. If they're warrin' with other Indians, they don't leave sign but send out riders to take word to other bands. If they're hidin' from whites, they got no call to bother. Most white men is too damned ignorant to read the marks Indians leave for each other."

He drew up his horse and leaned sharply sideways to study the tracks they were following. After a moment, he straightened, apparently deep in thought. "Boston, I know you're gonna pitch one hell of a fit, but my gut's tellin' me we should make camp for the night. I don't like the looks of this trail we're followin'."

Laura nudged her horse closer and, following his example, bent to look at the tracks. She couldn't see anything troubling about them. "What is it you don't like? It looks to me as if we still have a clear trail to follow."

He took off his Stetson, looped the bonnet strings over his saddle horn, and turned his face in to the breeze. A faraway expression came into his eyes, and he seemed to be listening to things she couldn't hear. With his dark hair hanging loose to his shoulders and his burnished skin kissed by fading sunlight, he looked unnervingly savage, his powerfully muscled body coiled tight with tension. She glanced nervously over her shoulder.

"Mr. Sheridan," she whispered, "what is it?"

"Nothin' if you don't suspicion engraved invites."

"Pardon?"

His expression cleared, and he focused on her face. "An invite, Boston. That's what this trail we're followin' is."

"You're complaining? It's a trail a child could follow. We ought to be thankful."

He smiled slightly. "Men don't leave tracks this clear unless they're hankerin' to get found."

A chill ran up Laura's spine. "A trap, you mean? But why?"

She immediately regretted having asked that. The smile left his mouth, and he ran his gaze slowly over her person. "You're a beautiful woman. Whiskey hair and whiskey eyes, and skin the color of cream. Maybe back in Boston, you ain't nothin' grand, but out here, honey, you're a sight for a hungry man's eyes. I'd say you've got yourself some admirers that ain't willin' to accept defeat."

Unsettled, Laura looked away. "What shall we do?"

"I can tell you what we ain't gonna do, and that's walk into an ambush. I didn't take this on so's I could serve you up to 'em like a pigeon on a platter. We gotta get off this trail."

She swung back to regard him. "I have to go after my baby, Mr. Sheridan, regardless of the risk to myself. We can't abandon these tracks!"

He pushed up in the stirrups to stretch his legs. With a flex of his shoulders, he resumed his seat. "Did I say anything about abandonin' the tracks? I said we gotta get off the path. What we'll do is ride left flank and crisscross to make sure we ain't losin' the scent. It ain't the easiest way, but it's damned sure the safest."

"Why make camp so soon? Can't we commence riding flank right now?"

He shot her another appraising glance. "You're spent, and the most we got left is an hour before we gotta start lookin' for a safe spot to lay over."

"I can easily go for another hour."

His mouth quirked at the corners. "If it'll make it easier to accept, Boston, it'll be gettin' dusk in a few minutes, and to ride flank, I need good light. So far, for the biggest part, we been ridin' already broke trail. When we get off the beaten path, we'll have to blaze our own way."

All Laura could think about was reaching Jonathan. "Perhaps we might stick to the beaten path another hour then?"

"And accept a comanchero invite? There ain't nothin' to say they ain't waitin' right over the next hill. Probably not, but there you got it." His ice blue gaze delved deeply into hers. "You don't wanna find out. Trust me on that."