Garon came home unexpectedly on a bl.u.s.tery cold autumn day. He couldn't find Miss Turner or Grace inside, so he changed to his ranch clothes and went out looking for them.

The Expedition was gone. At first he thought the two women had gone to town for something. But he became aware of voices in the big barn out back. He started to ward it, curious about what was being said.

As he approached closer, he noticed two things. There were no cowboys around, and the man talking to Grace was the missing link in the child murders. It was Sheldon!

15.

GARON COULD HAVE TRIED to bluff it out, by moving closer with a display of careless welcome. But Sheldon was too sharp for subterfuge to work on him. Instead Garon did the only thing possible in the circ.u.mstances. He drew his service weapon, snapped its sights on the visitor and called, "FBI. Keep your hands where I can see them!"

Grace caught her breath as she realized that Garon had recognized this man and considered him a threat. He'd come to the house to ask about adopting one of the kittens in the barn and Grace had gone out there with him. She remembered him from her childhood. He'd been a subst.i.tute teacher at her school. All the children had liked him.

Sheldon was moving back to Jacobsville, he'd told her, and he needed a cat to get rid of mice. Someone had mentioned that they had a new litter. Which they did. Grace always had kittens from the barn cat.

The man was intelligent and pleasant, just as she remembered him being. But there was something about him that made her uneasy. Something...She was trying to put her finger on it when Garon appeared at the door of the barn.

It happened so fast that she didn't realize what was going on until her visitor suddenly grabbed her around the neck and held the sharp edge of a knife to her throat. She knew then why she'd been apprehensive. There was a smell to this man that was individual and chilling. She could see his wrists above the thin gloves he wore. His skin was white. She knew who he was now, and that he'd come back to make sure she couldn't identify him. Her mind went back to the past, to the things this animal had done to her. Now she was pregnant, and he seemed eager to rob her of her child, and her life.

"I didn't expect you to identify me, Grier," Sheldon called to him, laughing. "I've always kept on the move, one step ahead of the law. But everywhere I go, people are looking for me. Know why?" he asked. "Because of my d.a.m.ned hands. I thought wearing gloves would throw people off the track, but that description you put out on me was too good. I've been on the run since spring."

Garon's eyes didn't waver from the subject. This wasn't a new situation for him, not after six years in the Hostage Rescue Team. "What do you want? Transportation? Money?"

"I'm through running," the man replied. His arm tightened around Grace's slim neck and the knife pressed harder, cutting the skin. "But before you get me, I'm going to clear the deck. This-" he indicated Grace "-is the only one who got away. They said she had amnesia. But when you started identifying me by my hands, I knew she'd lied about forgetting. She hadn't forgotten a thing."

"She's pregnant," Garon said through his teeth.

"That's nothing to me," the man said in a monotone. "I hate children. Especially little girls. My stepmother hated me, especially when she found out she couldn't have a child. I wet the bed and she punished me by making me wear frilly dresses. She kept my hair long and tied it up with ribbons. She sent me to school like that." His face grew red with temper. "My father was afraid of her, so he never said a word. Everybody made fun of me. But I grew up. I got bigger than both of them. And I got even." he smiled coldly. "I told the cops that a strange man did it, that I ran for help when I saw what he was doing. I cried and cried. Stupid cops. They believed me."

"Is that why you wear gloves?" Garon asked, the pistol still aimed at the suspect. "Because you feel guilty?"

Sheldon moved restlessly. "When I was twelve, I started wetting the bed again. It was dark and cold and all we had was an outhouse, and I was still afraid of the dark. I held it until it was almost light, and then I couldn't hold it anymore. I covered it up and went to eat my breakfast. I hoped she wouldn't see it until I went to school. But she went to make up the bed before the bus came and saw where I'd wet it. She was starting a stew for lunch. The water was boiling on the stove. She screamed at me, that I was stupid and r.e.t.a.r.ded, and that she'd make me sorry. She grabbed my arms and rammed my hands into the boiling water..."

Garon grimaced.

The suspect saw it. He hardened. "I told my dad what she'd done. He said I was a liar, because she was a good woman. He said she'd never hurt me. He took me to the doctor and told him that I stuck my hands in boiling water so I could blame my stepmother for it." His voice trailed away. "The pain was awful. They gave me an aspirin and put some purple cream on my burned skin. When they healed, the scars covered them. I had to learn to do everything with gloves on, so n.o.body would make fun of me."

"You killed little girls who'd done nothing to you," Grace choked.

"You looked like her," he spat. "All of you looked like her! Like my stepmother. I was twelve when she ruined me for life. So I killed twelve girls who looked like her. One for each year. Except you lived," he muttered into Grace's hair. "I can't let you live. You'll break the chain."

"Let her go," Garon told him.

"It's your kid she's carrying, isn't it, Grier?" he asked, tightening his arm around her neck so that she gasped. "Too bad she won't live to give birth to it." He shifted his weight.

Garon had never felt such anguish. The man wasn't bluffing. His fantasy was linked to killing the girls who looked like his stepmother, and this was the end of it. There was no time to call in negotiators, to ask for backup. There was no time to do anything except react. In split seconds, he'd slit Grace's carotid artery, and no power on earth would stop her life from bleeding out into the soil at her feet. He pictured those beautiful gray eyes closed forever, and his very soul ached.

He had to act. Now. "Grace," he called quietly, his face like stone. "Do you remember the day I found you in your front yard, the day we went to see Copper?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Do you trust me, baby?" he asked in a voice like soft velvet.

She managed a taut smile through the terror. "With my very life."

"Okay, then."

She knew what he was asking and she saw in his eyes that he knew it could go either way. She had a chance to live, a slim one. Everything depended on timing. She looked at her husband, shivered, and let the man behind her take her whole weight as her eyes closed and she slumped with a soft groan.

The tiny diversion was enough. Garon never missed. He snapped off just one shot and watched it penetrate as Sheldon turned his head a fraction to look down at Grace.

Grace felt the body behind her jump even as she felt the warm wetness of blood down her cheek. At the same time, the knife at her throat dropped to the ground and the kidnapper and murderer of children fell dead at her feet.

She slumped to the ground, shaking, gasping for breath. The wetness she felt was her own blood, where Sheldon had cut her just as the bullet got him. It was running out quickly. For a few seconds she was terrified that her artery had been nicked. But as she felt for the cut, and realized it wasn't the artery, her heart jerked in a shaky, unnatural rhythm and she gasped like a fish out of water. She knew what was happening. She was terrified. Not now, she prayed silently. Not now. It's too soon! The baby's not ready...

She fell onto her side, still trying to hold the skin together to halt the flow of blood. She was aware of voices around her, followed by sirens. But she didn't understand much. She felt her life draining away. She was weightless, buoyant, merging with the air, the clouds, the sky.

Garon ran to her, kneeling, curling her head into his chest. "Oh G.o.d, that was close! Are you all right, Grace? Baby, are you all right?" he repeated, kissing her hair, her cheek feverishly. He was vibrating with the aftereffects of the terror. If he'd missed...!

"I'm...okay," she whispered. She wasn't. But he looked shaken enough. She kissed his cheek. "You saved me," she managed to say weakly. "Thank you."

His fingers in her hair were insistent as he pressed a quick, hard kiss against her lips. "My sweet girl," he said with breathless tenderness.

Two police cars roared down to the barn and stopped, along with an ambulance from Jacobsville General. Copper Coltrain jumped out of the ambulance and ran to Grace's side, motioning furiously for the paramedics.

"It's just a nick," Garon said in a forcibly controlled tone. He pushed back her sweaty hair. "Coltrain will look after you, sweetheart," he said softly. "You'll be fine. I have to give a statement about what happened. I won't be long." He squeezed her hand warmly. "Good girl," he added gently. "You were very brave."

She couldn't answer him. It didn't matter. He was walking away, a.s.sured that she wasn't badly injured. But Copper Coltrain knew otherwise.

He threw out orders to the paramedics as they loaded Grace on a gurney and put her into the back of the ambulance.

Cash Grier had just pulled up. He glanced toward the fallen man and the people standing over him, and he started toward them. Coltrain stepped in front of him.

"Get your brother and bring him to the hospital as fast as you can," he told Cash. "I'm going to call the life-flight helicopter and have her transferred immediately to Houston. I have a friend in the cardiology unit, the best surgeon they've got. I'll have him meet her in the emergency room there."

Cash was reeling. "But it's just a cut," he protested, looking at Grace.

"No." Coltrain took a deep breath, and told him the truth.

Cash's face tautened. "Good G.o.d!" he whispered. "I'll get him to the hospital," he promised and went toward the crime scene.

Local police were on the scene, along with one of Cash's detectives, who was taking Garon's statement about what happened.

Cash took Garon by the arm just as Miss Turner came rushing out to see what all the commotion was about.

"You have to come with me to the hospital," Cash told his brother grimly. "Right now."

"I know she's frightened. It was an ordeal for her. But I have to wrap this up and call my office-"

"Coltrain's calling in a helicopter to fly her to Houston," Cash interrupted.

"For a cut on her neck?" Garon exclaimed, certain now that Coltrain had lost his mind.

Cash took a deep breath. He remembered another night of terror with Christabel Gaines, now married to Judd Dunn. He remembered a rush to the hospital and endless hours in the waiting room while doctors fought to save her life. "Garon," he said gently, "Grace has a bad heart valve. It's gone critical. If they don't operate very soon, she won't make it."

Garon heard the words, but they didn't make sense. He stared at his brother blankly.

"She has to have open heart surgery," Cash added.

That was when the terror hit. He remembered Grace's bad color and her lack of energy, Coltrain's eternal cosseting, the townspeople protecting her. Now, when it was too late, it made sense.

He felt the blood drain out of his face. "Houston," he said unsteadily. "They're taking her to Houston?"

"Yes."

"I have to go with her," Garon said through his teeth. "Can you call the ASAC and tell him where I've gone and why?"

"I'll have one of my men do that," came the reply. "I'm going with you to Houston."

"Thanks."

"Not necessary. Come on."

CASH RACED to the hospital with lights and sirens blaring. Garon sat quietly in his seat, remembering another pregnant woman who'd died. He might lose Grace. He closed his eyes on a shudder. She'd been in his house for months now, making him apple cakes, laughing with Miss Turner, making pillows for the living room, smiling at him across the dinner table. She'd never complained about his absences, or started arguments or done anything to make him feel guilty. She had to live. Nothing else mattered.

He told that to Coltrain. It was the first thing he said when he met the redheaded doctor in the emergency room.

Coltrain didn't make sarcastic remarks. He just nodded. "I'm going to Houston with you," he added. "Just in case."

Garon couldn't manage a reply. He nodded.

Grace was white as a sheet. He could see the cover over her jerking with the odd, unstable rhythm of her heartbeat as he and Coltrain shared the helicopter with the pilot and the EMT. Cash was driving to Houston-most likely with sirens and lights going full tilt, Garon thought.

He held Grace's hand while Coltrain monitored her progress, an IV drip going into her other arm, an oxygen mask over her nose.

He remembered painfully an episode just a month ago. She'd been too sick to go with him to a cattlemen's a.s.sociation meeting and dinner. For some reason, Jaqui Jones had been there, sitting next to Garon. A photographer for the local paper had snapped a shot, showing Garon smiling, leaning toward Jaqui.

Miss Turner had hidden the paper from Grace, but she was too sharp not to realize the effort to protect her. She'd found the newspaper and just stared at it, Miss Turner told him. She hadn't said a word. She'd dropped it in the trash and gone on about her business.

Garon had been out with the men, moving the bulls out of summer pasture. It was a blazing hot day. He'd come inside stripping off his shirt, his hair damp with sweat. And there stood Grace, in the hall, her hands folded at her waist.

"Are you having an affair with Jaqui?" she'd asked bluntly.

He'd laughed. It was unforgivable, but it was a ridiculous question. Here he was with a very pregnant new wife, living in a town of two thousand benevolent gossips.

"Are you nuts?" he'd asked, grinning at the picture she made in a jade-green maternity blouse with white maternity slacks. "Barbara would skewer me and serve me to you on a hot bun!"

She'd looked sheepish then, and her eyes had dropped helplessly to his broad, hair-roughened chest, at the play of muscles. Her thoughts had been as plain as a statement of desire on her lovely face.

With a wicked smile, he'd tossed his shirt onto the hall table, swept her up in his arms and kissed her with such pa.s.sion that she moaned and clung to him.

Just as he entertained forbidden thoughts of easing her down on the floor and doing what he felt like doing to her, the phone rang. It was a call from the office about a high-profile case back east. The SAC had him slated to go help with it. He only had minutes to pack and get to the airport.

He'd glanced at Grace with a rueful smile, and she'd smiled back, dazed. But when he came back a week later, she was quiet and withdrawn. Miss Turner said she'd had a long talk with Dr. Coltrain and it had depressed her. He'd asked what about. But Miss Turner didn't know, and Grace and the redheaded doctor pa.s.sed over it as if they'd just been discussing labor and Grace was nervous about it.

Now, weeks later, Garon knew what they'd talked about. Grace had risked her life to bring this child into the world. She knew how much Garon wanted a child, and how much he'd have worried if he'd known about her heart. So she'd sworn everybody around her to secrecy, and she'd carried the secret, the burden, all these months.

He drew her small hand to his mouth and kissed it hungrily. He felt the hot mist in his eyes and lowered his head to hide it. If she died...if she died, what would he do? How would he go on living without her? And he'd never even told her what he felt.

THERE WAS A TEAM waiting at the hospital when the helicopter landed. Coltrain had told Garon what would happen when they arrived. They'd examine her. They'd schedule a heart catherization to see the extent of the damage and decide on the procedure. There was a heart surgeon in Houston, Dr. Franks, who was world famous in his field. He'd already agreed to take the case. Coltrain had phoned him from Jacobsville. The surgery would take several hours.

It was a recipe for a nightmare. It got worse when the surgeon, Dr. Franks, and Coltrain told him what could go wrong. Grace's pregnancy was advanced enough that they could take the child. But a C-section or natural childbirth compounded the risk. Dr. Franks made the terse statement that she should never have been allowed to conceive knowing this condition was already working up to open heart surgery.

Garon had been crushed when he heard that. Coltrain snapped to his defense, informing him that Grace had refused Coltrain permission to tell her husband, adding that n.o.body had expected that Grace could even get pregnant in the first place.

Dr. Franks apologized, but Garon was beyond guilt. If he'd only known, he kept thinking. If she'd just told him!

CASH CAME INTO the waiting room sometime later. Garon was in a seat by the window, staring out onto the hospital grounds. People walked along sidewalks, came in and out of buildings. Garon didn't see them. He was remembering his first sight of Grace, when she came to his house looking for help with her grandmother.

He felt Cash's big hand on his shoulder.

"What's happening?" Cash asked, dropping into a seat beside Garon. He was still wearing his uniform, and a family in the waiting room gave him curious looks.

"They're doing a heart catherization," Garon said dully. "They don't know which is riskier, to induce labor or do a C-section. She could die before they ever get to the valve."

Cash took a deep breath. He knew how his brother felt. He'd almost lost Tippy in the early days of their relationship. And he certainly remembered when Christabel Dunn was shot and almost killed by one of the notorious Clark brothers, before he and Tippy had become involved. He'd been crazy about Christabel. The anguish of her ordeal grew fresh in his mind as he realized the odds against Grace.

"If I lose her," Garon told his brother, "there isn't anything on earth worth staying for."

"That isn't what she'd want," Cash replied quietly. "She values life. You can see it in the way she fusses over those rose bushes."

He bit his lip. He was remembering Grace teasing him about talking to the roses for her. She did love growing things.

"Did you call the SAC, about the shooting?" Garon asked after a minute.

"Yes. He said some of the guys will be up tonight to sit with you."

Garon only nodded.

Cash smiled. "I'd forgotten how close-knit you guys are," he remarked. "Most of my life, I worked alone, or with a spotter."

"That's not the case now, is it?" Garon asked.