"I know they would fight with whatever is available, just as I know that what's available isn't guns."

"What about gold?" he asked.

"That's what they were supposed to have gotten from the raid." Mary considered his question a moment before she answered.

"I think if they'd really gotten the gold they'd have bought guns by now."

"Why?" he pressed. She hesitated, letting the logic of her reasoning settle in her mind, testing its soundness against other possibilities.

"Because no one who wants to travel light and fast can afford to be burdened by too many possessions."

"Perhaps they've hidden it." He helped her up again, this time bringing her flush with his body. He heard her catch her breath, but suspected it wasn't the climb that had helped her lose it in the first place. She was looking up at him, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted as she sipped the air. He bent his own head a fraction. His voice was hushed.

"What do you think?" Mary was mesmerized by the sliver of light edging his hard profile, the way it touched the line of his brow, shaped his nose, and polished the corner of his mouth. He had asked her a question. It hung in the slip of a space between their mouths, but she couldn't remember what it was. She was having a hard time recalling that earlier in the day she was certain she hated him.

"Well?" Mary blinked.

"I don't think they've hidden it, because it's not their way. They would have wanted to make the trade quickly. The gold's really useless to them except as barter for guns."

"You have a very good mind, Mrs. McKay." He turned quickly and started up the trail again. He had no difficulty imagining the fierceness of Mary's expression. It was in her voice as she hurried after him.

"I'm not Mrs. McKay," she said sharply.

His tone was a pleasant contrast to hers.

"In my eyes you are".

"Well, damn your eyes." Ryder merely grinned.

"I mean it," she called after him.

"That wasn't a wedding we had today."

"It was to me." Before she could damn him again he added, "I recall you not wanting a marriage at all."

"I didn't .. I don't."

"Then..." His voice trailed off expectantly. Mary's confusion had made her lose her pace. Now she ran to catch up, the beaded fringe jangling lightly. She pulled on Ryder's buckskin shirt from behind, used it to raise herself up, and scrambled around him, taking the high ground. In her haste she had forgotten that with Ryder it rarely mattered if she captured the high ground.

He dropped the bundle of clothes and grabbed Mary. His palms anchored her at the waist and kept her steady. She was so slender and lithe that his fingers almost met in the clasp. Her own hands skimmed his shoulders, fluttered momentarily, then rested there.

She couldn't think what she wanted to say. Ryder helped her.

"Cruel bastard?" he asked.

"Heartless son of a bitch?" Mary was glad for the darkness that hid her flaming face. It was difficult to meet his eyes.

"My parents were returned safely?" she asked lowly.

"You have my word. Neither was harmed."

"There were bruises on my father's wrists. I saw them when he took my mother's arm."

"Your father wasn't very cooperative in the beginning. He had to be bound." It was as Mary had suspected.

"You didn't win a friend there," she told him softly.

"In general Jay Mac likes his sons-in-law. In the past he's tried to handpick them. I don't suppose he thinks much of you now." Ryder's smile was faint.

"In Apache the word for son-in-law means he-who-lifts-burdens-for-me.

There's an expectation that the bride's husband will care for her family." Mary tried to imagine how Ryder could ever hope to fulfill that role in her family. John MacKenzie Worth controlled millions of dollars, thousands of miles of track, and hundreds of employees.

Neither Moira, nor any of his daughters, had wanted for anything that money could provide.

"I'm fairly certain Jay Mac won't have that expectation." Ryder's smile deepened.

"Probably not." He bent his head slightly and rested his forehead against Mary's.

"Is there anything else you want to say?" She closed her eyes briefly.

"I wanted to spend more time with them. I hated you for not letting me do that."

"I.

know."

"I wouldn't have returned with them, not unless it was what you wanted.

I had already made my decision about remaining with you." Ryder's heart slammed in his chest, and he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"I just wanted to reassure them... explain."

"I know that, too." Mary nodded.

Earlier she had been too full of her own anguish to hear properly, and Ryder's explanation to Jay Mac had made little sense. She had had time to think about it as she was in the company of Naiche and Josanie and the score of others who made up the first family group.

She witnessed the reverence one accorded one's relatives, the respect a husband had for his mother-in-law, the affectionate teasing between a brother and his sisters. The elders were valued for their wisdom born of experience, and the babies were lovingly protected by charms and amulets hung on the frames of their cradle boards

"It was a great honor you did me by having my parents brought to the ceremony". In response Ryder placed a light kiss between Mary's brows.

He hadn't expected her to see it that way.

"And a great risk to so many people," she added.

"Why would you do that, Ryder? Why risk so much?"

"Do you really not know?" This time when his mouth touched her it was at the corner of her eye. His lips trailed along the curve of her cheek then pressed the sensitive hollow just behind her ear. He felt her breathing quicken and her fingertips leave their imprint on his soft buckskin shirt. Ryder whispered her name against her skin, and his breath was like a brand. She leaned into him and raised her mouth.

He covered it with his own, crushing her lips in a hard, hot kiss that seemed to last just this side of forever. His hands slid from her waist to her hips and then cupped her bottom, raising her just enough to cradle him in the cleft of her thighs.

She moved against him, the rhythm instinctive, yet innocent.

Ryder eased her back gently and separated their bodies with a small space of air. His breathing was ragged. He could hardly hear hers.