"Poor boy?" Kain snorted. "The b.l.o.o.d.y little b.a.s.t.a.r.d came to rob you. He deserved anything he got. I should break his d.a.m.n leg to teach him a lesson. Let him up, Henry."

Henry stood and the young man rolled to his knees, picked up his hat, and got slowly to his feet. He looked around on the ground for his gun, saw it, and went to pick it up.

"Leave it," Kain said sharply. "Hightail it out of here. You'll find your gun as well as your friend's after we leave here. I won't send a man down the Cimarron cutoff without a gun. But if you bother these folks again I'll bury you. Understand?"

The boy's eyes blazed with hatred as he looked at Vanessa. His lips formed curses, but no sound came from them.

Kain followed him to the edge of the camp and watched him stagger off into the darkness. When he turned his eyes went to Vanessa and stayed there.

Her head was tilted defiantly, her red mane of hair glistening in the light from the lantern. She watched him, her eyes lit with the fire of her hostility. Dear G.o.d, she was lovely! The hunger to be with her had been with him for the past two days and he had had to force himself to stay away. Tonight his painful restraint had broken. He should have taken John's advice and his buffalo gun, and scattered the thieves before they reached the camp. The d.a.m.n kid had shot at her! G.o.d help him if he had hit her!

"You did well, Henry." Kain's words were not related to his thoughts. "You could learn to be a real good sneaker. You got the right touch for head bashing, too. Just enough force to knock them out and give them a h.e.l.l of a headache."

"Ma, John got one, and me and Kain sneaked up behind the other two. We each hit one." Henry was delighted with his part in foiling the robbery. "We were coming to get the other one when we heard Vanessa yelling."

Vanessa's furious eyes met Kain's. "You think this is some kind of game, don't you?"

Kain looked at her in silence. Her blue eyes shimmered moistly with her anger. When he finally spoke it was lazily, as though he were thinking aloud.

"Pretty little red bird. If someone doesn't clip her wings she'll not live to get to Denver."

"It'll not be you to do it!" she exclaimed.

"Mr. DeBolt, can I speak with you?" There was a cool determination in Ellie's voice.

"Yes, ma'am. But can it wait a little bit? I've got something to say to Vanessa." While he spoke his eyes never left Vanessa's face.

"You'll not leave until I can talk to you?"

"No, ma'am. You can count on it." He waved his hand toward the outer circle of the camp. "I don't think you want your aunt and cousin to hear what I've got to say to you, Vanessa."

Her first compulsion was to defy him; she trembled with the force of it. Kain gave her a menacing look, and with a toss of her head, she pivoted and walked proudly and stiffly to the edge of the camp and into the darkness.

A seething anger stopped her before she took many steps, and she turned to face him. His grip on her arm set her feet in motion again, and she was propelled over the uneven ground. When they finally stopped the glow of the lantern and the outlines of the wagons were but dim images. She tried to pull her elbow from his grasp, but his fingers tightened.

"Let go of me, d.a.m.n it!" Thoughts whirled about her brain like wind whipped tumbleweeds.

Kain looked at her in silence. Her face was a blur in the darkness. "I should turn you over my knee and spank your behind." He spoke softly in spite of his anger.

"While you reconsider such an outlandish notion, release my arm," she snapped, "unless you intend to break ita"to teach me a lesson."

He laughed. Dear G.o.d, she was lovely! In the faint light her face was starkly white under the cloud of glowing hair, and he was again struck by her beauty and the slender reach of her full-bosomed body. He was aware of an involuntary arousal, and conscious of the hard pounding of blood through his veins and a simultaneous shortening of his breath.

"If I let go, will you run back to the wagon?"

"I might!"

"Vanessa! I'm the one who should be angry. I told you to stay in the wagon. You came to within an inch of getting yourself killed tonight. And that morning when we went to get the mules, I told you to stay out of sight. What did you do but come in right behind me. I had no idea you were there. What am I going to do with you?"

"Nothing! I'm not your responsibility. I thank you for what you've done for us. Good-bye." She stepped away, but the hand on her arm pulled her back.

"Not so fast!" His patience snapped and he spoke in a firm, irritated voice. "You may not give a d.a.m.n, but if I had batted an eye that morning by the river, the breed would have killed me, or tried to. I had no idea you were behind me. I know I won't . . . live forever, but I'm not anxious to be finished off by a bullet from a gunslinger."

The harshness in his voice knocked all the composure out of her. She rolled her head back and forth and said woodenly, "I'm sorry. I was merely trying to help. They were our mules."

"Yes, they were. And it was your money the thieves were after tonight, but you'd be just as dead if that bullet had hit you or if that shotgun you were using as a club had gone off. Did you think to unload it?"

"I was protecting what was ours," she said stubbornly, but her voice lacked the sharpness it had held before in spite of her determination to keep her anger as a shield between them.

"If I let go of you to light a smoke will you run away?"

"Run? Why should I run from you? Am I your prisoner?"

"No." He rejected this with a slow shake of his head. And then said, as if to himself, "But I may be yours." He drew in a deep breath and his hand dropped from her arm. He fumbled in his pocket for his tobacco pouch and began to roll a smoke. His eyes left her face only to glance occasionally at what his shaking fingers were doing.

The match flared and he held it between cupped hands until it blazed, then raised it to the cigarette in his mouth. The light outlined his face and turned it into a bronze mask.

Vanessa's eyes clung to his smooth skin, straight brows and thin, high-bridged nose. He was too handsome, far too handsome, despite the jagged scar that slanted across his hard cheekbone and disappeared into his thick brown hair. His gold-tipped lashes lifted and his amber eyes looked into hers. Oh, G.o.d! Why did she have this feeling of rightness when she was with this . . . stranger?"

He blew out the match. "What were you thinking, little red bird, when you looked at me with those beautiful eyes?" His hand came up and his fingers gently fondled her cheek and looped a strand of hair behind her ear. Vanessa caught her breath sharply. It was an action she hadn't expected. She tried to move away, but he held her with his words. "Don't go."

"I should get back. Aunt Ellie . . ." Her voice grew weaker and then ceased altogether. She brushed her hair from her forehead with the palm of her hand.

"Stay and talk to me."

"What about?" His gentle request also caught her unaware. Their constant sniping at each other was tiring, and her heart was beating twice as fast as it should have been. She let out a sigh.

"Tired?" Kain asked. Long, slim fingers carried the smoke to his lips. He drew deeply on the cigarette and the end flared briefly.

"Not as much as I was at first."

"Where have you come from? Where are you going?" He asked the first thing that came to mind, although he knew they were going north of Denver.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I have a feeling your aunt is going to ask me to ride along with you."

"Yes. She's terribly frightened out here."

"And you?"

"I've no time to be scared."

"That breed wants you. He isn't the kind to give up."

She flinched, and her eyes closed for an instant. "He just wanted what was handy. If he comes near me again I'll fill him with buckshot."

"Have you ever shot a man?"

"No, but I could . . . if I had to." She turned her head and looked back toward the wagons. Kain looked down at her clearly etched profile. He marveled that she could be so distant and seductive all at once.

"I believe you," he said very quietly.

Looking into his eyes, Vanessa voiced the question that came to her then. "Are you going to stay with us?"

"Do you mind?"

"Why should I? Mr. Wisner thinks we'll catch up with a train going to Denver in a few days."

"Is that where you're going?"

"That's where Mr. Wisner and Mary Ben are going. We're going north to Greeley, then west."

"West? West to Junction City?"

"Have you been there?"

"A time or two. Why are you going to Junction City?"

"Aunt Ellie has a brother-in-law there. She wants Henry to be near his kin."

There was a long silence while Kain's thoughts raced and collided in wild disorder. Henry had reminded him of someone that first day he had seen him. Earlier that night, the way he had laughed had a familiar ring to it. Could it be? Was it possible that Henry was related to Cooper Parnell or Adam Clayhill?

"Who was Henry's father?" he asked quietly.

"Henry Hill. He lived in Chicago. We should go back. Aunt Ellie wants to talk to you and we need to get some sleep." She looked back toward the wagons. He did not speak or move. She sensed his eyes on her, willing her to look at him.

"Will you walk out and talk to me again?"

Happiness surpa.s.sed her surprise. "Will you ride out if I don't?"

"No. I'm not trying to bribe you. I wouldn't want you to come if you didn't want to."

"Do you think we could talk, without quarreling?" Laughter quivered in her voice.

His hand came out and stroked the hair falling over her shoulder. "I don't know, my fiery redhead. We may quarrel, but even that's better than not talking at all." He paused, then said in a different tone, "I've never met a woman as fascinating as you."

He felt laughter shake her. "Don't you mean irritating?"

"That too."

Kain searched her face and found her smiling radiantly at him. For a long moment he stood there looking at her. Then reason dissolved the hunger to wrap her in his arms and kiss her, to know the joy of having her body pressed against him, her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest, small round b.u.t.tocks in his hands. He gripped her elbow and urged her toward the wagon before his torment broke his control.

Suddenly he was determined to cram a lifetime of happiness into the few short weeks it would take to reach Junction City. He would see her and the Hills settled, and after that he would simply disappear.

The thought of her in the years to come with another man was like a knife turning in him. His fingers tightened on her elbow as they walked silently back to the camp.

Chapter Six.

Ellie wasted no time getting right to the point.

"I'm frightened, Mr. DeBolt. Ia"we didn't realize this was such a rough, harsh land. We can't cope. We simply can't cope! Oh, Vanessa and Henry can manage the wagon, the mules and all, but it's this . . . lawlessness." Her voice shook and nearly broke. "I have a little money. The farm was Vanessa's, and . . . we plan to use that money to start a small bakery if Junction City doesn't already have one. All I have is money from dressmaking and nursing the sick. It's yours, every cent of it, if you'll see us to our destination."

In her anxiety to have Kain travel with them, Ellie was unaware that she was disclosing the very thing that had been a shame to her. All of these years she and her son had lived on her brother-in-law's charity. It was true that she had raised his daughter and cared for his home, but it was charity nonetheless.

"I don't want your money, Mrs. Hill, but I could do with a meal now and then. A constant diet of beans and sowbelly is hard on the stomach," he admitted with a dry smile.

"I can cook. It's one of the things I do best."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"You'll stay with us?"

"My being with you won't guarantee your safety."

"Oh, I know that! But I'll be ever so grateful to have you along. And, Mr. DeBolt, don't be offended by Vanessa's sharp tongue. She's worried and frightened, too, but she doesn't want me and Henry to know it."

"I'm surprised that a woman as beautiful as Vanessa is unmarried."

"She had plenty of beaus back in Springfield. One of the wealthiest men in the county wanted to marry her. I'm afraid that . . . Henry and I were a liability to Vanessa."

"How is that?"

"Vanessa's mother died shortly after she was born. Vanessa thinks of me as her mother. She and Henry are like brother and sister. People can be . . . unkind about Henry, and Vanessa will not tolerate that."

"Did she love that man?" Anxiety tore through him, choking his voice.

"She said she didn't." A girlish spurt of laughter broke from Ellie's lips. "She said he made her want to . . . puke."

Kain smiled and stroked the stubble on his chin. "Sounds like something she would say. Mrs. Hill, Vanessa said that Henry has kinfolk in Junction City. I've been there a time or two. Maybe I know the party you're looking for."

"Good heavens! Wouldn't it be grand if you did? Do you know Adam Hill? My husband, Henry, who died before young Henry was born, told me about his brother in Colorado. He said he was an important man and owned the largest ranch in the territory, it was Adam who wrote me and told me that friends of Henry's had notified him his brother had been killed. I had written to him to see if he knew what happened to Henry. I guess Henry's friends in Chicago didn't know about me."

"I don't know anyone named Hill, though I'm not saying there aren't some there. Is that the only time you heard from your husband's brother?"

"Yes. I guess you think I'm foolish to go there on the strength of that one letter. But Henry told me such wondering things about his brother. Young Henry is the image of his father, and so I thought perhaps his uncle, if he is still living, or cousins, would take a liking to him."

"Speaking of Henry, he should know how to shoot a gun and how to defend himself, Mrs. Hill."

"Oh, I know, but . . . Henry is limited as to what he can do. I appreciatea""