"You want to try to take me?" Killian drawled in a soft, almost seductive voice. "You gonna reach for that rifle you got propped just out of sight?"
"Wh-What rifle?"
Killian almost smiled. His finger twitched against the cool steel of the trigger. "You better be fast."
The old man swallowed hard, made a jerking, gulping sound of fear. "I'm too old to be fast."
Killian let his breath out slowly, his bent arm relaxed a little. He knew then that it was over. "Yeah, I thought you might be."
"I'm a poor man, mister. Them horses is all I got."
Killian eyed the old man, noticing the ragged cuffs of his shirtsleeves and the gaping holes in his jeans. Fleet-ingly he wondered what the man's life had been like, where it had gone so desperately wrong. No one tried to end up like this, alone and defenseless and poor, eking a living from the harshness of the Arizona desert.
Except maybe an old gunfighter who wasn 't so quick on the draw anymore ...
Killian shuddered at the thought and looked away. He
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reached into his pocket and pulled out a tattered ten-dollar bill, shoving it toward the man. "I don't have any more right now. But I'll bring you another twenty the next time I come through."
"You askin' me to trust you?"
"I wouldn't say asking."
The man ran his tongue along his teeth. At the movement, his mustached upper lip bulged. "I don't have no choice, do I?"
"None."
He thought for a minute, then a slow smile pushed through the leathery wrinkles of his face. He looked up at Killian. "Funny thing is, I'd trust you anyway. You got that kind o' face."
The words came at him from out of the blue, catching Killian off guard. He stiffened, felt suddenly cold inside. "That wouldn't be smart, old man."
The man grinned. "Never said I was a bank teller. You wanna come in for a cup o' coffee?"
"No."
"Oh." Disappointment etched deeper furrows in the man's weather-beaten face. Killian felt a stab of sorrow for the man?no doubt he was lonely as hell. "Well, come on, then. I got a couple of real good horses. Captain and The Bitch."
Killian almost smiled in spite of himself. "Captain and The Bitch, huh?"
He had no doubt which horse he'd give to the woman.
He found her curled up in a little ball where he'd left her. The vast desert fanned away from her in all directions, melting in the distance into a bumpy ridge of blue-gray hills. A quivering, threadbare pine tree stood
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guard beside her, its drooping green limbs a slash of color against the endless golden earth.
Killian frowned. Even from this distance, he could see that something was wrong. She was motionless; it looked from here as if she wasn't even breathing. She lay huddled at the base of the ponderosa pine, her chin tucked against her chest, her eyes squeezed shut. The two horses stood pressed together against the wind that whistled down from the hills, their heads drooped low. Leaves danced and writhed above the dirt, tumbling across the sandy ground.
He kicked the big Appaloosa gelding into a trot. "Lady?" he called out.
She didn't move. Didn't even swear at him.
He reined Captain to a halt and dismounted. Tossing the reins around a sagging pine branch, he squatted down beside the woman.
She lay as still as death, but at the base of her throat a pulse beat, a bluish red throbbing against the creamy hollow of her skin. Her hands were clasped together, the fingers pale and limp. The colorless oval of her cheek was damp and streaked with dust and sand. Strands of dark hair clung to the moist skin at her temples. The dirty scrap of bandanna was like a bloody slash against her skin.
He looked away for a long moment, then slowly closed his eyes. A sour feeling, dangerously close to shame, stung his gut. When had he learned to do this to a woman, simply to keep her quiet?
He reached out, traced the pale, blue-white curve of her cheek. Then he untied the gag and pulled it from her mouth. "Lady, wake up."
She shuddered. The dark fringe of her eyelashes fluttered.
Slowly she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
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Her eyes were darker than before, a rich mossy green against the pallor of her skin. A single, curly lock of black hair fell forlornly across her forehead. She looked up at him, and in her gaze he saw bleakness and something more, something he understood all too well. A sadness that was too old to be in such young eyes.
He spoke without thinking, his voice quiet and low. "I'm sorry." The admission surprised him. It came from long ago, from a place in his soul that used to feel emotions like sorrow and regret and shame.
A shadow of a smile ghosted her lips, so fleeting and unexpected that he wondered if he'd imagined it, maybe even willed it. "I ... can't wake up."
He frowned, confused. He would have understood fear or anger or hatred, even tears. But not this, not this quiet admission that meant nothing.
"You are awake."
She shook her head, loosing another flopping lock of curly black hair. "No, I'm not. I'm dreaming."
Killian sat back on his heels. He couldn't make sense of her, not anything about her. One minute she was a spitting hellion, the next a vulnerable innocent, the next a raving lunatic.
"We've got to get going."
"Yeah," she said softly, almost dreamily. "The posse can't be far behind."
He frowned. "What do you mean ... posse?"
"Joe Martin?"
A cold feeling moved through him at the name. "The sheriff from River Rock Falls?"
She nodded. "Uh-huh. Harold Springs hired him to hunt you down and kill you."
Killian felt as if he'd been punched hard in the jaw. He reeled backward, staring down at her, hoping to hell
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she was crazy. Because if she wasn't, he was in deep shit. "How do you know that?"
"Well, he was supposed to attempt to thwart the robbery and fail. It takes him four hours to get a posse together to track you down." She frowned thoughtfully. "I'm sure he'd still get the men together?even though he never showed up at the bank."
He let his breath out slowly, trying not to lose his temper. "I asked how you know this."
"I wrote it."
"Oh, for Christ's sake?"
Her eyes pleaded with him to believe her. "It's true."
He stared down at her, hard. "Martin's following me?"
"Yes."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Leave me here," she pleaded softly. "I can't take any more of this dream. Leave me here to meet Joe? he's my hero."
Another completely ridiculous statement. Killian stared down at her, measuring her words, trying to draw a bead on her. It didn't make any sense that she would know these things?but then again, she'd known his name. And Skeeter's. And Mose's.
"You can't know these things," he said softly, not taking his eyes off her. She blinked up at him. Her mouth trembled and she bit down on her lower lip, but she didn't look away. It was the most honest face he'd ever seen. He frowned. "But you do."
She squeezed her eyes shut for a heartbeat and sighed. "Yeah, I do."
He couldn't reject her information. It was too damned reasonable.
Joe had always hated him. The lawman held Killian responsible for killing an elderly couple on their way
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home from the Silver Springs bank. It didn't matter to Joe that Killian had been in Texas that month, or that Killian wasn't a murderer. At least, not an intentional one.
To Joe, all that mattered was revenge. Killian had been one step ahead of Martin for years. If the ranger was in Arizona, he was after Killian.
"Will you leave me here?" she asked quietly.
He saw the desperation in her eyes, and he refused to be moved by it. If there was even a possibility that Joe was behind him?and God help him, he believed her? Killian needed every advantage to stay alive. "No."
Moisture brightened her eyes, gave them a sad luminescence
that made his chest ache. She looked away, as if ashamed of her own emotion. "Why?"
"You might be my ace in the hole if things go bad. Joe'd let me go to save your life."
He untied her hands and feet and drew the ragged rope away, cramming it in his big duster pocket. Then he started to stand.
She reached out and grabbed his arm, her fingers curling tightly around the dusty canvas of his coat sleeve. "Please," she whispered, looking up at him through frightened, glassy eyes. "Please let me go. I need to wake up now."
He looked down at her, feeling sorrier than he wanted to. But that fleeting emotion didn't change anything; he wouldn't allow it to. He'd spent years surviving on gut instinct, and right now, crazy or not, he believed her. Joe Martin was shadowing him. He could almost feel the threat of death, hovering, waiting. He'd lived with that feeling a long time now, almost embraced it. It kept him from thinking about anything except staying alive. And there were a lot of things in his life he didn't want to think about.
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"I'm sorry, lady," he said again, and this time he put a steely coldness in his voice. "But that really isn't my problem."
Lainie clung to the saddle horn with aching hands. The leather was sticky and damp, and the overpowering odors of horse and sweat and dust were killing her. She almost wished she had the gag back. She'd give anything to keep the dirt and grit out of her mouth and nose.
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a moment's relief at the soothing darkness. If only she could curl up somewhere, in some forgotten corner of her own mind, and go to sleep. Maybe then she could finally wake up. ...
Only it wasn't that easy. The dream was so ... strange.
Why couldn't she wake up?
Maybe there was something different about this sleep. Maybe it was ... unnatural.
A cold finger of fear moved through her. It was horrifyingly possible. Maybe she'd drunk too much booze and popped too many pills. Maybe she wasn't merely asleep?maybe she was in a coma.
"Oh, Jesus." The words slipped from her mouth, through her chattering teeth. Was it possible? Was this what life was like for the thousands of coma victims who seemed to lie in deathlike sleep? Had poor Karen Ann Quinlan been trapped like this in the terrifying landscape of her own subconscious mind, chained to an endless, unstoppable dream from which there was no relief?
It made such terrifying sense. Maybe she was still at her computer, slumped in unnatural slumber atop her keyboard....
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Her fear accelerated. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She refused to let it beat her, refused to let herself become a victim of her own emotions.
If it was true, this dream would run its course. She would wake up when?and only when?the pills and booze had worked their toxic way from her system. Not one moment before. Like so many other frightening times in her life, she wasn't in control. She couldn't make herself wake up, or force the dream to stop. She could only hang on and be strong.
Be strong.
The words calmed her immensely, gave her a goal, something to hang on to when she found fear creeping up from the darkness. She'd survived worse things in her life; she'd survived drugs, violence, poverty, parental abandonment ... even life on the cold, hard streets of Seattle.
It would take a hell of a lot more than some stupid dream to beat her.
She straightened her chin and stared out at the landscape. The flat, arid land spilled out in front of her. Against all odds, there was life here, grafted onto the waterless plain in swabs of flowering green. Trees, gnarled and bent and twisted, clung to the parched yellow dirt.
It seemed impossible that life could exist where water was so scarce. And yet, the plants not only existed; they adapted and thrived, and threw their hopeful bits of color across the sandy ground.
That's what she would do. Adapt and thrive. This dream wouldn't last much longer?it couldn't. Soon, any minute, in fact, she was going to wake up with a pounding headache and a mouth that felt like the inside
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of an old boot. But until then, she was going to do what she did best. She was going to survive.
She glanced at the man beside her. He sat tall and straight in the saddle, riding with a lithe grace and ease that came from years of experience. At the sight of him, shame curled in her stomach, sharp and bitter.
This morning, when he left her bound and gagged in the middle of the endless desert, she'd retreated to a place inside herself, someplace dark and safe. It was a place she hadn't used in years, a haven, and it welcomed her back with unexpected ease.
Something inside her had collapsed at that moment, crushed in on itself. God help her, she'd almost given up. Like before. So long ago . ..
But she knew better, damn it, and it wasn't a mistake she'd repeat.
No more shit-taking from macho man, no more tears, no more whimpering. From now on, she was Alaina Costanza again, and she didn't take crap from anyone.
Especially not figments of her own imagination.
They rode side by side in utter silence for hours. The sun gradually gave up its hold on the sky, sinking slowly toward the ridge of mountains to the east. The two unsaddled horses galloped freely alongside them.
"They're behind us."
Lainie was in so much pain, it took her soggy brain a minute to process the information that he-man had spoken. Dully she glanced at Killian.
He slowed his horse to a trot.
The Bitch followed suit, her gliding gait melting into a bone-rattling trot. Agony ripped through Lainie's in-sides at the change of pace. She made a tiny, gasping sound of pain and clung to the saddle horn with sweaty,
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aching fingers, bouncing hard in the unpadded leather seat.
Jesus, it felt as if someone were hammering her internal organs with a mallet. She prayed she could hold on just a minute longer. Her vision blurred, turned the darkening desert into a smeary wash of towering black rock formations and gunmetal gray sky.
Killian stopped suddenly and raised his hand. "I hear something."
Lainie bounced right past him.
He surged ahead in a sudden lope and yanked her reins, drawing her to a jarring stop. "I said stop."
Lainie sighed; it was an expression of relief that seemed to well up from the bottom of her soul. Her butt was planted. She eased her right leg out of the stirrup and started to dismount.
He grabbed her upper arm, hard. "Stay."
Irritation gave her a spark of personality back. She may be down, but she wasn't out, and jerk-wad here couldn't give her dog commands. "Now, look here, I?"
He threw her an exasperated glance. "Please shut up."
Lainie was too tired to argue. Sounds of the coming night pressed in on her, noises that only seconds ago she hadn't heard. The whirring thump of bird wings, the symphonic chatter of the wind through the trees, the heaving, wheezing breath of the tired horses.
She crossed her arms and stared out at the lonely land. The evening sky seemed endless, a dome of lavender silk dotted by charcoal black strafers and thousands of twinkling stars. Here and there, spires of twisted rock jutted up from the earth like towers to Heaven. The whole place had an eerie melancholy to it, and yet there was a magic here, too, an almost primeval spirituality
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that whispered of people long gone and a time forgotten.
"Hear that?" he whispered, slowly pulling the hat off his head and running splayed fingers through his damp hair.
Lainie strained for a noise worthy of "that." It took a long time, but gradually she became aware of the low, thudding heartbeat that came from far away.
"What is it?"
"Horses. Ten or twelve of them, I'd say."
Lainie's pulse picked up. "Joe Martin," she breathed, feeling a tingling sense of anticipation.
Killian cursed harshly and plunged the dusty hat back on his head. "Let's go."
"Are they far behind us?"
He glanced backward, his eyes narrowed. "One m
ile, maybe less."
"I'm tired," she said. "Maybe we should make camp."
He laughed. It was a sharp, unexpected sound that echoed through the stillness. "Nice try, lady."
Lainie saw him turn toward her, and her stomach dropped to somewhere around her knees. "No, please?"
He smiled. "Hang on."
She surged forward and clutched the saddle horn just as he smacked her horse on the butt.
Chapter Five
f
Killian slumped in his saddle. Exhaustion pulled at him, rounded his shoulders, but still he kept moving. Captain plodded onward, his huge hooves plunking and sloshing through the slow-moving stream that had long ago gouged this canyon from the mesa above.
He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the night. Plunk, splash, plunk, splash. He tried to hear the faraway vibrations of a dozen running horses, but couldn't.
Maybe they'd lost the posse. Only the finest Indian tracker could follow hoofprints in moving water, and they'd been winding their way through this jet black canyon for hours.
But he didn't believe they'd lost them. Not if Joe Martin was in the lead. For a long time Killian had lived on instinct, and he'd learned to trust his gut feeling. And right now his gut was telling him to keep going.
"It's impossible," the woman muttered behind him.
He knew he shouldn't ask. God knew he didn't give a shit what she thought about anything, but somehow, with them out here all alone, he felt compelled to respond. "What's impossible?"
"I'm tired."
"That's not impossible. I'm exhausted." 56
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"But I'm asleep."
"Yeah, sure you are."
"Hey!" Her voice held a sudden sharpness, as if she'd just thought of something. "Maybe if I dreamed I went to sleep, I could actually wake up."
Killian couldn't think of a response, so he kept his mouth shut.
"What do you think? Could we go to bed?" She coughed. "I mean, could we go to sleep?"
"No."
There was a long pause, then she said, "The posse slept at Entrada Pass tonight."
Killian drew back on the reins and turned around, trying to see her in the jet blackness behind him. All he saw was the silhouette of her body against the amethyst canyon opening behind them. "How do?"
The Bitch rammed into Captain's butt. The gelding snorted and crowhopped to the right, slamming Killian's leg into the sandstone wall.
"I asked you to signal before you stopped," she snapped.
"How do you know where the posse slept ... uh ... will sleep?"
"I wrote it."
He sighed and turned around, staring unseeingly through the gray, moonlit slit at the end of the canyon.