"Fitz is dead. And there isn't the first sign of pursuit. I think we can take it easier now."

"Not too easy!" A woman called. Shannon gasped as she saw Iris on a dark roan, riding up behind Jamie. "Fitz may not have been tremendously popular, but someone may seek to avenge him."

"Iris!" Shannon gasped when the redhead looked her way.

She was, as always, impeccably dressed, and her hair was unrumpled. She looked unscathed by her imprisonment, except for the large blue circle beneath her right eye.

"I'm all right, honey," Iris said softly. "Thanks to Jamie. He pulled me away from Fitz."

"Jamie, bless you!" Kristin said.

"Always willing to oblige," Jamie drawled softly.

Shannon leaped down from in front of Malachi and ran over to Jamie, who also hopped down off his horse to meet her. "Hey, brat!" He laughed, sweeping her up in a fast hug. Matthew and Kristin dismounted as well, and they all hugged one another with laughter and relief.

"Shannon, get back over here!" Malachi commanded sharply. She glanced at him and saw that his features had become as threatening as a winter storm. She stiffened. Cole wasn't yelling that way. She stared at Malachi, defiant and hurt at once. Safe in the warmth of his arms, she had felt that the war between them was over. But now it seemed that nothing had changed. Did he still hate her?

"We do have to keep moving," he said.

Kristin turned and hurried back to Cole. He lifted her up before him. Jamie and Matthew mounted up again.

Shannon turned to the strangers who surrounded them. "I don't know who you are, but thank you, all of you. With all my heart, I thank you."

"We all thank you," Kristin echoed.

Malachi looked around at the curious assortment of men with them. "Shannon is right—thank you all." He pointed to the right. "These are Sam Greenhow, Frank Bujold, Len-nie Peterson and Ronnie Cordon—all friends of Jamie's from General Edmund Kirby-Smith's command down in Texas. And those boys there—'' he pointed to the left ''—are from Haywood."

"Howdy," said one of the Confederates to Shannon, and he tipped his hat to Kristin. "I don't mean to be telling you all your business, but you were right, Malachi. You should keep moving. You need to put some mean space between you and Sparks."

Malachi nodded. He and Cole and Matthew thanked the men. Then Malachi called to Shannon again. "Shannon, get over here."

She didn't like his tone, but she could acknowledge he was right. She lifted her head and walked back to Malachi. He reached down for her, encircling her waist with his arm and pulling her up before him. They waved to the men who had risked their lives to right against the corrupt rule in Sparks.

A silence fell as their curious little party started off: Cole and Kristin, Matthew, Jamie, Iris and Malachi and Shannon. Jamie rode in the lead, taking them south.

Shannon waited as the morning wore on, wanting to speak, not knowing what to say. She stared at Malachi's hand where it rested on her knee, and thought of how she had come to love that hand, how the texture of the bronze skin, the tiny tufts of gold hair on his long fingers now meant everything in the world to her.

She thought of the warmth of the man behind her, and she thought of the danger they had faced together time and time again. When she remembered the past she wanted to cry out all her pent-up fears and sorrows, but her recollections also made her think gravely of the future, too. Life was precious. It was dear, and could be so swiftly stolen away.

She and Malachi had life. This morning, they both had life. They had the sun over their heads, and the radiance of the blue sky, and they rode with people near and dear to them. God had been good to them that morning.

But Malachi was still as stiff and cold as steel. Shannon thought that perhaps he had decided that now he had carried out all obligations to her. He was angry, that much she knew. Maybe he was anxious, too, to be free.

But Iris had told her to fight for him. Could she do that?

Shannon moved her fingers gently over his hand. "Thank you," she told him softly.

He grunted in return. She thought that he would say no more, but then he growled in her ear. "I should thrash you within an inch of your life, young woman."

"What?" she demanded, startled.

"You were told to come to Cindy's. But oh, no, that wasn't good enough for you. You had to put yourself and Iris into a damn fool dangerous position—"

"I was foolish! You three were out holding up a train—"

"We went to un-hold-up that train—"

"There is no such thing as un-holding-up a train, Malachi Slater. If you had been killed, Kristin would have been on her own. I would have had to have done something—"

"You did real well," he drawled sarcastically.

Shannon clenched her teeth, trying not to break into ridiculous tears. She stared down at his hand, and noted that he was shaking. With anger, she assumed. "I was doing fine," she stormed. "Ask Iris. Then that horrible Bear recognized me."

"You could have been killed."

"And you could have been killed—un-holding-up a train!"

"I know what I'm doing, and you don't!"

"Lower your voice. Everyone can hear us."

"Can they now?"

"You're humiliating me, Malachi Slater."

"Humiliating you? I wish I had a switch."

"You're the one who should be taken to a woodshed, Captain Slater. Let me down."

"Let you down? You going to walk to Texas?"

"I'll go and ride with my brother."

"You'll ride with your husband, Mrs. Slater," he said, and the words were hard but the husky tension in his voice swept sweetly over her. There was a note of possession in his words that captivated and thrilled her. She didn't mind the demand in it at all.

She looked down at her own hands. They were trembling, too.

Jamie pulled up suddenly in front of them, extending his arm to point. "There's a river up here, and a natural cove. Shall we take a break and ride with the cooler air in the evening?"

"Yes, please!" Kristin answered him. They had ridden so hard at first, and now they had been in the saddle for hours and hours.

"All right with you, Matt? Malachi?" Cole asked.

Malachi nodded. Shannon leaped down quickly. Malachi dismounted behind her.

"Someone get a fire going," Jamie said. "I'll see if I can find something in the woods to cook."

He nodded to them all, pulled his rifle from his saddle and started into the woods.

"I'll join you," Matthew called after him. He looked at Iris, eyeing her from head to toe. "Start the fire."

"I don't know how to start the fire."

"Learn," Matthew said curtly. He started off after Jamie. Iris kicked the dirt.

"Learn!" she muttered. "Damned—Yank!"

Shannon started toward Iris, wanting to assure herself that the woman was all right and to help her build the fire. She didn't get far. Malachi caught her by the arm. She stared at him indignantly.

"We're going for a walk," he told her.

"But I don't want to go for a walk," she began.

She broke off with a startled scream as he swept her up into his arms. "I said that we're going for a walk."

Stunned, Shannon remained silent, staring up into his teal-blue eyes. In the background, Kristin laughed softly. She'd obviously heard the exchange.

Stung by her elder sister's amusement, Shannon started to protest, but Malachi was already carrying her off. With long strides he followed the river's edge, beneath the shade of the huge old oaks. The sun rose high above them, the sky was blue, and the water was tinkling a delightful melody.

Shannon's arms had curled around his neck for self-preservation. She kept staring at him as he moved, unhurriedly but with purpose.

"Malachi…let me down!" she entreated him softly. They were far out of sight of the camp now, around a curve in the river. There might not have been a living soul in miles, and there was no sound except for the melody of the rushing water and songs of the birds and the whisper of the breeze through the leaves of the oaks.

"Malachi, put me down!"

This time he responded, laying her on a grassy spot upon the slope, and immediately throwing himself down next to her. He placed his knee casually over her legs, supported his weight on an elbow, and touched her cheek.

"I should tan your hide," he said softly. His fingers trailed over her flesh. He stroked her face and her throat. He leaned against her and kissed first her forehead, then the tip of her nose. He buried his face against hers, and kissed the lobe of her ear, nibbling the soft flesh, warming it with the heat of his breath.

She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.

"Malachi…"

"I should…I should really tan your hide."

His face rose above hers. His eyes searched hers, and she smiled slowly, her own eyes wandering over his beloved features, his clipped beard, his mustache, seeing the fullness of his lips, the character in his eyes.

"Malachi…"

She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him, then broke away, then teased his mouth with the tip of her tongue, then kissed him passionately once again. His lips parted to hers, and he took control with a tender and savage aggression that swept through her like heat lightning across a summer's sky.

She felt the passion deep within him, simmering, threatening to burst. He leaned over her intimately, his fingers trembling as he worked at the tiny buttons of her bodice.

Shannon caught his hand. Her lashes fell low and sultry over her eyes. "Malachi, you are something, you know. You're always yelling at me."

"I'm not always yelling at you." He shook away her hand. She made no further protest as he peeled back her bodice and kissed her breasts above the froth of her chemise. Shannon stroked his shoulders, inhaling swiftly as shivers of delight cascaded along her spine.

"You are always yelling at me," she corrected. She placed her hands on either side of his face and lifted his eyes to her.

"You are always doing foolish things," he said softly. "And if I yell at you…"

"Yes?"

He smiled slowly. "What do you want? A signed confession?"

Shannon nodded.

"If I yell at you…"

She caught her breath, waiting.

"It's because I love you."

"Oh, Malachi!" She threw her arms around him and they rolled in the grass, laughing. "Malachi, say it again!"

He caught her beneath him and laid his hand upon her breast over the thin material of the chemise. He stroked the nipple with his thumb until it hardened to a coral peak, and she moaned softly. "Malachi…"

"You were willing to let me hang rather than marry me!" he told her reproachfully.

"I didn't want you to be forced to marry me!"

"You didn't want to marry me."

"But I did. I really did."

"You were in love with a ghost. Are you still?"

She shook her head, biting into her lower lip as she met his eyes. His hands were still roaming sensually across her body. "I did love him. But…even on the awful day that we were married…I did want to marry you."

"Did you?"

He laid his head against her breast and used his tongue to stroke her through the soft fabric. Shannon forgot the question. Malachi did not.

"Did you?" he repeated.

"What?"

"Love me. You haven't said it, you know."

She smiled, trembling beneath him. "I love you, Captain Slater. I think I loved you all along."

"From that very first time you tried to shoot me?" he teased.

"Maybe. Malachi…"

"What?"

"Love me."

"It's been forever," he said huskily, lacing his fingers with hers, stretching out over her.

"It's been a week."

"A long week," he corrected her. And when he took her lips with his own, she saw he spoke the truth.

"Love me," she whispered to him once again.

So he did. The sound of the river came as the sweetest melody, and the grass beneath offered up the softest bedding. He laid his coat upon the ground and stripped her of her clothing piece by piece. She barely dared to move while he touched her, feeling as if time had come to a standstill between them, and that she might shatter some fantastic spell if she were to breathe. She waited. She waited for him to finish with her, and then to doff his own clothing, and to lie down beside her.