SUMMER FLAMES

Vella Munn

ISBN 1-891020-47-1

Robket eBook ISBN 1-58608-054-7

Cover Art by Eliza Black

New Concepts Publishing

4729 Humphreys Rd.

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

CHAPTER 1

"Fire! Please, help. Fire!"

The words swirled back at Chera James. Desperate to be heard, she stuck her head even further out her car window. Her tires on the dry logging road kicked up so much dust she could barely see the tree cutting equipment near the top of the hill, or the men working there.

"Fire!"

A roar from a fully loaded logging truck effectively erased her scream. Choking on dust, she pulled her head back inside and held onto the steering wheel with all her strength. The vehicle bounced wickedly over a deep rut, then threatened to high center on a boulder.

If she ruined her not yet paid for car trying to get help, she'd--What was she thinking? Her car didn't matter.

"Lady! What the blame blasted--"

She glimpsed the silhouette of a bearded man to her right but was afraid to stop for fear her car would roll backward on the steep grade. She gave the man a desperate, open mouthed stare, then again focused on what passed for a level parking spot near where the rest of the men were working on chain saws, securing the loads on the two logging trucks, doing whatever it was a crew did in the woods.

With a near shoulder dislocating effort, she yanked the wheel to the left and managed to find space between a couple of pickups that looked nearly as big as those monster trucks she'd once seen crushing a line of cars at a county fair. She pushed open her door and stepped out. The truck to her left had to be twice as tall as her vehicle.

Fire! Five desperate minutes ago she'd seen sinister flames heading away from the narrow logging road at the bottom of the mountain; the flames were licking their way toward summer dry brush and evergreens.

"Lady! What the devil--"

"Fire!" she screamed up at the man who suddenly appeared. "There's a fire. It--"

Twin vices clamped around her upper arms and she was pulled within an inch of a big, broad male chest sheathed in overworked flannel.

"Where?" he demanded. His breath, warm and insistent, hit her forehead and sent her hair flying away from her face. "Where?"

Although he continued to grip her so tightly that she was rapidly losing circulation in her arms, she managed to jerk her head in the direction she'd come from. "Down there. On the flat. Just after the turnoff to this road."

"What--"

"We don't have time to talk," she interrupted. "There's no one around, no one to stop it. We have--"

He released her and spun away, yelling for everyone to jump into their rigs and haul down the mountain. As the men responded to his command, he whirled back around.

She saw his leathered hand snake toward her but didn't have time to do more than think about shying away before he again imprisoned her. Without saying a word, he began dragging her with him.

"Wait!" She planted her heels. At least she tried to. In truth, she felt like a small dog being pulled behind an impatient master. "What are you--"

"You're coming with me."

I can't argue that. "Won't I be in the way? I've never fought a fire, never even been near one."

Obviously the man wasn't interested in either her question or explanation, not that she could blame him. Giving up on the ludicrous idea of beating him in a wrestling match, she let him steer her through the maze of equipment. She thought he'd take her to his pickup and anticipated a wild ride over a wash-board road in a powerful rig.

Instead, he boosted her into the dirty cab of a massive vehicle that had been painted forest service green years and years ago. When it came to life and began lumbering down the hill, she grabbed the open window frame and held on for dear life.

She thought about reminding the man that he'd have to take her back to her car once the fire was out, if they lived that long, but a glance at his intense profile was all the hint she needed. Whatever was on his mind right now, her comfort and safety wasn't part of it. Besides, how could she think of anything except the fire--and it's potential destruction?

"I was driving along, trying to find the logging road when I came around a corner and there it was. It looked like a river, a red, angry, smoking river."

"What?"

"The fire," she explained. He held the steering wheel prisoner in his powerful hands. His body was hunched forward as if by sheer will he could hold the vehicle together long enough to reach their destination, and she sensed an all consuming concentration in his taut body, his deep, dark eyes. "I was talking about the fire."

"One week, one lousy week."

"What about a week?"

He flicked a glance at her, then went back to staring at the snake-like path ahead of him. "What are you doing here?"

"I was--ow!" She rubbed the top of her head where she'd hit it on the cab roof. "Can't you go any slower?"

"No."

Of course he couldn't. What made her think any different? Chera focused on the road, or what passed for one. It had apparently been carved out of the wilderness by a bulldozer or something but only a fool would call the job complete. As they slid around a switchback turn, she prayed the man would stay away from the steep drop off. She should have stayed home where she belonged, where people knew the meaning of safety and restraint. Only, if she did, she might never do anything with her life except teach high school history.

"What is this?" She indicated the vehicle. "It's terribly heavy; I can tell."

"A thousand gallon engine's like that."

That didn't tell her a whole lot. "What does it do?"

"Pump water. What are you doing here?"

She focused on her surroundings. Thank heavens! The worst of the mountain was behind them. In a few more minutes they'd be on the graveled part. "I'm looking for a man."

He flicked her an unfathomable glance. "Are you?"

That came out wrong, all wrong. If she'd actually been on the prowl for a man in the primitive sense, she couldn't have chosen a more representative specimen, in the primitive sense. Her captor--no other description came to mind--seemed to have been carved out of the granite hillsides that flanked them. She'd have to be blind not to notice that. Intensity, concentration, even a primitive kind of fear ruled him. He seemed to live only for the act of driving, for reaching his enemy. And his shirt, partly unbuttoned and pulled back from his hard chest, didn't hide much. This was a man who wrestled a living from the wilderness. "Yes. For the owner of this timberland. Kade Morgan's his name, and I need--"

"I'm Kade Morgan."

No! The object of her search was supposed to be in his fifties or sixties, a tobacco chewing, gray bearded hermit who'd be delighted to have anyone to talk to. This man, well--

Mid thirties probably although it was hard to tell because of the way the elements had etched themselves on his features. So far she hadn't seen a hint of tobacco and he was clean shaven, or at least he had been three or four days ago.

"What do you want me for? Damn! Damn!"

Chera opened her mouth to ask him if he could clean up his language. However, that's when she spotted what had wrenched the profanity from him. And she understood.

Dark, swirling smoke assaulted the air ahead of them, turning it into something hideous. Although she was the furthest thing from a fire expert, she knew the stiff wind was responsible for the way the smoke was being tossed about. Fires needed precious little help to turn deadly, air being one of them. The fire had doubled in size since she'd first seen it; soon it would be in command, impossible for this small group of men to vanquish, if it wasn't already.

Kade Morgan slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The old engine coughed a complaint, then responded as best it could to his command. Chera struggled to keep from flying around, unable to keep her eyes off the monster in front of them. She'd been scared from the moment she spotted the flames. Now, responding to the emotion that poured out of Kade, her fear turned to fury.

If she could get her hands on whoever was responsible for this she would kill him.

The heavy vehicle complained its way around the final turn. Those men whose more mobile rigs had gotten down the mountain first were already spreading out to surround the rapidly growing fire. They carried shovels, axes, even a couple of picks.

Shovels against a beast that had already attacked a half dozen evergreens near the road and was rapidly lapping its way along dry grasses to the forest itself.

Shovels wouldn't be enough.

But if Kade's vehicle contained enough water--

"Get out. And stay out of the way."

No! She'd discovered this enemy; she wanted to be part of the battle against it. But Kade was right. In his urgent, ungentle way, he'd reminded her that someone not trained in fire fighting would only hamper them. She hurried to a boulder on the opposite side of the road from the fire where she could watch and pray. As long as the wind blew away from her, she'd be safe.

Kade issued an order. Something about everyone needing to position themselves ahead of the fire. At his words, the men went into action, all looking like they'd done this a thousand times before. As Kade jumped back into the water truck and headed for the stretch of grassland, the others fanned out on both sides of the fire. As soon as Kade positioned the rig between the fire and the men, he yelled at someone to join him. That man took over driving chores while Kade ran around to the back of the truck. A moment later he'd gripped the end of a coiled up hose and was pointing it toward the flames. The driver began rolling forward. The hose snaked out. Once some twenty feet were free to drag behind him, Kade lifted his left arm over his head and then plunged it downward.

Two, maybe three seconds later water surged from the hose. Kade gripped the end with both hands, directing the powerful spray. Even as far away as she was, Chera could see his muscles respond.

He stalked, not parallel to the flames, but toward them as if confronting them. Smoke billowed, momentarily hiding him from her. Then the dark mass spun skyward again. The effort of controlling the hose forced Kade to walk hunched forward. She could imagine the strain that put on his lower back, his wide-spread legs.

She heard a sound, a bellow, a man issuing a challenge to a hot, deadly foe.

This was the man she needed to spend at least a week of her life with.

Lord help her.

It didn't take long for Chera to understand Kade's strategy. By pouring water on the fire, he intended to slow its progress long enough for his men to use their tools to expose the dirt beneath the grasses. Hopefully by the time the fire reached that point, it would have lost much of its energy and starve to death on bare earth.

If the fire picked up speed or Kade ran out of water, he might not be able to get out of the way in time. He knew that; he had to know that. Still, he stood his ground, faced his enemy.

There was so much smoke and floating debris that Chera often lost sight of the hard-working men. She could hear them yelling, hear the fire vent its fury; the sounds merged into a confusing whole that seeped deep inside her. Although no one could hear her and it did absolutely no good, she screamed at the fire as if it was her foe as well.

Screamed encouragement and caution to Kade and his men.

The sight of the already burned pines sickened her, but she had little time to think about that. Once when she spotted Kade, he was on his knees, whether because he believed he could better fight his enemy from that position or because his effort had momentarily exhausted him, she couldn't say. She felt her own muscles contract and strain, sent a silent message of strength and stamina to him.

He pushed himself to his feet, sturdy boots digging into the ground. Not once did he release the hose that seemed to fight him as fiercely as the fire did. One of his men stepped close as if to relieve Kade; he waved the man off and went back to work, teeth clenched.

Not caring how she sounded, Chera cheered for the determined, single-minded men, most of all for Kade Morgan. It was early evening. Most likely the crew had been falling trees since early morning. Now, when they were tired and should be winding down for the day, they labored to expose dirt and deprive the monster that could, if it was given freedom, destroy both their livelihoods and a beautiful, innocent forest.

Kade and the driver worked in harmony with the driver keeping just far enough ahead of Kade that he could concentrate totally on dousing the flames. At times the fire seemed to paw at him, taunting him. Then, as Chera screamed at him to run, the enemy retreated.

The water truck ran dry but before she could worry what attack Kade would use next, a second similar vehicle pulled into position. Barely pausing, Kade dropped the now limp hose and took command of its replacement. Chera grunted for him when he looped that one over his shoulder and marched back into battle.

The sun, painted red by the fire, began sliding behind the mountain. Shadows stretched out to coat the landscape and sand away the distinction between colors. Chera's feet began to ache, a reminder that she'd been perched on the boulder all the time she watched. She started to sit, then realized her view of the battleground would be hampered if she did that. Besides, next to what the crew must be experiencing, her discomfort was nothing.

She heard the fire snarl defiance, watched mesmerized as it was forced to fall back upon itself. Still, as the men worked, the flames continued to seek something to feed on. Kade ordered the driver to pull even closer and emptied the rest of his water supply directly into the beast's teeth. For too long she wasn't sure, but foot by hard fought foot, the men caged their enemy. It still spit and cursed, but even she knew it's life span was numbered.

She felt like applauding, would have if she'd thought anyone could hear. But there was so much noise that nothing she did or said could possibly draw attention her way.

Or was there?

Kade straightened and glared at what he'd just controlled. The set of his shoulders said it all; he was proud. Tired, still wary, angry, but proud.

Without saying a word to those near him, he let the hose drop to the ground and started toward her. His route brought him close enough to the still hissing fire that he had to walk over charred grass, but obviously his boots were built for that kind of punishment. As he came close, she could see that a few strands of thick, black hair near his left temple had been singed. There was a nasty looking blister on the flesh there. His face was streaked with sweat and soot.

Silent, he planted himself in front of her and with a quick yank, pulled off his all but ruined shirt. Feeling suddenly lightheaded, she took in his tanned shoulders, his dark-dusted chest, arms so powerful that they would have made the high school football players she taught envious. He inhaled, his chest expanding, expanding. Despite the brisk breeze, his flesh still glittered from sweat and spray. The hair which curtained his muscular chest was just as dark as that on his head.

Just as foreboding.

A grizzly. He reminded her of the one creature in the forest that feared no one or nothing. He glanced over his shoulder at the smoldering fire; when he turned back around, in his eyes was the same fear she'd seen earlier--dying now, but still there. This was a man who'd been rocked to his soul.

"Tell me. Now."

"Tell you--what?"

"How the hell did this happen?"

"Do you have to swear?"

"Yeah, I do." He folded his arms across his chest. She wanted to slap them down so he wouldn't look quite so formidable but doubted that would do much good. "This is my land," he said. "When I think of what almost happened--what'd you do, flick a cigarette out the window?"

"I don't smoke."

"What then?"

"Wait a minute." She should have immediately guessed what he was getting at. If she hadn't been distracted by his size, his--his masculinity--she would have. "You think I'm responsible?" She repositioned herself on the rock since that was the only way she could meet his eyes without having to stare up at him. "I'm the one who told you about it, aren't I? If I'd done something that stupid, why didn't I just turn around and drive away?"

He blinked and she wondered if he was having difficulty switching from the instinct of battle to rational thought. If so, she understood. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I told you. I came to see you."

"Yeah?" He cocked his head to one side, his arms still folded. "What for?"

"To..." Why couldn't he stand there like an ordinary human being? It wasn't as if she was some axe murderer and he the detective who'd tracked her down. She wanted him to be capable of listening to her, to understand. To maybe help her understand why she felt so driven by her dream. "I need permission to be on your land this summer. Actually--Mr. Morgan, I'm a teacher."

"Hm."

Taking a breath, she plunged ahead. "I have a project. The opportunity of a lifetime if I can put certain things together before school starts again. All right, it's consuming me. I don't deny it. If I'm going to have a chance of being awarded the grant that'll make everything possible, I need access to your property. And I need to hire you to guide me through it."

"No."

"No?" She felt suddenly sick. "You haven't heard--"

"It doesn't matter. My men and I are busting ourselves getting this timber cut before we're shut down for the summer. If we're lucky, we'll get the week we need before the forest service pulls the plug on all activity in the woods. Someone--" He gave her a pointed stare. "Someone just gave me a vivid demonstration of how real the fire danger is this year. I don't want anyone on my land risking--" He indicated the blackened trees.

"I understand, believe me. Mr. Morgan, if you don't want so much as a match out there, that's fine with me. In fact, that would make me feel a lot safer. But I don't know why you're saying no when you haven't even heard my request."

"Can't you?" He let his arms drop to his side, the gesture letting her know how profoundly weary he was. Then he slid his hands in his back jeans pockets. That gesture expanded his chest almost as much as his first, deep breath had. "What I have here is ownership of and responsibility for ten thousand acres of forest. It's how I support myself and the men on my crew. This year I was hit, big time, by timber thieves. The last thing I need is to be distracted from making sure they don't try again."

"I'm sorry. That's an awful thing to have happen. But all I want--"

"Look, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we have different priorities. I don't even understand what you're after."

"A grant. And a chance to recreate history." She knew her eyes glittered with unspent tears but couldn't do anything about it. This meant so much to her. Maybe too much. Otherwise the ticking clock wouldn't fill her with such a sense of dread. "Mr. Morgan, you'll be paid--"

"That's not the point," he interrupted. "I do not want anyone on my land." He ran a hand through his hair, then held out his hand so she could see the ash and soot on it. "Do you understand that, lady?"

"My name's Chera James."

She readied herself for more argument, tried to tell herself she would survive if his refusal remained firm, but although Kade continued to stare at her, for longer than she liked, he said nothing. She kept her mouth shut, hoping he was reconsidering. Trying to weather crushing disappointment.

"Miss or Mrs?"

"Ms."

He glowered; there was no other way to describe the look, or her reaction to it. "James. Look, Ms. James, I've got a lot left to do today before I can pack it in. A lot more than I thought I'd have." He nodded over at the fire. "Do you know Dunnigan Road?"

She struggled to remember. It was outside the city limits, not all that far from here if memory served her right, a lazy country road that trailed through hilly woods. She nodded.

"I live there. Third place on the left after the ten mile marker. Tomorrow night, after dark. We'll talk then."

Tomorrow night. After dark.

CHAPTER 2

Chera unlocked her front door and pressed her shoulder against it. With a tired protest, the warped wood released its hold on the doorjamb and she half stepped, half stumbled inside. After muttering under her breath at whoever had installed a hollow core door in Washington state's rainy climate, she turned her attention to removing her dusty tennis shoes before they tracked dirt all over her carpet.

Accomplishing that, she turned on the CD player and selected a new age instrumental. Music filled the air and took away the house's empty feeling. None of her plants needed watering. Still, she ran her fingers over the massive asparagus fern hanging near the living room window. It felt alive, comforting, a friend almost.

Kade Morgan was one intense, single-minded man. Just as single-minded as her father.

Despite the turmoil that lingered inside her as a result of watching a fire being fought and her conversation with and reaction to Kade, the faintest of smiles tugged at her mouth. What Kade Morgan didn't know was that growing up as Thatcher James' daughter, complete with two equally driven older brothers, had taught her everything she needed to know about standing up for what she believed in and for keeping certain emotions, certain needs to herself.

Not that making Kade understand how much this project meant to her would be easy, she admitted as she headed for the kitchen and a rare glass of wine to calm the nervous tension running through her. He'd been going to turn her down. She'd seen the hard, no compromise denial in the set of his jaw, and because she'd seen his fear at the prospect of losing his forest, she'd understood his commitment to protect it. Then something had changed his mind.

Well, she'd find out what was going on under that mass of dark hair soon enough. Tomorrow night as a matter of fact.

The first sip of wine hit her stomach and settled her emotions just a little. Still, she knew it would be a long time before she could quiet her memories of what she'd been a part of today. If Kade hadn't quickly taken charge--A shudder raced through her and she fought to shut down her reaction to that possibility.

Taking her wine with her, she headed into her bedroom and dug in the closet for a pair of slippers. Then she walked across the narrow hall to the other bedroom which did duty as her office. Her answering machine was blinking. Her father had left a message, as usual short and no-nonsense. Where was she? He wanted to give her the name of the only shop in the county he trusted to work on her car's shocks.

"I can function just fine, Dad," she muttered before dialing his number. "If I can get through college and hold down a challenging teaching position and deal with--Seth? What are you doing there?"

"I love you too, baby sister. Where you been? Dad's blowing blue smoke, as usual."

"Where you been? All those years of law school and that's your idea of a proper greeting?"

"You betcha. I done didn't gotten ya for ma teacha. If I had--Look, Dad's getting on the other line. Just a minute."

Chera winced. As if today hadn't been hard enough on her nervous system, now she'd be bombarded by two of the three males who thought she couldn't take a breath without them advising her how to do it. If so handsome, so articulate Kipp didn't anchor the 11 P.M. news, she'd probably have him to deal with too. In preparation for her father's greeting, she held the phone a good six inches from her ear.

"Where you been?" he bellowed.

Wincing and laughing at the same time, she attempted to deflect the question by asking about the message he'd left. He gave her the name of the shop that met his approval and then again demanded an explanation of her recent whereabouts. She could have told her father and brother that she'd had a hot date, but thanks to the insanity of the end of the school year, to say nothing of her determination to pursue the research grant, her social life had all but gone down the tubes. She wished that was different; she wanted someone who cared, not about her brakes, but why she filled her house with plants and had bought a little house, not as the investment her family saw it as but because she needed to put down roots, to nest.

"I've been doing some checking up," Seth broke in. "That's why I'm at Dad's, to tell him that our suspicious have been confirmed."

"Suspicions? What kind of checking up?"

"This thing you're all fired up about--"

"This thing as you put it, is part of our family's heritage, Seth. I know it doesn't mean much to you, but it means everything to me. Besides, what concern is it of yours?"

The silence that followed her question lasted no more than two seconds. If she hadn't grown up with Seth, she wouldn't have noticed. But Seth wasn't often a man without words. That was part of what made him a successful lawyer.

"What concern is it of mine? In case it's slipped your mind, you're talking about taking off for the middle of nowhere for who knows how long."

"One week, approximately."

"Okay, one week. With Kade Morgan."

"Wait a minute." Chera had been in the process of taking another sip. Now she set her glass down and concentrated. She'd deliberately said nothing to her family about whose timberland she'd be on because otherwise who knows what they'd do--probably buy the land out from under the poor man in a misguided attempt to protect her when protection was the last thing she wanted. "You've been digging, haven't you?" she pressed. Poor man. No. Kade Morgan certainly wasn't that.

"I had to. You wouldn't tell me a thing."

She'd asked her brother the question. Why was her father answering? "I tried, but you don't understand my reasons. At least not all of them. That's all right; I understand." I don't try to change what can't be changed.

"You're not getting all misty eyed, are you? I swear, emotional as you are, you're going to be a basket case when you get married, if it ever comes."

Ignoring Seth, she insisted on knowing why her father thought he needed to learn the identity of the owner of the wilderness acreage. Because it was his responsibility he told her.

"Dad, I love you, but it is not your responsibility. I'm over twenty one. I pay my own taxes and probably could have muddled through getting my brakes repaired by myself."

"Ha! The problem is, you're naive."

"Not too likely." She couldn't help laughing. "Sit in a room full of teenage males with raging hormones for a few days and then ask yourself how anyone can possibly remain naive."

"I'd rather have a root canal than step inside a classroom. Listen to me. There's certain things you need to know about Kade Morgan. Once you do, you won't want anything to do with him."

It's already too late. I've met the man. "What things? Seth? Did you check to see if he has a criminal record?"

"He doesn't. Barely."

Barely? She could have asked how they'd learned Kade's identity but guessed it had been a simple matter of checking property tax records. Also, as a timber broker and president of Northwind Industries, her father probably knew something about everyone in the state even remotely involved with the lumber industry. "What do you mean, barely?" she asked.

"He almost punched out a judge a few months ago."

He would have won the fight, she thought, even if she was the last thing from an advocate for fisticuffs. Earlier this year, her father's company had been involved in a legal case, something incredibly complex that had to do with lumber acquisition. While she was still trying to understand the situation, no mean feat given how little her menfolk had confided in her, it had been thrown out of court, thank heavens.

"Dad? Are you sure it was a judge? You aren't saying Morgan tried to go after you, are you?"

"Me? I've never met the man."

"Good. You had me going there for a minute. Dad, I love you for showing concern, but Morgan isn't going to punch my lights out. I can take care of myself."

"You don't know what you're doing. Believe me--"

"Dad," Seth interrupted. "Don't forget what I told you. Morgan'll turn her down. You don't have to worry."

"Don't tell me when to worry. You listen to me, Chera. This grant you're so all fired up about. It's not going to get you rich, is it?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Then why are you doing it?"

She felt exhausted, not because of the day she'd had but because she'd tried so hard to help him understand her deep need to connect with their ancestors. Maybe nothing she said or did about her dreams would ever get through to him; certainly it hadn't happened yet. "A lot of reasons. Reasons I've tried to explain so many times that I'm worn out. The only thing left is to do everything I can to secure the grant and, hopefully, turn my goal into reality."

"You're like a dog growling over a bone about this. For crying out loud, shouldn't you be thinking about getting married or something?"

She did think about getting married, being loved, carrying and then caring for the children she wanted so badly that sometimes the wanting made her cry. However, the right man, whoever and whatever that might be, hadn't yet entered her life. "What do you want me to do, pick him out of some catalogue?"

"Don't get sarcastic. If you'd put your mind to what you're supposed to, you wouldn't be wasting so much time on this project of yours."

Put her mind to what she was supposed to? Ah yes, at twenty eight a woman should be married with two point whatever children. Her father had probably read that in a manual somewhere and asked himself why his daughter hadn't kept up with the crowd. Unfortunately, that question hadn't included the vital issue of whether her hypothetical husband was someone she could love and cherish. Cherish? She didn't think her father knew the meaning of the word.

"Did you hear me?" her father pressed. "I don't want you tromping on Kade Morgan's land. It's not safe. He's not safe."

"Because someone told you he nearly punched out a judge?"

"No. Not just because of that. You will not, I repeat, will not have anything to do with the man."

"Dad? What has gotten into you? I'm a little old to be trying to order around. Besides, aren't you the one who always said you didn't believe in running your kids' lives?"

Chera waited, picked up her wine, sipped, and waited. But neither her father or hot shot lawyer brother said anything.

Lobo's barking distracted Kade from the one thing he didn't love about being his own boss--bookkeeping. A glance at the mahogany clock on the fireplace mantle reinforced his concept of the time. 9:20 P.M.

Without bothering to put on shoes, Kade walked to the front door of his seven year old log home, snapped on the outside light, and stepped onto the expansive front porch. Lobo stood by the stairs, the sound coming from the half wolf's throat more howl than bark. "Give it a rest, old boy. Once she's gone, you can tell me what your instincts say about her."

Apparently that set well with Lobo. After a final rumble, he settled back down on the oak flooring. Kade remained beside him as Chera slipped out of her car and stared up at him. She'd exchanged her breast skimming pullover shirt for one that buttoned but still disclosed the woman underneath. The jeans she wore were snug enough to highlight long, strong legs and real hips, not scrawny like on those women who were probably afraid to eat more than once a week.

Not that she packed around more than she needed to. No. Not at all.

Squinting against the bright light, she started up the stairs, her movements sure. Yesterday the fire had so consumed him that when he thought about her, he hadn't been able to remember little things, like how she wore her hair. There was a mess of it all right, almost as dark as his and long enough that she could have worn it in pig tails or a braid down her back. Tonight she'd pulled some of it away from her face and caught it at the back of her head, but most of it flowed over her shoulders in a soft, attention grabbing wave.

Slender shoulders, straight and broader than he thought they'd be but still feminine, very feminine. He didn't want that.

"Do I meet his approval?"

She was talking about Lobo. He'd had visitors who'd refused to step on the porch as long as the hybrid was there. Despite his reasons for asking Chera James here, he liked the way she regarded Lobo, sizing him up just the way Lobo was doing with her.

"He'll let me know once he makes up his mind."

She was waiting for him to say something else. If she thought he'd throw out some small talk, she was going to be disappointed because he'd never had the slightest bit of interest in small talk.

"Did you find out who started the fire?" she asked.

Good question. Deceptive maybe, but direct. "I called the country sheriff, fish and game, the forest service. Nothing. But then that doesn't surprise me."

"Why? Because you still think I did it?"

"I shouldn't have said that. At the moment I was running on adrenalin. You were right. If you'd been responsible, you wouldn't have come looking for me. Thank you. If we hadn't caught it so early..."

"I dreamed about that last night, the fire getting away from you that is. It woke me up."

Woke her up? That was his land, his wilderness to protect, not hers. "You showed," he said. "I wasn't sure you would."

"Because you thought you'd scared me off?"

He'd wondered exactly that, but he wasn't about to spell things out to her. Shrugging, he pushed his door open so she could go inside ahead of him. Through the slowly closing door, he could see Lobo looking in at her, head tilted to one side, ears alert.

Without waiting for an invitation, she sat on the nearby couch. He wondered if she considered herself vulnerable in his place--the bear's den a former employee had called it just before Kade fired him. She looked around, moving her head slowly, drawing his attention to her long, slender neck. He didn't like being that aware of her.

"This is a magnificent place," she said. "The workmanship is incredible. It feels, oh I don't know--rich. Solid. Like a real home. Like a place to live one's entire life."

"Thank you."

"Oh." Her eyes glittered. She blinked her tears away. Still, he heard the emotion in her voice when she asked, "You built it?"

"With help. Some of the timbers and beams are too heavy for any one person to handle alone, and I didn't have the time to do all the work by myself."

She glanced up at an exposed support which doubled as the railing at the top of the stairs. "The lines in here feel clean, uncluttered. That's the best way I can express it. I hate it when wood is stained so dark that you can't see the grains. The way you left everything open so that living room, kitchen, and den area are all one is wonderful. What's upstairs? The bedrooms?"

"And my office."

"You too." She nodded her graceful nod. "I turned my spare bedroom into space for all my teaching and research material. If nothing else, it holds down on the visible clutter. I envy you." With the words, her voice became soft again. "My place gives me privacy and room for my plants and the antiques I collect but that's all it is, a place. This--Mr. Morgan, why did you invite me here?"

"To find out why you came all the way out to my operation yesterday."

She crossed her legs and placed her hands quietly in her lap. Because he only had one light on, he couldn't quite make out the color of her eyes. They might be green, but he thought he caught a hint of gray in them. One thing, they were large, her most arresting feature. That and the soft hair that begged for a man's hands to run through them.

If he'd had time for a woman in his life lately, he wouldn't be reacting this way. Maybe.

"Do you know anything about the Ridgeway family?" she asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Ridgeway? Can't say as I do."

She gave him a look he hadn't seen since he walked out of school for the last time half way through the eleventh grade. If it had been test grading time, he would have flunked.

"They were one of the area's founding families. They came from Illinois by covered wagon looking, not simply for a place to farm, but because Jeddiah Ridgeway had been accused of stealing from some of his neighbors and needed a quiet, isolated area so he could start over."

"Fascinating."

Her chin came up; she looked ready for a fight. "Maybe not to you. But Jeddiah Ridgeway was my great, great grandfather on my mother's side."

"A thief?" he said without condemnation.

"Nothing was ever proven. It happened so long ago that no one cares any more. Besides..."

As he waited her out, he noted that she'd begun to work her fingers up and down her thighs in a restless, energetic motion and couldn't stop the thought of how the combination of soft flesh and firm muscle would feel under his hands. She looked around at uncut logs and massive windows but he doubted that she was that aware of her surroundings. More likely she'd stepped into the past.

"I have his diary."

Her eyes were glittering again. He'd have to be dead not to know how much that simple possession meant to her. "Do you?"

"It's over a hundred and fifty years old. Mr. Morgan--"

"Call me Kade."

"Kade." She leaned back, then, less than a second later, rocked forward. "My grandmother--my mother's mother--gave it to me because she believes I'm the only one in the family who'll truly appreciate it. It's been entrusted to me, and I take that gesture of trust very, very seriously."

"I can tell it's important to you, but what does this have to do with me?"

Her expression took on a new intensity along with something that might be desperate determination. She still wore her teacher hat, but it was more than that. Passion was the only word that came to mind. He thought of another kind of passion, wondered what it would be like to share that emotion with her.

"Jeddiah's diary includes an incredible amount of information about the route they took," she said in a tone that simmered with emotion. "That's in addition to priceless insights into what the trip did to them emotionally and took out of them physically. I showed it to a surveyor, a local historian. They agreed that the base of Rabbit Ears is where they camped one night."

"I own Rabbit Ears."

"I know." She started to nod, then became still. "The route they took goes directly through your property."

"So?"

"So I want to document the route, only the opportunity... More than that, I want to re-create it. Combined with excerpts from the diary, it could be a powerful lesson in what our ancestors experienced."

"Ours? They're your ancestors. From what I've been told, mine waited until the railroad was built."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I tend to get carried away. Dogged and determined. At least that's what my family keeps telling me. Anyway, if it wasn't for my ancestors, this area would have never been settled. There wouldn't be a town. The railroad wouldn't have come through. The first lumber mill wouldn't have been built."

He could have pointed out that sooner or later someone would have discovered the seemingly endless miles of forest and capitalized on that, but he didn't. He didn't know the woman and told himself he didn't want to, but he could tell how strongly she felt about her mother's family's role in settling this area. "What kind of documentation? What do you mean, re-create?"

"A trail, that's all." She waved her hands in the air. "Some brush cleared away so people can hike it and stop where the first settlers stopped, take out their pamphlets or booklets or whatever I design and read about what the Ridgeways experienced. It isn't the same thing as actually being a pioneer, but I believe people would get a great deal out of it. You know, an opportunity to touch the past. If I'm given the opportunity," she finished in a whisper.

Chera had left the door slightly ajar when she came in. Taking advantage of that, Lobo nosed his way inside and walked over to sit at Kade's feet. "Hiking?" Kade pressed. "What about motorcycles, ATV's?"

"Oh no." She shook her head emphatically. "That's not at all what I've envisioned. Of course if they're on horseback or--I've even toyed with the idea of covered wagons."

"Forget that. There won't be any covered wagons tearing up my land."

"Well--we'll talk about that later, after we've got other things settled. It took my ancestors five days to get through your property. Then they entered what's now BLM land. The officials have already given me permission to establish a trail there. If I get the grant that is." She was whispering again, her eyes haunted.

"If?" He leaned forward to acknowledge Lobo's presence, his eyes not leaving Chera.

She took a deep breath, stared down at her hands, then up at him and he sensed something shift inside her. "I'm desperate. I thought--I didn't want to have to say that, but you'll never understand if I don't lay everything out in front of you. The thing is, if I don't complete the initial documentation and get the application to the foundation before school starts, I won't stand a chance of being awarded the grant. It'll go to someone else this time." She briefly shut her eyes. "And there might not be another chance. Everything I've dreamed of..."

"It sounds like something educators would go for," he said, keeping his reaction to her intensity to himself.

"I think so. It means so much to me, more than I thought it would, but there's an incredible amount of competition for these awards." Once again she studied her hands, her blinks slow and telling. "A-a professional research project with impressive backing goes a long way toward moving a teacher along the career ladder."

"And that's why you're doing it?" he challenged. "Because you're ambitious?"

"No! I-I just thought if I said that, you might... Grants like this one don't come along all the time. When I heard about it, even with the impossible time restriction, I knew I had to go after it. I owe it to the ancestors who are responsible for my existence." She wiped at a tear. "That-that part of it is my own personal hangup; I know that, but I can't help the way I feel. Besides, I know what kind of recognition a project like this could bring my way."

"Hm. What would you do with that recognition?"

"There are any number of possibilities." She sounded more in control, less introspective. "Being considered for an innovative classroom technique, maybe opening doors to more local historic research. It would increase my chances of being awarded a scholarship if I decide to go after my master's degree."

"A master's? That's what you want?"

"I'm not sure." She suddenly looked vulnerable. "Maybe I don't know what I want to do with my life, how--right now I can't think beyond standing on the same spot my ancestors did, feeling as if I really knew them. As if I could hug them."

"You can't."

"I know. I'm getting carried away, again," she said. "I haven't marked a single foot of that trail yet. And unless I jump through all the proper hoops and have everything in place by the middle of August, I won't get the grant."

"What does your family think of this?"

"What?"

"Fiancé. Boyfriend. Parents."

She still looked puzzled by his question. "There's no fiancé. My mother's dead. My father and brothers..."

"What about them?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"What do you mean? Don't you care what they think?"

"Oh, I know what they think. They're--they're different from me in a lot of ways. It's not just them. I keep thinking of my students, older people, even young children. It's one thing to read about history in some dry book, but to actually go out and walk where pioneers walked--it could be an incredible experience if I can pull it off."

Enthusiasm put color in her cheeks and made her eyes shine with an inner glow. Despite the circumstances of their first meeting, he had been aware of how attractive she was. Now she became beautiful.

Beautiful and driven. Dodging around any conversation about her family.

"What if I say no?"

For an instant she looked as if he'd slugged her. Then he could swear he saw her clamp down on her emotions, will herself not to be ruled by them. "Why would you?"

"Maybe I don't want anyone on my property."

"How can you be so selfish?" She raked long fingers through her hair. "No. I'm sorry. I told myself I wasn't going to say anything like that."

"You just did."

She flushed a little. The pit of his stomach reacted. And although it was the last thing he wanted or expected, he understood why she'd thrown certain words at him. She believed he was about to heave a roadblock in front of her dreams. Dreams that meant so much to her that she couldn't put them into words.

She started talking again, something about how excited the officials at BLM were and how she would give anything to be able to thumb her nose at the science teacher she considered to be her main competition for the grant. Lobo had laid his head on his paws but his ears were still pricked forward as he listened to her.

Kade understood. Chera had an unusually deep voice for a woman. Maybe deep wasn't the right word. Husky. Sexy.

Definitely sexy, like the rest of her.

Seductive.

The vice in his belly tightened. "One condition," he said slowly. "I don't want anyone else up there. The fire danger--"

She blinked and all but gaped. "You're saying yes?"

"I got the word this morning. Unless we get a hell of a storm in the next few days, which we won't, all forests around here will close on the 19th. I'm done harvesting until the fire danger's past. Besides, if you and I take anyone else in there with us and word gets out, the forest service will try to stick their nose into what's none of their business."

"You'd go into the woods even if they tell everyone to stay out?"

"These are my woods, Chera. Bought and paid for with my own money. Protecting them means as much to me as your dream does to you."

"Oh." The word came out in a small whoosh of air that made Lobo lift his head. After a moment, he looked at Kade as if asking what he should make of that. Kade didn't try to explain. A dog wouldn't understand a throaty yet deeply feminine sound and a purely human male reaction.

Seductive. She was that all right.

"Like I said, I'm shutting down my operation on the 19th," he explained. "We'll get going right after that. I'll let you know what you need to bring. I hope you're used to walking. And riding. We'll take my horses."

"Oh." She pressed her hand to her throat. "Thank you."

Kade stood on his porch looking out at the star sprinkled sky until he could no longer hear Chera's departing vehicle. When he turned around, he discovered Lobo beside him.

"What do you think? Not a lot of heft to her, but she makes up for it in brains. Guts. Dedication."

Lobo blinked.

"I can't help it if such things don't matter to you. Take it from me, that's one dedicated, determined lady."

Lobo whined.

"What are you trying to tell me, old boy? That I should have sent her packing? Good point. Damn good." Kade touched the back of Lobo's neck before leading the way inside. Lobo walked over to where Chera had been sitting and sniffed.

"So?" Kade asked. "What do you think? Am I being set up?"

Lobo cocked his head. Something that looked suspiciously like a smile lifted his lips.

CHAPTER 3

Kade parked in Chera's driveway, tucked his keys in his hip pocket, and took her front steps two at a time. As little houses went, it wasn't bad, particularly the large, tree dotted yard, but he couldn't fathom living with neighbors on all sides--neighbors whose houses looked like clones of each other.

He knocked on the door, taking note of the hollow sound. She should exchange that pathetic excuse for a door for something that would provide true protection. Only, he reminded himself as it opened, what she did or didn't do with her life wasn't any of his concern.

Except when she stepped onto his property and put her safety in his hands.

Safety?

Whose?

"Kade? What are you doing here?"

The element of surprise. "There's more we need to talk about. I had the time. I hope you do too."

"Ah, yes. Of course. What kind of things? Is there a problem?"

Although she was waiting for an answer, he inhaled a faint, distracting scent of lavender cologne and simply waited to be asked in. She slid her fingers over the loose hair at the nape of her neck and nodded, letting gesture take the place of words. He stepped around her--close but not too close--and took in a surprisingly cozy living room filled with old and well cared-for furniture, a jungle's worth of plants, curtains pulled back to let in the long evening light, a wall all but covered by faded photographs of men, women, and children in period dress. A guitar from a CD or tape played softly in the background.

There was a stack of newspapers and magazines beside what he took to be her favorite chair and a nearly empty iced tea glass on a table. Good. Women who made a career out of neatness made him wonder if they didn't have enough places to put their energy. He hadn't expected to feel as if he might fit within these walls, hadn't wanted that. Still, there was no denying the sense of ease, comfort, that surrounded him.

Set up. Maybe.

After trailing behind him, Chera walked over to a cane rocking chair and sat down. She nodded again, indicating he'd probably prefer a large recliner. He took it, feeling substantial furniture and thick carpet beneath his worn tennis shoes. Without saying a word, he leaned across the space that separated them and handed her the clipboard he'd brought with him. Not speaking, she took a minute to read. Her feet were bare. She wasn't wearing makeup.

He liked both impacts, more than he should.

"This is what you think I should bring along?" she asked, indicating the list.

"It's what you're going to need."

She met his gaze. Gray. Tonight her eyes were definitely gray. "It sounds like an order."

"Look Chera, I know what it takes to survive out there. You're only going to need a few personal items; most of that back-to-nature stuff is hype pure and simple. Two changes of clothing. Flashlight, a sheath knife, insect repellent, tarp, sleeping bag, camp food. I'll bring the first aid kit and a weapon. I know where the streams are. There's no reason to lug around a lot of water."

"Soap."

"What?"

The corner of her mouth twitched in a way that begged to be touched. "I'm bringing soap and shampoo. I can't imagine life without those items. And I hope you have no major objection to hand cream."

He'd put that on his list but either she hadn't noticed or was trying to goad him. Advice from her father?

"A collapsible shovel."

"What?"

The way she repeated her earlier question brought a smile to his lips. "For burying anything we leave behind. The Indians believed in leaving nature the way they found it. So do I." He pointed at the list. "If you'd read instead of argue, you'll see it's all there."

"Who's arguing? You're the one who assumed I'd want to haul in a travel trailer."

On the brink of assuring her that he'd hadn't come here to pick a fight, he changed his mind. People whose emotions were on edge were more likely to reveal things about themselves they hadn't intended to. He wanted her on edge. "There are rattlers up there, a large den not far from Walker Creek. You're not afraid of snakes, are you?"

She cocked her head to one side, a gesture which let her untethered hair fall away and gave him an uncluttered view of her long, slim, so-smooth neck. "I think you'd love it if I was. Sorry to disappoint you, but there isn't a thing in the woods that scares me. I'd never survive as a teacher if I was high strung. Bugs, fine. Lizards, no problem. Bears? I'll concede the trail to them, but I'm not going to shriek and squeal."

He thought about telling her that the deadliest creature out there walked on two legs, not four. However, if he did, he might play his hand more than he'd intended. For now he'd assume the role of the stubborn timberland owner. "We'll see," he said before indicating she should continue her study of what he'd given her. She read silently, her mouth moving just enough to hold his attention. Finally, lips a little thinner than they'd been earlier, she placed the list on the table along with her other reading material.

Clothes had never mattered to him. You put them on, wore them, washed them when they needed it. Bought others when you had no choice. But what she had on kept snagging his attention. Soft. Sleeveless. It was a basically white length of fabric that looked like a cross between a dress and a nightgown. He supposed it made sense to run around at home in something that covered what it had to and yet left her arms and legs and a fair measure of her throat exposed. However, the fabric wasn't heavy enough to conceal the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra or long enough to hide more than half of her thighs or stiff enough not to caress her tiny waist and flat stomach.

Concentrating was going to take work.

"How did you find where I live?" she asked.

"I asked. He told."

"He? Who he?"

"Some wizzled up little guy at your school. I think he said he teaches math."

"You went to my school? What did you do that for?"

He shrugged and took a moment to settle himself back in the chair. "You didn't tell me your address and your name isn't listed in the phone book."

"Oh. Well--" Her expressive mouth twitched. "A wizzled up guy? Hiram Blackenstock. Knowing him, he would still be hanging around the school. The poor man hasn't figured out what summer vacation's for."

"I didn't catch his name. However, I did get the impression he isn't your staunchest supporter."

"You're right about that. Hiram and I are in competition for the grant. He wants to do a study designed to pinpoint why so many students don't like math. My lord---" She slapped her hand to her forehead. "Do you have any idea how many studies have already been done on that subject? Probably thousands. I swear, this world of ours is being studied to death."

"I won't argue that with you. Hiram gave me a message for you. It was in essence--"

"Eat my dust."

"What?"

"I know exactly what he'd say." Chera laughed, a full bodied sound. "We bring out either the worst or the best in each other depending on how you look at it." She lifted her hand again, this time to push her fingers through her hair. "I don't get it. Hiram just handed you my address? I mean, for all he knew, you were an escaped axe murderer."

"Nope. Just your business partner."

Her fingers reached further. "My what?"

She did fluster. He wouldn't forget that. "He was a little suspicious when he found me in your classroom, but I told him you'd asked me to meet you there so we could discuss a venture we're involved in. He was dying to learn more. However, I didn't give him a whole lot. Then when, five minutes later, you hadn't shown up, he said maybe you'd forgotten and were home." Kade shrugged. "One thing led to another and he gave me directions."

"You..." She closed her mouth, then opened it just enough so she could chew on her lower lip. The gesture made her look about fifteen. Briefly. Made him want to play the role of big brother. Briefly. "You're smooth."

He'd never thought of himself in those terms. In fact, when people put a label on him, they were more likely to call him a junk yard dog. Just the same, he acknowledged what he took to be a compliment and then took a minute to give her snug and restful living room another look. It even smelled feminine. He couldn't put a name to the aroma that teased him, just that it reminded him of spring and flowers and a soft woman.

Con. She might be a con.

If so, he was determined to watch her a hell of a lot closer than Hiram had him. He had to; his livelihood might depend on it. "There's ghosts in your classroom," he said. "They were all over the place when I walked in. They took off when Hiram and I started talking."

"They do that." She still held her body alert as if not quite sure what to expect from him, but her eyes gave her away. No matter what else she might think of him, dismissing him from her mind wasn't one of her options. "I don't know why it is. The first time I stepped into an empty classroom it spooked me. But I've gotten used to the spirits. What I think happens is that kids, especially those who barely scrape by, have to leave a little of themselves behind. That way, maybe, they'll pick up the education they didn't get the first time around."

Kade ran her theory around in his mind. It made as much sense as anything he could come up with. "Do they always go away when more than one person is in the room?"

"That's been my experience." Once again the corners of her mouth were on the move. "Elizabeth Ekker-Miss. Elizabeth-says there's a boy from her first year of teaching back in the dark ages who is always sitting in the far corner of her room. Apparently he really worked her over when she was so green she didn't know how to handle him. Maybe he had so much fun that he's never wanted to leave."

"Then you believe in ghosts."

"What's not to believe?" She shrugged her slender shoulders and sent the fabric over her breasts into motion. "They're there."

Interesting perspective, one that intrigued him almost as much as the author of the words. "It doesn't bother you to be alone with them?

She shrugged again. "They keep me company, keep me from talking to myself."

Why would she be talking to herself? A woman like that should be surrounded by men. Unless--unless what? That maybe they didn't see the same things in her that he did? The thought unnerved him and he forced himself to concentrate on business. "Ground rules."

"Why aren't I surprised?"

She caught on quick, so quick that he'd be well never to forget that. "It's the only way I'll have it. Otherwise, I'm calling the whole thing off. One." He held up his forefinger. "You are not to talk to the press about what we're doing."

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of their damn business."

"Kade, if I get the grant, the foundation people will push for every bit of publicity they can get. Besides, if you think I'm going to slink off in a corner and--"

"I didn't tell you to slink off in a corner, did I?"

That took her back for about a half second. "That's just a figure of speech. Look, there has to be promotion. I'm all for it. Otherwise, no one is going to know about what Jeddiah did. They won't appreciate--won't understand--"

"Slow down. I said--" He spaced out the words. "I said, you are not to tell the press about what you and I are doing."

"Oh. Oh? You mean now, don't you? But after we get back, I intend--"

"Don't intend anything, yet. That's the way it has to be, Chera. My land means everything to me. I'll do whatever I have to in order to safeguard it."

At that her head snapped up and she gave him a piercing look he'd be well advised not to forget. Still, her voice was strangely soft. "I don't have a choice, do I? All right. No press, now. But what about later?"

"Later depends on you."

For two cents--- With a superwoman effort, Chera stilled the urge to punch Kade in the mouth. The man had his nerve, marching in here wearing his skin tight t-shirt and molded-on jeans barking orders.

Only, the passion in his deep eyes spelled out everything she needed to know about him. His land did mean everything to him. Maybe his being in the wilderness was like breathing, essential.

A week alone with him. The thought terrified her, made her feel more alive than she had in so long that she couldn't remember. Fighting her reaction to his eyes, she concentrated on what he'd just said. "If that's the case then you'd better spell out every one of those ground rules," she told him. "Otherwise, how will I know whether I'm doing what you expect me to?"

"Oh, you'll know all right."

Why don't I doubt that? She straightened slightly, then leaned forward. "One thing I need to tell you. I hope it won't be too much of a problem, but I haven't ridden a horse in a couple of years. I used to quite a bit as a child. We had neighbors who kind of took me under their wing, who--"

"How'd you find me?"

"Find--you mean when I came up to where you were working?"

"Yeah."

She could feel the house pulse as two, then three seconds passed. Why? All he'd done was speak a single word and she could barely concentrate on what she wanted to tell him. "You slickered Hiram into giving you what you needed. I guess you could say I did the same."

"How?"

She started to shrug, then remembered what her shift fabric had done earlier. If she'd known he was coming, she certainly wouldn't have thrown this old thing on over nothing after taking her shower. She felt slightly exposed and more than a little uncomfortable and knew exactly why. No matter what else he was, Kade Morgan was first and foremost male. Capital letters male when she wasn't used to feeling that way around one. Gathering her thoughts, she explained that she just 'happened' to wander into the mill where Kade took his logs. "I'm not sure exactly what I said to the guy I talked to." Her mouth twitched. "Something about wanting to contact you about a business venture, I believe. What was his name? Will, William? He's the millwright."

"Whip. Whip Rambas."

"You're kidding? No. No one would joke about a name like that. Actually, he looks like a Whip Rambas. I'm sure he wouldn't be a millwright if he didn't have a brain inside his skull and a fair degree of mechanical aptitude, but he looks as if he can't think his way out of the proverbial paper bag. All those muscles and that little bald head--"

"What kind of a business venture?"

"If I recall, I didn't get particularly specific. I tried the direct approach a few times, calling around trying to learn where you were working, but everyone wanted to know more than I was willing to divulge. I think Whip was so surprised to find a woman in a skirt tromping over gravel and sawdust that he didn't think to ask questions."

"I don't expect he did. So you told Whip you needed to get in touch with me and he drew you a map."

"Something like that."

Kade smiled. The gesture appeared and disappeared so quickly that if she hadn't been tuned into him, she might have missed it. Touché, she wanted to say. Instead, she let silence speak for her.

She hoped.

The man filled the room. All right, maybe he didn't literally fill it, but it was impossible to think of anything else with him here. Would it be any different in the forest? No, the answer bounced back at her. No.

"What would you have done if Whip hadn't succumbed to your charms?" he asked.

"If you think I went there with the purpose of so bedazzling him that he couldn't think straight, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm no good at that sort of thing. I was just tired of playing twenty questions." She slid forward and decreased the distance between them, suddenly feeling an energy that couldn't come from anywhere except him. "Besides, if that hadn't worked, I have other sources, other methods, even if I'd prefer not to have to use them."

For a long time Kade simply stared at her. His mouth now looked as if it never smiled. And, although he hadn't moved a muscle, she could swear he'd expanded to encompass even more of the space they shared. "I imagine you do," he said, then stood. "It's just going to be you and me up there. I have a two-way radio so we won't be cut off, but I don't want anyone following us. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, of course. Kade, are you worried about something? What's wrong?"

"Wrong? Maybe nothing. And maybe..." Without so much as telling her good-bye, he crossed the room and walked out.

She listened to the door protest as it slid back into place, listened for the sound of his truck.

Finally she knew she was alone.

It was just her and the ghost of himself he'd left behind.

CHAPTER 4

"Hi Dad. It's me. I know you're at a meeting tonight. I just wanted you to know, I got the final word this afternoon. The big--the big adventure starts in the morning. I'll talk to you when I get back."

With a not quite proud of herself sigh, Chera hung up the phone. She'd deliberately waited until she knew her father would be out of the house before calling. Well, what did he expect? The campaign he, Seth, and Kipp had waged over the past few days had worn her down. There was no way she was going to listen to yet another argument about how her plan, her dream, was too hair-brained to be believed and only a fool would want to spend a week with a stubborn maverick like Kade Morgan. If she'd been a child, her father probably would have sent her to her room. As it was, all he could do was bellow.

Bellows didn't work.

Skipping a little in anticipation of a week without the men in her life yammering at her, Chera grabbed her back pack and headed for the door. Kade had insisted on having a final look at her supplies. Well, fine. She'd play the game his way. After all, they were using his bat and ball. And in his ballpark she admitted as she lugged the pack to her car.

What would he say if she insisted on bringing her own umpire?

She filled her mind with thoughts of standing at the plate of some deeply wooded ballpark. In her fantasy, all the fielders were determined clones of Kade Morgan who pounded their fists in their mitts and challenged her to try to park one over the fence. Her umpire, who looked suspiciously like Hiram, was afraid to say anything to the catcher for fear that particular Kade clone would let any and all pitched balls bean him.

What the heck. Given the way things were stacked in Kade's favor, she'd hit into a double play anyway.

Without being quite sure where the miles went, Chera found herself bouncing along the long, narrow dirt drive that led to Kade's place. The other night she'd been so focused on what she needed to say to him that his home and surroundings hadn't made a real impact until she was actually inside. Now, however, she couldn't get herself to think about anything except his turf.

What sane human being lived so far off in the woods that there wasn't even a hint of a neighbor. The mailbox before Kade's had been the better part of a mile back. Except for a woman in a beat up little pickup who was delivering the newspaper, she hadn't seen another car for at least five miles. Boondocks. Kade Morgan lived smack dab in the middle of the boondocks.

Owned them, ruled them.

"You tell me," she muttered as Kade's hybrid wolf/dog appeared out of nowhere and began trotting beside her creaking, groaning car. "What's he like to live with? He doesn't sleep under a bearskin blanket and file his nails with a Bowie knife, does he?"

The powerful creature effortlessly kept pace, mouth open just enough to reveal an amazing number of long, heavy teeth.

"You're his kind of dog, you know that, don't you? Rough around the edges. Doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks. Probably snarls if a man, or woman, so much as looks at him."

As if he understood perfectly, the creature rolled back his lips even more.

"Thanks. For nothing." She pulled next to Kade's oh-so-macho rig and gingerly opened her car door. The beast--Lobo, Kade had called him--half sat on his haunches and regarded her with intelligent, judgmental eyes. Okay, teach. Now what? "You aren't going to tear me apart, are you?" she asked.

"No he isn't."

Starting, Chera looked around. Kade must have been standing on the other side of his pickup. Either that or he'd been taking lessons from her classroom ghosts and had learned how to appear and disappear as the whim struck him. "That's a relief," she said once her heart slipped back into a normal cadence. "He certainly looks capable of taking on anything."

"He is. He's coming with us."

What for? You sure as heck don't need a watchdog. "Fine. Fine. I sure don't care. And even if I did..."

"Even if you did, it wouldn't make any difference. I take it you're ready."

"All plants watered." Chera reached into the car and pulled out her pack. "The neighbor's going to be picking up my mail and newspaper." She hoisted her pack to her hip, wondering how in the heck she was going to stay in the saddle with that weight on her back.

"Your family isn't going to keep an eye on things?"

"They're too busy with all the moving and shaking they're up to. By the time they figure out what's happened, I'll have left nothing but dust." Darn. There he was without a shirt again. True, the temperature had gotten to 102 today and hadn't cooled down that much, but did he have to--- "I picked up your paper on the way in. It looks as if the county commissioners are in hot water again."

"Does it?" Without bothering to ask whether she wanted help, he grabbed her pack by its aluminum frame and easily slung it over his shoulder. Biceps larger and firmer than she'd find on anyone except a dedicated weight lifter easily answered the challenge. Whatever he'd been doing just before she showed up had left a sheen of sweat on him. Dark, coarse hair clung to the flesh stretched over his considerable, very considerable, chest. If she touched her tongue, her lips to him, what would she experience--not just taste but experience?

Where in the devil had that thought come from?

While she struggled for an answer, Kade led the way inside. When Lobo tried to nose in ahead of her, she figured he was used to having the run of the place and didn't bother asking Kade whether he wanted the dog--wolf--in. Kade dropped her pack in the middle of the room. Lobo padded over to her belongings and sniffed. Then, looking for all the world like a government meat inspector, he eyed Kade as if to inform him that things didn't quite meet his approval.

She indicated Lobo. "Who carries the dog food?"

"The horses. He'd tear this place apart if I tried to keep him behind."

She didn't doubt that for a moment. She expected Kade to start wading into what she'd carefully packed and steeled herself for a scalding criticism. Instead, her about-to-be guide turned his attention on her.

"What do you weigh?"

A right hook, right in the kisser. "What? Oh, for crying out loud, one hundred thirteen pounds."

"More like one hundred and nine. You don't look strong enough for this. Do you ever work with weights?"

"No. Not really. But I'm stronger than I look." I hope. She almost told him she'd tried weight lifting a few times but hadn't kept it up because hoisting dumbbells bored her to distraction, but he'd undoubtedly find fault with her lack of dedication. Instead she explained that she got her exercise by joining the track team three afternoons a week. "I'm proud to say I've held my own in a number of mini marathons."

"What'd you get? A blue ribbon?"

Was that a put down? Probably. "The satisfaction of meeting my personal goals. What do you weigh? I'm guessing, hm--" She cocked her head to one side, looked him up and down, asked herself if she'd lost her mind. "Two hundred and five."

"About that. I don't have scales."

Figures. Now that they had the pleasantries over, she wasn't sure what her next move was supposed to be. Kade wasn't in a hurry to critique her packing. Maybe he wanted help with some chore, but unless he told her what it was, she couldn't do anything except stand there with her hands dangling by her side.

Blue jeans. She wondered if he owned anything else.

A haircut would make him look less rugged, less wild. Maybe.

"So--I take it you've got everything buttoned up," she came up with. "Nothing that's going to get in the way of the time you've allocated for me."

"Unless the forest service calls."

"Calls? But we won't be anywhere near a phone."

"I'm taking a two way radio. I'm a hot shot and given the condition of the woods, there's always the possibility of a fire."

"A hot shot?"

Lobo pressed his weight against Kade's leg. Kade reached down and touched two fingers to the top of the animal's head. "Fire fighter."

She probably should have figured that out. Only, he was standing in the middle of his primitive yet sophisticated and incredibly masculine home, wearing nothing from the waist up with a half wild animal beside him and all she wanted to do was get the hell out of there.

Either that or surrender to the energy that filled the entire space.

"Fire fighter. You like doing that?"

"I won't accept the alternative. What about your family? Earlier you said they might not be crazy about what you're doing. Have you managed to change their minds?"

He hadn't taken his eyes off her the whole time he was talking. Not that that was so strange, but there was something about the way he did it--as if he was trying to probe beneath her surfaces.

"I gave that up years ago. Now I try to ignore. I brought Jeddiah's diary. Maybe you'd like to look at it." Without waiting for an answer, she reached into a protected pocket at the top of her pack and carefully extracted the leather bound book that contained all she had of the man responsible for what she'd undertaken. She handed her treasure to Kade, half afraid he wouldn't take it, or worse, wouldn't understand what it meant to her.

Instead he held it gently in his big, competent hand and stepped to the nearest window so he could study the faded handwritten words. Barely aware of what she was doing, she joined him, noting that he'd opened the diary to the middle. She'd all but memorized what Jeddiah had said about his journey into an unknown land. Still, when she shivered, she tried to tell herself she was, once again, reacting to Jeddiah's eloquent, poetic style.

"A morning meant for spring planting," Kade read. "If we were home, I would have hitched Maude to the plow and be smelling wet, black earth. But this forested place is home now. I just wish I understood it."

Kade glanced over his shoulder at her. She'd gotten too close to him, so close in fact that when he breathed, she felt warm air against her flesh. "He was an aware man, wasn't he?" he said. "Aware of everything going on inside him."

"Yes. I guess he was."

He's going to kiss me. Lordy, what-- A forearm strong enough to master a chain saw pressed against her back and drew her close. She felt engulfed by him, swallowed. Absorbed. Then--because for some stupid reason she'd tipped her head upward--he covered her mouth with his and hollowed her out.

She remembered, vaguely, reaching for him for support and winding up with her arms around his neck. He felt like a tree, yet was too warm and alive for that.

He kissed. That's all. Nothing fancy. Nothing that might make her feel invaded. Still, there wasn't anything tentative about what he did. It was as if he'd stomped into the room, zeroed in on her. Done what he'd intended.

She stopped analyzing, simply felt.

Why did her toes feel as there were pins and needles in them? And the small of her back--someone must have placed something hot against it.

Hot. Warmer than usual anyway, deep in her belly.

And a mouth that wanted to welcome him in.

And breasts that needed to feel his body pressed against them.

And a buzzing in her head that sounded like an agitated bee hive.

"It was going to happen."

She tried to focus on the face two inches away. "W-hat?"

"We were going to do that. I thought I might as well get it over with."

Might as well get it over with. The arrogance-- Fine. By all means. Let's get the dumb thing out of the way. Only it didn't feel that simple to her. "You knew?"

"Yep. Next time--"

"There isn't going to be a next time." Belatedly, she remembered to drag her arms off his neck and step back to give strength to what she'd just said. "We have a business arrangement." She clipped the words, trying to sound the way she did when a student gave her a lame excuse for not doing their homework. "Nothing else. If you think it's going to be different---"

"What are you going to do, Chera?" he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Call off this business arrangement of ours?"

"You know I can't do that."

"Can't, or won't? The way I see it, there's nothing keeping you here except stubbornness. Maybe just stubbornness."

She opened her mouth intending to throw her dedication and commitment at him. But when she sensed him leaning toward her again, she thought better of continuing the argument while they remained this close together. So he'd kissed her. So--what?

Turning her back on him, she took a few haphazard steps hoping to find anything that looked as if it might hold her weight. "That's not it at all. I told you. The grant."

"Grant be damned."

"That's the last thing I'd ever do." She spun back around, not caring that she'd curled her hand into a fist and he could see. No shirt. Darn him! "I've told you. Some opportunities come around only once in life. If I don't go after this with everything I have, I'll always regret it."

He looked as if he either hadn't followed her line of reasoning or didn't particularly care. That was his problem. "I've always had a clear idea of the direction I want my career to take and this goal, this chance I'm taking is--"

"You'll have to wear your hair in braids."

"What?"

"Braids, while we're in the woods."

She waved away what was so elementary she didn't know why he'd brought up the dumb subject. Still, knowing he'd been thinking about her hair while she was trying to get her point across left her stumbling around looking for what had been on the tip of her tongue a second ago. "Fine. Fine. Look, Kade, I have no intention of doing no more than presenting the same material year after year to endless teenagers, counting down to retirement instead of being able to point at something unique that I accomplished. A person gets stagnant if she's not challenged, and this is the greatest challenge I've ever had. I'm not sure I've ever wanted anything more."

"You could get married. Let some man support you."

Her snort caught Lobo's attention who looked at her as if she had her nerve disturbing him. "If you think I'm some little gold digger--I can't believe you said that. To sell my independence for--"

"You've already sold your independence."

A left hook, in the Adams apple. "How can you say that? I'm supporting myself."

"Protected by tenure, union representation, retirement package."

"What is it with you?" she snapped. "Look, not everyone can own a forest. I'm sorry if I don't live up to your Daniel Boone standards, but I'm not going to slit my throat over it."

"I'm glad. It'd be a waste of a perfectly good throat."

"I'm so glad you approve. I'm rather fond of it."

"Keep that in mind while we're out there. You don't want anything happening to that neck, or the rest of you."

For some reason they'd gone on standing in the middle of the room even though sitting made sense. Maybe that's why he'd brought up her body, but she didn't think so. More likely it was tied up in that stupid, impulsive kiss. "I have no intention of breaking my neck. That really would put a fly in the ointment, wouldn't it?"

"Fly in the ointment?"

Despite everything, she couldn't help smiling. "My mother used to say that. At least I think that's how she put it. Maybe you need to see the results of my latest physical, which I passed with flying colors. Maybe then you'd stop worrying about my anatomy." If she had half a brain, she'd change this idiotic conversation. Instead, she wound up telling him about her one and only broken bone, the result of a steep hill and a bike without brakes. Suddenly she chuckled.

He gave her a look that reminded her too much of the one she'd gotten from Lobo. "I was just thinking about my brother Kipp," she explained. "He spent more time in emergency rooms while he was growing up than the rest of the family put together. Mom was certain he'd be a mass of scars. Fortunately for his career, he managed to keep his face intact."

"Kipp. Kipp James."

She planted herself in a straight back, rough finished chair that looked as if came from a pioneer cabin. "You know him? Well, not exactly know. Being a news anchor calls for a very public profile, doesn't it?" She debated the wisdom of telling Kade something, then decided she'd have to bring it up sooner or later. "If things turn out the way I want them to and I get the grant, Kipp promised he'll do a feature story on the trail."

"Did he."

"Yes. I need to know straight out. How do you feel about that?"

Something that didn't look anything like a smile played across Kade's features. "I'm looking forward to meeting the man face to face."

Although she secretly admired Kipp's ability to handle the news in front of a live camera, she referred to him as the resident talking head--at least she did when she thought she could get a rise out of him. He even had fans, mostly young women drawn to his movie star looks. She couldn't imagine what Kade would possibly have to say to him. "You are?"

"Yeah. One thing I want to make clear. This feature, if it comes off, is going to be put together after we get back. Under no condition is he to show up during the next week with camera in hand."

"You still don't trust me, do you? I gave my word."

"Your word. Yeah. You did that, didn't you."

Chera felt as if she'd been slapped. She ran his last words around in her mind, searching for the reason for her reaction. At least she tried to. For a few seconds, maybe even a minute, she'd been able to dismiss Kade's naked chest. Now, just when she least needed that, it made a fresh, undeniable, impact. She should get up and tell Kade she'd see him first thing in the morning.

Instead she sat.

And watched muscles bunch and roll under sleek flesh as he did nothing more complicated than change position.

"So there's Kipp and your father. Who else does your family consist of?"

She had the distinct and uneasy feeling he already knew the answer. "My oldest brother Seth. He's a lawyer."

"Does he like what he does?"

That question, like the previous one, was neither casual nor uncalculated. "He must. Why else would he have stayed in school that long? One thing I know, he likes the power that goes with his position."

Kade folded his arms over his chest. There was more rolling and bunching of muscle, more distraction. "I bet he does," he said.

CHAPTER 5

"I want you to spend the night."

Chera clenched her teeth and pulled her attention off the competent, take charge way Kade had rearranged the contents of her pack. At least he hadn't disapproved of her selection. She supposed she should be grateful for that. "Do you."

"We'll be leaving a little after dawn. It makes no sense for you to have to haul yourself back out here with only a few hours of sleep under your belt. Besides, I could use help with the horses."

Given what she'd just seen, she was certain Kade could saddle the horses in the time it took her to think about it. Nevertheless, she didn't bother to argue the point.

"Fine. I'm sure I don't care." She repositioned herself on the hardwood floor where she'd been sitting while Kade took pack inventory. "I trust I'll be able to take a shower in the morning."

"Of course. You do realize, it's the last real one we'll have for a week."

We. Why had her mind hung up on that? "Three horses did you say? You think one pack animal's going to be enough?"

He didn't answer, but then that didn't surprise her. For the past half hour, he hadn't spoken two words more than absolutely necessary. She'd fought to keep the conversation on what she considered the essentials by bringing up certain aspects of Jeddiah's diary, but all he'd said was that he'd look at the specifics of the historical route once they were out there.

Fine. Wonderful. Obviously he was so dad blamed sure of himself that he didn't need to study up on a subject like a normal human being. Only, if he floundered around---

It wasn't the silence that got to her.

Although she felt perfectly comfortable in her cotton blouse, he obviously still hadn't seen the need for a shirt. Fine. What did she care?

Only, if the truth be known, she couldn't go more than three and a half seconds without thinking about that blasted physique of his. She'd touched him just long enough during that abortive--abortive?--kiss to have discovered he was muscle through and through. She had no doubt; he'd earned those muscles the traditional way through years of physical labor. And muscles, well, muscles on that particular well carved male body were impossible to ignore.

Not that, obviously, he gave a darn about his impact on her. Hunched a couple of feet away, he put the finishing touches on his own pack without bothering to answer her question about how much of his life he'd had to rearrange to accommodate her.

What was the matter with the man? It wasn't exactly that he acted as if he didn't want her around. It was, well, maybe he didn't know what to do with her. That was possible; after all, he lived in a predominantly male world. Like a western cowboy, he got to town once every few months and headed straight for the nearest saloon and some dance hall girl who cared about nothing except the number of coins in his pocket.

Right. The last thing Kade Morgan would ever have to do was wave a money pouch at a soiled dove. More likely he had to beat the women off with a stick.

He'd ignored her because his mind was filled with things that had nothing to do with her.

Certainly not on their one and only--definitely only--kiss.

She pushed herself to her feet and fought the impulse to rub the stiffness out of her legs. What she needed was something, anything to think about except a smooth, dark dusted expanse of bare chest.

"I should be excited," she said more to Lobo than Kade. "After all, I've been working to get to this point for well over a year now. Maybe it simply hasn't sunk in yet. Look, I know you can't give me a definite answer, but what are the chances you'll get called away on a fire?"

"It depends on how many idiots are tromping around the woods."

Okay. It was a stupid question. She shouldn't have expected any more of an answer.

"I guess I'll never understand it," she muttered. He was getting to his feet. Good grief, did it really take that many muscles all working in harmony to accomplish one solitary, simple feat? "Will you tell me something?" she continued. "Why do people take chances with fire? What'd they say was the cause of the Peak Creek fire last year? Some man working on his lawn mower out in a dry field. He knew better; he had to have. Kipp and the other reporters had been hammering about fire conditions for weeks."

Kade's features instantly turned to granite. He spoke through barely moving lips. "Two point three million dollars to bring it under control. Nineteen thousand acres of wildlife habitat and watershed destroyed."

She opened her mouth to commiserate. That was when the impact of what he'd said hit her, really hit her. She'd heard the figures any number of times both while the fire was being fought and afterward and had felt sick. But spoken in Kade's deep, quiet, emotion heavy voice, the reality of the loss slammed into her like a blow to the stomach.

"You fought it, didn't you?"

"For ten of the hardest days of my life. The winds bucked us every inch of the way. I saw too damn many good men overcome by smoke inhalation."

"It must have been awful. You--the smoke. Did that happen to you?"

"Not that time. Look, the couch in my office turns into a bed. You should be comfortable there."

She struggled to keep up with his sudden change of subject. "I can sleep anywhere. Even through late night school board meetings, or so I've been told."

"I went to one once, just to see what they were about. It took them forever to make a decision that didn't matter a hill of beans."

"That's probably why I fell asleep."

Kade continued to look down at her, his hands comfortably at his side, his naked chest slowly expanding and contracting. If he did that much longer, she might not be responsible for her actions. Not quite sure how something as complicated as walking was supposed to be accomplished, she headed toward the stairs that led to the upstairs bedrooms. Only, she didn't want to go.

They'd come within inches of embracing a topic that deeply mattered to both of them. She'd heard the intensity in Kade's voice as he spoke of ten days spent fighting a monster--remembered the fury that consumed him as he attacked the small fire on his own property. But instead of keeping the lines of communication open and thus adding another layer to what they knew about each other, he'd changed subjects.

Why?

When she realized he wasn't following her, she went up the stairs, stepped into his office, and went about converting the couch out into a bed. He'd be just across the hall, maybe wearing shorts to sleep in. Maybe with nothing between him and the sheets.

Good grief it was hot in here. Was the window open?

Was he, right now, thinking about her, wondering what she wore at night, the positions her body assumed as she slept?

Yeah. Right.

It was only after she'd taken a deep breath and smoothed out the sheets already on the mattress that she thought to look around. There were two large windows, one of them aimed east so he could watch the sun rise. The other looked out onto his wooded world. They were both open, a fresh, cool breeze stirring a nearby plant.

The furniture was solid, masculine, nothing trendy. Obviously Kade hadn't been interested in creating a 'look'. Instead, everything from the redwood burl end table to the crammed unfinished pine bookshelf had been chosen with substance and practicality in mind.

Close to a quarter of the room's wall space was consumed by a massive roll top desk that must have taken an army of men to wrestle up the stairs. Although she was far from an antiques expert, she knew it was old, well made, and solid hardwood. A computer fit easily on the top work space. The eight cubbyholes were crammed. She took note of envelopes, stamps, paper clips, several IRS forms. What Kade did here was none of her business, but she quickly surmised that he ran his business, at least the paperwork part of it, from this desk.

She wondered how he'd come into ownership of the magnificent piece of furniture and whether he was responsible for how well it had survived the years.

"You might need a blanket."

Chera gave the hide-a-bed arm an unnecessary pat before turning around. Still no shirt, darn him. "I might," she agreed and watched as Kade dropped the red wool blanket on the end of the bed. Conversation. Come on, you can do it. "You must love working here. You have an incredible view."

His attention remained on her, not where she'd waved a strangely nerveless hand. "If I couldn't look out at that," he told her, "I'd probably never get the paperwork done. I'll wake you in the morning as soon as I'm out of the bathroom. You've got all the stuff you'll need?"

By 'stuff' she guessed he meant creams and cosmetics. She'd have to go back downstairs for her overnight kit, pared down to the essentials, she wanted him to understand. "If you're worried that I'll spend the morning in the bathroom, put your mind to ease. I'm usually in and out in about five minutes." Okay, maybe ten.

"Good." He stepped over to the window closest to his desk and looked out. He'd positioned himself so that he stood with his right side and a fair amount of his back toward her. She tried not to think about the expanse of him, but it was impossible.

This was a man's room. A man was in it. A work-formed man surveying his moonlight-kissed land. If they were lovers, she'd slide over to him and wrap her arm around his lean waist and he'd respond by...

"You are so lucky. I'd love to be able to sit here and watch it snow." Her lips felt as numb as her hand had.

"I seldom have the time for that. Sometimes, if there's enough of a storm, the road in becomes blocked and I have to use four wheel drive to get out."

Either that or wait out the weather in beautiful isolation. Or maybe with someone, a woman, with you. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and once again searched for something to say. "I can think of far worse things to have happen than getting snowed in. Where I live, the city crew always manages to clear the streets. No excuse for playing hooky."

Heat radiated out from him. No matter that there was discrete, proper distance between them, she could feel it. Much more time in his presence and she might have to beat a path to the window to keep from breaking out in a sweat. "I really appreciate you doing this. I hope you know that."

He turned from the window in another of those muscle tightening movements of his and gave her his full attention. "Oh, I understand all right."

Kade ran his hands through his shower-wet, shower-warm hair and then yanked a pair of jeans over his hips. Without bothering to put on shoes or shirt, he walked down the hall to his office and knocked on the closed door. Before he had to decide whether another knock was necessary, he heard her call out a sleepy, innately feminine hello. Then: "What time is it?"

"A little after six. There's a clock over my desk."

"Is there? I guess I didn't notice. Hold on. I'll be right out."

"The bathroom's yours."

He was nearly to his room when he heard the office door open. Curiosity overruled caution and he turned around. She wore what looked like a man's white dress shirt, only it couldn't have belonged to a man or the shoulders would have been wider. Like the garment he'd seen her in the other night, this one kissed the middle of her thighs. Was it on purpose, designed to force him to concentrate on her body and not what might be going on inside her calculating little mind?

Probably. Still, he couldn't deny that white was a good color for her, the perfect contrast to her dark tan.

Her hair was sleep-combed, wild and unkempt. From what he could tell, she'd lost what little makeup she'd been wearing last night. Funny, at 3 A.M. when something woke him and he gave himself over to erotic thoughts about the lady, he'd pictured her with her hair freshly brushed and makeup carefully applied. Wearing nothing. Eyes deep and smokey, fingers reaching for him.

"You were right," she said as she rubbed an eye and half yawned. "That's the most comfortable hide-a-bed I've ever been on."

"You have a lot of experience judging hide-a-beds?"

"Not really," she acknowledged with a laugh. "You're sure you're done with the bathroom?"

Unless you want me there to scrub your back. Yeah. That would play right into her hands, wouldn't it? "Yep." He took a backward step. "Go ahead. I'll be out with the horses."

"I'll join you just as soon as I can. Oh, my!"

He waited, but all she did was clasp her hands against her breasts and grin like a child anticipating Christmas morning. He wanted to tell her that what lay ahead of them today and for the rest of the week was hardly in the same category as opening presents, but judging by the way her eyes glittered, he didn't think she'd hear.

Besides he'd rather look at her than talk.

Finally she exhaled, still smiling. "I can't believe it's finally all coming together. I'm scared and excited and a thousand other emotions. Mostly determined. I just wish..."

"What?" he asked when a little of the light went out of her eyes.

"I was just thinking--" Her mouth twitched, but he didn't think it was from anticipation this time. "Wishing certain other people shared my excitement. Oh well." Another sigh. "I'm used to that, in spades. I can't have everything, can I?"

"Who can? What we do is go after what matters to us and to hell with those who don't see it the same way."

"That's really the way you feel?"

"Always have. When you get right down to it, all we have is ourselves."

She frowned. He guessed she didn't like hearing that. Well, it was too bad. Either she accepted him for what he was or---did she have to wrap her arms around her waist that way? Didn't she know how much of her breasts the gesture revealed, to say nothing of the two more inches of thigh he could now see?

"You're right. I know that." Her attention strayed to his bare chest the way it had more than once last night. "I'm sorry. I'm keeping you." With a nod, she swivelled away and headed toward the bathroom.

Although he had plenty to do, he didn't move until he could no longer see her slight, softly curved body. A week in his forest with just the two of them?

He'd heard of worse things, a lot worse. Besides, her fascination with his chest told him something important. She wasn't immune to him. Good.

Twenty minutes later, Kade led the three horses from their stall and tied them to the porch railing. He climbed the steps, his mind on how he intended to arrange their supplies on the pack animal. The fact that Chera hadn't yet joined him didn't surprise him. He'd never known a female to be able to get out of the bathroom in less than a half hour, most a lot longer than that. Still, when he spotted her through the window as she talked on the phone, he wasn't surprised by that either. What was she doing, giving a last minute update to her old man and that lawyer brother of hers?

Probably. With that thought driving him, he opened the door and stalked inside. She glanced at him, her gaze too neutral to be believed.

"I'm so disappointed," she said to whoever she was talking to. "I was sure you'd be delighted. No. I'm not joking. Would I do something like that? What? Oh, did I get you up? Gosh. I'm really sorry. Now, now, is that any way to talk? No. I don't think I want to break my neck. All right. Good-bye." She hung up, her fingers lingering over the receiver. "I'm sorry." She finally faced him. "I told you I'd be right out, didn't I?"

"You had a phone call to make."

"Yes. I did." Without explaining further, she began pulling her hair into a single braid.

He watched until she'd come to the end and caught the thick mass with a rubber band. Last night he was sure her hair had reddish headlights but this morning with it still slightly damp, it looked absolutely black. Black like a forest Indian.

Did her stealth match that of an Indian?

"I'm sure your family appreciated hearing from you," he said deliberately.

"That wasn't my family. I decided to let Hiram know. Gloat a little."

Hiram. The little prune of a guy she was in competition with, if she could be believed. However, she could have heard him coming up the stairs, told her old man a quick good-by, and still have time to concoct her half of a non-existent conversation. "It sounds like you woke Hiram up."

"I guess I did. I didn't even think of the time. Now." She made a show of vigorously rubbing her hands. "What do you want me to do?"

"Most of its done."

"Sorry."

He didn't speak.

"I am, really. I promised I'd be right out and I wasn't. I just wanted--you're right, I didn't have to call Hiram."

"No. You didn't. However, if it was your father, I would have understood."

"Would you?"

Not so much as a twitch, a blink. Unless he'd read this whole thing wrong, she'd just given him a vivid demonstration of how good an actress she was. "Yeah. I would. Maybe I would have taken a minute to pass the time of day with him."

"You know my father?"

"You might say that."

"Why didn't you say anything before?"

"No reason to."

"No reason? What is going on here?"

You tell me, lady. "Going on?" he repeated. "You're making it sound like some kind of conspiracy."

Although her hair looked perfect to him, she started worrying it. He waited her out, wondering just what was going on inside that calculating little head of hers. Wishing he could concentrate on dragging the truth out of her and not how soft her hair must feel, what it would look like flowing over her shoulders.

"Conspiracy? Hardly," she said on a whoosh of air. "Look, I know I'm holding things up. Like you said, it's time to get going." Without waiting for his response, she led the way to the door and stepped outside.

Jeans, boots, cotton blouse. And beneath her sensible work outfit, pure femininity that swirled and eddied around him like an unescapable mist. He'd had that pointed out to him in spades first thing this morning and had come away from the encounter with a single, vital lesson. On some women femininity was a weapon.

He watched as she slung a bundle over her shoulder and headed down the stairs toward the horses. Once on the ground, she looked up at a broad back, then set down her load. She spoke without turning toward him. "This is your department. Do you want me to carry the rest of our supplies down here so you can get to them easier?"

He told her that sounded like a workable plan, but as they concentrated on their separate tasks, his mind stayed on their short-lived conversation. Why hadn't she asked how he'd come to know her father? When he threw the word 'conspiracy' at her, she'd all but ducked. Then she quickly changed the subject. Tough. He was a long way from being done with it.

"I'm glad I'm not a horse."

Kade glanced at the bundles he'd strapped to the buckskin mare's back. "She's used to it. Been doing it for years."

"Has she? Wouldn't she rather be ridden? Oh, never mind. I don't know what I'm talking about. Well..." She eyed the pinto gelding he'd told her she'd be using. "I guess it's the time of truth."

"Want a hand up?"

"No. No. I'll do fine. Trixter, did you say his name is? Why? Because he can't be trusted?"

"Something like that." Kade mounted and took the pack mare's rope. He watched, amused, as Chera stepped up to her horse and patted it on the shoulder. Next to the gelding she looked vulnerable, in need of protection. Yeah. Right.

"It's you and me, old fella," she said. "One grand adventure together." She had more than a little trouble reaching high enough to get her boot in the stirrup, but once she'd accomplished that, she easily swung her slight weight up and into the saddle.

"Nothing to it." She grinned over at him. "It's just like swimming, isn't it? It all comes back to you." Still smiling, she traced a large circle in the air over her head.

"Roll those wagons, pioneers. We're moving out."

CHAPTER 6

Kade spoke over the steady clip-clip of shod hooves landing on hard-packed earth. "I don't want you out of my sight for a single minute."

"Not one? I hate to tell you, but there are certain things the majority of human beings insist on doing in private. I'm going to be a stickler about that."

"You know what I mean. I want your horse so close to mine at all times that I can reach out and touch you."

Chera, who'd been riding beside him, didn't grace him with so much as a glance. That, maybe more than an out and out glare, told him what she thought of his order. "I'm not going to burn down the woods." She indicated the tree-coated mountains on all sides. "If you think I'm that stupid, what are we doing here?"

"Did I call you stupid?"

"What then? Never mind. Maybe you're afraid I'm going to dig up some of your precious ground and dump in a handful of marijuana seeds while you aren't looking. I know; you think I can haul in logging equipment behind your back and drag out several thousand board feet of timber in a few minutes."

Kade didn't bother to respond to her ridiculous suggestion. Still, was it just a casual comment that had her bringing up the very thing he'd accused her father of?

"I've got it," she continued, laughing a little. "You think I've been in touch with CNN and they're right around the corner waiting for me to give them the word to start filming. You know how it is with those thirty foot high satellite dishes. They can be snuck in and no one will even notice. Darn it, Kade. When are you going to trust me?"

Never. "What I said was, I don't want you out of my sight. That particular order is not negotiable."

"Fine. Fine. But I want to tell you something. You're making me feel like a convict and I don't know why. I'm surprised you didn't bring along a pair of handcuffs."

Maybe he should have. That way he'd always know what she was up to. That and a gag. "You ever try riding while you're wearing handcuffs?" he asked, not sure why he'd said anything.

"I can't say I have. Of course there was the time I took the Sunday paper out of one of those storage things without paying for it. They really would have thrown the book at me for that major crime. Oh, what am I arguing for? It's too perfect a day." She straightened, threw back her head, and breathed deeply. "Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful."

They'd been traveling for the better part of an hour now through the long, narrow valley that stood between his home and timberland. Until he brought up his rules, she'd been chattering away about the contrast between today and what her ancestors must have experienced. He'd listened with half an ear. Actually, he'd been more interested in her voice, in how her tone rose and then fell as she took a breath, than the actual words. Accustomed as he was to being alone out here, he'd thought he'd resent her intrusion. So far, having her around was rather like having an enthusiastic child in tow.

Child? No.

"Don't you think so?" she asked. The path narrowed, forcing her to pull back as he led the way. "I mean, what's more perfect than being in the woods on a hot day when everyone else is stuck in their cars, sweltering. Smell the warm tree sap, heated pine needles. This is wonderful, absolutely wonderful."

"Are you always this wrapped up?"

"It's my nature. The way I figure, if I care about the world I'm a part of, then I've got a much better shot at getting that enthusiasm across to my students."

"I'm not a student."

"I know that. However, I can not and will not stop being who I am simply because you've had your driver's license longer than six months. Doesn't this mountain and the fact that it's been here since the beginning of time affect you? Get your juices running?"

He didn't often think in terms of running juices. After a short grunt, he retreated into as much silence as she allowed him. Only, her ramblings were sprinkled with just enough questions that he couldn't completely dismiss her. As, at her prompting, he pointed out the different tree species and gave her his opinion on the spotted owl issue, he studied his surroundings.

It wasn't going to be easy keeping his mind on business for the next week. Even riding behind him, she made an impact on his senses. Still, long years spent in the wilderness had taught him how essential it was not to let anything slip past him. He took note of a half dead pine that had been used by bears sharpening their claws. The clearing to their right had a stream flowing through it that attracted a large number of deer all year around plus an elk herd during the winter. He'd always enjoyed positioning himself on the hill not too far away so he could observe the constantly changing population. However, because showing Chera that particular vantage point would slow them down, he didn't bring it up. If he did, she'd probably insist on sneaking over there so she could shoot a roll of film.

"I honestly believe I was dropped into the wrong century," she said after a good half minute silence. "I know I would have been perfectly happy as a pioneer. Blazing new trails, carving--maybe not a pioneer. A mountain man. Mountain woman. Yes! That's perfect."

"You'd trap animals?"

"No. I couldn't do that. I'm the next thing there is to a vegetarian as it is. I'll have to think about this mountain person business, won't I? Isn't there something I could do that wouldn't involve the taking of lives and still be thought of as an intrepid tracker?"

Kade didn't think so. Still, he waited, sure she'd answer her own question. Lobo trotted ahead of him, his head swinging rhythmically from side to side as he took in his surroundings. Kade wanted to ask Lobo what he thought of the woman they'd brought along, then decided he wasn't interested in a second opinion after all. The wolf/dog hadn't given him so much as a halfway decent answer when he brought up the issue of a possible con job earlier. How could he expect the truth now?

The darn independent mutt was probably already in love with Chera simply because she'd given him a crust of toast this morning.

"Did you notice?" she asked. "There isn't a single cloud in the sky. At least you don't have to worry about lightning."

He pointed out that thunder heads could easily build up before the day was over. Chera was in the middle of a half-informed explanation of the forces responsible for heat created clouds when he noticed that Lobo had stopped and was sniffing the ground with more than casual interest.

Pulling on the reins, he quickly dismounted. He dropped to his knees beside Lobo, then ran his fingers lightly over new tire tracks that dug deep into an old logging road. Only half aware of what he was doing, he patted his side to reassure himself that the pistol he always carried while in the wilderness was where it belonged.

"What is it?"

He faced Chera. The breeze had been playing with her cheeks and brought out heightened color. Although most of her hair remained braided, a few wisping strands around her temple had come free to give her features a softened appearance. A good two seconds passed before he responded to her question. "There's been a jeep through here. Recently."

"Is that a problem?"

"I didn't give anyone permission." He ground out the words.

Chera swung out of her saddle. She landed with a soft thud that briefly disrupted the smooth, quiet mounds of her breasts. "You said recently. Can you tell how long ago?"

"Not down to the hour, which is what I need. Damn. I haven't been here for at least a month. Too busy logging."

"It hasn't rained. If it had, the tracks would have been washed away, wouldn't they? Are you sure they weren't made weeks ago? Maybe you--"

"Those aren't my tires."

She squatted on her haunches a few inches away. Although he didn't see what good that would do, she held her hand, fingers spread, over the tale-tail marks. "They're wider than a normal car tire tread, aren't they? Besides, no one could get a car up here anyway, could they?"

Given the surrounding sharp peaks, he thought that was obvious. "Damn."

"I don't get it. You're mad because they're on your land, right? Maybe its simply someone who got lost. I mean, its possible that not everyone knows where BLM land ends and yours begins."

And it's possible you know a hell of a lot more about who's responsible for this than you're letting on. "Yeah. It is." Although, he'd begun to feel the strain in his thighs, he continued to squat. She did the same, her body weaving almost imperceptibly.

She looked far to her right as if she could see through the wall of manzanita brush there, then faced him, a puzzled expression on her face. "Where does this road come from? Why didn't we follow it instead of the trail we've been on?"

"This road---" He indicated with a quick jab "---comes off the county highway between Marshall and Gilman. It's not exactly a convenient route from my place. And it's inaccessible for anything except a four wheel drive."

"Please don't snap. I simply asked."

Grunting, he pushed himself to his feet. She started to do the same, but before she'd accomplished more than shifting her weight, he gripped her upper arms and gave her the support he figured she needed. Only, although she now had her feet under her, he didn't see much reason to release her. At least not yet.

"The dust around the tracks hasn't packed down or blown away, Chera. That means they were made recently. That also means whoever was doing the driving might still be up here."

"Oh." She'd been looking at his chest. Now she lifted her chin. "Up here?"

"That's what I said."

A woman with her feet firmly planted shouldn't have trouble standing upright, should she? But maybe she had other things on her mind--like how close they were to each other and the way he'd taken possession of her mouth last night.

He'd told himself he had no reason to do it again, that the experiment--a success--was complete. But that had been at night, inside. This was morning, out of doors. The experience might be different.

It was, he concluded even before he'd fully completed the move that put an end to the unwanted distance between them. Today her back felt sun warmed. Her hair got in the way and yet he liked the feel of it under his right forefinger. Because she was standing slightly above him on the rocky ground, that put an entirely new perspective on the way their bodies came together.

She hadn't worn lipstick, but the balm she used to protect her lips acted as a slight lubricant that both teased and intrigued him. She hadn't parted her mouth much, just enough to hint at things to come.

Like last night, she clamped her arms around his neck and held on with a strength that had absolutely nothing to do with hesitancy.

Kade did the only thing that made sense. He bent her back slightly and wrapped his left arm around her so she'd have something to brace against. Her grip on him increased. The distance between her upper and lower lip increased. He took instant advantage.

Seated on Trixter's back with the leather reins in her hands, Chera had looked substantial, competent. Now neither of those impressions came to mind. She'd easily, willingly, molded herself to fit his silent direction. He wondered, briefly, how much of her move was calculated and how much was blind reaction. Before he found the answer, if it was there, his searching tongue found hers and he didn't care about anything except that.

Her head began moving from side to side, challenging his ability to explore the warm cave of her mouth. Instead of trying to stop her movement, he reveled in the impact of friction on his senses. Thatcher James' daughter might be many things he didn't yet understand, but at her core was an untapped sensuality. One he fully intended to explore.

One that might take him on a journey he couldn't begin to map out.

Might regret for years.

Women. They'd been part of his life since his teens, driving him half crazy before he'd gotten a handle on youthful hormones. Since then he'd concentrated on them when they were available, pushed them to the back of his mind when he had other things to do.

Chera wasn't allowing him to do that. She'd somehow managed to slide a long, slim leg between his. Whether she'd had nothing more in mind than trying to balance herself or knew exactly what impact that would have on him he couldn't say.

He did know he didn't mind, not at all.

Determined to give her as much to think about as she'd done to him, he let off his exploration of her mouth and gently, relentlessly drew her lower lip between his teeth. Her now quickened breath pushed and puffed against him. He'd had no intention of letting her rhythm dictate his, but it was happening.

He'd touched her at a primitive level.

She was doing the same to him.

Heat ground into his belly and snaked, hot and heavy, downward. Because he had no choice, he acknowledged his physical response, surprised that it had happened without his being forewarned.

Without his having any control.

With their mouths still pressed together, still both bending and supporting her, he slid his legs inward until he'd trapped her softer, smaller one between his. She moaned, increased the movement of her head, sucked in air, and moaned again.

Good.

A sound he didn't immediately recognize tugged at his senses. He filtered it as best he could, but when it still didn't make sense, he dismissed it. Releasing Chera's lip, he ran his tongue over the tip of her nose, circled her mouth, then accepted her invitation to enter that warm cavity. He felt himself being taken deep inside her almost against his will and clutched her tightly against him.

Once again the low, deep tone fought to distract him. After a lifetime spent dependent on his own resources, he should have concentrated on it the first time it made an impact. Chera, damn her, was responsible.

Although she obviously wasn't ready to end what they'd begun, he eased her into an upright position and quickly stepped away. With Chera still gripping his arm, he focused on his surroundings. Nothing. No matter how hard he strained, he couldn't hear a sound that didn't fit.

Lobo was looking up him, head cocked to one side, ears perked forward. His muzzle hung open. The expression in his eyes left no doubt what he thought of what he'd just witnessed and why he'd whined. His master had wasted enough time on unnecessary diversions. It was time to return to business.

"Damn."

Kade sensed more than felt Chera jerk away. She leveled him a look that wasn't quite condemning but certainly far from accepting. She planted her hands on her hips and gave her head a quick shake. If it wasn't for the way she touched her tongue to her upper lip, he might be fooled into believing she'd completely dismissed what had just happened between them.

As it was, he didn't know.

He didn't have time to waste trying to sort it all out. With an impatient gesture, he indicated the scarred earth. "Whoever it was, or is, he's trespassing."

"Fine. So he has no business being here. What are we supposed to do about it?"

"Find out where the hell he is."

"What?" Chera gripped his arm with surprisingly strong and insistent fingers. "We didn't come here to play detective. We have something to accomplish, something important."

He stomped on what he could reach of the track. "You're saying this isn't?"

For a moment she simply stared up at him with those big, intense, determined gray eyes of hers and he damn near forgot what had made him so angry. Finally though, she turned her attention to the marks her fingers had made in his flesh. Muttering something, she wiped at the marks as if they were words written on a chalkboard. "I don't understand what you're getting this upset about," she said. "Surely this isn't the first time someone took the wrong turn and wandered around a logging road."

"Wrong turn? Think about it, Chera. The county road's a good ten miles from here. Anyone except an idiot, or someone who knows exactly what they're doing here, would have turned around and gone back by now."

"So whoever this is didn't simply blunder clear up here. You said it yourself. You aren't sure how long ago it happened."

"Maybe this morning."

"This morning?" She glanced down at the ground. "Oh."

"Yeah." He headed for his horse. "Yeah."

"Wait a minute. Where are you going?"

"I think that's pretty clear."

"Certainly you aren't going after them. For crying out loud, how far does this road go? We could be looking for hours. Besides..."

"Besides?" he interrupted.

"You know what I'm going to say. I can't just hang around indefinitely waiting while you do whatever it is you're so bent on doing. I have my agenda. Deadlines. Commitment."

"Can't or refuse to?"

"What?"

"Forget it." A few minutes ago he'd been able to think of precious little except his body's reaction to hers. He wouldn't let that happen again. If she'd used her obvious attributes to distract him...

He searched his mind for the specific event leading up to their embrace and why he'd talked himself into believing it was part of some stupid experiment. But she was looking at him with the sun highlighting an unexpected green in her eyes and he couldn't for the life of him remember how everything had begun.

What he couldn't forget was that she'd distracted him from what he needed to concentrate on.

"All right. We'll play it your way, for now," he said because he had, after all, made her a promise. "I just don't want you forgetting what I said about not wandering out of sight."

Her features tensed. He sensed her forming the words for a quick rebuttal. Then her attention strayed to his right hip, or more precisely the gun he'd strapped there. "You think there's going to be trouble?"

He didn't answer. Surely she was capable of figuring out that the possibility existed.

Maybe she was thinking about the recipient of any bullet he might fire.

"You wouldn't really use that, would you?" She indicated the pistol. "Not on a human being. My god, you're talking murder."

"I'm talking staying alive."

She took a deep breath. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am, lady."

"Don't talk like that. I hate it when you do. Look, I didn't mean--it's just that it's so incredibly peaceful out here. I can't comprehend any violence."

If she felt that way, she was a hell of a lot more naive than he figured she was. More likely, she was having her first taste of reality when it came to the steps he was willing to take to defend his property. His livelihood.

Too bad they didn't have a telephone out here. If they did, she could let her old man and brothers know what she'd just found out and save them all a lot of trouble.

Without saying a word, he mounted. After a moment, she did the same. Then she turned her attention fully on him. Instead of answering her gaze, he took a final look at the tracks Lobo had called to his attention. From the way the dust had settled, he concluded that the vehicle had been heading into his property. Maybe they'd found another route out; that was certainly possible.

And maybe the intruders were still here.

"Look," she said, her voice both soft and determined. "You do what you have to. I know I can't stop you. But I can't help worrying what this might do to my time schedule."

"Your what?"

"My chance of being given the green light to go ahead with my project. The thought of not being able to give it everything I can... I shouldn't be telling you this, but I've lost so much sleep worrying about this that I've lost count."

"Lady, right now I don't give a you know what about your project. And if you're saying we should split up, that you'll blunder off on your own, you've got another think coming."

"There wouldn't be any blundering to it. I know--"

"Will you listen? I've decided that, for now, you and I will continue what we're doing." So I can keep an eye on you.

"And if you find something?"

Her eyes had lost what green they had and become unbelievably dark. He couldn't make an informed guess about what she was thinking.

"If I do--" He patted the pistol. "I'll deal with it."

CHAPTER 7

Tarzan would love it here. True, he'd probably feel more at home in a jungle, but surely he'd have no objections to living out his life in this vast wilderness of trees, mountains, and rocks.

As Kade led the way through a narrow canyon with a summer dry stream cut through the middle of it, Chera made a slight amendment to her fantasy. Tarzan would have to get used to walking on the ground instead of swinging through trees. He and Cheetah might feel a little uneasy in such an open setting after the shelter of endless, humid green, but if he had any appreciation for his surroundings, he'd grow to love the contrast between valley and mountain, canyon and snow-capped peak.

Kade hadn't said more than a half dozen words since they left the logging road and the, supposedly, ominous tracks that had grabbed his attention. She'd thought about taking up where she'd left off waxing eloquent about her enthusiasm for this journey they were on, but a couple of things kept her quiet. For one, she now knew in no uncertain terms that Kade had no hesitancy about resorting to violence if he decided the situation called for it. That she needed to think about.

It wasn't that she was a died in the wool pacifist. After all, she'd broken up her share and then some of teenage brawls, but except for a couple of knives she'd confiscated before any damage was done, she'd never in her life confronted a deadly weapon and had absolutely no interest in doing so. Kade wore his pistol with the easy assurance of someone who'd been doing it for years and knew how to use it.

But that wasn't the only thing on her mind, far from it. She'd somehow wound up in his arms again, let him hold her off balance while he played with her mouth, her nerve endings, her senses. She'd conjured up absolutely no resistance, hadn't even thought of such a thing until the encounter was over.

Encounter? That sounded like something cool and sophisticated jet setters did after a great deal of forethought and with even more dispassion. Dispassion didn't have a single, solitary thing in common with what she'd experienced.

She arched her back to relieve a kink in her spine and slowly settled back into the saddle. Kissing Kade, most definitely, was not what she thought would be clogging her mind while she was out here.

Jeddiah Ridgeway? Who the heck was he?

When Kade kissed her last night, he'd told her the act was nothing more than something he figured they needed to get out of the way. Well, it hadn't been like that this time--if it had earlier. He'd responded to her in the most basic male way. He hadn't been embarrassed--she couldn't imagine him ever having that emotion--neither had he felt it necessary to draw attention to what simply was.

So?

She leaned forward slightly and shrugged her shoulders. How long had they been riding? Long enough that her body craved exercise and her rear end begged for an end to punishment.

So he was attracted to her, at least physically. Despite the way he sometimes acted, as if he didn't want anything to do with her, knowing she had a certain impact on him gave her a leg up on the situation.

Maybe.

He wasn't exactly Tarzan but then who wanted a hairy, inarticulate character in a smelly leopard skin loincloth? Loincloth maybe but not leopard.

"What if he decides to keep me here forever?"

Although she'd barely let the question pass her lips, Trixter lifted his head and swung his ears back.

"I know what you're thinking," she went on for her audience's benefit. "We don't have enough provisions for forever and the last thing this particular professional woman has ever been interested in is the Cro-Magnon approach. However, you're forgetting something. Kade is not my father. I don't have to butt heads with him twenty-four hours a day. I think." She swatted at a fly. "Okay, let's look at this another way. Back- to-nature types like Tarzan and Kade Morgan know how to live off the land. If I asked him, he'd build me a log cabin and prepare the ground so I can have a garden. What would you like me to plant? How about carrots?"

Trixter's left ear was now nearly flat against the side of his head.

"Carrots, good. What else? Oh yes, an apple tree. You'd have to fend for yourself a lot of the time you know. Kade and I, well, you probably don't care about such things, but we'd have activities we'd rather engage in than curry you."

The pack horse walked between her and Kade. The man in question was far enough ahead that she was sure he couldn't hear. Still, she kept her voice low so it couldn't possibly slip past the sound the animals made. After all, the last thing she wanted to have to do was explain this nonsense she was spouting.

"A man like Kade Morgan, earthy, physical, he'd have a lot of energy, you know. Energy that might keep us up half the night."

Although Trixter didn't seem to take particular note of that, Chera chuckled. Talk about going off the deep end. Just because they'd twice explored what each had to offer in the way of a kiss didn't mean they were ready to promise to forsake all others and live in a log cabin with a dirt floor until death do they part. After all, a large chunk of why she was here was to prove to a certain old goat of a Cro-Magnon father that she was absolutely serious about sharing her ancestors' experience with as many people as possible.

However, as long as Kade remained ahead of her and she couldn't get her eyes or mind to hold onto much of anything except his breadth and strength and competence and mystique, there was nothing wrong in giving a whimsical fantasy free rein.

Well, whimsical wasn't exactly the right word. Unable to stop herself, she licked the corner of her mouth. More like carnal, physical.

The problem, if the term fit, was that Kade Morgan had been constructed in a way no red blooded, living, breathing woman could possibly ignore.

"You really don't worry about such things, do you?" she asked Trixter. As the thought of what the gelding would miss hit her, she leaned forward to give him a sympathetic pat. "I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to be that way. However, I can guarantee you something. It's a lot easier concentrating on what else goes on in life if you're not being distracted by members of the opposite sex--particularly a particular member of the opposite sex. Not that I can't handle it of course. It's just going to take more work than I figured."

Apparently Trixter had heard all he cared to on the subject. After a swish of his ear designed to dislodge a fly, he tried to lower his head so he could grab a clump of grass. Chera almost let him get away with it, but she hadn't seen Kade allow his horse to eat. He probably wouldn't think too kindly of her if she ignored his unspoken order.

Truth was, she couldn't get a handle on what the man thought of her.

She was about to ask Trixter that very question when Kade reined in his mare. She followed suit. "What is it?" she asked softly when he rose in the stirrups and slowly looked around in all directions.

"Something."

Something didn't tell her a whole lot, but she knew better than to tell him that. Besides, seeing the taut line of his backbone and his hand so close to his pistol made her realize that he was taking whatever had caught his attention seriously, very seriously. She glanced at Lobo. The hybrid was more interested in scratching behind his ear than sniffing out villains, but then maybe Kade had spotted something Lobo with his much lower center of gravity couldn't.

"I thought I saw smoke."

Chera's insides froze. It was a moment before she realized she'd reacted more to Kade's tone than the words themselves. "Smoke," she repeated. "What are they pulling? They're not supposed--"

"They are not supposed to be on my land and they've damn well got no right starting a fire."

Who 'they' were didn't matter as much as the very real risk the intruders were taking with Kade's timber. Hot anger replaced the icy vice clamped around her stomach. "Do you want my binoculars? It'd just take me a minute to pull them out."

Kade grunted something she took to mean agreement. When she handed her fancy, never used set to him, he didn't so much as glance at her.

"What are these things?" he asked after a minute of fumbling with them. "Opera glasses? I thought you said they'd spot an ant at a mile. That's why I let you talk me into leaving mine behind. I knew I should have checked these out."

"My father gave them to me. He said they were all purpose. I believed him. It's not my fault I've never had to use them."

Kade thrust the glasses at her. "Believe me, your old man didn't do you any favors." He muttered something she knew she didn't want to hear. "That really puts me at a disadvantage. I can't see what I need to."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled."

"Now that's a great help."

"Why are you being so sarcastic?"

"If you don't know, I'm not going to spell it out to you."

An uppercut. Serve him right if he bit off his tongue. Grinding her teeth together, she simply glared as Kade took off again. Despite his crack about how useless he thought she was, she kept her eyes on what she could see of the horizon through the trees. Actually, he had a point--a small one. She'd acted like a kid wanting to show off her new binoculars and had swayed him with a glowing recommendation about their usefulness when she obviously shouldn't have.

What did it matter? Kade was taking the possibility of intruders seriously. She'd do the same.

Tarzan? No. Kade no longer made her think of the fearless jungle man. Because of his alert stance and the rugged, tree sculptured surroundings, he put her more in mind of a pioneering wagon train scout. Silent. Seething. Forget that. Maybe the Lone Ranger. Hm. Although she toyed with both possibilities, neither of them really fit.

Probably because no mold had been built that would accommodate Kade Morgan.

Kade didn't wait for Chera to dismount. He simply lifted his arms toward her to let her know he intended to help her out of the saddle. She gazed at him for so long that he wondered if the day's journey had exhausted her, but when she finally let him accept her weight, he felt her muscles tense. Whatever was going on inside her, it had little or nothing to do with being tired.

Odds were a lot better than even that she knew who was out here and why. Maybe she was afraid the disaster with the worthless binoculars had tipped her hand.

If so, she was right to sweat that one.

His hands remained firmly around her waist after she reached the ground. Although she'd begun the day with her shirt tucked into her jeans, it had worked loose. In reaching for her, his fingers had, not completely accidentally, wound up under the fabric. Thinking to test her, he kept them there.

She made no move to pull free. Instead, she leaned to one side and tried to see around his shoulder.

"You've chosen the perfect place to spend the night," she said softly. Then she straightened and looked up at him. "The view, it..."

When her voice trailed off, he concentrated on keeping his features immobile. Interesting. Chera James might well have conspired with her father to wriggle close to him and his land. If that was the case, the plan would have included getting him to fall for the lady's charms so he would, briefly, forget how much his land meant to him. However, if that was the case, Chera James hadn't counted on losing her objectivity, or being seduced as she intended to seduce.

As she stood with her hands resting lightly on his shoulders, he slowly ran his fingers around to the small of her back. Her flesh, he discovered, was incredibly soft, tantalizing, smooth. And she tensed anew with each half inch he traveled.

Finally, long after she should have done so, she tried to pull free. Instead of letting her, he spun her around so she could see even more of the panorama of buckling, rolling mountains. "I try to get out here every few months," he told her. "Doing so always renews me."

She couldn't quite get her mouth to remain closed. Maybe if he showed her how--but if he gently pressed her lips together, he would have to remove a hand from her waist and he wasn't ready to do that.

Wasn't ready to test his own self control.

"From this spot I can see at least thirty miles," he continued. "Most is my land. My responsibility. The most important thing in my life."

Although her eyes darkened in what he took to be appreciation of the view, in a matter of a few seconds, she once again focused her attention on him.

"You are lucky, so lucky."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Ms. James. I worked damn hard for this." With little more than a flick of his wrist, he increased his hold on her. "What you see represents a lifetime of work. For me, it's a hell of a lot more than simply a way to pay the bills."

"I know that."

"Do you?"

"Yes." Her spine stiffened. "Of course. Kade, it's in your eyes. Do you know that? Every time you talk about this land, what you feel for it shines through. Believe me, I understand."

"I'm not sure anyone does."

"Maybe they would if you put words to what I see in your eyes. If, instead of beating your chest and issuing challenges, you simply brought people here and showed them this."

That stopped him. This was a woman who might have come into his life for no other reason but to disarm him and blind him to what might be going on on his land?

No.

No?

"Beating my chest and issuing challenges. Is that how you see it?" he asked because he'd grown exhausted from trying to answer unanswerable questions.

"The way the lesson is being presented is pretty hard to ignore," she said. "I'm trying to simplify something that isn't simple. You're much more complex than that."

"Am I?"

"Yes. There's so much going on beneath the surface that I think I could spend my entire life trying to figure you out."

"You'd spend your life doing that?"

"Of course not." She gave her head a quick shake. Although he'd given no indication that he was interested in putting an end to their conversation, she twisted away from him. Not wanting to hurt her, he released her.

Although he noted a stiffness in the way she walked, she nevertheless headed resolutely for the most advantageous spot from which to take in the view. He wanted to stalk after her, grab her, kiss her, and maybe through the sensual, sensitive contact tap into more of what was going on inside her.

Understand one complex, complicated lady.

"I wonder if Jeddiah saw this," she said when he joined her and the wind blew her words at him. "He must have, don't you think? After all, he'd want an overall impression of what this part of the country looked like. This would be the perfect place. Isn't that incredible?" She sighed, the sound strong enough that it reached him even though she'd turned her head away from him. "I might be standing on the very spot my great, great grandfather did." She ran a small foot back and forth over the long, summer dry grass and stared out at land that went on forever.

"I hate to point this out, but he's hardly the only person to have stood here. I have, more times than I can count." He deliberately kept distance between them and focused his attention on the endless carpet of green that the setting sun had already begun to paint in hues of gold and red.

"I know. But there's nothing wrong in pretending, is there? What about your ancestors? Were they as adventurous as Jeddiah?"

"You decide. My great, great grandfather on my father's side was a miner. So was his son although apparently he also worked as a blacksmith. My grandfather and my father both logged. Right now, Dad's off lobbying for the timber industry."

"Logging's in your blood, isn't it? I can't imagine you doing anything else."

She didn't know anything about what was in his blood, and he had no intention of revealing any more than he already had. "Neither can I. Did your father tell you he tried to buy me out?"

Chera didn't move. He didn't think she breathed either. He spun toward her, his attention riveted on her expressive eyes. The gray in them had become so dark that they reminded him of Indian eyes. Slowly, gracefully, her mouth tightened.

"Did he?"

"You didn't know that?"

He could see the effort it took for her to go on looking at him. "No. Earlier today you said you knew my father. I should have asked you what you meant, but my mind--but I didn't."

"No. You didn't."

"How?"

"How what?"

"In what capacity do you know him? You've done business together?"

Wasn't she carrying the innocent act too damn far? "Let's just say our paths have crossed. Your old man's an opportunist. He saw board feet he had a need for, my board feet. He waved a hell of a lot of money at me. I said no. He didn't like that." He found a way around my refusal, one I damn near didn't stop in time.

Maybe he still isn't done.

Hands now stuck in her back pocket, Chera turned to gaze out at his acreage. Although they couldn't see the sun because trees blocked its ageless path, the rich colors it cast over the world in front of them continued to deepen. The knotted muscles of her forearms made a lie of her casual stance. She'd began breathing faster; it was a ragged, almost painful sound. "That sounds like my father."

"How do you feel about it?"

"Feel? What does that matter? Kade, I can't tell my father how to run his life."

"Can't you?"

She didn't respond to his question, his accusation, whatever she chose to call it. Still, he felt as if he could reach out and touch her tension. Had he hit a nerve? Let her know he wasn't as stupid as her father had told her he was?

Or was something else at work here?

Chera pushed the air out of her lungs; the sound spun out for several seconds. She kept her attention aimed at the view. "If there are people out here doing things you don't want them to, you're in a perfect position to keep an eye on them," she said finally.

"That's why I chose it. Tell me something. Do you think they're here? Maybe you think I'm paranoid and there's nothing to worry about."

"I don't know."

I bet you don't. "But you're banking on it because that way you can keep on with your agenda," he finished for her; at least maybe he did. "You going to help me with the horses?"

By way of answer, she spun on her heel and started toward Trixter. She had to step around Lobo who'd decided he'd put in a full day's work and was entitled to an immediate nap. Kade made no secret of the fact that he was watching her as she went about unsaddling the gelding. Obviously she didn't want to talk about her old man or anything else that might be connected to him. He didn't dare let that influence him.

"Thatcher James is a hard headed businessman," he pressed. "What he's done with Northwind Industries is proof of that. No one's ever going to pull the wool over on him. And he doesn't give up easily."

"That's what he tells me. He's unbelievably proud of that trait of his. But---" She slipped the bit out of Trixter's mouth. "You don't know everything about him. I don't think I do either." She whispered the last. "There's a soft side to him. He misses Mom terribly. And he's so proud of his sons that sometimes he embarrasses them."

"What about you?"

"Me?"

"He's proud of you, isn't he?"

"I don't think he knows what to do with me. What he'd like is for me to get married so he can stop feeling responsible."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Why?" She stepped back so he could place a halter on the gelding. "That's a good reason for getting married, isn't it? So my father will stop stewing."

"Hm. It doesn't sound much like love."

"Love? Of course I'll love whoever I marry." She balanced her weight on one leg so she could scratch her right calf. "But I'd never get tied up with a man who doesn't respect my brain."

Chera James sounded like a bit between the teeth woman libber. He had no argument with that. It just wasn't a subject he wanted to dive into right now. "You've got your work cut out for you, Ms. James, looking for a man who fits all those requirements."

"I'm not looking."

He'd been about to tend to his horse's needs. Her comment made him delay that a few more seconds. "Anyone, male or female, who knows how the game is played is looking."

Her jaw tightened. "I can't believe you said that."

"What part didn't you believe?"

"That you think we're all no better than animals in rut. What about marriage vows? Are you saying no one takes them seriously?"

Without breaking eye contact, he reached for and captured her hand. She tugged but not enough that he believed she really wanted to be set free. "No, Chera, that's not what I'm saying. I have the greatest respect for people who remain faithful to each other. That kind of loyalty and commitment is too rare--like honorable businessmen. What I am saying is--" He deliberately let his final word fade off to nothing. At the same time, he took a step closer so that unless she tipped her head upward, she would be looking at his chest. "--that no matter how successful or professional or dedicated or noble we are, certain basic instincts remain. For example---" He pulled her hand so close to his side that her knuckles brushed lightly over his jeans. "There are many things we can talk about tonight, but whether we're discussing politics or the national debt or if dolphins really are more intelligent than humans, we're going to remain aware of each other."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's there, Chera. A current. A male/female current. It's part and parcel of being alive."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself."

"In that I am." He allowed himself a smile. With almost no effort on his part, he was able to slide his fingers between hers.

"Good for you. Have you always been like that?"

At the moment he had absolutely no idea how this "confrontation" was going to turn out. He didn't care. It was the exploration, his growing body of knowledge about her that mattered.

That and acknowledging that she had a definite, inescapable impact on him.

"It's not something I've given a whole lot of thought to, Chera." He slid even closer. She stood her ground. Despite the hours she'd spent out of doors, just a hint of her lavender cologne remained. It touched his senses, made an impact he didn't know how--or if--to handle. "I live life. I don't spend much time analyzing it."

"No. I don't suppose you do."

"Neither--" He leaned toward her. "Neither do I waste time talking when I could be doing."

Like a magnet, she reached for his neck with her free hand. This time she began the kiss, lips parted just enough to help her breathe. Before he could decide whether the timing was right to continue the invasion he'd begun this morning, her tongue touched his mouth and he let her in.

His mare, intent on getting something to eat, ambled away. Lobo yawned, jaws squeaking with the effort. A summer warm gust of wind slapped the side of his face. Through slowly closing eyes he noted that the shadows had completely covered the spot where he'd decided they would spend the night.

He felt Chera's body against his, a slight form pressing with enough strength that there was no way he could ignore her impact.

A con?

What the hell did he care?

CHAPTER 8

"If it wasn't for the mosquitoes, I would be entirely comfortable. My wife bemoans the lack of opportunity for washing, but I have resigned myself to certain realities and give cleanliness little thought. My mind is on this journey, full of it I must say. Sometimes I think I am quite insane to have embarked on such an adventure. But in truth I do not have a choice. I can either spend my life hiding, in regret of what I have lost, or dream of what lies ahead. I can hardly wait for tomorrow."

"Isn't that beautiful?"

"It sounds like Jeddiah had the proper perspective on things."

"Proper perspective?" Chera stared across the dark in an attempt to at least see Kade's outline. He was doing something with only a lantern to give him light to work by. She aimed her flashlight in his direction, but they were sitting too far apart for it to do much good. "You don't have any poetry in your soul."

"I never knew it was something I needed."

Chera chewed over his words for a few minutes. After a less than wonderful meal of prepackaged food, Kade had lit the lantern and then wandered off into the trees. Because she'd already used a little pool in that direction to wash up in, she'd surmised he was doing the same thing. But he'd been gone longer than she expected and had come back with something in his hand that now commanded his attention. Whatever he was doing to that something made a soft scraping sound.

"Not need. I'll give you that," she conceded. "But I honestly believe most people have the ability to observe and appreciate and even comment on life just the way poets do, if they give themselves enough credit and leeway. Of course, with some people that ability isn't particularly well developed."

"Don't let it worry you. I don't."

"Why doesn't that surprise me? Is there anything you lose sleep over? I mean, your business is a success. You own a chunk of land most people only dream of having. You're your own man, independent, competent." And you turned me into butter when I should have been thinking about something. Something. What?

"I'll have to get you to handle my publicity. But you're wrong. I do worry."

"I know that. You wouldn't be human if you didn't. I was just babbling. Like right now, I'd bet money that you're thinking about those tracks we came across and the smoke you think you spotted."

"That and other things."

She couldn't imagine what the other might be. When it came to self confidence, he left most men in his dust. She ran her fingers over her mouth. The gesture did absolutely nothing to lesson the lingering memory of their latest kiss. Or her reaction to it.

How many was that now? Three. Only, it hadn't been three distinct, easily defined kisses. Rather, he'd done things with her senses that made it impossible for her to separate reality from fantasy.

Like the one an hour ago that had absolutely, completely splintered her thoughts. The man hadn't so much as asked permission. He'd done what he'd obviously decided he was going to do and she'd stood there like a dummy and let him.

Participated. Initiated.

Darn it, that had to stop!

Before she could change her mind, she again turned her attention to Jeddiah's diary and continued to read aloud. From now on, she'd insist on a business relationship.

Business. That's what it was.

Although she could hear her voice droning on, her thoughts skittered elsewhere. Kade had said something about some kind of dealings with her father, hinting strongly that her father had been less than ethical. He'd left no doubt that his path and Thatcher James' had crossed.

Her father had told her exactly the opposite.

Who should she believe?

Did it make any difference?

Yes. Yes it did.

Although Kade said nothing and continued with whatever he was doing, she hoped he was listening as she read. Certainly if he was ever going to understand how important this was to her--unlike her father who didn't and never would have a clue--he should know as much as she did about her ancestors.

"I don't know how they kept on," she observed after reading how Jeddiah and his twelve year old son managed to tie ropes to the wagons and ease them over a steep drop. "If it was me, I'd run for the nearest phone and call the auto club."

"No auto club."

She knew that. She was simply trying to make a point the way she did in the classroom. "What do you think of what they did?" she asked. "I can't help thinking it had to be awfully risky to have young William sitting in the wagon gripping the brake. What if the rope slipped?"

"They didn't have any choice."

"No. They didn't. That's a large part of what fascinates me. I mean, we think of the westward expansion as some kind of grand adventure, Manifest Destiny and all that. But asking a twelve year old boy to clutch a balky brake lever as a wagon slips and slides down a cliff totally amazes me. Something else that blows my mind is that women thought nothing of giving birth out in the middle of nowhere."

"The Indians did it long before the white man showed up."

"I know that." This was getting exasperating. She wanted Kade to see things from her point of view, to share her admiration for the pioneers. Instead he sounded as if anyone with enough time on his hands could easily cross plains and desert, climb over mountains, often with hostile Indians in the neighborhood and always hostile conditions. "I suppose you could have worked side by side with Jeddiah with one hand tied behind your back."

"I never said that."

She slid her great, great grandfather's diary back into its pouch and again aimed her flashlight in Kade's direction. Whatever he was doing obviously interested him more than what she'd been reading. "You don't have to spell it out. You think I've gone off the deep end with this admiration business, don't you? I hate to point it out, but you aren't the first to give me that message."

"I think--" He held the object of his attention close to the lantern and slowly turned it around. The hand sized whatever cast a wavering shadow that flowed across his features and captured her attention, her emotions even. "I think you're romanticizing something that was hardly romantic."

With a mental jerk, she reclaimed control over herself. "I never said anything like that. I just think my approach is a lot better than not giving the pioneers any credit the way you're doing."

He glanced in her direction. Unfortunately, the gesture placed his face in complete darkness. While she was engrossed in the diary, she hadn't taken note of how dark it had become. Now, except for his flickering lantern and her flashlight, only a few stars had shown up so far to battle the night. She tried to remember whether the moon was in its full or sliver mode, but for weeks her mind had not been on such things as the moon. Hopefully it would soon put in an appearance and she'd know.

Maybe Kade would make mention of it and they'd share a certain timeless wonder.

"That's all?" Kade asked. "You're done?"

"You sound relieved."

"I need to listen to the night."

That, she guessed, made sense. But if listening was so important to him, why hadn't he told her that earlier? Kade hadn't said anything about the, maybe, trespassers for a long time now. She'd simply assumed he'd decided they didn't constitute a threat, didn't even exist.

"Do you?" She couldn't keep skepticism out of her voice. Kade Morgan was so darn confident. It would serve the man right if timber thieves or marijuana growers or escaped convicts or poachers or whoever in the heck they were, snuck up on him and bopped him over the head without him having so much as a clue that they were around.

Maybe then he'd have more respect for Jeddiah Ridgeway.

And maybe he'd have need for her gentle nursing skills.

Angry at her errant thoughts, she all but slapped herself along the side of her head. Darn the man. He hadn't said anything in response to her question about why listening was so important. If that was his attempt to dismiss her, it was high time he realized that particular tactic wouldn't work. One thing about successful teachers--and she considered herself a card carrying member of the breed--they knew how to plow through a million distractions and command their students' attention.

With her flashlight aimed at the ground, she walked in her stocking feet over to where Kade sat. He was using a small but lethal looking pocket knife to carve on something. More interested in what she was going to say to him than his hobby--or whatever it was--she directed her light at what was in his hand.

"Is that what you do with your energy when you can no longer play macho male? Whittle?"

"Yep, ma-am. I found this when I went to the pool. It was right on the way. I'm surprised you missed it." Without explaining further, he handed it to her.

A bear figurine. It wasn't complete yet, but except for some fine details around the face and a little carving to bring the tail into size with the rest of the body, the figure was complete--and expertly done.

"What is it? It feels like--" She ran a forefinger over the surface. "like bone."

"An antler."

Kade had spotted a discarded deer antler and in little more than an hour turned it into a three inch high replica of a adult bear on four legs. "That's incredible. Absolutely incredible. Where did you learn to do something like that?"

Despite her vow of a minute ago to keep their relationship strictly and completely professional, she scooted around until she was sitting cross legged close enough to Kade that his lantern illuminated her.

"From an old Indian."

"An Indian? Was he teaching a class? If he's as good as you are, I'm sure his work is in great demand." Reluctantly she returned the bear to Kade. "Does he take his creations to art shows? How lucky you are to have been one of his students."

"Not a student, Chera. He was my friend."

Friend. Why did that simple word bring tears to her eyes. "Was? He's dead?"

"Last winter."

"What happened?"

"Cancer, letting it happen instead of fighting what couldn't be fought. I went with him into the mountains and made him as comfortable as possible. Then I left him with his spirits."

Chera no longer had the strength to fight her tears. With her head slightly bowed, she stared at the ground and pictured a tired old man with Kade at his elbow. They'd talk, not about this final journey, but life. "I'm glad," she finally managed. "Glad it ended that way for him. And that you were with him."

"It was what we both wanted. You're crying. Why?"

If he hadn't touched her, she might have been able to pull herself together and even laugh at her reaction. "Because what you said is beautiful."

Kade's hand slid around to her back. Without so much as asking if she wanted to be comforted, he pulled her gently against him. When he spoke, she could tell he was looking out at the night, not at her. "He was a beautiful man. Full of that poetry you were talking about earlier. He never pushed. Not once did Hands Like Magic insist I look at the world the way he did. But I picked up so much just being around him."

"Hands Like Magic." She nestled along Kade's side. A faint hum had begun in her body, but she managed to keep it from stealing her thoughts. "Was that really his name?"

"His Indian name. He went by Robert Davenport when he walked in the white man's world."

"The two of you must have been very close if he chose you to go with him that last time."

"We were. I'm glad I was able to do that for him."

Kade had begun rubbing her arm. The movement of flesh against flesh increased the hum inside her. She didn't try to fight it. Neither did she feel it was necessary to say anything.

Mountain man. Damnable independent. Best friend of an old Indian named Hands Like Magic. Owner of a half wolf, half dog. How many parts were there to Kade?

How many more might be revealed before their week together was over?

"I can't remember when I last slept on the ground. Long enough ago that I've forgotten how hard it is."

"You'll get used to it."

With a long, less than silent sigh, Chera added one more word to the collection she was amassing about Kade Morgan. Pragmatic. He was probably the most matter-of-fact man she'd ever known. "I suppose you sleep like a baby no matter where you are. You didn't happen to sneak in an air mattress, did you?" She squirmed in her sleeping bag, unsuccessfully searching for a comfortable spot for her right hip. "If you're holding out on me---"

"I'm not. Go to sleep. We'll be getting up at dawn."

"Yes master."

"What?"

"Nothing." Not caring whether he heard, she snorted and rolled over onto her back. The moon was three quarters full, a pale silver that seemed to beckon to her from millions of miles away. If Kade had placed his sleeping bag near hers, if he'd gone on holding her when she got all weepy over Hands Like Magic, she probably wouldn't be irritated with him now.

But darn him, they'd been close back then. She'd been willing to have that continue, wanted it in fact. Obviously, he didn't see things the same way. Otherwise, he wouldn't have announced that he needed to picket the horses and then walked off to do exactly that, leaving her body, her mind, still humming.

"I can't hear the horses," she said after a minute. "You're sure they haven't wandered off?"

"I'm sure. They've settled down for the night."

"That's good. Good." After another minute: "Is Lobo with you? He'd hear if anything happened, wouldn't he?"

"He'd hear. Go to sleep, Chera."

That's easy for you to say. "I'm trying," she grumbled and gave the ground a thump that did nothing except sting her hand. "Believe me, I'm trying. Listen to all those sounds. I wonder what--have you ever seen Bigfoot?"

"There's no Bigfoot out here. Trust me, no one's going to sneak up on you while you're sleeping."

"What about those--whoever you think might be around?"

"They're not near here."

"How can you be sure?"

"I just am. Will you please go to sleep."

"I'm trying." She gave the ground another thump. There ought to be a law that said dirt had to have some give to it. "Darn it, I'm trying."

"Just be quiet while you try. I want to sleep."

Fine. Wonderful. Snore the night away. See if I care. She stared out and up, wishing the moon really could touch her. Maybe if it sprinkled a little of its silver dust on her, she could levitate.

Giving up on that, she began counting stars. After two hundred, her eyes blurred. With surprisingly little effort, she imagined herself drifting upward to lose herself in the stars. A journey that in reality might take generations was accomplished in a matter of seconds.

She wasn't alone. Hands Like Magic, perched on a particularly large star, waited for her. Someone was near him, a large, dark eyed, deeply muscled someone who sat on his star as if he'd roped and tamed it. The man watched her, his gaze intense and mysterious, telling her nothing of what he was thinking.

Then he reached his hand out to her and she felt her body hum and she floated toward him.

When she touched him, she felt his body vibrating.

Kade had no idea what time it was when Lobo woke him. The animal seldom growled and never barked. When he had something to say, Kade listened.

Before sitting up, he wrapped his hand around the pistol he'd tucked into the sleeping bag with him. The low, telling sound continued. Thanks to the moon directly overhead, he could see Lobo standing at the edge of the cliff that looked out at the stretch of wilderness he and Chera had gazed at earlier.

Despite his need to concentrate, he glanced over at her. She hadn't moved, and yet he sensed she was watching him. Because she too had heard Lobo's warning? Or maybe because she'd known something would happen tonight?

Dismissing a question he couldn't, yet, answer, he slipped out of bed and crawled on hands and knees over to Lobo. He placed a hand on the animal's neck. "What is it?" he whispered. "Someone's out there, aren't they?"

The growl continued uninterrupted. Lobo was looking down at a slight angle and to the right at a series of barely visible sharp outcroppings about a mile away. Thanks to their vantage point, Lobo would have been able to see a flash of light, or fire, if that's what had caught his attention. Despite the high altitude, a trail wide enough to accommodate a jeep commandeered by an expert driver led to the outcroppings. The trail itself eventually connected with the logging road where they'd seen the tracks earlier.

"Do you see anything?"

Chera's softly spoken question didn't surprise him. On a subconscious level he'd been aware of her approaching.

"Nothing."

"But Lobo's sure."

"He doesn't make mistakes about these things."

"No. I don't suppose he does. What are you going to do about it?"

"There's not much I can." With his pistol, he pointed to show Chera where his attention had been drawn. "Trying to get over there at night is a fool's mission. There's too much shale in the way. They'd hear me before I got halfway."

Lobo had sat down. Still, he gave out the unmistakable message that the danger continued to exist. Chera watched him for a minute but did nothing to distract the wolf/dog from his job. "His hearing is incredible, isn't it. No wonder you wanted him along."

"You don't think it's a false alarm?"

"You don't. Why should I?"

Good question. "You don't resent his waking you up?"

"Resent? I don't know what you're getting at Kade."

"I'm not getting at anything." They'd both been on their knees. Now Kade got to his feet in an attempt to improve his view.

A few seconds later he felt Chera's hand on his calf. "Are you sure you're safe? What if they can see you?"

"It's dark. We're not using a light. Besides, they already know we're here so what's the point?"

"Know? How can you be sure of that?"

"Because--" He drew out the word. "Because they sure as hell have no business being here. Unless they're stupid, which I don't believe, they're keeping an eye out for me. Besides, we made enough noise today that only a deaf man wouldn't hear."

"We didn't make that much noise. Please." She touched him again. "Don't take chances."

He dropped back down, not because he didn't want her to worry but because he couldn't see a blasted thing. "Go back to bed."

"What are you going to do?"

"Listen."

"Listen?" she parroted. "And I'm no help when it comes to that complicated task? Darn it, Kade, if there's any way I can help---"

"You can't."

Grumbling under her breath, Chera nevertheless did as he'd ordered. Despite the need to keep his eyes trained in the direction Lobo still looked, he watched her crawl toward her sleeping bag. At least she'd had the good sense to wear pajamas. Otherwise, she would have lost what little dignity she managed to portray.

With an effort, he turned his attention back to business. The moon was doing its best. Still, there simply wasn't enough light that he could see a darn thing. Like Chera had pointed out, he had to trust Lobo on this.

"You haven't said," he whispered. "What do you think of the lady?"

Lobo's growl rose an octave.

"You're going to have to do better than that. I can't read your mind."

Lobo stood, looked out and down.

"You're right. What the hell does it matter? All I can say is, if she tips her hand, she's not going to catch me off balance. And if she's on the up and up..."

Lobo rumbled deep in his throat.

CHAPTER 9

"I need to know. Is this going to change our plans?"

Kade finished rolling up his sleeping bag before giving any indication he'd heard her question. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"I'm talking about what happened last night. You and Lobo are convinced we're not alone up here. I respect that. I know it's causing you concern. But I don't know what you can do about it. My question has to be, you're still going to keep your word to find Jeddiah's trail for me, aren't you?"

"For now."

That, Chera conceded after only limited contact with Kade, was the best she could get out of him. Under the circumstances she really couldn't expect more. If the tables had been turned, she wouldn't have thrown responsibility to the wind either.

Besides, if the truth be known, the day's agenda and the disastrous snowball effect if things didn't remain on schedule wasn't the only thing on her mind. The effort of pretending she hadn't spent the night sleeping smack dab on top of a rock left her with precious little energy to think about anything except how sore she was as they went about the task of breaking camp. She did notice that he'd been right about something. The horses, after grazing for several hours, had fallen asleep right where he had picketed them.

Not that that particularly interested her.

For the life of her she couldn't walk completely upright, but because she managed to always have something in her arms, she hoped Kade wouldn't notice. Why she felt she had to put out a macho image she couldn't quite say, except that he fell into the role so naturally. And was so hard to dismiss.

The primary problem with the man was that he had too little regard for clothing. He obviously had gotten it in his head that a shirt served nearly no earthly good. He put one on only when he had no choice. She suspected that if they weren't going to be going through brush, he'd spend the entire week naked from the waist up.

Not that there weren't worse sights--by a long shot.

"I took a look at Jeddiah's diary before you got up," he said. "I'm even more convinced than before that he entered my property on the north-east side about a half mile east of Wizard."

Although she didn't know what Wizard was, she didn't tell him that. Forgetting her vow to keep at least six feet between herself and Kade at all times, she walked as best she could up to him. Her rebellious hands itched with the desire to feel his morning cool flesh, but she held them in check. "And that's where we're headed now?"

"Yeah. It'll take us right by where Lobo was looking last night."

"Oh. And if you see something suspicious?"

"I can hardly turn my back on something that might very well affect my livelihood, Chera."

She knew that. And he knew she knew. "What if there are men there?"

He looked at her as if she'd suggested they were more likely to stumble across Martians. "Then I order them the hell off my property."

"And if they refuse to leave?"

"They'll leave."

Right. Just like that. Self confidence was good. Her most successful students had that trait. However, confidence tempered with a sizeable dose of reality and caution never hurt. "I want to get one thing straight. I didn't come here to play Indiana Jones. If you think there's going to be a confrontation, let me know. I'll wait behind a boulder with the horses."

She hadn't thought her comment particularly funny. Still, Kade chuckled. Then, before she had half a chance to prepare herself, he touched a forefinger to the tip of her nose. She shivered, fought the primitive and insane desire to draw his finger into her mouth.

"I'll take care of you," he said after a pause that went on longer than it needed to. "Believe me, the last thing I'd want is for you to wind up with a hair out of place."

All right. So she hadn't combed her hair yet. She'd get to it just as soon as she could lift her arms over her head. "That's very considerate of you."

"Isn't it? I'm sorry we won't be camping anywhere near the hot springs."

Hot springs? Ah! She would kill for the luxury. "What made you think of them?"

"Because if we were there you could soak yourself and you wouldn't have to walk around all bent over."

"I'm not--it's that obvious?"

"It's that obvious. What can I do to help?"

The man kept her so off balance. Before she'd taken time to weigh her words, she heard herself explaining that she didn't know how she was going to get her hair back into a braid. She tried rotating her neck but only wound up wincing. "My shoulder hasn't hurt like this since I painted the entire outside of my house in a single weekend."

"That would do it all right. Where's your brush? Sit down."

"What? You're actually going to comb my hair?"

"I said I would, didn't I?"

"It's hardly macho."

"No it isn't. However, the alternative is that you'll have to go around all day with your hair in your face." He reached out as if to push it away from her eyes. Knowing all too well what his touch could do to her, she shied away. At least she tried. Her body, however, wasn't up to the effort.

Kade laughed and gently propelled her toward a rock. "Be brave. It'll only take a minute."

A minute of pure sensual luxury, she admitted as Kade, standing behind her, held her hair in one hand while he gently, slowly, brushed with the other. She wished she could see the expression on his face. He thought nothing of tending to a horse's tail and mane, but this wasn't the same thing.

Who cared? Who in the big, bold state of Washington cared?

There wasn't a beautician in the country who could come close to duplicating what Kade was doing. It certainly wasn't part of the contract for him to slide his fingers up the back of her neck before slowly pulling her hair away from her head. Not that she minded. Not at all.

Forget the hot springs. This was wonderful. Of course she couldn't quite get her mind off the fact that clothes were optional in a hot springs and knowing Kade, he wouldn't see the purpose in so much as a pair of briefs.

The two of them soaking in a warm, bubbling, very private pool in the middle of the wilderness?

O--h.

"You're going to have to talk me through a braid," he announced just when she was wondering what the chances were he could read her mind. "I've never tried one."

But you have no qualms because there's nothing you won't tackle. She somehow guided him through the steps even though it was amazing how hard it was to remember how such a simple task was handled. It might have something to do with him standing behind her. It might have something to do with thoughts of a naked body and waves of warm water bringing them closer, closer together.

All right, so it had everything to do with both those things.

"Thank you," she managed when he finally finished. She knew what her next step should be. If they were going to accomplish what they needed to, she absolutely had to get on her feet and onto Trixter's back.

"You're welcome."

She felt him leave. One second he was behind her. The next, he'd obviously decided he had something more important to do. Not sure how she felt or should feel about that, she talked her legs into holding her weight.

Saints be praised! He was actually putting on a shirt. Now that he'd covered that tantalizing and disturbing flesh, she shouldn't have any trouble at all dismissing her fantasy and tending to business.

Should she?

"You said you got up early? I'm surprised I didn't hear you given how poorly I slept."

Her comment didn't seem to interest him. After taking the horses to the pool for a drink, he began readying them for the day. She tried to saddle Trixter, but her shoulder gave out on her and she had to stand by helplessly.

At least this morning she didn't make a fool of herself by pretending she was straw bossing a wagon train. She couldn't get her hand that high. Although her body protested when, with help, she managed to get into the saddle, in a matter of minutes she was no longer thinking about physical discomfort.

Unless something unexpected happened, today they'd begin retracing Jeddiah's steps. With that to buoy her spirits, she pulled out her camera and began taking pictures. At first Kade didn't seem to pay any attention, but as she was loading her second roll while trying to hold onto the reins at the same time, he turned around to look at her and then shook his head.

"Why are you doing that? We aren't at what you need to record yet."

"I know. I just want to have an overall impression of what we experienced."

"Hills. Trees. And each shot the same as the other."

"Don't worry about it. You're not the one who has to pay to have them developed."

He grumbled something under his breath, then pulled over to the side of the trail and waited for her to catch up. She couldn't tell how long he sat looking at her. What she did know was that his scrutiny made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn't begin to understand.

It was as if he was sizing her up, figuring her out. But hadn't he already done that?

"What?" she asked. "Have I grown a wart or something?"

"No wart."

"Then what is it? You don't like the way you braided my hair?"

"Do you want to turn back?"

"What? Why would I want to do that? Wait a minute. You're not trying to--"

"Stop talking and think. We're not out here alone, right? And whoever they are, they have no business being here. However, what if they don't see it that way?"

"You're saying you think there's going to be trouble, aren't you?" For a half second she felt cold. "My gosh, there's a thousand better ways of handling things than a shootout. I can't believe you're even considering that."

"I'm not going to sneak around on my own land so don't even suggest that. Sooner or later they're going to spot us, if they haven't already."

"You said that earlier."

"I just want to make sure you grasp the total picture. I can't tell you what's going to happen when and if we're all face to face. That's why I sat there so long last night. I was trying to decide what's the safest thing to do."

"Safe?" She pushed out her breath between closed teeth. "All right. You have my attention. It's just that this isn't something I've ever had to consider before. I don't know how I'm supposed to react."

He stared at her. "Yeah? Look, when Lobo wouldn't stop growling, I almost called everything off."

"Why didn't you?"

He expected her to ask the question. She would have been a fool if she hadn't. "Two reasons," he explained. "One, I want to keep my eye on them. Second, I made you a promise."

She blinked, looked slightly off balance. "I'm going to hold you to that, I hope you know."

"I don't go back on my word, Chera."

"I want to believe you." Her frown pulled her eyebrows together in a most intriguing, innocent, distracting way. "I need to believe you."

He didn't fall for it, not completely. "You sound as if you don't."

"I don't know what to think." She began running her fingers slowly up and down the reins. "One minute you sound as if the last thing you want to do is guide me anywhere. The next you're, maybe, risking both our necks to accomplish just that."

He didn't see it that way, not at all. By the time he'd walked away from Lobo last night, he'd come to the conclusion that he was going to play this out for as long as he dared. If the trespassers were, as he strongly suspected, here on Thatcher James' orders or even Thatcher himself, they sure as hell wouldn't pull anything dangerous or stupid with Chera around. She was his insurance policy.

"You don't like a little excitement in your life?" he asked, not at all certain he was taking the conversation in the right direction. "You've been talking about how dedicated and determined you are, but if you haven't been tested, how will you know whether you have what it takes?"

"I know what I have. I don't need to walk in front of a firing line to figure that out."

"Then you want to hightail it out of here?"

Her eyes narrowed. "That's the last thing I'd ever do. Don't put words in my mouth, Morgan. Don't ever do that. All right." She yanked at her braid--the one he'd done for her. "You're taking this risk, if that's what it is, because you gave your word? Let me ask you something. If you told someone you'd go rafting down some river and when you got there you discovered that it had been raining for a week and the river was swollen and muddy and dangerous, you'd still go?"

Sometimes her logic left a lot to be said for it. "I can see a swollen river. I can't see whoever's out there. Maybe you can."

"Maybe I can? What is that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me."

"For crying out loud! You've been out in the forest too long. You've forgotten how to carry on an intelligent conversation."

He doubted that.

"Kade?" she said softly. "All this bantering isn't getting us anywhere. I need to know something. What if we get close to them? What do you want me to do?"

He hadn't expected that from her. It had been enough that the possibility she might be in danger, because of someone's stupid greed, had kept him awake. "We've got one gun between the two of us. There isn't a hell of a lot you can do."

"Gun." Her attention was instantly drawn to his waist. "You're really serious, aren't you?"

The woman had been inside a classroom too long. Out here the law of survival of the fittest still ruled. Suddenly, something that felt like white fury slashed through him. Was it possible that her father hadn't told her anything? Thatcher had known his daughter would be out here and had counted on her to distract a backwoods timberland owner while he and his henchmen searched for the most likely spot to do their illegal logging, but he hadn't filled her in on what he was up to.

It was possible.

It was also possible that Chera knew everything.

"Yeah." He pressed his heels against his mare's back. "I'm serious."

"I had no idea it would be so rugged. From what Jeddiah wrote, I thought the land would be much flatter."

After giving her a sideways glance, Kade pointed out that they hadn't yet reached the exact spot where the pioneers and their wagons traveled.

"I'm aware of that. But if this is any indication, it's a wonder the wagons and horses didn't all give out on them."

"What choice did they have? These are mountains."

"I know. It's just that--maybe I've watched too many westerns. I always think of wagon trains going over prairies, not mountains."

Kade shrugged and concentrated on his surroundings because sometimes following her so called logic was impossible. These were mountains all right. No one would ever argue that. No one except Chera James who, he sensed, was staring holes in his back.

They'd stopped to let the horses rest after scrambling down a long, shale littered slope. With only a little help from him, she had dismounted and gone through a series of stretching exercises designed, he surmised, to work out the kinks in her spine. He'd spent the time loosening the horses' cinches. Then, although she probably didn't appreciate his presence, he'd walked over to where she stood under a dead but still standing pine.

Now she indicated it by glancing upward. The gesture lengthened out her neck, made it look incredibly kissable. "Shouldn't you cut this old thing?" she asked. "It doesn't make much sense to me to let a tree rot and not utilize the wood."

"What wouldn't make sense is hauling a crew up here to cut one Ponderosa. Besides, it's being used."

"Used? By beetles and ants and things?"

"By osprey." He pointed at the large mass of twigs, grass, and branches at the top of the snag. "That's their nest."

"Oh my---" In an attempt to lean back far enough to see, she nearly lost her balance. He resisted the impulse to grab her. "It's huge."

"It's an old one. I've been keeping an eye on it for at least ten years."

"I never--" She lowered her head and then slowly rotated it from side to side. "And as long as they're using it, you'll let the tree stay. That's sweet."

Sweet was the last label he'd ever use on himself. He simply wanted to protect the ospreys' world. He loved watching them soar over the trees, their massive wingspread rivaling that of an eagle. For him, the decision was no more complicated than that. "Call it what you want. The way I look at it, keeping the balance of nature out here is vital. Except for such things as pine beetles, who can destroy an incredible number of trees, I figure every living thing has its place."

"That's a wonderful way of looking at it." She rested her hand lightly on his forearm, a teasing expression on her face. "And I stand by what I said. Under that crusty exterior and gun toting machismo, you're sweet. You certainly don't sound like the stereotypical logger, more like Jeddiah. He was appreciative of everything."

Kade concentrated on Lobo. The hybrid hadn't given a single indication today that there were other human beings around. Still, he'd be well advised to focus on that and not the small hand touching him. The fact that she knew how to press certain buttons in him.

Chera sighed, sounding like a happy child. "Isn't this something? With all the changes this world has seen, we're able to stand here and see exactly what Jeddiah did over a hundred years ago."

"Not everything."

She turned toward him, her warm hand still distracting him. "What do you mean?"

"Jeddiah had to contend with grizzlies."

"True." Chera's hand made a restless movement, whether by design or accident he couldn't say. Didn't care. "Fortunately," she went on in that schoolteacher tone of hers. "he was able to climb a tree and get away from the bear that charged him that one morning. I can do without that particular experience, thank you."

"Things might change."

Chera glanced at her hand as if surprised to see it there. But instead of stepping away, she began a slow downward journey to his wrist that all but made him forget what they'd been talking about.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "Might change."

"I've--" Concentrate, damn it! "I've agreed to let wildlife officials re-introduce grizzlies on my land."

"What? Whatever for?"

"They were here long before we showed up and claimed everything. We can't bring back a lot of creatures that once roamed this land, but grizzlies aren't extinct."

Chera laced her fingers through his. Her squeeze, he supposed, was designed to be friendly. That was not the way his body reacted.

"I haven't heard anything about this. Just on your land?"

"No. When and if all the red tape's eventually out of the way, a pair will be shipped from Alaska to BLM land. Grizzlies range an incredible distance. I have no doubt that they'll migrate to my property."

"But if you're logging, how can you insure the safety of your men?"

Her question surprised him. He thought her primary and maybe only concern would be for the impact grizzlies would make on her plans to turn Jeddiah's route into a tourist attraction. Without bothering to ask permission, he snagged her free hand and then pulled her around until she had no choice but to face him. They were too close, way too close.

"My men will have to keep their eyes open, won't they? Just like Jeddiah did."

"But--I don't know why I'm so worried. Like you said, it probably won't happen for years."

Her voice had become deeper, slower with each word. It might have been because she had an active imagination and was thinking what she'd do if she came across the one animal on the North American continent that didn't fear man. He didn't think so.

"No. It won't. But when and if they use my land, I'll educate my men to respect their turf."

"Yes. Of course. Good." She stared up at him, then let her eyes slide to his throat, his unbuttoned shirt. "Kade? Don't we need to get going again?"

"Yes. We do." Almost before the words were out of his mouth, he gripped her wrists and drew her hands back until he'd trapped them behind her. Stepping so close that their legs touched, he leaned over her. She arched away but not enough that she gave out the message that she wanted to be freed. The gesture thrust her breasts toward him, toward the expanse of chest his shirt didn't cover. He kept up the pursuit, slowly bending over her until she would have to either turn her head to one side or suffer his impending kiss.

She suffered.

For a long, long time.

"I don't believe I've ever had an employer quite like you, Ms. James." He kept his lips no more than a couple of inches from her, testing her. Testing himself. Breathing quicker and deeper than he should have to. "Certainly none that I've wanted to spend this much time with."

"I don't think--I don't think you've ever had an employer."

"You're right. It just goes to show that I'm capable of changing."

"Change? Ah, Kade, what are you doing?"

Hopefully throwing you off balance the way you've done me. "I'm going to kiss you again."

"You are?"

"Yes. I am."

When she didn't say anything, he continued his assault. Although she leaned back a little more, he took it to be nothing more than an unconscious reflex. A primitive, unthinking attempt at self preservation. His grip on her served both to keep her from using her hands and gave her something to brace her body against. He could feel her long, thick braid brush over the back of his hands and wondered if he could capture it as well.

Maybe later. Right now there was only one thing he wanted.

Her mouth tasted as sweet as it had earlier. Her form molded to his in the same way. He should be getting used to it, shouldn't be this single-minded in his exploration.

Right.

It was so easy to grip both of her wrists in one hand that he wondered if she'd done something to help. With his left hand free now, nothing stood in the way of another exploration, one he considered an essential element of his understanding of her.

She wore a sports bra. He'd thought so, but now, with her breast cupped securely in his palm, there was no longer any doubt.

"Kade?" she whispered.

"Don't you want--"

"No. Not that. I-I mean..."

He took her silence as approval. If she'd said anything to indicate she didn't want her body claimed by him, he would have freed her. But, even slightly off balance, she managed to arch herself toward him even more so that her breast filled his hand. He shifted position slightly and once again brought his mouth down over hers. He heard her sharp intake of air, wondered if she'd ever been controlled by a man quite like this before.

He thought not.

Moving quickly, he released her wrists and gripped her braid close to her head. She instantly clamped onto his shoulder. "I can't think around you," she mouthed.

"Then don't."

"No." She tried to shake her head, but he wouldn't let her. "That's not how--"

He didn't want to hear more. With the words still humming on her lips, he pressed his mouth more firmly against hers. He shouldn't be letting her do this to him, taking him away from himself; he knew better. But she was like a cool drink after a long, hot day.

He couldn't get enough of her.

Tonight, he promised himself. Tonight he'd leave her alone. But, now, it was too late.

Something vibrated through him. It had to be his rational, logical mind warning him that he was playing with fire. He ignored the warning and slipped his hand under her blouse, under the soft bra. She moaned and began moving her body against his. Pushing fabric aside, he touched his forefinger to her nipple. Already hard, it become even larger and firmer.

He could do this to her? Yes, he acknowledged. The thought gave him strength. She could lie, evade, con, but her body wasn't capable of deception.

The vibration continued, became more insistent. Although he wanted nothing more than to slowly peel her clothes off her and wrap his body around hers, he had spent too many years in the wilderness to ignore the sound.

Sound.

"Kade? What is it?"

She'd heard it too. Still holding her, he straightened and backed away a few inches. His attention snagged briefly on the once again chastely covered mound with its hard peak.

The sound became a roar. The hair on Lobo's scruff stood upright. The hybrid's mouth was open, but Kade could barely hear his howl for the scream of a small airplane now no more than a hundred feet overhead.

Trixter let out a scream of his own. His mare reared.

"The horses! Damn it, get the horses!"

CHAPTER 10

"Trixter! Damn it, no!"

Ignoring the very real possibility that yelling at the gelding might not be the wisest move, Chera reached for and managed to snag the wildly flapping reins. She tugged; Trixter responded with a strength that made hers laughable.

"No, no! Please. It's all right. The plane's gone. It's all right."

In response, Trixter performed a heavy-footed tap dance that came within inches of smashing her toes. From where he was trying to calm two horses, Kade yelled something, but she couldn't hear for the roaring, screaming sound.

Roar?

Damn it, the plane had returned!

Trixter would know she'd lied.

As the sound intensified, the gelding reared onto his hind legs and pawed the air. His eyes showed too much white. Somehow she managed to hold on and dodge hooves at the same time.

"No! Dog gone you! No."

Trixter squealed. His bellow clashed with the racket coming from the low flying plane. Although she was afraid that holding onto the reins while Trixter fought her would snap the bridle, she was determined to hang in there as long as Kade did.

Once again the plane sailed away and Trixter switched from rearing to nervously pawing the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kade swing into his mare's saddle. The animal let out either an enraged or terrified scream--she couldn't decide which. Kade, despite his size, looked insignificant on that wildly bucking back. Still, with the way he'd clamped his legs around the horse's belly, it looked as if he was in there for the long haul.

As Trixter's dangerous dancing hooves once again claimed her attention, she nevertheless saw that Kade had begun to get his horse under control. After a few more seconds, he spun the wide-eyed mare around and took off after the hard running pack animal. He yelled something at her and jabbed a stiff finger at Trixter.

Surely he didn't expect her to do what he had.

When, for the third time, she heard the plane return, Chera sensed more than felt tremors wrack Trixter's body. The horse wasn't simply acting up. He was terrified.

"It's all right. That stupid pilot is just being a jerk," she half crooned, half yelled. "Trying to make you stampede. But you're not going to, are you?"

As if bound and determined to make a lie of her words, Trixter again pounded the air with his front hooves. All too aware of the fragile leather strap over the horse's ears, she fought to keep a hold on him and yet not put too much pressure on the bridle.

If she was in the saddle, she could pull on the reins. The bit in Trixter's mouth would, could, should, control him. Was that what Kade had been trying to tell her?

Stupid!

With the word echoing through her, she nevertheless stepped close enough to Trixter that when the gelding momentarily slowed, she was able to plant her foot in the stirrup and swing into the saddle.

The moment she was astride, she regretted her rash move. How had the ground gotten so far down there? The gelding's trembling put her in mind of a brakeless roller coaster ride and if she hadn't been afraid she'd be ground into the dust before she could get out of the way, she would have bailed.

Bit. She'd done this so she could bring the bit into play.

"Listen to me, you hunk of dog food. We're going to get something straight, right now. You are not to--ow!"

The hot, cloying taste of blood almost made her gag. It served her right for talking. Trixter had bucked and then come down hard, causing her to bite her tongue.

"You are--dog food. One more stunt like that and dog food!"

Trixter paid absolutely no attention to her warning. Although she all but dislocated her wrists trying to haul on the reins, the horse refused to calm down. Still, she told herself, she was beginning to make headway. If she didn't get bucked off, in a few minutes, surely, the stupid hay burner would get a grip on his half-baked nervous system.

Either that or exhaust himself. At the moment, she couldn't care less which.

Then the pint-sized plane returned, so low to the ground that she had no idea how it avoided scraping its belly on the top of trees. The pilot was an idiot, with no more intelligence than the average teenager a week after getting his or her driver's license.

That was all the harassment Trixter could handle. With a squall that hurt Chera's ears, the horse lowered his head and plunged down the trail after where Kade and the other two horses had gone.

Off. Where was the off button?

Clenching her teeth as protection against another assault on her tongue, she gripped the saddle horn with one hand, pulled on the bridle with the other, and prayed. In what little time she had for thought, she fantasized about hauling the brainless pilot out of his plane and planting him on the back of a world class bucking horse.

Once when the path straightened out, she caught a glimpse of Kade overtaking the pack horse. Then they disappeared around a turn and she had all she could do to keep from being swept off by a low hanging branch. After that near miss, she leaned as far forward as possible, and prayed.

Trixter seemed to run forever. There was a nearly hilarious moment when the gelding's plunging gait took her past Kade who'd managed to pull off the path near some shrubbery and was trying to keep both horses from tangling in the thicket. Somehow he'd gotten a hold of the pack horse's rope but--from what she could tell in less than a second of observation--he was a long way from having control of the situation.

"Chera! What---"

Trixter squealed. She couldn't hear what else Kade said, probably something about how only an absolute idiot would clamor onto a terrified horse's back.

Well, you did it!

Only, she was forced to concede, Kade knew exactly what he was doing while she...

Wait a minute. Hadn't he told, or tried to tell her, to plant herself in the saddle?

Darn. She couldn't remember what had propelled her to place herself in this insane position.

If the plane kept up its sick game, she was unaware of that. After all, it took every bit of concentration she possessed to keep from being forced into doing a hard belly flop onto the ground. She had no idea how long this insanity had been going on when she heard Trixter start to wheeze. The horse's sides became hot and wet. His head, she guessed, hung low not so he could run faster but because he was approaching exhaustion.

Good.

When, finally, Trixter began slowing, she could only make an uninformed guess at how far they'd traveled. A mile at least, although judging by the punishment her rear end had taken, she wouldn't be surprised if they'd covered twenty times that much ground. For a long time now she hadn't tried to stop Trixter since it was obvious the animal had the upper hand in that particular battle. Now, however, maybe the tide had turned. This time when she pulled on the reins, she met no resistance. The blasted animal! He had had the bit between his teeth all that time. Finally though, fatigue had set in and he'd let go.

"Dog food's too good for you," she informed Trixter as a canter became a trot. "For two cents, I'd whack you between the eyes and leave you for the buzzards."

Trixter wheezed and hauled air into his oversized lungs. Although all she wanted to do was bail out of the saddle and give her aching arms a rest, she knew the gelding needed to keep walking so his muscles wouldn't cramp. Not that she gave a tinker's damn at the moment about Trixter's well being, but Kade wouldn't take too kindly toward her if she killed his stupid horse.

Kade? Was he all right?

She tried turning around but between her fear that Trixter might take off again if she didn't keep an eagle eye on him and the head high brush on all sides, she couldn't see a thing.

"We're going have to go back," she informed the horse. "You've got to cool down anyway. You might as well accomplish something useful while you're at it."

Trixter didn't have a problem with that. At her prompting, he turned in a wide circle and began plodding back the way he'd come. She surmised that the logic or lack thereof of what he was doing escaped him completely. Actually, she thought, as she vainly tried to find a comfortable position in that all-too-hard saddle and fought for control over her frayed nervous system, she hadn't done a half bad job. She'd stayed with the blasted nag and was bringing him back to Kade all in one piece.

Unfortunately, she couldn't say the same about her rear end. Or her heart. It was taking longer to return to a normal beat than Trixter's.

Although she kept her ears peeled for the sound of the plane that had started the whole disaster, nothing but Trixter's still labored breathing and the squeaking saddle disturbed the forest's sounds. Despite the beat-beat sound her heart made in her ears, she could hear birds singing. Their semi-melody flowed into the soft, deep notes made by the wind wafting through the trees and calmed her.

Calamity Jane. Hm. Maybe that's who she'd been in her last life.

Calamity Jane would know how to exact vengeance on that idiot pilot.

When Trixter lifted his head and pricked his ears forward, she tensed. "Don't even try it, you hay burner. I'm wise to your tricks. You won't get away with that nonsense a second time."

Trixter let out a short, tired sounding whistle that she took to be some kind of greeting. "Are they up there you old flea bag? Is that what you're telling me?"

The gelding's head sagged again. He continued his weary plodding. Still, alerted by a horsey hello, she kept her eyes peeled for the sight of the one and only human being she wanted to see today.

He was coming toward her. Although his mare looked no more interested in moving that Trixter was, Kade continued to urge the animal onward. He caught sight of her the same instant she did him. Eyes on her, not so much as blinking, he stared until they were close enough that he could make himself heard.

"You're all right."

Brilliant deduction. Her stupid, sarcastic rebuttal died a silent death. She noticed that he had a long, thin scrape along his right temple. His shirt, already unbuttoned when this wild adventure began, hung submissively from his shoulders. His hair looked as if it had been combed by a hurricane. His eyes glowed dark and deep.

He looked magnificent.

She wanted to cry.

Unmindful of what she was doing, she didn't so much as give Trixter a passing thought until the gelding all but butted heads with Kade's mare. Kade had already stopped and was watching her with dark, sexy eyes that had the power to set her heart on end. She licked her lips, surprised to find them both dry and sweat-caked.

"You're all right?" she managed.

"Fine. You? God, I thought you might have been thrown."

She shook her head, only then taking note of the tangles of hair that slapped at her forehead and cheeks. She must look like an accident victim. "You have one bull-headed horse," she came up with.

Kade swung out of the saddle, landing so silently and gracefully that she forgot how to breathe. "He doesn't like sudden sounds," he said. "I'm sorry."

"That's--" She licked her lips again and tried to brush her hair off her temple. She felt grit against her flesh. "That's all right."

"I imagined all kinds of things. I was scared I'd find you crumpled against a rock."

He'd lifted his hands up toward her. Fighting tears, she leaned over and slid into his arms.

He smelled of sweat. Tasted like it.

When he first pressed his lips to hers, she flinched. The small crack at the corner of her mouth stung; she should think about that. But he'd never held her like this before, as if he couldn't get enough of her. As if he wanted to make love to her for the rest of their lives.

She answered in the same language. Barely aware of what she was doing, she pressed her belly, breasts, hips against him and held on in that primitive way that needed no words. He went on kissing her; she continued to respond. She heard him breathing, long, deep drags of air that must have hurt. Strange. She still couldn't remember how to do that elementary thing herself.

What did it matter? Kade was breathing for both of them.

He'd touched her breasts, claimed them hard and honest. She shouldn't be responding as if they'd never come together before. But, maybe, she would always react this way around him.

Always?

He slipped his hand under her blouse. She followed the movement, tried to anyway. Nerves already on edge, she readied herself for the intimate embrace they'd begun earlier. But instead of pushing her bra aside, he settled his fingers over her throat. His forefinger rested against the vein that pulsed there.

"You scared--I've never been that scared."

This from Tarzan? From a mountain man?

"I'm all right." She imagined her words pressing against his lips. She didn't care whether he could hear; joined the way they were, surely he'd sense what she needed to say. "Kade, it's all right. I'm fine."

Fine. He let the word toss around in his head, his heart. He still felt like a man who'd been yanked back from a precipice at the last possible half second. But even with that emotion trying to control him, he couldn't silence the other.

The one that might shatter them.

"When I saw you on Trixter, racing past me, all I could think about was getting to you. Making sure you were safe."

"It's all right." He could barely hear her. "I did it, didn't let anything happen to your horse."

"Do you think I care about that?"

"Yes," she whispered. "I know you do. And you should."

Should he? The gelding didn't matter. Only Chera, only holding her and convincing his body that she hadn't been killed did. That and silencing the hard grinding question that screamed inside him. "It didn't have to happen."

"The plane?" she asked.

"Yes. Damn it." Hating what he had to do, he drew back but continued to hold her close and safe. If he lost himself in her now, he would jeopardize everything he believed about himself. She'd nearly ripped him apart; her power over him terrified, fascinated him. "That wasn't random. The pilot, whoever he was, knew exactly what he was doing."

"Kade?" Her fingers bit into the flesh around his elbow. He didn't care. "You don't know that. Just because you guard your land so fiercely--"

"I know. Damn it, I know."

She didn't say anything. He took that to mean she was giving him space and time to say what he had to, but the words wouldn't come.

What he believed, couldn't not believe, was that her father had orchestrated the assault on the horses. Who else knew where they were? Who except Thatcher James, who'd once tried to steal his timber and gotten not so much as a slap on the wrist from the legal system, would return to make sure the job was done right? And what better way of insuring that the timberland owner couldn't stop him than by stampeding his horses?

It was a stupid plan, deadly stupid. What if Chera had been hurt? Or killed.

Did she mean that little to her father?

"Kade, please, tell me. I have to know what you're thinking."

Without giving her warning, he whirled away and strode over to the horses. He ran his hands over Trixter's neck, sides, legs. Except for a few scratches on his lower legs, the gelding had come through his ordeal unscathed.

Chera had fared just as well.

"You want to know what I'm thinking?" He threw out the challenge. "All right. It's time for this, isn't it?"

"Yes. I guess it is."

Her words nearly stopped him. After a moment, fighting the power in her voice, he went on. "Earlier I said that someone tried to steal timber from me."

"Yes."

"And that I suspect that whoever is on my land now has the same thing in mind. Is probably the same person."

"Yes."

"What we now have--" He spun around, faced her not as a man who'd been terrified that a beautiful young woman he'd come to care for might have been killed, but as the fiercely protective owner of the only thing in the world he truly gave a damn about. "--is all the proof we need of how determined they are."

He thought she might argue the point. Instead, she sought out a log to sit on. Her eyes on him, she began massaging her calf. "What happens now?" Her lips had barely moved.

"I know what you're thinking. You're questioning my priorities, aren't you? My commitment to you against getting to the bottom of this."

"Can you blame me?"

Anger washed through him; he didn't know how to control it. "What do you think I ought to do? Maybe call in the FBI and tell them our horses were spooked by a plane but we have no idea who was flying it. We could get on the horn to the secret service. I'm sure they've got nothing better to do than search my land for some people who might already be gone."

"Don't be sarcastic, please."

"I'm simply trying to get you to see the whole picture."

"I see it all right." Fire burned in her eyes. She looked mad enough to punch out his lights. Or maybe cry. "What I see is single-minded determination on your part to, as you say, get to the bottom of things. Nothing else matters, does it?"

"Nothing." Liar.

"Not me. Not my dream."

"Your dream? Someone tried to kill us today in case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed." She planted both feet firmly on the ground and pushed herself upright. "In case you've forgotten, I almost broke my neck trying to save your stupid horse's neck. I thought you might feel just the slightest bit indebted to me, but you don't feel that way, do you? No. Of course you don't. Pitting yourself against these bad guys, if that's who and what they are, is the only thing you can think about. You're like Lobo, you know. You're going to keep on growling until you get the mystery figured out, even if it means growling all night and losing your voice. I've got just one question for you. What makes you so damn sure that both the trespassers and that pilot are part of some sinister plot? It's just possible, just, that what you have are a group of nature lovers who don't know squat about property lines and some idiot who doesn't know squat about how to fly a plane or the nervous system of horses. What is it with you? Why do you have to zero in on the most evil of explanations? Never mind. Just never mind. I don't care."

Her speech exhausted him. He'd had no idea she'd had that much emotion locked up inside her. For a good two seconds, he tried to tell himself that she'd been scared half to death and had lashed out at him as a way of dealing with her emotions. But maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe she was throwing smoke screens at him. Despite everything, playing the game she'd been so well coached for.

Con. Only a pig-brained fool would forget that.

"I don't believe you," he threw at her. "You do care. Otherwise, you wouldn't be shaking."

She looked down at her hands and then held them up for examination. They trembled slightly, just enough that he wanted to press them against his chest. "I'm shaking because I just about broke my fool neck back there. And because--" She took a step toward him. "--because I'm scared you're going to let this 'thing' consume you and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Don't you think I have a right?"

The gesture angry, she swiped at her hair. When she finally let her arm drop to her side, her fingers instantly curled into a fist. "What about my rights, Kade? My dream? My--my everything."

"Of course." Sarcasm curled around his words. He couldn't stop it. "What's more important than looking for a rotting wagon wheel? I'm just sorry this little misadventure got us off schedule. I won't let it happen again."

"Then you're not--"

"No. I'm not bailing on you." He meant it, despite everything. "I just hope you don't have any objection if I try to reach someone back there in civilization. If the county sheriff or a forest ranger are anywhere around, they just might be interested in what happened."

"You're still making it sound as if all I care about is me." Her voice caught but she went on. "That's not true. I wouldn't have risked my neck looking after Trixter if that was the case, would I?"

Don't cry, please. "You tell me. Right now your motive escapes me."

"If it does, then I feel sorry for you."

"Don't ever feel sorry for me," he warned. "I don't need it."

"Fine. Believe me, that's a relief." She sounded stronger than she had a moment ago. "Go on. Call whoever you were going to. I certainly don't have any objection."

"Good."

"Then--" She drew out the word letter by letter. "Then, hopefully, you'll stop looking for something sinister, something aimed right at you, in everything that happens."

He didn't bother telling her that that would be a cold day in hell.

Or that at this moment he wanted her so badly he had to fight his need with every ounce of strength in him.

CHAPTER 11

"It's no good." With an impatient shake, Kade turned his hand-held radio in yet another direction. "I still can't reach anyone."

"I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Kade muttered something she couldn't hear and set about unsaddling his horse. Chera knew she should do the same, or at least share Kade's concern about their inability to reach the outside world, but for this moment at least, all she wanted to do was stand and absorb.

Kade had brought her to the canyon Jeddiah Ridgeway referred to in his diary on July 14, 1859. On this very spot, maybe even where she stood at this moment her great, great grandfather had looked up and out and wondered at the majesty of sharp peaks, endless evergreens, sky that had never known the meaning of air pollution. Maybe he'd even seen his first grizzly, his first eagle here.

He might have sat on the boulder to her left and, by fading daylight, written the words she'd easily committed to memory.

"The Lord's hand is everywhere. Surely such grandeur couldn't have come about by accident. When I speak to Him in my prayers, I know He hears. I believe it is no accident that He guided my feet here. In his infinite wisdom, He knew I would be overcome by awe and gratitude. He is right. There are no words. No words."

Chera knew exactly what Jeddiah meant. Although she felt her chest swell in response to the massive, brooding, unconquerable surroundings, she'd already given up trying to put what she felt into words. Instead she thought about Kade's ospreys soaring free and proud over an unspoiled world and was certain she would never forget this moment.

"I can feel him," she whispered to Lobo. "And not just Jeddiah. All of them. They left something of themselves behind for me."

"Like your classroom ghosts?"

She couldn't tell whether Kade was making fun of her or not and frankly after the way he'd acted earlier today, she couldn't care less. While she'd stood around trying to fathom his emotions, his words, he'd spent the better part of the first hour after their wild ride trying to contact someone, anyone, about the dive bombing little plane. She didn't mind because she too wanted the pilot grounded, immediately, if possible. But an hour of futile fiddling?

When he finally conceded that he couldn't make contact, he'd gotten back on his horse and taken off, seemingly unconcerned whether she kept up with him or not.

Now, with the sun about to set, he was once again playing with his radio, and making fun of what she'd just said.

At least she thought he was; she couldn't quite be sure. "No," she protested. "Not like my classroom ghosts. They're always getting pushed aside by new waves of student spirits. Here, however, there's been no one to take their place in more than a century. The impression is so clear, so uncomplicated or uncompromised."

"Except for trespassers."

Enough already! If she heard one more word about his paranoia, she'd be compelled to find a cliff to push him off. Certainly she understood his concern; she was worried too. After all, thanks to that fool pilot, she could have broken her neck. But couldn't Kade take time to stop and smell the roses?

Okay, so the scent of pine and pitch, not roses permeated. It was just a figure of speech.

"You still got nothing but static?" She indicated his radio.

"So far. A lot of times conditions improve after dark. I'll try again then."

"Good." He expected her to say that, didn't he? "Good."

"Are you hungry?"

His question focused her attention on the state of her stomach--and the rest of her body. She was hungry all right, more than she'd been since coming out here. She chalked that up to the unexpected exertion and excitement and, all right, raw fear. But until she got her arm to stop stinging, she couldn't concentrate on food.

Not caring whether he saw or not, she rotated her arm so she could see the underside. An angry looking slash ran from elbow to wrist. It wasn't deep enough to cause any real concern, but it sure as heck was having a field day with the nerve endings there. She found it absolutely amazing that she hadn't been aware of the smarting sensation earlier.

"What did you do to yourself?"

She glanced up and into his constantly changing eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was concerned about her. However, she'd had hours of proof positive that he had a thousand other things to think about than her.

"It looks as if I scratched myself, doesn't it."

"That's an understatement. It's going to get infected if it isn't taken care of. You should have said something earlier. If you had, I could have--"

"Will you knock it off." If she wasn't so bone tired, she would have given him a healthy shove. "You are not, I repeat, not my keeper. I've been taking care of my bumps and bruises for a long time now. Even remember to brush my teeth on occasion. Besides, I'm not the only wounded member of this group."

"What?"

Score one for my side. The man's actually been caught off balance. "You've got a scratch on your face. Don't tell me you haven't felt it."

He touched where she pointed, seemingly only mildly interested in what he found. "Mine isn't nearly as deep or long as yours," he announced.

It was all she could do not to laugh. Kade sounded like a little boy comparing his boo-boos with a pal's. Or maybe the comparison existed only in her befuddled brain. "Fine. So I was more grievously wounded than you. What do I get, a purple heart?"

"Sit down."

"What?" She took a step toward Trixter thinking to check the gelding's hooves before tending to her own needs. Unfortunately, she'd stood still too long. Her legs absolutely and completely refused to heed her mind's command.

"I said, sit down."

Much as she hated admitting it, Kade's order made a lot more sense than anything else she'd heard today. She stumbled over to the boulder where she'd fantasized Jeddiah had sat while he wrote in his diary. Despite a fine layer of summer dry moss and pine needles, the perch was darn hard. However, standing for more than another two seconds was just about impossible.

She watched as Kade retrieved the first aid kit and plunked it down beside her. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Make sure it doesn't get infected."

She knew that. Why then--no. It wasn't his fault that he'd given a logical answer to her stupid question. The truth was, she was weary of sparing with him. Friendship. The word had a nice ring to it. "Then it's going to be my turn," she said as he manipulated her arm so that the dying sunlight touched the wounded area. "I'll take care of your cheek."

"Sounds like an even trade."

She'd thought he'd turn her down; that's why she'd made her offer. Now he'd taken her up on it, and she'd have to make good. Fine. It wasn't as if she'd never tended to a scrape before. Only, only...

Kade was much gentler than she'd thought he'd be. He didn't treat her like a hot house plant which she would have resented, but neither did he act as if tending to her was a terrible imposition. In brief, he went about cleaning the injury as if it was his own healthy flesh and not hers. After the initial sting of antiseptic, she was appreciative of its numbing, soothing qualities. Of course it didn't hurt that Kade waved his hand over the wound to create a cool current and used an unbelievably light touch when he patted it dry. When he was finished, he turned her arm so she could see what he'd accomplished. She was impressed. Without her being aware of it, he'd gotten out every speck of dirt. From everything she could tell, the scratch wouldn't leave a scar.

"Good job, Dr. Morgan. I'll recommend you to the state medical review board for a special accommodation."

"Hm. Do you want a bandage?"

He'd turned the decision making over to her; he hadn't treated her like a mindless child. "I don't think so, at least not tonight. It'd probably just get in the way when I'm in my sleeping bag."

"It could. I've had a lot worse patients."

"A lot worse?" She'd been through every emotion possible today. Tonight she was determined to hold onto a lighthearted approach. "You mean some of your patients had to bite a bullet?"

He gave her a look that said he wasn't much interested in senseless bantering. Too bad.

"I was thinking of something Jeddiah wrote," she continued. "Did you see that part? His wife had cramps and he had to scrounge for something warm she could press to her stomach. Heating rocks and placing them in a blanket worked fine. Of course he didn't say exactly what the problem was. They wouldn't back then. What was it he called it, her womanly condition. What a gentle way of referring to something that bedevils most women and should be spoken about freely and openly."

Kade concentrated on his first aid kit.

"What's wrong?" she teased. "Don't tell me you've never heard a woman talk about cramps before?"

"I've never been particularly interested in the subject."

Her hollow stomach grumbled. She pressed her hand to it. "You don't have sisters, do you?"

"No."

"That's what I thought. A man with sisters knows about cramps. And--" She pointed at her injury. "A woman with brothers gets used to seeing blood."

"Does she?"

"Oh yes. Like I said, Kipp's lucky he didn't wind up looking like a refugee from a horror movie."

Kade straightened, his lips thin. Thinking he meant to leave her before she was done with him, she grabbed his shirt collar. "You have not been dismissed. It's my turn to play doctor."

"I don't need--"

"Now you sound like my big brother." She tightened her grip. Fortunately, Kade didn't turn things into a wrestling match, which she would have lost hands down. "Seth's so independent, so know-it-all. The jerk flunked his bar exam the first time he took it because he wouldn't own up to needing help studying. He has weak eyes. They give him a headache if he reads too long. He wouldn't be a lawyer if it wasn't for me." She nodded to emphasize the point. "Believe me, I'll never let him forget that it was little sister who crammed with him all those nights."

"What'd you do it for?"

"Why? He's my brother. I love him."

It couldn't be that the sun had suddenly dropped out of sight and turned sunset into night, but something had taken the hint of light out of Kade's eyes. She thought about asking what was going on inside him, but in the end didn't. The day had left her feeling beaten up. All she wanted was something to eat and a halfway comfortable place to spread her sleeping bag. However, before she could get to those things, she had to first tend to Kade's scratch; she'd promised.

Without telling him what she had in mind, she pulled at his collar until he sat beside her. Then, before his warmth and strength and presence could distract her, she stood and began rummaging through the first aid kit.

Just then her stomach grumbled again. She stared down at herself. "Be quiet. Your turn will come."

"It's been quite a day for you, hasn't it?"

"You too."

"I'm used to it."

"You're used to being dive bombed by an airplane? You contend with terrified horses every hour of the day? Don't play the macho hero with me, Kade Morgan. I don't buy it."

A grin touched his mouth. "Is that what it sounded like?"

"A little," she conceded. "But don't worry about it. You haven't heard bragging unless you've spent more time than you want to think about with teenage males. The football team--I swear they're the worst. To hear them talk, you'd think they could put a herd of Rambos to shame."

He remained motionless as she began dabbing antiseptic on his scratch. "You really love what you do, don't you."

"Yes." Funny. She almost felt like crying. It couldn't be his tone of voice, the quiet seriousness in his eyes, could it? "I do. Most of those kids still look at life as if it's a great adventure. Some of the things that concern them are so trivial--like whether someone else might wear the same outfit to the prom--but then they'll turn around and volunteer to spend their evenings collecting food for the homeless shelter. So many of them have already been kicked in the teeth by life. Their resiliency amazes me."

He still hadn't moved, but she could feel his eyes on her. Although his gaze made her uneasy and restless in a way she didn't understand, or want to understand, she felt no desire to leave his side. If she'd just revealed another layer of herself, so be it.

"There isn't much you can do about what happens to them, Chera." His voice was soft, low, gentle.

"I know." She blinked back a wave of emotion that could quickly become tears. "Still, I wish they could remain children a little longer."

"I wish they could too. And that's why what you're doing this summer is so important to you, isn't it? You want to give your students an experience they wouldn't have otherwise. You want to hand them a piece of their heritage, to show them that every generation had its hardships."

"And rewards." She felt so weak that it was a wonder she could continue working on him. Fortunately, she was nearly done because she couldn't think of another word to say. Her heart held the words, the emotions. He understood.

"You're a good teacher. I hope the system realizes that."

He'd never been in her classroom. How could he pretend to know what that part of her world was like? But maybe he'd seen certain things simply by watching her, listening to her.

After what he'd just said, she believed that.

When she used her forefinger to place salve on his injury, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Then, before she could put the cap back on the tube, he settled his hand around her wrist and drew her fingers to his mouth. Without saying a word, he kissed a knuckle.

Shaken, wanting more, she somehow managed to put away what she'd used. She gave the first aid kit a final pat but couldn't make herself move.

They were alone. So incredibly alone. Jeddiah's ghost continued to share the canyon with them, but he was a misty presence, nothing she had to put her mind to now.

There was only Kade.

Barely aware of what she was doing, she wiped her finger on her jeans to remove the last of the salve. Somehow, when she should have been noticing but hadn't, Kade had gotten to his feet. He stood over her, blocking out the world. Then he leaned down, cupped his large and capable hands over her cheeks and tilted her head upward.

She went toward him, flowed really. Her body became weightless, inconsequential. At the same time it felt as if it had been touched by the sunset.

He kissed her, a gentle brushing of mouth against mouth. She expected to taste or at least be reminded of their day's exertion, but that didn't happen. Instead, the flowing sensation continued. Grew.

In his arms, she might float above the trees.

Still barely aware of her body, she reached for his neck and used his strength to get to her feet. His chest felt warm, his bare forearms cool. They were surrounded by mountains, great, barren peaks that defied the most expert of climbers. The trees here were hundreds of years old. The creeks and canyons had been in existence since the beginning of time.

None of that mattered. Only Kade did.

She had no resistance. None at all. When he unbuttoned her blouse and drew it slowly off her shoulders to leave it hanging around her waist, she simply clung to him and accepted the feathering touch of a cooling breeze on her flesh.

He warmed her with his lips, sent shivers of feeling to race throughout her body.

She pulled on his shirt until the buttons popped from their restraints. Then she touched her mouth to his chest. She felt his body jerk, felt the muscles beneath his smooth flesh harden. His breathing quickened.

Hers did the same.

Nothing but need remained. Driven by that, she worked on his shirt until she'd freed it from his jeans' waistband. When he did the same to her, she thought her legs might buckle. Then, as if fully tapped into her emotions, he clamped an arm around her waist and held her against him.

She took new strength from him.

Their kisses became more frenzied, more insistent. She moved with him, pressed herself against him, felt her breasts swell until her bra could barely contain them. He pushed her away, gripped the cotton garment in capable fingers and yanked it over her head. It landed in a tangled wad on the boulder next to her blouse.

He reached for her again. She swayed toward him. He caught her under the arms and pressed inward. Slowly, so slowly, he drew his hands forward until he'd captured her breasts. She looked down at herself, at him, didn't fight when her vision blurred. Knowing only that she needed to feel his warmth, she flattened her hands over his breasts. The small, hard nubs of his nipples pressed against her palms. When he leaned forward, she was forced to slide her hands up his arms and back around his neck.

She felt herself being lifted, made no move to free herself. No sooner had he settled her on the boulder than he slid his hips between her legs. Once again he captured her breasts, first with his hands and then by covering one with his mouth. She felt it fill him, felt his teeth rake lightly over her flesh and, moaning, threw her head back to ease his exploration. He continued his assault until she was forced to release her grip on him and brace her hands behind her.

She lay open to him. Although she still wore her jeans, the flesh of her inner thighs had become so sensitized that she could feel each and every press of his hips. When he transferred his attention to her right breast, it too instantly responded to the warm, damp cave and thrusting tongue.

Barely able to breathe, she tilted her head upward even more and sucked in desperately needed air.

She had no control over her body, no way of stopping her legs from clamping around him. Panting now, she began whipping her head from side to side. The last thing she wanted was freedom.

He stayed with her, pulling her breast ever deeper into his mouth, covering the now heavy mound with his rough-fleshed hand and gently pressing.

She viced with her legs, gasped, writhed. Reveled in his absolute and total control over her.

"Kade? Kade..."

Something changed. For a moment she didn't understand, denied. But slowly, so slowly that it nearly drove her mad, she felt him pulling away from her. As if reluctant to do so, he drew his lips from her breast inch by unsettling inch. When, finally, nothing of him was left to warm her and she couldn't ignore the surprisingly cool breeze, she struggled to focus.

He remained within the prison of her legs, his hands now resting on her knees. He hadn't quite closed his mouth; she wondered if he'd forgotten how. What little she could see of his eyes in the growing night reminded her of high mountain pools sheltered by deep shadows.

She had no idea what emotion lurked there.

Didn't want to know.

"Kade? What--"

He stepped back so quickly, so decisively, that she wanted to ask him if she'd wounded him simply by speaking his name. Certainly that was the last thing she'd ever deliberately do to him, but she couldn't control his reaction.

"It's time to eat."

"Eat?" She reached for him, but he remained just out of her grasp. "How can you--"

"We shouldn't be doing this. Damn it, it's the last thing..."

Feeling as if she was being torn apart, she waited for him to finish. Waited for an explanation.

But there wasn't any.

He couldn't hear her breathing. He wondered if, somehow, she'd managed to fall asleep. If she had, he nearly hated her for it. He'd come so close to making love to her. Her soft, tantalizing flesh had called to him as did her absolute trust in him. Trust. It wasn't a gift many women had given him.

Chera James was the last one he should expect it from.

But she'd let him strip her clothes from her and then opened herself up to him. Without so much as token resistance, she'd allowed him to lay claim to her breasts, to let him slip his hard and demanding body between her legs. True, she'd been wearing jeans, but he guessed that her trust, her gift wouldn't have been any less if she'd been completely naked.

Ignoring Lobo's impatient sigh, he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sky. He settled a hand over the hybrid and idly scratched his head. All Lobo wanted was to sleep beside his friend and for that to happen, Kade would have to remain still.

Only he couldn't.

A question, a pounding, insistent question raged inside him.

Chera's body had been an honest and freely given gift, but she might have lied.

Could he believe his heart?

Maybe he'd spend the rest of his life calling himself a fool if he ignored his head's warning.

CHAPTER 12

Dawn. A misting, rolling time of renewal.

Fog, so illusive that Chera barely felt it in her nostrils, whispered around her. It touched her hair to leave damp fingerprints, then skittered away to play among fallen pine needles.

Fascinated by the changing shapes and colors of what had been borne by the air, she tiptoed after it. It seemed to be toying with her, teasing, challenging her to continue the pursuit. Her laughter a tinkle of sound, she reached out as if she could hold the illusive mist in her hand.

It changed shape. Became darker, solid. Pastels were swallowed by deep grays with black at their center. Still she continued to move toward it.

Now she found herself looking up at Kade. He was larger this morning, so large in fact that sometimes he rivaled the substance of the mountains.

She should be afraid of him. But she looked into his eyes and saw gentleness and smiled. His hands, half human, half still mist and shadow, slid toward her. She readied herself for him.

Wondered if she was beautiful enough for him.

At an indistinct sound, the dream splintered off into a thousand ragged pieces. Still caught in its remnants, Chera pushed at the confines of her sleeping bag and sat up.

Kade was perhaps thirty feet away. She expected him to be engaged in whatever he needed to do to get ready for the day--maybe even reading Jeddiah's diary. Instead, he remained motionless when her dream had been full of movement.

She wanted to walk over to him and ask him to let her into his thoughts, but if he'd been willing to share that with her, surely he would have done so by now.

The sound had come from Lobo. Although the wolf/dog was sitting at Kade's feet, he was more interested in scratching at his underbelly with claws that rhythmically struck the rocky ground. Kade paid no attention to Lobo. His profile impassive, he stared out at nothing, and maybe everything. He'd pulled on a shirt and wore the jeans that fit him as if he'd been born to them but hadn't yet laced himself into his boots.

He looked vulnerable, illusive, distant, powerful.

How could one man be all those things at the same time?

Unnerved by her thought, she began crawling out of her sleeping bag. The movement and sound snagged his attention, and he looked at her with an expression she couldn't begin to understand. Ignoring him, trying to anyway, she reached for her jeans and slid them over her bare legs. She'd worn her trusty short pajamas to bed. Before they took off for the day, she'd change into something more practical, but for now, this would do. It would have to since she certainly couldn't yank off the top now.

Could she?

No. Of course not. She didn't know enough about the art of seduction, nor did she understand enough about its consequences.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked. Even dressed, she felt exposed, felt the intensity of his unwavering scrutiny. "You were thinking."

"Yeah. I was."

Ignoring his short reply, she asked if he'd had any luck reaching someone who might have seen the plane that had harassed them yesterday.

He watched her draw her zipper upward. "I haven't tried yet."

"What?" Darn that fastening. But maybe the fault lay in her suddenly clumsy fingers. "I thought--"

"But I'm going to, now." Without explaining what had delayed him, he stood and walked over to his pack. He pulled out the radio and began fiddling with it.

He'd been going to do that last night, but something--she--had distracted him. Maybe he didn't like being reminded of his lapse in duty. She couldn't help that, wasn't sure she wanted to.

By the time she'd made a necessary trip into the bushes and returned, Kade was talking to someone. His end of the conversation consisted of short, clipped, insistent questions and requests to have whoever he was talking to repeat the answers. Finally, looking as if he wanted to heave the instrument as far as he could, he cut off the connection.

"That was a BLM biologist. He's a good ten miles east of here and has had his head stuck in a lake so hasn't been paying attention to what's going on overhead. He thought maybe he heard something, but he wasn't sure."

"What are you mad at him for? It isn't his fault."

"He needs to be aware of his surroundings. That's an elementary rule when it comes to staying alive in the wilderness."

She believed Kade was painting a darker than necessary picture but decided to keep her opinions to herself since a little caution never hurt anyone, even her. "That's all he said?"

"Just about. He hasn't seen another human being for two days. I asked him to try to get through to Mike Barry at the Dog Peak fire lookout, but he couldn't be bothered."

If she'd accurately interpreted the biologist's side of the conversation, the man had attempted to point out that he was in the middle of collecting some critical samples and would get in touch with this Mike Barry person as soon as he could. Obviously Kade hadn't been happy with that explanation.

"I don't know why you're so upset," she pointed out as calmly as possible. "The plane didn't come back, did it? The pilot was playing a stupid, irresponsible game, and when he saw our horses panic, he knew he'd made a major mistake and took off for safer territory."

"That's what you think, is it? Well, it certainly keeps everything pretty simple that way."

Why was he attacking her logical, completely understandable explanation? Oh, what did it matter? Turning her back on him, she began rummaging around for a couple of breakfast bars. She tossed one to him without so much as asking if that's what he wanted, then concentrated on chewing.

She'd never understand the man. Last night she'd felt so close to him that she'd carried the emotion into her dreams. She'd believed, truly believed, he felt the same way. All right, so he'd pulled back before they could become lovers. She supposed she should be grateful to him for that. She was, on a logical, rational level. But did he have to act as if she was public enemy number one this morning?

"This journey has been so hard on my wife. Sometimes she looks at me as if I have taken her into hell. But she never says anything and no matter what I ask her to endure, I continue to feel her love for me."

Why Jeddiah's words popped into her mind at this moment Chera didn't know, but it seemed more than a little prophetic that she was being reminded of the love between a man and a woman. She didn't love Kade. Nothing like that certainly. How could she be in an emotional tailspin about a man she wouldn't fully understand if she had the rest of her life to do it in? But neither did she see him as public enemy number one. Maybe if she told him that, his mood would soften.

It was worth a shot.

She wadded up the breakfast bar wrapping and popped the last bite in her mouth, then looked over at her guide's stern, dark profile. For a few seconds she nearly talked herself out of her half baked idea, but the alternative was a too long, too silent day. "Look Kade," she began. "you've done the best you can for now. Can't you concentrate on what you've been able to accomplish? You must know I'm delighted you found this canyon so easily because now we have a starting point. I can begin--"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"What would I like?"

"Ignoring the simple fact that there probably are timber thieves out there."

What did the man have, a one track mind? Remembering his attention to certain parts of her anatomy last night, she knew that wasn't true. Still, it seemed that every time she tried to focus on her concerns, her goal, he insisted on zeroing in on his paranoia about his cotton picking trees which looked all but indestructible with their tops reaching for the sky and trunks so broad that three people stretching together couldn't span them. "I didn't ask you to do that. Did I? All I said was--" He opened his mouth, but she rushed on. "--that there's no reason why we can't focus on what brought us out here in the first place."

"Oh yes. Dear old Jeddiah Ridgeway's diary. The man's dead, Chera. Been dead for over a hundred years."

"So? What's the point?"

"The point is, he can wait a little longer. My trees can't."

"Your trees! Your damn trees! Do you have any idea how blasted tired I am of hearing that?"

He'd struck a nerve. Every line of her body screamed out that elementary message. Deep down on a level so basic that he didn't understand its source, he regretted the words he'd thrown at her. After all, he wasn't a primitive animal blindly drawn to a female member of the species--not entirely anyway. She had feelings, emotions, sensitivities--and maybe a hidden agenda, damn it.

"Maybe you're tired of thinking about trees, but I don't dare ever be."

"Fine." She swatted at the air. "Fine. Growl over your board feet of lumber or however you think of them like an old dog with a bone, but not on my time, mister."

He nearly pointed out that he was volunteering his time, then thought better of it. More than once since they'd met, he'd seen a look in her eyes that told him he was a heartbeat away from getting his nose flattened. The message in those gray/green depths this morning warned him that the time had narrowed down even more. "Yes, boss lady. Whatever you say, boss lady."

"Don't patronize me."

"Was I? You just put me in my place. I thought this was the response you were after."

She looked confused. Big deal. What she felt couldn't be much different than what he was experiencing. He'd gone into this argument bound and determined to rake through her words to reach, finally, an understanding of where she stood and what she was about. If she was trying to divert him from concern about timber thieves, he'd put an end to this charade--if that was her game. Instead she'd disarmed him, and he didn't know how that had happened.

Maybe he did. She'd put on her jeans. Made it a subtle reverse striptease.

Despite the caution she'd given herself to use restraint when it came to picture taking, Chera found it impossible to keep her finger off the shutter button. They'd been moving on foot most of the morning as they searched dirt and rocks and trees for any and all sign of the Ridgeway wagon train. There was enough evidence like the scar an axe had left in a tree trunk and the mark made by a wagon wheel scraping around a boulder, but they had to look closely to make sure nothing was missed.

Kade's patience surprised her. She'd been afraid he'd balk at the exacting work of capturing history's signs or worse, get it into his head that he needed to go off in search of intruders. Fortunately he seemed to have forgotten that.

She almost laughed when he let out a whoop and pointed to a rusting piece of metal nearly buried under a large, drooping fern. As he held back the fern, she took yet another picture. Because she'd promised Kade she'd leave the site undisturbed, she resisted the impulse to pick up the discolored chunk. Still, she couldn't resist an observation about what it was. "We know the wagons themselves passed right by here. This must be something left over from a broken part."

"I don't think so. They didn't dare discard anything from the wagons. Jeddiah was a pretty resourceful man. He'd have found a way to repair it."

"What then?"

Kade leaned forward for a closer look. "I think it was a cooking pan."

She slipped alongside him and then dropped to her knees. "Maybe you're right." Suddenly she laughed. "Maybe one of the women went on strike, decided she wasn't going to cook another meal and chucked this for good measure."

"I can't say I blame her. Are you sure you have all the pictures you need?"

Despite his teasing, she took another that included his elbow in it and then looked around for a vantage spot from where she could record the entire setting. Because there was so much brush here, she decided she would have to climb to a higher elevation. "It won't take long," she reassured him. "I promise."

He grumbled something she figured she didn't want him to repeat. Fortunately, just then Lobo, who'd taken advantage of the break to wander off in search of rodents, let out a low howl and instantly disappeared into the underbrush.

"Probably a ground squirrel," Kade observed.

"Oh no. Not an innocent, helpless little ground squirrel."

The look he gave her plainly said she'd lost her mind and that Lobo was simply doing what came naturally. Nevertheless, at her urgent request, Kade again grumbled but hurried off after Lobo. She watched the easy way his long legs took him where he wanted to go and then waited for the better part of a minute, but all she heard was a series of grunts and growls.

She couldn't do anything for the ground squirrel. What she could do was take her picture while Kade wasn't around to rattle her. When she stepped away from the brush and climbed into sunlight, she was surprised at how warm the day had become. With every step, she heard dry needles crunch underfoot. Kade had been absolutely correct in insisting they not have any kind of a fire out here. Even a discarded match could prove deadly.

She'd have to tell him that, let him know that despite what she'd said this morning, he'd been right to worry when he thought he smelled smoke.

Her mood climbed with every step she took. So far, they'd done an incredible job of being able to document the Ridgeway trail. She'd had no idea it would be this easy, or exciting. The least she could do was ask Kade if he wanted to leave her to search on her own while he concentrated on what continued to make him uneasy. Maybe if he did that for awhile, he'd see that he didn't have to be suspicious of every sound or shadow.

But, maybe, if he was right after all, he might place himself in danger. No. She couldn't let that happen. It was better, much better, to keep him with her. As long as he focused on the pioneer trail he would be safe.

Safe.

With her mind firmly stuck on what she should say to him, she paid little attention to how she'd managed to scramble onto the boulder she found herself on. Her footing felt a little unsure, but by planting her legs wide apart, she managed to balance herself well enough to take the necessary pictures. She thought she glimpsed something on the ground at the base of the rock. Maybe it was Lobo's ground squirrel seeking a safe place to hide, and then maybe what she'd spotted was a line of ants hard at work. Either way, she didn't want to risk her balance by looking down too long. When she came to the end of her roll, she carefully sat down and dug into her camera case for another.

Once again something moved below her. She made a stab at leaning over but still couldn't see anything. She was trying to decide what was the best way to get off the boulder when Kade appeared far below her.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Now what? "I'm taking pictures. I'd think that would be pretty obvious."

"Get down. No. Wait. Don't move. I'll be right there."

What was the matter with the man? Maybe he'd gotten too much sun. Still, warned by the intensity in his voice, she waited patiently until he was some twenty feet away from the base of her perch. She couldn't remember if she'd ever seen a man from this perspective before. Kade seemed shorter, broader, still very much in charge.

"There's a rattler den under that rock."

"What?"

"I said, there's--"

"I know what you said." Her voice squeaked a little, but she couldn't do anything about that. "Why didn't you warn me?"

"Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do? Look, you've got to do this right. I don't want you disturbing the rattlers any more than you already have."

You don't want--What about me? "What would you suggest?"

"Slow and easy." Keeping constant distance between himself and the suspicious area below her, he walked around to one side of the boulder and then the other. "Yeah. There they are."

Just like that. "I thought I saw something. So, Kit Carson, what's the plan?"

He gave her a look which said he fully expected her to start screaming and jumping around. Well, he was going to be disappointed. The way she figured it, rattle snakes weren't the greatest rock climbers in the world. True, she might be wrong about that, but if she was, she didn't want to know it.

Moving slowly and cautiously, Kade walked back to where he'd originally stood. "They aren't right here."

That was some comfort. Some. "I can't jump that far."

"The way I see it, you don't have much choice. They're pretty sluggish this time of day, but if you disturb them enough, they aren't going to be very forgiving."

"I don't need a lecture."

"I agree. What you need is a keeper."

"Keeper? How was I to know there were rattlers here?"

He didn't answer, but then that didn't surprise her. At his suggestion, she tossed her camera and bag down to him.

"All right. What you're going to have to do is scoot as close to the edge as possible and then slide into my arms," he explained.

"What?" She tried to look down to the bottom, but the boulder angled back and under, making it impossible to see the ground at the rock's base. "What if I break my leg?"

"Then I'll splint it. Unless you want to stay up there until they decide to move."

"I never said that. Look, I got up here without getting bit. Why can't I get down the same way?"

"Because maybe your luck's run out."

He might be right about that. In fact, he probably was. Groaning to herself, she started to inch forward. The boulder sloped at such a sharp pitch that it was all she could do to keep from tumbling forward. Acting on yet another of his suggestions, she leaned back to balance her weight and scooted on her rear end. She could imagine what she looked like.

"A few more feet. There's moss to your right. Be careful. It might be slippery."

No kidding. "I can't see where I'm going."

"I know. That's why I'm telling you this. You're doing fine. A little to your left. Yeah. That's fine."

She didn't really hear what Kade was saying. His tone, quiet, comforting, confident, guided her. She felt her feet slide a few inches and let out a small gasp.

"Listen to me. You're not going to be able to scoot much further. When you feel yourself start to go, I want you to lean forward slightly so you won't hit your head on the rock. I'm right below you. I won't let you fall."

She believed him, just like that. "I feel like I'm on the proverbial roller coaster without brakes."

"I'm your brakes. Trust me."

Trust you. Although every ounce of logic in her shrieked to hold onto what little perch she had left, she pushed off with her hands. Her feet dangled, found nothing to bite into. She felt her body pick up speed.

"Now! Lean forward!"

Jerking upright, she let out a shriek and stabbed down with her hands, reaching for Kade. The free-fall seemed to last forever. She had time to think of a platform diver perched over a puddle-like pool while officials and spectators waited to judge the difficulty of her triple flip.

She didn't flip. She landed, hard, in Kade's arms. The force of their collision knocked him to his knees. Without opening her eyes, she knew she'd wound up sprawled on top of him, and, as he'd promised, he'd made sure she hadn't broken her leg.

"You're all right?"

The way he spoke, as if he couldn't quite get his breath, propelled her into action. She blinked and crawled off him, but he remained with his legs sprawled out in front of him, his arms braced behind him.

"Graceful it wasn't," she observed. "But it worked."

"All I could see there at the end were your legs. Dangling over the edge, coming closer and closer. I kept thinking, I hope to heck she doesn't kick me in the head."

"My life didn't exactly pass in front of my eyes, but darn near." She plopped down beside him and gingerly rubbed her rear end. "There's something sticky there. Whew! That's the last time I want to do that."

He'd cocked his head to one side; his mouth twitched. "You done good."

Feeling laughter begin to bubble up inside her, she tried to ward it off by concentrating on her boots. "I didn't think about all of the hazards. If I'd whacked you with these things, I might have knocked you out."

"Believe me, I thought about it."

"As long--" A giggle escaped. She tried again. "As long as you dropped right where you were, I'd still--I'd have something to land on."

"What are you laughing about?"

"I don't know," she tried to say. Her eyes began to burn. Her chest felt as if someone had filled it with helium. "I honestly don't--know. Only, Kade, what if someone had seen us? Me free falling, you trying to dodge my boots. My--my splatting on top of you."

"You didn't splat. More like a plop."

He was laughing too. She'd never heard that sound from him. It enchanted her, allowed her to give into her own sense of delight. "What--what if my students had seen? I'd never live that down."

"Or Hiram. He'd love that, wouldn't he?"

"He would. Indeed." She wiped at her tears but they only flooded back. Without thinking of the consequences, she reached for Kade and buried her face against his shoulder. He smelled like a million years of forest, felt as strong as his beloved trees. "Poor, poor Hiram. He'll never get to do something like this."

To her utter surprise and delight, Kade wrapped his arm around her and squeezed. His chest shook from the impact of a good, old fashioned belly laugh. "Never have the thrill of dodging rattlesnakes? How can someone get through life without that particular experience?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. Kade. Thank you. I'm not sure but---" Suddenly she didn't feel quite so much like laughing. "Thank you. I think maybe you saved my life."

"You're welcome."

CHAPTER 13

I was wrong. There's no fighting this attraction between us. I want you, Chera. Want you as I've never wanted any other woman.

Oh Kade. We're right for each other. From that first moment I knew--and now you--you're saying the same--Kade, what are you doing?

With an impatient, reality-filled shake of her head, Chera put an end to musings that sounded too much like dialogue from a soap opera. Sure, they'd had a lot of fun a few minutes ago. They'd wound up in each other's arms, laughing, holding on as naturally as if they'd known each other's bodies for years, but now Kade had gone back to retracing Jeddiah Ridgeway's route with little more than a non-committal glance in her direction.

The ground rules hadn't changed, not by a long shot.

"What are you doing?" she asked when Kade pulled a short handled shovel off the pack horse and began digging under a dying pine with a forked top.

"Looking for bones."

She almost shivered, gave it a good shot anyway. But after the confrontation with the rattlers, the thought of finding a dog's grave didn't exactly fill her with revolution. Kade had remembered what Jeddiah wrote about having to bury their old sheep dog. His directions had been so thorough that chances were better than even that this had been the spot. The only problem was, Jeddiah hadn't specified which side of the tree or how far from its base or how deep.

After about ten minutes of digging, Kade straightened. He flexed his shoulders, then ran a powerful hand over the back of his neck. "I don't know why I'm doing this. Curiosity probably. But I could dig up half the country and still not find anything."

"I was thinking the same thing." She wanted to walk over to him, reach up, and massage his neck for him. However, their peace was tentative, too easy to shatter. "Besides, poor old Shep would probably like to be left alone." She laughed. "I wonder how many dogs were named Shep back then."

"I have no idea," Kade said as he studied the diary. "What did he write? You'd think I could remember, but there's so much that I have to keep refreshing my memory. Here it is. After burying Shep they headed as directly north-west as possible." He gave his surroundings yet another thorough look. "There's a gully directly west of us. It eases considerably about a quarter of a mile from here. The wagons wouldn't have had any trouble crossing there."

"Then that's where we'll go."

He gave her a slightly bemused look and she guessed he'd, once again, caught her with her teacher's hat on. She supposed he was waiting for her to apologize. Instead, she reached out, indicating that she'd take charge of the diary. She might apologize for a lot of things in life, but not for her profession's influence on the words that came out of her mouth.

After tamping down the dirt he'd just dug up, Kade again led the way. She should be tired of looking at his back by now. Certainly, she'd done precious little except stare at it for hours on end. However, certain backs--his back--had proven to be endlessly fascinating.

Lobo trotted ahead of them as if he'd known long before them what direction they'd be going. Occasionally he looked back to make sure the humans were keeping up with him, but for the most part his nose ruled him.

"Darn," Chera said after several minutes. "I know I forgot something. We forgot to get a rattler."

"Yeah, right. That's what we need, a pet rattler." Kade kept his attention on the ground.

"No. No. You don't understand. I'll have the pictures I took of that one, but it'd make much more of an impact if I had the real thing. I've got to have something for show and tell."

"You don't need the real thing. What do you want me to do? Carry it wrapped up in my jacket?"

"I hadn't gotten down to the specifics, but that would be perfect."

"Forget that."

She giggled, then fell silent as a warm wave of emotion washed through her. Kade had caught onto her teasing. Despite the short time they'd known each other, he already knew her that well. "You love this, don't you?" she asked softly. "Being out here I mean."

"I thought that was pretty obvious."

Despite his clipped reply, she went on smiling because she'd grown accustomed to certain aspects of his personality. "It is. I'm just making an observation. I envy you. I didn't think I would, that there'd never be anything else in the world that could possibly turn me on the way teaching does. But this--"

Lobo's sharp pitched growl cut through her words. Kade stopped instantly and braced himself so the horses he was leading couldn't continue. She followed suit a half step later by turning her shoulder into Trixter and didn't make the mistake of asking for an explanation. Kade would tell her when he was ready to.

When Lobo stalked, stiff legged, to a slight rise, Kade handed her the reins and followed the hybrid. Lobo continued his warning. Not quite sure why she was doing it, she took a minute to secure the horses to nearby trees.

"Get me those damn binoculars of yours."

Yes, master. Her sharp reply quickly died. Making as little noise as possible, she pulled the binoculars out of her back pack. After removing them from their case, she handed them to Kade who took them without so much as a glance at her. As he tried to bring them into focus, she looked where he'd been staring. Although not nearly as spectacular as the panorama they'd gazed at yesterday, this narrow, long cut made it possible for them to see a considerable distance.

After no more than a couple of seconds, she spotted what had attracted both Kade and Lobo's attention. Although a low mist clung to a few isolated areas, there was no mistaking the one that stood out from the others because this thin column of gray drifted upward instead of hugging the ground.

Cursing under his breath, Kade handed the binoculars back to her. "I could walk a hundred feet and accomplish what these do."

"What's it from?" She indicated the smoke. "A campfire? Is there anyone down there?"

"Not from what I can tell. Damn, if they left it untended, I'll kill them."

"If they've done anything that stupid, I'll help you."

She couldn't fathom the look he gave her, but with Lobo's unrelenting growl spurring her on, she didn't take time to try to figure it out. When Kade shrugged out of his back pack, touched his hand to his pistol, and began walking toward the distant smoke, she asked if he wanted her to bring the horses.

"No. Leave them. If we haven't been seen so far, I don't want that to change."

"You're going to sneak up on them?"

"Do you have a better suggestion?"

"No. I guess I don't."

He said something she didn't catch. It didn't matter. "Wait a minute," she said to his back. "I'm coming with you."

"No you're not."

"Stop it, Kade," she insisted. "I'm not some kid you can order around. This concerns me just as much as it does you."

That made him turn around. She couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking; his features had become too dark and guarded for that. "I doubt that."

"You know what I mean." Her fingers were curling inward, but she couldn't help herself. "If a fire gets started, I'm in as much trouble as you are."

"They should have thought of that a hell of a long time ago."

They? Who was he talking about? "Kade? I'd much rather be with you than standing here not knowing," she told him honestly.

He stared at her, simply stared. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind but still had no idea what he was thinking about. Finally: "All right. But whatever I tell you, you do it. Immediately. Without asking questions."

She took a deep breath, nodded briefly. "All right," she whispered.

Five minutes later Chera's final words were still claiming more of Kade's attention then they should have. Even with his senses tuned for possible danger, he couldn't keep his mind off the woman slipping almost silently behind him. Despite the limitations of the binoculars, both they and Lobo told him that whoever was responsible for the smoke was no longer near it. Whether that person or persons had left the area or was simply hiding, waiting for him to show himself, he couldn't say.

It didn't matter. He needed to get to the source of the smoke and do what had to be done so it no longer constituted a threat to his timber.

And if he was walking into a trap, Chera might serve as his insurance policy.

The question he'd been fighting for too long took root in his mind. Could he use her this way? Only, it might come down to his having no choice in the matter. And hardest of all to face, did she know more than she'd let on?

"I didn't hear anything earlier. Did you?"

Her whispered question barely broke through his thoughts. He continued walking, careful to stay near tall brush so they were less likely to be seen. "Nothing."

"But Lobo..."

"I don't know what Lobo heard, if anything. Maybe he simply smelled the smoke."

Chera said nothing. Other people might question Lobo's ability to catch a scent that far away, but she had spent several days around him and had seen what he was capable of. Even now the hybrid led the way, silent as if he understood that a warning growl would only hinder what his human friend needed to accomplish.

After another twenty minutes of wordless travel, they reached the source of the smoke. Someone had at least had the sense to clear down to bare earth but hadn't bothered lining the campfire area with rocks. With his first glance, Kade saw why the fire had been built. Someone had wanted a bed of coals to cook a meal wrapped in aluminum foil. The discarded foil had been dropped near the fire, as were at least a dozen beer cans and an untold number of cigarette butts. The cook, the damn stupid cook, had made a half baked attempt to kick dirt over his coals, but from what Kade could tell, not so much as a single bucket of water had been dumped on it.

He watched Lobo sniff the foil and then circle the area around the fire. He could have drawn Lobo's attention to the tire tracks--certainly 4-wheel drive--that angled away in a north-east direction but Lobo was right. Just because the vehicle that brought the men here had left, that didn't mean all the humans had.

Only when Lobo slipped out of sight did he turn toward Chera. She stood no more than a couple of feet from the fire, staring down at it, lips clamped tightly together. Her hands had again become fists.

"That's how it happens, how a forest burns down," she muttered. "Because someone's an idiot. If we hadn't come along--"

"It would have smoldered all day, and if the wind had come up, it might have spread."

He didn't need to say more. The horror in her eyes told him that she'd put the deadly pieces of the puzzle together. Silent, she began using the toe of her boot to kick more dirt on the fire.

Let it sink in. Maybe you'll regret---

He couldn't say, shouldn't even think that. He still had no proof beyond her last name.

Two, maybe three minutes later Chera finished burying the fire remains. As they watched, standing on opposite sides of the fire pit, the last of the smoke sank back to the earth and died. "There's no water around here, is there," she said in what wasn't really a question. "This will have to do."

"It's all right. It can't get loose now."

She looked up, truly met his eyes for the first time since Lobo brought them here. "You think of it as a monster, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do."

"So do I. What happens now?"

"Now I get some answers."

"No." She stalked around the fire, planted herself in front of him. "No you don't."

If that's what you think, lady, you don't know me at all. "You think I have no right to want to confront whoever did this?"

"I know what you want to do, but--"

"No you don't. There's no way you possibly can."

She opened her mouth for what he knew would be another protest, but he didn't give her the chance. Although she stiffened, he grabbed her and hauled her over to a fallen log. Then he planted her on it and stood over her, deliberately using his size to dominate the conversation.

"Let me tell you what happened last fall," he said, planting each word slowly and deliberately. "I was helping a friend, another logger who'd bid on two jobs and gotten both of them when he figured he'd only be awarded one. He headed one crew. I did the same with the other. Unfortunately, his equipment hadn't been properly maintained, and the job took almost twice as long as it should have. Because I had a lot of safety concerns that revolved around that equipment, I couldn't leave the site for weeks, couldn't keep an eye on my own land."

She didn't say a word; he wasn't sure she so much as breathed. But as for whether she was afraid of his anger, he couldn't tell. Knowing her, probably not.

"By the time I got back," he continued, "there was an illegal logging operation at work here. >From what I saw, I'm sure they'd been stealing my timber for a good two weeks. Do you have any idea how many logs can be pulled out in two weeks?"

She shook her head.

"Enough that if I hadn't been operating in the black, it would have finished me."

"What did you do?"

Maybe you already know, lady. "I ordered them off at gunpoint."

"By yourself?"

"No. Not by myself. I am not a fool. I had my crew with me."

"What about the police?"

He snorted. "I called them. They needed verification that it was my land, proof that the thieves had no business doing what they were. They wanted me to provide them with maps, aerial photography, get BLM involved. I didn't have time for that."

"They're gone, Kade. Gone. You and your men, you put a stop to their operation and got them off your property and--I don't know. Maybe you made sure they were thrown in jail."

"They weren't charged with anything."

She blinked, but he couldn't read anything in the gesture. "Why not?"

"You ask the judge. Or my so-called lawyer. What he told me was, it would probably take years to get things settled because the courts would want a complete accounting of how many board feet of lumber they'd taken, as if I could come up with that since a lot of it was already out of the state. It was more of the same damn runaround the cops gave me. Legal maneuvering, charges and counter charges. I told my lawyer to forget it. I wasn't going to cripple myself financially playing the legal game. But neither am I going to take a chance on it happening again."

Although he deliberately went on looming over her, she was no longer staring up at him. Instead she seemed to have found something fascinating about his boots. "It won't, Kade."

"You don't know that."

"At gunpoint? With your crew there too. Only a total fool would take a chance on that, or worse, happening again. You got them to leave. They're not coming back."

"What are you, stupid?"

That got her attention. Her head snapped up. His throat began to burn as if she'd touched a weapon to it. "Don't you call me that. Don't ever call me stupid."

"Naive then."

"Maybe. I don't know. But I am not stupid."

Someone had used that word on her; otherwise, why would she react so violently? "Tell me something, Chera. If this was your land and you found what we just did, and you'd been through what I had last fall, how would you react?"

She started to stand. When he refused to give way, she sat back down. Still, she didn't look at all intimidated. "I don't know. It didn't happen to me. But Kade, look around you. Has a single tree been cut? Have you seen any machinery, even heard any? No. Someone drove out here for the heck of it; that's what I'm saying, for the heck of it. Maybe it's connected with the tire tracks you saw the first morning, whatever upset Lobo the other night, the plane, and maybe these incidents are unrelated."

"Incidents? I'd hardly call them that."

She looked as if the idea of slicing his throat open absolutely intrigued her. "You're paranoid, Kade," she said in that no-nonsense schoolteacher tone of hers. "I know you don't agree. I know you hate it when I say that, but neither can I change the way I feel. Granted, I don't live the same life you do. I haven't had your experiences, faced the kind of risk you have. But neither am I Pollyanna."

"What's the point?"

"The point..." She closed her eyes and then opened them again. "All right; all right. We're not getting anywhere this way, are we?"

"Brilliant deduction."

"Don't be sarcastic! I'm trying to come up with a compromise, something that will satisfy both of us. What if we go back after the horses. We could follow the tracks for as long as it takes today until you're convinced your trees are safe."

He hadn't expected that, didn't quite know how to react. "What about your agenda?"

"Even if I insisted you drop everything for me, you wouldn't."

He couldn't help nodding at that. Obviously, she knew him better than he thought she did. Maybe too well. "It might take all day."

"Fine." She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Anything just so long as you get this suspicion of yours under control."

If she thought that would happen, she had a long wait ahead of her. He stepped back and offered her a hand up. She stared at it for so long that he wondered if that was the last thing she wanted. Finally though, she gripped his fingers and stood. He continued to hold her; she didn't try to pull free.

Her mouth was too close. Only a fool would resist that temptation and he was no more a fool than she was stupid. When he slid his arm around her waist, she first resisted and then leaned into him. She tried to place her hands on his shoulders but they came together before she could accomplish that. Despite the barrier caused by her hands being trapped between them, he felt her body accommodate itself to him.

Fool.

Fool?

"You make me crazy."

Was that her speaking? It could have just as easily been him. "You talk too much," he said before beginning an assault on her mouth that soon had her growling deep in her throat. The sound eddied around him. He took it inside him and found that one too much like it lived inside him. Unable to fight, he could only stand and listen as the twin tones echoed in his mind. He felt her quick shudder, then the beating of her heart claimed his attention.

Too long. He was taking too long.

Despite his body's protest, he forced himself to push her away until she stood at arms' length. "What did you do that for?" she asked in a less than calm tone.

"Because we've got a job to do."

She began shaking her head, her whole body really. "Always that. Always your damn commitment."

"You should understand it. After all, yours is just as deeply ingrained."

When they didn't stop to give the horses their noon break, Chera chided herself for the bargain she'd struck with Kade. She shouldn't have so easily given into his paranoia about his land. At this rate, they might not have so much as a bite to eat until nightfall.

Only, it wasn't her stomach that claimed her attention because once again she had precious little to do except follow Kade. He'd given her responsibility for the pack horse, and although she took that as some kind of honor, she was forced to concentrate on the habitually lazy animal instead of the tracks they were following.

What did she care about some stupid tire tracks?

With her teeth clamped together in silent argument with herself, she admitted that she did care. Now, as never before, she understood the forces ruling Kade. But it was hard concentrating on the ground when her heart, her mind wouldn't let her shake off yet another embrace--yet more proof of how much she wanted to make love to him.

"Can you tell?" she asked more to give herself something to think about than because she thought he would have the answer. "Are we gaining any ground?"

"No."

No. Fine. What made her think he'd say more than that? He'd been playing the silent Indian role for so long today that she should be used to it. "That means they're moving right along. They aren't just meandering."

"No. They aren't."

Three words. Score one for her side. "Where are we heading? I'm so turned around that I couldn't find Jeddiah's route if my life depended on it."

"You're lucky it doesn't."

Four words. Progress, maybe. "If that's another of your attempts at sarcasm," she snapped, "you're wasting your breath. Where are we heading?"

"Toward BLM land."

That was news to her. "Then they might be leaving your land?"

"They might."

All right. So he was back down to two words. What did it matter? "And if they do, then you won't have any more reason to follow them, will you?"

"Maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe?" This darn saddle. Between it and having to continually haul on the pack horse's lead rope, she felt like a rapidly hardening pretzel. "Why would you want to go on following this stupid jeep or whatever it was if they're no longer on your property?"

"They might angle back."

"Right. And they might continue doing exactly what they are, what you want them to. For crying out loud. I suppose if they drive right into the ocean, you'd follow them there too."

"They're not heading that way."

"You know what I mean. Kade, there isn't a conspiracy against you. Why won't you admit that?"

"No conspiracy? How do you know?"

"Because that's not the way the world works. Just because you had trouble once doesn't mean that's going to be the norm for the rest of your life. Honestly, you need to talk to a psychiatrist about this obsession of yours." Trixter slipped and stumbled forward a few feet. She winced, wondering how far they were from that hot springs of Kade's. Come nightfall, he might need a crowbar to get her out of the saddle. Knowing him, he'd probably leave her where she was.

Only, that wasn't the truth. He'd given her proof, unforgettable proof, that she had been on his mind. "How much further?"

"How much further to where?"

"You know what I'm talking about." Her sore rear end had made her testy. Tough; he'd just have to get used to it. "To the property line or whatever you call it."

"We're almost there."

She nearly gave into the impulse to chew him out. If she hadn't asked, he probably wouldn't have told her when they were no longer on his land. Darn him, it wasn't as if she was stupid. It was just that the tree-covered hills all looked the same to her.

Stupid. Just when she least wanted it, the word mocked her again. How many times had Seth and Kipp thrown that at her while they were growing up? Her father, and her mother while she was alive, had told her the boys were just trying to get a rise out of her and to ignore them, but in subtle ways she wondered if he was even aware of, her father had reinforced her big brothers' jeers. Only a girl. Get married and let some man take care of you. You don't need a career, princess. It's not like you're going to have to work all your life. Don't worry your pretty little head over that.

Don't think. Don't--

"Where are you going?"

Startled by the unexpected question, she straightened and looked around. Kade had stopped, but she'd kept going so that she was now ahead of him. Feeling foolish, she didn't bother to try to bluff her way out of it. "I don't know what I'm doing. Wool gathering probably."

"Wool gathering?"

"It's an old expression. It means I was thinking when I should have been paying attention. Why did you stop?"

"Because this is as far as I go."

What time was it? The middle of the afternoon if she could go by the position of the sun. "This is the end of your property?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Oh? So what do we do now?" Dumb. She should have reminded him of his promise to her.

"Now I try to contact the fire lookout."

That made sense. True, Kade had attempted that several times since the less than successful conversation with the biologist, but maybe they were closer to--to whatever that tower was called.

While Kade urged his horse to the top of the hill they were on, Chera managed to climb out of the saddle. Afraid that if she sat she wouldn't be able to get up again, she tied the horses and tailed after him. Despite the shade the trees provided, it was hot, capital letters HOT. Strange. Given his past behavior, she was surprised Kade hadn't peeled off his shirt. Whatever had been on his mind must have been a powerful distraction.

"Mike. For crying out loud, man. Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to reach you? Wait a minute. Let's see if I can get you any clearer."

As she watched, Kade turned his horse in a slow circle. Eventually he found a position that satisfied him. He briefly explained that he was helping a teacher with a research project and that's what had brought him here. Then, his voice becoming deeper, he gave a short description of what he'd seen and experienced. As she heard him talk about unauthorized vehicles on his property, a potentially deadly campfire left by beer guzzlers, Lobo's persistent unease, the irresponsible or deliberately cruel pilot of a small plane, Chera turned cold.

She'd been so wrapped up in her reason for being here--and in trying to understand her reaction to Kade-that she hadn't seen, or allowed herself to truly see, what Kade had.

Now she did.

"You're sure no one's mentioned a plane? What about the biologist I talked to? Didn't he get in touch with you? Damn." Kade leveled her an angry look. "I told him it was important. What? Yeah. Would you do that? I'd appreciate it. No. I'll stay here until you call me back. All right. Thanks."

He pushed on the antenna until it retracted into the radio. "Mike is going to get on the horn to everyone he can reach. As soon as he knows something, he'll contact me."

"Do you have any idea how long that's going to take?"

Kade pressed his knees against his horse's side. As the animal began picking its way down the steep slope, Kade's eyes remained fixed on hers. "As long as it has to. I'm not leaving until Mike gets back to me."

"I see." That made sense. What didn't was the look in Kade's eyes. "And then what?"

"You tell me."

CHAPTER 14

Mike Barry got back to Kade before nightfall. "It isn't much," the fire lookout told him. "I don't know what you can do with it. Apparently a couple of hikers on that forest service trail north of Rabbit Ears saw your plane. They reported it to a ranger when they got back this morning. They wouldn't have paid any attention except that it kept circling back around, dive bombing like some damn fool. The couple was so far away they couldn't tell what it was aiming at."

"Aiming is right." Chera had spent much of the afternoon exploring her surroundings and writing in her journal. As soon as the radio came to life, Kade noted, she hurried over so she could hear the conversation. "That's all?" he pressed. "No one's seen any off-road vehicles?"

"No. But you know as well as I do how rugged the country around here is. A person could go days without someone seeing him, if he wanted. There is something else I thought you might want to know though."

Kade swung his attention to Chera, held her with his eyes.

"You remember Dunkan Morse? Sheriff's deputy. I got a hold of him since he patrols your end of the county. He was on his way out to follow up on a tip he'd gotten from his father."

"His father? Blacky Morse?"

"That's the one. Blacky lives on Road 23, about five miles from the property line between your timber and BLM land."

"I know what you're talking about. Blacky's always sitting out there on his porch waiting for the mail."

"That's right. And he might have seen something important a couple of days ago."

Kade didn't move. Neither, he was aware, did Chera.

"A couple of flatbeds hauling logging equipment heading your way."

"Hell."

"Yeah, hell. Blacky might be half senile, but he's no fool. Apparently he thought about it for a day before he put one and one together, but finally it dawned on him that with the woods closed, there shouldn't be any logging equipment on that road."

"So he called his son?" Kade pressed.

"That's right. What Dunkan said was, his father was royally pissed because when he waves most folks wave back. These guys--there were two loaded for bear flatbeds--kept right on rolling without so much as a nod. It was nearly dark, long past when they should have had their headlights on. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. It does." Kade pumped Mike for more information, but apparently Dunkan had been in a hurry to talk to BLM officials and get out to Road 23 and hadn't been able to tell Mike any more than that.

"Dunkan was glad to hear you and I have been in contact," Mike wound up. "He's been trying to reach you. He has a message for you."

"I can guess what it is." From the look in Chera's eyes, he guessed she did too.

"You are not, absolutely not to take the law into your own hands."

Kade told Mike to mind his own business, and then put an end to the conversation. He placed the radio in its holder and crouched down to run his fingers behind Lobo's ears. Chera squatted beside him but didn't touch the hybrid. "What are you going to do?"

"What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know." The words came out sounding like a drawn out groan. "I can't answer that for you."

"But you'd like me to get back to trying to figure out where Jeddiah went, wouldn't you?"

She punched his shoulder so hard that he had to quickly shift his weight to keep from being knocked off balance. "Damn you, Kade. You're worse than an old dog worrying a bone. I spent the day doing what you wanted, what you believed you needed to do, didn't I? Why can't you simply acknowledge that? I hate it when you make it sound as if I'm some money grubbing gold digger."

"Do you?"

She punched at him again, but this time he was ready for her. Before she could draw away, he clamped a hand around her wrist and yanked. Perched on her toes the way she was, it didn't take much effort to force her to her knees. She glared at him, glared at her captured wrist, returned her gaze to his eyes. "Damn you."

"I don't think so." He released the pressure on her wrist but didn't free her.

"You don't think what?"

"That you really want to see me in hell."

"Figure of speech," she threw out. She pulled, but he refused to let go. "What is this?" She continued to strain. "Some childish tug of war? So you're stronger than me. So what?"

So maybe we'll get this stupid game, if it is one, behind us. "It's going to be dark pretty soon. Even if we started back toward where we left off with Jeddiah's trail, we'd be lucky if we got a mile before we had to stop for the night."

"You mean it? You're really ready to get back to work?"

He'd been working from the moment he left his cabin. Just because his agenda had changed from her concerns to his hardly meant he was playing hookey but then that was hardly the point, was it? "I might as well. As I'm sure you're getting ready to point out, we haven't seen any definite signs that anyone's cutting on my property. It's possible the equipment Blacky saw was headed for BLM land, or that whoever was in charge was hauling it somewhere to be stored."

"You really think that?"

"It's a possibility," he conceded, a long way from being convinced or relieved. "Until I have more information, there's not much I can do."

"You're serious?"

"You don't think I am?"

"I don't know what to think. I have to tell you, when I heard Mike, I thought sure you'd want to get right in touch with that sheriff's deputy to see if he could give you a complete description of the equipment, the men."

"And you didn't want me running off doing that, did you?"

Her eyes shot fire again. "I didn't say that, Kade. I am not selfish, no matter what you believe. Oh, what does it matter? You're going to believe what you want."

"Yeah. I am. And what I'm thinking is, it's time I quit following tire tracks that don't lead anywhere."

She didn't speak. Instead, he could sense her waiting for him to explain his decision. He let her wait, let her struggle with his motives--which were none of her business. And he used the silence to stand and then bring her to her feet.

"You gave me today to do what I believed I needed to," he told her. "Now it's back to being your turn."

He read relief in her eyes, that and a lingering question. He waited for it, readied himself to analyze what might be behind her words. Only, all she did was nod.

"There's no purpose in, and not enough to be gained by, taking off this late," he said in an effort to push something out of her. "The horses need to feed and you'd probably like to rest."

"You too."

He shrugged off her concern. He wondered if she was aware that he still hadn't let go of her wrist. Probably. The lady seemed aware of a great deal.

Him too.

A breeze had kicked up in the past hour. All his life he'd been tuned into the forces in nature that impacted his land, but although on a subconscious level he recorded the fact that a stiff wind could turn the smallest campfire into a deadly inferno, another inferno claimed his attention.

Chera had fire in her eyes. Maybe he'd put it there; maybe he simply saw what he wanted to.

Come morning he'd take up the battle again, do what he had to to protect his land, guide her along her great, great grandfather's route.

As for tonight...

Without asking himself either why or whether it was safe, he placed his arms around her. When she offered no resistance, he touched his mouth to the tip of her nose.

"What are you doing?"

"I'd have thought you'd know the answer to that by now."

"Don't play games with me, Kade Morgan. I asked you--" She tipped her head slightly to one side. "What do you think you're doing?"

He touched her again. "Maybe I'm trying to seduce you."

She had the good grace to blink, but other than that, she acted as if he'd said the most natural thing in the world. "That's what I thought."

"You aren't going to analyze what's happening here, are you? That's what teachers are always doing, analyzing."

Her mouth twitched; her eyes glinted. She leaned back for a couple of seconds. Then, when he tried to pull her close again, she beat him to it. Before he knew it was going to happen, she'd turned her head to one side so she could press her mouth against his throat. He felt her tongue dance across his collarbone. There was no way he could keep a groan from escaping.

She giggled, a tinkling sound that blended perfectly with the wind and raced throughout his nervous system. "Did that feel like an analysis of the situation?"

"More like action," he admitted.

"Now you're catching on. You know, I think you might be teachable after all."

She was teasing, skating on thin ice. He knew that; so did she. The game utterly fascinated him. Taking it to the next level, he reached for the top button on her shirt, popped it free, held the fabric chastely in place. "I might have to stay after class to make sure I get the lesson right."

"You might."

"What would you suggest for the first session?"

Do I dare say? With the question bouncing around inside her brain, Chera stalled for time by pretending to give what his hands were doing a stern and disapproving stare. Only, obviously she'd just flunked as an actress. Otherwise, he wouldn't have transferred his attention to the second button.

"I asked you a question, teacher," he pressed. "What's the first lesson?"

Whatever it is, you've already passed, and with flying colors. "Ah, preliminaries. Definitely the preliminaries."

"And they are?" Button number three surrendered.

"They are--darn."

"Darn what?"

Feeling giddy and bewildered, she giggled. "I've lost my lesson plan."

With his short, strong nails barely teasing her flesh, he took the final button out of service. "That's what I thought. What if I take over?"

She glanced down at herself, then looked back up at him. "I think you already have."

"Good point. Now--" Her arms, which felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds apiece, had dropped by her sides. He lifted them as easily as a child might lift a feather and placed them on his chest. "Now, I want you to listen to me. You are listening, aren't you?"

Her legs felt like melting butter. A multitude of tiny electrical charges raced down her arms to pool in her fingertips. "Yes. I'm listening."

"Good. Now, you are to unbutton my shirt."

That complicated? However, with studious attention to the job at hand and a fair degree of coaching on his part, she managed to free all but the last button. It, interestingly enough, remained hidden beneath his jeans.

"We have a problem," he said.

The only problem she could concentrate on was how in the world she was going to keep her legs from giving out on her. "Do we?"

"Yes. It appears that there's a barrier in the way."

"It does indeed."

"What, teacher, do you think you should do about that?"

He was dumping the responsibility on her shoulders when she had all she could do just to stay on her feet. "It appears to me--" She blinked and leaned forward, but his jeans' waistband refused to stay in focus. "--that the barrier needs to be removed."

"That would be my observation. And?"

"And I'm going to have to accomplish that task." Insane. This was insane. She glanced up, felt herself being sucked into his too dark, too mesmerizing eyes. "What did the manual say? Something about more force being needed on denim than cotton wasn't it?"

"Yes, Miss James, I do believe that's what the manual said."

Unable to stifle yet another giggle, she concentrated on the task at hand. Although the electrical current in her fingers had become even more intense, she managed to pull the metal snap out of the buttonhole. She thought about asking how he would recommend tackling the zipper, but she was getting into pretty intimate territory here. Maybe the silent approach was the only way she'd get through this.

Unfortunately, the zipper didn't believe in silence. Although the wind had enough strength to shake the treetops, the sound of metal scraping against metal put the wind to shame. She felt heat wash through her temples when at last she'd brought the zipper to the end of its journey. Let go. Don't get in any deeper than you are.

She ignored the warning, ignored everything except what her efforts had set free.

She couldn't think of a single, solitary thing to say.

"A question, Miss James. Does this mean what I think it does?"

With her fingers poised inches from the most private part of his anatomy, she forced herself to meet his eyes. She licked her lips, wondered why in the devil she'd done that. Then, still stalling, she took a deep breath. "I think it does."

His own sigh washed over hers. In his eyes she read anticipation, challenge, and something else that danced just beyond her comprehension. "That's what I thought. The manual? What does it say now?"

She didn't give a damn about this imaginary manual of his, but without it to hide behind, she had no idea how she was going to get beyond this point. And she wanted to.

"I believe it says that the exploration must be mutual."

"Does it?"

"Yes." She nervously licked her lips again. "Yes."

"That's what I thought."

He regarded her with such a grave expression that she thought he might ask if this was really what she wanted to do. How would she answer, that no, of course she didn't want to blend her body with his and risk losing too much of herself; neither could she walk away from him.

But although his lips parted and she sensed him gathering his breath to speak, he didn't say a word. Instead, he pulled her against his exposed chest, and she blew her breath against his chest, and his body twitched just enough to let her know everything she needed to.

She felt light, weightless enough that the wind should be able to effortlessly toss her skyward. Fighting that possibility, she clamped her hands over Kade's arms and held on.

One of the horses snorted. She dismissed the sound.

Kade slid his hands around her waist. She couldn't, didn't want to dismiss that.

Although she held onto him with so much strength that her fingers felt as if they might cramp, he paused not at all in his exploration of her waist, the flesh over her ribs, around to her breasts.

Suddenly she couldn't stand the thought of fabric between them. Jerking away from him, she shrugged out of her blouse. Next she grabbed her sports bra and pulled it over her head. The material rolled into a single tube around her wrists, and she felt trapped by it until Kade showed her the way out.

He held the white wad at arms' length. "Interesting concept. I wonder if it could double as horse hobbles."

She stood half naked in front of him and laughed. "You ought to try getting into one. Let me assure you, you have to be cold sober to accomplish that."

He reared back, frowning dramatically. "What's this 'you' business? You don't expect me--"

She cut him off by clamping a hand over his mouth. There should be something she could say, but for the life of her, nothing came to mind, maybe because he'd pulled one of her fingers into his mouth and begun nibbling on it.

The sensation took her somewhere she'd never been before. It was just possible, she half thought because that was all she was capable of, that he'd swallow her completely and she'd spend her life rattling around inside his body. Exploring. Loving it there.

After a minute, she felt his hands close over her breasts, sensed, just barely, that she'd closed her eyes. What did it matter? Fantasy was better. Safer--maybe.

As he began an inch by inch march out to the edge of her breasts, she drew her finger out of his mouth thinking to--to what? Both arms, now incredibly heavy, dropped to her sides.

He didn't seem to mind. Maybe exploring her breasts, touching, tasting, teasing, entertained him completely.

Only, when she felt the quickened beat of his heart through his fingertips, she knew that what he was thinking about went far beyond simple entertainment, simple adventure.

Made strong by what she'd just learned, she used her now electrified fingers to draw his jeans down over his hips. As she neared the end of her reach, she opened her eyes to find him gazing at her through heavy lids.

"I think we have a problem."

"Do we?"

"Yes. I'm still wearing my boots."

She laughed this time, really laughed. Even when he glowered, she couldn't stop. "You're incredible. So logical, so practical."

"Am I?" The question seemed to come directly from his chest without having to exit through his mouth. "Around you I don't feel that way at all."

Although the kiss of his fingers on her breasts left her feeling splintered, her thoughts caught on his words. He had just handed her a great deal. She wanted to tell him that, thank him for the unexpected gift, but for one of the few times in her life she felt afraid. Afraid of what she couldn't say, couldn't bring herself to think about.

Heat was easier, heat and the probe of his mouth against hers.

The feeling that she'd begun to sink into him left her. It was replaced by courage and daring. Now she wanted him, strongly, boldly, hot and heavy.

When he kicked out of his boots, she did the same. She watched, fascinated, as his jeans slid the last few inches and he stepped out of them. His plain cotton briefs barely contained him. She wanted to take him so deeply inside her that he might never find his way out.

Maybe then he would understand what they were all about.

Maybe she would too.

"Chera. Chera?" He whispered the question with his mouth all but covering hers. "I have to say it, now, before it's too late. I have to do something, to make sure we're both protected."

"You--brought protection?"

"I'm never without it. It's part of being a responsible adult."

"Oh." Good.

Necessary words dispensed with, she could concentrate on what had brought her to stand before him with only her briefs and his shorts between them. It wasn't dark, far from it. If Lobo was around, he was beyond her range of vision, beyond her ability to concentrate on anything except Kade Morgan.

Kade Morgan. His name danced through her as if it, like his touch, had become filled with electricity. He half led, half carried her to the nearest tree and gently pressed her against it. Her flesh resisted the cold hard touch of bark but then he covered her with himself and she forgot everything except that.

Kade Morgan. The dance went on, became louder, stronger, a rhythm that filled her head and body. She reached for him, touched his belly, inched lower, gave him a home within the shelter of her fingers.

He stood like a tree, a powerful, moving tree, his body trembling slightly. She needed to be strong, stronger than him, but she wanted him too badly for that to matter enough. When he pressed against her, she released him and felt the heavy weight of his manhood push between her legs.

"Get rid of them."

"What?"

"Your panties. Get rid of them."

"You too. Your shorts."

He rocked back. She heard herself whimper at the loss, but she had a task to perform. The last of their clothes dropped to the ground at the same instant, but he wasn't ready to give himself back to her. As she waited, trembling from what had absolutely nothing to do with the elements, he knelt, pulled protection from his wallet and slipped it over himself.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He nodded but said nothing. Instead, taking her with him, he dropped to his knees on the carpeted earth. She hadn't noted that he'd spread their clothes for her to lie on until he pressed her against them. Then she nodded in silent appreciation and waited. Trembled and waited.

He seemed to flow over her somehow both heavy and weightless until there was nothing of the world except him over her and her wanting him. Pressing her palms against his hipbones, grinding her strength into him, she felt him slide first one and then the other leg between hers until he'd spread her out. With their bodies fused in all but the most intimate way, her hands fit perfectly over the small of his back, cushioned and encouraged him there.

An image, hot and powerful, washed through her. She'd been given a wild stallion and told to master it. Only when she approached it, the stallion became the master and she did what its strength compelled her to do.

Panting now, she pressed her fingers into his flesh, tried to reach through him. Couldn't breathe.

There! Flesh against flesh. The greatest of intimacies. Thought splintered off. She felt him driving deeper, deeper into her until she believed herself filled with him. Still it wasn't enough, and she arched her back, lifted her hips, drew him even further inside and lost herself in the act.

He reared up on an elbow, caught her hair between his fingers, held her prisoner. She bucked, not to fight him but so she might fully understand how completely he controlled her.

Then it didn't matter.

Her body felt washed in heat, in white light, in sweat. Sobbing in an attempt to breathe, she whipped her head as far to the side as his grip on her hair allowed and found his mouth waiting for her.

She let him claim her, took his tongue deep inside her. Felt herself being consumed by the other invasion.

His body spasmed, only, maybe, it was hers that had lost all control. It happened again and again and she knew she'd lost all mastery over herself. She didn't care; she gripped him with every ounce of strength in her, insisting that he join her in her wild, mindless journey.

Then he pushed, rammed her hard and honest against the earth. She felt her fingers grow taut as she dug into his back, ordering him, begging him.

So fast.

"I don't like it like that."

Kade sat beside her with his hand resting heavily on her belly and his body angled so that she could see the red marks her fingers had left along his shoulder blades.

"Making love like that?" she asked. "What didn't you like?"

"It happened too fast."

She remembered having the same thought just before she climaxed. In the time--she had no idea how long it had been--since then, she'd kept the image of breakneck speed buried where it couldn't disturb her, but now he was forcing her to take the words out of hiding and examine them. She found nothing about their frenzied mating to embarrass her.

"It happens like that sometimes."

"I know. But it's not the way I wanted."

The way he wanted. His hand hadn't moved. He might be unconscious of what he was doing, but she didn't think so. If he put his mind to it, he could easily slide his hand between her legs and take total control of her. The thought briefly stopped her breath, not from fear but anticipation.

She wanted him to claim her.

Wanted him to love her.

Needed to understand if she'd fallen in love with him.

"We said it wasn't going to happen," he whispered.

She couldn't remember whether they'd said anything like that. If she had then she was a liar and she didn't care if the words turned against themselves. When she tried to straighten her leg, he ran his broad hand over her hip, fingertips half buried in the fine curtain of hair there. "You're going to want me again," he whispered.

"Maybe."

Although there was precious little daylight left, she couldn't hide from his stare. "Maybe, Chera?"

"All right." Feeling naked, she spat out the words. "Yes. Yes. I'm going to want you again."

"When?"

"Tonight." She tried to sit up. He pinned her against the ground. "It that what you want to hear, me saying that I'm going to want you tonight?"

"Not now?"

What kind of question was that? Because she couldn't keep her legs together, he'd already taken advantage of that and touched her back to life. "Yes. Damn you, now."

"And I want you." He bent down, drew a breast into his mouth, probed past hot, damp flesh. His finger, snakelike, wound its way inside her, taunted and challenged what shreds of sanity she had left. "Now."

CHAPTER 15

Under their shared sleeping bag, Chera pressed her body against Kade's side and let her arm fall over his chest. Curious about what his bare leg felt like, she ran her toes from knee to ankle, slowing to a crawl as she traversed the swell of his calf. Hard. Slightly hairy. And utterly, utterly fascinating.

"Don't you ever sleep?"

His whisper was so gentle that for a few seconds she wasn't quite sure she'd heard him say anything. "I have been sleeping." She pointed skyward. "Look. It's almost morning."

"Not yet." He rolled over onto his back and patted his chest to let her know she was welcome to rest her head there. She did so, not because she was the slightest bit interested in sleeping, but because it was easier to hear his heart with her ear pressed against him. Humming a little, she searched for a tune that would work with his heart providing the base.

"What are you doing?"

"Humming."

"I know that. It tickles."

"It does? Well, I'm terribly, terribly sorry."

He grabbed her wrist and pulled it up over her head. While she squirmed helplessly, he ran his fingers over the inside of her incredibly sensitive upper arm. It wasn't quite a tickle, certainly nothing that might make her squirm in discomfort. It also was most definitely not something she could ignore. "I thought you wanted to sleep."

"You woke me up. It's your fault."

"Right. Like what happened in the middle of the night was my fault too."

"Hm. No. Come to think of it, that was pretty much my doing, at least at the beginning."

Although Kade probably expected her to come back with some witty comment, she couldn't put her mind to that. They'd made love twice before tending to the horses, stared at each other all through dinner and chores, then scrambled into the sleeping bag for another, slightly more controlled lovemaking. When he slid his hands over her thighs in the middle of the night and, half asleep, she did the same to him, there'd been nothing controlled about what happened then.

Now she ached in muscles she'd forgotten she had. Still, she could barely keep her hands off him.

Amend that. Her free hand was on him.

"I don't think what happened last night is in the job description," she said.

"No. It isn't."

There was a hard edge to his voice, one she both hated and somehow had been waiting for. Did he blame her for the change that had been wrought in their relationship? If he did, she'd tell him to rethink his position. After all, the dance, the sensual dance of awareness had begun that first day when she watched him fight a wildfire.

Kade released her wrist. Before she could think what to do, he laced his fingers through her hair and guided her until she was looking down at him with his mouth not nearly far enough away. She settled herself into him, over him and, gripping both sides of his face, covered his eyelids with gentle kisses. Nothing, not a stitch of clothing, not so much as a sheet, stood between them. Her body echoed the need she'd already sensed in him and yet this morning she wanted to make love slowly.

To learn if she'd, somehow, fallen in love with him.

"I thought you wanted to get back to doing the legwork for your grant today."

"I do."

"Then--" He placed a hand over her buttocks. "Don't you think we'd better get at it?"

"Yes." She ran the tip of her tongue over his cheekbone. "Yes. I certainly do."

"This--" He pressed, made her feel as if she'd already become part of him. "most definitely, is not the way to go about it."

"No." Before he could guess what she was doing, she raked her teeth lightly over his ear. When he flinched, she licked away the imagined marks. This time he shuddered. "You're right. This is not how to go about it. What--" She rose on her elbow just enough that her breasts barely brushed his chest, tickled and teased. "--do you think we should do about this?"

"What we should have when you first woke me."

She felt herself begin to unravel as his touches became more and more intimate. She wanted to insist that he stop taking advantage of her traitorous body, that they needed to talk about matters of the heart, but the words remained locked inside her. What if he didn't feel the same? What if, for him, this was sex plain and simple?

If it was, she didn't want to know that.

Still, when she caught the rhythm of the pace he'd set, she sensed a patience he hadn't had last night.

Chera, limp and spent, lay with her body cushioned by his. They'd stopped talking fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. Since then he'd told himself a thousand times that his fingers didn't need to linger over her soft throat, the narrow spaces between her ribs, the heady warmth of her inner thighs. But his fingers had known only one pace and so had his heart.

His heart?

He ran his fingers through the thick tangle of Chera's hair and stared up at the sun. It was going to be another hot day with not so much as a single cloud in the sky. Hands Like Magic would have said it was a day for being. For contemplation.

Only, Kade didn't want to contemplate anything, particularly the feeling that he'd left nothing of himself where Chera couldn't explore it.

Couldn't exploit it.

No! Damn it, her body couldn't possibly be so good a liar that he'd been taken in completely.

Could it?

Both angered and unnerved by the ricocheting questions, he gently extricated himself and slid out from under his sleeping bag. When she asked where he was going, he told her about a trickle of a creek he wanted to use for washing up. She told him to wake her when he was done, sighed, and immediately fell asleep. For too long he looked down at her, at the innocence of her sleeping body, the residues of their lovemaking. Then, because if he stayed any longer, he'd kneel and kiss her, he stalked naked into the bushes.

When he returned, she was staring up at the sky and seemed barely aware of his presence. Still, something about the look in her eyes held his attention. They spoke of confusion, vulnerability, defenses--emotions he knew all too well.

"It's cold," he said of the creek.

"That's all right. I need cold." Without explaining further, she pushed back the covering and scrambled to her feet. Like him, she didn't seem to care whether she wore anything. She made a grab for her backpack and then walked in the direction he'd pointed.

The horses were saddled and ready by the time she returned. Although he didn't want to stare at her, he wound up doing exactly that. Her right cheek looked slightly chapped--the result of being too long in close proximity with his whiskers. She'd combed and braided her hair. Still, he remembered what it felt like brushing softly against his flesh. Her jeans molded over the hips, the legs, the ankles he'd endlessly explored last night. She wore a pullover top with a neckline that chastely covered the swell of her breasts and left him to rely on his memory.

His memory served him all too well.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked, no little surprised that he could speak at all.

"I don't care. A granola bar's fine."

"You want an orange?"

"Fine. Fine." She knelt to tie her boot laces. As she did, her thick braid slid over her shoulder and he could barely think. "You didn't have to do everything. I would have helped," she said.

"Don't worry about it."

She stood, slid her hands in her back pockets and stared at him. "We're going to have to talk about it. I want to."

"I don't."

"Why not? Because you regret what happened last night?"

Wasn't the man supposed to ask the woman if she had regrets? "I knew exactly what I was doing."

"Which was?"

Making love. Having sex. One of the two. Maybe both. "Do I have to spell it out to you?"

"I don't know." She gave her braid an angry flip. "Damn it, I don't know what either of us is supposed to do."

"You can stop swearing."

He'd barely gotten the words out when she began to laugh. "You're a fine one to object to that. Believe me, Kade Morgan, you've got profanity down pat."

"Do I? Then can you tell me something? What the hell are we arguing about?"

Her laugh continued, light and free, almost as if they hadn't touched at anything serious today. "Beats the hell out of me."

"Fine." Wondering which, if either of them, had won the argument and what the argument had been about, he began digging for the orange he'd promised her. She started toward him, then stopped, her head cocked to one side.

He heard it too. So did Lobo who simply looked at him as if to say he'd done his best to get the plane to stay away and couldn't be blamed for the pilot's stupidity.

"Get the horses!"

Chera gave him a frantic stare, then sprinted toward Trixter. The gelding was no less frightened than he'd been the other day, but because Kade had left him securely tied to a tree, there was no danger that he'd run away. Still, she had her hands full trying to convince the horse that pulling wouldn't accomplish anything. On the rare occasion when she dared sneak a glance in Kade's direction, she saw that he was trying to use the radio and calm the other two horses at the same time. When the pack animal reared and came down with a front leg on either side of his rope, she left Trixter and took the radio from Kade so he could concentrate on untangling the horse. In the meantime, the plane made another pass.

"He's doing it on purpose. Damn it, on purpose!"

She wasn't going to argue that. However, now was not the time to bring that up. As soon as Kade had the horse straightened out, he grabbed the radio and began yelling into it.

He had to. The plane was back again.

"Can you hear that?" he bellowed. "That's what I'm talking about! I want you to get a hold of that idiot and tell him to leave us the hell alone. What? No. I don't know who it is. I told you that already. What? Yeah. Why don't you try that? Wait a minute, I'm not done. As soon as you know anything, anything at all, you let me know."

"Well, you certainly handled that in a calm, collected manner," she observed when he'd cut off the communication.

Her comment earned her a glare, but she'd expected that. With her senses tuned to the possibility of yet another sweep by the plane, she stepped so close to Kade that he couldn't move without running into her. "Look, I know you're upset. I am too," she told him.

"Are you?"

"Of course. But will you tell me what good it does to yell at Mike?"

He rocked forward and she readied herself for an assault. However, after staring at her for a few seconds, he shrugged. His eyes took on at least a hint of color other than black. "You're right. That's not where my energies need to go."

Where then, she thought. However, since Kade had already turned away from her, she didn't bother asking. Instead, she patted the still trembling pack horse and watched Kade walk to the top of the nearest hill. He hadn't bothered taking the binoculars with him, and she could only guess at what he might see. He stood motionless for several minutes, his hand shading his eyes.

He looked like an Indian scout.

"Anything?" she asked when he rejoined her and began untying his horse. "Did you see anything?"

"No."

"No? Just no?"

"What else do you want?"

"I don't know," she said in frustration. "What are you going to do now?"

He stared at her for so long that she had to return his gaze. "We're back to that, aren't we?" he asked. "That pilot isn't done with us, you know that, don't you?"

What she didn't know was what Kade meant by "done with." "I'm not sure I understand anything. What do you want to do?" she challenged. "Sit here and wait for him to return? Maybe you'd like me to break out the good china so we can entertain him properly."

"Don't be sarcastic."

"I'm trying not to. But it's pretty darn hard considering what you're asking me to do."

"Which is?"

"Which is--" She straightened, wishing she was at least six inches taller. "--going off on yet another wild goose chase. He's playing games with us, Kade, that all. A stupid man playing stupid games."

"A game?"

"I gave you yesterday, didn't I?" she plowed on without giving herself time to think about the words. "I was willing--more than willing--to find out where those trespassers had gone. What we found out was that they weren't the slightest bit interested in your property. They--"

"They could have doubled back."

She waved her hand in exasperation. "That's right. We could be surrounded right now, waiting for Chief Sitting Bull to give the order to charge. Give it a rest, Kade. Your land is not under siege."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself."

She'd made love to this man last night, asked herself if she might be falling in love with him. Right now all she wanted was to shake him until his teeth rattled. "I don't have all the answers," was the best she could come up with. "You'd be the first one to tell me I don't. What I do know is, we're going to have a heck of a lot less luck trying to run down a pilot than we did those riders. Kade? Please, can't you at least try to put yourself in my position. I have to get certain things accomplished while I'm out here."

"Do you?" His eyes darkened ominously. "Yeah, I guess you do."

What was that crack about? "That's right," she challenged because she couldn't think of a single other reaction. "I gave you yesterday, didn't I? Now I have to concentrate on--"

"And last night."

"What?"

"You also gave me last night."

In more ways than you'll ever know. Feeling strangely deflated, she could only nod.

"We're fighting again," he said. "It happens a lot, doesn't it?"

"Yes. It does."

"And you don't like that, do you?"

"No. I don't," she told him. "Kade, I came here to accomplish something that means a great deal to me. I still need, want, to get that something done. Every time I think about it, I hear that clock ticking. As for--as for what happened between us, it only makes things more complicated."

Kade deftly released the knot that held his mare to the tree. After a final glance skyward, he hoisted himself into the saddle. "Yeah, it does make things more complicated. Are you ready to leave?"

By noon Kade had a full blown headache. Some of it, he guessed, was a result of the strain he'd subjected his eyes to by endlessly staring at light and shadow as he tried to assess his surroundings. But he'd done that countless times before without adverse effects. What he'd had little experience in was arguing with a woman who turned him inside out.

Could he believe in her innocence? Did he dare? And could he ask himself the question one more time without losing his ever loving mind?

"We're back to where we need to be, aren't we?" she asked, indicating the long, shallow valley just ahead.

"Just about." Saying two words eased the pounding in his head and made him think he should have tried that a long time ago. "We were able to make a lot better time this morning because we're no longer following tracks. In fact, if you'll angle just a little more to the south, we should pick up Jeddiah's trail."

"Good." Smiling a little, she pointed toward distant Rabbit Ears, then did as he'd told her. "I knew I recognized that. Actually, when you really look at it, one of the ears is a lot smaller than the other. Maybe they should have called those two peaks Ear And A Half."

"Soon as we get back, I'll find out who we have to contact to get the name changed."

"I'd appreciate that. Oh, it really is another glorious day, isn't it?" She reached for the sky with both arms, stopping only when she came to the end of the reins. "I love weather like this, absolutely love it. The only time I don't is when I know I'm going to be stuck in a classroom. Then I try to talk myself into closing the blinds so I won't get distracted, but I never do."

"Spring fever?"

"Big time. Believe me, students aren't the only ones to come down with that, particularly just before school lets out for the summer. Most teachers are every bit as antsy as the kids. Maybe more. One year--Kade, what is that?"

Instantly alert, he urged his horse toward where she was pointing. What he expected to find he couldn't say, certainly not the remains of a badly weathered wagon wheel. Before he could say anything, she dismounted and hurried over to it. For several minutes she knelt beside it, running her fingers over the sun-faded wooden spokes. Finally she looked up at him and unsuccessfully tried to blink away her tears.

"Isn't this incredible." She sounded like a small, awe-struck child. "It's the real thing, isn't it? Please tell me it's the real thing."

"I don't know any more about that than you do, Chera." He didn't even try to keep the notes of wonder and understanding out of his voice. "But there aren't any modern trails in the area. It's possible that no one has been on this exact spot since the Ridgeways came through."

"No one?" She was still whispering. "History." She patted the rusted metal hub. "I'm touching history. My past."

He nearly told her she was getting a little carried away but in the end didn't. He only had to look at her to know how deeply affected she was by her find. If she felt like crying because she'd come across something her great, great grandfather had touched and maybe built over a hundred years ago, so be it. "I guess you are," he said.

Her neck stiffened and a look entered her eyes that made him uneasy because he sensed that she was readying herself for an attack from him. Only, he didn't feel at all like doing that. As she watched his every movement, he swung out of the saddle.

"We'll never know for sure," he told her as he stood over her. "But if you want to believe, there's nothing wrong with that."

"I do believe. Do you have any idea what this means to me? How I feel?"

He did, more than he'd thought possible. He dropped to his knees beside her, nearly turned his attention to the wheel, caught himself up short. He could study the wheel later. This moment with Chera was rare and precious and shouldn't be missed--no matter what the consequences. For the first time, he understood the forces ruling her, why she'd made the sacrifices she had, why she was so determined.

When he touched her shoulder, she settled herself against him. He felt her take a ragged breath, but when she spoke, she didn't sound as if she was on the verge of tears anymore. "I can't help thinking how we almost missed this," she mused. "If we'd been looking in another direction, if I'd still been distracted by Rabbit Ears--oh, where's my camera? I want--"

"You can do that in a few minutes."

"Yes." She snuggled closer to him. "I guess I can. This is incredible, absolutely incredible. A rusted out frying pan's one thing, but a handmade wagon wheel. Oh..."

He could tell her that she'd already said that or something very much like it, but didn't. Although she continued to stare at the wheel, she placed her hand on his knee and began a movement somewhere between a pat and a massage. When her touch became more than he could ignore, he pressed his hand over hers. She looked up at him.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," he told her.

Her fingers twitched under him, drove needles of sensation deep inside him. "Why not?" She didn't sound at all puzzled.

"Because I find it very distracting."

She rubbed her thumb slowly back and forth. "Do you?"

"You're playing with me."

"Am I?"

"Yes." He pressed tighter, then when he felt the loss of sensation, he gave her the freedom she needed to continue her massage. "Yes you are."

"I'm not sorry. I hope you know that."

Oh he did all right. "You keep me off balance, Chera James." He pushed out the last name. Strange, for the first time it didn't feel bitter on his tongue.

"I feel the same way about you. What's happening, Kade? Will you tell me that? What is happening between us?"

He didn't want to be asked the question, certainly didn't want to have to answer it. Thinking to distract both of them, he slid her around until she had little choice but to meet his gaze. Now that he'd done that, he half regretted it because she might read too much in his eyes, and he wasn't used to giving away that much of himself. "We let ourselves get carried away, that's what happened," he told her.

"That's all?"

Not for me. "I can't answer that. We haven't known each other long enough."

She laughed, barely, and patted him on the knee. When he didn't try to move away, she kept her hand there. "When will we have known each other long enough?" she asked with a quizzical glance. "A week, a month, maybe a year? Oh Kade, I wish you could see what I do every day. Teenagers take one look at each other, maybe they literally run into each other in the hall, maybe they wind up side by side dragging their cars on a Saturday night and they think they're in love."

Neither of them had said anything about love. "Do they?" he asked.

"It happens so easily at that age. It makes no sense and sometimes I know it's absolutely the worst thing that can happen with a particular couple, but love doesn't make sense."

"I've heard that." She'd started massaging him again, only this time he didn't think she was at all aware of what she was doing. "You'd think they could do something about it," he observed.

"We try." Her mouth curved in a gentle, kissable smile. "No embracing on the school grounds. Certainly no hands on certain body parts. I think it's a stupid rule because it's always being broken."

His knee felt hot. Already that heat had begun to travel to other parts of his anatomy. He should tell her he knew exactly why the school's rules didn't and never would work. However at the moment, talking didn't seem particularly important because whether by design or accident she'd most definitely gotten his attention while she continued to sit there, immune, insulated, spared.

Well, that was enough of that.

Although he'd just repositioned her, he did so again. This time, he lifted her hand from his knee and pulled her around until she had her back to him. She didn't object. He took that as a victory of sorts since the lady never seemed short of opinions. When he slid his arms around her and held her tight against him, she didn't object to that either.

"Is this a rest break?"

Taking note that she'd barely whispered the words, he informed her that that's exactly what it was, and then made a lie of the words by slipping his fingers up under the hem of her top. She barely jumped when he touched her waist. However, when he continued an upward march, she was slightly less successful at controlling her reaction.

Good.

"Kade? This doesn't feel like a rest break."

"What does it feel like then?"

"Seduction."

"Could be."

"I don't think--you're supposed to be doing that."

"Why not?" When she didn't answer, he wiggled a forefinger under that silly bra of hers. Interestingly enough, her nipple was already firm, very firm to the touch. "Why not?" he repeated.

"We were at odds over something this morning. After last night..."

"What after last night?" he asked with her breast now safely within the shelter of his hand and his mind shying, less than successfully, away from how completely he'd lost himself in her a few hours ago.

"I don't know."

"It's all right," he told her even though he knew it wasn't. "We don't have to think about that."

"We don't?"

"No." With an ease that gave him a heady sense of power, he pushed her bra upward. Her breasts were free from their prison, waiting for him. Ready.

All he had to do was remember not to lose himself in her today. Only, when he heard her deep moan, felt her begin to move against him, he knew it wasn't going to be easy--maybe impossible.

CHAPTER 16

In the middle of the day. And with the horses looking on.

Images of the lovemaking she'd shared with Kade swept over Chera, making it impossible for her to summon enough strength to reach for her clothes, much less put them back on. Instead, she propped herself up on her elbow, plucked a grass blade to nibble on, and looked around for him. He wasn't there.

She remembered, more vaguely than she wanted to admit, that he'd slipped into his jeans, bent and kissed her, and then told her he wanted to look around. She thought that meant he was interested in finding out if there was more than just that one wagon wheel in the area, but unless her memory had deserted her completely, he'd gone off in the opposite direction from the artifact they'd spotted.

The grass wasn't bad. It needed a little seasoning but in a pinch--

A wasp began hovering over a particularly sensitive part of her anatomy, and she made the wise decision to put a barrier between herself and a stinger. Her body still ached from the force of Kade's-their-lovemaking which made leaning over to tie her boots darn near impossible. However, she didn't want to have to ask him to do that for her. It was one thing to turn hair braiding chores over to him because she'd slept on a rock. It was quite another to admit the repercussions to their gymnastics.

Gymnastics? No. A lot more than that had gone on.

Needing to confide in someone, she walked over to Trixter and tried to distract him from his midday meal. "I hope I didn't embarrass you. Probably you were more interested in feeding your belly, but I thought, if you've got a minute, I'll explain a few things to you. Nothing that'd embarrass either of us."

Trixter chewed.

"You could show a little more enthusiasm, you know," she admonished. "What happened was..." Wracking her brain, she tried to remember how things had begun. "I guess it all started with the wagon wheel. I don't suppose there's much purpose in trying to make you understand how an old wagon wheel can make me all sentimental, but it did. Maybe Kade felt the same way. All right, maybe not quite the same way because he's not related to Jeddiah, but he knew how it affected me."

Trixter swiped at a wasp that had landed on his right knee and then went back to eating.

"I didn't know he would understand what that find did to me. I thought--well, I don't know what I thought." When the wasp returned, she swatted at it to save Trixter the effort. "All I know is, one minute I was getting all blubbery over a hunk of rust. The next..."

Darn it, there simply wasn't any way of explaining the unexplainable.

"Chera? Are you ready to go?"

Face him. There's nothing to it. "Any time you are."

"Good. We've wasted time that's going to be hard to make up."

That spun her around. "Wasted. Is that how you see it?"

"Figure of speech, Chera. Don't read anything more into it than that."

Maybe he had a point, but she was hard pressed to come up with what it might be. She'd felt a part of him a few minutes ago, emotionally as well as physically. She wanted him to acknowledge that, to tell her he felt the same way.

Instead, he'd untied Trixter and was slipping the gelding's bridle back on. She snagged the reins and started to loop them over the saddle horn. That's when, in an attempt to get at his horse, Kade took a half step closer to her than he should have. She grabbed his shirt sleeve and yanked him toward her. He didn't put up any real resistance and it was utterly too easy to stand on tiptoe and press her lips over his.

What began as a statement of some kind quickly turned into something entirely different. Whatever it was, made it impossible for her to do anything except mold her body against his, draw his energy in through her pores, touch her tongue to his teeth. She quickly, firmly, pressed her hands against his waist, then inched downward until her fingers covered his flat belly. She felt his thumbs press against the small of her back. She bracketed his hip bones; he did the same to her.

Their kiss deepened. She felt herself begin to melt, didn't care--didn't care. "There," she gasped. "Was that a waste of time too?"

"No." He held her against him. "It most certainly wasn't."

By late afternoon Kade had given up on trying to reach Mike at the lookout tower. Because the members of the Ridgeway wagon train had stuck to lower ground, he and Chera weren't at a high enough elevation that he could bypass the obstacles the mountains represented. When she asked if he wanted to leave her to trail blaze while he climbed the closest peak, he turned her down. It wasn't that he believed her incapable of covering ground on her own and it certainly wasn't because he didn't have enough energy for the climb. The truth was, he didn't want to be separated from her.

"I still say you should have let me tie the wheel to one of the horses," she said from where she rode behind him. "What if someone else finds it?"

He reminded her, for the umpteenth time, that if the wheel had remained undisturbed this long, it would be safe until she returned with a pack animal that didn't already have a full load. The amazing thing was, he totally enjoyed bantering with her when he'd never considered himself as someone with a knack for lighthearted conversation. "You didn't move it, did you?" he asked. "My guess is, the underside has become a home for a million bugs. Touch it and it might fall apart."

"It wouldn't dare."

"Why? Because you don't want it to?"

"Exactly. The thing is--Kade, what is it?"

He didn't realize he'd risen in the saddle until she pointed that out to him. "I hear something," he muttered.

"What kind--"

"Quiet!" Although he immediately regretted his sharp word, the need to concentrate was more important than apologizing.

Damn it, he'd heard that sound before. Would know in his sleep what it meant. Although he no longer needed to strain to make sense of it, he continued to lean forward with his hand tightly gripping the saddle horn.

"Chain saws," he said through unmoving lips.

He heard her sharp intake of breath, but she didn't say anything.

"Someone's cutting down trees."

"How--how can you be sure?"

Her naive question swung him toward her. Because she was deep in shadow, he couldn't see what he needed to, the look in her eyes. "Believe me, Chera, I know what I'm talking about."

"I don't hear anything."

That seemed impossible. To him, the sound was as clear as a distant, demanding fire siren. "Then listen."

Instead of snapping back at him, she fell silent, and he easily read the lines of her slender body. She was utterly, completely focused on the wilderness. At that moment he thought her the most incredibly beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

She was also a hell of a lot more than beauty--maybe something he didn't dare trust.

"I think I hear something," she said finally. "But I wouldn't want to have to swear to it. Maybe it's just the wind. Is there a stream nearby? It could be water."

"No stream. And it's not the wind."

Her body remained taut and alert. Because his eyes had now acclimated themselves to the shadows, he saw when she pulled her lower lip into her mouth. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

He worked the question around in his mind, analyzing when he should be acting. Was it possible that she'd been waiting for this moment from the beginning of their time together? If the answer was yes, he didn't want to know, yet.

"I'm going to find them."

"No."

"You're not in any position to tell me what to do."

"I know that. You've made that particular fact clear from the beginning. But, Kade, you can't."

"Why not?"

To his surprise, she didn't give him an answer, only worked her fingers into Trixter's mane and tightly clutched the thick hairs.

Why had she let him go like that?

Feeling as if her head was about to burst, Chera yanked off her left boot and began straightening her sock. A couple of seconds later, she balled up her fist and hit the nearest tree. Kade was off searching for the source of the horrible, deadly sound that had finally sorted itself out inside her and here she was looking after the horses and pulling wrinkles out of her socks. The contrast would have been funny if she hadn't been so scared for Kade.

And so mad at herself.

Why hadn't she answered when he asked why she'd tried to order him to stay with her? "A million reasons," she whispered, then continued as if Kade was standing in front of her. "You've been walking--and making love--all day. You're tired. There are law enforcement officers who get paid to do this kind of thing. I'm sick and tired of being left behind to take care of some stupid horses."

Those weren't the reasons.

The reason, the pig simple reason was that the thought of Kade taking chances with his life scared her to death and she wasn't ready to care that much about him.

Wasn't ready to have fallen in love.

When she caught herself pressing her palm against her temple in an attempt to get at the pain pulsing there, she remembered that she'd seen Kade do the same thing at least twice earlier today. Where had his headache come from? The sun? Maybe lack of sleep, maybe the endless and boring act of sitting on a plodding horse.

And maybe his head pounded from the same question hers did.

Maybe.

Kade had told her she might find water for the horses about a quarter of a mile east of here. It was possible, he'd said, that the little spring had dried up, but it wouldn't hurt to check it out and water the horses if there was enough for them to drink. Fine. She'd play stable hand. At least that would give her something to do.

But not enough she admitted once she'd enticed the horses to try the scant water that bubbled up from the spring and then brought them back to where she'd last seen Kade. Maybe if it had been the middle of the day and she wasn't concerned with darkness overtaking him, she wouldn't have such a sense of urgency, but she doubted that.

The problem, the really big problem, was that there was nothing to do except sit on a rock and stare in the direction Kade had gone. She tried writing in her journal but after sketching what she remembered of the wheel, nothing came to mind--nothing except what she and Kade had done after finding the relic and she certainly couldn't put that down for someone to read.

Although it was way too late in the season for mushrooms, poking around under trees and shrubs beat sitting and waiting. And worrying. She found some interesting looking beetles with glossy backs and stiff little legs that reminded her of rocks on stilts and a decaying tree so undermined by termites that the wood had taken on an exquisite lacy quality. It seemed incredible that such ugly creatures could create something so utterly beautiful.

But even when a scarlet-headed woodpecker landed on the log and began sampling the termites, glaring at her as if daring her to take off with his meal, she couldn't dismiss the knot that had settled in her stomach.

"I should have listened to him from the first," she told Kade's horse. "Back when we came across those first tire tracks, I should have told him to investigate instead of focusing on my own needs, my own self-imposed agenda the way I did. I know. I know. Hindsight's wonderful, isn't it? But if he'd done something the other day, called in the calvary, maybe he wouldn't be out there all by himself now, scaring me."

Admitting aloud that she really was scared added another five pounds to the lump inside her. Although she tried not to take note of how late it was getting, she couldn't help herself. Darn it, despite all her wonderful fantasies, Kade wasn't Tarzan. And if he really had heard a chain saw and those men were stealing his timber, they might not think twice about stopping him, permanently.

Permanently?

Thoroughly frightened by that thought, she grabbed the radio and tried to remember what Kade had done in order to contact his fire lookout friend. Although she managed to get some productive sounding static, either the blasted mountains were in the way or she wasn't doing something she should.

"I hate feeling helpless. I absolutely hate--

No! No! She hadn't heard a rifle shot.

Only, she had.

Despite the scream that clogged her throat and made it nearly impossible for her to breathe, she scrambled onto a boulder and desperately stared in the direction Kade had gone. A thousand shapes, some moving, some still, snagged her attention, but almost as soon as they did, she shook off their impact.

She knew what Kade looked like. She'd never mistake a rock or bush, no matter how distant, for him.

No! Not another sharp retort!

Not caring that what she was doing made absolutely no sense, she started running, not away from possible danger but straight toward it. How could she do any different?

Kade might be in danger.

Hurt.

Even--No. She wouldn't think that.

Halfway through a prayer, she realized that Lobo had kept pace with her. "Go!" She pointed behind her. "Stay with the horses. Now!"

Lobo whined.

"I mean it. I can't keep an eye on you too. Go!"

Teeth slightly bared, Lobo backed away. She needed to see if he really would obey her, but concern for Kade was stronger. "Now. Back to the horses."

A few minutes later, her headlong plunge frightened a covey of mountain quail who took off in a whir of heavy bodies. Startled by the unexpected sound, she clapped her hand over her pounding chest, wondering whether she'd given herself a heart attack.

There wasn't time to worry about that. If Kade needed her-

Another sound distracted her, this one to the left and above her. She couldn't see what was thrashing through the woods but managed to convince herself it had to be a deer.

The terrain became steeper. So many loose rocks littered the ground that she didn't dare look anywhere except down. Just the same, she pushed herself as fast as she could until she became short of breath and was forced to slow down and face a couple of facts.

One, she had absolutely no idea where she was.

Two, she'd abandoned the horses when Kade had told her, more than once, that without the animals, they were in serious trouble.

How could she worry about that? Someone might have shot him.

She felt something snag her hair. When she tried to brush it away, she discovered that she'd run into a thick cobweb. Still trotting, she wiped her hands on her legs and suppressed a shudder. Tears that had nothing to do with anything in the air and too much to do with the fear she barely managed to keep from breaking free stung her eyes.

She wanted to run full tilt until she found Kade and could clutch him to her. She wanted to yell at the top of her lungs until he answered her frantic call.

Only, she couldn't do either of those things because both their lives might depend on that.

Just in time, she spotted an exposed root and jumped over it. When she landed, her ankle gave out on her. For a moment she couldn't do a thing except grip it and hop around, desperately clenching her teeth as the pain subsided. Finally, it no longer felt as if she'd shattered a bone and, walking gingerly now, she continued.

Was she going in the right direction? From the higher elevation she'd been on when she heard the shots, she could have sworn that if she went due east, she'd find the source. But she'd been dodging around so many trees that she couldn't be sure where she was headed any more.

Wheezing through tortured lungs, she stopped, planted her hands on her hips, and threw her chest back in an attempt to pull in enough air. She couldn't stand still; she had too much energy in her for that. Neither did it make any sense to start running again until she knew where.

Maybe if--

Whatever the thought had been, it died a quick, strangled death. One moment she was pacing and hauling in air like a diver with the bends; the next someone had slammed his weight into her and sent her sprawling.

"Wh--" The man landed on her, squashing the word under her. Frantic, she tried to fight her way to freedom, but his weight was too much for her. He hadn't pinned her arms. She could claw--No. Oh no! He'd shoved her face down in the dirt and was sitting on her, his knees grinding into her elbows. She opened her mouth to cuss, wound up swallowing dirt and grass.

This time there was no doubt. She'd definitely, most definitely given herself a heart attack.

"Chera! Chera." The words were a harsh whisper. "Don't move. Quiet. We have to be quiet."

Kade. Sobbing into the ground, she let her body go slack. A few seconds later, he slid off her and helped her sit up. She locked her arms around him and buried her face in his solid chest. "I thought--" Hating the whimper in her voice, she tried again. "I heard those shots and I thought--I was so scared for you."

"They were shooting at a deer."

"Oh. Did they hit it?"

"No."

"I'm glad. Hunting's a horrible sport. What chance does a deer or any other wild animal have against a high powered weapon. They ought--there ought--rifles should be outlawed. Only, only bows and arrows."

"You're crying."

Of course she was. Any idiot could tell that. "I-don't know why. Yes I do," she blubbered. "You're going to be mad at me."

Although she tried to keep her tear-streaked and blotchy face hidden from him, he held her at arms' length. In the deep shade, she couldn't tell enough about his mood, but it seemed to her that there was the slightest bit of a smile on his lips and his hands had begun to caress her upper arms. "I scared you, didn't I?" he asked softly.

She'd made that pretty plain; there was no point in denying it. "It's a pretty logical reaction." She sniffed and blinked away the last of her tears. "I mean, you leave me out in the middle of who knows where. About as lost and disoriented as it's possible to be. Then some idiot gets off a few pot shots. I think--it's impossible to think anything else--I think, what if he's dead? I'm really up a creek without a paddle."

"That's it?"

"What's it?"

"That's the only reason you were crying?"

Oh no. He wasn't going to back her in a corner like that. Although her arms hadn't had enough of being massaged, she started to scramble to her feet. Only, before she'd done more than steady her weight on her knees, he pulled her back down beside him.

She punched at his chest; he ignored the so-called attack. "What did you do that for?" she demanded.

"Because if you wave your hair in the wind, you're likely to get your head blown off."

He didn't have to get sarcastic. "Why? Are they still hunting?"

"Maybe. And maybe they're looking for me."

No! "What are you talking about? Did they see you?"

"I don't know. It's a possibility. You said I was going to be mad at you. Why?"

She tried to run his words through her mental filter, but for the life of her, she couldn't understand why his voice had suddenly become so cold. "I left the horses."

"That's all? Just that you left the horses?"

"I think Lobo's with them. I told him--What else did you think I was going to say?"

He didn't answer. Instead, after tapping her on the shoulder in what she took as an order to stay where she was, he crawled over to a tree and, using it to hide behind, eased to his feet. If she'd been able to lose the memory of those two rifle blasts, she might have laughed at him.

But she couldn't, any more than she could forget what he'd said about the hunters maybe having seen him.

As Kade stared downhill, another thought settled beside what was already clogging her mind. He had left her earlier because he was convinced he'd heard chain saws. Maybe the loggers and hunters were one and the same.

Timber thieves who shot at wildlife to entertain themselves.

Timber thieves who might have no conscious when it came to putting a human being between their sights.

Making as little noise as possible, she crawled over to where Kade stood. He didn't look at her, but she had no doubt that he knew she was there. "Do you see anything?" she little more than mouthed.

"No."

"What about earlier? What did you see then?"

"Not what I needed to."

"Which was?"

"Who the hell they are."

"That's what you're concerned with? What about what they were doing? Did you see them cutting on your trees?"

"I didn't have to. I heard."

"When? When you got close to them, you mean?"

"You want the details, do you? All right. I've got a good sized stand about a mile from here. The trees are mature. I've earmarked them for harvesting in a couple of years. Only, someone's beaten me to it."

"No."

Staring at her, he continued. "All the time I was running, I kept hearing the chain saws. Then, suddenly, the sound stopped. You know what I thought, don't you?"

What kind of a question was that? He was always throwing something like that at her, making her feel too off balance. "Tell me."

"That they'd come looking for me."

She felt a shudder so deep that she knew it didn't show. "What did you do?"

"I waited."

She could imagine him crouching behind one of his trees, senses on the alert while he waited for the danger he'd prepared himself to accept. "You didn't try to get any closer?" she asked.

"Right then, it didn't seem to make a lot of sense."

"Because you were afraid that might increase your chance of being seen, that's it isn't it?"

He grunted but didn't say anything.

"What happened then?" she pushed.

"After awhile I heard voices. They were close enough that I knew they'd decided to indulge in a little poaching."

"Close enough?" The words threatened to clog her throat. "You're sure they didn't see you?"

"No. I'm not sure, Chera. For all I know, they've known where I was from the beginning. Hell, maybe they walked within a hundred feet of me simply to see if they could roust me."

"What? Kade, you're talking crazy. If they thought you were in the area, they wouldn't be here in the first place."

"Wouldn't they?"

A quick retort built inside her, but she stopped short of saying anything. Shouldn't she be clinging to him right now, telling him how scared she'd been for him? He'd hold her in return and reassure her that he hadn't taken any foolish chances. Instead, he was giving her sound bites of information while she prodded at him for more.

Something was terribly wrong here.

"We have to stop them," she said because utterly nothing else came to mind.

"What would you suggest?"

That wasn't right; he shouldn't be asking her for advice. But he really wasn't, was he? "Get some help," she offered. "The sheriff, maybe the forest service. I don't know who, but you have proof that they're cutting. What we have to do now is get someone in here to stop them."

"You mean that?"

Damn! Not another of his right cross questions. "Of course I do." The words came out a hiss. "How could you possibly think I wouldn't?"

"You aren't going to tell me we've got to go searching for what else Jeddiah might have left behind?"

"No." She leaned away. For two cents, she'd tie antlers to Kade's head and tell the poachers to have at him. "That's ridiculous; I'm not that selfish. Besides, you wouldn't do it."

"No. I wouldn't."

For a moment she wasn't sure what to say. "How many are there? A dozen?"

"Five."

"Only five?"

"That's all it takes if they're really efficient."

"Oh. All right. I'm sure I don't know. But there's one thing I do know," she said with all the conviction she could muster. "You are not to play hero single handed. We've got to get help."

"That'll take time."

No kidding. "Not if you can reach your lookout friend. If you contact him, he'll be able to get law enforcement here in a few hours, won't he?"

"It'd be dark by then."

"Fine. Fine." One more stupid, obvious crack and she'd really let him have it. This was serious business; why the heck was he trying to pick a fight with her? "So they won't get here until morning. The timber thieves, loggers, whatever, won't be able to do anything until morning either, in case you've forgotten." Eager to leave, she pulled on Kade's arm. "We have to get back to the horses and the radio before dark."

He resisted her efforts to make him move. "You didn't bring it with you?"

"No. When I heard that shot, I couldn't think of anything else. Damn it, Kade." This time she all but tore the sleeve from his shirt. "We've got to get back to where we're safe. We're running out of time."

"Yeah," he hissed. "We are."

CHAPTER 17

The horses were gone. Not all of them, just his and the pack animal. Trixter, well tethered, barely looked up when Kade and Chera approached. Lobo paced between humans and horse, clearly agitated.

"Didn't you think to tie them?"

"I told you, when I heard that shot, all that mattered was getting to you."

Kade wanted to believe her. He really did. But he'd just discovered something else. In the process of milling about, one of the loose horses had wandered over to check on what few belongings they'd left on the ground. Jeddiah's diary had a number of teeth marks in the cover; other than that, it was fine.

He couldn't say the same for the radio.

"You didn't take anything off the pack horse's back, did you?"

Chera had started toward Trixter. She whirled toward him. Despite the setting sun, he easily saw fire in her eyes and was glad she was unarmed. "No. I didn't."

"You should have."

"Don't lecture, Kade." She stepped closer. "Whatever you do, do not lecture."

Either she hadn't noticed the smashed radio or was pretending ignorance of its condition. When she told him she had no intention of holding him to his commitment to help her retrace Jeddiah's steps because of course his timber took priority, he'd come within a heartbeat of finally, totally believing in her innocence.

Not anymore.

Although she tried to jerk away, he grabbed her and whipped her around so she had no choice but to acknowledge what was left of their communication with the outside world. "You want to tell me how that happened?"

"Oh my god! How did that--"

"One of the horses stepped on it. Believe me, a twelve hundred pound horse can make mincemeat of plastic. But then, maybe you already know that."

He felt her body tense like newly strung wire. "Spit it out, Kade. What are you saying?"

"That you could be working with them."

She said nothing. She was so still that he couldn't tell when she breathed. His head pounded with a single question. Had he blown everything?

"There's a hell of a lot of money to be made out here, Chera. More than you'll ever see as a teacher."

"Damn you."

"Maybe." Although she'd made no attempt to move away from him, he went on holding her. "You come to me with what could be a cock and bull story about needing to be in the forest, with me. Only, maybe what you're doing is keeping an eye on me while those you're working with are free to do their thing."

"Damn you."

His head felt as if it might split apart; still, he didn't dare stop now. "Swear if that's what you think you have to do, but the horses got loose when you were in charge of them. I now have no way of contacting help."

He thought she might apologize. She didn't.

"I'm on foot, with no food, no sleeping bag, nothing."

"So am I."

"You still have your horse."

"Take him! Leave me here and get the hell out of here."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?" she threw at him. "Certainly you're not concerned with being a white knight. You've decided I'm no damsel in distress, far from it. It's not me who needs rescuing, it's you. >From me."

He didn't answer her question if that's what it was because the conversation had gotten away from him, splintered. He released her, wanting her to stalk away from him. Wanting her to stay where she was and turn his argument into dust. "Why'd you leave the radio where the horses could step on it?" he pressed. "That's all I want to know. Damn it, that's a hard accident to buy."

"Then don't. I don't care."

He jabbed a finger at Trixter. "Get going, Chera. He knows the way home. All you have to do is give him his head. Take Lobo with you. It'll take you most of the night, but you'll get back to civilization long before me. And that's what I have to do, isn't it, because I can't fight them single handed. Perfect. Absolutely perfect."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

Wasn't he the one who should be asking her the question? But, the truth was, he had no ironclad proof of deception on her part. Yes, the horses were gone and their link with the outside world had been destroyed, but maybe she had left the animals untended simply because she'd heard a rifle shot and been afraid that something had happened to him. Maybe.

"I'm not a man who trusts easily," he said.

"Not even someone you've made love to?"

"Least of all her."

The way she recoiled, he knew he'd wounded her deeply. He wanted to apologize, wanted to be proven totally wrong, but she hadn't given him anything. Besides---

"I've suspected you from the day you told me who you are," he went on even while he wondered who was speaking.

When she hugged her middle, he thought she might be getting sick. Instead, she simply stared at him. Waited.

What did it matter? There wasn't anything, except honesty, left.

"Chera James. Daughter of Thatcher James."

"So?"

"He's the man I ordered off my land last year, the man I caught logging my timber."

"No." The word was almost lost under night sounds. "No."

"Not him personally. That's not the way he operates. But men he'd hired." Why was he saying this? The nuances didn't matter and it was too late to worry about hurting her feelings. "After I put a stop to things, he tried to buy me out. Buy my silence. The offer, presented through your brother the lawyer, was a joke."

"I don't believe you."

"Why? Because you've never seen your old man with dirty hands? Men like him don't have to roll around in the filth. They hide behind companies with names like Northwind Industries. If you look it up, you'll find that the purchase offer was made by Northwind. We both know who's behind that, don't we?"

"Northwind has diversified. He's now just one of the owners." Her voice still didn't have enough strength to it.

"Right." Kade spat the word. "But it was his son, your brother, who handed me that stupid excuse for an offer. That damn bribe. I threw it back in his face."

"Why?"

"Why? Because when I found those thieves cutting down my trees, they admitted they worked for Northwind. When it went to court, your brother found a loophole in the law that allowed Northwind and your old man to get off scott free."

"Don't call him my old man."

"What does that matter, Chera?"

For a long, long time she didn't answer. Then: "You never did believe I was trying to get a grant, did you?"

It was his turn to remain silent.

"Damn you, Kade. All this time you've been watching me, mistrusting me. Using me. Tell me something." She stepped closer, close enough that he could see she'd begun to tremble. Despite everything, he wanted to hold her so tight that her body could do nothing but become still. "When we made love, was that part of your plan? Get the dumb broad to fall in love with you. That way, in the heat of passion, she'd spill everything."

Fall in love. "I'm not a manipulator, Chera. I don't play games. All I'm after is the truth."

"The truth? What do you think it is?"

He couldn't answer. Plain and simple, he had nothing inside him except a deep, cold hole. How had they gotten to this point? Was it what he'd wanted?

And why hadn't she given him what he needed, a simple yes or no, that's all. "Yes, I'm part of my father's plan. It's my job to distract you while they steal you blind."

"No. I would never do anything like that to you. I love you too much for that."

"Get out of here, Chera." The words erupted from him. "I've changed my mind. I'm going back. I've got to stop them."

"What?"

"And I don't want you around."

"You've convicted me, haven't you?" she challenged. "Without a trial. Without so much as letting me tell my side of things."

A sense of urgency surged through him. Barely able to contain his energy, he paced. Lobo seemed to be filled with the same energy. "I don't have time for that," he told her. "Climb on your horse and ride out of here. You'll be safe. I won't have to worry about you anymore."

"No you won't, will you?" Her voice held absolutely no hint of emotion. "Because if you did, that would mean you cared about me. Believed in me. And you don't. You aren't capable."

Chera didn't move when Kade, armed only with his pistol and knife, Lobo by his side, headed back toward where he'd heard the saws. It was night, and Kade's flashlight cast a lonely looking ribbon of light. In a few minutes, she could no longer see or hear anything.

Still, she sat looking out at the night. Stay here until morning. By late afternoon--

Late afternoon? If it took Trixter that long to reach civilization, how long would it take Kade, on foot?

Only he wasn't headed toward law enforcement agencies. He'd gotten it in his stupid--totally stupid--mind that he could save his trees single-handed.

Because they meant that much to him.

Much more than she did.

When she finally roused herself, it wasn't to prepare for a trip back to that world she barely remembered. Instead, she got out the other flashlight and cast about making sure she had a clear impression of her surroundings. Working automatically, she busied herself by eating a few bites of trail mix. After that she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Finally she unsaddled Trixter.

Then, because there was nothing else to do in the lonely and yet comforting dark, she wrote in her journal until she hoped she was tired enough to sleep. She'd written, not about the day's events, but what she'd learned about what the land could mean to a man.

For Kade, it was more important than anything else.

Trixter kept trying to go in the direction the other horses had, but after a short argument, Chera managed to convince him that they were going to follow Kade.

"Don't ask me why I'm doing this," she said as the morning sun made its appearance. "Stupid. Just plain stupid." She chewed on the words for a minute. "No. Let's just say I'm a lot more stubborn than Kade thinks I am. He's wrong. So wrong I can't believe it. And when I get my hands on him, we're going to my dad and brothers and learn the truth."

Thoughts of the vast space stretching between her and Kade caused her to fall silent. Although she'd told Trixter she didn't know why she hadn't headed toward civilization, she did.

She couldn't possibly get help to Kade in time to stop him from confronting the timber thieves, and she couldn't leave him alone. Her greatest regret, next to not forcing him to see the flaws in his belief, was that she hadn't gone after him last night. However, she didn't trust either her or the gelding's night vision.

Even in the daylight it took longer than she thought it would to find the spot where Kade had jumped her yesterday afternoon. Once there, she set her mind to determining which direction he had gone. He'd pointed toward where his vulnerable stand of trees was, but in the vastness of the wilderness, it would be all too easy for her to miss her destination.

Fear made an inroad. When Kade was with her, she never felt that way, but she was alone now.

"You aren't going to be any help, are you?" she asked the dozing horse. "You're so used to Kade taking care of your needs that it has never entered your mind that he might need help."

Help. What was she doing here? Anyone with an ounce of sense would have hightailed it to the nearest highway--wherever that was--and summoned all the help she could get--when she got to it. Instead, she'd tailed after Kade Morgan like some half witted sidekick.

Like some determined, demented, lovesick woman.

"Don't pay any attention to me," she told Trixter-tried to tell herself. "I am not in love with the man. Fascinated maybe. Mad enough to spit nails, certainly. Hurt, most definitely. But nothing so stupid as in love."

Trixter let out a seemingly endless sigh.

"What's that supposed to mean? After the way he treated me, the things he accused me of..."

A distant, hard hum. The chain saws that had catapulted Kade into action yesterday. The grinding sound stripped her mind of every other thought. They were loud enough that she guessed them to be no more than a half mile away. If they'd been operating earlier, surely she would have heard them before this which meant they'd just gotten started for the day.

Trixter lifted his head and perked his ears, but after a moment went back to studying some nearby grass. Not at all sure what she was going to do, Chera dismounted and tied the horse so he could graze. She removed the saddle and sorted through her back pack. In the end, she chose a hunting knife--the only weapon at her disposal--her share of the first aid kit, the binoculars Kade had had no use for.

"I don't know when I'll be back," she told Trixter. "And I don't know what I think I'm going to accomplish. I just..." A thought commanded her entire attention. What if she saw her father out there?

She wanted to scream that it was an impossibility; surely Kade, paranoid about his timber land, had to be wrong. Her father had told her he'd never met Kade; he wouldn't lie to her about that.

But in the world of business and law, face to face meetings weren't always necessary, and her father was both personally and financially deeply involved with Northwind Industries.

"Later. I'll get to the truth later. Right now..."

Right now Kade was out there alone.

Imitating what she'd seen Kade do earlier, she walked slightly hunched over, her senses completely tuned to her surroundings. The deadly roar hadn't let up. As the sound rose and fell, she guessed she was listening to two, maybe three saws. She tried not to think about what they were doing, but it was impossible not to. Kade's trees were being felled, before their time, by men who had no right.

Why hadn't Kade stopped them? He'd gotten here during the night. That should have given him time to--to what?

The enormity of the task Kade had given himself overwhelmed her. He'd pitted himself against a lawless crew who might think nothing of silencing, permanently, the one man who stood between them and ill gotten wealth.

No wonder Kade had attacked her the way he had. He'd known what he had to do, had to face the possibility that she was one of the enemy.

No! They'd had days, nights, together. He should know--know what?

Groaning, she forced her thoughts off questions without answers. The growth here consisted of low hardwood shrubs and trees barely taller than her. She was glad Kade had done that much replanting, but it made it difficult for her to remain hidden. The angry, tearing snarls came from just beyond the next rise. As she braced her legs for a short but steep climb, she knew she had to accept whatever was on the other side, no matter what it might be.

And if something had happened to Kade?

The effort of keeping her footing on the unstable ground splintered the question she'd never wanted. She concentrated on rock and shale, dried moss and centuries of pine needles. Finally, out of breath with her calves threatening to cramp, she reached the top. After dropping to her knees, she inched forward until she was looking both out and down.

Ahead of her stretched a gently sloping hill that blocked out any possible view of the rest of the landscape. A rich stand of proud green pines grew so close together that she could barely see the ground beneath them. Kade had said something about a new species of pines that grew nearly twice as fast as those that occurred naturally. This species, developed at an agricultural experiment farm, had few branches except near the top, making it possible to plant trees much closer together than previously.

That's what was being logged.

Although she wanted to press her hands over her ears so she could no longer hear that horrible scream, she forced herself to study the men at the base of the hill. Either they'd blazed a new logging road or, more likely, there'd already been one there. The road had been used to bring in two massive rigs for hauling the fallen logs as well as a couple of 4-wheel trucks. A makeshift camp had been set up, but no one was near the large coolers, Colman stove, or four sleeping tents. Instead, the men were all hard at work.

Two heavy, powerful saws, each operated by a single logger had all but felled the trees they were attacking. Already a half dozen trees lay on the ground where other men were either cutting off limbs or winching them over to the waiting log trucks. For two, maybe three minutes, Chera had all she could do just trying to make sense out of what she'd found. Then she counted. Unless someone was out of sight--an unsettling thought--there were five flannel-shirted men.

Where was Kade?

Although Kade would have laughed if he'd known what she was doing, she unhooked the binoculars from where she'd placed them around her waist and lifted them to her eyes. She nearly gave herself a headache trying to get them to focus, but at length she was able to see well enough to zero in on the separate trees. Nothing caught her eye until she began studying the camping area, or more specifically, the bushy slope closest to it.

Something or someone moved there.

She came close to throwing the binoculars away in frustration but by bracing her elbows against her side, she managed to keep the whatever it was from bouncing up and down. A flash of blue convinced her that whatever she'd seen didn't belong to an animal. She thought Kade had been wearing a shirt with blue in it but couldn't be sure. After all, the last time she'd seen him, she'd been tuned to his words, not what he had on.

The movement was repeated. This time she was sure the man had moved closer to the camp. It didn't make sense for anyone except Kade to be doing that. Did it?

A minute later, she gave up trying to learn any more than she already had. Unless she was a lot closer, the man's identity would remain a mystery.

The way the hills around the logging site were situated, she didn't think it would take her more than fifteen or twenty minutes to get to where she'd seen the flash of blue. The fact that she had no idea what she'd do then, let alone what she'd say to Kade, if that was him, gave her pause, but it didn't make sense to stay where she was. Besides, her nervous system couldn't take much more of listening to trees being felled.

Her heart thumping louder than she wanted it to, she crawled on hands and knees. Most of the time she was able to keep all members of the crew within sight, but occasionally someone wandered off into the trees and she worried that they'd spotted her or the person in blue and were planning a secret assault.

This, like her fight with Kade and what he'd said about her family, continued to feel like something out of a movie. How could she, ordinary and moderately ambitious high school teacher, be stalking a gang of tree rustlers?

Tree rustlers? Now there was a nice turn of a phrase.

By the time she'd gotten close enough that she could probably throw a rock at the flash of blue, she could have sworn she'd worn holes through her jeans at the knees. Her back ached and her neck was stiff from constantly straining in all directions. There was pitch on her hands and two fingernails were nothing but ragged stumps.

However, she'd done it.

Only, now what?

Feeling swamped by the question, she scooted around until she was sitting cross legged. Two of the tents were in view. The others were shielded by a clump of bushes she guessed to be between eight and ten feet tall. If she could trust her bearings, which she didn't, she should be sitting in the exact spot where she'd seen the blue.

Obviously it wasn't here any more which meant--which meant what?

"Chera."

Clamping her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, she nearly strained her neck looking behind her. Kade, blue and white shirt clinging to his body, emerged from behind a rock. Crouching, he eased his way to her side.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"It's so nice to see you, Mr. Morgan," she whispered, all but speechless with relief. "I'm delighted to be able to accept your kind invitation."

"I asked you a question. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Someone has to try to save your neck."

Without so much as a "may I," he pushed her hair out of her eyes. His own eyes, she saw all too clearly, were cool and appraising. "What makes you think you're the one to do that?"

"Because, contrary to popular opinion, you are neither Tarzan or the Lone Ranger."

"What are you talking about?"

As if she'd tell him. "Never mind. What are you doing?"

"Trying to save my trees."

The brutal simplicity of his words hit like a blow to her heart. "Then you have the answer to your question. That's why I'm here too."

"No. Damn it, Chera. No."

"Why? Because you don't trust me?"

"Because I don't want you to get hurt."

He could have said a thousand things, accused her of anything, and it wouldn't have affected her as much as that simple statement did. Blinking against the tears that demanded their own time, she deliberately turned toward what was below them. "You got here last night," she whispered. "What was happening then?"

"Nothing. They'd shut down operations. Did you hear me? I want you out of here."

"It looks as if I'm not moving, doesn't it."

She half expected him to throw her over his shoulder and haul her all the way to civilization. Instead: "Tell me the truth. Now."

"The truth?" No. She couldn't falter now. "If I tell you that I have absolutely nothing to do with what's happening, will you believe me? Forget it. If that's what you think of me, I'm not even going to try."

"I need you to."

She wanted to wrap Kade's words around her and bury herself in them, but if she did, she might never find her way out. "And I need you to believe in me," she pressed. "I need you to understand how deeply what you said hurt."

He sat not moving for what seemed like an incredibly long time. She couldn't hear him breathing but was so tuned into him that she swore she felt his chest move up and down.

"We aren't getting anywhere, are we?" she finally asked.

"No. We aren't."

"I don't care. I don't think I want to talk about it after all. Not now--maybe not ever."

The chain saws had been silent when Kade called her name. Now first one and then another screamed to life. As much as she wanted to concentrate on what she and Kade needed to say to each other, something else was more important.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Stop them."

CHAPTER 18

"You are out of your ever loving mind."

Kade snorted. "You got a better idea?"

Good point. Although she racked her brain for a plan that wouldn't mean risking life and limb, nothing came to mind. It might have been a different story if she'd been more accustomed to this sort of thing, but she'd never seriously considered a life of crime.

"They'll see you," she pressed.

"I'll take that chance."

"Just like that? Darn it, you have to think about what's going to happen if they see you!"

"The question is, what happens if I do nothing?"

There he was, back to that blasted reality question of his. "Dirt?" she abruptly asked. "What good will that do?"

"Dirt in a gas tank plays havoc with an internal combustion engine."

She had to take his word for that, but obviously he'd given a great deal of thought to what he planned to do. In addition to filling all the gas tanks with dirt, he intended to steal every container of gas and oil he could reach so the loggers wouldn't be able to continue to use their chain saws. She'd thought that a pretty far-fetched idea until Kade pointed out that the loggers had left those containers far from where they were working, their one concession to the extreme fire danger. So far someone had always been around the log trucks themselves, but as soon as they were left untended, he planned to puncture the tires. Thanks to Lobo's keen senses, Kade was convinced that this group of five constituted the sum and substance of the threat to his land.

"My knife's longer than yours," she pointed out. "It'd go through thicker rubber."

"You're staying here."

"No I'm not, Kade. Lobo's done his job by showing you how to be stealthy. He belongs here, where he'll be safe. But I'm in this as deep as you are. Maybe deeper."

"Maybe?"

Was he still questioning her motives? Although the answer meant a great deal, she didn't dare waste time trying to make him trust her. The only way she could truly do that was through action. "Is he down there?"

"He? Your father?"

"Yes." Her hands trembled. She wrapped them around Lobo's neck. "Is he, Kade?"

"No."

It hurt to breathe. "Are you sure? You said you've never met him."

"I've seen him on TV and in the paper. Believe me, he isn't here."

She let her breath out in a long sigh, but before she'd finished, he stopped her with his next words. "He doesn't do the actual cutting, Chera. He doesn't need to. He hires men to do that for him."

"Men like my brother, that's what you're saying, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I am."

They were getting nowhere this way. She wanted to shout at him that he was so wrong it was laughable, but she couldn't. She had to see this through to the end so she'd have the answer she needed, so he'd believe in her innocence--if not her family's.

Kade held out his hand. "Give me your knife," he ordered. "You're right. It's longer."

"No."

"Damn it, Chera-"

"Don't swear at me!" she hissed, then grabbed his arm. "I've got my own reasons for needing to be part of this; you must understand that. And if you don't--right now I don't care whether you believe me or not."

He didn't say anything.

"Look, as long as this is happening--" She pointed with her free hand. "--my stupid grant has to remain on the back burner. I can either chuck my--my dreams good-bye or have the greatest adventure of my life."

Kade looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. Ignoring him, she plunged on before she could come to her senses. "I'm serious. Come September, I'm back inside a classroom. My brothers will be all over me, and I'll still be Dad's princess. Only, princesses don't put a stop to illegal timber harvests. If I'm partially responsible, he'll have no choice but to bury that childish name."

"That's a hell of a poor reason for risking one's neck."

"And yours is better?" She winced. That was, definitely, the wrong question to ask. "Forget I said that. From the moment I heard those chain saws, when I saw what they were doing, I've been sick to my stomach. I want to help stop them. I need to help."

"No matter who they are?"

The moment of truth had come. She embraced it. Faced him and spoke with her heart. "No matter."

He should have done this last night, Kade thought as he signaled to indicate that he and Chera needed to split up, leaving a disgruntled Lobo behind. If he'd sabotaged the operation under cover of dark, he could be well on his way toward bringing in law enforcement. Unfortunately, a man with a rifle had stood guard near the equipment all night. Thinking ahead to the work he'd set out for himself, Kade had elected to get some sleep. He'd had to wait until the crew went to work, but now he was ready to put his plan into action.

He hadn't counted on Chera showing up. Hadn't wanted...

Although he needed to keep an eye on the balding man who'd just come in to refill his chain saw, his attention strayed to the woman inching her way down the hill. Even on hands and knees, she struck him as unbelievably graceful. When she whispered, her voice became so deep that he barely recognized it. She didn't have to do that. If she was guilty of all the things he'd accused her of, she would have shouted a warning, wouldn't she?

As a shaft of sunlight caressed her hair, he lost the question. Studying the width of her shoulder as she increased the distance between them, he wondered if she had the necessary strength to puncture a heavy truck tire.

He knew she would give it her best shot.

By the time he reached the area where the thieves had set up camp, the balding man was almost back to where he'd been working when he ran out of gas. Kade had to clench his fists to keep from charging after the man and his companions. Instead, he consoled himself with the reminder that the timber would eventually be his to sell if he handled things right.

And if he didn't, he could, maybe, kiss his life good-bye.

Chera's too.

As he suspected, the pickups weren't equipped with anything as sophisticated as locked gas caps which made it ridiculously easy for him to dump in handfuls of dirt. An hour ago he'd thought the only thing he'd have to concern himself with was making sure he stayed out of sight. But with Chera here, the sense of danger came close to overwhelming him. She was so damn determined, willing to dismiss concern for her safety because of what she insisted on calling her "grand adventure."

Well, this wasn't a "grand adventure." It was a high stakes game with death the ultimate failure.

She'd been inside a classroom too long. That was the problem, a naive woman bound and determined to prove she could do anything he did.

Only, it was a lot more than that and he knew it.

After finishing with the nearest truck, Kade inched his way over to a powerful, battered-looking Blazer. He'd considered slashing the rig's tires but now decided against it because anyone glancing this way would know something was wrong before he'd finished his work.

It was different with the log trucks. As he'd explained to Chera, those vehicles were parked parallel to a slope. The tires on the high side away from activity could be flattened without the resultant leaning being readily evident.

She had wanted to plunge her knife into every tire. He'd had to argue her out of that notion.

As he grabbed a couple of gas cans and scurried to hide behind the nearest tent, he fixed his attention on the log trucks. He couldn't see Chera and could only hope she would stay out of sight and complete her assignment before another log was ready to be loaded.

Ten minutes later he was wringing sweat, but all but two of the gas containers had been emptied onto the ground. Those two were too far out in the open for him to risk going after them. Not quite knowing why, he'd grabbed a length of rope and wrapped it around his waist.

The wrenching crash of a falling tree brought him a vivid reminder of how essential it was that he--and Chera--immediately shut things down. Leaving the now worthless cans, he ducked behind the closest bush and made his way back to where he'd ordered Lobo to remain.

She wasn't there. Damn it, she should have been.

With fear making it all but impossible for him to swallow, he fought the impulse, the need, the drive to go looking for her. He'd give her five more minutes, no more.

His sense of unease grew when he saw the balding man set down his chain saw and light a cigarette. As he puffed, he looked casually around. Kade could swear he spent more time than necessary staring at the log trucks. When he took a couple of steps in that direction, Kade wrapped his fingers around his pistol because if it came down to protecting Chera, he wouldn't hesitate to shoot.

Another five steps, cigarette now hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Kade pulled the pistol out of its holster and lifted it to eye level. The man was maybe three hundred feet from the trucks, eyes not leaving them, ambling more than walking. Kade crawled upward a few feet to give himself a clearer shot.

Shot? He'd never in his life fired at a human being.

Unexpectedly, the balding man's attention was drawn from the log trucks. Kade saw his mouth open in what he took to be a laugh, almost laughed himself when the cigarette fell to the ground. When the man didn't immediately stomp on it, Kade issued a silent curse that was echoed by a low rumble in Lobo's chest. Finally, still laughing at something someone had said, the man bent down and lifted the cigarette between thumb and forefinger.

For the better part of a minute, Kade couldn't take his eyes off the ground. Finally though, he became convinced that the cigarette hadn't started a fire.

"Stupid fool."

Kade turned so quickly that he nearly lost his grip on the pistol. Chera, her face flushed, poked her head around one of the few trees that grew here. Her eyes were a little too wide as if she'd seen or experienced something she didn't quite know how to deal with. Still, her nostrils were flared and her mouth turned upward just the slightest bit.

"I didn't hear you," he said, his voice made harsh by raw relief.

"I know." Her smile grew. "I wanted to see if I could sneak up on you. I'm getting good at this." Suddenly, unceremoniously, she sank to the ground and pulled in a deep breath. "Whew. I don't think I breathed the whole time I was down there," she whispered. "I came so close to giving myself a heart attack that I don't want to think about it."

He crawled over to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Her tremble was so slight he might have imagined it. "I shouldn't have let you go."

"Will you stop with that! You sound like my father. Sweet, pampered little Chera. We can't expect her to carry her own weight around here because, after all, she's just a girl." Her body stiff but still next to his, she speared him with an angry glare. "I am not just some sweet little girl. I rammed a knife into eight tires. Cinderella never did that."

He needed to ask her what she'd seen, what, exactly, she'd done, but that could come later. She was on a high like he'd never seen, different from what she'd revealed when they were making love. "You're right. Cinderella never did anything like that."

"You damn bet she didn't." Chera rolled her shoulders backward, then sagged against him. "Whew. I said that before, didn't I? But I just can't get over it. Me. Crippling two of the biggest rigs I've ever seen. It was so funny, so incredibly funny. They have those, what do you call them, dual tires. When I punctured the first one, the other supported the truck's weight. But then I stabbed the second and that stupid truck just kind of slumped over like someone who's been kicked in the knee."

"No one saw you? You're sure of that?"

"Of course I'm sure." She thumped herself on the chest. "Hey, I'm good at this. Really good. You know, I'm thinking about changing careers. Becoming a terrorist."

"You could."

"You really think so?"

"What I think--" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I think, Miss James, that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to."

"You better believe it. Look out Superwoman, I'm wearing that cape from now on. I wonder where you go to sign up to be a terrorist."

He let her rattle on for a minute about how the government was losing a bet by not hiring her to infiltrate hostile governments or work to release political prisoners. Twice he gave her a gentle squeeze designed to remind her to keep her voice down but for the most part he simply listened.

"Man, the adrenalin is still flowing," she finally admitted. "It's going to take me hours to calm down. How did it go with you? I kept looking at those men, praying none of them would decide to take a break. If they'd started toward the tents--" She clamped her hand over his knee. "I don't want to think about that."

"Neither do I."

"Really? I thought--well, I don't know what I thought. I tend to get a little carried away thinking of you as Tarzan or Indiana Jones, not like one of us unsure, incompetent mortals who shake in our boots."

He couldn't help it. Despite everything they'd done and everything they still had to accomplish, he needed this moment with her. Flopping back onto the ground, he pulled her with him. She landed half on him, half on pine needles and dirt. Behind her, Lobo sighed. "You're crazy," he whispered into her ear. "Absolutely crazy."

She shifted until she was able to run her tongue over his ear, then laughed when he gasped. "Of course I'm crazy. That's what you love about me."

He waited, for what he couldn't say, but she remained silent. The chain saws continued to rent the air; a wasp flitted close and then darted away.

"You think I love you?"

"Figure of speech, Morgan."

He scooted around so he could look directly at her, look into her gray/green eyes. She didn't blink or try to turn away. He saw a softness, a vulnerability, an honesty he couldn't remember ever seeing before in a woman that touched something at his very core. "Not a figure of speech, James. Something we're going to have to deal with."

"Yes. I guess we will." Her mouth remained slack. He covered it, then rolled onto his back again and pulled her down with him. He felt her soft, strong, warm weight against his chest and hip.

If it hadn't been for the danger below them, he would have stayed there, with her, forever.

But the danger came first. "Chera?"

"What?"

"We have--"

"I know." She gave him a quick, gentle kiss and sat up. "We have to find out who's at the bottom of this."

He reared up beside her. "Yeah. We do."

"We." She looked down at the world of destruction below them. "Don't ever forget that, Morgan. No matter what we learn, I'm in this until the bitter end. I have to be."

"Is that why you stayed?"

She took a deep breath, picked up a pine needle and snapped it in two. "Part of the reason. There are so many--never mind. What do we do now?"

He asked her where she'd left Trixter and when she told him, he said he needed her to go out for help.

"Me? What about you?"

"I've got to stay here and keep an eye on these guys."

"In other words, you take the risks while I go after the calvary. No way, Morgan."

"Will you listen to me? Trixter can't carry both of us and someone has to stay."

"What will you do?"

"What?"

"When these jerks have discovered what we've done and come looking, what are you going to do?"

Until the situation arose, he couldn't say how he'd react. "This is my land. My trees. I can't leave."

"You were going to if I hadn't shown up, weren't you?"

No wonder she was a teacher. Her verbal skills were incredible. "But you're here," he whispered. "And I'm depending on you."

He saw her double up her fist but didn't try to dodge. The blow she planted on his upper arm stung only slightly. "You're making this damn hard for me," she said.

"That wasn't my intention."

"Wasn't it?" She slumped forward and rested her chin in her hands. "Don't you see what I'm getting at? If I'm here, if I watch everything that happens, maybe I'll understand. Understand if, or in what way, my father is involved."

"It'll happen, soon. And then we'll both know."

"You really..."

He waited maybe two seconds before he realized she wasn't going to say anything. Then, as he was marshaling his thoughts, he heard it, or rather he heard the silence. Not looking at him, she gave his hand a quick squeeze. They inched forward for a better view of the logging operation.

The balding man had set down his chain saw. Kade's attention was drawn to where the man was staring. A newcomer had joined the bunch, but the chain saws had hidden the sound of his jeep. The newcomer, who even from this distance, looked vaguely familiar, had left his vehicle in front of one of the log trucks and was kicking at a slashed tire. He yelled something, but Kade couldn't make out the words.

He didn't need to. Everything about the man's stance spoke of fury.

"We've been made," Chera said.

"Made?"

"That's cop talk, I think. There's no way I'm going to leave now, not until I see what's going to happen."

By now the loggers were all running over to where the newcomer stood. One by one they repeated the act of kicking tires until they looked like kids lining up for a game. The man who'd been driving the jeep was the first to scan his surroundings. Once again Kade was bothered by the sense that their paths had crossed before.

An excited conversation with a lot of agitated hand gestures went on for maybe five minutes. Then, walking slowly and deliberately, the newcomer stepped over to his jeep and pulled out a rifle. The way the others were looking at him, it was obvious he was the leader.

"Kade?" Chera pulled on his sleeve. "This isn't funny."

"I never thought it was."

He heard her suck in her breath, but she didn't say anything. The newcomer began pointing at the other men, directing their activities. After nodding approval to whatever he'd said, the balding man ran to one of the pickups and climbed in the cab.

"This isn't going to take long," Kade whispered.

"What's he trying to do? Go after help?"

"I doubt it. They knew they'd have to get in and out as fast as possible. This has to be the entire crew."

"Then what?"

"There's only that one road out of here. Maybe he's thinking to block it."

"Because they don't want us to leave. Ever."

He didn't want to answer her, but saying nothing wouldn't change reality. "That rifle can do a hell of a lot more than just bring down a deer."

He expected her to shudder. Instead, she remained beside him, unmoving, her attention glued to the action below. The truck's engine caught, and it began rolling forward. A few seconds later, it coughed and sputtered. Kade imagined the driver trying to pump gas into the engine, but instead of picking up speed, the truck began to buck like a drunken horse. Finally, with a loud belch, it died.

Another man ran toward the Blazer and started it. This rig managed to travel about fifty feet before the debris he'd dumped in it clogged the fuel pump and it died a tortured death.

The rifle blast was so unexpected that Kade couldn't help but jump. He grabbed Chera without thinking and tried to cover her body with his. Nearby, Lobo growled.

"Kade!" She pushed at him. "What--"

"Someone's shooting."

"I know that!" she insisted. "But they haven't seen us. They're just mad."

When she continued to struggle, he let her up. "You sound pretty sure of yourself."

"I'm a teacher. Believe me, I know the male temper."

There wasn't time to argue with her, even if he thought he had a chance of winning. In the few seconds it had taken them to react to and assess the rifle shot, the armed man had called the others to him. His gestures left no doubt that he was ordering them to search their surroundings.

"We've got to get out of here. Please, Kade, this isn't funny."

"If I don't get the proof I need--"

"If? You've already got it." She pointed at the felled trees.

"It's going to come down to my word against theirs that I didn't give them permission and then try to welch out of paying them. And they're the ones with the hot shot lawyers."

"Your word against theirs? What about mine?"

He stared, pushed the words. "What about it?"

When she didn't immediately answer, he gave her his full attention. Although her face was still flushed from the heat and her recent exertion, underneath that she'd paled. "Give it to me straight. Now. Are you saying my testimony doesn't mean anything to you?"

"Your testimony?"

"Of course. What did you think I'd be doing while you're bringing these ba-these men to justice?"

"I guess I didn't think it'd ever get to that being a possibility." The moment he said the words, he readied himself, thinking she'd punch him again, hard this time. Instead, she turned her attention back to the men, her jaw muscle so tightly clenched he wondered if she might break it.

"They're coming. And they've got guns," she calmly informed him. "By the way, Kade Morgan, you can be a real bastard."

CHAPTER 19

Kade hadn't told her what was so important about learning the identity of the newcomer. As a consequence, Chera was reduced to dogging his steps while he snuck closer. Twice he told her to return to where they'd left Lobo; twice she ignored him.

"They've split up," he finally whispered. "Good."

She nodded but didn't bother answering. Although she should be scared to death, the only thing she could really put her mind to was how dirty she felt. True, she'd freshened up this morning, but since then she'd crawled around like a bloodhound on a scent. When she wasn't doing that, she was playing up close and personal with a mountain of black rubber--all because she couldn't, wouldn't, let Kade do this alone.

No. That wasn't the only reason.

"He's heading for the ridge. My guess, he's trying to get a better view."

She stared in the direction Kade indicated. The man, looking just a bit out of condition, was trying to scramble upward and hold onto his rifle at the same time. "With any luck, he'll shoot himself," she offered.

"You wouldn't really want that."

"Don't tell me what I want, Kade Morgan. You don't have the slightest idea what's going on inside me."

"No. I don't think I do."

She searched her mind for a reply, but suddenly it didn't matter. Despite the thick brush, she could swear the man was looking straight at her. She hugged the ground, barely daring to move. Next to her, Kade did the same.

"Buck Hanley."

"You recognize him?"

"Oh yeah. I'm surprised I didn't know who he was from the beginning. He's put on weight and shaved his beard, but it's the same man."

Although she needed to know a lot more than she did, now was hardly the time to ask. Buck took a few more steps in their direction and lifted his free hand to shade his eyes. Kade covered her hand with his but other than that did nothing to acknowledge her presence. She understood, perfectly.

Finally, just when she thought she might scream from the tension, Buck returned to climbing. If he kept on that course, he would end up above them and maybe two hundred feet away.

"He's the only one coming this direction," Kade whispered. "If I could get my hands on him--"

"You might get your head blown off. Kade, please. We've got to get out of here."

"No way. I've got a score to settle with the man."

She kept her eyes on Buck's progress. He would make much better time if he wasn't so determined to hold onto his rifle. "Tell me about him."

"Buck Hanley." Kade made the name sound like some kind of plague-carrying rat. "He's the man I ran off my property last year."

"And he's back again? What is he--Never mind. I know what he's doing." She needed to concentrate on Kade's tone so she might tell how close he was to losing control, but she couldn't take her eyes off Buck. The man made her think of a cur dog. "But why? After the confrontation you and he had last year, you'd think the last thing he'd want was to risk seeing you again."

"That's what I thought," Kade said and began moving forward again.

She grabbed his shirt. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "I may not be a firearms expert, but I know there's a big difference between a pistol and a rifle."

He jerked free. "He's not going to get a chance to use it."

Open mouthed, she stared at Kade's back. She'd never heard that tone from him before, the one that said nothing, or no one, mattered more than revenge. Justice. This was between him and Buck Hanley; everything else would have to wait.

Only, sometimes emotion blinded a man to danger.

"Kade. Wait."

"What for?" he asked with his eyes still on the steadily climbing Buck.

"You're not going after him alone."

"I'm not risking your life."

"Will you give that a rest!" she snapped. "It's my life to risk."

Something in her voice must have snagged his attention. He gave her the briefest of glances, then stopped and turned to fully meet her stare.

She chose her words carefully. "You said Buck was here last year. That means he's involved with Northwind, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I need him to tell me who hired him, who sent him here."

"He's not going to tell you anything."

"You don't know that." It was nearly impossible to remember to whisper because the overwhelming need to have answers ruled her. "You have to stay here and fight for your land. It's the same for me. I have to know everything."

"You aren't going to like what you hear."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

His look told her nothing. "What are you going to do?" she asked him. "You can't just walk up to Buck. He'll call the others, if he doesn't shoot you." Shoot! Had she really said the word?

"I haven't gotten that far yet."

"In other words, you can't get yourself to think about anything except revenge."

"Do you blame me?"

"What are we arguing for?" she demanded, the question a sharp hiss. "Our lives are at stake and we're arguing. This is insane."

"I agree."

"Good." An insect buzzed near her eye; she brushed it away, careful to keep her movement to a minimum so she wouldn't attract attention. "I wish I was better at this sort of thing. Darn it, I guess I'd make a lousy spy after all."

Kade grunted, then, although she'd done absolutely nothing to deserve it and wasn't sure she wanted anything from him, he took her hand and lifted it to his mouth. He spoke with his lips brushing her knuckles. "One step at a time. That's how it's done."

He was right of course. If she could think past his touch, she'd tell him that. Instead, all she could do was let him lead the way. Several times he signaled her to remain where she was while he scanned their surroundings. When that happened, she held her breath and prayed she wouldn't hear a rifle blast. Occasionally she glimpsed Buck who was on a relentless course designed to get him to the top of the hill as quickly as possible. The way he held his rifle left no doubt that he believed the weapon gave him a decided advantage.

Kade reminded her of an arrow speeding toward its target. Although he had to make his way on hands and knees around everything from boulders to tree stumps, never once did he lose sight of his goal. Matching his pace shouldn't be this exhausting. After all, she was in good shape, and the past few days had done a great deal to hone her muscles even more, but her goal was different from Kade's. He simply wanted to stop the man who twice had tried to destroy his livelihood while she was after answers that might shatter what she'd always believed about her father.

When Kade stopped, she crawled up beside him. Buck had reached the highest elevation and was using his rifle scope to look around. As long as they kept their voices to a whisper, there was little danger that Buck would hear them, but one wrong move would undoubtedly catch his attention.

"He's the leader," Kade whispered. "The others will do whatever he says."

"And if he's not there to tell them what to do?"

Kade didn't answer her question, but then he didn't need to. "He's too much in the open," he said instead. "I can't get close enough to him."

"What are you going to do when you can?"

"Stop him. I told you that."

"I know. But how?"

When Kade turned his attention back to Buck, she realized he still hadn't completely worked that out in his mind. Not that she blamed him. Until two seconds ago, she'd had no idea what they should do.

Now she did.

Kade had put his pistol back in its holster while he was sneaking closer. When he reached to pull it out, she stopped him. "This isn't the OK corral." Her voice sounded so calm. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought they were discussing the weather. "And it isn't pistols at twenty paces."

"I have the element of surprise."

"Which might not be enough. Kade, you aren't really thinking of shooting him. I can't believe that."

"I'll do whatever it takes."

She tried to scoot around so her weight wasn't resting on her surprisingly sore hip. "And then you'll have the rest of your life to live with the consequences. Damn it, Kade, bullets are forever."

"So are chain saws."

She couldn't argue that. "You want him to come to you, don't you? Disarmed. Vulnerable."

"That'll do for a start."

She leveled him the look that usually silenced smart-mouthed students. "But you don't know how to accomplish that, do you?"

His mouth thinned out. His eyes narrowed.

"Do you?"

"Not without--"

"Not without offering yourself as target practice," she finished. "You need to spend time in a classroom. Anyone who wants to succeed at negotiation really should do that as part of their education."

"I'm not interested in negotiation."

"I know. You want to cave in his face. You sound just like my students." She wanted to tell him she didn't blame him, that she understood exactly how he felt and if she thought she could get away with it, she'd smack Buck over the head with anything she could get her hands on. However, that wasn't either possible or civilized. "Kade, do you know the old saying about flies and honey?"

"What does--"

"That you can draw more flies with honey than vinegar. That's what we're going to do, draw Buck to us."

"With what? A written invitation?"

Ignoring his sarcasm, she turned her attention to her blouse. Although it might never be clean again, the fabric itself had held up. She grabbed the top button and yanked. It took a second effort, but finally she tore it off. As Kade watched, obviously dubious, she pulled the collar away from her throat. Then, because she thought one missing button might look suspicious, she grabbed a stick and stuck it through the cloth near her waist. Once she had a hole, she began pulling. In a few seconds, she'd created a five inch rip that ended just under her right breast.

"Honey," she whispered. "Don't ever forget, honey, not vinegar."

"No."

"You'll have to fight me if you want to stop me," she warned. "Right now, Kade Morgan, I'm running things."

"No." He reached for her; she evaded, nearly losing her balance in the process.

"Yes." She held a finger to her mouth, indicating she wanted silence. Although he pulled his pistol free, he didn't try to stop her. Keeping her features immobile--brave--she hoped, she began crawling away from him.

Buck had moved a few feet to his left and was still scanning his surroundings through his scope. When little more than a hundred feet remained between them, she sucked in a great drink of air and stood. For two, maybe three seconds, Buck gave no indication that he'd seen her.

Then she was staring down a rifle barrel. It looked enormous. She waited for her life to flash before her eyes; it didn't.

"What the hell?"

Desperate to stay out of sight of the others, she took a stumbling step--why hadn't she spent more time observing acting classes--and dropped to her knees. Belatedly she remembered to clutch a body part, in this case her side.

"Help me. Please." She fluttered her free hand to her throat. "Please, I need help."

"What the hell are you pulling, lady?"

If only he'd lower his rifle; maybe then she could get her brain to remain engaged. "He's after me." Did she sound desperate enough? "He wants to kill me. I know he does."

Buck stepped closer. "Who are you talking about?"

"Kade. Kade Morgan. If I'd known--I should have never--he's crazy. Please. You have to help me."

The name Kade Morgan did things to Buck that cleavage and rib flesh obviously hadn't. The man still held his rifle so he could easily make deadly use of it, but at least he'd come close enough that the men scrambling around in the trees on the opposite hillside couldn't see him. "He's here?" Buck asked.

Slurring her words and kneading her side until it really did start to hurt, she explained that she'd hired Kade to help her retrace her great, great grandfather's steps. She'd been uneasy around him from the beginning, but what was a girl to do? It was his land after all. "I am so ashamed," she wound up. "He's been all over me, trying to force himself on me. If it wasn't for you and your crew, I don't know what would have happened to me."

"My crew?"

Unable to gage whether Buck had bought any of her story, she plunged on. "He's insane about his trees. When he heard your vehicles and then the chain saws, all he could think about was shutting you down."

"That's Morgan all right. What are you ashamed of?"

Stalling for time, she pretended that talking caused great pain. Finally, gritting her teeth like a plucky heroine and squeezing out a few tears, she admitted that she'd helped Kade disable the operation. "I didn't have a choice. He--he threatened to kill me."

Buck tucked the rifle against his side and scanned his surroundings. "Where is he?"

"I don't know." Good. That moan was academy award quality. "He was talking about shooting everyone. It's horrible the way he rambles on. I started running. When he wasn't looking, I just took off. I had to. He scared me so."

"Wait a minute, lady. Where'd you last see him?"

She waved her hand vaguely behind her. "There. Somewhere. Everything looks the same here."

Buck stared in the direction she'd pointed. When he swallowed, his Adams apple looked as if it might slick through his flesh. "How far?"

"How far what?"

His gaze shifted back to her. "How the hell far did you run? Damn it, he could be laughing at us right now."

"No." Remembering to shudder again, she let her shoulders sag. "I've been running, hiding, for--for a long time. If he'd been going to stop me, he would have caught up with me before I'd gone ten feet. I know. I-I tried to run once before."

"Before? What was he doing?"

She hadn't gotten that part figured out. Stalling for time, she pretended she was so weak she could barely speak. "Gasoline. He--had some gas. He was talking about--" Good. Burying her face in her hands was a nice touch, she hoped.

Buck dropped beside her. His rifle was propped against his leg. Instead of ministering to her needs--whatever they might be--he shook her, hard. "Gas! What the hell--"

A flying body hit Buck and sent him sprawling to the ground. Before Buck could get his arms under him, Kade planted his weight solidly on the other man's shoulders. With his face half buried in dirt and grass, Buck cursed and fought.

"His arm!" Kade yelled. "Get his arm."

Fine! What do you want to do with it then? Stifling the question, Chera did as she was told. She clamped her fingers around Buck's wrist and struggled to pull it back toward Kade. Buck was a fighter; she had to give him that. But by pressing what was left of her nails into his flesh, she managed to gain the advantage. Finally, Buck's left arm was twisted behind him where Kade quickly looped rope around his wrist. Without waiting to be yelled at again, she scrambled around to Buck's other side and did the same with his right hand.

Buck's look, what she could see of it anyway, left no doubt that she'd be pushing up daisies if he had his way. When Kade started to lash Buck's wrists together, Buck fought like a wild animal in a trap. Looking like a cowboy on a bucking horse, Kade finally managed to hold Buck still long enough to finish the job.

Then, with Buck spewing obscenities, Kade rolled him over onto his back, slipped his hunting knife out of his belt, and held it to Buck's throat.

"You scream, Hanley, and you're dead."

"You bastard!"

"Do you think it matters what you call me? Listen to me." Kade leaned so close to Buck's face that Chera imagined Buck could feel Kade's breath. "I want to know something, and I want it from you. Now."

"Go to hell."

"Probably. However--" The knife point touched the vein at the base of Buck's throat. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be to stick you right now? Just like a pig at slaughter. Believe me, after what you've done to me, I'd just as soon kill you as talk to you."

"That's murder."

"It'd be your word against mine that it wasn't self defense. But then you'd be dead, wouldn't you."

Chera didn't like Kade's tone; she liked the look in his eyes even less. "You won't get away with it," Buck sputtered, careful not to move.

"Yeah. I will. Chera will testify for me. She's a teacher. Did she tell you that? Everyone believes a teacher."

Buck managed to make eye contact with Chera. She recognized both fear and hate and focused on the fear. Not speaking, she caressed Kade's shoulder and smiled. Buck's pupils contracted until almost nothing except white showed.

"You got the message, did you?" Kade asked. "I hope so because I'd hate to contaminate my ground with your blood." He ran the knife point down Buck's throat. "Like I said, I've got a question and you're going to give me an honest, respectful answer, aren't you."

Buck blinked, started to nod, stopped when the knife pricked his flesh.

"That's right. I'm pretty sure you know what I'm going to say, but I'll spell it out just to be sure. Who's behind this?"

Buck blinked. His mouth remained closed.

"Who hired you? I know you don't have the money to finance this kind of operation. Who's paying the bills?"

Chera could have sworn her heart had stopped beating; it was that quiet. Kade showed much more patience than she thought he would. In Buck's eyes she could read a thousand emotions ranging from despair to desperate calculation. Finally: "Northwind."

Thinking of nothing except the need to get away, she planted her hands on the ground and started to push herself to her feet. But before she could, Kade wrapped his free hand around her wrist. "Stay."

That was all, just stay.

She did as she was told.

"Northwind's no longer a one man show," Kade went on, speaking to Buck. "Is everyone involved in it behind this?"

"What the--"

"Answer me! Is everyone in on this?"

"No. Not all."

Her lungs began to burn, reminding her that she hadn't thought to breathe for too long. "Not all?" She forced out the words. "Who ordered you to come here?"

"No one orders me. If the money's right, I take the chance."

"It looks like your greed blew up in your face, Hanley," Kade said. "Answer the lady. Who's paying you to rape my land?"

Buck stared at Chera as if begging her to protect him from Kade, but she couldn't think of anything except what he was going to say--and what that might do to the rest of her life.

To what had started between her and Kade.

"Two men. One, he's a pilot. When he got close enough to recognize you the other day, he kept coming, hoping you'd go after him instead of staying out in the woods. I told them that wouldn't work but--"

"What about the other owners?"

"I told you. They don't know."

"Why should I believe you?"

"It's true." Desperation seeped into Buck's voice. "The two, they didn't tell me much; I said I didn't need or want to know everything. But the idea..."

Chera thought she heard something in the distance, a sound she couldn't put a name to. Kade must have heard it too because he didn't say anything to Buck for the better part of a minute, only cocked his head to one side. "What idea?"

"They'd sell the timber--your timber--to the other Northwind owners through a middle man."

"In other words--" Kade shifted his weight so it was easier for Buck to breathe. "In addition to robbing me, they're scamming Northwind. Getting the logs for nothing, then selling them to their own company for a profit."

"What are you talking about?" Chera asked. "Why don't they just act as their own brokers?"

"Because it'd be too easy for the feds to trace them," Kade answered. "Two men, known to be part of Northwind, selling logs on their own, probably overseas. Everyone would be suspicious."

"Oh." The whole operation seemed incredibly complex, but then she didn't know that much about the timber business. She forced herself to speak. "The two men. Who are they?"

"They'll kill me."

"I'll kill you if you don't answer the lady."

"No! Damn it, you're gonna cut me. All right. All right! Alan Petchell. Leland Given."

She could feel Kade's eyes on her but was unable to react. Her body felt hot and cold at the same time and she desperately wanted to cry. Only, the release wouldn't come. Buck squirmed, trying to find a way to lessen the weight on his bound hands.

"Petchell. Given," Kade said. "What about Thatcher James? He was involved in what went down last year?"

"Not any more, man. Given, he said some lawyer got to James and he wanted everything on the up and up from now on."

"Chera."

She recognized Kade's whisper but couldn't bring her eyes or mind into focus. Everything was too new.

"Chera. I want to believe--"

"You want to believe!" The words came out of her in a torrent. "You've put me through hell and now all you can say is that you want to believe? I need more than that. Damn you Kade Morgan, that isn't enough!"

She didn't remember getting to her feet, but she must have because she was staring out at the wilderness. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she realized Kade was standing beside her. For some insane reason it was terribly important that she know what Buck was doing.

That's when she smelled the smoke.

CHAPTER 20

Kade reached the top of the hill first. What he saw froze his blood. Flames lashed at the limbs and other slash the loggers had piled up. The balding man was trying to put out the fire by throwing shovelfuls of dirt on it. The others who'd been out searching had already turned back to help their companion, but Kade didn't need anyone to tell him that five untrained men weren't going to be able to put out this quickly growing monster.

"No! Oh, no! Kade, tell me what to do!"

"Follow me!"

As he raced downhill, he sensed Chera scrambling along behind him. She didn't have to do this; trying to save his forest was his job. But...

Halfway down, he stopped to help her over a ledge. Before he could get going again, she grabbed his arm and pointed. Two of the men had changed directions and were charging toward Buck's jeep. "They're running away, aren't they?" she asked in a rush.

Kade didn't waste time answering. Instead, he drew his pistol and aimed it over the heads of the fleeing men. The shot immediately stopped them. They scanned their surroundings while their feet continued a nervous tapping. Kade fired again. The men dropped to the ground.

"Don't even think it!" he bellowed. "You touch that jeep and you're dead!"

The other men stopped fighting the fire. Like kids running from the scene of a prank, they dodged around their disabled vehicles and charged down the logging road away from the growing flames. Kade, with Chera still keeping pace, continued downhill. He momentarily lost sight of the men he'd fired at. When he spotted them again, they were hot on the trail of their companions.

"Cowards!" Chera screamed at them. "Come back here and fight this, you stinkin' cowards!"

"Let them go."

"But--" She poked at flames shooting twenty feet in the air. "How could they be so stupid?"

He guessed that someone had spilled gas on or near the pile earlier. All it had taken to start the fire was a carelessly discarded match. "We don't have much time."

"For what?" Chera's attention was riveted on the flames and their relentless march toward the forest. "Kade, there's just two of us. What can we do?"

"Fight."

He felt her eyes on him, but there wasn't time to explain. In the few minutes it had taken them to reach the logging site, the fire had tripled in size. Tinder-dry pine needles exploded like chain reaction fireworks. He knew that sound, that smell, that sight. Knew and hated it.

Features grave, Chera started running toward the discarded shovels. He overtook her and pulled her against him. "That won't work. We'll never be able to put out the fire that way."

"But there's no water. What else can we do?"

He didn't waste time cursing the fools who hadn't brought a water truck with them. Having to yell against the crackling, roaring sound he knew he'd hear in nightmares for weeks, he asked her if the keys had been in the log truck's ignition.

"Yes. I think. What are you going to do?"

"Build a fire line."

"How? Those tires are flat. It won't--"

"Yes it will. It has to. Do you still have your knife?"

When she said she did, he told her to first stab the remaining tires. She gave him an incredulous look but ran to do as he said. For a moment the wind blew smoke between them, and he lost sight of her. His stomach turned to granite; when he tried to breathe, smoke nearly made him gag. Then the air cleared just enough that he saw Chera lift her knife and plunge it into a tire. He ran around to the opposite side of the truck and climbed into the high cab. The rig settled suddenly under him, proof that she'd flattened another tire.

The log truck didn't want to start. He pumped until his foot cramped but finally the engine caught. "Get out of the way!" he yelled out the open window at her. "I'm going to turn this thing around."

He thought he heard her say something, but there wasn't time to ask her to repeat herself. As he downshifted and released the clutch, the truck jerked forward. When it threatened to stop, he stomped on the pedal, forcing the crippled rig to keep moving. The grinding scream of tire rims on dirt and rock filled the cab. He could picture rubber being torn off the metal rims, prayed that the bumper as well was scraping along the ground.

He'd forced the huge vehicle around and was heading in the direction the fire was moving when Chera jumped onto the fuel tank beneath the cab door on the passenger's side. Leaning in, she screamed to make herself heard. "There's too much wind, Kade! We'll never stop it!"

She could have run for safety. He loved her for staying and fighting with him. "We have to try!" he bellowed back. "Am I down to dirt?"

Although he hadn't explained that he was using the tractor to dig down to bare earth, she obviously understood. "Yes. It looks like you're plowing a field. There's a swath maybe six feet wide."

"Good. Sweetheart, you've got to get out of the way. I don't want you hurt."

She shook her head and before he could think to stop her, she shinnied inside. She scrambled onto her knees and stared out the rear window. "Get going! Now!"

He did as she ordered, amazed that she was able to keep her balance in the wildly bucking cab. The scraping, clawing sound rung in his ears, and he didn't waste breath trying to say anything. Still, although his mind should be on nothing except carving a firebreak between the vulnerable trees on one side and the hungry monster on the other, he was aware--very aware--of the small, amazingly strong woman beside him.

He'd called her sweetheart.

After three, maybe four minutes of fighting the balky, screaming truck, Chera grabbed his arm. When he glanced at her, she pointed out her window, alerting him to the fact that the fire had shifted direction slightly. He nodded and turned the rig so that it remained directly in front of the approaching flames. He felt heat on his cheeks and chest and again glanced at her. Her face looked as flushed as his felt. Her eyes had gone from green to gray and were rapidly becoming so dark that they might soon slide into black. In them he read her hatred of the beast that threatened his world.

"I love you."

She gave him a half second of her attention but he could tell she hadn't heard him. She mouthed something that he took to mean "please hurry" and then went back to monitoring the fire.

Five minutes passed. His forearm muscles burned from the effort of keeping the rig on track and his neck felt so stiff he knew he wouldn't be able to turn it in the morning.

If there was a morning.

Ten minutes. Along with the stench of smoke, he smelled hot rubber and wondered how anything of the shredded tires remained on the rims. The burning in his forearms had spread to his shoulders. Chera remained beside him by bracing her arms against the dash but she'd been bounced around enough times that he knew she too would be aching tomorrow.

For her, more than his forest, he fought for tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes. Time had done unreal things, sometimes passing so quickly that it seemed to be on a collision course with destiny. The rest of the time he couldn't work fast enough and was certain the fire would win.

Chera had scrambled onto her knees and was once more looking out the rear window. "You've done it! Everything's churned up. There's nothing but dirt." She turned toward the flames. "Try to eat that, you beast! You're going to starve! Did you hear that? Starve!"

Without bothering to tell her what he was doing, he revved the engine one more time and lumbered another hundred feet. Finally, his nerves trembling in anticipation of quiet, he turned off the truck. If nothing else, he'd moved the rig with its great gasoline tank out of the fire's immediate line.

She wrapped her arms tightly around him. "It's going to work! I know it is."

"Not yet."

Kade's tone shattered Chera's sense of relief. "What do you mean?"

"If the wind shifts direction, it'll reach the woods behind it."

"What do we do? We can't take the truck there. There's too much of a slope."

"I know. The jeep'll make it."

"The jeep?" she repeated even though she trusted him to know what needed doing. "It's not heavy--"

"It's perfect for a backfire. Chera? You're going to have to drive."

She nodded and pushed open her door. He was already running toward the jeep by the time she sprinted around the massive truck that looked so beaten, so gravely wounded that she honestly felt sorry for it.

When they reached the jeep, Kade kept his instructions to the minimum. Once he'd given her the go-ahead, she was to drive in a slight arc around the rear of the fire. She was to get no closer then fifty feet from the charred area and if the wind began blowing back her way, she would drive as hard and fast as possible.

She didn't waste time asking for an explanation of what Kade would be doing. Fear and pride warred inside her; she felt more excited, more alive than she ever had in her life. After driving to where he directed, she waited while he jumped out and slid under the jeep. She heard a sharp thud as if a knife had been rammed through the jeep's underside.

Kade spoke from somewhere behind her. "No more than ten miles an hour. When you get to the end, throw the jeep in neutral, jump out and start running."

"No problem. Run is something I can do," she muttered even though, giving the snapping, snarling sound the fire made, she doubted he could hear her.

"Chera?"

"What?"

"Be careful. All right--now! Haul it!"

She depressed the gas pedal, gripped the wheel, and let out a rebel yell. She thought she heard Kade laugh, but she couldn't be sure.

Keeping the jeep from tipping over as it straddled rocks or threatened to bog down in the thick litter of leaves and needles took all her concentration. The world to her left was a wall of flames. Kade had assured her she was a safe distance from it, but being this close to a raging forest fire caused her heart to pound.

Only when she'd traveled half of the distance did she put her mind to the question of what driving a jeep had to do with setting a backfire. She tried to look behind her, but it was impossible to take her eyes off the so-called road long enough to see anything.

She steered around a tree stump and then held on for dear life as an upthrust in the ground precariously lifted the jeep's right side. As she neared the end of her run, the vehicle began bucking and coughing. She pumped but it refused to respond. Thinking she'd failed Kade, she pounded on the steering wheel.

An especially loud snap caught her attention. She watched, horrified, as a burning tree crashed to the ground. The sound catapulted her into action. Kade had told her to run and run was something she could do without the slightest prompting. She vaulted over the jeep's half door and hit the ground, legs already pumping.

Her face felt hot. Although she had to watch where she was going, she couldn't keep her eyes off the monster she and Kade had been fighting.

It looked like a waterfall, a red and black waterfall that billowed and surged skyward. Although there were areas that seemed relatively free of flames, she was rocked by the utter sense of power generated by something as simple and primitive as fire.

Wheezing, she made her way to what looked like a bumper crop of rocks. She sagged against a boulder, then turned. Despite the smoke, she could see Kade running along the path she and the jeep had taken only a few minutes before. Every few feet, he stopped and touched something to the ground. Instantly flames shot into the air. When she saw fire begin to race along of its own free will, heading straight for the jeep, she understood. Kade had punctured the gas tank. As she drove, gasoline flowed out. He'd followed behind, lighting the fuel. Soon the hungry flames he'd created would reach the jeep and when they did, what gas was left in the tank would catch on fire. The jeep might explode just the way vehicles did in the movies.

"Kade! Be careful!"

Obviously he didn't need her warning. As soon as the flames began flowing toward the jeep, he stopped lighting fires and began running at a right angle. Although she still didn't have enough air in her lungs, she took off herself so they would meet halfway up the slope. Only one thing mattered. Being with Kade Morgan again.

"You--you done good!" he gasped when no more than twenty feet separated them.

"You done good too!" she wheezed. For a moment her legs threatened to collapse. Then Kade held out his arms and she found the strength to take those last few precious steps. He felt hot, sweaty. He smelled of gasoline and smoke and scorched hair. She winced when he ran his hand over her neck, but she didn't care. She was in Kade's arms. They'd fought the monster. Fought and won.

And she loved him.

"That--that was the most terrifying thing I've ever done." Her voice sounded as if she'd been chain smoking for the last seventeen years.

"Driving a jeep?"

"No. Of course not that. But seeing those flames, thinking about what they're capable of--it's all right?" She tried to face the fire but Kade wouldn't let her. "You're sure you've got it stopped?"

"Yes. I'm sure. Chera, I couldn't have done it without you."

She nearly told him she'd risked her neck because she didn't want to see the land her great, great grandfather loved turn into charred stumps, but that would have been a lie. Kade, not Jeddiah, consumed her thoughts, her heart.

Clinging to him, she drank in his scent. Soon she'd tease him about how he smelled and looked and he'd say the same to her, but right now she was too raw for anything but the truth.

"I was so afraid. Afraid for the forest, for me, for you. I should be shaking. Why aren't I shaking?"

"Don't you know?"

She did. Kade had his arms around her and she'd absorbed his strength. As long as he gave her that, fear would never master her. She leaned against his chest and listened to his heart beating.

And she remembered something. Remembered what he'd said to her while they were inside the logging truck.

"We have to go after him," Kade whispered with his mouth brushing the top of her head.

"Buck?"

"He's not going to get very far with Lobo keeping an eye on him."

"I know. Kade, do you believe what he said?"

He leaned back. For a moment, she tried to remain pressed against him. Then she understood that he wanted her to look up at him and did. "The important thing is, do you?" he asked.

"I want to. I need to believe in my father."

"I know you do."

He looked awful, all flushed and sooty with a nickel size chunk of hair near his temple singed down to the scalp. She'd never before stared into his eyes and believed she'd reached his heart, his soul. She did now.

"We said some pretty horrible things to each other," she whispered. "Earlier when--"

"Earlier when neither of us stopped attacking long enough to listen to the other."

How had he become so incredibly wise? He was right. She'd thrown words at him, not just because she couldn't believe the worst about her father, but because she was battling the power of what she felt for Kade Morgan.

He'd done the same thing.

Like blind fools, they'd fought an emotion that didn't need words and would live as long as they did. She'd fallen in love with him and been afraid of that love.

He'd felt the same way; she knew that now.

But a few minutes ago, while he forced a disabled logging truck to expose the dirt the fire couldn't feed off, he'd said those wonderful, incredible words to her.

She stood on tiptoe and touched her lips to his. "We're safe. This beautiful forest is going to be safe. Kade? I love you. I can't change what happened between you and my father. I wish I could but--I love you. I hope that's enough."

"Enough?" He breathed the word.

"I don't know why he did what he did, what Seth's role was."

"I know you don't, now. The things I said to you--the accusations--"

"Emotion, Kade. You were speaking out of emotion. I did the same thing."

"It's all right."

Mindful of the blister at the side of his neck, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body lightly against his. Despite everything crowding through her, questions, emotions, first she needed to hear certain words from him.

They came.

"I love you, Chera. I don't know how, or when, it happened, but I love you. Together..."

"Together," she finished for him.

THE END