Willow scrambled forward just as the repeating rifle began firing once more. Caleb waited to see if she would keep going as directed. To his surprise, she did. He turned and started giving terse orders to Reno.

«I’ll keep them down while you reload,» Caleb said, «but you damn well better be able to do it on the run.»

«You’re wounded,» Reno said without looking away from the camp. «I’ll stay.»

«It’s not my shooting arm. Get going.»

Reno spotted a man’s boot poking out from among the supplies in the camp. «All right. Get ready.»

While Caleb drew his six-gun, Reno sighted on the nearly hidden boot. He squeezed off his last shot, turned, and began shucking spent cases from his six-gun as he ran up the ravine after Willow.

Caleb had already chosen his target. As soon as Reno turned toward the ravine, Caleb opened fire. The bullet sent one of Slater’s men scrambling for a better hiding spot. From the far side of the camp, someone opened up on them with a rifle. The rapid barking of the shots told Caleb it was a repeating rifle. Bullets whined and sang off the rock just below him. Instantly, return fire came from Wolfe’s position, forcing the other rifleman to keep his head down.

Another rifle opened up. It, too, was a repeating rifle. Caleb squeezed off two more shots and counted the times the other rifles fired without pausing. Eight for one, nine for the other. They weren’t the same model or kind as his own rifle, which meant Slater’s men carried less in the magazine and were much slower to reload.

«Ready!» called Reno.

Caleb turned and ran as fast as he could up the ravine. He didn’t bother trying to reload while he went, for his left hand was slippery with blood. He passed Reno, went on another hundred feet, reloaded, and yelled at Reno to withdraw. Working together smoothly, both retreated into the cover of the trees.

Willow was nowhere in sight.

«Find her and get her over the rise,» Caleb said curtly to Reno. «It opens out on the other side. Wolfe will be able to bring the horses right to you.»

«What about you?»

«I’ll cover yourbacktrail until you get Willow over the rise. Now move!»

There was no time to waste arguing and Reno knew it. They had taken Slater by surprise. That advantage was rapidly evaporating. Slater’s repeating rifles weren’t as good as the one Wolfe was using, but there were two rifles against one. There were also ten men, minus the two guards and whatever Wolfe had done in the way of damage.

However Reno added it up, the advantage was on Slater’s side.

Reno turned and raced into the trees, calling softly to his sister. Willow stood up a hundred feet ahead of him. He ran to her and hustled her up the ravine much as Caleb had — half-dragging and half-carrying her. By the time they reached its head and climbed out into an area of mixed grass and trees, she was breathing as hard as she had going over the Great Divide. Reno was breathing almost as hard.

«Stand with your back to me and keep your eyes open,» Reno ordered.

Fighting for breath, Willow watched uneasily, her glance darting from shadow to shadow. Nothing was visible but clumps of aspen and patches of grass, the forerunners of the basin that lapped at the forested peaks. Gradually her breathing slowed. Time crawled while she strained to separate natural sounds from those that might be made by men sneaking up on her. In the distance she heard rifle fire, but no six-guns.

Finally a wolf’s harmonic cry floated up from behind Willow.

«Don’t shoot!» she said urgently. «It’s Caleb!»

«I never shoot at anything I can’t see,» Reno said calmly. «Come on in, Yuma man. Willy, watch the damned meadow!»

Hastily, she turned around and looked at the empty land, feeling her brother’s back like a wall behind her.

It’s just as well, Willow told herself unhappily. I don’t really want to see Caleb look at me with those cold yellow eyes and know that duty made him risk his life for me.

The thought of how exposed he had been coming into camp chilled her. She hadn’t even had time to thank him but that, too, was just as well. From the look in his eyes back at the valley, he didn’t want anything at all from her.

Let me know when you feel like being treated like my woman. Then I’ll let you know if I still feel like being your man.

«Anyone coming?» Reno asked.

«No,» Caleb and Willow said simultaneously.

«Good. How do you feel about blood, Willy? Does it make you faint?»

«Not since I turned thirteen.»

«Then switch places and go to work patching up your future husband while I watch the meadow.»

For an instant, Willow didn’t understand. When she did, she spun around and stared at Caleb, who was standing less than two feet away from her. The breath rushed out of her with a low sound as she saw blood spreading in a ragged, crimson sleeve down his left arm.

«Caleb, my God…» she said shakily.

«Don’t faint, southern lady. You’re no use to me passed out on the ground.»

The clipped words restored Willow’s control as nothing else could have. She stepped forward and looked at his arm, for it was preferable to the savage clarity of his eyes.

«Here,» Caleb said. He reached behind his back, where he had moved his knife sheath to make crawling easier. «You’ll need this.»

With a hand that trembled, Willow took the big knife. When she saw the blood on it, she looked up quickly at Caleb, wondering if he had another wound she couldn’t see.

«Not my blood,» Caleb said.

Willow drew a deep breath and said nothing.

«Disappointed?» he asked sardonically.

She flinched subtly, then took a firm grasp on the knife and put the tip of the blade beneath his cuff. «Hold still.»

«Don’t worry, southern lady. I’m not going to give you an excuse to cut me up any worse than I already am.»

The fabric gave way easily before the lethally sharp knife. Willow peeled the sleeve aside to reveal the wound high on Caleb’s arm. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she saw the crimson stripe where a bullet had gouged a furrow across his bicep.

«Oh, Caleb,» she whispered. «I’m sorry.»

«You ought to be,» he said flatly. «You and your girlish notions about love damn near got us all killed.»

Willow looked at Caleb, then looked away quickly. His eyes were those of a bird of prey, intent and merciless. He had never looked more like what he was…dark angel of retribution.

Nothing had changed. Nothing would. Nothingcould. She had fallen in love with a man who knew only the cold balance of right and wrong, duty and necessity. But she had her own ideas of right and wrong, duty and necessity. None of them included forcing a man into marriage simply because her brother was appallingly quick with his six-gun.

«You aren’t the only one with a sense of duty,» Willow said. She turned to Caleb’s other arm and slipped the knife beneath the cuff. When she spoke, her voice was as raw as the sound of the cloth being ripped into strips with vicious jerks of her hands. «I couldn’t stand by and watch you being forced into marriage with me just because Matt happens to be so damned quick with his gun!»

«Forced into marriage because of your brother’s gun,» Caleb said coldly. «Nice to know you think I’m a coward as well as the kind of conscienceless seducer who would turn an innocent girl into a whore.»

«Seducer? Don’t be ridiculous,» Willow said, clipping each syllable as she wrapped Caleb’s wound with a gentleness that was at odds with her voice. «Before you ever kissed me, I wanted you until I couldn’t take a breath without wondering if the air had touched you first.»

Caleb’s body tightened as though he had been cut with a whip.

«I’m sorry,» Willow said quickly, thinking she had been too rough in bandaging his wound. «I didn’t mean to hurt you. As for being a coward,» she continued as she carefully tied the bandage in place, «anyone who has the nerve to crawl into Jed Slater’s camp in full daylight isn’t a coward. You’re simply too pragmatic to walk into certain death and too much a man to run away. That left marriage.» She stepped back from Caleb. «That should do it.»

«Does that mean you’re finished tearing strips?» Reno asked dryly, turning around, facing them. «If so, it’s time to — Slater!»

Before the cry left Reno’s lips, Caleb spun around and drew his gun in a single, fluid motion that was so quick the eye couldn’t truly follow it. Thunder erupted on Willow’s right and then on her left as first Caleb and then Reno emptied their guns into the two men who were sixty feet away, creeping from the ravine to the edge of the grass, seeking a dear shot between the trees.

The sheer speed of Caleb’s and Reno’s response surprised the Slater brothers. Their aim was shattered as they fired quickly on the way to seeking better cover. But there was no cover within reach. Caleb and Reno were as accurate as they were fast. Realizing it, Jed Slater turned and fired even as bullets cut him down.

It wasn’t the men he aimed at, but Willow.

A blinding pain burst in Willow’s head, driving her to her knees. Darkness spiraled down from the sky, whirling around her. She heard Caleb’s voice calling her name as she reached out to him, needing him as the solid center of a world that was spinning blackly around her. She felt the strength of his arms supporting her, but even his power couldn’t hold the unnatural night at bay.

Willow was still trying to say Caleb’s name when midnight condensed in a soundless rush, claiming her.

Caleb felt the sudden slackness of Willow’s body, saw the blood welling from beneath her bright hair, and called her name in a voice that tore at his throat.