"A lady shouldn't have to--"

"I know you don't mean yourself, because I'll wager you've tramped through worse than this. And believe me," Mae gasped, hurrying the last few feet down the alley to the stairs, "so have I. I walked behind a wagon most all the way out here."

"Well, you shouldn't have to do anything of the kind now."

"Are you all right?" Mae asked quietly. "I know you were bad there for a little bit."

"I'm recovered, I believe. Thanks to you." Vance leaned against the building, one leg up on the first stair, the other on the ground. Mae stood close to her, one arm still resting on her hip, her body angled between Vance's legs. The eaves sheltered them from the worst of the rain, and the lights in the windows on the second floor provided enough illumination for Vance to see Mae's face. She brushed the wet tendrils of hair away from Mae's throat, allowing her fingers to linger on the sleek column of her neck. Mae's skin was cool but the blood beat hot just beneath her smooth skin. That unmistakable rush of life made her all too aware of the void in her own being, and she realized how easily she could feed off Mae's passion, taking, with nothing to offer in return.

"You should go upstairs now and draw a bath. Get warm."

"I think I might," Mae said, trying to decipher the brooding look on Vance's face. Their bodies nearly touched, and the slow brush of Vance's fingers over her skin stirred heat in places that the far more demanding caresses she endured from others never awakened. She could return to the saloon, back to the noise and press of bodies and mindless coupling, or she could spin out this fragile thread that fluttered between them a little longer. "Join me."

Vance gasped, not at the unexpected invitation but at the image of intimacy that came instantly to her mind. Mae's pale skin shimmering with crystal droplets in the lamplight, her lids languid with heat. She dropped her hand away, but she could not step out of the reach of danger. Mae was so close to her that she could feel the outline of Mae's body curving into her own. "I...can't."

Emboldened by the storm that raged around them and by the terrible tension of what they had just done for Jed, Mae skimmed her mouth over Vance's lips. It was a fleeting kiss, but one that could not be called anything less. "Then come upstairs and have that drink."

When Mae turned and started up the stairs, a chill far colder than the night's enveloped Vance with such swiftness she shook under it.

She looked up the stairs, and when Mae paused on the landing to glance down at her, she followed.

v "I don't want to leave him here alone," Jessie said, standing in the open doorway of the doctor's office and staring out into the rain. Doc Melbourne had sent them out, saying there was nothing anyone could do just now. Charlie had been waiting and, after getting word on Jed's condition, had gone off to deal with the horses. "I'll walk you to your parents' and then come back."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Kate said, pulling her cloak around her shoulders. Jessie, she noted, seemed oblivious to the weather, but Kate feared it was more shock than toughness. The only time she'd ever seen Jessie so shaken was when she'd been sick with the grippe last winter, and she knew firsthand that Jessie was capable of running herself into the ground from worry. Kate intended to see that did not happen now. "Caleb said he wouldn't wake up until tomorrow at the earliest, but if you're set on staying, we'll both stay."

"We can't do that. Your parents don't know where you are. They'll be beside themselves." Jessie hunched her shoulders and stepped out, pulling the door partly closed to prevent the rain from pouring into the room. Her shirt was immediately soaked but she didn't mind. The biting cold seemed to get her blood going. In between being sick with worry, she'd mostly felt numb. When her father had died in a stampede, it had been over so fast that the pain had been a swift slice to her heart.

This...watching Jed's life seep away, was killing her bit by bit. The only thing she'd ever experienced that had been worse was when Kate had been sick, and that had been as close to dying while still breathing she ever wanted to come. She swept her fingers over Kate's cheek.

"Besides, you should get some rest."

Kate crossed her arms. "Oh, and you don't need any?" Now that the crisis was at least somewhat controlled, her fear was giving way to anger. Anger that it might have been Jessie on that table bleeding to death. Anger that somehow Jessie must have known this kind of danger was possible and hadn't told her. "When is the last time you've slept? Or eaten anything?"

"Kate--after the shootout, with Jed hurt so bad, I couldn't think of anything except getting him here." Jessie passed a weary hand over her face. "All I could think was that this was his only chance."

"I know, darling. I know." Kate couldn't argue with her. She sounded so tired, so fragile. It was so unlike her, and all Kate wanted to do was protect her.

"Maybe I was still too late."

"No. No, you weren't. Mae's right. He's very strong, and Vance did a miraculous job of getting the bullet out. You got him here in time.

I know it."

"I'll feel better if I can keep an eye on him."

Kate smoothed both hands over Jessie's shoulders and down her arms until she clasped her fingers lightly. "Jed was like this when you were shot, too. He didn't want to move from this spot until we knew something." She drew Jessie's hands to her breast and pressed them over her heart. "But he went about taking care of things at the ranch because he knew you would want him to. He would want you to take care of yourself and the Rising Star."

Jessie tugged Kate close and leaned her forehead against Kate's.

They stood in the shadows as the rain beat down around them, the night so black that the few lighted windows along Main Street looked like the disembodied eyes of wild animals lurking in the wilderness. Despite the eerie sense of isolation born of her fear and fatigue, Jessie had never felt so completely anchored to this earth as she did in this moment with Kate in her arms. "If you weren't here with me right now, I don't think I could make it until morning."

Kate kissed the base of her throat, then laid her cheek against Jessie's chest. "You could. But you don't have to. You won't ever have to."

With a sigh, Jessie wrapped her arm around Kate's shoulders.

"Let's go somewhere and get out of this rain. I think I'll feel a whole lot better if I can hold you."

"I know that I will," Kate murmured.

"Lord," Jessie muttered as they left the shelter of the porch and ventured into the street. "I think you better go back inside, and I'll go see if I can find a buckboard to borrow. You can't walk all the way to your parents' house in this."

"Why don't we check the Nugget. There must be someone there we'll know who has a wagon. My father's probably at the newspaper office, but I expect he walked."

"You stay here, then, and I'll go to the saloon."

"It makes more sense for me to come with you, especially if we find someone to give us a ride."

Jessie hesitated for a moment, not wanting to subject Kate to the unsavory atmosphere in the saloon, but she could see the point of Kate's suggestion. "Okay, then." She took off her Stetson and put it on Kate's head. "Might help a little."

Laughing, Kate reached up and held the brim of the unfamiliar headwear. "Now you'll drown instead of me."

"I'm more used to it." Jessie put an arm around Kate and tilted her head down to keep the stinging water out of her eyes. As they set off in the direction of the saloon, she tried to angle her body so that the winds struck her first and not Kate. Raising her voice to be heard over the howling storm, she shouted, "Stay close when we get there."

Unconsciously, Kate gripped her bag more tightly and felt the weight of Mae's recent gift inside. She thought it best to show it to Jessie later, when she could explain how she had come to have it.

Nevertheless, she liked knowing that she could protect them both, if necessary. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

When they reached the board sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and ducked beneath the short roofs that protected the doorways, they could hear one another without shouting. Jessie wiped a wet sleeve across her face. "If this keeps up, there'll be flooding in the gulches up in the hills." She shook her head. "The foals can get trapped. I'll have to get men up there tomorrow."

"The men, not you," Kate said as they hurried along. "You're exhausted, and I'm not letting you go back out there again so soon."

Jessie clenched her jaws, remembering the sounds of gunshots coming from behind as she and her men had ridden toward one of the line camps. Ambushed on her own land. Bile rose in her throat and fury threatened to burn a hole in her gut. She'd be going back, and soon.

She was the law on the Rising Star, and she intended to send a message that no one could threaten her men or her livestock. But she thought it best to bring that up in the morning, when Kate was more likely to see reason.

"I'm thinking I should stay at the hotel for a few days," Jessie said. "That way, I can ride out to the ranch to see to things and then come back to town in case...in case the Doc needs me for anything."

Kate grasped Jessie's arm and tugged her to a stop just outside the Golden Nugget. "If you want to stay at the hotel and not my mother's, I'll understand. But wherever you're sleeping tonight, so am I."