She pressed her hands against her cheeks with shame. She wasn't in love with Malachi Slater. She didn't even like him. She had hated him for years.

But that wasn't what disturbed her. What disturbed her was a sense of disloyalty. She had been in love. Deeply in love. So in love that when she had heard of Robert's death, she had wanted to die herself. She had ceased to care about the war; she had ceased to care about the very world.

And now her cheeks were heating because Malachi Slater had spent the night touching her…

In anger, she reminded herself.

But with laughter, too, and with a new tension. And he had teased and taunted her.

And promised her things.

He had whispered against her flesh, and his words had often been husky and warm. She had never denied him his dashing charm or, in her heart, his bold masculinity.

She had just never realized how deeply it could touch her as a woman.

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat and she emitted a soft sound of annoyance with herself. He was a Rebel, and he was Malachi, and she would never forgive him for being either. She needed him tonight. And she would find him.

She quickly assessed the horses in the stables. She chose not to take Arabesque, her own mare, for the horse was a dapple gray, a color that glowed in the moonlight. She patted the mare quickly. "Not this time, sweetheart. I need someone dark as the night, and fleet as a bullet. Hmm…"

She had to hurry.

Without wasting further time, she decided on Chapperel, a swift and beautiful animal, part Arabian, part racer, nearly seventeen hands high and able to run like lightning.

He was also as black as jet, as black as the night.

"Come on, boy, we're going for a ride," she told the gelding, as she quickly saddled and bridled him and led him from the stables.

She looked at the sky. There was barely a sliver of a moon, but the stars were bright Still, the trail would be very dark. It would be almost impossible for her to track Malachi.

But maybe it wouldn't be so hard to track the twenty horses that had raced before him. They had headed west— that much she knew for a fact.

And they would be staying off the main roads, she thought.

The Red Legs who had taken Kristin might still be a part of the Union army, and then again, they might not. No Union commander in his right mind was going to sanction the kidnapping of young women. No, these people had to be outlaws…

And they wouldn't be taking the main roads. They would be heading west by the smaller trails, and that was what she would do, too.

How much of a lead did Malachi have on her? An hour at most.

Shannon nudged the gelding, and he broke instantly into a smooth and swift canter.

And seconds later, he was galloping. The night wind cooled Shannon's face and touched her with the sweet fragrance of the earth. The darkness swept around her as she crossed the ranch and then the open plain.

Then it was time to choose a trail. She ignored the main road where the wagons headed west and where, over the past years, armies had marched by with their cannons and caissons. There was a smaller trail, rough and ragged and barely discernible, through the trees.

She reined in and dismounted and moved close to the ground, picking up a clump of earth. There were hoof marks all around.

She rose and felt a newly broken branch.

This was the trail she would take.


Malachi knew Missouri like the back of his hand.

He knew the cities, and he knew the Indian territories, and the farmlands and ranches. He could slip through Kentucky and Arkansas and even parts of Texas with his eyes nearly closed.

But these boys were moving west into Kansas. In another hour, they'd be over the border.

And he was an ex-Confederate cavalry captain, still wearing his uniform jacket.

He should have changed it. He should have accepted Shannon's offer of a civilian jacket, but somehow, he had been loathe to part with the uniform. He'd been wearing it for too many years. He'd ridden with too many good men, and he'd seen too many of them shot down in the prime of life, to forget the war. It was over. That was what they said. Abraham Lincoln had said that they must bind the wounds. "With malice towards none, with justice for all."

But then Old Abe had been gunned down, too, and in the blink of an eye, the South had begun to see what was going to be.

She was broken; she was laid to waste. Northern opportunists and plain old crooks swept down upon the fine manors and mansions, and liquor-selling con men were stirring up the ex-slaves to wage a new kind of war against their former masters. Homes and farms were being seized; men and women and children were starving in much of the devastated South.

No…

He probably shouldn't be heading into Kansas in a Confederate jacket. It was just damned hard to take it off. They didn't have a whole lot left. Just pride.

He had fought in the regular cavalry. Fought hard, and fought brilliantly. They had often hung on against impossible odds. They had a right to be proud, even in defeat.

And maybe, even in Kansas, he might have been able to ride through in his uniform if he wasn't who he was. If there hadn't been wanted posters out on him. But if he found himself picked up by the law because of his pride, he wouldn't be able to do Kristin any good, he would probably be hanged, and his pride would definitely be worthless stuff.

Tomorrow, he would pick up some clothes someplace.

He'd be much better off traveling as a simple rancher. Displaced, maybe. An ex-Reb. He wouldn't be so damned obvious. Not that he meant to be in Kansas long. He would get

Kristin and get out. There would be plenty of places, deep in Missouri, to hide out until he found Cole and Jamie and decided what to do.

A swift gray shadow seemed to fall over his heart.

They would probably have to leave the country. Head down to Mexico, or over to Europe. The thought infuriated him. The injustice of it was absurd, but no one was going to give any of the Slater brothers a chance to explain. That son of a bitch Fitz had branded them, and because they were Rebs, the brand was going to stick.

Malachi reined in suddenly. In the distance, far ahead, he could see the soft glow of a new fire.

The Red Legs had stopped to make camp for the night.

He nudged the bay mare forward once again. He had been riding hard for hours, and it was nearly midnight, but they still had a certain distance on him.

Carefully, warily, Malachi closed that distance.

When the crackling fires were still far ahead of him, he dismounted from the bay. He whispered to the horse and dropped the reins, then started forward on foot.

The Red Legs had stopped in a large copse right beside a slim stream. Coming up behind them through the trees, Malachi found a close position guarded by a large rock and hunkered down to watch.

There were at least twenty men. They were busy cooking up beans and a couple of jackrabbits on two separate spits. A number of the men had lain down against their saddles before the fire, but a number of them were on guard, too. Three men were watching the horses, tethered to the left of the stream. As he looked across the clearing, Malachi could see two of them against the trees.

They were armed with the new Spencer repeating rifles. They would be no easy prey.

Looking around again, he saw the worst of it.

Kristin was tied to a tree near the brook. Her beautiful blond hair tumbled around her face, but her skin was white and her eyes were closed. She was exhausted, and desolate…

And guarded by two men.

Even as Malachi watched, the situation changed. The tall, burly man who had taken her from the house was walking her way. He bent beside her. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him with stark hatred. The man laughed.

"Sweet thing, I just thought that you might be hungry."

"Hungry for the likes of you, eh, Bear?" shouted a tall, lean dirty blond with a scruffy mustache. He stood up and sauntered toward the tree. He leaned down by Kristin, too. "Sweet, sweet thing. My, my, why don't you come on over and have dinner with me? Roger Holstein, ma'am—"

Kristin spit at him. A roar of laughter went up, and the young man's face darkened with fury. He lunged for her.

The man he'd called Bear pulled him back. "You keep your hands off her."

"Why? We weren't even supposed to bring her back. We were supposed to find Cole Slater. So you tell me why I can't have the woman."

Another man by the fire stood up. "Why should you have her, Holstein? What's the matter with the rest of us?"

"No one's gonna have her, and that's the way I say it is!" Bear bellowed, and Malachi slumped against the rock, relieved. Bear took a step toward Roger Holstein, shaking his fist. "You listen, and you listen good. The woman is mine. I took her. And I'm still the law in this unit—"

"Hell!" Roger Holstein muttered. "We ain't no unit anymore. The war is over."

"We're a unit. We're a unit because we belong to Fitz, just like we always have. And I was there that day Cole Slater shot down Henry and half a troop. He ain't no fool. If he hears that she's already been abused by you pack of trash, he'll take his time. He'll come after us slow and careful. And he won't be alone. He's got a pair of brothers who can pick the eyes out of hummingbirds in the next damn state with their Colts." Bear hesitated, looking at Kristin. "We don't hurt the woman."

"Hell, Bear, I wasn't going to hurt her!" Roger complained. "I was gonna make her have a hell of a good time!"