It hadn't been his sister-in-law in the dream, but it had been Shannon, Kristin's little sister. Kristin's obnoxious little sister! Willful, spoiled, determined, proud…obnoxious! He'd itched to take a switch to her from the moment they had first met.

But it had been Shannon in the dream. Shannon's eyes had beckoned him, sultry and sweet. Shannon's hair had streamed in a burst of sun and fire around the slender beauty of her form. Shannon's lips had formed to issue whispers of passion.

And he had thought when the dream ended that he had lost his temptress! he told himself dryly.

Well, he had not. He was riding toward the spitfire now, and he could almost guarantee that their meeting would not be sweet, nor would she beckon to him, or welcome him.

If he knew Shannon, she wouldn't be waiting with open arms.

She'd be waiting with a loaded Colt.

"Doesn't matter much, Helena," he told his horse. "Damn it!" he swore out loud to the heavens. "When will this war be over for me?"

There was no answer. He kept riding through the night.



CHAPTER ONE

June 3rd, 1865


The Border Country, Missouri


The McCahy Ranch


Someone was out there.

Someone who shouldn't have been out there.

Shannon McCahy knew it; she could feel it in her bones.

Even though the sunset was so deceptively peaceful!

It was peaceful, beautiful, quiet. Radiant colors soared across the sky, and sweetly kissed the earth. There was a silence and a stillness all around. A soft breeze just barely stirred, damp and sweet against the skin. The war was over, or so they said.

The night whispered tenderly of peace.

Peace…

She longed for peace. Just ten minutes ago she had come outside to watch the night, to try to feel the peace. Standing on the wide veranda, leaning idly against a pillar, Shannon had looked out over the landscape and had reflected on the beauty of the night.

The barn and stables stood silhouetted against the pink-streaked sky. A mare and her foal grazed idly in the paddock. The hills rolled away in the distance and it seemed that all the earth was alive with the verdance and richness of the spring.

Even Shannon had seemed a part of the ethereal beauty of the night. Elegant and lovely, her thick hair twisted into a knot at her nape, little tendrils escaping in wisps about her face. Tall and slim, and yet with curved and feminine proportions, she wore a luxurious velvet evening gown with a delicate ivory lace collar that fell over the artfully low-cut bodice.

She was dressed for dinner, though it seemed so very peculiar that they still dressed every evening. As if their pa was still with them, as if the world remained the same. They dressed for dinner, and they sipped wine with their meat— when they had wine, and when they had meat—and when their meal was over, they retired to the music parlor, and Kristin played and Shannon would sing. They clung so fiercely to the little pleasures of life!

There hadn't been much pleasure in years. Shannon McCahy had grown up in the shadow of war. Long before the shots fired at Fort Sumter signaled the start of the Civil War in April 1861, Missouri and Kansas had begun their battling. Jayhawkers had swooped in from Kansas to harass and murder slave owners and Southern sympathizers, and in retaliation, the South had thrown back the bushwhackers, undisciplined troops who had plundered and killed in Kansas. Shannon McCahy had been only a child when John Brown had first come to Missouri, but she remembered him clearly. He had been a religious man, but also a fanatic, ready to murder for his religion. She had still been a child when he had been hanged for his infamous raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

So she really couldn't remember a time of real peace.

But at least the thunder now no longer tore at the earth. Rifles and pistols no longer flared, nor did swords clash in fury. The passion of the fight was over. It had died in glorious agony and anguish, and now every mother, sister, lover and wife across the nation waited…

But Shannon McCahy hadn't come outside to await a lover, for she had the questionable luxury of knowing that her fiance lay dead. She even knew where he was buried.

She had watched the earth fall, clump by clump, upon his coffin, and each soft thud had taken a bit more of her heart.

The war had robbed her blind. Her father had been brutally murdered in front of her by bushwhackers, a splinter group of Quantrill's infamous Raiders. And in the summer of 1862 Zeke Moreau and his bushwhackers had returned to the McCahy ranch to take her sister, Kristin. But that had also been the day that Cole Slater had walked into their lives, his guns blazing. He had saved them from being murdered and eventually married Kristin. After that his name kept them safe from the bushwhackers, but the war had still gone on. And ironically, she and Kristin had then been arrested by the Yankees for giving aid and succor to Cole, just because once upon a time Cole had briefly ridden with Quantrill.

But Shannon had fallen in love with the Yankee officer who had pulled her from the wreckage of their prison when the faulty old building had literally fallen to pieces. For a brief time, she had believed in happiness.

Until Robert Ellsworth had been slain by the bushwhackers.

In the end, Zeke Moreau and his bushwhackers had come back to the ranch one last time. Cole had ridden in with his brothers and their Confederate cavalry company, and Shannon's brother, Matthew, had brought his Union compatriots. For one sweet moment, there had been no North, and no South, just a fierce and valiant stand against injustice.

But the war was over now.

No…never. Never in her heart, she thought. Then she stiffened, suddenly alert and wary.

There was a movement out by the stables. She blinked and stared again, and felt a quickening in her stomach, a streak of cold along her spine.

Now she was sure.

Someone was out there.

Someone who shouldn't have been out there.

Someone furtive, stealthy, sneaking around the stables.

"Cole? Kristin?" she whispered. She cleared her throat and called their names again a little louder.

Where were her brother-in-law and sister? They should have been in the house, but no one was answering her. She bit into her lower lip, wondering what she should do. There was a pair of Colt six-shooters over the cabinet just inside the hallway; Cole had set them up the very night they heard the war was over.

After that last fight, Malachi and Jamie Slater had ridden back to the war, not knowing that it was already over. Matthew McCahy had known it was over before he left, for he had stayed until his injury had healed, but then he had left also, to return to his Union Army unit. The war might be over, but he knew that peace was yet to be assured. The aftermath of the war would follow them.

And Cole Slater knew that he would eventually have to flee Missouri. He had ridden with Quantrill, although only briefly, and certain Yanks with power might consider him ripe for hanging. But Cole intended to wait for Matthew to return home before leaving the ranch. It wouldn't be safe to leave Kristin and Shannon alone. He had friends who would warn him if danger threatened.

Meanwhile, Cole had hung the Colts and had given Shannon some stern advice. "Most of the men coming home will be good ones," he had told her, hammering nails into the wall. "Yep, lots of good men, both blue and gray. Those who have fought with heart and soul for their ideals. And all that those men want to do now is come home. They want to pick up their plows again, open their shops again, start up their businesses once more. They want to hold their wives, and kiss their children, and lick their wounds and try to find a future. They'll come through here. They'll want water, and they'll want meals. And we'll help them when we can, both Union and Confederate."

"So what are the guns for?" Shannon asked, not even wanting to think of helping Confederates, men like the bushwhackers who had killed Robert.

"Because there are men whom the war has maimed, Shannon. Not in body but in mind. Dangerous men. Deserters and vultures. And I can assure you that as many of that type fought for the Union as for the Confederacy. Mind your step, Shannon. You know how to use these guns. Use them well. If anyone threatens you at all, be ready to defend yourself."

"Yes. I will. I can shoot."

"The bad guys, Shannon. Not just some poor farmer in a gray uniform."

"Cole, I have fed and cared for the Rebels passing this way."

"Yes, you have. But not with a great deal of pleasure."

"You make me sound cruel and unreasonable—"

She saw a strange light of pity in his eyes as he answered. "I don't think that, Shannon. The war has done things to all of us."

But he shook his head as he walked away, and she could tell that he really did think she was heartless. He knew that she could never forgive what had happened, even now that the South had been broken. She would never, never forget Robert Ellsworth, his gentle love, his simple honor. Nor could she ever forget his death. She had seen him buried. He had never been laid out in a proper wake, for there had not been enough of him left for the undertaker to prepare. The brutality had made her hard, and very cold.

Cole was wrong, though, if he thought she could no longer feel. She could still feel way too much, it seemed at times. But it was so much easier to be cold, and it was easier to hate. Cole was wrong if he thought she would kill just any Rebel soldier, but she could very easily gun down the men who had so callously gone out and brutally slaughtered Robert and his men. She thought she could have faced it if Robert had died in battle, but what the bushwhackers had done to him had been worse than murder.