"Parker?"

"No, ma'am," came a deep, lazy drawl.

If he had said more in that moment, Jocelyn wouldn't have begun glancing about for her reticule, where she kept the little derringer she had purchased in New Orleans. Not that she couldn't have been shot in the time it took her to locate it, hidden as it was under the hats and jackets that had been removed ear-lier that morning.

When he did speak again, it was with some impatience. "Do you want out of there or not?"

"I'm not so sure," Jocelyn said honestly, looking up again, and wishing she could see more than a black silhouette framed in the opening.

How did you ask a man if he was there to kill you? But would he have offered to get them out if he meant to shoot them? He could just do it. Then again, he might be under orders from John Longnose to bring them to him. It was too much to hope that he was just a stranger passing by.

"It might help, sir," Vanessa intervened in the prolonged silence, "if you would tell us who you are — and what you're doing here."

"I saw your team of horses racing toward the river and figured they'd left a stagecoach behind, though I've never seen horses like that hitched to a stage before."

"And you just thought to investigate? You aren't associated with — the Englishman?"


"I'm not associated, as you put it, with anyone, lady. Christ, what is this with all the questions? Either you want out of there or you don't. Now, I can un-derstand if you feel you'd be dirtying your hand put-ting it to mine for a lift up" — the impatience turned distinctly bitter here—"but I don't see much alternative just now — unless you want to wait for the next fellow who comes passing by."

"Not at all," Jocelyn said with relief, certain now he meant them no harm. "A little dirt can be easily washed off," she added with a smile, having misun-derstood his meaning.

She surprised him good with that answer, enough that he didn't immediately grasp the hands she raised to him. And then it dawned on him that she couldn't really see him. She'd change her tune when she did, quicker than spit. He'd be lucky if he even got a thank-you for his help.

Jocelyn gave a little gasp, she was grasped and lifted so fast. She ended up sitting on the coach with her legs still dangling through the door opening. She laughed then at how easily that was accomplished, and glanced back inside to Vanessa, who hadn't moved yet.

"Are you coming, Vana? It was really quite easy."

"I'll stay here, if you don't mind, my dear. I'd rather wait until the coach can be righted — if it can be done gently, that is. Perhaps this headache will have lessened somewhat by then."

"Very well," Jocelyn agreed. "It shouldn't be that long before Sir Parker finds us." She looked around, but her rescuer stood directly behind her. She started to rise, turning and saying to him, "She won't need a lift up. She hit her head, you see, and isn't feeling. quite…"

The words simply trailed away, forgotten. Jocelyn hadn't been struck so with awe since her first sight of the pyramids in Egypt. But this was totally different, for more senses than sight were affected. Her whole system seemed to go wild for a moment, sending off sig-nals she wasn't quite familiar with — breathlessness, accelerated heartbeat, a rush of adrenaline, signs of fear when she wasn't in the least bit frightened.

He stepped back from her, she wasn't sure why, but it gave her a better look at him, since he was so tall. Too handsome by half, had been her first im-pression, followed now by strength, which she had felt firsthand, darkness, and strangeness, in that or-der. Hair as black as pitch, perfectly straight, and falling well past incredibly wide shoulders. Skin darkly bronze with lean, hawkish features, a nose straight and chiseled, deep-set eyes under low, slash-ing brows, lips well drawn, and a firm, square jaw.

A long, sinewy body finished the picture, encased in a strange animal-skin jacket with long fringes attached, and knee-high boots without heels, of the same soft tan skin and also with fringes. Jocelyn was getting used to seeing the gun worn on the hip after her sojourn through Mexico, so his was no surprise, and the widebrimmed hat that shaded his eyes so she couldn't determine their color, except that they weren't dark like the rest of him.

His trousers were dark blue and fairly tight around nicely shaped legs. Nothing unusual in that. But he wore no shirt. The jacket hung nearly closed, but still, there was no shirt beneath it, just the same smooth bronzed skin as on his face — smooth, hairless skin. He actually had not a single hair on the several inches of chest and stomach that she could see, definitely unusual as far as she knew, though of course, how much did she really know about Americans, and how much about a man's chest, for that matter?

Truthfully, she had never seen anything quite like him. His strangeness unnerved her, but not nearly as much as his swarthy handsomeness.


"Do you always go about — half dressed?"

"Is that all you have to say to me, ma'am?"

She could feel the heat seeping into her cheeks. "Oh, dear, please don't take offense. I can't imagine where that question… I'm not usually so imperti-nent." A loud "Ha!" came from inside the coach, and Jocelyn grinned. "I believe the countess dis-agrees with me, and rightly so. I suppose my outspo-kenness does border on rudeness more times than not."

"Ask a stupid question…" the man mumbled as he turned away and jumped to the ground.

Jocelyn frowned, watching him move toward his horse, a beautiful, big-boned animal the like of which she had never seen before, with black-and-white spot-ted markings on its rump and loins. She would love to look the horse over, to ride it even, but at the moment, her only concern was the man's intentions.

"You're not leaving, are you?"

He didn't bother to look back. "You mentioned someone would be along shortly. No point in my—"

"But you can't go!" she cried in alarm, not certain why it was alarm she felt, but it was. "You haven't let me thank you yet, and — and how am I supposed to get down from here if you don't assist me?"

"Shit," she heard, and felt her cheeks heating again. But he was coming back. "All right, jump."

She looked at his hands reaching up to her and didn't hesitate. He had already proved his strength. Not for a moment did she consider how likely he was to miss her if she just threw herself down at him. He didn't miss her. But she did slam into him. Only that wasn't so startling as being set on her feet and away from him almost in the same breath. And again he turned away.

"No, wait." She put out a hand, but he didn't stop to see it, so she lifted her skirts to follow him. "Are you really in such a hurry that you must rush off?"

She plowed into his back when he stopped this time, and heard him swear again before he whipped around to glare at her. "Look, lady, as it happens, I left my gear, and my shirt, back at the river, where I was fixing to wash up before heading into town. You can't just leave things lying around in this country and expect them to be there when you get back."

"I'll replace anything you might lose, but please don't leave us yet. Since my people haven't come along by now, they must have been trapped in the mountains behind us. We honestly need your—"

"You've left a trail anyone can follow, ma'am."

"Yes, but we were separated when some men set upon us, men who mean to do me harm. They are as likely to come along as my people."

"Your 'people'?"

"My entourage." When that failed to erase his frown, she added, "My guards and servants, those I travel with."


His eyes moved over her at that, taking in her velvet skirt and ruffled silk blouse, the kind of clothes he had only seen worn back East. And then he spared another look at the shining teal-blue coach that one glance inside had made him think he was doubting his eyes. Them fancy private railroad cars didn't come as luxurious as this.

When he'd seen it downed, he hadn't expected to find women inside, especially women like this, one a countess of some kind. Wasn't that royalty or something? Whatever it was, it wasn't from this country.

And this one with her flaming hair and, Christ, eyes brighter than new spring leaves. His first sight of her had brought back all the old bitterness. But it didn't stop the surge of sexual awareness he'd been hit with.

That scared the shit out of him, because he hadn't been attracted to her kind in years.

"Just who are you, lady?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself right off. I'm Jocelyn Fleming," she said, determining there wasn't much point in using a false name this time with Longnose so close behind them.

He stared at the hand she held out to him, just stared, until she was forced to lower it.

"Maybe I should have asked, what are you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You one of those rich miners' wives from Tomb-stone?"

"No, not at all. I've been widowed now for several years. And we've just come up from Mexico, though our travels originated in England."

"That mean you're English?"

"Yes." She smiled at the way he had of chopping up the mother tongue, though she could understand him perfectly, and rather liked the slow drawl to his words. "I assume you are an American?"

He knew the word, but he'd never heard anyone use it before. Folks usually associated themselves with the state or territory they were from, not the country. And now he recognized her accent too. Though he'd never heard a woman speak with those cultured tones before, he'd met several Englishmen touring the West. But her nationality explained why she hadn't minded touching him. She hadn't been in the West long enough to recognize what he was. So that wasn't why she had stared at him for so long up on that coach, as he'd assumed. Again his body tightened with a familiar hardness.