The Touch of Fire Read online

  Trahern moved slightly, all of his instincts alert. Like a wolf he sensed that his prey was near. He would fire as soon as Rafe appeared. And Rafe would die in front of her, the light in those fierce eyes fading away to blankness.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Rafe move, attacking like a panther in a smooth, silent explosion of power and speed. She began screaming, but her throat locked and no sound came out. Trahern’s hand came up and so did hers. Her hand never left her pocket. Somehow she fired through the material of her skirt.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Explosions of gunfire rocked the tiny room, deafening her. Smoke filled the air and the stench of cordite burned her nostrils. She stood frozen, the pistol still clutched in her hand, the barrel protruding from the burnt, tattered remains of her pocket. Rafe was there somehow, she didn’t know how. She couldn’t remember seeing him come through the door. Someone was screaming.

  Rafe was yelling something, but she didn’t know what. She could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. He slapped her leg and hip and she began sobbing, trying to push him away. It took her a moment to realize that her skirt was on fire.

  Then, with a jolt, splintered reality settled into place again.

  Rafe crossed the room to kick the pistol away from Trahern’s outstretched hand, and the screaming ebbed to moans. On trembling legs Annie managed to move a few steps and then stood frozen again, staring at the man lying crumpled on the floor.

  Blood soaked his lower abdomen, turning his shirt and pants black in the shadowed depths of the room. It pooled around and under him, soaking through the cracks in the floor. His eyes were open and his face was absolutely colorless.

  “Why didn’t you shoot me?” Rafe asked harshly, going down on one knee beside the bounty hunter. He knew he’d given Trahern the perfect opportunity, but when he had seen Annie’s skirt flaming nothing else had seemed to matter except getting to her before the fire licked upwards. He had literally turned his back on the bounty hunter—and Trahern had held his fire.

  “No point in it,” Trahern rasped. He cleared his throat. “I’m not going to be able to collect the money. Hell with it.” He moaned again and then said, “Damn. I never thought to see if she had a gun.”

  Horror licked through Annie. She had shot a man. She had heard other shots, but somehow she knew that Trahern had been falling even before Rafe had come through the door. She hadn’t aimed, she didn’t even know how she had managed to pull back the hammer. But the bullet had found its mark, and Trahern lay bleeding to death on the floor.

  Suddenly she could move, and she whirled to grab her bag, dragging it across the floor to the bounty hunter. “I’ve got to get that bleeding stopped,” she said frantically, going down on her knees beside Rafe. She flinched from the horrible wound. Trahern was gut shot, and her medical training told her that he was a dead man even though her instincts were screaming at her to do something to help him.

  She reached out and Rafe’s hands shot forward, catching hers and holding them. His gray eyes had a stark look in them. “No,” he said. “You can’t do anything for him, honey. Don’t break your heart trying.” He didn’t think even Annie’s healing touch could work against a wound of such magnitude, but she would exhaust herself in the effort.

  She jerked futilely at her hands, trying to free them. Tears welled in her eyes. “I can stop the bleeding. I know I can stop the bleeding.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d rather bleed to death than have the poison set up in my gut and take a couple of hard days to die,” Trahern said drowsily. “At least it don’t hurt so much now.”

  She sucked in her breath. Her chest hurt with the effort. She tried to think clinically. The wound was bleeding far more than most abdominal wounds. From the location of it, and from the amount of blood, the bullet must have severed or at least nicked the huge vein that ran along the spine. Rafe was right; there was no way she could save him. Trahern would be dead in another minute or so.

  “Just pure luck,” Trahern muttered. “I lost your trail in Silver Mesa so I decided to rest up while my leg healed. I headed out yesterday, and saw your smoke this morning. Pure damn luck, and all of it bad.” He closed his eyes and seemed to be resting for a moment. It took a great deal of effort for him to open them again.

  “It’s known you’re in the area,” he said. “Other bounty hunters .. . got a U.S. marshal on your trail, too. Name of Atwater. Damn bulldog. You’re the best I’ve ever tracked, McCay, but Atwater don’t give up.”

  Rafe had heard of the lawman. Noah Atwater, even more than Trahern, didn’t know the meaning of the word quit. He had to get out of this area, and fast. He looked at Annie and something punched him in the chest, hard.

  Trahern coughed. He looked confused. “Got any whiskey? I could use a drink.”

  “No, no whiskey,” Rafe replied.

  “I have some laudanum,” Annie said, and tried again to free her hands. Rafe still refused to let her go. He pulled her closer to him. “Rafe, let me go. I know there isn’t much I can do, but the laudanum will help ease the pain—”

  “He doesn’t need it, honey,” Rafe said gently, and tucked her head against his shoulder.

  Annie pushed at him, then she saw Trahern’s face. It was utterly still. Rafe reached out and closed the bounty hunter’s eyelids.

  She sat in frozen shock. Her seat was a rock outside the cabin where Rafe had led her and gently pushed her down. She clutched a blanket around her, because she couldn’t seem to get warm.

  She had killed a man. She went over and over it in her mind, and each time she accepted that she hadn’t had a choice, that she had had to shoot. There hadn’t been time to think, only to act. It had been pure chance that the bullet had hit its target, but she couldn’t excuse herself on those grounds, for even if she had known the shot would kill Trahern she would still have fired. In a choice between Rafe’s life or Trahern’s, there was no choice at all. To save Rafe, she would do whatever had to be done. And none of that changed the fact that she had violated her oath, the physician’s creed, and her own values by taking a life rather than doing everything in her power to save it. The betrayal of herself was numbing. The knowledge that she would do it again, if faced with the same circumstances, was shattering.

  Rafe was swiftly, efficiently getting their gear together. The ground was still too frozen for him to bury Trahern, so the body still lay in the cabin. Annie knew she couldn’t go back in there.

  Rafe was considering his next move. He had Trahern’s weapons and supplies; his own horse was well rested and well fed. He wouldn’t need to stock up on grub for a while. He had to get Annie back to Silver Mesa, then he would cut south through the Arizona desert and head for Mexico. That wouldn’t stop the bounty hunters, but it would get Atwater off his trail.

  Annie—no, he couldn’t let himself think about Annie. He’d known from the beginning that they wouldn’t have much time together. He’d return her to her home and her work, and let her get on with her life.

  But he was worried about her. She hadn’t said a word since Trahern had died. Her face was white and still, her eyes huge and black with shock. He remembered the first time he’d killed a man, back during the war, he’d retched until his throat was raw and his stomach muscles sore. Annie hadn’t vomited. He’d have felt better if she had.

  He got the horses saddled and went over to her, crouching down and taking her cold hands in his, rubbing them to give her some of his warmth. “We have to go, honey. We can make it out of here by sundown, and you can sleep in your own bed tonight.”

  Annie looked at him as if he were crazy. “I can’t go back to Silver Mesa,” she said. Those were the first words she’d said in an hour.

  “Of course you can. You have to. You’ll feel better once you’re home.”

  “I killed a man. I’ll be arrested.” She spoke very precisely.

  “No, honey, listen.” He’d already thought about that. It was probably well kno