Your father will know.

And if something happens, if there’s violence, you could be seen as an accomplice.

I don’t care.

Yes, you do.

You just think you don’t because you’ve convinced yourself that Outlaw is something he’s not.

Mary Beth’s voice turned pleading.

He’s not some romantic hero from your books, Lydia.

He’s a killer, and the sooner he’s gone from this town, the better off we’ll all be.

Get out, Lydia said quietly.

What? Get out of my store.

She moved to the door, holding it open.

And don’t come back until you’re ready to apologize for calling me a fool.

Mary Beth’s face crumpled.

I’m trying to protect you.

I don’t need protecting.

I need friends who trust my judgment and support my choices even when they don’t understand them.

Lydia’s voice wavered, but held firm.

Now leave, please.

Her friend left without another word, and Lydia locked the door behind her with shaking hands.

Through the window, she could see the sun setting behind the mountains, painting the sky and shades of fire and blood.

Bounty hunters here now, looking for Caleb.

She should leave it alone.

Should let events unfold as they would.

Caleb Ror was a grown man who’d survived 3 years on the run.

He didn’t need her interference, but the thought of him walking into an ambush, of him dying in some dirty street because she’d stayed silent out of fear or propriety, that was unbearable.

Lydia pulled her shawl from its peg and slipped out the back door.

The boarding house was only three blocks away, but she took a ciruitous route, cutting through alleys and staying in the shadows.

The evening air was cool, carrying the smell of wood smoke and cooking meat.

Through windows she could see families gathered for supper, warm and safe and ordinary.

She’d never felt less ordinary in her life.

Mrs.

Patterson answered her knock with a suspicious frown.

Miss Hartwell, it’s past visiting hours.

I need to speak with one of your guests.

Mr.

Ror, it’s urgent.

The older woman’s expression hardened.

That man has brought nothing but trouble to my establishment.

I have half a mind to Please.

Lydia pulled out a $5 bill, nearly a week’s wages, from the store.

For your trouble and your discretion, Mrs.

Patterson snatched the money and stepped aside.

Room seven, upstairs, end of the hall.

But you didn’t hear it from me.

Lydia climbed the narrow stairs, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.

What was she doing? This was madness.

If anyone saw her, if anyone found out, she’d gone to a man’s room unshaperoned.

She knocked before she could talk herself out of it.

The door opened immediately and Caleb stood there in his shirt sleeves, his gun already in his hand.

When he saw her, shock replaced weariness.

Lydia, what the hell? He he grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, shutting the door quickly.

Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? If anyone sees you here, bounty hunters, she interrupted breathlessly.

Two of them, the Morrison brothers, they’re at the saloon asking about you.

Caleb’s jaw tightened.

I know.

You know.

I’ve known since they rode into town this afternoon.

I was planning to leave tonight.

He holstered his gun and began gathering his few possessions.

A bed roll, saddle bags, the books she’d loaned him.

Which is why you shouldn’t have come.

It’s not safe for you or for me? Both.

He didn’t look at her.

His movements quick and efficient.

The Morrisons don’t play fair.

They’re known for burning down buildings to flush out their targets, for taking hostages.

If they think you matter to me, do I? The question escaped before she could stop it.

Caleb went still, his hands frozen on the buckle of his saddle bag.

For a long moment, the only sound was their breathing and the distant noise from the saloon below.

“Yes,” he said, finally, turning to face her.

“God help me.

” Yes.

Which is why you need to go home and forget you ever knew me.

I can’t do that.

Then you’re braver than I am.

He crossed to her in three strides, taking her shoulders in his hands.

Listen to me.

Once I’m gone, the Morrisons will leave, too.

They have no interest in this town or anyone in it.

You’ll be safe.

But you won’t be.

I stopped being safe 3 years ago.

His voice was gentle but firm.

This is my life now, Lydia.

Running, hiding, always looking over my shoulder.

And I won’t drag you into it.

What if I want to be dragged? The words hung between them, too big and too honest.

Caleb’s eyes searched her face, and she saw the war happening behind them.

Desire versus duty, hope versus reality.

His hands tightened on her shoulders, and for one breathless moment, she thought he might kiss her.

Instead, he stepped back, releasing her.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said horarssely.

“You think you do, but you don’t.

Life on the run isn’t romantic.

It’s cold camps and hunger and never sleeping deeply because you don’t know who might find you.

It’s watching every stranger, trusting no one, being ready to fight or flee at a moment’s notice.

It’s lonely, she finished.

It’s lonely, Caleb.

And maybe it doesn’t have to be.

Yes, it does.

His voice broke slightly.

Because everyone I’ve ever cared about ends up hurt or worse.

my sister, the few friends I had before this started, even the law man who tried to help me.

They found him in an alley in Kansas City with three bullets in him because he’d been seen talking to me.

He looked away.

I’m poisoned, Lydia.

Everything I touch dies.

That’s not true.

It is.

He grabbed his saddle bags and slung them over his shoulder.

And someday, when you’re married to some nice shopkeeper or rancher, and you have children and a safe, normal life, you’ll be grateful I had the strength to walk away tonight.

Lydia felt tears burning her eyes, but she blinked them back.

Is that really what you think I want? Safe and normal? It’s what you deserve.

Stop telling me what I deserve.

The words came out sharper than she’d intended, anger cutting through her grief.

You don’t get to make that choice for me, Caleb Ror.

You don’t get to decide that I’m too fragile or too naive or too good for your life.

That’s my decision to make.

Then make the smart one.

He moved toward the door, his face hard.

Go home.

Forget about me.

Live your life.

I can’t forget about you.

The words stopped him with his hand on the door knob.

His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, and when he turned back, his expression was carefully blank.

You’ll have to try.

Then he was gone, leaving Lydia alone in the small room with her tears and her rage and the terrible aching certainty that she’d just lost something precious before she’d ever really had the chance to hold it.

She sank onto the edge of the bed, pressing her palms against her eyes.

This was foolish.

Mary Beth was right.

She was being foolish.

She’d known this man for barely a week.

She had no business feeling this destroyed by his leaving.

But her heart didn’t care about business or sense or the proper timeline for developing feelings.

Her heart only knew that for the first time since her mother died, she’d felt truly seen by another person.

For the first time, she’d felt brave instead of careful, alive instead of just existing.

And now that feeling was walking out of town on a black geling, heading toward a future that had no room for her.

Lydia straightened, wiping her eyes.

She couldn’t stay here.

Someone would see her, would talk, and her father would.

A crash from downstairs shattered her thoughts, then shouting, the kind that preceded violence.

She rushed to the window and looked down into the street.

The Morrison brothers were there.

She recognized them from Mary Beth’s description.

Two large men with hard faces and harder eyes, both armed with rifles.

They were backing toward their horses and behind them.

Sheriff Elias Boon lay in the street, blood spreading across his shirt.

“Work was here.

” One of the brothers was yelling.

Patterson saw him leave 10 minutes ago, heading east.

The other one swung onto his horse.

“Then we ride east.

” “Move!” They spurred their horses and galloped out of town, leaving chaos in their wake.

People poured out of building surrounding the fallen sheriff.

Someone was screaming for the doctor.

Lydia didn’t think.

She ran down the stairs, pushed through Mrs.

Patterson’s protests, and sprinted toward the crowd.

“Doctor Winters was already there, kneeling beside Sheriff Boone, his hands pressing a wadded cloth against the wound.

” “What happened?” Lydia demanded, pushing through to the front.

“Those bastard bounty hunters,” someone said.

Sheriff tried to stop them from storming the boarding house.

“They shot him.

” “Is he alive?” Dr.

Winter said grimly.

But he needs surgery and I need help.

Miss Hartwell, you’ve assisted me before.

Can you? Yes.

She was already pulling off her shawl, already moving to help lift the sheriff onto the makeshift stretcher someone had brought.

The next two hours passed in a blur of blood and whispered prayers and the steady focus that came from having a task that mattered more than her own pain.

She held instruments, cleaned wounds, kept pressure where Dr.

Winters told her to and tried not to think about Caleb riding east with two killers on his trail.

When it was over and Sheriff Boon was sleeping fitfully in the doctor’s back room, his wife sitting vigil beside him, Lydia walked home through streets gone quiet and dark.

Her dress was ruined, her hands stained, her mind numb with exhaustion and fear.

Her father was waiting on the porch, his face pale in the lamplight.

I heard what happened, he said quietly.

Mrs.

Patterson said you were there, that you helped with the sheriff.

He’ll live, Lydia said, unable to meet his eyes.

Dr.

Winters says he’ll live.

That’s good.

Thomas Hartwell was silent for a moment.

He also said you were at the boarding house before it happened, that you went to warn Ror about the bounty hunters.

Lydia looked up sharply, but her father’s face held no anger, only weariness and something that might have been resignation.

I did, she admitted.

I couldn’t let him walk into an ambush without warning.

Even though I forbade it, even though it meant defying me.

Even though.

Her father nodded slowly.

You’re so much like your mother.

She never could stand by and watch injustice happen either.

It’s what made me fall in love with her.

Beside, it’s also what worried me every single day.

Because courage like that, love like that, it’s dangerous, Lydia.

It burns bright, but it can burn you to ashes.

I know, Papa.

Do you? He stepped closer, his eyes searching her face.

Because from where I’m standing, you’re already halfway to falling for that outlaw, and I don’t know how to protect you from that.

Lydia felt fresh tears threaten.

You can’t protect me from it.

I don’t want you to.

Even if it destroys you.

Even then, she took his hands.

Mama used to say that the heart knows things.

the head can never understand.

I didn’t believe her.

I thought that was just romantic nonsense.

But Papa, when I’m with Caleb, when we talk, it’s like something in me recognizes something in him.

Like we’re speaking the same language everyone else has forgotten.

Thomas Hartwell’s eyes grew bright with unshed tears.

That’s how I felt about your mother.

The first time I met her, I knew I knew she was going to change my life.

And did you regret it even when she got sick? Even when you watched her fade? Not for one second.

His voice was fierce.

Not for one single second, Lydia.

And when she died, I thought the answer was to never love like that again.

To keep everything small and safe so it couldn’t hurt me.

But all I did was make my life smaller.

All I did was disappoint the woman who’d chosen me because I was brave enough to build a life in the wilderness.

He pulled her into a hug and Lydia clung to him, breathing in the familiar smell of pipe tobacco and ink.

If this is what you want, he said quietly.

If this is what your heart is telling you, then I won’t stand in your way anymore.

But please, please be careful because I couldn’t bear to lose you two.

I will, she promised, knowing even as she said it that careful wasn’t really possible anymore.

They stood there on the porch as the night deepened around them, father and daughter, both loving and being loved by people who’d chosen difficult paths.

Both learning that sometimes wisdom looked a lot like foolishness to everyone watching from the outside.

The gunfire came 3 days later.

Lydia was sweeping the store’s porch when she heard it.

A distant crack, crack that echoed off the mountains.

Her heart seized.

Everyone in town knew what that meant.

The bounty hunters had found their target.

She dropped the broom and ran toward the sound, her skirts hiked up around her knees, propriety forgotten.

Other people were emerging from buildings, drawn by the noise.

But Lydia was faster.

She’d always been fast.

Her mother used to say she ran like someone chasing the wind.

The shooting was coming from behind the saloon near the old livery stable that hadn’t been used in years.

Lydia skidded around the corner and froze.

Caleb was backed against the stable wall, his gun in his hand, facing off against both Morrison brothers.

One of them was bleeding from his shoulder, his rifle on the ground.

The other had his pistol trained on Caleb’s chest.

“Drop it, Ror,” the uninjured one was saying.

“You’re worth the same dead or alive, and I’m getting tired of your games.

” “Then shoot me and be done with it,” Caleb said calmly.

“But I’m not dropping my gun.

” Your choice.

Morrison’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Lydia didn’t think.

She grabbed an old shovel, leaning against the building, and swung it as hard as she could at a stack of metal feed pans beside the saloon’s back door.

The crash was enormous, echoing like thunder, and both Morrison brothers whirled toward the sound.

It gave Caleb the opening he needed.

He moved like lightning, disarming one brother with a sharp kick and leveling his gun at the other.

Now drop yours,” he said quietly.

Morrison hesitated, then let his pistol fall.

“This ain’t over, Ror.

” “Yes, it is.

” Sheriff Boon’s voice came from behind Lydia.

She turned to see him leaning heavily on a crutch, his wife supporting his other side, but his gun hand was steady.

“You boys are under arrest.

” “For what?” Morrison spat.

“He’s wanted.

We’re bounty hunters.

We’re within our rights.

You shot a law man, Boon said flatly.

And you just tried to gun down a man in cold blood without giving him a chance to surrender.

That’s attempted murder, and I’m charging you with it.

Now get your brother and march yourselves to my jail or I’ll shoot you where you stand.

” The Morrison brothers looked at each other, then at Caleb, then back at the sheriff.

Finally, the uninjured one helped his bleeding brother to his feet, and they walked slowly toward the main street, Sheriff Boon and his wife following behind.

that left Lydia and Caleb alone in the dusty space behind the buildings.

He holstered his gun slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

“You saved my life.

” “You would have found a way,” she said, her voice shaking now that the adrenaline was fading.

“No,” he crossed to her in three long strides.

“I wouldn’t have.

They had me dead to rights.

If you hadn’t made that noise,” he broke off, his hands coming up to frame her face.

What were you thinking? They could have shot you.

I was thinking that I couldn’t watch you die.

Lydia, her name was half prayer, half curse.

You’re going to be the death of me or the saving of me.

I’m not sure which yet.

Then he kissed her.

It was nothing like the kisses in the novels she’d read.

Those careful chase pressings of lips that seemed more symbolic than real.

This was heat and hunger and three years of loneliness pouring out of him into her.

His hands slid from her face into her hair, scattering pins, and she grabbed his shirt to keep from falling.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Caleb rested his forehead against hers.

“I tried to leave you,” he whispered.

“I rode for 2 hours, got halfway to Boulder, and couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t keep going knowing I’d never see you again.

So, I came back to tell you, to ask you.

” “Ask me what?” He pulled back enough to meet her eyes.

To wait for me.

I’m going to Denver.

Sheriff Boone says the banker Benton, he’s been arrested.

They found evidence of fraud, bribery, all kinds of corruption.

The case against him is solid, and if I testify, they might consider reducing my charges or even pardoning me.

His voice was urgent.

It could take months, maybe longer.

But if there’s a chance, if there’s even the smallest possibility that I could come back to you as a free man instead of a wanted one, I’ll wait, Lydia said immediately.

I’ll wait as long as it takes.

You don’t know what you’re promising.

Yes, I do.

She grabbed his face, making him look at her.

I know exactly what I’m promising.

I’m promising to believe in you when no one else does.

I’m promising to hold on to hope even when it seems impossible.

I’m promising to be here when you come back.

And if I don’t come back, then I’ll come find you.

She smiled through her tears.

You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Caleb Ror.

He laughed, a real laugh, bright and unguarded, and kissed her again, gentler this time, but no less profound.

“I don’t deserve you,” he murmured against her lips.

“Probably not,” she agreed.

“But you’re stuck with me anyway,” “Lydia,” her father’s voice carried across the yard.

“Are you?” He rounded the corner and stopped short, taking in the scene.

Caleb immediately stepped back, putting proper distance between them, but Thomas Hartwell just shook his head slowly.

I see.

Well, that explains a few things.

Papa, I can explain.

No need.

He walked closer, his eyes on Caleb.

I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about this.

I’m not going to pretend I understand it.

But my daughter has never been wrong about people.

And if she sees something in you worth believing in, he extended his hand.

Then I’m willing to try doing the same.

Caleb stared at the offered hand like it was something holy.

Then he took it, his grip firm.

I’ll be worthy of her, he said quietly.

I swear it.

See that you are.

Thomas released his hand and turned to Lydia.

Now come along.

We have a store to run and apparently a reputation to rebuild.

And you? He pointed at Caleb.

You should probably get to Denver before those Morrison brothers decide jail won’t hold them.

Caleb nodded.

I’ll leave at first light.

Then we’ll say our goodbyes now, Thomas said gruffly in front of witnesses properly.

But there was a glint of humor in his eyes as he added though I suspect that horse already left the barn.

He walked away, giving them privacy, and Lydia turned back to Caleb.

Thank you for coming back, she whispered.

Thank you for being worth coming back to.

He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

I’ll write as soon as I know something.

All right, I’ll be waiting.

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