The Ranger. Carol Finch
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of boulders that reminded her of prehistoric monsters waiting to gobble her alive.
She cried out when her left foot slipped and she banged her hip against the rocks. Panting for breath, she dug in her nails as she slid downward, hoping to find a handhold before the pull of gravity dragged her to her death.
“Hawk!” she howled, even though she knew there was nothing he could do to help her.
Despite her best attempts, she slid downward, bumping over the angular stones and eroded pebbles that left her feet dangling over the ten-foot drop—and then the rest of her body went over the ledge before she could anchor herself.
She crash-landed on another jagged boulder, twisting her ankle—and knocking the air clean out of her.
The wind wailed like the eternal damned, drowning out her hoarse cry for help. Her panicky gaze leaped to Hawk. She was amazed by his ability to bound from one boulder to the next like a graceful cougar, in his attempt to reach her. There was just enough daylight left for her to see the grim expression on his face. She heard his pithy curses above her as she clutched her throbbing ankle and struggled to draw breath.
Shiloh couldn’t decide if the pain in her head, the fiery sensations in her injured arm or the throb in her aching ankle hurt the worst. It was too close to call.
“Bernie? Are you all right?” Hawk called down to her when the bandits ceased fire to reload.
“My name is Shiloh,” she confided with a seesaw breath.
The way she had it figured, she was going to be stuck in this crevice of this rocky ravine until buzzards came along to pick her clean. There was no way she could climb back to the ledge and no way for Hawk to reach her without endangering his own life. Plus, the bandits were hot on their trail and they would execute her when they found her.
“You need to know the right name to engrave on my headstone,” she added defeatedly, then shooed him on his way. “Might as well go on without me.”
Grimacing she shifted onto the hip she hadn’t bruised during her fall, then tried to stretch her swollen ankle out in front of her. She glanced up to see Hawk’s head appear from the shelf of rock above her.
“You aren’t dead yet, Shiloh,” he growled down at her. “You have too much spirit and resilience to adopt that defeated attitude.”
She tried to bolster her flagging spirits, she really did. But when she glanced down, hopelessness engulfed her like a suffocating fog.
“Just sit tight.”
She smirked. “I have a choice?” She gestured to the narrow cavity that held her like stone jaws, then winced when more gunfire erupted.
“I’m going after the horses and my lariat,” he told her. “I’ll be back for you.”
Her last ray of hope died when darkness swallowed her up and the sky opened. The wind kicked up and the echoing sounds, reminiscent of howling phantom voices, swirled around her. She slumped against the unyielding boulder as rain pounded down.
She knew Hawk wouldn’t come back for her because she was slowing him down. He could be up and over Ghost Ridge, hiding in the valley beyond, with his stolen loot, before the desperadoes could catch up with him.
Shiloh sighed heavily, battling the numerous aches and pains that pummeled her weary body. She resigned herself to the fact that she was stuck here, listening to the phantom voices wailing in the wind, waiting for the outlaws to arrive to put her out of her misery.
Chapter Four
H awk scurried along the rain-slick path to retrieve his lariat and the horses. He cursed himself, harshly and repeatedly, for not taking better care of Shiloh. And he’d be damned, he was not engraving her name on a headstone, no matter how grim her future looked right now.
Hawk clutched the reins of his sure-footed mustang then tied a lead rope to Shiloh’s mount. Her steed was reluctant, but the mustang forced it to follow—or be dragged.
Hawk patted the mustang’s muscular neck. “Sorry, Dorado. We’ve been to hell and back together many times. This is just another tough day on a tough job.”
The coal-black gelding nickered, as if in agreement, and methodically towed the skittish mare along behind him.
By the time Hawk reached the place where Shiloh had slipped and fallen, lightning was flickering from one low-hanging cloud to another. Hawk was able to make out the silhouettes of DeVol and Stiles as they picked their way around the boulders. Although they hadn’t located the path, they were making headway and they posed a threat.
Feeling a sense of urgency Hawk turned his attention back to Shiloh who was wedged in the ravine below. Your fault, the voice of conscience scolded him as he secured the lariat to the saddle horn. This morning he had stumbled onto Shiloh, unintentionally forcing her to suffer through all sorts of perilous situations, the worst of which was a nasty fall down the rugged embankment. But she was wrong if she thought he was going to turn his back on her to save his own hide.
Thunder grumbled overhead, causing the mare to bolt sideways then slam into the stone wall. “Easy, girl,” he soothed, then anchored the lead rope to a scrub bush.
Hawk clamped his hands around the dangling lariat then eased over the rough ledge. He cast a wary glance at the two outlaws that were trying to overtake him then worked his way down to the next shelf of rock. When lightning flickered on Shiloh’s slumped form, he scrabbled north toward the crevice. His feet shot out from under him when he hit the slick mud at the base of a boulder. He grimaced when his shoulder slammed into the slab of stone.
Hawk steadied himself with the rope and gathered his feet beneath him. He inched along the narrow ledge until he was an arm’s length from Shiloh. He nudged her shoulder, but she didn’t respond.
Hawk sighed heavily. “Why can’t just one thing be easy?”
His hard, unadorned life in the Apache camp in Sundance Canyon was a constant exercise in survival training. His experiences with the Rangers consisted of one dangerous foray following closely on the heels of another.
Maybe this is all there is to life, he mused as he reached out to hook his arm around Shiloh’s limp body. With a heave-ho he scooped her from the V-shaped wedge between boulders. Maybe it was simply a man’s lot in life to face one challenge after another and try to bury the unpleasant memories he encountered along the way.
His pessimistic thoughts scattered like buckshot the moment he levered Shiloh over his shoulder and felt her luscious feminine curves against his masculine contours. For some reason her weight seemed more of a comfort than a burden to him. Damn if he could figure out why.
When she moaned groggily and clung to him, as if he were a pillow she was trying to snuggle up against, his trying day—hell, who was he kidding?—his trying life—didn’t seem so bad. Shiloh was warm and soft and cuddly…and he better not get sidetracked with these ridiculous whimsical thoughts. He still had a rugged hillside to scale and this was just a part of his job—rescuing folks from disastrous situations. Just because Shiloh’s sassy disposition and feminine allure sparked an ill-fated fascination inside him didn’t change a thing. He’d be every kind of fool if he let himself forget that.
Hawk clamped his arm across the back of Shiloh’s thighs then shifted her on his shoulder so she wouldn’t fall. Grabbing the rope anchored to the mustang that waited above him, he walked south along the narrow ledge, using the same route going up the hillside that he’d taken coming down.
He was one third of the way up the steep embankment when Shiloh regained consciousness. When she reared up, trying to get her bearings, Hawk clamped his arm tighter around her hips.
“It’s just me,” he reassured her hurriedly. “It will be a lot easier for me to negotiate this slope if you’ll stay where you are and hang on to me.”
“You came back for me.” Her voice held a hint of wonder. “I expected you to be long gone by