One

Wyoming Territory

December, 1879

Warren Reed had lived in the northeast most of his life and was no stranger to winter winds, snow, and ice. He had expected some degree of hardship when he decided to make the move from Philadelphia to the Wyoming Territory in the middle of December. But as he rode horseback with nothing to shield him from an increasingly biting wind except his brand new sheepskin coat, his new Western hat, and an old pair of leather gloves, he seriously doubted the sanity of such a decision.

It didn’t help that he was blindfolded, with his wrists bound, and being escorted into the mountains at gunpoint.

* * *

Taking on an abandoned medical practice in the small town of Chester Springs at the base of the Shoshone Mountain Range was not the type of thing Warren had ever expected to do in his career. But when the opportunity arose, he had accepted it without much debate or introspection. It had been one of the rare moments in his life when he acted impulsively.

He’d been in the small Western town for only two days, not long enough to meet any townsfolk beyond the elderly lady who owned the boardinghouse where he’d gotten a room and the shopkeeper at the mercantile. With winter heavy on the ground, the citizens of Chester Springs seemed inclined to stay indoors, leaving the narrow roads through town eerily quiet even in the middle of the day.

At least the mayor, with whom Warren had been corresponding, had left behind a key for the doctor’s office before leaving town for a few weeks.

Determined to settle in, Warren had immediately begun the work of setting the abandoned office to rights and taking stock of supplies. Unfortunately, most of what he needed had to be ordered and could take weeks to arrive. It was with some disappointment and not a little frustration that he closed up his office just after sunset on his second night in town. He had hoped to be able to jump right into this new life he had chosen.

His feelings of dissatisfaction slid into a wary curiosity as he turned around on the boardwalk to find two men, who had obviously been waiting for him in the street, outside his office.

One of them was mounted and held the reins of two other horses while cradling a rifle in his arms. The other stood silently to Warren’s left, just a few paces away. They looked much the same as all the other rough-and-ready men he’d seen out West. Both wore the clothes of cowboys, with wide-brimmed hats shadowing their faces. Their only distinguishing features, as far as Warren could tell in the gathering darkness, were that the one on horseback had a full beard, while the other had the black skin of African ancestors.

Something about them set him on edge.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?”

The man to his left stepped forward, lifting his hand to show a pistol pointed squarely at Warren’s chest.

Warren stiffened, but knew better than to overreact. He’d been mugged his fair share in the big cities out East. But for some reason, this didn’t feel like a robbery.

“No shouting or you get shot. No struggling or you get shot,” the bearded man on horseback said in an easy conversational tone. “Just come with us peaceful-like and you’ll make it home again. Got it?”

“Where are we going?” Warren asked, keeping his eyes on the pistol.

“Can’t say,” the man replied.

The one pointing the gun at him gave a nod to the leather bag in his hand. “Does that hold your medical supplies?”

“It does.”

The man gave another sharp jerk of his head, indicating he wanted Warren to mount one of the horses. Since there didn’t seem much choice, he complied. Once he was in the saddle, they quickly tied his wrists and blindfolded him.

It would seem they wanted him for his doctoring skills, but why they felt they had to lead him away at gunpoint was beyond him.

Still, doctoring was what he had come here to do—to tend to the people of this wild territory. He’d fallen in love with this land seven years ago, when he’d spent a summer with his uncle up in Montana. So he wasn’t going to resist or argue their methods—especially not with guns drawn and the promise that he’d be returned after his services were rendered.

They headed straight out of town at a swift, intentional pace. The longer they rode, the more Warren was able to gather about the situation he’d be facing once they reached their destination. It must be nestled someplace up in the mountains, judging by the incline they’d been traveling for the last couple of hours.

He was surprised his captors would talk so openly about their criminal behavior, but the bearded one seemed to have a penchant for idle chatter. Someone had been shot. And from the sound of it, the wound had been come by during unlawful activity. A stagecoach robbery was Warren’s deduction.

Well, wonderful.

His first patient was going to be an outlaw.

Wherever they were going, Warren just hoped they made it there before he froze to death. His hands were already numb, as were his legs and face. He was not dressed for this kind of exposure.

“Damn storm comin’.” This was offered by the bearded man, riding to Warren’s right.

“Yep,” replied his companion.

“We gotta push through the pass before snow starts fallin’.”

“Yep.”

That was the only warning Warren got before the three of them started loping at a pace that had him bending forward over the pommel of the saddle. They kept up that grueling speed at a steep climb for what felt like another hour, though it was probably less. Their horses couldn’t possibly last much longer at such a pace.

And then they started a slow descent.

Not long after, Warren figured they had entered a valley, as there seemed to be some shelter from the wind that had been whipping at them for most of the journey. No more than ten minutes later, the horses came to a slow stop.

Warren was dragged from his horse. He couldn’t do much to assist in dismounting with his hands tied, but he could at least have had some warning to get his feet ready to hit the ground. He heard a grunt of annoyance when he stumbled in the snow, followed by a derisive mumble about him being a city slicker.

“It would help if I could see where I was walking,” Warren said. “Or do you expect me to tend to your friend blindfolded?”

There was a pause before the bandana was removed from his eyes.

They stood outside a long wooden building like the sort of bunkhouse he’d seen on large cattle ranches in Montana. It was made of thick logs, and a long porch stretched across the front, with warm light spilling from the deep-set windows.

Warren turned to get a better look at his two captors. The one who’d remained mounted during his kidnapping was younger than he’d expected, maybe only in his early twenties. He had bright blue eyes, and the full beard covering his face did nothing to disguise his youth.

The other man stepped forward to take the horses’ reins. He was clean-shaven, his black hair was shorn close to his skull, and his gaze was deep and intense, but he wasn’t likely much older than his partner. He gave Warren a passing glance before saying to his companion, “I’ll get the horses settled. You’d best get him inside.”

“I’ll need my bag,” Warren reminded them.

The black-skinned man wordlessly released it from the saddle and handed it to Warren before turning to lead the horses away.

“Come on, Doc,” the bearded one said. “Let’s hope we ain’t too late.”

There was a note of strain in the outlaw’s voice. The stakes must be high for these two to have traveled several hours to Chester Springs and back in order to fetch a doctor.

Warren followed him onto the porch and through the front door of the long building.

As he stepped inside, he was welcomed by a blast of heat from the big stone fireplace set into the far wall straight ahead. Unlike the bunkhouses he’d known in Montana, this place had an open living space spread out to his left, with a good-sized kitchen stretched along the wall to his right. A long wooden table with nearly a dozen chairs around it took up much of the space between the two areas. Two hallways extended from the front room, one to the left and one to the right, containing doors to what he assumed were individual bedrooms.

As they stomped the snow from their feet and Warren did his best to shake the numbness from his fingers, he heard someone coming toward them from one of the wings. Light stretched from a room at the far end of the hallway. At first all he could make out was that the silhouetted figure was a woman.

And she was in a hurry.

“It’s about damn time you got back. Did you grab the doctor?”

Her voice hit him like a blow straight to his sternum. Warren took an instinctive step back. Old memories sliced through him like the sharp edge of a scalpel against raw flesh.

It couldn’t be.

They were hundreds of miles from where he had last seen Honey Prentice in Montana. That distance was the only thing that had made it possible for him to come back out West. He had assured himself there was no chance he’d accidentally run into the woman who had torn his heart from his chest all those years ago.

But her gasp as she stepped out into the room told him he’d been wrong.

She was as beautiful as she had been as a girl of seventeen.

And she was not happy to see him.

She crossed the room with long, swift strides that had her cotton skirts whipping about her legs. In an easy movement, she pulled the bearded outlaw’s gun from his belt before he knew what she was about and then turned the weapon on Warren.

Fire flashed in her brown eyes as she held the gun steady with two hands. “What the hell are you doing here, Warren Reed?”

Warren swallowed back the tight squeeze of his own fury as he stared coldly at the weapon and then at his former lover’s face. “You should ask this gentleman that question, since he and his friend didn’t give me any choice in the matter.”

“Are you crazy?” asked the stunned man at her side. “This here is the new doctor from Chester Springs that Jackson told you about.”

In the tense silence that followed, Warren noted a few telling details.

Honey’s plain calico dress was streaked with dried blood and her hands were stained the same brownish red. She had grown slimmer since he last saw her. Her hair was drawn back in a loose bun at her nape with heavy strands falling about her face, but it was still the same rich golden hue. And her brown eyes, which had once looked at him with adoration and innocent passion, now glared hard and steady in his direction. More than anger flashed in their depths. Though still a stunning young woman at twenty-four years old, Honey had done some living in the last several years.

Well, at nearly thirty himself, so had he. And he was not going to be intimidated by her irrational fury or the gun she had aimed at his heart.

And what the hell did she have to be angry with him about? She had been the one to turn her back on what they could have had together.

“Get him out of here, Eli,” she said finally in clipped and heavy tones. “Now.”

At that moment, the other outlaw returned from seeing to the horses, entering from the back of the house. His black eyes took immediate stock of the situation. “I don’t know what the problem is here,” he said as he came slowly into the room, “but unless Luke made some miraculous recovery, he needs this doctor’s services.”

“It’s Luke who’s been shot?” Warren asked. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“You sonofa—” she muttered as she took a step forward, only to be stopped when the man she’d called Eli threw an arm out in front of her.

Luke was Honey’s twin brother. When Warren knew him during that long-ago summer, he was always getting into trouble. That he had ended up part of an outlaw gang didn’t really shock Warren. That he’d dragged his sister into the mess with him did. Luke had always been very protective of Honey.

“Come on, Jackson’s right,” Eli coaxed. “Let the doc at least take a look at him.”

There was a flicker in her eyes, but she didn’t budge.

Warren ground his back teeth. The history between himself and this woman did not change the oath he’d taken. He slid his gaze down to her dress. “From the look of things, Luke’s lost a lot of blood already. Do you intend to let him bleed out while we rehash our past?”

With a fiercely narrowed gaze, Honey lowered the gun and turned away to head back down the hallway. “Dammit. Come on, then.”

Another thing that had changed—Warren didn’t remember Honey having such a harsh vocabulary.

Flicking a glance at the two men, who were obviously relieved by her decision, Warren asked, “Are you going to untie me so I can be of some use?”

Eli came forward, drawing a knife from a scabbard tied to his thigh, and sliced neatly through the ropes.

Before Warren could take a step to follow Honey, Jackson stepped in front of him with a scowl. “If I suspect that whatever just happened is having any effect on your performance in there, you’ll feel my bullet before you have a chance to explain.”

The truth of the threat was plain in the man’s eyes. Though he was the less talkative of the two, he was proving to be the more articulate. Warren didn’t feel it necessary to reply. He strode down the hall to the lit room at the end.

The patient lay sprawled on his stomach on a blood-soaked bed. Only taking a passing notice of the room, Warren went straight to the side of the bed. A table had been pulled up close and held a pitcher, a large bowl filled with red-tinged water, and several soiled cloths.

Warren forced aside his personal turmoil over the unexpected reunion with Honey Prentice to focus on his patient.

Luke had changed far more than his sister had. He had been lanky and lean when Warren had last seen him. Though he was unconscious, it was clear that the years had toughened him up. Even sprawled out as he was on his stomach, the injured man’s solid build was obvious.

Luke’s physical strength should go a long way toward assisting in his recovery—as long as it was accompanied by a strong will.

“He passed out about three hours ago,” Honey explained in tight, clipped words from where she had taken up a position on the other side of the bed. “I did what I could to keep it clean, but the bullet is still in there. I couldn’t…”

She didn’t finish.

Warren set his bag on the table, shrugged out of his heavy coat, and tossed it over a chair. His hat quickly followed, and then his tailored jacket.

“I need a bowl of fresh water, some clean cloths, and some whiskey,” he stated.

He didn’t bother to glance up to determine if his orders were being followed. He was already examining Luke’s injury, taking in as many details of the situation as he could while he rolled up his sleeves.

The young man had been shot in the back of his upper thigh. A makeshift tourniquet was cinched high around his leg and had helped to stem the bleeding to a slow ooze. His breeches had been cut away from the wound site rather than being removed altogether.

Warren checked Luke’s breath and pulse. Both were weak, but steady.

As soon as Honey returned with the items Warren had requested, he washed his hands and splashed them with antiseptic from his bag.

“Were those two men with him when he was shot?” he asked with a jerk of his head toward the front room.

“Yes.”

“I will need to speak with them.”

As she left to follow his instructions, Warren carefully probed at the wound. More blood seeped over his fingers.

A few minutes later, the two men entered the room. Warren tried not to put any significance on the fact that Honey did not return with them. She was not his concern right now.

“Eli, right?” Warren asked, looking at the bearded man.

He waited for the man’s nod before he looked to the other outlaw. “And Jackson?”

Another nod.

“Who applied the tourniquet to his leg?”

“He did that himself,” Eli replied.

“How soon after he was shot?”

“It couldn’t have been long,” answered Jackson. “We were riding fast and didn’t notice at first that he wasn’t right behind us. By the time he caught up, he already had the leg cinched tight.”

Warren continued his clipped questions. “Did either of you see any spurting blood? Or did he mention anything of the sort?”

Jackson gave a negative shake of his head and Eli explained, “He didn’t say much of anything, except to curse at the pain.”

Warren nodded. “I want you both to stay close in case I need you to hold him down.”

There was no way for Warren to know if an artery had been hit until he released the tourniquet. But first, he had to get that bullet out.