Two years later…

Wyoming Territory, August 1868, Whispering Creek Ranch

“I’m leaving after you marry Elijah,” said Bethany Galloway, carefully sitting on the edge of the bed, so she did not jostle her friend.

Sheridan sat up gingerly, ensuring she did not agitate her wounded shoulder. She had been shot only a week before by Cassidy Bartley, a savage brute who had worked for Jericho Sullivan, a man who’d hunted her for her wealth. Cassidy Bartley had run, and from what Beth understood, he was now hunted. Her stomach cramped, and she instinctively shied away from the thought of any more violence, a thing she was mightily sick of.

Before traveling west, she had never seen a man beat another with his fist, stab another, and then settle disputes by shooting each other in the streets. Gunfire began at the slightest provocation.

Of all the foolhardy ways to settle a conflict.

“Leaving? For how long?”

“I will return to visit, I promise.”

“Good heavens! You are leaving the ranch? You are quitting the town of Blue Lagoon?”

“I am.”

Sheridan leaned over and clasped her hand. “Bethany, please tell me it isn’t so? And go where?”

“East.”

“But you love it here!”

Beth did love the Whispering Creek ranch, but it wasn’t her home. Once she had escaped Hardin’s brutality, the tranquillity she’d found at the WC had been a shocking change from the dread of living with an unwanted husband, working in a Saloon, and the endless rounds of dinners, and society balls, and preparations she had done with her mother to find a suitable husband back home in Virginia. For so long she had thought there was nothing back in Boston for her, but not anymore. There was safety, a certain security that was not possible in the west, and a permanent post at a girls’ academy as a teacher.

“Where East?” Sheridan demanded fiercely, tears glistening in her eyes.

“Boston, to my mother, and a new teaching post where I’ll get to put my fine education to use,” she drawled with a light laugh and perfect imitation of her mother’s voice. “Oh Sheridan, do not be sad, you’ve long known I intended to continue my journey. I only wanted to see you happy and settled, and now you are, more than I could have ever hoped for."

Boston had been the place Beth had intended to travel when she had fled the cruel grasp of her husband. Only she hadn't been able to go to her mother in her badly wounded state. She had made her way to her brother Thomas’s home and had met Sheridan, who for the last several months had given her a place to call home.

“But we are a family here, aren’t we?”

Beth smiled gently at her friend. “You are starting your own family now, with Elijah, and you have a baby on the way. I…I need something different from the west. You are safe now, and I can take my son elsewhere.”

Beth’s throat closed, remembering how wonderful Sheridan had been when Beth had appeared battered and bleeding. She hadn’t hesitated in rendering aid, and they had become fast friends. Beth felt an ache of sorrow go through her heart at the very thought of leaving her friend. But Sheridan had Elijah Kincaid now, and that man loved his woman more than anything, and no one would dare to harm her friend now that he was there.

“Is it because of Joshua?” Sheridan asked, her blue eyes worried and piercing. “You have been different since…well, you have been more apprehensive since I went up that mountain for Elijah.”

Joshua Kincaid. A man she had never imagined she would see again. A man who each time it rained she thought of him, dreamt of the way he had kissed and introduced her to pleasure. A man who had seemed so possessive. Go inside and wait for me. Except she hadn’t. There had been an intensity to him that was frightening, and from the cold look in his eyes, she had gleaned the type of man he was. Lawless, and savage, perhaps a different breed from her husband, but her instincts had warned her Joshua was infinitely more dangerous.

She’d had her fill with dangerous men. So, she had run from him and the protection his eyes had seemed to offer because she had a sense that his protection came with a cost. Beth had felt it to her very bones, he had returned because he wanted her as his woman. That night she had taken the money she had saved, and her husband’s horse and had never looked back.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Sheridan’s voice was a little above a whisper. “You knew Elijah would have found out that Grayson is a Kincaid.”

Grayson. Her baby boy who was the result of that one night of sin and madness.

“That is why you had seemed so worried when I said only Elijah could help me. You knew bringing him here would spell trouble for you. Why didn’t you ever tell me, Beth?”

Sheridan had believed her troubles could have only been solved with the aid of Elijah Kincaid. Beth had known that once that can of worms opened, things would be different for her, but she had seen how much her friend needed Elijah. “Would it have made a difference?”

Sheridan sucked in an audible breath and flushed.

“It wouldn’t have,” Beth said softly. “And I am not as selfish as that, where I would’ve asked you to give up on the man you love, out of fear that he would discover my baby is kin.”

Her sweet baby boy was only ten months old, and there were days Beth peered down in his smiling face and wondered if she would ever see some of herself within him. Her son was the possessor of a crescent-shaped birthmark on the back of his left elbow, which seemed to be unique to the Kincaids. Grayson also had dark hair, vivid green eyes, and a slightly cleft chin, just like his father. Men in the west seemed to live and die by the gun, and she wanted a different future for her son. What Beth hoped for him was that he would have her nature and kindness, and that was why it was important for her to bring him up in the East and give him the finest education and privilege Boston society had to offer. There was nothing for her here, even if something inside of her withered at the thought of being away from her dearest friend.

“I’ve received a few letters from mamma, she is settled well in Boston, and her new husband treats her very well. According to mamma, they are very much in love, and they look forward to meeting Grayson.”

Sheridan's eyes flashed. “It was your mother who encouraged you to marry Benjamin Hardin, and he was a brute. I am not confident in anything she has to say!”

Warmth traveled through Beth at Sheridan's fierce loyalty. "We were all deceived of his character. He was a decorated Confederate officer, who appeared to have honor. And that is all in the past now, and I would like to keep it there."

Her lower lip trembled. “When are you leaving?”

“Are you going to cry on me?”

Sheridan laughed waterily. “I swear that is all I have been doing. Doc said it is because of the baby, and I agree because I am not the crying sort.”

And Beth quite agreed, Sheridan had endured much, but she had flourished in the wildness of the west and would continue to do so, now that the man she had loved so passionately was by her side. The damn fool had taken long enough to realize the wonderful treasure he had in front of him.

“I will leave after your wedding, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ve already written to mamma and told her when I would be arriving in a few weeks’ time. She is sending someone to meet me, a step brother I understand who will be in Kansas buying a hotel. Mamma is very happy I am coming, you know how much she hates the idea of the west, ever since Thomas…”

Beth closed her eyes briefly. It was always difficult to speak of her brother, a man who she had once respected and loved. By the time of his death she had only felt disgusted with the way he had treated Sheridan and had many arguments with him about his dishonorable and cruel behavior. Their last quarrel had been bitter, and they hadn't gotten a chance to resolve anything before he had died. Not died…been murdered. The cattle stampede which had taken his life had been orchestrated by Jericho Sullivan because he’d wanted Sheridan vulnerable and desperate. “Mamma loathes the west even more since Thomas died.”

“I understand,” Sheridan said softly, searching Beth’s eyes. “You didn’t answer me, is it because of Joshua you want to leave? Because if it is, I do not believe he intends to stay beyond Elijah’s and my wedding. So, there is no need to run.”

Beth stood, hating the slight fear that quivered through her. Since Sheridan told her she had met Joshua Kincaid a few weeks earlier at the mountain cabin where she had been holed up with Elijah, Beth had been waiting for him to approach her. Surely Elijah had told him about the baby who was evidently a Kincaid. No one had asked her to confirm if Joshua was the father, but they all looked at her with curious, knowing eyes.

“I haven’t seen him, Sheridan. At times I swear I hear his voice, and then by the time I round the bend or enter the room he is gone.” But she felt him, a ripple of awareness, a kiss of danger over her skin, and she knew he watched her.

“Is he Grayson’s father?”

A tense silence blanketed the room, and Beth was unable to look at Sheridan. Instead, she moved toward the large windows facing the Wyoming mountains that rose with majestic beauty in the far distance. Yes, he is. Yet she could not say the words aloud. No one had ever thought to question her as to who the father of her baby was, after all, she had been a married woman.

When she had just arrived at Whispering Creek, she waited in dread that her husband would find her. Days had blurred into weeks, and then months, and she had relaxed her guard. Not even Thomas had doubted her child belonged to the Hardin family, and despite all his flaws, he hadn’t insisted she returned to the town of Liberty and her cruel husband when she had explained why she’d had to flee. After months of dreading she would be found, she had eventually accepted she had truly escaped Benjamin Hardin on that night. She hadn’t thought she would see him or her husband again.

The very idea of facing Joshua was unnerving. Wait for me…. “Get some rest, Sheridan. I am going to take Grayson for his walk.”

Without looking at her friend, she made her way toward the door.

“Beth, a few months ago you told me that the west was lawless and savage. And to survive, a woman must find a man tough enough to protect her, and their children. Perhaps…perhaps Joshua Kincaid is that man for you and Grayson.”

“I never said he was the father of my son.”

A sharp inhalation from Sheridan. “Is it Noah?” she asked, referring to the youngest Kincaid brother.

Beth paused, her fingers curled around the doorknob. “And that is why I am heading East. I am not interested in marrying anyone, nor am I interested in the savagery of the west and how to survive. In Boston, my son and I will live a different life. And you seem to forget…I am already married.”

Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and closed it behind her. Beth leaned against the door, closing her eyes briefly, a shudder working its way through her body. She had been subjected to the brutality of one man already, with little recourse to help herself. The law said it was fine for a man to beat his wife, women were mere property, and they had to be kept in line. She had heard that often enough from the sheriff of Liberty, and Sheridan had recently faced a similar problem. How she had wanted to marry again after the terrible way Thomas treated her Beth had never understood until now. Then she had finally seen why Sheridan was willing to risk it all again—Elijah Kincaid. Her dark knight, brutal and lawless as the land itself, and ruthless enough to protect those he held dear from harm. Yet he was so gentle with Sheridan, loved her, and that was the only reason Beth was finally leaving.

She’d had the money and the plans, but after seeing the loneliness in her friend’s eyes, she hadn’t been able to leave. And Beth was darn glad she had stuck around, because more than once, she’d had to take her Winchester and shoot at the feet of overzealous men bent on ruin and pain. She didn’t need a dark knight, or a husband, or a lover.

She pushed away from the door, heading toward her bedroom. Beth opened the door and paused, a ripple of knowledge shivering through her. The windows were open, but she had left them closed. The air was redolent with the scent of leather, and musk, and tobacco. A smell she was intimately familiar with.

A peculiar tightness rose in her throat.

She hurried over to the wooden cradle which held her sleeping son. He slumbered, a peaceful smile on his face. But there was a disturbance in the air as if all was not as it should be, but her eyes could not detect it. Every sense of Beth was thrumming with awareness, and her heart thudded with too much force.

Was he back in town? The rumors suggested that Joshua had gone hunting the man who had shot Sheridan. No one had heard from him since, but she could feel he had been in her room. Why didn’t he approach her? Not that she was ready for such a confrontation, Beth doubted she would ever be prepared. She closed her eyes as the daunting memories whispered through her mind, the slide of his skin against hers, the feel of him as he'd moved within her so powerfully, the look on his face when he had pulled her husband down those stairs.

Wait for me…

And though she had plotted and planned for so long, Beth truly had no notion of what she would do or say when she saw Joshua Kincaid.

* * *

Bethany slept on her side, and she was a mumbler. Joshua watched her from the shadows of her bedchamber, waiting for a few beats, ensuring she slept. The windows were open to help with the balm of the summer night, and a lone candle waved and flickered on the nightstand. Padding silently toward the cradle, he peered down at his son. The baby slept on his stomach, his rounded buttocks arched in the air, his hand pillowed below his rosy cheeks. Soft sighs of contentment escaped him, and he snuggled even deeper into the quilted blankets.

Joshua had only ridden in a few hours ago, after being on the trail of Bartley for almost a week. The first thing he had done was move through the sprawling ranch house and slip quietly into this room and sat with the boy. A compulsion he had been giving into since his brother had made Joshua aware a few weeks past that he was a father. At first, he’d only snuck into Beth’s room to ensure the veracity of Elijah’s claim. The first time he had lifted him from the cradle, his face had scrunched, his lips had parted to wail, and then he had just stopped as if he had recognized Joshua and had been frozen in shock. Everything about his son reflected himself, and he had stumbled weakly to sit on the edge of the bed, just staring at him.

In truth, they had stared at each other, and it was as if the boy had known, for he had simply closed his eyes, trusting the stranger holding him, and slept. And Joshua had held him, the emotions tearing through him intensely were so unfamiliar until he had heard footsteps in the hallway. He’d placed him in the cot and slipped through the windows only seconds before Bethany had entered.

His son stirred, and Joshua gently placed a hand atop the dark curls on his head. Instantly he calmed, and once again, a surge of unnamed emotions rioted through Joshua’s mind and body. Joshua stiffened. He wasn't a coward, and he knew what those feelings were, and had been since he’d discovered Beth’s whereabouts several days past—need, hunger, and fear. He'd never been frightened in his life. When any unexpected situation came about, he’d used his instincts, and then logic and a hard determination to handle the matter. Fear had no place in his life, for that useless emotion was something that clouded a man's judgment and allowed him to act foolhardy. The peculiar feeling tightening across his throat, and forcing his heart to race in such an unpleasant manner could only be fear.

He could barely think, let alone speak. I am a father.

Moving away from the cot, he made his way to the large bed positioned in the center of the room. Bethany was sprawled in its center, the white cotton nightgown tangled between her lower legs. She muttered something about Peter not spending enough time learning his letters. A smile tugged at Joshua’s mouth.

She looked wildly desirable, her golden red hair spilling over her shoulders in a ripple of fire. Memories flowed through Joshua’s mind, painting such vivid pictures of her that he might have seen her only yesterday. The tentative smile on her lips as she had undressed, the beauty and startling shock in her eyes as she had found her pleasure keening his name, and then her bloodied lips and pain-filled eyes.

He had woken up in the mornings feeling restless, incomplete, his thoughts always remembering her wide wounded eyes. Had she made it out? Was she dead? Or had she found somewhere to flourish. Though those questions had haunted him, he couldn't blame her for running. He'd merely been a stranger who had spread her beneath him while she worked off her husband’s debt. A heavy weight lifted from his shoulders. She had been safe at the Whispering Creek, and he was so damn thankful.

The memories of her had troubled him for so long, and for some inexplicable reason, he had kept them close to his heart. She was the last woman he had taken, and he had shown no interest in any others. Even back at the Triple K, his home in Colorado, his mother kept pushing him toward Eliza Maubry, and despite Miss Eliza's beauty and charm, nothing in him had stirred. Only after being home for a few months, Joshua had packed his saddlebags and rifle and had accompanied the herd into Abilene. The cattle trail had been brutal and rough, he had enjoyed the work, and the distraction from wondering who she was and where she had fled to. In all the towns he had passed through, Joshua had been on the lookout and had made discreet inquiries.

And to think all this time she’d been at the Whispering Creek ranch. There had been no plans in his mind if he had found her. There had simply been a deep-seated need to know she was safe.

She stirred, and with a distinctly unladylike curse, kicked the covers from the bed onto the floor. Her nightgown rode up to her mid thighs, and startling heat shafted him. It was damn dishonorable of him to stare, but he did. She was significantly slimmer than what he remembered, but she still had that lush ripeness to her figure. He’d like nothing better than to gather her in his arms and sample the sweetness of her lips.

For months when the cattle trails had been lonely, he’d lain awake nights, imagining touching his tongue to the smoothness of her skin, then skimming up to flick at those plump berry lips.

A rough sigh escaped him, and he scrubbed a hand over his face.

This is not what he should be thinking about now. While he had been hot on Bartley’s trail, an epiphany had shot through Joshua. He had been hunting a man with the intention to kill him. He would have done so without any mercy or hesitation because that man had hurt a woman only because he had the power to do so. Before he’d known he had a son, he would have spent weeks, or months hunting him if necessary.

But he had sat atop his horse, staring toward the trail leading to Denver, where all evidence pointed that was where Bartley headed. Then Joshua had glanced back, over the vast lands and rolling mountains which directed him back to this ranch, this woman, and his son.

And he hadn’t hesitated. He had turned around with a knowledge beating in his heart. He wanted to be a part of his son’s life, more than how he wanted to find Bartley and bring him to justice, more than how much he wanted to wander.

A whimper tore through the room, and he lowered his gaze to Bethany. She dreamed, and it was easy to deduce they were unpleasant. Her breath panted, and a low moan came from her throat. Her face was pale, her body tight with tension.

“Do not hit me again!”

Her voice was a mixture of defiance and raw fear, and Joshua knew it was the memory of her husband who haunted her. He hoped no one else had hurt her, for he would hunt them down like the dogs they were and end their miserable existence. The west bred a different kind of man, men who were more lawless, who understood more than their eastern counterparts that only the strong survived in these parts. But it was a depraved kind that hurt women and children, and it had never been his way to have mercy on those kinds.

“Easy,” he murmured, resting a hand on her head, understanding how difficult it was to shed the horrors of the past.

He’d left the war with memories he wished would never resurface, but sometimes they snuck under his barrier when he slept and tormented him. Though most of his fights had been the good fight, the knowledge of what he had done, and would continue to do at times. The acts that had been necessary to protect his loved ones filled him with a restlessness that gave him no peace.

He’d fought against Cheyenne renegades, who had taken his brother’s wife and child some years ago. And only a couple months after that tragedy, he had again grabbed his rifle and .44, tracked and hunted a band of Comancheros who’d taken his youngest sister, Jenny. He’d done it alone, for Elijah had been broken with grief, his younger brother Noah had been in California, and their father had been laid up in bed with a couple of bullet wounds earned in trying to stop his daughter’s abduction.

Joshua hadn’t waited for his cousins as his father had demanded. He’d headed out on their trail immediately. The fight to get her back had been bloody and brutal, and at the end of it, he had taken the lives of nine men. While it had been necessary, there were days he closed his eyes, and the raw, metallic scent of blood and the screams and pleadings of those men would resurface.

Bethany shuddered, whimpered again, and after several more minutes she took a long, ragged breath, and slept easier. A heavy ache lodged itself in his chest. And now looking down at this woman who had stolen a piece of him when she had fled that night…he wanted her too.