Gabe

I will kill her.

The thought rang over and over in his mind as he heaved his body from one stone to the next, the water growing steadily darker and more turbulent as they went. The whorls and eddies it formed as it burbled around the rocks were oddly mesmerizing. He'd hated this game as a child, and he hated it now. She always insisted on going first, leaping from rock to rock as if the water wasn't even there. She was utterly fearless.

And not just here. What had she been thinking, coming for him at the gallows? He'd been resigned to his death, dammit. Not excited, and the whole strangling-to-death affair had certainly hurt like hell, but he'd reached a sort of peace with it, knowing that at least the people he loved were safe.

And now here he was, running for his life with a splitting headache and bones filled with lead, and everyone he loved was in peril.

Including Katherine.

I will kill her.

God, she was beautiful. Maybe it was the fever or the whole unexpected resurrection business, but he could swear she was glowing as she leaned back on one leg, tightened her muscles, and sprang forward. Time seemed to slow as she sailed over the churning water and landed on the broad gray rock in the center of the river. He stepped back himself, willed strength into syrupy blood, sucked a breath through a throat that seemed determined to close, and followed.

He landed beside her, not bothering to shrug off her help as she wrapped a hand around his arm to steady him.

"This is as far as we ever came," she said, her hand slipping down to his and squeezing as she turned her face up to look up at him. It wasn't just his eyes. She really was glowing—her face lit as if from within by the rising sun and her eyes so bright they were blinding. A gentle dew of sweat sparkled in the delicate hollow of her threat and along her hairline, and a short tendril of hair had come loose from her hat and dangled in a damp spiral by her jaw.

"I love you," he said, each word a scrape of gravel up his throat.

"I know," she said with a sly, confident smile, and she could have been the little girl who'd run with him in these woods, back before life went sour. "I love you too."

"I know. You'd have to, to have done something this stupid."

She scowled. "Now how would you feel if that was the last thing you ever said to me?" she teased. And then, without further preamble, she released his hand and sprang across the widest distance yet. Leaped over the chasm that had separated them as children from the future of which they both dreamed. Gabe's heart leaped up into his aching throat as every split second of her flight stretched out into a lifetime. He watched her land. Watched her waver, and his own muscles coiled in preparation to spring. If she fell he'd go after her. She was such a lousy swimmer she'd drown before the cold had a chance to kill her. At least if he helped her stay afloat she'd stand a chance.

But before he could leap, she'd found her balance and stepped forward on the rock, turning to flash him a mischievous smile.

"Come on," she said. "It's not that far."

Maybe not for her. But he was bigger and his muscles were made of decaying, termite-riddled wood, and someone had lodged the head of a pickaxe right between his eyes.

He sucked in as deep a breath as he could manage.

Leaned back.

Leaped forward...

... and came up short.

His toe slipped off the edge of the rock and his chest slammed into the granite. He heard Katherine yell, but her voice was drowned out by the sensation of ice clamping around his lungs as his body plunged into the water. The current grabbed him, yanking his legs downstream, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly for purchase, tearing on the rough grit of the rock as the water dragged him away.

Suddenly, Katherine's face was right in front of his, her hands clasped around his forearms.

"Kick!" she yelled at him. "Kick against the current!"

He wanted to, for her, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to just let go. His body would wash up on the shore a few miles away and the town would still have their scapegoat.

"Gabe!" Katherine spat, her glaring visage wavering before him. "I swear in God's name, if you don't get your ass out of the water I'm coming in with you and we'll both die. Kick!"

God dammit.

I will kill her.

He kicked and scrabbled, and she pulled and hollered, and soon enough he was sprawled on the rock, drenched from the chest down and gasping for air that wouldn't come. He wanted a second to catch his breath, but Katherine pushed to her feet and dragged him up with her by the arm.

"We have to go," she murmured in his ear as he leaned against her, fighting for just one lungful of air. "I can hear them in the woods, Gabe. If they see us and know we crossed the river, the plan is ruined. We have to go before they get to the shore."

Her words didn't make a lot of sense, but her urgency did. He straightened, and as soon as he was bearing his own weight she left him, leaping to the next rock and urging him in a whispered yell to follow.

His awareness shrank to the effort. Bend, jump, land, kneel. Take a breath. Watch Katherine. Bend jump, land, kneel. Take a breath. Watch Katherine. She was like a deer, or a cat, with endless energy and unnatural agility. She made each leap look so easy, but when he stood to follow the water stretched like an ocean between them.

Nonetheless, they made it. He didn't even realize, until Katherine was dragging him off the rock and their boots splashed through water that lapped around their ankles.

"The horses are waiting close by," she said, dragging him forward by the hand. "Hurry."

He wouldn't call his staggering jog a 'hurry' but it must have been good enough because she didn't yell at him any more after that. Even when his numb feet kept catching on nothing and slamming him into the forest floor, she only pulled him up with a word of encouragement and continued to lead the way.

They had to have run miles before they rounded a massive oak and came upon what looked to Gabe like a mirage. His eyes had to be tricking him. Two horses stood right there in the middle of the woods, heads held high, eyes calm.

"Reaper?" he croaked, stumbling to his horse and pressing a shaking hand to the animal's warm hide. It felt real enough.

"Well you didn't think I'd leave him behind, did you?" Katherine asked, her hands tugging the knapsack from his shoulders and shoving it into one of Reaper's saddlebags. "Mount up. It's just a short ride, I promise, and then we can rest."

Who was this woman, and what had she done with Katherine? Or, better yet, what had Katherine done with this woman for the past decade?

She got married to a monster, you moron.

Ah, right.

With a smile, he leaned forward and let his forehead rest against the cool leather of the saddle. Maybe he really was dead, but by some divine mishap had wound up in heaven. From what Katherine had said, it didn't make sense that he was hurting so much. But then again, he'd always suspected that her version of the afterlife wasn't quite up to snuff. Maybe there was pain in heaven, but God just found a way to balance it out with pleasure.

Like having Katherine back...

"Gabe." Her voice hooked into his consciousness and dragged him away from his reverie, and he turned his head toward her. She stood beside him, one hand wrapped around his forearm. "In the saddle," she said, patting his leg with her free hand. "Now."

Heaven my ass.

Gritting his teeth, he lifted his leg and slipped his foot into the stirrup. It took him three tries to push himself up, but Reaper, ever apprising, didn't seem to hold him in judgment. The animal stood stock still, watching him over a shoulder until he finally found his seat and kept it.

"Can you ride, or do I need to tie you?" Katherine asked, frowning up at him. She was still glowing. Yellow-white and soft pink.

"M'good," he said, hoping it was true. It was bad enough having her ride to some foolhardy rescue. The least he could do was try to make it worth her effort. What good would he be to her as a husband, as a father, if he couldn't even sit a horse? "I'm gonna marry you," he said as they began riding, but his words were lost to the wind as Katherine pushed them into a punishing trot.

Months passed in every minute they rode. His mouth was dry as a desert, his head was cracked down the middle, and his body burned and ached with cold at the same time. He felt as if his throat had narrowed down to the width of a pin, and Reaper's hooves seemed to carry them sideways and upside down, even when his eyes told him they were traveling across flat earth.

Eventually, Katherine slowed them to a walk. He held the reins loosely, letting Reaper follow her mount, and gripped the forward edge of the saddle to keep his balance. His whole world narrowed to the stirrups under his feet, telling him which way was down, and the hard edge of the saddle in his hands, telling him which way was up.

He didn't realize they had stopped until he blinked and found himself bent nearly double over Reaper's neck, staring down at Katherine's face. She held Reaper's reins in her hand, and was peering up at him with blatant concern.

"We're here," she said, and he cautiously lifted his head to look past her.

A small cabin stood before them. Another mirage in this frigid, air-less wasteland. It was tiny but well-kept, with a small iron chimney protruding from the thatched roof, dark green shutters on the solitary window, and a tiny porch just one step off the ground and barely wide enough for two people to stand abreast.

"Where?" he tried to ask, but the word got trapped behind the swelling in his throat.

"It's an old hunting cabin the Tuckers use sometimes. A family thing, apparently. Not even the ranch hands know about it. Can you get down on your own?" For the first time since she'd dragged him back from hell, her voice was nothing but gentle. Her face, pink-cheeked and still glowing, was twisted with concern.

Of course I can, he wanted to growl at her.

And really, he wouldn't be lying. After all, getting down wasn't hard. It was a simple matter of letting go of his grip on the saddle and letting the earth rise up and meet him.

* * *

The heavens above were a bright, bright blue. Not a blue he'd ever seen in the sky before, but a deep, glowing, speckled blue with a blue-black rim around the edge. There wasn't a cloud to be seen, but a soft spring rain fell all around, turning the cobblestone dark and forming muddy puddles along the edges of the road.

The street was lined with merchants' stands, shielded from the rain by brightly-colored canvas tarps, some solid and some striped in clashing colors. The smell of woodsmoke and coffee drifted through the rain, and although the streets were packed with a shifting throng of people, the air was blessedly still and quiet.

He sat on a padded bench in the rain, water dripping down his face and neck—a relief from the burning sun. Across the street, he saw a woman and child appear, and recognition slammed into him, shoving the air from his lungs. They stopped at a green grocer's stand, hand-in-hand as they inspected the bushels of carrots and deep green bushels of spinach. He stood and stepped forward, but something wrapped tight around his neck. Vines sprang up from the ground and twined around his ankles, and the wrought iron arms of the bench stretched out to capture his wrists.

"Katherine," he tried to call, but the noose around his neck tightened, trapping her name in his throat.

A man emerged from the crowd of faceless passersby, dressed in all black with slick hair that gleamed in the sunlight. His wide, glassy eyes were fixed on Katherine and Isobel and he carried a rifle in his hand.

"Katherine, run!" Gabe yelled, but again the words got stuck. The rain had stopped, and the sun was beating down from above, singeing his skin.

The reverend stopped, then, and turned to face him. His lips spread into a macabre grin, revealing blood-stained teeth. Behind him, the crowd of market-goers had stopped as one and turned toward him, their faces shadowed and angry. Moving in one shifting, dark mass, they encircled him, cutting off his view of the reverend. Of his daughter and the woman he loved.

"Run!" he screamed, and this time a sound broke loose, though it was barely more than a whisper. "Katherine, run!"

Through the shifting bodies, he finally caught a glimpse of his girls. Katherine's dress had disappeared, and she stood, naked and pale and bruised, clutching Isobel to her body as she backed away from her husband. The reverend brought the rifle up.

"No!" Gabe cried, yanking futilely against his bindings, and the noose squeezed ever tighter around his neck, until he could feel every pricking fiber of the rope cutting into his flesh. "Run!"

He heard the gun fire and watched as Katherine slumped to the ground, the bullet having passed through Isobel's small body into hers. The crowd vanished, and he had a clear view of their bodies and the trickle of blood that ran through the grooves between the cobblestones.

"No," he gasped, straining to reach her, but it was no use. The strength was gone from his body and all he could do was watch them bleed. His eyes burned and his breath wouldn't come, except in ragged, wheezing sobs. "I'm sorry," he gasped. "I'm sorry."

Katherine's eyes snapped open and her head rolled on the ground. "Stop," she said, her voice soft and calm, somehow carrying across the road as if she was speaking right in his ear. "Please, Gabe. It's okay. I'm right here."

The life in her eyes filled him with strength, and renewed his struggle to free himself, but his every effort seemed only to tighten the lashings down until he was pinned to the road, staring up at the strange blue sky.

"Please, be still," Katherine said, and she was right there before him, kneeling in the mud. She wore a light blue dress and her hair was piled on top of her head. It was raining again. He looked around for Isobel, but she had disappeared.

"Iz," he croaked, and Katherine smiled.

"She's with Josh and Amelia. She's safe. They're looking after her until we can catch up, remember?"

Did he?

"Where..."

"She's at a hotel in Powell. We're in a hunting cabin in the woods across the river. Nobody followed us. We're safe. Everybody's safe."

Damn, he thought, looking around. The street had disappeared and the sky had collapsed in close and taken on the dull brown hue of old wood. The whole of his surroundings glowed orange with firelight. Hellfire? No, that couldn't be right, because Katherine was right here and no god in his right mind would let this angel anywhere near hell.

He closed his eyes and the rain kept falling, slipping between his lips and running over his parched tongue. The rain was warm and tasted like honey.

Strange.

"Go to sleep," Katherine said. "We're safe. Everything's okay."

He believed her.

* * *

The heavens above were a bright, bright blue. Not a blue he'd ever seen in the sky before, but a deep, glowing, speckled blue with a blue-black rim around the edge. He blinked and the sky split into two and settled itself into the prettiest eyes he had ever seen.

"Good morning," Katherine said with a sweet, sleepy smile. Her body was stretched out beside his, and she'd propped herself up on an elbow, cool fingers resting on his forehead. "How are you feeling?"

He shifted experimentally beneath the covers, took a deep testing breath, and lifted his head to look at the dingy little room.

Pretty lousy.

"Okay," he said, letting his head fall back to the pillow.

"Oh," she clucked in sympathy, patting his chest. "Your voice sounds terrible. Just lay here, I'll get you some tea."

He reached out to stop her, but his fingers only brushed the trailing edge of her shirt as she slipped out from beneath the covers and padded on bare feet across the floor to the little stove. It was dark, but for the light of the stove and a solitary lantern, but her skin seemed to possess an independent glow that lingered around her as she moved about. For a few long minutes, he obeyed her and simply lay on the lumpy pallet, with her body heat still warming the space beneath the quilt, and watched in slack-jawed awe.

He hadn't dreamed her. She was really here, and practically spitting with the fire her marriage had stifled to an ember. She crouched in front of the stove in nothing but a man's cotton shirt that hung to just above her knees, her pale legs bare to the world and his own lecherous gaze. She'd cut her hair short and it brushed her shoulders in tousled spirals.

"Kat?"

"Hm?" she glanced over her shoulder.

"How long—" the words got caught and turned into a cough that ripped like rusty nails up his throat and brought back vivid memories of a rope cinched down tight around his neck, closing his throat so tight he couldn't even capture enough air to choke. He shoved himself upright, ignoring the way the world spun, and sucked in air like a drowning man, and by the time the panic faded Katherine was kneeling in front of him with a hand on his shoulder and a little tin cup of water in her hands.

"Sip it," she said, handing the cup over and meeting his watering eyes. "And don't try to talk until we get some tea in you. In case you've forgotten, you were hanged, Gabe. You need to take it slow."

He scowled but obeyed, leaning back against the wall behind him and watching her saunter back to the stove. When did she get so damn bossy?

"We've been here for two, almost three days," she said, glaring over her shoulder when he sputtered on the water and opened his mouth to ask what in the hell she was thinking. She should have shoved his sorry carcass on a horse and ridden out. Or, better yet, left him behind. "And before you get all worked up over nothing, everything is going to plan. Josh and Amelia have Isobel, and as far as anyone knows they've taken Reb to an auction in Fairview trying to secure some piece of ranching equipment or other. Izzy is safe and we're right on schedule. The plan was always for us to come here and hole up for five days. We thought we'd wait for whatever search party they've formed to grow bored. It's Monday night right now. On Wednesday night we'll pack up and ride to Powell. Josh and I put together a route that lets us keep mostly to the woods, using side roads when the terrain gets tough. We'll make camp during the day and ride at night, and we should arrive in Powell by Saturday morning at the latest."

She stood from her crouch, holding two steaming mugs, and carefully joined him on the pallet, folding her legs and facing him so that her knees pressed against his thigh. She handed him one of the mugs and took the tin cup, setting it aside.

Silently, he took a few sips of the tea, grimacing at the lemony tang and the sweet punch of honey that made his tongue shrivel up in his mouth. Katherine laughed. "Not to your taste?"

He glowered, and she laughed again, taking a sip of her own tea and smacking her lips as if supremely satisfied.

"Delicious. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Powell. It's far enough away, I don't suspect anyone will be looking for us there. We'll meet up with Josh and Amelia at the hotel, reunite with Izzy, say farewell to our friends, and hop on the next train east. Sound good?"

His mind was spinning, and the tea was painfully sweet, but he nodded and took another sip. The hot liquid did, he was reluctant to admit, soothe the ache in his throat enough that he was able to breathe without coughing and therefore think more clearly.

"How'd I get in here?" he asked, trying not to wince at the sound of his own shredded voice. The last thing he remembered was falling off the horse. Everything after that was just fever dreams and darkness.

"I dragged you," Katherine said, taking a sip of her tea, eyes crinkling with mirth over the top of the mug. His horror must have been scrawled all over his face. "And I have to say, Gabe, if you're going to make a habit of this fainting business, I have to demand you start eating less. You're awfully heavy."

"Sorry, sweetheart," he ground out, sucking down more tea when the two words set his throat on fire.

"Oh, don't be stupid," Katherine said, nudging his hip with her knee. "It wasn't very far. Honestly, I'm just astounded you made it as far as you did. You should have told me you were sick. That cut on your arm was festering something awful. You're lucky I spent the last six months living with a doctor."

Her cheeky grin made him smile in spite of the bubbling humiliation in his gut. "S'pose Mel's the one who taught you to strip your patient naked?" he asked, tugging at the blankets pooled around his waist.

Her neck flushed a deep, rosey pink that spread all the way up to her ears, and he grinned at the appearance of that sweet, anxious side that made the boldness of her all the more beautiful.

"You were drenched from the river," she said, cradling her mug and staring determinedly into her tea. "I thought you might be more comfortable... anyway, I didn't take any liberties. I didn't peek or—"

"Katie," he breathed, shifting his mug to one hand and reaching out with the other to cup the back of her neck, bringing her close for a kiss that tasted of lemon and honey. "Kidding, sweetheart," he said against her lips, and she sighed, pressing her forehead to his.

"I know," she murmured. "I just... I was so worried. I've been so worried. For so long. I'm tired..." she trailed off, and he heard the residue of unshed tears in her voice as she pulled back, her eyes searching his face. "I'm tired of being worried, Gabe."

Without speaking, he took the mug from her hands and stretched to place it, and his own, on the floor beside the pallet.

"You need to finish that," she said crossly, scowling at his half-full cup, and he took her hand, tugging her with him as he stretched out on the thin mattress. "Are you feeling sick?" she asked, refusing to lay flat as she peered down at him in concern, her arms propping her up.

He shook his head, shoving one hand beneath his head and threading the fingers of the other through her thick, cropped hair. "We're safe," he said, fighting the tightness in his throat.

"They killed you," she murmured, her fingers brushing over his lips.

"I'm fine now," he argued, tugging her down to rest against him, like she had six years ago when she came to him, bruised but determined, and took him back on a blanket beneath the stars. Her hair splayed over his chest, tickling his neck, and she tossed her leg over his on instinct, cuddling close. He felt the soft give of her chest beneath the thin cotton of her shirt and his body tightened involuntarily.

There were things he wanted to do, just then. He had never once found Katherine unattractive, but her renewed confidence woke him up in ways he hadn't felt since the day she was married. Not even the night Isobel was conceived. This warrior of a woman, who had dressed herself up as a man and cut him loose from the damn gallows, who had bullied him across the Bridge and dragged his sorry ass twenty yards to shelter and then teased him about it? She didn't inspire the tender, quiet feelings of love to which he had grown so accustomed. She made him want to claim her. She was a wild animal, strong and fierce, and that was exactly how he wanted to love her: strong and fierce.

"Gabe?"

Damn. He blinked his eyes open and realized he had dozed off, thinking about doing unspeakable things to the soft woman in his arms.

"You're safe," he said, tightening his arm around her and holding her close. "Don't worry, tonight."

With a weary sigh, she snuggled closer, turning her face into his chest and shuddering a little as the tension left her body.

"I know," she mumbled sleepily. "You're safe, too, you know."

"I know. Go to sleep, Katie."

"I love you."

He rested his hand on the back of her head and closed his eyes, sleep rising up like floodwaters, overtaking the shores of his consciousness. The pallet was lumpy and he could still barely breathe and he was starting to sweat beneath the quilts Katherine had layered over them, but damn if he'd never felt so comfortable and sated in his entire godforsaken life.

"Love you, too," he murmured, letting the water rise up over his head. Drowning really wasn't so bad, after all.