Her Sheriff Bodyguard. Lynna Banning

Coyotes, maybe. Not men.

      He’d scouted the area around the camp and found no tracks but Red’s and those of the two mares. Maybe Fernanda was wrong about someone trying to kill Miss MacFarlane.

      He closed his eyes and tried not to remember how Caroline MacFarlane looked with her shirt half-unbuttoned. A song sparrow twittered among the branches of a nearby alder. Funny how a bird’s singing could fill a man full of questions about his life. He wondered if his deathbed reflections about the decisions he’d made in his life would make it all clear someday. Then he snorted. He’d save his deathbed confession for when the time came.

      He opened his eyes and looked up at the fat silver globe of a moon floating above the trees. Suddenly something startled the bird into silence, and the hair on his neck rose. He hadn’t heard a horse. Hadn’t heard a single footstep. Very slowly he sat up and reached for his rifle.

      A shadow glided behind a thick pine trunk and he thumbed back the hammer. What would a man on foot be doing twenty miles from the nearest town? Maybe a renegade Indian, looking for food?

      Or it might be that someone had trailed them, left his mount a mile or so back and sneaked up on the camp.

      He got to his feet and crept forward toward the tree. If it was a man intent on harming someone, he’d bet that someone was not himself. Those who held grudges against him he’d left back in Texas, and besides, too much time had passed since his Ranger days. A Mescalero would have caught up with him by now.

      He walked to within arm’s length of the pine, dug a pebble from his shirt pocket and tossed it off to one side. Nothing, not even an indrawn breath. He chanced a deliberately noisy step onto a dry twig. Still nothing. Then he moved so he could see what was behind the trunk.

      Nothing but moonlight and tall trees. Either his imagination was working too hard or he was getting jumpy with two females on his hands. Or...

      Then he heard the far-off thud of hoofbeats, and his blood ran cold. Someone had been here. On foot, and so quiet there hadn’t been even a warning nicker from the horses. He should have heard something. Anything. God, was he getting old?

      He released the hammer, stalked back into camp and dropped the Winchester next to his bedroll.

      “Señor?”

      “It was nothing, Fernanda. Go back to sleep.”

      “You lie, my friend. I hear the horse, too.”

      “You’ve got good ears, señora.”

      “Ay, that is true.” There was a long pause and then the Mexican woman’s soft voice spoke again. “I have learned to listen, señor.”

      Hawk didn’t sleep. He didn’t even try, just lay awake with his thoughts and his doubts and his fears. Not for himself, but for the spirited, headstrong crusader who slept a short distance away from him. She was a damn fool of a woman, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

      But he’d agreed to protect her, and he would. Stealthily he moved his bedroll as close to hers as he could get without waking her.

      Tomorrow he’d teach her how to shoot his revolver.

      * * *

      “Señora, can you fire a pistol?”

      “Sí.”

      “A pistol!” Caroline spluttered.

      “Sí. I carry a pistola always in my pocket.”

      “What?” Her voice rose an octave. “Fernanda, you never told me that.”

      “You never ask, mi corazón. Besides, I never tell you lots of things.”

      Caroline struggled to her feet and immediately regretted it. Her legs felt stiff as new sofa springs. Nevertheless, she marched over to Fernanda, who sat placidly beside the fire pit eating the last of the biscuits. Before she could confront the Mexican woman, Rivera laid his big hand on Caroline’s shoulder and spun her toward him so fast it made her dizzy.

      “There’s something I want to show you before we get started.”

      “Oh? And what is that, Mr. Rivera? How to take off my boots, perhaps?”

      A smile flickered. The first hint of any humor in the taciturn sheriff and a welcome change from that smoldering anger in his green eyes and the perpetual frown he wore. My goodness, what a sourpuss he was. He’d be nice-looking if his face were not so scrunched up.

      “Nothing to do with boots,” he said in that maddeningly calm voice of his. Didn’t he ever get excited about anything? Even Fernanda’s impromptu fandango last night hadn’t cracked his impassive expression. He must have been a superb soldier in the War, imperturbable as a sphinx under fire.

      She sniffed. “Well, what is it? Show me and let us be on our way. I have a speaking engagement in Gillette Springs this evening.”

      He shot her a look. “I want you to learn to use a revolver.”

      She sucked in a breath. “I beg your pardon? What on earth for?” The very thought of putting her hand on a firearm sent a shudder up her spine. Did women out West actually do such brazen things?

      “For protection.”

      “Yours or mine? No well-bred lady handles firearms.”

      “No well-bred lady travels out West lighting fires under half the population without knowing how to protect herself.”

      “Lighting fires? Well, I should hope so. For your information, Mr. Rivera, ‘lighting fires’ is going to be the salvation of womankind.”

      He said nothing, just took hold of her upper arm and propelled her away from the fire. Fernanda fled to the stream with the empty tin cups and the coffeepot.

      He slid his revolver out of the holster on his hip, spilled the chambered bullets into his palm and thrust the weapon at her, holding it by the blued steel barrel. She knocked it out of his hand onto the ground.

      His eyes narrowed into glittery emerald slits. “Pick it up,” he ordered.

      “I can’t. I am too stiff to bend over.”

      “Then you shouldn’t have dropped the gun. I said pick it up.” He put one hand at her waist and the other at her back and jackknifed her body. She groaned through gritted teeth.

      “Pick it up,” he repeated.

      She scrabbled on the ground and managed to grab the long barrel, but it was heavier than she expected. She couldn’t lift it with one hand.

      “Use two hands,” he ordered.

      She pushed the weapon toward her other hand and grasped the handle.

      “Now straighten up.” He bit the words out like firecrackers going off.

      “You got me doubled over like this,” she said. “You can get me to straighten up.”

      Too late she realized her mistake. He slapped one hand on her midsection, grasped her shoulder with the other and yanked her upright.

      Her muscles screamed and she wanted to weep with frustration. She thought about stamping her foot onto his toe, but she knew she couldn’t lift it high enough.

      “Now,” he instructed, positioning her hand on the gun. “Fold your fingers around the butt and slip your forefinger onto the trigger.” He laid his hand over hers and curled her fingers over the handle. She couldn’t hold up the weight, and the barrel drooped toward the ground.

      “You right-handed?” When she nodded, he grabbed her left hand and pressed her fingers on the opposite side. “Hold it steady.”

      “I am trying! It is too heavy for a woman.”

      “Not too heavy for a crusader,” he said drily.

      She glanced into his face. “You think I am a crusader?”

      “Hell,