"I don't want to leave him."

Charlie sighed. "I know. But I don't see no other choice. As soon as he's well enough, he's gonna come after us. We need to get away."

Angelina frowned and turned to face him. "Rangers can't come over the border."

"Didn't you hear what he said before? He's on leave. Took off work just to get me. I suspect he didn't want to abide by Ranger rules in this case."

Angelina muttered an expletive that made Charlie's eyebrows rise and his mouth quirk up at the corner.

"My, my, where did you learn that one? I'm shocked."

"Shut up. I don't like this. Not one bit."

Charlie sobered at her sharp words. "You think I like draggin' a lawman who's out for my hide along behind my horse? We've got to get rid of him. Now maybe you'll quit fightin' me over leavin' him. I may be losin' my edge, but I still know how to take care of myself-and you if you'll just let me."

Angelina didn't answer right away. Fatigue and melancholy threatened to overwhelm her. Though the lack of sleep from the night before undoubtedly contributed to such a state, she didn't understand the sinking despair within her. She hadn't suffered such sadness since being locked in her room to await her wedding.

The revelations she'd overheard about Charlie the previous night weighed heavily on her mind. She did not like being uncertain of herself. She was a woman who had always had a plan for her life. When that plan did not go correctly, when she wasn't in control, her entire world tilted. Maybe that was why she kept fighting Charlie despite the fact that she knew he was only trying to do his best for the both of them. But until her life was back on a course she understood, she would continue to feel a creeping sense of catastrophe haunting her every move.

She began to walk back up the path to their horses and her patient. "I suppose you're right, Charlie. We have to leave him. But it still goes against everything I've been taught."

"I know, and I'm sorry."

Angelina glanced at him in surprise. He wasn't looking at her. Instead he studied the tips of his boots intently as they walked. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought he actually was sorry. She'd always thought Charlie held her beliefs in barely veiled contempt. He had said once he respected her, but she'd taken that as a compliment to her courage, not her calling. Maybe she'd been wrong.

He was more subdued than she'd ever seen him. Could the revelations of last night be preying on his mind? Did she truly believe Charlie capable of what the Ranger had accused him of? Did his guilt or innocence matter to her mission?

The last question made Angelina falter, and Charlie reached out a hand to steady her. She smiled her thanks absently as her mind contemplated the truth.

Her mission was to save Charlie from himself. Whether or not he had killed the Ranger's Claire did not alter her plans. In fact, if he had killed Claire, he needed saving all the more. Angelina did not believe Charlie would ever hurt her. Even if she did, would she put her mission aside?

No.

The answer was as clear to her as the bright sunshine beating down upon her uncovered head.

They reached the top of the hill, and Angelina left Charlie's side to go check on her patient. The Ranger smiled at her when she approached, and she returned the expression. He lay on a hastily constructed apparatus hitched to Angelina's horse. A blanket lay across his legs, his injured leg too swollen and sore to allow his pants to be put back on, despite the slit Angelina had made in their seam.

"I just want to check your leg one more time before we go, Mr. Winston. If we're going too fast for you, be sure to let us know." She flipped away the blanket, exposing a long, heavily muscled thigh, and pulled back the piece of petticoat she'd used to bind the wound. Pleased with how the bite had progressed toward healing, she nodded briskly and rebound his leg.

"You know I'll come after him." Winston's voice was so soft Angelina found herself straining to hear him. "And you, too, if you're still with him."

Angelina nodded and glanced over her shoulder. Charlie had already mounted Gabe. He could not hear them.

"I know you believe you're doing the right thing. But I believe I am as well. We all have our callings in this life, Mr. Winston."

He frowned. "What does your calling have to do with Coltrain?"

She smiled gently and stood. "He needs my help. You don't know all the demons that torment him. He was trying to turn his life around when you caught up with him."

Winston gave a snort of laughter. "Sure he was."

"He didn't rob that train, and he most certainly did not shoot that engineer."

"You seem awful sure, ma'am."

"I am. As to your Claire-" She broke off when he gave a quick start of surprise at her knowledge, then

continued, trying to soothe away the flash of pain that lighted his eyes. "You must have been terribly hurt to lose her, and I understand that grief makes us do things we wouldn't otherwise. Perhaps you should check into these situations again and make certain you have the right man. After all, you're talking about his life."

Winston scowled and turned his head away. "What has he done to you to make you believe all his lies?"

"Nothing." She turned and looked toward Charlie again, her earlier doubts coming back full force. She hesitated, then straightened her shoulders. If she trusted Charlie, then she trusted him. She could spout her faith in him for days, but the only way to make Charlie believe in himself would be for her to believe in him, too-not just with words, but with actions. Angelina turned back to the Ranger for one final

comment. "I believe that he's done many things that the Lord would not approve of, but I also believe he's willing to change his ways. We must learn to forgive, Mr. Winston."

His eyes pierced her with a burning glare. "No way, ma'am. Some things don't deserve forgiving."

"I think Charlie has the same opinion on forgiveness. You two have more in common than you think."

Before the Ranger could retort, she spun away and mounted her horse.

Charlie glanced over at her. "What were you two jabberin' about?"

"Just a short discussion on forgiveness." He laughed and turned in his saddle to get a look at the Ranger.

"Him? You're crazy. What are you tryin' to do, Sister? Save the world?"

"Not the world." She patted her horse's neck with a smile. "Just my little corner."

Chapter Eight.

"I still don't like the idea of leaving him there," Angelina said, twisting around in her saddle to get a last look at the small shack they had just settled the Ranger into.

"He'll be fine. That woman was hoverin' over him like a bear with her last cub, and he'll be a helluva lot more comfortable in a bed than bein' dragged behind a horse."

"I know." Angelina sighed and forced her unease away. "You're right."

"I'm right?" Charlie laughed. "I like the sound of that outta your mouth. You just keep thinkin' that way, Sister, and the rest of the trip should go just fine."

When night came, they made camp. As Angelina was cleaning up the remains of their meal, Charlie spoke again. "Somethin's been eatin' at me all day. You've suddenly become awful agreeable to a lot of things. Like goin' to Mexico and leavin' the Ranger. Why the change?"

"I-uh-" She faltered to a stop. She couldn't tell him about her revelation. If he knew that she planned to cleanse him of his hatred for Yankees, that she'd discovered he was her mission from God, Charlie just might run away from her as fast as he was running from himself. She knew about stubborn men who didn't want to hear the truth. You had to make them see the truth slowly, as though any change were their own idea. Angelina had been taught that intricacy at the knee of her mother. Though, to be honest, Theresa Reyes had never had much success with her stubborn men.

"Angelina?" Charlie had crossed the distance separating them and taken the coffeepot from her stiff fingers.

"Yes? Oh, you asked me a question." His nearness flustered her. Whenever he came close, her body reacted with a wash of feelings-her stomach burned hot, her hands went ice cold, her mind was a mass of confusing sensations. The priest in Blue Creek had told her she must fight her weakness for this man and follow the way of God. She had never had a problem with such advice before. What on earth was the matter with her now?

She should be able to focus on her desire to help Charlie to the exclusion of all else. Instead, at odd moments, she found herself concentrating on the strength in his hands when he helped her onto or off of her horse, or the rasp of his ruined voice, which should not cause her flesh to ripple with awareness whenever he spoke to her. And, try as she might, she could not stop reliving the soft-hard texture of his lips against hers.

Angelina bit her lip. She was doing it again. Such imaginings must stop if she was to be any good for Charlie. Glancing at him, she saw he studied her with a frown, no doubt wondering if she'd been out in the sun too long again since she couldn't seem to work up an answer to his question.

Angelina sighed. She wasn't going to be able to get away without some kind of response. "When I spoke with the father at Blue Creek," she ventured, "he told me I should look for God's hand in what was happening to me. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get away from returning to Mexico with you. So maybe God sent you to take me home."

There, Angelina thought, that was partly the truth. I do want to go home and see my mother. May God forgive me, I didn't tell the entire truth.

"God sent me to you?"

Angelina nodded.

Amusement lit his eyes. "Sister, you've really got the world backward."

"Why?"

"If anyone sent me to you, it wasn't God. He washed His hands of me a long time ago."

Angelina put her hand on Charlie's arm as he reached forward to place the coffeepot on the fire. He tensed, but for once did not react with violence to the suddenness of her touch.

Praise God for small favors, she thought.

Charlie turned his head toward her, and Angelina was struck once again by the incredible length of the lashes surrounding his black eyes.

"You're wrong, Charlie," she said softly, earnestly. "God never washes His hands of any of us. He's the eternal optimist. He'll never give up on you, and neither will I."

Charlie stared at her for a long time, his face as expressionless as his eyes. Angelina refused to back down, though she had a feeling stronger men often did in the face of such a stare. Finally his mouth

quirked up slightly.

"Whatever you say, Sister. You're the expert in that department." He slowly withdrew his arm from Angelina's touch and went to check on the horses.

She gazed after him, wondering why she did not feel she had reached him, even though the words he'd uttered had agreed with her statement. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Angelina set about making her bed.

Later that night, Angelina lay in her bedroll and watched the stars. Charlie sat nearby, staring into the fire as he did every night. She couldn't understand how he continued to exist with virtually no rest. When she'd asked him why he didn't sleep, he'd fixed her with his black stare and informed her that she wouldn't sleep either if she saw the things he did whenever he closed his eyes. She hadn't mentioned the subject of sleep again.

The acrid smell of cigar smoke drifted to her, and Angelina frowned, raising her head. Charlie sat across the fire, a cigar in his hand. As she watched, he raised a bottle to his lips and took a swig. He grimaced as he swallowed, then tilted the bottle back for more.

Angelina sat up with a jerk, her single braid flipping over her shoulder with the motion. Charlie's gaze swung slowly to rest on that braid, then inched up to meet her eyes.

"Need to go behind a bush, Sister?"

She ignored that. "I've never seen you smoke or drink before."

He shrugged and took another swallow from the bottle, never letting his gaze wander from hers. "Things have been a little busy since I met you. I just didn't get a chance."

"Why tonight?"

"Why not tonight?"

Angelina shook her head in bewilderment. Where she came from, men drank in celebration or despair.

What was Charlie's excuse? She asked him as much.

"God, you're young," Charlie said.

"You've told me that before. I'm getting sick of hearing it. Living with my father made me old for my

years. Now, answer my question."

"Yes, Sister." He swallowed another mouthful and took a long draw on the cigar, blowing the smoke out in a gray stream of foul-smelling air. "I'm smokin' and drinkin' because I like it. No other reason. I'm not

like your father and your brothers-upright, God-fearin' men with wives and families. I'm CharlieColtrain-thief, outlaw and murderer.""You have to quit thinking of yourself that way.""Why? No one else thinks of me any other way.""I do.""Well, that makes one person in the whole damn world. I don't think you'll sway public opinion much."

Angelina thought hard. She had to get Charlie to believe in the goodness she was certain existed within him. But how, if no one had ever believed in him the way she did? Someone, somewhere must have seen something good in Charlie Coltrain. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she blurted it out before thinking. "What about your mother? I'm sure she believes in you."

Charlie went very still, his body suddenly one mass of tension. He yanked the bottle up and took three large gulps, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "My ma is dead."

Flinching at the cold finality of the words, and the pain they betrayed despite the coldness, Angelina bit her lip and continued on. "I'm sorry. But she must have believed in you when she was alive."