"Dear God, dear God," Angelina sobbed against Charlie's chest. "I thought he was going to kill you."

"He meant to. If you hadn't warned me, he would likely have blown my head off."

Just the thought made Angelina shiver and hug Charlie closer. The commotion had brought most of the hands from the bunkhouse and they stood in a semicircle around them. Maria sobbed quietly in the background.

"We'd better get a move on, Sister, before someone takes a notion to keep us here. I don't think we want to wait for Alvarez to wake up."

"No, you're right." Angelina forced herself to release him. He was alive, and that was all that mattered now. The fact that she wanted to go on holding him forever was a thought she pushed forcibly from her mind. She looked up into his face, and he gave her his half smile for encouragement. Something wet glistened at the side of his face, and Angelina reached up to wipe it away.

Charlie winced at her touch.

"You're hurt," she gasped, staring at the blood on her fingertips.

"Only a scratch. I told you, he'd've blown my head off if it hadn't been for you."

"You mean you're bleeding from a bullet?" A wave of dizziness washed over her and she swayed.

"Hey, Sister." Charlie grasped her arm. "What's the matter? I thought you were used to blood."

"Not yours."

"I don't like it much neither. But we've got to get out of here while we can. Faint on me later."

Angelina nodded. Luckily she'd been able to discard the rose-colored dress and change into a riding

habit borrowed from Senora Alvarez before she'd heard voices outside and gone to investigate. There was no reason to return to the house now. Angelina crossed to where Maria knelt at the side of her husband.

"I'm sorry this had to happen. We'll be leaving now."

Maria nodded, but said nothing more. Angelina looked at Charlie. He'd drawn his gun and he watched the circle of men warily. She joined him, and together they backed toward the barn.

"Can you saddle the horses?" he whispered. "I don't think I'd better take my eyes off 'em right now."

"Certainly," Angelina said and did just that as Charlie stood guard near the door.

Juan was just starting to stir as they rode out. No one tried to stop them, and Angelina breathed a sigh of

relief once they rode out of sight of the ranch.

They traveled hard for an hour, and then Angelina stopped her mount.

Charlie stopped as well, but rounded on her with fury in his voice. "What the hell are you stoppin' for?

They could be right behind us. I got the drop on 'em once, but they'll be ready now. I'm no match for a

dozen armed men, Sister."

Angelina dismounted and calmly ripped a piece of material from the dark trailing skirt of Senora Alvarez's riding habit. She would have to remember to send the woman a new one.

"What are you doin'?" Charlie jumped down from his horse and strode toward her.

"I'm going to clean your wound."

"Not now. I tell ya, I'm fine."

"I'm not moving from this spot until you let me see your face."

"Angelina." The word was a growl-a warning.

She ignored it, taking out her canteen and wetting the material in her hand. "They won't come after us,

Charlie. Relax."

"How do you know? I'm sure Alvarez is hoppin' mad."

"I'm sure Juan is nursing a headache the size of Mexico City."

"He'll send his men out after us."

"No," Angelina said. "He won't. He might insult us on his own property, but he wouldn't dare send

armed men after me-not when we're so close to my father's hacienda."

"Your father has that much power?"

"Yes," she said simply. "Believe me, no one is following us."

Her sincerity must have convinced Charlie, for the tense readiness of his body relaxed. He came a few

steps nearer. "Get it over with then," he growled and turned his cheek toward her.

The moon shone bright above them, casting a blue-white light across his features. Blood had darkened to black as it dried across his injured cheek.

"You'll have to sit down. I can't see very well from here."

Charlie obeyed without comment, and Angelina joined him on the ground. He avoided her eyes, staring

instead straight ahead while she ministered to him. Gently, she cleaned away the blood, allowing the slash to bleed for a few seconds to cleanse the wound.

"You might have a scar," she observed.

He didn't even look at her. "Good. I've always been too pretty."

"I wouldn't say that." Angelina pressed a clean cloth to the wound to staunch the flow.

He looked at her then, his black eyes boring into hers. Had she ever thought his eyes cold and empty?

Impossible. Right now they flamed with a glow from within and brimmed with so much emotion that she caught her breath in wonder.

"You wouldn't?" he asked, his ruined voice affecting her like a caress. "What would you say, Angelina?"

His hand came up and cupped hers where she pressed the cloth to his cheek.

"Not too pretty," she choked out past the sudden tightness in her throat. "Handsome."

"Too handsome?"

"Perhaps."

"I'm sure you've learned a pretty face doesn't reflect what's inside."

"Of course," she answered, though her mind was distracted by the way his thumb moved up and down the back of her hand, stroking, soothing, arousing.

"Yeah, Sister, you know it's the soul that counts. And mine's awful black."

She was drowning in his eyes, black pools filled with too many emotions for her to name-longing, lust and a deep well of sadness that drew her closer and closer.

"I can help you," she whispered, just before her lips met his.

They had shared kisses of all kinds-hard, soft, punishing, seductive-but this one was somehow different. This kiss was all those things at once and more.

His mouth on hers was warm, comforting. She sank against him, somehow landing in his lap. His arms went around her, cradling her body to his. She urged his face closer and opened her mouth to welcome him. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered she was not supposed to kiss him, not supposed to touch him. But the thought only lasted a moment before the sensations destroyed it.

He groaned softly, and she moved her hands to the back of his neck, half afraid he would stop touching her. But he did not. Instead, his tongue stroked the inside of her mouth, her teeth, then finally met the tip of hers with a feather-light touch. She pushed his hat from his head, and his golden hair cascaded around their faces, drifting softly past her cheek.

She moved her hands to his back, feeling the ridged scars despite the covering of his shirt. Tracing them with her fingers, she soothed his movement of retreat with low murmurs deep in her throat and long, slow strokes of her hands up and down his spine. She remembered the livid white scars that had marred the perfection of his muscled back and spread her palms across his shoulders to hug him tighter.

Lost. She was lost in the wonder of Charlie. His mouth, his hands, his hair-every part of him enchanted her. She wanted to know more about this wondrous feeling that had been building between them since they'd first set eyes upon each other. She was tempted, so very tempted.

Charlie could teach her. All she had to do was let him.

With a strangled cry of dismay, Angelina tore her mouth away from Charlie's.

"What?" Charlie asked, holding her fast in his lap as she tried to scramble away. "What's wrong?"

His voice was even rougher than usual, laced with passion and need. Angelina winced and turned her gaze up to the bright moon above them. She couldn't look at his beautiful face. She would not look into his hot black eyes. He had told her not to kiss him, not to touch him. The lust between them was too great a temptation.

But the temptation was not all for Charlie. Just as Christ had been tempted in another desert, in this desert Angelina was learning the true meaning of the word, and without the benefit of Christ's divinity, she didn't know how to resist.

With Charlie's lips hot on her own, with temptation tasting too good to resist, Angelina experienced another revelation. The reason she couldn't discover a way to help Charlie, to fulfill her mission, was because Charlie was not her mission.

Oh, no.

He was her temptation.

The snakebite delayed Drew for two weeks. He had been delirious, probably calling for Claire as he always did in his sleep. Luckily the couple taking care of him understood very little English. He didn't have to explain his ravings to them as he'd been asked to do on several occasions in the past when he'd called out the wrong woman's name in bed.

When he was finally back on the trail, he found the nearest telegraph office and sent a message to Ranger headquarters regarding his accident, telling his superior he would be on leave indefinitely. Drew didn't really care one way or the other if he lost his post. Charlie Coltrain was going to get his punishment one way or the other.

Drew shaded his eyes for the tenth time that day and looked into the distance. Nothing. No one. Where could they be? In Mexico by now, that much was certain. Drew had crossed over the border himself that morning. He figured Coltrain and the woman had quite a jump on him. But he did possess one fact they had no doubt forgotten, and he planned to make use of his information as soon as he found any place resembling a town.

Night approached as he reached a settlement called Villa something or other, the elements having erased half the sign. Drew left his horse outside the saloon and entered. Where there was alcohol, gambling and women, there was always information.

He approached the bartender and ordered whiskey. The man eyed Drew's Colt Peacemakers with interest before he complied. Drew tossed back the shot, but shook his head at the offer of a second. He needed to keep riding tonight if he wanted to make up some time.

"Got a minute for a question or two?" he asked the bartender.

The man shrugged, but didn't move away. Encouraged, Drew leaned his elbow on the bar. "I'm looking for a man. Tall, yellow hair. His voice is wrecked from the war. Seen him?"

"No."

"Might have been with a woman. Small, pretty, Mexican."