He didn't make it two steps onto the porch before he heard the click of a gun being cocked.

"Going somewhere, Coltrain?"

Charlie stopped and glanced at the Ranger lounging against the porch rail, gun aimed at Charlie's head.

"To Texas with you. That is, if you can make it, Yank."

"Ready when you are."

Charlie glanced up toward Angelina's window. "I'm ready now. And let's make it quick and quiet."

Winston followed Charlie's gaze, and his eyes narrowed in speculation. Then he nodded his agreement and motioned for Charlie to precede him to the barn.

Minutes later, they rode out to the east.

They traveled throughout the day in silence, two men at odds for so long suddenly forced to travel together over a long distance. When they stopped just after dark, Charlie found they worked well together, making the camp and scraping out a meal.

After dinner, Winston approached with a length of rope. "Have to tie you for the night."

Charlie shrugged. "I'd do the same if I were you." He was surprised to find the hatred he'd harbored in his soul for anyone he considered a Yankee had faded to a dull burn. He couldn't summon up the fierce bitterness. Every time he attempted to bring back the hate, he saw Angelina's face and heard her words of forgiveness. Life was too short, and his was getting shorter with every mile they rode closer to the border. He didn't want to spend his last few days hating a man who was only doing what he believed to be right. Charlie wanted to spend those last days remembering Angelina and every moment they'd shared together.

The next several days passed in much the same way. Charlie slept little and ate less. Sometimes he caught the Ranger watching him with an almost concerned expression on his face. Charlie ignored the man. He had no reason to engage in either activity. Soon enough he would have no need for food, and he could sleep for all eternity.

"You really love her, don't you?"

Winston's question startled Charlie out of a half doze beside the fire, where he'd been dreaming of the first time he'd kissed Angelina. Sitting up straight, he blinked a few times to clear the fog from his eyes and stared across the wavering flames at the Ranger.

"What if I do? Won't help me now, will it?"

"Might. Love can accomplish amazing things for a man."

Charlie snorted. "You're an expert?"

"Not an expert. I just know what it's like to love someone so young and innocent. Someone who looks at you as if you could save the world, even though you know you're not fit to kiss her toes."

The sincerity in Winston's voice made Charlie smile grudgingly. The Ranger had it right there.

"It was like that with you and your Claire?"

Winston shot him a dark glance at the mention of his dead fiancee. Charlie thought the Ranger might remind him of his supposed part in her death, but after a moment's consideration Winston nodded and stared into the fire.

"When you lose someone you love the way I loved her, in the way I lost her, there's nothing left. That part inside of you that belonged to her is suddenly empty. The only way to fill that hole inside you is to make certain someone pays for that loss."

His gaze locked with Charlie's again. Charlie nodded slowly and looked away, thoughts of his ma and Annie crowding into his mind. He and the Ranger had a lot in common. They were both being eaten from the inside out by hate and grief and guilt. Maybe he could help the man out, though God knew why he should give a damn.

What the hell? he thought. Got nothin' better to do with my time anyway.

"It doesn't help," he blurted, earning a frown of confusion from Winston. "Even if you find that person and kill him with your own hands, it doesn't help. The one you love is still dead, and nothing will bring them back."

The Ranger nodded, considering Charlie's words. "So how do you go on living?" Winston asked, his eyes full of an earnest desire to learn the answer.

"You don't live. Not really. You exist. You hate the world and everyone in it. You blame a group of people for the evil of one. And you die alone and lonely."

"Pleasant prospect."

"Yeah, ain't it?" Charlie said They both stared at the dancing red-orange glow of the flames between them, and Charlie wondered when the hate within him had withered and died and when tolerance had taken its place instead.

[EXT].

Sister, If the worst happens and you carry my child, I'm sure you'll be able to find me in the Dallas jail. At least until they hang me. What happened between us was a mistake. For what it's worth, you have my name, which is more than I ever got from my pa. If I had anything else to give you, I would. Good-bye.

Charlie [/EXT].

"Hellfire," Angelina muttered and threw the paper back onto the dresser where she'd found it. "If he thinks I'm staying here until he's hanged for something he didn't do, he's made a bigger mistake than making love to me."

While she stuffed clothes into a bag and changed into a riding habit, she talked to herself, her anger flaring higher with every word. "If I'm carrying a child, he's darn well going to hear about it. I'm not going to let him sacrifice himself for the wrong reasons. No, sir. And how dare he say having a child would be the worst that could happen? Wait until I get my hands on that man."

Whirling away from the bed, she threw her pack over her shoulder and headed for the door. She reached for the knob and jerked it toward her, then stumbled forward to bump her nose against the immobile door. Frowning, Angelina rattled the doorknob.

Locked.

Fury, hot and fresh and blinding, raced through her blood. Throwing the pack to the floor, she banged on the door with all her strength.

"Let me out of here," she shouted.

No one answered. Angelina's gaze swept the room as panic set in. She had to get on the trail or she'd never catch Charlie and the Ranger. Once she did, she was going to have a word with her husband about locking his wife in her room.

She ran to the window and threw it open. Below, her father had just stepped off the porch.

"I'm locked in," Angelina called. "Can you come up and open the door?"

He stopped and turned to face her, tilting his head up. "I don't think so, daughter. Since I locked you in, I

don't believe I'm going to let you out just because you asked me to."

Angelina's heart stuttered. Her father had locked her in, not Charlie. "Why did you do lock me in?"

"To prevent your doing exactly what I can see you planned to do: going after your outlaw. You're going

back to the convent, daughter. They'll accept you with a sizable dowry and forget your unfortunate

marriage. The people around here won't be so forgiving. I have to get you out of sight of my political companions so they can forget about you and your scandalous behavior. Then I can take my rightful place in our government."

Angelina bit her lip, trying to think of a way out of the predicament. Perhaps the best course of action would be to agree. If she could get out of this room and off of this ranch, she might have a chance to thwart her father's plans. "Yes, I see your point. Why don't you have one of the boys take me back to the convent today?"

Her father smiled, white teeth flashing against bronzed skin. "I'm not an idiot, daughter. You'd find a way to get word to your outlaw. Besides, I can't send you to the convent with a brat in your belly."

Angelina flinched at the distaste in his voice, but she bit back the words of anger. She had to find a way out of this, and alienating her father would not get her the information she needed. But she needn't have worried. Now that he'd begun to talk, her father seemed to enjoy telling her his entire scheme.

"You will stay in your room until I'm certain you don't carry a child. If you do, you will go to your aunt's in Mexico City and leave the baby with her. In any event, by the time such a problem is resolved, your husband will be dead. Then your brothers will take you back where you belong."

"How can you be so certain they'll hang Charlie? He did not kill that man or rob that train."

"Whether he did or did not hardly matters. If the law doesn't take care of him one way, the Ranger will take care of him another. Either way, he'll be just as dead."

Angelina went very still, smelling a rat somewhere close. "What are you talking about? Charlie did not kill Drew Winston's fiancee. He has proof. Winston wouldn't kill him."

"Really?" He laughed. "You are so naive. Men will do anything for money. And I offered the Ranger quite a bit of cash to make sure Charlie Coltrain dies, one way or the other."

Her father turned away, a smug smile upon his lips. Angelina sank to the floor as despair washed over her.

Charlie was gone and she was trapped. When her father set his mind to something, a way around him rarely presented itself. She would not get out of this room until he had the answer he sought. By then it would be too late to save her husband. And without Charlie, she really didn't care what happened to her.

Dallas Not the place Charlie would have picked to die, but then one was as good as the next in his situation.

He and Winston rode through town. As they approached the jail, the Ranger pulled up and stopped.

"What the hell?" Winston muttered as he stared at the crowd milling in front of a hanging platform.

"How'd they know I was comin'?" Charlie asked. "Thought I was gonna get a trial."

"You will." Winston shook his head. "This isn't for you." He pointed at the platform. "Look."

Several law officers mounted the steps both before and behind a tall, blond man. The prisoner's hands were bound behind him. One of the officials led the man to the noose in the middle of the platform that swayed slowly in the dusty breeze.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. "Hellfire," he murmured.

Winston glanced at him sharply. "Know him?"

"Yeah. Neil Hansen. Rode with me in Missouri before and after the war. Never cared for him much. He

had a nasty streak of mean-kind of like my brother, Bill, only worse. Didn't follow my rules, so I told him he wasn't welcome in my gang." Charlie frowned, remembering. "Hansen didn't take it well at all. As I recall, he swore he'd pay me back someday."

Charlie fell silent as one of the lawmen stepped forward. "You have been convicted of train robbery and murder. Your sentence is to hang by the neck until dead." The lawman raised his hand, and seconds later, Neil Hansen was twisting and kicking from the noose. While he watched the man's final struggles, the lawman said, "May God have mercy upon your soul, Charlie Coltrain."

"Son of a bitch," Winston swore.

"Yep," Charlie said. "I'd say he didn't get his revenge quite the way he planned. Looks as if he got himself hanged, usin' my name."

Winston looked around the town square as though he could find someone to tell him what had happened.

His gaze came back to Charlie, and Charlie almost smiled at the confusion in the Ranger's eyes.

"Told you I didn't do it."

Winston grimaced. "I know. Listen, I'm gonna have to put you in the jail until I check this out."

"Don't forget to wire Missouri and check the dates on my bein' in jail there."

"I will," Winston said, though his voice held an absentminded quality.

They rode around the crowd, Gabe on a leading rein tied to the Ranger's horse. At the jail, they both

dismounted. Charlie followed Winston inside.

"Got a man I need you to hold," Winston told the officer on duty.

"Name?"

"Uh-" Winston turned to Charlie with a question in his eyes.

"Reyes." Charlie supplied the only name he could think of at the moment. "Charlie Reyes." He didn't feel

like explaining why he had the same name as the man who'd just been hanged. Until he found out just what crimes Neil Hansen had committed in his name, Charlie figured he'd better keep his true identity to himself. Obviously Winston agreed since he nodded and left Charlie with the jailer. Shortly thereafter, Charlie entered a cell and joined a raucous poker game already in progress.

Night fell before Drew found all his answers. He sat outside the jail and thought about what he had learned. The man Charlie knew as Neil Hansen had been on a crime spree throughout Texas, robbing and killing with great abandon under the name Charlie Coltrain. As far as the powers-that-be knew, Charlie Coltrain had died upon the hanging platform. Drew did not set them straight. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why.