It was shortly after three when Gage realized he was once again standing outside Emmaline Conard's house. The hours of walking had finally battered down the grinding pain in his leg and worn out the wolves that gnawed at his soul. He had intended to return to his rooms above Mahoney's to rest up for Micah's wedding, but somehow he had strayed this way.

Why?

Something was wrong. Something was mortally wrong. G.o.d, he hated this feeling! Every time he got it, something awful happened, and most of the time there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing he could do to prevent it.

Smothering a curse, he turned sharply away from the Conard home and headed toward Mahoney's as fast as his limp would permit. Never again, by G.o.d. Never again. Involvement carried a price he wasn't prepared to pay. Not again.

Emma thought Gage Dalton resembled a black hole amidst the swirl of wedding festivities. Nearly five hundred people crowded the high school gym, snacking from the smorgasbord of covered dishes everyone had brought and dancing to the amplified sounds of the school princ.i.p.al's pop-music collection. Gage, however, sat in splendid solitude in a dimly lit corner far from the hub of the excitement.

He had shed his customary black jeans and shirt for a charcoal gray suit in honor of the occasion, but the change did little to alleviate the sense of darkness and gloom that traveled with him. For a wild instant Emma actually wondered if, like a black hole, he swallowed all the sound and light around him. Perhaps if she stepped close enough, she would enter the bubble of silence that seemed to shield him from the world around him.

For all that, she continued to ease her way through the crowd in his general direction, taking care to avoid Don Fenster as she did so. Childish as it was, she and Don hadn't spoken for nearly twenty years, ever since Emma had popped him in the nose. It wasn't that she was still mad at him, but every time he saw her, his lip curled in a way that killed any desire on her part to speak to him. He'd been a brat as a child, she thought now, and as a grown man he was still a brat. She would have been perfectly content to let bygones be bygones, but not Don. No, he wanted to turn a childhood argument into the Hatfields and McCoys.

Sniffing in unconscious disapproval, she returned her attention to Gage Dalton. Everyone else here was laughing and talking and having a wonderful time, and it seemed terribly wrong to Emma that he should be sitting alone in that dark corner.

Just as she approached the table, Jeff c.u.mberland, one of the county's most prominent ranchers, settled into a folding chair across from Gage. Emma reached them just in time to hear Jeff say, "Have you and Micah learned anything new about my cattle?"

Everyone in Conard County had heard that Jeff had lost three of his best cattle, two heifers and a prize bull, to the mutilations that were an on-again, off-again mystery from Kentucky to Montana. Periodically livestock were found with their genitals and tongues missing. Experts contended that the apparent surgical precision of the always bloodless wounds was due to shrinkage of the flesh, and that however strange the mutilations might appear, they were in fact normal predator activity. Farmers and ranchers were not so easily convinced that any predator would take only the tongue and genitals and leave everything else intact. Since nothing could be proved one way or the other, most people had come to an uneasy acceptance of the mutilations.

Last month, however, Jeff c.u.mberland had had three cattle mutilated in one short week. The Sheriff's Department evidently tried to keep things quiet but had failed. Ever since then, Emma had sensed a restless anger among the ranchers, a frustrated need to do something to defend their herds and catch the culprits.

When she pulled out a chair and joined Jeff and Gage at the table, the two men acknowledged her with distracted nods.

"Not one d.a.m.n thing," Gage said in answer to Jeff's question.

Jeff's jaw tightened. "When the experts at the lab don't even agree-" He bit off the sentence, leaving it incomplete.

"The experts don't agree?" Emma repeated. She hadn't heard this before. "What do you mean, they don't agree? I thought they always said it was normal predation."

Both men stared at her as if they had just realized she was there. She hadn't been meant to hear this, Emma understood. Gage looked a little perturbed, and Jeff looked dismayed.

"They do," Gage said shortly. "That's what they always say."

Emma looked at Jeff, who nodded. "That's what they say, Emma."

"Then why did you say...?" Her voice trailed off and she looked sternly at Jeff. "I don't like being lied to, Jeffrey c.u.mberland, and I'm certainly no gossip you need to hide things from!"

Jeff threw up his hands. "Enough!" he said. "I've got enough on my mind, and I'm not going to be lectured to like a schoolboy by you or anybody else. You've turned into a scold, Emmaline Conard. Your daddy would shake his head!"

Emma watched Jeff s.n.a.t.c.h his hat up from the table and stalk away. Something inside her hurt, she realized. Jeff's angry words had wounded her. Had she really turned into a scold? Oh, Lord, what if she was turning into another Great-aunt Isabel?

Gage's voice pierced her thoughts. "It sounds as if you two go back a long way."

"Jeff is my cousin," Emma admitted, trying to stifle the hurt and appear unconcerned. "He's older, and when I was really little, he often used to look after me. But what about his cattle, Mr. Dalton?" She searched his impa.s.sive face, trying to find any clue. "I know as well as anyone how much Jeff has invested in his breeding stock, and it's a lot more than money. If someone is deliberately trying to destroy them-"

Gage silenced her in an instant by suddenly reaching out and catching her chin in his hard, warm palm. He turned her face up to him, and suddenly their eyes were only inches apart, their mouths every bit as close. Emma forgot what she had been saying, what she had been thinking. For the first time in a decade, she was close to a man, aware of a man, and feeling like a woman. Like a whole woman.

"Miss Emma," he murmured in that husky, ruined, s.e.xy voice, "do you think we could discuss this someplace less public?"

Before she could find her voice, let alone an appropriate word in response to that utterly suggestive question, a mocking voice intruded.

"Better look out, Dalton. She'll take a strip out of a man's hide for a lot less than what you're doing right now." The remark sounded teasing, but Emma knew better. She wrenched her chin free of Gage's grip and glared up at Earl Newton. Earl had been the person responsible for starting the rumor that Emma had succ.u.mbed to the blandishments of a traveling man while she was away at college, had even hinted that she had borne this nonexistent man a child and given it up for adoption. Emma presumed Earl had started the nastiness because she had repeatedly refused to go out with him. At least, she could think of no other reason for starting such a vicious rumor. All that was a decade in the past, of course, but Emma still heard references to her "traveling man".

Oh, how she wished there were something she could say that would wipe the smirk off Earl's face forever! But she had learned, painfully, that the only way to handle Earl and others like him was to pretend they had no effect on her at all.

She averted her face, intending to ignore Earl as if he had suddenly fallen through the floor and vanished. Much to her amazement, Gage shoved his chair back from the table and rose stiffly to face the other man.

"Maybe," Gage said to Earl, "you'd like to try picking on somebody your own size, Newton. We could go talk this over outside."

The words were softly spoken, but menacing nonetheless. Emma wasn't at all surprised when Earl suddenly shifted uneasily and claimed he'd just been teasing.

"Sure," said Gage. "Me, too. I don't think Miss Emma much appreciates it, though, and I can understand why."

Earl stole a quick look at Emma. "Sorry, Miss Emma. Just joking."

Emma watched Earl scuttle off and tried to control the urge to just run and hide in the nearest dark corner. No doubt Gage had heard about her "traveling man", and he'd been in town only a few months. No doubt he, too, had heard how she chewed up any man who asked her out.

"It's not true," she heard herself say. "It's really not true. I just ... don't date." She couldn't even look at him.

"That's your prerogative, ma'am. None of my business. Or anybody else's." He shifted his weight and bent a little, as if he was trying to ease stiff muscles. "I need to get out of here. I need to walk."

The words were said in a forceful, blunt tone that deprived them of casualness. Emma looked up swiftly and understood that Gage was getting claustrophobic from pain. She had felt like that when she was in the hospital, as if the only way to cope with the agony was to move and keep moving. She rose.

"Would you like some company?" she asked. "I'm ready to go home, and my car's still in the shop. I'd like to walk, but if you-"

He cut her off with an abrupt wave of his hand. "Sure. Let's go."

They waited just long enough to see the bride and groom make good their escape, and then they escaped themselves into the cold late afternoon. The sun was nearing the horizon, ready to plunge Conard County into another long winter night. Last night's dusting of fresh snow crunched beneath their boots, and their breath puffed in white clouds.

"It's colder," Emma remarked. Colder than yesterday. What she really wanted to do was tell him that none of what he had heard about her was true. For years she had lived with the shadows of those rumors, had accepted her father's a.s.surance that the people who really counted, the ones who knew her and cared, wouldn't believe any such trash. Gage Dalton, however, didn't know her. He was new to the county, and if he heard the rumors, he would probably believe them. For some reason, she couldn't stand the thought.

She sighed and told herself it was stupid to worry about such things at this late date. It was such an old story, and Gage wouldn't even care if it were true. Why should he? And why was she making such a mountain out of an old, old molehill?

"I apologize for the way I hushed you in there," Gage said abruptly. "Nate wants this business with Jeff's cattle kept as much under wraps as possible, and I think it's wise. Upsetting half the people in the county won't help anyone, least of all those of us who are investigating the matter."

Remembering the way he had hushed her, Emma felt momentarily breathless. Just because she was dedicated to spinsterhood didn't mean she didn't have a woman's normal drives. Gage had reminded her forcibly of that fact, though she was sure it had been the farthest thing from his mind. No, he had simply seized the quickest way of silencing her in such a public place, a way that would put an entirely different color on their conversation, should anyone wonder what they had been discussing. A brilliant move on his part, she thought. Brilliant. It had sure fooled Earl, whose approach had probably precipitated Gage's action.

"I guess I can understand why Sheriff Tate doesn't want everybody seeing aliens behind every bush and snowdrift," Emma said. The sky was taking on that deep, deep blue cast to the east, the dark brightness of evening. "But there was something unusual about what happened to Jeff's cattle. Everyone knows that, Mr. Dalton."

With automatic gallantry, he gripped her elbow as they stepped from the curb into a snowy street. There was surprisingly little traffic, Emma thought. Probably because almost everyone was partying at the gym. She stuffed her hands deeper into the pockets of her parka and tucked her chin down closer to her chest, trying to retain every bit of warmth she could.

They walked nearly two more blocks before Gage answered her. "Everyone believes that, Miss Emma. n.o.body knows it."

"What did the lab say?"

He glanced down at her and then changed the subject with a ruthlessness that left her breathless. "Did you ever figure out why that photograph of the dagger scared you spitless last night?"

They pa.s.sed Maude's diner and Good Shepherd Church, and were walking past the courthouse when Emma found enough breath to speak. "No," she said.

"I wondered."

And then, before good sense could overrule her, she blurted out the rest of it. "I had nightmares about it last night. Awful nightmares. I kept seeing it swing down at me, as if it was going to stab me." Oh, Lord, that sounded completely and totally neurotic! Why had she ever confided that?

"That's awful," Gage said after a moment. "I've had nightmares like that."

Startled, she looked up at him. "About knives?"

"About bombs."

Bombs. Oh, G.o.d. Bombs. She didn't need him to explain why he had nightmares about bombs. His scarred face was explanation enough. "But I've never seen that dagger before," she argued. "Never."

Gage remained silent as they walked by the library. "Maybe not," he said presently. "Maybe it reminded you of something else. Who knows? I just meant that I know about those kinds of nightmares, is all. No fun."

"No," she agreed. She stole another upward glance at him, her gaze skimming the shiny burned tissue, the jagged scar that slashed his cheek. A bomb. She looked quickly away, not wanting him to catch her staring. He didn't seem to be self-conscious about it, but he might just be good at hiding the fact that he was. She was good at that herself. Most people never guessed just how thin Emma Conard's skin really was.

A bomb. Good grief. Had it been directed at him? Or had it been some kind of accident? What had he done during all those years before he came to Conard County? What had driven him to come to the "ends of the earth"? She wished she had the nerve to ask him, even though she knew perfectly well that he would never answer her. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was astonishing that he had even mentioned the bomb. She seriously doubted that Gage Dalton ever let anything just slip. So why had he told her?

He was silent so long that when he at last spoke, Emma was nearly startled.

"Is the dream still bothering you now?" he asked.

"A little," she admitted. "It's like I can't quite shake it. I'll be doing something else and suddenly see the dagger in my mind's eye." She gave a deprecating laugh. "It'll wear off, I'm sure."

"I'm sure," he agreed noncommittally.

When her house came within sight, still a block up the street, Emma saw her discreet black-and-white sign advertising for a roomer and thought of Gage's interest in it. It seemed odd, when she thought about it, that a bachelor man would have any desire to live under a spinster's roof. Surely it would crimp his life-style?

"Where do you live now?" she heard herself asking him.

"Above Mahoney's."

"Oh." How unpleasant. "I imagine it's noisy?"

"Until closing," he agreed. "It always smells like stale beer and fried food."

"How macho."

He glanced sharply down at her and caught the teasing twinkle in her hazy green eyes. Slowly, like the reluctant opening of a rusty door, he smiled. It spread from the corners of his mouth, where it drew a crooked, curved line, pulled off center by his scars. It crept up to the corners of his eyes, creasing them attractively, and then eased the bleakness of his gray-green eyes.

Emma caught her breath. It was like watching a glorious sunrise to see Gage Dalton genuinely smile. Night vanished, replaced by a warm glow.

"Are you a teaser, Miss Emma?" he asked softly.

"I'm afraid so," she admitted, giving him a smile in return. "You need to understand that I was raised here, but in a different way than most women. Men are men in Conard County, Mr. Dalton, but most of it is pure pretense."

"And you see through it."

She shrugged. "I never thought it made a man less of a man if he sc.r.a.ped the manure off his boots at the door."

"Your father never needed to sc.r.a.pe his boots, did he?"

"No, he was a judge. But he did all those other manly things, from hunting every fall to bending his elbow at Mahoney's. It's expected hereabouts. The difference between my father and many of the other men around here is that he was aware of what he was doing. It was politic, and he did it politically."

"Is that why you don't date? Because you think you see through them?"

"No." Her lips compressed tightly, and she quickened her pace, not caring if she caused him another spasm in his leg. His question had been mocking, when she had only been joking with him. "I have a very high respect for quite a number of the men in this county, Mr. Dalton. Sheriff Tate. Jeff c.u.mberland. Tom Preston. Shall I make you a list?"

He caught her elbow and stopped her. "I can't walk this fast, Miss Emma," he told her quietly. Frankly.

She felt like a complete and total jerk. She had been teasing, but she had come off sounding like an utter sn.o.b. Then, with an unforgivable lack of courtesy, she had hurried her pace, knowing full well she would cause him pain.

Slowly, ashamed of herself, she faced him and raised her eyes to his. "I'm sorry. I'm really not a sn.o.b, and I was only joking." She didn't say anything about walking too fast. He might mistake anything she said as pity, and she was far from feeling any pity for this dark, dangerous man.

He studied her a moment and then gave her a faint smile. "And I don't mind sc.r.a.ping the manure from my boots."

She didn't want to go home, she realized as they walked steadily closer to her house. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone there, didn't want to rattle around listening to the endless ticking of the old clocks, waiting for the regulator to chime six so she could start preparing her solitary dinner. Just then her foot hit a patch of ice hidden beneath the fresh, undisturbed powder of last night's new snow. She gasped and tensed, expecting to land on her bottom, but strong hands caught her halfway down, catching her beneath her arms.

"d.a.m.n!" Gage whispered the word, a short sharp exclamation, and then sucked a hissing breath of air through his teeth as the pain swamped him. From his spine, it rolled through him in tidal waves of agony, until cold sweat beaded his face and even his teeth seemed to hurt. For an endless span of time that felt like an eternity but could only be a few seconds, he held Emma suspended as he was frozen in the grip of a pain so fierce it completely shut him down.

Then, gently, he lowered her to the ground.

Emma scrambled immediately to her feet, concerned because of the way he had sworn and then caught his breath. One look at him as he stood there white lipped and half doubled over, with sweat beading his face, told her just how much he hurt. She didn't bother scolding him for catching her, didn't bother asking what she could do. People in severe pain tended to get very impatient at that kind of thing.

So she simply waited for the worst to pa.s.s. When he started to straighten, she stepped to his side and slipped her arm around his waist just as she had last night.

"I still have that brandy," she commented. "And with the holidays coming, I went out this morning and bought a few bottles of good Scotch and bourbon."

Gage released a long sigh and let his arm come to rest around her shoulders as they continued toward her house. "I could do with a stiff Scotch," he said after a moment.

"I thought you might. But don't you have something stronger you could take? Some kind of pain pill?"

He shook his head.

"Why not?" She felt indignant. "Surely-"

He interrupted without apology. "I refuse to turn myself into an addict, Miss Emma. Any kind of addict."

She could respect that, but it didn't make her feel any better to think of this man hurting and unable to escape the pain for even a brief while. "Will it always be like this?" she asked.

"I don't know."

She hadn't turned the heat down earlier when she left for the reception, so she took Gage into the house through the front door this time. He settled into the Kennedy rocker with obvious relief, as her father often had when his back troubled him.