Authors: Sarah McCarty
“And maybe not.”
“Haven’t you ever done anything you weren’t proud of simply because you had no other choice?”
She had. Like leaving her father alone in the room beneath the barn. The room was a sanctuary. It had a well and they kept it stocked with food. Originally, the door only locked from the inside, but she’d been forced to add the bar to the outside. She’d debated bolting the door behind her, but she feared too much that, if something happened to her, her father would never be able to get out. So she’d bound him to the room with lies, telling him the emperor’s troops had located them and they were scouring the area for their hiding place. Hopefully that would keep him in that room and she wouldn’t return to find all her plans broken around her.
“Fei?”
She glanced up to find Shadow studying her with those too-seeing eyes. “Yes?”
“I really can take care of whatever your problem is.”
She was gambling on that very thing, and for that to happen, she had to trust him, but it was hard to trust a man who made his own rules, lived his own way, a man she couldn’t read. Yet he was following her lead without question. She had to know why.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
She motioned with her hands, at a loss for the phrase. She finally settled on, “Doing as I say.”
“You saved my life. That gets you a certain level of cooperation on my part.”
A certain level. That implied an end. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“You are not curious as to my need? What if I want you to kill someone?”
“Then I’ll kill them.”
The shock went through her like a bolt of lightning. “Because I ask?”
He shrugged. “I owe you.”
He would kill someone for no more reason than that she wanted it. Fei didn’t know whether to be grateful or horrified. She’d prayed to her American ancestors for help. This is who they had sent? A man who made promises to kill as easily as other people promised to pick up the post.
“Xei-xei.”
Her thanks came out breathless and timid. Everything she didn’t want to be. Shadow stopped her with a hand on her horse’s reins. His eyes were little more than dark shadows beneath the brim of his hat.
“Honey, I’m damn good with a gun and even better with a knife, but I can’t fight enemies I can’t see. You need to tell me where the threat is.”
Yes, she did. For better or worse, her destiny was tangled with his. The time for secrets had passed. She took a breath and held it, controlling the panic. Just this much could ruin everything. “I do not know the threat, but I know it will come to be.”
“Explain.”
“I have found gold.”
“Gold?”
This was not the first time she’d encountered skepticism. When she’d first brought a trace to the assayer in town, just to see if it truly was gold, he had not been excited. But she had been, because she knew how much more there was and her first instinct had been to run home and bring back the nugget, but as she’d left his office and felt the gazes of the men who always hung around outside, she had realized her mistake. Any one of the hard-eyed men would have taken her gold from her. So instead of hurrying home, she’d lowered her eyes and slumped her shoulders. No one had followed her home. And no one had followed her since, but she couldn’t continue to hide. She needed the gold. She needed help. Shadow was what she had. An outlaw. A thief. A man who said he would kill for her.
“Yes.”
Shadow let go of the reins and sat up. “How much? A sprinkle in the pan or enough to build a mansion?”
Reaching into her pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the heavy nugget. Since the day she’d found it in her father’s secret claim, her life had changed. Revealing it now would make it change again. For good or for bad, there was no telling.
“Fei?”
She eyed the breadth of Shadow’s shoulders. By all her ancestors, there was nothing to keep this man from killing her and taking the nugget.
“I am afraid.”
The truth hung there between them.
“Why?”
“I cannot stop you.”
“No, you can’t.” He moved his horse closer. “But you can trust me.”
“Swear on your ancestors that you will not hurt me.”
“I’ll do you one better.”
She waited. His fingers skimmed up her arm, grazing the black silk of her tunic, skimming the sensitive skin of her neck before cupping her cheek in his palm. She was vividly aware of how easily he could hurt her. A tightening of his fingers, a twist of his wrist and her worries would be over. Her cousin’s face flashed in her mind—angry, resentful and determined. She’d told Lin to wait, not to do anything impulsive. She’d told her to trust in her and their plan. If she died now, her cousin would be alone with no plan and only her reckless nature to sustain her. That couldn’t happen.
Shadow’s thumb stroked over her lips. Fei should be scared, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t look away. Not as his fingers caressed her cheek. Not as eyes narrowed and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Not as his grip tightened ever so slightly. And certainly not as he said, “Fei Ochoa, I make you this promise. As your husband, I
will
protect you.”
As her husband.
If she accepted his promise, she was accepting the marriage. It would not be honorable to deny it. She swallowed, searching his face for any sign of deception. There was none. He was giving her what she wanted. In exchange for what?
“Why should I believe what you say?”
“You’re my wife. Your troubles are mine.”
“Why?”
“Because I want it that way.”
Could he truly be a man of honor?
“You are a horse thief.”
“Only if you consider taking back what’s yours as stealing.”
“These are your horses?”
She expected him to smile. He didn’t. If anything, his expression got harder. “What’s mine stays mine.”
It was a warning. She would do well to pay heed, but in that moment, she could see the man behind the calm. He was intense. He was angry. And…he could be trusted.
She took the nugget from her pocket. Catching his free hand in hers, she placed the gold in his palm, holding his gaze as she wrapped his fingers around it.
“I accept your promise.”
T
HE
STONE
WEIGHED
HEAVILY
in Shadow’s palm. He’d held enough gold to recognize what that weight meant. Son of a bitch, if there was more, she really had struck it rich. And she was right. There was no telling where her enemies would come from. But they would be coming.
“You no longer want to promise?”
There was no censure in Fei’s question. Just an acceptance that rubbed Shadow the wrong way. He’d been fighting for others all his life. First for his mother, then his brother and then Hell’s Eight. But now he had a wife, something of his own to fight for, and she wanted to deny him his right? Hell, no.
“I promise you this, too. As long as I live, no one will hurt you.”
She shook her head. “That is too much. We only agreed on protection, not your life.”
He gave her back the nugget. “Maybe that’s what you thought.”
She blinked and shoved it back. “Then I cannot accept your promise, after all.”
He didn’t take it. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
Her lip quivered. She backed the little mare away. “You promise too much.”
His horse followed instinctively, until the ledge was at her back and there was nowhere to run.
“You ask too little.”
The mare was calm, but Fei was ready to come out of her skin. Shadow reached out, needing to remove that fear from her eyes, the quiver from her lip.
“What are you afraid of, Fei?”
She shook her head. “I cannot have your life on my conscience, too. I cannot.”
His fingers slid around the back of her neck. His thumb pressed against her lip, stopping the trembling. “Too?”
Her eyes widened and her pupils flared. “Please.”
He remembered that moment when she’d grabbed the knife from Hubert’s boot and come for him, risking all to save his life. She hadn’t been afraid then. She’d been full of fire, light and purpose. His exotic, avenging angel.
Tears welled in her eyes. This close, he could see the dark circles beneath, the unnatural pallor of her skin. The woman was exhausted and at the end of her rope.
“I do not want your life,” she whispered.
“Just my protection.”
She nodded.
“They go hand in hand.”
“No.”
He debated dragging her off the horse and into his arms. He badly wanted to hold her. To take that burden she wouldn’t show him from her shoulders. That fear from her eyes. It was his nature to help the weak. He wanted to help her. Son of a bitch, when had he decided he wanted
her?
And what the hell good would that do? He was an outlaw with a price on his head. He hadn’t been joking when he had said his days were numbered.
Reining in his desire, he let her put distance between them. “How much more gold is there?”
“Enough.”
“For what?”
“A new beginning.”
Starting fresh he could understand.
“And when you get this new beginning, what do you plan on doing with me?”
“You may have the claim.”
“You’re going to let me have all that gold? No questions asked?”
“I am Chinese, I cannot own anything here. And even if I could, I do not have the skills to fight those who would take it from me.”
“I have enough skill for both of us.”
She was shaking her head before he finished. “My destiny begins with the gold, it does not lie with it.”
Interesting philosophy, he thought.
“You are a man who could do much with the power gold would give you,” she continued.
He tipped back his hat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”