“Sometimes.”
“When?”
“July.”
Catherine smiled.
Then she noticed him rubbing the scar near his temple.
“Does it hurt?”
Jud stopped.
“The scar.”
“Sometimes.”
“How did you get it?”
His silence lasted so long she thought he would refuse.
Then he said, “Fire.”
Catherine waited.
Jud stared into the darkness.
“I used to believe the law meant something.”
She turned toward him.
“I had a house then. Small place. Cottonwoods along the creek.”
His voice became distant.
“I had people who expected me home.”
“Your family?”
He nodded once.
Catherine didn’t ask more.
Jud continued anyway.
“Some men came after dark. Men I’d made enemies of.”
His jaw tightened.
“By sunrise, the house was ash.”
Catherine’s chest hurt.
“Jud…”
“I woke two days later in a wagon. Half my face burned. Everything else gone.”
“You never went after them?”
He laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“I learned something.”
“What?”
He turned toward her.
“The men who hire killers are usually sitting in cleaner rooms than the killers.”
Catherine thought of Judge Vale.
Hollis Breen.
Sheriff Pike.
Jud looked away.
“So I came here.”
“To hide?”
“To disappear.”
His honesty broke something inside her.
Catherine reached across the space between them.
Her fingers touched his scar.
Jud stopped breathing.
She traced its edge gently.
His hand closed around her wrist.
Not painfully.
But urgently.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
His voice dropped.
“Because I’ve spent years getting used to wanting nothing.”
Catherine’s pulse raced.
Jud released her.
She didn’t move away.
“Maybe wanting nothing isn’t living.”
“Maybe living is overrated.”
“Then why did you carry me out of the snow?”
He had no answer.
Catherine leaned closer.
Their faces were inches apart.
Jud’s hand rose.
His fingertips touched her cheek.
For one suspended moment, the enormous, scarred man who had walked fearlessly through a blizzard looked utterly defenseless.
Then he jerked his hand away.
“Jud.”
“If I touch you…”
His voice broke slightly.
“I’ll lose control.”
Catherine placed both palms against his chest.
His heart hammered beneath them.
She looked into his storm-blue eyes.
“Then stop fighting it.”
Jud kissed her.
Not violently.
Not carelessly.
He kissed her like a starving man standing before food he was afraid to take.
Catherine gripped his coat.
When they separated, Jud rested his forehead against hers.
Neither spoke.
Then a rifle cracked in the darkness.
Stone exploded beside Catherine’s head.
Jud threw himself over her.
“Down!”
Another shot struck the rocks.
The hunters had found them.
Jud moved like a different man with a rifle in his hands.
No hesitation.
No wasted movement.
He pushed Catherine behind a boulder.
“Stay here.”
“I can shoot.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You slapped me hard enough.”
Despite terror, she nearly laughed.
Jud disappeared into the dark.
Shots cracked.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
“Jud?”
Nothing.
Catherine gripped her revolver.
Footsteps approached.
“Jud?”
A figure emerged.
Not Jud.
A thin man wearing a fur hat smiled at her.
“Well, Miss Prescott.”
Catherine raised the pistol.
The man kicked snow into her face.
She fired blindly.
Missed.
He slammed her wrist against the rock.
The revolver fell.
His hand closed around her throat.
“Mr. Breen said you’d be troublesome.”
Catherine clawed at him.
“Where’s the book?”
She kicked his knee.
He cursed.
Then stopped.
A rifle barrel appeared against his neck.
