Kill them!

But he knew he shouldn’t.

Protect the ranch. Make the family proud. Be a hero.

Hero.

Behind his eyes he saw the little blonde looking up at him. You can be a hero, Del… J.D. will be so proud of you…

The blondes fought on, their features melting and distorting in the rain until he couldn’t tell one from the other.

He had to do something. Do the right thing. Do the hard thing. Save the day. Save the ranch. Save himself.

He tightened the HK-91against his shoulder and blew out half a breath.

Samantha faced the dogs, holding herself as still as a statue, thinking that if she were still enough, she might somehow become invisible to them. But they had already seen her and they had spent the better part of a day trailing her scent. They took a step toward her and then another. She took a step back, then they all sprang into motion at once-the dogs lunging toward her, Samantha turning and trying to run up the steep slope.

They would be on her in a heartbeat. She looked for a refuge-a boulder she could crawl onto, a tree she could climb. All her brain could tell her was run! She had already run too far. Her legs moved as though she were immersed to her waist in mud. She seemed to go nowhere. Teeth snapped at her calf, and she screamed just as a horse broke through the cover of brush ahead of her and came flying down the grade.

“Will!”

The sound of her scream went through him like a knife. He had no time to register the damage that had been done to her face or her hair. All he could see was her terror, her arms reaching out to him, the dogs going after her legs as she tried to run toward him.

He never even reined in his horse, but leaned down and caught her around the ribs with one arm and pulled her awkwardly across the saddle in front of him, oblivious of the pain that ripped through his own body.

J.D. blew past them, nearly crashing into a loose horse. He had a clear view of Bald Knob. A clear view of Bryce’s cousin as she pulled a knife and swung it high above her head. A clear view of her driving it into Mary Lee as she tried to stumble back out of the way.

At that moment he felt his heart stop dead in his chest. He couldn’t get to her in time. There wasn’t time for his rifle to clear the scabbard. She fell backward, arms flung out to the side, blood spreading in a stain down the front of her shirt. Sharon fell with her, dropping to her knees, raising the knife again.

He was fifty feet away and he was going to witness the death of the only woman he had ever loved.

It was a terrible epiphany. A terrible irony.

He screamed her name. Jerked at the rifle that caught in its leather sleeve. The knife’s arc reached its apex. Lightning split the sky above them. Then the ominous high-pitched crack of a rifle shot split the air, and for a second that sound was the only thing that moved in the universe. The world was held fast in a freeze-frame as the shot echoed and careened from peak to peak.

The force of the hit knocked Sharon’s body sideways. She fell to the ground, limp, lifeless, shot cleanly through the head. Her knife bounced over the edge of Bald Knob and down the mountain.

J.D. hauled back savagely on the reins and swung out of the saddle. He hit the ground running, tripping, stumbling, and dropped to his knees beside Mary Lee. She looked up at him through glassy eyes, blinking slowly against the rain that fell steadily in her face.

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus, baby, hang on,” he said breathlessly. He tore off his slicker and threw it over the lower half of her, dug a handkerchief out of his hip pocket, and pressed it hard against the bloody hole in the hollow of her left shoulder. “Hang on, honey. Hang on.”

Mari stared at him, feeling pleasantly warm and oddly disembodied, as if she had no arms or legs. She couldn’t feel her shoulder, only the heavy pressure he applied to it.

J.D. looked as if he were the one in pain. His face was a mask of anguish, pale and taut, his gray eyes rimmed in red. His mouth quivered as he worked to make her comfortable by pulling off his hat and jamming it beneath her head for a pillow.

“Stay with me, baby,” he mumbled, leaning over her, stroking her wet mop of hair back from her face. “Oh, Jesus, baby, please stay with me.”

She wanted to ask him if that offer would be good later, but she couldn’t form the words, and humor seemed inappropriate at the moment. Turning her head slightly, she could see Sharon Russell lying dead twenty feet away, her eyes and mouth open and expressionless, the back of her head gone.

“Who shot?” she asked weakly.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Del, I guess. You shouldn’t try to talk, sweetheart. Just be still.”

She managed a wry smile as she turned her face up to him once more. “Quit bossing me around, Rafferty.”

“Boss you around,” he grumbled. “I ought to take you over my knee for poking around up here.”

“Sadist,” she said through her teeth as the first stab of pain went through her. J.D. winced with her. “I’ll tell you right now, cowboy, I don’t go for that kind of thing.”

The cloth beneath his hand was soaked red. Blood oozed up between his fingers as he adjusted the position of his hand and pressed down harder. “Dammit, Mary Lee, be quiet for once in your life,” he ordered, terrified that it was her very life leaking out between his fingers.

For once she took his advice, too aware of the weakness stealing through her, too aware of the labored quality of her breathing. J.D. leaned over, sheltering her from the rain, murmuring soft words of comfort, stroking her forehead and cheeks, showing her things he might never say.

She loved him. At that moment, when she knew her life might slip away, everything else became simple and clear. She loved J. D. Rafferty. At that moment everything else was inconsequential-their differences, the fights, the wall he had built around his heart. None of it mattered.

A day late and a dollar short, Marilee. Isn’t that just like you?

She had a genuine talent for screwing up. Too bad that wasn’t worth anything. How proud her family might have been of her.

She glanced once more at Sharon, wondering what her family would think. Did Bryce know his cousin was a killer? Did his depravity go that far?

“J.D.?” she whispered. “There’s a videotape. Back at my place. And a book with court reporter’s notes. Make sure Quinn gets them.”

“Hush,” he said, the word barely crawling out around the rock in his throat. He touched her cheek with trembling fingers. “You can give it to him yourself,” he said, his voice hoarse and raw at the thought that she might not be able to.

“Just in case.” She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the fire that seemed to be spreading down her whole left side. It burned bright, then eased. She let out a breath in relief. “J.D.?”

“What?” he murmured, giving up on the effort to silence her. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to hear it every day for the rest of his life, and the fear that he would not have the chance was like a ball of acid in his chest. Tears pressed hard against the backs of his eyes.

“Del is a hero,” she whispered. “You tell him I said so. Be proud of him, J.D.”

Then she closed her eyes again and the world faded to black as she whispered, “I love you.”

J.D. stared down at her, panic tearing through him. “Mary Lee! Mary Lee!” he shouted her name at the top of his lungs as the rain pounded down on them. “Mary Lee!”

She didn’t move. She didn’t open those huge blue eyes. She lay limp and quiet, her blood warm beneath his hand. And J.D. bent over her, to shield her from the rain, tears scalding his cheeks as he pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered, “I love you. Please don’t die. I love you.”