Too exhausted to question his decision even if she had wanted to, Skylar lay down in the cave and fell asleep. When she awoke the next morning, Sun Hawk was still gone and there was no indication that he had returned during the previous afternoon or night. Though the thought of being completely alone was frightening, it never occurred to her that she had been deserted.

Sun Hawk hadn’t risked everything just to leave her in the mountains to die, and he was too skilled to allow himself to be captured.

Secure in the certainty that he would return soon, Skylar climbed down from the cave and tried to think about what she should do. Making decisions, even simple ones, wasn’t as easy as it should have been. For days, Sun Hawk had directed her every movement, and escape had been her only clear, reasonable thought. Everything else had been shoved away from her consciousness.

She tried to imagine what Sun Hawk would do and realized that her prior-ities were, first, to make certain the valley was still safe and, second, to learn everything there was to know about it. Quietly backtracking to the mouth of the valley, she studied the rugged terrain they had covered the day before.

She stayed there a long time, examining all possible routes that might lead someone to her location, but nothing stirred.

Once she was convinced she was still safe, she returned to the valley and began memorizing every crack and crevice on the cliffs. She found places to hide and even located another way out. She collected what food she could find, but she gathered little of it, for she was not nearly as astute as Sun Hawk in judging what was edible and what wasn’t.

It was midmorning by the time she finished, but there was still no sign of Sun Hawk, so she made her way down to the pool and removed her overblouse. Shutting out the significance of the encrusted bloodstains, she knelt on the bank and scrubbed the dress. When she had finished and laid it in the sun to dry, her hands were nearly raw, but the stains were only faint circles, much dimmer than her memory of how the blood had gotten there. She washed her skirt, too, and then slipped into the cool water to bathe.

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She stayed there for a long time, savoring the feel of the water on her skin, and when she was as clean as it was possible to get, she floated on the surface and forced herself to think about her situation.

It was obvious that she and Sun Hawk could not hide in the mountains forever, but what were the alternatives? Turning themselves in at one of the forts in the territory was unthinkable. In the eyes of the whites, she and Sun Hawk were both murderers, and there was no reason to believe that they would receive better treatment than Captain Haggarty had given her.

Of course, if Sun Hawk would agree to help her get to Rancho Verde, there was a chance that her father could sort out this mess. If she had to go on trial for killing the soldier, at least she would have the benefit of a lawyer, and she would have her family around her. Testimony could be presented to point up the fact that she had not been raised as an Apache, and if she appeared in front of the tribunal dressed in a fashionable tailored dress with her hair upswept, speaking eloquent English as she related what had really happened with Talbot, there was a chance the judge and jury might believe she had acted in self-defense.

But there was a vast difference between what she had done and what Sun Hawk had done to help her escape. Perhaps they could convince a military court that he had acted because he knew the soldiers were going to kill her, but that wouldn’t change the fact that he was an Apache who had killed a soldier in cold blood. They would hang him. Skylar could go back to her placid life as the spinster daughter of Raymond Templeton, but she’d never be able to forget that she had purchased her freedom with Sun Hawk’s life.

Of course he didn’t have to turn himself in. He could deliver her to Rancho Verde and disappear . . . and Skylar would never see him again. The thought brought her almost as much pain as the thought of seeing him hang.

Selfish considerations aside, though, she had to consider what his life would be like from now on. He was a renegade who could never return to his family. He had nothing. Quite simply, he had given up everything . . . for her.

Skylar still didn’t understand why, but one thing was clear to her.

Whatever decision she made about her future had to include what was best for Sun Hawk. She owed him her life, and that was a debt she would repay with her own, if necessary.

She also realized quite clearly that she was in love with him. Her childish infatuation had evolved into a deep respect for the man he was and for his commitment to his people. She wasn’t sure when that respect had turned to love, but it had happened long before he unshackled her from the army wagon. That act had merely bound them together with a bond of blood that could never be broken.

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Skylar floated in the pool, reaching no decisions because none could be made without Sun Hawk. Until she knew what he wanted or what he had planned, she could only go on as they had been, surviving as best they could.

Though her future was as blank as the sheets of writing paper Rayna had sent her, Skylar felt no panic. Perhaps she was more Apache than she had imagined, after all. They lived one day at a time, adjusting and adapting to whatever fate threw at them. She could do the same—as long as she had Sun Hawk’s strength to sustain her.

Skylar opened her eyes and started when she saw Sun Hawk on the rock shelf that bordered one end of the pool. She couldn’t guess how long he had been there, but she quickly righted herself and began to tread water, wafting her arms gently back and forth to keep herself afloat. He was frozen like a statue as he stared at her, his expression hard and unreadable. At his feet were several sacks, but Skylar’s thoughts were too muddled for her to wonder what was in them or where they had come from. She was too overwhelmed by the tension in the air and the sweet, sensual ache that pulsed through her body.

She could think of nothing to say to him. In fact, she could think of nothing at all.

And then he moved. He climbed down the rocks to the pool and placed his rifle near the edge of the water. Never taking his eyes off Skylar, he removed his clothes and stood on the bank naked.

He was elemental, powerful, and frightening. He was also the most beautiful thing Skylar had ever seen. She had lived on a ranch too long to be ignorant of the meaning of his jutting manhood, but she knew instinctively that Sun Hawk would never take her by force. That was why he was waiting at the edge of the pool. It was his way of offering her a choice.

But why did he want her? she had to wonder. Did he think that because he had saved her he had a right to her? Had he simply seen her naked as she floated in the water and become aroused? Was this merely an animal instinct that he longed to gratify? Or did he truly love her?

Most important, did the answer really matter?

Yes. It mattered very much.

When Sun Hawk finally dived into the water and surfaced at the opposite end of the pool, desire coursed through Skylar, but instead of swimming toward him, she made her way to the bank and slipped out of the water. She glanced over her shoulder and discovered that he had turned away. If disappointment or hurt was etched on his face, Skylar couldn’t see it.

Quickly she dressed and hurried back to the cave without acknowledging his presence. Keenly aware of every sound below her, she listened as he bathed and scrubbed his clothes. Then the noises stopped, and a few minutes later Sun Hawk climbed up to the cave wearing only his breechclout and car-159

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rying the sacks he had brought. They clattered when he dropped them at her feet, but his eyes never met Skylar’s.

“We have good food now, and other things we need. I will make a fire below so that you can cook.”

“As you wish.”

He left abruptly and Skylar began opening the sacks. In one she found tins of meat and bags of flour, meal, and sugar. In another she found blankets, a cook pot, and several knives and other utensils. The third held sacks of dried beef and boxes of rifle cartridges, a sewing kit and soap, scraps of material, a shirt, and even a long skirt and other articles of clothing.

What he had brought her, supplemented by what they could forage from the mountains, would keep them alive for weeks. But at what cost?

Her heart tripping with dread, she hurried down the rocky bluff to where Sun Hawk was carefully creating a fire that would make hardly any smoke at all.

He knew she was there, but he didn’t look at her, even when she quietly asked, “Where did the provisions come from?”

“A small ranch many miles to the west.”

Skylar knelt beside him, terrified of hearing the answer to her next question. “You didn’t—” She hesitated, and finally he looked at her with cold, lifeless eyes.

“I did not kill to get the food, if that is what you want to know. It was not necessary.”

Skylar’s relief was overshadowed by the knowledge that her doubts had hurt him. “I’m sorry. It is only that I don’t want anyone else killed because of me,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, but her jerked away from her.

“I will do what I have to do to keep you alive,” he said harshly.