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  Still kneeling in front of the fire, she nodded without looking at him.

  "Do you have any objection to using it on me?"

  She was still for so long that he knew she wanted to refuse. The only concern she had for his injuries was that they weren't serious enough. She would have preferred it if he had been hurt too badly to escape the deputy's custody, if the gunshot wound had been a few inches lower and a few inches to the left, if one of the bumps on his head had been hard enough to leave him unconscious. She certainly wouldn't choose, of her own free will, to take care of him.

  Well,he certainly wasn't choosing, of his own free will, to be taken care of. The last thing he needed—besides jail—was her closeness. Her nursing. Her touch. But he had no choice. The longer he stayed inCatlin County, the greater the risk of discovery. He couldn't leave until he was in at least a little better shape, and she was his best—his only—chance at getting better.

  Finally she got to her feet and went to the kitchen, filling a basin with water, collecting towels from a cabinet. She set them on the night table,then left again, this time getting a basket from the hook where it hung near the bathroom door. He saw when she returned that it was filled with bottles and jars, with sterile dressings, scissors and tape.

  As she sat down on the bed beside him, he tilted his head back and focused his gaze on the ceiling and the massive beams that crossed it.A half-dozen baskets hung from one beam; a variety of flowers and stalks with dull green leaves were hung upside down to dry from another.

  God, he was tired. He had never wanted sleep as badly as he wanted it now, had never needed oblivion the way he needed it now. His body was about to give out on him. Unless what she had in mind for him was particularly excruciating, he had no doubt that being in her bed, underneath her covers, leaning back against her pillows, would soon put him to sleep for the rest of the night.

  And then she would be free to go. Free to summon help. Free to lead the sheriff and his deputies straight to him.

  He couldn't let that happen. He knew how to stop her—was prepared to stop her—but he found the idea distasteful. He knew all too well how violentlyhe hated being handcuffed and utterly helpless. He knew how vulnerable those thin steel bracelets made a man feel. He couldn't even imagine how threatening they would feel toher.

  He had no choice, but at least he could delay it. He could let her doctor his injuries, could let her get something to eat. He could put it off as long as possible, but the woman—Ashley, he reminded himself. Her name was Ashley, and she was going to have one hell of a miserable night.

  * * *

  For once, Ashley thought, Dillon Boone had gotten lucky. Seth considered her interest in herbs more than a little odd, but there were plenty of people in the surrounding mountains who considered her something of a healer. She knew practically every plant that grew in the region, knew its healing properties and its harmful ones. She knew what could prevent infection, what could aid healing, ease pain and soothe discomforts. She knew what was harmless, knew what would help and what would hurt.

  Unfortunately she had nothing accessible right now that might hurt the man who'd made himself comfortable in her bed.

  The thought brought her a flush of guilt. Even if she had some deadly herb available to her, she wouldn't make use of it. Boone was suffering enough. She could never do anything to add to that.

  Dipping a cloth in the crockery bowl filled with warm water, she began bathing dirt and blood from his face and arms. None of his injuries there was serious—scrapes, bruises, some minor lacerations,a split lip. He sat motionless for her ministrations, still as a statue, not looking at her. It was as if he found the situation too personal, too intimate to acknowledge; the only way to endure it was stiffly, impassively.

  Funny. The man was a fugitive. He had forced his way in here, had used his gun and his absolute soullessness to frighten her into helping him and yet he didn'twant her help. He hadn't wanted to ask for the fire whose warmth he badly needed. He had refused to ask for food. Instead of worrying about exchanging his own soaking clothes for something dry, he had suggested thatshe get out of her wet clothes. Even now he didn't want her to touch him. He didn't want her to come close to him. Very odd.

  Needing to break the uneasy silence between them, she asked the first question that came to mind and found that her voice was steady for the first time in too long. "Why did you come back toCatlin County?"

  "Believe me, it wasn't by choice." As if sensing that she found the answer lacking, he scowled a little and continued. "I caught the attention of a deputy with a good memory for old Wanted bulletins."

  "Then you were in custody when you came back." He offered no response, but she didn't need one. So he had been arrested, but had somehow escaped. Now he was not only a fugitive, but an escaped fugitive. Now he faced additional charges—as if the original charge hadn't been serious enough. Now he was likely more desperate than ever to get away.

  Rinsing the cloth, she moved to his chest. His skin was icy cold, and he was shaking, as much from the cold as from his injuries. There were plenty of those: more cuts and scrapes, a number of bruises—some recent, the others older and healing—and a furrow cut across the top of his right shoulder. Anything from a cut to a gunshot wound, she had thought earlier, and she had been right on the last guess. The bullet had penetrated from the back, entering at a downward angle and scooping a deep V out of the flesh in its path. If the angle had been a few degrees sharper, the injury would have been much more serious, a through-and-through wound that would have required threadinga gauze wick through his shoulder. It would have been much more painful, much slower to heal and much more susceptible to infection.

  The nature of his injuries disturbed her. The split lip and the bruising around his right eye seemed indicative of being on the losing end in a fight. Of course, maybe he had struggled with the deputy before he'd escaped, but she knew all of Seth's deputies. There wasn't one of them who didn't dwarf Boone in size, who couldn't break him in half without even breaking a sweat. And there was the gunshot wound. Obviously he'd been shot from behind. Granted, hewas a fugitive, but to shoot a man in the back seemed cold, almost vicious. Surely there had been other ways to stop him.

  But maybe not. After all, hehad escaped, even with getting shot in the back.

  "Who shot you?" she asked as she laid the basin on the floor and put the basket in its place.

  Finally he looked at her, his scowl deeper, his eyes emptier. She'd never seen eyes so intensely brown—or so utterly blank—before. "Does it matter?"

  "Was it Sheriff Benedict or one of his deputies?" Seth was an expert shot. If he had shot a fleeing prisoner, it was pure luck that Boone had survived to tell the tale.

  "No."

  "Then you weren't inCatlin County's custody when you escaped."

  "Yes, I was."

  His answers confused her. She had assumed that he'd been captured elsewhere—that he was too bright to come back to the county on his own—and was being transported to theCatlin County Jail when he escaped. She knew from conversations with Seth that if Boone had been caught in another jurisdiction, it was up toCatlin County to go after him and bring him back, and the man had just confirmed that he'd been in their custody. So if he'd been under escort by aCatlin County deputy but it wasn't aCatlin County deputy who'd shot him, then who had? A dutiful citizen, perhaps? Had someone witnessed his escape? Had he stumbled onto someone else's property before he'd made his way here?

  Selecting a bottle of antiseptic from the basket, she dampened a thick gauze pad,then began cleansing his open injuries. "Youwere shot when you escaped," she stated, just to clarify things, but she couldn't keep a faint questioning tone from her voice.

  "No," he answered softly. "I was shotbefore I escaped."

  The implications of that sent a shiver up her spine. Shooting a prisoner to stop an escape was one thing. Shooting him when he was doing nothing, when he was basically helpless and at his escort's mercy… That was cri
minal.

  Thatwas attempted murder.

  If it was true.

  Finishing with the rest of his injuries, she turned her attention to the gunshot wound. He watched as she blotted the blood, bathed the wound with antiseptic, coated it with ointment and covered it loosely with a sterile dressing. It was nasty and painful, but there was nothing else she could do for it. The tissue was destroyed, leaving too wide a gap to bring the edges of the skin together and suture. In a few days' time it would start to heal, the tissue granulating in from side to side and bottom to top. Tomorrow she would find a square of fabric to fashion a sling from, and, barring complications, within a week to ten days the wound would be healed enough to allow him some use of his arm again. Another two to three weeks after that, and nothing would remain but the scar.

  He was waiting for her to ask more questions, waiting to see whether she would believe him. Finally done, she folded her hands in her lap and quietly asked, "What happened?"

  "Does it matter?" he asked again, closing his eyes, wearily letting his head roll back.

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "It just does. Where were you arrested?"

  "SylvanCounty."

  That explained his more minor injuries, Ashley thought, her expression turning somber.SylvanCountywas right across theTennesseestate line fromCatlinCounty. There were a lot of ties between the two counties; they had a lot of things in common. Fair and humane treatment of prisoners by their sheriffs' departments, though, wasn't one of them. People who ended up inSylvanCounty's custody seemed to fall a lot, to suffer a lot of mysterious injuries while locked alone in cells bare of everything but cots and toilets. There had been a number of complaints filed and investigationsconducted, but few, if any, changes. Seth hated picking up prisoners there almost as much as he hated transferring his own prisoners there. As pleased as he must have been to hear thatCatlin's one and only bank robber had been arrested, he also must have been dismayed to find out by whom.

  "How long were you there?"

  "Three days, four nights."

  Three days was about the right age for the oldest of his bruises. "Who picked you up to take you toCatlin ?"

  "A deputy named Coughlin."

  "I know Tom Coughlin. He never would have shot you unless he had absolutely no other choice, and he never would have stood by and let someone else shoot you."

  After a long, still moment he opened his eyes just a bit and looked at her. "I told you it wasn't aCatlinCountydeputy." He started to heave a sigh, but winced and blew his breath out gently instead. "We were ambushed on our way toCatlin . We came around a curve, and there was a black van and three men blocking the road. They opened fire, Coughlin swerved and we went over the side and downinto a ravine."

  She stared at in dismay. "Was Tom hurt?"

  "He'd been shot."

  "And you left him there?" Her voicerose a few notes. "You just walked off and left him?"

  "Some people came—a woman and her kids. I could hear them talking from down below. They called the sheriff from their car phone. They got help for him." His dark eyes turned even darker. "Damned right I walked off and left him. Those men were trying to kill me, not the deputy. He was unconscious. He was of no use to me, and there was no way in hell I was going to wait around for them to finish the job. I took his gun, and I took off."

  "Why would anyone want to kill you? What you did was wrong, but it's not worth dying for."

  "No," he agreed. "But to a couple of people out there…" Grimness settled over his features. "It's worth killing for."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  She was staring at him. Dillon knew it without looking. He couldfeel the weight of her wary blue gaze. She was looking at him and trying to figure out whether or not to believe anything he'd just said.

  He knew what her decision would be: that he was unreliable. Untrustworthy. That anything he said was more than likely a lie. That naturally he would try to put himself in the best light and so he would claim that he'd been forced to escape from custody in order to save his own life.

  He didn't give a damn whether she believed him. He was used to not being believed, to not being trusted. Since the time he was nine years old and had gotten the devil beaten out of him by Alex Waters and no one had believed his side of the story, he had known that he would always need proof. Well, he didn't have any proof to give this woman, and he wasn't sure he would offer it if he did. He was tired of always having to provide verification. He was tired of never being believed on nothing more than his say-so.

  He was just tired, period.

  Beside him the mattress shifted as she moved to stand up. Moving far too quickly for the comfort of his shoulder and ribs, he caught her wrist. He felt her tremble beneath his fingers, but he didn't release her. Instead, he pulled her back down and held her there.

  "I was just going to put these things away," shesaid, her voice unsteady once again and tinged with fear, "then fix dinner. You could use some food."

  After a moment he let go, and she rose to her feet. Before she walked away, though, she hesitated,then bent to draw the covers up to his shoulders, tucking the edges between his back and the pillow to hold them in place. It was a little gesture. It didn't mean a thing. No one else would have even noticed.

  Buthe did. He noticed it and appreciated it like hell, and it made him feel even guiltier about his plans for her and the steel handcuffs he'd hidden beneath the covers and out of her sight.

  Settling back against the pillows, he watched as she returned the basket to its hook, then emptied the heavy bowl in the sink. She washed her hands, took down dishes from the cabinet and cut thick slices of homemade bread all with the same easy, familiar movements. These were tasks she had performed hundreds of times, mindless jobs that she did without thought. So whatwas on her mind?he wondered. Maybe she was sending silent prayers to God for her safety. Maybe she was asking whyshe'd had the bad luck to get trapped with an escaping bank robber, or maybe she was planning an escape of her own. Maybe she was cursing the day he'd set foot inCatlin or regretting the day she'd decided to make her home all alone at the top of an isolated mountain.

  He didn't blame her for that decision, even if, thanks to him, it hadn't turned out to be a great one. For all his negative feelings regarding the area, he had to admit thatCatlin County was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He fully understood the desire to make a home there, especially all the way out here, where she had no neighbors, no intrusions and very little contact with the everyday world. If it weren't for the small matter of money to pay the bills, he could be perfectly happy living off away from other people like this.

  He had never had much skill in the art of getting along with others.

  But he was a man, fully capable—most of the time—of taking care of himself. The very virtue of being female made her less physically capable, more vulnerable, more at risk. If she wanted to live like this, she should at least have a gun to protect herself and a telephone to call for help. What she really needed—with no apology for the chauvinism—was a man to do the protecting for her. If he'd seen any sign of a man around, Dillon would have kept on going. If she'd answered affirmatively when he'd mentioned a husband, he probably would have stolen that beat-up old van of hers and tended his wounds himself once he got someplace safe. He wouldn't have followed her into the house. He wouldn't have taken her hostage. He sure as hell wouldn't be lying in her bed, watching her fix dinner as if he were a guest.

  Wearily he slid a little lower beneath the covers. His shivers were slowing, his misery slowly easing. Powerful heat from the fireplace radiated into the room, and the heavy blanket and quilt she'd tucked around him were trapping the heat and keeping it comfortingly close to his body. After hours in cold, wet shoes, his feet were thawing; he could wiggle his toes and actually feel them respond. He was starting to feel human again—except for the hunger. And the pain. And the grim future facing him.

  Her bare
feet making little noise on the floor, she came across the room to the bed, bringing with her a tray fashioned from twigs and lengths of narrow rope. He assumed she had made the tray herself; in the long minutes that he'd stood beside the van and watched her through the workshop windows, he'd noticed a table full of similar items. That must be how she supported herself—with baskets and twigs, with the weaving loom and the quilting frame that filled half the workshop, with the soaps and the candles and the flowers drying overhead. She was never going to get rich, but if it paid the bills and made her happy, what else mattered?

  She set the tray across his lap, and he studied it for a moment. It was well made, the legs sturdy and level, the twigs that formed the top smooth, uniform in size and tightly lashed. It held a cloth napkin in faded red gingham, a soup spoon, a salt shaker filled with some seasoning that wasn't salt and a pottery mug filled with a fragrant, steaming liquid.

  "What is that?"