Our first stop was in Santa Fe. From there, we traveled to Denver.

We went by train. He cashed in one of the bearer bonds in Tucson so that he could book us a sleeper compartment for the trip. It was rather disgusting, to be honest. He was not above extreme vulgarity that first night out of Tucson, refusing to take the second berth. How would it look, he said slyly, his mouth at my ear, if the porter realized that we weren't sharing a bed for the trip.

"The porter be damned. The day will never arrive when I shall willingly share a bed with you," I said in reply. By then, of course, he had succeeded in nothing so much as making me rue the day I'd been forced to throw my lot in with him. His treatment of me ever since that night he'd burst into my hotel room had been nothing short of cavalier. The fact that he'd turned out to be a man and not a priest? His change from chaste padre to ungrateful satyr had been complete the night before we left when he'd tried to convince me that we should make our little masquerade of man and wife into something other than a public showing of physical affection.

"Then take the floor for all I care," he said brusquely. He had already removed all but his denim shirt and long johns. I glared at his back when he turned away to climb into the lowered berth that the porter had prepared for us. He saw me only because he turned back so abruptly that I had no time to paste a blander look upon my face. He gave me this smile as he looked me over. And then he grabbed for me, pressing in over my lips, trying to force a kiss upon me. I struggled but until he chose to release me, I was held fast.

"You bastard," I panted out to him. I could feel the evidence of how the struggle excited him.

"You don't play the high and mighty so good up close, honey. Not that I care. You keep your end of the bargain, make it look good for the show, and you'll live this one out. But don't mistake my generosity ... there will come a time between us. And it won't be me forcing you."

"A real gentleman would never claim the superior sleeping area. He would let the lady have it."

"I don't think I ever pretended that I was a gentleman. And I think I was clear that there's no lady in this compartment."

So I passed the first night sitting in one of the riding seats of the compartment. I had no blanket as he refused to allow me the one on the berth he used. And he refused to let me open and climb up into the upper, single berth. I knew he did this all in hopes it would break my spirit. I would be damned if I ever let him break me. Better men than he had tried.

He was wrong about me. I had been to the manor born. I was a lady.

At least I had been.

I am not positive I could say when though I had lost that status in life. But even a lady may find that in the worst of times, she can do worse than rely upon her own wiles. She can sink lower if she remains a captive than she ever does if she cheats and lies to survive.

I thought on this in that long night as I sat in that chair with my coat draped over me and my eyes watching the blackness of the landscape outside the speeding train's window. I had traveled far since my life in St. Louis.

Kansas City had only been the first major detour. Returning there had to come at some point, this I had known ever since I'd run from there. I had simply never imagined it would come like this.

But one thing I realized in that night aboard the train was this ... in some ways, this might have been a rather fortuitous turn of events.

This man I was traveling with, though I was in some ways his captive, he was an unexpected boon for a woman who might need some protection in returning to the scene of her biggest crime.

It would be in his best interests to see me safely to Kansas City. Once there, I would have to walk a careful, planned route that would ensure he was there to help me regain my treasure but would still allow me to slip away from him in any resulting mayhem. If luck could be on my side, I would have everything I truly needed. I simply had not thought the opportunity would come for me to get to that safety deposit box for many more years.

Therefore, I reasoned, I would need to downplay the struggle with Cort. I would need to realistically seem to change from outright defiance of his every nasty remark or expectation into compliance, even docility. Perhaps even seem to be in partnership with him.

Two more nights and days upon the train gave me the opportunity to begin this process in a way he would think was natural. He had an ego the size of Texas. It was no great fete to gain the upper hand over it. He just assumed his very presence would be enough to make a silly little woman begin to see she was better off not fighting him.

He would do things in public that he knew I would not be able to correct. He held my hand. He leaned across the dining car table to whisper to me, only rather than loving words, they were often recreations of his supposed dreams that featured me. And all the time, I had to keep a game smile upon my face since we were in polite company.

Inside the compartment, he would sit and watch me read. I could feel his presence over there, across from the seat I used. As if he was willing me to engage him. By the second night, when I suddenly asked him if he'd care to borrow one of my books if any interested him, he was willing to believe that I was reaching out in some way to find some common ground.

Perhaps I was. But not for the purpose he thought.

He chose "The Scarlet Letter." He read deep into the night. Every so often, he would talk to the book, as if arguing some point. I never could understand his muttering, but I enjoyed the look upon his face and the concentration in his eyes. Once, he glanced up suddenly ... as if he'd just heard himself speaking aloud and realized he was not alone. He gave me a bashful smile, seemed to blush just a bit, shrugged his shoulders.

That night, our final night on that train, he let me sleep in the upper berth after I promised that I would remake the bedding so finely that the porter would never guess it had been slept in.

We spent two nights in Santa Fe until the train to Denver had a compartment for us. It would take us three nights aboard the train to reach Denver; he said he had no desire at all to travel with me in an open seating compartment. He said he might never trust me enough to not have some control over my movements.

I knew it was an excuse. I believe the reason we stayed an extra day in Santa Fe was that he had an appointment he wanted to keep the only full day we were there. He locked me inside the hotel room when he left and he didn't return for many hours and late into the night. He refused to speak about where he'd been; he came back smelling of whisky and smoke. I recognized the scent of a saloon.

But I also thought that perhaps there was also the scent of another woman riding faintly on him. I sniffed in on his shirt when I set it outside the door for the laundry to pick it up. It was returned fresh and crisp in an hour, along with his slacks, in time for him to dress when he rose finally and long after I had.

I had slept in the bed that night, luxuriating in the comfort and room and softness of the mattress. For a long time, I sat up and read, waiting on his return. When I heard the key turn in the lock, I sank instantly back into the pillow as if I'd fallen asleep while reading. I never stirred despite his stumbling into the bed when he came in. I thought he might lie down next to me, perhaps pretending inebriation to take advantage of the situation and me.

He hadn't. I breathed in deep and evenly as if I was asleep but knowing he was simply standing there, next to me, watching me ... how nervous it made me. When I felt him lift the book from my chest, I thought, "Aha! Now he'll paw me."

He didn't. Instead, I heard him place the book upon the stand right next to me. He lowered the wick of the lamp there; the room receded into darkness.

I listened to him wash up and then sink with a soft groan into the couch. Before long, he was snoring softly across the room from me. Only then did I open my eyes. I stared at the darkened ceiling and listened to him.

In all the time I'd been forced to spend alone with him, it might have been the first time he ever really surprised me. And it all turned on his choice to allow me to have the bed. No, that wasn't really it, was it? It was the way he'd lifted that book from me and not taken advantage of the situation.

The train ride to Denver would have been long and tedious if not for my new resolution to convince him that I was growing more compliant. Somewhere in that resolution, however, the tide did seem to change between us. I discovered that he was not quite the total barbarian I had believed. As it turned out, there were complexities to him that I never expected.

It all hinged on the books I had carried since I'd left St. Louis. Heaven knows why I had always found it impossible to leave them behind. But he began reading first one, then moved on to another and soon was ardently seeking conversation with me about the books, about the views, about the hidden meanings, about the morals.

We argued over everything, it often seemed. At first, the amused and indulgent smiles of our traveling companions would make me lower my voice and even shut my mouth. But he would not stand for it. He would goad me until I engaged with him again.

Perhaps I opened his eyes as wide as he opened mine. He simply had another way of looking at truths and consequences that I'd always assumed were universal in regards to these classic novels. How he could surprise me.

Who would have thought a man such as he had such an acute awareness of the Bible's stories? Who would have credited an outlaw with the appreciation of tales that turned on a fine understanding of the underpinning the Biblical story had in some of those classic works he was reading?

Over dinner the second night, I watched his face, its planes lit in the lamp's glow. His eyes flashed as he made a point, his hands unable to stay still. When I looked too long without commenting, he smiled at me and stroked so gently over my hand upon the tablecloth. It made me blush; a genuine blush. I told him that for once, and he must surely mark it down in history, but for once I could fairly say that I agreed with his salient point.

By the time we made it to Denver late the next afternoon, I almost ... almost ... looked forward to the next leg of our journey not because it would end in Kansas City but that I would again be in his company with no distractions save learning more about him.

It was snowing heavily as we traversed the final miles through a deep mountain pass into Denver. He arranged for a porter to take our bags to the hotel. He surprised me yet again, this time by assisting me as if he had been raised in this manner, his hand securely guiding me along the cold and slippery walk to the hotel.

Truth be told, I liked those moments. I took joy that he was changing his treatment of me. It would not be long before his guard was completely down.

It was more than that. I can admit it. I am able to acknowledge that by then, I was making many mental notes on his physical affect upon me. He was a ruggedly handsome man, lean of body, long of legs, firm muscles, strong arms, impressive thighs. When his eyes regarded a person, there was an intelligence and a sense of purpose there that made his gaze feel almost intrusive. And above all things, somewhere during those days aboard the train from Santa Fe to Denver, he began to act more the man, less the cad. It was difficult not to be affected by the change, to not be almost taken in by the virility that seemed to be conveyed in his easy stance, his loping stride, his confident demeanor, his masculine response to my nearness.

But above all things, he exuded an unmistakable danger. He was not a man to be taken lightly. He was a man who seemed to know human nature, its weaknesses, its desires. And in the knowing, a dangerous man is that much more dangerous.

However, noticing these things about him and being affected by him are two entirely different matters.

That first evening in Denver, he declared a strong desire to go out and see this new big city. It was the biggest city he'd ever been to, he told me as he stared out the window of our hotel room at a darkening sky full of white, fat, wet snowflakes. I very nearly said, "Oh, if you are impressed with this city, you absolutely must travel to St. Louis some day."

I caught myself in time, though. Instead, I agreed to dress quickly to allow him to escort me out for a night of big city fun. We ate in a fine steakhouse recommended by the gentleman at the hotel's reception desk. From there, we headed for a show in the grand theater to which we took a hire wagon. He spoke of the singing and dancing for a long time that evening as we rode in another hire wagon toward a quite respectable saloon just a few blocks from our hotel.

We both drank, though not exceedingly. Though I used the slight giddy feeling to grant me permission to be lax in how I touched him on the walk home.

It was cold and blustery. Not a fit night for us to be out, taking this slow pace, walking seemingly without the strong will to reach our hotel. Once there, I would suppose, we both realized that the charade would need to end and we would need to retreat back to that now-easy point of emotional distance.

We had gone only a bit more than a block from the saloon, when two men stepped into our path, coming from the darkness of a sheltered doorway to suddenly loom there before us.

Cort, whose arm had been around my waist as he helped shield me from the wind, now pulled me behind him. My hands, which had only a second before been holding onto his other arm, were on his lower back, seeking to stay connected to him.

Instinct told us both that these men intended to rob us. Perhaps worse. And the other element of instinct for us? How telling it was! His instinct was to protect me from harm. Mine was to trust in him to keep me safe.

"You boys want to be turning around and walking away from this," Cort said, his voice low, nearly swallowed in the wind that blew down that street. I looked around to see if anyone would come to our aid; but I could see no one out in that bad weather.

"Yeah? And you gonna be making us?" one of the men said.

"Only if you force me to. We don't want trouble." In Cort's voice, I heard a dangerous man being unleashed ... preparing to do what needed doing without any remorse nor ambivalence. His hand that had been on my hip, keeping me behind him, now moved me back a few paces to give him room to maneuver.

"Trouble's what you got, pardner," the same man replied.

There were no other words exchanged. My eyes were locked on Cort; he shifted upon his feet; his hips swiveled. His elbow thrust back. And then I heard the sharp click of a handgun's trigger being set.

Cort's handgun. His finger on the cocked trigger. It had happened so fast that I'd seen nothing but an arc of movement.

He ordered them to lower their weapons. They had barely raised them from their holsters in the time it'd taken him to get the drop on them with his own. I watched them, these men who'd thought they were about to kill us, and now they felt the cold fingers of fear ... oh, that fear of seeing that your life may be about to end. When they stumbled away, giddy in their realization that they were going to survive after all from a run-in with a man who'd scared them ... I wondered if his eyes had looked as cold and deadly as his aim.

I backed further away from Cort. He turned to look at me. His eyes took no pity on me.

"Who are you?" I asked him. His eyes dropped from mine. "I've never seen any man draw like that ... and scare other outlaws like that."

"I'm just a man," he said to me.

"No ... you're running from something bad, I knew that. But ... what else? What bad things have you done?" I was still backing away from him but then I bumped back into the building. He looked back up at me, his chin lowered, a look upon his face of some kind of masculine determination. I held up my arm as he walked toward me. "Will I be killed if I'm found with you? Is what you've done that bad? Should I be scared?"

"Not of me, girl. I'm not going to hurt you," he said, his voice now soft, trying to gentle me.

"But it's bad, isn't it, what you're running from? Worse than I imagined, isn't it?"

He nodded his head at me. His chest bumped up against my outstretched hand; he paused, looked down at it, then looked up into my eyes before pushing against it ... moving it, finding me unable to keep his body away from mine. "I'm just a man," he whispered against my forehead. "Just a man."

I hadn't ever planned on kissing him. Never.

But kiss him, I did. And I enjoyed it.

I shouldn't have; but there you have it.

It's been my downfall before, of course. A heart that's willing to override my good senses when it wants to see a good man inside a bad one.

We neither one of us pretended in that night.

What happened was out of time, out of place, out of reason. I don't know his reasons beyond desire stoked by too many days of spending nights alone with me yet separated. I don't know my reasons beyond a sudden recognition of his strength and of my own wish that somewhere in this cold world, I might someday find a man strong enough to make me believe that he could shelter me.

It began with that kiss born out of a desperate need to regain the illusion we'd been creating all that night that we were not both on the run. The rude reminder that this was all we might ever be, the most we might ever gain before justice caught up with us ... when he kissed me, it was all I wanted.

I believed his sweet sighs; I welcomed his fevered words of need of me. I believed my own response; I welcomed being a woman in his arms.

By the moment the kiss ended, whatever else I'd carefully crafted was being adjusted. I looked in his eyes, his face framed against a white sky, and told myself that this would mean nothing in the long run. That I could still go through with my intentions to rid myself of him in the most callous and calculated manner.

It would happen in Kansas City, after all, and we were not there yet. What harm could one night in Denver's anonymity do my plans?

Inside the hotel room, I pulled away from him. The tremble in my hand was genuine. He had pressed me in over his excitement; any reservations were gone for either of us. I went to the bathroom to pull off my outer garments. In the mirror there before the deep vanity, I regarded my pale skin against the paler white of my chemise. The light blue ribbons at the bodice and woven into the straps set off the deeper blue of my eyes. I picked up my hairbrush, thinking I'd put order to the mass of curls that had loosened in the wind and the mad rush along the sidewalk. But I stayed my hand, knowing within myself that he would prefer a lady openly undone by passion.

He had turned all the lamps low except the one next to the bed and the one just outside the changing room from which I emerged.

"Stop," he said. His voice was a low growl to say, "I want to look at you, girl."

I lingered in the doorway, feeling goose bumps race down my chest as my eyes dropped from his half-open mouth to where his big hand lay open-palmed over the blanket that covered his groin. When he whispered to me to turn around, I did it slowly, feeling a languor come over me.

It would have made no sense to rush this. I noticed that he had drawn the heavy maroon drapery. I wondered if the snow was still falling over Denver. Would I ever again find myself about to make love with a man so young, so physically appealing, so mentally engaging?

Not likely; I'd already seen how wanting too much can be a woman's downfall. She trusts in men at her own risk. 

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. He shifted on the bed, pulling the blanket and sheet back. Even in the lower flickers of the room's lighting, I could tell he was nude. It excited my own body; I felt warm, damp, short of breath.

When I reached the bed, he had moved to the edge of the mattress. Put your foot in my lap, he said softly. First one, then the other ... his thick fingers were amazingly gentle in releasing my stockings from the garter's ribbons. It made me smile; it made my heart race.

It also made me want him in a way that shocked me later when I thought about it.

It should have prepared me for the feel of his warm, sure hands as they tugged the ribbon that bound my bodice, freeing more of my flesh to his fingers and then to his mouth. He proved from that first real moment of physical intimacy to be capable of making my body respond in ways I'd longed to feel ... that in this world, there are men who will be men and will give a woman the confidence that he will be there for her to be a woman with him.

He told me he wished to explore my body, to get to know it ... to taste and touch. Perhaps he meant for this to last for a long while. In my own desire to touch him, I seemed to taste him in a way that disrupted those plans. For not long after I took him, he abruptly pulled himself from my mouth, turned on his back, his hand pressing in over his base as he panted slowly. Moments ticked by slowly as I shifted until I could climb in over him.

Our lips met ... I thought of how different his kiss was inside this room than out on that wintry street. I marked the different taste, the way my own body's essence melded with his inside his mouth. It made me want so much ... just want. Want in the most basic, primal way a woman can want with a man.

"I'll make it better for you next time," he said brusquely, as he turned me on my back, spread my thighs as he positioned himself there at my entrance. "But I need to be in you and I can't stop."

"It's okay, Cort ... I want you ... come inside ... be with me."

"You feel so ... so good ... I knew you would."

All I could do was moan. His size made entry slow. He was patient, for all his labored breathing belied the care he took to push his way fully into me. Part way in, I struggled, gripped suddenly with a fear that I might have been with a man who would see me for who I had once been. Somewhere deep within my soul, there was a girl who believed it wasn't safe yet to come out. The day she would re-emerge, I knew was the day I feared and yet I held on blindly to the hope that day would be possible.

His mouth was at my ear. He slowed his hips; he whispered soothing noises into me, his voice so sure, so pure, so trustworthy. My hands gripped in over his shoulders and then slowly, I slid my arms around his neck and drew him firmly back down against me.

He thrust; he was in all the way. I gasped; he groaned. 

"Feels so good, Molly," he said, his voice almost slurred. His tongue licked along my neck.

"It feels ..." I whispered to him.

"Yeah? What's it feel like, girl?"

"It feels ..." I groaned as he swiveled his hips, grinding against the sensitive nub of nerves. "Oh, it feels so wonderful, Cort. Oh, please ..."

He began thrusting lightly, slowly. "Please what, honey? What do you want? Or can I just take what I want? Hmm?"

"Take what you want ... take me ..."

"I will. And later, I'll take even more."

I trembled in his arms; he gave me this soft chuckle, like we were engaged together in simple fun. Innocent fun. The kind you have with a boy who was never really innocent but once had been inexperienced.

Only this man was experienced. He might have professed that this time with him was hurried, selfish, abbreviated. But surely it was not. It was passionate. It was ardent. It made me feel a fire inside me that seemed to consume everything ... and in its wake, I wasn't so much an empty shell as a purified vessel.

We lay together afterwards, both spent and unwilling to speak. Eventually, he rolled to his side, gathered me into his hold, his head on my shoulder ... and he fell soundly asleep.

But he woke me hours later; his mouth suckling one of my nipples, his hand stroking my sex. He made me come, just like that. And then he did things to me ... things I did not expect from such a man. He wanted to know all of me, he said. At one point, I had moaned to him that I was not going to be able to walk for days. He just grinned up at me.

In that night, more happened than simply physical intimacy.

I asked him at one point to tell me why he was on the run, why he was so desperate to escape that he'd taken the risk of hitching up with me when he surely would have been smarter to not join forces with someone else who was on the run.

He never did tell me what had him running away from the law. But he did tell me a story ... I have often wondered since then if this was a story of him or a story he romanticized in the hopes that his own story was not so bad.

"I'm in a gang," he said, his hand lightly tracing the heavy roundness of my breasts. My nipples peaked. "Had to split up for a while. Boss said the marshals wouldn't be expecting that. He's down Nogales way. Few months, when the heat dies down, we'll meet up again."

"Why was it you thought the marshals were closing in on you? You said they were following your trail, that they'd figure out you'd been the priest ... why aren't they hunting your boss that way?"

"They are. But as for me, girl, I got a reputation. This time, what they think I did, I didn't. Doesn't matter, though. People get to know you're that fast with a gun, that unafraid to use it when the time comes for the using of it, then you get blamed for lots of things aren't your doing."

"I never thought about that. But then, I've never really known a real gunslinger before."

"Gunslinger." He rolled over on his back; I turned and snuggled in against his side. I looked at his profile; his eyes, open, aimed at the ceiling. "There's a price on my head, girl."

"I don't think there's one on mine."

His head turned; his eyes were in a shadow but I knew he was looking at me. "I'm trusting you, telling you this. You strike me as the kind of woman that would turn a man like me in for the reward."

"Then I would have done that already."

"Except you're in so much trouble right now, you're more scared of the law than you are of me."

I closed my eyes and buried my face into his ribs. His hand stroked over my back before pulling me in tightly against him.

"What's waiting for us in KC?" he asked me.

"Trouble."

"I gathered that much."

"You'll keep me safe, though ... won't you?"

"If you trust me. Only then." He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, but he meant the words he spoke ... and he said them only because he knew inside himself that he had to say them for his own sake. "But I meant what I said about you crossing me. So don't put me to that test."

"I won't."

But I knew I would.

The train from Denver to Kansas City took two days longer than it should have. Snow, heavy and wet, hindered travel and slowed us to a crawl until we'd left the highest elevations behind. To be crude, I didn't mind it because I spent that extra time breaking every vow I'd ever made myself about men.

Well, not every vow.

But most of them.

That one lost night in Denver became a lost morning that became a lost train trip. 

We didn't emerge from our cabin until late in the second day. Until that point, we had been content with the meals our porter brought to us each time Cort stuck his unshaven face out of the door and called out to him.

And then Cort would turn back into the cabin, shutting the door behind him, an evil glint in his eyes as he regarded me ... more often than not, I'd chosen that moment to stumble from the wide berth and make my way to the lavatory accommodations to freshen up. I'd catch his eyes as I'd be making my way back, walking gingerly as the train rocked over the iron rails.

With a whoop, he'd descend upon me, sweeping me up as I clambered for the safety of the berth. Most times, he'd simply and enthusiastically spread my thighs and climb aboard. I'd pretend to fight him off but we both knew it was a silly game. Silly. Who'd have ever thought to find me genuinely silly again in this life?

But on that second day ... oh. Something happened that perhaps was so the opposite of silly.

He grabbed for me, you see. Only somehow, he grabbed me differently and as he picked me up, I was facing him. I put my hands on his face, now heavy with whiskers that made him look incredibly sexy, unabashedly pure male animal.

"Who took away your heart, girl?" he whispered to me. "I'd shoot him dead for what he's done to break you."

"Oh." I felt the air leave me. "Don't say such words, Cort."

"You deserve a man who'll never mistreat you. A man to give you a brood of children. A man to show you how much love you still got to give in this life."

We both knew ... he might have wished to be a man like that. Perhaps not the man who'd be that for me, but a man who'd be that for some woman, somewhere, some time. He was seeing in me the things he thought a woman would want from a man, the things he thought he'd like to be as a man.

"I don't want those things, Cort. Maybe I never did, but I know for sure I don't now. A man like that? He'd be wasting himself with a woman like me."

"A woman like you is never a waste for a man to know, Molly. This man? He's damned glad he got time with you."

He was so gentle in lowering us both to the berth. And when he took me, it was only after we explored each other with a freedom and candor that I'd never felt with a man before. There are so many times I have relived those moments with him, hearing his reaction, feeling my own ... it can be as if I am again touching the velvet of his skin and tasting the essence of his manhood.

In the wake of that, I wanted to withdraw from him. That he could see into me as he had, this scared me. So when he professed the renewed need for food later that evening, I pressed him to take me to the dining car.

He told the couple we sat with that we were on our honeymoon. He squeezed my hand and grinned at the secret we shared. Over his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. I was a ghost traveling in the dark night of a lonely landscape.

In Kansas City, Cort decided that I should be the one to direct our actions. We found a hotel near the station and spent the evening discussing the bank where I told him the safety deposit box was located, First National Trust.

It was several miles from the station and situated smack in the midst of the central trading district of this bustling city. The next day, we hired a wagon and explored the area around the bank. We ate lunch in a small restaurant that overlooked the square in front of the bank's imposing red brick building.

At my suggestion, I went in alone that afternoon to show my credentials and ascertain that, indeed, I had the proper paperwork to gain entry to the box in question. I told them I would return the next morning to retrieve my possessions in the box. They asked if I would need armed escort; I said that what was in the box was of sentimental value only and therefore I was in no danger of being accosted for what I'd carry from the bank.

Cort took me to dinner that evening at a restaurant near our hotel. I suggested we take in a show at the grand theater, knowing his enjoyment of the show we'd seen in Denver. But he whispered heated words into my ear ... that the day's planning for the morrow's long-delayed completion of our mission in Kansas City had lit a different kind of fire within him.

I cried that night when he took me. I cried for all the nights I'd never had a man like this. I cried for all the nights I'd never have a man like this. I cried for all the nights I'd held this man.

He came into me as if he'd never stop ... as if he never wanted to stop ... as if he wanted more than he'd ever wanted.

And in the morning, I loved him. He sighed before he came. It nearly undid me.

He'd told me so much about himself. He'd told me too much. I wondered what he'd regret most telling me. Would he hate that he'd admitted that there were times when he'd not been able to handle the shame of his childhood ... how humiliated he felt that as a young teen, he'd known the things people said about his mother were true even as he hated them for looking down on her while he hated that she earned her living as she had?

Would he damn me for the time he described how he'd learned how to make love from one of the whores where his mother had worked? How he'd listened to the women there talk about all the ways they wished men might have held them ... and how he'd tried so hard to be that kind of man, to practice what he thought they were wanting? Only to find out that it came a lot more natural to him when he found himself falling in love with some girl he saw in Sunday school. A girl older than him but who was a virgin when he convinced her to lay with him. A girl who made him understand for the first time that every woman was different, every woman made him different.

Would he regret telling me the reason, the real reason, he'd targeted me? That it had been the recognition that I would be a challenge. That all he'd really wanted to do at first was make me aware of his power. That he'd planned not much more than bringing me that valise and then fucking me until I could take no more. That he'd had no idea why he'd realized, watching me play cards, that I was not just on the make but that I was on the run. That it had excited him to think I'd be vulnerable and his to exploit once he brought me down to his level.

That it hadn't bothered him in the least to force me to leave with him on that train, to head for Kansas City where he'd take more than his share of the bearer bonds ... that he might have taken them all except that even in the beginning, he'd had a begrudging admiration for a woman trying to stay ahead of whatever was chasing her.

Would he wish he'd lied and not told me that in the wake of becoming intimate, he was determined to protect me while in Kansas City and to get me safely out of that city? It awed me that in reading human nature as well as he did, he fully understood, perhaps from the beginning, that there were people in Kansas City who would never have let me leave with those bonds ... that he understood if not for that very real threat, I would have long ago sneaked back in and taken those bonds to another bank in another city.

Perhaps the one thing he would never regret saying to me was that I was a woman who'd lost her heart.

That was something he knew about me. That was something I knew he'd never forget about me.

When we left that morning for the First National Trust, I made only one miscalculation. It was a minor one; I never learned about it until much later.

We took a wagon to the bank. We made a loop around the block of the bank's building to see if there were any problems waiting on us. It looked innocent enough. It wasn't.

He helped me down from the wagon after pulling to a stop near the corner. I'll watch over you, he said softly into my ear. "I know you're nervous, girl. No one will ever harm you when I'm around."

"I know that, Cort. I couldn't do this otherwise."

"Just go do your business. And know that I'll be watching over you."

I paused before stepping away from him. This man who'd made me break solemn vows I'd made to myself. This man who made me regret the necessity for those vows. This man who was an outlaw but much too complicated to ever be held by that simple of a description. This man who by all rights should have been nothing to me, having forced himself into my life. This man who was pure danger. This man who'd touched me. This man who'd exposed me.

This man who I'd never doubted wouldn't kill me for what I was about to do.

"I won't be long," I said to him.

"I'll be waiting on you."

Inside the bank, I knew I would be watched, stalked ... from the moment I would enter. They would wait until I emptied the safety deposit box before having me arrested and taking the bonds from me. He had been tipped by one of the guards. I had always known the guards were in his employ. I had always known he'd known I'd return one day. There was nothing he would have done to not capture me when I did.

He wasn't my husband. He was, sadly, simply a man I'd conned in a card game. A man who held a grudge. A man far more powerful than I'd realized until it was too late. I'd dumped those bonds in a bank in his city before lighting out with a troupe of performers heading to Colorado City.

Only thing was, it hadn't been this bank, First National Trust, that had been the real depository of the bonds. I'm not exactly that stupid. After all, this was the bank where he kept his own treasure. I knew it'd take him nothing to find out from someone here that, yes, a woman matching my description had taken a safety deposit box. It had been two years, three months. In all that time, he'd simply waited. He wasn't so much needing those bonds, though it was a princely sum that he wouldn't mind having back. No, what he wanted more was me ... in jail ... punished ... broken ... as I deserved.

And all of this is why I walked slowly away from Cort, pausing to turn and wave at him as he flicked the reins and moved the wagon down the paved street before the bank. He was heading around the block to come back to take up a position to watch over me as I exited the bank.

But once he had turned the corner, I turned on my heel and walked briskly around the opposite corner, heading swiftly away from First National Trust's entrance. I was placing all my hopes that whoever was waiting on me inside First National Trust was so confident I was going inside that they were not watching me outside. We'd seen no evidence of watchers when we'd slowly circled the block.

At the next corner, I dodged across the street and made my way along yet another cross street. At the other end of that block, I caught a hire wagon to take me back near the train station. I had him wait while I went inside the great sandstone edifice of Stockmen's Bank and Trust. It took less than twenty minutes for me to get what I came all that way for. First, I had to present credentials in the name I'd used to open the account here. Then I was assisted with carrying my safety deposit box to the sheltered privacy of the booth where one could put in or take out whatever one wished from the box.

I gently opened the box's lid. Inside, layers of bearer bonds in various denominations. It was more money than I would have ever thought I'd have in my life. It was more than what I'd ever need to start a new life. It was all that had gotten me through the last few years ... the knowing that my freedom was here if I could ever find the way to make it into this town and back out.

It shocked me to the point of shaking when I saw two fat tears plop down upon the bearer bonds. I put my fingers to my eyes, unprepared for how it felt to realize I really was weeping. And it wasn't that I was crying tears of joy to know I was almost surely going to make it out of this escapade with the money and my life ... it was the vision I'd suddenly had of Cort.

Right about then, I was pretty sure, he was being arrested. If not killed.

I'd tipped off a lone police officer I knew would be standing guard, as they had always done, in front of the main post office. I had done this as I hurried past, just before I'd stepped into the hire wagon to bring me to the Stockmen's Bank and Trust.

The police officer had at first not believed me that a wanted felon was casing First National Trust ... that I had recognized his wanted poster in that very post office ... but then I described him so surely, with such detail ... and I could see the moment he realized he was going to have to call in other officers to rush to First National Trust to find this desperado and arrest him.

In no time, though, I was gone. Before he could return from his call box, I'd found a hire wagon down from the post office and was on my way to the Stockmen's Bank and Trust.

"God. Oh God. What kind of woman have I become?" I whispered inside that cubicle. "I could have shared this with him ... I could have ... I ... Oh. God."

Truth was, I couldn't have shared it with him. I needed cover to make my escape. I needed the diversion of an impending bank robbery.

Truth was, he would have taken it all. All of it. No matter what he said. He would have seen how much was here and he would have taken it all. He was just a man after all. More than that, he was an outlaw. He had no scruples. He might have let me live long enough to leave Kansas City but it wouldn't have been long before he'd have killed me and taken the bonds.

Truth was, I had worked hard for this money. I needed it in ways no man ever would understand. I had done things, bad things, vile things ... and at the end of the road, my only hope to ever have a safe life now was this money.

Truth was, there was a time in my life when I was the kind of woman who would never have betrayed someone with whom I'd been intimate. But that was before I learned that men don't have such scruples.

Truth was, there was enough money in my hands now that I could bury my past and forget that I'd done this and all the other bad things I have done over the past four years. I could maybe buy myself into a place where it'd be safe for the loving girl inside me to come back out and reclaim her life.

My eyes were dry and bright by the time I left the Stockmen's Bank and Trust. The hire wagon was waiting for me. I had him take me back to the hotel. Again, I had him wait for me. I walked calmly across the lobby heading for the stairs and then ascended as quickly as I could. Inside the room, were my packed bags.

And it had been those bags that had been my miscalculation. I had packed them before we left. He had noticed. But I didn't realize that until I made it to the train station.

At the busy station, I regarded the tote board listing the trains and boarding times and destinations. I chose one heading for Des Moines. It would not really get me closer to where I wanted to end up, but it was leaving very soon. And from Des Moines, I could travel to Cheyenne then to Salt Lake City then to Carson City then to San Francisco. Over all those years, I think I'd studied every possible train route from Kansas City to San Francisco so often that it was second nature to see the path I'd take.

When I had my ticket, a porter hustled with me toward the track where passengers were being allowed to board already. Just after I'd tipped him handsomely to get my bags aboard, I felt something cold and hard shoved into my ribs. A warm, strong arm wrapped around my waist. A deep, rough voice in my ear said, "Thought we were taking the night train to Oklahoma City, Molly."

"Oh God."

"Shouldn't have packed your bags so soon, girl. Little thing like that might make a man like me suspicious you were planning on leaving without him."

The porter returned to the platform, his frank stare trying to work out the scene before him.

In a loud enough voice for the porter and any other onlookers to hear, Cort said, "Ah, honey, you know I couldn't just let you leave without one more kiss goodbye."

And with that, he whipped me around to face him. He bent me over his arm as he covered my mouth and let his tongue invade me.

Somewhere inside that kiss, it turned from mean to passion. And when it ended, I clung to his neck and his arms held me to him tightly.

"No, Molly. Don't cry. Don't try to con me again, girl. It won't work this time," he said in a husky voice.

"I'm not conning you, Cort. I'm not." I gulped in deep breaths. I could still feel his gun jabbing in my ribs. But most of all, I could feel his body next to mine. I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I just knew it. Men ... even a dangerous man ... can be as bad as a silly woman in what they want to believe of the opposite sex.

"I told you I'd be watching over you. That I wouldn't let anyone harm you while I was around."

I heard the call for boarding ... knew we had bare minutes.

"Come with me, Cort. There's enough money ... we can have a life ..."

He smiled. I could feel his smile against my neck. "This is where we split up, Molly. Besides, they're looking for me now, aren't they?"

"Oh, Cort. I'm so sorry. I truly am."

"Someday, you will be, girl. But right now, all you're thinking about is getting on that train and getting out of this town."

I stepped away from him when he released me. He slid his pistol back into its holster. And then he just stood there, regarding me.

"All aboard!" the porter called out.

"Here ..." I dug into my bag, pulled out a wad of the bearer bonds, shoved them into Cort's hands. "Start a new life, Cort. Try not to think too badly of me. I was desperate."

He looked down at the bonds. Then up at me. He grabbed my bag from me; stuffed the bonds I'd given him back inside. Then with this little smirk that seemed both playful and realistic, he reached in and took several back. He raised his eyebrows at me as he handed me back my bag. He folded the bonds before tucking them securely inside his vest's inner pocket.

"You would let me go? And you would let me go with ... with nearly all of the money? Why? Why would you do that?"

"I meant what I said to you, Molly. I am damned glad I got time with you. So I'm willing to give you this free pass. But if we ever cross paths again ..."

"We won't."

"Good. Now I got a train to catch myself."

"Cort ... wait." I felt something inside me; a need that I thought maybe he'd understand. And I broke my final vow. "Laura."

"What?" He stepped closer, maybe sensing this moment would be the payoff to what he was giving me. Somehow, maybe he'd value this in a way I might not have foreseen.

"My name is Laura. My real name. Would you say it? I would so love to have you call me by my real name ... even when it's to tell me goodbye."

His eyes seemed to change on me; as if he went inside himself at the same time he was focused intently on me. He put his hand on my cheek; I closed my eyes and leaned into his rough palm. "Goodbye, Laura," he said softly.

"Thank you." I took this deep breath.

With a quick move, he wrapped me in his arms and held me. His mouth was at my ear to say, "Take the money, start that new life you want. I'm already damned. Consider this a bit of redemption for at least a few of my sins. Laura, take this chance I'm giving you, girl. Take it for both of us."

He turned to walk away. But at the last second, just as I had backed up and the porter had guided me up onto the train's bottom step ... Cort turned back, walked right up to me ... and pulled me into a kiss that lasted until the train began moving.

My last view of him was him standing there on the platform, his thumbs latched nonchalantly into the top of his gun belt, his long legs casual, his eyes on me, a gentle breeze blowing his chestnut hair.

Nothing much I'd told him had really been true. I thought about this as the train bore down on Cheyenne over an endless flat, mundane landscape.

Truths. I wasn't beholden to them anymore. I wonder how much he guessed about me, though. I wonder if he realized I'd lied to him from the beginning. Telling him the bonds had been my husband's. That it'd been my husband from whom I was running when Cort had met me. That I'd not meant to turn him in at the end there. That I would have gladly taken him with me to start a new life. That I hadn't always had some kind of plan to get the bonds and get away.

Not that I thought he'd told me nothing but truths. But somehow, the things he told me about his life, his past, himself ... they sure seemed genuine.

In Des Moines, I'd booked this passage in yet another name. I changed identities every chance I got. I always did know that I'd never be Laura Richardson of St. Louis, Missouri ever again in my life. That girl ... she might as well have died the day she found out just how mean men can be and still call it love.

And the oddest thing was ... here after all this time, I'd met a man who hadn't needed to love me in order to do something nice for me without gaining anything for himself in return except for the knowing he'd helped me. Other men would have killed me for what I'd done to Cort. I'd thought Cort would have if he'd caught me like he had. It took me a lot of miles, a lot of thinking to figure out why he hadn't.

Cort had surprised me along the way but never more than when he forgave me for betraying him. That was a puzzler. I passed my days on that train, worrying this over, thinking about this man who'd said to me that being with me hadn't been a waste of his time. That he'd been glad he'd gotten that time with me.

He was a remarkable and contradictory man. He was an outlaw with a sense of justice. He was man who could be gentle with a woman. He was a captor who'd set me free in the end.

Yes, and that had been it.

He'd set me free on purpose.

I'd never told him my past. I suppose I hadn't needed to. It's so mundane in the grand scheme of life. Only my revenge on my past had been novel. What he cared about, what he admired, was that I had decided that I wasn't going to curl up and die because of what had happened to change me.

He was the same as me in that regard. He had been seeking revenge on his past, on his childhood. I think he made the deliberate decision to allow me to succeed where he thought he himself had no chance anymore. And maybe in him doing that, maybe he'd succeeded in his own revenge on his past.

That's what I decided in the end was why he'd let me go. 

I wish I'd told him that being with him would never be a waste of time for any woman. All I could really do now was to make count what he'd sacrificed to give me this chance at redemption.