Lucas woke in the middle of the night with quickened heartbeat, awareness at high alert. Something had startled him awake - but it were the usual night sounds only, now. His son was snoring gently in his bed. Lucas rose soundlessly from the mattress they had put on the floor in Mark's room, to give their farmhand / patient some privacy.

Emery! Had she called out? Had it been the sound of a door closing? Grabbing his rifle automatically, McCain strode through the dark rooms and glanced out. It was a clear night with an almost full moon yet hovering over the horizon. Nothing seemed amiss in the yard.

Crossing over to his own room, he found the door ajar. Shock and fury poured over him as he pushed the door open and found the bed empty, the room untouched. She'd promised him!

He lost all feeling in the hand grasping his rifle. It were two steps to the main door. He did not know what he would do, the image of the slender silhouette on the magnificent stallion riding toward the horizon appearing before his eyes. Follow her? Make her stay and answer his questions? Turn her over to the authorities? What crime had she committed? What right did he have to apprehend her? Was it merely concern for her health and safety that made him so anxious?

He rushed the door open silently, slid out and closed it behind him. Eyes straining toward the corral. Spirit would be visible in this light if he was… Yes, there he was, head lifted expectantly towards him. A breath he had not known he had held in rushed out of the rifleman, at the same moment that a choked voice muttered:

"'m here."

Lucas turned forcefully, rifle lowered. Emery was sitting on the floor under the window, against the house wall, arms wrapped tight around her.

She was wearing the shirt he had put on her in the cave, but the long legs she had pulled toward her chest were bare… very white and smooth in the silvery light. Her hair had fully escaped the bonds and billowed out around the heart-shaped face, covering her silhouette far down her back like a mantle. It struck Lucas then: No saddle-bags, no pants, no shoes…

"What's going on?"

The young woman wiped her arm over her eyes in a touchingly childish motion and sniffed. Embarrassment – or fear? - tensed her shoulders.

Now that he was looking at her more calmly, he noticed the sporadic shivers and the silvery tracks on her cheeks. His heart clenched.

The picture he had of – Eirik – was always in command of the situation, his movements always contained. This creature here was desperate, afraid… vulnerable.

He did not like to see her in pain – physical or otherwise. Leaning the rifle against the doorframe, he knelt down, suddenly very aware of his size.

"Woman, what are you doing out here in the cold?" He reached over her to the blanket in the old rocking chair and wrapped it tightly around her. He ignored the instances he touched her bare skin, ignored the way her breath caught every time he got so close she must be able to feel his body heat.

"Talk to me!" he urged impatiently.

It seemed words came to the girl with difficulty.

"I had a nightmare."

The rifleman stared, nonplussed. A nightmare? Her eyes rose to his face, expressing a wariness that made him frown. She even pulled back a little from him – making him realise that the moon was at his back. She could not see his face, but still, would she be scared of him? Slowly he folded his limbs and sat down beside her, crossing his long legs in studied nonchalance. His thoughts skipped over their disjointed conversations since he'd brought her back. Had he been scaring her? His emotions had been a confounding whirl of fury, hurt pride, confusion, and something indefinable… Mark's questions had fuelled his anger in the same measure that they had also cleared his head.

"A nightmare." He mumbled in calming tones.

She'd also held a breath which she let out now in a slow, measured release. He felt her twitch. Her head turned until she looked up at him with wide eyes.

"You thought I left."

"I might have." He conceded, blood still pounding.

He watched a strand of hair fall over the side of her face as she tilted it back toward the moon. She looked so sad, so lost. Lucas frowned at the conflicting emotions fighting inside him, unable to tear his gaze away. Finally he nudged her gently.

"A nightmare?"

He succeeded, the corner of her mouth twitched. She rolled her shoulders.

"It was… I was… inside… underneath something…" her head moved in small, searching motions. "Something… Everything… Everything was collapsing on me," she formulated finally. "Like that rockslide. I was at the bottom of it. Could not move, not cry out." He could see the bulges where she was burrowing her fingers into her arms. "I woke – to a closed room, a prison. I needed…" her voice broke, a violent shiver ran over her.

Lucas considered her, fingers itching to push the errand strand of hair back from her face. "You needed the sky above you, fresh air around you."

She stilled at his words. Her face calmed, turned toward him with a question.

"Waiting for the enemy to attack, and then living through the bullet-hail is much like you described your dream."

Her eyes were full of contemplation, even consternation as they met his now.

"Think it means something, this dream?" He let humour slide into his voice and eyes.

She turned her head too hurriedly. Her eyes had already betrayed her. Lucas waited tensely.

A long moment passed before Emery found her voice again.

"I know exactly what it means," she mumbled thickly.

Lucas leaned his head against the wall, clasping his hands lightly over his pulled-up knee.

"I'm scared."

Senses heightened by the silent, calm night, something fell startlingly into place. She was not a different person, Lucas discovered with a wry, soundless grunt. But it was as if the revelation of her sex had intensified her characteristics. Eirik had been the watered down, wary version of this expressive, vocal creature. Lucas realised his confusion stemmed from the ingrained behavioural rules he'd follow thinking of her as a woman, and the deep-set trust and friendship he had already felt for the guarded young man. If he kept treating her as if she were Eirik, and ignore the bare skin, the expressiveness of the slender hands, the smell of the silky hair and the picture of her half-naked body in the cave, she'd be less intimidated by him.

So he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, relaxed his posture and inquired dryly: "When was the last time you were scared?"

And it worked. Though the answer was surprising. "When I saw you fall from that cliff with the cougar clawing at you."

He had to let that stand. But… "Not when you were following those Hispanics with our children?"

He felt her relax a little beside him. A light shaking of her head, the long hair brushing against his arm.

"That was different. There was always… hope, possibilities. I could act. Watching you fall, I was… destitute."

"You acted quickly then, too." She'd shot the cougar that was attacking him – with bow and arrow no less.

"I've always been sorry to kill such a magnificent animal."

He remembered something. "You did seem sad that time you had gone after the bees…"

She yawned delicately.

"Where I grew up, the most dangerous animals are the wolves first, and the grizzlies second. The bears can be deadly – but if you treat them as equals, they will leave you in peace. My brother and I hunted salmons with a grizzly she-bear and her two cups three springs in a row. Only once did things get hairy, when our shadows disturbed the fish where she was expecting them to go. She came toward us, huge, measured, but not angry. We realised what was going on and quickly moved – and she turned around and went back to feeding. Didn't even blink when the cups came nosing at us."

"Yet you carry a grizzly fur."

"Aye. There's crazed young bears, that threaten a settlement, or wounded ones, that can't hunt properly any more. Those that endanger, they have to be taken down… and still take their dues."

She was getting tired, her head leaning back against the wall, her shoulder grazing his arm. Lucas felt an awareness rising that would not stay hidden for long. Her vulnerability, due to the wound, her weakness, her dependence on him… they would weigh on a self-reliant person. She was so very noticeably female.

He turned his head.

"What are you scared of, now?"

Again, it took her a long while to answer. Her eyes were closed. "How to resolve this. Where to go from here. The wound… I'm weak. Everything seems so pointless. I can but try and pick up Benton's trail, fight for what's rightfully mine, or my tribe's at least, and return to the north. But I'm tired…"

Oh, he understood fully. She did not have the mindless brutality to bite down on vengeance as a life-goal.

"Why would…" she broke off, uncertain.

He tilted his head a little. "Go on."

"Cade…"

Lucas cleared his throat. "He tried to get rid of you, marking you as a coward. Either he thought you under the rubble, or that the strangers would take care of you for him."

"But Mary was taken…"

"He was trying to insert himself into the planning of the rescue. Thinking back the last days, his behaviour made more sense. He used your descriptions to ground his suggestions…"

She was silent for a long moment.

"I put you and Mark in an impossible situation, and I can't even…"

Scrutinizing her face he finally reached out and touched a hand to her forehead. She flinched, and her eyes flew open. In the sinking moon's last rays, the expression in them was of such intense yearning that Lucas had to swallow. He almost lost his train of thought.

"That's the fever talking. Things will look brighter in the morning." She had glanced away as quickly as noticing his eyes on her, but her disconcertion was palpable even so. "We… Mark and I are deeply in your debt as it is, Emery. You don't have to ask…" he finished lamely, voice hoarse. He'd lost the moment.

The young woman sat up, let the blanket slide from her shoulders and answered coolly: "I think we're fairly square by now, Lucas. You did not have to go after me, nor bring me here. I've been a dead weight for what, a week now?"

Lukas climbed to one knee, half angry now. "After pulling more than your weight for a whole year, plus bringing the farm through eight weeks of my reconnaissance. I disagree."

"See, that's why I'd leave in the night, so I would not have to fight with you."

The rifleman bit down on a retort, calmed his breath. "No more fighting," he conceded. "But you won't leave without good-bye." He held out a hand, getting up. Emery took a breath before glancing up at him and then reaching for his hand. He pulled her upright gently, reached for the door.

The growing coldness of the slender fingers in his paw should have warned him, but it was the scared, questing sound that made him turn.

Emery was white as a ghost, wavering helplessly where she stood.

Doc had warned him about this, Lucas thought grimly, catching the fainting girl in his arms. She had lost so much blood, fainting when she got up too quickly was going to occur for a while. And she hadn't been eating as much as he would have liked. Come to think of it, it was a wonder she had gotten out here without incident.

Her head was a comfortable, familiar weight against his shoulder as he carried her back to her – to his – bed. Laying her down, her cheek rested against his for a moment, her hand tangled in his collar. He pulled upright with surprising reluctance. Bent over her, a hand cupped around her cool cheek, he waited until she moaned quietly and opened her eyes.

"Hey." Lucas felt his smile gather warmth at the utterly confused expression.

"What happened?"

"Seems you are a girl after all," he teased gently. "You fainted."

She pursed her lips, brows snaking together. "I did?"

Smiling at her birdlike innocence, he stroked his thumb over her brow. "A side effect of the blood loss, Doc warned. Sleep. Gather your strength."

He felt her eyes following him all the way to the door.

….