"So what is the plan?" Tessa asked the next day around noon as they were traveling across the dusty ground. Richard shrugged.

"You said five days south two days ago. I figure we travel another day or two then stop off in a small town called Greenlake and see what we can figure out. Greenlake is a favorite hangout for outlaws."

"Aren't you worried they might recognize you?" Tessa asked.

"Why is there something about my face that sticks out?" Richard asked with a grin as he ran his hand over his scarred cheek. "Naw I ain't too worried. Most outlaws that see my face die shortly after and I've been pretty damn good at avoiding having my picture taken."

"How did you get those?" Tessa asked pointing at the three long scars down his cheek. Richard looked out ahead of them squinting in the sunlight.

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with one hell of a pissed off mountain lion." he replied. Tessa's eyes widened.

"How did you get away?" she asked.

"I strangled him with my bare hands." Richard replied. Tessa stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.

"Really?" she gasped.

"No." he said with a grin. "I shot the bastard." Tessa laughed lightly.

"What about the one on your lip?" she asked. Richard looked over at her.

"Why the sudden interest?" he asked. Tessa shrugged.

"What else is there to talk about?" she asked.

"I do believe the woman is bored." Richard said leaning down to Horses' ear.

"I'm not the one talking to my horse." Tessa said. Richard laughed.

"No I guess you're not." he replied. "I got my lip busted by a man who was pissed off because I accused him of abandoning his woman and child. For some reason saying that did not make him want to shake and be friends."

"No I guess not." she said. She wondered who this woman had been and why Richard had been insulting her man.

"Any other scars you'd like to know about?" Richard asked. "Asking about most of 'em will just get you a shrug. I've been shot, stabbed and clawed so many times I guess I just lost track."

"What about the ones on your back." she asked. He looked out ahead of them.

"You wanna be more specific?" he asked. She rolled her eyes.

"The ones that look like whip marks." she said.

"Oh those." he replied. "Yea those are whip marks."

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed growing angry. "Who the hell whipped you?" Richard smiled at the sound of her anger.

"My pa." he said.

"Why in the hell would your pa whip you?" she demanded. Her own pa had been strict on her and her brother but never had he ever gone so far as to whip them.

"Toughen me up I guess." Richard said. "It worked, but I always said I'd find a bit gentler of a way to toughen my sons up."

"You have kids?" Tessa asked feeling her heart fall to her feet. Maybe there was already a Mrs. Richard Helms after all.

"No." Richard said and she was sure she could hear a sadness in his tone. "No, I had a wife once about eleven or twelve years ago now but we were only married about two months before she died."

"I'm sorry." Tessa said. Richard shrugged.

"It was a long time ago." he said.

"Did you take to bounty hunting after she passed?" Tessa asked.

"No I was chasing outlaws and collecting bounties before.  But one look at Sarah and I gave it all up. Married her one week after I met her and bought us a little homestead up north around Amarillo. Then she got sick.. For a short time I thought maybe she was with child but I was wrong. I buried her in the ground and took off the same day. Went back to chasing bad guys and gambling." Tessa was saddened by his story but it also gave her hope. Maybe she shouldn't give up on the idea of him and her just yet… Maybe he was the type to settle down.

"So when were you a sheriff?" Tessa asked. Richard wondered if she was always so nosy or if maybe she had a special interest in him. He hoped it was the latter because he definitely had a special interest in her.

"I rode the trails hard for a few years after Sarah died but then I came to a little town called Gatesville. They were looking for a sheriff and I was good with a gun. I liked that town. I liked the people. I was good at my job and most outlaws stayed away. I took care of the ones that didn't."

"I've heard of Gatesville. My pa and I were thinking about moving down that way before he was killed. He said Witchita Falls was getting too crowded." Richard nodded.

"It's a nice place. Or at least it was a year ago when I left." he said.

"So what happened to make you leave if you liked it so much?" Tessa asked.

"That man I told ya about…."

"The one that busted your lip?"

"Exactly. The woman I accused him of abandoning was special to me. We were friends. I would have liked to have been more but she wouldn't have me even though she thought her man was dead. Once he came back I didn't feel like hanging around anymore." Tessa felt the sharp sting of jealousy.

"Did you love her?" she asked before she could stop herself. Richard rubbed his jaw and looked around the sparse forest they were riding through.

"You sure do have a lot of questions this morning." he said. Tessa shrugged and looked the other way.

"You don't have to answer." she said.

"Yeah I loved her. But we were never anything more than friends and it just wasn't meant to be. I'm sure she's married by now and I already know she's unbelievably happy with her husband."

"So you just went back to chasing outlaws to get away?" Tessa asked. "You must really love it."

"Tessa, a man don't look death in the face everyday cuz he loves to do it. If he says he does than he's got some serious issues. Sometimes a man does the things he does because he figures he ain't got nothing worth living for." Tessa's heart hurt for him. She knew he was talking about himself and a little voice in her mind was screaming at her that she needed to show him that she could be the thing that he lived for. But she couldn't do that. He hadn't said or done anything to make her think he had any interest in her other than saying he'd almost lost her. But that didn't mean he loved her it just met that maybe he liked having her around. That just wasn't enough for her.

"You have Horse." she said. Richard laughed loudly.

"I'll be damned, I guess you're right." he said. "You hear that, Horse? You are my reason for living you flea bitten old bastard." Horse blew out a breath and Tessa laughed.

"I think he loves you too." she said. Richard nodded.

"He ought to.  As ornery as his ass he's he'd done been shot if he was with anybody else. So what about you, Tessa? What's your story?" Richard asked.

"My momma died when I was a baby so my pa raised me and my brother on his own. He didn't know nothing about raising a girl so he just raised me like a boy. Sure I learned how to cook and clean but I also learned how to plow, plant, rope and brand. When I was ten and my brother was fifteen my pa left to go to Amarillo to take care of some business. That's when my brother was snake bit. I went for the doc but there wasn't nothing he could do and I watched my brother die. It took days and it was the most horrible thing I've ever seen."

"Sorry you had to go through that. Must have been hard." Richard said. Tessa nodded.

"You're a pretty woman, Tessa. You must have had men lining up so what kept you at the farm with your pa?" Tessa laughed.

"Yeah right. If there's one thing I'm not it's pretty." she said. At first Richard thought maybe she was just being a normal woman and fishing for compliments but when he looked at her he could tell that she really meant what she was saying and that baffled him. How could a woman as beautiful as her possibly get to be twenty-two years old without knowing she was beautiful.

"Tessa, I would never lie to you and I've done told you how I feel about my word. You are beautiful." Tessa felt herself blush and looked away from him quickly to hide the tears in her eyes. She had never before had a man compliment her other than her father and she could feel her heart becoming lost to him even more.

Then she scolded herself silently. She was a grown woman not some lovesick girl and just because a man tells a woman she's beautiful doesn't mean he is getting ready to fall on his knees and beg to keep her forever. Plenty of men told whores they were beautiful everyday.

"Well thank you, Richard. You're not so bad yourself." she said. "And you're wrong about the men lining up. I never had a single suitor. Most men want a real lady that wears pretty dresses and talks all good and proper. Not some tomboy with dirt under her nails and tears in her skirt who cusses more than they do."

"I don't think there's a single thing wrong with you." Richard said matter-of-factly. Tessa blushed again. She didn't really know what to say back.

"So how does Trigger play into this?" Richard asked after they rode in silence several moments.

"One day my pa and I were in town. I walked into the general store and my pa stayed out with the wagon. I heard him talking to someone. I heard the person say my name but I couldn't hear what else they were saying until I heard my dad tell the man to get lost." she said. "Two days later I was in the house when I heard some horses riding in. My dad was out on the porch reading and he whispered inside to tell me to hide. I hid behind the sofa at first so I could hear what they were saying.

"There was more than one man but only one was talking to my pa and I heard pa call him Trigger Jones. Trigger wanted to marry me. Pa told him no. Trigger offered him money but pa still told him no. That's when I heard the gunshot. I was smart enough to know what had happened so I ran upstairs and hid under my bed.

"Trigger and his men looked all over the house for me but somehow I got lucky and they didn't find me. They had to leave in a hurry because we had plenty of neighbors pretty close by who had heard the gunshot. I stayed at home for two weeks after that scared to death that Trigger was going to come back. After all, he'd stolen my picture to remember me by. Finally I'd had enough of sitting around being scared and decided to find him myself and put an end to him."

Richard nodded. He had a lot of respect for this woman. Sure she didn't seem to know much about gun fighting but she had courage. Just then he heard hooves coming up behind them.

"Put your bandana on your face, Tom." he said. Tessa heard the hooves too and quickly did as he said. Five rowdy cowboys yelled and hollered as they galloped around Richard and Tessa and then continued on their way.

Tessa breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at Richard to see that he had a hand on the revolver on his side and was staring hard at the men who were quickly disappearing into the distance.

"Calm down, cowboy." she said pulling the bandana back down around her neck. Richard felt himself starting to relax. He wasn't usually so high strung but then again it wasn't everyday that he was out in the middle of outlaw territory with a woman that he loved riding beside him.

888

They made camp that night at the edge of the forest. Richard managed to shoot a rabbit and was cooking it over the fire as the darkness settled around them. Tessa rose and began to walk away into the woods.

"Watch out for snakes, Tom." Richard called out. Tessa waved her hand and continued on her way. She wandered away from him deep in her own thoughts and ended up walking further than she'd meant to. She stopped and did her business behind an old scarred up tree.

She finished and stood up. She looked around the dark forest and thought about Richard. Maybe she should just be honest with him about how she was feeling. Worst thing that could happen is he wouldn't feel the same and they would simply go their separate ways once Trigger was dead. She never had been a coward or one to bite her tongue so there wasn't any point starting now.

She squared her shoulders and started back toward camp trying to think of how to say what she was wanting to say to Richard when suddenly she heard a noise behind her. She turned quickly and pulled her gun. She looked through the darkness but could see nothing but shadows.

Suddenly she heard a growling to her right and she turned to see a very big mountain lion staring at her. She wanted to scream for Richard but never had time as the big cat lunged at her.

888

"What the hell is taking her so long?" Richard asked Horse as he looked toward the place where Tessa had disappeared into the woods. Suddenly Horse's head perked up and so did the mares. Both horses started snorting and acting nervous. Richard stood quickly and a gunshot filled the air. Richard pulled his own revolver and ran toward the sound of the shot.

"Tessa!" he yelled. "Tessa, where the hell are you!"

"Over here." he heard her tear-filled muffled voice answer. Richard looked through the darkness and saw her legs sticking out from under the body of a giant mountain lion. He cursed and ran to her.

Tessa gasped when Richard grabbed the huge beast by the back of the neck and tossed it away as if it was no more than a kitten. Richard scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to camp without a word.

He sat down on the ground with her in his arms and held her while she cried against him. Finally she felt herself calming down and she wiped her face clean and looked up at him.

"What happened?" he asked gently. Tessa was surprised by the amount of concern she saw in his blue eyes.

"I strangled him with my bare hands." she replied trying to ease his worry. His eyes brightened as he smiled. If she was okay enough to joke with him then she must be alright.

"Really?" he asked. She smiled.

"No." she said. "I shot the bastard."

"Are you hurt?" he asked as he held her tight in his lap. Tessa shook her head.

"No, I shot him before he got to me but he fell on me dead and I couldn't get him off." Richard threw up a silent prayer of thank-you. When he had seen that mountain lion on top of her he had thought for sure he had lost yet another woman he loved.

"I lost my hat." Tessa said raising her hand up to her head. Richard nodded.

"I'll find it for you." he said. He ran a big scarred up finger down her soft cheek as their eyes locked. Richard did not need to ask her if she was feeling the same as him. He could see the answer shining in her dark eyes. He lowered his face to hers needing to feel the softness of her lips against his own more than he'd ever needed anything.

Just before their lips touched Horse nudged Richard hard in the shoulder with his head nearly toppling him over. Horse let out a snort and lowered his nose to the saddlebag where his oats were stored.

"I think he's hungry." Tessa said in a breathless voice. Richard cursed and muttered under his breath as she climbed from his lap and stood up. Richard stood as well and grabbed a handful of oats from the saddlebag.

"You gosh damned pest of a stinking ass, flea ridden beast." he said as Horse happily ate the oats out of outstretched hand. Tessa removed the rabbit from the fire and placed some on a plate for herself and Richard.

They ate side by side in silence and once they were finished Richard stood up.

"You should try to get some rest, Tessa." he said. "I'm gonna go find your hat and take care of that mountain lion." Tessa nodded though she was disappointed. She was almost certain she had seen love in his eyes as he'd held her earlier. Of course even if she had would he settle down for her? Once they killed Trigger would he be content to come live on her farm and give up chasing outlaws and riding trails?

As he walked away into the darkness Tessa removed the pins from her hair and grabbed her brush from her saddlebags.

Richard found Tessa's hat next to the mountain lions body. He looked down at the beast and shook his head.

"You better be glad she shot your ass." Richard said as he kicked it in the head with his boot. "If you would have harmed one hair on her head I would have cut your damn guts out and choked you with 'em." Richard pulled his knife and skinned the beast in the darkness. He'd done it enough times he didn't really need to see what he was doing. He hated to waste the meat but there was nothing he could do about that. Some other critter was sure to come along and have a meal out of it.

He threw the mountain lions pelt over his shoulder, picked up Tessa's hat and walked back to camp. He smiled when he saw that Tessa was sound asleep curled up on her bedrolls. He sat her hat down beside her and couldn't stop himself from reaching his hand out and feeling her long red hair. He had been dreaming of running his hands through it for days.

God knew he wanted to wake her up and tell her how he felt… Maybe even make love to her right out here under the stars but he couldn't do that. Based on what she had told him earlier she was innocent in every single way when it came to men and he didn't want her first time to be on the ground with a dirty ass bounty hunter covered in mountain lion blood.

Richard laid the pelt over his saddlebags and then laid down on his own bedroll. He placed his hat over his face and did his best to ignore his bodies frustrations as he tried to get some sleep.