They made camp that evening just before dusk and Ethan was happy to see that Caroline was given a tent. It gave him an idea on how to talk to her alone without risking blowing his cover or getting her hurt. Ethan walked a little ways away from camp and signaled for Grayson to follow him.

While Ethan took care of natures calling he whispered over to Grayson.

"I need to talk to Caroline and let her know who I am."

"You can't, Kid… You can't talk remember." Grayson replied as he pretended like he was checking the ammunition in his rifle.

"She has her own tent. I figured he'd do that. He doesn't want his little Caroline sleeping out where all the men can see her. If I was to get hurt he would send me into her tent for her to tend to me."

"What makes you think that?" Grayson asked. Ethan rolled his eyes.

"He's my father. I know how he thinks and I know exactly what he'll do in any situation. Trust me. He'll see me hurt, he'll send me to her tent, he'll tell her that someone will die if she steps out of line with me and then he'll tell her to patch me up. When we were all riding together before he did that anytime any of the guys were hurt. Her pa was a doc so she knows things about medicine."

"Well just how do you suppose you're gonna go about getting hurt?" Grayson asked. Ethan pointed to the rattlesnake that was curled up about three feet from where the men were standing.

"Holy shit! That's a big snake." Grayson said pulling his gun. Ethan grabbed his arm to stop him from shooting.

"You have to shoot my leg and then shoot the snake. You can say you missed and got me instead."

"I don't never miss."

"You can say it scared ya." Ethan replied.

"I ain't some young kid that's wet behind the ears.. I'm a tough old man." Grayson said his voice full of indignation.

"Yea a tough old man that kisses his horse good morning." Ethan replied with a chuckle.

"Her name's Annabelle, dammit." Grayson said. "Now where do you want the bullet and how deep in your leg am I putting it?"

"Not very damn deep unless you want one in your ass." Ethan replied matter of factly. "I was thinking you could graze my lower leg right above my boot."

"You sure about this?" Grayson asked. Ethan rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his weight onto the leg he wasn't about to get shot in.

"Yeah." he said.

The men didn't know but Caroline was watching them from behind her tent flap and her heart jumped up into her throat at he sight of 'Kid' rubbing his neck nervously. She would bet her life that man was really Ethan… But how could that be possible? She cursed the tears of hope that she felt gathering in her eyes. This could not be Ethan. She had killed Ethan a month ago. Though it seemed more like a lifetime ago after all she'd been through since then. She closed her tent flap and sat back on her blankets, pulling her knees up to her chin and sobbing into them like a child. A woman could only be strong for so long before she broke down.

Caroline screamed when a shot rang out followed closely by another shot. She jumped from her tent to see 'Kid' jumping up and down on one leg while grabbing at the other one. She could see blood on his hands as he touched the leg he was favoring. The man named Grayson pulled a knife and cut off the head of a big rattler and held the rest of it's long body in the air.

"What the hell are you two doing!" Mitchell demanded storming toward them.

"I killed a rattler." Grayson replied. Mitchell pointed to Ethan who was having a really hard time keeping himself from yelling out and telling Grayson to take his revolver and shove it up his ass. He hadn't realized just how damn bad this was gonna hurt and a man who couldn't talk certainly wouldn't be able to curse Grayson's soul to the fiery pits of hell.

"What happened to him?" Mitchell demanded.

"Well the damn snake startled me and I'm afraid my first shot went in his leg." Grayson replied. Mitchell laughed but Frank's wasn't so amused.

"The damn crazy man shot the retard… Boss I don't think these men are the kinds we need to be riding with." he said.

"We'll need all the guns we can get once we get to Pikes Basin and go at that bank." Mitchell replied. Then he pointed at Caroline's tent.

"Kid, you think you can get yourself over to that tent. Little Caroline knows how to tend wounds. She'll take care of you." he said. Ethan bit his lip and nodded and limped over to her tent.

"Caroline, you better just tend to his leg and send him back out… If you let that man touch you…."

"Yeah, yeah, you'll kill me or you'll kill him or you'll kill the virgin Mary herself…. I understand, Mitchell." Caroline replied and she followed Kid into the tent. Ethan sat down on the blankets and Caroline didn't even look at his face as she pulled his pant leg up, looked at the wound and then walked back out.

"Franks!" she yelled. Ethan could hear the sound of Franks boots stomping over to her.

"You don't command me around, woman! Who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded.

"Get your hands off me, Franks, or we'll find out who Mitchell likes more." Caroline replied coldly.

"What do you want, Caroline?" Franks asked his voice sounding much more calm.

"I need some water to clean Kid's wound. And I need your bandana." she replied.

"What the hell you need my bandana for?" he demanded.

"To use as a bandage… Seems we're fresh out of those out here in the middle of nowhere." she replied. Ethan shook his head even as he grinned. She had a bad habit of letting her temper get carried away and letting her mouth run too much but damn it was cute to listen to. He heard Caroline's footsteps coming back toward the tent. She walked in carrying Franks' canteen and his bandana.

Ethan noticed that she still avoided looking at him and instead focused on his leg as she set about cleaning the wound out with water.

"You stupid outlaws! Running around shooting each other. The least your friend could have done would have been to shoot Doomer or Franks or one of them other ones instead of you." she said. "Don't know why I even bother patching you up when all you're gonna do is go steal money from hard working folks and kill people who don't deserve to die." Ethan just listened to her voice too caught up in its soothing melody to respond.

"Can you believe he threatened to kill me or one of those men? Like I give a rats ass if one of us dies. No that's not what he'd do. He'd wait till we get to this town we're going to and then he'd find some little kid and shoot them and tell me it's my fault. That's more like what that jackass you're riding for would do.

"You know he killed my little sister? And then never even gave me a chance to bury her or my man. So now both of their bodies are probably nothing more then a pile of coyote poop and I never even got to put them to rest." she said and Ethan winced when she tied the bandana tight around his leg. "You're lucky.. It's just a graze." she said. She was about to leave the tent when Ethan finally found his voice again and spoke up.

"Jasmine was laid to rest, Caroline. The coyotes never touched her."

"Yeah, well what about you, Ethan?!" she demanded and then she stopped in her tracks when the reality of what he'd just said and what she'd just said back settled into her mind. She turned and crouched down in front of him. With a trembling hand she reached out and pulled the red bandana down off his face and then she covered her mouth with her hands and fell down hard on her backside.

"Ethan." she gasped her voice barely above a whisper.

"Hi darlin'," he replied. Her green eyes filled with tears and he reached his hand out to wipe them away but she jerked away from him.

"It can't be you…. You are dead. I killed you." she replied with disbelief. Ethan looked down at himself and then back at her.

"It is me, darlin'. I am very much alive and you didn't kill me." he replied. Caroline's head was spinning. It was impossible but this was Ethan… This was her man and he was alive and well and as handsome as ever as his dark eyes looked at her with all the love she remembered. She barely kept herself from crying out as she threw herself into his arms.

Caroline breathed him in. She loved his scent. Sweat, dust, horse and the masculine scent that was only his. She felt his strong arms around her and for the first time in the last month she felt warm and safe.

"I love you so much, Ethan. I didn't want to shoot you but I had to save Jasmine…" Ethan cut her off by pulling her away from him and lowering his mouth to hers. The kiss was full of fire and desperation as they tried to make up for every second they had lost with just this quick contact. Caroline pulled away first when she heard some of the men laughing in the distance and she remembered where they were.

"If I didn't kill you then what took you so long to come for me?" Caroline asked as she ran her fingers through his thick dark hair, (his hat had been knocked off during their passionate kiss), and felt the scar where the bullet she had fired had grazed him.

"Well darlin', you did shoot me in the head. That's the kind of thing a man needs a little time to recover from." Caroline bit her lip and he saw new tears coming to her eyes. He kicked himself for saying something so stupid and wiped her face clean with his thumbs.

"I'm here now, Caroline. And I'm gonna get you outta here. Do you still trust me?" he asked. Caroline nodded but stared at him with disbelief.

"You came back for me." she said. "You could have been free from him finally but you came back for me."

"I told you once I'd always come back for you, darlin'. My life means nothing without you in it." he replied as if this should have been obvious to her. "Do you still trust me?" he asked again.

"Of course." she replied. "Are we running tonight? We could run while everyone is asleep and.." She stopped talking when she saw Ethan shaking his head.

"We're not running again, Caroline. If we run he'll chase us and I don't want to have to look over our shoulders the rest of our lives. That man has taken too much from you and he deserves to die." he said. Caroline nodded. She wanted Mitchell to die too.

"But how…."

"You let me worry about that. I know where he plans on camping tomorrow night. It's a canyon about an hour outside of this town we're going to. We'll get there about sundown tomorrow and he'll want to camp for the night and hit the bank the next morning. Grayson and I will take care of everybody. You just have to keep your head down."

"Grayson?"

"Yeah, he found me and saved my life. He's the one that buried Jasmine. He's a good man. A little crazy but a good man."

"Okay, Ethan. I trust you." she said. Ethan nodded and then pulled a derringer out of his boot.

"Can you keep this hidden with you?" he asked. Caroline nodded, took the derringer and stuck it down in her skirt, pulling her blouse over it so it was hidden.

"Good. Now if that son of a bitch tries to come in your tent tonight you just forget all about the plan and you blow his brains out of his head before he gets a chance to touch you." Ethan said. Caroline's face flushed red and she bit her lip and looked away from him.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Caroline picked at a fray in the blanket beneath them and he could hear the nervousness and the shame in her voice when she replied.

"He has already touched me, Ethan….. A lot." she added. She looked at Ethan in time to see the flash of anger in his dark eyes. She had never seen him look quite this mad before. His hands were clenched in angry fists and he was breathing hard through his flared nostrils. Caroline just sat there in silence looking at him and finally he seemed to calm down a bit.

"I guess I already knew that." he replied his voice still full of a rage Caroline knew he was barely containing. "Just the same if the son of a bitch comes in tonight make sure you blow his good for nothing brains out before he touches you again." Caroline nodded.

"Remember, darlin', my name is Kid and you don't like me." he said as he pulled her back into his arms.

"Nope I don't like you at all." she agreed as she laid gentle kisses along his jaw. Ethan groaned and pulled her away from him.

"I better get out of here before anybody gets suspicious. Is there any point in me telling you to keep your mouth closed and your head down until tomorrow night?" he asked. Caroline shook her head.

"You know how I am, Ethan… I have no control over my mouth." she replied. He smiled and kissed her nose.

"I love your mouth." he said. "Now I really do have to go. Take care of yourself, darlin'." With that he left the tent leaving Caroline sitting there wondering if her love had really truly come back to her or if she had dreamed the last ten minutes up.