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collarbone.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIf you want them, you’ll have to come get them.”
    â€œNo.” Her refusal was more forceful this time, but her teeth had started chattering from the numbing cold. She moved her arms in the water, trying to keep the circulation going. “You leave my clothes where you found them,” she insisted in a wavering voice.
    â€œI can’t do that.” He shook his head briefly and shifted in the saddle, as if making himself more comfortable. “I’ll just have to wait until you come out of the water to claim them.”
    â€œI’m not coming out while you’re there,” Maggie retorted.
    â€œI’m not leaving until you do.” Chase could see she was shivering, and guessed the water was icy. “You’ll freeze in that river. You’d better come out before you turn blue.”
    â€œI’ll freeze to death before I’ll ever set foot on that bank with you there!” An impotent kind of fury raged through her.
    â€œYou stupid little fool.” Chase saw the mule-stubborn expression on her face, and his jaw hardened. He’d taken a position and couldn’t retreat from it. That left him only one recourse—to advance. “In that case, I’ll just have to come out there and get you.”
    Her wide-eyed look held panic. “You wouldn’t dare.” But there was doubt in her shivering voice.
    â€œWouldn’t I?” He raised an eyebrow and reached for the coiled lariat tied below the saddle pommel.
    His horse was instantly alert. The lariat represented the kind of work it understood and enjoyed. When its rider pointed the horse at the figure in the water, it pricked its ears curiously at the girl, then swiveled them back and forth, uncertain that its rider actually intended the human to be the objective.
    Shaking out the loop, Chase walked the horse into the water, ignoring its rolling snort at this curious business. The loop of the rope was held low and free of his right side, ready to be swung into action when the time came.
    For several long seconds, Maggie watched him come closer, part of her refusing to believe that he would go through with it. Then she tried to swim out of his path. Chase put the spurs to his horse, sending it plunging through the water to turn her back. The river ran past his boot tops, its temperature colder than he had realized.
    As she tried to change directions and elude him again, the only sure target his rope had was her head. At this depth, the loop would lay on the surface, catching her around the neck. He had to maneuver her into shallower water, where the rope could settle around her middle. It became a cat-and-mouse game, with the outcome foredestined, because the cat was too quick and the mouse was too sluggish.
    The icy temperature of the river had stiffened her muscles, making her reflexes slow and her movements uncoordinated. Maggie floundered in the deep water, going under once before her toes scraped bottom to push her to the surface. The cold had sapped her strength. Weak and quivering, she was frightened by the new danger of drowning.
    When it appeared that Chase had followed her too far into the river’s channel, his horse snorting nervously at the water rising midway to the point of his withers, Maggie struck out frantically for the solidnessof the bank. All her effort was concentrated on trying to run as she reached belly-deep water.
    A complacent smile was curving Chase’s mouth. His horse had begun its turn to shore a second after the girl had made her break. It was lunging through the water after her while Chase lifted the rope to circle it above his head. While he made the calculations of distance and speed, the other part of his mind was noting the jutting swell of her profiled breast and the snow-white cheeks of her bottom as she ran from him.
    The rope made two swings above his head before he let the loop sail to its target. It settled over her