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slightly. He must not know exactly where she was. “I’m fixing to build us a fire and put coffee on to boil. You’d best come on out and get warmed up.”
    A fire and hot coffee was tempting, almost tempting enough to put herself within his reach. But he would take her back to those men and probably rape her first. She listened to the sounds of a horse being unsaddled and a fire being started. It was sheer torture to sit still when she knew warmth and food were only twenty yards away. But she did it.
    As he worked his voice continued to speak quietly. “I bet you’re cold,” he said conversationally. “Soaked through, what with that rain this afternoon. And now that it’s clearing off it’s dam—darned cold. The fire’s caught, and it feels fine.”
    Tami found herself liking his voice. It was quiet and smooth, with an old-fashioned western drawl. His words reminded her of Dad Culpeper, an old cowboy who had worked for her uncles. He had always just caught himself in the middle of a swear word and choked it back because, he said, he didn’t cuss in front of girls. Just like Blondie. She waited to hear him say more, but he was quiet for quite a while. Starting a fire in this wet couldn’t be easy, but he had clearly managed it because the aroma of coffee came to her. And then the sizzle of meat juices dripping into the flames. A hunger pang twisted her belly viciously.
    “I found the carcass of the bird you took last night,” he said in that quiet murmur of his. “Stripped clean. I reckon you must be hungry again. I got rabbit here, plenty for both of us.”
    He had found time to hunt even while chasing her in the rain? She’d like to slap him silly. Of course, she had no gun, not even a knife. She had to rely on a couple yards of rope as a snare. Catching food that way took time she didn’t have while on the run. How was she going to get away from him this time? He knew she was somewhere near, if not her exact location. Could she sneak past him after he fell asleep? Or could she leap up onto Freedom and thunder away while he had to take time to saddle his horse? No, the rain had slicked up the ground too much for that to be safe. She wanted to escape, not kill herself. If she wanted to commit suicide she could have done that back in her prison.
    Somehow his gentle voice coming out of the cold dark soothed her. It had an attractive, mesmerizing quality to it. Or maybe she was going into shock? Cold and hungry as she was, she found herself nodding off from time to time. That probably wasn’t safe, and she didn’t care anymore. He had her trapped. She almost stood up and waved her arms to surrender. But that remaining sliver of pride kept her in her hiding place.
    It was dawn when she woke, cold and cramped and almost dazed with it. The weak sun was partially blocked by a head leaning over her. A long blond braid fell to slap against her breast. Terror wrapped itself in a choke hold around her throat. Gripping her rock and smashing it into his face might not have been the nicest thing she’d ever done, but it was one of the quickest. Surprising, considering she felt like a block of ice. Or maybe she didn’t really move quickly, since he managed to duck at the last minute so the rock hit his forehead at the hairline instead of his nose. Blood fountained and he fell over with a grunt.
    “Omigod!” she croaked, trying to scramble to her cold-deadened feet. She was so stiff she fell over him, hitting her knees painfully on the rocky ground and burying her nose in his leather shirt. She barely noticed the pain, or even the warmth of his body, rising up to stare with horror at his slack, blood-covered face. Had she killed him? No, he was breathing. Thank God.
    It took only a couple minutes to haul Freedom out of his hiding place and tighten the girth. Tami saw that a cup leaking steaming coffee was lying beside Blondie, and on his other side was a thick piece of bread wrapped around a chunk of meat. She