Always You by Jill Gregory

Because—oh, hell, it’s a long story, and you’re not interested anyway. Let’s just say that maybe in the end I’m doing you a favor. Maybe your not marrying Wyatt Holden is the best thing that could ever happen to you.”
    Melora jerked away, a deep, shuddering breath running through her. “You’re crazy!”
    “Could be.” Cal restrained the urge to stroke her hair. It glinted like spun gold in the faint light that crackled off the campfire. He wanted to plunge his fingers through those thick, glorious strands, to bend close and kiss the back of her neck, to inhale the flower fragrance of her.
    There was something about her, something that was getting to him. Something besides her beauty, her spunk, the graceful, decisive way she moved, the elegant tilt of her head.
    No, he’d never loved anyone. He’d known plenty of whores and plenty of virgins; he’d slept with the former and steered clear of the latter. But a woman whom he could talk to, understand, tell his troubles to, take care of, kiss, hold... love?
    Never.
    What the hell was she doing to him? Why was he thinking about all this now, when he should be getting shut-eye, so they could make an early start in the morning?
    Sunup, he’d told her, and sunup it would be. “Get some sleep. We’ll cover rough country tomorrow.”
    “Where are we headed?” she ventured to ask, still trying to sort out what he’d said about his family and about Wyatt.
    He hesitated for a moment before answering. “Guess you might as well know. The Black Hills.”
    “Cal, why ?” She lunged up, shivering in the frosty air that whistled through the pines. The wrenching note in her voice was not from cold or fear but from sheer tortured frustration. “What’s the point of all this? What do you want from me—or, rather, from Wyatt?”
    Cal pushed himself up to sit beside her, and suddenly he looked fierce and frightening. “I don’t want anything from you, ma’ am,” he drawled with cool mockery, “except your company for a ways. But your precious fiancé, that’s another story. I want to hurt him. To make him suffer. To twist his insides with worry and pain and loss. And in the end to watch him die.” Cal finished with awful, brutal calm.
    Melora gasped, all the color rushing from her face, leaving her smooth skin as pale as ice and her golden brown eyes wide with horror.
    He reached out to grasp her shoulders again and gave her a shake. “That scares you, doesn’t it? Well, then don’t ask me any more questions about it because I guarantee you won’t like my answers. But you can stop thinking about marrying that son of a bitch because it will never happen. He’s a dead man.”
    “You’re going to murder him?”
    His mouth curled unpleasantly, sending twisting fear through her. “I’m going to see that he gets what he has coming.”
    “Damn you, what did Wyatt ever do to you?” Suddenly, as he stared back into her eyes, she saw the wariness, the iron purposefulness close down in a harsh mask over his features. Everything about him tightened. If he’d been planning to answer her, he changed his mind.
    “It’s a long story, Melora,” he said curtly. “Go to sleep, unless you’ve got something else in mind.”
    His taunting tone and the sudden hard gleam in his eyes told her exactly what he was hinting at. Melora flushed to the roots of her hair, apprehension squeezing through her blood as she gazed at the lean outlaw beside her.
    “The only thing I have in mind,” she retorted, shaking with a fury that shared space with fear, “is getting back to my fiancé and going on my honeymoon with him. We were going to San Francisco. And you’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything. But Wyatt and I will get married, and you’ll be the one who is dead!” she assured him, her eyes flashing.
    Cal, looming over her, with that scornful, almost amused sneer on his face, seemed more unmoved than ever.
    Because Melora was unnerved and at a distinct disadvantage,