Cates, Kimberly by Briar Rose

that he'd do whatever he had to in order to escape it.
    God alone knew what might have happened next, had it not been for a sudden cacophony of baying outside of the caravan. The hound. Milton.
    Redmayne froze, instincts honed on countless battlefields sizzling to awareness. Even Rhiannon stilled, her eyes wide, more than a little frightened.
    "It's probably nothing," she said, looking completely unconvinced. Who the devil was she trying to comfort? Him or herself?
    There was a low murmur of masculine voices, muffled by the walls of the caravan.
    Redmayne levered himself up. Excruciating pain shot through his shoulder, a swarm of bright dots swimming before his eyes. Hell, he was as useless as that infernal dog of hers, weak, stranded here without so much as a weapon. Perhaps he could use the remainder of Miss Fitzgerald's gruel to poison the intruder to death Glancing around, he searched for something, anything he could wield against an enemy.
    "Be careful!" she warned. "You'll tear open your wounds!"
    "That might be redundant, since there is a more than middling chance that our visitors intend to create a few new ones. Do you have a knife? A fire poker? Anything I can take out there with me?"
    "Out there? You're not going out there!"
    "Miss Fitzgerald—"
    "If those men are the ones who were hunting you, the last thing we need is for you to go charging out, making an even better target of yourself. I'll go alone, try to distract them."
    Distract them? The woman was so honest she might as well have the truth emblazoned across her forehead: "He's hiding under the bed." It was his pride that made him resolute, not any particular concern for her safety. He'd leave that to heroic fools.
    He grabbed her arm so tight it might leave bruises on that lily-fair skin. "Forgive my obstinacy, but I have an aversion to hiding behind a woman's skirts. Superior officers tend to frown on it when it comes time to make promotions."
    She glared at him, and he was suddenly struck with the core of intelligence he'd not noticed before beneath the dreamy sheen of her eyes. "I'm certain they'd be as happy to shoot you through my skirts as not, Captain. You hardly think they'd allow any witnesses to live, do you? If I can manage to deflect them, it might save both our lives."
    Reasonable. It was so damned reasonable. Then why did it irritate him so thoroughly?
    "You can wait in here with the poker and smash it down on their heads if they come searching." She whispered fiercely. "You'll have a much better chance with the element of surprise."
    "Where the devil is the poker?"
    "I brought it back inside, put it in the corner the morning after we cauterized your wounds."
    Redmayne glimpsed the shaft of iron, remembering. It took all of his will to uncurl his fingers, let her go. For a man who, a day before, had suffered little but boredom at the prospect of his death, he was suddenly damned edgy. Doubtless because it was bad form to get even a little shatterbrain killed after she'd saved one's life.
    "If you get yourself shot, madam, I shall be most put out" He attempted to speak carelessly, but he couldn't keep the slight roughness out of his tone.
    She paused, one hand on the small door, and flashed him a tremulous smile, full of courage, leavened with a humor that pinched in his chest. "So, Captain Redmayne, will I."

CHAPTER 5
    A glare of sunlight blinded Rhiannon for a moment as she slipped out of the caravan and shut the door behind her, trying desperately not to reveal the bubble of panic lodged beneath her breastbone. She blinked, attempting to clear her eyes, half afraid of what she'd see. Yet what would it matter? She doubted assassins wore identifying uniforms, after all. She'd have no idea whether she confronted friend or foe until... what? One of them leveled a pistol at her?
    Her surroundings swam into focus as she stumbled down the narrow steps to the ground, Milton's barking rattling her nerves. The hound was leaping wildly at the roots of