She was a runaway wife,with a hefty reward posted for her return.And he was the best darn tracker in the territorv. For the half-breed bounty hunter, it was an easy choice. His had been a hard life, with little to show for it except his "horse, his Colt, and his scars. The pampered,brown-eyed beauty would.so back to her rich husband in San Francisco, andhe would be ten thousand dollars richer.

But somewhere along the trail out of the Black Hills, sometime during the long star-studded prairie nights, everything changed. Now, he would give his life to protect her, to howl her forever in his embrace. Now the moonlight poetry of their loving reflected the fiery vision of the Sun Dance:She must be his...

"Don't cry, Kay" Jesse said quietly. "I won't take you back."

"You mean it?" Hope flared in her eyes, chasing away her tears, making her look young and vulnerable and beautiful,so beautiful.

"I said it, didn't I?"

"Oh, Jesse, thank you" she exclaimed softly, and kissed him.

It was a light kiss, a token of gratitude, nothing more, but it hit Jesse like a bolt of lightning. He could scarcely recall the last time a woman had kissed him of her own free will,and it seared a path to his heart and soul. Ten thousand dollars was a small price to pay for such a kiss, he thought.