The Bond Unbroken

by Bond unbroken (NCP) (lit)

  "Sing," she turned to face him, her eyes betraying her obvious alarm, "What is going on?"

  "I was getting to that," he replied, and Katlin knew instinctively she wasn't going to like the answer. "Free will. We are to guide, but we can not interfere with free will. That's where humans mess things up. And that is why you are here. You wanted to find what was missing in your life didn't you?"

  "Where is here?" she asked tautly as she twisted the end of her braid around her fingers. It was a nervous habit that instantly betrayed her agitated state.

  "Again, the question is . . . when?"

  "Okay, Sing, I'll bite. When?"

  He took his time answering, his eyes dancing as he pretended to think. Finally, he said with a chuckle that Katlin could only describe as ominous, "Oh, I'd place us in about . . . 1871."

  "What did you say?" she asked in a rigidly controlled, quiet voice, when everything in her wanted to scream the question. She had heard him clearly enough the first time. She just didn't believe what she heard. It wasn't possible . . . was it?

  "June 25, 1871, to be exact."

  Looking around her again, Katlin tapped into the detached part of her brain that was so observant. Except for the clearing, the scene was exactly as Mark Haywood had described it to be over one hundred years ago. As much as she wanted to ignore the evidence before her eyes, she instinctively knew Sing was telling her the truth. Another bit of indisputable evidence that couldn't be ignored was the fact that LuChen Sing didn't lie. All the years she had known him he had refused to tell even a small white lie and was often brutally honest. "Lies create bad karma, Little One," he used to tell her. "And to put it bluntly, karma can be a bitch."

  She hurtled back to earth as reality struck, and it was an awakening that left her reeling. She was really in the year 1871. Part in dread and part with a perverse sense of anticipation, she asked quietly, "Why?"

  "It's time to find the missing part, Katlin, the part that has left you feeling incomplete in the lifetime you were living," Sing answered. Katlin felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach when she saw that he was beginning to disappear. "It's also time to find your missing sense of humor."

  "Damn it, Sing, this isn't funny." Katlin jumped to her feet and rushed to where Sing was sitting. His image now so faint she could barely see him.

  "You've been given a gift, the opportunity to change history. Be very careful. The changes you make can alter the course of history for the better or have catastrophic affects on the future as you know it." With the ominous warning, he was gone.

  "You can't dump me in the year 1871 and then disappear on me," she insisted, knowing full well he could and had.

  "I'll be around . . . when you need me," replied Sing's disembodied voice.

  Gunshots rang out in the distance.

  "Damn it, Sing, come back here," Katlin demanded to the now empty space where he had been.

  More gunshots, getting closer.

  "This is not good," she groaned as she rushed to the sleeping bag and reached beneath it to retrieve her service revolver. She expelled the amo magazine to make sure it was full, then snapped it back into the chamber. She slipped her gun into her shoulder holster, concealed beneath the opened, blue denim shirt she wore over a white tee shirt. Katlin might like being out in the wide open spaces all alone, but she wasn't stupid enough to do so unprepared or unprotected.

  As she ran to the spirited mare, Katlin heard Sing laugh, followed by his sing song voice, "What comes first, Little One, the chicken or the egg?"

  "What comes first, the chicken or the egg?" she muttered under her breath as she vaulted onto the mare's bare back. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? There is no answer."

  More gunfire echoing in the distance.

  As she turned the horse in the direction of the gunshots, she looked down at Black Bart who had been hot on her heels. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."

  Glancing heavenward, she said to whom ever might be listening, "Who doesn't have a sense of humor?" Then with a resiliency that was an inborn part of her nature, she pressed her heels into the spirited mare's flanks to spur her into action.

  As she saw it, there were two possibilities. Either she was having a dream or a meditation for the record books and would eventually wake up, or, as she believed to be the case, she was actually in the year 1871. In either event, she had little option but to go with the flow, so to speak, and let the events fall where they may.

  Katlin rode hell bent for leather as they called it in the western novels her Uncle Ben was so fond of reading, and she actually laughed out loud. The sensation of the wind in her hair and the Arabian mare beneath her was as exhilarating as a motorcycle ride with the throttle wide open.

  Heading in what she hoped was an intercept course toward the shots, she crested the rise and pulled the mare to a quick halt. Quickly assessing the situation, Katlin pinpointed six men on horse back in the distance, riding in her direction. The man in the lead was rapidly losing ground to the five men in hot pursuit, attempting to shoot him from the saddle.

  Katlin was awed by the sight of horse and rider appearing almost as one. The stout hearted Appaloosa was stretched out to its fullest, its strides literally flying over the open ground in an attempt to save the rider who had leaned forward, hugging the horse's neck to make himself a smaller target. She could almost sense the beautiful animal's heart thundering within its sleek body from the exertion. Her own heart was pounding in her chest with empathy at such a valiant attempt, one doomed to failure unless she intervened.

  Looking around for a safe position from which to make her stand, Katlin was dismayed to realize there was no cover within sight. Glancing down at Bart, she said with a shrug, "It's worth a shot."

  Then to whomever, she said, "A little help would come in handy about now." To her amazement, whomever responded. To her left there was a flash of light, and before her disbelieving eyes several large boulders began to materialize. She rode behind the boulders, dismounted, and put her hands against the cool stone, praying that it would have true substance when real bullets began to fly. "Thank you," she said in appreciation. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to attempt to figure this one out at the moment.

  Katlin looked through the gap between the rocks. They would be within her firing range in a matter of minutes, and she had to decide what action to take. She didn't like not being in control of a situation. And she sure as hell didn't like the fact that she didn't know who were the bad guys in the drama she'd been thrust into.

  Coming at her could very well be a posse made up of family men, attempting to capture a bank robber or killer. Or she could have stumbled onto a multi million dollar movie shoot. She didn't dare kill anyone. She could imagine the headlines. ACTORS SHOT IN COLD BLOOD BY VACATIONING LADY COP. Katlin was certain of only one fact, she didn't like the five to one odds, and she had always been a sucker for the underdog. She had no choice but to act on instinct and deal with the consequences later.

  Uncertain of whom she would be dealing with, Katlin took a very wise precaution. She looked down at Bart. "Take cover boy. Hide and protect." Bart moved into the tall prairie grass directly behind her and crouched down until he was virtually undetectable.

  Unholstering her revolver, Katlin took aim. She didn't have long to wait. Aiming into the air, she pulled the trigger. The explosive echo of the unexpected shot carried to the riders, offering the man riding for his life the distraction he needed. He spied the cover and made a beeline for it. Katlin began firing in earnest. She skillfully shot the hats off two heads, the pistol out of one hand, and two more shots into the ground in front of the five men. The Appaloosa was pulled to a quick halt behind her, engulfing them in a thick cloud of dust as the rider vaulted from his horse and dropped down beside her.

  The five men stopped so suddenly they might as well have come up against an invisible wall. At this point, nothing would have surprised Katlin.

  "Right smart shootin' son, but you shou
ld have killed the bastards," the man beside her said, barely sparing her a glance as he stood and took aim over the top of the boulder.

  "I prefer to know exactly who I'm aiming at when I shoot to kill, and why that person deserves to die," Katlin told him with quiet emphasis, never taking her eyes off the five horsemen who were clearly trying to decide what action to take. Katlin and her companion had the drop on them. Unless they had a death wish, there was nothing they could do except retreat.

  Katlin heard an unmistakable gasp of surprise beside her as her companion realized he wasn't dealing with the boy he'd thought her to be.

  An overweight bear of a man with a bushy, unkempt black beard, mustache, and long stringy hair separated himself from the pack. His fury at being thwarted was evident in the glare he tossed in their direction before he growled an order to his men and reined his horse about. They rode out in a hurry, as if fearing a bullet in the back.

  Katlin slowly turned and aimed her gun toward the man at her side. Until she found out exactly what was going on here, no one would be shot from behind.

  "Hand over your weapon, slowly," she instructed in her most unyielding tone of voice. Nothing in her manner gave away what was really going on in her mind. "This is all I need," she thought to herself. "Now that I've got him, what am I supposed to do with him? I can hardly take him in to be printed and checked for priors."

  He turned toward her, his movements appeared relaxed, but Katlin could sense an underlying tension in his body. There was little doubt in her mind that she'd find his gun turned on her in an instant if he considered her a real threat. She suspected he was doing the same thing she was doing, each attempting to assess who they were dealing with, friend or foe.

  He was tall, probably six feet, and wore a single holster riding low on his right hip tied down to his muscular, denim clad thigh with a buckskin thong. He was powerfully built, and Katlin knew the muscles straining the seams of the blue cotton shirt he wore beneath a soft leather vest could not be the result of pumping iron at the local gym. All in all, he did not fit the image she had of a Wild West Gunslinger.

  "It isn't as if you run into gunslingers every day, McKinnen," she told herself sarcastically. "How do you expect to recognize the varmint if you catch one?" Katlin was appalled to realize there was a hysterical giggle bubbling up inside her. How she managed to keep her features from betraying her thoughts she would never know.

  The sun directly behind him cast a shadow from the brim of his hat to hide the upper portion of his face from her view. She'd always found that a person's eyes revealed a lot about his character, and she was unable to see his.

  She could however, feel his eyes sliding over her, from the top of her head to the tip of her boots, then slowly repeat the process in reverse. His concealed gaze was like a physical caress on each part of her body as his eyes moved over her. It took every ounce of control she possessed to steel herself to show no outward sign of response. Adopting the ‘Ice Princess’ persona had become second nature over the years, almost to the point where she often wondered where the mask ended and the real Katlin McKinnen began.

  Mitch Cameron knew that by all rights he should be a dead man. Hired guns like the ones who had ambushed him didn't miss, unless it was a miracle or deliberate. Mitch didn't believe in miracles any more than he believed in coincidences. He could almost believe he had been deliberately herded toward this location, in the middle of nowhere, toward the woman who had supposedly rescued him. She was one hell of a shot, and it was obvious she could have easily taken the gunmen out . . . unless she wasn't supposed to.

  Who was this pistol packin' female? If he was the fanciful sort, he could almost imagine she was an angel sent to save his worthless hide. Damn, but she was gorgeous. He wasn't much of a church going man either, but somehow he didn't think angels looked like her. It was highly unlikely they handled a pistol like she did, and they sure as hell wouldn't dress the way she was dressed.

  About a year back, he'd met Martha Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane. Jane was a cigar smoking stagecoach driver who wore buckskins like a man, who could out drink, out cuss, and out shoot most of the men the territory had to offer. Mitch had genuinely liked Calamity, suspecting that beneath her rough and tumble exterior beat a heart of gold. Still, comparing the two women was like comparing a Kentucky thoroughbred to a range weary pack mule.

  Even though he had run across a couple of other women who wore trousers, he had never seen a woman who wore men's Levis like a second skin, leaving little to the imagination, while at the same time tempting the imagination into areas it had no business wanderin'. His eyes rose to her breasts. One side of her opened shirt had caught on a shoulder holster, revealing that she wore nothing beneath the thin white undershirt. One perfect, firm breast tipped with a pebble hard nipple was clearly outlined to his view. Despite the fact that she had him at gun point, his libido went up like a prairie brush fire in a drought. She was without a doubt the most potently sexy female he had ever encountered. Her long red hair had been caught up in a braid that fell across her shoulder, hair that shined with life, reflecting the sunlight and creating an illusion of a fiery halo around her head.

  However, the fire of his immediate physical response was quickly doused when his gaze lifted to clash with unyielding, icy green eyes. Eyes that could effectively shrivel a man's cock at twenty paces. He'd faced hardened gunslingers who showed more emotion.

  Definitely no angel this one, nor what he'd classify a lady. A red haired, green eyed witch was a more apt description, one who was more than likely sent by the devil behind his father's murder.

  Could be the man he was after wanted to find out how much he knew, who else he might have involved, and they couldn't get that information from a dead man. That gave him an edge. They had no way of knowing that except for a faded, barely legible telegram sent from Abilene, the stunning redhead was his first real lead. He wouldn't hesitate to use it or her to get at the truth. If he had a little fun in the process, the way he figured it, they owed him.

  She had already made one big mistake. He had counted the shots she had fired. Six shots. She was now holding him at gun point with an unloaded pistol, strange looking as it was. There was no doubt that he could overpower her with little effort. As enjoyable as the prospect sounded, Mitch realized his best course of action would be to let her think she was in control of the situation. He'd just play along with her and see where she might lead him.

  He had reached a decision, Katlin could sense it, and she was prepared to counter any action he might take. She was, however, a firm believer in avoiding a physical confrontation if at all possible. Now was a good time to bring out her ace in the hole.

  "Now Bart," she commanded.

  Bart emitted a low, warning growl deep in his throat as he slowly emerged from the grass. His teeth were bared, and he was crouched, ready to spring to the attack should she give the command. A command that would not even be necessary if the man made one wrong move in Katlin's direction.

  Mitch's head snapped around in the direction of the huge dog that was eyeing him like a rare piece of beef steak held just out of his reach. Even though it would pain him to kill such a beautiful animal, he eyed the dog warily, knowing he wouldn't hesitate to shoot it if he was forced to do so.

  His movements were slow and deliberate as he turned back to face the woman. She hadn't so much as blinked, her gun hadn't wavered even a fraction of an inch.

  "You're good lady. Damn good."

  "Whatever you were planning, I wouldn't recommend it," Katlin warned softly. "I'd hate to have saved your ass, only to be forced to shoot you myself."

  Chapter Two

  "You win darlin'. Call off the hell hound," he told her in a low, soothing tone of voice, one she could well imagine him using on an agitated horse or an unwilling woman, though Katlin had a feeling he didn't run into many of the latter.

  A slow, almost flirtatious smile curved his lips as he flipped his pistol around in his h
and and offered it to her, grip first. "Mitchell Cameron, Texas Ranger, at your service, ma'am," he drawled.

  With a slight nod of her head and a quietly spoken, "Thank you," she took the pistol. Katlin quickly recognized it as a long barreled, single action, Colt .45, known as the Peacemaker. Her uncle Ben had one almost like it that was believed to have belonged to his great, great grandfather. She also knew the Peacemaker's reputation did little toward maintaining the peace. The same gun had also been called the Widow Maker.

  "Back off Bart," she commanded after she had the Colt safely in her possession. The dog relaxed and laid down but didn't take his alert, dark eyes off the man facing his mistress.

  Katlin tucked the pistol into the waistband of her jeans . . . no easy task. Her jeans were snug, and she hadn't remembered the Colt being so large or so heavy. "But it looks so cool when they do it in the movies," she thought to herself. Knowing Colt .45s were known for their hair trigger, should it accidentally go off, this was one of the few times in her life that she was grateful she was not her father's son.

  When Katlin looked up, her heart seemed to stop beating for an instant, then start up again with a slow stuttering thumping. Slowly, almost insolently, he reached up to the brim of his well worn black Stetson and thumbed back his hat to reveal a face so ruggedly handsome it could have been sculpted by a frustrated female artist in the throes of an explicit sexual fantasy. His eyes, the color of a clear morning sky, had a staggering impact on her senses. In all her twenty six years, she had never been aroused by the mere sight of a man . . . until now.