Shadow's Stand by Sarah McCarty

gave her back the nugget. “Maybe that’s what you thought.”
She blinked and shoved it back. “Then I cannot accept your promise, after all.”
He didn’t take it. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
Her lip quivered. She backed the little mare away. “You promise too much.”
His horse followed instinctively, until the ledge was at her back and there was nowhere to run.
“You ask too little.”
The mare was calm, but Fei was ready to come out of her skin. Shadow reached out, needing to remove that fear from her eyes, the quiver from her lip.
“What are you afraid of, Fei?”
She shook her head. “I cannot have your life on my conscience, too. I cannot.”
His fingers slid around the back of her neck. His thumb pressed against her lip, stopping the trembling. “Too?”
Her eyes widened and her pupils flared. “Please.”
He remembered that moment when she’d grabbed the knife from Hubert’s boot and come for him, risking all to save his life. She hadn’t been afraid then. She’d been full of fire, light and purpose. His exotic, avenging angel.
Tears welled in her eyes. This close, he could see the dark circles beneath, the unnatural pallor of her skin. The woman was exhausted and at the end of her rope.
“I do not want your life,” she whispered.
“Just my protection.”
She nodded.
“They go hand in hand.”
“No.”
He debated dragging her off the horse and into his arms. He badly wanted to hold her. To take that burden she wouldn’t show him from her shoulders. That fear from her eyes. It was his nature to help the weak. He wanted to help her. Son of a bitch, when had he decided he wanted her? And what the hell good would that do? He was an outlaw with a price on his head. He hadn’t been joking when he had said his days were numbered.
Reining in his desire, he let her put distance between them. “How much more gold is there?”
“Enough.”
“For what?”
“A new beginning.”
Starting fresh he could understand.
“And when you get this new beginning, what do you plan on doing with me?”
“You may have the claim.”
“You’re going to let me have all that gold? No questions asked?”
“I am Chinese, I cannot own anything here. And even if I could, I do not have the skills to fight those who would take it from me.”
“I have enough skill for both of us.”
She was shaking her head before he finished. “My destiny begins with the gold, it does not lie with it.”
Interesting philosophy, he thought.
“You are a man who could do much with the power gold would give you,” she continued.
He tipped back his hat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as nothing more than the truth.”
He believed that. Fei went to great lengths to try to keep him at a distance. It was beginning to irk him. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
So polite. So proper, when just a few minutes ago she’d been as aware of him as he was of her. He might not be her “forever man” as Tracker was to Ari, but he sure as shit wasn’t that forgettable.
With a sharp motion, he sent her ahead. The silence stretched out to uncomfortable. Watching Fei’s posture, Shadow noted the tension in her hands and the stiffness of her back. She was upset. The moon was high in the sky, bathing everything in white light. It caught on the silk of Fei’s tunic. The hairs on the back of his neck said no one was following, but they were leaving a trail, so that could change at any time. He figured they were heading toward the foothills to the west. More specifically, Flat Top Mountain. He wasn’t that familiar with the terrain, otherwise he’d stash Fei and go back and lay out some diversions. Once they got to the claim and he got her settled, he’d do just that, but for now he was just going to have to take a chance that no one would pick up their trail. Just another thing to irk him.
“What is it you want from this life, Mr. Ochoa?”
Mister? “To go home.”
“Where is this home?”
“In the hills of