Wanted by Patricia; Potter

lawman,” she accused. “You just want the bounty.”
    â€œI don’t give a damn about the bounty,” he said, something more than irritation in his voice. Lori sensed she had hit a nerve. She wondered exactly how sensitive it was.
    â€œThen why …?” Nick had said nothing to her this afternoon—not about the Ranger’s reasons, or motives, or Nick’s own intentions. The Ranger had always been too close, always listening. She studied his every feature now, particularly the eyes. “You look like him,” she said, “but you’re nothing like him. You don’t have his heart.”
    A muscle tensed in his jaw, and he looked away. And then she saw the dimple, that same ridge in his chin that Nick had. It had been hidden before by the new beard, but it was visible when he turned his head at a certain angle. “Dear God, but you do look like him,” she whispered.
    â€œEnough that three men tried to kill me, and several others are on my trail,” he said roughly.
    She frowned. “Is that why you came all this way …?”
    His silence answered for him.
    â€œYou could almost be brothers.…” Lori stopped. It was impossible. She knew it was impossible. Nick was her brother, just as Andy was. It was impossible and unfair. Morgan Davis had tracked down her brother simply because they looked alike.
    â€œMore than a few bounty hunters would be glad to substitute me for your brother and bring me in dead,” the Ranger said. “But he’s not my brother, and I’ll be damned if I want to look over my shoulder the rest of my life because of something he did.”
    Lori was silent for a moment, digesting his words. “You’ll sacrifice him to save yourself,” she accused bluntly.
    The Ranger’s lips thinned. “He murdered a man, Miss Braden. And then he ran.”
    â€œBecause he had no choice. They would have lynched him. And it was a fair fight.”
    â€œThen half of Harmony’s lying. I’ve already been there.”
    â€œAnd you’ve tried and convicted him,” Lori said heatedly.
    â€œI told you that’s not my job.”
    â€œBut that’s what you’ll be doing. You’ll be the killer then.”
    â€œI’ve never arrested a guilty man yet,” he said wearily. “There isn’t one who didn’t swear he was innocent.”
    â€œYou never believed them?”
    â€œOnce I did,” the Ranger said bitterly. “He was like your brother. Had a pretty young thing with him, said she was his wife and was pregnant. She pretended to have a miscarriage, and he grabbed my gun when I was trying to help her. He put three bullets in me. Probably would have put three more if he hadn’t heard riders coming and lit out. Left his wife there. I found out later she wasn’t his wife, wasn’t even pregnant. She was just some saloon girl he took up with several days earlier.”
    â€œDid he get away?”
    â€œThen he did,” the Ranger said shortly.
    â€œThen?”
    â€œI got him eventually.”
    â€œWhere is he now?”
    â€œDo you really want to know, Miss Lori?” His voice was almost gentle. Almost but not quite. That one moment of gallantry years ago apparently had robbed him of any compassion or trust he might once have had, Lori thought. Or had there been other moments of betrayal as well?
    â€œHow long have you been a Ranger?”
    He looked surprised at her abrupt question. “I joined the Rangers in sixty-one.”
    Lori was startled. “You must have been very young.” He looked several years older than Nick. The very harshness of his expression made him seem a decade older, and there were lines in his face that Nick didn’t have. Still, the hard leanness of his body, the restrained energy in him, told her he couldn’t be that much older.
    She waited for an answer.
    But Morgan Davis’s face closed completely.