Three hours later and seven miles distant from the big tree, Baby struck fresh tracks. His howl electrified the silent land. Instantly Eden whistled for Baby to return to her. He obeyed on the run, mouth wide, pink tongue lolling, laughing up at her when he found her.

At Eden's signal, Baby fell in step at her left heel. So long as Baby hadn't been penned up for days, he was more than happy to collaborate on the hunt. In the past week, he had gotten plenty of exercise. Eden had spent as little time as possible within the cabin, for it was haunted by Nevada's absence.

A few minutes later Eden was studying the tracks Baby had found. They were indeed fresh. More important, they had been left by the cougar Baby had once treed. The slightly oversize toe on the cat's left front paw was unmistakable. Eagerly Eden followed the tracks, moving quickly. The forest thinned even more, giving way to a boulder-strewn, south-facing slope. The tracks suddenly became very close together, almost overlapping. Abruptly the tracks dug in hard and deep – and vanished.

Eden paced off the length of empty snow until the tracks began again and whistled soft approval.

"Thirty-three feet in a single bound. Not bad for a young female."

Through binoculars, Eden scanned the landscape immediately in front of her. The wind gusted, shifting and swirling down the slope, blowing from her back rather than across her face.

Suddenly Baby threw back his head and howled.

"Quiet," Eden said without putting down the glasses.

Baby yapped and danced.

"Heel."

Baby heeled. And whined very softly.

"Settle down, Baby," Eden said impatiently, still scanning the landscape. "What's gotten into you?"

"Me."

The sound of Nevada's deep voice made Eden spin around and stare in disbelief. The first thing she noticed was that Nevada had a rifle slung across his back. The second thing she noticed was his eyes. They were as cold as the wind, as dispassionate as the sky, and full of shadows so bleak they made Eden want to cry out in pain.

"There was a decent tracking snow," Nevada said, "so Luke sent me back up here to help you."

Like his eyes, his voice lacked emotion.

"Sent you," Eden repeated. "I see."

She turned back and began scanning the landscape with a composure that was pure desperation. Her heart was beating much too hard, too fast, and her hands would have shaken if she hadn't gripped the binoculars until her knuckles showed white.

Luke sent me. Sent me. Sent me.

The words echoed in Eden's mind, slicing into her. Nevada couldn't have made it clearer that he hadn't sought her out for any reason other than a direct order from the owner of the Rocking M.

"Tell Luke thank-you, but it's not necessary," Eden said when she could trust her voice once more. "Baby and I do our best work alone."

"Luke didn't ask if you needed me. He told me to check on you."

"You have. I'm fine."

Narrowly Nevada surveyed the straight line of Eden's back. He heard her words, but he couldn't accept them. Her voice belonged to a stranger, flat where Eden's had been vibrant, thin where hers had been rich.

"You don't sound fine," he said.

She said nothing more.

Nevada swore beneath his breath. He walked silently up to Eden, not wanting to get any closer to her but unable to stop himself. As he moved, his body was tight with the conflict that had been tearing him apart since his self-control had broken and he had taken and surrendered to Eden in the same passionate instant.

"Damn it, I didn't want it to be this way," Nevada said harshly. "I didn't want you to be hurt."

Eden lowered the glasses. They were useless anyway, for she was crying too hard to see anything but her own tears.

"Is that why you left without so much as a word to me?" she asked. "To keep from hurting me?"

"What was I supposed to do, tell you fairy tales about love? I won't lie to you, fairy-tale girl. You knew it when you came to me at the cabin and burned me alive."

Abruptly Nevada stopped speaking. Memories of Eden's incandescent sensuality were lightning strokes of pain that scored him repeatedly, giving him no peace, ripping through new defenses and old, scoring across the unhealed past, threatening to touch him as he had vowed never to be touched again.

And he fought his hunger as he had never fought anything except death itself. Wanting, not wanting, fighting himself and her, trapped in an agonizing vise, Nevada turned Eden to face him and saw the silver glitter of her tears.

"Don't you understand?" Nevada whispered savagely. "I can't be what you want me to be."

She closed her eyes. "A man who believes in love."

"Yes," he said flatly. His hard thumbs tilted up her face to his and his fingers trembled against her skin. "I told Luke I wouldn't come up here. He told me I could take his orders or I could pack up and leave the Rocking M. I packed, but I couldn't let you run me off the only home I have, so I came up here knowing I would hurt you all over again."

"Nevada," Eden whispered, reaching to him.

"No! I don't want to hurt you again, but it will happen just the same unless you stop asking me to kiss you every time you look at my mouth, stop asking me to touch you every time you look at my hands, stop asking…" Nevada's eyes closed, then opened once more, clear and hard and cold. "I would sell my soul not to want you, Eden, but the devil took my soul a long time ago and I want you like hell burning."

As Eden looked at Nevada's silver-green eyes, a chill moved over her. He was a wild animal caught in a trap… and she was that trap. The knowledge was in his eyes, shadows and bleakness, watchfulness and calculation and fear, and most of all in his pain, an agony that drew Nevada's mouth into a hard line. His pain was as real as the unsheathed claws of his honesty.

Eden took a deep, shaking breath and acknowledged the truth. "I understand. You won't love me. I can't help loving you. Too bad, how sad, and all of that. Meanwhile, the earth turns and the seasons change and babies are born and some die and there's not a damn thing we can do about that, either."

"Eden…"

She waited, hoping in spite of herself.

"Eden, I…" Nevada made an odd, almost helpless gesture with his hand.

After a few more moments Eden smiled with the bittersweet acceptance that she had learned after Aurora's death.

"It's all right, Nevada. I was warned going in, and several other times along the way, and that's more than we usually get out of life. You don't have to love me. I'm yours without it, if you want me. And even if you don't."

Nevada's jaw tightened against the pain of Eden's acceptance of what he was and was not. "That's not…" he began, then his throat constricted again, taking away his ability to speak.

"Fair?" she suggested.

Eden's smile was as sad and enigmatic as her changing hazel eyes. Nevada looked away, unable to bear what he was doing to her.

"I thought you didn't believe in fairy tales, warrior."

"I don't."

"Then don't talk to me about 'fair.' If life were fair, my sister would have celebrated her sixth birthday today. But life isn't and she didn't and wailing about it won't change one damned thing."

Nevada looked back slowly. His eyes were intent, fierce. "You really mean that."

"I always say what I mean. It's a failing of mine."

"You don't believe in fairy tales, but you do believe in love," he said, unable to understand. "Knowing what life truly is, you still allow yourself to love." He hesitated, not wanting to hurt Eden any more but unable to stop himself from asking, "How can you?"

Eden looked into the untamed depths of Nevada's eyes and saw a curiosity that was as great as his wariness, as intense as his passion… a wolf circling closer and closer to the beckoning campfire, pulled toward the flames against his deepest instinct of self-preservation, enthralled by the radiant possibilities of fire.