| people. To his regret, it had been his half-brother who had killed Sarah's first husband and kidnapped her six-year-old son. He'd been sent to the house to kill Sarah, but one look at her face, so much like his mother's, had stayed his hand. |
| Instead of killing her, he'd become her protector, keeping watch over her, always from a distance, of course. He had provided her with food and firewood. He'd saved her life, and she had saved his, and in the process, they had fallen deeply, hopelessly, in love. And because he'd loved her so much, he'd fought his own brother in order to return Danny to Sarah. |
| Their marriage had caused a scandal in town, but, in time, people had gotten used to the idea. He was accepted by most of the townsfolk now. He'd traded his clout and leggings for sturdy denim and cotton, exchanged his moccasins for boots. Only the color of his skin and the length of his hair proclaimed his Apache heritage. He couldn't change the first, and refused to cut the second. |
| Four years, he mused. Where had the time gone? Four years since he'd seen his father's people or his brother, Noche. Four years, and Sarah was with child, again. |
| His gaze lifted to the graveyard on the crest of the hill where he used to sit to keep watch over Sarah. Two small whitewashed crosses stood out in stark relief against the late summer sky, marking the graves of two infants who hadn't survived. A third cross marked the final resting place of Sarah's first husband, Vern. |
| Devlin's heartbeat quickened when he saw Sarah step out onto the porch. She was a re- |
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