Chapter One – The Knife
The sun stood almost directly above the town, hard and white against the blue sky, flattening every shadow and turning the red earth into a field of heat.
The cowboy knelt in front of the woman with one knee pressed into the dust.
His brown hat cast a narrow shadow across his face, but it did little to hide the tension in his jaw. The short dark beard along his cheeks was streaked with sweat, and the sleeves of his slate-blue shirt had been rolled above his forearms long before the afternoon had become unbearable.
The knife in his hand rested against the thick rope binding the woman’s wrists.
For a moment, he did not move.
Neither did she.
Her long dark hair had been braided into two plaits, and the feather earrings beside her neck stirred slightly in the dry wind. The geometric beadwork across her tan suede top caught the sunlight in small flashes. Yet despite the rope around her wrists, her posture remained straight.
She was not asking him to help.
That mattered.
He had learned, over the past hour, that she disliked being rescued almost as much as she disliked being restrained.
The difference between the two, she had told him, was choice.
Behind them, somewhere beyond the wooden buildings, horses shifted and leather saddles creaked.
The cowboy heard it.
So did she.
There was not much time.
Finally, he pressed the blade into the rope.
The fibres tightened.
Then began to break.
