Kathleen Creighton - Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

Looking down into his eyes, Rachel saw them darken with heat and passion, and felt a surge of power and confidence such as she’d never felt in her life before. She eased herself onto him and felt him thrust deep, deep inside her, and wanted to throw back her head and shout with purest joy. Instead, she drew a shaken breath, looked down at the man she’d somehow come to love more than life, twined her fingers with his and whispered his name. “Jethro…”

In the humid darkness, Rachel stirred against his side.

“Will you come back with me?” she murmured.

He kissed her damp hair. “To the ranch, you mean?”

He felt her nod. “Since you’re on leave anyway…”

He laughed softly. “Oh, yes, I’d like to come back. For one thing, I’d really, really like to meet the guy. I've never seen anything like it-outside the movies, anyway.”

She sat up in the bed, her shadow tall beside him. “What guy? What are you talking about?”

He raised himself on one elbow. “Don’t tell me you missed it. The one-man cavalry charge?”

She went very still. “You mean…you saw him, too?” Her breath left her in a rush. “I thought I imagined him. I thought-being in shock and all-I thought I’d conjured him from all those old movies I saw when I was little. That, and the old man I saw at the creek-I thought it was him, you know, mixed up somehow with John Wayne.” There was a rustling as she settled back into the curve of his body. “I guess it really was him-the old man, I mean, not John Wayne. I wonder who he is. I’ll have to ask Josie-I’m sure she must know. We need to thank him for saving our lives.”

“You mean…you really don’t know?” J.J.’s voice was hushed with wonder. “You still haven’t met him?”

“Know…what? Met who?”

He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Sweetheart, I don’t know how to break this to you, but that old man, the one who saved your life and probably mine and Sage’s as well-that was your grandpa, darlin’. Sierra Sam Malone.”

From the memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:

Ah, Elizabeth. I was too young and stupid to know it then, but you were the real thing…the treasure I had in my hands, that I threw away to go chasing after Fool’s Gold.

In my defense, I will say that she was beautiful, more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. As beautiful, I thought then, as an angel.

Elizabeth, you were the earth, the world, practical and real and as vital as food and drink to me. But…they say a man can’t live on bread alone, and she…well, she was the food of my spirit. My soul. Her name was Barbara Chase, and I flew to her, and for a time, God help me, I did believe I’d found heaven.

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines all her loves in romance novels.