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Prologue
 
 
West Kansas—1868
 
I need you, Jake.
 
The anguished voice jolted Jake Silver from a restless sleep in the middle of the night. His eyes flew open. A cold sweat poured from his skin while his heart pounded against his chest like the frantic drumbeat of an Apache war dance.
 
Jake automatically reached for his gun and waited for his senses to focus on the intruder. But this presence wasn’t real. Sarah wasn’t here. She couldn’t be. Still, he searched the darkness, wishing as he had a thousand times that she was lying beside him, and finding nothing but cold, empty space. He took a deep breath, forcing himself back to reality. This wasn’t the dream he’d carried with him for months. This was a cruel joke, a waking nightmare.
 
Then her voice called again, Jake!
 
He came to his feet, left the rustic cabin, and plunged out into the bitter cold, his deep howl of rage filling the night. The falling snow neither erased the pounding nor stopped the voice tormenting him, the voice of the woman he’d been forced to leave behind.
 
A dozen times in the first month, he’d almost gone back for her.
 
Almost.
 
But he hadn’t let himself. She didn’t belong to him any longer. She had no right to call out to him now. Still, her sorrowful cry sliced his mind with pain, then slammed into his gut.
 
The plea for help hadn’t totally surprised him. It had been that way from the first with Sarah. Long after she’d made her choice, her voice had reached out for him, tormenting him, following him across the prairie. And then it hushed. And he’d thought he was finally free.
 
Until a few days ago, when he had known that something was wrong. The feeling started innocently enough with an uneasy sensation that had him looking over his shoulder. It mushroomed into an overwhelming sense of impending disaster. He hadn’t know what, but he’d known trouble was coming. He’d rechecked his supplies, snapped at Wu, his Chinese cook, and paced his room at night.
 
His longhorns had been rounded up. His men were ready and waiting for the trek north to the Wyoming Territory, where he intended to stake out a section of land. The worst of the winter weather was over and spring was at hand, yet he’d delayed their departure, the ever-present feeling of urgency persisting.
 
And then he’d heard her voice. I need you, Jake. And the pain of his loss came hurtling back.
 
It was Sarah. Sarah was in danger. And no matter what he’d promised, he had to get to her. Nothing else was important, not that Sarah was married to another man, nor the signs of an approaching storm. Sarah needed him.
 
He felt her pain.
 
He felt death.
 
With provisions for three days, he’d left his ranch and ridden straight into the storm. Now three days had turned into four, and the snow showed no sign of abating. He was no longer sure he was heading in the right direction. There was a good possibility that he would never reach her. She’d never know that he loved her. She’d never know how hard it had been to ride away.
 
“Don’t give up on me, Blackjack!” he begged his horse. But his words were caught by the wind and tossed away.
 
Jake Silver drew his lean frame lower, hugging the laboring animal’s body in a hopeless attempt to absorb warmth. He tried not to breathe any more than necessary, for each breath further frosted his already ice-laden mustache. The blowing snow and icy wind had taken their toll. He could no longer move his feet, and his hands felt as if they were frozen to the reins.
 
He only hoped that his stallion could find the way. God knew, there was a time when he and his horse had made their way back to Sarah in worse weather than this.
 
Until Sarah had fallen in love with Jake’s best friend.
 
Until Sarah had chosen Elliott.
 
Blackjack stumbled and stopped, forcing Jake to shake off the pain of his memories. He raised his head and glanced around, squinting his eyes to focus them on the snow-covered shapes around him. The horse hadn’t just stumbled, he’d stopped—in front of the barn where he’d always found shelter. They were home.
 
No, that was wrong. This small Kansas farm wasn’t his anymore. It belonged to Elliott—and Sarah.
 
The wind dropped suddenly and the blowing snow gave way to a scene that wrenched Jake’s heart. There was no smoke coming from the chimney, no lamplight shining through the glass window that had been Sarah’s pride and joy, no sign of life.
 
Jake tugged his boots from the stirrups and dismounted, dropping Blackjack’s reins. He considered digging the drifts of snow away from the barn door, then apologized to the big black horse, who was near exhaustion.
 
“Sorry, boy. I have to check on Sarah, then I’ll look after you.”
 
The snow was knee-deep, higher in spots, until he reached the narrow corridor between the barn and the house that had been swept clean by the wind.
 
The door to the house was standing open. Snow had drifted inside, collecting on Sarah’s braid rug and across the bed, which had been pulled close to the fireplace.
 
“Sarah?”
 
No answer. The other room, Sarah’s room, was empty. He raised his head and glanced at the loft. It was obvious there was no one there.
 
“Sarah!”
 
Jake made his way to the bed, swept the snow away and swore. There was no hiding the bloodstained sheets, frozen in wrinkles that clearly revealed its occupant’s slide from the bed.
 
The ashes in the fireplace were long cold. There was no oil in the lamp. The cabin was empty. He was too late.
 
Sarah was gone.
 
Jake let out a bellow of anguish and raced out of the cabin, studying the surrounding yard.
 
The barn. Maybe she’s in the barn.
 
This time he broke through the frozen crust of ice and, with hands that no longer had feeling, dug the snow away from the barn door. Once he opened the door, Blackjack followed him inside.
 
The cow had broken from her stall and was chewing the last of the hay that had been stored in the corner of the building. A few chickens skittered nervously about. A few chickens and one cow. What had happened to the other stock?
 
At least the horses were gone. Surely that meant that Elliott had taken Sarah away. But when? And where? And why did Jake still have this sick feeling in his gut?
 
Blackjack had edged the cow away and was stamping his feet as he vied for the last of the hay. Jake glanced at the hayloft and saw that there was some feed still there, at least enough to keep the cow alive for a time after he left.
 
Then Jake noticed the saddle, Sarah’s saddle, draped across the stall wall. Wherever they’d gone, Sarah hadn’t ridden her horse. The wagon? Through the doorway, Jake saw a snow-covered shape that made his breathing quicken. A closer examination confirmed that he’d found the wagon.
 
He’d known it from the start. Something was wrong with Sarah. Elliott was gone, as was his horse, but Sarah’s saddle had been left behind and they hadn’t used the wagon. “Where are you, Sarah?” He turned his head, willing himself to hear her speak the words he’d heard in his mind for days.
 
I need you, Jake.
 
But this time, the voice was silent. Frantically he stumbled through the yard, searching for shapes that revealed familiar objects: her washtub, a feed bucket, the plow.
 
And then he saw it, a low, flat mound of snow beside the open gate. With sinking heart, Jake kneeled and brushed the snow away.
 
“Sarah?”
 
Lying there, in a bloodstained nightgown, was the body of the woman he loved, the woman he’d walked away from when she’d chosen his best friend and partner to be her husband.
 
“Ah, Sarah.” He broke her free of the crusty snow, turned her over and lifted her in his arms, understanding at last what had happened.
 
Sarah was pregnant.
 
Sarah had died, trying to give her husband a child.
 
And she’d died alone.
 
Jake was halfway to the house when he heard the sound of horses approaching. He never stopped, nor looked back. Inside the house he laid Sarah on the bed and covered her lifeless body with his duster.
 
“Sarah?” A scream of animal-like pain. It was Elliott.
 
The sound of Elliott’s voice hardened any last trace of friendship Jake might have felt for the man he’d served with at the Battle of Shiloh, the man who’d saved his life and become his best friend, the man who’d followed him west to become his partner in a new land.
 
Jake couldn’t blame Elliott Parnell for falling in love with the beautiful young widow they’d discovered alone on the trail. Her wagon had been separated from the train and left behind when the wagonmaster discovered that her husband was suffering from a fever. Jake and Elliott buried the man, but they couldn’t ride away and leave Sarah alone. She’d joined them in grateful appreciation.
 
Such an arrangement might have seemed unacceptable back in Charleston, but out here, on the lonely Kansas plains, it had been a necessity. And the three of them, Jake, Sarah, and Elliott, had built a farm. They had called it their Hope and made plans to turn it into a plantation like the ones they’d known before the war. Jake was the leader, Elliott the follower, and Sarah the peacemaker.
 
There’d been only one problem. They’d both fallen in love with Sarah.
 
Gradually, Sarah had watched friends become rivals. Jake understood what was happening but he was powerless to stop it. Sharp words that had no rightful origin became commonplace, and the relationship between two men turned into hate. Neither man would allow Sarah to leave; each man had sworn to take care of her. Though she loved them both, Sarah was finally forced to make a choice. She told Jake that she chose Elliott because he needed her the most.
 
Jake accepted her decision, but he couldn’t watch another man marry the woman he wanted. He pulled up stakes and left, turning over the responsibility for Sarah to Elliott.
 
Now Elliott had left Sarah, and she was dead.
 
Elliott burst through the doorway, caught sight of Sarah on the bed and swayed. “No! No! Sarah, I brought help. I came as quick as I could, but the storm … Oh, Sarah!”
 
Jake didn’t know he was going to do it before it happened, but he hit Elliott. Hit him and sent him sprawling in stunned confusion.
 
“Jake?” Elliott said, as if he’d just seen his old friend. “Jake, you came back!”
 
“Not soon enough, you bastard!” Elliott tried to get up. Jake hit him again. Blood trickled from the corner of Elliott’s mouth. This time he didn’t try to rise.
 
The men who’d ridden in with him entered the cabin and started toward Jake.
 
“Now, see here—” one of the strangers began.
 
“No point in doing more damage,” another added. “Elliott came for the doc. We been trying for two days to get here.”
 
It only took one look from Jake to still Elliott’s friends and force them to move away.
 
“I trusted you to look after Sarah,” Jake said. “I left her in your care.”
 
“But the baby wasn’t due yet. Oh, Jake, you don’t know how it was. After you left, everything went wrong.” The man was sobbing now. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
 
“Maybe God will forgive you, Elliott, but I won’t.”
 
“I loved her, Jake. I tried to take care of her. I swear!”
 
“No, you let her die,” Jake said and went out the door. He would never allow himself to care for anyone or anything again. From now on, he swore, Jake Silver traveled alone.