He grabbed his brother’s gun, and the two of them struggled for it.

*   *   *

Catherine watched the men tussle from the parlor window. She had sent Diana upstairs with Rebecca, then immediately sought out the marshal to let him know there was a possible outlaw outside.

She pressed her hand to her lips as terror sliced through her as she watched the two men fighting for possession of the gun. What had she done?

A gunshot rang out.

Catherine stopped breathing. Michael and Pete froze and locked gazes. Time seemed suspended as she waited.

Who had been shot?

Then Michael staggered back, and she saw the red stain on his shirtfront right before he collapsed on the ground.

“No!” she shouted as tears stung the backs of her eyes. It couldn’t be Michael! It couldn’t be.

Pete just looked down at him, his face indecipherable.

Dropping her shawl, Catherine ran for the door, down the steps, and across the yard to Michael’s side.

His brother stood coldly to the side as the marshal and his men put irons on his wrists.

Sobbing, she knelt by Michael’s side. Terrified and shaking, she touched his cold brow.

“Michael?” she breathed.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. In that look she saw the love he had for her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed her fingertips to his lips.

“Save your strength,” she whispered. She looked up to Marshal McCall, who stared angrily at Pete.

“I always heard you were mean, but damn, to shoot your own brother on Christmas? You’re a sick man, O’Connell,” the marshal said to Pete.

His face blank, Pete glanced down to her and Michael, then back at the marshal.

“What are you, stupid? Do we look like brothers?” Pete drawled slowly. “My brother got killed in Shiloh last month during our last holdup. That there’s just some stupid cow-poke thinks he’s a bounty hunter. Bastard’s been trailing me for weeks. I don’t even know his name.” Pete locked gazes with her, then shocked her with his words, “But I think the lady over there knows him. Ask her who he is.”

The marshal gave her a probing stare. “That true, Miss Catherine? You know this man?”

A tremor of panic shook her as she realized Michael’s entire fate was in her hands.

What should she answer?

She looked down at Michael’s calm, deliberate stare. He expected her to betray him. She could read it plainly in his eyes as he waited for her to denounce him.

But she couldn’t. She didn’t know everything yet, but before she handed him over to the marshal, she wanted some long-overdue answers. Answers he couldn’t very well give her locked up in jail.

“He’s my husband,” she answered honestly. “Michael O’Callahan.”

The marshal gave her a hard stare. “I thought you said your husband ran off.”