Their eyes met. She nodded and jerked her head toward the cabin to tell him she heard the riders, too. Then they both ducked out of sight.

Molly had a gun. He now knew she was familiar with them. Shuddering, he wondered what it did to a woman to carry that kind of secret for so many years. He wondered if she was capable of loving a husband.

She was on her knees, gun drawn, well below the top of the boulder. Her eyes open, ears listening, but staying out of sight to any riders.

The clopping of horses, two critters, Wyatt was sure. Two? How did Hawkins find someone to partner up with? One brother, Clovis, dead. The other, Randall, locked up. Wyatt slipped sideways to peer between the thick but leafless bushes, then gasped and jerked his head back. He clapped his hand over Molly’s mouth when she looked at him in wild confusion. He shook his head and touched the muzzle of his gun to his lips, then released Molly’s mouth. As if she were the one who’d made a noise.

The horses came on. Wyatt stayed down. He’d considering jumping out as they rode into the clearing, getting the drop on them, trusting Cheyenne to do the same. But that was before he’d seen who it was.

Four people.

Two of them Win and Rachel. Though Hawkins and Kingston rode easy, they both had a gun in hand. And no threat of “stop or I’ll shoot” would be believed when that put Win and Rachel in the cross fire.

The horses came around to the hitching post at the front of the house. Wyatt peeked out on the side of the boulder toward the clearing. He just didn’t know what to do. He should have attacked. He should have shot both of them in the back once they’d turned their horses to hitch them. The bullet probably wouldn’t go through them to hit the women who rode in front of them.

Shooting someone in the back was the act of a coward. But he should have done something.

He could have charged out of the woods and sprinted across that clearing while they faced away, jumped up, and pulled one man off his horse, left the other to Cheyenne. Tough as she was, he didn’t like the idea of her tangling with an armed killer. But Win might’ve helped. Rachel appeared to be unconscious.

Where were Falcon, John, and Sheriff Corly? Then it hit him—where was Kevin? He’d been in town. Was he dead? He had to be, or these two would’ve never gotten the women away from him.

Wyatt had thought Falcon was dead the day Falcon, Kevin, Molly, and Andy had descended on the ranch. Then for a time Kevin and Win had been missing, and they’d feared the worst.