Comanche passion, p.8
Comanche Passion, page 8
When half an hour passed and she hadn’t returned, the glimmer of worry came. He glanced over his shoulder to the west, but there was no sign of her heading toward camp.
As he kept waiting, his glances over his shoulder came more often. Curiosity, annoyance, and nagging worry plagued him until he strode back to the woods, moving unerringly to where he had left her.
Not a twig crackled as he made his way through the woods. Had she run away? If someone had found her, she would have screamed—if she’d had the chance.
When he saw the glimmer of moonlight on cascading water through the trees ahead of him, his step quickened. He was almost to the water’s edge, still in the copse of trees, when he stopped, held immobile.
Chapter Six
Her back was to him as she stood in the stream. Moonlight spilled over her, catching the glitter of drops of water on her pale body. She was more than all the dreams and visions and fantasies he’d had on lonely nights on empty battlefields. His gaze raced over luscious curves, a firm round bottom, long, shapely legs. The woman was breathtakingly beautiful.
He might as well be on fire. With a primitive growl deep in his throat, he started forward, driven by an atavistic urge to claim her and discover all the secrets hidden in her soft body.
Then reason and memories halted him. Shaking, he had to fight the scalding desire.
She dropped into the water with a splash that startled him, a merry peal of laughter ringing in the night air. The laughter tore at his heart. How long since he had heard any woman’s laughter? Savannah’s was filled with sunshine. He wanted to watch her, but he knew if he stayed, he would be in the water with her and she would be in his arms. She began to sing softly, her lilting voice another torment in the night.
He turned, blindly heading back the way he had come. He was the one who needed to plunge into an icy creek. His heated body was torment and images floated in his mind—images he knew would be with him forever.
The first town they reached tomorrow, he would leave her behind. Let her get along the best she could.
But the Federals would be after her, and her Union relatives might not have enough power to keep her out of prison. They might not even hear she was in prison. No one would know if she was taken prisoner out here in the wilds.
He clamped his jaw closed and strode out of the trees. It wasn’t until he was halfway to their small campsite that he remembered the danger he could be in. He swore softly, knowing his brain was befuddled by the woman. He had to stop thinking about her and keep watch until they were ready to travel again.
He had worried over wanting sleep. Now, plagued by images of her, he would have no need for sleep.
He reached the spot where he had spread a blanket, looking at her reticule, the blanket, and the saddlebags. His horse grazed only yards away. Red Hawk sank down, knowing his head would barely show above the tall prairie grass.
As time passed, he wondered if she was still splashing in the creek. He groaned, clenching his fists, fighting to tear his thoughts away from Savannah Ravenwood.
His throbbing arm pained him, and he was damned thankful it was only a superficial wound.
Finally he heard the swish and rustle of grass. He glanced around to see her walking toward him. His pulse jumped and he stood, watching her and forgetting danger once again.
“Bathing was marvelous! Except I hope I never know what kind of creatures were in the water with me.”
He wanted to answer her, but his mouth was dry, his tongue thick. A clear image of her bathing in the swift, cold creek in the moonlight danced in his mind and stole his ability to speak.
When she sat down facing him and smiled, he felt another lurch in his pulse. Her soft lips parted, the corners of her mouth lifting. As he sat down facing her, he could not resist reaching out to touch her face, his fingertips lightly brushing her mouth.
“It is a good thing to see a beautiful woman smile. I have been too long at war.”
“That creek would bring a smile to anyone,” she answered, but now her voice had softened, and again he felt the current jump between them like fire springing from one twig to another.
He dropped his hand away and stared at her, torn between wanting to reach for her and knowing that he should all but ignore her. Reminding himself of their danger, he looked to the east.
“You’re watching for soldiers,” she said after a moment’s quiet. “How likely do you think it is that they’re after us?”
“If they were, I think they would have caught up with us by now and would have attacked. But there’s a chance that they haven’t picked up our trail and are still trying, so I don’t want to stop watching.”
“How many days’ ride to Mansfield?”
“You won’t have to ride as far as Mansfield. When we reach a town tomorrow, I’ll let you go—unless you’re afraid to go on your own.”
“No! You know that’s all I want. I’ll be ahead of the soldiers and I’ll find a way home.” As she studied him with a slight frown, he knew whatever was bothering her, he would hear about it.
“You’ve told me before you would let me go and then you didn’t.”
He shrugged. “I planned to, but then circumstances changed. You could have turned me in, and I’m not going back to prison. Tomorrow you’ll be free to go to your sister with only a small delay.”
“A small delay and a loss of all I’ve worked for. I want my gold back.”
“The gold is spent.”
“All of it couldn’t possibly be!”
Unwilling to argue with her over it, he shrugged.
“I should have settled for what I got in St. Louis and never taken the medicines from the boat, but I thought I could be gone before they were ever missed.”
“I’m glad you did. They will do good for many.”
When she didn’t answer, he guessed she was still angry and probably trying to figure a way to steal them back, but without her hoop skirt and its pockets, she had no way to hide the medicine.
“So you’ll go back to fighting.” She reached up to touch her hair.
“No. As soon as I deliver the morphine, I’m through with this war.”
Her brows arched as she lowered her hands and a braid of hair tumbled down, falling over her shoulder and hanging to her waist. She reached up to unfasten another braid that was wound on her head. “Where will you go? Where’s your home?”
“My home was San Antonio, and that’s where I’m headed now.” He watched in fascination as another long braid fell over her shoulder.
“You’re Comanche. How did you come to live in San Antonio?”
“Before I was born, my mother was with a wagon train headed west. It was attacked. Her parents were killed and she was captured by the Comanches. She was only fourteen at the time. My father wed her and I was born.”
“Didn’t she hate your father?”
“No, she loved him very much. The year after I was born, my brother Caleb was born, and then the following year she gave birth to Celia. When I was nine, my father was killed by soldiers. Two years later, more soldiers attacked our summer camp, and my mother and I were taken back to live with whites.”
“You were nine years old when your father died? I was ten when I lost my mother.”
“My mother married again—a San Antonio merchant, Bradford Porter. Thanks to him, Caleb and I were schooled. I went to Baylor. Before the war Celia married Dalton Ashman and had Matthew. Both my mother and stepfather are no longer living. I’ve lost every one of my family except Caleb and my nephew, Matthew. I’m not going to lose either of them,” Red Hawk said, feeling the urgency to be up and traveling again. He had stopped to eat, let Savannah sleep, and rest the horse, but now he wanted to mount up and go, letting Savannah sleep in the saddle the way he would.
In the back of his mind a cynical voice nagged him. Was he so eager to travel, or did he want to have Savannah close against him again?
She picked up a plait and began to work free the tresses. “You said you were going to San Antonio. If your sister is no longer living—”
“I’m going for her son. Dalton was killed at Fredericksburg. Two years ago, Celia had scarlet fever. She recovered, but she wasn’t ever well again. She was afraid she might not survive and she wrote to me, asking me to promise to come get her son and raise him as my own. She said even Dalton—her husband—said his parents should not raise Matt. They are cold, abusive people and Dalton was heartily glad to grow up and leave home.”
“How dreadful! Your nephew may need you as much as my sister needs me.”
“Matthew does need me.” Red Hawk turned to stare at the dark trees on the eastern edge of the field while his mind went back to times at home with Caleb and Celia. “Celia died eleven months ago, almost a year now. She was sick for a couple of months before she died. It took a month for the letter about her death to reach me.”
“I’m sorry,” Savannah said quietly.
He barely heard her as old memories swirled like wood smoke. He had lost all he loved except Matthew and Caleb. Gone now were Tall Horse, his father; his mother, Martha; his stepfather, Bradford; his sister, Celia; and his brother-in-law, Dalton. Sometimes when he thought about them, pain came swiftly. He had loved each one of them. Celia had been safely married in San Antonio, not caught up in the frontline battles of war, yet she was gone now, too.
“I barely know my nephew, but I’m going to claim him and take him to raise as my own. This is what I pledged to my sister that I would do.”
“Then you’ll take him home with you?”
“I intend to.”
“You say that as if you’re going into battle,” Savannah observed, wondering about this facet of him. She was surprised by the determination she heard in his voice, knowing it was over a child. She couldn’t imagine him as a parent for a small boy.
“He’s a six-year-old boy, defenseless against this pair. Yet the few letters I had from Celia indicate I’ll have a fight when I try to get him. They want him because he has an inheritance—which they don’t need,” Red Hawk added angrily. “And Matthew’s inheritance isn’t theirs to spend. Celia described these people in her letters as cold, uncaring, and greedy.”
In the moonlight Savannah saw the muscle working in his jaw.
“I should have been there for Celia at the last,” he said in a quiet voice, as if he had forgotten Savannah’s presence and was talking to himself. “Celia should have had some of her family with her, and I should have been there to take Matthew with me. I was caught up in battle and hadn’t received her letter. I didn’t even know I failed her,” Red Hawk said bitterly.
“If you didn’t know and you were in battle, there’s no way you could have been with her. You shouldn’t torment yourself about something beyond your control. But you should understand why I need to go home. My sister is as vulnerable as your nephew. She’s married to a cruel, ruthless husband.”
“She must have loved him at one time.”
“No. She was promised to him by our father, the same way I have been to Thomas.”
“Ahh, another arranged marriage,” he remarked quietly, and her defenses came up.
“That doesn’t mean it won’t be a good marriage for me.”
While moonlight spilled over his bare shoulders, he sat with inscrutable dark eyes. Loosening her braids, she could feel him watching her every move. Her hair had been splashed with water, but as she unplaited a strand and ran her fingers through it, she knew it would dry swiftly.
“If your brother-in-law doesn’t want to let your sister go, you’ll be interfering where the law says you have no right,” he remarked.
“The law isn’t fair to women. I’m taking her home with me whether he wants it or not,” Savannah replied, half of her thoughts on their conversation, half on him. He sat as still as a statue, his gun lazily resting on his crossed legs, yet she knew how fast he could move. “You’ll break the law as much as I will if you try to take your sister’s child from his grandparents.”
“If they have his interests at heart, they will let me take him,” he said, but his voice tightened, and she wondered if she had touched on a matter that worried him. “I have letters from Celia making me guardian,” he continued. “She had an attorney draw up papers. What will matter most to the Ashmans is that I have Celia’s notarized and certified will, witnessed by several upstanding citizens. She left all the money in my charge until Matthew comes of age.”
“Then those people can’t do anything.”
“They can get an attorney and take the matter to court. If so, we would go to court in a town where they have many influential friends and I’ve been away for years.”
“You’re not married. It won’t help your cause to be without a wife.”
“I promised Celia I would take him, and I will.”
“After all this time, they may be like parents to him.”
“Both Celia and Dalton were convinced that his parents would never be good for Matthew,” Red Hawk said quietly, with an implacable expression and a note of determination in his voice that made her wonder if anything short of death had ever thwarted him. “Dalton should have known. He was their son.”
Red Hawk’s gaze swept the field and the tall trees in the distance, but he couldn’t detect anything amiss. He thought about what Savannah had said—that it would hurt his cause to be without a wife. For a few minutes while they sat in silence, he strained to hear any night sounds, but he detected nothing more than the whisper of wind in the grass.
“How long has your sister been married to this man?” he asked.
“Four years. Adela is older than I am. She was pledged to a boy when she was a child, the same as I have been to Thomas, but the boy died. Mr. Platt was an acquaintance of our father, a military man. When he saw Adela, he wanted to marry her. My father consented,” Savannah said, her voice sounding pained. “With our mother dead, I don’t think my father knew what to do with us, particularly Adela.”
Red Hawk continued to scan the area, turning to look over his shoulder. He didn’t want anyone coming up behind them.
While he searched the area around them, he listened to Savannah’s soft voice and the thought ran through his mind that he could listen to her talk all night. He stared at her, wondering what kind of spell she had worked on him. When had he ever wanted to listen to someone talk all night? Never. Until now.
“I think my father shut all possibilities out of his mind that Adela might be in a bad marriage. Later, he knew it was bad, but he closed his mind to it and said Adela was too soft, overindulged at home. But we weren’t overindulged, and Adela would never cause anyone trouble.”
“Maybe she changed,” Red Hawk suggested, but Savannah shook her head.
“Not Adela. She was only seventeen when she married Horace Platt. He’s in the lumber business in Nacogdoches. Her letters sound the same to me as they did when she first went away.”
Red Hawk turned to look at Savannah, and his breath caught. Before his eyes, she was undergoing a transformation. She freed the last braid and raked her fingers through long strands. Thick locks of hair cascaded over her shoulders, spilling to her waist. She ran her fingers through another braid and then another until a wild mane framed her face. Her hair was a dark, silky curtain streaked with moonlight. Gone was the fancy lady in her silk dress. Instead, only a few yards from him was a woman who looked ready for life and passion.
Again, he couldn’t resist. It was as if his hand had a will of its own as he stretched out his arm and wound his fingers in a soft mass of her hair.
Incredibly silky, wavy from the tight braids, her hair spilled over his hand. He lifted the strands to inhale the faint scent of tea roses and to rub the soft locks over his cheek.
She watched him with wide eyes. All words vanished while tension arced between them. As his gaze lowered to her mouth and then to the vee of her dress where her pale skin was revealed, his pulse was thunder. Once again he was tempted to possess her, to relish all her softness and headstrong wildness.
Savannah’s heart thudded. She knew he wanted her and he held himself in check. From the first moment with him, danger had swirled around her like hurricane winds.
Was he going to kiss her? I want him to kiss me. The realization shocked and frightened her. He was dangerous, a threat to her peace of mind and well-being. She jerked her head away, freeing her hair. His dark eyes were impossible to fathom, yet she could feel his desire, as tangible as the summer heat still rising from the earth.
Her heart pounded so violently she feared he could detect its beat. She knew the constraints of civilization were a thin veneer for him, that he was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted.
In a fluid movement, he rose to his feet. “We’ll ride,” he said flatly. His voice was husky, a mere rasp that made her tingle.
Before she could move, a wild howl rose in the night and chills went down her spine as she jumped to her feet. “A coyote?”
“Most likely.”
“What else could it be? A wolf?”
“It could be a human signaling to other humans.”
The idea was more chilling than that of wild animals. She had bruises from the rough treatment by the sergeant earlier in the day. “Can we go?”
Without answering, as if there was no danger or reason for haste, Red Hawk stood and moved with deliberation. If he was alarmed, he didn’t show it. He saddled the horse with the same careful movements as he had unsaddled it hours earlier. She looked at the black mass of trees to the east.
“We make a clear target,” she said.
“Then get down in the grass,” he replied dryly.
“Does anything frighten you?” she flung at him, annoyed with his cool poise.
“Yes,” he replied. “Losing someone I love frightens me. Losing my freedom,” he replied, with such force and determination that she was taken aback.
