by Donna Cooner
Jarrett was at her side now, ebony eyes burning, features rigid as he hunched down, hands suddenly upon her shoulders, twisting her to face him.
“So did you—did you marry him?”
“No!” Tara gasped, appalled. “You know that I didn’t—I couldn’t have married you! How could you ask me that?”
Jarrett’s eyes remained fixed firmly on hers. “Because Clive claims that you can be charged with bigamy as well as murder. He has a certificate—one that states you are his wife.”
“Dear God!” Tara gasped in horror. She jumped to her feet, staring at him. She shook her head wildly. “You can’t believe him, it isn’t true! That’s where this ends! Clive came and demanded marriage and I turned him down. I assured him I would rather starve through a hundred lifetimes than marry him. Jarrett, you don’t know him, you don’t know the things he suggested, the things he wanted—”
“I can imagine. I want to hear the end of this.” He stood again, towering, dark, fierce. Well, he would believe her, or he would not.
He would love her …
Or not.
She lifted her chin, swearing that she would not break into a torrent of tears. “My brother’s play opened. We were doing a performance at Carter’s house. The drawing room was very large, and we were able to build a small stage at one end of it, with the audience before us in customary fashion, with painted curtains behind us as stage flats so that we could make very smooth exits and entrances. My gun shot blanks. I know that it did. William and I had checked it before I went onstage. It was a precaution my brother always took. In the play my lover was supposed to wander into the audience, and I was supposed to shoot after him. I shot. It was awful, like a moment straight from hell. Blood just seemed to burst from Julian Carter’s chest and he fell and died. I was stunned, incredulous. Then I realized there was someone moving the stage curtain behind him, but I don’t know who. As I said, I know that my gun had been loaded with blanks. I believe that someone else shot Julian from the stage curtain. And I’m certain that Clive paid someone handsomely to make that shot. It solved everything. Julian died before he could change his will. I’d either have to do everything he demanded that I do—or hang. He didn’t even have to care. He won either way.”
“What about your brother?”
She exhaled and looked down at her folded hands. “William wasn’t there. It was his big day, but Marina was sick, and so he had stayed home with her and their baby. I’m sure that he came in a good Irish rage and protested that I had to be innocent, and I knew then and know now that he would fight for me every step of the way. We were very close—there had been so many years when we were all that the other had. But I was gone, of course, by the time that William heard what happened. I—when I reached Atlanta, I wrote him a letter and signed it ‘Aunt Fanny.’ She was a distant relative we had made up when we were playacting. I told him that I was seeing the country, going west, and that I just wanted him to know that I was doing well, he mustn’t worry, and he mustn’t jeopardize my little nephew. I know he must still be worried sick, but I couldn’t risk anyone tracking me. But Clive has found me every time, anyway. Even here—in the wilderness.” She swallowed hard. “That’s it,” she said softly. “Everything.”
He shook his head. “Why couldn’t you have told me about this?”
“I intended to—now even if Carter hadn’t shown up,” she said softly. She lifted her chin again. “Be honest. You didn’t want to tell me I was related to half the swamp at first. Well, I didn’t want to tell you that there were at least thirty witnesses who could swear that I was a murderess.”
He was dead silent, staring at her.
“Jarrett, I swear I did not do it! I didn’t mean to lie to you. I never did lie to you. I would have told you everything if we’d just had a little more time.…”
He seemed a stranger again, the towering dark man with the ebony and enigmatic eyes that had first fallen upon her in the New Orleans tavern. She trembled fiercely, wishing desperately that she could go back.
Clive had managed to hurt her now in a way he might never have imagined. Because now she had everything to lose. Everything in the world. Love.
“All right,” he said, his voice ragged and deep after a moment. “We’ll deal with this.”
She shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “We can’t deal with this, Jarrett. I have to. I have to go back and stand trial, or I have to—run again. Keep running.”
“No,” Jarrett said flatly. “We’re both running—for the moment. I want you somewhere deep in the woods, somewhere he’ll never find you. Then I’ll get lawyers on the case. There has to be some way to prove you didn’t do it and to find out just who did.”
She stood very still, shaking. She lowered her head. “I never intended any of this for you! Jarrett, I’m so sorry, but you don’t have to feel—”
“Obligated?” he queried her suddenly.
Her eyes widened. He took a step toward her, caught her arms, drew her close to him, and lifted her chin so that he could meet her eyes. “But I am obligated, my love. And you are most certainly … obligated!”
“Oh, Jarrett!” she whispered, still trembling as she nearly fell into his embrace. “I didn’t even mind the thought of being hanged. I simply couldn’t bear losing you.”
His hold tightened suddenly. “I swear I’d like to rip his throat out myself.”
“But it wouldn’t help!”
Jarrett sighed deeply. “Not if we want a life. You have to be cleared somehow. But if the bastard thinks he’s going to use that forged paper to prove you’re his wife …”
“I’ll deny it!”
“But you’re denying a murder everyone saw you commit as well,” he reminded her softly.
“Oh, God!” She sobbed suddenly. “There’s really no way out of this!”
His hand smoothed over her hair. He lifted her from her feet, walking to the soft pallet they had shared so many times. “There is a way. We’ve but to find it.”
He laid her down and rose again. “Rest. We’ll stay here tonight. I want to see if I can find Peter’s trail. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Tara nodded.
Jarrett left her, stepping back out into the night. He leaned against the cabin door, lowering his head for a moment, gritting his teeth.
He wanted to kill Carter. He wanted to tear him limb from limb. It seemed that nothing had ever been so precious to him as the woman with the huge sky-blue eyes and golden tangle of hair who had come into his life. He hated to see her in torment.
And he hated more to feel so helpless against it.
There had to be a way.
And he had to find Peter. The boy had been smart as a whip, a fine little protector, heading into the interior with Tara. Jarrett would have been worried, but there was no sign of a struggle.
He left the cabin and stood outside in the darkness for a moment. He heard a rustling, but it was just Charlemagne, eating the grass in the shadows of the copse where Jarrett had left him. He relaxed and then started to walk, going down to the stream. As he walked, looking for whatever small signs Peter had left, he felt the same eerie sense of emptiness that had touched Tara when she had come. The people were gone. The life was gone. The cabins remained like skeletons in the night.
He missed his brother. Longed to see him.
By the stream he found Peter’s trail. He was puzzled, certain that the boy had moved on, following the path James and the others had taken the day before.
He hunched down, studying the earth and broken pine branches closely and carefully in the darkness.
Then he saw the trail of hoofmarks.
Someone had nearly come upon the village and the cabin in the woods.
He stood quickly.
They had been damned lucky that Peter had been a smart boy. He had created a false trail for the men on horseback to follow.
If the men had lingered in this area any longer they would have seen the smoke from Tara’s fire,
drifting into the sky.
In all but a panic himself now, he started back. He walked at first. Then he began to run.
He burst into the cabin.
Tara, who had remained lying on the pallet, shot up to a sitting position, staring at him with alarm. “Peter? Is he all right? Jarrett, has something happened to him?”
Feeling a little like a fool Jarrett leaned against the wall for a moment. “Peter’s fine, I’m certain,” he managed to tell her. He walked to the fire and started kicking it out. Tara stared at him as if he had gone mad.
“Jarrett, the night is cold,” she said softly.
“And our smoke is a dead giveaway,” he said simply.
“Oh!” Tara gasped. She came over by him, helping to put out the last of the flames. “But, Jarrett, if you didn’t find Peter, how do you know that he’s all right?”
“Someone almost stumbled onto this place, Tara, ahead of me. Peter made a trail for them to follow instead of coming here.”
“Oh!” She gasped. “Oh, we should have never made the fire! But Peter was being protective, he was going to cook a rabbit.”
“You must be starving.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No!” she murmured, looking down to the ashes. “I’m not hungry at all.” She looked up to him again. “We have to go, don’t we?”
“Yes—” Jarrett began to say, but he broke off.
Tara’s eyes, wide and blue upon his, opened even farther. They could both hear the stealthy movement, just beyond the cabin.
He motioned to her to get out of harm’s way. She grabbed the kettle from the hearthside instead. Jarrett drew his gun from his waistband, glaring at her as he walked swiftly around the cabin to flatten himself against the wall, just as she had done earlier.
She walked around as well, to the other side.
“Tara!” He mouthed her name in angry warning.
But the eerie blackness of a shadow in the very pale moonlight was already just coming in.…
Jarrett pounced.
“Sweet Jesu!” he cried out.
Tara shrieked. All she could see was a tangle of shadows. “You!” Jarrett choked out. Tara heard a thud. Something went flying across the floor.
Jarrett’s gun?
Desperately frightened for him, Tara lunged forward. Certain that she had cornered the shadowy height of the newcomer, she lifted her kettle, then brought it down hard upon his head.
He swirled around, staring at her.
“Tara!” he said with surprise.
And slumped down to her feet.
She let out a scream.
Chapter 22
Twenty minutes later James McKenzie was still holding his head between his hands, staring reproachfully at his sister-in-law. They all sat crossed-legged in front of the doused fire, a small oil lamp lit between them.
“You know I could never have meant to hurt you!” Tara told him sorrowfully.
“I’m not so sure about that,” James said, arching a brow very much the same way his brother did and looking to Jarrett. “She might have had revenge on her mind, you know. Your fault. All that koonti root you told me to make her grind.”
“James …” Tara protested.
“I hear that you are alone and in danger, and I come racing to your rescue! I am nearly crushed by my big brother—and then pummeled by my delicately golden little sister-in-law.”
“I didn’t crush you—I knew the minute you moved in that it was you.”
“I didn’t!” Tara said. “It sounded as if something awful was happening, and though you two may have the art down pat, I still have difficulty seeing in the dark.”
She saw then that James was grinning. But immediately his grin vanished. “ ‘What is going on here? Peter came running faster than a rabbit. I couldn’t even understand him at first—I thought the soldiers were coming for us. Then I finally understood him say that you were now alone in the wilderness, running, and that the soldiers were after you.”
Tara looked at Jarrett.
“Tara is accused of murder,” he said.
James didn’t seem to believe the words at first. “Murder by kettle?” he asked her, a brow arched again.
Amazingly, she found that she could smile. “It’s a long story, but there was a man in Boston who wanted to rid himself of his father and manipulate me. He arranged it so that it appeared—before numerous witnesses—that I shot his father. I didn’t do it, I swear that I didn’t, so I ran. As fast as I could. As far as I could. It wasn’t fast or far enough!” she added softly.
“I wonder if any of us can ever run fast or far enough!” James said. He looked at Jarrett. “What are you going to do?”
“Tomorrow, we’ll take Tara to our people deeper into the swamp. I’ll leave her with you and come back to find out where we stand.” He gazed at Tara, yet spoke to them both. “I sent word to Robert’s house—he’ll leave with Leo and some of the boys on the Magda and get up to Boston just as fast as he can. He’ll find the best attorney up there, and start trying to prove that this Clive Carter did have every reason in the world to want his father dead. Then, somehow, we’ll have to find the physical killer, since the son didn’t fire the gun himself.”
“How will we ever prove any of it?” Tara asked him.
He smiled at her. She wondered if she dared believe him when he told her, “Tara, it can be done. Who knows, maybe Clive Carter will break down and confess.”
Tara looked skeptically at him. “Do you really think that will happen?”
He shrugged. “Strange things happen.”
“Maybe an alligator will eat the bastard,” James said.
“But that wouldn’t help. I’d still be facing the murder charge,” Tara responded softly.
“Carter is one white man we definitely need alive,” Jarrett commented. “We just need him away from Tara.” He stood up. “Thank you, James. Thank you for coming for Tara.”
James nodded, studying Tara. “Are you going to be all right with us for a while?”
She smiled. “I’ll even learn to grind koonti root properly,” she told him. She would be all right.
James rose as well. “Peter led Carter and the army men on a broad chase through the marshes. We should be safe enough for the night—if not, Tara has that kettle of hers.” He smiled, but then added, “We should leave with the dawn.”
He turned to leave them. Tara unwound her legs and stood, holding on to Jarrett’s arm, calling after James. “James, I add my thanks. That you came running back for me.”
He nodded, smiling, then stepped out into the night. Jarrett looked at Tara. “Get some sleep,” he told her. “I’m going to take first watch.”
“But you need sleep as well.”
“James will spell me later. I’ll be in then.”
He left the cabin as well. Tara longed to leave and sit with him, but he meant to listen and to watch the night, and he would not welcome the distraction. Besides, she was bone weary.
She lay down on the pallet, and for a while stared into the darkness, feeling numb. Carter had caught up with her, just when her life had become everything that she might have wished for instead of the nightmare he had created out of it.
But she still had Jarrett. He loved her anyway. He meant to fight for her. She was so very grateful. But she feared the time ahead of them when they would part. She had no fears about living with her brother-in-law’s family, no worries about rough conditions, fierce weather—snakes, alligators, or any other savage creatures. None could be so dangerous as man.
At length she dozed. And in the sweet cloudlike arena of sleep she felt him come to her. Felt him lie down beside her, felt his warmth. Felt the liquid fire of his kiss upon her lips, the caress of his fingers upon her flesh. He made love to her slowly, seducing her out of the shadows, so gently that she thought she still dreamed.
But then the slow-burning fuse of desire within her caught swiftly ablaze. She felt the full force of his naked body against her own, the slick h
eat of his flesh, the fierce pulse of his desire. She no longer slept, she drifted from the dream into a fiery explosion of ecstasy, and there she clung to him, more in love with him than she had ever been before, and trying to hold on to him as if she might hold to the dream that way.
Dawn came. She felt that she had barely slept again before Jarrett was urging her awake. He had coffee. By the coming light James had felt secure enough to make a fire, and he had brought coffee and dried meat for them to eat. She was grateful for the coffee, yet when she tried to chew upon the meat, she was stunned to find that her stomach would have nothing to do with it. Even as the two men discussed the route they must take, she leapt to her feet and went racing from the cabin. She was sick. Longing just for some clean, clear water, she hurried down to the stream. She crouched down on the bank, cupping up water, dousing it over and over upon her cheeks, grateful for the coolness of it. The water helped, and yet she still didn’t feel particularly well. She hadn’t had enough sleep, she thought. Yet even as she knelt by the water, she nearly gasped as a hand touched her shoulder. She turned to find Jarrett hunched down by her side, studying her, a small smile curved into his lip.
She arched a brow.
“Well, it might be, you know,” he told her.
“Might be?” she asked.
“Morning sickness.”
“I’m never sick, Jarrett, I’m—oh!” She gasped. She stared at him blankly, trying to think, trying to count. Her life had been in such a tempest lately, she had paid little attention to the natural functions of life.… “Oh!” She gasped again.
His dark eyes were enigmatic. Her heart suddenly seemed to wrench at her. How strange, how sad! The Indian camp had already been deserted, and yet it was here that he had lost a wife and child once, and here that he was discovering his new wife was expecting.
The wife wanted by the law.
“Oh, Jarrett!” she whispered again, wondering if he was thinking of Lisa. “I’m sorry, I should have known. Or suspected. I would never have let you know … here.”
His ink lashes fell over his eyes for a moment, then rose, and the gentle curl of a smile was on his lips. “I lost something here; I’ve gained something here.”
