"Jon!" she gasped. "Where's Little Sun?"
"He's in a snowbank over there. I don't think he's hurt. Hush, now, Caitlyn, so I can get off a shot."
It was over in an instant. The horse reared yet again, his hoof landing with a thump on the head of one of the fighting figures. The other Indian jerked the lead rope loose and flung himself onto the horse.
Jon pulled the rifle hammer back, but just then Little Sun scrambled out of the snow bank and raced toward them. Distracted, Jon's rifle barrel wavered a scant fraction and his shot missed. Tall Man galloped away unscathed.
Little Sun ran to Caitlyn and she grabbed him up with arms trembling so hard she could barely hold him. Between her sobs, she kissed his face all over and hugged him until he gasped for breath.
Jon ran a hand beneath her hair and stroked her neck. "Sweetheart, you're going to squeeze him to death if you don't let loose."
Lifting her head, Caitlyn tenderly wiped at a smudge of tear-streaked dirt on Little Sun's face. "Are you all right, darling?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"
"I a'right," Little Sun said, raising his tiny hand to Caitlyn's cheek. "Cat a'right?"
Gulping back new tears, Caitlyn nodded her head. "I...Cat's a'right, baby." With a muffled gasp, Caitlyn threw both herself and Little Sun into Jon's arms.
Jon held her for only a moment, then gently pushed her away. "I have to go check on Spirit Eagle, darlin'. Are you sure you're all right? They didn't hurt...." His eyes narrowed when he saw the bruise on her jaw and her puffy nose. "Which one did that?" he growled.
Caitlyn looked down at Hogan.
"Well, he's dead," Jon said in a flat voice. The lifeless eyes staring skyward confirmed his words. "I hit him hard enough to kill two men, and he's lucky I did. He would've died a lot slower, but I couldn't hold back when I saw him kick you."
"Spirit Eagle," Caitlyn reminded him.
They heard a groan and Spirit Eagle stumbled to his feet. Leaving Caitlyn, Jon hurried over to help the Indian support himself. As they started back toward Caitlyn, with Jon's arm around Spirit Eagle's waist, a fierce scream split the air.
As one, they stared up the mountain side. Tall Man shook his rifle over his head, his fury at seeing his enemy still alive echoing in his insane cries. He had ridden farther up the mountain, where deep snow still lay on both the ground and in huge drifts on a boulder-strewn cliff face. He and his roan pony stood out starkly in the white surroundings.
Caitlyn knew what would happen, but she kept her eyes on Tall Man. The snow on the cliff to the Indian's right shifted in warning, disturbed by the rebounding echoes of Tall Man's howls of fury. The Indian cut off his last shout in mid-cry when he heard the muffled groan from the snow.
Too late, he turned his pony and whipped it with the lead rope. The snow came loose with a rumble, following Tall Man's path, irresolutely creeping closer. At one point, Caitlyn thought the snow almost seemed to toy with the Indian. Then it gathered force and swept over him.
They all stood silently until the last echo of thunder from the avalanche faded. Realizing that Little Sun had seen what happened, Caitlyn glanced down at him.
"Bad man dead," Little Sun said in reply to her worried face. "Bad man dead. Good."
"I see you have not weakened my son while he was in your care, Little Wind," Spirit Eagle said as he reached for his son. "He still has an Indian's gladness at the defeat of his enemy."
For a second, Little Sun stared at his father, then, with a glad cry, he sprang into his arms. Caitlyn saw a suspicious glint in Spirit Eagle's eyes, but when he noticed her watching him, he tried to deadpan his face. She wrinkled her nose at him as far as she could with the puffiness, and laughed aloud.
"And I see that you aren't any better at hiding your love like you think a Indian man's supposed to, my friend," she teased in a relieved voice.
Turning away so she wouldn't embarrass Spirit Eagle even more by watching his emotional reunion with his son, Caitlyn snuggled into Jon's arms.
Jon touched the bruise on her cheek and her slightly swollen lower lip. "Will it hurt you if I kiss you, darlin'?" he whispered.
"It'll hurt more if you don't," she breathed.
Jon gently kissed her, holding in reserve the fierce kiss he wanted to give her. Instead, he contented himself with running his hands over her, claiming her with his touch and fighting against the urge to crush her against him.
"Damn, I was scared," he said when he lifted his head.
"How did you find us?" she asked.
"Spirit Eagle knew where you'd been taken," Jon admitted. "He knows this country just as well as Tall Man does...did. He found me following you, and I almost shot the crazy fool when he appeared out of that snow."
"S...Silas?" Caitlyn asked more softly.
"I don't know. He was hurt pretty bad, and I had to leave him at the cabin. We've got to get back to him."
Caitlyn turned in his arms to look at Spirit Eagle again. "Are...are you le...leaving now? T...taking Little Sun?"
"I will come with you to thank Swift Feet for trying to protect my son," Spirit Eagle said with a smile. "If he lives, that is. You will have time to say your goodbye. And I will have time to tell you how great my thanks are for your care of him."
"Sure," Caitlyn said in a denigrating tone. "I even let Tall Man kidnap him."
She kicked at a clump of snow, and Spirit Eagle tipped her chin up with his finger, forcing her to meet his gaze.
"You would have given your life for him," he said quietly. "I know this. I heard your voice when you called after him. You cannot think that I would fault you — forget all the love and care you gave my son the many months I was gone — trying to find my own peace."
Caitlyn gulped a sigh filled with both relief and the beginning of the misery she knew would feel when Spirit Eagle rode away with his son.
"He's...he's got some toys at the cabin," she said. "And we're going to be leaving soon. If you need a place to stay...."
Spirit Eagle nodded at her. "A cabin would be warmer than a tipi," he mused.
"Caitlyn," Jon said. "We have to get back and check on Silas."
"Oh, lord," Caitlyn said with a gasp. "Let's get going."
Jon made her wait until they retrieved some blankets from the cabin for warmth as they rode. Then, while Caitlyn waited on her pinto, he searched Hogan's body. Finding the bag of coins, he tossed them to Spirit Eagle.
"These are small enough payment for what Little Sun had to go through," he said. "You take his horse, too."
Spirit Eagle nodded and rode over to where Hogan's horse was still tied to a ring in the cabin wall.
"Are you going to bury him?" Caitlyn asked.
"We're going back to Silas," Jon said in a flat voice. "Let the buzzards have him."
Where the trail allowed, they galloped their horses, but stretches of it were too rugged to let them go faster than a walk. Jon questioned Caitlyn about Hogan when they could ride close enough to talk, but she could tell him little beyond the fact that Hogan had been sent by her grandfather and cousin to kill her.
"There must be something we're missing in that journal," Jon said at one point.
"Well, I've no idea what it is," Caitlyn said. "We'll read it again and see if we can figure it out, I guess."
It didn't matter anyway, she told herself, though she wouldn't voice it yet to Jon. The journal meant that she had to cut Jon out of her life. At least for now, and maybe forever. She couldn't ask him to wait — and she definitely couldn't ask him to stay with her.
Love means doing what's best for another person, even when it hurts you, Cat. Mick's voice echoed in her head. He'd told her that during one of their rare arguments, when he had been determined to stand firm in a matter of discipline and she had been just as determined to flaunt his authority over her.
Mick had won — as usual. She couldn't even remember now what the fight had been about, but she remembered Mick telling her that just because he had never laid a hand on her didn't mean t
hat he wouldn't turn her over his knee and tan her little behind good if she disobeyed him. The break in his voice when he said that had told her how badly it would hurt him to spank her, but the determination behind his words let her know that he would indeed handle his hurt and do what needed to be done.
Like she would have to handle her hurt at losing both Jon and Little Sun from her life.
They made the trip back to the cabin in less than half the time it had taken for Tall Man to get Caitlyn to the cabin where Hogan waited the night before. They galloped across the clearing and Caitlyn slid from her pony before it came to a complete halt. But, at the cabin door, she stopped with a jerk, her hand a bare inch from the door.
"What...what if he's...?"
Jon gently shoved her aside. "Wait out here," he ordered.
He pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
"Heard the bunch of you ride in, so I guess you got Cat and the boy," Caitlyn heard Silas say in a weak voice before Jon could shut the door. "Now go get me and this here dog some more dadblamed water."
With a cry of joy, Caitlyn ran across the threshold.
****
Jon gathered Caitlyn against his sweat-slick body and threw an arm across his face, protecting his eyes from the brilliant sun. His heart slowed its thundering to a dull throb as he gradually became aware of the world beyond the edges of the blanket, where they had just made love. Everything was finally falling into place in his life, and nothing was more right than this woman he loved, lying in his arms.
A few songbirds twittered, but not nearly as sweetly as Caitlyn did when she whimpered her need for him. A slight breeze blew over their bodies, but Caitlyn's breath feathered and puffed on his neck, caressing him in a much nicer way. She had seemed a little withdrawn while Silas recovered, though Jon put it down to her worry over the old man. But she definitely still lost herself in their lovemaking. He couldn't quite keep a smirk of masculine satisfaction from his lips as he ran his hand over her bare hip and remembered how she had called his name in joyous abandon a moment ago.
In another day or so, they could start out of the mountains. Silas had regained his strength over the last month. Despite his attempt at bravado the day they found him still alive at the cabin, it had been touch and go for the first week. He and Caitlyn had sat with him day and night, having to almost force feed him at times. But Little Sun had done the most good — Silas just couldn't turn him down when he carried cups of broth over to his elderly friend.
Silas told them that Dog had arrived at the cabin an hour or so before the rest of them had returned. Probably he had lain unconscious wherever Tall Man had left him. Caitlyn had already promised to leave Dog with Little Sun when they left, since she knew she would be unable to bear Little Sun's tears if the animal left with them.
"Jon?"
"Hum, darlin'?"
Caitlyn sat up, swatting at Jon's hand with a subdued giggle when he tried to pull her back against him.
"We better get back to the cabin. I've still got some packing to do."
"Aw, honey. This will probably be the last time we have any privacy for the next month or so — maybe even until we get all the way back to St. Louis, and that might take two months. You know Silas has decided to go with us. And he won't stand for us sharing our bedrolls until after we find a minister. He still considers you under his 'pertection' until I get that ring on your finger."
Tell him, Caitlyn's mind said. But she couldn't. Not just yet. Why spoil the few weeks they had left?
She pasted a smile on her face and tapped her finger on his nose. "I'm sure you'll manage to figure out a way for us to get a few minutes alone now and then. You always do."
"A few minutes! Hell, a few hours isn't enough."
He rolled over and propped his head on his hand, reaching out to cup her bare breast and run a thumb back and forth across the nipple. When Caitlyn gasped his name and closed her eyes, he chuckled under his breath.
"Sure I can't talk you into staying here for a while longer?" he murmured.
She slit her eyes and, catching sight of the smirk on his face, grabbed his hand and pushed it away.
"You behave yourself, Jon Clay! We have to think of our responsibilities first."
Joan groaned and laid back down. "Responsibilities? Caitlyn, you're already beginning to sound like a nagging wife."
Tell him you're not going to marry him.
"No," Caitlyn said aloud.
"No, you're not sounding like a nagging wife?" Jon asked with a quirked eyebrow. "You mean, it can get worse?"
Caitlyn shook her head and looked around for her dress. She saw it snagged on the branch of a nearby bush and rose to her feet to get it. After she pulled it on, she picked up Jon's britches and shirt to toss to him, then stared down the trail they had ridden up earlier.
Jon caught his clothes, but held them on his lap. "Caitlyn?" he asked after a second. "What's wrong? You're not yourself."
"You're wrong, Jon. I'm very much myself. Now, come on and get dressed. I want to finish my packing."
"Is it because you're already missing Little Sun?" Jon asked without moving. "I don't presume to think you'll ever forget that little tyke, but when you're ready, we'll have our own children. After we're married, we can...."
Caitlyn whirled with her hands on her hips. "I'm not going to marry you, Jon!" She gasped and took a step backwards as a thunderous scowl crawled over his face and Jon rose slowly to his feet.
"What the hell did you say?" he snarled.
"You...you heard me. We're not going to get married."
"You just laid here with me and begged me to make love to you! You screamed my name and told me how much you loved me! And now — you're not going to marry me?"
"I didn't mean to tell you just yet," Caitlyn said, struggling to stand steady in the face of his anger, though she couldn't meet his gaze. "I was going to wait until we got back to St. Louis."
"And were you going to tell me why when we got to St. Louis, too? Let me ride all that damned way thinking everything was fine between us — that all I had to do was find a minister? Or were you going to wait until after I found the minister — then stand there and say 'no' instead of 'yes' when he asked you if you took me to be your husband!?"
"I would have let you know before that."
"Then maybe it's for the best," Jon spat, and Caitlyn's head jerked up to face him. "I'm tired of this bull shit, Caitlyn! One month you love me — the next one you don't! You want to marry me — you don't want to marry me! You hide your thoughts and won't be honest with me. I never know from one day to the next who I'll be in love with — the Caitlyn who loves me back or the Caitlyn who crawls off into her own little world and won't share it with me!"
He muttered a vile oath and turned his back on her. After pulling on his britches and shrugging into his shirt, he grabbed the blanket and strode over to his horse.
He swung into the saddle and reined his horse around to face her. "Get on your damned horse and come on. I'm not about to leave you up here alone where someone else can come along and carry you off again. I don't have time to come after you. I want to get the hell out of here as soon as I can."
Caitlyn stiffened her shoulders and walked to her pinto. After mounting, she kneed the horse forward, passing Jon with her back straight and her head high.
"And don't worry about me trying to talk you out of it, Caitlyn," he snarled as she rode by. "It's over this time. I'm leaving as soon as we get back to the cabin. You and Silas can do what you want!"
Over, over, her pinto's hooves pounded in cadence as she rode ahead of Jon. It's what she wanted. It's what had to be. She gritted her teeth against the cry of denial that tried to escape.
Over, over. At least no one else would die during her grandfather's quest for vengeance. She would face the Keefe patriarch herself and do whatever needed to be done to end the threat of death to everyone her life touched.
She had lost too many people already to the curse of her grandfa
ther hanging over her life. Her mother and father would never have fled from Ireland to meet their deaths in the rugged wilderness if not for her grandfather's refusal to allow Mauvreen to marry the man she loved. Reggie would be alive — safe and protected in the bosom of his family.
Silas had nearly died, caught in the tentacles of her grandfather's far-reaching efforts at retaliation. And when he learned that his latest attempt to kill her had failed, Caitlyn had no doubt that he would send another man — maybe more than one — to assure himself of her death.
What truly firmed her resolve, though, was the fact that, even as her mother's daughter, her life hung under the threatening knife of Keefe's vengeance. Any child she had herself would be in jeopardy, also — a potential victim. She would never be able to rest until she found some way to end threat hanging over her life — her future, and the future of anyone who tried to share her life with her.
Jon deserved better. He deserved a life with a wife who could give him the children that he wanted. He deserved a life with a woman who wouldn't bring the danger hovering over her own life into his.
Love means doing what's best for another person, even when it hurts you, Cat.
"I know, Paw," she whispered low.
Over, over, pounded the pinto's hooves.
****
Chapter 31
Caitlyn and Silas pulled their horses up on a rise and stared out over the valley floor.
"We'll be able to travel on to St. Louie a little faster after we get rid of these furs, Cat. Looks like rendezvous's in full swing — a few weeks early."
"Spring came early this year, so I guess the pack trains got an earlier start, Silas," Caitlyn said in a weary voice.
She couldn't dredge up even a bit of the excitement she usually felt at attending rendezvous. This year it would be filled with memories — memories of her times there with Paw, and memories of meeting Jon last summer.
"And I've already told you," she said with exasperation for at least the tenth time, "I'm going on to St. Louis alone. I'm not going to Virginia from there, either."
Mountain Magic Page 31
