“All right, let’s get it done.”
The door was closed. Jenny paused a moment, then opened the door and stepped inside.
Chapter Five
He was sitting in a rickety straight-backed chair, his hands resting on his knees. He looked up as she entered the room, and Jenny found herself staring into a pair of deep black eyes. Kayitah’s eyes.
“Cosito.” The name whispered past her lips, stirring memories of a daring escape on a stormy night.
He stood up, tall and straight, like his father. “I am called Chase the Wind.”
Jenny nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat as she stared at her son. He was not quite as tall as Dusty, though he was wider through the shoulders. His skin was dark, his waist-length hair shone blue-black in the light filtering through the window. But it was his eyes that held her attention. They were the eyes of a man who had seen much, endured much. Lost much.
“You are Jenny?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The same Jenny who was once known as Golden Dove?”
She nodded, grateful that Ryder was standing behind her. “How is your father?”
“He is dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
She recoiled from the animosity in his eyes, the bitterness in his voice. “Yes, I am. He was a good man.”
“Then why did you leave him?” Chase demanded, the cumulated anger and bitterness of more than twenty years evident in every word. “Why did you leave me? What kind of woman abandons her child?”
“Listen here, boy,” Ryder said. “I won’t have you talking to your mother in that tone of voice.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jenny’s husband, and if you don’t start treating her with some respect, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you with my bare hands. That’s who I am.”
For the first time, Chase took a good look at the man standing behind his mother. The realization that this man, who obviously had Indian blood, was his mother’s husband hit him with the force of blow. It didn’t make sense, Chase thought, bewildered. He had assumed she hated Indians. Why then had she married one?
“I think you owe your mother an apology.”
Chase felt the hot blood of shame climb up the back of his neck. The man was right. This woman was his mother and should be treated with respect.
Hands clenched at his sides, Chase met her gaze. “I am sorry for my angry words. Forgive me.”
“I should be asking you to forgive me.”
“I cannot.”
The tears came then, hot, stinging tears that burned her eyes and made her throat ache. She felt Ryder’s hands on her shoulders and she took a deep breath, drinking in his nearness, his support. “What do you want of me?”
“I want only to know why you left me. Were you so ashamed of having an Indian for a son that you ran away?”
“No! No, I loved you.”
“Is that how a white woman shows her love, by running away?”
“This isn’t the place to be havin’ this discussion,” Ryder said. “Why don’t you come out to the ranch where we can talk in private?”
It was in Chase’s mind to refuse, but something, some nagging sense of curiosity, urged him to accept. “I will come.”
“Good. We’ve got a buggy outside.”
Chase shook his head. “I will follow you.”
“All right.” Ryder put his arm around Jenny and led her out of the store, aware of the inquisitive gazes that followed them.
He lifted Jenny onto the seat, took up the reins, then vaulted up beside her. Backing the team away from the hitch rack, he headed out of town, acutely aware of the angry young man riding behind them.
Jenny pressed close to Ryder, needing his comfort, his strength, as she relived the night that Cosito, no, Chase the Wind, had been born.
She remembered gazing down at her newborn son and wondering if, for his sake, she should have stayed with Kayitah. She had known the Apaches would love her son, known than no one would belittle him because his mother was a white woman. With the Apache, he would have been accepted without question. But she had wanted to go home, back to Hank, back to the life she knew. And Ryder Fallon had agreed to take her because she had saved his life.
But the escape, which had sounded so easy when they talked about it, didn’t go as planned. It had stormed that night, her horse had taken a bad fall, and she had gone into labor.
She remembered the joy that had filled her heart when Ryder placed her son in her arms, remembered asking if it was hard, being a half-breed. He had been reluctant to answer her.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she’d asked, needing to know, and still he’d hesitated, and then, when she insisted on an answer, he had said, simply, “It’s bad.”
And then Kayitah had come, flanked by twenty warriors, and demanded his son. He had threatened to kill both her and Ryder if she refused to surrender the child, and because they’d had no choice, Ryder had given her son to its father. She had begged Kayitah to take her back, but he had been a proud man, and he had refused.
“You have chosen the path you will follow,” he had said, his voice harsh and cold. “I give you the freedom you have begged for so often.”
“Just tell him the truth, Jenny girl,” Ryder said. “That’s all you can do.”
It sounded so easy. Just tell him the truth. She only hoped she could make Cosito understand.
And forgive.
* * * * *
When they reached home, Ryder lifted Jenny from the rig. “I think you two should be alone,” he remarked, giving her a hug. “I’ll be in the barn if you need me.”
Jenny nodded, her smile tremulous, as she waited for her son to dismount.
Chase the Wind swung out of the saddle, feeling as edgy as a rabbit about to enter a snake hole as he took a quick look around, noting the size of the house, the numerous corrals filled with blooded stock, the barn. A half dozen dogs burst from under the porch, hackles raised, while they barked at him.
“Quiet,” Jenny scolded as the dogs surrounded them, nosing her hand, sniffing at Chase the Wind’s moccasins.
Patting the nearest hound on the head, she smiled at Chase apologetically. “Come in, won’t you?”
He followed her up the porch steps, across the wide veranda and into the house. The parlor was a large, square room painted a pale shade of sky blue. Standing there, he perused the furnishings: a sofa made of brown leather, an overstuffed chair of the same material, a large oak rocking chair. A large hearth took up most of the wall across from the door. In addition to a vase of wildflowers and a clock, there were several gilt-edged picture frames on the mantle. One held a photograph of his mother and Ryder, the other two were of a young girl and boy.
A pair of tables made of dark oak stood on either side of the sofa. A buffalo robe was spread on the floor in front of the hearth; a Navajo rug hung on one wall, a painting of a desert at sunset hung on the opposite wall.
Jenny watched her son’s face as he took in his surroundings. How many times had she imagined him here, in this room? A hundred times, a thousand? She wondered where he had lived for the past twenty-five years, what he had done.
“Please,” she said, “sit down and make yourself at…” Her voice trailed off and she felt a wave of color sweep into her cheeks. “Home.”
She saw a muscle jump in his clenched jaw as he sat down on the sofa, his back rigid.
“Would you care for something to drink? A cup of coffee, or perhaps a glass of lemonade?”
“No.” He ran his hand over the back of the sofa, noting the soft, supple feel of the leather beneath his hand.
Hiding her hands in her skirt pockets so he couldn’t see them trembling, Jenny sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“How have you been?”
“I am well.”
Jenny fidgeted under his intense scrutiny. “I’m sorry about your father, truly I am. He was always kind to me.”
“And you repaid his kindness by running away.”
“Cosito, you must try to understand…”
“I am called Chase the Wind,” he reminded her, his voice cool.
Jenny nodded. “Of course, I’m sorry.”
She bit down on her lower lip as she searched for the words that would erase the scorn from his eyes, that would make him understand how it had been.
“I was very young when your father captured me. I already had a husband. Surely you can understand why I wanted to return to my own people?”
“He loved you.” Chase stared at his mother. Though she was no longer young, she wore her age well. There were only a few faint lines at her mouth and eyes, her figure was no longer youthfully slim, but softly rounded.
“I know, but I didn’t love him. And even though he was kind to me, I was still his prisoner.”
Something that might have been compassion flickered briefly in Chase the Wind’s eyes, and then was gone.
“You can understand why I wanted my freedom, can’t you?”
“Yes,” Chase said quietly, remembering all too clearly what it had been like to be imprisoned on the reservation, his freedom and his way of life forever lost to him. “I understand.”
“It wasn’t easy for me when I returned to my husband,” Jenny said. “He couldn’t forget that I had been with another man, even though it was against my will. We quarreled, and he…” She lifted a hand to her cheek, remembering. “He hit me.”
“Why have you not left him then?”
“Not Ryder,” Jenny said quickly. “Ryder helped me escape from the rancheria and took me back to Hank, my first husband. It’s all so complicated. I was in love with Ryder by then, but I was married to Hank. I tried to make Hank happy, but too much had happened while we were apart.”
She shook her head, remembering the silent accusation in Hank’s eyes whenever he looked at her, the endless arguments. He’d started drinking, and then one night he’d hit her.
“When I realized I couldn’t live with Hank, I ran away and went back to your father. I intended to stay with him, to be with you, but Hank and his brother, Charlie, came after me. I didn’t want to go with them, I told Hank I wouldn’t leave without you. But he wouldn’t listen. They forced me to go with them. We almost made it out of the valley, but then Kayitah rode up with some of his men. Hank’s brother was killed. Hank was shot. At the time, I thought he was dead, too. And then, somehow, Ryder was there, and I knew there was no way I could ever go back, no way I could ever convince Kayitah that I hadn’t come back to steal you away. Ryder brought me here, to this valley. Once, he went back to try and get you but it wasn’t to be…”
She saw it all again as she related the story to her son.
She saw Ryder coming toward her with Cosito cradled in his arms.
She had marveled at how her son had grown, been saddened when she realized he didn’t remember her. And then, like the echo of distant thunder, they had heard the sound of horses approaching. She had heard Ryder mutter Kayitah’s name, and then he had told Fred Howard to take her and get the hell out of there while he tried to hold them off.
She hadn’t wanted to leave Ryder, but Fred had grabbed the reins to her horse and lit out for cover. Heart pounding with trepidation, she had watched Ryder draw his rifle, and then, with the Cheyenne war cry on his lips, he had lit out in a dead run, leading the Apaches away from her.
He had made a valiant effort, might even have gotten away if Kayitah hadn’t shot his horse out from under him, and then Ryder, too, had been shot. Kayitah’s face had been dark with anger when he demanded to know the whereabouts of his son. When Ryder refused to tell him, Kayitah had staked Ryder out and began to skin him alive, one inch at a time.
It had been more than she could bear. Tears streaming down her face, she had ridden forward and begged for Ryder’s life, promising to give up her son forever if Kayitah would spare Ryder.
“I knew it was the right thing to do,” Jenny said, blinking back her tears. “You cried for your father when you saw him, and I knew then that you belonged with Kayitah. But there’s never been a day go by that I didn’t think of you. You must believe that.”
Chase nodded. She was speaking the truth. He had heard it in every anguished word, seen it in the clear green depths of her eyes.
“One more thing,” Jenny said. “You have a brother and a sister.”
Chase stared at her, then glanced at the pictures of the young boy and girl on the mantle. His brother and sister, he wondered? Moments before, he had been alone in the world, and now he had a brother and a sister. And a mother, if he could bring himself to accept her as such. It was more than he could handle.
Rising quickly, he headed for the door. He needed time, time to consider what she had said, time to absorb the fact that he was no longer alone.
Jenny hurried after him. “Chase, where are you going?”
He paused, his hand on the door. “I need time to think.”
“Won’t you stay for dinner?”
“No.”
“I’ll see you again, won’t I? You won’t leave town without saying goodbye?”
He turned to face her, noting, for the first time, that she barely came to his shoulder, that there were a few fine gray hairs sprinkled among the gold. She was a remarkably pretty woman and it occurred to him that she must have been quite beautiful when she was young. No wonder so many men had desired her.
“Chase?”
“I will see you again before I leave,” he promised.
“Chase, would you mind if I…could I give you a hug?”
It was in his mind to refuse. He owed this woman nothing. No matter what her reasons, she had abandoned him. And yet, looking into her eyes, eyes as green as new grass, he knew he could not deliberately cause her pain.
Jaw clenched, he hardened his heart and put his arms around her. She felt light in his arms, fragile. He could feel her heart pounding like that of a wild bird caught in a trap. Or was it his own heart beating so frantically? He drew in a sharp breath as he felt her arms go around his waist. She gave him a squeeze and then quickly let him go, as if she were afraid of offending him.
Jenny smiled self-consciously as she backed away. “We still have a lot to talk about. Will you come back tomorrow evening and stay for supper? Dusty’s coming. I know he’d like to meet you.”
With a nod, Chase opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. He didn’t look back, but he knew he would never forget the love he had seen shining in his mother’s eyes as they embraced.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he swung into the saddle and rode out of the yard.
* * * * *
Muttering under her breath, Beth found a shady place alongside the stream and sat down, arranging her skirts around her.
After a moment, she removed her shoes; then, with a defiant toss of her head, she took off her stockings and let her feet dangle in the water. And then, feeling wonderfully wicked, she removed the pins from her hair and shook her head. Someday, she thought, someday she’d be able do to what she wanted, go where she wanted. Someday.
Leaning forward, she propped her elbows on her knees and stared into the water. She looked like a wanton, she mused, barefooted, with her hair tumbling down around her shoulders. If her mother could see her now, she’d likely swoon.
With a sigh, Beth dragged her hand through the water, blurring the image. She was so tired of living at home, tired of her mother’s nagging, her father’s matchmaking. Tired of having to act like a lady when she wanted to ride astride like a man, when she wanted to learn to hunt and fish, to spend the night under the stars.
Sometimes she hated having to wear corsets and bloomers and layers of petticoats. Sometimes she wanted to shed all the trappings of civilization and swim naked in the river. She wanted to go barefooted in the summer, to climb trees, and dance in the rain, and say what she really meant instead of what was expected.
Not that she wasn’t happy being a
woman. She loved parties and pretty clothes and dressing up, it was just that women—ladies—were always expected to act like ladies.
“Oh, bother,” she muttered. What was the use of wishing for things that could never be? Why think of flouting convention when she didn’t have the nerve? Letting Dusty court her took all the nerve she possessed, even though she knew her parents would never let them marry.
She frowned at her reflection, then stuck out her tongue. “Coward,” she muttered. “You know you’ll marry Ernest Toombs, just like your father wants, and spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
She closed her eyes, wishing she could swear. She was searching her mind for a mild epithet that might relieve her frustration when she heard a noise behind her.
Startled, her eyes flew open. She saw him then, or rather his reflection, in the water beside her. A tall man with long black hair and dark-copper skin. His face was all sharp planes and angles, totally masculine. Totally beautiful. Dark brows arched above dark eyes that were slightly slanted at the corners. His shoulders were broad beneath a faded blue cotton shirt. His legs were long, his feet encased in a pair of well-worn moccasins.
An Indian. Her heart seemed to stop, then began to pound heavily in her breast. There was nothing to fear, she told herself. There weren’t any wild Indians roaming the countryside anymore.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she glanced over her shoulder and found herself staring into a pair of the most beautiful black eyes she had ever seen. Familiar eyes.
“Oh, my,” she murmured, recognizing the man she had seen briefly in town. “Oh, my.”
Chase frowned, confused by her odd greeting.
Hardly aware that she was moving, Beth stood up. And smiled. “Hello.”
Chase nodded, his gaze moving over the girl. It was her, the girl he had seen in town. But how different she looked now! Before, he had noticed nothing but her eyes. Her hair, the color of wild honey, had been hidden beneath a floppy-brimmed hat. Now it tumbled over her shoulders and down her back in wild disarray. She wore a yellow dress that clung to her breasts, then flared out at the waist. An incredibly tiny waist, he noted. Her skin was a pale golden-brown; a handful of freckles were scattered across her cheeks. Bare feet peeked out from the hem of her skirt.
Chase the Wind (Apache Runaway Book 2) Page 4
