That was not a good sign. No, not good at all. And it sure as hell wasn't safe. In fact, his fascination with all things white and prissy could wind up being lethal for them both.
Maybe Amanda couldn't see the trouble their being together would bring, but Jake knew. Hell, he'd already lived through the experience once. His jaded eyes saw what hers could not. He saw the pain ahead of them with graphic clarity, and he wanted no damn part of it.
"We're going to the cabin, aren't we?" Amanda asked as she snuggled against him. Something, she wasn't sure what, had changed since he'd helped her onto the horse. Then, they'd moved together, in tune to each other, in tune to the white as it jostled them. Now, the tension in his body, the tension in hers, made them move awkwardly apart.
"You are," he corrected. Though his drawl was lazy and thick, there was an edge to his words. "Like I told you, I'll meet you back here in a couple of days, once the storm's over."
Her shoulders sagged. Her chin lowered, and her head hung limply on her neck. A defeated little sigh whispered past her lips. "I thought you'd changed your mind. I really thought—"
"Wrong," he grumbled, and shifted so his body was no longer gloving her slender back and temptingly soft bottom. "As usual, you thought wrong." Sighing, Jake plowed the fingers of his free hand through his cool, damp hair and shook his head. He was glad Amanda wasn't looking at him, glad she couldn't see how much his next words cost him. The fingers cushioned atop her thigh tightened, squeezing the tender white flesh beneath the bunched folds of calico. He hesitated, then his touch melted away. "Time you faced facts, princess. What happened between us was inevitable. And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't good." He swallowed hard. "It was. Real good. But it doesn't change a damn thing."
"It doesn't change the color of my skin, in other words," she whispered shakily under her breath, more to herself than to him. Amanda thought she should have known better, should have known Jake would hear. She should have learned by now that little snuck past the man.
"I've slept with white women before, princess," he said flatly. "The color of your skin doesn't bother me much. At least it doesn't bother me in the ways you think."
If he'd slapped her, his words couldn't have had a greater impact. Amanda's chin snapped up, and he grunted when the top of her head bumped his jaw. Her spine went rigid. Her heart drummed a painful, erratic beat against her ribs. "You told me you'd only been with one white woman. You said—"
"White lady," he growled. "I said I'd only been with one white lady. And," he sucked in a long, thoughtful breath, "yeah, I'd have to stand by that. I've still only been with one,"
Her voice humiliated her by cracking. "You don't count me?"
"Un-uh." Jake paused, then very coldly, very precisely, drawled, "Don't sound so surprised, Amanda. I mean, you're close, I'll give you that. On the outside you're all prissy politeness and manners, but we both know that's only a front. Because on the inside, you're hotter than a burning coal. On the inside, Amanda Lennox, you ain't no lady."
Amanda had spent too many years trying to emulate her mother's memory to appreciate hearing those words. All right, maybe ladies didn't sleep with half-wild savages and enjoy it, not the way she had. In that respect, maybe she wasn't as refined as she hoped. But she was still a lady, Goddammit! And why couldn't Jake see that?
"Want me to tell you why?" Jake asked.
Despite her resolve not to, Amanda nodded.
He leaned forward, molding his chest to her back. He was close enough for his breath to blast hotly in her ear as he drawled, "Ladies don't scream when they come, princess. Not the way you did."
"I didn't!" she gasped, and felt her cheeks heat even as her mind raced. She had not screamed... had she? Oh Lord, she couldn't remember. All Amanda remembered about that particular moment was the wonder, the breathtaking feelings. Her body had exploded in fiery white sparks. Delicious spasms of sensation had consumed all her attention. She was still tingling with the aftereffects! If she'd cried out, she hadn't heard it, didn't remember it. But if she had cried out the way Jake said she had... then he was right. She was no lady.
"I—I didn't," she repeated softly, and hesitated self-consciously. "Did I?"
"Um-hmmm. You don't remember?"
She shook her head.
Jake felt her tremble, and he leaned back quickly. The distance helped, but not much. That might have been because there wasn't a whole lot of distance between them. Certainly not as much as he would have liked. Her hips were wedged between his thighs. He remembered how the body pressing against him felt in his hands, how it felt to be sandwiched between those long, enticing white legs.
"I remember," he said gruffly. What he didn't tell her was that, if he lived to be a thousand, he'd never be able to forget. "You screamed, lady. You cried out my name, and your voice was all low and throaty and raw. Remember yet? It was just before your fingernails tore bloody ribbons down my back."
Her sob ripped through Jake. He tried not to let the soft, plaintive sound affect him. If he was going to stop this madness, he couldn't do it by half-measures. He would fulfill his obligation—he'd find her cousin, he owed her that much—but when it was over, when she had the kid back, he wanted the break between him and this white woman to be immediate and clean and as painless as possible. For them both. The only way to accomplish that was to keep their relationship as simple as possible. And to not, under any circumstances, lay with her again!
They crested the hill in silence, their passage marked by the sound of hoofbeats crunching over newly fallen snow. Jake reined in the white. Though he didn't glance down the snow-dusted slope, he knew the cabin was there. Things around these parts, in particular people's attitudes, rarely changed.
He looked at Amanda. Her head was down, the thick gold hairs that had escaped her braid concealed most of her expression from view. All he could see was the moist curve of the lower lip she was nibbling between her teeth. The lip trembled.
"Ready?" he asked, tearing his gaze away. When he felt her nod, he leaned to the side, helped her to the ground, and untied the mare. He held the reins out to her. She wasn't looking at him and didn't see the offer. "Amanda?"
Her gaze lifted, and her cheeks colored. Her breath quickened, as though she'd been surprised to hear his voice.
"Take the reins, princess. Hurry up. The snow's starting to come down harder."
Was it? she wondered. Odd, but she'd barely noticed, hadn't really cared. The weather was the least of her problems. Her gaze dropped to the hand Jake had extended. With concentration, her gaze managed to pull into focus the leather strips draped over his big copper hand. "Thank you," she mumbled, reaching for the reins.
Her trembling fingers grazed his roughened knuckles. The contact, though slight and blessedly brief, was electric.
Amanda snatched her hand back. Curling it into a fist, she hid it in the folds of her skirt. Her determination that Jake not see how deeply even that accidental touch affected her made her tilt her chin up proudly. Her gaze met his.
Jake saw the telltale moisture clinging to her lashes. Not all of the wetness could be attributed to melting snow. If he'd ever seen anything more heart-wrenching than the hurt shimmering in Amanda Lennox's big green eyes, he couldn't remember it. If his heart had ever fisted so painfully in his chest, he couldn't remember that either.
Amanda noticed Jake's wet, clinging clothes, his snow-damp hair and skin. She also saw the proud way he sat atop the white, the determined line that etched his hard jaw. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask where he was going, how he planned to spend his time until the storm passed. She bit the words back. That type of questioning smacked of caring, and instinct said Jake would shy away from that. Instead, she said, "When the storm ends, you will meet me back here, won't you?"
"I said I would."
"That isn't an answer, Mr. Chandler."
The muscle in Jake's cheek jerked, and he shifted his gaze to the falling snow. Why was she calling him Mr. Chandler again? It wa
sn't hard to guess. He'd reverted into a cold-hearted bastard. Why shouldn't Amanda retreat behind the polite facade of his surname?
He didn't know why he should care what she called him, but he did. It was annoying that she no longer felt comfortable enough to call him Jake. He told himself it didn't bother him—distance was, after all, what he wanted, what he'd gotten—but it did. It bothered him a lot.
"Believe it or not, Amanda, I'm a man of my word," he said finally, his voice giving away none of his inner turmoil. "I said I'd be back for you, and I will be. I can't help it if you don't trust me enough to believe me." He nodded to the downward, wooded slope of the hill. "Go."
Amanda went. She really had no choice. Huddling inside the warmth of her cloak, she went to the mare and climbed into the saddle. Having come from Jake's horse, the saddle felt hard and uncomfortable beneath her. There were other reasons for her discomfort, she knew, but none she would let herself dwell on.
She sent Jake one last, confused look, then flicked the reins and started picking her way down the hill.
Jake watched her go and, try though he did to deny it, he felt a part of him winding its way down that hill with her. What was it about that woman that affected him so strongly? What? Though he searched himself for a reasonable answer, he came up dry. Plain and simple, he didn't know.
He watched Amanda rein in the mare next to the door and dismount. She knocked, waited, then eventually the door opened. She shook off the snow and cold before entering the sweet, beckoning heat of the house.
Still Jake didn't leave. The snow swirled around him long after Amanda had been swallowed up by things he'd put in his past long ago—hospitality, shelter, friendship... love. They were foreign terms to a man like Jacob Blackhawk Chandler. But they weren't foreign to gently reared ladies like Amanda Lennox.
No matter what he'd told her to drive her away, Amanda was a lady to the core. That was why he'd had to anger her, had to let her go. Watching her pick her way down that hill had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. But he'd proved to himself he could do it. Jesus, how he'd needed to know that!
Jake sat atop the white, which was growing restless from the inclement weather, and stared at the cabin until a flutter of movement caught his attention. He glanced down, and was surprised to see that he'd removed Amanda's handkerchief from his pocket and was now clutching half of it in a white-knuckled fist. The linen flapped in the breeze and slapped at his thigh. It wasn't possible, but he could have sworn he felt that daintily embroidered A sear right through his pants leg, right into his skin and bloodstream.
Fifteen minutes later, Jake turned the horse away and rode into the storm.
Chapter 13
Amanda had assumed the couple living in the cabin were settlers from back East, people she would be comfortable staying with. Wasn't that what she'd been led to believe? Either she'd severely misunderstood things, or she'd again misjudged the ever-perplexing Jacob Blackhawk Chandler.
The man who opened the door to Amanda's insistent rapping was not the eager homesteader she expected. Oh, no. This man was a full-blooded Indian. Unlike Jake, he dressed the part.
Amanda had been studying the scuffed toes of her ankle boots. Her gaze shifted to the man's feet. She scanned the red-and-white beaded moccasins he wore, then traced upward over his thigh-high leggings. The weather-softened deerskin left no doubt as to the heavily muscled legs beneath. His britches were made out of the same material, and they were snug. An unadorned, tuniclike shirt, also deerskin, hung from his shoulders. While the garment was loose fitting, the slackness couldn't conceal the solid bands of muscle in his chest and biceps.
Like Jake's, this man's hair was long and straight and pitch-black. Unlike Jake's, his was gathered into two neat plaits that ribboned down over each broad shoulder.
His face was comprised of hard copper planes and angles. The high-bridged nose and wide brow Amanda recognized from Jake. The rest of his features were foreign to her. Weathered creases bracketed his thin mouth and suspicious brown eyes. The creases didn't look like they'd been put there from years of smiling.
Amanda took an instinctive step back, her gaze lifting those final few inches. She swallowed hard, and her hand fluttered at her throat when her attention was captured by a pair of eyes as cold and as shiny as shards of polished ebony.
"Jake Chandler sent me," she said, and it was a fight to make her voice sound calm and rational—not high and panicky, the way she felt.
The man's gaze narrowed. He assessed her in one cold, sweeping glance, then his attention snapped over her shoulders. He looked marginally relieved to see that she was alone.
Amanda forced a smile when his gaze returned to hers. He didn't return the gesture, but stepped aside, opened the door wider, and waved her in. One inky brow slanted high when she shook the snow off her cloak and head and then immediately complied.
Mustering up her courage and filing away what she was sure was—she hoped—an irrational fear born of surprise, Amanda stepped over the threshold. She told herself that Jake wouldn't have suggested she stay with these people if he didn't think they were safe. No, of course he wouldn't.
I can't help it if you don't trust me, he'd said. Well, she was trying to trust him, while at the same time proving to them both that she was not a shallow white princess. But... well, this was simply too much! The least Jake could have done was to warn her!
Perhaps this was Jake's way of testing her? Did he want to see how the prissy society lady would react to spending a few days alone with people she was supposed to feel were beneath her? Jake didn't seem the type who played such childish games. Then again, he wasn't exactly what she would call predictable. It was a possibility she couldn't dismiss.
Amanda squared her shoulders as she breezed past the man. If Jake was putting her to the test then, by God, she was going to pass it. Perhaps once she'd met this man's wife—Jake had said a young couple was living here, hadn't he?—she would feel more at ease. Somehow, Amanda rather doubted it, the same way she doubted she would be able to keep her anxiety a secret from probing brown eyes for very long.
The man who'd greeted her at the door was not a reassuring sight. Far from it. Everything about him—his rugged body, his impassive expression, his wary gaze—seemed coiled and tense, like a twisted wire ready to break. .
The door slammed shut. The sound was unnaturally loud, magnified all out of proportion by the taut silence.
Amanda shivered. She felt as if she had been thrown into a jail cell, with impenetrable iron bars being slammed into place, caging her in. Though she tried to shake the feeling off, it clung tight.
"Blackhawk sent you?" the man said thoughtfully. His words were slow and precisely spoken.
Amanda turned to face him, just as he moved away from the door. She watched as, with unnaturally quiet steps, he crossed to the center of the room. Lacing his arms over the firm wedge of his chest, he stared at her, stared through her.
A small fire crackled in the hearth at his back. The muted light came low to the ground, casting his features in indecipherable orange shadows. But that was all right. Amanda didn't need to see his face to know his suspicions were aroused. She felt it. An icy chill rippled over her shoulders.
"Yes, Jake sent me. Is...?" She discreetly scanned her surroundings. The lower floor of the cabin consisted of this one room and a closet carved into the far right wall. An old curtain fell in tattered folds from the top of the doorframe down to the freshly swept dirt floor. Thick, planked stairs edged the timbered wall to her left. Was the man's wife up there? If so, the woman was sitting in the dark; though Amanda squinted, she couldn't detect a shred of light coming from the upstairs room.
Her attention returned to the man, who was studying her as though she was some rare form of bird. "Where is your wife?"
His eyes narrowed cautiously. "Why?"
Amanda shrugged, her fingers playing nervously with the ribbons that secured her cloak beneath her chin. She considered untying the
m, then decided against it. At this rate, she wouldn't be here long enough to bother getting comfortable. "No reason. I just thought it would be nice to meet her... if she's here, that is. She is here, isn't she?"
"No, woman, you misunderstand," he said, and he shook his head. The fringed ends of his blacker-than-black braids bobbed against the solid wall of his chest. On this man, what she had thought of as a feminine decoration most assuredly was not. "My question was why Blackhawk sent you here, not why you would want to see my wife. You will tell me."
"Of course I'll tell you," Amanda snapped, her gaze shifting to the table on her right. Her legs felt watery, and her knees were shaking beneath her damp skirt. While she wanted nothing more than to sit before she collapsed, something told her a move like that would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. That was not the impression she was striving to convey.
"So, you will tell me," he insisted coldly.
Amanda waved a hand at the window. Her fear, oddly enough, made her bolder than she normally would have been. It loosened her tongue. She would not let this man intimidate her. Dammit, she would not! "I don't suppose you've looked outside recently?" she asked in her most proper Bostonian tone. "If you had, you would have noticed that it's storming. That's why Jake sent me here. He didn't want me caught out in it."
"And where is Blackhawk now?"
Amanda feigned an unconcerned shrug. "I imagine he had better things to do." She wouldn't tell this man the real reason Jake wouldn't come to the cabin with her, mostly because now that she'd seen who was living here, she wasn't sure of his reasons herself!
"You imagine?" He sighed impatiently. "In other words, you are only guessing?"
"Of course. If you know Jake Chandler at all, then you also know that no one knows what goes on inside that man's head."
Was it her imagination, or did a hint of a grin tug at one corner of his mouth? It could have been a trick of the light—he was standing mostly in shadow—but she didn't think so.
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