She took his hand—so strong and perfect in hers—and led him across the creek to the far bank. They hiked up the hillside until they emerged in a small, flat clearing among the pines.
Much later, after the sun had gone down, they dined on baked camas bulb cakes, scrambled quail eggs with pine nuts, and miner’s lettuce. Claire thought she’d never had such a happy feast.
The moon rose, and the firelight licked at their faces as they held hands, gazing into the orange flames.
“Do you think the circle has been completed now?” she ventured.
One corner of his mouth curved up. “Many times over.”
In feigned shock, she gave his shoulder a chiding punch, then murmured, “I think your grandmother must be happy.”
“Her spirit will find its way home now.”
Claire stared down at their joined hands. “And what about us? Will we find our way home?”
He was silent for so long that she began to worry that he might not answer her or that, if he did, it would be with something she didn’t want to hear.
At last he spoke. “We’ve found our way to each other. For now, that’s enough.”
She nodded and leaned against him.
They made tender love one last time under the stars before the embers died. In the sweet aftermath, as they snuggled together on a lush bed of grass, he folded his arms around her.
“Niwhdin, Claire Parker,” he whispered in her ear.
“What does that mean?”
“I love you.”
Her already throbbing heart swelled, and she let out a sigh of contentment. “Niwhdin, Chase Wolf,” she told him. “Forever.”
Forever. The future might be unclear. The way forward might be full of challenges. Where they would go…what they would do…she couldn’t be certain. But with Chase by her side, Claire knew she could face whatever hardships came and that, very soon, their story would have the perfect happily ever after.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Chapter 18
Samuel Parker had always been an early riser, not so much because ranch work required it, but because he liked looking at the world before it fully awoke. He’d forgotten how pretty the ridge was in springtime. The air was chill, the trees were quiet, and the flighty sky changed colors like a woman making up her mind about what to wear.
Silently hiking up the ridge now by the gray-pink light the dawn had decided upon, he paused and turned to look out over the canyon. From his high vantage point at the brink of the pool, the distant forest on the opposite ridge, crowded with pine and fir, looked hazy blue. Fine morning mist settled over the lush basin below, painting the meadow like milk glazing a bowl.
The last time he’d come to this place, Margaret had been alive and their daughter had been a little girl. How had so much time passed? Claire was a young woman now. He only prayed she’d live to be an old woman.
Ahead of him, Frank waited impatiently. He wouldn’t call out—stealth was their strategy now—but Samuel could tell by the eager glint in his eyes that they were close to their quarry.
The muddy tracks leading from the waterfall were recent. Frank waved two fingers, beckoning Samuel to follow him through the pines while the sun began to illuminate the forest in tiny patches.
They hiked uphill from the pool, passing through a thicket of deerbrush to emerge in a clearing guarded by pines. Through the dipping branches of the largest tree, among the ubiquitous red-brown of dust and rock and mulch, Samuel spied a patch of grass and something blue. At first, he didn’t know what he was seeing—maybe a lost saddle blanket or a discarded cloth sack. It partially covered some pale mound, and whatever lay underneath was as tangled and blanched as the roots of a fresh-fallen tree. He squinted his eyes, then widened them as the sun suddenly cast a damning finger of light on a lock of golden hair.
He staggered, and the rifle dropped from his fingers. His gut sank as if a mule had kicked him, stealing his breath, battering his heart.
His little girl. His little girl lay there. As still as death. As still as her mother when...
Frank hissed out an oath, breaking into his thoughts. To Samuel’s immense relief, the shape beneath the blanket stirred at the sound.
That relief yanked Samuel’s lungs back where they belonged, but his belly was still as churned up as butter, and he clenched his trembling jaw to hold back tears of gratitude.
Then he spied the second head, one topped with hair as black as midnight. He froze, first with astonishment, then with horror, then with rage. And while he was circling that corral of emotions, he let Frank get away from him.
Not afflicted by a father’s paralysis, Frank had no qualms about taking matters into his own hands.
“You godforsaken son of a bitch!” Frank snarled.
The familiar voice jolted Claire to wide-eyed awareness. She gasped, and in that one breath, realized where she was, how she was dressed, or rather not dressed, whose arm cradled her with casual intimacy, and who stood not a dozen feet beyond her approaching fiancé, quivering with fury.
Chase’s arm was violently wrenched from around her waist, jerking aside the shirt covering her as well, which left her naked. She shrieked and caught a fleeting look of lurid hunger and rage in Frank’s gaze.
He raised his rifle now, aiming it with unflinching malice at Chase, helpless on his back beside her. In another moment, he’d fire.
"No!" she cried. “No, Frank! Don’t!"
There was a depraved gleam in Frank’s gaze, and his lips pulled back in a sneer as he cocked the hammer of the gun.
“No!” she screamed.
She reached out toward Chase to protect him. But when she would have thrown herself over him to intercept the bullet, Chase thrust out a hand and pushed her roughly away. His mouth was grim, his eyes dark and inscrutable.
The rebuke hurt her heart more than her body. For a moment, she lay there, stunned. Frank would shoot him now. Frank would shoot and kill Chase Wolf.
"Let him up, Frank," her father growled, trudging forward.
Samuel was quaking with suppressed anger, but, to Claire’s relief, his eyes had none of the bloodlust that transfixed Frank. He shrugged off his canvas coat and draped it over her.
"Let him up, I said." He knocked Frank’s rifle barrel aside with his own.
Claire bit her lip. Frank’s enthusiasm was thwarted for only a moment before the barbarous glimmer returned to his eyes.
"You gonna scalp him first?" he asked.
"No!" Claire choked on her words. "Please, Father, no. This is all a misunderstanding. Just let me explain. It’s not what you..."
Her father’s glare, injured but stern, silenced her.
"You. Get up," he told Chase, raising his rifle.
Chase hesitated, staring intently at her father, as if he peered into the man’s soul. Then he slowly came to his feet.
Chase towered over them, and his muscular chest and shoulders gave him more breadth than either of the men, even Frank with his padded coat. Claire was sure Chase could have bested them with his bare hands, were it not for their guns.
Frank shifted uneasily, as if his prize livestock were in danger of getting away. "Of course, we don’t want to do anything that might offend Miss Claire’s sensibilities. Maybe you should take her off a ways into the woods until I—"
"No, Frank,” her father said, weighing Chase’s measure with his gaze. “There isn’t going to be any scalping.”
"But, sir, look what he did to her hair." The childish disappointment on Frank’s face sickened Claire.
"Bring me a rope."
Claire’s heart plummeted. Her father wasn’t going to scalp Chase. He was going to hang him.
"Yes, sir," Frank replied.
"No, Father! You don’t understand. None of this was his idea. It was my fault. I was the one—"
"We’ll discuss the particulars another time," he muttered between his teeth, refusing to look at her.
She knew what he left unsaid. They
wouldn't speak of it here, in public. Where her father was concerned, it was a subject to keep behind closed doors, away from society’s ears. He wouldn’t want to discuss it until they were safely alone within the walls of Parker House and probably not even then.
But Claire was fed up with propriety and keeping a stiff upper lip and staying silent about things that needed airing.
“There won’t be another time, Father, and you know it.” She was shaking like a leaf. She wasn’t used to standing up to her father, and she had to steel herself against his glare of disapproval. “You’re making a mistake, and I won’t be silenced. This is not what it looks like. It’s not his fault. I…I ran away with him, and then I coerced—”
“No,” Chase broke in. “That’s not true at all, Claire, and you know it. I won’t let you lie for me. I stole you, pure and simple.”
“Turn around,” her father said, taking the rope from Frank.
Claire’s heart slammed against her ribs. This couldn’t be happening. She wouldn’t let it. She cast about, looking for something, anything, she might use as a weapon. She might not be as brave or brawny as Buckskin Bill, but she was desperate, and that counted for something.
Her glance landed on a long stick, a sharp rock, a pine cone. And then she realized that Chase still had his knife in his belt. Why hadn’t he used it?
Rather than waste valuable time wondering, she reached across and drew the knife from its sheath herself.
Chase made a grab for her arm and missed. In that split-second, she managed to get the blade up to Frank’s throat. Frank’s eyes and hands went wide, and a heady thrill of power went through her as she forced him back from Chase and her father.
“Let him go, Father!” she cried.
Her father paused with the rope.
Frank narrowed his eyes at her in disbelief and disgust. “Are you defending him? The no-count Injun who stole you?” He dropped his hands and might have knocked aside her blade, but she pressed her advantage, nicking his neck, which made him squeak in surprise.
“Claire, put down the blade.” It was Chase, not her father, who said it.
“I will not. I won’t stand by while my father hangs the man I love.”
“What?” Frank was noticeably shocked. “The man you…I’m the man you love.”
Claire gave a guilty gulp, but she didn’t move the knife. “I’m sorry, Frank. I should have told you sooner. You’ve been a…a good friend. But I never loved you, not the way a woman is supposed to love her husband.”
“What are you saying, Claire? Are you leaving me?” he whined. “For this savage?” His dismay quickly turned to a panicked anger. “Well, I think your father might have something to say about that.”
Claire’s father cleared his throat, but that was all.
“Claire,” Chase said again, “put away the knife before someone gets hurt.”
Claire shook her head. She wasn’t about to give up her leverage, not with Chase’s life at risk.
“Mr. Parker?” Frank prodded. “Are you going to stand for this?”
“I really don’t have much choice, Frank,” he replied. “She has got a knife at your throat.”
“Lay down your rifle, Father,” she said, “and that noose.”
“Noose?” He frowned in consternation, but he complied, tossing the rope and rifle onto the leaves.
Claire was proud of herself. She was beginning to feel like a regular Dashing Dick. All she had to do now was confiscate the guns, and she and Chase could make a clean getaway.
Like a perfect sidekick that needed no prompting, Chase swept up the discarded rifle and swung the barrel around toward Frank.
“Go ahead and back away, Claire. I’ve got him.”
For a moment, she hesitated. Chase’s mouth was grim, his eyes icy, his jaw hard. He looked like the villain who’d kidnapped her days before.
He wouldn’t shoot Frank outright, would he? And her father…Chase had spoken of vengeance against her father. Surely he didn’t intend to kill them both in cold blood. The man she’d made love to last night didn’t seem capable of such violence. But the man who’d snatched her from her home and dragged her across the countryside did.
“Don’t…hurt him,” Claire said, realizing the inanity of her words even as she said them. After all, she was the one holding Frank at knifepoint.
“Not unless he gives me a reason,” Chase promised, though she feared one more sneer might be enough of a reason.
She supposed she’d just have to trust Yoema’s grandson. She backed away, lowering the knife.
Keeping the gun trained on Frank, Chase commanded, “On your belly.”
“What?” Frank replied with a nervous bark of a laugh.
“You heard me.”
“Now hold on a goddam minute. I’m not going to let a goddam Injun—“
“On your belly!” Chase snarled. “And stop cursing in front of the lady.”
Frank hesitated a moment too long, and Chase cocked the gun.
Claire gasped. “For the love of god, Frank, do as he says.”
Frank reluctantly complied, though he managed a final threat as he stretched out on the dusty leaves. “You’re a dead man.”
Claire could see that Frank was so full of hate, it was deafening him to reason. Indeed, it was probably for the best that Chase had ordered him to the ground, because Frank seemed as volatile as rigged dynamite.
Whatever hopes Claire had had that somehow she and Chase could return to her father’s ranch and live in peace were shattered. She’d been a fool to think that was ever a possibility. Exposing Chase to Paradise society would be like bringing a wild wolf into a pack of yapping terriers.
Chase did look like his spirit animal now—intense, calculating, and dangerous. In Claire’s eagerness to make a daring escape with Chase the lover, she’d forgotten he was also Chase the avenger. Quiet rage simmered in his dark eyes.
She wasn’t afraid of him, not really. She knew he wouldn’t harm her. He’d told her he had no quarrel with her, that she couldn’t be held accountable for the sins of her father. But she knew he still blamed her father for what had happened to Yoema, to his family.
How stupidly naïve she’d been to imagine the past could be so easily repaired, that everything would end as neatly as her dime novels.
“Give me the knife, Claire,” Chase bit out, “and that rope.”
A startling image of Frank being scalped and hanged popped into her mind. She bit her lip and shook her head.
Chase’s frown relaxed, and he told her, “It’s not a noose. I just want to tie him up so we don’t have to keep a rifle trained on him.”
She released her breath and nodded. Of course. But if it wasn’t a noose, maybe her father hadn’t meant to hang Chase after all. She backed away from Frank and handed the knife to Chase. “I can cover you while you tie him up,” she offered, holding her hands out for the gun.
Chase looked dubious. He probably figured she didn’t know how to handle a rifle. But she did. She was deadly when it came to tin cans.
“All right,” he said, carefully transferring the rifle to her. “Just don’t get trigger-happy.”
While Claire kept Frank in her sights, Chase cut the rope in half.
“Hands behind your back,” he ordered.
“I won’t forget this,” Frank threatened as Chase tied his wrists together and then joined his ankles to bind them as well.
Her father watched the proceedings with mild interest. “So how did you do it?” he asked Chase. “Was she in your room at the saloon that day? Under the bed maybe? Or trussed up somewhere?”
Chase scowled, tightening the rope between Frank’s wrists and ankles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Frank sneered and jerked at his bonds. “See, Mr. Parker? I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him.”
Chase didn't understand what game they were playing. He was sure he'd never seen the two white men before. But then whites often twisted words and events
to suit their purposes. Sometimes they even created history to salve their guilty consciences.
He finished off the knot, and Frank squirmed in impotent rage. It was probably a good thing the man was hogtied and helpless, since he looked like he’d love to beat the hell out of a half-breed like him. And if Frank so much as lifted a finger, he was pretty sure Claire would plug him full of lead.
How could Claire have considered marrying this man? He might be handsome by white standards, with his fair hair and light eyes and pale skin. And by the quality of his clothing, which was less worn and more ornate than Parker’s, he might be wealthy. But though he wore a gentleman’s garments, he was no gentleman. A streak of evil tainted him like poison leaching into a spring.
Chase stood, and Claire lowered the rifle. Then he turned to Samuel Parker with the second piece of rope. “I'd rather not have to tie you up. Can we talk like reasonable men?”
Though Parker’s scowl was black, he answered, “Speak your piece.”
Chase retrieved his shirt, hunkered down, and gestured to the rancher to have a seat. The man smoothed his mustache, eyed his discarded rifle, decided it was too far away to make a play for it, and then lowered himself onto a nearby rock with a sigh. Claire wrapped her father’s coat around her and sat in the leaves.
Chase had thought long and hard on the matter of revenge, even before Samuel Parker had sneaked into his camp. He’d considered what price he’d extract from the rancher that could possibly equal what had been done to his family. And he’d at last decided how Parker’s debt could be repaid.
First, he intended to take the man’s daughter from him. Of course, it would be with her permission, and she’d be free to visit him whenever she liked. But he was going to take her home with him to Hupa and make her his woman.
Second, before he did that, he intended to force Parker to tell his daughter the truth. She should know what kind of man her father truly was.
“No matter what Claire says,” Chase began, slipping on his shirt, “it’s true, I stole her.”
Claire protested. “But you didn’t—”
He stopped her with an upraised palm. “I took her against her will. I admit that. But I didn’t intend to steal her. I meant to steal you.”
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