But the heat in his eyes offered a promise his lips could not say. Did she want what he could give? Would there ever be a place where men wouldn’t come after him again? She closed her eyes. Would she let him kill to bring them a chance? She couldn’t think clearly and found after a few moments she didn’t want to try.
Into her silence he read her fear to trust him. Or maybe she did hate him. His mouth tightened. Would she betray him? Her silence battered his instinctive male need to guard and protect. Rolling over, he pinned her body beneath him. Jenny’s kiss told him all he wanted to know. Her lips were cold, tight, and sealed against him. With part of his answer, his kiss grew savage, a hot demand that ignored her cry of pain. His full length was hard, taut, and filled with a force he couldn’t control.
“Don’t,” she moaned, knowing he’d want all.
“Yes, Jen, yes.” He rocked against her, all heat, all driving male demand. With his hands braced on the ground to either side of her, his arms took the weight of his upper body. Her cry was kitten soft when she felt the grinding thrust of his hips.
Wildly shaking her head, she muttered half formed words melded with choked moans that shut out awareness of all but Charmas.
“Feel me, Jen. Feel what you do to me. Look at me … I want you, Wildflower. Warm and open, wanting me, too,” he growled in a passion-thickened voice, fiercely thrusting against her. “I want you to need me, Jen,” came his soft whisper, and then, softer yet, his lips grazing her cheek, he added, “needing me alone.”
Didn’t he know? she thought. Couldn’t he see how much he was tearing into her? How dare he ask this of her now? She had to deny him. Straining her cheek against the hard mossy earth until the scent of musty decay rose, Jenny opened her eyes. His lips nudged aside her hair, until he bared her neck. Heat shivered in every breath like a hot summer wind against her flesh. “Charmas.” His name and her breath exploded together. “Don’t. I can’t. He … Jonas …”
And Jenny’s eyes found Charmas, the man whose warmth sought all of her, the lover who wanted her to give herself totally.
“Don’t you think I know?” His lips found and teased the tiny pulse in her throat. Against it he murmured, “I want to take away every touch, any memory of him, until there’s only me. Love me, Jen. Make the wildness come back for me.” Nibbling her chin, he coaxed her again. “Kiss me, Jen. Taste only my lips now.” Driven by emotion as strong as his body’s need to possess her, his voice was a bare thread of sound. “Take me, Jen. Take me inside you where the wildflower lives.”
“Charmas. Charmas, I can’t say no to you, I need you so. Oh God, how I need you,” she half sobbed, drawing his mouth to her own as he slid the worn denims from her hips. “Love me. Love me till there’s no one but us, nothing but what we shared together.”
In moments their passion reduced them to a searing ripple of joined flesh that exploded in a wanton exaltation, surpassing need, desire, or dreams. There was almost pain in becoming separated in the minutes that followed. Then Charmas held her in his arms. Neither spoke. It was beyond them to talk. Where would they find words to express a joining that left their throats parched, bodies shaking, and minds reeling from where their love had taken them?
Jenny found release from her turbulent emotions in tears and his palm enfolded her cheek. A savage pain lanced him, thinking her crying was out of shame. “Jen, don’t cry now. Not after this. He can’t mean anything to you.” And savagery rode his voice. “You’re mine, Wildflower, never his.” Kissing her fingers that moved to silence him, he murmured against their tips, “I can’t let you go. I won’t.”
“Charmas,” she sighed, “don’t do this to me. Don’t force me to make a choice between you and my son now. I can’t. I must go back. Jonas will go after Robby if I don’t.” His eyes denied her, glittering with fierce, hot pride. And she felt the pain of what she had to say tear her in two. “I’m still his wife, Charmas.”
“Don’t you dare claim that!” He held her tight, his fingers gripping her with force until he heeded her cry and eased them. Shaking against her, burying his face in the tangle of her hair that rubbed like raw silk against his skin, he wanted only to keep her safe and near him. “He can’t have you,” Charmas whispered harshly.
For a moment she longed to tell him what she planned, but only for that time. Her son must concern her; Charmas had the power to make her forget, but she must not do so now. Leaving him was cutting away a piece of herself, but she didn’t want to see Charmas killed, and if Jonas found them together he would do just that.
“Let me go. Now. I need to protect my son.” Jenny gave him no chance to speak, clamping her hand over his mouth, her eyes warning him to silence, while she listened. Was it merely the wind or someone close by? She wasn’t certain. Fear lent her strength to shove him off balance. “Keep Robby safe!”
For a stunned moment he lay where he fell.
“Damn you to hell, Jenny!”
Chapter Twenty
Jenny scrambled down a slope adjacent to the corral. Six horses stood within the split-rail fence. Now she could help Charmas trap the men he was after and keep Jonas from going after Robby at the same time. She would be free. Yet, she hesitated, her courage faltering at the thought of being caught.
The snap of a twig behind her made Jenny spin around. “Jonas,” she mouthed, unable to speak.
“Gage figured you’d try to run. They’re all out looking for you. Where’s Robby?”
“Safe.”
His eyes held the chilling mockery of his smile. Before Jenny could move, she felt the harsh bite of his grip on her hair. “I warned you, didn’t I?” he growled, wrapping his fist into her hair, shaking her.
Instinctively shrinking from him, Jenny couldn’t answer. He twisted her hair tight, then tighter yet, bringing tears to her eyes. Her try for his gun ended with her on her knees. He barely gave her time to stand before forcing her down the slope toward her cabin. Her neck arched high and he grinned.
“I won’t break your neck,” he threatened. “But I’ll break you if it’s the last thing I do.”
And once more she heard Charmas damning her to hell.
“Mom shouldn’t have gone back there, Ben,” Robby said, moving restlessly across from him. “I told her I was afraid of them. I know she was, too,” he added, frowning. “I wish he’d never come back.”
Ben stared off into the darkness for a few minutes gathering his own thoughts. Finding Robby at Mac Peters’s only confirmed his gut feeling that something was very wrong. He thought about Sam—the man Robby claimed was called Charmas Kilkenny—and wondered where he was now. Shaking his head, he couldn’t figure why Charmas let Jenny go back there at all. He had to know what would happen to her, if it hadn’t already. And to make sure there’d been no mistake, he asked Robby again.
Nodding his head, Robby said, “I was running when I heard someone come after me. I got real scared and circled back to where Mom left me. That’s when I saw it was Charmas with her. I heard them talk and…” His voice faded and he hastily averted his gaze. When Ben didn’t say anything, Robby sighed, not really understanding. “He seemed real sad, like he didn’t want to let her go back there.”
Very carefully, Ben chose his words. “Robby, if a man like Charmas cared deep for someone, he would find it hard to let them be where they could get hurt.” Ben chose to ignore the undercurrents in the boy’s voice and glanced over the rough camp he’d made at the edge of town. Mac had wanted them to stay with him, but Ben needed the open. He couldn’t stay any longer either; there was too much that needed doing. “If you’re finished with that chow, boy, I’d best get you to Mac. I’ll go on up home and see to your ma.”
Ben closed his eyes briefly, thinking of the time he’d patched up Jonas’s wounds when Jenny had shot him. He’d warned Jonas then that if he ever dared come back here he would kill him. Maybe he’d been wrong to let Jenny think all this time that she’d killed Jonas. He didn’t know. A
t the time it had seemed best.
Taking a deep breath, he felt the surge of warm air fill him. Lifting his head, he scanned the star-studded night sky. Snow. The air held that special, breathless warmth it had before a winter storm.
“Ben? You didn’t answer me,” Robby reminded him.
“You might not like the way I’d need to help Charmas, son. So think ‘bout your answer. Would you want me to?”
“Yes.”
The answer was snapped quickly, yet Ben had doubts whether the boy understood all it implied. “I’m thinkin’ you’d be wishin’ you were a mite older right now, boy, and big enough to take ‘em on yourself. Don’t, Robby,” he added, seeing the answer etched in a boy’s face. “There ain’t a need. I’m here and Charmas is, too. Ain’t one of us gonna let anythin’ happen to hurt your ma again. It’s late. We need to move.”
It was night before Jenny dragged herself from her bed. She could hear the wind rise and sweep through the cracks of the cabin. Snow would come before morning. Unsteadily she managed to walk to the fireplace. She stood there a long time, looking down at the ashes in the hearth. Without thought she reached down to touch the water bucket. It was cold to her hand. She forced herself to kneel and bathe her face. The icy chill of the water stung her skin and she moaned.
Moving very slowly and refusing to think, she stood up, crossing the room to the door. The bolt had never seemed so heavy in her hands as it did now. But she found the strength to lower it and thereby shut out any who would enter. Returning to the fireplace, she built the fire with care, waiting on her bare knees, ignoring the roughness of stone as she fed the large bits of kindling and finally the small logs. She cared for nothing but the warmth it would bring. When the fire was high, sending its warm, wavering light to tease the shadowed corners, she made herself fill the iron kettle and set it on the hook to heat. Patiently, she remained there, waiting until the water boiled and steam curled. It was a long time. All her moves were slow, her thoughts empty as she filled the small basin and began to wash.
She didn’t feel the searing heat of the water and did not see the redness it brought to her skin. The pain did not matter. She only wanted to feel clean.
And she thought she would never feel that way again.
It was only when the water cooled that she stopped and made her way to the wood box. She piled the kindling to one side, then lifted the false board on its bottom.
There, wrapped in oilcloth, was her father’s gun, his hunting knife, and a small doeskin bag. She handled them as if they were fragile, lifting them out and setting them in a row before her.
Staring at the flames for a moment more, she reached for the small soft-skinned bag. Opening it carefully, she poured the dried sage into the palm of her hand. It had been too many years since she had thought of her Indian heritage, too many times when the past had made her ashamed of it. But not now. Now was the time for remembering the ritual of cleansing. Closing her fingers till the dried leaves cracked, its light scent teasing her memory, Jenny quickly tossed them into the fire. She should have made tea with the leaves first; tea would have purified her insides before she burned the leaves. But even as the leaves burned, she knew nothing would cleanse her soul. She tossed the bag into the fire.
And once again, with studied moves, she emptied the chest at the foot of her bed. Her eyes avoided looking at the place she had given birth to her son. She was almost to the bottom when her hand closed over the softness of her father’s buckskins. Smoothing the shirt and pants over and over with a gentle, caressing motion, she prayed it would bring her ease. But the touching brought nothing close to her. She was alone and there was no ease for the torment that filled her.
Unsteadily she rose to her feet, and jerkily she put the buckskins on. They were too large, but stoically she rolled and tied them until she made them fit her. Seated on the floor, she placed the softest of tanned moccasins on her feet. They were the last of her father’s gifts to her. Her fingers moved deftly, tying the rawhide thongs tight around her calves. She slipped the knife into the sheath at her side and then, in a moment of indecision, reached out for her hairbrush.
Her hand brought it up and fell to her side, then she flung that too into the fireplace. Although her hair was now gone, it was the least of her degradation. Searching again at the bottom of the chest, she brought forth a beaded headband and tied it quickly around her forehead.
Then she went for the gun.
All this time, she had not allowed herself to think of what passed or what she must do, not even when she unbolted the door and took her buckskin jacket from the hook beside it. It was an automatic motion; it had nothing to do with thought of the cold beyond the cabin. She could feel nothing beyond the coldness numbing her.
She thought of the man she had wed and of the child she had labored alone to bear him. She thought of the pride and hope that had flared and then died a little more each time he cut away the small thoughts of love. She remembered the pledge they made before her father as he died, and later, before a man who had blessed them. Repeating to herself each of those vows, Jenny thought of how each had been broken. She did not think of Charmas Kilkenny or the promise he had once offered. She would not allow herself to do so now.
The woman he knew was no more. Jonas had broken her.
And releasing a deep breath, she murmured to the night the words she had never spoken before a preacher: “Till death do us part.”
Flowing with the shadows, she made her way down the path till she stood beneath the great pine whose heavy branches brushed against the back of Ben’s cabin. Light from the shuttered window spilled and pooled at her feet. The hint of a frown creased her brow as she stood, listening to the sounds of drunken laughter. A few moments later she moved on down past the cabin and turned toward the corral, which was lit with hard moonlight. Her sorrel mare nickered softly and came to her from the far rail.
Jenny felt the warmth of the horse’s breath against her cheek. Reaching up with one hand to stroke the mare’s velvet nose through the pole fence, she lifted the top pole, careful not to make noise. The second pole followed and the horses crowded close. Their restless stampings on the hard-packed earth were soft sounds. She smiled coldly as she worked. Softly then, her voice came to talk to the horses, crooning sounds and words.
When the last pole was set aside, Jenny’s mare daintily came through the opening. Jenny didn’t look to see if the other horses followed. They were horses. And Jenny knew her horses. They came slowly to the edge of the wood, but it was not far enough. A little way farther, Jenny stopped and stroked her mare. “Go. Take them to ride the wind with you tonight.” Her slap was firm against the mare’s rump. The sorrel shot off through the woods. Jenny knew she would head up the slope till she found the wild herd from where she once came.
And Jenny smiled again to see Robby’s young mare take the lead. She had been brought from the canyon just this spring and still had the scent of the wild mountain grass. Now there were no horses. There would be no escape for them. They would be hunted if they ran—and Jenny knew the woods.
From the bam she took their canteens. The wind wrapped its coldness around her and she went back inside only to emerge carrying two blankets. At a slight run she set off down the path toward the creek. Tonight she would find shelter and rest.
Tomorrow she would begin her hunt.
It was quiet. There was a frozen instant when her ears caught sound, when all her instincts made her drop suddenly to the ground and roll over until she was safely away from her small shelter. All was still, unmoving, as she lay there, scarcely able to breathe. There was nothing and yet there was. With her nose pressed to the ground, her belly pricked by dry pine needles, she stayed motionless and listened. The sudden jolt of metal against her back made her start.
“Get up an’ turn ‘round, real slow.”
The deep bass gruffness of the man’s voice had her rise, then spin around. She flung herself at him only to have
the barrel of his rifle jab her belly and push her back.
“Ben? Oh, Ben, can’t you see it’s me? It’s Jenny.”
His head rose slowly as he sucked in gulping breaths of air. He thought blinking his eyes would help, for he was sure he was not seeing what was there before him. He heard her imploring voice pleading with him, and he shook his head in denial. But when he stopped and looked again, she was still there. It took him a few minutes before he realized he still held his rifle on her, and slowly he lowered it, then flung it aside. His arms opened wide and caught her slender form against him.
“I thought you were a boy. What’d you do to your hair?” he asked more angrily than he intended.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. It was even harder to speak. Her hands slowly rose to touch the ragged wisps of shorn hair.
“I didn’t do this, Ben. Jonas did. He cut my hair. It’s an Indian punishment for adultery. He said that before he used his knife to hack it off. He wanted to slit my nose, but Gage stopped him.”
One large hand reached out and covered her own where it had settled on the side of her head. He forced himself to touch the short spikes of hair, swallowed against the sickness that rose like a grizzly ready to attack. He dropped his hand and picked up his rifle. “Come,” was all he said, starting off into the woods.
Jenny followed. Her strength was nearing its end now. They walked deeper into the forest until the cabins were hidden from them. Jenny didn’t think they could ever walk far enough away from them. Shame flushed her with Ben’s continued silence until they reached a small clearing. He set about adding sticks to the almost-dead fire without looking at her. His attitude drove the pain deeper. Did Ben blame her?
She was still the same Jenny, he told himself. Yet he had to force each look at her. In the light of the fire he could see her face clearly and he swallowed growls of rage. He didn’t need to ask questions. And she, he could tell from the tight set of her mouth, wasn’t about to volunteer any information. He had to stop himself from leaving there and then to complete his plan for morning. But he couldn’t leave her alone now.
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