Innocent Fire

by Brenda Joyce

  “Bragg,” he responded. “So you’re scouting land for settlement?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’ve filed on four hundred thousand acres north of here, way up by the Red River. I hope to find three hundred families to settle it.”

  “Good luck,” Bragg said. “That’s very wild country up there.”

  “Good farming and cattle land,” McDermott said.

  Bragg nodded. “Do you know that man?” he asked, not quite so casually.

  “Ah, one of your wife’s ardent admirers.” McDermott glanced at the dark, bearded man. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “What about him?” Bragg turned a cool gaze on the Mexican, whose black eyes, just as unperturbed, met his glance in a slight salute—or a challenge.

  “Yes,” McDermott said, grimacing. “He’s a Comanchero.”

  Bragg tensed. So he had been right; the man was half Comanche.

  “His name is Chavez. Or that’s what he calls himself. He’s very dangerous.”

  “Was his mother or his father Comanche?”

  “His father was a chief. He is not the eldest son, however. It is rumored he has a Comanche wife. It is also rumored he has extensive land in Chihuahua, that his mother was a Spanish aristocrat.”

  Bragg lapsed into silence and fell into a waiting game.

  About an hour later, Chavez rose gracefully to his feet, sending Bragg a nonchalant smile. Bragg recognized the challenge. He watched as Chavez sauntered out, then, through the window to his right, he watched Chavez mount a magnificent black stallion and canter out of town. He felt no relief. He knew, beyond a doubt, that their paths were destined to cross again.

  It was much later when the bearded man rose to his feet and started up the stairs. Dusk had fallen. The common room was full. Bragg rose too, and quietly followed.

  At the top of the stairs, the man turned to look at him. Bragg stared back steadily. The man paused in mid-stride, then kept on walking down the hall, opening a door at the end and disappearing inside. Bragg knocked softly on Miranda’s door and Lady Holcombe cracked it open.

  “Is everything all right?” Bragg asked.

  “We’re fine. Miranda’s sleeping. She seems exhausted.”

  Past Lady Holcombe’s head, Bragg saw Miranda’s form curled on her side beneath a tattered but clean blanket. Her hair was loose and thick, wavy tendrils falling over her shoulder and down to her hips. He couldn’t tear his gaze away.

  “Good night, Captain Bragg.” Elizabeth closed the door in his face.

  Bragg frowned. The woman had obviously read his expression. God! He had let down his guard—which he could not do. He sank to the floor in front of their door and leaned his head back, removing his wide-brimmed hat. He dozed fitfully.

  Sounds in the middle of the night woke him three times, but it was just other patrons stumbling tiredly or drunkenly to their rooms. The night passed without incident. Bragg woke the women at dawn and escorted them downstairs for breakfast.

  “I’m not hungry,” Miranda said, gazing up at him pleadingly. “I can’t eat in that room.”

  Bragg regarded her steadily. “No one will say a word in my presence.”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “It’s out of the question, Captain Bragg,” her aunt said firmly. “We ate a huge meal last night and we are not hungry. We will not suffer the intolerable company of uncivilized, brutish men. That is final.”

  “Fine,” Bragg said. It really was for the better. He led them outside. “Wait here, and don’t move while I help Welsh finish hitching up.”

  Miranda and her aunt nodded, and he left them on the porch, striding across the courtyard to where Welsh was harnessing the mules. There was a team of oxen being hitched to his left, and a man was leading a pair of sturdy bays out of the corral. A thin, gaunt woman and a small boy waiting not far from Miranda and her aunt belonged to the man with the bays, Bragg decided. The man hitching up the oxen had another male companion, and they looked like prospectors. Bragg moved around to the far side of the team, slipping a bridle on a mule.

  Another man came out on the porch, and Bragg looked up just as he was pushing the bit against the mule’s closed mouth—one of his hands forcing open the stubborn animal’s jaw. It was the bearded man. He had stopped next to Miranda and was smiling and talking to her. Bragg dropped the bridle and strode over.

  Lady Holcombe was trying to push herself between her niece and the stranger, but the man planted himself firmly at Miranda’s side, taking her arm. Miranda was frozen. All her worst fears, it seemed, were coming true.

  “Where are you heading?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Please unhand me, sir,” she said.

  His hand slid up her arm. He pulled her against him, pressing his male hardness against her hip, saying, “I just want to talk, pretty lady.”

  In a red rage, Bragg saw what the man was doing. He yanked him away before the man even knew what was happening, landing a crushing blow to the man’s abdomen. He doubled over. As he did so, Bragg lifted his knee into the man’s face. He had already planted one leg behind him, and used his body and the leg as a lever to flip the man onto his back. He straddled him an instant later, digging one knee into his ribs. He yanked up his head, hitting him again. Bragg’s knife appeared in his hand, and he pressed the blade against the man’s throat, breaking the skin. Not more than thirty seconds had passed.

  “Say your prayers,” Bragg rasped. “Because I am going to kill you now.”

  “No!” Miranda screamed. “Don’t! It was nothing!”

  Without taking his knee from the man’s broken ribs, and keeping the blade at his throat, Bragg raised his head and looked at her.

  “Don’t kill him,” she pleaded. “He only touched my arm. Please, I beg you, have mercy!” Tears trickled down her face.

  Lady Holcombe came into action, pulling Miranda away. “Don’t look, Miranda!” she cried. “Come, come with me.”

  Miranda wouldn’t be pulled away. She broke her aunt’s hold, panting. “If you kill him, you’re an animal,” she cried. “He only touched my arm—mon Dieu! Quel espèce d’assassin est cet homme? Je lui en pries…” She was babbling hysterically.

  Bragg sheathed his knife and rose. She didn’t understand what the man had been doing, but Bragg had seen it. He wanted to kill, but he would not. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

  Miranda turned away from him, and her aunt pulled her into her arms, patting her while she choked back her sobs. Bragg scowled, trying to ease his bloodlust, then stared past their heads—at Chavez.

  Studying him without a smile, Chavez was standing in the shadows of the inn. Bragg had never even seen him arrive, he had just appeared, with the stealth of a Comanche. Their gazes locked. Chavez’s contemptuous glance said clearly, I would have killed him, no matter what she said.

  “We ride out,” Bragg said. “Now.”

  Chapter 12

  Miranda stole another glance at Bragg. He was eating rapidly, using his fingers, gnawing on a bone. He’s an animal, she thought, unable to look away. He was squatting in what looked like a very uncomfortable position, but he always ate in that position on the trail. He suddenly tossed the bone into the fire, rubbed his hands on his thighs, and looked over at her.

  She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. His gaze had been masked, but as she stared at him, even from across the fire, she could see it changing. She could see his expression of raw hunger, as if he hadn’t just eaten half a haunch of venison. Miranda realized that she was holding her breath. She expelled it, forced her eyes away, and daintily picked up a bone with her fingers. She was starved for the first time in ages, it seemed, and she had already tried to carve the meat, unsuccessfully, with a knife and fork.

  Bragg had almost killed a man today! A man who had simply touched her arm. She still could not get over it. His hypocrisy astounded her. At least she thought that was why her pulse raced whenever she thought of the incident. Bragg had done much worse to her. He had kissed her and
held her while she was clad only in her underclothes. But he had beaten a man badly, and been only a second away from slitting his throat, all because the man had held her arm intimately.

  She had not realized Bragg was so lethal. Good heavens, she thought, what kind of a man is he? Her glance slid to him again. A savage, an animal, her mind whispered. A beautiful animal, another voice said.

  Startled, Miranda dropped her plate with a cry.

  “What is it?” her aunt asked solicitously, while Bragg and Welsh stared at her with open curiosity.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. Wherever had that thought come from? Then, as her mind raced, she grew calm. Bragg’s stallion was a beautiful animal. A wolf, a bear, they were all beautiful beasts. They were beasts, and they were beautiful. Bragg was the same. It was all right to see him that way, as dispassionately as she saw his stallion. Yes, he was beautiful, but frightening, because he was crude and uncivilized.

  “Miranda? Are you listening? I asked if you are ill.”

  “Oh no,” she said hastily, looking away from those golden eyes. But when he got up, her glance was drawn to him again, and she watched him leave the glow of the small, smokeless fire.

  The next day, as usual, Bragg rode ahead, disappearing from sight. By high noon, he had not returned, which was unusual. Several hours passed, and there was still no sign of him. The garrulous Welsh had ceased his chatter some time ago, his face wearing a dark frown, and Miranda and her aunt had begun exchanging very frightened glances. Lady Holcombe finally asked what had happened.

  “He’s run into trouble,” Welsh said bluntly.

  Miranda gasped, a crazy, sudden fear tearing through her. “What do you mean?” she cried. “How do you know?”

  “Because we’d already discussed this,” Welsh said. “Don’t worry. Bragg probably ran across a raiding party of Comanche, and the plan was for him to lead them away. A decoy, so to speak.”

  “Oh God,” her aunt moaned.

  Miranda’s heart was pounding. “What if they catch him?” she whispered, her eyes wide with fright.

  “That won’t happen.” Welsh smiled reassuringly. “You watch. We’ll make camp like usual, and he’ll come riding in by dawn.”

  Miranda didn’t believe him. “But he’s only one man! How many Comanche ride in a raiding party?”

  Welsh didn’t tell her that he had lied and that Bragg had probably run across a war party. “Ten to fifty,” he said.

  Miranda gasped.

  “Now don’t you worry,” Welsh said, reaching over her aunt and patting her hand. His impropriety was lost in the shock of their fear. “Bragg’s half Apache. No Comanche can track an Apache unless he wants him to. Bragg will lose them when he’s good and ready.”

  Elizabeth had begun to mop her brow with her handkerchief. “Half Apache?”

  “Half Apache?” Miranda echoed. “Captain Bragg is half Apache?”

  Welsh was annoyed with himself for revealing that fact. “His ma was Apache. Mescalero. Mostly up in the New Mexico Territory. Don’t you worry, ma’am. Everything will be fine.”

  Miranda was dazed. She was worried for Bragg, as worried as she was for herself, because suddenly she felt very insecure and unprotected without his presence. Half Apache. No wonder he was so savage.

  “We’ll make camp here,” Welsh said. “No fire tonight, ladies, as an extra precaution.” He slowed the team.

  They made a silent, small camp. They ate dried beef and cold beans. Miranda wasn’t hungry. She kept thinking about Bragg leading fifty fierce, savage Comanche away from them, risking his own life to do so. Dear God, protect him, she prayed.

  She was sleeping when they attacked. She felt hands upon her, strong hands, male hands, and then something was being shoved in her mouth. Sudden awareness electrified her. She was being abducted from her own tent! She began to struggle, but she was being held in an iron grip, against an iron body. One of her feet kicked over a pitcher and it clanged against an unlit lantern.

  “Miranda?” her aunt asked sleepily.

  Miranda screamed into the gag, making muffled noises.

  Lady Holcombe saw a tall, dark form in her tent holding Miranda, clad only in a white cotton nightgown, and she shrieked.

  The man carried her out the back of the slitted tent with rapid strides. A shot sounded. Miranda twisted wildly to see over the abductor’s shoulder. Welsh lay sprawled on his face on the ground, yards from the front of her tent. A man stood over him, sheathing his pistol in a holster.

  She looked ahead, squirming wildly, pounding on the man’s back. He chuckled. Three men were holding horses.

  “Chavez!” one of them cried.

  Chavez turned to look just as one of his men shot Lady Holcombe. She crumpled to the ground, a small derringer slipping uselessly from her hand. Miranda saw her aunt murdered, and with a muffled cry, she fainted.

  Still holding Miranda, Chavez leaped onto his stallion, and he and his four men rode away into the night.

  Chapter 13

  Miranda awoke to the early morning sunlight. Something wet and cool was on her forehead, and then it slid down to her throat, to her chest. She sighed. The cool cloth went lower, over her breasts, making her nipples harden and tingle. She was suddenly wide awake, and her eyes flew open as she cried out.

  A dark face with glittering black eyes was peering at her. “So you are awake,” he said.

  Miranda realized she was lying on a bed in a pine-planked room, clad only in her flimsy nightgown, which had been unbuttoned to her waist. The man was holding the damp cloth that had been touching her breasts. With a cry of anger, she clasped the edges of her gown together.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured. “Miranda. Even your name is beautiful.”

  Her momentary outrage fled as everything came back. Her face crumpled as tears of pain streamed down her cheeks. “Aunt Elizabeth,” she moaned. She rolled onto her side. “Dear God. No, non, pas man tante. Mon Dieu! Je vous en pries…” She broke into huge, heaving sobs.

  Chavez regarded the beautiful girl silently for a moment, understanding her grief. He was sorry that his impetuous man had killed the older woman. In fact, he had backhanded the man when they had reached their hidden camp, causing him to lose two teeth. He had given strict orders that the elderly woman was not to be hurt. Now he understood that the dead woman was the girl’s aunt. He stroked her shoulder.

  “I am sorry, little one, about your aunt. It was an accident.”

  Miranda ignored him and kept crying.

  Her sorrow did not ease his desire. He had rarely seen such beauty, and he had been able to think of little else except this girl since he had seen her the other day in Nacogdoches. The moment he had seen her, he had known he would have her. But he was human, after all, so he decided he would give her time to grieve.

  “You are going to be my woman, little one,” he told her as she lay on her stomach, sobbing. “Maybe even my wife. I have no wish to harm you. You are too rare, too precious. My men will not touch you. But there is no escape. You are constantly watched; do not even try to leave.” He rose and regarded her steadily. He was taut with desire. He had been that way all night as they rode southwest toward Coahuila.

  Miranda didn’t seem to hear him. He shrugged, reached down, and covered her with a blanket, for he had no wish for his lecherous men to stare at her delicately beautiful body visible through the thin gown. He left.

  Miranda cried all morning. Eventually, when she had no tears left, she rolled to her side and peered with swollen eyes at the crude room. She saw that she was in a shack, lying on the single bed. There was a table with two chairs, a fireplace, a dull iron pot, and that was all. Miranda wondered what was going to happen to her.

  She also wondered what had happened to Bragg. He must be dead, she thought dully. A new stab of pain pierced her. Then she remembered what Welsh had said. Bragg was half Apache. No Comanche could track an Apache. If Bragg was alive, would he be able to track the men who had abducted her? It was her
only hope.

  She sat up and walked to the shack’s one window. Outside, she saw two Mexicans sleeping. She tried to remember what her abductor looked like. All she could remember was that he was tall, and his voice had been soft and slightly guttural.

  “So you are better.”

  Miranda gasped and turned, pressing her back against the wall. He was as tall as Bragg, and as dark as Bragg was golden. He was sinister, she thought, shuddering. His eyes had a naked, hungry look.

  “You are cold,” he said, striding over to her. He took her hands and chafed them.

  Stiffening, she tried to jerk them away.

  “No, cara,” he murmured, and lifted them up to kiss them. He nibbled her knuckles. Miranda choked on a huge sob.

  Chavez stopped and looked at her. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please, let me go. I beg of you.”

  He smiled. “No, querida. That is not possible.”

  Miranda began to cry.

  “Why are you so eager to leave?” he asked, looking angry. “Am I not handsome? I am rich, too. Did I not tell you I would marry you? You could do no better, believe me!”

  She gazed at him through tear-filled eyes, startled.

  “Or are you already married?” His eyes flashed. “To that Ranger? Eh? Is that it? I think not. I think you are a virgin. You have that innocent look.”

  “I can’t marry you,” she whispered, seizing the opportunity. “I am already married, to Bragg.”

  His face grew taut and rage flooded his features. “So be it,” he said harshly, pulling her into his arms.

  “No!” she screamed as he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

  “You will be my mistress, my woman, eh?” He placed her on the bed, holding her still as he leaned over her.

  “Bragg will kill you,” she cried, unable to move beneath his hold.

  “No, cara. Bragg is far from here. Your husband—if indeed he is such—has been taken prisoner by Comanche.” At her frightened look, Chavez grew angrier. “So you do care for him! Is he a good lover, eh? Do you think I do not recognize a dangerous man when I see him?” He shook her. “I arranged for my friends, led by my half brother, to lead him away from you, cara. I am no fool!”