The Savage

by Nicole Jordan

  THE

  SAVAGE

  NICOLE

  JORDAN

  NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling Author

  Copyright © 2011 Anne Bushyhead.

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

  First published in the United States by Avon Books 1994.

  Cover design by Hot Damn Designs

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-937515-17-1

  Dear Readers,

  Knowing I’ve written numerous Regency historicals, when people learn my body of work includes four classic Western tales, they ask me, “Where did those come from?”

  And like any good author, I have a story or two to tell.

  Growing up as an Army brat, I lived in several Western states, including Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. Plus I cut my front teeth on TV shows set in the wild, wild West. But more importantly, the American West is in my blood. My famous Cherokee ancestors helped settle Oklahoma—my great-great grandfather was a Cherokee chief!

  Then there’s the passion my husband and I share for snow skiing, especially in the exquisitely beautiful Rocky Mountains. That’s where we live now—in Utah, along with my beloved horses. Yes, in the tradition of my Cherokee ancestors, on any given morning, you’re likely to find me astride a horse, with a love for the land in my heart.

  It’s no wonder that I set three of my four Western romances in the Rockies—WILDSTAR, THE OUTLAW, and THE HEARTBREAKER—and the fourth, THE SAVAGE, in Texas with a hero who’s half Comanche. Many of you have written, asking where you could find these four classic Western tales that were published years ago. I’m delighted to report that all four—along with five other out-of-print historical romances—have been reissued in eBook format. While these reissues still bear my trademark storytelling and sensuality, you’ll find them a bit more emotional than my livelier, more recent works such as The Courtship Wars and Legendary Lovers series.

  I hope you enjoy a visit into the West inspired by my heritage and my background. If you want to learn more about all my novels, visit www.NicoleJordanAuthor.com. I’d love to know how you like these earlier books!

  Best wishes and happy reading!

  Nicole Jordan

  To Ann Howard White,

  for her unfailing instincts

  and generous shoulder.

  The time and my intents are savage-wild,

  more fierce and more inexorable far....

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Also Available

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  Prologue

  Texas, 1860

  His kiss was more than she bargained for. His hot mouth bore little resemblance to the polite attentions of a gentleman. Instead, his caress was like the man: hard, intense, forbidden.

  There was no tenderness. The intimate intrusion of his tongue was like a fiery brand in her mouth, marking her as his…demanding, possessing. Emphasizing that he wasn’t quite civilized.

  But then, he was not quite civilized, Summer remembered in a daze. Lance Calder was the sort of man no lady would ever associate with, much less allow such intimacies. He was a half-breed. Part savage Comanche. Raised white, true, but nonetheless a savage.

  It excited her, the fierceness of his kiss. And frightened her. She was afraid of the raw sensuality, the barely restrained savagery she felt in him. She should have known better than to flirt so close to danger. Yet she had gotten precisely what she’d wanted. After months of trying, she had finally broken his iron control—and discovered herself unprepared.

  She tasted hunger and desire and anger in his kiss. She hadn’t expected the anger. He was furious at her for driving him to this. Neither had she expected her own reaction. The frantic thudding of her heart. The acute breathlessness. The weakness flooding her limbs. She hadn’t anticipated the overwhelming sensations…especially the heat. The heat of his mouth, the heat of her flushed skin, the heat kindling low in her body. A heat that had nothing whatever to do with the warmth of the August night. She’d never experienced anything like it. She felt as if she had never been kissed before in all her life. As if she’d never known what kissing was about.

  She could feel herself trembling…or was it he? She felt his arm hard at her back, the rough texture of his work-callused fingers against the side of her throat as he hungrily angled his mouth to get closer.

  Summer heard him groan softly, and a thrill of triumph surged through her. It gave her a heady feeling of power to think she could affect a man so, could affect this man so, could make him tremble and lose control.

  It startled her when Lance abruptly ended their kiss, dragging his mouth from hers, half pushing her away. His breath sounded harsh in her ears, and she felt him fighting for restraint as he leaned his forehead against hers. The strength of his fingers hurt faintly as he gripped her bare arms below the puffed sleeves of her gown.

  “Are you satisfied?” His voice was low, gruff, hoarse. “Did it excite you, ma’am? Did it make you hot, kissing a fierce Injun?”

  Confused, Summer drew back and raised her gaze to his. Even in the semidarkness she could see him well enough. The lamp she’d left burning on the back porch spilled a golden light over the yard, illuminating his harsh, strong-boned face bronzed the hue of sunbaked earth. His coal black hair was slicked back from his high forehead and still damp from washing at the pump. He smelled of shaving soap and leather and horses. Obviously he had spruced up for his meeting with her, on the occasion of her seventeenth birthday.

  Yet it was his eyes that held her spellbound. There was something dangerous and untamed in his eyes. They were black as ink, deep and hard and fearless, with a smoldering intensity that made her wary. It was like looking into the heart of a brewing storm.

  “Well, ma’am…was it different? Did being kissed by a savage feel different from your fancy gentlemen?”

  He drawled the word ma’am, his tone holding faint derision, with little of the respect due the white daughter of a powerful Texas landowner. And yet it was his contemptuous use of the word savage that made her wince. “Please…don’t…”

  “Don’t, Miss Weston?” He pulled her closer, till her corseted breasts pressed against his hard chest. “Isn’t this what you wanted? What you asked me for?”

  Summer shivered. Lance was going much too fast for her. She couldn’t handle him the way she could her other beaux, that much was becoming clear. He wasn’t much older than she—perhaps four or five years, that was all. He looked to be in his early twenties. And yet Lance Calder was a man, with a man’s hard experience. Nothing like the boys she was accustomed to having flock around her, the mere boys she had learned to flirt with and charm since she was old enough to let down her skirts.

  There was nothing soft or polite about him. He was whipcord-lean, hard as saddle leather, with a broad, deep chest that dwarfed her slender frame. She could feel the solid resilience of muscle as she clung to him, could feel the coiled tension in his body, in his st
rong hands as they gripped her bare arms.

  With a show of bravado, she gave a faint laugh. “Well, yes. I was curious, I admit it. But just because I let you steal a kiss doesn’t give you—”

  “Steal?” He expelled a harsh breath. “That’s not how I remember it. Seems to me I only fulfilled your birthday wish.”

  He was right, of course. He would never have dared touch her if she hadn’t encouraged him, Summer knew. She’d spent months trying to get this man to notice her, trying to get him to break. She’d teased and taunted him all summer, subtly casting out lures and covert glances and secret smiles, flirting outrageously with her other beaux in front of him in a vain attempt to make him jealous.

  Lance might have been a stone statue for all the attention he paid her.

  He had ignored her until she was ready to scream, until her feminine pique had become a desire for retribution, a driving need to have him pay her homage. She was determined to conquer his stoic reserve, to bring him to his knees…if she could. Only, taming this fierce, half-civilized male no longer seemed as easy as her fantasies had led her to believe. The challenge of having him succumb to her feminine charms had backfired, if the breathless trembling of her body now was any indication. With a single kiss Lance had left her feeling shaken and uncertain and defenseless. Her knees were the weak ones, Summer discovered to her dismay when Lance suddenly released her.

  She reached out and clutched at the rope swing that hung from a pecan limb overhead. Watching him turn away, she wondered if he meant to abandon her.

  “Don’t go,” she was surprised into saying.

  For a moment she thought he meant to ignore her plea. But he merely leaned a muscular shoulder against the trunk of the pecan tree, as if he planned to stay a bit longer, even against his will.

  Summer let out her breath in relief. Unsteadily she lowered herself into the swing, carefully spreading her wide hooped skirts over the wooden seat. Her party gown of pink organdy and gros point lace was fabulously expensive and quite grown-up, but Lance hadn’t said a single complimentary word about her appearance. Not that she’d expected him to. He spoke rarely, although she would never have called him a quiet man. It was more like he was holding all his anger, all his violent thoughts and feelings, inside, waiting to explode.

  “I’m a damned fool,” she heard him mutter. “Your pa wouldn’t stop with taking a horsewhip to me if he caught me here with you.”

  He was right about that, too, Summer thought, glancing over her shoulder at her family’s big, white frame ranch house with its slender wooden columns gracing the lower story. Papa would have an apoplectic fit if he knew she was out here in the dark with a “murdering savage.”

  Papa called all Indians murdering savages. Ever since Mama had died so horribly in a Comanche raid thirteen years ago, he hadn’t been able to bear the sight of one. Ordinarily not even the fact that Lance Calder was probably the best mustanger in Texas would be sufficient reason to let him set foot on the Sky Valley Ranch. Nor even the recommendation of one of Papa’s most respected friends, the Texas Ranger who had looked out for Lance after his mama passed on.

  But Lance had saved her brother Reed’s life last spring during a stagecoach ambush, which had earned him the chance to hire on as a wrangler. Papa raised horses, and so far Lance had proven his worth a dozen times over—but that didn’t mean he would ever be accepted as a civilized man.

  His looks were a strike against him, Summer thought with a covert glance at him from beneath her lashes. Not that he wasn’t handsome. That wasn’t the case at all, despite the harsh angles and planes of his bronzed features. His complexion was not overly dark, either—no more than if he’d been burned by the sun. But there was no doubt he was part Indian, with his skin pulled taut over high cheekbones and his wild mane of coal black hair streaming beyond his shoulders. He wore his hair long—out of sheer defiance, she suspected. Broadcasting the fact that he was an Indian. And Texans didn’t take kindly to uppity Indians.

  Certainly Lance hadn’t been invited to the party celebrating her seventeenth birthday. Her papa would never have allowed an Indian inside the house, especially not a Comanche, even a half-breed who claimed to be white. She had been willing to risk her father’s rage, however, for the chance to put a notch in Lance’s invincibility.

  Her birthday festivities had ended an hour ago, the well-wishers returning to their farms and stock ranches. This morning Summer had promised to save Lance a piece of birthday cake if he would come up to the house after the party, yet she hadn’t known if he would. She’d waited anxiously throughout the interminable day and evening, hoping fervently that he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of the sweet confection she’d promised, not daring to believe that her own allure might draw him.

  Whatever his reason, he had come.

  Still, he had barely glanced at the napkin-wrapped package before putting it in his vest side pocket and, with a quiet “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” turning to go. That was when she had made her scandalous suggestion—that he grant her birthday wish and kiss her. He had looked at her long and hard before pulling her into his arms and complying.

  “You never did answer my question, ma’am,” he said, interrupting her thoughts as she swayed absently in the swing.

  “W-What question?”

  “About my kiss. You never said how it was different from all your other gents’.”

  Without volition, Summer loosened her grip on the rope and edged her fingers to her lips. They were tender from Lance’s passion, still dewy from his mouth. The taste of him still lingered on her tongue. He should know the answer to his question. His kiss was nothing like the chaste, gentlemanly pecks she had sometimes allowed her suitors. He was nothing like them. Lance Calder had fascinated her from the moment he’d arrived in Sky Valley this past spring.

  She couldn’t explain her enthrallment with him, unless it was the allure of danger he represented. It most certainly was not his charming personality that attracted her. He was as friendly as a wounded wolf, and twice as wary. He was quite obviously sensitive about being thought of as a savage. Yet he made no apologies for his mixed blood. Indeed, he wore his defiance like a shield, his smoldering look daring anyone to call him a breed.

  Add to that his knack for making her feel young and naive and absurdly awkward, and she couldn’t understand her attraction for him. He didn’t even seem to like her. She always wondered if he could see right through her with his sharp ebony eyes. He was watching her now with that piercing gaze, his look hard and intense. Or rather he was watching her mouth, as if he would like to kiss her again but wouldn’t let himself.

  “I really couldn’t say,” she replied unsteadily, remembering the taste of his kiss, the powerful feel of his lips moving over hers. “I don’t have the experience to compare.”

  His soft huff of laughter was more like a snort. “You collect men’s hearts for the sheer challenge of it, Miss Weston, ma’am. You won’t make me believe that whopper about no experience.”

  “Will you please quit calling me ma’am in that odious tone of voice?” she demanded, thoroughly unsettled now by the brooding way he was looking at her.

  “Yes, indeed. Whatever you say, Miss Weston.”

  Humility did not become him, Summer decided with asperity.

  Clenching her teeth, she turned her head and lifted her gaze, looking beyond the canopy of pecan leaves. It was a beautiful night, with myriad stars blazing overhead in the vast black-velvet sky. She could hear the low chorus of chirruping crickets, the mating song of bullfrogs down by the creek. A perfect setting for her plan—except that this interview was not going at all as she’d intended. Lance’s kiss had overwhelmed her, making her feel like a naive child playing with fire. And now he seemed intent on picking a fight. She didn’t know why, except that maybe he was mad at her for winning their months-long battle of wills, for finally proving her power over him.

  “Maybe you’re right, Miss Summer. ‘Ma’am’ doesn’t s
uit you. How about ‘princess’?”

  She gave him a sharp glance, certain that he was scoffing at her. “I’m not a princess.”

  “Sure you are.” He waved a hand expansively, indicating their surroundings. “You live here in your ivory tower, sheltered and protected, showered with luxuries. Never known a real hard knock in your life.”

  “If you only meant to insult me, then why did you come here tonight?”

  “Like I said, I’m a damned fool.”

  With one silk-slippered foot, she gave herself an abrupt push on the swing. It was true that she’d been spoiled and petted by her father and her three adoring older brothers, as well as courted and admired by the single gentlemen in three counties. She even admitted to behaving a bit wildly of late, since the one steadying influence in her life was gone: her older sister, Amelia, who had raised her from a baby. Amelia had married a farmer last year and moved to a new settlement in north Texas with her husband’s family. Summer missed her sister dreadfully. Without her, growing up was harder, lonelier. But it was more than that. Now she had no one to ease her restlessness, her fears.

  Lance was right. She had lived a sheltered life, pampered and loved and indulged. But her safe world was changing before her eyes. All during the long, hot summer there had been rumblings of war and talk of secession by the southern states, accompanied by vigorous debates on whether Texas should join in. Her own brothers were bitterly divided on the subject. The political tension straining her family was being played out all over the state, and seemed to be gathering momentum like a runaway team. Truthfully, her pursuit of Lance had begun merely as a way to forget her worries, to give herself something else to dwell on other than her fears. Once she’d started, though, she hadn’t been able to stop.

  She wondered what Lance thought about the possibility of war. He was as much a true Texan as anyone—more so, actually. She’d heard his story from her brother Reed. Lance was originally from Austin; his mama had been one of the first American settlers in the area before being taken captive by the Comanche and suffering untold degradations. They’d been rescued when Lance was just a baby, but even though it had outraged their neighbors, Charlotte Calder wouldn’t give up her child.