More important, Tall Bear noticed the difference in his foe. He didn’t know how the balance had shifted—he only knew it had. There was a confidence, a certainty of success that emanated from Wolf. Tall Bear responded to it by checking surreptitiously for his avenues of escape. He was surrounded by his friends, whom he led as war chief, urging him to victory. In retreat lay humiliation. He turned back to Wolf, his muscles tensed for action. He had fought the white boy Jarrett Creed and scarred him with his knife, but that was long ago. No frightened boy faced him now. He looked into the heartless eyes of a feral animal. He was trapped.
Creed’s nostrils flared when he caught the scent of fear, and like a predator, he began to stalk his prey. But a trapped animal fights more viciously than one who can flee, and the same was true of Tall Bear.
“I think I will give you another cut across your belly to match the other,” Tall Bear taunted, “before I kill you.”
“Come and try. I am waiting for you.”
Creed’s words sent a chill down Tall Bear’s spine. If he hadn’t been so unnerved he might have begun his death chant then. But fear kept him fighting.
Creed’s lightning-quick strike caught Tall Bear by surprise, and two of the Comanche’s fingers were cut off as the knife fell from his hand. When he reached down to retrieve his knife, Creed tripped him and he fell heavily, the short fringes of grass crushed beneath his weight. Creed pressed his advantage and brought the sharpened tip of his knife to the hollow of Tall Bear’s throat. When Tall Bear swallowed, a trickle of blood flowed from the spot.
“Finish it,” the Indian rasped.
The braves around them had fallen silent. Cricket held her breath for the moment the plunging knife would end the Comanche’s life.
Creed savored his victory, the feral glint in his eyes shining brightly. He had vanquished his foe. The lifelong enmity that had existed between them would end now. He waited, rejoicing in Tall Bear’s defeat, prolonging the anticipation of his enemy’s death like a mountain lion toying with its prey before the kill. But he waited too long. The civilized man he’d become sent the savage back to its hiding place. The blood lust was gone. He could not kill a defenseless man.
“If you attack the white man,” he warned Tall Bear, “I have sworn an oath to kill you. It cannot be wrong to wait until the truth about the Council House deaths is known. I give you your life in order to take this message back to The People.” Creed rose and sheathed his knife.
The hate in Tall Bear’s eyes spoke volumes. The Indian owed Wolf his life but did not thank him for it. Tall Bear would return to The People and deliver the message, but Creed knew he hadn’t seen the last of him.
“I am bound to this task,” Tall Bear said. “But I will return. Enjoy your woman now, for the day will soon come when she will be mine.”
Cricket watched in astonishment as the Comanches gathered their few belongings, mounted their ponies, and rode away.
“Why didn’t you kill him? He would have killed you if he’d had the chance.”
Creed barked a harsh laugh. “Because I’m not a savage. Haven’t you noticed?”
Cricket glanced into his eyes and shivered. He might not be a savage, but he wasn’t far from it. That knowledge excited rather than frightened her. She liked wild things. She dared to defy them, challenged and confronted them. She had even, in some cases, tamed them to her hand. It was the thrill of constant danger, the unpredictability of the brutes that lured her to them, and she felt that same attraction drawing her to Creed.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you planned to spend the day in bed.”
“What are you doing here?” she countered. “How come you can speak the Comanche tongue?”
“As a boy I was captured by the Comanches and spent a part of my youth among them,” he said. “I grew up with several of the braves you saw here today, and I came here to see one of them.”
“The one you fought?”
“No, my friend wasn’t here.”
It was doubtful whether Creed could have told her less and still answered her questions. She pressed for a little more information. “Did these Indians steal my father’s horses?”
“No, they were here for another reason, which I need to discuss with Rip. Let’s get back to the house. I don’t want you riding off anymore by yourself. As you can see, it’s too dangerous.”
Cricket made no attempt to hide her irritation. “You don’t tell me what to do. I manage fine on my own.”
“You almost managed to get yourself killed.” Creed ignored Cricket’s rising anger and continued, “I told Tall Bear you’re my woman. That makes you a target for his revenge. If he has his way, you’ll find yourself a Comanche squaw lying down under every buck who has the price and a yearning for a white woman with flashy red hair.”
“Saying something doesn’t make it true. I’m not anybody’s woman. I’ll do what I please.”
“No more, Brava. I’ll be giving the orders from now on.”
“Like hell you will!”
Cricket waited for the response her father always gave, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Creed simply ignored her and went to retrieve his chestnut gelding.
“Mount up,” he ordered.
Cricket bristled. “I’ll walk back before I’ll obey you.”
Creed reached over and took Valor’s reins. “Fine, enjoy your walk.” He kicked his chestnut into a trot and headed for the plantation house.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cricket yelled after him.
Creed didn’t answer.
Cricket whistled shrilly, and a satisfied smile settled on her lips when Valor reared and plunged, yanking on the reins. She heard Creed speak to the horse in a guttural voice, the words Comanche. Valor quieted. Cricket narrowed her eyes. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She whistled again, and again Valor reared, this time almost escaping Creed’s grasp. But Creed quieted the stallion with his Comanche incantation and kept on riding.
Cricket watched Creed’s retreating figure, her horse trotting docilely beside him. She looked down at Rogue, who waited patiently, tongue lolling. “How the hell do you suppose he did that?” Then she realized that if she didn’t catch up to him she was going to have to walk all the way home.
“Creed,” she shouted. “Wait for me. I changed my mind.”
Creed stopped the horses. She was a lot smarter than he’d thought. And she wasn’t as stubborn as he’d feared. But he could already see it was going to be hell protecting her from the Comanches. What on earth had possessed him to claim her as his woman?
Chapter 7
THE COUNCIL HOUSE MASSACRE CREATED A STIR among the Texas colonists, but it didn’t send them scurrying into their homes in fear of Comanche retribution. Instead they armed themselves for defense. They donned bandoleers of ammunition, stuck two Patersons in a double holster thrown across the saddle horn, laid a Kentucky rifle across their knees, and fingered a knife in boot or sheath while they rode. But travel they did, as less than a week later, planters from along the Brazos congregated for Señor Juan Carlos Guerrero’s fandango celebration.
Creed had spent nearly the entire trip riding beside Rip, but as they neared their destination he spurred his horse up next to the shiny black one-horse carriage in which Cricket rode with Sloan. He smiled at Cricket, who merely stared balefully back at him from beneath the fringed canopy of the carriage before turning her eyes to gaze out over the rutted road that led to Señor Guerrero’s hacienda. Creed kept pace with the carriage, content to simply look at her, amused by her fidgeting, amazed when she managed once to sit stock-still for a full minute and a half.
Cricket could feel Creed’s eyes on her, as she’d felt them on her the past week while the Ranger moved freely about Three Oaks scouting for horse thieves. She’d felt imposed upon, invaded, uncomfortable when he stared at her with that heavy-lidded gaze. And he was doing it again today. Cricket resisted the urge to stare back at Creed. When she could stand his perusal no long
er she asked, “What do you want?”
“You look awful pretty today.”
“Buffalo piss,” she muttered under her breath.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“You should wear a dress more often.”
“I prefer pants. I wouldn’t be rigged up like this now if Rip hadn’t insisted on it. Every other girl attending Señor Guerrero’s fandango will probably come on horseback with a pair of her father’s knickers under her skirt and her ball-gown in her saddlebag. They’ll get a good laugh when they see me show up in a fancy shay wearing this outfit.”
“Why would they laugh at you? You look fine in a dress.”
The wounds from Amber Kuykendall’s birthday party had never healed cleanly, and Cricket blanched before she retorted, “I feel about as comfortable as a pig in a parlor. Besides, this dress doesn’t fit.”
She retied the green ribbon on her straw bonnet but still felt choked, so she stuck a finger into the white butterfly collar of her dress and yanked it forward. Then she tugged at the white lace trim that trailed the V-shaped bodice down to the constricting waist. There simply wasn’t any room to be had within the confines of the bright yellow linen material. She’d been reduced to shallow panting because it was physically impossible to take a deep breath.
Cricket could count on four knuckles and a toe the number of times she’d worn a dress and couldn’t understand why Rip had insisted she wear one today. Granted, she would be formally introduced to Señor and Señora Guerrero and their sons for the first time at the fandango. But she knew the fact she was wearing a dress wasn’t going to make any difference in her reception by the Spaniards. She was certain her reputation—or rather the reputation of “Rip’s girls”—had preceded her. Bay had known what was coming, so she’d stayed home, which was a shame, Cricket thought, because of them all, Bay was the one most comfortable in this kind of social situation.
“Bay said she’d alter this dress to fit a little better,” Cricket said finally, “but I told her not to bother.”
Creed eyed the snug bodice, which provided an intriguing outline of Cricket’s full breasts. “It doesn’t sound to me like it was such an unreasonable suggestion.”
“It would have been a waste of time, because I’m planning to shuck this outfit as soon as I can and put on buckskins for the días de toros.”
“Can’t you watch those Spanish riding and roping contests in a dress?” Creed asked.
Cricket didn’t bother to answer because they’d reached the first of the jacals, the homes of Juan Carlos’s vaqueros. The dwellings consisted of mesquite posts stuck upright in vertical walls which were chinked with mud and topped by a thatched roof. There were also adobe homes constructed of thick mud-and-straw bricks, their cool, dim interiors a welcome refuge during the searing Texas summer. Near the dwellings were gardens with small patches of spring corn and other vegetables.
The entire pueblo, comprised of numerous jacals and the few adobe homes, an adobe cantina, and a Texan-style cedar-frame mercantile store, had grown up around an old, war-torn Spanish mission at the outskirts of the Guerrero hacienda. The priestless mission, with its octagonal bell tower housing two bells to call the parishioners to a mass that was no longer held, endured as a stark memorial to the Spanish Texas that was no more. Its adobe grandeur, which had once risen majestically into the sky, now stood eroded by age and scarred by circumstance.
Sloan drove the shiny black carriage past the ancient mission and on toward the Guerrero hacienda. The ranch house, its thick adobe walls plastered white, stood on a rise, with its broad veranda overlooking the Brazos River. Rip brought his mount even with the carriage as they pulled to a stop inside the heavy wooden gates of the high, fortlike adobe wall surrounding the hacienda. “Sloan, Cricket, I expect you both to stay with me long enough to greet Señor and Señora Guerrero and their sons.”
“I don’t want to meet anyone,” Cricket protested.
“I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” Rip replied brusquely. “And Cricket,” he warned, “behave yourself.”
Creed frowned at the admonition. It was a warning better given to a seven-year-old brat than a seventeen-year-old young lady. But then, from what he’d seen so far, Cricket could hardly be described as the typical young lady. Creed had a feeling Cricket’s dress wasn’t going to fool anyone.
Cricket glanced anxiously at the elegantly dressed men and women aligned around a splashing tile fountain at the center of the patio in front of the Guerrero hacienda. Amber Kuykendall was there with her mother. Cricket breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t see Felicia Myers. Cricket looked down at her ill-fitting linen dress and then at the fashionable satin gowns of the other women. It wasn’t that she cared what they thought, but she dreaded the looks she knew were coming and hated having to make small talk when she had nothing to say to them.
A mestizo servant attended to the carriage and another took care of the horses as they were gestured into the line. Cricket stepped in line behind Rip and Sloan, with Creed following her. She turned around and frowned at him once when he seemed a little too close, and he cocked his head as though he didn’t know what he’d done.
Cricket tried to stand still in line but was too nervous not to fidget. She brushed back the few wisps of hair which had escaped her thick auburn braid to tease her face, then fussed with the decorative buttons up the front of her dress, wondering if the tiny green squares looked too childish. She flattened the curling tip of the white butterfly collar and yanked on the lace-trimmed sleeves which, she now realized, were about an inch too short. She tried hunching her shoulders, but that didn’t help. Oh, well. She brushed the dust off her skirt and industriously wiped the toes of her black shoes off on the backs of her white stockings. There. She’d done the best she could. She pulled her shoulders back into a stiff T and waited patiently to do her devoirs.
“Welcome to my home, Señor Stewart,” Juan Carlos said, shaking Rip’s hand.
“I’m honored to be here, Señor Guerrero. I’d like to introduce my daughters Sloan and Creighton.”
Cricket was busy yanking on her sleeve when Creed nudged her from behind. She looked up into the bronzed face of the tall, lean Spaniard and gratefully returned his pleasant smile. She stuck out her hand for him to shake and stiffened when he turned it slightly and lifted it to hold it in both of his. Cricket felt a little like a mare at auction, as he examined her face and form. He couldn’t help but note all the flaws in her attire. However, no hint of condemnation showed in his dark brown eyes.
Then it was over, and Rip was introducing Creed.
“This is Jarrett Creed. He’s visiting with us.”
“My pleasure, Señor Creed. Please make yourself at home with us. Any friend of Señor Stewart’s is welcome here. These are my sons, Cruz and Antonio, and my wife, Lucia.”
Cruz Guerrero greeted Cricket with indifferent formality. From Antonio, Cricket received the haughty disdain she’d expected from Juan Carlos. She wondered how Sloan could have come to love the young Spaniard and barely resisted the urge to say something to him that would reveal she knew his secret. But he quickly passed her on to his mother, and the chance was gone.
As lush in figure as Juan Carlos was lean, Lucia Esmeralda Sandoval de Guerrero was strikingly beautiful in a layered, wine-colored silk gown that gave an impression of royalty. An ivory comb, set in the raven tresses gathered at the crown of her head, held a delicate black lace mantilla in place. She held her chin tipped upward, so the lace edged her patrician profile.
There was no question in Cricket’s mind from the look on the woman’s face that Señora Guerrero hated her, loathed her, didn’t want to touch her sweaty palm. So Cricket made a point of speaking to her.
“Buenos días, señora. Thank you for inviting me.”
“De nada, Señorita Stewart.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’m welcome as worms in cotton,” Cricket shot back with a grin. “But I don’
t mind.” She turned and walked away before the incensed woman could respond. It felt good to salve her wounded pride, but she could hardly blame the woman. She knew her behavior wasn’t condoned by even the most liberal of her Texan neighbors, and she hadn’t expected the Spanish Guerreros, with their belief in daughters protected by dueñas, to enfold such an unseemly virgin as she to their bosoms.
The real test was yet to come. Cricket tried to decide which of the circles of conversation it would be safest to join. There really wasn’t much choice. She headed toward the one that contained Amber Kuykendall and her mother.
Creed had been angry at the way the Spanish woman had snubbed Cricket but soon saw she was well able to take care of herself. He reminded himself he was here on business. He planned to judge for himself the relationship between Sloan Stewart and Juan Carlos’s younger son, Antonio, so he closely watched their greeting to one another.
If he’d been expecting some sign of recognition, he was disappointed, because the young man seemed singularly disinterested in Sloan. It was the older brother, Cruz, who couldn’t seem to keep his hawklike gaze off Rip’s eldest daughter, although he’d dismissed Cricket without a second glance. Creed found that state of affairs intriguing, considering the fact that Rip intended Cruz to be Cricket’s husband.
Still, Creed couldn’t help tensing when he took Cruz’s hand. The Spaniard was too attractive, too proud, too vital, for Creed not to feel a spiral of jealousy toward him. However, Cruz greeted him with such gracious friendliness that Creed found himself responding favorably to the slightly older man, despite his initial reservations.
On the other hand, Creed had no trouble at all disliking Antonio Guerrero, especially since the feeling was mutual. Antonio was more handsome than his brother, with large hazel eyes and soft, boyish black curls that fell over his brow. His mouth was full and sensual above a smaller version of the cleft that rent his older brother’s strong chin. He was as tall as Creed, but still two inches shorter than his brother. Creed measured the slender man’s disdain in his handshake, which barely clasped Creed’s hand before it was released.
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