Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  LaRisa sat totally still for a full three minutes after Spence left, her mind playing over and over again that shocking heat she’d seen in his eyes as he’d looked at her nakedness. Heaven above, why hadn’t she covered herself? Why had she simply sat there and let him look?

  She’d felt paralyzed. By heat, by a wild, disturbing throb between her legs. By the look of intense hunger in Spence’s eyes.

  With a sudden splash of water, she buried her face in the wet cloth. She had to get out of here, away from him, before she did something incredibly stupid, like let him know the effect he had on her. Then again, who was she kidding? After the way she’d returned his kiss yesterday in town, he surely knew.

  She scrubbed away the scent of horse and the feel of a man’s heated gaze until her skin felt raw.

  Mexico. She had to get to Mexico. Maybe there she could stop seeing a pair of brilliant blue eyes every time she closed hers.

  It wasn’t until she was out of the bath and getting dressed that she remembered she had promised to help Joanna, Serena, and Consuela put up peaches that afternoon. Hurrying now, she finished dressing and found the women in the kitchen, the sweet smell of peaches rising in a cloud of steam from the kettle.

  “There you are,” Joanna cried. “How did the riding go this morning?”

  “Fine.” LaRisa turned away from the look of concern on her friend’s face. Joanna and the others had been shocked at the news of LaRisa’s imminent departure for Mexico when she’d told them about it over breakfast.

  She looked around the kitchen. Dozens of sparkling jars lined the cabinet on the far wall. The work table held two dozen that were already filled with peach preserves. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Consuela answered, looking around the room and checking their progress. “But you should put this on before one of us spills something on your new dress.”

  LaRisa stared at the white apron held out to her by the Mexican cook. The sight of it thrust her back in time, back to her early days at Carlisle, when the loneliness for her father had been at its worst. She stared at the hated symbol of her imprisonment and backed away. “No. I’ll…I’ll go change clothes.”

  She whirled from the room, dismayed to realize her hands were shaking. She thought she had thrown off the shackles of Carlisle weeks ago, yet the sight of a white apron had the power to tear a gaping hole in her new sense of independence.

  In her bedroom she took off her new calico dress and exchanged it for the hated brown. For some reason, it didn’t bother her to wear the brown, even though it, too, had been part of her uniform. It was only the apron that made her cringe inside, that made her feel useless and stupid and inferior.

  Rushing back toward the kitchen, she rounded the corner in the hall and collided with Spence.

  “Oh,” she cried.

  “Sorry.” Spence put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back. He did his damnedest not to think about what those shoulders had looked like a short time ago, bare and gleaming with water. He wanted to feel the softness of her skin, not the coarseness of…“What the hell? Why are you dressed like that? What happened to your new clothes?”

  With a toss of her head, she stepped out of his grasp. “Nothing happened to them, I just don’t want to spill anything on them. I’m helping in the kitchen this afternoon.”

  Spence let out a grunt of disgust. “Dressed like that? Do us a favor and stay away from the milk. All that brown will curdle it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me how to dress again, white man?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he bit back. “You’re the one who said those were the only clothes you’ve had for years. I assumed you’d want to get rid of them the first chance you got.” But then he’d also assumed that taking her to see her dying father wouldn’t complicate his life. “I should have known better than to assume anything about you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Spence turned and walked away. “Nothing.”

  LaRisa swore beneath her breath. After all the money he’d spent on her new wardrobe, he’d had a legitimate excuse for wondering why she was dressed in her old clothes. Yet instead of simply explaining, she’d lost her temper. One more reason to get to Mexico—and away from him—as quickly as possible. She had come to Arizona determined to control her own life. Around Spence, she couldn’t even control her emotions.

  LaRisa lay in bed that night, alone in the room, trying not to think about how her muscles ached from the morning’s horseback ride with Spence. Trying not to count the minutes until he came to undress in the dark and stretch out on the cot. Trying not to think of him at all. Wondering if she would ever have a life of her own, one not controlled by the whims of others.

  She was tired of being angry all the time. She was tired of this disgusting self-pity. The only thing she knew to do was go to Mexico and hope she would be accepted by the people at the old stronghold and that she could in some way contribute to their welfare. That was the only way she knew to prove to herself that she was worth something. She had to be worth something to someone, didn’t she? Otherwise, what was the point in living?

  She had been important to only one person in her entire life, and that had been her father. Surely somewhere out there in the world was someone she could matter to, matter a great deal. That she wanted that someone to be Spence was something she refused to let herself consider. She didn’t want it to be him.

  True, he wasn’t like other whites. He understood what her people had been through these past years better than most. But still, he couldn’t begin to understand what it was like to feel less than worthy of the consideration of others. Not a rich white doctor like Spencer Colton, who’d had everything he’d ever wanted in life right there for the taking. He couldn’t understand, and she desperately wanted someone to understand her.

  When he came in a moment later, she did what she always did at night when he entered—she lay still and pretended to be asleep. It was a farce, and they both knew it, but it was easier than acknowledging his presence. Infinitely easier than if she was forced to speak with him while hearing his clothes slide from his body. She’d seen his chest more than once, but couldn’t help wondering about the rest of him. He was a beautifully built man, hard-muscled where most white men were weak and flabby.

  A match scraped and flared in the darkness.

  LaRisa stiffened. Why was he lighting the lamp? This wasn’t part of their nightly routine.

  “LaRisa?”

  Lying on her stomach, with her face turned away from him, she knew he couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. She lay still and didn’t move. When had she become such a coward?

  Spence let out a heavy sigh and crossed to her bed. “I know you’re awake. I’ve brought liniment. You might not like the smell, but the alternative is to be so stiff and sore in the morning that you won’t be able to move.”

  She gave no response. Spence didn’t know whether to be irritated or grateful. Grateful, he decided. If she pretended to be asleep, she wouldn’t talk to him. This was going to be hard enough without having to spar with her.

  Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, he pulled the covers down her back to her waist. When he started tugging the back of her nightgown up her body—her old cotton gown, he noted, not the new sheer one Jo had slipped into her purchases yesterday—her fingers dug into the mattress on either side of her pillow.

  “What are you doing?” LaRisa meant the question as a sharp demand, but feared it had come out more like a breathless entreaty.

  “I’m going to give you a rubdown. Lift up.”

  “Why?”

  “Your gown’s in the way.”

  There weren’t many times in her life that LaRisa could remember being truly speechless, but this seemed to be one of them. In the past she had held her tongue to keep her anger in check. This time…this time she felt an alarming quiver of excitement race through her, stealing her voice, her breath. Her will. She lif
ted up.

  The nightgown slid up her body until she felt cool air against her back. She shivered.

  Spence saw her shiver and without thought, ran a palm across her back. “I’ll get you warm in just a minute.”

  Get her warm? She was burning, she thought, but in more places than merely where he touched her. The sound of his voice, quiet and low in the night, the weight of him beside her on the mattress, were enough to set fire to her blood.

  “Did you ever study anatomy?”

  “Not from books,” she answered quietly.

  “Do you know your muscles?”

  “Some.”

  He pulled the gown all the way off over her head, leaving it wrapped in thick folds around her arms, trapping all but her hands. Freeing herself would have been simple, but she couldn’t find the will to move, other than to flex her fingers into the pillow beneath her head.

  The slight movement made the muscles in Spence’s gut clench. He tried to remain objective as he glanced down at the smooth coppery skin of her back. Only a few marks remained from the beating she’d taken at Carlisle. He’d never been able to get any details out of her, but that hadn’t prevented him from writing a blistering letter to Captain Pratt last week.

  Spence took a deep breath for strength, then uncorked the bottle of liniment. The pungent fumes stung his nose and eyes. He wondered again, as he had while he’d carried the bottle down the hall, if he had any business doing this. And again, he assured himself that keeping her muscles supple was the quickest way to get her used to riding. The sooner he trusted her in the saddle, the sooner they could leave for Mexico. The sooner she would be gone from his life.

  That was his goal. Setting her free and letting her get on with her life. Certainly he wasn’t pouring liniment into his hand just as an excuse to touch her. He wasn’t that far gone yet.

  “I’m going to start with your trapezius.”

  “Where is—are?—my trapezius?”

  “Here.” The instant he placed his palms against her shoulders, not only did she jerk, but so did his insides. God, she was soft. Her skin, anyway. The trapezius beneath was tense and tight as a drum. “I think you needed this.”

  Yes, she needed this. But not in the way he meant it. LaRisa needed his warm touch, his flesh against hers. He massaged her shoulders deep and hard, and she groaned with pleasure. When his hands journeyed down her back and his fingers neared the sides of her breasts, she held her breath, hoping.

  Hoping what? That he would touch them? Or that he wouldn’t? She was so damned confused. Every day she felt herself drawn closer to him, wanting more and more to be near him. It angered her. It frustrated her. It terrified her. She could not rely on this white man for her happiness. He didn’t want her, and she…she didn’t want him. There was nothing between them but their promises to her father. She had thought it before, but she reminded herself again now: For him, she was an obligation. For her, he was the means to her freedom.

  That decided, she let herself relax beneath his hands. If he wanted to rub her aching muscles, she would be a fool to do anything but enjoy it while it lasted.

  Enjoy it she did. His strong, talented fingers dug deep into her flesh, searching out and finding each sore spot and massaging until the ache was gone. From her neck to her waist, he was turning her to jelly. The liniment seeped into her muscles and warmed them, but it was the heat from his hands she felt. Her moan was involuntary. “Which muscles are those?”

  Spence slowed his movements, enjoying the feel of her more than he should, urging her with his touch to relax even more. “Latissimus dorsi.” He reached up and freed her arms from the gown, then poured more liniment into his hands. “These are your deltoids. Triceps. Biceps.”

  LaRisa didn’t care what they were called. As his hands moved down her arm, the muscles softened to the consistency of wet noodles. He worked her wrist, her hand, her thumb, each individual finger. Then back up her arm, across her back, and down the other arm, until she was so limp all she could do was lay there and breathe.

  To keep her mind off a new heat simmering low inside her, she named the muscles as he worked his way down her back again. Deltoid. Trapezius. Latissimus dorsi. His hands left her and she felt their loss.

  The bottle thumped against the bedside table. She heard him rub his hands together, then he touched her again. This time he didn’t stop at her waist as he had before. She stiffened.

  “Easy. We’re just getting to the abused parts. First the gluteus maximus.”

  “Spence—”

  “Just relax, Risa, just relax.”

  But she didn’t. Couldn’t. This new, more intimate massage did everything but soothe. It stirred, it fanned the embers buried inside her, like tossing dry kindling onto glowing coals. A hot, moist throbbing settled between her thighs. She should stop him, but the feelings generated by his touch were so consuming, she let them take over.

  Spence couldn’t believe she was letting him touch her this way. Without taking his hands from her, he eased the covers farther down her legs and worked her right hip, her…good God, for the first time in more than a dozen years, he couldn’t recall the name of the muscle beneath his hands. The only word that came to mind was thigh. Such a perfect, shapely thigh, smooth and firm and dusky. He worked his way down the outer thigh, then along her calf to her foot.

  He rubbed both thumbs hard against her arch and heard her moan in pleasure. The sound sent fire straight to his loins. He treated her toes as he had her fingers, then back up her calf to the inside of her thigh. Her legs were so close together that there wasn’t room for his hands between them.

  With another palmful of liniment, he worked the back of her thigh until he felt the knots of abuse ease, then reached the fingers of one hand to work the inner thigh just above her knee.

  “Spence?”

  “You can slap me tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to loosen up these muscles so you can sit a horse in the morning without killing yourself.”

  Slap him? God help her, she wanted to chain him to her and force him to make her feel this way day and night. Shameless, she knew, to let a man work his hand up between her legs, but she wanted it there. Needed it. Higher, and higher. But never high enough. She shifted wantonly on the bed, giving him more room to reach the part of her that begged for his touch. Still, he moved down her right leg and over to her left, leaving her aching and empty.

  Again and again he neared the apex of her thighs, but each time, he stopped short of giving her what she craved. She was nearly wild with the wanting. Her breath came in gasps, her heart thundered. Her body moved beneath his touch to some unheard rhythm. Unheard, but not unfelt. “Spence?”

  “Shh,” he said. His touch grew light and slow. Long, even strokes of first his palms, then only his fingers, until finally the fire inside her eased.

  Had he done it on purpose? Stirred her blood to boiling, only to leave her wanting more?

  The fire of arousal may have died, but that of anger flared sudden and bright. Disdaining the bedcovers bunched below her feet, she rolled over.

  It took all of Spence’s self-control to keep from dropping the bottle of liniment. Good God, she was beautiful. Beautiful and bold and…angry.

  “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

  With his expression schooled to as close to blankness as he could manage, he shoved the cork into the neck of the bottle and rose from the bed. “Do what?”

  Her eyes widened and shot sparks at him. “White man—”

  “It’s late.” He set the bottle back on the bedside table and turned out the lamp. “Better get some rest.” He strove for a tone of indifference, to make her angry. If he made her angry enough, she would never let him near her again and he wouldn’t have a chance to do anything else as foolish as what he’d just done. “Your next riding lesson is early in the morning.”

  “Damn you.”

  “You don’t have to bother, honey. I’ve been damned for a long, long time.”

  Chapte
r Eleven

  The riding lessons turned grueling. No more easy sitting in the saddle while keeping the horse to a walk. LaRisa had to saddle and unsaddle her mount a half dozen times a day. She had to mount and dismount on order, sometimes having to pull herself back up with sheer will alone, so exhausted was she. They walked, trotted, cantered, and galloped. Over and over and over.

  Spence watched her skill increase by the hour. She was a natural on horseback, moving instinctively with her mount. As fluid a rider as any Apache warrior. He’d never admired or respected a woman outside his family in quite the same way he did LaRisa. He’d certainly never felt such agonizing want for one, and need. A need, both physical and emotional, so strong that it reached down inside him and twisted his heart. The idea troubled him so much that, to bury it, he pushed her harder.

  LaRisa resented his harshness, his constant pushing, always ordering her around. But she tolerated it because she knew he wouldn’t take her to Mexico until he was sure of her ability to stay in the saddle under virtually all circumstances.

  Riding lessons, however, were not her only lessons. Spence decided—dictated—that she learn to shoot, both a six-gun and a rifle. LaRisa silently agreed that these were skills she might need, but again, she was not given a real choice.

  Squinting against the glare of the sun, Spence eyed her critically. “You’ve never fired a gun before?”

  “It’s not something they teach between Geography and Mathematics. At least not at the school I attended.”

  “No need to jump down my throat. I’m just asking.” He eyed her a moment longer. “Do you think you could shoot a man?”

  “A white man? Without batting an eye.”

  “A real tough character, are you? Well, let’s see how good your imagination is.” He motioned toward a flat board propped against a stack of hay bales. He’d drawn the rough outline of a man on the board.

  “I hope you were a better doctor than you are an artist.”