But she was hurting, and if she kept struggling to rise she was going to tear her side open again. He couldn’t stand by and let her hurt herself just because he was having inappropriate thoughts about her.
“Here.” He crossed the sandy floor and swung her gently into his arms. At the bedroll he sat her down, trying his best to keep his eyes off her.
“I don’t see what you have to be mad about,” she muttered. “I’m the one who was literally left in the dark.”
“I didn’t say I was mad.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
Pace determinedly kept his face toward the fire, away from her. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of staring again.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Just—”
“Not until you put your clothes back on.”
Joanna gasped. Even though Pace was not looking at her, she immediately crossed her arms over her chest. No wonder she was cold! As a blush of abject embarrassment washed over her, she was suddenly over-warm. Mortified, she scrambled into her clothes. “I…didn’t realize.”
“I know that,” he said sourly.
“I’m, uh, sorry.”
“Just make sure you didn’t get any sand under the bandage when you rolled around on the ground.”
“No, it’s…I think it’s fine.”
“You think?”
“It’s fine.”
Pace sighed. “I’d better check it.” He turned slowly toward her as she rushed to finish buttoning her camisole.
“I said it was fine.”
“And I said,” he told her slowly, firmly, “that I’d check it.” He put his hand over hers to stop her progress. “Turn around.”
She would have argued with him, but she wasn’t a complete fool. Sand in her wound could bring infection. With all but the last button finished, she turned her back to Pace.
He studied the trim back covered in thin white cotton for a moment, working up the strength to touch her skin again. With a deep breath, he grasped the ribboned trim at her waist and pulled the camisole up her ribs until the bandage was revealed. Now that he wasn’t in a panic of fearing she would bleed to death, her smooth, pale skin was even more distracting than before. With a deep breath for control, he slipped one finger beneath the strip of cloth holding the bandage in place, just beside the bandage.
She was both soft and firm. Butter-soft skin over firm, feminine muscle. And pale. As pale as cream. The sharp contrast between her whiteness and his dark bronze hand, her smoothness against his rough skin, her softness against his hardness, had his suddenly unruly body reacting in a totally inappropriate way. He’d never reacted so swiftly to a woman before, by simply touching her skin.
Jesus, Matt’s daughter.
Just check for sand and get the hell away from her.
The sound of his swallow echoed through the cave. He slid his finger across her skin beneath the strip of cloth. The indentation of her spine intrigued him, urged him to linger, to run his finger back and forth. He resisted the urge, but barely. At his slight hesitation, she shivered.
“Cold?”
She shivered again. “No.”
Liar. Pace remembered the sight of her nipples beaded into hard knots, but he kept his mouth shut.
He ran his finger around her side, then across her abdomen. Her stomach muscles quivered beneath his touch, making him pause. It was then he realized that he was breathing hard. His hand trembled with the realization that his wasn’t the only breath he heard rasping in the quietness of the cave.
Rather than reach all the way around her with one arm, he changed hands, gritting his teeth to keep from caressing her the way such soft, smooth skin begged to be caressed. He checked all the way to the pad folded over the wound and found no sand. Slowly, he pulled his finger from beneath the binding.
He had to wait for one breath, two, until his hands were steady before lifting the edge of the pad to peer beneath. “It looks clean.” His voice came out in a rasp.
The instant his hands left her, Joanna yanked her camisole into place and finished buttoning it. Then she slipped her bare arm into the empty sleeve of her blouse and reached to start on the buttons up the back.
Pace’s hands were there, brushing hers aside. “I’ll do it. You’re probably stiff and sore.”
Joanna swallowed and tried to forget the feel of his hands on her bare skin, the heat of him, the tingles rushing down her spine when his callouses had brushed across her flesh.
She swallowed again. “Sore?” she managed. “I feel like I’ve been beaten.”
He paused halfway up her back. “Have you?”
“Not unless you beat me while I was asleep,” she joked.
The hands at her back slowly resumed their work. “You have bruises.”
“I do? Where?”
“Your cheek.” He buttoned the last button, then lightly touched her waist. “Here.” Then he moved his hand to her hip. “Here.” He slid his hands up her back and started massaging her shoulders.
Joanna nearly melted into the blanket. “God, that feels good. What time of day is it? Shouldn’t we be going?”
“It’s still daylight. We’ll sit tight until nightfall.”
“Harder traveling.”
“But less likely to be seen. We’ve got a wide, flat valley to cross.”
“If you don’t stop that,” she said, arching her neck to give his hands better access, “between your massage and the fire, I’m going to fall asleep.”
“Good. You need it.”
“Maybe, but I need something else first.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to go outside.”
“With that flaming head of hair? Anybody within five miles would spot you in a second.”
“So I’ll borrow your hat.”
“I don’t care if you are family, I’m not letting you relieve yourself in my hat.”
Joanna’s cheeks flamed, even as she laughed. “I meant to cover my hair, you idiot, but if you don’t take me outside in the next two minutes, I may have to use it the other way.”
“Not on your life, girl. Just wait here a minute.”
Joanna spent the next several minutes biting back groans of embarrassment while Pace scooped out a small latrine back near the pool, then carried her there and left her alone.
“Next time I have to do that instead of going outside,” she muttered when she returned to the fire, “I’m going to use your hat out of spite.”
“Leave my hat alone and eat this.” He held out a strip of jerky.
Starving, Joanna grabbed it from his hand and gingerly lowered herself to the blanket. “Is that coffee?” She nodded toward the pot at the edge of the fire.
“Yeah. Be ready in a few minutes. How’s your side?”
“I’m trying to decide which hurts worse. That, or my head. You and your foul whiskey.”
“That was good whiskey, I’ll have you know, and you didn’t drink enough of it to give you a sore head.”
“Well, something’s making me feel like there’s a hammer pounding on the inside of my skull.”
“Probably has something to do with getting shot. You wanna tell me how all this came about?”
“Right after you tell me how you just happened to be there when I needed you, like some dark savior riding to my rescue. What are you doing down here in Chihuahua?”
“Like you said. Rescuing you.”
“How? Why? How did you find me?”
Pace poured coffee into two tin cups and gave her one. “Serena wired me that your friend came home without you, surprised that you weren’t already there. She’d been told you left Juerta’s ahead of her. What I want to know is what the hell you were doing with that bastard in the first place.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got a while. Talk.”
Chapter Five
Joanna blew on her steaming coffee, then took a sip. “Augusta wanted to visit her cousin.”
“Who’s Augu
sta?”
“Augusta Maria Gomez. She and her mother moved to Tucson a couple of years ago from Mexico City after her father died. Augusta and I became close friends the minute we met. Last year when she lost her mother, she stayed at the ranch with us for several weeks.”
That told Pace a great deal about Jo’s friendship with Augusta. In Arizona, Apaches, particularly Chiricahua, were still hated with a vengeance. Half-breeds were considered the worst of the lot. The Coltons had always been somewhat isolated from their neighbors because of Pace and Serena, and now, Serena’s sons. It was no secret that Pace and Serena were half Chiricahua. Jo would have to trust someone explicitly to invite them to the ranch for so much as an hour, let alone weeks. She would never take the chance that someone might offend Serena or the boys.
“How did you end up in Chihuahua?” he asked.
“Juerta’s wife, Maria, is—was—Augusta’s cousin.”
Pace didn’t like the sound of that. “Was?”
“She’s dead. Juerta…I saw him kill her.”
Pace narrowed his eyes. “You saw Juerta kill his wife?”
Joanna swallowed and nodded. “I accidentally let a dog in the house and was chasing it down the hall past the library when I heard a scream. The door was open, so I ran back and looked.”
Pace ground his teeth. “And?”
Jo swallowed again and hung her head. “She…he’d been beating her. One eye was already swollen shut. Her lip was cut and bleeding. Her clothes…were torn. She was pleading with him not to hit her again. He used his fist. She fell against the desk and broke her neck.”
“You saw him kill his wife—Augusta’s cousin—and Augusta left you there?”
“She didn’t know. The minute he realized his wife was dead, Juerta turned and saw me. I ran, but he caught me. That was when I learned about the rooms under the house.”
“Under? Like a cellar?”
She raised her head and met his eyes. Hers were bleak and empty. “Like a dungeon.”
Pace let loose with a string of curses that nearly turned the air blue. “The son of a bitch locked you in a dungeon?”
Her sudden shivering was answer enough.
I’ll spit the bastard like a rabbit and roast him over hot coals—slowly.
He forced the killing rage to the back of his mind. Jo didn’t need to deal with his anger. It was a miracle she was alive to tell her story.
He couldn’t stand to see her sit there and shiver at the memories of her ordeal. He placed his cup beside the fire and moved to sit next to her on the bedroll. Before he could even offer his arms, she leaned against him. He couldn’t help but hold her, and in holding her, couldn’t help but relish the feel of her against him.
He steeled himself against the pleasure. He had no right to it. It was wrong. She was Matt’s daughter. At twenty-two, she might consider herself a gown woman, but compared to his thirty-four years, she was a kid. Which was beside the point. She’s Matt’s daughter. And she was hurting. He tightened his arms around her.
Joanna burrowed into Pace’s warmth, feeling truly safe for the first time in days. He smelled of horse and leather and sweat, and she didn’t care, as long as he kept holding her. His body heat, and the way his hand stroked up and down her arm, relaxed her until her shivering stopped.
“You should get some more rest while you can. It’s going to be a long night,” he said quietly.
“Does that mean I have to move?”
Pace wouldn’t let himself think that it was him in particular she was comfortable with. She was just exhausted and in pain, and any movement probably hurt. “Here,” he told her as he gently lowered her to the bed and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder. “Get some more sleep.”
He was so gentle with her, she nearly wept, for she knew that Pace was not a gentle man.
Oh, he had been soft and giving with her when she was a child, and no one could have held her half-brothers, Will and Russ, with more tenderness than their Uncle Pace when they’d been babies. It was his nature to be gentle with those weaker than himself.
But there was another side to Pace, a seething violence just beneath the surface, usually held in tight control. Once or twice she had seen it slip loose for a moment when Pace and her father were forced into each other’s company.
Pace and Serena had been raised half in the white world, half with their grandfather Cochise’s people, the Chiricahua Apaches. Pace had always held the beliefs of The People more dearly than Serena had.
When Joanna’s mother had died and her father had realized his feelings for Serena were no longer those of stepbrother for stepsister, but man for woman, Pace had been appalled. To him, the fact that Matt and Serena had been raised as brother and sister, even though they shared no common blood, made the family bond between them sacred.
But her father and Rena had felt another bond spring to life between them, one that was too strong to deny. They had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love.
Pace had never forgiven Matt, for he felt Matt had taken advantage of Serena’s youth and inexperience. When he learned Matt and Serena were married, Pace had left home. With few exceptions, he had only returned during the ensuing fourteen years when he knew his stepbrother was not at the ranch.
But last year Serena had been optimistic that things were changing. Jo’s stepmother knew that to Pace, family was sacred. That’s what had started all the trouble. But it also meant that he deeply missed his family.
His family deeply missed Pace, too. All of them. For herself, her world was always brighter when Pace was near. Colors were deeper, textures more varied. With him she’d always felt more alive, more vibrant, than at any other time.
Maybe, Jo thought with a spark of hope…maybe when he took her home, he would stay. Maybe she could do something to mend the rift once and for all. Dear God, please.
She was startled out of her thoughts when he pulled the blanket back up to cover her. When he moved away, she felt bereft without his nearness.
Pace moved to the other side of the fire and balled his hands into fists, silently praying Joanna wouldn’t notice the way they shook. Just from touching her. He’d never be able to explain it to her. He couldn’t explain it to himself. He only knew that touching her had given him pleasure, and it shouldn’t have.
His stomach knotted with tension. Was this what Matt had felt with Serena? This warmth, this need to touch and hold and protect? God forbid.
“Pace?” she called softly.
He tensed where he knelt at his saddlebags across from her. He wasn’t ready to face those trusting green eyes again. He kept his back to her. “Yeah?” Of course she trusted him. He was her uncle. Sort of.
“Thank you for coming after me,” she told him.
While Joanna slept, Pace chafed at having to sit still. They should be riding. But he knew traveling at night would be safer, at least until they crossed the wide valley beyond.
How tenacious was Juerta? How much trouble would he go to to silence the witness to his wife’s murder?
Pace didn’t know, but the bastard hadn’t gained the name El Carnicero by singing in the choir. Juerta was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.
In that respect, why should the man care if someone saw him kill his wife? What was one little murder compared to a long list of other crimes? Maybe he wanted Joanna for reasons other than to shut her up, but, as beautiful as she was, there were plenty of other women. Surely he wouldn’t trouble himself too long if he couldn’t find her.
Although, it came to Pace as he watched Joanna sleep, that if he ever found a woman like her, nothing could keep him away. Even though he hadn’t seen her in some time, he knew the woman she was. She was strong and independent, with a little wildness just under the surface. And loyal, he thought. Loyal to the bone to her family, to those who’d earned her trust.
Brave, he couldn’t forget how brave she was to set out alone and on foot across unfamiliar land as she’d done when she’d escaped Juerta. No whining, spoiled
miss, was Jo. He knew she could outride and outshoot most men, because he’d taught her himself. Or rather, he’d begun her education, before his sister had married Jo’s father. After that, after Pace had left home, he knew Rena and Matt had taught her everything she would need to know to survive.
No, if he ever found a woman like Joanna, nothing would keep him away.
For him, however—Pace Colton, half-breed—there were no women like Joanna. There were only the less discriminating whores who weren’t picky about the color of a man’s skin, or rich, bored white women who fantasized about being ravished by a savage Indian, and expected him to play the part.
He could be savage. Sometimes he felt that savageness rise up inside himself until it was all he could do to hold it back, yet hold it back he did, for the very strength of the rioting emotions that rose in him had the power to scare him. If he ever let that savageness loose, he would lose part of himself.
So he strangled not only his fierceness, but, though he would cut out his tongue before admitting anything softer existed inside him, he also strangled the tenderness. There was a need inside him to give, to love. Yet there was no one to give to, no one to love.
He wanted a woman he could be himself with, a woman who could accept him as he was, both savage and gentle. He had yet to find a woman he trusted enough to let her see that far into him.
There was his family, however. If there was to be no special woman in his life, he at least had his family. If he could find a way to breach the wall he’d built so many years ago between himself and Matt. Maybe, when Pace got Jo home, there would be a way to make his peace with Matt.
Pace dozed, waking every time Joanna stirred, not napping again until her sleep once again deepened.
She reminded him of Serena, which was natural, he supposed, since Serena had raised her from the time Jo was four. Joanna had that same streak of fierce independence, that same inner strength, the same stubbornness. Yet even without the blood of Apache warriors in her veins, Joanna could be even more fiery than his twin sister, her temper more volatile. And, Pace suspected, she could be softer, more gentle. She could also be more easily hurt.
Apache-Colton Series Page 187
