Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Don’t talk,” he said, keeping his voice low and quiet. “Don’t move, just your head, just barely, so you can answer me. Okay?”

  Her head barely moved when she nodded.

  “Good girl. Are you bit?”

  Her breath started coming faster. The panic increased in her eyes.

  “Easy, Jo, easy. Just answer me. Are you bit?”

  With her terrified eyes locked on his, she slowly moved her head from side to side, moving less than a fraction of an inch each time. No. She was not bitten. Yet.

  Pace felt his heart slam against his rib cage as it resumed beating. “Okay, good. Good. Just don’t move, Firefly.” With effort, he kept his voice low and easy. “No, don’t look down at the snake. Look at me. Jo, look at me, sweetheart.”

  He could hear the sound of her swallow from where he stood five feet away. Slowly, jerkily, she raised her terrified gaze to his.

  “Good girl. Just keep looking at me.”

  A muscle in her cheek twitched.

  “Is he moving? Is that what you’re feeling?”

  Barely perceptible, her head nodded.

  “But that’s good, Jo, it means he’s working his way out.”

  Her eyes darkened and she moved her head carefully back and forth.

  “No? He’s not working his way out?”

  Instead of answering, she beseeched him with her eyes to help her.

  He couldn’t. He couldn’t do a damn thing. If he touched her or her skirt or the snake, the snake would strike. Every nerve in his body screamed for him to do something, yet all he could do was stand there and wait for the snake to show itself.

  Sweat and tears poured down Joanna’s face. Jesus, how much longer could she take the strain before she gave in to what must be a nearly hysterical urge to move, to scream and run?

  “Just keep looking at me,” Pace crooned, “and relax. You have to relax, Jo. Don’t think about what’s happening. Take slow, deep breaths, nice and easy now, slow and easy. I got us a rabbit.”

  He held up the rabbit, then leaned over carefully and laid it on the ground next to the rock wall at his back.

  “We’ll roast it later. Think how good it will taste.”

  From where he stood, he heard her empty stomach rumble at the thought of food.

  The snake heard it too. The rattle jerked erect and buzzed a deadly warning.

  Pace’s heart jumped into his throat. “Don’t move,” he urged quickly. “Whatever you do, don’t move. Breathe easy. He’s just testing you. You’re stronger than he is, you’re smarter. To hell with the rabbit. We’ll be eating snake for dinner. Think about that, Jo.”

  Through the terror on her face, repugnance showed.

  “No, it’s good. Taste’s a little like chicken. Honest. Just picture this fellow wrapped around a stick over the fire. Maybe we’ll make you a hatband, with a belt to match, out of his skin. Bet that’ll wow the fellas back in Tucson when Joanna Colton shows up wearing a rattle snake hatband.”

  Stop jabbering, you asshole, and get this damn thing out from under my skirt!

  Pace blinked. He could have sworn he heard her voice inside his head. Her lips hadn’t moved; his ears hadn’t heard.

  But that was impossible. The only person he could hear inside his head was Serena, and he hadn’t heard her in years. Even their mother, with her visions, could not normally speak to him without words.

  He shook his head. His imagination was playing tricks on him. He was an asshole, for leaving her here alone. He was merely attributing his own self-disgust to Joanna.

  “Okay, so maybe a proper young lady doesn’t wear snakeskin. That’s assuming, of course, that you’ve grown into a proper young lady. But then, I wouldn’t know, would I? I do know you’ve grown into one hell of a woman. No—don’t listen to the rattle. He’ll quit in a minute. I know he’s moving around. I can see him under your skirt. Just keep breathing—no, slow and easy. Are you listening? Slow and easy. Slower. Calmer. Okay, that’s good.”

  The rattling stopped.

  “There, didn’t I tell you? He’s decided you’re not a threat.” As he spoke, Pace pulled his hunting knife from the sheathe on his belt. “As soon as he shows his head, I’ve got him, so don’t move. Are you listening? Just stay still, just like you’re doing. You’re doing fine, Firefly. You’re doing fine.”

  Pace kept talking about anything he could think of, hoping to keep Joanna calm. Sweat poured freely from her, from him. In the dry dessert heat it evaporated quickly, but Jo was sweating so much that her blouse was getting wet.

  The snake didn’t move for what felt like hours. It could have been hours, for all Pace knew. Now and then the skirt would undulate with a small movement, then lay still again.

  Jesus, Jo surely couldn’t take much more. She was holding on by her last nerve, and there wasn’t a damn thing Pace could do but stand there and wait for the snake to show.

  Shadows shortened as high noon came, then lengthened a fraction of an inch at a time. And still the snake remained hidden.

  The circles beneath Jo’s eyes grew darker and darker. Her lips dried and cracked. Pace, too, was thirsty, but he wouldn’t drink while she could not. In any case, the canteen lay next to Jo, surely taunting her with its nearness.

  “You’re doing fine,” he kept telling her. “I told you I’ve been up at Fort Sill in Indian Territory, didn’t I? They’ve got places up there where the soil is as red as your hair. It’s good soil, too. The People are growing watermelon and cantaloupe. The Army’s going to make farmers out of them yet. Yeah, I know, he’s moving again. I can see his head right between your feet. He’ll be far enough out in a minute for me to get him. Just hold on, Firefly. A little bit longer.”

  Damned snake. Six more inches. If he’d just come out another six inches. The knife turned slick in Pace’s hand. He switched it to his left, wiped his right palm on his buckskins, then switched back. He wouldn’t use his gun. The sound would carry. And, he had been known to miss with a gun. It was rare, and never at this range, but it could happen. With a knife, he never missed.

  “Your boots have just about had it. They weren’t made for running across the dessert and climbing around in gullies like you were doing when I saw you day before yesterday. We’ll have to find you something else to wear. Have I told you that you’re the bravest, most courageous woman I’ve ever seen? I now you’re thinking I’m just saying that to hear myself talk, but I mean it. You kept your head and managed to escape from Juerta, and you’re keeping your head now. Just a little longer. Just a little bit longer.”

  Almost!

  The snake’s head inched past Jo’s boots, but not far enough yet. Pace shifted the knife in his hand. Not yet.

  “Do you trust me, Jo?” He couldn’t look to see if she answered, or what she answered. He kept his eyes on the snake. “I need you to trust me now. He’s almost far enough past your feet for me to get him. I’m going to throw my knife. It’s going to look like I’m going to hit your feet, but I won’t. I don’t miss with a knife, Jo, I swear I don’t. You have to believe that, because when I throw it, you’re going to have to stay still.”

  He gave her a quick look for reassurance, then focused again on the snake while he spoke.

  “If you move, if you even jerk, your feet could end up in the wrong place and I could end up pinning you instead of the snake. Like I said, I don’t miss, but once I let go of the knife, I can’t call it back if you move. I don’t mean to scare you, Firefly, but you have to know what I’m doing so you can make sure you don’t move. It’s going to happen fast.”

  He could feel Jo’s panic rising.

  “Okay, now you know what’s going to happen. I want you to close your eyes. Do it for me, Jo, do it.”

  He glanced at her again and saw her squeezing her eyes shut with all her might. Her breath was coming faster and faster.

  “Good girl. Easy does it now. It won’t be much longer. I guess I better warn you, when I pin his head to the ground, his body’
s going to thrash around under your skirt. But he won’t be able to hurt you. Do you hear me? The only thing that can hurt you is his fangs—even after he’s dead you don’t want to touch his fangs. You hear me? When he starts flopping around under there, it will be because he’s dead. Not much longer. Not much longer.”

  Now!

  True and straight, the knife left his hand, propelled by the full force of muscles honed on hard work, and pinned the rattler to the ground just behind its skull.

  Beneath Jo’s skirt, the body flailed and the rattle shook.

  With her eyes still squeezed shut, Jo stiffened and screamed behind sealed lips.

  Pace rushed forward and yanked the snake from beneath her skirt, then whisked her from the ground in arms that felt like water. He squeezed his eyes shut and offered a prayer of thanks. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I’ve got you, Jo.”

  Wrapping her arms around his neck in a stranglehold, Joanna clung to him and shook so hard her teeth chattered. “I was—so scared,” she sobbed. “Oh, God, Pace, I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “Me neither, Firefly.” He clasped her tighter to his chest and slid down the rock wall to the bedroll, near the spot where she’d sat for so long in terror. The snake’s body lay where Pace had thrown it, at the base of the opposite wall. The head was still pinned to the dirt by his knife. Later he would dispose of both and clean his knife. Right then all he could do was hold Joanna and thank God that she was all right.

  “I can still feel it,” she said frantically, kicking her legs around. “Oh, God, I can still feel it crawling all over me.”

  “No, no,” Pace soothed. “The snake is gone. It’s dead and we’re gonna eat that bastard for supper.”

  “I still feel it!” She squirmed in his arms, her panic rising again.

  “He’s gone, Jo.” Pace ran a hand beneath her skirt and caressed first one calf then the other. “See? All gone.”

  Her arms tightened around his neck. She buried her face against his shoulder and fought a sob.

  “Go ahead and cry, Firefly. You’ve earned it.”

  With that, she let loose and cried great wracking sobs that threatened to tear him apart. He held her and let her cry it all out while he brushed his hand up and down her legs to remind her the snake was gone and she was safe.

  God, but her skin was soft. Where the hell were her stockings? He shouldn’t be touching her like this, beneath her skirt, his hand on her bare flesh. The lace edge of her drawers hit just below her knees and tickled his hand. Higher up, the drawers were cotton, so thin and soft they didn’t begin to disguise the firmness or tantalizing shape of the woman beneath.

  Gradually Joanna’s sobs eased to an occasional sniffle and hiccup. Pace pressed his lips beside her eye and tasted the salt of tears and the sweetness of woman.

  “Better?” he asked quietly, sipping tears from the corner of her eye, her cheek, her jaw.

  For Joanna, it seemed only natural to turn toward the comfort of his soothing lips and meet them with her own. At first contact, a tingling spark ignited. Green eyes opened wide in surprise to stare into startled, wary eyes of brilliant blue.

  Yes! Kiss me!

  Everything inside Pace stilled. Everything but his heart, which thundered like a thousand pounding hooves. He’d heard her. Heaven help him, she hadn’t spoken, but he’d heard her.

  It couldn’t be. He couldn’t hear her thoughts. He was only imagining what he wanted her to say. If he answered, she wouldn’t hear him.

  Kiss me, Pace.

  Oh, Jesus. You called me an asshole.

  Yes, I did. Are you going to kiss me?

  Oh, Jesus.

  He didn’t mean to kiss her, knew he shouldn’t.

  No, that wasn’t right. He should kiss her. Had to kiss her. She was the one, the woman meant for him. The knowledge burst upon him like the sun breaking free of the horizon at dawn. He wasn’t hearing her words in his mind as he did with Serena. Joanna was speaking straight to his heart, to his soul, as only the woman could who was meant to be his mate.

  But it couldn’t be. She felt like…his destiny. Yet his destiny was fire, the fire in his manhood vision. To dream of fire meant disaster, maybe even death. Pace had always assumed that his vision told of an early death—his. Dee-O-Det had said it was possible. Of course, he’d also said that because Pace was only half Apache, maybe the vision of fire meant the opposite.

  “Who knows, with you crazy white people,” the old shaman had said with a wink and a raspy laugh.

  Pace had never believed him. He’d always assumed he would die young. But then, thirty-four wasn’t exactly young and he was still alive. On this particular trek through Mexico, thirty-four felt damned old. But he’d never felt more alive in his life than he did right then with Jo in his arms and her lips less than a breath away.

  Pace’s previous relationships with women had pretty much convinced him that he was not meant to find a mate.

  Now it seemed he’d been wrong. His Power, his gift, was knowledge. He sometimes knew things he should have no way of knowing. And just then, he knew that in his arms he held the answer to the empty restlessness in his soul—Joanna.

  Oh, Jesus, Joanna.

  His hand shook where it rested on her bare calf. His breath hitched. Her green eyes held him as firmly as if he were bound to her hand and foot. Her lips brushed his. And he was lost.

  Her mouth was soft and warm, pliant beneath his, tasting of tears and sunshine. And it was his. As his mouth was hers. Her lips spoke of surrender and triumph and sent his senses reeling. He tasted, he nibbled, he nipped and bit lightly, and she eagerly returned the favors.

  When her eyes slid closed in obvious pleasure, Pace groaned, fighting the urge to run his hand all the way up her leg to the core of her, to lift her skirt, to rip off her blouse. The swift, hard response of his body was undeniable. He wanted her, sharply, fiercely, totally. She was the one who could make him whole, the woman who could give his life purpose and meaning, the woman with whom he could build a life, with whom he could be tender and giving. Yet in that moment, tenderness was impossible, and rather than give, all he could do was take.

  This can’t be happening. Not with Jo.

  But it was. The knowledge was as clear as if carved in stone before his eyes. He didn’t know whether to fight her, or drown in her, but he couldn’t stop kissing her. She was too sweet and his need was suddenly too great for him to even think about stopping.

  Joanna prayed he wouldn’t stop, not in this lifetime. The rightness of being in his arms settled clear into her bones and turned them to jelly. This was where she belonged, pressed against him and feeling heat pool down low inside.

  She had been kissed before, but never like this. She’d never felt it to her toes, never felt it in her heart. No man had ever touched her the way Pace was touching her legs beneath her skirt—she would never have allowed it!—but with Pace, the intimacy of the touch, the possessiveness in the way his fingers gripped her, felt right.

  He was devouring her, and she reveled in it, in the fierceness of his kiss, the strength of his arms. Her emotions soared and tangled one around the other and she prayed for Pace’s lips to never leave hers, but eventually they did.

  Pace rested his forehead against hers and gasped for breath. Slowly, he pulled away and looked at her. “We could hurt a lot of people this way.”

  Joanna raised her head and looked him in the eye. One kiss was all it had taken for her to know she was in love with him. She would not let him go easily. “Only ourselves,” she told him with quiet certainty. “And only if we deny what we feel.”

  His eyes darkened and he leaned toward her. Without moving, Joanna felt her entire being reach for him. His gaze roamed her face as he neared. When he looked at her lips, they tingled.

  Suddenly Pace jerked his head back and closed his eyes. “This is crazy.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Dammit, Jo.” He put her off his lap and stood with his back to
her, his fists clenched. “We can’t do this!”

  “Why?” she demanded as she scrambled to her feet and prepared to fight for her life. “Because you’re my uncle?”

  He tossed her a look of irritation. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “You didn’t think something like that was bullshit when Daddy and Rena got married. You said—”

  “I know what I said,” he bit out. “That has nothing to do with us.”

  “Why? If it was good enough—”

  “I was wrong, all right?” he snapped.

  Joanna stilled. “Wrong about what?”

  Pace ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I was wrong about your father and my sister. There, I said it. Are you happy now?”

  “Pace?” She put a hand on his arm. When he refused to turn and face her, she planted herself in front of him. “Are you saying…What are you saying?”

  “Leave it alone, Jo.”

  He tried to walk past her, but she stood her ground. “I will not leave it alone. How many years has it been, fourteen? For most of my life you’ve hated Daddy for marrying Rena. You’ve always said they should never have married. You’ve stayed away from home all these years because you couldn’t stand to see them together.”

  “I know exactly what I’ve done, but don’t stop there, JoJo, the list is a hell of a lot longer than that.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she hissed.

  “I’ve hurt every member of my family. I’ve pitted father against son, mother against father, husband against wife. You think I don’t know what I’ve done?”

  The look in Pace’s eyes finally penetrated Joanna’s anger. What she saw in those bright blue depths made her hurt all over. The pain in them was raw, the self-contempt vivid.

  “Why don’t you hate me?” came his tortured whisper.

  “Hate you? How could I hate you? How could any of us? We’ve always loved you, Pace. All of us. Yes, even Daddy.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” His voice was tight and harsh; the look on his face matched. “You think it doesn’t eat me alive every day of my life knowing all I have to do is swallow this monumental pride of mine and despite the pain I’ve caused, they—all of you—would forgive me and take me back into the family I’ve nearly destroyed?”