Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “We won’t know that until I have a look at you.”

  “Save it,” Pace told him breathlessly. “I’m as good as dead, Spence. I know.”

  Daniella cried out in protest. Pace wanted to call back his words—hurting his mother was the last thing he wanted. But it was too late.

  Pace’s words sent a shaft of pain through Daniella Colton that nearly sent her to her knees. If Travis hadn’t been holding her she would have crumpled where she stood. Without her having to ask, he helped her to Pace’s side. There, she knelt.

  “Spence?” she asked fearfully, hoping against hope that Spence would tell her Pace was wrong, that this time his knowing was not true.

  Spence swallowed hard. His voice, when it came, was low and strained. “If there’s going to be any marrying done…get it done fast so I can get to work here.”

  Daniella’s vision blurred. Pace! She wanted to touch him. He was her firstborn, the fruit of her womb. She needed to be able to take away the terrible agony she knew he felt, but she was helpless. So godawful helpless.

  “Shimá,” Pace whispered.

  Holy Mother of God, Daniella prayed, please don’t take my son!

  “We didn’t mean…to hurt anyone, Mama.”

  It was all Daniella could do to keep from wailing. Pace had not called her Mama since he’d been four years old and decided the word was too childish. She had been Mother ever since.

  “Of course you didn’t,” she told him.

  “I love her,” Pace admitted. “She loves me too, if you can get her to admit it. I don’t want…my son born a bastard, don’t want Jo to live with that shame.”

  Daniella forced her gaze from her son and looked at Joanna kneeling on his other side, saw the panic in Jo’s eyes. “Jo?”

  “When he’s better,” Joanna said. “I told him I’d marry him when he’s better.”

  “Joanna,” Daniella beseeched.

  “I can’t,” Joanna wailed. “If I give in, he’ll give up! Look at him if you don’t believe me. He’s just waiting until I give in so he can stop fighting and let go!”

  “Goddammit,” Pace muttered. “I don’t even hurt anymore, Jo. I can’t feel…anything. Matt, make her do it. I swear…she’ll be a widow by morning.”

  “No!” Joanna and Daniella cried together.

  Pace couldn’t turn his head to look at Jo, so he met his mother’s tortured eyes. “Shimá, Duunshúńlídádááł.”

  Joanna gasped. “You said that before, on the wind.”

  Daniella stiffened. She stared at Joanna in awe. “You heard him?”

  “What does it mean?” Joanna demanded.

  “If you heard him…”

  “No, what did he say?”

  Silence filled the wickiup. No one wanted to translate Pace’s fateful words. Finally Serena spoke. “He said, ‘You will not hope for me.’“

  Daniella shook with the knowledge that Pace believed he was dying. He said he knew. Pace’s knowing had never been wrong before. Dear God, please don’t take my son!

  Matt’s voice, when it came, was low and harsh. “Joanna, do it.”

  “Do what?” she cried. “Give in to him? Give him the excuse he’s waiting for so he can quit on us?”

  “No,” Daniella said, her throat closing in denial. Her son was dying before her eyes. Nothing else mattered. She would snatch him back from the hands of death if she could. Dear God, don’t take my son!

  But God was taking her son, right before her eyes. It was happening and she could do nothing to stop it.

  Daniella reached blindly behind herself and grasped her husband’s hand. Travis held on tight, and she felt his own sense of helplessness combine with hers.

  For a long moment she struggled for the strength she needed. Questions assailed her. Why Pace? Dear God, why Pace? Hadn’t his life been difficult enough? Was he never to know true happiness? How had this happened? Pace and Joanna. A child. It seemed incredible, impossible. Totally unlikely.

  And yet…so fitting. As fitting that Pace and Joanna create a child together out of love for each other as was the joining of Matt and Serena.

  The hows and whys didn’t matter. They could be answered later. If these were Pace’s last moments…

  No! her heart screamed.

  Her mind answered quietly, in anguish, You know it’s true.

  She squeezed Travis’s hand tight to hold back her tears. She would not say good-bye to her son with tears. Pace deserved better than that. He deserved whatever peace was hers to give.

  She met her granddaughter’s gaze. “If you love him, Joanna, give him peace. If you carry his child, give him at least this much of his father. If you…” Her voice broke, and she could not go on.

  Joanna wanted to protest, wanted to argue, wanted to scream and cry and throw herself across Pace’s chest and forcibly prevent him from slipping away. But the look in her grandmother’s eyes forestalled her, and she knew…knew what she had to do.

  “Pace,” she whispered, moving closer so he could see her. Her voice and hands shook. Her heart cracked wide open and bled silent tears. “I do love you. In the way of The People, I have already accepted you as my husband.”

  Pace felt the tightness in his chest ease. “I know, Firefly. Just do this last thing for me?”

  The look of pain on her face was nearly his undoing, but she nodded her agreement.

  “Old Man?” Pace called quietly.

  “I am here, Fire Seeker. I have heard your woman agree. You need nothing more from me, but I understand this crazy white notion for a ceremony. I must touch your hand.”

  Pace tried to swallow, but couldn’t. “Go ahead. You won’t hurt me.”

  Joanna surprised him, and pleased him immensely, by taking his hand in both of hers and turning his bloody wrist to meet the shaman’s sacred knife. Pace only wished he could feel her touch, but the numbness that had begun at his feet when he’d first awakened had spread. He felt nothing now. Time was almost gone.

  The blade flashed briefly and a fresh well of blood appeared on Pace’s left wrist, then on Joanna’s right one. Dee-O-Det then pressed their wrists together and bound them with a special cloth.

  The air in the wickiup grew heavy. Or was it merely that breathing was so difficult, Pace wondered. He heard his own struggle for breath, heard Joanna’s breath come faster.

  “You have two bodies,” the shaman said. “But now only one blood. You are one.” With a flourish, he pulled the cloth from their wrists. “Nzhú!” It is done!

  “You are…my wife,” Pace managed. He wanted her to lean down and kiss him. God, how he wanted it. But he read the fear in her eyes. Fear of hurting him, fear because he was leaving her. He searched his foggy mind for some way to comfort her, to let her know that, except for leaving her and their son, he didn’t mind dying. “I love you.”

  With a whimper of pain that tore through his numbness like a bullet, Joanna leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

  Her kiss was still on his lips as the darkness took him one final time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The night that followed was the longest night any Colton had ever spent. Joanna had felt Pace’s lips go slack beneath hers when she’d kissed him, and she had panicked. Spence had been quick to check and reassure her that Pace was still alive, but barely.

  With Joanna, Serena, and Daniella to help him, and Matt and Travis to haul fresh water and keep the fire going, Spence worked feverishly through the night to save his brother.

  With Matt questioning her, Joanna told what had happened at Hacienda Juerta. She told of seeing her Mexican host murder his wife, of being imprisoned in a cell, of escaping, only to be nearly caught. She told of Pace’s dramatic rescue, of their flight across Mexico, and of being trapped by Juerta and his men in the box canyon.

  “And during this time,” Serena asked her softly, “you and Pace fell in love?”

  Matt ground his teeth and turned away.

  “Yes,” Jo said quietly. “We fell in love.
”

  When she told of Pace’s sacrifice for her safety, of Pace sending her to freedom, knowing he would undoubtedly be killed, Spence had to concentrate to keep his hands from shaking. While Matt vowed vengeance on Juerta, Spence was thinking of Pace. Spence knew what kind of love it took for a man to offer his life for a woman. He hadn’t been able to offer himself for LaRisa. He hadn’t been able to free her from the trap that nearly meant her death. But he had resolved to stay with her, to die with her, despite her pleas that he leave her and save himself.

  He and LaRisa had been lucky—they’d been given a second chance. If he didn’t do everything he could for Pace now, Pace and Jo would never get their chance together. They would never know the happiness of living together and sharing their love.

  All of Spence’s old insecurities rose up to haunt him. He wasn’t good enough. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t work, wouldn’t be good enough. Every time he tried to help one of The People, he failed.

  He wished LaRisa was there. She would kick him in the shins for thinking like that. But she wasn’t here to lean on, to give him her unfailing support. She was too far gone with his child to travel. He’d refused to let her even go to the ranch with him three days ago when he’d gone to remove Matt’s splint.

  Throughout the night, Spence’s prayers swung from asking for a miracle for his brother, to no early delivery for his wife. The baby wasn’t due for two more weeks.

  But still, he wished Risa was with him. His mother, sister, and niece were fine, but he was used to working with his wife, and right then he would take any little advantage he could over the death that hovered over his brother. If only, he thought with a prayer. If only he was good enough.

  He had to be good enough, because aside from a miracle from God, Spence was Pace’s only hope. And it was a weak hope, at that. Spence had never seen a man recover from such severe wounds. Especially when the patient didn’t appear to be helping. That was the real danger here. Pace had given up.

  “How is he?” Travis demanded gruffly.

  “The same as he was the last time you asked, five minutes ago,” Spence retorted.

  “And you didn’t answer me then, either.”

  “He’s bad, Dad.” Spence looked up at his father standing in the door of the wickiup. “Real bad.” And getting weaker by the minute.

  “I think he’s starting a fever,” Serena muttered.

  Shit, Spence thought. That’s all Pace needed—fever. Spence swore beneath his breath. “Bring us some more fresh water,” he tossed over his shoulder to Matt and his dad as he bent once more over the ghastly lash marks on Pace’s back. “Lots of water.”

  Travis grabbed two pitch-covered water carriers and ducked out the door. To get the remaining two jugs, Matt had to step near Pace’s head. It was the closest he’d been to Pace, the closest look he’d gotten, and his mouth dried out like he’d swallowed a mouthful of cotton. Emotions bombarded him from all sides. He grabbed the jugs and fled.

  Outside he was surprised to find the sky turning light with a new day. Purposely blanking his mind, he followed his father to the stream, refilled the jugs, and took them back to the wickiup. He left again, heading for the woods, seeking solitude and some semblance of control over his own emotions.

  For fourteen years Pace had spurned him, denied their brotherhood, dismissed Matt and Serena’s love for each other as something abnormal. For fourteen years Pace’s absence, and on those rare occasions when he was home, even his presence, had cast a pall over the family, the ranch, creating tension where there would otherwise have been harmony.

  For fourteen years, Matt had wanted to strangle Pace. And now, maybe Pace had found what he believed to be a way to get even, through Joanna.

  The dark, ugly suspicion that Pace had deliberately seduced Matt’s daughter pricked the back of Matt’s mind like a burr under a saddle. He didn’t want to believe it, would not dignify the thought by voicing it, but it was there.

  And now, Matt acknowledged with a thickness in his throat, Pace was dying. Matt could see what this was doing to his father and Dani—it was tearing them apart. A parent’s worst nightmare, losing a child, no matter the age.

  But Matt suddenly realized that he was just as affected as his father and stepmother. Dammit, to hell with the past fourteen years! The lack of common blood meant nothing between him and Pace. They were brothers, had always been brothers.

  And he’s dying.

  It shouldn’t end like this, Matt cried out silently. Damn you, Pace, we were supposed to have a chance, you and I, to end this stupid animosity. We were supposed to be brothers again.

  Funny, but with the light growing stronger with the rising sun, Matt would have thought his vision would have become clearer. Instead, there seemed to be a film over his eyes, because everything looked fuzzy. It was several minutes before he realized that his cheeks were damp.

  Pace’s fever raged all that day and into the next, and Spence could not explain even to himself why his half brother was still alive. The fever was too high, his pulse too low, his breathing too shallow, and infection ravaged every wound. By all rights, Pace should have died two days ago. He did not moan or thrash around, did not become delirious no matter how high the fever went. His pupils did not react to light. He just lay there, as still as death, his chest barely moving, and sank deeper and deeper into a coma.

  Late in the night, Spence watched as Joanna patiently bathed Pace in cool water once more in a fruitless attempt to bring down the fever. The others were asleep, but not Jo. She hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours since Spence had arrived. He assumed she hadn’t done any better since Pace had been injured.

  Injured, hell. This wasn’t injury, he thought as he looked down at his brother’s torn and broken body. This was murder. It just wasn’t over, that was all.

  Then, in the next instant, it was over. Pace stopped breathing.

  Joanna, too, stopped breathing. She froze with her hand halfway to Pace’s chest. She’d been about to start over the endless routine of wiping him down with cool water. For hours she had kept her terrified gaze on the slight rise and fall of his chest, willing it to continue, to grow deeper, stronger.

  Instead, the movement had become more shallow with each passing moment. Until, finally, it ceased.

  She’d been waiting for it. Spence had warned her it would happen, that Pace could not possibly survive. Pace himself had been certain of his impending death. She thought she had been prepared. One part of her was grateful that Gran and the others were asleep when it happened. But another part refused to accept that Pace was gone.

  “No,” she moaned, squeezing the rag she still held above his chest until small drops of water trickled down on him. “Pace, no.”

  Spence placed two fingers alongside Pace’s throat, as he’d done a hundred times in the past few days, checking for a pulse. Slowly, without moving his fingers, he raised his gaze to hers. “It’s…over, Jo,” he said quietly.

  Something inside Joanna snapped. From the minute she had given in to Pace and allowed the shaman to join them in marriage, she had held in her anguish, her denial, her anger and pain, stubbornly clinging, without admitting it even to herself, to the hope, the belief, that Pace would recover.

  “He’s gone, Jo,” Spence told her.

  Despair, rage, and overwhelming grief surged through her like lava from the earth’s core, building pressure, seeking an outlet, onward, stronger and stronger, until it erupted.

  “No!” she cried. With her fist doubled, she pounded on Pace’s chest. “No! Do you hear me, Pace Colton? Damn you! Don’t you dare die on me!” She pounded his chest again and again. “You have no right to leave this way, damn you!”

  Spence swallowed hard at her outburst. Along the walls of the wickiup, the rest of the family stirred. “Jo…it’s over.”

  “No! I won’t let it be over! Do you hear me? I won’t let him go!” Her fist came down harder and harder on Pace’s chest.

  Spence woul
d have winced at the further bruising she was causing Pace, but Pace was beyond feeling any pain now.

  “I…won’t…let him…go!” Joanna punctuated each word with her fist against Pace’s torn and lacerated chest.

  As the family woke and realized what was happening, Matt reached Joanna first. “Stop it,” he told her, taking her shoulders firmly in hand.

  She hit Pace again, harder this time.

  Spence froze. It couldn’t be! His fingers were still pressed to Pace’s carotid artery, and for a minute, the last time Jo struck…“Wait,” he said as Matt started to haul Joanna away from Pace.

  With every muscle tense and his own heart racing, Spence listened to Pace’s chest through his stethoscope. “Do it again,” he said to Joanna.

  “Do what?” she croaked, tears streaming down her face.

  “Hit him. Hit him again.”

  “Dammit, Spence, are you out of your mind?” Matt demanded. “He’s dead.”

  Spence never took his gaze from Jo’s. “Do it!”

  The minute her father had touched her every ounce of energy Joanna had seemed to drain out through her knees. The will to fight and scream went with it. But there was something in Spence’s eyes. Weakly she did as he said, suddenly finding the act of beating Pace’s chest abhorrent.

  “Harder,” Spence demanded. He moved his stethoscope out of her way and pressed his fingers once again to Pace’s carotid artery. “Hit him like you did a minute ago.”

  She hit him harder. The side of her fist felt numb.

  “Again!”

  Joanna whimpered and would have collapsed across Pace’s chest had her father not been holding her shoulders. “I can’t.”

  “You can, dammit! Hit him! Hard!”

  “Spence?” Matt asked. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Shut up.” Spence didn’t have time to talk, or listen. Joanna finally gathered her strength and struck Pace a good one. He’d been right! He adjusted his fingers again. “Harder. Keep hitting. Harder!”

  The darkness was complete, but here there was no heat or cold, no pain. There was simply…nothing. Nothing but deep, impenetrable blackness.