Chapter Four
Candice held the mug and watched the half-breed Apache, making sure that she didn’t let go of the blanket. What was he going to do with her? She had to escape.
She had been living in this Territory since she was eight, and she knew everything there was to know about hostile Indians, especially Apaches, who were the worst. They didn’t just kill—they raped women and tortured and scalped their victims, including children.
Candice shuddered and set the tea aside.
A vivid memory assailed her, one she would never forget, no matter how hard she tried.
A little boy. Lying dead, flat on his back next to a gutted-out wagon.
Two arrows protruded from his small chest. His blue-and-white homespun shirt was covered with blood.
His eyes were still open. And—his scalp had been lifted. His skull was raw and red.
Apaches had done that.
She had to escape.
But she also knew that Apaches were the best trackers in the world.
If she did succeed in escaping, he would find her easily.
Which meant only one thing—she would have to kill him.
Her gaze had been glued to his broad, powerful back as he stood facing the fire.
Now he turned and she inhaled sharply, stiffening.
His glance was piercing, stripping her, and knowing that he actually had done so, and had possibly raped her too, made her feel sick deep inside.
“Why didn’t you drink it?”
She started.
He moved, only two steps closer, but it was the coiled, barely contained energy that mesmerized her. He reminded her of a stalking mountain lion, waiting to leap for the kill. Her fingers were white on the blanket.
“Drink the tea.”
She reached for the mug, not taking her eyes off him until she felt the smooth metal under her hand, and then, with a gasp, she drew back as she knocked it over and the hot liquid burned her fingers.
He squatted, taking her hand.
She held every muscle so tense she wondered if her body might snap. Her eyes had closed, and when she realized that, she opened them to find him studying her. “It’s not burned.” He stood, refilled the mug, and brought it to her. “Drink this, it’s good for you. You need the liquid.”
She obeyed at first because she had no choice, but the moment she swallowed she couldn’t get enough of the warm herbal tea. She drained the cup and he refilled it. After she had drunk another cup, she set it aside and lifted her gaze to his. He was standing, staring openly. At her hair.
It had fallen in a riotous mass of curls over one white shoulder. She shoved it back instantly. His eye followed her movement, narrowing. All she could think of was that he had probably never met a woman who had hair like hers—and was already coveting her scalp.
His expression hardened. “I’m getting tired of the way you’re looking at me.”
She sucked in her breath at the menace in his tone.
“Damn it,” he exploded, squatting and grabbing her chin in one callused hand. “I am not going to hurt you!”
No man had ever touched her with such violent anger before—not even Kincaid. He seemed to expect an answer, so she breathed out a barely audible yes. He cursed again, in English, words she’d never heard, and she blushed furiously. He stood, paced away, and then back.
His expression was even darker. “Who are you?” he demanded.
She didn’t answer, and he repeated the question angrily.
“I’m … Candice Carter,” she managed.
Recognition flared. “One of the High C Carters?” At her nod, he said, “What are you doing out here alone, on foot?”
Kincaid’s death flashed before her mind and she went white.
“I—I eloped.” When there was no response, she went on, hearing the anxiety in her own breath.
“My husband, Virgil Kincaid, was killed. A—a robbery. In Arizona City.” She had been looking at the blanket, blood pounding in her ears with the telling of such an astronomical lie.
What if there was a bounty out for her capture?
What if he turned her over to the authorities?
Then her family would find out the truth—that she had killed Kincaid when he had tried to rape her—and she would be ruined forever.
They would be unbearably shamed. She darted a glance up at her captor.
He was unmoved. Tears came to her eyes. Tears of hopelessness, frustration, and self-pity …
because of Kincaid, and because of this man standing half clad before her.
“That doesn’t explain what you were doing out in the desert, dying.” The statement was flat and emphatic.
More tears glimmered. “I was stunned. It was right after the wedding,” she whispered.
“I—I came back—to our room—and there he was—on the floor.” She started to cry.
She couldn’t help it. She didn’t intend it as a strategy to stop the questions that only lies could answer, but it worked as such—for he made an exasperated sound and walked away.
When she looked up, blinking, he was lying on the ground, on his back, staring at the stars.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand.
Still staring. She was stunned when he closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep immediately.
She sat very still.
He wasn’t going to harm her, at least not now. She breathed a fast prayer of thanks.
What was he going to do with her? She knew of other stories too.
Stories of white women who disappeared forever when their menfolk were killed by Indians.
One, a woman with unusually lovely light-blue eyes, had been taken captive when her husband and another family were slaughtered by Comanches near El Paso.
She had been badly beaten, her hair chopped off, and passed around to all the men.
When she turned up ten years later at a trading post, she was barely distinguishable as white.
Her skin was tanned to a nut brown, and she was clad in buckskins and calico—a cradleboard and infant on her back, and four half-breed children following close behind.
She was a pathetic echo of the woman she had once been, perhaps insane.
A sister and her husband took her in, but she was never the same.
Candice would kill herself before letting this Apache take her back to his camp.
The moon was a perfect, pale-champagne crescent.
There was no breeze, and the night was perfectly still except for the yelping of a distant coyote.
Her captor was sleeping motionlessly. Candice knew she had no choice.
She would wait a little longer to make sure he was sound asleep.
Meanwhile, her gaze scanned the ground next to her for a rock big enough to kill him with.
She found it, her hand closing over it. It had a jagged edge, enough to do the trick.
She felt ill. Killing in cold blood, even if the man was an Apache …
she didn’t know if she could do it. He’s a half-breed, an inner voice said.
Partly white. Candice thought of the scalped boy, of the captive woman. She picked up the stone.
Not even a branch rustled. The desert’s silence was complete. No owls, no scurrying opossums. Candice clutched the blanket more tightly with one hand, the stone in the other. She began crawling toward him.