Chapter Twelve
“Candice, get up.”
She opened her eyes to see Luke standing in the doorway. “Huh?”
He was grim. “There’s a half-breed Apache in the yard and he says you stole his horse.”
She sat up, her face paling. “Oh, God.” He had came.
“Pop wants you downstairs. Now.” Luke stalked out of the room.
Candice leapt from the bed, shaking. She felt fear and sought control as she pulled on a chemise and petticoats. Her whole family was there, so he couldn’t do anything. She didn’t have to know him very well to know he would be furious. And her omission of the truth was about to be exposed.…
She shrugged into a skirt and blouse and ran downstairs, barefoot, her hair still loose and uncombed.
He was standing in the yard, facing the verandah, at gunpoint.
One of the hired hands had his rifle trained cautiously on his back, and three others ringed him warily.
Mark, Little John, Luke, and their father stood facing him.
His eyes were blazing, and he was wearing only the loincloth and moccasins, an empty gunbelt and the knife.
One of the hired hands had his Colt stuck in his own waistband.
The scabs on Savage’s chest and knee had opened, and were raw and bleeding slightly.
Their gazes locked.
Candice was shaking, and she could barely breathe.
He smiled, a mere baring of his teeth. “I believe,” he said harshly, “you have something that belongs to me.”
Candice opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Mark whirled, eyes wide. “This breed was at the gate, demanding to come in. He says you stole his horse.”
Candice looked at Mark and then at Jack. His gaze was ice cold and filled with contempt. Yet his face seemed pale beneath the bronze of his tan. “I …” She faltered completely. Oh, why had he come!
“I want my horse,” Jack said softly, slowly, enunciating every word, his gaze pinning her.
“Do you know this man, Candice?” her father said.
“Yes.”
Mark took a step toward her, incredulous and furious all at once. “How in hell do you know him?”
“Is it his horse?” John-John demanded, as angry as Mark.
“Yes.” Candice looked back at Jack and flushed with the guilt that resurfaced with full intensity. She quickly faced her father and Luke, the only ones who might show her any sympathy. “Pop, I didn’t tell you the whole story.”
“I can see that,” her father said, but he was cut off by Mark, who was shouting.
“Did he touch you? Did he? Did this red-skinned bastard touch you?”
Candice stepped back, flushing. Thinking many, many thoughts—waking up naked, standing together nude in the smoke, cleansing his body. Mark met her gaze and his own went wider, and then he whirled, drawing his gun in the same motion. Candice cried out, “No, Mark, no, he didn’t, I swear it!”
Before she had even finished the sentence, Jack grabbed Mark’s arm, hard, and the gun went clattering to the ground. Luke quickly moved between the two men. He said to his younger brother, very softly, “Don’t be a hothead.”
“If he touched her, I’ll kill him!”
Jack laughed, the sound hard and short and mirthless. “I have no interest in her.”
It was, of course, a lie, and they both knew it. Candice went crimson, wishing, with all her heart, that he hadn’t come.
“What happened, Candice?” her father injected firmly.
Candice took a breath, glad to turn away from Jack. “I bought a horse in Arizona City, but she got bit by a rattlesnake. I walked until I couldn’t walk any longer. I had no water, no food. I finally passed out. It had been three, maybe four days. He found me.”
Mark made a noise, and even John-John gasped. Everyone, including the hired hands, looked at the half-naked man standing tautly in their midst. Jack smiled again, savagely.
Luke spoke. “You were alone with him, in the middle of the desert?”
Candice flushed again. “He saved my life.”
Again, all eyes went from her to Jack.
Candice hurried on into the tense silence.
She could feel the male anger, the maelstrom of hostility, the urge for violence.
“He saved my life. He didn’t touch me. He’s part white, he speaks like a white man.
There was a mountain lion—he got hurt.” She faltered and found herself looking at him, saw the fury in his gaze, and this time she couldn’t look away.
Her voice went to a whisper. “That’s when I stole the horse. ”
Their gazes locked in another silence, this one endless. Then Candice thought she saw him sway, but the movement was so slight and he was standing so rigidly that she had to have imagined it. John-John said, “He has a helluva nerve, coming here.”
“I don’t believe her,” Mark accused. “She’s lying.”
“Mark!” her father said.
Candice held her breath. Mark turned his hot, angry eyes on her. “If he didn’t touch you, why are you so guilty looking—so red? He’s a damn red-skinned breed. You were unconscious when he found you. They don’t do any different from animals. You might not even know if—”
“Enough!” John Carter roared.
Luke said, “If he had touched her, little brother, horse or no horse, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to come here.”
“I didn’t touch her,” Jack gritted. “At least, not the way you mean. I saved her damned life—and all I got out of it was a stolen horse and a delay in my journey north.”
Candice was shaking. She looked everywhere but at Savage.
“Pedro, get his horse,” John said. The hand immediately turned to obey. John looked at Jack. “You saved my daughter’s life, and for that I thank you.”
Jack smiled again. It didn’t reach his eyes.
The stallion was led out, saddled. Candice looked at Jack again.
He wasn’t looking at her, but at the horse.
She saw the slick sheen on his oozing chest. Her mind started to work.
He had trailed her on foot. He was still hurt.
She should have never stolen the horse. She would never forget the look in his eyes—or how close they had all come to violence and maybe murder.
Pedro handed him the stallion’s reins. He didn’t move to get on. His hands on the leathers were white.
“You’d better ride out of here while you can,” Luke advised.
Jack met his gaze evenly. His was strangely bright. “My gun.”
Luke looked at Red Barlow, who still had his rifle aimed at the man’s back. He nodded. “Give him his gun, Red.”
Red hesitated. “You sure?”
“Give it to him, Red,” John said.
Red hesitated again, then, still training his rifle on Jack, he gingerly removed his gun.
“Wait,” John-John said, and moved in between them to take the Colt and quickly empty its chamber.
He wheeled and thrust it at Jack. Jack sheathed it and moved stiffly to the stallion’s side.
His back was bloody. The scabs had opened, and Candice inhaled sharply. He must have heard, because he tensed.
“Pop,” Candice said swiftly, “he’s hurt. He came all this way on foot. At least—at least he could have something to eat.”
Everyone stared at her.
“What in hell’s wrong with you?” Mark shouted.
“He did save my life,” Candice said, her chin coming up and her heart pounding furiously.
She wasn’t looking at her brother or anyone other than the man whose bloody back was facing her.
How could he have done it? Did the stupid horse mean so much to him?
And how—how was he going to get on it and ride?
“You, boy,” John Carter said.
Jack was still standing with his back to them, facing the horse. Now he put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle.
“Go around back to the kitchen. Maria will give you something to eat.”
The stallion swung sideways and Jack faced the Carter family with scorn blazing in his eyes. Candice blushed, knowing this proud man would never go to the back to take scraps like a dog. She felt a sudden shame for her family—and for herself. His glance settled on her and it burned.
Candice bravely held it, her hand coming up to her mouth. Something seemed to choke her from deep inside. She saw that his face was beaded with sweat. “Please,” she heard herself say. “Go around back and get some food and water.”
“To hell with your charity,” he said in a low voice.
He tore his gaze away and turned the stallion, who was prancing restlessly. As he did so he slumped slightly, from the waist, then pulled erect again. The stallion snorted and shook his head.
“He’s hurt,” Candice said.
And he fell from the horse with one crashing thud at their feet.