Chapter Twenty-Seven
Despite the fact that he was exhausted, Jack had a restless night.
He was afraid that Hayilkah would change his mind and return the black and take Candice Carter to bed as his wife.
He dozed and dreamed of Candice. She was in his arms, and he was making fierce, agonizing love to her.
Then she moved him away, laughing. Tim McGraw appeared, smiling insolently, and proceeded to impale her right before his very eyes.
In his dream, he wanted to kill McGraw. Now he had lus clothes on, while they rutted naked.
But he couldn’t make his hands move to draw his guns no matter how hard he tried.
All he could do was stand there and watch, his body paralyzed.
He even had a brief nightmare about Datiye.
He had caught a glimpse of her that afternoon, reminding him of what had happened between them.
In the dream, she was giving birth to a child.
His child. Candice was there, acting as midwife.
He awoke in a sweat, very disturbed. Everyone knew dreams were omens.
At dawn Shozkay found him sitting on his bedroll staring out at the mountains with a harsh forbidding expression on his face.
“Ready for divorce already, brother?” Shozkay teased dryly.
Jack jumped to his feet, his heart pounding. “They have not returned the black?” If the black had not been returned, it meant the proposal had been accepted.
“Come, Shozkay said, smiling. “She is a maiden—you realize that?”
Jack stared in surprise. Kincaid and Candice had never consummated their marriage? And then he felt a swift, hot elation that no man had possessed her.
“You did not know?”
“She is a widow,” Jack said.
“How is that?”
“I do not know.”
“Well, there is no doubt that she is still a maiden; she was examined carefully, or so Hayilkah says.”
Jack grew grim thinking about someone examining Candice to find that out. He clamped down hard on his jaw as anger coursed through him.
Shozkay led him through the camp to his gohwah, and behind it there was a buckskin dress, moccasins, and an antelope hide—a kind of dowry. “Well?”
Jack stared, then relaxed and even smiled.
“Are you going to go get your bride?” Shozkay grinned as if he found the whole affair vastly amusing.
My bride, he thought. My bride. Now what am I going to do? And instantly an inner voice said—She belongs to you, and you can do what you will. And it was the truth. “I don’t want her to know about this,” Jack told him.
“I will speak no truths.” Shozkay laughed.
“This isn’t funny,” Jack said.
“I will not even speak to her.” Shozkay grinned. “Love, eh?”
Jack gave him a dark look and strode away.
He passed Hayilkah, mounted on a chestnut horse, about to go hunting with a group of men.
Hayilkah smiled. Jack smiled too. Had Hayilkah tried to approach the black, much less mount him?
The black was an unfriendly horse that rarely allowed anyone but him on his back.
Jack thought that Hayilkah had probably tried, and failed, thus his current choice of a mount.
Hayilkah was probably intending to break the black another time.
Jack wondered if he would be able to do so, and doubted it.
He felt a sense of loss, but it was lost among his other careening emotions and the heavy thudding of his heart.
He ducked into the gohwah. Candice was awake, still naked, although wrapped in a blanket. Her face brightened with evident joy at seeing him. He looked at her and was swept with a heady flush of pleasure. This woman is mine. “Let’s go.”
She started in surprise, rising, holding the blanket. “What’s happened?” she asked anxiously.
His gaze was level. “I’ve traded for you.”
“Are we going to leave?”
“Soon,” he told her. He took her elbow. “Come on. I think the first thing you need is a bath.”
She turned fully toward him, one of her hands going to his bare chest in a natural, importuning gesture. But the moment their flesh made contact, she froze, and he went very still. They both stared at her small, pale hand resting on his hard, dark abdomen. She started to remove it.
He took it in his. “Jesu,” he said. Her nails were torn and had been bleeding. Dirt was embedded beneath them. Her knuckles were chapped and raw, her skin dry and leathery. There were scabbing cuts on her palm, and her wrists still looked infected. His touch was very gentle. Their eyes met.
He thought he saw trust, and his heart tightened painfully. “We’ll get you cleaned up.” His voice was too husky.
“Jack.” It was a croak, and she wet her lips, her pink tongue instantly drawing his full attention. He focused on her mouth—the lips cracked and split but so very beautiful. The urge to kiss her was overwhelming. To kiss her and take her and make her his. Why not? She was his.
“Did you trade your stallion for me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
A slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Her own face mirrored it. It was Jack who finally looked away from her glistening dark-blue eyes.
The hunting party was riding out, a group of fierce-looking braves, rifles in hand, bows slung over hard shoulders.
Half a dozen squaws were striding out of camp carrying baskets—obviously some kind of gathering expedition—while the rest of the women were cooking over fires and deep ovens, watching the children.
The braves who had remained were sharpening implements, mending harnesses, making weapons.
They walked away from the camp to an area of the creek secluded by thick stands of oak and pinyon. Jack was carrying her dowry—the dress and moccasins. He laid them carefully on some grass, glancing at her. “I’ll just walk back a bit.”
She clutched the blanket closer but didn’t avert her gaze. They stared at each other before Jack turned away, reluctantly, his blood racing thickly. He wanted her, he wanted her now, and he had never wanted any woman the way he wanted her.
He paused beside a large, thick tree, leaning his bare shoulder against it.
He could hear her dropping the blanket, and he instantly envisioned her long-legged, lithe, full-breasted body, imagined her turning and walking to the creek.
He couldn’t help it. He shifted, his manhood rigid and aching now, and glanced over his shoulder.
She was wading into the stream, shivering, her long, tangled hair flowing to her waist, stopping just short enough to give him a perfect and tantalizing view of her lush, rounded buttocks and long legs.
He groaned beneath his breath but could not for the life of him look away.
She bent over and he inhaled, a sharp sound at what she was exposing, and she straightened instantly, whirling, arms across her breasts, her navy eyes wide. Their gazes met.
It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to turn and walk back to the camp.