Chapter Sixty-Eight
Candice awoke to an early-morning sun that promised more of spring.
She was in Jack’s warm embrace. Instinctively she snuggled closer, then remembered where she was, and why.
Jack had come back, as she’d known he would—only to take her with him.
Now, in the light of a new day, with the terror of the mob behind them, Candice felt grim and sad.
Nothing was right. Nothing was as it should be.
There was no way she could live with the Apaches, who were at war with her people. It was impossible. She sat up.
She gazed down at him, and although she suspected he hadn’t joined her until very recently, his eyes were open and alert. She could see tired lines etched around his mouth. “Come back here, shijii,” he said softly.
She looked at him, with sorrow she couldn’t hide in her eyes. She pulled her shawl more tightly against her and walked away, to relieve herself and to think. When she came back Jack was saddling the stallion. He didn’t look at her.
“I want you to take me back, Jack,” Candice said. “Take me home, or take me east. What you’re asking of me isn’t fair.”
He turned to her, his mouth hard. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
“It’s not fair to our child either.”
“That’s why I didn’t take you with me to begin with,” he said harshly, with ill-concealed anger. “But now fairness doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
“War isn’t fair,” Jack said. “That Shozkay was killed isn’t fair. There are worse things than your coming with me—your rightful husband.”
“Shozkay is dead?”
Jack turned his back to her and began tying on their saddlebags. “Yes.”
“Oh, God.” She stared at his rigid back, feeling him withdraw. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
He didn’t turn and didn’t answer. Candice approached and laid her hand on the tense muscles of his spine.
He quickly moved away—away from her touch.
She stood there helplessly. They had never been intimate, except physically.
Why now, when there were more walls between them than ever, did she expect him to open up to her, turn to her with his heavy need?
Now was not the time to bring it up, but when they stopped before dusk that night, Candice did.
“Jack, if you wont take me to the High C, why won’t you consider letting the Apaches wage their war without you?
You’re half white. You have a family to think of.
We could go away, the three of us, go where no one knows us, where no one will call the baby names. ”
He stared at her. “And leave my brother’s soul unavenged?”
She wanted to weep.
That night there was no need for Jack to keep guard.
Candice curled up in the bedroll and began to feel warm as she watched him carefully put out the small fire they’d cooked over.
She wondered if he would try to make love to her.
Then she instantly chastised herself. Of course he wouldn’t—she was too heavily pregnant, and there was so much stiffness and anger between them—the bricks of insurmountable walls.
She pretended to be sleeping when he crawled in beside her, but couldn’t fool herself.
She wanted him. That was the only way they were close, the only time they were like one, the only time reality became irrelevant. She ached for him desperately.
His hand settled on her hip, stroking slightly, and desire filled her groin. When she didn’t move away she felt him press against her, and there was no mistaking the throbbing erection against her buttocks. His hand moved over the swell of her belly, so very softly.
“Candice,” he said huskily, his voice heavy with need.
“Jack.” She moaned, arching back into him.
He held her buttocks tight against his manhood with a long, slow groan. She felt his mouth against her hair. He began rubbing his cheek there. She turned her face toward him, rolling onto her back, and his mouth came down on hers.
She wished he would tell her again that he loved her.
He didn’t.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, his hands splaying over her full breasts, rubbing her large nipples into erectness.
“You won’t.”
“You’re so beautiful.”
“I’ve become a cow.”
“A beautiful cow,” he said, smiling slightly, and she laughed just before he abruptly bared a breast and took the peak in his mouth. Then her laughter died.
It had been so long for both of them. Jack rolled onto his back, rolling her with him, on top of him.
His hands were at her skirts, shifting them out of the way, and at his pants.
She felt him the moment he was freed, straining against her bare thigh.
His finger slid into her and Candice arched, dazed and mindless and ready for him. “Please.”
“Yes, darling, yes.”
He lifted her hips, then pulled her down onto him. They gasped together at the sensation of their tight, throbbing fit. His hold on her hips never ceased as he instructed her in a rapid rhythm, until Candice exploded, collapsing in Jack’s arms. Jack’s own cry was harsh and guttural in the night.
Afterward he held her tenderly in his arms until she fell asleep.
They rode for three more days at an easy pace, keeping an apparent truce between them although nothing was settled.
And at night there was always the bittersweet lovemaking.
Candice began to take an interest in being outdoors and riding again.
She was also curious, and Jack soon told her what had happened at Apache Pass and the raid down the Sonoita Valley.
He edited the version as he told it. Since the attack, he had tried not to think about what had happened at Warden’s ranch.
Now he remembered the woman. He kept seeing her, terror etched on her face as she raised the rifle at him.
His own gun’s report, and the blood blossoming on her chest. He felt sick.
“Is something wrong, Jack?”
“The Warden boy’s real father is a Coyotero,” he told her, changing the subject.
“From one of the White Mountain bands. Cochise found out about two weeks ago. The boy’s father kidnapped him and has no intention of giving his son back, and I can’t say I blame him.
” But he couldn’t get the woman’s image out of his mind.
He would never forget her face, her look of fear.
He would never forget that he had killed her.
“Was it really Cochise’s wife and son that the troops had taken prisoner, Jack?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to them?”
“They were taken to Fort Buchanan and later released. They returned on foot.”
Candice thought about a young mother and a boy walking all the way from Fort Buchanan to the Chiricahua Mountains. It was incredible. “Did they … hurt her?”
“You mean, did the soldiers rape her? If she’s told anyone what happened, she’s told Cochise. And he certainly wouldn’t spread that kind of news around.”
Jack put off bringing up the subject of Datiye.
While Candice wasn’t exactly warm, she wasn’t cold or aloof, and she accepted his ardent attentions at night with the same need as his.
He didn’t want to upset the precarious state of their relationship.
It felt so good to be with her again. But …
he wished they could have more. Maybe it would never be like that.
“Do you expect me to live as a squaw forever, Jack?” she asked on the third day, quietly.
“Of course not.”
“So you do see an end in sight. You don’t intend to die fighting with Cochise.”
“Wars always end, Candice,” he said heavily.
What would happen? Cochise had vowed he would never stop fighting the whites over their betrayal, not until he was dead.
What if a peace could be worked out? Cochise would never accept a reservation for his people.
Even if by some miracle the government gave him Chiricahua territory, Jack couldn’t imagine him accepting a circumscribed area for the Apache.
It would be the end of their freedom, and this Cochise would never agree to.
On the fourth morning, when they were breaking camp at the foot of the Dragoons, just fifty miles from Cochise’s eastern stronghold, Jack decided to tell her.
He couldn’t put it off any longer. He wished he were still making love to her, as he had been doing a few moments ago.
He dreaded this. He felt like a coward. He watched her rolling up the bedroll.
When she stood, he took it from her and threw it across his saddlebags, tying it in place. “Candice, Datiye is at Cochise’s camp.”
She looked at him blankly, then her eyes grew wide. “What?”
“Let me explain,” he said.
Her face had paled with a terrible anticipation.
“Her family is dead. There was no one to provide for her. And … she’s pregnant. So I brought her to the camp.”
Candice didn’t move, couldn’t move, for a long, stunned moment. “I take it you’re the father.” Her voice was curiously low and calm.
“Yes.”
She turned her back to him, shocked. It couldn’t be … this was a dream … he couldn’t do this to her.…
“Candice, there was one time—before we were ever together, after I went to the ranch to get back my horse. I was with her then, just that once.”
There could be no greater betrayal. There was no greater betrayal than this. Another woman, another child. His mistress. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. All this time, while she was alone … thinking of him … missing him … waiting for him to come visit her.…
He was with Datiye. With his Apache mistress.
“Candice?” he said uncertainly. Her back was to him, held stiff, and the lack of fireworks truly frightened him.
She turned to face him, her face rigid with control, but he knew she was on the verge of tears, that her control was precarious. Her mouth was turned downward. “I will never forgive you,” she said evenly. “And I demand you take me home now.”
“Candice, I had to take her with me. Soon she’ll be too big to hunt for herself. For the baby’s sake,” he pleaded.
She looked at him with cold contempt. “Don’t hand me those lies.
Datiye told me a long time ago that she was your mistress, and I should have believed her, not you.
I truly detest you, Jack.” She couldn’t believe this was her—so calm, so controlled.
She knew if she let go, she’d sob with all the intensity of a woman with a broken heart.
Because that’s what he had done. Broken her heart.
“She’s not my mistress,” he said angrily. “Candice, believe me! Apache men don’t sleep with pregnant women, not from the moment they know the woman has conceived. It’s not done.”
She stared. “Is that so? You sleep with me. You seem to think you’re Apache—after all, you’re fighting with them. But tell me, if she’s not your mistress, then what happened? An immaculate conception?”
“It was that one time,” he said harshly.
She felt weak, dizzy, numb, faint. She turned away.
He watched helplessly, his eyes grim.
Candice closed her eyes, fighting to shove the pain down, deep down inside her, in some secret place. Huge sobs wanted to rise up and choke her. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Will you take me home?”
“No,” he said, and he turned away too.