Just Once (13 page)

“Let go of me, Jemma.”

Her fingers uncurled one at a time. She drew a deep shuddering breath and dropped her gaze to the ground.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered.

Either she didn’t hear him, or she didn’t believe him. When she looked up again, the expression in her eyes was bleak. Sitting there in the dirt of the Choctaw hovel, she looked like a fallen angel. With all his heart, he wanted to scoop her up and carry her out.

As he turned away, he prayed that he could rescue her. If not, the look in her eyes would haunt him forever.

Her hands and feet bound by stout cord, Jemma lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling. A lazy stream of smoke drifted out of the smoke hole in the center of the dwelling. Battered by the river and the insults she had been dealt, she ached all over. The hard floor added insult to injury. Across the room, Many Feathers was snoring loudly enough to wake the dead.

Reeking of liquor, Soaring Raven had tied her hands and feet, his last act before he left the hut. Hope flared when she thought he might have been too befuddled to do a thorough job, but although she struggled with her bonds until her hands stung, she could not work free. She finally gave in to tears and let them stream silently down her face as she fought back the sobs that threatened to choke her.

She hated feeling weak and defeated. She refused to cry. Her father had never put up with her tears. Hunter had been unmoved by her plea. She wondered if and when he would come back, then asked herself: Why would he risk his life for her? Even though she had tried her hardest not to hinder him, she was slowing him down. This morning she had nearly cost him his life.

Why
should
he come back for her when she had been nothing but trouble since he’d first laid eyes on her?

Her nose itched. Her cheeks were streaked with unwanted tears. She couldn’t do more than rub them with the backs of her bound hands. Forcing her eyes shut, she was determined to try to sleep despite the hard cold ground beneath her and the pain in her wrists and ankles. There was no time to be maudlin, no time to waste crying when she should be making plans. She would need to keep her wits about her. If Hunter failed to come back for her, she would have to save herself.

What seemed like hours later, Jemma heard stealthy footsteps beside her. Her breath caught in her throat. She forced herself to lie still and feign sleep. The fire had died out completely; the room was bathed in inky darkness. Slitting her eyes open, she could barely make out a tall shadowy figure moving toward her. She glanced at the sleeping platform and saw Many Feathers still lying there asleep. As much as she was repulsed by the idea of the old man trying to touch her, she knew she would have a much better chance fighting him off than Soaring Raven.

She interlaced her fingers, prepared to strike out with hands and feet as soon as the Choctaw touched her. She could feel the warmth of his body, smell the hickory-tainted scent of the fire when he knelt beside her.

Curling slightly in on herself, she lay like a wound spring, prepared to combat her attacker. With her eyes half-open, she watched the man lean closer, feeling the slightest waft of air as his hand moved toward her.

Just when she was about to scream, he reached out and covered her mouth and nose, cutting off all but a garbled cry. Fear snaked down her spine as he slid over her, pinning her with his weight. His warm breath hissed past her cheek. His voice was low in her ear.

“Don’t make another sound if you expect me to get you out of here alive.”

Jemma went limp with relief when she recognized Hunter’s voice. Over his hand, she glanced across the room at the sleeping platform. She saw Many Feathers still lying there asleep. Soaring Raven might walk in at any moment and they would both be in jeopardy. She feared her pounding heart would give them away.

Without another word, Hunter rolled off Jemma and began to cut the bonds around her ankles and her wrists. He moved with stealth and silence, the only sounds in the room the
swish, swish
of the leather fringe on his clothing and Many Feathers’s rhythmic snores.

He pulled her to her feet. Her legs buckled and she almost went down. Hunter slipped his arm around her shoulders and behind her knees, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. He had left the door ajar.

They slipped out into the night.

A dog curled up outside a hut raised his head and stared at them. Hunter froze. The dog yawned, sniffed, and went back to sleep. Jemma, her arms about his neck, tightened her hold as Hunter carefully made his way through the settlement. He felt solid and warm in the October night’s chill, his arms a safe haven. She was tempted to nestle closer, to press her cheek against his shoulder and hide her eyes against his neck.

They reached the edge of the village. There was one last hut to pass. Hunter was moving soundlessly, like a ghost in the night, when the door of the hut opened, taking them both by surprise.

Soaring Raven stepped out and straightened to his full height. Half-nude, he stood there in flannel trousers, the blue stripe a dark slash in the darkness. Hunter gently let her down. As Jemma’s feet hit the ground, she prayed her legs would hold her.

She felt Hunter tense at the first sight of the Indian. With a hand on the hilt of his knife, Hunter was braced for attack. Soaring Raven stood there watching them, but made no move to rouse the others. Instead, he crossed his arms over his bare chest and nodded slowly to Hunter.

“Go,” he whispered.

“You’re just letting us walk out of here? Why?”

Jemma was appalled that Hunter would even take time to question the man. Soaring Raven looked back at the hut he had just exited.

“I have three wives already. I don’t need another. Besides, my father and the other old ones don’t understand that keeping a white captive will bring your people down on us. Since the war with your English brothers ended, you have many soldiers in need of someone to kill. I would prefer it is not my people.

“Get as far away as you can by morning. My father will insist on a search. If we find you tomorrow, I will not be able to intercede.”

Chapter 8

They ran as if the hounds of hell were after them, out of the Indian village, into the forest, heads down, feet pounding. Hunter held tight to her hand, half-dragging her along behind him. Pine needles and twigs cut into the bare soles of her feet. Her breath was ragged, searing her throat. Just when she thought her heart would burst, he veered to the right.

“I hid the horses over there.” Heading for a stand of trees, he stopped in front of the animals loaded with his remaining supplies. When he grabbed her around the waist, Jemma reached for the saddle horn and Hunter tossed her up onto her mount.

Grabbing the reins of both horses, he mounted up and headed away from the Indian village. How he could see anything, let alone the zigzag path through the trees, was beyond her, but he seemed to know where he was headed. She tightened her hold and hung on.

Jemma spent the rest of the night clinging to the saddle and glancing back over her shoulder, praying that she would not see a Choctaw search party closing in on them. All night long Hunter remained intense, tugging on her horse’s reins whenever it balked, traveling along the intricate cobweb of Indian trails and buffalo runs. He crossed streams and backtracked.

As dawn melted the cover of darkness, the new day gained strength. The sky paled to gray and slowly came alive with streaks of light. Jemma began hoping he would stop longer than the usual time it took to swallow water or relieve themselves, but he pressed on at a frenetic pace until midday.

Finally, he forced the exhausted horses into the edge of a clear running stream. He dismounted, unaware of the water that soaked his moccasins and the hem of his pants. He walked back to Jemma and reached up to help her out of the saddle as if it were the most natural motion in the world.

The caring gesture was so simple, so unexpected, that she almost burst into tears.

“I think we’re safe now.” Hunter carefully lowered her to the ground, pausing for a heartbeat to trace her with his gaze. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

Shaking from hours of riding, she clung to her horse’s mane as Hunter walked away. The cool, rushing stream was a balm to the bruised, aching soles of her feet. When she felt steady, Jemma bent down and scooped up a handful of water, splashed it over her face and neck, and repeated the gesture until she felt cleaner. She cupped her hands and drank, letting the blessedly refreshing liquid spill down her chin.

When she had finally had her fill, she glanced up. Hunter was staring at her, but more than that, there was something dark and dangerous blazing in his eyes. She followed the direction of his gaze and looked down. The front of her shirt was soaked, clinging to every curve and swell of her breasts. Her nipples pressed like hard pebbles against the white fabric. She might as well have been standing there half-naked.

Quickly, she grabbed the fabric of her shirt and plucked it away from her skin, too embarrassed to look up until she heard his footsteps splashing away from her. He had turned his back and was walking toward his horse with long, determined strides.

Still holding the damp material off her skin, she half-expected him to mount up again. Instead, he stood beside his horse with his back to her, staring at a point somewhere over the saddle. His hands were balled into tight fists at his side. His shoulders rose and fell as if he were taking deep, even breaths.

“Are we going to make camp?” She forced the question out, trying to flush the burning embarrassment from her tone. She had seen raw hunger in his gaze and it had moved her. He might profess to be a loner, but Hunter Boone was a man, with a man’s needs. His expression was something she would not soon forget, for it hinted at all the dark, secret sins the nuns had warned her about.

It was a while before Hunter responded. Time hung suspended in the dappled fall sunlight. Finally, she saw Hunter move, watched him pat his horse’s neck once, lightly, before he gathered the reins and began to lead it along the edge of the stream.

“Follow me,” he said over his shoulder, sparing her one quick glance and nothing more. “We’ll stay in the streambed until we find a safe place to stop.”

They walked in silence until Hunter found a clearing that was on high enough ground to afford a view of the surrounding landscape. Tall grass covered the gentle swells of land and offered camouflage as well as food for the horses. Jemma unloaded her own horse before he had a chance to help her, and then she sank wearily to the ground beside the canvas bundle of the few supplies and goods that were left.

“You’ll have to be content with cornmeal mixed with cold water,” he told her, unwilling to light a fire to take the chill out of the fall night air until he had put more time and distance between them and the Choctaw encampment.

“That will be fine.” She was half-reclining, curled in herself with a blanket across her shoulders. The edges were tightly drawn across her breasts, anchored in her fist. She carefully avoided meeting his eyes.

Hunter was every bit as circumspect, averting his gaze while the memory of the embarrassing scene at the stream, still so fresh in his mind, hovered unspoken between them. He cleared his throat and forced aside the image of Jemma’s ample breasts pressed against the wet, white fabric.

“I can’t leave you alone while I hunt for game,” he began, concentrating on finding the bag of cornmeal.

“Aren’t we out of danger?”

“Probably, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“When Soaring Raven stepped out of that hut I thought we’d be murdered where we stood,” she told him.

“The one thing the Choctaw don’t need since the last rebellion is government troops raiding them.” He poured clear water from a buffalo-bladder bag into a cupful of cornmeal to moisten it and began shaping a corn cake.

“Do you think we’re safe?”

He looked around at the open landscape. “I hope so. I have a feeling Soaring Raven would try to discourage a search party after a few hours anyway.” He finished the task, handed the cake to her, and dusted off his hands. “The Choctaw are the least of our worries now. We’re out of bacon. Someone stole all the dried beef and sugar off the horse I took into the village. I had to throw away the flour and rice because water seeped into the sacks during the river crossing. We’ll have to depend on what I can shoot. Maybe we’ll come to an outpost.”

“I need shoes and a hat,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I lost the others. Well, I’m not really
sorry
I lost those shoes, but my feet are getting cold and my soles feel like pincushions.”

When he looked up, he caught her trying to finger-comb her tangled hair. Outfitting her was the least of his problems, No matter what he tried to concentrate on, his mind continually returned to the tantalizing image of her standing in the stream with her shirt clinging to her skin.

He’d grown hard at first glance and hadn’t been able to look away until she caught him staring. Her blue eyes had gone so wide with shock that he still felt as guilty and embarrassed as if he had been caught with his pants down. He was just thankful that she couldn’t know the intense longing that had rocked him.

Although his swift reaction to her had been mortifying, it was not surprising given the time they had spent together on the trail, sharing not only the boredom and the danger, but life’s most intimate details. Even in filthy, oversized clothing, with smudges of mud on her face and twigs in her snarled hair, there was no denying Jemma’s innocent allure. After kissing her and holding her in his arms, he didn’t have to try hard to imagine what it would be like to have more.

There had been an instantaneous flash of shock in her eyes when she caught him staring at her breasts. Like a coward, he had turned away, pretending to concentrate on the powder horn hanging from his saddle while he waited for his heated blood to cool.

“Hunter?”

He shook off thoughts that were far too arousing. “What?” Afraid she was about to mention the scene in the streambed, his hand stopped midway to the cornmeal sack.

“Thank you for coming back for me,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had left me there, especially after the way I nearly got us both killed.”

She spoke so softly, sounded so penitent, that he finally chanced meeting her gaze. His heart lodged somewhere in his throat when he realized that the brightness in her eyes was caused by unshed tears.

“I would never have left you there.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers.

“I thought you drowned.”

“I thought the same of you and realized I still don’t even know your last name. Is there no one who cares about you, Jemma? If you had drowned in the Homochitto, is there no one who would mourn you?”

Her eyes darkened. She looked down at her hands. Once perfect, they were now streaked with dirt, her nails jagged, her palms blistered. Jemma tucked them out of sight beneath her thighs and stared at him thoughtfully.

“Those are strange questions for a loner.”

“I have kin in Sandy Shoals who care about what happens to me.”

She frowned and appeared thoughtful as she gazed off into the distance, her thoughts obviously far away. “I have ‘kin’, too.”

“Where?”

She hesitated a bit too long. “I told you before. Canada.” She didn’t sound any more convincing than she had the first time she’d told him about wanting to find her father and brother. If she was running from something, or someone, she still didn’t trust him enough to tell him. “My last name is O’Hurley,” she blurted quickly, as if afraid she might change her mind. “Jemma O’Hurley.”

Sensing her distress, he tried to lighten his approach. “So, you’re Jemma O’Hurley, bound for the wilds of Canada, by way of a convent in Algiers?”

She nodded. “Now a former Indian captive, too, don’t forget.”

She smiled at him for the first time in two days and, despite the fact that his quick, visceral reaction to that smile annoyed him, Hunter felt as if the sun had just come out after a long rain spell. Her dimples teased her cheeks and his imagination. It would be all too easy to unlock the door to his heart, but what then? He didn’t want a woman in his life, didn’t need the ties that bind or the heartache that comes when they dissolve.

Guarding his heart and his future, he broke the connection and tended to the task at hand. He was silent throughout the modest meal and so was Jemma. By the time he had put away the cornmeal, the tension in the air was almost palpable. He stood up, prepared to walk the perimeter of the camp. Out of habit, he dusted off the seat of his buckskins and straightened his hat.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” he said. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep.”

“Try.”

“You’ll wake me if there’s any trouble?” She stood up and rubbed her arms. Her shirt had dried. He walked over to where she had left the striped wool blanket and picked it up.

“If there’s trouble, you’ll hear about it.” Hunter opened the blanket and dropped it over her shoulders.

“Hunter?”

“What, Jemma?” The sun was going down, a shimmering ball of flame that set the deep grass glowing as if it were on fire. Sunset backlit her blond hair with shimmering highlights, creating a halo effect. She reminded him of an angel that heaven had misplaced.

He stopped a few yards away and looked back over his shoulder. She was on her knees, smiling up at him as she spread her bedroll out on the ground, looking far too vulnerable and innocent to be halfway to nowhere, all alone with him.

“No matter what happens, I want you to know this has been the grandest adventure of my life and well worth the gold piece.”

He ran his hand over his stubbled jaw. It was the first time he felt like smiling all day.

“You mean escaping the emir’s men didn’t hold a candle to running from the Choctaw?”

Her dimples deepened. “Not when you throw in that river crossing and Many Feathers trying to buy me.” She stood up and walked toward him. “And I’ll never forget that horrible place, the Rotgut.”

“With everything else, I’d almost forgotten about that.” He started to walk off again.

“Hunter?”

“What, Jemma?” He turned around. She walked over to him, stopping just a few inches away.

“How much longer until we get to Sandy Shoals?”

“With luck, another week, week and a half. Plenty of time for more adventure, if that’s what you want.”

“I hope not. I’ll say a few prayers.”

He watched her run her tongue over her lips. She was staring at his mouth. He told himself to move. To check on the animals, make certain all was secure. But he couldn’t budge.

“What will you pray for?” he asked, fighting not to notice how close she was.

“It might surprise you.” Her voice had dropped until it was barely above a whisper.

“Nothing you do or say surprises me anymore.”

Walk away
, his conscience shouted. She was so close he could feel her warmth. Her lips were too inviting, her trust in him far too great. He was a man, not one of her long-dead saints. Need pounded through him, urging him to reach out and take her in his arms.

He kept his hands at his sides, determined not to touch her. No matter how willing he wanted to think she might be, she was far too innocent to know what hell she was putting him through.

“Do you know what I was thinking when the river was pulling me down?” She asked,

“No.” He looked over her shoulder. Night engulfed them. Above them, the starry sky cupped the land.

“I didn’t want to die a virgin.”

Her blunt admission shook him. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Jemma.”

“Why not, when it’s the truth?”

“You might give a man ideas.” His head was already chock-full of them.

“That’s just what Sister Augusta Aleria always said.”

“You should have listened to her. It’s best to avoid trouble.”

“You see making love as
trouble?
”

“Not if it’s the right time or place.”

“But not here, not now?”

“Jemma, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I think I do, Hunter. I think I know very well what I’m saying and so do you.”