Runaway (51 page)

“However long. We will survive it.”

She smiled, glad of his rock-hard determination and faith. But it was still going to be a hard road to tread. She had encountered both sides, and she knew that the whites were often fighting from fear and that the Seminoles were doing the same. The whites were hungry for land and progress; the Indians were just desperate for homes and survival.

“Tara,” Jarrett said after a moment, “terrible things are still going on, you know. I own land in the south—swampland, some say, but along the Miami River. It’s never been highly populated down there, but there are some folks settled along the river. Most of them have deserted their homes. The lighthouse on Key Biscayne was attacked and burned to the ground. A negro helper was killed; the lighthouse keeper was left for dead, yet somehow he survived. It was a vicious attack.”

Tara looked down at her hands and nodded. “I know that there is a war on!” she said.

“Perhaps you should go north.…” he began.

“No!”

He inhaled sharply. “Tara, there may be times when I have to leave again. You were right; I managed to settle nothing with Osceola this time. Yet the effort was there. And when I can do something, I will have to leave you again.”

She didn’t look at him. “I hate it!” she exclaimed after a minute.

“I know. So do I.”

She rode in silence.

“Tara, I can take you to Atlanta—”

“No!”

“Charleston—”

“No!”

“Boston, perhaps—”

“Dear God, no!” she said with a fierce shudder.

He arched a brow at her.

“I take it you’ve been to Boston?” he inquired dryly.

“Jarrett, I promise, I will handle myself much better. I will not like it if they call you away, but I will not fight you on it again. Please, I don’t want to go anywhere else!”

He smiled. “Thank God! I couldn’t stand sending you anywhere else!”

“Then—”

“I just wanted you to promise to be on good behavior,” he told her with a grin.

She lifted her chin. “You had best be glad I haven’t a flower vase around!” she warned. “I should crack it right over your head!”

“Would you, then?” He laughed.

“Indeed.”

“Ah, but then I’d have to do something back, wouldn’t you think?”

“You’d not have the chance.”

“Ah, but I’m quick as lightning when I choose!”

“And I can be faster than a sunray, McKenzie, when the occasion demands!”

He laughed. “Let’s see, shall we?”

His ebony eyes were blazing. Tara realized that she had challenged him to a race along the cypress trail. She inhaled sharply, then flicked her reins over her mare’s neck at the same time she clicked her heels against the horse’s haunches.

The mare took off.

Charlemagne was in hot pursuit.

She raced down the trail. The leaves fell around her
head and neck, the shadows closed around her, the sunlight dappled through. She burst into a clearing of thick, rich grass, and there Jarrett caught up with her, sweeping her from her own horse, leaping down from Charlemagne so that she and Jarrett rolled and rolled in the grass.

She found herself laughing, then tasting his kiss, then meeting his dark eyes, then feeling the wondrous burst of emotion within herself once again.

She trembled.

She had never known that life could be this good, this sweet. She loved him so much.

And he loved her!

The happiness was so dear that it was almost agony.

She gasped in a breath, still afraid to let him know just how desperately she loved and needed him. “Wretch!” she cried out to him.

“Umm,” he teased. “An absolute savage!”

His lips found hers. They made love in the grass, and they laughed again as they both itched and scratched from the grass irritation for the rest of the ride.

Then Cimarron rose before them again.

She was home, Tara thought. Oh, God, really truly home!

Yet once again, she had barely reached out for her happiness before it was to be cruelly snatched away.

For even as they approached the estate, a ship was also coming down the river.

Destiny was almost upon her.

I
t was good to come home, better than ever. Peter was ready to take their horses, Jeeves was quick to tell her that her bath was waiting. There were fresh flowers on the side table in the breezeway, the afternoon was beautiful with a clear blue sky and strong sun that came sweeping through the windows.

Upstairs, she quickly shed her bedraggled clothing, glad to step into the water. She was fully immersed when Cota knocked on her door, announced who it was, and at Tara’s bidding, came on in to tell her excitedly that she had finished a number of their sewing projects while Tara had been gone, and that the dresses Tara had designed and cut had come out beautifully.

Tara thanked her, smiling as she sank back into the tub. Dear God, she did love this place so much! Just as she loved Jarrett. And she loved the sun, and the warm waters, the cabbage palms and cypress trees, and the flowers that bloomed forever. She loved her Indian relations—and at the moment she was so sweetly content that she could be convinced that she loved the snakes and alligators in the swamps and marshes as well!

Cota showed Tara where her clothing was neatly stacked into her trunk at the foot of the bed, or hung in the wardrobe. Again, Tara smiled lazily, realizing that
her possessions were slowly encroaching upon her husband’s domain. It was a room they shared.

Cota, near the window to the sloping back lawn, paused suddenly, frowning.

“What is it?” Tara asked her.

“Another ship,” Cota said with a shrug.

Tara closed her eyes, stricken with pain.
They had just returned!
What could Tyler Argosy want with Jarrett now?

Perhaps just a report on what had happened with Osceola, she thought. She could not believe that he would want Jarrett to be riding out again!

She reached for the large linen towel that lay over the edge of the tub, rising and wrapping it around her. She stepped from the tub and came to stand beside Cota at the window.

The ship had docked, and it was indeed one of the military vessels from Tampa. Tara watched as the plank was secured against the dock. Tyler Argosy was first to walk off.

Tara didn’t realize that she had ceased breathing until instinct caused her to inhale on a ragged gasp.

No! He couldn’t have come here, oh, God, no, he couldn’t have come here, followed her
.

But he had.

What a fool she had been to think that she might be safe! All because she hadn’t seen Clive in New Orleans. That hadn’t meant that he hadn’t been there. He must have been. He must have followed her himself.

And when he had discovered her gone he had tracked her. It probably hadn’t even been that hard for him to do. Indeed, it had taken him longer than she might have imagined.

But he would have been careful. He would have found out about Jarrett McKenzie. He would have made certain
that he knew what he was dealing with, and he would have discovered that Jarrett was powerful and wealthy.

He would have waited until he could come with all the right weapons to use against them both.

And he was here now.

Clive Carter, tall, elegantly blond, clad in a crimson frock coat, always the perfect-looking gentleman, walked behind Tyler. His much-shorter henchmen, the pockmarked Jenson Jones, was at his side.

Of course he had come with Jenson!
she thought. Clive had never been a fool. He had come south, to the home of a southern gentleman, to try to drag her back to justice. He would have to have his witness, a magistrate from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to drag her back with him.

To make her beg for his mercy, accept his demands.

Or meet with the hangman.

Her fingers trembled—the whole of her body was shaken like a palm beneath the wind. But he wouldn’t touch her now. Ever. Not since she had known Jarrett, loved Jarrett. She would cast herself into a river or ocean to avoid him, she would gladly die.

Except that she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. And wanted to believe that somehow she could cling to the love that she had found, find it shimmering again somewhere in the days to come.

They were coming to the lawn. Rutger had already greeted them. Jarrett, who had been with Jeeves since they had come back, was walking across the lawn. Tara briefly compared the two men. Clive, born and bred to Boston society. Vain, determined. The greediest wretch she had met in the whole of her life, yet he was artful and talented, oh, yes, he was talented, much more so than many a man with whom she had shared a stage. He
was a good-looking man, a wealthy man, and yet, even if she hadn’t despised him with all of her heart, he would have come up short beside Jarrett. Her husband remained dressed in nothing but his white shirt, skin breeches, high simple black waistcoat. Clive, with all the color in his dress, the brocade of his waistcoat, the velvet of the frock coat above it, seemed like a peacock next to an eagle. Even as Tara knew that she dared not stand there any longer, she felt the sudden flip of her heart as she thought of how very much she loved Jarrett, of how strong and wonderful he seemed out on the lawn, ebony hair queued back, skin so bronze he might have had Indian blood himself, straight as an oak, standing his ground, master of his world.

She dared stay no longer. She turned around, heedless of Cota, and threw open her trunk, where her newly fashioned clothing awaited. A dusty-rose riding habit lay within the finished pieces and she dragged it out, grabbing only pantalettes and stockings and a soft chemise to wear beneath the coarser, warmer top fabric. She was growing so nervous now that she was all but willing to race out of the house naked, but the long spell of running she had already done had taught her that nights could grow cold and damp, and that she desperately needed something warm.

Cota stared at her, baffled, as she stumbled into her clothing. Tara came to the pretty Italian girl and set her hands on her shoulders. “Cota, I need help badly. Please, go to Peter, tell him I need a horse, a fresh horse, and that he mustn’t let anyone know, not anyone at all. Neither you nor he can even go near Master Jarrett now, else I might be in serious jeopardy. Please …”

“Signora McKenzie! I will help you,
sí
. But—”

“I can’t explain, Cota, I haven’t time. There’s a man who has come on that ship who wants to see me taken
away. For something I didn’t do, I swear it. Whatever you hear, Cota, please believe that I was innocent. But I don’t dare take more time now. Go to Peter. Please tell him to have a horse for me where the lawn meets the cypress forest. Go now, I beg you!”

Cota’s eyes were filled with distress. She looked as if she would like to protest anew.

“Go!” Tara begged again.

Miserably, Cota shook her head. Tara gave her a little shove, and the girl then seemed to whir into action, all but flying out of the room. Tara dared not think anymore herself; she dragged on a pair of boots and sped out of the room, pausing to make sure that their demon visitor had not yet come to the house. She could hear no voices, and so she sped down the stairs and out the front door of the house.

She was certain, as she closed it, that she had done so just as the men had entered the house by the rear breezeway door.

It didn’t matter. She was out; she had made it. She paused for a moment, dragging in a deep and ragged breath. Oh, God, it had never hurt like this before! What if Jarrett believed the awful things that Clive would say, what if he believed that she had conspired to kill a man, that she had pulled the trigger, that she had committed murder?

She didn’t dare think! She only dared dream.

And believe they had to have a future!

But not if she stayed. Clive had come with the military; with the law. Jarrett, for all his strength, would have his hands tied.

She had to run. Faster than she had ever run before. Harder.

Perhaps she could make it.

After all, she was good at it. Even Jarrett had called her a runaway.

Jarrett was doing his very best to comprehend what was going on, even as his head seemed to spin with the ramifications of everything that Tyler was trying to say to him.

The bastard had come for Tara. That was easy enough to grasp.

The squat, ugly fellow with the sallow complexion, small dark eyes, and pockmarked face who had come with him carried a warrant for Tara’s arrest.

For the murder of an ex-senator of the United States.

He knew, from the moment that Tyler approached him with the men, that he would never hand his wife over to the bastards. Never. He didn’t know quite what he was going to do, or how the hell he was going to fight, but they would never leave here with Tara.

It seemed best to gain all the information he could. Knowledge would be his best weapon. But it was damned hard. He wanted to throttle the men.

And his heart ached with anguish. Why hadn’t she ever come out and told him the truth about herself? Why in God’s name had she left him vulnerable to this shock, desperate for any weapons in her defense?