The Darkest Heart
Authors: Brenda Joyce
Savage Warrior,
White Captive
She heard him enter and purposefully ignored him, her eyes on her hands as she rubbed her feet. She felt his eyes on her and looked up to see him staring down at her. Suddenly the g
ohwah
seemed too small for the two of them, and the long night was here.
“Let me do that,” Jack said, kneeling and taking her foot in his hands before she could object.
“I don’t think …”
His hands were large, warm, and gentle. “Stop thinking, Candice. There’s no point. What is, is.”
He was right. She was here and she had no choice. This man had traded for her, and she belonged to him. She was at his mercy.
“Feel better?” he asked, his voice husky.
She had heard that tone before, and she looked up abruptly. His hand had stilled on her ankle. Her body began a slow throbbing of fear mingled with anticipation. He slid his hand up her calf, its grip tightening possessively.
“You have the most beautiful legs I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.
Her heart was beating erratically. “I … I …”
His hand moved up her thigh, slowly moving higher and higher. Oh, dear God, she thought, what is he going to do?
Other books by Brenda Joyce
LOVERS AND LIARS
THE CONQUEROR
DARK FIRES
Part Five - Love and Resolution
CHAPTER ONEThe New Mexico Territory of the United States—1860
She knew she was dying.
At first the realization had been horrifying. Now she no longer cared. She wanted only relief—relief from the blazing sun as it burned her back and legs through her shirt and pants, relief from the choking dryness of her mouth, from the scorched sand as it burned her palms and belly and cheek.
She knew she was dying. She had seen cattle that had died from heat and dehydration. Their tongues had been grotesquely protruding from their rigid corpses, black and stiff and swollen. Her own tongue felt just as thick. She could no longer swallow, there was no saliva left, and she could taste sand and grit. If only she had water.
The day seemed to get hotter. Impossibly, unbearably hotter. She moaned from the pain—a choked, whimpering sound. She wondered, through the torpid haze, how much longer it would take. She wondered what her brothers and her father would do when they found out.
And she wanted to cry for them, for their grief.
Please forgive me, she moaned silently. I never wanted to hurt you.
She loved them. They were her family. Three big strapping brothers, Luke and Mark and Little John, all close to six feet tall with the blond, blue-eyed Carter good looks. And her father. He would be in a frenzy. He had been in a frenzy since the night she had run away—that she knew without a doubt. Oh, God. To think she had been betrayed like this.
At least they would never find out the truth.
She thought she was becoming delirious. She could see Virgil as if he were really there, with her. But his face wasn’t handsome—it was ugly in rage. And she could feel the painful blow as he hit her, hear herself cry out, feel his hands, grabbing her.…
All her life she had been gloriously spoiled. Her father had raised her and her three brothers alone. They had come
to the Territory ten years earlier, before it was even a part of the United States. Her father had abruptly packed them all up, she and her three brothers, when she was eight years old—and they had moved from their Tennessee farm to Tucson to start over as ranchers. That was exactly one month to the day that their mother had abandoned them all, running off with another man.
And I’m just like her, she thought miserably.
She hadn’t meant to do it, hadn’t meant to hurt her family. She was used to the adulation she got from the men in her life, whether it was her father and brothers or the townspeople, the cowboys and drifters. She wasn’t exactly vain, but it was hard not to know that she was extraordinarily beautiful—especially when everyone kept telling her so. She had seen a miniature of her mother once, who had also been known for her beauty, and Candice knew that she looked a lot like her. Oddly, that pleased her. They both had brilliantly blond hair, long, thick, and wavy, enough to stop a man in his tracks without him seeing any more. Add to that a perfectly heart-shaped face and full, rose-colored lips, a straight, delicate nose and large, almond-shaped eyes … Candice had had fifteen marriage proposals last year alone, when she’d been seventeen.
And she had accepted Virgil Kincaid’s.
No one had approved.
He was lean and dark and so very handsome. Candice had been letting men steal kisses from her for years—nothing more than a few chaste pecks, unless her suitor was really favored, and then she would allow him to brush her lips with his. She was used to the courting, the cow-eyed looks, and the awkward, endless declarations of undying love. But Virgil Kincaid took her by surprise. He was from Georgia, a planter’s second son, he said, and his courtship took her breath away. His words were honey soft and thickly Southern, he was well read, he could quote the finest poetry … and his looks weren’t cow-eyed but bright and hot. He was no awkward, bumbling teenage cowboy, stumbling over his words and his eagerness, but a handsome, well-bred Southern gentleman, one who knew how to treat a lady.
Her father, approached by Virgil, absolutely forbade the marriage.
The next night they eloped.
They rode hard day and night to make it to Fort Yuma before anyone had time to follow them. It was a wonderful adventure, exciting and romantic.…
Until Fort Yuma, where Virgil refused to marry her.
“I don’t understand,” she cried, her eyes dark with the betrayal.
He grinned. His hands closed over her shoulders, pulling her close. Still dazed, Candice didn’t try to draw away. “Candice, I’m not a marrying man.”
She stared, bewildered from the magnitude of everything—what she’d done, what they’d done, what he was doing now. “But—I don’t understand.” She knew she was more than marriageable—she was the most sought-after belle from Arizona City to El Paso.
He raised her chin. “You were made for loving, Candice. And marriage just isn’t my game.” His grip tightened. “God—I want you. I’ve never wanted any woman as much as I want you.”
It was sinking in. She tore away. “You lied! You promised—you told me you loved me!
You
said we would get married as soon as we found a preacher. I ran away with you!”
He laughed. “I’m afraid, dear, that you’re going to have to learn to play the game according to new rules. Mine.”
She backed away. “What are you going to do?”
“Surely, Candice, even you aren’t that naive?”