The Darkest Heart (21 page)

She wanted it to be true. Oh, she did. “Really?”

“How can you doubt it?”

Her hand slid to his hard shoulder. “I don’t know. You’ve had others, other women …”

“Not many and not often. And never like you.”

She inhaled with sharp pleasure, then turned her head to his and sought his mouth with hers. Her lips brushed his softly, and when she pulled slightly back, she saw that his eyes were closed, his expression almost strained. She wondered what dark emotions and darker thoughts wrenched his soul so that he would come to her with unquenchable, fierce need.

“We’d better bathe,” Candice said.

He opened his eyes and kissed her breast before sitting. She stood, very much aware of being naked in broad daylight, and she reached for the blanket to cover herself from his gaze. He caught her wrist. “Don’t. You have nothing to hide from me.”

She colored. “It’s just …” Her color deepened. “It’s
not right … the middle of the day …” Like some harlot.

“I know every inch of you.”

She let him pull the blanket away. “I love every inch of you,” he said.

Trying not to feel self-conscious, she walked into the water and began to bathe. He watched her with undisguised interest and pleasure for a while before standing and joining her. He began lathering his legs. “Candice?”

She was rinsing her hair, trying not to think about bathing in broad daylight with a man. “Yes?”

“We could leave today.”

She was silent. The words rang, especially
could
. She ducked under the water again and came up pushing her hair out of her face.

“Hayilkah might die. I want to stay here until the danger is past.”

Her heart had its own mind and it was jubilant. “That’s fine,” she said, relief gushing through her.

For the first time, they looked at each other. Neither one wanting to openly bring up the question that they were both thinking.
What happens when we go back?

Candice opened her eyes and realized she had drifted asleep.

Jack had gone to get them dinner and had left her at their go
hwah
to make a fire. She had fallen asleep, daydreaming about him like an infatuated adolescent. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and thought about food. At that precise juncture, two rabbits sailed through the air and landed with a thud at her feet, causing her to jump up and cry out in alarm.

Jack grinned, striding toward her.

“You scared the life right out of me,” Candice said, but she was smiling because his delight in having frightened her was so boyish. He was showing her a different side of himself, one she was delighted to see.

“That’s because you have the hearing of an old, deaf woman,” Jack said. “What—no fire? What have you been doing all this time, woman? Here.”

Candice wanted to jump back as the knife came flying through the air at her, but she didn’t move. It landed an inch away from her big toe, right between the two rabbits, the blade buried in the ground, hilt quivering. She looked up slowly, murderously.

“I’ve gone too far,” he said meekly.

“Too far.”

He approached and knelt swiftly at her side. “I’m sorry,
inlgashi.”

How could she stay angry, with him nuzzling her neck? “You could have killed me!”

He laughed. “Maybe cut off your foot, but killed you? I don’t think so.”

She hit him in the arm.

He caught her wrist and deftly pulled her between his thighs. “Someone wants more trouble,” he purred.

“I want big trouble,” she said, and then went absolutely crimson.

His eyes widened, and then he laughed, hugging her fiercely. “Later,
ish’tia’nay,”
he promised.

“I didn’t mean—” she began, still blushing.

“Oh, yes, you did.”

She was in his arms and she looped her hands around his neck. He was smiling, so relaxed and lighthearted and so impossibly handsome. “What are you looking at?” he asked gruffly.

“You.” She was embarrassed, and got to her feet, pulling out of his grasp.

She reached for the game and the knife. He came to her instantly, taking the knife from her hand. “You make the fire, I’ll clean the game.”

“But cleaning game is women’s work,” Candice said coyly.

“If you object too hard, I will let you do it.”

Candice made the fire. “What happened to your parents, Jack?”

He started. “What’s this about?”

“I’m curious. I don’t know anything about you.”

He grinned. “Now, that’s a lie if ever I heard one.”

“I was not referring to your baser appetites.”

“Baser appetites?” He chuckled. “You mean the fact that I like to make love to you?”

“You have a one-track mind, Jack.”

He smiled.

“Your parents?”

Jack spitted the split hare. “My mother died a short while ago. My father, who was a brave warrior, died eight years ago of natural causes.”

Candice watched him turning the spit, “I don’t understand. If your parents were still alive, how could Cochise give you away as a gift?”

He sat back on his haunches, Apache-style. “I was telling you about the only parents I ever knew—my adoptive ones.”

“Oh.” She thought about that. “What about your real ones?”

He didn’t look at her now, and he was no longer quite so relaxed. “My father was a miner, a white man. I never knew my mother, but she was a squaw. We worked in the streams, panning. He was killed when Cochise and some warriors came to the house. I was about six, maybe seven. Cochise captured me and took me back with him, and later gave me to Nalee and Machu.”

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Don’t be. My father was a hard, cruel man and I was better off with the Apaches.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He looked up. “I most certainly do.”

She was silent for a moment, absorbing what he’d said and, more important, how he’d said it. “When were you married to Datiye?”

“I divorced her about three years ago.” He pulled the hare from the fire and tested it.

Candice was appalled. “You divorced her.”

“It’s not unusual.”

“How long were you and Datiye married?”

Without looking up, he said, “Three winters.”

She gasped aloud. Three whole years! She had been his wife for three years!

Jack regarded her thoughtfully, then handed her a section of hare.

“How did your first wife die?”

Jack put down the piece of meat he had just picked up. When he looked at her, every muscle in his face was tight. “In childbirth.”

She knew he had loved his dead wife. And she imagined the woman—a dark, ethereal vision. Jealousy ran thickly in her veins, and even though she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t help it.

“Do you still live with this tribe? Are you here all the time?”

His tone was clipped. “No.”

“But—”

Jack stood, tense and angry. “I left my people three years ago.”

She knew she should leave it alone. “Why did you leave them?”

He faced her. “Do you think that sharing my bed entitles you to ask all these questions?”

She felt like she’d been slapped, and she gasped, turning abruptly. Jack threw his dinner clown and marched away, into the woods. Candice watched him go and wanted to weep. She had only wanted to learn more about him. It seemed that she knew nothing at all. She hadn’t meant to pry. But there
had been no call for him to attack her that way—not after all the intimacy they’d shared.

And now the intimacy lay shattered in the night around them.

He walked for a long time, and his anger cooled. He hadn’t meant to fly off the handle like that. He was sorry. He was more than sorry. He thought about the beauty of last night and today, of Candice warm and loving in his arms, her smile brilliant and just for him, and he felt a physical pain—he didn’t want to lose her. As all the gods knew, he would have to give her up soon enough—and wasn’t half of his reason for staying behind because he wanted time with her?

In a way, sharing the burdens of his life with her would be a relief. But he wasn’t ready. There was too much between them—her white blood, the prejudices he’d already witnessed, her future. He walked for a long time, brooding.

It was midway into the night before he returned, clutching something in his hands, his heart straining his ribs with worry that she wouldn’t forgive him. He ducked into the
gohwah
with a torch and set it in the ground. One glance at her stiff back told him she was awake.

“Candice?”

She whipped upright, facing him. Her face was tear-streaked, and it tore his heart. “I suppose you were with your ex-wife tonight!”

He knelt beside her. “You don’t believe that.”

“It must be after midnight,” she cried.

He didn’t take his eyes from her face. “I was making this,” he said, handing her a woven feather headband. Her eyes went to the beautiful blue, gray, and red band. There were touches of silver and gold in it. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She looked at him, then at the headband. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Jack whispered, touching her face.
“Shijii …”

As if on cue, Candice leaned forward, and he pulled her against him. He held her tight, eyes closed, and a long breath escaped him. The feather headband fell to the ground.

Candice clutched his neck, and her mouth sought his wildly. He opened to her, she plunged her tongue into his
mouth. He fell backward, she rode him down. On her knees, still kissing him, she began rubbing her bare breasts against his chest. The tips grew hard and tight. She caught a hank of his hair and clutched it almost painfully.

Jack let her be the aggressor, his heart fighting the confines of his chest. He’d never had a woman attack him before. She was biting his neck, all the while rubbing her breasts with their hard, enlarged nipples against him. Then she lowered her naked, wet groin to his and began a rapid, rhythmic grinding. He groaned.

She reached down and fumbled with his drawstring, her breath loud and harsh. He looked at her beautiful, passion-glazed face, the parted lips, the flushed cheeks, the tangled, disheveled mane of hair. “God.” He groaned as she grabbed his thick member and rubbed the tip against her swollen flesh. Then she pushed him inside her and impaled herself.

She rode him hard and easy, fast and slow. Jack was spinning out of control too soon. This was Candice, his wife, his beautiful wife … he arched upward, shooting his hot seed into her again and again.

When he opened his eyes she was moving slowly, still flushed, so magnificent it took his breath away. She stopped moving and sat panting, watching him in the torchlight.

He pulled her into his arms. “Forgive me,
shijii.”

“You’re forgiven,” she said huskily.

“Even for losing control?”

She moaned slightly, rubbing against his thigh, her lips seeking his. “I wanted to watch you,” she whispered hoarsely.

Her words knocked the breath right out of him. He rolled her onto her back, nuzzling her breasts, reaching down to fondle the hot, wet flesh between her legs. “Now let me watch you,” he said.

Hayilkah’s fever lasted ten days.

On the eleventh day it broke, and everyone knew he would live.

Jack skipped a stone across the creek. There was a constricting tightness in his chest, as if he were wearing an iron band. For a while, it had seemed as if he and Candice would never have to face the future—their future.

After that one terrible time, they had avoided any and all conversation that might lead to a repetition of what had happened. Candice never again pried into his past, and they avoided all topics relating to Tucson, the High C, and her family. They monitored Hayilkah’s progress daily, and Jack felt a guilt-laden relief each day that the fever lingered. Candice had spent some time with the women, doing women’s chores—mostly preparing food for the winter ahead—and Jack had spent time with the braves, hunting. They had spent their nights together in a frenzied kind of passion. As if there were no tomorrow.

They could no longer avoid facing the inevitable.

Jack’s obligation, his responsibility, his honor, demanded that he return Candice to her people and her home. He had married her in the first place to free her. He had never dreamed she would be a willing wife, never dreamed he could ever have a woman like her. Never, when he married her, had he thought they would discover such passion in each other’s arms, such intimacy. And, for Jack, such love.

He had known for a long time that he was in love with Candice, but it wasn’t something he had been able to face. Until now. And it hurt.

The pain of losing her was almost unbearable.

He thought: But things are different now. True, I married her to free her. But she comes to me willingly, eagerly. She is my wife. I
don’t have to give her up
.

Of course, he could not force her to remain with him, it was not done. Women, too, had the right of divorce. Which meant, if he wanted to keep her, he would have to tell her
about their marriage and give her a choice. Did he dare even hope she would want to stay with him?

He thought of all the moments they had shared, much of it spent in sex. Still, there were other times, when she cooked his food and mended his clothes and teased and flirted. He thought of how she had come to know all the children by name, and how she had played with the littlest ones, making them shriek with laughter. He imagined her with his children, and it was something he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything, other than her. Hope suddenly reared in his heart, hot and potent. He had a chance. He knew he did. He would will it that she would agree to stay with him as his wife.

Although there was a dark corner of fear within him, he shoved it away and hurried back to their
gohwah
with a light stride. He began thinking of the future. Of course they could not stay there—for all the same old reasons. But they could move away, far away, maybe to California, or the Oregon Territory. They could farm, ranch. They could homestead. Maybe she was already pregnant. Maybe next year, at this time, she would be nursing his son.