The Darkest Heart (26 page)

When she finally heard the lock turning, she was sure it was evening, and her heart sank. To her surprise, Lorna entered, not Kincaid. She was smiling, clad in a sheer gown and wrapper, her blond hair falling down her shoulders, her face unpainted. “Good morning.”

An ally, Candice prayed. Then she quickly remembered that this woman and Kincaid were most likely on very intimate terms, and he’d called her a friend, not a mistress or a whore. “Is it morning?” Candice was abrupt. “Does Kincaid intend to keep me under lock and key until he tires of me?”

Lorna had closed the door behind her, her eyebrows arched. “You are beautiful, truly, when you’re angry, Candice. I can see why Kincaid is keeping you against your will.”

Candice seized the opportunity. “Lorna, please, help me. I must escape or I’ll go crazy—if I don’t kill him first!”

Lorna laughed lightly, her gaze roaming over her.

“Please!”

“Dear, Kincaid is very powerful, and he won’t let you go—or escape—until he is finished with you. So relax. Why don’t you just give in and enjoy him? He is good in bed.”

“I hate him,” Candice flared. “I will never enjoy his touch. He will have to rape me every time.”

Lorna looked at her admiringly. “You are everything Kincaid said,” she breathed. “Truly mangificent.” Her glance swept over her again.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Candice lashed out. “It’s damn rude—I’m not a piece of meat being inspected for sale.”

Lorna laughed, coming closer, picking up a strand of Candice’s long, disheveled hair. “Even your hair is beautiful,” she murmured, “such a rich yellow, like black-eyed Susans.”

Candice froze, staring at the expression on the woman’s face. If she didn’t know better, she would say the woman was sexually attracted to her, but of course, that was unheard of. She yanked away.

Lorna smiled.

Both women glanced up as Kincaid stepped into the room, his eyes brightening as he took them in. “Ah, Lorna, paying my mistress a social call?” He stepped rapidly over to Candice, taking her arm, staring down at her with bright eyes.

“Virgil, we have to talk,” Candice said desperately.

Kincaid met Lorna’s glance, then laughed. Do we?” He tightened his hold on her arm and pulled her against him. “Did you really think you could steal a knife to stab me while I slept? Or seduce Jim to help you escape?”

Candice just looked at him—with murder in her eyes. She had no reply to make.

“Be careful, dear, or I’ll give you to Lorna,” Kincaid warned dangerously.

“What?” Candice was sure she’d misheard. Then she understood—he Would make her work as a whore.

“Lorna likes women when they’re very, very beautiful—in
fact, sometimes I think she prefers women,” Kincaid said, smiling when shock crossed her features.

Candice turned to look at Lorna. “No, I don’t believe it—it’s not true.”

Lorna smiled, her eyes bright with a light that Candice understood now, and reached out, one smooth hand cupping Candice’s face. When Candice tried to wrench away, Kincaid held her firmly in place, against his chest. Lorna’s hand lingered. “I could pleasure you, my dear,” she said huskily. “I have no doubt about that.”

Candice was momentarily stunned.

“If you don’t behave,” Kincaid said into her ear, his breath warm, “I may give you to Lorna for a night.”

“Virge,” Lorna said, glancing at him breathlessly, her hand still on Candice’s face, “please do. I’m no threat to you.”

“Never!” Candice cried, twisting her face away. But Lorna’s hand followed it. “I’ll kill you!”

Kincaid laughed. “She can always tie you up,” he told her. “In fact, I would make sure that she did.”

Candice stood panting against Virgil’s iron hold, dazed and panic-stricken.

Kincaid laughed.

Lorna’s hand slid down to Candice’s shoulder, and she glanced at Kincaid as if for a sign to stop. Candice twisted again, but uselessly. Lorna smiled, and both her hands came up and cupped Candice’s breasts, rubbing and squeezing, seeking out her nipples with dextrous fingers.

“Virgil!” Candice cried, bucking against him. She had to escape Lorna’s hands! Worse, as she pressed away from Lorna, against Kincaid, she could feel his male response to her. There was no mistaking it.

“Enough,” Kincaid said quietly. “Leave, Lorna. Another time.”

Lorna dropped her hands immediately, and with a hungry look at Candice’s pale face, she was gone.

Candice’s heart was pounding wildly. Dear, sweet Jesus! God help me! She felt nauseated and, worse, almost hysterical from despair. She closed her eyes as Kincaid lifted her and carried her to the bed.

“Let go this time, Candice,” Kincaid whispered huskily, pulling off her gown. “Let me pleasure you.”

Never, Candice thought, trying to hold back a deep, wrenching sob. Never.

Jack slammed the glass down and reached for the bottle. His hand closed with exaggerated precision around it. He lifted the bottle and poured, managing to spill as much as not. He didn’t give a damn. He banged the bottle down, raised the glass, and drained it.

It had been two weeks.

Two weeks since she’d left on the stage with her white husband. Fifteen days since he’d told her she was
his
wife and asked her to marry him. What a fool he was.

The saloon was busy even though it was only midday. A few wranglers, many drifters, some miners, and two baby-faced soldiers from the fort. The bartender was serving a steady stream of drinks. Nadi, the young half-breed, was busy serving and avoiding grabs to various parts of her anatomy. The buckskin skirt clung to her young, high buttocks and was the most sought-after target on her person.

He should have left town days ago, but he hadn’t the ambition to do so. Where would he drift to now? Sonora? Texas? West, to California? Shit; he didn’t give a damn.

By now he’d heard all the gossip. Rumor had it that Candice had jilted Kincaid in Arizona City for him, then had jilted him for Kincaid. It was amazing how the perverted gossipmongers could so totally twist the facts. There was a lot of head-shaking. Men and women alike believed that Candice was that kind of woman, a scarlet woman, a hussy, a breed lover. She was ruined, irreparably.

Was she happy?

He didn’t even want to consider that thought, not when he was so damn miserable. But whose fault was that? It was his, for being foolish enough to marry her—worse, make love to her, fall in love with her. Even now, he didn’t hate her as much as he loved her. And the whiskey only dimmed the pain.

He was sitting there brooding when suddenly—or not so suddenly—a miner was standing before him, a tall, brawny shadow, and the next thing Jack knew, his chair was kicked out from under him. He went flying back onto the floor.

“Hey, breed,” the miner laughed. “Hear you got a taste of a white woman.”

Jack was badly drunk. He shook his head to stop the floor from spinning. He knew he was in serious trouble. He leaned up on his elbows, trying to focus on a pair of thick calves clad in moccasins.

“You know what I think of breeds who fool with white women?” the miner asked. “This!”

Jack saw it coming, the hard, vicious kick to his face. It was one thing to see it and another to react. He tried, and managed to move his head slightly aside, but not enough to avoid the stunning blow. His head slammed against the floor, and he saw stars.

He was still seeing stars when he was being lifted to his feet by many hands.

“What should we do with him, boys?” the miner roared.

“String the no-good bastard up!” someone shouted.

“That’ll teach him,” a wrangler declared, and a round of laughter greeted this.

“He won’t never touch no white woman again,” agreed one of the soldiers.

“Yeah!” It was a chorus.

Jack’s legs refused to work as the miner began dragging him outside, followed by the crowd in the saloon. He was done for. He was so drunk he barely cared. He heard Nadi trying to scream for help. He smiled, thinking, Poor, foolish girl.

Someone threw a rope around his neck. Panic set in, and his heart started to pound, clearing his head a bit. Things were more in focus. His mouth was bleeding from the kick.

“We’ll take him around back where there’s a nice tree with his name on it,” the miner shouted, and everyone laughed and roared their approval.

The cocking of a gun sounded. “I don’t think so.”

Jack knew that voice, but he couldn’t place it. He turned his head, blinking, trying to focus on the rider on the rangy bay.

“Stay out of this, boy,” the miner said.

“What’s his crime?” Luke Carter asked coolly.

“You asking what his crime is?” the wrangler asked incredulously. “He stole your sister from Kincaid.”

“My sister,” Luke said calmly, “was dying in the desert after leaving her husband for dead in Arizona City, This man saved her life. Untie him.”

The miner hesitated, but held at rifle point, he had no choice. He slipped the noose from around Jack’s neck and stepped away, muttering angrily. Jack stood swaying while Luke dispersed the crowd. He wiped his sleeve over his mouth and looked up at Luke Carter.

Nadi came running up and grabbed him, and he leaned on her gratefully.

“You’d best sober up,” Luke said, slipping off the horse. He walked over. “You need a hand with him?” he asked the girl.

“Please,” Nadi’s eyes seemed to beg, her face tense with anxiety.

“Shit” was all Jack managed, and Luke threw an arm around Jack as he stumbled along. He found himself falling onto Nadi’s straw pallet. “Thanks,” he mumbled, groaning.

Luke stared down at him, glanced around without expression at the squalid little room, nodded to Nadi, and left.

Jack had flung his arm over his eyes. Nadi crouched beside him, pressing her face on his chest. As his world did another spin, he groaned again. Nadi made a funny noise, something that sounded like she was crying. One of Jack’s hands came out and he patted her head.

Later, and how much later he wasn’t sure, but the room was in total darkness, so he knew he had passed out, he became groggily aware of a warm, naked body curled beside his. He was naked too. He remembered what had happened that afternoon and cursed himself for his idiocy in getting so drunk that he couldn’t defend himself.

The woman’s slim, hard body moved on top of his. At the sensation of soft, warm skin and hot groin, his body stirred. He recognized Nadi with a start, despite the numbed, half-inebriated state he was in. “Nadi? What are you doing here?”

She began kissing his throat, and his groin swelled.

“Nadi, no.”

Her hands slid to his jaws, holding his face, and as she kissed him, she rubbed hard little nipples against his chest.
“No,” he tried to say, into her mouth, but now his groin was aching and full, his rigid penis straining against her belly.

He was still half drunk and barely awake. He groaned, opened his mouth, closed his arms around her, and surrendered. She was warm, and she was woman. He knew he shouldn’t. It was in the back of his mind. She was too young, and a prostitute for the patrons of the saloon. None of that mattered now. What mattered was sheathing himself in her warm, wet flesh. He flipped her and drove into her, groaning.

She moved her hips in rhythm with his, returned his kisses, ran her hands up and down his back. Because of all the alcohol, it was some time before he found release, but he wasn’t too drunk to tell that he hadn’t aroused her—even halfway. He rolled off her and stared at the ceiling. She instantly curled against his side.

He turned to look at her thin face with the too-big black eyes, which were shining with adoration. Her expression made him freeze. “Nadi, this wasn’t right.”

She smiled, took his hand, and placed it on her heart. The look she gave him was as eloquent as words she seemed to want to say but could not: “I love you.”

Jack looked at the ceiling, feeling awful. He felt her kiss his hand before releasing it. A change of topic was always safe. “How old are you?” Her fingers moved too rapidly, and he grabbed her wrist. “Slow down.”

She smiled, held up ten fingers, then five and two.

She looked fourteen. “Is that the truth?”

Still smiling, she nodded vigorously. She was so sincere, and so pathetic. He had just used her, and even though she had offered herself, he was grim with remorse. He stared again at the ceiling.

She smiled and stretched out alongside him.

He looked at her.

She stroked his chest languidly. He watched her get up and pull on her calico blouse and the buckskin skirt. Her clothes were much mended and could use a wash. He was aware of the heavy odors in the room. He recalled how her
hair had felt in his hands. He glanced at the soiled pallet he was lying on.

She returned with coffee and whiskey. His head pounding with an immense headache, Jack reached for coffee and pushed the whiskey away.

Three days later Jack rode into Cochise’s stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains late at night.

Nadi had wept and tried to convince him not to go.

He felt no small amount of guilt. Although he had stayed in Tucson for a few more days, because he needed the time to pull himself together, he hadn’t touched her again. She had offered herself hopefully. But Jack had nothing left to give, and he could not take from her again.

Earlier he had sent a smoke signal up that had been answered, or he would have never gotten past the two sentries that guarded the mouth of the stronghold. The stronghold was actually a canyon with a very narrow gorge as the sole entrance to, and exit from, Sulphur Springs Valley. The stronghold was completely defensible, because even if troops could find the entrance, which hadn’t happened yet, they would be annihilated by just a few warriors as they tried to enter through the gorge. Inside the stronghold, the entire Chiricahua tribe was nestled among mesquite and juniper and scrub oak, cholla and prickly pear and agave. A stream wandered the whole length of the canyon.

Nahilzay, Cochise’s lieutenant and finest warrior, greeted him. “Welcome, my friend,” he said, smiling. He was tall and lean, about ten years Jack’s senior.