The Darkest Heart (7 page)

She was up, stoking the fire. She looked up as he neared, and her face went white. She leapt to her feet.

He stood with the Colt hanging in his hand and wondered if he was swaying or if the ground was moving.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

He sank to his knees on the ground. When he looked up she hadn’t moved. He could see it all in her mind—her horror, and the leap of knowledge, too. She glanced at the stallion and he knew, with more pain, that he had been right. Given the chance, she would leave him to live or die. He raised the gun. It seemed to waver in front of his eyes, but then, she did too. “Get water. There’s—there’s whiskey—in my bags.”

She didn’t move. Not at first, and then she turned and ran for the canteen, grabbing the saddlebags off the ground and hurrying back. She paused abruptly before him. He wanted to close his eyes. Never had they felt so heavy. He realized with a start that the gun was pointing at the ground, and he tried to lift it. She dropped the bags and the canteen, and before he could react, she had taken the gun away.

He looked up. Now. Now she was going to leave. Or kill him first. But wasn’t it better this way? She was torturing his soul. “Go,” he whispered. “Go. Run. Leave.”

Their gazes met. She glanced at his horse. Then her lips pursed together and she turned her back to him, and in that one instant, when he knew she was going, it was unbearable. But she removed her shirt, and her chemise, then replaced her shirt and turned to him. He watched her with new understanding, closing his eyes as she ripped the cotton. When she tenderly touched his shoulder where the skin was unhurt, his eyes flew open. “I have to clean these wounds,” she said. “It will hurt. Drink some whiskey, here.”

She forced a few swallows down his mouth before he
could object, to tell her, no, use the whiskey on my wounds, don’t waste it that way. But he was too tired and in too much pain to speak. Then he gasped as she poured the alcohol over his back, but it was the only sound he made. When she drenched the wounds on his chest, ribs, and legs, he didn’t make a sound. Sweat poured from his chin. She washed everything with water, rinsing the dirt, sand, and stones out. The red haze of pain was incessant. He wondered how long he could sit up, and knew it wouldn’t be much longer. His world was swaying precariously now.

“Just another minute,” she soothed. “Here, let me put the blanket down. There. Now, careful …”

She helped him and somehow he was lying down, and it was blessed. Then he became aware of something else—a soft damp cloth moved tenderly over his temple, his cheek, his jaw and chin as she bathed the sweat away. His last conscious thought was:
She didn’t leave
.

When he awoke the sun was high, and he knew he had slept through all of yesterday and half of today. He also knew, as he tensed his muscles expectantly, that he was well on his way to recovery. He was sore, he ached, but from the feel of it everything was scabbing up. He was famished. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the twinge of pain, looked around, and froze.

His horse and the girl were gone.

His heartbeat quickened, and his disappointment was too acute to ignore. Then he shrugged it off—she hadn’t killed him—in fact, she had stayed until he was well enough to make it on his own.

He heard the horse approaching when it was still out of sight, and he slowly rose to his feet. He looked around, then spied the saddlebags and his gunbelt and knife belt. He retrieved a Colt, moved into the shadows of some boulders, and waited.

Candice Carter trotted into the clearing, two dead squirrels hanging from the pommel of his black.

He stepped out and her gaze shot to him. They stared at each other.

“You’re up,” she said.

She hadn’t left. She was still there. He couldn’t believe it. He looked away so she wouldn’t see any of the turbulent emotions in his eyes, then moved back to the blanket and slowly sat.

“You shouldn’t have gotten up,” she said, sliding off the black.

“I’m a lot better,” he said, not looking at her.

“You should be, you slept for about thirty hours. You had a fever, but not for long. You were very lucky.”

His gaze pinned her. “Why didn’t you leave?”

She shifted. “It wouldn’t have been right. To leave a hurt man.”

“Even a half-breed Apache?” There was a mocking quality to his tone.

She flushed and couldn’t meet his gaze, “I owed you,” she said, turning away.

He watched her skin and clean the game with determination, her face set, and an aching grew in him. It wasn’t physical. Yesterday she had cared for his body with the tenderness of a wife. Now she was cooking his food, the most domestic of acts a woman could perform. It was as if she were his woman, doing these things to take care of him. Yet it was just a shimmering desert illusion. He looked away.

When Candice had the squirrel roasting on a spit, she rose to her feet and looked at him. He met her gaze, then found himself looking at her full breasts, unrestrained by a chemise, bare beneath the cotton shirt. He felt a familiar tightening in his groin, but it was hard to look away. When he raised his eyes back to hers he saw her standing there with a frozen, startled look. Poised for flight, but mesmerized.

He ducked his head. “Could you look at my back? Everything else is healing quickly.”

“Yes, of course.”

Candice hesitated, wringing her hands briefly. It was one thing to have tended him while he was desperate with pain and half conscious, another to have tended him while he lay sleeping and slightly feverish. Now he looked like a healthy man, except for the slight sheen of perspiration on his brow. She thought of how she had wiped his brow many times last night with the same tenderness she would give to a hurt animal. She had forgotten, really, who and what he was. The question of leaving him had crossed her mind only once, initially, when he had come into the clearing staggering on his feet and covered with blood. It had been an instinctive reaction, the urge to flee while she could. But something had held her back—a natural compassion. It hadn’t mattered that he was part Apache and her enemy.

She had never touched an Indian before. That thought hadn’t occurred to her since yesterday. After cleansing his wounds, the only times she had touched him was to bathe his face, as his fever had stayed low. The man had the constitution of an ox.

She was afraid to go near him now, much less touch him.

She knew she should have left a few hours ago, when he seemed better and she’d had the chance.

Candice approached slowly, apprehensively, and she saw the look of contempt flash through his eyes. He shifted his back to her and she looked at the broad, hard flesh, crossed in three places with scabbing claw marks that were healing without the least sign of infection. Again, his health amazed her. “Everything is fine,” she said.

He shifted back and looked at her. “If you get too close, I might bite.”

She reddened, and grew angry too. “That’s not fair.”

“No? Then stop looking at me as if I’m some kind of half-human animal.”

She stiffened. “I haven’t …”

“I’m a man,” he said. Then, crudely: “Surely you remember that?”

She went even redder, thinking about how a few nights before he had stood in the smoke with his penis rigid like a stallion’s. She turned her back abruptly, trembling. She very deliberately walked to check on their dinner, trying to get those images out of her mind. It wasn’t easy.

They ate in a tense silence, not looking at each other. He fell asleep soon after the meal, while it was still light out. She sat and studied him openly. His lips, almost full and certainly not thin, were parted slightly. Her gaze riveted there. His mouth, his face, so hard in waking, was relaxed and vulnerable in sleep. There was a growth of stubby beard, but it couldn’t detract” from his evenly sculpted features. He was part Indian, but he was a good-looking man.

Candice blushed at the thought and resolved never to think it again.

She didn’t understand him. He was Apache, wasn’t he? Yet he hadn’t acted like one. He hadn’t hurt her, abused her, forced himself on her. Or worse. In fact, other than the few times he had lost his temper, he had even been decent. And when he had been injured, in terrible pain, he had been so stoic …

She abruptly tore her gaze away from him and stood. He was well on his way to health. They weren’t far from the High C. Now was the time to leave. She had owed him her
life, she had paid in full. Of course, she would be stealing his horse.

She wondered if she could be hanged for stealing a half-breed’s horse.

The guilt could have been consuming, but she was determined, and she started tacking up the black quickly and quietly. She found herself wishing that there was another way. The stallion was no longer nervous around her; in fact, he turned to nuzzle her, pushing against her side and blowing softly. She patted him and yanked the cinch tight.

She thought about how Savage had stared at her breasts with bright silver eyes.

She looked over her shoulder at him as he lay sleeping. He moved slightly, and she froze, her heart slamming, and for a moment she thought he was awake. But he settled again.

She swung into the saddle and rode off into the approaching night.

It was twilight the next night when Candice rode through the fortified walls of the High C. The gate, of course, had been closed and barred, but the sentry recognized her and swung the heavy door open. That produced the usual result, and she had gotten only halfway to the low, long adobe house when her family came pouring out, Little John in the lead.

“Good God, Candice,” he shouted, whipping her off the horse and into his strong, warm arms. She clung to him, laughing. He whirled her around and passed her to Mark, almost as tall as their younger brother. Then Luke, the oldest, was embracing her wordlessly, before she was swept into her father’s arms. By now she was crying.

“Are you all right?” John Carter demanded, peering into her face.

“Yes, yes, Pop, I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll get into that,” he assured her.

“Where in hell is Kincaid?” Mark demanded.

Candice pressed against her father, who still had his arm around her as they started to the house. Luke said, “Easy, boy, give her a chance.”

“I think I’ll kill Kincaid” was Mark’s hot retort.

“Whose horse?” John-John was asking. “Are you alone, for Christ’s sake?”

“John-John,” his father reproved.

Candice saw the husky form of Maria, who had raised her after her mother had left, and she rushed forward for another embrace. The big Mexican woman was crying. “Candita, how could you? You put us all to hell!”

“I’m so sorry,” Candice cried, meaning it.

Inside, Maria ordered her niece Conchita to prepare a bath. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” Candice replied. Maria left and she turned to face her family, flushing with guilt because now the lies would start.

“Where is Kincaid?” her father asked.

“I’m going to kill him if he touched you before the wedding,” Mark said.

Her color went deeper. She looked at Luke, not the tallest and not the shortest but the coolest, then at her father. “Kincaid is dead. There was a robbery. Right after the wedding. I was in shock, and I had to get out of there. I got a horse and left.”

They all stared in dumbfounded silence.

“Candice, I’m sorry,” her father finally said.

Candice’s mouth began to tremble. “Oh, Pop. It was awful,” she said, thinking of how Virgil had betrayed her and tried to rape her, and how she’d had to defend herself.

Her father hugged her again. Then he raised her chin sternly. “Where is
there?”
he asked.

She started chewing a nail. “Fort Yuma.”

More stares and more silence. Little John broke it. “God, Candice! You left alone—you came alone—all the way—alone!”

She bit her lip. “I’m so sorry.”

Even Luke was looking appalled. “I can’t believe it,” he said. She gave him a pleading look, and he softened and hugged her.

“Well, at least Kincaid got what he deserved,” Mark said.

“Mark,” John reproved.

“I don’t care. He ran off with our sister. She’s gonna never live that down. Who’ll want to marry her now?”

Candice inhaled sharply. She should have known Mark wouldn’t hold back, and it was true—it would be even more true if they knew she’d never married Kincaid, and if they knew about the half-breed.…

“Mark, that’s raw,” Luke said. “I don’t think Candice will have too much of a problem. Tim McGraw’s asked her three times this year, and Judge Reinhart was about to pop the question before she eloped. It’ll be just a matter of time.”

Candice gave Luke a grateful look. Her father affirmed what Luke had said, adding, “Besides, there’s no rush, and there’s mourning to think of.” He reached out to hug her. “Honey, it’s so good to have you back.”

Candice smiled back, relieved.

She tried not to think about stealing Jack Savage’s horse. She had a niggling thought. He wouldn’t come looking for
his horse—would he? She assured herself that he would not. The guilt was too much to bear, so it was easier to put it out of her mind and concentrate on the reunion with her family. After the warmth came the lecturing, which she staunchly braved. And when she finally crumpled into bed, she said a brief prayer of thanks to the Lord, asking for forgiveness for the murder, and the lies and the horse-stealing.

And why, God, was it the last that preyed on her mind and nerves? She had killed a man, but all she could think about was stealing an Apache’s horse while he lay sleeping and wounded.

“Candice, get up.”

She opened her eyes to see Luke standing in the doorway. “Huh?”

He was grim. “There’s a half-breed Apache in the yard and he says you stole his horse.”

She sat up, her face paling. “Oh, God.”
He had came
.

“Pop wants you downstairs. Now.” Luke stalked out of the room.

Candice leapt from the bed, shaking. She felt fear and sought control as she pulled on a chemise and petticoats. Her whole family was there, so he couldn’t do anything. She didn’t have to know him very well to know he would be furious. And her omission of the truth was about to be exposed.…