Comanche Moon (26 page)

Zack stared at him for a moment without dismounting. “I can catch her horse, but I’ll need your rope. Won’t be any need in us splitting up.” He flicked a glance at the horse standing with head down and foreleg quivering.

It snuffled softly, obviously in pain. “You going to put it down, or you want me to?”

Diamond sliced the suffering animal an indifferent look and shrugged.

“Just get the gear off it. Let the damn thing die on its own for all I care. Stupid nag, stepping in a hole in the first place.” Appalled, Deborah must have made some sound, because he turned to look at her, a frown creasing his tawny brow. “Ah, sugar, I don’t mean to be as hard as I sound. I just don’t want you to see it, that’s all.”

“I assure you, that I would much rather see the poor thing put out of its misery than I would see it left to die slowly, Mr. Diamond.”

“Didn’t I say that?” he shot back irritably, and looked at Zack. “Cut its throat, Banning. Quick and easy.” Throwing a leg over his mount’s neck, Zack slid to the ground and crossed to the injured horse. He unsaddled it while Diamond gathered Judith up in his arms and put her in front of him on his own horse. Deborah was almost in tears when Diamond handed her a coil of rope for Zack and mounted behind Judith. She tossed the rope to the ground and looked up at them. “I’ll be there soon after you,” she told her cousin. “You just let Tía Dolores take care of your ankle until I get there, all right?” Pain creased her pale features, but Judith managed a grimace that passed for a smile. “I will. I’ll be drinking lemonade on the patio when you get there.”

Deborah watched them ride away at a slow lope, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood with the wind whipping her riding skirt and tossing the feather on her hat. Then she turned to see Zack talking softly to the horse.

He’d unsaddled it and poured water from his canteen into his hat to let the animal drink. He rubbed the sweaty back, crooning Comanche words the entire time, soft, liquid sounds that soothed the trembling animal. It nuzzled him in an affectionate gesture.

Deborah watched silently. There was a gentleness in Zack’s movements, and respect for the animal. He stroked it and talked to it, and she felt her throat tighten as he drew his pistol from its holster and put the barrel against the mare’s head. The horse seemed half-asleep, head lowered and pressed against Zack’s chest. He scratched it between the ears, then pulled the trigger of his pistol.

The report made Deborah jump. For a moment, the animal seemed unhurt, then it sagged slowly to the ground and gave a last shudder before the eyes began to glaze. Deborah buried her face in her palms and wept. She didn’t know why. She had felt no special affection for the animal, but she hated the necessity of killing it.

She sank to the ground, unable to stand a moment longer. With her head bent and her face still cupped in her hands, she didn’t see Zack approach, but she heard his light step. He knelt beside her. She felt him, his warmth, his sympathy.

“It was kinder than the knife,” he said after a moment. “Though if I had killed the horse in the Comanche way, I would have slit its throat as Diamond said, and honored it as a brave and faithful friend.” She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t look in that direction, and Zack seemed to know it. He crouched there beside her without speaking for a few minutes, and she was grateful. Then he rose to his feet with languid grace and held out his hand.

“Come on. I’ll catch your horse, but you need to wait in the shade. I remember what happened last time you were out in the sun too long.” Startled, Deborah’s gaze flew to his, and she saw the slight crinkling of his eyes as he smiled at her. She relaxed and nodded. “Yes, I do burn easily.” When she put her hand in his offered palm, shock waves shuddered up her arm and she caught her breath. The touch brought back a storm of memories. Pine trees, soft breezes, a hawk winging overhead. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them, Zack was staring at her.

“Are you Diamond’s woman?” For an instant, his question made no sense. Then she realized what he was asking at the same time as the more recent memory of his rejection slashed at her.

“I’m no one’s woman,” she said tartly, and tried to pull her hand from his grasp. He held it firmly, and a slow smile curved the erotic line of his mouth.

“That’s what you think.”

Chapter 17

“Kiss me,” he muttered, and cupped her chin in his warm palm.

Shivering in spite of the searing sun, Deborah could not offer a word.

Zack saw her eyes widen, sunlight captured in the dark centers and reflecting like gold, her long lashes making shadows on her pale cheeks. He was crazy.

He had to be. He knew better than to begin anything. Hadn’t he stayed away from her this long?

But there was something drawing him to her, some invisible tug, whether of heart or body was immaterial at this point. He just knew he had to taste her again, had to hear her soft, sensuous cries in his ear.

He didn’t care what Dexter Diamond thought, what Judith thought, what anyone thought but Deborah. She was the only one whose opinion mattered.

His head bent, and he brushed his lips across her mouth in a light kiss.

Her breath came in short, feathery pants for air, whispering over his face when he drew back a little to look at her. He saw her swallow, her throat rippling with a silky movement.

“I shouldn’t do this.”

“No,” he agreed, because she was right. “You shouldn’t do this.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, then her cheek above the bronzed curve of his hand where he held her, then her closed eyelids. She quivered. He felt it, the faint tremors that told him more than her words could have done.

A hot wind blew over them, dry and rustling, scattering dust like dead leaves. He felt it beat against his legs and pepper his bare skin in a fine mist, almost like rain. The air shimmered with intensity.

Her lashes trembled, lifted, her eyes huge and flecked with gold lights.

She seemed slightly dazed.

It took a concerted effort, but he lifted his head after a moment. Her skin was warm, sun-heated, soft beneath his fingers. He drew in a deep breath to steady the raging blood pounding through him, and managed a faint smile.

At least, it
felt
like a smile. From the widening of her eyes, he wasn’t sure what it looked like. His voice was so hoarse it was barely recognizable to him, sounding more like a harsh croak.

“Deborah.”

“Yes?”

“We can’t stand out here in the sun and . . . and do this.”

“No.”

She wasn’t going to help him, he saw that at once. He was on his own here; she looked too confused, too distressed by everything.

He suppressed the urge to draw her into him, to keep kissing her out here in the sun and heat where anyone who might wander by would see them.

Not that this area was a highly traveled region. But he was a man who rarely took anything for granted, and he didn’t intend to risk what was left of her reputation by subjecting her to more gossip. A ranch hand could pass, or Diamond could send someone back for them.

Zack set her back and away with a firm hand, regretting the necessity and his awakened hunger. “I’ll take you to a shady spot, then catch your horse.”

She looked at him solemnly. “Yes.” He wanted to groan aloud. There was something so wistful in the way she looked at him, so
needy.
He wondered if he had the same dazed look, as if he’d been knocked down by a wild bull. He figured he did, since he certainly felt like it.

Zack mounted his gray, then held out a hand to her to mount behind him. He saw her brief hesitation before she put her hand in his outstretched palm, then he lifted her and she swung up to perch with both legs on one side of the horse.

“You’re going to have to straddle,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll fall off.

And hold on to me. I don’t have time to play the gentleman if I want to catch your horse before dark.” There was a brief silence, then he felt her shrug. “All right. Not that I thought you would play a gentleman anyway.” It was maddening, having her legs nudging his, knowing her riding skirt was pushed up to her knees, feeling the soft press of her breasts against his back when she put her arms around his waist as gingerly as if he was a cactus.

It certainly didn’t cool the heat rising in him.

“Hold on,” he said, and nudged the gray into a canter. The motion of the horse made her clutch him more tightly, and her breasts rubbed in a tantalizing scrape over his back as she held on. Her hands knotted at his waist, just above his belt buckle, nudging his belly with every jolt. He was in torment. He should have let her walk. He should have walked. He should have let her wait there in the sun while he went to find her horse. If he had to ride all the way back to the ranch with her like this, he’d be in trouble.

No. If he had to ride all the way back to the ranch with her rubbing up against him, he corrected himself, he’d be
inside
her. And that wouldn’t do.

At the first grove of trees, Zack reined in. “Here,” he said tersely. “You ought to be comfortable until I catch your horse.” 

Her hands moved away from his stomach, and the pressure of her breasts against him was gone as she dismounted. When she stood beside the horse, the feather atop her hat bobbed in the wind and he had to restrain the gray from bolting.

“Take that damned hat off,” he said when he got the horse under control. “I don’t know why white women have to wear such foolery.” The oblique reminder of what he was, their mutual past, made her look up at him. He felt the burn of her eyes, and it seared into him. The shade of the scrub trees dappled her face in light and shadow, and the wind pressed her skirts against her slender legs as she stared at him.

“To catch the attention of white men,” she said, the cool, clipped tones reminding him again of his mother, as they had that first day he’d seen her.

Zack leaned on his saddle horn, his eyes narrowed. “And what white man’s attention are you trying to catch, Miss Hamilton?”

“Mrs. Velazquez.”

“That’s a crock, and you know it. He was never your husband but in name.” Temper made his words sharp. He wasn’t certain why it bothered him that she laid claim to the title of wife to Miguel Velazquez, but it did. Just like it angered him when she let Dexter Diamond put his hands on her with that damned proprietary air, and kiss her.

Deborah shrugged. “But the marriage is legal, nonetheless.”

“And that suits you just fine, doesn’t it?” He scowled. “I never figured you for being so greedy, but it looks like I was wrong. You’ve got your hooks in the Velazquez land and you don’t intend to let go, do you?”

“It is not exactly a matter of my
letting go.
I’ve been asked to remain because it profits the family interests, according to Don Francisco.” She looked away from him, her eyes distant. She untied the ribbons to her hat and removed it before looking back at him. “Once the government changed the boundary lines, the necessity of their being American citizens precipitated my marriage. I am a wife of convenience, Mister Banning.”

“Mister Banning.” Zack fought his rising temper. “In case you don’t remember, we’ve been a bit too
close
for you to be so formal.”

“And you don’t mind me making that fact public? Somehow I had the impression that you wanted to keep that fact a secret as much as I do. After all, if the authorities find out it was you who kept me prisoner in a Comanche village, your life—or at the very least, your freedom—will be jeopardized. I hardly think you want me publicizing such information.”

“There’s no one around to hear you right now.”

“I’m not as good at leading a double life as you seem to be,” Deborah returned coolly.

“Maybe you need more practice.” Her eyes flashed. “I hardly think so.” 

For a moment he didn’t say anything. What was it about this one woman that made him lose control? She did. And it wasn’t anything he could put his finger on that caused it.

“I’ll be back,” he said finally, wheeling his gray around and riding away without looking back.

By the time he found her bay, roped it, and rode back to her, the sun was a fiery ball in the sky. He dismounted under the scrub trees and squatted in the shade beside Deborah, feeling her curious gaze on him.

“You caught it.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Oh no, I realize that you are a man who always gets what he goes after.” His eyes slid to hers, narrowed and irritable. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked away. She’d removed her gloves, and was slowing waving her hat to stir up a cool breeze. “Nothing.”

“No, you meant something by it, all right. Are you talking about the two of us? I’d be interested in knowing if you’re gonna claim rape again.” Her cheeks suffused with color that had nothing to do with the heat or sunburn. She grew still, her voice cool.

“What would you call it?”

“Seduction, maybe. Coaxing. You wanted it, too. I may have removed your social objections for you with a bit of handy bartering, but you can’t deny you didn’t feel anything for me, Miss Deborah Hamilton.” Frustration made his voice tight, edgy, and he pulled his hat off and raked a hand through his hair. It was damp with sweat and fell across his forehead.

“No, I won’t deny that.” Her eyes came back to his, and he could see the shadows in them. He wondered what made her sound so—hurt.

He studied her face for a long moment, the pure cameo beauty of her eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and felt a peculiar tightening in his chest. He pivoted slightly on the balls of his feet, still in a crouch.

“Good,” he muttered, half-ashamed of himself for forcing her to an admission, half-glad she hadn’t denied it. He needed to hear that she’d wanted him, that he hadn’t been the only one to feel that raging desire. The same desire that pressed him so hard now.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Deborah began again the slow motion with her hat, the feather waving gently back and forth and back and forth, creating a cool breeze. The horses stood with heads lowered, resting, eyes half-closed in the shade where he’d tied them.