Each Time We Love (16 page)

By refusing to let him order where or what she would ride, she
had reminded him that he wasn't going to find her easy prey. But
Savanna wondered sickly how long she could hold him at bay.

Outwardly she might appear calm and unruffled by the
confrontation with Micajah, but inwardly she was very subdued as she
moved about the camp, packing the meager utensils and supplies they had
brought with them. The Sabine River was still a few days off, she
thought dispiritedly; perhaps an answer to her dilemma would occur to
her before then. Escape, while longed for, wouldn't put an end to her
problems—Micajah could still carry out the threat to harm her mother.

Savanna's gaze slid to Micajah as he saddled his horse, and
her full mouth tightened. As long as Micajah was alive, neither she nor
her mother would ever be truly safe. There was only
one
way to ensure that the outlaw would never bother them again, and her
aquamarine eyes darkened as she realized precisely what she had to do…
she'd have to kill him! That was the only way to be certain that her
mother would be safe.

The decision to kill Micajah wasn't an easy one for Savanna to
make. In a temper, in a fight, to protect herself from his brutal
attentions, she could have killed him without a quiver, but to
cold-bloodedly plan his death was difficult. It also occurred to her,
unpleasantly, that if she deliberately killed Micajah, she'd be no
better than the man who had murdered her father. The motives might be
different, but the act would still be the same and she and the prisoner
would share a vile bond—they both would have intentionally taken the
life of a fellow man.

Grim-faced, she stared at the object of her thoughts, and her
heart gave a funny little hop when she discovered that he was watching
her, the expression in his hard blue eyes impossible to discern. His
life was forfeit, too, she thought. Once he had told them where the
gold was, there was no doubt that Micajah would kill him, and despite
knowing that he deserved to die for killing Davalos, Savanna was
surprised at how depressed she felt at the thought of that long, lean
body lying cold and moldering in some forgotten grave, of those
fascinating features dull and lifeless, the infuriatingly mocking light
gone forever from those glittering sapphire-blue eyes.

Giving herself a shake, she wrenched her gaze away from him.
It didn't matter. It was his own damn fault! And she was
not
going to feel sorry for him—why should she? He had killed her father,
ruined her life, and she hated him—that was all she needed to remember!

During the next hour, Savanna found it impossible to decide
which one she hated the most—Micajah Yates or the black-haired devil
with whom she shared a mount. Once she'd gotten in the saddle, the
prisoner had mounted behind her, and with ill-concealed malice Micajah
had anchored the wretched creature's hands to the saddle horn and
Savanna had been effectively encircled by a pair of unyielding,
steel-muscled arms. Worse was to follow as she discovered
disconcertingly how
very
intimate riding double
could be—it was bad enough that his arms embraced her, but the hard
wall of his chest was at her back and his warm breath blew softly
against the hair near her ear; his long legs brushed continually
against hers, and with every passing mile it became apparent that he
was doing nothing to prevent their bodies from touching. In fact, she
strongly suspected that he was enjoying himself immensely and she
wished vexedly that she had thought faster and demanded that he ride
with someone else. Staring fixedly at the long-fingered, finely shaped
hands secured to the saddle horn, Savanna wondered viciously if perhaps
she hadn't made a mistake in not riding with Micajah! She glanced over
to where Micajah rode next to her, and just thinking about putting her
arms around him made her shiver with distaste. Telling herself savagely
that she had chosen the lesser of two evils, she concentrated grimly on
Micajah, which wasn't difficult—she might have the reins to her mount
these days, but Micajah was taking no chances and had added a lead rope
to her horse's bridle and kept it firmly in his grasp as they traveled
steadily through the wilderness.

Under different circumstances, Adam
would
have enjoyed himself immensely; after all, his arms were around a
beautiful young woman and they were riding through untamed, seldom
traveled land. But lessening his pleasure considerably was the
disagreeable knowledge that, given the opportunity, the young woman
would have cheerfully skewered him, and as for their two other
companions… His eyes hardened. The two men had every intention of
torturing and then murdering him—not a pleasant prospect! There was
little Adam could do about his hazardous situation at present, but
while one part of his brain weighed various methods of escape, the
other part took a connoisseur's interest in the tempting body of the
lovely, hot-tempered shrew who shared the horse with him.

Under any circumstances, Adam admitted reluctantly, she would
be hard to ignore, but since he'd felt her foot in his ribs, she had
made a painful impact on him that no other woman could claim, and while
he had a sensuous appreciation of the soft curves so near his own,
there was an undeniably hostile cast to his thoughts about her. She
wasn't at all happy to be partnered with him, and there was a decidedly
diabolical twist to his mouth as he deliberately brought their bodies
into close contact time and again during the long day. There was, he
finally concluded wryly, only one little problem with taunting her that
way—he spent the remaining hours in a state of painful arousal, and his
thoughts were no kinder toward her when Micajah called a halt and they
made camp for the night.

From the way Savanna shot off the horse once Micajah had
untied Adam's hands from the saddle horn and she was free of his
embrace, it was obvious that she had not found being in such proximity
to him all day to her liking, and Adam wondered idly if he was
insulted. Probably not, he decided sourly; after all, she did believe
that he had killed her father!

Through slitted lids he watched as she moved around the meager
camp. After the day they had just spent, he was achingly familiar with
every lush curve covered by that ugly brown gown, and there was a
speculative gleam in his dark blue eyes as they rested on the tempting
thrust of her bosom. He still found it utterly incredible that she was
the daughter of Bias Davalos, and it was even more unbelievable to him
that he had been kidnapped in order to reveal the location of Jason's
Aztec treasure. It was also, he conceded somberly, entirely possible
that unless fate were kind, he was going to be tortured to death in
about forty-eight hours.

It could not be said that Adam slept well, nor could it be
said, when he was awakened the next morning by the swift, painful prod
of Savanna's foot in his ribs, that any solution had occurred to him.
Nor during the long day that followed were his thoughts any kinder
toward his captors, particularly the woman who once again shared a
horse with him.

Savanna had not slept well that night either— notwithstanding
her ever-present fears about the future, she had been unable to forget
how it felt to have the warm, muscular body of that sapphire-eyed devil
cradled so intimately against hers. Despite telling herself that she
hated him, that he was a murdering scoundrel who deserved whatever
Micajah gave him, she still hadn't been able to stop her rebellious
flesh from responding in a thoroughly unnerving manner to that wretched
creature's nearness. Every time he'd brushed against her, she had felt
a giddy sensation deep in her belly, and when his breath had caressed
her ear, to her horror, her nipples had swelled and tightened. She
couldn't understand why she was suddenly being beset by reactions she
had never experienced previously, and she was furious and disgusted
that the man who had aroused these unwanted emotions was her father's
killer. She'd spent a great part of the night twisting restlessly on
the hard ground, considering several exceedingly painful methods for
the demise of the mocking-mouthed monster who was the cause of all her
problems.

The next morning there was no escape from the previous day's
riding arrangements and, stony-faced, she mounted her horse and waited
stoically as Micajah anchored the prisoner's hands to the saddle horn.
Today, however, she wasn't about to put up with his provoking antics,
and every time he pressed against her, whether accidentally or not, she
gave him a powerful jab in the ribs, putting all her strength behind
the movement of her elbow. After she had viciously jabbed him a few
times, she noticed with grim satisfaction that he had lost his
enthusiasm for that particular game, but she wasn't about to let up. He
had made her life miserable yesterday; today he could suffer!

Adam did. By the time they had stopped to make camp the second
night, his ribs were aching incessantly and he seriously wondered if
she had cracked one. Her tall, supple body no longer held the slightest
appeal to him, and if his fingers itched when she came near him, it was
to strangle her and nothing more.

His thoughts were very grim that second night as he lay
staring at the black sky. Micajah had pushed them at a brutal pace, and
sometime tomorrow they would cross the Sabine River. Time was rapidly
running out. So far there had been no opportunity to escape. When not
riding, Adam was always tightly bound, his feet as well as his hands,
and his trio of captors was always present. Micajah, he knew, was the
most lethal of the group, and while two against one wasn't a very good
wager, he'd be willing to risk it—if the two were Jeremy and Savanna.

In a vile, dangerous frame of mind when dawn finally broke,
Adam was in no mood to be a passive victim any longer, and when Savanna
approached to wake him in her usual manner, he was ready for her. Her
foot swung forward aiming for his ribs, but with incredible speed, even
with his hands bound, he caught her foot and twisted it violently,
smiling with savage pleasure when with an astonished shriek she tumbled
to the ground.

She lay there glaring at him and he glared right back,
sapphire eyes hard and cold. He grinned unpleasantly at her and said
icily, "I suggest that in the future you think of another way to wake
me."

Savanna leaped to her feet, and from the furious expression on
her face, Adam suspected that she would like to launch a
very
painful attack on him. But she got control of her temper and, her fists
clenched at her sides, scowled blackly at him and muttered fiercely,
"Since this is probably the
last
morning you'll
ever see, I don't think there's any point!"

She spun on her heels and proudly stalked away. Her shuttered
expression did not reveal in the least how depressing she had found her
own words. Micajah was certain they would cross the Sabine River
sometime today, and Savanna knew that once they had made camp that
night, he had every intention of questioning their prisoner… and
killing him after he had gotten the information he wanted. A lump rose
in her throat and she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. It
shouldn't matter to her that Micajah was going to kill her father's
killer, but oddly enough it did, terribly, and reminding herself
stonily that it was only what the wretched creature deserved didn't
help to lessen or change the intensity of her emotions.

An odd truce seemed to exist between Savanna and Adam that
day. He made no attempt to taunt her with the closeness of his body,
and she left off her tactics of the previous day. There had never been
much conversation between them, but they appeared unduly silent as the
small cavalcade wound steadily through the pine forests, each mile
bringing them nearer to the Sabine River, each mile shortening the
brief time that Adam had allotted himself to escape.

Adam's features were etched in harsh lines when they finally
crossed the Sabine River late that afternoon, and it occurred darkly to
him that Jason and the family would never know what had happened to
him. His disappearance would be forever a mystery, and he was saddened
to think of the anguish the others would feel, never knowing precisely
what had befallen him, always wondering if he were alive somewhere,
always hoping that eventually he would return home. He smiled without
joy. He knew exactly what was going to happen to him—in a matter of
hours he was going to suffer the cruel, barbaric ministrations of
Micajah, and he could only hope that he would die well.

Part
Two

The
Adversaries

Giddy
Fortune's furious fickle wheel,

that
goddess blind,

That
stands upon the rolling restless

stone.

King Henry V
Shakespeare