Ride the Fire (19 page)

He was Nicholas.

Could it be different? Could a woman enjoy lying beside a man? Could she enjoy his hands upon her? She wanted to know. She needed to know. She met his gaze, felt herself begin to tremble, anticipation and apprehension twined together in her belly. “Aye, Nicholas. Please.”

He brushed his lips over hers, kissed the corners of her mouth, forced himself to rein in his own need, to go slowly. “You are beautiful, Bethie. Do you know that?”

He didn’t give her time to answer, but took her lips in a deep, languid kiss, used his tongue to make her forget fear, forget doubt, forget everything but his touch. She moaned into his mouth—not in fear, but desire. He took her breath into his lungs, pressed the kiss deeper, rested his palm over her heart. It beat like the wings of a frightened bird. “You’ve nothing to fear, Bethie. Tell me what you want, whatever you want. It’s yours.”

She whispered his name, arched against his touch, her body telling him what she seemingly could not. He brushed the valley between her breasts with the back of his knuckles once, twice, three times, felt her heartbeat quicken even more. Then he slid his hand beneath the thin, damp fabric of her shift, caressed the soft underside of her breast, his palm brushing lightly over her nipple on the way. She gasped, one quick intake of breath, arched again, her nipples already drawn into tight, blushing buds.

“So soft.”

He continued to caress the naked silk of her breast, to mold its delicious fullness in his palm. She had begun to tremble, to writhe in his arms, one hand fisted in the soft furs, the other pressed against his chest.

He flicked his thumb over her taut, rosy peak once, then again.

She gasped, moaned.

“You like that, too. What about this?” He leaned over, took her nipple into his mouth, suckled her. He would teach her to ask for her pleasure, to demand it, to savor it. Bethie heard herself cry out, felt a shaft of searing heat shoot from her breast to her belly, turn to dew between her thighs. It felt so good, and before she realized it, she had twined her fingers through his hair, pressed him closer.

“I’ve waited so long to taste you, Bethie.” His voice had a ragged edge to it, and she felt his hand open her shift, bare her aching breasts to the cool night air. Then he cupped one breast in his callused palm, drew lazy circles over its tight peak with his thumb, descended on her again, his mouth closing over her other nipple this time. Never had she felt anything like this. Sensation overwhelmed her. The rasp of his tongue. The sweet tug of his lips. The deep vibration of his mouth as he moaned.

“Nicholas!” What was happening to her? What had he done to her to make her feel so hot, so reckless? What was that wet, throbbing emptiness between her thighs?

“Mmm, warm and sweet.” He flicked his tongue against the sensitive underside of her breast, then drew her nipple back into his mouth, sucked it, grazed it gently with his teeth.

“Oh, aye!”

He caught her pleasured cry with his mouth, ravished her with his lips and tongue.

The throb between her thighs became an ache. As if he knew what she was feeling, he slid a hand down the heated skin of her belly, began to move it in slow circles over her womb.

She felt her hips lift off the furs, seeking, seeking . . . oh, she did not know what!

Then he slid his hand down over her woman’s mound, cupped her most intimate flesh.

A lightning shard of panic. A wave of nausea. “Nay!” She pressed her legs tightly together, tried to push his hand away. “Please, stop!”

Nicholas felt her body stiffen. But he felt something else as well. Even through the cloth of her shift, he could tell she was wet. Her body wanted him, was more than ready for him.

But her mind was not. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face turned away from him.

So I can kill the bastard
—
if
he’s not already dead.

For a moment she said nothing, but trembled in his arms.

“Th-there is nothing to tell.”

Because she seemed so fragile, because he did not want to upset her further, he let the lie pass. He pressed his lips to her hair. “Sleep. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.” Soon her trembling stopped and her breathing deepened.

“I’ve made more willow-bark tea.” Nicholas rose from his seat by the fire, walked toward her carrying a cup. His wet hair told her he’d bathed in the stream while she’d slept. “Drink.”

Despite the thoughtful gesture, his furrowed brow, the grim line of his mouth, the tension in his jaw told her he was in a dark temper.

Was he angry because she had refused him? She sat up, winced. Her bum was tender. Her inner thighs felt as if they’d been stripped of skin. Even her neck and shoulders ached, no doubt from holding Isabelle all day. She took the cup from his hand, unable to meet his gaze, her shame from last night still fresh in her mind. “Thank you.”

Beside her, beneath the buffalo skin Nicholas had laid over them sometime during the night, Isabelle had begun to stir. By the time the baby was awake and ready to nurse, Bethie had drunk her tea, eaten her breakfast, washed her dishes in the stream. She picked up the baby and settled down for a feeding.

She glanced down at Isabelle, worried. “I have only the one diaper cloth. Once it’s wet, she’s sure to start wailin’.”

Nicholas nodded, then began to dig through his pile of furs. As Bethie finished feeding Belle, he pulled out a couple of small rabbit skins, cut away bits and pieces until two small hourglass-shaped furs remained. “Try this.”

While Nicholas packed his saddlebags and rolled their bed of furs into a bundle, Bethie laid Isabelle on the trimmed rabbit fur and folded it around her like a diaper.

“Line it with moss. I think the fur will absorb some of the moisture.”

Bethie tucked the dried moss in place. “We’ll still need to stop to change her.”

But he had already ducked beneath the arch, saddle and saddlebags in hand.

Bethie quickly fashioned her shawl into a sling again and tucked Isabelle safely inside it. Then she followed him through.

Without a word, he draped the heavy saddlebags across the stallion’s back, and saddled Rona. Then he turned to lift Bethie into the saddle. “I know this won’t be comfortable, Bethie, but we need to cover as much ground as we can. Tell me if it becomes too painful.”

Strong hands gripped her around her waist, lifted her onto the mare’s back.

Bethie bit back a cry as she settled into the saddle and her raw thighs came to rest against the leather. The pain was already excruciating.

They rode at a quicker pace than the previous day, following the course of the river but keeping to the shadows of the trees. Nicholas again took the lead, riding bareback on the stallion, dismounting every so often to search the ground for tracks, his mood pensive. Bethie rode behind him, Belle resting in the sling draped over her shoulders. Rosa followed them as Rona had done the day before, drawn down the trail by her loyalty to her tiny herd. Bethie tried not to complain. She could tell that Nicholas felt there was reason for haste, and she trusted his instincts to keep her alive. She didn’t want to slow them down. But it was not yet mid-morning when the pain was so bad that she was close to tears.

“Stop! Please!”

He looked back over his shoulder, reined the stallion to a stop. He dismounted with one easy leap and strode over to her. “We’ll walk for a while.”

Strong arms lifted her from the saddle, placed her on her feet.

And so they walked in silence. Nicholas led the horses, while Bethie carried Isabelle and tried not to step on thorns or sharp rocks with her bare feet.

It was late in the afternoon when Nicholas stopped abruptly, motioning for her to do the same. He crouched close to the ground, examined the forest floor, then stood and pulled his pistols from the waistband of his breeches. Bethie’s heart began to hammer.

“Stay here. I’m going to scout ahead.” Then he handed her one pistol, took his rifle from his saddlebags. “I assume you know how to use this.”

“Aye.”

“Good. If anything steps out of the forest that isn’t me, shoot it, and don’t miss. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Nicholas, what—”

He pressed a hand to her lips. “And keep Belle quiet!” Then he was gone.

For a moment, Bethie stood staring into the forest gloom where he’d disappeared, her pulse racing. Then she chided herself for her lack of courage. “Think, Bethie! You willna be of any use to him or Belle if you cower at the first sign of trouble.”

She tied the stallion’s reins, then looked for a place where she and Belle could hide.

He picked up his own pace and soon smelled smoke. He knew what he would find before he got there. In the midst of a clearing stood the burned-out remains of a cabin. Smoke still rose from the charred ruins, a grisly pennant against the blue sky. Apart from a few chickens that strutted and pecked in the mud, nothing moved. The bodies were scattered in the grass outside the cabin—a red-haired man, a dark-haired woman, two small dark-haired children. They had been slaughtered with war clubs and knives, their lives lost, all their worldly goods, everything they had worked for, reduced to ash. Fury, like a sickness, churned in his stomach.

So much killing. Senseless death. Insatiable violence. This wasn’t the first time Nicholas had encountered such brutality. He’d seen many frontier families slaughtered these past six years—men, women, children, infants. They came to build lives for themselves, found only death. But Indians weren’t the only ones capable of mindless violence. Europeans committed their share of atrocities, too—Indian children butchered and scalped by French and British soldiers and settlers, babies on cradleboards dashed against rocks, women raped and mutilated, old men killed while on their knees begging for their lives. Violence, it seemed, was not the province of one race but a human trait.

Nicholas knelt beside the woman, closed her eyes, which stared unseeing at the blue sky. She was pretty and young, just a year or two older than Bethie. But there was nothing he could do for her or her slain children and husband.

An eternity had passed since Nicholas had left them. Where had he gone? What would she do if he did not come back? What if he were overcome, taken captive, killed? Fear jolted through her at the thought.

He would come back. He had to come back.

But the afternoon lengthened, and still he did not return. She was beginning to imagine that the most horrible things had happened to him, when the stallion whinnied. She froze, pressed Belle closer to her breast, held her breath.

It was Nicholas. He called for her softly. “Bethie?” A warm rush of relief swept through her. She crawled out from the thicket, Isabelle in her arms.

He held three chickens by their feet, their wobbly heads proof their necks had been broken. Over his shoulder hung a new set of saddlebags. But what she noticed was the look in his eyes.

Bleak. Dark. Anguished.

He draped the chickens and saddlebags across the stallion’s back. “We need to ride.”

Bethie reached out, touched his arm. “What—?”

“There’s a burnt farmstead a couple of miles south of here. No survivors.”

Horrified, Bethie realized what he was telling her. A family had been attacked nearby. Their home had been burned, and they had all been killed.