Runaway (39 page)

“I know!” she whispered. She suddenly turned within his arms, speaking earnestly. “But, Jarrett, don’t you see? Anything is possible! Even I understand that. Osceola is not the only war leader.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Then you can be in danger.”

“Tara, I can handle myself among Creeks, Seminoles, and Mikasukis, I swear it. And,” he added gruffly, “if you’ll just learn to listen to me, you’ll be safe as well.”

“But—”

“Let’s not argue anymore tonight,” he said.

“But—”

“Tara, please. It has been a long day.”

“You don’t know how long!” she charged.

“But I have also had endless days before this one trying to get home,” he told her, and something in his voice caused her to hold her tongue, even when she was longing to keep on questioning him—and even when she was still longing to berate him for what he had put her through today.

“I will answer anything you want to know in the morning,” he told her softly, enclosing her in his arms once again, sweeping her back against his chest. His chin rested atop her head, his fingers entwined around her waist. The fire continued to burn, warm and low and golden.

He had promised to answer all of her questions. She suddenly smiled, burrowing even more closely against him.

It was insane. She was in a savage wilderness, with a people whom her own regarded as savage.

And yet when she closed her eyes, she fell asleep almost instantly.

And slept the most incredibly peaceful sleep.…

James McKenzie leaned against the wall of his cabin near the fire, watching the golden rise of the blaze, waiting.

And growing more impatient by the minute.

He sighed and ran his dark fingers through his hair. Naomi had delivered their “guest” to his brother’s cabin some time ago but when he had gone out to see to his brother’s comforts and needs, he had returned to find Naomi and the children gone. She had said something earlier about the girls staying with his mother. He’d been startled because he knew his wife hadn’t been happy about the strange events of the day, and he hadn’t imagined that she’d be receptive to intimacy tonight. Well, now he knew. Not only were the children sleeping in his mother’s cabin; it seemed his wife planned to do so as well.

His people were Naomi’s people; in their society a man joined his wife’s family. But since most of his mother’s family had been left behind after the Creek Wars, his mother and some of the remnants of her family had come to band together here. Through Mary and her family connections he had the hereditary right to be a
mico
. Death and disease among Naomi’s clansmen had left him a natural leader here, and he had led the hundred or so people within his
talwa
for some time now.

He closed his eyes, tired, leaning back. Life had seemed so sweet. Then the war. They had only just begun. He was afraid. He could see the things it seemed so many of the warrior chiefs could not see. But then, he might have lived in the white world almost as easily as he lived in his own; he’d had the education and the resources to do so if he had chosen. But he had fallen in love with Naomi, and their life had evolved here.

Still, they were damned close to the area the whites intended to clean completely of all red men. It was such a big territory, there was so much land. The whites wanted it all.

He opened his eyes and stared at the flames again, a slight smile curving his mouth. In a moment he’d have to go after Naomi. He was the leader here. He had white blood and a very close association with many whites. He was in a precarious position, since he had straddled two societies since birth, receiving a white education while also being encouraged to learn traditional Indian ways. He had danced in ballrooms with the daughters of white politicians, doctors, merchants, and planters, and he had debated and befriended a number of white soldiers. He had spent his life open and honest in his dealings with both whites and Indians—–he had refused to defend his position to either, yet he was well aware of that position himself, and because of it he could not allow anyone to make a fool out of him. Not even his own wife. Not even if he loved her more than anything in the entire world.

But even as he was about to rise to go to his mother’s cabin to retrieve Naomi, the door to his cabin opened slowly.

Maybe she had been hoping he was asleep.

He kept his back very straight and hard against the wall as she entered, staring at her, waiting. Naomi closed the door behind her.

She kept her distance from him, her expression showing her displeasure with the day.

“Where have you been?” he asked her softly, though he knew.

“Now you speak English?” she murmured to him, replying in kind.

“Now I speak English. Where were you?” he repeated.

“With your mother and my children.”

“Our children,” he reminded her politely.

“I had thought you would be asleep.”

He smiled, flatly shaking his head. “You knew that I would not. In another few minutes I would have come for you.”

“Yes,” she said casually. She had known that he would come. He would have had to, to save face. Just as she had felt she must return here before he came for her, to save face.

“I suppose it was good that you brought my brother’s wife to him, rather than allowing her to escape.”

“Oh, yes!” Naomi said, her eyes flashing. “I brought her to him!” She was still angry over her part in the deception.

He rose, lithe, slow, and walked to her. She held her position against the door, her slender jaw locked in anger.

“It was a mean trick.”

“There was no trick intended.”

“Indeed? All that she saw while I remained was the back of a head with black wavy hair. She was most probably terrified that she was about to be raped by a vicious half-breed.”

He stopped before her, not touching her, hiding a slight smile.

“Ah, but
she
was never in danger of such a wretched fate!”

“Does that mean that I am?” Naomi demanded, chin high.

He no longer hid his smile. “I have never been vicious!” he said in mock indignation. “But other than that—”

Her eyes widened and she turned as if she would bolt out the door. He laughed and swept her up, lifting her into his arms, cradling her tight. He had been in love with her when he married her, enamored of a young girl’s grace and beauty. He had learned to love her more with each passing year, for she was many things, kind to all living creatures, gentle and tender, yet fierce as well in her protection of others. She had matured, she had become the mother of their daughters, but she had remained as lithe and graceful as the young girl he had first seduced by the crystal waters of a bubbling spring, her beauty only deepened with the passage of time.

“James McKenzie!” she said firmly, using his English name primly. “Don’t you think you can force anything after all that you’ve forced me to do to that poor girl today. Don’t—”

“Force!” he exclaimed, having come to the pallets on the floor. He knelt with his wife in his arms, his bronze muscles glistening in the firelight. “Force! Ah, never, my love! Coerce, perhaps, persuade—”

“Seduce!” she accused. And he laughed and laid her down, and stretched out beside her. His mouth found hers while his fingers plied at her clothing. It was quickly gone, along with his own.

Naomi shuddered at the sweet feel of his naked flesh against her own. He loved to be so, close, touching with the length of themselves. She loved it as well, knowing that he wanted her, and knowing, always, he would hold her through the night.

Not even her anger could change that. Mary had told
her that anger should not be something to keep a wife from a husband through the night. Naomi had told herself that she had come back because James would have come for her had she not. And he would have come, angry that he had been forced to do so. Even then, though he would appear fierce, though she’d have no choice against his strength, he’d never hurt or force her. He’d have stood in the doorway and stared at her, and told her to come. He’d have stood very tall, stoic, his features so very unusual, handsome, striking, his blue eyes like the cobalt that sometimes arose in a very hot flame. He’d have reached out a hand to her. And she would have come. And if he’d been very angry, they’d have come here and he would have turned his back to her and let her be.

Or else …

Seduced her.

Unless, of course, she hadn’t been able to stand the silence, and she came to him.

And seduced him.

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to fight. She felt his naked flesh move down the length of her, hot, virile. He was created of muscle, sleek and hard.

He made love as passionately as he chose to live. With fervor, with a strength that swept her breath away. The very earth beneath her seemed to tremble and burn. And when it erupted, she was seized with such a sweet force that it swept away mind and thought and seemed to leave only the soul.

Naomi let her hand fall over her heart, feeling the pounding of it gradually slow. She could breathe again. A smile curved her lips and she curled against him, then remembered that she was rightfully angry.

She pulled away, turning her back on him. He sighed
with deep patience, touching her shoulder, drawing her back.

“I’m telling you, she was deeply afraid!” Naomi insisted.

“My brother is not an ogre!”

“She was afraid of you! Of—”

“Of rape?”

“You should have seen her eyes when she saw a head with wavy black hair!”

“Naomi! She wouldn’t have been afraid of me. She must have realized that I have a wife.”

“She might have been afraid she was about to become a second wife. Most whites are aware a Seminole man may take more than one wife. And she is very beautiful. Pale, a little thin,” Naomi said. “But …”

He laughed, rolling over to stare into her eyes. “But beautiful in a white-woman way?”

Naomi shrugged. She touched his hair. “You are half white. More white than you know sometimes. Mary carries white blood from her ancestors as well.”

He smiled at her. “The color would not matter. I have never wanted two wives. One is definitely enough trouble.”

She slammed a tight and surprisingly powerful fist against his shoulder and he laughed.

“I have never wanted two wives, because my one sweet beauty fills my heart with love, and I have no room for another.”

Naomi smiled, and met his gaze. As he eased down to lie beside her again, she rested her head against the breadth of his chest.

“I am still angry about today,” she told him.

“Today is only the beginning,” he said, and she felt him stiffen. Only for the briefest second, and yet she was quite certain that in that breath of time he had suddenly
been cold, almost like death, as if seeing some far distant and frightening future. “Only the beginning!” he repeated.

His fingers moved gently over her hair. “If you would be angry about today, there is no help for it. I had to bring her here, and though I am fairly sure Osceola would have done no more than hold her for Jarrett, I could not be certain. I had to take a very hard stance. Naomi, we are at war. Brutal, devastating war. I fear for us, you and me. I fear for our children, and for our people. Seminoles have killed, plundered, burned, and maimed. Osceola has proven himself furious and incredibly harsh at times. Jarrett’s wife had to learn the lesson that it was dangerous to leave Cimarron as she did. Can’t you understand that?”

Naomi was silent for a moment. “You didn’t have to be so cruel to her.”

“I wasn’t cruel. I was firm. She is my brother’s wife; I am desperate that she survive this war.”

Naomi sniffed. “She might want to argue
cruel
and
firm
with you.”

“She may argue with Jarrett about all that has happened if she wishes.”

“She must have been very frightened just to be here. If she heard just half of the lies that are often spread about Lisa’s death—”

“She will learn the truth while she is here,” James said firmly. “Naomi,” he continued with a note of impatience, “let us not argue anymore.”

“She might have been even more afraid of Jarrett,” Naomi mused. “He was very angry when he arrived.”

“Naomi, that is between the two of them. It’s late. Time to sleep.”

Time to sleep, because he wished to sleep. His day was
done, his hungers were sated. She felt like arguing a little longer for the point of it.

But she smiled instead and silently kept her head nestled upon the warmth of his chest, his fingers resting so gently and casually over her hair.

He could be many things.

Bullheaded, she decided.

But she smiled to herself. Bullheaded—firm. Strong willed, intelligent, tender, confident, sometimes a little too arrogant and sure, sometimes so gentle it was astonishing. She loved him for all the things that he was.

She was very glad she was his wife.

She closed her eyes, secure and confident herself.

From somewhere a wolf howled. But it did not disturb the sleep within the camp.

J
ames McKenzie did speak English quite perfectly, Tara learned in the morning, and he did have a quick and winning smile. She learned that very early, because James was back at the cabin in the morning, knocking before entering, but giving them precious little time to cover up before coming in to greet them with a very regular-looking coffeepot. “Bought right out of MacDougall’s trading post, south of Apopka,” James told Tara, pouring her and Jarrett earthenware cups of the hot and aromatic brew and bringing it to them where they struggled up from sleep. “She does know who I am now, right?” James asked Jarrett.