Scars of the Heart (21 page)

“Carly?” He felt her brow and smoothed her hair. “What’s the matter? Are you in pain?”

Her eyelids fluttered open. She struggled to focus on him. “Kade?”

“Is it your shoulder? Let me get your medicine.” He started toward their gear.

“No, it’s not that. I drank the turnip root.”

A moan finished her sentence. He looked about helplessly. His hands trembled as he moved her clothing aside to inspect the wound. It appeared to be healing nicely and was no hotter to the touch than the rest of her.

“Then what is it, Carly? What ails you?”

She rolled her head from side to side and gripped his forearm. “It’s . . . I’m burning, Kade. I’m burning inside.” Her eyelids closed, and she moaned again.

He hesitated only a second, then carefully placed his ear against her stomach. There were no telltale rumblings. He left Carly to search her leather bag. There, on top of her meager belongings, lay a medicine pouch. Kade held it open. Empty. She must’ve drunk the contents as she claimed. But what . . .

Her mournful murmuring drew him back to her.

“Kade?”

“I’m here, Carly.”

She clawed at his chest, clutching a handful of material. The other hand pressed hard against her abdomen. “Help me, Kade. Make it stop.”

He dropped the medicine pouch, then hesitantly reached beneath her dress to rest his palm against her stomach. He needed to check for fever or bloating. As his hand touched Carly’s flesh, she arched her back and moaned.

He recoiled as if he’d been burned. He sat back on his heels and stared at the writhing woman before him.

It can’t be . . . but why? How?
The medicine pouch drew his attention. He retrieved it from the dirt and smelled inside. Nothing but faint leather. He wet his finger, dipped it within, then tasted. Bitter.

“Garantoquen. Why would Litt—”

Kade held the bag up in the light of the moon. His eyes widened, then narrowed to mere slits. The beadwork on the pouch was not the precise and intricate work he knew as that of Little Bird. The design, as personal as a man’s signature, identified the creator.

“Carly, where did you get this medicine pouch?” He lifted her head slightly and turned her face toward him. “Carly, concentrate. Where did you get this?” He held the leather bag up in the moonlight.

“Little Bird, Little Bird put medicine in my traveling bag . . . for my shoulder, for the pain.” She pulled in vain at his shirt, his arm.

“No, Carly. This is not Little Bird’s medicine pouch. That was not turnip root you drank earlier. Think, Carly. How would you have gotten this pouch? Did you take the wrong one by mistake?”

She shook her head. He couldn’t be sure if she was answering him or if she thrashed about in frustration. He didn’t want to believe what he knew must be true.

He swallowed hard. “Carly, is there anyone among my people who would want to hurt you? Did you have any confrontations with one of the other women?”

Her mouth worked wordlessly for a moment. “She said I would be sacrificed . . . that I was bad luck.”

“Sacrificed? Who said this? Who, Carly?” She groaned, and Kade feared she would not answer.

“Little Bird said no . . . sacrifice.”

“Little Bird? Why would she say such things to you?” Kade ran a hand through his long hair. Carly seemed nearly out of her mind with the effects of the powerful medicine.

“No, not Little Bird. It was . . .” She pulled at her dress, now soaked with sweat. She groaned and rolled toward Kade, coiling into a ball.

“Who, Carly? Tell me who did this to you.” He lifted her into his arms and held her tight.

“Storm,” she gasped. “It was Storm.”

Her words mixed with a moan, but Kade understood all too well the loose translation identifying his tribe-mate. He closed his eyes, knowing the torture Carly endured was indirectly his fault. The Pawnee woman was known equally well for her abundant beauty and her vengeful jealousy.

He wiped Carly’s brow and brushed damp hair from her face. “Listen to me. Can you hear me?” He tilted her head so that she could better see him. Her eyes fluttered open. With effort, she focused. “The powder you took was not turnip root. It was from the red berry plant. When the root is dried and ground, it is very powerful. It is seldom used and only then by our medicine man.”

Her breath came hard and fast. She seemed to try and grasp his words.

“The medicine is used for maidens on their wedding night, Carly. It takes only a little, but it calms their fears. It makes them want their new husbands. Do you understand what I’m telling you? It makes them desire the touch of a man.”

After a moment, her eyes widened. Kade knew she understood him. The confusion and panic that tripped through their pale-green depths tore at his heart. He should’ve anticipated something like this. He should’ve protected Carly. He’d convinced her to trust his people, leaving her vulnerable and helpless against the likes of Storm.

“I’m frightened, Kade. I don’t know . . .”

Even as she confessed her fear, her body moved closer to him, seeking the relief it needed. Her skin burned with an intense heat. Remembering Carly’s earlier words, he longed for a bath to immerse her in.

“Help me, Kade. You have to help me.” Her leg snaked around his as she clung to his shoulders, trying to draw him even closer.

Now it was Kade’s turn to groan. She pressed herself against him, groping at his back, his neck, his hair. “Carly, you have no idea what you ask of me.”

“I do know. I do.” She held his head between her palms and gazed directly at him.

The clouds drifted from her eyes. She stared at him with clear green intensity.

“I understand, Kade. I trust you.”

He silenced the next moan that escaped her lips with a kiss. Within moments, he became lost in a hunger as consuming as her own. A hunger that had gnawed at him since the moment he saw her bathing in the pool and discovered she was a woman, a beautiful woman. No, the hunger had begun even earlier than that, when his body knew what his mind could not. When she’d startled him in the woods, and he’d nearly cut her throat. He’d stared into her big green eyes, and Carly had captured his soul. Even earlier, when she’d tried to escape her cruel tormentor, Carly had captured Kade’s heart.

As his body struggled with his overwhelming desire, Kade’s mind fought to maintain control. He would not use her as the others had. He would not hurt her. For whatever reason, the gods had delivered this little ragamuffin into his hands for safekeeping. He’d already made the mistake of letting Storm get too near. He wouldn’t act on his own desires, but he would help relieve Carly’s pain, lessen her maddening need.

He had no idea how much of the potent concoction she had taken. He had heard stories of the medicine’s power. It could steal a person’s senses, not just for a night but forever. Men and women alike had been robbed of intelligent thought, left to babble like babies for the rest of their days. Some even chose death’s embrace over the claws of insatiable desire.

Kade tried to disentangle himself from Carly’s arms, but she cried out in protest. Again, his kiss quieted her while he peeled the thin, damp material of her dress from her burning flesh. She molded her body to his, aching for his touch. The fever within climbed higher and higher. Not using the time and patience he’d dreamed of, Kade allowed his hands to roam over her.

She moaned. But the sound held the long, throaty quality of a contented cat, not the earlier anguish and frustration. All through the night, Kade kissed her, caressed her, stroked the tender bud hidden between her thighs, satisfying her while keeping a tenuous grip on his own raging desires. More than once he thought he’d be the one to go mad. Many times he decided to rid himself of the thin layer of clothing that separated their heated bodies and to more fully gratify the beautiful woman clinging so desperately to him. Yet in the next instance, he remembered the trust in her eyes, those incredible emerald eyes that seemed to draw his soul from his chest, like the stars drew the smoke from the fire.

Rest came in fitful spells when Kade would simply hold her, rocking her like a child, crooning to her and brushing the hair from her face. Then the clouds would build again, rolling and rumbling. Carly would call his name, over and over. And he’d soothe her, with his kiss and his caress, through the raging squall.

Finally the skies cleared. The storm dissipated. And Carly slumbered.

Kade thought sleep eluded him . . . until the dream began. He thought the dawn crept passed the horizon like a child passed a snoring father . . . until warm hands began their timid exploration. He thought he heard the wren sing its morning song in the distance . . . until a lithe and supple body molded itself to his side.

In Kade’s dream, he could take what he denied himself last night. With one arm, he pulled his temptress closer. With the other hand, he stroked her back, smiling as she purred and covered his thigh with her own. He turned to nuzzle in her hair. His hand followed the curve of her waist upward until he cupped a firm breast. She arched her back, burying her flesh deeper into his palm. Kade stroked her tender skin, tugging gently on the hardening rosy bud.

Carly groaned, and his lips moved to her temple, tasting the light salt of her. He breathed deeply of the scent of her. She nuzzled against his neck, and he forced his eyes open. Even in the faint dawn light, even shadowed by her veil of golden hair, even through the spiderweb of his dream, Kade could see Carly still slept. Her body, her actions, were driven only by the effects of the drug, not by desire. As the garantoquen weakened within her system, Carly’s need had grown more languid, less demanding.

He quickly rolled away from her and stood. Raking his hands through his hair, he exhaled loudly. How closely he’d come to being seduced by her need, by her nearness. How closely he’d come to using her for his own satisfaction, just like the other men she’d encountered since coming west.

With a hard shake of his head, Kade moved several feet away and sat. There would be no sleep, no reprieve of any kind for him.

Shadows shortened, and still she slept. Kade paused in his pacing. Her hair flowed from her face like honey. Amber lashes rested quietly against ivory cheeks. Soft, pink lips parted slightly; the dress he’d covered her with slipped dangerously low as she stirred.

Kade cursed. He’d adjusted that dress three times. He’d be damned if he was going near her again.

Slapping the pair of leather gloves he carried in one hand against the palm of the other, he crossed the narrow gully and tugged the cotton covering up Carly’s creamy flesh. He hurried away, certain she’d wake and immediately start screaming if she saw him looming over her. Then again, even if he was nowhere near Carly, she’d surely become hysterical the minute she realized she lay bare beneath the fabric.

Kade had considered trying to put her clothes back on her before she awoke. He discarded the idea as quickly as it came. She would undoubtedly wake, and how would he explain what he was doing? How would he explain anything about last night?

He checked their gear for the tenth time. Kade tossed the saddle he’d acquired from his uncle’s camp on the stallion’s back. The animal snorted and cast him a wary look. Kade took a deep breath to still his anxious actions. He patted the black’s neck and glanced again at the sleeping woman.

Memories of her willingness, of her creamy flesh, and of her hungry kisses clawed at him. No, it wasn’t Carly who’d offered herself to him in the magical hours of dawn. The root of the red berry plant had caused her body to betray her. It was Kade’s fault—his fault that she walked among his people, his fault that she faced Storm’s jealous vengeance, and his fault that she had acted in such a way with him that would surely cause her to hate him and probably herself.

“Damn!” Kade pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. The stallion startled and shied away from his typically calm master. Kade lowered his hands deliberately. He opened his eyes and turned to stare at his companion.

“I trust you,” she’d said.

A fist gripped his insides. The question was, how much of last night would Carly remember?

The mournful call of a coyote split the still evening air. From somewhere in the distance, a second creature answered. Kade stiffened.

For a brief moment, Carly marveled at how she no longer grew tense at the now-familiar sound. Yet the cowboy’s already rigid posture had straightened as he reined the black to a halt. He cocked his head and listened. Just as she opened her mouth to question him, he raised a gloved hand to silence her. A moment later, the first coyote howled once more.

“Apache.”

Except for urging her to hurry once she finally woke sometime around noon, that was the only word Kade had spoken all day. At first Carly felt grateful, needing the time to organize her thoughts and feelings, trying to put the pieces of last night together in her mind, to get a complete picture of what had happened. But as the hours dragged by, he grew increasingly tense, even jerking away when she inadvertently brushed against him while shifting her position. Several times, she felt as if he wanted to say something; then he’d simply clear his throat or cough, and the only sound would be the steady rhythm of the stallion’s hooves on the sunbaked earth.

Carly gasped and grabbed handfuls of Kade’s shirt as he wheeled the black in a complete circle. The animal reared. She squeezed the horse hard with her thighs and prayed she wouldn’t tumble from her seat. The front hooves came down, churning the ground, propelling the riders forward at breakneck speed. Kade leaned low over the animal’s neck. She lay against him, eyeing the distance from saddle to sand.

“Kade! What are you doing? You’re going to kill us both!” Carly yelled over the thundering hooves and rushing wind.

“I’m hoping to avoid just that,” he called over his shoulder.

A moment later, the terrain broke, and he jerked his mount to a halt in a dry creek bed, reaching behind him with one arm to swing her to the ground. She landed squarely on her backside, jarring her sore shoulder and knocking the air from her lungs.