Tender Is the Storm (11 page)

Sharisse crawled out of bed at dawn, slipped on her silk robe, started the coffee, then went back to bed. That was the most she would do for Lucas’s brother. She wasn’t about to cook for him, and the less she saw of him the better.

The second time she awoke it was late morning. She decided to treat the day as any other, to ignore the fact of there being an unwelcome guest prowling the ranch.

The door to Lucas’s bedroom was open, but there was no evidence that Slade had slept there last night. The bed was made. She hoped he’d slept in the barn.

There was no sign that he had been in the kitchen, either, not even a dirty coffee cup. But the pot was nearly empty, so she couldn’t hope that he had left the ranch during the night.

She put fresh water on to weaken the coffee for herself. But before she could pour it, a pair of hands slipped round her waist, pulling her back
against a hard body. A smooth chin nuzzled her neck. She nearly jumped out of her skin, she was startled so. She hadn’t heard a single sound. But a hasty glance to the side revealed that smoothly shaven face, and she sighed with relief.

“Oh, Lucas, you scared the life out of me. I thought you were—”

He laughed wickedly. “I told you it wouldn’t make any difference, beautiful. You don’t even have to close your eyes to imagine I’m him.”

She gasped and pushed him away from her. “You! You may look like him, but you’re nothing like him. You’re offensive, unscrupulous, ruthless—”

“I know, a real mean
hombre
,” he said smoothly. “So I guess you should learn better than to rile me.”

“You do not frighten me, Mr. Holt,” she replied haughtily.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He whistled. “You’ve got some spunk after all.”

He pulled a chair away from the table and straddled it, facing her. Cleaned and shaved, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Lucas. They were truly identical, even to the bronze tint of their skin. But Slade didn’t have Lucas’s boyish grin or exasperating charm, which made a great deal of difference. This was a cold man, sardonic, perhaps even cruel, certainly unprincipled. Yet…she had seen this man in Lucas in a way. There were times when Lucas looked just as cold and unfeeling. Still, Lucas was human. Slade didn’t seem to be.

She turned her back on him and finished pouring her coffee.

“I bother you, don’t I?” he ventured softly.

“Yes.”

“You’ll get used to me.”

“I very much doubt that, Mr. Holt.”

“You might as well call me Slade, since you’ll be marrying into the family.”

She turned around and glared at him, remembering last night. “I’m here to marry your brother, not you.”

“The Apache keep it all in the family,” he told her. “When a warrior dies, his widow is expected to marry her husband’s brother.”

“I’m not an Apache, and neither are you.” But she wasn’t forgetting that he had lived like one.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked.

“No, I’m from…St. Louis,” she said nervously, remembering the tale Lucas had made up.

“How did you meet Lucas? He hasn’t been back East for a couple of years.”

She looked away. “Lucas can explain better than I.”

“Was it love at first sight?”

“Mr. Holt!”

“Don’t tell me it’s none of my business. After all, he’s my only brother and my only family.”

“I wish you had remembered that fact last night,” she said harshly.

There was a very slight shrug to his shoulders. “One’s got nothing to do with the other as far as
I’m concerned. Like I said, you’re not married to him yet.”

It was too much to hope that he might regret his deplorable behavior. She should have known that. He stood up, his eyes growing brighter. She felt the same curious constricting in her chest she had felt last night, and she had to breathe deeply to get any air at all.

He started to approach her. “Stay away from me, Slade.” She held the steaming cup of coffee in front of her, the warning clear.

He stopped. “You’re going to put up a fight?”

“Every time,” she said.

“But you can’t win,” he told her plainly. “If you were holding a gun it would make no difference. Don’t you understand?”

His hand snaked out and took her wrist in an iron grip. He forced her hand to the counter, exerting enough pressure that she had to let go of the cup.

“I give you credit for trying, honey.” Was that amusement in his voice? “Just don’t try it again. And wear that pretty blue nightgown tonight.”

He kissed her hard and fast, then let go of her and walked out the door without a backward look.

“Mack?”

“Back here!” he called.

Sharisse walked through the barn uneasily, covering her nose against the odor. She found Mack in a large stall at the rear, where two young foals were nudging each other out of the way to get at the sweets Mack was offering them.

She was amazed at her daring in being there, but she had no choice. Slade’s threat was real. If she stayed, he would have her.

Lucas was the only one who could protect her. But it was too late in the day to send Mack after him, for it might be very late by the time Mack and Lucas arrived back at the ranch. She couldn’t take the risk.

“Can you prepare a horse for me, Mack?”

He eyed her skeptically. “Luke mentioned somethin’ about you never havin’ been on a horse.”

“That’s true, but he also said I would have to learn sometime.”

God, let him tell her there was an old buggy or
something around. She was terrified of getting up on a horse.

“That’s the truth. You plannin’ to practice, or was you goin’ to town?”

“Actually, I want to find Lucas. I was hoping you could take me to him.”

“Shoot. They’re a good three, four hours’ ride from here!” he exclaimed. “And there’s no tellin’ where they made camp. It would take me days to hunt ’em down. I can’t be away from the ranch that long.” He gave her a probing look. “What’s so all-fired important that it can’t wait a day or two? He should be back soon.”

She couldn’t very well explain, and her nerves were getting worse. “Will you just get me a horse, please?”

“Not if you’re gonna do somethin’ foolish. Now if you was to ride to town first and get you a tracker who could find ’em in less than a day…”

She brightened. “Yes! I’ll do that.” She didn’t know what she would pay a tracker with, but she would worry about that later.

“So that’s what you aim to do?” he asked, suspicious.

“I’m not a complete fool, Mack. I just didn’t know that I could hire someone to take me to Lucas. Now that you’ve explained that.”

“All right then, I’ll get you Sally. She ought to give you an easy first ride.”

She watched him amble off to the back corral. She wrung her hands, wishing he would hurry.

She was wearing her heavy traveling skirt, the only thing she had that she could possibly ride
in, and every petticoat she possessed under it for padding. She no longer had a blouse to wear with it, and rather than borrow one from Willow and have to explain, she had taken an old shirt of Lucas’s that she could button to the neck. The cuffs had been rolled up several times. She had found an extra wide-brimmed hat of his, too, and had bound her hair into a tight bun beneath it. To put it mildly, she had never looked more ridiculous. But that wasn’t important, in light of the way things were.

“You running away from me, beautiful?”

Sharisse jumped, turning to face Slade.

“I…I was just…”

“She wants to see Luke about somethin’,” Mack volunteered as he came back. He was leading Sally, a small sorrel. “I told her she oughta just wait, that he’d be back soon enough, but the gal’s stubborn. Gonna find someone in town to take her to him.”

Slade was looking at her with an unreadable expression.

“It’s none of his business where I’m going,” she snapped at Mack.

“I don’t see why not, him bein’ Luke’s brother,” Mack grumbled. “And shoot, he knows the mountains better’n anyone. He could find Luke before the sun set. Why don’t you ask him to take you?”

Sharisse paled, shaking her head wildly. “That’s out of the question.”

“Why?” Slade asked smoothly. “I’ve got nothing better to do. I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“I couldn’t impose.”

“You wouldn’t be.”

“But—”

“There’s no use arguing, Miss Hammond.” Slade cut her off. “I couldn’t let you ride out of here alone. There’s just no telling who you might run into between here and town. Of course,” he added with a grin, “you can always stay put and wait for my brother to come to you.”

The insinuation was clear. Stay put, and wait for Slade to come to her bedroom. He was trapping her. If she stayed, she was lost. But he wasn’t going to let her leave without him. He could just as well carry out his threats on the trail. Which was the lesser danger?

He took her silence for agreement and moved off to get his horse.

She followed him until they were out of Mack’s hearing. “You know
why
I was leaving,” she hissed. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He didn’t answer, didn’t even look up. “I want you to leave me alone. Can’t you understand?”

As if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, he glanced over his horse, shouting to Mack, “No need to ready that one for her, Mack. She’ll ride with me.”

“I won’t!” Sharisse said.

“You can’t ride astride in that tight skirt, not unless you’re willing to bare your legs, which I’m sure you’re not.”

“I won’t go with you at all,” she whispered furiously.

She turned to leave, but he gripped her waist,
and in a moment she was deposited sideways on his horse. Before she could even attempt to slide off, he was up beside her, his arms holding her in front of him. He gathered the reins in his hands.

“Don’t scream, beautiful,” he breathed softly. “The old man will only think you’re frightened of the horse.”

By the time she had reasoned that out and realized that Mack might be smart enough to guess otherwise, it was too late. Slade was galloping out of the barn, and her frightened gasp truly was because of the horse. She couldn’t help herself. She heard him laugh, but she didn’t care. Her first ride on a horse was everything she’d imagined it would be—horrible. Yet when he slowed the horse to a trot, it was even worse. The jarring was so bad, her teeth rattled.

Several miles from the ranch, Slade stopped. “I don’t mind you holding me tightly, honey, but it really isn’t necessary. I’m not going to let you fall off.”

She loosened her grip to lean away from him a ways, but didn’t trust her position enough to let go of him completely. The ground seemed terribly far away.

Keeping one arm firmly across her middle, Slade turned in the saddle to get something from the back of the horse. “Lift your butt,” he said as he turned back.

“What?”

His expression was as bland as ever. “Brace yourself on the horse’s shoulders and lift up so I
can stick this blanket under you. It’s going to be a long ride, and you might as well be comfortable.”

“Oh.” She dared to ask then, “You mean you really will take me to Lucas?”

They rode at a steady pace for the rest of the day without another word. Could she trust him? Would he really take her to Lucas?

The land rolled by, with rusty-hued buttes and red-rock cliffs and the ever-present yellow-green of towering cactus. The flowers were a marvel in that sun-baked land. The golden baeria and purplish-pink owl’s clover dotted the mesas, and higher up in the mountains grew violets, veronica, and gentian.

The air was cooler, too. After they had ridden some hours, the vivid blue sky began turning violet in the east and bright orange-gold in the west. She worried over whether they would find Lucas before the light was gone—and whether Slade was taking her to Lucas at all. Just then he surprised her by saying, “We’re here.”

“Where?”

There was nothing to see. They had been following a twisted path up the mountainside, the path strewn with boulders and thick mesquite shrubs. Steep rock walls hampered the view.

“You don’t think they would leave a herd of horses out in the open, do you?” he said. “The San Carlos Reservation isn’t that far from here. Renegade Apaches scout this area.”

“Renegades?” she said fearfully, turning to glance over her shoulder at him. “But I thought all the Indians were confined.”

“Some don’t like to be confined,” he replied smoothly. “Arizona has been plagued by discontented warriors for more than twenty years. We are in the path of the forays they make across the border.”

“Then we could have come across a band of Indians at any time?”

“Does that scare you?”

“Of course it does.”

“No reason,” he said casually. “The only Indian around here at the moment is Billy, and he’s as harmless as they come.”

She looked around. “How could you know? And where is he?”

“Should be on the other side of that narrow passage up ahead,” he said, ignoring her first question. He got down from the horse and held his hands up to her. “Come on.”

She gripped the pommel of his saddle. “How do you know? Was their trail that easy to follow?”

“Billy knows enough to cover his tracks.”

“Then how could you—?”

“I lived in these mountains for a time. I used to track the wild herds myself. Billy and I have used this spot, among others.”

Of course he knew his way around. Lucas had told her about the eight years Slade had spent in the wilderness. And the renegades he had spoken of? He probably knew them personally!

She slid forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders, and let him ease her to the ground. But he didn’t let go of her. Before she could lower her arms, he jerked her against him and fastened his
mouth hungrily to hers. She couldn’t think clearly. There wasn’t even time to struggle before her body betrayed her, delighting in the sudden rush of heat that made her reel. Her arms circled his neck of their own accord.

A muffled groan escaped him, and he abruptly let her go. She stumbled back against the horse. What had stopped him this time? His eyes were glowing dangerously, but was it desire, or anger?

Wordlessly he grabbed her wrist and dragged her along behind him through a rock-walled passage. She couldn’t break his hold. She couldn’t control him—or her own fate. Either Lucas would be in that passage or she was about to be ruined by his notorious brother.