The Men of Pride County: The Rebel (14 page)

“Maybe.” His fingertips circumvented the curve of her cheek. “But I don’t know that it’s one I can afford to make again.”

“Then that would be a shame, but I’d understand it. At least now we know.”

Together they were the Fourth of July.

He smiled faintly to relieve her grimness. “I’m afraid I’m going to smell like lavender whether I like it or not.”

“Did you like it?” She wasn’t referring to the lavender.

His knuckles rubbed beneath her proudly hoisted chin. His husky reply destroyed her.

“Very much.” He buffed her soft lips with his thumb. “Too much not to be afraid.”

“Of me?” she whispered wonderingly.

“Of myself.”

He let her go then and stepped away to wade to the shore. He’d started to climb out, then paused in a moment of sinking dread.

The carbine was gone.

“Juliet.”

He had only time to speak her name before another volley of fireworks exploded through his head.

Chapter 10

He breathed in dust and the faint scent of lavender. The salty taste of his own blood came back to him when he dampened parched lips with a scrub of his tongue. His cheek was pressed into hard-packed ground, but when he tried to lift himself up, a host of painful demons clawed through his shoulders and spine and set up a noisy din in his head. It was a moment before the waves of surging sickness eased enough for him to try to think of what had happened. Then he heard her voice close by, her words a shaky whisper.

“Thank God. I thought they’d killed you.”

They …?

It reassembled slowly in his dazed brain: the stream, their kisses, the missing carbine—

Indians.

For some agonizing reason he couldn’t move so much as a muscle. Every one of them seemed cramped and strained, frozen into immobile screams. He tried to force his eyes
open, but what greeted him was darkness, not an answer. Not Juliet’s face.

“I was only joking about God striking me blind,” he muttered hoarsely.

“There’s blood in your eyes.”

The matter-of-fact way she said that alarmed him all the more. A pretty grisly statement to make without the slightest inflection.

Where were they and how bad was their situation?

Bad, he guessed from the hollowness of Juliet’s tone.

Because he still couldn’t see, he tried reaching out with his other senses to learn more about his own position. Even the process of thought set off a roar like cannonfire within his head. Something had struck him. That much he could remember. What he couldn’t figure out was why it felt as though his entire weight was resting on his cheekbone. And why the rest of him seemed suspended in some kind of numb limbo where the slightest move sent him straight into hell.

What had they done to him?

And to Juliet?

“Are you all right?”

She answered him with a hushed, “Fine. Stay quiet. Don’t let them hear you.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Eight. A raiding party.”

And their foolish interlude in the stream left
them easy targets. How could he have been so careless with both their lives?

“How long have I been out?”

“Hours. It’s almost dawn.”

He focused his waning awareness on her disembodied voice because he had to say it, even though it wouldn’t make any difference.

“I’m sorry.”

Silence.

Then a soft, “Me too.”

But not, he guessed correctly, as sorry as they both were going to be.

“Can you get away?”

“No. I’m tied up, too.”

Too. He couldn’t feel any restraints, and that struck him as odd. “Why didn’t they kill us?”

Her pause said they still might. Then she told him, “I think they’re taking us to Mexico. We’re worth more alive to them as long as we’re no trouble.”

“Worth more?”

“As slaves. Or worse.”

Her voice grew pinched, so he didn’t ask her any more. Finally, he said, “I can’t feel my hands and feet.”

“For now, be glad. You will soon enough.”

His head hurt too badly for him to make sense of her cryptic statement. For a time, he let go of the struggle to retain consciousness and simply drifted. But that was too easy to last for long. He woke to the fluttering touch of Juliet’s hand against his face. She was speaking to him low and fast and he didn’t
understand the purpose of what she was saying.

“You have to walk now. You have to. If you fall, they’ll drag you. If you can’t stand, they’ll kill you. No matter how much it hurts, you have to keep up.”

He tore his eyelids open through the seal of dried gore. Bright sunlight seared him back into momentary blindness. Then, after a few blinks, shapes began to form: Juliet bending over him, her face grimy and etched with concern, a pair of high-topped moccasins belonging to one of their captors. Juliet was shoved roughly aside. He saw the glitter of a knife blade. There was a moment of weightlessness, then, as he hit the ground, his world exploded into white-hot pain.

His wrists were bound behind him, his ankles, too. During the hours of the night, they’d hung him from a pole running through those bindings like a pig after slaughter, face down, spine bowed backward, his weight dragging on his arm sockets until they’d gone numb. But now with freedom came the awful agony of blood moving back through abused limbs, through joints twisted and muscles nearly torn. And the pain of it came close to stealing away his consciousness.

“Noble. Noble, you have to get up. Try!”

Her urgency stirred him back to awareness. Though every effort brought the need to scream, he bit down hard and inched his knees under him. A rope tether dropped over his
head to tighten at his throat. Then his feet were freed. He forced himself to rise up, tottering, close to swooning but focusing on the rope around his neck that led to the back of one of the Indian ponies, the rope that would drag him until he strangled if he couldn’t keep up.

As the Indians prepared to break camp, speaking amongst themselves in brief gutturals and ignoring their prisoners, Noble had a moment to assess their circumstances. Not good. Beside him, Juliet was similarly bound, her hands in front instead of behind. Her pallor betrayed her fear, but her gaze was steady and alert. She was wearing just her underclothing, the ribbons and lace making her look all the more vulnerable. Her hair had dried loose about her shoulders in a wild golden tangle. And all Noble could think of was what a prize she’d be in Mexico.

And he knew he had to find a way for them to escape before they got there.

Escape faded from his thoughts and minute-to-minute survival became his only concern as the rope snapped taut, forcing him to stumble forward. His muscles cramped. His bad leg spasmed and threatened to fold under him. But he walked, gritting his teeth and blanking his mind to the razor-sharp discomfort. Because if they killed him, who would save Juliet?

They moved at a leisurely yet relentless pace as the sun continued to rise along with the
temperature. Sweat and blood from Noble’s head wound blinded him. He was barefooted, an added misery as the rocky ground cut and bruised him. Juliet was lucky enough to be wearing her boots. The ache in his temples massed to a steady throb, drowning out all else. He used the beat of it to measure his footsteps, a cadence that would keep him alive.

Beside him, Juliet kept up with a steely determination. Instead of the neck thong, she was led by a rope to where her wrists were lashed in front of her. She didn’t stumble, and his awe of her grew by the hour as his own steps wobbled and weakened. Her face was expressionless, her eyes narrowed in concentration. For once, he thanked God she’d inherited her father’s stubbornness.

She would give them no reason to punish her.

He lost track of time. The sky and ground melded into one dark blur as the pull of the rope against the back of his neck propelled him on into that searing oblivion. He couldn’t recall ever being so hot. By afternoon, his pores had baked dry and his lips began cracking from lack of moisture. He had no spit left with which to keep them damp. The rasp of his breathing grew as loud as echoing thunder in his head. The edges of his awareness began to ravel as he felt himself fall and keep falling. He never realized just when he hit the hard-packed ground.

He wasn’t going to make it.

Juliet kept a watchful eye on Noble and worried as his steps began to falter. His head wound was ghastly, continuing to bleed and mask half his face in crimson. It could easily have killed him. It might yet. She hadn’t thought he’d survive the night, so perhaps she’d underestimated his stamina—at least she hoped so until he collapsed, to be dragged by the noose about his throat.

“Stop! Stop!” She didn’t think their captors would heed her cries, but thankfully they did. She stumbled to where Noble lay unmoving and dropped to her knees beside him. She was too scared and exhausted to realize that she was crying.

“Noble, get up. You have to get up.” When he didn’t move, her tone grew more frantic. “Don’t you die and leave me alone with them.”

Dust stirred beneath his mouth and nose. His eyes flickered open but his gaze was hot and unfocused. One of the Indians shouted back at them. She was sure he wasn’t asking after Noble’s welfare.

“Come on. Get up, Major. I’m depending on you. Dammit, don’t you let me down.”

His toes dug in, inching him up onto his knees. Juliet expelled a tremulous breath and tugged at his arm.

“That’s it. Come on.”

“I can make it,” he mumbled thickly with more confidence than he had strength. She
pulled harder, dragging him up with her but unable to support him as he teetered. So she braced him with her words.

“Come on, Major. Look at me. If I can make it, so can you. I told my father you were a soft, spoiled aristocrat. Now, you prove me wrong. Prove me wrong!”

For an instant, the shadow of a smile crossed his chapped lips as he whispered, “Yes, ma’am.”

And somehow, he did make it, managing step after tortured step until the Indians felt safe to make camp for the night. He dropped to his knees in the hard sand, too dizzy and disoriented to notice when one of their heathen captors removed the loop from about his neck, then bound his ankles, tethering his wrists to them. Awareness lapped in an irregular tide. He was too grateful that they’d stopped to care what their situation was. Until he got a teasing whiff of lavender.

Juliet.

He had to protect Juliet.

But as it was, she was determined to protect him.

Her touch brushed gently across his brow, a cool breeze wafting through his fevered state. She spoke to the Indians as if speaking to her father’s aides.

“I need water. He’s not going to be worth anything to you if he dies.”

Even if they didn’t understand every word,
they took her meaning and apparently had taken no exception to her tone. Perhaps they even admired her for it.

Noble did.

The chill of water upon his face was the shock needed to return him to his senses. Once he’d conquered the brunt of the harsh pain signaling seemingly from every muscle of his body, he was able to observe other things. Their two horses were hobbled alongside the Indian ponies. The raiding party itself was hunkered down at a small fire, apparently confident enough to risk the light to cook several small animals over the coals. The aroma stirred a gnawing rumble in his belly, but he doubted that they’d think of feeding their prisoners any more than they would think of throwing food to camp dogs. While they carried on an animated conversation, only brief glances were cast in their direction. Obviously, they considered him no threat. He worried that if he had to endure another day like this one, they would be right. He wasn’t going to get any stronger while in their care.

“My belt buckle.”

Juliet paused in her cleansing of his wound and bent closer so that she could hear his raspy whisper.

“Undo it.”

“What?”

There was just enough maidenly shock in her voice to make him chide, “Don’t worry. I won’t think any less of you for fumbling with
my trousers. There’s a blade hidden in the buckle.”

When she remained unmoving for a long moment, Noble canted a look up at her. Her expression was cautious, gauging him and their situation should she obey.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” he told her, not caring how impossible such a claim might seem at the moment.

She offered a flickering smile and an unquestioning, “I’m ready any time you are.”

God
,
what a woman
. No hesitation. No doubts. Just quick acceptance and total belief.

She bent over him, pretending to flutter and fuss, using her body as a shield while reaching purposefully for his buckle. She felt along the raised lettering. CSA. Standard issue except for fancy ornamentation on either end. She focused there, letting her fingertips guide her as she located and carefully released the small blade from its copper sheath.

“I have it.”

“Put it in my hands, then wait.”

She didn’t press for more details. She slipped the blade into his palm while her fingers caressed his. Then she backed away, giving him room to work at the ropes as she kept an eye on their captors and waited for his signal.

And waited.

The fire died down to white ash. The members of the raiding party sought their blankets, leaving one brave to guard the horses and
their prisoners. Noble remained slumped over his knees, unmoving, as the hours ticked by.

Had he lost consciousness? Juliet studied him covertly, seeking any clue that he’d managed to free himself. Finding none.

Finally, she relaxed her vigil and allowed her weary eyes to close. She’d given Noble too much credit. He was just a man, after all, trying to rise above impossible odds. She’d let her own admiration for him imbue him with the superhuman strength it would require for him to overcome injury and exhaustion to effect a dramatic escape. Because she wanted—no,
needed
—to believe he could.

Now she would have to accept the facts. She forced down her hopes with a hard swallow. Chances were they’d be in Mexico tomorrow. And beyond that, she didn’t want to speculate.