Warrior's Embrace (65 page)

“Get out of here, you mangy mutts,” she
yelled, though the sound that came out was more whimper than
shout.

She hated that most of all: that she wouldn’t
die with her boots on and her gun blazing. With her cold hands
gripped around the scalpel, she watched the wolves.

A shot rang out. Then another and
another.

Was she hallucinating? Had she thought up so
many rescue fantasies that she’d crossed permanently into fantasy
land?

“
Aiya
!” The savage shout came out of
the darkness— and the thundering of hooves. Eagle Mingo leapt from
his stallion, and the wolves scattered, yelping.

“Kate!” he called.

“In here.”

He knelt down and pulled her from the cave.
His arms were strong and warm, and the good solid feel of him made
her want to curl up and stay for the next few centuries.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“Are you hurt?” He ran his hands over her
face and neck, and even in her foggy condition she cursed the fates
that he was only checking for injuries.

“I’m wet and hungry and mad as hell about
falling off my horse, but other than a lump on my head, I’m in
perfect condition.”

“You didn’t fall off your horse, Kate.
Someone cut the girth.”

“Where’s my gun? I’ll shoot the bastard.”

Even cold and hurt and hungry, Kate could
make him laugh. He held her close, absorbing her chill into his
bones, and the laughter released the tension that had been building
in him from the moment he’d learned she was missing.

How would he live without her? She made
survival a grace rather than a necessity. Once in a lifetime the
fates matched two people who were luminous together, whose love
brightened even the darkest moments of their lives.

Holding Kate now, Eagle felt the glow that
leapt from her heart to his, and he wept silently, without tears.
He could hold her only long enough to keep her warm, and then he
had to let go.

“We’ll never make it down the mountain
tonight in this weather,” he said.

“I know. I couldn’t even make it down in the
daylight.”

“My hunting cabin is not far. Can you ride,
Kate?”

“Anything is better than slipping and sliding
around over these rocks, lost as a goose.”

With Kate sitting in front of him, Eagle
guided his stallion into the woods. Once in that familiar and
less-treacherous territory, they moved swiftly, arriving at the
cabin shortly after midnight.

He wanted to carry Kate inside, but she would
have none of it.

“I’m not an invalid. Put me down.”

“As you wish.” He set her gently on her feet,
but he did hang on to her elbow. “I don’t want you to fall again,”
he said when she started to protest.

The cabin was spartan without being shabby.
Furnished with the barest necessities, it might have been something
from another century except for the electricity and running water.
It had been unused for several years, and most of the light bulbs
were burned out. The dim glow illuminated cobwebs on the ceiling
and gave the dust covers on the furniture the ethereal look of
ghosts.

Eagle took a woven blanket from the closet
and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“That feels wonderful,” she said, and for a
moment he thought she was talking about his hands. She shivered as
he stared down at her bruised and battered face.

Rage filled him that he no longer had the
right to comfort her and warm her and love her—rage and a certain
hopelessness.

“I look that bad, huh?” Kate said.

With his hands lingering on her shoulders,
Eagle knew he was in trouble. He’d let his feelings show. Making
his face a careful mask, he gathered an armful of dry logs from the
bin and knelt beside the fireplace.

“There’s a bath down the hall and dry clothes
in the closet. I’ll spread your blanket by the fire to keep you
warm.”

He felt her damp coat brush against his
thigh, and looked up to see her watching him. Both of them were
remembering other ways they’d kept warm.

“If you need anything during the night, all
you have to do is call out. I’ll be down the hall,” he said.

“I won’t need anything.”

Even if she did, she wouldn’t ask. He could
see that in her eyes. He stoked the fire, ignoring the way her
nearness sensitized his skin.

“In the morning I’ll take you down the
mountain.”

“I could get down under my own power if I had
my horse. Damn that Mahli for leaving me. Poor old soul. I guess
she gave me up for dead.” Kate stripped off her wet coat and flung
it across a chair. “Whoever is after me should understand it’s
going to take more than a lump on the head to do me in.”

Even after she left the room, he still felt
as if she were standing beside him. He picked up the poker and
viciously stoked the fire.

The man who had tried to kill her would
pay.

o0o

Hal lay spread-eagle upon the bed while
Melissa rubbed oil over his skin, and the peyote made him bright
and invincible.

“Your body is beautiful,” she said, then bent
over him with her hair touching his abdomen.

It didn’t matter that she was more than twice
his age or that she called him Clayton in the throes of passion.
She knew exactly what she wanted and had the money to buy it.
Besides that, she was sophisticated, influential, and a damned good
lay.

Her mouth was soft and slick, and he felt the
hot, tight coiling that signaled an explosive climax. But he knew
how to hold back.

Suddenly she lifted her head and knelt over
him like a great, sleek cat.

“Will you love me forever?” Even with her
hair tangled in her eyes and her makeup smeared, she was still a
striking woman.

“Baby, I’d be a fool not to.”

Her eyes glittered as she raked her long red
fingernails down his chest, scoring his skin deep enough to leave a
trail of blood. The pain brought him such pleasure that he threw
back his head and howled like a wolf.

“Say it.” She sank her teeth into his male
nipple. Jagged edges of pleasure ripped through him. “Say you love
only me and that you’ll never look at another woman as long as you
live.”

“I love only you, wild woman with three
names, and I’ll never look at another woman as long as I live.”

He’d said the words only to placate her, but
as she straddled him and took them both howling and screaming
toward the darkest ends of the earth, he thought it might be
so.

Visions swirled through his brain, and in
them she was the white buffalo woman, and he was riding her toward
the sun, riding until they fell into its blazing center and became
flame.

o0o

She’d been dumped on her doorstep like a sack
of coal. And then he’d sent an emissary to do his dirty work and
salve his conscience. Well, Eagle Mingo could find some other way
to make himself feel noble. Kate wasn’t about to do his bidding
just because he was governor of the Chickasaw Nation and somehow
felt responsible for her.

“You can take her right back where she came
from.” Kate crossed her arms over her chest and tried to look
commanding in spite of her dastardly headache and ugly bruises.

The chief of the tribal police stood at the
bottom of her porch steps, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to
the other, and in the car the woman he’d brought to protect Kate
stared off into the mountains as if she wanted nothing to do with
the confrontation.

“She has to stay here, Kate. Governor’s
orders.”

Kate laughed. So he was in a governing mood
now, was he?

That morning, when she’d awakened to find him
sitting cross-legged beside her blanket, watching her, he’d looked
more like a lover than a governor. And later, pressed close while
his stallion brought them out of the mountains, she’d felt the
tension in his body and his efforts to hold himself aloof.

She’d fought the same battle. What would have
happened if he’d come inside her house instead of leaving her on
the doorstep?

“Tell the governor I don’t take his
orders.”

“Kate, be reasonable. What happened to you
yesterday was no accident.”

Poor Martin Black Elk looked so
long-suffering that Kate felt sorry for him. She was being
unreasonable. Her father’s daughter. Whether Mick Malone wanted to
think so or not.

“Martin, I’ll be careful.” She put her hand
over his and smiled.

“Don’t make any more house calls alone.”

“I won’t.”

“Keep your doors and windows locked and call
me if you see or hear anything suspicious.”

“I will.”

“Kate, I don’t like this. Why don’t you ask
Deborah Lightfoot to come over and stay with you?”

“No. I won’t expose her to danger.”

“Won’t you at least get a good guard
dog?”

“I’ll think about it. And in the meantime,
I’m hanging onto my gun.”

Martin started toward his car then turned to
issue one last warning.

“Be careful, Kate.”

“I promise.”

All the promises in the world couldn’t
protect Kate Malone. Martin dreaded telling the governor she’d
turned down his protection.

o0o

“She did what?”

“She laughed.”

Eagle stared out his window at the Arbuckle
Mountains. Purple shadows softened them so that they appeared
benign. Only he knew how close Kate had come to dying in their
uncompromising grasp.

“It’s not your fault, Martin. Do you have any
idea who is doing this?”

“I don’t have enough evidence to convict a
skunk, but I believe he’s Chickasaw.”

“I think so too. He’s covered his tracks too
well to be anything but Native American.”

“Hal Lightfoot seems the likeliest
possibility. He ran track in school; he’s young and full of vigor
and venom. His hatred of Kate goes all the way back to that old
business with the medicine man when she was building her clinic.
I’m staking out his house.”

That was one more secret Eagle would have to
keep from Deborah Lightfoot, one more way he’d have to betray
her.

“I think you should stake out the shaman as
well. She took over his territory, and his hatred of her is well
known.”

“He’s old.”

“Don’t let his age fool you. Any man who can
survive alone in the mountains is not to be underestimated.”

“I’ll put a man on him. He’s got connections
with everybody on tribal lands. But my bet is still on
Lightfoot.”

“Have you thought of staking out the manager
of the tool and die plant? And what about the employees? I know
some of them are extremely bitter toward her. Maybe bitter enough
to kill.”

“Hell, why don’t I stake out the whole damned
Nation? Would that satisfy you, Governor?”

Eagle held up his right hand in the age-old
gesture of peace.

“All right. I’m going. You do your job and
I’ll do mine.”

Eagle squared his shoulders as he prepared to
leave, as if he were adjusting them for the heavy burden he
carried. Martin wasn’t known for interfering in people’s personal
lives, but he couldn’t sit still and watch a friend put himself
through hell.

“Eagle, I know this is none of my business,
but are you sure you’re doing the right thing about Kate Malone.
Any fool can see . . .”

“You’re right. It’s none of your
business.”

“All right. I asked for that. May the Great
Spirit be with you, Eagle.”

Eagle took the long way to Deborah’s house,
riding on horseback, stopping on the hillside above Kate’s layout
long enough to satisfy himself that she was safely inside. The
clinic was dark, but all the lights in her house were on. He could
see her silhouette through the kitchen window.

He circled her house, far enough back so he
wouldn’t be seen but close enough so he could see if anyone was
lurking about. Winter winds soughed lightly through the trees and
stars gentled the land. The beauty and tranquility were deceiving.
Eagle could feel the danger shimmering in the air, and it seemed to
him the danger had a name.

Something was hovering on the edge of his
conscious mind, something vital, something he’d missed. Sitting in
the darkness watching the light shine on Kate’s hair, he tried to
capture the elusive solution.

At last he turned away, the vision of Kate
still in his mind, turned away and headed to Deborah Lightfoot’s
house. He was going to ask her to marry him.

o0o

He knew that he had failed. The witch woman
was still alive.

The avenger’s hands shook as he punctured the
end of his finger. Blood spurted out and pooled on the end of his
steel blade. Carefully he laid the knife aside, then took his quill
pen and dipped it in the warm red ink.

“Your tormentor watches you, white doctor
witch.”

His ink ran out too quickly, and he held his
finger up to the light and punched another hole. The smell of his
own blood mingled with the smells of winter—the sharp odor of the
frozen earth, the musk of dead leaves, and the clean fragrance of
the north wind.

He dipped the pen once more and finished his
note.
Repent or burn in hell.

His blood soaked into the paper, then dried
to a brownish-red stain. He’d have to bury the note deep in his
coat pocket to keep it dry. Winters in Witch Dance ...dampness
always seemed to be in the air, whether it was snowing or not.

With the note securely hidden, he stepped
outside. The stars stared at him, malevolent eyes that saw every
move he made. He would have to be careful. The hounds of hell were
closing in on him. He could hear them baying at his heels, feel
their hot breaths fanning the back of his neck.

The avenger checked the position of the
stars. There was time, time to race with the north wind to his
destination.

All the lights were out at her place. The
white witch was sleeping. She never knew when he slipped the letter
under the door of her clinic, pushing it all the way inside so the
weather wouldn’t destroy it. She never knew when he picked the lock
on her back door and slid inside her house.