Wild Is My Heart (30 page)

“My search took me north into Kiowa Territory. It seems the tribe that killed my parents and took Laura traded her to Black Bear, who then adopted her. Findin’ Sam and Laura together was somethin’ I never expected.”

“What about Sam and this Brave Eagle she was supposed to marry? Was she mistreated? She looks well enough.”

“Brave Eagle wanted Sam,” Colt said succinctly.

“Why do I get the feelin’ there’s more to it than that?”

“Because there is.” Colt’s face revealed an emotion Jake had never before seen in his friend. Then Colt proceeded to tell Jake everything that happened in Black Bear’s village. Jake’s eyes grew wide as secrets he would never have guessed at were revealed to him.

“Jesus! It’s hard to believe Sam is part Comanche. I … I don’t know what to say.” Then he turned thoughtful, sliding Colt a sly look. “So you two are married.”

“Married, hell!” Colt thundered. “I don’t hold with heathenish rites. Besides, you know how I feel about red savages.”

“Dammit, Colt, Sam is no savage! She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman. Her father is a white man. You have no cause to treat her so disrespectfully.”

“Are you sayin’ I should honor this forced Indian marriage? You and I know it’s not legal. So does Sam.”

“I’m not tryin’ to run your life, but we’ve been friends a long time. Somehow I got the idea you were fond of Sam.”

“I… was, Jake,” Colt admitted, wishing Jake would stop badgering him. How he treated Sam and what he intended to do about their stormy relationship was his business. For the time being he needed her for Laura’s sake—or so he tried to tell himself. Later, once his enlistment expired and he returned to the ranch, he’d decide what to do about Sam.

“I don’t mean to interfere, boss,” Jake admitted wryly, “but I won’t allow you to hurt Sam. Her mixed blood makes no difference to me. I don’t reckon it will to Will, either, when he finds out.”

“Sam is my concern, Jake,” Colt returned possessively. “Keep away from her and let me deal with her in my own way.”

Jake shot Colt a reproving glance before turning abruptly on his heel and stomping away.

Chapter Fourteen

I
t’s…very nice,” Laura stammered, her eyes wide as she surveyed her surroundings.

“It’s been my home for as long as I can remember,” Sam said wistfully. “I hope you’ll be happy here.”

“You’re not leaving?” Laura exclaimed, suddenly frightened. “Please, Violet Eyes, this is your home. You’re Steve’s wife. You belong here more than I do.”

“Colt has no intention of honoring a marriage legal only to Comanches. He hates what I am. He never wanted a wife. He wants me here only for your sake. But one day, Laura, Will and I have to leave. It’s inevitable. We no longer belong on the ranch.”

“I don’t understand my brother. Can’t he see how much you care for him? If you leave, so will I,” she declared staunchly.

Sam mulled over Laura’s words for several tense minutes. Laura was white and belonged with her brother, not the Comanches. All she needed was time to adjust to her surroundings and circumstances. Intuitively Sam realized that Laura depended on her for support and friendship, and she couldn’t leave her, not yet. One day she’d depart, but not until Laura was better able to cope with her new life. She owed Colt a great deal for rescuing her. One way of repaying him was to remain at the ranch until Laura grew accustomed to the changes in her life.

“I’ll stick around a while,” Sam allowed grudgingly. “Until you no longer need me.”

“I’ll always need you, Violet Eyes. You’re my friend.”

Tears moistened Sam’s eyes. “And you’re my friend, Laura. But I reckon you should call me Sam. Now come along, I’ll show you your room.”

It was already dark when Colt entered the house. He was surprised to find Laura standing by the window staring forlornly into the blackness. She looked lonely, bereft, and completely lost.

“Where’s Sam?”

“In bed,” Laura replied. “It’s been a long day and these past weeks have been difficult for her.”

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I … I want to talk to you. We really haven’t had much of a chance, you know.”

Immediately Colt’s face softened, the lines around his mouth curving into a tender smile. His little sister was all the family he had left in the world and the one person worthy of his unqualified love. If she was finally willing to open up to him, he was ready to listen. He settled an arm around her shoulders and led her to a chair, hunkering down beside her.

“What is it, honey? What do you want to tell me?”

“Is it all right to call you Colt? Somehow Steve no longer seems appropriate. You aren’t the Steve I knew long ago.”

Colt nodded. He would have agreed to anything to preserve their tentative new beginning. “Sure, honey, call me whatever you’re comfortable with. I’m here to listen.”

Still somewhat in awe of the tall, powerful man Colt had become, Laura said, “I want to talk about Violet—I mean, Sam.”

Colt stiffened. “What about Sam?” Sam was the last person in the world he wanted to discuss. Especially with Laura.

“She’s your wife, why do you treat her so badly? Brave Eagle loved her. My brother would have—”

“I’m
your brother!” Colt barked, trying to control his temper. “You’re smart enough to know that Indian customs mean nothin’ to white men.”

“What will become of Sam? You’ve already taken her land.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She told me some things but not everything. I don’t want her to leave, Colt. She will if you continue to act in such a disgraceful manner toward her. Must your hatred for Indians blind you to your own feelings?”

“I know my own mind, honey. The same blood flows through Sam’s veins as the savages that killed our parents. One day, after Black Bear’s influence is gone and your life is back to normal, you’ll come to understand how I feel.”

Laura shook her head in vigorous denial. “No, Colt, you’re wrong, about many things. Sam and her brother will leave once you’re gone. You can’t keep her here against her will.”

“Did Sam tell you she meant to leave?” Colt demanded.

“She said she’d leave when I no longer needed her. She’s your wife, Colt, can’t you stop her?”

Intuitively Colt realized his threat to turn Sam and Will over to the law no longer served as a valid reason to keep her under his thumb. He had procrastinated, threatened, and cajoled too many times in the past for Sam to take him seriously now. Obviously, if he meant to put her in jail he would have done so long ago. And Sam was smart enough to realize it.

“Sam’s not goin’ anywhere,” he said with a determination that secretly pleased Laura. “She belongs here. This is her home.”

He’d do anything within reason to keep Sam, Colt realized, startled by the intensity of his feelings. If Sam left he’d lose Laura, and he couldn’t bear that. Not when he’d just found her. Ten years! Ten long, frustrating years he’d searched for his sister and he’d be damned if he’d have her rushing back to her adopted family at the first opportunity. Colt fully intended to make his home on the Circle H once his enlistment expired, and if Sam was the key to keeping his sister happy, then it was imperative Sam remain. He tried and failed to make himself believe that was the only reason he needed Sam.

Laura smiled an amused smile. “Do you realize what you just said?”

Colt nodded slowly, suddenly realizing he had just admitted he wanted to keep Sam with him forever. “Go to bed, honey, it’s late. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I … could I ask a favor?”

“Anythin’.” Colt grinned, elated at the strides they’d made tonight. At least they were talking like kin instead of strangers.

“I want to sleep outside tonight. Under the stars. This is all so strange—the house, the bed. Give me time, brother. With Sam here to guide me I’m sure I’ll adjust in time.”

Brother! Laura called him brother. Did she know how badly it had hurt to have her constantly refer to Brave Eagle as brother? Perhaps things weren’t as hopeless as he previously thought. But one thing “became increasingly evident. Laura’s willingness to adjust as well as her happiness depended on Sam. He let that thought roll around in his head before replying.

“Okay, honey, sleep outside if you reckon it will help,” he said, lacking the heart to deny her anything. He’d warn the hands before he retired and have Jake make damn certain she wasn’t bothered.

Sam struggled with sleep, so elusive and disturbed by dreams and images it was difficult to judge where fantasies ended and reality began. From somewhere out of her deepest longing Colt appeared beside her, a lamp held aloft in one hand. Her eyes ran over the incredible, sensual length of him, from his chin with its day’s growth of beard, over the rich outline of chest and shoulders straining against the fabric of his buckskin shirt, down long lean hips and thighs, pausing a breathless moment on the bold proof of his masculinity. Her eyes lifted from their avid contemplation of him to find him studying her with wry amusement. Warmth penetrated her body, winding its way around her heart, consuming her soul.

Carefully placing the lamp on the night table, Colt’s gaze went over her hungrily. He knew a gut-wrenching longing to claim her tremulous lips and devour their sweetness. He wanted to probe the honeyed depths of her mouth and feel her return his kiss full measure. With a will of their own his hands reached out to touch her soft, full breasts and he longed to weigh their softness in his palms. He wanted to—The profoundness of his need jarred him.

Sam knew she was dreaming, had no doubt she had conjured Colt up from her erotic fantasies. Although the hands that explored her body intimately felt like flesh and blood, she knew that Colt wouldn’t dare come to her room with Laura in the house. Then her drugged thoughts scattered as her fantasy lover captured her lips, his kiss firing her passion as his tongue slipped between her teeth into the moist cavern of her mouth. His kiss was forceful, demanding a response as one of his big hands stole under her nightgown to fondle her between her legs, moving slowly, insidiously higher and higher.

Surrounded in a misty haze, Sam encouraged the shadowy form crouched above her, reaching out to stroke broad shoulders that somehow had lost their buckskin covering. The flesh beneath her fingertips was warm, vital, pulsing with life. The muscles flexed and jerked as her lips tasted the slight saltiness of his skin.

She breathed in the special scent of him, a clean woodsy aroma blended with the pungent fragrance of soap. Though Sam knew he was but a figment of her imagination, the proud arrogance of his dark features loomed bigger than life before her. She loved the confident way he carried himself, the bronze perfection of his rugged form, the way his tawny eyes glowed when he made love to her. She sighed happily, imagining for a moment that this incredible man was hers.

“I love you,” she whispered to the phantom who could neither hear or speak.

In dreams anything was possible. She could delude herself into thinking Colt had tender feelings for her instead of considering her merely a possession. If Colt were truly in the room with her she would never admit to loving him, knowing the contempt he felt for her.

His voice was deep and rich, and it went over her like a velvet caress, stoking the already fiery desire she was experiencing. “Do you mean that, Violet Eyes, or are you dreamin?”

Colt was shocked but immensely pleased by the way Sam welcomed him to her bed. He had expected fierce resistance but found her soft and accepting in his arms. He hadn’t planned things this way, but when he returned to the house for the night an unexplained force drove him to Sam’s room. And once he saw her there was no turning back.

The single lamp cast its golden glow on Sam’s sleeping form. Tiny gasps escaped her lips, and her movements were so erotic that all thoughts of leaving fled. Flinging off his shirt and stretching out beside her, Colt assumed she was awake when her hands discovered his chest and her lips tasted his flesh. For some reason those three words she uttered sent his senses reeling.

As she tottered on the fringes of awareness, Sam’s eyes widened, suddenly aware that the warm weight pressing her down into the softness of the mattress was no fantasy. Confused, groggy, her senses drugged, Sam wrongly assumed she was back in Black Bear’s village where she was known as Violet Eyes. Her next grave mistake was thinking it was Brave Eagle who had just spoken her name—her Indian name.

“Brave Eagle?”

“Christ! Do you think I’m that damn Comanche?” Colt spat disgustedly. “Is he the man you love?”

“Colt? I… you called me Violet Eyes. I … thought …”

“You thought it was that savage makin’ love to you. Sorry to disappoint you.”

She looked up at him, arrested. “What are you doing in my room?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I want you.”

“I don’t want you! Leave me alone.”

“Your body wants me.” Colt smiled with slow relish. “It’s been so long, Sam, you need me as much as I need you.”

“I don’t need you at all.”

“Who do you love, Violet Eyes?” he taunted, reminding her of her careless words. “Did you fall in love with Brave Eagle? Did he bed you?”