When he first opened his eyes, he lay very still, feeling her against him. Soft and feminine, so warm. He closed his eyes again. Once this had been life. Waking every morning while holding a woman in his arms, breathing in her scent, savoring the softness of her. There was a comfort, and a strength in that comfort. He missed Naomi. It had been gut-wrenching anguish for a long, long time. Then a dull ache that just never seemed to go away. He had thrown himself passionately into the plight that had assailed his people. The Seminoles and their allies. The Negros who had run for freedom, the “good” Spanish Indians, the Hitichi- and Muskogee-speaking peoples who were all just grouped together as Seminoles. The full-breeds, the half-breeds, the little children who were already appearing in rags, thin and ill.
The absolute last thing he had imagined in his life was a night with a delicate white southern society belle. And now, quite impossibly, it had gone beyond that. Except that it couldn’t. It couldn’t because there was a war on. Because he was not a southern planter like Jarrett, he was the half-breed brother. He was not penniless; he would never be. But he might well become a hunted man at any time, and he slept in the woods more often than in a bed.
There was no life he could offer her, was he of a mind to do so. There was no life she could accept. Naomi had been born in the Florida territory, and she had lived on the land all of her life. She had been as natural as the earth itself, aware of the rattler, content not with silk and satin, but with the beauty of the wild orchid and the white wings of the crane. She had belonged with him here.
While Teela …
He stroked her back, admitting that he was mesmerized by the beautiful curves of her, the feel of her flesh, the fire of her hair. The emerald of her eyes, even the feel of her voice against his senses. He had never closed his eyes and imagined that he held Naomi again; he had needed no pretense. There had simply been an undeniable attraction from the beginning, and circumstances had only deepened what wild emotion ignited between them. Perhaps he had imagined that first night that he could touch her and still remain unscathed, uninvolved. He could not. She had wrenched him from his self-pity and grief. Only to cast him into a form of hell again, for she could not come with him into the swamps. She could not fight his battle. He invited her death to keep her anywhere near him at all.
A filtering of dawn’s color leaked into the cabin, and the fire he had built burned very low. Between them they created a hazy pink light. It set the color of her hair afire, and enhanced the ivory color of her flesh. He moved his forefinger very lightly down her spine, then frowned, noting a small spot that seemed just a shade different from the smooth perfection of the rest of her skin. He stilled his finger as a shard of ice seemed to shoot through his body. Warren beat her. A trembling sensation seized him, hot, causing his vision to blacken. He prayed to the one supreme being, the Christian god, the Great Spirit, that in this hell on earth he might meet with Warren in battle and be victorious. He had never felt such a hatred in his life as he felt for Warren. Knowing Teela had merely deepened his passion. He wanted to protect her so desperately from the man. But while Warren might be vicious with her, he wouldn’t kill her. And she could easily die at any time in his company.
Still …
He moved his finger along her spine once again, touched the flesh of her shoulder. She didn’t waken, but she moaned slightly, rolling against him. She lay upon her back, her hair like a fan of fire beneath her and around her, curling over her breasts, down along her ribs, over her hips. After a moment, her lashes flickered. Her eyes opened, the lashes fell, rose again. She looked at him, still half asleep. There was something incredibly vulnerable in her eyes. Trusting … sensual. They closed once again. She sighed, still not fully awake.
He leaned over and kissed her lips. He rose and shifted his weight, coming between her thighs. He pressed his lips against her throat. Her breasts.
He never made love to her tenderly. Arousing as he awakened, seducing as he touched. She moved with him, writhed, awoke more fully. The hunger seized him, the hunger she created in him, a passion that could be slaked but never sated. Tenderness erupted into raw fever, swept them both into a maelstrom. In the end she was very much awake, shuddering violently in his arms, a soft cry tearing from her lips as the sweet, erotic surcease of climax burst upon them. Shuddering, swallowing, she searched his face. Her eyes were on his again, very large, emerald.
She was definitely wide awake.
But even as he opened his mouth to speak to her, he heard a noise from outside. Hoofbeats against the dry earth.
He sprang from her, sleek and naked, going for his rifle where it had lain through the night just above his head, within easy arm’s reach.
“James!”
He eased, hearing his brother’s voice. But he had barely laid down his gun and pulled on his breeches before Jarrett was pounding on the door, then pushing it open.
Teela was not able to dress with such speed; in fact, all that she was able to manage before Jarrett had the door open was to pull the blanket to her chin and inch back into the shadows.
Her face was very pale, her hair pure fire against it. Her eyes were wide against her face, creating a fierce anguish in James as he longed to protect her. His brother, however, offered no danger. Yet he forced his heart to harden, wondering if she wasn’t just embarrassed to be discovered here with him—naked.
But it was too late to worry about their situation. Frankly, he had to be grateful that it was his brother who had come upon them. He was accustomed to being very careful through the night, to sleeping with an eye half open … damn, he was accustomed to being alert and weary. But this morning …
His alertness had all been for her.
Jarrett, simply dressed in cotton shirt, high boots, and breeches, was already in the doorway.
“James, we’ve serious trouble. I have been riding half the night, searching all the while, praying the rest. Miss Warren has run from her father, and it seems that the major—”
Jarrett broke off cleanly in mid-sentence.
He had been staring at his brother.
Now he was looking at Teela.
Jarrett was not easily taken by surprise, and he was quick to recover form it, but not until his pure amazement at the situation had registered upon his features.
“Sweet Jesu!” he whispered, stepping into the cabin and closing the door behind him.
“She is aware that she has to go back,” James said rather harshly. “As a half-breed and intimate of Osceola, I rather doubt her father will entrust her into my care, and I cannot lead him into the very Indian hideouts he would most like to destroy.”
“Well, I’m damned aware that she has to go back—” Jarrett began.
“Will you please cease discussing me as if I were a vegetable, gentlemen?” Teela interrupted.
Jarrett arched a brow to James.
James shrugged. “She’s a reckless little firebrand. No wonder Warren has such problems with her. She has to go back with you, but there has to be a way to keep her from being dragged about Florida with him. She’ll die along with him if some of the warriors whose families he has murdered get to him. And … he beats her.”
Teela turned to stare at him with startled eyes. Miserable eyes. They fell as her cheeks took on a pink hue. He had embarrassed her. She was very proud, and very unhappy, that he knew, but still, Jarrett had to know the truth as well, and there was little time to be subtle about anything now.
She spoke with her eyes downcast. “I am a remarkably strong person, gentlemen, and I am not afraid of my stepfather.” She hesitated. “I hate him, but I am not afraid of him.”
“You haven’t the good sense to be afraid when you should,” James said impatiently.
“If you will both listen, we believe we have the solution. John Harrington is here. He came the back way to Robert’s plantation while his troops went on by river to meet up with Warren. He’d not even been aware that Warren was on the river, able to get here so quickly. He has orders that they are
to take the river as deeply inland as they can, then start marching eastward to join up with another command. Warren will have precious little time to take his daughter anywhere, and John is determined that he can convince the major he must leave his daughter at Cimarron.”
“How does John intend to do that?” James asked. Jarrett hesitated. “Perhaps he should explain …”
James shook his head. “He intends that they should announce Teela’s agreement to an engagement with him?”
“Yes,” Jarrett said flatly.
“I cannot do it,” Teela gasped.
James spun around and strode to her, pulling her to her feet with a strength and passion that left her no recourse but to struggle to claim her blanket rather than fight with him. His fingers remained like a vise around her arms as he spoke to her, as harshly and coldly as he could manage.
“You must do it. You’ve no choice.”
“It isn’t fair to—”
“It must be done, you must go back. Dammit, Teela, you can’t just run away in a swamp!” He kept his eyes furiously hot on hers, not relaxing the brutality of his hold on her in the least, and spoke to his brother. “You’ve got to get her out of here completely, Jarrett. When they have all gone to battle, see that she is sent home, back to Charleston.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jarrett said quietly.
“I don’t wish—” Teela began.
“It doesn’t matter. You must tell your father that you will marry John. Perhaps you should give it some real thought,” he added, wincing at the hardness, the bitterness, of his own voice. “John is a damned decent fellow, and will make a delicate little white girl a fine husband if he just survives this all with his scalp.”
“Let go of me!” Teela whispered furiously. He thought that there were tears in her eyes. He couldn’t really tell, they were so filled with anger.
Jarrett cleared his throat. “I think I’ll step outside while you, er, dress, Miss Warren. We must get back. If we don’t, your stepfather will have his crew halfway here, and this is a safe haven for many of the orphans who are moved throughout this nightmare. We don’t want the copse found.”
The door closed. Teela jerked her arms to free herself from James’s hold.
He was tempted not to release her. He felt the most agonizing urge to force her down to the ground again, forget the world outside, hold her, make love to her again, fast, furious …
It was insanity.
It didn’t matter. He wanted to damn Warren to every hell on earth and beyond. He wanted not to care if the man rode a thousand men inland searching for them both. He didn’t want to give a damn about the war, about the women or the children, the whites or the reds. There were a hundred places in the swamp where he could take her. Hammocks where she couldn’t be found …
Maybe. The white soldiers pushed ever deeper, the Indians ran ever harder. She would be at risk no matter what he did. If he held her, others would be tortured for information they would not have. He would be a complete outcast.
He would never be able to see his daughter. Teela would never get to feel the simple touch of a soft bed. Dine off delicate porcelain, sip fine English tea.
“James—”
He released Teela instantly. Turned his back on her. “Get dressed,” he said sharply.
“I know that I have to go back. I wouldn’t have Michael Warren following me here, hurting you—”
“He’d die if he tried,” James assured her, softly but passionately.
“Hurting others. I know that I must go back, but it was the truth you heard at the table, I will not marry a man I have not chosen myself—”
“Harrington is in love with you,” James grated out, fingers clenching into fists at his side.
“I am not in love with him.”
“You haven’t given him half a chance.”
She was silent a moment. He felt her eyes piercing into his back.
“You needn’t fear,” she informed him, her voice very proud and tinged with ice. “I will do nothing that will betray you.”
He spun around. “I have already told you; I am not afraid of Michael Warren. I would welcome the chance to kill him.”
“Or die in trying!”
“I will not die until he is dead.”
“You are flesh and blood!” she cried out.
“I will not die until he is dead,” James repeated. His heart seemed to pause, skip a beat, then pummel with a slam against his chest. She was halfway dressed, but still her bodice was loose, and her breasts were nearly bared. Her wild red hair was tumbling everywhere, and her chin was very high; she was quite determined. He took a step toward her and caught her arms, drawing her close to him. “Go back with my brother and John. Don’t take pride to a point of stupidity. John is a good man—”
“Yes! And I cannot use him or lie to him—”
“Then don’t lie. But give him a chance.” He released her again, turning her around to deftly do up the ties at the back of her dress. He lifted her hair from her nape and fought the temptation to press his lips against the smooth soft flesh there one last time.
He let her hair fall.
She stood very stiffly and whispered, “What chance would I give him when—”
“A fair chance!” he snapped. “For there can be nothing for you here except games you would play with a red man!”
Before she could speak again, he turned swiftly and exited the cabin with all speed, not daring to look back.
Outside, he found Harrington along with his brother. John and Jarrett were both dismounted, standing by their horses, talking quietly as they waited.
“James!” As always John Harrington offered him a warm smile and a firm handshake. James felt his stomach lurch. From the moment Harrington had first seen Teela, he had been in love with her. Or in love with being in love. It didn’t matter which. How could he define or judge anything John might have felt for her when he couldn’t describe or understand his own passion and obsession?
And pain.
“Thank you for coming, John. I understand we’re in the midst of quite a situation with Warren.”
“Warren is a bastard!” John said softly, looking over James’s shoulder. Teela would be coming out of the cabin. “Thank God you found her, James, before some evil befell her.”
“There are seldom any warriors in this immediate area now,” James said.
“I meant evil within the terrain itself, James. What manner of man could be so hideous that his own child could welcome a rattler?” He lowered his voice still further. “I swear I will do everything in my power to keep her safe from him.”
Their hands were still clutched together in a firm handshake. James felt his hold upon John tighten. “Keep her from her father, and from the battlefield, John. That is all I ask you.”
“I swear it.”
“I am in your debt.”
“I have been in yours many times.”
“Marry her quickly, if that is what it takes.”
“James, sweet Jesu!” John said uncomfortably. “I haven’t the right—”
“No. I am the one without rights.”
“We must go,” Jarrett interrupted quietly. “She is waiting, and we should make all haste back.”
James turned at last to see that Teela had come out of the cabin and that she had remained a good thirty feet from them, standing quietly, waiting.
She had subdued the wild mane of her fiery red hair, winding it into a regal knot at her nape. Her hands were folded before her, and she stood very straight and very still, very dignified.
Only the liquid turmoil in her remarkable green eyes seemed to give away the tumult within her.
They had left their horses in the copse behind the cabin. James walked around for hers and brought the mare back to the front. Jarrett and John had mounted their horses already. James brought the mare right up beside them, then lifted Teela when she would have mounted on her own. She stared down at him once she sat atop the horse.
&
nbsp; “Take care,” he told her. She continued to stare stonily down at him, and he turned to his brother.
“Keep her safe. She will not have the sense to remain so herself.”
“We’ll manage,” Jarrett promised him.
He nodded again to John, took Jarrett’s hand. “God go with you, brother,” Jarrett told him.
James nodded with a smile. “You, too, brother.”
“Take care when you come back in. Warren is trying to claim that you abducted his daughter.”
James glanced at Teela, allowing his eyes to slide over the length of her again.
“James,” John said, “it’s a serious matter—”
“I will be with the people who have asked for their government settlement and agreed to go west. I will meet Warren on the field, or in any court of law.” His eyes remained on Teela. He bowed suddenly, very deeply, with every bit of courtly manner he had ever learned. “Good-bye, Miss Warren.”
“Good-bye, Mr. McKenzie.”
James stepped back. The horses started forward. He watched them as they moved onto the trail. She did not turn back.
But then …
She did.
She stared at him as he stood just outside the cabin, still barefoot, bare-chested, loose black hair just touching his shoulders, skin bronze beneath the heat of the sun. Barely dressed.
Hardly civilized.
She had to go …
Yet he felt like doubling over with the pain of it. He lifted a hand to her. She couldn’t possibly have heard him, but he spoke out loud softly anyway.
“Until we meet again, Miss Warren. Until we meet again.”
They shouldn’t meet again, he told himself firmly.
But something inside him knew.
They would.
Indeed, they would meet again.
Chapter 11
“So you have come to join us in battle again, Running Bear. You have spent your time with your brother, and learned again that one drop of Seminole blood makes a man’s skin red.”
James shook his head, dropping before the fire to sit cross-legged and study Osceola. He had spent nearly ten days traveling and looking for the war chief, a fact that was wearying in itself. The ground was hard, harder for those who did not know it. The Seminoles could run in any direction and slip into the earth itself, or so it seemed.
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