by Donna Cooner
“You need to rest again, without battling your nightmare demons,” he told her. “We’ll stay here tonight and head home in the morning.”
“So soon?” she murmured softly.
“Tara, you’ve slept nearly around the clock. James will not go while you are here, and his people are in danger now.”
“Oh!” she said, trying to struggle up. “Then we should leave right away—”
“Tara, we are all set to leave in the morning,” he told her firmly. “They will be running often enough in the future,” he added. “They are glad of this last night in their home.”
He left her, going to the fire, then coming back with a cypress cup of cool water. She tried to drink from it quickly, but he warned her just to sip at it. She did so. She felt him watching her all the while. When he brought her a bowl of some kind of warmed gruel a moment later, she found his eyes on her again.
“Something koonti?” she asked.
He shrugged and laughed. “It’s a staple.”
“So is venison.”
He shook his head. “No meat right now. You couldn’t swallow it. Come on, eat up!”
“Aren’t you joining me?”
He shrugged, returning to the fire and the pot there and dishing himself out a bowl. They ate with wooden spoons, and she found herself surprisingly hungry. Either she was acquiring a taste for the stringy koonti root or was just so hungry that she could have eaten dirt.
When they were done, Jarrett took the plates and put them by the low-burning fire. He stretched out behind her on their soft bed of skins and fur, his arm around her waist.
“Jarrett …”
“We rise early and ride early,” he told her softly.
She lay still for another few minutes, very glad he was beside her, of the warm strength of his body seeming to give strength to her own. Her lashes fluttered. She had just been told she had slept nearly a day, and yet she did remain very tired. But she wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep.
“Jarrett, you should really know,” she whispered after a moment. “I’m not—a great lady.”
He was silent for a moment. She wondered if he had already fallen asleep. But then she felt his arms tightening around her and felt the husky warmth of his whisper against her ear.
“You are to me.”
“Oh, Jarrett …!” she whispered, turning within his arms.
“Tara, you risked your life for the children. It was incredibly courageous.”
“It wasn’t so courageous. Anyone who has held little ones like that would try to keep them from a monster!”
“No, Tara, not anyone,” he assured her. He eased up and leaned upon an elbow to look down at her. “Once upon a time you were convinced that the Indians here were scarcely a cut above the snakes and alligators.”
She flushed. “Jarrett, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know any Seminoles—”
“Tara! You owe me no apologies. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you can see my family as people. I am incredibly proud of you, and you are quite mistaken if you think that anything about your own birth or family could mean anything bad to me. You are, as I said, a great lady. My lady!” he added gently, tenderly, his palm cupping her chin, fingers stroking her cheek.
She cried out softly, catching his hand, placing her lips against his palm. She eased down again to lie at his side, and he came back against her, holding her close once again.
He meant her to rest. It still terrified Jarrett to realize just how close to death she had come. Tara couldn’t see them, but the bruises from the captain’s hands remained blue about her neck. Each time he saw them, he felt raw rage build within him anew. Yet she had tried to stop him from killing the man.
Shaking anew as he held his wife, Jarrett was glad that Osceola had done the deed.
He wanted her to rest, to lie still, to do nothing more strenuous than heal.
But tonight, though they lay still for some time, she knew that he wasn’t sleeping, and as the fire burned lower and lower, she turned against him again. Her fingers played against the buttons on his shirt, slid within it, stroking him, slowly, sensually.
“Tara,” he protested. “You need rest.”
“I need you,” she told him. She rose against the glow of the fire and shed her clothing as she stared into the low, whispering flames. The shadowed glow of the fire bathed her from head to toe, emphasized the beauty of the fall of her hair, the sweet perfection of her high, rounded breasts, her long, graceful limbs. She turned from the fire, and it seemed there was a glaze of tears in her eyes, but he saw it only briefly, for she was quickly down on her knees by his side, draping the velvet fall of her golden hair around him as she leaned down to capture his lips in a kiss, to cover the hardness in his breeches with the cup of her hand.
Then her lips were on his throat, on his bare chest where she had loosened his shirt, and for a few moments the blood rushed wildly in his head and the pure physical pleasure of her touch banished thoughts and sense. But even as his hunger flamed, he managed to reach out for her, pulling her beneath him, pinning her so that she didn’t stroke or tease him to madness. He stared into her eyes again, holding her still.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
She shook her head defiantly. “Don’t you want me?” she whispered.
“Hell, yes, but … damn, Tara, not when you’re in tears over it!”
“I’m not in tears.”
“You’re eyes are damp.”
She tried to twist from him. “If you don’t …”
“But I do! I just want to know what’s going on in that head of yours!”
“Would that it were my head!” she whispered.
He pulled her around, straddling her. “What?”
She struggled against his hold and then cried out softly. “You dolt! It’s just that I—I love you! I love you very much, and I’m still sometimes very scared because I do!”
The words were so startling and so incredibly sweet. He let them wash over him for a moment; he savored them, cherished them. Then he realized that he had cherished them just a bit too long, that she was alarmed by his response, that she was struggling against him once again and would be doing so in earnest any second.
She loved him. It seemed a miracle he had dared not hope for, a craving he had harbored but dared not see, since he had touched her that very first night. He had needed so badly to be healed, yet he had thought himself the confident one rescuing her.
He had been wrong. She had rescued him.
“I shouldn’t have said anything!” she cried, and indeed, she was trying to twist away from him. Strenuously so. “Jarrett McKenzie, if you’ve nothing to say, I beg that you let me go.”
Let her go? Never. Not in this lifetime.
He held her hands firm, leaned close to her. “I’ve plenty to say!” he told her.
She lay dead still then, staring at him. Her eyes seemed cobalt. Her hair, in the firelight, was spun gold. She trembled slightly, but her chin was high again, and she was wary.
His runaway.
“What?” she whispered.
“Dolt!” he said.
“What?”
“You just called me a dolt!”
“I what?—oh, McKenzie, I knew I was a fool, I knew that you—” she began, but broke off awkwardly.
“That I what?” he demanded, smiling.
The fire went out of her for a moment. She was very still.
“I know that you are still in love with Lisa,” she said very softly. “I should be grateful for that fact. Had you not felt such grief for her, you might have wanted to marry again for all the right reasons, and you might not have been willing to take on an unknown, runaway bride. Indeed, the fact that you loved her, love her still, is probably the only reason you were willing to marry me.”
“Wait, Tara, just a moment!” he challenged her, and he eased his hold from her wrists to touch and stroke her cheek with his palm, softly, tenderly. “I did love Lisa, and I beg you to under
stand—there is a part of my heart that will love her always. But I was enmeshed in self-pity, and you brought me from that. And marrying you had nothing to do with my feelings for anyone else—dead or alive.”
“Robert forced you into it!” she whispered.
“No man on earth forces me into anything. Or woman, for that matter. I married you because I wanted you above reason or sanity, I wanted you from the moment you walked into that tavern. I wanted you for the way that you walked and moved, then I wanted to touch your hair, see your eyes. I had never hungered so for anyone in all of my life, and now, I’m aware that I’ve never loved anyone with such a passion as I have for you, Tara. Even Lisa. It was a different love. Good, gentle, sweet. And that part of me will always love her, but even that pales beside the emotion that entangles my heart with you.”
She stared at him, wide, unblinking eyes fringed by rich dark lashes. She seemed so still. She scarcely breathed.
“Did I say enough?” he asked softly after a moment.
He must have, for she suddenly cried out and threw her arms around him. Her lips were sweet fire against his, her breasts pure seduction as they crushed against the wall of his chest. He swiftly forgot that he had worried about her well-being, for she was like a wildcat in the cypress forest, vibrant, vital, graceful, hungry. She was a tempest of seduction against him, lips against his bare flesh, touching him, holding him, making her cry out in the shadows and glow. He was amazed at how quickly she swept him into a violent climax, then he determined that she, also, would find so merciless a lover. Soon, in the gold and shadows, she was crying out, too, and he was deeply glad of the shattering pleasure they both found; yet, that night, the words she whispered as she drifted down were far more dear.
“I love you, Jarrett. Oh, dear God, but I love you so much!”
“I love you!” he responded fiercely.
“Love—”
“You …”
And their words blended together as their lips did once again.
The embers of the fire burned very low, and in one another’s arms, they slept.
It was difficult for Tara to say good-bye to her new family again in the morning—she would be riding back to Cimarron.
Naomi, Mary, James, the girls, and their tribe would be riding into an unknown future, fraught with danger and uncertainty.
Naomi was strong, Mary was stoic, the little girls wouldn’t let themselves cry, and Tara watched them start out with their horses, sheep, cattle, and belongings tied to the travois without losing her encouraging smile either. Yet James, atop a long-maned pony, came back to them as the exodus of his people began, stretching out a hand to his brother first. The two sat still atop their mounts, gripping each other hard for several moments.
“You’ll always be able to find me,” James told Jarrett.
“And I will always be there for you,” Jarrett swore.
James nodded, smiling. He released Jarrett’s hand, and came around to where Tara sat atop her horse. He grinned at Jarrett, then reached up and plucked her down, kissed her on both cheeks, and hugged her hard.
“We are eternally in your debt, sister!” he whispered to her.
“James! I did nothing—”
He leaned back, holding her shoulders, meeting her eyes. “We love you, little sister. White Tigress.”
She flushed. “So Osceola has given me a name!”
James grinned. He hugged her to him again, whispering—ignoring Jarrett’s scowls, “Just know, as wretched as this war might be, we do not forget our debts, nor do we hesitate in our love for our friends and family. If you ever, ever need us, we will be there!”
“I love you and your family, too, you know!” she told him. He grinned, caught her by the waist, and hefted her back up to her mount. He leapt up in a flash on his own horse, whirled it to wave at them once again, and was off, racing around his people to take the lead on their journey deeper into the wilderness.
The camp was empty. The fires within it were all dead. Tara didn’t want to see it this way. She turned her own horse quickly and Jarrett followed.
She felt like crying, and he rode silently behind her. He nudged his horse and came up by her side, reached out for her hand and squeezed it. “We will all survive this!” he promised her.
She shook her head. “It could last forever.”
“However long. We will survive it.”
She smiled, glad of his rock-hard determination and faith. But it was still going to be a hard road to tread. She had encountered both sides, and she knew that the whites were often fighting from fear and that the Seminoles were doing the same. The whites were hungry for land and progress; the Indians were just desperate for homes and survival.
“Tara,” Jarrett said after a moment, “terrible things are still going on, you know. I own land in the south—swampland, some say, but along the Miami River. It’s never been highly populated down there, but there are some folks settled along the river. Most of them have deserted their homes. The lighthouse on Key Biscayne was attacked and burned to the ground. A negro helper was killed; the lighthouse keeper was left for dead, yet somehow he survived. It was a vicious attack.”
Tara looked down at her hands and nodded. “I know that there is a war on!” she said.
“Perhaps you should go north.…” he began.
“No!”
He inhaled sharply. “Tara, there may be times when I have to leave again. You were right; I managed to settle nothing with Osceola this time. Yet the effort was there. And when I can do something, I will have to leave you again.”
She didn’t look at him. “I hate it!” she exclaimed after a minute.
“I know. So do I.”
She rode in silence.
“Tara, I can take you to Atlanta—”
“No!”
“Charleston—”
“No!”
“Boston, perhaps—”
“Dear God, no!” she said with a fierce shudder.
He arched a brow at her.
“I take it you’ve been to Boston?” he inquired dryly.
“Jarrett, I promise, I will handle myself much better. I will not like it if they call you away, but I will not fight you on it again. Please, I don’t want to go anywhere else!”
He smiled. “Thank God! I couldn’t stand sending you anywhere else!”
“Then—”
“I just wanted you to promise to be on good behavior,” he told her with a grin.
She lifted her chin. “You had best be glad I haven’t a flower vase around!” she warned. “I should crack it right over your head!”
“Would you, then?” He laughed.
“Indeed.”
“Ah, but then I’d have to do something back, wouldn’t you think?”
“You’d not have the chance.”
“Ah, but I’m quick as lightning when I choose!”
“And I can be faster than a sunray, McKenzie, when the occasion demands!”
He laughed. “Let’s see, shall we?”
His ebony eyes were blazing. Tara realized that she had challenged him to a race along the cypress trail. She inhaled sharply, then flicked her reins over her mare’s neck at the same time she clicked her heels against the horse’s haunches.
The mare took off.
Charlemagne was in hot pursuit.
She raced down the trail. The leaves fell around her head and neck, the shadows closed around her, the sunlight dappled through. She burst into a clearing of thick, rich grass, and there Jarrett caught up with her, sweeping her from her own horse, leaping down from Charlemagne so that she and Jarrett rolled and rolled in the grass.
She found herself laughing, then tasting his kiss, then meeting his dark eyes, then feeling the wondrous burst of emotion within herself once again.
She trembled.
She had never known that life could be this good, this sweet. She loved him so much.
And he loved her!
The happiness was so dear that it was almo
st agony.
She gasped in a breath, still afraid to let him know just how desperately she loved and needed him. “Wretch!” she cried out to him.
“Umm,” he teased. “An absolute savage!”
His lips found hers. They made love in the grass, and they laughed again as they both itched and scratched from the grass irritation for the rest of the ride.
Then Cimarron rose before them again.
She was home, Tara thought. Oh, God, really truly home!
Yet once again, she had barely reached out for her happiness before it was to be cruelly snatched away.
For even as they approached the estate, a ship was also coming down the river.
Destiny was almost upon her.
Chapter 20
It was good to come home, better than ever. Peter was ready to take their horses, Jeeves was quick to tell her that her bath was waiting. There were fresh flowers on the side table in the breezeway, the afternoon was beautiful with a clear blue sky and strong sun that came sweeping through the windows.
Upstairs, she quickly shed her bedraggled clothing, glad to step into the water. She was fully immersed when Cota knocked on her door, announced who it was, and at Tara’s bidding, came on in to tell her excitedly that she had finished a number of their sewing projects while Tara had been gone, and that the dresses Tara had designed and cut had come out beautifully.
Tara thanked her, smiling as she sank back into the tub. Dear God, she did love this place so much! Just as she loved Jarrett. And she loved the sun, and the warm waters, the cabbage palms and cypress trees, and the flowers that bloomed forever. She loved her Indian relations—and at the moment she was so sweetly content that she could be convinced that she loved the snakes and alligators in the swamps and marshes as well!
Cota showed Tara where her clothing was neatly stacked into her trunk at the foot of the bed, or hung in the wardrobe. Again, Tara smiled lazily, realizing that her possessions were slowly encroaching upon her husband’s domain. It was a room they shared.
Cota, near the window to the sloping back lawn, paused suddenly, frowning.
“What is it?” Tara asked her.
“Another ship,” Cota said with a shrug.
Tara closed her eyes, stricken with pain. They had just returned! What could Tyler Argosy want with Jarrett now?