Desert Sunrise

by Raine Cantrell

  Her breasts swelled, heavy with wanting. The force of his kiss bent her neck back, and her hands slid into his hair, drawing his head down, his tongue thrusting deeper, increasing the intensity of feeling that surrounded her until it was frightening.

  His breathing became harder, faster, and there was nothing but hunger. She didn’t know desire could burn this hot. She never knew she could want more of the shuddering press of their bodies, more of the kisses that devoured her mouth, more of the hard rocking thrust of his body, more of Delaney. She was empty, aching, and tormented by the need to be touched.

  He could take her now. Delaney knew that. He wanted to. He wanted to know if she’d fit him so damn tight that he would be the one to go wild.

  His prim, sodbuster duchess was soft and hot, coming to him with nothing held back. His lips ground hard against hers. He needed to drink her woman’s passion to ease the raw ache in his soul. He lifted her closer, pressing her tighter, and her shoulder dug the skystone against his chest. His gut twisted with burning need. Needing a woman had brought betrayal.

  Abruptly Delaney shoved her away from him.

  She stood swaying like a delicate blade of grass caught in a sudden windstorm. Her eyes opened slowly, and she reached up to touch her swollen lips. She could still taste him, feel him. Bewildered, Faith couldn’t speak, she could only stare at him.

  “Stay away from me, duchess. You don’t know me. You don’t want to.”

  Faith recoiled from the savagery in his voice that effectively squelched any protest, any question that she thought to make.

  The dark shadows swallowed him as if he’d never been there.

  Chapter 5

  Delaney absently sipped the last of the coffee that Keith had brought him. He glanced over to where Faith was burying the fire. She wore a shawl against the predawn chill while he had nothing to protect him from her frosty manner. It was what he wanted. She’d stay away from him after last night.

  And he wouldn’t tell her what he found that had made him uneasy. Someone had been around the wagons, someone who had waited and watched for hours. A man who had learned to be as still as prey in hiding or a predator in wait. A skill, Delaney knew, few white men could duplicate. But he wasn’t going to tell Faith or her father. He was warned. It would be enough.

  He moved to check that the false floor was secure over the additional supplies in the ten-foot-long light wagon. Whoever had built the box wagons knew what they were doing. The two-foot-high maple sides and four-foot-wide bodies were solid. The wheels of both wagons were iron-tired but had little iron reinforcement in other construction to keep the weight of the wagon down.

  Yesterday he had made certain that none of the hickory bows circularly bent to support the canvas tops were warped. He could only hope that the hickory wagon tongues and the axles were as strong and sound as they appeared. These were the weakest parts of the wagon, subjected to abuse that caused the most common casualties.

  Faith’s voice, soft and low, reached him as she murmured something to a sleepy-eyed Pris. Delaney was tempted to move closer, to share their warmth, but he knew Faith would continue to ignore him, and so he let it be.

  He bent to check the wheels. A few minor cracks didn’t appear to be cause for worry. The extra water they hauled might be needed to swell the wheels since the desert dryness tended to shrink them. Hope was all he could offer that the choice wouldn’t come between using water to swell the wheels or drinking it. He had seen the wrong choice made, where the water kept people alive but stranded when wheels cracked and the wagon couldn’t be moved. But that was what Becket paid him for.

  Each of the tallow buckets, hanging from the rear axles, were full to grease the dry axles as needed. He had stressed a warning to Keith that it would be his responsibility to keep them from squeaking. Noise in this territory traveled a far piece, and he wanted them to make as little of it as possible. No sense in calling attention to fully stocked wagons, a white woman and children, along with the damn cow. He still wasn’t sure how he let Pris’s pleading, Joey’s shy smile, and Faith’s unswerving belief convince him to take Beula with them. At least he won his point over taking off her bell.

  Making the last round, Delaney went to the front of the wagon and paused to scratch a mule’s ears. They were a smart choice for strong pulling in hard country. The jerk-line teams of eight mules to a wagon were sound. He had personally checked over each animal. He couldn’t fault a one. Becket hadn’t been stingy in giving himself and his family a fair chance to get to their land claim.

  The largest pairs of mules, the wheelers, would help control the direction of the wagon, just as the wagon tongue did. Once again he looked at Faith. It would take strong arms to control the teams, and he wondered if she would be able to manage. Becket called out to him, and Delaney went around back of his wagon.

  “We about ready? Feel like a mewling babe back here. Can’t see a thing.”

  “Ain’t much to see.” Delaney couldn’t help the sharp edge in his voice. Becket hadn’t said one word to him about last night, but Delaney knew he’d said plenty to his daughter. Robert had Faith jumping to obey his commands for the past two hours. And he had a feeling it wasn’t finished.

  Keith climbed up to his seat, and Delaney shook out the few drops of coffee in his cup before he set it inside. Faith stood alone, helping Joey up to the center seat of the wagon she would drive. She was reaching for Pris to lift her up when Delaney reached her side.

  Pris giggled as he swung her high, then set her next to her brother. But as soon as he turned and put his hands on Faith’s waist, she shuddered violently.

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “I can manage fine without your help.”

  Delaney ignored her and lifted her up so she could stand on the narrow floorboard. She reached inside and got out a bonnet for Pris to shield her face from the coming sun, for the canvas top did not overlap the front.

  “Where’s yours?” he asked.

  Faith lifted a man’s floppy-brim felt hat, shot him a defiant look, and set it on her neatly pinned hair. She pulled on a pair of leather gloves that were too big for her hands and took her seat.

  Delaney stifled an irrational surge of jealousy. They were a man’s things, likely her husband’s, and he had no right to what he was feeling. For a brief, charged moment they looked directly at each other, and Delaney thought he knew the feel of hell freezing. A remembered flash of the heat they shared between them last night came and went. Faith took up the reins and turned to stare straight ahead.

  “Are we ready now, Mr. Del?” Joey asked, his voice excited, one hand clinging to Faith’s skirt.

  “We’re ready, boy.”

  “And you think ’bout having peaches tonight,” Pris added, smiling at Delaney. “Faith says when you think of something special coming at night, you don’t feel all hurt and achy.”

  “I’ll do that, little one. I’ll keep remembering something special so I don’t get all hurt and achy, either.”

  Faith was left wondering what he meant as he walked around back of their wagon to check that Beula’s halter was secure and to mount his mare.

  Ahead of them, keeping to a walk, Delaney led them out.

  To the east of Delaney’s party, on the bank of the Verde River above Fort McDowell, Seanilzay waited as Holos rose in the morning sky, making the Four Peaks, sacred mountains to the Yavapai, visible in the distance. His sharp eyes darted about as he closed out all sounds but for the steps of the man he awaited.

  His stomach threatened to give away his hiding place, and he stilled its growling by sheer will. Alone and on foot he had come over the northern Bradshaws to follow a maze of canyons few men dared to travel.

  Hunger was his one constant companion. It had been so since he had gone to live on the reservation, but he vowed it would soon end. He would have supplies and horses enough to take him far to the south to the Sierra Madres, where many of his brethren had escaped the
pindah form of justice. Seanilzay spat to rid his mouth of the sour taste filling it at the thought of whites. His dream vision was to see the pindahs live on the hated reservations, which left no hope and stripped a man of his pride.

  Once it was not so. Once the Apache had walked the land of their fathers with pride. Once they had taught their young the true ways of the people. Times before the Anglos. Times before lies and tricks.

  Seanilzay knew he had lived too long in the shadow of whites, learning their ways and trying to understand their thoughts. For, try as he would, he could not rid himself of the feeling that he had betrayed Delaney and was about to do so again. Like his father before him, Delaney spoke no lies. Seanilzay knew the time was coming when Delaney would be forced to choose a path, no longer a man who could walk in both worlds. The whites would demand the choice from him.

  Seanilzay, too, had chosen a path. He would not look back once this day’s deed was done.

  A mere breath of sound made him spin around. With a wary, narrowed gaze that betrayed nothing of his thoughts, he watched the approach of his enemy. He carefully noted the army major’s silent body moves as he dismounted, and he let those moves speak to his senses. They told him more than Phillip Ross wanted him to know.

  The major’s skin had burned as red as the band that held Seanilzay’s hair from his face. The long-limbed body moved stiffly, and Seanilzay smiled. The major believed himself to be as cunning as the coyote. He bragged of such. But the coyote brought bad luck to the Apache and made them sick. Seanilzay kept that in mind along with the warning that to touch its skin or smell its breath would bring him illness.

  “Since you are here,” the major said without greeting, “I assume you found Delaney. Where is he?”

  “He rides south even now.”

  “You told him I had need of him?”

  “He understands the army’s desire to have all the Apache back on the reservation lands.”

  “Well, yes. We must protect them. It’s the only way we can.” With a folded index finger the major brushed the drooping ends of his blond mustache. “Did he agree to help me? And don’t give me any of your lies. You were a scout long enough to know what’ll happen to you.”

  “He knows there are others who speak all the Apache tongues that would help you.”

  “That isn’t what I asked you. I want Delaney Carmichael because of his father. The Apache respect him, just as Cochise and Jeffords respected his father.”

  “He will be where you want him with the next moon’s rising. Where are my horses and supplies?”

  “You didn’t bring Delaney to me, did you? You made me ride out here to meet you. Come back with me, and you’ll get what you deserve for helping me.”

  “Snake tongue,” Seanilzay spat, backing away from him.

  “You useless savage!”

  Seanilzay turned and ducked just as the major drew his pistol. The first shot passed harmlessly through the ends of his coarse black hair as he spun and rolled away. Coming up into a crouched stance, Seanilzay drew his knife for a throw. The major leaned his torso to one side, and the knife thudded into the tree trunk behind him. Taking careful aim, Phillip Ross fired two shots at the unarmed Apache. His gun did not waver as the first bullet caught Seanilzay’s thigh. Without emotion he fired the second shot, swearing that it slammed into the downed Indian’s shoulder and not his heart.

  Holstering his gun, the major walked away.

  Less than eight miles out of Prescott, Delaney chose a campsite near a small creek. He had wanted to push on, for it was barely late afternoon, but when he rode back to the wagons, Faith attempted to hide her exhaustion. He questioned her, she denied it, and so he called a halt.

  Pris and Joey came into his arms readily to be swung down from the wagon seat. He ordered Keith to take them and gather firewood.

  Standing patiently, he sighed heavily as he watched Faith. She was taking her time to remove her gloves and hat. He didn’t understand his fierce attraction to her. Sweat had dampened her gown and plastered wisps of hair to her flushed cheeks and neck, making her look hot and tired. It had been a while since he had been with a woman, but that did not account for the taste of her that lingered on his lips.

  She stood up and his gaze slid up the length of her long legs, remembering the feel of them pressed between his own last night. As his gaze rose, the fingers of his right hand curled as if he were cupping the soft weight of her small breast, and his left hand, fingers splayed, rubbed the hard length of his own thigh. The wide-eyed look of awareness she returned when his gaze snared hers didn’t help him to remember his vow to keep away from her.

  Irritated with the jolt of heat that spread through him, Delaney lifted his arms up to her. “Come on, duchess, I’ll take you down easy.”

  Easy, she repeated to herself. Never. Everything about him was complicated and hard. She hesitated, glancing from his hands to his mouth. The same feeling of warmth flushing her inside that started with their explosive encounter last night filled her again. The very last thing she wanted was for him to touch her. She stared down at his dark, lean face, his wide shoulders and narrow waist, and stopped herself from looking lower. She did not want to see the long length of his powerful legs and remember how they felt trapping hers between them. But staring at his mouth made her lips and mouth go dry as if she could taste the wildness that had overtaken her with every savage kiss he had given her.

  “No,” she managed to whisper. “I’ll get down myself.” She turned, intending to climb down on the opposite side, when Delaney grabbed hold of her wrist and jerked her toward him. Thrown off-balance, Faith tumbled into his arms just as her father called out for her and Keith returned with Pris and Joey.

  Her body was tense and trembling. She shot him a helpless look before he set her down and stepped away from her.

  “Remember, your life could depend on obeying me, duchess.”

  Faith managed to steady herself and walk back to her father’s wagon. She took Delaney’s reminder to heart but wished she could make her willful body obey her own commands. Delaney was more masculine and threatening than any man she had ever met. Some instinct made her look back, and she found him standing where she had left him, watching her. With a quick shake of her head, she dismissed him and forced herself to listen to her father’s complaints while she set about gathering what they needed for supper.

  Trying to ignore the way her body ached and throbbed, she welcomed the chance to stretch her legs and feel the solid earth beneath her feet. She had forgotten how the long days of sitting and guiding the mules had left her exhausted.

  Delaney had not forgotten why he stopped early tonight. Before Faith returned with a slab of bacon and beans already set to soak in a crock, he had the fire going, a kettle of water heating, and was filling the coffeepot from his store.

  Faith whispered her thanks.

  “Nothing to thank me for,” he stated in a harsh voice. “You get dogged an’ I’ll be the one forced to drive that wagon.”

  Faith was too tired to answer him, but that didn’t stop her from shooting him a cold, telling look.

  Delaney ignored it. He knew he had to be the one to force distance between them. Snapping at her seemed the best way. He moved off to tend to his horse, only to find himself hiding a smile when he heard her mutterings, more colorful by the minute about men and mules. He had known few enough women who he could honestly say he enjoyed talking to, enjoyed being with, and liked. But his duchess, with her grit, tempted him to find out if there was more to her than a mouth and body that had him hard and ready with a look.

  There was little talk until supper was done, and Delaney was the one to break the silence. “Keith, you take the first watch. I’ve got a spot picked out for you.”

  “There’s no need,” Robert said before Keith could answer. “We can’t be that far from Prescott.”

  “You figure that makes it safe, Becket?”

  “Well … well, yes,
I do. Didn’t see many Indians.”

  Delaney rolled himself a smoke. “Becket, Indians ain’t the only thing to watch for. Below Yarnell there’s mining camps. You ever been in one?”

  “No. And I won’t listen to tales that’ll have us jumping out of our skins at the least little noise.”

  Lighting his cigarette with a twig from the fire, Delaney dragged deep and blew the smoke high. His gaze didn’t leave Becket’s face. “Keith stands watch. Now, and every night I say, or I go back to Prescott.”

  “Now, just hold on.” Robert saw Delaney’s shift to stand and stopped arguing. “Do as he says, Keith.”

  Delaney took his time getting Keith settled a ways up their back trail, explaining what he should be listening and watching for. When he returned to camp, Faith had already put Pris and Joey to sleep.

  She had just filled a basin with warm water, intending to wash, but Delaney’s appearance reminded her of how little privacy she had. Her father had insisted on sleeping in the wagon, and the children were bedded down in the other one.

  Delaney saw her hesitation. He glanced at the basin she clutched, then up to her face. “Don’t let me stop you, duchess.” His voice was rough, and he turned his back toward her, hunkering down to poke at the fire. He swore softly under his breath, for he had hoped she would be asleep, too.

  Faith fought down the temptation to dump the water on him. She walked back to the downed tailgate of the wagon where Pris and Joey slept. After setting the basin down next to a cloth and soap she’d set out earlier, Faith began to unbutton her gown.

  The night was filled with soft rustlings, and Faith glanced around but without fear. Somehow knowing that Delaney was close by eased her mind from worry. She dipped the cloth into the water and lightly soaped it, scrubbing her face and neck before she slid the sleeves of her gown down her arms.