Jamie knew he would never leave without her.
If Nalte decided against him, he would have to fight the chief. And if he won, the Apache would probably slay him in vengeance anyway. He might well die in this beautiful place, then there would be nothing more that he could do for Tess.
I’m sorry! he thought. i never should have become so involved. Falling in love with a beautiful angel has surely been the downfall of many a man. I couldn’t let you go that morning. I had to make you see that the thing between us was right and that you couldn’t turn away from it by the morning’s light.
He hadn’t had the edge he had needed, the edge that had kept him alive through so much.
So now they were here, and their fate rested on the decision of an Apache chief.
He liked Nalte. He had a keen intelligence, was well- versed in his own language and in English, well-aware of the world around him. And fighting to maintain the inheritance of a people despite an encroaching world. He was not so bad a man, Jamie thought. Rather he die and leave Tess to Nalte, than leave her to trash like David or Chavez. Nalte would never hurt her.
He clenched his fists and swore to the night sky. Then his thoughts raced as he sank on h~s haunches to stare at the rippling, moon-kissed water once again. I will not die here! Come heaven or hell, I will fight, and with every edge, and I will bring her home with me!
“Jamie!”
He thought he imagined the voice.
But then, as he stared into the water, her reflection was caught by the glow of the moon almost magically on the surface before him.
“Jamie …”
She was there. She was wearing the white buckskin dress he had seen before.
Her hair was flowing, rich and waving, paler than usual in the water’s reflection. Nor could the water catch the color of her eyes, that violet that was so extraordinary and so compelling, so quick to flash with anger, so deep when touched by her emotions. Nothing could catch that. No words, no mirrored image.
But the water did catch the softness he had glimpsed before, and he knew then why he had been falling in love with her so swiftly and so completely. She had great strength, she would never tire, and she would never cease to fight, for herself, for others, for the glory of all the great muses that caught her heart. She could not bear injustice, and she would never falter to overcome it.
But never could she be less than a woman, beautiful, giving, enwrap ping all with the passion of her soul, and of her life. Once he had wanted only her smile to touch him. Once he had been enamored of the silk of her flesh, and the sweeping curves and slim angles of her form. Once. But now he knew what it meant to love. It was desire, but more than desire. It was needing the smile as much as the passion. It was wanting to lie down by the still waters as much as to weather the tempestuous storm. It was wanting to share a lifetime together.
“Jamie …”
Once again, she whispered his name. He turned slowly, and saw that she did stand just behind him—no image, no dream, so much more than a reflection.
In her bare feet with her bare calves, her dress falling just above her knees, she seemed exceptionally innocent.
The color of her eyes was true, deep as the night, dark as the desire that suddenly swept over him. He wanted her in his arms—but he dared not touch her. Not until Nalte made his decision.
He swallowed hard and came to his feet. He stared at her and hoped that his scowl was menacing. Yet he didn’t even know if it remained upon his face, for he couldn’t deny the moonlight or the strange, mystical sensation that seemed to touch her. She seemed to be of the supernatural, too beautiful to touch, an angel, a spirit, the spirit of life that pervaded the mountain.
“What are you doing out here?” he demanded harshly. She smiled, a slow cu~rl of her lips that touched her eyes to deep, shimmering radiance. She took a step toward him, shook her head slightly.
And reached for him.
Her arms came around him, giving, soft. She pressed against him. She was naked beneath the buckskin, and her breasts were full and flush against him, the hardened peaks seeming to rake his flesh despite the layers of clothes between them. Sparks tore into him, igniting great fires, ripping through his limbs, thundering down to his groin.
And then she kissed him. Her teeth grazed his lips, and the tip of her tongue encircled his lips, touched the roof of his mouth, swept into his mouth. There was a pounding so fierce he could not deny it.
He touched her. Touched her almost violently, his arms sweeping around her, his lips seizing hard upon hers, his tongue returning each sweet torment she had cast upon him. He swept her from her feet and carried her to the soft embankment. He pressed her to the earth, his mouth still covering hers. He felt the soaring temptation of her nails raking lightly against his back, drawing new, shimmering sensations of deadly heat within him.
This was madness.
He drew his lips back from hers, and her eyes met his. Violet, beguiling, with a touch of fire, a touch of innocence.
Sweetly wicked, she smiled again; she touched his cheek. Her lashes fell demurely, sultry, sensual against the pale marble beauty of her cheek.
She had come to seduce him.
He groaned aloud.
It was madness.
Nalte might well kill them both if he came upon him. But the fire had spread throughout his limbs. Tension and desire pervaded his heart and his mind and knotted fiercely at his loin, driving him to madness. How could she smile so hauntingly, knowing that she invited him to doom. He swore softly, and he touched her lower lip in the moon glow, meeting the wild violet beauty of her eyes. “Lead me to death then, if you would, Miss. Stuart. I cannot leave you now.”
And he seized her lips once again with his own. The rich, verdant scent of the earth and stream surrounded them, and he was lost.
Chapter Twelve
l_9ie? Tess whispered against his lips. Desperate to be near him that night, she had hardly believed the good fortune that had let her come to him, and now, in the magical splendor of the night, he was talking of dying in her arms.
He was so tense above her. His eyes raked over her with a hard edge, and his voice was harsh, but still she felt the depth of his longing. It was luxurious to be so coveted and so desired. And yet she wondered at his words, her eyes widening to his.
“Nalte,” Jamie said, leaning high above her.
“He would kill me in seconds if he found me with you. Is that your plan? To seduce me to my doom?”
She didn’t reply right away. She smiled wickedly and smoothed his hair back from his face.” Would you really die for me?” she whispered softly.
He caught her hand where she touched him and drew her wrists together high over her head, staring down at her. She didn’t know if he loved her or despised her in those seconds, but she did know that he wanted her. Tension con stricter the length of his body, and muscles convulsed at his throat and within the tautness of his features.
“Is that what you want?” he demanded.
He wasn’t smiling. She knew that she had probably tested him beyond endurance, so she whispered softly to him in the night.
“No, I do not want you to die for me. Nalte knows that I am here.”
“What?”
“He came to me and told me that I could go to you, that he had made his decision. We are to stay here until the ceremonies are complete for his sister, then the Apache will see that we are given an escort out of the mountains.”
“Nalte … knows?” Jamie repeated.
She nodded solemnly.
“He said that you told him I was already your woman. He also said that you were either a fool or a very brave man to have come for me, and that a brave man deserves the respect of other brave men. And so he told me that you were here, and that I could come to you.”
He stared down at her, his grip hard upon her wrists as he tried to understand what she was telling him. Nalte had decided in their favor.
There was no need to die here. He could le
ave with Tess.
He could leave with her.
And he could make love to her, here, tonight, in the shadow of the Apache’s mountains, at the stream where life itself and the night seemed mystical.
He cried out harshly and lowered himself over her, his lips parting before they ever touched hers. He ravished her mouth, demanding that it open to his, and he seemed to taste and find all of her, his tongue delving ever deeper, his teeth teasing her lips, his breath mingling with hers, the whole of his kiss so deep and complete and sensual that it was raw and laid her bare. It touched her on a level so intimate that the very decadence aroused her to shattering heights. Then his lips left hers, and she was bereft. The night air touched her lips where they remained damp and moist from his touch.
His fingers were upon the rawhide laces of her buckskin dress. Her breasts spilled free to his touch, and his hand cupped and caressed them, his fingers stroking and arousing her nipples. Then his mouth formed hungrily around one nipple to suckle and tease the hardening bud, to send streams of excitement and desire sweeping through her limbs. She was glad of the darkness.
Flushing, she wondered how it was the searing liquid fire of his kiss touched her breast, yet sent the molten longing to swirl to the base of her abdomen, and lower still to hover and deepen at the apex of her thighs.
It did not matter where he touched. He continued to kiss her as he slowly eased the buckskin from her body. He kissed the nape of her neck, and the tip of his tongue hovered at her earlobe, then ran a trail down her spine as he shifted her body to toss aside the dress. He kissed the inside of her upper arm, and she had never imagined that a touch could elicit such wild stirrings within her. Nor did he allow his kisses to stop there.
Soon she was lying prone upon the verdant earth again, so close to the water that it lapped at her ankles. And even the touch of the water added to the wonder and the magic. It caressed her as the breeze did, as his every touch did. She was whispering things to him, things she should never have said, things about the wonder and desire he created. She struggled to touch him in return, to know more and more of him. Her teeth sank gently upon his shoulders, and her tongue laved every tiny little wound. Her fingers stroked and massaged his shoulders and trembled over every ripple and bulge of his muscle beneath her touch. She shed his shirt, nearly ripping the buttons from it. She touched his chest with her tongue, and she moved lower and lower against him.
But then she found herself prone again, and his hands and lips were moving magic upon her. His kiss touched her, searingly hot. The cool water lapped over her feet and ankles, but the whole of her was achingly hot, a fire against the water. His lips touched her bare belly, and the arches of her feet, and her knees and her thighs. And then he kissed her warmly, intimately, at the very heart of her desire, kissed her body as he would kiss her lips, demanding all and giving her ecstasy in turn.
And still the cool stream washed against her. In the end she rose against him, and they knelt together in the shallows in the night, and her breasts moved against his chest as their lips fused once again, and then the fullness of their bodies. She led him down then to the rich earth, and crawled atop him, her hair a blaze of sunset kissed by the moon, ~r movements smooth and sultry as the touch of golden locks swung over his chest and belly.
In the magic of the night, to the rough and urgent murmurings of his husky voice, she rode the magic of the darkness, and of the man, until the beauty exploded within them and around them, until the sweet satiation and exhaustion seized them, until they were filled with one another. Only then did she fall against him. She didn’t care about the future or the past; she only knew that she had come to him because she had wanted him. And because she loved him.
Nothing else mattered, for she had learned that time and life and love were precious, and this night she had all three.
They were silent together as the moon cast its gentle glow on them.
He stroked her hair softly and at long last he whispered, “It’s true—Nalte sent you to me?” She nodded happily against his chest.
“It’s true,” she whispered.
“Thank God,” he breathed.
“He’s very upset.”
“He is?”
“He doesn’t like the idea that von Heusen has been causing so much trouble.
He told me that the Apache raid, and that they make war, and that these are separate things. They raid for foodstuffs and other things they need, they do not raid to kill. When they make war, they do so to kill. But they do not kill children, and they do not slaughter animals needlessly. He says there is enough trouble between the 245 whites and the Indians. He doesn’t usually have much use for the Comanche himself, and the tribes have warred for generations, but he cannot see the Comanche blamed for a white man’s sins.”
“You had quite a long talk with him,” Jamie commented.
“Jealous?” she asked sweetly.
He grunted.
She braced her hands upon his chest, staring deeply into his eyes.
“I like him, Jamie.”
Jamie laced his fingers behind his head as he watched her eyes.
“Want to stay with him?” he asked.
Words, gentle words, self-betraying words, hovered on Tess’s lips. I like Nalte, but I love you, she almost said. But she could not dispel the memory of Eliza hanging on to him, trying to force him to love her in return. She would never do that, she swore. It was dangerous to fall in love with Jamie Slater.
If nothing else, Tess wanted her dignity left to her.
She forced a smile to her lips and asked lightly, “Trying to get rid of me?”
“You are a hell of a lot of trouble,” he told her frankly. “Yes, but you’ve already come this far.”
“So I have.”
“And I really am worth it.”
“Are you?” His eyebrows shot up.
She nodded. Then she moved very low against him again. She let her hair float over his chest as she lowered her lips to his slick bronze flesh. She shimmied her body against him as she inched lower down the length of his body, her thighs locked around him, moving sinuously against him. She felt the quick rasp of his breath, and she let her lips linger upon the spot where she could hear the frantic beating of his heart.
Then she moved lower and lower, daring to touch him instinctively, exploring what was intensely male about him with little subtlety and tremendous fascination. Her body undulated upon his. She discovered her own prowess and power, and drove him nearly to madness. All that he had demanded of her she took in return. He shuddered violently beneath her touch, his fingers digging into the earth when she caressed him as boldly with her lips and tongue as he had done to her. He shouted out hoarsely, and she was soon pinned to the earth as he took her almost savagely, with a driving, explicit hunger that seemed to rend the very heavens.
And when the stars had exploded to dance within the night sky and go still again, he whispered tenderly against her ear, “My love, you are worth it indeed.”
They stayed by the water a little while longer. Whatever came in the future, Tess knew that she would dream of this place as long as she lived.
She began to shiver, and he covered her in the doeskin dress once again, and then he suggested that they return to the tepee in the village.
They slept that night alone together in the teix~ where she had been taken earlier that day. They slept, having shed their clothing once again, wound into one another’s arms within the warm shelter of an Apache blanket.
When morning came, they were still together.
During the next few days, they were Nalte’s honored guests. They attended the ceremonies for his sister, Little Flower, and Tess was amazed to find that she had discovered a strange peace here, living with the Apache. Nalte spent time with the two of them. Sometimes he ignored Tess and engaged in long conversations with Jamie in his Apache tongue. But sometimes he spoke in English, including Tess. Once, when they were alone, Jamie having gone to join a bunting party
, Nalte took it upon himself to teach her something about the Apache ways.
He explained to her about the Gan,” or Mountain Spirit Dancers. In their masks, they impersonated the Mountains Spirits. They evoked the power of the supernaturals to cure illness, drive away evil and bring good fortune. They assembled in a cave, and under the guidance of a special Gan shaman, they donned their sacred costumes. They held great power, and therefore they were obliged to honor severe restrictions.
They were not to recognize friends once they were in their attire, nor were they to dance incorrectly or to tamper with the sacred costume or clothing once it had been left within a secret cache. To disobey any of the restrictions could bring calamity down upon the dancer or his family or tribe. To disobey could bring about sickness, madness, even death.
“We are a people of ritual,” he told her.
“We celebrate the Holiness Rite and the Ceremonial Relay. For the Holiness Rite the shaman must go through arduous procedures, imitating the bear and the snake, and curing the people of the powerful bear and snake sicknesses.
The Ceremonial Relay tells us of our food supply—game and the harvest of nature. Runners symbolize the sun and the animals, and the moon and the plants. If the sun runners win, game will be in plenty for us. If the moon runners win, then we will feast on the harvest of the plants.”
“You live a good life here,” Tess said.
“I live a good life, yes, but I fear the day when white men come to take it from me.”
“But surely, here” — “They will come, the white men will come. War will tear apart the mountains, and blood will stain the rivers. It is inevitable.
But when the time comes, I will remember you, and Slater, and I will know that all whites are not the same. Yes, it is good here. Now. And you, I think that you are at She smiled at him.
“I do not believe it, but yes, I am at peace here.”
Nalte stared at the fire that burned in the center of the village.
“You might have been happy had you stayed,” he said quietly.
“And maybe not. Our women are the gatherers. The first green vegetables are the yucca, and the women collect them. Then they must collect the me seal stalks and roast them and grind them into paste. We eat the mescal as paste, and as the cakes you have been given with your meals. It is a hard life.”
Apache Summer Page 23