The Bearwalker's Daughter

by Beth Trissel

  Here lay no boy newly sprung to manhood, but a well-honed frontiersman and Lord only knew what else. Joseph paled in comparison with his striking brother, partly because Jack was new and different. Wonderfully so. But she couldn’t stand and stare at him all night.

  She laid her hand on his forehead, relieved to find no sign of fever. Neeley was familiar with all the healing herbs and had taught Karin well. Jack’s robust health would also aid his recovery. Confident he was on the mend, Karin let her curious inspection drift to the white stone suspended from the leather cord around his neck. Pink lights in the quartz shimmered with rosy iridescence. Intrigued, she reached out her hand to the polished surface—freezing as he groaned.

  His eyes opened. In that instant, any resemblance between the brothers vanished. Jack’s seeing, yet not seeing, gaze fixed on her with a feral gleam.

  Fear rushed through her. Snatching her hand away, she spun around.

  Not fast enough.

  She gasped as he snagged her wrist and jerked her down onto the bed. Snaking his sound arm around her chest, he pinned both arms at her sides. His injured limb was equally able—the pain seemingly forgotten in his craze.

  Whipping out his knife, he poised it at her throat. Just like that, she was a heart-pounding slice away from death. Surely her chest would burst.

  “What do you want?” he demanded hoarsely.

  Breathless, she faltered, “Nothing—Jack—it’s Karin—”

  He tensed and stilled, then lowered his blade with a strangled oath. “Bloody hell. What have I gone and done?”

  Mad! He was a madman!

  Senses reeling, she would’ve tilted to the floor if not for his crushing hold. She was only partly aware of him sheathing his knife. If this lunacy seized him again, he might whip it back out, or strangle her, less blood that way if he wanted to conceal his vile deed.

  Her fingers tingled. Her head spun. She couldn’t get her breath. Taking short rapid pants, she slumped against him in swirling darkness.

  ****

  Wincing from the wrench in his shoulder, Jack rotated onto his good side and tucked the unconscious woman against his chest, back to front. How in hell had he landed in this mess? He hadn’t expected Karin to come to him. At least, not yet. And then, here she was and he’d frightened her nearly to death, maybe squeezed the breath from her as well.

  Poor girl. Covering her chilled body with the bedcovers, he closed his sore arm around her, fortunate he hadn’t torn open the wound in his delusion and drenched them both in blood. What on earth had come over him? He was never brutish to women.

  Had the potion she’d dosed him with been too much on top of all the brandy, or had one too many battles finally caught up with him and triggered his cagey senses? In spite of Jack’s annoyance with himself and the lingering cloudiness in his mind, he was keenly aware of Karin…how the back of her head fitted nicely under his chin the way he held her.

  The curves pressing against him from beneath her shift and the lustrous hair spilling over him were heavenly, his idea of heaven, anyway. Golden streets held scant interest for him. The sweet fragrance of lavender hung about her, an herb he remembered from his childhood. Just the whiff of it carried him back to long forgotten days, or so he’d thought.

  Never in his life had Jack held such a desirable woman. She roused him to his core. But the last time he’d been this close to a female of any description, he’d had a far more ardent aim in mind than reviving her from a faint. “But I didn’t attack that one,” he muttered.

  Having Karin live in dread of him wouldn’t suit his purpose at all, and it surely wouldn’t suit Shequenor’s. He envisioned the mature warrior’s black eyes with the forbidding gleam that fired daggers through even the most hardened men. Shequenor had scant tolerance for fools, and Jack wasn’t off to a promising start with his only daughter. And Shequenor would know. Invariably, he always did, blast him, like some sort of sorcerer.

  All this flashed through Jack’s clearing mind. He gently shook Karin and bent his head to whisper in her ear, momentarily distracted by the shapely curve of her lobe. “Come on, Karin. Wake up.”

  She stirred with a sigh like one waking from a pleasant sleep, and then her whole body stiffened. “What—where am I?”

  “With me, Jack,” he reassured her, aware that he was having the opposite effect of the calm he’d intended. She shrank from him as far as she could in his hold and strained toward the edge of the bed.

  “No,” she cried under her breath, seemingly too frightened to even call out.

  Again, he spoke in soothing tones. “I’m not going to harm you, Karin. I swear it.”

  She whimpered. Such a soft cry, like a kitten’s low mew, it gave his heart an odd twist.

  “Let me go,” she pleaded tremulously.

  “Not yet. I want to be certain you’re all right first.”

  “Please. I must return to my chamber.”

  “You’ll never make it in that state. You’ll drop before you reach the door.”

  She fought to pull from him in rising panic. “Turn me loose—”

  He clamped his free hand over her smooth lips. “Hush. I can’t have you waking the entire household. They already think I’m a renegade. I don’t feel up to running the gauntlet just now if your grandfather finds you in here.”

  Karin ceased her futile striving and lay as still as a badly shaken woman could, held in a way Jack imagined no other man would dare. Not with her burly relations closing ranks around her like their most prized possession.

  “Shhhh. Not a peep,” he warned, and lifted his hand several inches from her mouth.

  She seemed to be listening.

  Trained to detect the slightest change in expression or mannerism, he found her childishly easy to read.

  “What’s running the gauntlet?” she whispered through chattering teeth.

  Didn’t these people tell her anything?

  “That’s the welcome two rows of Indians give captives newly arrived at their village, pelting the unfortunates as they run through unless a stalwart brave intercedes for them.”

  A sigh shuddered through her. “Oh. I don’t think Grandpa would do that to you. Please, sir—Jack—let me go.”

  “Not yet. You’re shaking like a newborn foal left out in the wet, but I fancy the sound of Sir Jack. Like a noble knight, don’t you think?”

  “You are nothing like.”

  “Please believe me, I never meant to alarm you. I’m desperately sorry for what happened.”

  She uncurled a little from the ball she’d knotted herself into. “Why did you go for me that way?”

  “I’m a hardened fighter used to sleeping with one eye open. The dosing you gave me must have shut them both.”

  “Neeley’s brew is a bit strong,” she conceded.

  He chuckled under his breath. “You make it sound as if I can’t handle my liquor.”

  She unwound a little more. “Her stuff’s worse.”

  “Must be. I’m not given to bouts of madness.

  Truly. I beg you to accept my deepest apology.”

  He didn’t really expect her to grant his plea, but she remained silent for a time, and then said, “Very well. I accept, as long as you don’t do it again.”

  Her open candor touched him. “I’m indebted to you, Miss, and give you my word I won’t lift a finger against you.”

  Karin’s trembling further diminished and she seemed more relaxed. He really should let her slip back to her chamber, but hated to relinquish his hold. The brew might be partly responsible for his rash behavior. His life wouldn’t be worth a rat’s ass if the McNeal men found them together like this, not to mention little brother. Even so, stealing even one single kiss would be well worth all hell breaking loose.

  Blocking Shequenor’s growls from his mind like the ominous rumbles of a brooding storm, along with everyone else’s, Jack breathed a whisper into her ear. “You are the sweetest girl, Karin McNeal.”

  She hesitated as if tak
en aback, but not necessarily unwilling to hear him.

  Jack slipped his fingers through her hair, luxuriating in each silken strand. What extravagance. The cascade fell to her waist. Braided, it would be as thick as his wrist. “I’ve never met your like before.”

  “No man has,” she said simply.

  “I’m honored to be the first.”

  Shrieking wind buffeted the house, but the checked curtains around the bed made a cozy hideaway. His present circumstance provided as ample an opportunity as Jack was likely to get. He turned Karin toward him so that they lay face to face, her questioning eyes just visible in the dim light.

  He sought to put her at ease. “I won’t harm a hair on your fair head. I swear it.”

  She explored him with the uncertainty of a doe, but didn’t pull away. Neither did he draw her against him as he mightily wanted to. Instead, he restrained himself and let her alluring form remain slightly apart from his heated body, even though a glance at her loose shift gave him a glimpse of her rounded breasts. Surely, she was a fevered hallucination and would fade into nothingness.

  She didn’t. Still she gazed at him, curious, timid, yet with undeniable admiration in her widened eyes.

  Jack hadn’t lost his touch altogether. As though reaching to an edgy filly, he slowly lifted his hand and trailed his fingers over her smooth cheek. She shivered slightly, but remained watchful, inquisitive.

  So far, so good. He cupped his hand around her chin, an undulating curve in her oval face, such delicate features… such innocence…a rare woman-child. “Your face feels like petals.”

  “Should you be touching it, sir—Jack?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve journeyed untold miles to find you, dear lady.” He could almost see the thoughts whirring in her mind as she tried to work this out.

  “How did you know I would be here?”

  He wasn’t going into all of that now, not when he had her so delectably close. “Shhhh...I’ll tell you later,” he said, tilting her mouth nearer and nearer to his. She didn’t try to evade him but remained unresisting, almost mesmerized. And perhaps she was.

  Jack fell under some kind of spell as he gently covered her untutored lips with his knowing mouth. She yielded to his tenderness like one tumbling into a dream, and he took every care with her virgin kiss...pressing her soft lips with a light coaxing touch. What a sensual delight she was and oblivious of her appeal, which only made her more so. Everything about her was new and protected, like tasting honey from a never before discovered bee tree, or finding a precious stone no one else had touched.

  Desire pulsed through him with shocking force and he barely suppressed a groan. His loins tightened as he fought the nearly overwhelming urge to catch her to him. He’d never wanted any woman this powerfully before, let alone this soon.

  He truly must have run mad, and was getting crazier by the moment. Little brother would kill him for taking what he, no doubt, longed for, and Jack wouldn’t blame Joseph if he did. But nothing would’ve induced him to relinquish his claim on her. This was war, the lips beneath his, too sweet. As for Shequenor, he must wait a while longer to see his daughter.

  Then Karin broke from his mouth as if she’d suddenly come to her senses. “You are too bold, sir,” she panted, her chest rising and falling beneath her shift.

  The sight and feel of her rent him with the most exquisite torture. “I shall be bolder still, Miss, given half the chance.

  Her eyes widened ever more. “You mustn’t.”

  “I make no promises.” But he didn’t prevent her pulling away and scrambling from the bed. She flew out the door in a glorious swirl of black hair.

  Smiling to himself, he stretched out under the blankets. He’d felt the first flames of wanting spring up in Karin and knew what she did not yet realize. Jack McCray wasn’t so easy to escape.

  A sobering thought followed on the heels of his headiness. Neither was Shequenor.

  Chapter Four

  The unremitting breeze rattled the square panes of glass in Karin’s chamber window. Ever since Jack McCray had enveloped—nay, invaded—her world, she’d been too distracted to distinguish the whispers in its muttering, let alone try and discern their meaning. The candle on the stand flickered in the draft as she shivered through a sponge bath. For some mysterious or not so mysterious reason, she took more pains than usual with her toilette this morning while trying to think of anything other than the outrageous newcomer.

  Her exasperation only grew. The more she pushed searing images of him aside, the more he thrust back into her inflamed consciousness like a comet shooting across the sky. For heaven’s sake, Jack attacked you, she admonished herself while drying her goose-pimpled skin.

  That wasn’t all he’d done. Flushing hotly, she wriggled into her shift. What an unbelievably rousing first kiss. Dear Lord. What would a second one be like?

  She bent her leg to pull on a cream-colored stocking. Thoroughly discomfited, she lost her balance and stumbled. Any feelings this potent must be suspect.

  Jack McCray was a dangerous man, rather like the untamed stallion Grandpa bought that she’d badly wanted to ride, only her emotions toward Jack were a hundred times stronger and a cauldron of confusion.

  So, why did a volatile part of her yearn to be close to him? Was she entirely devoid of reason?

  She’d never been before. But now…

  Back well away, she warned herself, tying crimson garters below her knees.

  She lifted the stopper from a glass bottle and dabbed perfume behind her ears, on her throat, and wrists, as if to shield herself in scent.

  Swaddled in her gray shawl, Neeley shuffled into the room. “Phew.” She fanned the air. “’Tis like a great posy in here. You’ll empty that smelling bottle in hurry and your grandfather’s not one for journeying to town more’n twice a year.”

  Karin restored the stopper. “Spoils me shamelessly when he does go, doesn’t he?”

  Neeley shrugged rounded shoulders. “He’s worked hard to bring you up proper. Besides, ’tis your twentieth birthday, the harvest’s plentiful, the animals thriving. If he wants to provide you and Sarah some of the niceties ladies enjoy and take on a few servants so you don’t work yourselves to death, that’s his affair. Be thankful.”

  Again, the stabs of conscience. Karin stepped into a crimson-striped petticoat. “I am. He’s a good man.”

  Neeley’s wrinkled face creased in a grimace. “With the temper of a newly roused bear.”

  Smiling faintly, Karin tied the skirt at her waist then slid her arms into the sleeveless bodice. “I’m sorry to be so late in dressing. I overslept,” she said, neglecting to mention her petrification at the thought of seeing Jack again. To her chagrin, she was equally enthralled and afraid of making a spectacle of herself.

  “Most folks have eaten and gone on home.” Neeley laced up the crimson bodice at Karin’s chest, tugged it snugly and smoothed the peplum skirting that fell around her hips. “Some men hung on here. They’re having a lively discussion.”

  “What about?”

  “The big race tomorrow.”

  “Of course. Horses.” Karin tried to appear casual. “How’s Mister McCray this morning? Is he on the mend? Has he risen?”

  Weighing her with a speculative look from beneath hooded eyes, Neeley said, “He’s dressed, eaten, and visiting with the men. My herbs and your skill at surgery must have stood him in good stead.”

  “I expect so,” Karin hastily agreed, wondering if that audacious kiss had spurred on his healing as well.

  “My, aren’t your cheeks abloom and your eyes bright. This wouldn’t have anything to do with Jack McCray, would it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Amusement hinted at the older woman’s thin lips. “I wouldn’t blame you for fancying him.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Most girls would.” Neeley took the wooden-handled brush from the washstand. “He’s handsome, and unlike the men you’re accustomed to.”

 
Karin shook her head. “He’s not at all suited to me.”

  “That so?” Neeley arched one gray brow. “How do you know so much of him? The fellow’s a right mystery.”

  Karin chewed her lower lip, fearful she’d been found out. “He is. I don’t.”

  “Then keep still ‘til you do.” Neeley was thoughtful. “I reckon God sent him to us for a purpose.”

  Covered with goosebumps from more than the draft, Karin sank onto a stool. She wasn’t about to share her discovery of Jack’s purpose in the night, nor had he explained the secrecy behind his coming. Trepidation churned in her along with nervous excitement while Neeley brushed her hair.

  The old woman pinned the rippling lengths up on Karin’s head, curling tendrils around bent fingers to frame her face. She nodded in approval. “Never mind putting on your cap. It spoils my work. Come eat your breakfast and see what our visitor thinks of you.”

  Leaping up off her seat, Karin declared, “Grandpa would have forty fits and so would Joseph if Mister McCray takes any notice of me at all.”

  Neeley waved away her protest. “Joseph’s a good man, but must come to see the truth of things.”

  Karin regarded her blankly. “I’ve no notion what you mean, but I promised Uncle Thomas I’d think on wedding him.”

  “Did you, indeed?”

  Sometimes Neeley had the most maddening way about her. “I care for Joseph dearly.”

  With a sage eye, she said, “As a brother, eh?”