Hostage Heart

by Lindsay McKenna

  Maria shook her head. “No, no, Patrona. Remember? You wanted me to awaken you in case you overslept this morning. I have breakfast waiting for you.”

  With a relieved sigh, Lark got up. “Will you start a fire, Maria? As soon as I make sure Matt is all right, I’ll go eat.”

  Heartened by her mistress’s words, Maria bobbed her head. “Sí, Patrona, I’ll get the wood and make a fire that will warm the room quickly.” She hurried out of the room.

  Rubbing her eyes tiredly, Lark moved over to Matt and sat down on the bed, facing him. This morning some of the dark shadows beneath his eyes had disappeared. A soft smile touched her mouth as she pressed the palm of her hand against his brow. His skin was cool and dry.

  “Thank you, Us’an,” she murmured in Apache, relief washing through her. And to her healing di-yin, she prayed, “Speed his recovery so that he may once again feel his bearlike strength.”

  Lark no longer questioned her need of Matt Kincaid; she simply accepted the strings that tugged at her heart each time she touched him.

  She pushed several strands of his brown hair, which now gleamed with gold highlights, off his brow. A tremor of yearning fluttered through her as she moved her hand through those wonderfully thick locks.

  Maria returned with a rustle of skirts. “Patrona, I have heard the Old Ones talking,” she said. “They do not think you should risk this trip to Prescott today. Can you not wait until my husband, Paco, returns? They think it is dangerous for you to go into the white people’s town alone.”

  Lark slipped into her newest pair of Levi’s and pulled a red long-sleeved shirt over her head, smoothing it out across her tall, slender form. “I know the wranglers will be back soon, but I’ve waited too long as it is, Maria. I can’t let it go one more day. I have that Army voucher, which means I can buy food and deposit money for the mortgage. If there was a fire or I lost the voucher, then we would lose the ranch.” She shook her head, her hair a silken curtain around her shoulders. Standing in front of the mirror, she wrapped a red headband securely around her hair to keep it in place.

  “But, Patrona, it is dangerous! I heard Captain Herter tell Lieutenant Wilson as they rode out that you were doing a foolish thing by going alone.” Maria wrung her hands. “Please, Patrona, we all love you. We have already lost your mother and now your father. We cannot lose you, too.”

  Impulsively, Lark hugged the small, plump woman. “Thank you for your concern, Maria, but I have to go. Danger or no danger.” Silently Lark added, I am doing this for my father. He wouldn’t want me to act like a weakling at this time. Besides, the Apache respected courage and a show of strength, not cowardice in the face of danger. Today Lark must be an Apache. In some small part of her heart, she knew she was frightened. But pride in her Indian heritage would get her through this day. She buckled on a hand-tooled leather belt inlaid with silver and turquoise, a gift from one of the Tonto Apache chiefs. It would hold her eighteen-inch bowie knife.

  Poignantly Lark recalled her father taking her aside when she was twelve years old, just before she went to live weekdays in Prescott with the Harrises. “Remember, colleen, people only respect someone who shows strength and courage. Go there with your head held high and be proud of who and what you are.” She allowed the grief to move through her, missing her father even more.

  Still unconvinced of Lark’s safety, Maria pleaded once more. “One day, Patrona! Perhaps two. Surely you can wait that long?”

  “My father was supposed to bring back a month’s worth of supplies a week ago, Maria,” she said tightly, moving to the bed. “We have no more flour for your tortillas and we’re low on salt. Not only that, but Opata is in need of nails with which to shoe our horses. And you know how rough the country is on their hooves without proper protection.” She wrung out a cloth, scrubbing the soap until it lathered against it. “More importantly, that voucher must be safely placed in the bank.” She looked up at Maria, who stood by the fireplace. Her voice grew strained. “Father always went to Prescott the day after receiving such a paper from the Army. He knew the urgency in getting it to safety.” She shook her head stubbornly. “I’ll hear no more of your worry, Maria. We have enough problems. Please don’t make me feel any worse than I do already.”

  Contrite, Maria moved to the other side of the bed, her round features solemn. “Aren’t you afraid to go into Prescott alone?”

  Lark gently washed Matt’s face, neck and shoulders. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid.” Her nostrils flared as she scrubbed his long, well-muscled limbs. “My mother was a woman chief. She had courage that they still sing about at each gathering of the Chiricahua tribe. How can I shame her by putting my tail between my legs like a beaten dog? No, I’ll pray to my di-yin to protect me. I will have my knife and my rifle. I need nothing more.”

  “Then take me with you! I will drive the buckboard and you can ride Kentucky.”

  With a sigh, Lark looked over at the Mexican woman. “A-co-d. Thank you.” She used the word rarely because it meant so much to the Apache people. Maria bowed her head, her lower lip trembling.

  “Will you watch over Señor Kincaid while I am gone?” Lark asked. “Change his dressing tonight? I won’t arrive back in time to do it.”

  With a sniff, Maria nodded. “Sí, Patrona, I will care for him.”

  “If anything happens and you need help, bring Ny-Oden to the room. He will instruct you.”

  Maria moved dejectedly to the door. “Sí, I will ask him, Patrona. I won’t be able to care for Señor Kincaid as well as you do, but I promise I’ll do my best.”

  A slight smile came to Lark’s lips as she settled her gaze on Maria. It moved her deeply that Maria was worried for her safety. She had no idea how much the people who had worked for her father also cared for her. “I see,” she said lightly. “You will make me worry that he’ll be a snarling bear in pain so that I will return more quickly. Is that it?”

  A hesitant smile fled across Maria’s bowlike mouth. “You see too easily through my plan, Patrona.” She giggled, her hands pressed to her lips, her eyes dancing. “I see you care deeply for this hombre.”

  Heat prickled Lark’s cheeks as she washed Matt’s broad chest and hard, flat belly. “I would care the same for any injured human or animal,” she told Maria defensively. By Us’an, were her feelings for Matt that transparent? Lark nearly choked on the discovery.

  Another giggle escaped Maria as she stood poised in the doorway. “Aiyee, Patrona, do not blush so! You look like a red poppy in a green field. Indeed, if I did not love my Paco and our four niños, I would gladly make it known that I liked Señor Kincaid.”

  With a soft snort, Lark rinsed out the cloth before wiping Matt’s chest and belly free of soap. “Bring me the freshly ground poultice. I’ll change his dressing. And have Rafael hitch up the two mules to the buckboard and bring them up to the house.”

  “Right away, Patrona.” Maria turned on her bare feet and disappeared down the hall. As soon as she returned with the new poultice, she went about her morning household duties.

  Lark pulled the blanket away from Matt’s wound. She set to work slitting the bandage and then gently sponging the dressing free from the leg. As she tried to carefully lift the yellowish-pink dressing, she heard him draw in a swift breath. Hands frozen over his leg, her head snapped up. Her widened blue eyes met his dark gray ones.

  Lark went hot as his eyes probed her like a hawk preparing to devour his prey. But she saw something else in the dark, pain-filled depths of his gaze, an emotion that she couldn’t readily identify. Automatically she felt her breasts tighten, her nipples growing hard against the rough cotton of her shirt. He was so blatantly male.

  Shakily, as if in a daze, Lark lifted away the dressing. “I do not mean to hurt you,” she said, “but the packing must be changed.”

  Matt stared at her, unable to stop the hardening of his male member. Sweet God in heaven, her touch on his body was like wildfire consuming dry prairie grass. He had trie
d valiantly to ignore it. The conversation between the two women was too important to give away the fact that he had been awake. Later, he would think about what they had said. Right now, he couldn’t think, could only feel the licking flames in the wake of her cool, gentle touch upon his flesh.

  Struggling to control his powerful desire, Matt tried to use his hatred and anger to consume those flames burning deep within him. He tried to resurrect his hatred of Ga’n and direct it against Lark instead. But it was impossible. The red shirt she wore only emphasized the dusky gold of her young, glowing skin and heightened the blush over her high, smooth cheekbones. When she nervously licked her lower lip, he almost groaned. The thought of feeling that full mouth blossom beneath his own almost unstrung him and his heart hammered away in his chest.

  Her face was young and innocent. It was not a perfect face, but somehow it was maddeningly arresting, to the point that he couldn’t tear away his fascinated gaze. Guilt consumed him. Katie had just died, yet he was responding to Lark like a ram in rutting season. What the hell was happening to him?

  Matt had seen the same confusion in Lark’s clear, widening eyes. Whatever it was, they both felt it equally. He tried to concentrate on the imperfection of her face. Her cheekbones were too high, giving her eyes almost a catlike tilt. But they only made her look like the golden cougar he had imagined her in his fevered dreams. There was a bump on her nose, indicating she had broken it once. Her eyebrows were slender and winged, framing her flawless eyes. Grudgingly, Matt had to admit he could find no further imperfections.

  Lark blinked, as if in a dream. “I…I must change the poultice.” Did her voice sound breathy, like a wisp of fog stealing through a pine?

  “Do it,” he growled.

  The coldness in his voice snapped her out of her daze. Lark frowned, feeling his icy eyes slash straight through and scar her wildly beating heart. But, despite his anger, her nipples continued to pucker against her shirt. The strange, aching feeling in her breasts and womb continued.

  What could she do? The peaks of her nipples were clearly outlined by the fabric. It was taboo for her to react this way. As she got up to retrieve the poultice, she inadvertently bumped the water bowl, sending it smashing to the floor. Stumbling back, a hand across her mouth to stifle her cry, she felt the tenuous, throbbing cord that bound them to one another break.

  Maria came rushing into the room, her skirts flying around her ankles. She halted upon seeing the broken crockery. “I’ll clean it up, Patrona,” she reassured Lark, and left for towels to sop up the water spreading quickly across the oak floor.

  Humiliated, Lark bowed her head, feeling her cheeks burn as never before, feeling Matt’s eyes scalding her. Her fingers trembled as she picked up a cloth, preparing to cleanse the wound.

  “For being half white, you sure as hell act like a shy Apache woman.”

  Lark lifted her chin, furious at his grating comment, prepared to do verbal battle with him. When she realized there was no condemnation in his gray eyes, she was momentarily at a loss.

  “I’m half Apache.”

  “You’re also half white, if I recall.”

  Bristling, Lark gingerly washed around the wound with warm, soapy water. She felt him stiffen and took almost savage pleasure in giving back some of the pain he had caused her. Almost…

  Matt saw the anger burn in her eyes like blue cobalt. He tensed, locking his hands into fists as she gently dug the old poultice out of the wound. Sweat beaded his drawn brow and a curse hissed from between his clenched teeth. “You have a hell of a way of getting even,” he rasped, sweat dribbling down his temples.

  “I’m not getting even! Your wound must be cleaned before I can put on a fresh poultice.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you get me a doctor from Prescott like I asked?”

  Stung by his ungrateful attitude, Lark stubbornly set her lips and replaced the poultice. “No doctor would come out here, that’s why.”

  “You can’t be more than forty miles from Prescott. Or didn’t you even try, thinking you could kill me with your chants and that smelly green stuff you’re jamming into my leg.”

  The man was insufferable! Lark washed her fingers and gently laid a new dressing over his leg. “We’re twenty miles from town, Mr. Kincaid. Very few whites ever come to the Gallagher Ranch.”

  The throbbing pain began to recede and Matt slowly let his muscles relax, feeling suddenly shaky in the aftermath. In all fairness, Lark’s touch was anything but painful. She was expert and quick about changing the dressings. With maddening ease, he found himself perversely enjoying prodding and poking at her. The anger in her eyes only made her appear that much more desirable.

  “Why don’t whites come here?” he goaded.

  “Because the whites of Prescott hate us. We are the wrong mix of color and belief for them.” She flashed an angry look toward him. There was a contemptuous smile on his unshaven face and Lark wanted to slap it off his features. He was a rude and obnoxious guest. But what else did she expect? He was a pindah.

  Maria came in and silently began picking up the pieces of broken pottery and mopping up the water.

  “Don’t they respect your white half?” he drawled.

  “Not any more than I respect them,” she replied between set lips. Carefully Lark rolled clean strips of white cloth around his thigh, covering the poultice.

  “Maybe if you’d dress like a normal white woman, someone might take you seriously and quit treating you like an Injun.”

  That did it! Lark sucked in a swift breath, her hands stilling on his leg. Her eyes narrowed in blue fury. “And if I tended you in a dress instead of in these clothes, would you treat me any differently?”

  “Might.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Then you’re as blind and insensitive as all the other pindahs I know! Clothes do not make a person. At least the Apache judge one another on far more important considerations than that!”

  Matt grinned lopsidedly, thinking how fiery and untamed she appeared in that molten moment. He longed to reach out, slide his fingers through that ebony cascade, and find out how just how soft and silken it was. “What do Apache judge another person by?”

  She forced herself to finish the bandaging, her temper stealing her ability to think clearly. “Apaches celebrate the good in another person, their wisdom, physical strength, industriousness, and, most importantly, their generosity with food and gifts to those who are less fortunate than themselves.” She nailed him with a glare, knotting the cotton savagely and then standing up. “Clothes mean nothing to us. They are practical, that’s all. Which just shows me how shallow you pindahs are. Why should I claim my white half when I’m ashamed of how they act?”

  Matt scowled, watching as she stood stiffly before him. “So where are you going all dressed up?” he asked sarcastically.

  Bending down, Lark helped Maria retrieve the last shards of the bowl. “I’m going into Prescott. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Then bring a real doctor back with you. I don’t want my leg to fall off.”

  Fury boiled through her. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “If I could, I would. If I was allowed, I’d dump you into pindah hands and have peace once more on the ranch.”

  At that moment, she looked to Matt like an Apache war chief. Her head was high, her chin thrust out, her shoulders proudly thrown back with her booted legs slightly spread for good balance. She was part woman, part savage, and part beautiful animal. Her long, black hair hung almost to her waist, cloaking her in an ebony sheet that enhanced her natural Apache wildness.

  “Then take me along with you,” he said. “Anything’s better than staying here.”

  Maria glanced apprehensively at Lark, then at Kincaid, and then excused herself.

  Lark wrestled with her temper. She placed her hands on her hips, a distinct Apache gesture that meant to warn the other person that she was in a joking or teasing mood. She had done it unconsciously. “If you want to risk bleeding
to death over a bumpy road for five hours, I don’t care. If dying is suddenly more important to you than living, that is your choice. I have no men here to help carry you to the buckboard, so if you want to go with me, then get up!”

  Matt didn’t believe he would bleed to death. He tried to sit up—three times he tried. Sweat stood out on his brow as he struggled. Glaring at her, he saw amusement etched clearly in Lark’s narrowed blue eyes. She was laughing at him. Damn her! He wanted to strangle her. As he lay back, breathing hard, Matt knew that wasn’t true. No, he wanted to take her down beneath him and feel her body move sensuously below his, like a big, golden cat being stroked by her master. A flash of desire snuffed out his anger.

  “Looks like you win this round,” he gritted out. “I’m still your prisoner.”

  “You are a guest here, not a prisoner.” Lark allowed her hands to slip from her slim hips, suddenly feeling drained by their confrontation. She walked around the bed to the dresser and pulled out the honed steel blade of her bowie knife. It was a beautifully balanced weapon, one that Cochise had gifted her with many years before. Slipping it into the scabbard she carried low on her left hip, Lark turned back to Matt. He was watching her with a strange expression on his face. Was it admiration or disgust? She was too exhausted to care.

  “Wait,” he called as she walked toward the door.

  Lark barely turned toward him. “I want no more words with you, Mr. Kincaid. I am not your enemy. I never have been. If you hate me and my people, so be it. While I’m gone, I ask that you treat Maria and Ny-Oden, the old shaman, with respect. If you hate Apaches, then take it out on me when I return, not on them. They only want you to get better and live. They don’t deserve your rudeness.”

  His mouth softened as he heard the infinite weariness in her low voice. The change in Lark was startling; one moment she was a fiery hellion, the next a woman who carried too many heavy responsibilities on her young, inexperienced shoulders. He vividly recalled the conversation earlier between Lark and Maria about the dangers of going into Prescott alone.