Samuel swallowed down the lump in his craw and clenched his hands tightly on the saddle horn.
All he'd told Frank was that Claire had gone missing, that someone must have taken her. There was no need to get the boy riled up over her breaking off their engagement. Besides, it was too soon to know exactly what had happened. There had been no ransom note, but if that was the kidnapper's purpose, Samuel would gladly pay whatever it cost to get his daughter back. And Claire would no doubt be so grateful to be home and under the protection of her fiancé after such an ordeal that she'd forget all about calling off the wedding.
In the distance, Samuel saw Frank dismount and cautiously approach Thunder, while the coy animal kept dancing out of his reach. Finally, the young man lost his temper, hurling his hat to the ground. With a taunting whinny, Thunder then trotted past Frank and headed straight toward Samuel and the search party.
The ranch hands caught the runaway beast, who looked like he’d had enough adventure for one night. Samuel got off his horse to inspect his prize stallion. The horse had no saddle, just a rope around his neck. Whoever had taken Claire had either been in a panicked rush or accustomed to riding bareback. He thought again about the half-breed he’d questioned at the Parlor. The man had had a pretty solid alibi. Still, he seemed the most likely candidate.
Thunder’s left side was lightly scraped and coated with dirt, as if he’d been in a mudslide. Could the stallion have lost his footing in the rain? And if so, had Claire been hurt in the fall? Was she lying helpless somewhere with a broken neck?
The idea froze the blood in Samuel’s veins. But he couldn’t let fear paralyze him. If Claire was in trouble, time was of the essence.
Frank rode up then and slid out of his saddle with a scowl. "Son of a bitch. Look at that flank. What the hell did that bastard do? Thunder’s our best stallion. When I get my hands on the sick son of a bitch who did this...” He kicked at the dirt. "Damn!"
The young man’s appraisal of the situation didn’t sit well with Samuel. Shouldn’t Frank be more concerned with Claire’s welfare than getting revenge on a horse thief? Then again, he supposed they were all under a good deal of stress. Frank could be forgiven for getting his priorities mixed up.
Still, Samuel didn’t think Claire’s kidnapper was a “sick son of a bitch” at all. He’d been clever and careful. He’d taken Claire with stealth, not bravado. As for stealing the horse, Frank had been unable to find fresh prints to indicate the man had arrived at Parker Ranch on horseback, so naturally he’d needed transportation. And so far there’d been no evidence of real harm to Claire. He’d cut off her hair, yes, but there was no blood, no sign of a struggle except for a dropped candle and a torn curtain.
In fact, for a time Samuel wondered if maybe his daughter had left willingly with someone—a friend or a lover. She’d been awfully upset over Yoema’s death, and she’d meant to run away. Still, to leave her things behind...
Frank took off his hat and swatted it against his trousers. "When I find the two-bit ass-wipe who did this," he snarled, "I swear, Mr. Parker, I’ll string him up by his guts."
Samuel frowned. One of the things that had always impressed him about Frank was his devotion, to the ranch and to him. Frank’s position as boss had evolved as a matter of course, since the young man had spent two years at the Parker Ranch, tirelessly learning the business, taking part in buying and selling stock, treating the cattle and horses as if they were his own. That the man had earned the affections of his daughter only sealed Samuel’s commitment to grooming Frank to take over the ranch upon his demise.
But Frank was also young and impetuous, a little too quick to jump to conclusions. Samuel thought this time he might be wrong.
"The tracks lead this way," Frank announced, already picking up the trail into the mountains. “Keep your guns close at hand, boys. He can’t have gotten very far without the horse.”
"Wait."
Samuel narrowed his eyes at the mountain pass. It was a curious choice. He would expect the man to hightail it out of the foothills and get as much distance between him and the Parker Ranch as possible. But Claire’s abductor seemed to be circling back toward Paradise. It could be the fellow was lost, but Samuel didn’t think so. Maybe, just maybe, Claire had convinced him to take her home.
At any rate, the last thing Samuel needed was a half-dozen ragtag ranch hands who thought they were gunslingers set loose in the canyon. They were used to driving cattle, after all, not hunting criminals. And it was too easy to imagine overeager Frank shooting a hapless miner.
“Put your guns away before you kill each other,” Samuel decided.
Frank’s lips thinned in frustration, but he complied.
As the men rode on, Samuel held on to the desperate hope that Claire was still alive and safe.
Claire peered at her reflection in the shallow pool. Her hair was longer on one side, and it stuck out at crazy angles. She wished she’d managed to do a better job of cutting it. The uneven locks kept falling into her eyes, annoying her.
Since Chase had shaved off his stubble and emerged even more handsome, she’d grown increasingly self-conscious about her own ragged appearance. She had to admit, however, that her irritation had more to do with vanity than physical discomfort.
They’d stopped for water and to feast on the baby fern, wild lettuce, and grass nuts growing in abundance near the spring. Claire had taken advantage of the break to wash her face, but there wasn’t much she could do about her hair.
Chewing morosely on a mint leaf, she looked up to find Chase studying her from his seat on a chunk of granite. He tossed the last tiny grass nut into his mouth and chomped it down. Then he told her, “It’s crooked.”
She sighed. “I know.”
He sniffed. “I can fix it.” He drew his knife.
She eyed the sharp blade. Did she want her abductor that close to her with a knife?
He arched a brow, adding, “Unless you’re scared.”
“No.” That she would never admit.
He patted the ground between his feet. “Here.”
She questioned her wisdom in obliging him. Even if he didn't mean to stab her, he had no references for the job.
In the end, she decided it was worth the risk. She seated herself before him on the thick cushion of pine needles, drawing up her knees and locking her arms around them. It was an intimate position, tucked there between his thighs, one she didn’t dare think about too deeply.
His touch upon her was gentle, far gentler than she would have imagined, given his massive hands. Lacking a comb, he wove his fingers through her hair, tugging carefully when they snagged on tangles. At first, she cringed, all too conscious of the fact that her hair was matted and snarled from rain, sleep, and travel. But as his fingers drifted across her scalp, she closed her eyes and forgot about her drab locks, relishing the sensation like a well-caressed cat.
“I’ll take you home soon,” he murmured.
She opened her eyes, and that strange mix of relief and regret tugged at her heart again. She bit at her lip, forcing her voice to nonchalance. “When?”
He pulled a section of her hair taut, and she felt the knife slice smoothly through it. “Soon.”
She’d never met a man of so few words. She closed her eyes again. “You know, your grandmother used to entertain herself for hours," she remembered, "coiling my hair into fantastical braids. My father often accused her of making Konkow baskets on my head."
He grunted, or maybe it was a chuckle, and then sliced again. A sprinkle of cut hair fell across her shoulder.
"I think you may have done this before,” she said, impressed by how skillfully he could trim hair without the benefit of scissors. “Are you a barber?”
This time, she was sure he gave a snort of laughter. "I’m a blacksmith."
Her eyes went wide. She was entrusting her wispy curls to a ham-handed blacksmith? Dear God. Then again, she supposed her hair couldn’t possibly look worse than it did now.
> A blacksmith, she mused. No wonder he had such a powerful build. She closed her eyes again, picturing him in a long leather smith’s apron while he pumped the bellows to make the coals burn scarlet upon his brazier. She imagined the sweat dripping down his bared forearms as he struck a glowing red chunk of iron with his heavy mallet. And her imagination began to make her heart beat faster with a curious excitement.
Somehow this brawny blacksmith had gentled his strength for her. His fingers were feather-light upon her hair. When his knuckles grazed the side of her neck, a delicious warm current sizzled through her body. His touch was rousing her senses in the most peculiar way.
Another clipped lock dropped onto her bent knee, and she lazily brushed it away.
The sun steamed the dewy ground now and warmed the cotton ruffle draping her legs. Sparrows twittered in the deerbrush. From beneath her lowered lids, she watched a trail of black ants traversing a rotting log and a chipmunk searching through the pine needles under it. Above, tattered clouds, strewn across the periwinkle canopy like the batting from a torn quilt, turned from pink to gold to white. The mountains were awakening.
Claire breathed a wistful sigh. Despite the harrowing journey, despite her scrapes and sunburn and fatigue, at this moment she felt strangely content, and she was in no hurry to have her adventures come to an end. This real-life escapade was far more thrilling than a dime novel.
She smiled. Yoema would have shaken her head at that. The old woman had always grumbled over the ferocious pictures of Red-skins in Claire’s books and clucked her tongue when Claire recounted the outrageous tales of double-dealing gamblers and dastardly gunslingers.
Of course, in this story, Claire was the sweet and virtuous heroine. And Chase Wolf—was he the villain or the hero?
She let her eyes drift shut while she contemplated the question. Certainly he was as fierce as some of the muscular Indian villains painted in such lurid detail on the covers of her books. And he’d abducted a white woman—a recurring theme in many of the stories. But he’d also nursed her injuries, hunted game for her, sung her to sleep, and now he saw to her feminine vanity. Surely those were hallmarks of a hero.
Claire squirmed into a more comfortable position between the blacksmith’s sturdy thighs. Whichever he was, hero or villain, Yoema’s half-breed grandson wasn't evil. He seemed kind and caring, a decent man with deep convictions who’d simply made an honest mistake. She only prayed that when the final showdown came, whatever it was, just as in her books, justice would prevail and the ending would be a happy one.
Chapter 11
Chase clenched his teeth and groaned inwardly as Claire wriggled backward, insinuating her shoulders farther between his legs, closer to that part of him that had begun to harden with mindless lust.
"Hold still," he ground out.
Damn. The last thing he needed was to be aroused by the white woman. He had to keep his mind on preparing for the confrontation with her father. Hell, if Samuel Parker could see what was going through Chase’s mind right now, he’d geld him quicker than he did his cattle.
He took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully, trying to banish the visions from his head the way a kedaay, doctor, would dispel evil spirits.
But it was useless. His swelling whedze didn't know the difference between desire of the body and desire of the mind.
Anxious to finish and to rid himself of the temptation he’d unwittingly placed between his thighs, he leaned forward to quickly complete his work, slicing the sides of her hair even with her chin.
Her jaw was fine-boned, like the face of a deer, and now that her tresses exposed its delicate edge, he realized anew how small and fragile the woman was. In truth, she wasn’t much bigger than his little sister Iris. Iris was only thirteen summers old. Claire Parker was a grown woman. He saw her in profile now, and his gaze dropped to her lips, stained red by the wind. Yes, he decided as his nostrils flared unexpectedly, she was most definitely a grown woman.
He absently ran his fingers through her newly-trimmed tresses. Her eyes remained closed, the lashes delicate against her cheek, but as he watched, her lips parted, sweet and succulent, and he swore he glimpsed hunger in that ripe mouth. Fighting a surge of almost painful yearning, Chase tore his gaze away and withdrew his hand.
What was he thinking? What was he doing? His breath quickened in his chest as he tried to convince himself that the longing he’d seen in Claire'’s face was an illusion, as insubstantial as a vision in the sweat lodge.
Surely he was mistaken. She couldn’t feel desire, not after what he'd done to her. It was only the bright sunlight that had made her close her eyes, sleepiness that had opened her mouth that way.
Still, the memory of her expression left him uneasy. He grew even more keenly aware of their intimate position, of the sheer cotton barely covering her shoulders, the compelling curve of her back, the tiny snips of her golden hair scattered across the tops of his trousers.
"Are you finished?" Her voice was as thick as honey.
He didn’t realize he’d stopped, but perhaps it was just as well. Her hair hung evenly now. Jabbing his knife into the log beside him, he brusquely ruffled her tresses with both hands to shake out the excess clippings. There was a slight curl to her hair, and it fell in soft waves about her face.
She lifted her fingers tentatively to examine his handiwork. He tightened his jaw at the sight. Her fingernails were dirty and broken, yet another reminder of the damage he'd done.
"Maybe I’ll start a new fashion," she breathed, turning her head to give him a tenuous smile. "Do I look better now?"
He couldn't bring himself to return her expression. Not while she sat between his legs, so close to...close to where a sleeping wolf, potent and dangerous, stirred. He stared at her, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe.
"You look beautiful." He hadn’t meant to blurt that out. Chase never blurted.
She blushed, lowering her eyes. "Oh, surely not. My gown is filthy. My hair is matted. My skin is—"
"These things don’t matter."
What was he saying? Why did he continue to talk? He should silence his tongue, put away his knife, and start along the trail. But he couldn't stop the words from coming out. He spoke like the elders of his tribe, doling out portions of wisdom as if he had all the time in the world.
"What matters is the spirit within," he said.
As soon as she captured his gaze again, he knew he’d made a perilous mistake, like a rabbit setting foot in a fox’s den, for her face beamed with the most wondrous expression, a mixture of awe and gratitude, things he absolutely didn't merit. The shame of it made him retreat as quickly as the rabbit. He snorted, yanking his knife from the stump.
"Or so say my people," he added gruffly.
He suddenly longed to flee, to run from that serpentine-colored gaze that imbued him with a kindness he didn’t possess.
But Chase Wolf never ran from anyone. He was a blacksmith, after all, with the size and muscle that went with the job. The woman was no bigger than a fawn. Hell, he'd carried her on his hip with one arm. So why did he want to run from her now? Why did she inspire such fear in him?
His heart pumped erratically, and until she finally moved from between his legs, he couldn't even draw a clean breath.
"It was kind of you to do this for me," she purred, her face perfectly framed now with gentle waves of gold.
Damn, what was wrong with the woman’s voice? She sounded like a kitten with a belly full of cream. And the fact that her throaty murmuring teased and caressed his ears only roused his anger all the more.
Why had he trimmed her hair and treated her cuts and blisters? He told himself it was for that hour when he would return her to her father. After all, if there was any hope of escaping with his life, Chase had to deliver the man's daughter with as little damage as possible. Maybe if the rancher saw she was unharmed, he'd be inspired to mercy.
But there was more to it than that. When Chase looked at Claire, he didn'
t see an object he must return to its owner in satisfactory condition. He saw a woman—a woman who lived and breathed, a woman who had feelings and dreams and fears. Every time he looked at the scrapes on her legs or her wind-chapped lips or the jagged strands of her hair, he felt overwhelmed with remorse. Somehow he had to make up for the wrong he’d done her.
Of course, he wouldn’t tell her that. There was no reason to explain himself, not to a woman he’d never see again.
The truth of that disgruntled him, though he didn’t know why. They didn’t belong together, after all. He’d take her back to her grand ranch house, and, if the Great Spirit willed, he’d escape with his life and return to his village. Heyung, that was how it was. There was no other possible ending.
She gave him a gentle smile. "Well, anyway, Mr. Wolf, thank you for the barbering."
Her expression weakened his resolve like flame softening an iron billet. But he couldn’t afford to let his heart get in the way of his head. For both their sakes, he must maintain his distance from the tempting white woman.
"Don’t thank me." Briskly sheathing his knife, he kicked apart the nest of pine needles. “Maybe I was just getting tired of seeing it like that.” Then he started down the mountain along a deer trail.
Claire’s smile faded. She'd just begun to feel like there was a connection between them, a bond of body and spirit, like the completion of a circuit as powerful as lightning. Then he had to go and say something awful like that, something he obviously didn't mean.
In a fit of childish temper, she picked up a pine cone from the ground and hurled it after him. To her shock, it struck him smack in the middle of his back.
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