Fire Dancer

by Colleen French

  Fire Dancer

  Colleen French

  Copyright © 1997, 2017 by Colleen French. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of The Evan Marshall Agency, 1 Pacio Court, Roseland, NJ 07068-1121, evan@evanmarshallagency.com .

  Version 1.0

  Originally published by Kensington Publishing Corp., New York, under the name Colleen Faulkner.

  Cover by The Killion Group

  TOUCH OF FIRE

  "Fire Dancer," Mackenzie whispered, kissing him gently on the mouth.

  "This man will never forget you." He kissed her back, harder, and pulled her closer.

  "Never," she answered, lost in the moment.

  He drew her onto his lap and she made no protest. All she wanted was him. In the desperation of the moment, she wanted nothing but to touch him, to be touched by him.

  They kissed again and again. He laid her back on her bed and she sighed and moaned with pleasure, reveling in the feel of his body pressed against hers.

  His hands burned a path on her bare skin. Any sense of modesty she might have felt in the past was gone. All that mattered was Fire Dancer and the pulses of pleasure that surged through her veins.

  "This is what you want, heart of my heart?" he whispered in her ear.

  "Yes, yes," she whispered. "It's what I want." She opened her eyes, staring into his. "I'll never love another the way I love you . . ."

  Books by Colleen French

  FORBIDDEN CARESS

  PASSION'S SAVAGE MOON

  SAVAGE SURRENDER

  CAPTIVE

  FIRE DANCER

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Pennsylvania

  Winter, 1801

  "Close the window, Abigail." Mackenzie glided soundlessly across the polished wood floor of the parlor. "You want your old grandmother to catch her death!"

  "Old, indeed." Ten year old Abby's black eyes flashed with sassiness as she obediently closed the glass shutter windows of the log cabin. "Grandpapa says you're as spry as the day he met you."

  "Grandpapa is a foolish old man." Mackenzie ran fingers that smelled of linseed oil over the latch of the lock to be certain it was secured. She grasped her granddaughter's hand and helped her jump down off the wing-backed chair. "I thought you were supposed to be in the kitchen helping Cook with the bread."

  Abby released her grandmother's hand and walked away, her lower lip stuck out in a sulk. "But I'm bored, Grandmama." She trailed her finger along the chair rail partially embedded in the plastered log walls. "I don't want to help Cook."

  "There are books in my bedchamber. You're welcome to any one of them so long as you're careful with the pages."

  Abby swung around, her black braids flying out behind her. She was a mirror image of her mother. The thought made Mackenzie smile. As spunky as her mother, too.

  "I don't want to read, and I don't want to paint." She leaned against Mackenzie's precious cherry sideboard. "I just don't feel like it." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you know what I mean?"

  Mackenzie eased herself in the upholstered chair. "Restless, are you?"

  "Ah . Grandpapa says I'm always restless. He says that when I grow up I should go west."

  Mackenzie sat back in the chair and her doeskin moccasins peeked from beneath the hem of her gown. "West is it?"

  "Ah." Abby's face lit up. "Grandpapa said that if he wasn't a year shy of his eightieth birthday and feeling it in his bones, he'd take me himself."

  Mackenzie laughed and clapped her hands together in amusement. "That sounds like your grandfather. I told you he was old and foolish."

  Abby wandered across the parlor. "I'm glad I got to see your cabin, Grandmama. I like it much better than the house in Baltimore. I'm glad I got to come."

  "This woman is glad you came."

  Abby ran her fingers over the cherry sideboard and stared at the oil painting that hung on the plastered wall above it. It was Mackenzie's favorite portrait.

  Abby studied the painting with the careful eye of a budding artist. "The colors are excellent. Very realistic earth tones."

  "Thank you."

  Abby still stared at the painting. "I realize the man is Grandpapa and the woman is you and the little boy is Uncle Fox." She dropped her hands to her hips. "But Grandmama, I have a question."

  Mackenize raised an eyebrow. She had known the question was coming. She was surprised it had taken this long. "And what is that, my inquisitive one?"

  Abby faced Mackenzie, her mouth drawn up. "Why don't you have any faces? The painting is so beautiful, but there are no faces." She took a moment to study the portraits that lined the log cabin's parlor walls. "None of them have any faces, Grandmama."

  "Well, that, my love, is a long story."

  Abby drew up a stool and sat at Mackenzie's feet. "That's all right. We have all afternoon. Grandpapa said he wouldn't return from hunting until supper." Abby took Mackenzie's hand. "Please, will you tell me?"

  Mackenzie squeezed the little girl's hand in her own wrinkled one. Her eyes grew misty. Already she could feel the sands of time slipping . . . slipping back.

  "It all began one afternoon," she said softly to the wide-eyed child. "It was during the French and Indian war . . . before the colonists' war for independence. My father was escorting me to a fort called Belvadere." She gazed at the portrait. "It was my very first commission . . ."

  Chapter One

  August 1759

  Somewhere in Penn's Colony

  Mackenzie Daniels stared up into the tree limbs overhead, fascinated by the patterns of light and dark that poured through the dense foliage and swirled on the forest floor in a kaleidoscope of colors and textures. The warm wind blew in her face, and the smell of honeysuckle was strong in her nostrils.

  Her horse moved rhythmically beneath her at an easy pace. In front and behind her rode a dozen British soldiers, her escort to Fort Belvadere. Her father, Franklin, brought up the rear in his wagon, which was filled with trading goods and her precious art supplies.

  "We can stop and rest if you're tired, Mackenzie." Joshua Watkins met her gaze with those cow-brown eyes of his.

  She loosened the reins in her gloved hands, encouraging her mount to pick up the pace.

  She sat astride a man's saddle, rather than sidesaddle because Major Albertson, the commander of Fort Belvadere, had ordered it so. He had warned her father that it would be easier for her to escape in case of an Indian attack.

  Indian attack . She shuddered at the thought.

  "Mackenzie? Did you hear me? I said that if you're fatigued—"

  "I'm not tired." Mackenzie met Josh's gaze again. She'd completely forgotten him. "I'm fine."

  Rather than being flatter
ed by his attention, as her father suggested she should be, she was annoyed. She didn't care if Joshua was the only man interested in her. She didn't want a man. What did she need a husband for when she could ride, shoot, fish, chop wood and skin out her own deer? "I told you I was fine half an hour ago, Josh," she continued. "And I told you an hour ago."

  "I . . . I know. I was just checking. It's been a hard journey."

  She frowned. He was just trying to make her feel womanly again, as if she were his delicate flower. Glancing at her clothing, she snickered at the thought. She wore a blue tick skirt and her father's shirt with a pair of men's leather riding boots made by the saddler. In clothes like this, she wasn't exactly a picture of femininity.

  "Oh, it has not been hard. It's been nothing like you and Father tried to warn me." She tugged off her straw bonnet by its flat ribbon and shook her mane of auburn hair. Then she looped the reins over the pommel and passed the hat to Josh to hold while she swept loose strands from her face and secured them in a ribbon at the nape of her neck. "I've quite enjoyed the journey. I've seen none of the dangers you warned of."

  She held the ribbon in her teeth as she tugged on the unruly handfuls of hair. "The birds, the deer, those foxes we saw yesterday. The rivers, the clouds, the moon at night. It's all grand, Josh, just as I imagined. I haven't seen a single redskin since we left the Chesapeake." She caught a stray lock of hair that blew in the breeze. "I swear, I'm beginning to think you men made up this whole story of hostile Indians so that you could traipse off into the forest with your guns and sit around at night and drink and spit and scratch."

  "You might not believe it now, but just you wait 'til we reach the fort," he responded anxiously. "The soldiers say the place is swarming with the devils."

  "I'm not afraid of Indians." She lied. She was afraid. Her father's whispers behind her back had made her afraid.

  "Which is just why I don't think you belong here, Mackenzie. With the fighting all over the colonies, it's too dangerous. You don't know enough to realize when you're in danger."

  "My first commissioned portraits," she scoffed, "and you think I should have turned Major Albertson down because a few scalps have been taken?" She drew the ribbon from her teeth and wrapped it around the thick ponytail of hair. "That's just why it will never work between you and me, Josh. This is a perfect example of why I could never marry you."

  He looked behind them to see if anyone had heard her. "Shhhh." He lowered his voice. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that. I thought we were just going to see how things went on this journey."

  She took her bonnet from his hands and slapped it on top of her head. "You and Father made those plans, not me. I already gave you my answer, Josh." She whipped the ribbons through her fingers to tie the hat down. "I'm not marrying you. I'm not marrying anyone. I just want to—"

  Gunfire erupted from the forest and her horse shied and danced in place.

  "Indians!" a soldier shouted.

  Mackenzie grabbed her reins tightly, keeping control of her horse. The soldiers immediately formed a tight circle around her. She crouched and stared up into the trees waiting for the Indian attack.

  Joshua drew his musket from his leather saddlebag, his face pasty with fear. "Oh, God. Oh, Jesus God. I knew we were going to be massacred." He shook. "I knew it."

  "Get a hold of yourself, Josh," Mackensize snapped. She jerked her mount around and faced the nearest soldier. "What's happening? Are we under attack?"

  "Don't know, ma'am." The soldier checked the prime on his pistol. "It's Lieutenant Burrow's weapon that discharged up ahead. He must have come upon something, but I don't 'ear Indians. They usually hoot and holler when attacking."

  Mackenzie glanced over her shoulder, craning her neck to see her father. He was still pulling up the rear in his wagon, but his musket now lay across his lap.

  "Lieutenant?" one of the soldiers called into the forest. "You all right, sir?"

  "I've got him," came a shout out of the trees. "I got the bloody, horse-thieving bastard!"

  Mackenzie's heart pounded and her hands were sweating inside the calfskin gloves as she and the soldiers rounded a bend in the road. Were they under attack or not?

  She spotted Lieutenant Burrow holding his musket on a red man. She took a second look. The Indian was just a boy.

  "He the only one?" one of the British soldiers called as he looked up into the trees suspiciously.

  The other soldiers dismounted and ran toward the prisoner, their muskets pointed at him.

  "I believe so," the lieutenant answered, his perfectly pronounced speech seeming out of place here in the Colonial wilderness. "I caught him riding out with Major Albertson's horse. I believe we ought to hang him right here. Cassidy, get me a rope."

  "Hang him?" Mackenzie jumped down from her mount.

  The Indian was less than five feet tall, dressed in buckskins with sea shells tied into his long ebony braids. He looked to be about ten, the same age as Josh's younger brother. The Indian boy appeared frightened, yet he was brave enough to glare at the lieutenant with defiance in his black eyes.

  "Mackenzie, come back here!" Joshua shouted. "He's dangerous."

  "Dangerous?" She gave a little laugh, though she was still shaking from the scare. "Dangerous? He's a boy." She left her mount's reins dangling and marched toward the child.

  One of the men grabbed the boy by a hank of his hair and shoved him onto his knees.

  She walked right through the middle of the soldiers. "You men afraid of this little boy?" she dared, irate at their handling of him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

  "I must ask you to stand back, Miss Daniels. My men and I are trained to," the lieutenant cleared his throat, "deal with the enemy."

  "Leaping apes in hell! He's a boy." She lifted her hand. "Children can't be enemies." Then she spotted blood on the sleeve of the boy's buckskin tunic. She stared at Lieutenant Burrow. "You shot him?"

  "He stole the major's horse. He was trying to get away."

  Mackenzie glanced at the bay casually nibbling on a bush. It was bridled with rough leather straps and saddled with a deerhide blanket. There were Indian symbols painted across its haunches in red ochre. It didn't look like a soldier's stolen horse to her.

  She turned back to the Indian and reached for his arm, but he pulled back, saying something in his foreign tongue.

  Mackenzie looked into his eyes, speaking slowly. "It's all right," she murmured. "I won't hurt you. I just want to look at your arm."

  He relaxed a little, his gaze locked onto hers.

  "That's right," she soothed. "I only want to look." She peeled back the blood-soaked leather of his sleeve. To her relief, the sun-tanned skin had only been grazed. It was an ugly, bloody wound, but clean, with no lead embedded in the flesh.

  She called over her shoulder. "How do you know he stole Major Albertson's horse?"

  "That's Major Albertson's horse, indeed." Burrow nodded. "I would know it anywhere. It has the white star on its forehead."

  She snatched a water can from a soldier's saddle, opened the lid, and poured some of the water on the boy's arm. She hiked up her cotton tick skirt and knelt in the deep leaves to get a better look at the wound. "The major's horse is missing and you're certain this is it?"

  "It's missing now, isn't it, Miss Daniels?" The lieutenant's tone was sharp and belittling. "Now please, if you will just step back and—"

  "This man did not steal," the Indian boy said so softly that Mackenzie wasn't certain she heard him.

  She looked up at his face, startled by the thickly accented English. "What did you say? You spoke English. I heard you."

  He stared right into her face. "This man no steal soldier horse. Uncle's."

  She blinked. "You didn't steal the horse?"

  He stared at her with his black eyes. Her father had taught her to fear the redman. To avoid him. Now up close to one, the Indian boy seemed no different to her than a white boy. His blood ran the same color: red. She
saw the same fear as white men's in his eyes.

  "This man not steal," the boy repeated softly. "Take horse to fort. Uncle's horse."

  "All right," she whispered so that only the boy could hear her. "I won't let them kill you. I swear it." Mackenzie reached under her skirt to tear a strip of muslin from the hem of her shift. She tied the muslin strip tightly around the boy's arm, speaking loudly. "Which way was he headed, Lieutenant?"

  "Miss?"

  She rose from her knees and whipped around to face the English officer. "The question was simple enough."

  "Mackenzie, please. It's not our place to interfere," her father warned as he pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers.

  She had done it again. She'd stepped over the line of female propriety. She could hear it in her father's voice. Yet she didn't care—not when she was all that stood between the boy and death. Mackenzie ignored him. "Lieutenant, I want to know which direction the boy was headed when you came upon him. Was he headed north toward the fort, or south toward us?"

  The lieutenant avoided eye contact with her. "You do not know these scurvy red rats like I do, Miss Daniels. They can be rather crafty."

  "I see." She swept off her bonnet to wipe the sweat from her forehead. "They're so crafty, these Indian boys, that they can be riding one way, but make it look like they're going another?" Her sarcasm was so thick that several of the soldiers snickered.

  Lieutenant Burrow flushed. "Miss Daniels—"

  A soldier approached them. "I got that rope ye asked for, Lieutenant. You want us to string 'im up right here on the road so the other redskins can see we're serious when it come to horse thievin'?"

  Mackenzie took a big step backwards putting herself between the Indian boy still on his knees and the soldier with the rope. Her bonnet fell to the ground, but she left it where it lay. "You hang this child, and I'll have you stand trial for murder," she threatened.

  The soldier glanced at the lieutenant. The lieutenant looked at Franklin Daniels, as if to ask why he couldn't control his own daughter.

  Franklin cleared his throat. "Mackenzie, honey, step back and let the soldiers do their job."