Only in My Arms

by Jo Goodman

  "The Apache trace their origin to the Child of the Water. We were united with that blessing and the acknowledgment of both families."

  "It's very symbolic, then." She liked that. Her life in the Church had been full of symbols and ritual. "Although I'm not certain my father actually acknowledged us. It's not as though he gave me away."

  "His presence was enough."

  She ate more, thoughtful now. "You realize I don't consider us really married."

  He nodded. "It seemed like a good compromise."

  Mary barely heard him. "I mean, it's more of an arrangement, isn't it, instead of a marriage?"

  "If that's the way you want to think about it."

  "It won't require an annulment or a divorce..."

  "Not a church annulment," he said. "And not a lawyer's divorce." Ryder set his empty plate aside and regarded Mary steadily. An edge of frost had returned to his lightly colored eyes. "You only have to pack my things and put them outside the entrance to our home." He spread his hands to indicate their chamber and shrugged. "That's all. If you find me lazy or unwilling to provide for you, if we're incompatible, if we bicker too often, or if I'm uncommonly jealous—all of these things can end it." His eyes darkened a fraction. "As can infidelity."

  Returning his stare, Mary swallowed hard. It was almost as if he were warning her. "Well, yes," she said, bemused. "Of course. Infidelity."

  His smile was not a smile at all. The watchful predator had returned. "Just so we understand each other." He rose from the wing chair and rinsed off his plate in the pool. The underground current swept the debris away. "Are you finished?" he asked Mary, looking at the half-eaten remains.

  She nodded, handing them over. "I suppose I wasn't as hungry as I thought I was."

  Ryder put the uneaten portion back in a tin to be used later in the day. He rinsed Mary's plate and the utensils, put them away, then got out his maps from the chest. He brought them over to the bed and unrolled them, flattening them with the side of his hand.

  Mary yawned. She had no idea if it was day or night outside of the cavern or if she had slept hours after their last lovemaking or only a few minutes.

  "You can go to sleep," he said. "I won't disturb you."

  He began to pick up the maps, but Mary stopped him. She was tired, it was true, but she was also strangely reluctant to go to sleep. His mood had cast a pall over her. All the talk of marriage and divorce... it was unsettling.

  "I don't mind if you look at them here," she said. She brought down the lighted lantern from another shelf and placed it beside her.

  Ryder laid out the maps again.

  "Perhaps I could help you," she offered.

  "You're welcome to look on."

  It wasn't an enthusiastic invitation, but neither had he said her help wouldn't amount to much. Mary knelt on her knees and elbows and surveyed the topographical map closely. Ryder remained leaning against the high stone bed, his eyes occasionally drifting from the contours at his fingertips to the ones Mary was unwittingly presenting to him.

  "You may want to tuck that blanket a little more firmly," he said. Under his breath he added, "Before I forget which mountain range I'm studying."

  "Hmm?" Mary murmured, glancing up at him.

  He pointed to his own chest. "Your blanket."

  Mary looked down at herself. She was practically spilling out over the top. "Oh... thank you." She adjusted it without embarrassment and resumed her inspection of the uppermost map.

  Ryder shook his head, wondering what to make of her. With her head bent he couldn't see the small, satisfied smile that lifted her mouth.

  "I assume these maps have something to do with the gold from Colter Canyon," she said. "Do you know where it is?"

  "Do you mean, do I know where it is because I have firsthand knowledge, or do I have suspicions?"

  "Suspicions, of course," she said, raising her eyes to his. "I don't think you had anything to do with the raid."

  "I was there."

  "I know. I heard that. My brother-in-law told me."

  "I see," Ryder said. "What else did you learn?"

  "Not much. There wasn't time. I wasn't in the fort very long before you took me away."

  "Then you don't know about Miss Hamilton?"

  A chill crept down Mary's spine. She brushed back a tendril of hair that had fallen over her forehead. Her forest green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "No, I've never heard the name." With a sense of foreboding she asked, "Who is she? Your fiancée?"

  Ryder was watching Mary closely, gauging her reaction. "Anna Leigh Hamilton." It was difficult to maintain an indifferent profile when he had to say her name. "Senator Warren Hamilton's daughter. The woman who says that while the Chiricahua were attacking the wagons in Colter Canyon, I was raping her."

  Chapter 10

  It wasn't shock that touched Mary's features, but curiosity. She looked at Ryder and asked frankly, "Why would she do that?"

  Ryder's eyes mirrored nothing of what he was thinking. "Aren't you going to ask if it's true? Don't you want to know if I raped Anna Leigh?"

  Mary's brow furrowed. "Why would I ask that? I can't imagine you even thinking about raping her."

  "Then you're the only one," he said without rancor. "Miss Hamilton was very effective in telling her story."

  A short red-gold strand of hair had fallen over Mary's forehead. She blew it out of the way. "I'm sure she was. But I have another experience with you that makes it difficult to believe you would act in any dishonorable way." Her gaze dropped back to the map, and she pretended to study it. "I haven't forgotten the night we spent outside a watering hole in the Hudson Valley. You held me, comforted me, and quite against your will, I think, your body responded to mine."

  "It wasn't against my will," he said softly. "I wanted you that night. I had wanted you that morning."

  Mary's fingers stopped tracing map lines as a frisson of heat tripped down her spine. She closed her eyes and said words she had never spoken aloud before, words that she had struggled not to put together even silently in her own mind. "And you never acted on it. Not that morning when I would have fought you... and not that evening when I would have given you anything you wanted."

  Ryder had to strain to hear her last whispered words. It was no admission she was giving him, but her confession. "Oh, Mary," he said quietly. He took her wrists and pulled her toward him. The maps twisted and curled beneath her, but Ryder didn't care. When she was at the edge of the bed he lifted her down but never let her leave his embrace.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. Tears pressed at the back of her closed lids. "It's not the reason I left the Church," she said on a thread of sound. "I was already struggling... questioning... If you hadn't been there that night, the outcome would have been the same..."

  He stroked her hair, resting his chin against the crown of her head. Pain shuddered through her and Ryder felt the vibration against his skin.

  Mary's voice was choked now. She had to work words past the hard, aching lump at the back of her throat. "Sometimes... sometimes I think God sent you to me... to help me surrender. I was fighting His wishes... ignoring what He was telling me so I wouldn't..."

  Her tears touched his chest, slipping along the outline of her cheek. Ryder didn't probe or press. He waited.

  "So I wouldn't disappoint... my mother." Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but tears still ran freely from them and her breath came in small, pained gasps. Sagging against Ryder, Mary cried until she exhausted herself.

  Ryder pushed the maps aside and lifted her back on the bed. This time he joined her, stretching out beside her, his arm placed familiarly around her waist. An extra blanket warded off the chill. He wiped her eyes with the corner of it.

  Mary gave him a watery, embarrassed smile. "I don't know what happened," she said. "I didn't expect to say those things."

  "I know."

  "We were talking about you... I shouldn't have—"

  "Shh," he whispered. "It's good. It
's healing."

  Mary closed her eyes. He was right. Her heart was lighter now, her head clearer. Ryder's body was warm at her back, and the arm around her was exactly as it should be. She was asleep before she realized it was going to happen.

  * * *

  Ryder woke from a dead sleep and sat upright. A chill covered his body, and beads of perspiration touched his brow. He was hot and cold at once, and the premonition of danger wouldn't leave him. He could no longer tap the dream that had pulled him to consciousness, but emotions—fear and pain and loss—lingered. Something forgotten, he thought. Something left behind.

  Mary was sleeping quietly beside him, undisturbed by his nightmare. The evidence of her tears and exhaustion was in her slightly swollen lids and in the shadows beneath her lashes. She was breathing softly now, easily, the serenity of her expression so markedly beautiful that Ryder knew a measure a peace merely looking upon her.

  The unsettled feeling persisted, however, and he had learned at the knee of Naiche not to ignore that feeling. He moved to the edge of the bed and swung his legs over the side. Fiddling with the lantern, he increased the light so most of the chamber was visible to him from where he sat. There was nothing out of place, nothing different than it had been, yet the sensation of danger would not be put to rest.

  Ryder got up and put the lantern aside. There was no terror for him in the darkness, but he lighted all the other lanterns anyway. The only shadows in the chamber were the ones he created as he moved from place to place seeking out the thing that disturbed him.

  In the end he had to admit to himself it was only foolishness. It had been nothing but the cold tentacles of a forgotten dream. He looked over his shoulder at Mary. Let her sleep, he thought, but for him it was time to make a new day of it. He would dress and...

  It came to him then like a physical blow. The sensation of danger tightened Ryder's abdomen and prepared him to receive it. The force of it was all in his mind, and it still had the power to make him recoil.

  He spun around, searching for the clothes he had bundled and carried on the journey back from the clearing. His eyes went to every level of the chamber. He could remember picking the garments up after they had left the camp and returned to the clearing. He had even given Mary his shirt for warmth. His gaze settled on the flannel shirt lying on the floor beside their bed. Ryder closed his eyes, trying to visualize what had happened to the other things. He could almost feel the weight of them in his hand, the way he had shifted the bundle from one hand to another as he'd helped Mary along the rocky path. How was it that he held it at one moment and forgotten it in the next?

  Ryder's eyes opened and Mary filled his vision. Of course he had forgotten. Mary had filled his senses.

  Ryder moved to the bed and laid his hand on Mary's shoulder. As if she could sense urgency in his light touch, she came awake almost instantly.

  Her eyes flew to his face. "What is it?"

  "I have to leave. I wanted you to know I'll be gone—"

  "What? What do you mean you—" He gave her shoulder a squeeze and said calmly, "I'll be gone longer than usual."

  Mary sat up as Ryder began to dress. Feeling a little dazed by the abrupt wakening, she watched him put on the buckskin shirt, breechcloth, and moccasins he had worn in their wedding ceremony. "You don't usually tell me when you're leaving," she said. This was different, she thought.

  "Things are different now. I thought you'd want to know."

  "Why leave at all?" A small vertical crease appeared between her brows. She hitched the quilt around her breasts as she came to her feet. "There can't be anything impor—"

  Ryder stopped her by gripping her shoulders. "I left our clothes on the trail," he said. "I had them in my hand. You and I were arguing... I kissed you... I think I dropped them then. I can't remember having them after that."

  Mary understood. "Of course, you have to get them." All the work he had done to cover their trail was undone by a moment's inattention. She searched his face wondering if he blamed her or himself.

  "This isn't about blame," he said, answering the question she hadn't had to ask. "It's about responsibility. I was supposed to be responsible."

  "Can I help? Is there something I can do?"

  "It's for me to fix," he said. "And I can travel more quickly alone."

  Mary held onto those words. She could not remember time in the chamber ever passing so slowly. She had no way of knowing if Ryder had faced sunshine or star shine when he reached the mouth of the cavern, or which would have helped him more in accomplishing his task. In her mind, she allotted time for him to search for the clothes, time for him to cover his trail. She made allowances for the climate and still more for his caution.

  She tried to read, but thought instead of all the things that could go wrong. What if the clothes had already been found? Animals might have scattered them. Soldiers could pick up the trail miles from where they had been searching, and their success in finding Ryder would be a tribute to coincidence and luck. It occurred to her that someone else might find the clothes. A prospector perhaps. An Army scout.

  A bounty hunter.

  Jarret Sullivan.

  It was senseless now to wish she had warned Ryder. She had hugged the secret of her brother-in-law's bounty hunting to herself. In the beginning she had not wanted Ryder to take any extra precautions or set any traps. He was so certain his hideaway couldn't be found that she had kept the secret to serve him his comeuppance. When had the desire to teach him a lesson become unimportant?

  If Jarret had ever stopped looking for her it was a certainty he had taken up the search again. That would be the consequence of Ryder including Jay Mac and Moira in the wedding ceremony. Jarret would find whatever remained of the Chiricahua camp and from there...

  Mary dropped her book, startled as one of the lanterns flickered and then was extinguished. She stared at it. How long did one of them stay lit before the oil was used? Six hours? A little longer? Perhaps it hadn't been completely filled. But she had done the filling herself and this lantern had only been burning since Ryder had wakened. If he could really travel faster on his own why had he already been gone six hours?

  Mary's book slid from her lap to the floor as she stood. It lay there unnoticed as Mary considered her options. She could wait—Ryder would want her to do that—or she could search for him. It was what she wanted to do. She compromised, deciding she could wait at the mouth of the cavern. Armed with the knowledge of how to read the signs in the passages, Mary was confident that she could make it to the entrance safely. It would pass the time. Perhaps, she thought, she would even meet him along the way.

  Mary refilled the empty lantern with oil and lighted it. Wearing a pair of Ryder's trousers, one of his shirts, and the moccasins he had given her, Mary hefted the lantern and began her journey to the mouth of the cavern.

  She took her time, stopping to examine the signs carefully at every juncture. With each pause she found herself imagining that Ryder was closer. She half expected to look up and find him standing in a stone archway and watching her study his peculiar hieroglyphs. He never was.

  At some junctures the signs were harder to locate. Mary had good cause to wonder at her wisdom in making the journey. She regretted not bringing beans with her again in the event she got lost, but she was of no mind to turn around. On two separate occasions she took passages that would not have been her first choice if it hadn't been for the markings. At least once she was forced to choose a route that was not clearly marked at all.

  Relief washed over her when she stumbled into the wide, yawning entrance of the cavern. Weak-kneed, she sat on a smooth slab of stone until her heart quieted in her chest and she could laugh at her own foolishness.

  Mary picked her way over the boulders and across the small stream to reach the opening. Putting the lantern out, she set it down and walked outside long enough to take her measure of the sun's height. Her very rough calculation was that it was late afternoon. That meant Ryder had had to make
his entire journey in daylight.

  She sat down again, worry replacing relief that she had come so far with no sign of Ryder. He had told her he would be gone longer than usual, and she tried to keep that in her mind. It was difficult to do with no timepiece to make a comparison. It seemed to her that he had never been gone even half so long before. Or was it merely that she hadn't cared so much?

  Over the next few hours Mary ventured out of the cavern on five occasions. Although she strayed farther each time, she was always aware of the foolishness of her venture. It was as Ryder had always warned her—there was simply nowhere for her to go. The realization that she couldn't do anything for him only made her feel more helpless.

  After the sun set Mary stayed put. Wind eddied through the cavern's mouth and raised odd sighs and whistling moans among the rocks. The sound raised the hair on the back of her neck, and she remembered there were chambers here that had been used for a burial ground. When the pitch of the wind died she was surrounded by silence. It was more eerie in its own way than the moaning.

  Mary's hand strayed to her side to finger the rosary that was no longer there. The wind picked up again, blowing life into the cavern. Mary bowed her head and prayed for all the lost souls, Ryder among them.

  Her voice came to Ryder on the back of the wind. He stood just inside the entrance and leaned heavily against the stone archway. She wasn't visible to him, but her voice was the sweetest music.

  "Mary."

  She thought she had imagined it at first, that it was only the wind playing tricks on her. But then it came again and Mary knew—she knew her prayers had been answered. Her eyes flew open and her head snapped up and she searched the yawning entrance for the dark silhouette that was no part of the landscape. "Ryder!" She was on her feet when she saw him, running to his side.

  He was almost toppled by the force of her arms around him. His greeting was a groan.

  Mary stepped back instantly, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness to search his face. "What is it?" she demanded. "You've been hurt, haven't you?"