Isabel jerked back. “I think you did enough.”
“Hell yes, I know.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. What he had to say would be easier if he didn’t look at her expressive eyes.
“You can’t call me any more forms of bastard than I’ve called myself. I don’t know how something so good turned to hell so fast. I’m damn sorry for it, Isabel. I never meant to hurt you in any way. You deserved better. You do deserve someone better than me.”
“Do not concern yourself, Kee Kincaid. I will find someone better.” The words were snapped and cutting, and all she wanted to do was crawl away from him.
His eyes pinned her in place. And in a very soft, but very dangerous voice, he said, “You’ll find someone else? Like hell freezing over, lady.”
“You just told me—”
“That’s what you do to me.” He bent over her again, keeping that same low, but intense tone. “Every time I plan what to say to you, you play with my good intentions. The truth is, I was feeling a little trapped this morning. It ain’t easy for a man to suddenly contemplate giving up his freedom.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Eyes flashing, it took all the willpower she had not to hit him. “And do you think I want to give up my freedom? Do you think I want to trap you? You are a bastard! You cannot be sorrier than I am over what happened between us.” Her gaze was frantic. She wanted out and there was nowhere to go.
Kee clenched his hands on his thighs to keep from grabbing hold and shaking some sense into her. “What happened between us was that we made love. And it’s never been like that for me with anyone else. I’m not stupid enough to throw that away. Isabel, I swear to you that I’d give anything to steal back time and do it all over again.”
“As would I.” The words were so softly said that she did not think he had heard her.
“I don’t blame you for regretting—”
“No one is to blame, Kee. I made my own choice. I know you would not have forced me. You made no promises, Kee. I never asked you about tomorrows. I am sorry, too. I never had a lover and I did not know what to expect.”
“What are you mumbling about now?”
“This morning. I did not know how to act or what to say or—”
He gathered her close, pressing her head against his chest, stopping the flow of words. “Hush, Isabel. Just hush now.”
The very last thing she wanted was for him to feel trapped or in any way responsible. She would not take back one word. But oh, it hurt terribly to know that such honesty which should be prized as a virtue, could cut like a sword and she felt the pain that burrowed its way deep inside her.
He rocked her gently, pushing off her hat so he could smooth her hair. He hated lying. He’d done enough lying to her and to himself. But look what happened when he tried to tell her the truth.
He had to try again. “I want you to listen to me. No interruptions. When I said I wish I could steal back time and do it all over again, I didn’t mean I wouldn’t have made love to you, Isabel. I wanted you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. If you wanted me to stop I…” Go on, tell her. No lies, remember.
“I would have tried, but I don’t know if I could have stopped. That’s how much I needed you. And don’t be so sure you really made your own choice. You were innocent and I was far from that. I’m not proud of what I did, and maybe I’ll burn in hell someday for it, but you were a fever in my blood and—”
“Yes!” she cried out against him. “It was like that for me, too.”
“I know. And what’s done is done.”
She was stunned into silence by the bleak acceptance in his voice. She almost held her breath waiting for him to say something more. There had to be a future for them. There had to be!
But he held her close and rocked her slowly, rubbing his hand over her back. Her thoughts were in turmoil. Perhaps she should tell him first. Some inner voice urged her to keep quiet. She could not press him now. And the feelings she had were too new. Maybe he felt the same way. Time is what they both needed. And time was running out for what she had to do.
“Listen,” Kee said, holding her still. “The wind’s dying down.”
“And that’s good,” she murmured, reluctant to move.
“Between the rain last night and the sand, our trail is covered. Soon as I see to the horses, we ride for your gold.”
“Yes, the gold.”
He held her away from him. She didn’t know he was whispering silent prayers that they could get out of here. Now. Now before that incandescent sensuality that she was unaware of brought him to his knees. He had wanted her, but thought the fever would abate. Not true. He wanted her more.
But even in the gloom created by the tented blankets he saw the tears glittering on her cheeks. His mouth was over hers, sealing any words about to be spoken.
The taste of him swept through her, making her shiver. He stroked her over his hard body, telling her how perfectly they matched, male to female, hard to soft. She gave herself to his kiss as she had given herself to him. Nothing held back.
All too soon he broke away. She did not know what it cost him to leave her. Or that he never wanted to leave at all.
Chapter Twenty
They rode through a land that was denuded of firewood by the Cornish miners that used the fuel for the Silver King Mine to the east. Kee told her he’d heard stories of those same miners walking nearly twenty miles across the desert to Globe on Friday nights to drink away their pay and then make the same walk back on Sunday.
She did not care that the name had been changed. To her, it would always be what her grandfather had called it…the Finger of God. There were always stories being written for the territorial papers that related wild tales of this haunted area. She had no sooner thought about it, when Kee spoke of the very same thing.
“Any sane man or woman would run the other way if one or all of the stories are believed, Isabel. I’ve heard of swinging rocks that turn out from walls of a canyon and crush the rider, or trees whose branches can reach out and entangle you. I’ve heard crazy notions about wild animals that come out of the rocks when you sleep and fishes with legs that crawl out of the streams and upper lakes and drown everything living within their reach. Scared yet?”
“Is that why you told me? To scare me? Not that it matters. I need to go in there and find my grandfather’s legacy. I believe this is a dangerous place for many reasons, and maybe it is a haunted place, too.” She glanced over at him, at the easy way he sat his horse as if he were an extension of the animal. His eyes were never still, always moving, searching out the land before them as they rode toward her goal.
“I’ll share a story with you, Kee, of how the first Indians went into Superstition Mountain.”
“Into?” A quick look caught her nod. “You mean they physically went into that mountain?”
“So the story goes. There is a Pima who works for my grandmother who told us the tale of the great chief Montezuma who ruled over thousands. A vision came of a great calamity about to befall him and his people and he brought them to the plain adjacent to Superstition Mountain, and then he used his magic to open a side of the mountain. When they were all inside and safe, he closed the great stone gateway. To this day many believe he and his people still live within the mountain.”
“Why do I get the feeling that this story has something to do with where we’re going?”
Isabel smiled at him. “You are right. Before Jacob Walz died in Phoenix two years ago, Kee, he made a deathbed confession of where the mine was. He said there was a great stone face looking up at his mine, and that if you pass three great hills you have gone too far. He lied when he said the rays of the setting sun shone on his gold. And you cannot climb on his mine to see the Finger of God.”
“Finger of God…Weaver’s Needle. And you said that you need the first rays of the morning sun to find the entrance.”
“Yes. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will show you more gold than you could spend in three
lifetimes.”
“And you want it all?”
“No. I will try to find my grandfather’s bones. I will keep that promise to my grandmother. As for the gold, I will take only what we need to keep her home secure.”
“Not a greedy woman, Isabel?”
She refused to rise to the taunt in his voice. But moments later she did answer him. “Yes, I can be as greedy as anyone else about something that really matters to me.”
They came upon Weaver’s Needle in the late afternoon.
Kee pulled up, shoved his hat back and stared as the slanting, red, dying rays of the sun shone on the strange, phallic finger of smooth, black basalt rock.
He couldn’t tell if the devil had shoved it up from below as a warning, or if the good Lord had hurtled it down from above for the same reason, but that black rock rose perpendicularly from the plateau and towered hundreds of feet in the air.
“The Finger of God,” Isabel whispered as she drew her horse alongside his. “It seems to stand as a sentinel and warning all in one.”
“But a strangely beautiful one in a way,” Kee murmured. He looked up as he heard the soulful cries of the mourning doves and a chill shivered down his spine. He glanced over at Isabel and saw that she, too, went still, a visible trembling taking hold of her when the cries were repeated.
“They mate for life,” she said without thought. “And their cries are for those who have lost their heart mates.”
He sensed she hadn’t meant it to be a spur against his nerves, but it acted like that. “I’ll ride ahead and scout out a place to camp.”
“I want to come with you, Kee. Please, I do not want to be alone here.”
“You feel it, too?”
“Like a faint whisper of warning to stay away?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“But I cannot stay away.”
“I know.” He slanted the hat to shade his eyes. “There is something strange about the place and I don’t really want you out of my sight. Just because we haven’t caught sign of being followed, your cousin and those hombres don’t strike me as the sort to give up easily.”
“No. She will not give up easily.”
There was a remoteness to her now that he couldn’t understand, and he had no time to probe.
“Just so we understand each other, Isabel. If I say to stop, you stop without arguing. I’ll see you safe or die trying.”
He rode off before she could tell him that was the last thing she wanted, but the one thing she feared most.
But the approach to the black needle of rock proved to test even Kee’s temper. They had to backtrack due to deep crevices that could not be crossed, or the sheer cliffs that offered not even an old game trail to climb.
The ravines were no better, choked as they were with thick clumps of catclaw or the low-growing prickly pear and the giant saguaro cactus, and ocotillo. She enjoyed the sight of the blooming paloverde trees whose leaves were the brightest of yellow. She had two such trees near the stone courtyard outside her bedroom.
Isabel gasped. Ahead were the spectacular rock formations she remembered from the time spent here with her grandfather. Her spirits lifted. If this was the same place, the earthquake could not have destroyed the landmarks she needed. Once there had been a large herd of bighorn sheep flourishing in this craggy terrain, but they had been hunted for food until most were killed.
They were close. She felt the excitement build, and its flush chased some of the chill from her body, for there was an eerie quiet suddenly broken by the trickle of sliding gravel as the horses labored up the talus slope.
She knew what Kee searched for, a camp where they could watch if anyone approached. But she needed to be close to the gully that split the Finger of God in half.
She was about to call out to him when he veered off to the left. A few ponderosa pines grew in a straggly cluster and he headed the horses straight for them. She remained mounted, admiring his effortless grace that took him from horse to ground in one smooth move. He ducked beneath the low-growing sweep of pine branches, only to reappear a few moments later.
“Someone’s been camping here. Fairly recently, too. And they didn’t want anyone to know how many there were. The ground’s been swept clean around the fire ring.”
“Do we go on, Kee? I need to be at the start of that gully between the needles when the sun rises.”
“You need rest, Isabel. We’ll eat here and make a cold camp down below.”
She could see he was not happy about what he had found. She wondered if Clarai was already here, waiting for them. But there was no sense of being watched, and she was sure she would feel her cousin’s presence. It was such an evil thing.
She wondered if it was to be this easy. She would find the opening in the morning, and by this time tomorrow she could start for home. And leave Kee.
Distracted by the sudden emptiness that spread inside her, she never saw the way he watched her…hunger and longing in his eyes.
A lost moment, for she stopped thinking about what tomorrow would bring, and he moved to help her dismount.
He coaxed her into his arms with a gentle voice that soothed, and there was not one ounce of pride in her when she felt the caressing glide of his large hands closing around her waist to lift her out of the saddle. Held against his body, she snuggled close to him.
“As bad as I figured?”
“More.” She felt boneless sinking into the warmth of his body. She ached and was not ashamed to admit it.
“I have never had trouble riding for long hours before, Kee.”
“You never had a lover, either. Hang on.”
It was all the warning he gave as he swept her up into his arms. His masculine scents filled every breath she drew, horse and leather, and something more that she could not name. But the blend was heady, and she thought that she could find him anywhere in a crowd of men.
She thought he would hurry to be shed of her, but he walked slowly and the longer he held her, the more her senses came alive with a curious weak feeling that overtook the pain of blood flowing again to numb, aching body parts.
“What you need is a soak in a hot spring—”
“Oh, yes. We have a small one near our hacienda and bathe there often. My grandmother claims the water holds many cures.” Her head rested on his shoulder with a deep, longing sigh.
“You never told me where you live.”
“To the west, close to Bosque.”
“Maricopa Mountains.”
She tilted her head to see his face. “You say that with a fondness of knowing them.”
“I’ve done some horse hunting around there. Might have stopped and taken a cold drink at your well.”
Her arms tightened around him. “Never. You were never there, Kee.”
He stopped just short of the trees. He wasn’t mistaken about the intensity in her voice. One look and it was there in her lovely blue eyes.
“How can you be so sure?” He was unaware that his voice had become a husky whisper. Her lips were too close and all he could think about was covering her mouth with his and sliding his tongue inside for a taste of wild honey. And this time he wouldn’t wonder if there was a passion to match. He knew. Desire surged through him, shocking him with its speed and fierceness. From one pulse beat to another he was hard, aching and hungry for her.
Isabel kept her eyes on his throat. She could see his pulse and she ached to put her lips there. Desire filled her. The strong cords of his neck drew her eyes and she licked her bottom lip, then bit down hard to stop herself from doing something foolish.
“You never answered me.”
“What?” Her gaze lifted to his; smoldering fire lit their brown depths. She clung tighter when he shifted her and slowly released her legs, letting her hips slide down his body with an intimacy that left her shaken.
“Are you ever going to answer me?” he asked with a crooked smile.
“They would be dead.”
“Who?”
He felt the trembling that beset her, but he had his own unruly reaction to her to deal with. She did nothing and proved all over again how little control he had with her. And tonight he needed a sharp eye and clear head.
“Can you stand on your own now?”
She reacted to the sudden sharpness in his voice by jerking free. “Yes. I—I can stand on my own. And I know you have never stopped at our ranch. The women would have talked about you. Or they would be dead not to notice. Since that did not happen, you were not there.”
The words were a rushed tumble that ended as she backed away from him.
“I will gather wood for the fire while you see to the horses.”
With her back toward him, she did not see the regret in his eyes, or that his hands clenched at his sides not to reach out for her.
It was better this way, he told himself. Bitter, but better for both of them.
He stripped the saddles and his packhorse with a speed and energy that should have taken the edge off his building frustration, but didn’t even come close.
He heard a cut-off cry from Isabel and shucked his gun, searching for what alarmed her. He started to circle the trees when she called him.
“Come and see this, Kee. I will not touch it.”
In a moment he was beside her. He saw what she stared at. A roughly carved owl sat in the crook of the tree.
“The Apache,” she said in a deadened voice, “believe the owl to be a warning of death.”
“And it could have been put there years ago, Isabel. But you don’t believe that, do you? You think that Clarai was here.”
“Yes.”
He stood behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He rubbed them, feeling the chill that shivered through her.
“You’re stronger than she is, Isabel. Her beliefs aren’t yours. And I’m with you all the way. I won’t let her hurt you. I certainly won’t let her stop you.”
Once a Hero Page 18