Western Winds

by Raine Cantrell

  Were they all insane? Could Rafe sit there and ignore her need to be with him? She glanced around, realizing that Curt was missing.

  “Luke, where’s Curt?”

  Distracted from watching the lithe young girl who was offering Rafe something to drink, he answered her abruptly. “He ain’t far. Let it be. Rafe’ll take care of him.” But he was already being pushed forward, and Lacey stood alone.

  Rage filled her, and she, too, walked away. She couldn’t stand another moment of watching Rafe sitting with them. Rafe had shown her a raw, savage side to himself that she didn’t want to confront now. And no one stopped her.

  The drums started up and her head began to pound along with the pulsing rhythm. Stumbling in the darkness as she made her way past empty tipis, Lacey tripped and hung on to the hand that reached out to steady her.

  “I waited for you, Lacey. I knew you couldn’t stay with him … not when you realized what a savage he is.”

  Curt! Dear God what had she done? In running from Rafe for pride’s sake, she had put herself into his hands again.

  “You’re a fool if you think I’ll come with you,” she said, trying to brazen it out. “What’s more, you can’t force me.”

  “Can’t I?”

  The press of his gun barrel against her side was enough to silence her.

  “Come along. I have horses waiting. No one will miss you. They’re too busy celebrating.” He laughed as she moved ahead. “We’ll ride to Mexico. You didn’t know that I have a ranch there. You’ll forget that greaser. I promise you that.” He gripped her arm and steered her away from the tipis.

  “I’m far richer than you know, Lacey. You’ll have everything you want, even the Reina. Someday, when I’m sure of you, I’ll let you come back.”

  Lacey stopped abruptly, knowing she couldn’t meekly let him take her. “You’re the one who bought up the outstanding notes,” she accused, realizing that he made no move to push her forward. She cursed the dark that hid his face from her. “Bo said you knew he was my father all this time. He told me that you forced him into helping you steal from me. How could you believe that knowing all this, I’d think of anything but killing you?”

  “I know you’re not a fool,” he replied softly. “I was willing to wait until Rafe showed up. I wanted you for myself. Sy knew how I felt, but he was a stubborn old man. He refused to force you to marry me. I underestimated Sy. He fouled my plans with that damn will. I thought he had forgotten about looking for his son. I know I did my damnedest to make sure that he couldn’t be found.”

  Rafe’s tormented voice came to her mind. The times he had tried to find work, honest work, and how he was denied. And all because of Curt’s driven desire for her.

  “How could you deny a man his son?”

  “I told you. I wanted you. I paid to keep Rafe hunted and running.”

  Lacey wondered if she dared to run. But there was a driving need to know more from him. Desperate enough to gamble, she demanded answers. “How did you find out about Rafe? How could you betray Sy’s trust and mine?” Lacey fought not to cringe when his body brushed against hers.

  “Sy was drunk and told me about a rumor he heard when he went back to buy stock in Mexico. He asked me to search for his son. And I did look for him. Once I had the confirmation from the village priest, the rest wasn’t hard to arrange. It’s a shame the Federales didn’t kill him before the judge found him. Let’s go, Lacey. I want to be away from here before dawn.”

  He grabbed her arm, and Lacey saw that he holstered his gun. “Curt, wait, please.” She pulled back and never expected his swift half turn or the slam of his body against hers.

  “You bitch! You think I don’t know you’re hoping that bastard will come after you?”

  Lacey made her choice. Blindly her mouth found his. She swallowed the bile that rose, for his lips devoured hers. Her skin crawled when he pulled her hips tight to his and thrust his tongue into her mouth. She knew he took her whimper as a cry of pleasure and grunted when she leaned back against his arms.

  She forced herself to caress his back, knew her touch excited him. He fumbled with the ties on the side of her shift, and she knew he would take her, here in the dirt.

  Rational thoughts fled. He was pushing her down. Lacey grabbed at his thigh, panting like a wild thing caught in a trap. She heard the sound of his voice but not his words and pulled his gun free. Her mouth opened on a silent scream. She thrust the gun between their bodies and fired it over and over.

  The shots were muffled, and she was suddenly cold. But not her hands. They were hot and wet. She glanced at them and flung the gun aside.

  Terror sent her running blindly. Driven by the same desperation that made her kill Curt, animal instinct to survive surfaced. She twisted between looming shapes of tipis, mindless horror lending her strength to keep going until she crashed into the side of a horse.

  Snorting and plunging against the staked rope, the horse scented blood on her. Unconsciously she scooped up handfuls of dirt, grinding it between her palms, murmuring incoherently to the horse as she wiped her hands dry on her pants. She could smell fear and didn’t know if it was the animal’s or her own. Grabbing the rope, she gathered it to shorten its length until her breath mingled with the horse’s. She held on to his mane and boosted herself up on his bare back, ripped aside the rope halter, and urged him into a run.

  Only the fluid motion of the animal seemed real to her. She reached the safety of trees, but branches slashed her, and she cried out in pain as her hair caught. The twigs and limbs felt like fingers reaching out to capture her. The horse pitched its high whinny into the night, and Lacey tore her hair free. They plunged deeper into the wood when she became aware of a rider behind her.

  The horse found footing on a rough trail, and Lacey beat him with her hands as the rider came abreast of her. There was no room to move—she was being crowded against the massive tree trunks. She saw a hand reach out for her and slapped it away, almost losing her seat. No one was going to take her freedom again.

  Tears blinded her. She felt the strength of the arm that caught her around the waist, pulling her from her horse to slam her against a hard body.

  Nothing mattered but escape. The horse beneath them reared as she sank her heel deep into his side, clawing wildly at the arm that held her.

  “Be still! Lacey, stop it or we’ll both get hurt!”

  The moment she heard Rafe’s voice she sagged limply against him. But the horror of these last days had taken its toll. She gathered her strength to run when she felt the slowing motion of the horse.

  Rafe didn’t give her a chance. He flowed down out of the saddle with the silent grace of a shadow, taking her with him.

  “Killed!” Lacey screamed the word, struggling in his arms. “I shot him…”

  Rafe tried to soothe her with murmurs and his touch. He had found Curt’s body, and his guilt weighed heavily for leaving her alone to face him.

  “It’s over, Lacey. Over,” he stressed, pressing her trembling body close to his. He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth. “You’re—”

  “Don’t! Don’t touch me.” But Rafe held her in a death grip that she couldn’t break. She heard his repeated whispers, but nothing he said made sense to her.

  “Let me go. Didn’t you hear me? I shot him.”

  “Never. I’ll never let you go,” he breathed with a shattering intensity, his eyes as dark and fathomless as the night. She was straining to drag air into her lungs. The savagery of the night had ripped aside his control, and now Rafe fought to leash it. Yet there was a wildness to Lacey that he couldn’t still, a wildness that fed his own.

  “Hold me,” he demanded. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He tried to capture her mouth with his, but Lacey fought him, and they both fell to the ground.

  Chapter 24


  Rafe rolled and took the brunt of the fall. Lacey shoved free of his hold and scrambled away from him.

  Her eyes darted frantically from side to side, and he slowly lifted his hand out to her. “Lacey, no one’s going to hurt you. Hold on to my hand.”

  “They were going to kill you,” she raged in a soft voice, backing away. “You left me alone.”

  Rafe levered himself up, half sitting, and leaned toward her. “I didn’t want to leave you alone, and I’m here with you now. Take my hand, bright eyes. You won’t ever be alone again.” He had never felt such a deep sense of knowing another person, and it was this sense that warned him Lacey was losing her ability to reason. “Talk to me,” he coaxed. “Whatever it is, we’ll face it together. Come here to me. I need to hold you.”

  “No. I told you I don’t want you to touch me.”

  Rafe became frightened at the way she was breathing, but was more afraid of sending her into another panic. A twig cracked in the woods behind her, and she cried out.

  “They’re coming after us!”

  “Who, Lacey? Who’s coming?”

  “Curt. Evan. Those savages.”

  “Curt and Evan are dead, Lacey. They won’t ever come after you again.” He measured the distance between them.

  “They’ll hang you. And me,” she added in a broken voice, shaking.

  “No, bright eyes. The army was searching for them, and Matt and Hank are Rangers. They were—”

  “Rangers! More lies from you.”

  Rafe spoke softly then, gathering himself to lunge at her while he told of how the judge talked him into letting them work on the Reina while they scouted around.

  “No more! I don’t care. Just leave me. Walk away.”

  “I told you I can’t do that. And you will listen to me. Matt said they were desperate to stop the sale of guns to the Indians. No one is going to hang us for what we did. I might have to answer to the army for stealing the guns that Captain Chase captured from Evan’s men.”

  Rafe shifted his weight and came to his knees slowly. He breathed deeply, willing Lacey to stay still long enough for him to grab hold of her.

  Lacey stared at him without truly seeing him. She had to block the sight of him fighting from her mind. But the images flashed over and over, and then she saw herself with Curt, felt again the hard wooden grip of the gun and the cool metal trigger that she pulled … She went rigid.

  Rafe made his move. He lunged across the space and gathered her into his arms. Her body was chilled, and he was held in a grip of fear. “What’s wrong, Lacey? Tell me. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

  In her mind she ran from his demand and his touch. She didn’t want to talk, to remember. Lacey seized on the first sane thing that would make him stop his demands. “Where’s Bo? Did you see him? He stayed with me. He wouldn’t let them hurt me. I want to go home, Rafe. I need—”

  “Hush. Hush. You’re safe now. I promise you that.” But Lacey didn’t want to hear, she wanted the security that only the Reina could give her. She twisted away from him, and he let her go, seeing that she sat up, huddled into herself.

  “We can’t go home yet. I need to finish what I started. And you need to know what I found out about Bo James.” He didn’t try to touch her and hoped that talking, telling her what he knew, would reach through her shield. Rafe had a nagging suspicion that Lacey already knew who Bo was. But when he finished and only the night rustlings of small animals broke the silence, Rafe felt she was miles away from him.

  “You know, don’t you?” she asked in a deadened voice.

  “He was your father, wasn’t he?” Rafe raised his hand to her shoulder as she nodded, but she shifted away as if she had sensed his touch.

  “It hurts you, bright eyes. I know that. I’ve lived with the same bitterness and anger. But we can make it pass, we can put it all aside with time. You have to want to do it.” He moved to kneel behind her, his arms encircled her body, and he buried his face against the wild tangle of her hair. She was withdrawn from him, and he wasn’t sure how to reach her. He knew the unanswered questions that must be plaguing her. He had lived with them for a long time. But no matter how much love he offered, Lacey had to face this her own way.

  Her body held no warmth, yet even as he rubbed her arms, trying to give her his heat, he searched for a way to break down the wall he felt her reinforcing. Time pressed down on him. He had to get back and somehow stall the renegade band about the guns he had promised them, but Lacey came first.

  “Stop thinking about it, Lacey. There’s nothing you can do. Bo made his choices just as Evan and Curt did. They paid for them. Pity me, wife. I have to find a way to turn down Painted Red’s offer of twenty of his best horses for you. Luke believes he’s a member of the Kiowa Ko-eet-senko, one of their elite warrior bands that mustn’t be insulted.”

  “Am I to be honored by that?” What nonsense was he talking? She wanted to be alone with her pain. Why couldn’t he understand?

  “So Luke said. Only a chief’s daughter could command such a high price,” he teased, thankful that she was talking to him.

  “I want to go home.” But when she tried to stand, he held her still, and she cringed at his touch.

  “Stop it! We have to go back. But you must understand that you do nothing, say nothing without—”

  “No! No more! No man will ever hold any power over me again. Do you know,” she raged, scrambling to her knees and facing him, “how helpless I’ve felt? Do you have any idea of the fear that crawled inside me? You don’t know what it was like to be pawed! You didn’t care. You didn’t even ask what they did to me.”

  “I know they didn’t rape you, Lacey. I wouldn’t have killed Evan so quickly if he had dared to touch you. He’s the one that saw us together and told April. I made him tell me.”

  She froze in a crouch, eyes darting between him and the horses. There was a deadly note in his voice that made her afraid. The moon peaked from beneath the clouds like a shy lover and illuminated his face. Lacey caught her breath. Her widened eyes were trapped by his, emitting an almost tangible fury. There was a savage, untamed streak in him that went beyond what she had witnessed this night. She could see it in the arrogant tilt of his dark brows, the curving mockery of his mouth. Lacey shivered and heard the echo of her own heartbeat pound dully in her ears.

  “You’re like a wild thing with your hair all tangled like an Indian maid caught unaware and your eyes catching the moonlight.” He leaned forward, gathering his legs beneath him. “You make me want you all over again.” By inches he moved closer, knowing she was ready to run. Her eyes were glazed, and he waited with bated breath until she focused on him. He willed her from her numbed state, praying he wasn’t wrong.

  “You’ve eyes with the power to steal inside me and stir my blood with a look. And your lips, witch, hold a man’s breath inside him, find his soul, and demand it in promise of your kiss.” His hand covered hers, and he drew her near. “Shall I court you like some half-tamed maid?” He cupped her chin and lifted it, brushing his lips over her mouth.

  But it wasn’t Rafe who kissed her. Lacey couldn’t block the image of him lit by fire, fighting and then walking away from her. She didn’t know him. She’d married and loved a man she had never known. When he spoke, he only confirmed her thoughts.

  “I want a woman, not a child. Maybe,” he grated with a taunting smile, “I should keep you here and show you how the Comanche train their women.” She shoved him away, and Rafe hunkered back on his heels. “I didn’t think you’d swallow that.” He tried to be satisfied that she was angry and turning it on him. It was what he had wanted. At least she had lost that glazed look, but he didn’t think it would hurt him to taunt her. “So, you’ve seen another side of me, and you don’t like it.”

  “Like it?” she repeated, almost spitting the words. “I
hate it. I hate what it makes you. I won’t stay here. You’re no better than those savages!” Her hands clawed the earth, and a fury seemed to erupt. “Next you’ll tell me this is all my fault. But it isn’t. If you hadn’t insisted on staying in—”

  “Stop this crazy talk. You sound like a spiteful child.”

  “You’ve called me that once too often. You never think I’m a child when you take me.”

  “Take you?” He came up from the ground slowly, his body taut, and grabbed her shoulders to haul her up in front of him. The thin buckskin shift tore beneath his fingers and fell to her waist. He ripped it off.

  “I wasn’t going to say a word about that night! But you’re right. Only you’ve got it twisted, Lacey. If you’d’ve stayed where you were safe, none of this would’ve happened. But you didn’t,” he raged, shaking her. “Wishing won’t make it all go away. I’m not going away. I killed a man tonight. For you, Lacey. I killed him because he dared to touch you. I’d do it again. But you’re not going to drive me over the edge. Do you hear me,” he demanded, beginning to shake himself. “Never again!”

  “You throw that up to me?” she screamed. “But I killed a man to protect you, too.”

  He stared down at her, fighting for control that had snapped. “You’re always trying to prove—”

  “Nothing! I don’t want to prove anything to you. I hate you. I’m going home, and if you try to stop me, I’ll kill you. I don’t want you to touch me!” she cried out, arching away from contact with his body. “You’re a savage. Like them. Savage!”

  Rafe couldn’t let her go. Her eyes were wild, and he knew he’d lost his chance to reason with her. He had wanted her aware and alive, and she was, but it was fury that made her so. Fury directed at him.

  His lips silenced her, bruising the mouth he had tenderly worshipped. But she fought his kiss, and his rage against her sharpened so that he attacked her in kind.

  With a brutal twist he released her mouth. “Now,” he grated from between clenched teeth, “the savage kissed you. Home for you, if you love me, is wherever I am. Or is your loved based on lies? You can’t,” he warned, “go anywhere till I’m good and ready to take you. And if I was teasing about showing you what an obedient wife is, understand that now … now,” he ground out furiously, “I mean to do it.” He had to stop and take deep, shuddering breaths to still the storm inside himself. If Lacey him, it was nothing for what he felt for himself. Her face was white, her eyes horrified.