A Warrior's Vow

by Marilyn Tracy

  Not in the dark. Not with her to keep safe as well.

  "If you're doing this for my benefit, you can forget about me," she barked, obviously unaware that he could no more forget about her than he could forget about food to eat or water to drink. "Enrique's all that's important."

  "We're stopping," Daggert stated, and swung his leg over Stone, dismounting.

  She didn't move. Her horse didn't, either, which meant the animal was too tired to traverse an inky-black terrain, and that it definitely was time to stop.

  "What was that?" Leeza asked suddenly.

  "What?" Daggert echoed. He cocked his head, listening. For half a second, he thought he heard Sancho.

  "That!" Leeza cried.

  Daggert registered the note of strained terror in her voice even as gooseflesh rippled across his body.

  "Was that a whimper?"

  Before Daggert could shush her so he could listen, she yelled, "Enrique? Enrique, it's okay!"

  When the little boy didn't answer, but Daggert heard another whimper, he whispered for her to be quiet.

  She immediately complied.

  He whistled and felt his heart jolt when he heard Sancho whine, then bark.

  "Sancho?" Leeza asked. "He's back?"

  "Wait," Daggert said. "Something's holding him up. Otherwise he'd be here."

  "Oh my God," she half sobbed. "What if—?"

  Daggert pulled a flashlight from his saddlebags and cursed himself for not having brought two. He usually packed for every contingency, making it a rule to have two of everything in the event that something went amiss with one. But he'd never considered the need for two flashlights. After all, he was only one man. And if he was using the flashlight, he probably needed the other hand for his knife.

  "Here, you take the flashlight and set up camp. I'll find Sancho."

  "You take it. I'm fine," she said tersely. "I'll start a fire."

  Daggert instinctively wanted to argue against lighting a fire, afraid Donny's killer would be able to easily spot them. But she was right. They needed the warmth and they needed to eat. And most of all, he needed the flashlight to find Sancho.

  "Maybe Enrique has him," she said wistfully.

  "Let's hope so," Daggert replied. But he didn't think the boy had anything to do with why Sancho hadn't come back to him all day. And he didn't believe Leeza thought so, either. He could see fear in her eyes.

  He flicked on the flashlight and started away from her.

  "Daggert?"

  "Yes?" He turned.

  "Be careful. Okay?"

  Simple words, but they hit him like a fist to the gut. He strode back to her and pulled her to him for a hard, fierce kiss. But nothing in him felt fierce at that moment. He felt strangely unmanned, as if she'd torn his heart right out of him and held it in her hands. "Denzhoné," he said gruffly, "I'll be right back."

  Daggert was gone before she could even breathe again. "What does it mean?" she called out into the darkness, her eyes on the shaft of light bobbing off into the night.

  "It means 'Beautiful Eyes'," he called back. "Denzhoné Bidáá."

  The light moved deeper into the shadows and disappeared within seconds. She heard another whimper from Sancho and realized she was standing stock-still, her fingers scarcely holding the horse's reins.

  Leeza secured the leather straps to a tree as she'd seen Daggert do several times now. She felt around on the ground for stones with which to build a campfire. She rummaged blindly through the saddlebags on Daggert's horse to find a lighter and the pot he used to boil water. She scratched herself on a sharp rock and stuck her hand into something cold and mushy before she'd gathered enough kindling to start a blaze.

  Frantically wiping her hands on her pants, not even daring to think about what she'd encountered, she forced her fingers to stop shaking long enough to strike the lighter, and muttered her thanks as the flame illuminated her rough camp. She swiftly touched the fire to her small mound of kindling and couldn't restrain her smile of satisfaction when it caught and quickly flared into a small blaze.

  Moving rapidly, gingerly snatching up dead twigs and branches from under the surrounding trees, she added them to the fire. Within minutes, she had a fairly good campfire going. The first thing she did was to check what she'd gotten into while fumbling around in the dark. It was a half-eaten tortilla smeared with peanut butter.

  She stared at it for several seconds before turning back to the horses. "He's alive," she told them. "He's okay. And we'll find him."

  Belle gave a low grunt as if agreeing with her.

  Leeza pulled the collapsible water buckets from the saddlebags and filled them from the canteens Daggert had replenished at the river. After he'd replenished her.

  She shivered, not because she was cold, but because the memory of his touch rushed through her with an almost painful sweep of unfamiliar emotions and longing.

  Beautiful Eyes, he'd called her. But it wasn't the name, it was the way he'd said it that made her tremble with desire. He'd said it as if she possessed the most beautiful eyes in all the universe. As if he saw deep into her very soul and still found her lovely.

  She wished that were true. Wished he could do that, and that what he might find would be as beautiful as the Apache word. But if she was honest—and if there was one thing Leeza Nelson prided herself on, it was being supposedly truthful—her soul wasn't spotless. She was as ruthless in her business ventures as Daggert was relentless in his search for Donny's killer. These were the thorns in their sides. Or maybe they were their Achilles' heels. The thought made the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

  What would either of them be like without the thorns?

  She almost screamed when Sancho suddenly materialized at the perimeter of the fire. He gave a low growl, then, upon recognizing her, uttered a bark of excitement and threw himself at her, his tail nearly dousing the flames. Knocking her from her feet, Sancho licked her face, jumped across her and whined happily.

  "Get off her, you big oaf." Daggert was a disembodied voice and a beam of light coming out of the night.

  "Where was he?" she asked, pushing Sancho away and struggling to her feet.

  "Tied to a tree," Daggert said, stepping into the firelight.

  Leeza could see his impotent fury. It was all he could do not to kick at something or throw himself onto Stone's back and ride out into the darkness. She sensed something more than his rage, as well—something dangerously close to fear. And the last thing she wanted to see on Daggert's face was anything remotely resembling fear.

  She didn't suggest that Enrique might have tethered the dog, because what little boy, nine years old, would refuse the company of a great animal like Sancho? None. Even had he been afraid of the dog, he wouldn't have tied him to a tree. In that case, he wouldn't have approached the large setter at all.

  No, she was sure that whoever had tied the dog to the tree was the same man who'd dropped the knife. And that the intricate design on the knife handle was the exact same carving that had appeared on the tree over young Donny's body.

  "There are several people up here looking for Enrique," she reminded Daggert. "And you said you know them all."

  He shot her a look loaded with meaning. "True. And one of them is Donny's killer."

  "But he didn't hurt Sancho."

  Sancho whined, sat down and held up his paw.

  Leeza obliged him with a shake. The dog gave a sharp bark, followed by a low growling whine.

  "What's the matter, boy?" she asked, remembering the dog having done the same thing the day before. And remembering Daggert frowning over it.

  The tracker was frowning now, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at Sancho. "He's trying to tell us who it is. Like the way he collects things, he's using a gesture he does with someone to tell me who's out here on this mountain."

  "But you don't know who?"

  "Almost. I've seen it. I've seen Sancho doing this. But it's not coming to the surface who he does it with."

  "Th
ink," Leeza prompted. "Like you told me, you know."

  "It's like when Donny disappeared and no one saw who took him. I think they all saw the man, only, it was just someone they all knew, someone they were so used to seeing that it didn't even register."

  "Okay, we know one of the men is Jack, the former deputy marshal. Does he shake hands with Sancho when they run across each other?"

  Daggert looked from Sancho to Leeza. He gave a sigh of frustration. "Maybe. I don't know. I just can't remember."

  "And the grocers?"

  A flash of recognition flickered across Daggert's face. "Always with Jenkins and sometimes with Greathouse, because they give him dog bisquits whenever they see him."

  "How about the manager at Annie's café, Bill was it? Does he shake hands with Annie?"

  Daggert ran his hand across his broad forehead. "I don't know. Maybe. I think so, but I'm not sure."

  Leeza let it drop. There was no point in pushing Daggert; a person's memory was a mystery to even the most expert of psychiatrists, a layman like herself didn't have a clue how to probe it.

  She said instead, "I found part of a peanut butter covered tortilla while you were gone."

  He made a face.

  She smiled. "I know, but at least it tells us Enrique's been this way exactly."

  "It does at that," he said and looked away from her. He was hiding something from her. Something he'd discovered. She didn't know how she knew this, she just did.

  "What?" she asked.

  He turned his gaze back to hers.

  "What aren't you telling me?" she asked. When he didn't answer, she pressed him. "I'd rather know the truth. No matter how bad it is."

  "One of Enrique's gloves was tied to the end of the rope that held Sancho," he said.

  Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, this wasn't it. She couldn't make sense of his words. They didn't frighten her; they were simply incomprehensible.

  "The person who tied Sancho to that tree had Enrique's other glove. He wanted us to know that he has the boy. Or wants us to think so, anyway."

  She drew in her breath with a hiss, then quickly said, "We can't know that."

  "I can't think of another explanation."

  "Maybe it's Jack, and he's letting us know he's found Enrique?"

  Daggert didn't look away from her as he shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, Denzhoné. If Jack found him, he'd shoot a few rounds in the air because he knows we're out searching. Unless he's not the person I always thought he was. No. This is someone playing with us."

  Leeza wanted to protest, wanted to come up with another scenario, but couldn't. She realized that while she needed reassurance, Daggert wasn't the man to give it at the moment. He was caught up in his vengeful anger and needed comfort far more than she did. Every muscle in his body seemed to be stiff with the need to plunge into the darkness and find Enrique—and the man who might be holding him.

  "The water's going to be hot enough soon," Leeza said, turning away from him.

  She heard Daggert sigh behind her. "Good. Then maybe the moon will rise and we can get going again."

  "Do you know what time it rises this time of month?" Leeza added another dry branch to the fire.

  "Sometime around midnight," he said, rummaging in his saddlebags. He withdrew three pouches and dropped them into the boiling water. "This will have to serve us well. Our larder is almost empty."

  "What?"

  Daggert's eyes met hers briefly before he looked away. "I only packed for Sancho and me."

  "And you fixed these for lunch, too, because you knew I hated the jerky," she said softly, remembering.

  He gave a grunt that could have been assent. But she knew that's exactly what he'd done. The flare of attraction between them hadn't prompted that small and very important courtesy, simple human consideration had. Old-fashioned chivalry. He'd manufactured a reason to allow her to bathe and to eat a real meal.

  A sharp stab of guilt assailed her. Had she not made such an issue of the jerky, he would have kept them moving toward Enrique. They wouldn't have stopped for so long. Wouldn't have made love on that grassy bank with the scent of pine as an aromatic aphrodisiac, and the gurgle of water as a symphonic backdrop.

  They might have Enrique with them by now. They might have found Sancho hours sooner.

  And she would never have known the sweet mystery of feeling totally in tune with another human being, that perfection of union she'd always heard about but had never once encountered.

  She wanted to say some of this to Daggert, but saw by the tightness of his jaw that he was suffering a similar internal battle.

  "It's my fault we lagged behind," she said firmly.

  "The hell it is," he said roughly. He gave her a harsh glare.

  She knew just how intense his anger could be, but she didn't back away from him. "We might have him by now."

  Daggert's hand shot out and grabbed her arm, yanking her to him. "And if beggars had horses, they would ride."

  "You know I'm telling the truth."

  "What difference does it make?"

  "It matters because you told me not to come with you. You told me I'd slow you down. And I did."

  He gave her an odd look, one that mingled pain and a healthy dose of the bitterness he was named after. "But if you hadn't, I'd never have tasted you, Denzhoné. And God help me, that's all I've wanted to do from the first second I saw you."

  Leeza knew that as tortured as he was by the need to keep going, as frustrated by the necessity of stopping and waiting for the sluggard moon to rise, he would be trapped between guilt and fury for as long as they were forced to wait. Pressed against him, held there by his firm grip, she gave a soft sigh.

  "Then taste me. Please."

  With a groan, he ground his lips against hers. She felt his fury, his fear for Enrique, his desire to be forging ahead and his longing for her. She gave herself to the kiss with a passion that seemed fueled directly from his.

  She'd never felt so free with anyone before, nor so hungry.

  His lips on her fanned a raging inferno inside her, making her almost desperate to feel him, to touch him intimately, to impress the memory of him on to her body. With abandon, she dug at his clothing, frantic to remove any obstacle between them. She was scarcely aware of him doing the same, so intent was she on reaching his smooth, muscled skin.

  The warmth of him beneath her fingertips made her moan, and she lowered her mouth to the tiny buds of his nipples. She grazed them lightly with her teeth and relished his swift hiss and tightened grip.

  He buried his hands in her hair and pulled her head back for a deep and thoroughly mind-shattering kiss, his tongue warring with hers, his lips plundering.

  Her knees threatened to buckle and he released her only to push her blouse away and yank down her bra, so her breasts bounced free. His hands cupped them and lifted a nipple to his hot mouth. He suckled avidly, causing her to moan and a rush of molten heat to flood her loins. He transferred his attention to the other, leaving the first to be teased by the cold mountain air.

  She fumbled with his belt buckle and yanked it free, pulling his jeans open with a swift tug on his zipper. She thrust her hands inside his briefs and captured the very essence of him in her grip. She ran her fingers down the full length of him, aroused by his heat, the throbbing need that pulsed within her grasp.

  He unfastened her jeans with shaking hands and shoved them down a few inches as he pushed his fingers beneath the silk strip of her panties. He cupped her bottom and kneaded her rounded curves with powerful hunger, dragging her close, slowly rotating against her.

  "Denzhoné," he growled. "You drive me insane."

  And Leeza knew the insanity was contagious, for it slammed through her senses and robbed her of all rational thought. The entire world seemed made up of the two of them. Touching, aching, exploring, demanding. All barriers shed. His hands on her breasts. His fingers between her thighs. His mouth on her skin. His lips crushing hers. Her wrists bo
und with the long silk of his black hair. Her fingers tangling, pulling. Her mouth imploring him to take her now. Please, please now.

  Lowering them to their heap of discarded clothing, Daggert rolled her on top of him and, even as she straddled him, lifted her and pulled her down over him. Sheathing him.

  He cried out when she did, not in culmination, but in fierce triumph. His hands stroked her thighs, setting a rhythm as ancient as the stars themselves, and she rocked into him. Rising slightly, clenching him, she then lowered herself with aching slowness.

  "Posting has its advantages," he said through gritted teeth, surprising a chuckle out of her and at the same time confusing her. It seemed so incredibly intimate, so very casually personal, as though they'd been lovers for years, had established inside jokes that underscored their private communication. Something she'd never done before because she'd never allowed anyone to get close enough to her to share laughter.

  Daggert's hands found her breasts and he arched up to capture them with lips so thirsty she shook with the need to fill him.

  But it was he who filled her. Driving deep, with sure steady strokes, taking her closer and closer to that precipice he'd introduced her to before.

  Locked around him, feeling him within her body, rocking in his arms, Leeza realized that at this particular moment, this specific time, every single thing was right in the universe. Enrique would be found. Rancho Milagro would succeed. The world would spin around the sun and the sun around the galaxy. And this amazing man she was beginning to understand held her conflicted emotions in his hands every bit as firmly as he held her to him now.

  With a primal cry, he drove up and into her, flinging her into that alternate place of rapture and sensation. Leeza knew he'd gone with her, lost on some blazing trail of culmination. She clung to his shoulders, arching away from him, encasing him, pulling him with her.

  When he murmured his Apache name for her against her throat, she felt herself coming back, still shattered, but slowly finding the random bits of her mind. She gradually became aware of the chill of the night, the warmth of his body against hers, the heat of his lips at her collarbone.

  She could hear the fire crackling, where moments before it had seemed a roar of conquest. And the stars no longer thundered her name.