She was once again just a confused woman in the arms of a haunted man.
But it seemed all right when he wrapped his arms closer around her and drew her beneath his chin, pacifying her with a slow, gentle swaying.
"Tell me about your childhood," she requested.
He sighed and continued his slow swaying, rocking motion. "I was raised on the reservation," he said. "It's not an easy life, but it's a good one. Children are prized in Apache culture and allowed much greater freedom than in the white world. I grew up in these mountains, spending most of my time up here."
"Sounds like heaven," she murmured, and was amazed to find herself believing that. Even a week ago she would have been aghast at the notion.
"Do you miss your ex-wife?" she asked, and blushed at the interpretation he might place on her question.
"We had grown apart long before Donny…went missing. She's remarried now and has a daughter. She's happy."
He hadn't answered her question, Leeza thought. But perhaps he had given her a more complete answer than she'd dreamed of.
"Will you promise me something?" she asked.
"I don't believe in promises," he answered. She could feel the words rumbling in his chest as if his heart was speaking directly to hers.
"Because they can be broken?"
"Because they are always broken."
"I keep them," she said. "I've never knowingly broken a promise."
His arms tightened. "As in everything, you're different there, as well. So, Leeza Nelson, will you promise me something?"
Leeza hesitated. She had the feeling that a tremendous weight hung in the balance of her answer. She could simply answer yes, and accept the responsibility of a promise she would walk through hell rather than break, or she could hedge, waiting to see what he was about to ask of her. It had always been her way to be cautious, to know what she was committing herself to before agreeing to sign on any dotted line.
Why was this any different?
It was. The man, the night, the mission they were engaged in, all these things conspired to make the notion of promises a wholly new concept.
"Yes," she said.
He stilled his slow swaying and raised his hands to her head, pulling her back a little so that her eyes met his. "I want you to promise me that when we find Enrique you won't stop me from going after the man who killed Donny."
"But—"
"No buts, Denzhoné. I want you to promise me now."
Leeza felt the importance of his words, the meaning behind them, and knew that at that exact moment, she would have promised him anything. Anything. Even if what he was asking her to do was to walk away from him, and that was the inherent subtext of his words.
"All right. Fine. I promise," she said, never letting her eyes waver from his. "But you have to promise me something in return."
"No. No promises," he said.
"Then give me a pledge."
"Is there a difference?"
"Yes," she said. "A promise is freely given, a pledge requires security."
A chuckle rumbled through him, shaking them both. "You and your splitting meanings to a hair's width. All right, Leeza Nelson, what do you want as a pledge?"
She felt him move within her, a swift throb of withdrawal. She clenched around him as if denying that inevitability. "No," she said, not to his words, but to his breaking their connection. Then she stated, "Sancho."
"What?"
"I promised to let you go after you found Enrique, to let you go after Donny's killer. When you do…if you do…leave Sancho with me."
He was silent so long she was sure he was trying to figure out how to let her demand go unanswered. But finally, he sighed. "I don't know what you think that achieves, but okay. Sancho will stay with you."
"As a pledge."
"As a pledge."
"That's a vow."
"Splitting hairs again? You want a vow from me, Denzhoné? All right. I vow to find Enrique whole and sound and return him to you. And I vow to protect you while you are with me." He said the words with a solemnity due a prayer or a vow of such magnitude that nothing in heaven or on earth could ever revoke it. At the same time, she felt there was more he wasn't saying. "You say you don't break promises," he added. "I have never broken a vow."
Leeza wanted to remind him that he'd been married. Surely vows had been exchanged.
As was becoming usual with James Daggert, he seemed to read her mind. He gave the ghost of a chuckle, but there was no humor in it. "If you're thinking about my marriage, I can honestly tell you that, legally, Alma and I were never married. That's the Apache way. It's common. We promised to be faithful to each other as long as our time together lasted. There are no other commitments, except to family and children."
Leeza felt a stab of guilt for having so rapidly come up with a flaw in his logic. And she felt something she had no name for because she'd never felt it before. It made her ache and her eyes sting. It made her heart feel tight and her throat full. This nameless something hurt fiercely and felt glorious at one and the same time. Whatever the feeling was, it made her want to stay in the safety of his arms forever.
She had to ask him one more question, one that attached no promise or vow. "And if you find Donny's murderer? What then, James Daggert?"
He looked at her almost blankly, and she remembered him telling her there was nothing else in him but vengeance, nothing else but ridding the world of the monster who'd killed his son.
His eyes focused and his tawny eyes glittered in the firelight. "I don't know, Denzhoné. I can't see beyond that time."
And sadly, Leeza knew he couldn't. But she didn't know who she felt more sorrow for, the vengeance-driven man holding her or the changing woman he held in his arms.
Chapter 9
The hunter wrapped the boy in a blanket from his pack. The boy scarcely stirred in his sleep. And why should he? His belly was full, he was safe in the company of a man he knew, and he would soon be reunited with his parents.
The kid hadn't talked much during their meal of army rations. But he had told the hunter about the aliens who took his parents away.
"And they're coming back to Cima La Luz," the boy had said. "For me."
"Didn't you like it at that Rancho Milagro place?"
A shutter had fallen over the boy's face. He'd shrugged. "It was okay," he'd mumbled.
"Were they mean to you?"
"No," the boy had said quickly.
"What about Leeza Nelson? Was she mean to you?"
The boy hunched a shoulder.
"She's out on this mountain somewhere," the hunter said.
The boy looked up at that. "Señora Leeza?"
"Sure enough."
The boy shook his head, contradicting him. "Not Señora Leeza. She doesn't like horses. She's afraid of them."
"I heard tell she's riding one after you."
"She doesn't even like me," the boy said.
"Maybe not, but she's coming after you, anyway."
The boy hadn't said anything for a long time, then had murmured, "She looks at me funny sometimes."
"Funny how, kid?"
"Like I remind her of someone. It makes her sad, I think."
"Everyone's saying it's her fault you ran away."
The boy had surprised him by shooting to his feet and glaring at him. "That's a lie!"
The hunter held up his hands. "Hey, don't take my head off, kid. I didn't say it."
"She's a real lady, Señora Leeza is. She showed me the stars."
"Constellations and such?"
The boy nodded, relaxing, then finally sat back down again.
"Why don't you show 'em to me?" the hunter asked. "Without a moon, they're pretty bright tonight."
The boy had pointed out the obvious ones and a couple the hunter was impressed a child would know.
The boy snored softly now, snug in his blanket, a little bug in a borrowed rug.
And the hunter pulled out his binoculars and zeroed in on the fi
re far below him on the mountainside. He couldn't make out any more than shadows around the fire's edge. But he knew Daggert and the woman were down there.
Daggert would be frustrated and angry, but made impotent to act by his very heroic nature. The tracker wouldn't leave her. And the woman would be worried sick about the little boy sleeping so peacefully at the hunter's side. Of course, he wouldn't be sleeping long. The moon was rising and it was time to move again.
What the boy had said about Leeza Nelson added a distinct flavor to the game at hand. There would be some crying before all was said and done.
His daddy used to tell him that.
He put his binoculars aside and pulled his toys from his saddlebag. He couldn't find his knife, the knife El Patron had presented him back in the good old days, the days of carving. He searched through his things, believing at first he'd just put the knife in a different pouch, then frantically rifling his packs. He'd had it that afternoon. It had to be here. When had he last seen it? When he'd tied up the dog? When he'd spotted signs of the boy?
His heart thundered. He felt as if he were unraveling, the way he felt sometimes when things were too busy at work, when too many people wanted too many different things, when he had to wait on them with a smile instead of a knife.
His knife!
But he still had his claws. The extensions of his soul.
Breathing heavily, desperate to subdue the fear rising in him, he lifted the boy's small jacket, discarded earlier at his suggestion. The boy wouldn't be needing it anymore, anyway.
The hunter wrapped his hands around the mountain lion's claws and savored the feel of the dry fur beneath his fingers. Relaxing somewhat, he slowly caressed the jacket with the tips of the claws, then dug deeper, and deeper still. He closed his eyes, feeling the power of the lion working through him.
When the jacket was in tatters, he moved to the boy's hat. He slashed the scrap of cloth and cardboard with a crosshatch pattern, destroying it with almost orgasmic intensity.
When he was finished, he carried them back down the mountainside and scattered them in the last meadow, where Daggert and Leeza Nelson were sure to find them.
There would be some crying before all was said and done.
The hunter grinned.
* * *
"Wake up, Denzhoné," Daggert murmured against Leeza's ear. "The moon's rising and we can make up for lost time."
Leeza snuggled against him for a second, her bare bottom curving into him. Instantly, his manhood rallied and he was suffused with a rush of renewed desire. He didn't think he would ever get enough of this woman. At least, not in her bed.
Her eyes popped open and she raised herself on an elbow. "We're going?"
"We should," he said, but he didn't want to. Only his fears for little Enrique would drag him from this bed now; his fears for the boy and his deep-seated need to find Donny's killer.
And even the latter reason wouldn't have been sufficient to propel him away from the warmth of her. He didn't want to think about the significance of that notion.
Watching her try to shake off her sleepiness, he felt a pang of guilt that he'd been tempted to sneak out of camp and search for Enrique on his own, leaving Sancho to watch over this lovely woman. But he hadn't left her, because he'd told her he would protect her while she was with him. And that wasn't a promise; it was a fact.
Before he'd whispered in her ear, urging her to wake, he'd watched this blond beauty sleeping at his side. Awake, she had the ability to look cold, disdaining, even imperious. In lovemaking, she seemed to slip into a wanton's skin, taking, giving and wallowing in the sheer glory of union. Asleep, she looked so vulnerable it made him hurt for her. Unlike most women, she had nothing of the child about her, but in sleep something fragile hovered about her parted lips, her lowered eyelids, her hand curved against her cheek.
If he didn't have the driving need, the fire in him to find Donny's killer, the killer of all the missing ones, he thought he could very easily fall in love with this woman. She was so different as to be another breed of human altogether. She had passion, depth and an amazing simplicity. And she had a way of studying him that made him feel as if he were anomalous to anything she had ever seen.
With her lithe body, her icy-blue eyes, she reminded him of a palomino mare…He shook his head. No, that wasn't right. And then he had it. Once, years ago, he'd seen a picture of an arctic she-wolf poised on a snowbank, wary of the camera that snared her, but inherently unafraid of the possible danger. The wolf's ruff was raised and her tail half lowered, but she'd struck him as proud and unyielding, strong and willful. And so very alone, so very vulnerable.
When he'd seen the photo he'd wondered about the wolf, hoped that the photographer had just neglected to take a snapshot of her mate, because wolves mated for life and he hated to think of that lovely creature without a partner.
This was Leeza, an arctic wolf with a vulnerable heart.
He'd been unable to resist the lure of her silken hair, gilded almost silver in the rising moonlight. And she'd murmured, not in protest, but in a strangely content, susurrus purr, as surprising and alluring to him as the way she'd nestled against him when he'd taken her from her horse or caught her when she was so spent she couldn't get down by herself.
"Are you awake?" he asked.
"Yes. You can see in this light?"
"Yes," he replied and had to force himself to relax his hands, which he'd knotted into fists to stop himself from stroking her fine curves.
When he'd woken her, feeling her pressing against him, her incredible body so warm and inviting, so lush and beckoning, he found himself losing sight of everything but Leeza. Vengeance was the very last thing on his mind.
But he couldn't lose sight of finding Enrique.
* * *
They were dressed and out in the moonlight in less than fifteen minutes, having not unsaddled the horses or established a full camp.
Leeza's eyes finally adjusted to the dim light, and when she could see fairly clearly, she had the distinct feeling that the world was colored with a surrealist's paintbrush. The early autumn moon, waning now and low in the eastern sky, sent long black shadows from the trees and scrub, and splashed silver on the pine needles on the ground below. A screech-owl, etched in the moon's spilled gold, glided away like a wraith.
Once again she had the feeling of embarking on unfamiliar territory. It wasn't just that the surroundings were strange to her; her acceptance of the entire endeavor was as well. A risk taker by profession, she realized suddenly she had never been much of a gambler at heart.
She was as tidy in her life as Daggert was with his camp preparations. Everything had its place and every place was stamped with her personal seal of approval.
And tidy, well-organized Leeza Nelson had found passion and happiness in the wilds of a New Mexico mountain range with a tracker named James Daggert, while searching for a little boy who had run away because she hadn't even had the courage to offer the basic human kindness of drawing him into her arms.
The horses seemed eager to be moving up the mountain, and, as if disproving some of their riders' worry, stepped surely and carefully over stones and avoided any pitfalls.
Leeza was conscious of operating on several different levels. A part of her twisted with worry over Enrique. Another part focused on the difficult journey at hand. And still another remained in the conjoined sleeping bags, locked in Daggert's strong embrace.
Like an addict, she couldn't seem to get enough of the man. She craved him. She ached for him. And when he filled her, he filled her with a joy she'd never known before.
She pulled up on Belle's reins, the very thought of joy making her need to pause to assimilate this new notion.
"What?" Daggert asked. "Did you hear something?"
"No," she said. "Sorry. I'm fine." But she was lying to him. She was anything but fine. She was more confused than at any time in life since her parents had died. Was the last day she'd spent with them the last time
she'd truly been conscious of having joy in her life? Probably not, because until it's gone, most children take such happiness for granted. But when had she begun to accept the lack of it in her life? And what a pathetic indictment—not the lack, for that was simply a fact, but the blind adherence to that absence of joy.
She urged Belle forward again, patting the horse's neck, assuring her that the brief halt had been nothing but silliness on her rider's part. But was it so silly a notion? When Leeza thought about the joy she felt in Daggert's arms, she'd literally had to stop to ponder the reality.
Joy.
Simple, exquisite joy.
She'd found a measure of happiness in her partners' company. They'd become heart sisters back in college, three orphans against the world. She'd envied her friend Jeannie's first family, the loving husband and the darling baby. She'd witnessed joy and peace on Jeannie's face. And the exquisite sorrow when a drunken driver had taken them out of this world, leaving her friend more than bereft—leaving her emotionally destitute. But Jeannie had found that joy for a second time at Rancho Milagro, with her federal marshal husband and her adopted children, and now, finally, a new child born of their love.
And Leeza's other friend and partner, Corrie, had found the path to her own identity and courage in coming to grips with her feelings about a teacher hero who cared more for other's lives than his own. And, as a result, she, too, had found that amazing state of grace, joy.
Leeza had always assumed that there was something inherently wrong with her, that the magic between a man and woman would be forever denied her, just as the heights of happiness were.
Corrie and Jeannie had found their loves by stepping completely outside of themselves in a new and wholly different terrain.
Wasn't Leeza doing something of the same thing? Hadn't she abandoned her lifelong career to come to Rancho Milagro? And hadn't she embarked on this journey to find Enrique with a woeful lack of knowledge and experience?
She'd told herself she owed Enrique her personal involvement in this search, but that wasn't all of it, was it? She'd come because she desperately wanted to find the boy, wanted to hold him in her arms and tell him she understood how much he hurt, how much she grieved with him, what a great kid he was, and how much she felt for him. And this was wholly new terrain for the emotionally distanced woman she'd always been.
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