“Dad!”
“Matt!” Travis dropped to his knees and Matt hurled himself into his father’s outstretched arms, his face lit with joy.
“Dad! Dad! I thought you were dead!” His voice shook and ended with a slight sob.
“It’s okay now, Matt. I’m here. I’ve come to take you home.” Travis squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out everything but the feel of his son in his arms.
“Oh yes, Dad! Yes!”
Daniella couldn’t keep her tears from falling as she witnessed a father’s deep love for his child. This was exactly how she had pictured her own homecoming. But Travis Colton and Howard Blackwood were two entirely different men. The pain of that difference nearly choked the breath from her.
She had to get away. Watching Travis and his son as they clung to each other in joy and love left her with an emptiness inside, the likes of which she’d never felt before. It was as if she’d just discovered a jagged hole in the fabric of her life—a hole she thought was closed off and sealed months ago. But this hole was larger, colder, emptier than the old one. This one contained only deep, profound blackness, and she felt herself slipping into its depths. If she ever fell into that emptiness, that great nothingness, she would die.
Daniella backed away, wanting to leave camp, to escape and seek solitude, as a wounded animal might seek a hiding place where it could lick its wounds in peace and privacy, there to heal, or die. She needed to be alone to fight the terrible void threatening to engulf her.
Travis held his son with all the strength he possessed. His face twisted in a grimace of pain and joy—pain at all he and Matt had suffered during their separation, and joy, such joy as he had never known before, at being able to simply hold his son in his arms again.
There had been many dark, lonely nights when he’d feared Matt was lost to him forever. Never before had he known such despair and helplessness. But there had always been that tiny spark of hope—hope that if he searched long enough and hard enough, he would one day find his son. Travis’s father and the people at the Triple C had encouraged him during the long months of searching, keeping his hope alive.
Only Carmen had tried to get him to give up. That lousy, unfeeling bitch. Why he ever got mixed up with her was a mystery to him. Perhaps his loneliness had finally gotten the best of him. He thought he had already learned to stay away from women. That lesson had been pounded into his head by Julia. How could he have forgotten that to trust a woman, to believe he could find happiness in a pair of scheming, deceiving, feminine arms, was like trying to share a den with a rattle snake?
He was letting his bitterness rule him and he knew it.
Carmen couldn’t help being selfish—it was just her nature. She had probably never matured, emotionally, past the age of five. He didn’t care. She meant nothing to him anyway. And Julia—well, she had done one good thing before she died, God rest her troubled soul. She had given him Matt. Matt was worth any amount of pain Travis may have suffered by being married to her.
He felt his son shudder against him and jerked his mind back to the present. He stroked Matt’s hair and back, murmuring soothing words in an effort to ease the storm of emotions raging within them both.
Out of the corner of Travis’s eye he saw Daniella backing away.
He turned slightly toward her, with Matt still clinging to him, and wondered at the pain he saw in her face. Her pale blue eyes were deep pools of misery. Wet trails of tears glistened on her cheeks, leaving clean streaks through the day’s dust and grime.
Here was a woman with enough compassion to shed tears for someone other than herself. As he reached a hand out for her, needing to touch her, he acknowledged that without Daniella he probably would never have found Matt. He ached with the need to pull her into his embrace, to hold her as he held Matt, to share this moment with her, to somehow express his boundless gratitude for this most precious gift she had given him.
Through the haze of her tears Daniella saw Travis reach out to her, saw the tenderness mixed with something else she didn’t recognize expressed in his deep brown eyes, and she panicked. If he touched her, she would crumble. She would fall to the ground and shatter into a million pieces.
“No!” she whispered fiercely, fighting the sob she felt rising in her throat. “No!” She saw a look of bewilderment cross his face as she stumbled away. She clamped her hand over her mouth to hold back the wail of pain threatening to erupt, and ran away from Travis, away from the Apaches, away from the warm fire. She had to be alone—had to be!
Cochise saw her pain and misery and motioned for Travis to let her go. Through the scouts at the white man’s fort he had heard of her father’s rejection. This reunion between the man and his son must have reopened old wounds. He idly wondered if Woman of Magic would mind too much if he lifted her father’s scalp. But no, that would not be such a good idea. The spirit of the person scalped always became a part of the warrior who took the scalp. Cochise did not think he would like to have such an unfeeling spirit as part of himself. Then there was the four-day purification ceremony he would have to undergo after taking a scalp. No, he really didn’t have the time for that. Scalping wasn’t something his people usually did.
But an anthill…I could stake him out…perhaps a few cactus spines under his fingernails…or a wet strap of green rawhide around his forehead on a hot, sunny day…such possibilities! I must give it some thought. And the thought he gave to it brought a wistful smile to his face.
Daniella slowed her headlong flight when she reached the edge of the forest. The thick stand of pines blocked out the light from the campfires, as well as the silver moonlight flickering in and out of the small scattering of clouds in the dark night sky. In the blackness engulfing her she struck her shin against something hard and uttered a pain-filled oath. Bending down carefully, she explored with her hands and felt the rough bark of a fallen tree. She sank down onto it, folding her arms tightly against her stomach, rocking back and forth in a useless effort to suppress the agony welling up inside her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the images racing through her mind, but the faces only became clearer, the memories keener, the pain sharper. Her father, thrusting her aside; Travis holding her hand in the night; Travis holding his son; Travis reaching out toward her, longing mingled with tenderness and gratitude in his eyes. Travis, Travis, Travis.
Stop it! It was her father’s comfort she longed for, wasn’t it?
But Daniella had always been brutally honest, with herself, as well as with others. Here in the darkness and solitude of the forest, she was forced to admit it wasn’t her father she cried for at all. It was Travis. She wanted him to hold her again, as he had earlier. She wanted him to hold her and comfort her as he held and comforted his son, telling her everything would be all right, telling her he loved her.
Those last words rumbled through her mind like a roll of thunder. Her tears dried up instantly.
“Fool!” she hissed to herself.
He only came with her on this trip as a last desperate effort to find his son. He was polite and friendly because he wanted her help. That’s all! And now maybe he would even be grateful—but nothing more.
Good heavens. She’d only known the man a few days, and here she was fantasizing about him. Fool! Shameful, hopeless fool. Was she so desperate for affection that she could imagine a man like Travis Colton would ever love her?
And what about her feelings for him? Why did her stomach go all fluttery every time he looked at her? Did her blood really heat up whenever she got the chance to watch the play of muscles across his shoulders or along his thighs? God, she was confused.
His ruggedness, his strength, his very masculinity both attracted and frightened her. She wanted to feel the warmth and safety she knew she would find in his arms. She could even imagine what it might be like if he kissed her, although she had never been kissed before. But no man, least of all one as totally male as Travis Colton, would ever settle for hugs and kisses—that m
uch she knew about men.
And hugs and kisses were all she would ever have to offer.
She would never willingly let a man do to her what the Apaches did that night of her capture. If that was the way of things between men and women, and if women were supposed to accept it, then Daniella knew she would spend the rest of her life alone. No man would ever touch her again—not like that—not ever again like that.
She threw her head back and took in a deep breath, savoring the sweet fragrance of damp earth and pine needles. What was the point in all this soul-searching anyway? Travis would never want a woman who was thought of as a whore by every white man in the territory.
With a ragged laugh she slid from the log to the ground. Loved and abandoned in less than an hour—at least in her own mind. She drew her poncho close around her for warmth, having no intention of going back to camp that night. She wasn’t ready to face Travis or anyone else. After her imaginings of the past hour, she needed time to regain her equilibrium. Her secret longings had no place in reality, and must remain hidden if not destroyed.
The night sounds of frogs and crickets filled the air. Daniella concentrated on them, drawing comfort from the knowledge that even frogs and crickets cried out in search of a mate. She wasn’t alone after all.
“Why does Woman of Magic hide in the forest like a frightened child, while the rest of The People celebrate her homecoming?”
Daniella shrieked and jumped to her feet at the sound of the deep, guttural voice so close behind her. As she whirled to face one of the demons from her nightmares, she slipped the thong from her Colt’s hammer and drew the heavy pistol from her holster. “Get away from me,” she warned.
“What is this?” Loco demanded, arms spread wide. “You still fear me?”
“I don’t fear you, I hate you.” Not for her life would she admit her fear of this warrior who’d slung her belly-down across his mount and carried her away from the stagecoach. And not for her life would she let him near enough to touch her again.
“Because I am the one who brought you here?” he asked. “Because I was the first to have you? You were our enemy then. Now you are one of us. You have nothing to fear from me. I’m the one who should be angry with you.”
“And just why is that?” He took a step closer, and she cocked the Colt. He halted in mid stride. A shaft of moonlight through the dense pine needles highlighted the anger in his fierce, dark face.
“Because of you, I have no wife. Klea took offense that I spent on you what she considered hers. When I woke that next morning, all my belongings were piled outside her wickiup. She won’t even let me near my own children. Tahnito and Alope are forbidden to speak to me! You cost me my wife—you will take her place. You cost me my children—you will give me more. I will deliver ponies to Cochise in the morning.”
Daniella gaped at him, stunned. He actually thought she would consent to marry him? What colossal conceit!
He moved closer.
“Take another step toward me, you stinking gusano, and you won’t live till morning.”
Loco paused. “You are new to our ways, so I will forgive you for calling me a worm. We do not consider it polite to call each other names. We also do not kill one another. It is forbidden.”
“You’re right, of course,” Daniella said, allowing a false smile to curve her lips. “I won’t kill you.” She lowered the pistol from his chest and took aim on the center of his breech cloth. “But you may wish I had.”
Loco sucked in his breath. “Woman, you are crazy! When you are my wife, such behavior will not be tolerated.”
“I will never be your wife,” she spat.
As Loco turned back toward camp, he said, “We shall see, woman, we shall see.”
When he was gone, Daniella sank to her knees, her hand shaking so badly it took three tries to get the Colt back in its holster. God, how she hated that bastard. His face brought back every horrifying memory of that night.
She rose again on trembling legs and made her way deeper into the forest.
Chapter Twelve
“Yellow Hair Colton.”
When Cochise’s low voice called his name from outside the wickiup, Travis sat up, instantly alert. Matt was asleep, but Travis had rested with one ear open, hoping to hear Daniella come for her bedroll. Cochise’s coming to him in the middle of the night put all his senses on alert. It could only mean trouble. “What is it?” he asked tensely.
Cochise entered the wickiup and crouched near the opening.
The darkness was so thick Travis could barely make out the Apache’s outline in the doorway.
“I need a favor, Yellow Hair.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…yet,” Cochise said. “In the morning someone will find Woman of Magic and tell her you wish to leave as soon as possible. You must get her away from here. Not at first light, but no later than midmorning.”
“What’s happened?”
“Old Nana has asked me to hunt with him at dawn. The tiswin loosened many tongues tonight, including Golthlay’s.”
At the mention of that name Travis tensed. “What about Golthlay?”
“For some reason, I believe he has decided my white daughter will be his next wife.”
Wife! Daniella, married to that…that…Unthinkable!
So that’s what Golthlay was up to. That’s how he planned to get even. Marry her, and he could do whatever he wanted with her.
“Nana must be acting as the go-between,” Cochise continued. “I think tomorrow he will offer for Woman of Magic on behalf of Golthlay. If she is here, I will be forced to repeat the offer to her. She will refuse, I know, and that is her right. But it will cause trouble. Did something happen between them on the trail, Yellow Hair?”
“I don’t think she intended you to hear about it,” Travis said slowly. “But I think you need to know.” So Travis told him everything about that night he and Daniella met Mon-ache and his warriors, and the sly looks and smirks Daniella had been receiving since.
“Ah, that girl! She is something, is she not?” Cochise said, teeth gleaming in the darkness. “So then, from what you say, I would guess her refusal of Golthlay’s offer will not be a polite one. And that will cause trouble. First, between the two of them. Then Golthlay will expect me to persuade her. I will not, and there will be trouble between him and me. If one of us does not back down, and neither of us will, the trouble may extend to involve more and more of our people.”
Cochise paused and sighed, then went on. “The days when we could fight amongst ourselves, Chidikáágu’ against Membrenos, Pinals against Mashgaléń, or Mescaleros, as you call them, Coyoteros against Aravaipas, those days are gone. We cannot afford to live the old ways. We must join together or lose our homeland. You must get Woman of Magic away from here before Nana and I return from the hunt. Will you do this thing for me? For her? For all of our people?”
“Of course,” Travis stated. “But she won’t want to leave without telling you good-bye,” he warned.
“You must convince her. Dee-O-Det will help you.”
Travis took a deep breath. There was bound to be trouble, no matter what happened. But far better for her to be angry with him than to have her publicly humiliate Golthlay again. That one would kill her the first chance he got. “All right. I’ll get her out of here by midmorning, even if I have to drag her.”
Laughter rumbled deep in Cochise’s chest. “For your sake, white man, I hope it does not come to that.”
“So do I,” Travis said with feeling. “So do I.”
“I have another request, one perhaps not so easy for you to accomplish.”
“What is it?”
“I ask that you remember how you felt when you could not find your son. There are those among us now who feel the same. A few days ago, two of our young boys were separated from a hunting party and have not been seen since. If you hear of them, or see them, I ask your help in sending them home to their families.”
Travis wa
s deeply moved that this fierce Apache chief would humble himself on behalf of two young boys, to ask a white man for help. If Travis found the boys and sent them home, would they grow up to one day attack his ranch, or his neighbor’s ranch, or some unsuspecting stage?
Then he looked over at Matt and recalled the frustration, the terror of not knowing where his son was for all those weeks.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Bueno.” As Cochise turned to leave, he paused. “There is one thing more I would say to you, Yellow Hair, and that is this. You and your son, Little Bear, are welcome among the Chúk’ánéné at any time. I hope you will come back when we have more time to talk, you and I. I know Hal-Say and Huera will always welcome Little Bear into their wickiup, and their hearts. His leaving will be hard on them.”
“Gracias, Cochise. Matt and I have already talked about that. He would like to come back occasionally. He’s grown quite fond of them, especially of Huera. He’s never had a mother before.”
“You should do something about that, white man. I happen to have an adopted daughter you might be interested in, but she is valuable to me. I would expect many horses to ease my loss.” The Apache chief’s teeth flashed briefly in the darkness as he grinned.
“Is that a fact?” Travis asked, amused.
“Good night, Yellow Hair,” Cochise said with a chuckle. “I wish you fruitful work.”
Travis’s “work,” getting Daniella to leave by midmorning, turned out to be much easier than he had anticipated. He hadn’t needed to do more than say he was ready to go home. Apparently the old shaman was quite adept at handling situations like this, for Travis, Matt, and Daniella walked casually away from the compound without telling anyone they were leaving and met Dee-O-Det on the other side of a thick stand of pines. There he had their horses, saddled, loaded and waiting. Travis’s gunbelt hung from his saddle horn.
In addition to Daniella’s mare and Travis’s stallion, there was a beautiful red and white pinto pony. Matt recognized his bow and quiver tied on behind the saddle. Dee-O-Det explained that the pony was Matt’s, a gift from Hal-Say. The boy was thrilled—he’d certainly never expected anything like this. But he was disappointed at not being allowed to go back and thank Hal-Say.
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