Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Matt stared in shock. “You don’t expect me to believe you did that to him.”

  “I told you she was as helpless as a rattler. In fact, that’s what we ought to call her—Little Snake. Or maybe She Has a Chip on Her Shoulder, but it doesn’t exactly translate well. Heaven only knows what her parents were thinking of when they named her Laughter.”

  “You told me it was an accident,” Matt cried.

  “What? Her name?”

  “No, dammit, your face!”

  “If you ask me,” LaRisa threw in, “all of him is an accident.”

  Matt ground his teeth in frustration. “I meant the cut on his face.”

  “It was,” Spence answered. He then glanced sharply at LaRisa. “Wasn’t it?”

  “You mean she really did cut you? What did you do to her?” Matt demanded.

  Spence looked outraged at the implied accusation. “I didn’t do a damn thing but get in the way of that chip on her shoulder.”

  “Watch it, white man,” LaRisa warned. “I know where you keep the scissors.”

  Matt gaped at Chee’s darling little LaRisa. “Good God. You used his own scissors on him?”

  “All I wanted to do was cut off my hair to show the proper respect for my father.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Pace shook his head as if to clear his ears. “Start over, dammit. You two are married?”

  LaRisa pursed her lips. “They wouldn’t let me leave Carlisle until he suggested we get married.”

  “Who wouldn’t let you?” Matt demanded. “I wired Captain Pratt myself.”

  “Pratt wasn’t there,” Spence said. “He’d left a civilian in charge. A Miss…Face.”

  LaRisa slapped a hand across her mouth.

  “Face?”

  “Yes,” Spence answered. “I believe her first name was Prune.”

  LaRisa lost control and burst out laughing.

  Spence was surprised by an unwanted tightening in his gut. Had he ever heard her laugh before? Surely not, or he would have remembered the sheer unbound freedom of the sound, would have remembered the way her dark eyes crinkled at the corners, the way her nose almost turned up at the tip. The way those lush lips parted and curved up at the corners. Maybe she hadn’t been misnamed, after all.

  Damn. What was he doing thinking thoughts like that about her? If he didn’t know better, he might start suspecting he was…well, attracted or something.

  “Prune Face? This is a joke, right?” Matt said, frowning.

  “Only the name,” Spence answered, pulling his mind back to the conversation. “The ol’ biddy said if I took LaRisa from the school before Pratt returned next week, she’d send the Army after us and have me charged with kidnapping. I figured we didn’t have time for that nonsense, so we got married. I promised LaRisa we’d get it annulled as soon as we got here.”

  Pace arched a brow. “Annulled?”

  “Guess that takes care of the question you wouldn’t answer last night,” Matt said to Spence.

  “As if it was any of your business.”

  “What question?” LaRisa demanded.

  “The question that remains,” Matt said, ignoring her, “is what do we do now? LaRisa can’t stay here. I swore to Chee she would never have to live like this.”

  “Didn’t you say my people are being moved to Fort Sill in Indian Territory soon? Aren’t things supposed to be better there?”

  “Things were supposed to be better here than in Florida,” Matt said bitterly. “Instead, they’re worse.”

  “Fort Sill is better,” Pace offered. “But it’s still captivity. And who knows when or if the move will ever take place? Am I to understand that all three of you promised Chee that his daughter wouldn’t have to live like the others?”

  Matt and Spence nodded. LaRisa lowered her gaze. “It eased his mind.”

  “I’m sure it did,” Pace said sharply. “Because he expected you to keep your word. All of you. What are you going to do about it?”

  “You surely don’t expect us to stay married,” LaRisa cried to Pace. “That’s absurd!”

  “Why is it absurd?” Pace asked.

  Spence glared at him. “It just is. I don’t have time for a wife, and I’m damn sure not the warrior she’s looking for.”

  “I think you’re both full of crap. I ask again, what are you going to do? How are you going to keep your word?”

  LaRisa felt an unaccountable coolness seep into her skin. She’d meant her promise to her father to ease his mind, not to trap herself, or Spence, into a sham of a marriage. Heavens! What did she know about being married?

  Yet the thought of deliberately breaking her word given at her father’s deathbed flooded her with guilt. She glanced at Spence to find that he looked as troubled as she felt. “I never meant to obligate you,” she told him.

  He gave her a frowning grimace. “I know that.”

  “In case you haven’t thought of it,” Pace said, “if she stays here she’ll be the only unmarried female of marriageable age in damn near the whole tribe.”

  “Meaning?” LaRisa asked.

  “Meaning, there are a few dozen unmarried men who would very much like to have a wife. You also need to be aware that the people here don’t think much of the ones who come back from Carlisle. Mostly because many who come back from Carlisle don’t think much of The People or the old ways.”

  She remembered Rosa, and the man at her father’s grave. “So I’ve noticed.”

  “Broken Hand.” Matt’s face hardened.

  “Who?” LaRisa asked.

  “The one you argued with,” Matt told her.

  “We’ll stay married.” Spence’s voice rang with finality.

  LaRisa gasped. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I mean it. I may not be the warrior of your dreams, but trust me, neither is Broken Hand. I can’t turn you loose here, not to the likes of him.”

  “Turn me loose?” she said slowly, her eyes narrowing. “Turn me loose?”

  “Dammit, LaRisa, don’t get—”

  “Turn me loose, like a stupid dog let off the leash, or a child too small and ignorant to stay away from the fire?”

  “I don’t consider you stupid, small, or ignorant. Too stubborn for your own good. A little naïve, maybe, but considering you’ve never been out of the schoolroom, that’s to be expected.”

  “You still have another cheek, you know,” she warned.

  “LaRisa,” Spence said with a growl.

  “Don’t you LaRisa me, white man. If you think—”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pace said with a grin. “They definitely need to stay married.” He tossed Matt a teasing look, so out of character from the usual animosity he showed that Matt stared, dumbfounded. “I do think the college boy has met his match,” Pace added. “Did you ever see such sparks?”

  With a thoughtful look, Matt studied the arguing couple.

  “We’re staying married,” Spence repeated at a near shout.

  “I can take care of myself,” she answered just as loudly. “Men like Broken Hand don’t scare me.”

  “No? Then how about the soldiers?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Soldiers. You know, white men in blue uniforms?”

  She snarled at him.

  “They pretty much leave the married women alone. But the minute nobody’s looking, any unmarried female here becomes fair game as far as they’re concerned.”

  “Are you telling me your men…attack…”

  “They’re damn sure not my men,” Spence said with a growl. “But yes, they attack. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. We’re staying married.”

  LaRisa was no fool. She’d been mauled once. The next man who tried would die. Yet even with that vow firm in her mind, she wasn’t prepared to shun the protection of being the white doctor’s wife, especially not merely to spite him. She nodded. “All right. Until we get to Fort Sill.”

  “Arizona,” Spence said.

  “What?�
��

  “You won’t be going to Fort Sill. We’re staying married until I get you to Arizona. We’ll leave on the evening train.”

  LaRisa jerked her chin in the air. “White man…” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him what he could do with his announcement, but again she thought better of it. She had promised her father. If she couldn’t even keep a promise to a dying man, what good was her word? “I’ll stay married to you, and I’ll go to Arizona with you. But I do it because I wish it, not because you order it.”

  That evening Matt and Pace waved good-bye to Spence and LaRisa and watched the train pull out. The two brothers stood less than three feet apart, yet there might as well have been a brick wall between them.

  There was a brick wall, Matt thought with frustration. Pace had built it brick by brick and cemented it together with the mortar of anger.

  “What do you think?”

  Surprised that Pace had spoken to him, and wary, Matt eyed his stepbrother carefully. “About what?”

  “Those two,” Pace said, his gaze following the train.

  Matt shook his head. “I think they’re headed for trouble.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Matt couldn’t believe his ears. Pace was agreeing with him?

  “That annulment our little brother talked about getting in Arizona isn’t going to work.”

  “I know. He’s obviously forgetting that law the territorial legislature passed about Chiricahuas.”

  Pace absently fingered one of the wide leather bands that covered the scars on his wrists. “If they get an annulment, they’ll either have to find someone else to be legally responsible for her, or she’ll be forced to leave the territory. Poor damn kid.”

  “If you remembered the law, why didn’t you say something to Spence?”

  Pace gave Matt a narrowed gaze. “Why didn’t you?”

  It almost happened then, their first mutual smile in more years than either cared to remember. But they did remember, and looked away from each other at the last minute, both afraid of another rejection, another argument.

  “You reckon they’re not going to tell the family they’re married?” Pace asked.

  “That’s my guess. Why tell anybody, if they’re just going to get an annulment?”

  “You think they oughta stay married?”

  Matt frowned. “For Spence, I don’t know. For LaRisa, I think it’s the only answer.”

  It was the obvious answer for Spence, too, but Pace refrained from saying so. Neither Matt nor the rest of the family knew that Spence had vowed to never marry. Pace wasn’t supposed to know, either, but he’d figured it out. He thought that for a college boy, it was the dumbest idea Spence ever had. A man needed a family.

  Pace felt lost without his. Oh, he still got to see everyone now and then, but it was never easy. Would never be easy if he couldn’t somehow make his peace with Matt. Yet Pace had closed the door between them himself so many years ago. He’d locked it, bolted it, and reinforced it so many times he didn’t know how to go about opening it.

  He shook his head. He didn’t know how to make things right between him and Matt, but there was damn sure something he could do about Spence. Pace had a feeling about Spence and LaRisa. The sparks between them were obvious. Maybe she would be the one…He stepped off the boardwalk and started down the street.

  “Where you going?” Matt asked.

  When Pace stopped and turned back, that smile almost came through again. “To send a telegram. Think how embarrassed the family would be if they didn’t have any warning to prepare a proper welcome for the newest Mrs. Colton.”

  Matt’s lips quirked. “You wouldn’t.”

  “You’re welcome to watch.”

  Matt raised his hands and backed away. “Not me. I don’t want to know anything about it. I’m staying out of this one.”

  “Coward.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Pace walked away with a lightness in his chest that felt suspiciously like hope. He and Matt had just had their first actual conversation since the day Pace had learned Matt and Serena were married.

  He found the Western Union office and went inside. He couldn’t fool himself into thinking that he and Matt would ever be close again, be brothers again, not after thirteen years of animosity between them. But maybe someday…

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Thinking of what he was about to do, Pace smiled. “I need to send a telegram.”

  Chapter Seven

  Another train, another private compartment, another four-day trip. This time heading to New Orleans, then west to Arizona. To freedom. The idea both excited and terrified LaRisa.

  The mere word freedom hummed in her mind. She couldn’t help but be excited by it. But the fear was unavoidable and justified. She would need a job, some way to support herself. In Arizona, they hated the Chiricahua. Would anyone in the territory hire an Apache?

  After the porter made up their bunks for the night, Spence lowered himself to the remaining seat. He leaned his head against the wall behind him and contemplated taking off his boots. He started to bend down, but his cheek would not tolerate the change in position without a painful protest. He shouldn’t have taken off the bandage. Much as he hated to admit it, he was going to need help to get his boots off. He would ask LaRisa when she finished in the lavatory. Accident or not, he figured she owed him.

  She came out of the lavatory wearing a prim white nightgown that covered her from chin to toe, shoulder to wrist. The heavy cotton fabric was clean, but yellowed with age. No ruffles, no lace, just a row of tiny buttons from neck to waist. Spence was sure that if his mind were working properly, the gown and the woman in it would look sweet and demure. Instead, they both looked enticing as hell. Even her bare toes peeking out from beneath the hem excited him.

  He figured maybe exhaustion was affecting his brain. He would just have to ignore the heat stirring inside him and get down to business. “I think you’re going to have to help me off with my boots.”

  LaRisa placed her folded clothing on the bunk then turned to help him. The space between the seat and her bunk was so narrow that Spence had to angle himself in the seat in order to stretch out his legs.

  Careful not to jar him lest she hurt his face, she placed one hand behind his heel and the other at his toe and pulled gently. Nothing happened. She tried again.

  “You’ll never get it off that way. Not enough leverage. Turn around.”

  Not sure she trusted him, but convinced that he was in no shape to do her any real harm, she turned around. She reached toward her side to grasp his booted foot—it wasn’t there. Instead, it swept out between her legs and jutted from beneath the hem of her nightgown. She shrieked.

  “Now try it.”

  Having never removed a man’s boots before, nor actually seen it done, LaRisa had to assume he knew what he was talking about. Still, she gave him a frown over her shoulder before bending down and grasping his boot again. If he was making sport of her she would murder him.

  At the precise moment when she tugged, he placed his other foot squarely on her rear end and pushed. The boot came off in her hands and she stumbled forward under the momentum of his shove and almost landed on her face on the bunk. Furious, she whirled on him. “White man—”

  “That’s how it’s done.” He held out his other leg.

  She wasn’t having any of “how it was done.” She faced him and grabbed his other boot and tugged. It didn’t move. With a growl of frustration she turned around and straddled his leg, giving him a final glare before bending down and reaching for the second boot.

  Again he waited until she had her weight into it, then planted his stockinged foot on her backside and pushed. The boot held tight a moment, then slipped free just as she tugged hard. LaRisa staggered forward, stumbled, and rammed her head into the wall. “Ow!”

  Fighting a chuckle—not only would it hurt his cheek, but she would probably take the scissors to him again, this time delibe
rately—Spence asked if she was all right.

  She turned, frowning fiercely and rubbing her head. “Do you have pen and paper?”

  “What for?”

  “So I can write down that I want to be buried next to my father.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “About us. You and me. At the rate we’re going,” she said, motioning toward his cheek and her head, “we’ll both be dead before we reach Arizona.”

  Spence chuckled, then winced as the action tugged at his cheek. “Well, well, so you do have a sense of humor.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” She glared at him. “I don’t find anything at all humorous about the situation.”

  Spence sighed. No, he guessed she didn’t. She’d buried her father today. Spence pushed himself to his feet. The effort it took surprised him. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the seat.

  LaRisa had a bad moment or two, standing there looking at his muscled chest with its dusting of gold hair. She’d seen men’s chests before, so she didn’t understand what the problem was. Her blood had never heated at similar sights when she’d been eleven. The bare chests of the men at Mount Vernon hadn’t bothered her. Why should this man’s affect her?

  Spence rubbed the back of his neck. “God, I’m tired.” He let his hand fall to his side and just stood there a minute. Finally he roused himself enough to realize he was staring at the way plain white cotton draped seductively over LaRisa’s shapely breasts. He took a deep breath to clear his mind and shucked off his pants. He chuckled as LaRisa whirled away. Did she think he wasn’t wearing drawers?

  With a heavy sigh, he climbed to the upper bunk and eased onto his back. The throbbing in his cheek increased with the new position, but there was no help for it. He didn’t want his brain fogged with the remnants of laudanum.

  LaRisa slid into the bunk below him and turned out the lamp. “Spence?” she said softly. “I’m sorry about your face.”

  It wasn’t lost on Spence that last night when she’d whacked him with the scissors was the first time she’d ever called him by his name. She’d been using it, at least periodically, all day. He couldn’t say he didn’t like it a hell of a lot better than “white man” or “doctor.” The former she’d used as an insult, and she’d even made the latter sound like a slur. He wondered what she would call him when she got through feeling guilty.