“Don’t run from me, Rachel.” Jason’s voice was husky and close to her ear.
Relief cascaded through her and she slumped against him. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice catching as she spoke. “I know… I know I shouldn’t have been watching.”
“It’s all right. Stop apologizing. I thought we’d cured you of that habit.” He ran his hands up her arms, through the slits in her cape, then inside. “Anyway, I don’t think anyone saw you but me.”
His touch melted her. His scent, now heavy with wood-smoke, filled her. She wanted to cry, the poignancy of her need was so foreign to her. She tried to pull away.
“Rachel.” His voice was a whisper against her hair as his hands gripped her waist.
Standing in the darkness beneath the trees, they were hidden from the rest of the world. She stood, shivering not from the cold but from the warmth that sneaked under her skin at his touch. She looked up at him, unable to see his face in the darkness. But she could feel his breath, warm and moist, on her cheek.
“Rachel,” he repeated, drawing out the sound in a long, husky whisper. His hands slid up her sides again as they’d done earlier in the day. There was a yearning inside her that blossomed each time she was close to him, the feeling so intense she wondered how her chest could hold it. She wanted to run, but she was rooted to the ground, anticipation clinging to every pore.
His thumbs crept up and slowly encircled her nipples again and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. He’d reawakened all the sensual nerve endings in her body with a single embrace and the whisper of her name.
“I want to touch you.” His voice was barely audible against her ear as he fondled her breasts. “I want to see you, naked before me, naked beneath me.”
Rachel couldn’t get enough air, yet she knew she was breathing rapidly. Her breasts felt heavy, swollen, and her nipples ached with longing. She wanted to tell him not to say such things to her. She wanted to fight him, to pull away and run far and fast to escape the feelings he’d ignited inside her. Suddenly her knees gave way, and she slumped against him.
He scooped her up easily and strode off into the darkness. She heard the battering of his heart against her ear but refused to think ahead as to what would happen once they arrived at his cabin. She clung to him because the world was topsy-turvy and her legs wouldn’t hold her. She clung to him because what he’d said had scared her—and filled her with an urgent, untimely need. She clung to him because if she hadn’t, she’d have fallen to the ground. She clung to him because what she felt for him was so dreadfully wonderful, she knew she’d fallen into the deepest pit of sin.
He kicked open the door.
“Well, well.” The voice was deep and silky, the tone deadly. “What have we here?”
Jason stopped in his tracks. Rachel stopped breathing. All traces of desire faded. Slowly she was released, and she slid to the floor, her knees holding her once more.
“What are you doing here?” Jason sounded angry, although his question was asked with great restraint.
The man sat indolently in an easy chair in the corner, his leg thrown over the wide, cushioned arm, his face hidden in the shadows. “You’re not happy to see me? I helped organize the dance, Jason. Surely you don’t expect me to hide.”
“I know what you’re doing at the reservation, Buck. I asked what you’re doing here.”
Rachel backed away, blindly groping for the door. Whatever the problem was between the two men, it wasn’t any of her business. As she inched backward, guilt replacing desire, she felt a jolt of shame. Had nothing interfered, Jason would have seduced her here, in his cabin. And she would probably have let him.
Her fingers quietly gripped the doorknob, but as she opened the door, the hinges creaked.
“Rachel?”
Jason sounded surprised, as though he’d just remembered she was there. She didn’t answer him, but slipped out the door and ran, careless of the cold, uneven ground, to Dixie’s cabin.
Ignoring Buck, Jason crossed to the fireplace and fed the fire.
“Rachel?” The voice held intense sarcasm. “Weber’s mousy widow? God,” Buck said with a disparaging laugh. “I know I encouraged you to find something else to do with your dick, but—”
“Shut up,” Jason ordered.
“Is she any good? Did you tell her that as long as you had a face, she’d have a place to sit?” Buck sneered.
Jason crossed to the chair and dragged him out, clutching his shirtfront in an iron fist. “Shut up,” he ordered again, his voice angrier than it had been before. As he glared at Buck, it was all he could do not to smash his fist into the smug, hawklike face.
“Did you know,” Jason said between clenched teeth, “that Weber stabbed his killer before he died?”
Buck didn’t break eye contact. “What’s that got to do with me?”
Jason released Buck’s shirt, pulling it to the side to expose his scar. “He stabbed him exactly where you’ve been stabbed.”
Buck’s mouth curled and he twisted free of Jason’s grip. “Dammit, I told you. I was in a bar fight.”
“But no one will verify it, Buck. Next time, pick a better alibi—one you can prove.”
Buck glared at him. “So. You think I’m guilty, too?”
Jason had been angry initially because Buck so crudely insulted Rachel. And he’d let it color his judgment. Now he was sorry his temper had gotten the better of him. The last thing he wanted was to believe Buck guilty of murder.
“No,” he answered, his voice showing traces of regret. “I don’t want to believe it, you know that.”
“But you can’t just take my word for it, can you?”
Jason stared into the fire, thinking of all the reasons why Buck was the perfect suspect. “No, I can’t.”
Buck paced behind him. “Got anything to drink?”
Jason nodded reluctantly toward the cupboard. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Buck pull out the bottle of whiskey and pour himself a healthy shot.
He took a long pull on the drink, then quickly poured himself another. “So, what’s she doing here?”
Jason turned away, feeling the warmth dissipate as he left the fire. Joining Buck at the cupboard, he splashed a small amount of whiskey into a glass for himself. He took a swig, feeling the liquor burn a path all the way into his stomach. He welcomed it. “She’s helping me with the burn victims.”
Buck snorted a laugh. “I heard you’d hired her. Does she know why?”
“I needed a nurse,” he answered blandly, refusing to be baited.
Buck laughed again. “Like hell.”
Impatience ate at Jason. He gripped the tumbler hard, feeling the ridges of the glass press into his palm. “Why don’t you tell me why, then?”
“God only knows.” Buck laughed, a sharp, intense sound that had nothing to do with humor. “She’s sure as hell nothing to look at. What is she—a good piece of ass? Widows can be—”
Jason’s fist cracked into Buck’s jaw. He used all of his self-control to keep from hitting him again.
Buck stumbled away, still clutching his drink. Regaining his stance, he grinned and gingerly touched his chin, moving his jaw around to check for damage. Finally he took a long drink of whiskey, sloshing it around in his mouth before swallowing it.
“Well, well, well.” His voice was smoky, filled with sudden understanding. “So that’s the way the wind blows.”
Jason drained his own glass, slamming it on the table when he’d finished. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He didn’t like it when Buck got the upper hand. And that only happened when Jason felt vulnerable.
Buck poured himself another shot. He laughed, incorporating in it a harsh obscenity. “My old friend. If I thought for a minute that you were beginning to have feelings for the widow bitch whose family has been responsible for so much shit in your life and mine, I’d kill you.”
Jason’s own anger blistered to t
he surface. “Like you killed her husband?”
Buck turned and spat into the fire, sending a sizzle of smoke up the chimney. When he looked back at Jason, his face was grave, but his eyes were wary. “If you can believe I did that, then all the years we’ve been closer than brothers have meant nothing.”
Jason knew Buck better than anyone. Yet now, his feelings for him tugged in two different directions. He desperately wanted to believe in his innocence. Yet, he knew there was a good chance he was guilty. Unlike Jason, Buck hadn’t learned to deal with his feelings of revenge. He’d made it clear from the moment he found Honey’s body that whoever was responsible for her death was going to pay for it.
“If I discover that you had anything to do with the bastard’s death, I’ll drag you to Tully so fast, you won’t have time to think.”
Buck smirked and raised his glass in an impudent toast. “Your death if you’ve been between her legs… or mine if I killed her husband.” He took a long drink then gave Jason a smug smile. “Sounds like a fair exchange to me.”
Rachel had had a sleepless night. She was relieved when the first shadows of morning winked outside the cabin window. After splashing water on her face and climbing back into the same clothes she’d worn the day before, she made a pot of coffee.
Matthew wiggled out of his mother’s bed, his new kitten under his arm. “From Dusty,” he lisped, dragging the feline to a box of sand in the corner where he unceremoniously dropped it.
“I’m surprised we didn’t smother the thing,” Dixie said around a yawn. Raising herself up on her elbow, she stared languidly at Rachel. “You’re so efficient,” she said. “It’s like having my own maid.”
The innocent-sounding remark caused Rachel to bite back a grin. “I do these things automatically.”
Dixie got up and slipped into an old chenille robe. “Then I’m lucky you’re staying with me.”
Watching Matthew play with the kitten, Rachel remembered that first day she’d gone to work for Jason. He’d called that little boy with the box of newborn kittens Dusty. “Who’s Dusty?”
“He’s my nephew. My… my sister’s boy,” she answered, turning away.
“Nell’s?”
Dixie gave her a brief, sad smile. “No. My youngest sister, Honey.” Poking at the fire, she added, “She died a while back.”
“Oh,” Rachel said on a sigh. “I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t know.” As she watched Dixie gaze into the fire, she felt she’d opened a wound that was best left closed. Stepping quickly to the cupboard, she began preparing some cereal for Matthew. She felt comfortable with Dixie, who was so different from Nell. Perhaps it was time to learn something.
“Dixie… what can you tell me about Jason?”
Dixie stood at the window, her back to Rachel. “I’ve known him all my life. He and his sister, Summer, were adopted by a couple—she’s white, he’s a breed—about twenty years ago, I guess. Their mother, a Karok who lived way up near the Oregon border—”
“A Karok? What’s that?”
“It’s a tribe. I’m a Wintu.” She turned, giving Rachel an odd glance. “Didn’t you know he was a breed?”
Rachel stood frozen, unable to move. Her surprise hadn’t come from the fact that Jason hadn’t discussed his family. It had come from the knowledge, so casually given, that Jason was an Indian. “No. I didn’t know…”
“Well, she was afraid the Whites were going to kill her, and she didn’t want her kids to die. Nicolas Gaspard, Jason’s adoptive father, took the kids when they were small. He hid them and a bunch of others up in the mountains somewhere to keep them safe from the Whites.”
Dixie came back to the table. “That’s when Nicolas met the woman who was to be his future wife.” She grinned, shaking her head. “He needed a teacher for all these little Indian kids, so he kidnapped the one his father had hired to teach in Pine Valley.”
“Kidnapped?” Rachel was stunned.
“Yeah. I guess it was really something.”
“I see.” Rachel turned back to the stove. Jason is an Indian. She allowed the sentence to move through her brain a number of times. Her heart beat rapidly, and there was an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach. Jason is an Indian.
While stirring Matthew’s cereal, Rachel allowed her thoughts to go back to the day before, when she’d first realized she was falling in love with Jason. But how could she? How could she love the very kind of man who had killed her parents and her husband?
But he isn’t that kind of man. No, she thought, he isn’t that kind of man. Still, she wondered why he’d kept his Indian blood a secret from her. Maybe it was because he, more than anyone, knew how she felt about Indians.
Grabbing a bowl off the counter, she ladled a scoop of cereal into it. “Matthew,” she called absently. “Your breakfast is ready.” The boy ambled to the table, crawled up onto a chair, and attacked his cereal with enthusiasm.
“Rachel, I should apologize for Nell’s behavior.”
“Well,” Rachel said slowly, “it isn’t just her.” She was a little reluctant to expose her feelings to someone she’d just met, but the need to talk about it was stronger. “I… I get the same feeling from a lot of people.”
Dixie gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Oh, really? Who, for instance?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Where should I begin? The banker, the saloon owner, Jason, people I’ve never met who see me on the street in Pine Valley,” she added, ticking off the names on her fingers. It felt so good to sit and talk with someone—someone who didn’t seem to hold a grudge against her.
“I know this is going to sound like a foolish question,” Dixie began, “but… did you know what your husband was doing out here?” Her voice was noncommittal, but there was an intensity in her eyes that made Rachel uneasy.
She slowly took a seat at the table, watching Dixie carefully. “He was working as an Indian agent.”
Dixie studied her fingernails, her thick, brushy lashes hiding her eyes. “Did you see the tall fence at the entry road when you came in from Pine Valley?”
Rachel frowned, trying to remember. “Yes, I think so. It’s made of logs, isn’t it?”
Dixie nodded. “Did you look behind it?”
“I had no reason to do that,” she answered, a little perturbed. “Why?”
“Because behind it are all the broken-down farm implements your husband refused to replace or repair.”
“Farm implements?”
Dixie nodded again, piercing Rachel with her strong gaze. “Plows, saws, wagons, gates—anything that needed fixing or replacing ended up behind that fence.”
Rachel tried to keep her face impassive. She didn’t like someone else loudly professing Jeremy’s failures. Karleen’s face flashed through her mind and she realized that it was dreadfully hard to face the fact that Jeremy hadn’t been the Prince Charming she’d thought he was.
“The people here seem to be well cared for,” she answered inanely, in her husband’s defense.
“No thanks to Jeremy Weber,” Dixie added, her voice clear, without animosity or blame.
Rachel stared at her. Dixie’s lively black eyes had gone cold. “You’re telling me my husband deliberately made life miserable for these people? I can’t believe that. No,” she added, shaking her head, trying to dispel the horror of the truth. “I can’t believe he’d do that.”
Dixie shrugged. “Ask anyone on this reservation what they thought of your husband, Rachel. I don’t think you’ll like the answer.”
Rachel’s stomach continued to burn. The feeling seemed to ooze up into her chest, for she felt sickened by the possibility that what Dixie had told her was true.
She looked up and found Dixie staring at her. “What about you, Dixie? Did you dislike my husband?”
Dixie gave her a cold, humorless smile. “There are a lot of reasons I didn’t like Jeremy Weber. But ask me why I hated Harry Ritter more.”
Rachel let ou
t a short laugh. “Harry? How could anyone not like Harry?”
“Oh, God!” Dixie gasped. Before she turned away, her face was pinched with revulsion.
“What’s wrong? What did I say?”
“Ma!” Matthew, who had been playing with his kitten in front of the fire, toddled to her, his arms outstretched.
He grinned and threw himself at her lap. She ran her fingers through the boy’s coarse black hair while contemplating Rachel.
“You didn’t know Harry very well, did you?”
“No,” Rachel answered cautiously. “I… I only met him a few times.”
“And he seemed like such a nice young man, right?”
“Well… yes. He was always shy and polite around me.” She had no idea what Dixie was getting at.
“Harry Ritter murdered my sister.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped… and so did her stomach. “What?”
“He was a nasty little fornicator who had a preference for Indian girls.”
Rachel shook her head, unable to speak. This woman clearly didn’t know what she was talking about. The idea that Harry could… could do that was ludicrous.
“He’d been after Honey for weeks, you see.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “Honey was beautiful. And not just her face, she was a beautiful person inside. She never liked to hurt anyone.” She gave Rachel a sad smile. “She was always after Nell to be nicer to people, and Nell always warned her that her sweet, generous nature was going to get her into trouble one day.” Dixie let out a long, sad sigh.
Rachel tried to picture the pink-cheeked Harry as perverted. She couldn’t. The bloody memory of what he’d looked like when she’d last seen him forced itself into her head, but she shook it away.
“Every day,” Dixie said, “when Honey would drop Dusty off at the school, Ritter would make some sort of pass at her. Oh,” she added, “don’t get me wrong. He was smooth as molasses on a summer afternoon. And that sweet, innocent act he put on for them…” She shook her head, snorting indelicately. “One day, for some reason, he must have broken through Honey’s defenses. Probably bribed her with a cheap trinket. Honey had a weakness for jewelry—white man’s jewelry.”
Heat of a Savage Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Two Page 12