A Wolf in the Desert (21 page)

“O'Hara,” he groaned as he kissed her again, deeply. His breath shuddered in his chest as he lifted his mouth from hers at last. Slipping the tie from her hair with impatient fingers, he buried his face in the gleaming tresses, damning a need that couldn't be gentle. So little of the life he'd forced upon her had been gentle, he wanted it for her now.

Bewildered by the stillness belied by the ragged rush of his heart, she held him, wanting him, knowing he wanted her. Turning her face only a little, she kissed the pulse at his throat and felt the blood pounding through him. With her tongue she tasted the saltiness of his skin, breathing the unadorned cleanliness of him. Pulling her hair from his grasp, she lifted her head, her gaze colliding with his as she pulled his mouth back to hers.

Her kiss was ravenous, insatiable, her wordless, muttered demand for more fanned his fevered skin. Passion and desire spiraled beyond control. In a swift move he swept her up against him. His arms were tight, possessive, as he stalked to the shack.

There was only the fire to light his way, there had never been more. No candles, no lanterns, only this small, careful flame. But it was enough as he lay her on his blanket spread in front of it in preparation for the night. Enough that as he removed her clothing, slowly, deliciously, every desirable inch was revealed by the rosy glow of fiery coals. Enough that when he took her, the woman with hair like fire and bathed in the light of fire, became fire itself. And he was consumed in her, by her. Possessed.

With desire spiraling from one plane to another, he took her with him to the brink, and then further, into the unthinking madness that magnified every exquisite caress, every touch, every stroke of his body. When she cried out, arching to meet him in mind-shattering rapture, it was he who possessed. He who held the flame in his arms.

In the aftermath, in sweet fulfillment, he held her, refusing to think of yesterday or tomorrow. And when the fire burned low, and the night was wine dark, he made love to her again. This time gently, but no less passionately. The last of love, for which the first was made.

She was the warrior's woman. His woman. In his heart she would always be.

B
y sunrise, their day was hours old. Working sometimes together and sometimes apart, they set out to return the ravine to the condition in which they'd found it, removing every trace of their weeks of habitation. Neither spoke of the night they'd shared, but neither forgot. The memory lingered in the haunting softness of Patience's eyes as her gaze followed him. In Matthew's light, wistful touches when he was near.

An hour ticked by. The shack and ravine were scoured of the last clues. The mood changed. Patience became aware of Matthew's increasing distraction. Time and again, she saw him lift his head, his brow scored by a frown, his stare unfocused. Each time she waited for an explanation, each time he was silent. He'd begun the day being quietly attentive, now he was scarcely aware she existed. As he lapsed deeper into an absorbed silence, Patience kept her own counsel as quietly.

“Not that.” For the first time in a while he spoke, taking the bow from her before she could dismantle it. “There's no need to destroy the bow, I'll take it with me.”

“We have no more need for it, why weigh ourselves down with useless baggage?”

“Don't argue, O'Hara. For once, just don't argue.” He stepped to his waiting horse.

Patience was surprised by his outburst. She hadn't argued, neither of them had. Abruptly it all made sense. His solemn quiet, the watchfulness, the edgy irritation. “They're out there,” she whispered. “The Wolves have found us, haven't they?”

Matthew finished tying the bow to the pack draped over his horse's rump before he turned back to her. “They're out there, but they haven't found us.” Returning to her, he looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “They won't find us. We'll be gone long before they're that close.”

Patience strained to hear, to feel what he'd felt. There was nothing. “How did you know?”

“I'm not sure I can explain.” But with an eloquent shrug, he tried. “It's a lot of little things. Taken alone, they mean nothing. Together, they add up to trouble. A vibration in the earth, a feeling in the air. A snatch of sound in a silence too great. A skittish horse.” He looked out over the ravine. “The birds and animals have gone to ground, they know something is coming. I know it will be the Wolves.”

“How soon?”

“We have time, but only a little now. As soon as you're ready, we'll move out.”

Stroking his hand as it lay on her arm, she nodded. “I need a minute more.”

“Take your minute,” he said quietly. “I'll see to the horses.”

Moving from his embrace, Patience went to the door of the shack. It looked as she'd found it. Order had been turned to chaos, it was a derelict again. But in her mind, it would always be a tranquil refuge, a haven where, by the light of a flickering fire, she had loved and been loved fiercely in return.

Trailing her fingers over the uneven stone of the fireplace, she said goodbye to a moment that would never come again. Head down, she hurried from the shack. Eyes blinded by unshed tears looked to Matthew. “I'm ready.”

* * *

The way through the fissure was difficult as Matthew had warned. The passage was narrow and climbed steeply. Water trickled from jutting boulders, the temperature plummeted, the air was dank, and darkness nearly complete. Twice the way was so constricted Patience had to dismount, for horse and rider could not pass through together. Twice more she had to stand at Lucky's head, taking him where he was afraid to go. Every sound seemed to reverberate, magnified by a hollow quiet—water drumming over stone, the brush of clothing against craggy walls, the steady clop of shod hooves. Above it all, Matthew's disembodied voice encouraging, leading the way.

Like an unexpected scream, a deluge of sound swept over them. A battering, throbbing timpani with no direction and no end. Patience bit back a cry. In the disorienting pandemonium, she quieted her terrified horse with the hopeless certainty the Wolves were ahead, waiting for them. Her first instinct was to turn back, to flee, but the space was too close for the horses to turn. And on foot what chance had they?

“O'Hara!” Matthew called, his voice threading through the tumult. “Listen to me. This isn't what you think. Sound carries through the ravine, the passage distorts it. The bikes sound as if they're right at us, but they aren't. I would guess they've just found the entrance to the ravine. They may never find this way, and if they do, we have time. We're almost there now, almost through.”

He coaxed her along, above the roar of engines and the more frightening silence that followed. As Lucky plodded on, iron shoes striking fire against stone, she closed her eyes, waiting for a stealthy step at her back.

Heat and light burst over her without warning, and Matthew's hands at her waist lifted her from Lucky's back. “We made it.” Then he was laughing as he kissed her. “We really made it.”

“Have we?” Patience couldn't share his elation. If they could traverse the fissure, so could the Wolves. “They found the ravine, Matthew. They can find the way behind the waterfall.”

“What they'll find will be a dead end.” When she looked at him in question, he explained, “In a land of balanced rocks destined to fall, in a hundred years who's to know or care that we hurried more than a few along?”

“How can you?” The boulders that flanked the fissure were massive, and precariously stacked. One would think a gust of wind could send them tumbling, but she knew they'd withstood much more for countless years.

Taking a length of rope from his pack, he pointed to one tall, slender column. “We play dominoes.”

Patience didn't understand until he looped the rope around the spire and tied the other to a braided leather collar he hooked around his horse's neck. The leather she recognized as strips cut from a spare tunic, the braiding had been his exercise in dexterity, both now turned to useful purpose.

The stone spire fell with one long, hard pull from the powerful horse, bringing others down with it. Dominoes.

When the sound and fury ended and the dust settled at last, the back of the fissure had disappeared. Sealed as if it had never been, by tons of stone. It all seemed impossibly easy, a spur-of-the-moment solution, but she knew he had been planning and preparing for this for more than a week.

In the wake of clamorous sound, the plateau to which their climb had led them, was quiet and pastoral. A stream danced willy-nilly along its way with no hint that soon it would tumble off the face of a cliff in a thundering waterfall. When Patience spoke, it was in bittersweet awe. “It's hard to believe it was ever there.”

“It was there, the ravine exists, the days we spent there really happened.” He held her close, but only for a moment before he took her arm to guide her to the horses. “It's time to move on. Your nightmare is almost over, O'Hara. You'll be home before you know it.”

Riding bareback for hours through terrain that grew rougher with each mile was an experience. One of many Patience hoped she would never have to repeat. The little farmhouse with shabby equipment, a shiny TV antenna jutting like a single porcupine quill from its roof, and obviously too poor to be part of the Wolves' cabal, was never a more welcome sight. The farmer, an ancient widower of Mexican descent, could barely speak English, but he understood enough that Matthew could make a few telephone calls. Persuading him to let them leave the horses as collateral for the use of his truck, was another matter.

“I've decided you're a warlock,” Patience observed through clenched teeth as she scrambled back into her seat after the farmer's “most precious” truck jolted her from it in the negotiation of one of a million potholes. “In a thirsty land, you find water. We need horses, they appear. We must escape, you find a way. We need communication and transportation, and the only farmhouse for miles offers both. Though, at the moment, I think I prefer the horses to this ‘most precious' truck.”

Matthew fought the steering wheel as the battered vehicle bumped over a small wash. “He was a shrewd old codger. This is a ‘55 Chevy, hard used and neglected for nearly forty years. Before being consigned the honorable title of ‘most precious,' naturally. I've a feeling we were lucky the battery still had power and there was gasoline.”

“It had nothing to do with luck, you're a warlock, plain and simple.”

She was teasing. Even her complaining was done in good spirit. But the closer their return to civilization, the surer he became that the truth would destroy what she felt for him. Grimly, losing the lighthearted spirit, he muttered, “What warlock in his right mind would put a woman accustomed to a Corvette, aptly called Beauty, in a heap like this?”

“Beauty was my parent's idea, not mine. The name, Black Beauty, was part of an ongoing joke when I insisted a horse would be more practical for a journey in the west.” She looked at him curiously, seeing tension in the way he gripped the wheel and the grave set of his features. “You're disturbed about something.”

He managed an apologetic smile. “Just tired.”

Patience was instant concern. “Does your arm hurt? Should I drive?”

“My arm's fine.” A stretch of road rougher than any before it made further comment impossible. When they were past it, they found nothing more to say.

The bone-jarring ride ended when Matthew turned onto a paved road. They sped through the magnificent red rock country, and neither found reason to comment. On the outskirts of Sedona, Matthew turned the truck onto another road, this one narrow and graveled and quite smooth. They were climbing, and the mountainous view grew more spectacular.

“The calls I made...” Matthew began in a peculiar hesitancy. “One was to Simon McKinzie, the man I work for. The other was to Patrick McCallum, a friend. His villa is at the crest of this mountain. He and his wife, Jordana, aren't in residence now, but there's a permanent staff. You'll be safe with them until Simon comes.”

There were other calls he didn't explain, and Patience didn't question. She recognized Simon McKinzie's name, she knew who and what he was. Patrick McCallum hadn't been part of the delirium. As she pondered this new twist, Matthew was pulling to a halt in front of a sprawling Mediterranean-style villa. A man much like Matthew lounged at the steps leading to the house. His face was lean and saturnine, his hair black as night, but as he approached the truck, his green eyes flashed with laughter.

“Matthew!” He opened the door at the driver's side, laughing again as it creaked and sagged. “I won't ask how you came to be in possession of Jesus's ‘most precious' truck.”

“Rafe! No one told me you were here.” Matthew was out of the truck, first shaking hands with the man whose genuine amusement was at odds with his looks, then clapping his shoulder. “I take it you know Jesus.”

“Everyone knows Jesus and his truck. They're local characters.” With the negligent grace of a stalking cat Rafe crossed to Patience, opening her door with a gallant bow. “Rafe Courtenay, at your service, Dr. O'Hara.”

She heard the hint of a soft Southern accent, and recognized the courtliness of a Creole as he took her hand, helping her from the truck as if it were a limousine and she were dressed in a Paris original rather than stained and dusty leather and cotton. “New Orleans, Mr. Courtenay?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only because I lived there for a while.”

“Then you know I'm guilty as charged.” Rafe Courtenay smiled again, and she saw that he was really quite handsome and very kind. Tucking her hand in his arm, he led her to the stairs, leaving Matthew to follow. “Your rooms have been made ready for you. I imagine the first thing you'd like is a long soak and nap before dinner.”

“How did you know, Mr. Courtenay?” Patience laughed up at him, as at ease as if she'd known him for years.

“Sisters, Dr. O'Hara. I have a few.”

The interior of the house was lovely and relaxing. It proved to be a unique maze of uncluttered pathways, terraces, and gardens that flowed in and out of charming living areas without any sense of interruption. It was a house of textures and contrast, an experience for the senses. Nothing was carelessly placed, yet there was no sense of rigid order. Living in this house would be easy. There was serenity here, a joyful enhancement of life.

“How wonderful,” she exclaimed as she saw how perfectly the house blended with its surroundings.

“It is, isn't it?” Rafe agreed. “Patrick had the house designed for Jordana. Tomorrow someone will tell you the bricks used in the walls are handmade, burnt adobe, and the beams and headers hewn of dead, standing spruce out of Colorado.” The solemn mouth barely hid a grin, green eyes smiled down at her. “But that's tomorrow. For now, your bath and a long rest await you.”

He opened a door to a room as gracious as those she'd seen. A woman dressed in peasant blouse and a gaily printed broomstick skirt came forward to meet them. Taking her hand, the woman fussed over her as she shooed the men away.

“Go!” She tossed her head with all the arrogance of an aristocrat. “Discuss whatever men discuss over brandy on the terrace. Maria will see to Dr. O'Hara's comfort. Jordana is busy with her boys.” Then in an aside, “Little League, you know. The woman is amazing. They tell me she knows from the crack of the bat if it's a home run. So, because of the season, it is a long time since her Maria has someone to fuss over.” Turning Patience in place, the housekeeper continued happily, “Look well at her before you go, gentlemen, you will not recognize her when next you see her.”

Patience was swept along with the tide, with nothing more from Matthew. As the door closed behind them, she heard his expression of surprise at Rafe's presence, and Rafe's explanation that he was only passing through and would be leaving on a midnight flight. Their voices were fading when she heard Rafe asking what Matthew found in the desert. She didn't hear his answer.