Captive (19 page)

She nudged her heels against the mare’s flanks. The mare took flight.

Within minutes, Teela was leaving the house and stables, and then the lawn behind her.

She had reached the dense growth of trees and foliage where Jarrett’s property ended.

And where the raw wilderness began.

She hesitated just briefly. Even the blue of the afternoon sky was darkened by the growth of pines. Her horse’s hoofbeats were muffled by the soft needles that lay so heavily strewn beneath them. The green darkness seemed all but overwhelming.

Keep to the left, Jennifer had told her.

Keep to the left …

She closed her eyes, afraid of all that awaited her. A bird cried out in a sudden lonely screech, and Teela was nearly startled from her horse.

Snakes …

Alligators …

Indians …

She heard someone shouting from behind her, from somewhere on the McKenzie property.

She didn’t dare wait to find out who was calling out, or why.

She squeezed her knees into the mare’s sides. “Hie!” she cried softly to the animal.

The mare leapt forward, plunging them deeper along the trail.

And into the heart of the savage land.

T
ara burst back in on her husband, who sat at his desk, brooding over the situation. He looked up at her, startled by her wild appearance.

“She’s gone!”

“What do you mean, she’s gone?”

“Gone, not in her room, not with the baby, not upstairs, not downstairs!”

“She wouldn’t have gone to the ship alone, I don’t think,” Jarrett said slowly. He shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t hurry to his command, of that I am certain.” He rose. “I’ll search outside.”

Tara nodded. “I’ll try the outbuildings, the kitchen, smokehouse, stables …”

“Stables!” Jarrett said.

They both ran from the house, down the porch steps, along the trail that led to the outbuildings, and burst into the stables. Indeed, Heidi, the roan mare, was gone.

“She has taken her—” Tara said anxiously. Then she gasped, realizing that Jennifer was standing in the stall, her little back against the wood wall of it. “Jennifer, come here!”

Jennifer obediently came to her aunt, stretching out her small arms with a smile when Tara reached for her. Tara looked worriedly at Jarrett.

“Do you know where Teela has gone?” Tara asked.

“On Heidi,” Jennifer offered.

Tara nodded, “Yes, yes, Heidi is gone. But what about Miss Warren? Sweetheart, it can be very dangerous for her here. She grew up in a big house in a big city, and
she has never really spent any time outside alone before.”

“Maybe she went to Uncle Robert’s,” Jennifer offered.

“Did you point out the way to Robert’s property?” Jarrett asked Tara anxiously.

“Yes, yes, but I didn’t think she’d try to ride that way by herself!”

Jarrett knelt down by his niece. “Jennifer, is that the way Miss Warren went? I need to know, because she could be in danger.”

Jennifer shook her head, looking down. “I don’t know. I stayed in the stable.”

Jarrett groaned. “I should ride into the bush.”

“You can’t!” Tara said with alarm. “Teela’s hour is up. Warren will be here any second. Jarrett, he’ll follow you, and you might lead him to her.”

“And if I don’t go after her, the fool girl could wind up dead!”

Tara stared stubbornly at her husband. “What is the choice exactly? Let him catch her and half kill her, or take a chance with a few hours? Once it’s dark, you can start searching.”

Jarrett sighed deeply again. “Uncle Jarrett!” Jennifer said softly.

He came to his feet, spinning around. The hour was up, all right. Warren was back, standing at the broad doors to the stables with two of his officers. Both big, brawny men. Jarrett squared his shoulders, fighting the fury that smoldered within him. If Warren thought to threaten him, he had another damned thought coming!

“Where’s my daughter, Mr. McKenzie?” Warren demanded.

“Major Warren, with my whole heart I wish I knew. It seems that she has borrowed one of our horses.”

“You let her escape!” Warren exclaimed angrily.

“I had not known that she was my prisoner, sir!” Jarrett informed him indignantly.

“And, sir, I tell you, we are on the fringe of a veritable jungle! She risks an agonizing death!”

She had run from an agonizing life, Jarrett thought, but bit back the words before he could say them. Tara was right. He would have to fight his pride for the girl’s sake. “It is our belief, Major Warren, that she has ridden toward a neighbor’s property. We —”

“You will show my men the way, Mr. McKenzie, and I beg you, make haste. I will return to my ship and inform our minister that she is lost, and have him pray God to protect her person and her soul! You will inform me immediately if she is found. You will not need to mince words with me, I will know instantly of her fate!”

Jarrett longed to snap out a reply.

Tara squeezed his arm, and he swallowed his words again. “Major Warren, I will saddle my horse and arrange for mounts for your men. I understand your fear for your daughter, sir, and how painful this must be for you, and of course, I know that you tremble for her safety.”

Shaking, he turned around, striding down the length of the stable to reach his horse’s stall. Tara was calling for the young grooms to come saddle horses for Warren’s men.

She had squeezed his arm, Jarrett thought, and managed to keep him at least halfway civil, but she couldn’t seem to manage a single word for Warren herself.

But then as she slipped by the men to make her way indignantly back to the house, she sniffed and muttered, but loudly enough for all to hear, “It is a wretched thing indeed when a young woman must fear her father more than scalping!”

At the rear of the stables, Jarrett smiled.

And he took his damned time saddling his horse. He was only taking the men so far anyway. And he was only going to vaguely point out the way to Robert Trent’s plantation and hope they were green enough to get lost.

Then he would wait for darkness to fall.

*  *  *

She was not afraid. The green darkness seemed all around her; she couldn’t tell most of the time what was trail and what wasn’t. Stay to the left! She could go in complete circles without even realizing it. Oh, it was so frustrating!

No, she was not afraid …

She was terrified.

There was silence in the forest. A silence so great it seemed that all the World had stopped. Then the hoot of an owl would shatter the stillness and scare her out of her wits.

She rode by a stream, and the silence seemed to bear down upon her again. Then she heard a splashing noise and turned swiftly and nearly cried out herself, seeing the beady black eyes of a ’gator just protruding above the water as the creature seemed to glide sleekly through it. She nudged her horse forward, terrified that the thing meant to swim after her.

She panicked the roan.

They went flying helter-skelter down the trail, Teela just keeping her seat and praying that she was still bearing to her left.

She had been riding for hours.

Darkness was coming.

It came beautifully. First with radiant colors, crimsons that splashed through the trees and over the water. Shimmering gold, striking orange. The colors seemed to fall upon the long-legged, elegant birds that stalked through the streams and swamp. Egrets were shaded in pink and yellow, cranes seemed to glisten in gold. The vivid colors faded to pastels, and the pastels then ebbed away and shadows deepened.

She had stopped to watch the sun fall upon the water. Now she shivered fiercely, silently calling herself a fool. This was madness. She hadn’t the least idea of what she was doing.

A wolf howled. The sound seemed to shoot straight along her spine. She shivered again and forced herself to continue onward.

Soon she was thanking God for the moonlight that rose above her. If not for that moonlight, she would be blind. Each time the moon slipped behind a cloud, the darkness was all but complete. She had to draw in on her reins then, sit tight and shiver, and wait for the light.

It grew worse. Oh, so much worse! When she sat, she could hear rustling. Tree branches moving. There were creatures near her, creatures of the night. Wolves, bats, perhaps.

Indians.

It grew to where she could not stand the sound of the slightest rustle. She talked to herself aloud. She sang. But she had to listen.

She welcomed the baying of the wolf.

She knew what it was.

But the rustling …

She didn’t know what time it was. She had been riding for endless hours. Her stomach growled: she was half asleep and still terrified as she rode when she heard a rustle again.

Right behind her.

She reined in. Wide awake now, listening with such an intense effort that it was painful.

Nothing.

She nudged the roan. Moved onward.

And again …

There came a rustling.

She drew in on the reins. The roan pranced, letting out a whicker of unease. But once again Teela could hear nothing from behind her. “Come on, girl, now, come on,” Teela said encouragingly to the horse—and to herself. “Those cabins must be up ahead somewhere very close. We’ve got to reach them.”

She gave the roan a little kick. They started off at a trot, but Teela slowed to a walk. She could scarcely distinguish the trail before her.

She ducked beneath a branch. A scream rose in her throat as the branch moved.

The branch was a snake.

She didn’t know what kind of snake, perhaps a harmless one. She hadn’t heard a rattle, and she was on dry ground now, riding away from the river, so it shouldn’t be a cottonmouth.

It didn’t matter! If the creature had landed on her, she would have screamed and screamed. She would have become hysterical. She would have galloped into the darkness, galloped even into death …

Thank God the snake hadn’t fallen on her, but the rustling was sounding behind her again. Her heart leapt to her throat. She wasn’t imagining it; it was real. She was being followed. Stalked.

“Hurry, girl, oh, hurry!”

She nudged the mare again, this time heedless of the darkness ahead or any threat that might await her there. She was being followed. What she had done had been insane. There were wild bands of Indians out here, Indians who hated Warren, Indians who would gladly take the scalp of a young white woman with long red hair.

The thrashing behind her grew louder. Boldly louder. There was a horse behind her!

She turned back.

In the darkness she could see only a bare-chested horseman. Dark-haired, intently riding down hard upon her. She screamed out loud; it didn’t seem to matter. She slammed her heels against the mare’s sides, ready to plummet into whatever hell awaited her rather than lose her scalp.

The hoofbeats caught up with her. She leaned low against the roan’s neck, but it did her no good. Strong copper arms reached for her, wrenching her from the roan’s back. She tumbled to the ground, the powerful body of a man atop her. She inhaled to scream, but gasped instead as her name was snapped out: “Teela!”

She blinked against the sudden spill of moonlight that dispelled the shadows on the face above hers.

“James!” she cried.

“What the hell are you doing out here alone?”

“Why were you stalking me?” she asked instead of replying.

“Are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone. And you nearly scared me to death. My God …” She slammed both her fists furiously against his bare chest again and again. Until he caught her arms, wrenched them down. “Stop it!”

“You bastard! You could have let me know it was you—”

“I had to know that you were alone,” he insisted angrily.

“But—”

“Even now,” he snapped, “Warren could be following you. What are you doing out here, fool woman? Do you know the dangers of this place?”

“Yes!” she snapped.

“Then?”

“Will you please get up?” she asked coldly.

He did so, offering her a hand but dragging rather than helping her up. He still seemed exceptionally angry and tense. He caught her arm and propelled her forward.

“What—”

“The cabins are ahead.”

“We can ride—”

“We could have ridden, yes. But the horses have gone on ahead of us,” he informed her dryly.

She walked stiffly before him, aware of his heat so close behind her. It seemed to Teela that they came upon foliage so heavy that there couldn’t possibly be anything ahead of them but brush. Then James went before her, shoving branches, leading the way.

She cringed, slipping through the leaves and branches, wondering what crawled upon them. She was glad of the darkness so he couldn’t see how frightened she was.

At last the foliage cleared, and they came into a copse where there were several strongly built cabins hewn out of logs. Teela paused, and James went before her. She followed. He entered one of the structures, and she hesitated,
but a moment later, light came from the cabin, and she followed him inside.

In a hearth against the far wall he had built a small fire. It cast a fine glow of warming light against the darkness. She walked toward it slowly, searching the cabin.

There were still signs of life here, though the village itself seemed a ghost town. There were rolled bundles of cloth, an area by the fire where there were a number of utensils, wooden spoons and bowls, a cast iron skillet, a coffee pot, and steel tongs. The cabin seemed sparse, only a few blankets covering the plain floors, but tonight it seemed the most welcoming place on earth.

Much more welcoming than the man before her.

He stood straight, shirtless, wearing only boots and breeches, his arms crossed over his chest. He glistened copper in the fire’s glow, muscles rippling with each breath, chin set and hard, eyes like blue steel.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Well, I promise you, I didn’t come to find you!” she assured him.

“So what are you doing here?”

She sighed. “What difference does it make?”

“An incredible difference. If you’ve led your father out here—”