Captive (49 page)

“Warren knows you were imprisoned?”

“If he does not know now, he will soon.”

“You know, then, that you don’t dare stay here long?”

“I’ll be gone by dawn, before it’s discovered that there has been an escape.”

“So has Jesup lost Osceola?”

James shook his head again. “Osceola is dying,” he said quietly. “He may have some time left. Weeks, months, I don’t know.” He started out of the room and then paused. “Jesup thinks that this will win the war for him. But it won’t.”

“I know,” Jarrett told him.

James nodded, stepped out, and quietly closed the door behind him.

Jarrett looked sternly at his wife. “Should we have allowed him to do that? He’s liable to give the poor girl a heart attack.”

“She’s stronger than that, but she will be ready to kill him,” Tara said complacently. Her husband was staring at her as if she’d gone mad. “He will deserve it, definitely, and as you know, they must solve their own problems.”

“The problems may be greater now than ever. He has just escaped from a military prison!”

“They had no right to hold him, and James was right. Warren probably would have had him murdered within the Castillo. James is not just an innocent man. He has saved the lives of both white men and Seminoles.”

“That’s your feeling on the matter.”

“He should just stay here—” Jarrett groaned softly, “Tara, don’t you see? He can’t
possibly stay. This is the first place they’ll come to look for him!”

“But—”

“Tara, leave it be.”

“But—”

“Tara!”

“Jarrett—”

He sighed, and kissed his wife. It was the only way to silence her, he had long ago discovered.

She was having the dream again.

She knew that she was somewhere deep in the interior of the territory. It was no place she knew well. The trails were narrow, nearly nonexistent. She could hear the constant buzzing of flies and mosquitoes. She could hear something else as well. Her own breathing.

She was running.

Running so hard. And she was carrying the weight in her arms. Desperate to reach safety, desperate to hide. She was being chased.

The footsteps kept falling and falling. She couldn’t run fast enough. The green trees were overshadowing her. She heard a hissing sound and nearly cried out, startled as a snake nearly struck out at her from a low-hanging branch.

The runner was gaining on her. Coming closer and closer. She looked down at the weight in her arms. It was a babe. Dark-haired, so tiny. Newborn, helpless.

The footsteps, pounding against the earth, were almost upon her. She turned, opening her mouth to scream. Someone was coming to kill her. Her and the babe.

She couldn’t see her pursuer through the trees.

She didn’t know if she was being chased by a white man or a red man, a soldier or a Seminole. She only knew one thing.

He wanted her—and the baby—dead.

James hurried down the hallway, finding the door on the left and stepping through it.

The windows were open from the balcony. Soft white linen curtains floated with ghostlike grace, allowing in more moonlight than his brother’s room. Halfway across the room he could see her, and knew that this time he had come to the right place. The waves of her hair spilled against the white sheets like tendrils of the deepest, darkest fire in the night. She slept restlessly, her breathing shallow. She wore a gown of frilled white cotton, absurdly chaste—other than the fact that her breasts, definitely enlarged, strained against the lacy bodice. He walked closer to the bed, standing very still as he stared down at her, oddly at war within himself. He discovered he was as fascinated with her as he had been that very first time he had seen her in his brother’s house. She was exceptionally beautiful, and knowing her made her even more so, because the fire that filled her spirit was even greater than the vibrant glow of her hair and eyes, the marble perfection of her flesh. He felt his heart hammering against his chest, and he wanted to touch her in the most tender way, and he wanted to shake her because he was afraid. Perhaps because he had no right to doubt her; and yet perhaps because he did. He knew her so well, so intimately, and yet he didn’t really know her at all. He had sent her away so many times.

With no choice, he reminded himself.

And what now? he silently mocked. What now? He was more the renegade than ever. It hadn’t occurred to him until Jarrett had asked him about the escape that he might be accused of masterminding it, and that Jesup himself would want his head.

Should he walk away without waking her? Leave her in her restless sleep without ever touching her, speaking to her? Go on the run once more, this time forever?

She stirred as he watched her; her eyes suddenly flew open. It seemed that she had been alarmed before she even awakened. She jumped up to a sitting position, inched to the headboard, and flattened herself against it.

She was about to scream, he realized, while remembering his own appearance, deeply bronzed, half naked.

She had nearly been stabbed to death once by a man with a very similar appearance, he remembered. Otter. Any second she might start shrieking, waking not just the household but the entire neighborhood. He dared not let her cry out.

He took the step to the bed before she could scream, leaping upon it, silencing her with his hand. Her eyes widened with greater alarm, then shock, then fury.

“You son of a bitch—” she began with a hiss.

Anger bred anger. “Whose child is it?” he interrupted just as heatedly.

She inhaled sharply and tried to slap him. He caught her hand, but didn’t deter her wrath. Her teeth sank into his wrist, and he cried out softly with surprise. She wasn’t done. He had met men in battle without half her furious strength. Coming to her knees against him, she pummeled his shoulders and chest wildly. She came at him with such a force that he fell back, and she glared at him. “Wretched, pompous, despicable ass!”

“Teela, isn’t this where we left off last time? I warn you—” he began.

But she threw herself against him again so hard that she sent them both flying from the bed. He managed to twist to buffer her from their fall, but she didn’t seem to notice at all. “You really are one scurvy, detestable bastard. You—”

“Teela!” He managed to catch both wrists. “Teela, damn you, enough—”

“Don’t you dare say that word to me! Enough! Nothing is ever enough for you, everything is your way. You’re demanding, unreasonable—” She broke off breathlessly because he had managed to roll her weight from him. He rose, dragging her up with him. She instantly began the fight again, ripping an arm free from his clutch to aim a fist right for his jaw. He ducked and she swung into his arms. He plucked her up and threw her back to the bed. When she rose to fight again, he
was quick and ruthless, wrestling her down and pinning her wrists to the bed as he straddled her.

“Whose child is it!” she spat out. “Don’t you even think about asking me that question again!” she warned him.

“How could I not? You lived among the soldiers and whites far longer than you have been with me! You all but had a death grip on Harrington when you watched me being paraded by toward the Castillo. You were
with
Harrington—”

“Who has been nothing but the nicest man in the world, the best friend imaginable to both of us! How dare you doubt him? How have you the damned bloody nerve to doubt me—”

“Nerve! You walked away from me, ran away from me! Knowing damned well that for once I couldn’t catch you!”

“My lord! What a shame!”

“You could do what you pleased because you knew a dozen soldiers were ready to shoot me if I defied an order.”

“Did they shoot you? Obviously not!”

“They stopped me, they—”

“And the poor fellows are all beaten black and blue and sorely bruised for their efforts while you look none the worse for wear, McKenzie.”

“You wanted me dragged back to prison.”

“It was a fitting place for you!”

“Why, you little witch! You—”

“I didn’t even know about it!” she spat out.

“I was humiliated,” he informed her tensely.

“Good! You need to learn a little humility.”

“I might have died for you!”

“Why not? You are willing to die for everyone else.”

“But I might have died just to hear an answer from your lips.”

“To a question you’ve got no right to ask!”

He was floundering, he thought. “You wouldn’t fight your own battle!” he accused her lamely.

“I’ll fight you anytime!”

“Will you? Just try to scream again and see if the soldiers won’t come back and take care of things for you now!”

“Oh!” she cried furiously. She had the strength of a wildcat and almost managed to dislodge his hold on her arms. She tossed her head, trying to find some flesh to sink her teeth into again.

“My love, that’s hardly civilized—”

“Well, how does one deal with a savage!” she countered, wrenching one wrist free. She tried to strike out at him; he just barely managed to catch hold of her again. She was far more wily, swift, and determined than many a man he had met in battle. “Get off and get out, you wretched—” she began, then stopped, gasping. She went dead still, staring at his face yet seeming to see nothing at all.

“James!”

“What?” he cried, his sudden fear heavy in his voice. In the passion of their argument, he’d forgotten the babe. If he’d hurt her, hurt it … “What? Damn, Teela, talk to me. Are you ill, have I harmed you …” His voice broke to a whisper. “The babe … ?”

“Oh, James, it’s moving!” She caught his hand, dragging it down to her abdomen. At first he could feel nothing. Then a ripple like a tiny hand seemed to stretch across the inner length of her womb, slight, scarcely discernible, but there, so completely there.

“Our child,” she said suddenly. Her voice broke with emotion as she added, “You really are a wretched bastard. How
could
you doubt me?”

“It’s not that!” he whispered fiercely, his hold on her easing as he sat back on his haunches, holding his weight from her. He smiled ruefully, swept with a soreness different from any pain he had known, fully aware that his behavior had been less than exemplary many times. He battled forces he couldn’t begin to control, and thus did come across too bitter and too hateful. He had accused the whites of grouping the Indians as one kind of human being, of not realizing there were those who respected
life, learning, and happiness, those who loved children and would sooner die themselves than harm a child. He hadn’t been able to accept the fact that Teela could really love him for what he was, and that John Harrington could be a friend and not a rival. Very, very gently he moved a wild strand of hair from her face, his fingertips just brushing the softness of her cheek. “I all but threw you away,” he said softly. “Then despised the fact that you might have gone.”

She lay still, staring up at him, her eyes slowly taking in his appearance. Tears suddenly glazed her eyes. “It’s your child. Yours. And whether you are glad or not and seek to throw me away again or not, I am glad. I will love this baby, and I won’t teach it hatred or bitterness. I will let it know every possible thing
that is good
and wonderful about both races. I’ll—”

He silenced her with a kiss. Salty tears mingled with the unbelievably sweet taste of her. When he lifted his lips from hers, he took both hands and placed them around her rounded abdomen.

He shook his head. “Teela, I don’t know how to make you understand. In my heart I wanted you to love me. But by all sense and logic, I truly wanted you gone, away from here, away from the danger. Away from Warren. When I walked through St. Augustine, a prisoner, I heard what people said. About the Indians, about me. I am proud of all that I am, but I hated them for what they said. Hated them for being white, for being so prejudiced. And I couldn’t believe then that you could really want me … my life … once you had tasted all that went with being white once again. It was perhaps one thing to feel desire, excitement for a brief time in the wilderness … but that is so very different from a lifetime. And you didn’t tell me. That’s what triggered every evil thought within me. You didn’t tell me about the baby. In the copse.”

“I didn’t realize!” she whispered in return. “I would have told you. It’s just that I didn’t know. Honestly. I—”

“I’ve been afraid,” he told her quietly.

“Afraid? I’ve never seen you afraid of anything.”

“I’ve been afraid of wanting you, knowing that I can’t have you.”

“But you do have me.”

“How?” he demanded. “How do I have you? What have I done but give you an illegitimate child. A red one at that. Ruin you in society. It isn’t as if I’m a lawyer or a doctor having difficulty paying his bills. I’m an Indian.
Red.
” He caught her hand, brought it to his chest as he had once before. “Feel the red, my love, because you’ll be burned by it, yet it’s as if you haven’t the sense to feel the pain.”

“I feel pain when you’re gone. When I am in fear for your life. When I don’t know—”

She broke off. They were both startled by the sounds of hoofbeats on the streets below them.

“Horses!” she whispered. She stared at him then. “My God, James, how can you be here? As you are … in the middle of the night? You escaped—you broke out of the Castillo!”

“I had to.”

“Why? If they’ve discovered that there has been an escape, they’ll be hunting you down!”

James jumped up. He walked quickly to the open balcony window. How long had he been here? It appeared that the first streaks of dawn were just filtering into the sky. It wasn’t the middle of the night anymore. It was nearly morning. And there were horsemen coming.

In military uniforms.

He had to leave his brother’s home, and do so without delay. Even as he realized his dire situation, the door burst open. Jarrett, in a long robe, stood there.

“Sweet
Jesu,
James, you’ve got to get out of here, and fast.”

“I’m not going to be afraid of the military. I’m not going to run from them now,” he decided. “I’ll turn myself in to you, and you can bring me to Hernandez or Jesup and we can tell them that my life has been threatened at the Castillo. I intend to clear my name on
Warren’s ridiculous charges that I led the massacre against his men.”