Indigo Blue (11 page)

But he wasn’t younger. And it was probably a blessing. A girl like her would be an outcast in his world, and the social restrictions would make her miserable. She belonged here beneath a laurel tree, with the breeze playing in her hair.

He took another bite of his sandwich and relished the taste. “
Tao-yo . . .
?”

“
Tao-yo-cha.
Comanche flows nicely from your tongue.” She regarded him a moment. “You aren’t, by any chance, part Indian.”

“I’m not sure. The Rands are so mixed, it’s hard to keep track. My mother—she was Black Dutch. That’s where I got my hair and eyes. My father is—God only knows. I believe the name Rand is an abbreviation of something foreign—Russian or Italian or something. My father told me once, but it was such a mouthful, I promptly forgot. And who really cares?”

“Black Dutch?”

“A darker strain.” He searched her troubled gaze and smiled. “Heritage is extremely important to you, isn’t it? You can’t imagine my not knowing what I am or caring.”

She averted her gaze. “Some must wear their heritage.”

Beneath the stiff pride, he heard a world of hurt in her voice. He regarded her creamy skin. “You’re beautiful, Indigo.”

He wasn’t sure where the words came from or why he had said them. But they were out. The moment he spoke, the fragile comaraderie that had begun to develop between them was shattered. She fastened those huge blue eyes on his—vulnerable eyes that belied her impish smile. He saw pain in those eyes, pain she tried desperately to hide. And fear. Of what, he didn’t know.

The tension between them became almost palpable. Jake wanted to kick himself. He was afraid to move or say anything more. The breeze picked up and rustled in the tall pines. The sound seemed lonely.

Following her example, he applied himself to his meal, wondering what it was about him that unnerved her so. Even if she sensed that he found her attractive, she could surely see he wasn’t the type to act on it. Or could she? Last night on the mountain, his behavior had been less than exemplary. Perhaps his size intimidated her. They were miles from town. Maybe she was afraid he’d make an improper advance and try to press the issue.

He had never used his strength against a woman. But she couldn’t know that. Short of telling her, he couldn’t think of a single thing he could do to ease her fears. He never had been good with words. If he so much as alluded to rape, she was sure to think he’d been entertaining the notion.

“Indigo, am I imagining it, or do I frighten you?”

She stiffened at the question. “Why would I be frightened?”

That was a good question. “You just seem nervous, that’s all. If I’ve done something—”

“You haven’t.”

His mouth felt suddenly dry. “I hope not.” Aiming for a lighter note, he said, “I’m harmless, really. Ask anyone.”

He didn’t look harmless to Indigo. Right at the moment, he seemed a yard wide at the shoulders. His denim-sheathed legs appeared endlessly long. The sleeves of his green wool shirt were folded back to reveal the tendons that roped his bronzed forearms. He sat a mere two feet away, close enough to snake out a hand and grab her when she wasn’t expecting it. She hadn’t missed the gleam in his eyes, and she knew what put it there. Once, a lifetime ago, another white man had looked at her that way.

“I’m not afraid of you or anyone else,” she told him.

It was a lie, one of the few she had ever told. Everything about Jake Rand frightened her. She couldn’t shake the feeling—a premonition, perhaps?—that he was somehow going to gain control over her life. The moment she first saw him, she had sensed it—an inexplicable something, a strange feeling of recognition—as if her destiny had finally come calling.

He wasn’t a man to be taken lightly. Every pore of his skin radiated strength; every movement he made was ruggedly masculine. Oh, yes, he frightened her. She had seen women over at the general store looking at a new bolt of cloth in the same way that he looked at her. Tempted, but telling themselves no. Nine times out of ten, those women returned, again and again, and finally bought the cloth. A week later, they wore new dresses, patterned just the way they wanted them. Indigo didn’t want her world torn apart, then reassembled to suit Jake Rand.

Recalling the steely power she had felt in his body last night, she nearly shivered. His collar hung open to reveal the burnished column of his sturdy neck. When he moved, the green wool of his shirt pulled tight, showing the delineation of bunched muscle in his shoulders and arms. She tried to imagine his strength being targeted at her and decided she’d have a better chance pitting herself against a stone wall.

“You’re not afraid of anyone at all?” He studied her as if he found her response highly amusing. “I’m impressed. I thought just about everyone was afraid of someone.”

The question jerked her back to the present. She gathered her composure and finally managed to reply. “Oh? And who do you fear, Mr. Rand?”

The question left Jake drawing a blank. “I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Jake.”

“You’re my elder. It wouldn’t be respectful.”

He winced. “I’m not exactly a Methuselah.”

Having her refer to him as her elder rankled. He shoved an entire piece of cheese in his mouth. Thirty wasn’t that old. He’d only been—he did a quick calculation—eleven when she was born. He knew men who were married to women twenty and thirty years their junior, for Christ’s sake.

Following the cheese with a slice of dried apple, Jake regarded her once more and strove to recover his sense of humor. “Do I creak when I walk?” he asked with mock concern. “I rub my joints daily with axle grease. The doctor promised that’d cure the problem.”

Her eyes were still wary, but he glimpsed a smile flirting at the corners of her mouth.

“I have it.” He held out his hand and made it tremble. “You noticed the palsy, didn’t you? Embarrassing that, but unavoidable for a fellow of my advanced years.”

The smile finally broke loose and spread across her mouth.

Warming to the game, Jake lifted his gaze skyward and groaned. “Oh, no. It was all that rain yesterday, wasn’t it? It washed the shoe blacking out of my hair. Admit it. You saw black streams running down my neck, didn’t you?”

She rewarded him with a musical giggle, which she immediately stifled by biting her lower lip. The sound tantalized him. Lord, but she was sweet. He was happy to note that the wariness no longer lurked in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean any offense, Jake.”

She said his name as if it were an intimacy, and her cheeks turned a delightful pink.

“You’re not
that
old,” she added.

“Tell me I’m a handsome devil, and maybe I’ll forgive you.”

She giggled again. The sound warmed him clear through.

“You’re a handsome devil,” she replied. “A very
young
handsome devil, so young you’re still wet behind the ears.”

“You’re definitely forgiven.”

Lobo flicked his ears toward the hillside. Jake followed the wolf’s gaze but saw nothing.

“Don’t mind Lobo. He probably sees his dessert running around up there. Rabbits are his favorite food.” She returned her second sandwich to the saddlebag, then started on her cake. After taking a bite, she skimmed her lips with her tongue to lick away flecks of chocolate. “Mr. Rand . . .”

“Are we off on that again?”

“Jake.” The pink flush returned to her cheeks. “May I ask you something?”

“I’m thirty.”

“No,” she said with a laugh, “not about your age.”

“Ask away.”

She turned her cake as if studying it for flaws. “Can you explain why you don’t have calluses like most miners?”

It wasn’t what he expected. Jake looked down at a palm. A dozen lies swam through his mind, but for reasons beyond him, he couldn’t voice them. He had come here knowing he’d have to lie his way into a position of trust, and he had thought himself prepared to do that. That had been before he had met Indigo and her parents.

“I, um . . .” He cleared his throat. “For the past several years, I’ve been doing desk work.”

“Desk work?”

“For a very large mining corporation.”

“What possessed you to quit?”

Jake felt as if he were drowning. “I didn’t, exactly. It’s more like a leave of absence. I, um—” He took a deep breath. “I came here hoping I could—” He looked into her eyes and, though he couldn’t say why, knew he couldn’t lie to her. “Have you ever had the feeling you’ve sleepwalked through your life?”

“No.”

“Well, I did. I came here searching for the truth.”

“The truth,” she echoed. “The truth about what?”

“About myself, about everything I’ve believed myself to be. The truth about my work.” He sighed. So far, he hadn’t told her anything that wasn’t true. “When you work within a large company, it’s all too easy to assign a dollar value to everything. People become names on paper. A man can get so caught up in making profitable business moves that he notices nothing else. Something happened to make me realize that maybe I had lost touch with all the things that really counted. I had to find some answers. I ended up here at Wolf’s Landing.”

“By accident?”

Jake felt his pulse quicken. But after coming this far, he couldn’t retreat into a falsehood, no matter how harmless. “No, not by accident. I had heard about the cave-ins at your father’s mine and about his injury. I figured he might hire me on. From what I heard about Wolf’s Landing, I thought it might be the place where I could find the answers I needed.”

“So you didn’t just happen to be in Jacksonville.”

“No.”

“You told my father—”

“I know what I told him.” Jake braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Some things aren’t easy to explain. What would he have thought if I’d said I was searching for answers? It was easier to say I was just passing through.”

She gazed at him for what seemed an endless time. Then her expression softened. “I hope you find the truth you’re seeking. And I won’t embarrass you by telling my father.”

Relief flooded through him. “You won’t?”

“No. A journey within is a private thing, and I respect that. So would my father, if you told him.” Her eyes warmed on his. “So many never question. They never look within themselves for any kind of truth. I’m not sure they even realize there’s a truth to look for. My father isn’t one of them, though. He journeys to a place within himself nearly every day. And so do I and my brother. It’s the Comanche way.”

Jake eyed the remains of his sandwich. In his nervousness, he had pressed his thumbs into the bread. “A place within,” he repeated. “You make it sound almost noble. Yet it feels so—” He broke off, uncertain how to finish. “When I take a good, hard look inside myself, I’m not too sure I like what I see.”

She smiled. “If you don’t like who you’ve become, set your feet along another path.”

She made it sound so easy. But it wasn’t. How could he turn his back on everything he had worked so hard for, on everyone he loved? Perhaps his world in Portland wasn’t all it should be, but it was where he had come to belong. “It isn’t always quite that simple.”

“A journey within is never simple.”

She searched his gaze. It took all Jake’s resolve not to look away. He had the feeling she was reading him. After a moment, she broke the visual contact to finish off her cake. Silence fell over them. Jake concentrated on the remainder of his lunch, no longer enjoying the taste. He tossed a crust of bread at Lobo, who still sat beside Indigo, regarding the hillside. When the bread hit the wolf’s chest, he let it drop to the ground and eyed it with disdain.

Stretching her arms above her head, Indigo took a deep breath, then rolled onto her side. As she did, the air around Jake seemed to explode with sound. A rifle shot.

For an instant that seemed years long, he couldn’t react. His eyes registered the smallest details, imprinting the images on his brain like a camera did on a negative. Lobo, sitting beside Indigo one moment, thrown aside the next. Blood everywhere, splattered across the towel, on the grass, on Jake’s face. Indigo screaming. The horses bolting.

Jake felt as if he were submerged in cold molasses. A rifle, dear God, a rifle. Blackberry juice flooded his lap as he released the jug with fingers that took forever to react. He dove forward to shield Indigo’s body and had the crazy sensation that he was floating against a head-wind and might never reach her. One thought tumbled inside his mind. If Indigo hadn’t stretched out onto her side when she did, she might have taken the bullet in her chest. He covered her with his body and crossed his arms over her head.

No more shots rang out. Panting as though he had been running, he rose on an elbow, swiped the blood from his eyes and scanned the hillside. He saw a man darting through the trees. Leaping to his feet, Jake grabbed Indigo’s arm and dragged her toward the shack, his one thought to get her under some kind of cover.

“Lobo!” She sobbed and tried to wrench free. “Lobo! I can’t leave Lobo!”

Jake swore. “Forget the goddam wolf!”

He dove with her through the ramshackle cabin’s yawning doorway. Once inside, he shoved her to the floor near a window and crouched over her to peer through the grimy glass. If the man was still up there on the hillside, he was well hidden. Something sticky clung to Jake’s lips. He grimaced and spat, then brushed at his face. A cobweb.

“Lobo . . .”

The horror clouding Jake’s mind fell away layer by layer. He glanced down to see Indigo holding up her hands. Lobo’s blood flecked them. She shook violently. Jake groaned and drew her arms down. Then he gathered her close. Settling his hand on her hair, he registered two things—two totally insane, irrelevant things: one, that her hair was as silken as he imagined; two, that he felt nothing but fierce protectiveness now that he held her.