Lily's Secrets [Elk Creek 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

“How can you defend them?”

“They saved my life,” Lily murmured.

“And after?”

“After?”

“Did they keep you from coming home? Did they keep you prisoner before their tribe was raided and massacred?”

“I wasn’t a prisoner.”

“Then why didn’t you come home?” At her silence, Wyatt moved closer, catching her by the shoulders again. “Didn’t you want to come home, Lily?”

“More than anything.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want me back.”

The agony in her voice made his heart stutter. Wouldn’t want her back? What on God’s green earth could keep him from…

Wyatt gritted his teeth. “They did do something to you, didn’t they? Was it the one who ‘saved’ you?” He didn’t realize how harsh and accusatory his tone sounded until he saw Lily sneer at him right before she broke away from his grip.

She took several steps away from him, looking horrified and insulted all at once.

He guessed she had every reason to be both, but he couldn’t help himself. If that savage had laid a hand on his wife, Wyatt couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

“It wasn’t him that did…what you’re thinking.”

Wyatt closed his eyes. The idea of
any
man’s hands on Lily, touching her with the intimacy that was reserved for only
his
hands, made him sick to the stomach…and strangely hard, very hard. He closed his eyes and saw the other man, Lily’s “savior,” picking her up, holding her close, and rescuing her. His cock twitched at the vision.

Wyatt’s eyes flew open and his confusion, lust, and revulsion must have showed on his face, as he caught Lily retreat even more. Usually he had the consummate poker face and was good at hiding his emotions, too good to hear Lily tell it. Evidently, he wasn’t good enough to hide his feelings about sharing her with another man. He couldn’t hide how turned on and repulsed he was at
that
idea.

His relationship with Lily had never been under fire like this before. Their marriage had never been in this sort of flux or turmoil. True, they’d barely been married a year when Lily was taken, but they’d had their differences here and there.

Wyatt didn’t know how to feel about the third party that had suddenly taken up residence between him and his wife, however. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. The indecisiveness made him feel weak and helpless. He didn’t like feeling that way, especially not with the woman he had sworn to protect and care for “till death do us part.”

He opened his eyes to see her sitting on their bed, the one he had barely made use of or shared with Lily since her return. Her shoulders were slouched and she had her hands in her lap, looking so forlorn and defeated Wyatt couldn’t stay away from her.

No sooner had he gone to sit beside her on the bed, however, than the not-too-distant sound of gunfire caught both their attention.

Wyatt had already jumped to his feet by the time Lily turned to him, gaping. “We’re not finished talking about this.” Even though he already had a sidearm, he rushed across the room to retrieve his rifle, just in case. He checked it to make sure it was loaded before turning to Lily. He bent and kissed her hard on the mouth as if to imprint the memory of himself on her, trying to project his love and strength in the simple act. “I’ll be right back. Stay here!” Before she could respond, he headed out the door, unsure whether or not he was relieved for the interruption.

Dakota closed his eyes, concentrating on his surroundings—the dense woods, the fragrant moist grass beneath his moccasins, the cool, gently flowing stream nearby—anything to ward off the burning pain in his side. His efforts, however, did not work, and when he took a deep breath the exertion left him winded.

He braced his back against the rough bark of a towering oak and hazarded a peek behind him and around the tree to see if his assailant still followed him.

Dakota didn’t see anyone, but then he had already let his guard down once and allowed the unthinkable to happen. He no longer trusted his instincts to steer him to safety, and this was a vulnerability he did not want to own. He had been one of the best scouts the army had had at its disposal not long ago, his tracking abilities superior, even to most full-blooded Indians. The resentment that had been shown him by some in his tribe because of his impure origins proved commensurate to his uncanny skills.

He felt himself drift, just for a moment, and jerked his eyes open with a start, paranoid at the length of time he had been unaware. The loss of blood sapped his energy and he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold on to consciousness. If his attacker caught up to him in the condition Dakota was in, he could not guarantee a favorable outcome for himself.

It proved so very tempting to just stay here and fall asleep. He knew he’d see her as soon as he allowed himself to float toward dreamland where thoughts of her were never far away. Even in his waking moments she had begun to hold sway, and this was the very reason he found himself in the situation he did now. He had been lost in his thoughts of Lily Baldwin and wondering what to do about the situation with her and her husband. He had been considering it long before she’d returned home to her people almost a year ago and still he could not come up with the perfect solution. His grandfather told him that he was much too hard on himself, striving for perfection that did not exist—in the Indian world or the white man’s world.

His grandfather was a holy man and one of the tribe’s respected elders, but not even his sage advice could cure Dakota of his need to please all even when this was clearly impossible.

Dakota did not know where he got this particular character trait. He did not remember seeing it in action in either his mother or father. His mother had been serene and philosophical, much like her father, Dyami, and Dakota’s father had been the exact opposite, always in motion and at work even when he was at rest.

Dakota thought that he had gotten a little bit of both his parents in him, especially the philosophical part, a demeanor that had been hard earned.

Being very perceptive about people and his surroundings was also one of
his
idiosyncrasies, though he hadn’t been so perceptive today.

He had allowed his prey, a man he had been stalking and watching as closely as he had been stalking and watching Lily and Wyatt these last several months, to sneak up on him in the forest, a place that over the years had proven a second home to Dakota.

He had allowed Lily’s attacker to get the best of him.

What did that say about his good sense and ability to judge anyone, much less Lily and her circumstances?

Dakota closed his eyes again, promised himself it would only be for a moment, and replayed that day in his head, how and when he had found Lily.

He had watched the stranger from his vantage point in the forest, wondering what errand had brought the man to the woods. Then he had noticed the man’s burden and understood perfectly. Dakota had remained where he was, hidden and quiet. Whoever the man carried over his shoulder was no longer for the world and there was nothing Dakota could do to help.

Once the man had finished his deed, all too hurriedly, Dakota watched as first one wolf then two emerged from the forest and circled the freshly dug and packed earth, whining. It was Dakota’s first clue that whoever the stranger had buried had managed to survive.

Dakota held on to that thought now—his vision of Lily when he had unearthed her and she took her first breath—and prayed to the Great Spirit that he could similarly beat death.

He comforted himself in the knowledge that had he been anyone else, he would probably be dead by now. He had caught the man’s sound and scent at the last minute. Only his exceptional reflexes had saved him and only temporarily. Should his attacker catch up to him now, Dakota was sure the man would not hesitate to kill him.

He was determined not to be a victim a second time, certainly not to perish at the predator’s hands. He could not allow himself to die now when he had so much left to do, the least of which was to rectify things with Lily Baldwin.

“What in tarnation?”

“Wyatt, put that away! He’s not armed.”

“We don’t know that yet. And I told you to stay at the house.”

Dakota dragged his eyes open to see the couple who had been haunting his dreams and waking moments for almost a year. He watched them emerge from the thicket, Wyatt Baldwin holding his rifle at the ready.

Lily put her hand on the barrel and pushed it down toward the ground so that it wasn’t pointed at Dakota’s chest. “He’s wounded.”

“And we don’t know how he got that way. Maybe he was up to no good rustling and a rancher plugged him full of lead.”

“I mean neither of you any harm,” Dakota rasped, and even through his agonizing fog, he noticed Lily’s eyes rounded as if she recognized his voice.

He closed his eyes to keep from falling beneath the spell of her entrancing gray gaze, such beautiful eyes he had only glimpsed from afar before now.

Only after the tribe’s medicine man had worked on her and she had begun to recover her health had Dakota gotten to see what she looked like without all the bruises and swelling. Even seeing her from a self-imposed distance, he caught his breath each and every time he got a look at the brilliance that finally emerged from such a mantle of severe injuries. Not to mention his cock hardened at the mere sight of her living and breathing in his tribe’s encampment, among his people.

Dakota gritted his teeth against his lustful thoughts, but it didn’t prevent his body from reacting to Lily’s closeness. Despite his injury, his cock grew as hard as a rock, and he hoped that Lily and her husband were too occupied with his bullet wound to notice his arousal.

“Please…I need your…help.” He reached out a hand, desperate now for relief—from his physical and emotional pain. He didn’t think he could go another minute this close to the woman without being able to touch her.

Dakota felt himself fading, though, and didn’t know how long he would last before the other man came out of the thicket to paint him with the broad brush of a wrongdoer deserving the punishment he saw fit to deliver.

Without hesitation, Lily came to his side, crouched down, and took his hand. She glanced back at her husband, and Dakota felt the other man’s heated look like fire across his skin.

“Lilybelle, get away from him!”

“He’s wounded,” she repeated.

“I don’t care. He could be dangerous.”

“He’s not dangerous.”

The concern in her gaze when she looked upon his face worked like a cooling balm against the angry fire of her husband’s glare. He could not blame the man for warning her away and wanting to protect his wife, however. Were Lily his, he would do the same, go through any hell to keep her safe.

But she is not mine.

The coldness that rushed through him at that realization was so profound that Dakota actually shuddered beneath Lily’s touch.

“We have to help him.”

Wyatt came to her side and hunkered down, too. “And how do you propose we do that?”

“Go back to the house and bring back the wagon so we can move him.”

“Are you plumb loco? I’m not leaving you here alone with him.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Dakota felt a rush of admiration at her poise and the certainty in her voice. Either she was utterly crazy, as her husband alluded, or she was too courageous to care about the risks. Whichever it was, he thought he would explode from the affection and desire that only she had ever engendered.

When Wyatt did not move to do her bidding, Lily glanced at him over her shoulder and put out her hand. “Leave me your sidearm while you’re gone and we’ll be just fine.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about being fine, Lily. It’s you.”

“Wyatt, you’re wasting time and I don’t intend to leave him out here alone to die. I…I know what that’s like and it’s not a good feeling.”

Her firm, quiet words must have hit a nerve. In the next instant Wyatt took the gun out of his holster, cursing and grumbling under his breath as he handed it over to Lily butt-first.

Wyatt leaned toward Dakota and growled. “You lay one hand on my wife while I’m gone and there ain’t a doctor around who’ll be able to put back together the pieces left after I rip you apart. Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” Dakota murmured.

Wyatt nodded grimly then leaned in to kiss his wife hard on the lips, blatantly staking his claim in front of Dakota before standing to leave.

As soon as he was gone, Lily went to work opening Dakota’s shirt.

He felt bad that she was getting his blood all over her hands, but felt even worse when she gasped at the sight of his injury. He did not like her being exposed to the harsh realities of life like this yet again. It was bad enough when he had found and had to nurse her back to health all those years ago. He did not want her to return the favor despite his appreciating her nearness.

Dakota watched as she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath as if hardening herself to face the task at hand.