Native Wolf (15 page)

Samuel Parker turned his mount to get a better look at the lone animal grazing on the far hilltop. “Is that...Thunder?”

Frank, always eager to be in the thick of things, drew his pistol. “You and the men stay here, Mr. Parker. I’ll go take a look-see.”

Frank rode off while Samuel waited stoically on his horse. Only by virtue of the iron backbone that was a hallmark of the Parker breed did he manage to keep his dread in check. After all, it wouldn’t do to let his ranch hands see him unmanned by the fear wrenching at his gut. If that was indeed his stallion, where was Claire?

He hadn't wanted to let anyone in on the details of what he'd found in Claire's room, but there was enough evidence to suspect foul play. If she'd truly meant to run away as her note indicated, she would have taken her packed bag. But there was a fresh set of clothing on her bed. She'd left behind those infernal dime novels she was always reading, the ones she thought he didn't know about. She'd never saddled up the dappled mare like her letter said. And her beautiful golden hair...

Samuel swallowed down the lump in his craw and clenched his hands tightly on the saddle horn.

All he'd told Frank was that Claire had gone missing, that someone must have taken her. There was no need to get the boy riled up over her breaking off their engagement. Besides, it was too soon to know exactly what had happened. There had been no ransom note, but if that was the kidnapper's purpose, Samuel would gladly pay whatever it cost to get his daughter back. And Claire would no doubt be so grateful to be home and under the protection of her fiancé after such an ordeal that she'd forget all about calling off the wedding.

In the distance, Samuel saw Frank dismount and cautiously approach Thunder, while the coy animal kept dancing out of his reach. Finally, the young man lost his temper, hurling his hat to the ground. With a taunting whinny, Thunder then trotted past Frank and headed straight toward Samuel and the search party.

The ranch hands caught the runaway beast, who looked like he’d had enough adventure for one night. Samuel got off his horse to inspect his prize stallion. The horse had no saddle, just a rope around his neck. Whoever had taken Claire had either been in a panicked rush or accustomed to riding bareback. He thought again about the half-breed he’d questioned at the Parlor. The man had had a pretty solid alibi. Still, he seemed the most likely candidate.

Thunder’s left side was lightly scraped and coated with dirt, as if he’d been in a mudslide. Could the stallion have lost his footing in the rain? And if so, had Claire been hurt in the fall? Was she lying helpless somewhere with a broken neck?

The idea froze the blood in Samuel’s veins. But he couldn’t let fear paralyze him. If Claire was in trouble, time was of the essence.

Frank rode up then and slid out of his saddle with a scowl. "Son of a bitch. Look at that flank. What the hell did that bastard do? Thunder’s our best stallion. When I get my hands on the sick son of a bitch who did this...” He kicked at the dirt. "Damn!"

The young man’s appraisal of the situation didn’t sit well with Samuel. Shouldn’t Frank be more concerned with Claire’s welfare than getting revenge on a horse thief? Then again, he supposed they were all under a good deal of stress. Frank could be forgiven for getting his priorities mixed up.

Still, Samuel didn’t think Claire’s kidnapper was a “sick son of a bitch” at all. He’d been clever and careful. He’d taken Claire with stealth, not bravado. As for stealing the horse, Frank had been unable to find fresh prints to indicate the man had arrived at Parker Ranch on horseback, so naturally he’d needed transportation. And so far there’d been no evidence of real harm to Claire. He’d cut off her hair, yes, but there was no blood, no sign of a struggle except for a dropped candle and a torn curtain.

In fact, for a time Samuel wondered if maybe his daughter had left willingly with someone—a friend or a lover. She’d been awfully upset over Yoema’s death, and she’d meant to run away. Still, to leave her things behind...

Frank took off his hat and swatted it against his trousers. "When I find the two-bit ass-wipe who did this," he snarled, "I swear, Mr. Parker, I’ll string him up by his guts."

Samuel frowned. One of the things that had always impressed him about Frank was his devotion, to the ranch and to him. Frank’s position as boss had evolved as a matter of course, since the young man had spent two years at the Parker Ranch, tirelessly learning the business, taking part in buying and selling stock, treating the cattle and horses as if they were his own. That the man had earned the affections of his daughter only sealed Samuel’s commitment to grooming Frank to take over the ranch upon his demise.

But Frank was also young and impetuous, a little too quick to jump to conclusions. Samuel thought this time he might be wrong.

"The tracks lead this way," Frank announced, already picking up the trail into the mountains. “Keep your guns close at hand, boys. He can’t have gotten very far without the horse.”

"Wait."

Samuel narrowed his eyes at the mountain pass. It was a curious choice. He would expect the man to hightail it out of the foothills and get as much distance between him and the Parker Ranch as possible. But Claire’s abductor seemed to be circling back toward Paradise. It could be the fellow was lost, but Samuel didn’t think so. Maybe, just maybe, Claire had convinced him to take her home.

At any rate, the last thing Samuel needed was a half-dozen ragtag ranch hands who thought they were gunslingers set loose in the canyon. They were used to driving cattle, after all, not hunting criminals. And it was too easy to imagine overeager Frank shooting a hapless miner.

“Put your guns away before you kill each other,” Samuel decided.

Frank’s lips thinned in frustration, but he complied.

As the men rode on, Samuel held on to the desperate hope that Claire was still alive and safe.

Claire peered at her reflection in the shallow pool. Her hair was longer on one side, and it stuck out at crazy angles. She wished she’d managed to do a better job of cutting it. The uneven locks kept falling into her eyes, annoying her.

Since Chase had shaved off his stubble and emerged even more handsome, she’d grown increasingly self-conscious about her own ragged appearance. She had to admit, however, that her irritation had more to do with vanity than physical discomfort.

They’d stopped for water and to feast on the baby fern, wild lettuce, and grass nuts growing in abundance near the spring. Claire had taken advantage of the break to wash her face, but there wasn’t much she could do about her hair.

Chewing morosely on a mint leaf, she looked up to find Chase studying her from his seat on a chunk of granite. He tossed the last tiny grass nut into his mouth and chomped it down. Then he told her, “It’s crooked.”

She sighed. “I know.”

He sniffed. “I can fix it.” He drew his knife.

She eyed the sharp blade. Did she want her abductor that close to her with a knife?

He arched a brow, adding, “Unless you’re scared.”

“No.” That she would never admit.

He patted the ground between his feet. “Here.”

She questioned her wisdom in obliging him. Even if he didn't mean to stab her, he had no references for the job.

In the end, she decided it was worth the risk. She seated herself before him on the thick cushion of pine needles, drawing up her knees and locking her arms around them. It was an intimate position, tucked there between his thighs, one she didn’t dare think about too deeply.

His touch upon her was gentle, far gentler than she would have imagined, given his massive hands. Lacking a comb, he wove his fingers through her hair, tugging carefully when they snagged on tangles. At first, she cringed, all too conscious of the fact that her hair was matted and snarled from rain, sleep, and travel. But as his fingers drifted across her scalp, she closed her eyes and forgot about her drab locks, relishing the sensation like a well-caressed cat.

“I’ll take you home soon,” he murmured.

She opened her eyes, and that strange mix of relief and regret tugged at her heart again. She bit at her lip, forcing her voice to nonchalance. “When?”

He pulled a section of her hair taut, and she felt the knife slice smoothly through it. “Soon.”

She’d never met a man of so few words. She closed her eyes again. “You know, your grandmother used to entertain herself for hours," she remembered, "coiling my hair into fantastical braids. My father often accused her of making Konkow baskets on my head."

He grunted, or maybe it was a chuckle, and then sliced again. A sprinkle of cut hair fell across her shoulder.

"I think you may have done this before,” she said, impressed by how skillfully he could trim hair without the benefit of scissors. “Are you a barber?”

This time, she was sure he gave a snort of laughter. "I’m a blacksmith."

Her eyes went wide. She was entrusting her wispy curls to a ham-handed blacksmith? Dear God. Then again, she supposed her hair couldn’t possibly look worse than it did now.

A blacksmith, she mused. No wonder he had such a powerful build. She closed her eyes again, picturing him in a long leather smith’s apron while he pumped the bellows to make the coals burn scarlet upon his brazier. She imagined the sweat dripping down his bared forearms as he struck a glowing red chunk of iron with his heavy mallet. And her imagination began to make her heart beat faster with a curious excitement.

Somehow this brawny blacksmith had gentled his strength for her. His fingers were feather-light upon her hair. When his knuckles grazed the side of her neck, a delicious warm current sizzled through her body. His touch was rousing her senses in the most peculiar way.

Another clipped lock dropped onto her bent knee, and she lazily brushed it away.

The sun steamed the dewy ground now and warmed the cotton ruffle draping her legs. Sparrows twittered in the deerbrush. From beneath her lowered lids, she watched a trail of black ants traversing a rotting log and a chipmunk searching through the pine needles under it. Above, tattered clouds, strewn across the periwinkle canopy like the batting from a torn quilt, turned from pink to gold to white. The mountains were awakening.

Claire breathed a wistful sigh. Despite the harrowing journey, despite her scrapes and sunburn and fatigue, at this moment she felt strangely content, and she was in no hurry to have her adventures come to an end. This real-life escapade was far more thrilling than a dime novel.

She smiled. Yoema would have shaken her head at that. The old woman had always grumbled over the ferocious pictures of Red-skins in Claire’s books and clucked her tongue when Claire recounted the outrageous tales of double-dealing gamblers and dastardly gunslingers.

Of course, in
this
story, Claire was the sweet and virtuous heroine. And Chase Wolf—was he the villain or the hero?

She let her eyes drift shut while she contemplated the question. Certainly he was as fierce as some of the muscular Indian villains painted in such lurid detail on the covers of her books. And he’d abducted a white woman—a recurring theme in many of the stories. But he’d also nursed her injuries, hunted game for her, sung her to sleep, and now he saw to her feminine vanity. Surely those were hallmarks of a hero.

Claire squirmed into a more comfortable position between the blacksmith’s sturdy thighs. Whichever he was, hero or villain, Yoema’s half-breed grandson wasn't evil. He seemed kind and caring, a decent man with deep convictions who’d simply made an honest mistake. She only prayed that when the final showdown came, whatever it was, just as in her books, justice would prevail and the ending would be a happy one.

Chase clenched his teeth and groaned inwardly as Claire wriggled backward, insinuating her shoulders farther between his legs, closer to that part of him that had begun to harden with mindless lust.

"Hold still," he ground out.

Damn. The last thing he needed was to be aroused by the white woman. He had to keep his mind on preparing for the confrontation with her father. Hell, if Samuel Parker could see what was going through Chase’s mind right now, he’d geld him quicker than he did his cattle.