RenegadeHeart

Renegade Heart

Madeline
Baker

Blush sensuality level: This is a suggestive romance
(love scenes are not graphic).

Rachel Halloran knows there will be
trouble after taking in Logan Tyree. The wanted man with a bullet wound makes
her desire pleasures that are forbidden. Her father, however, believes Logan is
the solution to his problems. But Logan won’t be controlled by anyone for free.
If Rachel’s father needs him, there will be a price to pay. And if Rachel wants
his love, it will cost her more than she may be willing to give.

Renegade Heart

Madeline Baker

Prologue

His name was Logan Tyree and he was on the run. And like
every other man who had ever been lucky enough to escape from the hellhole
known as Yuma Prison, he was determined never to return. Better to die of
thirst beneath a blistering Arizona sun, or bleed to death from the heavy .45
caliber slug lodged low in his left side than return to a life behind bars.

Yuma Territorial Prison! A hundred and ten degrees in the
shade. A miserable five-by-eight foot cell; no windows, just cold gray walls
and a steel-barred door. Yuma! Eighteen months of scummy lukewarm water and
putrid food not fit for a pig. Lice-infested blankets and heavy chains. Chains
that hobbled his feet and curbed his long, carefree stride. Chains that rattled
annoyingly with every step, loudly proclaiming the loss of his freedom. Chains
that scarred his flesh and shriveled his soul.

Well, the chains were gone, he mused sourly, but the scars
remained. He carried other scars, too—faint, silvery streaks that crisscrossed
his broad back and shoulders like a finely spun spider web. Scars left by the
whip.
Damn
! Just the thought of the lash was enough to make him break
out in a cold sweat. There had been one guard in whose hands the lash had come
alive, until it was no longer nine feet of limp rawhide, but a sibilant
twisting tongue of flame that danced endlessly over shrinking, cringing flesh.

They only had to beat him once. Other men, rebelliously
proud and foolishly stubborn, died under the lash sobbing for mercy. But Tyree
was no fool. There was no hope where there was no life, and there was no mercy
in the Yuma pen. And so he had swallowed his pride and curbed his tongue.
Outwardly, he became a model prisoner, forcing himself to say “Yes, sir” and
“No, sir”, obeying every command meekly and without question or complaint. And
all the while he was seething inside. Seething with the need to be free, to see
the stark beauty of the Arizona desert, to climb the lofty mountains of
Montana, to ride across the vast, rolling grasslands of the Dakotas. The love
of the wild country was strong within him and he had yearned for the unfettered
freedom of the plains as some inmates had yearned for whiskey or women or a
deck of cards.

Prison life had not come easy to a man who had never been
tied down, a man who had never in his whole adult life had to arrange his days
by the rigid discipline of a clock. Always, he had done as he pleased when he
pleased, and it had rankled deep inside when he was compelled to rise when he
wanted to sleep, eat when he wasn’t hungry or go without, meekly submitting his
will to the will of others. No, it had not been easy, skulking around like a
whipped cur with its tail tucked between its legs, but it had paid off.

Thinking him to be a broken man, the guards had used Tyree
to run errands from one prison building to another. He had played the part of a
cowed con so well the guards got careless in his presence. And their
carelessness had cost two of them their lives, and earned Tyree the freedom he
had so desired.

Pushing the memory aside, Tyree slapped his weary mount with
the reins, demanding another burst of speed from an animal already on the brink
of exhaustion. A white man would have been shocked at the brutal way he pushed
the heavily lathered bay mare, but Tyree had been raised by the Apache. And it
was the Apache way to ride a horse until it dropped and then, if there was
time, to eat the carcass.

He swore softly as the bay stumbled, praying that the game
little mare’s strength would last until he reached the Mescalero stronghold
high in the distant mountains, or at least until he found a decent place to
make a stand against the posse that was little more than two hours behind him.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, the bay stumbled
for the last time. Badly jarred, Tyree leaped from the saddle seconds before
the horse rolled onto its side. There was blood dribbling from the mare’s
flared nostrils, the empty look of death in her liquid brown eyes.

Squinting against the blinding sun, Tyree searched his
backtrail. There was no sign of the posse, but he knew Fat Ass and his henchmen
were closing in on him, snuffling at his heels like buffalo wolves on the scent
of a wounded calf. And so Tyree began to walk, one hand pressed hard against
his wounded side. The exertion brought a fresh sheen of sweat to his face as
rolling waves of pain splintered down his left side.

The desert floor dipped, dropped to a shallow bowl, angled
upward once more, and now he was in a patchwork land of red-walled canyons and
shallow arroyos. Pausing briefly on a narrow rocky ledge, he scanned the
surrounding countryside. A wide thread of blue snaked its way southward toward Mexico,
and freedom. For a moment, he was sorely tempted to head for the river. But
that was exactly what the posse would expect him to do, and so he continued
northward toward the sandhills, laboriously plodding through the deep sand.
Each step required a concentrated effort of will, each breath caused his wound
to throb with renewed vigor, but he moved forward with relentless
determination, grinning crookedly as the soft sand absorbed his tracks, leaving
no telltale sign of his passing.

Topping the last dune, he hunkered down on his heels in the
scant shade offered by a stunted saguaro. Lifting his hand from his side, he
scowled bleakly at the sticky red wetness coating his palm, quietly cursing the
guard who had shot him. Grimacing, he removed the crude bandage swathed around
his middle. The wound, now two days old, was festering. Bright red streaks
spread fan-like from the mouth of the bullet hole like spokes on a wheel.

Replacing the sodden bandage, Tyree wished fleetingly for a
cold glass of beer to chase the dust from his throat. Or, better still, for a
tall glass of Kentucky bourbon to dull the searing ache in his side. But such
wishes were futile and quickly forgotten as a rising cloud of dust caught his
eye.

From his vantage point atop the dune, he watched the
twelve-man posse ride into view. They drew rein near the bay mare’s carcass,
talking excitedly as they dismounted to check the ground for sign. Brody, the
territorial marshal, was easily identified, even from a distance. Grossly
overweight, he lumbered around like a fat, two-legged grizzly.

There wasn’t a bona fide tracker in the lot, Tyree mused,
and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to
Usen
that this posse had
neither dogs nor Indians to guide them. They were stupid, Tyree thought
contemptuously. So very stupid. Shuffling around like headless chickens, they
were blotting out the very tracks they hoped to find.

In seconds, the few prints Tyree had left were gone,
obliterated beneath the careless boot heels of a dozen men. He vented a sigh of
relief as the posse remounted and rode south, toward the border. Sooner or
later, Tyree knew Brody would realize his mistake and turn back. But there was
no point in worrying about that now. With a grin, he rose to his feet and
started down the backside of the dune.

Halfway down, he stumbled in the soft sand, tumbling head
over heels to the bottom of the sandy slope. He lay there for a full five
minutes, wondering if he shouldn’t just curl up and die. But he had never been
a quitter. Summoning what strength he had left, he gained his feet and
continued walking north, a tall, dark man dressed in blue denim pants and a
checked shirt stolen from a washline along the way. The clothes did not fit
well. The pants were too short for his long, muscular legs, the shirt too small
to comfortably accommodate his broad shoulders. Though he was not a handsome
man in the usual sense of the word, he possessed an aura of strength and
virility that most women found irresistibly attractive. His hair, long and inky
black, curled slightly at the nape of his neck. His mouth was wide, his jaw
firm, hinting at stubbornness, his nose was a broad slash. His eyes were a
curious shade of yellow, narrowed now to mere slits against the midday sun. A
thick moustache and a coarse beard covered the lower half of his face.

The pain in his side throbbed with the steady precision of
an Apache war drum, but he pressed steadily onward, his face an impassive mask
that revealed none of the agony coursing through his left side. The desert was
an oven, the sun was the flame, and he was the meat, cooking slowly, until all
the juice had been baked from his flesh and only a dry husk remained.

His feet were like lead and it was an effort to put one foot
in front of the other. Misjudging a step, he fell, jarring his wound, and he
felt the blood flow warm and wet down his left flank. Bright shafts of pain
danced up and down his side. It was, he reminded himself, a small price to pay
for his freedom. And if the festering wound killed him, so be it. Better to die
free in the desert than to live behind the high gray walls and cold iron bars
of Yuma, where every day was the same as the last, and every night longer than
the night before.

The air grew colder as the miles slipped by, and he shivered
convulsively. Though he had not eaten for two days, his desire was not for
meat, but for water. Just one sip to ease his nagging thirst. But there was no
sign of water and so he plodded ever northward, bound for the lodges of the
Mescalero Apache. There would be water in the rancheria, all he could drink.
There would be food to fill his hungry belly, friendly faces to cheer him,
gentle hands to ease his pain, a snug lodge where he could rest in peace and
comfort.

Sleep. His body cried for it. And still he moved drunkenly
forward, driven by sheer will alone. Slowly, so slowly, the sun slipped behind
the distant mountains, turning the western sky to flame and the earth to blood.
With the coming of dusk, a chill wind began to blow across the face of the
land, keening like a grieving Comanche squaw. And still he walked, doggedly
placing one foot in front of the other, keeping one ear cocked for the sound of
hoofbeats coming from the south. Because Brody would come. Sooner or later, he
would come.

But the land remained dark and quiet save for the wail of
the wind and the rasp of his own labored breathing. Overhead, the stars came
alive in the sky, sparkling like a million diamonds carelessly tossed across
the black blanket of the heavens, and still he walked, until his legs turned to
stone and refused to move another inch. Groggy with the need for sleep, burning
with fever, he sought shelter for the night in a shallow hollow that smelled
strongly of skunk. Dizzy with exhaustion, weak from the loss of blood and lack
of food and water, he collapsed in the hole, groaning as he landed on his
injured side. Gasping with pain, he huddled in the dirt while bright lights
flashed before his eyes. A sudden warmth along his left flank told him he was
bleeding again, but he was too far gone in pain to care.

Death hovered over him, and with the end of life in sight,
he pondered his beginnings, and the fate that had brought him to die in the
desert, alone…

He did not remember his father at all. And his mother was
only a vague shadow, a warm memory of soft flesh and strong perfume. Later,
unkind people would tell him the truth about his parents, about the half-breed
Comanche who was hung for a horse thief, about the young Irish prostitute who
gave him life in a bordello in a sleepy Texas town and then, three years later,
abandoned him to run off with a two-bit gambler.

No one wanted a quarter-breed bastard, and so the child was
sent to live with the nuns at a small Spanish convent located near the Mexican
border, and there he stayed until he was eight years old. It was then the nuns
decided the convent was no place for a boy, especially a boy as impudent and
rebellious as Tyree. Inquiries were made and the nuns found him a foster
home…and then another…and another.

He was not an easy child to love—the quiet, sullen-faced boy
with the suspicious amber eyes.

He was twelve years old and living with a bald-headed German
farmer and his kindly wife when the Apaches came, killing the German couple,
but sparing Tyree because there was no mistaking the Indian blood that ran in
the boy’s veins.

He lived with the Mescalero for thirteen years, and they
were good years. He grew to manhood, became a warrior, took a wife… Red Leaf
was her name. She came to him untouched and unafraid, fulfilling every dream he
had ever hoped for. Friend, mother, sister, wife—she was all women rolled into
one. Daily, he thanked all the Apache gods for the beautiful raven-haired woman
who shared his lodge and made his life worthwhile. He had thought to spend the
rest of his life with the Apache, but six white men came along one fine summer
day and changed the course of Tyree’s life.

He had been walking beside the river with Red Leaf that
fateful day. They were alone, far from camp, when the white men attacked. Tyree
had fought them as best he could, but his knife was no match for six rifles. A
bullet grazed his arm, another pierced his shoulder. And then one of the men
got behind him and buffaloed him with a rifle butt.

When he regained consciousness, Red Leaf was dead. He had
stared at her mutilated corpse for a long time, unable to believe his eyes,
until the vomit came and he fell to his knees.

When his stomach stopped heaving, he wrapped her body in his
shirt and buried her beneath a windblown pine. And as he smoothed the dirt over
her grave, all that was kind and gentle seemed to wither and die within him.

He sat by her grave all the rest of that long, lonely day
and night, remembering the good times they had shared, the sound of her
laughter, the touch of her body against his in the quiet of the night, the way
her dark eyes had glowed with love whenever he kissed her.

Slowly, the stars wheeled across the sky, and he stared,
unseeing, into the darkness. A lone coyote wailed in the distance, and its
melancholy cry was like the echo of his own grief.