Runaway (37 page)

She didn’t realize that she had stopped, staring at the cabin, until the girl urged her forward again. “Come, move. Else we’ll both be in trouble. It is time.”

Time? Time for what?
Tara wondered. Were the women of the tribe in the cabin? Were they the ones who would slice her into little pieces?

No harm would come to her.

“Now. He has said that you will come now!”

“He?” Tara whispered, but they had reached the cabin door, and the girl had thrust it open—and with a surprisingly powerful shove for one her size, she sent Tara into it.

For a moment Tara blinked. The cabin, smaller though it was, was much like the other. Dried meat hung from some of the beams, as well as drinking gourds and cooking utensils. A large fur pallet took up a quarter of the room, and again there were rolls of belongings about.

But Tara noted little of such things at the moment. Her eyes became focused on the center of the room, right before the place where a small but crackling fire burned in the hearth.

There was a large wooden tub there. A crude but European-looking bathtub filled with steaming water.

And within the tub …

She heard a curt command in the Indian language.

“He wants you to serve him,” the girl said, and gave her another firm shove.

Tara stood in shock.
He
was within it, she thought. The half-breed who had taken her. His back was to her and all that she could see was a set of copper shoulders covered in the rising steam and a headful of ink-dark hair.

“No!” Tara said the word, but it didn’t seem to make any sound. She felt weak again, as if she would fall. She had been so sure that the half-breed had been this girl’s husband or lover, she had never imagined …

What? She was so frightened now that she still felt paralyzed.

The man in the tub snapped out something that Tara could not understand, and the girl pressed her forward.

“I will not!”

“You must!” The girl’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t make him come after you!”

Chills swept over Tara. So it had come to this! She wished with all her heart that she could hurry back to grind
koonti
root, yet she was certain suddenly that it wouldn’t matter, that this had been planned.

She had been expected here all night.

“Go!” The Indian girl commanded her with another thrust.

“Wait! This is insane! I cannot, don’t you see? Untie me!” Tara cried. “I cannot serve—”

The man said something harshly, interrupting her.

“He can see that you will use any trick to escape. And he thinks you are much better behaved when you are tied. You will serve!” the girl said, then Tara nearly fell because the girl abruptly stopped pushing her and turned and exited the cabin.

Tara spun around to follow her, to make any possible mad dash for freedom.

But the cabin door slammed shut, and Tara could hear the sound of a heavy wooden bolt being slid across it. She stood dead still for a moment, then raced toward it, clenching her bound fists together, slamming them against it. A sob choked out of her, and she leaned against the door, fighting hysteria, then wishing that she might become so insane with it that this wretched world she had come upon might disappear.

But a sharp command was snapped out to her, and she went dead still before turning to brace her back against the door.
He
remained. Black head to her, fingers gripped tight around the rim of the tub, muscles rippling in his copper shoulders. He was going to stand any minute and come after her. And she was tied and trapped in the cabin with him.

There was no escape. Not tonight. Not from him.

She didn’t know what he was saying, and suddenly she didn’t care. She saw that there was a deep pan of water suspended above the fire, boiling away. He wanted to be served; she would serve him.

“God rot you!” she whispered. “I’ll not serve you, you will boil in hell!”

She ran to the fire, ready to grab the water and scald him with it. But before she could reach the kettle, bronze arms snaked out and copper fingers closed like bear traps around her wrists. She gasped, choked, fighting wildly, aware of the wet and naked savage who had now leapt out of the tub to wrestle with her, his arms firmly about her in his determination to grip her wrists.

She kicked back wildly and heard a hiss of aggravation. She tried harder to free herself but he wrenched her back, and in so doing brought his own knees back against the crude wooden hip tub. She felt his strength
as he fought a moment for balance, but too late. In a second they had both fallen into the water. His arms encircled her as she sat atop him, his fingers grazing her breasts. Beneath her, through the many layers of her clothing, she could feel him. Feel the muscles in his thighs, the heat of them. Feel as well the boldness of his arousal, steel hard and insinuating.

She cried out wildly, thrashing in the water. She twisted and turned, half drowning herself in her reckless efforts.

“Tara!”

The harsh sound of her name brought her still. She had heard it, yes.

Then she felt his arms, tight and restrictive around her again.

She twisted in his arms and this time his hold eased and she stared into his face, her heart beating wildly. She had expected the half-breed with the piercing blue eyes. She had to be losing her mind. She was staring at features that were somehow similar, and somehow not. She was staring into the coal-black and amazingly
merciless
eyes of Jarrett McKenzie.

Her husband.

“M
cKenzie!” She gasped.

Those black eyes narrowed sharply on her.

“My God, you!” She gasped again. “You!” She felt her temper rising to a fever pitch. “What—oh, my God! I was terrified! I was afraid for my life. I’ve been wretchedly worked and all but tortured here.”

“Had you been tortured,” he snapped, “you would have been well aware of it.”

“Let me up!” she commanded, struggling against him as fiercely as if he were one of the savages. At the moment he was more of one than the Seminoles, she decided.

But he wasn’t about to let her free. They were both entangled in the sodden mass of her clothing but his fingers threaded through her hair, holding her still and forcing her eyes back to his.

“Let me up!” she insisted again, clenching her teeth against his painful hold. “Oh, my God, I could rip
you
from limb to limb, what have—”

“This is nothing. You should see what punishment sometimes befalls
runaways
, my love.”

The tone of his voice was sheer warning, as was the ebony fire in his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat, and she
inhaled on a wild gasp as she realized that he had come home.

And not found her there.

“The Seminoles, my love,” he continued, drawing a wet trail down her cheek with his forefinger, “like many other Indians, can be harsh. Adultery and betrayal are judged especially brutally. Sometimes the ears and nose of the guilty party are slit and clipped, sometimes—”

“Oh!” she cried, raising her bound wrists and making her hands into a ball to slam against his chest. “How dare you, how dare you! You’ve been here, you know these people! And you let them—” She broke off, crying out, for he suddenly stood, lifting her with him, his eyes darker and more menacing than ever before. “Don’t—!” she cried, but he was standing barefoot, naked and dripping before her, pure gold and copper in the flickering firelight, and she was now drenched and sodden herself. His fingers were like steel clamps around her upper arms.

“Sweet Jesu, lady, don’t you think to preach to me!” he threatened, shaking her. “After everything! You still think that you will simply run off as you choose—”

“After everything!” she cried. “You brought me into the wilderness and abandoned me.”

“You’re my wife!” he snapped heatedly.

No, she thought, she just wanted to be his wife. His wife was the woman who lay dead in the ground, she had felt that from the beginning. She was the stranger he had brought home to fill the void in his life, to sit at the head of his table, to be a warm female form to hold, to take in the darkness of the night.

She tried to fight his grip upon her shoulders and could not. She drew herself up as straight as she could, returning his stare with her own alight with blue fire. She realized that Jarrett had been here for quite some time. He had certainly made himself at home in the
small cabin. She saw that one of the rolls against the wall consisted of his saddlebags and belongings. His weapons leaned against the wall, even the luxury of a white man’s linen towels lay ready for him upon the furs of the pallet.

She had been set to work scraping skins and grinding stringy roots—
because he had commanded it
. Jarrett! Not the half-breed with the blue eyes, nor even the war chief in the red leggings. No, Jarrett had let her sit there in terror, had forced her hands to cramp, her flesh to blister. Jarrett had held the “higher” authority over her, and he had used it ruthlessly.

“You bastard!” she hissed, and once again her bound fists came up to pound against his naked chest. “I’ll rip your heart right out of your chest! I’ll never forgive you for this, I swear it. I’ll—”

“You’ll hush!” he warned her, his voice all but a growl.

“Not in this lifetime, McKenzie—” she began, but she found herself slammed up against his chest, her breath clean knocked from her body.

“They can hear you!” he warned her.

“I don’t give a damn!”

“I do!” he warned, and there was a very sharp glitter in his eyes now. “My little runaway wife is not going to put me into any more difficult situations.”

“
Your
situation was difficult?” she exploded. She started shaking. She had been so damned terrified. And then she’d all but scraped her fingers to the bone. “Your situation!” she railed again, but she felt a wet hand clamped hard over her mouth. He seemed to tower above her, and she was reminded of the way that the savage half-breed had seemed to tower in the doorway of the other cabin.

“Madam, it would not do well for any Seminoles, no
matter how close I am to them at this moment, to become convinced that I cannot even manage my own house. You see, they intended you no harm, but were appalled to find you wandering from lands where
they had guaranteed me you would be safe
. They wanted an explanation, and I must confess, I didn’t have a good one!”

She shivered fervently, unable for the moment to offer him an excuse since his hand remained so firmly over her mouth. He suddenly eased it from her, spinning her around. She felt his fingers at the hooks of her gown and despite her deep longing to shout at him again, she whispered a furious, “What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry, there’s not a great deal I’m expecting out of my wife for the moment,” he taunted. “You’re soaking wet.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re not going to make a bigger mess out of this by coming down with pneumonia!” he warned.

He had the gown undone, her corset beneath it, even the ties to her pantalettes and petticoats. She still shivered as her clothing fell from her shoulders, but he could go no farther, for her hands were still bound at her wrists.

“Untie me!” she commanded, still shaking.

He spun her around to face him. He arched a brow high. “Still demanding, eh,
runaway?
”

“Now!” she insisted.

“No.”

“No!”

“Maybe if I’d had the sense to leave you bound and tied at home, we wouldn’t be here now.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned me to the savages, we wouldn’t be here now.”

“Maybe if you had listened—”

“Untie me! You’ll never get these wet things off me if
you don’t!” she challenged him. Oh, to have her hands free! Just to hit his hard, handsome face once with a stinging slap!

“I won’t, won’t I?” he asked softly. She was startled as she felt his hands upon the many layers of fabric of her gown. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he ripped the dress clear from breast to toes.

“Oh, you bloody, bloody bastard!” she whispered, and pitched herself at him.

He swept her up, and she slammed his chest as he carried her to the fur pallet on the floor. He set her down none too gently, wrenching away her loosened petticoat, pantalettes, and corset. She swore at him all the while, twisting, threatening. “I swear, Jarrett McKenzie, you will pay for this! I shall rip your eyes out—”

“And you call
them
savages!” he taunted.

She was naked and breathless, staring into his black eyes, furious, and yet …

Alive. So very alive. He had never seemed more sensual to her, naked, damp, bronzed to a glow, furious himself, and rippling with muscle. Nothing glowed within the room but the fire; she felt as if they might be at the ends of the earth. Perhaps it was cold outside; it was warm in here. She could smell the earth outside, the scent of cypress, of rich grasses, of pine. She felt the air against her own bare flesh, felt a hot coil stirring deep within her. And yet something hurt deep inside as well, and she was determined to fight him—and herself.

He knelt down beside her; she struggled up to her knees. “Damn you, McKenzie! I want to know! How long have you been here? You told her that I was better behaved when I was tied!” He didn’t seem to hear her. He was reaching for her, and she tried to inch away, but his arms were on her, holding her still. “Don’t you—”

“Idiot!” he grated. “I’m trying to warm you!”

He had set a warm braid blanket around her shoulders. Even as he stared at her, there came a soft tapping at the door. Jarrett stood and started for it. She was about to cry out that he couldn’t answer it naked, but he plucked up one of his towels and wrapped it around his waist before opening the door, which had now been unbolted from the outside.

The half-breed had come back. He stared at Jarrett and said something in his language, which Jarrett answered. Tara stayed on the pallet, the blanket wrapped completely around her, staring at them with her chin high, not moving. An unease settled around her. She remembered how she had dreamt of being chased by an Indian.