The Bearwalker's Daughter (3 page)

Then Neeley set the white porcelain bowl on the washstand and squinted down at Jack like a hen hunting for spilt grain. She gestured with bent fingers at the girl peering from behind John McNeal’s bulk. “Karin, come closer. You’re my hands, lass.”

Her eyes, too, Jack suspected. Looking past her, he watched in fascination and relief as Karin edged nearer the bed. He much preferred her to tend his injury, but if he spooked her she’d bolt. A skittish mare if ever he saw one. Teeth clenched against the pain, he tried to appear unthreatening. Maybe he could entice her closer.

Mister McNeal cut away the last of Jack’s sleeve and slid his eyes over him without a flicker of expression. He handed the bloody cloth to Joseph. “Toss this in the fire and go see to his horse. We’ll tend your brother.”

Joseph hesitated, loathe to leave his long-lost sibling, perhaps. No. His eyes shifted protectively to Karin with more than a trace of yearning in their depths.

So,
that’s how
the
land
lies.
Jack wondered if she felt the same about Joseph, annoyed that he cared if she did. Why should he give a damn who she favored?

“Karin will bear up. She’s seen worse,” John assured the reluctant young man.

“So have I,” Joseph muttered, and turned on his heels.

This left John McNeal, Neeley, and Karin, but she still hung back. Neeley had banned everyone else from the room. Evidently she was in her glory now. Dipping the towel in the aromatic water, she lit into Jack. “What the—” he jerked and nearly swore.

The old woman didn’t falter and sponged the blood from his arm and throbbing shoulder. No doubt she tried to be careful, but failed.

“John, you’ll want to take these wet clothes off him before he catches his death.”

Jack balled his hands into fists under the zealous healer’s ministration. “Not just yet,” he intervened, unwilling to drive Karin away. The modesty he sensed in her would surely balk at such a manly display of bare flesh.

Unexpectedly, the timid girl walked to his side and gazed down at him with pity in her eyes. And what eyes, like a troubled sky, he mused between barely contained groans.

Jack hadn’t been called sir ever and it bemused him that this hesitant maiden fretted over his emotional state. Someone, perhaps his mother, had brought her up to be a lady. “I’m sure you will, Miss.”

She dabbed his shoulder dry, then dipped her small hand into the pungent crock. Pursing rose-tinged lips, she smeared the aromatic paste on his wound. “I’ll give the salve a while to work before I dig the ball out and stitch you up. Ever had woundwort, sir?”

“Dulls the pain right well.” Jack hid a grimace. Even her soft touch stung like the devil, but he wouldn’t push her away for anything. He was too distracted by the dimple in her chin, the purity of her lightly bronzed complexion, the sweep of her dark lashes, and the way her smooth brow puckered in concentration.

A tendril of hair as black as a raven’s wing with the beguiling tendency to curl slipped across her blushed cheek. He wanted to reach out and smooth it back, and her mouth fairly begged to be kissed, though he doubted she’d ever felt a man’s heated lips on hers before. Joseph struck him as far too cautious to press her for anything so daring without her full compliance.

“I’ll see you properly bandaged and dosed,” she continued, seemingly unaware of Jack’s absorption. “Aunt Neeley taught me about tinctures and fever drinks, Mister McCray.”

She lifted clear eyes to his in unwavering innocence, like twin stars rising in the twilight blue. “You don’t seem a bit like my stepbrother.”

He smiled at her despite the bite in his arm. “Good. You aren’t in the least like a sister.”

“Humph,” John McNeal grunted. “You’ve an able tongue in your head for one accustomed to Indian talk.”

Jack shifted his gaze to the grumbling patriarch. How could sweet Karin come from that old he-wolf? “My adopted father wanted me educated. I spent many hours under the tutoring of a captive minister.”

He met his stepfather’s glare in simmering defiance. After a tight lipped standoff, he said, “War’s over, Mister McNeal. Remember?”

“Damn Tory.”

“You watch that talk, John McNeal,” Neeley scolded as she reappeared with the steaming basin. “This young man’s been through only God knows what. Don’t you go growling at him.”

“That’s no excuse. The traitor.”

Karin’s hand shook against Jack’s shoulder. “Grandpa, please. We don’t know his story yet.”

Fire shot through John’s McNeal’s blue eyes and they burned into Jack. “’Tis a tale I don’t want you hearing, lass. If he’s to stay with us, he starts fresh. And don’t you go getting over friendly with my granddaughter, Jack McCray.”

A condition Jack had no intention of honoring.

Chapter Three

Howling wind gusted around the eves of the house and through the tiniest chinks in the walls. Did Karin detect warning or invitation in the murmurs threaded through the gale?
Bot
h
, she thought, shivering under the covers.

Despite the chill, she offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the commotion. The shrieks muffled the creak on the icy floor as she slipped from the bed she shared with Neeley and tiptoed to the door in her stocking feet. The frigid draft blew up under her shift while Karin paused to listen to the old woman’s undisrupted snores. She should snatch her shawl from the peg by the door, but didn’t tarry. Satisfied that Neeley remained asleep, Karin stole from the chamber, a mantle of black hair hanging loosely around her.

Guilt pricked her conscience. Stealth was at odds with her nature, but an inner voice summoned her, an irresistible melody. She instinctively knew where the music came from and that she must heed the age-old rhythm.

She crept into the main room. The dancers had succumbed to grogginess. Shadowy figures slumbered before the reddish-orange logs in the hearth, rolled up in blankets and deerskins on the floor boards. Other dark forms were bedded down in the loft overhead. Some hardy souls had ventured out into the wind-tossed night after the startling end to the celebration. They’d headed home, but many folks remained within the stout walls of the homestead.

Popping wood settled in the hearth with a shower of orange sparks. Karin paused in mid-step.

No one stirred, except to snore and grunt in their sleep. Generous draughts of strong drink contributed to their unresponsive stupor. Saint Peter himself would have been hard-pressed to wake them. Like a vagrant spirit, she easily stole through the sprawled assembly and into the chamber where they’d taken Jack McCray.

A single candle burned on the circular bedside stand. The fringed pouch which laid on its walnut surface had been stained with use and the horn worn translucent so that it revealed the black powder within. The potentially lethal tomahawk gleamed in the flickering light. That same glow illuminated its owner stretched out in Joseph’s place, his long torso and legs spread the length of the mattress.

She needn’t worry that Jack grew chilled. Two brown striped wool blankets snugly wrapped him. She stopped beside his slumbering form, trembling with the cold and shaken by her daring in being where none would want her, except possibly the recipient of her scrutiny. Thankfully, he was unaware of her presence.

Had Jack even known what words escaped his lips when he’d whispered that strange message to her? Likely it was simply the wanderings of a confused mind borne of injury, but mystery veiled everything about the handsome stranger. Even lying there senseless, he drew her as if on the keenest wind.

She trailed her eyes over his face, pale beneath his bronzed skin, though not as drained of color as she’d feared. The covers rested partway down his muscular shoulders and chest. White linen swathed his upper right arm where she’d applied the bandage. As far as she knew the only clothing he wore was an elkskin breechclout and a woven belt at his waist. He wouldn’t part with his knife. Grandpa had stripped off all else.

The restraints of modesty posed no hindrance to Neeley who’d sponged more of their guest than was seemly for Karin to do. An herbal scent clung to Jack’s clean skin and his freshly combed chestnut hair spread over the pillow. Unaccustomed to a man in this state of undress, Karin returned her close study to his face, disturbingly attractive with a familiar quality in his youthful but ruggedly masculine features.

His even brow and nose bore a strong resemblance to Joseph’s, not so large as to be out of proportion, but distinctive and definitely McCray. Beneath the dark whiskers roughening his firm chin she saw the same small cleft, a family trait. Jack lacked his brother’s reddish tones, though, and was a warm brown from his sun-kissed skin to his hair. More like Uncle Thomas.

Here lay no boy newly sprung to manhood, but a well-honed frontiersman and Lord only knew what else. Joseph paled in comparison with his striking brother, partly because Jack was new and different. Wonderfully so. But she couldn’t stand and stare at him all night.

She laid her hand on his forehead, relieved to find no sign of fever. Neeley was familiar with all the healing herbs and had taught Karin well. Jack’s robust health would also aid his recovery. Confident he was on the mend, Karin let her curious inspection drift to the white stone suspended from the leather cord around his neck. Pink lights in the quartz shimmered with rosy iridescence. Intrigued, she reached out her hand to the polished surface—freezing as he groaned.

His eyes opened. In that instant, any resemblance between the brothers vanished. Jack’s seeing, yet not seeing, gaze fixed on her with a feral gleam.

Fear rushed through her. Snatching her hand away, she spun around.

Not fast enough.

She gasped as he snagged her wrist and jerked her down onto the bed. Snaking his sound arm around her chest, he pinned both arms at her sides. His injured limb was equally able—the pain seemingly forgotten in his craze.

Whipping out his knife, he poised it at her throat. Just like that, she was a heart-pounding slice away from death. Surely her chest would burst.

Mad!
H
e
was
a
madman!

Senses reeling, she would’ve tilted to the floor if not for his crushing hold. She was only partly aware of him sheathing his knife. If this lunacy seized him again, he might whip it back out, or strangle her, less blood that way if he wanted to conceal his vile deed.

Her fingers tingled. Her head spun. She couldn’t get her breath. Taking short rapid pants, she slumped against him in swirling darkness.

****

Wincing from the wrench in his shoulder, Jack rotated onto his good side and tucked the unconscious woman against his chest, back to front. How in hell had he landed in this mess? He hadn’t expected Karin to come to him. At least, not yet. And then, here she was and he’d frightened her nearly to death, maybe squeezed the breath from her as well.

Poor girl. Covering her chilled body with the bedcovers, he closed his sore arm around her, fortunate he hadn’t torn open the wound in his delusion and drenched them both in blood. What on earth had come over him? He was never brutish to women.

Had the potion she’d dosed him with been too much on top of all the brandy, or had one too many battles finally caught up with him and triggered his cagey senses? In spite of Jack’s annoyance with himself and the lingering cloudiness in his mind, he was keenly aware of Karin…how the back of her head fitted nicely under his chin the way he held her.

The curves pressing against him from beneath her shift and the lustrous hair spilling over him were heavenly, his idea of heaven, anyway. Golden streets held scant interest for him. The sweet fragrance of lavender hung about her, an herb he remembered from his childhood. Just the whiff of it carried him back to long forgotten days, or so he’d thought.

Never in his life had Jack held such a desirable woman. She roused him to his core. But the last time he’d been this close to a female of any description, he’d had a far more ardent aim in mind than reviving her from a faint. “But I didn’t attack that one,” he muttered.