The Rogue (36 page)

When she came to, she was lying on her stomach. Diana was conscious of a hot wind blowing on her arm. Something snorted and there was moisture on her skin. Her lashes fluttered. There was a blur of white in front of her eyes.

Shock seared her into full consciousness as Diana realized the stallion was standing near her, investigating the pursuer that had fallen. Instinct warned her not to move, but it was sheer terror that kept her motionless.

Through the veil of her lashes, she saw the white stallion toss his head and paw the ground only a few short yards from where she lay. It was as if he was challenging his enemy to rise and fight him.

Nostrils flared and reddened, the stallion’s head was extended toward her, the thick white forelock falling forward to half-cover his dark eyes. His white coat was lathered and dirty, yet neither factor detracted from the fact that he was a powerful brute. Viewed from the ground, as Diana saw him, he was terrifying. She had seen what those ivory teeth and iron hooves could do. A cold sweat covered her skin, blood curdling in her veins.

Almost simultaneously, there was the sound of a rifle shot and dust was kicked into the air to the right and beyond the stallion. It came from the direction of the hill where Holt was to be. The stallion’s head came up, yet he didn’t flee. A second shot struck the ground nearer to the stallion. Spinning on his hindquarters, the mustang started to bound away as a third shot laid a red crease along the root of his tail. Diana heard his
squeal of pain and rage before he leaped into full stride.

The paralysis left and shock waves of relief shuddered through her body. Her first breaths came in frightened gasps, strength returning slowly to her paralyzed muscles. She pushed to her knees, shoving the hair away from her face and waiting for the tremors to subside.

A galloping horse approached. Turning, Diana saw Holt vaulting from the saddle, rifle in his hand, as his mount slid to a stop. She stumbled to her feet. Before she could take a step to meet him, he was there, drawing her into his arms, the hard metal of the gun behind her back.

“Are you all right?” His husky demand was the most beautiful sound Diana had ever heard.

She clung to him, the solidness of his male length absorbing the tremblings of her body. His fingers roughly pushed the hair away from her face, then cupped the side of her face, lifting it up for his inspection.

“I’m fine,” Diana insisted shakily.

His gaze burned over her face, a brilliant silver fire that dazzled her eyes. “Don’t ever do that to me again!” Holt snapped. “I had visions of—” He didn’t finish that. He didn’t have to because Diana had had her own visions of ending up like Rube or trampled to death like the Arabian stallion. “For God’s sake, what happened?”

“A jackrabbit spooked my horse and I... I fell off. I must have blacked out for a couple of seconds. When I came to, the stallion was standing there.” Diana closed her eyes, not wanting to remember the fear that had consumed her.

His mouth covered hers, fierce and gentle, both at the same time. It was all so crazy. Diana felt crushed, yet cradled, safe from harm, yet assaulted. To all sensations, she responded with equal fervor. The knowledge seared through her that a few minutes ago she could have been killed and never again have felt
his embrace. She wanted to cherish the feeling and have it forever burned into her flesh, too. They remained locked in each other’s arms for timeless seconds, each more precious than the last, his mouth trailing Are over every inch of her face and neck.

“It’s a miracle that stallion didn’t hurt you,” Holt murmured at last, pressing her head to his chest, his jaw and cheek rubbing her hair.

“I don’t think he knew whether I was alive or not.” Diana strained closer to the comforting wall of his chest, eyes closed.

“Thank God, you had sense enough not to move,” he muttered.

“Sense?” Her laugh was shaky with reaction. “I was petrified!” She felt him smile against her hair.

“Are you sure you weren’t hurt when you fell?” He held her away, his expression serious. “You didn’t hit your head?”

“I don’t think so.” Diana touched her head, feeling no soreness or bump.

“You’re not riding after that stallion again.” It was neither an order nor a comment, but a flat statement, issued in a deadly grim voice. “You’re not taking any more risks of being harmed.”

“And you? Are you still going after him?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s going to help you?”

“There’s still Don,” Holt reminded her, both aware of Guy’s mutiny. “Let’s get you back to camp.”

“Where is my horse?” Diana glanced around, most of her view blocked by his wide shoulders.

“He must have bolted for home after—” The drumbeat of horses’ hooves interrupted his answer. They both turned as Guy came riding into view, leading Diana’s horse. Holt’s arm remained around her shoulders, although they both shifted to allow more space between them.

Guy reined in. “I heard the shots. I didn’t know whether something was wrong or if you had . . .”He
didn’t finish that. “I found your horse on the way, Diana. What happened?”

“He spooked at a rabbit and I fell.”

“That precious stallion that you are so eager to save almost made her victim number two!” Holt snapped.

“Holt scared him away,” Diana added quickly when Guy paled at the announcement.

“Were you hurt?”

“It’s a little late to be concerned about that now, isn’t it? When you weren’t around to help,” Holt challenged.

“Not a scratch,” she assured Guy. “Just a few bruises from the fall.”

“Did it ever occur to you, Holt, that if you hadn’t gone after that stallion in the first place, there wouldn’t have been a chance of her getting hurt?” Guy angrily countered the challenge with one of his own.

“It occurred to me.” His hand gripped Diana’s elbow and propelled her toward the horse Guy held. The firmness of his control was transmitted through his touch. After giving her a leg up into the saddle, Holt took the reins from Guy, handed them to her, and walked to his own horse.

“I suppose you’re going after the stallion now,” Guy snapped.

Before answering, Holt mounted and rode over to the two of them, his eyes a wintry gray. “No, tomorrow. We’re going back to camp now.” He moved his horse out and they followed.

“Goddamn it, Holt! You don’t have to kill him!” Guy rode up level with him, twisting in the saddle to confront Holt.

“We’ve been over this, Guy.”

“You don’t have to kill him,” he repeated. “You can catch him. And if he can’t be tamed, then you can turn him loose, transport him miles away from here.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem. It only puts it on someone else’s doorstep.” Holt nudged his horse into a canter, bringing an abrupt end to the discussion.

Guy fell back to ride beside Diana. “Damn him!” He glowered at the ramrod-straight figure, riding so easily in the saddle.

“He’s convinced he’s doing the right thing. You can’t change his mind, Guy.”

“And you?” Fiery blue eyes were turned on her. “Are you convinced he’s right? You’ve gone over to his side, haven’t you?”

“Does there have to be sides?” Diana tried to dodge the question.

“You know damned well what I mean. Why did you help him? Why did you go after that stallion when he told you to? His hands were tied. He couldn’t do anything without us. Why didn’t you stay with me?” His barrage of angry accusations fell on her.

Diana tried to avoid a direct answer. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters! And while you’re at it, you might try to explain why the two of you were so cozy before you saw me riding up. You were clinging to him like a leech!”

“I had just had the wits scared out of me not five minutes before,” she defended angrily. “Did you expect me to just shrug it off?”

“And that’s all it was?” He was derisively skeptical. “If you were so scared, why didn’t you run to me for comfort when I came? You know how much I care for you, how much I love you. But you just stayed glued to his side. Why?”

“You have no right to question me,” Diana warned.

Guy reached over and grabbed her reins, forcing her horse to stop. “I want to know what’s going on,” he demanded. “Here lately you’ve been leaping to his defense every time I mention his name, and you never give me a straight answer. I love you, and that gives me a right to know where you stand.”

“Let go of my horse,” she ordered and cast a glance at Holt, but so far he wasn’t aware they had fallen behind.

“Not until I find out. Are you with him, or with me?”

A surge of temper made Diana retort, “With him!” Guy’s possessive attitude had become more than she could take on top of all that had happened. “I love him!”

He recoiled as if she had slapped him, his complexion paling beneath his tan. “You’re lying!”

Diana immediately regretted her outburst. She knew how he felt. Why hadn’t she broken it to him more gently, with some of the compassion that had originally gotten her into this predicament with Guy? The anger faded from her face, intense sorrow darkening the blue of her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Guy. I truly never meant to hurt you.”

“You’re lying!” He denied her statement again, not heeding her abject apology. “You can’t be in love with him! My God, he’s my father! You can’t—” He seemed to choke on his own rage, tears welling in his eyes.

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I wouldn’t change it if I could?” Diana heard her own voice trembling. “Falling in love with Holt wasn’t something I planned. It was the last thing I wanted.”

“I don’t believe you.” He shook his head, gritting his teeth as waves of pain flashed across his face. “It can’t be true. You have always hated him. Not even the Major ...” Guy stared at her. “The Major,” he repeated. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re saying this because it’s what the Major wants. He’s always treated Holt like a son. Now he wants you to make it legal, is that it?”

“No,” she denied. “What the Major wants has nothing to do with the way I feel. Not this time.”

“You’re lying!” The truth was too painful, and Guy rejected it.

“For your sake, I wish I were.”

He glared at her for another minute, then let go of her horse and yanked his away. Digging his spurs into
its sides, he sent it racing across the valley, angling away from the direction Holt was taking. Holt reined in to wait for Diana.

“Where is Guy going?” he asked when she caught up with him.

“I . . .” Diana hesitated, not certain how much she wanted to tell him. “I think he wanted to be by himself for a while.” She felt his penetrating look, but Holt didn’t question her about Guy’s reasons for wanting solitude.

Back at camp, dusk was purpling into night and Guy still hadn’t rejoined them. Holt sat by the fire, seemingly unconcerned by his son’s absence, yet Diana saw his gaze seeking the source of every sound coming from the night’s shadows. Don straightened and stared into the darkness.

“Maybe we should go look for him,” he suggested. “He could be hurt.”

“We wouldn’t stand much of a chance trying to find him in the dark.” Holt didn’t move from his supposedly relaxed position. “He has his rifle. If he’s in trouble, he can signal us. He probably wandered farther from camp after that stallion than he realized. He’s probably camped somewhere for the night. He’s old enough to take care of himself. If there’s no sign of him by morning, we’ll look for him.”

“S’pose you’re right,” Don agreed and sighed. “Distances can be pretty deceiving out here. He probably didn’t give himself enough time to get back to camp before the sun went down.”

“Either way, there isn’t anything we can do about it tonight. We might as well get some sleep.”

“Right.” Don walked to his bedroll.

Like Holt, Diana was sitting on her bedroll, but she made no move to lie down beneath the blanket. She couldn’t sleep. And she wasn’t going to make any pretense of trying. Instead, Diana rose and added more wood to the fire, standing close to the flames. The
radiating heat seemed incapable of warming the chill of apprehension shivering through her.

“Cold?” Holt was beside her, draping her blanket around her shoulders.

“Scared,” Diana whispered.

His hands remained on her shoulders, rubbing them gently. Across the fire, Don was rolled in the blanket, his back turned discreetly toward them. Diana relaxed under Holt’s soothing caress, swaying back against his chest. Unaccountably, she shivered and his hands tightened on her flesh.

“Let’s sit down.” The pressure of his grip both helped and forced her to the ground beside the fire. Using a saddle as a backrest, Holt gathered her blanket-bundled figure into his arms to rest against his shoulder in the crook of one arm, a comfortable and familiar position. “It was a frightening experience this afternoon.”

Diana tipped her head slightly on his arm to look up at him. “Were you scared?”

There was a disturbing darkness to his eyes as the muscle in his jaw constricted tautly, then relaxed. “You know I was,” was his low and simple answer.

Diana didn’t pursue that leading statement to its logical conclusion. She couldn’t; not yet. She quieted the leaping of her heart and looked away from the compelling male features into the darkening sky.

“Where do you suppose he is?”

Holt didn’t have to ask who. “He’s out there somewhere. He’s all right. Sulking, no doubt.”

“Sulking?” Diana thought that a peculiar word choice.

“Yes, sulking.” His hand smoothed the hair on top of her head. “Whenever you didn’t do what Guy wanted, he used to sulk for hours—in his room, or the hayloft, somewhere private. Whenever he got over his anger, he’d come out. And he was angry today because you helped me try to get the stallion.”

“Yes, partly,” she admitted and levered onto an
elbow to look at him squarely, her blue eyes rounded and troubled. “Holt, I was with Guy only one time. I know you think there were others, but there was only that once.”

“No, don’t, Diana.” A frown of irritation darkened his face. “Leave that in the past, where it belongs.”

“No, I’d rather try to make you understand than have you imagining.” She rushed on before he could stop her. “When I came back here, there were all those ugly stories about my divorce. I thought I had escaped all that, but I hadn’t. And it felt like everyone was looking at me as if . . . Then there was Guy, always being so kind and considerate, adoring and gentle in his sensitive way. I remembered the way I had treated him, used him to get at you. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant memory. But here he was telling me that I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. I needed that. I was starving for it. I tried to pay for what I took from him. Afterward, when he told me he loved me and started talking about getting married, I . . . realized I had made things worse and I didn’t love him, but he kept insisting I would. He just wouldn’t believe me today, either.”