Wild Desire (16 page)

“If not for you, I would walk away now and not look back,” Runner said stiffly. He ran a hand across the white Irish linen tablecloth and stared at the Sheffield silver plate on which his food was now being served. As a long-stemmed glass was set beside his plate of food, he watched the glow of the candle reflect deep within it, like the stars at night, sparkling down at him from the heavens.

“If there is anything else you need, please ask for me,” the waitress said, doing a half curtsy. “My name is Bridgit.”

“I think that will be all,” Stephanie said, smiling up at the waitress. “Oh, just a minute. Please leave the ticket. I doubt if we will be interested in dessert.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Bridgit said. She took the ticket from her pocket and placed in on the table beside Runner.

After the waitress was gone, Stephanie scooted her hand over and took the ticket, tucking it in a pocket of her riding skirt. In silence, they ate within the soft glow of the candle's light.

Stephanie was glad when they left the lunchroom. As she went down the stairs, she was trying to get the nerve to ask Runner to spend the night at the hotel with her. But that was thrust from her mind the minute she stepped outside. One look at her pack mule made her realize that someone had stolen not only her precious camera, but even the saddlebags in which she had kept all of her photography equipment. Even her tripod had been taken.

“No,” she cried, rushing to her mule. “It's all gone!” She turned to Runner. “While we were eating, someone took everything from my mule.”

Anger swelled up inside her. She folded her arms across her chest. “I'm surprised they even left the mule and the horses,” she spat out.

Runner went to the mule and began walking slowly around it, studying the tracks made in the dirt of the street.

“Runner, what is it?” Stephanie asked, moving to his side.

“We will follow the tracks,” he said. “We will find the one responsible for the theft.”

Stephanie paled. She knew the danger of Runner getting involved with the theft. She had already seen how people felt about him being the “White Indian.” If he confronted a white man over her belongings, and the white man was injured in some way, the law would more than likely take the side of anyone but Runner. In their eyes, he was Indian, through and through. They would take great delight in treating him no better than an Indian.

“That's not necessary,” she blurted. “Let it be. I have other cameras. I have more equipment.”

Runner turned to her. “No one steals from my woman,” he said. “Especially not another woman. These tracks are made by a woman's bare feet.”

“A woman?” Stephanie gasped.

“Come. We will find her.”

She smiled weakly up at him. She knew that it would be a waste of breath if she tried to argue further. It was ironic how he would place himself in danger to get her camera back, when deep inside he hated the sight of it. By doing this for her, he was proving the depths of his love for her.

Grateful for such a love, tears of joy blurred her vision as she walked beside him, the moon lending enough light for them to continue following the trail.

When they came to a run-down shack at the far edge of town, Stephanie's heart began to race. But who could live there, she wondered, a foreboding knotting inside her. The place had an unkempt, deserted look. No smoke rose from the chimney. The silence was broken by the wails of an infant coming from within the hut, wafting from a door over which hung only a sparse covering of buckskin.

Stephanie gave Runner a questioning look, then her heart leapt as Runner brushed aside the buckskin at the door and stepped inside the shack.

She placed her hands at her throat, afraid that gunfire might ensue. Instead, the only sounds that emanated from the building were the continuing cries from the child.

And then Runner emerged again, carrying the child. Stephanie's fears melted when a rosy little nose and bright, blue eyes peaked out from a blanket made of a soiled, limp gunnysack.

Stephanie looked at the child a moment longer, then stepped past Runner through the low doorway. When she entered the shack and peered about in the windowless gloom, she discovered not only her camera equipment, but also a woman who was just coming out of hiding.

“My child,” the woman said, her voice filled with panic. Her dark eyes seemed to take up all of her face. “Tell the man to give me back my child.”

Stephanie looked over the woman slowly. She felt sick at heart, wondering when the woman had last eaten. She was emaciated, the skin drawn tautly across the bones of her face. The dress that she wore was no more than two gunnysacks sewn together, with holes cut for the head and arms to go through.

Her blond hair was a tangled mess and Stephanie could smell her unpleasant odor. It was so strong, it burned the inside of her nose, and all of the way down her throat.

“You were hiding,” Stephanie said. “Runner didn't see you. I'm sure that he took the child because he thought it had been abandoned.”

“My baby is all I have left in the world,” the woman said, tears sliding down her wasted cheeks.

“Where is your husband?” Stephanie asked, looking slowly around the drab, squalid hut. It reeked of all sorts of unpleasant odors. The furniture was sparse. The fireplace was empty and cold.

“There's no husband,” the woman said. She looked anxiously around Stephanie as Runner came back into the shack, rocking the child in his arms.

“You are one of the street whores I have heard about,” Runner said, yet without condemnation. He had been forced to tolerate ridicule all of his life. He had none to cast upon anyone else, not even a woman who sold her body to countless men.

“Before the child, I was,” the woman said. She held her arms out for her baby. “Please let me have him back. He's hungry. I must feed him.”

“How will you feed him?” Stephanie said. She shuddered as she watched roaches crawling in and out of discarded filth-laden dishes on the table.

“My breast offers my child warm milk now, but for only a short while longer,” the woman said, eagerly taking the child as Runner lay him in her arms. “My milk is drying up. I am being forced to find ways to get food.” She glanced over at Stephanie's equipment. “Even if I am forced to steal, I will still find ways to feed my child.”

Stephanie followed the path of the woman's troubled eyes. They stopped on her expensive equipment. Now she did not know what to do. If she took those things back, the woman would have to steal from someone else. If she was caught, she could be placed in jail, and then what would happen to the poor child?

Still, Stephanie knew that even if she allowed the woman to keep her things, it would only give the woman enough money to last for a little while. She would then be forced to steal again, and again.

“What is your name?” Stephanie asked. She edged over toward her camera equipment, still not sure what to do. On the one hand, she did not wish to encourage thievery. On the other, if she was in the same position as this woman, she might also be forced to steal.

“Sharon,” the woman said, sitting down on a rickety chair to feed her child.

“Are you originally from Gallup?” Stephanie said, bending down to pick up her camera. She heard the woman gasp. She looked over and saw her eyes widen.

“No,” Sharon said, her voice low and guarded. She placed the child's lips to her breast. “I came with my brother. We had a fuss. He threw me out. I became a showgirl at the saloons. I found out I could make more money taking men home with me.”

“This home?” Stephanie said, gesturing with her free hand around her.

“No. When things were good I lived in the hotel,” Sharon said. “Then I met this man. I fell in love with him. I quit hustlin'. But suddenly he was gone. The very day I was going to tell him I was with child, I found out that he had left town. I . . . I . . . didn't want to hurt my child so I didn't go back to whorin' around. I went to my brother and asked him to take me in. He refused. I didn't beg him. I didn't even tell him about the baby. I found this place. I made it my home. And to hell with Damon. I'd die before I'd ask for his help again.”

“Damon?” Stephanie and Runner spoke at once.

“Yes,” Sharon said in a low hiss. “Damon Stout.”

Stephanie and Runner were both rendered speechless by this newest discovery.

Hate for Damon, sour and pitiless, twisted in Runner's gut.

Chapter 19

Stephanie broke the awkward silence. “You are Damon Stout's sister?” she said.

She looked slowly around her again, at the squalor. How could
anyone
send their sister away to live in such deplorable conditions? she thought incredulously. Even Damon!

“Damon is my blood kin,” Sharon said solemnly. “But I don't like to admit that he is actually my brother.”

“I can see why,” Runner said, walking slowly around the room, studying the disarray. “Any man who allows his sister and her child to live like this is not a man at all. He is a coward of the worst kind.”

Stephanie shook herself out of her shock. She went and knelt down before Sharon. She gazed sadly at the baby who was struggling to get milk from the small, thin breast. Then she looked up at Sharon, saddened anew over her pallor. Her eyes were like two dark coals in her drawn flesh.

“We're going to take you out of here,” Stephanie said, running her hand over the baby's dirty, scab-infested scalp. “I will pay for your stay at the hotel. You will be given food, clean clothes, and water for a bath. Tonight you will be sleeping on a clean bed. Your son will be given clothes and warm, clean blankets.”

Sharon listened with parted lips and wide eyes. She slipped her breast back inside her dress. “Why would you do this for me and my son?” she asked, tears flooding her eyes. “I stole from you. I watched you leave the pack mule with the saddlebags on it. When you and this man went to the lunchroom, I took everything that I could carry. I was going to sell them tomorrow to whomever would pay me the highest price.”

Stephanie interrupted. “My name is Stephanie,” she murmured. She gestured with a hand toward Runner. “This is Runner.”

Sharon hung her head in shame. “I'm sorry for having stolen from you,” she said, “but I was going to buy some milk. I need milk to give my son the nourishment he needs. Or . . . or . . . he might die.”

Runner took the child into his arms. “Neither of you will die,” he said thickly. “Come with us. Tonight you will stay in the white man's establishment. Tomorrow you will go with me to my village. My people will welcome you with open arms, as they did me, so many years ago.”

Stephanie marveled over what Runner was offering. She knew the depths of his hate for Damon Stout; it matched her own. Yet he was taking Damon's blood kin into his heart and village.

Then she smiled slowly. She understood that he was not doing this only from kindness but also to irritate Damon when he discovered where his sister had been taken. No matter how much Damon had neglected his sister, there was no way on this earth that he would want her living with the Navaho. He hated the Navaho with a passion. When he
did
discover where she was and he went for her at the village, it would give the Navaho much pleasure to deny him his blood kin.

Sharon's body was racked with heavy sobs. “I'll never be able to repay you,” she cried, clutching Stephanie as she rose from her chair.

Stephanie winced at the feel of the fragile sharpness of Sharon's bones.

“All of my family, but Damon, is dead,” Sharon moaned. “I never want Damon to know that I have a child. If he did, he'd take him away from me. Don't let him. Please don't let him.”

“How have you kept your brother from knowing about the child?” Runner asked. He held the baby in the circle of one arm and used his free hand to steady Sharon as Stephanie stepped away from her to get her camera equipment.

“No one knows about Jimmy,” Sharon said, sniffling. “I never take him from the house. When I leave to steal from people, I always hide him beneath blankets. I didn't want Damon to know. If he took Jimmy to raise him, the child would turn out to be as mean, ugly, and cruel as my brother.”

“His name is Jimmy?” Runner said, gazing down at the child, whose wide, blue eyes studied him. “That is a nice name. But when he grows older, I would hope though that you would allow him to take on a Navaho name.”

“A Navaho name?” Sharon said softly. Her eyes studied the child's face.

“I was born with the name Trevor,” Runner said, slowly rocking the child back and forth in his arms. “When my mother died and I was taken in by the Navaho, to be raised as one with them, the name Runner was given to me.” He smiled over at Stephanie, then at Sharon as he gave her the child. “The name Runner was chosen by my adopted father Sage because of my ability to outrun the rest of the boys in the village while we played games.”

“I've never thought much about Indians,” Sharon said, closely scrutinizing Runner. “But you're a white man, and it looks to me like they've treated you kind enough. I guess they will treat me and my Jimmy with the same kindness.”

She smiled over at Stephanie as she came to her side. “Leastways, I'll be safe, won't I?” she murmured.

“Very,” Stephanie said, returning the smile. “Now, let's go and get you that hotel room.”

They left the shack and went to the hotel. Runner didn't know about the room awaiting him and Stephanie, and she didn't see the need in telling him. If they were going to wait for Sharon and the child to have a full night's rest in a warm, comfortable hotel room, she could just suggest they sleep there themselves, so they could be there to take her to Runner's village tomorrow.

She smiled to herself. Things were working out for everyone, it seemed.

 

 

Runner took a guarded step into the hotel room with Stephanie. It was on the same floor and only a few doors from where Sharon and Jimmy were being seen to.

Stephanie was thinking about Sharon. She would never forget the tenderness in the woman's eyes as she had carried her child into the clean room. That was enough payment, in itself, for Stephanie. The theft had been forgotten as quickly. To be sure, though, that no one else had the opportunity to steal her camera equipment, she had it safely in her arms now, while Runner carried the tripod.

She gave a wicked smile to Runner as he moved farther into the room that was aglow with the soft light from two kerosene lanterns on tables flanking the large, luxurious four-poster bed. She had put more than equipment in her saddlebags: she had slipped something thin, lacy, and pretty into one of them.

“I have not seen such a room since Mother died,” Runner said, leaving the tripod leaning against a wall. He looked down at the plush carpet, soft as silk beneath his moccasined feet. Laughing softly, he walked gingerly in circles over it.

Then he walked over to the bed and pushed a hand against the mattress, finding it softer than the down from beneath an eagle's wing. He stroked the red satin sheets, finding them sleek and wonderful.

Then he cast a suspicious look over his shoulder when he spied a bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed glasses on the table beside the bed, as though someone had planned it all to be this way.

“Champagne?” he said in a slow drawl. “If I did not know better, I would suspect that my woman had planned ahead of time to lure me to this room.”

Stephanie lay the saddlebags aside and went to Runner. “And what if I did?” she said in a soft purr. Her hands crept up inside his shirt. She ran them over his broad, muscled chest. “Of course I had no idea our arrival here would be delayed. But I don't mind. It was wonderful to see the delight in Sharon's eyes. By now, she has probably taken a long, leisurely bath. I imagine Jimmy is spotless.” She frowned. “It might take awhile for the sores on his head to heal, though. Poor, dear child.”

“My woman's compassion runs deep,” Runner said, lifting his arms as Stephanie drew his fringed shirt over his head.

“No more deeply than yours,” Stephanie said, tossing his shirt aside. She smiled sweetly up at Runner as her fingers moved to the waist of his breeches. She unfastened them and began slowly, seductively pulling them over his lean, narrow hips. “But let's not talk of compassion. Let's only concentrate on the moment. I have all sorts of ideas. Care to share yours with me?”

“I do not plan to tell you,” Runner said, stepping out of his breeches. “I will show you.”

“You don't care that I planned this room of seduction without your knowledge?” Stephanie said, as his fingers began unbuttoning her blouse.

His breath caught in his throat as Stephanie reached one of her hands to his manhood and stroked it. He closed his eyes, smoldering passion spreading through him.

“I love you so,” Stephanie whispered, then moved her hand away and finished undressing him.

Runner opened his eyes. They were ablaze with need. He started to pick Stephanie up, to carry her to the bed. But she shook her head and stepped away from him.

“Not yet,” she murmured, her eyelids heavy as rapture began to claim her. “I've got something to do first.”

Runner questioned her with his eyes when she turned from him and grabbed her saddlebags and took them with her behind a folding screen.

“I won't be long,” she said.

Runner watched as one by one Stephanie's clothes were laid across the top of the screen. He was puzzled as to why she would need such privacy to undress. His heart raced with anticipation at the thought of running his hands again over her silken soft body.

Finally, totally nude, Stephanie slipped into her slinky, clinging, black, lacy silk nightgown. She ran her hands down her body, causing the gown to cling to her flesh, her nipples firm and erect beneath the black fabric.

Lifting her hair so that it tumbled from her shoulders and down her back in rivulets, Stephanie stepped from behind the screen and smiled at Runner's expression as he stared at her, his eyes and mouth wide.

After enjoying his close scrutiny a moment longer, Stephanie twined her arms around Runner's neck and drew his hard and ready body against hers.

“Your eyes tell me that you like what I am wearing,” she teased.

She leaned her lips close to his and flicked her tongue across his lips.

“You wear a sort of garment that Runner has never seen before on any woman,” he said thickly. “And, yes, I approve. You are always beautiful. But tonight you are a vision.”

Runner's hands went to her breasts and cupped them through the silken material of the gown. Stephanie moaned and ground her body into his as his mouth joined hers, hot and eager. Through the thin fabric of her gown, she could feel the throbbing length of his manly need.

She slipped a hand between them and encircled his velveteen shaft with her fingers. She heard him moan and felt his body stiffen when she started moving her hand on him, in awe of the heat that she felt against the coolness of her fingers.

Runner's heart pounded so hard, he was dizzied by it. He reached for her hand and gently eased it away from him. He then grabbed Stephanie up into his arms and carried her to the bed.

His fingers went to the hem of her gown and slowly began pushing it upward, stopping momentarily to kiss each part of her as it was uncovered.

She shivered with ecstasy when he kissed and taunted the insides of her thighs. She closed her eyes and sucked in a wild breath of pleasure when he kissed his way slowly upward.

Smoothing the gown on past the crown of hair at the juncture of her thighs, Runner leaned down low over her and flicked his tongue against the center of her desire. Then he nestled his face into the soft fronds of her hair and kissed and nibbled at her tightened bud, the tip of his tongue swirling . . . moist . . .

“Runner,” Stephanie whispered, reaching her hands to his head, twining her fingers through his hair.

She urged him closer as she moved her legs farther apart. “What you are doing? Oh, Runner. . . .”

Runner's tongue titillated her there for a moment longer. Then he scooted the gown farther up her body, so that her breasts were exposed, beckoning him to them. His hot and hungry mouth on her flesh, Runner kissed his way across Stephanie's flat tummy, causing it to quiver. Then he moved his body over her, his lips inhaling the nipple of one of her breasts into his mouth: he sucked; he flicked his tongue around it; he licked it.

Stephanie groaned and tossed her head with pleasure, and when he nudged her knees apart and he slipped his throbbing need inside her, a delicious languor stole over her.

With rhythmic motions, he began to move within her. Stephanie slipped her gown over her head, then placed her hands on his cheeks and drew his lips to hers.

She gave Runner a meltingly hot kiss, a wild, exuberant passion swimming through her. She sought the feel of his sleek, muscled back, then moved her fingers lower, anchoring them against his tight buttocks. She pressed her hands against him, urging him deep inside her, the silver flames of desire leaping ever higher within her.

Stephanie arched her head back as Runner buried his lips along the delicate column of her throat, his hands kneading her breasts. Then he showered heated kisses over her breasts, the feelings soaring through him blazing . . . searing . . .

Feeling the intensity of his pleasure, he anchored her fiercely still. He gave her a kiss of total demand as they both gave in to the rapture, the silent explosion of their needs accompanied by their sighs and groans.

For a moment longer they clung to one another, then Stephanie slipped from beneath him. “The champagne,” she said, running her fingers through her hair as she stepped delicately onto the plush carpet. “We must drink champagne. Don't you think we have much to celebrate, darling?”

She turned to him and took his hands and leaned over him, brushing a kiss across his lips as he stretched out on his back. “We have
us
to celebrate,” she said, giggling as she went to the bottle of champagne and removed it from its bucket.