Hostage Heart (18 page)

Sniffing, Lark got her emotions back under control. She lifted her head to see Matt’s disapproving frown. Humiliated by her actions, she lowered her lashes. She strove to break the unbearable tension swirling wildly between them. “The barn,” she began, searching desperately for à neutral subject to cover her embarrassment over the unexpected kiss. “I know we don’t have the money. How—”

“The ranchers down in Tucson hold a barn raising whenever one needs to be built,” Matt answered, relieved to get on a safe topic. “It usually takes a weekend, but the barn gets built without any money passing hands.” Matt berated himself: he sounded like a snarling dog and he was making Lark shrink back into some far corner of herself. Angry over his loss of control, he waged a silent inner battle before continuing. “Usually a letter is sent out to the neighbors. The people who are having the barn built feed those who come to help build it. Judging from the welcome you got in Prescott, I’m sure we could get a number of parishioners from your father’s church to supply the manpower. They seem to want to help you through this difficult period, Lark. Why not let them?”

“What about lumber?”

“I noticed two mills in Prescott. Why not trade a couple of your good horses for the needed lumber?”

She sat there considering Matt’s ideas. Shaking her head, she whispered, “I’d never have thought of those things by myself.”

Matt rubbed his face savagely, unable to stand being near Lark after kissing her. He had to get a solid hold on himself. “Yes, in time you would have. There are other things we have to discuss,” he said heavily.

Alarmed by the tone in his voice, Lark jerked her head up. “What?”

“I can’t stay in this house any longer, Lark.” He saw the pain and embarrassment in her too-vulnerable features. Cursing himself, he tried to keep his voice gentle for her sake. “I’m well enough to bunk over in the single wranglers’ quarters now. People would start talking if I stayed here. I can’t—won’t—make you the target of gossip.”

Lark felt as if a knife had slashed through her heart. Reflexively, she pressed a hand to her breast. “Yes…that would be best,” she murmured, but every fiber of her being screamed just the opposite. Matt was her strength and her mainstay. She’d come to anticipate seeing him at night when she finished the day’s duties, hearing his laughter and enjoying his nearness.

“I’ll miss you….”

Matt grimaced. “I know.” He got to his feet and made his way slowly toward the office door, fighting the urge to touch her shoulder, if only briefly.

One kiss
. Matt saw the damage it had done to Lark. God, how could he have let it happen? How? Placing his hand over the brass doorknob, he said, “I’ll be here during the day, though.”

She couldn’t bear to look at him. She nodded. “I—I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed thickly.

The month of June came and plans for the new barn solidified. Since their kiss, Matt had avoided Lark with great success. Often he was in Prescott, arranging for the supplies necessary to build the barn or contacting people who would come and help. One of the few times Lark saw Matt was when she changed the dressing on his rapidly healing wound. But because of her responsibilities with the foaling mares, Maria usually ended up attending to Matt.

On June fifteenth, ten wagons made their way to the ranch, arriving just as the sun came up. Lark stood on the porch, in awe of the numbers of men who had come. There were at least twenty-five. Matt emerged from the bunkhouse, clean-shaven and looking excruciatingly handsome. He gave her a smile as he climbed the steps and stood watching with her.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” he said.

Lark was wearing a dress she had recently purchased at Melinda McDonald’s urging. It was delicate pink with a ribbon woven into the scooped neckline and around the daintily puffed sleeves. The color brought out the flush in Lark’s cheeks.

Matt shoved all his feelings down a little deeper. A day didn’t go by when he didn’t miss her. Each night, whether he wanted to or not, he hotly recalled their only kiss. When Lark had lifted her chin, her blue eyes upon him, he had known it was an equal agony for her, too.

“Yes. It’s wonderful,” she said.

Matt tried to lighten the tension that always ran taut and raw between them. “Maybe now we might qualify to be Apaches?” he teased.

Lark’s smile was warm. “All of you.”

Rufus, the grub cook, came walking over, a big grin on his round face. “Missy Lark, I done got those two steers on the open fire pits.” He waved a long, thin arm toward the approaching wagons. “Looks like there’s a heap o’ folks comin’.”

“Do we have enough food for them, Rufus?”

The cook nodded his curly black head. He was dressed in a new pair of Levi’s and a bright blue shirt with a bright red bandanna tied around his throat. His skin shone like polished ebony. “Jus’ enuf, missy. Jus’ enuf. Made a good sauce that oughta make them smack thar lips, too.” He cackled. “Yep, these good folks are gonna talk loud and long about mah cookin, thar ain’t no doubt!”

“Don’t burn their tongues off, Rufus!” Lark said in alarm. The cook was known to like his food hot and spicy. And, of course, the Mexicans only encouraged Rufus in that regard. Eating his chili was a test of nerves as far as Lark was concerned.

“Oh, no, ma’am!” Rufus held up both hands. “I was real kerful with the hot sauce, I promise you.”

With a laugh Lark said, “What else have you got cooking over those fires?”

He widened his eyes. “Why, I got the best batch of rum beans you ever laid eyes on, missy.” He winked at Kincaid. “Must be two bottles of rum in them.”

“Rufus! You can’t go around getting these folks drunk, either! What will they think of us?”

He chuckled, a devilish twinkle in his eyes. “Why, I’d say thar gonna feel
real
good when thar buildin’ that barn, missy.”

Lark failed to suppress her smile. Rufus could always make her laugh. Already he’d dispelled most of her nervousness over meeting so many new people. “I’m coming back there to taste those rum beans, Rufus,” she warned him.

“Fair enuf, Missy Lark. You can taste mah huge skillet of pan fries, sourdough bread, and apple pan dowdy, too.”

“He’s making me hungry already,” Matt said.

Rufus waved to them as he took off at a lanky trot toward the spits at the rear of the ranch house. “You better watch it, missy,” he called. “You’re liable to find more men sniffin’ around mah food than workin’ on that barn!”

“Well,” Matt said, “are you ready to meet them all?”

Lark glanced up at him. “As long as you’re at my side, yes.”

Cupping her elbow, Matt led her down the porch steps. “There’s no other place I’d rather be,” he told her.

As he guided Lark out to the group of wagons pulling to a halt, Matt looked closely at Lark. In the past month, he’d almost come to think of her ranch as his. The wounds from the past were healing, he discovered. When he took a walk down to the horse barns, he no longer thought of his barn back near Tucson. And when Lark was out planting the garden, he saw her, not Katie. Gradually, he was putting the past behind him.

He squeezed Lark’s arm gently to reassure her. There was so much he wanted to discuss with her. She was so easy to confide in. Once he got his own emotions toward her under control, he’d like to share his thoughts and feelings with her. He realized he needed her more than any other woman in his life, and the deep ache in his chest never went away; it only got more intense.

“Well, what do you think?” Matt asked Lark as they toured the newly finished barn late that same day. The wagonloads of people had left an hour earlier. It was evening, and the sun was dipping below the mountains, sending shadows across the pastures.

Lark gazed in awe at the just-erected building, breathing in the sharp scent of pine. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

The barn was two stories high, with a cavernous haymow. She turned to Matt, who was walking slowly at her side. “I could never have done it without you.” Fighting her emotions, she reached out and touched his arm. His muscles were hard and tense beneath her fingertips. She gazed earnestly up at him, confused by the darkness entering his gray eyes.

“You’ve done so much,” she began softly. “Ever since you rode into my life, everything’s changed.”

Her touch was as light as a butterfly on his arm. Dragging in a deep breath, Matt tried to ignore it. “For better or worse?” he asked.

Lark removed her hand, content just to be close to him.

“Better.” She licked her lips, unsure how to proceed. “Have you felt better since being here?”

Matt removed his felt cowboy hat, and wiped the sweat on his brow with the back of his hand. He settled the hat back on his head. “I was thinking the other day,” he admitted as he took her arm so they could continue their inspection, “how much you’ve changed my life.”

Lark stole a look up at him. Suddenly the new stalls seemed unimportant in comparison to this unexpected turn in their conversation. “I have?”

“Yes.”

“In good ways?” She held her breath.

“Always good, Lark.” Matt pulled her to a stop at the other end of the opened doors. From here, they could look out over the mountains that encircled the valley. “I don’t miss Katie or Susan as much. The grief is not there like it used to be.” Matt managed a gentle smile, holding Lark’s gaze. “The ranch has been good to me and so have you.”

Lark nodded jerkily, filled with a flood of emotions. How she had craved this kind of closeness with Matt. Finally, he was sharing with her! Breathless, she said, “I don’t think about my father as much either. I mean, when I do think of him, which is often, the hurt isn’t as strong here, in my heart.”

“We’re like two wolves, you know that?” Matt said.

“What do you mean?”

“They mate for life. If one’s hurt, the other will lick the injured mate’s wounds and care for it. We were like that, Lark. Both wounded and hurting deeply. We each, in our own way, have healed the other’s wound.”

A tremor of yearning moved through her. “I don’t understand how it’s happened, but it has.”

Matt studied her in the gentle silence that surrounded them. Lark was strong and unafraid to face an uncertain future. He admired and respected that about her.

She was there in his mind, like sunshine glinting off a still lake surface. Not an hour went by in which he didn’t wish Lark was at his side. So many times he’d stopped himself from going over to the main house and sharing a small but important moment with her.

One day he’d found a baby robin that had fallen out of its nest. The bird was young and naked, with a huge yellow beak open and begging for food. He had called Ramone over to climb the tree and put the chick back. But before he had, Matt had wanted Lark to see the baby. Why had he been afraid to include her in his life?

Lark sensed the power of his emotions and fought the need to walk into his arms and be held once more. She agonized over the fact that time was flying by. He would leave in August at the latest to continue to hunt down Ga’n. Time…there was so little left.

The late July weather was hot and dry. Lark sat on her medicine-hat mare, Four Winds, on a hill overlooking the ranch. Sweat trickled down her temple, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Beside her, Boa Juan motioned toward the holding pens.

“Holos dries up everything.”

“Yes. Even our creeks are gone.” The drought had set in with a vengeance.

Boa Juan, half Apache and half Mexican, glanced over at her. “Ny-Oden must sing to the sky spirits and bring rain our way.”

Absently, Lark agreed. Her mind and, if she was honest with herself, her heart were elsewhere. Paco was healing rapidly, thanks to the old shaman’s medicine, but he was still unable to resume all his responsibilities. Duties still plagued Lark. Not only did she have broodmares to care for, but no one knew how to track down mustangs better than Paco. Only her own tracking abilities, coupled with Boa Juan’s natural talent with horses, had yielded them enough mustangs for the rest of the breeding season.

The boughs of the pine trees shielded them from the hot sun overhead. Boa Juan spoke again, gesturing toward the ranch. “Will the water from those ponds near the pens last through the season?”

She nodded. “Yes, they’re spring-fed, from what my father said. We’ll be able to get through this time safely, Boa Juan.”

“Others won’t.”

She grimaced, knowing he was referring to Cameron’s ranch and livestock. “No.” Tonight she wanted to discuss the problem with Matt.

Matt…Lark tried to suppress the pain in her heart. Why had he distanced himself from her? He was always polite, but he never encouraged the kind of intimacy they had shared in the barn that one June evening. Unconsciously she touched her lips. Was he angry at her? Disappointed in her unladylike behavior in that one sweet moment? She
had
acted shamelessly, she knew, and that could be the only reason why Matt had grown remote.

“How long do you think Kincaid will be with us?” Boa Juan asked.

Lark stirred in the saddle. “His leg is nearly healed. I don’t know.” Her heart tore open a little more.

“He’s strong and fair.”

“Yes, he’s a good man,” Lark admitted in a whisper.

“At first, I thought he’d be like other
pindahs
.” Boa Juan grinned, his dark face crinkling. “But he is more like us.”

She nodded. Matt had many Apache traits. He treated everyone fairly and without prejudice. The children, whether Mexican or Indian, followed him shamelessly, begging him to tell them stories. Sometimes when Lark rode into the yard with her wranglers at the end of a long, exhausting day, she would find twelve or more children clustered on the porch, listening to one of Matt’s many yarns. He called them fairy tales. She’d never heard of such a thing, but she saw the rapt expression on each tiny face, and it sent happiness tremoring through her.

Rubbing her aching head, she murmured, “Let’s get down to the ranch. We’ve done all we can up here today.”

Matt was in the office working on the ledgers when he heard Lark’s familiar footsteps. As always, he had to stop himself from getting up and going to her. He frowned and laid down the pencil. Every day was torture. And every night hell. He lay in the bunkhouse, heatedly recalling Lark’s special warmth and responsiveness, the yielding softness of her lips beneath his hungry, starving mouth. Time, Matt reminded himself. He had to give himself time to get over Katie’s and Susie’s deaths. It wouldn’t be fair to Lark to lead her on and then be unable to give her anything in return. He had to hunt down Ga’n first. Only if he survived that could he come back to the ranch and pursue a genuine relationship with her.